Facts on Data Mining

Data mining is the process of examining a data set to extract certain patterns. Companies use this process to determine the outcome of their existing goals. They summarize this information into useful methods to create revenue and/or cut costs. When search engines are accessed, they begin to build lists of links from the first page it accesses. It continues this process throughout the site until it reaches the root page. This data not only includes text, but also numbers and facts.

Data mining focuses on consumers in relation to both "internal" (price, product positioning), and "external" (competition, demographics) factors which help determine consumer price, customer satisfaction, and corporate profits. It also provides a link between separate transactions and analytical systems. Four types of relationships are sought with data mining:

• Classes - information used to increase traffic
• Clusters - grouped to determine consumer preferences or logical relationships
• Associations - used to group products normally bought together (i.e., bacon, eggs; milk, bread)
• Patterns - used to anticipate behavior trends

This process provides numerous benefits to businesses, governments, society, and especially individuals as a whole. It starts with a cleaning process which removes errors and ensures consistency. Algorithms are then used to "mine" the data to establish patterns. With all new technology, there are positives and negatives. One negative issue that arises from the process is privacy. Although it is against the law, the selling of personal information over the Internet has occurred. Companies have to obtain certain personal information to be able to properly conduct their business. The problem is that the security systems in place are not adequately protecting this information.

From a customer viewpoint, data mining benefits businesses more than their interests. Their personal information is out there, possibly unprotected, and there is nothing they can do until a negative issue arises. On the other hand, from the business side, it helps enhance overall operations and aid in better customer satisfaction. In regards to the government, they use personal data to tighten security systems and protect the public from terrorism; however, they want to protect people's privacy rights as well. With numerous servers, databases, and websites out there, it becomes increasingly difficult to enforce stricter laws. The more information we introduce to the web, the greater the chances of someone hacking into this data.

Better security systems should be developed before data mining can truly benefit all parties involved. Privacy invasion can ruin people's lives. It can take months, even years, to regain a level of trust that our personal information will be protected. Benefits aside, the safety and well being of any human being should be top priority.

Backing Up & Keeping Your iTunes Library Safe

Music files are similar to any other computer file in terms of their susceptibility to being deleted and being damaged. It's not uncommon for a computer hard drive to pack in and stop working or for computers to be stolen. If you do not have a back up of your music and iTunes archive then you run the risk of losing all your music. It should be noted that there are programs on the market that allow you to retrieve the music from your iPod and copy it back onto your computer (that is beyond the scope of this article) but if you have more music on your computer than you do on your iPod then that music will be lost. Backing up your archive is an essential way of reducing the heart ache and time associated with lost music.

If you want to back up your iTunes properly it is not a simple matter of just making sure you have copied the actual song files as there is more to your iTunes folder than just the song files (playlists, preferences and artwork for example). If you are not sure where your iTunes folder is, it can be found in your 'home folder > Music' if you are using a Mac or in 'Home folder > My Music' if using a PC. The best way to back up your music is to copy the whole folder on to an external hard drive or onto a CD/DVD. Some people choose to back their music up into a separate folder on their computer but this is not such a great idea as if your hard drive crashes or your computer is stolen you will lose both the original and back up files which results in no more music and an upset you!

The easiest and probably the most convenient way would be to back the music up onto an external hard drive. External hard drives come in many shapes and sizes. Nowadays external hard drives are cheap to purchase and you can easily pick one up at a reasonable price. The good thing about backing your music up onto an external hard drive is that you can do it all at once, it is simple to do and restoring your lost library is easy.

If you ever need to restore your lost library then you would need to open iTunes Preferences and check both the boxes that relate to the iTunes folder which are found in the advanced pane. You would then need to come out of iTunes and drag the entire back up iTunes folder from the external hard drive to it's original location (as mentioned earlier). Now start iTunes again and you should find that all your preferences and playlists etc should have been restored.

Back ups are only useful if you keep them updated. There is no point in making back ups of your iTunes folder every 2 months if you add music to it every week. That would be a lot of music added to iTunes in between back ups. I would suggest making a back up of your folder often (every week or couple of weeks, it all depends on how often you add music) by dragging the folder onto your hard drive and replacing the previous backup

Fixing "Extent E_ID is Allocated..." Error Message

The physical database structure of Microsoft SQL Server contains various types of components, arranged into systematic order. The data stored in the SQL database file is divided into number of pages numbered from 0 to n. Collection of eight continuous pages forms an extent (top-most hierarchical component). Corruption in extent primarily results into an error message while mounting of your database. This error message results into unmountability of database, which further leads to inaccessibility of its stored information. To surpass the issues created after extent corruption, most of the database users prefer to restore the database from an updated backup. But, the probability of every database user maintaining a regular backup is very rare. In such cases, these users need to repair there corrupt database using advanced SQL Repair application.

As a practical case, your SQL database becomes unmountable after the below error message appears:

"Extent E_ID is allocated to 'OBJECTNAME' and at least one other object."

