The Ten Best Laptop bags

by DAVID PHELAN

1 Tumi LXT Achievement [pound]580

Tumi's luxury range is made from durable and lightweight nylon with calf-leather trim. This is fitted with a metal barcoded panel that helps reunite the bag with you if it gets lost.

www.tumi.com; 020-7493 4138

2 Knomo Bungo [pound]154.99

This leather messenger bag fits a 15-inch laptop and has a quilted removable pocket for your computer. It's made of soft leather on the front and strong nylon or canvas on the back.

www.knomobags.com; 08000 437 924

3 Pakuma Akara K1 [pound]49.99

This is good for bigger notebook computers, and will hold a 17- inch laptop in its Cocoon memory-foam protection system. It has an MP3 player pouch with a headphone-out port.

www.pakuma.com; 08708 113 614

4 Acme Made Designer Slim [pound]83.99

The Designer Slim bags from Acme Made are available in more than a dozen patterns. Cute and light, the bags come in three sizes so every laptop is catered for.

www.laptopstuff.co.uk; 08703 892 122

5 Delsey Loading PC Compatible [pound]89

Delsey's computer case has two compartments, expandable from 17 inches to 21 inches in depth. It's light and hard-wearing, and there's padding to protect your laptop as well as straps.

www.delsey.com; 020-8731 3530

6 Knomo Kiki [pound]139.99

Available in red or black, this hide-leather bag is small and light, suitable for 12-inch laptops. It has padded handles and a removable padded, non-slip shoulder strap.

www.knomobags.com; 020-7462 0750

7 Timbuk2 Outtawhack [pound]99.99

Lots of colours to choose from in this tough, cool bag. You can carry it like a briefcase or messenger bag and the laptop compartment (lined with corduroy) has sturdy padding.

www.laptopstuff.co.uk; 08703 892 122

8 Knomo Orkney [pound]184.99

The traditional look of the leather Orkney hides a defiantly modern inner laptop pocket with quilted sides and removable cable pouch. It has pockets for iPod and mobile phone.

www.laptopstuff.co.uk; 08703 892 122

9 Tumi Gen 4 Essential Computer Brief [pound]275

Tumi's bags are solid and light. This one is small enough to fit into an overhead compartment but has plenty of pockets, plus holders for pens, an umbrella, tickets and power cables.

www.tumi.com; 020-7493 4138

10 Mandarina Duck Vaio Shopper [pound]160

Designed to match Sony's collection of adorable coloured laptops, this has a padded neoprene computer pouch perfectly sized to fit the Vaio. A matching purse is part of the deal.

www.selfridges.com; 08708 377 377

The Ten Best is edited by Rebecca Armstrong

How to Successfully Navigate Your Business through an Economic Downturn

by: Terry H Hill

From : http://www.articlecity.com/articles/business_and_finance/article_9810.shtml

An economic downturn is a phase of the business cycle in which the economy as a whole is in decline.This phase basically marks the end of the period of growth in the business cycle. Economic downturns are characterized by decreased levels of consumer purchases (especially of durable goods) and, subsequently, reduced levels of production by businesses.

While economic downturns are admittedly difficult, and are formidable obstacles to small businesses that are trying to survive and grow, an economic downturn can open up opportunities. A well-managed company can realize the opportunity to gain market share by taking customers away from their competitors. Resourceful entrepreneurs capture the available opportunities, from an economic downturn, by developing alternate methods of doing business that were never implemented during a prior growth period.

The challenge of successfully navigating your business through an economic downturn lies in the realignment of your business with current economic realities. Specifically, you, as the business owner, need to renew a focus on your core clients/customers, reduce your operating expenses, conserve cash, and manage more proactively, rather than reactively, is paramount.

Here are best practices that will help you to successfully navigate your business through an economic downturn:

Goals:

The primary goal of any business owner is to survive the current economic downturn and to develop a leaner, more cost-effective and more efficient operation. The secondary goal is to grow the business even during this current economic downturn.

Objectives:

• Conserve cash.

• Protect assets.

• Reduce costs.

• Improve efficiencies.

• Grow customer base.

Required Action:

• Do not panic… History shows that economic downturns do not last forever. Remain calm and act in a rational manner as you refocus your attention on resizing your company to the current economic conditions.

• Focus on what YOU can control… Don’t let the media's rhetoric concerning recessions and economic slowdown deter you from achieving business success. It´s a trap! Why? Because the condition of the economy is beyond your control. Surviving economic downturns requires a focus on what you can control, i.e. your relevant business activities.

• Communicate, communicate, and communicate! Beware of the pitfall of trying to do too much on your own. It is a difficult task indeed to survive and to grow your business solely with your own efforts. Solicit ideas and seek the help of other people (your employees, suppliers, lenders, customers, and advisors). Communicate honestly and consistently. Effective two-way communication is the key.

• Negotiate, negotiate, and negotiate! The value of a strong negotiation skill set cannot be overstated. Negotiating better deals and contracts is an absolute must for realigning and resizing your company to the current economic conditions. The key to success is not only knowing how to develop a win-win approach in negotiations with all parties, but also keeping in mind the fact that you want a favorable outcome for yourself too.

Recommended Best Practice Activities:

The Nuts and Bolts… The following list of recommended best practice activities is critical for your business' survival and for its growth during an economic downturn. The actual financial health of your particular business, at the outset of the economic downturn, will dictate the priority and urgency of the implementation of the following best practice activities.

1. Diligently monitor your cash flow: Forecast your cash flow monthly to ensure that expenses and planned expenditures are in line with accounts receivable. Include cash flow statements into your monthly financial reporting. Project cash requirements three-to- six months in advance. The key is to know how to monitor, protect, control, and put cash to work.

2. Carefully convert your inventories: Convert excess, obsolete, and slow-moving inventory items into cash. Consider returning excess and slow-moving items back to the suppliers. Close-out or inventory reduction sales work well to resize your inventory. Also, consider narrowing your product offerings. Well-timed order placement helps to reduce excess inventory levels and occasional material shortages. The key is to reduce the amount of your inventory without losing sales.

3. Timely collection of your accounts receivable: This asset should be converted to cash as quickly as possible. Offer prompt payment discounts to encourage timely payments. Make changes in the terms of sale for slow paying customers (i.e. changing net 30 day terms to COD). Invoicing is an important part of your cash flow management. The first rule of invoicing is to do it as soon as possible after products are shipped and/or after services are delivered. Place an emphasis on reducing billing errors. Most customers delay payments because an invoice had errors, and therefore, will not pay until they receive a corrected copy. Email or fax your invoices to save on mailing time. Post the payments that you have received and make deposits more frequently. The key is to develop an efficient collection system that generates timely payments and one that gives you advance warning of problems.

4. Re-focus your attention on your existing clients/customers: Make customer satisfaction your priority. A regular review of your customers' buying history and frequency of purchases can reveal some interesting facts about your customers' buying habits. Consider signing long-term contracts with your core clients/customers which will add to your security. Offer a discount for upfront cash payments. The key is to do what it takes to keep your current customers loyal.

