I bought a new logo design from www.virutaladagency.com I'll let you see it when ready.

We are tearing the walls down on our house. I can look right out the walls in some places. I have no storage. I can't wait until the insulation is done and we have drywall gain. Then I'll feel like I am living in a house.

New Resource: Logo Design

I've been looking around the net for different resources. I learned a long time ago that businesses which do not invest at least 20% of their profits into advertising will not grow, and rarely survives. But, what type of advertising do you need? The first thing you need is a good logo design. I was interested when I read some information on designing logos, and how they impact consumer decisions.

I did pay to have a logo made. I didn't get one made by a NY ad agency for $200, but I did have a good one made. I've used it for several years. The designer created my logo to appeal to women and build credibility as an educational resource. It was interesting that a professional logo design can be made to sell, buid credibility, attract members, and insite other emotional reactions.

Beware Free Contracts

There are dozens of websites that offer small businesses free contracts, or offer downloads of 'boilerplate' contracts. These can be a good thing, but they are never 'one size fits all' and they can turn into a nightmare if the business owner doesn't make sure they know the laws in their State/Province.



What You Should Know Before Copying Contracts from the Internet

Copying contracts from the Internet is a bit like wearing your old cousin’s hand-me-down dresses . . . in order to walk into a bee’s nest (an incongruous image, I know): yes, you’re \"covered,\" but the style is outdated and they usually don’t fit you well. Plus, they won’t provide you with the protection you need for your particular purpose.

Most small businesses can’t afford the Versace of contracts, and, frankly, it’s often not necessary. Sometimes, Kmart will do nicely. However, when you download something for free, it’s usually worth what you paid for it. Internet contracts need to be mended and altered to make sure they truly fit how you want to do business. But if you have limited experience in making clothing, you risk having the garment unravel at the seams if you try to do it yourself.

In the interest of saving money, you may have downloaded a freebie contract from the Internet. But it’s often what you don’t know -- and what’s not included in the document -- that can hurt you. Internet contracts can be helpful resources for identifying issues for you to think about, but are usually not well thought out, nor are they tailored to the needs of your particular business. If an agreement is not drafted in your favor, it may not give you the flexibility and protection that you really need from your business relationships.

For example, I’ve know of business owners who have formed limited liability companies (LLCs) and have downloaded their ownership agreements from the Internet. When \"Jemma\" got hers from a freebie Internet site, it looked long enough and comprehensive enough, so she and her co-owner (neither of whom are lawyers) signed it. Four months later, Jemma wanted to move to a different state to accommodate her husband’s career path; plus, Jemma learned that she was pregnant. So the time was right to transition to her new stage of life. But her LLC agreement only allowed her to leave the business (1) if she had died (which she hadn’t) or (2) as long as her co-owner agreed (which she didn’t). In short, Jemma’s agreement had no meaningful \"exit strategy.\" And Jemma did not know that these were among the issues she needed to focus on in creating and signing such an agreement. There were a whole host of things that the LLC agreement did not include, such as how to deal with the client base that each owner brought to the business, how to place a dollar value on the intellectual property that each owner contributed, and how to leave the business should life changes (other than Jemma’s death) arise. Jemma’s agreement didn’t cover any of these issues. In the face of an irate business partner and an insufficient agreement, Jemma found herself staring down the barrels of (1) a lengthy and expensive lawsuit to dissolve the business or (2) a less expensive (but more costly than it needed to have been) way to extricate herself from her business partner.

Similar things can happen with even the simplest of contracts with your customers. Download from the Internet all you like, but recognize that the document you copy (1) may not reflect the most recent changes in the law (how will you know? -- ask a lawyer!); (2) may contain provisions that are harmful to your business (or omit ones that could help you), and (3) may not properly reflect how you want to do business with your customers. Internet contracts may raise some of the important issues, without a doubt. But they don’t necessarily deal with the specific issues of your situation. In short, when downloading from the Internet: \"one size fits all\" usually means that \"one size fits none.\"

How to avoid this pitfall: ideally, by working with an attorney who really understands the legal issues that small businesses face. Although some entrepreneurs may try to economize with a do-it-yourself approach, they often end up costing themselves more because they are not trained, as attorneys are, to spot the issues and problems that can harm them. Taking the time to find a lawyer who meets your needs is one of the best investments you will ever make in the growth of your business. Find out more about how to hire and work with attorneys -- and keep your costs down -- by listening to the free audio class available through www.WiseCounselPress.com. With the help of your lawyer, you can start to make the smart decisions that will protect your company and save you money!

© 2005 Wise Counsel Press LLC. Nina L. Kaufman, Esq., is a small business attorney and the founder of Wise Counsel Press LLC, which offers easy-to-understand legal strategies that protect small businesses and save them money . . . wisely. To learn more, and to sign up for their FREE how-to articles and FREE audio class, visit www.WiseCounselPress.com.




With the help of your lawyer, you can start to make the smart decisions that will protect your company and save you money! © 2005 Wise Counsel Press LLC. Nina L. Kaufman, Esq., is a small business attorney and the founder of Wise Counsel Press LLC, which offers easy-to-understand legal strategies that protect small businesses and save them money . . . wisely. To learn more, and to sign up for their FREE how-to articles and FREE audio class, visit www.WiseCounselPress.com.











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Digg Series: The Basics

Kevin Rose's friend David Prager (The Screen Savers, This Week in Tech) originally wanted to call the site “Diggnation”, but Kevin wanted a simpler name. He chose the name "Digg", because users are able to "dig" stories, out of those submitted, up to the front page. The site was called “Digg” instead of “Dig” because the domain name “dig.com” was previously registered, by Walt Disney Internet Group. “Diggnation” would eventually be used as the title of Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht's weekly podcast discussing popular stories from Digg.

The original design was free of advertisements, and was designed by Dan Ries. As Digg became more popular, Google AdSense was added to the website. In July 2005, the site was updated to "Version 2.0". The new "version" featured a friends list, the ability to "digg" a story without being redirected to a "success" page, and a new interface designed by web design company Silverorange [2]. The site developers have stated that in future versions a more minimalist design will likely be employed. On Monday June 26, 2006 version 3 of Digg was released with specific categories for Technology, Science, World & Business, Videos, Entertainment and Gaming as well as a View All section where all categories are merged.

Digg has grown large enough that submissions sometimes create a sudden increase of traffic to the "dugg" website. This is referred to by some Digg users as the "Digg effect" and by some others as the site being "dugg to death". However, in many cases stories are linked simultaneously on several popular bookmarking sites. In such cases, the impact of the "digg effect" is difficult to isolate and assess. Wordpress is especially hated among diggers for its tendency to crash under the increased traffic.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digg





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Digg: How To Get On Top

There are people who study what hits the top of Digg, and what doesn't. The basics rule is that you don't need to get everyone of your articles up there to generate free content. Just write one good article and then promote it. Ask people to Digg it.


Top Categories on Digg

36% Technology
29% World and Business
18% Offbeat News
9% Science
7% Entertainment
1% Gaming


Types of article in the Top 100

38% News
15% Announcement
16% Story
11% Other
6% Story about Digg
5% General blog
4% Secret
3% Top list article
2% How to


If you write one article on Tehcnology news, you are most likely to get on top - in theory. These numbers could be skewed by the fact that there are digg groups promoting certain aritcles and burrying other articles.

The average number of words in the top articles are 650 with the chances of reaching the top levels decreasing as the article reaches 1000 words. No one really wants to read articles over 1500 words.

Comments

There is more chances of getting in the top 100 if your group leaves a comment. The more comments, the higher the comment will rank.








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Server Pronto

The Top Corporation ServerPronto is the place to find budget dedicated servers from $29.00 per month. They offer cheap managed servers. Excellent for new businesses that are getting started.

Server Pronto provides 24/7 customer support via a ticketing system. Their servers can be used for web development, email, photos, gaming, or all of the above.

This is a great place to start your own web based business.

Happy Earth Day -

The windows are open. The sky is blue. The air is warm. I love spring.Most years April is wet and cool. This year, the temperature is a balmy 20C.

I've already been to the garden centers. Their racks are still bare. The skids stacked in patient repose. Only the greenhouses are a hive of activity, their thousands of plants yearning for the summer's light.

Bloggers Starting to Mock Google

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1422253744/bclid1425858176/bctid1425858171

The net is full of reports by bloggers who have gone from making a good living to zip because of Google's last move. What Google didn't take into account was the fact that most bloggers do not rely on Google for the bulk of their income.

