Finding Experts, Sources and Contacts

I was asked to write an article on a short deadline. No problem, I thought. Then I got the article specifications which included quoting several experts in the article.

Instead of giving up, I got online and within 12 hours had more experts than I needed and a finished article.

Breaking into a new writing niche is both exciting and stressful. Old contacts may not be able to help you out when you switch from parenting to nutrition, or from health to health foods. There are several options you can try, depending on the time you have to write your article.

- Ask your editor for contacts. Many times they can refer you to someone they know is available for interviews.

- Check out listservs. Do searches on Yahoogroups, Topica, and SmartGroups. Visit Google and use their "groups" search function. Join groups that seem to have professional members. Read past messages, post some questions, and see what happens.

- Email or call members of writer's groups you're associated with. While some writer's keep their contacts under wraps, nearly all the writer's I've worked with online and in person are happy to share professional contacts.

- Visit Profnet to find experts to interview in all areas imaginable. Profnet.com is an online venue that connects journalists with sources. There is no fee to journalists, but the site is used heavily by publicity firms and my experience has been that the PR pros are more excited about their clients getting press than their clients are. In other words, I've been left with a phone bill of unreturned calls. Conversely, if you want to promote your business, book or self, you can sign up (for a fee) to receive the journalists' requests for information. There is also a speaker's bureau online.

- Pull out your yellow pages and look up physicians, attorneys, dietitians, hospital administrators, and accountants to call for information and quotes.

- Read magazines. If you find a name and job title that fits what you need, call the firm where your potential interviewee works. One thing you know already: he is willing to be interviewed.

- Do a search at online bookstores for books that speak to your article's topic. Authors need to get their names in print to sell their books. Many have websites with contact information for members of the press.

- Use public relations firms and departments. Call the public relations department at a hospital to find a nutritionist, cardiologist, administrator, emergency technician. The PR department will know which staff members make good subjects for interviews and may be able to suggest related topics to include in your article or as a sidebar. The PR department at a culinary institute may be able to connect you with a celebrity chef alumna.

- There are other places to look for help. Prweb.com sends out press releases, and has them accessible on the website. IdeaMarketers.com is only one place where writers can place articles for publishers to read. Both of these sources allow writers to look for experts through their press releases and articles.

It may take a while for any of these methods to work. You may get calls and emails from experts that don't fit a particular article. Save their contact information anyway, along with all experts you interview and quote. Build your own database of experts for future articles and each new assignment will find you better connected to the experts you need to reach.

******

Please keep resource box at end intact. You may publish freely in ezines, newsletters, print publications that do not charge a fee for the publication.

About The Author

Pamela White is editor of Food Writing, an online newsletter for food writers and author of FabJob.com's Becoming a Food Writing. Visit www.food-writing.com for the most recent newsletter, how to subscribe for fr^e, and current writing contests.

pwhite05@twcny.rr.com

Living Life In A Time Starved World

Recently I saw an advertisement for a time management booklet: "Shorter deadlines, competing priorities, endless meetings, interruptions and even higher quality expectations are just some of today's time challenges. And yet the number of hours in the day remains the same."

As entrepreneurs we all struggle sometimes with managing our time effectively. I once heard an entrepreneur say that of the people he knows, his entrepreneur friends are the worst people when it comes to managing their time and priorities. Too often we fall prey to the misguided notion that being busy is the same as making progress.

There are many areas involved in effective time management:

? your attitude

? goal setting

? setting priorities

? planning

? scheduling

? analyzing your progress

? dealing with interruptions

? meetings

? paperwork

? delegation of tasks

? taming procrastination

? time teamwork

KEY PRINCIPLES

Here are some key principles I have found to help me manage my time more effectively:

1. Good habits are the key to good time management.

The essence of good time management is creating good habits. A good habit to develop is to focus on results. Setting goals and striving to reach them must become a habit. Before your next meeting, think to yourself-what is my goal in doing this or meeting with this person? What specific results would I like to see come from my time? You must learn to place a high value on your time. There are a million things, advertisements, books, media events and people vying for it. You must distinguish between what and who is important and what or who is not. This might sound a little harsh at first, but focusing on results in developing your habits will help you focus yourself and your time.

2. Good habits start with setting goals.

There are several points to remember when setting good goals.

First is to write your goals down. Studies have shown that you are much more likely to accomplish your goals if they are committed to paper. As someone once said, "A short pencil is better than a long memory."

