Understanding GLBA Compliance

Understanding GLBA Compliance

When an individual or an enterprise employs the services, or uses the products of any financial institution, they are protected by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act or GLBA. This act is applicable to all financial institutions and has been enforced to protect customers' confidential information. The FTC or Federal Trade Commission presides over all institutions that provide loans, advice related to finance and investments or insurance. All loan brokers, debt collectors, entities who prepare tax returns, banks, real estate settlement service providers, non-bank mortgage lenders and real estate appraisers come under the purview of this act.

As per the GLBA compliance financial institutions have to implement security standards to protect the customer's information from unforeseen threats. The act mainly provides cover for collecting, disclosing and protecting customer's personal information. Thus it is extremely necessary for all financial institutions to implement a compliance management procedure that takes care of the security policies.

Importance of GLBA

It is not a simple job to handle a financial institution. Simply providing attractive offers is not enough to acquire and retain customers. It is also extremely important to safeguard customer information and ensure their security. Financial issues are highly sensitive and critical. Therefore organizations in this sector have stringent security measures to adopt. Effective compliance management software can be helpful in ensuring GLBA compliance to a large extent. Here are the features common to most GLBA compliance solutions in the market:

GLBA Compliance Management Software Features

1. Cloud based program using on-premise deployment procedures to help reduce large investments. With easily available cloud based services the returns are very high.

2. They reduce the time typically wasted on individual compliance processes, and therefore reduce management costs.

3. A centralized repository procedures handle the data efficiently by storing documents, evidences and processes in one place. Accessibility to this data is possible from any location and at any time.

4. With the help of centralized dashboards, institutions can have clear visibility of the compliance status that is being enforced across multiple units located globally.

5. They provide a web based secure interface for easy accessibility, management of workflow, inventory control and document management.

6. They conduct intranet scanning of information and integrate all information related to compliance from several sources and match them against compliance signatures.

7. They handle all activities that are relevant to compliance and compliance compliance regulation optimization by sending reminders.

8. They monitor and track movements to detect any loopholes and immediately set remediation processes in action.

9.They provide an exhaustive audit trail.

GLBA compliance has been beneficial to both customers and financial institutions. While the mandatory regulations of GLBA ensure a high degree of IT security, making financial institutions safer for customers, by ensuring compliance with GLBA financial institutions can win people's trust and attract more prospects.

Understanding Web Hosting

Understanding Web Hosting

You've got your new business all established now and you're ready to take the next step and set up a website to tell the world world that you're here and you've got something to offer. You've found a catchy domain name to call your own and now ... what next? Well, the answer is that you need to find web hosting for the website you're going to build. So what does that mean and how do you figure out what kind of web hosting you need? First let's start with the basics.

Just what is web hosting anyway?

In simple terms, web hosting is renting space on a web server. A website is not simply a domain name, it is a collection of files linked together by HTML code to display text and graphics on a computer. In order for anyone to see this collection of files you've created, it has to be housed on a computer somewhere that has access to the internet. Not just any computer will do, of course. A web server is a computer set up with special software that allows it to receive requests from the internet for the website files it has stored on it and to send those files out over the internet so that the requesting computer can display them. It is very much like a waiter in a restaurant taking your order and bringing the food that you ask for from the kitchen, hence the name "server."

Along with making sure your files can be seen by internet users around the world, a web server provides other important services as well. First and foremost is the ability to create email addresses based on your domain name and to send and receive email with them. The web server also has various types of software installed on it that allow your website to run programs, create and manage databases, display video, and many other functions you might find useful. Almost any type of computer can function as a web server, but it's the software that's on it that makes it a server.

When you buy webhosting, the monthly fee you pay goes to the continued maintenance and upgrading of the server's hardware and software, the cost of keeping it online 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in a secure data center with a fast and powerful internet connection, and to pay for the expertise of the people who do all that work. It is completely possible to turn your own home or office computer into a web server if you really want to, but in most cases it is far more economic to pay someone else who is dedicated to providing this service in a properly reliable manner than it is to try and do it yourself.

What kinds of web hosting are there?

Shared Hosting - Most websites are not huge matters with hundreds of pages and thousands of files and graphics, and they are targeted towards a particular audience, so they will not get as many visitors as the large general sites like Yahoo! that are targeted at everyone who uses the internet. As such, the average website before is not going to require the full resources of an entranet web server to run it. Web servers are designed to be able to handle dozens, even hundreds of websites at once because they are powerful machines.

