Are you sure it's completely free

Are you sure it's completely free?Yes! - the service is totally FREE. We charge you nothing to use our service as we split the revenue generated on bonafide searches with you 50/50 .How do I get paid?Sign in to your account and tell us how you want to be paid: either into your bank account or via PayPal. We pay you every 30 days, 45 days after each month end. e.g. For searches in January we pay you in mid March. There is a £20 minimum payment, so if you have not reached this amount in any month we will hold the payment over to the next month.Do I need a certain browser?The service currently works on Microsoft Internet Explorer Version 7 ( IE7) and Mozilla/ Firefox browsers.If you do not have the supported browsers and if you wish to update your browser you can download versions as followsMicrosoft Internet Explorer 7Mozilla FirefoxPlease note if on a business network you should check with your IT department before downloading the above.How much can I earn?How much money received clearly depends upon how much you use the service for your typical day to day Internet searches. Based upon our experience to date we estimate that the average user regularly searching the internet could readily raise in excess of £50 per year. If you want to see how you can really start to earn for yourself by referring your friends and family, click here for more information. It's important that you don't post unsolicited emails or web advertisements; if we get complaints we may have to disallow searches and/or terminate your account. Remember it's all completely free all you need to do is sign up, start searching and tell your friends!Do I have to change how I search?No! Apart from anything else, the beauty of our service is that you are doing precisely what you already do - search the internet in the normal way (ie no repetitive searching or anything which could be construed by homepages-friends.com or our affiliate partners as deliberate attempts to generate revenue without regard to the results being returned) - but now you earn for FREE by using us as your search provider!The search results you will see are just the same as they would be by accessing the search engine from any other location.I already use another search engine, are your search results as good?Opinions on search engine providers are clearly subjective, but we beleive that YAHOO! provides extremely high quality search results that compare favourably with the available competition.I run Microsoft Windows Vista, will it work?YES! Vista comes with Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 already built in.Are there any terms & conditions?When using the various services provided by Homepages Friends you are explicitly accepting the Terms and Conditions of the individual search engine. Homepages Friends reserves the right in its sole discretion to disallow any searches and/or terminate the account of any individual generating searches outside of the Terms and Conditions including (but not limited to) click fraud, automated search tools, searches made without regard to the results returned or artifically searching to generate revenue.All users understand that each and every time that use is made of the individual search engine that the prevailing Terms & Conditions apply, whichever were in force at the time of application for use.To read homepages-friends.com terms of use click hereWhat happens after I have applied?We e-mail you your username and password so you can check "Your Account" showing how much you have earned.You search as normal!After signing in to your account you tell us how you want to be paid: either into your bank account; or via PayPal.We pay you every 30 days 45 days after each month end e.g. for searches in January we pay you in mid March.Can I have more than one search provider in my browser?Yes, but you will only benefit from your internet searching if you use our service. So please ensure we are set as your default search provider.I can see my name in the search box but it disappears when I do a search - is there anything wrong?No, the last search term you enter is kept in the box but when you next open your browser our name will reappear.What does your organisation hope to achieve for its customers?At the heart of our corporate strategy is our commitment to assisting organisations and individuals take advantage of the many opportunities the internet brings, to online income generation, and to assist them in the achievement of their fund raising goals.We aim to generate effective income jointly for ourselves and our clients through a thorough understanding of the opportunities and services available, strong business relations with the suppliers of those services and the significant volumes that allow us to negotiate strong revenue shares.For the individual seeking to raise personal funds we have developed the Homepages Friends service as a clear and effective method.Tell a friend (and earn more money!)You can sign up your friends and contacts to this service and make additional money for yourself.Send them an email invite now.or direct them to this linkhttp://www.myhpf.co.uk/apply001.asp?Friend=79385

Audio Books: More Than Mere Learning Tools

Audio books have made our lives easier by giving education through listening. They can be great entertainers for kids. They give us the comfort of listening to them anywhere and anytime. These electronic books can become our best companion. Apart from allowing us to listen to latest books, they entertain us in many ways. Whether you are driving your car or shopping in a mall, these books can be used anytime. They are available in the form of audio cassettes and CDs. These inexpensive equipments can be downloaded free from various websites. The consumer can easily order an audio book online. They are much more than just learning tools. They can be found in a vast range of subjects like classics,fiction, etc. While listening to these books, one can easily perform other tasks too.Parents can now encourage their children to listen to these books and children would also happily agree to it. This is the best way to enjoy a story. One can increase his learning skills and gain more knowledge by listening to them. When our kids start growing, their schedules start becoming more hectic. Sometimes they feel bored after studying books. With these electronic books, they would rather enjoy their studies. They can also listen to various stories to refresh their minds. No doubt, these books are a convenient way to listen to classic stories. They are also beneficial for the blind people. They are a great learning material for us as they provide a totally dramatised edition of the printed books. They are sometimes called as talking books as they offer background sound effects to entertain us and they can hold hours of sound recording. You can become more efficient in your work while listening to these books. They are downloadable and can be copied to your hard drive, MP3 player or CD.In the area of education, audio books have become an amazing way to impart knowledge. You can also take an audio book while you are on a holiday. They are lightweight devices which come complete with a battery and earpieces. While listening to them, if you feel like taking a break, you can pause it and then resume listening to them again from the exact place you left the story. They have become an astounding way of entertaining ourselves with interesting stories.

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How to Save Money When Printing Catalogs

If you’ve never printed a catalog or used booklet printing in your marketing materials, you need to know some basics before you start using them. Catalog printing can enhance your business by showcasing all of your products in one place, in a consistent format. And with a print catalog, you control how your products are presented.If you’ve already tried print catalogs or booklets but the cost is just too high, or if you’re about to start your catalog printing venture, the following money-saving tips are for you.Know the types of printing pressesMany professional printers use a web press versus a sheet fed press. A web press is designed to print on rolls of paper that are continuously fed through the printer and a sheet fed press prints on individual pieces of paper (think your desktop printer). Web presses can print much faster than sheet fed presses, which are why professional printers use them.If your catalog or booklet meets the minimum requirements for quantity (number of catalogs ordered) and page count, your printing costs will be lower than if your material were printed on a sheet fed press. Generally, catalog or booklet printing will be cost effective on a web press if your catalog or booklet is 16 pages long and you print at least 5,000 copies.Watch your page countIf you can manipulate your page count into increments of 32 standard pages (8-3/8” x 10-7/8”) or 64 digest pages (5-3/8"" x 8-3/8"") you can save money. These sizes can be printed on an eight-unit web press which can run two webs at the same time. This cuts labor time roughly in half. Standard web presses have four to six units and can only run one web at a time. To be even more efficient, use 60# or lighter weight stock for your paper.The size of your pageThe smaller your page width, the more money you can save. If you use the standard page width of 8-3/8"", the printer has to buy 35-inch rolls of paper. If you use a smaller 7-3/8” page width, the printer can buy smaller rolls of 31-inch paper. The printer will need about 10 percent less paper and since the bigger the paper the higher the expense, this one-inch difference could save you a lot of money and most people won’t even notice the difference. Your mailing costs may also be reduced.Get your mailing list to the printer 7 days before bindingThis tip will help prevent any delays because postage can be calculated ahead of time and the mailing list can be analyzed for any addresses that aren’t in the system. This analysis can save you from printing addresses that are wrong and would eventually come back to you.Keep your printing scheduleWeb press facilities usually run all day, everyday. If you realize you can’t get your files ready for the printer by your scheduled print time, tell them right away. You’ll cause delays if you don’t, or the press may have to bypass your printing project at your scheduled time and put your project off until the next day. Letting them know ahead of time is a professional courtesy and can keep your printing project on schedule.

Article Source: http://www.Free-Articles-Zone.com

Online news

The best thing about internet is that you can get whatever information that you want and that’s too in matter of few seconds. You can check out any information and also trace out if there is any update available for that, this could certainly be helpful if you are looking for some technology and science based information. As these are the fields where you can expect changes and advancements on regular basis, so, that is the reason why you will have to check back after few days. But the main thing is that you will get information with all sorts of update. The online information has certainly freed the man from the tiresome efforts that he used to make before reaching to any sort of information.Another thing that is most amazing about getting online information is that you can find out all sorts of news as well. These sorts of news are presented to you by different resources and are updated regularly. You can find some breaking news as early as they would have happened. There are a lot of people who like internet because it provides them a resource of online news. You can check out for any sort of news that might be related to any field. However, most of the people who check out the online news usually go for some specific news. Most of them would be checking the news for the latest information over financial matters, for instance, you can check out forex rate and lot of other thing of similar nature. Along with this, various kinds of sports news are quite regularly checked by most of the people, you can find out as who is playing with whom and who have defeated whom. You can also fancy getting the news over entertainment and movies, movie review are something that most people like to check out along with this they can check out as when their favorite film will be hitting the cinemas screens.There are different websites which are the source of providing the online news; however, Blog resources are also quite proficient in doing the same. Here, you can check out the entries and news that have recently hit the block. Also, some of the newspaper maintains their online website with an online edition of their news paper; those websites can also be a great resource for checking out the online news.Internet is also a great source for you to keep an eye on world news. What is happening in world and what is likely to happen in near future, all such kind of information can be acquired in the just few clicks. If you are interested in politics, you can also find out as what is going on in your domestic or worlds politics, for that matter. As a whole, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that internet is playing a vital role to keep people aware of the facts and figures that are keep on changing around them. So, stay connected as it is your best chance to learn something new and effective.

