Writing is Fun

Best Football Tickets Service

2010-11-01T11:26:00.001+07:00

Are you a football lover? I bet, the most exciting day is when your favorite team is about to play right? Of course, a couple of beers, snacks and buddies around will make it more joyful. You can hang out in a bar watching your favorite team playing. What a perfect day.

But, wait a minute. What about moving that joyful to the stadium, watching your favorite team live? Some of you might say that you don’t have time to buy the tickets. Or, perhaps you are afraid of not getting the best seat. Well, in that case, you should worry no more, since there is a best convenience place to order sport tickets online.

Therefore, whatever you favorite team is: Alabama Crimson Tide, Georgia Bulldogs, North Carolina Tar Heels, to Georgia Tech Yellow Jacket you can easily book tickets online. This is a 24 hours service so you won’t miss a single game. Plus, the ticket will deliver right to your door. All you have to do is pick up the phone and place your order. Their friendly customer service will take care the rest. So, prepare your jersey and show your full support to your favorite game in a place where a real fan that should be.

Financial Motivation for Two-Year Education

2010-07-16T10:57:00.000+07:00

When it comes to college, you are considering an expensive proposition any way you look at it. There are however, ways in which you can greatly reduce your overall expenses when it comes to getting your college degree. The first method, which in many cases is the most preferred, is by attending a community college for the first two years of your college educational experience. Believe it or not you can literally save thousands of dollars over the course of spending two years on the community college level.

You will hear all kinds of arguments on why it is better to attend all four years at a university. The universities almost always make these arguments. Unfortunately, their opinions are a little bit biased in these matters. Most universities offer equivalent courses with community colleges meaning that the first two years of study should transfer with no problems or snags along the rocky road to your degree.

The universities make money each semester you begin class as a student. It is in their best interest financially to have you from the beginning rather than as a transfer. In fact, many universities offer lower level classes as auditorium classes. They pack more students into classes and have fewer professors or graduate students teaching the courses and maximize their money off the first and second year students rather than those in upper level courses. Yet another reason to consider a community college for the first two years of you education.

Getting back to the expenses of a community college, most community colleges are largely commuter campuses. This means you won't face the high housing costs that are associated with universities, particularly if you are attending college close to home. Community colleges also offer far less distractions that cost additional money than most major universities. This doesn't mean that there aren't ample social opportunities; it simply means that there are fewer of them. This also leaves fewer distractions than universities present when it comes to studying.

Community colleges simply cost less all around. While it would be nice if you could receive a full four year education at this level, they are able, for the most part, to keep expenses down by not requiring the level of qualification that universities require of their professors for upper level courses. You will have excellent, if not superior quality of education at lower levels than you would have on the university level, but you will also eventually need to move on to the university level in order to complete your education.

For this reason, you would do well to save half of your savings over university costs for each of the two years you are attending community college and apply it to your university education. This will ease the burden of the additional costs of the university and feel as though you are paying the same amount for tuition throughout your education regardless of the fact that you are literally saving thousands of dollars on your educational expenses.

Some states have educational savings plans that allow parents to save for tuition at current costs by enrolling. These plans cover two years of community college education and two years of university education. By locking in today's prices you are eliminating the inflation. When you consider the fact that college tuition is increasing at an alarming rate this is by far an excellent way to go. You should check with your state and see if they offer a similar plan to parents of younger children and what the requirements are in order to enroll your child today.

If you are looking for a real value in education whether or not you only go for your two year degree of move on to a university in order to finish your four-year degree you should find that a community college education offers a significant value for the money. Most people find that every penny they spent in a community college was a penny well spent.

Are You Already Marketing On The Internet?

2010-07-14T10:58:00.000+07:00

Take a moment to think about how you would really answer this question. If given enough thought just about any business owner who utilizes the Internet for any purpose will likely find that whether or not they intentionally organized an Internet marketing campaign, they may already be marketing their products and services on the Internet. This article will examine some subtle ways business owners may already be marketing their business on the Internet.

Do you have a website for your business? Business owners who answer yes to this question are already marketing their products or services online just by virtue of the fact that they have a website online. Having a live website means there is the potential for curious Internet users to access your website. You may not be actively promoting your website but you may still find that your website generates interest in your products despite the lack of promotional endeavors; this is a form of passive marketing.

Do you participate in message boards and include a link to your website in your signature? Again business owners who answer yes to this question are already marketing their website online. Savvy business owners realize the importance of participation in industry related message boards to create an interest in their products and services, establish themselves as knowledgeable about the industry and offer a link to their own website even if it is in the signature line of their posts. However, even business owners who do not realize this may already be inadvertently enjoying the benefits of Internet marketing which result from message board participation just by doing something they enjoy and may be doing as a form of leisure activity.

Do you include keywords which are relevant to your business in the content of your website? Business owners who answer yes to this question are also already marketing on the Internet by optimizing their website for these keywords. These search engine optimization (SEO) affects the websites whether or not they were even aware of the concept of keyword density and how it can help to SEO a website. Business owners will likely use certain words often depending on the type of products and services they offer just because it is natural and logical to do so. This tendency, however, can result in search engines boosting your website rankings for these particular keywords. The concept of SEO is much more involved and complex than simply using keywords frequently but business owners can gain some benefit just by naturally applying relevant keywords to their website.

Do you solicit feedback from your customers online? This is yet another example of how business owners may be accidentally marketing their business on the Internet. Most business owners realize the importance of soliciting feedback from customers for business purposes and business owners who offer products online might solicit feedback in the form of online surveys. Although the business owners may be doing this simply for a business purpose the fact that it is done online makes it fall into the category of Internet marketing.

We have already discussed several ways in which business owners may already be marketing online but what about business owners who want to have an increased online presence? Business owners who may already be marketing online accidentally may wish to launch a full scale Internet marketing campaign. The best way to do this is to hire a consultant with experience in Internet marketing to assist you in creating a campaign which is effective for your target audience.

Copywriting as a Job

2010-07-13T17:43:00.000+07:00

There is a great deal of benefits if you have copywriting as a job. The salary for a copy writer is much higher than the average wage in the United States. According to the magazine Advertising Age, the average salary for a copywriter in the United States is right around $60,000 when you include bonuses and that was for the year 2005. You can imagine that the income will be higher now, given that there has been inflation in the last two years. The Bureau of Labor Statistics comes up with a similar but slightly lower number, right around $57,000 for a copywriter.

Copywriting does have a great deal more flexibility than many jobs. You do not need to worry about keeping set hours usually because the focus is upon you writing good copy. This could allow you to live a full life in some ways because you can plan some events around the fact that you can make up more time in hours on certain days if something comes up. This is something that many jobs such as banks or restaurants are not able to do.

Copywriting as a job also offers a great workplace environment. Many copywriters work within an advertising agency, which can be a great place to work. You often have many other creative people and there you can bounce ideas off of one another and these people often have high energy which you can feed off of. This can be a great group of people to work with because you will often find that you are challenged due to the intelligence and creativity of this group of people. There are many different sizes of advertising agencies see you could decide to work for a smaller advertising agency if you like a close-knit group of people or you could work for a larger advertising agency if you want more competition. This could be structured according to how your mindset and makeup are. There is a great deal of flexibility within your workplace environment as demonstrated here.

Writing good copy can be very challenging so you will find that this job will never grow boring. If you work at an advertising agency, you often will have many different types of clients so the work that you do every day can change. This is good because you'll get a great variety of different things they would never get bored.

Copywriting as a job offers great benefits to you no matter how you look at it. You are able to make very good money, considering that the average wage is right around $60,000. If you are able to establish yourself as a master copywriter, you can obviously earn a great deal more money than the average salary. The workplace environment often will be crackling with creative energy and the flexibility that you will have from the job is more than most other jobs can offer.

Family: How to Balance Having a Family and a Career

2010-07-13T17:36:00.000+07:00

Are you a career-oriented woman who also happens to be a parent? If you are, you may be dealing with a number of different issues. Many women, just like yourself, find it somewhat difficult to balance having a career and a family. While it is more than possible to do both, it can be overwhelming at times.

One of the many issues surrounding working mothers is that they do not know how to balance their time. Mothers who need to work or finish an upcoming project often do so, but they occasionally feel guilty about missing out on quality time with their children or their romantic partner. It can also be the other way around, as well. Many working mothers are afraid to, essentially, put their family first in certain situations, in fear of losing their jobs. If these are issues that you have dealt with or if they are issues that you are currently dealing with now, you will want to continue reading on.

One of the many ways that you can go about balancing a family and a career is by setting aside time for both your family and your important career. For instance, if at all possible, you will want to try and establish hours just for work or work related tasks. If you have to work overtime, it is advised that you do so, especially if your job may be at risk. That is often what is difficult for many mothers, when relying on their income, it can be fearful to put work second. With that in mind, it is important that you leave work at work. This gives you the opportunity to put your family first, especially when you are at home with them.

As with having set hours for work, it is also advised that you create a schedule for your family time as well. While your days don’t have to be planned out hour by hour, it is nice to at least develop a little schedule. This schedule could include days of the week when you may want to take a trip to the zoo with you children or days that you may want to spend visiting family. By having your plans already made and in place, you are more likely to follow through with them. Your family, including your children and your partner, will likely be pleased with this follow through.

Although raising a family is often associated with spending time with your children, that is not all that motherhood is about. For that reason, you likely have a full plate. That plate may include grocery shopping, the preparation of family meals, as well as house cleaning. To reduce the stress associated with many of these tasks, as well as give you more quality time to spend with you family, you may want to consider hiring assistance. Whether you choose to hire a professional housekeeper or a landscaper to mow your yard for you, this extra time may come in handy.

The above mentioned points are just a few of the many ways that you can go about balancing a career and a family. Although it may seem impossible to do right now, especially if you just recently got a new job or had your first child, it is more than possible for you have a great career, as well as happy and healthy family life at home.

Finding Fashion Stores to Shop At

2010-07-07T17:45:00.000+07:00

Are you interested in revamping your appearance, at least in terms of your fashion? If you are, you may be looking to buy new clothes or fashion accessories. If you are looking for the latest in fashion trends, you may want to think about finding a well-known and popular fashion store to shop at, as they often have the largest selection of clothes and clothing accessories for today’s top fashions.

When it comes to finding a fashion store to shop at, you have a number of different options. One of those options involves heading down to your local shopping mall. Shopping malls are a great place to find a number of well-known and popular fashion stores. While many small shopping malls do have some great fashion stores to shop at, you may find a larger selection of fashion stores and better ones by visiting a larger shopping mall. Larger shopping malls are commonly found in large cities or in popular vacation destinations.

You may also want to think about asking those that you know for recommendations. This works best if you see someone that you know wearing something, like a dress or a business suit, that you would like to own yourself. If you may want to casually ask a friend, family member, coworker, or neighbor where they got the item and if they like shopping there. If they do and if you like their taste in fashion, there is a good chance that you will also like the fashion store in question. If you have never heard of the fashion store being recommended to you before, you may want to get the location of the store so that you can start shopping.

