Why You Should Stop Panic Attacks On Students

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Statistics all over the world show that panic attacks among the students are the highest cause of failure in school. When a student is introduced to a new subject that they find it difficult to understand, he or she is vulnerable to panic attacks. This becomes more evident during their moment of exam. Some of them lose their mind and sweats profusely. Some of the students have trouble in writing and this gives them a hard time in writing their exams. If not handled rightly by the teachers and parents, panic attacks could linger around a student for longer than expected periods.

A student who experiences more than one panic attack during lessons or exams could end up sick of ulcers or hypertension. Others end up depressed and dependency on the depressants to save them. For they that are not helped end up from suffering from severe illnesses such as constant headaches. Low self-esteem is also one of the major states that a student develops out of a constant panic attack. To stop panic attacks amongst the students, teachers need to develop a lot of patience especially with the weaker students. They should also provide extra classes at an affordable price for the students who suffer panic attacks due to lack of understanding of the subjects. Another way to stop panic attacks is to complement the students that have improved.

How To Stop Panic Attacks That Would Lead To Loss Of Life

Statistics have shown that many people have lost their lives because of diseases brought about by stress. Many people die of depression and hypertension, which have a basis to panic attacks. There are several things you can do for you to stop panic attacks in your life that could lead to the loss of your life. First, major on thinking about the positive things in your life. This helps a lot in maintaining a positive attitude. The moment you think negatively about yourself and somebody else points out the negative area of your life, you get to experience a panic attack.

Develop your sense of control over your life. Do not spend a lot of time thinking of what others may be thinking about you. People who suffer from panic attacks think a lot about when their next attack would occur. This is the most negative way of approaching this situation. In fact, it makes it worse than you ever expected it to be. Share you issues also with someone else who can walk with you toward the healing process. This one effective way will help you to stop panic attacks more easily. This person should be reachable enough to handle you when you are experiencing the attacks. http://howtopreventpanicattacks.org/

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Drug Free Methods On How To Stop Panic Attacks

Panic attacks can get you struggling with them for many years. Victims of this condition often suffer poor social lives since they feel uncomfortable being with friends and family in public. They get to deal with discarded professional aspirations and several anxiety disorders. Getting rid of fear-driven disorders can be a challenging task due to the multiple ways that have been tried on how to stop panic attacks with no success. Despite that they do not work for everyone, below are simple tips of curbing the problem without resorting to drugs, herbs or supplements.

The first one is meditation. It can help ease the intensity of the panic attacks especially if used on a consistent basis. You should start by making it a daily routine on your schedule. 20 minutes in the morning and evening can help work it out well. During the procedure, ensure you relax and not sleeping to get the benefits of meditation. To avoid sleeping you should not lie down but maintain a meditative position and environment. You can also exercise regularly to release endorphins which promote your mood. This will help reduce the frequency of attacks and give a proper coping life. Psychotherapy can also ease the anxiety in the body. Just talking your problems with a qualified health professional can work miracles on how to stop panic attacks.

 

The Facts Behind Panic Attacks

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images23When one experiences a panic attack, he feels that he is endangered, going crazy, dying or even losing control. These are some of the fears that episodes that enhance panic attacks. All these fears take on one for a short time of about ten minutes and there might be no real danger posed in order to get a panic attack. A panic attack is so different from anxiety for anxiety is pegged on bad things may happen whereas a panic attack is pegged on something bad is happening right now. It can take more time to stop panic attacks compared to the time that was taken when being attacked by a panic.

In order to stop panic attacks, one needs to have some of these basics to make sure that the procedure used is worth. Panic involves the thought of eminent danger thus setting motion of the escape reflexes to get out of the life-threatening situation. These reactions are what cause a panic attack. One need to be informed on how to deal with and stop panic attacks after having understood the basic causes of the panic or what is the mechanism behind a panic attack. With all the vital information, you can stop panic attacks without sweat.

Some Simple DIY Steps To Stop Panic Attacks

Usually, when you have problems with panic attacks, your life gets disrupted in a big way. The good news is that there are some simple steps that have worked in many people which you could try out. The first of these is to learn to relax. When you know how to command your body to stay at ease, you are assuming control. Thus, you need to calm down when you begin to feel the symptoms of an attack coming. This, you can do by taking in deep slow breaths and reminding yourself that it is just another attack that you will get through.

