Students Of Success

Even though I feel that I am fairly savy — after all, I read many technical e-newsletters, Internet articles and Internet Technology (IT) magazines — I was completely taken in by a clever con artist. If you want to read the whole story, check out the article, Curious about Con Artists: You Find Them in Unlikely Places — My Story. There are so many scary fraud schemes out there, I thought as a warning to you and for your safety, it would be a good idea to discuss some of the “biggies.”

Definition of Fraud: “In a broad strokes definition, fraud is a deliberate misrepresentation which causes another person to suffer damages, usually monetary losses.”

Fraud Tip #1. Phishing

1. This is one of the most prevalent and most convincing fraudulent schemes. It may refer to your PayPal account, eBay membership, bank account, credit card, or other account where you need an ID, password and/or personal information.
2. You receive a legitimate sounding e-mail message from support@… similar to the following:
   “Dear eBay member,
   You have received this warning because we have strong reason to believe that your eBay account had been recently compromised and it could be used by a third party without your authorization. In order to prevent any fraudulent activity from occurring we are required to open an investigation into this matter. To speed up this process, you are required to verify your eBay account by following the link below.”
3. When you click on the link listed, you are taken to a web page that looks exactly like the account page — for example, you are sure you are at your PayPal account page. You are asked for personal information, including ID and password, etc.
4. DON’T DO IT! Always go to the legitimate website on your own and check it out with them.

Fraud Tip #2. Patch or special download

• This supposedly is sent by Microsoft and you click to download the patch for an update. You will be downloading an unpleasant virus or worm. Microsoft will never, never send a patch by e-mail. They will check your machine for updates and then ask your permission to download them.

Fraud Tip #3. Internet Investment Scams

• The Internet serves as an excellent tool for investors, allowing them to easily and inexpensively research investment opportunities. But the Internet is also an excellent tool for fraudsters. That’s why you should always think twice before you invest your money in any opportunity you learn about through the Internet. Visit the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that has a great website that lists a huge number of scams.

Fraud Tip #4. Preventative Measures - tips for your protection

• The IFCC (Internet Fraud Complaint Center) has an excellent website that includes a tips page where you will read about Internet Auction Fraud, Non-Delivery of Merchandise, Credit Card Fraud, Investment Fraud, Nigerian Letter Scam, and Business Fraud.

In a perfect world, everyone would be honest and trustworthy, but, unfortunately, there are those who will try to take advantage of others. The Internet provides a fertile ground for their creativity and dishonesty. I hope I have alerted you to some of the most common frauds and also made you more skeptical and careful than you have been. I know I am now!

Chris King is a professional website creator / designer, storyteller, writer, free agent, and fitness instructor. You will find her business website at http://www.creativekeys.biz where you can sign up for her monthly Internet Tips E-zine. In addition visit Chris’ information website at http://www.creativekeys.net and her blog at http://www.curiositycubed.blogspot.com

Everyone can improve their health by simply following these
guidelines. Be optimistic, eat right, exercise, sleep well, and
find purpose for your life. Follow these and you will become
healthier, happier, and more productive.

1. Put away fear and worry and find joy. There are health
professionals who recommend not watching or listening to the
news. Reading the daily newspaper in the morning starts your day
off on a negative path. The news brings you crisis after crisis,
tearing you down.

Change your thinking to one of optimism and gratitude. Thinking
of things you can be thankful for is a great exercise every
morning. Be thankful for life, for family, for the ability to
see and to think. It doesn’t matter what you put in the blank.
The important thing is to develop a thankful heart.

2. Eat right. Eat more whole foods, less processed foods, and
overcome your addictions to junk food. That is hard to hear and
perhaps even harder to follow, but it is so vitally important to
your overall health.

Besides eating the right foods you need to be careful not to
overeat. Overeating causes us to age faster, increases wrinkles,
and greatly increases our chances of acquiring many diseases
such as cancer, heart disease and diabetes. If you need to,
decrease the amount of food you eat.

At the same time increase the percentage of whole foods in your
diet. Whole foods improve your health and improve your immune
system. Eat 7-13 servings of fruits and vegetables each day and
reduce the amount of sugar and salt in your diet. You will
notice a difference in your energy level and your overall
health.

