Direct Repair of Corrupted DBF Databases

In today's world of virus attacks and power outages, computer crashes are not uncommon. With every crash comes the possibility of data corruption; even more so if there was a write operation in progress at the time of the crash.

Database files, by design, are among those most frequently accessed. Read and write operations happen all the time in a working database. Chances are high that the next power outage will happen just at the moment a database was updating or adding a record. In that case, after your computer reboots, you will not be able to access data in the database.

There are preventive measures that can be taken so that this never happens. You probably have a UPS, a firewall, and antivirus software, and perform regular backups. But what if your backup copy is a week or even a day old and you don't want to lose changes made during that period? Or even worse, what if you didn't have a backup at all? In that case, you might want to try to recover your database with database recovery tools.

DBF Recovery by HiBase Group recovers DBF databases exclusively. DBF Recovery supports all file formats used by popular databases, including DBase III/IV, FoxPro and Visual FoxPro. Database recovery is completely automated. The recovery engine employs newly developed artificial intelligence algorithms to carefully analyze the complete structure and all data records of the damaged files. The result is the most accurate recovery.

Many alternative tools that claim they can recover DBF files only repair database headers without actually analyzing the data. Unlike competitors, DBF Recovery makes every effort to repair the data itself as well as the headers.

Database applications rely on external drivers, such as ODBC or BDE, in order to access database files. Unfortunately, these drivers do not have built-in recovery mechanisms. Even worse, they can not even open the corrupted files, making it impossible to rescue the data that was in the database.

DBF Recovery accesses database files directly, without the use of external drivers. Direct access to database files makes it possible to carefully analyze database structures header by header and record by record, ensuring the highest accuracy of recovery.

DBF Recovery can be used by anyone. Beginners and seasoned database users will find its drag-and-drop user interface handy and simple to use, while database administrators will enjoy the powerful set of command line parameters and the batch mode that makes it possible to fix multiple DBF files with a single command.

DBF Recovery is a must-have tool for all database administrators and advanced database users. Don't wait till your computer actually crashes. It may be too late!

Sergei Ovsannikov, CEO of HiBase Group

Download the evaluation version now at http://www.dbf-recover.com/ to see what DBF Recovery can do for you!

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Should A Computer Salesman Also Be A Technician?

The job of a salesman is to sell something. Salesmen that are not skilled in the art of selling end up not making any sales. This is true whether the salesman is selling cars, white goods, or computers. Car salesmen are not required to be motor mechanics so why should we expect computer salesmen to also be skilled computer technicians?

Whenever something goes wrong with a car while it is under warranty we take it back to the car sales yard and they get their motor mechanics to fix it. A computer store often is a one or two person concern so if they were to employ a technician to fix the problems when they do arise then there are fewer people doing the selling, sales fall, and prices have to go up to compensate. Many larger computer stores do employ technicians and their prices as you would expect are often higher than the discount one and two man concerns.

With a smaller concern, the salesmen do have to double as technicians or they run into real trouble when something stops functioning properly on a computer they recently sold. Another consideration is that there are only a relatively few different models of car but every computer is unique. Even two computers of identical hardware configuration usually have some differences in the software installed on them. With computers, even the order in which various software is installed can affect the functioning of the computer. Install software product A before software product B and everything runs fine. Install software product B first and then when product A gets installed critical files get overwritten and the system totally screws up.

The real problem is that salesmen don't make good technicians. They are very different skills so if someone is good at one, they are usually lousy at the other. I (for example) make an extremely poor salesman.

Unfortunately, another effect of salesmen not being technicians is that many of them do not even understand the terminology associated with the product they are trying to sell. This is all very well for standard product ranges such as cars (which only have a few optional extras) but computers literally have millions of possible variations that you may wish to order. If the salesman doesn't understand what these are then how can he make the sale. Some stores get around this problem by selling computers like a commodity item, you either buy one of the standard variants or you go elsewhere. They lose sales that way when their standard versions don't meet your requirements.

I was at a PC show a few years ago. On one of the stands was a glass case containing three motherboards. That was the entire content of the stand. They weren't actually selling anything at the show, they were just displaying these three motherboards. I asked the guy on the stand if one of the motherboards had bus-mastering. He couldn't answer the question because he didn't know what bus-mastering was. He wasn't there to sell anything but he still managed to lose his company a potential future sale. Made me wonder what exactly he was there for.

