Web Scraping Services, Web Data Scraping, Website Data Scraping, Data Scraping Services, Business Directory Scraping, Yahoo Answers Scraping, Artindex.Com Scraping, Scrape Autotrader Database, Scrape Cars Database, Product Scraping Services

Wednesday, 26 February 2014

Sample Essay Writing - What Must Be Considered

You may be looking at it or you may be required to write on it.

This is a particular type of writing essay that is often put for view by online research and writing services. As a student, you should not only consider looking at classification essay, you should also consider writing a sample essay that can be viewed as a sample paper by other students.

In most cases, students will turn to these essays because of the factor of time. Most students will keep research and writing till the last minutes before actually beginning the write-up. One of the most important aspects in any academic writing is the issue of time. In everything you do in academia, it is always necessary to make use of an outline. The outline guides you as you write from start to finish. The outline is there to ensure that you start and finish on time. Writing without an outline is what makes you get caught up by deadlines.

When an online research and writing service offers a sample paper for view, it is asking you to consider its services in writing your essay. There is nothing wrong if you rely on it, but make sure you consider the issue of plagiarism seriously. Your essay is supposed to be something ingenious. Fortunately, there are anti-plagiarism tools over that internet that you can use to check for the authenticity of what has been written for you and to also check the references linked to your reflective essay.

Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Sample-Essay-Writing---What-Must-Be-Considered&id=1194732

Tuesday, 25 February 2014

How to scrap a car: Top tips

Unsure about what to do when it comes to getting rid of your old car? Read our tips

The process of buying a new car often involves disposing of your old one, and if your car has reached the end of its life then you may be left with no alternative to having it scrapped. This may also be the case if your car fails its MOT and the cost of the repairs is more than the car is worth.

EU End of Life directive

In the past it was common to pay for someone to scrap your car but this meant many cars weren’t disposed of properly. Legislation based on the EU End of Life directive was implemented in the UK in 2002 and addressed the issue by making sure cars could be disposed of for free at licensed scrapyards. The increase in the value of certain metals since then means scrap merchants will usually pay for the metal they’ll recover when they scrap your car.

Use an authorised treatment facility

If your car is to be scrapped, it must be done at an authorised treatment facility (ATF), which is a scrapyard that's registered and monitored by the Environment Agency. There is a database of ATFs on the agency's website, and it's well worth a look. The facility will recycle your car in an environmentally friendly way and issue you with a Certificate of Destruction, which is important you keep, else you could find yourself liable for road tax and a fine, even when your car no longer exists.

Try online scrap merchants

There are now a number of online agents who will collect and scrap your car. You can usually find out how much they’ll pay for your car by entering the registration number and its location on their websites. There are also comparison sites for this so you can see who is offering the highest quote for your car.

Individual parts can make more cash

Depending on the condition of your car, you may make extra money by selling certain parts before it's scrapped. Getting a mechanic to take a look over the car will give you an idea of the value you could expect when negotiating at a scrapyard. The bigger, more fundamental parts like the engine, gearbox and brakes are likely to be worth the most.

Consider using auction sites

Whether you choose to scrap your car as a complete vehicle or to sell some of the parts separately first, auction sites offer an alternative to the scrapyard. Some people list their cars on auction sites at their scrap value in the hope of getting higher bids during the auction period.

Get the correct documentation

Remember that if you sell the car to someone, even if just for scrap, you need to let the DVLA know that you no longer have it by completing section three of the V5C vehicle registration document. It has been known for people to collect cars for scrap and then continue using them without a valid MOT – if you haven’t completed the right paperwork, you will still be responsible for the car. If you sell the parts and then scrap it, you need to get a Certificate of Destruction.

Source: http://www.carbuyer.co.uk/tips-and-advice/138478/how-to-scrap-a-car-top-tips

Data Recovery From Your Hard Disk

Some people come under a lot of mental pressure and become worried when they lose any vital data. The age to worry is over. PC Data Recovery, today, is a very simplistic task. PC Data Recovery is the process of recovering data from the storage systems. One can retrieve data by using floppies, DVDs or compact disks, hard drives, etc. It helps one to recover all the data that has been lost in a professional, safe and speedy manner. For all the IT firms and corporate houses dealing with website functioning data recovery is vital for storing the data in a proper mode. The time for protecting your data from corruption or from getting lost has gone.

