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2013-05-16T12:34:00.003-07:00

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How to Write a Resume

2011-05-26T10:01:00.000-07:00

Lets get one thing out in the open - writing a resume is intimidating for everyone, so do not worry, you're not alone. What makes resume writing difficult is identifying what to include, what not, what to emphasize, what to downplay, etc. HR professionals and hiring managers receive hundreds (or thousands) of resumes for any given position, therefore The bottom line is that you spend about 10-30 seconds on yours. Organizing information incorrectly could cost you a shot at an interview, unfortunately, is a common mistake made by job seekers. We have designed this site to flow - so if you just get to the tips section, you should start by reviewing our advice letter.

Then I set out our suggestions for the composition of your resume. Before proceeding, let us note that we have grown from being a skeptic to pay for my curriculum vitae writing. However, we changed our beliefs - the raison d'être - The prices of resume writing services these days are quite reasonable ($ 90 - $ 200). These are professionals who do this for a living, and studying how to put the skills of a person for a particular industry. Therefore, for a few hundred dollars to be given the advantage of getting a position that pays a few thousand more per year. Therefore, cost is a job search process is worth paying. In closing, while free resume writing tips below will help in preparing your resume, I recommend using a resume writing service from scratch or using one of the companies that offers a critique free resume after completing a final draft resume ..

I say no more, in the resume writing tips ....

Before you put your pen to paper (or fingers to keys), start by determining your objective (do this before writing the curriculum vitae). You must clearly indicate what kind of job you want, and know what kinds of skills and experiences necessary to succeed in that job. Even if you decide to change your job objective later, it is very important that you decide on a target date for now. After your objective is to determine, you can structure the content of your resume around that objective. As noted above, you have a very small window of time to get the interest of a hiring manager, so it is usually dispersed and will ensure that your resume is presented in the "circular file" - ie - the boat garbage. Therefore, it is essential to take time before you start your resume to form a clear objective and specific. Now that you have your objective, which is underway. Now we start the process of resume writing. Note that the single most important objective of a resume is to get an interview. It's a marketing tool to get you in the company against potential before putting his pen to paper (or fingers to keys), start by determining your objective (do this before writing the curriculum vitae). You must clearly indicate what kind of job you want, and know what kinds of skills and experiences necessary to succeed in that job. Even if you decide to change your job objective later, it is very important that you decide on a target date for now. After your objective is to determine, you can structure the content of your resume around that objective. As noted above, you have a very small window of time to get the interest of a hiring manager, so it is usually dispersed and will ensure that your resume is presented in the "circular file" - ie - the boat garbage. Therefore, it is essential to take time before you start your resume to form a clear objective and specific. Now that you have your objective, which is underway. Now we start the process of resume writing. Note that the single most important objective of a resume is to get an interview. It's a marketing tool to get ahead in business and your potential boss - that's all. Once inside, you make the sales pitch and close the deal.

That said, I will not go into detail about every accomplishment in your resume. Strive to be clear and concise, as the only objective is to have a potential employer contact you for an interview. In short - you should step into the shoes of the resume reader - when looking at work skills necessary for the job, what is sought in a candidate - Obviously, that's what you should include in your resume.

In the body of your resume, use bullets with short sentences rather than long paragraphs. As noted above, resumes are read quickly (usually 10-30 seconds). Therefore, having key phrases stand alone and bulleted will help the reader see the important information at a glance - while at the same time absorbing the most important information. Again, do not worry about the details that go into the details during the interview.

Use action words - words like prepared, managed, develop, control, and submitted your resume will stand out.

Foot addition to a reader - which also ensures that if your resume is scanned, the team will in words. You read correctly, some companies are already exploring in his resume, and have computers to collect resumes to be looked at. The teams are in search of one thing - they are looking for keywords that have been collected by the director of human resources. These are the key action words that relate to the position, so not including them could mean your resume is taken into account as a non-match. " I have devoted a section to resume format, and will address how to format your resume for computer scanners. We have compiled a list of action words to include here.

You should always use 's, $'% s and # 's. In percentages, the total dollars and numbers are highlighted in the body of a resume. I have included an example below of a labor law describes them (right) and without (incorrect). Obviously, with the following examples, being specific does not mean being long.
www.how-to-write-a-resume.org

SNSD Girls' Generation HD Wallpaper

2010-11-25T07:26:00.001-08:00

SNSD Girls' Generation is a nine-member South Korean girl group. They are, in my opinion, one of the hottest and best korean girl groups I've seen in years. Not only that they are very young, but they have also been very successful in the past years and I believe in the years to come too!

I'll let their wallpapers do the talking! Take a look at these SNSD Girls' Generation HD Wallpaper

Members

Taeyeon (??) born March 9, 1989 as Kim Tae-Yeon (???) as Leader
Jessica (???) born April 18, 1989 as Jessica Jung (??? ?), Korean name Jung Soo-Yeon (???)
Sunny (??) born May 15, 1989 as Lee Soon-Kyu (???)
Tiffany (???) born August 1, 1989 as Stephanie Hwang (???? ?), Korean name Hwang Mi Young (???)
Hyoyeon (??) born September 22, 1989 as Kim Hyo-Yeon (???)
Yuri (??) born December 5, 1989 as Kwon Yu-Ri (???)
Sooyoung (??) born February 10, 1990 as Choi Soo-Young (???)
Yoona (??) born May 30, 1990 as Im Yoon-Ah (???)
Seohyun (??) born June 28, 1991 as Seo Joo-Hyun(???)

Past Albums

Girls' Generation - 2007
Baby Baby - 2008
Gee - 2009
Tell Me Your Wish (Genie) - 2009
Run Devil Run - 2010
Oh! - 2010

Brought to you by DailyWallpaper!

How To Fix ‘Cannot Delete Folder/File’, ‘Access Is Denied’ or ‘File In Use’ errors in Windows Using Unlocker

2009-03-07T08:17:00.000-08:00

Did u ever try to delete a file or a folder and got ‘Access Is Denied’ error? Or while copying a file it gives ‘The Source File May Be In Use’ error. These types of errors can occur due to many different reasons, maybe the file is being used by the operating system or some other program, or maybe you do not have administrator privileges.

If you get an “Access is Denied” error while accessing a folder then it means the administrator has not allowed you permission to access it. If you are not an Administrator then you will probably never be able to fix this error. But if you are an Administrator and receiving this problem then there is a software called Unlocker that is going to come in handy.

Unlocker is a small, free, and powerful software that lets you see which process is holding the lock on the file/folder and then helps you unlock it. After Installing this software you can simply right click the file/folder that is giving “Access is Denied” or “FIle May Be In Use” errors and then click on Unlocker.

A new window will now pop-up showing the processes as shown below. Now you can either unlock all of the processes or kill the process.

On the left of the ‘Kill Process’ button there is a dropdown menu where you can select Copy, Move, Rename, or Delete functions for a locked file.

This program is useful for the following types of errors,

Cannot delete file: Access is denied

There has been a sharing violation.

The source or destination file may be in use.

The file is in use by another program or user.

Make sure the disk is not full or write-protected and that the file is not currently in use.

Using Microsoft Support

There is also an alternative way using Microsoft support help for such errors, following MS steps will basically reset the file/folder settings.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/810881

I frequently use the Unlocker software for quick solution, and I have personally never tried using the Microsoft support method. I hope you will also get rid if these errors using the above procedure, looking forward to hear feedbacks from you.

Hollywood Celebrities and Pop Culture - The Rape of the Mind

2009-03-04T14:26:00.000-08:00

Fame, fortune, and power stand at the top of the heap when it comes to what we call success. Most peculiar of these is fame. It seems the rule, which is rarely spoken out loud is, anyone who is very well known didn�t get that way because they did everything wrong. Oh really! Who hasn�t heard the names of some famous criminals like John Dillinger or Al Capone or John Wayne Gacy? Many of these criminals were even trusted and held hero status in the minds of some people.

Actors after all only portray the very worst human behavior so they are held above any level of culpability. Ignoring the power of suggestion and the force of example they are generally held guiltless. That thousands of youth, weak minded individuals and those with a penchant for criminal activity may be directly influenced by actors is not supposed to be addressed. How easy it is to portray those who decry this evil influence as extremist, right wing extremist, bible thumpers, self righteous or a few other appellations I can�t mention here. Does fame change the standards of morality, sadly for many Americans the answer is, yes?

Faith in God is among other things a call to get rid of the influence laid upon us by the rich, powerful or famous. It is addressed many times throughout the Bible with admonitions like this one. �Thou shalt not wrest judgment; thou shalt not respect persons, neither take a gift: for a gift doth blind the eyes of the wise and pervert the words of the righteous.� Deuteronomy 16:19 For those deeply influenced by celebrities, it requires a lot less than a gift but only a glimpse or a word from their favorite star can get them onboard some perverted or twisted secular view or cause in the proverbial New York minute. This is the rape of the mind. These minds are not weak minds but according to the Bible they are blind minds and are easy prey. 2 Corinthians 4:14

In his brazen and irreverent style as a political humorist Bill Maher has caught the attention of millions of American minds. That these minds were largely suspended in mid air by absolutely nothing made them easy prey. His show �Politically Incorrect� which ended in 2002 won several Emmy awards during its run. In the summer of 2006 Mr. Maher appeared on the Jay Leno show and in his usual pompous style espoused a good bit of his liberal hype to the enthusiastic applause of the audience. The most excited applause was elicited from the audience when Mr. Maher decried the resistance to stem cell research that Maher attributes largely to the Bush administrations policies.

He raised the audience to the heights when he said that what stifle the good efforts of stem cell researchers are men like George Bush who have decided all on their own when exactly life begins. He inferred that it was Mr. Bush�s religious persuasions that have brought him to resist the great high priests of the secular world, the scientists. To the average couch potato trying to relax in his own home this may have gone unnoticed but perhaps a few good folks may have wondered how Mr. Maher decided when life does or does not begin. Why should his view of it be any more valid than the presidents?

If the beginning of life takes place at some unknown point after conception that is arbitrarily determined by just anyone then how easy it would be to make a mistake. Those that say it�s after the first trimester could be wrong by a month, a day or even a minute. What reasonable person would like to take a chance on that deadly error? Do the math, those that say life begins at conception could be dead wrong but that would still leave no one dead. The proponents of abortion have no such assuring outcome to their beliefs.

According to Mr. Maher and others who aren�t so sure when life begins, the Chinese who are attributed for stating the following proverb must be wholly incorrect. �The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.� I suppose if we�re really to know if the proverb is true or not we could just start traveling to Hollywood from wherever we are. When we get there we could knock on the door of some celebrity and ask them if our trip started on the first mile of the journey or at some other point along the way. Oh, by no means takeoff for Washington D.C. because we already know what that dumb old president is going to say. He is going to tell us our journey began with the first step and with the first mile. Who could trust that nonsense?

The priests of ancient Baalism offered children as sacrifice to appease their gods. The Bible says these gods were actually no more than demons. Is the offering of our unborn to the priests of science and secularism all that much different? Has the end justifying the means now become an acceptable substitute for doing what is natural, right and obviously moral and humane? Humane? What would the animal rights activist do if they got wind of a group of veterinarians who were pulling out whole litters of puppies from their mothers bodies for some experiment? How many animal hospitals would get picketed, burned or worse?

Mr. Maher and his enthusiastic audience may not be as sure as Mr. Bush about when human life begins but there is one place they may want to visit to help them in their decision. Instead of the Hollywood tour of celebrity stars maybe they should travel to Wichita Kansas to see the building that Operation Blessing recently purchased. The building was formerly used by Central Women�s Services as an abortion clinic. On August 7th of 2006 it was reported by several news agencies that the people of operation Blessing sprayed the walls ceilings and floors of the building with a substance known as luminol. They took both still photos and videos of the inside of the former clinic that would curdle the blood of anyone regardless of how heartless or hardened they may be. The room glowed like something out of the worst horror movie of the decade. From the floors, walls and even the ceilings an eerie glow of death filled the room and one photographer grew so sick they had to flee the room before fainting.

Visiting this former clinic may not answer the question of when life begins but it would go a long way to show how and in what manner life ends. After that, the first question may be given a great deal more attention and thought. For most of us with an average measure of common sense we don�t need the Bible, the President or Hollywood celebrities to tell us that most things begin�at the beginning.

Rev Bresciani is author of two Christian books and hundreds of articles online and in print. He is a columnist for several online political news sites. Visit http://www.americanprophet.org

Oprah Winfrey Under Fire Because She Donates $40 Million for a New Girls School in South Africa

2009-03-04T14:24:00.000-08:00

As I read in the paper that Oprah Winfrey donated 40 million dollars to open a girls school in South Africa to provide a “first-class school to nurture, educate and turn gifted South African girls from impoverished backgrounds into the country’s future leaders” I knew that she would come under fire from those who feel like they have the right to dictate how she spends her own money. To Oprah I must say a loud and very heartfelt “Amen”! I believe strongly that people have to right to support whatever cause they feel led to support. That is the way God motivates us to change this world. I have much more issue with people that criticize what others do when they themselves choose to do nothing to better this world of which they are merely a parasite.

I also agree with Oprah that there are much more worthy causes in other parts of the world outside the U.S. She had to actually defend her charitable donation to all of critics that feel like she should have donated the money to local inner-city programs. My goodness people, have mercy! Oprah has donated so much of her time and money to these kind of worthy domestic programs over the years and has just not seen the significant results that she envisioned. By creating this life-changing school in a place like Africa or Haiti where kids just don’t have a way out of poverty she is sure to see lives changed.

According to the UN, 25,000 people die from hunger-related causes every single day and nearly 16,000 of these people are children. I personally have never been to Africa, but I have spent a lot of time in Haiti and have seen so many beautiful children with the same innocence and dreams as my own children, but due to circumstances completely out of there control, they have no chance to achieve anything but simple existence… if they are lucky.

