Aren't you tired to wait in line in order to pump a coin into a telephone machine? Even if you are not one of those people who have to think twice before placing a call, purchasing a phone card can save you precious time and reduce your calling stress to minimum. In fact, collect calls, credit card calls, third-party calls, are all history. The simplest way, apart from the cheapest, is using a phone card, regardless if you are calling from a street public phone, your cell or an office line.

Some years ago, calling a relative or friend living abroad, required a great deal of preparation. Calculating the international rate charged by the telephone fixed line service, determining the total amount of minutes the call should last in order not to exceed a particular cost limit, and finally placing a clock near the telephone so as to keep an eye on the time that passed by, were some of the main tasks one had to complete so as to be on the safe side. Although all these sound funny today as affordable phone cards make international calling possible and most importantly affordable, considering some things before purchasing a phone card is probably wiser than simply buying whichever card a local vendor carries.

The most important things one has to take under consideration before purchasing a phone card are: the operator's reliability, the service quality and the local and international rates offered. Costumers' testimonials and professional reviews are generally available over the Internet, as well as rate charges. When these basic three conditions are met, then placing a call is as easy as 1-2-3; in most cases even simpler.

Phone cards come with different facilities and operating modes. Some need to be activated with the use of a Personal Identification Number (PIN), others need a call to be placed to a pre-registered number or toll-free number, or others require a combination of the above methods. In addition, paying for a phone card has also changed. Instead of having only one option, the interested individual can select from purchasing a pre-paid phone card that minutes can or cannot be added after the original balance's consumption. With a variety of paying methods accepted, like paying in cash, or with credit and debit cards directly the vendor or over the Internet the phone card service, people are always able to make their international calls without having to deal with any kind of restrictions.

But the most exciting thing with having a phone card is that you can place a call anytime from practically anywhere in the world. Due to the wide telecommunications network existing today, people can rely on any type of phone line to dial any number and reach literally anyone within seconds. Moreover, due to fierce competition telecommunications companies were forced to introduce price-cutting techniques, favoring the customer's budget. Many assert that exclusive use of phone cards to call long distance numbers considerably reduce the costs of staying in touch without lowering the quality of the connection.

At home you posted notes on the Refrigerator, on the Bulletin Board, or on Mom’s Computer; College isn’t much different. Messages must get to the appropriate person on the appropriate floor, and in time for the big event, but you’re too busy to stand around waiting on them to return from the latest class. Communication at college is an important part of your Successful College Experience.

When asked how college students communicate, Brenna Verhoeff, a fourth year student, indicated that predominant means of communication on campus included: dry erase marker boards attached to the dorm doors, floor bulletin boards at the top of the stairs or elevator exit, voicemail on dorm phones, cell phone, email, and instant messenger. “With current technology, there’s no reason not to be in touch with your dorm mates, or friends from college.” Brenna said during a recent conversation. “I carry my cell phone, even to class. Most instructors ask that we turn them off during class, but we often have breaks when we can check for text messaging or voicemail.”

Various forms of communication work for different purposes.

Dry Erase Boards attached to the dorm door work great when you stop by to see someone and they aren’t around, or you have to stick something under their door. “Test is under the door, Call me.”

Bulletin Boards at the top of the stairs or elevator exit work well for messages to the whole floor of dorm residents, or even the whole Dormitory. “Dance Friday Night at South Courtyard. Dress formal. Come at 9 PM”

Voicemail works for short messages or call backs, and most students have cell phones these days. “Hi, It’s Julie, I have your keys. Call me.”

Texting is essential for college students on the go between class, studies, work, and social calendar. “Wanna go to the dance? I’ll pick you up at 9:15”

Email transports photos home, letters to mom, messages to fellow students, homework to various professors, and more. It’s an essential format for communication in college these days. Some professors, don’t even see their students in a traditional classroom, so email is their only form of communication.

Instant messenger keeps students in the know, in touch with family and friends at other colleges, and helps keep students up to date with current events. Most students have messengers loaded on their computers and use them daily at college.

