helpdesk - kow more

A helpdesk is an information and assistance resource that troubleshoots problems with computers or similar products. Corporations often provide helpdesk support to their customers via a toll-free number, website and/or e-mail. There are also in-house helpdesks geared toward providing the same kind of help for employees only. Some schools offer classes in which they perform similar asks as a helpdesk. In the Information Technology Infrastructure Library, within companies adhering to ISO/IEC 20000 or seeking to implement IT Service Management best practice, a helpdesk may offer a wider range of user centric services and be part of a larger Service Desk.

Functions : A typical helpdesk has several functions. It provides the users a central point to receive help on various computer issues. The helpdesk typically manages its requests via helpdesk software, such as an incident tracking system, that allows them to track user requests with a unique ticket number. This can also be called a "Local Bug Tracker" or LBT. The helpdesk software can often be an extremely beneficial tool when used to find, analyze, and eliminate common problems in an organization's computing environment. The user notifies the helpdesk of his or her issue, and the helpdesk issues a ticket that has details of the problem. If the first level support technician is able to solve the issue, the ticket is closed and updated with documentation of the solution to allow other helpdesk technicians to reference in the future. If the issue needs to be escalated, it will be updated, noting what was attempted by the technician and dispatched to second level support. There are many software applications available to support the helpdesk function. Some are targeting enterprise level helpdesk (rather large) and some are targeting departmental needs. From the mid 1990s research by Middleton at The Robert Gordon University found that many organizations had begun to recognize that the real value of their helpdesk(s) derives not solely from their reactive response to users' issues but from the helpdesk's unique position where it communicates daily with numerous customers or employees. This gives the helpdesk the ability to monitor the user environment for issues from technical problems to user preferences and satisfaction. Such information gathered at the helpdesk can be valuable in planning and preparation to other units in IT as well as non-IT departments such as sales and product development.

google ad sense - money making made simplified over the internet

AdSense is an advertisement serving program run by Google. Website owners can enroll in this program to enable text, image, and more recently, video advertisements on their websites. These advertisements are administered by Google and generate revenue on either a per-click or per-impression basis. Google is also currently beta-testing a cost-per-action based service.

Working

The webmaster inserts the AdSense JavaScript code into a webpage. Each time this page is visited, the JavaScript code creates an IFrame with a src attribute set to the page's URL. For contextual advertisements, Google's servers use a cache of the page to determine a set of high-value keywords. If keywords have been cached already, advertisements are served for those keywords based on the AdWords bidding system. (More details are described in the AdSense patent.) . For site-targeted advertisements, the advertiser chooses the page(s) on which to display advertisements, and pays based on cost per mille (CPM), or the price advertisers choose to pay for every thousand advertisements displayed. For referrals, Google adds money to the advertiser's account when visitors either download the referred software or subscribe to the referred service. The referral program will be retired in August 2008. Search advertisements are added to the list of results after the visitor performs a search. Because the JavaScript is sent to the Web browser when the page is requested, it is possible for other website owners to copy the JavaScript code into their own webpages. To protect against this type of fraud, AdSense customers can specify the pages on which advertisements should be shown. AdSense then ignores clicks from pages other than those specified. Some webmasters create websites tailored to lure searchers from Google and other engines onto their AdSense website to make money from clicks. These "zombie" websites often contain nothing but a large amount of interconnected, automated content (e.g., a directory with content from the Open Directory Project, or scraper websites relying on RSS feeds for content). Possibly the most popular form of such "AdSense farms" are splogs (spam blogs), which are centered around known high-paying keywords. Many of these websites use content from other websites, such as Wikipedia, to attract visitors. These and related approaches are considered to be search engine spam and can be reported to Google. A Made for AdSense (MFA) website or webpage has little or no content, but is filled with advertisements so that users have no choice but to click on advertisements. Such pages were tolerated in the past, but due to complaints, Google now disables such accounts. There have also been reports of Trojan horses engineered to produce counterfeit Google advertisements that are formatted to look like legitimate ones. The Trojan downloads itself onto an unsuspecting computer through a webpage and then replaces the original advertisements with its own set of malicious advertisements.

