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As the number of broadband users has increased, we have all come to see our internet connections as essential amenities that our businesses, social lives and finances couldn’t survive without.There are now more than 16 million broadband connections in the UK and if you’re already connected at home, but want to take your broadband further, then a static IP address could be what you need.Some suppliers provide a static IP address for free or for a small monthly fee. These include Madasafish (www.Madasafish.com), Be Broadband (www.BeThere.co.uk) and Eclipse (www.Eclipse.net.uk).

What is an IP address?

In simple terms, an IP address is much like your home address, telephone or credit card number, only it’s used to identify your computer (or other network device). It works like a door to the world wide web, and without one your PC can’t communicate with other devices or access the internet.Home users have the option of either a dynamic IP address, where new sets of numbers are assigned at regular intervals, or a static IP address, where your computer retains its one set address.

What type do I have?

Most home broadband packages use dynamic IP addresses, but getting a package that offers a static, or fixed IP address as they’re also known, reveals a host of new benefits that really show you what your PC and the internet are capable of.The easiest way to find out whether you have a static or dynamic IP address is to do a search for your package using our broadband comparison calculator. Click on the package name to bring up details of the package including the type of IP address that’s assigned.

Why should I get a static IP address?

There are many benefits to be gained from using a fixed IP address. These include:

Remote access - With a static IP address you can access your PC no matter where you are in the world. Using programs such as Remote Administrator and PC Anywhere you can log into your work or home PC no matter where you are.
Running your own website - Installing web server software on your PC allows you to set up your own website and can save you money if you need one for your business, or just want one for personal use. There are plenty of free programs available on the internet but make sure you do your research and check customer reviews before installing anything.
Emails direct to your PC - Using a static IP address also lets you get rid of your Hotmail or Yahoo! account and set up your own email address with your choice of domain name. Again, this is especially useful if you run a small business. You need to install separate mail server software to do this, but there are free ones available.
Running an FTP server - File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is an efficient and reliable way to transfer data from one computer to another. Again, specific software must be installed in order for you to set up an FTP site, but this is easy to do and free software is available. You might want to use an FTP site to share files, such as pictures, with your friends and family, or you might use it to enhance your business. Either way, once you’ve set up the site, clients or friends just need to log in to access, edit or uploads files.
Running a game server - For all those online gaming addicts, having a static IP address means that you can take your gaming to the next level. Most PC games have an option for operating your own server, allowing you to select your own settings and regulate who you let into your game - so you and your friends could have a private game of Battlefield.
Less downtime - Each time a dynamic IP address refreshes you run the risk of downtime from the server. While this is usually only for a very short time, it can wreak havoc on your gaming. Having a static address eliminates this risk.

Are there any disadvantages?

While the benefits do outweigh the problems of having a static IP address, a few issues should be noted:

Hacker risk - Having a constant IP address means that once hackers have your number they can keep on attacking. Dynamic addresses change all the time making it more difficult to get into your PC. However, using a router and firewall will help to block access to your computer.
Keeping your connection running - If you’re using your PC as a server to run a website, receive emails, run an FTP site or a gaming server then you need to make sure that it’s on all the time. Any time it isn’t connected to the internet will result in lost access to sites run from your server.
FTP security - If your clients are downloading sensitive or confidential files from your FTP site, you need to consider the security issues posed as files and passwords are in clear text and easier hack.

What will it cost me?

Many ISPs offer static IP addresses as part of a package, or for an extra monthly fee. This doesn’t need to be expensive; Eclipse Lite costs just £7.95 a month for the first three months, £10.95 thereafter for an up to 24Mb package with multiple static IP addresses. Use our broadband comparison calculator to find other packages offering fixed IP addresses.

Are there alternatives?

Yes. If you don’t want to change your package but want the benefits of having a fixed IP address you could try the software offered by No-IP.com It allows you to name your PC so you don’t need to know your IP address, and each time your dynamic address refreshes and changes, the software will update all your connections so that everything stays live.This means that you get all the benefits, without having to get a fixed IP address, and there’s even a free version of the software.So why not try it out and take your broadband further.Article source: http://www.broadbandchoices.co.uk/why-get-a-static-ip.html

Building An Expanding DHTML Menu With CSS and JavaScript

Written by Administrator

Monday, 09 March 2009 21:13

Introduction

Today I am going to show you the different parts that make up a dropdown vertical menu for your website. This is not like your normal dropdown menu, which appears at the top of your content, however -- these menus expand and remain visible until they are collapsed with the click of a mouse. The menu content actually expands with your page content, pushing the rest of whatever is below it down - so it can actually be used for more than just a menu (I might explore that a little later in another tutorial).