The early studies done in this area were by Broca (1861) and Wernicke (1874). Broca's work included the patient, now known as "tan", who could only say the word "tan", although his speech comprehension stayed in tact. The patient died shortly afterwards and autopsy revealed that he had been damaged in the lower part of the left frontal lobe. Broca collected eight more cases and concluded that the identified area was essential in the production and comprehension of speech. The area is called Broca's area and the condition of damage to it is called Broca's aphasia.

Wernicke reported a different aphasia. Patients could speak in organized and grammatical sentences, although what they said seemed to have little to do with the on going conversation. On the other hand they seemed to have no understanding of what was spoken to them. On autopsy, they all had damage to an area at the top of the left temporal lobe, now known as Wernicke's area.

These speech zones also tally with the sensory and motor cortical mechanisms. For example, Wernicke's aphasia represents a problem with speech processing. The spoken word is a sound stimulus which enters our ear and in transferred as an electrical signal through our nerves until it reaches the primary auditory cortex in the temporal lobe. This area is close to Wernicke's area which contains the "word analyzer". The word analyzer contains the sound patterns of words that are essential in converting speech into words. If Wernicke's are

damaged the sounds cannot be identified as speech and comprehended.

We humans have a wonderful opportunity to communicate with each other both spoken and written languages, unlike our “smaller brothers” from animal world who can only use some specific signals which are recognized by them only. Language is a very powerful tool that enables us not only to communicate, but also plays a vital part in our brain’s development and simply “working’.

Broca's area is in the frontal lobe and contains the motor cortex. Speech is a motor process requiring sophisticated control over muscles of the throat, lips and mouth. Broca's area contains the motor plans for words. When Broca's damaged the plans cannot be activated even though the motor cortex is intact.

Speech, reading and writing are also language functions that have a role in the human brain. Aphasia study showed that the condition was more common in left hemisphere damage than in right. In contrast to the symmetry of sensory and motor functions, language functions are asymmetrical, being more dominant in the left hemisphere. Global aphasia is when both Broca's and Wernicke's areas are damaged and "shadowing" experiments in which words are spoken to a subject quickly and they must repeat them back quickly suggest that a global aphasic will be unable to "shadow". The accurate fasciculus’s the direct pathway from Wernicke's to Broca's area. If this is damaged then conduction aphasia results, which is severe impairment of repetition or "shadowing". However, normal speech production and comprehension are less affected. This implies other less direct pathways exist apart from the direct pathway of accurate fascicules.

Writing, as a motor process is produced from the motor cortex under the control of the planning centre in Broca's area. The input system, reading, involves the visual system and a region that contains the visual pattern of words and is capable of converting visual input into words. The key region for reading and writing is the angular gyros, on the borders of the temporal and parietal lobes.

This region contains visual word patterns, the visual pattern is transmitted to Wernicke's area, where it arouses the auditory form of the word and comprehension occurs. Pure word blindness occurs when we have someone able to write a page of coherent and fluent prose, but who cannot read it back. This syndrome is known as alexia without agraphia.

The demand for companies to hold a conference call is on the rise. This increase in demand is largely due to the large number of employees who telecommute or work form home. Many companies also have staff at different locations and scheduling a regular meeting where everyone can be present is almost impossible. Holding a conferencing call is the perfect solution to this issue.

There are many different methods used for holding a conference call. Of course, you could just have all of the people involved dial the number of the person chairing the meeting, but this can prove extremely expensive – especially if attendees are in different areas of the country or even the world. The answer is to use a conferencing call service.

Conference call services are extremely simple to use. You do not need a special phone to participate, although one with a speaker facility is far more comfortable for the arm! The organizer of the meeting contacts one of the conferencing call service providers and schedules the date and time of the meeting. All participants are then sent an invitation with a unique number that they can use to dial in to the meeting. It really is as simple as that. The hosting company is responsible for all of the technical work involved in bridging all of the attendees into one conference call flawlessly.