Living in Haiti has taught me many valuable life lessons. As an ER doctor, I have had the opportunity to see many children and teenagers that are brought to the ER because they are reportedly “suicidal”. I question them to find out what could be so bad that they would want to kill themselves. I am always amazed when I hear things like “I wanted an Ipod for Christmas and my parents didn’t get me one” or “my mom won’t let me get my ears pierced”. I am then reminded of how superficial we have become in this country.

I will be the first to admit that there are many needy children in the US, but, as opposed to other developing countries, we do have some systems in place to provide basic sustenance and medical care and education for these children. They all have access to a free education, and what they do with it is somewhat up to them. There are many success stories about poor children from inner-city environments that are motivated by a true mentor in their life and they take what they have and rise from the ashes to become a great person that contributes greatness to this world. This option for children to rise to greatness just does not exist in many third-world countries, and I absolutely applaud Oprah for doing what she is doing. She is not just sending money to sponsor a child, she is truly creating a system to transform these girls. This school has the potential to take girls that are without hope or dreams and transform them into strong, motivated and empowered women that can become the entrepreneurs that will change their world. You go girl!! (Sorry, but I just could not contain myself.)

Also, for all of you who claim that this is just for publicity, please be aware that Oprah has spent much of her past year in Africa working on this School while most of us were completely unaware. She has personally been involved every part of this project from the design of the buildings to developing the curriculum. She even interviewed the candidates for the school personally. She did this long before the critical public even became aware of this project!

While I temporarily have your attention, I would also like to comment about all the criticism of celebrities who choose to change the life of children in third-world countries through international adoption. I believe that these criticisms are just another example of narrow-minded thinking that I will address in another upcoming article. May God bless you as you seek to change your part of this world.

What Celebrities and Other Fashionable People Will Be Wearing this Spring, Plus Spring Fashion Trends to Avoid

2009-03-04T14:21:00.000-08:00

Although temperatures dipped below freezing in parts of the country today, a peek in stores and on websites nationwide revealed that spring is definitely in the air. It’s also most definitely on the minds of fashionable people everywhere, so start thinking about what looks are hot for spring and which ones will work for you. Whether you’re revamping your entire wardrobe or just reviving it with a few key pieces, here are the top trends that celebs, models and other A-listers are sporting this spring…plus a few trends that are so over you must avoid them at any cost.

Choose it:

• Wide-leg jeans. After all the hoopla over the skin tight skinny styles, models and celebs like Halle Barry, Regina King, Penelope Cruz and Kate Moss are sporting a wider-legged style this spring. The trick to rocking this look is to find the perfect pair: no baggy bottoms or short hems. Balance the wide leg with a fitted top or cropped jacket, and finish with wedges or flats to add length and height. Levi’s, Forever 21 and Habitual make great wide-leg jeans, and Gap does a cool wide-leg khaki pant called the boyfriend trouser.

• Clutch purses. Ditch your oversize tote for now. This spring—especially when dresses are billowy and pants are wide—it’s all about balancing your look with a sleek and simple clutch. Kate Spade makes a great natural-looking bag with a beach feel, or you can go modern with silver metallic, or ultra hip with yellow, like the yellow clutch from Steve Madden’s spring line. For a more classic look that will stand the test of time, choose brown or white leather; BCBG Max Azria, Stuart Weitzman, Lanvin, Jil Sander, Jimmy Choo and Kenneth Cole make great classic clutches.

• Bright yellow. Make like Reese Witherspoon post-Ryan and glow in a bright yellow dress (hers was by Nina Ricci). The look isn’t muted mustard or warm sunshine but rather a glorious ultra-bright lemon. Pick one fantastic piece such as a dress—French Connection, Calvin Klein, Bebe and Diane von Furstenberg make to-die-for yellow frocks—or choose a blouse or wide-leg trousers. Allover bright too much for you? Go for a subtler look with yellow accessories—choose a simple yellow clutch or bag—Prada makes a great one—a wide belt, pumps, wedges or cute flats (like the ones BCBG Girls and Guess make). Speaking of flats…

• They may not do as much for your leg as pointy boots, but flats are all the rage this spring. (Kate Bosworth loves her gold Chanel ballet flats and often pairs them with skinny jeans.) Pick up a pair or two to pair with your own skinny jeans, a miniskirt, or one of the season’s hot minidresses. Tod’s, Lacoste, Chanel, Ralph Lauren, Manolo Blahnik and Ann Taylor Loft all make gorgeous flats. For an ultra modern look, choose bright red like Katie Holmes, lemon yellow or spring’s other shocking color: cobalt.

• Platform wedges. Whether wooden, rope or cork, platform wedges are hot for spring. Add height and style with wedges from Nine West, Nanette Lepore, Malo, Chanel, Brian Atwood, Rafe, Payless, Banana Republic, Stuart Weitzman or Tory Burch. Wear with skirts, dresses or capris to show them off—never hide them under long pants. What’s the point of having cool shoes if no one can see them?

• Minidresses. Superfit celebs like Mischa Barton, Paz Vega, Jennifer Lopez, Sienna Miller and Kate Moss are all fans of the minidress. But you don’t have to be a waif to pull off the look: Curvy girls like Jennifer Hudson rock the style too. Choose something simple and flowy—not tight—and keep jewelry simple. Just above the knee looks best if you’re curvy; go a bit shorter if your legs are toned. Versace, Chloe, Marc, and Liz McClean all showcased great takes on the mini for spring. For an ultra girly look, look for frocks with rosettes; whether on the hem or neckline, these feminine, flowery touches are all the rage this year.

• Layers of pastel pearls. The layered necklace look is so hot—as are pearls, especially freshwater pearls in complexion-flattering lavender. Gorgeous pink pearl jewelry is extremely popular too. To get the layered look, pair a waist-length gold or silver chain or two with a shorter strand of freshwater pearls, and then add a pearl choker or oversize beaded choker. Use the layered technique to punch up tees, cropped jackets, and button down shirts. American Pearl.com and Moon River Pearls.com are two great sites to try.

Also in for Spring:

• Bright red nails (keep them short)

• Polka dots and stripes (do NOT choose patterns that overwhelm, especially if you’re petite)

• Skinny jeans (yes, they’re still hot)

• Cuffs, especially silver, Lucite and shell

• Silver metallics: Dresses, shoes, sunglasses, belts, bags…choose one standout silver piece for spring (think Sandra Bullock on the cover of March’s InStyle) and you’ll be good to go. Michael Kors makes a great metallic bag if you don’t want to buy a metallic dress. Or, rock the look for less of an investment with silver metallic eyeshadow.

Lose it:

Now that you know what to wear, here are a few tired trends you absolutely must avoid:

• French pedicures. This look is so over. Instead, show off cared-for feet with yummy pastel polish, berry colors or, if you’ve got naturally dark or self-tanned skin, orange hues. Forego polish? No problem, just dab some olive oil on your toes. You’ll be amazed how great they look.

• Extreme low rise jeans. We don’t want to see your thong, muffin top, or any other sign of indecency. Pull up your pants, girlfriend!

• Big, slouchy bags. This spring, bags are all about minimalist chic. Ditch your oversize tote and lighten up by carting only the essentials in a sleek clutch.

• Toy dogs wearing designer jewelry as accessories. Get real. Leave the dogs where they belong—romping around the backyard. And please skip the tiny toys. Big, sloppy mutts are much cooler, and generally healthier.

• Shaved heads: Do not emulate Britney on this or any other style for that matter. The girl has lost it.

• Lower back tattoos: If you want your tat hidden, don’t bother to get one.

• Long, puffy quilted jackets: The Michelen man look was never hot.

• Belly shirts: Put them away!

• Uggs/Crocs/Birkenstocks: No matter how comfortable they are, the time for these horrifically ugly shoes has passed.

In conclusion, don’t overwhelm yourself by thinking you can only be fashionable if you choose to incorporate everything this article suggests. Remember, trends come and go. Pick a few pieces that work for you (I chose wide-leg trousers, flats and pink pearls) and make spring 2007 your season to shine.

PROTECT Your Business By Protecting Your DATA

2009-03-04T03:44:00.000-08:00

I help people in my area who have problems with their computers. So I thought I would give you some tips so you can prevent problems and protect your data and your business.

If you run a business and keep data on a computer, you need to be concerned with security issues.

Do you back up your data regularly?

You should keep a backup of your data at a location that is remote from your main office.

Storing copies of your data off-site will help if a fire or other disaster destroys your main site.

Hard drives fail. Back up your data to a different drive, either hard disk, floppies, or ZIP disk.

Rotate your backup media, and be sure to TEST your backups to confirm that your procedure actually works.

You can make data backups manually, but it’s much easier to automate the process. I’ve used several programs for this, but a very good one is PowerQuest DataKeeper, from www.powerquest.com

Do you use antivirus software on your computer to protect it?

Get McAfee or Norton software, and either set it to scan incoming email automatically, OR be sure to scan ANY attachment before opening it.

Your antivirus software is USELESS unless you keep your antivirus data (sometimes called virus definitions, or virus signatures) up to date.

You can either download the antivirus data manually, or set your software to grab it automatically. But BE SURE it gets updated at LEAST every month (every week is better).

Shut down Windows properly, and perform regular maintenance, like disk defragmentation.

Invest in a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) to ward off harm from power surges and brown-outs.

Make an emergency boot disk. Windows startup disk, and restore or repair disks offered by utilities, can help you recover from software corruption on your hard disk, in some situations.

In short, take steps to protect your data, it’s VALUABLE!

By Dr. David Johnson

The 101 Greatest Advertising Headlines Ever Written!

2009-03-03T11:48:00.000-08:00

Several years ago Raphael Marketing searched and compiled what we believe is arguably the definitive list of the best press advertising headlines ever written. The advertisements that ran under these headlines sold hundreds of millions of dollars worth of products for the advertisers, and many of them continued to be used - unaltered - for close to three decades.

Although some of these headlines are a little dated now, their pulling power is undeniable. A headline is generally the single most important part of an advertisement. If your headline does not grab a readers attention, its unlikely they will ever get to read your copy. After all, how many advertisements do you ignore every day because they failed to “grab” you? Probably hundreds! Whenever we have to prepare advertisements for our clients and were at a loss for a good “grab”, we review this list to refresh our thinking and jog our minds. We have found it incredibly useful, and we hope you do too.

1. They laughed when I sat down at the piano - but when I started to play!

2. They grinned when the waiter spoke to me in French - but their laughter changed to amazement at my reply.

3. Do you make these mistakes in English?

4. Can You Spot These 10 Decorating Sins?

5. How a “fool stunt” made me a star salesman

6. How a strange accident saved me from baldness

7. Who else wants a screen star figure?

8. Who else wants a lighter cake - in half the mixing time?

9. Free to brides - $2 to others

10. Free to high school teachers - $6 to others

11. Announcing the new Ford cars for (year)

12. Are You Ashamed of Smells In Your Home?

13. Buy No Desk Until You Have Seen The Sensation Of The Business Show

14. Can You Talk About Books With The Rest Of Them?

15. Car Insurance At Low Cost - If You Are A Careful Driver

16. Car Owners. Save One Gallon of Gas Every Ten

17. Double Your Money Back If This Is Not The Best Onion Soup You Ever Tasted

18. Free Book Tells You 12 Secrets Of Better Lawn Care

19. Get Rid Of Money Worries For Good

20. Girls.Want Quick Curls?

21. Greatest Bible News In 341 Years

22. Great New Discovery Kills Kitchen Odours Quick - makes indoor air “country fresh”

23. Hand Woven by the Mountain People of New Mexico

24. Have You These Symptoms of Nerve Exhaustion?

25. Five Familiar Skin Troubles - Which Do You Want To Overcome?

26. “Here is an extra $50, Grace - I am making real money now!”

27. Here is a Quick Way to Break Up a Cold

28. How a Man of 40 Can Retire In 15 Years

29. How I Became Popular Overnight

30. How I Improved My Memory In One Evening

31. How I Made A Fortune With A “Fool” Idea

32. How Investors Can Save 70% On Commissions This Year

33. How I Raised Myself From Failure To Success In Selling

34. How To Do Your Christmas Shopping in 5 Minutes

35. How I Retired On a Guaranteed Income for Life

36. How I Started a New Life With $7

37. How $7 Started Me On The Road to $35,000 a Year

38. How The Next 90 Days Can Change Your Life

39. How To Beat Tension Without Pills

40. How To Collect From Social Security At Any Age

41. How To Feel Fit At Any Age

42. How To Get Rid of an Inferiority Complex

43. How To Get Your Cooking Bragged About

44. How To Have A Cool, Quiet Bedroom Even On Hot Nights

45. How To Make Money Writing Short Paragraphs

46. How To Stop Worrying

47. How To Stretch Your Inflated Money

48. How To Win Friends and Influence People

49. How $20 Spent May Save You $2000

50. How you Can Get a Loan of $500

51. I Lost That Ugly Bulge in 2 Minutes With This Reducing Belt

52. It Cleans Your Breath While It Cleans Your

53. “I Gambled With 3 Cents And Won $35,850 In 2 Years”

54. Imagine Me. Holding an Audience Spellbound for 30 minutes.

55. “I Have Tried Em All, But This Is The Polish I Use On My Own”

