If you are thinking about starting an online business, then there are some things that you should keep in mind. One thing that is important is that you should be aware of your competitors. It might sound complicated, but it is actually not so bad. All you have to do is to do a Google search for various keywords that you are competing for. Such a search will reveal many of your competitors. What you should do next is scour their websites to gain as much information as possible. Compare the prices to see whether you can offer lower prices. Take a look at the website design to see whether your site design is as appealing.
Category Archives: Technology & Websites
Maximize Writing Time
Not everybody has a lot of time on their hands. Some bloggers are busy people who have many other responsibilities such as rising children or going to work. I am one of such people. Blogging is not the only thing I do. Whenever I blog, I make sure that I stay focused. It is important to me to make sure that I always maximize my writing time. I cannot afford to be distracted by thinking about something else at the same time. I need to stay focused at all times. Words always flow easy when I make sure that I stay focused. It is not that difficult to focus once I have a clear objective.
Ideal Results
There are plenty of benefits that come with laminating your documents. Some of these advantages include:
Enhancing and preserving the color and contrast of the images
You have professional looking documents
Lamination protects the documents thus they last for a long time even with frequent handling
The process is easy, and you achieve immediate results
Laminating tips
Whether you have a home or office laminating machine, you need to use it correctly for you to obtain perfect results. Some of the tips you need to consider include:
Use the right pouch: This seems like a no-brainer, but you will be worried by the number of people that fail to achieve perfect laminating results due to failure to use the right pouch. If you have a high-quality machine, the chances are that the unit has different pouches. For ideal results, use the right pouch for the product you are looking to laminate.
You also should place the document at the right area. To be on the safe side, leave a 2mm border around the entire document.
Properly warm up the machine: Different machines require different heating temperatures for them to work efficiently. The cool thing is that they all come with manuals from where you can refer on the right temperature to use. If you aren’t sure, check the manual and set your unit.
Properly laminate irregular surfaces: While most of the documents to be laminated come in regular shapes, there are a few that feature irregular shapes. When laminating these documents be cautious. As rule of thumb, send them through the machine twice. This is to avoid wrinkling.
Clean the machine: Just like any other unit in your home or office, you need to regularly clean the laminating machine for it to work effectively. When cleaning it, pay attention to the rollers. The best way of cleaning the unit is heating up the machine to its normal laminating temperature and then pass a non-glossy piece of paper through it as you are laminating.
Leave a seal: Once you are done laminating a document, cut it appropriately to give it a professional look. The best way of going about it is leaving a seal around the edges of the document.
Conclusion
These are tips to consider when laminating your documents. For the unit to give you the service you deserve, buy a high-quality machine. The unit will not only give you professional looking documents, but it also will last for a long time.
Faster Writing
Would you like to write a great blogpost or email in half the time without losing quality – and perhaps even making it better in the process?
Here’s how:
1: Create an outline. Your outline is your plan, and it’s going to make your entire task easier for 3 reasons:
a) Having a plan diffuses procrastination. When we look at a project our mind tells us it’s big – too big. This causes stress, which makes us want to avoid the whole thing. By having a plan, we can break the writing down into manageable, stress free steps.
b) Having a plan keeps you from wandering off topic. If you have a simple outline to follow, it’s just a matter of filling out each section of the outline. But without a plan, you could waste a great deal of time writing about things that in the end don’t even pertain to your main topic.
c) It makes research super easy. Once you have an outline, researching can be as simple as Googling each item on your outline. Without a plan, your research can lead you into never-ending time-wasting circles.
2: Once you’ve got your outline, set it aside for an hour or a day and let it bake in your brain.
By setting it aside, you can let your mind focus on something else. Meanwhile, your subconscious is still working on that outline. You’ll be surprised by what your subconscious gives you. All of a sudden you’ll realize you left out the most important part, or you’ve found a much better way to illustrate your main point.
3: Write every day. Writing, just like anything else, is a skill. The more you do it, the better and faster you will get.
Write even when you don’t ‘fee’ like it. As Stephen King has said, “Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration. The rest of us just get up and go to work.”
Or as another writer stated, “I wait for inspiration to strike. Fortunately for me, it strikes every day at 9 am.”
Even if you absolutely, positively do NOT want to write, tell yourself you’re going to write for just 15 minutes. Then start writing. You can write anything – anything at all – but you must write. Pretty soon you’ll be working on your project and wondering why you were feeling such resistance to something you actually enjoy.
4: Use deadlines in your favor. Without a deadline, there is no stress. With no stress, your brain puts off the task of writing for later. After all, writing takes brain power, effort, thinking and decision making – things your brain would rather put off until later. Or never.
But when you have a deadline, you have stress to get the job done. The closer the deadline, the more stress. To relieve the stress, you’ve got to get busy. Now your brain is telling you to, “Write right now!”
If self-imposed deadlines work for you, then you know what to do. If not, you’ll have to find a way to get others to hold you accountable for your deadlines. For example, telling your blog readers that your next post goes live on Tuesday at 10 am PST should work nicely.