I don't have a solution to this issue and I doubt that anyone else does. The situation hasn't resolved itself as computers have become more standardized, it has just evolved. Now there large numbers of people who buy a stock standard computer to run stock standard software to perform a few simple tasks that only use a small fraction of the capability of the cheapest available computer being talked into buying a much more expensive computer by the salesman because he and they don't know any better.

Stephen Chapman runs a computer help website at http://www.felgall.com/

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Why Have A Computer Network?

What exactly is a computer network? According to Wikipedia: "A computer network is two or more computers connected together using a telecommunication system for the purpose of communicating and sharing resources." Arguably, network experts debate about this—they feel a computer network should be defined as a minimum of three or more computers connected together, not two.

Whether it's a minimum of two or three computers to constitute a computer network, clearly the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. What are some of the advantages?

Let's briefly cover the five advantages of computer networking. As Hutchinson & Sawyer brought out in Computers, Communications, & Information, the advantages of computer networks are: "sharing peripheral devices, sharing of programs and data, better communications, security of information, and access to databases."

Sharing Peripheral Devices- Print sharing (where multiple users share the same printer) can cut operational costs. For example, large and expensive laser printers are used by multiple users within company networks. Providing a business has a network, large in-house printers can affordably be leased or purchased.

Sharing of Programs and Data- File sharing in the business environment is important, because it saves space, time, and paper. Digital files on a share drive are not only cost effective and convenient, but a company's database is accessible to only authorized personnel and inaccessible to unauthorized personnel. Network-linked employees can share groupware and work together on shared projects. Purchasing network versions of software is yet another advantage of having a company network.

Better Communications- Schedules and task assignments can be easily shared and organized in a network. When emailing within a network, group settings and contact lists are easily kept up-to-date. Attaching scanned documents and emailing business communication is cheaper and easier than faxing information to another department at a different location.

Security of Information- When information is shared on a network and accidental data loss occurs, data recovery is much more likely to occur when working on a network. When shared information is stored on multiple computers and databases, it stands to reason that if a hard drive fails, others will have the shared information residing in another repository. Firewall appliances that are built for networks go far beyond what a consumer grade firewall can do.

Access to Databases- Typically, extensive databases (whether public or private) are shared on a network. Sophisticated databases have built-in parameters to protect the data from accidental overwrites or misuse by disgruntled employees.

As you can see, computer networks have many advantages and are understandably gaining popularity for small-medium sized businesses. It is no wonder why computer networks are notable for their cost-saving features and ease-of use for end-users worldwide. If you are concerned about your budget and need to set-up or improve your home or business computer network, call us at Genesis Global, Inc.: 1-800-908-9665. We can help you meet your networking equipment needs, as well as work with your financial budget in conjunction with getting you improved network communication devices.

Resource: Computers, Communications, & Information, 2000. McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Debbie Jensen, a technical writer for Genesis Global, Inc. Genesis Global, Inc. provides a wide variety of security equipment. Cisco hardware and accessories, as well as other leading network equipment manufacturers, have much to offer. Cisco's PIX Firewalls and Adaptive Security Appliances brilliantly transform traditional network management into state-of-the-art secure communication networks where worms, hackers, and other threats are proactively controlled through the combination of firewall, application security, and intrusion prevention services. Make sure to visit: http://genesisglobalinc.com

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Virus Attacks: Can You Save Your Data?

With the high tech professionals increasing day by day, chances of virus attacks have also increased. Viruses come unannounced and uninvited, stay there as an unwanted guest and cause harm to your precious data and files. Sometimes in the cases of severe virus attacks, complete data from the hard disk gets erased, hard drives get overwritten and even the physical drive media gets corrupt.

25% of the data loss is caused by virus attacks excluding the human errors and software malfunctions. Fortunately we have some preventive measures through which data loss situations caused by virus attacks can be avoided:

Good Anti-virus Software: As your first defense, you should always install good anti-virus software to safeguard data. At the time of installation, always ensure that the program provides automatic updates, so that whenever there is a virus attack, automatic updates can counteract them. Make sure that the installed anti-virus program scans all the incoming and outgoing emails as this is the easiest passage for viruses to enter your computer system.

Never Open Doubtful Attachments: Email attachments which seem doubtful to you should be deleted immediately as these may be the viruses which get activated by mere clicking on the attachment. Be careful with the suspicious file extension types as these files are nothing but virus files.