56. I Was Tired Of Living On Peanuts - so I started reading (publication)

57. Men who “know it all” are not invited to read this page

58. Money-saving Bargain from Americas Oldest Diamond Discount House

59. New. A Cream Deodorant Which Safely Stops Perspiration

60. New House Paint Made By (manufacturer)

61. No Time For Yale - Took College Home By Reading The Harvard Classics

62. Now! Own Florida Land This Easy Way. $20 Down and $20 a Month.

63. One Place-setting Free For Every Three You Buy.

64. Order Christmas Gifts Now - Pay After January 20.

65. Owners Save 20% to 50% On Fuel With The (name) Oil Furnace

66. Play Guitar in 7 Days or Money Back

67. Quick Relief for Tired Eyes.

68. Lose Ugly Fat - an Average of 7 Pounds a Month.

69. If You AreAa Careful Driver You Can Save Money On Car Insurance.

70. Readers Digest Tells Why Filtered Cigarette Smoke Is Better For Your Health

71. Ways To Beat The Overweight Habit

72. Ways To Beat The High Cost Of Living

73. New Ways To A Mans Heart In This Fascinating New Book For Cooks

74. The Lazy Mans Way To Riches - Most people are too busy earning a living to make any money

75. The Deaf Now Hear Wispers

76. The Most Amazing Shakespeare Bargain Ever Offered

77. The Most Comfortable Shoes You Have Ever Worn Or Your Money Back

78. The Most Complete and Most Scholarly Dictionary in the English language $17.50. Publishers List Price: $90 79. The Secret of Making People Like You

80. The Tastiest Ocean Treat from Gloucester- Plump, Tender, Juicy Salt Mackerel Fillets

81. They Thought I Was Crazy To Ship LIVE MAINE LOBSTERS as far as 1,800 miles from the ocean.

82. Thousands Have This Priceless Gift - But Never Discover It

83. Thousands Now Play Who Never Thought They Could

84. To A Mother Whose Child Is Three Years Old

85. To A $15,000 Man Who Would Like To Be Making $30,000

86. To A Man Who Is 35 And Dissatisfied

87. To Men Who Want To Quit Work Some Day

88. You Do Not Have To Be Rich To Retire On a Guaranteed Income For Life

89. A WARNING To Men Who Want To Be Independent In The Next Five Years

90. Wanted: Safe Men For Dangerous Times

91. Wanted - Your Services As A High-Paid Real Estate Specialist

92. Whats New In Summer Sandwiches?

93. Tonight Serve This Ready-mixed Chocolate Pudding

94. Who Else Wants A Whiter Wash - With No Hard Work?

95. Whats Wrong In This Picture?

96. When Doctors “Feel Rotten” This Is What They Do

97. Which Of These Five Skin Troubles Would You Like To End?

98. Will Your Scalp Stand The “Fingernail Test?”

99. Give Me 5 Days and Ill Give You a Magnetic Personality. Let Me Prove It Free

100. What Makes A Woman Lovable?

There are people who make things happen

There are people who watch things happen

There are people who wonder what happened!

Which are you?

Joe Rispoli has been involved in Network Marketing for over 10 years. He believes that the secret to success is to gain knowledge and take action using that knowledge. Get free reports that can be used to build your business.

Get Off Your Butt: 16 Ways to Get Motivated When You’re in a Slump

2009-03-02T09:07:00.001-08:00

Even the most motivated of us — you, me, Tony Robbins — can feel unmotivated at times. In fact, sometimes we get into such a slump that even thinking about making positive changes seems too difficult.

But it’s not hopeless: with some small steps, baby ones in fact, you can get started down the road to positive change.

Yes, I know, it seems impossible at times. You don’t feel like doing anything. I’ve been there, and in fact I still feel that way from time to time. You’re not alone. But I’ve learned a few ways to break out of a slump, and we’ll take a look at those today.

This post was inspired by reader Roy C. Carlson, who asked:

“I was wondering if you could do a piece on why it can be hard for someone to change direction and start taking control of their life. I have to say I’m in this boat and advice on getting out of my slump would be great.”

Roy is just one of many with a slump like that. Again, I feel that way sometimes myself, and in fact sometimes I struggle to motivate myself to exercise — and I’ll use that as an example of how to break out of the slump.

When I fall out of exercise, due to illness or injury or disruption from things going on in my life, it’s hard to get started again. I don’t even feel like thinking about it, sometimes. But I’ve always found a way to break out of that slump, and here are some things I’ve learned that have helped:

One Goal. Whenever I’ve been in a slump, I’ve discovered that it’s often because I have too much going on in my life. I’m trying to do too much. And it saps my energy and motivation. It’s probably the most common mistake that people make: they try to take on too much, try to accomplish too many goals at once. You cannot maintain energy and focus (the two most important things in accomplishing a goal) if you are trying to do two or more goals at once. It’s not possible — I’ve tried it many times. You have to choose one goal, for now, and focus on it completely. I know, that’s hard. Still, I speak from experience. You can always do your other goals when you’ve accomplished your One Goal.

Find inspiration. Inspiration, for me, comes from others who have achieved what I want to achieve, or who are currently doing it. I read other blogs, books, magazines. I Google my goal, and read success stories. Zen Habits is just one place for inspiration, not only from me but from many readers who have achieved amazing things.

Get excited. This sounds obvious, but most people don’t think about it much: if you want to break out of a slump, get yourself excited about a goal. But how can you do that when you don’t feel motivated? Well, it starts with inspiration from others (see above), but you have to take that excitement and build on it. For me, I’ve learned that by talking to my wife about it, and to others, and reading as much about it as possible, and visualizing what it would be like to be successful (seeing the benefits of the goal in my head), I get excited about a goal. Once I’ve done that, it’s just a matter of carrying that energy forward and keeping it going.

Build anticipation. This will sound hard, and many people will skip this tip. But it really works. It helped me quit smoking after many failed attempts. If you find inspiration and want to do a goal, don’t start right away. Many of us will get excited and want to start today. That’s a mistake. Set a date in the future — a week or two, or even a month — and make that your Start Date. Mark it on the calendar. Get excited about that date. Make it the most important date in your life. In the meantime, start writing out a plan. And do some of the steps below. Because by delaying your start, you are building anticipation, and increasing your focus and energy for your goal.

Post your goal. Print out your goal in big words. Make your goal just a few words long, like a mantra (”Exercise 15 mins. Daily”), and post it up on your wall or refrigerator. Post it at home and work. Put it on your computer desktop. You want to have big reminders about your goal, to keep your focus and keep your excitement going. A picture of your goal (like a model with sexy abs, for example) also helps.

Commit publicly. None of us likes to look bad in front of others. We will go the extra mile to do something we’ve said publicly. For example, when I wanted to run my first marathon, I started writing a column about it in my local daily newspaper. The entire island of Guam (pop. 160K) knew about my goal. I couldn’t back down, and even though my motivation came and went, I stuck with it and completed it. Now, you don’t have to commit to your goal in your daily newspaper, but you can do it with friends and family and co-workers, and you can do it on your blog if you have one. And hold yourself accountable — don’t just commit once, but commit to giving progress updates to everyone every week or so.

Think about it daily. If you think about your goal every day, it is much more likely to become true. To this end, posting the goal on your wall or computer desktop (as mentioned above) helps a lot. Sending yourself daily reminders also helps. And if you can commit to doing one small thing to further your goal (even just 5 minutes) every single day, your goal will almost certainly come true.

Get support. It’s hard to accomplish something alone. When I decided to run my marathon, I had the help of friends and family, and I had a great running community on Guam who encouraged me at 5K races and did long runs with me. When I decided to quit smoking, I joined an online forum and that helped tremendously. And of course, my wife Eva helped every step of the way. I couldn’t have done these goals without her, or without the others who supported me. Find your support network, either in the real world or online, or both.

Realize that there’s an ebb and flow. Motivation is not a constant thing that is always there for you. It comes and goes, and comes and goes again, like the tide. But realize that while it may go away, it doesn’t do so permanently. It will come back. Just stick it out and wait for that motivation to come back. In the meantime, read about your goal (see below), ask for help (see below), and do some of the other things listed here until your motivation comes back.

Stick with it. Whatever you do, don’t give up. Even if you aren’t feeling any motivation today, or this week, don’t give up. Again, that motivation will come back. Think of your goal as a long journey, and your slump is just a little bump in the road. You can’t give up with every little bump. Stay with it for the long term, ride out the ebbs and surf on the flows, and you’ll get there.

Start small. Really small. If you are having a hard time getting started, it may be because you’re thinking too big. If you want to exercise, for example, you may be thinking that you have to do these intense workouts 5 days a week. No — instead, do small, tiny, baby steps. Just do 2 minutes of exercise. I know, that sounds wimpy. But it works. Commit to 2 minutes of exercise for one week. You may want to do more, but just stick to 2 minutes. It’s so easy, you can’t fail. Do it at the same time, every day. Just some crunches, 2 pushups, and some jogging in place. Once you’ve done 2 minutes a day for a week, increase it to 5, and stick with that for a week. In a month, you’ll be doing 15-20. Want to wake up early? Don’t think about waking at 5 a.m. Instead, think about waking 10 minutes earlier for a week. That’s all. Once you’ve done that, wake 10 minutes earlier than that. Baby steps.

Build on small successes. Again, if you start small for a week, you’re going to be successful. You can’t fail if you start with something ridiculously easy. Who can’t exercise for 2 minutes? (If that’s you, I apologize.) And you’ll feel successful, and good about yourself. Take that successful feeling and build on it, with another baby step. Add 2-3 minutes to your exercise routine, for example. With each step (and each step should last about a week), you will feel even more successful. Make each step really, really small, and you won’t fail. After a couple of months, your tiny steps will add up to a lot of progress and a lot of success.

Read about it daily. When I lose motivation, I just read a book or blog about my goal. It inspires me and reinvigorates me. For some reason, reading helps motivate and focus you on whatever you’re reading about. So read about your goal every day, if you can, especially when you’re not feeling motivated.

Call for help when your motivation ebbs. Having trouble? Ask for help. Email me. Join an online forum. Get a partner to join you. Call your mom. It doesn’t matter who, just tell them your problems, and talking about it will help. Ask them for advice. Ask them to help you overcome your slump. It works.

Think about the benefits, not the difficulties. One common problem is that we think about how hard something is. Exercise sounds so hard! Just thinking about it makes you tired. But instead of thinking about how hard something is, think about what you will get out of it. For example, instead of thinking about how tiring exercise can be, focus on how good you’ll feel when you’re done, and how you’ll be healthier and slimmer over the long run. The benefits of something will help energize you.

Squash negative thoughts; replace them with positive ones. Along those lines, it’s important to start monitoring your thoughts. Recognize negative self-talk, which is really what’s causing your slump. Just spend a few days becoming aware of every negative thought. Then, after a few days, try squashing those negative thoughts like a bug, and then replacing them with a corresponding positive thought. Squash, “This is too hard!” and replace it with, “I can do this! If that wimp Leo can do it, so can I!” It sounds corny, but it works. Really.

What a 3 Ton Elephant Taught Me About Success

2009-03-02T07:41:00.000-08:00

I love South East Asia.

Over the last four years I’ve been all through Vietnam and Cambodia and have had the immense priviledge and pleasure of travelling to and through Thailand 14 times with my family, where we’ve enjoyed the most wonderful experiences together in beautiful and inspiring surroundings.

These times are always amongst my favourite times of the year, reminding me of what I work so hard for the rest of the time… to learn, explore and discover with my family.

On a recent trip, I took my family to the Chiang Mai region in Northern Thailand, where mountains, jungle and amazing rivers combine to create a fantastic backdrop of colours, sights and sounds.

A true feast for the senses!

While we were there, we took an elephant jungle trek tour that allowed us an ‘elephants’ eye view of the jungle as we waded rivers, climbed hills and descended into deep valleys and gullies.

It was an amazing experience to see my children first fearful, then a little more relaxed and then outright excited and thrilled to be privileged enough to share this experience with the largest land mammal on the planet.

During one of our short stops to feed and reward the elephants with a handful of bananas and sugar cane, I noticed that the Mahout(elephant handler) simply popped a small rope on a stick into the ground and tied the elephant to it and walked off, leaving us on the elephant alone.

As I looked at the stick I wondered what foolishness must be going through this little man’s mind.

I mean, here we were, sitting on this huge mountain of muscle and raw power and the little fellow had hitched the thing to a really thin piece of rope that was tied to a stick no thicker than my thumb!

I fully expected the elephant to (in elephant-speak) laugh at this puny little thing, pull it out of the ground and walk off with my son Connor and I into the jungle never to be seen again.

But that didn’t happen.

The elephant didn’t walk off.

It didn’t even TRY to pull the stick from the ground.

It stayed exactly where it was waiting to be ‘released’ from its bondage.

When I got back to the camp, I asked the mahout about this and he explained a concept that had totally blown me away at the time, and still does to this day.

He told me “We train the elephants when they are very young by using thicker ropes and heavy beams or tree trunks. When the young elephant pulls, it is pulling against an immovable object and so soon tires and gives up.

Eventually, over a short time (and several smaller trees and sticks), the elephant stops pulling altogether, believing that the attempt is futile and will always end in failure.

It merely gives up.”

As a performance coach I couldn’t help thinking of many clients I’d worked with who were doing exactly the same thing in their lives.

People who were trained when young about what was possible and what was not when they were too weak to pull against these ideas and release themselves to being successful.

Now they’re all grown up, they’re like the elephant, unwilling to try because they’re so sure it’ll end in failure that they don’t even bother.

It made me think about about all the times I’d quit in the past and all of the people who write in to tell me of their own decision to do the same.

Everyone’s got goals, dreams and aspirations that they’ve have left by the wayside because some well-meaning friend or loved one told them ‘would only end in heartache and failure, so why bother?’ right?

Dreams that someone said were ’silly’ or ‘childish’ or ‘unrealistic’.

But what if they’re not any of these things?

What if, just like this big, beautiful yet dumb creature we’ve have been conditioned to believe something that is totally and utterly untrue?

What if, just like the elephant, we could literally rip up the chains that are holding us down and walk off into our own jungle of success and happiness…if only we had the courage to pull, and keep on pulling in order to bring about the things we want?

We can you know!

Many, many people who once led lives of total and utter desperation now live lives that most of us would consider pure fantasy with houses, planes, boats, cars, money and above all, happiness that would never have been theirs if they hadn’t ‘pulled against the rope’ that was telling them they couldn’t possibly win.

You CAN, but will you?

Will you write that book that the small voice inside of you tells you that no-one will ever read?

