Archive for August, 2009
Achieving Top Performance with Quality Parts
August 27th, 2009 | 
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When it comes to high-performance cars, most people are virtually obsessed about the car parts they add onto their cars and what effects they have on their rides. While there are literally thousands of ways to optimize a car’s performance, in the end it all comes down to what aspect of your car you want to enhance. For instance, some people want a louder engine, while others want more raw power or a better response, to name just a few ways you can improve your car.
In terms of customization, the most popular way of enhancing your automobiles is to get a body-kit and a high-quality custom paint job. This way the car becomes unique and is becomes an extension of the car’s owner. Another popular part to add-on is a cold air intake, bringing lower temperature air into a car’s engine, increasing engine power and efficiency, a must-have for car fanatics. For performance street cars is an absolute must and one of the first additions people will invest in.
However, no matter what you do to your car, you must always buy quality parts, to avoid risks and ensuring top-performance. When looking for car parts and information, there are many great resources online but nothing beats streetperformance.com, a website devoted to providing the best performance-enhancing parts for your car.
The site allows you to search by brand, part number, models, etc. making it extremely user-friendly from every possible angle. Moreover, with a sleek and modern look, it has succeeded in becoming one of the most visited sites among auto enthusiasts. As a token of the site’s features, the home page lists what parts and accessories have been searched most often, giving a new user a much-needed guide to what’s hot and what enhancements people are adding to their cars.
Get your message through, right from your chest!
One of the simplest and most effective ways of calling people’s attention towards your business, project or even yourself is to have some nice, custom t-shirts. For instance, if you’re entering a car contest and give some t-shirts away, they will be promoting your car by simply wearing them, not to mention the visual impact of wearing a t-shirt that matches your car’s colors and design.
Of course, if you are a car fanatic, chances are you wouldn’t want to spend your time designing and printing the shirt all by yourself. But despair not. There are some very prominent custom t-shirt websites that outsource their printing, among which I would recommend 123print t-shirts both because of their quality jobs and low prices.
They serve as middle-men in the t-shirt creation process, matching the customer with the design idea (you) with an actual custom design. They do not only provide custom t-shirts but also a whole lot of high-quality products, ranging from post-it notes to all sorts of stationery, all with thousands of cool designs. Just like that. Get your message through, right from your chest!
Mobile: social relationships can be deduced from patterns of mobile phone use
How do you know if someone’s your friend? Ask your cell. Because your phone knows who your friends are. Sometimes even before you do. Or so says a report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Scientists who study social networks have long been hampered by one thing: their subjects are not always reliable reporters. They don’t lie about their associations, but their ability to recall how much time they spent with Tom, Dick or Cody last month is not always accurate.
So scientists have been searching for a better way to track relationships. Which is where mobile phones come in. Researchers handed nearly a hundred subjects souped-up cell phones that recorded information about calls, text messages and even how physically close callers were to those they contacted. Analyzing calling patterns, the investigators were able to infer which contacts were friends with 95 percent accuracy. In some cases, the patterns revealed a friendship in the making months before people declared someone a pal.
The data could also predict job satisfaction: people who spend all day on the phone with friends, it seems, are generally not stoked about their work. So remember—keep your friends close. And your cell phone even closer.
Posted in Communications | 
Tags: amp, blog, blogs, cell phone, information, Mobile, mobile phone, mobile phones, Network, research, social networks | 
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USA: AT&T is forecasting global economic recovery from next year
The 2009 AT&T Road to Growth Study is based on more than six dozen one-on-one interviews with IT executives employed with multinational companies in the U.S. and Europe. The U.S. portion of the study included CIOs and senior information technology executives from approximately four dozen multinational companies averaging $4.75 billion dollars revenue and operations in 28 countries. All U.S. executives interviewed for this study work for a U.S company or a U.S. subsidiary of a foreign company, and they have responsibility for making decisions about IT strategy and budget allocations.
2009 Road to Growth Study Key Findings:
Time horizon to achieve ROI narrowed by 50%: In today’s economic climate, U.S. companies have significantly shortened the time frame over which return on investment (ROI) is delivered.
More than half of U.S. IT executives interviewed stated they are under pressure to deliver a return on investment in half or less than half the time. As a result, two-thirds cited that the
change has affected their IT budgets, strategies and priorities. The study found that companies are less willing to invest in longer-term projects or projects where the return does not come quickly. One CIO stated that the added pressure has forced the company to focus on IT projects that give at least 100% ROI in 12 months; otherwise, the project(s) get dropped.
Cost cutting and improving productivity are top priorities: Cost cutting and increasing revenue remain the two primary business goals cited by U.S. companies. To achieve the goals, survive the recession and move towards growth, IT strategies are focused on:
Reducing operating costs: 87 percent cited “reducing operating costs” as “extremely or very important”;
Improve collaboration with customer and partners: 85 percent cited “improved collaboration with customers and partners” as “extremely or very important”;
Enhancing workforce performance and productivity: 83 percent cited “enhancing workforce performance” as “extremely or very important”.
