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Simple Strategy to Healthy Living

2009-02-02T04:45:00.001-08:00

When we talk about healthy living it means the fitness in all aspects related to human body, which emerges from all the perspectives, like physical health, mental health, emotional well being, and spiritual well being. Nowadays, people have become so very busy in their lives that they are unable to perform physical activities to keep themselves healthy and strong. In the meanwhile, masses of people are suffering form chronic obesity. This problem is alarmingly observed in teens, adults, elders and infants. Therefore, healthy living has become the most important question for all of us. So how is it possible to keep healthy and fit, devoid of obesity? Read below:

• If we want to stay fit then we have to perform 30 minutes brisk walking. This will boost up the metabolism.

• Yoga is the best exercises to keep body fit and strong. Regularly perform at least 15 minutes yoga exercises before going to bed as this will relax our body muscles. As a result, metabolism will be upgraded and we will definitely loose some pounds!

• Swimming is another good exercise to loose weight and gain lean muscle mass.

• Perform 30 minutes body building workouts in the gym daily. It contains squats, bench press, military press, dead-lifts, lunges, piles, heel raises and push ups mainly. These exercises will build muscle mass fast. Consequently, we will become completely fit and strong.

• Eat carbohydrates and proteins to stay fit. These include fresh fruits, vegetables, yogurt, egg whites, chicken, fish, honey, brown bread, nuts, beans, seeds, fibers, soya bean, milk protein, whey, amino acids, cottage cheese and salads. Don't eat plentiful carbohydrates and proteins especially while loosing the weight.

• Drink plenty of juices like orange, apple, pine apple, papaya, strawberry, watermelon, guava and pomegranate in order to stay fit.

• Drink at least 12 glasses of water daily as this helps eliminate the toxins from our bodies.

• Take two to three cups of green tea daily as it helps improve the metabolism.

• Listen to soothing music, meet people and have fun. This will help us to become relaxed and lively.

In a nut shell, we can say that those simple tactics are the best way to a healthy living. They not only make us fit, but also give us sheer spiritual soothe. Hence, we become complete healthy human.

Twitter and public broadcasting issues under one mumbrella

2009-02-02T04:35:00.000-08:00

A real breath of fresh air on the Australian blogging scene is Tim Burrowes at Mumbrella. The former editor of B&T magazine is one of the few bloggers who actually breaks stories and he broke two good ones today. Just minutes ago, he revealed that the viral Twitter messages that a plane on fire caused Melbourne airport to close this evening were a gross overreaction. While it was true that a passenger reported seeing fire from the left wing of a Boeing 767 this evening, the plane was cleared after eight minutes and there were no further consequences. But while Burrowes confirmed there was no fire with a quick phone to the airport, the Twitter world was happier just to repeat the "plane on fire" news ad infinitum in an Australian version of the Hudson plane landing incident. But in this case, the airport press office was justified telling Burrowes that “unfortunately the Internet is full of gossip.”

In scotching the rumours, Burrowes exemplified the remarks of Jason Wilson’s provocative post at Gatewatching last week by showing that “journalists use telephones”. Burrowes was also on the phone earlier today after he read one of the more contentious entries of the 2,400 submissions to the review of Australia's two national broadcasters, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and Special Broadcasting Service (SBS). The government will review the submissions ahead of the broadcasters' next funding review in July this year.

Burrowes’ interest was in the submission by Astra, the peak body representing Australia’s subscription TV industry. In their submission, Astra were critical of the plan to give six new digital channels to ABC and SBS. Astra picked on the point made by ABC’s managing director Mark Scott that the new channels (in areas of news, children’s entertainment and foreign language programming among others) addressed a “market failure”. Astra denied there was a market failure and said they were (or will be soon) delivering similar products to what ABC planned to deliver. It was a persuasive argument if you leave out the fact that just two million Australians subscribe to pay TV and that leaves a potential market failure for 19 million others.

Nevertheless the newsworthy element that Burrowes noticed was an Astra comment that the public broadcasters are doing aggressive deals that lock out pay TV from showing up-to-date content. They claim “ABC and SBS have included pursuit of commercial terms which seek to ensure longer than industry standard ‘hold back’ clauses in production and acquisition deals, and in some instances the ABC in particular has been willing to pay more for content to ensure this happens”. The result is that pay TV has to wait longer to get content for re-run and Astra says this is contrary to ABC 1983 charter goals (a charter Astra says is out of date as is the 1992 Broadcasting Act).

Once again Burrowes picked up the telephone and spoke to both SBS and ABC today for comment on Astra’s accusation. SBS firmly denied the claims and gave examples where SBS and Pay TV have cooperated in acquiring broadcast rights. Their spokesperson also told Burrowes that they often allow World Movies Channel and other pay TV channels to run content first. The ABC spokesperson was similarly dismissive: “The ABC is not sure how ASTRA can justify such claims of warehousing when there are many examples of rights sharing of programs between the ABC and the subscription channels” he said. But this controversy is not likely to go away and Burrowes may have reported on what is likely to be the opening salvo of a long running debate between the public broadcasters and the Pay TV industry for hearts, minds and control of the digital spectrum.

Diminishing Days for Emperor Penguins

2009-01-27T06:24:00.001-08:00

No more happy feet for Emperor Penguins. According to a new study, if Antarctic ice continues to shrink at its current pace, Emperor Penguins will face extinction within the next 100 years.

Emperor Penguins are one of only two open-sea Antarctic penguin species and depend on the sea ice for survival. After breeding, Emperor Penguins feed among the coastal pack ice where stretches of water are exposed. As a result of disappearing ice, the Emperor Penguins are being forced to retreat inward and could easily become displaced by other animals, losing out on nesting space.

After examining data from the Terre Adelie penguin colony, researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts found the Emperor Penguin population is facing a quasi-extinction, equal to a 95 percent or more population drop by the year 2100. The population is expected to decline from 6000 breeding pairs to only 400 pairs in the next 100 years if sea ice continues to shrink at the rate projected by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) models.

At this point, the probability of the quasi-extinction by the year 2100 is about 40 percent. And scientists have already begun to see a fall in the Emperor Penguin population. “The severe decrease in the small Dion Island Emperor Penguin colony, located on the northwestern Antarctic Peninsula, likely is attributable to the large-scale disappearance of sea ice in that region,” says Stephanie Jenouvrier, member of the research team from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

The researchers are hopeful the Emperor Penguins will avoid extinction by adapting to the shrinking ice. To do this, the penguins would need to migrate or change breeding patterns. Unfortunately, Emperor Penguins are known for being slow to change. “The penguin is long-lived, and climate change is happening very quickly, so there will be significant impact on the population before many generations have passed,” says Hal Caswell biologist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Thus it will be difficult for adaptation, even if possible, to happen fast enough.”

The extinction of the Emperor Penguin could mean trouble for other species in the marine ecosystem as well. Emperor Penguins do more than wear tuxedos and dance all day. The birds are at the top of their food chain and act as an ‘indicator species,’ meaning scientists monitor the birds to see changes in the rest of the environment. If the penguins disappear, observing other Antarctic animals will become more difficult.

Offshore wind could power every home in the UK by 2020

2009-01-27T06:17:00.000-08:00

Offshore wind power could generate enough electricity to supply every home in the UK by the end of the next decade, the government announced yesterday.

The Department for Energy and Climate Change study concluded that another 5,000-7,000 wind turbines could be built off the coast by 2020, generating 25 GW of energy, equivalent to 25 large coal-fired power stations. The new capacity would be on top of 8GW already being built or in planning, making a total of 33GW.

The results of the year-long research into the geology, birds and marine life goes even further than the Carbon Trust, a company set up by government to help businesses reduce carbon emissions, which last year said the UK could build a total 29GW of offshore wind.

However, the announcement was clouded by claims from the energy company E.ON that the economics of what is the UK's biggest current off-shore wind project, the London Array off the coast of Kent and Essex, were "on a knife edge".

Emily Highmore, a spokeswoman for the company, said they were "committed" to the London Array and another 300MW project in the Humber, but could not "guarantee" they would go ahead. A third E.ON off-shore wind project, in the Solway Firth between England and Scotland, is under construction. "Off-shore wind has always, and will always be, very expensive," she said. "We can't be confident it will go ahead, but we believe it's a cracking project and very important to helping the government meet its renewables targets."

E.ON wanted the government to double the financial support for offshore wind, said Highmore. "We think it [the 33GW target] is ambitious and it's only going to be possible if we sort out funding, grid access and planning," she added.

The Carbon Trust report also urged government to make more offshore sites available for developers at lower cost, help invest in research and development to improve efficiency, and improve the National Grid.

Yesterday Tom Jennings, the Carbon Trust's strategy manager, said many recommendations were already being put in place, but more detail was needed, for example, in planning regulations. "The economics in the short-term are looking marginal [but] in the long-term they should look attractive, as long as the costs reduce," said.

If successful, offshore and onshore wind power could cut total UK carbon dioxide emissions by 14%, and create up to 70,000 jobs in the UK, supplying both domestic and export markets, said the Carbon Trust report.

Stats for 100 Popular Registrar

2009-01-27T00:39:00.000-08:00

Rank Domains Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 - Q4 Registrar
1 21,683,746 1,796,789 2,509,230 1,524,769 1,170,001 7,000,789 GoDaddy.com
2 8,113,940 1,762,334 162,574 304,579 294,608 2,524,095 eNom.com
3 6,678,361 -35,209 1,252 73,306 -9,398 29,951 Network Solutions
4 6,119,854 256,186 133,629 98,540 142,772 631,127 Tucows
5 4,711,440 214,928 180,706 163,703 100,475 659,812 INWW.com
6 3,931,598 223,251 214,916 282,222 180,732 901,121 Schlund.de
7 2,737,951 59,045 243,417 173,308 107,956 583,726 Wild West Domains
8 2,668,530 163,173 266,210 198,343 219,264 846,990 Moniker Online Services
9 2,573,194 4,239 -39,948 -180,617 44,283 -172,043 Register.com
10 1,361,420 111,706 110,242 101,821 61,458 385,227 DomainDiscount24
11 1,287,267 -25,388 19,993 134,712 -314,953 -185,636 Dotster
12 1,249,575 111,719 110,152 129,782 111,469 463,122 PublicDomainRegistry.com
13 1,247,301 31,021 8,300 -26,374 -15,709 -2,762 DirectNic.com
14 1,176,898 38,512 10,728 37,858 27,994 115,092 China-Channel.com
15 1,047,823 26,839 36,685 60,807 94,964 219,295 Fabulous.com
16 1,036,650 66,434 132,117 30,161 -6,128 222,584 DomainDiscover.com
17 1,008,040 57,581 88,364 96,484 57,054 299,483 Name.com aka DomainSite
18 851,069 85,102 111,586 104,262 164,504 465,454 Basic Fusion, Inc.
19 818,982 -1,082 26,336 47,688 43,630 116,572 Xin Net
20 818,962 15,872 -10,699 8,051 -26,166 -12,942 DSTR Acquistion VII, Inc
21 790,981 46,515 47,384 41,654 38,261 173,814 Cronon AG
22 778,891 -362,731 -58,865 -11,593 -45,269 -478,458 NameKing
23 693,941 28,213 85,051 -8,705 7,906 112,465 ItsYourDomain.com
24 662,694 80,743 107,276 62,262 26,558 276,839 HiChina
25 657,695 -300 -2,672 4,170 -19,023 -17,825 Compana
26 637,865 12,636 14,715 17,039 16,581 60,971 Joker.com
27 614,768 0 0 405,128 209,640 614,768 UltraRPM, Inc. dba metapredict.com
28 588,129 217,914 578,189 -408,632 -874,398 -486,927 DomainDoorman, llc
29 568,517 253,087 650,812 -405,479 -862,126 -363,706 BelgiumDomains
30 566,535 170,577 679,460 -389,435 -889,801 -429,199 CapitolDomains
31 490,814 -3,243 10,404 25,244 14,129 46,534 Gandi
32 485,144 84,141 29,632 -68,349 -109,785 -64,361 DirectI.com
33 451,992 27,764 -14,686 26,308 26,703 66,089 OVH
34 428,819 21,100 5,075 11,497 1,462 39,134 NameView
35 425,654 6,328 -10,716 29,368 5,274 30,254 PSI-USA
36 382,635 34,814 26,018 18,207 11,730 90,769 Discount-Domain.com
37 381,820 -5,952 7,280 1,630 -297 2,661 Names4Ever.com
38 368,117 3,578 5,894 2,992 -13 12,451 Domain Name Sales Corp
39 363,583 6,827 7,607 10,541 9,721 34,696 SRSplus
40 353,616 31,535 33,122 43,022 30,923 138,602 Domain People, Inc.
41 353,047 8,425 14,938 9,853 8,230 41,446 Ascio Inc.
42 349,694 0 0 0 349,694 349,694
43 348,122 -182,972 -24,631 284,624 14,634 91,655 MarkMonitor
44 332,952 59,649 56,242 101,784 59,328 277,003 FastDomain, Inc.
45 327,597 27,199 9,974 18,288 6,302 61,763 Nicline.com
46 319,486 40,425 19,807 -19,878 -9,793 30,561 Dns.com.cn
47 314,794 1,475 52,339 226,813 8,679 289,306 Corporate Domains
48 299,781 -2,697 -15,259 -2,535 1,082 -19,409 CORE
49 295,119 -55,907 23,871 -62,042 34,125 -59,953 Name.net llc
50 282,543 24,690 28,887 29,760 20,727 104,064 New Dream Network
51 273,747 15,636 17,503 8,850 2,974 44,963 Webnic.cc
52 257,979 13,710 6,264 -2,595 3,516 20,895 Bizcn.com
53 252,599 9,518 -7,808 7,945 -3,177 6,478 NameSecure.com
54 251,481 8,644 5,631 3,689 233,115 251,079 Red Register, Inc.
55 235,595 15,920 7,020 4,644 -10,485 17,099 YesNIC
56 225,558 7,215 7,260 10,071 -427 24,119 Registration Tech, Inc.
57 218,094 46,267 96,768 17,618 -86 160,567 Critical Internet, Inc.
58 205,330 20,963 20,534 24,781 13,622 79,900 NetFirms, Inc.
59 202,799 50,466 52,061 16,631 -47 119,111 AOL
60 197,286 -1,288 5,341 6,915 6,562 17,530 NetNames.com
61 183,189 313,697 885,898 -743,832 -613,601 -157,838 Deleted (purging)
62 181,420 -1,469 5,392 6,286 4,456 14,665 GKG.net
63 174,718 5,945 6,052 7,760 10,645 30,402 PlanetDomain
64 166,592 488 2,912 -151 411 3,660 Easyspace Ltd.
65 162,702 13,456 23,231 6,681 5,644 49,012 Active 24
66 158,531 -12 1,654 812 2,348 4,802 StarGate
67 157,869 3,480 14,232 -3,350 -2,465 11,897 AitDomains.com
68 148,879 -3,025 10,220 3,346 1,812 12,353 PSI Japan
69 143,712 -660 -2,588 -257 -1,356 -4,861 Gabia, Inc
70 137,519 7,863 4,002 7,790 5,253 24,908 Register.it SPA
71 136,369 1,828 2,792 188 2,592 7,400 NordNet
72 132,614 -20,238 -22,429 -26,117 -20,331 -89,115 Aaaq.com
73 132,200 -507 2,535 -665 -894 469 NameJuice.com
74 127,091 2,937 1,023 4,276 2,108 10,344 NameBay
75 123,256 1,972 142 86,136 34,037 122,287 Rebel.com
76 118,739 -48 145 -779 1,365 683 DSTR Acquistion DBA 000Domains.com
77 115,926 -5,144 -515 702 -3,444 -8,401 Dstr Acquistion - DomainBank.com
78 115,461 10,957 10,707 16,710 18,729 57,103 EstDomains, Inc
79 112,753 -96 -428 -6,234 5,858 -900 Blue Razor Domains
80 111,988 3,460 1,878 3,766 3,105 12,209 NameScout.com
81 111,131 190 1,619 -1,134 -1,348 -673 DotRegistrar.com
82 109,300 3,198 922 2,227 896 7,243 In2net
83 107,466 10,782 17,492 29,699 17,450 75,423 Dynadot, llc
84 102,074 1,243 1,160 1,831 1,137 5,371 InterDomain
85 101,925 1,761 1,782 4,524 157 8,224 Omnis, llc
86 101,660 1,758 1,812 -142 -6,828 -3,400 Deutsche
87 99,371 570,103 -465,967 -7,135 1,375 98,376 Name Perfections, Inc.
88 88,084 6,740 380 6,143 3,793 17,056 ONLINE SAS
89 86,910 1,361 2,972 1,849 198 6,380 Pair.com
90 81,418 2,577 -6,177 3,036 1,658 1,094 Nominalia
91 78,322 -25,501 -14,726 -1,400 -10,867 -52,494 Domain Contender
92 74,680 8,019 3,850 5,176 3,977 21,022 Advantage Interactive
93 72,896 18,212 16,621 17,071 8,396 60,300 DomainBullies, llc
94 71,168 0 0 53,587 17,581 71,168 DOTNAME KOREA CORP
95 71,143 9,879 -6,167 -98 -5,597 -1,983 Nicco Ltd.
96 67,226 16,009 13,511 9,467 2,437 41,424 Net 4 India limited
97 67,211 1,292 520 -2,141 -3,856 -4,185 Internetters
98 66,948 -8,372 -19,766 -17,832 -19,944 -65,914 Communi Gal
99 65,987 19 -1,591 431 -1,606 -2,747 TotalRegistrations
100 65,708 -107 -153 -70 65,551 65,221 First Instant, Inc.

Name Intelligence Awards for 2008

2009-01-27T00:15:00.000-08:00

Best ICANN Registrar Reseller in 2008

Award

Recipient

Criterias

eNom

The Best ICANN Reseller
This award went to eNom for their distinctive reseller program because of the following hard metrics, as indicated by Name Intelligence's data management services and domain name root zone monitoring :

Volume of names supported
Volume of resellers supported
Lowest frequency of egress (outgoing) transfers from nameservers
Lowest frequency of egress (outgoing) registrar transfers of names
Pricing and Service, as reported by user polls

Best Registrar in 2008
Award	Recipient	Criterias
	Moniker	Best Registrar Moniker.com The Best Registrar is an award designed to recognize a registrar that has made huge strides in increasing industry awareness and building the overall perception and integrity of the domain industry as a whole. Areas of such advocacy include, but are not limited to: blogging, podcasting, tradeshow presence beyond the domain industry, and a willingness to participate on a regular basis to expand awareness of this great industry to other internet users. Monte Cahn of Moniker is a person who has dedicated the past 4 years of his life to evangelizing domain names in almost every tradeshow in existence, such as SES, Ad:Tech, and the Domain Roundtable. He also operates a weekly podcast on the domain industry, the first of its kind, called Domain Masters on Webmasterradio.fm, where he has star powered guests on to talk about the domain industry. Moniker.com is recognized as the 2008 'Best Registrar'

Best Parking Company in 2008
Award	Recipient	Criterias
	Parked.com Sedo	Best Parking Company In terms of marking the overall metric success of this particular category, the award for Best Performing Parking Program was a tie between Parked.com and Sedo. Together, their overall market share and dominance in the US Marketplace is evidenced by information gathered by Name Intelligence's weekly internet scan, in conjunction with our data collection in the Com, Net, Org, Info, Biz, and US TLDs. The overall number of domains destined at Parked.com and Sedo was higher than any other provider, evidencing significant domain manager selection by both companies.

Best Forum in 2008
Award	Recipient	Criterias
	DNForum.com	Best Forum Award DNForum – "The place to talk, buy and sell domains", is an immensely popular and well visited community where domainers and the domain name industry meet to talk about domains. A recent MVP poll identified a tie for key community members who both participate and help other members and grow and support the community. We recognize DNForum as the Best Place to Talk for 2008.

Best Blog Community of the Year
Award	Recipient	About
	Seven Mile Domain Name News Elliot's Blog	Best Blog Community In 2008 Name Intelligence added a new award for the Best Blog Community. In 2008 Name Intelligence added a new award for the Best Blog Community. The winners are Seven Mile by Frank Schilling, Elliot's Blog by Elliot Silver, and Domain Name News. They are being recognized for their great commentary and personal insights into the domain industry.

Largest Net Gain in 2008
Award	Recipient	Criterias
	GoDaddy.com	Largest Net Gain Name Intelligence operates DailyChanges.com and provides the data research and reporting for the registrarstats.com website. The sheer amount of processing and data management gives Name Intelligence a unique perspective on the domain industry, and allows us to recognize trends, events, and noteworthy milestones. One such pattern in data reporting is a continued trend of significant growth in the net quantity of domains in management at any given ICANN accredited registrar across the Com, Net, Org, Info, Biz, and US TLDs. The largest net gain award, as evidenced by statistics, went to GoDaddy.com for their continued pace of growth in overall domain registrations

Outstanding Drop Catcher in 2008
Award	Recipient	Criterias
	Name Jet	Outstanding Drop Catcher The awards for the outstanding Drop Catcher went to companies that displayed high levels of technical sophistication, success, and positive user experience in their systems.

Best Industry Coverage in 2008
Award	Recipient	Criterias
	DNJournal	Reporting domain sales and covering important events has been synonymous with DNJournal this year.

Outstanding Secondary Market in 2008

Award

Recipient

Criterias

Afternic

Sedo

Outstanding Secondary Market

We take many factors into consideration on giving these awards. Each of the following were criteria used to narrow the recipients for 2008:

Recognition of outreach and advocacy to grow the industry through event participation, such as ICANN meetings and conferences like the Domain Roundtable and other industry trade shows.
User feedback on overall customer experience with the company's listing, search, buying, selling, appraisal, consultation, customer service, and overall escrow processes.
Quality of consumer portal and portfolio listing / management
Incorporation of additional quality metrics for the buyer and seller experience, such as statistics, mail forwarding, wild-carded third level, and monetization during listing.
Overall number of names in management,
Integrity/Trust of each service's core management team in the industry and marketplace.

Microsoft Unveils Internet Explorer 8 Release Candidate

2009-01-26T23:47:00.000-08:00

If you’re not participating in the Windows 7 beta, you can still kick the tires of Microsoft’s newest web browser. Internet Explorer 8, which is included in Windows 7, can be had for XP, Vista or Windows Server as well. Actually, the beta version came out last year, but the software has now graduated to the RC, or Release Candidate stage.

Microsoft appears to be straddling the fine line between simplicity and feature fullness with IE8. The browser does offer more customization and add-ons than prior, but not exactly like Firefox does with the vast array of extensions it has available. Microsoft took a customization approach with “accelerators” and “web slices”; these are definitely useful, but still limited by comparison. That could change over time, but for now it’s pretty slim pickins. I do see some useful accelerators: one for Facebook, a StumbleUpon add-on and even one for Digg. The catalog is available at http://www.ieaddons.com if you want to browse it or add features to IE8.

The flipside is the simplicity factor. IE8 looks very similar to IE7, so there’s no major learning curve to get surfing on the web. Even with the familiar look there are subtle features that we’ve already seen in Firefox and Chrome. Private browsing is in there so you don’t have to worry about the boss catching you buying WOW gold on your lunch hour. The search bar is beefed up and offers useful suggestions as well, plus Microsoft is claiming the new JavaScript engine is faster than prior versions. We’ll have to do some testing on that claim of course, but my own impressions are that IE8 is indeed generally faster that its predecessors.

Power Tips For the Young Business Owner

2009-01-16T23:21:00.000-08:00

It is true that it is never too early to learn about things. It is not any different with businesses. In fact, many successful business owners and entrepreneurs of today started out when they were still young. If you are thinking of putting up your own business, you can take this as a cue to go for it.

To guide you on your way, here is a detailed step-by-step procedure on how to make your climb on the ladder of success easier and more feasible.

Step One - Choose a business

When choosing a business, it is important to remember that it is more likely to succeed if you like and know about the nature of your business. For instance, a food business is more likely to hit it big with an owner who has a background on culinary arts and an intense penchant for food than an owner who does not know a thing about cooking.

Step Two - Select a business name and create a business logo

After choosing a business type, you should choose a business name and logo to go with it. They should be something relevant to the nature of your business so that people can easily understand what kind of products or services you are offering. It is also best to choose a name that will easily stick to the minds of your customers or clients. Creating the logo should be done in the same manner.

Step Three - Select a location

Location is a crucial factor especially if your business requires people traffic such as a restaurant, retail store, coffee shop, service center or the like. Select an area that is always busy with people or an area where your target market is most likely to be located.

Step Four - Develop a business plan

A business plan is important because it serves as a guide for your business as it contains valuable information about the company and your plans for it. It should contain company description, scope of products and services, long-term and short-term goals, financial plan, marketing strategy, hiring procedure and many others.

Step Five - Organize licenses, permits and other necessary papers

Some of the necessary documents you have to obtain include business license, business permits, local permits, food permit (if your business is food related), police permit, seller's permit, building permit, zoning permit, employer ID number and federal identification number.

Step Six - Plan your hiring

Employees obviously play a vital role in the success of any business. For this reason, it is essential that you are able to find the right kind of employees to work for your company. To ensure that, create a standardized hiring procedure that includes series of interviews, employment background checks, criminal background searches, drug testing, and practical tests and examinations.

The hiring procedure should be structured and standardized to make it easier for you to compare and assess applicants.

To ensure your success as a young entrepreneur, you have to see to it that you accomplish these important steps when putting up your own business.

The 4 Simple Steps to Reviewing a Business

2009-01-16T23:17:00.000-08:00

An unexamined life is not worth living (Socrates.) So too, an unexamined business is not worth running! If you don't know why your customers buy from you then you are going to find it difficult to get them to buy more from you! In these days of economic woe all Irish Businesses are suffering. If the purpose of running your business is to make sizeable profits then you probably need to refocus on why people buy and where the cash is really coming from. That is why I offer a Market Research phase to my clients and I'm going to share it with your here.

Step 1: Ask your clients. Don't assume that you know everything. Go and ask your clients the basic questions where did they hear about you, why do they buy from you, what annoys them etc. If they know you too well then get someone else to ask the questions. Make sure you ask current customers and lapsed ones, and from each of your segments. You can learn a huge amount from those who have left you already. Often there is something small which they are annoyed about and you can win them back.

Step 2: Your staff. This will be tricky for an owner manager, but your staff are the front line - right? There is no better source than asking your very own staff, who you pay to be loyal to you. Yet a lot of the time we don't trust their instincts or we assume that we know more than they do. They are the ones who look into the customers' eyes at buying time. They know if customers are happy or ecstatic. They know if clients are loyal or just lazy. You need to know this stuff too. So ask them!

Step 3: Your competition. When did you last take a good hard look at your competitors? The chances are one of two of them have been innovating! Some of them will have done stupid things but others will have made clever choices. You may not choose to copy, but at least you need to know what they are using to compete for your customers!

Step 4: The Web. These days every business has an element of web competition. Some people buy on the web others research and others gossip. It does not matter whether you love or loathe the web. You need to look at Key Word Densities, Header tags and a handful if other key indicators. You need to understand how the new Gods (Google and Yahoo) rate you. If they have not found or understood your website correctly, they will not guide paying customers to it.

If you follow the steps outlined above you can make a good platform to build a business strategy from. With a strategy that you believe in you can make plans that you will execute because you will believe in them. Plus as anybody who has had to deal with the banks lately knows you need a strategy to secure any funding.