Article Source: http://www.Free-Articles-Zone.com

Free blog

Internet has made this world look like a small place where all the people from all the community can come and share whatever they have to say on different topics. To cater these demands and make people to express their most inherent desires, there are a lot of resources available on internet. People are endeavoring and working so efficiently to provide all of the people who think that internet is to gain something and to share something. The epicenter of the whole thing is to device a system that would be flexible enough to accommodate lots of people who come and visit internet for some online information.To get people close to what they need, there has been an introduction of place that was meant for all those people to come and share. That place is called a blog. Nowadays, you can find a lot of blog resources on internet, where you can com, stay and share your thought about the related topic. However, there are some people who think that a blog is similar to a forum. Well, it look similar but there are one huge difference that you can keep in mind when you will be looking to separate both of them. When you will be on a blog, what you can do is to come, stay and read whatever is presented there and if you want you can leave a comment or message. However, same things are done on a forum, you can use it as source of online information, however, what you can do is that you can make changes to forum and add your own contents that people may come and see. Those people can make comments on you contribution and can expand the forum by their own contribution. However, you can’t do this in a blog as blogs are maintained by someone else only that person can make changes to the contents. That is the main difference in both of the term. However, the importance of both can not be neglected, especially when you will be comparing them as a source of online information. There are also so many online information portals that can provide you some of the best, recent and fresh news and information on diverse subjects and topics.These blogs, forums and portals are what make internet a great place for online news and information. People can get aware of the facts as what is happening in the world around them, as today it is very important to stay informed. You can also check out some websites that would offer a great collection and combination of news from various fields. However, some of these sites may require you to subscribe and ask for some money on monthly or annual basis. However, if you don’t want to go for those, you don’t have to worry at all as internet is the best place to avail free news. You can search for the web blogs and websites that are working to keep you up-to-date with all current affairs, however, some of them may require you to subscribe or register to create an account, but, that’s free, of course.
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Online Internet Shopping

Online Internet Shopping is a great way to cash in on the special offers made by companies and stores offering a whole range of products and services. Discounts range from gift certificates, bargain sales, clearances to free shipping offers to even free product offers. Also available are last minute hotel booking deals and online reservations. People who make their ticket reservations online benefit from a discounted rate as compared to people who book their tickets the traditional way by standing in queues at ticket counters. This is a great way to benefit from discounted rates.One can purchase almost all kinds of products, online or offline. Because of the rising competition in the consumerist market today, companies want to gain a higher market-share and they offer discounts on all sorts of products and services. Discounts, are however, usually seen on products like food items, grocery items, clothing, consumer durables like mobile phones, electrical appliances, digital cameras, MP3 players, DVD players, services like body massaging, gym memberships, club and resort memberships, face toning, weight loss, etc. Some companies offer discounts on bulk purchases.While discounted shopping may be available in online stores, gift certificates are usually less available on the internet. Besides, these are not seen on the official homepage of the company often. It is usually an online dealer who offers a lot of discounts. Benefits of Online Internet Shopping:By far, one of the biggest benefits of Online Internet Shopping is, of course, the kind of savings you can make on your purchases. Discount Shopping offers you cheap, cut-off prices on even branded products and services that you would otherwise have to spend a great deal more on. It could be that otherwise expensive birthday gift, dream camera, high definition LCD TV, etc. With discount shopping, you get it at discounted prices, and there is no compromise on quality or after sales services.Be sure to avoid scams, though. Get a clear picture of the actual price – compare the discounted rate, inclusive of the shipping price, taxes and duties, etc. against the market price. Read the fine-print very carefully. Another important thing to remember is to make sure that you read and understand the vendor’s return and money-back policies. Be sure to read these terms very carefully.Towards the end, we’d just like to tell you that all it takes is a couple of minutes to search and you could soon be saving a lot of money, and even time, if purchasing online. Do your research and act wisely to obtain the benefits.

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Download e-books and softwares easily and safely

It seems like the Internet is largely overcrowded through the recent years. Finding the right product through the Internet is not a big issue these days. However, finding the excellent deal in the Internet is always a menace. Things are not different in case of downloading e-books and softwares in the Internet. With lots of sources to download these e-books and softwares, finding the genuine and cheap source is difficult.However, things have changed a lot these days. There are some pretty good websites like cbproads who collect the excellent deals for e-book and software downloads that are scattered all over the Internet. It means that downloading the softwares and e-books that you are looking for is just a click away.DOWNLOADING EBOOKS-NEVER EASIER BEFORE “Internet is the world’s largest library. It’s just all the books are on the floor” is a famous saying. The Internet acts as a virtual library with millions of e-books. If you Google in the name of the e-book you wish to download, you will get the search result with a million of sources for the same. It’s sure that finding the correct download link from the search results is more confusing and difficult. It would have been lot more convenient if one could find the e-books all in one place. Websites like Cbproads are such a places where one can find most of the e-books that are available in the Internet. With the correct download links to the e-book websites, they make the e-book downloads cheaper and safer.FIND AND DOWNLOAD SOFTWARES EASILY AND SAFELY If you search for any software, say programming tools in the Internet, you will find thousands or even millions of download links. Most of the links will not direct you to the pages containing the exact software you are looking for. Some of the links may even direct you to some pages with ad wares and malwares. There is absolutely no need of taking such a risk to download the software that you’re in need of. Websites like Cbproads brings all the most popular softwares in one place. You can find the exact software that you are looking for with ease through the categorized arrangement in the website. Moreover, downloading the softwares through these kinda websites eliminate the risk of getting exposed to security threats, adwares and malwares. SHOP ONLINE SAFELYMost of the people would be wary about giving out their credit card information online. This is because most of them fear that their identity might get stolen. There are many disguised download links for softwares and e-books which may look like genuine links. They are actually the false links ready to steal your credit card information. It is always advisable to download softwares and e-books from genuine, original sources. However, finding the genuine links through search engines will not work fine most of the time. Hence using websites like cbproads who provide genuine links to the original websites of the softwares and e-books is always safe. Be wiser than the wise cheaters while shopping online. Save your time, money and identity by using the one stop portals like cbproads for downloads.

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Orange County Tee times online

Orange County Golf Courses Offer an Outstanding Sports Encounter For Every Player!Golf is a tremendously fun sport. Everyone likes an activity that gets you out into the outdoors, and that gives a little cardiovascular workout for good heart health. Golf is one sport that not only offers time out in nature and a great workout, but it is also a sport that the whole family can enjoy together. In Orange County, golf is a widely popular sport.With summertime averages around 79 degrees, Orange County is world renowned for its fabulous citrus groves. In this type of warm weather climate, one also finds wildlife sanctuaries and coastal wetlands that are breathtaking. White sand beaches along the Pacific Ocean are also another prominent feature that brings happy visitors back time and again to Orange County.A wide variety of geographical features await the golfer who participates in Orange County golf. There are fantastic golf courses located near the San Gabriel Mountains, which separate the city of Los Angeles from the Mojave Desert. You will also find Orange County golf availability in Pasadena. Wonderful golf courses that offer a challenging game for beginner and expert players alike can be found near the Rose Bowl stadium, where the world famous Rose Bowl college football game is held, and where the 1984 Summer Olympics soccer games were held.Mission Viejo is another Orange County golf hotspot. This city, whose land came from a Spanish land grant in years gone by, features an outstanding executive layout golf course that is enjoyed by sports enthusiasts year round.For those who live in Los Angeles, or who travel to the city for business or pleasure, Orange County golf offers an easily accessible exercise destination. The next time you are near the Los Angeles Airport, you are also close to wonderful golf courses that will provide you with the cardiovascular activity you need to help shake off the jet lag.In years past, Fullerton, in the northern part of Orange County, was the center of citrus growing. Today, you will find many colleges and universities in Fullerton, along with outstanding Orange County golf. Golf courses in Fullerton offer panoramic views of streams, mountains and trees, making for a visually stimulating environment in which to enjoy Orange County golf.They say that diamonds are a girl's best friend, but in Diamond Bar, California, located in nearby Los Angeles County, Orange County golf is also a popular pastime for girls, guys, and everyone who enjoys playing the game. Named for a 1918 branding iron pattern, Diamond Bar today boasts delightful golfing opportunities on eighteen-hole championship courses.Orange County golf, with its tremendous courses located in a stunningly scenic area of the country and with an outstanding climate year round, makes for a wonderful weekend, or before or after work way to relax and savor the wonder that is Orange County.

