7 Powerful Ways To Make Money From Adsense Using Only Free Tools

There is really no doubt that there are amazing incomes currently being made on Google AdSense and the really interesting thing is that even relatively small sites and blogs are finding new ways to make money from their AdSense sites every day.

Actually there are a lot of increasingly creative ways to make money and maximize on AdSense earnings that are being discovered and also being put to use every day. And what's even more fascinating is the fact that most of these tools being used do not cost anything. They are actually free. Here are 7 of the most effective currently being used.

a) Ways to make money from AdSense by distributing articles through ezine and article announcement lists

Some of the most effective methods ways to make money from AdSense clicks involve the simple step of just increasing the volume of targeted traffic to a site. One of the ways of doing this is by distributing interesting content to ezine lists and article announcement lists. It is not too difficult to quickly build a list that reaches a million or so email boxes and can so give a lot of visibility and drive tons of highly targetd traffic to your AdSense site or sites. Probably the most popular place for doing this is at Yahoo groups, but there are a few others that you can find easily by using your favorite search engine.

Success here depends on three main factors. Firstly you should be careful to join article announcement lists and ezine lists that are as relevant as possible to your subject matter and offering. Secondly your headline has to be a killer headline that will grab readers by the scruffs of their necks and force them to open your email message among the dozens or even hundreds of others they receive daily. It goes without saying that the content must meet the promise of your sensational headline. Anything less will cause annoyance and leave all those potential visitors to your AdSense site feeling cheated. And believe me, you do not want to cause this sort of reaction because it is definitely not one of the ways o make money from AdSense or any other program for that matter. Thirdly, you will need the sort of resource box in all your articles that will leave most of your readers with no option but to visit your AdSense site.

Within a very short of consistently applying this technique, my daily AdSense earnings increased seven-fold.

b) Ways to make money from AdSense by distributing free articles to high traffic article sites
Some people find the recent trends that have seen an increase in article sites surprising. I do not. The net is primarily an information-seeking tool. Anything that will help improve the search and quality of information will greatly benefit the people making that effort.

Some of the older article directories receive very high traffic, mainly from web masters and site owners seeking quality free content for their sites. So apart from the immediate exposure these sites also guarantee plenty of future targeted traffic to your site, when individuals find your articles useful enough to re-post at their sites.

The more new articles you release to these sites every week, the more targeted traffic your AdSense sites will receive. This is in fact one of the most effective ways of making money consistently from AdSense clicks. One of the reasons for this is that targeted traffic will tend to spend more time at your site or sites, and the more time they spend, the higher the chances that they will click one of the adsense ads posted there.

c) Ways to make money from AdSense by Using Articles And A Viral Marketing Website

Any online marketing technique that involves the use of referral marketing or viral marketing automatically has a huge chance of being a success. The net is ideal for viral marketing and in fact gives any viral marketer huge leverage. Viral marketing or referral marketing is one of the most effective ways to make money online. Just ask Bill Gates.

When Gates was trying to play catch up on the Internet after an earlier mistake of underestimating the future importance of the net, he launched his Hotmail free email service when rivals like Yahoo already had millions of users. He decided to use a simple referral marketing technique. Every Hotmail message that went out had a brief signature at the end requesting the recipient to sign up for their free Hotmail account. Within a few short months, Hotmail had millions of users. And there are many other amazing stories which viral marketing boasts of on the net.

There is one of the very simple ways to make money from AdSense by going viral. Sign up at a leading viral marketing site. You will automatically get your own viral site. You can then use some of your articles to point people to your viral site. The way these sites work is that anyone who signs up at your site will have to visit your AdSense site if you register it at the site. So within a very short time you will be driving thousands of visitors to your AdSense site.

Find more details on this at my blog which address you'll find in the resource box below.

Admittedly this traffic is less targeted. Still the huge potential and possible numbers you are able to receive using this tool more than makes up for this.

d) Ways to make money from AdSense with Your Email signature

People greatly underestimate the power and potential effectiveness of a simple email signature as one of the ways to make money online. Actually this is a viral marketing method because emails get forward all the time and are even copied to several other people sometimes.

Do not waste another minute. Go to all your email accounts right now and create a signature that points to your AdSense site or sites.

Writing effective email signatures is a skill that you will have to develop, but I have found that using famous quotes is more effective than a straight advertising message. Always remember that people hate to be advertised to online.

e) Ways to make money from AdSense By Asking Questions At Discussion groups

I recently had an interesting conversation with a young Internet and computer techie. He asked me if there were quick ways to make money online by answering technical questions and helping people to solve their computer and web-related problems. My answer was that there were many discussion groups where participants would get these answers for free. I advised him that he had a better chance of making money by making use of this free advice available online rather than trying to sell his own advice.

There are tons of online discussion groups where leading world experts will answer your questions and give you valuable insight for free. It is amazing why most people do not think of using these online forums to learn as much as they can about the most effective ways of making money from Adsense.

These forums can easily be found through you favorite search engine.

f) Ways to make money from AdSense By Bartering your online skills for valuable AdSense keywords

In the old days, before the invention of money, if somebody needed something, the first question they asked themselves was; "What is it that I already have that I can exchange for what I need? Barter trade seems to have been forgotten but it is a very powerful method of trading. to send them money for an item they need.

You can barter whatever it is you have, your skills, products or services, and exchange them for genuine valuable AdSense keywords. Valuable AdSense keywords are the most effective way for a small site with low traffic to earn big cash from Adsense. And you can do this barter trade on an ongoing basis so that you always have a constant supply of valuable AdSense keywords which you can use at your site or blog as one of the ways to make more money from Adsense.

g) Ways to make money from AdSense By Sending Teaser Emails

To Everybody In Your Inbox And Also To Your Opt-in Email List
Most of us receive tons of email in our inbox every day. You'll be surprised at the huge number of people you know by simply going through your email inbox. No matter how good your spam filters are, you are also bound to be receiving more than your share share of SPAM or unsolicited email. All this is "gold" lying in your email inbox and there are ways to make money using these emails. All you need to do to process the emails into pure gold is to send out "teaser emails about the most interesting aspects of content at your site. to send out teaser email on this content here is how I would construct it;

Subject: Free Tools Currently Being Used To Increase AdSense Earnings

Hello,

Just thought you might be interested in this subject, since so many people online use AdSense these days. If not please accept my sincere apologies. Details are at my site.

www. your site's address .com

Regards,
Chris.

I am sure you can write an even more effective teaser email. It would be a better idea to have a different message for your close friends, a different one for your business contacts and yet another one for those nasty guys SPAMMING you.

These are just some of the many creative ways to make money from Adsense.

A Guide to Hiring an SEO Provider

If your business has any online components (such as a website), then SEO is critical to the ongoing success of your business. You may have the most expensive website in your industry, but without web traffic (visitors) to that website, it is essentially useless. It is not just traffic that you need, but targeted traffic. A good quality SEO service can provide relevant, consistent web traffic to your website (s). This guide will allow you, as a non-expert, to distinguish between good and bad SEO providers. There are many of both kinds, this guide should help you to find the good ones.

SEO needs to be implemented in a way that is effective in achieving your SEO goals and providing that all important meaningful presence on the World Wide Web.

Quality SEO is a critical investment when it comes to developing successful expansion and growth strategies.

Ineffective SEO implementation, renders your SEO efforts wholly ineffective and a waste of your money.

6 things you need to know and understand before hiring an SEO provider:

1) Hiring an SEO provider should be seen as an investment in your business. You should not view it as a business expense, but rather a business strategy and an effective way of enhancing your business presence within your business sector. Try not to begin your search with the intent of "buying some SEO". Hiring an SEO provider should have viewed rather as hiring an employee that understands and cares about your business and its online objectives.

2) The first page of Google (or any search engine) is everything. Few people ever go to the second page of the search results anymore. Google is so good at being a search engine that people blindly trust Google's ability to deliver the most relevant results on the first page. Think about how often you click through to the second page. This means that if your business is not on the first page, it's almost as good as now. The top positions on page one get the most clicks, which decrease as you progress downwards on the page.

3) The 'big' keywords are not everything. It is better to be on the first page for a fewer smaller keywords, than try to rank for larger keywords and not be on the first page at all. For example, an accountancy business in Preston may not rank for the highly competitive keyword 'accountant' (unless they have a lot of SEO budget and time to wait for rankings); but the same business could conceivably rank highly for the keyword 'chartered accountant Preston'. A good SEO provider should research the keywords that your business could literally rank on page one for and also keywords that have enough search volume to be worthwhile for your business to try ranking for.

4) SEO is all about beating your competition. There is no guarantee from the search engines to say you will be on the first page of Google if you do certain things. Put simply, SEO works like this:

The search engines have their conventions; websites that conform by giving the search engines what they want, will find them making achieving search engine rankings. The only thing standing between you and the top spots in the search rankings is your competition. Not your actual business competitors, but your online competitors. The websites that currently have the top spots in the search engines for your desired keywords are your online competition, and you need to beat them out of those top spots. Some keywords will be easy to rank for, others will be more difficult. It is only your online competition that dictates which will be the case for each individual keyword. A good SEO provider will research the competition for each of your keywords. Then, after the most effective keywords for your business sector have been identified that they should be implemented in accordance with point number three above.

