The Refresh Orlando Heirs

The bulk SMS industry changed substantially over the last two years or so as sp@m became an issue with carriers and the industry defined itself by distinguishing between the features of a route and the price the client pays.

As a result, we now live with a situation where “you get what you pay for”. In an earlier article, we discussed how a bulk SMS client should choose the route he wish to use. We looked at the different features and options that are available.

In this article, we will take a look at the difference of commercial bulk SMS routes vs guaranteed bulk SMS routes also known as premium bulk SMS

Commercial bulk SMS routes:

Commercial bulk SMS routes may include all features a guaranteed route offers but the delivery is not always guaranteed. Users therefore always have to test before they send a batch. Managed sends always include one message at the end of the batch sent for management to check whether the messages before theirs were delivered. Some of the very cheap bulk SMS routes might not offer delivery reports, have fixed numeric sender ID etc.

Guaranteed Bulk SMS routes:

Guaranteed bulk SMS routes on the other hand guarantee not only delivery, but also include all the features that clients wish for (delivery reports, dynamic sender ID, short code originator, binary support etc). That is the advantage. The only negative point is that guaranteed bulk SMS routes are charged at a premium price.

So, let’s take a look at the price issue:

Let´s suppose a client purchase 1 million credits from a commercial bulk SMS route where delivery is not guaranteed at say 2 Euro cent per SMS. Upon sending, only 50% of the messages arrive. That implies that the client achieved 50% success or delivery to mobile phones and in effect paid 4 Euro cent per SMS.

With guaranteed bulk SMS routes the client will pay for example 4 Euro cent per SMS and obtain 100% delivery. This could play a crucial role in the effectiveness of a campaign for example:

Cases where the client runs a competition and the recipients have to SMS an answer of a question to a short code.

If 100% delivery does not take place, the company running the competition does not only loose out on the branding opportunity but also the revenue share they would have earned from the networks. 100% delivery at a higher price ensures that the response expected from a SMS campaign equals the input.

The final decision about the route that the client would like to use lies with the client and in consulting them we should determine what sort of response they expect from their campaign. The features and service level should match the price they are willing to pay.

Bulk SMS decisions nowadays cannot depend on price alone anymore - quality is surely a rising issue with most gateway customers. The use of guaranteed bulk SMS routes are on the rise as clients are starting to realize that it is worth paying for quality.

Feeling overwhelmed in selecting a new TV? With all the choices these days, you may feel like, “Where do I start?!”

In the final part of our 5 part article, we the discuss tv recommendations by room.

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Bedrooms and kids rooms. You will typically see the size range from 20” to 40” due to the size of the room. If you desire to mount the TV on the wall, LCD makes a good choice. If your kids have a computer in their room, you may want utilize it for the TV as well. Since LCD has takes less space, and has no burn in problems they make a good choice for any bedroom.

Kitchens and bathrooms. For similar reasons to the bedrooms, LCD’s also do well in these areas. In these applications the typical viewing distance is even closer as you may be several feet from the screen. Mount your LCD directly to the wall to avoid sacrificing counter space. In this application you are likely choosing screen sizes from 9” to 25”, most commonly 15” and 17” due to good size vs. price ratio.

Family rooms, living rooms, and other multiple use rooms. Because of the nature of these rooms, the TV will place a multi tasking role. You may want to watch a football game, play video games (ruling plasma out), or sit and watch a movie. A good rear projection DLP will fare best in these rooms. This technology surpasses the quality of your traditional CRT rear projection in image quality and viewing angles. Often, these rooms have an entertainment center or cabinetry around the TV for storage of video games, DVD’s, and video tapes; so have a shallow depth TV is less of a concern—making plasma’s ultra-thin advantage a waste of money.

Home Theaters. Having a dedicated home theater where you enjoy movies and TV with family and friends is where you want to spend the money on the best TV source that fits in your budget. Plasmas will be a great choice as they offer the ultimate in color and moving pictures. Another alternative is a projection system. We recommend DLP projection seems to be the current leading technology because of quality to price ratio. However, do remember projectors require a room where you can block as much outside light as possible so the picture doesn’t wash out.

