Speedy Gambling

A Sat Nav system can be very valuable when you are on the road. Whether you are departing on a very long trip or just simply commuting to work each week, a reliable satellite navigation system is well worth the money. However, before you get your hands on a TomTom or any other GPS navigation unit, take your time to consider how frequently you will use it. If you only plan on requiring it for summer vacations, you will buy an entirely different item than you would do if you aim to use your item daily.

If you are going to be using your GPS unit mostly for family outings where it is likely for you to have a co-pilot to help you navigate, you possibly do not require a device that comes with voice activation. Your partner will be able to press buttons & enter instructions while you focus on driving carefully. However, if you plan to use your navigation unit for individual company trips, think about getting your hands on a Sat Nav system with voice activation. That way, you can go through cities & continue to keep both hands on the wheel whilst entering or modifying your intended target. Most makes of GPS navigation systems, such as TomTom, have units on the market both with and without voice commands.

Obtaining the right satellite navigation system, can make a long journey in your vehicle much more enjoyable for both you and your colleagues. As opposed to a general voice providing you orders, several systems come with amusing or celebrity voices which you can select from. If your family needs a short break at some stage in your trip, a GPS navigation unit can aid you in finding a good place to get a snack to eat & go to the toilet. When you are ready to return to the road, your device will recalculate your course and get you back on the motorway without any concerns. Therefore, this means no more examining road maps & atlases each time you take a break.

For the driver, an excellent GPS navigation unit can without doubt save you a great deal of time in the morning rush to work. A lot of the more pricey systems deliver real-time traffic announcements. If traffic is backed-up due to a smash or road maintenance, your navigation system will recommend a different route. These traffic broadcasts can save you a extensive amount of time in traffic jams, therefore getting you to your place of work on schedule.

In spite of how you intend on using your Sat Nav system, there is a model available that will suit your needs completely. It is imperative to make sure that you explore all your options properly ahead of you making your final conclusion. Your Sat Nav system will be there no matter where the road takes you. Find a diverse selection of technology products such as; sat navs, lcd tvs and laptops from leading brands online.

Cheap domain name registration and hosting has in the years become very common place. You can now host unlimited domains with some hosts for as little as $10 per month. You get massive disk space and much more.

Thanks to the low cost of domain names and hosting fees it is possible to own several websites without breaking the bank. You can get good hosting plans for as little as $12 per year and domain names for just $2.95!

Cheap Domain Name Registration

Cheap domain name registration is freely available these days, infact my hosting service for my website gave me a free domain name and setup as part of my package.All domains must be registered with a registrar that has been certified by ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers). There are hundreds of registrars and their prices vary considerably. Although registrars are closely regulated, they are permitted to offer their services through third parties; so many web hosts offer a domain name registration service even if they are not a registrar. The price of a domain name will usually be higher when dealing with these third-party services. Domain names are usually registered for a minimum of one year.

Domain Hosting

Once you have purchase your domain name, in order for your site to be visible online you will need to have your site hosted. For this you will require the services of a domain hosting company. Here again, there are hundreds of hosting companies and fees vary considerably. If you are not aufae’ with the various technologies / functionality that a good domain hosting company should provide don’t be alarmed or put off. The easiest option is to go with a large, well branded host, like bluehost.

If you prefer you could contact various domain hosts and enquire what technologies are offered with their package. Remember here, that these companies offer a range of packages…so you need to choose a package that suits YOUR needs. Typically packages differ in functionality and storage space. eg. a more expensive package will allow for a shopping cart and a credit card processing facility. If you do not intend selling products from your site then this is not for you; many domain hosting companies offer you the option to upgrade at a later stage so don’t feel you need to have all technologies / functionality upfront.

After sale support is, in my opinion, of the utmost importance when deciding on a hosting company to host your newly acquired or transferred domain name. If you are opting for a lesser known hosting company this factor will be hard to gauge upfront. Hence it is my opinion that you stick with the better know, branded names. These are hosting companies that enjoy a large portion of the market share, people have being using them and can vouch for their reliability. Myself, I was introduced to bluehost by a personal friend who had already being using their services for many years. I have being with bluehost, at the time of writing this article, for three years and I have nothing but praise for this well run organisation. The support is fast, efficient and personal. As claimed in there advertisement up-time is 99%.

