The Advantage of the SATA Storage Interface

The Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) computer bus is a storage-interface for connecting host bus adapters, often found in laptops and desktop motherboards to mass storage devices. SATA host adapters and peripherals communicate with each other via a high-speed serial cable.

The Serial ATA International Organization (SATA-IO) is the group responsible for developing, managing and driving adoption of SATA specifications. Users of the SATA interface benefit from greater speed, easy-to-use upgradeable storage devices and simpler configuration.

The SATA interface debuted in 2001, and it is now the most popular interface for PC applications. With data transfer rates of 1.5 Gbps, SATA 1.0 soon became a replacement for the Parallel ATA (PATA) interface. As of 2009, SATA has replaced all but legacy ATA in all consumer PCs being shipped. SATA is advantageous over PATA in several ways, including its smaller and less expensive cable, faster and more efficient data transfer and ability to hot swap, or add/remove devices while in operation.

The next generation of SATA doubled the data transfer rate to 3 Gbps. The SCSI interface had been able to accept several requests and respond to them in the order which minimized response time. This feature, called native command queuing (NCQ), was adopted as an optional feature for both SATA 1.5 Gbps and SATA 3 Gbps devices. Given the importance of backward compatibility between SATA 1.5 Gbps and SATA 3 Gbps devices, SATA 3 Gbps is designed to fall back to SATA 1.5 Gbps when in communication with SATA 1.5 Gbps devices.

eSATA
Initially, SATA was designed as an internal, inside-the-box technology; however, designers quickly realized that the interface could be expanded outside the PC, bringing the same performance and features to external storage needs. This led to the development of a new connector called external SATA or eSATA which is specified for external devices.

With eSATA, consumers can receive the same benefits that SATA brings to storage. eSATA was released as a new standard in 2004, with specifically defined cables, connectors and signal requirements. It is hot pluggable and provides more performance than existing solutions. Several benefits of eSATA include its robust and user-friendly external connection, its ability to utilize a shielded cable up to 2 meters and its cost (eSATA delivers a higher gigabyte transfer rate per dollar than existing storage interfaces and does not require a protocol translation chip).

There are a few differences between the shielded connector and the internal connector. In order to prevent the use of unshielded internal cables in external applications, the external connector has no "L" shaped key, and the guide features are offset and smaller. To prevent damage, the insertion depth has increased by 1.6 mm to 6.6 mm and the contacts are mounted back farther in the receptacle and the plug. The cable also has an extra layer of shielding and the connectors have metal contact points. Additionally, there are springs as retention features built into the connector shield on both the top and bottom surfaces.

One key advantage of eSATA over other interfaces is its speed (up to 6 times faster than USB 2.0 or 1394). As consumers continue to collect a swelling number of high resolution photographs, videos and music files, data transfer rate is increasingly important. By using an eSATA interface, end-users are able to back up their computer systems significantly faster than with existing external storage solutions.

Because SATA is the common standard interface in nearly all new hard drives, eSATA doesn't require the overhead of converting the signal between the external interface and the internal IDE drive. Rather, a buffered direct connect is all that is needed to extend the computer's internal SATA ports outside of the PC.

Applications for eSATA include external direct attached storage for notebooks, desktops, consumer electronics and entry servers, and also support for multiple streams of content such as parallel read and write on a DVR.

Looking forward to the SATA 3.0 specification
The current SATA rev. 2.x specifications detail data transfer rates up to 3.0 Gbit/s. SATA IO presented the draft specification of SATA 6 Gbit/s physical later last year. The full 3.0 standard is anticipated to be available this year. While hard disk drives hardly saturate the 1.5 Gbps bandwidth of original SATA, a move from SATA 3 Gbps to SATA 6 Gbps will benefit the flash read speeds of ONFI drives that can reach well over 500 MB/s.

The new specification will include a few extensions to the command set, namely in the area of data and command queuing, and the enhancements are geared to improve quality of service for video streaming. The standard will support distances up to one meter. The new specification may require higher power consumption for supporting chips; however, new process technologies and power management techniques are expected to combat the potential problem. The future standard will be backward compatible with SATA 2.x specifications.