©2005 Architechtronics, Inc. All rights reserved.

To stay on the cutting-edge of home automation, theater, and technology join “The EDGE” today—it’s free! http://www.architechtronics.com/edge.html

Jennifer Shatos holds a degree in Visual Communications from the Art Institute of Seattle. Jennifer frequently attends educational seminars to keep on the cutting-edge of business, along with trade shows and other events in the home automation and security industry.

When you are beginning a cross stitch project, it is
necessary to prepare your fabric in certain ways. Wait, let
me rephrase that…not necessary but optional and very helpful
later. There are just a couple of things that you may choose
to do to avoid aggravation later on in your project.

First, there is the issue of pre-washing your fabric. If you
have ever sewn anything you will know that when you begin a
sewing project, the first thing you do is wash your fabric.
This is sometimes recommended for your cross stitch fabric
also. I think most stitchers would agree that this is not
necessary. When you finish the project and wash it, it will
not shrink enough to cause a problem. On the other hand, if
you are using a darker colored fabric you may want to
pre-wash the fabric to prevent the dye from running after it
is stitched. I have never personally run into a problem but
I have heard stories of others that have and I would rather
be safe than sorry. It is very simple to set the color in
your fabric. Make a solution of one part vinegar to three
parts water. Soak the fabric in this solution for about 15
minutes and the rinse the fabric under cold water until the
water runs clear.

Second, there is the issue of your fabric unraveling while
you are stitching. I know many stitchers that don’t concern
themselves with this problem. I would suggest if you are not
going to worry about the fabric unraveling, then you need to
be very certain to cut your fabric large enough to allow for
this because it will happen. There are other solutions to
this problem though.

1. Masking Tape - You can tape around the edges of your
fabric. Again you will need to cut your fabric large enough
so that you can cut off the portion that was covered with
the tape when you have finished. The adhesive on the tape
will transfer to the fabric and over time can cause the
fabric to begin rotting. The benefit to this is more control
over how much fabric you will lose to unraveling or tape
damage.

2. Fray-check - This is a fabric stiffener that you can apply to the edges of your fabric. Unfortunately, I fear
that this will have the same effect as the adhesive in the
masking tape. I am always concerned that the chemicals in
these types of products will cause stains or rotting in the
fabric eventually.

3. Sewing - I have found the best
solution to be running a zig zag stitch along the edges of
the fabric. If you don’t have a sewing machine, you can
fairly quickly even hand sew a quick hem around the edges to
prevent unraveling.

After getting these two issues out of the way, you are ready
to stitch. Hopefully this will help save you some of the
aggravations of learning cross stitch.

Happy Stitching!

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Author/Web Designer Lisa Lambson writes and designs for a variety of different mediums. For variety, keyword rich content and monthly content management specialization please visit the below website: http://www.lbjwebdesign.com.

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There are an endless number of tools and supplies that help us turn plain pages into works of art for our customers. But organizing and storing all those wonderful embellishments we use to create with can be challenging. Spending time digging through drawers and boxes looking for supplies is frustrating and time consuming and time is money. There are simple and inexpensive ways to help you spend less time searching for your supplies and more time exactly creating.

Sorting supplies by categories or themes is very useful and you can tell at a glance what you have in stock. Some useful categories are Winter, Christmas, Easter, Valentines, Baby girl, Baby boy, etc. Create interesting labels using 2”x 4” address labels and your computer. You can have fun with this too by adding small graphics and matching the font to your business cards.

Be sure to save all those scrap pieces of paper into themes also. A great item for this are those accordion style keepers available at most office supply stores and 12”x 12” Paper Envelopes by Cropper Hopper. By saving all those scraps of paper you can use them to make die cuts and punches to match those wonderful pages you are creating.

