Many people download a new software application or install an upgraded version and start using it, just out of the box. What they don’t realize, is the fact that most software makers have only the basic features enabled. Software makers try to make the product attractive and user friendly for as many users as possible and know that the average person is computer illiterate and have difficulties with adapting change.

Take advantage of advanced features
Take time to look at advanced and additional features that an application can offer you. Study at least the preferences or options menus that can be found in many applications under the Edit or Tools button in your standard toolbar.

Just take a look at all tabs and buttons available under these menus and ask yourself the question: “What can this option do for me? Will it improve or increase my productivity?” I am sure you find a few options that you want to enable in every application that are normally in standard installation not available.

Let me give you an example. I view old news articles that are scanned and sent to me in PDF format. This format is being used with the free Adobe Acrobat Reader application. Sometimes I want to have a close up look of the photo in the news article so I have to zoom in.

By enabling the feature: “Make Hand Tool use mouse-wheel zooming” I can zoom in and out of the page by the scrolling the wheel in the middle of my mouse. This is quick, easy and convenient.
Some preference or option settings are obvious; the name of the setting provides you an explanation. If a particular option is not clear in what it can mean for you, don’t hesitate the help file.

Click on image to enlarge

Adding and changing toolbars
Another critical element of every application is the toolbar. Again, often, only the standard toolbar is displayed when you start the application for the first time. Take advantage to add and modify toolbars in all your applications so you don’t have to go into all the menus to select a tool. You will be surprised how many opportunities you have missed in the past and much time this will save you.

I take modification of the toolbar a step further. After I have added a toolbar, I modify the toolbar by removing and adding feature buttons. Many applications allow you to right mouse click on the toolbar and have a “customize” or “more tools” button that you can use to your advantage.

From now on, when you have to go into a certain menu a lot to perform an action, add the button for that action on the toolbar.

Conclusion
Take time to learn the advanced features of your application. Invest some time to get to know the options and features that are available well. It will save you time in the long run. You also will have a laugh when you see family, friends and colleges fumbling around in the application that you are so familiar with. A geek like me, also checks the “What has changed since the previous version log” or simply named but that is a subject for another article..

Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery (Voices That Matter)

Logitech NEW G5 Laser Mouse

Logitech VX Nano Cordless Laser Mouse for Notebooks

Many professional business documents are published in PDF format.  PDF stands for Portable Document Format. Many applications use PDF file size because of its file size friendly footprint. In addition, you can’t modify a pdf file without modifying certain file parameters. The PDF format is a legal file format used by many lawyers. PDF was developed by Adobe Acrobat in 1993.

Create your own PDF work environment without spending a single penny on the software

In order to create PDF files, you must have a PDF application or virtual printer driver that supports this file format.  There are several PDF applications available that won’t cost you a penny. I will share with you my favorite setup.

My favorite PDF work environment setup includes:

• PDFCreator or Bullzip PDF application
• PDF-T-Maker

PFD Creator (http://www.pdfforge.org/)

PDFCreator easily creates PDFs from any Windows program. Use it like a printer in Word, StarCalc or any other Windows application. PDFCreator is very user friendly.

Key Features (as described on pdfforge.org):

• Create PDFs from any program that is able to print
• Security: Encrypt PDFs and protect them from being opened, printed etc.
• Send generated files via eMail
• Create more than just PDFs: PNG, JPG, TIFF, BMP, PCX, PS, EPS
• AutoSave files to folders and filenames based on Tags like Username, Computername, Date, Time etc.
• Merge multiple files into one PDF
• Easy Install: Just say what you want and everything is installed
• Terminal Server: PDFCreator also runs on Terminal Servers without problems
• And the best: PDFCreator is free, even for commercial use! It is Open Source and released under the Terms of the GNU General Public License.

Bullzip Printer (Bullzip.com)

The Bullzip PDF Printer works as a Microsoft Windows printer and allows you to write PDF documents from virtually any Microsoft Windows application. You can even make a programmatic link from other software applications to this virtual printer application.

