Nowadays there are several companies offering web faxing services. Most of these companies provide a paid service and a free service. The difference between these two is that if a customer needs to utilize all the features of an online fax service he/she need to subscribe for a paid fax messaging service. Free services are offered with various limitations such as only receiving faxes or sending a limited number of faxes.

Using internet fax services is quite easy, the technology is similar to email services to a certain extend. To start using web fax services, first you need to subscribe with an internet fax service provider. The service provide assigns you a unique internet fax number. Same as email ID, this is the address to which other users can send in their fax messages. The subscriber also has to create an email id in the service provider domain, in order to send and receive faxes. This is where the users are supposed to type their messages and it is where the incoming fax messages will be delivered by the service provider. Once the user sent the fax message, the message will be dispatched to the service provider’s server, where it is converted into a suitable file format before eventually forwarding it to the recipient’s mail box or fax machine, whichever is applicable.

The advantages of using web faxing are that the users can send and receive as many faxes simultaneously or send all faxes instantly. Another major advantage is that, the there is no complexity of a conventional fax machine and those never-ending paper jams. The technology is quick and even cheaper than traditional fax messaging. So why spending time and energy with the traditional fax machine – subscribe for an online fax service now!

The application, which appeared in Apple’s App Store on Monday and cost $US0.99 ($1.40) to download, allowed a user to violently shake an iPhone screen to make a baby stop crying.

After enough shakes, the hand-drawn baby on the screen stopped wailing and a large red “X” appeared over each eye.

Apple’s apology came one day after The Sarah Jane Brain Foundation, a New York-based group which seeks to prevent brain injuries from Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS), strongly condemned the Baby Shaker application, which was submitted by an outside developer called Sikalosoft.

“The first and only download manager/accelerator built inside Firefox!”

Downloads Page: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/201
DejaClick
DejaClick plugin records all the events on a browser and plays it back for you in the same sequence whenever required. For example, if you open certain sites the moment you switch your computer on, this activity can be recorded and played every time you switch the computer on instead of manually opening one site after another.

“DéjàClick is a web recorder and Super Bookmark utility designed exclusively for Firefox. You can record and bookmark your browser activities, then with a single click, replay the entire sequence all over again.”

Downloads Page: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3262

FireFTP
This has got to be one of the best extensions every made for Firefox. I use it day in & day out and “almost” never had an issue with it. I highly recommend this plugin for bloggers and webmasters, I love it for its simplicity and for the fact that it is free.

“FireFTP is a free, secure, cross-platform FTP client for Mozilla Firefox which provides easy and intuitive access to FTP servers.”

Downloads Page: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/684

Gspace
This extension simply connects to your gmail account and lets you upload or download files off the gmail space. Every time a file is uploaded you will see an e-mail in your account with the file attached. If the file is deleted using Gspace the e-mail disappears too.

“This extension allows you to use your Gmail Space (4.1 GB and growing) for file storage. It acts as an online drive, so you can upload files from your hard drive and access them from every Internet capable system. The interface will make your…”

Downloads Page: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1593

Firebug
Firebug is a MUST HAVE plugin for web designers or anyone who does any type of development online. Firebug lets you easily analyze, edit code or view CSS or JS while at the site.

“Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page… Firebug 1.2 requires Firefox 3. Firefox 2 users should install the older 1.05 version of Firebug.”

Downloads Page: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1843

Screengrab!
Screengrab saves time and machine resources. It does not run as a separate program unlike most of the other screen capturing programs. As it is a Firefox plugin, it only works within the webpage area.

“Screengrab saves entire webpages as images…”

Downloads Page: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1146

Codetch
Author description says it all. It’s the closest you can get to a professional web editing interface in a browser.

“Get the feel of Dreamweaver in a Firefox extension. Edit your documents right next to your web pages as you surf.”

Downloads Page: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1002

Gmail Manager
This is an ideal plugin to save time for people who maintain multiple Gmail accounts. It lets you configure multiple Gmail accounts and sits on the status bar and alerts you of new mails in any of the configured accounts.

“Allows you to manage multiple Gmail accounts and receive new mail notifications. Displays your account details including unread messages, saved drafts, spam messages, labels with new mail, space used, and new mail snippets.”