To stop a panic attack, you also need to do away with bad thoughts. The anxiety build up when an attack is imminent is usually due to the fact that people keep on berating themselves for failures and having negative thoughts that add to their fears. Hence, you need to find a way of commanding the body to stop the trail of negative thinking when you feel an impending attack. By having positive thoughts instead, you give yourself better chance of handling the problem. You need to use reassuring statements that help keep you focused on the need to stop panic attacks. Recurrent attacks are due to some nagging fear that you inhibit. You need to accept whatever situation that makes you anxious. It is only then that you can truly work towards overcoming it. Click here

Using Hypnosis To Stop Panic Attacks

hypnosisFear can with hold you from doing a number of great things and thus achieving important results. This can be especially addressing people in a public gathering. According to the recent studies carried out, a great part of the human population suffers this attack at least once in every given year. Severe psychological harm is known to take place if the condition resurfaces again. When the victim cannot tell what caused the initial attack, the level of anxiety developed will very likely lead to another attack. The fear can sometimes be so overwhelming that doing anything becomes quite impossible. Learning on how to stop panic attacks can be crucial to the person who keeps experiencing the condition.

The main cause of the panic attacks could be something involving your past. This might be deeply located in your subconscious a fact that you do not even recall. The attacks can set in during occasion. They may include holiday celebrations, when driving, or even on special events. It can also be in a music concert that may seem unthreatening to you but the feeling will have you out of the concert.

Therapies do not necessary stop panic attacks but they tell the future attacks when they are likely to happen. A number of the therapies given will help you to accept the attacks very first. Although hypnosis for panic attacks may sound to be different and unique, it can help in identifying the root of the problem to help prevent future occurrences. Hypnosis will permit your hypnotist to the subconscious region and change the irrational beliefs found inside. Sessions of hypnosis can have your hypnotist tell the reason the main reason for experiencing the fears. Once the cause is known to you, you can try changing the way your subconscious views the situations that triggers the panic attacks.

Fight Panic Attacks

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image5In our fast paced society the stress is taking its toll on the general health level of the population. Some people are reacting to stress by showing signs of anxiety and that can sometimes take the form of a panic attack. What can you do if somebody in your close proximity is having anxiety troubles and how can you stop panic attacks? First of all, you need to calm down the person and help him or her to regain a normal respiratory rhythm. Once the breathing pattern is coming back to normal would be easier to eliminate the other anxiety symptoms. To stop panic attacks and normalize the breathing you may use the counting method. That consists in asking the person to inhale and exhale slowly and deeply while you are counting load. Your counting pace should slow down until the person is breathing fine.

The hyperventilation is provoked by the missing of carbon dioxide in the blood and that can make the anxiety symptoms worse. To stop panic attacks you can help by asking the person to breath into a paper bag. The paper bag should be placed in the mouth and nose; that way the air exhaled can be re-inhaled. Ask the person having a panic attack to breath in the paper bag at least ten times and then to breathe normally for 15 seconds. You can repeat this procedure three times but should not exceed that because it could have an inverse effect and create an excess of carbon dioxide in the body.

Tips On How You Can Stop Panic Attacks On Yourself

Panic attacks are a very hard state to be in especially for an adult. If you are a working person, this can cause a lot of fear to you especially when you are supposed to be interactive with other people. Panic attacks could sometimes be embarrassing especially when you experience them before many people. Panic attacks could go as far as causing a person to develop a low self-esteem and even fear facing other people in the society. Panic attacks do not have a permanent solution, but you can take steps toward your healing. First, try to avoid situations where you can suffer an attack. This plays a major role in trying to stop panic attacks from occurring more times. You should also avoid too much thinking about future panic attacks. This is also a more effective way of trying to stop panic attacks from occurring so many times. You have control over your mind. You can easily decide on not thinking about future panic attacks. Choose to maintain a positive attitude throughout your working days. This will keep the panic attacks at bay in your life. The longer you maintain the positive attitude, the longer you stay away from attacks. Learn also to stay relaxed even in the hard situations. http://howtopreventpanicattacks.org/what-are-the-different-panic-attack-causes/

Symptoms Of A Panic Attack

images-(4)A panic is a rapid fear which grips a person suddenly that he loses track of him. This comes with profuse sweating, an uncontrolled breathing, there can be muscular tensions as well as palpitation. All in all, it is very possible to stop panic attacks despite all these signs and symptom that come with the panic attack. So as to stop panic attacks efficiently, an early diagnosis is important for you so as to enhance early treatment which is more effective unlike when the panic attacks have become more frequent. Some of the very common initial disorders that will lead you to know that you may be having this kind of problem include social anxiety disorder as well as the post-traumatic stress disorder.

In case that you note you have some of the signs mentioned here you can stop panic attacks by taking on the preventive measures that you can be guided on by a therapist. There are very many methods at hand that will be the solution headed to stop panic attacks and if well followed them will lead you to get back to your life without a panic attack ever occurring to you again.  All you need to do is follow the guidelines that you will be given fully.