8 Day CCIE Routing and Switching Mock Lab Workshops

Experience our Routing and Switching mock labs which highly reflect the most current actual labs Solidify your existing knowledge, expose weaknesses Recommended for CCIE candidates who have attempted the actual CCIE(http://www.cathayschool.com) Exam without passing

CathaySchool's CCIE Routing and Switching Training Mock Lab Workshops are eight-day 1-one-1 Instructor-led classes provided in Guangzhou, China. They are designed for students to solidify their existing knowledge, expose weaknesses, and to fully prepare candidates as they lead up to their CCIE Routing and Swtiching Bootcamp Exam date. Please note that NO introductory material is covered during the lab experience. (http://www.cathayschool.com)

There are no scheduled lectures over the eight days, candidates will solidify their existing knowledge by taking numerous mock lab exams during Day 1 and Day 7, which are designed to meet the requirement of the most recent actual labs. However, the instructor is available to discuss 1-on-1 and clarify tasks you may be stuck on. At the end of each day, the labs are then reviewed step-by-step by the instructor and a detailed explanation is provided about the technologies covered, interpretations of the questions, and common mistakes that were made by students with relation to each topic.

Day 8 is a conclusion lecture of the week in review. In addition to this the instructors will review the students' performance for the last 7 days and give recommendations on readiness to take and pass the CCIE Routing and Switching Bootcamp(http://www.cathayschool.com/ccie-routing-and-switching-mock-lab-workshop.html) Exam, along with suggestions of what topics to focus on during further preparation.

Before you finish this course, you will be provided a full set of our full-scale lab materials (which mirrors the most current lab exam). The materials contain CCIE R&S questions, requirements and solutions, which can be comfortably studied and practiced during the period between your course finishing date and the lab exam date. Along with this, we will update your study materials free of charge and provide email support ("48 hour response guarantee") for 1 month after the class.

Intended Audience: These Mock Lab Workshops are intended for CCIE Routing and Switching Training(http://www.cathayschool.com/ccie-routing-and-switching-mock-lab-workshop.html) candidates who are within three months of their actual lab exam. Introductory material will not be covered, and thus, students are expected to have a CCNP-level of knowledge with extensive CCIE-level preparation. The lab scenarios covered during these workshops are designed to be highly close to the real CCIE lab.

Schedule of events Student instruction is conducted privately with one-on-one tuition, so you have the freedom to begin from almost any date of the year.

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18 Day 1-on-1 Instructor Led CCIE Routing And Switching Lab Boot Camp

Your personal instructor walk you step-by-step through various CCIE Lab scenarios Experience our mock labs which highly reflect the most current actual lab Recommended for CCIE Training(http://www.cathayschool.com) candidates who need in-depth understanding on each lab topic

CathaySchool's CCIE Routing and Switching Lab Instructor Led Boot Camp ais 18-day 1-one-1 Instructor-led class provided in Guangzhou, China. This 18 day training course is designed for CCIE Routing and Switching lab exam candidates who have some confidence to pass the lab exam but are lacking in, or are desiring; some test-testing strategies. This course helps you become familiar with each lab question and solution. This training is also good for the CCIE R&S lab exam candidates who have failed the lab exam more than once. Our statistics show that over 93% of them pass the lab exam at 1st attempt after they finish this course. (http://www.cathayschool.com)

You will study with your instructor one-on-one during the training. Step by step, our highly skilled instructors will show you the best way to configure each full-scale lab. During the class, the instructor will identify the most common mistakes that candidates make. The course is fast-paced, allowing you to learn details of topics, focusing on your specific areas of weakness, strengthen more familiar topics, and improve your speed.

Before you finish this course, you will be provided a full set of our full-scale lab materials (which mirrors the most current lab exam). The materials contain CCIE Routing and Switching Bootcamp(http://www.cathayschool.com/ccie-routing-and-switching-lab-boot-camp.html) questions, requirements and solutions, which can be comfortably studied and practiced during the period between your course finishing date and the lab exam date. Along with this, we will update your study materials free of charge and provide email support ("48 hour response guarantee") for 1 month after the class.

Intended Audience: This 18-Day Instructor Led Boot Camp is intended for CCIE Routing and Switching candidates who are within three months of their actual lab exam. Introductory CCIE material is not covered, and candidates for this class should already have a firm understanding of the technologies on the CCIE Routing and Switching Training(http://www.cathayschool.com/ccie-routing-and-switching-lab-boot-camp.html) exam blueprint. This class will also benefit CCIE candidates who may have attempted the actual CCIE Lab Exam without passing and feel they need to learn a more advanced and structured approach to CCIE Lab strategy. The lab scenarios covered during these workshops are designed to be highly close to the real CCIE lab.

