If you are lucky enough to have time off for the holidays, enjoy every second, make glorious memories, paint the canvas of your life with vibrant, bright colours and bask in the sunshine of all life offers you.

If you are lonely and alone, perhaps desperate, I am with you in spirit, trying to send you consoling and comforting vibrations, hoping to ease your pain. I wish that you will have the necessary listening and helping hands during your time of stress and hurt.

See you all as soon as I can again access the internet.

Remember, be happy, be cool and keep smiling!

Ursula

“Internet Scams, Identity Theft, and Urban Legends: Are You at Risk?”

Hi, this site is one of many helpful ones designed to help you online, especially if you are inexperienced and vulnerable.

To learn more, please visit: http://www.scambusters.org/

To report a scam: http://www.consumerfraudreporting.org/reporting.php

Take care!

Because it is important to me that you know that I am still around and thinking of how to help all of us: this just serves to let you know what will be coming later today. (all things being equal, of course, meaning if all goes well, hiehie..)

Keep well, and NEVER GIVE UP, EVER!!

Ursula 

PS Another upcoming article: your family and safety during the upcoming end of year holidays. It will be out soon.

I must say the best advice I have at the moment for anyone wanting to get started quickly and successfully today, right now, is to go over to Chris Farrell’s site – he has tons of stuff to get you started, all for free. Then, once you start seeing some results, you can subscribe to his membership which has everything you will possibly need. He even has totally free hosting. Just click to the left on his image.

You can also look at:

http://www.paydotcom.com/ (Michael Cheney also endorses this, and I trust him)

http://www.sfidownlinebuilder.com/

http://learning.bizymoms.com/ (if you are a busy mother, some very good info)

Don’t do what I did – surfing the web for more than a year, trying all and every product and membership, spending all my money and never seeing results.

Best tip: Read whatever e-book or article you download! Don’t leave it for tomorrow or next month or forget about it. Read it and then implement, step by step. Learn, then do.

Chris also has the 21 day program, in which he takes you by the hand, and shows you what to do each day. His style is very easy to understand, and easy to follow. Please try his free stuff.

I spend far too time trying to learn everything, and trying to be perfect at everything before I was confident enough to try actually doing anything. Big mistake. I sincerely hope you have a better and easier time getting your website online

Please let me know if this helps you any.

Enjoy your journey, have loads of fun!
Ursula

PS I have also found that the articles take the longest to research and write, because I don’t like taking articles from someone else, rewriting a few lines and then putting it online as if it were my own work (Private Label Rights and such). But tons of people seem to have excellent results with these, and maybe that would also help you get started quicker. If you don’t have any, just search on Google for “free download plr ebooks and articles”, and that will give you more than 65 000 results.

Or try: www.Resellers-Heaven.com or http://resell-rights-weekly.com/ or http://www.plrmembershiponline.com/

Best of luck.

Are you one of us? Trying to make money online to ensure that you will replace your job, will survive the month, will survive the bills piling up, and will be able to provide for your children? There is nothing worse than having to tell your children: “No. There is no money and you will not be able to have that.” Never mind not having the money to provide for their educational needs.

Millions are turning to the internet, hoping that the promises of 4 hour weeks, lying on the beach, drinking tequilas and throwing worries into the winds, will come true. The Lotto and the horses are, of course, possibilities, as are investments on the stock markets and betting on everything from cricket and football games to whether your favourite actor will marry his latest sweetheart. Bit dicey, wouldn’t you say? It works for some, no question, but for most of us it is just frightening and often smacks too much of emotionality or criminality.

But if you need the miracle, the hero riding to the rescue, the sun coming up again and the smiles to reappear on your loved ones’ faces, you will work long hours, even pull all nighters, in order to achieve your pulling the rabbit out of the hat!

Once you go online and discover that there are literally millions of opportunities, programs, memberships and business types out there, you wilt under the weight of all these. Where to turn and how to possibly know who to trust? Which will work out, where to spend your precious money and where to place your “bets” for maximum (and guaranteed) returns? It is stupefying and often most of us just give up, most often of course, after we have spend all our last ill begrudged monies on one time offers, time sensitive offers and never to be repeated sure things!