The above video shows the irreverance that bloggers have for Google. In the last two years, many bloggers are receiveing 10 000 hits a month plus, have large RSS subscriptions, lots of comments, and yet they don't make more than $1 a day from Google.

Why should they obey Google anymore when IZEA, payu2blog,and Blogsvertise has been paying the bills for many of them? It will be amazing to see what happens if bloggers totally turn their back on Google.

Get Paid to Post on YouTube

No one touches the web without learning what YouTube is. Now they are testing a new program in Australia where contributors earn money in exchange for a banner being placed on the ad. This revenue sharing is designed to help contributors who create good content.

http://au.youtube.com/partners

The program has been operating in the United States and United Kingdom for months. Some contributors are already earning thousands of dollars each month.

"It has certainly been an incentive for people to create more content," a YouTube Australia spokesman said.

"There are people overseas who have millions of video views and are earning thousands of dollars."

Many people have worked hard to become celebrities on YouTube. The secret to success is found in building a community and interacting with viewers.

Build Page Rank

Have you ever wanted to go blog hopping without the guilt? Smorty has created a new system that allows you to do just that. Much in the same way Diva Network is designed to let bloggers work together to build links, Smorty has added a tool that lets bloggers review each other's work. Best of all, it is free.

It is about time someone created a system where bloggers could support other bloggers. This is a great system. For every review you do for another blogger, someone does one for you. You do not need to activate all the blogs that are listed with smorty. All you need to do is activate the ones that you want to promote.

If you want someone to write a blog review your home blog then you will put the review on your home blog. To make it more 'fair,' smorty also matches blogs by Page Rank. This way, a blogger will not find themselves writing posts for PR0 sites and then posting a review on a PR4 site.

This is not a reciprocal links system. Smorty set up the system so that Blogger A reviews Blogger B. Blogger B reviews Blogger C. Blogger C reviews Blogger A. This keeps all the SEO and Page Rank algorithms clean.

Work at Home Review: WHAM.com

I normally warn people away form the free or buy-in opportunities on the net. Most of them are built for one purpose, to rip of the desperate. There is an old business saying 'if you want to become wealthy than cater to the lowest denominator.' This is true with the opportunities. They all cater to desperate people who need money - now. Unfortunately, these people are so desperate that they will put their grocery money down for the promise that someone will help them succeed.

Of all the WHAM (work at home mom) programs - the only one I ever have - ever will support is WHAM.com. That doesn't mean that I believe their site is 100% danger proof. But, if you need to have your hand held, and to have someone show you how to manage your time, money, and business, then this is the place to find help.




Work at Home Moms Opportunity- are These Hard to Find?


Many mom dream of staying at home and being a full time mom. Money is usually the biggest thing preventing that from happening which is really sad when you think about it.

So in order to be a stay at home Mom you have to find a work at home Moms opportunity that you can start making money with. it does always seem to come back to making money doesn't it!

You can choose to start your home business with many different work at home Moms opportunities. You just have to take the time to do some research to find the opportunities that will be the best for you.

Don't give in and pick the first work at home opportunity you come across. Before you decide you have to thoroughly check out each one.

Most Moms get online to start a business but they want to do something that has to do with kids or with other things that Moms know a lot about. So decide what type of products you would like to sell and then look for a work at home opportunity that has them.

You can also find the opportunity and then look at the products if you don't have any clue about what you want to do. One idea would be to help other moms start their own online business by teaching tips you have learned.

You can find a lot of opportunities that are put together with Moms in mind. In other words, you can find a work at home Moms opportunity that only Moms would be interested in doing.

One website that really caters to work at home moms is WAHM.com. This is a website for moms and helping them make money working at home.

One way many moms choose to do is know as affiliate marketing. This is where you get paid to sell other people's products. There are several good places to elarn more about affiliate marketing.

One website that offers affiliate programs in many different areas is CJ.com. AssociatePrograms.com is another site that has a directory of affiliate programs, affiliate marketing training, and a discussion forum.

This is just a few ideas to start with. Just remember that it is not hard to find a work at home moms opportunity if you are willing to take the time to look for it. The Internet is the perfect place to do just that.

Guy Mendelson invites you to visit his work at home business idea website for hundreds of internet marketing tips. work at home moms opportunity

Free Computer Security Software

Most people do not realize that working on the Internet can slow their computers down. The internet fills your computer with cookies and tracking software scrips. Every time you open a page you add to your cache. Not looking after a computer can lead to all sorts of problems.

I recommend AVG I used the Free AVG for the longest time, about 5 years. It protected me better than Norton did. In fact, I bought a new computer with Norton installed. It was working slow within 3 weeks so I ran AVG and found 250 extra viruses and tracking cookies that were slowing the computer down.

I also use Lavasoft spyware. I do have a fire wall with AVG, and spyware, in my paid version, but nothing beats lavasoft for finding a few 'loose cannons' in the files.

I do not trust Windows Defender - end of story.

I use AVG firewall, but if you can't pay for the full version of AVG then get ZONE ALARM.



--------------------------

Looking After Your Computer


If you are going to work and do a lot of browsing on the Internet, the first thing you need to learn is how to take care of your computer.

It is far better that you take the trouble to look after your computer regularly, rather than have it freeze or crash when you lose everything on it, at which time you’ll have to pay out a lot to have it fixed.

Here are some tips to prevent disasters:

1) Set your virus checker to update itself automatically. This way, it is always updated with the latest protection.

2) Scan your computer daily when you finish working on it.

3) If on a certain day you happen to download many pages, software, programs, zipped files, exe files, etc., immediately after downloading everything, scan your computer. This way, just in case a virus existed in anything you downloaded, you will catch it in time before it infects your entire Hard Drive.

4) Use your online scanner to scan your computer once a week.

5) Use your adware/spyware checker once a week.

6) Do not open any attachments in emails from people you do not know.

7) Do not open any attachments even from people you do know, if you are not expecting anything from them.

8) A virus could replicate itself to everyone on the address book and send itself out by email, without the owner even knowing this has been done.

9) Do not download free music on the Internet – these free sites are always infected.

10) Do not download any free games from the Internet.

11) Adult sites are particularly prone to viruses.

12) Back up all your data on a daily basis. Use floppy disks, flash drives, memory sticks, zip disks, CD-ROMs, etc.

13) Print out contracts, payment forms, agreements and all legal documents and file them away in a ring-binder.

14) Try not to keep anything to do with your finances, payment details, payment processor passwords, credit card details, etc. on your computer.

15) A hacker could easily access all these details, if they are anywhere on your computer.

Sadly, despite all these precautions your computer might still get infected, as the people who invent these malicious programs are getting even sneakier.

When this happens, the easiest way to rid your computer of a virus is by rebooting your computer. This is not as difficult as it may sound, and if you learn how to do this yourself you could save yourself hundreds of dollars in repair bills.

Author: Pooja Rani

Have You Forgotten About Technorati?

We all know what technorati is. We claimed our blogs when we first started to blog. But, over time we stopped going to technorati to ping our blogs. We let them go out of date. We stopped using technorati.

Now to be honest - I know about the melt down. I know about the apparent 'lost' service rep hiding out in the basement of some dark office tower...as the urban legend goes.

But, despite that, technorati should not be ignored. There is a new tool at technorati that lets you access your tehnorati account from blogger, AOL, wordpress, and other blog platforms using the open ID feature.

It is also important to remember that many ranking systems, such as the one used at sponsored reviews, give your technorati rank importance. That said - thencorati (like Google) doesn't count all your links.

I personally have tried to use their search and am not impressed. After 10 minutes of being told there were no posts in my blogs (of 8 paid post blogs) with the tag 'blog' and then trying a site wide search to be told that no one is blogging on 'blogs' - I gave up.






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Social Networking and Music

Youtube brought social networking and music video together. This community has done a lot to let people meet friends, network, meet business colleagues, and share. This platform has been so successful that other sites have taken the premise one step farther.

If you are not comfortable in the 'kid zones' of social networking then join 3gb community www.3gb.biz. One of the advantages 3gb has over the other sites is that people actually talk to each other. They are not just pumping their own product online and hoping someone else will hit their posts.

This makes 3gb more effective and fun than 99% of the other networking sites. I give this site a thumbs up and think it is a great place for my blog fans. This site not only lets you share photos, but you can share MP3 as well.