First of all, you can catch hold of some technically sound friend of yours. They can help you out with your problem. They might also have the PC Data Recovery software if you are lucky. If you are not successful, then you should try and point out the problem with the hard disc. Your computer might fail to boot or if it does start up, it might not display other drives. You also need to listen vigilantly to any ticking, grating or scraping sound that your hard drive may make. If it does you should inform the PC Data Recovery experts about the problem. In any case, you will have to take it to the experts who will take some time and also empty your wallets!

But getting the data recovered by the experts is better than doing it yourself as there are chances that the hard disk may crash.It is also advised that you know which data you want to recover beforehand. Making a checklist along with alluding at the location of the files, movies, or pictures (that you want to retrieve) can make the task simpler and less time consuming. If it is only a few music files or some games then one should erase it and consent to the data loss. Conversely, if it is some significant information such as a product that you cannot reproduce, then you have no choice but to take your PC to a PC Data Recovery center.

If the hard drive is secure then one has a decent likelihood of recovering the data. Downloading the software might help in some cases. In this techno world, where we all are completely dependent on computers, one cannot afford to lose any piece of information or data. Thus data recovery software has become extremely significant for personal as well as business use.Today, PC Data Recovery is no longer a difficult task. With recommended software or with the help of IT experts it can be accomplished easily.

Source:http://ezinearticles.com/?Data-Recovery-From-Your-Hard-Disk&id=3347589

Sunday, 23 February 2014

How to Write Online Content for SEO, Google and Marketing

The web can be a difficult environment and many professional writers do not understand how to write for it. Three primary rules of writing for the Internet align with the habits of web readers:

1) Be brief; web readers have short attention spans;

2) Readers find content through search engines, so choose words search engines can find;

3) Readers enjoy passing content on to others, so provide links.

Some other important considerations:

The web is a vast universe of unstructured content – On the web, relevance is paramount. With infinite choices, readers will focus only on what matters to them. Design your web content for search engines. In functional terms that means: Write for Google. When you do, your material will be relevant to your website visitors. Plus, they will be able to understand it and “act on it.”

Web users evaluate your words to check for relevance – Flowery, figurative or highly technical words and terms will send readers elsewhere. In traditional media, writers are in charge of the terms they use. Web readers establish what “they think” a particular word or phrase means. Internet readers thus “own” web content and Internet writers do not.

The web is filled with incorrect information – Web readers are skeptical of online content. You must convince quickly them that your content is credible, so include links to respected authorities.

Regularly change and improve your web content – Internet readers expect updated information. Upgrade regularly. Searchers perpetually seek new content, so refresh yours as often as possible. You cannot govern the online reading experience. As a newspaper, magazine or book writer, you can assume that your readers regard your material as relevant. Otherwise, they wouldn’t read it. Web readers may land on your web page randomly, bounced in from search engines or social media referrals. Readers spend less time reading web pages than print pages.

After scanning, online readers give you “an average of three to six seconds to engage them.” If the content doesn’t intrigue them, they hit the back button to chase more relevant material. Offline, you can make an informed guess about the identity of your readers. Online, you haven’t a clue. Your online writing is aimed not at individual readers, but at search engines. That’s how readers find you. Focus on the requirements of interested searchers who seek specific keywords and links.

What about keywords?

For a web writer, keywords – “strings of characters that people enter into search fields” – are mother’s milk. Keywords may be single words, long phrases or “word combinations.”

So-called “long-tail” keywords are highly specific, lengthy phrases. They are designed to draw Internet users with particular interests. To learn about the context of long-tail keywords, visit social media sites, blogs and online forums that are popular with your target audience and your competitors. Identify repeated keywords and phrases. Research keywords using Google Alerts, Yahoo Pipes and Yahoo Alerts. Popular words – or “tags” – that people assign to relevant web content and social media are also helpful.

Pepper your main web page and subsequent pages with keywords that matter. Post the specific purpose of your pages – shopping, support, services and so on – in your website titles and links. Add “a verb to your keyword phrase,” for example, “learn about” or “shop for” or “compare.”

