Hinas BT Blog

Israeli fighter planes are scrambled to intercept a jet carrying former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Beat Up a Cookie
by Denise Dietz

Category: Fiction / Mystery
256 pages; ISBN: 0373263406

Do you remember where you were the night the last original episode of M*A*S*H aired? Ellie Bernstein does. She was trying to settle her overweight tuckus on a barstool at Charley Aaronson’s Dew Drop Inn, which was host to a raucous M*A*S*H bash, complete with drunken look-alike Klingers and Hawkeyes bidding their favorite television show farewell with a drink (or five, or ten). Ellie, distraught over her husband’s blatant infidelity, uses the show as her balm, trying to avoid yet another inevitable cheesecake binge. At the time she believes herself the most unfortunate person in the room, but that title eventually goes to a woman dressed as “Hot Lips” Houlihan, found dead in the bar’s parking lot.

Cut to the present, and Ellie, fresh from her amateur sleuthing in Denise Deitz’s Throw Darts at a Cheesecake, is eleven years older, fifty-five pounds lighter, and less one husband. In Beat Up A Cookie, the Weight Winners counselor supports other women in the quest to lose weight while her current paramour, detective Peter Miller, dodges Ellie’s interest in his work (which has replaced her appetite for sweets) and refuses to divulge information on the curious suicide of a medical supplies salesman who bore more than a passing resemblence to a certain M*A*S*H surgeon. The deceased’s name? Frank Burns.

Much to Peter’s annoyance, Ellie’s curiosity is fueled when a second “Hot Lips” clone is found dead, and soon she is mingling with a clique of die-hard M*A*S*Hers (including philandering architect Ken Trask, whose home is decorated in patriotic colors, and Fred Remming, a whiny frustrated soul who makes Radar O’Reilly look like Mel Gibson) who ritualize their viewing habits. With her imaginary Sherlock cap, Ellie, quietly speculates as to which one is a serial killer, with crimes possibly stretching back to that fateful night when a young woman in a bar parking lot also bade “Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen.” For Ellie, though, the task is not easy: the only common thread among the victims is their resemblences to show characters, and everyone she suspects seems to have motive and opportunity; that is, considering Ellie’s wild imagination and her overactive paranoia when her son mentions casually that Ellie could pass for “Hot Lips” herself! For Ellie, it’s important to find the killer before she, like M*A*S*H, is cancelled.

A witty, quick read, Beat Up A Cookie is packed with the most essential elements of a mystery: a down-to-earth sleuth (Ellie Bernstein is a breath of fresh air in a world of sculpted silicone dolls, proving that over 40 doesn’t mean over the hill), strong, witty dialogue, and more twists and turns than a San Francisco street. You don’t have to a M*A*S*H fan to enjoy Beat Up A Cookie, not as avid as some of the people in this book, anyway.

Kathryn Lively is the publisher of Phaze, advice for authors.

http://www.computethat.co.uk
Chess Miscellaneous
http://www.richarddeverell.com

Scientists investigate whether a former US president’s duelling pistols were really made from a meteorite.

The art world is full of colorful and interesting people who defy the 9-5 corporate lifestyle. We tend to be looked at with curiosity by those who don’t understand the artistic way of life. Being an artist myself, I am more conservative in many ways than many people I knew in art school. One of my best friends had blue tinted hair. Everyone expresses their creativity differently, it’s all a personal choice. There is no right or wrong in the art world. Call it “artistic lisence.”

Not all of us are starving artists, a term that makes many an artist cringe. We have good months and bad months, but how we spend our money determines whether or not we starve. Most of us never learned how to promote ourselves while in art school. It is helpful to have someone to handle the marketing of our art, if possible. If not, then it is the artists’ responsibility to figure out how to market his or her artwork. It takes trial and error, and it helps to ask those who have been successful for tips on improving sales.

Freelancers know that being independent and self-supporting is spoiling but wonderful. We call the shots and have freedom others envy. But doing freelance work isn’t always easy. Sometimes, it takes getting a “seed money” job, to pay bills while we pursue our art careers. Being creative comes in handy when figuring out what side job to have. How does someone like myself, who hates to sit anywhere continuously for forty hours a week, find a job? Nothing grates me more than having a boss in my face, telling me I did something wrong. Being a free spirit, and liking to have some control over my surroundings, my job of choice is being a home agent for a large corporation, taking calls and selling to customers from my home office, with my cat sleeping on my desk. Being different pays off for me, as my art studio runs itself online and my agent handles the original artwork sales. Through much experimentation, my sales rise each year. It took a lot of mistakes to get it to this level, though. My goal is to be able to work less, yet profit more from royalties. It is a puzzle for us all to figure out, in whatever type of medium we use, combined with our individual preferences.

