Masamuru Ltd.

Did you know that 45% of your potential USA customers may be abandoning your web site after finding it in a search engine or linked to by another web site because your slow loading web site is unbearable on a dialup Internet connection? The statistics(7/6/2005 – Jupiter Research) show that the USA only has a 55% broadband penetration rate and that 45% of the Internet users in the USA still only have a dial up modem! (A link to those statistics can be found at the end of this article.)

If your web pages load slow on a dialup, then you risk alienating 45% of your potential customers as soon as they try to load your home page. And at the current rate of broadband adoption you can expect significant rates of alienation for slow loading pages for at least 2 or 3 more years.

Studies have shown that web surfers cite slow loading web pages as the #1 reason for web site abandonment. Slow loading web pages were cited even more frequently than unprofessional looking pages! Don’t kid yourself, if your web pages load slow on a dial up modem, then web surfers will just abandon your web site in droves! Alienating 45% of your potential customers the very first minute they enter your business establishment is the worst possible business practice no matter if you are a brick business or if you are a click business or if you’re selling candles online or if you are FORD motors online.

Should Ford motors theorize that if someone is too cheap to buy broadband then they are too cheap to buy Ford cars and then design their web site accordingly? I’ll bet you that many current dialup users drive Fords and some brand new Fords too. Maybe they were able to afford the new Fords by going with dialup instead of broadband!

Always test your web site on a dialup Internet connection. If it loads slowly, then make your web designer do it over, or kiss good-bye to about 45% of your potential customers!

It’s no accident that Googles pages load FAST. They did it that way on purpose because they know what they are doing! It’s only one part of their winning web design approach but a very key part I assure you. Go with the winners, and make it an important part of your web design specs.

Creating web pages that are branded looking, yet still load fast, now that’s tough! It’s done using a combination of smart graphic design, HTML TABLE techniques, and CSS stylesheet techniques. Those techniques are the real secrets of fast loading yet branded looking web pages, and you had better find a web designer who knows them or kiss good-bye to about 45% of your potential Internet customers!
USA broadband statistics link:
http://www.clickz.com/experts/crm/actionable_analysis/article.php/3517561

David Malia is a 20 year computer veteran who’s done his road work in business web page usability. He offers fast loading web page design, eye popping graphic design, strong cross browser compatibility coding, and solid web application programming. “Web Pages Designed for the Real Web – Not the Ideal Web, Because That’s Where Your Customers Are”. http://www.RationalWebDesign.com

Did you know that trusting your spouse is one of the most important elements of marriage? Did you know that without the sacred bond of trust between a husband and a wife, the marriage will be unhappily discontented all the while it heads down the path to destruction? How can you live with someone day in and day out and not trust them? I think it is time we look at our selves, wouldn’t you agree?

There are six aspects that you should know to help build back the trust that has been taken from your marriage. These things can be followed in the marriage that has never experienced the beauty of trust as well.

1. Forgive spouse

Forgiving your spouse for something that has put the marriage on high alert is probably the hardest thing to do. That is why we look at our selves. Ask your self, why can’t I forgive? Why do I not want to forgive? This is the question that needs to be addressed. I’m telling you right now, without forgiving your spouse, the trust will NEVER come back.

The reason many of us don’t forgive is we want to stay safe in our feelings that unforgivenss gives us. We don’t want to come out of the negative way we feel about our spouse because we are angry and resentful inside.

Once we forgive, we can’t hide inside our feelings anymore. Once we forgive we cannot behave the way our negative feelings tell us to. Once we forgive we can’t use our spouses error against them anymore. Once we forgive we will have to come out of the resentment we are now living in.

If you want your marriage to be free of these unhealthy emotions you will certainly need to forgive!

2. Cease erring against spouse.

If trust has been broken, someone in the marriage either went astray or did something else to break the bonds of trust. Whatever that err was, that spouse NEEDS to quit and desist their erring ways. If you are reading this article then I am positive that you would like to stop erring against your spouse. You can’t expect your spouse to forgive you if you cannot stop erring in your ways, can you?