5. Re-negotiate with your suppliers, lenders, and landlord:

i) Suppliers: Always keep your negotiations on the level of need, saying that your company has reviewed its cost structure and has determined that it needs to lower supplier costs. . Tell the supplier that you value the relationship you have developed, but that you need to receive a cost reduction immediately. Ask your supplier for a lower material price, a longer payment cycle, and the elimination of finance charges. Also, see if you can buy material from them on a consignment basis. In return for their price concessions, be willing to agree to a long-term contract. Explore the idea of bartering as a form of payment.

ii) Lenders: Everything in business finance is negotiable and your relationship with a bank is no exception. The first step to successful renegotiations is to convince your lenders that you can ultimately pay off the renegotiated loan. You must point out to your lenders why it would be in their best interest to agree to a new arrangement. Showing them your business plan and your action plan that includes your cost-savings initiatives, along with "the how" and "the when" of the implementation of your plan is the best way to achieve this goal. Explain to them that you will need their cooperation to insure that you can survive, as well as, grow your business during the economic downturn. Negotiated items include: the rate of interest, the required security to cover the loan, and the beginning date for repayment. A beginning date for repayment could be immediate, within several months or as long as a year. The key is to realize that your lender will work with you, but that frequent and continual communications with them is critical.

iii) Landlord: Meet with your landlord. Explain your need to have them extend the term of your lease at a reduced cost. Make sure you have a clause in the lease agreement that entitles you to have the right to sublet any or all of the leased space.

6. Re-evaluate your staffing requirements: This is a very critical area. Salaries/wages are a major expense of doing business. Therefore, any reduction in the hours worked through work schedule changes, short-term layoffs or permanent layoffs has an immediate cost saving benefit. Most companies ramped up hiring new employees in the good times, only to find that they are currently overstaffed due to slow sales during the economic downturn. In terms of down-sizing your staff, be very careful not to reduce your staff to a level that forces you to skimp on customer service and quality. Consider the use of part-timers or the current trend of outsourcing certain functions to independent contractors.

7. Shop for better insurances rates: Get quotations from other insurance agents for comparable coverage to determine whether or not your present insurance carrier is competitive. Also, consider revising your coverage to reduce premium costs. The key is to have the right balance-to be adequately insured, but not under or over insured.

8. Re-evaluate your advertising: Contrary to the other cost-cutting initiatives, evaluate the possibility of increasing your advertising expenditures. This tactic realizes the advantage of the reduced "noise" and congestion (fewer advertisers) in the marketplace. The downturn period a great opportunity to increase brand awareness and create additional demand for your product/service offerings.

9. Seek the help of outside advisors: The use of an advisory board comprised of your CPA, attorney, and business consultant offers you objectivity and provides you with professional advice and guidance. Their collective experience in working with similar situations in past economic downturns is invaluable.

10. Review your other expenses: Target an across-the-board cost-cutting initiative of 10-15%. Attempt to eliminate unnecessary expenses. Tightening your belt in order to weather the downturn makes practical, financial sense.

Proactively managing your business through an economic downturn is an enormous challenge and is critical for your survival. However, through well-planned initiatives, an economic downturn can create tremendous opportunity for your company to gain greater market share. In order to take advantage of this growth opportunity, you must act quickly to implement the above best business practices to continue realigning and resizing your company to the current economic conditions.

Copyright © 2008 Terry H. Hill

You may reprint this article free of charge in your newsletter, magazine, or on your website, provided that the article is unedited, and that the copyright, author's bio, and contact information below appears with each article. Articles appearing on the web must provide a hyperlink to the author's web site, http://www.legacyai.com

Terry H. Hill is the founder and managing partner of Legacy Associates, Inc, a business consulting and advisory services firm. A veteran chief executive, Terry works directly with business owners of privately held companies on the issues and challenges that they face in each stage of their business life cycle. To find out how he can help you take your business to the next level, visit his site at http://www.legacyai.com

To download a copy of this article, click on this link: http://www.legacyai.com/Article_Downturn.html.

21 Ways to Make Your Blog or Website Sticky

by Darren Rowse

Does the traffic coming to your site come in a Yo-Yo like cycle of ups and downs that never really seems to go anywhere in the long run?

Yesterday I wrote about a common problem that many bloggers face - spikes of traffic followed by flat-lines and promised a follow up post today on how to break this cycle by building ’sticky’ sites.

My point yesterday was to encourage readers not to see spikes in traffic as the ultimate goal but as a stepping stone to ongoing growth.

What is a ‘Sticky’ Site?

A sticky website is one where a first time reader arrives and finds it difficult to leave.

Not because the site owner captures them in a ‘RickRoll’ or a series of windows asking them if they REALLY want to leave - but because something about the site motivates them to explore it further - and more importantly to make a decision to (and takes some steps to ensure that they) return again to it.

21 Techniques to Make Your Site Sticky

The following 21 techniques are ways that you can make your blog or website more sticky. They come from my own experience of blogging over the last 5 years. As a result of basing this on personal experience I’m going to show you quite a few examples of what I’ve done (after all i know my own sites best). I’d love you to add your tips and show examples of what you’ve done in comments below to make it a more useful resource for readers.

1. Make Your Invitations to Subscribe to your blog Prominent

One of the most important things to do is to have a prominent call to action for readers coming to your blog to subscribe to it.

In fact I’d recommend having more than one invitation - one prominent one above the fold and prominent in your sidebar or navigation area and then a second one below your post. This means that people are triggered to subscribe whether they have just arrived on your blog or if they’ve just finished reading a post (a ‘pause point‘).

This is what I do on my blogs and my tracking shows that both get a fairly even number of people using the two options.

By the way - if you’re not already subscribed to ProBlogger’s RSS feed - here it is!

2. Educate Readers about Your Subscription Methods

One of the most read posts here on ProBlogger is my ‘what is RSS‘ post which I have below my Subscription link. It’s there simply to educate readers on what RSS is and in doing so sell them a way to connect with my blog. Interestingly enough - quite a few other bloggers around the web now link to the page to educate their readers too.

Similarly - I occasionally will write a post on my blogs that invites new readers to subscribe. Sometimes I think we mistakenly assume that all of our readers have been with us for a long time and all know how to use our site - however many of your newer readers might not know the full story.

Here’s one of these posts that I ran on DPS last year. The day after I did this my RSS subscribers jumped considerably. It was just a matter of educating my newer readers of the blog on how they could connect better with it. You’ll also note that at the end of the post I asked readers to let me know how they follow the blog. This was for two reasons:

• Firstly I wanted to involve older readers who already knew all the information in the post. It somehow seemed to make the post more relevant for them as it invited them to participate.

• Secondly it was about social proof and showing newer readers how others used the site. I think the comments section reflected some of this.

3. Good Blog Design

I’ve always believed that a good blog design is an important part of helping readers to decide whether they’re going to hang around and track with your site over the long haul.

Readers make judgements about your site within seconds of arriving at it - if they see something cluttered and confusing they’ll be less likely to want to return.

Good design highlights your content, helps people navigate your site well and creates a good impression - and first impressions matter!

Keep your design simple, familiar and obvious and you’ll be on the road to a sticky site.

PS: A common mistake that I see bloggers making is to crowd out their content with too many ads above the fold. If a reader arrives at your site and has to scroll to see the content you’ll increase the numbers of people who simply hit the ‘back’ button on their browser.

4. On Site Branding

Work hard at building a brand that is attractive and draws people in.

First time readers should know what your blog is about at a first glance. Use your blog’s title, it’s design, taglines, post titles, about pages, logo and navigational elements to communicate what your blog is about.