A second point is to break down your goals into three categories: short, intermediate and long term. I would advocate that you should have a separate list for your personal, professional and life goals. The personal goal list would cover areas like: personal relationships, use of free time, personal growth activities, reading up on a particular topic, taking continuing education classes or seminars, etc. Your professional goal list should be clearly focused on building your business, increasing revenues, cutting costs, strategic planning, marketing, employee management, creating partnerships and meeting beneficial business contacts. Your life goals would cover the broader picture of what you want to accomplish in life and what who you want to be remembered for.

3. Pursuing specific goals is the key to reaching success.

Setting good goals requires some planning and concentrated effort. Far too many entrepreneur have good intentions for their business, but lack goals that are specific enough to help them achieve success. Most entrepreneurs who fail to reach their goals do so because they fail to make specific, or S.M.A.R.T. goals.

S.M.A.R.T. goals are:

Specific. Your goal should be as detailed as possible. For example, "I will call all new prospective clients I met at the last networking event by this Wednesday at noon." "I will take a vacation at least three weeks this next year."

Measurable. Good goals allow you to quantify your efforts. "My company will increase top line sales to repeat customers by 2% this quarter by determining what their current needs are and developing a service to meet their needs before anyone else does. We will do this by surveying each of them and following up with a personalized phone call to clarify their answers."

Achievable. It is good to set your goals high, but not impossibly high. "I will meet three new venture capitalists this month and begin building a relationship with them with the purpose of seeking funding from them in the next six months." "I will re-write the three primary sections of my website by this next month to better reflect who my new targeted customer is and to help them find the solutions they are looking for more quickly on my site."

Result-oriented. In order for your goals to be SMART, they must focus on what you DO want, not what you do NOT want. For example, a goal of "I do not want to fail in my business" focuses on what you do NOT want. An example of a SMART goal is, "I will increase my passive income by 15% this year by writing a "How To" manual on "10 Steps to Small Business Forward Financial Planning" and sell it on a website for $89.99."

Time-limited. Put a specific time limit on your goals and have someone hold you accountable for reaching that goal. "I will finish researching my marketing strategy within the next six weeks and then spend two hours a day for three weeks until I finish developing my customized marketing plan."

QUESTIONS TO ASK

Every one of us has 168 hours in a week. How we spend our time and prioritize our life says a lot about how successful we will be personally and professionally. There are many things that compete for our time: finances, future plans, family, fun, friends, present goals, pressing projects and pushy people. I heard someone once say, if you don't control your time someone else will.

When thinking about how to successfully manage your time, here are a couple questions to ask yourself:

? Do I have specific things I want to accomplish each day?

? What percent of the time do I meet my daily goals?

? What specific things do I do to manage my time successfully?

? What are the priorities in my life?

? Does my schedule reflect those priorities?

? How successful do you feel in managing your time effectively?

Stephen Fairley, M.A., RCC is the President of Today's Leadership Coaching, a premier executive coaching and training firm, and a Registered Corporate Coach (RCC). Today's Leadership Coaching focuses on "Developing Leaders Who Deliver Results." You can contact him at 630-588-0500 or at Stephen@TodaysLeadership.com

? 2001 by Stephen Fairley. All rights reserved. Please contact author for reprints.

Explore the Internet in a Whole New Way

For a long time now Microsoft's Internet Explorer has ruled as 'King of Internet browsers'. Like many of Microsoft's products an initially brutal marketing campaign pushed Internet Explorer into the mainstream's consciousness and from then on it was the logical, default choice. It's free with the operating system, works well, loads any page and is easy to use. Other web browsers soon faded into obscurity and sometimes even died in the shadow of the new king of the pack. Netscape Navigator, the former 'King of the browsers', has now ceased commercial operations and has been taken over by the fan base. Opera is fading into obscurity and Mozilla was facing a similar fate, until recently.

Mozilla Firefox (formerly known as Firebird) is probably the largest threat that IE has faced in recent times. Currently, according to http://www.w3schools.com, IE is the browser used by 69.9% of Internet users and Firefox is used by 19.1%. This might not seem like much, but according to http://www.nua.ie/surveys/how_many_online/ an educated guess at the number of people that use the Internet is somewhere around 605,600,000 users (or was in 2002, the number will have increased substantially by now). That means that (after some erroneous math) a rough stab at guessing the number of people using Firefox is probably over 115,064,000, which isn't a bad user base at all.

When a friend of mine from university first tried to convince me to switch to Firefox I wasn't particularly interested. Basically, IE has done everything that I've wanted in a web browser. He went on at great lengths about the security aspects, the in-built popup blockers, download managers and so on, but I'd spent a fairly large amount of time and money on anti-virus programs, firewalls, spyware removers, and my browser was secure enough. I also have a download manager that I'm very happy with and refuse to change from. After much cajoling I finally agreed to try this newfangled software. I'm glad I did too, because now I have no desire to go back.