If you want to chat with me then just find the following avatar or gracepub

Open Source Survives

(NSDQ: MSFT)
It's bad enough that Microsoft is threatening to sue the independents who are creating open source software. But what's hard to take is their belief that you cannot create your own scripts without stealing Microsoft code for your project. At the Open Source Business Conference in San Francisco, one show organizer took revenge. Remember, Linux was well established while MS was still working out of a garage.

Jonathan Corbet, the man in question, said in a panel at the Conference in San Francisco last May:

"I feel I've been called a thief," he said levelly during a panel at the event, and pointed out that Microsoft was one of the companies that had patented "thousands of trivial functions ... There's no way to write a nontrivial program that can't be claimed to infringe on someone's patents."

What MS doesn't want you to know is that there is a lot of open source code floating around their programs.

This is an old - old - argument. Open source and corporations have been arguing over ownership of code for generations. There are millions of dollars of stolen code floating through corporate America.

Programmers can identify their work because they may put their babies birth date, or the first date they kissed their husband, into the code. They are always finding code being sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars that contains their code - but gives them no credit.

This could be one reason why Vista won't let so many software programs work on their system. This limits the number of open source software you can use if you have Vista.

What does this mean for us? Open Source doesn't mean second hand, not good enough, or second rate quality. It does mean 'free for public use.'

I use some open source and free software. Most of Google's toolbar tools are open source and donated.

If you want to try out some open source software programs then visit:

http://www.opensourcewindows.org/
http://www.tucows.com/

Should You Try to Control Google’s Adsense Ads?

There is a lot of controversy over whether a blogger should put meta code in their blog templates, and use H1, H2, H3, heading tags to control the ads Google puts on their blog.

I am on the pro side. I find that the meta tags and heading codes gives me the freedom to go a little ‘off topic’ without worrying about having random, low paying, and off topic ads appear in my Google Adsense towers.

That said, many bloggers think they are missing Google’s highest paid opportunities by trying to control the system. They argue that the click through rate may be lower, and that google’s sliding scale will slide farther down in Google’s favor. All – reasonable and realistic possibilities.

The answer to the question is personal, but should also depend on whether you expect to earn most of your revenue from Google. Most bloggers do not.

In fact, most bloggers are lucky to receive one or two checks a year. Not Google’s fault. They tell you how bloggers how to succeed. There are a lot of blogs like this one that teach bloggers how to succeed. The problem is that most bloggers do not get it.

I’ve talked to many new bloggers who think that posting 10 articles a month is horrible, let alone 50 or 100. Yet, they want the same income as bloggers who do post this number of blogs. The facts are clear. Bloggers cannot work on their blog ‘in their spare time’ and expect to earn a full time income.

But, if the blogger does put the work into their blog, I think they should stick with the ads that have proven to pay in the past, the ones which their readers click through most often…and to do that, you need to control Google using legal SEO tricks.

Common Business Mistake: Bad Publicity

Marketing Through Controversy Can Backfire
There are success stories that used controversy to build a brand name and to promote their business through controversial issues. This may include using swear words in the product to outright rebellion against the system. It is true that many of us never hear of a person or product before the controversy. That doesn’t mean their sales increase with the exposure.

Ruffling feathers in some venues may increase sales as people rush out to buy the product (or read the blog/book) to see what the controversy is about. But, think about the long term. When you offend people they want nothing to do with you. You alienate part of the market.

It also stains your company/personal brand. You are never again seen with the same respect or social standing. Branding is the one thing that people remember about you/your business. It is important to make sure that your marketing campaign focuses on the positive – problem solving – customer friendly aspects of the business.

If you are considering to spark controversy then it is vital that you know everything about your target audience. Who will buy the product – not who will jump on the controversy bandwagon. What is the risk assessment. How far do you want to offend people.

Can you realistically expect to earn more money by losing a large segment of your target audience?

Avoid Common Mistakes: Slamming the Competition

Many businesses work hard to offer more than the competition does. They go the extra mile. They take a bigger profit cut. These are all good promotion and marketing tactics. They are the foundation of a solid marketing campaign that will work for small ecommerce business owners as well as brick-and-mortar business owners.

The problem comes when the business owner starts to highlight the differences. There is a fine line between highlighting the best in your business and bad mouthing the competition. Even if the complaints are legit. Even if there are thousands of reviews stating the same thing as your internet marketing campaign does. If you badmouth the competition clients will see ‘you’ as the bad one – sale lost.

Vacations as Tax Write Offs for Writers

Have you ever seen those websites where the owners and successful members are all on vacation, laughing it up, enjoying the good life? Well, why don’t you do it? I am not saying that you need to broadcast all of your holiday pictures across the internet. But, there are some pictures that make you look successful.

One of the best things to do is have your picture taken with successful people. This can be done either locally or internationally. No matter where you vacation, there are dozens of chances to meet someone photo-worthy.

Branding is about fame. It is about making your image and name recognizable. One way to do that is to impact the viewer and make them remember. A good way to do this is to associate with famous people. Keep in mind, fame is relative. It is also illusive. If you hang with famous people – even if no one has heard of them – then you must be famous.

Also, if you use your vacation to promote your product, take pictures at famous places, take pictures with famous people, and research the competition then the vacation becomes a tax write off.

Submit Blogs To Paid Posts Carefully

It is a hard decision to make. I have 30 blogs. They are not all submitted to PayPerPal, Smorty, etc. I have two trains of thought on the purpose. I do have blogs that will earn money at all. I think I would probably make $500 - $1000 more a month if I submit to all.

The problem is, can my blogs carry 30% more load for every new agency? If I submit a blog to all of the big three, that might mean I will need to post 5 – 10 new posts per blog, per agency. This translates into 15 – 30 new blog posts.

This doesn’t count the ‘real content.’ I do use free content, but each of those posts start with up to 100 words of my own thoughts. I already write about 30 posts a week, with 60 more ‘real content’

Not only would my workload increase if I submitted all blogs to all PayPerPost agencies, but so would my subscriber load. I currently have about 35 subscribers. Each of these receive up to 30 posts a week in their email. Doubling this would not only be rude, they would leave me.

It is something a blogger needs to consider. Even paid post blogs have loyal subscribers and they have people who visit their website on a regular basis. I have about 300 return visitors on one blog. I consider them more valuable.

So, what do you do if you need to make more money? The solution is either to increase your page rank so you earn more money per post (I have earned as much as $50 for a post). Or, you can just create more blogs. (note: I said blogs not splogs)
Before answering the question you need to determine which blogs you want to selectively choose the blog posts you want to be on your site, and which ones you don’t mind having ads on.

This will organically divide your blogs. If you are striving for PR4 or higher on a blog, then don’t sign with a company like blogsvertise which doesn’t give you a choice and penalizes you if you continually reject blog posts.

Work at Home: Team Double Click

I am not going to turn this into a 'learn how to work at home' blog. If you want to learn how to work at home then visit one of my home based business blogs. http://www.wealthy-writer.com/ is a new blog that I am setting up to help writers turn their hobby into a paid career. http://divanetworking.blogspot.com/ is designed to help bloggers learn how to increase traffic

I teach work at home skills and offer advice at these blogs. Not everyone is able to work independently, so I have always suggested this site: http://www.teamdoubleclick.com/freelance.html for people who want to be trained to do full time work from home. Team Double Click has been around for years, has received major awards and accolades in the business world and are 'reputable.' They do not want you to 'buy into' a program. Instead, they want you to complete work in a timely manner.

Prevent Failure

Answering these questions will tell you what type of work at home business you will succeed at, and whether you are predestined to run your own business, or work with an organization. Everyone will have some of these to a greater or lesser extent. The ability to succeed is based in our ability to take an honest look at ourselves and prevent our weak personality traits from sabotaging our success.

1. I don’t read self help books, or I read self help books but they don’t help.

If your marriage is on the rocks, then you try to fix what is wrong with your spouse. If you are not being promoted at work, then it is because people are against you. You have lofty goals, but something always gets into the way.

There is no right answer to the above. It is the attitude that is pulling you down. Your boss may be against you, but your unwillingness to admit that you have faults and work ‘hard’ to fix them (no matter how hard it hurts) is what is ruining your chances of success.

2. You let your emotions make decisions for you.

You are going to buy a car. You walk into a lot and walk out with a car. You never sit down and calculate the true, long-term, cost of the car. You drive it and then buy – trusting your 10 minute drive to tell you everything you need to know about the make, model, manufacturer, and resell value of the car.