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8 Easy Ways to DOUBLE Your Opt-In Rates

A "squeeze" or "opt-in" page is the web page that visitors land on after they click on a search engine keyword. The only purpose of an opt-in or squeeze page is to elicit a specific response from a website visitor -- usually to give a name and an email address in exchange for specific information. Smart marketers often have visitors land on a squeeze page first... before being redirected to a sales page.In recent months, Internet marketers have been complaining about declining opt-in rates... but the truth is that many web developers ignore proven, tested techniques when creating their squeeze pages. Fortunately, just a few simple changes can dramatically boost your results -- often doubling or even tripling your opt-in rate.Step 1: Make sure your headline matches keyword search terms exactly. Fully 50% of people who visit your site after clicking on a search engine keyword make their decision to stay or go within the first 2 seconds. Their only question when looking at your web page is: Is this the right place? If they think it might be, they’ll linger for a few more seconds. Your first and most important job is to help them realize that, indeed, your site is the right place. If the dominant keyword for your product is "seaweed shampoo," then the words "seaweed shampoo" better be in the headline of your squeeze page and found throughout the body copy.Step 2: Tell your visitors EXACTLY what you want them to do and tell them immediately. If you want visitors to sign up for your free e-zine, then the sign-up box should be front and center and "above the fold." Smart Internet marketers put links and sign-up boxes throughout the body copy of their squeeze pages. You want people to always know what you want them to do.Step 3: Show your product immediately. We call this the "hero shot" because your product or service is the "hero." Again, this should be done above the fold. If you're selling a service, then you must graphically represent the service with photos. The purpose of the hero shot is to convince visitors that they've found the right spot.Step 4: Make sure you have a privacy statement right next to your sign-in or purchase box. The world loathes spam. If you don't convince your visitors that you respect their privacy, right from the get-go, they'll be gone Johnson. Step 5: Use tables or bullets instead of text to describe the benefits of your product or service. As a copywriter, I never thought I'd say this... but on squeeze pages shorter copy is better than longer copy. You still can have body copy and sales copy, but 50% of people who opt in probably won't read it. They'll be convinced solely by your headline, hero shot, bullets and privacy policy.Step 6: Ask only the minimum necessary for a sale or opt-in. Too many marketers ask visitors to their site for everything from their mother's maiden name to their fax number. Keep it brief. Don't frighten people off unnecessarily.Step 7: Add audio or video to your squeeze page. It's 2008. If you're not using video or at least audio on your squeeze pages you're badly hurting response. There are dozens of free or inexpensive tools available now that make online video a snap. If you don't know how to add video to your site, ask your web developer. It’s now easy as pie. Step 8: Use graphical credibility enhancers -- again, "above the fold." These credibility enhancers include your best testimonials... Better Business Bureau icons... any industry logos or association logos your company is authorized to use... and so on. You need to communicate immediately that your site is credible. You should try to do that as much as possible without words but with graphical elements.I’ve used all of these steps for my clients – with amazing results. One project I worked on had a slightly less than 2% opt-in rate on a free offer. It was a long sales letter with an opt-in box at the bottom. After implementing the steps above, the opt-in rate skyrocketed to 15% and higher. That’s an amazing difference.Bottom line: The only purpose of a squeeze page is to capture leads. It’s not there to sell a product... build brand identity... or tell prospects about your company. When you keep that in mind when designing your squeeze page, it will make an enormous difference in the results you get.

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theory test, driving theory test, hazard perception test, mock theory test, driving practical test

Tips before your appear for your driving testsome tips for Tensed Learner Drivers:1. Make sure you have read your study material thoroughly.2.Effective study is more important, many people fail through lack of preparation.3.We would recommend you do not spend more than 15-20 minutes with each study period, else your brain may start to switch off.4.AS driving test contain lots of information for study, its not recommended to leave it at last minute. Prepare in advance.5.Find the most comfortable time of the day, when you can grab as much information as you can. Preferable in quiet and no distractions enviornment.6.Its recommended not to give any mock test quizes unless you are thorough with your theory test.7.Goal to get 49]50 correct answers in mock test quiz. Chances of passing in actual test will increase as your mock test quiz marks increases.8.Before you enter into the test center, be calm. Theory Test : 1. Arrive 15 minutes before at the center before the test time.2.Take both parts of driving licence and the test appointment letter. 3.When you will arrive, you will be asked to 'sign-in'4.If you have any difficulty, ask for help.5.You will be guided to which computer to use.6.you will have up to 15 minutes to get used to the system before starting the test.7.take your time, be calm and read the questions carefully. Do not do hurry.8.If you are not sure for any answer, flag it and come back later.Hazard Perception Test: 1. You will be shown 14 clips, of which there will be 15 hazards.2.Do not click the mouse repeatedly, as you will get zero score for that clip.3.You will be given a letter before you leave.Hope this information is useful for your test. If still you have any doubt, feel free to ask .
About the author:Jane Grath with www.theory-test.co.uk and www.123tryfree.com

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The Aztec journey across the Mexican Territory

The Aztec Journey across the Mexican Territory.If you have a close look at the Mexican flag, you will see that in its central area lies the figure of an eagle eating a snake in the top of a cactus. This is a very representative image of the Mexican National identity, which can also be seen at one side of the Peso coins circulating today in the country. But where does this particular image come from? The answer lies in the Aztec Migration which took place between the XIIth and XIVth centrury of our time.The legend says that the Aztec people, also known as Mexicas, originally came from the place of Aztlán "Place of the Herons". The actual location of this site is still a subject of debate among archaeologists, but most scholars place its location in what is today the Mexican state of Nayarit, in the Pacific coast of the Mexican territory. The legend narrated by the Aztec codices narrates the commandment by the God Huitzilopochtli that the Aztec people were to start a pilgrimage until they could find an eagle eating a snake in the top of a cactus. The site where they could see this heavenly sent signal was going to be the place from where they could start their empire, and where they should build the city of Tenochtitlan.According to the Codice of Azcatitlan, this Aztec pilgrimage took over 165 years. During that time, the Aztec people were a tribe of hunters with a nomadic way of living. The codices suggest that the Aztecs used to have certain necrophillic practices as part of their religious beliefs. These practices were not shared by many of the local tribes from Central Mexico and caused the constant expulsion from many of the sites where the Aztecs settled temporarily. This gave rise to political tensions in the central area of Mexico, between the Aztecs and some of the local tribes.The legend of the Aztec migration says that the Aztecs finally saw the signal of the eagle on a small island in the middle of the shallow Texcoco lake. It is for this reason that they settled their city literally in the top of a lake surrounded by inhospitable swamps. Taking aside their religious beliefs, It is hard to understand the actual reason why the Aztecs chose this difficult location as a place to settle the city of Tenochtitlan.Personally, I tend to share more the idea that the political tensions caused by the Aztec practices forced them into a territory that was not wanted by any other of the local tribes, and that it was not so much a heavenly sent signal, but the constant expulsion from different locations what led to the foundation of one of the largest Prehispanic cities, the city of Mexico-Tenochtitlan.In the next article, I will discuss the daily Aztec life in the city of Tenochtitlan during the XIIIth and XIVth century, their social classes, marriage, slavery, traditions and religious beliefs which helped largely the Spanish conquest of the Mexican territory.

About the author:Armando Martinez is a Mexican Etno-Historian specialized in Mexico's pre-columbian Cultures. For further information on guided tours in Mexico please visit http://www.mexicoculturaltours.com

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Online Shaopping - Convenient and Comfortable Shopping 24x7

We all need to shop for the various articles and items from time to time. Sometimes we need small things that are needed for our day to day lives while at times we may be wanting a high tech gadget. Shopping is certainly an indispensable part of our lives. We spend large sum of money in buying the objects of our needs and liking. Everyone simply loves to shop however there are various constraints like time, distance, lack of company that refrain one from moving out for shopping. However the advancement in technology has bestowed the humans with great comfort and ease. The advent of online shopping has given immense facilities to the people and now we can shop within the comfort and privacy of our homes. The internet has given great convenience to the people and now the customers can get their desired products with great ease.Online shopping is a unique concept in which the customers can easily seek all the information regarding a particular product with great ease. They can easily look out for the various brands and models to determine which product is most suitable for them. One can easily seek details like price, make, features, design etc from the various websites and portals. Shopping online has become extremely popular amongst the people across the world. Prime reason for the immense success of this kind of shopping is the easy access to loads of information and simple procedures that appeal to today's generation. Due to lack of time it is difficult for the consumers to visit the markets and stores and spend hours trying different products. There is so much variety available in even the simplest of products that it needs a lot of time to compare the various products. Moreover you cannot expect to find all the products at a single store. In an online store you can find all kinds of items. The items are listed with complete information like prices, specifications etc. You can find everything from beauty products to medicines, from high tech electronic gadgets to home decor etc. A wide range of products are readily available on the internet. By simply logging on to the world of web you can have access to all your favourite products.These days you cannot only find products and details on the internet but can also seek advice from the experts. The various shopping portals provide the users facility to compare the prices and also discuss the quality and performance of the items on the forums. The users have the facility to write reviews and also get clear insight of the product by referring to the opinions and the reviews of other users. These days price comparison shopping is creating waves in the market as the users prefer to analyze and compare the features of the various products to avail the most perfect one. You can also find listing of various products along with the prices and features. They can compare the costs and then decide which product they want to avail and from which brand or seller.The various sellers provide great offers and discounts on different items. By carefully examining different online stores, the users shall be able to identify the best products. They can get great benefits like free gifts, free subscription, cash back etc. So now you can easily get your desired items with great ease. Shopping online is extremely easy and is a sheer fun. You simply need to connect to the internet, search for the product on the various websites, log on to a reliable shopping portal and order the product. Making payments for the products that have been purchased online is very simple. You can pay with the help of credit cards, debit cards or through your bank account. However one needs to be careful and cautious while shopping online. The customers should only log on to the reliable comparison shopping websites that promise security of information regarding credit cards numbers.