Firefox is very easy to install and use. There's nothing complicated, you simply download (for free) and run the install file and then when you run the browser for the first time you get presented with the option of importing your IE favourites (a nice feature, with the click of a button everything is moved across to ease your transition) and also the option of making Firefox your default browser. My initial reaction was fairly apathetic; Firefox seemed pretty much the same as IE and in essence, it is. It has all the basic features of IE, but then I discovered it adds so much more.

The first feature to really grab me is the tabbed browsing. Many alternative browsers and even IE plugins support tabbed browsing (where the new pages can be opened in a tab in the one window, instead of filling the task bar with buttons) but Firefox seems to make it so easy and useful. All you do is click a link with the middle button on your mouse (most newer mice have three buttons, the third often being placed under the scroll wheel) and a new tab opens up containing the page requested. Middle clicking on any tab in the window will close it, without having to actually go to the tab and click close. Ctrl-T will open a new blank tab, and Ctrl-Tab will cycle through them (similar in fashion to Alt-Tab cycling through the open programs). What this all leads to is a much neater Internet experience, with you being able to group certain pages into browser windows, leaving the start bar much cleaner and easier to navigate.

The next feature that caught my attention was the search bar built into the browser. It's small, sleek and simple, built into the right-hand side of the main toolbar beside the address box. You can add many different sites to the search bar and then select the site you wish to search from a drop-down menu. Then it's simply a matter of typing your query in and hitting enter to be taken directly to that page and your search results. This makes searching Ebay, Google, Internet Movie DataBase, Amazon etc. very quick and easy as you can simply type in the desired search criteria as you think of it and get the results back fast. You can get search bar plugins for IE but they tend to take up lots of room, contain ads, and you can usually only have one site per search bar.

There are more features than I could write about here but I will tell you that Firefox has impressed me greatly. Browser hijacking: the act of a malicious website script changing your homepage or search page (particularly common on IE, sites will change your default search page so that every time you type an address into your address bar their site gets a hit) is now a thing of the past (at least until someone gets vicious enough to work out backdoors in Firefox, an unlikely event for at least a little while given the massive market share still held by IE). Since changing over I have received substantially fewer attack notices from my Firewall. Sites load quickly, and if you get an address wrong you don't have to wait for a page to load, you just quickly get a message informing you that the site doesn't exist. Then there are the extensions that can be downloaded to add all sorts of new features to the browser.

The only downside that I have found is the fact that because IE is the dominant web browser, some websites are coded in such a way that they don't work properly on other browsers. These sites are few and far between, but occasionally you will still need to fire up IE to view a page. The infrequency of this occurring is enough that it doesn't annoy me too much, but it will be nice when everything works 100%.

At the end of the day, it's probably not a vital switch. Both programs suffice in allowing you to plug in and explore the vast world of the Internet with ease and accuracy. However, it's worth a look though because what starts off initially as "I have no real reason to change back" quickly becomes "I am never going back". So, as the official Firefox website encourages, "Rediscover the web".

Daniel Punch - M6.Net
Daniel Punch is a university student always looking to overthrow the man and support the underdog, provided it doesn't actually cost him anything.

White Sun - Tao of Heaven

Tao exists before Heaven and Earth. It will still exist after the destruction of everything. Tao is the origin of Heaven, Earth, mankind, substances and matters.

Tao being the essence, is the core of all virtues. God is the spiritual energy of Tao. In terms of the lord of all phenomena in the cosmos, the essence is called God. The truth is the manifestation of Tao and conscience is the manifestation of the true self.

Originally Tao is nameless. Since it is a void, it is everywhere and it is nowhere. The comos is like a giant wheel, days follow months, winter follows summer, birth is followed by growth, old age and death. Human cannot live without Tao. Tao is the True Self of a human. Once the True Self is covered by emotions and desires, one becomes lost and is attracted by illusory images, hence forever trapped in the cycle of birth, death and rebirth.

Nowadays, science and technology dominates the society. Mankind becomes corrupted and morality has deteriorated. Catastrophes strike everywhere. The ultimate goal of Tao of Heaven is to turn the world into a Pure Land.

What is the true meaning of Tao?

In the beginning, the comos was a void without any form or substance. However in this state, there existed an indescribable energy. Without beginning or end, it is ever changing and continuously self-rejuvenating. This energy created billions of galaxies, stars and solar systems. It also created billions of life forms on Earth, including humans, animals and plants. Observable forms and substances make up the material world; others that cannot be observed make up the spiritual world. This mystical energy that exists in all shapes and forms fill the universe with vibrant vitality. Hence it is the origin of all lives and the Lord of all beings. We call this energy TAO.