Downloads Page: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1320

Stealther
This is the best plugin is you want to surf the net undercover. It disables tracking of certain features on the browser which makes it possible for the users to browse the internet anonymously.

“If there are times you want to surf the web without leaving a trace in your local computer, then this is the right extension for you”

Downloads Page: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1306

Menu Editor
Menu Editor lets you choose what you want to see on your Firefox menu and the options within a menu. All it takes is a click to hide the entire menu on the browser.

“Menu Editor is an extension that allows you to customize the menus in Firefox and Thunderbird.”

Downloads Page: http://menueditor.mozdev.org/

Greasemonkey
Greasemonkey is a plugin which adds additional functionality to webpages based on the custom JavaScript code feeded into the plugin.

“Allows you to customize the way a webpage displays using small bits of JavaScript.

Hundreds of scripts, for a wide variety of popular sites, are already available at http://userscripts.org.

You can write your own scripts, too. Check out http://wiki.greasespot.net/ to get started.”

Downloads Page: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/748

MeasureIt
MeasureIt comes in really handy if you want to know the dimensions of an image or anything on the webpage. This plugin sits on a status-bar and on a click of a button it helps you measure the area of the given object.

“Draw out a ruler to get the pixel width and height of any elements on a webpage.”

Downloads Page: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/539

ShareFile Interface

The interface can be customized and you can even add your company logo to give a very professional look to both your employee’s and customers. This is all done through a Virtual Data Room (VDR), these are more cost effective than physical data rooms and allow remote access, all you need is an internet connection. The service also offers Virtual Deal Room functionality where you can collection documents from various team members around the globe and make sure they are kept secure as each one is encrypted and protected by a 128 bit SSL for transactions.

1-800-Hosting

Some of the great packages the offer include:

Grid Hosting – also known as Cloud Hosting, allows you to use enterprise-class VPN’s (Virtual Private Datacenters). These are not shared between clients, they are dedicated solely to you, giving you full control over the set up and spec to meet your requirements.

Database Hosting – is a necessity for any medium to large scale business that runs anything from a web store to a client database. The database hosting offered is in either Windows or Linux forums and uses MySQL or Microsoft SQL Server.

If you have hosting needs then be sure to check them out before making your final decision.

Satellite Internet works pretty much the same as Satellite TV and is offered across the whole of the US by HughesNet. Satellite Internet offers speeds upto 3 meg per second, which if you are still on dial up is pretty damn fast, the major selling point is that it is available to those very remote places where maybe cable isn’t available or cables haven’t even been laid.

If you think this could be the thing you are after then check out Hughes Net who offer a wide range of different packages.

Managed Hosting

1 – Support & Care – For anything as important as your hosting you should make sure that you can contact the supplier at ease. Look in to the details of the agreement, find out what kind of support is offered whether you will even have an account manager responsible for your server. Gain feedback from other users of the service and make sure that there is someone on the end of the phone number listed.

2 – Facilities – Once you know you can get hold of the people you are trusting your business with you need to find out the details of the facilities where your servers will be placed. Check the specs of the data center, make sure to double check for security and safety features and make sure these meet your needs. Thinks to keep an eye out for are room temperatures, room security and backup facilities.

3 – Backups – Speaking of backups, make sure that the responsibility of data backup is with the company providing the managed hosting. Check their procedures for time of back up and also the location of multiple backups. Although you might not want to consider this option it is always worth asking about their disaster recovery strategy and policies.

4 – Flexibility – If you are looking into something like managed hosting the chances are you will need to to be flexible to meet demands, if this is the case make sure your hosting company can help you meet these demands in a way that will not inconvenience the end user and cause as little disruption to the service/site as possible.

Well there you go, 4 tips to help you when choosing managed hosting. If you can think of any more feel free to leave a comment below.

Having an online presence is now a big part for any business, especially those in the technology and IT sector, but how does this work for smaller start up companies who aren’t already web based or don’t have a large budget. How can you get a professional looking site with out the cost that goes with it?

A great solution for small companies and start ups are to search the web for some web templates. These are often very professional looking and create that image you are looking for that will give your company the wider audience it will need to grow. Many templates can be customized so colors, text and images can be altered to really fit your current branding. Templates do vary in price and can be expensive dreamtemplate.com currently have a great offer on where you can sign up for under $60 and use as many of their templates as you wish.