Description: More and more businesses today have their receive phone service through Internet instead of local phone company lines. Many businesses are also using their internal local and wide-area network infrastructure to replace legacy enterprise telephone networks. This migration to a single network carrying voice and data is called convergence, and it’s revolutionizing the world of telecommunications by slashing costs and empowering users. The technology of families driving this convergence is called VoIP, or Voice over IP.

VoIP has advanced Internet-based telephony to a viable solution, piquing the interest of companies small and large. The primary reason for migrating to VoIP is cost, as it equalizes the costs of long distance calls, local calls, and e-mails to fractions of a penny per use. But the real enterprise turn-on is how VoIP empowers businesses to mold and customize telecom and datacom solutions using a single, cohesive networking platform. These business drivers are so compelling that legacy telephony is going the way of the dinosaur, yielding to Voice over IP as the dominant enterprise communications paradigm. Developed from real-world experience by a senior developer, O’Reilly’s Switching to VoIP provides solutions for the most common VoIP migration challenges. So if you’re a network professional who is migrating from a traditional telephony system to a modern, feature-rich network, this book is a must-have. You’ll discover the strengths and weaknesses of circuit-switched and packet-switched networks, how VoIP systems impact network infrastructure, as well as solutions for common challenges involved with IP voice migrations. Among the challenges discussed and projects presented:

How to go about upgrading the different components of your computer, from the power supply to the motherboard and beyond. You can completely update that old, tired computer with a substantial savings. How to repair different components of your computer.
Step by step instructions on what can be repaired and what has to be replaced and how to do the task. From the hard drive to memory to the power supply.

What to look for when replacing a component.
Step by step instructions on hardware replacement, and how to troubleshoot hardware errors.
A list of troubleshooting techniques and individual component troubleshooting.
Step by step instructions on what to look for when the computer has a problem.

Terms/Glossary
A glossary of terms and what they mean to the everyday user/business person. From the basic computer to the advanced terms used everyday by ‘techs’.

Optimize your Computer.
Tips and instructions on how to make your computer faster than the day it was unpacked.

Laptops - Care and Repair.
Laptops require a different approach to repair than desktops because all the components are packed into a very small, tight space. This portion of the book is all about laptop repair and care to keep it functional years after the warranty has ran out. Of course the rest of the book still applies, computers are computers after all, but this section addresses the specialized needs of notebooks and laptops.

Backup Your Data.
A special section that will assist you in how to decide where to back up your data, when to back up your data, and how often to back up your data.

Anti-Virus Protection
Do you have anti-virus protection? This section explains how viruses got started and what you need to do to protect one of your most valuable resources - YOUR DATA.

Disaster Recovery - Hard drive images.
All big corporations hire departments full of ‘techs’ and ‘programmers’ to protect their data and prepare for a disaster.

The last thing they want is to lose business because their data is gone. You need to know how to protect your data and how to make an image of each of your hard drives.

How To’s Section…
Over thirty different subjects covered in the how to section from creating a backup to why you need to have the Windows Firewall service running when you are on the road.

Hiding Your Computer From Hackers / Thieves / Criminals!
A properly configured router will block identity-stealing viruses and trojans written by people you really don’t want knowing your name. Of course, we give step by step instructions.

Table of contents