Forex Trading For Beginners – You Want To Trade The News? Here’s How To Do It Right

Trading the news in the forex can be fun, exhilarating, and very, very profitable – if you know what you are doing. If you don’t know what you are doing, you can lose a lot of money really quick. I want you to make money when trading the news, and so I want to show you a very good strategy that works well.

When major news happens

Major news or economic reports are released several times a week by various countries. Many of the reports come out during the first week of the month. The Bank of Australia reports, the Bank of England reports, and non-farm payrolls are all released the first week of the month.

So you definitely want to be paying attention to news releases during the first week. Of course, news is released at other times as well. To find out what is released and when, simply search for ‘forex news calendar’.

When to trade the news

Here’s the thing – you don’t want to trade the news immediately before or after the release. More than likely you will get killed.

Why?

Because there is not a lot of volume in the market after news releases.

Now this might sound strange because you definitely see a lot of movement in the market after news releases.

But the reason you see all of that movement is because the big forex players are not trading, so the small forex traders move the market very rapidly.

That is why if you try to enter the market after a news release, your order might get filled 20-30 pips away. It is because there is no volume, and there is no one out there to take the other side of your trade.

How to trade the news

When there is not a whole lot of volume, the market ranges. It takes volume to push through support and resistance, and if there is no volume, support and resistance hold.

So good way to trade the news is to find two major news releases about 24 – 48 hours apart. Then apply your favorite range trading strategy and pick up a ton of pips trading the market back and forth.

If done properly, you can easily make 100 pips with very little risk.

Web-Communication – Getting Heard

“No matter how elegantly a dog barks, he can never tell you his father was poor but honest.” – Bertrand Russell

The Vervet monkeys of East Africa have 3 distinct vocal alarms to warn of leopards, eagles, and snakes. The warning for leopards causes the monkeys to run for the trees; the warning for eagles tells them to search the sky and look for shelter; while the snake warning causes the group to standup on two legs and scrutinize the grass for predators.

But as sophisticated a verbal warning system as this may appear to be, these creatures do not have the capability to communicate complex information like, ‘checkout the bush at two o’clock, there’s two leopards hiding in wait.’

The Evolution of Web-Man

They say the thing that separates man from other animals is our ability to speak – that, and our posable thumbs. So the first thing we learn to do is stick our thumbs in our mouths, crippling our ability to speak intelligibly, not to mention creating huge orthodontist’s bills. We have this incredible ability to take a good thing and screw it up. Take the Web for example.

As marketing professionals we have this astonishing ability to communicate with infinite variation, nuance and meaning using the multimedia Web-environment; a communication platform that is begging to be exploited to its maximum potential.

Our thinking of what constitutes a website has been corrupted by a cadre of unimaginative ‘techno-geeks’ and trendy design-gurus who may know graphic design, database development, and even every Internet Explorer bug-fix and work-around, but what they don’t know is how to deliver a marketing message on a website.

What these new-age ‘techno-nistas’ don’t get is that our job as marketers is to communicate. Sophisticated communication is a uniquely human activity requiring some understanding of how an audience perceives, comprehends and retains information.

“If sound is the delicate touch of a practiced lover, then sight is the desperate groping of an inexperienced adolescent in the backseat of his father’s Chevy.”

These twenty-six words convey a wealth of experience and a flood of understanding. They paint a picture in seconds that would take a gifted artist considerable time, talent, and style to recreate visually.

But despite the published research on how we learn, how we comprehend, and how we remember, all of which points to the power and influence of verbal communication, we still rely for the most part on visual methods to deliver our messages.

“A picture is worth a thousand words.” – Fred Barnard, Tram Advertising Salesman, 1920

We have all been told from early on that ‘a picture is worth a thousand words.’ How many times have you quoted this famous saying? According to Jack Trout, in his book ‘The New Positioning,’ what Confucius actually said was, “a picture is worth a thousand pieces of gold.” Not the same thing at all is it? There is actually no evidence that Confucius made either remark.

The documented origin of the famous expression has been traced back to a guy named Fred Barnard who sold tram advertising in the 1920s. Originally he claimed it was an old Japanese proverb, but later changed his story and issued Chinese lettering with a translation in his ads. Who knows what the truth is, maybe old Fred invented the expression himself, but most people still believe it.

As marketers we have come under the spell of a dominant visual hegemony that ignores our natural oral learning process, causing us to create websites that fail to deliver meaningful, memorable, marketing messages.

The Suya of the Brazilian Matto Grosso believe the act of hearing is the sign of a ‘fully socialized individual.’ For the Suya the term ‘to hear’ also means ‘to understand.’ The expression ‘it is in my ear’ means that something has been learned, even something visual like a weaving pattern. To the Suya, the visual is an anti-social sense cultivated by witches.

