The Easiest Way Grow Your Online Business Opportunity With Article Marketing

Whether your website is selling a product or a service you need constant exposure to get new visitors to your site. The only way you'll move up the search engine ladder is to learn how to grow your online business opportunity with article marketing. It's really an easy way to find new customers and make more money on the internet!

Search engine optimization, also known as SEO, is essential for moving your site into the top ranked postings on every popular search engine. After all, what's the point of listing keywords and key-phrases associated with your business if you're not going to optimize them?

Your friends are right! Article banks are filled to the brim with back-linked articles that not only get more visitors to the originator's website or blog, but also serve to increase and optimize their site's all important search engine rankings. Aside from providing a greater chance for your business to turn into a viral online success story, marketing through social networks and article data banks just makes good sense.

Article marketing began to gain strength as more business owners began using self produced prose to help promote their business. News editors began frequenting article databases for story leads and the number of hits to the sites grew to enormous proportions.

Article marketing services will write and post informative prose for you all over the web! You won't have to become an internet or SEO-guru to figure everything out. Article marketing services can have the articles written for you and post them to all of the popular article banks.

In fact, simply by providing a keyword or key-phrase, these fee-based services can have a professional writer prepare your articles in as little as twenty-four hours for proofing. Then the article marketing service does the rest of the work.

In fact, there are many services available now that will write your articles and post them for you. All you need to do is supply a small fee and a keyword or key-phrase and Voila! In a day or two your articles are appearing all over the web and your search engine rankings increase accordingly.

You'll get all of the important backlinks needed to get your site noticed for just a few dollars. It's like getting big business level assistance for the price of a few Venti Lattes! What could be better than that?

Article writing and submission services range from $15 per unposted article to as much as $3,500 or more per posted article or prepared press release. There is a service to fit every budget and meet every unique marketing objective.

Whether your enterprise is large or small, you can grow your online business opportunity with article marketing. If you know how to write using keywords and key-phrases properly, the process can cost you nothing more than a little time. But if you would prefer to concentrate on your core business, there are many cost-effective article marketing service approaches that are available.

Where Is The Junk In My Web Design?

How much junk is in your web design?

Junk is always the stuff you can throw away and it is not missed. In fact, when you clear out the junk the good stuff can then be seen, and this is particularly so with business web sites.

I find that the trendiest piece of junk is the popular image slider. It takes up the richest home page real estate and does not offer any practical business value. In my research about quality content the image slider does not show up at all. It has an aesthetic use but no practical business use, but it sure takes take up prime space.

What does the image slider do?

It rotates (slides picture in) up to 6 images, as a rule. That's all it does. Maybe you think I'm being too harsh because there can be beautiful pictures presented, but do the test and then you'll know.

The test is to cover up the slider with a book or black paper to hide it. Now look at the rest of the page and see if you can tell what the page is about. Whatever remains without scrolling down should provide a heading or text to indicate what else to expect on the page. Even product promotion and pushy sales copy is better than no info.

Okay, now remove the paper from the image slider and cover up the rest of the screen as best you can. What does the slider tell you? Do you have any clues from those rotating images that tell you anything of interest about the site?

More junk

The King Kong of all headers takes up to to of of the whole screen. Although a header is a necessary part of your web page it does not warrant much more space than a letterhead on stationary.

Those huge headers with big images says only one thing - "Let's see how big and important my site can look because I do not have much to say otherwise."

And if this King Kong header is repeated on every page it simply compounds the problem. We all know that a web design can make a peanut stand look like a department store - no one is fooled.

Other people's junk

There are tons of third party ads with images or widgets to add filler in a column, but they just distract from what our site can offer to our market. The deal is that if these ads generate a sale for that third party you get a tiny return. Sounds good but our web site is not attracting a lot of our market to our own site with all this junk, so there's no revenue.

The value to the third party is they get a link back to their site boosting their link popularity. We get zilch.

Self promoting junk

Oh, now I've done it. I'm killing the sacred cow of marketing. Every one tells you to advertise on your web pages. You are invited to shout out your ads and promote like crazy, and then you absolutely must ask for the sale and push those folks into filling up their shopping cart.

Well, maybe it's time to see things in a different light because we are working with a web site, not newspaper or TV.

Newspapers are daily or weekly, television is prime time every day. Our web site may only be seen once and for only a brief bit of time. To have visitors come back we need more than ads and pushy sales. We can get ads and pushy sales in our face all day long, but how often do we come across a web site that helps us by talking about our problems.

The real reason self promoting ads on our own site are negative marketing is because members of our market have already arrived. The external ads or links bought them to our site and advertising has done its job. It is not needed anymore now that we have our market's attention. If anything, more advertising will send them away.

We need to talk to our market about their problems and how we can solve those problems. Why are we not doing this? Maybe most web marketers do not know what they are talking about.

Even good content can be turned into junk

Our eyes are wide open now. We see that we need to move a prospective buyer into talking the next step in the buying cycle. We talk about their pain and our solutions and they like this. It helps them, but they only have 5 minutes so we ask to have our site bookmarked. Better yet we offer a free white paper to download if they give us a name and e-mail address. Cool, we can pull them back in later.

All these good marketing ideas are given to our web designer who promptly turns it into small text and then fades the contrast. Our best marketing material just got turned into junk because it is now hard to read, so it gets skipped over.