Will you take that trip to those places you always dreamed of but that your wallet tells you that you can’t afford?

Will you finally lose that weight or shift that body fat that your ’slow metabolism’ insists won’t go?

Will you buy that house, start that business, learn that language…..?

I could go on all day, but in the end, when all’s said and done, it’s you and ONLY you who can pull the stick from the ground and break free.

No-one is going to do it for you.

No-one CAN do it for you.

You, and only you have the power to do this.

Start TODAY!

(Please don’t send me any hate mail. I am not an elephant hater. On the contrary, I love and respect them. ‘Dumb’ only refers to their inability to recognise and use the awesome power that they have, yet aren’t using. : )

By Dax Moy

100 Ways to Say I Love You

2009-03-01T08:18:00.000-08:00

Whether you’ve decided its finally time to say I love you, or you’ve been together for awhile now and looking for ways to keep the romance fresh and exciting, we’ve put together 100 Ways to Say I Love You that you’ll be sure to enjoy.

1. With Kisses: Nothing says I love you like a kiss! Kiss them when you say hello, when you say goodbye, in the middle of the day for no reason at all. You can kiss them on the lips, on the cheek, on the forehead…it’s up to you where!

2. With Hugs: It’s true, most partners do not give each other enough hugs. So the next time you feel like telling your partner you love them, give them a giant bear hug.

3. With a Back rub: I’ve never met anyone who would refuse a backrub - another great way to say I love you without words!

4. In a Poem: Whether you decide to write a haiku (see these haiku examples from one of my favorite haiku writers) or write another style on your own, a poem is a great way to express how you feel about someone.

5. In a Journal: Keeping a journal is easy. All you need is a notebook and a pen and write your feelings about the person. Unlike most journals though, this is one to share with your partner!

6. On a T-shirt: You can make your own t-shirt using t-shirt iron on transfer paper or head over to a site like Jam Free Stuff.

7. With Love Notes: Love notes are an easy simple way to say i love you to someone. Check out our post 55 Unique Places to Leave Love Notes for more inspiration.

8. With Cheerios: If you have Cheerios or some other type of small food that would work also, why not write the words “i love you” with them on a table or in one of their favorite dishes?

9. By sharing the chores: This is my favorite way to say i love you - help your partner with the chores around the house, from washing dishes to vacuuming to doing the laundry, your partner will be sure to appreciate it!

10. In a Picture: A picture is worth a thousand words, or so they say at least. Find a picture that shows how much you love them and share it with them.

11. In a collage: Collages are great ways to express yourself, so why not say I love you in a collage? All you will need is one piece of paper and magazine cut outs of anything related to your partner and relationship. Glue them all together onto the sheet of paper and you’ll have a great collage to show how much you love him or her!

12. With Flowers: There’s never a bad time to share flowers! They are always a nice welcome surprise. If you really want to make a statement, give him or her something unique and original instead of the usual roses.

13. With Something Sweet: If your partner likes sweets or cookies, surprising them with something is always a guaranteed way to say that you love them. You could get personalized candy, bake cupcakes, or whatever it is you think they’ll like.

14. Watch the kids for them: If you are married and have kids, there’s nothing better than telling your partner you’ll watch the kids for the next hour, why don’t they go relax?

15. By Cooking Dinner: Making a nice dinner for them is another way to show you care and are thinking about them, especially if they are too tired to cook or it is one of their favorite dishes. Can’t cook? You can always order take-out!

16. Etched in Glass: It’s not hard to etch something in glass with a stencil and glass etching cream. You’ll be surprised how easy it is, and they’ll be surprised at your creativity!

17. With a Special Song Mix: Burn a few of your favorite love songs or songs to a CD that have a special meaning to you and your partner. Need ideas on how to label a CD? You can write on it with marker, or print a special label out of your computer. You can even give it a special cover too!

18. Have Someone Else Tell Them: Could you imagine the look on your partner’s face if your best friend or mother sat down and told them how much you love them? It’d definitely be a surprise and hopefully they’ll be glad to hear that you’ve told someone else how much you love them too!

19. Say it in Another Language: Why not try telling him or her you love them in another language? There are many online translators available to help you convert anything into a different language. Te amo for example means I love you in Spanish.

20. Say Thanks: Showing your appreciation to your partner for all that they do is a great way to show your care.

21. From the Top of a Mountain: Go the highest point you can find around your house and scream from the top of your lungs “I love this girl!” (or guy!)

22. With the Lawn Mower: You can write the words I love you with your lawn mowers in your yard if you let the grass grow high enough for a few weeks.

23. In a Bottle: Write Your Partner a message in a bottle for them to find and open.

24. With Your Pets: Have a dog or cat? You can attach a message around their collar for your partner to find.

25. With a Text Message: Text messages only take a few minutes to send, so if you don’t text your partner often, why not send them a text message?

26. In a crowd: If you’re in a busy park or street in the city, there’s no shame in proclaiming your love to your partner in front of others.

27. Say it on a Screensaver: Assuming your partner won’t mind, you can change their computer desktop background or put a special screen saver on his or her computer to say i love you for you.

28. Kidnap Them: If you know your partner has nothing to do on a certain day, why not kidnap them and surprise them with a special getaway? You can go on a romantic picnic or escape to a nearby park or other local attraction.

29. Warm their car up for them: If chilly weather makes your car parked outside too cold, you could go out there and brave the cold to start the car for them (and if it snowed, even clear it off for them!) Don’t like braving the cold? Maybe a remote starter kit would be a nice surprise?

30. While you’re watching a Movie Together: Next time you’re snuggling up to a romantic movie you can whisper it in their ear halfway through or during a romantic scene.

31. Bring Them Coffee: Anytime you bring your partner one of their favorite drinks it reminds them how much you care.

32. By Listening to Them: Listening to your partner without interrupting, getting distracted, or critcizing them is a great way to say i love you to someone.

33. With a Secret Phrase: The duck quacks at midnight…Creating a secret way to tell your partner you love them can be fun, especially since no one else will know what you’re talking about but each other. Be creative!

34. In a cake: Think of those old prison movies when they would bake a cake with something in it…you could do this or write a special message in icing on the top.

35. With an Interpretive Dance: Okay, so maybe interpretive dancing isn’t for you…but you could ask them to dance with you, even if there is no music playing or if you are standing in the living room.

36. With Tools: Did you notice your honey lost or broke his diamond drill bit? Maybe they just need a tool they don’t have. Why not get them a new one next time you are out at the store?

37. In flames: I don’t really know how to do this safely, but if you can figure it out, why not write them a message in flames? (I hold no responsibility if you attempt this. Please check with your fire department before proceeding!)

38. On a Tattoo: Just remember: Tattoos are forever. You could also make your own temporary tattoo. Sharpie markers, body paints, and pens work well for writing on your skin too. (Just make sure they’re non-toxic and you’re not allergic to it!)

39. Say it in Sand: There’s nothing more romantic at the beach than to write your names in hearts in the sand or the words I love you. No beach nearby? You could always fill up a kiddie pool with sand and do the same.

40. On a puzzle: Have a puzzle loving partner? Write a special message on the back of a puzzle or mail them one piece of a puzzle at a time.

41. On a Balloon: You can either choose to blow up a balloon and write a message for them to discover when they blow it up or hand them one where you’ve stuffed a special message inside it.

42. In a Song: You don’t need to learn guitar to write and sing a song (though it could help!) It’s the thought that counts, so don’t worry about what your song sounds like. There’s plenty of bad music in myspace and youtube (myself included actually) - so there’s no need to be self conscious!

43. In a video: Who doesn’t love videos? You can use your web cam or get a video camera to make a video pledging your love for him or her. No video camera? You could always prepare a slide show of pictures set to some of your favorite music.

44. Say I love you with a quote: Lost for words? Let somebody else say it better! Check out our Romantic Movie Quotes and Quotes on Kissing for some inspiration.

45. Make a Hanging Mobile: You can hang your love for someone with a romantic hanging mobile! Get Directions and a Free Printout

46. Mark Your Love on a Calendar: Does your partner rely on a calendar? Write in “I love you day” on a few of the days to make them extra special.

47. Make a List: Chances are you have more than one reason to say I love you, so why not make a list of ways you love the person and give it to him or her?

48. Give Them a Tree of Love: You can get artificial miniature trees and attach small gifts or reasons you love the person or anything else romantic you want to. I once was given a white Christmas tree as a present with money attached to it - one of the best presents ever!

49. Throw a Party: You can hold a special party for your love to celebrate how much you love them. Invite friends and family, or you can have a romantic party just the two of you. Don’t forget the streamers and maybe a giant “I Love You” banner.

50. Write Your Love Story: A love story can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be. Our post on Writing Your Love Story is full of ideas.

51. Show Interest in Their Hobbies: Maybe they like something that bores you. But showing a genuine interest in their hobbies or activities is a great way for you to connect more and show that you love them.

52. Give Them a Compliment: Telling your partner he or she looks beautiful or cute (or whatever terms that are appropriate for your relationship) is an easy additional way to say I love you. You could also compliment them on something like “Honey, you did a great job on dinner tonight” or “Wow! That bathroom you painted looks awesome!”

53. Make a Sign: You can wear it sandwich board style or hang a banner across the door to greet them when they get home. Maybe a sign on their car or bedroom door. Wherever you put the sign doesn’t matter - what matters is that it shows your partner you were thinking of them!

54. Send Them Snail Mail: Most people when they open their mailbox are bombarded by bills and junk mail. Wouldn’t it be nice to get a romantic letter instead?

55. Send an E-Card: If snail mail is too slow for you, you can send romantic e-cards instantly. With hundreds of romantic ecards out there, you’re sure to find one that’s just the right way to say I love you.

56. Say it Upside Down: If you’re athletically inclined, take your partner to a park and hang upside down from the monkey bars and say “Hey! I love you even when I’m upside down!”

57. Say it The Cheesiest Way You Know: Take 1 block of cheese (can be their favorite kind or whatever you’ve got - all that matters is that it is cheese) and then attach a note which says “This is the cheesiest way I can think of to say I love you!”

58. Just Saying Hi: A quick phone call to your partner when you are away is a great way to just say hi and ask them how their day is going.

59. Publicly Humiliation: Nothing says I love you like some good old fashioned public humiliation. Have someone announce it over a loud speaker at an office or store, serenade them while you eat dinner at a restaurant (even if it is McDonald’s), put it on a billboard, air a tv commercial. (okay, so maybe we’re getting a little overboard here) - but you get the point.

60. Hide it in a Book: Find a book or magazine you know your partner will read and write or tape a note that tells them you’re thinking of them. Alternatively you could underline a section and say something romantic based on what the book is about, depending on the book of course. If it’s intro to accounting for example, you could write “all the math i need to know is me + u = love”.

61. Let Them Teach You Something: It’s always a huge ego boost when you ask your partner to teach you how to do something. It doesn’t matter what it is, as long as its something you can show genuine interest in learning.

62. Give Them a Lucky Charm: Give your partner something lucky to carry with them and remind them of you. It could be something to put in their wallet or something to put on their keychain.

63. Give Them Undivided Attention: Tell your partner they will get your undivided attention for 1 hour. They can talk to you about anything or do anything they want with you.

64. Tuck Them In at Night: It’s always comforting when somebody pulls the blankets up over you and kisses you good night.

65. Trust Your Partner and Be Trustworthy: Being able to trust your partner is very important. Give your partner trust, and they will likely return that trust to you. Once their trust is earned, don’t ever screw it up.

66. Remember the Good Times: Make a list of your favorite memories with your partner and share them with him or her.

67. Hold Hands: Hand holding is one of the most intimate ways to connect with one another. Take any chance you have to hold his or her hand!

68. Have a Hooky Day: Playing hooky means all your responsibilities for the day get tossed out the window. You can call/request off work or skip whatever you usually do on most days. Instead do something fun together, even if it just means laying in bed together all day.

69. Take a Romantic Bubble Bath: What could be better than you and your partner in a hot tub surrounded with bubbles?

70. Take Photos of Each Other: You can make this sexy or silly - but taking pictures of each other is a great way to spend time having fun together and telling each other that you love each other.

71. Share Ice Cream Out of One Bowl: Sharing ice cream is a lost art that many people have never discovered. Get a bowl or a pint of your favorite kind and dig in with two spoons.

72. Make an “About Me” Report: Many times we feel like our partners don’t really know us. You can impress your partner if you can answer things like their favorite colors, foods, happiest memories, biggest accomplishments, recent news, etc. etc.

73. Anticipate Their Moves: When you are with someone for a long time, you know what they will want or need without them even asking. Maybe its as simple as passing them the pepper when they’re eating Mac & Cheese or turning on their favorite TV show without them asking it.

74. Get Healthy: The healthier you are, the longer you will be around to love someone! You can lose weight , stop a bad habit such as quit drinking, or practice safety habits. Encourage your partner to do the same. (Just don’t tell him or her that he or she is fat! That won’t go over too well!)

75. Love Their Family: In-Laws are notoriously difficult to get along with. But if you show respect to their family and traditions, it can say a lot about how much you love a person!

76. Make Breakfast or Go on a Breakfast Date: Breakfast is the most important meal of the day - and its also the most likely to be skipped or rushed! Making breakfast or going out for a cup of coffee and a muffin can be a special way to show someone you want to take out time in your busy day to be with them.

77. Draw a Picture: It doesn’t matter how artistic you are, anyone can draw a simple picture to say how much you love someone - even if it is just with stick figures and hearts and stars!

78. Flirt Vivaciously: Flirting doesn’t have to be reserved for just when you first meet. Go ahead and act like he or she doesn’t know you like him or her yet.

79. Define what love means to you: Sometimes the word love is used so loosely it loses its meaning. Explain what love means to you to your partner - and why you’re so glad you’ve found it with them.