For now, let's get it started...

What does the finished menu look like and how does it function?

Here's a snapshot of what the menu looks like all coded up.

When you click on one of the links ie. Menu 1, Menu 2, Menu 3, Menu 4, Menu 5, this will expand or contract the submenu for that menu item. Basically, the end user must have JavaScript enabled to allow the submenus to work.

Let's build the menu html

First I'm going to start with the 5 menus items. Here's the code that I'm using, which is very simple; 5 hyperlinks. I will need to apply a style to these level one links, so I will make a class style called "menu1".

<a class="menu1">Menu 1</a>
<a class="menu1">Menu 2 </a>
<a class="menu1">Menu 3 </a>
<a class="menu1">Menu 4 </a>
<a class="menu1">Menu 5 </a>

Now I will create the menu1 class style and put it in the head of my document. So far we haven't done anying revolutionary. I won't explain the style that I've applied here because it's pretty straight forward - it's just a background image and the display:block makes it display like a rectangle.

<style type="text/css">
.menu1{
background-image:url(images/menudiv1bg.gif);
margin-left:25px;
padding-left:20px;
padding-top:2px;
padding-bottom: 2px;
display:block;
text-decoration: none;
color: #000000;
height: 20px;
}
</style>

Now I'll add the sub menus in place exactly where they will appear. In this part, we will use some small tricks to setup the alignment. Firstly, we'll wrap the whole submenu in a div that has a unique id for each menu. You can choose your own names for the div tags, but the main purpose of the div having a unique id is so that JavaScript can target that div specifically and make it appear or disappear. I also add a class style called 'hide' so that I can choose to hide all of the submenus from within my style sheet. The links are then listed within the div just like the main menu items and are given a submenu class style, to allow me to control the look of those in my style sheet as well:

<a class="menu1" >Menu 1</a>
    <div id="mymenu1" class="hide">
        <a href="#" mce_href="#" class="submenu">Link One here</a>
        <a href="#" mce_href="#" class="submenu">Link Two here</a>
        <a href="#" mce_href="#" class="submenu">Link Three here</a>
        <a href="#" mce_href="#" class="submenu">Link Four here</a>
    </div>
<a class="menu1">Menu 2 </a>
    <div id="mymenu2" class="hide">
        <a href="#" mce_href="#" class="submenu">Link One here</a>
        <a href="#" mce_href="#" class="submenu">Link Two here</a>
        <a href="#" mce_href="#" class="submenu">Link Three here</a>
        <a href="#" mce_href="#" class="submenu">Link Four here</a>
    </div>
<a class="menu1">Menu 3 </a>
    <div id="mymenu3" class="hide">
        <a href="#" mce_href="#" class="submenu">Link One here</a>
        <a href="#" mce_href="#" class="submenu">Link Two here</a>
        <a href="#" mce_href="#" class="submenu">Link Three here</a>
        <a href="#" mce_href="#" class="submenu">Link Four here</a>
    </div>
<a class="menu1">Menu 4 </a>
    <div id="mymenu4" class="hide">
        <a href="#" mce_href="#" class="submenu">Link One here</a>
        <a href="#" mce_href="#" class="submenu">Link Two here</a>
        <a href="#" mce_href="#" class="submenu">Link Three here</a>
        <a href="#" mce_href="#" class="submenu">Link Four here</a>
    </div>
<a class="menu1">Menu 5 </a>
    <div id="mymenu5" class="hide">
        <a href="#" mce_href="#" class="submenu">Link One here</a>
        <a href="#" mce_href="#" class="submenu">Link Two here</a>
        <a href="#" mce_href="#" class="submenu">Link Three here</a>
        <a href="#" mce_href="#" class="submenu">Link Four here</a>
    </div>

I'll add the submenu and the 'hide' style to my style sheet now:

.submenu{
background-image: url(images/submenu.gif);
display: block;
height: 19px;
margin-left: 38px;
padding-top: 2px;
padding-left: 7px;
color: #333333;
}

.hide{
display: none;
}

I'll also create the style that will show the hidden div tags (submenus):

.show{
display: block;
}

Creating the JavaScript

If you're not too familiar with JavaScript or are in a rush, feel free to just copy and paste the code shown below into your page header as is. There are no further tricky parts to setup as the JavaScript simply compares the current state of the chosen submenu and then swaps it, meaning that if it's hidden, then it will be made visible, and vice versa.

