Tips & Tricks

How To Plan For Kitchen Remodeling

2008-12-21T20:22:00.000+10:00

Kitchen remodeling is one of the most desirable home improvement projects for many homeowners. A new kitchen increases the value of your home and makes your life easier. The first step to your new kitchen is to set a budget. Decide how much money you are willing to spend. This will help drive your other decisions. Be sure to leave a cushion in your budget for additional, unexpected expenses.

When determining your budget, consider how long you intend to stay in your home. If you are planning to sell in the next year or so, you may want to spend less money. Decide which features you must have in your new kitchen. You can cut corners in other areas by substituting less expensive materials for the counter tops, flooring or cabinet doors.

Research Kitchen Trends

Before you start planning your remodeling project, do some research on the current trends and designs being used in kitchens. Look for information on the internet or in home decorating magazines. Visit your local home improvement center for more ideas. Start a file for pictures of kitchens you love, furniture, appliances, fabric swatches or anything else you find interesting. This will help when you are ready to start purchasing items for your new room.

Options in Kitchen Remodeling

Cabinets are an expensive item in any remodeling project. They often take up half of the overall budget for the room. If you can’t afford the cost of brand new cabinets, there are cheaper alternatives. Consider cabinet refacing rather than replacing the entire cabinet. In refacing, the doors are replaced and exterior wood areas are covered. This is much less expensive since you are using the same cabinets. An even cheaper alternative is to paint your existing cabinets and buy new hardware.

If you must have new cabinets, consider adding some extra features. Features such as tilt out drawers, pull out garbage cans or a lazy Susan inside a corner cabinet are great space savers and make the room more functional. The doors can be either solid wood, clear glass or stained glass. Shop around to find out what is available before making a purchase.

You can save money on flooring and countertops as well. Substitute vinyl flooring in place of more expensive ceramic tile to save money. If you can install ceramic tiles yourself, you can have them for about the price you would pay a contractor to install vinyl flooring.

Countertops vary widely in price depending on the material that is used. Counters that are more durable are also more expensive. You may want this if you want to be able to cut food directly on the counter. For most people, this is an easy way to cut the overall cost of your kitchen. You can find less expensive material that gives the look of marble, butcher’s block or other expensive materials.

Once you have decided what you want, consider how much of the job you can do yourself. Contractors can eat up a large portion of your budget. The more you can do, the more you will save in the overall cost of the room. Use the savings for great new furniture.

Pros And Cons Of Getting VOIP Right Now

2008-12-15T07:22:00.000+10:00

You have a telephone, right? You have a computer, right? You want to save money, right? BAM, you are a VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) candidate.

It is inevitable that VOIP will replace traditional telephone service at some point. The only question is when should you jump in?

VOIP is quickly becoming more reliable and receiving wider acceptance. In fact, phone companies are already taking advantage of the technology to provide cheaper long distance rates. Like any emerging technology, however, there are kinks in the system that are still being worked out.

Advantages

VOIP has many advantages over regular phone service. One primary advantage is its low cost. If you have a fast Internet connection (DSL or cable), you can make PC-to-PC phone calls anywhere in the world FREE. PC-to-phone connections usually have a charge, but probably still cheaper than regular phone service.

You can sign up with a VOIP service provider for a monthly fee and get unlimited calls within a specified geographic area. For example, some VOIP services in the United States allow connections anywhere in North America for no extra charge. International calls are charged at a modest rate.

Another advantage is its portability. You can make and receive phone calls wherever there is a broadband connection by simply signing in to your VOIP account. This makes VOIP as convenient as e-mail. When you're traveling, you simply pack a headset or Internet phone; then you can talk to family or colleagues for next to nothing.

Phone-to-phone VOIP is also portable. Internet phones are small and light enough to take anywhere. When you sign up with a VOIP service provider, the Internet phone or adaptor used by that service is assigned a unique number. This 'phone number' remains valid, even if your VOIP service is in Los Angeles and you're connected to the Internet in London. When plugged into a broadband connection, anywhere in the world, you can make and receive calls as though you were at home .

Features like call forwarding, call waiting, voicemail, caller ID and 3way-calling, are included with Internet telephone at no extra charge. While you're talking on the phone, you can send pictures and documents at the same time.

Disadvantages

There are a few glitches that still interfere with the technology's broad acceptance by the public. Lack of continuous service during power outages and emergency calling are the 2 biggest hurdles.

Conventional phone service continues by the current supplied through the phone lineduring a blackout. This isn't possible with Internet phones. When the power goes, there goes VOIP service. Battery backups and power generators that provide electricity are the current solutions to this problem.

A major concern involves emergency 911 calls. For the most part, VOIP services aren't useful in emergencies. Traditional phone equipment can trace the locations of calls. Emergency calls are diverted to the nearest call center where the operator can identify your location, in the event you can't talk. With VOIP, there is no way currently to determine where Internet calls are originating. There is an emerging standard called e911 however, which is attempting to solve this limitation.

VOIP also has sound quality and reliability problems. Data sent across the Internet usually arrives at its destination scrambled. E-mail and documents can be reassembled in the correct order when it arrives. Voice data also arrives scrambled, but it's more complicated because of the real-time nature of VOIP. Some data packets may have to be dropped when they don't arrive in time, in order to make voice connections with the least delay. This can cause brief silences in the audio stream.

Distance and speed of the connection determine the amount of data lost. Some networks receive more traffic and thus are more likely to cause audio dropouts. One way to provide high quality audio connections is to create dedicated data paths.

With the incredible amount of work dedicated to VOIP, these disadvantages will no doubt be resolved withinin the next 2 years. It is expected that by then VOIP will have widespread consumer acceptance.

A guide to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)

2008-12-15T07:18:00.001+10:00

What is VoIP? Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is the ability to transmit voice over the Internet to either a receiving computer, telephone or even a mobile phone. VoIP phone is becoming the popular worldwide telephone service for both consumer and the business communities. VoIP works by using a network technology known as Packet Switching Network whereas landline telephones use the Circuit Switching Network. This is referred to as the Public Switched Telephone Network.

What's the difference between VoIP normal phones?

The main difference between Packet Switching and Circuit Switching, is that Packet Switching uses (data) or Packets and sends them over the Internet while Circuit Switching is accomplished by using electrical circuits to make a telephone connection. Circuit Switching is like the old switchboard operators, frantically trying to connect the right caller with the receiver. Packet Switching is used to transfer data all across the Internet including E-mail. Packet Switching converts audio formats into data packets and transmits them over the Internet, then reassembles them on the other person’s phone or computer in real time. By using a Broadband Internet Connection, microphone and speakers a conversation can take place similar to traditional telephone.

VoIP phones have been round for sometime, but increases in technology it is becoming increasingly popular. Several years ago many applications were available offering some form of free VoIP phone service. Majority of these have gone or now charge a fee for the use of their service as VoIP phone provider. Moreover, VoIP is developing higher standards of quality every day, and it has proved that it is a viable force for telecommunication for the future.

Who is providing VoIP phone service?

Telephone and Internet service provider companies are expanding to allow for monthly VoIP phone services.Recently eBay has joined the ranks of VoIP phone service providers by purchasing skype VoIP software, with its vast membership base the VoIP message will soon reach the man on the street.

What's special about VoIP?

Instant messaging programs such as MSN massager have been using VoIP technology for years. Now, most of these messaging programs come with voice enabled features which allow you to call a member of your buddy list. By using a microphone and speakers, you will be able to converse anywhere in the world, by VoIP and your Instant Messaging program.

With instant messaging VoIP incorporates different areas into one program. With your voice enabled programs, you can hook up a digital camera,web cam and use video, while you are speaking on your microphone and listening to on your speakers, and you can type back and forth with your chat program. You could even write an email at the same time. The potential for VoIP phones use is nearly limitless.

VoIP has this unique ability to integrate many forms of telecommunication applications into one package can handle data, audio, video, E-Mail, and web based applications simultaneously. This makes VoIP an incredible boost to business world and provides a cost effective choice of telephone service.

VoIP phone service providers are increasing in popularity with many people discovering all of the benefits available to them by switching from using their land line telephones to VoIP service. First, VoIP phone services costs significantly less than standard phone service, and this is a great attraction for bringing in new customers. Many VoIP phone plans will let you make unlimited long distance calls or provide you with a plan for very inexpensive rates. Many of the features that are often included for a fee with traditional phone service are often included for free with VoIP services. Features such as Call Waiting, Call Block, Call Forwarding, Conference Calling, Voice Mail are usually charged as extras by the traditional phone companies but these are usually free with the VoIP phone packages.Another benefit to VoIP services is that you can usually keep your existing phone number, or allow you to select a new area code. The means if you select an area where most of your friends and family live, a call to you will be treated as local call. For a remote business VoIP service can give the perception of having multiple office locations.

What's the future for VoIP?

Make no mistake about it VoIP phone services is a the emerging contender in the telecommunication world.It is a proven technology, can seamlessly integrate into many existing applications, does not require special equipment anyone with a PC with a microphone and speakers can use the service and it is very cost effective. Talk will be cheap!

Tips On Writing A Killer Sales Letter

2008-12-14T07:24:00.000+10:00

Writing a sales letter doesn’t have to be that difficult all you need is the right writing style and some tips to knock out a killer sales letter

Benefits The first thing you need to do is focus on the benefits the reader will find useful. Tell the reader what’s in it for him. Promise them increased sales, better skin, better results in writing a resume or whatever it is that you’re selling. Tell them how your product can help them. Don’t beat around the bush and get right to the point. Stick to benefits, facts and features. Whatever you do don’t be vague it will turn them off.

Give additional benefits. Show additional value other than main benefit. Give product/service features. Support benefit promises with product/service facts. Show how your company will help him. Don’t start sounding arrogant and brag.

Writing Style: An emphasis should be placed on “you” and not “I”. Use words like you and your, so that the reader feels you are writing for him. Write clearly. Make sure your reader doesn’t have to think about what you’re saying. Your main points must be understood immediately. Make yourself believable. Make sure your claims or representations appear to be realistic and believable. Don’t promise a 200% increase in sales because most people won’t believe it even if it’s true! You must be able to back up your claims. Use repetition; repeat benefits throughout letter. Present the same ideas and benefits in different ways.

Ask for action. Ask the reader to place an order, return the sales envelope or the sales card or phone for more information. Give reasons to act now. For example: Make your offer time sensitive a limited supply, two-week sale, and special purchase. Most sales letters fail to do this.

Understand that people are emotionally motivated. They want to:

Make more money
Save money
Do a good job
Experience love
Have a satisfying home life
Get something for free
Look good

Use simple graphics to get the reader’s attention:

Bullets
Dashes
Check boxes
Numbers
Asterisks

Some Things To Remember When Writing Your Sales Letter:

Put yourself in the reader’s place. Note your reactions while reading the letter. Have your friends and associates give you their honest opinions. Don’t tell them you wrote it! For some reason they think it’s bad manners to criticize their friends. Look at their reactions if they roll their eyes then you need to rewrite your sales letter. If they ask you, “Where can I find this?” You got yourself a winner! Listen to any and all comments. Re-write any parts that turn others off.

Be logical when you state your argument. Don’t try to fool them with outrageous claims that border on the fantastic. Your readers are too smart to fall for such trash.