Good Habits of Business

2009-01-16T23:14:00.000-08:00

A successful business runs on good habits. Every business, whether a large corporation or a small entrepreneurship, needs every worker, every piece of equipment, and every attitude to be in tune with the rest of the company. The good habits that make this work and make a good business, great, is countless. However, here are a few examples of good business habits that you can apply to your business:

- Keep your eye out for opportunities - Whether you are at work, out for dinner, or on vacation, you need to be watching out for that one opportunity that could make things be even greater for your business

- Always focus on your business first - When running a business, it always comes first. A true business person is always a business person. This is the only way to make your business reach its full potential. Once you get it on its feet, you can relax and let others help you take responsibility, but until then it is all on you.

- Always have a back-up plan - If something goes wrong you need to be quick on your feet to solve the problem. This is why it is a great idea to have a back-up plan, so you can have something ready when the time comes.

- Have thick skin - Criticism is going to come your way all the time that is just what happens when you run a business. You need to be confident in not only what you do, but in yourself. Do not let others cut you down.

- Business is not about fast money - over charging your customer is not going to help you in the long run. You need to slowly grow and become legitimate before you charge a lot for your goods and services. Building trust and confidence is much more important in the long run.

- Take risks - taking risks is just part of the job. You need to be able to distinguish between the good risks and bad, but you can only learn this through trial and error.

Using these good habits can help your business grow in a healthy way. It can also help you as a business person.

Niche Marketing Aptitude Test - Your Road Map to Success

2009-01-16T23:10:00.000-08:00

Why is niche marketing so hot now? If you're in business one fact comes with the word recession and that word is competition. Would you like a way to jump ahead of your competition? If your answer is yes then you need a way to increase your niche marketing aptitude. The niche is your answer and solution in a time of growing competition.

In tough economic times, with tight money and stiff competition, it's essential to find ways to get an edge on your competition. There have been truckloads of articles, books and newsletters on how to improve your niche marketing skills. Finding your niche is job one for every business who wants to succeed long term.

To increase your niche marketing aptitude, take the revealing quiz below, it acts as your microscope and road map to a stronger niche marketing aptitude. The importance in having it gives you a sense of confidence in the middle of stiff competition.

This is not one of those articles you passively read and then toss aside forever. This is an active involvement article. Meaning, to get the best results from reading this you must take action. How? By taking the test and answering the questions honestly. The answers will help you quickly form a solid niche strategy.

To get the maximum benefit, keep taking the test until you can get a perfect 10. The 3 minutes spent with this quiz will be worth their weight in gold to your financial future. With the enormous number of me-too products, services and businesses in the marketplace, it's essential to keep your niche aptitude strong and vigorous.

If you fail to find ways to separate yourself from your competitors, you risk getting lost in the crowd of competition. This is especially true if you're a small business with limited capital and resources to work with. Finding your best niche requires focus and a strong knowledge of who your target market is and their current needs.

You often see a business develop a product or service, enjoy a burst of sales success, then suddenly sales fall flat or even nosedives. Your first impression goes to the economy, competition or limited capital. Those may have added to the problem, but the core problem goes back to the niche marketing aptitude of the owner and management.

Often a failing business didn't have a sales, money or profit problem, they had a hidden niche marketing problem. For example, most failing businesses had a weak, unfocused or changing niche market long before they noticed the other obvious problems.

To increase your niche marketing aptitude take the Niche Marketing Aptitude test below: Give yourself 1 point for each yes answer. Take it for each new business, product or service you create or obtain. Continue taking it until you reach a score of 10. Your goal should be to maintain a score of 10 for each business, product or service you control.

1. Do I know who the next 3 competitors ahead of me are?

2. Do I know what my competitive advantages are over them?

3. Do I have them written down? And do I constantly try to add to them?

4. Can I name at least one new problem my target customers are facing that I can solve through my product or service this week or month?

5. What extra service can I provide that my competition can't provide?

6. What ways can I speed up service to my customers without sacrificing quality?

7. What ways can I get my satisfied customers to recommend me to others?

8. Do I aggressively seek comments, complaints or questions from my customers?

9. Do I know my competitors latest competitive advantages over my product or service?

10. Do I aggressively seek and test new ideas while holding on to what works?

Amit Agarwal's Favorite Blogs & Websites of 2008

2009-01-06T01:16:00.000-08:00

Following are the top 20 websites / blogs that I pay most attention to as per FeedDemon. The snapshot on the left was captured in June (for comparison) while the one on right reflects my current reading habits.

I was subscribed to some 1168 feeds in June but that number has shrunk to less than 650 today and I therefore have more time to spend per feed. Another big surprise is Hacker News - it has climbed to #2 position from nowhere while old favorite Techmeme has dropped to #8.

The Essential Guide to Internet & Software for First-Time Computer Users

2009-01-06T01:12:00.000-08:00

You bought a brand new laptop computer for mom - the Apple Macbook was too expensive so you settled for a Dell machine loaded with Windows Vista and a trial copy of Office 2007.

Your mom is a great self-learner and knows all the basic stuff about computers but needs some help is in finding the right software tools that will help her do stuff more efficiently and as inexpensively as possible.

Letter to Mom suggesting tools and web apps for her new computer

Dear Mom - I hope you are enjoying the new Dell notebook. Now the first thing I want you to do is install PC Decrapifier - this will detect and remove all the unwanted trial programs that came pre-installed with your machine.

Next you should install Firefox - it’s an Internet Explorer like web browser but slightly better. Instead of using browser bookmarks, try the delicious add-on to save the addresses of all your favorite websites. Another add-on that you should install is Iterasi - web pages come and go but Iterasi will permanently archive your favorite web pages (like that eggless cake recipe).

You should create two email accounts one Gmail.com - share the primary email address with your friends and family but for everything else (like the newsletter and shopping deal alerts) always use the secondary email address. If you come across a site that requires registration, generate a temporary email address from 10MinuteMail.com and enter without sharing your main email.

With so many websites around, you’ll soon find it very hard to remember all those passwords so get into the habit of putting down all the different passwords into KeepPass from day one.

If you plan to carry this laptop in public places (like the Library), get this Laptop Alarm software that will emit a loud sound if someone tries to shut down your computer or remove the power cable. Laptop thefts are not so uncommon after all.

The trial version of Microsoft Office on your computer will expire after 60 days so you may completely uninstall that software and switch over to Google Docs - it has all the basic feature you would need in an Office suite including templates for tracking expenses and utility bills. You can use your primary Gmail address to log into Google Docs.

Sometimes your friends will send you documents, images or video clips that won’t open on your computer - that’s because you don’t have the right viewer software on your machine. You can simply go to zamzar.com and convert the file into some simple format (like avi for video, jpg for images, doc for documents, mp3 for songs, etc.) that you computer can play/open.

If the computer contains too many programs that you’ll rarely or never use, get the Revo Uninstaller to get rid of such programs permanently. To free up additional space on the hard drive, use WinDirStat to learn about file folders that are occupying the maximum space on your computer and delete the unnecessary files.

Be very careful when deleting files on your computer but if you ever delete something important accidently, Recuva may help you recover all those erased files. It even works with the memory card of your digital camera.

To download pictures from your digital camera onto the computer, get Windows Live Photo Gallery. This software can also upload your photos to our common family Flickr account so everyone gets to see your pictures even though we are several hundred miles away from you.

If the computer is not able to play your huge collection of DVD movies, you’re probably missing some codecs (don’t worry about the term) - just download the VLC player and the DVDs will play just fine.

You should also get Live Mesh - it will allow us to share files and documents with each other privately plus you can use Mesh to backup important files onto the cloud (I mean the web).

I am almost always available for chat on Google Talk but if some of your online friends use other chat software (like Yahoo! Messenger or AOL), you can easily connect with them through Miranda or, if you don’t want to install any software, use Meebo.

Another thing - do open an account at PayPal and link it to your main credit card as this will make online shopping easier. If you ever have a problem with PayPal or something isn’t clear, just call their toll-free 1-800 support number from your browser using Gizmo.

If your current voice plan is too expensive, I suggest that you download Skype - it lets you make calls from the computer to any landline or mobile phone at much cheaper rates. We can also use Skype to have video chats on weekends but if you don’t find me online, just send me a video email with Eyejot.

If you have newspaper clippings, bill receipts and business cards lying in the closet, just take a picture of them separately using the camera of your mobile phone and transfer them to the computer with Evernote - it will turn your "paper" documents into digital format that is always so easy to find and manage.

When planning a movie or weekend dinner with friends, you can send all of them a quick reminder for the event via phone and SMS for free using Notifu. If you’re inviting people at home for a party, head-over to sites like VideoJug.com, SuTree or 5min.com for new ideas about food, cocktails, party games, etc.

If you ever need to fax a document somewhere, just go to FaxZero, upload the document and fax it for free. FaxZero is only available for fax numbers of US or Canada but for international numbers, you may try eFax.

You can also consider dropping those magazine subscriptions that are delivered by snail mail - switch to Zinio instead that delivers the same magazine but in digital format.

As far as I remember, you’re currently using an unlimited data plan for the Internet but if that’s not true, get BitMeter - it will help you visually monitor your bandwidth usage so you never exceed the plan limit. You may also want to download FlashGet for downloading big files from the Internet.

If you notice carefully, some websites add an orange colored icon in the browser address bar (go to cnn.com to see a live example) - this icon means that you can get updates about new articles posted on that site automatically without having to visit the site again and again. If that’s the case, go to Feed My Inbox and type the address of that website - you’ll be notified automatically via email.

When browsing the web, you’ll frequently come across photographs, web pages and videos that you’ll want to share with us (your family members) - you could either send the link in a group mail or better still, simply create an account at Tumblr and start saving all the "interesting" stuff there.

And if you ever find yourself spending too much time on the computer, get RescueTime to know about websites where you spend most of your time.

There are a few other things that I want to do on your computer like installing a hosts file and configuring OpenDNS so that sites load quickly on your machine. These however require some geeky knowledge so I will try configuring them from here itself via CrossLoop - a remote desktop access tool.

See Real Web Addresses Before Clicking any Short URL

2009-01-06T01:08:00.000-08:00

Let’s say you land on a web page that has tons of links but they are all encoded with services like tinyurl, ping.fm, bit.ly, is.gd, etc. so you have no clue about where those links may lead you to? The TinyURL service does offer a preview feature but most would agree that its too time consuming.

There are a few plugins like Long URL and Long URL Please that help you know where those shortened links really point to but the problem with this approach is that it works only with Firefox.

Bookmarklet Replaces Short URLs with Original Links

If you are not on Firefox or need a simple solution that requires no installation, just drag this Long URL Please bookmarklet from longurlplease.com to your browser bookmarks toolbar.

When you click this bookmarklet link in your browser, all short URLs on the current web page will be replaced with the original URLs so you don’t have to worry about getting into embarrassing situations anymore. The same solution will work in Google Chrome, IE, Firefox and other browsers.

Using POP Displays to Enhance Your Sales

2008-12-30T01:45:00.002-08:00

Many businesses are learning about the enormous impact of display on revenue. A well-organized setup with good display signage and attractive items can pull in new customers, sell new products, and generate valuable new leads. But a badly organized display, or one that looks amateurish, can turn even the most dedicated old customers away from a store. Your store's appearance is as important as the quality of your products.

But once you have good window graphics, visual displays, and interior graphics, what more can you do to enhance your company's image? The answer is to look within, considering not just the whole interior of your retail space, but each individual retail area. By isolating different sale spaces and organizing each one, you can further enhance your visual displays and attract more revenue.

What Are POP Displays?

POP displays are more formally known as point of purchase displays. They are the displays arranged for individual products within a store or other retail space; rather than being visual displays in a store window, they are the actual arrangement where the product is available. They are literally situated at the point of purchase where the customer decides whether or not to buy.

When you create good custom displays at this point, you will present your products in a more positive light. Your customers will see the excellence of what you are offering and be inspired to buy.

As with all visual displays, there is a wide variety of techniques that can be employed to create the display. Some companies prefer a simple aesthetic, using the equivalent of a wire potato chip holder to display items. On the other hand, some companies choose POP displays that really pop, with unique elements and custom displays organized to really catch the customer's eye.

Creating Custom Displays At The Point of Purchase

But which method of creation is better? In the end, it depends on you company's goals, and on what you are selling. If your clientele expects your store to be cutting-edge, then you need to consider POP displays that are more flashy and engineered. However, if your customers just want to see the product easily and be able to decide quickly whether or not they want to purchase it, your visual displays can be much less extravagant.

In fact, if your customers typically come to you with a purchase item already in mind, complicated custom displays can detract from their experience: they want to get their item quickly and be able to examine it easily, without any complicated additions.

Uniting Different Visual Displays

Although using POP displays is an excellent way to boost your store's professional appearance and appeal, be careful that each display still fits into a cohesive theme that continues throughout the store. If the custom displays don't interrelate, their effect will be greatly diminished. No matter how professional and attractive each looks on its own, unless they all look nice together, customers will not be inspired to buy. But when all your POP displays work together and unite seamlessly with your visual displays, your store will be optimized for your clients.

Choosing the Right Direct Mail Product For Your Hospital's Advertising Campaign

2008-12-30T01:45:00.001-08:00

Direct mail campaigns have been used successfully by hospitals and other medical facilities for many years. The fact that hundreds and thousands of potential patients and customers can be reached for just pennies per household makes it easy on your advertising budget. Compare your Return On Investment for direct mail and alternative advertising vehicles and you will be pleasantly surprised.

It takes thousands of dollars a month for a radio ad campaign. Television ads are even more cost prohibitive. The print media is losing readers daily, so I wouldn't recommend spending part of your budget on a decreasingly effective type of advertising campaign. It just makes sense to stick with a tried and true method, doesn't it?

Something New Has Been Added

Historically, direct mail products were paper advertisements like postcards or flyers. As effective as they were, a percentage of them weren't read. Some people saw them as "just another piece of junk mail" and tossed them into the trash. With the advent of a relatively new innovation in direct mail products, that percentage has been pared down to a minimum. More people than ever will read your hospital's advertisement with these new magnetic postcard direct mail products.

Why The Magnetic Mailers Work So Well

As mentioned above, recipients often considered old paper mailers to be mere junk. These new mailers have a quality refrigerator style magnet attached, which is easily peeled off. Seeing a magnet attached intrigues the person. They peel it off out of curiosity, if nothing else. Now they have in their hand something that has value instead of just a piece of cardboard or paper. No one likes throwing away something that has value, and a refrigerator magnet is so easily stuck on the fridge, so they give it a fling and the magnet is fastened to the door.

Aha!

Now your advertisement is in a prominent spot in the home or workplace. The idea behind any advertising campaign is to get the attention of as many folks as possible. A magnetic product like this does just that. Everyone in the home, at the shop, in the office or at the store will see it on a regular basis. Advertising magnets are not "in you face" like radio and TV ads, which play over and over until you are sick of them. Magnets are much more passive, but studies indicate that the subtle exposures are still very effective. When someone needs medical treatment or services, they will recall your magnetic advertisement and call you.

Networking Gold Diggers

2008-12-30T01:44:00.001-08:00

Contrary to popular belief, this article is not about money hungry women or the gold rush in California during the late 1800's. As a matter of fact, professionals, students and entrepreneurs can search for gold when they are networking. The term: search for gold can definitely take on a personality of its own. In this unique case, professionals, students and entrepreneurs can focus on the quality characteristics, details or importance of building relationships and connect with colleagues and professionals at events, meetings, conferences, etc. There are ways to scope out important elements for obtaining the desired objectives for reaching various business and social goals in networking.

Listed below are helpful tips which professionals can use to attract that perfect opportunity!

Friendship is Golden

This is probably the most important yet the most overlooked aspect in doing business today. Friendships are very essential and much needed in any industry, profession or career. It is a good platform for developing relationships, building loyalty and gaining trust. Many business people are more focused on friendship and good relations than they are in market price, service quality or location of their customer/clients. Having a common connection or link with individuals or companies creates streams of support and understanding which can not reflect a price tag. Professionals should learn to seek out worthwhile and lasting friendships in their networking endeavors.

Silence is Golden

It is written that it is better to give than to receive. But in this article it is suggested that it is better to listen than to speak. Listening is a skill that can be made perfect and when mastered, the results are just outstanding. Listening to the needs, concerns or comments of others is one of the best action points for building relationships and gaining new business. Hearing and understanding can bridge gaps and create solutions to age old problems. Lending an ear and focusing your attention can also foster friendships and relationships in networking.

Respect is Golden

Treat others the way you would like to be treated. This is probably number one on the totem pole for relating and connecting with individuals. It is not just a word but an active verb. Professionals can speak, show and give respect. They can express it in the ways in which they communicate with others verbally and in written forms of correspondence. Respect channels growth, development and opportunities.

Secrets to Small Business Success - Network Your Butt Off

2008-12-30T01:41:00.000-08:00

Networking is the most cost effective way to promote your business. It's the perfect combination of marketing and testimonial endorsement. And most people know that networking can lead to more sales. When someone refers you to a friend or colleague, you arrive with their endorsement and they marketed you for free. Which is one of the best reasons to network your butt off, especially in the beginning of a new enterprise.

When you begin your networking efforts, be certain to try several different venues and groups before you join any group. Only after you have evaluated the potential connection value from each group should you decide to choose one over another. Be certain to join at least one chamber of commerce and one other business networking organization and attend regularly.

Begin building a reputation as someone who is known, liked, and trusted by giving leads and referrals to the people you meet. In time they will reciprocate. Be patient but persistent in your participation. Attend regularly and bring plenty of leads and referrals from your network. It will pay off in new business and greater connections. And while the new business is essential to your livelihood, what most people fail to realize is that networking is the best way solve business problems as well.

Consider your new business. You have grown to the point of needing someone to answer the phones and do some clerical work for you. Through networking you can eliminate all the screening of potential new hires and interview just a few pre-qualified candidates.

Perhaps you are facing a challenge with an employee. You could ask the Department of Labor or other governmental agency for help or you could seek advice from your trusted network of peers. Chances are one of your peers has been through what you are going through and you can save yourself countless hours and dollars by learning from their experience.

Maybe you are considering launching an advertising campaign. You could sit through hours of advertising sales presentations or you could lean on the experience of your network to lead you to the right decision.

These are just a few of the valuable benefits you will gain by networking your butt off. Develop this discipline now and you will always have plenty of trusted resources and pipeline filling referrals.

How to Get Lean Muscle - 3 Ways to Force a Skinny Body to Grow Lean Muscle

2008-12-30T01:40:00.001-08:00

Are you one of the skinny men who's thrown in the towel with trying to build lean muscle? Have you tried supplements, weights and diets? How frustrated and disappointed were you when the advice you followed didn't pay off? Here are three simple tips that are tried and true. Doing these, in no particular order, will cause your body to develop lean muscle.

1. Consume 50-60 grams of protein per day

This is a generally easy change to incorporate into a daily routine. You can mix 10-20 grams in a home made protein shake or even a millk shake and drink it in the morning, noon and evening. Alternatively, you could also drink it right after a work out to immediately make your muscles start recovering more quickly.

2. Lift heavy weights at low volume and high intensity

This is the backbone of all good lean muscle literature. Lifting heavy weights will make your body adapt to greater amounts of physical stress. If you go out into the sun, you tan to protect yourself from UV rays. If you go out into the cold, your body will shiver to try and keep your body warm. If you lift heavy weights, your body will get bigger to better resist the pain from lifting. So to keep growing, keep lifting heavier weights! Of course, your muscle will only notice the heavy weights when you lift many times. Push your muscle and lift until you can't lift any more. Keep it to one set and your muscle will grow.

3. Keep a log book.

A less technical piece of advice, keeping a log book will allow you to track whether your workout's have been more or less intense. Keep everything in it, your meals, how much you've lifted and when you've lifted it, even feelings you encountered while lifting. Make it a bit more creative and turn it into a journal/diary as well. Who says men don't have feelings? A quick tip: an easy way to tell if a workout has been more and less intense than a previous one is by multiplying the mass of the weight by how many times you lifted it, eg. 20 lbs x 10 time = 200 lb is more intense than 30 lbs x 5 reps = 150 lbs, even though it might have felt harder for you.

How much does it mean to get lean muscle to you? These tips will help you gain lean muscle. It's time to start doing some work and start lifting instead of searching for the perfect work out. Everyone's body is different and a good program will adapt to the man. If it doesn't recommend the top three pieces of information, it's not a good work program. Take control of your skinny body and start building lean muscle now!

Why Skinny Guys Always Struggle to Build Muscle

2008-12-30T01:32:00.000-08:00

Unfortunate but true, most really skinny guys will always struggle to gain any decent amount of muscle without the use of steroids. That's not to say it isn't possible to build muscle if you're a little skinny, because it definitely is, it just takes a lot of dedication and persistence.

Why Is This? There are a number of reasons why this is the case, but the following are the most common:

Lack of knowledge -This is major problem with anyone who chooses to build muscle. There are many ways to achieve great muscle growth and you will have no shortage of friends and fellow exercisers giving you the benefits of their knowledge of exactly how to do it. How often should you train, which exercises should you do, how hard should it feel, which way will give you the best results in the shortest time. Don't listen to everyone who gives you advice as there are many conflicting opinions within the bodybuilding world. What works for your much bigger friend won't necessarily work the same for you. Your shape means you are different and therefore need to use a system that is designed just for you, so get in touch with a qualified personal trainer or buy a program specifically designed for someone with your shape so you can follow professional advice on the best approach to take to get you to your goals.
Not Enough Calories -Another of the biggest problems facing skinny men is the ability to store and consume enough calories each day. When you are training with weights you not only need enough calories to fuel your everyday activities, but also enough to help with the recovery and repair of the muscles you have been exercising. Ideally you should be in a positive calorie balance, which means eating more each day than you will actually need. You can work out the amount of calories you need each day quite basically by weighing yourself in KG and then multiplying that by 30 to give you an approximate daily guideline amount. I would recommend an extra 500 calories over and above this total each day to ensure that you are eating enough to help build muscle.
Your Metabolism is Too Fast - One of the drawbacks to being skinny and wanting to gain muscle is having a faster metabolic rate (the rate at which your body burns through food). The faster you burn through the calories you ingest then the less there are available for repair of muscle tissue and storage for future energy needs. If you seem to burn through your foods at an alarming rate and really struggle to gain weight then you need to increase the amount of meals you have each day and take more time to eat each one. Slowing down your pace of life or reducing the amount of time you spend moving around each day may also help.

Certainly if you are naturally skinny you will always find it difficult to build muscle quickly. If you do stick it out and persevere however, you will end up with probably the most enviable body of anyone you know. You will have definition, shape and low body fat levels which will give you a honed and toned body the envy of every fitness model. So stick at it and be patient!

Tips on Creating a Controversial Press Release

2008-12-27T23:30:00.001-08:00

When you submit a press release to the newswire you want it to get picked up by the most (and hopefully on-target) publications as possible. You want to spread the news, right? Isn't that what a press release is all about? You want to spread the news to as many people as possible in a short amount of time. You want them to know about your new product or service. You want them to know about the cool award you garnered from some website or organization. Time and again you hear that you need a press release to be "newsworthy." Why would anyone pick up your story if it's really not new anyone wants to read about? And one of the best ways to make your release newsworthy is to make it controversial!

If you have a controversial press release, you're taking a chance at offending a segment of the population. Ideally, the offended parties are 1) not mortally wounded emotionally or mentally and 2) not your target market. Here are some tips to create a controversial press release that walks the fine line of being newsworthy and debatable enough to be picked up by the various publications and sites, but not to the point of disgusting the larger population of the world wide web.

1 - Look at current news topics. What is going on in the news currently that you can take and apply to your press release? If so, don't go with the popular opinion. Go against the flow and position your press release in a way that it challenges the current stance. Trying to sell your step by step guide to becoming a loan officer? State your case for why NOW is the best time to become a mortgage broker.

2 - Create a controversy when there isn't one. Say you are promoting your "Doggie DNA" service. Maybe you don't have any good stories to tell. But what would be a controversial reason that a person would use your service? The title "Did Your Dog Breeder Sell You A Lie?" comes to mind...with the slant that a dog owner should double-check their pedigreed pooches.

3 - Listen to the boneheads in your life. You know, those people who talk and you wonder how few brain cells they actually have? Or, maybe they're smart but just really, really quirky? Well, sometimes their logic is just off-kilter enough to make a great twist to your press release. Because sometimes even wacky people have some good thoughts...

4 - Use pop culture. Was Britney the inspiration behind your fatbusting exercise ebook? Did the ol' Justin Timberlake-Janet Jackson debacle at that Superbowl a few years back spark your invention of a heavy-duty fabric fastener? Make it relevant to today (that means no references to people or television shows so old that your target market will be scratching their heads in wonder) and then have at it.

5 - Don't be offensive. Obviously, the number one rule with controversial press releases is to be interesting/controversial, not offensive/controversial. You don't want to anger the ACLU or get people staking out your home and picketing. But then again, maybe the publicity is worth it...

How to Personalise an Engraved Executive Gift

2008-12-27T23:29:00.000-08:00

If you have read my articles on how to personalise an executive gift you will have seen that there are many ways to achieve the perfect results.

In this article I want to explore further the options you have when choosing an engraved executive gift to give to your valued clients, suppliers or colleagues.

The most obvious way is to add the person's initials; this makes the gift highly personal, and can show that you really have thought about them and the process.

As an example, imagine someone gave you or one of your friends some elegant cuff links that had been engraved with a company logo, you might imagine that apart from when the are visiting that particular company, they might not choose to wear what it clearly an advertisement on a normal day at the office.

Contrast that with the thought of a beautiful pair of silver plated cufflinks, with each one discreetly engraved with initials and the whole gift giving experience moves to a new level. The lucky recipient views the engraved executive gift as a highly personal gift, and one that will be treasured, and of course always remembered will be who and when gave them such a beautiful gift.

There are many times though when the gift needs more words than just simple initials, perhaps you are commemorating a product launch, an anniversary, or even a promotion or retirement, and as such elegant corporate gifts are perfect for awards or recognition gifts, and it is when the gift is for one of these purposes that it makes sense to try and add a longer message.

Most good online engraved executive gift stores will give you the option to usually select three lines of about 15 letters that can be engraved on the item where space allows, or if it is a smaller item, perhaps just one line.

Some online stores charge just a modest extra amount for engraving, so there is no need to worry about huge charges for making the gift perfect for your purpose, and the best sites will arrange for delivery to be made to you in as little as two or three days, saving you time and money.

Lets imagine that you have a company anniversary, and you want to give your top 25 clients an engraved executive gift as a lasting reminder of such a momentous occasion.

My recommendation is that you come up with a standard message for each one, but take the trouble to add their name to the product as well, making it personal to them, and reminding them at the same time how much you value the relationship.

A typical message might be " Presented to (insert name) on the occasion of the 25 year anniversary of (insert your company name) on (insert the date)

Now, there are a few simple steps to make sure that when you have say selected an elegant silver plated and engraved item that is suitable for a 25th anniversary, you get as much goodwill as possible.

There is probably no bigger faux pas than having a spelling mistake of a name or company on any personalised gift, so please take your time to proof read the names and spellings, and always ask a colleague to double check what you are about to order.

When you receive the delivery, always check every single one and then if you have used one of the excellent gift sites that give you gift boxes, gift tags and gifts bags, you should hand write a simple but personal message to each person, add their name to the gift card envelope, and then staple or attach the card to the gift bag to make it easy to see who gets each gift.

Remember also that you do not need to select the same engraved executive gift for everyone, you can, if you use a good online engraved executive gift web site, choose a different gift for everyone.

Giving a well thought out personalised gift to a key client, an important supplier or a valued colleague is will make a huge positive impact on your relationship, so take your time and enjoy the process of selecting the perfect personalised gift.

