Won Me

Over the last few years, the picture quality in digital cameras has becoming amazing. As recently as the year 2000, even the very best digital cameras you could buy produced grainy, poor-quality images that could never compare to what film had to offer. Today, though, digital cameras can easily rival and even exceed the quality of film, capturing pin-sharp digital images and never needing to be refilled with anything except power.

When you buy a digital camera, the most important thing you should look for is how many mega pixels (million pixels in the image) the photos it takes are. Cameras available today range from about 3MP at the low end to 10MP or more at the high end, with the price increasing steadily with each extra mega pixel.

However, how many mega pixels the camera has is not the only thing you should consider. Battery life is very important, as cameras with a short battery life can be frustratingly unusable, and the presence of various features in the camera’s software like auto focus and digital zoom should also be a consideration, as well as the camera’s ability to record non-photographic material like sound and video.

Ultimately, the best thing to do with digital cameras is to either buy the cheapest one you can find or a very high-end one - if you go for something mediocre, you will just be frustrated at having paid a lot of money for a camera that isn’t really all that great. If you are choosing between two cameras at a certain price point, it is almost always better to buy the one made by a known brand, as they will tend to have much better build quality, software and battery life, as well as being generally better-designed and easier to use.

As a final note, if you just want a cheap digital camera to take around with you and take occasional snaps of your friends and places you go, it’s well worth considering getting a mobile phone with a digital camera built in. As you take your phone around with you anyway, it’s no extra hassle to carry a camera phone, and the pictures they can take are rapidly increasing in quality, to the point where they are now where digital cameras were only a few years ago. As technology gets even better, a camera phone is increasingly becoming a very smart alternative to a digital camera for the casual user.

John Gibb is the owner of digital camera sources, For more information on digital cameras please check out http://www.digital-camera-sources4u.info

To pass the CCNA exam, you’ve got to know the role of the bandwidth command with IGRP and EIGRP and when to use it. In this tutorial, we’ll configure IGRP over a frame relay hub-and-spoke network using the following networks:

R1 (the hub), R2, and R3 are running IGRP over the 172.12.123.0 /24 network. This is a T1 line.

R1 and R3 are also connected on a different subnet, 172.12.13.0 /24. The bandwidth of this connection is 512 KBPS.

R2 and R3 are also connected by an Ethernet segment, 172.23.0.0 /16.

We’ll configure IGRP on R1, R2, and R3 with the router igrp 1 command. IGRP will run on all interfaces in the 172.12.0.0 and 172.23.0.0 network.

R1#conf t

R1(config)#router igrp 1

R1(config-router)#network 172.12.0.0

The “1″ in the router igrp command refers to the Autonomous System (AS). IGRP is a classful routing protocol, so wildcard masks are not used in the network statements.

R2#conf t

R2(config-if)#router igrp 1

R2(config-router)#network 172.12.0.0

R2(config-router)#network 172.23.0.0

R3#conf t

R3(config-if)#router igrp 1

R3(config-router)#network 172.12.0.0

R3(config-router)#network 172.23.0.0

Run show ip route on R1. R1 will see three equal-cost paths to the Ethernet network. IGRP supports load-sharing over up to four equal-cost paths by default, so all three paths appear in the routing table. R1 will also see a route to the loopback address on R2 and two routes to the loopback address on R3. (You can also run show ip route igrp in order to see only the IGRP routes.)

R1#show ip route igrp

I 172.23.0.0/16 [100/8576] via 172.12.123.2, 00:00:02, Serial0

[100/8576] via 172.12.13.3, 00:00:02, Serial1

[100/8576] via 172.12.123.3, 00:00:01, Serial0

Remember that the numbers in the brackets following the network number in the routes are the Administrative Distance and the IGRP metric, in that order.

Note that classful masks are in use. IGRP does not support variable-length subnet masks (VLSM).

There are two serial connections between R1 and R3. IGRP is assuming that both lines are T1 lines, running at 1544 KBPS. The 172.12.13.0 network is participating in equal-cost load sharing because of IGRP’s bandwidth assumption - that all serial interfaces are connected to T1 lines.

To give IGRP a more accurate picture of the network’s bandwidth, configure bandwidth 512 on R1 and R3’s Serial1 interface (the interfaces on the 172.12.13.0 network).

R1#conf t

R1(config)#interface serial1

R1(config-if)#bandwidth 512

R3#conf t

R3(config)#interface serial 1

R3(config-if)#bandwidth 512

IGRP’s assumption that all serial lines run at 1544 KBPS is overridden by the bandwidth 512 command. IGRP now believes this line runs at 512 KBPS.

To see the effect of this command, clear your routing table on R1.

R1#clear ip route *

R1#show ip route igrp

I 172.23.0.0/16 [100/8576] via 172.12.123.3, 00:00:24, Serial0/0

[100/8576] via 172.12.123.2, 00:00:17, Serial0/0

The routing table is cleared with clear ip route *. To see only the routes received in IGRP updates instead of the entire table, run show ip route igrp.