stock market - all you want to know

A stock market, or (equity market), is a private or public market for the trading of company stock and derivatives of company stock at an agreed price; these are securities listed on a stock exchange as well as those only traded privately. The size of the world stock market is estimated at about $51 trillion. The world derivatives market has been estimated at about $480 trillion face or nominal value, 30 times the size of the U.S. economy, and 12 times the size of the entire world economy. It must be noted though that the value of the derivatives market, because it is stated in terms of notional values, and cannot be directly compared to a stock or a fixed income security, which traditionally refers to an actual value. Many such relatively illiquid securities are valued as marked to model, rather than an actual market price. The stocks are listed and traded on stock exchanges which are entities a corporation or mutual organization specialized in the business of bringing buyers and sellers of stocks and securities together. The stock market in the United States includes the trading of all securities listed on the NYSE, the NASDAQ, the Amex, as well as on the many regional exchanges, e.g. OTCBB and Pink Sheets. European examples of stock exchanges include the London Stock Exchange, the Deutsche Borse and the Paris Bourse, now part of Euronext.

e- trading or electronic trading

Electronic trading, sometimes called eTrading or e-Trading, is a method of trading securities (such as stocks, and bonds), foreign currency, and exchange traded derivatives electronically. It uses information technology to bring together buyers and sellers through electronic media to create a virtual market place. NASDAQ and Globex are examples of electronic market places.

Historically, stock markets were physical locations where buyers and sellers met and negotiated. With the improvement in communications technology, the need for a physical location is of diminishing importance as the buyers and sellers can electronically exchange indications of interests as well as negotiate from a remote location. Electronic trading makes transactions easier to complete, monitor, clear, and settle. These are major drivers for most market regulators to insist that all markets eventually must be developed electronically. NASDAQ, set up in 1971, was the world's first electronic stock market. It took 35 more years for the NYSE to automate its trading process but it is now clear that the days of exchange floor trading are coming to an end.[citation needed] By early 2007 organizations like the Chicago Mercantile Exchange were creating electronic trading platforms to support the emerging interest in trading within the Foreign exchange market. Today many investment firms on both the buy and sell side are increasing their spending on technology for electronic trading. At the same time many floor traders and brokers are being removed from the trading process. Traders are relying on algorithms to analyze market conditions and then execute their orders. Dates of introduction of electronic trading by leading exchange in 120 countries is provided in a Journal of Finance article published in 2005 "Financial market design and the equity premium: Electronic vs. floor trading,". Leading academic research in this field is conducted by Professor Ian Domowitz and Professor Pankaj Jain. There are, broadly, two types of trading in the financial markets: business-to-business (B2B) trading, often conducted on exchanges, where large investment banks and brokers trade directly with one another, transacting large amounts of securities, and business-to-client (B2C) trading, where retail (e.g. individuals buying and selling relatively small amounts of stocks and shares) and institutional clients (e.g. hedge funds, fund managers or insurance companies, trading far larger amounts of securities) buy and sell from brokers or "dealers", who act as middle-men between the clients and the B2B markets. While the majority of retail trading probably now happens over the Internet, retail trading volumes are dwarfed by institutional, inter-dealer and exchange trading.

Typically, the price of a security is set on an exchange (largely by the laws of supply and demand). For example, if a client wants to buy a particular stock that's traded on the NYSE, their broker will have their trader on the exchange floor find out the current "quote" (or, more likely, they'll read the price off a screen). They'll then add a few cents to the price they quote back to the client (those few cents is how the broker makes his profit). If the client decides to trade, the broker will pass the order to the trader to be actually filled (i.e. bought or sold). Before the advent of e-trading, exchange trading would typically happen on the floor of an exchange, where traders in brightly colored jackets (to identify which firm they worked for) would shout and gesticulate at one another - a process known as open outcry or "pit trading" (the exchange floors were often pit-shaped - circular, sloping downwards to the centre, so that the traders could see one another). Open outcry trading has largely been replaced by screen-based electronic trading, although a few exceptions remain (e.g. NYMEX, NYSE). For instruments which aren't exchange-traded (e.g. US treasury bonds), the inter-dealer market substitutes for the exchange. This is where dealers trade directly with one another or through inter-dealer brokers (i.e. companies like GFI Group, BGC Partners and Garban, who act as middle-men between dealers such as investment banks). This type of trading traditionally took place over the phone but brokers are beginning to offer etrading services.Similarly, B2C trading traditionally happened over the phone and, while much of it still does, more brokers are allowing their clients to place orders using electronic systems. Many retail (or "discount") brokers (e.g. Charles Schwab, E-Trade) went online during the late '90s and most retail stock-broking probably takes place over the web now. Larger institutional clients, however, will generally place electronic orders via proprietary ECNs such as Bloomberg or TradeWeb (which connect institutional clients to several dealers), or using their brokers' proprietary software.

what is PayPal ?