Commonly Used Panic Treatment Plans

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images3Other than use of the CBT, there are also more available options that are in the market for effective panic attack treatment. The panic disorder can be treated using the psychodynamic therapy. It is a different aspect that will help you in dealing with the internal struggles that come with panic. This method has become very famous too in panic treatment. You will become more informed on the internal struggles that cause the panic attacks. This understanding of the internal struggles serves as the power behind the panic attack treatment that is very effective for you will have all the necessary information of what you are dealing with. There are also natural methods for the panic attack treatment. There is the meditation treatment plan for panic. This method helps you to work on your breathing when you have the full concentration on. This is one of the most effective ways of panic attack treatment for you can always do it whenever you are in for a panic problem. You will have full control of the situation at all times. As stated, these are some of the best panic attack treatment plans available for you and they will definitely place you in a state that you will never fear a panic attack at any one given time for there are effective panic attack treatment methods at hand.

Panic Attacks And Ways To Overcome Them

download-(1)Panic attacks are small periods of premonition or terror which may vary over a time period of ten minutes or more. These attacks may prolong if they have been triggered due to some serious situation like accidents, deaths of a loved one etc. Moreover, these attacks are caused by many situations in which the subject may want to run away or escape from an impending situation in which they can take some steps which may be hazardous for them. For example, the death of a very close loved one can result in a panic attack and the subject trying to kill himself. People who suffer from panic attack try to run away from the situation or some violent ones can even try to take their lives. There are many panic attack treatment solutions available to doctors. Different medications can be used for panic attack treatment. Antidepressants may also be prescribed to the patients so that they remain calm. When a person is experiencing a panic attack, the immediate relief that can be provided to that person can be the anti-anxiety medications like Xanax, Klonopin etc. These bring about immediate relief in such cases. Antidepressants like Prozac and Paxil can help with long-term medications for panic attacks and prevention. These anti-depressants only help in the prevention of these attacks but they are not suitable to be used for immediate relief. They have properties for long-term relief. Some psychiatrist recommends psychoanalysis as a panic attack treatment. The panic disorder can be treated (in post)

Panic Attack Treatment By Exposure Therapy

Victims of panic attacks get weird and unpleasant feelings when the condition sets in. This is the main reason why many of the sufferers are everywhere trying to get a panic attack treatment that will best work for them. What most victims are doing is trying to evade the conditions that are triggering the condition. As much as this is advisable, they are actually worsening the intensity of fear for such situations and solving nothing. This will bring upon inconveniences in the life of the individual. You can actually attain full treatment by resorting to exposure technique method. All it entails is confronting the fears wholly and dealing with them accordingly without evading. This procedure works miracles for individuals getting repeated exposures of the triggering factors. As time goes by, the individual will gather the courage and mastery of the frightening situation and the anxiety will tend to disappear. Exposure therapy works both in real life circumstances and by just mere imagination of the condition. Systemic desensitization can work as a supplement for exposure therapy. This panic attack treatment adheres to categorical steps when confronting the situation. This method helps the victims to swallow their fears slowly and provides them with skills of coping up with life. It involves three main parts that is relaxation, a plan involving steps, and trying to stick to every step at a single incidence. The exposure method of treating the attacks best suits individuals affected intensively by stress.

Steps To Take Before Starting Server Recovery

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A server data recovery process is one that could take hours or days depending on the amount of damage to the hard disks. You should also have in mind that it is a process that needs only an expert to do it or else further loss of data may be experienced. If you realize that the data that was stored on the server is lost, the first thing is to determine the cause of the data loss. Has it been caused by power surges, physical damage, a natural calamity or an accidental deletion? This is the question that you need to answer for yourself before you take any step. You should also remain calm since once you panic, you might cause more harm than good in trying to seek out a solution.

Server crashes can suck.

Server crashes can suck.

If it is accidental deletion, find out whether you can trace your data from the recycle bin. If you find it there, click your restore button to bring it back. In a case where it has been caused by physical damage such as falling, switch off power from the main source and immediately call for the services of an expert. Do not take any action. The same applies to a server that has just gone off without any particular reason. You should not try a server data recovery process by switching your computer on and off. This could make your new data overwrite the data that was initially there and therefore lead to greater losses.

Servers Are The Lifeblood

For many businesses, the main data server functions as the main lifeblood of the company. When the server goes down, it is absolutely essential to get things back up in the least time possible. As a business owner, it is important to get the critical business data back in time, so that other processes do not suffer. However, studies show that a good majority of business owners do not have solid strategy should things go awry. Having a backup plan should be second nature to these businesses; otherwise, they will be in a lot of trouble.

Many firms are content to sit back and let disaster happen before they take steps to rectify the situation. They refuse to acknowledge that trouble is just a step away. As such, they resort to calling server data recovery companies to help them out with server emergencies, something these companies certainly do not mind doing. These companies see this kind of behavior all the time- reactive instead of proactive- and often advise against such. For the business owner, taking basic precautions can help them avoid unnecessary costs.

Servers are very sensitive to heat and dust. As such, they should be kept in controlled environments, where these variables can be controlled. Having a plan to safeguard against calling a server data recovery company is the best way to go, in order to maintain data safety and integrity.

