Address Verifier, a Data Quality Software from Anchor

Talking of Data Quality Software, I recently came across an interesting product that has huge future usability to me and other application developers. And what better way to keep track of it for easy reference than to blog about it?

The product is Address Verifier by Anchor Computer Software. It is a callable Application Programming Interface (API) that may be easily integrated to an application that requires address verification. The API uses the USPS ZIP+4® database and instantly verifies or corrects addresses. Applications that rely on accurate customer addresses like call center, batch processing or any web application are prospective beneficiaries of this API. Address Verifier provides the complete address of a target customer as soon you enter the zip code, house number and few characters of the street name.

To use the API, a developer needs to do some coding. This will not be a tough job because Anchor Software provides comprehensive documentation and installation instructions---in addition to Anchor's Live Support. Anchor customers also receive the latest version of the system and applications that uses the API get the latest monthly updates to the USPS ZIP+4® database.

Free Domain Name and More at No-IP

Looking for a free domain name? I use No-IP Free for my blogger blogs to make my url neat, shorter and prettier---and it is for free!

Using No-IP Free is simple. Go to no-ip.com, sign up and wait for your e-mail confirmation. After you receive your login credentials by e-mail, go to No-IP website, login using the account you have created and you will be guided at every step. Choose Add Host and Web Redirect options. Enter a hostname of you choice, e.g. avgweb, and in the dropdown list select a Free No-IP Domain, e.g. no-ip.org. You must also enter the url of the website that you like to redirect, e.g. http://www.blogger-templates-avg.blogspot.com. You may now click the Create Host button. Allow for five minutes lead time, then you can type your new hostname in the navigation text of youw web browser and your website opens. In this example, I now use http://avgweb.no-ip.org as the new neat url of my website.

To prevent the old long url from appearing in the navigation bar, you can also use the Mask/Cloaking option. Click the Mask checkbox and type a Page Title. Optionally, you can enter meta keywords and meta description for SEO purposes. After you successfully setup the Mask/Cloaking option, only your new short url appears in the navigation bar.

No-IP Free is the entry level service of No-IP and it is for personal use only. If you expect huge website traffic or if you intend to redirect a commercial website, you may upgrade to No-IP Enhanced or No-IP Plus, which offers managed DNS, all accessible from your personalized web interface.

As a DNS provider, No-IP gives more value for your mnoey. Whereas its competitors only offers two nameservers, No-IP offers five, all on distinct networks. This guarantees more uptime and protects your website from disastrous DNS outages. Using the DDNS service of No-IP, you can run your server on dynamic DNS. You save on fees from static IP addresses or web hosting. Using No-IP's ddns, you can also easily access your home or office computer from a remote site. You can also redirect your port 80, which is sometimes disabled by Internet Service providers.

You may also register a domain name directly with No-IP. You may then manage your domains using your personalized My No-IP page. A wide range of e-mail services also comes with your domain registration.

My No-IP Free urls give me no problem, and I know it is a window to the quality of all other more advanced services offered by No-IP

Complimentary BI: Your SaaS Solution in a Bad Economy

Designed to operate using a PC with a web browser, mobile devices, barcode or RIFD devices, on-demand Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is tailor-made for companies of all sizes during bad economic times. SaaS dispenses with costly company owned server hardware and software and customized application, not to mention of full-time data center personnel. The vendor provides the server hardware data hosting and security, back-up and fail-over provisions, and product upgrades. The next generation of Saas offers business intelligence (BI) and analytics that are now indispensable tools for businesses to streamline operations and to get the best value for money. The new addition to SaaS solutions, Complimentary Business Intelligence (Complimentary BI) by Oco, Inc offers savings, fast implementation, custom targeted functionalities and built-in best practices features---all aimed at profitability, even viability, in a harsh economic environment. It deserves a closer look.

Complimentary BI is delivered as on demand SaaS and is designed to leverage existing BI framework. Data can come from varied sources, aside form the company's single data warehouse. Rather than addressing the entire enterprise, complimentary BI aims to focus on targeted business needs, with custom fuctionalities analytics and reporting, delivered in the shortest time possible (6 t0 8 weeks), at least possible cost (around $100,000 to $500,000) and with minimal strain to the IT personnel. Complimentary BI also provides functionalities to limited areas of operation, while not disrupting any on-going in-house enterprise level business intelligence development. It also aims to fill business knowledge gaps in in existing IT resources.

More info on Complementary BI is found at the website of Oco, Inc. You may download free white paper to learn more of Complimentary BI, compared to enterprise business intelligence. The CIO update - Gartner Research Free Newsletter is also available in the same site. Gartner's research document, entitled Survey of BI Purchase Drivers Show Need to New Approach to Business Intelligence gives you ideas how Complimentary BI may address the specific needs of your business.

The bad economy dictates well thought of scalpel approach to business intelligence solution that Complimentary BI offers. Developing Enterprise Business Intelligence that uses the hatchet or all-of-the-above strategy may be undesirable in tough times like this. Enterprise BI addresses the needs of the entire company, which is desirable in the long term, but it can take years to complete, may require full-time IT personnel, and may take many years before a return of investment becomes visible.

