Will a spam filter help you free up time? I spend so much time weeding the spam out of my mailbox that it is unbelievable, or at least I did. It is an unfortunate fact that a good spam blocker is an absolute necessity with any computer that has email and internet access to it. Spam is simply unsolicited email that is usually a part of some sort of commercial advertising strategy. It is the email equivalent of junk mail and has been a part of email life for years now. You should really consider a good spam blocker because the truth is that spam presents a great deal more trouble than just the pain of weding out advertisements.

So why is spam such a problem? I mean do you really have to get a spam blocker? The answer is yes because spam eats up the electronic resources on your computer like memory and storage. Spam may also have viruses that can shut down your computer or your network if you have one. It can also contain scams that can trick some of the less savvy users of the internet and email. What a good spam blocker will do is stop the messages before they ever hit your inbox, thus saving you space, memory, and the threat of unsavory offers.

Another way a spam blocker will help you is in terms of your time. Even if the spam you receive does not contain viruses and really is just a series of advertisements, it takes a lot of time to delete and filter out all the spam in your inbox. If the email in question is one you use for work, then think how much more productive you can be with a spam blocker keeping you from having to read and delete a bunch of advertisements.

If you are a business owner, the same applies. Your employees will be much more productive if you get a good spam blocker put in with the email. It will save time in reading bad emails as well as help protect you from the threat of viruses or spyware. Spam is a problem and can really hold back a business as much as it can an individual, so give some consideration to getting a good spam blocker so that you can save your business time and money.

Spam has been around pretty much since the internet and email first became popular. It is difficult to define and recognize, but laws are still passed to help slow it down or stop it. The problem is that often times the spammers are ignoring such laws and sending their messages out anyway. All this means is that no matter how many laws or acts are passed, a good spam blocker is a necessity to keep your computer and to keep your email running smoothly. In addition, it will save you time and frustration every time you log on to check your email messages.

If you would like to view more of my articles on spam blockers, please feel free to visit my spam blocker software website!

Well, this past week was definitely a “journey through the past” for many of us who watched the PBS specials featuring highlights from the 60’s. Kicking off with “No Direction Home”, a documentary about Bob Dylan, helped set the scene for what was to come. Rare glimpses into the life and times of this private and self-effacing man were a special treat for me. Joan Baez made the comment that “it goes down real deep” for those of us who are fans of Dylan. This is very true and sometimes hard to explain to others who don’t share the sentiment. But, one thing is certain, as musicians and songwriters, we can all learn something from him. What stands out most prominently about Bob Dylan in my mind, is the fact that he is always true to himself and doesn’t let anyone put him in a box. When others wanted him to carry their torch or lead their cause, he stayed on course and followed his own path. He knew who he was and as a result many more people benefited from hearing his music and message. Bob Dylan carried his own torch and it proved to be brighter and stronger than all the others who came before him.

Wednesday night presented “The Best of the Beatles” which was actually a play on words - “Best” referring to Pete Best, the former drummer of the Beatles. It was interesting to hear this familiar story told again through the eyes of Pete Best himself. A gracious man, you couldn’t help feeling his regret for having missed out on being a part of the most famous band in rock n’ roll history. But can you imagine if the group had been John, Paul, George and Pete? Naah… I don’t think so.

Revolution and anarchy finished off the week. We saw the idealism of the 60’s turn into disillusionment by the end of the decade. After years of struggling for peace, hopes were exacerbated by the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Dropping out, tuning out, increased drug use- all signs of an unhappy, unhealthy society- now marred the dream. Some good came out of this time though. Starting with George Harrison and his relief concert for Bangledesh, efforts began to be made by musicians to help raise money for people in need. We saw the formation of “Band Aid”, another brainchild of Bob Dylan, come into existence with the help of Willie Nelson. It continues to this day to raise money through annual benefit concerts held on behalf of the many struggling farmers in our nation. There is so much here to reflect on and think about! Music and musicians can make a difference. Some of the important lessons I’ve learned from famous musicians and songwriters this week are:

Be real.

Don’t compromise.

Put your heart into it.

And always keep your eyes open for opportunities to help others in need.

By keeping these things in mind, perhaps my own music (and yours too) can have a part in making the world a better place.

What do savvy marketers have to say about RSS? What are their top tips?