What to do with all those fibers and ribbons ? Place fibers in small plastic bags and store them in your theme containers. Smaller plastic containers work great to store fibers by colors. You can also use recycled clear jars, cleaned and labels removed, and sort by color. Add your creative labels to these also. Photo boxes are a great size for holding spools of ribbon and these come in clear. Another great solution is to hang a small pretty curtain rod on your wall and thread those ribbon spools on the curtain rod.

Paper is one of the most important staples and storage is also a major problem for most at home scrapbooking businesses. Paper comes in hundreds of different colors, patterns, textures and weights. It needs to be kept dry and clean, be photo safe and stored in plain sight. Paper can be stored in a wide variety of ways but horizontal is the best. There are lots of wonderful products out there, from wire storage racks to clear stacking plastic trays and are a very good investments.

Colleen Shiach had been scrapbooking on and off for 10 years when she decided to start her own company in 2004. Colleen now owns and operates Colleen’s Memory Albums, a scrapbook for hire service that carries pre made scrapbook pages and albums, scrapbook supplies, tear bears and handmade embellishments. Check out her website at http://www.colleensmemoryalbums.com

Popular and innovative, online dating sites have innovated the world of romance. High on the popularity list, online dating is big business. It is a $ 1 billion industry that is thriving because it has provided affordable options to thousands of singles. The projected growth per year is set at 9% with revenues of $516 million coming just from consumer subscriptions.

According to Hitwise a market research firm, online dating is extremely popular and here to stay. In fact online dating often accounts for 1%of internet usage. The business has moved with need. Extremely popular are niche sites that focus on religion, ethnicity, or special interests.

Many sites promote social networking and offer music, games, interactive content and more. This appeals to youngsters aged 18-24. There is no pressure to date or find a relationship although you are welcome to develop a friendship formed on the site into something deeper.

Extremely professional, online dating sites offer some degree of security, protect your privacy, offer advice on possible matches, guide you on how to navigate the site, and offer exiting things like online discussion groups, cyber messaging with virtual bouquets, and phone calls. The move now expected is to use new technologies to connect people through SMS, mobiles and 3G services.

The concept caught on like wildfire because people were to busy to find time to date, shy to approach strangers, and wary of meeting alone. With online dating a person can log on from the security of his or her own home or office. One can meet as many singles as he or she wants to in a single session. The costs are much lower than going on a date and one can get to know a person before meeting them. Since online profiles list likes and dislikes and photographs it is possible to pick and choose. A person can avoid the awkwardness of meeting face to face and finding out that the date is just not right.

What more you can date from any corner of the earth and don’t have to be in the same town to get in touch. But as always there are advantages and disadvantages to online dating.

To sustain revenues, the business is looking towards being user friendly; generating revenues from romance related advertisements such as getaways, make overs and so on, and becoming more friendship oriented rather than purely romance oriented. Sites are offering greater consumer protection and incorporating many news ways to make contact like videos, SMS, MMS, and TV based services. Many even go the extra mile and organize singles events.

There are over 2500 active online dating sites with large ever growing memberships. Although many experts feel the online dating industry is heading for a plateau others predict diversification and great imaginative business modules.

Whatever the prediction online dating sites fulfill a need that other commerce sites don’t. They promote romance and sell dreams.

Chris Young is a freelance writer for www.1888Dating.com , the premier Online Dating Service website to find online dating including topics on dating news, feature dating stories, dating chat, dating tips and more. He also freelances for the premier Web Portal site www.Fafoo.com

Trade finance is an important part of the business. It offers various aspects of managing finances for the company. Trade finance helps to generate, manage and establish various finance practices like working capital, factoring solutions, banking solutions, loans, guarantees, discounting, etc.

Various trade finance companies help to provide credit finance, export finance, credit protection, invoice collection services, etc. Trade finance companies help to reduce marketing cost and increase your trade profitability. They also help in increasing the sales by promoting the products, services or the website around the world. Trade finance companies also help in broadcasting the trade leads, generate new business and promote the company to new business groups or business ventures. Trade finance companies help in eliminating most of the commercial and political risk normally retained by the company or any small or medium business owner. These trade finance companies also provide 100% financing solutions. Some of these companies or agencies are factoring agencies also that help in facilitating international trade through factoring and other related trade finance techniques.