5) On-page and Off-page SEO.

Search engine optimization is a complex and ever-evolving science, but in order to intelligently interview a prospective SEO provider you need to understand that there are two main types of SEO.

On-page SEO relates to the factors on your website that affect your SEO (keywords, usability, page headings, outbound links, internal links, etc.).

Off-page SEO are the factors that relate directly to matters outside of your website that affect the SEO of the website, such as back links, citations, social sharing, etc.

SEO providers can work on your off-page SEO fairly easily, but if you are not willing to change on-page SEO, according to their recommendations, you can not blame them for lack of results. A good SEO provider will review your website and report back about your on-page SEO, and how it can be improved. You should have your web designer make the adjustments. (Remember he is the expert in this field)

6) An increase in search engine ranking is not necessarily an increase in leads and sales. All your SEO provider can do is get your website, videos, Google Places, articles, blog posts, etc. further up the search engine results. They can not guarantee an increase in sales or leads, because that factor is determined by your own sales funnel. It is not the SEO provider's job to make sure that the extra web traffic you receive will convert to more leads or sales. Your website needs to convert those visitors with good marketing, which is an issue for your marketing consultant to deal with.

The key differences between 'good' and 'bad' SEO providers:

Good SEO Providers
Good SEO providers know and understand the points mentioned above. You can judge this by their answers to the questions provided later in my next article.
Good SEO providers want to build a solid foundation and a proper SEO plan for your business, with an extensive initial keyword and market (competitor) research. They will often insist upon it, even if the prospect client does not see the need. Sometimes a good SEO provider will refuse to work with a client that does not want the important groundwork to be done, because they know that without it they will not be likely to provide the client with the results that they want. A good SEO provider will want to provide their client with results as their first priority. Often a client will say "but I've already done the keyword research myself". Many potential clients sit down for 5 or 10 minutes to write out all the keywords that they think are relevant to their business, and then think that they have now done all the keyword research that is needed. Real keyword research is a lengthy, investigative process.

Good SEO providers use responsible SEO methods, such as paying more attention to on-page SEO, securing quality back links, improving citations, helping social sharing, including a good user experience, etc.

Bad SEO Providers
Bad SEO providers will want to take their clients' money as their first priority. They will not conduct proper keyword and market research, but will say, for example, "what are your three keywords and your URL that you want to rank for". If this happens (as it often does) you can be sure they are simply plugging your website into software to get irrelevant back links all over the internet, using spam blog comments, link farms and other means. In many cases this approach is ineffective because the URL, or domain, may not match the client's desired keywords. This can also damage the reputation and, ironically, the long-term SEO and credibility of the website.
Bad SEO providers use bad quality SEO methods (Sometimes referred to as Black-hat methods), Utilizing these methods can have an extremely detrimental effect on how your website is perceived by search engines. This in turn may result in your website being (Sand boxed). Needless to say this is extremely undesirable, as damage such as this is extremely difficult to reverse.

Ensure you get the specialist SEO who knows how to highlight the attributes of your company and can draw attention to your products and your services in a way that really makes your business stand-out on the worldwide web.

What Can Auto Sales and Leasing Courses Do For You?

Do you already love being around cars? Do you get that excited feeling just being near a new car? Why not make car sales and leasing a career?

To earn a sale and - even more important - earn referrals and repeat sales, dealerships need expert sales staff who have the skills required to achieve extremely high levels of customer service and satisfaction. Anyone who can deliver this performance is going to be in high demand because potential employers understand their long-term success depends in large part on building and maintaining a strong sales force. With all the restructuring in the automotive industry, some people are asking whether it still pays to train for a car salesman job. They could not be more wrong. There is still strong demand for well trained car salesman, as car sales continue to grow. Salesmen, in fact, can earn a very high paying salary for a rewarding career.

There's more good news, too, for anyone searching for auto sales training. Economic forecasts indicate that sales and service sectors are the leaders in new job creation and will account for 31% of all new jobs in the next decade. It's also important to know that Japanese and European auto assemblers have become well established in North America, creating even more need for well-trained car salesmen.

You know what happens when demand for a specific job goes up? Salaries also go up too. Overall, there are three key factors that will drive up the alert potential of a qualified car salesman salary: a shortage of effective well-training automotive sales professions; an economy-wide shortage of sales reps in all industry categories; and the fact that 45% of the individuals in Sales and Service, and Business, Finance and Administration jobs are expected to retire in the next five years, according to Service Canada.

So what's the bottom line? A car salesman salary could be very attractive and top performers can expect to earn as much as $ 60,000 per year - or more.

Auto sales and leasing courses cover every aspect of the sales process from the "meet and greet" to automative sales and legal considerations. Graduates of these programs will be very well positioned to start a career, learning how to sell both new and pre-owned cars and trucks by expertly assessing a customer's wishes and needs.

The best auto sales & leasing programs will cover:
• Sales Consultants Role in the Dealership
• Retail Selling Performance Standards
• The Professional Selling Process
• Effective Presentation Skills
• Maintaining Customer Satisfaction

Find an car sales and leasing program today, and turn your passion for cars into an exciting career.

Recognizing Navigational Tools For the Future of Education

I have to laugh when I think of the times I watched the television program, "Flash Gordon," as he putted through outer space in his make-believe space ship, talking on his make-believe wireless radio, and dressed in his make-believe space suit. Well, I'm not laughing anymore. Today we have shuttled astronauts into outer space, have men living in a Space Station, have space suites that take your temperature and gauge your heart rate, and wireless communication devices that send pictures to Planet Earth. Far fetched from reality? Not anymore. As we speak, the future is starring us in the face, waiting to see how we will promote her in the next 5-10 years.

How did science-fiction become reality over the past 50 years? Let's consider one aspect of innovation: the learning environment - post secondary education. Why post secondary education, you may ask? As post secondary education population increases, programs to accommodate students will develop into curriculum that affords students the freedom to create and design systems they toy with on a daily basis. Are there risks involved in this adaptation process? There are risks involved when change occurs, and leadership should be aware of how to diplomatically confront the risk areas that could slow down progress. Some of the risks that could be encountered due to change are:

o Systems risks

o Subsystem risks

o People

o Financial/economic risks

o Societal/Cultural risks

If communication between systems, subsystems, people, and cultures within the organizational environment has established a strong communication system, risks factors will be at a minimum as long as the creative teams are honest and upfront about their reservations to change.

Let's look into the future through 'futureoculers' and see how the universe of learning can be brought into the present. I want to introduce to you five (5) key trends that I believe affect the current learning environment, can create change, and renovate the perspective of learners and educators for students of the future. These trends could be the key in creating a new perspective in post secondary education for an institution. The key trends are:

o Competitive classroom learning environments - campus on-site/online/distant

o Increase in technological tools

o Teaching/learning environments-more hands on

o Global expansion capability-internal and external

o Student input in the creative learning process

Navigational Systems

Before the five (5) key trends are defined, there needs to be an acknowledgement of how the trends will be supported and regulated through a changing environment. According to de Kluyver, and Pearce, II, having the right systems and processes/subsystems enhances organizational effectiveness and facilitates coping with change. Misaligned systems and processes can be a powerful drag on an organization's ability to adapt. Therefore, check what effect, if any, current systems and processes are likely to have on a company's ability to implement a particular strategy is well advised. Support systems such as a company's planning, budgeting, accounting, information and reward and incentive systems can be critical to successful strategy implementation. Although they do not by themselves define a sustainable competitive advantage, superior support systems help a company adapt more quickly and effectively to changing requirements. A well-designed planning system ensures that planning is an orderly process, gets the right amount of attention by the right executives, and has a balanced external and internal focus. Budgeting and accounting systems are valuable in providing accurate historical data, setting benchmarks and targets, and defining measures of performance. A state-of-the-art information system supports all other corporate systems, and it facilitates analysis as well as internal and external communications. Finally, a properly designed reward and incentive system is key to creating energy through motivation and commitment. A process (or subsystem) is a systematic way of doing things. Processes can be formal or informal; they define organization roles and relationships, and they can facilitate or obstruct change. Some processes or subsystems look beyond immediate issues of implementation to an explicit focus on developing a stronger capacity for adapting to change. Processes/subsystems aimed at creating a learning organization and at fostering continuous improvement are good examples. As an example, processes or subsystems are functional and maintain the operation of the system; the system may be Student Services and the subsystem may be the Financial Aid office or Admissions. Subsystems can be more in depth in relation to office operations, which involves employee positions and their culture; financial advisors, academic advisors, guidance counselors. These operations are functions performed on the human level and could have a positive or negative impact in the development of key trends. If employees are valued and rewarded for their dedication and service, the outcome will be responsible, committed employees for the success of their subsystem.