When you begin writing your sales letter try to accentuate important statements using:

Underlines
Exclamation points
All capital letters (Careful here don’t over do it)
Highlight with a second color (Yellow)

The very last thing that should appear on your sales letter is the P.S. Remind your customers of the time deadline and the limited supply of bonuses. Urge them to pick up the phone and call or order immediately. Your P.S. is often read first by customers. So entice them to read the letter by mentioning the free bonuses and the limited time offer. Remember to put a P.S. (post script) on all sales letters.

Sample P.S.

P.S. At $29.95 the Super Car Wax is an incredible bargain reserved for past customers only. Act now, and get a bonus super car glass cleaner yours free! While new customers are forced to pay $39.95 for this one of a kind car wax you get it at significant savings! Act Now by calling 1234-123-45

How to Set up and Track Facebook Ads

2008-12-10T22:38:00.002+10:00

I’ve been using Facebook Ads for a little less than a year now. And contrary to my initial thoughts and most of the posts I’ve read about them, they have worked out pretty good for me and my clients. Just to be clear, it has nowhere near the scale or robustness of Google Adwords, but it does provide some opportunities Adwords does not. So with that said, I figured I’d write a quick rundown of how Facebook ads work, how to set them up and what tracking and optimization features they offer.

The place to start your Facebook campaign research is Facebook Lexicon Keyword Tool. It allows you to see the trends for different words and phrases on Facebook Walls. The data is calculated by counting the number of occurrences or posts for every keyword (ex: “vampires”) across profiles, groups and events on Walls every day. All personal information is removed so there is no way to track data back to a specific person. You can use Lexicon to identify new trending keywords or topics to target with your Facebook campaign.

Setting up a Facebook campaign is fairly cut and dry once you understand the key elements that make up Facebook Ads (Ads & Creative, Targeting, Bids & Budgets, Analytics & Optimization). Although each part of the campaign is important, I cannot stress enough how important it is to test targeting segments, creative and landing pages. If you don’t test, your campaign is pretty much doomed from the get go. So test, test, test.

At the moment Facebook is offering multiple marketing platforms: Facebook Pages, Facebook Applications, Facebook Connect, Facebook Events, Traditional Facebook Ads, Facebook Social Ads or Engagement Ads. I am only going into Facebook Ads and a little into Facebook Social Ads on this post.

Ads and Creative

Facebook Ads accepts 2 types of ads, a Facebook Ad and a Social Ad. The Facebook Ad is a straight forward branded ad, linking to either an external site, a Facebook application or a Facebook Page.

A Social Ad is also a fully branded ad, but it ties in social interactions performed by user’s friends with a brand. Facebook then uses that action as the headline of the creative for the Social Ad and displays it in their Mini Feed. (See Example Below)

Here are the 3 types of Social Ads explained by Jeremiah Owyang much better than I can.

1) Comment Style Ad: Members can now leave comments on these advertisements, much like wall posts. Brands that are focused on entertainment, new product rollouts, autos and apparel are well suited. The ad can show up to 4 comments per object, and the activity spreads to the users newsfeed.

2) Virtual Gifts Style Ad: Brands can now create virtual items that users can share, spread to each other. This wildly popular behavior within applications and Facebook is suitable for consumer products, entertainment, and some media.

3) Fan Style Ad: A play off the Facebook pages, users with a persona affinity for a product (like Apple) can become a fan, triggering a notification to their network, and could then tie on social ads. Will work great for established brands, like guitar hero, passion products, luxury products, or any brand with a rabid customer base.

For smaller to midsized companies without a large enough existing brand following, I suggest staying with the standard Facebook ads in the beginning. You can start by using Facebook ads to build up a larger share of voice and transition over to Social Ads once you have grown your number of followers on your Facebook Page. You can decrease the amount of time this takes substantially by incorporating Facebook Connect on your sites, to encourage and make it very easy for your visitors that are Facebook users to connect with your Facebook Page and share content with their Facebook friends. When executed properly the exponential effect is huge! In fact you can also kick start your efforts by design a Facebook Ads campaigns specifically targeted to generate brand awareness and grow your company Facebook Page fans via ads and Facebook connect.

Once you can develop a good number of Fans on the company Facebook Page, you can begin using Social actions on a much larger scale. “Social actions” are the “Golden Egg” of Facebook Ads. Once you get Social Actions going, your likelihood of your message going viral increases dramatically. Your ads will begin appearing on the Walls and Mini Feeds of your Fans Friends. The more Fans you have, the farther your message travels within the Facebook network. The more users interact with your Facebook Page and Ads, the more you come out on their friends Walls. It’s that simple.

Don’t go overboard when developing the creative. Use simple and clear copy with a attention grabbing titles. That doesn’t mean to write an irrelevant or false title like a lot of the Facebook Ads I’ve seen, just one that sticks out. Your titles are limited to 25 characters and 135 characters for the body. So don’t try and cram every service or product you offer on the ad, leave some content for your landing pages. Create multiple versions of each ad with different images if possible so you can do some A/B tests. Always use an image on your ads. The images should be 110 x 80 pixels and less than 5 megabytes. If the image is larger or smaller than 110 x 80 Facebook will resize it automatically, so don’t stress it too much! They do not accept animated or flash images.

Example Social Ad

Example Standard Facebook Ad:

Complete list of the Facebook Ad creative and landing page guidelines

Targeting

Facebook has fairly robust targeting options compared to Adwords. They allow you to target by State, City, Gender, Age, Keywords, Workplaces, Relationship and Sexual Persuasion. According to Facebook, there are 33,849,820 targetable persons in its network. 14,350,900 Men and 18,548,300 Women in the US.

Facebook determines geo targeting via user IP, NOT their geographic network on Facebook. A very useful feature is the ability to target by specific workplaces or universities. Although you can target to High School students via the age targeting, you CANNOT through school networks. When setting up targeting make sure to only select areas serviceable by your business. When selecting keywords to target use Facebook lexicon to see estimates and find keywords. Step out of the box and try and identify new relevant keywords.

Bidding and Budgets

Facebook allows you to set daily budgets at the campaign level, starting with a minimum of $5 per campaign or 2X your Minimum CPC/CPM. The current minimum CPC is $0.01 and the minimum CPM is $0.15. But don’t expect to start with a $5 campaign at $.01 CPC, it won’t work! I started my first tests with $250, I suggest you start with at least that much. I say this because with less than that, I doubt you will be able to gather enough actionable data to make educated decisions on creative, landing page optimization and testing.

Facebook assigns an internal Daily Spend limit of $250 when you start off, which they increase over time depending on your daily spend and after 5 successful payments. Budgets and prices are going to vary based on your targeting options, but don’t be fooled, there are A LOT of impressions on Facebook, so plan accordingly. Make sure you set your targeting right, set the daily budget at what you want to spend, and test from there.

For the most part, I would suggest going with CPC model on Facebook. Why you ask? For several reasons: #1 CPM based bidding is dead #2 and more importantly both on my campaigns and other Facebook Ad case Studies I’ve read CPM ended up costing more because of the very low CTR% on Facebook.

Analytics and Optimization

Once your campaign is set up and running you’re ready to start collecting data. For this, Facebook has Facebook Insights. If you are using a link to an external site you can tag the link and gather data with Google Analytics or any other analytics program. But for this post, I will be focusing on the metrics available via the Facebook Insights.

There are 3 main reports I use. Responder Demographics provides the aggregate age, gender and geographic location of the users who have clicked on your Facebook Ad. Responder Profiles provides psychographic information of these same users, which is aggregated from user profiles and shows common interests, favorite TV shows, movies, books and music. This is a great report to identify new targets by finding new keywords, locations and interests of the users clicking on your Facebook Ad.

The Advertising Performance report provides an exportable version of the metrics you see in the interface: impressions, clicks and click-through rates, data by unique user and performance data specific to your ads that contained social actions, if you’re using Facebook Social Ads (see definitions below). In addition, you can also summarize your report by Account, Campaign or Ad .

The Account level report aggregates data across all campaigns, ads and targets, while the Campaign Reports breaks these statistics down to the campaign level, and the Ad reports break them down further to the individual ad level, etc, etc.

Within the Facebook Ads system, there are 2 types of promotion of ads, Organic and Paid. Organic promotion refers to News Feed stories generated based on social actions taken by users on your Facebook Page or Facebook App. There is a huge opportunity here to make it go viral, by testing actions and headlines and identify the ones with best distribution rates. Paid promotion refers to Social Ads created specifically to promote traffic to a Facebook Page.

Facebook Insight Metrics Defined

Date: The date on which the activity reported in the row of the report took place. Please note that monthly reports will be dated on the first of each month and weekly reports will be dated on the Sunday that marks the beginning of the week.

Ad/Campaign Name: The name of the ad/campaign reported in the row.

Ad/Campaign ID: The unique ID number of the ad/campaign reported in the row.

Total Impressions: The total number of times the ad referenced was shown has been shown on the site.

Total Clicks: The total number of clicks on the ads tracked by that row in the report.

Total CTR: CTR stands for click through rate. The CTR for an ad is calculated as the number of clicks the ad received divided by the number of impressions (times the ad was shown on the site) in the given time period.

Total Average CPC (US$): The average cost per click in US dollars for the given row.

Total Average CPM (US$): The average cost per thousand impressions in US dollars for the given row.

Total Spent (US$): The total cost in US dollars for the given row.

Unique Impressions: The number of people who viewed the ad(s) tracked by the given row of the report.

Unique Clicks: The number of people who clicked on the ad(s) tracked by the given row of the report.

Unique CTR: The unique click through rate. The unique CTR is calculated as the number of unique clicks the ad(s) received divided by the number of unique ad impressions.

Total Social Impressions: The total number of views (impressions) for ads with social actions attached to them for the given row. Not all ads have social actions attached to them.

Total Social Clicks: The number of clicks on ads with social actions attached to them for the given row. Not all ads have social actions attached to them.

Total Social CTR: The click through rate for ads with social actions attached to them. It is calculated as the number of “social clicks” divided by the total number of “social impressions”.

Unique Social Impressions: The number of people who viewed ads with social actions attached to them for the given row of the report.

Unique Social Clicks: The number of people who clicked on ads with social actions attached to them for the given row.

Unique Social CTR: The unique click through rate for ads with social actions attached to them. It is calculated as the number of “unique social clicks” divided by the number of “unique social impressions”.

BlackBerry Storm 9500 versus iPhone 3G

2008-12-10T22:28:00.001+10:00

The BlackBerry Storm 9500 is, indeed, causing quite a storm, as more details emerge about its capabilities. This full touchscreen phone is very much consumer-focused, but with its solid business foundations intact. How does it stand up to the iPhone 3G?

Look & Feel

Both devices are almost completely touchscreen based, with the Storm having a few more buttons along the bottom edge, and the typical "BlackBerry" logo branding at the top of the screen near the earpiece.

The BlackBerry is definitely more curvy top and bottom, and measures 112.5mm (H) x 62.2mm (W) x 13.95mm (D) -- not much different to the iPhone 3G's 115.5 (H) x 62.1 (W) x 12.3mm (D).

The Storm is a touch heavier at 155g versus 133g.

