Archive for May, 2008
We all know that our economy is in the tank, (Gas Tank That Is). It seems that every extra dime we have goes into the car to get us to work and to do those things that must be done. I don’t know about you, but it is definitely putting a damper on my activities. I am making different choices than I did a year or so ago. I stay at home more. I cook at home more. I use my home to entertain rather than meeting friends at a restaurant. I don’t go to movies or plays this year. Shopping is a rare indulgence. I watch the grocery ads much more closely and try to buy only what we will eat. I always have been a sale shopper but now I look even harder for the occasional bargain.
Well before we all get too depressed, I want to talk about a way that we can make our homes more enjoyable. It can be done without breaking the bank. Since I am spending more time at the old domicile, I have been looking around. I realized the other night that I hadn’t really looked at my surroundings for a while. When I was busy running from one thing to another, I just didn’t have the time to notice that there were things that needed work. My curtains are dirty, and need cleaned. The windows those curtains cover need cleaning badly also. I need to paint. The carpet in the living room looks like a parade has passed through on a rainy day. Needless to say the old place needs work. Now my quandary is: what can I do without breaking my already fragile budget?
Well I don’t like to paint, so that is out, and besides paint costs money I don’t have right now. I guess I will just wash down the walls. Perhaps hire my grandsons to come do that chore. The curtains will cost a small fortune to clean, so I think I will just take them down and while those same grandsons clean my windows, I will put the drapes outside on the porch and air them out and use the furniture brush on my vacuum to get the worst of the dust off . Now, the grungy rug. I have a carpet machine in the basement. I can dust it off and use it instead of hiring a carpet cleaning service. It all looks pretty good, now I can have company without dimming the lights to hide the dirty windows walls and rug.
With the house looking fresher, I need something to make it smell fresher. For that I will use fragrance. I will put some candles around the house. Perhaps Harvest Apple Scent for the kitchen. Make them think they are getting a homemade pie or maybe Vanilla Toasted candle to give them the calming influence of vanilla. For the living room, maybe Jasmine and Lily Essential Blend., Green Tea & Ginger or Gardenia for the bath. And just because I love it, Ylang Ylang & Sandlewood candles for my bedroom. All these candles are reasonably priced and now that I have saved so much money on redecorating I feel that I can buy them without too much guilt.
(CONTINUE READING…)
Back pain therapy is available for people suffering from back pain irrespective of the cause. Every four out of five people experience pain in their backs at some point of time in their lives. However, the intensity of pain varies from person to person. Backache can be classified into three categories - acute, intermittent and chronic. Acute pain can be treated with home remedies and it generally subsides within a few weeks. An intermittent pain, when treated with short term medication, will recede temporarily but will reappear after a short period. Chronic pain is prolonged and cannot be treated with conservative methods. Both intermittent and chronic pains need proper medical advice.
Diagnosing Back Pain
Before the initiation of back pain therapy, it is important to know the actual cause of the pain. Hence, a medical practitioner would recommend a complete diagnosis. He may advice you to undergo the following tests to assess the exact reason for pain.
Blood test.
Ultrasonography of pelvis and abdomen.
MRI of the spine.
Examination of urine.
Examination of prostrate, rectum, genital and urinary organs.
X-ray of lumbar region.
Magnetic Therapy
Magnetic therapy is an invention that is related to the field of biomagnetics and has proved to be an effective back pain therapy with amazing results. It often reduces the healing time upto 50%. An injury results to inflammation and inflammation occurs due to imbalance in potassium and sodium ion concentration that leads to gathering of fluid in the cells. An inflammation causes pain but it settles down very slowly if left unattended. This is the point where magnetic therapy acts to reduce the inflammation. A bio magnetic field flushes the excessive toxins and fluids from the cells through the lymphatic system and rebalances the electrochemical ion concentration safely.
Magnetic therapy also works to heal backache by preventing the passing of the pain signal to the brain. Usually, pain is felt because an electrochemical signal is passed to the brain. Our back is more prone to pain because of the extensive nerve bundles running through the spine. Normal state of a nerve cell is negative in the resting condition. When a nerve cell is injured, it leads to a chemical ion imbalance that changes the neuron to a positive state, thereby generating a pain signal to the brain. Magnetic therapy stops the pain signal by applying a negative polarity magnetic field, lowering and bringing back the neuron’s electric potential to the normal negative state.
(CONTINUE READING…)
You’ve made the decision to exhibit at trade shows as part of your marketing and sales initiatives. For most companies, exhibiting at trade shows represents a significant commitment: budget, resources and reputation are all on the line. A lot is at stake.
Now it’s time to select the trade show venues that will be most productive for your company. The following tips for selecting trade show venues will help put you on the right path to success:
Identify the Best Trade Shows for Your Company
Identify the trade shows that appeal to your target markets and that offer the best chance of exposure for your products or services. Research to learn what trade shows your best prospects favor to help you build your initial list of prospective trade shows. Don’t forget to also check out where your competitors repeatedly show up.
