Creating Google Forms
If you are managing a business firm or an organisation and you require to collect a lot of data periodically from your clients/subordinates Google Forms are an easier option.Google Forms easily collect the data from your clients without the hassles of consolidating each and every data sent by the clients.
The structure
Google Forms mainly consist of two parts.The first part or the front end is with your clients and the other end (back end) is with you on Google Drive.The data your clients enter on their part is immediately received in the back end in a data sheet format. In addition to the above two units essentially we need a medium to connect the client with your form. The medium can be either your clients email or can be your web site/blog.
The method of creating a Google Form
Needlessly to say that you require a Gmail account to start with. Login into your Google account and search Google for google forms and you will be taken to Google Forms
URL - http://www.google.co.in/forms/about/
1.Click on "Create Form" link. Then you will be taken to a screen like below
Above is an untitled fresh form. Let us add a Title to the form and some questions. Click on Untitled form and enter the Title you want. Click "Add Item" to insert questions and clients answer types.Clients responses type can be chosen from a variety of options depend upon the response your client is supposed to give. Let us see the clients' response options below.
Clients Responses Types
1.Text - Accepts a single text like Name,Mobile Phone, Email etc
2.Paragraph Text - Accepts a sequence of sentences like Home Address,Clients interest etc
3.Multiple Choice - Accepts a single answer from a group of choices
4.Check boxes - Can accept more than one answer from a group of choices
5.Choice from a list -Accepts a single answer from a list
6.Scale - Accepts a single answer from a scale that can be customised from 1 to 10
7.Grid - Grid can accept both Row and Column data. Unfortunately it does .......................................not accommodate a text box.The responses are accepted in radio button .......................................format only.
8.Date - Accepts Date
9.Time -Accepts Time
Here I have titled the form as "School Data " and added three simple questions namely 1.School Name 2.School Type 3.School Address.The clients answer format given for first question is a "Text box" and "Choice from a list" for School Type and "Paragraph Text" for Address.
After finishing. You can view the form by clicking the "View Live Form" button displayed above the form.Give a test response and submit and click "View Responses" button to see the response in data sheet format. Once you are satisfied with your questions and the way the responses are received you can send the form to your clients by clicking "Send Form" button.
See above pic. There are two ways to send the form to the clients. One is by copying the url of the form on to your web site/blog which is frequented by your clients.The other method is directly sending the form to your client's email addresses.Copy and paste your clients' email ids in the box provided just under "Send form via email".
Once it is "Done" you can periodically check the responses by clicking "Responses"The response will look like below. All the responses are consolidated into one sheet with a time stamp.
You can download the sheet as Excel file, PDF file etc as shown below.Go to File and then select "Download as".
Editing Google Forms
You can view client Responses,Edit or Delete Google Form at any time by visiting your Google Drive Account. Sign into Google Drive and click "Recent" or search for "Forms" to see your forms. For better convenience select "List View" rather than "Grid view" from top right corner. Google Drive list view will look like below.
You can view above form here - Live Form
..................................................................................................................................................
How to trouble shoot continuously disconnecting broadband DSL link?
Internet is a marvelous innovation in the sense that it made the whole world into a small village. People living in far away countries and immediate neighborhood are same for a netizen. Broadband made this transition a pleasant experience with its agility. People who enjoyed this experience will be much aggrieved if they are made to sit in front of a computer with an interrupted DSL connection. As the broadband net connection is relied much on telephone cables (Channel cables too) this kind of interruption is likely once in a while. The reasons are many including rusty cable connections, faulty splitter, fault of modem and the malfunctioning telephone receiver itself.In this article we will be discussing about how we can isolate the faulty component so as to resolve the interruption.
Telephone cable
As I have already said, the role of telephone cable is much greater in the realm of internet than all other components that the likelihood of its failure is higher. Just lift your telephone receiver and listen to the dial tone. If the tone is not clear and you can hear some other noises too along with the tone your telephone line is faulty. DSL connection will be hardly lingering for more than five minutes. As the telephone cables are laid mostly underground and much of the lines are lying far away from our home there is very little we could do about a faulty cable rather than call the telephone personnel and make a complaint.Splitter
Splitter is the second component comes in line after the telephone cable. A splitter divides the signal into two parts one part containing the ADSL signal and the other containing only voice.So that you can make telephone calls along with internet without being disturbed by the cooing sound of internet. If your telephone line is OK and you suspect your splitter is at fault just remove the line connection from the splitter and connect it direct to the modem and start browsing. If the DSL stays there without any problem you have to suspect your splitter or the phone receiver. Just remember that the DSL will go out if someone tries to call you on phone during this time. If you are a person who receives a lot of calls on landline during day time you have to conduct this experiment in the middle of the night. As the splitter is not a costly component (it costs around Rs.30 only) you can replace it without much worries. But before you replace it go through the next steps also. You may check its contacts too. If you can see rust lying on the contacts, remove the rust using a flat screw driver or other sharp objects. You may check the telephone line contacts also for rusty substances. Once all of them are cleaned well you can try the splitter after removing the outbound telephone connection.Telephone
In some cases the telephone receiver itself turns out to be the villain. In order to check it you can remove the outbound telephone line from the splitter leaving inbound telephone line and line to modem intact. Your phone receiver will have no dial tone now. Start internet browsing and check for any interruption. If the interruption has gone it is sure that the interruption is coming from the telephone receiver. In order to solve this issue you can purchase one more splitter and serially connect in between the first splitter and the telephone receiver.Modem
If all the above components have been tested and the problem still remains you may borrow your friends modem and check the DSL status (you needn't change the username etc to check the DSL status). If the new modem works well, you can take your modem to your friend's house in order to give it a last chance to prove its worth. If it behaves same at your friend's house too, your modem is faulty and you have to replace it.