Key Features (as described on bullzip.com):

• Print to PDF from almost any Windows program.
• Runs on Microsoft Windows 2000/XP/XP x64/2003/2003 x64/Vista/Vista x64/2008.
• Supports 64-bit operating systems.
• Direct output to the same file each time or prompt for destination.
• Control if the printer should ask if you want to see the resulting PDF document.
• Control output and prompts programmatically.
• Setup can run unattended.
• Graphical user interface.
• Password protect PDF documents.
• 128/40 bit encryption.
• Quality settings (screen, printer, ebook, prepress).
• Set document properties.
• Watermark text, size, rotation, and transparency.
• Superimpose/background documents.
• Appending/prepending documents.
• User interface control.
• Command line interface to all settings.
• COM/ActiveX interface for programmatic control.
• Support for Citrix MetaFrame
• Support for Windows Terminal Server
• Multiple output types supported: BMP, JPEG, PCX, PDF, PNG, and TIFF.

PDF-T-Maker (transcom.de)

One PDF feature that is missing in almost every free pdf application is the feature to create bookmarks and hyperlinks in your PDF documents. Bookmarks and hyperlinks make PDF files very easy to navigate and much more professional looking. PDF-T-Maker can create bookmarks and hyperlinks for your Microsoft Word documents.  PDF-T-Maker will show up in Microsoft Word as an Add-In.

Combine all pdf applications together to create a complete pdf work environment solution

With PDFCreator or Bullzip plus combining PDF-T-Maker, you have a complete solution to develop professional PDF files for free!

Bookmarks and table of content in PDF files

You can create a table of content in your PDFfiles easily by using the Microsoft heading styles. If you need a tutorial about using Microsoft Styles, please visit the site of MVP Shauna Kelly.  I don’t believe there is a site that better describes how to use styles within Microsoft Word. PDF-T-Maker is using the 9 default style headings in Microsoft Word for the table of content.

Protect your produced work

You spend a lot of time to create a professional document and you want to protect your document from being copied and reproduced by others. The combination of PFDCreator and Bullzip will provide you all the protection you need. Encrypt your files, set permissions on files if readers can print or copy and paste  your information, set a strong password on your file and add a watermark for authenticity.

Adobe Acrobat Professional 9

Nitro PDF Professional

ScanSnap S510M Instant PDF Sheet-Fed Scanner

One blizzard day in February, I had to complete a monthly financial business report with only a few hours left before the deadline expired. Yes, I am a procrastinator. It was almost midnight and the report had to be sent to the executives before Monday, 7 a.m. My typing skills were bad so the creation of a business report took always a long time to complete.  Typing two full pages took longer than the time it took to burn a large wood log in my fireplace; an observation I made during that evening.

Countless Sunday hours have been wasted due to my lack in typing skills. My five finger type system was just not working.  I have been practicing my “system” for years but my speed and accuracy did not get better.
I will describe my self developed system. I look at the sentence on the screen from lets say a reporting application that does not allow me to copy and paste due to security reasons. I read the sentence and try to remember it. Then I start to type peck on the keyboard word for word by using only five fingers: my index and middle fingers plus my right thumb. My eyes are focused on my keyboard. When done typing the sentence, I look back at the screen to check if I didn’t make a typo. I have to search for sentence on the screen. Yes, I lost the position of the sentence on the reporting screen.  Eventually I will find the sentence. “Damn, Patrick, another mistake” and I press the backspace key  a few times to delete 80% of the sentence. Typing mistakes, somehow  starts always at the beginning of the sentence. I start pecking again on my keyboard and check the typed sentence once more and go to the next line. Yippee, one sentence of the report is done. I am sure many of you have a similar useless system.

Early in the morning when the report was finally done, I thought: “what could I have done better to save me time in the creation of these reports next time”. To be honest, my typing skills did not come up in my mind to improve.  I was more thinking in the line of standardizing the reports.  Till I read an article about Medical Transcription jobs and the money experienced medical transcript associates can make. The more transcripts they complete, the more money they can earn. Of course, they have to avoid typing and grammar errors.