Also - do something to differentiate the brand of your blog. It could be a logo, image, color scheme, blog name….

5. Make Your Blog Personal

One thing that I’ve seen a number of bloggers do really well over the last year or two is brand themselves well on their blog. While it’s not essential to have a blog that is centered around your personal brand I find that when you do add a personal touch to your blog that it can connect with readers in a powerful way.

The fact is that some readers are more interested in connecting with a person than a collection of content.

Adding your photo, writing in a personal tone, using video/audio and including personal details and stories of how you engage with your topic can give your blog personality which will draw some of your readers into a relationship with you.

6. When you get a rush of traffic to one particular post….

When the spikes in traffic come along you need to be ready to act (and act fast - because they can be momentary).

• Add invitations to subscribe to your feed within your post. Something along the lines of ‘enjoy this post? Get more like it by subscribing to….’ can work really well.
• It can also be worthwhile adding links at the end of your post to ‘further reading’ on posts that are getting lots of reader to them.
• Sometimes when you get a spike it can even be worth writing a ‘welcome’ post. For example if I get a mention in a mainstream media publication that sends significant traffic I’ll often do a post that welcomes people but also gives them a ‘tour’ of the site (example).
• Another clever move is to quickly write up a followup article to the one that is getting all the traffic. For example - if this post suddenly got a burst of traffic I could quickly write a post ‘10 more ways to make your blog sticky’ and then add a link to that post at the end of this one (update: actually I wrote one called 7 more ways to make your blog sticky). This shows readers that you’ve got more to say on your topic than just one post. Every extra page view is a step closer to them subscribing (if the pages they view are good quality).

These ‘hot posts’ are really important to optimize (learn how to optimize popular posts).

7. Get Interactives

Getting someone to DO something on your blog means that they’ve invested something into your blog and increases the likelihood that they’ll return.

Interactive blogs are often also sticky ones. Interaction could include

• Comments
• Competitions
• Polls
• Projects and Memes

As a result it’s worth spending some time Learning how to get readers to comment on your blog - and exploring other ways to make your blog more interactive. Get your readers involved as much as you can!

The other bonus for ‘giveaways’, ’special offers’ and ‘competitions’ is that when you do them regularly some readers will subscribe because they don’t want to miss out on future giveaways. The current competition might not interest them but they sure want to know when you do one in future.

8. Add a ’subscribe to comments’ feature to your blog

This draws those who comment back to continue the conversation and increases the chances of them becoming loyal readers.

You’ll find that only some readers will ever use this - but even if just a few do you’ve had a win.

I have this enabled here at ProBlogger (I don’t have it on by default - those leaving comments have to choose to subscribe because I don’t want to inundate them with comments) and at any given time there are several hundred people subscribed to comments on posts. I use this subscribe to comments plugin to run mine.

PS: just be aware that if you get a lot of unmoderated comment spam it can be a little embarrassing to have this feature - I learned the hard way.

9. Respond to Comments

This is a particularly effective way to draw readers back to your blog - particularly in the early days when you don’t have a lot of readers commenting to follow up.

There are two main ways you can do this:

• respond to comments with comments
• respond to comments with emails to the comment leaver

Showing those that comment on your blog that you’re interacting with them can make a real impression and will often draw them back time and time again.

10. Offer alternative ways to subscribe

Some readers will respond well to your prominent invitation to subscribe via RSS (see #1 above) but others will be more open to connecting in other ways.

I generally offer three subscription methods:

• RSS
• Daily email updates (RSS to Email)
• Weekly newsletter (summary of the blog from the last week plus some exclusive content)

More recently I’ve also been offering readers the ability to track with my blogs via Twitter and send my latest posts to my Twitter account via TweetBurner.

Why so many options? The answer is simply that each reader has their own systems in place to consume content and connect with websites - so offering a variety of methods increases the chances that you’ll be doing something that they are familiar with.

11. Promote social media connecting points

Similarly - some of your readers will respond very well to your invitations to connect on other social media sites.

For example I have some readers on DPS who are Facebook junkies. They refuse to subscribe via RSS or email but religiously read my blog by following my Facebook profile which pulls in my latest posts.

Another small group of readers here at ProBlogger follow this blog through Technorati’s favorites feature. While I prefer to read blogs using an rss reader like Google Reader - their rhythm of reading content revolves around Technorati. As a result I’m happy that I promoted my Technorati profile (you can favorite ProBlogger here).

While you might not see the sense in people following your blog in some of these social media sites others do and at the very least promoting them can potentially reinforce your brand.

12. Highlight Your Best Content

A great way to convince readers to become loyal is to get them reading more than one of your posts (especially if they are your best posts). You can do this by linking to other posts within your content but also suggesting further reading and ‘best of’ posts around your blog.

For example - here at ProBlogger on my front page the ‘best of ProBlogger’ section is one of the most clicked upon parts of my site. This small section of the site sends people deep within the blog to some of my best work - hopefully resulting in quite a few new loyal readers.

At DPS I have a small section on my sidebar called ‘Digital Photography Tips’ which is a list of ‘sneeze pages‘ (or compilation pages of my best posts in certain categories). Again - these are there simply to draw people deep into the site and get them viewing some of the best the site has to offer (and hopefully to convince them to subscribe).

13. Create Momentum With Your Content

When you give readers a sense that you’re creating more content that they’ll want to read you give them a reason to subscribe.

For example when a reader reads the first part of a series of posts on a topic that they find useful you can count on them wanting to read the rest.

I wrote about this in a post on creating a sense of anticipation on your blog.

14. Consider Removing Dates on Old Posts

This one could be a little controversial but I find that when old posts are not dated that it doesn’t create a ‘oh this is old’ type reaction in your readers.

I’ve seen this numerous times here on ProBlogger where posts written back in 2005 have attracted comments like ‘this is old’ or ‘out of date tips’ - even when the content has been of a ‘timeless’ or evergreen nature.

Personally I think that you should consider the type of blog you have before doing this. For me it works on DPS where I’ve never had dates on posts - but not here at ProBlogger where I have a topic that is more time specific (I’ll write more on this topic in coming days).

15. Give Incentive to Subscribe

Over the last few days I’ve had a small competition going on Digital Photography School where I’m giving 3 subscribers to my newsletter there a copy of a great photography book.

1500 new subscribers later (and counting that small incentive is one of the best $50 I’ve ever spent.

Give away a book, free ebook or report, download or some other incentive to those subscribing to your blog’s feed or newsletter and you could give some readers the little extra incentive to connect that they needed.

It need not be anything expensive (or that costs you anything at all) - just make it a small bonus and see what impact that might have.

16. Keep Posting Frequency Up

One thing that I do as a blog reader deciding whether I’ll subscribe to a blog or not is to head to the home page and see how often they’ve updated recently.

There’s nothing more frustrating as a reader than to find some great content and be hungry for more only to find that the blogger hasn’t update in 3 months.

I don’t think you need to update every day - but something in the last week shows that your blog is up to date. You can also highlight this by showing your most recent posts somewhere in your sidebar.

17. Create an Engaging About Page

Another thing that I often do when I go to a new blog is to look at it’s ‘about page‘.

I like to know who is behind a blog, what their goals for it are, how it started and other information about what the blogger is on about.

This is an opportunity to sell your blog to and make a connection with prospective readers who are going out of their way to find out more about you - so use it to tell your story and draw readers in to journey with you.