Shared hosting is simply the concept of hosting more than one website on a particular server. Over 95% of all websites on the internet are being run in a shared hosting environment. Since the resources of the server can be split among the clients hosted on it, so can the costs of operating the server, so shared hosting is universally cheaper than any other type. Shared hosting packages are generally designed so that each client is allotted a certain amount of each resource, with different payment levels representing different amounts of resources such as disk space, bandwidth, email addresses, and so on. Shared hosting is also known as virtual hosting.

Dedicated Hosting - If you do have a big, powerful website that gets lots of visitors and has a tendency to hog resources, then you might want to have a web server all to yourself. Some companies also prefer the extra security of not having to share the server with anyone else who could do something accidently or on purpose to crash it. Renting the use of an entire server is known as dedicated hosting. The web hosting company still owns the machine and takes responsibility for maintaining the hardware and the web hosting software, but you have greater control over the configuration and use of the server. There is also such a thing as semi-dedicated hosting, in which a web server is only split between a very small number of clients, such as 2 to 4, with strong partitions between each to prevent them from interfering with one another. Since the hosting company is still responsible for the upkeep of the server, this type of hosting is also known as managed hosting. For obvious reasons, dedicated hosting always costs significantly more than shared hosting.

Server Co-Location - If you really want complete control over every aspect of your web server, you might very well choose to buy one and maintain it yourself if you have sufficient knowledge. However, chances are that you still do not have the resources to keep your server completely safe from power outages, roof leaks, thieves, unwary employees and other hazards and keep it on the internet on a fast, high-bandwidth connection at all times . You need a data center to provide those services for you. Co-location is the rental of physical security, continuous electrical power and a fast, reliable internet connection for a server that you own. The data center is not responsible for any of the hardware or software maintenance of a co-located server, you are. This can be a cheaper alternative to dedicated hosting if you have the necessary expertise and time to run a web server yourself.

Some web hosts are offering UNIX hosting and Windows hosting. What's the difference?

The terms UNIX hosting and Windows hosting refer to the operating system (OS) that is running on the server. The operating system, of course, is the software that allows the computer to function and manage all of the other hardware and software that is installed on it. Chances are good that you are reading this on a computer running a version of the Windows operating system, the most popular operating system in the world for personal and business computers. Other operating systems that are growing in popularity are Macintosh and various versions of Linux. However, the operating system you use on your computer is irrelevant to which type of hosting you choose. Here are some of the main features of UNIX and Windows:

UNIX Hosting

Most of the web servers in the world today run on one of the many variants of UNIX. The UNIX operating system was originally developed by universities for servers and networking, and many different versions have been written by programmers around the world under the open-source protocol, which means that the code for the operating system is openly available for programmers to customize and make improvements. Linux and BSD are the most popular forms of UNIX and come in many varieties, such as Red Hat Linux, Debian, SuSE, and FreeBSD. Most of these different versions (and much of the software that runs on them) can be obtained for free, which makes UNIX hosting cheaper for a web host than other operating systems and allows them to offer lower prices. UNIX hosting platforms are generally considered to be stable, secure, powerful and fast. Most web programming applications can be performed by software that is available for a UNIX platform. "UNIX hosting" has become a generic term to refer to any platform that is derived from the original UNIX.

Windows Hosting

Microsoft has developed its own operating system for servers as a special version of its Windows operating system, Windows Server 2003. It is a commercial product which requires the operator to purchase a license, which increases the cost of operation for the web host and usually results in higher hosting prices. Windows is designed to be user friendly, but it is generally considered to be less powerful and secure than UNIX for operating in a network environment. ASP, ASP.NET, and ColdFusion are scripting languages ​​which will only run on a Windows server, as will the Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Access database programs. These are popular for certain web programming applications, and if you are planning on using them to build your website, you will need to find a Windows host.

What are some of the terms I need to know when I choose a web host?

Disk Space or Storage - Because your website is a collection of files being offered on the internet for viewing, they have to be stored somewhere for retrieval and take up space. Each web server has a finite amount of hard disk memory to divide up and offer to hosting customers. Typically that space is separated up by different package levels so that the more you pay, the more space you are allowed to store pictures, web pages, videos and whatever other files you like on the web server's hard drive. If your website gets bigger than the space you are given, you will need to purchase more disk space from the web host.