Data recovery services and software have shown a steep rise in the market of data loss. The low cost of server hardware has boosted the demand of these services. Small to large organizations buy and use the retrieval services in order to avoid any future disaster.

Does your organization really have a server data recovery plan? If not, then here is the way. The very first step of the server data recovery plan is gathering of the important sources such as vendor websites, sites of the hard disk recovery company, forums etc. The next step would be employing a professional who deals with such data corruption and hard driver failure issues so that he renders quick help in times of emergencies. The most common step of the plan is to have a backup. The organization should plan for sever hard drive breakdown from beforehand.

In the end, it can just be said that that server data recovery is more about playing safe by planning and getting prepared for such a mishap from beforehand. It helps in recovery of server data smoothly without any panic lowering down the emergent level of the big problem. Thus, one should definitely plan out these steps for such unforeseen emergencies.

We have all been victims one time in our lives where we accidentally deleted some very important data from our systems or when the system suddenly crashed and we realized all our important information had simply vanished. Worse, was still when there was no way to retrieve the information; then the nightmare begun. Imagine if this was to happen in a large organization that runs major services and was the sole hope for very many people. Loosing data in such an organization can prove very disastrous. This is the reason many large companies are now on the lookout for professional server data recovery handlers.

Most servers come with data backup systems. However, it does not always serve useful and it may fail disastrously at times. Data recovery professionals are designed to retrieve your lost data and restore it to almost the way it was before regardless of how complex or basic the system was. You can also help boost the recovery process by making sure that your system is equipped with an approved software that will help back up your data in case such mishaps occur.

Ok. Maybe not this literal.

Ok. Maybe not this literal.

Server  services can also be offered by some private enterprises. These enterprises offer various recovery options depending on the damage caused by the loss. It can be in terms of hard disk recovery, server recovery or raid data recovery. In severe cases such as corruption of information and virus infection, outside help is very much recommended. This is majorly because of the damage caused and poor handling of the system will lead to complete loss of data. Recovering lost data is a very delicate issue, and caution should be exercised when shopping around for the service providers. Otherwise, when you get the best professionals in this job, they may really prove to be really helpful.

Defining Recovery

The term server recovery is often used to describe the process of salvaging corrupted, failed, broken and inaccessible data in servers. Such a need would be necessitated by a server failure, often due to electrical, physical, or logical faults. Servers are sensitive pieces of equipment, and therefore need special care and treatment. When such a server fails, it is absolutely necessary to keep the server untouched, even if you think you can get the data back on your own. You might mess up something you have no idea how to fix, in the process losing precious data.

The most common reason to need server repair is software failure. This may be brought about by some sort of compromise in the system. Whatever the case, the stored data can no longer be accessed, a situation not many businesses would like to be in. in some cases, basic partition procedures can bring the data back, but this solution is not guaranteed to work.

Data loss that can bring about server problems is brought about by a number of reasons; simple deletion, electrical faults, among others. Good news is, the data is only lost temporarily, it can be retrieved from the hard disks. The data is merely deleted from the computer’s memory; it still resides in the hard disk until it is overwritten. Get more valuable information at: http://www.harddrivedatarecovery.org/.

Living As A Vendor

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WHEN YOUR membership packet arrives, extolling the resources available to you as a participant in a vendor’s reseller or developer program, you’re apt to flip by the description of the solution center. Don’t. Go back and take another look. Although they rarely get more than a few descriptive paragraphs, these vendor programs can be an incredible resource for building customer solutions–and often with very little commitment.

You, too, can be this vanilla looking!

You, too, can be this vanilla looking!

A solution center is a vendor facility at which you can test you software, using vendor hardware and other resources. Do you have a complex customer application that requires hardware you don’t own? Do you want to certify that your vertical app runs on the entire range of servers? Is performance testing a concern? At a vendor solution center, you can answer these questions, with the help of their experienced staff–and you don’t need to be a big shot to get in.

Other vendors have a different kind of solution center. At those, resellers can sometimes participate, but by invitation only. What’s available to you, and what kind of hoops do you need to jump through to take advantage of it?

Vendors give their facilities different names: solution center, compatibility lab or testing center. The resources and requirements vary just as widely.

IBM has 13 (soon to be 15) Solution Partnership Centers worldwide, with U.S. locations in Chicago, Boston, and San Mateo, Calif. Each center has several million dollars worth of equipment.

In the Boston-area center, the equipment list includes mainframes, AS/400s, every RS/6000 model, Netfinity servers, and a java solutions studio equipped with a range of Java client computers. If you’re developing on an IBM or Lotus platform, the computer lab will make you feel like a kid locked in a candy store–with personnel handing out free samples. (“Did you come in to test your Lotus Notes application on Netfinity servers or the AS / 400? Why don’t you stay an extra day, and we’ll see if we can help you certify it on OS/390, too.”)