- Classen, C., 1993, ‘Worlds of Sense: exploring the senses in history and across cultures’, London: Routledge

The Five Elements of Effective Communication

To understand how to effectively deliver our marketing messages over the Web we first must understand the five basic elements of communication:

1. The Environment

2. The Audience

3. The Message

4. The Messenger, and

5. The Process.

The Web Environment

In the early days of the Web, marketers were frustrated because many didn’t get the fundamental difference between traditional print media and the new digital webmedia. Those that did ‘get it’ were even more frustrated because the environment wasn’t advanced enough to enable practical use of growing multimedia techniques. Today the Web has advanced to the point were full-function multimedia can be presented and enjoyed by the vast majority of Web users.

But even with these advancements the Web creates some unique obstacles to effective communication:

- The Web is a sterile barren environment devoid of human connection,

- Computer monitors are hard on the eyes,

- Limited screen real estate puts a premium on abbreviated information, and

- Technological incompatibilities and differences between browsers and computer platforms vary the user experience among audiences.

In addition to these inherent environmental challenges, the world of search engine optimization has created a whole new Web-orthodoxy of ‘does-and-don’ts’ designed to attract search engine indexing, hopefully leading to greater site traffic, but at the same time, diluting the marketing message and disrupting critical communication. All of which, creates audience frustration, curtailing the time spent on website visits due to a failure to deliver the promised recognizable content.

The very hyperlinked nature of the Web and the oft-touted promotion of linking to anything and everything remotely relevant flies in the face of human nature, that craves an organized linear narrative presentation of content that maximizes comprehension and retention.

The Web Environment Summary

- The Web environment has advanced to the point where multimedia can be delivered and enjoyed by the vast majority of Web users.

- The Web is a sterile, barren environment creating a communication gap that must be bridged by human contact in the form of oral communication.

- Computer screens, the interface between you and your audience, make reading difficult and their limited screen sizes exacerbate the difficulty.

- As marketers we have come under the spell of a dominant visual hegemony that ignores our natural oral learning process, causing us to create websites that fail to deliver meaningful, memorable, marketing messages.

- Over 70% of website visitors skip, scan, and skim text looking for headlines, subheads, captions, and bulleted points diluting sophisticated concepts and complex ideas, leading to misunderstandings, confusion and customer dissatisfaction.

- Cross-browser differences and technological incompatibilities create un-uniform presentations and frustrating user experiences.

- The very hyperlinked nature of the Web with all its advantages actually disrupts comprehension and retention by distracting the audience from what they crave, an organized linear narrative.

The Web Audience

We live in a fast paced world where everyone is busy multitasking their way through their workday: talking on cell phones, writing email proposals, text messaging colleagues, and searching the Web for vital business intelligence.

It is not surprising that distracted Web-visitors are easily drawn away from sites that do not immediately deliver the information they are looking for. And it is no surprise that people are frustrated by having to sift their way through a maze of search engine friendly hyperlinks and incomprehensible advertising copy. If you’re lucky, this approach may lead to some additional search engine traffic, but burying your critical content in a mountain of keywords, jargon, and specifications does nothing to engage, enlighten and evangelize your audience.

Website visitors may, or may not be clients or even prospects, but what they are, are an audience, an audience searching for information. If they can’t find that information, if they don’t understand that information, and if they can’t retain that information; your website, and by extension your company, is useless to them. By recasting Web-visitors as an audience you can organize and present material in ways that are useful, understandable, and memorable.

The principles and practices required to create a compelling presentation may very well conflict with some search engine optimization maxims and even current Web design trends, but you have to ask yourself, “what is my prime directive?” Do you want tons of traffic that opts out of your site as quickly as possible, instantly forgetting who you are and what you do; or do you want visitors who will stay on your site, learn about you and your products, and ultimately convince themselves that your company is the one with the right solution that fulfills their needs.

Websites are by their very nature compromises of content, presentation, and technology. By treating your visitors as an audience that needs to be informed, enlightened, and entertained, you will be able to make the most effective decisions, and you will ultimately end-up with more leads, sales, and customers.

It is important to remember that Web-visitors are human beings who learn and relate through the primary sense of hearing.

The Web Audience Summary

- We live in a fast paced world where everyone is busy multitasking their way through their workday.

- Perpetually distracted Web-visitors are easily drawn away from sites that do not immediately deliver the information they are looking for.

- If Web-visitors can’t find the information they need, if they don’t understand that information, and if they can’t retain that information, your website, and by extension your company, is useless to them.

- By recasting Web-visitors as an audience you can organize and present material in ways that are useful, understandable, and memorable.

- The principles and practices required to create a compelling presentation may very well conflict with some search engine optimization maxims and even current Web design trends.

- Websites are compromises of content, presentation, and technology. By treating your visitors as an audience that needs to be informed, enlightened, and entertained, you will be able to make the most effective decisions, and you will ultimately end-up with more leads, sales, and customers.

The Web Message

We have all heard the expression ‘content is king’, but as marketers we must turn that old saying around slightly to read, ‘message is king.’

Any one who has ever run a sales organization knows how frustrating it can be to keep sales people on-message without turning them into automatons. Even if you can get them to lug all their samples into each and every customer’s office, and even if they actually present all the samples, customers have this nasty habit of asking questions, disrupting the flow of well-planned flip chart and Power Point presentations.