Export oriented trade finance companies provide finance support system for enhancing cash flow, reducing finance costs. Export trade finance companies or agencies also provide information and support for export working capital, Export Import Banks, financing, loans, loan forms, guarantees and forfaiting. It is important to know about some of the export trade financing companies, agencies, or financial institutions like AFIA, Export Express, Factors chain international, etc. Some agencies with their special trade finance programs and techniques help small and medium business owners to find needed capital to succeed. They also help in pre-order financing of labor, materials, goods, machinery, financing of receivables, issuing letters of credit, etc.

Apart from companies and agencies there are several government organizations that assist companies with their export venture. These federal governmental organizations offer services that range from export loan guarantees to loan assistance. They also serve as specialized associations that offer advice and counsel to interested small and medium business owners. Moreover, they also organize and provide seminars, lectures, convocations and publications on topical areas of trade finance techniques. They also server as a medium to exchange information between organizations, companies, agencies, that indulge in trade finance. Professional trade finance companies and institutions seek to promote good and moral trade practices amongst the trading parties.

Trade financing be it for the local market or the international market for exports, begins from the first stop at the banks. It is important to identify the source that provide trade finance or risk mitigation. Factoring, forfaiting, loans, bank guarantees, letters of credit, export financing are various trade finance practices.

Factoring allows the business owner to calculate the present value of future amount due or sale of a firm accounts receivable to a financial institution known as a factor. Invoice factoring helps the small and medium business owners to obtain immediate cash required for business without owning and debt or transferring business equity. These business owners sell their invoices in order to receive money today.

Forfaiting is a practice of trade finance, which is used as an alternative to the export credit or insurance cover. It allows exporters to obtain cash and eliminate their risks by selling their receivables on a ‘without recourse’ basis. These trade finance practice act as resources of fund management, credit management, loan elimination and increasing profitability by cutting administration and marketing costs along with the overheads.

Henry Byers, Factoring Receivables advisor - focusing on Invoice Factoring and Factoring Company

Flick. One cigarette butt leaves the car via the window and lands at the side of the road. Nobody gives it a second thought until later, when viewing the news, there’s a report of a serious fire that destroyed acres of woodland, several buildings and threatened the lives of both humans and animals.

Yes, it happens, and far too often. A cigarette butt that isn’t properly extinguished, even when dropped on the ground as we walk, can cause incredible damage. They’ve been known to blow into front-gardens where they’ve settled by a flammable object, and within a few minutes a butt dropped without thought has damaged an innocent person’s property. They’ve rolled under cars where they’ve ignited oil leaks and blown into the faces of small children. Improperly extinguished cigarette butts have a lot to answer for.

But extinguished or not, cigarette butts are still one of the major pollutants of our time.

Wherever people tend to gather, there are always an increased number of cigarette butts to be seen. I think most will agree that they’re ugly, but aesthetics aside, it’s the toxins in the accumulated butts that are the real problem.

During storms and heavy rainfalls, the accrued butts are likely to find their way into drains where they are carried to rivers and/or the sea. Within each butt is a collection of dangerous toxins that were never meant to enter our bodies. That’s why the filters are there, they’re designed to catch and collect those toxins. Smoking tobacco —Nicotiana tabacum — is a member of the nightshade group of plants and contains deadly poisons. In fact, nicotine, in its pure form, is the deadliest of all plant products known to man.

A spent cigarette butt holds a high concentration of nicotine which, once wet, leaks out into our rivers and seas along with 165 other substances, including arsenic, lead, benzene, butane and formaldehyde. Don’t you think it’s strange that lead’s been banned from use in paint and yet is perfectly legal in cigarettes?

Since it’s become increasingly popular to ban smoking inside buildings, more and more butts are finding their way into the environment. They’re the most common form of litter worldwide and, unbelievably, make up almost half of all litter found outdoors. That’s a lot of dog-ends!