Then it hits me.  How do they type transcripts fast and accurate. Do medical transcript associates have some tricks that I don’t know about? Turns out they don’t. The real secret is the fact that they all type with ten fingers blind. They type fast and accurate. This is important for them because they get paid by transcript completed or by number of sentences and/or words typed. Is it difficult to type with ten fingers and blind? No, it is not. You just have to practice. Many medical transcript associates have not a college degree but they can type with ten fingers and focus on the screen or paper at all times.
I researched how to become better skilled in typing and wrote the following article. I hope you start typing with ten fingers soon and enjoy it!

Learn typing fast and easy.

Consider some of the advantages of typing with ten fingers:

• Increase productivity by faster typing;
• No need to look at the keyboard anymore and search for characters;
• Less typing and grammar errors;
• Better focus on typing out your thoughts.

There are probably many more reasons for switching to ten finger typing. If I forgot to mention some good reasons, please leave a comment on the bottom of this article.
Learning to type with ten fingers is not as difficult as you might think. It takes only some practice and a few sweat drops in the first 2 days. After a month or two, you think to yourself: “Why haven’t I used the ten finger technique before?”
What do you need to get started?

• Get a comfortable, good working keyboard
  No keyboards with sticky keys, loose keyboard wire or keyboard with missing keys;
• Adjust your chair so you can reach the keyboard comfortably. You must be able to move your wrists comfortably;
• Download my free finger position template
  I created a large template so you can print it out. Laminate the template and keep it near your keyboard. I have mine hanging above my notebook screen although after typing blind with ten fingers for 2 months, I don’t need the template anymore;
  

  Ten Finger Typing Template for Keyboard Position

  Click on image to enlarge for print out.
  For PDF file format, click here

• Copy and paste my practice sentences into your favorite word editor application.
  The practice sentences I have chosen for you are pangrams. Pangrams are sentences that use all the letters in the alphabet. In other words: you will touch every character on your keyboard. I hate to type silly random characters that many tutorials provides you. You can do if you want after typing the practice sentences when you have still difficulties with certain characters.
• Have discipline and don’t give up so easily.
  Don’t switch back to your old typing habits! You have to bite through a few difficult hours;
• Have patience.
  You probably typed with 2, 4 or 6 fingers for years so don’t expect to change in a few hours. Again, don’t give up. I believe in you If you get frustrated, take a break and walk away from your computer. Look around you and laugh at 2 and 4 finger keyboard peckers;
• Be aware about what you are typing.
  Quality before quantity. When you start to improve your ten finger typing skills, it is much better to type slow with no typing errors than fast with a ton of typing errors. Your typing speed will increase over time.
  Also think about what you are typing. Spell the words in your head, After you practice for a few days, you type also most as fast as your mind is going so sometimes you will type words as they sound which can be different than the actual spelling of the word;

Practice pangram sentences:

Okay, it is time to practice. Start typing the following sentences. Make sure your fingers are well positioned. Your left index finger is on the F key and the right index finger is on the J key. Now you know why you can feel a bump in those keys when you rub the keys with your index fingers. You can find these keys in the dark. Position all your other fingers in one line with your index fingers and place your thumbs on the spacebar.
When capitalizing your characters, make sure that you press the shift key with your pink of the opposite hand. For example: when capitalizing the letter: A, you press the shift key with your left pinky finger. So now you know why you have two shift keys on your keyboard.

Junk MTV quiz graced by fox whelps.

Fox nymphs grab quick-jived waltz.

Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.

The five boxing wizards jump quickly.

Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz.

Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs.

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

Amazingly few discotheques provide jukeboxes.

My girl wove six dozen plaid jackets before she quit.

Jack quietly moved up front and seized the big ball of wax.

Crazy Fredericka bought many very exquisite opal jewels.

How razorback-jumping frogs can level six piqued gymnasts!

A quick movement of the enemy will jeopardize six gunboats.

All questions asked by five watch experts amazed the judge.

