Latest HP anti-counterfeit printing supplies report in Egypt

March 20th, 2010

Local authorities in Egypt has confiscated more than 70000 counterfeit HP product from the local market in the past few months. Find detailed report in Arabic here.

No more Internet Explorer 6

March 6th, 2010

As of March 1st, 2010, Google has dropped support for Microsoft longest standing web browser, the IE6. Meaning that Google docs, Google Apps, Gmail and all other Google services will no longer support the ageing browser in an effort to introduce new features to these services.

How to win against your competitors in the search engines war ??

February 19th, 2010

Getting your website ranking as high as possible with major search engines is crucial for your business. It also gives you winning advantage against your competition. We will discuss in this article several factors that contribute to how high you can go on a search engine query result.

Please realize there is no such thing as a magic silver bullet that will vault you to the top of the search engines – if there were, everyone would know it, they would do it, and it would cease to work because of saturation.

Several strategies contribute to this, as you can see from the following. First, we will discuss the general strategies and techniques used with all major search engine. Then we will discuss the specific the specifics of what is currently working on each of the major search engines.

Part One : General Guidelines

Choosing your domain name :

One of the most basic, yet critically important, strategies is to use your best keywords in your domain address. An example would look like…

http://www.laptopshome.com
http://www.notebooksforsale.com

The reason for doing this is because search engines and directories assume the domain to be relevant to the keyword. It’s something that, in practicality, can’t be faked.

Getting your keywords into your domain name is strategically critical and chances are it will only become even more important in the future. Remember, by registering all possible keyword combination domain names you can think of you not only have them available to your company when needed but you’ve also prevented your competition from securing them and using them against you.

If your company name is your domain name, then that’s fine but you should still register all relevant keyword-rich domain names pertaining to your goods and services. This will give you the option of setting up specialized sites that place your services into the paths of the engines and directories.

Getting Your Web Page Titles Right :

This is all about your pages <TITLE> tag. Note in mind that Title is the most important aspect of web page design in respects to scoring well on most search engines.

Always make sure every word in your title is one that is likely to be used by a person when doing a keyword search for your business or service. AND, keep in mind that unless the name of your business is prominently recognized or likely to be used in a keyword search – something like “SONY cameras”, it does NOT belong in the Title tags.

Keyword Selection Techniques :

Make a list of every possible search word (keyword) and search phrase (keyphrase) that your potential customers
might use when looking for your information, product or service. Remember to include synonyms as well as the common misspellings of your keywords and pay particular attention to noun phrases. Next, use these keywords and keyphrases to find your competition on the top search engines.

Keyword Relevancy :

Simply put, your keywords must be relevant to the contents, or theme of your web page.

Keyword Density :

By this I mean the number of times your keyword(s) appear in relation to the other words on your web page.  Theoretically, a webpage that said only “Chicago” verses the “Eat at Chicago’s…” page would be given a higher score for the keyword Chicago due to a higher keyword density.

Description Meta Tag :

The meta description tag is used by many engines as the summary for your site when listed in the search results. It’s what tells a real person whether or not your site is relevant to their search. You should view it as a sales presentation for your link. If the meta description tag entices the searcher they will, theoretically, click your link and visit your site. Obviously that’s the purpose for being listed in the search engine in the first place.

Most search engines place a limit on the number of characters that a meta tag can contain. Once the limit is reached they typically ignore the rest of the tag contents. In general, 250 characters – including spaces and commas – is a good rule of thumb that falls within the guidelines of most engines.

FireFox 3.6 is finally here

January 22nd, 2010

Firefox 3.6 has finally landed. Now you can try the latest web browser from Mozilla. The new version comes with some new features: speed, detection of outdated plugins and graphics personas. Most important feature of all is the added securities that makes it the safest browser to use.

You can try it for yourself after you download it from here : www.getfirefox.com

Two Firefox add-ons to increase your productivity

January 18th, 2010

Below are two firefox add-ons productivity tools that should make your life a lot easier :

QuickFox Notes :

This is a note-taking add-on for Firefox that saves notes as bookmarks in Firefox. This means you get all the convenience of browser-based note-taking, and cross-browser syncing if you’re using Mozilla Weave, Xmarks, or another method to sync your bookmarks between instances of Firefox.

