Students Of Success

If your debts are your main worries than you cannot choose an option better than an unsecured debt consolidation loan to take care of all your debt related worries.

Debt consolidation is a technique where an individual who is in debt i.e. has taken multiple loans from his creditors has an option by which he can convert all his loans into a single loan from a single creditor.

There are many ways of taking a debt consolidation loans but what most people consider to be a good option is that of an unsecured debt consolidation loan. In this loan you just need to apply for a loan after you have submitted your details and if your profile matches than the loan is made available to you. There are no hassles of collaterals or other things that are required when we go for the secured debt consolidation.

People often wonder why we should take debt consolidation loan what are its advantages and how will it benefit us. Well the advantages of taking a debt consolidation loan for all the UK population are.

• It provides you with a loan option which is reasonable than the average of all the loans that we previously owed. In terms of the rate of interest offered and the duration for which the loan is offered, the usual time period ranges between 3 – 25 years.

• Professional lenders will understand our situation better than those unprofessional lenders to whom we owed.

• Unsecured debt consolidation is obviously a risk free proposition and after all the risk bearing it is a good option for the borrowers.

• Professional lenders will offer loans to people with every profile i.e. to people with bad credit history as well. People will bad credit history would be rarely able to provide you with a security so it is the only viable option for them.

• Another benefit is that it eliminates all those irritating creditors to whom we previously owed money.

Considering all these benefits available there should be no doubts remaining in the minds of the borrowers.

The borrowers do not have to go far to apply for these loans. All they need to do is go online, find themselves a lender and submit your details and get the loan. One thing that a person must remember is to make sure that he fulfills the criteria of a borrower apart from the following:

• A borrower should be at least 18 years of age
• A borrower must have regular income
• A borrower must be a UK citizen and should have a proof of that

Once you have done that you make yourself eligible for an unsecured debt consolidation loan. And shoot all your debts with it.

After having herself gone through the ordeal of loan borrowing, Natasha Anderson understands the need for good quality loan advice. Her articles endeavor to provide you the wise counsel in the most elementary way for the benefit of the readers. She works for the UK debt consolidation web site UK debt consolidations. To find a debt consolidation loans, bad credit debt consolidation loans, debt advice that best suits your needs visit http://www.ukdebtconsolidations.co.uk

With the crime rate on the rise so too is the fear factor of the common consumer on how to protect themselves from lawsuits, fraud, and burglary. Fortunate it is that technology has taken such a sharp upward trend to introduce so many security devices to monitor and protect the consumer.

One of the most popular devices that has come down drastically in price is the Spy Camera. The spy camera use to be a figment of your imagination that was in shows such as Star Trek and James Bond. Now it is a reality with pen cameras, pin cameras, cameras hidden in sun glasses even. For as little as $250 you can buy an entire kit that will use sensors and even remote Internet access with alarms. You have the possibility of hooking your house wide camera systems to the cable system and watching the cameras on any screen in your house on a certain channel.

On top of spy cameras you have a whole range of devices to protect yourself and your property. Trip wires, motion sensors, window and door detectors/alarms, cameras, spy camera, vaults, digital locks, finger print locks, and more. Everything is at an affordable price, the most expensive price would be to have a professional come in and install the equipment which can easily cost a few thousand depending on the size of your home.

If you are looking for an easier solution with a low budget, we can assist you in this. I will detail a simple system that will help to deter burglars. First, solar panel motion sensor lights. It would be helpful to put one in front and back. Second, use two hooks and one 2×4 to barricade the garage door at night.

Most burglars will enter through your garage since this is the most unprotected and commonly left unlocked. Place alarm stickers on the front door as a spoof to scare anyone away. Lastly, you can get simple alarms that you can connect to your door or window and with a switch hear when it opens with a bell or alarm.

These are very cheap items and can be installed in as little as 45 minutes. Consult an alarm company for more help and to see local prices on professional systems.

Installing Spy camera is great way to protect your valuable asset with affordable price, explore more Spy Camera and Video Surveillance Equipment at http://www.superior-video-surveillance-camera.info

Need extra money to get you to the next paycheck? Payday loans
come to the rescue. However, you should be prepared to pay the
price which is usually a hefty one. But there are steps you can
take to minimize the financial damage.