Apple Computer’s Compatibility Lab is at corporate headquarters in Silicon Valley. The company provides rooms full of Apple equipment, ranging from the latest G4 Macintosh systems to old LC models. That’s a sign of the company’s thoughtfulness; educational-software resellers must ensure their applications run on older-school equipment, an how else could you make sure it’ll work?

It’s a lot easier to take advantage c these resources than you may imagine. You contact the vendor, often by filling in a Web page form, and explain what resources you’ll need. Hold a few conversations to nail down the details and depending on what’s already scheduled, you can probably be on-site in three o four weeks.

Though it’s easy to imagine these facilities as clubhouses for the vendor’s “chosen” resellers (the ones who get invited to the parties you only learn about afterward), the entry requirements are relatively painless. To use Apple’s labs, for instance, you need to be at least a “select” member of the company’s developer program, which costs $500 per year and includes many other benefits. Use of Apple’s labs is then free, and no one will quiz you about what you’re testing.

Use of IBM’s Solution Partnership Centers is completely free to any member of the IBM Solution Developer Program–which costs nothing to join. However, IBM limits lab access to commercial-software developers. Its goal, according to SPC manager Valerie Paul, is to increase the markets for IBM developers and to help them get their code to market better and faster.

For example, Bea’s Tuxedo is a transaction processing monitor and load balancing software app. With Microsoft’s cluster server features, the product now has a physical counterpart in hardware. BEA’s principal consultant, William Field, visited the IBM SPC to test Tuxedo using IBM NetFinity servers.

If you’re developing a vertical application for a market niche, the center will love to have you, but they’re less interested in helping you debug a one-off solution for a single customer.

Another level of “solution center” may be available to you, if you hook up with the right vendor. Both Microsoft and Compaq Computer operate facilities wherein customers and business partners help the vendor develop technology solutions. At these centers, participants create and document procedures and tools, and develop best practices for emerging technologies.

Largely however, it’s the vendor that determines what issues are addressed and who’s invited to participate. You can’t show up with a backup tape and a nagging problem with its Turbo Ninja line of products. Still, you do get the opportunity to participate in a large-scale implementation using new technology; to work with big-name customers; and to help develop solutions–but they might not be your solutions.

Microsoft and Compaq usually ask larger, very committed resellers to participate, such as Compaq’s Enterprise Solution Partners. However, you can always suck up to-er, befriend–your local vendor rep or reseller contact. Compaq also will let you use its lab facilities on an as-available basis, with a fee based on the application’s complexity. Start your budget at $200 an hour.

Those aren’t the only vendors offering such services to business partners–not by a long shot. Premier members of Hewlett-Packard’s reseller program can use the company’s testing facilities, and Sun Microsystems offers a network of Global Competency Centers for business-application implementation. It’s less clear what hoops you have to jump through to take advantage of these resources, though, and you may spend a fair amount of time on a vendor’s Web site trying to figure out whom to contact.

Clearly, these vendor solution centers are a sweet deal. If you’re developing solutions based on a vendor’s technology, it’s worth your time to find out what resources they’ve made available.

Speech Recognition Matures, To Say The Least

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You never thought owning your own company would feel so much like a secretarial job. The reams of documents you’ve typed in the past year could fill a warehouse. Your wrists ache, and your ears buzz from the clacking of your keyboard. But there’s a solution-and it’s much cheaper than hiring an assistant.

Voice recognition isn't so stupid anymore.

Voice recognition isn’t so stupid anymore.

Say hello to speech recognition. Dictate and format documents-even control Windows-just by talking. But don’t junk your keyboard. None of the four apps we tested-Dragon NaturallySpeaking Preferred 12.0, Lernout & Hauspie Voice Xpress Professional 4.0, IBM ViaVoice Pro Millennium Edition, and Philips Free Speech 2000-lets you communicate with your PC by voice alone. Despite tight integration with Windows and many other applications, these speech programs still require mouse work to get your computer’s full attention.

We tested these speech packages. Our testers-all frequent users of Windows, Microsoft Office applications, and the Web-took each program through all the paces: setup, training, dictating, and document formatting, as well as controlling other apps and browsing the Web by voice.

Fast Talkers

The most notable improvement over previous speech recognition efforts is a much shorter training period. Within 10 minutes of dictating into your PC for the first time, you can start creating documents, browsing the Web, and switching between programs just by telling your computer what to do. It’s a great idea. After all, who has time to spend an hour or more with a program before getting down to business? But only two of the four packages we tested offer an acceptable level of accuracy after such a brief training period: Dragon Naturally Speaking (a pre release version) and Voice Xpress, our testers’ overall favorites.

In spite of Voice Xpress’s enticing extras-direct dictation into most Windows apps, a suite of voice-powered utilities called TalkingTools, and an option to use the software with a mobile recorder-Dragon NaturallySpeaking distinguished itself. Testers gave it high marks for dead-on accuracy (after a bit of extra training), easy navigation within documents, and a smart correction feature that clearly learns from its mistakes.