Regularly Install System Updates: All the viruses are targeted towards the popular windows operating system. As the system vulnerabilities are announced, the virus writers start creating virus to takeover the weaknesses and attack those system owners who are not upgraded with the available updates.

Always Perform Backups: And the most important way to protect your data is regular backup process. Always create backups of your important data on an external media. Backups created on regular basis help in situations when an anti-virus program may fail to protect your important data.

Conclusion:

In the end when everything fails, the performed backup of your data will prove beneficial to recover the damaged, corrupt data from virus attacks and other corruption mediums. The data recovery software also proves beneficial in the case of virus attacks. There are number of data recovery software present in the market. Choose the one which is suitable for your type of data corruptions. Many data recovery companies offer Free demo version of their data recovery software so that you can test and evaluate features of the software and then purchase Full version of the software.

Neha Gupta is a technical writer for Nucleus Data Recovery, provider of the best data recovery software and data recovery services. The Kernel recovery tools are developed for email recovery, database recovery, tape recovery, backup recovery.

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Data Recovery Software – Are they Useful?

Have you ever heard the word data recovery? If YES, then you might be aware about the data loss situations. But if you say NO then you are one of the lucky person who have not experienced the situations of data loss, hard drive crashes which demand data recovery.

What is Data Loss?

Data Loss is a situation where you lose the data stored on your hard drive or it becomes inaccessible. This data could be the important business files, music, personal collection of pictures, emails, videos or anything. Now why this happens? This situation generally occurs when the hard drive fails or crashes, files get corrupt or damaged, there are virus attacks on your computer system, hard drive corrupts due to water-fire damages, poor usage of the hard drive, ad ware – spy ware attacks etc. Because of these reasons you might lose access to your data or it can get corrupt. But the relief is that this inaccessible data ca be recovered back. It’s possible almost in 95%of the cases. Data Recovery Software are the best means to recover the lost, deleted, inaccessible, corrupt, damaged data from the hard drive, files and folders and other storage media.

What is Data Recovery Software?

By Data Recovery Software I mean to say, software which can recover back the lost data by scanning your hard drive. Similar in the way as you see other software which have different functions and working. For instance, anti-virus software will stop, remove and protect your computer system from virus attacks, and any password recovery software will help you to restore the lost / forgotten passwords of your email id which were stored in your PC.

According to Surveys,

"Viruses: Survey finds PCs infected at a rate of more than 10% each month" -- (ICSA Labs, 2002)

"35% of all PCs sold to businesses are laptops and 1 in 5 of these laptops will suffer hardware failure in the first 3 years" -- Gartner analyst Brian Gammage, The Changing Spectrum of Mobile PC Usage, October 30, 2002

"Data Recovery is possible in 85% of all data loss cases" --Dan Pelosi, Data Recovery 911, December 2002

Thus it can be concluded that data recovery has its own importance when people loose their important data. Data recovery software is useful for file repair, file recovery, database recovery, backup recovery, email data recovery and forensic data recovery.

How to use Data Recovery Software?

The data recovery market is flooded with many data recovery software range. There are renowned companies and small manufacturers too which perform data recovery at small scale. But data recovery is not an easy task to perform. It requires determination, expertise, appropriate recovery tools, Class 100 Clean rooms, biometric environment and of course a data recovery technician who can perform the data recovery – thus resulting into data recovery services.

Data Recovery Software is developed to minimize the possibilities of data recovery services thus enabling the end user to himself perform data recovery on his PC. The do-it yourself data recovery software available in the market completely scan your damaged hard drive and retrieves the lost data. When you finalize the data recovery software, always look for the software support provided by the data recovery company on their website:

• You can view the Animated Working Demos – how the software works, provided by the company. These working demos are the best option to know and view the GUI and functions of the software.

• You can also look for any software user’s guide made available by the company on their website. The manual has the step by step procedure to perform data recovery. Follow these steps and evaluate the software.

• When you download the software, view help manual accompanied with the software. It guides you with step by step recovery procedure.


Generally, demo version of the data recovery software are available for FREE downloads. It’s free because the companies want you to test the recovery possibilities of your data and then only purchase the software. The demo versions are not enabled with saving feature for the recovered data. You can download the demo version and run it on your computer system.

Word of Caution: The point which should be noted here is that you should not run the data recovery software on the corrupt drive. As this might overwrite the original data which then gets deleted. Always perform data recovery on the copy of corrupt data and a good device.