Managing Multiple Domains

There are several ways to manage multiple domains so it is important to know what your options are and the advantages and disadvantages of each method.

The most basic choice when administering multiple domains is whether or not to do so with the same host. Most hosts offer packages which can be set up to allow several sites on one account, or allow individual sites to be operated under separate accounts.

You may have an existing website and are happy with the services your host provides. If you decide to start a new website using the same host, you will have the reassurance of dealing with a company you are familiar with and trust. You may also get a discount for each additional account you open with the same host. On the other hand, using a new host for a second (or third or fourth) website can allow you to compare the quality of hosting offered by different companies. In addition, separate hosts will provide each of your web sites with a different IP address.

Having different IP addresses can be an important factor if you plan to link the sites together to aid in search engine optimization. Incoming links are an important indicator of the importance of a website, so a site with a lot of incoming links can get a higher position in search engines like Google. If all the links are coming from the same IP address, however, their value may be discounted. Hosting your various sites with different hosting companies guarantees that each site has a different IP address. Individual IP addresses, however, are available as an extra from most web hosts. For a yearly fee each website can have its own unique IP address. This can help with search engine ranking and is also needed if you want to have a secure connection (https) on your site.

If you decide to host all your sites with the same company, there are three basic ways to go. Each site could have its own account; you could sign up for a re-seller account; or you could get a dedicated server account.

As a re-seller you are acting as an agent for the hosting company. You are allocated a certain amount of disk space and bandwidth and you are free to use them as you please. There may be a limit to the number of websites you can host with your re-seller account, but if there is space left over after using this account for your own sites you could earn some extra income by selling accounts to other people. The advantage of a re-seller account is that all the technical details are taken care of by the hosting company. Some will even provide gateways for billing your customers.

A dedicated server account gives you control of all the resources of an entire server. You are free to setup as many websites as you wish and allocate disk space and bandwidth as you see fit. The downside to this type of account is that you are responsible for maintaining the server. This can require a significant level of technical know-how so if you don’t have that knowledge or don’t feel like learning about it, dedicated servers are not for you. You can, of course, go with a managed dedicated server. The downside of this is the higher cost involved.

Hosting all your sites with one host can offer lots of advantages but there is one major disadvantage – if your server goes down, all your sites go down. If you are depending on your sites for income this can be a disastrous situation. For this reason, it is a good idea to have at least one of your sites with a different host. If your sites are essential for your livelihood and you can’t afford any down time whatsoever, you would be advised to host everything with (at least) two hosts.

A Few Word Of Caution About Free Domain Name Registration and Free Domain Hosting

Remember that cheap domain name registration and hosting does not mean that you may opt for the free options out there. Free hosting is definitely an area you will do well to stay away from. Free domain hosting almost always mean no customer support, unreliable up-time and alot of dowm-time. Free domain name registration means that you DO NOT own that domain name but merely ‘renting’ it via. a third party…a definite no…no.

Author: Roshan Naidu
Sub-Domain URL: http://cheapdomainnameregistration.cyberprofit.info/
Primary Domain URL: http://makemoneyonline.cyberprofit.info/

The Lessons of Gift-Giving for Doing Your Market Research

How is gift-giving like doing market research? This isn’t a riddle! With the gift-giving season rapidly approaching, let’s look at the lessons we can apply from giving the perfect gift to testing a new business idea or researching a niche.

Let’s say you’re considering taking the leap from salary to solo, ready to test a business idea you’ve been nurturing for awhile. You’ve been advised repeatedly to do due diligence and subject your idea to strenuous market research before setting out. If you’re like many of us, you find the assignment intimidating: too impersonal, too coldly analytical. This is where the metaphor of gift-giving can help, suggesting a user-friendly approach to get you started. From there you can build on your momentum to go on to the more cerebral aspects important in your decision, researching market trends and analyzing financial data.

First, a personal confession. I have a long-standing aversion to coffeetable books. It goes back to years of receiving them as gifts from my husband, in spite of subtle, and then not-so-subtle, expressions of disinterest. I finally brought a close to their annual appearances when I said to him, with something other than loving kindness in my voice, “Just because you like coffeetable books does not make them attractive gifts for me!”