Let me know how many words per minute you can type! If you still want to buy typing software, please take a look at these top software titles:

TypingMaster 7 SpeedSkin Edition for Windows Includes PC/Desktop Keyboard Cover

Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing Deluxe 20

SpongeBob Squarepants Typing 2008

Having a good successful small business starts with your own health. There are many days that you will feel stressed, especially when you just start your own business. Stress will start with questions like; Am I going to make money? Do I have the right people in place? Will I have enough customers? Can I pay my bills? Can I avoid getting sick so my business will continue to run?

Lots of questions and these questions will cause stress and take a hit on your health. In many cases, you don’t even realize that stress can take a toll on your life till physical damage has been done.

When you start a business, you will be “running” around 24×7. Yes, even in your sleep you will be running your business. When you go to parties, you will be talking about your business and in the right circumstances, you build a network relationships at the same time but a lot of energy goes in to these efforts.

Fortunately, you can maintain a healthy life style that make you even a better business owner.

Have you seen the TV program, the biggest loser? In this program you will see 2 personal trainers: Jillian Michaels and Bob Harper. Like all personal trainers, these people are always upbeat, energetic and look great. Tell me if you know full time personal trainers that are not upbeat and energetic. I bet you won’t find many.

Motivational speakers are 99% of the time people with a good physical condition as well. They work out and eat healthy.

What I want to say is that a healthy psychical body will radiates its energy to your brain. When you feel physically healthy, your mind feels automatically healthy as well. The body and mind are one system.

In your busy schedule, you should make time for exercise and make no excuse that you don’t have 30 minutes a day to step on a treadmill or elliptical machine. 30 minutes a day is all it takes. Another advantage of a 30 minute workout: a lot of creative thoughts will pop up during your workout session. I have a notepad, in the room to write ideas down so I won’t forget them. While exercising think about what you have accomplished in the last 48 hours and how you can improve your business.

Another good activity during a workout session is listening to an audio book. I listen to audio books during stretch and weight training. Our library in town has many business books that you can borrow so you will learn additional business skills during your workout.

After a few days with workout sessions, you will feel the benefits. In your body and mind. Plus you will set a good example for your employees. With the creative ideas that came up during the workout, you turn physical gain into capital gain.

If you decide to go to a gym, you can build relationships when you have completed your workout session. Go to the bar and take a energy drink. Talk to other people at the bar and share business cards.

Disclaimer: I am not a doctor so before beginning any exercise program, it may be recommended that you first consult a physician or other qualified health care provider. A physician or other health care provider can determine what type of exercise, the frequency, and the intensity are appropriate for each individual. A physician or other health care provider may be able to recommend an exercise program that will cater to your specific heath concerns and needs.

Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t

The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich

Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity

Following your dream is not always an easy task and I can talk about my dreams for hours. Having big dreams is great but unless you take action and make those dreams a reality, the dreams are worth nothing.

In fact, I believe having big dreams without taking action can make you easily depressed, especially when you see other people living your dream successfully.

Today, during the TV program from Donny Deutsch called: The Big Idea, I was reminded again that I was falling in the same trap of only dreaming about my ideas and not taking the next step.

Only I can take steps to make my dreams come true, nobody else can do that for me. In fact Joel Osteen, a popular pastor, preaches these same words in many of his books and that God wants you to live your life in the best possible way and rewards will follow.

Anyways, during the commercial breaks, I caught myself dreaming a few steps ahead during the TV program: wishing that I have a successful business and make a lot of money. I was dreaming or actually thinking what I can do with all that money that I am going to earn. I was dreaming how proud my wife would be if I become a successful business man. “Big mistake”, I said to myself after the show. My wife will only be proud if I take the first step towards success and commit to a goal.

Robert Shemin was today’s guest in Donny Deutsch’s program. He made in a very motivational way clear to me that the first step you take is action. Just like the Nike slogan says: Just Do It. He also made clear to set only one goal at the time. That’s right, only one powerful success goal. Preferably, set a goal that is expressed in a financial statement and promise yourself to focus on that goal before setting another goal. Don’t set a goal in which you don’t improve yourself. In other words: don’t waste your time.