Another problem is the time that the plastic wrapping and the filters themselves stay in the environment. Contrary to popular belief, cigarette butts aren’t biodegradable. They’re made of 95% cellulose acetete, a form of plastic that takes up to 25 years to decompose. Maybe one small cigarette butt isn’t going to make a huge difference to the environment, but when several trillion of them are thrown away annually, they pose a very definite threat to our collective well being.

The Solution

If you’re a smoker, consider using a portable ashtray. You don’t need to buy one that’s specially designed for the job, any foil wrapping (such as that found around mints and some other types of sweets/candy) will do.

If you manage a public building where people congregate in numbers, install ashtrays where smokers are likely to gather. You may feel that by doing so you’re encouraging smoking, but the truth is, smokers will smoke regardless of whether there’s an ashtray available; they just won’t pollute quite as much.

Organise a local clean up. While nobody likes to clean up after others, it’s a better alternative than leaving the butts to pollute our environment.

Conclusion

You may think that your few butts won’t make any difference as long as others continue to pollute, but you’d be wrong. Changes can only come about when some go forward as good examples for others to follow.

And if a child in your neighbourhood becomes seriously ill through ingesting a cigarette butt (s)he found on the street (yes, it happens), at least you’ll know it wasn’t yours.

Sharon Jacobsen, a full-time professional writer based in the UK, is an ex-smoker now embarrassed at having once been part of the problem. Hopefully, by helping others become aware of the problem, she’ll be able to ease her own conscience somewhat.

If you’d like Sharon to write compelling and informative articles for your website, ezine, newsletter, or print magazine, please visit http://www.sharon-jacobsen.co.uk for further information.

If spyware were a person and he set himself up in your
house, you are likely going to do one of two things. You’ll
kick him out yourself or you’ll call someone (such as the
police) to do it for you.

Employing tools that detect and remove spyware from your
PC, whether it’s at home or at the office, should be on the
list of top things to do for your complete protection, and
the protection of your children.

Spyware is a generic term for insidious programs designed
to track, store and report back on your actions on the
computer, whether you’re logged onto the Internet or not.
The most benign forms began as adware, software that tried
to make sure the end user didn’t receive any ads they
wouldn’t be interested in. The theory is great, but the
practice has been warped by abuse.

There are a number of tools available for the detecting and
removing of Spyware. Ad-Aware is a very reputable piece of
software that detects, isolates and removes spyware from
your PC. Available for free download, Ad-Aware was one of
the first anti-spyware programs to be available.

Ad-Aware’s drawback, however, is that it must be run to
detect already installed spyware and it does not prevent
spyware from being downloaded as you surf the Internet.

Ad-Aware offers a paid version labeled Ad-Watch that
includes a real time prevention tool. Spysweeper, Spybot,
A-Squared, Microsoft Anti-Spyware and many, many others all
offer varying levels of protection from spyware.
Ultimately, preventing the installation of such programs in
the first place will serve you better.

Yes, it may cost a small investment or donation for
licensing the product. However, remember that spyware can
tie up your CPU, RAM and Internet connection to the point
that you can no longer perform day-to-day functions on your
machine or connection with any type of speed or normalcy.

Free programs work well for detecting and removing spyware,
but it’s advisable to check out the website offering the
anti-spyware for free. Some programs are just more spyware
in disguise. Choose reputable software rather than just any
ad that pops up in your email box.

Making sure you have anti-virus software, working firewall
and up to date patches for all of your software will
improve the performance across the board.

Even if you install and utilize very reputable anti-spyware
software, the best advice to preventing spyware
installation on your machine is avoiding the downloading of
unknown products or attachments from your e-mail.

Don’t download programs from people you do not know, nor
should you enter every contest and game that may be offered
through pop-up banners or e-mail. It’s not enough to be
able to detect and/or remove spyware. You have to prevent
it. And, this starts with some simple action that any
computer novice can perform.