People do not like reading at the best of times, but making it difficult just gives them the excuse to file it under junk.

A web designer should be working everything else on the page to enhance our text content that joins the customer in the first place. Instead the designer wants a perfect picture that can be held at arm's length so the eyeball can appreciate the balance and beauty even while sacrificing the ability for people to read the content.

As you read this article do you feel it? Does it move you so that you want to change your web design? Have you got a head and heart full of new ideas?

If so then this is the kind of web content you want to write and get your market moving. And you can do this when you first get rid of the junk.

Use Reverse Phone Lookup to Stop Harassing and Obscene Calls Within 45 Seconds

Every body receives irregular calls at any time. Some callers use threatening and obscene language when they call, some just get silenced to get your angry response and want to make you irritated and some take heavy breaths to terrify you and everyone facing these kinds of calls at any time or mostly at night. Is there any way to stop these calls? Yes, if you want to find the way you have to read this out.

What should you do to stop those harassing calls? Never give response to those callers just note down the number from they call and the rest I will going to tell you how can you stop these calls. May be you are thinking to hire a private detective to trace out, who is calling? But it will cost you very much and takes a time of at least a week. If you want to go to the cell phone companies and ask them about the details of that number, so i will tell you these companies have the rights to keep information of their customers private.

The best way of all, to trace a cell phone number is reverse phone lookup, you do not have to go anywhere from your home you get the information of that caller, all you need is just a computer and an internet. Thorough reverse phone search you are able to get the information like; the name of caller, his address, household members and many other information within the time period of maximum 45 seconds. These information are huge enough to make a proper complaint.

The Servant - A Book Summary

In order to lead, you must serve. This is the solid













premise of the book "The Servant" by James C. Hunter.













It is discussed through the tale of John Daily, a













business executive who starts to lose his grip as boss,













husband, father, and coach. He was talked into going













on a week-long retreat at a Benedictine Monastery to re-center and find his balance. During the retreat, a













former Wall Street legend turned monk shows













him a different perspective on leadership - servant leadership.

The Ten Attributes of Love and Leadership













The book enumerated the following as the qualities of













a servant leader. Incidentally, these are also the













attributes of love, which was defined earlier as one's behavior towards others.

1. Patient - showing self-control.

2. Kind - giving attention, appreciation, and













encouragement.

3. Humble - being authentic without pretense or













arrogance.

4. Respectful - treating others as important people.

5. Selfless - meeting the needs of others.

6. Forgiving - giving up resentment when wronged.

7. Honest - being free from deception.

8. Committed - sticking to your choices.

All these behaviors will entail you to serve and













sacrifice for others. This would mean setting aside













your own wants and needs to focus on the legitimate













needs of others.

You need to realize that success does not only come













from hard work and appropriately playing the part.













To be successful in business and in your career, you













must be able to distinguish yourself from the rest













of the pack - you need to develop, build and defend













your reputation.

The Law of the Harvest

Remember: you reap what you sow. For authority or













influence to flourish, the right environment must be













provided and a nurturing behavior must be present. In













a garden, the soil, the sun, the water, the fertilizer,













and the care given by the gardener all make up the













environment under which the plant will grow and mature.













The one thing that you are not sure of, however, is













when the flowers will actually bloom. Bear in mind













that influence is not a magical beanstalk that will













sprout overnight; rather, it is













something that grows in time.

The Rewards of Leading with Authority

Leading with authority enables you to have a personal













mission statement: to serve the people you lead, to













listen to their needs, to give praise and recognition,













to show kindness, and to be honest, among other things.













When servant leadership becomes your ethos in life,













people would be lining up to join your cause.

By serving others and loving your neighbors, you are













keeping in line with the doctrines of the Church as













well as other religions. You mature psychologically













and spiritually, which is essentially the end goal of













the individual's journey through life.

While the above payoffs are well and good, the most













important reward of all is the joy you will experience













when you put others first and free yourself from the













chains of self-centeredness. As a certain Dr. Albert













Schweitzer wisely puts it, "I don't know what your













destiny will be, but one thing I do know. The only ones













among you who will be really happy are those who will













have sought and found how to serve."

About the Author:

James Hunter is the author of the internationally













best-selling book The Servant, subtitled A Simple Story













About the True Essence of Leadership. Now translated













into nine (9) languages, The Servant teaches the time













less principles of Servant Leadership and is the text













used in many MBA and other higher education curriculum













around the world.

Fenugreek Breast Enlargement - 3 Things Needed For Fenugreek Breasts Augmentation

Rather than to merely ingest breast enlargement supplements and pray for miracles to occur, it is far better for you to know the facts about Fenugreek breast supplementation. Particularly, in the current worldwide marketplace for natural breast enlargement without surgery, one of the most common ingredients you will find included within top-notch breast augmentation supplements is Fenugreek.

Thus, it can become a great benefit for you to know exactly what Fenugreek breast enlargement should truly comprise. Now, you will encounter one problem when you attempt to gather research data on the success rate of this nutrition enhancing herb.

The reason why the above rings true is because worldwide or even United-States-only statistics about Fenugreek breast size remain generally lacking. The greatest supportive details happen to originate from foreign countries like China, Egypt, or India, for example, where usage of this supplement has a much longer history and people speak out about its actual and lasting benefits.