Having sales people on the road is an expensive method of delivering a sale’s or marketing message, without any guarantee that, that message is being delivered properly or with any consistency throughout the organization. And if you’re relying on independent sales reps, while let’s not even go there.

The answer of course in this new-age Web-business environment is the Internet and your website. It allows you to deliver a consistent, error-free message without omissions or deletions.

And if you do it in an oral presentation using a professional, signature voice, that message informs and enlightens, entertains and persuades, brands and penetrates, and most importantly compels action.

“Sound is the foundation of experience … capable of infinite variation in contrast to sight”
- Hearing is Believing, Richard Thorn, Fauculty of Art, Media & Design, UWE, Bristol

We live in a highly complicated world where knowledge and expertise are demanded of almost every routine task we perform. Simply operating a cell phone can be rocket science to some; or dealing with the indecipherable instructions for the universal remote that controls everything from your TIVO to your coffeemaker is a guaranteed cause of high blood pressure.

Life is complex, and how things work is increasing difficult to digest and comprehend. Who has time to read all the manuals, all the specifications, and all the things you need to know just to function in a high-tech world.

If you had trouble with the instructions for putting together Junior’s bike on Christmas morning, how then are you expected to deal with life’s more byzantine demands? Audio on the Web clarifies abstract ideas, complicated explanations, and compound procedures.

No more will Web audiences tolerate the ‘Blather Syndrome’ were meaningless strings of keywords, advertising hype, and pointless specifications are strung together to form what passes for content.

The solution to the inarticulate drone of content-overload and the banality ‘brochure-speak’ is focus. Focus your message on a single relevant idea or concept. Don’t try to cram everything thing you can do into a single presentation. Narrow the focus and concentrate the message.

And if you are speaking to multiple audiences, remember, one-size-fits-all doesn’t work for websites any better than it works for hats. URLs are cheap. Create different websites for different audiences and different messages.

Like most website design firms we have a portfolio site (www.mrpwebmedia.com), but when we wanted to tell people about the power of web-audio and its ability to deliver a powerful, memorable message, we created a separate website (www.136words.com).

136words.com is dedicated to one simple idea: you can effectively deliver your marketing message on a website or an email landing page with only 136 words: 136 finely crafted words, presented by a professional signature voice that establishes your corporate identity, presents your information, and penetrates the consciousness of your audience.

The Web Message Summary

- We have all heard the expression ‘content is king’, but as marketers we must turn that old saying around slightly to read, ‘message is king.’

- Audio allows you to deliver a consistent, error-free message without omissions or deletions

- A professional, signature voice can deliver a finely crafted, focused message that informs and enlightens, entertains and persuades, brands and penetrates, and most importantly compels action

- We live in a highly complicated world where knowledge and expertise are demanded of almost every routine task we perform.

- Audio on the Web clarifies abstract ideas, complicated explanations, and compound procedures

- The solution to the inarticulate drone of content overload and the banality ‘brochure-speak’ is focus. Focus your message on a single relevant idea or concept.

- Create different websites for different audiences and different messages.

- 136 finely crafted words, presented by a professional signature voice in sixty seconds of audio establishes your corporate identity, presents your information, and penetrates the consciousness of your audience.

The Messenger

We should rethink Marshall McLuhan’s adage, ‘the medium is the message’, and restate it as the ‘messenger is the message.’ Can you think about CNN’s signature bumper, ‘This is CNN’ without the sound of James Earl Jones’s voice ringing in our ears? You probably never heard of John Facenda, but before the days of instant sports replays, his highly recognizable voice combined with dazzling film clips and over-the-top ballet-like descriptions of NFL game highlights was arguably one of the critical ingredients in making football the television phenomenon it is today.

If people are what they eat, then marketers and advertisers are how they sound. Would Ford truck commercials deliver the same image of power and performance without the distinctive gravitas of Keifer Sutherland’s Jack Bauer persona? The audience knows the voice, character and image, and they are all projected onto Ford’s products without ever identifying the actor or his popular character.

People relate to people not to abstract concepts or product specifications. It’s all about storytelling, it’s how we learn, how we comprehend, and how we remember what’s important. And you can’t have a memorable story without a compelling storyteller.

An expert storyteller creates an emotional connection with his or her audience by tapping into commonly shared experiences creating a bond of trust. The hugely popular comedian and ‘Tonight Show’ host, Jay Leno, describes how he constructs a joke, a method that illustrates how to tap into an audience’s shared experience: “You start with something people believe. You tell them it’s not true. And then you reinforce what they always believed.” Making the connection with a good story works for the comedian and for the sophisticated marketer.

Rod Serling is another example of a great storyteller who combined great stories with a distinctive style and delivery. Long after his death, his style, delivery, and voice are still being copied. If you want to connect with your audience, you best do it through the sound of a signature voice.

The Messenger Summary

- We should rethink Marshall McLuhan’s adage, ‘the medium is the message’, and restate it as the ‘messenger is the message.’