If you are like me and knew from childhood that art is in your blood, never give up on your passion to create. Taking a side job isn’t selling out, just a means to an end. It is your right to do whatever you want without apology. By using that individuality and passion given to you naturally, do your artwork the way you see fit. The world of art is a fascinating, varied place. Reach out to other creatives if you feel misunderstood by those who are more left-brained (analytically minded.) Us right-brainers are visual and frequently intuitive, that uniqueness helps us to be good at what we do. We don’t have to fit into the corporate world if we don’t want to. Dare to be different, and have fun at it. There is room in this world for all of us.

Carolyn McFann is a scientific and nature illustrator, who owns Two Purring Cats Design Studio, which can be seen at: . Educated at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York, Carolyn is a seasoned, well-traveled artist, writer and photographer. Besides handling numerous assignments in the US, she has lived and worked in Cancun, Mexico. Clients include nature parks, museums, scientists, corporations and private owners. She has been the subject of tv interviews, articles for newspapers and other popular media venues.

http://www.tooboring.com
Freelance Illustrator, Graphic Artist, Cartoonist
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It pays the mortgage and gets you up in the morning, but workers want more from a job - they want meaning. Just don’t go looking for it, says Lucy Kellaway.

Aunt Dimity’s Death
by Nancy Atherton

Category: Fiction / Mystery
241 pages; ISBN: 0140178406

As a child, Lori Shepherd absorbed her mother’s bedtime stories of the incomparable, forthright Aunt Dimity the way many children today devour the Harry Potter tales. The ordinary spinster with the knack for becoming embroiled in extraordinary adventures leaves fond memories for Lori, her only comfort following her mother’s death and a bitter divorce as she ekes out a poverty-stricken living in Boston. The last thing she expects is any help from the outside, especially from Aunt Dimity, a character she had believed to be fiction. An official letter from her estate reveals otherwise.

Like a fairy tale, the anachronistic law firm of Willis and Willis rescues Lori from a lifetime of Beanie-Weenie winners with the news that not only was Dimity Westwood an actual person, but an actual rich person who left Lori in her will. The only stipulation Lori must fulfill to receive her share is to write an introduction to a proposed book of the Aunt Dimity stories…in Dimity’s England cottage…which neighbors believe is haunted. Lori cannot decide which is more uncomfortable: sharing quarters with the ghost of Aunt Dimity or with the younger Willis lawyer, a starry-eyed dreamer who insists on gifting Lori with expensive clothes.

Then there is the other ghost that haunts Lori during this trip — a posthumous letter from her mother imploring her delve into Dimity’s life, in particular her life before World War II and the events that led to Dimity’s bouts of depression and spinsterhood. In finding the answers, Lori believes Dimity may finally be able to rest in peace.

Aunt Dimity’s Death does not begin as a mystery in the traditional sense; yes, there are mysterious elements in the story such as the rigamarole Lori must endure to appease the law firm of her identity and the peculiar behavior of the younger Willis, but these actions make for a good third of the book and one wonders if any cutting could have been done to help progress the story.

This is not to say the first Aunt Dimity novel is not good. It is a well-written book, and Atherton’s style is reminiscent of the English cozy — more talk than action. It is quite clear this book is meant to set up a series, though the “mystery” tag in this novel might be misleading. “Romantic suspense” is a better description of Aunt Dimity’s Death, considering how the attraction between Lori and Willis, Jr. slowly overcomes their discomfort, leaving readers with a story even Aunt Dimity would not mind hearing more than once.

Kathryn Lively is the publisher of Phaze, advice for authors.

Freelance Illustrator
Chess Set
Chess Blog

A national laboratory will help the UK’s nuclear sector play a key role in providing reliable, low carbon electricity.

There is very little on the Internet or in libraries as to why a writer writes, at least from a psychological standpoint.

Never one to be called non analytical, I went deep into my own psyche just to find out why it was so important that I write. I wrote when I was in my twenties (now in my fifties). This was before the Internet and I was just getting used to electric typewriters. I knew I would write the next great American novel. How I would do it, or who would see it was another story. I just knew I had to write.

I knew of publishers, I had seen books on writing in the library with names and addresses of agents. At that time, they seemed like alien beings to me. Why would they ever want to see my writing with so many others out there who had a far better handle on the English language. I was dyslexic growing up, still am to a certain degree, and I could barely read in my twenties. In fact (I’m ashamed to say), I read my first book at age twenty-seven.

