In today’s advanced world of computers and technology, it seems like just about everything is simpler than it was 20, even 10, years ago. We can do many things much faster and easier thanks to computers and technology. We can avoid the cost of phone bills and postage by talking for free through instant messengers and emails. We can save on gas money (and our own energy!) by keeping up with our bank accounts, and even paying bills or shopping using our bank accounts, online. We can save the time it takes to head down to the local library to search for the books we need for a research paper by using the resources of the Internet to study and explore every topic under the sun.

And, best of all for some of us, we can even work from home thanks to computers and technology.

Whether we’re freelance writers, graphic designers, editors, data entry workers, or even photographers, because of the advances in computers and technology, we can set up shop right in our own homes. No more commuting, no more annoying co-workers, and no more bossy bosses!

However, despite all the perks of using computers and technology to work from home, those of us who do work from home usually lack one thing – health insurance. When we’re self-employed, or contracted by a particular business, health insurance packages aren’t usually one of the perks of using computers and technology to work from home.

Therefore, it’s up to those of us who do use computers and technology to work from home to search for our own health insurance policies. There’s good news – the same computers and technology we use to work from home can help us search for health insurance companies that sell affordable health insurance policies for individuals.

More people in America are experiencing the joys, and conveniences, of today’s computers and technology than ever before. You’d be hard-pressed to find a household that doesn’t have one computer, or at least has a family member who owns a computer.

The technology that computers offer us is so useful, and many people use their computers for work, recordkeeping, and other such important tasks and information storage. So, if the homes the computers in which the computers are located catch fire, are severely damaged due to weather elements, or are robbed, how safe are the owners’ computers going to be?

Most homeowners’ insurance policies cover computers; however, coverage may be limited, and computer owners may want to consider purchasing additional insurance to cover their computers and technology losses in the event of an accident or emergency.

If you are a computer owner, and rely a good deal on the technology your computer offers, you might want to take a look at your homeowner’s insurance policy to find out exactly how much coverage is offered for your computer. If it’s not enough, think about purchasing additional coverage.

If your computer is used primarily for business-related purposes, you should look into additional coverage for the expenses necessary for data recovery; compensation for lost income while you computer is being repaired or replaced; and data recovery. Sometimes it’s essential to look into insurance policies made specifically for business-related issues when it comes to your computers and technology.

When choosing additional insurance coverage for your computers and technology, find out how much your deductible will be. If it’s less than what you’re willing to pay, you might want to increase it a bit; this will help keep your insurance premiums low.

Remember to always safeguard yourself by keeping all receipts for any repairs, replacements, data recovery, and upgrades you purchase in order to help the transaction between you and your insurance company go smoothly.

As an employer, Human Resources Director, or Risk Management Supervisor, ask yourself this question: “Do our employees think about the legal risk of sending communications over the internet?” If you are like the majority of companies, your answer would be, “It is highly improbable”. It is a very common problem amid the work place, for an employee to believe their electronic communications are transient, temporary and, once deleted, untraceable and therefore, harmless.

The fact is e-mail, faxes and even cellular phones leave a trace. Just one e-mail sent from your employee to the employee of a different company passes through an average of four different computer systems. This creates a trail making e-mail real, traceable, and permanent.

As an industry leader in Computer and Technology Forensics for the past 20 plus years, we have documented, during the examination of electronic systems, employees who frequently say/save things into e-mails or store on a computer, things they would never say anywhere else. Either having an employee delete a potentially damaging or inflammatory e-mail or even an employee deleting an e-mail on their own, does not protect anyone. In fact, it could in the end harm everyone involved.

If a complaint or inappropriate conduct of an employee has risen to the level where you as an owner/supervisor, need to consult a Computer and Technology Forensics expert, one of the first areas checked is for deleted documents and/or e-mails. These items cause red flags during an examination of equipment, and the original items can and most likely will be found and/or reconstructed. It is very important to understand that the intentional destruction of evidence is a felony, and if proven, could land one in jail.