Another way that you can go about finding a good fashion store to shop at is just by keeping your eyes open. As previously mentioned, a large number of fashion stores are located inside shopping malls, but not always. A large number of fashion stores are also considered standalone stores. For that reason, you never know when you may come across a really neat fashion store when out shopping for groceries or just driving home from work. Many of the individuals who end up finding their favorite fashion stores just happen on them by chance.

The internet is another way that you can go about finding information on a locally based fashion store. A large number of businesses, including fashion stores, have online websites. Those online websites will likely outline the location of the store in question, as well as contain other important pieces of information. It is common to find a few pictures and other information about the fashion pieces and accessories sold at a fashion store on their online website. You can find the online website of a local fashion store, if they have one, by performing a standard internet search. You may also be able to use business directories, as many link to the business’s online website.

Speaking of using the internet to find information on a local fashion store, you can also use the internet to find an online fashion store. While a large number of fashion store owners choose to operate their stores in a storefront location, there are others who choose to operate an online store and even some to choose to do both. By performing a standard internet search, with phrase like “women’s clothing,” “fashion store,” and so forth, you may be directed to the online websites of multiple online fashion stores. The more that you able to customize your search to include what you are looking for, like men’s business suits or women’s lingerie, you are more likely to find exactly what you were looking for online.

If you are interested in improving your fashion sense, one of the first things that you should do is visit a fashion store, even if it is just to look around. As you can see, there are a number of different ways that you can go about finding a popular fashion store to shop at, as well as one that may be known as a well-kept secret.

2010-06-27T17:39:00.000+07:00

Distance learning can be defined as an education program imparted by an university beyond the barriers of its campus and taken by a student outside the walls of an university. Distance learnrng program is a medium that connects students to the universities of the world.

Distance learning programs are becoming the most popular and viable way of teaching and learning. More and more people are registering for distance learning programs of different universities. Distance learning program gives freedom to a student to learn at his own pace, his own schedule and at his own convenience.

Distance learning is imparted through the electronic media and study materials supplied by the university for a particular course. It helps people to upgrade their educational qualification even when they are tied up in their working schedule. Some business houses also use distance learning to train their employees as it is less time consuming, less expensive and adds to the human resource enrichment of the business house.

To enroll for a distance learning course one must be sure as to what kind of specialization one is looking for. An extensive study must then be done to find out in details about the universities that offer the course wanted. The time duration of the course, the fees, the software needed and the time of exam must also be checked. The most important factor that should be checked is that whether the school or university is accredited or not, one should not register in a university which is not accredited.

Every coin has two sides and distance learning program is not an exception to the rule. While distance learning program is advantageous as it helps people to continue with their education despite of their demanding schedule it also has some disadvantages. It may fail to motivate a student to study resulting in no good for the candidate, this shows registering yourself is not sufficient, you must also have a drive in yourself to continue with the study. The success of distance education also depends on the success of the technology. And without a good support system and infrastructure the distance learning may be a failure.

Thus we can say that distance learning is a boon for today’s busy and demanding world but it also demands a significant level of maturity from its students.

Two takes on iOS 4

2010-06-15T13:36:00.001+07:00

The iOS 4 GM was released to developer accounts yesterday, and we have a few impressions of our own to share before the firmware is officially released on June 21. Patrick’s coming from the perspective of a totally new 4.0 user, whereas I’ve been on the beta for the last few weeks and have a few longer term thoughts to share.
Patrick

* Restored straight to it from Jbed 3.1.3
* Setup as new phone, not from backup
* GameCenter not live yet? (Edit: goes live this September, though you seem to be able to create accounts)
* First thing I miss is SBSettings – so dumb and annoying that services toggles are still buried couple layers into Settings
* Like that Caps Lock is on by default – tiny thing but nice
* Ironic – one of the only easy parts about a restore is provided by Google Sync – love getting contacts and calendar back lickety split as soon as I add that
* WiFi a little slow coming up out of sleep mode
* Like the new default grey background much better than old black
* Love that iPod app added Genius playlists
* Like how easy it is to re-arrange apps within folders
* Like folders overall
* App switching works smoothly – would love to see some screen gesture invocation methods, always feel as if home button takes a beating if it needs to be used for very common tasks
* No longer asks for review on app deletion – very good call
* Limit of 12 apps per folder seems too low – something like 20-25 would be better
* Screen 1 – most used apps
* Screen 2 – next most used
* Screen 3 – folders

Thomas
Apart from beta 2 and the incompatibility with certain apps, iOS 4 feels ready for prime time, and it’s been like this for a while. It’s stable, it’s fast, and it works with a large majority of my apps. I’ve shared my thoughts on the various betas in the past, but the one thing I’d like to really hammer home this time around is what an amazing free upgrade this is. It’s still ridiculously early, but I haven’t heard about the iPhone 4 being twice as fast as the 3GS, and the release of iOS4 may quell some of the upgrade anxiety that some people may be feeling. I’m not even sure I can afford the new iPhone at this point, but I do know that the 3GS is performing just as beautifully on iOS4 as it did on iOS3 — it not just a little more so.

* As usual, the devil is in the details, and there are so many little things about this new firmware that make my year-old hardware feel like a new device.
* The rotation lock that was added to the iPad is now available on the iPhone in the multi-tasking dock, and this finally makes Safari usable when all you want to is read one last article before going to sleep (without wrestling with the damn accelerometer).
* Threaded e-mail is such a huge deal, and it works perfectly now, as far as I can tell.
* Multi-tasking is great and convenient, but I’m actually still having trouble breaking the habit of simply tapping the Home button once and using Springboard to relaunch apps. I’m also definitely in Patrick’s boat: I’d love to call up the multi-tasking dock with some sort of touch gesture, although I don’t think we’ll see this for a while…if ever.
* Folder support just makes sense, and although it can be a little confusing, I don’t really mind the layout or the app limit of 12. I’ve condensed about six pages of apps into just two with the help of folders, and it’s fantastic to be able to do this without jailbreaking.

The whole experience just feels “smarter” in a manner deserving of the term smartphone, and that’s without scratching the surface of new API’s like local notifications, any sort of 3rd party app multitasking, and the possible awesomeness that Game Center may turn out to be. That said, I will probably still want to jailbreak for at least two features: MyWi (wi-fi tethering) and Wi-fi Sync (wi-fi sync :P ). Of course, once I do that, I’ll end up re-installing SBSettings (iOS4 makes Settings faster, but still not nearly as fast as BigBoss’ amazing dashboard), so it’s good to hear that the JB scene seems alive and well on 4.0.
Got any questions about iOS 4? Just let us know in the comments.

The iOS 4 GM was released to developer accounts yesterday, and we have a few impressions of our own to share before the firmware is officially released on June 21. Patrick’s coming from the perspective of a totally new 4.0 user, whereas I’ve been on the beta for the last few weeks and have a few longer term thoughts to share.

* Restored straight to it from Jbed 3.1.3
* Setup as new phone, not from backup
* GameCenter not live yet? (Edit: goes live this September, though you seem to be able to create accounts)
* First thing I miss is SBSettings – so dumb and annoying that services toggles are still buried couple layers into Settings
* Like that Caps Lock is on by default – tiny thing but nice
* Ironic – one of the only easy parts about a restore is provided by Google Sync – love getting contacts and calendar back lickety split as soon as I add that
* WiFi a little slow coming up out of sleep mode
* Like the new default grey background much better than old black
* Love that iPod app added Genius playlists
* Like how easy it is to re-arrange apps within folders
* Like folders overall
* App switching works smoothly – would love to see some screen gesture invocation methods, always feel as if home button takes a beating if it needs to be used for very common tasks
* No longer asks for review on app deletion – very good call
* Limit of 12 apps per folder seems too low – something like 20-25 would be better
* Screen 1 – most used apps
* Screen 2 – next most used
* Screen 3 – folders

ThomasApart from beta 2 and the incompatibility with certain apps, iOS 4 feels ready for prime time, and it’s been like this for a while. It’s stable, it’s fast, and it works with a large majority of my apps. I’ve shared my thoughts on the various betas in the past, but the one thing I’d like to really hammer home this time around is what an amazing free upgrade this is. It’s still ridiculously early, but I haven’t heard about the iPhone 4 being twice as fast as the 3GS, and the release of iOS4 may quell some of the upgrade anxiety that some people may be feeling. I’m not even sure I can afford the new iPhone at this point, but I do know that the 3GS is performing just as beautifully on iOS4 as it did on iOS3 — it not just a little more so.

* As usual, the devil is in the details, and there are so many little things about this new firmware that make my year-old hardware feel like a new device.
* The rotation lock that was added to the iPad is now available on the iPhone in the multi-tasking dock, and this finally makes Safari usable when all you want to is read one last article before going to sleep (without wrestling with the damn accelerometer).
* Threaded e-mail is such a huge deal, and it works perfectly now, as far as I can tell.
* Multi-tasking is great and convenient, but I’m actually still having trouble breaking the habit of simply tapping the Home button once and using Springboard to relaunch apps. I’m also definitely in Patrick’s boat: I’d love to call up the multi-tasking dock with some sort of touch gesture, although I don’t think we’ll see this for a while…if ever.
* Folder support just makes sense, and although it can be a little confusing, I don’t really mind the layout or the app limit of 12. I’ve condensed about six pages of apps into just two with the help of folders, and it’s fantastic to be able to do this without jailbreaking.

The whole experience just feels “smarter” in a manner deserving of the term smartphone, and that’s without scratching the surface of new API’s like local notifications, any sort of 3rd party app multitasking, and the possible awesomeness that Game Center may turn out to be. That said, I will probably still want to jailbreak for at least two features: MyWi (wi-fi tethering) and Wi-fi Sync (wi-fi sync :P ). Of course, once I do that, I’ll end up re-installing SBSettings (iOS4 makes Settings faster, but still not nearly as fast as BigBoss’ amazing dashboard), so it’s good to hear that the JB scene seems alive and well on 4.0.Got any questions about iOS 4? Just let us know in the comments.

Understanding Operating Systems

2010-05-16T15:18:00.000+07:00

Every new computer that’s brought home from the store has an operating system installed onto it. But what most new computer users don’t realize, is that without an operating system, that computer would be a simple shell of possibilities. A powered computer lacking an operating system wouldn’t display anything more than a bunch of confusing text messages that describe the computer’s boot process. At the very end of this process, the computer looks for an operating system and if not found, it will prompt the user to tell it where it is.
Earlier computers didn’t have an operating system and if you have experience with the computers of the early eighties, you’ll remember that most to them didn’t even have a hard drive! These old computers booted an MS-DOS type operating system from drivers stored onto a floppy disk, and in order to use a program, users would remove the boot floppy and then insert a new floppy that contained the program. The floppy not only stored the program (word processor, spreadsheet, etc.), it also stored the drivers that the program needed to communicate with the computer’s hardware. As you can imagine, the cumbersome process of switching from floppy to floppy prompted the birth of the operating system.

