VOIP Phones / Upgrade Your Memory / Web Hosting / Online Genealogy / Employee Monitoring / People Finders
Welcome back, everyone... I'm back after a scorching summer break, a mysterious LISTSERV outage, and the 15th birthday of the Internet Tourbus! We started this ride back in July 1995, and some of you have been on board ever since. Thanks for all the kind words -- let's keep it rolling!
In today's TOURBUS, you'll learn about
VOIP Phones for free Internet calling,
how and when to Upgrade Your Computer's Memory,
and how to choose a Web Hosting Company.
I've also got some great online tools to help with Finding Relatives and Ancestors,
the dirty lowdown on Employee Internet Monitoring,
and tips on Finding People And Businesses online.
Read on!
VOIP Phones for Free Internet Calling
Voice over IP (VoIP) is a great alternative to traditional landline phones for making phone calls. VoIP even beats cell phones on price - it's free from service providers such as Skype, Yahoo Voice, and others. But the hardware you use to make free Internet phone calls is another matter.
That's where VoIP phones come in. Here's the scoop on the gear you need to make free phone calls from your computer...
A computer that doesn't have enough RAM memory will run like a car with a bad cylinder. So whether you're buying a new computer or upgrading an existing one, memory is an important consideration. Buy too little memory and your entire system will be slowed down, overworked, and some programs may not run at all. Buy too much memory and you're wasting money.
Here's some help to determine how much memory you need, what kind to buy, and where to get it...
Got a website, or thinking about it? The website hosting industry is highly competitive. That's good for buyers seeking the best hosting companies or discount hosting; you can find a Web host that meets your requirements no matter what they are. But it can also be confusing, because it's hard to tell what's behind the fancy corporate Web front-end.
Here's my advice on choosing a reputable website hosting company that fits your needs...
Family relations and genealogy are fascinating to many people. You probably know your parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings, and biological children. But beyond one or two degrees of separation lie thousands of members of your "extended family." To trace who you are related to now, you need to go back in time to some point in history.
Here are some tools to help you dig into your ancestry...
Providing employees with Internet access at work is a necessity for many businesses. But there are several important reasons to monitor and control employees' Internet access. Productivity is a big one; researchers estimate that employees waste an average of about one hour a day online, and I'm sure you know people who seem to fritter away the entire day on the Web.
Here's what you need to know about internet monitoring and filtering in the workplace...
A reader asks: "As part of my job, I often need to find information about people using online tools. But some names are more difficult than others. Can you suggest any clever ways to find people online?" The online tools which help you find people and businesses can be as simple as search engines or as sophisticated as a "Big Brother" national surveillance data bank that every tin-foil hat wearer worries about.
Here are some of the best tools to help you search for people and business info...