The Navigator

Every navigator needs a map, a plan, a driver to give direction to for a successful trip. In this case, the driver is several elements:

o Service integrity, reputation

o Affordability with an open door concept

Hughes and Beatty relate drivers as Strategic drivers; those relatively few determinants of sustainable competitive advantage for a particular organization in a particular industry or competitive environment (also called factors of competitive success, key success factors, key value propositions). The reason for identifying a relatively small number of strategic drivers for an organization is primarily to ensure that people become focused about what pattern of inherently limited investments will give the greatest strategic leverage and competitive advantage. Drivers can change over time, or the relative emphasis on those drivers can change, as an organization satisfies its key driver. In the case of post secondary education, drivers help measure success rates in the area of course completion ratio, student retention, and transfer acceptance into a university and/or the successful employment of students. Because change is so rampant in education, it is wise for leadership to anticipate change and develop a spirit of foresight to keep up with global trends.

Drivers can help identify the integrity of internal and external functions of systems and subsystems, as mentioned previously, by identifying entity types that feed the drivers' success. They are:

o Clientele Industry - external Market - feeder high schools, cultural and socio-economic demographic and geographic populations

- Competitors - local and online educational systems

- Nature of Industry - promote a learning community

- Governmental influences - licensed curriculum programs supported by local, state, and federal funds

- Economic and social influences - job market, employers, outreach programs

o College Planning and Environment - internal

- Capacity - Open door environment

- Products and services - high demand curriculum programs that meet, local, state, and federal high demand employment needs

- Market position - Promote on and off-campus activities that attract clientele

- Customers - traditional and non-traditional credit and non-credit students

- Systems, processes, and structures - trained staff and state-of-the art technical systems

- Leadership - integrity-driven, compassionate leadership teams

- Organizational culture - promote on-campus activities promoting a proactive environment for students

According to Hughes and Beatty, these functions can assimilate into the Vision, Mission, and Values statements to define the key strategic drivers for developing successful environments.

Navigating Towards a Destination

With the recognition of systems, subsystems, and drivers, we can see our destination in the distance and their value in building a foundation to support the five key trends. The five (5) key trends will help define strategic thinking in a global perspective; the understanding of futuristic thinking that encompasses: risk taking, imagination, creativity, communication among leadership, and a perspective of how the future can fit into today's agenda. The five (5) key trends are:

1. Competitive Classroom Learning Environments - campus on-site/online/distant

One of the major attractions in education today is to accommodate a student at every level: academically, financially, and socially. These three environments are the mainstream of why one school is selected over another school. Today there is a change in tide. Students who once competed for seats in post secondary schools are becoming a valued asset as post secondary schools compete between each other for students. High schools are no longer the only feeder into colleges. Today, students are coming from home schools, career schools, charter schools, high risk schools, private schools, religious schools, work environments, and ATB tested environments. So, how can the educational system attract students and keep them motivated in an interactive learning environment they can grow in? Wacker and Taylor writes that the story of every great enterprise begins with the delivery of a promise, and every product a great enterprise makes is nothing but an artifact of the truth of that promise. So what great enterprise can be created to attract new students? By creating learning/teaching environments, post secondary schools can prepare students to meet the demands of everyday life and their life in the community. Schools can consider incorporating a learning model to enable professors and/or community leaders/entrepreneurs to team teach in the classroom/online environment. Team Teaching will contribute valuable views into the learning environment, as well as, give students the working community's real-time perspective. In an excerpt from "The University at the Millennium: The Glion Declaration" (1998) quoted by Frank H.T. Rhodes, President Emeritus of Cornell University, for the Louisiana State Board of Regents report, Dr. Rhodes wrote that universities are learning communities, created and supported because of the need of students to learn, the benefit to scholars of intellectual community, and the importance to society of new knowledge, educated leaders, informed citizens, expert professional skills and training, and individual certification and accreditation. Those functions remain distinctive, essential contributions to society; they form the basis of an unwritten social compact, by which, in exchange for the effective and responsible provision of those services, the public supports the university, contributes to its finance, accepts its professional judgment and scholarly certification, and grants it a unique degree of institutional autonomy and scholarly freedom. To experience education is learning, to exercise knowledge is freedom, and to combine them is wisdom.

2. Teaching/learning environments-more hands on

As post secondary educators relinquish hands-on-chalk-board teaching styles and establish group teaching models, students will develop a greater understanding of the theme of the class environment as well as the professor in developing an understanding of the class cultures' stance in learning. Educators are discovering that inclusive learning styles are revamping the teaching model and becoming a positive influence in retention, better grades, camaraderie among students, and a greater respect for the professor. As professors learn to develop relationships with students, interaction will transpire, lecturing will be condensed into a time frame and interactive learning between students and professor will enhance the classroom environment.

3. Global expansion capability-internal and external

Students are surrounded by virtual global environments or are impacted by global elements: the clothes they wear are made overseas, the games they play on their electronic toys are created overseas, the war games they play are created to identify with global war games, etc. The only draw back to this scenario is a truly global learning experience. What they are seeing is not what they are getting; a real time global experience. James Morrison writes that in order to meet unprecedented demand for access, colleges and universities need to expand their use of IT tools via online learning, which will enable them to teach more students without building more classrooms. Moreover, in order for professors to prepare their pupils for success in the global economy, they need to ensure that students can access, analyze, process, and communicate information; use information technology tools; work with people from different cultural backgrounds; and engage in continuous, self-directed learning. Christopher Hayter writes that post secondary schools need to be 'Globally Focused' for the 21st century that includes a global marketplace and be internationally focused. This means ensuring that skills needed to compete in a global marketplace are taught and that the mastery of such skills by students is internationally benchmarked. It may also mean a new emphasis on learning languages and understanding other cultures and the business practices of other countries.

More and more businesses are expanding into the global marketplace, opening corporate offices in foreign countries and hiring and training employees from those countries. Are our college graduates being trained to assimilate into cultures and work side-by-side with employees who may not be able to relate to them? Developing curriculums accommodating social and cultural entities will propel a student into higher realms of learning and create change in the individual student as well as support their career for their future.

4. Student input in the creative learning process

Professors are the gatekeepers in education. However, as Baby Boomer Professors begin to exit the educational workforce and head down the path of retirement, younger generation professors will take their place bringing with them innovative teaching methods that can expand the learning process. Are post secondary educators equipped to prepare for the onslaught of younger generation educators needed to be trained for this mega shift in the workforce? Most important, will those professors caught between Boomers and Xer's be willing to adapt to change in the education industry to accommodate incoming generations? I believe younger generations will impact even the technological industry and challenge change that will equip them for their future. Previous generation students slowly adapted to technological advances. The good news is change can occur, and educators can utilize life experiences from students familiar with technology tools and create fascinating learning environments.

5. Increase in Technological tools

In an Executive Summary written for the National Governors Association in a report called "Innovation America - A Compact for Post Secondary Education," the report reads that while post secondary education in the United States has already achieved key successes in the innovation economy, the public post secondary education system overall risks falling behind its counterparts in many other nations around the world-places where there have been massive efforts to link post secondary education to the specific innovation needs of industries and regions. According to this report, American post secondary education is losing ground in the race to produce innovative and imaginative realms in education. Can this trend be counteracted? With the cooperation of post secondary educational institutions within each community, leadership can create co-op learning environments that can be supported through e-learning and online teaching that can provide virtual reality technology to enhance real-time learning environments. Through Business Development operations currently established in post secondary institutions, a shared technology program can be created that will afford students access to ongoing virtual business environment settings and prepare students with knowledge and insight into a specific industry. As students prepare to transfer, graduate, or seek employment after completing a certification program, virtual experience in the job market can help a student assimilate education and work experience to their advantage. This concept could challenge Human Resource departments to create new mandates in accepting virtual-experienced college graduates as they enter the workforce.

Reaching the Destination

As Flash Gordan lands his Spacecraft on unclaimed territory, you imagine yourself slowly turning the handle to the spaceship with your spaceship gloves, opening the door with explosive anticipation. Your heart racing, sweat running down your brow, and your eyes at half mask waiting to see a new world; a world filled with beauty and potential when suddenly, the television shuts off and your Mom is standing in front of you telling you to get up and go clean your room and stop daydreaming! Ah, Mom, you say to yourself, you just destroyed my imaginary planet! Oh, by the way, did I mention that this was you as a child growing up and using your imagination?

Now that I've created a visual world of potential for you can you see the power within to see the future from the present and help others visualize the potential benefits of change in their lives and the lives of others in an organization? T. Irene Sanders states that thinking in pictures helps us link our intuitive sense of events in the world with our intellectual understanding. Now, more than ever, we need to integrate the techniques of imagination and the skill of intuition with our analytic competencies to help us see and understand the complexities that vex us daily. Visualization is the key to insight and foresight-and the next revolution in strategic thinking and planning.

Can you SEE the systems, subsystems, drivers, and the five (5) trends with a visual perspective in a post secondary educational environment? This is the nature of Strategic Thinking, which can or is taking place in your organization; a cognitive process required for the collection, interpretation, generation, and evaluation of information and ideas that shape an organization's sustainable competitive advantage. The need to stay abreast of progress, technology, and global opportunities will be the change in drivers that will validate the creative elements needed to stay attuned in a global perspective. The author's intention of introducing Flash Gordan into the paper was to create a visual image and demonstrate imagination fulfillment to a present day reality. Is there anything out there that cannot be done if it is fine tuned and prepared for a service of excellence? What are the risks involved by not exercising strategic thinking in the elements mentioned in this article?