Tao endows Heaven and Earth, the truth and order. Tao not only manifests the state of life, it also unveils the principle, order and characteristic of life. Tao is the centre of all thoughts, feeling and emotion and controls all bodily existence. Everyone has Tao within oneself, yet does not know its existence. Tao is origin of mankind. One who searches and discovers Tao becomes a Saint. One who does not know Tao becomes lost and risks the annihilation of his soul. Thus, one who acts benevolently based on faith will perfect benevolence in his conscience; one who makes judgement based on faith will perfect his wisdom.

Author: T.A Chew
Website: www.white-sun.com

The author is an accountant and has been a vegetarian for more than ten years. Age 51, he is a part time preacher of Tao of Heaven and lives in a House Temple. He has written a few books on Tao and before that he was the Group Financial Controller of a Public Listed Company in Malaysia.

Mexico; Look What We Did

The number-one question people ask us is, "What possessed you to move to Mexico?" The number-one answer we give is that we simply could no longer afford to live in America, so we found a country where we could, and moved there.

We found ourselves in a position not unlike many Americans: A major illness strikes, unexpectedly, and though insured and with incomes, the cost of funding the illness simply becomes too much. It becomes, essentially, impossible. We were not alone.

It turns out that more than 50% of bankruptcies filed in 2001 were medically related and were filed by middle-class homeowners who not only had an income but also health insurance. The prevailing myth that most bankruptcies are due to credit card debt is not true. Less than 1% of filed bankruptcies are due to credit card debt.

Researchers found that, in those surveyed, 1.9 to 2.2 million U.S. residents filed a "medical bankruptcy". The average person filing for bankruptcy during the 2001 period spent $13,460 on co-payments, deductibles, and uncovered services even though they had private insurance.

"Our study is frightening. Unless you're Bill Gates, you're just one serious illness away from bankruptcy. Most of the medically bankrupt were average Americans who happened to get sick. Health insurance offered little protection," said Dr. David Himmelstein, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School who led the study.

Another one of the study's authors, Elizabeth Warren, said, "It doesn't take a medical catastrophe to create a financial catastrophe. A larger share of American workers are going to have insurance that's like a paper umbrella. It looks good, and it might even protect you in a sprinkle, but it melts away in a downpour."

In the fall of 2002, we began to feel the sprinkle on our paper umbrella turn into an unstoppable downpour. We had to do something before the full brunt of the downpour tore the paper umbrella to shreds and our lives along with it. We began to look to other alternatives to purchase our prescription drugs and found them.

Other Americans are finding themselves in the same boat with not many options from which to choose. I was reading the other day where a married couple from Illinois sued the Federal government for the right to import prescription medications from Canada.

They lost. The judge dismissed the case. Maybe they should sell everything and move to Mexico as we did.

Moving to another country-one with a different language and culture-can offer many new challenges that can surprise you, shock you, and delight you. It takes a bit of getting used to, to say the least.

One such shock was the first time I got all my needed prescriptions refilled. I knew from our research to expect cheaper prices but I did not know how cheap!

I went to the ATM and secured a fist full of pesos then trudged onward to the Farmacia. They were helpful and cheerful but when they told me the total price, I had to re-ask, in my terrible Spanish, if they were sure of the price.

You see, I was able to get all my drugs refilled for the price of one, count it, one co-pay of a name-brand drug in America! I am not making this up. A month's supply of generic Prozac is less than $16.00 USD!

We stepped into a new reality where everything--prescription drugs, housing, utilities, food, transportation, entertainment--is 25-75% less than it is in America. My Social Security Disability income adequately covers our expenses here in Guanajuato, Mexico.

Moving to Mexico--an alternative for everyone? I doubt it. The solution? I don't know. What I do know is that we, and many other Americans, cannot sit idly by waiting for our elected officials to work it out. We had to take action--drastic as it was.

That paper umbrella wasn't going to last long!

Expatriates Doug and Cindi Bower have successfully expatriated to Mexico, learning through trial and error how to do it from the conception of the initial idea to driving up to their new home in another country. Now the potential expatriate can benefit from their more than three years of pre-expat research to their more than two years of actually living in Mexico. The Plain Truth about Living in Mexico answers the potential expatriate's questions by leading them through the process from the beginning to the end. In this comprehensive guide, you will learn not only how-to expatriate but will learn what to expect, in daily life, before coming to Mexico. BUY BOOK HERE: http://www.universal-publishers.com/book.php?method=ISBN&book=1581124570

Are You Lactose Intolerant?