Do Your Due Diligence
Of course, you will want to ask the trade show management organizations to provide you with demographic statistics to help guide your decisions. Audited information is best, if it’s available.
Don’t stop there; double-check their assertions and perform your own due diligence by contacting peers and colleagues who have exhibited at the trade show in the past to get their perspective. Bonus Tip: talking to former attendees to get their input is also a relationship building technique.
Factor in Timing Considerations
Now that you have an initial list whittled down a bit by your due diligence efforts, eliminate those shows that are out of sync with prospects’ buying cycle timeline. It won’t do your company any good to spend a lot of time and resources exhibiting at trade shows if they happen after major purchasing decisions are made or too late in that process.
Location, Location, Location
So true in many marketing decision, true with trade shows as well. On average, 40-60% of attendees at trade shows live within 200 miles of the show. Matching your company’s geographic footprint with the trade show coverage is another smart move.
Avoid Calendar Conflicts
You probably would not want to schedule participation in trade shows that coincide with the Super Bowl. That’s just too much competition for the attention and attendance that you ideally want and deserve for all of your company’s hard work.
(CONTINUE READING…)
The reaction I seem to get from most people when I mention ASUS is "Who are they?" The same cannot be said of Hewlett Packard. In the years since Mr Hewlett and Mr Packard started making high quality electrical test equipment in a commercial garage, the company has grown and grown. They still manufacture the world’s best electrical test equipment, but they also are major computer manufacturers both in the mini/server and desktop/notebook arenas. You cannot go to many major computer stores without something from HP even if it is only a printer.
HP has a little machine with an 8.9" screen. Sounds good so far. They have been marketed as Vista machines with an option to downgrade some versions to Windows XP. I was in a local electrical store, and at last they were offering an ASUS Eee for sale, but next to it was a display for this little HP 2133 with a price tag that was exactly the same as the ASUS. So for $499 you get this little machine, but it has a 120GB hard drive. What is missing? The webcam is an optional extra and you will have to research the price. I am also finding out if there is a microphone in the machine and speakers.
The Linux operating system of the HP2133 is from Novell. The difference between this and the majority of other Linux-based operating systems is that they offer commercial support. This will be very helpful to anyone who gets into problems with Linux.
You should note that the specifications for these HP2133 sub notebooks seem to be varying dramatically from one country to another. So check on www.hp.com and select your own country from the dropdown list where you see "United States - English" and see what is on offer to you. That way you won’t get angry with me or HP if the local specification does not match what is on offer locally for you.
(CONTINUE READING…)
This is the age of competition. I have come to believe that this slogan and its operationalisation might be the reason that we are failing to create a self confident and innovative manpower. Competitions are in the nature of races. Races are possible only on well defined narrow tracks. By forcing our young people to confine themselves to such narrow tracks while running these races, we are shaving off the personalities of many multifaceted individuals.
The judges of the races work hard to define the rules and shapes of the tracks such that the results can be given in a few digits. Qualities outside the track parameters are disregarded. We are looking for cloned individuals, and the premium on being successful in the race tends to produce only limited robots. Those who fall outside the boundaries are sacrificed and damaged badly. Rich and innovative personalities, some with charming quirks, are not wanted.
All this effort on the part of the official measuring and grading systems is aggressively helped and encouraged by the large coaching industry. This industry can succeed only in producing robotic clones, sometimes destroying the diversities of well rounded human beings. You could not coach a Gandhi, Franklin, Einstein or the inventor of the first desktop computer. We seem to have decided that we do not want any mediocre of that category! We only want a tunnel vision industrious variety at this stage in our development!
The sad thing is that we are doing all this with a feeling that we are engaged in a great educational venture. It is possible that a whole generation of beautiful young people is being sacrificed.Only when we learn to teach and evaluate in a manner such that all coaching becomes redundant and superfluous, we would have arrived. There seems to be a conspiracy that we do not move in that direction I wonder who is conspiring?
Ok so it’s 2008, affiliate marketing is no longer just a pipe dream of want to be entrepreneurs looking to make their first quick million.
So why is it that affiliate marketing programs are still run so poorly?
Poor Reporting and Affiliate Software
You would think in an age of web 2.0 (I hate that term) that an affiliate would be able to get decent reports on the traffic it sends to an affiliate program. Well think again. Affiliates are expected to run campaigns on a single tracker with no way of setting up individual campaigns or trackers to see exactly what traffic is converting or not.
Late Payments and Incorrect Payments
Most people who work for someone get paid weekly, fortnightly or monthly depending on what they have arranged with their employer. Regardless of this payments are made at the same time for the right amount at each pay interval as would be expected.
Why then do affiliate programs seem to think that it’s ok to pay late or to underpay what is owed? I seem to remember agreeing to terms and conditions when I signed up to these programs and I’m sure that nowhere did I agree to have to wait up to 90 days for payments. We have bills to pay too!