80. Write it in a Cryptic Message: Write a message of love using a secret code. Give them the key and let them decipher the message. (You could also write is backwards and tell them to hold it up in front of a mirror)

81. Practice Random Acts of Kindness: Showing you love someone is more important than saying I love you, which is why practicing random acts of kindness is important. Hold doors, pull out chairs, offer an umbrella when its raining, etc.

82. Show Your Vulnerable Side: Showing your vulnerable side to your partner means that you completely trust them and are comfortable with them. So go ahead and tell them a secret, your deepest feelings, or anything they can use against you as blackmail.

83. Love Their Faults: Nobody is perfect and everybody makes mistakes. If you can make light of their short comings and show you love them even if they can’t spell or be on time or whatever else it is that they’re really bad at, it means you love them for all of them - not just the good stuff.

84. Tell Them How Happy You Are: Telling your partner how happy you are will make them feel like they are partly responsible for that, even though we all know happiness shouldn’t be dependent on someone else.

85. Clean Up After Yourself: Nobody likes the role of the “maid” - if you spill something on the floor, clean it up! Put your towels away, the dishes away, etc. etc. If you don’t act like a slob, your partner will never resent you.

86. Give Them the Last One: If you and your partner both enjoy something and there’s only one left, let them have it. There’s a good chance they’ll share it with you anyway, but even if they don’t they’ll appreciate your selflessness.

87. Put Their Needs Ahead of Your Own: When you put your partner’s needs ahead of your own (and they do the same) you both selflessly say to one another that you love each other and look out for one another.

88. Know When to Apologize: Saying you’re sorry can go a long way, even if you don’t necessarily think you did anything wrong or agree. Sometimes just saying you’re sorry is enough to make any problems blow over.

89. Be Totally Goofy Together: Let your inner kid out and do something goofy. Have a pillow fight, jump on the bed, go sled riding. Whatever it is, it’ll be fun and show your partner that you love them enough to be completely goofy with them.

90. Show Up for a Surprise Visit: It always made my day anytime my now husband would show up unexpectedly at my apartment or at work. Make sure its okay if its a work visit (you don’t want them getting in trouble with the boss!) or not at a time when they’d be incredibly busy. (If he worked in a restaurant for example, you would not want to show up at dinner rush!)

91. Make a Scrapbook: Scrapbooks can be a fun way to remember good times or show how much you love somebody.

92. Sing the ABC’s - Can you think of a reason you love your partner for every letter of the alphabet? A you’re adorable…B oh so Beautiful…You get the idea…

93. As Soon as You Wake Up: Waking up to someone saying “I Love You” is a lot better than “Hey! Get your butt out of bed the kids are late for school, I’m late for work, honey the toaster is on fire, etc. etc…”

94. Ask How You Can Help: Sometimes our partners don’t want to ask for help but would gladly accept it if offered. A simple “is there anything you need?” can be an enormous way to say I love you.

95. Put on a Puppet Show: If you’ve got stuffed animals laying around, pick them up and have them re-enact your love for one another.

96. Cuddle: There is no such thing as too much cuddling. Snuggle in bed before saying goodnight, while you watch football on TV, or just on a lazy afternoon.

97. Ask Their Advice: It’s a huge compliment and ego booster to your partner if you ask for their opinion or advice on something. Don’t make it too tricky (Does this outfit make me look fat?) - but something like “do you think I should get a blue rug or a green rug?” makes them feel involved and as if their opinion matters.

98. Give Some TLC: Everybody has bad days from time to time or will get sick at some point or another. Give them some extra TLC on those days - some chicken soup, a cup of tea or hot chocolate, whatever it is that they need to cheer up or feel better.

99. Ask How They Are: It’s easy for partners to forget to ask each other how they are, even though they might ask complete strangers the same question out of habit. So before you start complaining or going into great detail about you, ask them “how was your day” or “how’s it going?” when you first see them.

100. Give it Unconditionally: Unconditional love is probably the best thing in the whole world when it comes to love. It means no one expects anything in return and you will continue to love somebody even if it’s not all wine and roses all the time.

Phew! What a list! Now that you have heard my 100 ways to say I love you, why not share your ideas in the comments below?

Source: http://www.itmightbelove.com/

TOP 300 Freeware software!

2009-02-28T23:14:00.000-08:00

Office

OpenOffice - office suite

PC Suite 602 - office suite

AbiWord - text editor

Atlantis Nova - text editor

Microsoft PowerPoint Viewer - power point files viewer

Adobe Reader - pdf reader

Foxit PDF Reader - pdf reader

PDFCreator - create pdf documents

Doc Convertor - document convertor

Convert - unit convertor

Converber - unit convertor

Sunbird - calendar/organizer

EssentialPIM Free - calendar/organizer

PhraseExpress - speed up your writing

ATnotes - create notes on the desktop

Archive managers

7-Zip - compression program

IZArc - compression program

TugZIP - compression program

CabPack - compression program

Universal Extractor - extract files from any type of archive

Internet

Firefox - web browser

Internet Explorer- web browser

Maxthon - web browser

Opera - web browser

Avant Browser - web browser

Thunderbird - email client

PopTray - check for emails

Free Download Manager - download manager

FlashGet - download manager

WellGet - download manager

Download Master - download manager

WGET - commandline download manager

HTTrack - offline browser

WebReaper - offline browser

Yeah Reader - RSS reader

GreatNews - RSS reader

RSSOwl - RSS reader

P2P

µTorrent - torrent client

Azureus - torrent client

BitComet - torrent client

ABC - torrent client

BitTornado - torrent client

eMule - p2p client

SoulSeek - p2p client

Shareaza - p2p client

DC++ - Direct Connect network client

PeerGuardian - IP blocker

Chat

Miranda - chat client

MSN Messenger - chat client

Yahoo Messenger - chat client

QIP - chat client

Gaim - chat client

JAJC - chat client

HydraIRC - IRC client

Talkative IRC - IRC client

IceChat - IRC client

Skype - VOIP client

Google Talk - VOIP client

VoipStunt - VOIP client

Gizmo - VOIP client

Wengo - VOIP client

Security

AVG Free - antivirus

Avast Home Free - antivirus

AntiVir PersonalEdition - antivirus

BitDefender Free - antivirus

ClamWin - antivirus

CyberDifender - Internet Security Suite

Ad-aware - anti-spyware

Spybot: Search & Destroy - anti-spyware

Windows Defender - anti-spyware

SpywareBlaster - anti-spyware

Spyware Terminator - anti-spyware

Tootkit Reveaker - rootkit detection utility

Winpooch - system protection

HiJack Free - system protection

HighJackThis - hijackers detector and remover

Kerio Personal Firewall - firewall

Sygate Personal Firewall - firewall

ZoneAlarm - firewall

AxCrypt - file encryption

Simple File Shredder - securely delete files

PuTTy - SSH client

KeePass - password manager

LockNote - password manager

nPassword - password manager

Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer - identify security misconfigurations

Servers

FileZilla - FTP client

FileZilla Server - FTP server

EFTP - FTP client/server

XAMPP - integrated server package of Apache, mySQL, PHP and Perl

WAMP - Apache, PHP5 and MySQL server

Audio

Foobar2000 - audio player

WinAmp - audio player

1by1 - audio player

JetAudio - audio player

XMPlay - audio player

Xion - audio player

Apollo - audio player

MediaMonkey - music organizer

The GodFather - music organizer

dBpowerAMP - audio converter

Audacity - audio converter

WavePad - audio converter

Kristal Audio Engine - audio editor

Exact Audio Copy - CD ripper

Audiograbber - CD ripper

CDex - CD ripper

Mp3 Tag Tools - tag editor

Mp3tag - tag editor

Taggin’ MP3 - tag editor

Monkey’s Audio - APE compressor/decompressor

mpTrim - mp3 editor

WavTrim - wave editor

EncSpot Basic - analyse mp3 files

Video

Windows Media Player - audio/video player

VLC - video player

Media Player Classic - video player

MV2Player - video player

CrystalPlayer 1.95 - video player

Zoom Player - video player

GOM Player - video player

viPlay - video player

DSPlayer - video player

VirtualDub - video editor

CamStudio - video screen recording

AviSplit - Avi splitter

Video mp3 Extractor - rip audio from video files

Free iPod Converter - convert all popular video formats to iPod video

MediaPortal - turning your PCinto a Media Center

The FilmMachine

Image

Gimp - image editor

PhotoFiltre - image editor

Paint.net - image editor

ArtRage - image editor

Artweaver - image editor

IrfanView - image viewer

Picasa - image viewer

XnView - image viewer

FastStone Image Viewer - image viewer

FuturixImager - image viewer

Easy Thumbnails - create thumbnails from images

JoJoThumb - create thumbnails from images

iWebAlbum - create web photo albums

JAlbum - create web photo albums

3D Box Shot Maker - design quality box shot

FastStone Capture - screen capture

WinSnap - screen capture

3D

Blender3D - 3D renderer

3Delight Free - 3D renderer

SketchUp - 3D modeling

Maya Learning Edition - 3D modeling

Developers

AutoIt - task automation

SciTE4AutoIt3 - text editor for AutoIt

AutoHotkey - task automation

PHP Designer - PHP editor

Notepad++ - text editor

ConTEXT Editor - text editor

PSPad - text editor

FoxEditor - text editor

Crimson Editor - source code editor

Elfima Notepad - text editor

Notepad2 - text editor

Nvu - HTML editor

Alleycode - HTML editor

BlockNote - web page editor

Weaverslave - web page editor

CD/DVD

DeepBurner - CD/DVD burner

CDBurner XP Pro - CD/DVD burner

BurnAtOnce - CD/DVD burner

Express Burn - CD/DVD burner

Zilla CD-DVD Rip’n’Burn - CD/DVD burner

ImgBurn - ISO, BIN burner

Daemon tools - virtual CD/DVD

DVD Decrypter - DVD ripper

DVD Shrink - DVD ripper

Nero CD-DVD Speed - CD/DVD info and quality test

Codecs

GSpot - codec information

AC3Filter - audio codec

Xvid - video codec

QuickTime Alternative - video codec

Real Alternative - video codec

K-Lite Codec Pack - all codecs

System Ulilities

CCleaner - system cleaner

xp-AntiSpy - OS setup

jv16 Powertools - system utilities

XP SysPad - system monitoring utility

What’s Running - process guard

Registrar Lite - registry editor

WinIPConfig - replacement for “ipconfig.exe” and “route.exe”

Unlocker - file eraser

Eraser - secure file eraser

Undelete Plus - file recovery

freeCommander - file manager

ExplorerXP - file manager

Duplicate File Finder - find all duplicate files

Ant Renamer - file renaming

ReNamer - file renaming

Icons From File - icos extractor

Chaos MD5 - MD5 generator

HashTab - MD5, SHA1 and CRC-32 file hashes

Rainlendar Lite - desktop calendar

Weather Watcher - weather firecast

Subtitle Workshop - subtitles editor

Ant Movie Catalog - movie organizer

Disclib - CD organizer

Dexpot - virtual desktops

DriveImage XML - create partition images

MozBackup - backup and restore bookmarks, etc.

SyncBack - system backup

Atomic Cock Sync - syncronize your clock

Citrus Alarm Clock - alarm clock

TaskSwitchXP - Alt-Tab replacement

Launchy - application launcher

allSnap - make all windows snap

Sysinternals Tools - various system tools

StrokeIt - mouse gestures

Net Profiles - create profiles of your network settings

ResourceHacker - view, modify, rename, add, delete

Java Runtime Environment - java for Windows

UI Enhancements

RocketDock - application launcher

AveDesk - desktop enhancer

IconPhile - customize windows’s system icons

CursorXP Free - change mouse cursors

MacSound - volume control

LClock - Windows Longhorn clock

Y’z Dock - application launcher

Y’z Shadow - shadow effect to the windows

Y’z Toolbar - change the toolbar icons in Explorer and Internet Explorer

Taskbar Shuffle - rearrange the programs on the taskbar by dragging

Visual Task Tips - thumbnail preview image for each task in the taskbar

Badges - put badges on any folder or file

Folderico - change icons of the folders

Folder Marker - mark your folders

Folder2MyPC - add favourite locations to My Computer

Microsoft TweakUI - system settings

BricoPacks - shell packs

ShellPacks - shell packs

Tango Shell Patcher - shell patcher

XPize - GUI enhancer

Vista Transformation Pack - complete visual style

Vista Sound Scheme - Windows Vista sound scheme

Royale Theme - visual style

Hardware monitoring/Benchmarking

CPU-Z - cpu information

CrystalCPUID - cpu information

Central Brain Identifier - cpu information

Everest - system information

SiSoft Sandra - system information

SpeedFan - hardware monitor

Memtest86 - memory test

PowerMax - HDD test

3Dmark 06 - 3D game performance benchmark

Aquamark - performance benchmark

rthdribl - 3D benchmark

Fraps - 3D benchmark, fps viewer and screen recorder

Prime 95 - cpu benchmarking

SuperPI - cpu benchmarking

CPU Rightmark - cpu overclock

Core Temp - cpu temperature

ATiTool - video overclock

ATI Tray Tools - Radeon tweaker

aTuner - GeForce and Radeontweaker

RivaTuner - video overclock

Nokia Monitor Test - monitor adjustmets

UDPixel - fix dead pixels

Games

123 Free Solitaire - solitaire games collection

Arcade Pack - classic arcade games

Live For Speed - online racing simulator

Enigma - puzzle game

Freeciv - multiplayer strategy game

Tux Racer - race down steep, snow-covered mountains

Education

SpeQ Mathematics - mathematics program

Dia - diagram creation program

Google Earth - explore the world

NASA World Wind - 3D virtual globe

Celestia - explore the space

Stellarium - planetarium

Miscellaneous

nLite - Build your own custom Windows disk.

VirtualPC - create virtual machines

grabMotion - webcam capture

iDailyDiary - simple page-for-a-day diary

Pivot Stickfigure Animator - create stick-figure animations

Wink - create presentations

Scribus - professional page layout

FreeMind - midn mapping software

Windows Live Writer - WYSIWYG blog authoring

Acne Care Treatment: How Can You Improve Your Diet To Prevent Acne?