No blog readers yet? Have a friend hold you accountable. If you don’t make your deadline, you owe them dinner.
5: Focus on the “feel goods.”Back when I had a regular job, I loved my days off. I especially loved them when I knew well in advance that they were coming.
But if I found out that morning that I wasn’t working, then half the joy of having time off was gone. There was no anticipation. No looking forward to that day off. Frankly, I felt ripped off if I didn’t know I wasn’t working until that same morning.
You can use this knowledge to self-motivate yourself. Think about how great it will feel to hit publish or send. Think about closing the file and doing something you love as a reward. Think about the accolades you’ll receive for finishing the project, or the money you’ll earn, or whatever it is that motivates you to keep working until you’re done.
6: Turn off the internet. Some folks, me included, tend to get distracted by the internet. We think we’re going to ‘sneak off’ for 5 minutes to check Reddit, and an hour later we still haven’t gotten back to work.
So whenever possible, just disconnect your wifi. Turn off your cell phone. Remove anything else that tends to distract you. And then go to work.
7: Speed up your typing. If you’re not able to type at least 50 words per minute, maybe it’s time you improved your typing skills.
It’s difficult when your thoughts are coming faster than your fingers can tap them out. But you have options:
� Type faster. There are plenty of free and paid courses online that will teach you how to touch type faster.
� Use a voice to text program such as Dragon Naturally.
� Record yourself and have it transcribed.
Writing by itself isn’t hard. It’s all the baggage we attach to it that makes it difficult. But if you can think of writing as simply assembling the pieces to a puzzle, you’ll do it much better and faster.
Software
Ever since I started spending time on the Internet, I noticed that the Internet allows me the possibility to download software. I do not mind paying for some kind of software as long as I find it helpful. Have you ever tried any security software like I did recently? If yes, did it help you in your job or in your personal life? I have some software installed on my PC, but I am always on the lookout for even better software. I do not have a lot of experience when it comes to choosing the right type of software. This is probably why I always ask for help when it comes to my choices.
Starting on the Internet
I guess I will never forget those very few days or rather weeks straight after decided to become an online entrepreneur. My decision to become one wasn�t definitely an easy one. It took me some time to come to the conclusion that this is what I wanted to do in my spare time after work instead of dedicating my precious time to many other tasks that were available to me like hanging out with my friends. I knew that all I wanted to do was to spend my time trying to be a successful online entrepreneur.
It didn�t take me that long to realize that an entrepreneur that is interested in opening an online business is in for a rude awakening. I know that it can be difficult to start an online business once you have no idea even what to do. Did I know what to do when I was starting with my first business? Not really, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. Little did I know that I was in for a rude awakening after I discovered that the world of the Internet was full of spammers lurking at every corner and wanting to rip me off at a first opportunity.
Overspending
One thing I have been fighting recently was overspending. Overspending can happen when I decide to spend my money on something I normally do not spend it on. Overspending is more likely to happen during summer months when I am more likely to want to go somewhere on vacation. It is not rare for my friends to encourage me to go somewhere with them. For me, this means overspending. I usually do not include my vacation expenses in my budget. Since I do not go on vacation every month, I do not see a reason to include it in my budget.
Internet Applications
Within the last few years the accessibility of online applications has grown a lot. Traditionally, you had to install a program from a CD, or download it from the Internet in order to use it. However, currently there are many web applications that do not require any downloads at all. All of this is possible because of the Internet. The number of online applications is growing steadily, and analysts predict that this trend is going to continue. Probably the biggest advantage of these applications is that you do not need a high-end computer to run them. Actually, there are computers and notebooks being sold for only a few hundred dollars that can run them without problems. Such computers use very little power so they are very economical as well. Overall, this is a great solution for those who want to save some money. It is also a good idea for those who want to use a specific program only once or twice, as this way they will not have to purchase the whole software. I believe that in the future the Internet applications will be used by a lot more computer users. That is because the Internet is becoming more reliable and more and more accessible. For Internet applications to work properly a reliable Internet connection is definitely a requirement. Older dial-up connections may be too slow for some of the newer programs.
Promising Too Much
If you are new to blogging and you just set up your website, then there are some mistakes you may want to avoid. One of the things you may want to avoid is promising too much. A person who is new to blogging may promise his readers that he is going to publish a post per day. While it may not sound that hard, it is easier said than done. It is not always that easy to publish a post each day, because some days a blogger will be simply busy. A person might have simply more important matters to attend to.
Publishing Enough Content
Many freelance writers and bloggers think that it is enough to publish content once in a blue moon. They will soon discover that it is not enough. If you are serious about blogging or freelance writing, you need to keep writing on a regular basis. The Internet is full of blogs and websites that stopped existing only because a blogger or a freelance writer stopped updating the website. You need to prove to the Internet audience that you are serious about what you choose to do. If you are passionate about writing, you need to make sure that you prove it by writing regularly. Only that way will your visitors keep coming back to your website.