I am very enthusiastic about Robert’s wise words and checked out his new book called:

How Come That Idiot’s Rich and I’m Not?

Unfortunately, his book is not being published till Match 2008. I hate it that his book is not yet been published because there are some good topics described in his book.

Other elements from his book that will be handled:

• play while your money goes to work
• stop building someone else’s business and start building your own
• live and think like a millionaire while you’re becoming one
• use the power and “smarts” of other Rich Idiots to help you join the Rich Idiot Club
• add OPI (other people’s ideas), OPT (other people’s time), and OPE (other people’s experience) to do less and make more tap into timeless secrets that unlock the energy and spiritual power of money

Well, I am telling you. I am not going to wait with taking action to become successful till Robert’s book is published. The message was clear: Take action!

By the way: on the Big Idea website from Donny Deutsch, you will find some awesome examples on how people took action and became successful. I recommend you to take a look at these articles and let me know what you think about his TV program.

How Come That Idiot’s Rich and I’m Not?

Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations

The Smartest Investment Book You’ll Ever Read: The Simple, Stress-Free Way to Reach Your Investment Goals

If I miss essential information in the list below, please feel to leave a comment so I can improve this list and flowchart. If you have good resource information on how to create a successful blog, please leave the web site address behind with a comment.

Again, I just started myself. The number of posts that I have written is still very low but I can use constructive comments and opinions.

Process flowchart: How To Start A WordPress Blog

A picture outlines the process better than 1,000 words so I thought it is a good idea to provide a high level overview of the process steps that I took for my WordPress blog. Please click on picture below to see whole the process flowchart in large view.

click on image to enlarge

Process steps with sub process steps

With a few sub bullets, I provide you more detailed information.

Not listed in the process steps are testing and back up steps but we all know to do this as much as possible.

• Register/obtain domain name
  • Select a name that reflects your blog purpose
  • Select a short easy to remember domain name
  • Good sites to buy a domain:
    • GoDaddy.com
    • Register.com
  • “domain name selling stores” are called domain registrars

• Select a web host provider that:
  • supports PHP scripts
  • allows execution of PHP scripts and provide you with a least one MYSQL database
  • provides you enough network bandwidth for a lot of visitor traffic
  • is known for high ratio of server uptime. Server uptime is important because web host server down equals blog site down
  • installs and upgrade WordPress with a click of a button:
    • InMotion Hosting
    • Globat
    • Lunarpages

• Point your domain name to the web host provider’s name servers (DNS servers)
  • The Domain Name system (DNS) serves as the phone book for internet
  • Translates an IP address to a readable domain name
  • Get the DNS address from your web host provider and add this address under your domain name account from GoDaddy.com, Register.com or any other domain registrars
  • Example: To make DNS link to a domain name that you have registered through GoDaddy.com:
    • Go to GoDaddy.com
    • Click on “My Account” (upper right area of screen)
    • Enter your login name and password provided by GoDaddy and click “Secure Login”
    • Click on “Manage Domains”
    • Click on the domain name you wish to modify
    • In the Name Server Summary area choose “Click here to see details or modify”
    • Enter the new Name Servers from selected web host provider
  • Example: To make DNS link to a domain name that you have registered through Register.com:
    • Go to the Register.com
    • Click on login to go to the Account Management area
    • Enter the username and password provided by Register.com
    • Select the domain name for which you wish to change DNS Servers

• Create an email account under your new domain name
  • This email address will be used during the WordPress account creation
  • You can create a separate email account for blog feedback that you might receive.