The cost of this type of basic conferencing call has been reduced significantly and you may expect to pay $100 for a 5-person conference that lasts 30 minutes. If your company is going to hold a regular conference call, for weekly progress reports for example, then there are monthly flat rate services available. These can be as low as $30 per month. The added benefit of this service is that you are often allocated a toll-free number for your regular conferencing call – reducing the cost further.

The cheapest type of conferencing call is one that has been booked in advance. This gives the hosting company more time to set up the bridging service. However, the fluid nature of business today means that a conference call may be required at the last minute. There are a number of services that provide this immediate conferencing call service. The prices vary greatly, depending on the timing and number of attendees required.

Most conferencing call requests are simply to have a number of participants able to connect into a meeting. There is usually no need for any operator assistance as the attendees dial in to the conference call and the rest is left to them. This works very well for the majority of audio conferencing, but there are certain occasions where additional services are required. This type of operator assisted conferencing call requires much higher fees. If a company is holding an important conference call with potential clients, for example, it may be in their best interests to have this additional help to ensure that the call goes smoothly, leaving the participants free to negotiate rather than worry about the phone call itself.

If you’ve priced a multi-line phone system, even for a small company, you know the price can range anywhere from $2000 up to $8000, and even higher.

Factor in the cost of wiring and your cash outlay becomes bigger.

But what if I told you that you could have a multi-line telephone system for less than $10 a month?

• No wiring
• You get your own personal 800 toll free number with the system
• Plus you get a bundle of other features expensive systems can’t touch

Sounds rather unbelievable, doesn’t it? But all you have to do is check out ‘toll-free pbx telephone communication services’ on the Internet. You’ll find it’s all absolutely true.

Here is how a toll-free business phone system works.

When you sign up with the toll-free business phone service you receive your own personal toll-free number. You can use it on your business card, in your advertising or include it in any of your promotions. In fact, it is the only number you will ever have to give out. It becomes the number for your office, fax machine, cell phone, home phone or any other phone in your office.

Your multi-line toll-free business phone will provide you with a number of extensions. These can be set up anyway you want. You can make #1, your office...#2, your secretary...#3, your fax...#4, your home...and on it goes. And remember, there is no wiring required. You can arrange for your toll-free business telephone in the morning and be using it that afternoon...without having to buy extra equipment.

Your phone can be answered in a number of different ways.

You can, of course, answer the phone yourself or have someone in your office do it. Or it can be answered by one of several greetings you or someone else records. For example, you can have one message for daytime and another for after closing hours. These messages can greet your callers in your voice, provide a list of menu options (which are the extensions you set up), invite them to leave a message or suggest they call back during business hours.

Each of these messages can be setup to automatically click-in at appropriate times of the day. That way you don’t have to remember to activate them manually. You won’t end up driving a block away from your office and suddenly think that you didn’t change the telephone message before you left.

However, you can override the automatic setup, make any changes you want or record new messages by simply bringing up your control panel on the Internet. This control panel can only be accessed by you or someone you share your password with and makes everything apple-pie simple.

No busy signals.

It doesn’t matter how many extensions are being used, your phone will always be answered. If an extension is busy, the caller will be invited to either stay on the line or leave a message. And if they decide to hold, you can provide music while they wait. This music can be anything you want because you select it...record it...and upload it using your personal control center.

Have your calls forwarded.

This is another feature with toll-free business telephone services. If you’re going to be out of the office and want all your calls transferred to another number, you can set this up in less than a minute through your control center on the Internet.

Also, if you are expecting an important call or fax and won’t be in the office to receive it, relax. Your multi-line toll-free services will send you an alert as a text message on your cell phone or PDA.

Here’s still another ‘out-of-the-office’ feature. All messages left on your voice mail are recorded as a ‘wav’ file which means they can be e-mailed. And they will be...automatically. So wherever you are, you have access to your messages either on your computer or by picking up the phone and calling your voice mail.