Here's the code:

Some Geek Speak, for those who just want to know what's happening in the code.

Ok. What's happening here is that when the page loads, the JavaScript and CSS styles in the head will load first and then your menu links will appear in the body of the page. JavaScript is loaded from top to bottom by the browser, so let's read from inside the script tags:

The menu_status = new Array(); line will create a container ready to store the current state of your menu. This corresponds to the sections of the code that actually say what this menu_status now equals. eg. menu_status = 'show'; and menu_status = 'hide';

There's a function called showHide(theid) but this won't do anything unless it is called from within your HTML code. 'theid' is the id of the menu being shown or hidden, and it's called during the onClick even of that menu, such as onclick="showHide('mymenu5')".

Ok, so the function loads ready to be used, but the page continues to load...

Your main links and submenus load, but only the main links show because the 'hide' style that's applied to the submenus will hide the submenus. The submenus have in fact loaded already, they just aren't showing just yet.

If you click on a main menu link, then here's what happens:

The onClick event will fire up the showHide function and JavaScript will know which object we are working with by the id of the link.
JavaScript will get the menu element in question by the id that's passed to the function
JavaScript now has to check whether the current menu_status is visible or not, and then swap it. If it's not 'show' eg. if(menu_status[theid] != 'show') then the status_id will be made to equal 'show'. If it's not hide, eg. if(menu_status[theid] != 'hide') then it will be made to equal 'hide'.

Conclusion
In this article I've shown you how to build a basic vertical drop down menu using DHTML and JavaScript. This is a groovy little script that will allow you to create a nice menu, or even save you some space if you currently have multi level menus laid out on your site. You can probably do more with this script if you're familiar with JavaScript or don't mind experimenting, but we'll leave it at that for now!

Article source: http://www.interspire.com/content/articles/10/1/Building-An-Expanding-DHTML-Menu-With-CSS-and-JavaScript

Last Updated ( Friday, 22 May 2009 21:53 )

Firewire Versus USB

Written by Administrator
Saturday, 14 February 2009 18:34
Firewire is a name that refers to a set of Apple branded data ports that are designed for high-speed data transfer. These ports were developed back in 1995 by Apple Inc. as a connectivity solution for digital media devices like digital cameras and camcorders. Since their introduction, the digital camera industry has included Firewire connectors with most of their new products. Firewire ports may also be found on external hard drives and other devices that need to transfer large volumes of data quickly. Firewire interfaces are definitely faster than USB interfaces. In fact, Firewire interfaces can transfer data at a rate of 50 megabytes (MB) of data per second, which is about 33 times faster than the USB 1.1 data transfer rate of 1.5 MB per second. USB 2.0 devices, which are more common, can achieve speeds of 40 MB per second. Another advantage of Firewire over USB is that it reserves 3.5 MB per second of bandwidth to use with video equipment. This means that if you have additional Firewire devices running when you are using your attached video equipment, the quality of your video image won't be affected. Finally, Firewires, like USB interfaces, allow you to hotswap your devices quickly, however, Firewires will allow you to chain up to 63 devices per port. Just in case you have a LOT of cameras, I guess. :-) One more thing you should know about Firewire technology is that it uses a peer-to-peer model in which the peripheral devices have the intelligence to resolve potential data transfer conflicts, which can result in much higher sustained transfer rates. USB uses a master-slave model which requires the computer to handle data flow issues, which tends to slow things down a bit. Even though Firewire is technically superior, USB is still much more common. If you have Firewire devices and are planning to buy a new computer, make sure it has Firewire ports built in. If you have a peripheral device that supports both, and a computer with Firewire ports, you'll get faster data transfer with Firewire. The only downside is that most devices which support Firewire don't come with a Firewire cable, and they can be somewhat expensive (US$20 or more). Do You Have Firewire? Firewire devices have become more popular in the last few years, and today most computer systems that are designed for audio and video applications have Firewire ports built into them. If you have an Apple Computer that was built after 2000, or a new Sony computer, then your computer has one or more Firewire bus ports already installed. If you recently bought a Dell computer that is set up for audio and video media then chances are it too has at least one Firewire built in. However, Dell does not include Firewire bus ports in their Dimension 8300 series models or in their Inspiron 1501 models. If you're not sure if you have a Firewire port, take a look at your external ports. Firewire is smaller than a USB port, however, it probably will be located near these ports. The Firewire port will look like a small rectangle with angled corners on one side, and inside it will have 4 small teeth. The Firewire icon (see photo above), which looks something like the "radioactive" warning symbol, is usually next to the port, but some systems label the Firewire port as "1394" instead. If you don't have Firewire installed in your computer, then you can probably add it by installing a PCI Firewire adapter card (for a desktop PC) or a Firewire notebook adapter (for a laptop), like the ones pictured. If you have an older computer then you may also need to replace your motherboard with one that is compatible with the type of Firewire cards and devices that you have. Article source: http://askbobrankin.com/what_is_firewire.html
Last Updated ( Wednesday, 18 February 2009 14:26 )