The cases of modems become at fault are very rare and nine out of ten cases it is our cheaper components at fault - the telephone cable, splitter or the phone receiver.
How to avoid shocking broadband bills ?
I have seen people complaining about the heavy
telephone bills they received after installing broadband services at their
home or office. Most of them pay heavy bills without knowing what went wrong
with their connection. Some believe that it is common for all broadband
services and discontinue the service once and for all. I am a DSL (broadband)
user for more than six years and never ever have i received a bill higher than
the minimum for the package I opted i.e. Rs.500/- .I am allowed to use a total
of 1536 MB (1.5 GB) each month. Beyond that limit i have to pay for each MB @
rate of 30 paisa per MB. (Earlier the rate was 90 paisa per MB)This I avoided
through regular monitoring of the usage statistics in my account.
The four ways of checking your broadband
usage(dataone bb usage) statistics are explained below.
1.BSNL Dataone Portal
The site http://data.bsnl.in/wps/portal hosts
the usage details. Any broadband user can log in using his username (14 digits
username, eg.bha74601122007) and password given by the BSNL. To bypass the log
in and entering other details each time there released a number of softwares by
third parties. One of them is BSNL Broadband usage 2.4.
Recently BSNL moved some
of their usage statistics details to BSNL self
care portal.Users can create a new account to check all the details
including call details and broadband usage.
2.BSNL Broadband usage 2.4.1
This is a small software
(137kb in zipped form) and very easy to use. You can download this software
from the above site .Once the file is downloaded right click the zipped file
(compressed) and select "extract”. Now the software is ready to run. You
can enter the username and password given by BSNL. In the summary page you need
to enter the plan you opted (eg.250 BBG 250).The report will explain everything
you need to know about the usage like how much bandwidth you have already used
in a particular month, how much bandwidth is left for you etc... and the
probable bill amount including the tax is displayed.
3.Bandwidth Meter 1.3
This software helps you
monitor real time download /upload statistics from your computer without going
to BSNL’s site. For accurate monitoring go to the settings and select the one
Network Interface Card (NIC/LAN/Wireless) applicable to your computer and
uncheck all others. As the ISP (Eg.BSNL) using their own software for
monitoring your data for billing purpose it is highly recommended that you
check their statistics too once in a while.
As this software is not
configured to check any particular ISP it can be used by anyone across the
world to check their broadband usage. If the net is accessed from more than one
computer, each one needs to be monitored separately for getting the total
usage.
4.BSNL SMS Alert
The site http://flash.bsnl.co.in/add_cdr_data.php
has provision for broadband users to register their
account and BSNL will send weekly SMS to their mobile phones the total
bandwidth they consumed up to that date.
Some facts about downloading and uploading
Those who have
learnt something about computers will be familiar with the usual Download
procedure.In general sense it means copying files from a server attached
to the Internet to our own computer. Before downloading each file you need
to click the "Download" button. When you click that button the
file in the server will start to download onto your computer. Windows displays
the size of the file when you are asked to save the file. Uploading a file is
just the reverse of the activity.Eg. Sending a photo or mail to your friend.
The reason why I explained these two is that the usage statistics displayed for
each broadband user is broadly divided into
a. Download
b. Upload.
Even when a user never clicked
the "Download" button he is shown a number of MB or GB already
downloaded or uploaded. Those who use the broadband service for the first time
will be embarrassed by these statistics.
The truth is that Download
and Upload have wider meaning when you use that word in connection with
Internet bandwidth usage. When you open a web page you see many things on
the page. Some web pages have only texts, some have images, some have sounds,
some have videos, and some have softwares. Except for the last one, i,e
"softwares" all others will be displayed on your computer screen
without your clicking the button "Download" and you may be eagerly
avoiding the "Download " button for the fear of excess usage and
subsequent heavy phone bill. I have known people who have incurred Rs.3000 and
above even without seeing the “Download” button. What they did was
watching videos, listening music, chatting with friends, sending mails and
reading online news papers.