What’s the lesson here for market-testing a new business idea, or searching for a good niche? Think of your many skills, talents, and ideas as a reservoir of potential gifts, offerings you could contribute to the world. And now think of the person – the “buyer” or prospective client – who would be receiving the gift. Half of gift-giving is knowing what you want to give, and the other half is assessing how the gift will be received. Stand in the shoes of the receiver. Will the gift provide value? Will it meet a need, solve a problem, enhance the quality of life? And how durable will its value be? Will it end up in next year’s Goodwill box?

Julie wanted to explore a new consulting business idea in which she drew on her technical expertise and familiarity with emerging technologies as well as a flair for creative problem solving to offer to home office professionals. When she set out to determine whether these professionals saw sufficient value in her services to pay the hourly fee she needed, she found that the occasional one did, but the contracts weren’t large enough and there wasn’t enough repeat business.

Here’s where Julie got creative on her own behalf. She recognized she needed to rethink how she was going to package her services and whom she was trying to reach. She also realized that people, her prospective clients, might talk more freely and willingly about their vision for their businesses and their challenges when they weren’t talking directly to a potential vendor. So she called together several friends who were in related businesses and designed some questions she needed answers to. Here they are, along with the underlying principle that can be applied to any market niche:

What technology would help you save time and do more of what you enjoy? (speaking to the universal desire to work less for more reward)

What technical problem(s) drive you crazy and what would you pay to be rid of them? (speaking to the emotional side of being in business)

What’s your budget for technical upgrades and support? is it covering your needs? (assessing financial viability)

These questions can easily be modified to lead you to the relevant information for your particular business idea. By committing yourself to genuine conversations with potential clients that explore what it’s like to be in their shoes -their dreams, their needs and challenges – you can tap your natural empathy, curiosity, and intuitive listening and put a friendly face on market research, bringing real value to yourself and the other person.

In closing, let’s look at the four principles of gift-giving as they apply to exploring markets for your business idea.
1. Have a spirit of inquiry about the other person.
Remember you’re inquiring about level of interest in your idea. You’re not trying to sell or convince anyone of its merits.
2. The best gift (or service) is one that improves the overall quality of life.
You can move beyond simply fixing a problem by looking for the bigger picture (for instance, a fitness consultant who understands her client’s exercise preferences and lifestyle stress points in designing a workout routine) or offering stepped up service (showing genuine interest in the client’s success).
3. They know best!
Whether or not you think you know what your potential clients’ needs or goals are is irrelevant.
4. You undoubtedly have more than one gift (business idea) in you.
Don’t get overly attached to this one!

Good luck, and happy gift giving!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Nina Ham is an internationally certified women’s business coach and a licensed psychotherapist. Her company, Success from the Inside Out, offers teleclasses for creating sustainable business success and has an upcoming teleclass on Defining Your Niche for coaches, consultants and therapists. Visit her website at www.SuccessfromtheInsideOut.com and subscribe to her E-zine.

The 2005 Victory Hammer blows away every competitor on the manufacturing side with a 250mm rear tire for the Victory Hammer. The Victory Hammer has the fattest ever fitted rear tire to be attached to a mass produced motorcycle. It is at least 50mm wider than the competition. It will turn heads.

The Victory Hammer is no doubt an undeniably a motorcycle with attitude. The Victory’s Hammer debuts Victory’s new 100cubic inch 6-speed power train. When you ride the Victory Hammer, you will never mistake it for its smaller Victory siblings: Kingpin, 8-Ball, Vegas. By smaller, I mean smaller engine displacement. I own a Kingpin with the 92 cubic inch engine. I could use the extra boost in power the Hammer provides when hauling a passenger. After all, it’s all about the horsepower.

The Victory Hammer definitely feels different from a traditional cruiser. The Victory Hammer is very balanced and predictable. The Victory Hammer also feels lighter and more balanced than its smaller Victory siblings: Kingpin, 8-Ball, Vegas.

Even if The Victory Hammer’s disposition steers towards the straight-line dragster, there is still enough handling for the twisty turns and high-speed cornering. You won’t keep up with the sport bikes that you once rode, but you won’t lose site of them either.

The Victory Hammer has seen spiked interest at the various motorcycle shows. While other manufacturers are offering more of the same, Victory comes out with a motorcycle that gets everyone saying, “Wow, what is that and when can I get one.” Now that The Victory Hammer is arriving at your local Victory dealership, hurry up and see one because they are selling faster than imagined. There are not even any bikes in the shops for demo rides.

