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Software company patent A Software Company Patent is the Door to a World of Confusion There is no universal understanding of exactly what a software company patent is. In general, owning a patent allows a company certain rights (or exclusivity) for a prescribed amount of time. Individuals or corporations seeking a patent must apply for a patent in each and every country in which they wish to have one. Unlike copyrights, patents are not automatically granted to applicants and can take quite a while in order to be approved. Another thing to remember, particularly with a software company patent, is that a patent may issue in one or more of the countries in which you've applied but not all of them. The real problem lies in the fact that there really is no central agreement about what a software company patent actually grants among any of the nations so those who are awarded patents may not be getting exactly what they think they are getting in the process. With no universal agreement there really can't be universal enforcement about the laws and the rights surrounding a software company patent. The growth of Internet business and e-commerce in general has led to many patent applications for software, particularly software that was designed for specific business applications. The problem is that while the cases are granted and successfully tried and defended in some countries, other countries offer no enforcement or legal recourse for those who do not honor the software company patent even if the patents were granted in those countries. The fine line between nations about what is and isn't patentable is another challenge when it comes to establishing and honoring patents. In other words, the issue of a software company patent is a rather confusing process at best. Patents differ greatly from copyrights, which are issued automatically and recognized and enforced internationally. Copyrights protect the source code of software from being copied and registration is generally not required in order for your work to be protected. Lately there is a new term, copyleft, which is an obvious play on words and represents the rights to not only redistribute the works that are covered by this but also to modify and freely distribute those modifications. This term is very much in the spirit of many open source types of software and music. The catch for copyleft protection is that the newly created work be distributed in the same manner and spirit in which it was received. In other words if you were freely given the software, then you must freely provide the improvements and modifications you made to that software. Of course this is a long way from the idea of a software company patent. It is also important that you are sure you understand exactly what you are applying for as far as your patent goes. Different countries will grant patents for different things and those are closely regulated and carefully regarded when it comes to software-know what you are applying for and understand what you are being granted. A software company patent means different things to different people in different places and it nearly impossible to get other countries to honor a patent that they would not have granted at the same time they shouldn't expect other countries to honor patents based on their decision to do so either. One unfortunate circumstance surrounding patents is that there seems to be an unequal and obvious disparity between the haves and the have not's. Patent enforcement for software, unlike literature and music is largely subjective. In literature and music, it is rather obvious that the copyright has been abused or that the work has been copied, this isn't as simple with software which is one other reason that software company patent is such a hotly debated subject in the software industry.

Can Job Sharing Boost your Employee Profile? Job sharing is one of the newer occurring work arrangements on the job market. It means that two or more people share one full time position. Most often it is two people that work part time on the same position. This kind of work sharing is a great invention for all parents that want to spend more time with their children or for people that are just not made for a full time job. Job sharing is a flexible job option that shares one person’s responsibilities between two people. So, can job sharing boost your employee profile? Yes, of course is the answer to that. The reasons why job sharing boosts your employee profile are widely spread. Job sharing can bring benefits not only to employees but also to employers and companies. Start by looking at the aspect of sharing your work. If you are sharing a full time position load with another person, pressure is less on you. You still have the same deadline, but the pressure is shared and you can work more efficiently on your work assignments. Less stress makes for a happier more relaxed employee that can tackle the work given to him or her easily. This makes the employee a more balanced person. The possibility to stay at home while still having a chance to be part of a company can further your career and keep your skills up to date and this makes for a well balanced worker. Another reason why job sharing might boost your employee profile is that two people working part time actually can get more work done as one full time employee. Why is that? Well, that is very easy. While the full time employee is very tired in the mid afternoon from his already long day, the person coming in for the second half of the day has had time to relax all morning long and therefore can start with new end fresh energy and thoughts on the shared work. Should the position not be shared in half days, but in each taking a few full days, then the people sharing the position are still more relaxed and motivated. They are able to be with their family, able to rest and regenerate or have fun with some of their favorite hobbies. Psychologists and researchers have long praised the effect that a fun family filled time and enough time to be you and relax can boost your employees’ work input as well as their efficiency. In countries where employees have fewer hours per week and more vacation days a year, the work output per person is in general higher and employees are happy and motivated and stay with their company for long periods of time, if not all the way up to retirement. Additionally, if you have a good amount of time off from work, you are most likely a very motivated and happy employee and your boss and fellow employees will see you as a positive person to be around at the work place. Being a leader and motivator is all that a boss can hope for and therefore, sharing the position can immensely boost your profile. For employers, there is also the consideration of your benefits. Some companies might not pay benefits to part time employees and two part time positions will save you money. In this case, your profile is simply boosted by the fact that your employer saves money. Although in some companies, there are benefits for part-time employees and those can be based on different facts, such as hours worked, full-time benefits and more. Before considering sharing your job and entering the world of part-time employment, make sure that this is exactly what you are looking for in a job. Once you are sharing your position, there might not be a way back to full time, at least not within your own company.