- If people are what they eat, then marketers and advertisers are how they sound.

- People relate to people not to abstract concepts or product specifications.

- You can’t have a memorable story without a compelling storyteller.

- An expert storyteller creates an emotional connection with his or her audience by tapping into common shared experiences creating a bond of trust.

- If you want to connect with your audience, you best do it through the sound of a signature voice.

The Process

Honestly and Correctly Test

The process of creating a signature voice for your webmedia presentations and campaigns starts with an honest look in the corporate mirror. You need to be able to honestly and correctly define who you are, what you do, and why you do it better than the competition before you can consider who should speak for you or how they should sound.

You must find out how you are viewed by your audience, and if your desired identity is compatible with their perception of who you are and what you do. If you don’t like how you are perceived, you can change it, but only if you start off with a true assessment of where you currently exist in your audience’s mind.

The tough part of this exercise is the ‘honestly and correctly’ part. There are many reasons why companies fail to see themselves how others see them. These reasons can range from arrogance to ignorance to bureaucratic myopia. Take Wal-Mart for example: Wal-Mart tried to attract hip teenagers by creating a youth-oriented site on the ‘hot-site-du-jour’, MySpace. Wal-Mart, may be a lot of things but hip and trendy, just ‘ain’t’ one of them. An honest look at who they are, and what they do, and of course, how they are perceived, would have told them that this approach would fail.

Most company mission statements fail the ‘honestly and correctly’ test miserably; these corporate self-indulgences tend to be pathetic recitations of everything the company thinks it does, expressed in disingenuous, over-hyped, condescending language, that nobody in the organization or the marketplace believes.

Once you know how you are perceived, you can go about reinforcing that image, or changing it, by implementing a long-term campaign using all the marketing tools at your disposal. And webmedia, audio and video on websites and landing pages, is by far one of the most cost effective tools you have available.

Developing Your Signature Voice

1. List all the qualities that represent the image you are trying to project.

2. Determine the style of language, phrasing and cadence of the delivery.

3. No matter what kind of presentation you want to deliver, your script must be well written, focused on a single idea, and written for audio not print.

The Best Choices in a Healthcare Career That Pay Well

Almost any choice of career in healthcare is sure to be a winner, so well paid and in demand are these. Out of all the possible options you have in healthcare though, there are some kinds of position that seem set for explosive growth in the future. The kind of training and qualifications you’d need to have under your belt to take advantage of these opportunities, are in constant flux. Colleges and universities are still scrambling to formulate the right kind of course to meet demand for the future. If you wish to find a healthcare career for yourself, you do need to pay attention to studying the educational routes there are to take to get where you wish to go. There are so many options you have, you do need to tke the time to make the right kind of choice. Let’s look at some of the best-paid healthcare career choices there are out there that you could prepare yourself for.

First on our list is a healthcare career as a medical coder. A medical coder works in a hospital and sometimes even finds flexible timing schedules available for working from home. A medical coder is someone who keeps medical records for insurance purposes. He knows what kind of procedure or disease code to assign to each record that comes his way for insurance claims purposes. Qualifying to be a medical coder takes about two years, and your job can net you about $50,000 a year.

Next up, a nurse practitioner is a nurse who has a masters degree in nursing that she can get with a few extra credits. A nurse practitioner gets to stand in for a doctor and deal with cases that aren’t all that complicated. As doctors spread themselves too thin, nurse practitioners often stand in for a doctor and make nearly $100,000 a year doing this. Lab sciences, the work done at labs where you go in for any test a doctor might prescribe, can pay particularly well. Take a job as a cytotechnologist; this is someone who works at a medical lab and examines tissue samples for infections or cancer or anything else. There is only one way pay for a healthcare career in lab sciences can go, and that is higher up. You get to make about $50,000 a year too. Another kind of job working in a lab that pays particularly well is work as a blood sample technician, a phlebotomist. This is a great example of the well-paying career that doesn’t need fancy education. A high school student with an year’s training can easily get a job doing this.

There you have it, a list of the best choices in a healthcare career you have, no matter what level of education you hold, no matter what your dream

Things to Know About Culinary Arts School Ranking

Many people were asking as to where they can find the best culinary education on earth. Many of them are wondering what the best culinary arts schools are. Well, the answers to these questions are typically provided by the culinary arts school rankings, which for long years have been considered as one of the most valuable tools for identifying which of the available culinary arts schools is best.

Yes, culinary school ranking is not a new concept. It has been around for years now, making it so common in the culinary education industry. However, although the culinary arts school ranking can give you the list of the top rated culinary arts schools, it’s not a good basis to say that ones presented on the list are truly the best schools. While it is acceptable to say that there are few very well-known and respected culinary schools on earth, it doesn’t follow that these respected institutions are the “best” ones. The truth is, there is not one “best” culinary school in the world. This may sound a clichй though, but even the most acclaimed culinary arts program may possess certain aspects that will not suit your specific needs.