You may be looking at the fat 250mm rear tire and wonder, “For whom did Victory build the Hammer?” What was their target consumer? Was it the chopper show watchers? Maybe? It is my opinion that the target consumer for the badass Victory Hammer is the experienced rider, someone that owns, or has owned, sport bikes. These are riders that have reached the stage where they do not require going quite so fast or having the desire to be stuck in the racer’s crouch position.

Some basic Hammer specifications: The Hammer has a 5-gallon fuel tank. Cruising at approximately 70mph, this bike averages 40MPG. 100 cubic inch displacement, 50-degree V-Twin, 76 rear-whell hp and 86 foot-pounds torque. Frame has been narrowed for cornering clearance. Six-speed transmission, with the sixth gear being for overdrive. The Hammer has new primary gears, pump drive, and a new cam drive.

Someone at Victory should get a raise, because the concept to production of the Victory Hammer is a real winner.

Impressions from new Victory Hammer owners:
I will say the Hammer is, in my opinion, one of the coolest looking production bikes on the market. As far as the rear tire being the largest in the production industry, I believe it is. But the Rocket III comes close with a 240mm. The Hammer is not the best handling bike made, but it does handle well. It’s not the fastest, but it is fast. It’s not the most comfortable, but it is comfortable. But after riding for 75 miles today, and having to head home because of the incoming rains, I just can’t get the grin off my face. It’s just plain cool. It’s like a super-sexy woman. It has great curves, big jugs, a nice a$$, and real attitude.

Contributing author to Cycle Solutions. http://www.CycleSolutions.net
http://www.CycleSolutions.net

Today’s applications – either for the Web or standalone – are starting to focus more and more on the user interface. The time when you had to write lines and lines of commands or go through several menus to execute a certain task has passed. Developers have now implemented simple wizards, with on-screen help near each important element of the application, which will make even the most complicated task look like a walk in the park. And the easiest and most efficient way to create user-friendly interfaces is to add self-explanatory icons. These small images that take a couple dozens of pixels will most of the times have more meaning than a full paragraph of text. It’s more comfortable and efficient to insert an icon than it is to write some text explaining a certain function.
Icons are very important to the user-interface. People want to use an application’s features to the maximum, and don’t like to it when they can’t find how to complete a specific task. This is why developers should always create shortcuts to the main tasks that can be accomplished using their application. These shortcut items must catch the user’s attention, so adding icons will do the trick in most of the cases. The icons must be related to that certain task, so, for example, a disk icon would be a great visual enhancement for a “Save” button, as a printer icon would fit perfectly inside a “Print” button. A good set of icons in the interface will greatly improve the communication between the user and the application. Icons are colorful and, in most cases, larger than the description text of the application feature they relate to; this way, they are a lot easier to be spotted.

Most of today’s applications use icons, even though pretty much all developers don’t bother to implement custom designed icons into their applications. Actually, settling with the operating system’s default stock icons is not such a bad thing as some people might think. Computer users might sometimes have some problems adapting to new applications, especially if they have different interfaces than the applications already installed on the users’ computers. What happens if you want to save and you’re looking for a disk icon, but you can’t find it because the developer decided to use a star icon? If so, there will be a poor communication between the user and the application, because the interface’s icons are different from the ones the user is used to. Application developers should not fall into this trap just because they like some other icons and they don’t want to use the same old default system icons, because it would do more bad than good. The default system icons are preferred because most applications use them, so users will learn to use your application a lot faster. The functions and commands will be easier to understand, because users will be able to faster identify the iconic symbols.

If a developer wants to give their application a distinct look, they should use professional, custom-made icons, especially designed for their application. Today, such services are affordable, and you will be able to tell the designer how you want the icons to look like. In most cases, you shouldn’t go with a completely different look than the system’s icons (for the reasons described above), but you should try to give them a unique, personal touch; the application will stand out from the crowd and will look a lot better than the other ones, thus attracting more users. Changing colors, for example, is the easiest way to get new, yet similar icons.

To have a good communication between the user and the application, developers must predict all the possible problems that the interface could cause its users. Are the buttons too small? Are they too big? Can the toolbars be moved around the screen? How about the menus, can users add new items to them? Also, can they replace the icons and other graphics with some of their own? How about users with special needs?

