Monthly Archives: March 2023

Freelance Writing – Three Essential Tools to Help You to Build Your Business

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Freelance writing is a great home business in which your ability to make a high income depends your business skills and your organizational ability. Let’s look at three essential tools to help you.

1. Your “Name” Web Site

Your “name” website is your most essential tool. It’s the way in which your writing clients will discover you. If you haven’t yet built a website, please realize this is not an optional extra. It’s essential. It’s no longer possible to run your business without a website.

By “name” website, I mean a site which promotes your name. If your name’s Thomas X. Browne for example, your site would be thomasxbrown.com.

Here’s what your website does for you:

* It engenders trust — when an editor or a business owner is looking to hire you to write the first thing they want to know is whether you’re competent. Your website displays your competency;

* It’s a way for new clients to find you. Once your website has been online for a year or so, you can expect to get at least 10 to 20 enquiries every day for your writing services. At that stage, you’ll be able to cherry pick the writing jobs you want to accept.

2. Contact Management Software

Contact management software is essential. You need to stay in touch with people once they’ve hired you. Some of your clients might only need your services once a year, so staying in touch with them is good business practice.

There are many contact management applications available. Some are free and some are commercial. Choose an application and stick with it. Your contact management software will become more valuable to you over time.

3. Task Management Software

You can’t run your business without a contact manager, and task management software is equally as important.

(Bonus Tool) Voice Recognition Software

The more you write, the more you’ll sell. Voice recognition software is amazingly accurate these days. Once you’re booked solid with clients your investment in such an application will pay for itself within its first hour of use. I couldn’t write half as much as I do without using voice recognition software — I commend it to you.

Freelance writing is a business like any other business and you need tools. The three essentials I’ve mentioned need to be part of your tool kit.

Puppy Potty Training Tips – How to Successfully Stop Your Puppy From Eliminating in the House

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Potty training your puppy can be a trying battle at times. It is much easier to accomplish when you have some dog potty training tips to follow. We want your puppy toilet training to be as painless, yet as effective as possible. This all becomes part of your general puppy training routine. Repetition is the key to achieving this, but patience is definitely needed as well.

You may need to spend some time setting the stage for this routine task. Potty training puppy should begin from the time you bring him home. Remember that a puppy aged 8 weeks old will need to eliminate more frequently than an older dog. If you cannot be with your puppy during certain hours due to work or school, the purchase of a crate for your dog should be first priority.

As a rule dogs will not eliminate in their living space and they will learn to wait until they can get out of the crate. It need only be large enough to allow your dog to turn around and lie down. If the breed of puppy you have chosen is one that will grow to be considerably larger as an adult, you may want to consider buying the large crate now and modifying it with heavy cardboard or a well sanded piece of plywood or pressed wood that you can adjust when your puppy needs more room to move.

Become aware of a few details concerning your puppy’s behavior that could indicate the need to go outside such as circling or sniffing the floor. It is also a good idea to have any needed items ready ahead of time to avoid a state of confusion when it’s time to take your puppy outside for another potty break.

This is a good time to use positive reinforcement and clicker training. When you are potty training your puppy and they associate the command with the required action, make the click and offer the reward or praise. You want to make sure you have treats and your clicker on hand before opening that crate door.

The area you want your puppy to use for eliminating should be confined to one particular place in the yard. By using the same location each time you have a potty training puppy session, he will quickly make the connection between that location and what needs to be done there. You can also use a verbal command or phrase each time your dog goes outside. By simply saying “go potty” every time you are working on puppy toilet training you puppy will associate those words with the action expected of him. Soon enough you’ll be able to open the door to your yard, say the word and watch your puppy follow the command.

The first time of the day it is important to practice puppy toilet training is when puppy first wakes up. It is an essential time since they have been crated overnight so not only do they have the need to potty, but also get a bit of exercise and stretching done. Another occasion for you to practice potty training your puppy is to take them out right before bedtime for their last potty and exercise occasion of the evening. Make sure that you continuously praise your puppy each time they correctly achieve a command. The praise they receive will be a trigger for them to willingly repeat the action.