Install demo version of the data recovery software and analyze its working, features and the amount of data which the software can recover. If the software displays the lost, deleted data then the software surely can get back your data to you and you can also purchase it. When you run the demo version always ensure;

• How much time does the software take to recover data?
• Is the software able to recover the deleted files also?
• Can it recover attachments?
• Can it recover data damaged due to virus attacks?
• Is the software provider data recovery company recognized in the market?
• What is the recovery percentage of the software?
• Is the software purchase amount refunded, if the software is unable to recover data?
• View the clients of the company, if possible contact them and gather feedback about the company.
• Read client testimonials of the company
• Consult with the support staff of the company and ask queries related to your data loss situation? Like, according to them which would be the appropriate data recovery software for your case of data corruption? As this would help in purchasing the right software.
• Compare 2-3 data recovery companies with their recovery percentage, client satisfaction percentage, data recovery techniques, range of data recovery software provided by the company.

After performing all these checks you can purchase the software and recover your data.
Please Note: While you are performing check on data recovery companies, always try to find out real data recovery figures of the company, as many companies add false figures to their websites and in the end are able to empty your pockets.

Conclusion:

It can be concluded that data recovery software are boon for such individuals and companies who lose their data due to accidental deletions, virus attacks, unexpected system shutdowns, hard drive failures, system crashes and other undefined reasons. The data recovery software is definitely useful in the hour of need and data recovery services prove themselves when the software is unable to get back data. You can also give a try to data recovery services when there is a severe damage caused to your device.

Neha Gupta is a technical writer for Nucleus Data Recovery, provider of the best data recovery software and data recovery services. The Kernel recovery tools are developed for email recovery, database recovery, tape recovery, backup recovery.

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Will Linux Replace Microsoft Windows?

I've been working with computers since the mid-80s, initially using an Apple Macintosh and then moving to Microsoft Windows-based machines around 1991.

The first version of Windows I used was version 2.x (I can't remember the exact number), which I seem to remember didn't do anything too special. However, with the introduction of Windows 3.0, things started to improve dramatically, with Windows providing an environment in which you could 'comfortably' run applications.

Since then, like half the world I think, I've used various versions of Windows and I currently use XP. I have to say that, on the whole, I'm quite a fan of Windows. I've always found it fairly easy to use and it's always (well' almost always) enabled me to do my job without too many hickups.

A couple of years ago though, I bought a book on Linux which included a CD for Fedora Core 1.0. I wasn't sure what to expect when I installed the software, but what I got really impressed me. The user interface was nice and clean and, once you got used to it, fairly easy to use. OK, it wasn't as polished as Windows, but considering it was free, it was very good!

I couldn't get my printer to work, but I know that a lot of hardware manufacturers only provide driver software for Windows, so unless someone has written a specific Linux driver for your bit of hardware, it won't work. I think even then, some hardware just won't work with Linux. That's no big deal though, as there are loads of printers and so on that do work with Linux, so it's just a case of checking that a piece of hardware is supported before buying it.

What really surprised me though was how amazingly fast Internet access was. Opening web pages in Mozilla on Linux happened in an instant - as fast as if the page was on my hard disk! I have fast broadband access, but even so, I still have to wait sometimes while IE7 opens a page on Windows. Not long enough for it to be a problem, but there is a slight delay there. With Mozilla/Linux though it's instantaneous.

So, this brings me to me question - will Linux push Windows out of the frame? After all, the fact that it is free has got to be a big selling point (not that is has to be sold, of course). I understand that in developing markets (China, India, etc), Linux is very popular. These are massive markets, which will undoubtably influence the IT industry in lots of ways. The more people that use something, the more popular it becomes, which causes even more people to use it - the snowball effect.

I guess the question is, if I had a blank machine with nothing on it at all, would I install Linux or would I play it safe and install Windows? If it was a machine that only I was going to use then, yes, I think I would make the switch to Linux. However, if it was a machine that my wife and kids were going to use, I would probably stick with Windows. After all, my wife just wants the easiest solution available, and that's Windows.

The lack of hardware support is still the big sticking point, I think, to mass adoption of Linux. If this changes though, I think in a few years time we could see Linux becoming more mainstream as far as home and business use is concerned.

About the Author: John Dixon is a web developer and technical author. These days, John spends most of his time developing dynamic database-driven websites using PHP and MySQL.

Go to http://www.computernostalgia.net to view one of John's sites. This site contains articles and photos relating to the history of the computer.

To find out more about John's work, go to http://www.dixondevelopment.co.uk

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