Do you know anyone who can't consume milk or milk-based products? The condition is not uncommon and these people are classified as lactose intolerant.

Lactose is the main carbohydrate or sugar found in milk, and in varying quantities in dairy products made from milk including yoghurt, ice cream, soft cheeses and butter. Lactose (milk sugar) intolerance results from an inability to digest lactose in the small intestine.

Back in the cave-days, the only time a person would ever ingest lactose would be when they were infants getting milk from their mothers. During their adult lives milk was never consumed. Only with the invention of agriculture has milk become readily available to adults. Lactose is unique in that only in milk does it exist as a free form, unattached to other molecules.

What causes lactose intolerance?

Lactose is digested in the small intestine by an enzyme called lactase. This enzyme allows the body to break down the lactose into two simple sugars, glucose and galactose. These are quickly absorbed by the intestine and provide energy for the body. The level of the lactase enzyme varies between individuals, as does the severity of the symptoms caused by lactose intolerance.

What are the symptoms of lactose intolerance?

Symptoms range from milk abdominal discomfort, bloating and excessive wind to sever abdominal cramps and diarrhoea.

Substitutes for lactose-containing foods

Lactose intolerance generally isn't serious and can be controlled by some simple changes in your diet. The dietary changes for lactose intolerance should include the exclusion of those foods highest in lactose. There is now a wide range of fresh soy milks, yoghurts and ice creams which are lactose free and calcium enriched. Many dairy foods actually have little or no lactose so you can continue to enjoy them.

The power of soy protein

Soy-based products are on the rise for very healthy reasons. The humble soybean boasts some extraordinary benefits. Lactose-free, soy protein is a "complete protein" which contains all 9 essential amino acids in the right balance to meet your body's needs. Soy protein is the only plant protein that is complete. This makes it a great substitute for many meats, allowing you to eliminate more saturated fat and cholesterol from your diet.

While soybeans have much to offer from a protein perspective, it is because they contain so many nutrients, such as isoflavones, that they are now the centre of so much attention. Soy protein enhances the body's ability to retain and better absorb calcium into the bones. Soy isoflavones help by slowing bone loss and inhibiting bone breakdown.

Lactose-Free Soy Recipes

There are an abundance of wonderful soy recipes that enable you to get all the benefits of soy....without the traditional soy flavour. Further information available at the link below.

Kim Beardsmore is a weight loss consultant whose business operates across 60 countries. This world renowned, medically approved program will give you results you'll love and all the support you need! Estimate your healthy body weight, tons of recipes, articles, ezine and more at http://weight-loss-health.com.au

Choosing Your Wedding Rings

One of the most important steps in planning your wedding, is choosing the wedding ring set. Finding the right rings could actually be considered the most critical part of your ceremony actually, because the wedding bands will be worn by the bride and groom for the rest of their lives.

Wedding bands have become a great deal more ornate than they used to be. And Diamond wedding bands have gotten very popular in recent years, thanks to the celebrities who proudly display theirs.

Wedding rings are no longer just your standard gold these days though. Many wedding bands and ring sets are made of platinum and titanium. And while 10k gold rings were once considered the "in" thing to buy, couples now prefer 14k gold or higher.

Simple diamonds are still a popular buy, but colored diamonds are gaining momentum too, thanks mainly to "J-Lo's" pink princess cut diamond ring with Ben Affleck. Other popular diamond colors are yellow, blue and aquamarine.

With the ever growing popularity of platinum rings, many couples are looking to shining silver and white gold as a cheaper substitute. White gold has a similar look of platinum, but is a fraction of the price. It is a great alternative.

The groom's wedding ring has traditionally been of little concern to anyone, as long as the bride's was attractive - if not stunning. These days though, men prefer nice rings as well. Sometimes they covet a flashy diamond-studded ring almost as much as the bride does.

Finding just the right wedding ring set is just a matter of choice... and time. Since rings can be bought almost anywhere these days - including online - all you need to do is start looking around. These days even department stores are offering great knock offs to the popular celebrity rings at extreme discounts.

The popular ring worn by J-Lo for instance - which was a platinum pink diamond ring with a princess cut and accented with two white diamonds on either side - can now be purchased at Wal-Mart in a white gold setting with zirconias and pink topaz stones.

So, start by thinking about the type of ring you want: White Gold? Yellow Gold? Sterling Silver? Platinum? Once you've decided on that aspect of your ring set, then you'll need to think about how elaborate you'd like your rings to be. Should they be simple, or completely plain bands? Should they have a little detail work but not much? Should they sport multiple gems? And last but not least of course, think about what you can afford to spend on your wedding bands. They are a once-in-a-lifetime investment but you may not want to spend your lifetime paying them off.

