Internet Guardian

Posts Tagged ‘Search’

Anyone who has tried to locate a part for a low voltage life safety knows it’s true: It’s nearly impossible to try to find parts to repair life safety systems that are no longer being manufactured. (Life safety systems include fire alarm, nurse call, patient tracking and infant security systems.) The essence of the problem is a combination of the facts that: 1) such systems typically last for 10 – 15 years and 2) the manufacturers of such systems tend to change product lines and/or configurations every 3 – 5 years. As such, for example, a fire alarm system installed in a building in 2006 will function properly until at least 2016, but the company that manufactured the system may stop producing parts for it in 2010. (As an aside, even the 10 year old systems would likely function longer, but improvements in technology may mean that the existing system no longer operates efficiently, or may not have certain features or functionality that have become commonplace in the interim and, therefore, its owners may deem replacement a necessity.)

Companies that have these life safety systems installed and find themselves with a system that has a faulty part for which replacement parts are no longer manufactured are faced with a troubling and potentially costly dilemma: they either have to find an alternate source for the parts OR they have to find a way to make the system function in an acceptable manner without the faulty part in place OR they have to purchase and install an entirely new system. Depending on the size and complexity of the system, such companies can find themselves in a situation in which they need to find a $100 part or be faced with a system replacement with costs upwards of $200,000. Further exacerbating the problem is the fact that the very nature of these systems require a quick resolution or else, literally, lives could be at stake.

A temporary solution that some companies employ is to purchase a stockpile of spare parts when they initially install the system. The problems with this strategy are: 1) it is only a temporary fix, because the company will eventually run through its stock of spares, 2) due to the relatively high cost of the initial system and due to the fact that these systems do not provide any income to their owners, the cost justification of spare parts purchases at the time of installation is often not there, 3) the manufacturer’s warranty will expire while the spare parts are in stock and 4) the company would be guessing at which parts may fail at some point in the future, so it would not be guaranteed that its spares on hand would be the correct ones in the event of a parts failure down the road. Due to these problems, this strategy is generally ineffective.

Some of the companies that install life safety systems have recognized that this problem exists and have attempted to fill the void by maintaining a pool of spare parts. This solution works well for customers who are fortunate enough to be acquainted with these installation companies. For the vast majority of the companies who have life safety systems installed, but do not know these installers with the spare parts pools, this solution might as well be nonexistent.

Fortunately, the growing acceptance of business-to-business ecommerce has created a mechanism to address this problem. This mechanism would enable a company to become a clearinghouse for hard to find parts for low voltage systems. It facilitates both an efficient supply chain workflow and an effective product delivery system. PrimaryParts.com has taken the steps necessary to cultivate relationships with suppliers and end users to create a network of companies that maintain these hard to find parts and are willing to supply them to those who need them. PrimaryParts.com has also created a website that enables companies who are seeking such parts to easily search for the parts by a wide variety of features and to verify that they have found their part by viewing a photo of the part.

The Internet to the rescue! Fortunately the growing acceptance of business-to-business ecommerce has created an excellent mechanism to address the original problem and the shortcomings of the other solutions. Companies have risen to become clearinghouses to both buy and sell hard to find parts. These companies have cultivated relationships with both the end users and the suppliers to facilitate the exchange.

So search out websites such as primaryparts.com, to fill your legacy parts needs. You needn’t scrap an otherwise effective system for lack of a part!

If you need help with a hard to find part, email me at mwong@primaryparts.com or visit us at PrimaryParts.com and I’ll put our team to work on it. We handle new and legacy parts for fire alarm, nurse call, access control, and CCTV systems.

Internet safety is a big issue for parents. While this super information highway can be a wonderful resource, it can also be filled with content that should not be readily available to children and teens. This is why there is a definite need for search engines that are geared towards the younger members of the population, those who are more internet savvy than their parents are.

Google, the internet information leader does offer a safe search filter, but since this option only filters out English content by keywords, it provides little security for parents looking to guide their children to appropriate web searches. While Google may be the leader in internet searches, they are behind many other companies when it comes to internet searches for kids.

Parents do have other options available to them, in the form of kid search engines designed to create a safe internet experience for their children. Search engines that are geared toward children include Ask Kids, which is run by Ask.com, Yahooligans, run by Yahoo.com and also a search engine called Factmonster. All of these provide a kid based surfing experience that will not only allow them to freely search the information that they want to access but to do so in a safer environment.

Well, finally Google is joining the ranks of those who are creating internet searches for kids and they are currently offering Kigose, which came from the abbreviation for Kids Google Search. Kigose is a more advanced type of search engine that allows kids to not only access textual information but also images, music, and videos, all which fall into a kid based category.