PS: whatever you do - don’t let your about page be the default about page that comes with your blog.

18. Add a Community Area or Forum

One of the best things that I ever did with my photography site was to add a forum.

I cannot express to you just how sticky that area of DPS is!

While readers come to the blog once a day to read new content - some of them come to the forum ALL DAY - racking up literally hundreds of page views a week.

Forums won’t attract all of your readers (I suspect they attract some personality types and not others) - but they will connect with some and help make your site a lot stickier.

19. Social Proof

Does your blog have readers already? If so (and even if it’s just a few) highlight this in any way that you can and you’ll show other first timers that they’re not the only one reading your blog.

People attract people and a site that is obviously being read by others will draw others into it.

This can be difficult in the early days of a blog when you don’t have a lot of activity - but as it builds show it off.

Highlight new comments, show subscriber numbers when you have them, quote readers comments, find a way to slip your stats into a post occassionally etc.

It’s a bit of a snowball effect - once you have readers they’ll bring others in.

One thing that I occassionally do at DPS on my subscribe page (a page dedicated to talking readers through 3 subscription options) is to not only highlight the options but to tell people how many people are using them. In this way those considering subscribing get a sense that they’re actually becoming a part of something that has momentum and thousands of others joining.

20. Target Readers with Specific Messages

Here are a few tools and plugins out there that enable you to present specific messages to certain readers coming to your blog based upon where they’ve arrived from and if they’ve been to your blog before.

• LandingSites is a WP plugin that shows readers arriving from search engines related posts on the search term that they’ve searched for.
• What Would Seth Godin Do is a plugin that welcomes new readers to your blog with a special message and invitation to subcribe.

Got any other plugins and tools for targeting readers with specific messages? Feel free to share them in comments below.

21. Sticky Content

Lastly (and most importantly in my mind) - the key to sticky sites is sticky content.

You can have the best designed site in the world with lots of the above features - but unless readers who come to it find something that connects and brings them life in some way - you’re unlikely to get them back tomorrow.

Writing engaging content needs to be your number one Priority.

What Have I Missed?

As I wrote this list the ideas just kept coming (I originally set out to write a list of 10 points… then 20…. then I just had to slip in one more) - but I’m sure there is more to say on the topic of sticky sites.

What would you add? What have you done on your site to add stickiness?

Looking forward to hearing your ideas in comments below.

PS: Welcome to StumbleUpon readers

This post has gone crazy on StumbleUpon today. If you’ve surfed in from there thanks for dropping by. If you’ve found this post helpful I’d appreciate you stumbling it. You might also find future posts on ProBlogger helpful - so don’t forget to subscribe (you know I had to do that on a post like this!)

Lastly - this post has led to some great conversation in comments below which has triggered a lot of other ideas for creating sticky blogs in my mind - so I’ve written a followup post - 7 More ways to make your blog sticky.

8 steps to a more professional Blogspot blog

by Brad Linder

So you want to start your own blog. One of the first things you'll have to do is decide which blogging application you want to use. There are a ton of options, ranging from the incredibly simple (LiveJournal), to the infinitely customizable (WordPress). But one of the easiest blogging clients around is Google's Blogger.

Blogger is not as easy to customize as WordPress, but Blogger's simplicity also makes the process of setting up a blog a lot less daunting. You can literally start blogging within minutes of signing up for a Blogger account. Google will also host your blog for free, which means you don't need to pay for domain registration or web hosting. WordPress does also offer free hosting, but WordPress doesn't allow free account holders to include advertising. Blogger does. So if you have dreams of quitting your day job, but don't want to pay a few bucks a month for web hosting, Blogger provides a good way to test the waters.

But while Google offers a handful of widgets for customizing your blog, if you really want to make your web site your own, you're going to have to get your hands dirty editing your blog template and adding some HTML and JavaScript code. Fortunately, you don't have to know much about HTML or CSS to implement the tweaks in this guide. As long as you're handy with the copy and paste keys, you should be all set. So let's get started.

Back up your work

Before you start editing your template, it's probably a good idea to save a backup.

1. Enter Blogger's Layout menu
2. Select the "Edit HTML" tab
3. Click the button that says "Download Full Template"
4. Save this XML file somewhere you won't lose it. You can use it to restore your old template if things go horribly wrong.

While we're talking about backup, now is as good a time as any to mention two services that will let you create regular backups of all the content on your blog. BlogBackupOnline is an online service that will scan your site once a day and save a copy of every blog post and image. Free account holders can save up to 5MB, which should be enough for a few hundred blog posts, while more advanced users can pay for additional storage. If you'd rather download and save your data to your desktop, you might want to check out Blogger Backup, a desktop application for Windows.

Eliminate the navigational toolbar

One thing that sets Blogger apart from many other blogging services is the toolbar that is displayed at the top of most blogs hosted on Blogger. Some uses like this toolbar as it includes a site search feature and it lets users find random blogs in StumbleUpon-like fashion by clicking the "Next Blog" button. But it also takes up valuable screen real estate and leaves that nasty taste in your mouth that comes with knowing you don't have complete control over your own blog. So here's a tip from Digital Inspiration that will let you remove it:

1. Navigate to the Edit HTML tab in the Layout menu.
2. Enter the following text pretty much anywhere in your template (as long as it's in between other elements) and then click "Save Template":
   

#navbar-iframe {
height:0px;
visibility:hidden;
display:none;
}

Next time you load your blog, the Navbar should be gone.

Change your label list into a tag cloud

Blogger lets you add labels (the rest of the world calls these tags) to your posts. And you can display a list of labels in your blog sidebar. But if you like to tag liberally, after a few months of blogging, there's a good chance your list of labels will be about a mile long. One solution is to replace your label list with a label cloud.

This hack from phydeaux3 will display a list of frequently used labels on your site. If the list is too long, you can choose only to display labels that are used more than once, twice, or whatever other number floats your boat. Labels that are used more frequently will be displayed with a larger font, while less frequently used labels will take up less space. And of course, any time a visitor clicks on a label, they'll be taken to a page filled with relevant articles.

Add a contact box and About Me page

While Blogger includes an "About Me" module, when visitors click on it they're taken to your Blogger.com profile page. Wouldn't you rather have more control over your About Me page? Here's a little trick: Just write a blog post describing yourself and set the publication date to yesterday, or better yet, a few years ago. That way it will be buried by newer posts and won't wind up on your front page.

Now you can just add a new HTML box to your sidebar with a link to your new About Me Page. You can create a text-based link by modifying this link: about me.

Using the same method, you can add a contact box using a service like Contactify. Contactify presents you with some HTML that you can paste into a blog post to bring up a contact box. Visitors can send you an email message without every seeing your actual email address, which helps cut down on junk mail.

Place ads and other content between posts

Google makes it extraordinarily easy to place Google AdSense advertisements in between posts. Just go to the Layout menu and click the "Edit" button in the "Blog Posts" box and check the "Show Ads Between Posts" box. But what if you want to show ads from another network or some other content in between posts on yourou main page?

In order to do that, you need to go back into your template and check the "Expand Widget Templates" box. Now find the line that reads "

" If you add the HTML code for your ad or other content here, it should pop up in between each post on the main page.