Bandwidth or Data Transfer - Whenever you visit a website and view a page, you are transferring a copy of the files that make up that page over the internet from the web server to your computer. If the page you are viewing consists of an HTML file that is 3KB in size and three pictures of 47KB, 100KB and 250 KB, then you have just used 400KB of bandwidth or data transfer, because that is the total amount of data you just downloaded from the web server to view that page. Bandwidth is a commodity like disk space that the web host has to buy from its internet service provider, so it too is divided up and offered to the customers in specific amounts. Bandwidth amounts are usually measured in gigabytes (GB), because while only one copy of your files needs to be stored on the server, thousands or even millions of copies may be downloaded for viewing. If your website is viewed more times than the amount of bandwidth you are allowed can handle, your website may be turned off until the next billing period starts, or you may simply be billed for the excess amount used, depending on your host's policies. You can always purchase more bandwidth as your site's traffic increases.

Uptime - In an ideal world, every web server would be up and running and offering your web pages to the world 24 hours a day, 7 days a week forever. However, web servers are computers, and like any other computer, things happen to make them fail, or they get old and out of date and require maintenance and repair. When a web host gives you a 99% uptime guarantee, they are saying that the web server will be up and running for 99% of the billing period. If they fail to meet this guarantee, most web hosts will refund a certain portion of your money depending on the amount of excess downtime they experienced.

Traffic Statistics - Website traffic statistics programs try to track visitors to your website. They can track how many times your site was visited, how many visitors were unique and how many returned more than once, which pages were most popular, where the visitors came to your site from, what search terms they used in the search engines, and many other types of information which could be useful to you in marketing your website to a target audience. These statistics can be displayed in tables, graphs and charts by hour, day, week, month or year. Some statistics programs are better than others and offer more types of data, better displays, easier navigation or other useful features. Most web hosts today offer some sort of traffic statistics software with their hosting packages.

CGI Scripts - Many web hosts offer a variety of free CGI scripts with their packages. These are things like hit counters, guestbooks, form mail programs, message boards, and other programs that allow your website to perform commonly desired functions. You can use the ones your host provides you with or you can upload and run custom CGI scripts written by yourself or somebody else to perform different tasks like conducting a survey or processing customer information to produce an automatic quote quote. Most CGI scripts are written in common programming languages ​​like Perl, PHP or ASP.

You could spend a long time trying to learn everything there is to know about web hosting, but if you've got to be with the basic knowledge you need to understand what different web hosts are offering you. Your next task is to figure out what you need and go out and find a host that wants to give it to you at a great price!

An Inspiring History of a Small Business

An Inspiring History of a Small Business

In 1980, a husband and wife, purchased their first home in Arizona. The husband was managing a vacuum cleaner store, and the wife was a cashier at a grocery store. The husbands only day off was Sunday, and the wife was off 2 different days of the week, so, they never had much time together. They had no children, but the wife was breeding Afghan Hound dogs.

The husband was watching TV one peaceful Sunday afternoon, and all of a sudden the TV sparked, smoked, sputtered, and lit on fire. He jumped off the sofa, opened the front door, unplugged the TV, picked it up and thread it in the front yard.

Even with both the husband and wife working, they did not have enough money to buy a new TV. The new house had eaten up all of their extra money, and there were a lot of new expenses in owning a new home.

The husband was talking to a friend of his about his financial problems. His friend stated that his father used to own a vacuum business, and said, "Why do not we go to the Flea Market in Phoenix on weekends and sell vacuum cleaners, bags, belts, and parts." I told him that it sounded like a good idea, but my only day off was on Sunday. We agreed that he would work Saturday, and we would both work on Sunday.

The only other problem was that this person had no money for inventory, so his friend said that he would put up the money for some inventory to get their business started. They both agreed that they would put all the profit into buying more inventory, and vacuum cleaners that they would both rebuild and sell.

They followed through with their plans, and their new business was a success. They were selling huge amounts of bags, belts, and parts, as well as buying old vacuums, fixing them up, and reselling them. All of the profit they made went back into the business, and they started doing more and more business. It was all very exciting, but the only problem was that one of the partners was now working 7 days a week, and still did not have enough money to buy a new color TV.

After about 2 months, the one partner mentioned that he would like to get a little money from the business to buy a new color TV. He was kind of surprised when his friend said, "No Way". He tried to talk his friend into it, but his friend was totally against the idea of ​​taking any money out of the business. His partner said that he would rather just buy him out of the business that they started, and have the business all to himself. They agreed, and the one partner was paid about $ 800.00, for his share of the business.