What are Payday Loans?

Cash advance loans, post-dated check loans or deferred deposit
check loans are high-rate loans and are intended to be used for
short term. Emphasis here is on short term, usually 14 days
since most of us get paid bi-weekly.

How does a Payday Loan work?

The old economy created the idea of living paycheck to paycheck.
As if that wasn’t bad enough. In today’s economy many don’t even
get to the next paycheck. So, the potential borrower writes a
personal check payable to the lender for the amount she wishes
to borrow plus a fee.

The lender cashes the check and keeps the fee, of course.
Ideally this type of loan will get the borrower room to breathe
and he/she can pay off the loan when he/she gets paid.

Lets take a look at an example. Ms. Susan Borrower needs $200
and the cost is $30. She writes a check for $230 and the payday
lender agrees to hold the check until her next payday that is
usually 14 days away.

After 14 days, depending on the particular plan, Ms. Borrower
takes $230.00 in cash to the lender and takes back the personal
check she wrote. Or, she can roll-over the check by paying a fee
to extend the loan for another two weeks. Each time she
rolls-over the check, she will pay a fee that in this example
was $30. In theory, if she rolls-over the check for one year,
she ends up paying $30 for 26 times or $780 for borrowing $200.

How is the payday loan fee calculated?

Usually lenders charge a fixed fee for per amount borrowed. For
example $10.00 for every $100.00 you borrow and it can be as
high as $30 for every $100.00 you borrow. Ouch and double ouch!
This translates to something like 700% annual rate of interest
and some people are worried about the 20% credit card interest
rate.

How can Truth in Lending Act help you?

Under the Truth in Lending Act, the lenders must disclose the
cost of payday loans. So look for them to compare. Among other
information, you must receive, in writing, the finance charge (a
dollar amount) and the annual percentage rate or APR (the cost
of credit on a yearly basis).

What type of collateral should you have?

Your personal check is the collateral. Reverting back to the old
days of my word is my bond. But since many people break their
words as easily as they would their bonds, lenders make these
loans very very expensive so that those who do pay will carry
the cost of collection from those who do not pay.

What alternatives do you have instead of payday loans?

Contact your credit union or small loan company, find out if
your company offer any short term assistance. I know it could be
hard to tell friends and family members about your financial
hardship but swallow your pride a little bit and ask them for
help. Just make sure that you don’t swallow your pride too much
by not paying them on time.

If you are borrowing to pay other debts or other bills, why not
just ask your creditors for more time to pay your bills? Find
out what they will charge for that service including late
charges and additional finance charge or a higher interest rate.

What steps can you take to reduce the cost?

When you need credit, shop carefully. Compare offers. Look for
the credit offer with the lowest APR.

Compare the APR and the finance charge (which includes loan
fees, interest and other types of credit costs) of credit offers
to get the lowest cost.

Some firms will offer you a low cost guarantee that helps you
save time in comparison shopping. An example of this type of
guarantee is: “Must be a verifiable, bona fide offer from an
online payday loan provider. Excludes one-time, promotional
offers. Rate comparison must be based on a 14 day loan of less
than $500.”

How to cure the problem not the symptom?

Pick up meditation and prayer and I don’t mean bombarding God or
whatever higher power you believe in with requests for money. I
mean take the time to get to know your higher Self that can help
you look at life in a more balanced fashion. This knowledge can
help you control emotional stuff which are major reasons for
out-of-balance expenditures and emotional spending binges. Who
knows, you may even be able to have a direct communication with
God and straighten out more than your finances.

Remember that the outer world is just a reflection of us inside
and we cannot change our outer circumstances without changing
what we think in our hearts.

The need for money usually stems from a combination of low
income and lack of disciplined spending habits. Take steps to
improve your income which usually starts with better education.
Look for ways to improve your education and acquire new skills
that can help you get better jobs and higher paying positions. I
know it is hard to get enough energy at the end of 50 - 60 hour
week to study. But, don’t you rather have the stress of studying
for a better future for a limited time than to keep worrying
about payday loans for years to come?