If you get an error message, it's possible that Blogger doesn't like the HTML code, but you can probably solve this problem by parsing your code and translating it into a format Blogger will recognize. Fortunately, there's no need to do this by hand. You can use the Parse HTML tool provided by BlogCrowds. Just copy and paste the code you get from your advertising network into the tool and it will spit out a version of the code that should fit comfortably into your Blogger template.

Blogger in Draft: Try out Blogger's beta features

If you're looking for a few items that will spice up your blog but you don't want to fiddle around with HTML, here's a neat little trick. Instead of logging into the Blogger dashboard at www.blogger.com, try draft.blogger.com. When you go to add new page elements, you'll notice you probably have a few more options than you saw in the main Blogger dashboard.

Blogger in Draft is where Google lets users test out widgets and tools that might not be ready for widespread use. After a while, many of these widgets will probably be available in the main dashboard. But some of the most useful widgets and tools made their first appearance in Blogger in Draft.

Right now, Blogger in Draft users can add Google Gadgets, a Blog List, or a new improved search box to their blogs. There's also a tool that lets readers choose the feed reader they want to use to subscribe to your blog's feed.

Choose a new template

You can use the tools above to change the look and feel of the sidebars. And you can use Blogger's Fonts and Colors editor to change the basic look and feel of your chosen template. But if you're not happy with the templates Google provides, there are hundreds if not thousands of other templates available for free. These third party templates are often more attractive than the default templates, and help keep your readers from realizing they're visiting a Google hosted blog. Oh, and Google doesn't offer three column templates.

If you know what you're doing, it's not hard to modify these templates to do things like move the sidebar from the right side of the page to the left, or change the images atop the page. Here are a few sites where you can find some excellent templates:

• Blogger Buster
• FinalSense
• Blogger Templates
• Blogspot Templates
• Gecko & Fly
• Mashable: 50 Beautiful Blogger Templates

Keep in mind that changing templates will most likely cause issues with your widget layout. So it's best to find a good template before you start designing your blog, or while you're still experimenting with your overall layout.

Register a domain name

Now you know how to make your blog pretty, but there's one more ugly spot you might want to address. The URL bar. Myblog.blogspot.com just never seems quite as professional as myblog.com. Fortunately, you can register a domain name for just a few bucks per year, and Google will continue to handle all of your hosting fees.

Google makes it easy to publish your blog to a custom domain name. Just click the "Settings" tab in the Blogger Dashboard, and then click on "Publishing." Next, click the link that says "Custom Domain," and you can either purchase a domain from GoDaddy or enter the name of a domain you have already registered.

Now you can publish your blog to a custom domain for $10 per year or less. Next time your friends start telling you how much cooler WordPress is, throw that in their face.

How I Became a Professional Blogger

By Yehuda

From

http://jergames.blogspot.com/2007/06/how-i-became-professional-blogger.html

I didn't really plan it, but I dreamed it.

1. First of all, when I started blogging I knew I had something to offer. One of my strengths is the ability to come up with new and creative ideas. Sometimes what I come up with falls flat, but I always have another three or four ideas waiting as a follow up.

Everyone has something to offer about something. Whatever you are good at or know about, other people will be interested in it. Worst comes to worst, by blogging you'll be practicing your writing and organizational skills. Even if you just do it for fun, like most people.

2. I picked a subject that I'm passionate about to begin with. I really do play games, and I really do evangelize about them. And I really believe the things I write about (at least at the time that I write them).

3. I wasn't afraid of failing, because I started from nothing: no audience, no readers, nothing to lose. When I got some readers, I thought: well, the worst that can happen is that I post something lame or offensive and I lose them all. In which case I'm no worse off then when I started.

4. I have lots of dreams, and only so much time to devote to them. In order to succeed with this one, it was necessary that I made blogging a daily priority. Especially at the beginning, when I didn't necessarily have anything to write, I wrote anyway. I scoured news and web sites. I made it a point of writing every day (at first, three times a week), regardless. Often, usually, about halfway through writing something, I realized that I finally had something to say. I then erased everything I had written and started over.

Sometimes the ideas only start flowing after the pen hits the paper; most people want it to be the other way around, but this doesn't work for me.

5. Since I wasn't getting paid for this, I had to justify the time spent to myself, to my wife and family. I had to fight adversity and answer questions like "why am I playing around on the computer?" Because I am laying the groundwork. I am spending the time now to get better at it, until one day I may be in a position that I will have enough experience and enough traffic, or be offered a blog position, so that I can quit my other jobs.

In the meantime, the time spent is no more wasteful than the time spent in school that you don't get paid for. It's education. It's experience. It's building habits and working through errors. Especially getting those errors out before I have a big readership, when failure becomes a bigger problem.

It was also a commitment; because even if only one other person is expecting me to write something, I feel a need to write for that person, money or no money.

6. I turned to the professionals: Problogger, Performancing, Gaping Void, Seth Godin, Copyblogger, Kathy Sierra, and so on. Some of these are specifically about blogging, while the others are about branding. Both are key. Professional blogging sites help you with the technical stuff: how to be a good blog citizen, how to network, how to optimize, how to write content in attractive ways. Branding/Marketing sites help you identify what you have to offer, how to connect to what people like to read, and how to tap into the creative process. There's an overlap between the two, of course.

7. Not only did I find myself in a good niche (board gaming), but I found things that weren't being covered in my niche and covered them. There are blogs with session reports and reviews about Eurogames, war games, Go and Chess, but basically none that cover all board gaming - which, by the way, is my interest. I collect and report on daily gaming news that nobody else reports. I cover game patents because nobody else does them. I write game poetry because, um, I'm crazy (but I like to do it, and few others do). I maintain an up-to-date blogroll like no one else does.

I also branched out into a few other subjects, when I found myself with something particularly unique or interesting to say (well, at least something that I found interesting, anyway).

8. Any person who has played a negotiation or trading game can tell you that you have to trade promiscuously to win. As such, I am promiscuous with my links. I link to all the hundreds of people that I love and read. If only 10% of them link back to me, thats still hundreds of people with one link (from me), and dozens of links back for me.

9. I maintained focus on my readers. I don't write for transient hits from Google or Digg. Not that I reject them, but I don't make that my focus. If my post isn't good enough for the regular readers, it's not good enough. On the other hand, my regular readers do get a wide range of topics covered.

I RSS full feed. Anyone who subscribes to my feed doesn't have to jump through hoops to get my content. I can count on them coming to my site a few times a year at the very least, which is a heck of a lot more than the other billion people on the internet. I'm not going to purposely annoy them.

I try not to annoy my readers with ads. I played around with ads and rejected most of them because they would annoy me if I went to read the site. I use only a small ad on the top. I use affiliate links to sites where I would also buy products, and which don't pop-up or interfere with the flow of text. I began writing reviews only of sites that I thought contained at least something that I would be interested in, anyway (and rejected many others).

Yes, it's a little extra work to tune ads properly and add all the affiliate links in my posts, but I got used to it. With little exception, I don't think I've annoyed my readers too much.

10. After I had experience in blogging - three years, now - I looked for the opportunities. There are blog positions advertised online, and there are companies that looked like they could use blogging help.

A. The direct results:

By post number 1000, I had made $75, which I gave back to my readers in the form of games. I'm now up to around $50 a month in Text Link Ads ($35), Google Ad-Sense ($12), and Amazon ($3).

Not very impressive, I admit. However ...

B. The indirect results:

I landed a professional blogging position at a company. I went in for a programming position and offered instead to be their company blogger. And they accepted.