An example of computer message in a court case dates back to the infamous trial of some of the Los Angeles Police being tried in the 1991 beating of Rodney King. One of the officers created a computer message stating, “… I haven’t beaten anyone that bad in a long time.” This obviously became admissible in court.

A more recent example, is one in which we as a company were hired in a libel case. The libeler was using the internet to post messages on a public bulletin board that were both slanderous and libelous against a competitor in the same field. This person felt that by using “anonymous” e-mails and postings, this would increase their own standing within the same professional community. What the libeler didn’t count on was the traceability of the e-mails to their home, cell phone and company computer systems. We were able to locate the electronic trail, and with this information obtain, on behalf of the client, a court order to confiscate the equipment in order to create image copies of the electronic systems. As a result, in order to keep the issue private, the libeler agreed to a significant out of court settlement.

As an owner/supervisor, it is left to you to consider and take great care in educating your employees in what should or shouldn’t be put in writing. In addition, it is also up to you to make your employees aware how the written word is conveyed when read.

We have now asked and answered two very important questions. First, the majority of employees do not consider the legal risk of electronic communications. Second, as an owner/supervisor why it is crucial you understand the potential legal ramifications. The remainder of this article is devoted to assisting you in creating and/or updating your current policies.

In today’s litigious society, company’s both large and small should have company policies. These policies have traditionally covered areas from dress codes to vacation policies. Within the past five years companies have begun adopting IT policies, generally found within the employee handbook. As a professional Computer and Technology Forensics company, when we are called in to examine hard drives and/or servers due to a company suspecting the improper use of systems, we also discuss the company’s IT policies with the appropriate supervisor or IT manager.

In many cases we have found that most policies do not adequately cover what is necessary in the computer and electronic communication age. Companies should have a very clear e-mail and technology use policy. One of the more important ones usually not covered, and unfortunately to the detriment of the employer, is an e-mail retention policy. Since many industries are governed by different and specific federal and/or state statutes on how long information must be retained, your policy should reflect these guidelines.

The policy should be as specific as possible in what types of communications are kept and how long. Make it clear there are both business and legal reasons for the company keeping such information. Information from e-mails as well as other electronic systems can be used in many types of cases, including: harassment, discrimination, antitrust, retaliation, Americans with Disabilities Act, insider trading, accounting fraud, improper trade secret disclosure and more!

REMEMBER- The intentional destruction, of any kind, of evidence relevant to a current or pending lawsuit contained in the e-mail or e-mail attached document, is a felony, and if proven, could land one in jail.

As an owner/supervisor, take a moment to examine your current IT or company’s technology policy. If your company doesn’t currently have an IT or technology policy-get one! While you will need to insure the individual needs of your company are met, following are some topics of what you should consider including in your usage polices:

• Electronic information ownership
• Monitoring of technology use
• Acceptable use of company technology
• Acceptable content

If you currently hold meetings with your employees or publish a company newsletter, these are excellent venues to use to educate your employees. Utilize these opportunities to let them know there are certain things they should be aware of when sending or responding to e-mails. Employees should be counseled to be cautious and to not make statements that can be considered a legal conclusion. Let your employees know they should utilize the knowledge and expertise within the company by picking up the phone and calling their supervisor or Human Resource Department.

When educating your employees about the content of an e-mail or using other forms of traceable electronic technology, train the employee to ask themselves these simple questions:

• Should I put this in e-mail or should I call?
• Would I write this down knowing that it may exist forever?
• Would I put this on a postcard and mail it?
• Would I want to see this printed in the newspaper?
• Would I want this to get into the hands of my company’s competition?
• Would I want this to get into the hand of my worst enemy?

Today’s advancements in computers and technology make many tasks easier than they were years ago. Computers and technology aid us in our personal lives as well as professional lives. Most young people probably can’t imagine a world without computers and technology, and most older people probably can’t imagine going back to that world. Thanks to computers and technology, we work online, we play online – we do just about everything online!