For the most part, Americans are still guessing and hoping that at least SOME partial benefit can come from herbal breast supplementation or utilization. On that note, here are the basic facts about WHAT the Fenugreek breast enlargement herb basically comprises.

-- Fenugreek contains "saponins" that also tend to inhibit the absorption of bad cholesterol.

-- Within the body, absorbed Fenugreek molecules create a fiber very similar to mucilage, providing a helpful "stickiness."

-- The Fenugreek herb can offer possible benefits in blood sugar and body weight lowering.

Yet, for purposes of natural breast enhancement, here is the reality:

Fenugreek intake tends to increase breast size plus milk production primarily for nursing mothers. Thus, only very partial perks like these can come to ordinary women who simply want to expand their breast tissue for non-feeding purposes.

However, the very slight feelings of fullness that DO come from using this breast enhancement herbal supplement are enough for many women to appreciate. Normally, ladies tend to rely upon ONLY ONE SOURCE for comprehensive breast augmentation -- and, especially in regard to Fenugreek breast enlargement, herein lay one of the central problems that cause countless individuals to miss the mark of natural breast enhancement achievement.

Enhancing your breasts in a natural way calls for MULTIPLE holistic approaches. In order to maximize your success, you must combine these techniques in a synergistic plus intentionally combined way.

The previous explanation about the PHYSICAL properties of Fenugreek provides you with a clearer understanding of its herbal foundation; however, be it known that breast enlargement supplements do NOT work successfully in an "isolated" mode. Meaning, there are at least three other things you must do in order to make herbal breast augmentation work for you.

You can use the following three tips to secure your Fenugreek breast enlargement goals:

ONE: NUTRITION -- It is possible for breasts to shrink because of poor nutrition. Therefore, consume the types of foods that tend to enhance breast appearance, fullness, and growth. Here, even Fenugreek is a food-based nutrient, and its mucilaginous consistency tends to apply an appearance of fullness over time.

TWO: EXERCISE & WEIGHT LIFTING -- Support the very foundation of your breast tissue by pumping up the muscle layers upon which they rest. You may be hearing this tip very often; however, there is one missing element. That is, while BUILDING up breast tissue via exercise, you can also use AEROBIC exercises to REDUCE the midsection of your body. Thus, a thin and firm waist line does wonders for the appearance and contour of your entire body.

Continuing with your three tips for Fenugreek breast enlargement...

THREE: Apply phyto-estrogen cream topically to the skin of breast regions; yet, using such creams in combination with thorough and safe breast massage stroking is the best way to apply them. In this way, you will be giving your breasts the PHYSICAL activity they need, plus stimulate the mild inner workings of breast hormonal function.

10 Tips For Capturing E-Learning Audio

Using audio in your online course is an extremely important factor in engaging your audience. Studies have shown that courses without audio are less compelling and memorable than courses with audio. Either used as a narration or for directions, audio - done the right way - can greatly enhance your e-learning materials.

Help with Audio for Online Course Developers Audio engineering and the knowledge it takes to adequately capture, edit, and clean up audio to achieve a quality output is a task that is typically beyond the skill set of most online course developers. The average course developer has little if any knowledge of sampling rates, frequencies, modulation, compression schemes and other audio engineering concepts.

The goal of this article is to provide you information on how to get the audio in a format suitable for an e-learning course-authoring tool. The article will focus on capturing and editing audio at the basic level and certainly, the 10 tips listed below should help get you moving in the right direction.

1. Microphones

For narration, you'll need to use a microphone to capture the voiceover. Sure, your laptop or PC might have a built-in microphone, but you probably don't want to end up sounding like the broken drive-through speaker at your local fast food restaurant. There are several microphones to choose from and they are made specifically for different purposes. Dynamic Microphones are the ones you commonly see being used by rock stars in concerts. They have a ball-like shape as the head. These mics are omni-directional, meaning that they can pick up sound from a wide area. The Shure SM-58 microphone is an example of a dynamic microphone and has a consistent quality and dynamic range that makes it useful for all types of applications.

Condenser Microphones, unlike dynamic microphones, have a capacitor inside that requires them to be powered by a source - either battery or A/C. These microphones are often found in recording studios, used in live concerts, and are commonly found in lavalier mics (the kind you attach to a shirt or lapel). These mics are uni-directional, meaning that they capture a more narrow area of sound. Because of their power requirements, their voltage output can vary. The Neumann KMS-105 is an example of a condenser mic.

You may also find a Headset Microphone, which plugs directly into your computer's input source and output source, so you can hear what you say as you are recording. Most of the microphones on these headsets have a noise cancellation function built into them. This causes unnatural sounding silences between phrases. The audio quality from these types of microphones tends also to sound blown out as the microphone position is very close to the mouth. That makes higher frequencies tend to sound noisy and lower frequencies sound poorly.

Built-In Microphones have the tendency to pick up any noise generated by your computer during use. This means any hard-drive motion, cooling fans, operating system sounds, and room ambience. These microphones are usually engineered to pick up the widest area of sound for situations like web conferencing and chat room sessions. The audio quality is usually poor and the microphones do not have sophisticated features like noise canceling or balancing. If at all possible, you should avoid using the built-in microphone for your audio input source.