Just know one thing: there are billions of people on earth today, and many, if not most of them, are good people, willing and able to help you succeed. They have your best interest at heart, and will stick with you through bad times and good. I know how it often seems that only criminals and scoundrels win the day, but it is assuredly not so. The only thing you may not do is to give up.  DO NOT GIVE UP!!

It will help you to realize that there are ever so many people just like you out there, and we all feel just like you do. Hope springs eternal, and the solution might only be one website away.  I found a few such solutions, one would be Instant Blog Subscribers and one of which is Chris Farrell. Most people use affiliate programs as it is easier and quicker to become successful, and most of these programs provide you with the requisite affiliate pre-written emails and images with which you can promote your links and get paid, but you know what? I refuse to use those in this mail, because I don’t want you to feel used or disappointed once again. This is about you, and not about me making my first dollar online. You matter, yes, you do.

So join up with one or both of these programs and try them out. Remember, you have to DO something every day, take physical action such as write, learn, research every day in order to get ahead. DON’T load up your hard drive with ebooks and tutorials, and then ignore them, in order to look for a better, quicker way to get money.  They don’t call it falling for the next shiny thing for nothing.  It is seductive but futile.  I know, I have been there.

I have found even more really reliable, trustworthy sources out there, but more about those later. For now, just follow with these two and you should at least see a beginning. I sincerely hope you have better luck than I did, in a lot less time.

http://www.chrisfarrellmembership.com/public/main.cfm

You can do quite a lot for free, but if you are prepared to spend $4.95 for the first 7 days, then $37 per month after, you have all you would ever need to have a successful business online. This should be the only membership, plus the IBS upgrade, you should accept at first.

Walt Bayliss InstantBlogSubscribers – Go for it!

It we stick together, we will make it

Wishing you the very best,

Ursula

When you have been online for some time, like I have, you start noticing how often Google seems to be in the centre of a contretemps?  It seems that many online users have strong feelings towards the search engine giant, good or bad.

Some websites will advise you to stop using them, others will warn against Google’s just taking down your profit stream, they will cut you off, blacklist you, shut you down, they are Big Brother, their ads on your site are making them a packet but are you benefiting, their analytics are not always accurate, and on and on.

Other websites have nothing but praise for Google, telling you, that if you follow their rules, Google will love you and you will need nothing else. (This presupposes, I suppose, that you have studied, memorized and kept up to date with their rules!) But be fair, all websites online, and all search engines, have rules and policies you have to agree to.

There are an astounding number of search engines, for example

• Yahoo (Excellent)
• Bing
• Lycos (find people and discussions)
• AskJeeves (excellent)
• AolSearch (user friendly results page for those new to the web)
• AltaVista (great audio and video searches)
• A9 (customize and save search results)
• LookSmart (unique find features)
• Ouverture (Pay Per Placement Directory Service)
• DogPile (queries multiple sites at once)
• DirectHit (will rank results based on how popular a website is)
• Excite (medium/large scale search engine, increasing in popularity)
• FastSearch (one of the largest scale search engines that spiders the entire web extremely rapidly)
• HotBot (medium/large search engine, now part of the Lycos Network)
• InfoSeek (medium/large search engine, still an important resource)
• InfoSpace (continues to innovate its services and fulfilling its anytime-anywhere-any device mission)
• IWon (users are rewarded with contest entries the more they use the search engine service)
• LookSmart (one of the most commercialized search engines and directory services)
• Magellan (powered by Excite, so easy to get your website listed in either)
• MetaCrawler (queries multiple sites at once)
• NorthernLight (largest scale search engine, indexes the web and traditional media, particularly popular with researchers)
• Snap (directory service powered by people, categorized by topics)
• WebCrawler (popular with AOL users)
• WhatUSeek (queries multiple sites at once)
• Search123 (consolidated source of search traffic purchases)
• MSNSearch, etc.

All have some unique features, and are good at some things and perhaps lacking in other requirements.  Some return more general information, depending on the keywords used in your search and others are better for niche specific searches, such as PDFSearcher or VideoSurf.

So which ones do you use? I find we have an amazing freedom today in the above – we can basically use them all, for all our specific searches, whether it is for videos, movies, file sharing, marketing, advertising, e-books, forums, media, recordings, data, people searches, e-commerce, jobs, documents, history, magazines, news, and on and on ad infinitum.  

