Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is a general term for a family of transmission technologies for delivery of voice communications over IP networks such as the Internet or other packet-switched networks. Other terms frequently encountered and synonymous with VoIP are IP telephony, Internet telephony, voice over broadband (VoBB), broadband telephony, and broadband phone.

Internet telephony refers to communications services — voice, facsimile, and/or voice-messaging applications — that are transported via the Internet, rather than the public switched telephone network (PSTN). The basic steps involved in originating an Internet telephone call are conversion of the analog voice signal to digital format and compression/translation of the signal into Internet protocol (IP) packets for transmission over the Internet; the process is reversed at the receiving end.

VoIP systems employ session control protocols to control the set-up and tear-down of calls as well as audio codecs which encode speech allowing transmission over an IP network as digital audio via an audio stream. Codec use is varied between different implementations of VoIP (and often a range of codecs are used); some implementations rely on narrowband and compressed speech, while others support high fidelity stereo codecs.

Phone System Technology – Business VoIP

In this article we’ll discuss new business phone system technology solutions built around VoIP and advantages for New Jersey businesses. We’ll focus on two popular solutions in particular: hosted phone solutions and traditional IP PBX phone systems.

A Hosted Phone System is very attractive in the right environment. You’re only responsibility is buying or renting the individual phones. The “soft switch” is hosted off site. This seems to have the most economic impact under 20 users. It can bring a lot of features and flexibility without adding additional costs. You’re getting large phone system features at a fraction of the cost. It’s truly a win-win in the right setting.

An IP PBX Phone System is more of a traditional model, the same concept but very different in its architecture. It’s now a server in the rack. Most companies are already accustomed to buying, leasing or renting their phone system. You’re on the hook and responsible for system maintenance and software upgrades. Software upgrades are a new concept we need to accept with the IP based PBX. It’s typically more of an initial investment, although new designs with targeted solutions can be cost justified quickly with the correct implementation as its feature rich design offers many “inside the box” attributes. In most cases this type of solution makes the most sense in an environment over 20 users.

Cost Savings – New phone system technology offers the ability to utilize VoIP lines/trunks. By switching from traditional analog phone lines to VoIP, or commonly known as SIP trunks, businesses can see immediate savings. SIP trunks are delivered through the internet. Most of these calling plans offer either unlimited calling or enough built in minutes that it’s a cost effective change. SIP trunks also offer features that analog trunks don’t.

Flexibility – Whether it’s a hosted phone solution or a traditional IP PBX phone system, both give businesses the flexibility to grow their organizations beyond the boundaries of standard technology. Adding remote employees is cost effective, the ability to activate inbound and outbound calling features via the web along with the use of desktop interfaces all add to the attractive nature of new technology.

Disaster Recovery – SIP trunks offer a dynamic disaster recovery feature that is very costly in a traditional phone system model. You’re now able to quickly and easily redirect calls from a web portal in the event of a power or system failure.

Phone System Manufacturers offer similar features however some deliver these features better than others. Obviously a system that’s reliable, easy to maintain, easy to use and easy to make changes to would be highly rated by both the end user and the vendor. Current research and development is focused on these VoIP offerings. Very little attention is placed on the standard phone systems as technology feeds itself and kicks into high gear.

Requirements – The main requirements for a successful VoIP implementation are related to bandwidth and Quality of Service (QoS). If you’re using the public internet, there are occasional issues that need to be worked out with your internet service provider. Best case would be a managed circuit but it’s not always feasible due to cost control.

Phone system technology is literally staring us in the face. We can choose to grab it by the horns and let it help us steer our course or turn our back to it and be bitten by it in the rear.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

The COINS Project – Combat Online Illegal Numismatic Sales

The recognition of coins will be based on new algorithms of pattern recognition and image processing, in a field (classification and identification of ancient coins) as yet unexplored. The project will disseminate its results also by means of a demonstrator freely accessible on the Internet. Substantial contribution to the project will come from stakeholders, some of which are present in the partnership, which includes the Italian law enforcement organisation Carabinieri and three major national museums with important coin collections.

According to the Call, priority 3.6 “The protection of cultural heritage and associated conservation strategies”, Task 2 “To enable the traceability of cultural heritage objects” the project will focus on technologies aimed at allowing permanent identification and traceability of coins, and will devise strategies to facilitate prevention and repression of illicit trade of stolen ones. Thus it will include: a) documentation and inventory methodologies based on international standards b) coin automatic recognition tools, based on images c) automated search tools. It must be noted that strategies based on physical marks on the surface of the object (such as those used on the back of paintings, or below the base of sculptures, or on less important parts of archaeological objects as the interior of ancient vases) are unacceptable for coins, whose surface can be altered in no way.

Traceability is therefore based only on visual inspection, since every individual coin has signs (caused by minting techniques for pre-industrial ones or by use-wear for more recent ones) that make it unique and recognisable to an expert’s eye. Weight and measures are additional recognition aids. Coins are unique, under this regard, among cultural objects. Hence an identification and traceability strategy can only rely on the availability of inventories and the effectiveness of recognition. On the other hand, once passive security systems (such as alarms and safes) have been defeated and coins have been stolen, fighting against their illicit trade must allow identification of stolen items among the incredibly vast number of those being offered for sale, by antiquity traders, at auctions or in the Internet.

An estimate of the size of the market is given by the fact that searching for “coin trade” on the Internet returns several million hits: this shows that automatic, unsupervised search tools are greatly needed. Forecast use scenarios consist, for example, in the following two: 1) a known stolen coin is searched on the market: here the details of the desired object are well known (e.g. basing on the police report), and they are compared with the diverse information available on many others looking for matching; 2) an unknown suspect coin (e.g. found during a police or customs operation) needs to be rapidly identified and checked against the police database of stolen ones. Consequently, the scientific and technological objectives of the project are the following.

Legal Standpoint of Relationship Moral Issues – Homosexuality and Abortion

Is it ok to legalize abortion? This is a question that provokes a lot of debate. Abortion and homosexuality are relationship moral issues that have caused a lot of collision between the church leaders, human rights activists and medical practitioners. What is right in public eye is sometimes hard to tell but there are some laws that govern such moral issues. In January 22 in the year 1973, the supreme courts released its vital decision to legalize abortion. But this should not happen without some supporting rules. Young girls are supposed to ask for parental consent before they engage in abortion. The same court insisted that under the parenthood laws that a woman should not seek a spouse’s consent before carrying out an abortion. It is a dangerous procedure and it exposes the victims to some health risks and that is why in November 5 in 2003 president of USA signed a partial birth abortion ban act. It was meant to ban a late-pregnancy abortion.

Same sex marriage is another subject which has turned out to be among great relationship moral issues. Where is it in the legal stand point? President Bill Clinton signed a defense of marriage act which was to ban same sex marriage. It defined marriage as a legal association between a man and a woman. That concerns marriage for homosexuals but in 2004, Massachusetts Supreme court ruled that a ban on homosexual marriage was not according to the constitution of USA. This pushed president Bush to support amendment on the constitution that was banning same sex marriage. Vermont supreme court made a ruling that homosexuals should be given the same rights as heterosexuals. This saw the first same sex marriage performed in Massachusetts in may 17, 2004.

However legalizing same-sex marriage has never been a smooth process. In September 30 in 2004 the house voted against amendment of a ban on homosexual marriages. Three months later, the house voted and passed constitutional amendments that defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman. To try and push for homosexuality acceptance, the governor for California Arnold Schwarzenegger voted for legalization of same-sex marriage. Alabama was among the first state to pass an amendment banning same-sex marriage. It is evident that the legalization of same-sex marriage was among great relationship moral issues that it kept going in and out of the kitchen.

The house kept on rejecting and passing amendments on the constitution banning same-sex marriage. Some of the relationship moral issues such as abortion and homosexuality will remain as debates as long as the world exists. They are all subject to personal opinion. People can never be the same and they have different opinions. The problem is, in a society there must be some rules and regulation that govern how people behave. The legal standpoint of homosexuality and abortion is a difficult conclusive sweeping statement to come up with. Each and every individual has a different statement concerning these moral issues. If something is done to contribute to general positive wellbeing of a human being then it is worth if looked at it in any angle.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

The international fast food restaurant chain Burger King, often abbreviated to BK, has been involved in several legal disputes and cases, as both plaintiff and defendant, in the years since its founding in 1954. Situations involving these many legal topics have affected almost every aspect of the company’s operations. Depending on the ownership and executive staff at the time of these incidents, the company’s responses to these challenges have ranged from a conciliatory dialog with its critics and litigants to a more aggressive opposition with questionable tactics and negative consequences. The company’s response to these various issues has drawn praise, scorn, and accusations of political appeasement from different parties over the years.

Controversies and disputes with groups such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) over the welfare of animals, governmental and social agencies over health issues and compliance with nutritional labeling laws, and unions and trade groups over labor relations and laws. These situations have touched on the concepts of animal rights, corporate responsibility and ethics, as well as social justice. While the majority of the disputes did not result in lawsuits, in many of the cases the situations raised legal questions, dealt with legal compliance, or resulted in legal remedies such as changes in contractual procedure or binding agreements between parties. The resolutions to these legal matters have often altered the way the company interacts and negotiates contracts with its suppliers and franchisees or how it does business with the public.

Further controversies have occurred because of the company’s involvement in the Middle East. The opening of a Burger King location in the Israeli-occupied territories lead to a breach of contract dispute between Burger King and its Israeli franchise; the dispute eventually erupted into a geopolitical conflagration involving Muslim and Jewish groups on multiple continents over the application of and adherence to international law. The case eventually elicited reactions from the members of the 22-nation Arab League; the Islamic countries within the League made a joint threat to the company of legal sanctions including the revocation of Burger King’s business licenses within the member states’ territories. A second issue involving members of the Islamic faith over the interpretation of the Muslim version of canon law, Shariah, regarding the promotional artwork on a dessert package in the United Kingdom raised issues of cultural sensitivity, and, with the former example, posed a larger question about the lengths that companies must go to insure the smooth operation of their businesses in the communities they serve.

A trademark dispute involving the owners of the identically named Burger King in Mattoon, Illinois led to a federal lawsuit; the case’s outcome helped define the scope of the Lanham act and trademark law in the United States. An existing trademark held by a shop of the same name in South Australia forced the company to change its name in Australia, while another state trademark in Texas forced the company to abandon its signature product, the Whopper, in several counties around San Antonio. Legal decisions from other suits have set contractual law precedents in regards to long-arm statutes, the limitations of franchise agreements, and ethical business practices; many of these decisions have helped define general business dealings that continue to shape the entire marketplace.

Animal welfare
Further information: Burger King products article, purchasing guidelines section
2001 protest by veganism proponents outside a Burger King restaurant in San Francisco, California

In 2001, the animal rights group PETA began targeting fast food chains in the United States regarding the treatment of chickens by suppliers such as Tyson Foods. Using parodies of corporate logos and slogans, the group sought to publicly embarrass the companies into changing their corporate policies in dealing with their poultry suppliers. After winning concessions from McDonald’s with its “McCruelty” campaign, the group targeted Burger King with a six-month campaign it called Murder King.[3] The group and its supporters, with the backing of celebrities including Alec Baldwin, James Cromwell, and Richard Pryor,[4] staged protests outside Burger King restaurants across the United States, calling on the company to establish these new compliance guidelines.[5] On June 28, 2001, Burger King entered into an agreement with the group and established a contractual framework that defined procedures to ensure that its suppliers were conforming to the agreed-upon standards of animal welfare.[5] These changes, along with the company’s new vegetarian offering, the BK Veggie sandwich, drew praise from the group.

In 2006, PETA went before Burger King’s board of directors during its parent company’s annual corporate meeting to request that poultry suppliers switched to a more humane method of slaughter called controlled atmosphere killing (CAK). Instead of using its previous tactic of stating that the procedure is more humane, the group claimed that CAK was economically more feasible as it reduces the chances of injury to workers in poultry factories and it produces better products by preventing injury to the animal.[8] Responding to the proposal in March 2007, Burger King announced it would make further changes to its animal welfare policies. The new policies favor suppliers of chickens that utilize CAK rather than electric shock to knock birds unconscious before slaughter, and require its pork and poultry suppliers to upgrade the living conditions of pigs and chickens. Under the agreement, 2% of BK’s North American egg suppliers are to use cage-free produced eggs and 10% of pork suppliers are to use crate-free pigs for its pork products. PETA and the Humane Society of the United States were quoted as saying that Burger King’s initiatives put it ahead of its competitors in terms of animal rights and welfare and that they were hopeful that the new initiatives would trigger reform throughout the fast food industry as a whole.

AmeriPlan – A True Work at Home Career

AmeriPlan has been in business since 1992 and since then, it has been helping thousands and thousands of people save money on their healthcare. A very large number of people in the United States today are uninsured or underinsured simply because not everyone can afford today’s high cost of health insurance. AmeriPlan is not insurance, but a much better alternative. They offer discount benefit plans that help its members save up to 80% and more on all of their medical, dental, vision, prescription and chiropractic services.

AmeriPlan is set up as follows:

Their headquarters is based in Plano Texas. It is equipped with close to 250 full timers who process all applications submitted to them by Independent Business Owners (IBO) who work from their homes all across the United States. Every discount benefit plan that AmeriPlan offers MUST be purchasedthrough an independent business owner working from home.

They set up their homes as a “call center”. People respond to their advertisements and either call them or request more information through their websites. The IBO then contacts this person back and give them the information that they have requested. They will also ask them questions so they can pair them up with a benefits package that will work best for them and their family. Once the IBO presents the information over the phone to the prospect, they fill up their application and submit it to the AmeriPlan headquarters through their Internet connection. The customer service staff working on location, will take over the application and complete the process. THEY issues and mail out the memberships cards and packets and THEY collect all payments. The IBO’s sole responsibility it to respond back to people, give them the information and fill out the applications. AmeriPlan takes care of the rest.

There is no cold-calling as IBOs only contact people who have requested information from them.

FREE ongoing training is provided to all Independent Business Owners.

All Independent Business Owners are provided FREE ongoing training under a team. The training is done at their homes over the phone and on the Internet. They immediately receive the link and password to their team’s website where they will be guided step by step on how to get up and going with the company.

There are also LIVE training calls held every day of the week that cover topics such as: Orientation; Health Benefits Training; How To Talk To Prospects; How To Enroll Small Groups and much more.

Many training calls are recorded and the audio links are added to the training website and on the team’s newsletters. This way it makes it more flexible for people with tight schedules.

Aside from all this training, every new IBO will also have a personal trainer and one on one mentoring at no cost.

AmeriPlan’s Discount Programs

AmeriPlan has 4 incredible discount programs available. These can be used on their own or as a supplement to any existing health insurance.

Dental PLUS – Includes Vision, Prescription and Chiropractic benefits. This plan saves members up to 80% on their dental, vision, prescription and chiropractic services. There are no limits on visits or services. This plan is only $14.95/month for a single membership ~OR~ $19.95/month for an entire household – related or not. All people living under the same address will be covered at that one low price.

Basic Wellness – This plan includes Vision Services, Prescription Drug Services, Hearing Services and 24/7 Nurse Line. This plan is only $14.95 to cover an entire household.

Medical Plan – Includes Primary Care, 24/7 Nurseline, Ancillary Services, Podiatry, Surgeons, Pre-Natal Care and much more. The cost of this plan ranges from $29.95 – $59.95 – Depending on certain add ons such as Dental Plus and other non-medical programs.

AmeriPlan also offers non medical programs to help people save more.

SecureNet – Protects your money, your credit, your family and your children. This program offers Roadside Assistance, Legal Services, Financial Services, Credit Repair, Debt Management, Identity Theft and Child Protection Services. The cost for this membership is only $24.95/month.

Savings Card – Saves you money on EVERYDAY Expenses: This program is called the Freedom Pass. It offers savings on dining, automotive, shopping, travel, cruises and recreation. The cost for this program is only $14.95/month.

YES, THAT IS WHAT AmeriPlan IS ALL ABOUT! AmeriPlan loves to help people SAVE money.

What type of people does AmeriPlan seek?

AmeriPlan is looking for people who want to make a realistic income from the comfort of their homes. They must be comfortable on the phone and using a computer.

This opportunity is not for those who are looking to get rich quick. Most IBOs are making a comfortable income with this business. Many still work a full time job while working this business on a part time basis. For many, this has been an incredible supplement to their income, while for others it has been able to complete their full time incomes.

Success with AmeriPlan is very typical. However, the person needs to understand that there is work involved. They need to commit to the trainings and to working their business. It is recommended that a person work this business a minimum of 2 hours per day or 10-12 hours per week. More would be fantastic, but if 2 hours per day is all that can be put into the business, this has to be done on a consistent basis. AmeriPlan has no quotas and no caps on earnings. Each IBO choose how many and which hours of the day they want to work.

How much money can a person make with AmeriPlan?

AmeriPlan pays a 30% RESIDUAL commission on each membership enrolled. With residual, a person gets paid over and over for work they do ONCE.

There are two different ways an IBO can earn money.

The first is by enrolling members into the discount health benefits packages. The other is by enrolling people to work from home with AmeriPlan.

When enrolling health memberships, IBOs get paid anywhere from $4.48 – $17.98 per membership, per month. When enrolling people to work from home, they get paid $15 – $30, per person, per month. The difference in amounts depend on the package that the person chooses. No matter what the cost is, the IBO will get 30% of it, each and every month for as long as it remains active.

How much residual can a person build in 6 months? In one year?!

AmeriPlan health memberships have a very high retention – close to 90%. This means that 90% of the people who enroll in their health membership packages stay for long periods of time. AmeriPlan has NO CONTRACTS. People can cancel at anytime. They choose to stay because they NEED these great benefit.

Is There a Cost To Work This Business From Home?

With AmeriPlan you are not going to be working a “JOB”. This is a BUSINESS. You will get paid on a 1099 identifying you as an independent contractor. This makes you eligible for all of those huge home office deductions! As a home business owner, you will be able to write off a portion of things you normally pay for now in your home – as business expenses. Some of these include, rent or mortage, electricity, computer, Internet, gas and much more. Many people are not really aware of the great benefits that come with being a home business owner.

Just like a franchise – if someone were to open up a McDonald’s or a Burger King, there are expenses involved because it is a BUSINESS. The same goes with AmeriPlan. AmeriPlan is not offering “employment” but rather an opportunity to own a profitable home business under their name, just like McDonald’s is owned by one person – but locations are owned by different owners. The difference here is that a person does not have to have thousands to get started. Even a person earning minimum wage can afford to start their own AmeriPlan business.

AmeriPlan has different options which makes it easier for people to get started. It all depends on the financial situation the person is in.

OPTION # 1: Basic IBO

With this option a person can start their AmeriPlan home business with an initial investment and a monthly recurring overhead of just $50. This overhead is completely tax deductible. It is contract-less and it can be cancelled at anytime.

The Basic IBO gets the following:

* Dental Plus Benefits – For entire Household – Save up to 80% on all dental, vision, prescription and chiropractic services.
* Freedom Pass (Limited) – Offers savings on dining, automotive, recreations and shopping.
* An Accidental Death & Dismemberment life insurance policy (Starts with an initial amount of $2,500 and continues to grow overtime.
* Unlimited training and support
* 3 e-commerce enabled websites – hosting, maintenance, design and updating included
* 1 IBO back office. This website maintains the IBO’s business records up to date and enables them to check up on their enrollments and their earnings
* Full customer support for all the members the IBO signs up. This is a full team of people who work FOR the IBO.
* ekit – an online startup kit with .pdf files of brochures, applications and more
* Direct Deposit Options (After advancement in the company)
* 401K program (Once monthly residual income reaches $1000)

OPTION # 2: Premier IBO

This is the most popular option since it includes the best benefits package. A person starting up with this option will have an initial investment and recurring monthly overhead of $100.

The Premier IBO gets all of the benefits as the Basic IBO PLUS the following:

* Total Health – For Entire Household – Includes: Physician Care, Hospital Advocacy, Podiatry, 24/7 Nurseline
* SecureNet Program – Which Includes: ID Theft Protection, National Child ID Kit, Family Legal Plan, Roadside Assistance and Financial Services.
* Freedom Pass (Plus) – Great savings on dining, automotive, recreations, shopping, hotels, golf, condo resorst, cruises, travel packages, car rentals, movies and much more.
* AmeriPlan Tax & Money Matters (ATM2) Club ~ Quarterly Tax Advice from Sandy Botkin, CPA Ability to upgrade to TOP (Trainer Optional Program – Option 3 below)

OPTION # 3: TOP (Trainer Optional Program)

This is perfect for someone who is coming in with a lot of experience in phones and marketing. A person who wishes to start with this option will need an initial investment of $500 with a monthly recurring overhead of $100.

The TOP option offers all of the benefits as the Basic and the Premier IBO PLUS a lot more benefits, including bonus opportunities!

IBOs who start off with the TOP option get:

* All the benefits listed above on Option 1 and Option 2
* $300 in gift certificates for business supplies to help set up a home office.
* $500 in redeemable gas vouchers
* $100 Jump Start Bonus opportunity paid when enrolling 3 new memberships within their first 28 days.

* OPTIONAL ADD ONS: All IBOs who start on either of the options above also have to option of investing in a broker kit with contents valued at over $120. New IBOs can take advantage of this kit during their initial enrollment for just $45.

This kit contains:

(1) IBO Benefits Guide (1) Welcome Letter (2) Sales Aid Order Forms (with return envelopes) (1) AmeriCAMâ„¢/IBO Support Instructions (1) New IBOs: Your Questions Answered (1) AmeriPlan Discount Programs “What-If” DVD (1) “What If” DVD order form (with return envelope) (50) Dental Plus brochures (50) Total Health brochures (25) Total Health Plus brochures (25) AmeriPlan Discount Programs Combo brochures (10) New IBO Benefits Agreements (1) IBO “AmeriPlan Health Membership Application” (1) IBO Commission Election Form (3) $25.00 Sales Aid Certificates (Totalling $75 for use to purchase marketing supplies such as more brochures, dvds and more)

How can a person receive more information and how can a person get started?

Starting an AmeriPlan home business is very simple. It is recommended that you first request an interview so you can get your questions answered and go over more information with a recruit to see if this business opportunity is the best for you.

Marlene Jones is an AmeriPlan recruiter, presently working with the fastest growing team in AmeriPlan. She welcomes emails and calls from people requesting more information. She offers a training TRIAL so people can attend before making a decision to join her team.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

In 1998 the US Congress amended the Rehabilitation Act to require Federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities. Section 508 was enacted to eliminate barriers in information technology, to make available new opportunities for people with disabilities, and to encourage development of technologies that will help achieve these goals. The law applies to all Federal agencies when they develop, procure, maintain, or use electronic and information technology. Under Section 508 (29 U.S.C. § 794d), agencies must give disabled employees and members of the public access to information that is comparable to the access available to others.

Section 508 was originally added as an amendment to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 in 1986. The original section 508 dealt with electronic and information technologies, in recognition of the growth of this field.

In 1997, The Federal Electronic and Information Technology Accessibility and Compliance Act was proposed in the U.S. legislature to correct the shortcomings of the original section 508; the original Section 508 had turned out to be mostly ineffective, in part due to the lack of enforcement mechanisms. In the end, this Federal Electronic and Information Technology Accessibility and Compliance Act, with revisions, was enacted as the new Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, in 1998.

Section 508 addresses legal compliance through the process of market research and government procurement and also has technical standards against which products can be evaluated to determine if they meet the technical compliance. Because technology can meet the legal provisions and be legally compliant (e.g., no such product exists at time of purchase) but may not meet the technical compliance (doesn’t meet the Access Board’s technical accessibility standards) users are often confused between these two issues. Additionally, evaluation of compliance can be done only when reviewing the procurement process and documentation used when making a purchase or contracting for development, the changes in technologies and standards themselves, it requires a more detailed understanding of the law and technology than at first seems necessary.

There is nothing in section 508 that requires private web sites to comply unless they are receiving federal funds or under contract with a federal agency. Commercial best practices include voluntary standards and guidelines as the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). Automatic accessibility checkers (engines) such as “IBM Rational Policy Tester” and AccVerify, refer to Section 508 guidelines but have difficulty in accurately testing content for accessibility.

The guidelines are currently being updated by the Telecommunications and Electronic and Information Technology Advisory Committee (TEITAC).