3. Get adequate sleep. If you do not sleep enough your body is
not going to function efficiently. It will even slow down your
metabolism and make it harder for you to lose extra weight.
Also, a lot of hormones are secreted in high levels during sleep
which allows your body to recuperate and repair. For example, if
you are an athlete or a body builder, not getting enough sleep
will increase your chances of injury or failure.

4. Exercise regularly. The average person should try to exercise
every day, raising their heart rate a little bit and keeping it
there for 20 minutes or so. If you cannot do it every day or
every other day, at least do it every three days. Studies have
shown that after being sedentary for 72 hours the body’s
metabolism starts to decrease.

5. Find purpose in your life. Even people who have experienced
horrendous illness have been able to survive for a long, long
time because they had a reason to live. They have become
incredibly useful individuals within their family and social and
community spheres despite their illness.

These five guidelines are very basic and within reach of most
people. Followed closely they can lead to a longer, healthier
and a more fulfilling life.

So you say you want a brochure? Or an ad? Or a radio spot? Okay, but…have you filled out your “Creative Strategy Form” first?

Welcome to another edition of Not Your Usual Marketing Tips from JDK Marketing Communications Management.

It’s not just a matter of looking at a blank piece of paper - or screen - and saying to yourself, okay, I want a new brochure and here’s how it will look: I’ll put a picture here, put the logo there, and just write down whatever comes into my head and place it all on the inside…

So you say you want a brochure? Or an ad? Or a radio spot? Okay, but…have you filled out your “Creative Strategy Form” first?

Welcome to another edition of Not Your Usual Marketing Tips from JDK Marketing Communications Management.

It’s not just a matter of looking at a blank piece of paper - or screen - and saying to yourself, okay, I want a new brochure and here’s how it will look: I’ll put a picture here, put the logo there, and just write down whatever comes into my head and place it all on the inside…

Not that that may not have a chance to succeed vis-à-vis what your competitors have floating out there in the marketplace. But the better chance is when initial thought and discipline goes into the recipe, you’ll be cooking up something far more flavorful and nutritional…if nutrition be a metaphor here for substance and a meaningful message.

Here’s what I prescribe to my clients before we embark on the vehicle itself - whether it’s a brochure, ad, radio/TV spot, billboard, even to an extent a logo design. They need to fill out a single sheet of paper, a questionnaire I call the “Creative Strategy Form.”

Here’s what it asks:

1. How would you describe your product/service?
2. What/who is your target audience?
3. What are your business’s (cosmetic) features - are you bigger, smaller, prettier, older, younger, in the city, in the suburbs, etc.?
4. What are the benefits to your clients (as opposed to “features,” what are the elements to your product/service that can actually help them)?
5. Who is your competition?
6. What do they have that you don’t?
7. What do YOU have that THEY don’t?
8. Do you have a “call to action,” such as a coupon, a giveaway, a website?
9. Do you have samples of marketing materials done by your competitors - or even in another industry - that you like, or particularly impresses
   you?
10. If your audience could derive one main, focused (important word!) thought out of this piece, what would it be?

And there you have it. If you can answer these questions…or even if you can’t, and it prompts you to think further about how to “explain” your business…you’ll be that much more ahead of the game when it comes to developing your message, your theme, even your artwork that puts a graphic “face” on the materials.

And it certainly takes the guessing game out of how to fill that blank piece of paper, or screen.

As to how yours truly has helped clients recently “fill in the blanks,” you’re welcome to check out my website (www.jdkmarketing.biz), go to the Portfolio link, and note what was done just recently for the Matthews Family Chiropractic clinic, and the Larry Hale Insurance Agency.

Joel Kweskin is the principal behind JDK Marketing Communications Management.

He is a former Advertising Manager and Creative Director for Royal (& SunAlliance) Insurance, helping to earn several industry awards for excellence in advertising and marketing communications. During this period, he served as national Vice President of the Insurance Marketing Communications Association (IMCA) and was representative to the Association of National Advertisers (ANA).

He has been a copywriter for New York City and Charlotte advertising agencies; his writing skills embrace virtually all disciplines of marketing promotion and journalism.

Since 1996, through the emergence of his own company, Kweskin has offered consultation on marketing strategy and creative development and implementation for such diverse national, regional and local corporate names as BellSouth Mobility DCS (Verizon); Transamerica Reinsurance; Bristol-Myers Squibb; John Deere; Moissanite Jewelry; Pro-Med Emergency Care; Charlotte Housing Authority and Archadeck.