(For my money, Google still has everything I need, but there are some major contenders upcoming and closing fast.)

I have gotten so used to googling something, and have become so comfortable with the way searches are done, that I have not had much of an appetite for investigating other venues. But I surely will, if they should turn unfriendly.  I have big brothers, what I need are good friends!! …grin….

The most important lesson I have learned, though, and this is probably true for any search engine you use, is that the way you structure your search parameters, and the wording you use in your searches, will be of key importance and instrumental in your getting the best possible answers to queries and searches.

For instance, if you type in the words: “how to make money online” you might get millions of websites returned in the search, but if you were to type in the words:” the best optimal most effective free way to get started making money online” your returned results would be considerably less, which means that the search would be much more targeted and specific to what you are really looking for. (The more specific your question, the more specific your answer.) This is also referred to markets, niches and micro niches, the latter being easier and better to get into as it should have less competition.

Is it only my age group which still realizes, and is completely fascinated by, the fact that the Internet even exists, and that there is such a thing as Google to help you find anything under the sun and on this green earth? Boy, if I could only have been a youngster today, I would have been an Einstein²!  What’s there that people today cannot do, who can they not contact, and what can they not find out, innovate and invent?  You lucky people you! (You might by now have intuited that I live in a third world country and that we are infinitely grateful for all and any technology) But speaking of non-first world countries, Google is popular and prevalent in most of these countries and most users would never think to look for other search engines. (Big Tip to Marketers and Advertisers: our countries and continents are HUGE in mobile technology…. ….beg, steal or borrow, most don’t have anything, not even a house but all have a cell phone, go figure)

The world economy is still depressed, and more and more people are still losing their jobs daily.  But there is hope: the internet is an obvious solution. And what’s great about the internet for me, is that there are no class or social differences (no Patterson grading here!   And you can ask it anything, whatever search engine you want to use, and it will answer you any time, night and day, rain or shine. You don’t have to wait and you don’t have to guess.

So, in answer to the question “Should one google?” the answer is “YES!” How else will we find anything otherwise? And let’s face it: Google still is the most powerful and the best search engine out there, at the moment. If you don’t believe me, go and google it!

Bye for now, and remember the importance of enjoying every day.

Keep smiling,

Ursula

E-mails, e-mails, e-mails, ahhhhhhh, the bane of your life, or are they perhaps not?  But what can they still do, those antiquated soooooo-last generation, when- there- was- nothing- better- out- there modes of communication, eh?

But no, would you believe it, they are still with us, and still greatly utilized. Why, don’t you wonder?  The answer, I believe, is quite simple.  While it is true that many young people today won’t touch an e-mail, if you think of our great big round globe, you will see that the first world actually represents a rather smaller portion of the whole than one would like to think.

Yes, we third-worlders are here, there and everywhere right around the world, and for us, the advent of e-mails still represents a wonderful and easy way of communicating.

Remember, many places here still only have patchy communications networks, insufficient electricity and water supplies, sporadic cell phone reception, and we still use the postal system! Can you believe it?  It takes ages for most of our post to arrive, but at least it will get here sometime. Rural areas are the biggest areas and of course, have the least technology and often represent the most people in any given country.

But the world is changing fast, and with the undersea cables and new inventions all the time, we will soon all be connected as if we were living in the same village.

But, for now, if you want your message and communications to reach more people, you will have to swallow your pride, and use snail mail and e-mail The aim of any business would surely be to grow their customer base.

But of course, logic would dictate that the best money would be in the first world, depending on what you are selling, and on how big a part training, helping and donating to charitable causes plays in your business.

The longer you are active on the web, and the more people opt-in to your business propositions, the more e-mails you might have to contend with. Services such as Aweber, GetResponse or SendFree and others have greatly reduced your workload and allow you to do the least to get the most done.

But you will still get e-mails and you will have to find the best way to organize them in order to get more done in your working day.

What are some tips on how to handle e-mail?

People differ greatly in style, temperament and habits. The most important thing you should do first off is to find out what and how you like to work. Do you like order around you or chaos? Do you want to arrange things chronologically, alphabetically or according to importance, ease of access, availability? Are you a very logical or a very artistic person?