2. Distance from Microphone

I'm sure you've all seen the rock videos or American Idol, where the rock stars have the microphone jammed up against their mouths as they are singing. So most people feel they need to do the same when recording narration. What the rock stars have to their advantage is a sound limiter that cuts off frequencies above a certain range. The maximum output is policed by this device to prevent any unwanted feedback or squelch, because the frequency is automatically limited. Most likely, your simple setup won't have this capability.

One thing you can do to prevent any unwanted sounds in your narration, is to position your mouth about 6 to 12 inches away from the microphone and speak directly into the microphone, not away from it, to either side, nor in front of it. The best audio signal will be a direct path from your mouth to the microphone. If you start speaking into the microphone and then tilt your head downwards to read from a script, you'll be able to notice the drop in the audio signal. If needed, hold your script up next to the microphone. Another tip: when reading from a script, don't read across pages that you are turning or moving from one hand to another. Most microphones are sensitive enough to pick up all of that paper moving. If possible, have each page of the script segmented and keep them separated, not stapled or kept together with paper clips.

3. Use a Windscreen

A consistent frequency helps to produce the best audio. If you are looking at an audio waveform for the first time, you won't be able to decipher it, but the peaks and valleys of each frequency can visually tell a lot about that sound. One thing that often happens, especially during narration recording, are pops that occur when saying words that begin with P or B. These pops go above the dynamic range and therefore, don't sound anything like a P or a B but more like a popping sound.

A simple solution to this problem is a windscreen. Some engineers will wrap a wire clothes hanger with nylon stockings and place them in front of the mics in order to act as a low budget windscreen, but you can also buy them for less than ten dollars at your local music store. These are constructed out of a foam material and fit over your microphone.

4. Interfaces

So far, I've spent a lot of time talking about microphones but a majority of the mics recommended here won't even plug in to your computers without adapters. Professional mics have an XLR connector, which has three pins. Most computers are made with eighth inch connectors. You can use Dynamic Microphones with an adapter connected to your computer without much of a problem. Condenser Mics, since they require power, won't work even with an adapter.

There are interfaces specifically built for this purpose and they come in two flavors: USB and Firewire (IEEE 1394). Most PC manufacturers are including either USB 1.0 or 2.0 ports on their hardware. Firewire is more commonly found on Apple computers however, you can purchase Firewire cards for PCs. Firewire is faster than USB in certain applications and therefore is more desirable for audio input. There's less latency on a Firewire connection than on a USB connection because of the performance speed.

Firewire comes in two flavors, there's Firewire 400, which can transfer data at a rate of 400 MB per second, and Firewire 800, which doubles the speed to 800 MB per second. There are a wide range of musical digital interfaces out on the market today, and you can use either of these technologies to interface with a computer. MAudio has a line of both types including the ProFire 610 and the FastTrack USB.

These devices can run off of their intended connections and act as an audio input/output source for your computer to provide a professional recording result. At SyberWorks, we use an M-Audio Firewire 410 audio interface connected to two Shure-SM 58s for all of our narration. The 410 is a powerful choice because it offers multiple inputs and all of the audio controls necessary for level/gain and limiter/compressor. It also has XLR inputs and quarter inch inputs for microphones and instruments, and two headphone outputs. Connected to the 410 are two M-Audio BX8a monitors, which offer a much higher quality output sound than any built-in computer speaker.

5. Software

There are so many options for audio editing software, from the simple shareware/freeware to the professional level, that the determination of what to use might lie somewhere within your budget constraints. The basic audio recording tools that come with any Windows-based machine do not generate quality audio. Any Apple computer comes with GarageBand which is an excellent mid-level audio recording application. GarageBand is the step child of Apple's Logic Studio and offers some pretty sophisticated tools for recording, editing, and delivering audio recordings on any platform.

Adobe has an audio recording/editing application called SoundBooth, which offers a variety of tools for cleaning up audio files and saving them in different formats. SoundBooth comes with the Creative Suite Production Premium or Master Collection. I recently used SoundBooth to record old cassette tape tracks as MP3 files so that I can burn the files to CD.

I was able to use SoundBooth to clean up all of hissing sound on tapes and the audio quality was excellent. Bias, Inc. has been in the audio production area for over a decade now and their flagship audio editing software, Peak Pro, is an award winning application. With a simple interface and a variety of effects and controls, Peak makes audio editing simple. I'm a long time user of Peak Pro and can say that it's a stable, professional application that offers all of the tools that I need to edit the audio that I record. Combined with SoundSoap Pro, an audio cleaning application, Peak Pro can reduce noise, hiss, rumble, cracks and pops, and other unwanted sounds from any audio recording.

Here at SyberWorks, we use Peak Pro to record any narration for podcasts or courses and GarageBand to stitch together podcasts and teasers. GarageBand comes with some preset stingers and effects which are great for podcasts. It's ridiculously easy to use. Once the file has been put together, it's output as an AIFF file to iTunes. I then use iTunes to convert the sound to the MP3 format for delivery.

6. Normalize

During recording, audio levels can be mismatched creating undesirable results during playback. For example, recording from two different sources might produce two different volume levels. When played back, one source sounds softer and the other might sound louder, even though they were recorded in the same room on the same computer with the same hardware. This can be attributed to vocal style or audio input levels not being properly monitored.