Well, it is sad to say that thousands of people are blinded to such fact. They tend to believe and agree with the critiques of the culinary school rankings which in turn just lament the attempts to boil down in needs of the individual seeking for the right culinary schools into a typically bullet-pointed list of “The Top Rated Culinary Schools in the World”. Well, as you may realize, majority of these culinary arts school ranking lists present not rankings at all, but more than marketing. The information stressed typically appears like advertisements and not actually designed to meet the ever growing demands for the right culinary school.

So that said. Perhaps the best move to do now is not to rely solely on the culinary school rankings. Instead, it is important to note that a number of ratings and ranking information is available out there and each differs according to what is deemed best by each survey. Aside from this, it is necessary to note that every individual has its own individual needs, be it related to the school curriculum, the communication skills, active learning, or the diversity of the programs offered. This is similar in context when we say that what is important to one applicant may be meaningless to another. It is for this reason that when choosing the right school, it is best to look not on how best the quality of the school is, but how suitable it is to your individual needs. This is a way of sorting the “best” from the “best fit”.

It is further interesting to know that the existence of culinary school rankings just encourages the institutions to boost their score by providing several hypes to the rating services. The results then are all but misleading and exaggerated details that aren’t really helpful to identifying which is the best fit. It is important to note then that the culinary arts school ranking lists are naturally worthless, unless the judging criteria are made specific, and clearly spelled out to the readers.

Compensating Real Estate Brokers

Are the high fees of commercial real estate brokers really justified?

It depends what you get for your money. Today’s professional commercial real estate broker provides a whole host of services and expertise that was unknown 20 years ago. Fees are not regulated, and you are free to test the open market and hire the services that you need. But there is a reason that most Fortune 500 companies have outsourced their real estate needs to a third party commercial real estate firm.

If Fortune 500 firms have difficulty developing in-house expertise with all their capital and resources, how will you fare? They know that today’s sophisticated commercial real estate market requires a level of expertise that is difficult to develop with an in-house real estate department. You are entitled to this level of expertise today, and if you are not receiving it, your real estate expense may not be justified.

Your broker should save you a multiple of the “high fees” that he or she is paid. I represented a non-profit agency some years ago that was renting their headquarters in a Class A office building. I made the case, and demonstrated it with spreadsheets, that they should purchase a building to achieve substantial savings in real estate tax expense. They followed my advice, we purchased a 25,000 square foot office building, and they are now saving over $200,000 a year. My fee was a small fraction of their savings.

In a different example, we recently represented a manufacturing company on an exclusive basis. With our client, we looked at an industrial building that seemed to meet all our requirements, and it quickly zoomed to the top of our negotiating list. I remembered, however, that there was a superfund site in the neighborhood. I made a quick call to the president of an environmental company that we have worked with for many years, and he ordered the appropriate due-diligence reports. Within a few days, I had my verbal reply, “Hands off!” The cost of the reports was under $1,000 (which we absorbed) and we saved our client the legal expense of ordering contracts, and conducting his own Phase I, and ultimately Phase II, investigation. Not to mention the time savings involved! Your broker should be bringing this sort of knowledge and expertise to the table.

Finally, many people forget that most brokers work on a contingency basis, and that the fees are necessarily higher to compensate the broker for absorbing the risk. If the transaction is not completed, you generally have no obligation to pay a broker, regardless of the work or expense incurred on your behalf. (Our firm will accept compensation in any of three ways, depending on our client’s needs and desires: on a retainer, by the hour, or on a contingency basis. Over 95% of our clients choose contingency.)

Are the “high fees” of your real estate broker justified? Make sure they are! Hire the talent you need and insist on the most up-to-date representation. Your savings will be a multiple of your broker’s pay check.

Retail Software – What Your Small Business Needs

Retail software is an important purchase for any small business running a retail store. Selecting the right retail software can make your business more efficient, increase sales, and improve customer satisfaction. Whilst picking the wrong software can have just the opposite effect. Slowing processes down, limiting the number of sales you can make and causing your customers (and your staff) to become frustrated. So what factors are important to consider when selecting your retail software?

On-premise or in the cloud?

You can choose to either host the software yourself on your premises or access your software via an Internet browser (in the cloud). The advantage of having it on site is that if something goes wrong with the software then you can have immediate access to it in order to fix it yourself. This however requires that you have a certain amount of technological know-how as you will need to be able to perform any repairs yourself, or hire someone to do it for you. When you buy software that is on premise you normally pay an upfront fee with the option to pay for ongoing support if you so choose. Additionally, you will have to buy hardware, such as a server, for the software to run on, and a system for backing up your data in case of hardware failure. The onus will be on you to both secure and maintain your entire system, as well as to pay for and perform any upgrades of the software that are required.

Choosing web-based software means signing up to a SaaS (software as a service) model. This requires you to pay on a monthly basis rather than the large upfront costs associated with on premise software. Cloud software eliminates the need for you to purchase hardware, secure your systems, run backups or perform upgrades. The software company will do this for you. You are however reliant on a good Internet connection to be able to access your systems so if you opt for this solution you must budget for a high quality Internet package.

Inventory, accounts and CRM.