So why did I feel compelled to write? There are many theories why a person writes and they are not all the same. I wrote, not even considering the fact that I would ever gain fame or fortune from it. It was, and sometimes still is, my escape from the maddening crowd. As an adult, I am humble enough that maybe others I know are writing to escape me and my own madness (who is also escaping them). The ego dwindles as we get older and some bitter-sweet humor manifests. It is not only “they who drive us mad but I who drive them mad as well”. I would have never thought it. Sweet gentle sensitive me.

As the years went by (PI or pre-internet), I discovered that writing was the only thing I could do well and naturally. That was both a blessing and a curse in that institutions of higher learning insist we must have something to fall back on. I looked at my semi-skills in sales as something I had to do, and my writing was what I fell back on. For years I insisted I was a writer, though nothing was published, while others insisted I was not. Occasionally, I would get a “stroke of genius” (as they call it) as so many writers do, and write an essay or article that “blew people away”. But they were few and far between.

I grew up in Mississippi, not far from a struggling attorney named John Grisham. He was not a bad attorney, he simply did not enjoy it, and when someone does not enjoy a job, chances are they will not do their best in it. John loved to write and he wrote well. He did so long before the public ever even heard his name. Unfortunately for John, for many years, he was one of the few who knew he was a great writer. He was virtually starving in his law practice. He stopped it and started a project, a book titled “The Firm”. He had a very hard time getting it published so self-published five hundred copies (I’m told) and sold them out of the trunk of his car. He simply drove around selling The Firm (his new job). He didn’t make much money but he loved it. Of course the rest is history.

About this time I discovered I could write cartoons, conceive the concept, write the captions, but my drawing skills left a lot to be desired. I continued to write them, in fact to date over 6000 of them. Word got out that I could do this and illustrators began asking me if they could render them and if we sold them collect half the fee. It was a perfect match. Londons Times Cartoons was born and eventually became the largest private inventory of cartoons on the Internet with top ratings from Alexa and Netcraft.

I say this not for bragging rights, but for the fact that if a writer does not write, he/she becomes disoriented, not centered. The writer feels most comfortable sitting down writing, whether it be pen and ink or cyber-technology.

In the mid-1990’s I went home to take care of an ailing mother. I developed writer’s block. I was miserable (of course for the fact that I was about to lose my mother), but also that I could not write. My plan was, while caring for her, I would sit at the typewriter (I did not have a computer then), and simply write my feelings, sort of as a purging therapy. For four years not a word was typed. I watched tv. I took Mom to her doctors appointments and to the hospital. I was mentally, physically, and spiritually ill. Oddly enough, I pinpointed the whole feeling to the stress of caring for my mom. And of course a majority of that was it, but not all of it. I became a caretaker and my whole mission was to take care of her needs. That is not even what she wanted or needed. We finally buried my mother which was the saddest day of my life.

A few weeks later I received a call from Newburyport, MA from a friend I’d been to college with. She and her husband were inviting me for a long weekend to relax. I decided to go. They told me I looked like a mess. I knew it, and felt ashamed.

There was a new Jack Nicholson movie out “As Good As It Gets” in which he played a dried up crusty author with writer’s block and when his gay neighbor, Greg Kinnear was mugged, Nicholson was forced to care for his rather effeminate dog (Nicholson was also homophobic in the film). At first he despised the idea. As time went by, he grew to love the dog, as all the dog offered was unconditional love.

Nicholson had been in love with a waitress at his local hangout named Helen Hunt who hated him like everyone else.

As time went by, the dog had its magic effect on Nicholson. He became a good guy. He funded medical attention for Helen Hunt’s son and they fell in love. He dressed better. He began to write. He brought flowers to his better half. It was a wonderful movie and won the Academy Award as I suspected it would.

Then I went home.

I volunteered at the local university Equestrian Center to feed the horses and clean out the barns. I grew to know and love horses. One Saturday, a tornado hovered over our town and the storm was terrible. A pack of three dogs showed up at the barn for shelter. One dog, “Thor” who looked just like Benji, was in terrible shape. He was one big mat of fur and had been beaten by someone or hit by a vehicle. A vet friend of mine nursed him back to health under the condition I would adopt him. I did, but did not want to. I could barely take care of myself.