To adjust audio levels across the board so that the volume is relatively consistent, most audio editing software offers some normalization option in which the audio levels are examined and a maximum and minimum range are then determined. Softer sounds are increased and louder sounds are decreased so that the overall sound level is more consistent.

If there is a stark contrast between the two input sources, then sound normalization might work against you. Softer sounds might have more sound introduced in them when the gain is increased. Be sure to check your audio input levels before recording. Try to get both sources to come up to the same decibel level prior to recording. If possible, show the input meter in your audio software to the speakers and try to get them to speak at a gain level about 5 decibels.

7. Ahh's and Uhm's

For some people, speaking into a microphone can be a little intimidating. You might hear a lot of Ahhh's and Uhmm's during a recording session. Some people naturally put these in their phrases because they are thinking about what they are going to say next. Others put them in out of nervousness. Others have lisp's or emphasize S's and Z's. Still others smack their lips or breath heavy before talking.

When editing audio, the tendency might be to remove all instances of Ahh's and Uhm's. When separated from the rest of a passage, this is easy to do and is an effective way to make the entire sound file shorter. However, there are times when the Ahh's and Uhm's are rolled into other phrases and are difficult to separate.

The rule of thumb when editing audio is to remove whatever is bothersome, but keep the tempo of the original sound source and make it sound as natural as possible. Some people also take deep breaths between passages or have nasal sounds that are picked up by the microphones. Sometimes these can be removed and other times they can't. Remove what you can, but try as much as possible to make the overall recording natural.

8. Cleaning Audio

Depending on how clean your input source is, you may have an audio track that is laced with hum or noise coming from a variety of sources, like an overhead fluorescent light, A/C noise, and other ambient sounds. SoundBooth and Peak Pro both have tools for eliminating these types of sounds from your audio input sources. As mentioned above, the rule of thumb still applies.

Some of these tools can end up making your audio sound very metallic and unnatural, more like a computerized version of the original. When using SoundSoap Pro, for example, the default settings for removing noise keeps all of the highs recognizable, while the mids and lows suffer from a dense computerized sounding quality. SoundBooth's noise correction tools have the same issue, so if too much is applied, the result isn't worth the effort.

There's a balance to how much correction is applied to a sound versus the quality of the output. Sometimes, here at SyberWorks, we have to record voices over the phone. Sound quality from a phone line is always problematic, so invariably that sound will need to be cleaned up. Too much correction though, and the integrity of the voice is compromised. On the other hand, no correction will keep a lot of hiss and noise in the sound, which is undesirable.

9. Audio Formats

Depending on which authoring tools you are using and which platform you are on, you'll need to know which audio formats to use. The major audio format for the PC platform is .wav, on the Mac platform it's .aiff. Adobe Captivate and Microsoft PowerPoint both use the .wav format. The most popular internet audio format now is .mp3, which has greater compression and better sound quality than other internet formats. Captivate uses MP3 compression in sound files for the final output. This makes the files smaller but they can suffer in quality, depending on the settings in Captivate. Native .wav files embedded in PowerPoint files can make those files enormous. Using iSpring, a PowerPoint to Flash converter, you can significantly reduce the file size of presentations and course materials intended for internet delivery.

SyberWorks Web Author has an additional tool called SyberWorks Web Audio which allows you to add streaming audio to courses that anyone can hear using just a web browser. Playback is accomplished through a small Sun Java applet that downloads automatically and quickly. It requires no additional plug-ins or server software. It has no firewall issues and can play in the background, without any visible controls on course pages, or with a small set of basic audio controls displayed. SyberWorks Web Audio tool takes an audio file of the format .wav and compresses it into the SyberWorks audio format (.sa). It is then easily inserted into the word document by using the Add SyberWorks Audio template.

10. Compression

Depending on which tool you used during recording, you probably have an original audio source with a near CD quality (44 KHz) output. That quality is diminished as soon as the file is compressed. Too much compression and the sound quality is something like R2-D2 behind a large, metal door. Too little compression and the sound files become too large to transfer and play. The factors involved in compression include bit rate and quality. The bit rate is the data stream target for your intended audience. The typical internet connection these days is at least DSL speed (128 KBps), but there still may be users at modem speeds of 56 KBps. Tools like Captivate will allow you to set the bit rate and quality for all the audio in your course. Therefore, when you save your files out of SoundBooth or Peak Pro, never add any compression. Let Captivate or your other eâLearning tool do the compression for you.

Quality settings can also alter the file size. Lower quality files have higher compression and therefore are smaller, but sound worse. Higher quality files have less compression, sound better, but are larger in file size

Starter Clicks But Engine Does Not Turn Over - Tech in Trunk?

If the car's starter clicks and the engine does not turn over, this could be caused by several things. The most common cause of clicking when the car is being started is a low battery. Most people would assume that the starter is bad if it only clicks, but low-voltage can cause the starter to make this sound.

The battery is the heart of the starting and electrical system. If the battery has been drained or has a weak cell, this can cause the starter to only click. Many times the battery could just be drained due to a door left slightly open, making the dome light stay on. Other times a vanity light or a phone charger could be left on. During my time as a master auto technician, I've had a trustworthy co-worker close me up in the trunk so I could make sure the trunk light went off when the trunk was closed!