I have had a game published by a publisher who is one my readers.

I've received dozens of free games to review.

My writing is getting better all the time.

I know hundreds of great people around the world.

I've had articles published in professional journals around the world. I've even been interviewed a few times on various subjects.

I know a lot about my field and interest.

I'm enjoying myself.

C. Will I ever run out of things to blog about?

Blogging is now easier than ever. Where I once scrounged for topics, I now have to hold back from writing too much every day.

- I have played 250 games and have only reviewed 50 of them.
- I can compare any two games
- I can review and compare game genres
- I can write about gaming in every country, city, religion, or culture
- I can pick any topic and write about the games that concern that topic (I did Zebra games, once, as an example)
- I can find thousands of unusual games any day on eBay
- I can write about other game blogs and websites
- I can respond to articles on these sites
- I have thousands of game books to read and review
- Each of them covering topics in intelligence, theory, culture, history, fun, tactics, and so on, all of which I can also write about
- And that's off the top of my head, and doesn't include keeping up with game news and patents and the games that I play and design
- And so on

And you can do it to, if you really want to.

Yehuda

5 Easy Steps to Recover Data From a Hard Drive

By Zach Schapel
From
http://ezinearticles.com/?5-Easy-Steps-to-Recover-Data-From-a-Hard-Drive&id=1329279

So the worst possible scenario has occurred and you cannot access the valuable information on your hard drive or other media storage device. Whether it is due to an electrical shortage, mechanical malfunction, or accidental deletion, the files are gone and days, months, or even years of work are gone. Sometimes, the cost to replace or duplicate these files may cost thousands of hours in time and labor. In the case of photos and pictures, often the files are irreplaceable whether they are family photos, or a special vacation trip. With the advent of the digital age, businesses can also experience data losses that will end up costing hundreds of thousands of dollars if not recovered properly.

There are several steps to take in order to make sure that the drive or storage medium has the highest chance of data recovery:

• Turn off computer or media device, and make sure power is not flowing into the hard drive. Further damage can result if power is applied to the drive, and it is best to reduce any further risk of data loss.
• Do not run the drive or use any diagnostics tools on the hard drive. Data recovery has the best possible chance of success when the drive is completely untouched. Running software on the drive can be helpful, but only in specific situations. Data recovery software on an un-diagnosed hard drive is excessively risky when you do not know the nature of the problem.
• Avoid abusing the hard-drive especially if there are unnatural mechanical noises emanating from the drive. For many the first instinct to fix a drive is to give it a good tap and help it back into operation. While this might seem like a harmless quick fix the ramifications can often be disastrous. The internal components of a hard drive have very close tolerances and while the exterior may appear durable the inside is actually very delicate. A small jolt can cause severe alignment problems resulting in damage to almost every disk.
• Do not open or dismantle your hard drive. Opening your hard drive will only increase the chance of further damage and will also void the original manufacturer's warranty. Manufacturers recommend opening and dismantling hard drives with specialized equipment and in a 'clean room' environment by trained technicians only.
• Ship the drive to a qualified data recovery service inside an anti-static bag. Make sure to cushion the shipping box with at least 3 inches of padding on each side of the drive. This will avoid any unnecessary jolts and damage during shipping. Using an expedited form of shipping will also increase the chances of recovery success, because priority packages typically receive slightly better handling.

If the above steps are followed closely you are well on your way to having the best possible chance at data recovery. Expert recovery technicians are very pleased to see a drive that has been cared for using the instructions illustrated above. Typically the only data that is unrecoverable is data from drives that have been damaged in attempted recoveries by unqualified individuals or software. Use the utmost care with your drive and the data will have the highest possible chance of recovery.

Fuel your workout: exercisers who eat before they work out have more energy and stand to burn more fat

By :Daryn Eller
From http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0KGB/is_1_5/ai_n6097710?tag=content;col1

eVERY MORNING, NOON AND NIGHT, in gyms across America, you can hear the sound of a low but persistent rumble. Listen carefully and, in between the whir of the treadmill and the clank of weight plates, your ears will pick it up: the clamor of empty stomachs crying out for food.

Some people just don't have time to eat in reasonable proximity to their workout, but others deliberately go without food. "One client told me she believed she'd burn more fat by exercising on an empty stomach," reports Anne-Marie Nocton, RD, a sports nutritionist in Knoxville, Tenn. "Her reasoning was that if no food was available for fuel, her body would tap into its fat reserves."

Well, yes ... but there's a whole lot more to the story than that. As it turns out, if your goal is to maximize your workout and get (or maintain) a lean body, eating, not starving, is your best strategy. Here's what you need to know to prevent the empty stomach blues.

HOW FOOD FUELS YOU

Although your body burns some stored fat when you exercise, its main fuel is carbohydrate that's been stored in the muscles and liver in the form of glycogen. When your glycogen stores are depleted, your body will indeed tap more of its fat reserves, just as Nocton's client anticipated--but at what price? Without readily available fuel, you're not likely to feel too energetic. "And you won't burn more of anything if you can't muster the enthusiasm to master your toughest sets," says Nocton. "On the other hand, if you eat before exercise, whether it's a large meal several hours in advance or a small snack only minutes ahead of time, you'll have the extra oomph you need for an energetic and effective workout."

Here's the reason: Before carbohydrate is tucked away in your muscles and liver as glycogen, it enters your bloodstream in the form of glucose (also called blood sugar), a readily available source of energy that helps perk you up when you're feeling hungry and fatigued. If the glycogen stored in your muscles and liver is low, your body can rely on glucose for fuel; if you already have a fair amount of stored glycogen, your body will use the glucose as a secondary source of energy and spare the glycogen. "It means that you have two sources of fuel as opposed to one, so you can last a lot longer," says Jackie Berning, RD, a sports nutritionist and assistant professor in the department of biology at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.

Something else you should consider is that the muscles and liver can only store so much glycogen. It's important to "top off" your reserves fairly often, even if you haven't been doing much: During a long night's sleep, the body depletes as much as 80 percent of the glycogen stored in the liver. "That's why eating a little something before you exercise in the morning can really help," says Nocton. Moreover, it doesn't take long to deplete stored glycogen during exercise, and it gets used up even faster when the weather is warm. "If you're playing an intense tennis match without having eaten and it's warm outside, it may take only 30 to 40 minutes before you deplete your glycogen," says Berning. Eating before a match will not only help you last a lot longer, it will also help settle the gastric juices that make your stomach growl and ward off the feelings of lightheadness and fatigue that can make it difficult to perform well.

WHAT TO EAT WHEN

Naturally, the fact that you shouldn't exercise on an empty stomach doesn't mean that you should eat a three-course meal 10 minutes before hitting the gym. In general, the closer you get to your workout start time, the fewer calories you should eat. The nutrients that make up those calories should also shift. Because it takes the body four to six hours to digest fat, about three hours to digest protein and about two hours to digest carbohydrates, it's important to winnow down the protein and fat content of your meal or snack as you get closer to exercise. "You're not going to want to eat a plate of french fries two hours before working out, because the blood is going to rush to your stomach to digest that while it's also trying to rush to your exercising muscles," says Berning. "In the end, it doesn't do a very good job of either one."