Also, with the Internet, you may have small business
opportunities that did not exist before.

Take a good look at where your money went during the last six
months. If an item shows up over and over, it is no longer a
one-time deal. Make a budget that really reflects your monthly
and daily expenditures.

If you need help working out a debt repayment plan with
creditors or developing a budget, contact your local consumer
credit counseling service. There are non-profit groups in every
state that offer credit guidance to consumers. These services
are available at little or no cost. Also, check with your
employer, credit union or housing authority for no-cost or
low-cost credit counseling programs.

Finally, if you decide you must use a payday loan, borrow only
as much as you can afford to pay with your next paycheck and
still have enough to make it to the next payday.

What are the benefits?

So what are the benefits to this payday loan? It sounds like
there isn’t any.

With so many companies cropping out every day offering this
service and thousands of individuals using them and even
offering testimonials to their benefits, I have to concede that
there are benefits.

To start with, many times Payday Loans are really the only fast
alternative to get you out of a financial jam. The qualification
is hassle free. You can get a yes or no answer fairly fast and
it can be done online.

In many cases there aren’t any credit checks.

Some lenders do not even require you to fax them documentation.

Your inquiry is kept confidential.

And you can have the cash by the next business day.

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e.com or My Favorite Shop, Inc. do not endorse any reverse
mortgage product or lender. This article and website does not
provide legal, accounting, or other professional services. If
legal or other expert assistance is required, the services of a
competent professional should be sought. Although Vishy Dadsetan
has made every effort to ensure the accuracy and completeness of
the information contained in this site, it assumes no
responsibility for errors, omissions, inaccuracies, or
inconsistencies.

Before you set up any scripts you will need some information about your server. You can get this by e-mailing your web hosting provider. It’s good to have these on hand before you try to set up a script. You may not need all of the information for each script, but some of the larger scripts demand more information to work. The information you may need is:

Path To Perl This is normally the first line at the top of a “.cgi” or “.pl” (Perl) script. A sample of a Path To Perl is /usr/bin/perl. Most scripts already have the proper Path To Perl included. If the script doesn’t work it may be this variable.

Relative Path Which is the relative path to your server, not the HTML path. A sample is: /home/yourlogin/public_html/

HTML Path To Your Server Which is the URL path to your server, for example: http://yourdomain.com

Sendmail Path Which is the relative path to your mail server. A sample is: /usr/sbin/sendmail

SMTP Server Address Which is the path to sendmail on your server. A sample is: smtp.yourdomamin.com (This is rarely used)

Once you have those variables you can set up just about any script available.

Open the scripts that you are instructed to in the “readme” file or “installation” file. These instructions should tell you which scripts need to be set up with these variables. Open these files in a HTML editor, or a text editor. The instructions should also give you the exact location where each variable should be changed or inputed.

Once you have all of the variables set, upload your scripts. They must be uploaded in ASCII, not Binary, if your FTP program makes you choose. Once uploaded your scripts need to have the permissions set in order to work. The instructions should have those permissions for you. Normally a “.cgi” or “.pl” script has it’s permissions set to 755.

Your FTP program should allow you to do that somewhere in the program. I use WS_FTP95 LE. To set permissions I simply right click in the right hand window when I am in the server directory where the script is. I click on “FTP Commands” then on “Site”. I then type in the field “chmod 755 name of script”. If the script is called “abc.cgi” then I will type in “chmod 755 abc.cgi”.

It is now time to test the script. The instructions should tell you how to access the script, i.e. “yourdomain.com/abc.cgi”. If you get a “Internal Server Error” then you need to go back and check the variables in the scripts and set the permissions, and try uploading the script again.

Read more articles by this author, about this and other subjects, here.

About The Author

Bob Power has been an Internet entrepreneur for longer than he would like to remember. He is currently on a voyage of learning, thanks to his readers, who have asked him to answer questions about topics they want more information on. You can see some of the surprising, and at times exciting results, and variety of topics and paths this has taken him on, or to contact Bob Power please click here.