A popular trend today is the act of purchasing insurance policies online. Health insurance, life insurance, automobile insurance – you name an insurance, and it can probably be purchased online thanks to computers and technology. This is a great convenience for some folks. Think about it: who wants to make a detour on their commute home from a long day of work to talk with an insurance agent about purchasing an insurance policy? Wouldn’t most people rather go home to spend time with their families and relax before the next day begins?

While computers and technology make it much easier to spend more time enjoying these kinds of leisurely activities, they also make it much easier for us to lose connection with real people. By purchasing insurance online, you’re saving time and effort, but you’re also losing the important, yet overlooked, benefit of speaking with an insurance agent one-on-one, face-to-face. At the very most, the only human interaction you’re going to have by purchasing insurance online is speaking with a representative over the phone.

This isn’t to say that you should avoid the perks of today’s computers and technology, such as purchasing insurance online; however, you should make sure you have the chance to get some one-on-one time with an insurance agent – even if that one-on-one time is only over the phone. Rather than the conversation consisting solely of a brief synopsis of the coverage and your credit card number, ask specific questions, and make sure to get thoroughly detailed answers.

Reading articles online, written by people who know what they are talking about, is perhaps the best way to stay up to date on any subject, especially computers and new technology.

With computer components getting faster and more demanding everyday, it’s a wonder that anybody ever has an up to date computer. And technology as a whole is moving at such incredible speeds, every day is literally the most advanced human beings have ever been.

So with this in mind, you probably wonder how you can stay completely up to date on it all, while still learning about current technology. The fact is, basically in the field of technology you have to learn and practice at the same time.

How to Find Great Articles on Computers

Using the search engines to find information is something just about everybody does, but usually a search returns somewhat old information and pages with the information you are looking for scattered all over.

The best way to find high quality articles and article directories that have very informative information is to put the word “articles” along with your search term. This way the search results that you get back will most likely be just articles and article directories that have related information to the rest of your search term.

Staying up to Date on Current Technology

While you can use the same method as I stated above to find computer information and articles, you can do the same with technology information. The problem with that though is you can never really be sure the author knows what they are talking about.

Usually at the end of an article there is a resource box with a link to the author’s website, but even then it is still hard to tell who knows what they are talking about.

What I do is usually one of two things. I double check what I am reading by searching for the same words on the search engines, and see if other authors say the same thing or not.

You can also use highly popular, but also ever changing, social voting news websites, like Digg or StumbleUpon. Do a search for those websites, and when you visit them you will see that other members like you can vote on information and articles that they know or believe to be true.

While sometimes people can be deceived and false information gets posted, it is much less often then regular websites owned and operated by Joe Anonymous.

So in a nutshell, the best way to stay up to date on computers and technology is to use the search engines, and continue to use websites that you know to be truthful, at least for the most part.

Many companies are not aware of the significant benefits related to acquisition financing in computers and technology segments. The proper term for this type of financing is ‘ Technology lifecycle management ‘. Most business owners simply consider the following question: ‘Should I buy or lease my firms new computers and software and related products and services?’

Two old adages related to leasing still ring true when it comes to the technological aspect. That is that one should finance something and depreciates, and one should buy something that appreciates in value. Most business owners, and consumers as well know very well that computers depreciate in value. Systems we paid thousands of dollars for years ago are now hundreds of dollars. Walk into any ‘ big box ‘ retailer and see the dramatic moves in technology.

Business owners who finance technology demonstrate a higher level of cost effectiveness. The company wants to reap the benefits of the technology over the useful life of the asset, and, importantly, more evenly match the cash outflows with the benefits. Leasing and financing your technology allows you to stay ahead of the technology curve; that is to say you are always using the latest technology as it relates to your firms needs.