* Federal agencies can be in legal compliance and still not meet the technical standards. Section 508 §1194.3 General exceptions describe exceptions for national security (e.g., most of the primary systems used by the National Security Agency (NSA)), incidental items not procured as work products, individual requests for non-public access, fundamental alteration of a product’s key requirements, or maintenance access.
* In the case that implementation of such standards causes “undue hardship” to the Federal agency or department involved, such Federal agencies or departments are required to supply the data and information to covered disabled persons by alternative means that allow them to make use of such information and data.

The original legislation mandated that the Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board, known as the Access Board, establish a draft for their Final Standards for accessibility for such electronic and information technologies in December 2001. The final standards were approved in April 2001 and became enforceable on June 25, 2001.

The latest information about these standards and about support available from the Access Board in implementing them, as well as, the results of surveys conducted to assess compliance is available from the Board’s newsletter Access Currents. The Section 508 Standards, tools, and resources are available from The Center for Information Technology Accommodation (CITA), in the U.S. General Services Administration’s Office of Government-wide Policy at section508.gov.

Network Support Schools For Degrees in Computer Science

Network support schools offer two-year degree programs to prepare technicians to install and connect computers and other devices in a network. Students learn to perform maintenance tasks, install and configure hardware and software, and administer computer networks. Good training helps computer technicians develop skills for problem solving, adapting to varying situations, meeting deadlines, and general network engineering proficiency.

Courses can include classes in English grammar, composition, and communication skills; mathematics; humanities; social, physical, and natural sciences; computer hardware, software, technology, operating systems, and server administration; web design and development; customer service; and professional development. Additional courses may include business law, information security, leadership, and interpersonal skills.

Network support training helps students become aware of trends in technology, hardware and software problems, efficient solutions, ethical and legal issues in technology, and properties of good written and oral skills. Training will include troubleshooting tools, network engineering, and strategies for implementation of products.

Graduates with good training and well-developed skills are in high demand. With a degree in computer science with an emphasis on network engineering, you could quickly qualify for positions such as network administrator, tech support specialist, help desk operator, or end user assistant. Salaries can begin at $40,000; experienced support specialists can earn upwards of $80,000.

If you are ready to find good training in network support, please search our website for colleges in your area and contact one or more to request in-depth information to help you decide on the best computer school for you.

DISCLAIMER: Above is a GENERAL OVERVIEW and may or may not reflect specific practices, courses and/or services associated with ANY ONE particular school(s) that is or is not advertised on our website.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Legal issues with fan fiction arise due to the modern definition of fan fiction as derivative works, most prominently (but not exclusively) under United States copyright law.

United States copyright law

A great deal of both original creative work and fan fiction is produced in the United States. Therefore, U.S. law is particularly important when determining the legality of writing or sharing fan fiction. According to current United States copyright, copyright owners have the right to control or restrict the publishing of “derivative works” based on their material, though they do not receive ownership of those works. For example, in the famous case of Anderson v. Stallone, 11 USPQ2D 1161 (C.D. Cal. 1989), Sylvester Stallone successfully pursued an action for copyright infringement against an author who wrote a proposed script for Rocky IV. The owner of the original work (film, TV show, etc.) therefore has some legal power over fan fiction through their ability to sue the creator of the derivative work for copyright infringement. Generally, authors who do not want derivative works being written without their direct permission and/or the ability to control it, request that major archives remove and ban such works based on their own. There has yet to be a case of a major archive failing to comply with such a request, and many of them feature a full list of authors whose work cannot be the source of a fan fiction on their site.

That said, American copyright law specifically protects parody, and also includes a provision that the specifically protected categories are not necessarily the only protected categories. In July, 2009, United States District Court judge Deborah A. Batts permanently prohibited publication in the United States of a book by a Swedish writer whose protagonist is a 76-year-old version of Holden Caulfield of The Catcher in the Rye. Judge Batts explicitly rejected arguments of parody and criticism, stating, “To the extent Defendants contend that 60 Years and the character of Mr. C direct parodic comment or criticism at Catcher or Holden Caulfield, as opposed to Salinger himself, the Court finds such contentions to be post-hoc rationalizations employed through vague generalizations about the alleged naivety of the original, rather than reasonably perceivable parody.”

It must also be noted that, separate from copyright issues, the names and likenesses of many characters in American television and film productions are also registered trademarks of the producing company. However, because a cause of action for trademark infringement requires the infringed party to show a likelihood of confusion, this typically is seen as only requiring that fan fiction writers make certain that their work cannot be confused with the trademark holder, and do not claim to be endorsed or produced by them; it does not ban the use of a character any more than the registered trademark status of Coca-Cola prohibits an author from describing a character as drinking Coca-Cola. Instead, such a use would constitute a fair use of the trademark. Most authors try to avoid legal trouble by including short disclaimers at the beginnings of stories or chapters regarding the copyright or trademark status of the original work or characters.

Fan fiction may also be considered to dilute a trademark.

Since 2007, the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW), led by fanfic writers, fan vidders, and fan artists (including writer Naomi Novik), has advocated for the transformative nature of fan fiction and thus its legitimacy. OTW argues that fan fiction and other fan labor products constitute a comment upon and criticism of the underlying work and add “new meaning and messages to the original”,[2] and thus falls under the exemption to U.S. copyright law re-affirmed in Suntrust v. Houghton Mifflin Co.[3] OTW seeks eventually for “all fannish works [to be] recognized as legal and transformative and … accepted as a legitimate creative activity.”

In order to establish fair use, fan writers argue that their work does not cost the owner of the source material any income, and often acts as free promotion, while fan writers themselves earn no profit. The works do not copy the original nor substitute for the original work. The non-profit nature of fan fiction limits the damages that a court could find and also strengthens a possible defense of fair use of the copyright or trademark in question.

Most major studios and production companies tolerate fan fiction, and some even encourage it to a certain extent. Paramount Pictures, for example, allowed the production of Star Trek: The New Voyages and Star Trek: The New Voyages 2 from Bantam Books, fan fiction anthologies which followed Bantam’s Star Trek Lives! by reprinting stories from various fanzines; as well as Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, a series of ten anthologies from Pocket Books in which the short stories were selected through an open submissions process geared toward novice writers.

Due to the ongoing nature of television production, some television producers have implemented similar constraints, one example being Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski. His demand that Babylon 5 fan fiction be clearly labeled or kept off the Internet confined most of the Babylon 5 fan fiction community to mailing lists during the show’s initial run. J. K. Rowling has also complained about sexually explicit Harry Potter fan fiction.

Many writers and producers do not read fan fiction, allegedly for fear of being accused of stealing a fan’s ideas, but some do encourage its creation. When Buffy the Vampire Slayer went off the air, for instance, creator Joss Whedon encouraged fans to read fan fiction during the show’s timeslot.

Noteworthy in regard to the acceptance of fan fiction is Eric Flint, who has set up a formal site for the submission of fan fiction into his canon in the 1632 series at Baen’s Bar and has to date published twenty four issues of The Grantville Gazette in electronic form and five book form. These feature fan fiction and fan non-fiction alongside his original work (paying first semi-pro, and now SFWA rates). Flint contends that this allows the expansion of his alternate history universe into something approaching the complexity of reality.

Also noteworthy is the series of Darkover anthologies published by Marion Zimmer Bradley, beginning in 1980, consisting largely of fan fiction extended into her canon. These books led to a much talked about (and exaggerated) controversy. MZB read something in a fan story that meshed well with a Darkover book she was currently writing, so she wrote the fan author, Jean Lamb, offering her “a sum and a dedication for all rights to the text.” In a 1991 Usenet post, Jean continued, “I attempted at that point to _very politely_ negotiate a better deal. I was told that I had better take what I was offered, that much better authors than I had not been paid as much (we’re talking a few hundred dollars here) and had gotten the same sort of ‘credit’ (this was in the summer of 1992)…a few months later I received a letter from Ms. Bradley’s lawyer threatening me with a suit.”[6] The rumor, however, was that MZB had a skirmish with a fan who claimed authorship of a book identical to one Bradley had published and accused Bradley of “stealing” the idea, and the resultant lawsuit cost Bradley a book. Either way, her attorney advised her against reading fan fiction of her work. Versions of this incident are credited by many to have led to a “zero tolerance” policy on the part of a number of other professional authors, including Andre Norton, and David Weber. Mercedes Lackey strictly disallows any posting of fanfiction in her universes on the Internet, though she does allow fanfic stories published in approved fanzines with signed releases for each story.

Anne Rice has consistently, and aggressively, prevented fan fiction based on any of her characters (mostly those from her famous Interview with the Vampire and its sequels in The Vampire Chronicles) or other elements in her books, and she formally requested that FanFiction.Net remove stories featuring her characters. [7] Similar efforts have also been taken by Annette Curtis Klause, Robin Hobb, George R.R. Martin, and Robin McKinley among others. Many authors do this, they state, in order to protect their copyright and especially to prevent any dilution, saturation, or distortion of the universes and people portrayed in their works. However, many[who?] readers claim to have been turned off of writers after hearing reports of these or similar anti-fanfiction stances, or after having allegedly borne part of the brunt of anti-fanfiction campaigns.[citation needed] Fanfiction.net, the largest fan archive, keeps a list of authors/publishers who have expressly asked that fanfic based on their work not be archived. The current list is[citation needed]:

* P.N. Elrod
* Raymond Feist
* Terry Goodkind
* Laurell K. Hamilton
* Robin Hobb
* Dennis L. McKiernan
* Robin McKinley
* Anne Rice
* Nora Roberts/J.D. Robb
* Archie comics

One curious case is that of Larry Niven’s Known Space universe. In an author’s note in The Ringworld Engineers, Niven stated that he was finished writing stories in this universe, and that “[i]f you want more Known Space stories, you’ll have to write them yourself.” Internet writer Elf Sternberg took him up on that offer, penning a parody[8] in which members of Niven’s hyper-masculine Kzin species engage in gay sex and BDSM. Niven responded by denouncing Sternberg’s story in the introduction to Man-Kzin Wars IV (Baen Books, 1991) and issuing a cease-and-desist for copyright violation. To date, Sternberg holds that the story is constitutionally protected parody, while Niven maintains that it is a copyright violation that lies outside of protected speech, though he has not legally pursued the matter further.

Copyright holders may have been changing their policies towards fan fiction. Some companies like CBS [12] and LucasFilms Ltd. [13], which had been historically hostile to fan fiction, changed parts of their model in order to be more fan friendly. This included trying to encourage fan works and integrating them into official sites. When not hosting the fan fiction or being openly tolerant of existing fan sites, companies created partnerships with other companies like FanLib to aid them in the task. The reaction from fans to such alliances and interference in their activities has been mixed, with some people thinking that it violates the basic rules of fan fiction communities. Those fans seem to be increasingly in the minority, as acceptance of such interference is tolerated because of the positives that can result.

Many tie-in novels and novelizations have the ambiguous status of being officially sanctioned, for-profit fan fiction – though once again, this largely depends on one’s definition of fan fiction. Series from Star Trek to Charmed have numerous books that exist outside the officially canonical world of the series, much like fan fiction, but which have the official sanction of the show’s creators or owners. The refusal by Paramount Pictures (owners of the Trek franchise) to allow printed adventures to be considered part of the canon has led many fans to consider the books to be a form of fan fiction despite their legal and licensed status, and a similar attitude prevails amongst fans of Buffy, where the series’ creator has explicitly declared that the novels and novelizations based on the series are not canon material.[citation needed]

The attitude of copyright holders toward incorporating fan fiction into the canon varies. It is generally the case that the writers hired for a television series or movie are under strict orders not to read fan fiction out of fear that doing so will cause the copyright holder to be sued later for infringement.[citation needed] However, some copyright holders, such as the BBC in the case of Doctor Who, have mechanisms to allow for unsolicited submissions of stories into the official canon, and it is also the case that the writers of canon stories have sometimes been recruited from the ranks of fan fiction writers. In the case of the Doctor Who novels published by Virgin Books, once the BBC reclaimed the license to publish novels regarding the Doctor, many readers immediately categorized all the Virgin New Adventures as non-canonical fan fiction[citation needed].

There definitely are science fiction authors who have admitted to writing fanfiction before they became published, or in other ways have outed themselves as pro-fanfiction. A small sample includes: Naomi Novik has mentioned writing fanfic for television series and movies , and says she’d be thrilled to know that fans were writing fanfic for her series (though she also said she’d be careful not to read any of it); Anne McCaffrey allows fanfic, but has a page of rules she expects her fans to follow; Anne Harris has said, “I live for the day my characters get slashed”; J. K. Rowling has mentioned fanfiction approvingly, and her lawyers have confirmed she’s okay with fanfic . In 2008, Steven Brust published a Firefly novel with a CC copyright notice.

In Great Britain, cult Discworld author Sir Terry Pratchett echoes the opinions of his compatriot J.K. Rowling. Pratchett, while emphasising that he too is careful not to read fanfic, has voiced the opinion that “everything works if people are sensible” and doesn’t mind “so long as people don’t put it where I can trip over it”. However, Pratchett emphasises that the Discworld and all its characters are ultimately his intellectual property, and stresses that “it is not a franchise”.

In countries such as Russia, where copyright laws are more lenient or less well enforced, it is not uncommon to see fan fiction based on the work of popular authors published in book form. Sergey Lukyanenko, a popular science fiction author, went as far as to incorporate some fan fiction based on his stories into official canon (with permission of the writers of the said fan fiction). Perhaps the most famous case, however, is Dmitri Yemets’ Tanya Grotter book series, a “cultural response” to Harry Potter, which provoked a lawsuit from J. K. Rowling’s estate.

In Japan, the dōjinshi subculture is similar to a combination of the United States subcultures surrounding underground comics, science fiction fanzines, and fan fiction. Many dōjinshi works are manga-format fan fiction, which in Japan is, while not strictly legal, generally tolerated and usually encouraged, being looked upon as a form of free advertising or a breeding ground for new talent, most famously the group CLAMP and Love Hina author Ken Akamatsu.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Airsoft is a modern shooting sport. Airsoft guns themselves are legal in many parts of the world, although some countries have specific restrictions such as maximum muzzle energy, rules against using the trademarks of real firearms and special marking requirements (such as bright orange barrel tips).

Australia

Airsoft guns are illegal in Australia under state and federal law. As legislation and regulations stand airsoft guns are grouped with prohibited military style assault weapons or machine guns because of their appearance and automatic manner of operation. As state and federal laws also prohibit the possession or importation of (firing)replica weapons of the class airsoft guns usually replicate, you may appreciate the difficulties involved in any attempt to have airsoft legalized in Australia. Currently single shot spring powered airsoft guns commonly referred to as sniper rifles (that do not replicate automatic weapons) and gas powered hand guns (without automatic function) may be (technically) imported into Australia. To import these devices one requires permission from the weapons licensing branch of each state, and to gain such permission (to import arms), one requires a “genuine reason”. Airsoft is not considered a genuine reason because a) there is no such sport and b)no range will permit the use of airsoft guns anyway. So practically there is no way to import, possess or use an airsoft gun in Australia.

Airsoft in Australia though practically non existent is being represented by Airsoft Australia, which is attempting to lift or alter the restrictions and bring the sport down under.

Airsoft guns and pistols with more than 0.08 joule can be purchased in specialized weapon shops only. All users have to be at least 18 years old.

In Belgium, airsoft guns and pistols can only be bought at officially licensed dealers, carrying a government permit along with a certified weapon of defense (W.O.D.) to import and sell firearms. While it is forbidden to display or carry airsoft replicas in public, owing and renting them out is unrestricted. Sale of airsoft replicas to minors is forbidden, including sale over the internet (such as e-bay). Replicas should never exceed than 7.5 Joule measured 2.5 meters from the barrel tip.

In general, all events must take place in private locations. Organizations may host airsoft events under the condition that they are not affiliated with ideological or religious agendas.

Airsoft is a legal sport in Bulgaria and there are no restrictions placed on the guns apart from a parents’ permission for people under 18. As airsoft guns are considered air guns by the Bulgarian law, no documents, licenses or anything else is needed to possess them. There are no restrictions about lasers, flashlights etc. Moreover, there is no need for the end of the barrel to be painted in orange (like in the United States). There are neither restrictions about the power of the air guns/airsoft guns nor about carrying them in public areas.

Shooting in “protected” (quote from the law) areas is forbidden. Protected areas are schools, administrative buildings and other public property as well as public areas.

According to the Canada Firearms Centre[1], airsoft guns that closely resemble real firearms are classified as replica firearms and can only be imported by companies possessing a Business Firearms License. It is unlawful to sell or transfer replica firearms without this license. Airsoft guns imported into the country by private citizens are at risk of being seized and destroyed at the border by customs agents. The few Canadian airsoft retailers that exist, take advantage of this fact and the prices are high in comparison to other countries.

No legal distinction is made between airsoft and true firearms when they are used for the purposes of crime.

Air guns with both a muzzle velocity greater than 152.4 metres per second (500 ft/s) and a muzzle energy greater than 5.7 joules (4.2 ft·lbf) are considered firearms for the purpose of the Canadian Firearms Act. For example, an airsoft BB leaving the barrel at 213 metres per second (700 ft/s) and weighing 0.20 grams (3.1 gr) has a muzzle energy of 4.43 joules (3.27 ft·lbf).

In Ontario, the minimum age to purchase airsoft is 18. Children under age must be supervised by someone over 18.

In the People’s Republic of China, airsoft guns have been legal for years in mainland China. However, policemen cannot tell the difference between real and airsoft guns, so have resorted to illegally confiscating them. Common knowledge among local Chinese people is that airsoft is illegal, although this is only because of the policemen have been misinforming them. There is also an urban myth in which a criminal can turn an airsoft gun into a fully funtional, .45 caliber shooting pistol/rifle that will not explode when fired. Despite local pleadings, the government refuses to accept any method of distinguishing real guns from airsoft, such as the clear gun or orange tip method.

It is legal in China’s SARs (Special Administrative Regions, such as Macau and Hong Kong), but may not be fired with a muzzle energy above two joules of kinetic energy. Moreover, the use of airsoft guns has begun to go underground there as well. Several cargo companies have already refused to ship them. In Hong Kong, you are only allowed to play airsoft in private areas and non-country park areas. Airsoft guns may not be revealed in public.

Airsoft guns are mentioned in the Danish “Våbenlov” (arms control legislation). You have to be at least 18 years old to buy, hand over or possess airsoft guns. They may be used on police-approved sites, with a permission slip, at the age of 16. However, a firearms certificate is not required.

Visible transportation of replica firearms in public areas is forbidden. All replica firearms must be covered with something, for example, a weapon case. Land owner’s permission is needed to play airsoft in any area.

Minors (under the age of 18) are able to purchase airsoft guns only with written permission from their legal guardians.

Visible transportation of replica firearms in public areas is forbidden. They must be covered with something, for example, a weapon case. Land owner’s permission is needed to play airsoft in any area.

Minors can only buy or use airsoft guns which are under 0.08 joules in power. In general, airsoft gun may only have a power under two joules, otherwise they are considered to be a weapon and must be registered.

Airsoft guns under 0.5 joule are considered toy guns and can be sold to all persons above three years of age. Distributors agreed to raise the limit to at least 14 years of age. This has been realized and the limit is thus 14 years. All airsoft guns between 0.5 joule and 7.5 joule must be bolt-action or semiautomatic only and can only be sold to people who are 18 years or older. These are considered “free” firearms. As a result, sales of guns of more than 0.5 joule are allowed only in weapon shops and guns must be marked with the trader’s weapon abbreviation and a F-in-a-pentagon mark as well as the airsoft gun caliber (such as 6 mm BB).

While the possession of airsoft guns is allowed, the actual use in a game is (at least) hotly debated. That is why most players using guns with more than 0.5 joule muzzle energy leave Germany to play in countries like France, Belgium, Denmark or the Czech Republic.

Target-illuminating devices and lasers may not be attached to guns, but are legal otherwise. For example, the possession of a flashlight is allowed, even shooting with the flashlight in one hand and the gun in the other, but attaching it via mount ring to the rail system of a gun is not. Devices made specifically for the purpose of being attached to a gun (like certain flashlights with integrated fore grip for mil-spec rail) are prohibited.

More information can be found at Airsoft FAQ on laws in Germany, which covers more complicated issues like the “Kleiner Waffenschein”, issues with the OWiG §118 in Bavaria and a definition of the term “combat shooting.”

The airsoft is basically an underground sport in Greece because the law is a little foggy. According to law, airsoft guns are not real firearms and they are free to be purchased from shops. However, the purchase and use of airsoft guns are not permitted for people under 18 years, although it is possible with parental supervision.

It is prohibited to have any replica gun in public sight. This is treated similarly to illegal possession of a real firearm.

The use of lasers, scopes and flashlights on a replica weapon is prohibited by the law.

In Indonesia, there are no strict rules about airsoft and there is still no consideration by the government as to whether airsoft guns are treated as “toys” or are equal to real guns. However, airsoft were first brought to Indonesia circa 2000 – 2001. The founders of Indonesian airsoft communities put some restrictions on airsoft games, for example, airsoft players are prohibited to upgrade their gun to above 100m/s or they will be rejected from the community. Moreover, anyone who wants to buy an airsoft gun, must be at least 18 years old and know the regulations and rules about the airsoft gun.

Some events have occurred that are perceived as endangering the continuity of the hobby, such as some robberies in which airsoft replicas were used. Therefore, in order to control its growth, there is a government-authorized club called Perbakin (Indonesian Shooting Club) which is currently appointed by police to accommodate airsoft as a new-born sport. However, this information about Perbakin may be inaccurate, as an anonymous tip informs us that Perbakin do not have any agenda whatsoever relating to airsoft

It is most likely that airsoft will be under IPSC supervision since one of the sport’s types can be categorized as IPSC (practical shooting) and not just only as skirmish (war game). However, this statement may only be a wishful thinking considering how little attention the government is paying to airsoft activities. The government hasn’t approved skirmish as a sport, they only permit target shooting and IPSC only. In other words, if you want to play airsoft, you should become a member of this Perbakin Club and not participate in skirmishes.

The status of airsoft in Ireland was changed after the 2006 Criminal Justice Act, which amended the previous Firearms Acts from 1925, 1963, 1972 and 1990. Where once authorization or a license was required for all devices which fired a projectile from a barrel, the law now defines a firearm as (amongst other things):

an air gun (including an air rifle and air pistol) with a muzzle energy greater than one joule of kinetic energy or any other weapon incorporating a barrel from which any projectile can be discharged with such a muzzle energy

The aim of this change was to establish a classification of firearms in order to eliminate the legal oddity where toy suction cup dart guns and the like were legally classified as firearms, thus bringing Ireland into line with the rest of the EU. In this case, one joule was used as the limit, as opposed to seven joules in Germany, twelve foot-pounds force (8.9 J) in the UK and so on. The one-joule limit most likely arose from UK case law where it was found that energies in excess of one joule were required to penetrate an eyeball (thus causing serious injury). As a result, airsoft devices under one joule of power have been declassified and have become perfectly legal to possess and use within Ireland. Those over one joule of power remain legal to possess and use within the Republic, so long as a firearms certificate is applied for and granted by the local Garda superintendent. However, at this point they are classed legally as actual firearms.

Airsoft devices with a muzzle energy in excess of one joule must be licensed and as such must have a serial number marked indelibly on them. With firearms this is achieved by stamping or engraving the number on the receiver or other critical component of the firearm. For airsoft devices which do not have such serial numbers, one must be indelibly marked on it. A discussion on the exact manner in which this is to be done should be had with the local Garda Superintendent, as different Superintendents may have different preferences for this. However, it should be noted that the airsoft device in question would then legally be a licenced firearm and shooting any person with it would constitute assault. Furthermore, no airsoft site in Ireland would allow any player to use an airsoft device in excess of one Joule, licensed or not.

Airsoft guns are classified as “dangerous toys” which makes airsoft illegal to import, manufacture and sell. This law is not very well enforced, however, and it is possible to find retailers who import MPEG level airsoft guns and also AEG level airsoft guns.

Israeli airsofters have created an airsoft association in an attempt to make airsoft legal – Girit “Girit Airsoft Association in Israel”(”גירית – עמותת איירסופט לישראל”). Girit is cooperating with the Israeli Shooting Federation, joining it shortly as a member and cooperating with other governmental authorities in an attempt to make airsoft legal in Israel. For more information you may refer to http://www.airsoft.org.il

Girit Airsoft Association has established cooperation with USAPSA, Ukrainian, Slovenian, Swedish and Czech airsofters. An Israeli national airsoft tactical shooting competition took place near Beit Berel March 2007.