Low Budget PP - Why Pay Them When You Can Do it Yourself

2008-12-27T23:27:00.000-08:00

Time and again I've run into entrepreneurs who are avidly seeking representation for publicity. These savvy entrepreneurs realize that exposure to the masses is a necessity for success in business but have convinced themselves that they require the services of a skilled professional -ergo a publicist, to get the job done effectively. Two publicity campaigns and thousands of dollars later a little light bulb goes off in their head bringing them to the realization, with all things considered (regarding the unsavory results of their pr campaigns), that they could've done the pr strong-arming on their own. And you know what -- they are absolutely right!

Which brings me to the question at hand - why pay someone to get publicity for you when you can get it on your own? Let me further add to the question, the following phrase : yielding similar or better results. So the publicity issue on the table now reads as follows - why should you hire a publicist when you can get similar or better results by putting together your own publicity campaign?

A publicist is a well paid middleman. I call 'em as I see 'em! Honestly speaking, I can make this assessment because I am a former publicist. Every client that I'd ever worked for in the past wanted the same thing - instant notoriety in the public eye. That kind of overnight, any-publicity-is-good-publicity crackerjack-fame-in-a-box campaign should be avoided at all costs because the first rule of thumb in publicity is that nothing is guaranteed. Additionally, the end result of a crackerjack pr campaign is damaged credibility for the publicity seeker. Ethically a publicist should never condone such a service but you'd be surprised what people will say or do when money is involved.

In a nutshell, the job of a publicist is to get you (the entrepreneur) exposure in the right places so that you can reach your niche consumer. They do this by going through their handy dandy rolodex of editors, journalists, photographers and ghost writers and draft up an enticing press kit in which they use to sell you, your product, service or company to editors of publications that reach your desired audience. You are charged a sizable fee up front to retain publicity services which never guarantee mass exposure to your niche. Throughout the pr campaign a la carte publicity services may be offered to you such as writing or editing (tweaking) your press materials. Your company profile, one page personal biography, and fact sheet will be refurbished, and you will be charged for that service. Additionally, as the client you will be highly encouraged to partake in media training (which is when your publicist preps you on how to present and handle yourself while being interviewed - this training also shows you how to maintain control over the scope of the interview.) You will be charged for this service as well. Mailing press kits, phone calls with editors, lunch meetings with journalists, sending emails and faxes, yes you will be charged for all of this as well - it comes out of your retainer and it's done to ensure that a few articles - notice the word few - will be written about you, your product, company and/or service.

The volume of publicity is dependent upon two things: first, are you sellable. This simply means can the publicist pitch you effectively to the media and will they be interested in what you have to offer. Second is the network of editors, and journalists (which includes print, online, TV and radio mediums) that the publicist has access to. You can sell just about anything to anyone, the same goes with pitching a story idea, which is why you can do your own publicity. Additionally, your publicist may be able to get you into certain publications because of the relationship that they've built with an editor, but you can build your own relationships with the media based on your expertise in your field. If you decide to save a little money and do your own publicity, you could probably make more noise than a publicist because the passion that you have for your endeavors will shine through in your press materials and pitch letters/phone calls. As long as you handle your publicity campaign with tact and integrity everything will fall into place. So do yourself a favor and save your money because with all things considered initially you can handle publicity effectively on your own.

Warning - The Following 9 Points May Turn You Into a Pitching Pro!

2008-12-27T23:26:00.000-08:00

1. Pitch on topic. Don't waste people's time. They're busy enough; they don't need more email plugging up their inbox or other correspondence that is off-base and off-topic. And they'll black list you. And they'll tell their friends. Trust me.

2. K.I.S.S. Yes, it should go without saying, except it never does. Keep It Simple Stupid. End of story. Don't drone on and on. Write a nice and precise paragraph on why your concept/idea/product is bang on with what they're looking for. Or with what they don't know they're looking for yet! A few sentences on what your brainwave is. A few sentences on why they need it, or better yet, why they will WANT it and why they must HAVE it.

3. Talk the Talk. Speak their language. Don't go overboard with industry acronyms and jargon, that's just plain ridiculous. But do get to know them before pitching. Know their market. Know what they're after, or, what they don't know they're after yet. I was pitching a hot PR firm out of LA not long ago. I used totally different languaging than when I pitch corporations. More relaxed. More funky. More targeted. And it worked. It was a smashing success.

4. Play nice. Get a rapport going with the firm or reporter you're pitching to. I'm not talking about buttering them up - they'll see right through that - but be nice. Be professional. If you see something that will fit with what they're looking for (even if it's not you!), send it along! They'll remember you. Don't inundate, but you can send along a lead or two.

5. Jump in, the water's fine! In other words, don't be afraid to pitch. You've got nothing to lose. This is your business, your marketing initiative, your concept, whathaveyou. So pitch away! Pitch with confidence, pitch often and pitch well.

6. Don't assume anything. You might think it's pretty obvious that everyone under the sun has an email signature that includes their contact information. (Because, well, it is pretty obvious. And everyone does have an email signature that includes their contact information.) But email programs are laid out differently (ie: Gmail piles them up at the bottom of all emails - very annoying when you've got a long string of messages going), and people are laid out differently. People simply may not scroll down to find your contact info, especially if it's lost in a long string of messages! Have it clearly in the body of the message somewhere. Clearly. Link to your website, link to your email, have your name standing out. Don't forget this. Introduce yourself properly.

7. Make it personal. How are you different - what can you do differently to grab their attention. To get their interest? I had an opportunity to pitch Sarah Ferguson, The Duchess of York, at an event earlier this year. What got her interested was the fact that I was a female with a new start up, heading down the entrepreneurial road. Make sure you know who you're dealing with, what their interests are, and off you go!

8. Network, Network and more... Social Network. Do you follow the key players on Twitter? Are the hot PR folks in your Biznik network? Do you get urgent queries fast, like, yesterday? Get to know these people, see what they're about. Connect with them. Get going!

9. Keep On Keepin' On! In other words? Don't give up. Ever. This is your business, your baby, you've got to shop it! Work it! Own it! Remember, it's rumoured that JK Rowlings pitched Harry Potter over 100 times before it was finally signed. Consider your product your own personal masterpiece and keep on pitching! Keep On Keepin' On.

Basics and Benefits of Yoga

2008-12-27T23:15:00.000-08:00

Can the power of yoga really cure us? Is it true that if you have a medical ailment, yoga could be the answer to your prayers? Have you heard about the story of Sue Cohen? She is an accountant, 54 years old who was diagnosed with breast cancer. She claims that after her surgery, she could not lift her arm at all. That was around 5 years ago. Today, Sue Cohen is cancer-free and can move freely. In fact she can even stand on her head! Sue Cohen believes that what cured her was yoga. She was encouraged through yoga to do things she never thought she could, and she did!

Many more have come forward claiming that the power of yoga brought them back to form. They feel lighter in spirit, less to no stress, and many, many more positive changes in their perspective and physical aspect. Some have even reported having been able to lose weight, quit smoking, conquer fears, and improve overall performance.

So, what's the actual power of yoga that can effect these changes? Or are they just mere assumptions that have no basis or scientific logic behind it? Technically, the power of yoga is in the mind because there have been no substantive study that will back up any of these claims. While they may be true, they are not confirmed by science, Western science.

There is a huge difference between the Western and Eastern ways. In India, yoga is encouraged because they believe that it is a holistic way of approaching life. Yoga tries to blend all aspects of your life. It is a way of seeing the world. Through meditation, discipline, and a philosophical way of looking at you in conjunction with the world around you, yoga tries to take you to higher levels of "maturity."

The power of yoga lies in you. You have to practice and learn how to look beyond what is materialistic and earthly, to see a world that can be peaceful and stress-free. Many celebrities endorse yoga as a means of getting in touch with their inner self. It is also considered by them as a form of mental and physical exercise. These celebrities have made yoga a byword in our society. By practicing it and talking about it, people have come to know, try and appreciate yoga as a form of release.

The power of yoga is not in the postures and poses, but in the meditative breathing techniques that will teach you to develop mental clarity, get you to be happier with life and more relaxed.
The reason many famous people have been doing yoga is probably because they are in very stressful surroundings. They needed a release, and they have found it in yoga. That is the power of yoga.

It brings inner peace which is seen in the faces and attitudes of the yoga advocates. So many have come to be a part of the yoga trend, the figures doubling in the last 5 years alone. If you step into a health club, the probability that you will find a yoga class is pretty high. You should try it because it can change your life. The power of yoga have worked on millions of people worldwide, why won't it work on you?
More interesting and valuable information on the basics.

what is yoga?

2008-12-27T23:05:00.000-08:00

In India, yoga is practiced as a way of understanding life and all its glory. It’s main goal is to transcend what is earthly and find true peace and happiness. Although it started in India, it has reached into the far recesses of every corner of the globe to become a means to an end. When translated, yoga means “to unite” in Sanskrit.

The first known yoga institute was established in 1918 in Mumbai, the Yoga Institute of Santa Cruz. Here was revealed the ancient art of mental health interspersed with moral consciousness.

Yoga has been made commercially popular in the United States and other westernized countries, but what you see there is really not what the true yoga is all about. The Hollywood version of yoga is twisted poses combined with intense meditation and humming.

In reality, yoga is an attempt to be one with the Supreme Being. It’s like having levels of realization. In yoga, these levels are jnanayoga, dhyana yoga, and bhaktiyoga. As a beginner, you start at the lowest level which is the yoga aruruksa stage. You are expected to practice your craft and try to attain the top level of yoga arudha.

While there is nothing wrong with the yoga poses and postures, what one must remember is that yoga is not about the postures. The postures are a means to attain a desired level of mental maturity. Anyone can start yoga regardless of age because it does not discriminate a person because of gender, age, moral or mental health.

Yoga tries to teach detachment from all things material. This is why it focuses on meditation as its method. The different positions are really exercises that should help you control your senses in order to achieve a desired mental state of pure equilibrium.

There are different yoga systems like Hatha, Ashtanga, Kriya, and Pantanjali to name just some. In the Pantanjali system, the aim is to stop self gratification and avoid falling into that trap ever again. The Hatha system promotes the use of the body poses and postures as a means to be fit in order to be in sync with your spiritual side.

Raja or Ashtanga yoga is considered the highest form of yoga wherein one tries to be in tune with his human and divine consciousness by using meditation.

All yoga systems try to teach one that it is important to understand about cause and effect. For example, when you get sick, the effect is your mind is not as sharp. Your actions are compromised and you are not the same person you normally are.

Yoga is an art that is embraces anyone willing to learn how to enjoy life in the real sense. Many westerners have come to enjoy yoga as a form of relaxation, away from the inner struggles and demands of living in a materialistic world.

Eventually most of them find themselves looking for that moment when they can feel an inner peace, and leave every yoga session feeling totally rejuvenated.

Hatha Yoga For Good Health

2008-12-27T23:01:00.000-08:00

Hatha Yoga - An Ancient Program of Balance, Harmony and Purification

Hatha Yoga originated in the 15th century in India as part of a program of purification of the body incorporated along with meditation. Hatha is the Hindu word for "sun and , while "Yoga" is the word for "yoke" or uniting of body, mind and environment. Hatha Yoga places great significance on achieving balance between physical, mental, spiritual and emotional states in harmony with earth, water, sun and moon.

Basic Tenets of Hatha Yoga Program

The basic tenets of the Hatha Yoga Program is comprised of several aspects:

Asana which focuses on posture similar to the postures of T'ai Chi and Chi Gong
Prayanamas where subtle energy control is the focus, a very important aspect of Hatha Yoga
Chakras which are the centers of energy
Kundalini which encompasses muscle force
Kryas which promotes the mastering of kundalini techniques
Shakti, the sacred force
Nadis which are channels
Mudras, which are symbolic gestures similar to those in T'ai Chi.

Shatkarma, purification, begins with freeing up the mind by freeing up the body through holistic lifestyle, yoga practice daily and metaphysical re-adaptation.

Self-Improvement Through Hatha Yoga

Within asanas, also known as "sun signs", movements are performed and practiced that rely on focused mental concentration in order to achieve maximum benefits. Practitioners of Hatha Yoga find a new sense of physical balance and strength as a result of consistent use of asanas. Thus, Hatha Yoga retards the aging process by infusing mind and body with continual renewal of strength and balance. Most people who practice Hatha Yoga find that it's necessary to also take inventory of their dietary and lifestyle predilections. This is a very natural emanation of alterations to a less healthy lifestyle.

Benefits of Hatha Yoga

The benefits of Hatha Yoga are a sense of wholeness and overall good health. Through the balance of mind and body effected by Hatha Yoga, a new harmony evolves from within and allows the individual to experience less stress and tension as a result. Yet, the adaptability to Hatha Yoga lifestyle is relatively easy because of the simplicity of its core fundamentals.

Meditation and Hatha Yoga

Meditation is an element of nearly all religions, holistic programs and cultural lifestyles. Meditation is also one of the oldest forms of self-recognition. Discovering the wealth of knowledge, ideas and inspirations within the unconscious mind is often obliterated by details stored in the conscious mind. This creates a conflict in the body when conscious messages block out unconscious messages intended as metaphysical protection from conscious deliberate negative actions. Quieting the mind sufficiently in meditation also requires the body to be receptively postured for best results. This is the basis of Hatha Yoga.

Lessons of Hatha Yoga for All Ages

Teaching children from young ages to adapt to the holistic program of Hatha Yoga creates a permanent direction for mental stability and good physical health. It is also the very best time for the practice of Hatha Yoga to begin. Those who choose Hatha Yoga in their senior years may find several of the asanas, i.e., the candle, the Lotus Position, physically challenging. For this age group, modified asanas are taught.

How to Choose the Perfect Yoga Class For Your Type

2008-12-27T22:59:00.000-08:00

With seemingly endless choices available - how will you know which yoga class suits you best? Here are a few general principles which will help.

What's the right style for you? You need to be honest about your fitness level, commitment and intentions in starting a yoga class. Is it to reduce stress? Get super-fit? Reduce your back pain? Calm your thoughts? Get in touch with your inner wisdom? Each yoga school has a different focus - some are more physically demanding, others focus more on meditation and chanting. See our guide to the some of the most popular styles available in the UK today.

Yoga style guide

Astanga vinyasa yoga

This is potentially very energetic and physically strong. It involves a lot of movement, a fair amount of upper body work and you will get hot and sweaty!

Ideal - if you are fit and want to be physically challenged

Sweat rating - 5

Peace of mind rating - 3

Bikram

Created by Bikram Choudhury in Los Angeles, this style is performed in a heated room to allow the muscles to relax. A bikram class usually consists of twenty six asanas (yoga postures) and two breathing exercises, which maximises oxygenation and detoxification of the entire body.

Ideal - if you are very fit and want a vigorous workout

Sweat rating - 5

Peace of mind rating - 2

Dru Yoga

Dru Yoga, one of the largest yoga training schools in the UK, offers a graceful yet potent form of therapeutic yoga. Based on soft flowing movements, the emphasis is upon creating a supple spine, to free the energy within the body.

Ideal - for all levels of fitness, if you want a deeper approach to health and happiness

Sweat rating - 2

Peace of mind rating - 5

Dru Yoga Dance

This is a more upbeat and physically demanding form of Dru Yoga. It takes flowing Dru Yoga sequences and puts them to great music creating a great sense of wellbeing, and a good physical workout.

Ideal - if you like Dru's heart based flow but want to be more challenged physically

Sweat rating - 4

Peace of mind rating - 4

Hatha

Hatha yoga is the generic term for any sort of yoga practise which involves a combination of postures, controlled breathing, and some kind of concentration and relaxation.

Ideal - if you want a safe local yoga class

Sweat rating - 2

Peace of mind rating - 5

Iyengar

Iyengar yoga originates from B.K.S. Iyengar. 3 elements distinguish Iyengar from other styles, namely technique (getting the alignment right), sequence (varying the order in which asanas are performed) and timing (holding the postures).

Ideal - if you want to strengthen your body and mind and love attention to detail

Sweat rating - 3

Peace of mind rating - 3

Kundalini

Kundalini Yoga includes a series of classic poses done repeatedly, kriyas, meditation and chanting. Spiritual transformation is the main aim of practice.

Ideal - if you want spiritual development and love singing

Sweat rating - 2

Peace of mind rating - 5

Sivananda

Sivananda Yoga is a style of traditional yoga practice formulated by yoga masters Swami Sivananda and Swami Vishnu-Devananda. Sivananda classes use a set sequence of exercises, always in the same pattern.

Ideal - if you're interested in learning about a disciplined, yogic lifestyle

Sweat rating - 2

Peace of mind rating - 5

The four questions you must ask your yoga teacher

Are you qualified? Make sure that your teacher has a current qualification, and is registered with the Yoga Alliance, Independent Yoga Network or the British Wheel of Yoga. This may seem obvious, but some teachers out there have bogus qualifications. Also ask if they do regular training to keep their yoga education up to date. Good yoga teachers will do a couple of continued training courses a year to keep their knowledge current.

Is there an emphasis on safety? Safety is crucial - many people get injured every year from over stretching when they haven't adequately prepared. Does your teacher offer modifications and contra-indications to each posture? Do they do enough warm-ups and cool-downs? Is there an adequate period of relaxation at the end of the class?

Does your teacher walk their talk? Yoga is more than an occasional hobby. It's a way to unite body, mind and soul. To be a good yoga teacher, daily practice is crucial - your teacher should enjoy what they teach - or else you won't! They should also be approachable and get on well with their students. In the ancient tradition of yoga, the relationship between teacher and student was one of the most important - and it's true today as well.

Is the class conveniently located? If you're going to get to your class, rain or shine, then choose a location that's realistic. I've seen so many students attending classes enthusiastically at the beginning of September, only to decide that it's just too far when the cold, dark nights set in.

To conclude, I suggest that you try different styles of yoga until you find one that suits you. The benefits of attending a regular class are enormous - for example:

'I've lost over a stone in the last 6 weeks through doing Dru Yoga. I do the flowing, graceful Sun Sequence at a Dru Yoga class and at home, and it seems to balance my body and take away the edge of my hunger. When I do Dru Yoga I can feel my body's natural intelligence kicking in.' Helena Davey, Lecturer, North Wales.

Top Yoga Cures For Winter Blues

2008-12-27T22:57:00.001-08:00

Just in case all the rain and cold are getting to you - fear not. Yoga still works even if you're having to battle with torrential rain, gales and storms. Believe me - all of us at the Dru Yoga centre in Snowdonia have been practising in the last few weeks! We've come up with our top 10 things which keep us happy even when it's raining. We hope you like them too.

1. Warm pyjamas. On a cold winter's night there's really nothing like putting your nightwear on a radiator before you slip into bed with your hot water bottle. Some luxuries are quite simple!

2. A favourite here is Dru Meditation. Just a few minutes of silent sitting daily, using Dru meditation techniques, makes us feel glad to be alive. Take a meditation retreat, or create one in your home. Clear a space, light a candle and gaze at the flame without blinking for as long as possible. Then close your eyes and focus on your breathing for five minutes. Stretch gently and open to eyes to a brighter day!

3. Visualise being Australian. Out in Aus, rain is seen in quite a different way than it is here. That's pretty understandable as they hardly get any! When I was out there teaching Dru Meditation holidays last spring, much of the country was in severe drought, and any drops of rain were greeting with celebration. I've found that just changing my attitude to the wet stuff can make life a little brighter.

4. Surya namaskar. The ancient yogis really knew a thing or two about winter. We find that a good flowing Dru yoga sun sequence blows away all those winter cobwebs, brings a wonderful sense of energy and positivity to even the darkest morning. If you don't know all the movements, get to a Dru Yoga class near you! And fast!

5. Do a Cleopatra. Nourish your skin and your soul with a warm milky bath. Add 1 tablespoon runny honey and a cup of milk to a running bath then lie back and listen to some relaxing music. Simple, cheap and just so effective!

6. Laughter. Get the endorphins flowing with our favourite funny movies - here at Dru we're still debating the best list, but it must include The Man Who Knew Too Little, Groundhog Day, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and Airplane. And it tones up the abdominal muscles better than sit-ups!

7. Barley grass smoothie. Sometimes a boost of nutrients can really help our mood - try our favourite: blend one banana, 3 tablespoons organic bio yogurt, ½ glass fruit juice, 1 teaspoon dru barley grass powder, 1 teaspoon omega oils. This also is great for the skin, fantastic for improving mood and contains nearly 3 portions of fruit and vegetables!

8. Plan an uplifting retreat. In the dark, cold winter months, somehow just planning such a holiday can be an uplifting experience. Make a list of what's important to you in your perfect yoga or meditation break - and affirm that you'll find the perfect environment for you. Then get googling!

9. Have a good breakfast. It might sound like something your Mum might say, but having a substantial meal first thing really does make life seem much better. Our favourite is millet or oat porridge with tahini and honey. Put one handfulls of porridge oats to soak with a cup of water the night before and it'll cook really quickly in the morning. Sultanas and honey are optional!

10. Buy yourself flowers. I've got a small bunch of tulips in my living room and the whole atmosphere feels so much brighter. If you want an added feel-good factor - give some flowers to a friend - for no good reason. The inner glow you'll get will warm the cockles of your heart.

Hearing Loss - Causes and Symptoms You Should Know

2008-12-27T22:55:00.002-08:00

Hearing Loss, also known as Hearing Impairment is described as the decrease in the ability of the ears and its other parts to perceive as well as detect sounds. It can happen either suddenly or gradually.

Hearing loss is commonly observed in older adults but it can happen to anyone regardless of race, age or sex. It can range from being a mild to a severe hearing impairment and it can also be temporary, permanent or reversible.

There are different causes of hearing impairment each with its own different symptoms. It all depends on what type and what part or parts of the auditory system are affected.

1) Conductive Hearing Loss

One type of hearing loss is called conductive hearing loss. This usually happens when sound is not conducted normally through the external ear (either outer ear or middle ear). This type, however, is considered as a mild type of hearing impairment since the inner ear will be able to compensate for the loss. With this type, there will be no apparent problems in hearing as long as the sound is loud enough and audible enough to be heard.

Conductive hearing loss can be the result of ear canal obstruction, abnormalities in the ossicles, tympanic membrane and the superior canal dehiscence syndrome.

2) Sensorineural Hearing Loss

Another type of hearing loss is called sensorineural hearing loss. Unlike conductive type, the affected part is that of the inner ear specifically the cochlea. In the cochlea, there's what we call the organ of Corti that has hair cells. Abnormalities in these hair cells can lead to sensorineural hearing impairment.

Another not-so-common cause of sensorineural is damage in the auditory nerve system. The 8th cranial nerve, also known as the vestibulocochular nerve, is responsible for receiving and interpreting sounds. In very rare cases, this nerve gets damaged which leads to the impairment of the sense of hearing.

In terms of severity, sensorineural type can be classified as mild, moderate or severe. Most often than not, this type can become severe to a point where impairment can lead to total deafness.

3) Environmental Noise

Environmental Noise is one of the leading causes of hearing loss and is known as Noise-Induced Hearing Loss. It has been observed that long-term exposure to environmental noise can be detrimental to the auditory ability of a person. In fact, according to some research, people who live near freeways and airports are more prone to have their ability to hear impaired.

Multimedia devices such as mp3 players are also known to cause Noise-Induced Hearing Loss. It is because headphones and earphones are nearer to the eardrums compared to the standard speakers. If exposed to these kinds of devices for a long time there is a good chance that hearing loss can occur.

4) Genetic

Some people may not know, hearing loss is genetic which means that it can be inherited. This illness is passed through the descendants either through a dominant or a recessive gene. If it involves the dominant gene, deafness can likely happen to at least one relative every generation. If it involves the recessive gene, then it may skip generations but definitely, the risk of acquiring it is still there.

Hearing loss caused by genetics is usually apparent by the time the baby is born. One type of congenital hearing defect is known as Connexin 26 deafness. Other common hearing impairments caused by the dominant gene are Waardenburg syndrome and Stickler syndrome. Hearing impairments caused by the recessive gene are Usher syndrome and Pendred Syndrome.

5) Illnesses

There is also a possibility that it can be caused by the current health condition of a person. It has been noted that measles can cause damage to the auditory nerve that could lead to hearing loss. Another illness that can cause hearing impairment is meningitis that, just like measles, can also damage the auditory nerve.

Illnesses that involve the immune system are also candidates. These illnesses include HIV and AIDS.

6) Medications

Some medications can cause permanent damage to the ears. This is called ototoxicity. The most common group that is known to do this is the aminoglycosides like gentamicin.

There are, however, other medications that may cause temporary hearing loss. This includes NSAIDs, diuretics and even aspirin.

7) Physical Trauma

Physical injury to the ear, especially if some parts of it get damaged, can cause it. However, physical trauma does not only pertain to the ear but also to the whole head. If the head gets hit and the vestibulocochular (auditory nerve system) gets damaged, then hearing impairment is imminent.

Ear Pain and the Best Means For Treatment

2008-12-27T22:55:00.001-08:00

Many people, young and old can suffer from ear pain. After all, it is rather a common condition. There are many known causes of ear pain- diseases, conditions, trauma and infections among others. There are direct and indirect causes for the condition. When the cause is direct, it primarily has something to do with the ears. As for indirect causes, the source could be another illness or ailment in which pain in the ears are merely radiated. To determine the best means for treatment, the cause ought to be initially identified. That's often how it is in most cases. So a thorough look on the possible causes of ear pain may be helpful.

For one thing there is trauma such as slapping or the impact of a blunt force on the exterior. The same can be said with excessive picking or loud blast of sounds. As they can possibly cause detriments to the ears, they are best avoided. In this sense, ear care is essential. One must be mindful to stay away from loud and noisy environments, especially when they have no protection. Objects, including cotton swabs should be kept away from the ear canal as well. Certain conditions such as infections, wax build-up and swimmer's ear can cause pain, too. A swimmer's ear is actually when water becomes trapped in the ear thereby causing pain.

As for infections, they may be caused by bacteria. And a foreign object being stuck, cold sores or ulcers, a boil in the canal, a tympanic membrane perforation, they can all lead to ear pain. There is actually a long list of such conditions, and all these mentioned merely scratch the surface. As for underlying conditions or illnesses which lead to ear pain, there is also a long list. They may be periodontal abscess, or perhaps having undergone some dental work. And so it is with other dental disorders. Included in the long list are infections of the throat or the sinus passage way.

And tonsillitis, cancer of the tongue, pharyngitis tumors, and cancer of the larynx or spine. Add among them two skeletal disorders - jaw arthritis and TMJ disorder. Ear popping, also called barotrauma can also instigate referred pain. This can happen when a person goes scuba diving or is involved in air travel. Certain sorts of nerve disorders, they can also cause the condition. And various skin disorders as well, such as dermatitis and eczema. And fluid accumulation, this can lead to the problem. It is often that treatment is dependent on the underlying cause. That's how it often goes with many conditions.

There are cases however when the source cannot be determined, and treatment has to be applied anyway. But as said, all these mentioned about ear pain barely scratch the surface. So when one suffers from it, or when there is ringing in the ears, medical attention should be sought. That way, early treatment can be implemented. And it is best to consult a health professional for such matters. Through this, the most suitable treatment measure can be applied, too. It's all about precaution and care and consulting those who are most knowledgeable when it comes to ailments and diseases. One can then be spared from a whole lot of discomfort, health havoc and trouble.

Stop Mumbling!

2008-12-27T22:49:00.000-08:00

There is a potentially devastating part of hearing loss that no one is talking about. Current thinking among an estimated 28 million of the hearing impaired is that hearing loss can be corrected fully and completely at any time. I can't tell you how wrong that thinking is.