One of the paths to 172.23.0.0 is now gone - the route that went through the 172.12.13.0 network. Now that IGRP sees that link as slower than the others, equal-cost load balancing will not occur over the 172.12.13.0 network.

It’s important to understand that the bandwidth command does not actually change the bandwidth of the connection; it changes IGRP’s assumption of what the bandwidth is.

In the next part of this IGRP load-balancing tutorial, we’ll take a look at how to configure unequal-cost load balancing.

Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933, is the owner of The Bryant Advantage, home of free CCNA and CCNP tutorials, The Ultimate CCNA Study Package, and Ultimate CCNP Study Packages.

You can also join his RSS feed and visit his blog, which is updated several times daily with new Cisco certification articles, free tutorials, and daily CCNA / CCNP exam questions! Details are on the website.

For a FREE copy of his latest e-books, “How To Pass The CCNA” and “How To Pass The CCNP”, visit the website and download your free copies. You can also get FREE CCNA and CCNP exam questions every day! Get your CCNA study guide from The Bryant Advantage!

The online life insurance companies offer a free service where you can request a free quote for your life insurance needs. This enables you to compare life insurance quotes to see where you can save money with one over the other. To compare life insurance quotes, all you have to do is request a quote from as many companies as you wish and them compare the terms, the premiums, death benefit and clauses contained in each one.

There are also internet sites where you can compare life insurance quotes from up to five different companies at one time. This saves you the time of having to wait for each quote to come in and then print each one off to compare the best rates. The reason for comparing the quotes on life insurance is to make sure you do get the best rates on life insurance. This lets you get the best possible death benefits at the lowest possible premiums.

There is no problem with entering your information on the online life insurance company websites. These companies are looking for your business and are therefore secure sites. Your personal information will not become part of the public domain when you want to compare life insurance quotes. The company does have your best interests at heart and does want to have you as a customer.

To get the best rates on life insurance you need to look at the companies themselves. Choose life insurance companies with a proven track record. This way you know that when you compare the life insurance quote, an agent has checked it and that you won’t run the danger of the company going out of business. Just remember that you do have to look at the length of the term to get an overall picture of the best rates on life insurance. A longer term with low monthly premiums means you won’t have to start your search for the best rates again in the near future.

The best rates are ones that you can afford. You should start out with an amount that you can afford each month and then compare life insurance quotes that come close to that amount. You may have to revise the amount of the life insurance and the length of the term to get the best rates that fit your budget. You can always upgrade to a longer term, a higher payout or even whole life insurance when you can afford it.

To get the best life insurance rates you need to get a few quotes and then compare the life insurance quotes that you have. But it’s not just about price. There’s more to compare than just price.

For a website totally devoted to Life Insurance visit Peter’s Website Life Insurance Answers and find out about Term Life Insurance Rates as well as Cheap Life Insurance and more, including Online Life Insurance, Term Life Insurance and Life Insurance Agents.

Does any Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system equals any other ERP system? And if not, where are all those differences?
First what is ERP? Or at least what are some main differences to make a first rough selection?

• Enterprise resource planning systems (ERPs) are management information systems (MISs) that integrate and automate many of the business practices associated with the operations or production and distribution aspects of a company engaged in manufacturing products or services. (www.wikipedia.org)

There are too many differences, but many of them are small. Different packages have their main focus on some sector segment. And the definition of Wiki hits an essential point (of difference).

There are different kind of companies that require the overall management of their resources. Production companies are the most obvious ones, but a (distribution) company like DHL or FEDEX are happy to control their resources. The interesting thing about these distribution companies is that they do not really produce themselves their main focus is to deliver what has been produced by others.

Where a production company (Boeing, Philips, etc) need to control the resources in order to manufacture a product, a distribution company needs to control the resources that are to be transported. Information about this transport is often a critical factor. For example if you travel and your flight schedule has changed, it is important to know where you luggage is located.

The ERP systems that are designed and built are often owned by companies that have a specific origin. Some of those companies have been outsourced, and started to produce for others. The question then is, what type of company was the mother organization; a producer or a distributor.

A ERP Supplier focused on production will most of the time also deliver logistical modules, but their expertise is production.
The third type of ERP is again quite different than the previous ones. Both the production and the logistics focus of an ERP supplier share the fact that they concentrate on primary business processes.

The third type of an ERP system excels not in production, nor in logistics, but in finance. Finance is the area where both logistics and manufacturing meets, but it is not part of the primary process.
According to the profile of your organization you should set your focus on one of these three ERP characteristics.

© 2006 Hans Bool

Hans Bool is the founder of Astor White a traditional management consulting company that offers online management advice. Astor Online solves issues in hours what normally would take days.
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