The truth is that when you
start browsing whatever you see on your monitor or hear through your
speakers are downloaded from the relevant servers.In other words you start
downloading the moment you start browsing.These files are stored in
Windows Temporary Internet Files folder.( this is the only difference,when you
Download a file yourself you have an option to select the location)The flip
side of the process is that most of these files are tiny in size
and not mattered much. The average size of a high quality internet photo
is only 500 kb and you need to view two photos of that size to make it One MB
(1 MB =1024 kb) and if your current plan allows you to use One GB( 1 GB = 1024
MB) of data you can view 2000 photos of that size.
Below are the average size
of different kinds of files you will find on the web pages.
Size of a medium quality photo = 50 KB (right click
the picture and save on to your computer to check the properties of the file to
see the size)
Size of an MP3 song = 4 MB
Size of a small video clip = 10 - 20 MB
One hour chat without web camera = 5 - 10 MB
One hour chat with web camera = 25 - 75 MB (Depends
upon the resolution of the web camera)
One hour chat with web camera and mic = 35 - 85 MB
(Depends upon the resolution of the web camera)
E-Mails = 7 - 20 KB
A web page without much graphics (pictures) = 100 –
300 KB
Calculating all the above
details will be very simple if you have ShaPlus Bandwidth Meter 1.3 on your
desktop.I have found that certain browsers eat the bandwidth unnecessarily.If
you see that your 'internet' LED on your broadband modem blinks continuously
without any reason please close those web pages currently opened.It may be
using your bandwidth for some other purposes,like updating softwares,stealing
your username,passwords etc..If it continues to blink even after closing the
pages, switch off the modem at once.If you haven't disabled auto update option
of your Windows Media Player, it will update automatically each time you listen
to music with the net connection on.
Those
who check their usage the way explained above will not be embarrassed at the
time of receiving the telephone bill.For a user who is on the basic plan of
BSNL i.e. 250 BBG 250 can use 33 MB on an average per day(1024 is divided
by 30 days). If that bandwidth is carefully used, I think he can use the
internet throughout the day 30 days a month without exceeding 1024 MB (One GB)
at the end of the month and there won’t be any excess amount to pay. On the
other hand if he takes on the habit of watching Videos, especially U tube
videos which are aplenty on the internet now a days, the entire bandwidth
allowed for a month will be used up within a week or so and for the rest of the
usage 30 paisa will be charged for each MB.
How to Run your System Fast and Stable Forever?
Tired of this ever lasting virus scanning and
cleaning of your PC?
For a number of reasons I think Virus
Scanners are more harmful than the viruses themselves. The first thing i
hate them about is their style of eating a lion share of your
PCs resources (Processor speed and RAM) while scanning,it slows down your
system.Second, in each moment a new virus is born somewhere else in the world
and the virus signatures you have had in the database of the virus scanner
become outdated and it calls for a regular updating and the result ? You lose
your net speed too. I bid good bye to this nonsense long ago when I came
across Deep Freeze. Just a small, 2 MB sized software keeps my
systems fine, fresh and fast as if they were bought today.
What is Deep Freeze ?
Deep Freeze, from Faronics is an innovative
computer security software that takes a snap shot of your system on the
Personal Computer (PC) and will keep restoring the system to the snap shot
every time you reboot the PC. Any programs installed, settings changed in any
program or even files saved will be discarded.
How can this be of help to me and you?
First, there can never be a system change on
your PC, whether accidental or malicious; from a careless user, by a virus,
malicious software or any other sort of attack. When ever it happens, Deep
Freeze will automatically undo it and restore your old setting and
configurations. Deepfreeze will only freeze the drives you specify at
installation so under normal circumstances, it would make sense to only
deepfreeze drive C: (your system drive), because it is the most vulnerable. You
can have another drive for archival purposes deep-frozen as well. All you need
to know is that you can't save files on a frozen drive so you need to leave
yourself atleast a drive to save your files.
If you ever want to make any system changes or
instal new software on your PC, you access the control panel of Deep
Freeze,login with your password and suspend Deep Freeze. During this session,
any change done will be registered and the programs installed will be retained
by the system. You can set the number of reboots you need to have without
Freezing the system again, because some programs need one or more reboots in
the process of installation.
After this, you will have a new system, new
programs installed and locked againsts any unauthorized changes. Deep freeze will keep your heart settled even
when browsing through the most infected files or websites, knowing that
whatever the virus tries to do on your PC will eventually be reversed, whatever
files it copies will be deleted.
Deep Freeze is available on Windows, Mac OS
and Linux.
Viruses and malicious software can now pose
much less threat, if you will have Deepfreeze on your PC.
For more information on Deepfreeze, check: http://www.deepfreeze.com.au/
NB : If your system is already running at a snail's
pace due to virus infection there is no point in installing Deep Freeze now beacuse
it is not a virus remover software.It keeps what is inside inside and what is outside
outside so first have a complete format of all your drives and then install
windows anew.Immediately after installing your necessary softwares
install Deep Freeze keeping at least one drive unchecked.
The rest is peace of mind !