An operating system is a software program that controls how the computer’s hardware (and installed software) works. It manages the activity of every component and then displays that activity as a user-friendly interface (GUI). It keeps track of where things exist on a computer’s hard drive as well. But perhaps most importantly for the end-user, the operating system is responsible for translating commands issued with a keyboard and mouse into binary code (010110101 stuff) that can communicate with a set of speakers, a printer, a scanner, and more.

With an operating system installed onto a computer’s hard drive, users no longer need to boot a computer with a floppy disk, nor do they need to run programs from a floppy disk. All the drivers of a program are stored onto the computer and used whenever a program is started.

Apple’s Macintosh computer was among the first of a couple systems to establish a user-to-hardware relationship through a user-friendly interface. Today, we have quite a few operating systems. Some of the more popular ones are Windows Vista, Mac OS X, ZETA, IBM, Unix, and Linux. But even still, operating systems have extended onto to non-computer devices such as game consoles, portable music players, and PDAs. Regardless of the device, the operating system installed onto it serves the same purpose across the board: to enable user-to-hardware communication.

When you think about upgrading your computer to a new operating system, be careful to make sure that you have the necessary hardware components. We tried to upgrade one of our Windows 98 machines to Windows XP, but we were cautioned that the former may not be hardware compatible with XP technology. Apparently, the Windows XP operating system requires components that weren’t developed at the time Windows 98 was distributed and if we were to install Windows XP on this machine anyway, the new operating system would look for hardware that the computer didn’t have. And that would be an instant recipe for failure.

Also be careful about installing operating systems that are incompatible with existing hardware. The hardware of Macintosh computers is extremely different from the hardware of Windows computers and under no circumstances will a Windows operating system work on a Macintosh machine!>

Protecting Children Online

2010-05-13T15:13:00.000+07:00

It’s an unfortunate fact of reality, but children are the most victimized computer users on the Internet today. The good news is that there are some practical steps you can take to protect your children from sexual predators, hackers, and other seedy individuals who want to cause harm. This article will describe a few of them.

The first step in protecting your children at the computer is to prevent their access to passwords. This will keep them from sharing passwords with others and inadvertently enabling hacking into your system. If you think about it, there’s no reason why a five, seven, or even twelve year old needs to know the passwords to sensitive areas on the computer unless you’ve given them permission! In fact, children don’t need to know the password used to access the Internet either. It may be a hassle to type it in each time they want to get online, but it’s better to know the times that they connect than to have them sneak online without your permission and knowledge of their activities.

The second step towards protecting your children online is using the computer together. Siting next to your child while he or she peruses the Internet, you can guide him or her to make safe and intelligent decisions. You can approve websites and bookmark them together. You can monitor the conversations your children have with their friends and teach them appropriate online behavior at the same time. You can make recommendations and create a private time for quality time as well.

The third step involves blocking access to inappropriate areas altogether. You and your children may not always agree about what’s appropriate, but as a guardian, you’re in control and you’re ultimately responsible for their safety. Take the time to investigate software tools that put you in control and allow you to block access to certain websites. If you use an online service like AOL (America Online), you can use its internal Parental Control settings to block access to various chatrooms and websites. You could even block instant messaging and email from anyone who isn’t a fellow AOL user.

Other tools available online operate similar to the way that AOL’s Parental Control settings work, however no collection of tools could replace the reinforcement of mom and dad. Never let your children speak with strangers and never leave them alone at the computer unattended. Children just don’t have the experience that adults have and they don’t have the skills required to handle inappropriate conversations, emails, or images found online.

NOTE: Some of these tools include kid-specific web browsers that will visit pre-approved websites. Others include browser plug-ins that won’t allow access to online areas that contain forbidden keywords.

Another step requires teaching your children to never ever volunteer personal information. Under no circumstances, should children give their personal names, home addresses, phone numbers, or school information to anyone over the Internet regardless of the situation. In the even this information is required to enter a contest of some sort, be sure that you’re the one who makes the decision to supply it and that you’re the one who does it.

Performing all of these steps won’t be easy. However you can help minimize resistance to your monitoring efforts by explaining why you’re taking these precautions. Smaller children will probably enjoy the time you spend together at the computer, but older children and pre-teens may resent it. To help build a case for your concern, you might want to show your older children a few news stories that exemplify the dangers that unsupervised children are exposed to. The newspaper is unfortunately full of examples but with your help, we can reduce them world-wide.

Careers in Blogging

2010-05-11T15:11:00.000+07:00

Many freelance writers are beginning to find blogging is one of the newest career opportunities available to them. Blogging is essentially a series of postings on a particular subject which are listed in reverse chronological order. These blogs may be about a variety of different subjects and may be personal, political, informative, humorous or any other category desired by the blogger. However, the key to a successful blog is a blog which pertains to a subject which appeals to a wide audience. Additionally the blog should be updated regularly and should provide useful content to the readers of the blog. This article will provide some information on finding career opportunities in blogging, will discuss the benefits of this type of career and will provide information on how writers can manage a blog successfully.

Finding Blogging Career Opportunities

Although blogging career opportunities are becoming increasingly popular, many writers are not aware of how to find these wonderful opportunities. These career opportunities may be offered as ghost writing positions or as positions offering a byline to the writer and finding these blogging opportunities is often very similar to finding any other career opportunities for writers. Companies seeking a blogger may post the job opening in the same manner in which they would post other openings with the company such as accounting positions or administrative positions. Therefore, writers interested in a position as a blogger should utilize the same job search websites they rely on to find other career opportunities.

Bloggers may also wish to visit career websites and message boards which focus exclusively on careers in blogging. The ProBlogger.net website is just one example of a website dedicated exclusively to putting bloggers in connection with those who are interested in hiring a writer for a particular blog. Interested bloggers should also consider joining message boards for those who blog for a living. This can be beneficial because here bloggers are likely to share information regarding the companies for which they work as well as any information they have about companies who are currently looking to hire bloggers.

The Benefits of a Career in Blogging

There are many benefits to pursuing a career in blogging. Perhaps one of the most alluring benefits to a career in blogging is the work can typically be done as a telecommute position. This is because as long as the blogger has access to the software necessary to write and upload a blog, there is no need for the blogger to perform the work from a specific location. This means the blogger can reside virtually anywhere in the world and can likely perform the necessary work from his own home. However, not all blogging positions are telecommute positions. Some companies may require bloggers to perform the work onsite as a matter of personal preference.

Another benefit to a career in blogging is the ability to accomplish work at a pace which his convenient to the blogger. The blogger may be required to upload a new post to the blog according to a regular schedule but the actually writing of the posts can be accomplished when it is convenient for the blogger. Many blogging software packages enable the blogger to set a specific time for a specific post to be uploaded. This allows the blogger to write several posts at a time and have them publish according to a pre-determined schedule.

Finding Time to Blog

One of the problems which many bloggers face is finding the time to blog. This is especially difficult if the blogger maintains several blogs or if the blogger maintains a current events blog in which posts must be timely in order to be relevant and of interest to the readers. Writing blog posts in batches and scheduling them to publish as needed is one way to deal with managing several blogs. However, writers of blogs related to current events must take special care to budget their time wisely to ensure they are publishing topical blog posts. One way this can be accomplished is by setting aside time daily to reading current events to derive inspiration and then scheduling time after that to write and publish the blog. For example a blogger with a current events blog might choose to review the previous day’s news the first thing in the morning to ensure they are reviewing all of the relevant news from the previous day before writing the blog post.

Finding Blogs to Read

2010-05-09T15:08:00.000+07:00

There is a wide variety of blogs currently available. Internet users are fortunate to have a large number of blogs to choose from when seeking a blog to read regularly. There are also often many blogs available which cover a particular subject. Blogs can be about any subject imaginable. Some blogs are created to entertain while others are created to inform. Some blogs are created to generate a profit while other blogs are created to help others. With so many blogs currently available online it can be difficult to determine which blogs are worth reading and which are not. It can also make it difficult to limit the number of blogs the Internet user reads. This article will provide information on finding and selecting blogs to read including using search engines to find blogs, finding blogs through participation in message boards and seeking recommendations for blogs from friends or family members.

Using Search Engines to Find Blogs

Search engines are one of the most reliable resources Internet users often rely on to find useful websites. However, it is important to note search engines can also be extremely helpful for Internet users who are interested in finding blogs to read. An Internet user who is looking for a blog on a particular subject can start the process of finding these blogs by entering relevant keywords or phrases into a popular search engine and carefully reviewing the results provided for this search. However, this type of search will not necessarily provide the Internet users with blogs. In fact the search results may not include a blog on any of the first few pages in the search results despite returning pages upon pages of links to useful websites.

One simple way the Internet user can use search engines to find blogs relating to a particular subject is to include the word blog with the keywords or phrases entered into the search engine. This will help to filter the search results and may push blogs towards the front of search results. However, Internet users are better off searching for collections of blogs and then searching within these collections for ones of interest.

Finding Blogs on Message Boards

Many Internet users rely on message boards to find interesting and informative blogs. This is because many message board participants who have a blog often find ways to make others aware of this blog. This may either be through the process of incorporating a link to the blog in the message board user’s signature or, when appropriate, supplying the link to the blog directly in the message body of a post on the message board. Although many bloggers may take advantage of the opportunity to promote their own blog through message boards, those who are interested in finding new blogs will likely not have time to review all of these blogs. Therefore, it is wise for these Internet users to be somewhat discriminating about the blogs they choose to visit. One way to do this is to only visit blogs of regular forum posters who offer valuable information to the conversations on the message board. The Internet user may also wish to avoid blogs which appear to be posted as spam. This is important because these blogs are not only likely poor quality but also visiting these blogs only encourages the blog owner to continue to spam message boards with his link.

Seeking Recommendations for Blogs

Finally, Internet users who are seeking blogs to read on a regular basis can consider seeking recommendations from friends or family members who share a particular interest. Friends or family members who are interested in the same subject as you may already regularly read blogs relevant to this interest. Asking them for recommendations is worthwhile because they have no reason to do anything but recommend blogs they really enjoy and assume you will be interested in as well. Also, this method of finding blogs is ideal because your friends and family members likely know your tastes and expectations well and will likely steer you in the right direction.

Dealing with Comments on Your Blog

2010-05-07T15:07:00.000+07:00

Most blogs allow visitors to the blog to post comments on any of the blog posts. These comments may pertain to the blog posting or may be completely unrelated. The comments may also be positive or negative in nature. Regardless of the type of comment left by a visitor the blogger may choose to deal with these comments in a number of different ways. The blogger may answer these comments, block individual visitors from leaving comments in the future or use administrative features to delete comments or set the blog to require approval of the comments before they are posted on the blog. This article will discuss each of these options for dealing with comments on a blog in greater detail.