These articles may be reproduced exactly as shown above. No revisions or changes are permitted.

To the beginner, a game like Craps can be rather daunting. Once you have learned the basics and know the rules, however, you will find the game rather simple to grasp. As always, strategy plays an important role and following a calculated and intelligent strategy will assure any player of good, if not always winning, results.

A crucial part of craps is for the player to understand that it is a game of rounds. Not much can be done to manipulate the outcome at craps. Instead of trying to predict the result of a single roll, a strategically well-planned game involves riding on the outcome and accordingly varying the amount of a bet. You must bet more when you are winning and less when you are losing.

Using the Odds
Try to use high-odds bets and be mentally prepared that you will not win each time the dice is rolled. Hence, take the best odds you can manage, use them in your favor as far as possible and play cleverly. The best odds on the table, in a game of Craps are Pass, Don’t Pass, Come, Don’t Come.

Most bets can be added to, removed or deducted from, at any point of time. There are certain exceptions to this which are the come and pass bets where the player cannot go beyond the maximum bet on the odds. It is said that a Pass bet gives the house a 1.41% edge whereas a Don’t Pass bet gives a little less than 1.41%. These Line Bets form the core of a winning strategy. A part from this a player, in order to improve the best bet, must concentrate upon the Odds. He must either buy Odds in a Pass or Lay Odds in case of ‘Don’t Pass’. This plan improves your initial bet because the house takes on edge on Odds.

Place an Odds Bet by supplementing the initial Pass/ Don’t Pass with an incremental amount after the Come Out roll. Generally you must buy the biggest Odds possible for the greater the Odds bet, in betting the maximum here you minimize the house advantage.

Here’s a basic rule that you can follow: If you’re Laying Odds, let the Initial Don’t Pass bet be a multiple of $6 and then bet full on your Double Odds for a multiple of $12. Similarly, when Buying Odds, make your Pass bet a multiple of $5 so as to make the Double Odds, multiples of $10.

Don’t Pass for Success
Most players choose to play right and Buy the Odds as the paybacks appear to be larger. But here’s a piece of advice to those, playing seriously to win. The strategy is to look at playing wrong so as to take the smaller house edge and grind it out. Playing Wrong and Laying Odds is for seasoned players with a big roll and who for those who have the perseverance to spread the wins over longer play time.

When it comes to Double Odds, it may be safer to not Lay Double on each round. Let’s take a look at probabilities. You will find that there are four ways to roll a 5 and 9, three ways to roll 4 and 10 and five ways in which you will roll 6 or 8. Finally, there are 6 ways to roll a 7. Here’s the catch, when you’re betting wrong and going for Double Odds, the 6’s and 8’s will appear frequently making you lose the bet. Hence a good strategy will be to play Double Odds on the 4’s and 10’s.

Be Humble
One last piece of advice which comes direct from experience: Before you arrive at the table, try to know the rules and the basic terminology used in the game. Craps has its own language which may seem complicated to a novice but can easily be learned with practice. There is nothing more annoying than a pushy player who has no idea what he (it is usually a he) is doing. Make sure to learn the basic terminology, and be humble enough to admit that you may not know everything about the game

Rich McHagans is a craps expert. Visit www.geniuscraps.com/ to learn more.

The Crock-Pot is not a new phenomenon and has been around for
many years. However, recently more recipes have been listed
using the Crock-Pot as the ideal appliance. There are a few
reasons why using a Crock-Pot is a great way to cook.

Cooking Using a Crock-Pot is Easy and Convenient

It is so easy to use a Crock-Pot for making some of one’s
favorite recipes. All an individual has to do is to cut up some
vegetables and meat, for example, toss the ingredients in the
Crock-Pot, and let it do its thing. It is not like cooking on
the stove or in the oven where one has to constantly be watching
the meal to make sure it doesn’t burn. By using a Crock-Pot, one
can put the meal in the pot and go off to do other things around
the house and the meal will turn out perfectly. For this reason,
convenience is a key factor with Crock-Pot cooking.