Another puppy potty training tip is following a predetermined schedule for feeding so you will learn to anticipate when your puppy needs to go outside. Usually it will take somewhere between 30-45 minutes after eating for your puppy or dog to need to go outside. By keeping track of times between eating/drinking and eliminating you will soon have a good idea how long to wait until it’s time to go outside.

Don’t scold your puppy if they have made a mess in the house without you catching him in the act. If you do see your puppy squatting to relieve himself however, it is perfectly fine to say “No” or some other predetermined word, scoop him up and bring him directly to the outdoor potty area. He will soon understand that it is not acceptable to do his ‘business’ anywhere but the assigned location.

Potty training your puppy requires planning and a bit of patience and consistency. When your puppy knows what is expected of them and you’re able to be consistent with your requests and your rewards they will quickly catch on. Potty training doesn’t need to take months, follow these basic dog potty training tips and your puppy can be trained in no time.

Back to School Backpacks – Right Accessory For School!

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Vacation ends and there comes school again. This time as it’s a new year at school, it only helps if the students get everything they need in proper order and settle in. Here is the time for students to go shopping for new back pack. The students could choose the back packs that benefit them in the longer run.

Obviously starting a new year at school means new books and new materials. This would increase the weight of the backpack and thus the stress on the child’s shoulders so while choosing a backpack make sure that the backpack has two straps rather than one as two will help reduce the weight on either shoulder by distributing it. Well chosen back to school backpacks can reduce the pressure off students on the first day of school.

Since the loads are heavier in the new year of school its always better to choose a backpack with wheels because then the students can let their backs breathe rather than stressing them out on the first day.

Back to school backpacks come in different shapes and sizes. Make sure you always choose backpacks that are made of lighter material rather than the ones that use heavy materials. One example of light backpacks would be the Nike lightweight backpack. Literally.

Sometimes kids find it stylish to carry their back to school backpacks on one shoulder rather than two and that’s why will these backpacks are so popular. However, these backpacks tend to put a lot of strain on a student’s back making them tired. Choosing the right back pack is not the only thing that the kids at school have to do. They should also limit their loads and carry appropriate books and material in order to reduce the strain on their body. With heavier loads kids tend to lean forward which damages their posture.

Severe muscle strains can also happen with heavier backpacks and even cause the rounding of shoulders. Children must also make sure to carry the backpacks at a lower height to avoid straining their backs. However, wearing it too low could also be damaging. Usually the backpack is worn in such a way that the bottom of the backpack is 2 inches above the waist.

So to avoid straining and spraining backs, always purchase the right back to school backpacks which are lighter, have two straps and ideally, wheels. Back packs with light weight material, wide padded straps, with back cushion, and waste belt could also reduce injury. So choose well, live well and study well.

Learning the Acoustic Guitar

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Learning the acoustic guitar is not difficult but what can be a little tedious is wading through the swamp of advice from friends, family and the internet. Come to think of it, a lot of advice is better than no advice so maybe it’s just a question of organizing what you want to do with your music. What’s your plan with learning the acoustic guitar?

If you don’t know the first thing about the guitar, there are books available that will give you the basics. There’s a couple of books you should at least take a look at. There are great tutors for the acoustic guitar student who doesn’t want to embarrass himself by asking silly questions. If you want all the knowledge of any kind of guitar playing before you even need it, take a look at the guitar books published by Mel Bay. Many guitar players swear by them.

If you see yourself as a casual acoustic guitar strummer who just wants to be able to play his favorite songs and impress girls at parties, then you will probably get all the info about technique and repertoire from the internet. If you feel you want to be seriously interested in playing the acoustic guitar, think about getting at least a few lessons from a guitar teacher.

Yes, you can learn a lot from just reading tab and watching clips on YouTube but a teacher can show you scales, holding the plectrum properly, fingering positions and how to get a good sound. It is a much faster and more effective way to get your basic questions about the learning the acoustic guitar out of the way.