• Register for a WordPress account with your new domain email account
  • WordPress sign up link: http://WordPress.com/signup

• Install WordPress files
  • If you have a web host provider that has a one click install than you are lucky and you can skip the following sub bullets;
  • Download WordPress files at: http://wordpress.org/download/
  • Follow install instructions at: http://wordpress.org/docs/installation/5-minute/

• Select a WordPress theme (blog template)
  • Stay away from one column templates. One column templates often limits your freedom with widgets and plugins
  • Choose a WordPress template at: http://themes.wordpress.net/
  • You can sort available theme templates by descending order on number of downloads so you know which templates are very popular

• Install your selected WordPress theme on your host provider server
  • Upload your theme to your web host server with a free FTP Client from CNET Downloads:
    • Core FTP LE
    • Leech FTP
    • CoffeeCup Free FTP
    • AceFTP Freeware
    • FileZilla
  • Using an FTP client to access your host web server, create a directory to contain your theme in the wp-content/themes directory provided by WordPress. For example, a theme named Test should be in wp-content/themes/test. Your theme may provide this directory as part of the archive
  • Additional Wordpress theme installation instructions: http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Themes

• Configure your WordPress blog
  • Logon to your WordPress blog at: http://www.yourdomainname.com/wp-admin/
  • After logon, bookmark the WordPress admin blog page because you will go to this page very often
  • Go to the menu/toolbar option: Presentation and ensure the correct theme is listed under current theme
  • Under Presentation, you will also find a sub menu with a choice to select Widgets. Drag and Drop the widgets you want to see on your sidebars
  • Under Options on the menu/toolbar you will find menu sub menu choices. Go through each of them and adjust settings as you wish.

• Update Permalinks
  • Change your Permalink structure. Change the default permalink choice that displays your links as: http://www.your-blog.com/?p=123 to date and named base or create a custom permalink. One of the best permalink choices for search engine optimization is: date and named base as shown in the following format example: http://www.your-blog.com/2008/01/01/my-first-post/Search engines will now use the keywords in your web links in their search engine database.

• Install and configure WordPress plugins
  • Wordpress plugins are the true power behind Wordpress, they are tools to extend the functionality of WordPress
  • Wordpress plugins simplify your Wordpress customization by adding additional blog features
  • You don’t need programming knowledge in order to use plugins
  • Must have plugins:
    • All-in-One SEO Pack - Optimizes your Wordpress blog for Search Engines
    • Comment Timeout - This plugin automatically closes comments on blog entries after a user- configurable period of time.
    • Google Sitemaps - This plugin will create a Google sitemaps compliant XML-Sitemap of your WordPress blog
    • Subscribe to Comments - Subscribe to Comments is a robust plugin that enables commenters to sign up for e-mail notification of subsequent entries
    • WP-Polls – With this plugin you can add web polls to your blog.
    • Search WordPress plugin site for other good plugins: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/browse/popular/

• Create static WordPress pages
  • Create an About page (still on my To-Do list for this blog)
  • Create: what is RSS page with an RSS link to your feed
  • Create a custom 401 Error Page (still on my To-Do list for this blog)

• Subscribe to Feedburner
  • Read: what is RSS if you don’t know what RSS is
  • Feedburner will show you statistics about your RSS Subscribers
  • Sign up for Feedburner
  • If not done yet, install Feedburner Feedsmith plugin
  • Create large RSS icon link so your visitors can subscribe to your RSS Feed

• Setup statistic tools for your blog
  • Measure how successful your blog is
  • Set realistic goals for your blog and monitor your goals with statistic blog tools
  • Statistical blogging tools:
    • Google Analytics
    • Feedburner
    • WordPress Statistics plugins
    • Your web host server statistical logs and tools

• Write quality posts
  • Place yourself in the shoes of your readers when writing a blog article and ask yourself the question: what did this article teach me and did it help me.
  • Only quality posts will generate traffic
  • Quality is more important than quantity
  • Use accurate grammar and spelling

• Promote your blog
  • Enable RSS feed for your site and ask people to subscribe to your blog feed. Look at my what is RSS that explains the reasons
  • Visit other blogs and leave constructive comments (networking is important)
  • Submit your site to search engine directories
  • Add Digg.com and Sphinn.com buttons
  • Respond to comments left by visitors
  • Remove inappropriate comments on your blog
  • Use Ping-o-Matic service for post promotion
  • Set expectations for your visitors. In the about page, you list your goals and provide useful information about the intent of your blog

• Improve Your Blog for Search Engine Optimization
  • Use All-in-One SEO Pack plugin
  • Create a different title for each post
  • By reading the title only, the visitor must be able to know what to expect from your blog article
  • Create a different blog post description, through the All-in-One SEO Pack
  • Use blog post tags to add additional search engine keywords
  • Create a sitemap for your blog with the Google Sitemaps plugin

WordPress For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech))

WordPress Theme Design

SEasy Guide to Blogging (vol.1 ) - Wordpress Blog Basics

Although I am not obese yet, I have to watch out for the foods and drinks that I select.