About the author:Alden Jerry is an expert writer. His aim to provide relevant information on various themes through articles.For any query contact at: alden.jerry@googlemail.comonline shopping

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The Top Five Epic Fantasy Series of All Time

There are a lot of massive epic fantasy series out there. And many of them are simply great. They introduce us to complex and rich new worlds. And the experience we have with them can itself last for years because each series has multiple novels and some are still being added to. Here are the top five.The Shannara series by Terry Brooks - There are currently twenty books in the Shannara series and they are roughly broken down into trilogies. It all began in 1977 with the release of the first book The Sword of Shannara. This series of books is often heralded as the rightful heir to the Lord of the Rings. I have to agree :) I read the first book when it came out and fell in love with the series. The books all take place in Shannara but cover a lot of time and a lot of different characters. If you are considering an adventure into Shannara you should start with the first book of the first trilogy The Sword of Shannara. The second book is The Elfstones of Shannara which is currently being made into a major motion picture. The third book of the trilogy is The Wishsong of Shannara.The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan - This is a series of books that currently number eleven. The twelfth and final book is scheduled to be out in the Fall of 2009 and Robert Jordan passed away while working on it but he had done extensive interviews and work with Brandon Sanderson who will complete it for him. It's a wonderful series of books and is extremely large! The page count of each book goes anywhere from 700 to 1100 pages. I personally devoured the first five books in the series one right after the other. After reading the first I ordered the second and so on right through the first five. Well written and very complex. Nice stuff but does get some criticism for tending to keep you hanging all the time (and for its massive page count). I would say this series is a bit more serious than the Shannara series. The First book is The Wheel of Time and the Second Book is The Great Hunt.The Sword of Truth Series by Terry Goodkind - The first book in this series is Wizards First Rule. I have read the first three books in this series and thoroughly enjoyed them. I will get to the others eventually. The Very first book is just phenomenal. It was released in 1994 to much critical acclaim. You may want to get the box set of the first three novels. You are going to burn through the first one pretty quick. The Sword of Truth Books 1-3: Wizard's First Rule, Blood of the Fold, Stone of Tears are all masterfully crafted books.The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant The Unbeliever – There are currently eight books in this series and the first book is being made into a major motion picture. - Of all the series I have read this is my absolute favorite. I have read through the whole series twice. This world stands apart from the others for a couple of reasons. True it is a fantasy work with all the usual things like magic, wizards, big battles and well you know. But it is also very sharply balanced by a peculiar main character - Covenant. He is a leper and a bit of an anti-hero. For a portion of the story he doesn't believe what is happening and he doesn't want to be the hero. There is a very strong internal conflict in him and it goes nicely with the external conflict. The first book Lord Foul's Bane was released in 1977 The most recent book in the series is Fatal Revenant and it was released in October of 2007 so this is a nice current series with another book coming. A Song of Ice and Fire Series by George R.R. Martin - This is a series of currently four books and the first book A Game of Thrones was published in 1996. There are three more books planned for the series and several prequel novellas. The fifth book in the series (A Dance with Dragons) is scheduled to be released in Sep 2008. This series of books is more contemporary than the other series; it was started in 1996 and it tends to have much more of a Medieval Europe flavor to it. Political intrigue and the maneuverings between various factions play a big part in the story.There are lots of great epic fantasy sagas that span many pages and many volumes. If you want to stick with something that is tried and true then any of these five would make a great choice. No matter which one you choose you are in for many hours of wonderful adventuring in strange and new fantasy worlds.

About the author:For a guide to lots of great information about fantasy: http://fantasyguide.stormthecastle.com The Fantasy Guide website – Your guide to Fantasy For a more creative and intellectual approach to epic fantasy visit: http://www.epic-fantasy.comEpic-Fantasy.com - The webs only epic fantasy site.

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Rose is Rising for the Lead in the Masters

Rose is; at this time; number nine in the world rankings and his led after the first round on two occasions once in 2004 where he ended up in22nd after a third round 81 and last year he finished in the fifth past after a double-bogeying the 17th when one behind winner Zach Johnson. This year he says he’s not going to count his chickens before they hatch. He feels that according to his age, 27, instead of gaining experience one must try to step up without over working yourself. I’m not to sure if that makes sense coming from the winner of the Order of Merit 2007. Rose fell to two over after four but managed a good comeback with a stunning run of four straight birdies from the short sixth just before getting further shots on the 12 and 13. Apparently he wasn’t conscious that it was six birdies in eight and said he was simply in the sector and that the golf course favors his game greatly and added that he has become a very good putter on fast greens hitting irons high and soft and has learned to be tolerant. His partner in the lead, Immelman, played a practice round around two weeks ago with Rose and Ian Poulter and recognized that his performance was a bolt from the blue taking into account his outcome so far this year. Immelman’s bad shape has to do with his early return to competition in January only six weeks after he had a surgical procedure to remove a non-cancerous tumor from his diaphragm. He made reference to his play as exasperating and very unsatisfactory but is slowly but surely getting back on track. As to some of the other players on the leader board, like England's Paul Casey, South African Retief Goosen and two-time champion Phil Mickelson, they were all only one shot down behind Rose and Immelman, for the time being world number one and five time champion, Tiger Woods, has made a great effort to get a good start but has strung together 12 successive pars, ended by bogeys on 13 and 14 and carded a level-par 72. Nonetheless, he chipped in for an eagle at the 15th to uphold his pursue for a 14th major title and his mission for the enchanted Grand Slam of all four major titles in a season. Woods stated that all thought the weather forecast for the remainder of the tournament does not seem to be of good favor, he is still hanging on no matter how hard it might get. We’ll just have to wait and see how each golfer performs on a daily basis as to who will come closer to be this year’s winner

About the author:About the AuthorCindy Ferguson is a high-ranking sports writer for the Masters Championship in the sports betting industry. Feel free to reprint this article in its entirety on your site, make sure to leave all links in place and do not modify any of the content.

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Night Life in New York City

L.A. is considering as the capital of celebrity of the world, but anyone in New York will never be at a loss for some fun or any cultural activities. In my article for the readers I have mentioned few of the best places of night hang outs in New York where they can kick back, unwind and leave the day behind. Night life in New York includes various types of hang out places like Bars, Cocktail Lounges, Billiards, Dance Clubs, Hotel Bars, Comedy Clubs, music Clubs, Sports Bars, Piano Bars, Jazz & Blues Clubs depending upon various price range to refresh and boost up your energy level.In New York you can always hear any type of music, from plenty of jazz, pogoing punk to thumping hip-hop on any night of the week the live music scene very well reflects New York’s diversity. If you are looking out for some quite a few dance clubs with cheesy numbers or hard-hitting drum tunes from the late 1970s and 1980s, you can even get that in New York.New York has one of the world’s greatest theater centers, showing over the top lavish music. When comes to film, the city has various options of several large theaters, art house cinemas, numerous revival and to many to count Hollywood blockbusters multiplexes. NYC also has presence of wonderful comedy clubs, as well as excellent poetry slam scene and healthy spoken world.From Joe’s Pub to Cutting-edge Knitting Factory to S.O.B.’s, New York has numerous venues of live music, which cater more eclectic fare and world music. There are many jazz clubs with wide range of quality. Cover charges will run you from to $25 or so at any of these smaller places. Touring bands are attracted from all over the world at many larger music venues, and the price of the ticket may range from $25 to $100.The club life in the New York is very formless; Parties are changed rapidly, so check out the Time Out New York or The Village Voice before making any plans. Drum’n’ bass, 1980’s Nostalgia, and Elctronica are now making there place on clubs. Though Dancehall reggae, funk, Latin freestyle and hip-hop get their due. There is no point to visit those places earlier as it starts rocking just before midnight. Try to visit during week, as the prices are cheaper, service is better and the crowd is smaller.Even if you are not crazy about theater, going and seeing a play or a musical concert in New York is virtually authentic, various theater venues are referred to as Off-Broadway or Broadway offering a descend order of ticket price, elegance, comfort and production polish. Broadways offers large numbers of musicals dramas, comedies with big name actors, mostly Broadways are located allover Manhattan and between 40th and 52nd streets. Listing of Broadway appears in free, check out The Village Voice or Time Out New York for official Broadway Theater guide. Ticket prices ranges from $50–100, $25–50,or around $15. The prices of the shows can be reduced up to 25 to 50 percent off, if you stand in booth line on the performance day.Classical music is taken seriously by the New Yorkers. Many concerts sells long queues form for anything famous, quarter of a million people may come in Central Park to watch free performance by the New York Philharmonic on summer evenings. Apart from Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall is the most important venue; here from all the schools of music greatest names have.Metropolitan Opera in Lincoln Center is 120 year old, and is New York’s premier venue for opera. The theater has superb sound system, which draws a large number of crowds who come to hear tenors, baritones and sopranos from all over the world. The nosebleed seats are very cheep. Performances are also hosted in the New York State Theater in Lincoln Center, they perform with modern interpretation, and their performance of The Nutcracker is very popular.Lincoln Center and Brooklyn Academy of Music is consider as the most dignified venues for operas, dances and classical. Lincoln Center serves as a showcase when it comes to dance. Even though other venues regularly host events, the Brooklyn Academy of Music at 30 Lafayette St, between St Felix Street and Ashland Place in Brooklyn is America’s oldest performing academy of arts. Back in Manhattan, at the City Center six dance troupes are in residence, along with America’s two choreographic giants, the Paul Taylor Dance Company and the Merce Cunningham Dance Company.After a hectic day in New York City you can step-in for chilling and relaxing out at any bar, dine and clubbing. For more information about what’s on any particular week, check out Time Out New York or The Village Voice, available from newsstands citywide.