If you don't feed the brain the correct stimulus with good clear sound because there is hearing loss, then the brain becomes weaker and weaker in its ability to understand sound. This is called auditory deprivation. Eventually no matter how much sound amplification you get, your brain is not able to make sense of it.

Can you imagine how awful that would be?? You hear the sound but can't understand the words. All of a sudden the whole world is mumbling!

This happened to my granddad. He always thought he would get hearing aids later. Unfortunately when later came he had not only lost his eyesight but there was nothing that could be done to correct his hearing loss because he had deprived his brain of good clear sound for so many years. It was like being buried alive for the last 7 years of his life because he couldn't see or hear. He was isolated and very lonely. It was awful. Don't let this happen to you!

Teri James Bellis PH.D. put it very well in her excellent book 'When The Brain Can't Hear.' She states "As sound travels through an imperfect auditory pathway, words spoken become jumbled and unintelligible. One of the most common complaints is that although speech may sound loud enough the hearing impaired still have a difficult time actually understanding what is said. Everyone seems to be mumbling." Dr Bellis goes on to describe how frustrating it is for the listener because family often end up yelling at them to try to communicate. It is equally frustrating for the family because they think that they are being ignored when in fact their loved one simply can't hear them.

The damage that has occurred is usually a result of damaged hair cells in the cochlea in the inner ear. The sound that is given to the brain to process is incomplete or distorted.

Just like any other health problem if you catch the problem and correct it in the early stages you will have better results than if you wait. Each year that you ignore your hearing loss you are losing more and more of your ability to process sound because of auditory deprivation.

Popular Special Effects Lenses

2008-12-27T22:47:00.000-08:00

While many people wear contact lenses to correct vision problems, that's not the only reason to wear them. Special effects lenses were originally made popular in movies, but are now available to the everyday consumer.

Which lenses are the most popular? Let's take a look.

Colored Contacts
Without a doubt, the most popular special effects lenses are also the simplest. These contacts just change the color of your eyes and are tremendously popular among young people in particular who enjoy testing new eye colors.

These colored contacts tend to work best with light colored eyes (blue, grey, green, etc.) but there are also versions created specifically for darker eyes that need more pigment. You can use common eye colors, like blue or green or you can try something a little creepier, perhaps red or yellow. A fun way to use colored lenses is to wear just one at a time, leaving the other eye natural.

Evil Eyes
If you want something a little more sinister than just the eye color change, look for lenses that change the shape of your pupil. This can be a fun way to amp up the fear factor. These types of contacts come with vertical slit pupils, like a cat eye. You can usually buy them in a variety of colors, with red and yellow being the most common. These lenses need to be put in just so, however, to ensure that the pupil is facing the right way.

Party On
If you hit the dance floor on a regular basis, then black light eyes are a must have. They glow in the black light and create a very interesting effect for parties and raves. These are still fairly new, but already extremely popular and in demand.

Movie Effects
With movies like Twilight being so popular, vampire contacts and wolf lenses are all the rage. Vampire contacts are usually red, but allow for the pupil in the center, while a wolf eye is animal like and brown with streaks.
These aren't the only movie effect lenses you can get, though. Look for your favorite horror movie brought to life in your eyes with contacts that mimic the effects from movies like Hellraiser, Tempest and Jeepers Creepers.

There are plenty of options to turn you into the monster of your dreams.

White
While these could technically be labeled as colored lenses, the fact is that white contact lenses actually cover up any existing color and make your eyes a fun white color, essentially eliminating the color. This type of contact lens is particularly popular if you are into zombies and want the blank, undead look.

Pictures
While not quite as common as colored contact lenses, these fun lenses are found everywhere just the same. They come with images of everything from spiders, roaches or skulls on them to flowers, smiley faces and swirls. Having a picture in your eye can be a fun way to grab people`s attention and the variety of images available means that each person can choose the style that suits their personality.

Special effects contact lenses can be a fun way to change your look . . . subtly or in a rather obvious manner. They are also ideal for costume parties and Halloween when you need those special vampire eyes. The price tag can be a little high, especially if you are going for hand painted, so keep that in mind when buying for a special occasion.

These contact lenses aren't meant for long term use usually, so you'll need to take them out and clean them as you would with regular contacts before using again. With proper care, specialty lenses can last up to 4-5 months.

What is the Difference Between Monthly Contacts and Continuous Wear Contact Lenses?

2008-12-27T22:45:00.000-08:00

Contact lenses are a great thing to have. That is because those who are able to wear them are not under the restrictions that eyeglasses put upon them. However, in recent years the entire world has changed for the contact lens wearer and that is the fact that new types of contacts have come out. Amongst these new types of contacts are those that you can wear for an extended period of time. They are monthly wear and continuous wear.

Both monthly and continuous wear contacts are called extended wear contacts. This is because they are able to be worn longer than your traditional contact lens. Traditional lenses come in daily wear, weekly wear, and bi-weekly wear. This means they have to be disposed of daily, weekly, or every two weeks. What you wear is up to you and what your tolerance is.

What are extended wear?

With the development of extended wear contacts, people don't have to change their contact lenses daily, weekly, or every two weeks. They can wear them for approximately 30 days before they have to throw them away. It may seem that they are more expensive, but it all reality you do save money.

However, not everyone can wear extended wear contacts and, if they are able to, they may find that one kind of extended wear does better for them than another. For example, some may want a monthly contact lens and another may want a continuous contact lens. But what's the difference?

Monthly vs. continuous

The difference between monthly contacts and continues wear contacts is not really all that different. The only difference is that monthly contacts need to be taken out every night. This is more or less the same as your traditional contact lens. You take them out and let them soak overnight so that they're clean the next morning.

Continuous wear contacts allow you to wear your contact lenses for 30 days straight without having to take them out. This means that you can sleep in them without having to worry about anything. After the 30 days is over, you simply throw them away. There is no having to clean and soak them every night like with monthly contact lenses.

However, there are some individuals unable to wear continuous wear. Some people have eyes that are more sensitive than others. Some individuals may also have issues with calcium buildup on the contact lens. This can cause issues such as Giant Papillary Conjunctivitis. This is when bacteria become trapped and an infection occurs. Those susceptible to this may not be able to wear continuous wear. They will be better off with the monthly contact that requires them to take the lenses out every night.

Which is best?

Which contact lenses are best for you depends on what your eyes want. There are risks associated with all contact lenses. Infection is the main issue, so most people decide to try out the different types of contacts before committing. This is why your optometrist may find giving you trials before actually ordering is a good idea. That gives you the opportunity to figure out what is comfortable for you.

Besides, your eyes are very important. Without them, functioning would be very difficult. That's why it is very important for you to be able to find the contact lens that is right for you. Talk to your eye doctor about monthly contacts and continuous wear contacts. Let them tell you what risks exist for you and what your options may be for your particular situation. You might be quite pleased with the results that you receive.

Apple files Swipe Gestures patent for iPhone keyboard

2008-12-27T02:46:00.000-08:00

Apple has already earned itself a name in the mobile phone industry with multi-touch gestures on the iPhone and iPod touch. This time, a new patent application from Apple called Swipe Gestures for Touch Screen Keyboards has been spotted at the U.S. Patent Office. So, it means users will be able to perform functions by swiping across the key area instead of tapping them. Apple cites that the use of swipe gestures on the iPhone’s on-screen keyboard will enrich the user with quick access to common keys. Let’s take a close look at this new patent application. It says that swiping leftward, rightward, upward and downward could be used for inserting a space, backspace, shifting, and inserting a carriage return.

Other than these single swipe gestures, multi-touch swipes (two fingers) could make for other special functions. This is really going to revolutionize the way we use on-screen keyboards. Apple is known for doing things first amongst all and it would be really interesting to see if this new Swipe feature is accepted well by Apple fans.

NASA Awards Cargo Contracts

2008-12-27T02:43:00.000-08:00

There was some good news this week regarding cargo transportation to the International Space Station after the Space Shuttles are retired in 2010.

Orbital Sciences Corp. and Space Exploration Technologies - SpaceX - today won NASA contracts valued at up to $1.9 billion and $1.6 billion respectively for 20 unmanned space station cargo flights to deliver experiment hardware, crew supplies and replacement components after the space shuttle is retired.

This will greatly reduce our need to rely on Russian or European transports to send our supply obligations up to the ISS. And, if SpaceX is successful with their DragonX manned capability, we may also be able to avoid using any non-US transport for crew rotations as well. This is wonderful news.

Post-holiday sales bring in shoppers, but they may not be buying

2008-12-27T02:37:00.000-08:00

Shoppers returned to the malls Friday to take in post-holiday sales, but reports were mixed about how much they actually spent.

By noon, there was hardly an empty parking space or food court seat at Great Northern Shopping Center in North Olmsted.

Stores offered rock-bottom prices and extended return policies, but many shoppers were on the hunt for big bargains on specific items, hoping to return unwanted gifts or just browsing on a day off work -- not looking to splurge.

Janice Goetz of Olmsted Falls went to Great Northern to exchange a sweater and check out promotions she had seen advertised.

But, she said, she wasn't impressed. Some stores offered $10 or $20 coupons in their advertisements, but the fine print excluded so many products that she wasn't able to use the coupons. Goetz said she picked up a few items for herself but was in no hurry to buy everything she needed.

The sales will be around for a while, she figures.

"They've got so much stuff they're not going to sell it all today," Goetz said.

Many shoppers around the country appeared to be searching for deals unlike any they had seen this year.

Brenda Peterson was looking for "flat-out bargains" after driving 35 miles to arrive at a J.C. Penney in Raleigh, N.C., at 5 a.m., a half-hour before the store opened.

But she left empty-handed. A toy that she had spotted before Christmas -- a stuffed dog that rolls over and shakes its paw -- was gone. And even sales of up to 60 percent off clothing and other items weren't too enticing. After all, she had seen those sales before Christmas, too.

Quinton Cunningham, 20, of Cleveland went to Great Northern with girlfriend Kashuna. The couple decided to buy gifts for each other on Friday rather than exchange gifts on Christmas to save money.

Cunningham said they were able to find some steals, and pulled out a box of designer cologne from a Macy's bag. He said it usually sells for $118.

"I got it for 37 bucks," he said.

Such frugality could spell deep trouble for the nation's stores, which are facing the worst holiday shopping season in decades.

Holiday sales -- which typically account for 30 percent to 50 percent of a retailer's annual total -- have been less than jolly. Job cuts, portfolio losses and other economic woes have led many Americans to cut back on spending. Meanwhile, strong winter storms kept some would-be shoppers at home.

According to preliminary data from SpendingPulse, which tracks purchases paid for by credit card, checks or cash, retail sales fell between 5.5 percent and 8 percent during the holiday season compared with last year. Excluding auto and gas sales, they fell 2 percent to 4 percent, according to SpendingPulse.

More people did appear to shop online, particularly in the last two weeks of the season, when storms hit. Online sales dipped just 2.3 percent, SpendingPulse said.

A fuller indicator of how retailers fared will arrive Jan. 8, when major stores report same-store sales, or sales at locations open at least a year, for December.

Many stores are likely to report a loss for the fourth quarter, said NPD senior retail analyst Marshal Cohen.

Stores hoped that big discounts the day after Christmas could lure people out.

At Great Northern, you wouldn't know that retailers were hurting. Linda Siple of Rochester, N.Y., said she hadn't had big shopping goals. But, after a few hours of shopping, her arms were filled with clothing-filled bags.

She said she couldn't resist some of the bargains she found at J.C. Penny, which had items marked down as much as 60 percent.

"I ended up with more than I planned," she said.

But while many malls appeared to be busy, analysts said traffic seemed to be lighter than in years past.

The parking lot of a Wal-Mart in Milwaukee was less than one-third full Friday morning, with many shoppers appearing to stock up on groceries and small household items.

Gigi Johnson, a special needs teacher, bought laundry detergent and clothes for her twin 14-year-old daughters. But she said she did not plan any large purchases for the next few months and would put the money she received from Christmas in the bank.

"Maybe I'll wait until tax time and get a computer or TV," Johnson said. "But until then, I'm resisting the temptation to buy anything else."

What's to Love About a Lima Bean?

2008-12-26T00:06:00.002-08:00

The green, moon-shaped lima bean, also known as butterbean, is a staple of Southern kitchens. Available fresh in states in the South of the United States and canned or frozen elsewhere, lima beans are served as an accompaniment to rice or stirred in with corn to make succotash, although more complex presentations are possible.

The lima bean is protein-rich. This is both good and bad. One laboratory found that dried lima bean is up to 71 percent protein. The bean is rich in lecithin that lowers cholesterol in high-cholesterol diets. The simple lima bean is a source of protease inhibitors that inhibit HIV and possibly other viruses.

On the other hand, the lima bean, more than most other beans, has a defense mechanism that turns its proteins into poisons when the plant is threatened by insect predators. Raw lima beans contain haemagluttinins that interfere with blood clotting. They also contain trace amounts of cyanide, enough to interfere with the pancreas' release of the starch-dissolving enzyme amylase, and tannins that cause indigestion and gas, although these chemicals are removed by cooking (or, in the case of dried beans, soaking in water, draining off the soaking water, and cooking). Much of the bean that is not protein is phytate, a compound that blocks the absorption of iron from other foods, although this is partially removed by cooking. Lima beans are completely inappropriate for raw foods diets.

The bottom line is, you can eat lima beans every day and they will enhance your health, but you should take your cue from Southern cooking and "boil them to death." Ignore cookbook advice to cook limas until they are just tender. Mushy is better for you. Here are two preparations, however, that make the most out of "overcooked" limas.

Y'all can find Lima Bean Recipes and a serious article on Supplements for Alzheimer's at the author's site. Robert Rister is the author or co-author of nine books on natural health.

The Right Supplements for Alzheimer's

2008-12-26T00:06:00.001-08:00

The balance of the scientific evidence at this time indicates it is more effective to treat Alzheimer’s with food rather than with supplements. Getting an Alzheimer’s patient to start eating rose hips and walnuts, however, may be impossible, and nutritional supplements may save caregivers precious time. Because single supplements are inherently unbalanced, however, it is essential that the person with AD take all the recommended supplements (caretaker counting pills if necessary), and it is also important to take the right supplements for the right stage of the disease.

Single antioxidants do not work. Precise adherence to this protocol is required for antioxidant supplementation to work. Here are some of the reasons why:

Beta-carotene is especially effective at capturing free radicals of oxygen, but it only works when there is adequate oxygen in the bloodstream. When oxygen concentrations are low, as in the case of vascular disease, vitamin E is a more effective antioxidant.

Beta-carotene and vitamin E protect the parts of the cell that contain cholesterol, such as the cell membrane (the lining of the cell has to be “fatty” to keep the contents of the cell from dissolving into the bloodstream), but vitamin C protects the water-soluble components of the cell inside. Too much vitamin C or vitamin E causes the vitamin to act as a pro-oxidant, that is, to become tissue-destructive, in the parts of the cell it does not usually protect. Too little vitamin C makes it difficult for the brain to use vitamin E, because vitamin C recycles vitamin E as it captures free radicals.

The mitochondria, or energy centers, in cells in the brains of people at high risk for AD often have a defect that can be compensated by additional coenzyme Q10 and NADH. Coenzyme Q10 neutralizes peroxide radicals better than vitamin E, but it is not as effective in quenching other kinds of radicals. Coenzyme Q10 also recharges vitamin E, but not as effectively as vitamin C.

In doses above 500 milligrams (mg) per day for more than two weeks, n-acetyl cysteine (NAC) acts as a chelator of zinc, that is, it removes zinc from circulation. After two weeks of taking 500 mg of NAC a day, it is necessary either to take supplemental zinc or to lower the dosage of NAC. Alpha-lipoic acid can also deplete zinc.

Vitamin E in megadoses can cause bleeding. Aspirin in high doses can cause bleeding. Vitamin E and aspirin together even in moderate doses can cause bleeding.

When vitamin E is accidentally dosed at a rate of more than 3,000 IU per day, it is necessary to take vitamin K to prevent bleeding (a single 5 mg tablet is sufficient).

The half- life of antioxidants in the human bloodstream is only 6 to 12 hours, so half of each dose of antioxidants has to be taken twice a day.

I leave for you to decide whether it is easier or harder to use supplements or foods. A whole foods is certainly less expensive, and there are fewer ways to create an antioxidant imbalance with whole foods than there are with overdosed or forgotten antioxidant supplements that have to be taken twice a day. If changes in diet are impossible, however, AD can be treated with supplementation.

Here's Ya'll Lima Bean Recipes

2008-12-26T00:05:00.001-08:00

Lima Bean and Rosemary Risotto
We Southerners serve our limas with rice. This variation on butter beans and rice combines the completed proteins of legumes plus grains with the antioxidant power of rosemary. Note for cooks who use the metric system: For this recipe, measure ingredients by volume rather than weight.

3/4 cup finely chopped onion
3/4 cup finely chopped celery
3/4 cup finely chopped carrots
1/2 teaspoon garlic
6 tablespoons butter
1 cup Arborio (or other risotto-style) rice
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh rosemary
3 cups vegetable or chicken stock, heated
1 cup cooked lima beans
4 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan
Salt to taste
Ground white pepper

1. Cook the onions, celery, carrots and garlic in 2 tablespoons of butter over medium heat for 7 to 10 minutes, or until onions are translucent.
2. Stir in the rice and rosemary and cook for 3 minutes, making sure the individual grains of rice are coated with melted butter. Pour in one cup of the heated stock and cook, stirring until the rice has absorbed most of the liquid, about 10 minutes. Add another cup of stock and keep stirring, cooking until the rice absorbs the liquid. Add the last cup of the stock and continue cooking until the liquid is absorbed. The rice should be creamy, but at this point it should still have a slight “bite” when chewed.
3. Stir in the lima beans, the remaining 4 tablespoons of butter, and the Parmesan. Make sure the beans are thoroughly warmed through. If y’all limas are not soft, heat the entire mixture until they are just barely mushy. Taste and add salt and white pepper as desired.

Succotash
I had never tried this dish until it was served to me by a Mennonite family in Pennsylvania Dutch country. The thrifty Mennonites use milk, but the phytate in the beans is less of a nutritional problem if you use cream.

1 pound (450 g) fresh or frozen lima beans
1-2 cups (125-250 g) fresh sweet corn kernels
1/2 cup (125 ml) heavy cream
1-2 tablespoons (up to 25 g) butter
Minced chervil or parsley for garnish
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Put beans into a saucepan and add 1 cup (250 ml) of water. Cook over medium heat for 15 minutes, or until slightly mushy. Pour off any liquid
2. Pour in cream and corn kernels and bring to a boil, then allow to simmer for at least 5 minutes. Add butter, salt, and pepper to taste.
3. Garnish with minced chervil or parsley and serve warm.

Papaya As a Healing Food

2008-12-25T23:59:00.000-08:00

The papaya is a tropical fruit that originated in Mexico and is now found in every tropical country. Also known as paw-paw (Australia), mamao (Brazil), and tree melon, the papaya is a fast-growing, short-lived, woody, "weed" that grows to perhaps 10 or 12 feet (3 or 4 meters) tall. This tropical fruit requires constant warmth for growth. Its flavor is similar to cantaloupe, with a musky smell. Papayas must be stored at temperatures above 45º F (7º C).

Papayas consumed in the United States are grown in Hawaii and Mexico. Hawaiian papayas are pear-shaped, show a yellow skin when they are ripe, and generally weight about 1 pound (450 g). The flesh inside Hawaiian papayas is pink or orange, with clusters of tiny black seeds in the center.

Mexican papayas mature to sizes much larger than their Hawaiian cousins, up to 2 feet (70 cm) long and weighing up to 15 pounds (7 kg). Their flesh may be orange, yellow, or pink. Hawaiian papayas tend to have a more concentrated flavor than papayas from Mexico.

The seeds of both varieties are edible and taste like black pepper. The digestive enzyme papain, associated with papaya, is extracted from the leaf, which is not edible, and is not found in the fruit.

Alpha-carotene, beta-carotene, vitamin A, and related chemicals are abundant in papayas. Community outreach programs in Indonesia have promoted regular consumption of the fruit as an inexpensive and successful means of preventing vitamin A deficiency symptoms, especially "dry eye," in children. Epidemiologists in the state of Kerala in India have found that regular consumption of papayas is associated with 56 percent reduction in the incidence of bladder cancer.

Fermented papaya preparation (FPP), which combines papayas with fermenting agents used to make miso, has become a popular health food in Japan, where it is used to prevent flu in the elderly and has recently been shown to prevent epileptic seizures in laboratory animals. In the United States, FPP has been FDA-approved under the label "Papaya Dietary Supplement."

Try a lutein-, lycopene, and beta-carotene rich Papaya Relish Recipe or read about Diet & Breast Cancer. Robert Rister is the author or co-author of nine books on natural health.

Papaya Relish Recipe

2008-12-25T23:56:00.000-08:00

This carotene, lycopene, lutein, and zeaxanthin rich relish goes well seafood, hot or cold. It also contains compounds (see Ginger) that kill possible microbial and parasitic contaminants in fish. For a pretty presentation, use this relish with a cilantro garnish.

1 diced, ripe Hawaiian papaya or 1 1/4 cup diced ripe Mexican papaya
1/4 cup minced white onion
3/4 cup diced red and/or yellow bell pepper
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 tablespoon peeled and chopped fresh ginger
2 tablespoons olive oil
Juice of 1 lemon

Place ingredients in a food processor and pulse several times. This relish is at its most flavorful when it is served on warm plates.

Filipino Fish Dish (Buntot Ng Isda Na May Mani at Papaya)
If you’d like a milder version of “Szechuan” seasoning with added vitamin A, this Filipino recipe is a place to start. Substitute chicken or pork for the fish and enjoy the subtler flavors of papaya.

2 pounds white ocean fish
4 tablespoons peanut oil
1 pound papaya
1/4 cup peanuts
1/4 piece dried tangerine peel
Salt to taste (1/4 teaspoon is usually enough)

Soak dried tangerine peel (available in Asian markets, do not use fresh tangerine peel) in warm water for 15 minutes, then take the peel out of the water, pat dry, and set aside. Make sure your fish fillet is free of scale and bones, then pan fry in peanut oil until golden brown. Remove the fish and set aside. Peel and slice a small, Hawaiian papaya into 1 inch (2.5 cm) wide pieces. Put 2cups of water into a Dutch oven and bring to a boil, adding all ingredients, fish, papaya, peanuts, and tangerine peel. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for 2 hours. Sprinkle with sea salt as desired, usually just enough to be visible, immediately before serving. Serves 6.

Treatment for Stage 1 Invasive Breast Cancer: Fruit, Vegetables, Fat, Fiber, and the Prevention of Recurrent Breast Cancer in Women

2008-12-25T23:50:00.000-08:00

You'd almost think that in their search for the latest breast cancer treatment, scientists recently discovered that fruit, vegetables, and fiber weren't good for women who have had breast cancer. But a closer reading of the findings of the breast cancer clinical trials sponsored by the Women's Healthy Eating and Living study shows that the scientists discovered no such thing.

The Journal of the American Medical Association reported last year that a seven-year study of 3,107 women who had had breast cancer (all of them under the age of 70, all of them having had tumors larger than 1 cm) found no cancer-protective benefit of increasing consumption of fruits and vegetables beyond 5 servings a day.

Very nearly half of the women in the Women's Healthy Eating and Living trial who had had breast cancer were just encouraged to eat 5 servings of fruits and vegetables a day. The rest of the women who had had breast cancer were coached to eat twelve servings of fruits and veggies every day, and to reduce their consumption of saturated fat.

The coaching worked. At the end of four years, the women who had received nutritional counseling were found to be consuming:

65 per cent more vegetables
25 per cent more fruit
30 per cent more fiber and
13 per cent less saturated fat.
But what was the effect on health?

Women who ate more fruits and vegetables consumed an average of 1538 calories a day and weighed an average of 163 pounds.
Women who ate fewer fruits and vegetables consumed an average of 1559 calories a day and weighed an average of 162 pounds.
256 out of 1537 women on the high fruit-and-vegetable diet had a recurrence of breast cancer.
262 out of 1551 on the Five-A-Day plan had a recurrence of breast cancer.
All other things held equal, women who got the very most servings of fruits and vegetables (more than 9 a day) and the very most fiber (more than 25 g a day) had measurably but not significantly lower rates of breast cancer return.

The lowest levels of saturated fat consumption were, as you might expect, linked to lower rates of breast cancer. However, it was impossible to determine whether additional fat really increased risk of cancer or not (a little more than the minimum fat seemed to, a little more seemed to reduce risk although not as low as the lowest-fat group, and still more raised risk again).

And among women who consumed the most calories, more than 1980 calories a day, eating more fruits and vegetables actually was associated with higher rates of recurrent cancer, although the differences were not statistically significant (there was a measurable probability that there was no real relationship between eating fruits and veggies and staying cancer-free in women who ate the most fruits and vegetables and the most calories).

So does this mean that fruits, vegetables, fiber, and lower fat aren't beneficial for women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer?

Not at all. This study just finds that Five-A-Day may be enough, and more will not necessarily help.

Citation:

Pierce JP, Natarajan L, Caan BJ, Parker BA, Greenberg ER, Flatt SW, Rock CL, Kealey S, Al-Delaimy WK, Bardwell WA, Carlson RW, Emond JA, Faerber S, Gold EB, Hajek RA, Hollenbach K, Jones LA, Karanja N, Mad lensky L, Marshall J, Newman VA, Ritenbaugh C, Thomson CA, Wasserman L, Stefanick ML. Influence of a diet very high in vegetables, fruit, and fiber and low in fat on prognosis following treatment for breast cancer: the Women's Healthy Eating and Living (WHEL) randomized trial. 1: JAMA. 2007 Jul 18;298(3):289-98.

Healthy, Tasty, American Treat

2008-12-25T23:46:00.000-08:00

Pinones are the nuts of the pinon pine tree. Not the same as the stone pine nuts produced in Italy, China, and Spain, American pine nuts are harvested by hand every September and October in the northern New Mexico woodlands.

Once they are shelled and then roasted, piñon nuts make a tasty addition to candies, cookies, salads, sauces, and pesto, or they can be eaten as snack, especially, in New Mexico, as Christmastime snack food. These tiny nuts add New Mexican accent to winter cooking with their sweet and occasionally resinous flavor.

Piñones are produced mainly in southern Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado from locally native stone pine (piñon means pine) trees. Their shell is exceptionally hard to crack, making the nuts are usually expensive. They sell retail for about US $9 a pound ($20/kg).

Both European and Native American folk medicine have long used stone pine nuts as a folk remedy for nervous disturbances, tuberculosis, bladder infections, and upset stomach. Pine nuts are richer in protein than most other nuts, and the softer-shell varieties contain more primary amino acids (tryptophan, lysine, methionine) than equal weights of milk or beef. A 3-1/2 oz (100 g) serving of pine nuts provides a week's supply of iodine, manganese, copper, zinc, and cobalt, and it is a good source of vitamin A, thiamin, riboflavin, and niacin. Like most nuts, pine nuts are a good source of heart-healthy alpha-linolenic acid.

Eat piñon pine nuts raw or roasted. You can roast any kind of pine nut in a 350°F (180°C) oven or in a dry pan on top of the stove (tossing regularly) until golden brown. Be sure to roast be using in a pesto recipe.

Read Go Nuts & Stay Healthy. Robert Rister is the author or co-author of nine books on natural health.