Discover all you ever wanted to know about spyware. Latest
discovery methods, latest incoculation treatments, latest
removal techniques. Click for useful info and daily
updated blog of spyware news and articles. Click
http://www.spyware-revealed.com/free-spyware-remover.html

It is a good day. We will have a good day; no, strike that — we will have an excellent day!

Our lives depend so much on our attitude, especially when we first wake up. In the morning, the mirror in your bathroom is usually one of the first places you look. Plaster the bottom of the mirror with post-it notes: I Choose To Be Happy Today; Today Is The Best Day of My Life; I Will See Good in Every Place I look. Now, look into the mirror and repeat each one, concentrating on the affirmation which you need the most. For example: You have to give a speech in front of the whole company today. You hate public speaking. It makes you very nervous and your voice comes out shaky and uneven. Look into the mirror and say, “I love public speaking. My voice is confident and strong.”

Repeat it at least three times — don’t stop there, repeat it on the way to work, while at work and before the meeting. Repetition tricks our brain into believing and behaving the way we have perceived ourselves. If you know you’ll blow it and get up there scared to death, your voice will portray your insecurities. You will blow it before you even begin. However, you have repeated positive affirmations all day. You have psyched yourself up for this event. Your brain registers the event you have been speaking of all day and remembers, “Hey, I love doing this! I always sound so confident and strong. I’m going to ‘wow’ them!” And you will, not only will you ‘wow’ them, but you will ‘wow’ yourself as well.

On and on the list grows with every happy thought you have. Don’t be shy, go ahead and try it and see if it doesn’t make you smile. What is a better way to start off the day, then with a big ole’, teeth shining, spit grinning smile?

So, what about all the negative thoughts which seem to keep poking their heads up? Every time you know you have your life down pat and ready to go on thinking happy thoughts — WHAM! Negative thoughts spring into action: I would look so much better if I could lose thirty pounds. No one wants me looking like this, I am so tired of everyone messing with me. If it weren’t for people nagging, I would be a happy person! Why does the weather always have to be so cold/hot/rainy?

Again, on and on it goes . . . so, every time you have a negative thought, write it down! This time instead of sticking it onto your mirror, put it on a scrap piece of paper: burn it, bury it, say a prayer of release over it and let it go.

Life is not easy. No one ever told us it was going to be easy, but no one ever told us how hard it was going to be, either. We can make our lives easier, by choosing to deal with all the negative emotions that make life so hard and then throwing them away, never to return to us or anyone ever again. The only time they have power over us is when we push them into the back of our storage closet; our brain, our to deal with later bin, that they accumulate and weigh us down. Do yourself a favor, hit the delete button on all of them and see how much lighter and happier you will feel without them.

Keep the post-it’s all over the place, replace the negative thoughts with the happy thoughts and positive images and see how much happier and easier life can get. All because you put the effort in the right place: to work on your life, happiness, and your soul.

Tracey Wilson is an author on http://www.Writing.Com/
which is a site for Creative Writers.

For many Scrapbookers Journaling is something we just see everyone else doing believing that we either have nothing to say or nothing good enough to say.

The basic rules for journaling is to capture the theme of the picture, for example the who, what and where are just the beginning.
What was the mood? How was the weather?

Here are a few tips to help you with your journaling inhibitions keeping in mind that even if you really do Not have anything to say that there are quotes, sayings,poems, lyrics and one liners that you can add to your layout.

Using a Scrap of paper jot down one worded feelings, emotions and info that are relevant to the day this will make it easier to compose it all together later.

Use adjectives and adverbs. Colorful words make for interesting journaling.

Embellish your journaling with words just like you do your scrapbook pages! Dont rush it, if you don’t feel creative then don’t Journal at that time, right down some notes and come back to it later.

For future reference when you are taking your photos jot down some notes of funny things the kids said, where you were, the time of day etc. all could be helpful for the journaling later.

Time invested in detailed journaling is time well spent for your family and generations to come allowing them an insight into their family history.

This Article was written by Shellie Wilson co/founder of Craftbits.com

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