2009-02-28T14:54:00.000-08:00

Are you suffering from acne? Have you tried over-the-counter medications, but your acne keeps on coming back? If your intention is to prevent acne, and not just to get rid of the odd pimple or two, then you need to at more holistic acne care treatment. That means you need to go beyond just applying a topical cream like benzoyl peroxide or tea tree oil to get rid of your pimples. You also need to examine your lifestyle and diet.

Mother Nature made the human body to be pretty robust. You can survive in quite a wide range of unfriendly environments, living an intense lifestyle, without any immediate problems. However, you can’t run away from the side-effects forever. Sooner rather than later, the problems start showing up - acne, constipation, slowed reflexes, slower healing from wounds, etc.

People living in rural communities rarely get problems like acne. Most of them eat healthy food. They usually drink enough water and eat sufficient fruits and vegetables. They also don’t over-eat meat and greasy foods. Basically, if you eat following the classical food guide pyramid (created by the USDA in 1992), you are less likely to suffer from severe acne. To be honest, this guide is overly simplistic and flawed - it is not the most effective healthy eating guide. That honor goes to the Healthy Eating Pyramid created by Harvard Medical School. Studies have shown that men who follow the more sophisticated eating guide by Harvard reduce their risk of suffering a major chronic disease by 20%. Women gain an improvement of 11%.

Why Is Water Important In Acne Care Treatment?

70% of our bodies is made of water. This water is critical to move nutrients from our digestive system to the cells which need them. This includes our skin cells. If our skin does not get enough nutrients, then it may not be strong enough to fight off the bacteria which causes acne. Water plays another important role - it moves the waste products from our cells to our kidneys for purification. This prevents the build-up of toxic waste in our cells (including our skin cells). When we don’t drink enough water, our skin will not get enough nutrients, and becomes soaked in toxic waste products, so we are more likely to get pimples.

Fruits And Vegetables For Natural Acne Skin Care

I like to eat meat myself, so I’m not going to try and persuade you to go vegetarian. But if you suffer from acne, you may want to try adding more fresh fruits and vegetables to your diet. They do two important things for you:

Provide vitamins and nutrients not found in meat. One famous example is Vitamin C which can only be found in fruits and vegetables - you need this for both general health and healthy skin.

Provide fiber which helps your digestive system to work better. Good digestion helps you to absorb more nutrients from your food, which is always a good thing.

For a long time, I ate one serving of vegetables with my lunch. Together with lots of water, moderate rest and light exercise, this seemed to be sufficient for me. Then I started growing older…

Among other problems, I started getting more acne breakouts. When I added two slices of fruit to my dinner, my acne went into remission again.

Following the Food Guide Pyramid (or Healthy Eating Pyramid) and eating a more healthy diet will not guarantee acne-free skin. However, because most people who suffer from acne (like myself) eat very low quality diets, making the effort to eat more healthy meals will often show good results. Remember that the health of your internal organs is often reflected in your skin.

By Agnes Scott

http://www.website-articles.net/

Acne and Your Skin Type

2009-02-28T13:47:00.000-08:00

Living with acne can be challenging, and it is even more difficult to find the right acne treatment product that will help you in your struggle to be free of it. One thing that makes acne treatment so hard is the number and variety of acne treatment products currently on the market.

While it is easy to find acne treatments, locating the treatment product that is right for you can give you a headache. It can be irritating to go through all those different types of acne treatment products. And how do you know which product will work for your skin?

You can simplify this search and get the product that you need much quicker. However, the place to start your acne treatment search is not with the products.

The place to start is with your skin. In order to determine the best treatment for your acne, you need to know your skin type. There are three basic skin types, the most common of which is combination skin.

Oily Skin

Oily skin is typically shiny and attracts dirt and dust. This grit causes blackheads. Oily skin also generally has larger pores, and is coarse to the touch. Very oily skin does not require you to use any moisturizer at all, but it does require a good face wash and cleanser. You can also use alcohol-based products to help dry out your skin.

Dry Skin

Dry skin looks dry and often flakes. Dry skin can also be more sensitive to sun, wind and cold. This skin is usually less prone to acne. To treat dry skin, use moisturizers that will lubricate your skin. Also, avoid products containing alcohol, as alcohol will dry your skin even more.

Combination Skin

Combination skin is what most people have, where the oily T-zone comes into play. (The T-Zone is the zone made horizontally by your forehead, and vertically by your nose and chin.) This type of skin usually requires products that are specifically for combination skin.

Normal to Oily: Oily skin in the T-Zone, normal skin on the cheeks

Dry to Oily: Dry skin on the cheeks, oily skin in the T-Zone

After you find out what type of skin you have, finding the right product will become much easier. Reading more about the difference skin types will help you understand your skin, and how it reacts. Work with this knowledge to identify the products that are right for your face.

By Elizabeth Radisson

http://www.website-articles.net/

The 12 Most Popular Headlines of All Time

2009-02-27T12:12:00.000-08:00

Introduction

They say that if your web site has a bad opening headline you’ll loose over 50% of your visitors in the first few seconds after they arrive at your home page. Headlines are the most important part of a web page, but what constitutes a good headline?

In today’s article I’m going to list the top 12 best direct response headlines ever created. How do I know these are the top 12 headlines ever? Simple. I read this article . I’ve written quite a few headlines over the last few years. Some worked and some didn’t. The headlines below have sold hundreds of millions of dollars of products over the last 50 years, and best of all you can adapt each of these headlines to suit your own business.

1. “They laughed when I sat down at the piano - but when I started to play!”

This is *the* most popular headline of all time. It has been used in direct marketing to sell millions of dollars worth of products, but what is it about this headline that makes people keep reading?

I think it’s the anticipation. As a reader you ask yourself “well, what happened when he sat down at the piano? Did they like what he played? What song did he play?”. This makes you want to keep reading to see exactly what “they” did when “he” started to play the piano.

Can you use anticipation to build curiosity in your headline?

2. They grinned when the waiter spoke to me in French - but their laughter changed to amazement at my reply.

Again, the use of anticipation. “What was her reply?” you ask yourself. “If they didn’t think she could speak French, then what country was she from?”. When I see this headline I picture a group of mature aged women sitting around at a fancy restaurant with a waiter by the side of the lady who replied in French.

How can you use visual imagery to create a killer headline for your web site?

3. Do you make these mistakes in English?

When I was writing our most recent newsletter I decided to give this headline a try. “Do You Make These Mistakes When Attracting New Clients?” is the headline I chose. The headline is followed by a paragraph about our http://www.interspire.com/strategies.

I think when you see this headline you immediately ask yourself “What mistakes is he talking about? What if they are costing me and my business money?”

This headline is easy to flip and use for business. Can you flip it?

4. Can You Spot These 10 Decorating Sins?

Similar to headline #3, this headline provokes thoughts of embarrassment. Obviously this headline would’ve been used in craft magazines targeted to female homemakers, but what you do you think the inner monologue of a reader would have been when she saw this headline?

“Decorating sins? I’ve spent so much time decorating the family home. I hope I haven’t committed any of these decorating sins. Let me read on just to make sure.”

What “sins” might your potential customers be committing? Can you use this headline on your web site or in an article?

5. How a “fool stunt” made me a star salesman

The “How” headline pulls really well because it sounds more like the introduction to a story rather than a headline. People love reading stories and when I see a headline like this I say to myself “Hmmm, a story. I don’t really like salesmen but I wonder what the stunt was that made him a star”.

How can you use the “How” headline to make your ad or web page sound like a story? Being a PHP developer, I might use it like this: “How crashing a web server made me a star web developer”.

6. How a strange accident saved me from baldness

The same as headline #5. I think to myself “How can an accident save this guy from going bald? Is he crazy? This sounds like an interesting read, let me skim over the article”.

7. Who else wants a screen star figure?

The “who else wants” headline implies the theory of social proof. “Who else” means that other people already have what’s in question (in this case it’s a “star figure”). This headline also implies that just by reading the content of the article, you too can have a star figure. This gives the copywriter plenty of time to “warm you up” in the body of the article so that you’re ready for the sales pitch a few paragraphs after the headline.

Make this your next headline: Who else wants [insert the benefit of your product here]?

8. Who else wants a lighter cake - in half the mixing time?

The same as #7 with a clear benefit – half the mixing time. Implies social proof and if that doesn’t work the benefit acts as backup.

9. Free to brides - $2 to others

Headlines with “free” in the title don’t really work anymore, but you could flip this headline in another way. This headline is strictly targeted to brides, making them sound in a class of their own, as opposed to “others” who have to pay $2 for whatever the article is promising the bride for free.

10. Free to high school teachers - $6 to others

The exact same format as headline #9. Use this headline and just plug in words relating to your industry:

[Low price] to [your target audience] – [High price] to others

11. Announcing the new Ford cars for (year)

“Announcing” is an authoritative word and immediately removes the visitor’s skepticism that the headline could be for an advertisement. “New” also piques the interest of a lot of people as in most cultures it’s generally acknowledged that the people with the newest [product] are trendsetting individuals and not followers.

12. Are You Ashamed of Smells In Your Home?

This is a binary response headline. You either answer yes or no. If you answer yes, then the headline gets your attention and you continue reading. The trick with this type of headline is to make it a question that the majority of your readers will answer yes to.

Which question will the majority of your web site visitors answer “yes” to?

Conclusion

You’ve just read my thoughts on 12 of the top 101 headlines of all time. Next time you’re adding a page to your web site or writing an article, why don’t you try incorporating one of the headlines mentioned above? You never know which one will trigger your customers into a buying frenzy

Increase Your Email Open Rate By Improving Your Subject Lines

2009-02-27T12:09:00.000-08:00

Just like a direct sales letter, the subject line of your email can make or break your campaign. If you don’t have a compelling subject line the chance of your email even getting read is slim.

According to a recent MarketingSherpa.com survey, 40% of email marketers said testing changes to just their subject line had a high impact on their return on investment (ROI). 45% said subject line changes accounted for a medium ROI and only 15% said that testing changes to their subject line results in a low ROI.

For every email you send you’ve got room for no more than 50 characters in your subject line, and today I’m going to share with you 10 tips that we use to increase the open rates of our email campaigns.

Test the subject line – Take a look at email campaigns you’ve sent in the past. Which subject lines worked the best and gave you the highest open and conversion rates? You might find that for a particular topic there’s a general trend or subject style that resulted in higher open rates.

The subject of importance – Try and put as much important and relevant information into your subject lines as possible. For example, if you’re sending out an email about a special offer make sure the product name and details on the offer appear in the subject line in a clear and concise format such as “$40 off ACME Widget Until - Today Only”.

Personalize the subject line – If you have details about your subscribers then use them in your subject line to get their attention. A subject line containing the subscribers first name ALWAYS out pulls one that doesn’t.

Avoid spam keywords – Most email servers automatically filter out any emails that contain spam keywords in their subject line – Words such as free, stock, ebay, password, mortgage, etc all trigger spam detection software so keep them out of your subject lines at all times.

Trigger curiosity – The best way to improve your open rates is to pique the interest of your subscribers. A compelling headline that entices them to open and read the contents of your email can do wonders for your conversion rate. I’ve been thinking about headlines that trigger curiosity, and if you can work this one into your email campaign I’d like to hear the response rate: “Hi [First Name] - I have a question for you.”.

Make the offer clear – If you’re making a special offer to your subscriber then be upfront and include it as part of your subject line. People love bargains and special offers so let them know about it before anything else.

Emphasize the benefits – We use this technique for our newsletters. We always use the format of “Interspire Newsletter – [Benefit]“. In our case, benefit is always the title of an article contained in the newsletter, such as “Interspire Newsletter – 10 Tips for Better Subject Lines”. It works every time

Copy what works – Why not take some of these and use them in the subject line of your next email campaign?

Easy identification – Make sure your subscribers know the email is coming from you. Deceptive subject lines can confuse people so always try and including your company name in the subject line. Also, make sure you set the “From” attribute of your email to include your name and your companies name, such as “From: John Smith <john@acme.com>”.

Exclaim nothing – Avoid using excessive punctuation at the end of your subject lines. Google bans punctuation from AdWords ad’s for a reason – too much hype can annoy and confuse people.

Well there you have it - 10 tips for better subject lines in your next email marketing campaign. If you have any tips you’d like to share feel free to post a comment below.

Improve Your Email Delivery Rates

2009-02-27T12:03:00.000-08:00

Introduction

Today I’m going to delve a little deeper and give you some more ideas on how to increase the number of emails that actually get delivered to your subscribers.

Is your domain’s IP address blacklisted?

The first thing you should check if you feel there’s something suspicious about your deliverability rates is your domain’s IP address against spam black list databases.

These databases store the I.P address of domains that have been known to spam. ISP’s and email administrators can use this data to block further emails being sent from that domain. In some cases, someone may have used your IP address to send out spam emails, or your emails may have been reported as spam even though they weren’t.

If you’re unsure what your domain’s IP address is, simply open up a command prompt in windows (start menu -> run -> cmd.exe) and type in ping www.domain.com. You should see something like this:

Pinging www.domain.com [203.213.97.61] with 32 bytes of data:

Your IP address is contained inside the brackets (in this case the IP address is 203.213.97.61).

Once you’ve obtained your IP address you can start checking it against the different black list databases. I’ve supplied some of the more popular ones below:

http://www.spamcop.net/bl.shtml

http://www.spamhaus.org/sbl/

http://www.mail-abuse.com/cgi-bin/lookup

http://www.spambag.org/query.html

You can find a more comprehensive list by clicking on the link below:

http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Internet/Abuse/Spam/Blacklists/

If you’re IP address isn’t found on any of the lists, then great. If it is you can try to contact your ISP and find out if you can get a new IP address. You can also try contacting the owner of the blacklist site to get your IP address removed from their database.