Screen

The BlackBerry Storm features a high-resolution 360 x 480 touchscreen, which gives it a 4:3 aspect ratio akin to older TVs, versus the iPhone 3G's 320 x 480 touchscreen which is a 3:2 ratio. Not much to choose between the two, though.

Both screens feature light-sensing technology which can be used to set the optimum brightness for the display.

Keyboard

The Storm offers several virtual keyboard options, including standard QWERTY in landscape mode and SureType in portrait mode (see picture).

The iPhone offers several keypads (QWERTY, numeric, symbols) in both landscape and portrait modes.

Camera

The BlackBerry Storm features a modest 3.2 megapixel camera, still beating the iPhone's two megapixel affair. Additionally, it supports video recording out of the box. The specifications don't say whether it has autofocus and flash capability, but regardless of that, the Storm just beats the iPhone.

Multimedia

Both handsets can play a wide variety of audio formats, with the Storm pipping the iPhone with WMA and WMA ProPlus, and video formats, the Storm able to handle WMV files. If those types of media are important (more likely for PC users) then the Storm edges ahead.

Navigation

The Storm uses BlackBerry Maps and offers Touch Screen Navigation. The iPhone features Google Maps and navigation. You decide which handset wins based on your navigational needs and preferences. My hunch is that the Storm edges it until Google updates Maps on the iPhone.

Communications

Both units handle 3G where available, but only the iPhone feature Wi-Fi connectivity. There's also GPS and Bluetooth, with the Storm's Bluetooth implementation is better than the iPhone's.

The Storm can be used as a tethered modem providing that the network operator allows it. At present, the iPhone can only be used this way with a bit of hacking.

Web Browsing

Both units feature web browsers, though as far as I'm aware exact information about the Storm's software isn't yet public. Various forums have suggested it's based on "WebKit", which is what Apple's Safari and Google's Chrome (among others) are based on.

Could the Storm have an iPhone-esque browser?

Operating System

The Storm appears to be running BlackBerry OS 4.7, whereas the iPhone runs OS X.

Storage

The Storm features 1GB of internal memory, 128MB of Flash memory, and support for microSD expansion cards up to 16GB.

Applications

The Storm may well make use of a new "BlackBerry Application Centre", in similar vein to the iPhone App Store and Google's Android Market.

That's not confirmed yet, but based on rumours spotted over the weekend.

Business Credentials

The BlackBerry is almost the de facto standard for business users, and as such features strong compatibility and security with popular corporate systems.

The iPhone is still very much a work in progress, depending on individual business needs, and while some companies are adopting the iPhone, particularly after the software upgrade to version two, it still lags when it comes to being supported by standard systems.

Though the Storm is being portrayed as a much more consumer-friendly device, its business credentials still stand.

Pricing & Networks

It seems that the Storm will be available on a 24 month contract, exclusively with Vodafone, for a minimum £35 per month (not sure if the handset is free or not).

You know the drill with the iPhone 3G by now - various price points and 18-month contracts from £30pm, or PAYG, on O2.

Conclusion

RIM has definitely pushed some consumer buttons with its latest offering, and gone all out touchscreen (I can't think of a major phone manufacturer that doesn't have some touchscreen goodness happening on at least one of their handsets).

Whether it's a direct attack on the iPhone is another matter. With the likes of Samsung's Omnia and the G1 around, there's plenty of competition in this area of the market.

It's not the prettiest phone around, but looks like it will do the job. It wins on overall connectivity, though the network tie-in is even worse than the iPhone's.

Vodafone versus O2? You decide, not that you get much choice if you want to use one of the phones.

For me, it's still iPhone all the way. What do you reckon?

Currency Exchanging...Turning Computers into Cash Registers

2008-12-07T20:13:00.000+10:00

By the time you finish reading this you’ll know all about
the newest way to make money online. It’s called Currency
Exchanging!

When I say Currency Exchanging people often think that I
mean Foreign Exchange, Day Trading, Buying and Selling of
Stocks and things that involve risk. This is totally
different.

In reality, there are global currency exchanges available
that will pay you in excess of 20% of your working capital
in a period of days, all risk-free.

This is a business that you can do from home with your
computer. There’s no selling involved. There’s no
recruiting involved because this is not a multi-level
marketing company or an affiliate program of any kind. Once
you know what to do you don’t need anyone else to make a
nice daily income for yourself.

I came across this program by accident late last year.

In November of 2004, I learned how to set everything up and
put $500 in which started making money right away. I
decided to take a little break through the Christmas
holidays and by the end of January 2005 I had made over
$13,000 profit with very little work.

Once you’ve made this money you can cash-out and spend it
with a debit card or use your profits to buy units of Gold
and put this money into a portfolio that will pay you a
risk-free 2% a day.

On the downside there is a small learning curve and you’ll
need a computer that’s connected to the internet.

As far as making money is concerned, this system has 2
parts. The Console and the Portfolio.

Let’s start with the Console first. The easiest way to
understand how you make money with your console is to use
the example of the ATM machine at your local gas station…….
Imagine that you are the person who fills the ATM with fresh
$20 bills every 3 or 4 days. When you put your money in the
machine you are paid a nice commission and when the money
is all used up you also get a bonus as well. You see an ATM
machine never loses
money because it always charges that $2.00 service fee for
every withdrawl that’s made. These fees are used to pay you
your commissions and bonuses.

The company’s name is DX Gold and they are a reputable
financial network kind of like Paypal or Stormpay but 1000
times bigger. Major corporations and businesses are using
DX for transferring millions of dollars globally for making
purchases and sending huge payrolls… 1.7 Trillion dollars a
day to be exact.

Now let’s say a businessman in Japan wanted to buy some
Persian rugs from a company in Arabia. The Japanese would
have Yen to spend and the Arabian would expect to be paid
in his currency, which is Dinars. This is where a common
“go-between” like DX Gold makes perfect sense. The Japanese
sends his payment through
DX Gold where it is put into the Arabian’s account, but he
can’t touch it just yet. The Arabian sends the carpets to
Japan and a couple of days later they arrive. Everything
checks out and the Japanese businessman gives the OK to DX
Gold to release the
funds to the Arabian. DX Gold collects it’s fee and both
parties are protected and happy with the results. They’ll
probably do business this way, again and again.

DX Gold doesn’t use a bank for their funding. Over the last
5 years they’ve perfected a much more efficient way to do
this and that’s where you and I come in. We become, what is
know in the industry as Money Merchants. And we are paid
handsomely to supply funding with bonuses and commissions.
This can be
$5-$50-$500 to $5,000 or more depending on the current
demand…..which is always high. When you put money in you
receive an instant commission of 3-5% and when this money
is given back you receive a bonus of 6-9%. Your payments
are securely made to your own account and all information
is supplied to you in one place…Your Console.

Here’s where it gets interesting…DX Gold is owned by GDT.
GDT holds the patent on the Retinal Scan. You see the
eyeball is like a human fingerprint except much
better……10,000 defining points on the eyeball …..Not
letters or numbers….but symbols….When the eyeball is
scanned you have a 10,000 symbol password that is
impossible to hack or crack. Now…..What is the number one
concern on the Internet today?…..Security, right.
Security from Fraud and Identity Theft! DX Gold will be
the only global financial network with a Retinal Scan.

Are you starting to see the Big Picture?

This business has been around for about 5 years but unless
you know someone who’s involved that can show you what to
do, (you won’t lose any money), but you can make a lot
more, a lot quicker.

It gets even better when you add your Portfolio profits.
Income that you’ve made with your console and money that
you want to invest can be used to buy increments of Gold
from over 150 registered companies worldwide. This adds to
your portfolio’s diversification and any money in this Gold
Portfolio receives 2% interest every day.

If that weren’t enough DX will automatically lend you
(based on your portfolio amount) 80% to buy more increments
of Gold for your portfolio and you never have to pay them
back. After all, it is your money.

So if you have $100 in your portfolio, they will lend you
$80 to buy more gold so your portfolio will grow
immediately to $180 and you will be paid interest on that
amount in the next session. This process will continue
again and again. Within a month $100 will become $400,
$1000 will become $4200. Personally, I saw my own portfolio
jump from 11,000 to 26,000 dollars in less than 1 month.
That’s a $15,000 increase. This compounding effect is very
powerful.

Lastly, let me share this with you. Once you have built a
sizeable Portfolio…which doesn’t take long working with
your console. DX Gold will approach you to become what is
know as an LDX….Licensed DX Merchant. This is when you are
assigned a Fortune 1000 company as your client and you
alone would act as
their private Money Merchant. This would amount to
millions.

I recently explained this business to a colleague - a keen
business entrepreneur who hadn’t made any serious income
from any of the online ventures he’d tried. He was now very
skeptical and fearful of all money-making programs.

This is what he wrote to me later:

"I don't know how to thank you enough for the
information you described to me over the phone the other
day, it helped me enormously!"

The following week he sent me this message:

"This account continues to build income everyday and
again last night – I’ve been trading for under an hour a
day and my account continues to grow at a very strong rate.
I finally found something that makes money. Thank you so
much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It’s brilliant!!!!!!!"

Now that you are armed with this information you might want
to look into this option a little deeper.

Setting your Online Business Up for Success!

2008-12-07T20:11:00.000+10:00

There is a common misconception that an "online business"
requires no investment...that you can make money online
without spending any.

When we hear this from people who are desparately trying to
build a successful online business it makes us angry!

We believe the misconception is primarily due to all of the
hype and false promises that arrive daily in our inboxes.
Emails promising us that we can make millions of dollars
with no financial output while we sit at home and do
nothing. It's insane and it's not the truth.

The truth is that you must treat an online business just as
you would a business in the conventional world. You must
plan on investing time, money and effort to ensure your
success. The good news is that your investment in an online
business will be MUCH, MUCH less than that of a business in
the conventional world.

With an online business, there are essentials that you must
have in order for your business to run smoothly and become
successful. You can literally run an effective online
business for $100-$200 a month. Later in this article, we
will show you how you can access many of these essentials
in one place for less that $10.00 a month!

But first...

Here are six essentials that you MUST have to run your
online business.

1. Your Own Website

This includes a domain name and web hosting for your site.
You must have a central place to send your customers, even
if you are selling multiple products or services.

2. A Professional Autoresponder

An absolute MUST for any online business. If you're not
using an autoresponder, you're losing money! That's the
bottom line. Your autoresponder should have the ability to
create subscriptions via email and web form and should be a
professional one with no ads! Fr~e autoresponders look
unprofessional and they are not reliable.

3. Ad Tracker

This is probably the most underused tool that we know of.
Consider this - most people who are NOT making money on the
Net have never used an Ad Tracker. Yet, ALL of the people
that we know who ARE making money on the Net - use one
daily. It makes no sense to spend money and time on
advertising if you're not going to be able to determine
which ads are producing and which ones are not. An Ad
Tracker will solve this problem and save you time and money
in the long run.

4. Products or Services

You must have something to sell! This can be a service such
as web or graphic design, an mlm/affiliate program or
products, tangible or digital. If you don't have a specific
product or service in mind, there are thousands of
profitable digital products that come with resell rights.
This means you can resell them and keep 100% of the profit!
5. You must know HOW and WHERE to advertise to bring
targeted prospects to your Website!