When selecting your retail software is essential that you work out how the different areas of your business will share data. The key systems you will need to receive data about the products you are selling are your inventory (what products have been sold, and how many you have left to sell), your accounts (how much did you sell your products for, and how much profit have you made) and your CRM (who did you sell the products too, and can you encourage them to buy from you again). If all these systems are working in harmony then your business will be much more efficient and you will start making more sales.

Ideally you want these three systems working together, integrating separate packages can be costly and so buying a pre integrated or all in one solution makes sense. Integrated retail software removes the need for you to transfer data between multiple software systems that may not necessarily be programmed in the same format. This will save you a lot of time and will also mean that all you systems are updated in real-time rather than waiting for you to do a data synchronisation for them to be able to update. So you, or your staff, won’t have to stay late anymore doing stock takes or updating accounts. It’s all done for you as it happens.

Staff

Your staff are the people who will need to use the retail software to make sales. Make sure that you bear them in mind when you are making the selection. Think about what will make their job easier. If your staff are happy, then they will provide better service and this will make your customers happy, which should ultimately result in more sales and higher customer satisfaction.

Would it suit them better to have portable tablets so they can make sales around the store? Would it be easier if there were multiple tills for them to serve from so they aren’t constantly waiting for others to finish serving? Would giving them access to the stock levels in the warehouse make their lives easier? Speak to your staff members and work out what would really benefit them so you can choose the software which best fits their needs.

Although remember what suits your business too. Make sure that you can limit the amount of access your staff have to your back-end systems. You may want to let them see stock levels but it’s unlikely you would want them nosing around your accounts. Select retail software that works for you both.

What hardware will you need to accompany it?

You’ll no doubt need to buy some hardware to go with your retail software. If you opt for an on-premise solution you will need to buy a server, a firewall and a backup facility as well as a secure cabinet to keep your equipment in. For web-based software you will not need this equipment, just a secure and fast Internet connection, but for either solution there will be some additional hardware required. You will certainly need a central cash till to keep cash payments and credit receipts in it. This will need to be connected to your retail software so that it is triggered to open when a sale is made.

All your products will also need to be scanned by a barcode scanner to be picked up by the retail software. You will need to invest in a few of these so staff will be able to make multiple sales at the same time. Once a sale has been made you will then need to provide a receipt, make sure you have a facility in your retail software to hook up to thermal printer so that these receipts can be printed automatically.

Your company, your decision

All in all make sure that the decision you make is the best one for your business. No two companies are the same so it is important that you really understand what it is you’re looking for and don’t just settle for the first solution to come your way. Take the time to identify your needs and to research the market so you can find the best retail software solution for your business. Many software products have the option to try before you buy, so take the time to test some out before making your final decision.

Comcast Internet Essentials Program – A Possible Solution To Help Bridge The US Digital Divide

In collaboration with the National School Lunch Program, Comcast is attempting to facilitate understanding about the importance of the internet by offering it at a deeply discounted rate to families in low-income situations throughout the U.S, starting with Chicago. This is, simply put, a brilliant move not only to help the economically disenfranchised, but also to bolster a floundering economy that is trying to transition from an industrial marketplace to an information and service-based market place.

Called “Internet Essentials”, the program will offer Comcast’s Xfinity Economy internet service with download speeds of 1.5 Mbps for $9.95 per month and includes a promise of no price increase and fees, along with a voucher that entitles eligible families to purchase a computer for less than $150.

The Internet Essentials idea was formed after the discovery that there are 3 major barriers to widespread broadband adoption: the cost of monthly internet service, a lack of understanding about how to use the internet and the cost of a computer.

There also appears to be a perception among some that the internet is not essential to everyday life. But national research has shown that up to 3,000 new jobs can be created with just a one percent increase in the adoption of broadband internet. However, just 45% of families with annual household incomes of less than $30,000 have internet at home.

Besides the obvious advantages to these students in educational arenas now, and the national and global marketplace later, there are several reasons why widespread adoption of broadband is an important concept. For starters, there is a definite transition our society is making toward an internet-centered playing field. We communicate, socialize, gather and disseminate news, and make all kinds of decisions based upon information we exchange on the internet.

The web is becoming a strategic tool for colleges to reach out to students who otherwise wouldn’t be able to attend their school. We exchange money and goods, invest funds, and pay bills over the internet. We utilize cloud service personally and professionally to store vast amounts of data and images.

Marketing will never be the same now that the worldwide web is a major force for companies to reach out to potential customers. As mentioned previously we are transitioning from a manufacturing society to an economy that exchanges innovations, services and information. Make no mistake about it – the transition will continue as developing countries get better at filling the worldwide demand for manufactured goods, and at a much cheaper rate than the United States is able to.

In short, the internet is the greatest technological advancement of our time, and if our society is to succeed in its impending transition, we must equip all of our citizens to be able to exchange information digitally. And it begins by equipping our children to be able to navigate the internet and learn how to benefit from the vast opportunities available. This particular move made by Comcast, and surely to follow by other internet providers, is a reminder to all of us that becoming technically savvy is an important move both individually and corporately.