Businesses that lease and finance their technology needs are often working better within their capital budgets. Simply speaking they can buy more and buy smarter. Many companies that are larger in size have balance sheet issues and ROA (return on assets) issues that are compelling. They must stay within bank credit covenants and are measure often on their ability to generate income on the total level of assets being deployed in the company.

Lease financing allows those firms to address both of those issues. Companies can choose to employ an ‘ operating lease ‘ structure for their technology financing. This is more prevalent in larger firms, but works almost equally as well in small organizations. Operating leases are ‘ off balance sheet ‘. The firm adopts the stance of using technology, not owning technology. The lessor/lender owns the equipment, and has a stake in the residual value of the technology. The main benefit for the company is that the debt associated with the technology acquisition is not directly held on the balance sheet. This optimizes debt levels and profitability ratios.

At the end of those operating leases, which are usually 36 months long, the customer has the option of:

1. Returning the equipment
2. Buying the equipment ( not likely though )
3. Negotiating an extension of the financing for continued use of the computers, technology, etc.

Companies that have recently acquired computers and technology can in fact negotiate a’ sale leaseback ‘ on those same assets. This financing strategy brings cash back into the company, as the firm has employed a leasing and financing strategy building on our above noted them – using technology, not owning technology.

In summary, the key benefits of computer and technology lease financing are:

* The company can stay ahead of the technology curve
* Computer leasing and financing has significant balance sheet and income statement benefits
* The firm has flexibility with respect to buying new product, returning existing technology, and generating cash flow for purchases already made

Many of the benefits we have discussed relate to leasing in general. However, technology and lease financing are very perfectly suited to the business financing strategy of leasing.

Nowadays, there is much that a PC owner is able to do to maintain the performance or or even effect a simple repair with suitable Internet tools and software. Most complaints about the performance of a PC centre around the slowing down of the machine. In my experience fragmentation of the “C” or “D” hard drive or both is often a major cause. This is because with continual deletion and overwriting of new files, the data ends up all over the drive in small segments. The PC operating system, i.e., XP or VISTA provides a built in defrag program to reduce the file fragmentation. Usually, the invoking of the defrag program will make your PC fast again.

Other Internet Tools and Software are available to fix problems involving the Internet when your machine becomes saddled with Spyware and Adware. These unwelcome programs enable outside individuals and companies to spy on your web browsing activities and invade your privacy. ‘Scan your Computer for Free’ programs are available to effectively eliminate these nasties. Also, most people are aware of virus infections in one’s PC and there are good AntiVirus programs, which will keep your PC safe.

Another problem which will challenge your PC is missing and invalid references in your Windows registry. Again, there are good programs to clean any invalid or obsolete entries.

To summarise in this modern day of Computers and Technology, there are many Internet Tools and Software available for you to keep your PC running efficiently. These tools are easy to install and apply and are relatively inexpensive to buy representing good insurance for your PC investment.

Nowadays, there is much that a PC owner is able to do to maintain the performance or or even effect a simple repair with suitable Internet tools and software. Most complaints about the performance of a PC centre around the slowing down of the machine. In my experience fragmentation of the “C” or “D” hard drive or both is often a major cause. This is because with continual deletion and overwriting of new files, the data ends up all over the drive in small segments. The PC operating system, i.e., XP or VISTA provides a built in defrag program to reduce the file fragmentation. Usually, the invoking of the defrag program will make your PC fast again.

Other Internet Tools and Software are available to fix problems involving the Internet when your machine becomes saddled with Spyware and Adware. These unwelcome programs enable outside individuals and companies to spy on your web browsing activities and invade your privacy. ‘Scan your Computer for Free’ programs are available to effectively eliminate these nasties. Also, most people are aware of virus infections in one’s PC and there are good AntiVirus programs, which will keep your PC safe.

Another problem which will challenge your PC is missing and invalid references in your Windows registry. Again, there are good programs to clean any invalid or obsolete entries.