Repetitive occurrence of the above error message makes the data stored in your database inaccessible.

Cause

The above error message appears when there is some corruption in Extents. This can either happen due to logical or physical damages.

Resolution

The solutions for resolving the above error message - caused either through logical or physical damage - are discussed below:

The physical damages can be surmounted by replacing the physically damaged system component with a new one.
The logical damaged can be surpassed by executing DBCC CHECKDB command, with an appropriate repair clause.

The failure of both the above resolutions leaves with no option, but to restore data from an updated backup. However, in case of unavailability of an updated backup or backup falling short of restoring the updated backup, you will need to use advanced SQL repair application.

A SQL Repair software uses high end scanning methods to repair the corrupt SQL Server database. With interactive user-interface and non-destructive nature, these tools are easy to understand and perform safe database repair. There is no need for any technical skill to use these repair tools.

SQL Recovery is competent enough to repair corrupt SQL database to a level unmatched by any other repair application. The ms SQL repair software repairs SQL Server 2008, 2005, and 2000 databases and restores them on default or new user specified location. The software is designed for Windows 7, Vista, XP, 2003, 2000 and NT operating systems.

How to Check the Disk Format of Your iPod

The iPod is a popular portable media player from Apple Inc. It has a disk with a screen and specific software. You can restore your iPod to work with both Macintosh and Windows computers. If you configure it for Mac operating system, it is restored as HFS+ (Mac OS Extended) file system. If you configure it for Microsoft Windows, it is restored as FAT32 file system. However, when you change the disk format, it needs to be reformatted. Reformatting removes all the files from disk and need to opt for iPod Recovery to get your files back.

Checking iPod's disk format:

In order to determine the disk format, follow the underwritten steps:

On the iPod, select Settings and then About. If you are using an older one, chose Settings from main menu.

Scroll down to bottom of your iPod's screen.

If disk is restored for Mac operating system, you see the serial number as last item in About screen. If your iPod is configured for Microsoft Windows operating system, you see the "Format: Windows" as last item.

If your disk is configured for Mac operating system, you can not use it on Microsoft Windows operating system-based computer. However, it is possible to restore the iPod disk for using it with Microsoft Windows computer. For this purpose, you need to restore the factory settings.

When you connect a Windows configured iPod (excluding Shuffle) to Macintosh operating system-based computer, formats itself to work with Macintosh (HFS Plus file system). It happens for the first time when you connect it with your Mac computer.

When you restore the factory settings of your iPod, using iTunes software, all of the files stored on iPod disk are removed. In such cases, if you do not have an updated backup of your critical files, Recovery Software are required to get your data recovered.

The iPod Data Recovery applications use efficient scanning algorithms to thoroughly scan the disk and retrieve all lost photos, music files, podcasts, videos, and documents. The enable you to perform Recovery on your own, with simple and rich graphical user interface. The tools do not alter original data as they read-only and non-destructive conduct.

Stellar Phoenix iPod Recovery is the most advanced and powerful tool to extract lost files from iPod disk. The software is available for both Windows and Macintosh operating system, in two different versions. It is compatible with iPod Classic and shuffle.

Resolving "No Images Found on the Selected Media" Memory Card Error

Digital camera is the most excellent and popular way to take high-quality digital pictures. Picture is a way to capture once in lifetime event. Such events may include your summer vacations, college farewell party, first baby step, and more. Digital camera store these pictures on cards, which is considered as an effective and reliable data storage media. However, in some cases, your critical pictures can not be accessed from the memory card and you encounter file loss. In order to retrieve lost photos, Card Recovery solutions are required.

The memory card may become inaccessible through digital camera in various situations. When you attempt to access the stored pictures from card or try to copy the photos to your computer hard drive, you may encounter several error messages and the desired operations on memory card can not be completed. For instance, you may come across the below error message while trying to open a photo in digital camera:

"No images found on the selected media"

This is a quite stressing situation, particularly if you are a professional photographer and the memory card contains client's pictures. You definitely do not want to lose the photos and want to get them back at any cost. In order to recover photos in such situations, you need to find out the cause of this behavior and fix it through Card Data Recovery methods.

Grounds of the issue

There could be two possible reasons of this problem:

The data structures of your card are corrupted. Data structures are used to index the stored files, easily manage them, and access them. After corruption to the data structures, files can not be located and accessed.

Memory card is accidentally formatted or the files are deleted. After deletion of the files, file location start list of digital camera becomes empty and this problem occurs.

Resolution

In order to lost photos, videos, and music files from your card, go for Recovery Software. The applications carry out thorough scan of entire card and extract lost files from it.

The Digital Memory Card Recovery tools come equipped with simple and rich graphical user interface and thus do not demand sound technical skills. They do not alter original data from the media as they have read-only conduct.

Stellar Phoenix Photo Recovery is the most effective and advanced tool to ensure absolute recovery of lost photos. The software recovers from all types of memory cards including SD card, MMC card, and XD card. It is available in two different versions for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems.