Archive for July, 2005

Fighting A World Title Fight with God

Sunday, July 31st, 2005

The night before Rocky was due to fight Apollo Creed in the world heavyweight title for the world in the famous movie Rocky, he tells his girlfriend that he cannot win the fight. He admits that he was a nobody before he got the offer to fight and that he cannot possibly win the fight, but he tells his girlfriend that no one has ever fought a full fight with Apollo without being knocked out and he would aim to go the distance and be remembered for that. And that is what happens at the end of the fight and the end of the film. Rocky does not win the fight on points but has continued to stand after being knocked over a few times to the end of the fight.

The Christian walk had a Savior in a similar fight. Jesus looked like he lost that fight as he hung on the cross and most of his followers thought he had failed and abandoned Him, but Jesus went the distance.

Paul was another Apostle that seemed out for the count. Beaten with rods on many occasions, stoned twice, shipwrecked and thrown in prison, Paul’s Apostleship wasn’t even seeming to win against the onslaught of false apostles. But today sermons are preached all around the world every single day of the week from the letters Paul penned. Paul said the Christian journey was like a battle, a fight and a race and we as saints have to go the distance.

At 12 years of age I wanted to be an evangelist and now at 39 I am still not in that position. At one stage I wanted to enter Bible College and even entered one, only to lose my car, my license and my job, making it impossible to continue in my studies part time at a place I needed a car to get to and the money from my job to afford. Since then the Lord Jesus has told me quite clearly that He wants me to train direct from the Holy Spirit and not to enter Bible College.

Sometimes going the distance is just going through the motions. Verse by verse, line by line, article by article, book by book, prayer by prayer, church service after church service, prophecy after prophecy, lesson by lesson, repentance followed by living a life more holy and set apart.

You can do a lot more to follow God and prepare yourself for the Kingdom better simply by making the decision that you can go better and do better. Like Rocky you might not win the prize to be the best preacher in the world but when your days are up Jesus will give you the prize for going the distance.

Matthew is one of two people that operate a site at http://www.escapeministries.net Escape ministries is a place where people can be ministered to over the internet, by reading articles, watching videos and receiving personal prophetic words. James and Matthew invite you to visit today to look at some of the articles they have collected and watch some of the video teachings they are setting about to produce for you. You are encouraged to sign up for our monthly newsletter or simply email James or Matthew with any of your comments. We hope that you might bookmark it and come back to visit often as we pursue our mission statement that is found on our home page.

You can visit and view their video’s live at youtube by going direct to http://www.youtube.com/EscapeMinistries

Press Release: Why SEO Experts Should Not Use Press Releases

Sunday, July 31st, 2005

Rumor has it that press releases are the next big thing in the SEO business, and many companies are spending top dollars trying to write the next big press release announcing the next big balloon breaking technology. But is this really the next big thing?

By definition, a Press Release is a kind of news item released by the company on whom the news is being reported. As such, you will have to compete with all the other press releases and hope that your will get picked up.

Why Will Your Press Release Be Trashed?

1) Unless you are writing a press release about Microsoft, Adobe, Sony or one of the other mega-companies, or at least about a company that is relatively well known, forget about it. Journalists and news editors receive thousands of press releases a day and there is no way that they will waste more than a quick glance. So why should you pay a company seven to eight hundred dollars for them sending your press release to thousands of editors and journalists when they are going to junk it anyway?

2) Unless you are announcing a truly revolutionary product or technology (which I assume you are not since you are only interested in using the professionally paid and written press release to boost your search engine rankings), whatever you make up or announce such as some new free deal or new portal offering something unique, your chances of being picked up are very slim. Yes, the PR companies will tell you that they have vast experience in writing Press Releases that will make yours stand out and get picked up but this is not accurate. The only way your PR is going to get picked up is if it truly is something out of the ordinary or something that no one has ever thought off.

3) Unless you plan to spend millions of dollars and then just by sheer volume your site will go ahead in the search engines, this is not a good option. Why? If you send a large number of press releases then these will be placed on the different PR companies websites main page. Since most of these home pages have a very high page rank, your site will get a boost. The question is whether this boost is worth the large amount of money you will put into the PR companies pocket. No it is not. Use that money to buy (though I do not recommend this) links from high-ranked websites and you will pay less and receive more benefit.

4) Any press release, even if it has been accepted, will remain on the different pages for just a short time, making the time and effort and even more so the amount of money you paid fruitless.

Conclusion:

A press release is useful if you wish to contact the press and maybe get some free publicity, but it is of no use if you wish to use it as a tool in order to advance your website in the search engines.

Jack Reider writes press releases for online casinos and casinos en ligne where you can ask him for easier ways to rank well in the search engines.

Affiliate Marketing: A Tool for Making Money on the Internet

Sunday, July 31st, 2005

Affiliate Marketing is a veritable goldmine tool for making money online. This is one sure way you can make thousands of money on the internet.

What is Affiliate Marketing? Affiliate Marketing is a type of internet marketing where one promotes other people’s products. When a product is sold through a marketer, he earns a certain amount of commission, depending on the company. The commission an individual can earn with affiliate program can be as high as 75%.

To start affiliate marketing, you don’t really need to have a website. But you will be at advantage if you have a website. If you don’t have a website, you can start affiliate marketing using Google words. You can read more about Google Adwords at Google’s website. With Google Adwords, you can market Specific products for affiliate which you may decide to join.

How do I Join Affiliate Programs? What a simple question to answer. You can join Affiliate program by just visiting www.clickbank.com to sign up for free. When you sign up with click bank, you will receive a unique user name with which you will be creating affiliate links for companies you may decide to market their products. You can read more on click bank website.

With your unique clickbank user name, you will create a unique hoplink with which sales made through you can be monitored. Each time a sale is made through your affiliate link, your clickbank account will be credited with the appropriate commission entitled to you. The amount of money you make with affiliate program depends on how hard working an creative you are.

Victor Ezeaku is the owner and webmaster of
http://www.vickywebworld.com/
and the
author of How
To Make Money Online With Affiliate Marketing

Be an SEOptimized Web Designer

Sunday, July 31st, 2005

Yes you can brag about your mad design skills and your flashy site effects, but are people actually visiting your site? No matter how amazing you site looks like but if nobody even know about it and you are the only one visiting your site, it’ll just be like a Mosa Lisa inside your room.

Why is it important?

There are three basic things that every site needs to have, a good design (site layout), good functionality (programming) and good traffic (site visits). A site may look good without a need for it to be database driven or written in ASP/PHP. A site may have complete and working programming capabilities. But a site that is unknown to people not good for business.

All websites are designed / developed for one common purpose: to be known. Whether you are trying to sell something, make people join your cause, or just for plain showoff, you need people to visit your site.

What do you need to do?

Read books (download online or from a bookstore) about SEO. Aaron’s book, the SEO Book is a very good book to start learning SEO. Article sites also have ‘SEO’ in their categories, you should read those as well (like this article you are reading now).

You should also join SEO forums and groups and take part in the conversations and take notes from tips and tricks people share on the boards.

Use SEO tools that are readily available online. There are a lot of tools out there but you can start by using the free ones first and if you think you can afford more advanced software and you already know the basics, it’ll be a good investment.

Practice. Try out doing on page optimization, submit your site to directories and check your stats every now and then. Soon you will see people visiting your site from search engine results. You may soon realize that the more backlinks you build the more popular your site will be.

What happens next?

After weeks and months of practice, you will learn that SEO is not that hard as you think. All you need to know are the target keywords, a database of link submission sites and a lot of time and patience to submit to as many sites as possible.

Remember, your sites may look great, but if no one visits it, it’s practically worthless.

Alfredo is a web designer of Ituloy Angsulong Web Design Studio providing design solutions to clients worldwide.

To Survive, You Need To Teach Old Dogs New tricks

Sunday, July 31st, 2005

The sea change that most businesses face today is increasingly becoming the norm rather
than the exception. The change is driven by globalisation, technological and social
dynamics. Hovering around the status quo is like a cancer stricken person waiting for his
condition to get better. If you continue doing the same, things are not going to get better.
There is a saying that you cannot teach old dogs new tricks. To survive in today’s
competitive market, old dogs need to be taught new tricks.

Organisations fail to change because of old ways of doing things. There is unclear vision
as most CEOs are unable to communicate their visions in three minutes so that other
people can understand and embrace it. Also, oftentimes, the vision is not communicated
and obstacles such as bureaucracies are allowed to block the vision.

Management also fails to plant the new behaviour and vision in the company’s values.
They fail to show employees that the new behaviours and approaches can result in
improved performance. Top management fails to develop a shared commitment to the
renewal. The future corporation ought to be less bureaucratic, with fewer levels, more
performance oriented and risk-taking.

Shareholders are increasingly becoming impatient with Chairman and CEOs who are set
in their old ways. If the old dogs do not mend their ways, the shareholders and investors
will speak with their feet and be quick to voice their protest. In March 2004, Sir Philip
Watts, the embattled chairman of Royal Dutch/Shell was forced to resign after the audit.
He was due for retirement the following spring. One of the largest investors remarked
that they wanted more independent executives rather than lifers.

Michael Eisner of Walt Disney was stripped of his chairman position but remained as the CEO. He has been the head of the Walt Disney Company since 1984. It was popularly believed that
shareholders voted against him to register their rebuke against Michael Eisner’s
leadership.

In contrast, Well Fargo forgo the 150 year of history by eliminating all waste – sold away
the corporate jet, cars, free drinks to staff etc. Conversely, another 150 year bank, Bank
of America did not respond as rapidly with the banking deregulations. Subsequently,
BOA did learn to reduce waste, however, it had already lost valuable time to Well Fargo.

In the area of marketing, companies still continue to think that marketing is selling. They
focus on selling the products to customers and neglected maintaining a relationship with
them. They are only interested in selling to new customers and neglected the existing
and old ones.

It is perhaps more glamorous and exciting to chase for the new accounts, when studies have found that it is cheaper to keep old customers than acquire new ones. For instance, many companies see the potential of the Internet but never make the change.

The bookshops continue with expensive brochures and advertisements in the media,
when more and more customers are using online purchases. One day, these bookshops
woke up to the fact that Amazon.com overtook them because Amazon.com does not have
expensive warehouses to stock their books and people are purchasing online.

The acceptance of the Internet as a tool for business has saved many companies from
going out of business. It helps small companies compete against the big companies as on
the website, there is little differentiation. It is probably the best and most cost-effective
medium to promote a company’s products and services and generate new sales. Nicholas
Negroponte, an American writer and director, MIT media laboratory said: “The Net is a
10.5 on the Richter scale of economic change.”

Some moderations are required in throwing out all old things. One must not always
equate ‘old’ with obsolete and ‘new’ with best. It is also not wise to hastily throw away
any old and workable traditions and conventions. They may require modification, but
they are the result of the experience of many generations. Also, the decades of
downsizing have eliminated many staff with many years of rich experience and expertise
which new staff will take many years to learn. Therefore, old staff do have a lot of value
to the company.

Employees go through several stages during a change and re-orientation process. They
are namely, denial, frustration, confusion, acceptance and finally commitment. There
may be some resistance at the beginning through denial, frustration and confusion. But
once they see the value of the changes, they will accept them and be committed to them.
However, one has to be aware that if you leave old things alone, you leave them as they
are. But you do not. If you leave an old thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change.
The key is that the champions of tomorrow see an opportunity, which their competitors
too can see. The difference is that champions take action to make the change.

Dr Mike Teng (DBA, MBA, BEng) is the author of best-selling book, “Corporate Turnaround: Nursing a Sick Company back to Health.” He is known as the “Turnaround CEO in Asia” by the media.Check out the Corporate Turnaround ebooks and video at http://www.CorporateTurnAroundExpert.com

8 Ideas for Decorating a Victorian Bedroom

Sunday, July 31st, 2005

For many a Victorian style bedroom has an antique but typically feminine feel to. The Victorian era started in the 1830’s and was around until 1900 (when Queen Victoria died) and there are many variations to be had relating to the style of a Victorian bedroom but hopefully the points provided below will help you when decorating a Victorian bedroom for yourself.

1. Bed

A Victorian bed should be showy wooden affair or made from either cast-iron, brass or a combination of both these metals. You may be able to get a skilled carpenter to produce or adapt a full bed to queen size or merging twin beds together to produce a king size. But if you really do not have the money to spend on such a luxury there are many modern reproduction beds available at a fraction of the cost.

2. Dressing the Bed

The bed should be elaborately dressed with canopies and drapes, lots of pillows, flounces, ribbons and other trims. If you can search out your local fabric store and see if they have period type quilts etc., available.

3. Tables

It is important that you include either a marble topped table or cabinet in your room design as well as a wicker, bamboo or faux bamboo table, round or skirted table as a nightstand. Why not visit your local junk or antique shop to see what turned and carved wooden tables they may have for inclusion in your design from that era.

4. Lighting

It is vital that you get the lighting right in decorating a Victorian bedroom and this should include the classic ginger-jar style, or those that are made from porcelain, crystal or brass. You may even decide to use candlestick holders which have been transformed to be used as a light. Under each lamp you should place a crocheted doily for obtaining the authentic period look.

5. Dressers & Chest of Drawers

These should be typically made from either dark stained oak, mahogany or walnut and be embellished with carvings, pediments and have either ornate brass or carved wooden drawer pulls. You may be lucky to find ones that also have a candle stand, tilting mirror and marble top to them.

6. Flooring

To provide that authentic Victorian look to your bedroom use Oriental area rugs or straw type mats. You may if you wish us hooked or machine loomed rugs that have a floral or a swirly abstract pattern on them.

7. Accessories

Such accessories you should include in your room are period pictures (include subjects such as botanicals, children, maidens (young women) and animals in these pictures). Also include an elaborate golden or stained wood framed mirror in to your design. If you can also place fresh flowers in period style vases in the room and visit your local junk or antique shop to find some Victorian style collectibles for inclusion in your design such as china dishes and figurines.

8. Windows

These should be dressed with full curtains or drapes which have ruffles, valances, braid, lace, bows and tassels on them (but you don’t need to have every just one or two will suffice). The materials your should be using to dress your windows should be either velvet, brocade, delicate florals and then layered with lace sheers.

So decorating a Victorian bedroom can be quite easy all you need to do is just carry out a little research and hopefully you will be able to design and decorate the bedroom of your dreams.

Lee Dobbins writes about bedroom decorating. Visit http://www.bedroom-designs-and-decorations.com/ for more great bedroom decorating ideas.

Buy To Let

Sunday, July 31st, 2005

When investing in anything you should always check and double check to make sure you are doing the right thing. Property is no different. Since 2002 property has more than trebled. With this constant upward spiral of property prices it is always the cautious that end up on top. With the housing market being up at the highest level ever it will get hard for the big increases and people should look to investment property and make sure you have the sums right. Your yield should be at least 6% minimum this will hopefully guard against future mishaps. Always use your debt wisely avoid high fee credit cards. Release existing equity you have to fund new investments.

With interest rates in the UK on the rise you need to tread very carefully. When letting do the basic things. Check your tenants out with credit checks etc just because they roll up in a flashy car and suit means nothing. Make sure your insurance is up to date. Get your gas certification and wiring. In basic terms be organized. In these times of just making it pay you cannot afford to be unorganised.

If The UK hasn’t got what you are looking for look further a field in places like Berlin or France. The rental markets over on these countries is higher than the UK with rental yields at average 11.5% this makes good business sense.

All of the advise listed above is my opinion only and should not be taken literally. Always get the correct advice by the professional in you field.

http://www.Landlord.co.uk

What Is A Thunderclap Headache?

Sunday, July 31st, 2005

Have you heard of the term thunderclap headache? Honestly, I have not until I started reading about headaches. My sympathies go out with those who suffer from thunderclap headaches as I found out that they can be extremely severe.

A thunderclap headache comes very quickly. In fact, within one minute, the pain will be extremely severe and debilitating. Thunderclap headaches will have no apparent cause such as an injury, poor sleep or dehydration. You will also notice that over the counter pain relievers will not affect thunderclap headaches.

The headache itself can last approximately last a stretch of as many as 11 days in a state that is less severe. A lot of times, thunderclap headaches can be the sign of a more serious problem. In fact, there are some researchers who believe that thunderclap headaches are a warning sign that a blood vessel is about to burst inside of your head. In fact, 50% of those who had bleeding in their brain had a thunderclap headache first.