Answering Comments on Your Blog

Bloggers who receive comments on their blog may wish to answer these comments. Most blogging programs allow the blogger to post comments on his own blog which enables the blogger to answer comments directly. With this feature a blogger can deal with a number of different situations including negative comments, positive comments and questions. Bloggers who receive negative comments on their blog may opt to answer these comments directly with a rebuttal to the negative comments. This allows the blogger to recognize the criticism and defend his original post. Bloggers who receive positive comments may also wish to answer these comments to thank the visitors for the praise. Still other bloggers may receive comments which ask a question about the blog post or the blogger himself. Bloggers may opt to answer these questions to develop a better relationship with the blog visitors.

Blocking Comments from Individual Visitors

Another option for dealing with blog comments which are negative in nature is to block comments from individual blog visitors. In most cases bloggers will have the ability to blog a particular user from leaving comments on the blog. The blogger may wish to use this option in situations where the comments from the blog visitor are extremely mean spirited. The blogger may also wish to ban individual blog visitors from making comments if he has previously attempted to explain his point to the visitor but the visitor continues to post negative comments. A blogger may also wish to ban an individual blog visitor from making comments if he believes the comments are being left as spam.

Using Administrative Features

Still another option for dealing with comments on a blog includes using administrative features to delete comments or modify the settings to not allow comments to be displayed until the blogger approves them. Blog owners typically have the ability to delete a comment left by a blog visitor. Deleting these comments is usually a quite simple process. However, it is not a completely effective method because other blog visitors may have the opportunity to read these comments before they are deleted. Therefore, deleting the comment may prevent some visitors from reading the comment but will not ensure the comment is not seen by any blog visitors. However, there is a way for bloggers to make sure visitors do not read negative comments. Most types of blogging software have options which require the blogger to approve all comments before they become available to the public. This gives the blogger the ability to delete a comment before it is read by any of the blog visitors. The blogger can simply delete any comments they do not wish others to read before the comments are published.

The Pros and Cons of Video Blogging

2010-05-03T15:04:00.000+07:00

Video blogging has a lot of advantages over text-based
blogging, and it is little wonder that this new
technology is catching on all over the globe. Video
blogs very effectively grab the attention of web surfers,
and people are much more likely to become excited
about the dynamic content of a video blog than they are
likely to find a written posting very thrilling. The more
enthusiastic viewers are about a site, the quicker the
word of mouth spreads, and the more traffic the site will
get.

Of course, there are plenty of disadvantages to video
blogging as well. Hosting a v-blog requires quite a bit
of server space, which can make it difficult to get
started. It takes more time to process and upload a video
file than it does to dash off a quick bit of text, which
means that running and updating a video blog can be
quite a bit of work. In addition, web surfers sometimes
grow frustrated with the slow loading times of the files
on many video blogs. Whether you opt for a video blog
or not depends on what kind of subject matter you want
to cover, and how much time you can devote to video
blogging. Before you decide to pursue a video blog,
consider if there is an easier way for you to get your message across.

Learning How to Make Money Blogging

2010-04-27T15:03:00.000+07:00

There are two major types of business models that
entrepreneurs use to make money blogging. The first
and most common way to turn a blog into a profit
making machine is to sell advertising to different
companies and brands who want to reach that blog's
readers. The second kind of money making blog is one
that helps a single brand improve its image by creating
positive associations between the blog and the product
in the mind of consumers. Both kinds of blogs can
make a lot of money, especially if the creator has a keen
mind for marketing.

If you are blogging with the goal of selling advertising,
there are two basic ways that you can go about
recruiting sponsors who want to put ads on your site;
you can let someone else do all of the legwork, or you
can do the work yourself and keep all of the revenue.
Within the first group, many people make money
blogging by selling space through Google's AdSense
program. The advantages of this program are numerous,
as it requires very little effort on the part of the blogger
or webmaster to begin raking in profits. However, most
people discover that they make less money through this
method than they had hoped that their blog would earn.

Selling advertising directly to companies who want to
put banner ads or sponsored links on your blog can take
quite a bit of time, but it is often fairly lucrative. If you
have a lot of contacts in industries that are related to the
topic of your blog, you may want to try to go this route.
People who have a strong background in sales and are
experienced at pitching proposals can make quite a bit
of money by renting blog space to interested companies.
The most serious problem with this model is that you
often have to build quite a sizable readership before you
can attract advertisers, which can mean that you have to
do several months of work before you start to make
money blogging.

As blogging becomes a more and more lucrative
business, a lot of established companies are considering
how they can get into the action. One way that
companies are capitalizing on the blog movement is by
having blogs that provide a kind of friendly face for
their corporation. Often, a company will employ an
established blogger to create a weblog designed
specifically to appeal to that company's customers and
to create positive associations with the brand in
consumers' minds. More than one writer who never
even dreamed that he or she could make money
blogging has been approached by a company and
offered quite a pretty penny for this kind of gig.

Drinking Beer Prevents Osteoporosis?

2010-02-09T18:21:00.002+07:00

Well, it is commonly known that consuming milk regularly, eating high-calcium foods and doing exercise are effective to prevent osteoporosis. Now, researcher has found another great way to prevent osteoporosis. The way is simple yet quite fun to do, drinking beer! Is it true that drinking beer prevents osteoporosis?

Cuticle of barley, the main ingredient to make beer contains high mineral namely silicon. This mineral is hardly considered as the main factor to prevent osteoporosis. The content level of silicon will grow higher in the formulating process.

They are only a few studies ever conducted about silicon content in beer. However, Charles Bamforth, a professor of food technology from University of California is able to find a correlation between silicon content with bone mineralization.

Journal of the Science f or Food and Agriculture stated that beer contains mineral silicon that has same function to calcium, which is slowing down the bone thinning process in the body, and enhancing and strengthening bone density while increasing the new bone development process.

Beer contains about 90 percents alcohol, sugar fermentation (malt) derived from rice seeds, pure sugar, fruit s flavor (hop) which gives a sharp sour and astringent taste, and yeast (microorganism) to process fermentation sugar to alcohol and carbon dioxide.

Excerpting from Healthday, Prof. Charles said that beer contains high silicon derived from wheat seeds fermentation and hop fruit. It content can make strong and healthy bone as it gives a huge amount of mineral to the bone.
In their study, researcher had tested 100 commercial beer and found different level of silicon in each beer. The amount of silicon in beer varies from 6.4 to 56.5 milligram per liter.

However, some people are not agree consuming beer to prevent osteoporosis, as there are many others sources available. Besides beer, silicon can easily found in beans and potatoes, but in less amount.

Get in Touch with Paid To Review: Buy a Page Ranked Domain

2010-01-28T15:37:00.004+07:00

After spending about two weeks searching for information about paid to review (PTR) program on the net, I finally made up mind to give it a shot by buying a page ranked domain.

Two days ago, I decided to start investing. According to information I’ve gathered, first investment should be goes to domain. So I started hunting an expired page ranked 3 domain.

First place to go was Go Daddy auction. But I found Go Daddy a bit confusing for a newbie like me, as it requires you to be a member of Go Daddy auction first before you can use its domain auction facility. To become a member, you have to pay $4.95. That’s for annual fee of auction. Once you have registered, you can go to freshdrop.net and start looking for your needs. There will be a list of expired domains. There are plenty of domains there, so make sure to use filter tool on the side-bar. Next steps just follow the instruction given.

If you find a domain you want, you can place a bid. FYI, to get your desired domain, you have to compete with others by placing a bid here. The highest bid will get the domain. Before placing your bid, make sure the domain is ok. Go to checkpagerank.net or any other page rank checkers on net, and see if the domain’s page rank is valid. Otherwise, you only waste your money by bidding out a fake or forged domain. But bidding process took times, so I decided to go to the second place.

The second hunting place was Digital Forum. This is a famous forum among internet marketers on the net. Expired domains can be found in buy and sell thread. There are many threads in Digital Point, so I decided to narrow my search by searching WTS (Want To Sell) threads only.

The rules are bit different here. Each domain offered is usually posted with two codes: BID and BIN. BID code is for auction, while BIN is the price you should pay to get the domain without auction. BIN stands for Buy-It-Now.

However, to be able to make a deal or place a bid, every new member has to participate in the forum, by giving valuable information or responds. This activity shows by number of posts written. Minimum posts are 25. So make sure you reach this minimum requirement before bidding or buying a domain.

25 posts is not that hard to reach. Still it takes time. So, I skipped this place and go the third place, Indonesian adsense forum. I have become a member here, so I just jumped to the trade thread. After thoroughly scanning, I found one interesting domain.
Since this is my first time, I got uncertain. I checked the page rank and it was valid. I also check its backlinks on backlinkwatch.com, and it was ok.

I followed the link given, and it brought me to the owner domain. There were a lots of domains displayed on his blog. Most of them were sold already. What makes me sure to buy domain from him is that I found my brother’s domain in his list. If my brother’s transaction was ok, then he must be a trusted seller.

Thus, I contacted the owner. He gave me the price and his paypal address. The transaction just took a minute. I more than happy to find that this seller kept his word to push-up my domain on time. This gives him another credit for future prospective buyers.

Though I don’t have enough knowledge of paid to review business, I think I just made a small step buy investing on a page ranked domain. I know it takes times to make money online through writing. And I have a plenty of time here, so I think I just go with the flow.

Ladies, Go Shop and Burns Your Fat Out!

2010-01-17T16:52:00.002+07:00

You don’t have to go to gym or fitness center just to get exercise, as you can have the same effect and benefit of exercise just by walking around in a shopping center or known as window shopping.

In fact, most women don’t realize that window shopping activities can burn up to 385 of their calories without giving much effort go to fitness center.

What more interesting? You know that English women are walking about 150 miles per year in average for shopping activities. A department store in England tried conducting a survey to 10 women and men in order to know how much calories are used when they are shopping.

By using pedometer calories calculator, it’s known that women are spending at least 2.5 hours for shopping, while men are spending 50 minutes.

According to Telegraph, 2.5 hours spent for shopping is equal to walking for 3 miles, while 50 minutes is equal to 1.5 miles.

In spite of that fact, many people don’t realize the effect they will get when shopping. The survey said that 63 percents of respondents are thinking shopping is one of healthy activities just like exercise.

In average, people are walking about 7,300 steps everyday though the number of steps recommended by NHS to stay healthy is 10,000 steps every day.

And most of women are sticked to the credo ‘shop till drop’, spending time by walking around in a department store till they find stuffs they are looking for without care about the time being spent. This is a benefit should used by every woman who loves shopping.

Now shop till drop is not a guilty pleasure anymore, since it’s a healthy activity. So guys, if you found your ladies are lack of exercise activities lately, just take to the near department stores.

Having Bad Mood Easily? Check Out Your Food

2010-01-16T17:25:00.004+07:00

If you find your mood easily swings, you should check your list of food you have consumed lately.

A research conducted in Melbourne University recently, reported that those who consuming modern food such as cola, hamburger, and other processed foods, are easier to have bad mood than those who consume home-made food. The conclusion was summarized after carefully examining 1,046 women aged 20 years old to 90 years old for 10 years.
According to the research published by American Journal of Psychiatry, processed food are containing a lot of chemical component, high fat and give bad influence to women. On contrary, fresh food, like vegetables, fruits, wheat processed foods, low fat milk derivative products, fat-free meats and other home-made foods support physical health and emotional stability.