The fact is, many amateur guitar players have spent years teaching themselves and been amazed at how musch more they have learnt when they finally spent some money on lessons. While we are on the subject, there are two kinds of teachers, one kind gives you knowledge about the guitar, the other kind teaches in a way that prepares you to go back to your room and teach yourself. Try and find the second kind. If you are going to apend money on learning acoustic guitar, you may as well do some research.

The question of whether to learn to read music always comes up for people learning guitar but if you want to learn songs quickly without becoming a soloist, tab and chord charts are the way to go. Also once you have some familiarity with the guitar, you will be surprised to find that you will develop the knack of inserting solo breaks into your playing.

One thing that all people learning acoustic guitar encounter is discomfort. Your left hand finger tips need to develop callouses, you whole body needs to learn a new range of sitting, standing and arm moving positions to accommodate your guitar playing. Basic advice on this subject is most of the physical obstacles you go up against will disappear within a short time, but if you are getting any kind of real regularly repetitive pain, stop playing for a day or two. If the pain starts up again, get some advice from a doctor. Playing through the pain is not a good idea.

Why to Study HP2-K15 Certification Program

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It is the desire of almost everyone who is present in this world to succeed, but unfortunately most of them are not able to do it, because they do not know the proper way by which they will be able to succeed. Today for a company to recruit a person they expect more thing than actually graduating a degree. They actually expect the person to have enough skill in such a way overshadowing others, who has come to attend the same interview.

One such way by which they will be able to prove their worth is by developing hand on skills in the respective field. People will be able to develop their skills and get training experience thorough the HP2-K15 the certification courses that are available. You will be able to educate yourself about them by searching the internet. You need to pass the exam in order to obtain the certificate for the HP2-K15. But once you have obtained this it means that you have mastered it.

Companies will be very pleased to recruit you to their company and you will have in depth knowledge about them. You need to choose your training course in such a manner that will help you to know more things in a very short span of time. They have very experienced professionals who can help the students to gain more and more knowledge and to develop their interest in the respective field. HP2-K15 is almost a must for people who are in the IT field and you will never regret for joining the course. Once you have completed the course you will reap the success for the effort that you put in for the course. This makes you qualified professionals in this field. Be smart in deciding your carrier otherwise you will have to regret later.

The Benefits of a College Education at MIT

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Students who seek to explore new research and technology will reap the many benefits of an education at MIT.

MIT seeks to educate students on science and technology. They seek to produce individuals who will be able to make a difference in the world and in the 21st century. MIT is dedicated to their students and they strive to combine academics with discovery. Students who attend MIT will gain an insight to the problems of today’s world and society and learn exciting new technologies to truly help make the world a better place.

Students at MIT have a variety of major options to choose from. MIT has five schools focusing on the areas of architecture and planning, engineering, humanities, arts and social sciences, management, science and health sciences. MIT also offers a MIT-WHOI Joint program in oceanography and applied ocean science and engineering. These unique degree programs will insure that students are well versed in all aspects of their education and they are able to learn from highly accredited faculty. MIT’s faculty members belong to many accredited associations including the National Academy of Engineering, National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medicine and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. MIT boasts a staff of Nobel Prize winners and National Medal of Science winners. Other awards amongst the staff include the National Medal of Technology, the Japan Prize, Guggenheim Fellows, Fullbright Scholars, MacArthur Fellows and Institute Professors. This award winning staff provide students not only a high-quality education but will teach them excellent research and hands-on skills. Students will be inspired by their professors and will strive for academic excellence because of this award-winning faculty.

Undergraduate students will complete a core curriculum that will emphasize scientific, technical and humanistic knowledge. Students must complete a science/mathematics requirement, a humanities/social sciences/art requirement, and a four-subject communication requirement. These different requirements will help students achieve the creativity and problem solving solutions that MIT seeks to emphasize. Undergraduate students are also given the opportunity to work on research opportunities and to collaborate with the award-winning faculty. This is a rare opportunity for many college students as most colleges only allow graduate students to work on research projects. Students will also enjoy the four-week Independent Activities Period in January. Students are allowed to pursue their personal interests through a variety of seminars, field trips and other activities.