Your doctor should conduct tests to make sure that there is no medical problem linked to your thunderclap headache. The first test that they should do is a CT scan. This computerized x-ray can see the various sections of your brain. After this test is completed you should have an MRI done. This test uses radio waves and a magnetic field in order to see the structure of your brain. Depending upon what the doctor finds when these tests are completed they may order more testing. One such test is a cerebral angiogram. This test is done in order to look for a cerebral aneurysm. Another test that is done is a spinal tap. This test takes spinal fluid and tests it for abnormalities in white blood count or proteins.

Your doctor is looking for numerous potentially dangerous brain issues. One of these issues is a tear in the membrane around your brain and spinal cord. This may allow for the leakage of spinal fluid. Your doctor should also be looking for any potential bleeding problems in your brain. This includes a ruptured blood vessel, a bulging vessel that is ready to burst, a blood clot or a tear in an artery that leads to the brain. Any of these things are considered potentially dangerous. If your tests confirm any of these things then you will need to have immediate emergency surgery in order to repair the bleeding. Luckily when these things are caught early enough a skillful brain surgeon can correct the flaw.

Females over the age of 45 years old are more prone to thunderclap headaches. If you have a sudden experience of a thunderclap headache, you should take note. If such headaches happen often enough, you should go see a doctor. Your headaches may indicate something dangerous or they may also mean nothing at all.

Your doctor may prescribe you some medications for these headaches. They are either in the form of nasal sprays or injections. These treatments act instantly to relieve your pain.

More research is now being done on thunderclap headaches. Hopefully, more light will be shed on this debilitating headache.

Overconsumption of drugs for headache relief can result in rebound headaches and worsening migraines. Get more information on natural headache remedies here on this site at http://www.headacheremedysecrets.com

How To Keep Your Brain Healthy And Your Mind As Sharp As A Tack - Whatever Your Age

Sunday, July 31st, 2005

Brain health shouldn’t be something you first start thinking about in middle- or old-age. Just as you need to exercise your body throughout life to keep it healthy so too does your brain require a daily workout to keep it vital and alert.

It is common for people to experience a gradual decline in their mental abilities as they age. We are told that this is normal and is the result of age-related structural changes in the brain - and that such changes are inevitable.

But you know what… there’s a lot of evidence coming from the latest research into brain health that brain aging is only ‘normal and inevitable’ if you do nothing to prevent it. This means that it doesn’t have to happen to you – that you can keep your brain healthy and in ‘tip-top’ shape, enjoy being creative and improve your memory with just a little bit of effort… whatever your age.

The question is how…?

Research findings point to three main ways to support your brain: healthy diet, mental activity and getting physical with the brain. The first two have been promoted for many years. However, the third - getting physical with the brain - is not widely known yet may well prove to be the most powerful factor in maintaining brain health.

What does ‘getting physical’ with your brain mean? To make the explanation simple I’ll define getting physical as anything that is clearly not diet related nor a mental activity such as puzzles, number sequence exercises, memory games, practicing musical instruments and so on.

So what can you do to get physical with your brain? Plenty! In fact, as you’ll discover shortly, there are many powerful ‘hands-on’ ways of using physical activity to boost your brain-power and keep you as sharp as a tack regardless of your age.

And, because they are based solely on natural health principles, they help your brain to help itself without having to resort to popping pills, taking supplements, mood enhancers or anything like that.

What’s more, you’re likely to find getting physical with your brain so easy and enjoyable that you can readily picture yourself doing it for life.

Here are some of the factors you should consider when developing a strategy to keep your brain healthy, alert and vital:

Physical exercise:
Physical exercise can encourage a healthy brain to function optimally in ways that are not widely known or their value appreciated. For example, exercise can help the brain by promoting the production of new neurons (brain cells) and strengthening the connections between neurons.

Reduce stress levels:
Stress plays havoc with the functioning of the brain and the body systems it controls. In particular, the sustained presence of stress hormones in the bloodstream can damage brain cells.