Education is not about the present it's about the future. The five (5) trends are only a beginning adventure into an unknown space. Do you remember when you were in college and wished things were done differently, be more exciting, more adventurous? Consider the age groups becoming proficient in technology. Will post secondary educators be prepared to teach/instruct future students? Educators must invite strategic thinking into the system and take the risks needed to build post secondary education back into the global futuristic race of achievement. In an article written by Arthur Hauptman entitled "Strategies for Improving Student Success in Post secondary Education" (07), he concluded his report listing four elements:

1. While there is a growing rhetorical commitment to student success, the reality is that policies often do not mirror the rhetoric. Whether intentional or not, policies in many states are at best benign and often antithetical to improving student success.

2. Policy focus in most states has been to lower tuitions or the provision of student financial aid. This ignores the importance of ensuring adequate supply of seats to accommodate all students as well as providing a proper set of incentives that encourage institutions to recruit, enroll, and graduate the students who are most at-risk.

3. Some progress has been made in developing contemporary practices that have great potential for providing the right incentives in place of redress this traditional imbalance. But much more needs to be done in this regard.

4. Efforts to create incentives for students to be better prepared and for institutions to enroll and graduate more at-risk students have the potential for greatly improving rates of retention and degree completion.

Can the five trends be a stepping stone in rebuilding or strengthening the weakest link in the system? The evidence of deficiency is public, and that's a good start. Educators have the choice to rebuild and prepare for the advancement of our future; our students. I encourage you to take the five (5) trends and see how they can accommodate your institute of higher learning.

Work From Home - Make Money Online With eBay Store

By now you have probably heard plenty of success stories of people that have managed to utilize eBay to make money. The degree of success varies, but generally speaking there are certainly enough tales of financial gain out there to make anyone with even a tiny bit of entrepreneurial spirit perk up and wonder if they too could pad their income through eBay. The problem that most people run into, however, is that even those with a keen business sense and a natural talent for knowing how to find a make a sale do not typically know the tips and tricks that must be used on eBay to get a leg up on the competition.

While it certainly matters what you are trying to sell, there are other factors that will affect your trends of success. Understand that you are essentially using eBay as a store front and many of the traditional rules of making a sale apply. You have to be able to make yourself available to the customers, show that you can offer a better deal, and generally find a way to attract all of these different consumers to your product. Obviously, if you are not selling anything you will not be making any money; very soon you will most certainly need to begin mastering the different tactics that successful sellers use to attract customers to their listings, but before that you must become acquainted with the most basics of eBay.

What you want to do with eBay will determine how you need to approach the entire of your situation. If you intend to mainly use the service to attempt to try and sell a few items that you just have lying around the house then you might be well served simply by creating a few listings with catchy titles and allowing the bidding to resignation. However, if you are going to be using the service often or to sell several items, you may consider some of the other options that eBay offers. For example, one popular option that is offered is the ability to create an eBay "store".

If you tend to offer items along a particular theme, antiques, for example, then a store can provide users a quick, easy way to peruse your wares and to frequent your offerings on a fairly regular basis. This provides you with the opportunity to have a base of interested customers that are constantly updated on your new items and what you have to bring to the table. Additionally, as with most other eBay items, you do not actually have to offer the listing as an auction; it is completely within the realm of possibility to price the item yourself at the amount you would like to charge using the "Buy It Now" option. You can even offer your customers the option to haggle a bit by allowing them to make an offer; you obviously have the option to refuse this offer, but you might find yourself able to make a sell if you are willing to compromise a bit.

This, essentially, is what you need to know if you are new to eBay- that the basic styles of selling an item are a traditional auction style, where the item goes to the highest seller at the end of a set amount of time, and a very store-like option where you set the price and wait for an interested party to come along and make the purchase. Knowing these things is a good start towards making money on eBay, but these are just the fundamentals.

How you present your item could very well be the key factor in whether or not you are able to profit from your eBay venture. As you know, if a customer is unable to find your item they will, obviously, be unable to purchase it. eBay differs from a traditional store front in a variety of ways, but one of the most significant ways is that customers have to find your item by a text search, usually. This means that there are any number of problems that can occur and make someone who is otherwise interested in buying your item unable to find it.

For example, let's say that you make a spelling error when you list your item. This is going to make it significantly more difficult, sometimes even impossible, for someone who is looking for exactly what you have to offer to be able to find it. Basically, this means that you will have valuable equity locked up in an online limbo because no one is able to find your item to purchase it in the first place. You absolutely have to make sure that you do not make any errors such as this listing your product.

There are other aspects of the title, however, that are immensely important. It is not just enough for a buyer to be able to find your item; you need to try and make sure that they see what you are selling before they see the competition's merchandise. This means that you must be selective with the words that you use in your title, and even quite picky in the order of the words themselves. If at all possible, use Terapeak to try and discover what keywords customers search with to find products related to yours. These are the words that you need to use. Remember that you only have 55 characters so you have to use the most relevant keywords in the shortest space; these keywords are what will help you to be towards the highest results. If you need to communicate something else to a potential buyer you can use the subtitle feature; be aware, however, that eBay does not use this section to check for keywords, so keyword spam in this area is fruitless.

Additionally, you should be aware of the amount of time that an item is on sale for. If you have the item listed as a "Buy It Now" item this is not necessarily as relevant; if there is not very much competition on eBay from similar items it may be that you simply need to wait for the right customer; alternatively, lowering your price might be a good idea. However, the aspect in which you really need to be aware of time is the auction. Many sellers choose to put their item up for sale for the entire duration of seven days. This might seem to make the most sense- after all, the longer an item is for sale, the more opportunities people have to bid. This train of thought while being sound, is untrue.

If you pay very much attention to the various auctions on eBay you will notice that a sort of a bidding frenzy begins to ensue as the item approaches the end of the auction period. Once an item has less than a day remaining it becomes more immediate, and therefore more interesting, to a customer. In the last few hours customers are bidding constantly. One reason for this is the way in which eBay displays search results. An item with less time remaining will appear higher in the search results than an item with similar keywords but more time left. This means that you have the option to use good keywords and put your item on auction for a shorter amount of time to move your merchandise up the list of search results; additionally, you will still be able to attract the feeding frenzy type of bidding that occurs as an item nears its end. You can make the same amount of money in less time by making sure that your item is markeded properly.

Marketing is at the very soul of using eBay to make money. The odds are fairly strong that you will not be in a niche market and that you will have to struggle against competition to be able to really get a foot in the ground. If you are just starting out you can be at a distinct disadvantage against sellers that have been using eBay longer. For example, feedback is an important tool that many use when evaluating whether or not to make a purchase. Without good feedback you are fighting an uphill battle. There are, however, some tricks that can help you to overcome these obstacles and make a move on the competition.

Essentially, you must build your reputation as a quality seller from scratch. While it might be tempting to copy what it is that your competitors are doing, approach this from a customer's point of view. Why would a consumer purchase the exact same item from an unknown seller when they could get the guarantee offered by high positive feedback for the same price? It is not enough to simply do the same thing that your competitors are doing; you have to go above and beyond. To make any progress, you must outperform them.

One of the things that you must consider in the beginning is to offer your product at a lower price than other sellers. It does not have to be significantly lower, maybe as little as five or ten percent. However, a lower price can be the perfect way to sway buyers who might have otherwise made their purchase from your competition. This is not the only way to attract positive attention, however.

Depending on what it is that you are selling you might be be able to include a bonus item, something that is not very expensive if you have had the receipt to purchase it at a very low cost. For example, let's say that you are selling a smart phone- well, typically a new phone comes equipped with a charger and the necessary cables, but not a mobile charger. If you so desired, you could invest in a few of these and distribute them as a bonus with the order- you can often get a regular charger for which the owner supplies their own cable for only a dollar or two; it is a small gesture, but one that may influence a buyer to give you their business instead of your more popular competitor.

You can do other things, such as offering free gifts, that can help to build customer loyalty. For example, something as simple as including a small piece of candy with the package can be seen as a good will gesture; people will remember that you went the extra mile to make their experience just a little more pleasant, and if a mistake ever happens they might be more likely to give you a bit more leniency.

Shipping is also of the utmost priority. A common tactic that many eBay sellers attempt to use is to make a profit by charging more for shipping than it actually costs; this is not an encouraged idea. The point is to build up a great reputation among the eBay community to ensure your possible customers that you are trustworthy and will deliver their item, as promised. Padding extra costs into the purchase price very often results in very negative feedback.

You do not have to offer free shipping, but you do need to do everything within your power to make sure the buyer receives their item as soon as possible. Try to ship the item the same day that the offer closes, and be sure to supply the buyer with a tracking number so that they can keep track of their package. If something goes wrong in shipping this allows them to know the mistake was not yours; while they will not be pleased at the delay, most people are basically reasonable and will not hold this against you when leaving feedback.