You can save yourself a tremendous amount of time, money
and frustration by learning the effective advertising
methods that are available online. There are countless
worthless ones that are simply a waste of time. If you're
new online, you won't know this unless you find someone who
is successful online and follow their lead. Find a mentor
or a membership site that offers step by step Tutorials on
online promotion. Make sure that the tutorials are updated
frequently to keep up with the changing times of the
Internet!

6. Leads

The lifeline of any online business! Just because you have
a website and products to sell, that doesn't mean you're
going to make money! To make money, you must drive targeted
visitors to your website. There are THOUSANDS of companies
on the web that sell Leads but if you just pick one out of
the blue, it's trial and error. Do some research and find a
good source for leads. Again, you can achieve this by
finding someone who is succcessful and following their
lead. Or join a membership site that includes Leads as a
part of their package.

We promised we'd tell you about a membership site that
includes many of these essential items in one place. Have a
look at http://www.viralprofits.com With your membership,
you get a professional autoresponder, ad tracking, Leads,
Digital Products with resell rights, step by step training
tutorials AND you can earn money by referring others to the
site. The tutorials are updated frequently and NEW products
are added each month so that you always have something new
to offer your customers!

So there you have it. With these six essentials, you've got
the foundation for a successful online business. Without
them, it's going to be a tough road ahead. Use them as a
"checklist" and make sure your online business is armed for
success!

Internet Based Network Marketing Success

2008-12-07T20:06:00.000+10:00

Internet based network marketing is a rewarding business for those who can do it right. However, Internet based network marketing can be as daunting to the beginner as to the more experienced in business, especially when considering the size and power of the Internet.

So Internet based network marketing is a potent recipe that can lead to your financial success. The secret to success in Internet based network marketing is a simple duplicable system that anyone can follow-- not just experienced networkers. This includes both online, offline and a combination of the two, for both part-time and full-time participants. PLUS a product you truly believe in. Armed with this combination, you are ready to take on the world.

However, there is a downside to Internet based network marketing too, as with everything else! No sensible networker will ever advise you to rely 100% on the systems, and with very good reason. The systems assist you in every aspect of your business, but the power of network marketing only begins to multiply when you keep your downline growing too. This can only be done by building relationships with your team, no computer can do that!

Picking your core opportunity can be a very personal thing. You may have had previous experience in a particular industry for example, but eventually it will come down to one key decision - what you are selling or promoting. The secret here is to realize that every Internet based network marketing opportunity has three facets: Retailing, Customer Lead Marketing Plan, and Business Lead Marketing Plan.

Retailing is just focusing on selling a product to a customer to earn a commission. The Customer Lead Marketing Plan is a very powerful marketing plan since customers make the best distributors of products, because they have a personal story to tell. Although it is business builders that will make you the most money, every opportunity will have a marketing plan to follow up with your customers to convert them into business builders. The Business Lead Marketing Plan, on the other hand, is the same for every opportunity although not many people realize it! By learning basic network marketing techniques and perfecting them, it is then easy to share with your downline. This is the key to a successful network marketing business. You are in the people business; your core opportunity is just the vehicle.

So you see, Internet based network marketing is quite easy really, if you get the hang of it. This is your golden opportunity to build your own home business and be the master of your own destiny.

Do It Yourself Website

2008-12-05T20:01:00.000+10:00

If you are just starting out in your new business and you decide that a website could be a valuable addition to this business how do you go about getting one up and running? You have two basic options really. Do it yourself or employ an individual or company to do it for you. Which option you take depends upon your own confidence in acquiring the skills necessary and the amount of funds you can divert to hiring in a company. If you have sufficient funds then hire in a company as this will enable you to devout all your time to developing your core business. If you don’t then you will have to do it yourself. So how do you go about it?

You will require no or little knowledge of HTML as you can purchase a whole package from a web hosting company which should include some form of website developing software and your domain name plus the hosting of your website. Give some thought to your domain name. It should be easy for people to type in and remember. Not too long, succinct and preferably no hyphens. So you have chosen your domain name and your hosting service now you must develop your site. Again give some thought to this. How many pages you are likely to produce, how many links you will need. What sort of information is going on each page. If you are completely new to this then I would suggest that using your site editor software you produce a first draft and publish it. You can always modify everything later as you go along. This will give you your first website which you can then submit to the search engines albeit not exactly what you want or one that is going to attract visitors.

Now you need to do quite a lot of research on the internet as to how to make your site visitor friendly and search engine friendly. Here you will discover the importance of good content, changing content, appropriate keywords, backward links, article writing and good copy on the website. Taking this information on board will enable you to restructure and rewrite your site over a period of time, probably many times. However all the time this learning process is going on your site is actually published on the Web so is likely to start being trawled by search engines and getting indexed even if it doesn’t sky rocket through the rankings. The most important thing to do from the outset is to write good content that will be of interest to your visitors. If it holds the attention of your visitors and gets them to contact you then it will likely be of equal interest to the search engines. Do not produce a site that is written with the search engines in mind. It is your visitors who are important and by following a few simple rules that are published all over the Web your site can become very attractive to visitors and to search engines also. Keep the site textually based, there is no point in having very flashy graphics as these are not noticed by the search engines and often annoy visitors who want to get at the information they are after as quickly as possible and not have to wait for some animated introduction to finish before they can enter the actual site.

Having put into practice all the advice that is out there you should have put together a pleasing and appealing website that visitors and search engines like. Each day or week you add more content and develop more links and you will gradually climb up the rankings. The last piece of advice I would give is start writing and submitting articles. One or two a week would be excellent over a year or two. Once your articles start being published you will see an immediate leap in the number of links back to your site and a subsequent rise in the rankings if your content is also good. Aim to produce over time several hundred articles if possible. The more you write the more links back to your site you will develop and the more visitors you will get as well as boost your rankings in the search engines.

How To Choose A Good Web Host ?

2008-12-05T19:59:00.001+10:00

Choosing a web host is never easy. There are just so many unknowns when it comes to finding a host. It's hardly ever possible to walk into a web host's office, look around, meet the owners, and get a feel for whether or not you'd like to do business with these people.

It's important, though, that you bend over backwards to establish whether your prospective web host is a credible provider - or a fly by night artist.

The webmaster industry is awash with horror stories about signing up with a web hosting company, only to find out later that this 'business' is run by a 14 year old who lives at home.

For the most part, you'll make your decision using whatever information you can find online.

Start out with the website of the web host you are considering.

Is it professionally designed and written? Typo's and spelling errors may signal that this is a company ran by kids or amateurs.

Is the website easy to use? Is it designed with a view towards helping people? Are help materials available online? This should give you a flavor for whether the company is client oriented.

Where is the company located? Is there an address? Can you email them?

Look at the Terms of Service. Does your prospective web host clearly spell out what may be expected of them and what is expected of you? Every deal is different, but both parties should clearly know what the deal is.

Next, do a search for the company on Google. Are you finding any negative statements? Try different searching techniques, like typing the company name followed by the word "scam", or by the words "poor support".

Now, try emailing their customer support department. Do you get a fast reply? What about their sales department? Do they answer inquiries quickly? Let's face it...if they won't pay any attention to you when they're trying to get your business, how much more will you be neglected after you sign up?

If you follow these simple suggestions, your chances of signing up with an excellent web host increase substantially.

Cheap Web Package Hosting - How to Minimize Costs

2008-12-05T19:57:00.000+10:00

There are several steps you can take to help minimize costs with a web hosting package. Some require some effort on your part while others are simply a matter of common sense. No matter what your particular needs are, you'll likely find that there are companies out there offering web hosting with those needs in mind.

The first and arguably the most important step as you seek to minimize costs with a web hosting package is to shop around. Comparison shopping is always a good way to save money, and finding a good service for your web hosting needs is no exception. Online searches are probably your best bet for finding those great deals on web hosting, but don't give in to the temptation to simply pick a company from a list of hits and sign on the dotted line. Instead, take time to compare the services, prices and reputations of various companies. Finding the service provider that offers the best bottom-line price for web hosting might not be the provider that saves you the most money.

Especially if you aren't computer savvy, one way to minimize costs with a web hosting package is to find a company that offers free setup. While this is a fairly common part of web hosting for most companies at this point, you should be sure what it's going to cost you to establish the account. If you find a company that offers a great bottom-line price but has you pay an enormous fee up front to establish the service, it will probably take you a long time to recoup that fee in your monthly savings.

By the same token, finding a company that promises no fee to set up the service but then charges a significantly more expensive monthly fee to maintain the service isn't really going to save you any money either. If you want to minimize costs with a web hosting package, look for a happy medium between the two - a service provider that establishes the service for free and offers a reasonable monthly rate for maintaining the service.

While set up fees and monthly maintenance fees are pretty straightforward, you should also look for other fees that might be charged by a particular provider. Depending on your needs, you might find yourself paying extra for a service you expected to be provided in the monthly fee. There's no substitute for carefully considering your options as you search for a company to help minimize costs with a web hosting package. If you need services in addition to web hosting, look for a company that can combine all your Internet service needs - that could save you some additional money.

You should look for a company that offers a web hosting package specifically to meet your needs. You might be paying a significantly higher monthly fee for a plan that simply exceeds the needs of your company. If you don't need a larger space, don't buy a larger space. But with an eye to the future, know the company's stand on upgrading an account later if you should need additional space.

Finally, know the company. While it's a good thing to search for the most competitive bottom-line price, the best set up deal and a plan that fits your needs, it won't do you any good if you are constantly out of commission because of down time. Each time you find yourself without the web hosting service, you're running the risk of losing orders, clients and your own reputation - all potentially devastating to a business. Even if you truly want to minimize costs with a web hosting package, saving a few dollars is probably not worth the reputation of your own business.

Bathroom Remodeling Made Easy

2008-12-04T17:36:00.000+10:00

Take a look around your own home. Is what you’ve been referring to as your “time-honored home décor” really just old fashioned? If so, maybe it’s time for you to join the remodeling parade. The good news is: there are lots of easy, low cost ways to give your home’s look a nice pick-me-up.

The bathroom is one of the most popular targets for home improvement. While any project involving plumbing tends to intimidate the average homeowner, there is a lot of new product technology designed with the do-it-yourselfer in mind.

One of the easiest and most cost efficient ways to spruce up a bathroom is to replace the faucets. “Improvements like this have a huge impact on the functional and aesthetic value of the space. You can create an entirely new theme for your bathroom -- such as contemporary, old world, or European -- based on the design of your faucet,” says Angie Coffman, director, Delta product marketing for Delta Faucet Company.

Before purchasing a new faucet, it’s a good idea to do some preliminary research. You may also want to consider a budget before beginning your search, as prices can vary widely. You will find that there are many different styles and designs in bathroom faucets. Consider ahead of time whether you want a single-handle or a double-handle faucet. Notice how the handles feel in the palm of your hand. Do you want something that is delicate or more heavy-duty? Explore different spout designs and finishes as well. Decide whether or not you want an escutcheon, the decorative plate beneath a faucet. An escutcheon will also cover extra holes that might be drilled in the sink.