Arrange your working space into a haven for yourself, with the furniture, the décor, the accessories (such as stationary, gadgets, electronics, etc) arranged in a comfortable, soothing, inspiring, inviting and motivating manner, with everything where you’ll be able to access it without much effort.

This will allow you to be ever so much more efficient. It just stands to reason that if you are interrupted or distracted often, if you have buckets of noise around you when you are the type who can’t function around load music or children for instance, if you can’t find what you need, if you hate what you are doing or if you have to move mountains of stuff around before you can begin your work every day, you will fail before you can even start.

• Set aside a dedicated time each day, and limit the amount of time you will have available to download, read, organize and reply to each mail. A deadline ALWAYS nets you better and faster results whilst making you more efficient at the same time.
• Open up private folders in your Outlook, with each folder given an appropriate name, according to the types of e-mails you receive. For instance, you could broadly identify mail under some of the following  headings: Private, Children, Spouse, Family, Legal, Billing, Appointments, Accommodation, Property, Insurance, Photos/Images, Passwords, Webinars, Social Networks, Traffic, Affiliates, Marketing, Own websites, Products to download, To Buy later, Auto Responder, Memberships, Learning, Courses, etc, (you get the picture. You would then open a separate folder for all these to easily drag them to this folder after reading and acting on them.
• As the e-mails then come in, you quickly scan each, decide on an action to be taken, and indicate these identified actions by using the right click function →  Follow up or Categorize. You could put all e-mails with actions attached into a To Do folder first, to clear up your inbox. Then, after each mail has been actioned, you move it into the correct private folder.
• It is better to try and do the action for each mail immediately, if possible. This follows the same principles of taking a paper into your hand only once, doing what needs to be done and then filing it immediately. Your to-do list will be kept short, and your filing will always be up to date.
• Many people don’t like keeping mails at all, and believe firmly in the Shift + Delete buttons.  This works well for many people, and it will ensure that your Outlook capacity is never over the limit.  Many even delete their Send items at least once a week as well. It depends on whether you like to hold on to items of information or for proof of something.  Some often refer back to things and thus rather have it handy again, or as proof for sent and received mails.
• One BIG tip for everyone writing e-mails would be: those of us who have to read them will open those with the best subject lines. That’s all there is to it. Remember, that there is not enough time to open all e-maisl, so one has to be choosy. There are literally thousands of subject lines, and they all try to be innovative, funny, interesting, eye-catching, teasing, and so forth.  But let me tell you a secret: if you tell me (at least a hint!) what the e-mail contains, I will be more likely to open it. How often e-mails get deleted because the reader cannot possibly guess what: “sorry, you’re too late!” (for what and why should I bother opening a mail which will have an expired offer inside!?) or “free download” (for which product/service!?) or “claim your position” (for what!?) mean.
• Familiarize yourself with the different settings and options which Outlook, Gmail or other mail provides afford you. These settings can assist you greatly in saving time, in organizing your files and folders, as well as making the whole experience a much more pleasant undertaking. Don’t be afraid to press the buttons, see what they do and experiment a bit. (Thank goodness for the “Undo” option under “Edit” in the menu bar ;-0) For instance, in Outlook, you can arrange items according to “From”, “Subject”, “Received”, “Size”, “Category” or “Flag Status”.  With just a click of the mouse cursor, you can find what you are looking for much easier.
• You can set up your taskbar as a sidebar on the right hand side, with the calendar at the top which will indicate all your appointments and the date at a glance, and your to-do lists and flagged items below the calendar. This allows you a quick overview of everything right there on one screen. (Go to “View”, then click on “To-Do-Bar” in top menu)
• Under the “Tools” option on your top menu bar, you will find the “Organize” option, which allows you to tell the computer to highlight messages from specific senders in a certain colour. For instance, you can choose to show personal messages from your spouse or children in blue or to colour specific messages from your boss/suppliers/business partners in red. They will immediately jump out at you from all the other mails this way.
• Don’t forget to empty your “Deleted” items regularly as they take up space.

That’s it, folks, signing off from sunny Southern Africa, wishing you happy e-mailing and don’t forget to have fun!

Ursula