Unfortunately, there are a lot of developers that disregard such problems, and create rigid interfaces, which cannot be changed by the users to better suit them. A simple answer to this problem is to create multiple skins, with different colors and different icons. The application should have a “standard” skin to start with, and then a few different skins, for example a minimalistic skin with only a few main buttons and large icons, or an “expanded” skin with many toolbars and buttons, each with their own small icon. Also, a skin with high contrast colors and icons will be very appreciated by the users with eye problems. Apart from all these, developers should also allow users to create their own custom skin and use different icons.

There are multiple benefits from using icons in an application interface. No matter whether an application uses the operating system’s default icons or has custom-made icons designed especially for it, there must be some form of graphics in it, otherwise people might find it harder to use. This may happen because most of today’s application use icons to ease the learning of the application. Because most applications use similar icons in certain tasks – for example a printer icon for printing or a disk button for saving files – it’s a lot faster for users to click on those buttons, therefore they will remember it next time they use that application, or any other application for that matter. Even if later on advanced users will choose to use shortcut keys on the keyboard instead of clicking with the mouse on buttons in the toolbars, it’s really important that for starters they will use the toolbar, so icons will be very important in the communication with the application.

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Your lens is an essential element to good photographs. It’s not just your camera. People spend thousands of dollars on a good camera and neglect the lens.

Change that around! Make sure you buy a good camera lens when purchasing a camera. Buy a good camera as well, but don’t neglect a good camera lens.

Why? Your camera is just the ‘holder’ for the photograph. The lens is what your camera sees all your shots through. A good lens is essential to clear and sharp photos.

With most compact digital cameras, you can’t change the lens. So in that case, don’t just buy a good camera, ensure it also has a good lens.

Avoid a plastic digital camera lens because it doesn’t have the clarity of a glass lens.

What model of lens?

Stick with camera lenses from well known manufacturers like Nikon, Canon and Pentax. Ensure you purchase a lens that works with your camera too. A Nikon camera lens usually won’t work well with a Canon camera.

There are specialty lens manufacturers like Carl Zeiss, Leica and Leupold. If you’re a beginner, don’t worry about these lenses until you are more advanced as they come with very high prices and it’s hard to justify the price for the small increase in quality.

Types of Camera Lens

The most common lenses are : Wide Angle, Normal and Telephoto. The type of lens is determined by the Focal Length of the lens. See below. A Zoom Lens is simply a lens that can change Focal Length from a Wide Angle to a Telephoto (or somewhere inbetween).

There are a number of things to look for when purchasing a camera lens.

Lens Focal Length

The Focal Length of a lens determines the amount of magnification and angle of vuew the lens can see. The Focal Length is measured in mm. It’s the Focal Length that determines if the lens is a:

- Wide Angle; small magnification, wide angle of view. 20mm to 35mm

- Traditional, or Normal; 50mm

- Telephoto; high magnification, narrow angle of view; 105mm to 300mm.

- Zoom; A Zoom lens can change it’s focal length to zoom in. A Zoom lens might have a Focal Length of between 50mm and 150mm.

Some lenses are interchangeable between film cameras and digital cameras, but you need to be aware that the effective focal length CHANGES between film and digital. The focal lengths I describe above are for FILM cameras and need to be multiplied by 1.6 to get the effective focal length on a digital camera. So using a film 35mm lens on a digital camera has an effective focal length of 56mm.

What does this mean for you? It means that you won’t get as wide angle on a digital camera as you would on a film camera using the same lens. A 35mm lens which gives a medium wide angle on a film camera acts as a traditional lens on a digital camera

This is a complex subject, so I can’t go into too much detail here. If you need more help, the best person to speak to would be your local camera store’s resident expert.

Lens Speed

The ’speed’ of a digital camera lens also defines a lens. The speed is determined in f-stops and is similar to the f-stop aperture setting on your camera. Faster lenses are more expensive and usually heavier.

Focusing Distance

This is the minimum distance from the camera lens that a subject must be to be in focus. Don’t worry about getting a camera with a close focusing distance. Concentrate on a telephoto instead.

More Advanced Features

More expensive lenses have more advanced features.

- Vibration Reduction. A feature called ‘vibration reduction’ keeps images sharper when shooting in low light. They help to counter any vibration in the camera. Try to find a digital camera lens with this feature.