Poor Communications
As an affiliate you get super busy and I know we are not always the best at getting back to affiliate managers but personally I do always try to get back to them even if it is not in a timely manner.
While some affiliate managers are great communicators others either don’t care or are too busy working on board reports to do what they need to do to support affiliates. How about sending a report at the end of each month of the statistics including the number of clicks, leads, sales and earnings and include an expected payment date? Email again when payment has been submitted via the accounts department to let us know.
(CONTINUE READING…)
Our Nations veterans are a national treasure. That’s right… a treasure. Unfortunately in today’s culture, veterans are rarely acknowledged. I mean sure, you can ask someone if they know a vet or if they respect a vet and most will readily say yes, but where is their action? I can tell you… I am a combat veteran, and much of the social perceptions and cultural understandings of sacrifice and commitment of veterans is completely misunderstood, ignored and even looked down upon by many young people today. Now, due to the Iraq War there are many young veterans and they of course understand this issue and the problems veterans face, and they are all heroes! However, there are many others who really have no clue. For this I am disheartened. What I am however, is impressed by the motivation, policy and movement by our government in creating more resources, programs and systems for veterans. The Veterans Administration is committing a great deal of funding and man power to helping veterans today. I am impressed by the action of many of our leaders in helping veterans today in finding employment, helping with housing, mental health, substance abuse, suicide, family issues and many other problematic conditions plaguing veterans. There seems to be a call for duty among our leaders to help these hero’s! However, there is still much work to be done and many are still suffering! If we are to combat homelessness and other veterans problems it will take ALL OF US.
Homelessness
According to the Veterans Administration there is an estimated 200,000 veterans chronically homeless. On any given night during a year there is an estimated 400,000 homeless veterans. According to the Urban Institute on Homelessness approximately 23% of all homeless people are veterans; about 1 in 3. Of course, these stats are not accurate. There is no way to accurately quantify the number of homeless veterans; it is estimation, and one that is unacceptable!
According to the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, many of the homeless veterans (about 96% are male) and about 4% are female. Many come from poor communities, have little support structures of family, suffer from mental illness (about 45%), have substance abuse problems (about 50%), many served for 3 years (about 67%), and many served in combat zones (about 33%).
Why Are They Homeless?
Understand that many suffer from ecological conditions beyond their control as well as individual choice issues. They lack affordable housing, a livable earning wage, they lack consistent health care, lack of support structures and many suffer with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and substance abuse issues (NCHV, 2008). Furthermore, it is a compilation and a manifestation of many issues and problems for which homeless veterans find themselves living on the street. One interesting fact is that much of the funding in the system to help homeless veterans are structured in good faith to help veterans and their families and or woman from becoming homeless; however this leaves single male veterans at very high risk and the evidential outcomes prove such statements (NCHV, 2008).
Even with the Veterans Administration helping veterans it is estimated that they only reach about 25% of needing veterans. This means that there are many areas and needs for programs that will reach veterans in many areas they have been missed (NCHV, 2008).
(CONTINUE READING…)
When thinking of buying a new vacuum cleaner it makes sense to read as many vacuum cleaner ratings as you can. However, after reading them one is often left more confused than at the beginning of the search. The secret is not to completely trust personal ratings; for every person that loves the product, there’ll be one who hated it. The secret is to first know what you want in a vacuum cleaner and then find ones that match your criteria and then compare to find the most suitable for you.
We’ve all been there; we know nothing about something and so go and ask other people’s opinions and before we know it, we have dozens of conflicting advice. Some say ‘best product ever’ while some will only look at you in disgust if you mention the product’s name.
It’s all too easy to ask others’ advice when we know nothing but it’s harder to go and find out this information for our self. But this is what we must do if we are to make any informed decision about buying any product.
Therefore devise your own vacuum cleaner ratings and don’t rely on the opinions of others. No matter how well-intentioned, the advice you’ll receive will be biased in some way.
But how to begin? First, you should sit down and make up a list of your requirements. You see, there hasn’t yet been built a vacuum cleaner that is the best at cleaning everything. Some are good on certain aspects but are weak on others. To save yourself a lot of time and hassle you must know exactly what it is you’re looking for.
For example, do you have fitted carpets or hard flooring? Generally speaking uprights clean fitted carpets better whereas canisters clean hardwood floor and rugs better. Just asking yourself this question can eliminate many types of vacuum cleaner from your list.
Do you have pets? If so you’ll probably want one with a special pet-hair head. Only some vacuums, both canister and upright, offer this feature - the Shark Infinity vacuum cleaner being one such.
Do you want onboard tools? If you’re going to be cleaning drapes, sofas and window sills you do. So make sure the vacuum comes with them onboard. Be careful, many uprights come with extra tools but not onboard; it can be a real drag to have to go and get the attachment and then after you use it, to have to go fetch it again.
Bag or Bagless? The advantage of bagless vacuums is that you don’t have the ongoing expense of buying proprietary bags - if you prefer a bag version, check out the price of new bags first as you may find some are quite expensive.
(CONTINUE READING…)