About the author:Mark Lee wrote this article on behalf of Globester.com. For more information on flights to New York City, discount airline tickets and travel tips for visiting New York City you can visit Globester.com.
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Online Internet Shopping

Online Internet Shopping is a great way to cash in on the special offers made by companies and stores offering a whole range of products and services. Discounts range from gift certificates, bargain sales, clearances to free shipping offers to even free product offers. Also available are last minute hotel booking deals and online reservations. People who make their ticket reservations online benefit from a discounted rate as compared to people who book their tickets the traditional way by standing in queues at ticket counters. This is a great way to benefit from discounted rates.One can purchase almost all kinds of products, online or offline. Because of the rising competition in the consumerist market today, companies want to gain a higher market-share and they offer discounts on all sorts of products and services. Discounts, are however, usually seen on products like food items, grocery items, clothing, consumer durables like mobile phones, electrical appliances, digital cameras, MP3 players, DVD players, services like body massaging, gym memberships, club and resort memberships, face toning, weight loss, etc. Some companies offer discounts on bulk purchases.While discounted shopping may be available in online stores, gift certificates are usually less available on the internet. Besides, these are not seen on the official homepage of the company often. It is usually an online dealer who offers a lot of discounts. Benefits of Online Internet Shopping:By far, one of the biggest benefits of Online Internet Shopping is, of course, the kind of savings you can make on your purchases. Discount Shopping offers you cheap, cut-off prices on even branded products and services that you would otherwise have to spend a great deal more on. It could be that otherwise expensive birthday gift, dream camera, high definition LCD TV, etc. With discount shopping, you get it at discounted prices, and there is no compromise on quality or after sales services.Be sure to avoid scams, though. Get a clear picture of the actual price – compare the discounted rate, inclusive of the shipping price, taxes and duties, etc. against the market price. Read the fine-print very carefully. Another important thing to remember is to make sure that you read and understand the vendor’s return and money-back policies. Be sure to read these terms very carefully.Towards the end, we’d just like to tell you that all it takes is a couple of minutes to search and you could soon be saving a lot of money, and even time, if purchasing online. Do your research and act wisely to obtain the benefits.

3 Steps To Creating Niche Appeal Using Forums And Blogs

Do you like horizontal or vertical stripes on your outfits? How about wearing a horizontally striped pair of pants with a vertically striped shirt. In most cases I think of I’m left with only one word.Yuck!And if you do not develop your websites niche appeal correctly your audience will use the same four-letter word about your Internet Marketing abilities. There is however several things you can do to keep this from being your fate.For example, you can involve yourself with forums, blogs, and such that are focused around your niches target audience. When doing this stop before you attempt straight out marketing campaigns to these venues. Doing so may cause all sorts of bad consequences including getting you banned from being a part of their group. Building a disliked name in your niche target market will not do anything for niche appeal; but certainly will keep you from bread and butter on your dining room table.However, forums and blogs can be an absolute boon for your niche appeal as long as you do it correctly.Instead of posting a direct sales message give them meat. Be an informative valued member of the group who provides top quality answers to serious questions. This will dramatically increase your niche appeal within the given target audience. In doing so, you will be positioned as an expert worth listening to from those who frequent that target market.But so what, you say? How will that help me with my Internet Marketing?Simple. Instead of a sales message in the close of your post simply provide your signature line with a link back to your website. This will undoubtedly generate traffic from your audience’s forums and blogs. But even if it doesn’t, it does give you another back-link which search engines love thus pulling your website rank that much higher.Also, when reading through questions and responses in your given niche you see where the pulse of the people in your target audience is at. How easy would it be to formulate web pages around whatever the needs or hot topics of this group may be? Having informative content that directly meets the needs at hand will indeed increase your niche appeal.Finally, when providing what you think to be informative information to your target audience via forums and blogs you have the ability to hear their reactions to your comments before you take them live to your own website. This provides you the opportunity to know that you are on the right track with your niches audience before going live from your own website. What do you think that will do for future niche appeal?In closing, there are many ways forums and blogs can lead to your success on the Internet. Just avoid the unpopular ways of working with these tools and watch your niche appeal soar.

Online Auction Sites - The Market is Changing

Sellers are often revolted after receiving their bill for listing items at online auction sites. They seem to have fees for everything under the sun these days. On one popular auction site it is possible to run up fees of over $50 just by selling a single item. Many would be clients wrangle over whether it is really worth paying that much. They fear that their auction may never get noticed while buried beneath a million other similar auctions.If you've ever spent time on Internet discussion forums then you know you can easily find people willing to speak their minds. Anger and resentment toward those big sites can sometimes run deep. Especially among those who sell frequently. Professionals, homemakers, hobbyists, and collectors all tend to be somewhat frustrated when it comes to buying and selling used merchandise online. One member gripes, "Those greedy sites might as well be collecting taxes too."Most sellers say they are fed up with soaring End-of-Auction charges and what seems like a minefield of listing fees. A few can recall how it once was when online auctioning was in its infancy. Selling expensive items online used to be somewhere around two or three dollars in total fees. They have indeed been slowly creeping up for many years.More and more disgruntled sellers have been turning to alternative selling methods in an attempt to save money. A new trend has been growing in the form of "niche" auction sites. These are smaller and leaner auction sites that specialize in only one type of merchandise or what would be only one category. They have been gaining appeal because fees are generally much lower than their big brother's.Another source for inexpensive auctioning is the mom and pop owned sites. These are private and sometimes home based sites which seem to combine the best of both worlds. They often have all of the general merchandise categories like the big sites, yet they keep overhead low like the niche sites. These site owners clearly don't have as much overhead to bear.Most have extremely modest fees while some have no fees at all. That's right, none. If you dig deep enough you can actually find full service auction sites that allow visitors to run auctions completely free of charge. Not just once but as many times as they want and for as long as they want. Now that's what we call a bargain.In recent years, smaller auction sites like these have also been enjoying a steady growth of "buyer" traffic. More and more people are shopping from the security and comfort of their own homes. As the number of shoppers grow, so too do the number of auction sites. Bargain hunters have more choices today than ever before. Shoppers have adjusted to these trends by learning to hop from one auction site to another in search of the best deals. No more of the one-size-fits-all marketplace for them.Ambitious webmasters have utilized unique and creative ways to advertise auction items. They know that more buyers mean more sellers and that the whole process can snowball. They generally make use of free or inexpensive off-site advertising for each auction item. The advertised links can lead straight to the auction pages of their clients which draws in prospective buyers. The proof is in the pudding because folks have indeed been migrating to those smaller sites.Thanks to the perseverance of budget minded site owners, sellers can now shop around almost as much as the buyers. Price wars between sites are emerging as they vie for market share. The low-priced auction sites have been slowly but surely nibbling away at the clientele of those gigantic auction sites. Does this mean that those fat cats have finally priced themselves out of the market? No one really knows for sure, but perhaps someday some of those Goliath sites will fall from power.Perhaps the time has come for sellers to finally feel the sweet revenge...and laugh all the way to the bank.