Encourage the flow of oxygenated blood to the brain:
Increasing blood flow and oxygen can help support the survival of new neurons and foster neuron ‘firing’. In simple terms, ‘firing’ means a neuron connecting with its neighbours – which is how messages are transmitted to and from the brain.

Sexual Energy:
Promote the generation and circulation of sexual energy around the body can play a key part in supporting mental health as it fosters, for example, the movement of chemicals called neurotransmitters between neurons. These play a critical role in the communication of information between nerve cells. As an illustration, the neurotransmitter serotonin associated with sexual behaviour and arousal is involved in a number of functions including influencing mood and alertness.

Control the breathing rate:
Another important factor in optimising brain health is the practice of slowing down the breathing rate as that can enhance the activity of the hypothalamus and the pituitary and pineal glands, the optimum performance of which is central to the maintenance of both physical and mental health.

Challenge the brain:
Challenge the brain with a variety of ‘new’ experiences – walking backwards is a simple example. By experiencing such unusual patterns of behaviour the brain is stimulated and there is some evidence that the brain can actually increase in size.

Stimulate the senses:
The bottom line here is that you should take every opportunity to engage your eyes and smell sensors by continually sampling your surroundings – consciously keep your eyes moving so you present your brain with new information to analyse and process while you ‘sniff’ the environment in search of smells and odours for your brain to identify.

In conclusion it is fair to say that all the above elements can have a marked positive influence on brain health in their own right. However, it is the synergistic impact of using them in combination that is likely to provide the most powerful benefits.

Michael Coleman holds graduate qualifications in mathematics, science and education and certificates in metaphysics and Reiki. For more information on keeping your brain vital and alert for life without spending a single cent his latest book “How To keep Your Brain Healthy” is available at http://www.knowledge-download.com/brainhealth

Help Children with Diabetes to Cope at School

Sunday, July 31st, 2005

Parents of children with diabetes should take the initiative and inform the school’s principal and teachers of their children’s diabetic conditions. The teachers should then disseminate information relating to diabetes to the class, so everyone that the child with diabetes come in touch with at school, will be prepared for any emergency and provide any necessary support.

A diabetic child has the same aspirations and dreams as other children and it is important that they are treated in just the same way. Whenever they request to have a drink, have some food or to visit the washroom, they should be taken seriously. Those are calls from their body telling them to do what’s necessary to keep them healthy. Children with diabetes should also be able to communicate freely with others, be it at home or in school.

Classmates should be informed about the child’s diabetic condition in a way that the class would treat him or her just like themselves. The class should be educated of any possible diabetic emergencies so that they would be able to react accordingly.

So how would you portray the child’s diabetic conditions to the class and what do you tell them? One of the ways is to ask a family member to provide information to the class and tell them what diabetes actually is. The family member should be prepared to answer questions as children are naturally inquisitive and would want honest and truthful answers to their enquiries.

The information provided should be told in such a way that they would be able to comprehend. For example, presentations in the form of cartoons or pictorial diagrams would help them understand what they are being told about diabetes more easily.

Inform them what diabetes is and how it affects the body and also that the diabetic child needs to take shots to control the disease. Tell them about maintaining blood sugar levels, the importance of it and how it affects the brain and the nervous system. Showing how insulin works in the body might be an important part of the presentation.

Explaining how chemical changes that take place in the body, causing the blood sugar level to become low and its effects would help the class understand more about the diabetic child’s condition. Signs and symptoms of low blood sugar are that the diabetic child might become irate easily, become temperamental, have headaches, fall asleep unexpectedly or become confused over simple things.

Diabetic children might sometimes be having so much fun and become engrossed with what they are doing and not notice that they have signs of low blood sugar. It is important for diabetic children to refrain from taking simple sugars. Although that might be the case, eating sugar cubes or drinking a fruit juice would help to raise their sugar levels back to the norm.

The children should also know that when a diabetic person reacts to the chemical changes in the body, they might act shaky, start perspiring and look pale. When the diabetic child is taking a test or examination, their blood sugar level might drop and those signs and symptoms might show, requiring them to have some snacks to keep their blood sugar at the norm and not let it drop too low.

For more information on Diabetes Care and Diabetes Symptoms in Children please visit http://diabetescare.healthorfitness.com, a site that provides useful resources and information on Diabetes.