Customize your phone number.

Let’s say you run a wholesale florist business. Think how much easier it would be for you and your customers if you had a toll-free number such as 1-800-FLOWERS. Easy to remember. Simple to give out over the phone. And every time someone sees or uses your telephone number, you are promoting your business.

Your toll-free business phone provider will help you select a custom number that fits your business.

Keep track of all your calls.

Your toll-free business phone service will keep a log listing every call you receive or make. If you bill for telephone time, you always have a complete record showing every number you called or the numbers of people who called you. The log includes the length of the call, the date, the telephone number and other information you will find useful. It will even include missed calls.

All these features are available without new equipment, wiring or delay.

You could pay thousands of dollars for a multi-line system and still not have all the features talked about in this article. So before committing yourself to a multi-line telephone system, consider its reliability.

The first prepaid calling card buying tip that I could suggest is to be critical about those that offer cheap rates. There are numerous prepaid calling cards available out there that offer low rates, as well as no monthly fees and really cheap plans for calls. A caveat in these types of deals is that there is a lot of complicated subtle information that are not shown on their corresponding Websites. Perhaps, it really does charge low calling rate if the call is made within the state, however the rates could actually jump extremely high when the card is utilized for out-of-state calls. To examine such hidden charges, you can start by looking at per call charge, 3-minute rounding, connection fees, and long talk time charges. Chances are these apparently cheap prepaid calling cards transfer the burden of their fees in any one or combination of these features.

The second prepaid calling card buying tip has something to do with the company’s concern for its client’s satisfaction. Thus, prepaid calling card companies should offer excellent customer service. Reaching the customer service line should never be a problem in the cases wherein you need to address about a certain concern or dissatisfaction of their service. A good customer service indicates a lot about the prepaid calling card company’s commitment to customer satisfaction.

Most frequently the temptation to switch the current local phone service provider to the pre-paid calling card’s sister phone company. There are prepaid calling card companies that administer promos to ask the users to switch their phone providers to their mother company with a bond of twelve or twenty four months. If this is considered, check out the termination fees that will be applied if ever you decide cut their service on grounds of dissatisfaction and low quality.

Prepaid calling cards have cannot be stored for as long as you want without using it. Prepaid calling card companies usually limit the validity of the card within a certain time period since you purchase it. But check out those that will expire only within thirty days if the card is not used. These calling cards do not care whether the user is on a vacation or is just saving the calls for more important occasions, without notification nor these prepaid calling cards prematurely terminate even though you haven’t totally consumed the credits.

Some prepaid calling cards tease you with a lot of gimmicks, which can only confuse the mind of the client as he has to take down several aspects. Be wise and use the calculator. Add the taxes and the fees that come with the card.

Another prepaid calling card buying tip is watching out for the excessively expensive international calls. In this type of deals, international calls with your parents or loved ones overseas will always be hurried up. From the moment you dialed the phone, within a minute or two your prepaid calling card runs out on you.

As soon as a prepaid calling card is chosen, the next dilemma will be, which plan to select among a set of mind boggling plans. It is so hard to understand the perks for each plan. There are double or triple plans, weekend plans, day plans, night plans, and even unlimited plans. Pick the best plan that will go well with the chosen lifestyle. Hence as another tip, you should understand quite well what you really need. It helps to contemplate about it with a few.

Personal Identification Numbers of PIN, especially those that ensure the security and privacy of the user must be treated with high regard. When making long distance and international calls, the PIN restricts other people from using your credits arbitrarily. Just a word of advice: some prepaid calling cards ask for eight or ten digit PIN. So you better keep them in a safe place, or better yet memorize them—surely an added inconvenience if you have to make a lot of calls that need it.

Last prepaid calling card buying tip is to avoid one-time use cards. It is not only frustrating to know in the end that the credits of this type of calling card become insufficient to make another call after the first use, but also a waste of time since you have to buy another calling card in order to make another call.