That was over a decade ago and Thor has been my shadow ever since. Everyone in town knows “Thor” even if they don’t know me. He has brought happiness to so many. The vet believes he is somewhere around 19 years old. This does not surprise me because he is on the b.a.r.f. Diet (Bones And Raw Food); he does not touch dog food.

But the big magic is how my writing skills finally returned and Londons Times Cartoons was born. How it grew as big as it did is beyond me. It just did. The more I cared for Thor the more creative I became. I even opened e-shops and fell in love with a wonderful woman. My businesses do well and I continue to write as I look at my old tired, beautiful mixed breed dog, Thor, who changed my life.

I believe the irony of it all is that when I saw “As Good As It Gets”, I thought to myself “How touching, but anyone who is a writer knows nothing like that could happen in real life”. Little did I know it was a preview of what was about to happen to me…and is still happening.

The moral: Never underestimate the power of unconditional love, especially from a stray animal. All animals are precious but a stray is so grateful to be salvaged he/she will do just about anything for you in return only for food and shelter. That unconditional love changes us and the way we treat people and expect to be treated.

Adopt one today and watch your quality of life change (whether you believe it or not).

Rick London is a cartoonist and netprepreneur. He founded the top Internet offbeat cartoon site Londons Times Cartoons luring millions of visitors per year among others.

Freelance Illustrator
http://www.beerandyoung.com
Chess Articles

Mysterious bands of shadow during an eclipse might be produced by sound pulses, a theory suggests.

Time. It’s a concept that’s both abstract and real, the currency of our days (we talk of how we’ll “spend” our time).

“If only I had more time! Then I’d really write.” If you’re like most writers who need to earn a living doing something other than write, that thought is the thorn on your rose.

The fact is, you might be more productive if you had more time to devote to writing. But you might not. Many writers find that when they have all the time in the world, they get far less writing done than they had hoped (but their closets suddenly get organized and their gardens weeded).

Still, you may not be able to test that. Odds are, you have obligations you can’t push aside when the muse crooks her finger. You can’t tell your young children you’ll catch up with them after high school; you can’t expect your employer to pay you while you take an indefinite “writing sabbatical.” That means you need to apply the creativity and ingenuity and resourcefulness I know you have (you’re writers, after all) to uncover pockets of time for writing.

Ways to shoehorn a writing habit in to your daily life:

~Learn to blend things.

“If you need something done, ask a busy person” is oft-repeated because it’s true. But how do busy people take on so much and follow through so often? By learning how to maximize time and increase efficiency, by combining tasks wherever possible.

For example: Keep a small notebook in your coat pocket. When you’re waiting for your appointment with your accountant or your turn in the dentist’s chair, be open to ideas that might hit you. If none are hitting you, write anything that comes to mind: little details about your surroundings, eavesdropped bits of dialogue, what you’re hoping in that moment, what you hope for next week.

There’s no better way to cultivate an idea than write anything when you think ideas are miles away. Take advantage of all the waiting we need to do by filling up that dead space with words.

~Learn to prioritize.

Learning this valuable skill also means learning to say NO.

Most of us spread ourselves too thin, usually because want to please others and to contribute to the lives going on around us. But we have a finite amount of energy (mental and physical) and a finite amount of time. Don’t let yourself get railroaded into non-mandatory obligations you have no interest in or that don’t coincide with your core values.

Draw a pie chart illustrating how your time is spent now. Then draw one illustrating how you want your time to be divided. Do everything you can (i.e., hiring Merry Maids or a dogwalker) to re-shape your days to approximate the latter chart.

~Learn to simplify.

Set reasonable expectations for yourself. Is it really necessary for the floor under the bed to be as eat-off-it clean as the countertop?

And when you do sit down to write, don’t expect your output to be stunning, breathtaking, or even useable. Declare a victory when you get something on the page. Polishing can come later.

~Learn to enjoy the moment.

Although writing is hard, it can be exhilarating, too. Try to focus on and delight in writing as a pursuit in and of itself, not as something that pulls you away from other tasks. Enjoy what writing does for you now instead of how your efforts might pay off down the road.

~Learn to set deadlines for yourself.

Deadlines keep us “honest” and help us focus on finishing. You may be one of those writers who works best under pressure. The pressure is the deadline, and you might wonder how you’d ever get anything done without a due date, without someone waiting for what you’re producing. If you know that about yourself, manufacture your own deadlines.

However, if you’re like most people (me included), you’ll need other people to help with this. You’re far more likely to take someone else’s deadline seriously than your own, so lean on your friends and family here. Choose the due date, then ask them to mercilessly enforce it.