3. Communicate feelings honestly

When was the last time that you had an intimate conversation with your spouse? Has it been a long time? Don’t hold back your feelings, even if you think men should not have feelings, it is quite alright to show emotion once in awhile. Remember to show your feelings properly, and in a way that will get the issue on the right track to being resolved.

If you want to rebuild the trust with your spouse, they need to trust in what you say! They want to know that you care enough about them to ask them questions about their feelings and thoughts. Intimate conversation involves getting close to each other through your words and feelings. It helps to bring the bonds of marriage back together when we express our self properly and honestly.

Be true to your self and be true to your spouse in all your self-expression.

4. Accept spouse

Acceptance is so VERY important. Without acceptance of one another there will never be trust. Trust needs to be validated in the marriage. This is why if you have broken the trust-bond, you now need to forgive and accept. These two features go hand in hand.

To forgive properly means you have decided to rethink your whole attitude about your spouse. There is no room left for brow beating your spouse about something they did in the past, especially if you have decided to forgive completely.

5. Discover purpose and spiritual self together.

A spiritually deficient marriage will be a neglected marriage. It’s really that simple. Too many times couples go their separate ways and instead of growing together in the marriage, they grow apart, damaging the intimacy between them. But a healthy marriage involves a spiritual togetherness that nothing can separate. Find things that you both like together and go after those things.

This spiritual togetherness might be to discover true purpose and meaning for your lives as a couple. It is so important to not neglect the importance of biblical study and prayer together. Discovering the Spiritual Christ for your marriage is what brings back the trust that is so vital for a content filled and peaceful union.

6. Time

Everything takes time. You need to have patience and wait. Show your spouse that you trust them. Show them you have stopped erring against the marriage so they can trust you again.

Remember your spouse has been deceived and they are hurting. Show them you will be accountable for your actions not just before them but also before God. Take responsibility, stop erring, seek God, communicate properly, and trust will come back into the marriage.

Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands love your wives and do not be harsh with them. Colossians 3:18-19

Angie Lewis offers spiritual enlightenment tips for couples in marriage, and is the author of new release book JOURNEY ON THE ROADS LESS TRAVELED.

This unique book is about love, life, marriage, addiction, temptation, and understanding the power of spiritual awareness for your marriage. In her book, Angie reveals her own journey of overcoming addiction and battling with her negative emotions that she allowed to embrace her life and marriage.

To find out more about this new book click here, http://www.spiritual.journeybooks.4t.com/
ISBN 1413788904
Avaliable Amazon online!

Angie Lewis counsels couples and writes a monthly newsletter where she reveals her secrets on how YOU can stay happily married for life! Subscribe to get your FREE monthly newsletter so you can stay happily and forever married! http://www.heavenministries.com/

If you are just starting out in your new business and you decide that a website could be a valuable addition to this business how do you go about getting one up and running? You have two basic options really. Do it yourself or employ an individual or company to do it for you. Which option you take depends upon your own confidence in acquiring the skills necessary and the amount of funds you can divert to hiring in a company. If you have sufficient funds then hire in a company as this will enable you to devout all your time to developing your core business. If you don’t then you will have to do it yourself. So how do you go about it?

You will require no or little knowledge of HTML as you can purchase a whole package from a web hosting company which should include some form of website developing software and your domain name plus the hosting of your website. Give some thought to your domain name. It should be easy for people to type in and remember. Not too long, succinct and preferably no hyphens. So you have chosen your domain name and your hosting service now you must develop your site. Again give some thought to this. How many pages you are likely to produce, how many links you will need. What sort of information is going on each page. If you are completely new to this then I would suggest that using your site editor software you produce a first draft and publish it. You can always modify everything later as you go along. This will give you your first website which you can then submit to the search engines albeit not exactly what you want or one that is going to attract visitors.