We set to find that out end of 2004 to collect the best possible insights on RSS marketing from top marketers and RSS developers and leaders, for Unleash the Marketing & Publishing Power of RSS.

Let’s get started …

1. How can RSS be fully integrated in our marketing and communications mix
Answered by Robin Good, MasterNewMedia.org

“From what I can see RSS is an effective marketing channel in that it allows easy and extended distribution of your core news and information channels to the widest possible audience with very low costs, maximum compatibility with a great number of media devices and with the added ability for the customer to take on this information and reuse it to hir (his + her) benefit.

That allows customers to further become marketers and promoters of your own products and services. If we openly allow the content of public RSS feeds to be freely subscribed, syndicated, re-aggregated and republished we will only find that new and greater value can be extracted every time someone goes about doing this.

So it is important not to keep RSS newsfeeds under locks.

RSS is one of the purest viral marketing channels. Its virality being spelled clearly in its acronym: Really Simple Syndication.

Yes, you need to make these three words make sense to you in order to leverage the maximum out of this content format.

Allow syndication. Don’t limit it.

Let others take your RSS feed and do things with it. Encourage them to do so. Have them use it to republish your news (among others) on their home page. Help them achieve that. Write and explain with short stories or simple tutorials how easy it is to search, filter and aggregate content from different RSS feeds and to create dedicated niche newsfeeds on most any topic you can think of. Explain openly that if you do create such dedicated newschannels they can be as easily republished as news Web site, which can carry contextual ads (Google AdSense) from day one. Very sustainable if not altogether profitable.

Look for example at the work being done by Waypath with their Blender experiment and see other useful and complementary uses of RSS that can be economically profitable.”

And another great tip from Robin: “Create as many RSS newsfeeds for your content as are the topic/themes that you cover. Do not pack all of your content under one generic RSS channel.”

2. What’s really going to drive readers/customers to adopt RSS? Buyers of what products and services are most likely to adopt RSS?
Answered by Bill French, MyST Technology Partners

“I don’t think anyone wants to adopt RSS; rather they want timely information in a controlled and organized way such that it helps them do their jobs better, or manage their personal information diet. This is precisely the reason we adopted (for the most part) SMTP - but none of us considered “adopting SMTP”. Email applications and the benefits of a store-and-forward architecture with reasonable assurance of delivery drove us into the realm of SMTP. And the driving force that seems to be causing early adopters to use RSS feeds has more to do with the volume of information and news that we find ourselves awash in each day.

There’s no question; everyone will eventually adopt RSS (or similar formats) but we’ll know that has happened when no one refers to it as RSS. ;-)”

3. How would you compare RSS and e-mail as content delivery tools?
Answered by Tom Hespos, Underscore Marketing

“RSS is all about consumer control. How many times have you thought about subscribing to an e-mail newsletter but thought, “Nah, they’ll probably sell my e-mail address to spammers” and didn’t subscribe? With RSS, consumers can unsubscribe from feeds at any time, so the risk of getting unwanted content or spam is virtually nil.

I think consumers have been waiting for something like this for quite some time. The added control will make them more likely to want to aggregate content from publishers they read regularly. As a marketing guy, I think it’s appropriate to mention that moving to RSS is not without its risks. Content publishers know that it’s somewhat cumbersome to unsubscribe from an e-mail newsletter, so they’ve taken certain chances with their e-mail newsletters that they won’t be able to take with RSS - they carry standalone sponsor messages, load up their HTML newsletters with animated ads, maybe take a risk with some of the stories they write.

Since the “unsubscribe” button is right there for feed subscribers, publishers might not get a second chance if they screw up. With RSS, there’s no broadcasting a “Please come back” message to people who unsubscribe. If you lose someone, you lose them until they decide to come back. So I’m sure publishers will need to handle RSS with kid gloves until they get a sense of what their subscribers will like and what will make them run for the door.”

Copyright 2005 Rok Hrastnik

Learn how to take full marketing advantage of RSS and get all the expertise, knowledge and how-to information for implementing RSS in your marketing mix, from direct marketing, PR, e-commerce, internal communications and online publishing to SEO, traffic generation and customer relationship management. Including complete interviews with more than 40 RSS marketing experts. Click here now: http://rss.marketingstudies.net/book/

With the compensation culture increasing around the globe, possessing professional indemnity cover is developing into being more & more essential. If you don’t presently have liability insurance incorporated into your building cover, then now is possibly the occasion to look at buying better cover. Here is some suggestions about why you need cover, & what to look out for.

What is professional indemnity cover: Public Liability insurance is an insurance agreement that shelters you from claims that other individuals may perhaps make against you in the event of an accident. If somebody damages their belongings or hurts themselves in or around your property or business then the professional indemnity insurance will shield you for any expenses that could occur. Cover generally ranges from two-hundred and fifty pounds up to ?1 million.

What are you insured against: Insurance will insure you against accidents or loss that others might endure in or around your residence or organisations grounds. You are protected against claims from robbers in addition to injury that might take place to a person from falling items or personnel carrying out maintenance. If a disaster arises on your premises and someone claims against you, your insurance policy will help you to pay any compensation.

What’s included Countless contents or property insurance documents enclose integrated liability insurance. You ought to check with your insurance firm whether this is the case, and what amount of cover you get. Even if the insurance is built-in, you should guarantee that you are correctly covered for any form of accidents that might well happen.

Premiums: The payments that you are expected to have to pay depend on the kind of cover you buy. If you just cover your home, then costs are likely to be not as much as than if you are covering a business. Nevertheless, payments are fairly cheap for the amount of cover that you get, and its as a result necessary for anyone running a company. Protect your against claims with professional indemnity insurance from Insured Risks.

The piano is an amazing instrument. So many notes, so many keys! That’s why the crossover or arpeggio technique is employed frequently. It allows the pianist to use much of the keyboard and the left hand.

The trick to using this technique is in the crossover itself. Usually, the left hands initial position will span an octave and then the index or ring finger will be used to crossover the thumb to continue playing more notes of the chord.

A good example of this is the piece “Thanksgiving” by George Winston. Here, a whole harmonic background is created by the left-hand crossover technique while the right improvises a melody line. And the results are a beautiful piece of music! Nothing complicated here. He just gets his left hand down using a few chords. This creates the backdrop for the entire piece - and the mood!

You too can create your own harmonic backgrounds. Once you learn how to do the crossover technique, you’ll find it to be something you’ll use over and over again. Why? Because of its capacity to use much of the keyboard and the beautiful sound you can get from it.

There are many variations to the crossover technique as well. In fact, you can actually use it to cover more than 4 octaves of the keyboard! You just keep crossing over with the left hand to cover as many notes as you wish. Another great example of this technique is the lesson “Morning Mist!” Here we use 4 chords and a simple crossover technique to create a light ambiance. We keep playing these chords in the left hand while the right is free to improvise a melody and we have created a beautiful piece of music!

Edward Weiss is a pianist/composer and webmaster of Quiescence Music’s online piano lessons. He has been helping students learn how to play piano in the New Age style for over 14 years and works with students in private, in groups, and now over the internet. Stop by now at http://www.quiescencemusic.com/piano_lessons.html for a FREE piano lesson!

Sainte-Foy, Québec, October 18, 2005 - With the launch of its Artist Area featuring unlimited uploads and free lifetime hosting, The Weed Files provides virtually costless do-it-yourself online music distribution.

Artists and labels are invited to sign up for a free account at artists.weed-files.com where they’ll be able to create artist pages, upload Weed files and promotional material such as photos and banners, and select featured and podsafe files.

Downloadable at no cost, Weed files can be played 3 times for free and shared legally. Once bought, the files can be played at will, burned to CD, and transferred to a portable player. The artists get 50% on every sale of their files, and don’t need to be signed to a label or even have a full album produced to get started. The listeners who redistribute their files are rewarded with up to 20% of the sales price.

“For music fans, Weed files are a great way to actively support the artists they like. For the artists, it’s an opportunity to get the most of already existing networks of contacts and the seemingly unlimited connectivity of the Internet,” said Christopher Stewart, owner of The Weed Files. “For podcasters, music bloggers, and P2P users, Weed files have the potential to turn hobbies into economically profitable activities. It really is a win-win solution for everybody involved.”

To date, close to 90,000 titles have been “Weedified” including music from such diverse artists as Tom Waits, Count Basie, The Presidents of The United States of America, Roger Joseph Manning Jr., Abby Travis, Kelly Clarkson, and countless others.

This Stanford University study surveyed the leading research on virtual agents and suggests that “social intelligence in automated interactions is good business.

Research about interactive characters suggests substantial opportunities for them to
enhance online experiences.

The Major Points:
(1) Human-Media Interactions Are Fundamentally Social
(2) Character Interfaces Bring Social Intelligence to Online Interactions

Ten Benefits of Character Interfaces
1. Characters make explicit the social responses that are inevitable.
2. Interactive characters are perceived as real social actors
3. Interactivity increases the perceived realism and effectiveness of characters
4. Interactive characters increase trust in information sources
5. Characters have personalities that can represent brands
6. Characters can communicate social roles
7. Characters can effectively express and regulate emotions
8. Characters can effectively display important social manners
9. Characters can make interfaces easier to us easier to use
10. Characters are well liked

More detail about the research by Byron Reeves
Center for the Study of Language and Information
Stanford University at http://64.152.122.45/eAgent/CSLI_Stanford_Study.pdf

To experience yourself the best example interactive characters online click on DEMO at: http://futurebiz.productdriven.com

Syed Akram, Independent Affiliate
WEB: http://futurebiz.marketdepo.com
VOICE:+60-1993135977

The research by Byron Reeves
Center for the Study of Language and Information
Stanford University

Although it may not be practical to put a dollar-sign value on an e-mail address there are many financially-savvy reasons to start collecting e-mail addresses if you haven’t already begun. If you have, keep reading for a few more tips on e-mail address collection at the end of this article.

Communicating by e-mail has a number of benefits:

1.Quick response — You’ll be able to measure the effectiveness of your message in about 48 hours, which also means if you are asking for donations to a non-profit organization or selling something online you’ll have money in-hand sooner than you would with direct mail.

2.Learn something — A content strategy that tracks the recipient’s activity within the message will teach you something about their interests.

3.More affordable — E-mail allows you to communicate for pennies per message instead of the dollars per message it costs to send direct mail.

4.Better results — Response rates to e-mail communications are often better than traditional direct mail.

5.Segment & strategize — The technology available to deliver thousands of e-mail messages at a time also enables you to segment groups and target specific groups of people with a message just for them.

6.It’s the culture — Most professionals who work at a desk every day (and many who don’t) are accustomed to using e-mail as a regular form of communication. According to the 2004 Pew Internet & American Life Project, 93% of online Americans use e-mail.

The e-mail addresses you have already collected, just like mailing addresses, are most valuable when they belong to the people who are connected and informed participants in your organization. Many organizations who consider “buying” an e-mail list will soon learn that their money will be wasted on strangers because their best prospects are the ones who are already acquainted with the good work you do. Therefore, it is worth the effort to cultivate your current list and do all you can to acquire their e-mail addresses and their permission to communicate with them by e-mail.

How to collect e-mail addresses:

1. Provide a subscription form on the front page of your website and then give them something to subscribe to: an e-mail newsletter, weekly tips, articles, resources, etc.

2. Remind people to subscribe to your e-mail newsletter in the signature of every person-to-person e-mail message you send out. Have every employee and volunteer do the same.

3. Instruct your staff and volunteers to keep this “top of mind” — ALWAYS ask for an e-mail address: in person, on incoming and outgoing phone calls, visitors, events, etc.

4. Include a line for “e-mail address” on every return-reply mailing, including event RSVPs.

5. Determine a method for collection ANYTIME you are face-to-face with donors. Don’t forget events that have volunteer sign-in sheets, raffle ticket sales or silent auction bids/purchases.

6. Implement a “forward-to-a-friend” strategy and consider offering an incentive for people who send multiple forwards.

7. Avoid being accused of spam — be sure to share your privacy policy with an assurance that you will not sell or share their information and, by all means, ask their permission to contact themthrough e-mail.

Merritt Olsen is a freelance writer and marketing consultant specializing in online and e-mail marketing. Need unique content for your e-mail newsletter that you can’t find here? Merritt has the experience and the savvy to write about a variety of topics and can be reached through www.tomorrowsdonor.com.

Copyright © 2004 Merritt Olsen & The Pursuant Group. Permission is granted to reprint this article in print or on your website so long as the paragraph above is included and contact information is provided to www.pursuantgroup.com.

Hundreds of keen snowboarders will presently be searching for their ski equipment and darting forth seeking the heaviest snow.