- USM USM stands for Ultrasonic Motor. This feature of Canon lenses gives you a high speed auto focus but the main benefit is the ‘motor’ is almost silent, so you don’t disturb people around you when your camera is focussing.

- Filter Thread. When purchasing a half-decent lens, it should have a filter thread. This is a thread that allows you to screw on a filter (such as a polariser) to help when photographing difficult situations. Even if you don’t need filters right now. it’s handy to purchase a lens with a thread so you can add a filter later.

You get what you pay for

Generally the more expensive the lens, the better it is. More expensive lenses usually have a higher number of glass elements in the lens, which also makes them heavier.

Final Notes

While it is important to choose good quality camera lens, for beginners it isn’t as important as good composition. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking you can only take a great picture with an expensive top-of-the-line lens. A badly composed picture won’t look great with a great camera lens.

I don’t mean to discount the importance of a good quality lens. A good rule is to only add to your lens collection only when you have a specific need for a particular digital camera lens.

Do your research and your homework first, and find the lens that suits both you and your camera.

David Peterson has a great love of photography and has created a series of free tips at http://www.digital-photo-secrets.com/ to help digital photography users everywhere take better photos.

DoubleClick’s recent survey indicated that over 88% of online consumers have made a purchase as a result of receiving permission-based email.

The most common forms of permission-based emails are ezines or email newsletters. Currently there are hundreds of thousands of ezines available on the internet.

Ezines are excellent tools for generating new and follow-up sales, driving more pageviews, building customer loyalty, and improving sales credibility and brand awareness.

Even though ezines are vital to the success of every online business, there are some marketers who unknowingly kill their ezines with not-so-wise marketing methods. I have highlighted some of the killer mistakes below.

Killer #1 .. Who needs permission? Just mail ‘em!

A recent study of permission email recipients by IMT Strategies revealed the following:

48% were curious to read the permission email 13% were eager to read
30% were indifferent
7% open it somewhat annoyed 2% deleted it without reading

When it came to unsolicited email or spam:

77% deleted it without reading 16% said they were annoyed but opened it 3% were indifferent to it
4% were curious to read spam email 1% percent were eager to read it

In the above results, we can see that 9 in 10 recipients of permission email were fine with reading the messages, with a near half curious to read!

But for spam, 9 in 10 didn’t even read the email or were seriously unhappy about opening it.

We can clearly see a remarkable difference in the response to permission-based emails and unsolicited emails. Always ask for permission!

Only add subscribers who have consciously chosen to receive your ezine. You’ll reap the rewards of having a highly targeted and loyal audience that are interested in reading what you send them.

There have been many times when I received issues of ezines that I don’t ever recalled subscribing to. These ezine owners had taken their own ‘initiative’ to add me their list. Such spamming antics only seriously piss me off!

Never try to buy a list of email addresses and then send them your ezine issue telling them to remove themselves if they don’t wish to get further mailings. That’s spamming.

Killer #2 .. Don’t let ‘em unsubscribe

Since it is so difficult to acquire new subscribers, let’s prevent them from un-subscribing at all costs. Heck .. just don’t provide them with an unsubscribe option in the newsletter. Then they won’t unsubscribe!

Nothing pisses me off more than newsletters that I cannot unsubscribe from. There are no unsubscribe instruction nor any email address to send an unsubscribe request to.

Such practices are totally unethical and unprofessional. If your subscribers can’t even trust you over something so minor, how would they feel secure doing business with you?

They may even complain you for spamming and tell people about your unethical conduct. Bad news spread very fast on the internet.

When your subscribers decide to leave your ezine, promptly unsubscribe them. Make sure you never email them again unless they decide to re-join your ezine.

Killer #3 .. Let’s blast them with tons of mailings

Recently I had to unsubscribe from several ezines that were sending me a solo mailing every alternate day!

In the beginning I didn’t mind those mailings. But after some 14 days of getting tons of advertisements, I bailed out. The DoubleClick survey revealed that the average online consumer receives 36 permission email messages weekly.

With that number of emails waiting to be read, excluding personal messages and spam, you wouldn’t want to be guilty of clogging your subscriber’s inbox.

Strike a good balance between your profit line and your subscribers’ interest. The lifetime value of a subscriber can be worth thousands of dollars. Why kill the golden goose when it can lay golden eggs year after year?