From total of 925 women had been examined, 121 women are having a tendency of depression and anxiety. Further examination on their eating habits showed that these women are consuming unhealthy food: burger, white flour bread, pizza, sweetened milk, beer, and kinds of sweet processed foods.

30 percents of respondents are showing a tendency of emotional instability. The research found that they regularly consumed Australian dietary food, food contained lots of vegetables, fruits, fish, beef, lamb, and wheat. Besides food have been consumed, the research was also examining respondents’ age, weight, and social and economy status, education, physical activities, and other lifestyle and habits such as smoking and alcohol.

In contrast, those who eat only fruits, vegetables, fish, tofu organic, nuts, yogurt, and red wine are almost categorized as "having ability to control emotion". The results of the study would be the basis for further research on the influence of unhealthy food on mental health.

So, based on this fact, I think foods we’re consumed play a significant role to set most of your mood. It’s time to choose healthy foods guys, as you are what you eat.

Is it safe using deodorant everyday?

2010-01-12T12:49:00.001+07:00

Deodorant is commonly used to prevent body odor and excessive sweat on the armpit. For some people, this small stuff can boost up their self-confidence. However, though it is a daily life powerful stuff, some people are afraid using deodorant can be toxic to the body. Well, is it true? Is it safe to use deodorant every day?

Deodorant is generally used as a body protection to keep your armpit dry or to avoid unpleasant smell caused by bacteria in the body. It functions to inhibit sweat canal so armpit produces less amount of sweat.

One of substantial elements that functions to inhibit the amount of sweat in body is aluminum. This element also can be found in drink water or cooking tools.

In the recent years, it was widely heard that aluminum in deodorant can be absorbed by body and gives a significant impact to development of breast cancer on women.

Aluminum compounds such as aluminum zirconium and aluminum chloride does contain estrogen than can stimulate the growth of breast cancer tissue. And there are fears this aluminum has the same effect when absorbed through the skin.

A study had been conducted in 2007. It was analyzing breast tissue from 17 breast cancer patients by measuring the content of aluminum in their body.

The research also found such amount of aluminum in the breast outer area, an area which deodorant is most applied. However, according to the American Cancer Society, researchers have not found a relationship between aluminum in deodorants to breast cancer so far.

Meanwhile, aluminum is also known to have a potential contribution to Alzheimer's disease. Although aluminum is often associated with certain problems in Alzheimer's brain, but there is no scientific evidence that shows a relation between this disease with aluminum in deodorants.

According to Howstuffworks, aluminum is dangerous, especially to people who have problems with kidney function. So to people who have problems with the kidneys it’s quite wise to consult your doctor first before using deodorant.

This is because aluminum absorbed from digestive track can cause bone disease or dialysis dementia. Half amount of aluminum in the body will be absorbed by bone within 2 hours, while the rest will be excreted. Thus to people who have kidneys problem, this excretion process will be disrupted.

Another common problem caused by using deodorant too often is that the body will loose the ability to remove the waste through sweat glands as it’s inhibited by a deodorant effect. This makes the kidneys and liver work hard to remove toxins.

Although there is no scientific evidence that shows the using of deodorant may cause breast cancer or Alzheimer's disease, it is safe to use deodorant properly, so it’s not inhibited your sweat to much. However, if you really need deodorant to boost up your confidence, it will be much wiser to use an aluminum free deodorant.

Happy Belated New Year

2010-01-03T14:23:00.004+07:00

Well, I hope it’s not too late to say Happy New Year. Though the holiday is soon be over, but I hope the joy and spirit to have better things in life is just get started.

Every year, everyone has certain wishes to get accomplished. However, whatever your wishes: whether it is health, wealth, fortune, career, or relationship, just name the rest—it is important to determine a commitment first. After you’ve done with it, then start setting the objective, or your ‘wishes’ to make it simpler. Once you the objective is being set, then you can jump of your bed and seriously gives effort to realize it; do some ACTIONS to achieve it. And that’s what I call RESOLUTION.

Now, what about my resolution? Well, since I am a simple person, I always set something big with simple steps to achieve. The bottom step is, trying to write whatever ideas crossed in my mind. Whatever means every time it comes, sooner is better. With all that being said, it means I am trying to make minimum one post everyday.

Sounds easy right? Yes it is. However, on my first six months blogging, to reach one post a day is quite challenging. And to do it consistently, is a big problem. Yes, at least for newbie like me.

Once again, happy new year everyone. Have better things in life one year ahead. Holiday is soon be over, welcome back to the real world. And let’s get our RESOLUTION done.

Acer Aspire One Slim, a minor upgrades to its predecessor

2009-12-28T15:10:00.001+07:00

Acer end year invasion has been done. The invasion is done on its business netbook Acer Aspire One, a thinner series that comes with Windows 7 package. So what's the difference with the previous Aspire one?

Thinner Design
Generally, the body shape of Aspire One new version is almost identical to its predecessor, only thinner. It seems like Acer follow new trend of thin 10-inch netbook design, like their competitors.

Let’s take a look at the display. Following netbook trend, Aspire One comes with 10.1 inch wide-screen which is standard size of most netbook in the market nowdays. This upgrade size makes it wider than the 8,9 inch old version. This upgrade will make significant improvement, especially for those who works in front of monitor for hours.

There is a webcam applied on the top side while on the top left is equipped with Bluetooth button with 3 keyboard indicator lamps and power button on the top right. You will find WiFi in the bottom right. In general, there is no difference button position compared with its previous version. What makes it different is multi-touch gesture with click-button that is designed to conventional mode. It’s not like previous series where right-click and left-click is separated and located next to touchpad.

The same design can be seen on the keyboard. Both size and design is still same with older version. But compared to Toshiba NB 200 or HP mini note, it seems like Acer’s keyboard is less comfort.

Standard Features
Acer Aspire One Slim is bundled with Windows 7 package starter edition 32-bit. This already includes Microsoft Office 60 days trial. This netbook seems have no battery saving feature like on Asus Eee PC.

However good news for game lovers, this new Acer netbook has a portal game, namely Acer Game Zone. This is a feature that suit for those who addicted to mini games. There are many options of mini games in the portal, some of them are Chicken Invaders 2, Granny In Paradise, or Cooking Dash. Unluckily, all games mentioned are still in trial version. But don’t worry, if users like one of those games, they can register the games afterward. Acer also gives ranking to most popular games and new release games that available to download. So game lovers, be ready to download it.

Another small important feature that is often out of attention is ports. Acer has LAN port, VGA, and 1 USB and audio slot on the left-side of netbook. While on the right-side there are 2 power port, 2 USB port and card reader.

Poor Audio, Good Power Saving
In general, Aspire one is a series of netbook that using Intel Atom processor. If the earlier version is using Intel Atom N270 processor, now Aspire One is equipped with Intel Atom N280 and bigger RAM with 1 GB capacity. With this specification, Aspire One is suitable for normal activity such as browsing, typing, light photo editing and playing mini games.

Despite all benefit mentioned above, this netbook also has weakness, especially in audio quality. A Friend of mine said that the audio quality is poor. Perhaps, speaker position located in the bottom of netbook body reduces the audio quality. However, using headphones can help this problem.

For a netbook using 6 cell battery, Aspire One has quite tough power. You can use this netbook for work about 5 hours without charging the battery.

Specification:
- Processor Intel Atom N280 1.66GHz
- 1GB DDR2 Memory SDRAM PC-5300
- Hardisk 220 GB HDD 5400RPM
- 10.1 WSVGA monitor LED CrystalBrite
- WiFi IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g
- Bluetooth, CardReader SD,MMC,Memory Stick/Stick Pro, xD-Picture Card
- WebCam
- Baterai 6-cell
- Berat 1.15Kg
- OS Windows 7 starter edition atau XP SP3
- Warna Hitam, Biru, Merah

Summary:
Light weight, thin and containing a lot of mini games collection. It has a competitive price, around Rp3.5 million for Windows XP OS and Rp3.8 million for Windows 7 OS.

Budget-friendly Corby will be released soon

2009-12-27T23:43:00.003+07:00

After marked a great success with Corby, Samsung will soon release the lowed-price version of this cute mobile phone. As Techtree reported, Corby Pop, the downgrade version of Corby S3650 will be launched officially in India first.

In general, Samsung is targeting consumers who fall in love with Corby, but is looking for lower price. However, though the price is relatively cheap, Samsung promised this next Corby will have extra features on it.

And yes, Corby Pop keeps some features of its predecessor such as 2.8 inch monitor display and integrated FM radio. However the price reducing does affect the quality of camera. While its predecessor comes with 2 MP camera, Corby Pop is only equipped 1.3 MP camera.

In India Corby Pop will be sold Rs. 7000 or about Rp1,4 million. This is quite a competitive price for a touch-screen mobile phone model. Well, if you are one of Corby lover, just be patient and hopefully it will be released in Indonesia soon.

CSL Blueberry i9000, the Smallest Qwerty Mobile Phone

2009-12-20T17:56:00.001+07:00

CSL mobile phone producer booked new record by recently launched handsets Blueberry i9000 series which is claimed to be the smallest Qwerty phone.

The phone has dimensions of 53.8 x 98.8 x 13.3 mm. Although it has a small shape, i9000 offers complete features and applications, starting from dual GSM, 1.3 megapixel camera, Facebook application, Twitter, to Opera browser.

Completing its features and applications, i9000 is also equipped with Color TFT LCD 2.0 inch QVGA-size, plus a four-way navigation buttons for menu operation.

This phone is also claimed as religious phone as it has many religious features such as call-to-pray (adzan) feature; along with adzan sound for some major cities of the world. In addition, this mobile phone also has a smart feature to assist the user in determining the direction of Qiblah (kiblat).

Specification:

Network: GSM+GSM 900/1800 MHz
Connectivity: Bluetooth (A2DP), GPRS class 12, USB 2.0
Memory: Micro SD
Features: FM Radio, MP3/MP4 player
Battery: Li-on 1000mAh

5 simple tips to analysis computer virus

2009-12-11T16:30:00.000+07:00

If you are a computer user, I bet you all have been dealing with computer virus right? And sometime, the problem is, we cannot recognize the bad program that attacking our computers. But, if you want to know and analyze computer viruses by your self, here are some tips from me:

First, you need internet access, so you can download free tools. These can be downloaded from various websites.

For local viruses, it’s much easy to detect and recognize, as they usually have the same characteristic.

Local viruses can be checked through Windows list process on task manager. You can check if there some weird files are running. You can also check via registry tools (reg. edit).

If you are advance users, there are several tools you can use, namely pack detection, unpack program, and VB decomplier. It’s because local virus usually VB based.

After downloading those tools, you can start analyze the viruses through these simple steps:
1. Understand the type of virus that is attacking: what icon is disguised and what is the size?
2. Understand the characteristics of the virus. Does it make a duplicate file, hide files, inject files, or displaying certain messages?
3. Understand how the virus works: What is modified by virus, whether it’s modified registry, create master files, or are there blocked windows functions?
4.Understand the virus spreading process: Does it spread through USB flash disk or shared folder? Local viruses usually spread through those medium.
5.Prepare tools that are going to use.