Finally the one partner was able to go out and by a new color TV. Then, he thought of what he could do with the other $ 400. Well, right or wrong, he called the vacuum parts distributor that they were both buying from and ordered $ 400.00 worth of bags and supplies, and the following Sunday, he went to the Flea Market, and started his own business. His friend ran into him and kind of smiled and said, "Oh well, I guess we did not talk about you doing your own thing out here." The other partner said that all he wanted was some money to get a new color TV, and that he was the one who wanted to split up the partnership. They both laughed and remained good friends and competitors that helped each other for many years.

The one partner continued to buy more and more supplies, and soon had a huge display of parts, bags, belts, and new and used vacuum cleaners. He was so busy that most of the time, he had no way of going to get lunch, or a coke, or anything. After a couple of months of suffering alone, he needed help so badly that he asked his wife to quit her job which she did, so that she could help out with their new business.

During the next several years they continued to grow, and soon they had a 30 foot trailer and 4 employees helping them at the Flea Market, and at their home, where they were repairing and rebuilding vacuums during the week. They got to know all of their neighbors at the Flea Market, including the ones who sold futons behind their stand.

After a few more years they became friends with their futon friends, and they decided to rent a store together. It was their first actual store, and they split the store space and rent. I all seemed to be going well for both of them, but one morning, after a couple of months, the vacuum people went to open their store, and all of their futon friends things were gone. All of their futons, desks, computer, everything was gone. They had vanished in the night. All that was left was a note explaining that they were not making it, and that they felt bad, but they had to abandon ship and move to Seattle. This was quite a surprise to the vacuum people, who were left with all of the expenses of the store, but luckily their business was able to handle the bills.

The first day that the futon people were gone, they had 2 or 3 people come into their store and ask them where are all of the futons were? They could have told them that the futons were gone, and that all there were now were vacuums. Instead, they asked the potential customer what size they wanted and what color, and they knew enough about futons, and where to get them, that they were able to make a couple of sales without any futons in the store at all.

This was the beginning of a kind of a strange combination that was not planned at all, but it worked, and they had many customers who bought both a vacuum cleaner and a futon. Sometimes the futon part of our business was so busy that they had less and less time for the vacuum part of the business, so they ended up selling it to one of their competitors. This futon business has continued to grow year after year, but was never planned.

That is a story of how 2 people started a business on the side, which developed into a full time business, and then completely chaged to a different business altar. It shows how in business you must be able to adapt, and to go with the flow, in order to survive.

How To Get Free FIFA Coins

How To Get Free FIFA Coins

FIFA requires you to have coins in order to contract star players and keep the players in the team. Due to this, it's vital that you have as many coins as possible. There are two main ways in which you can get the coins: free and through buying.

Buying the contracts requires you to have some money; however, if you do not have money you can use a number of ways to get the coins for free:

Participate in tournaments

Tournaments give players an opportunity to acquire coins when they win; therefore, for you to have the contracts you should ensure that you win the tournaments. There are a number of tournaments that you can engage in. Some of the most common ones are: online, single player, and offline tournaments.

Online tournaments require you to log into your device and connect to the internet. You should then play against different people from all parts of the world.

Single player tournaments involve you playing against a computer and if you beat the computer you earn a number of coins.

Offline tournaments do not require you to connect your device to the internet. To play you should ask your friend to play against you and if you win you earn coins.

You should note that the number of coins you earn depend on how you win. The number also depends on whether the game is big or small.

Farm

This is where you create a new FIFA account and when you earn coins you transfer them to your preferred account.

In most cases, you are given free coins to start you off in a new game. When you are given the free coins you need to transfer them to your preferred account.

This process not only gives you access to free coins, but it's also easy. This is because all you need to do is to have a new email address.

Use a coin generator

Due to the importance of FIFA coins, a number of people have come up with software that aid in generating coins. The good side is that most of the software are free to use and they are compatible with many operating systems such as MacOS, iOS, Android, Windows and Linux.

To use the generators you only need to download them and then choose your system (Xbox, PlayStation, or PC). You should then choose the number of free FIFA coins you want and press the data transfer button. You should wait for up one hour and you will have free coins in your account.

How Do I Make My Laptop Faster - 3 Secrets to Speed ​​Up Your Computer

How Do I Make My Laptop Faster - 3 Secrets to Speed ​​Up Your Computer

Need to know the answer to the question: "How do I make my laptop faster"? This does not surprise me because Windows based computers, as ever, are still getting more and more slower within just a few months of being brand new. In this article, I'll show you how to fight the effects of time and keep your computer faster and for longer with some Windows performance tweaks.