Using oDesk Debit Card in the Philippines: Seamless and Cheap

After reading online talks about scary charges in using oDesk Debit Card, I tried using my own card in Naga City Philippines. The first ATM with MasterCard logo I found last night was the 24-hour Bank of the Philippine Island Express Teller in the downtown area.

I was surprised to learn personally that oDesk Debit Card is so easy to use and the rumors of exorbitant charges are unfounded. It functions just like any local ATM card, except that you will not be presented with option to deposit fund. After inserting my card, I was asked to enter my Payoneer 4-digit PIN then press ENTER. I selected the withdraw option. When I was asked to enter the amount, I hesitated because the ATM message did not specify the currency the amount should be entered in.

So I cancelled, re-inserted my card and repeat the procedure. I choose the balance inquiry option and the screen showed my account balance in Philippine Peso. When asked if I like to do another transaction I selected YES then selected the withdraw fund option. When asked to enter an amount, I was confident to enter 2000 and knew it would be in Philippine Peso. After pressing ENTER, four 500 bills dropped in seconds.

When I accessed my Payoneer page, my transaction details showed the P2000 withdrawal and $43.77 was deducted from my balance. At the current P49 to $1 exchange rate, it means I was charged only $2.95 for the transaction.

Create Your Free Professional Online Surveys

If you have been a blogger for quite sometime and has gained a sizable readership, you may feel the urge to know the profile of your visitors. You can turn on the built-in comments, feedback and survey features and get basic interactivity. But if you have a product or service to sell online and you like to fine-tune your sales and promotion campaigns, you may need more robust and heavy-duty website with more sophisticated features.

Online surveys are indispensable if you like to gather data from your prospective clients. To add prestige and credibility to your website, your online survey feature should look professional. To start off, you can open a free account at LimeService and try and explore its online survey service. LimeService has every online survey tool you will need to create your own professional online surveys that you can easily integrate to your website.

After you create your own account you are automatically given 10 Megabytes of bandwidth. This will be good for a 20-question survey with 100 respondents. If this is all that you require, your LimeService subscription remains free. At the end of every month your bandwidth quota gets stocked up to 10 Megabytes.

Creating your online survey is wizard based and there are many editable templates you can choose from. LimeService online survey service supports 49 languages. You may create survey groups and on the security side, you can specify survey users. A built-in CAPTCHA is an additional login or registration feature. You may also import existing surveys that are saved as csv or sql file. All your surveys are saved in a SQL database that you can easily back up

Of course as your needs increase and you expect to receive thousands of survey respondents, you can upgrade to LimeService's paid subscription. Pricing is on per-use basis, graduated by bandwidth usage.

Adobe Photoshop: "Scratch Disk is full" Error Solved

When you open or create a file in Adobe Photoshop, you may encounter an error that says "Scratch Disk is full."

The solution is easy.

Specify one or more hard drive partitions that have enough free space--approximately three to five times the file size of the largest image and at least ten times the size of the largest bitmap-mode image--as scratch disks. Don't specify a network drive or removable media such as a Zip or JAZ drive. Photoshop 6.x can create 200 GB of scratch disk files on up to four hard disk partitions; Photoshop 7.0 can create an unlimited number of scratch disk files, limited only by hard disk space.

To set the Scratch Disk preference:

1. Choose Edit > Preferences > Plug-Ins & Scratch Disks.
2. Choose the drive that has the most free space from the First pop-up menu.
3. Choose a second, third, or fourth drive, if available, from the Second, Third, or Fourth pop-up menus.
4. Click OK.
5. Restart Photoshop.

Build Your Own Website in 10 Minutes

Newbies may find building a website a daunting task. To start off you have to buy a domain name and register for web hosting. Then you have to setup your domain name to point to your nameservers. After your domain name gets propagated through the whole Internet, which can take up to 48 hours, you can start uploading your files. To manage your web files and directories, your web host will provide you a web control panel, for example, cPanel, which is not really a breeze to master. Your web host will support you up to a certain level. But for the most part, you will be on your own. Creating your web files and scripts is another story. Optimizing your website for search engines is another job you have to do to make your site visible in the Web. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a sub-specialization in itself. So is website design.

If you like to create your own website but your skill has not gone beyond basic use of computer and leisurely web surfing, you can visit BuildYourSite.com and build your own website. This web-based suite allows you to single-handedly create, build and customize your website in ten minutes.

For $9.95 monthly subscription, you will get everything you need to start off. You will have free domain name and web hosting. The wizard-based SiteBuilderPro enables you to create and publish your web pages. As you master SiteBuilderPro, you can create more advanced web sites like e-commerce site, web form site or photo album site. A search engine submission utility gives you a kick-start in promoting your web site. Of course you need to do more to fully promote your web site but this is a good start. A built-in web traffic statistics allows you to see the progress in your web site promotion campaign.

In addition, BuildYourSite.com gives you extra goodies like 23GB disk space, unlimited e-mail accounts and 24/7 customer support .

You may try the service now or you may view the design gallery of over 4000 web designs.