Once you have these little details in mind, then you can start your comparison shopping. Go to the department stores if you must, but consider looking around online a bit too. You'll most likely find some excellent discounts on wonderful wedding bands and sets, without having to sacrafice quality.

? 2005, Kathy Burns-Millyard, Gift Box Jewelry - Visit GiftBoxJewelry.com to find your ideal wedding ring set, along with other top quality necklaces, bracelets, rings and other popular jewelry at excellent prices! This article may be republished on any website, as long as it remains unchanged, carries this copyright and reprint notice, and has a live link to our site.

When to Plant Vegetaibles

Planting times for vegetables and other annual plants vary from species to species. In much of the United States the prime consideration is the date of the last spring frost/freeze. Many vegetables can be planted up to four weeks before the last frost, while others need to wait until a couple of weeks after the frost.

Another consideration is the date of the first fall frost/freeze. In northern latitudes, where summers can be short, the length of time some vegetable species take to reach maturity (most notably tomatoes and peppers) make it necessary to plant vegetable seeds indoors and then transplant the seedlings outside at the appropriate time.

Other vegetables and fruits, such as winter squashes and some melon varieties, seem to do better when planted as seeds directly where they are going to stay. With maturation times up to twelve weeks, it may be critical to get vegetable seeds planted as early as it is safe to do. If you have a short growing season, and wish to grow these crops, choose vegetable varieties that will reach maturity within a safe time period for your area.

My personal observation has been that vegetable seed crops planted at their earliest safe date are less likely to fall victim to insects than later plantings. If you have a small vegetable garden it's not too difficult to reseed if a surprise late frost damages a particular crop.

Many vegetable plants that are planted in the spring can be planted again towards the end of the season. Again, it is important to know what date you can expect the first frost.

By understanding the times and length of frost free weather in your area you can have a better chance for success in your vegetable garden.

The National Climatic Data Center has a data sheet online that can be downloaded as a pdf file or viewed online. The data sheet contains frost/freeze information for over 3000 U.S. locations. The information is presented as a table, listed in alphabetical order by state and then selected towns within each state.

Be aware that this information is based on 29 years of data gathering from 1951 to 1980, and that they are statistical in nature and cannot unequivocally predict exact dates for any given locality in any given year.

Biodynamics and Phenology use astrological and natural occurrences to discern clues about the best time to plant and harvest vegetables. Native Americans and other earlier civilizations used similar techniques.

Most areas consist of microclimates that vary by elevation, exposure and proximity to large bodies of water. The Freeze/Frost Tables are a good reference point, but it makes sense to keep track of temperature and other factors in your particular vegetable garden location if you want to truly understand when it is actually the best time to plant vegetables.

To View or download The Frost Freeze tables; click on the link below. http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/documentlibrary/freezefrost/freezefrost.pdf

Chip Phelan, a contributing editor for Organic Gardening Review, is an organic gardener living in Rhode Island. Organic Gardening Review is a resource center for organic gardening enthusiast and those interested in community sustainable agriculture. http://www.organic-gardening-review.com

Looking for a place to share organic gardening info? Visit our Organic Gardening Discussion Forum at: Organic Gardening Forum

Refinishing A Hardwood Floor

Want to bring your hardwood floors back to their former beauty, but don't have the money? Then read on for some tips on how you can refinish the floor yourself.

If you have the time and don't mind doing the work, then refinishing your floors yourself is a great option but before starting out, it's not a bad idea to get an estimate from a professional so you can compare the cost of doing it yourself to what they would charge. You'll get quite a shock at the amount that is charged. It may cost over $1000 to have just 1 room done. You could carpet over it for less, but doesn't carpeting over beautiful hardwood floors seem, well, wrong?

It is actually rather easy to refinish a wood floor ? if you pay attention to what you are doing. To sand the floor, you need a drum sander and possibly a belt sander which can be rented at your neighborhood Home Depot or hardware store. They can help you figure out which machines you need to rent, what kind of sand paper you should buy and also can help with the type and amount of stain and finish for the floor. You might also want to get some dust masks and plastic to section the room off from the rest of the house. Fine particles of dust will get everywhere ? even if you section off the room, but you may be able to minimize the impact on the rest of the house.

The most important part of refinishing your floors is learning how to control the sander. The key to running the sander is to make sure it keeps moving at all times, otherwise they are simple to use, although a bit hard on the ears. If you stop in 1 spot, you will probably get a big gouge in your floor. Equate it to using an iron on your clothes ? if you stop in 1 spot too long you'll burn a hole. The sander is similar since it creates a lot of heat, keeping it in 1 spot can burn or dent your floor.

