The Refresh Orlando Heirs

I could labor the idea but then that would only compromise the point. This article will have more impact on your career and psychology than any other business article you will ever read — here it is.

The conundrum - are you waiting for someone to call you an expert? Even if others do, it won’t hold near the weight, psychologically, that self appointment will. Experts call themselves experts and that is how they make themselves so. By declaration you declare yourself an expert. In the same manner humans declared this very country the “United States of America” sovereign and no longer under the order of England, you too can declare yourself an expert.

Think about the alternative, think about all the other things you can and do declare yourself that do nothing but compromise your success. Stop waiting and make it happen today. It will feel strange for a while but eventually you’ll believe it too.

An expert is an expert when he or she determines oneself to be an expert. Only a lack of courage (which you also determine) will keep you from making an act of declaration with the power of words.

I find it almost comical that people will live their entire lives not really knowing why something is “so”. It is so, because someone (a person, like you) made it so. Look at Donald Trump for example. He was born into wealth, went to the best of schools and still goes bankrupt every few years despite all his silver spoon experiences. However, others that start with much less than he did, never go bankrupt, make millions of dollars a year yet have to fight and claw to borrow a dime and not one tv producer ever asks them to do a show. The difference is, Donald Trump is the greatest business man on earth because he said so. If you don’t believe me, ask him.

The 8th Habit Covey Forgot
by Lemonade Stand Simple Author & Expert Business Coach Dan Nichols

For more on the mind of success, pre-order the audio cd “Mining the Mind of an Entrepreneur” The 8th Habit Covey Forgot! Send your name and e-mail to inquiry@isbempowerment.com and we will not only reserve a copy for you at the introductory rate of $29.95 but we will let you know the launch date of this special audio cd so you can tell your friends.

For a great radio or tv guest, contact Dan Nichols by phone 248-396-0656 or email dnichols@isbempowerment.com. To purchase the guaranteed business planning program visit the website at http://www.lemonadestandsimple.com. To receive regular streetwise business advice, email info@isbempowerment.com

“Lemonade Stand Simple” is a Federal Trademark of P2E LLC, a Michigan Company. All works are copyrighted 2001-2005

Edward Bunker was a trouble child while growing up and must have given his parents a tremendous amount of headache. This is assuming they didn’t get anything more serious considering their child was the biggest troublemaker in neighbor. The authorities were called in when he was as young as three, when he smashed a neighbor’s incinerator with a hammer. Or when he set a fire to a neighboring house. Or when he shoved a pen inside one of his classmate’s eye.

As he grew up, Bunker graduated to more serious crimes including bank robberies, drug dealing, extortion and forgery. Could a man with such much baggage find a place that would welcome him open arms and give him tons based on his life of crime? Yes. And that place became Hollywood, the home of all the enfant terrible of this world.

Indeed, Bunker dove right in taking full advantage of the gems that existed in Hollywood. He began writing and enjoyed much success when his first few novels were published, including No Beast This Fierce that many believe is extremely auto-biographical. Then came Animal Factory that was directed by his good friend Steve Buscemi and starred such big names as Willem Dafoe, Edward Furlong, Danny Trejo, Mickey Rourke, Tom Arnold.

Animal House gained a nice following because it had a gritty feel to the story and it delivered some strong acting performances from Willem Dafoe and Bunker himself. Bunker and Buscemi had met on the set of Quentin Tarantino’s 1992 film festival favorite Reservoir Dogs starring another list of impressive actors: Harvey Keitel, Michael Madsen Tim Roth Chris Penn.

At the turn of the century, Bunker acted in a few small films called Family Secrets, 13 Moons and while many may have missed him in those projects, he reappeared this year in the Longest Yard starring Adam Sandler and Chris Rock. He played the role of Skitchy Rivers.

A lot of films have references to his novels and even other films that he was in. Reservoir Dogs had some hints that lead back No Beast This Fierce and so does this year’s highly anticipated Machiavelli Hangman.

While his novel No Beast So Fierce tells the tale of a paroled thief trying to enter society again and create credibility, Machiavelli Hangman (http://www.hangmanmovie.com) tells the exact opposite: a regular Joe is infiltrating the criminal underworld without any of them knowing it, not even him.

About the author:

Doug Schpikerman is a movie reviewer.
His current review is of the upcoming
movie, “Machiavelli Hangman”.
http://www.hangmanmovie.com

VoIP or Voice Over Internet Protocol has been simmering for the past few years. This year the market has heated up. Many large businesses have jumped on the VoIP bandwagon and have realized savings of 50-percent or more off their phone bills. VoIP providers are competing to add to or replace large PBX systems for the corporations and add web conferencing capabilities plus wireless VoIP (wVoIP) over LAN’s as well.

Hospitals and other large, fragmented workforces are discovering the value of using wireless VoIP phones to converse with one another quickly and efficiently while in different wings, floors or buildings of a large facility. This kind of wireless VoIP setup can have huge cost savings over cell phones and is more efficient that using pagers.