You stay in an unsatisfactory job for years because you are afraid that you’ll not measure up when you go to interviews. You would rather not try than have your feelings hurt.

These people find it easy to start a project , but they rarely finish them. They may write a book, but they won’t edit it. They will set up a web-business, but won’t do the internet marketing.

3. You are afraid of making choices.

You date for years, always wondering if this is the right one, will something better come along, what happens if they change after marriage.

You won’t leave a bad situation – marriage – job – house – because it is a decision. This is especially dangerous when combined with a person who lets their emotions make decisions for them.

3. You are motivated by an emotional need.

You can be motivated by guilt
Your house is perfect because it makes you feel better than others
You write a book because authors are special
You fix things to keep others from being angry
You do without to keep others from being angry – you don’t like to rock the boat.
You can easily be emotionally blackmailed. You hate saying ‘no’ to anyone.

These emotional needs always pit us against others. We are always striving to be better than others. We may even have a victim complex, where we feel needed even thought we are being victimized.

4. Low Self Esteem

I am never doing enough
I let everyone down
I am always saying sorry

Get Started on Wikipedia

What is the #8 the sight on Alexandria? Wikipedia. This is not only the world's largest encyclopedia, but it is a user managed forum. Most of the editors are corporations. This is a great tool for anyone who wants to educate the world on a topic.

Wikipedia is written collaboratively by volunteers. Since 2001, Wikipedia has grown into the largest reference Website with 75,000 active contributors maintaining9,000,000 articles in 250 languages. Visitors do not need specialized qualifications to contribute, since their primary role is to write articles that cover existing knowledge. The objective is to create a human conscious, a collection of the worlds knowledge - to move it from books to the web in 'bite sized' easy to read segments.

This is arguably the only downfall of wikipedia. There is not enough room to study a topic in full depth - say 10 000 words.

But there are other resources: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Main_Page Wiki Books gives away free textbooks .... sort of.

Wikiversity http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Main_Page offers free education .... sort of. I found a lot of course outlines and syllabus, but almost all the ones I looked into lacked a few fundamental elements - like lessons.

That could be seen in two ways. One, there is a lot of room to grow on wikipedia and there is room for people to build their credentials by editing the encyclopedia. Or, the project is a big bust. Only time will tell.

Editing Wikipedia

Step 1: Register

1. Go to Wikipedia.org,
2. choose a language,
3. create account,
4. follow the instructions.

Step 2: Read the Guides

This will avoid frustration. There are articles on editing, formatting, community rules, About Wikipedia, Editing Wikipedia Pages How to edit a page. If you don't plan to spend a few days reading, yes days, then don't read any farther. This is not a venue for the weak of heart or those who lose interest quickly.

Wikipedia in Brief, spells isn’t acceptable. I would start here.

Step 3: Start Editing.

Okay people, for Pete's Sake, don't write in the text editor. Go to word and do your work. Editing is fairly simple, click the edit link and start making corrections, additions, and rewrites, then click submit.

Like all content management systems, this is NOT WYSIWYG. You'll have to learn a hyroglypic but it won't be any harder than learning HTML. Wikipedia Style Manual. The code is tedious, but it is a very common form of coding - just not a public one.

I doubt you can jump on wiki and start promoting your business. However, you'll be able to have your say, and even though wiki is public, being an editor is something worth putting on your resume, well not being on par with being a DMOZ editor. but you can feel good that you are working for the collective good of all mankind.

Start a Link Building Campaign

It amazes me that all bloggers know about Del.ici.ous, technorati, and stumbleupon, but don't know about blogsvine, blogowogo, blogsworld, blogged, blogscope, blogcatalog, Digg or other blog catalogues. If you know of more, then please suggest them in contents

Why do I promote these three? Because if you post your articles on them, the article will appear on Google searches. The pages will be indexed, and you'll build Page Rank.

I've been posting to technorati and digg for years, but never find my submissions on search engine searches. This means that my efforts only reach the 'Social Networking System's Readers.' This is no big hardship, as I get a lot of traffic from stumbleupon and technorati.

My time is valuable. I need indexed pages and incoming links. That is why I like these sites. I need 100 links to give me PR increases. That is not 'any' 100 links but ones that Google consider relevant. This is true for IZEARank. I need inbound links from them.

This networking group (divanetworking) is helping me get inbound links, but we don't need to limit our link building campaigns.

I use to buy inbound links. Then Google gave my only blog with 'purchased' links a PR0, down from PR4. I am not sure whether this is because I copied and pasted a disclosure (picking up a bit of HTML code hidden in the words) that alerted Google to the fact that I sold links.

I now put my efforts into organic link building. My Time is valuable. I spent most of today and only earned about 80 inbound links across 12 of my blogs. This is not wasted time. It will pay off by increasing my website's PR and indexed value. It will also increase traffic

Blogsvine

Blogsvine lets bloggers post their blogs, one post at a time. Members vote for the articles. Because the site hasn't been hijacked by 4 networking groups, the voting is fair - or more fair than digg. Everyone has a chance to get on page one.

Voting is easy as a single click. You can submit posts written by friends. There is a blog watch list where you can promote friend's blogs. The only drawback is their widget for listing the member's blogs. It is far to small to hold all my blogs.

Blogged

I love this site. People can write reviews for blogs. I had someone else list http://www.healthafter40.blogspot.com on there and reviewed by someone else.

This is just a list of blogs, like a website search engine, but it does provide one link.

Blogcatalog

This is one of the most powerful social networking tools I've ever found. The trick to success and higher page views is to put the 'recently viewed' widget on your page. Many people will become your fans just for the view on your page.

Some of my blogs give me 2 links from here, my profile and my blog's page, but not always. A lot of times I just get a single link toward Page Rank.

Blogowogo

I haven't figured out everything on this site yet. You submit a blog, it brings the feed up on their site, and people vote for the article. I think that the 'no votes' and the low votes will disappear, while the high votes remain on the site.

I think this is one of my favorite sites. I get the concept, but don't ever overload these systems.

I usually post a couple articles a month, and vote on a few things every week. No matter how many weblinks that you have on these sites, Google only lists 1 or 2, not matter whether you enter the tag name - divanetworking.blogspot - divanetworking or use the Links: http://divanetworking.blogspot.com or any variation. You will only find that Google counts one or two.

Blogscope

BlogScope is an analysis and visualization tool for blogosphere which is being developed as part of a research prject at the the Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto.

We currently have over 23.48 million blogs with 275.01 million posts in our database. After removing non-english content and spam posts, we index 152.57 million documents.

I think this would be an amazing analytical tool that can be very profitable for pro bloggers and webmasters if they take time to learn how to use it. But, for the rest of us, it will generate at least one link.

Blogsworld

This appears to be a blog search engine. The only thing I give it points for is the index and link you get from it.

Digg

The difference from Digg, is that articles which do have votes, appear to show up on searches - more than the standard 2. This is good news for people who are trying to increase their page link. The average blogger posts 20 times to his blog a month. That means that in 5 months a blog can increase (in theory) one PR from digg alone.

I still don't know if it matters whether people vote and that somehow puts the article into a separate category - maybe one of the readers has an answer.

I have a lot of articles on Digg. I just put up 5, for diva, and asked friends to vote. Yet, Google still only gives me credit for 2 links.

MyBlogLog Yahoo

I haven't been to this one, but it appears to be Yahoo's version of blogcatalogue. I'll take a look into it. Some of these services I found accidentally because someone else tagged one of my blogs. In fact, almost all my blogs are on blogger - but I didn't even have an account.

Helium

Putting articles on your helium account with your url in it won't create a link. However, that page will appear high on the searches when someone searches the keyword phrase in your domain name, or your domain itself.

I don't receive any link value from Helium, but I do receive traffic and it always appears somewhere on the list of top 100 referes when I study my web-analytics software.

Free Articles

Still, one of the best ways to generate inbound links. The trick is to spread your articles across the net. Of course, if you want publication in newsletters then you want to submit good information and submit as much as possible.

If you want inbound links, then only submit 2 articles to each free content site. Repeat this every month or so.

I've done searches for clients whom I have written more than 400 articles for. I can find those articles across the net at different free content sites - but google on This client has about 2500 links from those articles as well as clients that publish.


Conclusion

Before you get upset, I know that google includes the cached pages. This blog, divanetworking has only 32 links, but if you go to the last page and click:



In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 32 already displayed. If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included.