Airsoft guns and pistols are allowed a muzzle velocity below 100 m/s (328 ft/s) i.e. equivalent to a muzzle energy equal or minor to one joule. Under the law, airsoft guns are not classified as firearms, but as toys. You can buy and sell them both from stores and from another private citizen, either domestically or from abroad. Internet purchasing and mail shipping is legal and unrestricted. No license or registration is required. There is no mandatory minimum age to purchase airsoft and/or use it during a regular match. The Italian Ministry of Interior only recommends that their sale be restricted to people over the age of 18 or 14 if accompanied by a parent or legal tutor or if the replica is not particularly realistic or powerful (i.e. low-grade airsoft products).

Red tips must be present on the barrel ends of the airsoft gun when they are imported and sold by a store. Once you own the airsoft gun, you may remove the red tip. However, the similarity between genuine firearms and airsoft replicas is close enough to provoke interaction with law enforcement personnel if an airsoft gun is mistaken for its real counterpart. Airsoft used to commit a crime is treated as if you had the real gun, assault weapons carry an extra mandatory sentence in addition to the regular punishment for the crime committed.

Usage and open carriage of air soft guns in public places is forbidden. You can play on a private property away from public sight or in a well-delimited private or state property after having asked the local authorities for a limited-time permit (usually from six to 48 hours) and having alerted the local police command to avoid alarmed citizens calling for emergency.

As the law limits the muzzle energy that an airsoft replica can develop before being classified by law as an air gun, modifying an airsoft gun to deliver more power or to shoot anything other than 6 mm BB plastic pellets is a felony.

In Japan, airsoft guns are legal, but may not shoot with a muzzle energy above 0.98 joules.

Legal requirements are set on airsoft model manufacturers to prevent any possibility of a replica weapon being converted into an actual firearm. Standards include (but are not limited to) use of low-melting point metals and non-ballistic plastics in structural components and incompatibility of mechanical components with actual firearm components and mechanisms. The overall litmus test used by the Japanese National Police Authority is whether the replica weapon can be made to chamber and fire an actual round of ammunition. These standards have proven successful within Japan, as it has been found that criminal elements discovered that it is significantly easier to purchase an actual illegal weapon in comparison to modifying a comparatively fragile replica into a functional firearm. Due to this reality, most crimes involving a threat of physical violence are perpetrated with edged weapons, as firearms seen in public are (by default) believed to be toys by the public at large.

Legal Issues and Airsoft Guns

There are many different laws surrounding airsoft guns and they differ depending on the airsoft game location you are in and in different countries. Some of the different things you need to think about include the orange barrel tips, firepower limits, clear airsoft guns, ages, and public places. Knowing the different laws will ensure you have a good time while playing the game and don’t get into any trouble.

There are laws about the firepower limits of airsoft guns. They differ when playing indoors versus outdoors. This is because in indoor locations you usually have less space to run around and hide which means that you are most likely going to get hit by a pellet at a closer range. The firepower limits for playing indoors at most locations includes 300fps to 350fps. If you have upgraded your airsoft gun to a higher firepower then most likely you will not be allowed to use it in an indoor location for play. Most outdoor playing fields also have firepower limits ranging from 350 to 450 when you are playing a regulated game. Some countries also have firepower limits that you must abide by according to the laws. This is because the stronger the gun shoots the more damage that can be done to the victim. A pellet is capable of breaking the skin and causing severe injury to players the closer you are when you get hit and the stronger the gun shoots.

Airsoft guns were designed to look like real military weapons because people like the feeling of a true military person. However, they have been known to create panic and havoc when people are not aware that the gun is just an airsoft gun. They have also caused people to get shot by police personnel not knowing the guns were airsoft guns. Because of these issues, the airsoft community came out with clear airsoft guns. These guns are see through and allow people to see that there is not actual bullet ammunition inside the gun but there are pellets and batteries inside. This gives an immediate identification of the gun when you can see through it.

Airsoft guns come with the barrel being painted with an orange tip. The purpose of this is for people to be able to distinguish the difference between a real gun and a fake gun. However, because the purpose of the airsoft guns was to design realistic looking guns, many gun owners take the tips of these guns off or they paint over the orange. This is against the law and can cause the gun to be mistaken for a real gun which can be extremely dangerous. Depending on the country, state, or location you live in there are certain laws regarding the orange tips on the guns. You should be very clear on the laws in your area so you do not get into trouble with your airsoft guns.

Airsoft guns should be handled with care. There are laws, rules and regulations regarding the guns when you take them to play indoors or in outdoor fields. It is important to know the rules regarding the guns when you go to play.

The Legal Issues of Using Airsoft Guns

When it comes to the use of airsoft guns there are many issues surrounding the legalities for these weapons. Many people are concerned that these weapons can get into the hands of those who are not trained to use an airgun or pellet gun properly. Other concerns associated with this issue is that children are getting their hands on these weapons and are not properly trained to use an airgun or paintball gun and they may be using it for things outside of a designated firing range. The other issues is that the airsoft gun resembles a real weapon and can be mistaken by law enforcement. There have been several fatalities due to the resemblance of a airgun and a real gun. The issue with airsoft rifles is that some look like real guns and with inexperienced users they don’t understand that they have be trained to know what’s real and what’s not and how they’re to carry and transport an airgun.

Airsoft pistols are another concern since airguns have been used by criminals because of how they look like the real thing except they can purchase them and not have to deal with a background check as you would with a real gun. Then you can buy pellets without any real trouble since you have to be of legal age to buy ammunition for a gun. The concern is the legal issues with underage users getting their hands on these guns and are not properly supervised and trained. An untrained user can cause some serious damage with an Airsoft gun if they’re not trained by someone who’s qualified to handle an airgun or paintball rifle. Inexperienced users can cause serious bodily injury to themselves and if it’s used for something illegal it could get them killed or seriously injured if they’re up against the police and a shootout happens.

Other issues are convicted felons getting their hands on an Airsoft gun and using it for illegal activities such as a robbery or stick up. It’s easy for them to buy an Airgun since you don’t need a background check to buy these types of weapons which makes it easier for convicted felons to obtain them. The fact that they can get their hands on an airsoft gun or paintball guns makes the legal concern a lot higher than most people would imagine. The fact that a lot of questions arise legally about mostly inexperienced users using airsoft guns , and not having the proper training and supervision to ensure that safety is being adhered to on properly designated fields that are used for pellet and paintball gun battles. This will be a subject revisited often when it’s needed to address concerns surrounding the legality of using airguns. Some states actually have a ban on them because of so many inexperienced users getting their hands on them and not using them the right way.

Because they are dangerous, to avoid injuries, it’s important to keep safe and follow the rules in order to use the airguns correctly.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Internationally, those who reach a certain age (often 18, though this varies) are legally considered to have reached the age of majority and are regarded as adults and are held to be responsible for their actions. People below this age are considered minors or children. A person below the age of majority may gain adult rights through legal emancipation.

Those who are under the age of consent, or legal responsibility, may be considered too young to be held accountable for criminal action. This is called doli incapax or the defense of infancy. The age of criminal responsibility varies from 7 in India to 18 in Belgium. After reaching the initial age, there may be levels of responsibility dictated by age and type of offense, and crimes committed by minors may be tried in a juvenile court.

The legal working age in Western countries is usually 14 to 16, depending on the number of hours and type of employment. In the United Kingdom and Canada, for example, young people between 14 and 16 can work at certain types of light work with some restrictions to allow for schooling; while youths over 16 can work full-time (excluding night work). Many countries also specify a minimum school leaving age, ranging from 10 to 18, at which a person is legally allowed to leave compulsory education.

The age of consent to sexual activity varies widely between jurisdictions, ranging from 12 to 21 years, although 14 to 16 years is more usual. In a 2008 study of 14 to 17-year-olds conducted by YouGov for Channel 4, it was revealed that one in three 15-year-olds were sexually active.

Sexual intercourse with a person below the local age of consent is usually treated as the crime of statutory rape. Some jurisdictions allow an exemption where both partners are close in age; for example, a 16-year-old and an 18-year-old. The age at which people are allowed to marry also varies, from 17 in Yemen to 22 for males and 20 for females in China. In Western countries, people are typically allowed to marry at 18, although they are sometimes allowed to marry at a younger age with parental or court consent. In developing countries, the legal marriageable age does not always correspond with the age at which people actually marry; for example, the legal age for marriage in Ethiopia is 18 for both males and females, but in rural areas most girls are married by age 16.

In most democratic countries, a citizen is eligible to vote at 18. For example, in the United States, the Twenty-sixth amendment decreased the voting age from 21 to 18. In a minority of countries, the voting age is 17 (for example, Indonesia) or 16 (for example, Brazil). By contrast, some countries have a minimum voting age of 21 (for example, Singapore) whereas the minimum age in Uzbekistan is 25. Age of candidacy is the minimum age at which a person can legally qualify to hold certain elected government offices. In most countries, a person must be 18 or over to stand for elected office, but some countries such as the United States and Italy have further restrictions depending on the type of office.
A sign outside a sex shop reads “Must Be 18 To Enter” in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

The sale of selected items such as cigarettes, alcohol, and videos with violent or pornographic content is also restricted by age in most countries. In the U.S, the minimum age to buy an R-rated movie, M-rated game or an album with a parental advisory label is 17 (in some states 18 or even 21). In practice, it is common that young people engage in underage smoking or drinking, and in some cultures this is tolerated to a certain degree. In the United States, teenagers are allowed to drive between 14-18 (each state sets its own minimum driving age of which a curfew may be imposed), in the US, adolescents 17 years of age can serve in the military. In Europe it is more common for the driving age to be higher (usually 18) while the drinking age is lower than that of the US (usually 16 or 18). In Canada, the drinking age is 18 in some areas and 19 in other areas. In Australia, universally the minimum drinking age is 18, unless a person is in a private residence or is under parental supervision in a licensed premises. The driving age varies from state to state but the more common system is a graduated system of “L plates” (a learning license that requires supervision from a licensed driver) from age 16, red “P plates” (probationary license) at 17, green “P plates” at 18 and finally a full license, i.e. for most people around the age of 20.

The legal gambling age also depends on the jurisdiction, although it is typically 18.

The minimum age for donating blood in the U.S is 17 although it may be 16 with parental permission in some states such as New York and Pennsylvania.[citation needed]

A number of social scientists, including anthropologist Margaret Mead and sociologist Mike Males, have noted the contradictory treatment of laws affecting adolescents in the United States. As Males has noted, the US Supreme Court has, “explicitly ruled that policy-makers may impose adult responsibilities and punishments on individual youths as if they were adults at the same time laws and policies abrogate adolescents’ rights en masse as if they were children.”

The issue of youth activism affecting political, social, educational, and moral circumstances is of growing significance around the world. Youth-led organizations around the world have fought for social justice, the youth vote seeking to gain teenagers the right to vote, to secure more youth rights, and demanding better schools through student activism.

Since the advent of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989 (children defined as under 18), almost every country (except the U.S. & Somalia) in the world has become voluntarily legally committed to advancing an anti-discriminatory stance towards young people of all ages. This is a legally binding document which secures youth participation throughout society while acting against unchecked child labor, child soldiers, child prostitution, and pornography.

E-Security Legal Issues

One way for a reseller to gain an edge on competitors is to market the advantages associated with its products in a unique way. In the security channel, a white paper marketing the legal and commercial advantages of a security product presented in a compelling way may prove to be a successful method of enticing a customer into purchasing your security solution.

Security is critical, there is no doubt about it. The smallest breach or compromise can result in situations that can cripple business. Recently, the two big e-security stories have been the disruption to the Russian Trading System (RTS) stock exchange caused by a virus in early February and the extradition proceedings currently underway in the UK against a hacker who allegedly hacked into approximately 100 Pentagon, NASA and other American military networks.

One area of e-security that a white paper could be prepared on is surveillance. Many organisations are already aware of the vulnerabilities posed by internal staff and subcontractors using the organisation’s corporate network and always-on internet access. In fact, most large organisations now track their employees’ internet and email usage to ensure that trade secrets are not being leaked to competitors via these means and that employees are not using internet access for other unscrupulous purposes.

In New South Wales, parliament recently passed new workplace surveillance legislation that is now in effect. Your customers should be made aware of these laws. The new laws regulate the use of computer, camera and tracking devices. The main obligation imposed on your customers under these laws is the obligation to notify employees of surveillance practices at least 14 days prior to commencing surveillance activities. The new laws also set out specific procedures and practices associated with covert surveillance. Further, obligations are imposed in relation to the retention of surveillance records and there are new obligations related to computer policies and other documentation that employees need to be made aware of. The new laws should not be taken lightly. Breach of the new laws may attract significant penalties. In addition, if a company contravenes any provision of the new laws, all directors and management of the company may also be held accountable.

Another way of enticing your customers is to mention the legal consequences associated with breaching e-security. Hackers can be brought before courts under Australian computer crime laws for gaining unauthorised access to computer systems. These laws may even see hackers thrown in jail.

Organisations who are serious about e-security should ensure they are covered by an insurance policy that extends to loss occasioned as a result of hacking or breach of the organisation’s e-security generally. Customers should be reminded that breaches of electronic security measures can be just as disastrous as breaches of physical security measures.

Disclaimer: This column is for general informational purposes only. It is not legal advice nor is it a substitute for legal advice. Readers should seek legal advice on their own particular circumstances.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

This article helps you to gain insight into what employees think of corporate social responsibility and risk management issues including tips on how you should handle them.

What our research has found:

* Only a little more than half of all employees believe their organisation is giving back to the community
* While 59% of employees agree that their organisation is committed to identifying and reducing business risks, only 39% of employees agree that their organisation has effective processes for identifying and preventing non-sanctioned actions
* Most employees agree that their organisation is committed to respecting confidential information; however the level of agreement decreases as organisation size grows
* Approximately two thirds of employees with over one year of service are unsure or don’t believe there are effective mechanisms for dealing with workplace concerns
* The majority of employees agree that their organisation requires them to behave ethically; the level of agreement in the 25 – 35 year age group is slightly lower, suggesting this age group holds their organisations to a marginally higher ethical standard

Tips to tackle CSR and risk management issues with employees

* Implement a best practice CSR program with processes and systems that manage the organisation’s impact on the wellbeing of all its stakeholders
* Identify, document and manage the spectrum of risks, including: safety, operational, market, reputational, legislative and environmental
* Unauthorised actions need to be clearly articulated and communicated through a company-wide code of conduct, backed by associated training
* Ensure legal and compliance obligations are met and where possible, exceeded
* The ability of an organisation to meet legal obligations may be dependent on employees, so make sure they’re aware of legal issues that affect their work
* Promote and enforce both systems and a culture that respects confidentiality and security of sensitive information
* Deal with workplace concerns in both informal and formal ways with a culture backed by a strong values framework that includes low tolerance of unacceptable behaviours such as bullying
* Grievance processes and whistle blower protection measures should be in place within an organisation and promoted among employees
* Improve safety procedure education for younger workers
* Identify and address the small percentage of employees who don’t believe their organisation requires them to behave ethically

More About Legal Issues With Electronic Medical Records

I recently discussed some matters concerning electronic medical records, including what constitutes a legal record, ways to maintain the record’s integrity with devices like an audit trail, and preventing alterations to these records. Now we’ll take a look at some other terms to be familiar with.

Patient Privacy:

Do you remember when the HIPAA first appeared on the scene? No more can you even keep a patient check-in form at the front desk, or risk having a patient learn who else had been in on that day. The penalty could include jail time.

Undue Burden:

Some recent legal cases have established that data that is accessible must be able to be produced, including backup data. Although this may seem an unfair burden for a medical practice, experts dealing with these sort of legal cases believe that EMR will result in a decrease of malpractice suits, as as result of better documentation and a lower rate of medication-related mistakes. Even so, if data is kept on a failed hard drive, and the costs of recovering the data is significant, it could create an undue burden; judges could rule that the expense be shared between the two parties.

Accessibility:

In the world of paper records, charts that are more than seven years old that were purged are considered legally ‘inaccessible.’ If a plaintiff’s attorney asks you to produce the record, it is impossible. When it comes to electronic information, however, inaccessibility could be more difficult to prove, as electronic data can almost always be recovered. In fact, most of the current EMR software systems don’t even let a provider delete patient records.

E-Discovery:

Discovery is the pre-trial phase in a lawsuit. Each party can compel production of evidence by means of a subpoena or a deposition. E-Discovery refers to information saved in an electronic format. The collection of digital evidence has even spawned the field of cyberforensics. This column cannot adequately cover a topic as broad as E-Discovery. This has become a major area of law and will become increasingly important as EMR becomes the norm. The bottom line for medical practices is that a reliable and secure backup process is a must.

Eventually, rational minds emerged victorious, and some of the more inane regulations have relaxed somewhat. There are still privacy issues which are specific to the electronic aspects of medicine, in regard to inappropriate disclosure of patients’ data. An unauthorized email, unsecured wireless network, a computer monitor left on in view of another patient, and unauthorized report distribution are some prime examples.

Consider forming a Legal, Risk & Compliance (LRC) Committee for your practice, to address the above-mentioned issues and others which may arise. Continually ask yourself what mishaps could occur, including when, how, and by whom. Then, when you face a legal challenge, you will be better prepared.

By the way, do you want to learn more about implementing EMR in your own practice? Download my free report “Getting Through The EMR Maze.”

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

The use of social media websites for marketing is growing fast. However, this is new ground for many marketers and, as it matures, certain legal issues will emerge. In this article, I look at a few potential legal pitfalls and how to avoid them.

Because social network marketing involves the publishing or broadcast of online content, many existing, traditional media law apply to content on social media websites.

Copyright is the big one, with “fair use” on the forefront. Copyright law protects any type of content whether it is text, audio, video – whether or not an actual copyright statement exists on the content. To keep yourself safe, always quote sources. Even if you don’t use a statement word-for-worth, it’s better to attribute statements to known sources.

Services such as CopyScape offer website owners and web content providers the ability to check their writing against other content on the web. But, it won’t check older, or archived, content that doesn’t exist on the web. Just because content has been checked with CopyScape doesn’t mean it wasn’t plagiarized.

These same standards apply to trademarks, logos, literature and art. Your motto should be “When in doubt, source it out.” Be aware also of “deep linking” to content, whether pictures, logos, or other material.

If you link to content which looks like it might be misconstrued as belonging to you, you could be in violation of copyright laws. Not to mention stealing bandwidth.

Another potentially problematic area is disclosure and confidentiality. You need to be careful about what you write about your own business and competitors. Revealing information about the business transactions of your clients or competitors could land you in very hot water. When you perform a transaction with a client, it’s assumed that you will hold client information confidential. Leaking confidential information can be very damaging to a client or competitor-not to mention your own reputation.

Any media law expert will tell you that one of the biggest dangers when publishing or broadcasting are defamation and libel. If you are writing anything about an individual, especially if it is controversial, you must check that all facts are correct before publication. In fact, even if you are repeating something libelous that you saw written elsewhere you can have legal problems. The best advice? Don’t do it. Stay away from anything that hints of trouble.

If you use social media websites like FaceBook and MySpace, be aware of privacy issues. While it is perfectly ethical to use social networking websites to spread your message to people who are genuinely interested, many people game the system. Like email spam, social networking spam is becoming a huge problem. Don’t be surprised about future legislation on this issue.

Social network marketing is still in its infancy so many legal issues have yet to be flushed out. The bottom line is that if you’re communicating on social media sites, and you’re not attempting to circumvent ideas or privacy, you shouldn’t run into any legal trouble.

Topics:

1. Careful Policy Drafting

2. Sex Discrimination

3. Race and Disability Discrimination

4. Religious Discrimination

5. NLRA

6. Tattoos and Body Piercings

7. Commonsense Tips for Drafting and Enforcing Your Dress Code

If you are like many employers, you may mistakenly believe that discrimination laws restrict your right to determine appropriate workplace dress. In fact, you actually have a lot of discretion in what you can require your employees to wear to work. Generally, a carefully drafted dress code that is applied consistently should not violate discrimination laws. However, this fact will not stop employees from questioning your policy. This article, from our HR Matters E-Tips free electronic newsletter, examines common legal challenges to dress codes and suggests ways you can avoid problems.

Careful Policy Drafting

You probably have been faced with an employee who complains that a dress code “violates my rights.” Some employees will even go so far as to allege discrimination on the basis of sex, religion, or race under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. However, if a dress code is based on business needs and applied uniformly, it generally will not violate employee civil rights.

Sex Discrimination Claims.

Sex discrimination claims typically are not successful unless the dress policy has no basis in social customs, differentiates significantly between men and women, or imposes a greater burden on women. Thus, a policy that requires female managers to wear uniforms while male managers are allowed to wear “professional dress” may be discriminatory. However, dress requirements that reflect current social norms generally are upheld, even when they affect only one sex. For example, in a decision by the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Harper v. Blockbuster Entertainment Corp., 139 F.3d 1385 (11th Cir. 1998), the court upheld an employer’s policy that required only male employees to cut their long hair.

Be aware, though, that at least one state, California, prohibits employers from implementing a dress code that does not allow women to wear pants in the workplace. According to Section 12947.5 of the California Government Code, it is an unlawful employment practice for an employer to prohibit an employee from wearing pants because of the sex of the employee. The California law does make exceptions so employees in certain occupations can be required to wear uniforms.

Race and Disability Discrimination Claims.

Race discrimination claims can be even more difficult to prove since the employee must show that the employer’s dress code has a disparate impact on a protected class of employees. One limited area where race claims have had some success is in challenges to “no beard” policies. A few courts have determined that a policy that requires all male employees to be clean-shaven may discriminate if it does not accommodate individuals with pseudofolliculitis barbae (PFB), a skin condition aggravated by shaving that occurs almost exclusively among African-American males.

No-beard rules also may violate disability discrimination laws. A few courts have ruled that PFB is a disabling condition and thus requires reasonable accommodation under state disability laws and the federal Rehabilitation Act (which prohibits federal contractors from discriminating in employment based on disability).

Religious Discrimination Claims.

Employees have had more success claiming dress codes violate religious discrimination laws. These claims are likely if an employer is unwilling to allow an employee’s religious dress or appearance. For example, a policy may be discriminatory if it does not accommodate an employee’s religious need to cover his head or wear a beard. However, if an employer can show that the accommodation would be an undue hardship, such as if the employee’s dress created a safety concern, it probably does not have to allow the exception to its policy.

NLRA Claims.

Dress code claims also may be filed under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). To comply with the NLRA, employers, even in nonunion workplaces, may not universally ban the wearing of union insignia. An employer may set neutral policies that, when uniformly enforced, prohibit employees from wearing certain items of clothing that also have union insignias on them, such as T-shirts with union logos if the policy prohibits all T-shirts. However, several courts have determined that employees have the right to wear union buttons and pins to work, unless the wearing of these items creates a safety hazard or, in the case of workers with public contact, the employees consistently are required to wear uniforms without buttons and pins.

Tattoos and Body Piercings.

Many employees also mistakenly believe that they have a right to show tattoos and body piercings in the workplace. While tattoos and piercings may be examples of employee self-expression, they generally are not recognized as indications of religious or racial expression and, therefore, are not protected under federal discrimination laws. Accordingly, as with most personal appearance and grooming standards, you have wide latitude to set policy regarding tattoos and body piercings.

Common Sense Tips for Drafting and Enforcing Your Dress Code

Here are some ideas for ensuring that your policy complies with the legal restrictions described above:

1. Base the policy on business-related reasons. Explain your reasons in the policy so employees understand the rationale behind the restrictions. Common business-related reasons include maintaining the organization’s public image, promoting a productive work environment, or complying with health and safety standards.

2. Require employees to have an appropriate, well-groomed appearance. Even casual dress policies should specify what clothing is inappropriate (such as sweatsuits, shorts, and jeans) and any special requirements for employees who deal with the public.

3. Communicate the policy. Use employee handbooks or memos to alert employees to the new policy, any revisions, and the penalties for noncompliance. In addition, explain the policy to job candidates.

4. Apply the dress code policy uniformly to all employees. This can prevent claims that the policy adversely affects women or minorities. However, you may have to make exceptions if required by law. (See next suggestion.)

5. Make reasonable accommodation when the situation requires an exception. Be prepared to accommodate requests for religious practices and disabilities, such as head coverings and facial hair.