8 Tips for a Successful Email Newsletter Campaign

The fact is that there are many successful internet marketers online. The one thing that they all have in common is that they have their own large email list of subscribers who opted in to their own individual newsletter. The old saying is still true about having your own opt in list. "The fortune is in the follow up". If you get a list of subscribers who have personally requested your personal emails, this is like a gold mine for you. The problem with many people who have their own websites is that not everyone wants to offer a newsletter. They think that too much work will be involved for them. Setting up forms on their site, registering with an email follow up company, and adding their own content sounds like too much work for them. That is why you see so many people "try" to make decent money online but fail after a short while. They are not doing what the "gurus" are doing and that is getting their own list of email newsletter subscribers. If you are one of those people who have their own opt in list, then keep reading this article. It has some very valuable info. For those of you who are reading this and don't have a newsletter, get it going as soon as possible. You are totally missing out. I have included 8 tips below that will help you whether you have a list or just getting started. OK, here ya go: 1. You not only want to get subscribers as a general rule, but you want to get more and more and build a large and high quality opt in list. The more subscribers you get on a daily basis, the better. This basically means that you will want to have all of your website visitors subscribe to your personal opt in list. You will do this by offering a newsletter subscription form on your site and having those people opt in. 2. SPAM email. Almost everyone knows what this word means. The one thing that you will not want to do is to to buy subscribers for your newsletter. You will probably get emails from people who will try to sell you a large amount of people's names and their emails. This is not a good way to go because these people did NOT give you their personal permission to do this and to email them at all. If you buy those lists and email them, they will easily complain about you and your reputation will get a negative hit online. 3. Look, if you add a newsletter subscription form at the very bottom of your site and expect to get more people to subscribe then you are wrong. Studies have shown that if you want to get a good result of any type of program on your site, or in this case more email subscribers, then you need to give it more exposure at the very top of the site. The next thing that you will want to do is to add at least 3 different places on your site that allow the visitor to subscribe to your newsletter. Again, put a form near or at the top of the page. 4. Not everyone on your list will like or take action on what you send them. Some will reply back to your 3rd, 10th, or even your 100th email to them and ask you to remove them. You should do that too immediately. You also need to add, in every email that you send out, a place to unsubscribe. Most well known email followup companies add this automatically to your account so that every time you send out an email to your list, a link for un-subscribing will appear at the very bottom of the email. 5. If you add sub-sites to your website, you will also want to make sure to add a newsletter form there too. If you will be sending traffic there, then you want to give visitors the same opportunity to subscriber to your newsletter as you do on your home page. 6. Treat each subscriber as you would want others to treat you, with respect. Start developing a good relationship with those subscribers once you have an opt-in mailing list started. Your main goal is to become a trusted person that offers them valuable information in all of your emails to them. Anytime any of your subscribers email you with questions, do respond back to them as soon as possible. As you develop that trust and friendship, you will be able to sell to your list more easily and more frequently. 7. If you find work at home and home business programs that sell well but in fact are scams, don't send them to your subscribers. You might make a few sales here and there but it will not help you long term. You will only want to focus on legitimate and honest work at home opportunities. Your subscribers will love you for that. 8. And finally, don't send your list an email every single day. This is annoying. It will help and encourage more and more of your subscribers to opt out of your list. You do not want that.

Some tips for buying golf equipment

When you play a game, you want to have good equipment which can help you more in enjoying the favorite game. Getting the right equipment to play the game of golf is not that difficult. All it takes is for the person to look at the right place and getting value for one’s money. One can check the local directory or ask someone for directions on how to get there. Here are some tips buying golf gear: 1. Before one starts buying, it is best to first check if that person has the budget for it. There are many brands available and this is sometimes the determining factor which will make a person do well in the green or not.2. How often will the person use it is another factor. It doesn’t take that much to maintain golf equipment since all a person needs is a roller brush or a small towel. If the person is just starting out in golf, the brand does not matter but it will later on as the person decides to invest more in the sport.3. Most golf shops sell brand new and second hand equipment. If that person can't afford a new set, it is advisable to first start with a used one then save up for a brand new one later on.4. Some people can’t tell the difference how one brand is better than another. If that person has that problem, one should ask the sales person for help since that individual is more familiar with what is there available in the shop. 5. Buying golf equipment can be challenging. By looking in more than one store, a person can probably get a good deal or find an item that is cheaper in one store than the one down the street. 6. Golf specialty stores are just one place where one can get good merchandise. The other is via the internet. There area many websites that also specialize in selling brand new and second hand equipment. One can order it online and have it delivered to one's doorstep. Another way of doing, which may not carry a whole line of things for golf, are auction sites where a person can bid on a certain item and if one is the winning bidder, one will also be able to get it in a few days.7. Some experts who have played the game for quite some time prefer to sell the old equipment to someone which saves money in paying for a new one. If the person asks around, there is a chance that individual will be lucky to get it at a good price which is a far better deal then getting it from any golf shop.

History of the SXSW Music Festiva

The South by Southwest Music Festival has been running strong, and getting stronger, since it originated in 1987. Austin considers itself the live music capital of the world, and though cities would like to battle that claim, musicians and music industry types clamor to the capital of Texas every March from around the globe.Austin has had an entertainment district for several decades. As the home of the state government and the University of Texas, Austin has always had lively nightspots, some of which date back to the 1800s, when many of General Custer’s troops poured into clubs after the Civil War. The majority of these clubs were located along 6th street and 4th street, where the entertainment district is still located today, and the musical styles varied widely due to the mix of Mexican, colonial and German settlers. The area today hosts the highest concentration of original music nightclubs of any other city worldwide. In 1986, the New Music Seminar in New York invited many of Austin’s local bands to their popular music convention, and discussed having another one in Austin the next year, and it would be called the New Music Seminar Southwest. Though the New Music Seminar group pulled out shortly after their announcement, Louis Black and his cohorts ran with the idea, and started up their own festival and conference, calling it South by Southwest.In 1986, those working on the festival announced the idea at a BMI seminar at the Hyatt, and the buzz began. A few of those working on the event were also working at The Chronicle at the time, and they began getting the word out to other alternative newspapers around the country. Knowing they didn’t have the serious industry connections on the east or west coast, an ad and story was run in Billboard magazine, which really fueled the fire. Executives from major record and publishing companies from New York, Nashville and Los Angeles began to register for the conference. Though the South by Southwest crew originally shot for 150 registrants their first year, more than 700 turned up.Having the SXSW Music Festival in Austin was beneficial for the music industry as well as the local musicians: the music business was curious about Austin’s live music scene and had a reason to visit the city, and the musicians, who are normally isolated from the rest of the country in the middle of Texas, get a chance to do business with the industry from the comfort of their own backyard.In 1988, SXSW fever had hit the international stage, after the hometown bands found some success in Europe, and the interest from those attending the festival in seeing international acts perform. Now SXSW has offices in Europe, Australia, and Japan to help those international bands with their travel arrangements, get their visas in order, and find housing upon arrival. As Austin changed and grew, hi tech companies moved in and the film industry deemed Austin as “The Third Coast.” In 1994, SXSW added a film festival and an interactive festival that tied into their music festival, stretching SXSW over two weekends during spring break, when many students have left the town. Now the festival, which started with 700 in attendance, has grown to 10,000 participants this past year.

Music and the Web

So what’s up with music on the internet, anyway? Too much of nothing at all! Most find the ubiquitous soundtracks on Myspace pages to be a nuisance, and major labels are going out of their way to keep the good stuff off the web entirely. But this is a problem of design and deployment. Sound and music can be the perfect accompaniment for your message. To get a better handle on this, lets look at music and the internet separately. Music is generally used in a few familiar ways. Broadly, music is a form of entertainment that triggers an emotional response in most people. Beyond the purely entertainment-oriented original music of pop stars, we’re accustomed to hearing music on the radio, in TV shows and movies, as well as in the commercials and trailers that accompany them. These songs and melodies are selected from libraries of commercial or “needle-drop” tracks, or composed as custom original tracks, exclusive to a particular product or message. Most custom music is found in branded settings, while needle-drop is commonly used where a generic underscore or soundtrack is acceptable.While the internet and www easily handle sound or video, it’s primarily a text-based medium. Our reading there is non-linear: we don’t just skip from site to site via links, we fluidly move between windows and applications as well. We frequently bounce over to Word or a Calendar program, cutting/pasting/dropping links into paper documents and emails as we jump around. We lean back to watch TV in our living rooms, but lean-in to our web browsers. So surfing the web has more in common with reading a magazine or newspaper than watching TV.Sound is a powerful, effective way to deliver messages passively, but the internet is an active medium. The majority of broadband web-users have high speed connections at work, but not at home. As a result, unexpected sounds are more of an irritant than attraction. Conversely, subtle roll-over effects, soft background sounds and effects that relate to things the user sees or does on your site entice users to pump up the volume. Emotional connections are key to making a point or selling a product, and music is one of the best tools to make connections. We aim to keep them tuned in, with the sound turned on, so they can receive your transmissions. Here are some rules to get us there...Location, Location, Location!So what makes music work (or not!) on a website? Location, location, location! The user’s environment and the music’s location within the site define whether the music is heard at all. Stick a generic music loop on your opening page, and you virtually guarantee that no one browsing at work will hear your soundtrack at all. Those who haven’t already hit the mute button, will do so once your music begins to play unbidden and unexpectedly. On the other hand, music serving as accompaniment for a Flash display piece, will always be heard because it’s appropriately tied to a message that user clicked-to-get. A good rule of thumb is to tie music to actions, and avoid “push” sound like the plague.Branded Sound is More Effective... and More UsefulEveryone knows the NBC chimes by heart, and most of us can identify popular jingles in 3 notes or less. That’s what makes a jingle aesthetically good or bad! But from a functional perspective, flexibility and uniqueness matter. NPR’s familiar theme song for All Things Considered has been around for over 30 years, and yet it remains fresh because the sound designers vary instrumentation, beats and delivery. Same old song, delivered differently each day! Custom, branded sound is exclusive to the entity commissioning the composition, so it can function as a logo on the web.Get Out of the Loop!The only thing more annoying than a loud, unexpected blast of bad music is an endlessly repeating loop of loud, bad music. Heck, even GOOD music gets old after a few laps around the track! Any sound deployed on the web must be level-balanced against the sounds and music users actually want to hear; in other words, any un-bidden sound louder than songs in their MP3 library is bad sound. Loop that bad sound (with or without the hitch in the beat from selecting the wrong loop-point) and you’ve guaranteed your visitors will hit the mute.Where There’s Motion, There’s SoundIn the real world, things that move make noise. The same is true in cartoons and conventional animation. Everyone knows that music is a good emotional trigger, but it’s also a most sophisticated framework or grid to tie motion elements into. Animators and designers frequently select music that fits the mood and attitude of the message, then key events and motion to the beat. If things are moving, music is almost always appropriate.Don’t Mix Metaphors: The Web is NOT TVMusic is ubiquitous on TV and the radio, in programs as well as commercials. Music on the web is an application and as such it’s rare. Flash sites and animation live somewhere between these worlds however. With that in mind, a safe assumption would be that wherever there is motion, sound (and often music) can enhance it. Music fits when you have lots of visual action, or animated characters, because such pieces aim to be passively viewed, and emotionally engaging. Music is less useful when you’re asking the visitor to read or interact (roll-over sounds are ideal cues for navigation and enticing voice-overs can nudge a visitor back to a previously opened page however).