Much of a successful writing practice is maintaining momentum, and you can only achieve that if you make a commitment to regular writing time.

I don’t mean three hours a day. I don’t mean two. I don’t even mean one. If you’ve got that much time, fantastic. But if all you have is a half hour a day, five days a week, and if you stick to it, it will become habit. You will be amazed at how much — in the long run — you’ll actually accomplish. Even fifteen minutes a day, stretched across hundreds of days, will produce an impressive number of pages.

The research shows that short, consistent writing stints are more productive and build more creative momentum than highly erratic, longer ones. So if you can squeeze out two hours per week for your craft, try to evenly distribute those hours over the course of the whole week rather than taking it in one lump.

As Charles Buxton said, “You will never ‘find’ time for anything. If you want time you must make it.”

To discover more ways make writing a meaningful part of your life, visit and sign up for “Write Through It,” a free, monthly e-newsletter that offers tips on writing more clearly and effectively.

Lucia Zimmitti, a writing coach and independent editor, is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and the Editorial Freelancers Association. Her fiction and poetry have been published in various national literary journals, and she has taught writing at the high school and college levels.

http://www.computethat.co.uk
Baron Turner’s Linked In
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Actor Kiefer Sutherland is granted a divorce from his estranged wife, nine years after separating.

Picking up your Nissan and driving it straight out of the dealer can be a wonderful moment in life. Whether you’ve chosen a Nissan Pathfinder, Nissan Sentra, Nissan Altima, or even a Nissan Z, it’s an instance in life you’ll never forget. You put it in gear, step on the gas, turn up the tunes, and hit the road. It’s possible though that there is a little something missing. Where is the boom of the bass that you thought would be there? Granted, Nissan installs a wonderful stock Bose system that sounds as clear as the morning birds, but occasionally it’s just not enough. Sometimes you’ve just got to get more boom out of your system, and we’ve got the answer.

Contacting a professional car audio installer will help you pick out a car amplifier, car subwoofer, and let you browse through custom subwoofer boxes that will give your Nissan sound system the extra boost it needs to sound perfect. Expertly trained staff will first assist you in picking out a car amplifier to go with your car subwoofer. The added low end will even out the clear highs and middle notes of the stock system and provide you with a beautiful booming system to cruise down the road with.

Many also provide expert advice on their name brand top of the line custom subwoofer boxes. Custom subwoofer boxes play a vital roll for the performance of your new low end system. Custom subwoofer boxes are designed specifically to fit your model of Nissan so that you can save space and flawlessly blend your new sub and amp into your car. Custom subwoofer boxes will also prevent any resonance from the sub and amp so that your bass will sound big while not interfering with the quality of the Bose system.

Let the audio professionals help you pick out the right system for your Nissan with their professional expertise and high quality products.

About the author:
Mark Markham is the owner of SuperCrewSound.com, one of the leading online retailers of Nissan subwoofer enclosures and other mobile audio components. SuperCrewSound began by specializing in custom subwoofer boxes and sub amplifiers for trucks, but has since expanded to cover cars and other vehicle types.

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www.goodbetterbestaudio.com
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A fragment of DNA from the extinct Tasmanian tiger is put into a mouse to study how the genetic material works.

Forms are one of your primary points of contacts with your visitors. While many visitors still use email or even the telephone to contact you or to place an order, the vast majority will contact you first via your web forms. Forms that are broken or improperly implemented cause frustration and can greatly reduce your conversion rate for leads and sales.

It is up to your design and development team to test your site’s web forms as thoroughly as possible in order to eliminate any errors. While no site can ever be 100% error-free, finding and fixing errors sooner, rather than later, is important to maintaining a usable website. When user and usability errors do occur –and they will– it is important to employ the right safeguards in order to ensure visitor satisfaction and reduce exit rates.

Data entry

Forms should provide flexible options when entering data such as phone numbers and credit card info. Don’t be too rigid in the proper “format”. Allow spaces, dashes, dots etc. to be accepted in these fields.

Field labels

Field labels should be clear and unambiguous. Do you want a first name, last name, full name or business name? Make sure your visitors know exactly what you’re asking.

Information gathered

Do not request more information than is absolutely necessary. Request only the information you need to fulfill the request. Requiring too much information turns people away from contacting you altogether.

Minimize instruction

Keep form instructions at a minimum. People tend not to read instructions which can then cause frustration if they do something “improperly”. Make it easy for them.