In order to make smart eating choices, you need to eat fresh foods. Of course you need to like the food you choose otherwise you can’t keep up with your new eating lifestyle. Dirty drinks like Slim-Fast does not motivate me. It makes me quit after the first zip.
The “tool” that I used to select my food is the USDA National Nutrient Database. This database has lists of foods sorted by nutrients.

Click on the USDA logo below to go to the nutrients list.

So I took the list that sorts food by Energy (Calories) and highlighted foods that I really like and are low in calories. I repeated this process with other lists, like the cholesterol list. Healthy items, that I have highlighted on both lists, are now topping my weekly grocery list. If I didn’t go through the nutrient list, I would have missed several delicious low calorie food items.

Another good site to use is: calorie-count. This site grades foods and provide nutrition facts. I have always been told that I should avoid food items where more than 30% of the total number of calories comes from fat.

This means that reduced fat Jif creamy peanut butter is not a healthy choice. Even when the label on the jar reads: reduced fat. Luckily this site provides me other brands that have healthier peanut butter. Be careful though, less fat does not necessarily mean less calories. Calories are only one component of selecting healthy foods.

Bad food choice: more than 30% of all calories is coming from fat.

Besides selecting healthy foods, I have a hard time to stay motivated to a healthy lifestyle but found a good support solution. On the Internet, there are several weight loss forums that show pictures from people before and after their weight loss. Many people look beautiful after their weight loss. Losing more than 20% of your starting weight makes you physically and mentally a different person. My compliments to those people with a significant weight loss. You are my motivator.

Here are 2 sites/forums that show before and after weight loss pictures. Take a look yourself, pretty awesome transformations you will see on these sites.

Do you have any tips or cool websites that can help people with their weight loss? Please let me know.

Disclaimer: I am not a weight loss expert and can not be held liable for the information in this posting. Please consult with your doctor before starting a weight loss program.

Omron HJ-112 Digital Premium Pedometer

Tanita BF681W Family Scale Plus Body Fat Monitor with Body Water

CalorieSmart - Handheld Electronic Calorie Counter (Silver)

Christmas day is over and I hope you had a great Christmas celebration. In my blog post yesterday, I talked about my “disappointing” gift but today, I want to stand still for the people that don’t have a luxury life. In other words: people that don’t have a roof over their head and a good daily meal to eat.

Yesterday afternoon, before I visited family to celebrate Christmas, my wife and I were watching television and saw families that were not able to celebrate Christmas in the way we are able to.

Their children did not get a nice Christmas meal and there were no presents under the Christmas tree. Of course, they showed the sad eyes of the children.

When I looked around in our living room, the floor was covered with presents and gift wrapping paper. My defective TomTom navigation system was laying in a corner, abandoned to be returned to the manufacturer.

While visiting my family later that afternoon, I also noticed the nice gifts everybody received. Notebooks, a video camera, a Nintendo game computer and even a Sony playstation 3 were given.

I was still thinking about the poor people that were shown on television and got a guilty feeling. When I feel guilty, I want to get ride of that feeling as quick as possible so when my wife and I went home, I told my wife that there is one more gift that I want to give. She was surprised and said: “Patrick, you have given me already so many nice gifts this morning.” I explained to her that this gift was not a gift to her but to a charitable organization. My wife was surprised that those words came out of my mouth but she understood and agreed immediately.

Because it was a late evening, I decided to make a donation early next morning.

Today, after I got up, I researched on the computer for the best charitable organization. There are so many charitable organizations to choose so I found a website that was able to help me out with the selection of a good organization.