Kigose is also unique in the fact that it offers multiple search engine results all at once, which helps aid those who are looking to quickly access information because if they can’t find the information they want from one search engine, they can quickly access information from another kid friendly search right on the same page. The hope is that this will become the primary search engine used not only by parents, but for educators and instructors in schools and libraries around the world.

Next, we’ll be learning about directories and portals and protecting your safety on the Internet.

Now that you’ve mastered the search, you can make your life even easier by letting someone else do the work for you – directories and portals.

Directories and portals are sort of a simpler form of search engine. A directory divides items and information into categories to make it easier to find. A portal does the same thing, but it will often display feature items or news stories that it thinks may interest you. Most directories and portals are sorted by topic. If you want information on ‘cruises,’ just look under their ‘Travel’ category and you’ll find it!

The Internet is a great tool. There are many benefits to using the Internet, but there are also risks. These risks include contracting computer ‘viruses’ that can harm your computer and having your personal information fall into the wrong hands. Here are some tips for avoiding both these problems:

First – computer viruses; computer viruses are small pieces of software and like real viruses, they spread from one computer to another. They can cause your computer to malfunction or work very slowly. The best defense against computer viruses is installing up-to-date anti-virus software. Other defenses include not opening email attachments unless you are expecting a file, and not downloading any files from the Internet unless you trust the source.

Second – keeping your personal information safe; the best way to do this is to keep your personal information private. Never give out passwords or information to people or websites that aren’t safe and trusted. Keep your credit card and banking information as protected as you would in real life. It’s okay to shop on-line, but do so at sites that have privacy and security policies.

The Internet is an amazing resource. Whether you’re buying the latest bestseller, sending emails to your family, getting local movie times or researching – it can all be done quickly on-line. But, it’s important to stay safe and, of course, have fun!

There is a fine line between proper search engine optimization, and what a search engine will consider to be spam. As we all know, not all search engine optimization methods are ethical. Search engines, such as Google, are making every effort to try to differentiate between ethical internet marketers and those who are simply taking the “easy” way out with spam.

The definition of spam, however, has been something of a debatable topic for many search engine optimization experts. The reason that everybody is working so hard to define it is because when it comes time to search engine optimize, there is a grey area between what spams is, and what is not. What is ethical marketing, and what is not? For a word that is so commonly utilized, spam is a very difficult thing to pinpoint and around which to place boundaries. An internet marketer would not want to inadvertently have their site penalized after all of the time and effort they have put toward making the site as search engine optimized as possible.

In theory, the difference is that a “non-spam” website that is truly meant for content, selling a product or service, and is optimized so that its content – which has value to the reader – is most attractive among search engines. On the other hand, a “spam” website is created for marketing purposes only. It has no real informational value and its content is worthless except for its attempts to achieve a search engine ranking.

Such spam sites can include those that have pages copied directly from other websites that are not of public domain. They might also include pages that are simply lists of keywords, instead of articles that happen to use the keywords among their information. Another kind of spam site is one that appears to either be blank or have text or images on it, but it also has hidden text in the background that has keywords repeated over and over, or simply in lists. This is done by making the text color and the background color the same color so that it is not visible to the reader.

However, some would argue that creating a site, such as one with keywords hidden in the background, is not unethical at all. The reason they argue for its validity is that it does not try to fool the search engine in any way, and it is unobtrusive to the viewer. Computers can see the text in plain sight; it is only the human eye that does not detect it.

However, by doing this, it reduces the chances of sites that are based on legitimate information and key wording techniques. These have been carefully created to include the right words, without taking away from the information and appearance of the site. It means that the sites for which the keywords are truly relevant have a lower chance at achieving proper search engine ranking.

To prevent such efforts, search engines have employed such techniques as penalizing web sites and web pages that include information that has been copied directly from other sites. They also penalize pages and sites that have the same word repeated too many times in its content. There are other rules that are utilized as well, but they differ from search engine to search engine.

Penalization from a search engine can mean anything from assigning a very low rank, to blocking it from being indexed altogether. Naturally, when you are a legitimate site, you will want to avoid such punishment at all costs. Therefore, when you are performing your search engine optimization, it is important that you take care not to break the “spam” rules of the search engines. This includes one very important technique: when in doubt, err to the side of safety. It’s much better to achieve rank number two instead of number one, when you risk being kicked out altogether.

It is not difficult to search engine optimize legitimately. Simply create your own original copy, and write naturally, refraining from repeating your keywords so many times that things look a little bit “fishy”. The same thing goes for repeating the same website under a number of different domain names. Just keep yourself unique and natural, and all will work out in your favor with the search engines.

There is a fine line between proper search engine optimization, and what a search engine will consider to be spam. As we all know, not all search engine optimization methods are ethical. Search engines, such as Google, are making every effort to try to differentiate between ethical internet marketers and those who are simply taking the “easy” way out with spam.