“Having access to high-speed Internet service allows children to do schoolwork, adults to find jobs and grow the city’s economy, and families to learn and explore together,” said Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. The mayor went on to elaborate on how the Internet Essentials program is a great way for city government and the business community to provide needed solutions to the problems facing the economically disenfranchised.

In addition to discounted internet access and computer voucher, eligible families will also receive computer protection via Norton’s Security Suite and 90 minutes of digital literacy training to assist them with getting the most out of the internet for schoolwork and employment search purposes.

Families who qualify must call 1-855-8-INTERNET in order to request an application to be mailed to them. In addition to a completed application, families must also attach lunch program documents from their child’s school. They will then be notified by mail regarding their application’s status in seven to ten days.

Comcast is also putting out the call to educators, community organizations and others who want to help to bring the internet to low-income families. When these individuals complete a free registration with Comcast’s Partner Portal, they can access a free suite of tools and resources to help introduce the program to their communities.

Will Technology Eventually Supersede Nature?

Technology has made life easier and enjoyable. The communication world has continued bringing cell phones and gadgets that combine a variety of important activities together. The transport industry recently comprises fast airplanes, automobiles, motorcycles, bicycles and many other powerful machines. Instead of sending letters, which used to take long, e-mails, Skype, Google talk, yahoo messenger, Facebook, and many live-chat mechanisms have taken communication to another level. At the moment, technological advancements have continued in areas of computers, business, medicine, aviation, food processing and others. But, how does nature fare when technology is in action? Will technology eventually supersede nature?

The Power of technology Vs nature

When war breaks out, advanced weapons take lives, destroy buildings and cause extensive damage. During such wars, the use of technology is usually the number-one option in fighting back or getting involved physically. Such cases make reliance on nature suicidal. In addition, talking to someone who is in a different town, or country, requires the use of technology. This is because the voice, in its natural state, can not travel such long distances and neither can the ear pick sounds from such remote locations. The use of technology can even make such people visible while communicating with them.

When Nature Strikes, How Does Technology Respond?

As the foregoing suggests, it is very easy to state that technology can eventually supersede nature. However, when natural forces strike, how does technology fair? When a tsunami swept across Indonesia, the world wanted to come to the aid of the victims in that country. All the developments in technology could not save the innocent lives, and prevent the extensive damage that ensued! As a result, many lives were lost, and the only thing technology did was pick up the ashes.

What about volcanoes? When scientists gather ample evidence that a volcano is about to erupt, the most reasonable, and loving, step governments take is to evacuate the residents in time. Similarly, when a tornado – or highly destructive wind – strikes, technology only detects the signs of its timing and severity. Such data helps the authorities in preparing for a timely evacuation campaign. The list can go on, but the fact is that, when the forces of nature act, technology is too irrelevant to respond back. It can only detect.

Will technology supersede nature?

With such evidence, it is clear that technology will continue making life easier, enjoyable and beautiful in many ways. But it has no power to take over nature. The many decades, centuries, and millenniums already spent in researching and discovering the wonders of nature attest to this fact. That is why, instead of learning about planets and galaxies created by scientists, we will continue hearing about the new planets being discovered; the amazing nature of the galaxies and complex nature of creation. In appreciating such wonders of nature bio-mimicry has come up with many designs that acknowledge the supremacy of nature. Conclusively, science, and technology at large, will continue developing, but nature will remain respected.

How Small Business Online Advertising Can Boost Sales and Brand Recognition

Small businesses are the heart of America. Whether you purchased your car from the same car dealer as your parents or shop at the same neighborhood store every week, Americans love to deal with small businesses as often as they can. After all, the majority of the jobs in our economy come from these courageous business owners. Many of these businesses fail within their first year of operation but the owners do not worry about it. The Internet has added to the many responsibilities that these owners take on. In addition to traditional marketing methods, small business online advertising has come onto the scene and caused quite a disturbance.

Oftentimes small businesses do not have the type of marketing budget to launch a large scale online advertising campaign. Some businesses may not have a marketing budget at all! However, online advertising is wonderful because even for a few dollars per month traffic can still be driven to a website or e-commerce store promoting the business. While the business may only make one sale per month from this platform, that sale could be worth more to the business than the entire brick and mortar sales for the month.

While that might not be making the most sense at the moment, it is true! Some of the largest companies in the world go online to try and find businesses that meet needs for their gifts. Take a small candy business run in a very small city. They may be struggling to meet their costs of doing business but a major corporation places an order for thousands upon thousands of dollars. However, without having an online presence there would have been no way that this corporation would have known about this company!