You do need to be careful with the sander as it is self propelled. When you first start it up, make sure you hold on firmly. Don't be afraid of the machine but make sure you maintain complete control. Relax, after a few spins, it may even start to seem like fun.

After the old finish is removed, you need to apply the stain and new finish. Think of this as the same as doing your nails ? first you remove the old finish, then basecoat, color and topcoat. Sometimes you don't want color on your nails so you skip that part. In your floor you might also skip that part (the stain) but you still want to use a finish to protect the floor.

When selecting a finish you can pick from an oil based or polyurethane (water based) finish. When selecting an oil based finish you will need to decide if you want a satin, gloss or semi gloss finish. It's probably best for you to use satin on a hardwood floor as it will help hide any flaws in the wood and is much more pleasing then a bright shine Using oil based finish is better for wood floors as it casts a warm amber glow. Water based, on the other had dries quicker and resists yellowing.

No matter which you choose, you must let each coat dry before putting down the next coat. Think back to the nail polish analogy! Follow the manufacturers instructions on the finish before you occupy the room again. Usually you can move your furniture back in after about 24 hours.

As you can see, the task of refinishing your floors need not be overwhelming. Think of it as giving your room a manicure. Take it one step at a time and use care in the process and you can have a great looking floor and save yourself almost $1000 to boot!

Lee Dobbins is a contributing writer for home improvement resources such as Refinishing-Hardwood-Floors.com. Visit our site and learn more about refinishing hardwood floors.

Which Niche To Conquer?

I'm sure that you've heard about how many start up companies fail when they first begin, and the reason that most (if not all) of their failures is because they don't create a good fountain to build on.

If we start right, it is easy to go right all the time. But if we start wrong, it's much harder to go back and get it right. So please pay close attention, get out your pen and pencil, and let's get to work.

When you first start, you need to decide which niche are you going to conquer.

When I first started my online business, I made the same mistake that 99.9% of people make. I read an ebook about how to make money online, and I decided that I would...

can you guess...?

I wrote my own book about "how to make money." I compiled all of the regurgitated information I could find, put a twist on it, and started to sell it. After 2 weeks and a little over $30 in sales I started to think:

"Why am I selling a book about how to make money... when I have NEVER in my life made any real money!?!"

You may laugh, but it took me a few weeks before I realized that there was a problem there. I decided to stop selling my book, and started to look for other ways to make money online. What I stumbled upon next really gets exciting.

I was going to college at the time, and my degree is in "Computer Information Systems." I knew some things about programming, but not enough to create anything real. What I did know is where programmers spend their time online.

So I started visiting places where you could hire programmers and got to know a few. I then started to search for a market that needed something.

What I came upon was the "Resale Rights" market. Basically this was people buying and selling digital products (ebooks and software) that they could then go and sell to other people. This concept really excited me. I purchased a lot of these products, but struggled to sell them because all of the products had links back to the author's websites.

These authors were making money every time I sold these products... on the backend. When I realized that, the first thing I thought was,

"I wish that had a way to brand all of these files with my own links."

And there the idea was born. I just needed to create a product that would brand these "resale rights" products. I wouldn't be competing directly with that market, but make a complementary product that would benefit them all.

I went back to the programmers that I had been building relationships with, and gave them my idea. Within a matter of weeks they created a product that is now known as Zip Brander. (You can see the product at www.ZipBrander.com)

I'm not going to go into how I marketed it in this lesson (I'll save that for another day), but with the one product I made over $1,000 my first month with it, and it made us over $50,000 in 2004 alone.

Since then I've been able to branch out to a lot of various niches and have had amazing success in most of them. In other issues I will share exact case studies of these that you will be able to model in your businesses.

How To Pick The Right Niche

I want to show you now how to choose your niche. Just follow these 3 simple steps.

Step 1 - Do not choose the "how to make money" niche. I'm not sure why, but I made this mistake along with thousands of other people. This is the most competitive niche in the world. If you want to fight against the marketers, good luck. But there is a lot more money (and it's made a lot easier) in the niches I'll explain below.

Step 2 - Look at your personal talents, and start from there. I have had this conversation more then once - usually every time I discuss an online business with someone.

I ask them what their hobbies are that we could market, and they almost always they tell me that they don't have anything they could sell. The problem is that people usually look at their current job, and can't think of ways they can market that skill.

Don't look at your current job, but look at what you do on your free time. The thing that is your passion. This is where you'll find your niche.