Make Christmas different and healthy this year

2008-12-25T03:25:00.000-08:00

To show your friends and family how conscious you are about your health; why not consider working at creating a different Christmas spread this year. Instead of the usual huge and heavy roasts, make more of light and healthy salads. And instead of drinks, organize some games or activities to enjoy with your friends. Here are some cooking tips to ensure you have a healthy Christmas this year.

Vegetables have to be as raw as possible. This retains the vitamins and minerals more, so avoid overcooking them. This is why salads are always better than baked in fat vegetables, which also has additional fat in it.

Herbs are a much better option than mayonnaise

Use more of herbs and spies for flavoring vegetables instead of butter and creamy sauces. Similarly, healthier vegetables are those that are steamed instead of boiled. I always prefer a spicy potato salad instead of a mayonnaise based potato salad. Use lemon or lime juice, fresh herbs or any form of vinegar for dressing your salad instead of other salad dressings that carry excess calories with it.

Make salads devoid of bacon crisps and salami, which are quite fattening. If you are bored of boiled or steamed vegetables, why not char grill them on the BBQ? This way the vegetables look more exotic and delicious to eat.

Why not try topping your baked potatoes using yoghurt or low fat cream cheese or sour cream instead of the all time, unhealthy favorite, butter. Follow these tips to make your vegetables more presentable and healthy this Christmas.

More tips for healthy meat and desserts coming up tomorrow….

More tips for lite Christmas cakes

2008-12-25T03:21:00.000-08:00

Here are some tips to follow to cook healthy Christmas cakes that you can enjoy, and not worry about adding too many calories to your daily calorie intake. As whole-wheat flour is a more healthy flour option, replace all or at least some of your flour with it.

It is possible to reduce the fat content of your Christmas cake to make it healthier by replacing butter with a reduced fat. Try a reduced fat olive oil based spread that is not only lite, but is also much lower in saturated fats when compared to butter.

Sugar is a main ingredient for Christmas cakes; however you can reduce your sugar and calories by replacing sugar with fruit puree. Preferable fruit purees are apple, prunes and apricot fruit puree that is made by stewing the fruit in a bit of water till tender and then blended to a paste. Replace equal volumes of sugar with fruit puree in your Christmas cake recipe.

Use fruit puree instead of fat

Besides replacing sugar, this fruit puree can be used for replacing half the sugar and fat content of the cake. You will find that the resulting cake is very moist and soft, and has a fruity flavor.

Besides being healthy, healthy cake recipes are comparatively quicker to mix together and bake. The most you may need to mix a cake will be ten minutes, which is much faster than manufactured cakes. And as these cakes tend to disappear fast, it is better to cut them into squares so that they last longer.

Tips for making healthy Christmas cakes

2008-12-25T03:14:00.000-08:00

Everyone knows that cakes are an important part of Christmas. So instead of indulging on heavy and unhealthy cakes from stores, why not make and eat healthy cakes this Christmas? You can make a healthy cake of whole-wheat flour, organic butter and sugar and free range eggs that are as tasty and soft as a cake from a store.

Moreover, all these ingredients are available in a supermarket and don’t take too long to do. And to make things easier, I advise you to double the quantities for the cakes so that you make two cakes, and then freeze one for future use.

Cakes that made at home are healthy cakes not because that have less sugar, but because they also have less food additives like unhealthy Trans fats than commercial cakes. Home made cakes are always sized rightly, and go a bit longer in the family.

Make cakes using more of nuts and fruits

When making Christmas cakes at home, choose recipes that use more of nuts, vegetables and fruits to get more fruits and vegetables in your diet. Even cakes made using dried fruits are excellent choices for Christmas, and perfect for lunch boxes.

While making healthy Christmas cakes at home, concentrate on using more good and wholesome ingredients in them like sugar, oats, candied and dried fruits, fresh fruits, flour, eggs, milk and butter.

Avoid using soft margarines while making cakes as most of them; especially cheaper versions have hydrogenated vegetable oils. If you use these oils in making your cakes, you defeat the purpose of making your own cakes this Christmas. Instead, you could use softened butter in your recipes instead of margarine.

Look out for more tips on healthy cake making this Christmas…….

Google Expands Parked Domain Ads Program

2008-12-17T01:06:00.000-08:00

Google has a program that helps finance people who park domains; called Google AdSense for Domains, it’s a service sometimes connected to the more spammy and useless neighborhoods of the web. “AdSense for domains is scalable and easily implemented so that your network of sites can start earning revenue quickly and easily,” Google’s old page on this explained, continuing to say that “Powering millions of domain names” this “is the industry’s premier parked page service. Google is seeking new partnerships with large domain portfolios owners.” Now, Google announced they’re expanding this AdSense option for all publishers in the US (and possibly other countries in the future).

James Xuan’s comment in the forum: “Profit, Profit, Profit”.

Twitter Humiliates MySpace

2008-12-17T00:50:00.000-08:00

by Michael Arrington

Google Friend Connect launched with Twitter this morning, a big win for Google in the fight for control over user logins on third party sites. Recent speculation was that Twitter would be partnering with Facebook to integrate Connect first.

Twitter quickly corrected stories, telling reporters that they’ll soon integrate with Facebook Connect, too. Twitter CEO Evan Williams even Tweeted about it, saying “For the record: Twitter did not “choose Google, not Facebook.” We’re working with both. We have more to do on the FB side before launch.”

But, er, hey Twitter, what about MySpace? You know, the company that you agreed to launch with back in May? Here, this screen shot may jog your memory.

But Twitter is dead silent on their MySpace relationship. No mention of it in Evan’s twitter message. No response to my email asking for their current position on MySpace. Just silence.

MySpace isn’t much help either. All they’ll say is “Twitter has been a valuable strategic partner in defining the MySpaceID program. We continue to work collaboratively with Twitter and will share more news on MySpaceID implementation specifics when we have it.”

Which is sort of like saying nothing at all.

Update: Twitter’s Evan Williams responds “Yes, [we are integrating with MySpace]. The onus is on us currently to apply the engineering resources.” He actually said “Yes, all of the above. The onus is on us currently to apply the engineering resources.” But I take that to mean he’s integrating with MySpace given my question.

Update 2: Biz Stone made it even clearer on the Twitter blog that the company is working on its MySpace integration as well. In a post titled “Let’s All Be Friends,” he explains:

Twitter plans to integrate with the open initiatives offered by our friends at MySpace, Facebook, and Google. We officially announced our intent to work with MySpace back in May because we believe strongly in offering the exchange of public information between our complimentary services. Yesterday, Google included Twitter in their Friend Connect program which means folks can stay connected with their Twitter network on web sites that have activated the service. This particular integration did not require effort on our part so it was a quick win for folks who use Twitter and want to connect on participating web sites.
Integrating with MySpace as well as Facebook Connect will require some development effort on our part. Now that we have 13 software engineers working at Twitter and our reliability continues to improve we’re getting closer to integrating with your favorite social networks.

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Twitter

Website:	twitter.com
Location:	San Francisco, California, United States
Founded:	March 1, 2006
Funding:	$20M

Launched in July 2006, Twitter is social networking and micro-blogging site that allows users to post their latest updates. An update is limited by 140 characters and can be posted through… Learn More

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A Boon for Xoopit and Other Productivity Add-Ons

2008-12-17T00:47:00.000-08:00

by Mark Hendrickson

Xoopit, the email-enhancement service that helps you locate files, images and videos in your inbox, is getting a potentially big shot in the arm with the launch of Yahoo Mail’s application platform today.

Previously, Xoopit was only available to Gmail users who were proactive enough to install a Firefox plugin. But with the opening up of Yahoo Mail, Xoopit will now have more immediate access that webmail service’s 275 million monthly global users. And the company won’t have to hijack Yahoo Mail to do it, as it has essentially done with Gmail - Xoopit will be presented nicely in a Yahoo application gallery for easy installation.

This may be the opportunity for Xoopit to transform itself from a neat plugin into a widely-used tool that many people learn they can’t live their digital lives without. And we can expect many other productivity tools to follow suit, since Yahoo Mail’s application platform is focused more on serious tasks than finding better ways to poke your friends, which is often the case on social networks like Facebook. WordPress is another example of a productivity tool that hopes that to spur more usage by grabbing users’ attention during their daily (or hourly) email routine.

Xoopit is still exploring paths to profitability but says that Yahoo is exceedingly open to discussing ways that developers can monetize its platform. Details aren’t available yet on how Yahoo plans to do this exactly, but Yahoo may allow developers to display advertisements within Yahoo Mail and even offer to split revenue on their own advertisements somewhere down the road.

Google has yet to open Gmail to developers, although its Gmail Labs platform suggests that it will get there in time. AOL has also begun to open up.

On the flip side, startups like Zenbe and Postbox should be getting worried right about now.

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Xoopit

Xoopit offers an easy way to organize email. Xoopit has invented a novel email and web indexing architecture similar to a web search engine to help its users retrieve meaningful content from their archived email.

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The Extraordinary Happenings At BitTorrent

2008-12-17T00:44:00.000-08:00

by Michael Arrington

“I have never seen anything like this” said a corporate law partner at a large silicon valley law firm. He was referring to the undoing of a $17 million venture round at BitTorrent and subsequent recapitalization that we reported yesterday.

In one board action, $10 million was removed from the company’s bank account and the valuation slashed from $177 million to just $35 million.

Recapitalizations, where existing stockholders are crammed down to near zero equity in anticipation of a new round of financing at a lower valuation, are common. Particularly in down markets. Old investors are forced to put in new capital to maintain their ownership. New stock options are awarded to current employees. Anyone who’s left the company, even founders, are left with nothing. Even though they’ve often paid hard cash to exercise stock options.

Recaps are the only way to make bloated startups that have run out of cash healthy again. But they only happen when a company is desperate for cash and has no other options. The reason is clear - the board of directors has a fiduciary duty to protect stockholders. Recapitalizations are not good for existing stockholders, and can only be approved when the company has no other choice.

But what happened at BitTorrent wasn’t a standard recapitalization. Nothing about the BitTorrent reorganization was standard, in fact. The company, which laid off more than 2/3 of staff (65 to 19 employees), had over $20 million in the bank before this transaction, says a source close to the company. They weren’t generating much revenue from toolbar and device installations - just $5 million or so annually - but at least the company had plenty of runway left.

In other words, the fiduciary duty of the board of directors to the stockholders of BitTorrent was almost certainly disregarded.

The letter to stockholders said that “DAG claimed that the Series C financing should be substantially renegotiated.” But our sources say that Accel was the firm to insist on the change, forced the decision on everyone else, and let DAG take the fall. Why did DAG allow that to happen? The firm’s whole investment thesis is to follow top tier firms like Accel and Sequoia, investing in later rounds at higher valuations. They have to keep these top firms happy. As a result, they are effectively a whipping boy when someone has to be held publicly responsible for unpopular actions.

But the real question about the recap is why the board of directors let it happen. The board has a strict fiduciary duty to protect stockholders. That didn’t happen here, since all existing stockholders were effectively wiped out by the recap.

So why did the board vote for this extraordinary transaction? Two of the board members, Ping Li (Accel) and David Chao (DCM), are investors in the company and stood to gain financially from the rescission and recap. CEO Erik Klinker is an Accel man, having previously worked at Accel-funded Internap. That leaves founder Bram Cohen, founder Ashwin Navin and outside director Brad Templeton.

Navin voted against the transaction. Templeton voted for it, but refused to comment when I asked him why he felt this was in the best interest of the company and it’s stockholders. Cohen also voted for the transaction, and as the majority holder of common stock he was a necessary vote. Without him, the transaction would not have happened.

So why did Cohen agree to vote for the transaction? Speculation abounds, but one aspect of the transaction is suspicious. The term sheet calls for $750,000 to be spent buying back shares from common stock holders. That mostly means Cohen, who is reportedly getting the lion’s share of the 30% of the company put aside for current employees. Cohen, who has recently had highly publicized financial troubles, may have simply been bought off.

There’s no other reason for the stock buyback. If the company is in a dire enough financial situation to warrant an unprecedented rescission of a $17 million financing, then money that’s left sure as hell shouldn’t be spent in payouts to founders.

BitTorrent and Accel will not respond to requests for comment. Everyone is keeping quiet. For now.

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BitTorrent

BitTorrent Inc is the company founded by the creator of the algorithm of the same name. The company’s purpose to use the algorithm’s ability to transmit large quantities of data across the internet to legally sell content and help companies… Learn More

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OpenX Shows Growth, Ramps Up Revenue Streams

2008-12-17T00:43:00.000-08:00

by Robin Wauters

OpenX (which used to be called Openads), provider of an open-source ad serving solution for web publishers - we use it at TechCrunch -, is growing like weed under the leadership of former AOL CEO Jonathan Miller, who is the company’s chairman, and ex-Yahoo executive Tim Cadogan who is CEO. According to the company, they’re serving well over 300 billion ad impressions through its software as of this month, while its Hosted product line has achieved a more than 1 billion monthly ad impression run rate.

In August 2008, OpenX announced the launch of version 2.6, an update to its downloadable ad server and introduced a couple of features which spurred usage of the system, including a new API, dashboard and a speedier ad tagging system.

The ad serving solution is getting attention from around the world: its products are used in more than 100 countries and are translated into twenty-five languages by community contributors. The company says its community now counts over 35,000 total publishers that power more than 150,000 websites across the Internet.

OpenX, which is published under GPL, makes money by providing professional services to its publishers, something it started offering only two months ago. In addition, it sells premium support packages and enterprise-level Hosted accounts. A fourth revenue stream currently being tested is OpenX Market, a monetization platform that will essentially be something of an online market place where advertisers and publishers can partner up with each other.

OpenX raised around $20.5 million in funding from Accel Partners, Index Ventures, First Round Capital, Mangrove Capital Partners and O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures. It was originally based in the UK, but has now moved its main headquarters to California with offices in London and Poland.

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OpenX

Website:	openx.org
Location:	Pasadena, California, United States
Founded:	November 1, 2006
Funding:	$20.5M

OpenX, formerly called Openads and phpAdsNew prior to that, is the most popular ad server solution when measured by number of publishers using it. They have 30,000 publishers using the software on 100,000 sites in 140 different countries and in 20… Learn More

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Oxite - Microsofts Open Source Blogging Platform

2008-12-17T00:33:00.000-08:00

Submitted by Jeff Chandler

There is big news in the world of publishing software and that is, Microsoft had unveiled its foray into the open source blogging market with the first public release of Oxite. Oxite is built on top of the ASP.NET MVC (Model View Controller) framework. Many people seem to think that Oxite could take on the likes of WordPress but I highly doubt that. For the first release, this is what you have to look forward to:

Blogging Related Features:

Pingbacks, trackbacks
Anonymous and authenticated commenting along with optional moderation
Gravator support (global avatars)
RSS feeds
Search friendly URLs
Supports the MetaWebLog API
Web Admin Panel
Supports Open Search format
Other Content Management Features

Other CMS Related Features:

Create any number of web pages for any purpose
Create sub-pages off a main page
Localization

The good news relating to Oxite is that, it shows Microsoft moving into a more open software development track.

When visiting the Oxite FAQ, question number two sums up who will be using the Oxite platform anytime soon.

Q: I'm not a developer. Is Oxite for me?
A: Currently, no. Oxite is targeted at developers who want to learn ASP.NET MVC. That said, if you're a devigner, you might really like Oxite too. We work well in Visual Studio Express. This is a community project. If the community decides to build this to work well for consumers down the road we won't stop it, and then Oxite would be for you.

Watch Out WiFi, Here Comes MiFi

2008-12-17T00:30:00.000-08:00

Written by Lidija Davis

Novatel Wireless last week announced it will release the MiFi, a portable wireless router that will deliver wireless 3G data network access to multiple users in a small area. Much the same size as a credit card, the sleek looking MiFi will let users select access to EVDO or HSPA high speed data networks.

This "cloud" of high-speed Internet connectivity that MiFi offers can be shared not only between users, but between devices such as laptops, cameras, gaming devices and multimedia players. Perfect for carpooling and relieving boredom in the back seat during that long road trip with kids - think Nintendo DS or Sony PSP - the MiFi will support up to five users simultaneously.

The pocket sized MiFi is capable of connecting users and devices

In addition to being a portable Internet hotspot, the EVDO blog notes that the MiFi has an onboard Linux processor capable of hosting software applications and additional content storage capabilities via MicroSD.

Novatel claims the internal battery will provide over forty hours standby and up to four hours of active use on a single charge, and that certain configurations will support applications like auto VPN, automatic syncing of e-mail and remote management capabilities.

The MiFi will be available in the first quarter of 2009 through a variety of retail outlets and Engadget reports the MiFi should be priced under $300.

Who will Preserve Your Digital Data?

2008-12-17T00:29:00.000-08:00

Written by Lidija Davis

Almost every piece of information we access today is stored somewhere in digital form--think iPod, YouTube, digital cameras, mobile phones, not to mention our personal and professional information spread across LinkedIn, social networking sites and blogs. It's difficult to imagine life without digital data in this information age. But who manages it? And, more importantly, who will preserve it?

In this month's edition of Communications of the ACM, the monthly magazine of the Association for Computing Machinery, Dr. Francine Berman, director of the San Diego Supercomputer Center at the University of California, San Diego, discusses the "data deluge" and offers a guide on how to manage and preserve your digital information.

Many people assume that their data will be available whenever they need to access it, but most of us have had a hard drive crash; we've seen various forms of storage media such as floppy disks and zip drives become obsolete, some of us have even had problems accessing content in the cloud, as evidenced recently when Gmail was down, so we all know that storage of and access to electronic data is not always without problems.

"Loss, damage, and unavailability of important digital business, historical, and official documents regularly make the news further highlighting our dependence on electronic information," writes Berman.

Storage: How Much is Enough?

According to a 2008 IDC white paper, 2007 marked the "crossover" year, when there was more digital data created than data storage to host it. The IDC report also projected that by 2011 the amount of digital data created will be more than twice the amount of available storage.

Bottom line? We don't produce storage capacity at the same rate we produce digital information.

Who is responsible for Data Preservation?

Increasingly, policies and regulations are being set to regulate large data sets and digital information within large organizations across the world; Sarbanes-Oxley promotes responsible management of digital financial records, HIPAA looks after digital medical records (US), and the Joint Information Systems Committee and the British Library (UK), as well as the National Library of Australia (AU) are among some of the organizations that support the preservation of digital information across the globe.

While most people agree that certain digital information is preservation worthy or of historical value to society, what about the digital pictures you took on your last holiday? Who is in charge of preserving them so that the next generation can access them?

In a nutshell, you are. While the Communications article ends with Berman's top ten recommendations for data preservation, here are three things you can do right now:

Make a plan: Determine who is going to be in charge of your digital data once you are no longer capable of looking after it.
Make multiple copies: When it comes to valuable data, store it in different formats at different locations
Migrate to new technologies: Don't wait for storage media to become obsolete, migrate to new technologies and formats as they become available.

Finally, with some cloud services offering free data storage, it's worth considering moving some of your data online. Take a look at our write up on online storage services for ideas on where to start.

Extracting Images From the Brain

2008-12-17T00:21:00.000-08:00

The Pink Tentacle blog writes (update: currently getting a quota exceeded message there):

Researchers from Japan’s ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories have developed new brain analysis technology that can reconstruct the images inside a person’s mind and display them on a computer monitor, it was announced on December 11. According to the researchers, further development of the technology may soon make it possible to view other people’s dreams while they sleep.

The scientists were able to reconstruct various images viewed by a person by analyzing changes in their cerebral blood flow. Using a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine, the researchers first mapped the blood flow changes that occurred in the cerebral visual cortex as subjects viewed various images held in front of their eyes. Subjects were shown 400 random 10 x 10 pixel black-and-white images for a period of 12 seconds each. While the fMRI machine monitored the changes in brain activity, a computer crunched the data and learned to associate the various changes in brain activity with the different image designs.

Then, when the test subjects were shown a completely new set of images, such as the letters N-E-U-R-O-N, the system was able to reconstruct and display what the test subjects were viewing based solely on their brain activity.

(Utopic and dystopic scenarios: leasing parts of your brain space to a big corporation for a side income; building a problem solving computer based on low level brain growing farm; big brother supervising thoughts to crack down on dissidents; drawing tools; advanced lie detectors; brain exporting and importing of movies, smells, feelings...)

Google Chrome Out Of Beta

2008-12-17T00:16:00.000-08:00

Google just took their browser Chrome out of Beta. Google say they did so because their “goals for stability and performance have been met” (while disclaiming their “work is far from done”). But is that the real reason? Steve Gillmor at Techcrunch proposes another potential way to look at it; “Google’s open source browser has a number of eager customers, including OEMs [original equipment manufacturers] who can’t offer the browser until it is in full release.” Yesterday when Google’s plans started surfacing, Ionut Alex. Chitu commented, “Out of beta? That’s a joke, right? Maybe ’out of alpha’ is a more appropriate description.”

Google was and continues to be eager to get Chrome out to many people, Beta or not. They advertise for it using AdSense, they show special links on YouTube pages, and last not least, they promoted Chrome on their homepage.

'Report a Concern' at Google Maps

2008-12-17T00:15:00.000-08:00

Since a recent Google Maps Street View update, Google shows the wording “Report a concern” at the footer of their panorama photos (in older versions, a text for this elsewhere was reading “Report inappropriate image” – the title to the report page still uses that wording). I pinged Dennis G. Jerz, associate professor of English at Seton Hill University and blogger at the Literacy Weblog, about his take on this:

My dean once suggested that, when introducing a postmodern literary work to students who aren’t used to such things, I was setting myself up for failure by calling the work “difficult” or “challenging,” and instead suggested “quirky” or just “significant.” I have another colleague who’s very good at listening to the terms used by people in other disciplines, and echoing those terms back in her conversation with them (so that, when speaking about the main idea of a scientist’s paper, she uses the word “hypothesis,” or when speaking about the main idea of an art installation, she refers to “concept”).

I think that if Google phrased it as the more natural-sounding “Report a problem,” or “Report a violation of privacy,” that could be taken as an admission of wrongdoing. By phrasing it so that the user seems merely to be sharing a personal feeling that something is uncomfortable, Google can assume the moral high ground. “Oh, so you’re concerned about it, are you? There, there... tell us about it, and we’ll make it all better..”

I had a boss who was a lawyer... he once asked me not to send out a press release with somebody saying “We are sorry...” He told me that expressing “sorrow” implies taking responsibility for a bad thing, while writing “We regret...” is merely expressing sympathy.

So I imagine that Google’s lawyers wanted to come up with language that would appeal to people with real worries, but not give any new ammunition to anyone who thinks Google is invading their privacy. The phrasing does strike me as rather patronizing.

Google Releases Browser Security Handbook

2008-12-17T00:14:00.000-08:00

Google released a Browser Security Handbook. Google says this “is meant to provide web application developers, browser engineers, and information security researchers with a one-stop reference to key security properties of contemporary web browsers,” adding that “Insufficient understanding of these often poorly-documented characteristics is a major contributing factor to the prevalence of several classes of security vulnerabilities.”

Send SMS in Gmail Chat

2008-12-17T00:12:00.000-08:00

Gmail’s Labs have a new feature called “Text Messaging (SMS) in Chat”. Enable this, and you can send around SMS straight from Gmail Chat, Google says... at least to US phones. Google writes: “On the receiving end, when you get a text message from Gmail on your phone, it will come from a number in the 406 area code. (...) You can reply to this text on your phone just like you’d reply to any other text. The reply gets routed back to our Gmail servers and shows up in your friend’s Gmail chat window.”

Change.gov Using Google Moderator

2008-12-17T00:02:00.000-08:00

Change.gov, website for US president-to-be Barack Obama’s transition team, has added a way to ask questions and vote on questions... using the Google Moderator tool released to the public earlier this year (change.gov frame-embeds a page at moderator.change.gov).

Barack Obama is also using Google-owned YouTube for addressing people. Google CEO Eric Schmidt previously endorsed Obama and is part of a 17-members team of economic advisers, as Hindu.com reported last month.

On a related note, Change.gov recently switched from default copyright to Creative Commons.

Polygons Evolving Into Your Custom Picture

2008-12-16T23:58:00.000-08:00

There’s now a configurable web app for the semi-transparent vectors evolution approach mentioned earlier. Using Firefox (among other browsers, but not Internet Explorer – the page is Canvas-based), you provide a JPEG URL and then hit the Start button to watch the image mutate and evolve.

Yahoo Laying Off Employees and Providing Layoff Talk Guideline

2008-12-16T23:54:00.000-08:00

Google’s frenemy Yahoo is laying off many people and provides a detailed guideline for management on how to tell employees the news. The guideline, which was leaked to Valleywag, contains instructions like the following:

• How to set up the meeting... walk to the employee’s desk and say:
“Thank you, Aaron, for coming in. I have some information regarding our organization that I want to tell you in person.” (...)

• (If needed) “This was a very difficult business decision supported by senior management.”
• (If needed) “The decision is final.”
• “I appreciate what you have done for Yahoo!” (...)

• Repeat information on what to do when they are finished with Right Management. “When you’re finished here please go to your desk and pack your personal belongings. Please let me know if you need any help as I will need to collect your company assets in the next two hours.”

Google Street View US Expands

2008-12-16T23:52:00.000-08:00

Street View, the panorama photos of Google Maps, now have an expanded US coverage. Google say they doubled the amount of US data. “This will bring Street View to some new cities, like Memphis, Birmingham, and Charleston (SC), and also to a few states for the first time, like Maine, West Virginia, North Dakota, and South Dakota.”

Google Book Search Adds Magazines

2008-12-16T23:51:00.000-08:00

Google announced that Google Book Search now also includes scans from magazines such as Ebony, New York Magazine, Men’s Health, Popular Science and Popular Mechanics*. Try this sample search, and you can view the pages of an issue of Ebony from 1973, including the now vintage-interest ads of the days.

If you want to restrict your Google Book search to just magazines, you can do so via the advanced search page.

Google says, “Over time, as we scan more articles, you’ll see more and more magazines appear in Google Book Search results. Eventually, we’ll also begin blending magazine results into our main Google.com search results, so you may begin finding magazines you didn’t even know you were looking for.”

A while ago, Google also started incorporating newspaper scans as part of Google News, using the interface known from Google Books.

[Thanks Moustafa ZA!]

*I’m not sure if there were really no magazines at all in Google Book search before, though that’s how I understand Google’s announcement.

Read Wikipedia on Mobile Phones through Email

2008-12-16T23:46:00.000-08:00

Written by Amit Agarwal

SnapAsk is a useful service that helps you retrieve information from the web via simple email commands. Just send a blank email to Ask@SnapAsk.com with the request in the Subject line and you’ll have the required information the next second. No need to browse the web over a slow connection.

With SnapAsk you can read Wikipedia articles (command: wiki gmail), get latest stock quotes (command: quote GOOG), get latest Yahoo! News on any topic (command: news India Pakistan) or even consult the slang dictionary for word meanings (command: urbandictionary econnoisseur).

While there are other services that let you fetch web pages via email, SnapAsk pulls just the relevant parts and doesn’t require you to know the full web address of a page.

You may also use SnapAsk to get movie timings, flight information, local time, traffic conditions, match scores and latest weather information on your cell phone.

Visual Guide to Time Around the World

2008-12-16T23:30:00.001-08:00

Written by Amit Agarwal

World Clocks, that show the current time around the world, are very handy when you are planning to place a phone call or Skype someone who is sitting in another corner of the globe.

Today, we look at some of the most useful online services that display the current local time for locations around the world. These world clocks run inside your web browser and require no software downloads or installation.

1. The Honda World Clock sports a very clean and appealing interface though it took a while to load on our browser. It shows you "live local time" of all major cities in the world simultaneously with the country flags.