Look for a faucet that installs easily -- you may notice language like “quick connect ” or “no adjust,” indicating that minimal tools are required. Pay close attention to the existing hole configuration on your sink. How many are there and how far apart are they? Do you need a single-hole, 4-inch center-set, or a wall-mounted faucet? Your single-handle faucet may have three holes underneath, but you don’t necessarily have to replace it with another single-handle. There’s a design, called a “mini-widespread,” which provides flexibility for customers who have a single-handle faucet, but are looking to switch to a double handle, widespread look. The Victorian Mini-widespread from Delta is an example of a faucet that offers intricate, old-world styling in a smaller sink setting.

Make a Lasting Improvement

Look for a design that won’t soon be outdated and one that will complement the rest of your bathroom, “one that will stand out without sticking out,” according to Coffman. “Keep in mind that you will probably be using this new faucet for years, so choose something that is durable, versatile, and a brand that is considered reliable.”

Installing high quality products in a bathroom will result in a high return on your home remodeling investment. That is why it is important to choose a faucet that offers long-lasting, worry-free performance. You want to look for things like solid brass construction and a company that offers a lifetime limited warranty, along with customer support, in case you have questions while installing the faucet yourself.

Now that you are ready to give your bathroom the facelift it has been waiting for, have a few tools handy for the installation. A pair of adjustable pliers, along with an Allen wrench and basin wrench, will probably be necessary. Also pick up some silicone or caulk, and Teflon tape. Always double check the instructions on your faucet for any other tools or supplies needed.

If you are looking for additional support, try consulting your local home improvement store. Or, check out manufacturer Web sites, such as deltafaucet.com, for installation tips. As you join the millions of Americans remodeling their homes this year, choose your projects wisely and remember that even seemingly small changes, like a bathroom fixture upgrade, can add value to your home.

Home Improvements – The Fun Stuff

2008-12-04T17:35:00.000+10:00

Planning home improvements necessarily involves addressing numerous practical matters. That doesn’t mean you should ignore the fun stuff!

The Fun Stuff

The first thing to plan for in home improvements is the practical stuff. The second thing you need to talk to family members about is the fun stuff.

Most people have colors they like and colors they don’t like. They have things that interest them and things that don’t. Get your family to talk to you about those things. Each person’s bedroom, or bedroom area, should reflect his or her taste and interests.

A boy who likes green, football, and backpacking can easily have a sage green (it “reads” as more neutral than many shades of green if re-sale of your home is a concern) room with cream woodwork, cream interior shutters, and cream ceiling. Framed football posters and wilderness scenes might be pleasant. Bedding with a rustic motif (rows of stylized pine trees?) from L.L. Bean or Plow and Hearth would work right in. Add a touch or two of a bright color like red or yellow.

Does he need a desk in his room? A chest of drawers? A bookcase? Would he enjoy having a bulletin board? Even if they’re small, most rooms need at least three lamps so that illumination is general and even. The shades are usually best in warm, neutral colors. (Light coming through green shades tends to make people look sick.) Lamp shades should be level and the seams should be toward the wall so they’re not visible. When the bottom edge of most lamp shades in a room are the same height from the floor, the room tends to look serene and cohesive.

Hanging pictures usually look best if the bottom edges of the frames are the same height from the floor and level with each other, too. There are exceptions to this and every generalization of course. A grouping of pictures can have the bottom tier follow the “rule” while all of the other pictures are higher. A picture over a fireplace often looks good higher than the other pictures in the room.

Pictures usually look best when they have a relationship to furniture or an architectural feature. Pictures centered over a chest, bed, bookcase, or fireplace are good examples. Pictures don’t tend to look good if they’re scattered willy-nilly around a room, or if they’re up near the ceiling (unless they’re part of a grouping), or if the height at which they’re hung varies wildly with no rhyme nor reason.

A girl who loves pink, the ballet, and swimming can have woodwork the same cream as her brother’s while her walls are a soft pink (a pink with a hint of yellow in it tends to go well with cream), and her art work reflects her interests. If she loves to read, make sure she has a good reading lamp near her bed, or near a comfortable chair, or both.

A cream colored dust ruffle with widely spaced pink stripes and a quilted plaid coverlet in pink, green, yellow, and blue on a cream background might look nice. Add cream fabric window shades with large pink polka dots and I’ll bet she’ll smile.

The bigger point is to simply have fun with some of your home improvements. There is no need to look exclusively at practical matters.

100 Do Follow Forums

2008-12-04T17:21:00.000+10:00

Hi all,

Here is the list of 100 Do-follow forums that i personally checked and verified. Out of many hundreds of forums listed here, i saw many were No follow forums as well in it. I was deceived many times because of which i decided to take up this task!

1. http://forums.digitalpoint.com
2. http://www.sitepoint.com/forums
3. http://www.webmasterforums.com
4. http://www.allcoolforum.com
5. http://www.warriorforum.com
6. http://forums.webicy.com
7. http://thehyipforum.com
8. http://www.webmasterforumsonline.com
9. http://www.webmasters.am/forum
10. http://www.webmasterforums.net
11. http://www.devhunters.com
12. http://www.webmaster-forum.net
13. http://www.geekvillage.com/forums
14. http://www.zymic.com/forum
15. http://www.webmastershelp.com
16. http://www.webmasterdesk.org
17. http://www.webmasterground.com
18. http://developers.evrsoft.com/forum
19. http://www.websitebabble.com
20. http://www.talkingcity.com
21. http://www.australianwebmaster.com
22. http://www.wtricks.com
23. http://www.forums.webzonetalk.com
24. http://www.htmlforums.com
25. http://www.searchbliss.com/forum
26. http://www.webmasterize.com
27. http://www.webmasterserve.com
28. http://www.freehostforum.com
29. http://www.seorefugee.com/forums
30. http://www.cre8asiteforums.com/forums
31. http://forums.seo.ph
32. http://forums.delphiforums.com
33. http://www.web-mastery.net
34. http://www.webworkshop.net/seoforum/index.php
35. http://www.webproworld.com
36. http://www.bzimage.org
37. http://www.v7n.com/forums
38. http://www.dnforum.com
39. http://www.webcosmoforums.com
40. http://forums.webicy.com
41. http://forum.hittail.com/phpbb2/index.php
42. http://www.affiliateseeking.com/forums
43. http://siteownersforums.com/index.php
44. http://www.webmaster-forums.net
45. http://www.geekpoint.net
46. http://www.smallbusinessforums.org
47. http://forums.ukwebmasterworld.com
48. http://www.experienceadvertising.com/forum
49. http://opensourcephoto.net/forum
50. http://forums.seochat.com
51. http://forums.searchenginewatch.com
52. http://www.ihelpyou.com/forums
53. http://dishnews.medianetwork.co.in/yabb2/YaBB.pl
54. http://www.businesss-forum.com
55. http://www.9mb.com
56. http://acapella.harmony-central.com/forums
57. http://forums.seroundtable.com
58. http://www.submitexpress.com/bbs
59. http://www.startups.co.uk/6678842908486596004/forums.html
60. http://www.webmaster-talk.com
61. http://forums.comicbookresources.com
62. http://www.clicks.ws/forum/index.php
63. http://www.acorndomains.co.uk
64. http://forums.onlinebookclub.org
65. http://www.ableton.com/forum
66. http://www.davidcastle.org/BB
67. http://www.webtalkforums.com
68. http://www.bloggapedia.com/forum
69. http://www.bloggertalk.com/forum.php
70. http://paymentprocessing.cc
71. http://www.directoryjunction.com/forums
72. http://www.internetmarketingforums.net
73. http://www.lex224.com/forums/index.php
74. http://forum.joomla.org
75. http://forum.mambo-foundation.org/index.php
76. http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php
77. http://www.namepros.com/index.php
78. http://loanofficerforum.com/forum
79. http://iq69.com/forums
80. http://forum.hot4s.com.au
81. http://forums.mysql.com
82. http://forums.amd.com/forum
83. http://softwarecommunity.intel.com/isn/Community/en-us/Forums
84. http://forums.cnet.com
85. http://seotalk.medianetwork.co.in
86. https://www.computerbb.org
87. http://forum.vbulletinsetup.com
88. http://www.irishwebmasterforum.com
89. http://www.app-developers.com
90. http://forums.stuffdaily.com
91. http://forums.seo.com
92. http://www.webdigity.com
93. http://www.inboundlinksforum.com
94. http://forums.gentoo.org
95. http://ubuntuforums.org
96. http://forum.textpattern.com
97. http://talk.iwebtool.com
98. http://www.frogengine.com/forum
99. http://www.capitaltheory.com
100. http://www.smsbucket.com/forums/

How to Prepare for a Hail Storm

2008-11-17T16:21:00.004+10:00

Hail storms are frequent occurrences that usually don't cause extensive damage. However, a severe storm with hail stones up to 3 inches in diameter can cause significant damage. If you follow some simple precautions to prepare for a hail storm, you will keep yourself safe and minimize the damage to your house and car.

Prepare in Advance for a Hail Storm

Step1

Know the signs that a hail storm is approaching. Hail storms are produced by strong thunderstorms. Signs may include very dark clouds, strong winds, thunder and lightening and heavy rainfall.

Step2

Prepare a storm kit and make sure everyone in your household knows where it is. The kit should contain a flashlight, battery-operated radio, fresh batteries, candles, waterproof matches and emergency contacts.

Step3

Keep your trees trimmed, and watch for any branches that could fall on your house during a severe hail storm.

Step4

Check your roof for any damage that will make it more susceptible to a hail storm. If you are planning to remodel your house, consider impact resistant roofing to reduce hail damage to your roof.

Step5

Clear leaves and other debris from gutters and drainpipes so water can drain quickly.

Prepare for an Approaching Hail Storm

Step1

Close all windows and external doors if you see a storm approaching. Close curtains to protect against possible flying glass.

Step2

Provide shelter for any outdoor pets or farm animals. Animals are particularly vulnerable to hail.

Step3

Pull cars, boats and RVs into a covered area.

Step4

Pull lawn and patio furniture, garbage cans and other large objects into a protected area.

Tips & Warnings

Large hail stones can fall at speeds faster than 100 miles per hour. If you see a hail storm approaching, take cover immediately, but do not stand under a tree because of the danger of lightning strikes.

How to Choose a Right Web Hosting Service?

2008-11-14T14:57:00.000+10:00

How to Choose a Right Web Hosting Service?

Indeed, choosing a right web hosting service for your website is not an easy task especially when there are thousands of web hosting providers all offering almost identical web hosting packages. Therefore, it is important to know few major considerations even before you start your web hosting search. Below are three major criteria for web host seeker:

Web hosting features requirement

This is probably the most important consideration to start finding a host for your site. You need to decide the technical requirements for your website, this including:

a) Server platform and hardware requirements
If you plan to set up a website that uses programming environments such as Active Server Pages (ASP), Visual Basic scripts, Cold Fusion or Microsoft Access or Microsoft SQL database, in this case, you will need to find a web hosting service that supports Windows platform such as Windows NT or Windows 2000 servers.