Firefox for mobile is coming soon

2009-12-11T15:59:00.001+07:00

Mozilla has ensured that Firefox, their master browser - is coming to the mobile version. The presence of this browser on handheld device is even very soon. When?

Mozilla spokesperson said that the final version of Firefox Mobile is coming at the end of 2010,while the version of its release candidate (RC) is coming within couple days.

But, as quoted from the V3.co.uk, Mobile Firefox will be available only on handsets Nokia N900 that uses Maemo Linux operating system. This version is not a preloaded model, so users still have to download it first.

And what about other devices? Mozilla has not confirmed. As a result, users who want to feel the sensation of Firefox on the phone still have to wait.

Firefox is currently in second position in the desktop browser market, with under Internet Explorer. Nevertheless, the threat of Firefox market share continued to erode market share of Microsoft's browser.

Stay Healthy is not as Expensive as You Think

2009-11-24T11:45:00.002+07:00

Stay fit and healthy in crisis economy era is not easy. Doctor cost a bunch of money, while fitness center class is definitely not cheap. Then, is there any other way that is less cost to stay fit and healthy? Because every time you got sick, you will need a lot of money to get health. But the good news is, you don’t need spend that a lot just to stay healthy.

According to Steven Blair, PhD, a professor of University of South Carolina as quoted from WebMD, you don’t need spend a large amount of money to be a member of fitness center club only to get regular exercise and stay healthy.

What you have to do is having activities about 150 minutes each week. Small activities such as walking, gardening, or doing homework helps your body stay fit and healthy and it also reduces the risk of being sick.

Another healthy alternative is to consume healthy and low-cost foods such as beans, nuts, cereal, or frozen vegetables.

“Frozen vegetables contain better nutrition as it is frozen after being harvested. This makes the antioxidant substance higher than fresh vegetables that are wilted or damaged easily,” explained the harvest expert, Allyson Mitchell, a PhD from the University of California.

Cooking at home is also a healthy alternative that should be cheaper than eating out. A survey proved that people who often eat at home less affected by obesity than those who frequently eat out.

But if you've been prescribed medication by doctors and thought you could be cured simply by eating healthy foods or exercise, you are wrong. A survey shows that 7 percent of doctors prescriptions have never been redeemed by the patient because they don’t have money or too lazy to redeem it.

"Patients usually choose not to take medication if the conditions are not bad as high blood pressure, cholesterol or diabetes type 2. But despite the condition is not dangerous, for long time it can be deadly," said Mitchell.

If the economic problems stress you out, keep your body out of stress. "If you're stressed because of sitting for hours, then try to move your body and find ways to relieve stress such as using breathing techniques, relaxation or watching a funny movie," said Lee Berk, PhD, a psychologist from the Loma Linda University, California.

Yahoo! Go will soon be gone

2009-11-19T11:08:00.002+07:00

Yahoo! Go a mobile application was released in 2006 will be closed on January 12, 2010. Yahoo Go is a portal service that allows users to access content within Yahoo itself. This includes emails, contacts, calendar, photos, and so on.

In 2007, Yahoo worked with HTC to offer version 2.0 of this application in windows mobile handset. Then Yahoo released 3.0 version as the improvement of the previous version.

But in the next years, it seems yahoo no longer focus on the application; this can be seen from the lack of development of the new version of Yahoo Go on this year.

As pcworld says, the policy to close the application is a smart move for yahoo. The problem with the development of smart phone technology in these recent 4 years, making this application considered less effective.

So, since months ago Yahoo started focusing on a new iPhone application with some related platforms. This application is named Yahoo Mobile Applications.

Now Yahoo is struggling in the increasingly competitive online marketplace. As a result, since 1990 Yahoo also had been closed their web hosting services called GeoCities. So, let’s see yahoo’s next surprise for next year.

Connect to your Facebook account via PS3 with support of Firmware 3.10

2009-11-17T11:04:00.001+07:00

Social networking Facebook application would soon be present in the PS3 console. Users only need a firmware update version 3.10. This statement can be seen in Sony's PlayStation blog.

The blog said, when firmware has installed in PS3, users can run applications on the social networking on their beloved console. With this application, the developers are able to update useful information for fans of their games.

By connecting PlayStation Network account to to Facebook account, users also have the option to update their Facebook newsfeed automatically.

Others new stuffs on firmware 3.10 are the photo store feature in the PS3. It says that this feature will be much easier and has better view. Furthermore, the list of friends on the PlayStation Network (PSN) has been modified based on feedback received, after updating firmware 3.00. Users also can choose PSN ID color.

There are some others interesting information about facebook application on PS3. So, check out PlayStation blog for complete review. Don't forget to see a preview video of firmware 3.10 too.

BlackBerry OS 5.0 for Storm will be coming soon

2009-10-29T21:15:00.000+07:00

Goodnews for Blackberry user. The latest operating system upgrade of the BlackBerry OS 5.0 is rumored to be coming soon. The operating system is designed for the Blackberry Storm. This news comes up after a few days ago BlackBerry informed to update the OS 5.0.328 Strom with some improvements.

Among of those improvements is the addition of browsing feature called Flick scrolling. Furthermore, there is also faster loading time to open application compared to previous version. Unlike the usual updates, this update is not through the OTA (Over The Air). So for Storm users who want to upgrade their OS, make sure there is a PC nearby, and visit the BlackBerry sites.

Check Your Snoring with iPhone Application

2009-10-12T16:37:00.002+07:00

Snoring while sleeping is really a problem; as it’s a shame to those who suffer, and becomes a ‘nightmare’ to his partner. Besides, snoring is also an indicator to certain illness.

An iPhone application is claimed able to help recording and analyzing snoring type and other breathing disturbance while sleeping. The application named Sleep Aid is developed by Remote Analysis Ltd, a telemedicine provider collaborating with Elias Pietilä’s Qvik Ltd.

Using this application is easy. What you have to do is place iPhone near your sleeping position. Click record and then sleep. In the next morning, click Wake up. Then you can see a recording graphic and audio clip displaying your snoring.

Sleep Aid also has sample of snoring types and sleep respiration disorder, so that user can compare their recording with the sample to find out what kind of sleep respiration disorder symptoms they have. Apple had developed this application together with Qvik Ltd and doctor expert in diagnostic respiration disorder to show some evident that your partner was snoring.

Off course, Sleep Aid application is not intended to replace doctor’s diagnostic. It was intended to give early warn. With that warn, someone can decide that he needs to see a doctor and find out what best solution to get better sleep. This because snoring is effecting personal sleeping quality.

Good news, application is available at iTunes AppStore soon. The price is US$ 3, quite cheap such a useful application.

5 Tips to Prevent Your Eyes of Getting Tired in front of Monitor

2009-10-08T15:59:00.002+07:00

Many of us are spending hours in front of monitor everyday, whether to work, browse interesting sites, or just playing online games. These activities oftentimes make your eyes get tired, fatigue and having a headache.

Though many people consider this not fully correct, but for sure, the activity does affect our eyes healthiness. One of these effects can be seen when you are having
trouble focusing your eyes on one single object. This condition is caused by monitor radiation spouting direct to your eyes.

So, before it happens, here are some tips to prevent your eyes of getting tired seeing monitor for hours.

1. Keep minimum distance look of monitor
Sitting too close to monitor dangers your eyes. You should keep the ideal distance look between eyes and monitor. The recommended distance is about 20-40 inch (50-100cm). If you still having problems seeing monitor in 20inch distance look, try to magnify monitor font until your eyes get comfort to it.

2. Throw your CRT, Get LCD
Tube based color monitor (CRT) gives worst effect than LCD, and it wastes much more energy also. So if you can afford it, try to replace your CRT with LCD. However, if you thing LCD is too expensive, the best economical way is using anti-radiation filter on your monitor. This helps reducing pain in your eyes for spending hours in front of monitor.

3. Set the Monitor Setting
Many monitors sold in the market now days are providing pre-set display mode to make users easier changing their monitor setting. That feature gives different level of brightness in order to adjust the user condition. Therefore, try to use this feature to get optimum result. If the setting is right, you will see text and internet setting are softer to your eyes, and game or movie setting looks brighter.

4. Use Anti-radiation Glasses
This thing may cost you more pennies, but using anti-radiation glasses will give you more protection. Furthermore, the glasses are easy to carry, so you can take it anywhere you work. Besides, this glasses is not only useful to protect your eyes while you are working in front of monitor, it also covers your eyes from car bump-light, TV radiation and so forth. Another fact, anti-radiation coating on the glasses automatically reduces pain in the eyes caused by over radiation.

5. Rest Your Eyes Regularly
The easiest way to avoid fatigue eyes caused by monitor radiation is to rest it regularly. So try to rest your eyes 5 minutes in each hour. You can use the 5 minutes to take a walk, go out side and got some fresh air, wash your face, or whatever you want to do as long as you can stay away from monitor.

Simple tips to care of your keyboard

2009-10-04T16:22:00.003+07:00

For blogger, keyboard is one of essential tools to help creating good post. More comfort the keyboard is, more comfort you type in what’s in your mind. Besides, a good keyboard helps you type faster and accurate while at the same time reduce tension on your fingers and arms. Therefore, keeping your keyboard in a good condition is very important to do.

Here are some tips to maintain your keyboard performance and how to choose a good quality one:

1.Choose an economic and ergonomic keyboard
It’s recommended that you choose an economic and ergonomic keyboard. Research found an ergonomic keyboard helps reducing tension on your arms. Button is another part you should check. Ergonomic keyboard usually is flat has ‘track-ball’ that can function as a mouse. All facilities that come in a keyboard are designed to avoid user’s arm in miss-position, which can lead to arm unremitting pain. So, more comfort and easy-to-push keyboard is better.

2. Avoid contras color
Avoid choosing a contras color keyboard. On the other hand, choose the one comfort to your eyes. General colors are black, white, and silver.

3. Extra functions
Extra functions on keyboard make your work much easier. Some expensive keyboard even complements it keyboard with buttons to active Windows’ pocket-calculator program. There are also keyboards which enable users to give other functions to additional button. It means, all recent activities on keyboard can be activated through a single button. There are also smart keyboard available in the market at present. These keyboards have technology that identifies user’s finger-print. If the finger-print is not recognized, keyboard will not be active.

4. USB port
This facility is designed to help user connecting USB cable of multimedia devices easier, such us MP3 or digital camera.

5. Find keyboard that meets your budget
There are a lot of kind of keyboards available in the market. They vary in price and quality. So make sure the keyboard you choose is matches to your need and budget.

6. Keyboard Maintaining
Clean keyboard regularly. Use soft brush to clean keyboard buttons interval. Avoid placing food and drink near computer table to ensure no food or drink spilled out to keyboard.