Along the same idea of ​​customer service comes the feature of eBay to allow a potential buyer to ask a seller a question. If you happen to get a question from a consumer be aware that this person is, most likely, very interested in your merchandise. It is in your best interest to answer this question as quickly, and as honestly, as possible. You must do all of the little things that your competitors do not to build up positive feedback and to get the critical traffic you need as you are just getting started. The way to make money with eBay is to market yourself, market your product, and ensure people that you are a quality seller that makes sure they receive their item quickly and in the promised condition. Once you have established these things customers will be drawn to you; this is where you can begin to make money.

How To Make Money Trading Domains

Domain trading is the buying and selling of domain names and it is a business that has been on for many years. It promises a high yield on investment but can be very risky. You can turn $ 25 into $ 450 or more within a short time and you may buy a domain name without ever selling. It is an interesting terrain to navigate. If you want to make money with this business, you need to get as much information as possible so that you will be able to succeed.

One of the benefits of this business is that you only need to register or buy a domain name and not necessarily developing it or pulling traffic to it. You do not even need to put any content. Just own the domain - that's all. You may be wondering where and how to buy domains. You have two options to choose from and you can use both. The first option is to register through registrars and this is referred to as the primary market. Top registrars include GoDaddy, NameCheap, iPage, 1and1, Dynadot and so on. The price for registration varies from one registrar to another and there may be additional products added by each registrar.

The second option is to buy an already registered name and this is referred to as the secondary market. Examples of secondary markets are Sedo, GoDaddy, Flippa, Afternic, just to mention a few. Pricing at the secondary market is a bit on the high side and this is determined by so many factors like the age, category, number or words, valuation of the names and so many other factors. However, it is important for you to note that a domain is renewable every year and you have to factor this into your plan when making purchase and sale decisions.

Furthermore, choosing the right domain name is very crucial to your success in this business. You do not just go ahead to buy a name you can think of. It does not work like that. It's not gambling and you need to be able to identify marketable names. You can visit news sites like TheDomains, Domaining, DomainInvesting and so on, to know the latest trend in the market. It is not easy to predict a name that will sell but if you get familiar with information about the industry, you will be better positioned to make the right decision. Typically, the best names are short, easy to remember, easy to spell, easy to pronounce and so on.

Jesus Taught the Law of Attraction - Part 1

The Law of Attraction is a popular phenomenon that promotes the theory that you can attract anything you want into your life by thinking about it. Now, this is a 30,000 foot view of the Law of Attraction, because upon closer inspection, there are many other factors that are needed to insure success for manifesting what you want into your life. Religious fundamentalists have criticized the Law of Attraction because of its emphasis on seeking material possessions and because it looks like the Law of Attraction places the power of creation solely upon the individual, as opposed to God, which is not a concept embroidered in fundamentalist religious ideology .

The Law of Attraction gained its popularity by the huge success of the book and movie, "The Secret". If you use only "The Secret" as an argument against the Law of Attraction due to the movie / books simplicity of LOA (Law of Attraction) principles and the hedonistic tone of the movie, I may have to agree. But, the true value of "The Secret" was the mass exposure the book / movie provided to the general public about the concept of LOA. Before the "The Secret" was produced, the idea itself of being a participant in your own life design was totally alien. There is no doubt that the prevailing attitude of our current culture, whether you're religious or not, is that we are all victims in a tough world, and I thank "The Secret" for opening the door of opportunity to see the world differently .

The initial first look at the principles of the Law of Attraction in "The Secret" was a good introduction, but ironically the true principles of the Law of Attraction have been around for over 2000 years, in fact, they were taught to us by Jesus . The Law of Attraction, when studied deeply and from a metaphysical level, is really an opportunity to live our lives the way that Jesus taught us to do, infinitely and abundantly.

"But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." (Matthew 6:33)

At first glance, Jesus words above might simply that we have a huge task to fulfill before we can get to the good part for us, (things added until you). But although the above words from Jesus holds more to it than we thought possible before.

Many traditional religions teach that life is successful, happy, fulfilling, etc., or not, by the manner in which we conduct ourselves according to the religious rules / principles, and by doing so, we create a positive or negative flow into our lives . (seek the Kingdom of God first THEN the you will be rewarded accordingly). Yet, a devoutly religious person may do everything their religion says they should do, and yet still experience great hardships and suffering in their lives. This is sometimes attributed to being the will of God or part of a plan that God has for you. Or, these hardships may be because you clearly have not been "seeking the Kingdom of God first". While there may be some spiritual sanction in the text for these traditional religious beliefs, the precept that you are not a participant in your own life design, other than to live by the rules mandated in order to receive your blessings in this life or the next , is highly subjective and clearly interpretive. Religious themes leave out the fact that as a child and image of God, that you, yourself, have amazing power as well. The find God principle taught in almost all religious belief systems, is what I call the top down approach to spiritual connection. God is above and we are below and it is our responsibility to reach out to God by following these rules and opening our hearts and then all should be pretty good for us in the here and after after. In the approach, we start with a baseline of separateness and use religion and ideology as a way to connect to God. In other words, we do not go to church to learn about our power because of our inseparable relationship with God, instead we learn what God has done for us already, separately from us, to encourage us to connect to a relationship with God.

The notion of learning about God, and I mean connecting to God in a serious intimate and powerful way, comes by first looking inside ourselves and therein finding God. This is what I call the bottom up approach to connecting to God. In this approach, our baseline starts with us being ALREADY connected and using our own Divine power within to discover and awaken to God and the Divine Universe, which includes the LOA principles. It is in this approach to spiritual connection and personal empowerment that true LOA processes begin.

So another interpretation of our earlier Bible verse that may more closely align with our innate power and divine inheritance is:

"But seek ( discover, obtain ) ye first the kingdom of God, ( the divine power of God manifested in you ) and his righteousness; ( God's qualities, such as worth, value, abundance, and joy that is already within you ) and all these things ( human and spiritual wants and needs related to what you find within you ) will be added to you. " (Matthew 6:33)

And to support the kingdom of God verbiage (because without the following words from Jesus, the kingdom of God could be construed to be some faraway or unknown place), Jesus clarifies for us where the kingdom of God is located.

"Either shall say, Lo here! Or, lo there! For, behold, the kingdom of God is within you." (Luke 17:21)

The Law of Attraction also teaches that in order to manifest the things that we want to see realized into our lives, we must go within as well. The greatest LOA teachers will equate the powerful visualization and certainty of our strongest desires to a heartfelt calling from your inner divine being. Manifesting a new trinket for pure pleasure may be possible by the power of a strong energetic will, but this parlor trick is not a true Law of Attraction principle. LOA principals operate from a fundamental covenant that God and man, cooperatively manifest from the infinite possibilities available within each one of us (kingdom of God within).

The exact Law of Attraction definition simply states that "like contracts like", which is another way of saying that we live within our true beliefs. So, the best start for a successful LOA practice is to think and act from our existing beliefs (go within). Certainly it is possible with a strong belief, and an undeniable firm conviction, to manifest just about anything. But for those only looking for a new distractions and material possessions to manifest for the purposes of status, ego gratification, or neediness, then you have missed the true power of the Law of Attraction. You may be able to apply LOA principles to get what you want, but then next day, the want will still be there. The bottom line is you can think and attract all you want, but the core element of practicing a successful and strongly beneficial Law of Attraction practice is first starting within to manifest from a divine and authentic belief system. Know where your power comes from, which is from the kingdom of God within you. Applying the LOA principles from a position of divine strength, by going within, to see the enfoldment of all the "things" that will be added to you (through our beliefs), is the Law of Attraction being practiced as Jesus taught.

Now, the next steps in a successful Law of Attraction practice were also taught by Jesus in many different examples in the Bible. We will address the next fundamental step of LOA principles, which is your belief in the power of manifestation and what you are manifesting, in Part 2 of this article. For this article, the main concept to consider is this: The Law of Attraction is a process of living a life of unlimited potential within your own Divine authority (kingdom of God within). We all have the ability to do this, but the reasons we are unsuccessful at it are: we ask and desire from an inauthentic mindset (our desires do not match a true need that wants to be met), we do not really believe in the process or in the thing that we are asking for, and we do not "live" within the Divine authority to create the life we ​​want. All of these problems with the LOA process will be addressed in the next segment of this article and additional teachings of Jesus will be referred to demonstrate how Jesus also taught the Law of Attraction.

Summary

Law of Attraction - Like Attract Like

Step One - Before you go manifesting things like, days off from work, cars, money, or for your ex-husband to get the crabs, you MUST identify what you really want and where the want comes from. Want that comes from neediness, resentment, revenge, unworthiness, fear, and lack, are inauthentic wants (meaning they come from the ego and not from the divine higher self), and you may succeed in manifesting some of your wants but they will never satisfy the authentic need. This does not mean you can not manifest material "things", it just means that your manifestation must come from "within" to be a true Law of Attraction principle in action. This is why Jesus instructs us to find the kingdom of God (within) before the things are added to us. Know where your power comes from and understand what your true wants are.

Proverbs 29:18, "Where there is no vision, the people perish."

Postcard Marketing - A Few Simple Tips You Should Know!