Keyword research is a straightforward process. Brainstorm the “seed words” people might use to find information about your topic. Start with the most generic terms. Create “keyword clouds,” keywords that relate to one another. Google AdWords is a good tool for keyword research. Other tools include Keyword Discovery Tool, Goggle Insights and the Free Keyword List Generator. Wordtracker helps you check your competition. Type your potential keywords into Google’s search box. It will show you “various incremental possible matches for your search string,” each matched by the “hits” or returns for each search phrase.

Creating Great Web Content

Follow this six-step plan to create the most effective web content:

1. Establish exactly who your target audience is.

2. Do keyword research to determine what specific words and phrases your target audience uses to search for relevant web content. Make Google your default search engine for this research.

3. Create a list of “core words” that are most popular with your target audience.

4. Create a web page for each of these words.

5. Routinely test the pages you create for relevance.

6. Adjust your web content to optimize its relevance

Source: http://www.business2community.com/content-marketing/write-online-content-seo-google-marketing-0772596#!wIjyT

Friday, 21 February 2014

8 Methods Of Internet Marketing - That Will Help Your Business

The way we do business at the moment has changed dramatically and that is because of the internet, I am going to explain to you in this article 8 different methods of internet marketing.

With email and the internet we now have a way to show our products, services and opportunities to people worldwide, this gives us a way to constantly keep in contact with our customers, prospects and leads.

1. SEO - Search engine optimization is an excellent method of driving traffic to your website or blog, SEO works by trying to get your site or blog to rank high on the search engines.

The way to do this is by finding valuable keywords in your niche that people search for everyday, then once you find a keyword that you are looking for you then go and write some content around that keyword and put it on your site or blog.

You then have to promote that content you wrote and get back links and social media votes, SEO is one of my favorite methods of internet marketing.

2. PPC - Pay Per Click allows you to create ads that are linked to high traffic keywords, what you do with PPC is you can make as many ads as you wish and both Google and Yahoo have programs that allow Pay Per Click.

Basically with Pay Per Click programs you decide how much you are willing to pay for people to click on your ad, and the more you want to Pay Per Click the higher on the search engines your ad will be, the price varies from pennies to hundreds of dollars.

If you do decide to use this method of internet marketing make sure you have enough money to use on it because once you stop paying for your ad it will not rank high on the search engines anymore.

3. Google AdSense - The way this method works is you have ads from other peoples websites on your website, every time other peoples ads get clicked on in your site you will make money.

The price will depend on the keyword related to the ad, if you don't want your competitors to appear on your site you can block them out.

One of the very good things about Google AdSense is when you pay for an ad that will appear on another persons website this creates a back link to your site which will eventually improve your ranking on the search engines the more back links you get.

These ads are a very effective way of generating lots of traffic to your site that you target and along with the other methods it is only one of the top effective methods of internet marketing.

4. Banner Ads - These ads are very colorful, have graphics, animated and they can catch peoples eyes very fast, you can place these banner ads either at the top or along the bottom of a webpage.

You is also vertical banner ads which you can place on either side of a web page, we call these sky scrapers.

So whichever type of banner ad appears on someone's page they always link back to a different website, which will be yours in this case.

I would recommend that you try to avoid animated ads, because according to statistics these types of ads do not work as well as the ads that have no motion in them.

5. Online Newsletters - This is a very effective way of forming a relationship with your potential customers, with this method you can constantly keep people up to date about new products, services and changes.

On the bottom of the newsletter you should make sure and have an opt in and an opt out form, if you wanted to you can always have an opt in form on your website which is very effective too.

6. Online Magazines - This type of method is similar to print magazines where you would buy ad space for a certain fee, and depending on how much traffic that the particular magazine gets this will decide the fee you pay.

7. Website Lead Generation - With this method there are services that can provide you leads that are already qualified and you will pay a certain price per lead.

The way it works is that these particular companies find possible leads in a few different ways and one of the ways includes cold calling, I could go into a lot more detail on all these different methods of internet marketing but it would take more than just this one article.

8. Online Directories - This method of internet marketing is where you have loads of different types of online directories and city guides, you also have the online yellow pages.

You can get yourself listed under the correct categories that relates to what you are doing, with the majority directories they have a general listing which is free and you can also pay for adverts if you wish too.

So in this article I have only explained the basic principles of just 8 methods of internet marketing and there's a good few more you can use too, but remember that you do not have much of a chance to interact with potential prospects with internet marketing apart from the phone so make you portray the right message online.

Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?8-Methods-Of-Internet-Marketing---That-Will-Help-Your-Business&id=6876343

Saturday, 28 December 2013

New handwriting recognition study compares usage and performance of OCR, ICR and manual data entry

Companies still collect much of their critical information via pen and paper, yet they ultimately need this information to be available in their digital systems. How much do companies rely on this handwritten data, and how do they then convert it to the digital data they ultimately need? This recent study by the Association for Information and Image Management  (AIIM) gives the answers:

Companies rely on handwritten data…

From AIIM

Of the companies surveyed for the study,  50% identified handwritten information as important to their business processes and a full 25% identified it as playing a key role for them. This data could be generated internally, through employee evaluations, culture surveys, site inspections, invoices, walk sheets, etc. It could also come from current or potential clients, in the form of newsletter signup sheets, registration forms, raffle tickets, satisfaction surveys, comment cards, mail-orders forms, purchase orders, and even signed contracts.

…But they struggle to convert handwriting to digital data

data extraction

While companies rely on handwriting to collect data, they need that data entered into their computerized systems quickly and accurately. How are they bridging the paper and digital worlds? The reality is that most companies live with a painful disconnect between their data collection methods and digital data needs. More than half of those surveyed enter the data by hand, while another third rely on OCR, and another 12% use ICR (intelligent character recognition). Before Captricity, there really were no other options available.

Manual Entry, OCR & ICR are Woefully Inadequate:

Unfortunately, all three options – OCR, ICR, and manual entry – come with significant trade-offs in terms of flexibility, turnaround time, and/or quality.

    All of us at some point have dealt with manual data entry. It’s slow, often expensive, not always accurate, and can lead to significant lag times in getting your data. Many companies tell us they have backlogs of months or even years that their manual data entry staff just have not been able to deal with.

    OCR (Optical Character Recognition) converts images of text into a digital, machine-readable format. While it tends to work adequately for well-scanned and printed text, it is extremely inaccurate for handwriting, and yields only a “bag of text”, not structured data. In other words, if you start with a scanned, typed form, OCR will give you a .txt file, not a data set. And if you start with a form filled in by hand, OCR will give you very little useful data at all.

    ICR (Intelligent Character Recognition) was created to more accurately read handwriting. If you have ever filled out a driver’s license application or customs form, you’re already familiar with the highly-regulated ICR-ready forms, where boxes or “combs” (small vertical lines) separate each letter. While this system can read hand-printed text a bit better, it’s as limiting as a Scantron bubblesheet is to teachers who want to ask open-ended questions. ICR makes free-form text and short answers almost impossible. Furthermore, setting up ICR-compatible forms takes time and expertise, requiring significant up-front investment. For the vast majority of those organizations that rely on handwritten data, this is not a practical solution.  They are in a tough spot.

Enter Captricity for REAL handwriting recognition.

Our unique data capture technology was created specifically to turn any handwritten form, no matter the format, into digital data quickly and accurately. Multiple-choice, numerical response, likert scale, short answers and long answers are no problem! There is minimal set-up and no software to install.  Take your completed forms, scan or photograph them, and upload the images to Captricity. Our special mix of computer algorithms and human intelligence extracts data faster than manual re-keying and more accurately than OCR, with more flexibility than ICR.

Source:http://captricity.com/handwriting-recognition-study-on-ocr-icr-manual-data-entry/

Friday, 27 December 2013

Web Scraping - Data Collection or Illegal Activity?

Web Scraping Defined

We've all heard the term "web scraping" but what is this thing and why should we really care about it?  Web scraping refers to an application that is programmed to simulate human web surfing by accessing websites on behalf of its "user" and collecting large amounts of data that would typically be difficult for the end user to access.  Web scrapers process the unstructured or semi-structured data pages of targeted websites and convert the data into a structured format.  Once the data is in a structured format, the user can extract or manipulate the data with ease.  Web scraping is very similar to web indexing (used by most search engines), but the end motivation is typically much different.  Whereas web indexing is used to help make search engines more efficient, web scraping is typically used for different reasons like change detection, market research, data monitoring, and in some cases, theft.

Why Web Scrape?