And without doubt the results from our carbon footprint will be virtually as far down the list of holiday musts as a xmas tree after the Christmas holidays.

Merely last Christmas, a tardy snowfall hit the broadsheets and tourists were terrified about the flecks of snow melting nearly as soon as they landed.

Skiing organisation Chalet1802, based at the base of Mont Blanc in Chamonix village in the French Alps, is one of the only independent businesses to go carbon negative and provide skiers an environmentally friendly alternative while organising their ski vacations.

Chalet1802 owner Nazir stated: Last winter was a bit of a surprise with the warmest winter in 55 yrs in Europe. Alpine ski fields for example Auron, Alpe d’Huez and Les Menuires lacked clients.It was temperate and the snowfall didnt last so much of the early season ski season in the Alps was patchy. We decided to become carbon negative to help preserve the ski resort.

Nazir said: We’re not attempting to dictate to holiday makers only we consider it’s important to give the guests the option without increasing the price of the vacation. When the guest book with us and holidays in our chalet Chamonix they can more than off set their carbon footprint and we absorb the additional costs. Naturally we still have a sauna and a hot tub - guests desire luxury but not at the expense of the environs, so we viewed methods of reducing the results of a skier flying over here for a snowboarding holiday.”

The firm have moreover linked up with organisation Climate Care, who attacks climate change by making C02 reductions on behalf of people and businesses.

As a publisher and an avid reader of many online ezines, you
start to gain a keen eye for what appeals to you and what
doesn’t. There are different ezines for many different
purposes:

Information Ezines,
Ezines For Products and Services,
Tutorial Ezines., etc, etc, etc

After a while you start to realize why some of the ezines, you
always end up leaving and the ones you don’t even bother to
open them up. Has nothing to do with a bad subject line, or
filters, it has to do with the business morals of the
publishers.

They are full of it. Plain and simple. Their whole ezine shouts
B.S. and you wonder how they can even write this stuff with a
straight face and dare to add their name to the email.

You know what I am talking about, the ones who sound worse than
bad used car dealers. Every word out of their mouth sounds like
a scam, they read online that they need a list to sell their
products, so they put no effort into their ezines, if you even
want to call it that. Trying to make a profit is one thing, but
just trying to hustle by any scam method out there just to make
that almighty dollar is another.

You know the kind…Does this remind you of a few:

You know the kind, the ones who go on the boards complaining
how a big company scammed them and conveniently that company is
a competitor and they just use a different name like no one
will figure it out.

Guess What…
B.S. is B.S. no matter how you wrap it up. Offline or Online,
Email, Or Phone. It serves no purpose except to ruin your
reputation and to make you look ridiculous in the long run.

Remember when you talked a lot of B.S. in your neighborhood,
you were the local fool, but now that you are online, you are
the global idiot.

Do you really think people don’t talk when someone smells B.S.

It’s just not worth it, because trust me it will come back to
haunt you in the worse way.

Save your drama for the soap operas. Put your morals and ethics
(if you have any, if not then its time to find a new set of
business mentors) into your business and these are the ones who
survive, whether you become a millionaire or not.

I would rather see an informative article in an ezine, than a
hyped up email full of why I should buy a product that I don’t
need just to line up your paypal account.

Yes we all buy things that are a luxury not a necessity but
come on, one more ebook on how to make a million in ten minutes
is something we can all do without.

One more site with a 15 by 20 Ultra forced 8 tier matrix with a
$100.00 opening deposit that will build the downline for me,
but after scrolling through the site for 20 minutes, you still
have no idea what they are selling is something we can all do
without.

Oh and remember, just because they offered you a couple of
crappy free ebooks and a free meta tag creator software doesn’t
make them any more legit than the next scam site.

They think they are fooling the FTC, but they are just
insulting your intelligence.

Remember that the next time you pull out your credit card to
spend money you don’t have to lost it before the week is over,
and as soon as you complain, numbers are disconnected and
emails are bounced back to you.

Be Smart, just because you are struggling online doesn’t mean
to get desperate and jump into everything that looks good.

Unwrap it and you will see the real deal.

Wise up and save your money for products and services that can
really help you, not the ones that will make you go broke.

Copyright (c) KDM Publishing

Donesia Muhammad has been doing business online since 2001. Sign up For her Newsletter My IBiz Weekly ==>http://myibizweekly.com The Business
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