Likewise, if you plan to use programming languages such as Perl, CGI, SSI, PHP or mySQL database, then any web hosting plans that support Unix/Linux platform should be sufficient to meet your hosting requirements. Once you have these server platform and hardware requirements in mind, you can decide the best web hosting plans for your need. For more information, you can read "How to select a web server and server platform?"

b) Disk space & Bandwidth requirement
Here is another technical requirement that you need to consider before selecting a web hosting plan, i.e. disk space and bandwidth. If you intend to publish a website that does not have a lot of contents (meaning, web pages), then the disk space requirement may not be a big concern to you. In general, a disk space with 200MB to 500MB should be enough to meet your hosting requirement. In contrast, if you plan to host a website with enormous amount of graphic pictures, mp3 or video files, then you should consider a web hosting plan that provide huge disk space, for example, 500 MB to 1,000 MB.

Similarly, the bandwidth requirement will depend on your site traffic estimation. Obviously, a website that expect to attract high traffic will consume the monthly bandwidth allowance very fast. If so, you will need to find one web hosting service that offer huge bandwidth with 40 GB to 100 GB per month. Depending upon your website requirement, choosing a web hosting service that provide sufficient amount of disk space and bandwidth is crucial consideration to prevent paying extra costs in the future should you overuse the monthly disk space and bandwidth allowance.

c) Other hosting features
While the above requirements are utmost important, there are other hosting features that you have to consider too. Can web hosting provider support video clips on your website, if you have? Is the web hosting service compatible with Dreamweaver or FrontPage web authoring tool? Do you plan to set up a virtual store online? Can the host support the e-commerce features without adding extra cost to your monthly payments? On top of that, you may also want to find out the number of email accounts provided, number of FTP accounts, web statistic software (analyze your web traffic), type of control panel supported (manage your web hosting account), database and scripting languages supported and etc.

Reliability and scalability

A first-class web hosting provider offers reliable server uptime and fast Internet connection. You should only choose a web hosting service that guarantee at least 99% server uptime with high-speed Internet backbones using at least OC3 (Optical Carrier) lines (155 Megabits per second) or above instead of T1 or T3 lines. A reliable web hosting provider usually invests heavily on their data center infrastructure with high performance servers, high speed multiple backbones providers with fail-over redundancy, backup power generators and firewall software protection in place to ensure they meet the uptime guarantee specified in the terms of service.

Similarly, you should choose a web hosting service with hardware facilities that designed for scalability, so that they can grow with your business. For example, if you need to increase more disk space, bandwidth or number of mySQL databases, you should be able to upgrade as needed without any problems.

Customer service and support

The last major consideration in choosing a web hosting service is to find a web hosting providers that offers excellent customer service and support. You should always search for a web hosting provider that offers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week technical support that fielded with highly experience technicians, so that any web hosting problems will be resolved within a reasonable amount of time. You may also want to consider to test how responsive is their customer support by sending few inquiry emails to the web hosting provider. In general, any response in less than 24 hours is considered acceptable. It is a sign of poor customer support if they take more than one day to response.

In addition, a web hosting provider with excellent support should also provide multiple support channels, such as toll-free phone support, 24/7 email support, live chat, online knowledgebase, Interactive flash tutorials and FAQ.

Above are few major considerations before you choose your web hosting service. In addition, how long has the web hosting provider in business and the number of customers that they currently have are also a good indication of the quality of their hosting products as well as the stability of the company. Even though cost of the web hosting service is also important but it should not be your major consideration. Because the price of a web hosting service has been declining over the years due to competition, as a result, the price of most of the web hosting services offering quality hosting features has been converging to less than US$10 per month. If you can't afford less than $10 per month, you probably isn't in the online business for the long haul. Therefore, price should not be a major deciding factor.

On the other hand, it is more important to ensure the web hosting service that you choose is able to meet your website hosting requirements, guarantee your website is always accessible with satisfying speed, provide scalability to grow and expand your website as well as offer excellent customer supports.

HTC Touch Diamond vs. Samsung i900 Omnia: Head-to-Head

2008-11-14T13:42:00.002+10:00

It's PocketPC playoffs and HTC are giving Samsung a match at the GSM Arena. With two of the stars of the season arriving in our office all at once, we thought it's a heck of an opportunity for some Diamond-Omnia-Diamond-Omnia-Diamond-Omnia game-set-match with a pinch of iPhone flavor. We got two aces up to the challenge, so sit back and stretch out. Ah well, get that six-pack too and join us for the kick-off.

HTC Touch Diamond official photos

Diamond over Omnia:

VGA display (2.8-inch, 480 x 640 pixels)
TouchFLO 3D Home screen (better than Omnia's Touchwiz UI)
Nicer design
More compact body
Lighter weight
Active magnetic stylus (Omnia has no stylus slot)
Touch-sensitive scroll wheel (better than Omnia's optical joystick)
Better sunlight legibility (by a small margin)
Standard miniUSB slot (as opposed to Samsung's proprietary custom plus)
Dedicated graphics chip with 64MB memory
Comes with the amusing Teeter game (uses the accelerometer)
Has pre-installed YouTube client and MP3 Trimmer application for ringtones
Better video playback performance

Samsung i900 Omnia official photos

Omnia over Diamond:

Bigger, though lower-res display (3.2", 240 x 400 pixels)
Has a better, more solid build and finish
Almost double battery life
Better CPU performance (by a nice margin according to software benchmarks)
Quad-band GSM support (Diamond has two versions to cover all the four bands)
microSD card slot (Diamond has none)
8 or 16 GB of storage memory (Diamond has 4GB)
Much better 5 megapixel camera (better processing, higher resolution, face and smile detection, geotagging)
TV-out (Diamond lacks that)
Landscape QWERTY keyboard (Diamond has one but only in browser)
Auto screen rotation is available in all applications and can be switched off
Comes with DivX video support (Diamond has none, but DivX players can be installed)
Has pre-installed a custom Alarms app, a Video editor and a unit converter

Samsung i900 Omnia and HTC Touch Diamond might differ here and there in specs but no doubt we're talking fine top-of-the-shelf species. Never before have Windows Mobile powered devices been so rich in features without being coyote-ugly (another way of saying TyTN-bulky).

It's been a year now since Apple iPhone is out and its ground-breaking user interface took the industry by a storm. Windows Mobile however still fails to pick up the gauntlet thrown by the iPhone so device manufacturers are creating their own customized touch interfaces that don't necessarily require a stylus to make the Microsoft OS a bit more competitive and much more intuitive.

It took almost a year to see all manufacturers introduce their solutions. With the HTC Touch Diamond we are looking at the third generation TouchFLO UI - a really mature and impressive piece of software. The Omnia and its TouchWiz UI is Samsung's first attempt in this field, but they're building on their expertise in full touchscreen feature phones and they have achieved some impressive results too.

So you already probably guess that we will be spicing up today's Windows Mobile competition with a few Apple iPhone quotes. With the iPhone 3G just behind the corner, we think that several key generic comparisons might be of use to most of you. But for starters, check out some photos of the contenders lining up for the Windows Mobile cup. Slick, aye?

HTC Touch Diamond

Samsung i900 Omnia

Before we begin today's match, we should warn you about the units we are testing. The Samsung i900 Omnia is still a beta version, while the HTC Touch Diamond is a retail unit. However, dozens of bugs are being reported for the Diamond recently, so it isn't actually as stable as it should be. In fact, HTC are struggling to polish the Diamond performance, which - even though utterly impressive - is rather unfinished at its launch. Looks like HTC made haste to beat the iPhone 3G announcement.

The three hottest touch devices of the season

10 Ways to Build Links to your Website

2008-11-14T13:21:00.007+10:00

Links are still one of the best ways to increase traffic and authority status to your website, which will in turn increase your site’s search ranking.

The higher the rating, the more prominent you will be listed on the search engines, the higher the click thru ratio of your optimized title and description, and the more people will stop by your website, creating a snowball effect.

Let’s not forget that there are other great ways for you to build links without buying them and here are 10 of my favorites.

People Love Lists & Linkbait : Having a 101 list, a top ten list, or a list of tips for a specific niche category can help generate readers, links and bookmarks.
Having lists of resources, experts, and other research necessities can attract people looking for more information on your subject.

When people like your list, they will submit the article to Digg and other social news sites, which results in your site building natural inbound links because the readers of these social bookmarking and news sites tend to blog.

Kick starting those submissions yourself or asking friends to also helps.

[Note : Yes, I know I’ve been writing a lot of lists lately, but I’m kinda on vacation, so please I hope this is not overkill.]
Get Social Bookmarking! Do not forget the social side of the Internet. On Flickr, pictures of important events, particularly involving the top people in your industry, will generate interest. On YouTube, the same style videos will generate interest, and maybe even make it into the Google Universal Search results.
Network in the real world with people in your field – network on Facebook or LinkedIn if you don’t have the chance to conduct face to face networking or attend industry conferences.

Interesting, insightful interviews will also bring in readers. When you have interesting, relevant content, your site will be submitted to Digg and other social bookmarking sites like Delicious, Ma.gnolia.com or AOL’s Propeller, which will give you great links.
Blog for Links. Blogs are rapidly gaining in popularity and can help your business website become popular too. The great thing about a blog is the content publishing is instant and so is the recognition. A blog can give your company the freedom to communicate openly, even attracting more links and bookmarks to your blog itself than the homepage, which are stiill good if you market your company and services well on the blog (and link to your homepage from the blog pages… I can’t count the amount of internal blogs I see which link to http://domain.com/blog as the “Home” link in the CMS).
Search engines have specific fresh bots that seek out new content, especially Google. Start a blog with great content, and the search engine bots will come back to index your site, including your links to and from other blogs.
News and Syndication Build Fresh Links : You can syndicate an article or blog post and submit it to good article sites, industry news sites, and other related media outlets : especially those indexed in Google News or Yahoo News (just do a search in these for your niche keywords and “submit”, you may find sites that accet guest articles or opinions. Doing so will generate authority links that boost your website’s standing.
Take this to the next level by coming up with a press release highlighting new products, services, or upcoming events. Make it sound newsworthy and send it to journalists and bloggers.

Your RSS feed or blog will also attract natural links, so get them kicking and submit to the top blog & feed directories.

Keep track of the people who follow the press releases or your articles and offer them exclusives. Writing about companies in the news or doing surveys on hot topics can also help generate interest in your site.
Directories Will Help Create Links. Submitting your site to free sites is one way of developing links; however, keep in mind that you should go for quality, not quantity.
Even creating your own niche directory linked to your website will generate traffic and prestige, especially if you make it useful enough to users and also include other resources amongst original content.

Look beyond PHP Links and other directory scripts and try building something with Wordpress. Chances are, a directory in your nice with original content and internal pages will do better than a cookie cutter site.

If you don’t have time to launch or market something of your own, contact a current directory owner about spinning off a niche joint venture (or just submit to the main web directories).
Network With Your Local Community. Your own local community can be a source of links. Get a link from your Chamber of Commerce or join the Better Business Bureau. If you have relevant city or state governmental resources, link to them. Other business may be willing to link with you if you are non-competing and in the same field.
Better yet, donate to local charities which have an online version of their newsletter. A $50 donation can result in a high quality and relevant link from a well linked to non-profit organization or association.
Review Products or Businesses. Reviews attract people, especially if you can write about brands that have not been established online.
Writing reviews on websites like Amazon.com can generate interest in your site if people like you what you have to say. Writing testimonials for products you use can also turn into links from others which find your organic review online.