6. Apply consistent discipline for dress code violations. When disciplining violators, point out why their attire does not comply with the code and what they can do to comply.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

LLC Legal Issues – Dodging the Land Mine in 2009

When the chips are down in the business world companies have to manage legal risks a little better, especially considering that they are teetering on going out of business as it is and one lawsuit could put them over the edge. Even if they win the lawsuit the legal costs are simply not affordable during this recession. Worse, lawyers are trying very hard to come up with lawsuits right now to stay in business themselves, so they are willing to take questionable cases as long as they are getting paid to do so.

And unfortunately, we live in a “sue happy” litigious society and some folks that are failing are looking to filing a lawsuit to blame someone else or enforce a bad contract provision to save themselves. Yes, we have too many laws and too many lawyers and it’s outrageous. Nevertheless, there is one lawyer you need to hire to get your risk management in order. You may wish to look into an LLC for your company and to protect your personal assets. If you have not done that yet, well right now would indeed be a smart time to consider it.

Setting up an LLC for your small business is a wise idea, but there are reasons why you may need a “C-Corp” instead. You need to seek professional legal advice to figure out what is best for your situation and make sure the paper work is done correctly and filed appropriately so your LLC is legitimate. Perhaps this is something you’ll think about in 2009 to dodge those ever present legal landmines.

Spotlight on Waterfront Land in Texas

For its rich history and beautiful landscape, Texas is definitely among the best places to find acreage for sale. From ranch property to hunting land and commercial development opportunities, Texas can accommodate just about anyone.

What’s more? The lone star state just so happens to be the ideal spot for purchasing waterfront property. Whether the vision of your next land purchase includes sandy beaches or a riverbank, look to land for sale in Texas.

TX Lakefront Land for Sale

Texas has lakefront properties throughout the state. Enjoy excellent fishing and spectacular views at Caddo Lake, Cedar Creek Lake and Lake Fork, to name just a few. Purchase acreage for sale as a vacation home or a permanent residence and take up boating or water skiing at places like Lake Bridgeport and Richland Chambers Lake.

Find TX Land for Sale Amid Rivers, Creeks and Streams

You can find plenty of land nestled alongside one of the many rivers, streams and creeks in Texas. If you enjoy fishing and greeting each morning to the peaceful sound of flowing water, choose waterfront land for sale near any one of 15 rivers and 3,700 streams. You can purchase waterfront acreage for sale next to the Rio Grande, Brazos River and more.

TX Among the Best Places to Buy Coastal Land

Coastal land is yet another option for those in search of waterfront acreage for sale. A large portion of Texas is bordered by the Gulf of Mexico, creating well over 300 miles of coastal property. If you enjoy sandy beaches and the sound of crashing waves, head to the Texas Gulf Coast. You can find some prime land for sale in places like Galveston Bay, Freeport, Victoria, Port Arthur and West Columbia.

Research Texas Waterfront Land for Sale Before You Buy

Any real estate venture can become a headache if you aren’t careful. In fact, a waterfront property purchase comes with additional concerns that need to be addressed from the start.

Contact a real estate agent or broker for help understanding any legal issues, such as access and easements. If you’re purchasing raw land for sale, be sure it has a solid foundation to support a home structure.

Land Contracts – Buy Or Sell A Home With No Bank Or Mortgage

In many cases, home buyers are in a financial position to afford the monthly payments associated with home ownership, but they lack the down payment necessary to purchase a home. Or the buyer’s credit score or rating may prevent him or her from obtaining the traditional bank or mortgage company financing required for the purchase of a home. When this is the case, it often makes sense for the buyers to consider purchasing a home or piece of real estate and have the owner/seller provide the financing for the purchase – called a Land Contract or Contract for Deed.

Likewise, selling a home by way a land contract can prove beneficial to the seller in many ways. Selling property with a land contract can provide a quicker and more inexpensive way for the property owner to sell the property – the seller does not need to comply with the often rigid and tedious guidelines of bank financing and the delays that often accompany those guidelines. Likewise, real property sold on a land contract can often be priced higher than sales with bank financing since the seller provides the all-important financing and the buyer is often times not required to come up with a large down-payment, thereby permitting a higher asking price for the property.

So how does a land contract work?

Land contracts are common throughout the United States. In some states, they are called Trust Deeds, Contract for Deed, Deeds of Trust, Notes, or (privately held) Mortgages, but they all represent the same thing: a way of selling property where the buyer “borrows” from or relies upon the seller for the financing rather than paying cash up front or borrowing from a bank.

The process is generally as follows:

The seller and buyer enter into a contract that normally states that the seller shall transfer ownership of the property to the after the buyer has fully paid the seller the agreed upon purchase price. In most cases, the contract requires the buyer to make a modest down payment and then to make monthly payments over time. The land contract can require the buyer to pay the seller interest on the money owed (just like a bank would). Also, because the buyer and seller privately negotiate and reach their own sales terms, the contract can also call for smaller monthly payments – beneficial to the buyer – and then a balloon payment to be made at some certain period of time; this balloon or lump sum payment will pay the balance of the purchase price for the property.

During the term of the land contract (i.e. while the contract is in force and effect, the buyer is not in default and until all of the payments are made), the buyer holds legal possession of and occupies the property. The land contract can call for transfer of the property once the seller has received all of the required payments or can call for the transfer at some time sooner, with the seller then holding a mortgage on the property to ensure that the balance of the purchase price will be paid in full. Whatever the terms agreed upon for transferring ownership, when the agreed upon transfer date is reached, the seller tenders (or gives) a deed to the property to the buyer who then records the deed in the county recorders office or the real property office of the county where the property is located.

While the benefits of land contracts are many, there are some potential pitfalls to a land contract that the parties must be aware.

If the buyer misses any payment under the land contract, he or she may lose the property (the right to have the deed transferred to him) and the seller may keep the money paid up to that point as rent. Thereafter, the seller would not be required to transfer the deed to the buyer.

Some states have laws providing that if a buyer makes a majority of the payments under a land contract (which cover a large percentage of a purchase price of the property), the seller may not be able to keep or refuse to transfer the deed if the buyer can make payments on the contract price at a later date (known as the right of redemption). Your state laws should be reviewed.

A disadvantage for the buyer can be found when the seller has a mortgage on the property that the buyer is purchasing and the seller does not payoff existing mortgages by the time the buyer pays the entire purchase price – thereby causing the property to subject to foreclosure. The buyer should determine whether or not any mortgages exist on the property being purchased and then require the seller to pay off all mortgages prior to the final payment being made – but if the seller does not, the buyer should be aware that he or she may be required to pay off the mortgages.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

There are laws governing every aspect of education and its administration. Each state, however, is primarily responsible for the overall operation of public schools (Cornell, 2006). Each state has a Board of Education that is given the responsibility to oversee each school system (Cornell, 2006). The laws that affect our school systems dictate everything from how a school handles discipline, to what kind of food our students are served for lunch. From the viewpoint of an up-and-coming teacher, I am going to focus on a few that I think would be important for us to familiarize ourselves with.

The Zero Tolerance Policy

One thing that may be on many new teachers’ minds is “what if I can’t maintain control in my classroom?” “What laws protect students and teachers from violence?” Of course, most of us know that it is illegal for teachers to use any form of corporal punishment on a student (Legal, 2001). (Check your resources here because according the Dr Rita Coombs Richardson an instructor at Old Dominion, 23 states still practice corporal punishment, and Virginia is the only southern state to have obolished it) Most schools have “in school suspension” or “detention” for students who continue to break rules (ACLU, 2004). It is mainly up to teachers to use their training to solve discipline problems in the classroom. However, because of tragedies that have happened in some schools, many parents can breathe a sigh of relief because of the Zero Tolerance Policy approved by Congress (ABA, 2001). The Zero Tolerance Policy was created to put an end to school violence, but it has also created harsher punishments for students of all ages who commit many different infractions because the policy calls for mandatory punishment, usually expulsion (ABA, 2001). The adoption of the Zero Tolerance Policy provides quick and severe punishment to any student that makes threats against the school, threatens anyone in the school, brings anything that could be considered a weapon onto school property, commits any type of violent crime against another individual, commits vandalism, or intentionally misbehaves (ABA, 2001). While some students suffer expulsion from school, some students end up in jail because of their offenses (ABA, 2001). Some believe the harsher punishments deter school violence (ABA, 2001). On the other hand, opponents of the Policy say that these punishments may be too severe for some students (ABA, 2001). Children in the first-grade suffer the same consequences as children in the twelvth-grade, which some say is unfair (ABA, 2001). For instance, in a report issued in 2000 by the Justice Policy Institute and the Kentucky-based Children’s Law Center, it was mentioned that a 12-year-old from Louisiana told fellow students not to eat all of the potatoes or “I’m going to get you,” while waiting in the school lunch line. The student had been previously diagnosed with a hyperactive disorder. A lunch monitor reported the incident, causing the child to be suspended for two days. The principle reported the incident to police who charged him with making “terroristic threats.” The child spent two weeks in jail before his trial (ABA, 2001).

Another aspect of education and law a teacher should be aware of is laws concerning children with disabilities. “The Americans with Disabilities Act, ADA, 1990 defines an individual with a disability as a person who has a physical or mental impairment which substantially limits one or more major life activities. These include, but are not limited to, self-care, manual tasks, walking, seeing, hearing, speaking, breathing, learning, and working” (Pennsylvania, 2005). Schools must be handicap accessible for wheelchairs and must be able to accommodate any student with a disability (Pennsylvania, 2005). Students with disabilities must have access to the same programs and activities as students without a disability (Pennsylvania, 2005). The Individuals with Disabilities Act allows students with disabilities to be evaluated so they can receive an “individualized education program” (Cornell, 2006). This “individualized education program” is also known as “special education” (Cornell, 2006).

The National Title 1 and School Reform Project are aimed at helping communities improve education for students with financial hardships (Center, 2005). Title 1 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act gives money to schools based on the number of low-income children to provide additional educational services (Center, 2005). The goal of the Project is to bring about broad based school reform by improving Title 1 programs through parental and community involvement to improve core quality of educational programs (Center, 2005). The Project also works closely with cities across the country that are using Title 1 as a major tool for reform (Center, 2005). In addition, the Project offers advice and guidance to schools and parents who are advocating reform (Center, 2005). Title 1 and School Reform Advocacy Project works closely with Community Action for Public Schools (CAPS) to help reach parents, teachers, and communities with information related to their cause (Center, 2005). The Program is essential in promoting educational change by providing training to promote “classroom change, parental involvement in planning and implementing high quality programs, the importance of understanding standards, how to decipher what is happening in school, program assistance, and academic testing” in addition to many others (Center, 2005). This Project is instrumental in providing educational reform to benefit low-income and low-achieving children.

One of the newest laws that have had a huge impact of education is the No Child Left Behind Act. This Act was supported by both Democrats and Republicans in Congress who wanted to ensure that all students have the opportunity to receive a quality education (United, 2005). This Act has also given school districts more funding than they have ever received before with the benefit that the schools are able to choose to use these funds where they are needed most (United, 2005). One of the biggest changes that NCLB has made in education is that schools are held accountable for student’s results, making sure that schools are doing what they can to provide the best education possible (United, 2005). This Act also calls for schools to produce report cards on student progress so schools, along with parents and other leaders, can see where improvements need to be made and what issues need to be addressed (United, 2005). One advantage that NCLB has for parents is that they are allowed to choose another school for their child if their child’s current school is not making sufficient academic progress (United, 2005). NCLB also requires schools to find ways to increase parental involvement in student education and school improvement (United, 2005). Under this Act, states must evaluate student performance by testing students in reading and math to access where students could use extra help (United, 2005). NCLB requires schools to use teaching practices that have been researched and found as superior (United, 2005). Schools and teachers are not allowed to take it upon themselves to use any “educational fads” (United, 2005). This Act also concentrates heavily on student reading ability by making sure that students are able to read at grade-level by the third grade (United, 2005). Another important part of NCLB is that it provides funding to ensure that “teachers learn to be better teachers” (United, 2005). The No Child Left Behind Act is key in ensuring that all children receive the best education possible and that “no child is left behind” (United, 2005).

The Christian “Social Justice” Tradition – 4 of 6

“Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everlasting stream” -Amos 5:24 (NASB)

When we sponsor a starving child, or we send a Christmas present to an orphan, we demonstrate the compassion of Jesus in alignment with this tradition. Having done both of these things, and shared even a little of what God’s blessed me with, I’ve learned the love that comes back from the compassionate life.

When this verse above is quoted we immediately think of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King. His spine-tingling speeches and landmark action that sparked the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s were synonymous with the Social Justice tradition of compassion. And here possibly follows the leadership of President Obama.

Indeed, Mother Teresa and Archbishop Desmond Tutu are modern examples too of the First Century deacons of Acts 6 convention, being “full of the Spirit and wisdom,” who were charged with the oversight of food distribution and the rights of widows, among other things.

No book of the Bible is more complete regarding this tradition than Amos, with the possible exception of the Gospel according to Luke. Living in the desert, the Israelites knew the preciousness of a streaming wadi. Justice rolling like a freshly fed wadi would’ve been a vivid image for the Israelites to fix their focus upon. Unfortunately, Amos’ message is no more popular today than it was for the original hearers.[1]

The Compassionate Life picks up on three great Hebrew concepts: Mishpat (justice); Hesed (steadfast love); and Shalom (peace). Mishpat is even more expansive than legal justice, travels into and envelopes moral justice too. It’s the life of actually doing the works that are discussed in the Bible, and not merely believing, in true James’ style.

Interestingly, this word also engages the “wisdom to bring equitable, harmonious relationships between people,”[2] and when Solomon prayed for wisdom in 1 Kings 3, God replied using this word linked with righteousness in granting his request–indeed, justice and righteousness are heavily linked together in the Bible.

Hesed reeks compassion as it is the ‘loving kindness’ of God himself that remains eternally i.e. it is with us always, “from everlasting to everlasting.” (Ps. 103:17) Graciousness, courtesy and compassion all partially alone, but collectively more fully, describe hesed.

“Harmonious unity in the natural order” describes Shalom. Harmony with God, our neighbours and nature in general, purposes a world where “peace and unity reign.”[3] Certainly Jeremiah lamented a lack of shalom–all was not well.[4] With shalom, all is well.

These three concepts meet in Psalm 85:10–”Mercy and loving-kindness and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.” (Amplified version)

The great challenge today is to destroy structures that perpetuate poverty, whilst working hard to support “institutions that enhance art and beauty.”[5] These issues today are more numerously complex than ever, but we must not relent.

Embracing a social and cultural diversity that challenges our conceptions of belief is part of the tension involved in this tradition.

We are called to a life of social justice whether we like it or not. It celebrates a ‘perpetual Jubilee’ and the Beatitudes create a ‘Jubilee inversion’ where the Old Testament principle of Jubilee is overturned in favour of a way for even (and especially) the unblessed or ‘unblessable’ persons to enjoy peace with God.

The social justice tradition is about a “life committed to compassion and justice for all people.” It’s important because “through it God develops in us the compassion to love… freely,” and it’s where the values of justice and righteousness reign.[6]

ENDNOTES:
[1] Richard Foster, Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christian Faith (London, England: HarperCollinsReligious, 1998), p. 151. The author provides a relatively detailed commentary on Amos.
[2] Foster, Ibid, p. 167-68. God’s mishpat is for his people to “share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter–when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood.” -Isaiah 58:7 (TNIV).
[3] Foster, Ibid, p. 171. The following passage out of Isaiah describes quite eloquently what Shalom (harmony in the natural order) is like: “The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.” -Isaiah 11:6 (TNIV).
[4] Foster, Ibid, p. 172. See Jeremiah 6:14b.
[5] Foster, Ibid, p. 175. This is capturing the essence of the three word concepts, mishpat, hesed and shalom.
[6] Foster, Ibid, p. 182.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Legal Issues and Communication

Unfortunately, there are many corrupt companies and organizations in the United States. It has become law that every email must be achieved and saved for 7 years due to poor company choices. Therefore, the government can go back in a company’s achieves and use any information sent or received in this time period against you in a lawsuit.

As you gather information for backing your arguments, you should learn about any expectations, regulations, and constraints that could limit what you are trying to explain. Expectations and regulations affect what you are trying to communicate. Tone, the use of abbreviations, tables, use of margins and the length of your document can also affect your communication. Usually the length is said to be given as a maximum and not a minimum. These factors all play an important role in writing correct and clear professional documents.

Many times constraints are set in place according to the industry, but they can also be set in place by your employer. Constraints may be based around a company’s image or their goal in sales. A children’s toy company, like LEGO, would not want to be associated with a technical document that includes slang or words that could damage their image. This is to protect their business legally. Since all documents can be used in court, companies assume that any written document with the company name includes nothing but the professional image they are trying to portray.

Many companies also like to form a “custom” way of writing. Companies like Microsoft want all their documents to be written in the same style. The only way to do this is to teach the writers the “correct” way to write like Microsoft. What many people may not know is that Microsoft does do this to cover themselves in a legal trial. If every single document is written using the same format, they can make sure that the customers understand the entire document and do not run into trouble with inconsistencies.

How do you know if you are following the correct constraints? The easiest way to understand how to write in your specific field is to look at documents written by your company and other companies in the industry within the past few months. This will allow you to see their style and how they make their argument. Some companies even publish style guides for writing. By seeing your company’s regulations, you can begin to draft your argument. Make sure to follow your company’s guidebook (if they have one) to be sure that your style is correct, or one day you may be wondering why you are no longer employed.

Remember that in professional writing you are trying to persuade the reader using an ethical style. This means to avoid using wording that will not stand up in court, especially since people file lawsuits for everything these days. Make sure that the documents you write for your company are persuasive while also preserving your company’s competitive edge.

This guide to technical writing was created as a project for students enrolled in the University of Minnesota’s Department of Writing Studies, course 3562w, “Technical and Professional Writing.” The content is student-generated, with occasional feedback and guidance from course instructors. This technical writing guide is meant be useful well-beyond the university. We also recommend reading the Rhetoric and Composition Wikibook.

As part of the university’s approach, we assume all technical communication represents rhetorical acts. The intention is to persuade an audience to take action. Therefore, it is possible to perform a rhetorical analysis of any technical document.

Are Ethics Important For Professional Accountants?

Ethics in professional accountancy are of utmost importance. Now as the business and financial world is adopting international accounting and auditing standards, it is becoming all the more necessary to adhere to certain Code of Ethics prescribed by international and national accountancy bodies. Before arguing in favour of the topic, let’s have a look at some basic concepts:

Profession

A profession is an occupation that requires extensive training and the study and mastery of specialized knowledge, and usually has a professional association, ethical code and process of certification or licensing; for example engineering, medicine, social work, teaching, law, finance, the military, nursing and Accountancy etc. Classically there were only three professions: military, medicine and law. Each of these professions holds to a specific code of ethics and members are almost universally required to swear some form of oath to uphold those ethics, therefore ‘professing’ to a higher standard of accountability. Each of these professions also provides and requires extensive training in the meaning, value and importance of its particular oath in practice of that profession.

Accountant

Practitioner of Accountancy is known as Accountant. Qualified Accountant, Accountant, Professional Accountant or Accountancy Practitioner is a legally certified accountancy and financial expert. Accountants not only work in public practice but many of them are working within private corporations, in financial industry and in various government bodies. Accountancy (profession) or accounting (methodology) is the measurement, disclosure or provision of assurance about financial information that helps managers, investors, tax authorities, lenders and other stakeholders and decision makers to make resource allocation and policy making decisions.

Like many other professions there are many professional bodies for accountants throughout the world. Some of them are legally recognized in their jurisdictions such as British qualified accountants including Chartered Certified Accountant (ACCA or FCCA), Chartered Accountant (CA, ACA or FCA), Canadian qualified accountants such as Chartered Accountant and Certified General Accountants (CA or CGA) and American qualified Accountants such as Certified Public Accountants (CPA) etc. Some other statutory and non-statutory accountancy qualifications are Certified Management Accountant (CMA), Associated Cost and Management Accountant (ACMA), Certified Financial Analyst (CFA) and Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE) etc.

In Pakistan, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Pakistan is the sole professional and accountancy body with the right to award the Chartered Accountant designation. ICAP is the member of IFAC (International Federation of Accountants, IASB (International Accounting Standards Board), Confederation of Asian & Pacific Accountants (CAPA) and South Asian Federation of Accountants (SAFA). The members of ICAP have reached to 4,089 as of March 1, 2007 data.

Role of Professional Accountants:

Accountants are independent business advisors. Accountants can offer an extensive range of services. Accountants can be registered auditors, can set up client’s accounting systems, can be an advisor on tax planning, or a detector of frauds and embezzlements, can do budgeting and financial statement analysis, advise clients on financing decisions, provide specialist knowledge and can help maintaining an ethical environment.

After discussing the basic concepts and role of professional accountants we are in a better position to ponder on what professional ethics is and why it is important in the field of accountancy.

Definition of Ethics

The word ‘Ethics’ is derived from the Ancient Greek word ethikos; means customs and habits. A major branch of philosophy which is the study of values and customs of a person or group and covers the analysis and employment of concepts such as right and wrong, good and evil and do’s and don’ts.

Code of Ethics:

In the context of a code adopted by a profession or by a governmental organization to regulate that profession, an ethical code may be styled as a code of professional responsibility, which may dispense with difficult issues of what behaviour is ‘ethical’. A code of ethics is often a formal statement of the organization’s values on certain ethical and social issues relating to the profession and practice of the professional knowledge. This also includes the principles and procedures for specific ethical situations.

Ethics in Professional Accountancy:

The general ethical standards of society apply to people in professions such as medicine, law, nursing and accountancy etc just as much as to anyone else. However society places even higher expectations on professionals. People need to have confidence in the quality of the complex services provided by professionals

Ethics in accountancy profession are invaluable to accounting professionals and to those who rely on their services. Stakeholders including clients, credit grantors, governments, taxation authorities, employees, investors, the business and financial community etc perceive them as highly competent, reliable, objective and neutral people. Professional accountants therefore, must not only be well qualified but also possess a high degree of professional integrity. Because of these high expectations, professionals have adopted codes of ethics; also known as codes of professional conduct. These ethical codes call for their members to maintain a level of self-discipline that goes beyond the requirements of laws and regulations. Each of the major professional association for accountants has a code of ethics.

As mentioned earlier, professional accountants can be of two types. One who work in firms or independently run those firms that provide accounting, auditing and other advisory services to clients; these are called public practitioners. Others are those who are employees of organizations and may serve as internal auditors, management accountants, financial managers and financial analysts. Regardless of the role of accountants, they are adhered to code of ethics which are applied to their professional conduct although there are some special provisions for those in public practice [Reference: Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants-International Federation of Accountants (IFAC)].

International Federation of Accountants-IFAC:

The International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) is a federation of all accountancy bodies throughout the world. All the major international and national associations like ACCA, AICPA, ICMA, ICAP, IASB etc are all its member organizations. The mission of IFAC, as set out in its constitution, is “the worldwide development and enhancement of an accountancy profession with harmonized standards, able to provide services of consistently high quality in the public interest” [Ref: Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants-IFAC]. In pursuing this mission, the IFAC Board has established the IFAC Ethics Committee to develop and issue, under its own authority, high quality ethical standards and other pronouncements for professional accountants for use around the world. The Code of Ethics establishes ethical requirements for professional accountants. A member body or firm may not apply less stringent standards than those stated in this Code.

The objective of setting this code of conduct is to harmonize these standards and practices on a global perspective. Public can only trust these highly professionals when it is made mandatory to observe and follow strict regulations and codes throughout the world. A professional accountant is required to comply with the following fundamental principles mentioned in this Code of Ethics:[Ref: Section 100.4 Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants]

· Integrity: A professional accountant should be honest and straightforward in all professional and business relationship.

· Objectivity: A professional accountant should not allow bias, conflict of interest or undue influence of others to override professional or business judgments.

· Professional Competence & Due Care: A professional accountant has a continuing duty to maintain professional knowledge and skills at the level required to ensure that a client or employer receives competent professional service. A professional accountant should act diligently and in accordance with applicable technical and professional standards when providing professional services.

· Confidentiality: A professional accountant should respect the confidentiality of information acquired as a result of professional and business relationships and should not disclose nay such information to third parties without proper and specific authority unless there is a legal or professional right or duty to disclose. This information should not be used for personal advantage by professional accountant.