Then you get almost 400. Now, this blog has PR3, which is in line with the '100 links needed to increase PR by +1. I also find the rest of my article links - but most of them do not take me to my article, but to a 'page.' The value of these is suspect.

However, www.inspiredauthor.com has 211 links without counting the 'relevant results' that are hidden. Because many of these are PR4, it would explain why IA has a PR4. I lean toward the belief that google doesn't count the relative links because IA has 19 999 'legit' ones that Google counts (about 45 000 in total). If google counted all of them, I should have at least PR8 on this site.




IF you think the information in this article was good, please DIGG it. Just click here and vote.

What Do You Do When Your Computer Breaks

My Microsoft Natural Ergonomic 4000 keyboard just failed. I am not going to get into the importance of an ergonomic keyboard for work anyone who types more than 5 hours a day. If you don't have one - you'll learn how important it is soon enough.

After my keyboard broke I did the natural thing - called warranty and asked them for a replacement. The replacement worked fine - for 1 week - then it broke. This time I decided to call support.

Most people do not call support because they are afraid of being charged. If you have a broken computer, or tech problem, do not go to the computer or Microsoft website to find service. That is where you will pay.

Instead, find the documentation that came with the computer and look for the service number on it. Or, if you have software loaded onto your computer that makes the keyboard work, then go into there and look for support options.

If you use the phone numbers found in here, you will (probably) not be charged for support.

Do I Let a Tech Onto My Computer?

This can be a hard call. I've let techs on my computer several times - and watched them closely. Most of the time there is no problem. But, it only takes once.

Last fall I let a Dell tech from overseas onto my computer (If you call dell service at 3am you'll get American geeks who can fix everything. I think they could even fix your microwave via the PC access tool.)I watched the screen closely as the tech went through several steps and then started doing things that gave me a coronary.

This tech - without consulting me - started to reformat my C:// drive. I immediately stopped her and asked what the ... 'what are you doing?" She informed me that the 'book' said that if a) b) and c) doesn't work then she needed to reformat my hard drive.

I asked her if she knew that reformatting the hard drive would wipe all the data from my files. She agreed. I asked if she considered letting me back up my data? (I type about 10000 words a day, and make an average of 20 - 30 additions/changes to my project manager, as well as accounting, communications, meeting archives).

Her response was 'no, why? Is there anything important on your computer?" It took me about 3 days to get over the shock.

This time I tried a few alternative methods of repairing my computer and came to the conclusion that I needed to back up my C:// and then reformat my computer, which I did, without the tech's help.

I wonder if the tech knew that we would automatically disconnect from PC2PC when she started to format the drive? I doubt it.

Again - this is why I trust the tech support listed on the manufacturer's fliers and brochures that come with the equipment.

PS. After a 10 minute service call to the manufacturer's support desk my keyboard

Intro To Pro Blogging: Ethics

I know there are a lot of amateurs and writers who abuse the system, but it is nice to see that the pro blogging community mature. I recently saw a client come up at PayPerPost who wanted bloggers to ‘say’ they saved a lot of money last Christmas by shopping at their website. That client’s post hung on the opportunity board for three days.

If you are unfamiliar with pro blogging, hanging on the board for 15 minutes without being snatched up would have been impressive. Most posts are taken before the average blogger can click the assignment and type in the verification code – which I can usually so in less than 4 seconds.

The ethical problem is one that is interesting. No one cares if a newspaper lies to increase readership. Everyone turns a blind eye when a magazine chooses their lead story ‘after’ they find out who their big advertiser is this month. And, no one complains when their television show is intruded on to post several minutes of ads in a row.

The information in this article has been compiled from information shared by the pro bloggers at http://www.divanetworking.blogspot.com

Disclosure Policy

I have full disclosure at the bottom of every page on my blogs:

This blog accepts forms of cash advertising, sponsorship, paid insertions or other forms of compensation. The compensation received will never influence the content, topics or posts made in this blog. All advertising is in the form of advertisements generated by a third party ad network. The owner of this blog is compensated to provide opinion on products, services, websites and various other topics. Even though the owner(s) of this blog receives compensation for our posts or advertisements, we always give our honest opinions, findings, beliefs, or experiences on those topics or products. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely the bloggers' own. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer, provider or party in question. This blog does contain content which might present a conflict of interest. This content may not always be identified.

This disclosure statement tells people the full scope of what my readers can expect.

The Content

The ethics of whether a company wants to sponsor a blog in exchange for a link is not the issue. The issue is bloggers who lie, write adcopy, and blatant advertising that misleads the readers. Whether there are no-follow codes in the blog – or not – doesn’t change the fact that the blogger is being paid to write that blog post.

There is nothing difference between a link in a blog post, and a link in a Google ad bar in the side column of a blog, except that Google ads hi-jack the reader and takes them away from the blogger’s site.

The content should be honest, relevant to the blog, give ‘real’ information to the reader, and not be misrepresented.

The Advertiser

The advertiser has certain expectations. Removing a blog post is not ethical. Some agencies permit their bloggers to remove posts after one year. Some even allow the use of no-follow links. Trying to trick the advertisers and their clients is unethical.

One way to overcome the advertiser problem is to sign with an agency which forces bloggers to accept posts. There are agents that let bloggers pick and choose which opportunities they feel comfortable blogging about.

Subscribers

The bloggers and agencies sometimes forget the subscribers when they are negotiating the aspects of ethical and moral blogging. It is unethical to write a splog. A splog is created to sell and promote a product. A legit blog promises readers that they will read about a certain topic or niche, and keeps that promise. They do not try to trick them, or use deceptive tactics to make sales.

One overlooked aspects of subscribers is the percentage of paid posts vs. organic posts. The minimum should be 30% paid posts. However, readers prefer a 50/50 balance. This means that to selection of 10 paid posts a week, then the subscribers will receive up to 50 posts a week through their RSS subscriptions. It can be considered unethical to spam the subscribers. Again, it all depends on how the information is sent to members.

A blogger who posts 50 or more articles a week should use a feed instead of sending emails to the subscribers inbox. Spamming anyone, even if they opt in, is unethical, and possibly illegal.


Conclusion

Honoring the moral and legal ethics of pro blogging does not decrease the chances of making a good living as a pro blogger. Just think of yourself as a digital newspaper. Keep the information insightful, honest, and cutting edge. Respect other bloggers, the clients and the readers.

Earn a good reputation – and you’ll easily make $1000 - $2000 a month. To learn more, and meet other bloggers who earn this much money each month – ethically – then visit www.divanetworking.com




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Intro to Pro Blogging

This article is not designed to tell you how to make money online but what elements ‘define’ the pro blogger and to outline the basic steps to help people start their own professional blogging business.

I had a writer ask today what the difference between a freelance writer and a pro blogger was. There are many ways to make money as a blogger, and even earn a few hundred dollars a month as a blogger. This doesn’t make you a pro blogger.

The Blogs

The blog topics of a pro blogger are vital. Not all topics will earn money. News, technology, health, parenting, pets, and other ‘hot topics’ need to be researched well. The write must be able to write good content, on an ongoing basis.

To do this, pro bloggers must belong to the right newsletters, associations, and forum groups. This helps them gain cutting edge information that their readers need. They also need to learn the difference between a blog and a splog. Spam blogs, splogs, are artificially created weblogs which promote affiliated websites or increase the PageRank or backlink portfolio of affiliate websites, or artificially inflate paid ad impressions from visitors, and/or a link outlet to get new sites indexed.

Spam blogs content is often either inauthentic text or merely stolen from other websites. These blogs contain a high number of links to sites associated with the splog creator.

A blog owner can link to their other blogs, but they usually change the links, keep the numbers down, and include elements that make the blog ‘legit.’

• A legit blog has no more than 30% paid blog posts.
• Any duplicate or free content articles start with about 100% original content.
• The blog has feed and RSS tools for subscribers.
• The blog discusses a topic – does not promote a product, affiliate, or service.
• They have their own domain
  

Many people post an RSS feed in a blogger blog, and call it their own blog. They then post ads around it, and use it to promote their own products.

The Promotion

The pro blogger will invest money and time into promoting their blogs. They will work to get their Page Rank up including:

• Buying targeted traffic
• Building RSS and Feeds
• Submit to Search Engines
• Comment on PR6 and above blogs
• They ping to all the search engines by posting daily
• They social networks
• Work at Digg, Tehcnorati, blogcatalogue
• And promote the blog – not a third party product
• May ‘not’ buy directory links as this will lower their Google Page Rank
  

Most legit blogs have a Page Rank higher than PR3 or PR4. They need Pr4 minimum to make money. They will use promotion tools to get PR5 or higher. No blogger with less than PR5 can hope to earn a good income.