Now you need to do quite a lot of research on the internet as to how to make your site visitor friendly and search engine friendly. Here you will discover the importance of good content, changing content, appropriate keywords, backward links, article writing and good copy on the website. Taking this information on board will enable you to restructure and rewrite your site over a period of time, probably many times. However all the time this learning process is going on your site is actually published on the Web so is likely to start being trawled by search engines and getting indexed even if it doesn’t sky rocket through the rankings. The most important thing to do from the outset is to write good content that will be of interest to your visitors. If it holds the attention of your visitors and gets them to contact you then it will likely be of equal interest to the search engines. Do not produce a site that is written with the search engines in mind. It is your visitors who are important and by following a few simple rules that are published all over the Web your site can become very attractive to visitors and to search engines also. Keep the site textually based, there is no point in having very flashy graphics as these are not noticed by the search engines and often annoy visitors who want to get at the information they are after as quickly as possible and not have to wait for some animated introduction to finish before they can enter the actual site.

Having put into practice all the advice that is out there you should have put together a pleasing and appealing website that visitors and search engines like. Each day or week you add more content and develop more links and you will gradually climb up the rankings. The last piece of advice I would give is start writing and submitting articles. One or two a week would be excellent over a year or two. Once your articles start being published you will see an immediate leap in the number of links back to your site and a subsequent rise in the rankings if your content is also good. Aim to produce over time several hundred articles if possible. The more you write the more links back to your site you will develop and the more visitors you will get as well as boost your rankings in the search engines.

David Smith is the owner of wesparkle.co.uk a contract cleaning company which specialises in the care and maintenance of natural stone flooring and tiles

People are either “givers” or “takers.” It’s as simple as that. They are one or the other. No room for gray. When I talk about giving and taking here, I’m not only talking about people who borrow or lend money, I’m talking about emotional giving and taking.

You know the people I’m talking about. The ones who sap your energy and your strength. They only want to be with you as long as you bring some value to them. They’re always afraid they’re missing out on something. When you’re with them, they’re usually looking over your shoulder, scanning the room, to see who else, of more use, might be there.

They talk at you, not to you. The don’t listen. In fact they’re just waiting for a chance to interrupt so they can talk more about themselves. They only call when they need something, when their lives are out of kilter.

The funny thing is though, that someone who is an emotional taker, will usually take your money, hospitality, kindness and girlfriend as well!

Now do a quick mental inventory of your friends and associates, and without thinking too hard, label each one as a “giver” or a “taker.” You’ll be surprised at how easy it is to do.

Then there are the Bottom-Feeders.

Now these are the real losers. The extreme takers. They’ll take, then take a little more, then just a little more until you’re sucked dry.

They probably don’t even recognize that they’re doing you any harm. In fact, they believe you owe them. After all, they rationalize, you’ve got so much more than they do: more money, energy, luck and connections. It stands to reason you should share it all with them! That’s only fair.

And worst of all, are the Player-Haters!

They gossip, and cackle and love to see other folks fail. When you share good news with them, their smiles don’t ever reach their eyes. They pretend to celabrate your success but are just waiting for you to fall.

These are the folks who only want to hold you down, so they won’t be lonely at the bottom.

So, stay away from the Takers, the Bottom-Feeders and the Player-Haters at all costs, even if they’re so close to you they’re related! Find people who have the same goals you have and who’ll be there to encourage you when you need it.

Yesterday at the dinner table, my eleven-year-old daughter asked me, “Aren’t there times when you absolutely know you’re right and the other person is wrong?” She had a disagreement at school that day and believed that her view was the truth. I said, “I used to think I was always right and that other people were wrong. Now I still think I may be right, but I realize that other people know things that I don’t. I’m more interested in learning than being right.”

This month I want to describe how you can use curiosity – a key principle of The Skilled Facilitator and Facilitative Leader approach – to increase your effectiveness. My clients often tell me that learning to be curious has significantly improved their relationships with others and the results they get.

Curiosity is the desire to learn. When you’re genuinely curious, you assume that other people may have information that you don’t have. You also assume that others may see things that you may miss. As a result, you consider your point of view open to change.

When I first started practicing the Skilled Facilitator approach, I was not genuinely curious. If people disagreed with me, I was curious about their points of view, but only so that I could use what I learned to better advocate my own point of view. I still believed that I was right and they were wrong. My colleague Peg Carlson made this clear when she said, “Roger, having a disagreement with you is like a war of attrition. I know we’ll end up doing what you want. It’s just a matter of how long I want to hang in.” I was just more sophisticated about hiding my belief, but it still guided my behavior. Does this describe you at times?