Provide choices

Providing options with radio buttons, selection boxes or drop downs are a good way to ensure you get the information you need while not requiring too much extra thought. But be careful. Using these can prevent visitors from providing the correct answer, if it’s not an available option.

Required information

Note any field that requires a response with an asterisk (*), preferably colored red.

Submission errors

Forms submitted with improperly complete fields should return user to a page listing instructions on how to correct the error. Such instructions must be clear and obvious.

Data preservation

If a user leaves required form fields blank causing an error, preserve the information already filled in. A system that forces users to re-input all their information creates additional frustration and creates an easy exit point for a would-have-been conversion.

Progress indicator

Forms spanning multiple pages must show a progress indicator so visitors know where they are in the process and how many more “steps” are required to completion.

Progress navigation

If a form spans multiple pages, allow users to navigate back to previous pages in order to change answers or fix mistakes.

Site navigation

It can sometimes be helpful to remove all site navigation elements once a lengthy form process is started. This can prevent distractions and encourages visitors to complete the process.

Privacy

Providing privacy assurances near the email field or the form submit button can create additional trust in confirming that the shopper’s information is safe.

Information verification

After a form has been completed and submitted, provide all submitted information for final review and verification.

Confirmation pages

After submission of data, take the visitor to a confirmation page that explains what can be expected to happen next. Provide as much detail, including time frames, as possible.

Error messages

Error messages should not use technical language and must never assign blame. Keep them simple and polite.

Custom error page

Broken or improperly formed URLs should send user to a customized 404-Redirect page with helpful links back to the site’s main information.

Stoney deGeyter founded Pole Position Marketing in 1998 working from a home office and has since turned it into a leading which is the driving philosophy on how Pole Position marketing helps their clients expand their online presence and improve online conversion rates.

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MPs are set to vote on the issue of whether to reduce the abortion time limit from 24 weeks to 20 weeks or less.

I recently had a former client request my opinion on the services his new SEO company was providing him. He felt they had not met their stated guarantee, while they claimed they did and asked if I would look over everything to see if I could confirm his suspicions.

After looking over his website and information provided, I found that the contract was relatively vague as to what services the SEO firm was actually providing. Outside of the guarantee, the only real specifics were meta tags and “optimization” of text for 15 pages. The guarantee, on the other hand, was considerably more specific, stating they would achieve 15 top 10 rankings counted over 15 search engines, from a the 25 plus keyword phrases selected.

After analyzing the site I had to tell him that, by all appearances, their services portion of the contract had been fulfilled. If they did even minor editing of the meta tags and page text (and it certainly did appear to be minor) they did what they were contractually obligated to do. As for the guarantee, if you throw enough crap (keywords) against the wall, something’s gonna stick. In this case, just one of the 25 targeted keywords achieving a top 10 ranking on each of 15 engines would sufficiently fulfill the guarantee. Not a particularly high, nor difficult benchmark to attain.

Each week I get calls from prospective clients looking for some kind of guarantee for our services. Sure, we can provide a guarantee that gives us enough wiggle room to be useless, such as the one mentioned above, but personally, I would rather work with a company that is a bit more forthright in their business practices.

Doctors don’t guarantee that any surgery will be successful (though they do provide the odds), and accountants don’t guarantee that if they do your books that you won’t be audited by the IRS. SEO is not the same as a doctor or accountant, but these analogies will be useful. Why don’t they provide guarantees? Because they do not have total absolute control the body or mind of the “client”. Aside from the fact that there can always be unknown complications during surgery (as with SEO), the doctor has no control over what the patient will do once he is outside of his care. Anything from rejecting the doctor’s advice to not taking prescribed medications will help determine if the surgery is a total success or not.

Similarly, if the accountant is not given full control over your finances, he is unaware if the client has participated in any shady activities. And, even more simply, the IRS decides who they audit, not the accountant, much in the same way search engines decide how to rank sites in the search results.

But a good doctor, however, can substantially improve chances of a successful recovery and a good accountant can decrease chances of an IRS audit, but there is no way to provide an ironclad guarantee, nor do I think either would even if they were substantially sure of success. In any thing, success takes a long time to achieve, but it only takes minute to undo.

To continue with our analogies, would you prefer a doctor that told you they’ll make some incisions in your stomach, perform the operations, sew you back up, and guarantee that the stitches will not get infected? Or would you prefer a doctor that simply told you what operations will be performed giving you the chances of recovery? While the first offers a guarantee of sorts, that guarantee is only a small part of the whole operation. What good is it if the stitches heal properly if the surgery is a disaster?