Read It Later :

Read it Later is an extension that works with a Web-based service.  Here’s how it works. Once you install the extension, RiL adds a yellow icon to the “Awesome bar” in Firefox, and a similar icon to the toolbar next to your search. When you’re on a page you want to save for later, just click the yellow icon.

Google Reader fans will also love RiL because it will also clip items from Google Reader without having to view the page first. Once the extension is installed, it adds a RiL icon to Google Reader items (right next to the star). Just click that and the entry will be added to.


IE vulnerability exploit code released on the Internet

January 16th, 2010

Exploit code for the zero-day hole in Internet Explorer linked to the China-based attacks on Google and other companies has been released on the Internet, Microsoft and McAfee warned on Friday.

Meanwhile, the German federal security agency issued a statement on Friday urging its citizens to use an alternative browser to IE until a patch arrives.

More on this issue here.

iFolder 3.8 is out.

December 7th, 2009

iFolder 3.8 is out. Download it from here http://sourceforge.net/projects/ifolder/files/.

HP to acquire 3Com Corporation

November 26th, 2009

On November 11, 2009, HP and 3Com Corporation announced that they signed a definitive agreement for HP to acquire 3Com, a leading provider of networking switching, routing, and security solutions. The acquisition would create an innovative, networking leader that will transform the networking industry with a global reach.
The acquisition would create a robust set of end-to-end networking solutions in a $40B market. It would combine HP ProCurve networking strengths in the LAN edge with 3Com strengths in Core switching. 3Com would also offer the opportunity to add a leading security offering with its TippingPoint business.

The combination of HP and 3Com would offer customers a superior networking alternative.  Together, the combined businesses would provide customers with a comprehensive set of enterprise-class solutions based on open, industry standards and innovative technology that simplifies the network, delivers best-in-class price-performance, and improves IT service delivery capabilities.

With the addition of 3Com, HP expects to become the #2 enterprise networking vendor worldwide and significantly strengthens HP’s position in one of the fastest-growing markets in the world, China. HP also plans to build upon 3Com’s presence in China to fuel continued innovation.

The enhanced networking solutions would leverage the capabilities of the largest technology company in the world (#1 in servers, #1 in storage) and its global reach (extensive worldwide customer relationships, 154,000 partners) to deliver better business outcomes to the full spectrum of customers, from Fortune 100 enterprises to small businesses.
The acquisition is expected to close in the first half of calendar year 2010.
Customer value

With the addition of 3Com, HP would deliver a comprehensive and innovative set of enterprise-class networking solutions that simplify the network, drive best-in-class price-performance at the lowest total cost of ownership, and transform the network from a connectivity tool to a business enabler.
HP, with a focus on purposeful innovation based on open, industry standards, enables customers to break free from the limitations imposed by expensive, rigid, and proprietary networking infrastructure. This not only reduces acquisition and operations costs but also creates flexibility for customers to deploy best-in-class solutions—which include market-leading partners.

The enhanced networking solutions would further accelerate HP’s next generation data center architecture strategy, the HP Converged Infrastructure architecture. Underpinned by the robust, end-to-end HP networking offerings, the HP Converged Infrastructure helps customers rebalance their innovation-operations/maintenance ratio, makes adminstrators more productive, enables faster time to value, improves service levels, and increases capacity utilization, all leading to an IT environment that adapts to the most demanding needs and delivers better business outcomes.

Microsoft Security Essentials available for free download

September 29th, 2009

Microsoft Security Essentials provides real-time protection for your home PC that guards against viruses, spyware, and other malicious software.

Now, it’s available for free download at : http://www.microsoft.com/Security_essentials/

Web Browser Market Share Report

September 15th, 2009

According to market research firm Net Applications, Internet Explorer had roughly 67 percent of the worldwide browser market in August, while the Mozilla foundation’s Firefox had 23 percent and Apple Inc’s Safari browser had 4 percent. This was true on Aug 2009.

web-browsers-share1