Generating Revenue

There are three ways to generate income: Paid Posts, Pay Per Click Ads, Affiliate campaigns. Successful income generation in all three of these depends on PageRank5 or higher and high traffic numbers.

The average PPC payment for a blog with a Page Rank of PR3 is 2%, while the PPC payment for a PR6 is 10 – 30%. This is quite a difference.

The average Paid Per Post earning for a PR3 blog is $5 a post. The average PPP earning for a PR6 blog is $45.

This is why bloggers work hard to get PR5 and higher on their blogs. It is a full time job. They work a minimum of 40 hours a week at their job. There is nothing ‘part time’ or ‘passive income’ in this business.

Importance of Blogs

Many people might think someone who manages 30 – 50 blogs is clogging the Internet. This is not true. I have dozens of subscribers to my RSS feeds and subscriptions who comment regularly on my blogs. I design my pro blogs as news feeds, or as free online courses. This gives my readers more information.

I also include a full disclosure that tells people that I do earn money through the blog. This disclosure statement is at the bottom of each page ( check out http://www.healthafter40.blogspot.com ) I also do not try to ‘hide’ my paid posts. I also sign with advertising agencies that let me pick and choose the ads I want to post on my blogs.

I never try to hide the fact that a paid post is sponsored. I make sure the title ‘alerts’ my readers that the following post is sponsored. They can then choose to read it or not. My subscribers respect this, and most of them do not object to the fact that I am paid for giving them free content.

Definition of a Pro Blogger

This tutorial is based on the efforts and practices of the pro bloggers at http://www.divanetworking.blogspot.com who support each other and work as pro bloggers. It is designed to help amateur bloggers see what they are doing wrong, and how they can improve their income generations, Page Rank, and find friends and allies among other pro bloggers.

Get Paid to List Your Video Classifieds

Most new ecommerce business owners are unaware of all the options available to them. They find out about the obvious ones, but it often takes too long to learn the 'good ones.' That is why so many online business owners fail. They quit long before they ever learn how successful online business owners do business.

For example, why list on craig if you can list on Listasaurus.

Listasaurus not only lets people sell online using video ads. It also pays them for listing on their site. This is a vast difference from the mainstay venues which charge people to list on their service. Listing one video is free. Businesses only pay $5 for a 30 day listing of a video. Remember, this is per listing - not per sale, or per product.

Using video classifieds can vastly increase the chances of selling a car, showing the whole car, inside, outside, and even when it is moving. The video is perfect for selling a home also. Instead of a picture, a video can walk the home owner through the house.

It is perfect for any product sold at the 'bay.' Instead of a picture of a computer - show the computer downloading, operating, and the screen quality through video. This is a more powerful sale's pitch than just adding a 'We guarantee no DOA' clause in the ad.

And don't forget - you are being paid by listasaurus to put your video classifieds on their site. So you can increase exposure for the items you are selling, and your business, while being paid to do it.

How to Get Free PR6 Links

We chat away at communati without realizing that there are some big blogs at communati. I've run across a couple with PR4. It brings me back to the common question

"Why don't people leave comments on blogs?"

This is one of the most self-serving aspects of Internet Marketing. But, there is a trick to getting your comments approved.

Have a Good Reputation

Many of the big bloggers love comments. They will publish anything that is witty and clever. Especially the big websites. I post comments on many PR8 and higher blogs, using various 'links' or website URLs to my blogs. This is why some of my fairly new blogs have PR4 and higher.

But, I must have a good reputation. Gracepub has an excellent reputation and many sites, including Reuters and the New York Times, are pleased to have my comments on their sites.

I recently put 10 comments on one PR 8 blog and saw my PR increase 1.5 within a month. Now, there is a trick to this. You can't go in one day and put all the links on the pages. The links must be on the high PR page when Googe's robots come looking.

How to Pick Blogs to Leave Comments On

So, how do I pick the blogs that I want to promote on? I go to Digg's home page and look for blogs on the top 10 pages. I won't stick specifically to the top page. I will look for blogs that don't have 300 comments, but get more than 200 diggs. Each of these diggs read that page. While very few viewers will follow a link in a comment to my blog, the Internet Marketing benefits equal what I normally pay $200 - $400 a month to obtain.

When I pick a blog I will go to www.iwebtool.com and check their page rank at www.selfseo.com and www.iwebtool.com - I always check on two or three different sites because not all PR prediction tools work.

I will never save a blog with a PR less than 5. It is a waste of time. Increasing Page Rank needs about 1000 comments on PR0 blogs but only 5 on a PR8 blog to increase MY blog's PR.

Next, I will look for blogs that are not 'niche' or 'network.' There are some tech blogs where everyone is involved in a PR campaign. I don't get involved with these because I am not wanted. These bloggers will never come and comment on my blog.

The perfect blog is one with a PR5 or higher, and where the web owner will come and leave a comment on my blog. It rarely happens, but when you find one of these, you have a win-win situation.

Warning: Not all PR8 blogs will let you have a PR8 link - even for a few days. Most of them have a landing page, and the blog articles are on a 'node.' This means that your comment is on a sub page. Some blogs have their PR carry through the sites. Others have PR6 on the home page and nothing on the sub pages. So, there is no reason to promote these sites or leave comments on them.

Linking To Blogs

I have left comments on a blog page with the express purpose of increasing my PR. By leaving a comment, I can write a post on my blog that links to the PR6 page. This morning I was blogging on one of my favorite sites about toxic communication.

Use this information to help yourself continue to promote your blog.




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RSI Can Put You Out of Business

In medical terms, repetitive strain injury (RSI) is a cumulative trauma disorder (CTD) caused by prolonged repetitive, awkward hand movements that damage muscles, tendons, and nerves of the neck, shoulder, forearm, and hand, causing pain, weakness, numbness, or impairment of movement. It can be caused by working long periods at a computer, either in a chair with poor support, no foot rest, and using a square or small keyboard.

Typing and clicking a mouse button can be harmful. Injured muscles contract, decreasing the range of motion. As the typist continues to work, the level of stress increases. At first they suffer wrist pain and head aches, but after a while the pain increases.

Professionals that understand the disease know that slowing down for a month or two out of the year, taking breaks, and listening to their body will keep them working. Those who don't listen or make excuses (I can't afford a secretary's chair or ergonomic/split keyboard) end up with a debilitating chronic disorder that can take several hundreds of dollars and more than six months to correct. In effect - they are out of business.

What Happens with RSI?

The sheaths that cover tendons run out of lubrication because they aren't allowed to rest. The tendon and sheath chafe, causing pain. The tendons become inflamed, and pinch nerves. This causes numbness, tingling, or hypersensitivity to touch.

Poor posture can lead to severe neck and back injuries. Repetitive reaching for a mouse can lead to arm and neck strain as well as spinal strain.

RSI is not a medical diagnosis, but a family of disorders, mistakenly called carpal tunnel syndrome. One recent study even reported that frequent computer users are no more likely to develop CTS than non-computer users.

• poor posture


• poor technique


• Do not use a keyboard designed for computer users


• Use a computer more than two hours a day


• Your job that requires constant computer use,


• Don't take breaks


• Use a manager chair, or don't use a secretary's chair


• Don't exercise


• Have stressful deadlines, work 7 days a week


• Work in a high-pressure environment


• Have arthritis, diabetes, or another serious medical condition


• Have long fingernails


• Have an unhealthy, or sedentary lifestyle


• Are overweight


• Don't believe you are at risk

You are at risk of you experience:

• Fatigue


• Weakness in the hands or forearms


• Tingling, numbness, or loss of sensation


• Heaviness Clumsiness in your hands


• You drop things or lack coordination


• Cold hands?


• Frequent self-massage


• Avoid using one hand


• Use your forearm, feet, or shoulder to open doors?


• Not play sports you once enjoyed?


• Have trouble sleeping
• When typing you notice that you are holding one wrist 'up' off the wrist support, or find yourself reaching for keys that you'd normally touch without moving your wrist.

The first sign is often irritability with family members, being short tempered, or having an emotional outburst while working, but without any apparent cause.