A product review may also land your site’s homepage a link from that product’s news room, so don’t always resort to paid reviews as natural ones can be more beneficial in gathering natural linkage.
Link Trading Works. Link trading is still a legitimate way to get links. The key to this is to swap with relevant partners and get linked in the content of relevant pages.
Being just one link on a page full of links will not help your cause, nor will publishing some on-site link farm which is only reachable via some hidden sitemap page.
Experts : The Internet loves expertise and becoming an expert on your subject matter will generate interest, which leads to more links.
Make sure that your content is easy to understand and grammatically correct, but not so “dumbed down” that it seems vague or uninformative.

You will want to make sure that you keep your information up to date, and that you have information that is not readily available elsewhere. An About Us section and/or Privacy Policy will help lend authority to your site.
People Love Contests and Freebies. Spending a little money on a cash prize can save you money on advertising. Free samples, exclusive giveaways, and other items will attract people, and then your content can get them to stay and link.
Go an extra step to make your contests seasonal… a smoked turkey for Thanksgiving, a product (thinking free iPod) when it launches or a trip to Cancun during its low priced off season.

All in all, the key is to not just buy links, but to create natural link building campaigns to compliment your link advertising. If you spend $1,000 a month buying links, chances are hiring a professional link builder for that same amount will result in a vast and diverse array of incoming links, which stick around permanently.

How To Publish Your Way To Success

2008-11-05T20:10:00.000+10:00

Did you know, self-publishing is one of the easiest ways to make money on the web. Of course, it requires talent, but it's easier to learn than you might think.

Getting Started:

Choose a subject that interest you. Select a subject you enjoy or want to learn about. As an example for this article, we will use "Computer Tips."

Okay, next collect the information to put in the book about "Computer Tips". A good idea to collect tips would be to use your own knowledge, contacts, friends, online associates, family members, even neighbors.

Contact everyone you know who owns a computer, ask them to share their favorite computer tips with you. Tell them if you use their tip you will include their name in the book. After several contacts you should have acquired a stack of solid information.

Now, it's time to start sorting the information and separating it into categories. For example beginner tips, hardware tips, software tips, online tips, troubleshooting tips. Place each category into it's own file. Each of these categories will be the chapters in your book.

Next, begin composing your book on the computer. Don't panic! It's not that hard. Write a brief intro. Write your name and contact information, any copyright information, a brief disclaimer. Publishing date, origin of publishing.

Remember all those tips you collected. Select the best tips of the lot. Now break that down into brief chapters.

Now end the book with a pertinent ending sentence or paragraph. Your name, contact information and a link back to your website.

Now the book is ready to publish.. You've read everything and checked for misspelled words or obvious grammar mistakes. You are now ready to see the final result of your hard work.

If you publish online you will need an ebook creator, which could cost anywhere from $29 and up. Or you might decide to search online with Google or Yahoo for "free ebook creation software" and download.

Download the software and take it for a test drive. Follow the instructions on setting up your files and publishing.

If your ebook is less than 10 pages you might decide to call it a report. More than 10 pages would classify as a ebook.

Well, alright now. Let's sell that book and make a profit! One good idea is to call all the people who offered you tips for your book. Price the book around $20.00 Sounds like a deal! Especially for people hungry for helpful tips from a savvy computer expert like you.

Offer all the contributors a discount on your new book. Maybe a 50 percent discount. Everyone who contributes would certainly love to have a copy with their byline (name) included. This is called ego stroking sales tactics(works for me!)

Have a website? Offer the ebook to all your website visitors. Set up a sales page advertising your book along with ordering instructions. You will want to set up a shopping cart to handle sales. Or alternatively use a service like pay pal or clickbank to handle sales without the hassle of needing a merchant account. Note: Although clickbank cost money to host your book you will attract affiliates who will eagerly sell your book. This translates to more profits.

Also, consider contacting ezine owners online. Offer them a free copy of your book in exchange for advertising space in their publication. Visit online ezine directories and search for ezines in a similar category as your book. Contact the editor with pertinent details.

It's amazingly easy to create your very own book online. There's no hidden secret to publishing. So called publishing guru's want you to think they have the answers or insider secrets. For most of those on the Internet the so called secret is just a good idea and a way to reach targeted customers.

Every person reading this article has a book inside of them! Think about it. Everybody knows something about a topic that other people would pay good money to learn about. You can be sure!

So, what are you waiting for. Get Busy! Pick a topic, gather the information, process it. You'll be a published writer online. Others will think of you as their writer friend. You'll be able to strut your stuff with a certain pride. Yup, I'm a writer! And place that on all your emails, letters, stationary, and business cards.

9 Ways to Make Money On-line

2008-10-16T20:14:00.000+10:00

Are you making money hand over fist with your website? If you are then you don’t need to bother reading this article because it is not for you. If you are like most of us your website sales are slow and unpredictable and you need to think of new ways to make money online without taking more time and effort. All of your time should be dedicated to producing your product, right? Well, here are just a few ways to make a little bit or a lot of money online without any effort.

1. Affiliates
Sign up to become an affiliate for other businesses that are on the net. I only sign up with the companies that I honestly would recommend to anyone. All that you have to do is refer your customers to these sites. Once one of my referrals makes a purchase, I receive a small payment. With some of the affiliate programs the fee is quite large.

2. Google Ads
I was not too sure about this one but I signed up and I am now convinced. The first week that I had Google ads on my website I made $.18 and the next week I made $6.45! Wow! Big boost. If I keep this up, I just may be able to pay for my web host by the end of the month!

3. Google Search
Works close to the same way as the ads. People use your search tool, make a purchase and then you are compensated.

4. Amazon
Another great tool that will trickle in a few dollars here and there, all for 10 minutes of your time putting a little code into your website and Amazon does the rest.

5. Selling Ad Space
You could sell ad space if you have a site that has high traffic.

6. Selling Subscriptions to Your Newsletter
If you have a newsletter that has high demand information, you could charge for your newsletter.

7. Selling Ad Space in Your Newsletter
Sell ad space in in your newsletter. Same drill as with ad space on your website. Just put a box on your newsletter with a note inside it that says "Your Banner Could Go Here" Then have a page that tells how many subscriber that you have, how often your newsletter goes out and what type of content it usually contains plus the price per ad.

8. Selling E-Books
Do you know something about your craft or hobby that you know people would pay to learn as well? Then sell it in an e-book. What a great way to make a little extra money. You take the time to write a good quality e-book then just fill the orders. You could even set it up so that once the e-book order has been processed and paid for, it goes out automatically using an auto responder without you even having to lift a finger, except to go to the bank to collect your money.

9. Consulting - Offer your services
Do you sell wedding supplies and know all of the best suppliers around? Do a little research and offer your services as a wedding coordinator. Offer your assistance to the people that want to plan their own wedding, but need a little bit of help.

Remember, you wont get rich with just one of these programs, but you just may make a tidy little sum every month with a combination of all of them.

Steps to Publishing Success

2008-10-15T20:08:00.001+10:00

Even if your best friend owns a top publishing company, giving you an immediate "in," this does not guarantee publishing success.

First, you have to write a quality book that has a clear target audience. And your book must answer a common problem or need that audience shares. Then you have to develop a marketing plan, and stick to it for at least two years.

Let's begin with the process that should commence before you write your first word. Begin by reading A LOT. Read both books you passionately love and books you can't seem to make it past page five. Then figure out what the author did in the book you loved, and what was wrong with in the book you couldn't finish. Write down these points so they are crystal clear to you. Read other people's books for inspiration and to discover what you should avoid as a writer.

The next step is to plan out your book. Narrow down your subject, and then divide it into chapters. Each chapter should address a specific aspect of the problem your book is going to solve. In each chapter, break the specific aspect down into several parts. This will help your readers take in your information a bit at a time instead of overwhelming them with every bit of information clogging up the pages until they feel like they're about to go blind. It's not quite spoon-feeding the information to your readers, but it's close.

The next two steps are obvious. Write your book and then revise it. And then revise it again. And perhaps again. Of course, writing is extremely hard, and writing a book can seem like an impossible task. There are many books out there that give you guidelines to help you become familiar - and even love - the process of writing and revision. Find a number of books about writing. Better yet, find a number of books about writing the specific type of book you aspire to write. These can serve as roadmaps on your writing journey.

Once you've written your ebook and revised it at least twice, show it to someone else whose opinion you respect. If you're lucky enough to know a good editor, see if you have something to barter for him or her to go through your manuscript. Or join a writing group and let the other members critique your work.

Then take all these ideas from other people, and revise your manuscript one last time. And then stop! Put down that pen! Get your hands off the keyboard!

One of the most important steps to actually producing a book is to know when to stop writing and tinkering with it.

You've finally written your ebook! Pop open the bubbly! Give yourself a night out on the town!

Okay, now that this necessary celebration is out of your system, what do you do next?

How to turn your ebook into Profits

Ebooks are a revolutionary way to publish your book without incurring the costs of print production. All you need is a relevant and targeted subject and some inexpensive software, and you can transform your manuscript into a book.

The problem, in terms of actually seeing any profits from your ebook, is that the market is overwhelmed with ebooks, and many of them are not worth the time it takes to download them. Just because the ability exists to easily produce an ebook, doesn't make it good writing.

Make sure your book does not simply rehash old material. You will injure your credibility as an author by claiming to offer valuable new insights and disappointing your audience with material they've read a zillion times before. So spend enough time writing and revising your book to make sure it's of the highest quality and presents the most current information. A good book will eventually sell itself; false claims about your book will make it extremely difficult to sell any future books you may write.

Assuming you have determined that you do indeed have a quality product that answers some question or need of your target audience with NEW information, how do you know how much to charge for it? Rule number 1: Set a price for your book equal to its value. An under-priced book will only give the impression that your book isn't worth very much.

To figure out a fair price, estimate how much time you put into creating it and how difficult it was to transform the necessary information into understandable and engaging writing. Figure out how much your time and effort is worth, and then price it accordingly. The goal is for you to be adequately compensated for your talent, your time, and your effort.

Once you've figured out a price that is high enough to convey the value of the book, but not so high as to be out of the reach of your target audience's mean budget, then it's time to offer it for sale on your website. To attract sales, you will need to develop a promotional campaign, particularly if you are an unknown author.

There are multitudes of books about self-promotion that will guide you in your efforts. Choose a plan that is both creative and professional. Learn how to write a catchy yet informative press release, and send copies of your ebook to sites that specialize in ebook reviews.

Learn how to write powerful sales copy, or hire someone to write it for you. This is an essential. You absolutely need excellent sales copy to sell your book. Make sure the copy includes all the reasons your target audience needs your book, and the benefits they will derive from buying it.

Use graphics in your promotional materials. Beautiful graphics have the power to instantly convey the quality and value of your ebook. Graphics can also convey the amount of valuable information the book contains, and your careful attention to detail. Professional graphics sell professional books. They reassure the customer that the product is what it claims to be.

Consider excerpting chapters for articles. You can offer these tidbits for free on your website as a sort of demo of your book. Include an order form for your ebook at the end of the excerpted articles.