Again, would you prefer an accountant that tells you they’ll import all your financial information into their accounting software, Calculate the results and guarantee that some of the numbers will be accurate? Or would you prefer an accountant that tells you that they will make sure that your information will be inputted and calculated correctly based on the information provided and will provide you additional assistance if you should get audited? Audit assistance is a better path than assuring only some numbers will be accurate.

When I get callers asking me for a guarantee I am always tempted to appease them, to tell them what they want to hear. But, as with many companies that provide such guarantees, I might then be tempted to do no more than the fulfillment of guarantee requires. Guarantees sound good, but most are not worth the paper they are printed on.

Stoney deGeyter is president of Pole Position Marketing ( and contributes daily to the E-Marketing Performance marketing blog. (eza)

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Paulo Coelho’s best-selling novel The Alchemist is to be brought to the big screen by actor Laurence Fishburne.

First, let me say that Search Engine Optimization is a broad topic. There is no way I can effectively cover all aspects of the subject in this small article. However, I am hoping to speak to those who have NO idea of what it is or why it matters. Maybe they will be encouraged to at least take the first steps to having a successful website.

Internet marketing is rough. You are up against millions of other internet businesses. It is a constant education and re-education to keep up with the Joneses all over the world. They are all doing everything they can to make their site better than yours, and only the best will wind up at the top of the heap.

You see the letters SEO around a lot these days and also SEM. SEM simply means “Search Engine Marketing”, and SEO means “Search Engine Optimization”. You do SEO to your site so you can do SEM more effectively. Search engine optimization is what the words imply when applied to your web site. They are the things that can be done to make search engines aware of your website and give it as high a ranking as possible.

WHY IS SEO IMPORTANT?

Well, we can probably agree without even knowing why that it may be in the best interests of an internet business to approach a search engine with the most effectively designed and organized website. While it is somewhat self evident that a well designed and effective website may be a good sales tool when dealing with humans, it might not be so evident why you have to be so concerned when dealing with a search engine.

Let’s start with the fact that while we are trying to display our internet business to human eyes, it is the spiders of the search engines which must first be appeased. After all, according to whose figures you believe, up to 85% of all websites visited are found through search engines and directories. When you consider all the people looking around the internet for all kinds of “stuff” you can begin to grasp the power search engines have in the online marketplace.

Add into the mix the fact that for any given search term, there are thousands, millions, or even billions of possible sites that may meet the query terms provided by the human searcher and you begin to grasp the vast competition going on at any given time for any given subject.

Out of those potentially billions of pages which may be presented to the searcher by the search engine, only about ten or so will fit on a page. Therefore, if you are not on the first page, it’s almost as if you are not there at all. I don’t need to explain this to you if you have ever used a search engine, How many times have YOU bothered going on to page two, and especially page three?

Another aspect of searcher versus search engine is something that anyone who has been on the internet for a week has discovered. You have to be especially specific when doing searches or you could wind up with some really worthless results.

As you can see, it becomes imperative that your page get listed in the first ten results returned by the search engine.

HOW DOES A SEARCH ENGINE DECIDE WHICH PAGES COME FIRST?

Actually, each search engine has its own method of assigning value to each website it visits and chooses to include in its listings. These determining factors are included in the instructions given the spiders which visit the sites and the software controlling the listings on the search engine site. There are often humans as well who can override the decisions of the software judges. This is what can make SEO a little difficult. What is top priority for one search engine may not figure in as strongly for another. Of course, everyone is trying to figure out how to second guess Google, but don’t forget, there are other search engines also providing traffic to a great many sites as well.

If you have figured out by now that I have danced around the question, you are right. You see, not much is actually known about the exact science by which search engines, particularly Google, select and rank the pages they show in response to a searcher’s query. However, a lot can be deduced by looking at some of the sites that DO make it to the top of the list.

HERE’S THE BASICS OF SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)

1. Choose the niche target of your website. Don’t just put up a site for travel. Make it a site for travel to Ireland. Better yet, make it a site for discounted travel to Ireland. Even better, make it for discounted family travel packages to Ireland. Each narrowing of the target reduces the competition.

2. Choose a domain name that relates to your target words. In the example above, I might want traveltoireland.com. Unfortunately, someone beat us to that site, so now we have to play with some ideas. Maybe we can still get traveltoireland.net. Unfortunately, someone beat us to that one too. Don’t give up hope. There are traveltoireland.biz, traveltoireland.us, and traveltoireland.ws to look at. In fact, I just took a look and all three of those are available. If they weren’t, maybe we could have used irelandtravel.com or familytraveltoireland.com although that is getting a bit long…particularly if we want to put it on a business card or on a magnetic sign on our car.