2. DHL World Clock - A Java based world time clock developed by a logistics company - DHL. Move your mouse pointer over the world map and pop-up boxes will appear, detailing 'live' local times for a selection of worldwide locations. This clock has the fastest response time and also gives a visual idea of the time by suggesting a pattern of night and day on the map. We absolutely love the DHL clock.

3. QLock displays the world time inside a Google map that you can drag, zoom in/out or even switch to a satellite view. That said, the most useful part is the city search feature for those who don't know the location of some city on the globe - just type the name of a city and QLock displays the time of the city on the world map.

4. The World Time Zone Clock divides the globe into a colorful map of time zones - you may confuse that for a static world map graphic but if you look closely, it has the current timestamp. Unlike the other world clocks listed above, here the clock is not updated live but the colored map regions and the date-time lines make it very useful overall.

So bookmark these URLs and use them while planning your next e-meeting. Also make sure that your local computer time is correct because the above services take the base time from your local clock and time zone settings.

Access del.icio.us Bookmarks on your Mobile Phone

2008-12-16T23:28:00.000-08:00

Written by Amit Agarwal

After a long wait, delicious has finally launched a mobile version of their site at m.delicious.com.

The mobile site of Delicious lets you browse your own bookmarks and tags or explore other links that are currently popular on delicious.

This is a read-only site in the sense you can’t add new bookmarks so check this trick on how to post links to delicious via email.

Read more about the delicious mobile site launch at their official blog.

Most Popular Google Subdomains

2008-12-16T23:13:00.000-08:00

Written by Amit Agarwal

Following is a list of 40 most popular subdomains of google.com in terms of unique visitors. If traffic is any measure of popularity, this chart definitely provides some good hints about the relative popularity of various Google services.

For instance, Google Answers service is no longer active but the archive Q&A’s continue to get more traffic that Google Blogs search and even Google Sites, a wiki like service that will soon replace Google Pages.

Google’s experiment with hosted news seems to be paying off as is evident from the traffic on domains ap.google.com and afp.google.com.

*This data is from Compete for the month of November 2008 and counts only unique visitors.

Top 40 Google Subdomains Rank Subdomain DescriptionUnique Visitors

1	http://www.google.com/	Web Search	126,269,804
2	images.google.com	Image Search	43,023,240
3	maps.google.com	Google Maps	36,914,680
4	mail.google.com	Gmail Google Mail	24,895,354
5	news.google.com	Google News	13,356,758
6	video.google.com	Google Video	10,204,587
7	books.google.com	Google Books	7,927,748
8	clients1.google.com		6,706,051
9	picasaweb.google.com	Picasa Web Albums	5,298,616
10	groups.google.com	Google Groups	4,635,581
11	suggestqueries.google.com	Google Suggest	3,474,637
12	docs.google.com	Google Docs	3,350,849
13	translate.google.com	Google Translate	2,894,445
14	earth.google.com	Google Earth	2,569,757
15	spreadsheets.google.com	Google Spreadsheets	2,528,648
16	scholar.google.com	Google Scholar	1,959,375
17	ap.google.com	Associated Press	1,889,635
18	finance.google.com	Google Finance	1,858,152
19	toolbar.google.com	Google Toolbar	1,767,647
20	partnerpage.google.com	Google Start Page	1,764,685
21	video-stats.video.google.com		1,623,872
22	pack.google.com	Google Pack	1,507,250
23	adwords.google.com	Google AdWords	1,412,911
24	answers.google.com	Google Answers	1,277,980
25	checkout.google.com	Google Checkout	1,239,261
26	sites.google.com	Google Sites	1,237,010
27	blogsearch.google.com	Google Blog Search	1,229,263
28	code.google.com	Hosted Code Libraries	1,049,731
29	picasa.google.com	Picasa Software	978,392
30	dl.google.com	Google Downloads	973,467
31	feedproxy.google.com	FeedBurner	959,884
32	desktop.google.com	Google Desktop Search	951,090
33	services.google.com		635,560
34	talkgadget.google.com	Googel Talk Gadget	506,306
35	fusion.google.com	Google IG Subscribe	496,913
36	clients.google.com		470,176
37	gmail.google.com	Gmail	443,869
38	l.google.com		431,403
39	afp.google.com	Agence France Presse	412,095
40	sketchup.google.com	Google Sketchup	411,761

Some of the popular Google properties missing in the list are Blogger.com, Orkut, Google Apps for Domains, Google Reader, Google Calendar, Google AdSense (googlesyndication.com), Google Notebook, Google Analytics, Google Base and YouTube.com since they are not Google subdomains.

Google services that are on subdomains but seem to missing from the top 40 list include Google Knol, Google Directory, Google Labs and Google Local.

How I Make Money Blogging

2008-12-16T23:07:00.000-08:00

Written by Darren Rowse

Below you’ll find my latest update on how I make money blogging (this is something I post about every few months - although it’s been a over six months since I last did it ).

Also note - I go into a lot of detail on how I make money blogging in ProBlogger the Book.

How Much Money Do I Make from Blogging?

I get asked how much money my blogging makes me on a regular basis. These days I don’t go into specifics about it - all I will say is that it continues to be well over six figures per year (but less than seven figures). What you’ll find below are my top income streams - ranked from highest earnings to lowest.

Keep in mind that this is a summary of all of my blogs (not just ProBlogger). It does not include any income that I earn from b5media where I’m paid a salary as VP Training.

I hope you find it useful to see the mix and variety of ways that I earn a living from blogging.

1. AdSense

Despite not using it here at ProBlogger any more I continue to use AdSense with real effect on my other blogs. While I do use AdSense Referrals and their search feature it is their normal ads that work best for me. I have them all set to show image and text based ads and find that 250×300 pixel ads work best (usually with a blended design).

2. Chitika

Last time I did this sort of summary Chitika ranked #1. This time around it has been overtaken by AdSense - not because Chitika slipped in how much it earned but because AdSense went up and because I also replaced a few Chitika ad units with WidgetBucks ones. Chitika offers a range of ad units that I experiment with. I find their eMiniMalls work best and that Related Product Units are also good. Their Shoplincs product isn’t performing as well as it once did for me - mainly because I’ve been promoting it less and have driven less traffic to it. Over the time I’ve been using Chitika they’ve now earned me over a quarter of a million dollars!

3. Amazon Associates

This has been one of my big movers in the last 12 months. I used to make a few odd dollars from it - however in recent times it has become a significant earner for me (as I’ve shared previously). This quarter it overtook TLA as my third biggest earner - largely on the back of me directing traffic to Amazon from my product related sites - mainly digital cameras. While the commission on cameras is only 4% this adds up when those that you refer buy higher ticket items.

4. Private Ad Sales/Sponsorships

This includes ad sales of the 125 x 125 ads here at ProBlogger as well as a couple of private ad deals that I did with sponsors on my camera blog (including sponsorships with Canon, Kodak and Adobe). This area has jumped up since last time also as a result of the new design here at ProBlogger and our expanded sales team at b5 who now sell ProBlogger’s ads for me.

5. Text Link Ads

The income from TLA has dipped slightly over the last few months simply because I took the decision to stop selling them here at ProBlogger and most of my other blogs. This was because I wanted to focus more upon selling the 125 pixel ads instead and felt that the ads I was attracting were not as relevant to this site as they could have been. As it turns out this might have been a good move because it seems Google has been penalizing blogs that run them lately.

6. ProBlogger Job Boards

The job boards here at ProBlogger continue to grow each month in the number of advertisements that are being bought. This enabled me to invest most of the money that they’d earned a while back into getting a new back end for the boards and to redesign them. It hit me today that the boards are now bringing in around $1000 a month in revenue which is pretty nice considering that they are now so low maintenance to run! I’ve just given a development team a new brief to expand the job boards in the coming month so stay tuned for some new features coming soon which could see this revenue increase and more importantly for it to become an even more useful resource to readers.

7. Miscellaneous Affiliate Programs

I run a variety of affiliate programs on my blogs - most of which bring in smaller amounts of money that don’t really justify a category of their own. These include - - Digital Photography Secrets (a camera technique series), Pro Photo Secrets (a great photoshop product) , Yaro’s Blog Mastermind Mentoring Program, SEO Book (Aaron’s legendary resource). This area is set to continue to grow in the current quarter with me having had reasonable conversions from the promotion of the excellent Teaching Sells course.

8. Miscellaneous Advertising Programs

I also play with a number of other ad networks. Some I run as tests to see if I should review them here - and some are just advertising that run in the background on some of my smaller blogs. These include AuctionAds, Feedburner RSS ads, Vizu (a poll advertising system), Kontera and Bidvertiser. Together these don’t add up to major earnings for me - not because they are not good, but because I don’t use them heavily (a blog can only run so many ads on it).

I think that that covers most of it. Since last quarter I’ve also been experimenting with WidgetBucks as well as one other ad system that is still in a closed beta test. I’m certain that WidgetBucks will feature in next quarter’s list because I am getting good returns on that so far. In fact at it’s current earnings it’ll debut at at least number 4 on the list and perhaps even at number 3.

How Much do I Spend?

As mentioned last time - I don’t spend a lot of money in order to bring in my income. I do have some basic blogging costs (hosting etc) and play around with a limited amount of advertising (AdWords and StumbleUpon) but rely more heavily upon word of mouth and organic ways of drawing income into my blogs. I also have some costs in paying writers on a couple of blogs - but these don’t make up a massive part of the overall earnings each quarter.

Choosing a Blog Platform

2008-12-16T23:03:00.000-08:00

from problogger

Pros and Cons of Hosted Blog Platforms

Pros:

Cheap or Free to run - most hosted options are free (of the four I mentioned above, only TypePad charges).
Relatively easy to set up - most of these types of blogs can be set up with a basic default template within minutes. The set up is usually just a matter of filling in a few fields with your options and choosing a template design.They are ideal if you know nothing or very little about the technological side of blogging.
Simple to Run - Once you’re through the easy set up process hosted blogs are usually pretty simple to run. You will obviously need to learn some basics, but these days most blog platforms come with very user friendly features. Posting is as simple as filling in a few fields and hitting publish.
Updated Automatically - if the blog platform updates it will automatically do so for you. Instead of having to upload new software onto a server, these updates happen much more seamlessly.
Indexed in Search Engines Quickly - one of the advantages of many hosted blog platforms is that they are put onto domains that have good page ranks already. While your blog won’t be indexed in search engines when you start, most bloggers notice that their blogs get picked up and ranked pretty quickly. In the long run they probably don’t rank much higher than other blogs on stand alone hosting - but they are a quick way to get into SE’s.

Cons:

Less Configurable - My first blog was on a Blogger.com blog - the reason I moved from it within months was that it was so limited in terms of features and ability to design a professional running blog. Of course this was 3 years ago and Blogger.com has improved - but one of the biggest frustrations with hosted blog owners are their limited options for customization. This does vary from platform to platform within the hosted options. For example WordPress.com has quite limited design options (for instance you can’t ad ads to templates making it a poor choice to make money with), Blogger.com doesn’t give the option for categories and TypePad has different options depending upon which level you buy in at.
Default Design Limitations - While this can be true for standalone blogging systems also I find that many hosted blogs end up looking very similar to one another. This is because the default templates get used over and over again and if you’re a beginner they can be difficult to adapt. For instance with Blogger.com to make changes (and you can make your blog look quite unique) you need to know CSS and HTML to edit your templates (something you need to know with other platforms also it’s worth mentioning).
Less Control - Another common complaint I hear regularly from hosted blog owners is that they are frustrated by not having ultimate control over their blog. While they do own the content, the URL is not technically their own and they are somewhat at the mercy of their platform in terms of whether their blog is working or not. For example there have been times in the last few months when TypePad bloggers have been frustrated by their blogs being down for periods of time (something Blogger.com struggles with from time to time also). To be fair on TypePad - they did compensate their bloggers for this down time.
Generic URL - having your own URL can give a sense of professionalism and memorability to a blog that hosted options might well go without. While there are some very successful blogs on hosted platforms some bloggers believe that having your own URL is much more professional if you are using your blog in a professional way.
Upgrading to Standalone can be Tricky - Probably the question worth asking before you go with a hosted option is what you’ll do if your blog gets big or you get the blogging bug in a way that won’t let you go? One of the issues of starting out with a hosted platform is that if there comes a day when you want to go with a standalone one that you have some work cut out for you in retaining any traffic that you’ve built up. I’m not saying it’s impossible to do (I’ve done it myself) but there are implications of changing domains later in terms of taking regular readers with you, having to climb the search engine rankings all over again and redirecting traffic from one blog to another.

Pros and Cons of Stand Alone Blog Platforms

Pros:

Full Control of Design - Depending upon your ability with web design standalone blogs generally are very adaptable. I am not strong in this area personally but am constantly amazed by some of my colleague’s abilities to create incredibly diverse and clever designs. Of course those bloggers with little ability in this area may either need to use default templates (with the same limitations as default templates of hosted blogs) or get others to help with this.
Adaptability - One of the things I enjoy about WordPress here at ProBlogger is the vast array of developers who are coming up with all manner of ‘plugins’ which extend the ability of the basic WP installation. Similarly many of the other standalone platforms have communities of developers producing similar arrays of plugins (check out the plugins that ProBlogger readers use here for some examples of what is being developed).
Free Platforms - while you end up paying for your domain name and hosting systems like these are usually free to run. Some do have license fees if you’re having multiple blogs or using them for commercial purposes - but many are open source.
URL - Having your own domain name is great for many reasons. For one it’s easier to remember, secondly it’s more professional and hirdly it is more easily brand-able.

Cons:

Complicated Set Up - once again this depends upon your technical abilities and web savvy but when you move into stand alone platforms the complexity of set up tends to increase. It often involves arranging hosting, setting up databases and then downloading the platform onto you own computer and then uploading it via ftp onto your web hosting server. There are good tutorials around for most of the platforms to help with this process but for many it is a daunting thing. Once again it’s not my strength so I generally get by blogs set up and designed by a professional designer (although recently have been learning to do it a little more myself). NB: one way around this is to find a web host that will install your blog platform for you. This is becoming increasingly popular. Some platforms even recommend hosts that will do it for you (eg see MT’s recommendations and WP’s recommendations).
Cost - While the blog platform itself might be free you need to factor in the ongoing costs of having your own domain name (a yearly fee plus a one off registration fee) and hosting fees (again yearly). There are many great deals out on these so it need not cost the world - although if your blog gets a lot of traffic the costs do go up and you might want to consider going onto a more professional and expensive plan.
Updates - Most blog platforms go through different and versions over time. Updating from one to another can be complicated if you don’t know what you’re doing.
Hosting Issues - I mentioned in the cons of the hosted platforms that you have ‘less control’ over your blog and are at the whims of your platform’s hosting being up or down. Of course this is also true for any hosting as from time to time different hosting solutions can have their own problems. Whether you use a hosted solution or a stand alone solution it’s important to back up and be aware that from time to time things do go down. Choose a reputable host if you go the stand alone route to ensure maximum uptime.

What is a Blog?

2008-12-16T22:58:00.000-08:00

So what is a Blog anyway? I am asked every week via emails, conversation and Instant Messaging chats to define: ‘what is a blog’. If you’re reading this you may well be asking the same question.

There are a number of ways I could answer this question ranging from the broad to the highly technical.

Before I define the ‘what is a blog’ question - here are a few definitions from other much wiser people to get us started:

‘A weblog is a hierarchy of text, images, media objects and data, arranged chronologically, that can be viewed in an HTML browser.’

‘A frequent, chronological publication of personal thoughts and Web links.’

‘From “Web log.” A blog is basically a journal that is available on the web. The activity of updating a blog is “blogging” and someone who keeps a blog is a “blogger.”’

‘A weblog is kind of a continual tour, with a human guide who you get to know. There are many guides to choose from, each develops an audience, and there’s also comraderie and politics between the people who run weblogs, they point to each other, in all kinds of structures, graphs, loops, etc.’

‘A blog is basically a journal that is available on the web. The activity of updating a blog is “blogging” and someone who keeps a blog is a “blogger.” Blogs are typically updated daily using software that allows people with little or no technical background to update and maintain the blog. Postings on a blog are almost always arranged in cronological order with the most recent additions featured most prominantly.’

‘A blog is a website in which items are posted on a regular basis and displayed in reverse chronological order. The term blog is a shortened form of weblog or web log. Authoring a blog, maintaining a blog or adding an article to an existing blog is called “blogging”. Individual articles on a blog are called “blog posts,” “posts” or “entries”. A person who posts these entries is called a “blogger”. A blog comprises text, hypertext, images, and links (to other web pages and to video, audio and other files). Blogs use a conversational style of documentation. Often blogs focus on a particular “area of interest”, such as Washington, D.C.’s political goings-on. Some blogs discuss personal experiences.’

So What is a Blog???

Confused yet? Don’t be - its really quite simple. To put it as simply as possible - a blog is a type of website that is usually arranged in chronological order from the most recent ‘post’ (or entry) at the top of the main page to the older entries towards the bottom.

Blogs are usually (but not always) written by one person and are updated pretty regularly. Blogs are often (but not always) written on a particular topic - there are blogs on virtually any topic you can think of. From photography, to spirituality, to recipes, to personal diaries to hobbies - blogging has as many applications and varieties as you can imagine. Whole blog communities have sprung up around some of these topics putting people into contact with each other in relationships where they can learn, share ideas, make friends with and even do business with people with similar interests from around the world.

Blogs usually have a few features that are useful to know about if you want to get the most out of them as a reader. Lets examine a couple briefly.

Archives - You might look at the front page of a blog and think that there is not much to them. A few recent entries, some links to other sites and not much else. However its worth knowing that there is a lot more going on under the surface that might initially meet the eye. For example in addition to the main page of this blog - at the time of writing this post there are over 520 other pages or posts below the surface that I’ve written over the past few months.

When I write a post like this one it goes to the top of the front page. As it gets older and as I add more current posts it begins its journey down the page until it disappears from it. This is not the end of its life however, because it goes into the ‘Archives’ of my blog. It sounds like a dusty dark place but its really just like a filing cabinet that is easily accessible in a couple of ways. You can read my ‘archives’ simply by looking on the ’sidebar’ (over on the left of this blog) at the ‘archives’ or ‘categories’ section. There you will see links to all my old posts which you can access either by category. You’ll see a category for ‘Advertising’ - click that link and you’ll see all my old posts on the topic of Advertising with the most recent at the top and the oldest at the bottom.

Comments - Not all blogs use comments - but most do. This blog is not a monologue but a conversation. You can give me feedback on almost everything I write simply by clicking the ‘comments’ link at the bottom of each one of my posts. This will take you to a little form where you leave your name, email and a link to your own blog if you have one as well as your feedback, comment, critique, question, essay on why you love my blog, promise of money…. etc). Try it now. Scroll to the bottom of this page, click ‘comments’ and fill in the blanks with a little introduction to yourself.

Lastly - let me finish with a video that explores the question of what is a blog in a visual form that I’m sure many of you will find helpful.Blogs in Plain English

How Bloggers Make Money from Blogs

2008-12-16T22:55:00.000-08:00

My Personal Income Streams

As an update to this post I’ve more recently written one on How I make Money Blogging which highlights the most profitable ways that I use blogs to generate income. I’ve also written extensively on how bloggers make money in ProBlogger the Book.

How do bloggers make money from blogs?

I’ve been reflecting this week about the amazing diversity of opportunities that are opening up for bloggers to make money from blogging.

I’ve long advised that bloggers seeking to make money from blogging spread their interests across multiple revenue streams so as not to put all their eggs in one basket.

The wonderful thing is that this is becoming easier and easier to do 2005 has seen many options opening up. I thought I’d take a look at some of the methods that bloggers are currently using to make money through blogs.

Income Streams for Bloggers - How to Make Money Blogging

Advertising Programs - Perhaps the most obvious changes in the past few months have been with the addition of a variety of viable advertising options for bloggers looking to make money from their blogs. The most common way bloggers seem to earn money online is via the contextual ad program from Google - Adsense. A more recent addition that many are using successfully are Chitika’s eMiniMalls and WidgetBucks, Text Link Ads.

Azoogle Ads, Intelli Txt, DoubleClick, Tribal Fusion, Adbrite, Clicksor, AdHearUs, Kanoodle, Pheedo, TextAds, Bidvertiser, Fastclick and Value Click (to name just some of the options) and there is a smorgasbord of options. Of course there is more to come with MSN Adcenter and YPN both in beta testing and with a variety of other advertising system currently in development (YPN is only available to US publishers).

Lastly there’s BlogAds - one of the first blog specific ad networks.

RSS Advertising - The past 12 months have seen some advances in RSS Advertising also. I’m yet to hear of any bloggers making big money blogging through it to this point - but as improvements are made to the ad programs exploring this I’m sure we’ll start to see examples of it being profitable.

Sponsorship - In addition to the array of advertising programs that are available to join there is a growing awareness in the business of the value and opportunity that exists for them to advertise directly on blogs. I’m hearing more and more examples of this and have been fortunately to have a couple of ad campaigns of my own in the past month - one with Adobe a couple of weeks ago and another just completed with Ricoh for a new digicam over at my Digital Camera Blog. These are not isolated cases - as I say I know of many blogs exploring sponsorship with advertisers at present and suspect we’ll see more of it in the year ahead. Sponsorship is also happening on a post by post basis with some bloggers being paid to write on certain topics by companies - either in one off or a regular fashion - and they are able to make big money from their blogs doing so.

Affiliate Programs - There are larger affiliate programs like Amazon, Linkshare, Clickbank and Commission Junction but also literally thousands of others from the large to the very small.

Digital Assets - Increasing numbers of bloggers have been developing other digital assets to support and add revenue streams to their blogs. By this I mean that I’m increasingly seeing e-books, courses and tele-seminars being run by bloggers. My recent foray into this with the first series of the six figure blogging course that Andy and I ran a few weeks ago and have just released the study version of. This type of activity will only increase in future - in fact this week I’ve seen numerous examples of bloggers running courses.

Blog Network Opportunities - with the rise in popularity of Blog Networks - bloggers are also being presented with more places to earn an income from their blogging - by writing for and with others. While it might be difficult to get a writing gig with one of the bigger networks - there are plenty who are always asking for new bloggers to join and who are willing to pay bloggers using a variety of payment models. While there are distinct advantages of blogging for yourself - blogging for an established network who will handle a lot of the set up/promotion/admin/SEO etc has it’s advantages also. More and more bloggers are combining writing for themselves on their own blogs with taking on blog network blogs as additional income streams.

Business Blog Writing Opportunities - as blogging has risen in it’s profile as a medium more and more businesses are starting blogs. Many of these companies have internal staff take on blogging duties - but an increasing number of them are hiring specialist bloggers to come on and run their blogs. I know of a number of bloggers who in the past month or two have been approached for such paid work. Check out Bloggers for Hire if you’re looking for this type of work.

Non Blogging Writing Opportunities - Also becoming more common are bloggers being hired to write in non blogging mediums. Manolo’s recent coup of a column in the Washington Post is just one example of this as bloggers are increasingly being approached to write for newspapers, magazines and other non blog websites. Along side this is the rise of bloggers as published book authors - this is to the extent that one blogger I spoke with this week complained to me that they were one of the few bloggers than they knew who didn’t have a book deal!

Donations - Tip Jars and donation buttons have been a part of blogging for years now but this last year saw a number of bloggers go full time after fund raising drives. Perhaps the most high profile of these was Jason Kottke of kottke.org who through the generosity of his readership was able to quit his job and become a full time blogger.

Flipping Blogs - Also more common in 2005 was the practice of ‘Blog Flipping’ - or selling of blogs. This has happened both on an individual blog level (I can think of about 20 blogs that sold this year) but also on a network level (the most obvious of these being the 8 figure sale of Weblogs Inc to AOL).

Merchandising - My recent attempt to sell ProBlogger.net T-shirts wasn’t a raging success, but it is an example of how an increasing number of bloggers are attempting to make a few extra dollars from their blogs by selling branded products through programs like Cafepress. While I didn’t have a lot of success with merchandising - quite a few larger blogs are seeing significant sales - especially blogs with a cult following. I’m not at liberty to discuss details - but I know of one largish blog which will see sales over $20,000 in merchandise for the calendar year of 2005.

Consulting and Speaking - While it has been popular for established consultants to add blogs to their businesses we’re also starting to see bloggers with no consulting background able to make money by charging readers for their time in consulting scenarios BECAUSE of the profile that their blogs have built them. Blogging has the ability to establish people as experts on niche topics and we all know the value of being perceived as an expert. I spoke to one blogger last month who charges himself out at over $200 an hour for speaking and consulting work - his area of expertise was something that he knew little about 18 months ago - but through his blog he’s become a leader in his field and a minor celebrity in his industry.

How to Write Your “About Me” Page

2008-12-16T22:45:00.000-08:00

There are four main questions that readers want answered on your About Me page:

who you are…
your expertise and how it addresses…
their problem or goal, and how they can…
contact you

Here is a sample “About Me” page that answers these questions:

Hi, I’m Jane Smith and I write TransitionMomBlog (who Jane is) to help women make the transition from full-time mom to successful entrepreneur (the reader’s problem or goal). I started TransitionMomBlog in 2004 (Jane’s expertise – shows she has been blogging for two years) to help other women deal with the sometimes overwhelming prospect of starting a new business while still running a household (how Jane helps them overcome their problem or achieve their goal). Prior to raising my family, I spent over ten years as a teacher, corporate trainer and workshop leader (Jane’s expertise, both as a mom and a business person). To contact me, please email XXX (how to contact Jane).

N97-Nokia Strikes Back iPhone-Apple

2008-12-06T03:56:00.000-08:00

News Analysis. Apple and its partners should not underestimate the importance of the Dec. 2 announcement at Nokia World: the debut of the first N-Series touch-screen smartphone.

For all Apple's recent market share gains with the iPhone, Nokia still dominates the worldwide cell phone market, both in device and operating system shipments. Record third-quarter iPhone shipments blasted Apple's mobile device into the No. 2 spot for smartphones. But Nokia leads the broader market by a huge margin—118 million cell phones shipped in the third quarter to Apple's 6.9 million. Today, Nokia made clear that it won't be cast down without a fight.

GOT A TIP OR RUMOR?

At Nokia World in Barcelona, the cell phone manufacturer unveiled the N97 as its new flagship mobile. The N97 is scheduled to ship in the first half of the year internationally with a U.S. version to follow some time later. As with previous N-Series mobiles, Nokia will offer models with separate U.S. and international 3G frequencies rather than one global device.

By no means is the N97 a revolutionary device. Even Nokia's own Conversations blog says "the N97 isn't a device that will trigger knee-jerk hysteria. But instead it should breed cool-headed excitement at the prospect of a new era of mobile experience." The blog uses "evolutionary" to describe the new smartphone.

The design reminds one of the HTC Tilt 8925 or Sony Ericsson Xperia X1. The N97 is a touch-screen phone with slide-out QWERTY keyboard. Like the X1, the N97 comes with informational, Net-connected widgets linking to Facebook and other services.

What distinguishes the N97 from every other smartphone, particularly iPhone, are the digital media features, including the 5-megapixel camera and video recording and playback capabilities. While the N97 might be "evolutionary" for an N-Series mobile, it's revolutionary for smartphones. No mass-market mobile currently available or announced brings together communications, content consumption and content creation the way the N97 promises to. The iPhone doesn't even come close.