Dynamic v Static IP

Written by Administrator
Wednesday, 18 February 2009 13:16
As the number of broadband users has increased, we have all come to see our internet connections as essential amenities that our businesses, social lives and finances couldn’t survive without There are now more than 16 million broadband connections in the UK and if you’re already connected at home, but want to take your broadband further, then a static IP address could be what you need. Some suppliers provide a static IP address for free or for a small monthly fee. These include What is an IP address? In simple terms, an IP address is much like your home address, telephone or credit card number, only it’s used to identify your computer (or other network device). It works like a door to the world wide web, and without one your PC can’t communicate with other devices or access the internet. Home users have the option of either a dynamic IP address, where new sets of numbers are assigned at regular intervals, or a static IP address, where your computer retains its one set address. What type do I have? Most home broadband packages use dynamic IP addresses, but getting a package that offers a static, or fixed IP address as they’re also known, reveals a host of new benefits that really show you what your PC and the internet are capable of. The easiest way to find out whether you have a static or dynamic IP address is to do a search for your package using our. Click on the package name to bring up details of the package including the type of IP address that’s assigned. Why should I get a static IP address? There are many benefits to be gained from using a fixed IP address. These include: Article source: http://www.broadbandchoices.co.uk/why-get-a-static-ip.html
Last Updated ( Wednesday, 18 February 2009 14:26 )

What is eSata

Written by Administrator

Saturday, 14 February 2009 18:30

By: Robert D. Thomson

eSATA is an example of an extension to current serial ATA standards. The main function of eSATA is to make it possible for SATA drives to beattached externally, creating a wider network of functionality by combining the power of each of the drives. Relatively new, eSATA means that it is possible to engage in data transfer and processing much more quickly than with traditional methods of connectivity.

How Does eSATA Work?

The basic idea behind eSATA is make it possible to connect multiple drives without having to employ cables or wired connections of some sort. Traditional methods of connecting the external hard drives relied upon the use of such devices as FireW ire or USB cables. eSATA does away with all that and makes it possible to connected several external drives in a very short period of time, without all the work of figuring out which cable will do the job. ESATA is based on established standards and will work every time.

What Are Some of the Advantages of eSATA?

One of the immediate advantages of using eSATA is that the eSATA cables are usually longer and easier to distinguish from the jumble of wiring that is used to connect various devices. Anyone who operates even a home system knows how easy it is for wires and cables to become snared as they run across one another and make it virtually impossible to tell what runs where. eSATA cables are generally at least six feet long and tend to be somewhat different in appearance than USB cables and FireWire. One glance at the cable and you know what it is and where it goes.

Another advantage is the ease of connecting and disconnecting the external drive. ESATA drives are designed with what are known as hot plugs. This means the cables can be connected and disconnected with ease, and without the need to power down the system in order to add or remove a drive.

Along with the esthetics, eSATA also helps to provide excellent rates of data transfer that are sometimes better than can be achieved with a USB connection. There are currently versions of eSATA on the market that will provide data transfer speeds of between 150MBps to 300 MBps. That is a great deal of power when it comes to using an external drive, and is generally much better than can be achieved using a USB cable.

Article Source: http://www.britisharticledirectory.co.uk

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What is an IP address?

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Are there any disadvantages?

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Introduction

What is an IP address?

What type do I have?

Why should I get a static IP address?

By: Robert D. Thomson

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