Students who are interested in pursuing their careers in the armed services will also benefit at MIT. MIT features military leadership training through ROTC programs in all three branches of the military. Students who are able to complete the ROTC program receive commissions after they graduate. These programs also offer graduate degrees to students who wish to pursue them before fulfilling their military obligations.

MIT also employs several educational partnerships that students may take advantage of. Students are allowed to cross-register with other colleges including Harvard and Wellesley without paying additional tuition. Study Abroad and Domestic Study Away programs are available for students to explore other educational opportunities.

There are a variety of opportunities and benefits available to students who choose to study at MIT. MIT offers exceptional opportunities to both their undergraduate and graduate students. Students will have the opportunity to explore areas of their education that are not possible in other undergraduate programs anywhere else in the country.

How Nutritionist Courses Can Lead to a Rewarding Career

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If you are into healthy living and helping others, then you may want to consider starting a career as a nutritionist. This will give you the opportunity to show others how they can live healthier and more fulfilling lives, while creating a stable career for yourself. To get started, you can begin taking nutrition courses online or at your local college or university. I’ll explain how you can increase your marketability and increase your chances in finding work in this industry, which is becoming increasingly competitive profession.

What Makes a Good Nutritionist
As a nutritionist, it will be your job to show your clients how to make healthy meals and how to make adjustments to their diet in order to meet their individual needs. People skills are a must. For this reason, it would be a good idea to take a psychology class along with your nutritionist courses.

You will not only be helping people cope with the physical aspects of their wellbeing. You will also be offering guidance through the emotional issues that can occur as a result of their health concerns.

You will also be working closely with other healthcare professionals, so the better your people skills are, the more success you will have.

What Nutritionist Courses Offer
Students who are taking nutritionist courses will learn a lot about health and food. They will learn how to make changes in the diet in order to help clients manage health issues such as diabetes, obesity, and hypertension.

Nutritionist courses also include science related courses, anatomy classes, instruction on biology, as well as mathematics.

You can gain practical experience while still in school by seeking an internship or offering to volunteer at a physician’s office, health club, medical facility, hospital, clinic, or a health related organization. This will help prepare you for the profession and can lead to future employment.

Finding the Best Student Grants for College – Simply and Easily!

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Starting college is a pivotal time in your life, but having to take out a lot of student loans can one day damper your memories of college. Therefore, it is vital that you take the time to apply for federal grants and state grants because this can lessen your need for loans and in some instances entirely eliminate your need to take out student loans. Therefore, when you decide on the college that you want to attend, make out your applications and once you have received your acceptance letter, you will want to fill out the Federal Student Aid Report, which is now available online.

The Federal Student Aid Report is looking for key pieces of information to determine your eligibility for grant money. First, how much did you or your parents earn the previous year, this depends if you are still a dependent or independent. The report also wants to know your living situation, are you planning to live on campus, off-campus, or with your parents since all of these help to determine the grant amount you will receive. Once you have the report filled out with the school or schools you are interested in attending, you submit it and then based on the information you gave, the package for your aid is sent to the school’s financial aid office, which tells them what you are eligible for in the way of grants.

Typically, your financial aid department at your selected school will put together a financial aid package, which will include the maximum amount of grant money that is allotted to you based on your income and living situation. Remember, grant money does not have to be paid back, so this is what you want to get first and foremost. The Pell Grant from the federal government applied to your tuition is given by way of an award for the entire school year and split into two or more semesters depending on how the semesters run at your chosen college.

When your financial aid package is put together, the school uses all the grant money allotted to you and then if there is a deficit, lets you know how much student loans you can take out. Many times student loans are necessary, but remember if you must borrow, only borrow what you need because you will often be able to take out maximum amounts for living expenses but these have to be paid back with interest roughly six months after you graduate, payments to the loans begin.

Make sure you check into state grants that are specific to the state that you are planning to attend college. Most of these grants are in lesser amounts, but any amount of free money is less money you have to borrow for college. If you have excellent academic grades, you can also apply for the Academic competitiveness Grant, which is available if you are receiving the Pell Grant.