Feel the British legacy in 5 star hotels London

Hotel culture was developed approximately in 1830s in London. Perhaps, it was the beginning of the modern hotel culture and the credit goes to London railways. There are various categories of hotels like hotel, country house hotel, small hotel, town house hotel and metro hotel. Simply ‘hotel’ tells about a formal accommodation arrangement. ‘Country house hotel’ refers to an accommodation which provides good grounds or gardens facilities. In other words, one can say that country house hotels emphasis up on peace and calmness. ‘Small hotel’ category can offer maximum 20 bedrooms. ‘Town house hotels’ are known for exclusive style and it can offer maximum 50 bedrooms. Although it may not offer dinner facility but room service may be available here. ‘Metro hotels’ provide full hotel services but again dinner facility is not available here. Star ratings of hotels tell about the quality of hotels and guest accommodation. So, 5 star hotels London are equipped with the finest luxurious accommodation. Professionally trend staff members greet each and every guest at the entrance of the hotel. Multilingual services, high quality menu and premium wine list are always available here. These hotels easily understand the need of guest. They offer en suite bedrooms with excellent quality beds and furnishing. Even food quality is excellent here. 5 star hotels London are the most expensive hotels in the world. Sometimes, it seems that the tag expensive is depleting its reputation. But, 5 star hotels are also very much conscious and hence one can get special discount in these hotels. These discounts may be for senior citizens and honeymoon couple. Visitors also may get such discount on the auspicious occasions like Christmas and New Year. Mayfair, South Kensington, knightsbridge, St. James’s, etc are the name of the centre where one can get 5 star hotels. Mostly 5 star hotels are located in central London. It is obvious to understand because many headquarters are situated in central London and according to new trend 5 star hotels are favorite destination for business meeting and discussion. These hotels provide them excellent conferencing room, presentation materials, internet facilities and many more. 5 star hotels are witnesses of British royalty and supremacy. If, you stay in these hotels then you can experience the great legacy of London which gives you the feel of being a king. The best thing with these hotels is lying in their perpetual greatness which still exists without being influenced with modern science and technology. It would be definitely a tough challenge for all hotels to maintain such greatness. Year 2012 will be definitely a new challenge for these hotels as the government is determined to lower down the hotel price and to make London accessible for all income groups. Now, it would be interesting to check that how these hotels are maintaining the legacy even on cheap price. Let’s hope the success for these hotels even in low price mission and let the world see the true picture of great London.

Make Money From your Blog

Do you want to monetize your blog? If so, when you decide this is what you really want; (to make some money from your blog), keep in mind monetizing a blog can be like a balancing act. To really make money from blogging it’s important to be someone of a jack of all trades,someone that's been at it for awhile, experience definitly helps. And always remember the blogosphere changes rapidly, and change creates opportunity, and opportunity can create the kind of income your seeking. I don’t want to insult anyone, but most people are clueless when it comes to making money from their blogs. You should think of your blog as a potential outlet for multiple streams of income. If your ready to take on the challenge of generating income from blogging, the most important thing you need to monetize your blog is traffic, and to be more specific, targeted traffic. When I first started blogging, I knew that traffic building was going to be my biggest challenge. I don’t recommend using a hosted service like Blogger if you want to seriously make money from your blog. If you use a hosted blog, you’re at the mercy of the hosting service, and that puts the future of any income streams you create with them at risk. As a blogger who wants to generate income, you should always be experimenting with new income streams. Every blog is different, so you need to test things for yourself to see what works for you. Pick a niche for your blog where you have some significant expertise, but make sure it’s a big enough niche that you can build a good amount of traffic. And by all means make it clear to your visitors what your blog is all about.Take a moment to articulate a basic income-generating strategy for your site. If you aren’t good at strategy, then just come up with a general philosophy for how you’re going to generate income. You don’t need a full business plan, just a description of how you plan to get from $0 per month to whatever your income goal is. However you decide to generate income, put your basic strategy down in writing. Although you may have multiple streams of income, decide which type of income will be your primary source, and design your site around that. If you learn about a new potential income stream, test it for a month or two, and measure the results for yourself. As a blogger who wants to generate income, you should always be experimenting with new income streams. Think about what specific action you want your visitors to eventually take that will make money from your blog for you, and design your site accordingly. AS I've stated before, traffic is the primary fuel of online income generation. More visitors means more ad clicks, more product sales, more affiliate sales, more leads, and more of whatever else that generates income for you.If your blog provides genuine value, you fully deserve to earn income from it. If you are very web savvy, or if you can learn to become very web savvy, then you have an excellent shot of making enough money from your blog to cover all your living expenses… and then some. Perhaps the best part of generating income from blogging is the freedom it brings. For a free resource on using blogs for an income, click the "Blogging Cash Course" Link Below.

10 Tips to Enojoy Winter Sports Holiday in French alps

French Alps is one of the most alluring and exotic places in the world. Each year hordes of tourists go there to enjoy the enchanting beauty of the snow and the mountains. One of the major activities in the French Alps in which tourists can indulge is skiing. Skiing is a great adrenaline filled exciting sport that can drain all the fatigue and boredom out of life. One can also indulge in the various winter sports in Alps as well to make the holidays a truly memorable one. Here are some tips that would make the winter sports and Alps Skiing Holiday quite enjoyable - 1) There is no big killjoy than to learn that one has spent more money than actually required. One should always plan the holiday in advance. The early booking helps in saving a lot of money on travelling and accommodation. It enables one to negotiate and also gives one access to various promotional offers. 2) There is no fun in exploring the snow alone. One should always invite some friends to accompany. This would not only multiply the fun but also would help in saving money on accommodation etc. 3) Winter sports are quite demanding and it can leave one quite tired. One should try and explore different restaurants to get exotic food. 4) The sports gear should be kept carefully as there is every chance of them getting misplaced and stolen. One should always keep the gear at a secure place. 5) While indulging in any sport like skiing or snowmobiling, one should stay very careful and avoid any kind of injury. Injuries can ruin all the fun of the holiday. 6) While skiing, one should choose the terrain that suits their skills the best to avoid any mishaps and discomforts. 7) After skiing, one can roam around the vicinity and explore the beauty of the nature.8) In spite of the cold, one should avoid excessive drinking as it can prove to be dampener for the spirits of everyone around. One should not drink before skiing or any other sports as it may cause accidents. 9) There are excellent shops in the French Alps. One can enjoy shopping after a rigorous session of skiing. 10) If it is a family holiday, one can watch the toddlers learn the basics of skiing and other sports from the experts.

Why Shop Online?