PayPal is an e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet. It is also a European bank based in Luxembourg. It serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper methods such as cheques and money orders. PayPal performs payment processing for online vendors, auction sites, and other corporate users, for which it charges a fee. It sometimes also charges a transaction fee for receiving money (a percentage of the amount sent plus an additional fixed amount). The fees charged depend on the currency used, the payment option used, the country of the sender, the country of the recipient, the amount sent and the recipient's account type[citation needed]. On October 3, 2002, PayPal became a wholly owned subsidiary of eBay. Its corporate headquarters are in San Jose, California, United States at eBay's North First Street satellite office campus. The company also has significant operations in Omaha, Nebraska, Scottsdale, Arizona and Austin, Texas in the U.S.; India; Dublin, Ireland; and Berlin, Germany,and now also in Tel-Aviv,Israel after PayPal has acquired an Israeli startup called FraudSciences for $169 million.

Safety and protection policies

The PayPal Buyer Protection Policy states that customers may file a buyer complaint within 45 days if they did not receive an item or if the item they purchased was significantly not as described. If the buyer used a credit card, they might get a refund via chargeback from their credit card company.According to PayPal, it protects sellers in a limited fashion via the Seller Protection Policy. In general the Seller Protection Policy is intended to protect the seller from certain kinds of chargebacks or complaints if seller meets certain conditions including proof of delivery to the buyer. PayPal states the Seller Protection Policy is "designed to protect sellers against claims by buyers of unauthorized payments and against claims of non-receipt of any merchandise". Note that this contrasts with the consumer protection they claim to offer. This policy should be read carefully before assuming protection. In particular the Seller Protection Policy includes a list of "Exclusions" which itself includes "Intangible goods", "Claims for receipt of goods 'not as described'" and "Total reversals over the annual limit". There are also other restrictions in terms of the sale itself, the payment method and the destination country the item is shipped to (simply having a tracking mechanism is not sufficient to guarantee the Seller Protection Policy is in effect).A class-action lawsuit was filed against PayPal, days after the company's successful initial public offering.

merchant accounts - sorted out

A merchant account is a contract under which an acquiring bank extends a line of credit to a merchant, who wishes to accept payment card transactions of a particular card association brand. Without such a contract, one cannot accept payments by any of the major credit card brands. Today a majority of credit card transactions are sent electronically to merchant processing bank for authorization, capture and deposit. The method of processing credit cards will vary by industry. In all circumstances either the entire magnetic strip is read by a swipe through a credit card terminal/reader or the credit card information is manually keyed in to a credit card terminal, a computer or website. Whenever practical it is best to swipe a credit card because the rates will be much lower and the incidence of stolen credit card number fraud is greatly reduced.

Payment gateway

A payment gateway is an e-commerce service that authorizes payments for e-businesses and online retailers. It is the equivalent of a physical POS (point-of-sale) terminal located in most retail outlets. A merchant account provider is typically a separate company from the payment gateway. Some merchant account providers have their own payment gateways but the majority of companies use 3rd party payment gateways. The gateway usually has 2 components: a) the virtual terminal that can allow for a merchant to securely login and key in credit card numbers or b) have the website's shopping-cart connect to the gateway via an API to allow for real time processing from the merchant's website. Merchant accounts are marketed to merchants by two basic methods: either directly by the processor or sponsoring bank, or by an authorized agent for the bank and additionally directly registered with both Visa and MasterCard as an ISO/MSP (Independent Selling Organization /Member Service Provider). Marketing details are by card issuers like Visa and MasterCard, and are enforced by various rules and fines.

Well thats all for now..