In order to test the battery it must have a good charge. If the battery is not charged completely the tester will indicate that it needs to be charged before testing can proceed. The first step when checking the starter and electrical system is to make sure the battery is in good condition. Most parts stores will check batteries for free. Once it's determined the battery is good the rest of the system can then be checked. Loose or corroded connections can also cause a clicking and for the car not to start.

Starter

The starter solenoid on many Ford vehicle's is on the inner fender well, on most other vehicles the starter solenoid will be mounted on the starter. The clicking that is heard many times is the solenoid. But low-voltage either from a drained battery, bad battery or poor connections can cause this. Most of the time if the vehicle can be jump-started the starter is okay. This would also indicate that the connections to the starter are good.

Alternator

Once the vehicle is running the alternator output can be checked. If the alternator is not charging the battery, it will be drained during the process of starting the car and driving. When the alternator is checked, the voltage and amperage output can be measured. Also the diode pattern will be checked to make sure the alternator will not drain the battery when the engine is turned off. In the past do-it-yourselfers could disconnect the battery while the vehicle is running to check the alternator, if the car kept running the alternator was good. Doing this on computerized vehicles can be harmful. If the battery is disconnected while a computerized vehicle is running the alternator output it can increase sharply allowing excess voltage to spike the computer.

Battery

When purchasing a replacement battery the cold cranking amps required for the vehicle should be checked. It's best to purchase a battery with more cold cranking amps than the minimum required. Also when purchasing a battery you should consider if you want maintenance free or not. If the battery is hard to access or has a cover then a maintenance free battery is preferred. For instance on some Chrysler Sebrings and Chevrolet Corvettes the battery is located behind an inner fender and on a Chevrolet SSR. the battery is located underneath the bed where the spare tire would normally go. If installing the battery yourself be sure to notice which side is positive and negative in case you were sold the incorrect battery.

Terminals

The terminals should be free of damage and should tighten up well. Sometimes especially on import vehicles the battery terminals will be very thin and can have hairline cracks causing a poor connection. Avoid forcing the battery terminals on by tapping them. The battery casing can be damaged causing a leak, if the battery acid seeps out it can cause fast corrosion. If the battery terminal bolts will not tighten, then replacing the terminals is recommended. When the connections are tight you should not be able to twist them by hand.

Gaming Hardware Guide - Learn What It Takes To Make A Gaming Computer

So you're into gaming, and you're looking to turn that shabby computer into a gaming powerhouse? You do not need unnecessarily expensive gaming computer though, you just need some decent gaming hardware.

If you do not exactly know what gaming hardware is, I've put together a guide explaining what it takes to have a gaming computer. You do not needily need all of these components, so I've broken them down by level of importance.

3D Video Card

First and foremost, if you have to have a decent video card to play the latest 3D games. You can have the best computer around, but if it has a cheap video card, 3D games will appear to run as slow as if you had a slow computer. You do not necessarily need the latest video card, because at the rate they come out it will be outdated in a few months anyway .. unless of course you have $ 500 burning a hole in your pocket and you really want to.

CPU

Since your CPU is the heart of the computer, this one is kind of obvious. Like most things, you do not need the fastest CPU around, but if you want a real gaming computer, you'll want something at or around 3 gigahertz (or 3000+ for you AMD enthusiasts).

You'll also want something that has a fast front side bus. It's usually best to find a motherboard and cpu that have similar front side bus speeds, because they work together, and the overall speed of the front side bus will only be as fast as the one with the slowest speed on it. It's kind of like driving a sports car on a highway with a 55 mile per hour speed limit, the car might be able to go 155, but the highway will only let you go 55.

Memory

Also known as Ram, it's what applications and games use to store information, the more the better. It's good to have at least 512 Megabytes, but real gamers have 750 megabytes, to 1 Gigabyte or more. Memory is extremely cheap these days, it's one of the cheapest and simplest upgrades you can do.

It's not only the amount that matters though, they also come in different times. DDR2 is the fastest, cheapest memory you can get right now. If you have SDRam, you'll probably want to upgrade your motherboard and CPU so you can have faster memory. It's kind of drastic, but your games will most likely be sluggish if your equipment is that old. Regular DDR is good enough for gaming, it just does not have the throughput that DDR2 does.

Motherboards

Today's fastest motherboards have faster Front Side Bus. The Front Side Bus (or FSB) is essentially the highway that runs from the CPU to the Ram, the bigger the highway, the more traffic it can handle at once, making calculations faster. Another thing to watch out for is what kinds of hard drives it supports. If you want SATA or SCSI drives, either your motherboard needs to support them, or you need to purchase an expansion card to plug them into. You'll also want a motherboard that supports the fastest computer memory you can get, which is currently DDR2.

Hard Drives

Hard drive speed may not sound important, but it can be one of many bottle necks that your computer runs into if it's not up to par with the rest of your computer. If you purchase regular IDE hard drives, you'll want at least 7200 rpm (rpm = rotations per minute, the more rotations the faster the drive).

If you want real speed though, you'll want a Serial ATA hard drive (SATA), which is one of the fastest hard drives you can get without buying server grade hard drives (SCSI), which are pretty expensive. Your motherboard has to support SATA or SCSI though if you plan to purchase these kinds of hard drives, or you have to have a PCI expansion card to plug them into.