There are lots of reasons people (or companies) want to scrape websites, and there are tons of web scraping applications available today.  A quick Internet search will yield numerous web scraping tools written in just about any programming language you prefer.  In today's information-hungry environment, individuals and companies alike are willing to go to great lengths to gather information about all sorts of topics.  Imagine a company that would really like to gather some market research on one of their leading competitors...might they be tempted to invoke a web scraper that gathers all the information for them?  Or, what if someone wanted to find a vulnerable site that allowed otherwise not-so-free downloads?  Or, maybe a less than honest person might want to find a list of account numbers on a site that failed to properly secure them.  The list goes on and on.

I should mention that web scraping is not always a bad thing.  Some websites allow web scraping, but many do not.  It's important to know what a website allows and prohibits before you scrape it.

The Problem With Web Scraping

Web scraping rides a fine line between collecting information and stealing information.  Most websites have a copyright disclosure statement that legally protects their website information.  It's up to the reader/user/scraper to read these disclosure statements and follow along legally and ethically.  In fact, the F5.com website presents the following copyright disclosure:  "All content included on this site, such as text, graphics, logos, button icons, images, audio clips, and software, including the compilation thereof (meaning the collection, arrangement, and assembly), is the property of F5 Networks, Inc., or its content and software suppliers, except as may be stated otherwise, and is protected by U.S. and international copyright laws."  It goes on to say, "We reserve the right to make changes to our site and these disclaimers, terms, and conditions at any time."

So, scraper beware!  There have been many court cases where web scraping turned into felony offenses.  One case involved an online activist who scraped the MIT website and ultimately downloaded millions of academic articles.  This guy is now free on bond, but faces dozens of years in prison and $1 million if convicted.  Another case involves a real estate company who illegally scraped listings and photos from a competitor in an attempt to gain a lead in the market.  Then, there's the case of a regional software company that was convicted of illegally scraping a major database company's websites in order to gain a competitive edge.  The software company had to pay a $20 million fine and the guilty scraper is serving three years probation.  Finally, there's the case of a medical website that hosted sensitive patient information.  In this case, several patients had posted personal drug listings and other private information on closed forums located on the medical website.  The website was scraped by a media-research firm, and all this information was suddenly public.

While many illegal web scrapers have been caught by the authorities, many more have never been caught and still run loose on websites around the world.  As you can see, it's increasingly important to guard against this activity.  After all, the information on your website belongs to you, and you don't want anyone else taking it without your permission.

The Good News

As we've noted, web scraping is a real problem for many companies today.  The good news is that F5 has web scraping protection built into the Application Security Manager (ASM) of its BIG-IP product family.  As you can see in the screenshot below, the ASM provides web scraping protection against bots, session opening anomalies, session transaction anomalies, and IP address whitelisting.

The bot detection works with clients that accept cookies and process JavaScript.  It counts the client's page consumption speed and declares a client as a bot if a certain number of page changes happen within a given time interval.  The session opening anomaly spots web scrapers that do not accept cookies or process JavaScript.  It counts the number of sessions opened during a given time interval and declares the client as a scraper if the maximum threshold is exceeded.  The session transaction anomaly detects valid sessions that visit the site much more than other clients.  This defense is looking at a bigger picture and it blocks sessions that exceed a calculated baseline number that is derived from a current session table.  The IP address whitelist allows known friendly bots and crawlers (i.e. Google, Bing, Yahoo, Ask, etc), and this list can be populated as needed to fit the needs of your organization.

I won't go into all the details here because I'll have some future articles that dive into the details of how the ASM protects against these types of web scraping capabilities.  But, suffice it to say, ASM does a great job of protecting your website against the problem of web scraping.

ASM Web Scrape

I'm sure as you studied the screenshot above you also noticed lots of other protection capabilities the ASM provides...brute force attack prevention, customized attack signatures, Denial of Service protection, etc.  You might be wondering how it does all that stuff as well.  Give us a little feedback on the topics you would like to see, and we'll start posting some targeted tech tips for you!

Thanks for reading this introductory web scraping article...and, be sure to come back for the deeper look into how the ASM is configured to handle this problem. For more information, check out this video from Peter Silva where he discusses ASM botnet and web scraping defense.

Source:https://devcentral.f5.com/articles/web-scraping-data-collection-or-illegal-activity#.Ur5Qg849BIA