What I learned then is that it’s not enough to ask others about their points of view. If you’re not genuinely curious and if you’re not interested in seeking valid information, you will use your pseudo-curiosity to control others. And they will figure this out, even if you know how to say the right words such as, “do you see it differently?” or “what problems do you see with my suggestion?” To help her make the transition, my colleague Sue McKinney took to asking herself this question: “What would I say if I were curious?” It’s helped many of our clients build their curiosity.

When you’re genuinely curious, your questions come easily and naturally. When someone gives you negative feedback about your performance, if you’re genuinely curious, you can ask, “Can you give me some specific examples of times when I’ve done that? That would really help me understand better.” And if, when you get the examples, you see it differently, then you say so and still remain curious, exploring how the two of you see your performance in different lights.

My clients often assume incorrectly that they have to be less vocal about their own point of view to be curious about others’ views. Not so. As long as you’re as curious about others views as you are passionate about your own, you will be able to use your curiosity to work effectively with others.

Sometimes the structures we work in make it more difficult for us to be curious. One of my favorite examples is a client that has a performance management system in which your boss has to approve your direct report’s performance evaluation before you can discuss the evaluation with your direct report. This sets up a dynamic in which you can find yourself in a dilemma if you are genuinely curious about how your direct report sees your evaluation of him. If you’re curious and find out that your direct report sees his performance more positively, and if you realize that you had missed some important information that would have led you to increase his rating, the system makes it difficult to change the rating that your boss has already approved. As a result, you are likely to control the performance evaluation with your direct report so that you don’t learn anything that would lead you to change your mind. This is just one of many examples. As you look around your organization or the organizations you work with, look for other structures or procedures that inhibit curiosity.

Next month I’ll talk about a related principle underlying our approach – saying what you’re thinking, or transparency.

© 2005 Roger Schwarz

Roger Schwarz, Ph.D., is author of the international bestseller “The Skilled Facilitator: A Comprehensive Resource for Consultants, Facilitators, Managers, Trainers and Coaches” and co-author of the recent “Skilled Facilitator Fieldbook: Tips, Tools, and Tested Methods for Consultants, Facilitators, Managers, Trainers, and Coaches,” both available on Amazon.com and via other quality booksellers.

You can subscribe on our site to Fundamental Change, Roger Schwarz & Associates’ free, monthly ezine: http://www.schwarzassociates.com/ezine_signup.html In exchange for subscribing, you’ll receive a link to a free .pdf copy of “Holding Risky Conversations,” a chapter from our recently-published fieldbook.

We write Fundamental Change to help you create workplaces and communities that are simultaneously highly effective and that improve the quality of life.

Every month we:

* Address issues important to you as practitioners and leaders
* Share client examples and case studies

* Offer tips and tools for challenging situations
* Offer resources to help you become more effective.

You can sit there and just worry up a storm, or you can do something about it. Worry for the most part takes place when we are not doing anything, just sitting there and thinking up all of this stuff that could possibly happen. Nothing bad is happening, but for some reason your heart rate is elevated and your grip starts to tighten up. When this happens some major worrying is taking place, all kinds of scenarios are running out of control in your mind.

What should you do? The first thing is that you could take some stuff to help you calm down, a health supplement like Acceletrim, you can eat better and healthier foods, and you can exercise. The second thing that you can do is get to work. This means to just start getting busy doing something. Take on some extra projects at work, start a new hobby, just be active and take some healthy action to make things better. It will be tough to worry so much if you are busy taking action to make it better. You will find that once you get started on something your worry thoughts will turn into problem solving thoughts and then all of the sudden the worry will stop. These things can help you beat the worry game.

No, ‘cheap’ is not necessarily a bad thing (well, not always), but when it comes to a services industry as competitive and with as thin margins as the web hosting industry, customers better watch out. Hosts offering ‘low-cost’ services tend to offer the world for Rs. 900 per year but, usually fail to deliver even the most basic of services. Surprised? I’m not. Let me explain some basics for the benefit of the vast majority who would still be unsure as to what I’m rambling about.