To summarise in this modern day of Computers and Technology, there are many Internet Tools and Software available for you to keep your PC running efficiently. These tools are easy to install and apply and are relatively inexpensive to buy representing good insurance for your PC investment.

The 21st century truly is the “high tech age.” As a consequence, computers and technology law is of crucial importance. In point of fact there are an ever growing number of issues relating to computers and technology law at this juncture in history. With that in mind, this overview of computers and technology law is presented.

One of the more active areas in regard to computers and technology law involves issues stemming from copyright. When it comes to computers, the Internet and technology law, copyright issues have become very commonplace. Protecting copyright interests with the growth of the Internet has become particularly problematic. In point of fact, with the growth of the Internet, and with the increasing incidence and complexity of copyright issues associated with the Net, there is a whole new legal specialty including attorneys that focus their practices on these issues.

Copyright issues extend beyond the Internet as well into the arena of software and hardware development as well. In regard to computers and technology law, the protection of intellectual property associated with software and hardware is extremely important. Once again, this is an area which has given rise to a whole new legal specialty consisting of attorneys who are focusing their energy and efforts on protection the intellectual property interests of those men, women and companies involved in the design and development of software applications and computer related hardware.

Of course, some of the most important developments that have occurred in regard to computers and technology law are related to music and the downloading of music off of the Internet and World Wide Web. Through both litigation in courts and statutes and regulations that have gone into effect, there continues to be a great deal of activity in the arena of protecting the copyright interest of people involved in the music industry on different levels.

Although it has not become as prevalent as many industry analysts predicted, there has been a slow but nonetheless fairly steady increase in the number of people who are using ebooks at the present point in time. (Many experts predicted about five years ago that there would be a significant number of people using and reading ebooks by this point in time. While this significant increase that was contemplated in the past has not occurred, the number of eBook users is higher than it was five years ago.)

With the increase in eBook usage -again, which is expected to expand at least to some degree in the next few years – there has been a growing concern associated with protecting the copyright interest of authors who are finding their work in eBook form. On a number of levels, it is a more complicated task to protect written materials that are included in ebooks that is the case with traditional, “brick and mortar world” publications. Therefore, in regard to computers and technology law, there is a growing interest amongst attorneys in developing more effective avenues through which the content of ebooks can be protected in this high tech age.

The millennium era is the season for information technology, internet and computers. They become the parts and parcel of our daily life. We cannot dream of living without them. In order to honor them, I provide in this article, various prospective reflections on computers and technology.

Here they are:

• Technology is ruled by two types of people: those who manage what they do not understand and those who understand what they do not manage.
• Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
• The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.
• Information Technology and business are becoming inextricably interwoven. I don’t think anybody can meaningfully talk about one without talking about the other.
• Technology is nothing. What’s important is that you have a faith in people, that they are basically good and smart and if you give them tools, they will do wonderful things with them.
• Every once in a while, a new technology, an old problem and a big idea turn into an innovation.
• The science of today is the technology of tomorrow.
• I think it’s fair to say that personal computers have become the most empowering tool we’ve ever created. They are tools of communication, they are tools of creativity and they can be shaped by their user.
• Treat your password like a toothbrush. Don’t let anybody else use it and get a new one every six months.
• The next major explosion is going to be when genetics and computers come together. I am talking about an organic computer – about biological substances that can function like a semiconductor.
• Computing is not about computers anymore. It is about living.
• With all the abundance we have of computers and computing, what is scarce is human attention and time.
• The new information technology – internet and email – have practically eliminated the physical costs of communications.
• Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest.
• By the time we get to the 2040s, we’ll be able to multiply human intelligence a billion-fold. That will be a profound change that’s singular in nature. Computers are going to keep getting smaller and smaller. Ultimately, they will go inside our bodies and brains and make us healthier and smarter.

Summing up, those are quite a few reflections on computers and technology that speak boldly on their prospects, importance and efficiency.