So, here are a few rules of thumb to follow: If your workout is four hours away, eat a regular meal that combines protein, fat and carbohydrates, then have a small carbohydrate-rich snack closer to your exercise session to tide you over. Three hours before working out, make it a smaller meal and lighten up a bit on the protein and fat. Thirty to 90 minutes before exercise, have a snack of easily digested carbohydrates (see below). If you only have the 15 minutes between, say, leaving your office and hitting the gym to grab something, go for a sports drink or a few Saltines. Also keep in mind that while eating high-fiber foods is important for good health, they're best eaten after or long before exercise, since they can cause bloating and other annoyances that will make you feel uncomfortable when working out.

Finally, be aware that finding what works perfectly for you might take some trial and error. Some people find that certain foods and beverages eaten close to exercise are troublesome, while others find that they can eat a big meal and work out an hour later with no problem at all. So do a little experimenting, but at least (and we hate to sound like your mother) eat something!

RELATED ARTICLE: ENERGY ENHANCERS

PRE-EXERCISE NIBBLES TO KEEP YOU FROM RUNNING ON EMPTY

Depending on what time of day you'll be working out, consider these small snacks, which can be eaten 30 to 90 minutes before exercise (or closer if you can stomach it).

MORNING EXERCISERS

* 6 ounces orange juice

* 1 small banana

* Toasted English muffin spread with 2 tsp. strawberry jam

* 1 cup nonfat or low-fat yogurt

AFTERNOON EXERCISERS

* 8-ounce fruit smoothie

* 12-ounce nonfat latte

* Small chocolate biscotti

* 1 ounce Goldfish crackers

EVENING EXERCISERS

* 4 cinnamon graham cracker squares

* 8 animal crackers

* 6 ounces chocolate soymilk

* 1 ounce baked potato or tortilla chips

Few steps for SEO oriented web design and web development

by Manu Rana
From
http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=1010550

This article tells you information about various tips and steps for seo oriented web design. After reading this article you would be able to find some of the best online solution for web design and seo services compatibility. Here is some important steps for seo oriented web design. 1. Quality Content - Search engine spiders, crawl the net to find - Content! Website has information that owner want the spiders to see and include in their index. By the creation and publication of quality content, can give the search engines more reason to return. Anyone should be finding creative ways to get content noticed and viewed as well as finding creative ways to publish fresh content on a regular basis. 2. Images Size - Image size is another important thing to design a SEO Oriented website. Choose a shorter sized image whenever an image needed so it will not take more time to browse a website. 3. Meta Tags - Choose appropriate Title, Description and Keywords according to content of that web page. 4. Avoid Flash and JavaScript - Problem with the two technologies is that the spiders can't index through them because these take long time to browse a website. Avoid or limit use of these technologies. 5. Articles - Use article content that will not be similar with other website content. It will harmful for business purpose website. 6. Heading tags - Heading tags from H1 to H2 having importance, most of search engine spider can easily index content of web page that having appropriate heading tags. 7. Bold or Italic keyword - Choose important keyword or links or content of a page as bold or italic or emphasized. 8. Anchor tags - Choose anchor tag for particular outbound or inbound links from a web page. 9. Alt tag for image - Use alt tags and title tag for images that is like as description of a image. 10. Link Exchange - Back links are a popular way to increase your rankings fast in the search engines. There are two types of links in SEO Services in India a) Reciprocal Link Exchange In reciprocal link Exchange if any one webmaster will give a link from his site to other site then other webmaster have a responsibility to give a back link from website link pages. Give a hypertext for links pages from web site's home page so links can be easily reciprocate from those links pages. b) Non Reciprocal Link Exchange In Non Reciprocal link Exchange there is no need to give a link back to a site in response to his link.

Ways to Reduce High Cholesterol

From
http://www.articlespad.com/ways-to-reduce-high-cholesterol/

There are several ways that you can reduce your high cholesterol. First of all, being aware of your cholesterol intake is very important. Some want to make themselves aware and then there are those who really don’t care and they continue to eat whatever.

If you are one of those who have the desire to lower your cholesterol, you may do so by modifying your diet as the first resort. There are things that you can do to reduce your cholesterol and one of them is to cut back on the dairy products. This is a sure way to keep your body staying fit and the cholesterol down.

How does a bowl of oatmeal sound? There are wholegrains that are not only essential for you but may also help keep your cholesterol level lowered.

Like to fry a lot of foods. There are also ways that you can reduce your cholesterol level by cooking with oils such as canola oil and also olive oil. They may be a little more expensive but it is definitely the way to fry those foods that you like to fry so much.
You may also consider exercising as another way to reduce the cholesterol in your diet. There are cardio exercises that you may do that will reduce the cholesterol in your blood as well. Brisk walking and jogging are considered to be good cardio exercises. There are many other exercises that you may consider as well.

Of course, there is medication. You can choose to take medication and you can choose not to. It is all up to you. There are natural alternatives as well. There are foods that you can eat that will reduce your cholesterol level. There are ways that you can reduce your cholesterol levels by eating good healthy foods.

With all of the ways to improve your cholesterol levels, there are more then one ways to do it. It is all in what you eat and what you decide to do as far as exercising and reducing the cholesterol in your blood.

All About Beautiful Nails

From
http://www.website-articles.net/Article/All-About-Beautiful-Nails/28007

Only if you take proper care of your nails will they look good. To keep your nails healthy and good all the time you will have to work hard on them. While at home, you can use a nail file, which is available in different sizes, shapes and designs.

To make your nails look beautiful, you can apply nail polish or use art nails. Art nails are basically fake nails that you can stick on your nail. Art nails are available in hundreds of designs and colors. You can choose from a floral design to a silvery tattoo design. You can even wear art nails that match with different dresses. As for nail polish, they are available in hundreds of colors and great shades. You can find every color from red to navy blue to even black. You can also find nail polish in glossy colors or with matte finish. One of the salient points of nail polish is that it can hide any flaw in your nail and at the same time provide a protective cover.

One of the most common types of nail polish is the base coat, which will prepare your nails for the actual solid color nail polish. The base coat will also protect your nails from getting discolored due to a color nail polish. The top coat of a nail polish also known as the clear coat is normally used on dry nail polish for protecting and hardening the color. It will protect the color from chipping off.

Tips for keeping your nails in great condition

How do you get really stunning nails? Well! There is no magic involved. Here are a few tips that will help you to keep your nails in good shape and they will look great too:

• You can apply some nail varnish remover just prior to coloring your nails. You can use the varnish even if you don't need to remove your old polish. The main function of the varnish is that it will make your nails look better by removing any kind of dirt or grease. This will also help the nail polish to last longer and not ship off.
• French manicure is considered as the best treatment for your nails. There are times when you might have problems in achieving the right and the most perfect type of French manicure. In such a scenario what you can really do is use a white nail pencil just underneath your nail tip instead of the white polish you have been using so far. This will make your French manicure much easier.
• Always ensure that the waiting time after application of a nail varnish is long so that each layer gets enough time to dry. This will also ensure that you get a lasting finish.
• To remove excess nail varnish, always use a cotton bud to remove it from the top of the bottle. This will basically prevent the nail varnish bottle from getting glued shut
• There is several beauty and cosmetic companies that sell nail polish with matching lip stick colors too. Using the same color on your nails as is the color of your lipstick will definitely enhance your overall appearance. Alternatively, you can even use nail colors that are in contrast with the lip stick colors.
• It is always better to apply numerous thin color coats as compared to a single coat of thick color. Numerous thin coats mean that the nail polish will last longer.
• Avoid removing and then reapplying nail polish more than twice a week. If you remove and apply nail polish thrice or 4 times a week then it will make your nails dry. You can get a remover that has a built-in moisturizer so that you can protect your nails from drying.
• You should give your hand and fingers a little massage from time to time so that the blood circulation is maintained. Good blood circulation means that there will be good nail growth.
• The simplest is the solid color manicure. It employs the use of mild solid nail colors and basic neutrals.