Kweskin has also displayed his skills on both the publication stage and the theatrical stage: he co-authored articles for National Lampoon magazine and co-scripted a comedy revue off-Broadway in New York City.

Joel Kweskin
JDK Marketing Communications Management
704.846.4835, office
704.575.8850, cell
704.841.2746, fax
www.jdkmarketing.biz

If you talk to anyone who uses email, spam is something that is frequently on there mind. How often is it that you open your inbox checking for an email from your mom, and you end up with emails with subjective titles involving animals, and foreign objects.

There are ways to fight back against Spam, and one of the most popular is through the use of a spam filtering service. There is all different types of spam, and surprisingly not all of them involve email. Most spamming involves the advertising or otherwise promotion of a product, however this is not true in some cases.

Most common types of spamming include: Email spam, Link spam and search engine spam.

Email Spam is the simple act of sending out massive amounts of ‘junk email’ to anyone and everyone, in order to promote a product. Often times spamming has been exploited by more ‘undergorund’ industries such as the adult industry, but it would be unfair to say that other industries haven’t used it as well.

Link Spam is a form of spamming or spamdexing that recently became publicized most often when targeting the increasingly popular weblogs. Weblogs is one of the biggest problems, however link spam also affects guestbooks, and online discussion boards. The purpose behind spamming these various places, is to display hyperlinks to a various page or product, which helps both with user exposure and search engine popularity.

Search engine spam is usually closely related with the above “link spam”, as it is the process of creating countless numbers of pages, that populate search engines. Often times these pages will be full of garbage text and have no real value on there own. When a user visits them, they will either be re-directed to a completely different page, often times on another domain, or show prominent advertising.

Everyone can take their part in removing spam. The easiest way for a general user to not encourage spam, is not to use it. Spammers only spam, because it must be effective, otherwise they would find something better to do with their time. It is also recommended to get various levels of personal spam protection, which is often times included with anti-virus software. 3rd party solutions such as Hotmail, have very good spam detection, however often times spam will leak in, and in that case you can help hotmail out by notifying them of the occurence, so that they can better help protect you next time.

Feel free to reprint this article as long as you keep the article, this caption and author biography in tact with all hyperlinks.

Ryan Fyfe is the owner and operator of Spam Filtering Services - www.spam-filtering-services.com, which is the best site on the internet for all Spam related information.

Winston Churchill wrote that after he died and arrived in Heaven he would like to spend a good deal of his first million years painting. I’m no artist, except with the BS perhaps, so after I die I think I would like to spend a good deal of my first million years dancing Rock ‘n’ Roll.

But just what will Rock ‘n’ Roll be like in Heaven? Perfect, of course. To begin with I will have a perfect partner who loves to dance with me only and gets it right 100 percent of the time. She will dress to perfection at all times, be great to look at, great to talk to and she will never get tired, never have a headache, never get sore feet, never be late and certainly never fail to show up. She will give me judicious breaks from dancing while she chats with her girlfriends, during which time I can try out some possible replacements for the future and she won’t mind a bit.

The lighting will be romantic and the air will be clear since all the smokers will have gone to the other place. The temperature in the moderate-sized room will judiciously adjust itself to my body temperature at any given moment.

The dance-floor will be large but not too large because the place will have atmosphere. Lets say around 150 square metres. It will always be in perfect condition, automatically polishing itself every twenty-four hours (if they have such a thing as hours in Heaven). You might think that I would want the dance floor to myself and my perfect partner (as we all do) but actually, no! I would like to share it with four or five other couples who all keep at least three metres away from me at all times and whose dancing all looks positively amateurish compared to my partner and I. This is to make us look good in the eyes of the gawking crowd who sit watching mesmerised as we dance, wishing to God they could dance like we can. But since this is my Heaven God won’t be granting them their wish.

For music there will be a live band (if you can call it that since we’ll be no longer of this Earth) who do requests upon demand (mine, of course!). They will consist of a four-piece backing combo who continually rotate unfaltering lead vocalists (Elvis, Bill Halley, Buddy Holly, etc). They will play long sets and take short breaks - just long enough for me to have a quick refreshment, sit and chat for a while with my horde of admirers and visit the boys’ room if required. During the band breaks a DJ will also play requests just for me and me alone.