Killer #4 .. Forget about content, I got no time for that

With an intensely fierce competition for ezine eyeballs, your subscribers may unsubscribe after a few issues if they don’t enjoy your ezine.

You need to publish real content that appeal to their interest. One of the best ways to discover what your subscribers want to read is to check out the ezines of top players in your industry or related ezines with large subscriber bases.

If they are at the top, they must be doing some things right! It will be an eye opening experience to analyze the kind of content successful ezine publishers offer to their subscribers.

Never fill your ezine with advertisements that are disguised as editorials. Quality content is king!

Killer #5 .. The ezine that never came

Some ezine owners produce a few issues and skip the next few. Or they are perpetually late in mailing out new issues.

If you tell your subscribers that you publish your ezine weekly, make sure it arrives in their mailbox weekly. You lose your subscribers’ loyalty and trust when you fail to deliver. How can they then trust you with their credit card numbers?

Publishing an ezine requires time and effort. Writing up the editorial, proofreading and amending the copy (many times), testing the final copy and maintaining the subscriber list can easily take a day or more.

If you can’t afford to publish your ezine weekly, do it fortnightly. I don’t recommend monthly because the time lapse in between issues are too wide. Try preparing future issues 2 weeks in advance. Have available backup editorial content that you can always fill your ezine with at the last minute.

There you’ve it .. 5 guaranteed ways to kill your ezine. Well, I hope you’ll never need to use them

Michael Low is a professional PR Strategist. He provides top- notch PR services at highly affordable rates. Check out his full range of PR packages at http://www.prbuilder.com/pr.cgi?a006

Copyright 2004 Priya Shah

A while ago I made it a point to watch the movie “Legally Blonde.”

Not just for the bright, chirpy and eminently watchable Reese Witherspoon, but also because I loved the message it sent out.

If you didn’t see the movie, all you need to know is that it’s about a smart, fashion-conscious blonde who’s told time and again, by her family and friends, that it’simpossible for someone like her to go to Harvard law school.

That she’s just not smart enough and doesn’t have what it takes.

In the movie, the character played by Witherspoon not only goes to Harvard law, but also through sheer determination and intuition, graduates at the top of her class.

Its just the sort of movie people love. Because it makes us believe that we too are capable of achieving anything we want to.

It reminds us how we often let ourselves, and others, underestimate our own potential.

And how we undermine our own sense of self, because of what we look like or where we came from.

But why just let it remain a movie, when it can be the story of your life…

Have you ever asked yourself what it is that keeps you from reaching your full potential?

From doing what you are inherently capable of?

For many of us, it’s a lack of belief in ourselves. A lack of confidence in our own ability to succeed.

And because we believe we will fail, we usually do.

But there are people who have succeeded beyond all expectation – no matter what they look like, or where they come from.

One of my favourite role models who comes to mind is another Hollywood celebrity, Barbra Streisand.

Indeed, one of my favourite films of all time is her movie, “Yentl,” about a courageous, intelligent woman trying to fulfill her capabilities, in the face of overwhelming odds.

“Yentl” was also the movie in which Streisand became the first woman ever to produce, direct, write and star in a major motion picture.

Streisand carved her own path, and broke the mould.

She showed how a woman with unconventional looks can make it in a field where beauty is more important than brains.

So, if you believe that you are less than someone, because of your lack of education, looks, talent, background or ability, take courage from her achievements.

They are an inspiration not only for women, but for everyone.

Because all it take is a belief. The belief that you can do what it takes.

Don’t wait for someone else to give you an opportunity to prove yourself. Stop depending on others for handouts.

Don’t wait for the right opportunity to fall in your lap. Because it never will.

All you need to carve your own path, is the confidence and the belief that you can succeed at anything you set out to do, no matter what the odds.

So start today. Choose a mentor.

Learn from the masters. Re-invent yourself.

Create your own opportunities and forge your own future.

Your belief in yourself, coupled with the courage to see it through, is what will carry you from a life of mediocrity and under-achievement, into a world where you can be the winner you aspire to be.

Priya Shah is the editor of the newsletters Be a Whiz at eBiz! and The Glutathione Report She shows you how to truly build multiple sources of income online with the Brilliant Team Home Business Opportunity