· Professional Behaviour: A professional accountant should comply with relevant laws and regulations and should avoid any action that discredits the profession.

Code of Ethics defined in ‘Members Handbook’ for members of ICAP Pakistan is in conformity with:

· IFAC Code of Ethics and International Auditing Standards

· International Accounting Standards

· The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Pakistan – ICAP

· Relevant legislation

[Ref: Members Handbook-ICAP]

This Code of Ethics has discussed in detail the role of Chartered Accountants in given situations. For example there are clear directives on prohibition of acceptance of gifts, long association with clients, advertising of firm’s name exceeding prescribed limits, holding client’s monies for no sound reason, disclosure of client’s records (except ones that are allowed), acceptance of fees offered by client which is less than that prevailing in market etc.

After discussing in detail the importance of ethics in accounting profession, we are to conclude the topic with this final note that accountancy as a profession is acceptable and relied upon only when ability to exercise professional judgment based on a foundation of ethics; broad but deep technical excellence and strategic awareness are exercised by a professional accountant. Only then general public can trust the integrity of this profession.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Legal issues in instructional technology are becoming more and more relevant as technology becomes more prevalent for delivering instruction. Potential legal issues include but are not limited to, freedom of speech, harassment, privacy, special education, plagiarism, copyright and fair use.

As the profession of Instructional Technology grows and expands in the digital era, there is an increase for potential problem and/or conflict areas. Reiser & Dempsey (2002) enumerate the following issues as possible legal areas of concern:

*
o Failure to develop and offer training which is mandated by the government can result in litigation initiated by the government.
o Taking material from the internet without getting consent, thereby violating copyright laws or intellectual property rights.
o Lawsuits resulting from comments made or material handed out during a training that are discriminatory (based on age, sex, race, ethnicity, etc).
o The injury of a trainee or employee who received the injury during a training if the training personnel were negligent in providing a safe training environment.
o Injury due to missing or incorrect information received by training materials.
o Possible lawsuits due to employees feeling that they were kept from promotions because they were denied access to the training which is necessary for the promotion.

Richard & Dempsey (2002) conclude that, “although we do not expect designer’s to be legal experts, each needs to be aware of general laws (e.g., those pertaining to sexual harassment) and the laws governing specific industries (e.g., those pertaining to the discharge of pollutants).” (p. 207).

Richey, R. C., & Morrison, G. R. (2002). Instructional design in business and industry. In Reiser, R.A., & Dempsey, J.V. (eds.), Trends and issues in instructional design and technology (p.207). Columbus, Ohio: Merrill Prentice Hall.

SOCIAL, LEGAL, AND ETHICAL ISSUES. Educational leaders understand the social, legal, and ethical issues related to technology and model responsible decision-making related to these issues. Educational leaders:

1. ensure equity of access to technology resources that enable and empower all learners and educators.
2. identify, communicate, model, and enforce social, legal, and ethical practices to promote responsible use of technology.
3. promote and enforce privacy, security, and online safety related to the use of technology.
4. promote and enforce environmentally safe and healthy practices in the use of technology.
5. participate in the development of policies that clearly enforce copyright law and assign ownership of intellectual property developed with district resources.

Similar standards have been published for teachers. These standards might be important part of legal issues.

The Legal Issues Of Engineering And Constructing A Microbrewery

In the engineering and construction of a microbrewery there are numerous areas where legal issues come into play from concept to completion. This article will attempt to outline some of the legal issues one must ponder while progressing through the entire engineering and construction process of a new 15 barrel (bbl) microbrewery. The process will be divided up into two distinct sections – engineering design and construction.

Let us begin the engineering design process with the owner’s concept: “I want you to design a 15 bbl microbrewery for me”. As an astute engineer, you know that you need a written contract. This written contract must clearly contain several elements in order to be valid. These elements are: competent parties, agreement (offer and acceptance), consideration, lawful purpose, and form. The competent parties would be the owner and you (or your engineering company). The agreement would be your offer to design and engineer the microbrewery, and his acceptance would indicate and agreement. The consideration would be that you receive a fee (for instructional purposes let’s say you charge a flat fee to design building plans that will be accepted by the permit office for construction. The owner’s consideration would be those completed building plans that are accepted by the permit office, thus being ready to use for construction. The contract must be for a lawful purpose, in this case, the design and engineering of a microbrewery. The form, of course, would be the written form outlining all of the above elements. Now, that the basic elements of the contract are known, you must now work with the owner to get some answers that will help you design this new microbrewery.

Since the microbrewery is going to be a 15 bbl system, you might need details like:

What is the maximum annual production capacity expected?

What type of beer will be produced (ale, lager, stout)?

How will the beer be packaged (bottles, cans, kegs)?

You are asking these questions because they are needed to determine the size of the facility, as well as what special items must be designed. For example, the owner says he wants to be able to brew and store three brews a week. Knowing this you now have to calculate enough space and equipment to handle a maximum annual capacity of 2250 barrels at 50 brewing weeks per year.

Calculation of Annual Production

System Size (Brewhouse Size) x Number of brews per week x 50 weeks per year = Annual Production 15 Barrels (bbls) x 3 brews/week x 50 weeks/year = 2250 bbls/year

The owner also says that he wishes to brew both ales and lagers – 50% ale production and 50% lager production. You also know that each type of brew has a different cycle for brewing, and thus you need a different amount of fermenters per type of beer.

Calculation of Number of Fermenters

2250 bbl Annual Production Capacity (50% Ale, 50% Lager)

14 Day Ales / 28 Day Lagers with full fermentation in fermenters Ales – 25 cycles / fermenter / year (50 brewing weeks / 2 week fermentation) Lagers – 12.5 cycles / fermenter / year (50 brewing weeks / 4 week fermentation)

Ales: 1125 bbls / year / (15 bbls x 25 cycles/year) = 3 Fermenters Lagers: 1125 bbls / year / (15 bbls x 12.5 cycles/year) = 6 Fermenters Total: 9 – (15 bbl) Fermenters to produce 1125 bbls Ales and 1125 bbls Lagers

This information will affect the dimensions of the microbrewery. You know that ales ferment ideally between 65 and 75 degree F, but you also know that lagers ferment below 65 degrees and must age longer in lager tanks, so you must add not only a “hot room” for brews but also a “cold room” for the lager tanks and dispenser tanks. The owner says that he wants to dispense the beers in ½ bbl kegs and 12 oz bottles. He also stipulates that he needs enough space to store a month’s worth of each type of container. So, based on this requirement you need to calculate the space required for the bottling and kegging machinery, as well as the storage space for a month supply of ½ bbl kegs and 12 oz bottles.

Of course, you will need to figure out the other requirements specific to the microbrewery, such as water needs, drainage, floor finish, electrical, ceiling heights, venting, loading and unloading areas, etc. Slowly but surely the picture of what needs to be designed is coming together. As an engineer, you will need to ask many questions, and get answers to those questions, so that you can clearly outline the specifications of what needs to be built in the contract. In addition, by getting these specifications in writing you are further eliminating any ambiguities there might be which could be used to not honor the contract, or which could be used against you if you must go to court to resolve a contract dispute.

After several weeks of hard work, you finish the project, submit the plans for approval, and they are approved. You present the approved plans to the owner as consideration for your services, and as consideration you are paid your fee.

After having been pleased with your design and engineering services, the owner now asks you to be the general contractor for the construction phase of the project. He asks you to supply him with a bid as soon as possible. You call your suppliers to get prices, availability, lead time for delivery, etc. You receive bids from subcontractors for the various trades (plumbing, electrical, HVAC, flooring, etc). You pick those subcontractors that you think best fit your needs.

In addition, you have done your due diligence by making sure all your subcontractors are licensed, that they are carrying their own forms of liability insurance, and that their workers will be covered in the event of injury. As a general contractor, you, of course, must also be licensed, possess liability insurance, surety bonds, workman’s compensation insurance, etc. These are all instruments that help protect you legally in the event that any liability or injury issues arise during the construction of the microbrewery.

When preparing the contract for the bid (and the job) you ensure that the specifications contain all of the critical elements such as: general provisions, the schedule of work, change order procedures, drawings, receipt and storage of materials, warranty on labor, warranty on materials, methods of payment, procedure for lien release, etc.

Once you have collected your information you submit your bid, and the owner accepts. Of course, there may be many different contracts involved here: the contract between the owner and you (the general contractor); the contracts between you and the subcontractors; and the contracts between you and your suppliers.

Finally, the first building supplies arrive, construction begins, and within several months, you and your team have constructed a new top-of-the-line microbrewery, adding value to the community, the nation’s economy, as well as putting a little money in your pocket.

Now, let’s review. Along the way there were several areas where you could have encountered potential legal pitfalls. In the engineer role, you made sure that the contract contained all of the elements necessary for it to be valid: competent parties, agreement (offer and acceptance), consideration, lawful purpose, and form. Also, based on the owner’s input, you made very detailed specifications of the microbrewery design and you put it in writing. This helped prevent any ambiguities between what the owner wanted and what you thought the owner wanted; furthermore, you put the design specifications in writing.

In the general contractor role, you had to deal with potential legal pitfalls involving the contract between you and the owner, you and your subcontractors, as well as you and you suppliers. You possibly had to encounter labor issues, liability issues, injuries, workman’s compensation insurance claims, incorrect building supply deliveries, theft or damage of materials or equipment on the job site, or maybe even attractive nuisance issues. Whatever you might have encountered as an engineer and as a general contractor you know that you are armed with the knowledge to jump over any legal issues you may encounter. It’s time to have a beer!

Michael Frick has worked his way through the ranks of the Information Technology field for the past 17 years, as IT Director, system coordinator, programmer, and linguist. He currently holds the title of President for a network engineering and application development company in Los Angeles, California. Before that, he had worked for the Drug Enforcement Administration, and had served several years in the Signals Intelligence/Ground Electronic Warfare field in the United States Marine Corps as a Signals Intelligence Cryptologic Technician. He brings his years of experience, as well as, his real world, common sense approach to consistently remain at the forefront of software development and deployment of contemporary business solutions. He is fluent in Spanish and is learning Japanese.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

In 2006 alone, approximately 161 billion gigabytes of digital content were created, stored, and shared around the world. This is equivalent to twelve stacks of books extending as high as the sun, or approximately six tons of books for every person on the earth (Gantz, 2008) [1] With the development of digital content occurring at these rates, educators need to think about digital media’s impact not only on student learning but also the legal issues that are connected with it. The goal of this wikibook is to provide school administrators and educators an overview of some of the legal issues relating to technology in K-12 school systems. In particular, an overview of some of the most common laws as well as some case studies will be provided.

The Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA)

The Children’s Internet Protection Act, known as CIPA [2],is a federal law enacted by Congress. The law was enacted to address concerns about minors having access to and being exposed to offensive content over the Internet.

The Neighborhood Children’s Internet Protection Act (N–CIPA), Sec. 1732 of CIPA, imposes certain types of requirements on any K-12 school or library receiving funding from the E-rate[3]program. Specifically, N-CIPA requires that any public school or library receiving E-rate discounts to develop and enforce an Internet Safety Policy (ISP). The policy must address harmful or inappropriate online activities. In particular, schools and libraries must have the following in place in order to receive discounts offered by the E-rate program:

~Technology protection measures to block or filter Internet access to pictures that are obscene, child pornography, or harmful to minors.

~An education program informing minors about appropriate online behavior. This must include information on cyber bullying as well as information about interacting with other individuals on social networking sites and in chat rooms.

~A policy in place to monitor online activities of minors.

~A policy that addresses the following: access by minors to inappropriate matter on the Internet; the safety and security of minors when using electronic mail, chat rooms, and other forms of direct electronic communications; unauthorized access, including so-called “hacking,” and other unlawful activities by minors online; unauthorized disclosure, use, and dissemination of personal information regarding minors; and restricting minors’ access to materials harmful to them. This policy is commonly referred to as an Acceptable Use Policy (AUP).

Education Law – 10 Things You Didn’t Know

Just like in the commercial world, the education sector is bound by laws and regulations. Schools, Colleges, University and other educational establishments are increasing having to rely on legal assistance in order to ensure that the law is adhered to, and to settle disputes.

Education Law solicitors can advise on all legal issues that affect the education sector. Here are 10 of the common issues that Education Law covers.

1. Generating Income

Schools and other educational establishments are looking at different ways to create more income. By complying with education laws, income, and return on investment can be maximised.

2. Compliance

Educational establishments need to comply with discrimination laws and other workers’ and pupils’ rights. Staff and pupils shouldn’t be discriminated against because of their gender, age, skin colour, race, religious beliefs, and sexuality, or for any other reason.

3. Special Eduational Needs

Schools that teach pupils with Special Educational Needs need to ensure that they are fully compliant with the relevant laws. Sometimes there are appeals and tribunals. And experienced Education Law professional can help either side to ensure that their voice is heard.

4. Grants and Loans

Some schools are fee paying schools, and so contracts will need to created and amended as necessary. In addition, grants and scholarships will need to be distributed evenly, and fairly. If there are any complaints or discrepancies, and Education Law solicitor will be able to help.

5. Interaction with the Private Sector

The education sector is looking at more ways of working with businesses, so that students and graduates have the relevant skills that businesses need. Education Laws ensure that the pupils are not exploited or undervalued.

6. Pupil Behaviour

Pupil behaviour has been increasingly in the news recently, and not always for the right reasons. From truancy to violence in the classroom, Education Law solicitors can advise either party to help achieve a suitable outcome.

7. Intellectual Property Rights

Computer and other technical work is more prevalent in schools and colleges nowadays, and the issue of Intellectual Property is increasingly important. Education Law can help advise on the legalities of work produced at school.

8. Students and Admissions

Popular schools, colleges and universities are often oversubscribed. This often leads to unhappy parents and pupils. Education Law can help ensure that all policies and procedures are followed properly, and that those who have not been admitted haven’t been discriminated against.

9. Land and Property

School, Colleges and Universities are increasingly either in need of more land and property, or trying to sell off unused land or property. Education Law makes sure that the acquisition or disposal of land and property is done properly.

10. Accidents at School

Unfortunately accidents at school do happen, and these can sometimes be serious. Pupils and staff have a right to expect that the school buildings and equipment is safe, and there could be grounds for compensation. Accidents whilst at school could include any slips or trips in the playground, or on the sports pitch, as well as incidents in the chemistry laboratory or on a geography field trip. Education Law solicitors help to ensure that cases are dealt with properly.

Now you know more about it, if you are involved in Education, how could an Education Law solicitor be able to help you?

The Believer’s Guide To Legal Issues By Stephen Bloom

Biblical Principles For Christians Facing Legal Issues

Stephen Bloom provides astute counsel to Christian families in “The Believer’s Guide to Legal Issues.” I found myself quickly engrossed in Stephen’s practical counsel, examples, illustrations, and his solid stand on Biblical principles when facing legal issues so prevalent in society today.

The chapters are made up of several parts. Each chapter begins with two fictional vignettes reflecting life lessons and more life lessons, Biblical insights, concluding with practical counsel. Individual sections complement each other and integrate Biblical principles with present-day legal issues.

Each chapter covers a unique sector of the law. The reader may identify with any or all of the fictional illustrations presented. We have all experienced similar incidents in one or more of the issues addressed. I personally found the chapters dealing with estate planning, the living trust, the living will, and the Medicaid planning, a revelation.

The final chapter presents the message of the Gospel as an invitation from God to accept His offer in terms of a contract. The message is clearly and simply and shows how the contract illustrates the offer and the opportunity to accept the offer – an exchange of promises. This is a beautiful word picture of salvation.

Stephen L. Bloom a practicing attorney, popular speaker, and adjunct instructor at Messiah College is well qualified to author this book. The scope of his experience in church, community, and ministry organizations give him the additional credence to offer related spiritual counsel.

“The Believer’s Guide To Legal Issues” provide the reader with counsel in legal matters, is an important and timely reminder of the importance of integrity, ethics in business, and observing wisdom in making sound decisions that hold fast to Biblical principles in civil and criminal law. Stephan Bloom clearly articulates sound advice and Biblical principles for Christians facing legal issues.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Support for sending faxes over VoIP implementations is still limited. The existing voice codecs are not designed for fax transmission; they are designed to digitize an analog representation of a human voice efficiently. However, the inefficiency of digitizing an analog representation (modem signal) of a digital representation (a document image) of analog data (an original document) more than negates any bandwidth advantage of VoIP. In other words, the fax “sounds” simply don’t fit in the VoIP channel. An alternative IP-based solution for delivering fax-over-IP called T.38 is available.

The T.38 protocol is designed to work like a traditional fax machine and can work using several configurations. The fax machine could be a traditional fax machine connected to the PSTN, or an ATA box (or similar). It could be a fax machine with an RJ-45 connector plugged straight into an IP network, or it could be a computer pretending to be a fax machine. [54] Originally, T.38 was designed to use UDP and TCP transmission methods across an IP network. The main difference between using UDP and TCP methods for a FAX is the real time streaming attributes. TCP is better suited for use between two IP devices. However, older fax machines, connected to an analog system, benefit from UDP near real-time characteristics[citation needed].

There have been updated versions of T.30 to resolve the fax over IP issues, which is the core fax protocol. Some new fax machines have T.38 built-in capabilities which allow the user to plug right into the network with minimal configuration changes[citation needed]. A unique feature of T.38 is that each packet contains a copy of the main data in the previous packet. This is an option and most implementations seem to support it. This forward error correction scheme makes T.38 far more tolerant of dropped packets than VoIP[citation needed]. With T.38, two successive lost packets are needed to actually lose any data. The data you lose will only be a small piece, but with the right settings and error correction mode, there is a high probability that you will receive the whole transmission.

Tweaking the settings on the T.30 and T.38 protocols could also turn your unreliable fax into a robust machine[citation needed]. Some fax machines pause at the end of a line to allow the paper feed to catch up. This is good news for packets that were lost or delayed because it gives them a chance to catch up. However, were this to happen on every line, your fax transmittal would take a long time. Another possible solution is to treat the fax system as a message switching system, which does not need a real-time data transmission (such as sending a fax as an email attachment (see Fax) or remote printout (see Internet Printing Protocol)). The end system can completely buffer the incoming fax data before displaying or printing the fax image.

Another challenge for VoIP implementations is the proper handling of outgoing calls from other telephony devices such as DVR boxes, satellite television receivers, alarm systems, conventional modems and other similar devices that depend on access to a PSTN telephone line for some or all of their functionality.

These types of calls sometimes complete without any problems, but in other cases they fail. If VoIP and cellular substitution becomes very popular, some ancillary equipment makers may be forced to redesign equipment, because it would no longer be possible to assume a conventional PSTN telephone line would be available in consumer’s homes.

Legal issues
Ambox content.png
This article is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. WikiProject Law or the Law Portal may be able to help recruit one. (November 2008)

As the popularity of VoIP grows, and PSTN users switch to VoIP in increasing numbers, governments are becoming more interested in regulating VoIP in a manner similar to PSTN services,

Another legal issue that the U.S. Congress is debating concerns changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The issue in question is calls between Americans and foreigners. The National Security Agency (NSA) isn’t authorized to tap Americans’ conversations without a warrant—but the Internet, and specifically voice over Internet protocol, or VoIP, doesn’t draw as clear a line to the location of a caller or a call’s recipient as the traditional phone system does.[56] As VoIP’s low cost and flexibility convinces more and more organizations to adopt the technology, the line separating the NSA’s ability to snoop on phone calls will only get blurrier. VoIP technology has also increased security concerns because VoIP and similar technologies have made it more difficult for the government to determine where a target is physically located when communications are being intercepted, and that creates a whole set of new legal challenges.

In the U.S., the Federal Communications Commission now requires all interconnected VoIP service providers to comply with requirements comparable to those for traditional telecommunications service providers. VoIP operators in the U.S. are required to support local number portability; make service accessible to people with disabilities; pay regulatory fees, universal service contributions, and other mandated payments; and enable law enforcement authorities to conduct surveillance pursuant to the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA). “Interconnected” VoIP operators also must provide Enhanced 911 service, disclose any limitations on their E-911 functionality to their consumers, and obtain affirmative acknowledgements of these disclosures from all consumers. VoIP operators also receive the benefit of certain U.S. telecommunications regulations, including an entitlement to interconnection and exchange of traffic with incumbent local exchange carriers via wholesale carriers. Providers of “nomadic” VoIP service — those who are unable to determine the location of their users — are exempt from state telecommunications regulation.

Throughout the developing world, countries where regulation is weak or captured by the dominant operator, restrictions on the use of VoIP are imposed, including in Panama where VoIP is taxed, Guyana where VoIP is prohibited and India where its retail commercial sales is allowed but only for long distance service.[61] In Ethiopia, where the government is monopolizing telecommunication service, it is a criminal offense to offer services using VoIP. The country has installed firewalls to prevent international calls being made using VoIP. These measures were taken after a popularity in VoIP reduced the income generated by the state owned telecommunication company.

In the European Union, the treatment of VoIP service providers is a decision for each Member State’s national telecoms regulator, which must use competition law to define relevant national markets and then determine whether any service provider on those national markets has “significant market power” (and so should be subject to certain obligations). A general distinction is usually made between VoIP services that function over managed networks (via broadband connections) and VoIP services that function over unmanaged networks (essentially, the Internet).

VoIP services that function over managed networks are often considered to be a viable substitute for PSTN telephone services (despite the problems of power outages and lack of geographical information); as a result, major operators that provide these services (in practice, incumbent operators) may find themselves bound by obligations of price control or accounting separation.

VoIP services that function over unmanaged networks are often considered to be too poor in quality to be a viable substitute for PSTN services; as a result, they may be provided without any specific obligations, even if a service provider has “significant market power”.

The relevant EU Directive is not clearly drafted concerning obligations which can exist independently of market power (e.g., the obligation to offer access to emergency calls), and it is impossible to say definitively whether VoIP service providers of either type are bound by them. A review of the EU Directive is under way and should be complete by 2007.

In India, it is legal to use VoIP, but it is illegal to have VoIP gateways inside India. This effectively means that people who have PCs can use them to make a VoIP call to any number, but if the remote side is a normal phone, the gateway that converts the VoIP call to a POTS call should not be inside India.

In the UAE, it is illegal to use any form of VoIP, to the extent that Web sites of Skype and Gizmo5 are blocked.

In the Republic of Korea, only providers registered with the government are authorized to offer VoIP services. Unlike many VoIP providers, most of whom offer flat rates, Korean VoIP services are generally metered and charged at rates similar to terrestrial calling. Foreign VoIP providers such as Vonage encounter high barriers to government registration. This issue came to a head in 2006 when Internet service providers providing personal Internet services by contract to United States Forces Korea members residing on USFK bases threatened to block off access to VoIP services used by USFK members of as an economical way to keep in contact with their families in the United States, on the grounds that the service members’ VoIP providers were not registered. A compromise was reached between USFK and Korean telecommunications officials in January 2007, wherein USFK service members arriving in Korea before June 1, 2007 and subscribing to the ISP services provided on base may continue to use their U.S.-based VoIP subscription, but later arrivals must use a Korean-based VoIP provider, which by contract will offer pricing similar to the flat rates offered by U.S. VoIP providers.

Handling Correspondence With Other Parties

Mail moves the country, and zip codes move the mail–well, perhaps not anymore. Nevertheless, most messages you receive, whether in the form of email, faxes, or memos, require your response. The faster and more easily you reply, the better your day, week, career, and life will be–and the more you’ll be in control of your time. There are many options available to you for speedily handling reply messages.

What Do You Want to Send and Why?

If you’re in sale or a type of position where you initiate contact with potential customers or clients, then your mail and messages are pro-active in nature. You’re sending information or literature designed to get another party interested in what you can offer them in the way of goods or services. It’s likely that the majority of the information and messages you send to others represents a response to a request they’ve made, or an obligation that you need to fulfill.

Handling Correspondence Quickly

Many times the correspondence you’d like to promptly address falls by the wayside; you have to care for too many other things. A key time-saving element when responding to messages is this: When a response doesn’t require formal business protocol (i.e. when you know the other party well), or the item only merits brief regard, there are many ways to handle the correspondence quickly.

1. Some people use preprinted messages such as, “Excuse the informality, but I feel it’s more important to respond promptly than to offer a more formal reply that would take much longer.”

Ask people how they feel when they receive such replies, and the vast majority will agree that they’d rather get a quick, informal response that answers their question, than wait weeks for a formal response.