While business VoIP has caught on in the corporate landscape, residential VoIP is still trying to take hold. This is largely because of a couple of current disadvantages of VoIP. First, not all current VoIP systems have power backups. When the power goes out in a residence, the landline is still operational. Since VoIP works over a high-speed Internet connection, which requires power, if the power goes down, so does the VoIP connection. This will be of concern to many concerned about emergency situations. The good news is that many VoIP hardware providers are starting to deliver systems with power backup to address just this issue.

The second drawback of residential VoIP is that not all current VoIP service providers offer full, 24-7 emergency 911 service. After hour calls in Florida, may be mistakenly rerouted to Idaho for instance. This is also about to change. The Federal Communications Commission has mandated that all phone service providers offer e911 service as standard. According to the FCC, “All interconnected VoIP providers must automatically provide E9-1-1 services to all customers as a standard, mandatory feature without customers having to specifically request this service. VoIP providers may not allow their customers the option to “opt-out” of E9-1-1 service.”

Clearly, though, residential VoIP is heading towards direct competition with the local phone companies’ coveted landlines. A couple of years ago at a meeting in SBC’s Publishing division, one of the executive managers cried, “Landlines, we need to stop losing landlines!” This was in response to cell phone companies taking away market share from the local Baby Bells. Now that VoIP is on the radar, the executive management teams for the local and long-distance phone companies must be huddling in their back offices, trying to figure out how they will stop the bleeding in the years to come.

With VoIP costing far less that traditional local and long-distance phone service and overcoming the last of the residential hurdles, one can be sure that consumers will soon be taking notice. Many will also start wearing t-shirt like “VoIP VIP” and “Got VoIP?” to herald in the new era in telecommunications.

About the Author

Copyright © 2005 VoIP Service Providers

VoIP Service Providers - Marvin Bellnick writes for VoIP Service Providers, a company dedicated to publishing the latest happenings in the Voice Over IP industry.

1. What’s the difference between analog and digital phones?

Analog phones operate on an older and less effective technology.
This technology doesn’t scale well and is more costly. Analog
service is not compatible with numerous new features. Digital
phones are lighter and more compact and have a longer battery
life. When you are inside of a calling area the quality is
better than analog. Digital phones support new features like
caller ID, text messaging or wireless internet services.

2. What is a Dual Band Phone?

A Dual band phone is a phone that can operate on an analog and
digital service.

3. What type of battery has the longest life?

Lithium-Ion or Li-Ion batteries have the longest life. They also
happen to be the lightest in weight. The two pluses means there
is minus attached, which is price. A li-ion battery will always
be the most expensive type of battery available.

4. What’s the difference between the Stand-by time and Talk
time?

Your phone is in standby mode when your phone is on but you
aren’t talking. The power consumption is minimal and the phone
can stay in this mode for a longer period of time. When you are
using the phone you are using talk time. This consumes battery
power at a much quicker rate. Your battery life will be
somewhere between talk time and standby time

5. What is a roaming charge?

A roaming charge is when you make a call from outside of your
calling area. Your calling area is defined by plan local,
regional or national.

6. What are peak and off peak hours?

Peak hours are during the day when the cellular networks are
very busy. These minutes are at premium and your plan will
typically include the smallest amount of these. If you use more
than your allotted peak minutes they will be billed at a much
higher rate than off peak minutes. Off peak is the exact
opposite of peak time. Each cellular provider has their own
definition of off peak.

7. What are anytime minutes?

Anytime minutes are simply put minutes you can use anytime, peak
or off peak. On most plans you will use anytime minutes first.

8. Do I pay for the call when someone calls me?

Usually yes. You are billed for the airtime when you receive a
call. However some service providers are offering unlimited in
network calls.

9. Should I buy a cell phone or look for a free cellular phone?

Free phones generally speaking don’t have the latest features,
they are anywhere from 6 to 12 months behind. Also, free cell
phones generally come with longer contracts. But, it is still
possible to get a great deal on a free cell phone.

10. What to do if you want to upgrade/downgrade or cancel your
service plan?

You can usually upgrade to higher plan without any cost. Some
may force you to extend your contract for 1 to 2 years from that
point. Downgrading your plan is often times not an option and
when it is there is usually a penalty or fine.

I have been a student for many years. I even took the 7-year plan to go through college for my Bachelor’s degree. Every so often I take another course. Since much of my studies and background involve web-related stuff, I tend to notice other people’s websites. (My wife who owns a little hair salon always notices people’s hair.)

My colleges have normally been well supported, and in my last one the teachers had their own web page on the campus website. It included a one-page description of the teacher’s credentials, a picture and some contact information. I found this very useful - since I could find the email for the teacher (especially since I tended to loose handouts that were given a month ago). It also helped me get to know a little more about the teacher.

Unfortunately, these pages were seldom (if ever) updated. Eventually they disappeared with budgetary restrictions.