In his book "Grown Up Digital, Don Tapscott observes that Millennials—otherwise known as Generation Y or Net Gen—are content creators more than content consumers. I see this in my daughter, who constantly complains that she can't make videos on the iPhone. On Friday, we were shopping at an outlet mall when two other teens approached and asked my daughter if she was [YouTube identity withheld]. Startled, she said yes. "We love your videos!"

Turned out my 14 year-old had been video blogging behind my back about fashion and makeup. She has over 1,000 subscribers, nearly all teens and tweens. I may next take lessons from her on maximizing blog audience.

The point: Younger consumers in particular create content, but the iPhone fails to deliver in that area, which is strange considering that on the desktop content creation tools distinguish Macs and Windows PCs.

Nokia's base for continued dominance dwarfs upstart Apple. Manufacturers shipped 309 million cell phones in the third quarter, more than a third of them by Nokia, according to Gartner. The first chart (above) shows the third quarter compared with the same period a year ago, and the second chart (below) compares second and third quarters of 2008. Nokia definitely is showing some weakness in shipments. Year over year, Nokia unit shipments and market share rose, but they declined sequentially. Apple and Samsung picked up most of Nokia's lost share. By the way, Apple ranked seventh in worldwide mobile phone shipments, just behind Research In Motion.

But Nokia, for all its big market share, is playing catch-up in one crucial area where Apple has the lead on pretty much everybody: the mobile platform. Apple's App Store, which now boasts 10,000 applications, is trendsetting. Through App Store, Apple is creating a viable mobile platform to replace the PC as primary computing platform.

In retail it's location, location, location. In computing, it's applications, applications, applications. As mobile phones take on more and more computing characteristics, particularly connected to the Internet, applications become a bigger selling point. Apple has got plenty—and they're nicely packaged in App Store—while Nokia has much fewer choices spread out. Additionally, Apple's MobileMe provides sync services for personal content. That said, Nokia's Ovi service is hugely promising for syncing content and contacts that matter to you back to the cloud.

Nokia's full acquisition of Symbian, in June, makes the phone manufacturer the dominant mobile operating system provider, too. Pulling from Symbian's open-source roots, Nokia's challenge now is to woo more developers to make applications for its mobile platform. Symbian has developers, but its platform is too fragmented. It's a weakness Apple can and should exploit through App Store.

The problem is this: Nokia ships different S60 versions on different phones. For example, N97 predecessor N96 comes with S60 3rd Edition, Feature Pack 2. The E71 comes with S60 3rd Edition, Feature Pack 1. Meanwhile, Nokia's two touch-screen mobiles, the 5800 Express Music and N97, come with S60 5th edition. Nokia's mobile platform is hugely fragmented, and I purposely chose digital media and smartphones—those with greater developer appeal—for comparison.

Apple's platform is unified. Both generations of iPhones run the exact same software, and there's a bonus: iPod Touch. Most of iPhone's non-telephony capabilities are available for iPod Touch, particularly from App Store. Apple's mobile platform is measured by more than just phones shipped; by iPod Touch models, too.

Nokia's early widgets and broader developer message do entice, but the N97 won't be platform enough, considering that N- and E-Series phones account for just a fraction of the company's worldwide shipments. Apple has a huge price advantage, too. Higher-end N-Series phones cost hundreds of dollars more unsubsidized in the United States than the $199 subsidized iPhone 3G. The N97 will sell for about $550 unsubsidized.

But it's a big world, and it's outside the United States where the clash between Apple and Nokia will be greatest. Apple is rapidly expanding into markets where Nokia is dominant, and Nokia is ceding some markets to competitors, such as last week's pull out of Japan. That said, Nokia phones, particularly the higher-end digital-oriented models, are more commonly available subsidized in international markets than in the United States.

Time is now against Nokia. The N97 isn't expected to be released until some time in the first half of 2009. Nokia can't delay. Apple will sell millions more cell phones between now and then. That said, the U.S. recession is reaching international markets, curbing some iPhone purchases and give Nokia more time to get its device, mobile platform, services strategy and developer story together. After all, Nokia has the advantage of incumbency.

There's fun ahead. Apple and Nokia are two of the world's most creative marketers. The brands are strong in part because the companies know how to sell them well. Nokia has launched some of the best viral Web campaigns anywhere. Let the rivalry begin.

Parsnip Gnocchi-Recipe

2008-12-06T03:30:00.000-08:00

Ingredients
700g potatoes, cut into cubes and steamed for approx. 20 minutes
300g parsnips, cut into cubes and steamed for approx. 10 minutes
120g cornstarch
3 egg yolks
Flour
Salt and pepper
Nutmeg

Method
Take the warm potatoes and parsnips and mash them finely or put them through a ricer. Allow to cool a bit.

In a bowl mix the potato and parsnip purée with the yolks, cornstarch, slat, pepper and nutmeg. Incorporate well until you get a soft and smooth dough-type mixture.

If the mixture is still too moist and another 1-2 teaspoons cornstarch.

Sprinkle some flour on the countertop and roll the parsnip-potato dough into sausage-like forms . about 3 cm in diameter.

With a sharp knife cut about 2cm thick disks. With a floured fork gently press the gnocchi disks down.

Allow the gnocchi to rest for 10 minutes.

In a large pot bring plenty of salt water to a rolling boil. Add the gnocchi and simmer for 4-6 minutes. Take out with a slotted spoon.

Heat some oil in a large skillet and gently brown the gnocchi on both sides until slightly golden. Serve on pre-warmed plates with rucola cashew pesto.

Rucola Cashew Pesto-Recipe

2008-12-06T03:28:00.000-08:00

Ingredients
2 bunches rucola, washed and stems trimmed
80g cashew nuts, dry roasted
50g fresh parmesan, grated
1-2 garlic cloves
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt and freshly cracked pepper
Hint of chili
Pinch of sugar

Method
Place all the ingredients except the olive oil in a food processor. Pulse until mixture is coarsely chopped.

Keep pulsing and start to pour the olive oil little by little, until you get a creamy, paste-like consistency.

The pesto can be stored in air-tight jars for 3-5 days in the refrigerator.

Why Does Google Allow Ads for AdSense Ready Websites?

2008-12-06T03:15:00.000-08:00

Search for something like "work from home", "Internet jobs" or "make money online" on Google and you’ll see a flood of ads promising easy money through the AdSense program.

If you have ever tried AdSense on a site, you probably know how tough it is to make that first dollar but these ads, which are surprisingly served on the Google network itself, make things look so simple. Just order an "AdSense kit" for a few dollars and the money will start rolling in.

So how do these "get rich quick" schemes work? I called the owner of GoogleCashSense.com - they advertise pretty heavily on Google and here’s what he told me about their program.

The whole package costs around Rs 1,100 and in return, they’ll provide you a readymade website with some 110 pages of content. You then put your AdSense Publisher ID in these pages and wait for others to click on your ads.

When I asked him if people can click their own ads, his advice was to "avoid it" or use another computer. He also shared a couple of websites - websyite.com and 66marketing.com - that seem to use the "Cash Sense" program.

As an active web user, you probably won’t believe any of the "promises" made by these schemes but there are real people (and lots of them) who actually fall prey to them.

And GoogleCashSense aren’t just the only player in town - there’s netjobsinindia.com, GoogleCashCow.com, eJobsJunction.com, myGoogleMoney.com and numerous other sites here that use Google’s own AdWords network to trick people into buying their "Made for AdSense" kits. All have similar websites with fake testimonials and photographs of AdSense checks.

Google policies do not allow ads related to promotion of "miracle cures" then why allow ads that promise "miracle cash". True, you can’t prevent people from running such sites but you can at least block them from using your own ad network to promote their sites.

Also see: AdSense Click Fraud in India

AdSense Click Fraud in India - How The Whole System Works?

2008-12-06T02:57:00.000-08:00

A recent report on Click Fraud suggests that the maximum number of invalid clicks on Pay Per Click ads originate from India. And this is not the first time - its widely believed there there exists a large “work from home” crowd in India who want to generate “quick cash” by clicking Google AdSense ads.

During a recent trip to Google Hyderabad for BarCamp, I met someone who explained me the whole modus operandi of these secret ad clickers.

Pick any issue of Deccan Chronicle newspaper (the English Daily of Hyderabad) and open the Classifieds section - you will see dozens of ads that promise you regular Google AdSense income while working from home. (see this newspaper clipping on the right).

You basically create a website and then write a few articles to get accepted into the official Google AdSense program. Once you become an AdSense publisher, you join any of these “bogus” AdSense network and are introduced to other members who are in the same boat as you.

Now Google would quickly ban your AdSense account if you click Ads on your own website so what these networks do is ask members to click on Ads appearing on websites of other members. So it like a reciprocal behavior - you click my ads and I will click yours.

Do members of such local AdSense networks make money? I have doubts. They may make a few dollars before Google discovers the click fraud activity, bans the account and returns the accumulated earnings to advertisers.

But in any case, the fraudulent clicks have been generated and added to the global “Click Fraud Index”. No wonder, India tops the chart.

Technorati Ad Network for Blogs is Live

2008-12-06T02:46:00.000-08:00

Technorati Engage, the self-service ad network for bloggers is now live at technoratimedia.com. You can sign-up for the CPM program here but may have to wait as someone will manually approve your request into the Technorati Ad Network.

One of the attractive features in Technorati Engage is support for rotating ad units. So if you limited advertising space on your blog, you can still engage multiple advertisers as their ads will rotate randomly after every page load.

Second, Technorati displays detailed information about the performance of ad units on different sites so it becomes easy for advertisers to shortlist sites for their campaigns. A less popular site with more ad clicks could be more attractive for an advertiser than a site with high impressions but no clicks.

Revenue: The revenue split is 60-40 between Technorati and bloggers. So if you host an ad from Technorati Media and earn $100 in a month, your share will be $60 while Technorati keeps the remaining $40. (BlogAds uses the 70-30 model).

Ad Formats: Currently, Technorati Engage offers 125×125 square ad units (image), text ads and the new PhoText ads which are like image ads but with a text description. PhoText ads are available in 4 set square dimensions: 25, 50, 100, and 200 pixels in width.

Payment: Publishers can request payment via PayPal, Printed Checks (yes they still exist) or a Wire Transfer.

BlogAds Invitations Available for Bloggers & Site Owners

2008-12-06T02:33:00.000-08:00

Blogads is one of the few advertising systems on the web that follow a flat fee structure instead of the CPC / CPM model. Advertisers pay a fixed monthly rate that are also decided by the publisher himself.

You get 70% of the advertising revenue while the rest 30% goes to BlogAds plus the credit card or PayPal transaction costs, which typically amount to 2%-3%.

If you maintain a blog or website with decent traffic, please fill this form (blogads invite giveaway is now over) and you may get a BlogAds invite. I have a limited number of invites only and this giveaway is therefore not on a first-come first-served basis.

Learn How To Pronounce Foreign Names Correctly

2008-12-06T02:32:00.000-08:00

If you ever happen to interact with individuals from different countries who have unfamiliar names, the audio pronunciation guide from HowToSayThatName.com will come pretty handy.

"How to Say that Name" is a huge audio database of people’s names in various languages - you can simply click the name to hear how a native speaker would pronounce it.

The database has pronunciations all popular names (and surnames) from languages like English, Chinese, German, Russian, Korean and even Hindi.

You can either browse names alphabetically (by language) or use the search function.

Online networks a magnet for job-seekers

2008-12-02T21:49:00.000-08:00

HELSINKI (Reuters) - Janel Landon, who runs a small PR consultancy in Chicago, has long been aware of the potential of online networks: now in her mid-50s and facing a global recession, she's decided to sign up.

"Given the state of the economy, I recently decided to jump on board," Landon told Reuters. "Professional networking is a 'must do' during unstable economic times."

The economic crisis slamming firms across the globe has sparked a spike in usage of professional networks -- Xing and LinkedIn are key sites -- as people hedge against losing work and laid-off employees seek jobs.

U.S. unemployment hit a new 14-year high in October and according to online job advertising firm Monster, recruitment activity on the Web plunged to its lowest level in nearly three years. Jobless rates are also rising in Europe.

Traffic on the world's top professional Web networks has surged since the financial crisis started to make headlines, with top player, privately held LinkedIn, notching 25 percent more registrations in September than forecast.

"Nobody has ever seen anything like this before," said Kevin Eyres, head of LinkedIn's operations in Europe. "Now we are growing by almost one new user each second."

Membership on LinkedIn has jumped to more than 31 million from 18 million at the start of the year, growing fastest in the financial services, media, education and technology fields, Eyres said. The firm has not disclosed any financial details.

"Given that a lot of professionals are currently losing or are worried about losing their job, it makes sense that career-focused social networks such as LinkedIn should see a boost in traffic," said Martin Olausson, director of the digital media strategies unit at research firm Strategy Analytics.

He estimated the size of the online professional social networking market at about $170 million this year.

Professional sites seek to distance themselves from social networks such as Facebook with their more sober approach, and by giving members more control over their profiles.

Richard Evans, director at U.K.-based Sheridan Evans Executive Search, said he has seen a rising number of requests to connect on professional Web networks: these are increasingly about the need for a job.

Sheridan Evans uses both LinkedIn and Xing, but also Paris-headquartered Viadeo and the largest address-book site Plaxo, to identify potential candidates. It has directed many people to their new jobs using such networks, Evans said.

"The recruitment industry in general is being hit hard. In financial services it's clearly very bad. In construction it's bad. In retail it's getting bad," said Evans, adding a shortage of senior management was supporting the headhunting business.

Already an estimated 150,000 jobs have been lost globally in the financial sector alone, with more widely expected to go in investment banking and trading.

Arun Patre, a 25-year old analyst at a financial consultancy in India, said he has been looking for jobs on LinkedIn: "The economic situation has prompted me to widen my network as you would never know where things might turn lucrative."

GROWTH VERSUS PROFITS

LinkedIn said it had seen a slight fall in job offers, but no sharp declines, whereas smaller peer, Europe-focused Xing, reported increasing traffic toward job adverts.

But with the downturn hurting the recruitment business and advertising, social networks have struggled to find a balance between sharply rising usage and profitable growth. LinkedIn said last month it would cut 36 jobs -- 10 percent of its staff.

Both LinkedIn and Xing offer premium, paid-for services.

Hamburg-based Xing, which has 6.5 million users in total and whose half a million premium users pay 5.95 euros per month for extra services, has also seen a jump in registrations and connections to record levels, and believes the crisis could open opportunities to grow through acquisition.

"The crisis is very beneficial for us. We are debt-free, with over 40 million euros ($50.5 million) in cash, and the prices for competitors are dropping significantly," said Xing Chief Executive Lars Hinrichs.

Xing, the first online community to offer its shares to the public, is expected to report 2008 sales rising 77 percent to 34.7 million euros, with profits rising even faster, according to a consensus of analysts provided by the company.

"Anecdotal evidence suggests the macro slowdown might even boost subscriber growth and therefore Xing's core revenue source," HSBC analyst Dominik Klarmann said in a research note.

LOOKING FOR JOB

The fast-growing phenomenon of social networks has over the years attracted intense interest from investors and companies like Microsoft and News Corp, and earlier this year the largest U.S. cable service provider Comcast bought Plaxo.

Soumitra Dutta, professor at European business school Insead and co-author of a recently published social networking book "Throwing Sheep in the Boardroom," said new online ties could often lead to someone's next job.

"Networks are very good examples of weak ties. Traditionally it has been thought that we need strong ties to get jobs, but we often get jobs through weak ties, not strong ties," Dutta said.

This worked for Bryan Webb, a 57-year old sales manager with a manufacturing company in Canada. It took him a while to build up a network to find a job after he joined LinkedIn, but it paid off last year.

Webb started by sending an application in response to an advert, but later found three people from the firm including the head of operations in his LinkedIn network.

He asked his network friend to pass on a recommendation to a third person, who was connected to the chief at the new firm.

"I still don't know who it was ... but it really made the process smoother and got me the job," Webb said.

Gmail 'vulnerability' turns out to be phishing scam

2008-12-02T21:48:00.000-08:00

Posted by Steven Musil

Reports that a purported Gmail vulnerability was being used by unauthorized third parties to hijack domains turned out to be nothing more than a phishing scam, Google announced Tuesday.

The alleged vulnerability reportedly allowed an attacker to set up filters on users' e-mail accounts without their knowledge, according to a proof of concept posted Sunday at the blog Geek Condition. In the post, Geek Condition's "Brandon" wrote that the vulnerability had caused some people to lose their domain names registered through GoDaddy.com.

However, after consulting with those who claimed to be affected by the so-called vulnerability, Google determined that they were victims of a phishing scam, Google information security engineer Chris Evans explained in a blog:

Attackers sent customized e-mails encouraging Web domain owners to visit fraudulent Web sites such as "google-hosts.com" that they set up purely to harvest usernames and passwords. These fake sites had no affiliation with Google, and the ones we've seen are now offline. Once attackers gained the user credentials, they were free to modify the affected accounts as they desired.

A Google representative contacted me early Monday to let me know the company was trying contact "Brandon" to get more information on his claim, but there was no word whether that blogger helped Google arrive at its conclusion. As of this writing, the blog has not been updated to mention Google's finding.

While this security breach was apparently unrelated to Gmail's operation, Google reminded users to enter Gmail sign-in credentials only at Web addresses starting with "https://www.google.com/accounts," and not to ignore warnings their browsers may raise regarding certificates.

'Minority Report' Computer Interface Becomes Reality

2008-12-02T21:47:00.000-08:00

The astounding technology seen in science fiction films rarely becomes a reality. We have yet to travel back in time or enjoy a chat with a hologram.

So it is not surprising that many believed that the computers from films such as "Minority Report," "Iron Man" and the latest James Bond movie were also the stuff of wild imagination.

The characters point and gesture at projected screens, using their hands to control and manipulate what they see in a vivid portrayal of the interaction between man and marvelous machine.

Now a scientist who advised the makers of "Minority Report" in creating this futuristic vision has made these imagined technologies a reality. The development could fundamentally change the way we interact with computers, consigning the mouse to the scrap heap.

Instead of using just one hand to control a mouse, someone with "G-Speak" — after slipping on special gloves — uses both, and is able to communicate with a PC intuitively.

"Human hands are the most sophisticated manipulating tools in the world," said John Underkoffler, chief scientist at Oblong Industries, the Los Angeles-based company that has created the technology.

"The idea is to drop the mouse and let hands do what they're fully capable of. That is to describe and push, poke and pull and manipulate the world."

Spanish Dessert Recipes - Flan

2008-12-02T21:45:00.000-08:00

(Caramel Custard)
Ingredients - for 4 people.
For the custard:
600 ml milk4 eggs4 tablespoons sugar
For caramelized sugar:
100 gr sugar150 ml water
Method
1. Make caramel: dissolve sugar in water over low heat.
2. Once sugar's dissolved, increase heat.
3. Boil mixture without stirring until syrup is golden brown.
4. Pour into one large or four individual moulds.
5. Prepare custard: mix milk, eggs and sugar in electric blender.
6. Strain through sieve into mould/s.
7. Bake baño maría style - in tin half full of hot water.
8. Bake at 175 C (moderate) until set.(About 15 mins small moulds, 45 mins large ones.)
9. Leave to cool, turn out and decorate if wished.

Best Spanish Rice Recipe

2008-12-02T21:44:00.000-08:00

(Black Rice With Squid)
Ingredients - for 4 people.
4 cups rice8 cups fish stock400 gr squid - cleaned and sliced into rings1 onion - finely chopped4 cloves garlic - finely chopped1 green pepper - cored, de-seeded and chopped2 ripe tomatoes - skinned and chopped1 teaspoon paprika3 strands saffron - crumbledSeasoningOlive oilBlack squid ink - approx 2/3 teapsoons1 lemon (optional)
Method
1. Heat oil in pan and sauté onion and garlic.
2. Add squid and lightly colour.
3. Lower heat and stir in paprika, pepper, tomatoes, saffron, seasoning.
4. Simmer very gently for 10-15 minutes.
5. Stir in rice and cook for one minute.
6. Pour in fish stock with squid ink mixed in.
7. Simmer for 20 minutes - until rice tender and stock absorbed.
8. Decorate with lemon quarters and serve.

Black rice with squid

2008-12-02T21:43:00.000-08:00

First of all you will need a White Fish Stock. The following is really easy to perform:
•Prepare a big pot with water, 2 garlic cloves, 3 smelling cloves, 5 black pepper grains, half onion, 2 dry bay leaves, 2 olive oil spoontable, and let it boil softly. After 5 minutes low down the heat and add a bit of salt and half head of monkfish or any other fish, also some fish bones. Obviously the fish has been previously cleaned under tap water and it should be fresh.
•If you want to use frozen bones then let it defroze and when it has taken away all the water, clean and add to the boiling pot.
•The cooking time should not be more than 20 to 25 minutes since it starts boiling again and it should be a gentle boil.
•After this time, turn heat off and add a bunch of parsley so that infusions with the fish stock.
•Before using this stock, first strain and let it cool down. Always boil before another use.
•Ingredients for the Black Rice 4 servings: 4 cuttlefish, 100 grs. of onion, a bunch of parsley, 1 zucchini, 400 grs. of rice, salt and olive oil and white fish stock. Get the cuttlefish prepared: It should be done the day before. Clean and rinse under water, separate the body from the rest, leave the inks aside and the inside juices also aside.
•Roll the bodies of the cuttlefish and place them in the frezzer.
•The day you perform the black rice have them out of the frezzer and cut the thinniest you can.
•I could have done it better this time!!! The point in having thin slices is that when you add to the heated pan they twist and look like ringlets. It's a stetic matter.
•Chop the onion and place in a pan with some olive oil. The heat should be low.
•When the onion gets this colour (golden) means that it’s done.
•Cut the zucchini in small dices, prepare a big pan with some olive oil and when it heats add the zucchini and stir until it changes the colour.
•When it looks this way means that is nearly cooked.
•In a small pot with some water place the legs of the cuttlefishes and all the other parts (not the main body). Turn the heat on and have it very low. Make the cuttlefish sweat with the pot covered. When the meat is tender, put away from the heat. Add the onion to the zucchini when it has also become golden.
•Stir and then add the rice. Let it get all flavours, stir a bit more and in 2 minutes add the cuttlefish legs and its water. Turn heat high.
•Now it's the time to add the white fish stock. Add to the rice when it's boiling. If we had 2 glasses of rice (400grs) we should add 6 glasses of fish stock to start with. If it gets too dry you can add more. Immediately, add the ink we have reserved from the cuttlefish (to dilute it, use some hot stock). Add some salt and the cuttlefish juice. Stir. The rice should cook for 15 minutes, being the first 5 high heat, and the rest medium. Let it rest for another 5 when the heat is off and with the casserole covered.
•Have a pan with some olive oil and when it heats throw the cuttlefish in threads.
•When it changes its colour add a bunch of parsley that you have previously cut in small pieces and some more olive oil, also a pynch of salt.
•Get a kitchen tin and do the shape with the rice. Place the cuttlefish threads on top.
•Ready to eat!!! Enjoy it!

Gmail exploit may allow attackers to forward e-mail

2008-12-02T21:42:00.001-08:00

Posted by Steven Musil

A Gmail security vulnerability may allow an attacker to set up filters on users' e-mail accounts without their knowledge, according to a proof of concept posted Sunday at the blog Geek Condition.

In a post, Geek Condition's "Brandon" writes that the vulnerability has caused some people to lose their domain names registered through GoDaddy.com.

Without posting the full exploit, Brandon explains that it relies on obtaining the variables that represent the username and "at":

When you create a filter in your Gmail account, a request is sent to Google's servers to be processed. The request is made in the form of a url with many variables.

For security reasons, your browser doesn't display all the variables contained within the URL. Using Firefox and a plug-in called Live HTTP Headers, you can see exactly what variables are sent from your browser to Google's servers.

After that, an attacker just needs to identify the variable that is the equivalent of the username.

"Obtaining this variable is tricky but possible," he writes. "I'm not going to tell you how to do it; if you search hard enough online, you'll find out how."

The "at" variable can be obtained by visiting a malicious Web site, writes Brandon, who suggests that Google make the "at" variable expire after every request rather than after every session.

To avoid being a victim of the vulnerability, users should check their filters often, Brandon suggests. Firefox users can download an extension called NoScript that helps prevent these attacks, he said.

Of course, any Web site that uses cookies for authentication requests can be taken advantage of in the same way. To avoid becoming a victim to this type of exploit, Gmail users should log out of their accounts when they are not in use, and--of course--not visit Web sites they don't trust.

A Google representative said the company was trying to contact Brandon for specifics on his proof of concept.

How to Access Blocked Websites, Unblock Restricted Sites

2008-12-02T21:41:00.000-08:00

Written by Amit Agarwal

How to access blocked websites like Facebook, MySpace, Bebo at school or office?

This article suggests workarounds to help you unblock access to restricted websites at universities, school and offices.

Background: Blocking access to undesirable Web sites has been a common government tactic but China, Iran, Saudi Arabia are believed to extend greater censorship over the net than any other country in the world.

Most of the blocked or blacklisted sites in Saudi Arabia are about sex, religion, women, health, politics and pop culture. They even block access to websites that sell swimming or bathing suits. In China, websites that talk about sex, Tibet or Democracy are blocked.

Social sites that are often blocked include Google News, Typepad, ebay, Blogger blogs, YouTube, Facebook, Bebo, Myspace, Orkut, MySpace, Pandora, Bebo, Photobucket, Yahoo! Messenger, AOL AIM, Flickr, last.fm, etc.

There are always legitimate reasons to bypass the internet filters and unblock websites. The following tricks will show how to access all websites at school, college, offices or at home.

1: To access blocked website, type the IP number instead of the URL in the browser address bar. However, if your blocking software maps the IP address to the web server (reverse DNS lookup), the website will still remain blocked.

2: Use a URL redirection service like tinyurl.com or snipurl.com. These domain forwarding services sometimes work as the address in the the url box remain the redirect url and do not change to the banned site.

Access Google Talk Chat or GMail in Office

3: Use Google Mobile Search - Google display the normal HTML pages as if you are viewing them on a mobile phone. During the translation, Google removes the javascript content and CSS scripts and breaks a longer page into several smaller pages. Google Mobile

Use Mobile browsers as proxy to open restricted websites

4: Enter the URL in Google or Yahoo search and then visit the cached copy of the page. To retrieve the page more quickly from Google's cache, click "Cached Text Only" while the browser is loading the page from cache.

5: There are anonymizer websites who will fetch the blocked web page from their servers and display them to you. As far as the service provider is concerned, you are viewing the page on the Anonymizer website and not the blocked site.

6: You can access blocked or restricted websites by using Yahoo Babelfish or Google Translate language tools as a proxy server.

You just have to invoke the Google translate service with the same language pair like English to English. Assuming that Google is accessible in your school, you should be able to access any website with this method - Babelfish Proxy Sever

Unblock restricted websites that require login

7: Anonymous Surfing - Browse the internet via free proxy server. A proxy server (or proxies) is a normal computer that hides the identity of computers on its network from the Internet.

Which means that only the address of the proxy server is visible to the world and not of those computers that are using it to browse the Internet. Just visit any proxy server with your Web browser and enter a URL or the address of the blocked website.

Top 5 Worst Things About The iPhone

2008-12-02T21:40:00.000-08:00

By Rob Beschizza

At the risk of sounding churlish—we love the iPhone, we truly do, and will sacrifice our children to get our hands on one—not all is perfect behind the pearly white gates of heaven. Here are the top five worst things about the phone, media player, computer and news frenzy:

1) Cingular. They're North America's largest cellular network, so it makes sense for Apple to deal with them. But it would have been far better if Apple had taken on the carriers' chokehold on handset provisioning wholesale, and simply sold unlocked phones.