“U.S. companies are under added pressure to deliver, and IT investments are more critical than ever before,” said Bill Archer, chief marketing officer, AT&T Business Solutions. “From the study, we expect U.S. companies to come out of the recession leaner and more agile. Technologies that cut cost, reduce redundancies and loss, and improve efficiencies top the priorities list.”
Short and long term strategies are similar: The Road to Growth study found that U.S. companies employ multiple strategies to address business goals, and do not distinguish between short-term and long-term strategies. It appears that U.S. companies are reducing the time period for their long-term forecasting until after the recession is over. The role IT plays in helping U.S. companies achieve long-term strategies is very similar to the role IT plays in supporting the companies’ short-term business strategies.
Business continuity & security solutions have the highest positive impact: IT investments and priorities will go towards lowering cost, reducing risks and improving productivity and efficiency. The study found that “business continuity and security solutions” will have the biggest positive impact on business growth as U.S. companies prepare for an economic turnaround. This is closely followed by “enterprise mobility solutions” and “Web delivery solutions”. Areas of IT investment that are expected to have a high to moderate impact on businesses are “unified communications services” and “hosted solutions.”
These findings are in line with AT&T’s annual study on business continuity and disaster recovery preparedness for U.S. businesses in the private sector, conducted in June this year. The dramatic rise in social networking and mobility trends is presenting new challenges to companies’ network security, disaster planning and business continuity programs. Businesses are stepping up their technology investment and efforts to meet these challenges, despite the economy. IT executives indicated in the Road to Growth study that they expect to make the biggest financial investments in business continuity and security solutions and hosted solutions in the next 9 months.
Disparate views in Europe: The European portion of the Road to Growth study found that in contrast to the U.S., European executives have a consensus view that the global economy will rebound between Q1 and Q4 2010. The majority of executives expect a recovery towards mid to the end of 2010. Additionally, 50% of the European executives stated that there is no change in the time period with which they achieve ROI.
The consensus between European and U.S. IT executives is that the two largest global economies – the United States and China – will emerge first from the current recession.
For more information on the AT&T Road to Growth Study including the complete research results, please visit www.att.com/roadtogrowth.
AT&T Study: U.S. Companies Preparing for Economic Recovery in First Half of 2010
Posted in Communications |
Tags: amp, blog, blogs, budget, business, Communications, information, information technology, Marketing, Network, Network Security, Networking, research, rim, social networking, Technology |
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USA: FCC is begining to tackle the problems of the wireless industry
The Government Accountability Office pretty much wondered the same thing in June with a report on the FCC’s handing of the wireless industry. That report, which was none-too-popular at the FCC, said the agency needed to reexamine its handling of a number of growing problems. The key areas of concern from the GAO report:
Billing: Complexity of wireless billing statements leads to lack of consumer understanding. Bills contain unexpected charges and errors.
Terms of service contract: Consumers are subject to fees for canceling their service before the end of their contract term (early termination fees), regardless of their reason for wanting to terminate service, and effectively locking consumers into their contracts. Consumers are not given enough time to try out their service before having to commit to the contract. Carriers extend contracts when consumers request service changes.
Explanation of service: Key aspects of service, such as rates and coverage, are not clearly explained to consumers at the point of sale (when they sign up for the service).
Call quality: Consumers experience dropped or blocked calls as well as noise on calls that makes hearing calls difficult. Consumers experience poor coverage, which in rural areas may be the result of lack of infrastructure and in urban areas stems from lack of capacity to manage the volume of calls at peak times.
Customer service: Consumers experience problems such as long waits, ineffective assistance, and insufficient resolution to problems.
Some other interesting facts from the GAO survey/report:
GAO estimates about 21% of wireless phone users who contacted their carriers’ customer service were dissatisfied with how their carriers addressed their concerns; FCC’s efforts to handle complaints are an important means by which consumers may be able to get assistance in resolving their problems. However, the results of the GAO’s survey of 1,143 randomly selected consumers, suggested that most consumers would not complain to FCC if they have a problem that their carrier did not resolve. Specifically, the GAO said that of 13% of wireless phone users would complain to FCC if they had such a problem and that 34% do not know where they could complain.
In response to the areas of consumer concern noted above, wireless carriers have taken a number of actions in recent years. For example, officials from the four major carriers, Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint Nextel, and T-Mobile, reported taking actions such as prorating their early termination fees, offering service options without contracts, and providing Web-based tools consumers can use to research a carrier’s coverage area, among other efforts. In addition, according to CTIA–The Wireless Association, the wireless industry spent an average of $24 billion annually between 2001 and 2007 on infrastructure and equipment to improve call quality and coverage.
The GAO estimates that about 19% of wireless users wanted to switch carriers since the beginning of 2008 but did not do so. Then 42% of these wireless phone users who wanted to switch but did not because of the early termination fee.
The GAO plans to complete a full report in the fall and expects to make more recommendations then.
FCC will have tough time reining-in burgeoning wireless industry
see also GAO Report
Posted in Communications |
Tags: amp, blog, blogs, car, Communications, communications commission, consumers, ctia, Customer Service, Mobile, Network, research, sprint nextel, t mobile, Wireless, wireless carrier, wireless carriers, world |
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