Sound Card

If you want gaming quality sound, then you definitely need to replace that stock or built in sound card for a decent gaming sound card. And if you want the full effect, go for a dolby 5.1 surround sound enabled sound card for that super crisp sound your games can produce. Mix that with some 5.1 enabled speakers, and your gaming experience just took a new turn.

Computer Cases

Ok, so computer cases are not that important for speed, but if you want your new gaming computer to look slick too, then you need a nice colored case. Your friends will be jealous, and you will finally be able to look at your computer and smile, because it looks so awesome.

Benefits of Your Online Business Offering a Money Back Guarantee

When considering local internet marketing for your online business, do not forget about the basics, such as customer service. By providing a good experience for your customers, offering them an informative, easy-to-use website with shopping cart, and making them feel confident about their purchases, your business is sure to thrive both offline and online. Take those concepts a step further and minimize risk to your clientele by offering a money back guarantee on the products or services you sell. Here are five reasons why this gives you the advantage.

1. The Trust Factor

Anytime you're starting a business, you are sure to encounter objections from buyers. Perhaps the most common objection is that your company is an unknown. It's always a bit risky to make a purchase from an unfamiliar entity and if you're selling a new product or service, the buyer's objections are doubled. How can someone be assured that the items they buy from your company are going to perform as promised?

One of the best ways to get past that objection is by offering a guarantee, preferably a full refund for any purchase that does not live up to the customer's expectations.

2. Beat the Competition

What about your competitors? Do they refund the purchase price for any dissatisfied customer? Chances are any big retailer selling the same or similar products does. When competing against other "small guys", the satisfaction guarantee identifies your company. When competing against the big retailers, it levels the playing field. Either way, it's a must.

3. Sales Copy

Wondering what to say about your products or services online? Why not mention the satisfaction guarantee? This is a great way to introduce your product and make potential customers confident in making a purchase. The inclusion of a guarantee just might be the difference between thinking about buying and actually making a purchase.

4. Good Business

When it comes down to it, guaranteeing the satisfaction of your customers is just good business. The last thing you want to do is annoy, frustrate, or anger someone by refusing to refund their money. And that could lead to a lot of bad PR - and future lost sales. Avoid the possibility by cheerfully reimbursing the purchase price and moving on to find the next customer through local internet marketing.

5. The Customer's Advantage

But, you might be saying to yourself, what about those people who make a business out of buying things, using them for a while, then returning them? There will always be a few of those in every bunch and unfortunately, it's just a part of doing business. Rest assured that the majority of your clientele will only go through the hassle of a return because they are truly dissatisfied. In this case, go ahead and let the customer have the advantage.

Do not forget that an integral part of local internet marketing objectives good customer service, and a money back guarantee is just one aspect of that. It cultivates trust in your company, allows you to compete with other businesses, and may even serve as the ultimate purchase incentive.

An Introduction To The High End Specifications Of The Sony Xperia S

The Sony Xperia S is the latest in the rather comprehensive Xperia range, and the first to remove the 'Ericsson' branding of previous handsets. Recently released, it is already turning a lot of heads in the smartphone world. This is thanks to a combination of appealing styling and a hi-tech list of features.

In this article I will look at some of the key features which make this such an appealing handset.

Aesthetics
Previous releases from the Xperia range like the Xperia Arc S and Xperia Ray have been arguably among the best looking smartphones to be released in recent months. The Xperia S continues this trend. The handset oozes class; it has the classic 'candy bar' form factor with a somewhat minimalist style. The screen merges seamlessly with the black edges of the phone, so when the phone is turned off or the screen is locked it is hard to separate the screen from the rest of the phone. If you are looking for an elegantly styled smartphone, the Sony Xperia S is definitely worthy of a place on your shortlist of potential handsets.

Camera
One of the most publicized features of this device is the built-in digital camera. It is the first smartphone since the Nokia N8 to boast a camera resolution of 12 megapixels. Therefore, you can expect still images with quality which can be matched by very few other smartphones currently available. Of course, with such a high pixel resolution comes the ability to capture video footage in 1080p which is full high-definition. The camera goes beyond the standard functions of simply shooting videos and taking photos; there is a panoramic shot feature which replicates the effect of using a wide-angle lens on a professional quality camera. As you would probably expect the camera also has the standard package of features which make life that little bit easier when trying to take quality photos. Autofocus, image stabilization and face & smile detection can all be set to automatic so you are likely to achieve the desired results first time. As a camera phone, the Sony Xperia S is among the best. If this is an important feature for you, then this handset is likely to be an ideal choice.

Screen
The all around quality of the spec list lasts with the screen. The LED backlit LCD capacitive screen is similar to that of the iPhone 4S with its retina display in terms of the technology used. However there is a major difference between these two phones and this is in its pixel resolution. The Sony Xperia S can claim to be one of the few smartphones with a higher resolution than that of the popular Apple device and its retina display. At 720x 1280, the resolution of the screen makes everything on the screen appear in ultra high quality; ideal for playing games downloaded from the Android Market or watching high-definition movies, the screen usually makes more mundane tasks enjoyable, like composing text or email messages or browsing the web.