When I find myself strained, I wear a fingerless brace like the one above. It supports my wrist and forces me to move in a different patter, it slows my typing speed down, and gives me a chance to retrain my hands to move properly. That said, I haven't worn my wrist braces since buying an ergonomic keyboard.


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Ergonomic Keyboard

There is only one piece of equipment that every work at home professional cannot do without. That is an ergonomic keyboard. There are many different varieties of ergonomic keyboards. Each has their advantages and disadvantages. But, there are some things you need to consider.

The one thing you want is a split keyboard. The one I use lets me place my hands at a turned position. My shoulders are not forced forward. My wrists are not forced to turn. The palms sit on the support between the back and forward button.

Over the years I've had people ask how I get so much work done, without breaking down, without getting tired. I now have an answer - my keyboard. I proved this just last week. My keyboard broke and although Microsoft has it guaranteed, it will be three weeks before it comes in. I had no choice but to use the cheap flat keyboard that came with my computer.

Within hours I felt tired, there was a pain between my shoulders, and my wrists were 'tight.' After a few hours I grew accustomed to this and kept working, but I was aware of the problem. I also noticed that my typing speed slowed dramatically. I can drop the keyboard into my lap, sit with my feet on a footrest, and with the aid of a proper office chair, I can work about two hours at a shot.

When I used the flat keyboard the pain forced me to take a break or slow down every 20 - 30 minutes to relieve the tension. I needed to get up more often. I am not touting this as a perfect tool for working more. I am stating that my keyboard kept me at a comfortable position - just as comfortable as sitting on the couch watching television.

The difference was so dramatic that I sent my husband 2.5 hours away to buy me another keyboard after only a day - I have a great hubby.

This keyboard (Microsoft Natural Ergonomic 4000) is Vista safe, with a plug-in from the MS website.



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Secret to Succes? Good Health

I am currently having a hard time managing my health. I've been sedentary all winter, and I am noticing it. If you want to succeed at home, you must look after your health. The first thing is to drink lots of water. In fact, health gurus say that drinking at least two bottles of water a day can reduce the risk of disease.

I was doing well this winter until recently when I stopped drinking water and started to drink more coffee. It is also important to eat vegetables. It is amazing how many work at home professionals stop eating properly.

Some days I need to force myself to eat well. It is so easy to pop something into the microwave and get back to work. This is short sighted. I have two friends who started into work at home businesses about the same time I did. Both of them have needed to quit because of health problems. We all worked the same hours, and endured the same stress. The difference was simple, I did not take my health for-granted.



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Create A Brand - Become Famous

We are doing a few major workshops for Small Press Month. We are hosting one of our biggest workshops this week.

Place: www.inspiredauthor.com (click the chat-room button at the top of the page.
Time: 7 - 9 eastern (come when you can)
Membership: none needed - just enter your screen name and enter


Katie Adams

Katie Adams is a highly successful grant writer. In fact, she obtained over $12 million in grants for her clients in only 3 months! She can help you learn how to get free publicity, money to promote your writing, and much more! If you want to become famous overnight, then be at the Inspired Authors chat on Friday night.

Katie has offered to host a 2 hour workshop to help authors promote themselves and their work, build winning PR campaigns, and launch their careers. Have your questions ready! She is also looking for cream of the crop writers for her new business venture. Don’t miss this once in a lifetime chance.

Authors must be well known even before releasing their first book. This takes a “presence” that is only accomplished by proactive marketing. If you miss this one, you will regret it.













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Vista Basics

If you do not have Vista now, you will soon. The controversy over Vista is hot, but the system is much better than most people believe. A lot of the third party addons have drivers. I have found Vista to be much more powerful, and safer. I haven't been hacked once since owning Vista.

There are some ways around the powerful 'layers' of workspace that Vista Offers. I'll be posting some and helpful advice over the next few months. The first tip is to turn 'hidden folders' off. This lets you see all the files including back ups. You want to save the back ups - they have saved me from loosing information more than once. You also want to activate 'restore' file. I've corrupted more than one file, clicked 'restore' and returned to the last back up. These three tips will help you get started.

How To Find The Windows Vista Menu Bar

Getting used to a new operating system is always hard, but there are many little tips and tricks that you can learn along the way to make the transition much easier.

One of the tools available in Windows that I use all the time is the Menu Bar. This is the bar across the top of most program windows that includes items like; File, Edit, View, Tools, Insert, Help, etc. The "Tools" menu is especially helpful when I want to change the settings for a program or window.

Let me give you a quick example:

When I am hunting for a file, it is not always visible with the default windows settings, so I have to be able to view hidden files. To turn these hidden files on, I click on "Tools" in the menu bar, then click on "Folder Options" and then click on the "View" tab in the folder options window. On the View page, I can quickly scroll down and click on "Show hidden files and folders", then I click the "OK" button to save my changes. Once I have followed these steps, it is much easier to find the file that I am hunting for, especially if it is a hidden system file. Once I have found my file, I can quickly go back and follow the steps above to turn off the hidden files by clicking on "Do not show hidden files or folders".

In Windows Vista, the menu bar is not visible in most windows. I find the loss of these menu bars very frustrating because I am always changing settings using those menus. If you are reading this article on a computer that is running Microsoft Windows Vista, check it out; click on "Start", then click on "Documents" you will see the contents of your documents folder, but unless you have turned on the menu bars, you will not see them. I cannot tell you how many times I was stumped by the absence of these menu bars when I first started using Windows Vista computers!

Today, however, I have good news for you! If you are working on a computer that is running Vista, and you need to make a change or two that you know you used to be able to find in the menu bar, you can make the menu bar temporarily visible in Vista just by tapping the "Alt" key on your keyboard!

If you are using Vista, try it now by following these steps;

1. Open a window by clicking on the "Start" orb (new name for the round buttons in Vista and Office 2007" and then click on "Documents" in the right hand side of the start menu.

2. Your documents window will open. You will notice that there is no menu bar showing though.

3. Now, tap the "Alt" key on your keyboard just once. The menu bar will appear near the top of the window. It will stay visible until you use it, or until you tap the "Alt" key again.

I can't begin to tell you how much time this little trick has saved me when I am using or working on computers!






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Increasing Computer Speed

I spend at least six hours - once every three months - cleaning up my computer and speeding it up. There are smart ways to clean up a computer - and some foolish ways. I personally stay out of my computer's registry. What do I do instead? I back up my entire computer - from the username up including software. I must back up my software because it takes me about 3 weeks to configure everything. Then, I just reformat my C drive and re-install everything.

This may not clear out all the application files but it does clean everything out without needing to play with the registry files and possibly causing my computer to crash.



How To Improve Your Computer Speed Almost Instantly

Probably your computer, even though you bought it last year its no longer that much fast. Like any other machine your computer require maintenance and tweaks of its settings.

You can easily follow these step by step methods to make your computer faster, better and more enjoyable. Once done you can see instant boost in the performance.

Keep in mind that your computer is not a waste bin. You don't throw things inside and wait till its full before you clean it. You harm your computer that way which also means it works much less efficient.

The 6 easy to follow tactics will help you overcome all that.

1. Create folders and sub folders in your hardrive. Usually that is drive C. This way you are treating your computer as a bookshelf, with all books in a specific shelf. You will also find files much more easy this way.

2. Then delete also the unwanted files. These unwanted files can be image files, music downloads, documents, notebook files, folders and the many other different types of files.

These are just there wasting your computer space which result in a slower computer. Click Start, Search and select one of the file types. It maybe pdf, .jpg, .gif. There is a whole list of file types. You can start with the easy files like .gif. In the search box do not type anything, just hit go to start the search.

You will notice a huge list of files, if you search for .gif files they will all be images. Now you can remove any images you don't need making sure that you know what you are deleting. This method will help you find all the unwanted files.

3. How many browsers do you have? Internet explorer, FireFox and did you also download Netscape to try it out? Well, you only use one so you can uninstall the rest. Same goes with all of the software, tools, applications and downloads you don't use. Uninstalling them will free out more space.

Your registry needs to be cleaned if you ever downloaded any files from the Internet. There are tools that help you clean your registry, and you should do this about once a month.

4. Do you still have that huge list of files on your Start button. When I click my Start button you see just 6 menus and about 7 sub menus. Those are all shortcuts which can be easily removed. Right click and delete the ones you don't use. You can always start a program from your hard drive C. To make it easy, click Start, Run and type in C:/ and it takes you to drive C, hit program files and you can open any application from there.