Like the others, Dragon NaturallySpeaking lets you dictate and format text directly in Word. But it’s irksome that it forces you to start in its proprietary word processor rather than giving you a choice. The other three apps install a control bar at the top of the screen that shows the microphone’s status and offers quick access to settings. While Dragon Naturally Speaking can dictate into programs besides Word- including Corel WordPerfect, Lotus Notes, and some Internet chat software-it doesn’t give you control over Windows the way its three rivals do.

Master and Servant FreeSpeech, Voice Xpress, and ViaVoice (a beta version) all let you boss Windows around. Too bad Windows doesn’t always listen. From the desktop, all three packages let you launch applications, explore directories, and access your Start menu. Testers had the best luck with ViaVoice and Voice Xpress: Both launched most applications in one try and let testers open folders just by speaking. You can navigate Windows with Free Speech too, but it doesn’t let you drill through layers of folders as deeply.

Our testers liked being able to ask the software what commands work in a given context. All four applications offer this feature. In Via Voice, for example, you simply say, “What can I say?” and a context-sensitive command list appears. However, more than once, testers found that these supposedly tried-and-true commands did not work at all. You should be able to tell ViaVoice, “Surf the Web.” But instead of launching Internet Explorer, ViaVoice just sits there.

Browsing the Web by voice was touch and go. All four programs quickly jumped between text links on Web pages. With Voice Xpress and ViaVoice, you can even open Favorites in Internet Explorer 5.0 (or Bookmarks in Netscape Navigator 4.5) and tell the browser which sites to visit. The other packages do the same within IE only. But testers found that spelling out a Web address was nearly impossible in all four.

Speech Shortcuts For most businesspeople, browsing the Web and controlling applications with your voice is a handy but unnecessary extra. You can probably get around Windows and the Net a lot faster using your mouse and keyboard anyway. But if you’re a slow typist, or if you’d like to augment your assistant’s ability to take dictation, speech programs are your secret weapon.

To save even more time, these packages often let you create your own verbal shortcuts, which means you don’t have to repeat certain common phrases or blocks of information. For example, you can train Dragon Naturally Speaking and FreeSpeech to recognize “Joe’s address” or “my phone number” as shortcuts that stand for the referenced information, which also ensures that a number or a tricky phrase is entered correctly every time.

Even if dictating to your PC is faster than typing, it’s not going to save you time in the long run if the software can’t correctly interpret what you say. Dragon Naturally Speaking gets our nod because it’s simply the most accurate and the easiest to use. While none of the programs performed flawlessly after the first training, testers noted that Naturally Speaking seemed to learn the fastest. And like the other three programs we tested, Dragon Naturally Speaking will digest documents along the way to expand its vocabulary, which boosts accuracy even more.

Moving around inside a document proved to be most painless with Dragon Naturally Speaking. It’s the only program that lets you say “Insert after [text]” to move the cursor before or after a certain word. The others make you count words or lines-”Move to 16th word,” for example-a process so tedious it makes the mouse seem like a technological breakthrough.

The biggest problem with these apps is their failure to distinguish between dictation and commands. Free Speech gets around this by operating in three different modes-dictation, command, and spelling. But remembering to switch between the modes is a pain. And mode-less operation isn’t that much better. In Voice Xpress and ViaVoice, testers had trouble getting the system to differentiate between commands and dictation: Sometimes saying, “Go to end of document” resulted in the phrase being typed out; other times the cursor complied.

Testing 1, 2, 3 Beyond repeated use and extensive training, we found that a high-quality headset microphone also improved accuracy. Each package claims to include a good mike-FreeSpeech bundles Philips’s SpeechMike, a handheld microphone and mouse combo. But we tested the apps with their standard microphones, as well as with a third-party product. The SR1 headset was easier to use and adjust, and the resulting speech transcription was more precise.

But hardware is only a small piece of the puzzle. For dead-on dictation accuracy, look to Dragon Naturally Speaking Preferred 4.0. If you want to be able to tell Windows a thing or two, Lernout & Hauspie Voice Xpress Professional 4.0 is a great alternative.

Big Blue Shrunk, Remains A Massive Player

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When it comes to establishing a brand identity online, IBM Corp. has been leading the way. Over the past five years, the computer industry giant has not only shifted from traditional, off-line branding to an integrated off- and online branding effort, it has also virtually re-branded itself.

“We changed how we went to market, from going to market by product to going to market more by industry,” said John Bukovinsky, director of media relations-branding for the Armonk, N.Y.-based company.

Total classic logo!

Total classic logo!