Direct mail Postcard Marketing is nothing new. This method of marketing has been used by direct marketers for decades. Effective postcards need to be simple yet eye-catching. A postcard can also double as a gift certificate or a coupon. You can also use both sides of the card to promote your campaign. Your postcards should also have multiple ways to contact you. Your address, 800 number, web site, etc. If you offer multiple ways for someone to contact you, the more likely it will be that they will contact you.

If you have the time and money to invest, Postcard marketing can be very lucrative. From the cost of designing and printing postcards, to the cost of postage for delivering the postcards. These costs can vary greatly. The costs will range from $ 1500 to more than $ 3000 for 5000 postcards. How much you pay for shipping, designing and printing, can all vary depending on current shipping rates, and the deals that can be found for design and printing. The higher the quantity of postcards, the lower the cost per card. This, however, leads to a higher overall upfront cost.

With postcard marketing you can easily track the success / failure rate. If you send out 5000 postcards, a 5% response rate might be expected. That means you would have 250 responses. Of 250 responses you might again expect 5% to buy your product or service. That's 12.5 products or services sold for every 5000 postcards sent out. That equates to about 1/4 percent overall. These percentages are just an example and will vary significantly. The types of products and service being sold, and whether or not there's a market for that particular product or service at the time, are two factors that will play a major role in determining the overall success of any direct mail Postcard Marketing campaign.

In conclusion, direct mail postcards are more likely to be read than emails. For that reason, direct mail postcard marketing has proved to be very successful for a wide range of companies selling a wide range of products. However, it is not for every business or every product. I would not recommend this method of marketing to someone just starting out. In my opinion there are many other methods of marketing that are far more cost effective, and have far better results than direct mail postcard marketing. That being said, should you still choose this method of marketing, please make sure you do your homework. The more targeted your mailing list, the better the results will be.

How to Fix Your Cheesecake - A Troubleshooting Guide

A cheesecake should be relatively trouble free but occasionally problems do come up. Over the years, we've been asked the following questions.

"What's the easiest way to make crumbs for my crust?"

Lots of folks use a food processor; we don't bother. We use a heavy duty zipper-type plastic bag and crush the crackers or cookies with a rolling pin a few at a time. We save the plastic bag for the next crust. If we're in a hurry, we just use packaged graham cracker crumbs rather than crushing crackers.

"I have lumps in my cheesecake. How do avoid those?"

Most likely the lumps are from globules of cream cheese in your batter. Before adding any of the other ingredients, beat the cream cheese and granulated sugar together until completely mixed. The sugar crystals will cut through the cream cheese breaking up the globules. In the heat of the oven, the sugar will melt further breaking up any pieces.

If your recipe calls for chocolate, either white or dark, the lumps could be chocolate. When the chocolate is mixed into the cool batter, it solidifies and creates lumps. To avoid that, make sure your melted chocolate is hot, well above the melt point. With your mixer running, drizzle the hot chocolate into the batter. With the chocolate hotter, it will disperse before setting up.

"I bake my cheesecake for the time specified in the recipe and the center is still soft. What am I doing wrong?"

You're probably doing nothing wrong. Baking times in recipes are always estimates and can be affected by the temperature in your oven (calibrated temperatures are seldom right), the depth of the batter, whether the pan is light or dark (dark pans bake faster), how cold your batter is, and other factors. Don't worry about the time and just bake it until it done. (See the next question.)

"How do I tell when my cheesecake is done?"

There are three ways. You can gently shake the cheesecake. If only the center is still jiggly, it's done. This is not very precise but with practice, you can get good with this method.

The most common way is to stick a knife in the batter about one-inch from the center. If it's done, it will come out clean.

The most precise way to tell when a cheesecake is done is with an insta-read thermometer. Stick the probe in the center of the cheesecake and see what it reads. A cheesecake is done when the internal temperature reaches 170 degrees. That's when the proteins in the eggs coagulate.

"How do I stop my cheesecake from cracking?"

A cheesecake top without a crack seems to be the ultimate measure of success. It shouldn't be. A crack doesn't affect the taste. Many cheesecakes are topped and the topping covers any cracks.

There may be a number of reasons for cracks:

- Too much air incorporated into the filling may cause cracks.













- Too much baking time will over bake the filling and is a common cause of cracks.













- Uneven baking may be a cause. If you are using light gauge, reflective pans, consider switching to heavier gauge, dark pans.













- Too high of heat may cause cracking. Consider baking at 325 degrees instead of at 350 degrees.













- It your cheesecake cools too rapidly, it may develop cracks. Don't let your cheesecake cool in a draft.

Cheesecakes with starch in the filling are less prone to cracking.

"My crusts crumble when I try to serve my cheesecake. What am I doing wrong?"

It's the butter that acts as the mortar holding the crumbs together. The butter needs to be well mixed with crumbs. There has to be enough butter, a minimum of four tablespoons per crust. The mixture needs to be compacted with firm pressure. We use a pastry tamper or heavy mug to compress the bottom and to press the sides.

Always cut and serve your cheesecake cold. That way the butter is a solid. If the cheesecake gets too warm, the butter melts and the crust will crumble.

Baking a crust is not necessary but it does tend to hold the crust together. The sugar melts in baking and tends to hold things in place once it cools and sets.

"I always seem to muck up my slices when I cut my cheesecake. What's the best way to cut a cheesecake?"

Use the right knife, a sharp, thin-bladed knife. Don't use a serrated knife as filling and crumbs tend to stick to the serrations.

Cut with a downward pressure, dragging the knife as little as possible. After each cut, wash and dry the knife so that you have a clean blade slicing through the cheesecake.

"My slices seem to stick to the base and it's hard to remove them. Is there an easy way to neatly remove my slices?"

There is an easy way to get slices to slide of the pan base. Heat a wet kitchen towel in the microwave. Lay the towel on the counter and place the cheesecake directly on the hot towel. In a couple minutes, the heat will soften the butter against the base and slices will easily slip off.

It helps to have a springform pan with a smooth base.

Fundamentals Of Successful Business App Development

Nowadays, the web & mobile apps serve manifold advantages to businesses. Industrialists introduce these apps to facilitate their customers, employees, & occupy dominant brand position in the global market sphere. Either to carry out official tasks or manage your projects smartly, you rely on business app development to make your efforts in a right way. Whereas customers install these apps to enjoy better services like online shopping, booking, traveling, & more.

Our deviation towards mobile app technology indicates its significance in business promotion & brand recognition. Several local business owners, startups, SMEs, eCommerce firms trust their business app developers who create innovative application that can increase their sales & build their brands.

So, if you aspire to go for business app development, here are some fundamentals you need to consider for fruitful outcome:

Know your audience- Your customers reflect core value of your business and you need to prioritize their interests, choices, or other options regarding their likes & dislikes. Never leave any question that may harm your app's user retention and therefore, you must make sure to analyze your customers' preferences right from the beginning your app development process.

Convey right message- Either you want to sell specific products or facilitate customers with exceptional services, it's completely up to you. You already know that marketing always rules in the corporate world & hence, make sure to transform your app idea specifically for business promotion. Just concentrate on your message to adorn your app with something specific & original. Try to add relevant content that can inform your customers & promote your brand via promotional blogs on popular social media channels.

Focus on your business goals- Enlist your business objectives prior to the business app development. Business owners lay down certain expectations from an app & they mend their futuristic steps if it successfully interacts with the users. You must clear your business intentions & make your mind to strengthen its potential to steer heavy traffic within a short span of time. You can determine the success of your app idea considering the factors like user-engagement, customer response, popularity of content, app searches & downloads, and more.

Device compatibility is a win-win- Business is more profitable when you don't take risk to lose out even a single customer from your reach. Your business app development will double your revenues if your app is accessible on cross-platforms. So, you need to launch your business app for all devices as there are millions of Android & iOS app users. Communicate your Android or iOS app developer if you aspire to get a cross-platform app to uplift your brand image.

Strategize for business app development- Research work will help you know your competitors & their strategies to generate leads. Small-scale & mid-sized businesses innovate apps to make their footprints in the industry & plan to dive in the ocean of success.

Every business faces several ups & downs while struggling to keep a pace ahead in the corporate globe. Therefore, you must go for business app development as it serves a commendable contribution to get established & maximize your revenues.

E-Commerce Web Application - Why Testing Is Important

It is extremely important to test mobile applications and e-commerce websites so that it will not compromise on several factors such as customer data security, user experience, secure transaction, mobile responsiveness and quick load time. In addition, the success of your e-commerce web application depends heavily on smooth and proper functioning of these factors and should be free of bugs too. Thereby, you can give users an enjoyable and nice experience that would make them visit your app again for products and services.

Testing is inevitable to e-commerce success

We all know that users of e-commerce applications are spread worldwide as they deal with auctions, retail and wholesale, finance, manufacturing and marketing. Also, the fact that e-commerce industry is witnessing rapid growth for last few years can not be ignored. Organizations and businesses should devote more time in testing their website app and make it an indispensable part of their future e-commerce apps development. Here we bring to you a few important things on how to test an e-commerce website application.