You don't need to keep all those icons neither on your desktop. I have none. You can access them by clicking Start, Run and type in C:/ then click the 'up one folder button' to get to the desktop. Button located next to back and forward buttons.

The Start, Programs menu is there just to help you find your applications very easy. But you still can access them very easy now that you now how to use the Run command C:/

Deleting the My Computer Icon, the My Documents icon won't permanently delete them. They can be accessed from the Run C:/ command. For XP users check out tweakxp.com to get more tweaks.

5. In such extreme cases you can even remove outlook express. If you want to make your computer a lot more faster that is going to help. You can use a free email account, like Gmail.com I personally use it daily and it is professional. Probably you will also realize that it is even much better than Outlook express. You get also instant chat with no need to download any software not even the Google Talk.

Have you got 4 messengers installed? Well, now you can get rid of them all. If you research google you will find that there are messengers which allow you to chat with your MSN contacts, Yahoo and AOL contacts. Instead of having three messengers you need just one. I would suggest you check out which is the best from answers.yahoo.com Get feedback.

6. It is not just the inside but also the outside. When was the last time you cleaned up your keyboard, mouse and monitor surface? At least once a year the tower which contains a fan needs to be cleaned. The fan accumulates dust and a technician has the tools to make it perfect again.

You should always use precaution when cleaning electrical hardware. The keyboard can be cleaned by using a dry cloth. After switching off your computer, remove all keys gently from the keyboard and place them in a jar filled with warm water. You do this only once every 5 months. With the dry cloth or slightly wet you can clean the interior of the keyboard.

The monitor and the mouse need not be opened to be cleaned. You can end up damaging them. A great way to protect your computer from dust, and even other possible damage is to cover it after use. A cover for the monitor, speakers, keyboard and tower. I even cover the mouse.

Your computer is a great tool that works practically lets say like magic. Like anything else though you cannot just switch it on, use it and then turn if off. By learning how to optimize your machine you will improve its performance. It will last longer.


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Share Your Marketing Secrets With Us

Did you have an epiphany? A moment when everything came together? A marketing technique that actually worked? Come and share it with us. We are looking for anything. Please do not just post 'buying traffic' in your comment box.

Not every comment will be approved. Those selected will be at least 50 words. They will offer some good information. They will 'not' be built around the product you are selling. Instead they will be a review or a 'how to' of a marketing technique which is working for you. They will tell the readers how well they worked.

My Submission

Buying Traffic

I knew about buying traffic for years, but never did. It always seems a little suspicious to me. Why buy traffic when Google was sending me visits, and Social Networking was responsible for 85% of my hits? This was all free.

I started buying traffic in 2007. At first I paid $12 for random international traffic. $12 bought 10 000 page views. I bought the traffic because I wanted to build the PR of my websites, and thought that 10 000 visitors would do it.

I quickly found out that all I bought was 10 000 views from the other website, most of these were from pop unders or pop overs that showed my home page. At first I was upset because I only received about 10% clickthroughs.

Then, I transferred the campaign to my blogger and wordpress blogs, and made sure that each blog had a 'good article' in view on the 'landing page.' (mistake learned...do not bring these people to your home page)

I started noticing my PPP campaign results increase. In fact, that $12 investment turned into $19 more dollars. Another campaign earned me $9. But, two on 'small business' were a waste of time.

This wasn't a big increase in income, but if I can make $5-$9 for every campaign, and I run several simultaneously, then the program can generate $500 a month from running 5 campaigns from each of my blogs.

I also found that putting a good article increased the 'click' through rate to 30%. So, I got 2900 page views and visitors for $12. Of those, 339 are repeat visitors and 10% joined my RSS.




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How To Attend Tonight's Chat Event

We had a great chat on promotion last night. There were a lot of things covered, and we had the author of one of the top SELLING BOOKS book on Amazon (3 days on Amazon and in the top 50 000). Nikki gave us some excellent tips and advice.

We also explained the difference between promotion by spamming your name, and promotion by Branding.

After 2 hours, there were still questions, so I decided to devote tonight's chat on 'becoming famous' without spending money.

I have invited a PR person, Katherine Adams who works with businesses and CEOs. She is writing a book on landing six figure jobs. If she comes, she can tell us more about 'branding' yourself. She won her clients 12million last year - so she is no 'small fish' when it comes to PR.
Mirella Patzer will tell how she became a popular speaker and was invited to speak (paid) in Italy, the setting of her book - all within less than 2 months.

Nikki Leigh will be there. Her current book on promotion has only been on amazon for 3 days and is in the top 50 000 (out of 3 million) selling books.

We also have Lori Chance, a book coach, and a few other tentative speakers.
I am also saving transcripts. So if you were one of the people who felt you just didn't know that you 'could' become famous without a lot of hassle - and you wanted to know more - come to the IA chat tonight.

http://www.inspiredauthor.com/ - Click Chat. You do not need to become a member.
Chat is Every Friday 7PM Eastern

Tonight's event will have the chat room at www.inspiredauthor.com open from 6 - 9+ You do not need to become a member, or enter any personal information. Just type in a screen name and you are in the chat.



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10 Steps To Better Business Communication

Your ability to communicate effectively will determine whether you can land a sale in a 10 minute phone call, or whether you blabber for several minutes saying nothing. Good communication is the secret to success in most small business industries.


10 Steps Toward Better Business Communication

Copyright © 2005 Mark Meshulam

Ultimately, no matter how high-tech your business tools may be, development and implementation of new initiatives will depend upon effective, productive communication between real live people.

Why do some business meetings result in boredom and lack of focus, whereas others send attendees charging out equipped to wage battle? Why do some supervisors confuse their workers with vague, contradictory suggestions while others support their charges with vision and assistance and help them build their own path to success?

It boils down to good ol' human interaction - a subject somewhat out of vogue since the advent of the motherboard - but guess what? It ain't going away. Without good clear human connectivity, a mile-high stack of computers won't save your company from faltering.

So here is our list of steps you can take to improve your business communication.

1. Remember your vision. You are doing things for a reason. What is it? When you remember why you are doing something and can really feel its importance, that is the time to share your vision with others. Encourage them to speak of their vision for the future. Charge each other up with thoughts of where you want to go. Catch a buzz from envisioning the big picture.

2. Keep the vision alive. People will get mired down with the day to day. Find times to stoke the dream, even informally.

3. When a mutual vision is established and accepted, it is time to talk about how to get there. These talks have two distinct parts: brainstorming and action planning. In brainstorming, you share ideas about what kinds of actions can get you to your goal. But these ideas should be loose and a little wacky. Pick a few uncommon ideas and throw them out to model creative thought. Let your co-workers know that it is time to think freely without criticism. Have fun and laugh. Have a posterboard and write the ideas for all to see, in order to foster associations which could lead to even better ideas.

4. When the ideas seem exhausted, it is time to get serious and build a plan. Cross off ideas which are clearly unworkable. Boil the ideas down to 3-5 action items.

5. There should be one person assigned with overall responsibility for each action item. That person is accountable for its development. She might solicit others to assist. She might assign tasks. Nonetheless, she is the key person for that work item.

6. Follow-up is a fundamental business activity. Without follow-up, all the good work and ideas which are in play will wither and die. Meetings or other follow-up venues must be scheduled regularly to keep all the pots boiling. The top person for each action item must be asked about progress by the person responsible for the overall plan.

7. Review and analyze results and make necessary adjustments. Then build on the good and drop the bad.

8. Do not stigmatize failure. Remember that failure is necessary for success. If you can really internalize this idea, you will be able to fearlessly and logically parse the good and bad in your plan. If you truly embrace failure as a part of the success process, you will be able to make the review/analysis phase engaging, creative and extremely useful.

9. Notice when people do good things and tell them. Some very hard working people toil for a very long time without hearing even one positive sentiment. It's an idea as old as Andrew Carnegie and Reader's Digest, but it may be even more important today. Our computers separate us from human contact even as they connect us. Reach out in a human way. Pay a well-earned compliment. Then watch the startled, then untrusting, then relaxed and very gratified looks you get back in return.

10. Remember that you are a role model. People watch you. If you act fairly, they will trust you. If you are mean or egotistical, they will dislike and undermine you. If you help them, they will help you. Think of the people you most admire. Think about their effect on you. Can you absorb some of that goodness and pay it forward?


Mr. Meshulam, of Northbrook, IL, USA is owner of a productivity software company http://www.buildersarch.com/. He holds a Masters Degree from the University of Illinois, where he specialized in group processes.











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