A “web host” is a company (well, most like to think of themselves as such but that’s a whole new article) that is in the business of procuring bandwidth (internet connectivity) and servers (glorified computers) with the intent to re-sell the same, in smaller bits, to people who need storage space for their e-mails and websites. This is usually (read always) accomplished by renting out dedicated servers with a decent hard drive and bandwidth quota and then using a hosting automation suite (control panel) to divide the server resources up into smaller chunks called ‘hosting plans’. The goal is to price these plans in a way that they remain affordable for the client while helping the host maximize profit from the resources it has.

Now comes the fun part…

Since there are almost no barriers to entry in this particular industry, new web hosts keep popping up every day. This helps keep the price for hosting services sane and should also mean better service for the customers since there are many hosts competing for their business. What really happens is that one Johnny-come-lately decides that the only way he can grab some market-share is by offering the lowest prices. Once customers start quoting his price to the host struggling for their business, the host decides to match it. Before you know it, everyone has slashed their prices by half! This, in Pakistan, can be seen every 10 – 12 months.

“Good”, you say? Read on…

What does this mean for the web host? Suddenly, all their existing clients are paying them half of what they used to. This means that in the coming year, they would have to generate twice as much new business just to make the same amount as last year! Is this considered growth? I think not!

Sadly, the number of clients does not magically increase with every price shave. So, the web hosts are left with little choice other than to cut costs just to make ends meet. Where there were 3 support people, they decide to make do with just one. Where there were 2 servers earlier, they decide that they can load all of the clients onto just one server resulting in lower operating costs. These measures, needless to say, do have a positive impact on the host’s bottom-line but deteriorate the services resulting in un-answered support queries and long periods of downtime (website/email inaccessibility) or extremely slow server response due to excessive loads on the server.

Now, if the host were to put their existing clients first, they would price their service fairly so that every client not only feels good in his wallet, but can also rely on the service being offered. I guess, all it boils down to is; whether a web host is in this business to provide a top-notch service with a long-term business goal or is just there to make a quick while competing with all the fly-by-night hosts who happen to come along.

Recently, I have come across at least three such hosting companies that are now in financial peril because they could not resist the urge to slash prices in order to try and capture some new business. Sadly enough, these are not people who are ‘new’ to the industry. Such an impact on the market is magnified 10 fold when an older host decides they would be better off by just slashing prices rather than improving on service. As a result, the younger companies follow suit and create a mess for themselves and more importantly their clients. The ultimate outcome is that frustrated clients decide to switch to foreign web hosts that provide a better service at a saner price.

From experience, I have learnt that providing a good service is what really matters. The rest falls into place when clients realise that they can only run their online business if the service they get is of good quality. After all, you get what you pay for. What good is a cheap service when you will eventually stop getting any?

Zahid works for Inspedium Corp. and writes for ArticleStreet.com.

If you’re looking for a quality hosting control panel for windows, do check out InsPanel at www.inspediumsoft.com

Submitted with Article Distributor.

Doing leaflet distribution services are some of the cleanest ways to get edge over your contenders. How? Direct Mailing is the answer. By utilising a prolonged leaflet distribution advertisment you can reach maximal
exposure via the letterbox. Its a very over looked promotion scheme which turns out very good, that is ofcourse is using leafet distribution

If your product is made to attract to a generic market and you want to concentrate on a really unique field, mailbox campaigning is a good, dirt cheap way of achieving your target market.

But certain in the preparation of your leaflet distribution promotion as this is fundamental if you are to make the best of your investment.

Leaflet distribution allows you to give particular reply from targeted groups of customers. It’s a peculiarly
useful tool for small business organisations because it allows you to concentrate finite resources where they are most likely to make result and quantify the success of promotions accurately by breaking down responses. Just remember that the answers of leaflet distributoin aren’t secured. A badly planned or aimed promotion will be a waste of cash

There are a list of different methods in which leaflet distribution has been utilised in a policy-making capacity. Some of these grounds are as follows. One of the most frequent practices of booklet drops is to provide individuals with information to counterpunch info that has been distributed by the opposition. The brochures can also be utilised to endanger people with an assault. This is especially probably in differences of opinion in which armies can inform foe troops that they will invade if no follow up action is made. The leaflets in war situations are often used to encourage the opposition to surrender and if how to go about surrendering without facilitating a retaliation.