Watch your attachments

Many people don’t realize that the type of attachment you send with your email can cause different spam filters to block your email and even go so far as reporting your I.P to a black list database.

You should avoid using script or any type of attachment besides PDF. Many corporate mailboxes as well as virus filters block attachments that end in .exe, .avi, .swf, .zip, etc.

Make sure your server is configured for reverse DNS lookup

Reverse DNS lookup, originally designed as a network troubleshooting tool, has become an import tool in the fight against spam. When an Internet mail server receives an email it receives an “SMTP” greeting. This SMTP greeting is how the 2 servers communicate with each other when sending and receiving emails.

In this SMTP greeting, the sending server identifies itself as mail.domain.com with an IP address of 10.1.1.1 (for example). The receiving server can now do a reverse DNS lookup, to see if the IP address actually matches the domain name. A lot of spam servers won’t match and so the receiving server can mark this as one failed test on a list of many to indicate if the email is indeed spam or not.

Most reputable hosting companies should already have this configured, but it doesn’t hurt to ask. If your server is not configured for reverse DNS lookup, then be very wary of sending legitimate bulk email from that server.

Don’t send bulk emails using the BCC field

Some of us using our favorite email client (such as Microsoft Outlook) tend to send mass emails using the BCC field. That’s okay if you’re forwarding something of interest to your friends or co-workers, but don’t ever do this when sending your newsletters.

Using a BCC field is another trigger for spam filters that you want to stay away from. Instead, your email program should send just one email to one subscriber at a. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking it’s a good idea to send your newsletter to 200 subscribers using the “CC” and “BCC” fields.

Keep your lists as clean as possible

Honor all unsubscribe requests (your email marketing software should generate an unsubscribe link for all emails you send) and process bounced emails frequently. Sending to email addresses that have bounced repeatedly can result in a blacklisted IP address. You want to make sure that each bulk email you send does go out to legitimate, working email addresses.

You should also make sure your abuse@ and postmaster@ emails are valid and working. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has recommended these email addresses for complaint spam reporting and you may receive emails from users or ISP’s if they have a complaint or spam report about your mailings.

Let your subscribers know when your emails are coming

If you offer a subscription to your newsletter from your web site then tell each and every subscriber exactly when to expect your newsletter. For example:

“We send our newsletter once a month, usually around the 20^th, so make sure you keep an eye out for our next issue!”

Also, if someone has subscribed for your newsletter and only your newsletter, don’t go sending them special offers and other unrelated emails unless you’ve told them to expect to receive them. For example:

“When you join our mailing list we may occasionally send you special offers for our products and services, but don’t worry – every email includes an unsubscribe link if you change your mind.”

Use double opt-in lists

I’ve mentioned this in my previous article but once again to make your mailing list as clean as possible always use double opt-in strategies. That is, when someone signs up they should receive an email which contains a link they must click to verify that they do indeed want to be on your mailing list. This stops illegitimate email addresses from being added to your mailing list.

Let subscribers update their details

If I switch jobs or change my email address, I should be able to come to your web site and change my newsletter subscription from me@oldjob.com to me@newjob.com using a simple “modify details” form. By allowing your subscribers to do this, you reduce the number of bounced emails and keep your subscribers active much longer.

Conclusion

Improving email deliverability is one of the toughest tasks for any email marketer. While this list is by no means complete it can dramatically help to improve your email deliverability and hopefully your click thru rate and bottom line. Until next time, best of luck in your e-marketing efforts!

Auto Responders: The Marketers Magic Trick

2009-02-27T11:39:00.000-08:00

Imagine if John (an avid poker player) visits your website. You sell a book that helps him improve his poker game. He’s highly interested in what you have to offer, but he’s just not ready to purchase yet. He’s still recovering from that extended holiday and needs to pay off the credit card that he maxed out playing poker online.

He sees a form on your site asking if he’d like more detailed information, and so he fills in his name and email address. Within seconds an email is sent to John with a short summary of the benefits offered by your book and a couple of useful tips he can use right away.

A few days later, John receives another email that goes something like this:

“Hey John, I know you’re quite busy, especially with the holiday period coming to an end, but I just wanted to get in touch with you to let you know we’ve got a special coming up for that ‘How to win at poker’ handbook you’ve always wanted.”

John’s forgotten that he’d been looking to buy a book like this and this email reminds him that he needs to improve his game. John adds buying the handbook to his “To Do” list and goes about his daily business.

Another few days later, John receives another email; again, reminding him that the special is about to end alongside another juicy tip that’s in the book. John realizes he doesn’t have much time now, and goes off to purchase your “How to win at poker” handbook.

Every email sent to John was automated. You didn’t have to wait for him to subscribe, you didn’t have to personally address John, nor did you have to send him an email every few days.

The example above shows how a series of auto responder emails can be used as a powerful “hands off” marketing tool for your web site.

Now, take a few minutes and think to yourself, “How can I use auto responders on my web site?”

No, seriously. Stop and think. This simple exercise could easily add another stream of revenue to your web site that you didn’t know existed.

But I don’t sell anything online!

Auto responders can work for ANY business. You don’t need to be selling something online for them to work. For example, let’s pretend you have a hair styling business. You cater towards young men looking for a modern, attractive hair style. Part of your service includes helping them select a hair style that greatly enhances their facial features and gets them the compliments they’re after from the ladies.

On your website, you setup a simple form, something like: “Guys, get the hair style that’ll get you noticed. Free email report shows you how.”

Once John’s filled in the form, he gets an email with a summary of tips about the type of hair style suited for men with different features. It also mentions that you’re an expert in this field and your salon regularly helps men go from dud to stud in less than an hour.

A few days later, John receives yet another tip — this time on how washing his hair with a different shampoo can lead to different results. John starts to see how much of an expert you are, but also how much he’d rather just pay someone to take care of all this for him. He hasn’t got much time now since he’s started killing those poker sites. And so off he goes to call and make an appointment at your salon.

What else should I know?

The content in your auto responders need to be useful. Whilst including marketing hype purely about your product and services can work if there is a strong interest, you’ll usually need to provide relevant tips and information to keep your subscriber engaged and ready to pull out their wallet when need be.

You should opt to use autoresponder software that offers personalization, which includes the ability to address John by his first name, as that greatly increases response rates.

Finally, you should TEST your auto responders. Make sure they aren’t trapped by spam filters, make sure the subscribers are receiving the auto responders in the order they’re meant to be and so forth.

Armed with this new knowledge, you should be able to add an additional stream of revenue that could do some serious boosting to your profits. Some online businesses use this single marketing strategy as the sole way of getting new clients. They do this because it works!

Now, have you decided how you’re going to use auto responders for your business?

Writing E-Newsletters that Sell

2009-02-27T11:34:00.000-08:00

Introduction

Newsletters are a great way of reaching your target audience to promote your products and services. Newsletters allow you to reach a wide market to launch/expand your brand to potential clients and also cross/up-sell to your existing clientele.

It is an inexpensive and very targeted means of promotion in comparison to television commercials and advertising in print publications. At the same time, newsletters are an effective and — unlike spamming — respected method of marketing.

The e-newsletter playing field is democratized in the sense that both small and large businesses can both send effective, professional looking newsletters. Follow the steps outlined in this white paper to ensure that your e-newsletter is up to scratch and the best that it can be.

Why Choose an E-Newsletter?

Make sure you know what an e-newsletter is, and type of content belongs in it before you decide to choose one as a means of marketing.

Readers don’t want to see information in an e-newsletter that they can find on your website, so make sure your newsletter offers the reader a reason to read. Include current information and updates on your company or any future developments and projects that are being planned (give them a sneak preview), advertise discounts for new products just for subscribing and include articles relating to your field of expertise.

The “Personal” Touch

Effective newsletters should always contain a personal touch, mainly to appear in-touch with your reader and his/her needs.

It is important to let your personality dominate the newsletter so that it doesn’t present itself as yet another mediocre sales blur. Make sure you capture the first name of your reader so that you can address them by it. There’s nothing worse than getting a “Hi there” when you should really be getting a “Hi John”.

Create a feeling of community to let your readers know that their opinions and views really do count. Correspondingly, encourage readers to be an active member of yout community by allowing them to contribute with feedback on featured articles and even make contributions to your newsletter themselves.

It is imperative that you study who your target audience is. Find out what topics will interest your readers by placing surveys on your site or in your newsletters and follow up with related information in future editions. Encourage readers to send your newsletters to friends who may be interested by using a ’send this newsletter to a friend’ feature.

Your newsletter will attract people who possess similar demographics to your existing subscribers. It’s important to research and outline who your members are and what they want - regardless of whether your subscriber list is small or large - that way you can optimize your newsletter to be both useful and relevant to your audience.

Don’t Over-Do the Sales Pitch

E-newsletters are great resources for cross selling and up-selling your products and services, yet while most newsletters contain some advertising, be careful not to go overboard.

This becomes even more prominent if you plan to include third part advertisements. Readers almost certainly don’t subscribe to newsletters to receive what they will essentially consider as junk mail. If you over-do the advertising then your newsletter is no more than Spam, and the unsubscribe link is sure to ensue.

Look and Feel

It’s a good idea to extend your branding efforts to your newsletter. If customers associate your website with a good product or service and subscribed to your newsletter through your site, then it would be beneficial to keep your branding efforts prominent in your newsletters too.

For members that have not yet transacted with you, your newsletter is definitely a good way of subtly introducing them to your brand. Additionally, make sure your newsletter is easy to navigate and contains no broken links.

Present your information in small paragraphs with links to more information if necessary. That way, you can place more detailed information on your site and readers can click on the relevant links that catch their attention to read more.

Legitimate Email Marketing - the Respected Alternative

There are a few steps that you will need to follow to ensure your newsletter does not seem invasive. You need to accommodate for subscribers who are wary about receiving newsletters by providing them with an unsubscribe link.

Unsubscribe link - It’s important that your subscribers don’t feel like you’re making it difficult for them to unsubscribe. If you do hide your unsubscribe link or act evasively about presenting a clear unsubscribe link, then you are portraying yourself as sly and ambiguous - a good way to lose subscribers.

At the same time, you should ensure that the unsubscribe request is actually honored and the subscribers is taken off the list immediately.

Multiple lists - If your subscribers belong to different lists, it is important that you specify which list they belong to and make sure you do not email the same subscribers repeatedly about unrelated products.

It’s also important that you take the time to offer tailored e-newsletters to specific lists so that you present readers with more customized information. It’s important to remember that people sign up to for newsletter because of the value perception — more commonly known as “what’s in it for me?”.

If the information in your newsletter tries to cater to too many different subscriber lists then the line between being informative and junk mail becomes very blurred.

Conclusion

Most businesses have an e-newsletter — regardless of whether they are a one-person business or a large corporation. Unlike posted newsletters, print publications and other hard copy methods, e-newsletters add a lot more dimension to your marketing efforts, including cost-effectiveness, timely sending, dynamic design, content, presentation and easy feedback.

Newsletters help your company touch base with both existing and potential customers — they are not designed for long drawn out articles, but rather short, informative snippets of information that make some level of impact.

Sharpen your e-newsletter for your readers and make sure you keep optimizing it for both present and future subscribers by enhancing the sense of community and personalization. The positive difference that an effective newsletter can make, will do wonders for your business.

Avoiding the Spam Filters and Other Email Marketing Tips

2009-02-27T11:24:00.000-08:00

Introduction

Email marketing, as many of us know, can be a powerful, inexpensive method of reaching our most active potential or existing customers. It can boost not only our direct sales, but also our credibility and referrals.

One of the major benefits of email marketing is that email is free, but obviously this is the same reason why spam has become so popular and so frustrating. With spam comes spam filters and with spam filters comes the blocking of legitimate email.

In this article I’ll try and describe the basic steps that can help reduce the number of emails you send out that get blocked by spam filters — hopefully resulting in a more rewarding marketing effort.

The right selection of words

Many spam filters work by analyzing the email based on its content and the words used. Many words — such as free, sex and so forth — are very heavy spam trigger keywords. Your priority should be to avoid such words while keeping your newsletter as professional as possible.

Later in this article I will show you a technique that I use to help me detect words that could trigger spam filters that I may have missed.

Pay attention to your formatting

When formatting your email, keep it simple and professional. Excessive use of different colors, fonts, sizes, images and so forth will result in a higher spam filtering rate. Keep your email as clean as possible, and try to stick to a maximum of 2 or 3 different font types and sizes. Overly large sized fonts will surely add to an email being flagged as spam, as will too many images (or not enough text).

Try and use a short and simple stylesheet rather than using font tags excessively. Most spam filters don’t appreciate a multitude of font tags and inline formatting, and the more primitive filters can’t detect stylesheets so they will not penalize as easily.

Consistency is king

Use a template if you plan on sending newsletters consistently. This will make sure that all your newsletters look and feel the same. It will also add a touch of professionalism and branding to your newsletters.

Whilst not directly affecting spam filters, this will enable your readers to distinguish your newsletter instantly, thus not reporting it as spam accidentally. Some spam filters work by querying a spam server, whereas others report individual emails as spam. If your email gets reported as spam, then more than likely multiple spam filters will flag your email.

Being consistent with your timing of the newsletter also helps. For example, if you send a newsletter once per month (I personally don’t recommend you send out any more than this, unless you’ve got something really interesting to say), then aim to send it out at the same time, on the same day each month.

Once again, your potential readers will learn to expect your email, adding professionalism and often improving open rates, also reducing accidental spam flagging as well.

Always use Double Opt-in

Always make your mailing lists double opt-in. This means that when a user subscribes to your mailing list, they will be sent an email with a link that they must click on to confirm their subscription.

This is very important because many people can accidentally enter an incorrect email address, or even the email address of someone else on purpose. When that person receives a newsletter they did not subscribe to, they will assume they have been spammed, and your newsletter (and possibly your web server) will be reported as spam.