Testing functionality of an e-commerce application

An e-commerce mobile or web app has four vital elements in the structure:

Product description page - It imports of product images, add to cart feature, product title, product comparison, description, related products and additional product details, to name a few.

Main pages - These include press releases page, homepage, about us page, privacy policy page, special offers, sitemap pages, among others.

Shopping Cart - Cash on delivery option, products list view, card payment, select delivery option, pay now option, remove product from the list, etc.

Product or Category Type Pages - The product page comprises of options akin to product type, size and color. Also, there is sorting feature to filter out products on the basis of size, model, price, etc. In addition, there is also "add to wish list" and "add to cart" feature in the category pages.

Before starting with the functionality testing, it is important to understand the e-commerce application or website completely. The above listed features are synonymous to all e-commerce applications, yet most of them are customized according to business specifications.

Testing flow of an e-commerce application

The testing of the workflow of an e-commerce web application includes the following:
• Check out process
• Signup and login options
• Sorting feature
• Search functionality
• Payment processing and payment gateway
• Applying filters for the selection of products
• Product review posting feature
• Invoice generation and order number
• Remove or add functionality in the shopping cart

Performing vulnerability as well as security assessments

Given that e-commerce mobile or web applications have valuable information of the client, including banking and personal data, it becomes critical to perform security testing to check for vulnerability and security issues in them.

Checking Compatibility with Web Browsers

It is essential that e-commerce applications work across all browsers such as Opera, Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer and Opera, among others. Run browser compatibility test to ensure that your customers can use it without nay hassle.

Conclusion

Running testing of an e-commerce web application is a must and common part of all e-commerce web or mobile app development. On the basis of your preference and need, you can look for an e-commerce web and customized portal development company. Irrespective of the venture you are planning to start, a smooth functioning portal or web application is critical to its success.

Crucial Factors That Decide The Fortune Of A Mobile App

While businesses had long ago embraced website development to go online, with the advance of smartphones, they leapt further to become mobile-friendly. Having only a website is no longer sufficient enough to catch the attention of customers, but there's need for some mobile-friendly approach too so that customers could access their services on the go. It becomes a paramount necessity for businesses to develop their own customised business app, with which they could target specifically and increase their outreach on the market.

However, despite mobile apps becoming inseparable and pivotal part of businesses as a marketing strategy, a mere percent of apps actually get through the success among the several million listed in the app stores. This is owing to some critical factors that can either make or break a business application. Here's quick recount of some of them.

Faster loading

The first thing app owners need to assure is whether their apps are loading quickly or not. Their loading time, in no way, should exceed more than 15 seconds. An app that works at a snail's speed and take 16-20 seconds to load, is destined to fail because users will be uninstalling it and download an alike app that loads with high-speed.

User-friendly apps are clear winner

An ideal app is that which is exceptionally easy-to-use. For attaining far-reaching attention in the market, it should be intuitive and users could use it without needing anyone's help. Further, with a plentiful of apps available in the same business line, no one is actually interested to spend time in taking instructions on how to use one. They will simply abandon it to find some other app that is simple to use and understand. The best way to keep it simple is incorporating as fewer features as possible, by prioritising only the crucial ones.

Lesser technical faults

Besides being faster, apps that are hard to crash have more chances to become successful and can sustain a longer life cycle. An app needs to pass through several tests to deem perfect for use. Bugs and other technical issues will never allow an app to get closer to their goals of user acquisition. Thus, app makers should ask for assistance from a reliable development team that will not compromise quality or testing for the budget.

Frequent updates are imperative

To affirm success in the long-run, an app maker must commit to release updates of the app consistently to bring new features, advanced functionality or fix the bugs that users earlier experienced while using. No updates after the first release is a major turn-down factor because that shows the absence of credibility from the maker and can cause download rates to decline. It is thus inevitable to release updates at frequent intervals as that keeps users interested.

Easy registration interests the users

One major reason people prefer using apps over a website is its convenience on the go. The makers of the app should try to make their every experience convenient, from signing up to checking out, to make sure of its success. Henceforth, keeping the registration process short and simple with few pieces of information looks fine and more compelling to the users.

These are a handful of influential factors for considerations to make an app successful enough. However, there's always have to be some expert team for real implications of these and to help an app to bear fruits.

The Shame of the Nation: A Summary, and Analysis

Jonathan Kosol's interest for teaching profession and activism was triggered after the killing of three young civil rights activists in Mississippi in June of 1964 while he was working as a grade four public school intern intern in Boston, Massachusetts. His experience as a teacher in one of Boston's urban segregated schools has made him an insight to the sight of children of minorities, which motivated him to address the issue of segregation, and inequalities that exist in public schools that has continued to plague the nation till the present day.

School Segregation
According to him, he visited approximately 60 schools in 30 districts in 11 different states. Most of his visits were in the South Bronx of New York City, Los Angeles - California, Chicago, Detroit - Michigan, Ohio, Seattle - Washington, Boston - Massachusetts and Milwaukee. In the schools he visited, he observes that the conditions have grown worse for inner-city children in the 15 years since federal courts began dismanting the landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. He notes that the number of white students in urban public schools have increasingly declined with the shifting pattern of white middle class families from urban to suburban communities since the 1960's (white flight). He talks of the irony of school population in relation to the leaders of integration, which the schools bear their names, like Thurgood Marshal Elementary School in Seattle Washington with 95% minority students. According to him, the overwhelming majority of students in urban public schools in the United States are students of color. In Detroit for example, 95% of students in public school are either black or Hispanic. In Chicago, the figure is 87%, Washington is 94% while New York is 75%. He pointed out the cynicism in the "small school initiative" like the Center School in Seattle that was perceived as a "tie-breaker" of school segregation that "attracted 83% white and 6% black enrollment when it opened in 2001, in a city where whites are only 40% of high school students district-wide ". (p. 277). In comparing the Center School with African / American Academy in another section of the city where black students make up 93% and whites make up 3% of the enrolment, the location of the center school and its curriculum offers many opportunities to students. "The Center school which is sited in a cultural complex known as the Seattle Center, offers an impressive academic program to prepare its graduations for college while also provides a wide array of opportunities for students to participate in science projects, theatrical productions, music, ballet , and other cultural activities ", (p.278) while such opportunities are lacking in the African-American Academy. "The school in a sense represents a local version of 'your own Liberia' ... the African American Academy is using a highly direct method of instruction that, in some respects similar to the approach used in Success for All" (p. 279) . He argues that after decades of persistent struggle against school segregation by educators and civil right activists, social and economic policies have continued to aid the growing trend of school segregation.

Inequities
Kozol laments the lack of basic resources and amenities in the urban public schools - restrooms, clean classroom, hallways; appropriate laboratory supplies, up-to-date books in good condition and classroom supplies and material. According to him, this lack of resources moves some teachers to spend between $ 500 - $ 1000 of their own money every academic year to purchase the supplies and materials in the case of Winton Place elementary school in Ohio. He argues the overcrowding of students in a classroom. For instance in Chicago, it's not uncommon to see classrooms with as many as 54 students coupled with the fact that most of the teachers are unqualified.

Kozol also points out the issue of lack of pre-school opportunities for a large number of students because the federally funded head start programs were denied them. He also shows the disparity for money spent on a student, and its effect on state testing. In the case of New York State, the average spending on a student in the city is $ 8,000 while that of the suburb is $ 18,000. Also in New York, the inequities in expenditure between 2002 and 2003 are: NYC $ 11,627, Nassau County $ 22,311, Great Neck $ 19,705. The salitudes of teachers in poor and wealthy school districts follow the same pattern. While the average salary of school teachers in poor communities is $ 43,00, the salary of teachers in the suburb like Rye, Manhurst and Scarsdale in New York ranges from $ 74,00 to $ 81,000. Even the issue of fundraising is a factor in the disparities among schools in poor and wealthy communities. Whereas schools in wealthy neighborhoods could raise up to $ 200,000, schools in poor districts could only raise $ 4,000.

Adaptive Strategy Curriculum
Kozol questions the ratione behind the scripted programs that have been adapted into the minority school system. "Authentic Writing", "Active Listening", "Rubric for Filing", "Accountable Talk", "Zero Noise" etc., according to teachers account, they are meant to follow the scripted lesson to bring formality and structure to the learning environment which raises the anxiety levels of both students and teachers. The high standard language and higher expectations with little support, has taken over the moral and ethical values ​​that use to be the integral part of the curriculum. "used by most schools has become part of the daily rituals and practices that are fashioned to boost students moral. Students from the under-performing schools are encouraged to memorize phrases like" I am smart "," I am confident "to raise their self -confidence and academic performance. This according to him has formed the framework used to identifying the causes of the under-achievement of students of color. encouraged to use "strict Skinnerian controls" to manage and teach students in their classrooms, and which job it is to pump some "added-value" into undervalued children. (p. 285)

In close semblance to the above is the business-like outlook "work related themes" that is being created in these schools, "market driven classes", "sign contract", "take ownership of their learning", "pencil manager", " classroom manager "," building managers "," learning managers "etc. This kind of corporate outlook portrays students as "assets," "investments," 'productive units,' or 'team player' according to Kozol.The knowledge and skills, which the students acquire, are seen as "commodities" and "products" to be consumed in the "educational market place." Kozol argues that educational administration should in no way be equated with factory production line, and advices that "teachers and principals should not permit the beautiful profession they have chosen to be redefined by those who know far less than them about the hearts of children. "(p. 299)

High stick testing
The issue of teaching for testing has replaced the essence of teaching for learning in public schools. According to Kozol, "In some schools, standardized testing begins in the kindergarden. Courses that are not included in the high stake testing are often not taught any more or they are completely removed from their school curriculum, like arts and music. , naptime and / or recess has been reduced or taken out completely to allow more time for the preparation of state standardized test. Even teachers meetings are geared towards the discussion of effective strategies to prepare students for quarterly assessment tests or reviewing state and district standards. Teachers are encouraged to attend workshops and conferences in regards to the testing to acquire more knowledge on how to integrate their teachings to the state testing standards.