Take care of your glasses

2009-10-02T14:51:00.004+07:00

Glasses are not just a tool to help you see clearly. In fact, it is one of most important things that you should really take care, especially for those wearing glasses in daily activities. Moreover, a good quality glasses is quite expensive now days. Therefore it deserves a good and proper care in order to keep them clean and comfort to wear.

Here, some tips to take care of your glasses:

Hold the both sides of frame handle to wear and take-off glasses. This helps to keep glasses in its best set and shape. When glasses are not being used, place it in an open position and lay it down so the lenses are facing up.

Store glasses in glasses case. Do not place glasses in a pocket or bag without any protection as this may cause unwanted condition.
Don’t forget to clean glasses regularly after having activities, especially exercise or any activities that sweats. Use recommended glasses cleaner to clean glasses. In other way, clean glasses with hand-soap mixed with water and then rinse it with clean water. Wipe and dry glasses using soft tissue or special fabric made for glasses.

Remembering a Dream, Increase Creativity

2009-08-25T09:41:00.002+07:00

Have you been dreaming about something but you feel it’s so hard to remember it once you woke up? Or perhaps you are typically a person who easy remembering a dream that you’ve just seen? The fact, the clearness of a dream has certain correlation with certain ability.

Dream consists of different levels and kinds. In hierarchy of dream, lucid dream (clear dream) is among the top level of all of kinds.

A recent research found that dream obviously helps people improving their ability to solve problems, creativity, conquer fear, and boost self-confidence up. Dreamers even reported could have an orgasm experience during their sleep.

Excerpted from Huffingtonepos, experts and reserchers of dream in New York reported that sort of dream is also able to increase awareness level and manage stress and conflict of life.

And this prevails not only for a night-sleep only. This including an hour sleeps in the noon, or taking a nap. Sara Mednick, a psychologist from UC San Diego who also the author of 'Take a Nap, Change Your Life' said that taking a nap makes someone more creative and increasing his ability in finding solution.

According to Sara, men experiencing more dreams than women. This is because men have better ability to control and to start something better than women.

Ryan Hurd, a dream researcher convinced that he himself frequently having a clear dream. He also said to find a meaning of dream can increase his ability especially in job, romance relationship, and also in sharpening creativity.

A dream will be obviously seen as a clear one when someone focuses to his attention. From a dream, someone can learn something or even get a great idea.

For those who remembering dream clearly and implementing it into their life will benefit of some ideas so they become more creative and smarter.

Both men and women can use their dream to improve their emotional and intelectual. Learning from a dream will make someone succeed in their carrier, sport, and many others field.

The interesting fact is, playing a video game also can increse someone’s dreaming ability. Despite the negative effect of playing video games to health, a dream phicologyst, Jayne Gackenbach said it is okay to occasionally doing this.

According to Jayne, dreaming is like a camping game with virtual world training equipped with fantasy. So, keep dreaming and increase your creativity.

Back to School with Confidence

2009-08-18T11:58:00.008+07:00

Holiday seasons will end soon, and children are going back to school again. Well, as a parent, it’s our duty pleasure to prepare everything that our loved ones needs; from uniforms, books, shoes, and perhaps a new fashionable glasses. Finding appropriate fashionable glasses for your children indeed can boost up their self confidence in facing a new school season.

But how it cost for a pair of stylish glasses for your children, is this $100, $150, or even $300? Well, there are many options out there, however good quality glasses are not always judged by its price. I think it will be much better if you can get a high quality fashionable prescription glass that comes with a low price. And, here at Zenni Optical, you can find abundant of options that match your loved ones need and style. For example, the $ 8 Rx eyeglasses which comes in various colors, sizes, and models.

In addition, you can find many references of glasses manufactures at Zenni Optical on TV. This is one of many reasons why I love Zenni Optical. You can also check High Five to Zenni Optical to find detail information about its products.

So if you think glasses can boost up your children’s confidence in facing new school season, there always Zenni Optical that offers high quality fashionable glasses that saves more pennies.

Toshiba Satellite M500, A Stunning and Powerful Hybrid Notebook

2009-07-15T15:12:00.003+07:00

Another notebook targeted to mainstream market has been released. Toshiba Satellite M500 combines elegant design with remarkable multimedia features.

First impression spears when you see this gadget is the Flush LCD screen design combined with latest features like system hybrid SSD/HDD, Harman kardon speakers, REGZA-Link, ect.

Covered with bold black color (Premier Black), LCD Satellite M500 cover is made based on Toshiba finishing technique Fusion using IMR (In-Mould-Rolling) technology.

In addition to its chick and fascinating design, Satellite M500 offers edge-to-edge display (Flush Screen) with glass mask, while wheel and switch are made from chrome that beautifies its appearance.

The appearance becomes more perfect with its flat key black button keyboard which turns Satellite M500 into an elegant multimedia device.

Hybrid Performance

With Hybrid SSD system (Solid State Drive) and HDD (Hard Disk Drive), users will get the best two parts of it. First of all is an optimal performance. Notebook PC operation system is stored in SSD with has access five times faster than hard drive.

Second is the storage performance. User data with large capacity will be stored in the hard-drive. And since this notebook is using SSD more frequent, user can also enjoy a better durability from the hard-drive, since the period of storing data on the hard-drive’s head is processed faster. Hybrid storing solution SSD/HDD is available in particular models.

To protect important data in HDD, Satellite M500 is also equipped with hard-drive protection through 3D Motion Sensor built-in which dynamically monitoring vibration, shock and drop-down and quickly keep the drive’s head from any risk that can be occurred.

Specification

Satellite M500 is supported by Intel Core2Duo Processor and memory system 2048MB/4096MB (2048MBx2). Hybrid storing system combines 500GB (SATA) HDD and 64GB SSD. Configuration standard 320 GB and 500GB HDD is also available.

For better graphic performance, Satellite M500 has ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4570 up to 1278 MB graphic in total. This version is also equipped with ext 512 MB VRAM HD web camera that powerful in making video recording in large format. With about US$1,500 this fascinating product certainly makes more options in the notebook market.

Image source

Apple Officially Released iPhone OS 3.0

2009-07-14T10:53:00.003+07:00

Finally, Apple released iPhone 3.0 software update recently. This software update comes with a bunch of new remarkable features. This Operating System update can be used by all iPhone and iPod Touch users across the world.

The launching of OS 3.0 is almost together with the starting sale of iPhone 3GS that will be available on the public market soon. This new version of iPhone will open all features provided by iPhone OS 3.0.

According to Philip Schiller, Senior Vice President Worldwide Product Marketing Apple in softpedia, iPhone OS 3.0 will be released with a series of new remarkable features full with innovation, both to developer and iPhone users,

iPhone OS 3.0 software update will bring over 100 new features for iPhone and iPod Touch, including Cut, Copy and Paste, MMS (exclusive for 3G), Spotlight Search, Landscape keyboard for Mail, Messages, Notes, Safari, Parental Controls for TV, Movie application from App Store, and Video-recording and editing.

Beside all features mentioned above, there is also a feature that able to capture and send audio recording with new Voice Memo app, Wi-Fi feature that strong enough to download a film, TV program and audio, Stereo Bluetooth and P2P support like the one on iTunes.

iPhone users can download iPhone OS 3.0 for free, while iPod Touch users will be charged US$ 9.95

Image source

Manage Your BlackBerry Vibration using BuzzMe

2009-07-14T09:49:00.003+07:00

BlackBerry has a unique vibrate feature compared to others handphone. This feature makes BlackBerry device ringing while vibrating at the same time. This feature is possible through a support from an application called BuzzMe.

BuzzMe application can be used to make sure that BlackBerry vibrates when the ringtone is ringing. This is a little bit different with a basic feature which vibrates first before ringing.

BuzzMe is a free application that suitable with BlackBerry that has 4.2 operation system above or 4.5 or 4.7. Beside this free application, there is BuzzMe Pro, another paid version of BuzzMe application which has more rich features to control your device vibration.

With this paid version application, BlackBerry users are able to manage the vibration more detail. For instance, user can manage the vibration function for SMS and email only, or even manage on how long the vibration will be.

Good news for BlackBerry Storm device users, BuzzMe Pro has a function called facedown. It means, if BlackBerry Storm is facing downward (the touchscreen area is touching the table’s surface), then the device will not be vibrated.

If you are interested on BuzzMe free version, you can download it at BigTinCan.com:
•OS 4.7
•OS 4.5
•OS 4.2+
You can find more detail information about BuzzMe free version in BigTinCan.com

Image source

Online Radio: Another Good Way to Improve Writing Skill

2009-07-13T17:46:00.001+07:00

When reading the headline, some of you might raise a question: what is the correlation between listening radio and writing skill?

Well, it is true that listening is one part of skills that has to develop by anyone who wants to communicate fluently in a particular language. But, what if I say, listening does have significant correlation to general English writing skill.

For me, it works. I used to listen to online radio while I am working on my project or just surfing on the net. I preferred radios that have talk-show programs or news programs. This because the main contain of the programs are talk!

Off course, in many occasions I have to concentrate to my work or focus on information I am searching for. In this kind of situation, mostly, radio programs I heard, just acted as ‘a friendly –companion’ to me. I might not catch the whole ideas of conversation, but it made me familiar to language that I am not native for, which is English.

And as I am getting used and comfort listen to the talk-show or news, I slowly begin to learn many new phrases and words. And amazingly, in about a week, I can understand what the speakers talking about on their talk-show. Off course not every part of the conversation, but at least the core ideas of the whole conversation.

At this point, I am pretty sure; you have improved your writing skill. Well, everybody has their on way. I just try sharing everything that works on me. It’s your choice to give a shoot or to leave it. But if willing to try, I would love to hear your comment.

West Sumatra

2009-06-03T16:50:00.000+07:00

An exquiste blend of a beautiful land and the rich culture

West Sumatera, the land of Minagkabau is one of the most beautiful areas in Indonesia.
It is a land of scenic beauty with blue lakes and green mountains offers plenty of beautiful sceneries and culture to be enjoyed, leaving you unforgettable moments of a land of paradise.

You will be spoiled by many interesting activities and the places of interest you can visit. First, enjoy the picturesque beauty and uncontaminated fresh air of mountains, hill, and valley in the north area of West Sumatera. Alternatively you can explore the exotic charm of beaches along the coast from Padang, the capital to the south area. You can also visit some captivating historical places such as Pagaruyung palace in Batu Sangar or Rumah Gadang, a historical museum built in 19th century in Bukittinggi. For those who love challenge, Harau Valley and Siberut National Park are some places you’ll hope not to be missed. You can also enjoy the richness of West Sumatara’s culture through a yearly traditional festival or art performances held in some regencies.

Don’t forget to taste the hot and spicy traditional cuisine, which have been famous amongst Indonesian people. And last, to complete and perfecting your tremendous journey in West Sumatera, take home some unique and fascinating souvenirs like silver filigree, hand-weaving, embroidery and woodcarving for your friends and relatives.