Schedule of events This course starts from every Monday and will last for 3 weeks as below: Week 1: Monday ~ Saturday (1-one-1 study with your personal instructor) Sunday off (Local tour accompanied by our friendly staff) Week 2: Monday ~ Saturday (1-one-1 study with your personal instructor) Sunday off (Local tour accompanied by our friendly staff) Week 3: Monday ~ Saturday (1-one-1 study with your personal instructor)

Since this is one of the most popular courses at Cathayschool, the course openings are quickly filled out. To make sure that you can get the most appropriate dates, we suggest that you can book your training ASAP by referring to the "View Schedule" tab above.

Insurance Billing Software - Accurate and Efficient Payment Collection

The issue of billing has always been a problem for some medical practices. It is a problem because some practices just don't have the right systems to track and manage bills and payments. Tracking payments manually is not only inefficient, it is also ineffective. Staff cannot track payments and send reminders because their time should be allocated to patient care. Still, someone (or some system), must be in place to take care of the billing, for it affects the cash flow of the medical practice.

Unlike other businesses, payment collection for medical bills sometimes require a lot of documentation. An insurance claim
would be one good example. To file an insurance claim, and to ensure that the claim is processed promptly and successfully, the right documents have to be submitted to the claim departments. Because of this need for documentation, two problems arise.

Firstly, it is common to see patients returning to the medical establishment time and again to request for relevant documents to facilitate their claims. This takes up a lot of time from the staff because they have to handle these requests. If there is no proper in place, they waste more time trying to locate the right documents.

Secondly, a medical practice without proper insurance billing software cannot track payments properly. The right system will allow staff to see who has paid up, and who still owes money. Payment collection will then be a breeze. When it comes to filing for taxes, the accounts will be much more clear cut as all amounts are traceable within the billing software.

In today's world, it is hard to imagine any medical practice without any insurance billing software. The amount of problems that rise from the documentation issues may severely handicap the operations of the medical practice. When operations is adversely affected, the rest of the practice cannot function efficiently as well. That means there will be a decline in the overall standard of medical care provided by the practice.

Furthermore, reliance of manual billing systems means that there is heavy reliance on human effort. That also means that there is a greater chance of introducing human errors to the insurance claims process. Imagine a patient submitting a claim, waiting a few weeks for the claim to be processed, only to find that the documents submitted are incorrect. The claim would be rejected, and the process has to start all over again. Sometimes, impatient patients may even put the blame on the medical practice when such events occur!

So don't postpone setting up an insurance billing system for the medical practice. Staff will be happy as the technology makes their work easier. Practice owners will be happy because they can run the operations more efficiently, and that increases profit margins for the practice. And finally, patients are happy because they get professional medical care from the medical practice.

Medical Charting Software - Improving Medical Care

Technology has been evolving at break neck speed, and medical practices
are rushing to keep up. The bigger practices have no qualms about installing new and advanced medical software and hardware because they have the resources. But what about smaller medical practices? Sometimes, in the midst of all that work, technology is placed in the back seat. Perhaps it's time to relook at the possibility to implementing technology to help automate some of the operational processes.

One major challenge that all medical practices have to overcome is the management of medical records. It is fine to keep and retrieve records manually, but this method cannot carry on indefinitely. As the practice grows, the patient base also grows. This makes it hard for the staff to keep and find medical records. Besides, there are other operational issues to think about. For example, payment collections become more and more difficult. It is almost impossible to send reminders if there is no proper way of tracking the bills. Also, communications between staff (or the various departments) may break down due to lack of real time information.

For these reasons, the wise doctor looks at implementing technology before everything gets out of hand. One way to solve such operational problems is to install medical charting software. Fortunately, many small practice owners have already jumped on the band wagon and setup electronic charting software such as SpringCharts to help with documentation issues. SpringCharts is a Java based software application that helps to organize documents. A well organized database of records improves the overall efficiency of the entire operation. The goal is to free up the time of the staff, so that more resources can be allocated to patient care.

Independent practice owners often have to think about business aspects as well. For sure, having a documentation software that helps streamlines process will help improve the bottom line and boost profit margins.

Making profits is important, but the existence of a medical practice is not just to make profits. It is to provide high quality medical care for the patients. Technology can help improve medical care by taking care of the "grunt work" that often comes with running a medical practice.

Imagine having to create charts manually from the patient records. Without the right software, this is virtually an impossible task. With a software such as SpringCharts, both physician and staff have access to up to date patient records. The software's design is based on a time-proven work flow. Doctors and medical staff will find it easy to operate the software because they are already familiar with the work flow, which is based on industry standards.