Finally, when you set-up your download link, make sure to simplify the process. It's a good idea to offer a few bonuses that make your book even more enticing to purchase, but make sure the bonuses are valuable and high quality. Too many bonuses that are basically a load of useless stuff will compromise the impression your audience has of your ebook. The goal is to convey to your audience that they are getting a quality product for a good deal. That means applying restraint, especially when it comes to adding bonus items. Too much free stuff offered diminishes your credibility.

Make sure your book is a quality product. Make sure it is relevant and current. Develop an effective marketing plan that includes excellent sales copy and excerpted articles. Then offer your book for sale, and wait for your audience to discover you!

Relationships Are The Key To A Network Marketing Business

2008-10-07T20:08:00.000+10:00

While it is true that heavily branded websites like amazon.com
are household names and carry an implied trust with visitors, the
vast majority of websites are not well known and are found and
visited as a result of searches performed with search engines.
In these instances, the visitor is probably arriving at the
website for the first time and human nature often dictates fear
or suspicion of the unknown.

If someone is shopping around for the best price for a particular
item, say a Cuisinart food processor, they would probably go to a
site such as Ask Jeeves (at ask.com using the Smart Search for
Products feature) and quickly obtain a list of sources and prices
for the desired item. The "yes/no" purchase decision has already
been made and it is simply a question of who to buy it from.

In the case of network marketing, it is of critical importance to
build a sense of trust with your team members. Network marketing
is very definitely a relationship business and each relationship
typically starts out with two complete strangers sitting at their
respective keyboards.

The team building aspect of network marketing is of vital
importance to the success of each individual member and to the
team as a whole. Two key elements of team building are trust and
confidence and these factors play a very large role, particularly
for new team members.

As a team leader, you need to be knowledgeable about the business
(products, services, or whatever) and straightforward with
answers to questions about the business as well as providing
timely and thorough support to your team members. These actions
will cement the relationship and build trust and confidence among
your team members.

Network marketing has many aspects, but promotion, persistence,
and patience are three key elements which are critical to
achieving successful results.

PROMOTION is the lifeblood of network marketing. Whether you
are using online methods or offline methods, or a combination of
both, you must constantly strive to get your offering in front of
a targeted audience.

There are thousands of published sources that deal with specific
methods of network marketing (both online and offline), but the
key point to be made here is that you must have an active
promotion campaign designed to bring in a steady stream of new
prospective downline members.

PERSISTENCE is a key element in network marketing success.
You've gotta "just keep on keepin' on", even though frustation
levels can be quite high at times.

After you have been at it a while, and have a downline large
enough to provide reasonably accurate statistics, you will
probably find that about 95% of your downline members are dormant
and do nothing at all. Its easy to get down in the dumps or take
it personally when you encounter so many "do nothing" people.

Therefore, it is really important work with and actively support
the 5% or so that are serious about participating. And clearly,
an active and effective promotion campaign will continue to
bring in increasing numbers of potential participants so that
while 5% is small on a percentage basis, it can still be a
sizeable amount from a pure numbers standpoint.

PATIENCE is vital. You can expect that it will take about a year
before the awsome power of geometric growth kicks in.

A classic illustration of geometric growth is the frequently used
penny-a-day example.

If you save one penny on the first day, and double it every
successive day, (day two you have 2 pennies and day three you have
4 pennies, and so on) how much will you have at the end of
30 days? The answer, to the astonishment of many, is $5,368,708!
Amazing, but true.

Its a sad statistic that most network marketers fail and it is
often traceable to the fact that they did not exhibit enough
persistence and patience to continue constantly promoting their
business for the year or so that is required for success.

Network marketers that stick with it for a year or more often end
up becoming the proverbial "heavy hitters".

In closing, I would like to encourage you to increase your chances
of becoming a successful network marketer by always keeping a
clear focus on "the three P's" of Promotion, Persistence, and
Patience.

Why Self-Publish Your Book?

2008-10-05T20:11:00.000+10:00

When I meet an author with a great book concept, one who’s definitely the right person to write that book, right away I’ll often encourage him or her to self-publish. This is because I know that, if an author is thoroughly invested in what they have to say, and if they’re determined to create a buzz about their message, they’ll discover . . .

5 Fantastic Benefits of Self-publishing

1. Control. When you enter into a contract with a major publishing house, you’re signing an exclusive agreement that prevents your having input into most of the important decisions that will affect your book’s perception by the public, and its sales. You’ll have very little say about the look and feel of your book cover, the endorsements that appear on the back of your book, or the wording of your press release, for example. And since all of the above elements are critical to giving your book its best chance for bestseller status, such loss of control can pose significant problems. “But don’t publishers know better than I what to do to sell a book?” you may ask. Not necessarily. Authors usually know more about their book’s subject—and hence, about their target audience (market)—than anyone else. Hey, they wrote the book!

More food for thought about signing with a major publishing house: If for some reason your book doesn’t sell quickly and the publisher lets it go out of print, there’s often a “waiting period” before the author is allowed to self-publish the book to get it back on the shelves. In the meantime, the reading public sees that your book is “out of print” and a great deal of word-of-mouth damage is done. Self-publishing means that you are at the helm of your book project. Of course, it also means that the responsibility for its success rests in your hands. But when you believe in your message and know that you’re going to do everything in your power to get that message out to your target audience, isn’t it a good feeling to know that you’re the one driving its success in the marketplace?

I suggest a balance of control and delegation. The right publishing ally can coach you through the process of writing and editing your book, and will also advise you to design and market your message in a way that gets optimum results. Your publishing ally may be a book editor, a publishing consultant, a published author, or all three. If she’s worth her salt, though, she’ll know what it will take to get your book published, and she’ll know how to help you make it happen.

2. Money. Why does it make good business sense to self-publish? Consider the following: a contract with the book publisher doesn't give you an ironclad guarantee that your book will ever and upon the shelves. If you’re a new author, your publisher will allocate zero marketing dollars to promote your book. It's sink or swim! If your book does sell well, it will be due to your own hard work and ingenuity—and your reward will be a tiny fraction of the book’s total profits. Self-publishing admittedly involves more capital risk, but it also means that the extensive footwork you do to market your book will go to producing income for the person who most deserves it. After all, you’re the one who’s doing all the work to ignite word-of-mouth about your book. Not only that, you wrote it! Don’t you deserve to reap 100% of the profit?

3. No Waiting, No Rejection. The Cinderella story of the little book that gets discovered by a publisher and becomes an overnight bestseller is mostly just that—a fairytale. Yes , it happens. But it hasn't been happening a whole lot lately. In the current publishing climate, with major houses paying gigantic advances to celebrity authors—their “cash cows”—not much is left to spend on developing new talent. Let's be honest: a publisher isn't going to spend a dime marketing a book by an as yet unknown author. To get your book considered for publication in the first place, you'll need to have an extremely convincing marketing strategy in place which you intend to implement on your own, at your own expense! Such as the case in every genre from children's books to alternative health to historical novels. First-time authors are being turned away en masse. And since many nonfiction book projects are time-sensitive—well-placed offerings intended to respond to a specific market trend —their authors often while way their precious window of opportunity waiting for agents or publishers to respond to a proposal. It isn't impossible to get a major publishing house interested in a book by a first-time author, but it’s getting more difficult all the time. Self-publishing removes the wait (and the accompanying weight from your shoulders) and the discomfort of rejection from the process of getting your book into print.

4. Independence. Self-published authors are usually people with confidence in their message. Many have already developed a following by giving talks and seminars in areas where they live and work. Experts know when they have a powerful personal message—they don’t need a publisher’s approval to pump themselves up. Such authors, many of whom are already seasoned professionals, self-publish their books because they love being in the driver’s seat of their book project. Rather than gamble that a big corporation will treat their book with the respect it deserves, such an author takes the publishing reins to ensure that her message reaches the widest possible audience. No one cares more about your book than you do.

5. Power of Belief. The power of belief in our words is what makes promises good and turns dreams into reality. Authors who self-publish their books believe deeply that others will benefit from reading what they have to say. They have unshakable conviction. Such authors often tell me, “I had to write this book. I just have to get it out there!” Deep belief is the selfless power that drives all true service and makes a difference in the world. Authors with a strong sense of purpose know that they can make their books succeed. They don't want to wait around for a publishing house to “accept” their work. Aware that time is precious, such authors create their own publishing opportunities. They get behind their own message. They launch a campaign fueled with belief in the creative power of intention.

Every good editor or publishing consultant knows that the best way to make your book a true success is to create and market a message that you will both be proud of for years to come. Creating uplifting books is a passion. Make it yours, and every one of your books sold will be a vote of confidence in yourself and the rest of humanity!

How to Choose a LCD Monitor

2008-06-02T11:07:00.003+10:00

No matter how powerful or excellent your computer configuration is, your computer won't let you smile if you had a poor monitor, since monitors are your window into the computer - everything that happens in your software and applications happens via the monitor. It is hence very important to choose a good monitor to go along with your PC.

Traditionally, CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) monitors have been used for desktop computers. However, LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) monitors are now more and more popular. It's easy to see why: LCD monitors are affordable now, easier on the eyes, and they're slim/portable and of high quality plus laptops also use LCD screens.

Before you buy a LCD monitor, you will need to know the following things:

1. Your Budget
Of course, this is the very first thing you will need to consider, and once the budget is fixed, you narrowed your choices, and you may focus on a few models.

2. Your Requirements
If you're a graphics professional, you may prefer a CRT monitor because they are said to show more realistic colors. However, the latest high-end LCDs can also give equal color quality (Well, of course, you’ll have to pay much more for this than for a regular LCD monitor ).

If you are a demanding gamer, you may need a comparatively larger screen LCD monitor with a better response time, you won’t like the tails of the mouse, will you?

If you just want a computer for on-line surfing or occasional gaming, a LCD is a good choice because the various pixels that you find on a LCD will have nicely defined edges. This gives sharp and focus letters on the screen better than a CRT monitor does. However, a high-end LCD in this case is definitely unnecessary since you will never have a chance to make use of its advantages.

3. Resolution
If you have a computer with a video card that supports a resolution of 1680 x 1050, while you bought a large LCD monitor with a 1920 x 1200 resolution, then you won’t have the pictures/videos fully displayed on the monitor, or the pictures will look much less clear or sharp.

Besides the 3 points above, there are also many other things need your attention:

Panel Size: In an LCD monitor, the panel size reflects the viewable area you can use. Again, the measurement is made diagonally from one corner of the screen to the opposite corner. LCD panel sizes now range from 15 inches up to 23 inches or even larger.

Defective (dead/stuck) pixels: A LCD panel display may have certain defective pixels (red/dead…). But this can be identified by turning the desktop background into a whole black.

Viewing Angle: One problem specific to LCD monitors is the fact that you cannot see what is displayed if you move off to the side of the monitor too much. A greater viewing angle is therefore typically better - especially if you need to show presentations to others on the LCD screen very often.

If you do not want to bother yourself with those technical details, there is also another good way to choose a LCD monitor: to read reviews and ratings, for example, consult product reviews in computer magazines or on the Internet. Many different companies put monitors through rigorous testing and really can help you to buy wisely. A good site to consult about monitors is http://www.epinions.com/cmhd-Monitors-All, you may also find many customer reviews from resellers’ websites, for example, Newegg.com.