You can find more interesting facts about West Sumatra here

Fight High Blood Pressure in an Exciting Way

2009-05-30T16:47:00.001+07:00

Milk contains three efficacious compounds to prevent high blood pressure. These three compounds are known as Kalium (K), ACE Inhibitor and Casium (Ca). Together, they create a synergy that maximizes the nerves and muscle control function and keeping the blood pressure low.

Grand CIty for Your Premium Lifestyle

2009-05-28T16:43:00.000+07:00

Grand City is the first premium mixed-used property development in Surabaya, Indonesia. Strategically located at the CBD of Surabaya, the complex spans over a 4.5 ha of land and consists of an exclusive 5 star hotel and service apartment, international exhibition and convention center, and prominent shopping mall. The three interplayed properties offers a complete luxury of elegant and dynamic lifestyle that quells your greatest desires.

Grand City Mall- Revelation of Your Inner Senses

Grand City Mall is the first lavish yet elegant shopping mall in Surabaya. This new icon of lifestyle has sets a new meaning of enjoying live, perfectly blends the elegant taste of eastern culture and the grandeur charm of western flavor in a modern contemporary design for ultimate premium shopping experience.

Melt in a complete indulgence
Grand City architectural design perfectly blends the elegant taste of oriental culture and the grandeur charm of western flavor in a modern contemporary design. These two sides bring an elegant, romantic yet luxurious atmosphere to express your inner senses.

International Convention Center - Designed to meet your convenience
Build on 6000 M2 land, Grand City International Convention Center offers a complete luxurious function room to accommodate your precious business and or activities. The building is divided into some main categories including Meeting, Exhibition, Ball Room and Business Center.
• Major Exhibition Center
• International Convention Center
• State of the Art Ball Rooms
• Meeting Rooms

Hotel & Service Apartment
Enjoy and relax in the first splendid 5-star hotel in Surabaya. Consists of 250 exclusive rooms, Grand City Hotel provides you an array of first class services for your ultimate satisfaction.

So, if you want a place that suits your premium lifestyle, Grand City is simply the answer of your need.

Casa Bella, the Essence Of Beauty In A Piece Of Luxury

2009-05-22T16:35:00.000+07:00

Casa Bella in Italian and Spanish means ‘Beautiful House,’ This philosophy to create beautiful homes has been translated to our collections since the beginning. Our wide range of high quality furnishings beautifies your house revealing your true sense of beauty.

Casa Bella believes a house is not merely a physical building. A house is a representation that reflects your personality, lifestyle and achievements in life. Each and every furniture and accessory you choose and display reveals your sense of taste and personality. For something extraordinary with a touch of luxury and elegance, there is nowhere else but Casa Bella the perfect place that can provide it all.

For years Casa Bella has been unwavering in providing premium furnishings for those who crave for style, perfection and a royal legacy. The endeavor to bring customer masterpieces of the world and to fulfill your need with something extraordinary leads us to be one of the finest interior furnishing gallery in town with a complete collection of original furniture, lighting and accessories from Spain, Italy and USA. Each of products is perfectly crafted to a royal legacy of artistry and sophistication from best manufacturers. Casa Bella also has an interior designing division that provides a comprehensive service from creating a concept to completion works in residences and commercial projects.

Casa Bella Gallery:
Dharmawangsa Square Citywalk Unit 56 – 61.
Jl. Dharmawangsa VI, Kebayoran Baru, Jakarta -12160
Phone: (021) 727-88338 Fax: (021) 727-88340

Squeeze to Cleanse

2009-05-18T16:23:00.001+07:00

Drinking two glasses of dissolved lime squeezes after dinner helps to cleanse your kidneys and prevent them from nephrolithiasis. Its citrate acid compound averts the forming of oxalate crystal that causes neophrolithiasis.

Knock Cholesterol Out with Sunflower

2009-05-15T16:22:00.002+07:00

Regularly drinking a glass of smacked-boiled sunflower seeds helps you to reduce cholesterol level and control high blood pressure. The efficacy of sunflower seeds is derived from its fatty acid compounds known as linoleic acid and oleate acid (Omega-6 and Omega-9).

Boost Your ‘in Bed’ Confidence

2009-05-12T16:12:00.001+07:00

Do you know that consuming eggplant on a regular basis assists you to have better sex? This exotic-coloured fruit packs a whale of flanovoid or widely known as vitamin P that is recognized for their anti-oxidant activity. This compound stimulates better blood circulation thus prevent you from erectile dysfunction disturbance.

Aloe Vera, A Fresh ‘Detox’ Agent

2009-05-08T16:16:00.002+07:00

Drinking Aloe Vera juice regularly averts you from digestive disorders. Thanks to its anti-inflammatory fatty acids that alkalize digestive juices and prevent over acidity, Aloe Vera’s nutritious inner gel helps to cleanse the bowel and ease constipation.

A Tomato a Day Keeps Your Liver in Good Stay

2009-05-06T13:43:00.001+07:00

Tomato is useful detoxifiers because it contains chlorine and sulphur, two important detoxifying trace elements. Natural chlorine helps the liver in its task as an important filter for body wastes. It also assists the liver in removing the toxic waste products from the system. Sulphur helps to protect the liver from cirrhosis and other debilitating conditions.

Suggested Serving:
Take 2 fresh tomatoes, a little sugar or honey (if you don’t have diabetic mellitus). Mix it with ¼ cup of water and then blend it with ice cubes. Have a healthy salubrious beverage then!

Short is Beautiful

2009-05-02T12:08:00.001+07:00

A good posting is not judged by its length. For me, a posting is considered as a good one if the writer succeeds to deliver his ideas and make the ideas easy to understand by its readers.

You can convey comprehensive information in a long posting. Also, you can use different approaches, including persuasive, informative, narrative or what so ever. A long comprehensive posting indeed is art of writing. It needs advance writing skill with kind of sharp observer inside.

But sometimes comprehensive information is not the essential in a posting or frankly speaking, in delivering particular information through writing. There are many cases where a posting just tells a core information, introduction, or just entice the reader to continue digging information from other sources.

It helps reader to get the idea directly within seconds, and decides whether the information is useful or not. And indeed, it needs a certain level of writing skill too. You have to think hard and choose your words carefully, linking them in efficient manner to get such an informative yet stylish posting. And that is not an easy job, especially for newbie like me.

For those who want to learn more about writing a good short posting, Seth Godin is really one of the masters. Sharp, concise, direct, and easy to understand are the primary points you will easily meet as you read through of his piece of writings.

Boost Your Writing Skill by Reading Good Books

2009-04-27T17:00:00.001+07:00

Another investment that benefits in boosting up your writing ability fast is reading. No matter what books you read, reading is certainly a good way to improve your writing skill.

If could be hard to start, especially for a non-native English speaker like me. You have to read slowly to understand each line in the papers. Obviously, it needs passion, perseverance, along with enough motivation to go through this.

For a small step, perhaps you can start by reading books that interest you. It can be fiction or non-fiction category. If you can afford it, buy it. If you can’t, just visit public libraries spreading out in your town. This is the best alternative for this situation.

Remember, whatever book you choose, make sure you read it carefully. Try to understand general meaning of each sentence, and try to catch the core idea while you read. Don’t get stuck and confused by some words you don’t understand. Try to catch the general meaning first, and then do the rest; find out the meaning of new words in a dictionary.

Reading is one of phases in mastering a foreign language (other phases are speaking and writing) and it can be pain-in-the neck for while to learn. But, as time goes, you will be able to read clearly, and enjoy the reading. And when you come to that point, I think you already have done a primary investment on your writing ability.

How much time do I spend for reading?
Read as much as you can. Off course, the condition is not same for everyone and every situation. At least, try to read few pages a day. It is better to read few pages a day regularly, than read many pages in a day, and then read nothing for a week. I am sure you get my point.

Get a pen and sticky-notes
Jot down all new word you don’t know. Mark pages that contain new word using sticky-notes. Soon after you finish a chapter or an article, take a look the note you’ve made, and start finding the meaning of new words.

Don’t be too Picky
Read all kind of book, magazines, articles, even comics with various topics and or stories. Read those that interest you and those that don’t. Don’t be too picky. By accustomed reading a wide range of topic, you’ll learn many styles of writing, phrases and words that you never heard before.

Summarize What You Have Read
You can rewrite books or articles you’ve just read in your way. It can be a short note, opinion, thought or just review. Don’t take it so hard. Just consider it as a simple exercise of writing. You will get amazed to see how fast you make improvement in your writing skill. In fact, this exercise also benefits in increasing your memorizing ability right?

Well, that’s all my tips. This way still works for me up till now. What about you?

No Task Decrease Performance Level

2009-04-23T17:00:00.000+07:00

Load of work in the office is unpredictable. Sometimes, you have to sit down in front of your monitor, banging your head just to force some silly ideas pushed out with a dozen of papers scattered around. But, there are some other times that you just sit down nicely, doing nothing except browsing your favorite sites, updating your facebook status, or sending jokes via email to your buddies.

In fact, having a ‘low- season’ in the office is fun. Off course, for a short time period only. Imagine that you have nothing to do, expect those mentioned leisure activities for a week, or even a month? Can you still feel ok? I mean, from a creative point of view, no task means no challenge. And no challenge is seriously decreasing your performance level, or in certain level, decreasing your skills.

God please, just give me a worth-to-write tasks that help me improve my writing skill. Or just send me someone who offers a hard-to-resist freelance job (that pay in dollars). Or, just give me a reason why I have to stay here for another year? 

Learn to Write in English? Just Start Blogging Today

2009-04-20T16:57:00.002+07:00

English, as a global language of the world, is becoming the need of everyone who wants to be able to communicate globally. To achieve that objective, there are many literatures written and published to help you easily mastering this language effectively. Some of them are designed for self study. Some are formal books that need a lot of time and effort to take you to the advance level.

For those who have enough time and patient, learning some rules, guides and those complex theories of English writing (for me) are lucky persons. Contrary, for those who always get tired reading theories, most of the times get confused memorizing basic rules of writing, and easily get bored with all that stuff, books and publication do not help. And petty of me, as I am being part on that group.

But I believe, we’re all born unique with each of our own specialties. Just like the old proverb: there are many ways to reach Rome; so there are many ways to reach your goals, as long you have enough faith and tireless effort.

This fact makes me realize that there are many ways for people like me to improve writing English ability. People who are easier learning language by trial and error method; having mistakes before finding out the best possible approach that suit best.

And for that reason, for me, blogging is one way out. I can freely make any mistakes as this is my personal room. Mistakes will improve and take me to the next level naturally. Mistakes make me realize that I am human. And mistakes do have some miracles on getting new friends.

Beside, writing (in a blog) is a fun activity though. It does not only improve your language skill, but also the way of skill of thinking structurally. So, if you are tired of learning some theories, why don’t just start blogging today.

Technocrati blog claim

2009-04-06T13:42:00.000+07:00

Well, this post is just intended to see if my blog claim on technocrati was successful. They said, one of steps to be done was 'displaying' the verification code in a post and on the frontpage of my blog. So let's see if it works. Here is the code: fdsviu2m7g