Drinks will be free, delivered immediately by my own private, very cute and very friendly barmaid. Needless to say, no-one will take drinks anywhere near the dance-floor because in this place everyone is totally conscientious.

Yes, I can just see it all now. Its Rock ‘n’ Roll Dance Heaven in every way …..

Suddenly I feel three prongs of burning pain in my back as the temperature increases by 1000 degrees centigrade. I turn to face a slobbering apparition with horns, cloven hoof and a pointy tail prodding me with a trident. I enquire if this not-so-gentleman hasn’t lost his way, since this is Heaven. He replies with a harrowing, fiendish laugh that he’s the owner of this particular place and isn’t Heaven at all. I ask where we are and he advises that the venue is called Club Super-Selfish. He explains that this is an entry examination to you-know-where for dancers and I’ve just passed with flying colours! My perfect Heaven vanishes and its getting hotter and hotter. It appears that Hell is where Rock ‘n’ Roll dancers who want it all to themselves get sent. Selfish people don’t go to Heaven.

I am awoken from my reverie by a solid thump in my back as another dancing couple crashes into me on the postage-stamp-sized dance-floor. More bruises. The temperature increases by 1000 degrees centigrade, or so it feels. The air-conditioning in the crowded, noisy, smoke-filled pub isn’t coping with the mid-summer heat. My partner, who arrived late after a hard day has sore feet and a head-ache. She wants to sit down. The singer misses another note, the band is soon going to break after playing barely half a bracket and there’s no music in the break to dance to. No matter, the couple in the glittering, flashy clothes are making me look silly anyway. I can’t get a drink because they’re six-deep at the bar but if I slurp up a fraction of what gets slopped on the dance-floor I’ll be well inebriated.

Back to the real Rock ‘n’ Roll Hell!

But if this is Hell, why am I here? The answer is simple. Because I love Rock ‘n’ Roll dancing. Its a community activity and unfortunately people weren’t all born to suit my personal satisfaction. Everyone is here to enjoy themselves however they can doing whatever that amounts to. A bit more common sense at times certainly wouldn’t go astray and a few dancers ought to be told where to go. For me, however, this really is Rock ‘n’ Roll Dance Heaven even if it feels a bit like Hell at times. I love the music, the dancing, the venues and the people even with their faults. I could happily spend a million years right here doing what I enjoy the most.

Gareth Eastwood is a Rock ‘n Roll dance instructor and enthusiast in Adelaide, South Australia. He maintains a recently created website, http://www.rocknrolldance.com/ in which he repeatedly stresses the need for dancers to be gentle with each other rather than dancing roughly. When fully developed the site will feature articles by numerous authors detailing dance styles and reporting on events.

He also created and manages Going Places With Gareth, a gigantic singles social network revolving around a long-established website http://www.garethevents.info/ The network has been operating since May, 2000. Since then over three and a half thousand people have become involved in it to some degree.

Choosing the right veterinarian should be a little more involved than simply picking up the phone book and calling one that is closest to your place of residence. You may find that after a few appointments you are uncomfortable with your choice for various reasons. You may not be happy with the advice given as it just seems wrong or his manners may be abrupt when it comes to controlling your pet. Few people even think of changing their veterinarian or even take the time to find the right one in the first place.

When you pick the right veterinarian, future health procedures for your pet will be more comfortable for everyone involved. Here are a few tips that may help you choose the best vet. Call your local veterinary medical Board to see if any complaints have been filed. Make sure your new vet actually likes dogs, as surprisingly enough some don’t. Some are even allergic to dogs and thus, the quality of care your pet receives will be diminished. Find out if 24-hour emergency care is available and see if there is someone that might be with your pet nonstop all night, in case an accident requires your pet to stay overnight.

If you have a good insurance plan, ask if the veterinarian accepts the coverage that you carry. If you don’t have coverage, see if they accept your credit card or if they have a payment plan available. Watch closely the vet technicians. Do they have a friendly polite way about them and are they courteous to you and your pet? Lastly, remember that one of the most important things when it comes to selecting the best veterinarian for your pet is to trust your instincts. If you feel uncomfortable in any way, keep looking. You and your pet will be glad you did!

By Terry Price- Remember to visit http://www.pet-supply-discount.com/pet-medication.html for a great resource on all kinds of pet supply products, veterinarian recommendations and more.