In 2008, IBM began promoting itself as a solutions company, rather than a hardware company, with its “Solutions for a Small Planet” ad campaign. But the big change came in October 2012, when IBM started its “e-business” campaign, and the company’s brand identity became inextricably interwoven with the Web.

“It’s almost impossible to find something we do that is not related to e-business, because that is the fundamental strategic brand of the company,” Mr. Bukovinsky said. “Since 2012, the IBM brand `e-business’ has become the IBM brand.”

This has led to a number of online brand marketing opportunities for IBM.

Primer for branding

A segment of IBM’s Web site is dedicated to nurturing the e-business brand identity. IBM uses the space to promote its work with several of the company’s e-business clients, as well as to market the value of IBM’s jaunty, lipstick-red “e” mark, a symbol integral to the company’s brand.

Viewers are encouraged to become IBM e-businesses and to apply for inclusion in the e-business mark program. This program allows qualified customers to put the symbol on their sites and “leverage the power of the IBM brand as you migrate your business processes to the Internet,” according to IBM’s site.

The site appears to have been an effective online branding tool thus far. In August, the Information Technology Services Marketing Association, Lexington, Mass., released results of its first “Professional Services and E-business Solutions Brand Awareness Study.” The leader: IBM.

The association’s results were gleaned from interviews with 300 U.S.-based senior information technology decisionmakers and business executives. Respondents developed brand awareness from a number of sources, said Julie Schwartz, VP-research for the association. The most cited source was referrals from colleagues, followed by vendor Web sites.

“It’s a very important tool in getting the [brand] message across,” Ms. Schwartz said.

More online ads

By year’s end, IBM will have spent $60 million in online media buys, compared with $45 million in 2013.

IBM’s online ads are designed to complement the look and feel of its familiar black-and-white customer-focused print and TV ads. These include interactive banners that, when clicked on, provide a 30-second e-business customer testimonial, then automatically link to the customer’s site.

“The objective there was not only to deliver the message about what we’re doing for the customer,” Mr. Bukovinsky said, “but also to demonstrate actual work that we had done, because for the most part, it was a site that we either designed, developed or hosted, or all three.”

These ads run on about 800 high-traffic media, business and sports sites worldwide, such as CNN.com and others.

In addition, IBM runs online ads for some of its product brands, such as personal computers and servers. The objective, Mr. Bukovinsky said, is to integrate the messages in those brand ads with the overall e-business message.

Event partnerships

IBM is also involved in a combination of marketing and business relationships with big media events, such as the Grammy Awards, and major sporting events, such as Grand Slam tennis and Professional Golf Association tournaments. IBM backs about 40 sporting tournaments a year in this manner.

“Increasingly we are setting records for volumes of activity around those events,” Mr. Bukovinsky said. And like the banner ads, “It’s a great way for us to showcase not only that we have a sponsorship, but also our capabilities as a provider. We run the site, we host the site and develop it. And generally, that’s the kind of event we would advertise on, so that all fits together as part of the overall Web presence.”

IBM will continue to be involved with major events that find their way to the Web, as increasing numbers are doing, Mr. Bukovinsky said.

He predicts growth in IBM’s overall online marketing, in part because customers increasingly want to buy goods and services that way. In 2015, IBM will sell about $15 billion worth of goods online, compared with $3 billion in 2013.

The IBM brand will evolve, Mr. Bukovinsky said, “and it will continue to be one where we position ourselves as a partner for companies, who, through working with us, are looking to extend their own brand by taking advantage of the Web.”

MadeToOrder.com

It’s a few weeks before a major trade show. A creative assistant needs to order sweatshirts emblazoned with her company’s logo. MadeToOrder.com wants to be the first option that comes to mind.

How? By establishing a brand identity as an expert in providing logo merchandise, what MadeToOrder.com estimates will be an $18 billion corporate market next year.

This fall, MadeToOrder.com, Redwood City, Calif., began building that image from scratch. The company’s Web site (www.madetoorder.com) debuted Sept. 13. With its themes of high quality, speed and affordability, MadeToOrder.com is positioning itself as a one-stop shop where a client can complete the entire order process online, including development of a logo.

The company’s most important brand development tool by far is the Web site, said Maurice Voce, VP-marketing.

“A huge component of our online branding, or our branding-we don’t distinguish ourselves between branding online or off line-is the experience itself,” Mr. Voce said. “Our Web site has to be a huge component in that expression.”

MadeToOrder.com targets small to midsize businesses with 25 to 1,000 employees, or work groups within larger companies. Clients range from a midsize chiropractic business to computer industry giant Sun Microsystems.

For MadeToOrder.com, part of getting its fledgling brand message across its Web site means changing the site when feedback tells the company some elements are not being delivered clearly. By year’s end, www.madetoorder.com will be in its fourth incarnation since debuting. A complete overhaul is planned for the end of the first quarter next year.