The most important thing is that you should eat healthy so that the color of your nails become yellowish. As long as you maintain a healthy diet with lots of vegetables and fruits, your nails will look beautiful, healthy and will have a pink tinge to it. To make your style statement bolder, you can wear a different color on your finger nails as compared to your toe nails. At the end of the day, coloring your nails is just another way of pampering your self.

Not Setting Rules and Boundaries - Biggest Relationship-Dating Mistakes Part Three

By Alex Anderson
from :
http://ezinearticles.com/?Not-Setting-Rules-and-Boundaries---Biggest-Relationship-Dating-Mistakes-Part-Three&id=1321580

I know what you are thinking, you aren't her father so why do you need rules and boundaries? No you won't be playing the role of daddy. Playing dad to her is the last place that you want to be because all daughters rebel against their fathers.

"People treat you the way you train them to"

Ever have a friend that was too nice and as a result people walked all over them? Think about how those same people treated you. Unless you are the nice guy who is a human doormat, they treated you much differently because you have self respect and a back bone. Even though the people were the same, the way that they treated you is different because you trained them to treat you that way.

Creating rules in which to adhere by is all about self respect and love. You tell them what is and what is not acceptable when they interact with you, not only for women but for everyone.

With women it WILL create a lot of attraction. Without rules the attraction will be KILLED and she will make your life a living hell. Some might do it for the former reason but it's not wise to use it as an attraction technique because it won't be congruent. You will be putting on a fake mask of masculinity and will attract women who will put on a fake mask of femininity. The women that pretend to be feminine and are really just masculine have deep control issues. Since you are just pretending to be masculine by having rules for attraction she will control and dominate you.

Your reason for doing this should be the latter, to keep your life peaceful. It should be for your own self respect and sanity, NOT just to get her panties wet.

I am a really simple person with simple needs. I desire for my life to be as peaceful and calm as it can be. Right now my life is pretty peaceful and setting rules for how people should treat me has made this possible.

I have heard some horror stories from guys that let a woman do whatever they want and never tell her what is and is not acceptable.

To effectively have rules and boundaries you must NOT fear losing that person. When you fear losing someone because you feel like you need that person in some way you will only go so far before caving and giving in. When this moment happens, they will know your tipping point and know that they can do whatever they want and you will still stay with them.

By not staying strong and getting rid of the person when they can't treat you with respect will cause them to lose trust in you, especially with women. She will feel like you were lying to her before when you told her that xyz behavior wasn't acceptable. She now knows that you aren't strong enough to keep to your guns. She can no longer rely on you to be strong and has no choice but to pull away and lose attraction.

Get over your fear of losing that person. When you transition from being a doormat to someone with a pair you WILL lose people in your life. They will tell you that you have changed or are weird but its all bs. They are just upset at their inability to control their little whipping boy because the ego loves nothing more than to feel like it can control others.

"but isn't that manipulative and controlling"

Setting rules and boundaries is simply being HONEST. When she decides to flirt with your best friend, on the inside you HATE it but you don't do anything about it. Why? Because you don't want to lose her. You are selling out your integrity and honesty in order to keep someone around. You are lying about your real desire (her to not flirt with your best friend) to get what you want- that's manipulation.

Why should I set rules and boundaries?

"Whenever we give our power away to others and take crap from them, it closes our hearts and causes us to pull back. It's painful to be open with someone and have them take advantage of us or treat us not so nicely."

When you don't own your strength by setting rules your heart closes, making it harder to forgive and love people. Whenever a person disrespects you or gets away with a little too much and you do nothing about it your self esteem WILL DROP. You put up with the crap because you didn't love yourself enough to not let people treat you that way.

It becomes a catch 22 situation because you need that self esteem in order to have the energy to set and "enforce" those rules but your self esteem drops every time that you don't. Eventually you just don't have the energy to do anything about it.

You also lose trust in yourself and in others. You lose trust in others because you don't trust yourself enough to not take crap and not get taken advantaged of by people. As a result you keep people at a distance in order to NOT get hurt again or not feel like a fool for giving away your power.

The whole point of a relationship is to be open and close with someone, to grow and trust each other and to love one another. None of this can be done if you don't trust yourself enough to know that you wont let anyone mess with your heart.

She wont be able to trust you because how can anyone trust someone who is weak and lets them do whatever they want? They let other people walk all over them without an ounce of respect.

People ONLY respect those that respect themselves.

Without the trust that comes by having self respect she will have no choice but to keep her distance. She can't open up to someone won't be strong enough to protect her when she is vulnerable after opening up.

"Nice" people are some of the angriest people you will ever meet but their anger is mostly internal. They constantly beat themselves up and have tons of resentment towards others that is rarely seen because of how "nice" they are and how much they fear losing people.

The truth is they aren't really angry with other people, they are angry with themselves for not developing a spine and taking too much crap. They let people walk all over them and ask for more because they don't want anyone of to disapprove of them. That fear of disapproval and fear of losing others is so strong that you would be amazed at the amount of disrespect they will put up with.

By not having and "enforcing" your own personal rules you will end up people who will make your life miserable. Without rules, women will use your dignity as a dishrag to mop up any remaining shred of masculinity out of the sink.

Transitioning from doormat to a person of strength

Start small and take it slowly. If you are dating someone DON'T go gung ho and blast her with 50 million rules and expert her to follow all of them at once-it might freak her out. Slowly integrate them into your relationship.

If you are just starting out in your relationship get the rules down as soon as possible. It's far better to start a relationship off right than to try repair the damage.

Write out a list of things that you will and will not tolerate from other people. Here are a few of my own:

-Only energy allowed in my relationships is love

-Treat me respect and I will do the same to you

-Be nice or be gone.

-If you cant talk to me in a calm, relaxed manor then you must calm down before we talk

-Honesty, integrity and compassion aren't optional

The first time you tell someone not to treat you that way you WILL be nervous and scared. Don't expect yourself to be zen like when you are standing up for yourself for the first time. Over time and with much practice standing up for yourself will become as easy as asking someone for the time.

The rules are for you, not the girl

To be able to truly keep any of your own personal rules you MUST NOT FEAR LOSING the girl or anyone because you will only go so far without firing them from your life. When a girl or friend finds out about your tipping point, they will lose respect and trust for you.

Your rules aren't meant for a single person to follow them. You aren't trying to get a particular person to follow them, just the person that fills that role. You have certain standards for the girlfriend role, not a specific person.

The person who fills your girlfriend role should do such and such behavior, not Suzie. The person who fills the friend role should do this and that behavior, not Jon should do this and that behavior.

Trying to get a specific person to do what you want of them is controlling. Having rules setup for a role gives people the option of deciding whether or not they want to play that role-it's their choice.

If you try to get a specific person to follow your rules you will end up with tons of frustration and anger because not everyone will be able to accept and follow them.

-Alex