2. Retain the return address information on the envelopes from the mail you receive. Thereafter, you can use their addresses as your address label back to them, and avoid having to engage your printer, copier, or label paper. Such addresses can be clipped or torn out with a ruler’s edge.

When I receive a package from someone, I clip the label from their envelope and attach it to the documents that came inside with a big paper clip or removable tape. When I’m ready to make a response, the address label party is already available.

Often, when you cannot get a reply from others, it is because they are overwhelmed–they have not devised systems for readily responding to the information and messages they receive. Often their failure to respond in a timely manner (or at all) has little to do with the merit of your request. It is a result of their personal ineffectiveness or their organization’s ineffectiveness.

3. Order a rubber stamper from your office supply store that says “Speed Reply.” I have such a stamper. It’s over sized and prints in bright red. When you receive a letter that merits a quick reply, stamp it with “speed reply,” and offer your reply on the space at the bottom of the letter. Alternatively, you could print labels that say “speed reply” and affix them to the page.

Deep, bold, red ink appears as black when submitted via fax machine, so you have the option of faxing the letter. You could even copy and mail the letter. Such techniques enable you to get a reply to the other party quickly, and give you a record of the correspondence that’s been transmitted. Such a response is helpful to the recipient as well, because it simultaneously presents their message and your reply. Think of how many times you have written to someone, and they responded, but you can’t recall why you initiated the correspondence.

4. If you’re mailing a response to another party, insert one of your own address labels. This helps the other party keep in touch with you. I enclose my address label with nearly all correspondence I mail. If you anticipate more contact with the other party, you may even want to include extra address labels.

Thereafter, you’ll begin to happily notice that you receive replies from the other party more promptly, and that they’re using the address labels you had provided them. This tells you that they’ve bought into your system. You’ve successfully trained a correspondent to be more adept at communicating with you, so now both you and the other party benefit.

5. Order a rubber stamp or create a label that facilitates your fax replies as well. Such a stamper or label would include your name, phone, and fax number. You would stamp or affix this label on the correspondence you receive. This works well and avoids using the recipient’s fax paper.

When you receive faxes from a free-standing fax machine, half the time the other party uses up a full page announcing that a fax is coming, then uses another page to send you a six or eight line message. The whole communication could have taken one-third of a page.

When you initiate a labeling system, you let the other party know that you respect their time and resources. Also, you keep your costs down. It costs far less for a third or half a faxed page to go over the wires than two pages.

If you’re using a fax modem, the same principles apply. Keep your fax identification information concise and near the top of the first page. Keep your message brief. This keeps your transmission costs down and actually increases the chances of a response. Many of your correspondents already get too many messages, and they’re most likely to answer those that are brief and concise.

6. For longer hard copy correspondence, use the back side of the page you receive. Make a copy of the front and back for your own hard copy files, if necessary. Sometimes you can consolidate the correspondence you’ve received, thereby consolidating the correspondence you send. If someone sends you a two-page letter, but you only need to respond to one key paragraph, clip that paragraph, include it at the top of your transmission, and offer your reply below.

7. Feel free to number the points in the correspondence you’ve received, and address each point in your reply. This will cut down on the time and energy it takes for you to offer a reply. Otherwise, you get stuck having to write, “Based on your statement in paragraph two… you said XYZ, I feel that… QRS. In paragraph four you stated that… JKL.”

When you number the points in the correspondence you receive, you can usually address everything in one page. While business and organizational protocol may often call for formal responses, your mission is to attempt to offer as many informal responses as you can. Formal responses that take two pages or more, require copy-editing. Also, when becoming immersed in such long- winded correspondence, the time is sucked out of your day and life.

8. Be on the lookout for ways to combine your fax machine or fax modem, printer, and copier, to quickly and efficiently generate appropriate responses to messages you receive, rather than letting correspondence pile up.

9. Design forms to handle routine communication. Better yet, see if someone in your office has already created such a form, or assign the task to someone. Many office supply stores carry books with pre-designed correspondence forms. They’re well worth the $10-15, since you’re likely to save enough time the first day you use such forms to more than justify the purchase.

Too many career professionals today indicate that they need more time to get their jobs done. This kind of thinking keeps you enslaved to the clock. More time is not on its way, nor is it the solution, if you’re not already operating efficiently.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Caller ID and Blocking Calls With MagicJack – Yes, There Are Some Easy and Free Solutions

When I look over the statistics and see the Google search terms for my blog, one of the larger keyword phrases I see is “how to use MagicJack with call blocking or caller ID.” And I’ve good news and bad news. Officially, MagicJack does have caller ID and doesn’t have call blocking. But there are a few nifty free tricks you can easily do to have those functions.

Since caller ID is the easiest let’s do that first. MagicJack essentially keeps a log of all incoming (and outgoing) calls. And basically you just need to label the numbers. Once the numbers are labeled whenever you get a call from the number again you’ll be able to identify the caller. So there you go “caller ID.” It’s easy, but a little bit of a speed bump. I think the real thing people want is the ability to identify “unknown callers.” Guess what though? If the person calling you has chosen to hide their number you wouldn’t be able to see it anyway. So back to square one no matter what phone service you use.

But I understand where all this leads; getting calls from unknown callers makes you want something to block them. And again, “regular” phone companies aren’t really furnishing this service as much as they used to. I remember in the 90’s being able to get call blocking and then the phone companies seemed to have stopped offering it and started giving out a “if the caller is harassing you fill out a police report, send that to us and we’ll block the number” solution. I don’t know why but the phone companies just wouldn’t do it, or if they did not without a substantial fee. Internet based phone companies like MagicJack and Vonage aren’t offering the service either. I was with Vonage for five solid years and no matter how much we complained they just wouldn’t do it.

To the rescue comes a couple of internet solutions. The best solution to block calls is and (at the same time) isn’t available. It used to be called Grand Central. They issue you a phone number and you link it up to all your personal phone numbers. The phone number they give you acts as a first line of defense; you can then block incoming calls, reroute them to your a number of choice, or send them to voicemail. Again, it’s free. But currently it’s being rebuilt as “Google Voice.” I strongly urge MagicJack users, and really everybody, to sign up for a Google Alert to let you know when the service goes live again. In March of 2009 they announced they were nearly ready. And coupled with a service like MagicJack which is only 20 dollars a year (or a dollar a month if you use it the way I do) it’s the most powerful and inexpensive phone/voicemail/texting combination you can get.

Until Google Voice is available I recommend that you get a free piece of software called “PhoneTray.” It will work with your computer’s modem to act as a first line defense with incoming calls. Among the many features it can do for free is it can also block calls. So in just a few minutes you can have a system that will give you a lot of peace.

Caller ID Spoofing and You

Caller ID Spoofing is the practice of masking your phone number when calling someone with a Caller ID service on their phone line. It is the process of displaying a spurious phone number for the purpose of deceiving the receiver of the call. It is a malicious term and the process throws the value of Caller ID as a paid service in question. If I could not be sure which calls were accurately read by Caller ID and how many had been spoofed, I would not want to pay the $12.95 the land line companies routinely charge for Caller ID on your home phone.

How the service works is that you pay the Spoofing service a price for a personal identification number that lets you into their site and make a call for a prescribed length of time. The customer dials into the system and enters the PIN that he purchased. Then the customer enters the number he wants to show up on the recipient’s Caller ID. Once entered into the system, the call is placed and the chosen number shows up on the recipient’s phone and the chances of them picking up have greatly increased. If you are planning on doing this on a regular basis, many providers give you what amounts to a calling card for you to dial into the system from anywhere.

Some collection agencies have gone to this service to reach more accounts that would not normally answer the phone. I think this is a rather deceptive practice and should be legislated against. I understand that the Senate attempted to pass a bill outlawing the use of spoofed Caller ID to curb unethical practices and dangerous situations caused by prank calls or threatening calls. The bill never made it to the floor for a vote. Law enforcement would have been exempt.

There are many legitimate uses of the service as businesses have used it when making calls when out of the office so that their business name and number show when reaching clients or other business contacts. Commercial phone forwarding services will show the originating Caller ID information so that the recipient knows where the call is originating from. Many calling card companies display the name of the calling card user to recipient Caller IDs. Caller ID Spoofing has been around since Caller ID was invented. Businesses that had ISDN PRI lines wanted their main number to show when making outbound calls. Since the PRI lines could have up to twenty three unique lines, there needed to be a way for the main number to display on Caller ID. This method was the first Caller ID Spoofing.

Services for individuals to spoof Caller ID were first introduced in 2005. Up until then the service had been available for law enforcement and private investigators. There are now sites that will allow you to alter your voice when making a spoofed Caller ID call. It seems like a great deal of work to keep your identity secret. I guess if you just want to prank someone then it would be a good service to use.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

The nature of IP makes it difficult to locate network users geographically. Emergency calls, therefore, cannot easily be routed to a nearby call center. Sometimes, VoIP systems may route emergency calls to a non-emergency phone line at the intended department. In the United States, at least one major police department has strongly objected to this practice as potentially endangering the public.

A fixed line phone has a direct relationship between a telephone number and a physical location. A telephone number represents one pair of wires that links a location to the telephone company’s exchange. Once a line is connected, the telephone company stores the home address that relates to the wires, and this relationship will rarely change. If an emergency call comes from that number, then the physical location is known.

In the IP world it is not so simple. A broadband provider may know the location where the wires terminate, but this does not necessarily allow the mapping of an IP address to that location. IP addresses are often dynamically assigned, so the ISP may allocate an address for online access, or at the time a broadband router is engaged. The ISP recognizes individual IP addresses, but does not necessarily know what physical location to which it corresponds. The broadband service provider knows the physical location, but is not necessarily tracking the IP addresses in use.

There are more complications, since IP allows a great deal of mobility. For example, a broadband connection can be used to dial a virtual private network that is employer-owned. When this is done, the IP address being used will belong to the range of the employer, rather than the address of the ISP, so this could be many kilometres away or even in another country. To provide another example: if mobile data is used, e.g., a 3G mobile handset or USB wireless broadband adapter, then the IP address has no relationship with any physical location, since a mobile user could be anywhere that there is network coverage, even roaming via another cellular company.

In short, there is no relationship between IP address and physical location, so the address itself reveals no useful information for the emergency services.

At the VoIP level, a phone or gateway may identify itself with a SIP registrar by using a username and password. So in this case, the Internet Telephony Service Provider (ITSP) knows that a particular user is online, and can relate a specific telephone number to the user. However, it does not recognize how that IP traffic was engaged. Since the IP address itself does not necessarily provide location information presently, today a “best efforts” approach is to use an available database to find that user and the physical address the user chose to associate with that telephone number—clearly an imperfect solution.

VoIP Enhanced 911 (E911) is another method by which VoIP providers in the United States are able to support emergency services. The VoIP E911 emergency-calling system associates a physical address with the calling party’s telephone number as required by the Wireless Communications and Public Safety Act of 1999. All “interconnected” VoIP providers (those that provide access to the PSTN system) are required to have E911 available to their customers.[32] VoIP E911 service generally adds an additional monthly fee to the subscriber’s service per line, similar to analog phone service. Participation in E911 is not required and customers can opt-out or disable E911 service on their VoIP lines, if desired. VoIP E911 has been successfully used by many VoIP providers to provide physical address information to emergency service operators.

One shortcoming of VoIP E911 is that the emergency system is based on a static table lookup. Unlike in cellular phones, where the location of an E911 call can be traced using Assisted GPS or other methods, the VoIP E911 information is only accurate so long as subscribers are diligent in keeping their emergency address information up-to-date. In the United States, the Wireless Communications and Public Safety Act of 1999 leaves the burden of responsibility upon the subscribers and not the service providers to keep their emergency information up to date.

With the current separation of the Internet and the PSTN, a certain amount of redundancy is provided. An Internet outage does not necessarily mean that a voice communication outage will occur simultaneously, allowing individuals to call for emergency services and many businesses to continue to operate normally. In situations where telephone services become completely reliant on the Internet infrastructure, a single-point failure can isolate communities from all communication, including Enhanced 911 and equivalent services in other locales.

Local number portability (LNP) and Mobile number portability (MNP) also impact VoIP business. In November 2007, the Federal Communications Commission in the United States released an order extending number portability obligations to interconnected VoIP providers and carriers that support VoIP providers.[34] Number portability is a service that allows a subscriber to select a new telephone carrier without requiring a new number to be issued. Typically, it is the responsibility of the former carrier to “map” the old number to the undisclosed number assigned by the new carrier. This is achieved by maintaining a database of numbers. A dialed number is initially received by the original carrier and quickly rerouted to the new carrier. Multiple porting references must be maintained even if the subscriber returns to the original carrier. The FCC mandates carrier compliance with these consumer-protection stipulations.

A voice call originating in the VoIP environment also faces challenges to reach its destination if the number is routed to a mobile phone number on a traditional mobile carrier. VoIP has been identified in the past as a Least Cost Routing (LCR) system, which is based on checking the destination of each telephone call as it is made, and then sending the call via the network that will cost the customer the least.[35] This rating is subject to some debate given the complexity of call routing created by number portability. With GSM number portability now in place, LCR providers can no longer rely on using the network root prefix to determine how to route a call. Instead, they must now determine the actual network of every number before routing the call.

Therefore, VoIP solutions also need to handle MNP when routing a voice call. In countries without a central database, like the UK, it might be necessary to query the GSM network about which home network a mobile phone number belongs to. As the popularity of VoIP increases in the enterprise markets because of least cost routing options, it needs to provide a certain level of reliability when handling calls.

MNP checks are important to assure that this quality of service is met. By handling MNP lookups before routing a call and by assuring that the voice call will actually work, VoIP service providers are able to offer business subscribers the level of reliability they require.

In countries such as Singapore, the most recent Mobile number portability solution is expected to open the doors to new business opportunities for non-traditional telecommunication service providers like wireless broadband providers and voice over IP (VoIP) providers.

What the Best VOIP Phone Can Do For You

These days, we are blessed with a lot of technological advancements that make life easier for us. Instead of having to spend more time and energy in something, there are various kinds of inventions and gadgets that cut the hours as well as the efforts we put into something. One example is in terms of communication. Instead of having to deal with snail mail, we can now reach other people faster and effortlessly with the use of the internet, electronic mails, chat messages and even mobile phones. Another great thing that makes the modern world a better world to live in is the VOIP or the Voice over Internet Protocol phone. The best VOIP phone has made life and communication easier and more convenient. Let us look into the many ways how.

1. You do not need to limit yourself with traditional phone lines and even mobile phones.

You do not need to have the usual telephone or even a mobile phone just to contact other people using Voice over Internet Protocol. All you need is a VOIP phone and you are good to go with any type of calls.

2. You can connect with friends, family and all your loved ones using a VOIP telephone easily.

You can call your loved ones, your friends and you family easily. You do not need to learn any special procedure nor do you need any kind of technical knowledge. You can use a VOIP phone just the way you use an ordinary phone. You can even choose to have wired or wireless phones.

3. The cost of using the best VOIP phone is a mere fraction of what you have to pay for mobile phones or even ordinary phone charges.

If you are tired of paying for your mobile phone monthly charges or if you seem unsatisfied with your home phone service, then you can easily switch to VOIP. The great news is that this change can bring you more savings as you only get to pay a very small fraction of what used to be your home phone or mobile phone bill.

4. You can even go mobile with VOIP.

Currently, there are VOIP telephone models which can go mobile. This means that you can bring along your phone almost anywhere yet not be charged as high as the usual mobile phone rates. Imagine not having to pay as much while you can still have the same advantage as cellular phones.

5. You can say goodbye to expensive long distance and international charges and save lots of money in the process.

You can save a lot of money with this type of phone as you no longer have to pay any kind of expensive long distance charges or even international call rates. You can choose to have a package that fits your budget without limiting the kind of calls you make.

Imagine being able to take advantage of all these benefits when you have the best VOIP phone handset and service. Imagine not only the ease and the convenience but also all the savings that you are sure to accumulate over time.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

An IP phone uses Voice over IP technologies allowing telephone calls to be made over an IP network such as the internet instead of the ordinary PSTN system. Calls can traverse the Internet, or a private IP Network such as that of a company. The phones use control protocols such as Session Initiation Protocol, Skinny Client Control Protocol or one of various proprietary protocols such as that used by Skype. IP phones can be simple software-based Softphones or purpose-built hardware devices that appear much like an ordinary telephone or a cordless phone. There also exist the possibility to reuse ordinary PSTN phones as IP phones, with analog telephony adapters (ATA).

It may have many features an analog phone doesn’t support, such as e-mail-like IDs for contacts that may be easier to remember than names or phone numbers.

Hardware of a stand alone IP phone
Hardware-based IP phone

The overall hardware may look like a telephone or mobile phone. An IP phone has the following hardware components.

* Speaker/ear phone and microphone
* Key pad/touch pad to enter phone number and text (not used for ATAs).
* Display hardware to feedback user input and show caller-id/messages (not used for ATAs).
* General purpose processor (GPP) to process application messages.
* A voice engine or a Digital signal processor to process RTP messages. Some IC manufacturers provides GPP and DSP in single chip.
* ADC and DAC converters: To convert voice to digital data and vice versa.
* Ethernet or wireless network hardware to send and receive messages on data network.
* Power source might be a battery or DC source. Some IP phones receive electricity from Power over ethernet.For wireless IP phones

Voice Over IP Phone Systems

When you are speaking about Voice Over IP Phone systems, you need to know what a VoIP is and what it does before you can deal with the systems and phones that use this particular protocol. VoIP is short for Voice over Internet Protocol. This is a very general term that defines Voice technologies for use over the internet. This basically means that all communications are done through the internet as opposed to a land based communications system. The development of the market started in 2004 and gives you three ways to connect such as softphone, VoIP phones and ATA. For this article, we will be speaking about VoIP.

VoIP Phone systems are becoming more popular in recent years. The VoIP protocol doesn’t use the standard landline, so the trouble with phone lines is eliminated. You can, with the proper telephone setup, receive crystal clear communications. So what kind of a VoIP protocol phone should you use? The answer to that is pretty much dependent upon your needs for the VoIP such as business needs. One thing to bear in mind is that using this protocol can be connected and used in two or more different locations.

Another vital item of importance when dealing with VoIP is that phone costs are much lower than traditional landlines. If you are looking for particular models to use in your business, one of the VoIP telephone systems that you may want to consider is the Linksys SPA9000. This unit can be used for either a small business or home office. This model is listed as having 4 compatible phones per unit and works with most Internet Service Providers. This uses the VoIP technology to the fullest with features such as intercom, call forwarding, auto attendant and shared lines.

There are other VoIP telephones that can be used in running a business cost effectively by using this protocol. If you wish a smaller phone for the capabilities, then the Avaya 4602 is one that you may be interested in. This unit has 9 fixed feature keys, 2 lines and a 24 character display which is also compatible with Microsoft Netmeeting. If you have a bigger office, then a Wave IP 500 system may be the best choice for you. This system works by allowing selectively run applications, supporting thousands of sites and provides the core applications that you need for business.

In conclusion, using the Voice over IP Phone systems is a cost saving measure that doesn’t tie up landlines, lowers costs and provides better service than with regular landlines. There are many different types of this type of protocol in many different phone sets for large or small businesses. The cost savings can be passed on to the business in lower communications costs. The bottom line is that by utilizing the newer technology of the VoIP, you not only can do more, but you can also do more for less and not sacrifice communications quality by using this technology in place of existing telephone lines.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) recording is a subset of telephone recording or voice logging, first used by call centers and now being used by all types of businesses. There are many reasons for recording VoIP call traffic such as: reducing company vulnerability to lawsuits by maintaining recorded evidence, complying with laws, increasing security, employee training and performance reviews, verifying data, sharing data as well as customer satisfaction and enhancing call center agent morale.

Since VoIP calls travel digitally on computer networks rather than telecom cables, VoIP recording is done by tapping into the computer network rather than phone lines. Usually this is done by connecting to a router, switch, hub on the network, or through the PC attached to the VoIP phone. One way of doing this is by connecting to the SPAN (Switched Port ANalyzer) port which allows the VoIP recording unit to monitor all network traffic and pick out only the VoIP traffic to record. This is usually done by connecting an Ethernet cable being between the VoIP recording unit and the router, switch, or hub. Via the SPAN port, the recorder will “sniff” for signaling and RTP (Real Time Protocol) packets that have the identifying information contained in the headers of the packets is designated to record. There are two main ways to capture the RTP packets with the SPAN port. You can SPAN the VoIP Gateway port, giving you all the in/out bound traffic and offers one point of contact for recording. This is especially helpful in a campus with phones in multiple locations across the campus. However this method cannot capture internal, peer-to-peer (phone to phone) calls because their VoIP traffic is sent directly between the phones and doesn’t flow through the gateway port. The other method is to set up a VLAN (Virtual LAN) and include all the phones within the VLAN. Then SPAN that VLAN. This will allow recording all in/out bound traffic and internal traffic. The disadvantage is that not all phones at times are on a VLAN or the same VLAN, so multiple SPANS are needed. Another method is to use a concept called RSPAN (remote SPAN), in which the VLAN’s that are set to SPAN are trunked across switches to a receiving switch.

VoIP is usually implemented as a cost saving measure over POTS (Plain old telephone systems). The same holds true now for VoIP recording. Most recording vendors are able to record the various standards of VoIP such as G.711, G.729a/b and G.723 and software only solutions as compared to the intensive hardware and software associated with legacy PBX recording.

Today, most of the VoIP vendors are offering VoIP recording methods specific to their VoIP call and communications management servers. These vendors are offering what is referred to as active VoIP recording where the recording vendor’s solution becomes an “active” participant within the call for recording purposes. This offers a great deal of advantages for deploying VoIP phones and recording. Some of the advantages are the flexibility to record anywhere within the VoIP network, the ability to record encrypted calls and various recording methods such as record on demand, stop recording and save last call to name a few.

VoIP Recording

VoIP mean Voice over Internet Protocol. By using this facility peoples can contact each other within and out side the organization. But the thing is that it works within the limit of the IP network reaches. Nowadays VoIP becomes popular between peoples. The main reason for this is that the low cost and the cost per call is very less than the normal phone service. Many peoples have doubts about its functionality and reliability. But it is simple to use and reliable. Now most of the companies are looking to VoIP network. They are looking to combine the voice network and data network into a common network.

There may be problems for this service when net connection failure happens. But the chance is very rare. The features of VoIP service are the phone and software that are using in this service have the facility of call recording, call waiting, and conference calling. In call holding facility you can hold up to five or six lines depends on your phone. This has call conference facilities also. The call conference feature makes us to talk with friends together or family members. This is a good feature. Like a family or friends meeting itself you can talk through the phone. VoIP recording facility enables you to record your phone conversations and you can hear it later you want.

Because of the reliability and service and the lower cost, the VoIP service are getting good response from peoples. You will get the voice recording equipment and normal phone facility in a single unit. So make your VoIP service from today itself.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

VoIP software is used to conduct telephone-like voice conversations across Internet Protocol (IP) based networks. VoIP stands for “Voice over IP”. For residential markets, VoIP phone service is often cheaper than traditional public switched telephone network (PSTN) service and can remove geographic restrictions to telephone numbers (i.e. have a “New York” PSTN phone number in Tokyo).

For enterprise or business markets, VoIP enables the enterprise to manage a single network (the IP network) instead of separate voice and data networks, while enabling advanced and flexible capabilities to the end user.

Softphones are end-user–based clients for initiating and receiving voice and video communications over the IP network with the standard functionality of most “original” telephones and usually allow integration with IP phones and USB phones instead of utilizing a computer’s microphone and speakers (or headset). Most softphone clients run on the open Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) supporting various codecs. Skype runs on a closed proprietary network. Online “Chat” programs now also incorporate voice and video communications.

Other VoIP software applications include conferencing servers, intercom systems, virtual FXOs and adapted telephony software which concurrently support VoIP and PSTN like IVR systems, dial in dictation, on hold and call recording servers.

Voip Hardware And Voip Software – Do I Really Need Both?

The popularity of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is increasing in popularity. Those who use their computers for virtually everything can now also use them to make and receive telephone calls. Many providers of residential VoIP services offer competitive packages, excellent customer service, and features that you already receive with your traditional phone service provider. In order to use residential VoIP services you need to have a high-speed Internet connection. If you have a slower connection, the quality of your calls greatly diminishes. You will also need a modem and adapter that connects your phone line to your computer. The majority of VoIP services provide this in their packages.