Web Hosting - The Internet and How It Works In one sense, detailing the statement in the title would require at least a book. In another sense, it can't be fully explained at all, since there's no central authority that designs or implements the highly distributed entity called The Internet. But the basics can certainly be outlined, simply and briefly. And it's in the interest of any novice web site owner to have some idea of how their tree fits into that gigantic forest, full of complex paths, that is called the Internet. The analogy to a forest is not far off. Every computer is a single plant, sometimes a little bush sometimes a mighty tree. A percentage, to be sure, are weeds we could do without. In networking terminology, the individual plants are called 'nodes' and each one has a domain name and IP address. Connecting those nodes are paths. The Internet, taken in total, is just the collection of all those plants and the pieces that allow for their interconnections - all the nodes and the paths between them. Servers and clients (desktop computers, laptops, PDAs, cell phones and more) make up the most visible parts of the Internet. They store information and programs that make the data accessible. But behind the scenes there are vitally important components - both hardware and software - that make the entire mesh possible and useful. Though there's no single central authority, database, or computer that creates the World Wide Web, it's nonetheless true that not all computers are equal. There is a hierarchy. That hierarchy starts with a tree with many branches: the domain system. Designators like .com, .net, .org, and so forth are familiar to everyone now. Those basic names are stored inside a relatively small number of specialized systems maintained by a few non-profit organizations. They form something called the TLD, the Top Level Domains. From there, company networks and others form what are called the Second Level Domains, such as Microsoft.com. That's further sub-divided into www.Microsoft.com which is, technically, a sub-domain but is sometimes mis-named 'a host' or a domain. A host is the name for one specific computer. That host name may or may not be, for example, 'www' and usually isn't. The domain is the name without the 'www' in front. Finally, at the bottom of the pyramid, are the individual hosts (usually servers) that provide actual information and the means to share it. Those hosts (along with other hardware and software that enable communication, such as routers) form a network. The set of all those networks taken together is the physical aspect of the Internet. There are less obvious aspects, too, that are essential. When you click on a URL (Uniform Resource Locator, such as http://www.microsoft.com) on a web page, your browser sends a request through the Internet to connect and get data. That request, and the data that is returned from the request, is divided up into packets (chunks of data wrapped in routing and control information). That's one of the reasons you will often see your web page getting painted on the screen one section at a time. When the packets take too long to get where they're supposed to go, that's a 'timeout'. Suppose you request a set of names that are stored in a database. Those names, let's suppose get stored in order. But the packets they get shoved into for delivery can arrive at your computer in any order. They're then reassembled and displayed. All those packets can be directed to the proper place because they're associated with a specified IP address, a numeric identifier that designates a host (a computer that 'hosts' data). But those numbers are hard to remember and work with, so names are layered on top, the so-called domain names we started out discussing. Imagine the postal system (the Internet). Each home (domain name) has an address (IP address). Those who live in them (programs) send and receive letters (packets). The letters contain news (database data, email messages, images) that's of interest to the residents. The Internet is very much the same.