The name of the website is: Charity Navigator with web address: charitynavigator.org

This website provides ratings for thousands of charitable organizations in the world. You can search for organizations in your state and by different categories.

I choose for a homeless shelter in Portland, Maine and made my contribution. I feel good about my donation and don’t feel guilty anymore. Life is all about sharing the good life.

Please check out: charitynavigator.org and make a donation to a charitable organization of your choice.

Let me know if you have guilty feeling towards people in need as well and how you handle these feelings.

My wife got me a TomTom One 3^rd edition navigation system. Awesome! Now I never get lost anymore. The TomTom One stores the whole map of the United States and Canada. You can also select Guam as the default map. I guess nice for our men in service that want to drive around on Guam.

Nice gift if the TomTom works…

It took me about 15 minutes to get the TomTom device out of the package. Wow, that was a challenge to get the device out. I turned on the device and customized some settings. Different color settings, not too bright, voice level loud enough so I can hear the lady’s voice clear. After my customization, I turned the TomTom off and went to my PC to install the software delivered on a CD.

In order to get the latest updates, you have to turn on the TomTom again and what happened?

I got a white screen. A pure white screen and nothing else happened. I pressed on the screen but the white screen stayed there. My mood started to change a little bit. What is going on with this device?

Immediately I started to google to find a cause and solution for this problem and I discovered that many people are complaining about the same problem. It turns out that there was a large batch of defective units shipped to the stores.

You can’t fix it yourself so you have two choices. Bring the TomTom back to the store or after calling the TomTom support line, receive shipping instructions and ship it back for another unit.

I was disappointed because I wanted to play with my new toy. Although there are worse things that can happen in somebody’s life so it is not going to ruin the rest of my day. My wife picked a nice gift for me and it was the thought that counts. We get this problem with the TomTom fixed though. Just return the device for a new one.

Please let me know if you got a Christmas gift that didn’t turn out as expected. I am also curious if I was the only person with a bad TomTom experience on Christmas Day.

Update 12/26/2007:
I called the TomTom support line at: 866-486-6866 and received excellent service. After going through the phone prompts, the representative asked for personal verification information and the serial number on the bottom of the TomTom starting with: C_No:

Because I had already a TomTom account, I only had to provide my email address and all my information appeared on their screen. After my phone call, I received a confirmation email from TomTom that I have to print out and include in the shipping box. I used a small carton box. The 2nd email that I received was from Fed-Ex with instructions on how to print out a prepaid shipping label.

I will send out my package tomorrow and expect a new device within 10 business days.

Update 01/02/2008
Today I received my TomTom back and everything is working perfectly.  Taking the holidays into account, TomTom shipped a new unit back to me fairly quickly. I was able to update the maps and POI (Point Of Interests).

Tomorrow, I want to take the TomTom for a test ride.

Read reviews on Amazon.com:

TomTom ONE XL 4.3-Inch Widescreen Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator with Maps of the U.S. and Canada

Garmin nüvi 350 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator with Text-to-Speech

The problem that a lot of people have is how to find the best deals easily.

Well, I have the solution for you. In my opinion, the best way to keep track of deals is by using an RSS reader. FeedDemon and Google Reader are examples of good readers. I use FeedDemon and have setup custom watches. FeedDemon’s watches provide a way to look for keywords in news items as they’re downloaded.

For example: I have setup a watch with the keywords: LCD Samsung.
When a new feed item comes in that contains the words: LCD and Samsung, I get a sound notification.

RSS readers can check for new items on certain time intervals that you can setup in the preference menu.

Below you will find a list of websites and the RSS feeds that can help you find these good deals. Just click on the rss icons next to the site name and your reader should open automatically
Top 10 Shopping Deal RSS feeds:

1	Bargainist
2	Cheap Stingy Bargains
3	Dealcatcher
4	Dealigg
5	Dealnews
6	DealsPlus
7	Fatwallet
8	GottaDeal.com
9	Resellersratings.com
10	SlickDeals.net