2) 8GB Flash drive. For many, it will be more than enough, but the iPhone won't kill the iPod until drive sizes start matching the needs of MP3-era music libraries. My fear is that Apple will stick to its guns and stick with Flash media as it grows to 16GB and beyond, but a second-gen iPhone with magnetic storage is an obvious upgrade path.

3) Built-in battery. Apple's bothersome tradition of non-user-servicable batteries continues. There's no reason to do this, frankly, aside from the kind of implied "we're aesthetic obsessives" claim that Apple still gets away with.

4) No 3G. Fast internet is the horse, 3G is one hind leg.

5) With all those features, a QWERTY keyboard stashed within (somehow) would be the perfect way to turn this little beast into Apple's answer to the UMPC: a cheap, fully-featured computing device in addition to a phone and music player. Even a clamshell...

NetVet and the Electronic Zoo History

2008-12-02T21:39:00.000-08:00

Back in the care-free spring of 1993, I started a (then) very manageable project of organizing and categorizing veterinary medical information available on the Internet. I had already been hosting a veterinary electronic bulletin board system (now at AALAS) since 1985. In any case, finding all the veterinary mailing lists, FTP, Telnet, and Gopher sites was not that hard to do...simply because not too many were around! Most were in obscure places not even being maintained by any organization, but instead were thrown together willy-nilly by enthusiastic computer administrators. When I finished my list of veterinary sites, I still thought it was disappointingly small. So I decided to include the object of veterinary practice, animals, too. A little more ambitious, but still manageable in the good old days. The result was several renditions of a text file that I called the Electronic Zoo, a nice term for the collection it seemed to be describing.

It became increasing obvious that there had to be an easier way to keep a text file up to date....and the Internet Gopher protocol being developed at the University of Minnesota was a nice way to do that...so I used a spare 386 PC and the free KA9Q operating system to create the first Gopher version of the Electronic Zoo (now defunct). To keep the veterinary portion distinct, I separated the veterinary medical and animal components, thus creating the sidekick service known as NetVet Veterinary Resources. The gopherserver still exists today, but I have not kept it 100% up to date.....because the Web happened.....

...or I should say is happening....and nothing has been the same since. By Fall, 1994, the WWW HTTP protocol was running neck and neck in popularity with Gopher, and I decided that it was time to make the conversion and run both types of servers. The KA9Q operating system was very versatile and had been modified to serve HTTP, so making both run on the same machine had some appeal. This setup worked nicely until the popularity of the web in general and this server in particular reached a point where the poor old 386 just could not keep up. I temporarily relocated the webserver to another computer using a shareware prototype HTTP server on the Novell operating system. It was not too long before that server, too, constantly crashed under the heavy demand. At that time, no tools existed which would allow me to analyze the log files generated by the obscure webserver software I was using. About all I could do was marvel at the size of the log files, which were growing exponentially.

Enter NetScape server software to the rescue in the Summer of 1995 and a spare industrial strength fileserver running Windows NT. Finally, I was able to see exactly how many people were actually visiting this site, and it turns out to be quite a few. Extrapolating from the logfiles, it looks like about 650,000 other computers accessed one or more of the pages on the server in 1995. Currently, the server is running on Website software.

All during 1995, several kind people and groups took notice of the web versions of NetVet and the Electronic Zoo....it's all really the same system with similar goals in mind....to categorize and organize veterinary medical and animal-related information on the Internet in a relevant, easy to use (I hope) format for people interested in these topics. My thanks go out to the Argus/University of Michigan Clearinghouse, the W3 Virtual Library Consortium, GNN, the Whole Internet Catalog, Point Communications, McKinley Group, Internet World, NetGuide, .net Magazine, Microsoft Network, CompuServe, Prodigy, and the many others who helped spread the word about this server.

If it's not obvious, I'll point out that I do not run this webserver to sell anything. No gimmicks or schemes, simply an attempt to help people and their animals in the spirit of academic interest in telecommunications for the veterinary profession. I have helped host a few web pages for non-profit groups, like the American Veterinary Medical Association, the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science, Laboratory Animals, the International Journal of Laboratory Animal Science and Welfare, the USDA National Agricultural Library's Animal Welfare Information Center. (now with their own servers), the American Academy of Veterinary Informatics, and the Association for Veterinary Informatics,

Veterinary Medicine and Animals are popular topics and we're still in the early stages of the general phenomenon of the Web and the Net. Who really knows where all this will end up? I have some idea that we'll see much more to come from various veterinary organizations, institutions, and individuals as we move forward. I'll just keep plowing through all the new sites, trying to let you know what's good and what's new. Enjoy!

11 Tips to Improve Your Landing Page

2008-12-02T21:38:00.000-08:00

1. Define Your Conversion
Before you start to design your landing page, define that page's conversion activity. For a newsletter landing page, the conversion activity is entering an email address into a form and clicking "Accept."

2. Do a Little Research
A little demographic research goes a long way. Figure out what your visitor is looking for and what offers work. Build a profile of your ideal visitor. Keep this person in mind when creating your landing page. Do not construct the page for anyone else-generic and broad pages are proven to fail-and keep everything "on target." Your ad campaign already funnels traffic to your landing page, so visitors are expecting a keyword rich targeted message. Tailor the pages to them.

3. Eliminate unneeded Elements
Distractions kill conversions. Strip any unneeded elements from the page. This is not your home page. Anyone who comes to your landing page has already been screened by your ad. They expect a very specific message.

4. Match the Creative
The landing page and creative should match. The easiest way to clue visitors in that they have arrived at the right place is to use the heading from your ad creative.

5. Remove Navigation
If you can, remove the navigation bar. Of course, don't remove it if it is essential to the conversion process. Remember your message, and if a link has nothing to with it-BIN IT!

6. Stay Focused
Avoid the urge to promote or link to other areas of your site. The point of the landing page is to prevent your visitor from wandering. You want them converting, not clicking around to other parts of your site and marvelling at your Flash animations. Imagine if GAP encouraged shoppers entering their stores to leave and walk around the mall. Once they stop thinking about your offer, you've lost them.

7. Important Elements Above the "Fold"
Pay attention to the virtual fold (the bottom of the screen before scrolling). Place enough content above the fold to allow your visitor to make a decision about continuing on the site. If a visitor has to click or scroll to figure out what your site is about, the only thing they'll click is the back button.

8. Provide Conversion Exits
Make it easy for your visitor to convert. Place conversion exits above the fold and at every scroll-and-a-half of screen space.

9. Lead the Eye
Use typography and colour to your advantage. Lead the eye along the page towards the conversion exit. Thoughtful use of whitespace, large copy and graphics can make a long page seem much shorter than it really is. Be careful though-a great image will demand a lot of eye time and if misplaced can ruin the flow of your message. Place the important stuff (whether it's your copy or your image) close to the middle, and never distract your user from that focal point. Avoid putting interesting material in sidebars. This pulls the eye away from the main body. If it's interesting and valuable, keep it close to the centre and use it to direct the eye.

10. Fix Forms
Optimise your forms. Make the input cursor hop to the next field after a user finishes the current field. Allow the user to tab around fields. Auto-populate any fields you can. Remove all unneeded fields. Don't ask for city or county if you ask for a postal code. Focus on the essentials. If you're asking users to register for a newsletter, ask for only an email address. You don't need their name now. Get rid of the reset button. It's dangerous for both the user and you.

11. Test, Test, Test
After you have finished the design of your landing page, test it with a small user group. Go over a checklist with your design team:

Is the whole page focused?
Does the message match the advertisement?
Have you reduced all distractions?
Is critical information above the fold?
Are there enough conversion exits?
Does the page enhance your brand?

Some Free eBook Websites

2008-12-02T21:36:00.000-08:00

1. Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/
2.The Online Books Page: http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/ Listing over 25,000 free books on the Web. The site is hosted by the University of Pennsylvania Library.
3. Asiaing.com: http://www.asiaing.com/ Over 2,000 free ebooks & free magazines. Most of them can be downloaded directly.
4.PSU's Electronic Classics Site: http://www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/jimspdf.htm Classic works of Literature.
5.PlanetPDF: http://www.planetpdf.com/free_pdf_ebooks.asp?CurrentPage=1 Classics works of Literature.
6.University of California, eScholarship Edition: http://content.cdlib.org/escholarship/ The eScholarship Editions collection includes almost 2000 books from academic presses on a range of topics, including art, science, history, music, religion, and fiction.
7. University of Adelaide Library?s collection of Web books: http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/ The collection includes classic works of Literature, Philosophy, Science, and History.
8. AvaxHome.ru: http://www.avaxhome.ru/ Some new ebooks. Rapidshare download links. Copyright is a problem.
9. The National Academies Press: http://www.nap.edu/ Read more than 3,000 books online FREE!
10.freebooks http://www.e-book.com.au/freebooks.htm

You! Everyone has his own favorite ebook website. Maybe It's already on the list. Maybe not. It doesn?t matter. The most important thing is that you love eBook.

Sacred Texts & Religion

2008-12-02T21:35:00.000-08:00

Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egyptian Pantheon Names
Descriptions & other information on the gods of old Egypt.
http://www.vibrani.com/gods.htm

Egyptian Book of the Dead - The Papyrus of Ani; Egyptian Book of the Dead. http://www.sas.upenn.edu/African_Studies/Books/Papyrus_Ani.html

Ra and the Serpent Egyptian myth of creation.
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~humm/Resources/StudTxts/raSerpnt.html

Asian Classic Texts
The Asian Classics Input Project works to preserve disappearing books containing the great ideas of the Eastern half of humanity, and to make these books and ideas accessible to the world at large. Downloadable mainly as zipped text & rtf files. Includes ACIP Release V: World.Wide.Wisdom. Over 200 previously unreleased titles from the classics of traditional Asian philosophy in the Tibetan language.
http://www.asianclassics.org

Baha'i

Bahá'í Sacred Writings and other books, articles etc. To read online, or downloadable as text, rtf or Word documents.
http://www.bahai-library.org

Baha'i Library Online (in English, French & Spanish)
http://bahai-library.com

The Kitáb-i-Aqdas
http://www.ibiblio.org/Bahai/Texts/English/AQD/AQD-4.html

The Kitáb-i-Iqán
http://reference.bahai.org/en/t/b/KI

the Hidden Words of Baha'u'llah in HTML, with a FLASH version also. Both at: http://www.upliftingwords.org/writings/hiddenwords

Buddhism

BuddhaNet These Buddhist texts may be read online with the Adobe Reader or variants thereof. Texts are presently available in English (UK & US variants), French, German, Spanish & Japanese. The texts may also be downloaded as zipped .pdf files to read offline.
http://www.buddhanet.net/ebooks.htm

Buddhist Reading Room Sutras & other content for online reading. In American English. Some texts also available for download as ZIP format archives (IBM / Windows users) or StuffIt format (Macintosh users).
http://www.buddhistreading.com

Online Dharma Libraries
"Authors and/or publishers of the works have granted us permission to make these electronic editions freely available to the public. In the Buddhist tradition, this is the practice of dana, or "freely-offered generosity."…Extensive collection of Buddhist texts for downloading.
http://www.dharmanet.org/files.html

Sacred Texts: Buddhism
In English, for reading online.Includes modern (early 20th century) compilations of the Buddhist Canon, plus texts of Northern & Southern Buddhist schools,Tibetian Buddhism and much else.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud

More Buddhist e-books for online reading.
http://www.tipitaka.net/pali/

Cao Dai
Centre for Studies in Caodaism (Sydney)
Online full text Cao Dai scriptures & books, articles, images,& audio-visuals, in Vietnamese, French & English. Includes information on the history, organization, philosophy and practice of Caodaism. An Australian archive in HTML, thanks to Cong-Tam Dao of the University of Sydney.
http://pandora.nla.gov.au/tep/10190

Christianity

The Holy Bible (King James version) in HTML
http://www.bartleby.com/br/108.html

The NET Bible (New English Translation) a completely new translation of the Bible. Includes many thousands of hyperlinked (clickable) translator's notes (which may include theological opinion). Online in HTML. Courtesy of bible.org.
http://www.bible.org/netbible/index.htm

The Bible, New International Version Online, in individual chapters.
UK version: http://www.biblegateway.com/versions/index.php?action=getVersionInfo&vid=64#booklist/
US version http://www.biblegateway.com/versions/index.php?action=getVersionInfo&vid=31#booklist/
Note usage restrictions as explained at the top of the Biblegateway webpage.

The Holy Bible, Douay-Rheims Version, in HTML
http://www.catholicfirst.com/bibledrv.cfm

New American Bible, from United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, in HTML
http://www.nccbuscc.org/nab/bible

Old & New Testaments of the Bible formatted for eReader (Palm Reader). New Testament as one download. Old Testament is in four parts. King James version.
http://www.ereader.com/free/ebooks

Latin Vulgate Bible, for Palm
This I.8MB .prc file download requires a Palm DOC reader. Find under "L" in the many Bible versions available free at:
http://spiritualworx.com/skw_template.php?page=PalmSoftware.php&fext=prc/

Old and New Testament books in groups, in PilotDoc format, zipped. http://www.antioch.com.sg/edgar/bibledoc.html

New Testament TNIV version, as PDF for Adobe Reader.
http://www.tniv.info/bible/index.php

Bible Downloads for Palm OS, Pocket PC, Smartphone and some Symbian devices A variety of Bible versions, plus reader software, available in English, & Albanian, Arabic, Byzantine Greek, Chinese, Czech, Dutch, Esperanto, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Latin, Romanian, Spanish & Swedish.
http://www.olivetree.com/handheld/free/

The Bible, text search of New International Version, in 19 languages.
http://www.biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible?version=NIV

The Bible, text search of Revised Standard Version
http://www.hti.umich.edu/r/rsv

The Bible, text search of New American Standard Version
http://www.biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible?version=NASB

Christian Classics Ethereal Library
Huge collection of significant Christian works. Especially in English, but with some Russian & Chinese e-texts, plus a few in Latin, Greek, French, German, Czech, Italian & Spanish. Many In ThML (Theological Markup Language, an XML variant), or in HTML. Also as online facsimile, plain text, Open eBook, Palm DocBook, or Microsoft Reader formats. Some MP3 audio files also. From Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Missouri.
http://www.ccel.org

Christian Latin - Online versions of Christian Latin texts from Abelard to Thomas à Kempis.
http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/christian.html

The Catholic Encyclopedia (1914 edition), for online reading or consultation. Hyperlinked.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen

Some Catholic devotional works formatted for Palm OS and MS Word.
http://www.rosarynmore.com/download.html

Project Wittenberg Works by and about Martin Luther and other Lutherans.
http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/wittenberg/wittenberg-home.html

Project Wittenberg's Lutheran Electronic Archive: gives priority to documents written by Luther or about Luther. Documents by other Lutherans and Lutheran churches or organizations are produced to a lesser extent. The majority of the works are in HTML or text format.
http://www.ctsfw.edu/etext

The Walther Library also provides links to a broader range of Protestant and Lutheran works at:
http://www.ctsfw.edu/library/probono.php

Coptic Texts The St. Pachomius Library. In HTML.
http://www.voskrese.info/spl/index.html
Note: For an explanation of the current relationships among the Coptic, Eastern Orthodox and Ethiopian churches see: http://mb-soft.com/believe/txn/coptic.htm

Early Christian Writings: New Testament, Apocrypha, Gnostics, Church Fathers. In HTML.
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com

The Ecole Initiative - a "Hypertext Encyclopedia of Early Church History," up to the Reformation.
http://www2.evansville.edu/ecoleweb

Mormonism (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) The Book of Mormon,
online by chapters in HTML. Downloadable version (.pdb file) for Palm & Windows CE devices also available. Other Mormon e-texts here too.
http://scriptures.lds.org/bm/contents

Gnostic
The Gospel of Thomas The "Scholars' Translation" of the Gospel of Thomas, by Stephen Patterson and Marvin Meyer.
http://www.misericordia.edu/users/davies/thomas/Trans.htm

Gospel of Thomas commentary
http://www.gospelthomas.com

The Gnostic Society Library A comprehensive collection of Gnostic texts online.
http://www.gnosis.org/library.html

Ecclesiastical calendar conversion. Warning - this gets complicated.
http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/byauth/woolley/calconv.html

Desiderata - Meaning, that which is to be desired. Much concentrated & timeless wisdom here.
http://artandpoetry.com/art/sherrie/desiderata.html

Epic of Gilgamesh Summary of the ancient text, this version written by the oldest-known named human author. Written c. 2000 B.C.
http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/MESO/GILG.HTM

Hinduism

The Vedas - claimed to be mankind's oldest scriptures, and considered by Hindus to be a direct revelation of God. Read online in HTML. In 7 parts and 21 chapters. English translation by Professor Raimon Panikkar. Click on the Vedic Experience link.
http://www.himalayanacademy.com/books/vedic_experience/VEIndex.html
Huge collection of online HTML Hindu e-books and PDFs.
http://www.himalayanacademy.com/resources/

Bhagavad-Gita. In audio versions in16 languages, or as HTML in English only.
http://www.bhagavad-gita.org

Dharmic Scriptures. This page at present contains the four Vedas as a zipped Word file for downloading, plus Vedas Exerpts, Vedic Samhitas & Brahmanas Introduction, and the Upanishads, as Word files. Plus over 200 Upanishads and some Puranas as pdfs, with more planned, and the Puranas in English as a zipped file.
http://www.dharmicscriptures.org/scriptures.htm

Upanishads - The Texts “Upanishad” means, “be seated at the feet of the Guru to receive the teaching.“ Available individually online, or downloadable gathered as one PDF file. http://www.naiveinspirations.com/introduction/

Upanishads - Transliteration Key
http://www.advaita-vedanta.org/avhp/upanishad.html

Dvaita Text Resources Some classic Hindu texts as PDF files in Sanskrit, some with Roman script versions.
http://www.dvaita.net

Hindu Insights Many mini-texts on Hinduism for reading on this award-winning site.
http://www.hinduism.co.za

Ars Floreat
A number of spiritual and sacred texts, including the Bible, the Koran, Plato and some Hindu scriptures, presented in Dutch, from an overall philosophical basis of the Advaita Vedanta tradition of India. In PDF.
http://www.arsfloreat.nl

The Tolerance of Hinduism by Jagdish R. Singh. A novel illustrating precepts and principles of Hinduism. As a PDF.
http://www.jagdishraisingh.com

Islam

The Koran (Qur'an)

The Qur'an, in four side-by-side English translations. Available by chapters for online reading. http://www.quran.org/quran/quranframe.htm

The Koran An electronically scanned version of M. H. Shakir's English translation of the Holy Qur'an, as published by Tahrike Tarsile Qur'an, Inc., in searchable SGML form.
http://etext.virginia.edu/koran.html

The Koran in the original Arabic, downloadable as a full e-reader software program with support for various fonts and font sizes, 2D animations, MP3 audio sounds, search engine, text color, underline color, tags etc, as prepared by Samir Alicehajic of Zagreb, Croatia. English and German translations are included in the "Koran 6.51" version software. Bosnian, Dutch, French, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese & Turkish translations which may be imported into the above software are also available. An online HTML English Koran translation, plus Hadith (sayings of the Prophet) also feature on this site.
http://www.yildun.com

Holy Qur'an Viewer, version 2.7. Supports Multiple Qur'an Languages, Remote Recitation, Manuscripts. Size: 4.21 MB, an .exe file. Platform: Win95,Win98,WinME,WinNT 4.x,WinXP,Windows2000.
http://www.filesland.com/companies/DivineIslam/1798-download.html

Hadith Viewer Free Multilingual Hadith software as developed by Jamal Al-Nasir. Full Arabic text of Ahadith agreed upon by Imam's Bukhari and Muslim is built into this Hadith Viewer, along with an English translation. English translation of a collection of over 1900 Ahadith compiled by Imam Nawawi also provided. Supports plug-in Hadith collections in different languages.
http://www.2muslims.com/directory/Detailed/225686.shtml

Hadith (Sayings and Traditions) A variety of texts online in HTML, some audio also.
http://www.al-islam.org/links.asp?CatId=70

Stories of the Prophets (as a : 2.65 MB Self Extracting EXE file).
http://www.filesland.com/companies/DivineIslam/5229-download.html

International Islamic Digital Library "An ambitious project to create a centralized repository of knowledge on Islam and the Muslim communities which is authoritative, comprehensible & reliable".
This Malaysian initiative includes books, manuscripts, multimedia, theses, articles & conference papers. Users need to register.
http://www.iidl.net

Islam Denounces Terrorism, Terrorism: The Ritual of the Devil, and other free titles available as online e-books in HTML or download as .pdf files.
http://www.islamdenouncesterrorism.com/

Harun Yahya Islamic books online in HTML, or for PDF and MS Word download, from noted Turkish author Harun Yahya. Many titles available in English here. Other languages accessible from the site. http://www.harunyahya.com/m_book_index.php

NZ Muslim Net Many Muslim e-books in English. Variously as Adobe PDF, Flash, MP3 Audio, HTML & self-contained software programs.
http://www.nzmuslim.net/modules.php?name=Downloads&d_op=MostPopular

Shi'ite Encyclopedia (Revised 2001 edition). View online in HTML. Or download chapter by chapter in Text or MS Word, or the entire encyclopedia as a zipped file.
http://www.al-islam.org/encyclopedia

The Tragedy of Al-Zahra' by Ayatollah`Allama Sayyid Ja'far Murtada al-`Amili, translated from the Arabic by Yasin T. al-Jibouri (Al-Zahra' refers to Fatima, only daughter of the prophet Muhammed, who became the wife of the Imam Ali). Online in HTML.
http://almujtaba.com/books/tragedy/

Islamic e-books (currently seven, more are planned) are offered here in English for downloading in PDF format. From the "Islamic Occasions Network".
http://www.ezsoftech.com/islamic/download.asp

Sufism, the Way of the Heart
"The Ways to God are as numerous as the breaths of humankind." -Sufi Tradition.

Sufiportal. Sufi e-books in German and English.
http://sufiportal.de/download.php?s=list&kid=14

Selections from the Diwan of Shaykh Muhammad ibn al-Habib http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/ABewley/diwan.html

The Hikam of Ibn 'Ata'llah
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/ABewley/hikam.html

Jainism
The Jaina Sutras - Akaranga Sutra and Kalpa Sutra, plus a variety of other Jain texts.
Online in plain text and HTML.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/jai/index.htm

Judaism

Note: The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh is roughly equivalent to the Christian Old Testament, and has three parts, Torah, Nevi'im & Ketuvim. The Torah, in the narrow sense (the Written Torah) is the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. The Nevi'im are the Prophets - Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the Twelve Minor Prophets. The Ketuvim is the Writings, including Psalms and Proverbs, Esther and Ecclesiastes, Daniel, Chronicles, Ruth, and the love poetry of Song of Songs. If you take the T (from Torah), the N (from Nevi'im) and the K (from Ketuvim), and put them together in one word, you have TNK. Add some vowels and it becomes the Tanakh.Text versions of the Torah, Nevi'im & Ketuvim are available in English with some useful further information at:
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/Tanakh.html

Two other English translations, including a useful scholarly version (Kaplan) with hyperlinked translator's notes. Hebrew and Aramaic versions should be available from this site also, http://www.breslov.com/bible/

The Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) in four HTML language editions - Hebrew, Aramaic, English and parallel Hebrew and English. Zipped version available for download. Book-by-book printer-friendly version and MP3 recordings of the books of the Hebrew Bible also provided, plus The JPS Bible for the Palm Pilot. A Torah encyclopedia as well, in a single ZIP in English, and other Torah resources, all from:
http://www.mechon-mamre.org

Jewish Torah Audio. Hundreds of hours of commentary, stories, poetry etc, all in RealAudio or downloadable audio format, plus some text. Describes itself as "The first world-wide Jewish audio since Mount Sinai".
http://www.613.org

Divrei Torah -- Commentaries. Many sources online - provides links to a huge variety of divrei torah.
http://www.shamash.org/tanach/dvar.shtml#shamash

Seforim e-books
Hundreds of seforim (Hebrew books by rabbis) as Adobe .pdfs.
http://www.hebrewbooks.org

SeforimOnline.org also distribute old and out of print Hebrew books in PDf for free. As well there are some audio shiurim as mp3 files.
http:// www.seforimonline.org

Myths & Legends

Encyclopedia Mythica
http://www.pantheon.org

Proverbs

One Proverb
A collection of illuminating proverbs and sayings from around the world, available in two ways. Firstly, provides random proverbs and sayings online in HTML - click till relevance reaches out to you. Also as free e-books for Palm eReader, MobiPocket and iSilo readers, and (in beta) for iPods.
http://oneproverb.net/frame1.html
http://oneproverb.net/opPDAbook.HTML

Sprituality (various)

Science and Health with the Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, to read online in HTML
http://www.spirituality.com/dt/toc_SH.jhtml

Theosophical texts online
A large collection in plain text, including books by Blavatsky, Judge, Tingley, Purucker, and others; introductory manuals on theosophy and material on the world's sacred traditions.
http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/tup-onl.htm

Pantheism The religion of nature. Basic beliefs and Belief statement.
http://www.pantheism.net/beliefs.htm

Religion of Expressionism (Chiropractic) A 5.27Mb PDF download requiring the Adobe Reader.
http://www.TriuneOfLife.org

Summum Bonum The return of Amen Ra. Online in HTML, or downloadable as a self-extracting .exe file (instructions on site) for Windows, Macintosh, Palm &Pocket PC. http://www.summum.us/philosophy/book.shtml

The Milk Is White A synthesis of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism and the author's own insights. This book is a very large file (almost 3 MB), so if you don't have broadband patience is required - one of the virtues extolled here. In Microsoft Word format; may be opened while online or saved to your hard disk.
http://www.themilkiswhite.com

Spiritwatch Around a dozen free e-books available covering a range of New Age, Psychic and Spiritual subjects and life issues. Reincarnation and karma are major themes. Online in HTML.
http://www.spiritwatch.com/

Ishaya Tradition Offers 5 e-books referring to the Ascension meditation technique of this group, claiming spiritual lineage from the Apostle John. As PDF files for download.
http://www.theishayatradition.org/books/

Shinto
The Kojiki (excerpts), the Nihongi (excerpts), the Yengishiki (Shinto Rituals). PlusThe Book of Tea & other texts.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/shi/

Sikhism
Shri Guru Granth Sahib in text form, the thirty one ragas.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/skh/granth/index.htm

Select writings - IN HTML, English with Sanskrit.
http://www.sikhs.org/transl.htm

Taoism

The Tao Te Ching online, in English, Chinese & German translations.
http://www.religiousworlds.com/taoism/ttc-list.html

Taoism Information Page. Many more Taoist texts online.
http://www.religiousworlds.com/taoism/index.html

Zen/Western Zen

Zen Buddhism A treasury of Zen texts. In html or plain text.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/zen/index.htm

Zen Guide Koans, stories & collected words online. Pithy and provocative. In plain text.
http://www.zenguide.com/zenmedia/index.cfm

The Tao Of Programming & much else
Modern internationalism -from Russia with love, in English, some classic & Modern Zen texts.
http://klein.zen.ru/English

Zen Fun
Sparkling haiku casting those horror messages from your PC's operating system into a more spiritual plane of thought.
http://buddhism.kalachakranet.org/resources/zen_fun.html

Zoroastrianism

Zoroastrian Archives. Provide the complete text of the Avesta, the most ancient scriptures of Zoroastrianism, as well as many Pahlavi scriptures. It also includes information about the Avestan language, and other useful information for students of Zoroastrian religion.
http://www.avesta.org/avesta.html