If you have decided that a leaflet distribution will be a fresh form of promoting in order to bring in some much necessary future business, then you need to set about the chore of selecting the most flushed business to carry out the promotion for you.

On That Poin there are many elements to be thought when doing this, these are critical in obtaining the best effects from your promotion.

You need to study where you are going to aim your leaflets and the coverage and penetration that you want to accomplish. If you are just thinking of a small promotion in the localised region, it may be foresightful to select a small localised business who just manage the small-scale distributions in one region. They are quite likely to be cost effective, and have smaller lead times. Accountability may be a problem if things do not go according to plan, so this requires to be considered against the amount of financial outlay.

There is no question the fact that the success of a business in the end is because of the dedicated work of the workers, although one disaster can swiftly wipe out your work & bring down the profits to zero. So, to keep away from such an occasion, you are suggested to insure your business, whether it is a SME or a giant corporation. Yet, please remember that smaller companies are somewhat more likely to need business insurance in today’s busy world. This is essentially as smaller business owners will have placed their total lives and income into the firm.

One or two of the items normally guarded by the majority of business insurance covers include: natural disasters, fires, mechanism or equipment malfunction that closes the organisation, loss of money down to worker casualness & legal cases brought against the business.

There are countless insurance firms, which provide policy covers that include both protection for all chief property and liability risks in one group package. You can also acquire a separate cover. Such cover is usually branded as a business owners’ policy (BOP). Large sized businesses may well pay for a commercial policy cover.

BOPs comprise of office insurance for buildings and gear belonging to the business. If there is any loss of revenue caused by disruption of systems and business because of accidents such as volcanoes, it can be protected under the Business Interruption Insurance. Find cheap business insurance online today.

There are an assortment of policies, which protects the firm’s legal responsibility for the injury it could cause to others. It is the consequence your businesses failure to do the business operations. It can also be the physical injury or building damage caused on account of defective products, faulty installations & blunders in services offered.

Despite this, BOPs don’t cover against professional liability, vehicle cover, staff reimbursement or health and disability cover. Instead separate insurance policies are critical for professional services, commercial vehicles and workers. Generally, floods, earthquakes and terrorist attacks are not protected in the business insurance. Please check before you acquire!

There are quite simple & easy ways to choose the wrong web host. How do you avoid this pitfall?

If you are new to e-commerce, you probably just started to take the internet seriously. Where do you begin? How to find the right web host.

Finding the right host is not easy. There may seem a lot ( and there are!), but make sure to compare them on even footing. There is nothing worse than half way through your web site design, you realize that you need more space on the server or that the bandwidth will not accommodate the high volume of visitors you might get.

To avoid this, you need to think ahead. What will your website be like in 6 months? Can the package you are choosing, handle the potential explosion in sales that you project? If the answer to these are no, then you might want to keep searching.

For the business minded, our recommendations are for hosts that give you a complete package including, shopping cart, and web builders. Unlimited emails will surely come in handy as well as extensive template choices and sub-domain creation. These hosts offer full file uploads, and accommodate most extensions which enable you to work on your website offline and upload it at your convenience.

Full service hosts should actually offer FULL Service. It might sound weird, but be warned the package that looks like a full package may end up costing more as you have to pay for many things that another host would have include in the package.

With some, disk space starts at 5Gb, which is a good amount of space for storage, and unlimited bandwidth encourages you to drive even more traffic to your website. Some web builders carry 100’s of templates, as well as free marketing advice and tools. You also get free help services online and well as an entire website dedicated to helping you develop a world class website.

Are there some web hosts out that are free or very cheap? Sure! Why not go with a cheaper package you might ask? Well, on the web, cheapest is not necessarily the best. The rates may look cheaper initially, but do they offer money back guarantees, do they offer the complete ecommerce solutions?

If all your are getting is space and a domain name, unless you are a big business; without a shopping cart especially if you are looking somewhere to create a drop shipping business, it is difficult without ecommerce capabilities.

For all hosts however, make sure to Read the fine print, some may seem a good cheap basic package, but chances are you can only get what you need if you sign up for additional upgrades. Don’t be fooled. Do your homework first.