There are two different types of VoIP for residential use: hardware VoIP and software VoIP. The primary difference is that with hardware VoIP you will need an adapter to connect your phone to your computer. With software VoIP, you install a special program for making and receiving calls with your computer. Whether you use hardware VoIP or software VoIP it is certain you will save money over using your traditional phone service.

Software VoIP works well if you were going to occasional use it or if you were traveling. You can have it installed on your laptop and take it with you. You can make calls from anywhere with your home number. Another benefit of software VoIP is that you can get very low International rates. Most providers of this type of service allow you to download the software free once you have established an account with them. All you need for this type of service is a computer with a sound card, speakers, and a microphone. With most services, all calls made within the network are free and you only pay for calls made outside the network.

Hardware VoIP looks much like your traditional phone as you use can use your phone. You connect your phone line into an adapter, which then connects to the computer. This type of plan typically offers limited calling plans throughout the United States and Canada or unlimited calling features.

Remember that residential VoIP services run on electricity so it would be wise to have a back-up plan in case the power went out. Do not sign a contract without fully understanding the charges that apply. Carefully review the plans that are offered and no whether you will pay a penalty if you decide to cancel the service. Check to see if there is an installment fee or fee for the equipment. Once you have decided on your residential VoIP provider – enjoy the new world of making calls from your computer.

VOIP Software Guide 101

Planning to go to a telephone booth or buy a card to make a long distance call but hesitant to spend so much money! Now scrap off your worries and adopt the VOIP service. VOIP is the commonly known abbreviation of Voice Over Internet Protocol. VOIP enables you to make calls worldwide via your Internet connection. Basically VOIP is a category of software and hardware that uses an Internet connection to pass voice data in packets using IP (internet protocol) in place of regular public switched telephone network.

There are many Internet telephony applications available such as Dialpad, CoolTalk, NetMeeting etc. Usually most of these applications are coupled with some popular Web browsers while others are stand-alone products.

The advent of VOIP and its surging popularity has led to depreciation in the costs of conventional telecommunications systems. Now you don’t have to pay for separately for your local charges but only your Internet rent. All you have to do is to say hello to Voice-over-IP and make use of the remarkable technology with which data and speech are transferred simultaneously and for which a separate telephone cable connection is not needed. This will save upto 80% of the amount you spend in making foreign calls through the standard way.

At present VOIP service is offered by leading providers such as Vonage, Lingo and Skype. Lingo is an ideal option to make international calls especially to Europe and Asia. Lingo is also commendable choice when you tend to move out of US because then you can carry your US number and call at US local rates from anywhere in the world. In comparison to Skype and Vonage, Lingo is cheap in cost.

Skype is perfect to use when you and your computer are inseparable and you have friends and family who use the same technique. Skype is deemed to be the best voice portal these days. Skype allows free calls to other Internet phone users while calls to regular phones and mobile phones are to be made at per minute fee. Skype also offers certain other add-on plans.

Out of these Vonage is the best provider of commercial and residential VOIP telephony. Vonage is different from Skype and other IM-based VOIP services for it offers a myriad of options to choose and many other uncommon features.

However at the end of the day you should opt for VOIP software that goes with your broadband connection. So before downloading any VOIP software do some research over the bandwidth the service requires, and then ensure that your internet service provider is able to match up with that.

Moreover you may not be able to avail excellent VOIP service if you are using a dial-up connection for with breaking connection, the clarity of voice and consistency in the call may also break.

Finally the cost of the call also matters a lot. So prior to downloading software, select a place where you have to call frequently. Once decided, check the fare of call with respect to the software. You may prefer to go with software that offers calls to your desired place at least rates.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

DEFI Offers Free International Calls Using Mobile VOIP

Mobile is a popular medium to make phone calls or SMS. Mobile VOIP has gained a lot of hype since the beginning of 2009. More and more VOIP companies are opting for Mobile VOIP services because of its growing popularity. One such company offering free international calls through Mobile VOIP is DEFI. This article will give you a brief insight about the new plans and rates of DEFI.

What is DEFI?
Those of you who are new to Mobile VOIP may not know about this wonderful company. DEFI is a leading provider in the VOIP market. They are well known for offering good quality and reliable services to a number of companies worldwide. Recently they have come up with a new plan that allows users to make use of this free VOIP call services at affordable prices.

Now users can make unlimited calls to a variety of destinations worldwide by just paying $40- 50 per month. A maximum of 3000 minutes can be utilized to place calls to anywhere in the world without any restrictions on the locations. The only disadvantage is that users will not be able to make use of premium numbers or satellite calls.

Why DEFI?
Though this is a free VOIP call services, the important question that arises is ‘Why choose DEFI”. The answer can be given in 3 stages.
• Freedom to Choose
• Right to Roam
• Power to Save

Let me explain all the three in brief

Freedom to Choose: The main benefit of mobile phones is that they can be used anywhere. The only disadvantage is that sometimes we may lose the network or maybe charged for international roaming etc. Here is where DEFI comes into play. Customers making use of this free VOIP call service can enjoy the benefits of both worlds. The main feature is that DEFI comes with WiFi access points that can easily allow users to make calls at affordable rates.

Right to Roam: DEFI gives their customers an opportunity to make calls without any hassles. All the user needs is a dual mode smart phone which can automatically detect WiFi spots and allow users to talk or browse the internet effectively. Customers no longer have to worry about their long and expensive telephone bills since this service allows them to make free international calls without any boundaries.

Power to Save: Sending emails or making calls while you are travelling can cost you an arm and a leg. These issues can be easily alleviated with DEFI. DEFI’s WiFi technology come with packet based technologies that make sending texts, emails and social networking a piece of cake. Wherever we go we see WiFi hotspots emerging in every nook and corner of the markets.

Conclusion
Users by just paying a monthly subscription of $30 can get a PSTN along with a DEFI Global Access Service. This allows users to make use of this number to make free international calls.

Wireless VOIP-COIP Mobile Internet Becomes a Reality Obsoleting Traditional Cellular

Advances in VOIP-COIP technology has been amazing over the past few years, more so than in the last decade in many areas. Communications have been advanced to the point that we can now use the internet for all phone calls at a much reduced price over landlines.

For the first time there are more mobile phones than landlines, so just as we are seeing phone booths disappear throughout the country, we are now seeing the landline phones vanish along with the old phone booths. When we look back over the history of the telecommunications industry, it is amazing how many advances we have seen, including the cellular phones which started out as backpack size devices.

As we are now seeing, cell phones usage continues to grow with nearly 255 million users at this point in time. Given the latest advances, I expect to see even more wireless phones, which are now devices, or computers, not just an old cell phone which was voice only. Texting has also exploded along with the demand for more bandwidth as texting and these new applications are sucking off bandwidth to a point where we are fast approaching what is called peak bandwidth.

Recently we saw this come to the surface with the introduction of the 3GS iPhone which AT&T could not support due to lack of bandwidth. Is this just an isolated case, or is it more than that? Experts are saying the bandwidth issue is real, and not just impending anymore, but here now, and the above report in the Wall Street Journal indicates the industry is scrambling to expand the bandwidth, but will it happen in time. I think most of us have experienced more dropping of calls and no connections in last year than ever before, so yes, we are seeing the problem surface quickly.

Experts in the industry have already stated that if every cell phone user were to make a call at the same time, less than one in four would get a connection. I know myself I have had more recordings of all circuits are busy, so is this a growing problem with texting being called the bandwidth hog of the cellular industry. After all, who thought texting would explode like it has with the younger users in particular? I know I didn’t, and I have yet to text someone, although I am now getting text advertisements, which is the new spam of the cell phone industry as I see it.

With the introduction of a new technology which promises to open up the bandwidth with a new high speed data introduction using VOIP-COIP, or voice over internet protocol and Cellular Over Internet Protocol, this may be the only answer given the time it takes to open up new frequencies for current cellular carriers which use current frequencies which are maxed out. VOIP-COIP offers a solution which also opens up current bandwidth by speeding up data by compressing it and sending voice in data packets, or bursts, then converted back to voice end to end.

I have researched two companies which are introducing this new technology, and both appear to be exploiting the VOIP-COIP model over wireless connections which provides both wireless mobile and wireless internet which for millions will answer their prayers of finally accessing high speed internet connections. I know myself, I have a terrible broadband connection due to the remote area far from the transmitter amplifier, and my connection speeds are barely faster than my former dial up connection. Since phone line DSL was not available, and being I tried the WiFi cards with no success, I have waiting a long time for this new wireless access.

Given the fact both of these new services are launching at the same time, we don’t know which will rule supreme, but both claim to be carriers, not resellers, so this is going to get real interesting given the peak bandwidth issues the major carriers are having to deal with at the moment. From my understanding, these new companies have patented technologies, so they may be the only companies offering this new technology. One company claims to also be releasing internet over power lines access which is going to be offered through your existing utility companies. They claim to have agreements with 83% of utility companies nationwide, and this too would be an alternative I would welcome along with new wireless technology for mobile and internet.

Which company is best, I don’t yet know, but given I have ordered service from several to evaluate access and quality of service, and the fact I have a dual SIM cell phone, I will be able to test both side by side under exactly the same conditions to evaluate for myself which one is the best service. With no contracts required, and the lower cost of purchasing SIM card for the new VOIP-COIP offering. Having evaluated each to date, I can honestly say, be careful, warning, what you read may not be what you get. Without mentioning companies by name, what I have learned is one company failed to deliver, and the other major promoter provided obsolete three year old so called WiFi phone which it is not. Using VOIP is not new, using it to access the internet from a mobile phone is also not new, but COIP is, and before you make your decision, learn about COIP, Cellular Over Internet Protocol to learn the technical differences. Yes, they are similar, but not the same, so make sure you don’t make the mistake of listening to the hype and false promises in the industry.

One application I find particularly interesting is a new low cost security monitoring and surveillance system whereby you can monitor your business from home, and your home from business, and both from your new wireless device from anywhere in the world. For those with elderly parents, and the fact many do not live near enough to parents to help care for them, this is a breakthrough for safety assurance reasons. For those with nannies, you can also monitor your children when not at home from your mobile device or any computer also worldwide, wherever you have an internet connection, so technologies like this will be a welcome application on these new wireless systems. Just think of how many applications will be developed on this new wireless platform.

Technology is advancing quickly in the mobile communications industry, and VOIP-COIP is the latest in the technology of using the internet to access and place calls. If you already own a cell phone, imagine accessing a dial tone where you could route your calls through the internet on COIP network. Now you can call anywhere in the world from anywhere in the world for pennies rather than dollars a minute. I save hundreds of dollars a month using VOIP-COIP technology, and so can everyone, even if you don’t travel internationally. What I did is downgrade my plan to minimum under $40.00 option, chose a carrier with friends and family type option, those where you can plug in your most called contacts, and they are free to call. What you do is plug in your VOIP-COIP number which routes to your internet hub and router and takes over the call from carrier, or passed off. While on this call, it is totally free, and if international, only pennies for a huge overall savings. I no longer need to have dual SIM phone with this new breakthrough VOIP-COIP system.

How much you can save is variable, but the main point of VOIP-COIP is that you do not have to purchase a new mobile phone like the others who use VOIP alone. You do need a device for your home, but with VOIP-COIP you are accessing network from home, business and from your mobile, all through one network for even more savings. In addition, you can have five or more phones utilizing this VOIP-COIP network, and you can access it from all over the world, thousands of miles away, point to point, and the connection is crystal clear. COIP is new, VOIP is not. If you are familiar with all the VOIP services now offered, you will know the call quality is greatly improved over the past few years since introduced. Do not make the mistake of purchasing a three year old technology, not all VOIP is the same, and certainly, COIP is patented, so this you will only find from one company, so do your due diligence as I have and you will save a lot of time and hassle using an inferior over hyped service.

Micheal OSullivan has been in the telcom industry as an independent consultant since deregulation in the 80’s and has researched every technological advance in the industry.

Mobile VoIP is an extension of mobility to a Voice over IP network.

There are several methodologies by which a mobile handset can be integrated into a VoIP network. One implementation turns the mobile device into a standard SIP client, which then uses a data network to send and receive SIP messaging, and to send and receive RTP for the voice path. This methodology of turning a mobile handset into a standard SIP client requires that the mobile handset support, at minimum, high speed IP communications. In this application, standard VoIP protocols (typically SIP) are used over any broadband IP-capable wireless network connection such as EVDO rev A (which is symmetrical high speed — both high speed up and down), HSDPA, WiFi or WiMAX.

Another implementation of mobile integration uses a softswitch like gateway to bridge SIP and RTP into the mobile network’s SS7 infrastructure. In this implementation, the mobile handset continues to operate as it always has (as a GSM or CDMA based device), but now it can be controlled by a SIP application server which can now provide advanced SIP based services to it. Several vendors offer this kind of capability today.

Mobile VoIP will require a compromise between economy and mobility. For example, Voice over Wi-Fi offers potentially free service but is only available within the coverage area of a Wi-Fi Access Point. High speed services from mobile operators using EVDO rev A or HSDPA may have better audio quality and capabilities for metropolitan-wide coverage including fast handoffs among mobile base stations, yet it will cost more than the typical Wi-Fi-based VoIP service.

Mobile VoIP will become an important service in the coming years as device manufacturers exploit more powerful processors and less costly memory to meet user needs for ever-more ‘power in their pocket’. Smartphones in mid-2006 are capable of sending and receiving email, browsing the web (albeit at low rates) and in some cases allowing a user to watch TV.

The challenge for the mobile operator industry is to deliver the benefits and innovations of IP without losing control of the network service. Users like the Internet to be free and high speed without extra charges for visiting specific sites. Such a service challenges the most valuable service in the telecommunications industry — voice — and threatens to change the nature of the global communications industry.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

In Japan, IP telephony is regarded as a service applied by VoIP technology to the whole or a part of the telephone line. As of 2003, IP telephony services have been assigned telephone numbers. IP telephony services also often include videophone/video conferencing services. According to the Telecommunication Business Law, the service category for IP telephony also implies the service provided via Internet, which is not assigned any telephone number.

IP telephony is basically regulated by Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) as a telecommunication service. The operators have to disclose necessary information on its quality, etc., prior to making contracts with customers, and have an obligation to respond to their complaints cordially.

Many Japanese Internet service providers (ISP) are including IP telephony services. An ISP who also provides IP telephony service is known as a “ITSP (Internet Telephony Service Provider)”. Recently, the competition among ITSPs has been activated, by option or set sales, in connection with ADSL or FTTH services.

The tariff system normally applied to Japanese IP telephony is described below;

* A call between IP telephony subscribers, limited to the same group, is usually free of charge.
* A call from IP telephony subscribers to a fixed line or PHS is usually a uniformly fixed rate all over the country.

Between ITSPs, the interconnection is mostly maintained at VoIP level.

* Where the IP telephony is assigned normal telephone number (0AB-J), the condition for its interconnection is considered same as normal telephony.
* Where the IP telephony is assigned specific telephone number (050), the condition for its interconnection is described below;
o Interconnection is sometimes charged. (Sometimes, it is free of charge.) In case of free-of-charge, mostly, communication traffic is exchanged via a P2P connection with the same VoIP standard. Otherwise, certain conversions are needed at the point of the VoIP gateway which incurs operating costs.

Since September 2002, the MIC has assigned IP telephony telephone numbers on the condition that the service falls into certain required categories of quality.

High-quality IP telephony is assigned a telephone number, normally starting with the digits 050. When VoIP quality is so high that a customer has difficulty telling the difference between it and a normal telephone, and when the provider relates its number with a location and provides the connection with emergency call capabilities, the provider is allowed to assign a normal telephone number, which is a so-called “0AB-J” number.

Security, Stability, and Interoperability Issues on VoIP Implementation

Now we have accepted that VoIP is no longer just a phone service, it has become feature rich as it merges with computer configurations. The VoIP’s existence has changed considerably over the last few years, coupled with the availability of broadband connection to the Internet, plus leaps in multimedia technology in which virtual operations with remote sites becomes more enhanced, makes VoIP service a viable alternative to traditional communication offerings.

Cost savings is not the only driving force for VoIP implementations, enterprises have to consider some business aspects that VoIP can bring about. VoIP creates potentials for applications that could not have been done before. Collaboration, integration, and interactivity between employees and applications are one of the several business benefits that enterprises can derive from VoIP adoption. Nevertheless, amid euphoria of VoIP technology, there are three important aspects to look at before a company goes VoIP. In the following paragraphs I will summarize the aspect of security, stability, and interoperability that play a key role in the successful implementation of VoIP.

1. Security

VoIP implementations may expose new security risks and challenges that somehow become greater concern than quality and cost-efficiency among vendors and users. VoIP networks are vulnerable to all the same security risks as traditional IP data networks, including:

* Denial of Service (DoS), viruses, worms,
* Toll fraud and unauthorized access,
* Spoofing, and port scanning.

It is recommended that organizations should adopt a layered, defense-in-depth security strategy to address the issue with the increasing proliferation of new Internet-borne attacks and malicious activities in recent years. In this architecture, the network is segmented into secure zones protected by layers of firewall, intrusion prevention, and other security services. This strategy allows the organizations to logically split and secure voice and data networks in front of individual voice and data components and between interactive points in the network.

2. Stability

One of the main issues of VoIP is the amount of bandwidth required for each call. There must be adequate bandwidth reserved and the quality of the link must be well maintained throughout each call to ensure the users are not affected. As the very nature of VoIP call is real-time, any disruption during the call would be easily noticeable and unacceptable. The two issues that enterprises usually have to deal with here are bandwidth and quality of service (QoS).

VoIP calls need a data transmission speed of 64kb/s to produce the quality of voice comparable to that of a normal telephone call. That 64kb/s channel needs to remain open and unaffected for the duration of the call. Theoretically, VoIP installations would not allow such a huge bandwidth to be allocated for VoIP alone. Therefore, there needs to be a compression taking place to compact the voice data into a considerable size before it gets transmitted over a packet switching network. G.723 codec that is incorporated in VoIP standard protocol H.232 can take a 64kb/s stream of data and squash it down to a mere 5.5kb/s or so. Generally, for VoIP to work reliably over WAN links, there has to be low jitter, low packet loss, a considerably high-speed connection between the endpoints, and less than 200ms delay.

3. Interoperability

Compatibility between VoIP equipment from different vendors is a very important aspect to boost the use of VoIP products. Without standardized quality of service mechanisms businesses would need to buy all the equipment and the QoS server from the same manufacturer. The VoIP world seems to be divided between many vendors with reluctance to establish interoperability and some who are trying to be end-to-end supplier but at the same time worried about interoperability. The protocols used in VoIP communication are still considered fairly complex in comparison to most of the other protocols involved in Internet applications. SIP (Session Initiation Protocol – a signaling protocol for Internet conferencing, telephony, events notification, and instant messaging), that is regarded as simple and elegant the other protocols, is still not efficient.

On the bright side, however, SIP is approaching status as an IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) standard, after several years of work. With the recent version, it has achieved a greater amount of stability and changes are becoming smaller and smaller. Phone switch companies such as Nortel have recently begun supporting SIP, and now the manufacturers of handsets and related devices will soon ramp up their support. Motorola, Avaya, and Proxim have made collaboration on the creation and deployment of IP telephony solutions that will deliver new extents of communication mobility and network connectivity.

Finally, with these three VoIP aspects covered, businesses will be able to maximize their investment by applying it as the backbone of internal communication such as phone conversation, videoconferencing, instant messaging, faxing, etc. Another area that will widely make use of VoIP is call centers, in which Web contacts, virtual operations with outsourcers overseas, and remote sites, such as home agents, all could improve the customer experience. New VoIP applications that we have not thought about may also come into existence as the services generates more business and profits for companies.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

To prevent the above security concerns the government and military organizations are using; Voice over Secure IP (VoSIP), Secure Voice over IP (SVoIP), and Secure Voice over Secure IP (SVoSIP) to protect confidential, and/or classified VoIP communications.[45] Secure Voice over IP is accomplished by encrypting VoIP with Type 1 encryption. Secure Voice over Secure IP is accomplished by using Type 1 encryption on a classified network, like SIPRNet. Public Secure VoIP is also available with free GNU programs.

Caller ID support among VoIP providers varies, although the majority of VoIP providers now offer full Caller ID with name on outgoing calls.

In a few cases, VoIP providers may allow a caller to spoof the Caller ID information, potentially making calls appear as though they are from a number that does not belong to the caller[52] Business grade VoIP equipment and software often makes it easy to modify caller ID information. Although this can provide many businesses great flexibility, it is also open to abuse.

The “Truth in Caller ID Act” has been in preparation in the U.S. Congress since 2006, but as of January 2009 still has not been enacted. This bill proposes to make it a crime in the United States to “knowingly transmit misleading or inaccurate caller identification information with the intent to defraud, cause harm, or wrongfully obtain anything of value …”

Some analog telephone adapters do not decode pulse dialing from older phones. The VoIP user may use a pulse-to-tone converter, if needed.

Support for sending faxes over VoIP implementations is still limited. The existing voice codecs are not designed for fax transmission; they are designed to digitize an analog representation of a human voice efficiently. However, the inefficiency of digitizing an analog representation (modem signal) of a digital representation (a document image) of analog data (an original document) more than negates any bandwidth advantage of VoIP. In other words, the fax “sounds” simply don’t fit in the VoIP channel. An alternative IP-based solution for delivering fax-over-IP called T.38 is available.

The T.38 protocol is designed to work like a traditional fax machine and can work using several configurations. The fax machine could be a traditional fax machine connected to the PSTN, or an ATA box (or similar). It could be a fax machine with an RJ-45 connector plugged straight into an IP network, or it could be a computer pretending to be a fax machine. [54] Originally, T.38 was designed to use UDP and TCP transmission methods across an IP network. The main difference between using UDP and TCP methods for a FAX is the real time streaming attributes. TCP is better suited for use between two IP devices. However, older fax machines, connected to an analog system, benefit from UDP near real-time characteristics[citation needed].

There have been updated versions of T.30 to resolve the fax over IP issues, which is the core fax protocol. Some new fax machines have T.38 built-in capabilities which allow the user to plug right into the network with minimal configuration changes[citation needed]. A unique feature of T.38 is that each packet contains a copy of the main data in the previous packet. This is an option and most implementations seem to support it. This forward error correction scheme makes T.38 far more tolerant of dropped packets than VoIP[citation needed]. With T.38, two successive lost packets are needed to actually lose any data. The data you lose will only be a small piece, but with the right settings and error correction mode, there is a high probability that you will receive the whole transmission.

Tweaking the settings on the T.30 and T.38 protocols could also turn your unreliable fax into a robust machine[citation needed]. Some fax machines pause at the end of a line to allow the paper feed to catch up. This is good news for packets that were lost or delayed because it gives them a chance to catch up. However, were this to happen on every line, your fax transmittal would take a long time. Another possible solution is to treat the fax system as a message switching system, which does not need a real-time data transmission (such as sending a fax as an email attachment (see Fax) or remote printout (see Internet Printing Protocol)). The end system can completely buffer the incoming fax data before displaying or printing the fax image.

Another challenge for VoIP implementations is the proper handling of outgoing calls from other telephony devices such as DVR boxes, satellite television receivers, alarm systems, conventional modems and other similar devices that depend on access to a PSTN telephone line for some or all of their functionality.

These types of calls sometimes complete without any problems, but in other cases they fail. If VoIP and cellular substitution becomes very popular, some ancillary equipment makers may be forced to redesign equipment, because it would no longer be possible to assume a conventional PSTN telephone line would be available in consumer’s homes.

Is VoIP Secure?

The VoIP service provider looks at security as follows. They want to make sure that their network is secure, their revenue is protected along with their customers. When you sign up for VoIP don’t get the false sense of security that everything VoIP is good. Also understand that you will not be able to place a call from everywhere. Even today VoIP still has some reliability and security issues however with that said these issues are been addressed due in part to the increasing demand for this technology.

As we know the broader issue of security is a hot topic these days both on and off the Internet, as a consequence security is being addressed by the industry, global standards bodies and governments, therefore we can expect some serious scrutiny in the issue of secure VoIP. VoIP is equally vulnerable to security risks as traditional IP data networks or any other data that is being sent over the internet.

Just as hackers use software to infiltrate security holes with data transfer, they cam also use this same software to get at your voice data. While this may not be a big issue if you are talking with you child from camp, the contrary can be said when discussing sensitive information while doing business.