When consider medical charting software, be sure to consider how to integrate the software with existing programs. You would want all functional software to be operating from one integrated database to avoid confusion.

EMR Software - Improving Medical Care

EMR software, or Electronic Medical Records software, is becoming more and more widely accepted in the medical industry. Technology always has an important role to play in the medical care. In the aspect of record keeping, EMR software is becoming more of an essential need than a luxury. There are several reasons why a medical clinic should deploy EMR software.

First, there is the issue of compliance. By 2016, all medical clinics are required to have EMR software as part of their operations. Otherwise, they may be penalized financially by MedicareMedicaid. The authorities have good reasons for enforcing this rule. Deploying EMR software boosts the quality of medical care, and that benefits the general public greatly.

Even without mandatory rules, medical practices are setting up EMR software to help manage their operations voluntarily. That is because the practice owners can see the economic benefits that come with using EMR software. Here are some benefits:

1) Allows physicians to see more patients.

Having EMR software in place allows the doctors to see more patients. The documentation and appointments are kept in such well organized fashion that more time is freed up. In other words, the operations become more streamlined. Having streamlined operations mean that staff can stay on top of the operations. For example, reminders can be sent to patients to remind them of upcoming appointments. Usually, when patients receive these reminders, they will respond (i.e. cancel the appointments) if they can't make it. Staff may then schedule other patients to come for appointments during the empty time slots.

2) Less room for error.

Almost every growing medical practice encounters some kind of filing errors. That is understandable, considering the amount of administrative work involved when dealing with patients. Such work includes billing issues, keeping medical charts and records, etc. Sometimes, misfiling occurs and information gets lost. When such information are filed electronically, there is almost zero chance for misfiling to occur. It is also easier to track overdue payments via electronic software.

3) Storing lab records and creating graphs.

Graphical representations of lab records are very useful to the doctors. They can use such graphs to help them communicate treatment plans to their patients, or they can use the graphs to help interpret the lab results more accurately. Graphs can also help physicians spot trends. For instance, a doctor can instantly retrieve records of previous prescriptions, and find out the frequency of the prescriptions from the graphs.

4) Renewing prescriptions easily.

If a prescription has been observed to be working great, the same prescription can be renewed easily. The software helps doctors to avoid severe prescription mistakes by giving out warning prompts when there is an allergy violation. Drug allergies and intolerance are stored in the EMR software and highlighted in red so as to capture the attention of the doctor.

Appointment Software Saves You Time AND Money

It has been repeated throughout history and it is gaining more weight with every passing year ? Time is money. No matter what your business is, better scheduling always leads to better utilization of resources. And that leads to more profit for you and your company. If you are still scheduling things by hand on paper, you will be amazed at what a good Appointment Software can do for you.

These new softwares are advanced programs that take care of everything on their own; you just have to feed in the data. If you are using some outdated software that is clunky and time consuming, forget about it. Try these advanced appointment software instead and see how fast your appointments can get scheduled, using just a few clicks.

You can do so many things with appointment software apart from scheduling appointments. You can print out referrals to keep track of where your customers are coming from. This is especially helpful if you own a business that has to schedule many appointments every working day, like a health care facility.

You can even try medical scheduling software that will make sure that your health care facility runs at optimum efficiency. Many medical companies actually report that a good software can be so efficient that it will pay for itself within months by automatically filling up cancellations with relevant entries from the waiting list.

Most appointment book software is also very secure; they are compliant with HIPAA standards and help you keep your security tight. And tracking and printing bills is also a cinch. You can track more than one insurance company and print routing bills, encounter slips etc. Encounter slips are actually customizable and you can get yours to look exactly like the ones you have been using all along.

The best thing about appointment scheduling software is that they are very easy to use, which means there is not much to wrap your head around. These are all familiar MS Windows type softwares and work just the way you expect them to. They are very user friendly and let you do your work with minimum hassle.

You will be assured of minimal downtime due to crashes. These are meticulously tested and tried to eliminate all bugs and errors. This is the benefit of buying professional softwares; they take care of all your worries and give you a superior product that helps you do your work more efficiently.

Entering data into these softwares is as easy as click, enter name and save. You can build your own database; add extra information like details of appointment etc. You can call up future appointments in seconds and see how your schedule is shaping up. Keep people on the waiting list and promote them when there are cancellations. This essentially puts effective time management at your fingertips.

Thus, if you are still running paper, killing trees and being inefficient with your time management, it is time to buy your self a good Appointment Software program and get rid of ancient paper based scheduling systems that are only costing your more money and not making you any profit.