Lately I have noticed on the web that there are a lot of teacher websites around. Elementary schools, high schools and colleges all had teachers with their own web pages. Many are funded by the school district or by the college campus administration. But few teachers tended to fill this out. I talked with some of the teachers and only a few had the skills or web tools to build their own web pages. Of those who did, there were varying degrees of utility in the pages. Some were very good - with useful information organized in a way to be helpful to students and parents. Others were rather sparse with little information and a couple of class pictures - but who could blame them? These teachers are normally very busy - and the fact that they took the initiative to start one is admirable. Any teacher who took this kind of effort must really love his or her students. (Most teachers don’t have one.)

Here is one teacher who did an outstanding job creating her own website: http://pfinck.tripod.com

I have found a few websites that are focused on providing teachers already built templates in that are nicely organized and useful to the students - and they have web-tools to help the teacher put the information in so they don’t have to be webmasters. They just have to be teachers. Hurray!

This is a TIME SAVER and a valuable information tool for the students (or their parents). All of these listed do not require the teacher to know HTML!

WEBSITE #1: http://www.inetteacher.com
ANNUAL COST: $24.95

There is a 30 day free trial available.

This is a very nice template site. I would definitely recommend this for teachers who have only one class.

SPECIAL FEATURES:
* Place to put information about the teacher or class
* contact information
* calendar of events
* ability for students to check grades
* homework calendar
* materials list page
* student work page (to view student’s work)
* EASILY CUSTOMIZE the look and feel (colors/backgrounds)
* Ability to add other pages as needed

DRAWBACKS:
This site seems to be designed for those who ONLY HAVE ONE CLASS. There is only one page for class news, one for class policy, one calendar of events, and one homework calendar. If a teacher had more than one class, students from the different classes could easily get confused about what information applies to them.

FAVORITE FEATURE:
My favorite feature here is the student work page. This is an innovative feature that I haven’t noticed on the other sites. I think that having a student’s work posted on the website can be a great moral booster.

WEBSITE #2: http://www.schoolandteacher.com
ANNUAL COST: $19.95

There is a 1 YEAR free trial available. (There is a link on their home page for this.)

This too is a very nice template site. I would highly recommend this for any teacher.

SPECIAL FEATURES:
* Place to put information about the teacher or class
* contact information
* calendar of events FOR EACH CLASS
* homework calendar FOR EACH CLASS
* projects calendar FOR EACH CLASS
* exams calendar FOR EACH CLASS
* quick view FOR EACH CLASS (today’s homework, next exam, next project) This is automatically generated for each class based on the current date.
* files to download (for homework lists and such)
* Email sign-up - to get email reminders for homework or projects or exams
* EASILY CUSTOMIZE the look and feel (colors/backgrounds)

DRAWBACKS:
I didn’t notice any drawbacks. I would like to see a student work page on this site though. (Who knows, they might add this feature this soon.)

FAVORITE FEATURE:
I have 2 favorite features for this website.

My first is the email sign-up for the homework reminders. I have 2 daughters and wish my teachers would have this service - just for this particular feature. That way I could get daily emails on what my kids have for homework. I wouldn’t even have to browse to the website.

My second favorite feature here is quick-view. For students in a hurry, this is an awesome thing to check. In one page, you can see all the current data for your class.

WEBSITE #3: http://www.myteacherpages.com
ANNUAL COST: $39.95

There is a $10 off the first YEAR subscription available.

This is a very nice template site. I would definitely recommend this for teachers who have only one class.

SPECIAL FEATURES:
* Place to put information about the teacher or class
* contact information
* calendar of events
* homework list
* EASILY CUSTOMIZE the look and feel (colors/backgrounds)
* Ability to take a survey
* Slideshow of class pictures
* Form Creator tool to create feedback forms

DRAWBACKS:
This site seems to be designed for those who ONLY HAVE ONE CLASS. There is only one page for class news, one for class policy, one calendar of events, and one homework calendar. If a teacher had more than one class, students from the different classes could easily get confused about what information applies to them.

FAVORITE FEATURE:
I have 2 favorite features for this website.

My favorite feature is the Form Creator. I realize that there can be special circumstances where a teacher wants the students to fill out a specialized form. The other two websites don’t offer this.

I also think having the ability to take an online pole is a nice idea.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

All three of the above tools offer some very nice features and all would be of great value to teachers and students. You must choose what features are most important to you.

If you are teaching more than one class, then I would recommend the http://www.SchoolAndTeacher.com website.

If you are teaching ONLY one class, then any of them will do. I REALLY like that sign-up feature.

Take some time. Do a little research. The cost is not to much to start out. If you don’t like the first choice, then at most you will loose $29.95.

About the Author

Robert Fuess is a veteran webmaster who focuses on building dynamic, editable, data driven websites.
If you are interested in a website that you can edit please email robert@SpiderWebLogic.com or
call (805) 720-0789. http://www.Spiderweblogic.com