So make sure that if you are considering a VoIP provider that they provide security and redundancy so you don’t have to worry about the physical requirements and support of your phone system. Secondly you want them to address these issues of security. Ask them if they have separate lines for voice traffic. Ask them what measures they take to secure their networks. You can also ask them if they can Combine a VPN (Virtual Private Network) to your VoIP? This can prevent unauthorized access to your phone system

Moving forward into the future VoIP security will continue to be a major concern, just because it’s well known that information that passes over the internet can potentially fall into the wrong hands. As much as it’s becoming a concern just as equally are additional resources been dedicated to these security loop holes. Remember ask lots of questions and get the best service you can for your needs.

VoIP Security – How Secure Are Your Calls?

The move to Voice over Internet Protocol (or VoIP) has grown in popularity so to have the security issues that surround VoIP systems.

Security issues are now a major concern of companies thinking about changing to a VoIP system.

Vunerability to attack

VoIP is internet based and this creates the problem of being open to all the attacks that are associated with this method of communication.

It opens up the telephone network to attacks from hackers, who could infiltrate and listen to phone conversations and steal confidential data, and Spammers have the opportunity to target a system with denial-of-service (DoS) attacks.

Before making the move to VoIP, companies need to thoroughly acquaint themselves with the security issues surrounding this new technology and plan protection in advance.

VoIP networks are threatened with the same security risks as traditional IP data networks and similar meashures need to be taken to add protection and security.

Protecting a VoIP System,

Companies should adopt a multi layer security strategy to secure their VoIP systems.

This can be done by dividing the network into secure zones adding protection with firewalls and intrusion prevention techniques.

A company should in fact secure the network itself by putting in place layers of security to protect at all levels including:

Telephones, conversations, computers, and servers.

A specific method of authentication (encryption) should be standard as to should control access ( by passwords and firewalls)

Companies should always look to encrypt data sent for confidentiality, and use call software to establish a tracking of calls for all employees, to create accountability of information sent.

Internal Security

A potential breach in security that many companies ignore at their peril is internal traffic flowing over a VoIP system.

It is critical this is addressed and secured as well.

An increasing number of workers use voIP to communicate with company staff from wireless phones or soft phones and this creates a serious potential security problem.

Therefore companies should look to encrypt voIP traffic moving internally over a corporate network to prevent attacks from within the company itself.

The increasing use of desktop-based soft phones to make and receive VOIP-based telephone calls creates a breach in firewall security that of course can be exploited by unscrupulous employees.

The best way to address this problem as we have said, is to restrict access to the network.

In addition, make sure all inbound VOIP traffic that flows through a firewall is routed through a gateway server, thus eliminating a direct connection to the Internet and all the security issues this entails.

Securing a VoIP System.

Many corporate users are discouraged from using VoIP systems as they feel they are not secure however, this is the same as saying it is not safe to use a computer connected to the internet, it can be secured its up to companies and individuals to do so

Securing VoIP systems is like securing any IP network.

Just as you protect your PC with virus software, firewalls etc so to should you protect a VoIP system with similar meashures.

VoIP can and is secure, providing adequate steps are taken.

Security is a network issue as well

Security is not a server issue it’s a network issue and companies can achieve security by placing the above measures in place to make their VoIP system secure just as they do with an IP network.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

A major development starting in 2004[12] has been the introduction of mass-market VoIP services over broadband Internet access services, in which subscribers make and receive calls as they would over the PSTN. Full phone service VoIP phone companies provide inbound and outbound calling with Direct Inbound Dialing. Many offer unlimited domestic calling, and some to other countries as well, for a flat monthly fee as well as free calling between subscribers using the same provider.[13] These services have a wide variety of features which can be more or less similar to traditional POTS.

There are three common methods of connecting to VoIP service providers:
A typical analog telephone adapter (ATA) for connecting an analog phone to a VoIP provider

* An Analog Telephone Adapter (ATA) may be connected between an IP network (such as a broadband connection) and an existing telephone jack in order to provide service nearly indistinguishable from PSTN providers on all the other telephone jacks in the residence. This type of service, which is fixed to one location, is generally offered by broadband Internet providers such as cable companies and telephone companies as a cheaper flat-rate traditional phone service.
* Dedicated VoIP phones are phones that allow VoIP calls without the use of a computer. Instead they connect directly to the IP network (using technologies such as Wi-Fi or Ethernet). In order to connect to the PSTN they usually require service from a VoIP service provider; most people therefore will use them in conjunction with a paid service plan.
* A softphone (also known as an Internet phone or Digital phone) is a piece of software that can be installed on a computer that allows VoIP calling without dedicated hardware.

The Three Phases of the Consumer Market

The process of scanning images and documents has been made easy over the years as the curve in technology has made scanners and printers affordable for consumers. When a new technology of initially introduced to the market that pricing is usually within the reach of only a few people.

After the introduction phase the product seeds steady grown through its adoption phase as people generally accept the new technology and use it with some frequency. In the ending stages of the newer technology as upgrades and better equipment is release the third phase of marketing is saturation where everyone has the technology in their homes or businesses and the production costs to manufacture have been reduced along with the price of the technology.

Every major advancement goes through these three phases and the computer industry is no exception. With the low cost of entry to the market, consumers are able to easily buy new scanners and printers to accompany their hardware and have more versatility and available features that the first models that were once so costly. At the introduction stage of the computer scanner the high costs associated with drum scanners prevented the everyday user from having access to the technology and specialty print shops were the only place where scans could be made, but as the technology has aged and been accepted the availability of scanners has increased and the costs of ownership have come down.

With the affordability of scanners and printers the main concern today is the cost of replacement parts and consumables that the technology utilizes. Depending upon the product and the age it is often easier to replace outdated equipment than it is to repair it.

An Insight in to Japanese Consumer Electronics Market

Over the past few years, the global consumer electronics industry has witnessed a phenomenal growth. It can be attributed to the increasing effect of state of the art electronic devices in the market. The Asia Pacific region is the market leader in consumer electronics and more of this credit goes to the Japanese companies, which are known worldwide for their innovations and quality. The world famous brands like Sony, Panasonic and Matsushita are owned by the Japanese companies.

The total revenue generated by the consumer electronics market consists the sale of audio, video, and games console products. The video section consists of camcorders, digital cameras, CRT and flat-panel television sets, videocassette and DVD players and recorders, and set-top boxes. The audio section includes MP3 recorders and players, personal stereos, radios, hi-fi systems, cassettes, CDs, and minidisc. Gaming consoles includes all hand-held and plug-in consoles.

In a survey, conducted by the Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC), the consumer electronics market is estimated to grow to 11 trillion yen by 2010. It is more than quadruple the value of 2004. One of the main highlights of this survey is an emphasis on the convergence of communication and entertainment electronics. This trend is already spreading rapidly, the government views this as a major shift in the consumer electronics industry.

The MIC defines the consumer electronics market to include the following areas:

* Appliance market: Digital consumer electronics like TV, washing machine, PC, modems, etc.

* Service content market: Content like entertainment information on movies, drama, etc. Services like distance learning (tele-education), security services, etc.

* Network platform market: Networks, including ADSL, cable Internet, fiber-optic cables, etc.

Future Prospects

The consumer electronics industry is expecting the integration of entertainment and communication electronics in coming years. The companies aim at providing advanced services to help consumers achieve more convenience in their daily activities. It can be achieved by offering networking consumer electronics in the home market.

The home security systems is expected to enter in the consumer electronics market. It can help monitor fires or break-ins and report them to nearby fire stations. Consumers could be able to control appliances in home from their personal digital assistant (PDA) or mobile phones. While departing the home, you can turn on the security system while turning off all consumer electronics. On the way back to home from work, a person would be able to start a bath or begin warming up the house.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is a general term for a family of transmission technologies for delivery of voice communications over IP networks such as the Internet or other packet-switched networks. Other terms frequently encountered and synonymous with VoIP are IP telephony, Internet telephony, voice over broadband (VoBB), broadband telephony, and broadband phone.

Internet telephony refers to communications services — voice, facsimile, and/or voice-messaging applications — that are transported via the Internet, rather than the public switched telephone network (PSTN). The basic steps involved in originating an Internet telephone call are conversion of the analog voice signal to digital format and compression/translation of the signal into Internet protocol (IP) packets for transmission over the Internet; the process is reversed at the receiving end.

VoIP systems employ session control protocols to control the set-up and tear-down of calls as well as audio codecs which encode speech allowing transmission over an IP network as digital audio via an audio stream. Codec use is varied between different implementations of VoIP (and often a range of codecs are used); some implementations rely on narrowband and compressed speech, while others support high fidelity stereo codecs.

History

* 1974 — The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) published a paper titled “A Protocol for Packet Network Interconnection.”
* 1981 — IPv4 is described in RFC-791.
* 1985 — The National Science Foundation commissions the creation of NSFNET.
* 1995 — VocalTec releases the first commercial Internet phone software.
* 1996 —
o ITU-T begins development of standards for the transmission and signaling of voice communications over Internet Protocol networks with the H.323 standard.
o U.S. telecommunication companies petition the U.S. Congress to ban Internet phone technology.
* 1997 — Level 3 began development of its first softswitch, a term they coined in 1998.
* 1999 —
o The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) specification RFC 2543 is released.
o Mark Spencer of Digium develops the first open source Private branch exchange (PBX) software (Asterisk).
* 2004 — Commercial VoIP service providers proliferate.
* 2005 — OpenSER (later Kamailio and OpenSIPS) SIP proxy server is forked from the SIP Express Router.
* 2006 — FreeSWITCH open source software is released.

Voice over IP has been implemented in various ways using both proprietary and open protocols and standards. Examples of technologies used to implement Voice over Internet Protocol include:

* H.323
* IMS
* SIP
* RTP

A notable proprietary implementation is the Skype network. Other examples of specific implementations and a comparison between them are available in Comparison of VoIP software.

Adoption
Example of VoIP adapter setup in residential network

A major development starting in 2004[12] has been the introduction of mass-market VoIP services over broadband Internet access services, in which subscribers make and receive calls as they would over the PSTN. Full phone service VoIP phone companies provide inbound and outbound calling with Direct Inbound Dialing. Many offer unlimited domestic calling, and some to other countries as well, for a flat monthly fee as well as free calling between subscribers using the same provider.[13] These services have a wide variety of features which can be more or less similar to traditional POTS.

There are three common methods of connecting to VoIP service providers:
A typical analog telephone adapter (ATA) for connecting an analog phone to a VoIP provider

* An Analog Telephone Adapter (ATA) may be connected between an IP network (such as a broadband connection) and an existing telephone jack in order to provide service nearly indistinguishable from PSTN providers on all the other telephone jacks in the residence. This type of service, which is fixed to one location, is generally offered by broadband Internet providers such as cable companies and telephone companies as a cheaper flat-rate traditional phone service.
* Dedicated VoIP phones are phones that allow VoIP calls without the use of a computer. Instead they connect directly to the IP network (using technologies such as Wi-Fi or Ethernet). In order to connect to the PSTN they usually require service from a VoIP service provider; most people therefore will use them in conjunction with a paid service plan.
* A softphone (also known as an Internet phone or Digital phone) is a piece of software that can be installed on a computer that allows VoIP calling without dedicated hardware.

It is becoming increasingly common for telecommunications providers to use VoIP telephony over dedicated and public IP networks to connect switching stations and to interconnect with other telephony network providers; this is often referred to as “IP backhaul”.

Many telecommunications companies are looking at the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) which will merge Internet technologies with the mobile world, using a pure VoIP infrastructure. It will enable them to upgrade their existing systems while embracing Internet technologies such as the Web, email, instant messaging, presence, and video conferencing. It will also allow existing VoIP systems to interface with the conventional PSTN and mobile phone networks.

“Dual mode” telephone sets, which allow for the seamless handover between a cellular network and a Wi-Fi network, are expected to help VoIP become more popular.

Phones such as the NEC N900iL, many of the Nokia Eseries and several other Wi-Fi enabled mobile phones have SIP clients built into the firmware. Such clients operate independently of the mobile phone network (however some operators choose to remove the client from subsidised handsets). Some operators such as Vodafone actively try to block VoIP traffic from their network.[17] Others, like T-Mobile, have refused to interconnect with VoIP-enabled networks as was seen in the legal case between T-Mobile and Truphone, which ultimately was settled in the UK High Court in favour of the VoIP carrier.

Because of the bandwidth efficiency and low costs that VoIP technology can provide, businesses are gradually beginning to migrate from traditional copper-wire telephone systems to VoIP systems to reduce their monthly phone costs.

VoIP solutions aimed at businesses have evolved into “unified communications” services that treat all communications—phone calls, faxes, voice mail, e-mail, Web conferences and more—as discrete units that can all be delivered via any means and to any handset, including cellphones. Two kinds of competitors are competing in this space: one set is focused on VoIP for medium to large enterprises, while another is targeting the small-to-medium business (SMB) market.

VoIP runs both voice and data communications over a single network, which can significantly reduce infrastructure costs.

The prices of extensions on VoIP are lower than for PBXs and key systems. VoIP switches run on commodity hardware, such as PCs or Linux systems, so they are easy to configure and troubleshoot. Rather than closed architectures, these devices rely on standard interfaces.

VoIP devices have simple, intuitive user interfaces, so users can often make simple system configuration changes. Dual-mode cellphones enable users to continue their conversations as they move between an outside cellular service and an internal Wi-Fi network, so that it is no longer necessary to carry both a desktop phone and a cellphone. Maintenance becomes simpler as there are fewer devices to oversee.

Skype, which originally marketed itself as a service among friends, has begun to cater to businesses, providing free-of-charge connection between any users on the Skype network and connecting to and from ordinary PSTN telephones for a charge.

In the United States the Social Security Administration (SSA) is converting its field offices of 63,000 workers from traditional phone installations to a VoIP infrastructure carried over its existing data network.

VoIP can be a benefit for reducing communication and infrastructure costs. Examples include:

* Routing phone calls over existing data networks to avoid the need for separate voice and data networks.[25]
* Conference calling, IVR, call forwarding, automatic redial, and caller ID features that traditional telecommunication companies (telcos) normally charge extra for are available free of charge from open source VoIP implementations such as Asterisk or FreeSWITCH.
* Costs are lower, mainly because of the way Internet access is billed compared to regular telephone calls. While regular telephone calls are billed by the minute or second, VoIP calls are billed per megabyte (MB). In other words, VoIP calls are billed per amount of information (data) sent over the Internet and not according to the time connected to the telephone network. In practice the amount charged for the data transferred in a given period is far less than that charged for the amount of time connected on a regular telephone line.

VoIP can facilitate tasks and provide services that may be more difficult to implement using the PSTN. Examples include:

* The ability to transmit more than one telephone call over a single broadband connection without the need to add extra lines.
* Secure calls using standardized protocols (such as Secure Real-time Transport Protocol.) Most of the difficulties of creating a secure telephone connection over traditional phone lines, such as digitizing and digital transmission, are already in place with VoIP. It is only necessary to encrypt and authenticate the existing data stream.[27]
* Location independence. Only a sufficiently fast and stable Internet connection is needed to get a connection from anywhere to a VoIP provider.
* Integration with other services available over the Internet, including video conversation, message or data file exchange during the conversation, audio conferencing, managing address books, and passing information about whether other people are available to interested parties.

The History of Voice over Internet Protocol

The History of Voice over Internet Protocol By the end of 2006,
Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) may account for as much as
25 – 40% of international voice traffic. This prediction is
impressive, but it is even more amazing when you consider the
relatively short history of voice over internet protocol. It
began as a hobby for some people in Israel who were only able to
communicate by computer.

Later that year, in 1995, the first company in the history of
voice over internet protocol to put a product on the market was
Vocaltec. They released Internet Phone Software, which in
combination with a home computer, sound card, speakers,
microphone and modem allowed users to make a phone call over the
internet. However, the people on both ends had to have the same
setup, and sound quality was much less than on a normal phone.

In 1998, there were more milestones in the history of voice over
internet protocol. Entrepreneurs began to recognize the
potential of the technology and soon computer-to-phone and
phone-to-phone connections (still using a computer for the
transmission) were possible for making voice calls over the
internet. The service was available using a phone at a
provider’s location in North America only.

It required the users to listen to an advertisement at the
beginning and end of each phone call, but in exchange their long
distance calls were free. In 1998, less than 1% of voice calls
were made using voice over internet protocol.

Businesses began to use VOIP over their intranets to help
communicate within their company. But with the introduction of
switching equipment in 1998 by 3 manufacturing companies, the
history of voice over internet protocol took a turn towards the
future.

Now VOIP could become more readily available to users at home
instead of at a specific facility belonging to the provider. By
the year 2000, more than 3% of voice calls were made over the
internet using VOIP.

Today, there are both hardware and software options for those
interested in business VOIP and for their personal use. You can
purchase hardware that will allow you to use your normal phone
handset when making a phone call.

You can buy phones that are VOIP ready and need only an internet
broadband connection. Or, you can purchase or download software
that will let you use your computer instead of a phone, provided
that you have speakers, a microphone, and an appropriate sound
card.

Many phone companies have begun to offer packages that include
local and long distance VOIP calls for a flat monthly fee. With
the advent of broadband services, sound quality has become
parallel to regular land line phones for the first time in the
history of voice over internet protocol. And the number of
people using VOIP is only expected to grow.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

An alarm gives an audible or visual warning about a problem or condition.
Alarms include:
• burglar alarms, designed to warn of burglaries; this is often a silent alarm: the police or guards are warned without indication to the burglar, which increases the chances of catching him or her.
• alarm clocks can produce an alarm at a given time
• distributed control manufacturing systems or DCSs, found in nuclear power plants, refineries and chemical facilities also generate alarms to direct the operator’s attention to an important event that he or she needs to address.
• alarms in an operation and maintenance (O&M) monitoring system, which informs the bad working state of (a particular part of) the system under monitoring.
• safety alarms, which go off if a dangerous condition occurs. Common public safety alarms include:
• tornado sirens
• fire alarms
• “Multiple-alarm fire”, a locally-specific measure of the severity of a fire and the fire-department reaction required.
• car alarms
• community Alarm or autodialer alarm (medical alarms)
• air raid sirens
• personal alarm
• tocsins — a historical method of raising an alarm
Alarms have the capability of causing a fight-or-flight response in humans; a person under this mindset will panic and either flee the perceived danger or attempt to eliminate it, often ignoring rational thought in either case. We can characterise a person in such a state as “alarmed”.
With any kind of alarm, the need exists to balance between on the one hand the danger of false alarms (called “false positives”) — the signal going off in the absence of a problem — and on the other hand failing to signal an actual problem (called a “false negative”). False alarms can waste resources expensively and can even be dangerous. For example, false alarms of a fire can waste firefighter manpower, making them unavailable for a real fire, and risk injury to firefighters and others as the fire engines race to the alleged fire’s location. In addition, false alarms may acclimatise people to ignore alarm signals, and thus possibly to ignore an actual emergency: Aesop’s fable of The Boy Who Cried Wolf exemplifies this problem.
Modem (from modulator-demodulator) is a device that modulates an analog carrier signal to encode digital information, and also demodulates such a carrier signal to decode the transmitted information. The goal is to produce a signal that can be transmitted easily and decoded to reproduce the original digital data. Modems can be used over any means of transmitting analog signals, from driven diodes to radio.
The most familiar example is a voiceband modem that turns the digital 1s and 0s of a personal computer into sounds that can be transmitted over the telephone lines of Plain Old Telephone Systems (POTS), and once received on the other side, converts those 1s and 0s back into a form used by a USB, Ethernet, serial, or network connection.
Modems are generally classified by the amount of data they can send in a given time, normally measured in bits per second, or “bps”. They can also be classified by Baud, the number of times the modem changes its signal state per second. For example, the ITU V.21 standard used audio frequency-shift keying, aka tones, to carry 300 bit/s using 300 baud, whereas the original ITU V.22 standard allowed 1200 bit/s with 600 baud using phase-shift keying.
Faster modems are used by Internet users every day, notably cable modems and ADSL modems. In telecommunications, “wide band radio modems” transmit repeating frames of data at very high data rates over microwave radio links. Narrow band radio modem is used for low data rate up to 19.2k mainly for private radio networks. Some microwave modems transmit more than a hundred million bits per second. Optical modems transmit data over optical fibers. Most intercontinental data links now use optical modems transmitting over undersea optical fibers. Optical modems routinely have data rates in excess of a billion (1×109) bits per second. One kilobit per second (kbit/s or kb/s or kbps) as used in this article means 1000 bits per second and not 1024 bits per second. For example, a 56k modem can transfer data at up to 56,000 bits (7kB) per second over the phone line.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

In computing, the Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) provides a standard network protocol for remote printing as well as for managing print jobs, media size, resolution, and so forth.
Like all IP-based protocols, IPP can run locally or over the Internet to printers hundreds or thousands of miles away. Unlike other printing protocols, IPP also supports access control, authentication, and encryption, making it a much more capable and secure printing solution than older ones.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

The telephone (from the Greek: τῆλε, tēle, “far” and φωνή, phōnē, “voice”) is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sound, most commonly the human voice. It is one of the most common household appliances in the developed world, and has long been considered indispensable to business, industry and government. The word “telephone” has been adapted to many languages and is widely recognized around the world.
The device operates principally by converting sound waves into electrical signals, and electrical signals into sound waves. Such signals when conveyed through telephone networks — and often converted to electronic and/or optical signals — enable nearly every telephone user to communicate with nearly every other worldwide. Graphic symbols used to designate telephone service or phone-related information in print, signage, and other media include (U+2121), (U+260E), (U+260F), and (U+2706).
A ringtone or ring tone is the sound made by a telephone to indicate an incoming call or text message. Not literally a tone, the term is most often used today to refer to customizable sounds used on mobile phones.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

The SIPRNet (Secret Internet Protocol Router Network) is a system of interconnected computer networks used by the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of State to transmit classified information (up to and including information classified SECRET) by packet switching over the TCP/IP protocols in a “completely secure” environment. It also provides services such as hypertext documents and electronic mail. In other words, the SIPRNet is the DoD’s classified version of the civilian Internet together with its counterpart, the TOP SECRET and SCI Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System, JWICS. The NIPRNET is used to exchange sensitive but unclassified (SBU) information.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Enhanced 911 or E911 service (pronounced “ee nine one one”) is a North American telecommunications based system that automatically associates a physical address with the calling party’s telephone number, and routes the call to the most appropriate Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) for that address. The caller’s address and information is displayed to the calltaker immediately upon call arrival. This provides emergency responders with the location of the emergency without the person calling for help having to provide it. This is often useful in times of fires, break-ins, kidnapping, and other events where communicating one’s location is difficult or impossible.
The system only works in North America if the emergency telephone number 911 is called. Calls made to other telephone numbers, even though they may be listed as an emergency telephone number, may not permit this feature to function correctly. Outside the United States this type of facility is often called caller location, though its implementation is dependent on how the telephone network processes emergency calls.
A Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) is a call center responsible for answering calls to an emergency telephone number for police, firefighting, and ambulance services. Trained telephone operators are also usually responsible for dispatching these emergency services. Most PSAPs are now capable of caller location for landline calls, and many can handle mobile phone locations as well (sometimes referred to as phase II location), where the mobile phone company has a handset location system. Some can also use voice broadcasting, where outgoing voice mail can be sent to many phone numbers at once, in order to alert people to a local emergency such as a chemical spill.
In the United States, the county or a large city usually handles this responsibility. As a division of a U.S. state, counties are generally bound to provide this and other emergency services even within the municipalities, unless the municipality chooses to opt out and have its own system, sometimes along with a neighboring jurisdiction. If a city operates its own PSAP, but not its own particular emergency service (for example, city police but county fire), it may be necessary to relay the call to the PSAP that does handle that type of call. The U.S. requires caller location capability on the part of all phone companies, including mobile ones, but there is no federal law requiring PSAPs to be able to receive such information.
There are roughly 6100 primary and secondary PSAPs in the U.S. [1]. Personnel working for PSAPs can become voting members of the National Emergency Number Association (NENA). Emergency dispatchers working in PSAPs can become certified with the National Academies of Emergency Dispatch (NAED), and a PSAP can become an NAED Accredited Center of Excellence.
In other countries, this is the responsibility of other types of local government, and the particular setup of the telephone network dictates how such calls are handled.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.