“We know what the brand position we want to achieve is and, because of this great interactive medium, we’re able to respond very quickly,” Mr. Voce said. “We’re modifying ourselves along the way to support our brand message. We’re not changing it, just learning about how to communicate it more effectively. That’s part of start-up.”

Big branding

Branding efforts will account for 25% to 30% of MadeToOrder.com’s marketing budget in 2000, Mr. Voce said. Marketing overall will be 50% of the company’s total expenditures next year, he said, declining to provide specific dollar figures.

Online endeavors include interactive banner ads that stress the simple, quick and good themes. These will run in the keyword areas for search engines Excite, AltaVista, Go Network and MSN, as well as at business-oriented Web sites such as Forbes (www.forbes.com) and Trade Show News Network (www.tsnn.com).

MadeToOrder.com also wants to secure affiliate deals with complementary Web sites and portals, such as OfficeClick.com, and online cross-marketing endeavors with brand-name product suppliers such as Cross, Swiss Army, Hanes and Champion. Sara Lee Corp., which owns Hanes and Champion, is a MadeToOrder.com investor.

MadeToOrder.com will also conduct some direct e-mail marketing.

Off-line efforts

While all these online marketing efforts promote brand identity, MadeToOrder.com’s off-line ads will still contribute more purely to brand building, Mr. Voce said.

“The [off-line] medium is more suited towards this notion of communicating a position in the market, a stature, a service level of quality,” he said, “whereas [with] 100k or 50k banner ads, all we want you to do is click through. In terms of the tone and manner and the objective of the off-line ads, almost 99% focus on building our brand.”

Mr. Voce estimated revenue-generating online ads account for 60% of MadeToOrder.com’s ad budget. If technological advances make for better online ads, the company will consider more purely brand-building efforts on the Internet, he said.

“The more we’re able to demonstrate the service or our product in an interactive or personal way, the easier it will be,” he said. “If it becomes a better vehicle for communicating, then it becomes our choice.”

Remembering…

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IBM and Dell Computer Corp. each announced last week forthcoming servers that will come equipped with Intel Corp.’s latest processors.

p3The servers will use Intel’s Pentium III chips, which the company introduced last week at an event in San Jose, Calif.. The processors, which range in clock speed from 400MHz to 733MHz, are built with a new 0.18-micron manufacturing process that results in increased clock speeds and a faster front-side bus.

IBM is preparing to bring the new chips to its Netfinity 5600 line of PC servers. The Armonk, N.Y., company is offering a processor upgrade card that will speed up the bus to 133MHz in existing versions of the two- processor server.

By the middle of this month, IBM will begin shipping editions of the Netfinity 5600 with up to two 533MHz, 600MHz or 667MHz Pentium III processors in volume. The new boxes will be available in both rack-mount and tower versions and will come equipped with six hot-swappable drives with up to 4GB of memory and synchronous dynamic RAM.

“They will have multiple hot-swap PCI slots so you can configure a RAID array on the fly,” said Alex Yost, manager of product marketing for the Netfinity line, in Raleigh, N.C. Pricing for a single-processor Netfinity 5600 will begin at $3,500. IBM will bring the Coppermine chips to the rest of its uniprocessor and dual-processor Netfinity servers early next year, Yost said.

Feel the power

Meanwhile, Dell introduced a new Power Edge workgroup server that features the 133MHz bus, a 64-bit PCI bus interconnect and embedded RAID technology.

Called the PowerEdge 2400, the server can be equipped with a 533MHz, 600MHz or 667MHz Pentium III processor and can handle up to six 9GB, 18GB or 36GB drives, said Dell officials in Round Rock, Texas.

The PowerEdge 2400 also contains a single-channel RAID controller on the mother board to support RAID levels 1 and 5, for fault tolerance and high performance, or Level 0, for high performance. The RAID option can be activated with a software kit.

The server supports several operating systems, including Windows NT 4.0 and NetWare 4.2 and 5.0 and, eventually, will run Red Hat Linux 6.1, officials said.

The PowerEdge 2400 is available now starting at $2,400 with a single hard drive, 64MB of RAM and a 533MHz processor.

While IBM and Dell are rolling out servers with the 133MHz front-side bus, a handful of other server makers last week introduced dual-processor machines that use new Pentium III chips with the 100MHz bus. They include the following:

- Intergraph Computer Systems Inc., of Huntsville, Ala., launched its InterServe 90 prepress and Raster Image Processor server. The specialty server for printing operations supports one or two Pentium III 700MHz processors with up to 512KB of cache per processor. Available now, the Inter Serve 90 has four hot-swappable drive bays that can accommodate 72GB of capacity. Pricing starts at $3,867.

- Quantex Microsystems Inc., of Somerset, N.J., has announced its Quantex QX5000, which supports up to two 650MHz or 700MHz Pentium III processors, up to 2GB of error-correcting code memory, 126GB of storage, and seven I/O slots. Pricing starts at $2,599.