Have you ever driven to the store looking for the perfect shoe? You go from store to store looking at what they have to offer until you find just the right one. But when you go to the sales person and ask for one in your size they tell you that they are sold out of your size. The more this happens, the more enticing online shopping becomes. Some of the bigger traditional stores have tried online stores and come to the conclusion that they don’t work. If you check out their stores you can buy anything they could not sell in the store but not every item the store sells.The traditional Brick and Mortar edge. For store owners who depend on foot traffic to make sales the growth of online retailers is a serious threat. The local store now has to focus on its strength and hope that remains enough to win the consumer.Privacy and Security. Preying on the fear that your private information will be out there for anyone to grab and abuse is a favorite of the traditional store. However as more americans get used to online banking, booking travel arrangements, buying movie tickets and using secure websites this perceived advantage is loosing its punch. These days you are more likely to loose your privacy to a person you actually hand your credit card to than online.Interaction. The internet is said to be an interactive medium. The local store will seem to again have the advantage here since the have sales people right in front of you to answer your questions. The problem is that anyone who has ever gone to the internet before they went shopping tends to know more about what they are looking for than the sales people.A well thought out website anticipates your questions and answers them with knowledge and experience. When you go in to a store you rarely get to talk with the owner. It just is not possible for the owner to be available for every customer walking through the door. But online, the owner can be involved. Experience has taught them the questions you are going to ask about every product and they know the answer. You can be half way around the world, shopping while the store owner sleeps and he can still be answering your question because he has anticipated it.Selection. In the past, a traditional store could boast selection as a key advantage over the online store. That is far from true now. You can generally find exactly what you want on line often direct from the manufacturer or a website specializing in that particular product.Shipping. The traditional store may boast no shipping. However that depends on your point of view. You still pay for shipping when you buy from the local store, it just comes in the form of a higher price. If the item is not in stock you pay for your gas to go to and from the store to find that out. Then when the item is at the store you pay for your gas back and forth again. In most cases I find it costs me less to buy something on line and pay the shipping than it does to drive all over and come home empty handed. After driving to and from work the last thing most people want to do is get back in the car and drive more.The internet can be a cost effective way to save money as a consumer. By cutting out the need for a store, the middle man between the manufacturer and the consumer one can get a higher quality product for the same price as a similar one from your local store.

Buying E-books On E-bay: E-bay The One-stop E-book Shop

On September 1995, one of the most prestigious online shopping sites was founded. eBay is unique because it allows online shoppers, either as individuals or as a group, a wide variety of merchandise that they can buy, sell or trade within their community, their nation or even other with other countries. EBay’s merchandise reaches to 44 million things on sale at any given time and is added with more than four million of other things to be sold everyday. Their categories include antiques, collectibles, photography, computers, art, toys, electronics, stamps, jewelry, magazines, comics, pottery, e-books and many more. Electronic books or more popularly known as e-Books are text materials designed to be portable. They are special books that uses a program that enable readers to read it through their hardware devices - like Personal Computers, laptops, palmtops and/or even mobile phones. They are so accessible and can be transferred from one computer to another using a network. Since e-Bay is one of the country's leading online shopping site, they also provide a selection on must have e-Books. Shopping for e-Books is fairly easy, but one must need some basic online shopping knowledge before they are able to do so. A great recommended book would be eBay Bargain Shopping for Dummies (can be found at eBay) by Marsha Collier. This book would help all online shoppers who to discover the treasure of eBay shopping. Her book spills the beans on how to outwit and outbid your competition - which is a good way to find discounts on all the items up for grabs. E-Books can be ordered online and delivered electronically to your computer (or mobile phone). This way, there is no shipping and tax expenses and you get your e-Book at a very low price. There are numerous sites that sell e-books in this manner On the other hand; Instant e-Books do not require additional software or other readers for customers to be able to immediately start reading their e-Books after installing it. And aside from that, there are many free e-Books and other articles written by "eBay gurus." With eBay, e-Books are just a click away. What could be greater news to all book lovers out there?would like to sell. Then sign up as a member with eBay. Once you have decided on a product(s), locate a Dropshipper for that product(s). Sign up with that Dropshipper and then place an auction on eBay for the item.. Once your auction is over and you have a buyer for the product emails your Dropshipper the required information. The Dropshipper will ship the product directly to your customer, and charge your account the wholesale price for that product. The difference between the wholesale price and your retail price is pure profit! To run a successful eBay Business you will need to sell what the public wants to buy. Always research any product before you decide to sell it. Make sure it is popular and you can get it at a great price.

Uploading Personal Videos for MySpace

Truly this is the age of technology and nowhere has it been highlighted more than on the internet. Everywhere that you look you will find an infinite number of videos taken by digital camera, phone, camcorders, and any other recording device available. These videos range from the personal to the quirky to wannabe director videos. And this is also true of the many videos for MySpace which people upload to their pages. Since one of the best things about MySpace, and part of its massive appeal to many people, is the fact that having your own MySpace page makes it easier than ever to keep in touch with your friends and family. This can be seen very much in existence if you take a look at the various videos for MySpace which have been uploaded. These uploaded videos for MySpace profile pages are a testament to the enduring nature of family ties. Although most people upload their videos for MySpace profile pages for the benefit of their family and friends, they haven’t set their profiles to “Private”, which means that anyone can take a look at their profile pages. They have taken their personal lives and created a collage of their most special, funny, and just downright normal moments and invited everyone to take a look. Not everyone does this of course. Some people like to keep their private lives private, and indicate this on the privacy settings tab. To view these pages, you will need to be invited to do so. This is one method of protecting your privacy which some people prefer to utilize. After all, not everyone wants their fond memories, in the form of photographs and videos for MySpace, displayed for everyone to see. On the other hand, it can be difficult for your family and friends to take a peep at your profile pages and sundry other interesting bits and pieces if you have set it to private, and they don’t even have a MySpace account. It is probably to overcome this shortcoming that many people keep their privacy settings turned off. So when you upload videos for MySpace you need to think twice about whether you want the entire world to be able to see your memories, or whether you want only a select few people to view them. This decision of course becomes much easier if you’re not uploading personal videos for MySpace, but other interesting things instead. For instance a budding filmmaker will find MySpace to be the ideal place to get good feedback for their videos. And other people might just want to share a funny moment or two with the rest of the world.One thing that you can be sure of when you’re looking through the various offerings of videos for MySpace, is that you won’t be bored, in tears of joy, hilarity, or sadness maybe, but not bored. With so many people on MySpace it’s very unlikely (not impossible though!) that you will become bored.

Tips for Real Estate Website Design

Real estate business is currently witnessing a boom when the property market has stretched virtually, where millions of transactions are taking place everyday. Therefore, making websites for real estate companies, firms or agencies has become a true necessity.Important things to be included in real estate website designFirst of all, to get the best visibility, a website must reflect its purpose well. Reflecting the purpose means, it should provide adequate information to its users and serve their needs well. In order to gain the maximum visibility, you may need to think about the design of your website. Designing of a real estate website must be internet friendly. Internet Friendly means it must possess factors to attract the interests of search engines to benefit people ultimately. Here are few tips that may help realtors to decide their website design to earn profits like never before:1. Add PicturesPictures provide confidence and trust. If you provide a visible option, you can earn a real client. So do not hesitant to include photos of all the real estate homes and property that is up for sale. In cases, you have listing without proper pictures, you may lose traffics that you may likely to gain otherwise.2. Price Pricing is one of the important factors in real estate world. People want to know about the price range so that they can determine if they can afford the home or not. Giving an idea about the price is beneficial for seller as well. By giving a rough idea about the price range, a seller can expect to get better hits. 3. Instant Information In this technology era, people want to have instant information. They usually don’t want to call or email a seller you for photos or for the price. They want everything on the website along with an asking price. Therefore, it is important for you to include a section called “submit a question” link on your website for your potential buyers. 4. Information by location If you provide real estate information by locations, you are likely to gain a lot. You can also create your own classification by categorizing the needs into different sections and provide the most beneficial information. You can also add the links of real estate in different cities. By following above mentioned points, you as a seller can easily find out impressive buyers. These are just some tips for real estate websites to really gain traffic and establish a good real estate selling network over the Internet.

Green Moving

The days have come where the word green is used more often. There have been so many years of threatening words like chlorofluorocarbons and global warming, that we are becoming more aware of the impact we are making on our environment. This is just the beginning, of course, but this is the right time to figure out how you can make simple changes that will go a long way during your move.EssentialsBy taking a closer look at the aspects of moving and how it can be more green, the standards that are being used right now can be changed and innovated. There are plenty of people who have been through the process of moving long distances and know that it is one of the only times to see how many items are in your possession. When you consider the expression reduce, reuse, and recycle, you will find that there are many ways to change the way we move. If packing is already in progress, you have probably found many items that you do not wish to keep, and definitely wouldn’t want to have your long distance movers ship. Sometimes it can be hard to find the energy or put time aside to recycle, donate, and find a way to keep your items out of the landfill. In general, the easiest way to prevent this as much as possible is to be more aware of the items you purchasing. Having fewer belongings will relieve you of more items to throw out or send with your long distance movers. It is important to allow ample time to accomplish the task of packing you belongings. The reason you need this time is so that when you come across items you wish to toss, you will have the time to find a home for it instead. The Salvation Army is a great place to donate some of those items, and they have moving crews and vehicles that can hold small or big items.To prevent the purchase of new packing materials that would end up in a landfill, ask your friends, neighbors, co-workers, and grocery stores if they have any extra boxes hanging around that you can acquire. If you must purchase new packing materials, save them for the next time you move.