Unsubscribe and Contact Information

Every newsletter you send out should contain a way for the reader to unsubscribe. Not doing so is illegal in some countries and is an instant sign of spamming. You should also display your contact information (Phone, Fax and Address) clearly, as this greatly increases confidence in your email and your company, as well as conforms to spam laws in the United States. Contact information also allows a potential customer to contact you if need be.

Test,Test, Test

The key to avoiding spam filters is testing. The first method of testing I use is to send the newsletter to multiple email accounts with existing spam filters. For example, I have a Gmail (http://www.gmail.com) account and a Hotmail (http://www.hotmail.com) account that I make sure I send my newsletter to. If the newsletter ends up in the junk folder, then I’ve got some work to do.

I also have a couple of email accounts with different web hosts that have spam filters in place. In particular, they mostly use spam assassin — a popular piece of spam filtering software. Spam assassin is useful because every email that it flags as spam is given a report and a list of why that email was considered spam.

I also have a local spam filtering application called No Spam Today! for Workstations, that runs a local copy of spam assassin on my PC. It acts as a very close replica to the same software used on thousands of servers world-wide. By sending myself copies of the newsletter No Spam Today! — using the spam assassin checking techniques — gives me feedback as to why my email may have been flagged. If I’ve used words or formatting that I shouldn’t have, or if I’ve included too many images, etc.

Conclusion

Avoiding spam filters when sending out legitimate newsletters can be a time consuming effort. However, as your mailing list grows, it can also be a very beneficial exercise. I’ve watched open rates of just 2 to 3% soar to a massive 50% and over, simply by applying the techniques described in this article.

In conclusion, I hope that you’ve found the above tips useful and I wish you luck with your email marketing endeavors!

15 Email-Marketing Best Practices

2009-02-27T11:01:00.000-08:00

Introduction

As you may know, most people now spend more time reading their emails than they do surfing the web. Email is one of the most powerful mediums that you can use to talk to visitors, customers and prospects.

In this article I will discuss 15 best practices that you can use everyday in your email marketing activities. Used wisely and consistently, there’s no doubt you’ll see an increased response from your subscribers — whether it be for more feedback, more product/seminar registrations, or even more orders.

1. Avoiding the Spam Filters

The majority of large Internet service providers now use rigorous spam protection mechanisms to trap unsolicited email before it gets into their customers inboxes. Spam filters generally “rank” each email by a number of different criteria, and, if that email rates above a certain level (such as 10 spam points), then it is flagged as spam and deleted.

To make sure your emails don’t get flagged as spam — and deleted before they even get to your subscribers — avoid using words such as ‘Free’, ‘$$$’, ‘Save’, ‘Discount’, etc in both the subject line and the content of your email.

2. Maximizing Click-Thru Rates

Both web pages and emails can contain a lot of text and graphics, and this sometimes makes it harder to get your subscribers to perform a certain task, such as clicking on a link to see your special offers.

Numerous research papers tell us that the majority of Internet users respond better to a plain, bold, blue text link — such as this — as opposed to a banner or button. So, if you’re going to include links in your emails, make sure they are bold, blue and underlined. This will mean that more subscribers click through, meaning more conversions/sales for you.

3. The Power of Personalization

If you were standing in a crowded mall, which of these would get your attention: “HEY, YOU!” or “HEY JOHN” (assuming your name is John). The power of personalization can and should be used in your emails. In-fact, by simply starting your email with “Hi [subscriber_name]” instead of the boring “Hi there”, you can increase both your reading and click-thru rates by up to 650%. Why? Put simply, it’s because your subscribers feel like they already have a relationship with you as you’ve addressed them by their first name.

4. One-Click Unsubscription

If you want to grow your mailing list, then there are 2 things that you absolutely must have: a double opt-in process, and a quick way to unsubscribe. In some countries, it’s actually mandatory by law that every email has an unsubscribe link in it. The unsubscribe link should take the recipient directly to a page where they are then removed — courteously — from your mailing list.

5. Signup Confirmation

Don’t get accused of spamming — always, and I mean always use a double opt-in confirmation process. Double opt-in means that after your visitor initially enters their email address to subscribe to your list, you should then send them a “confirmation” email. This email should contain a special link back to your email-marketing program, which will then verify that this visitor did indeed sign up to your mailing list.

6. Tuesday / Wednesday = Increased Response

Studies conducted by online research analysts have shown that the best days to perform a mail-out to your list are Tuesday and Wednesday, as this is when people are more receptive to communication. This means that they are more likely to read your content and click on links, meaning more sales.

On Mondays, everyone is still recovering from a hectic weekend. On Thursday and Friday, people are already too busy looking forward to the weekend. We’ve actually experimented with this, and received the best results by sending out emails at around 2-3pm (American Pacific Time) on a Wednesday.

7. Repeat Email Communication

An auto responder is an email that is scheduled to be sent at a certain time interval after someone subscribes to your mailing list. Auto responders are a great way to automatically follow up with your subscribers or provide them with more information on your products/services.

For example, if you provide a free newsletter, you could setup 3 auto responders for new subscribers: the first is sent 1 hour after they subscribe. It contains a thank you message and a link to get 10% off your newly released eBook.

The second is sent 24 hours after they subscribe, telling them about your community message boards, and the third is sent 72 hours after they subscribe, in which you can offer them a special deal on becoming a paid member of your site.

Auto responders help your subscribers build trust in both your company and your brand, and this can help make it easier when trying to close sales in the future.

8. Consistency is the Key

If you’re running a newsletter or frequent email publication, make sure you keep the look and feel consistent from issue to issue. By keeping the look and feel consistent, you help to maintain and strengthen your brand and your image to your subscribers, which again will make it easier to close sales when you need to.

Create a template for your newsletter and whenever you need to create a new issue, use that template as the basis for each issue.

9. On Time, Every Time

When sending a regular email to your subscribers, always make sure that it’s sent on the same day, at the same time. For example, every Wednesday at 3pm. Your subscribers will come to “expect” your email to arrive in their inbox on the same day at the same time every week, meaning that they want to read your content and are generally more receptive to any special offers or promotions you may include.

10. The Half-a-Second Subject Line

When your email arrives in your subscriber’s inbox, you generally have about half a second to catch their attention with the subject line of your email. After this, they will either delete your email or ignore it. In your subject line, try and specify a benefit that the subscriber can expect by reading your email. For example, instead of using ‘OurSite Newsletter Issue #1′, use ‘OurSite Newsletter: 10 Tips for Financial Freedom’.

11. The Free Bonus Hook-In

Free is overused these days, especially on the Internet. However, if you’re looking to grow your subscriber list, then create or source a product of value to your visitors (such as an eBook or discount coupon) and offer it to them for free when they signup for your newsletter.

To make sure they don’t simply type any email address into your subscription form, setup an auto responder to send them the free bonus 1 hour after they subscribe to your newsletter.

12. The Preview Pane

Popular email clients such as MS Outlook show a preview of an email when it’s selected in your inbox. Always have some interesting content at the very top of your email, as this is the part that will show in the preview window of your subscribers email program. If it’s interesting enough, then your subscriber will open your email and continue on reading.

13. Link-Click Testing

When creating marketing emails, try using different text for both content and links. Also try re-positioning images such as logos and buttons. After sending about 3 different emails, compare the click-thru stats and see which one worked best. Now, when you need to send marketing emails in the future, you know that you will be sending the right mix of content and images that will attract the most click-thrus, and ultimately the most sales.

14. Email-Based Learning

Add value to your website, build trust in your visitors, establish your credibility and collect more subscriptions to your mailing list by setting up an email-based learning course. To do this, simply create a series of auto responders (for example, 5) containing unique content. Then, schedule the first one to be sent after 24 hours, the second after 48 hours, etc.

15. Always Sign on the Dotted Line

Always include a signature at the bottom of your emails, as it’s one of the easiest ways to attract more traffic to your website. This signature should include your personal details, your company details, and an unsubscribe link. You can use your signature to link back to your website, and even to other products. Here’s a sample signature.

Setup T-mobile Blackberry as modem to access the Internet from you PC

2009-02-26T14:24:00.000-08:00

For a mysterious reason T-mobile never tell their blackberry customers that they can use the blackberry device as a modem to access the Internet from a laptop or PC. But as you are about to read the blackberry can be actually configured to be a modem to connect to the Internet using the laptop.

This can be easily done using the T-mobile DASH ( Check link Below) but on the blackberry there are some configurations you need to do. Please note that I have tested this on a T-mobile blackberry Curve, Perl, and blackberry 8800. But from what I have read, the procedure is almost the same for blackberry users with different carriers.

To successfully connect to the Internet on your laptop using the blackberry as a modem, you need to have the Blackberry Desktop Manager software installed on your computer, and be connected to the blackberry.

Then right Click on My Computer and go to Manage. once you get to the Computer Management console, click on Device Manager. click on the + sign, next to the Modems icon:

Right-click on Standard Modem and go to Properties. ( if you don’t see the standard modem on the list, you need to create one. leave a comment to give you the instructions)

When the modem property window comes up, click on the Advanced tab and type the following command on the Extra settings window:

+cgdcont=1,”IP”,” wap.voicestream.com”

Click OK and close out of all the windows. Now, right-click on My Networking Places icon and go to properties, when the network connections window comes up, click on Create a new connection:

Follow the wizard. click next on the following window. choose Connect to the Internet on the following screen. choose Setup my connection manually on the next screen. select Connect using a dial-up Modem, and click next .

On the next screen, choose the modem we configured above:

Once the Standard Modem is checked, click on Next. On the next screen type Blackberry Modem as the ISP name. Click Next. As a phone number type *99# on the next screen. Choose to use the connection for yourself only, click next.

On the next screen, uncheck, Make this the default Internet connection, and click next. click Finish on the following screen. As soon as you click on the Finish button, the connect the blackberry modem should come up:

Click on the Properties button on the window above. then click on the Networking tab, then make sure the Internet Protocol TCP/IP option is selected, and click on Properties:

On the following Window click on the Advanced tab. Uncheck Use IP Header Compression under the PPP link option:

Once that is unchecked, click on OK and exit out of all the windows. To connect to the Internet using the blackberry as the modem, go to Start, Connect to and choose Blackberry Modem when the dialing window comes up: click on dial without any username or password.

The modem should connect successfully. Let us know on the comments section if you have any problem.

How to Get Search Engine Traffic to Your Blog?

2009-02-25T03:31:00.000-08:00

This article describes a set of procedures, also known as search engine optimization (SEO), which helps web pages to obtain better positions in search engine’s search pages.

You might be wondering the reasons your web site is not getting much internet traffic. After all your web site took lots of financial and human resources, but unfortunately like so many web sites, it is quite unknown and as a result it does not get enough internet traffic to make it financially viable.

Did you know that about 80 percent of all web site traffic originates from search engines? Yes, it is true! Listing near the top page of search engines and obtaining the attention of your target audience should be a main priority for any web site internet promotion.

And the good news about this is that improving a web site position in search engine pages may be done for free. How? Using search engine optimization (SEO) techniques.

There are many ways to promote a web site. Some promotions are paid and some are free. Among the free ones, the search engine optimization techniques enable web sites to become search engine friendly. In other words, it makes website pages to accept the search engine crawler in a friendly way. These techniques will be some of the steps one will have to use to obtain a better position in search engine’s pages, when searching for specific keywords, related to services or products offered by a web site.

Search engine optimization steps for a web page:

Title:

The html Title tag is a very important element and must include the most important keywords or phrases, which best represent the products or services offered by the web page. It should not contain more than 60 characters.

Keywords:

The html meta Keyword tag should have all the keyword phrases which best represents the products or services offered by the web page. Avoid repeating keywords and bad use of capital letters. It should not contain more than 250 characters.

Description:

The html meta Description tag is a description of the web page, which will be displayed by the search engine. Make sure it contains keywords phrases. Avoid repeating keywords and bad use of capital letters. It should not contain more than 200 characters.

Keywords in Headings:

Keywords in Headings tags (h1) will be interpreted by search engines as being an important keyword relevant to the web page, and it should be looked for and indexed by the search engines.

Web page text:

It is a good practice to include informative text one every page, using natural language and appropriate keywords. It should contain more than 200 words. Informative text should be placed in the html Body section of the web page.

Keywords in Alt Tags:

Every html picture “img” tag should contain an ALT tag with an appropriate description. Keywords should always be used when appropriate.

Keywords in Anchor Tags:

Every html hypertext link “a href “ should contain a TITLE tag with an appropriate description. Keywords should always be used when appropriate.

Robots.txt file:

Make sure there is a robots.txt file in you web site directory. This is a text file created by the webmaster, which will guide the search engine´s crawler when indexing a web site.

There are some cases in which one might not want to have some web pages indexed. This way thru the use of robots.txt, one will have control over which pages will be indexed and made available to the search engines.

User-agent: *

Disallow: /tmp/

Disallow: /data/

HTML code validation:

Search engine’s crawlers become more efficient when indexing web pages with no html errors. Beware that some html errors can make search engine crawlers to give up indexing web pages. So it is recommended for those web pages to be indexed, there should be no html errors.

Links:

Links are very important to search engines. The quality of links and whether it is reciprocal or not, are important factors in evaluating the importance of a web page. Links from web sites with higher page ranks are a plus.

Registering with Directories and Search Engines:

It is very important the registration of a website with directories and search engine web sites. It is a way of telling the world that your web site exists. Avoid using automatic search engine/directory registration.

Search engine optimization has become a very important set of procedures which helps web sites to become more relevant to search engines. To obtain an increase in internet traffic will take some time. It probably will take some kind of additional promotion too. But anybody in need of higher internet traffic, free search engine optimization might be considered his first option.

This article is under GNU FDL license and can be distributed without any previous authorization from the author. However the author´s name and all the URL´s (links) mentioned in the article and biography must be kept.

Show me some well designed logos!

2009-02-25T02:45:00.000-08:00

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