Here are examples of the last 3 conversations I've had:

Friend #1 - works construction, and couldn't think of a marketable skill. After 3 1/2 minutes realized that he has twin girls. Found there was a huge market for informational product in this niche and him and his wife are now working on their first product.

Friend #2 - works as a manager at Office Depot. One the weekends loves to shot guns with his dad. They are creating a software program that helps people to increase their accuracy when shooting. They are also creating video demonstrations on how to improve your accuracy.

Friend #3 - came to me asking for help promoting a "how to make money online" course. He had to call me using a video relay because he's deaf. I told him that he was going in the wrong direction with what he was promoting. He had no experience making money online. I asked him what his hobbies were, and surely enough told me he didn't have any that he could sell. Before I even asked that question I knew what his niche was. He's been speaking through sign language his whole life, and there are thousands of people searching every month on how to learn sign language.

What do you do in your free time when no one else is around? Are you good at video games? Are you a good cook? Do you play any sports? Do you throw dinner parties? Do you collect anything? Can you play an instrument? What is your passion? When you can answer this... then you know what your niche is.

Step 3 - Research your market. Don't worry - this part isn't nearly as hard as you'd think. Within about 5 minutes I can usually tell if a niche is worth looking at. There are 3 things you need to do, and you'll know if it's the right niche.

First - Check out the search engines. There are a lot more advanced tools then this, but this one is completely free to use. Go to http://inventory.overture.com and type in your niche. This will show you how many times that word was searched for that month on their search engine. If there are a lot of people searching for it each money, the it's likely a good niche.

Second - Search for online communities related to your niche. People with similar interests migrate to the same places online. Wrestlers hang out at wrestling forums, poets hang out in poetry message boards, etc... Go to www.google.com and type in "________ forums" or "_________ message board" or "_______ groups" (put your niche in the blank). Visit these forums and see if they are active and how many members they have. You can often find forums with 10,000+ members in it. If you find good communities focused around your niche, then this is another good sign.

Third - Search for similar products. If you can find others selling products in your niche, then it's usually a good sign that there's some life there. Purchase their products and get to know your competition (because they are going to become your JV partners in another lesson).

After getting this far, you should have a good idea about which niche you would like to conquer, as well as some idea about if it is a profitable niche.

In the next lesson we are going to discuss how you can turn those talents into a product. Product creation is one of the most exciting parts of the game for me, so look out for that lesson coming soon.

Thanks,

Russell Brunson

Written by Russell Brunson editor of http://www.conqueryourniche.com newsletter.

Discover How I Earned A High 6-Figure Income In Spite Of My College Education at http://www.ConquerYourNiche.com

Web Copy ? How Much is Enough?

These days, there's widespread acceptance that a website is an integral part of the marketing plan of any business. Likewise, it's commonly accepted that web copy is a vital component of any website. But how much web copy is enough?

The pure volume of information available on the Internet is daunting ? often counterproductive. There are approximately 550 billion documents on the web, and every day another 7 million are added. According to an A.T. Kearney, Network Publishing study (April 2001), workers take so long trying to find information that it costs organizations $750 billion annually!

Yet people continue to use it. Information gathering is the most common use of the Internet (American Express survey, 2000). And it seems work-related searches are amongst the most common, with 48% of people using the Internet to find work-related information, as opposed to 7% who use magazines (Lyra Research, 2001).

Interestingly, however, the average person visits no more than 19 websites in the entire month in order to avoid information overload (Nielsen NetRatings in Jan 2001).

So how do you ensure your site is one of those 19? How do you make your content helpful without making it overwhelming? That's what this article is about?

I've written several articles on WHAT to write on your website in order to make it helpful. (See http://www.divinewrite.com/benefits.htm, http://www.divinewrite.com/webbenefitwriting.htm, and http://www.divinewrite.com/webwriting.htm) But that's only half the battle? Businesses also need to know HOW MUCH to write. Here are 5 quick rules of thumb to help you decide how much is enough.

1) Know your audience (Reader or Search Engine?)

Think about whether you're targeting human readers (potential customers) or search engines. This must always be one of your very first questions, as the answer will determine your approach to content.

In general, human readers think less is more. Search engines, on the other hand, think more is more (well, more or less?). In many ways, it comes down to a question of quality versus quantity. Human readers are interested in quality, whereas search engines are interested quantity. Human readers want you to answer their questions and make it clear how you can benefit them. And they don't want to wade through volumes of text. Search engines want a high word count, full of relevant keywords, and short on diagrams. (See http://www.divinewrite.com/seocopy.htm for more information on writing for search engines. See