In the bid of all the educational superiority imposed on the students, they are also tracked and labeled. Labeling the children from level one (lowest) to level five (highest) places them into categories supposedly for further instructions. Instead of being given adequate attention regarding their labels, it is used as a description of their academic stance. "She's gone down to level two," "She's a level one." The issue of academic tracking and labeling in these schools poses a huge obstacle in creating equity and democracy in a learning environment. According to Kozol, learning is taught as "a possession" not something one "engages" in. Students are encouraged to select "a career path" during their freshman year, so as to tailor their course work. Neverheless, there is little encouragement on the career path of college education. For example, the case of Mireya who attends Fremont High in Los Angeles, while she aspires for a college education, she is rather placed into voluntary classes - sewing and hairdressing. She tells Kozol "I hoped for something else." "Why is it that students who do not need what we need get so much more? And we who need it so much more get so much less?" She questioned.

In view of all these structured teaching strategies imposed on the urban public schools by the administrative body, both teachers and students exhibit robotic behaviors in order to achieve the set goals of the planners. Teachers who tend to veer out on these stipulations face disciplinary actions and could possibly lose their jobs. Students who do not adhere to the rules and follow the prescribed pattern face the risk of not passing their tests. Overall, there is loss of creativity and ingenuity in the classroom. Kozol points out that it would rather take a reflection than a miracle to set the schools on the right track again. He argues that desperate schools can not be turned around by the arrival of a charismatic, tough talking principal. "There are hundreds of principals in our urban schools who are authentic heroes ... but there is a difference between recognizing the achievements of able school officials and marketing of individuals as saviors of persistently unequal system".

Ray of Hope
After questioning and critiquing the re-segregation of urban public schools in America, Kozol pointed out a few schools, teachers, principals, administrators and human rights activists he had met in the course of his study that gives hope to the feasibility of school integration. According to him, "Virtually all the truly human elements of teacher motivation have been locked out of the market misperceptions that control so much of education policy today. But when we go to the schools in which these market ideologies have been valiantly resisted, we are reminded of a set of satisfactions and devotions that are very different from the ones that dominate the present discourse about urban education. " (p. 297) ... "These are the schools I call" the treasured places. "They always remind us of the possible." (p. 300).

He acknowledges the definitions made in most school districts since after visits over three years. At PS 65, a new curriculum that focuses on the need of the children had been introduced. The hand-held timers and scripted lesson plans have been taken out, and actual writings of children are displayed in the walls. He also recalls the efforts of some school districts in Milwaukee and Louisville where school leaders have promoted desegregation across district lines.

Kozol sees every hope in teachers and administrators like Louis Bedrock (which he dedicates this book to), Miss Rosa the retired principal of PS 30, Fern Cruz the new principal of PS 65 and others for their dedication and persistence in fighting for the right course of education for the minority. He also acknowledges the contribution of black activists like Congressman Lewis who have voiced out publicly and written books that expose the persistence of segregation in America.

In his epilogue, he wrote "A segregated education in America is unacceptable". "Integration is, it still remains, the goal worth fighting for" (p. 316).

The Shame of the Nation: An Analysis

I find this book very revealing, intriguing, insightful, and at the same time one sided and opinionated, but in summary, it is very informative. This book is an outcome of a good ethnographic researcher who not only puts energy in his work but also has passion in the subjects of his work - the students. The empirical analysis of this book rests in the inequality that is salient in the American society. Race, class, culture, gender and economic status which have formed the measuring tape of individuals' worth in the American society have become the bedrock of the administrative bodies in the formulation of policies. Policies like education, housing, income and property taxes, transportation etc. have been so carefully formulated to include and exclude some members of the society. These policies of course favor the dominant group, which are whites and disfavor the targeted group which is mostly blacks and Hispanic.

It takes a critical mind to understand the game in the policies. Taking for instance the funding of community urban schools from property taxes from the community, one has to first, think of the nature of the properties in such a community, who owns them, what shape, and of what value they are. If the majorities of those properties are individually owned and are of good shape and value, the expectation is that they will yield good tax for the community. On the other hand, when the government owns such properties, little can be realized in property tax in such a community, and that in turn affects the sourcing of the school. This is the game of politics in perpetuating inequality as we have seen in this book.

Who would expect that the administration that tends to speak in favor of equal education has a hand in making it unequal? That the prophecies of "No Child Left Behind" and "Equal Opportunity for All" are only frivolities? Who would imagine that some teachers and education administrators could be so robotic that they question their ingenuity and creativity in the face of manipulation, except for a revealing book like this? In addition, how can anyone comprehend the damage that has been done by these administrative inconsistencies over the years?

There is an insight into the social, economic, and cultural capital powers of the society in this book. Parents who are more informed, educated, with good jobs and better means have more say in the education of their children than those with little or no education and means. They surf for good schools for their children, organize themselves as the parent bodies of the school, and intervene in matters that are not favorable to their children, for instance, they raise money to employ more teachers and advocate for less number of children in a class. They come up with one voice to exclude others from integrating into their children's schools and sometimes take out their children from a school that are getting more minority enrolment as the case may be. They are less dependent and more challenging to the school administration and government than the parents with fewer capitals. The parents of the minority who have fewer capitals, complain and rarely mostly on the school administration and government to make the necessary adjustments in their children's schools. The system fosters posterity of family status.

In this atmosphere of stratification, while the dominant group acts up to maintain its status, and the targeted, subordinate poor group agitates its position, the children suffer the struggle. A wider gap is created between the rich and the poor. While the children of the dominant group perceive themselves as fortunately, they are less 'educated' than the poor children who see it all. They face lesser chances of integrating and facing realities of multiracial society and as such are less likely to accommodate differences in future. On the other hand, the minority poor children get more skeptical and cynical when matters of equity arise. In the case of the little Bronx boy who wrote Kozol, "You have all the things and we do not have all the things," and the high school student from California who told his classmate "You're a ghetto, so you sew. " The disparities in their educational experiences raise innumerable questions in their heads, which only the government can comprehend in that while their parents may be 'guilty' of not possessing the where-withal, the students are innocent. Kozol's study goes to predict that going by the present pace in educational strategy in America, inequality will persist; integration will be minimized, and desegregation will not only be a nightmare in schools but would be nipped in the bud in the society in future if they are not addressed now. He goes to say, "This nation needs to be a family, and a family sets down for its dinner at a table, and we all deserve a place together at that table."

Having enumerated the classical work of Kozol in diagnosing the blatant, ugly passion inequities in our public urban schools that plagues America today, I need to point out the one-sided, opinionated view of the issue. In a situation like this, no one person can be all right and the other all wrong, there needs to be a balance of 'a little to right and a little to the left'. In the entire book, Kozol addresses the structural approach to educational inequality that sees the school and government administration as the factor that has perpetuated the problem, little suspicion if any, of the cultural approach to the discourse with parents and students contribution. Although there were a few reasons of all white public schools, there was little emphasis on their interactions, though one might argue that they have all the necessary amenities available for them in comparison to the minor schools that have little amenities.

I call this one sided and opinionated in the sense that the subjects of the matter visa vie poor minority parents and their children, are not addressed as potential input to the problem and as such potential contribution factors to the solution. If in a capitalist society like America where opportunity is laid down for everyone for grabs, the 'majority' of the minority group keeps complaining of marginalization of resources, there is a problem somewhere permanently imposed limits. The problem could be in derivation of comfort in dependence or reliability on false sense of security. The core word is value. As regards to the parents, many of them depend on the system and can not walk their ways out to independence and instill that value of independence in their children. A culture of poverty has evolved among this minority group and they seem very comfortable in such a zone. So who makes the extra money for their children's comfort?

The children as well due to lack of role models from their parents, do not deem it fit to strive and conquer the inevitable, they embrace violence and they keep on finger pointing like their parents instead of realizing that education not agitation is their only access to high status in the society. I believe that a focus on re-orienting the children of the minority group in exploring educational opportunities no matter the limitations that they face would help in getting them back on the right track. On the other hand, if they should be contented, respectful, curtail violence, and love themselves, that would attract more empathy to them from whatever administration that is in place and they can be in their own schools without any white and feel good just the same. Understandably, the structural approach often times shape the cultural, which is unstable based on economic resources that yields self-support and autonomy.