The device currently runs the Gingerbread version of the Android operating system but it has been confirmed that the phone will support an upgrade to the Ice Cream Sandwich version upon its imminent release. Therefore, you can expect the ultimate smartphone experience thanks to the most up to date version of the popular platform along with some of the most impressive hardware currently available on any smartphone.

The 7 Natural Laws of the Universe

The Law of Perpetual Transmutation-

* Energy moves into physical form.

* The images you hold in your mind most often materialize in results in your life.

The Law of Relativity-

* Nothing is good or bad, big or small... until you RELATE it to something.

* Practice realting your situation to something much worse and yours will always look good.

The Law of Vibration and Attraction-

* Everything vibrates, nothing rests.

* Conscious awareness of vibration is called feeling. Your thoughts control your paradigms and your vibration (which dictates what you attract).

* When you are not feeling good, become aware of what you are thinking, then think of something pleasant.

The Law of Polarity-

* Everything has an opposite: Hot - Cold ... Up - Down ... Good - Bad.

* Constantly look for the good in people and situations. When you find it, tell the person. People love compliments and the positive idea in your mind makes you feel good. Remember, good idea - good vibrations.

The Law of Rhythm-

* The tide goes out ... night follows day ... good times - bad times.

* When you are on a down swing, do not feel bad. Know the swing will change and things will get better. There are good times coming - think of them.

The Law of Cause and Effect-

* Whatever you send into the Universe comes back. Action -- re-action are equal and opposite.

* Say good things to everyone; treat everyone with total respect and it will all come back. Never worry about what you are going to get, just concentrate on what you can give.

The Law of Gender-

* Every seed has a gestation or incubation period. Ideas are spiritual seeds and will move into form or physical results.

* Your goals will manifest when the time is right. KNOW they will.

So ... why am I bringing these up?

Because YOU can utilize these Laws of Our Universe to bring UNTOLD wealth into your life; wealth in health, wealth in relationships (spiritual, family, personal, business), and financial wealth.

Wallace D. Wattles (the author of the book written in 1910 entitled The Science of Getting Rich) states "Getting rich is the result of doing things in a certain way." That is the largest truth I can share with any of my family and friends (this includes You, who are reading this). That statement, and these Laws have already done so much for me with their use value. I've experienced an enlightening, in the sense that I no longer dread debt. I no longer have astranged relationships with my family and friends that at one time I had. I no longer see life as being a "half empty glass" now it's "abundantly full".

I first learned about The Secret through my sister, back in February of this year, and caught a special on Oprah about it on my birthday that month. The show was very uplifting and had me researching the Teachers in the program, and beginning to read their books. After a few months I decided that this was undoubtedly for me. At the time of my learning and research my son and I had a rather strained relationship and we had not been close for over a year and a half; and through the power of Positive Thinking, and applying the Law of Vibration and Attraction to my life, we were able to rediscover and strengthen our relationship. We've now embarked on this journey together.

We are now on Myspace, Facebook and several other social networking sites, meeting like minded people who are either currently applying the Laws of the Universe to their lives, or are interested in learning how I (and my son) are utilizing these Laws in our daily lives. This site has already paid for its worth in gold with the genuine interest and relationships we are building here. We are Attracting people, and letting them Attract us. We are not spammers, we don't want to impose anywhere where we've not been asked. But imagine applying these Laws to your life, and how abundant things can be when approaching the same situations with such a different mindset. This is a truly mind encompassing, re-wiring of sorts, to put all your negative thoughts, emotions and energy to rest, and instead allowing you to control the positive thoughts, emotions and energy out into the world to start Attracting everything your heart desires.

By now most people have heard about The Secret and The Law of Attraction, but very few people KNOW them, and even fewer that are applying them. But I can honestly put out there, that this way of thinking and acting is the way to living the full, happy, abundant, wealthy life we all have undoubtedly dreamed of at some point or another. So ... don't you think it's about time You begin to realize everything You visualize?

Well ... what do I mean by that statement?

I mean that everything that You put out into this Universe, through the power of your thoughts and dreams and actions, can and will come to fruition, if given the time. I am most certainly NOT saying "you'll get rich if you wait for it". But what I am saying is, starting today, RIGHT NOW, start changing your outlook. Visualize sitting on the beach, or in the rain forest, and don't think "oh I don't have the time to take off" or "that takes too much money" instead, visualize and realize that sand can be in between your toes, that ocean can be lapping at your feet, with your eyes closed, and the sound of the waves crashing. Doesn't that just wet your lips? I know it does mine (I personally LOVE the ocean and the beach).

All it takes is the knowledge, and though I can give you a gateway to that knowledge, You have to want it, you have to walk through that doorway, BUT I am here to provide you with that first step. These are my "promises for a sweet life" promising myself that day to day I will reaffirm everything I already know, and continue utilizing these tools, and spreading the word of their use to people of all ages who are willing to listen. I want to offer You a FREE Gift that opened My eyes and has started me on this journey of personal growth and development ... because that's exactly what this is.

To begin learning the Natural Laws of the Universe, including the Law of Vibration and Attraction, click here with this Free Gift of 7 lessons emailed to you, in a non-spam format. Each one of these lessons is HAND crafted to teach you step by step how to go about this mindshift so to speak.

To Your Vast Success,













Marcy