Some of the easiest online advertising platforms for small businesses to get started on are Google AdWords and Facebook. These platforms have a large amount of the traffic that is flowing through the Internet and are able to provide users who are interested in just about any topic. AdWords charges per click and can be extremely affordable depending upon which terms are being targeted by the business. Search keywords that are in high demand have a higher price to pay per click while those which are not heavy in demand do not require as high of a price. Facebook has a unique twist on the online advertising scene. While they do provide the cost per click model that AdWords has, they also offer the CPM or cost per million model. This is where an image is shown and a price is charged per 1000 times the image is shown on a website. There is no guarantee that a user will click on the image, but if they click a large amount of times and the price for CPM is cheaper the cost per click is much lower. Do your research before starting any advertising campaign online so that you can be as successful as possible.

How Do You Prepare Your Vehicle For Spring and Summer – Automotive Advice For Women

Another season change and climate change is upon us. Each individual has to adjust to the temperature and time changes. But, just like humans, our vehicles also need some adjusting and preparation for these changes as well.

The best time to prepare your vehicle for the Hot Summer Months is in the Spring.
You can do it yourself or take it to your Automotive Expert to be done. The best deal and service should be offered.

It seems as though many women do not know where to go or who to turn to for their automotive needs. This is true for those women who do not have a man around to help and advice them of their vehicle necessities. Most women do not catch a problem with their vehicle until it is too late. A good automotive technician or automotive shop needs to understand their automotive needs. An expert automotive technician should know how to help, listen, and be very willing to learn the needs and automotive problems that women experience. Automotive technicians need to be intoned and strive to educate women about their vehicles and lead them in the right direction. This needs to be done with trust building and by being reliable in the service and advice that is provided by the automotive expert. The sooner that the vehicle problem is found the more economical it will be to repair the problem. More problems will arise if you wait to long to get the problem taken care of. The first advice that need to be mentioned is to: Always keep up to date with Maintenance and Inspection. Your Personal Mechanic should be able to perform an inspection on your vehicle at little to no cost at all, depending on the mechanic. Service may be required after inspection and that is where the charges will start.

This is the Maintenance and Inspection that is needed in Spring for the Hot Summer Months:

Check your antifreeze and coolant level
- A common cause for automobile breakdowns is due to a Coolant System Failure. If you plan on servicing your coolant yourself there are some things that you need to check first.
- Check the label on the coolant bottle. It has to be the correct type of coolant for your type of vehicle.
- Use 50/50 percent of antifreeze and water.

If you have to add coolant there may be a leak. Have your vehicle inspected for coolant leaks. An over heated engine is one of the Worst Problems for your vehicle. It would save you more money to have it inspected rather then risk it over heating. Your Personal Mechanic should be able to check this out for you at little to no cost. Service may be required after inspection.

Your AC System needs to be inspected

It is important to get your air conditioner checked for leaks and recharged to ensure optimal performance during the Hot Summer Months. Your Personal Mechanic should be able to check this out for you at little to no cost. Service may be required after inspection.

Check your Battery functions

If your battery is more then 3 years old it should be inspected. Your personal mechanic should test its capacity and the output of your alternator.

It is also very important to make sure that the battery terminal ends are free of corrosion. You can clean the terminal ends yourself by simply cleaning with baking soda and water.

Check your Tire Pressure and tread depth

It is important to make sure that the tires are inflated to the correct pressure. You can find the pressure amounted listed on the sidewall of your tire.

The tread depths of your tires need to be checked with every season change. You can check the tread by: Inserting a penny between the treads. If you can see the top of Lincoln’s hair then, you need to change the tire. The tread is not in good condition.

If you live in an area where there is a lot of rain then you check the tread a little different. You use the same “hair rule” but, you use a nickel instead of a penny.

It is very important to check All Rubber Hoses and Belts

It is so important to make sure that your hoses and belts are not damaged. Inspect for heavy cracks and missing chunks within the hoses.

Your coolant hose needs to be inspected because; it wears from the inside out.

If you are not aware of all the hoses and belts to check then, take it to your personal mechanic for inspection. Inspection should cost you little to nothing depending on the mechanic. Service may be required after inspection.

Brake Systems will need to be checked

Have your car’s brake system checked if you haven’t had it inspected in the previous 6 months. Brakes wear down quickly. It is so important to keep your brakes maintained and serviced before any problem arises. The sooner you find a brake problem the cheaper the problem can be fixed. Brake Inspection should cost you little to nothing depending on the mechanic. Service may be required after inspection.

Pay attention to the warning signs of brake problems. The biggest warning sign will be a warning light.

Make sure that your vehicles Engine Oil and Filter is changed and up to date.

Engine Oil should be changed every 3,000 miles to keep the engine healthy and to prolong its life. Automotive Technicians also check for oil leaks.

Many people are not aware of the importance of following the manufacturer’s recommendation for the weight, grade, and type of oil to use. These are oil weights: 0/30W, 5/30W, 20/50W. Using an incorrect type or weight may invalidate your manufacturer’s warranty and be harmful to your vehicle.

It is important to use High Quality Engine Oil and a High Quality Oil Filter. This will extend the life of your engine and properly keep contaminants out of the engine.

It is a good idea to always replace the drain plug gasket along with the oil and oil filter.

Preparing your Vehicle for the Winter Months

This needs to be done in the fall. Do your studying in the fall as well to see what you need to do then.

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