Crock-Pot Meals Are Flavorful

Due to the fact that meals which are prepared with a Crock-Pot
sit and cook for awhile, the end result is a flavorful meal.
Because the juices have had a chance to soak in and marinate the
ingredients within the Crock-Pot, one will have a meal which
will tantalize the taste buds of the entire family.

Many Crock-Pot Recipes Are Unique and Different

Crock-Pot recipes tend to be ones which are a bit different than
the usual recipes that require stovetop or oven cooking. One can
also alter the various Crock-Pot recipes by throwing in some
additional ingredients for added flair or to personal tastes.
Crock-Pot recipes are of such a unique quality that they are
sure to please all who partake in this great type of meal.

These are some of the reasons why those individuals who have to
prepare a meal should dig out their Crock-Pots and make
something fantastic for dinner without spending much time on the
meal.

You’ve Got the Wrong Attitude

Your belief system is what may be standing in the way. Most academics cling to the belief that they must set aside large chunks of time, do a lot of preparation, and be in the proper frame of mind to be able to write.

What this means is that when you finally sit down to write, it’s going to be an unpleasant marathon. You have placed such importance on this writing session that you feel anxiety about it living up to your expectations. And you know it’s going to be difficult. After all, there are thorny issues you haven’t addressed, articles you haven’t read or reread, and a lack of coherence to your thinking. You need to solve those problems. And if you don’t do it now you’ll be quite disappointed in yourself.
How unpleasant! And how counterproductive!

What Should You Believe Instead? Or “Oh, The Irony!”

Research by Robert Boyce actually shows that first and second-year professors who participated in a study on writing productivity were able to turn out more publishable pages in a year by

· Writing 30 minutes a day

· Only writing on workdays

· Shoehorning that writing into small gaps in their busy schedules

The difficult part, it turns out, was convincing these professors to try this low-key method in the first place. Ironically, they all insisted that the only way to get real work done was to do it in the marathon way that I described above.
The second irony was that when Boyce actually measured the amount that they were writing per week (before the intervention,) it was less than 30 minutes per week! This was much less than their retrospective reports of how much time they had been spending writing.

The third irony was that those who most adhered to the idea that you must write in large doses were the least productive.
The fourth irony was that although these professors considered writing a private activity, they did best when they were accountable to someone for maintaining their 30-minute writing habit.

Do It Already!

So what’s stopping you from learning from these professors and writing a small amount each day?

Here are typical excuses:

· It’s just not rewarding writing in small amounts. I feel like I’ve gotten nothing accomplished.

· I have a big issue to work out. It will take more time than 30 minutes.

· I feel guilty if I don’t work more each time.

· I’ll never complete my dissertation/paper/research project at that pace.

· I’ve waited until it’s too late and I can’t afford the luxury of that small amount of time per day.

· It just doesn’t feel right.

· I’ve got more time than that, I should be putting all my time to good use.

· It’s so overwhelming that I don’t know where to start, and by the time I figure it out my 30 minutes will be up.

My answer to those responses? Bull! Except for the emergency deadline, there is no reason not to try this technique. Give it time to see if it works for you. If you’re like every other academic I’ve worked with, you will resist the idea. I suggest that the more resistant you are, the more problem you’ve probably had with procrastination in the past.

An Action Plan

Try it for a week. Select a time each day, preferably not the evening unless you’re a night owl, and write for 30 minutes, without email, reading or other distractions. Don’t listen to the voices in your head saying you “should be getting more done,” or “you should be writing more than this.” I’ll bet at the end of the week you’ll be pleasantly surprised at your output, and pleased with the increasing ease with which you can sit down to write. You’ll start to see progress on your dissertation or article and maybe come to believe that you will finish one day.

Furthermore, don’t forget about being accountable to someone. Let someone else know that you’re going to be doing daily writing. Perhaps you can find a writing buddy, or someone in your dissertation group.

Don’t forget, if you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got. Start setting yourself up for success starting right now!

© Gina Hiatt, PhD.
Gina is a dissertation and tenure coach. She helps academics, from grad students wondering about their dissertation topic to faculty members who want to maintain a high level of research and writing, to reach their goals more quickly and less painfully. Get Gina’s free assessments & ezine at http://www.academicladder.com