Disable Startup Programs

The boot time (time from switching on to being available for use) of a brand new PC is around 30 seconds. But after a few months of use that can go up to a minute easily. I have seen 5 year old PCs that now take about 5 minutes to get working!

This is because as you install more and more new programs, many of them like to load themselves up in memory before you've even opened them! They do this when you start your computer which is why everything is so slow until you wait a moment. See those icons in the lower right hand corner? Companies use this space for branding rather than functionality and the net effect is that you lose out!

Go to Start, Run, then type in "msconfig". From here you can disable startup programs to your heart's content.

Get Rid Of The Flashy Graphics

Even Windows XP out of the box is too flashy, let alone Vista. You can however restore the look and feel of your Windows system to a basic look. In actuality, this is far more functional and you do not need to wait for any stupid animations to complete as you navigate around menus.

This comes under "Performance" options in Windows. These are hidden out of the way but if you right-click "My Computer" and go to "Properties" then you should be able to find this option. This will really make your laptop faster.

Defrag

Yes, you probably already know this one already. But it's still as important as ever. Have you defragmented your hard disk? Windows PCs come automatically with defrag software these days that you can set and forget for a couple of hours. After that, your hard disk read / write performance should be vastly improved.

Reasons for a Hiring a Taxi Service

Reasons for a Hiring a Taxi Service

When people try to think of reasons about why they need to hire a taxi, they may come across many points but this also creates confusion up to some level. These confusions may include, which taxi service to go for or where the taxi service varies can deliver the work we need it to do. Going through this article can give some insight about how to choose a taxis service for travel and how.

The most important reason for people traveling in a cab is o enjoy the ride. When one is moving on his own, it is almost impossible for the person to enjoy the ride, but in a taxi, one gets immense time to do this. Secondly one does not need to spend a lot amount of time in learning the routes. A good taxi driver does know all the routes and can help in door to door service. It would also be the sole responsibility of the driver to make you reach safely at the destination.

Another advantage for traveling in a taxi would be the cheapness of service. Traveling in a taxi from a taxi service would be comparatively cheaper than moving in an independent taxi owner or moving in personal vehicles. One need not worry about additional expenses as because the taxi companies are not going to charge you anything else that the actual fixed price which would make the travel a lot more fun and enjoyable.

Another reason for hiring a taxis service rather than waiting for an independent tax would be the saving of time. When you are moving from one place to another, just give a call to the taxi service company and they would be sending a taxi to your location. Within that time, you can just pack up your items and get ready to move out. The reputable tax companies can provide a taxi at your service in mostly within 20 minutes. In case of hiring an independent taxi, one may have to pack up everything, then move to the road and wait for a taxi, then losing a lot of amount of time, which can be used for some important work.

These are just a few of the many reasons for hiring a taxi service. Even after going through all these points, it depends upon the sole decision of the individual, to whatever go and wait for a taxi to come on or just make a call to a taxi service and they would be sending a taxi at your service.

Web Design For Business

Web Design For Business

Personal web design and web design for business are two completely different elements. If you're just having fun creating your own personal website, then colours and graphics can reflect your personal style and taste and may be a great asset to your site. However, when it comes to a business website, you need to have a professional appearance that is functional and appealing to the exact type of person or organisation you're trying to appease. For example, if you cater to professional business clients, you need a professional-looking site. However, if you're a business that caters to young adults, having a more interactive and, dynamic site might be more your style.

Web design for business is largely based on personal preference and industry experience as to what works for other companies. If you're not sure what you need, research similar companies that have successful websites, and use the concepts they have to build your dream website. Don't be afraid to see what your competitors are doing.

You can also consult with professional designers and design companies to get a better feel for what you need, if you're less informed on the web design end of starting your business. Often, it's better to invest the money into hiring professionals so that your site turns out to be the best that it can be. It's not that you're not capable, but would you fix your own television or hire a trained professional?

Getting traffic to your website takes more than just great web design for business. However, once you get people to your site, you need to have that little edge that makes them want to stay. They aren't going to want to stay at a site that isn't intriguing, so appeal to your customers. If you're not sure how, put yourself in their shoes, or do a research study, ask friends, family or colleagues to find out what people would like. Sure, all this is going to cost money. However, the investment will be worth it in the end, when you have a website that outlasts the test of time and provides you with more business than you ever imagined.

No one can guarantee the success of your website, but having great web design for business purposes is only going to assist you in succeeding. Not having a functional, well designed website is NOT an option in today's fast paced e-commerce society.