3. Pick a title for your website that includes the basic idea and the words, keywords, that you hope people will search on. Don’t just stick up the words, however. Make it a headline. It will be the first thing the search engine and the human learn about your site. Make it a headline that will catch both their eyes…er…sensory apparatus. “Travel to Ireland on a dollar a day!”

4. Create a description that includes and expands the information and keywords stated in the title. Some search engines will display the first few words on a site, but some will display the description Meta tag. “Travel to Ireland does not have to be expensive. Learn how you can visit the Emerald Isle for as little as a dollar a day.”

5. List five to ten keywords related to your subject. Make these words that will appear logically in the content of the site. “travel, Ireland, travel to Ireland”

6. Provide logical, relevant, valuable content throughout the site. Make sure your keywords appear at intervals, but do not overuse them. Also make sure they appear in the first few lines of your site. “Welcome to our site where you will learn how to travel to Ireland without breaking the bank.”

These are just the first steps towards search engine optimization. There is more to learn, such as putting a statement with your keywords in headline form near the top of the page. You can find other high-ranking sites with content relative to yours who might be able to provide a link to your site, but don’t hope for it at first. They usually want to link to sites as powerful as they are.

The major key to search engine optimization still seems to be quality content provided in a consistent, rational package. Even some fairly simple sites rank well because they can provide the goods. However, a ton of broken links and a lot of coding errors coupled with horrible site navigation can make it difficult for the search engine to find its way around, much less recommend the site to its users.

Above all, do not stop with this small article. There are many sites offering information and even courses on search engine optimization. There are companies that specialize in search engine optimization for a fee. To get started, read some of the articles posted at sites such as EzineArticles.com on the subject. I just checked, and they have over 8,000 articles which mention the subject. Of course, some of those might not have anything to do with search engine optimization, but we knew that. That’s just the way search engines are!

Donovan Baldwin is a Dallas area writer and .

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No single drug will be enough to treat all the victims of a global pandemic of the H5N1 bird flu, research suggests.

Creative tips to obtain business finance focuses on strategies to acquire capital, which is a vital component for the success of any commerce. Irrespective of whether a firm is in proprietorship or a big organization, finance plays an important role in its development.

Below mentioned are some creative tips to gain business finance. These tips enable the individuals to spark the creative thought-process and obtain the capital required to promote the business.

Useful Hints:

Formation of Strategic Partnerships:

To understand this, individuals have to consider the following concepts.

Find who is reaching the customer or client base. Find out who offers the services or products that benefit the customers or client base. Examine which firm has better business skills or expertise.

All these units will make great potential partners. After identifying such strategic partners, design a fifty-fifty partnership. A prospective partnership can help to achieve sales force, accounting, IT, marketing, and management expertise. These are just a few of the services that entrepreneurs require to pay for.

Barter System:

A business sells products or services that somebody requires, and hence it is in existence. A company can very well barter these services or products to obtain those things that are required by the business to grow or serve the customers.

A firm can also barter for personal things required typically, for which funds have to be withdrawn to pay for. Business can barter for, rules, advertising, accounting or travel services, landscape, television cleaning services and many more.

Go for Strategic Investors:

A business can also obtain finance by finding strategic investors. Firstly, a small venture needs to find out, whether its products or services are directly benefiting a larger organization or not. If yes, then it is better to contact them immediately.

The small venture has to convince the larger company that their products or services have the potential of positively influencing their trade. This way, a firm can obtain finance by the means of direct equity, loan, or prepaid contracts. A company has to search for strategic investors, and there is no dearth of them in the market.

Tap the Suppliers:

If the firm plans to expand its business rapidly and require capital to pay for supplies, then they can ask the suppliers to provide advance payment.

When the business expansion contributes to a substantial portion of the annual receipt of suppliers, the firms can request the vendor to offer a yearly or two-yearly period loan by highlighting the vendor’s benefits. Thus, it is fine to negotiate for at least three months payment deal.

Seller Finance is a good option. None other than the person, who sells the business, knows its true asset. Check out seller finance for overall commercial development by purchasing other businesses. Offer them rights against the business to revert their sale incase of a firm’s default.

It decreases the risk of company’s hidden problems and greatly helps the business owner to set up another challenging venture.

Scot Elton owns and operates a site to help entrepreneurs gain experience and wealth.”

Search Engine Marketing
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