Coach Your Diet to Weight Loss Success

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So you’ve got another diet underway in your battle of the bulge. You’re probably anticipating more deprivation and frustration before you even start. Then a short time later you’ve added yet another failure to your long list of attempts at weight loss. You coach yourself to the couch and give up yet again.

Why is it that this is such a common story from those with the balloon-shaped and pair-shaped bodies?

What is the one thing, outside yourself, that can really help you in achieving your weight loss goals?

For a change the answer lies not with you but with someone else.

Obviously, in the end, it is all up to you but you don’t have to do it all by yourself.

Athletes rarely try to do it all by themselves.

All top athletes have a coach. Why is that?

Because they have a goal and the coach is there to help them achieve it.

Your goal is weight loss, or more importantly to change your body shape to what you desire. It is a worthy goal worthy of a coach’s support.

How can a coach help?

* Set small weight loss goals

A coach can help you set smaller goals as stepping stones to the achievement of your bigger ones.

Focusing on all that weight you want to lose is like moving a mountain and very discouraging. But even a mountain could be moved with just one teaspoon at a time.

* Commitment

Making a commitment to another person is like a contract. You are probably more likely to honor a commitment to someone else than you will honor a commitment to yourself. Keeping a commitment to yourself involves willpower and we all know commitment runs second best to won’t-power (our feelings).

Commitment to someone else brings pride, honor and integrity into play.

* Motivation

A coach can be your greatest source of motivation to start and keep going. Their encouragement can pull you through those times when you would give up on your diet or lapse into old habits if you were by yourself. Imagine being able to eat whatever you want as long as you ring your coach first.

No longer will you have only that self-sabotaging voice of Miss Gobble-it-up in your head to listen to. You’ll have the voice of your coach to make it a fair debate so you can repeatedly make a better choice about what you’re eating.

o Knowledge

While your coach could be anyone who is willing to help you and gently give you some tough love when it comes to your diet, it is probably wiser to find someone who knows about how the human body responds to food and eating habits.

That way you’ll be more likely to eat in a manner that actually removes fat rather than water and muscle tissue. You’ll also have some guidance when your diet stalls and doesn’t seem to be working any more.

With a coach you can avoid the Yo-yo diet syndrome where you get fatter and fatter. Even if you have to pay for a coach the cost will be more than justified when you consider the cost of obesity on your health, time and self esteem.

Get a coach. You’ve nothing to lose, but weight, and everything to gain, except weight.

The New American Job: Hybrid Careers

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As a child, John Halamka was passionate about science and electronics. In 4th grade, he presented a home-built Van de Graff generator at his school science fair and took home first place honors. Fast forward 30 some years, and Halamka, now Dr. Halamka is the chief information officer at Harvard medicine school. Dr. Halamka is not only the acting CIO, but is also a practicing emergency-ward physician and electronic health records advisor for the Obama administration.

Dr. Halamka’s career is what labor experts are now calling a “hybrid career,” a career that fuses computing with other fields. And, as computing knowledge becomes more of an integral part of many professions, the “hybrid career” will be the job of the future.

These future jobs will require more multi-disciplinary, technologically knowledgeable, “cool nerds” like Dr. Halamka and because of this educators and technologists are calling for a reform of computer science education beginning in high schools. The focus in high school computer courses has traditionally been on teaching students how to use simple software like word processors and spreadsheets. For students to enter into the “hybrid careers” of the future, more emphasis needs to be placed on programming as opposed to writing word documents.

Says Alfred Spector, vice president for research and special initiatives at Google, “we need to gain an understanding in the population that education in computer science is both extraordinarily important and extraordinarily interesting. The fear is that if you pursue computer science, you will be stuck in a basement, writing code. That is absolutely not the reality.”

Kira Lehtomaki, like Dr. Halamka, pursued a hybrid career. A Disney animator, (she “sketches” her drawings on a computer by using specialized graphics and software) Lehtomaki credits her longtime love of both art and technology to her success in the digital animation field. Lehtomaki noted that “computer science taught me how to think about things, how to break down and solve complex problems.

This “computational thinking” is aiding advances in “field after field” and calls to attention the “broad reach of computing across the sciences, industries, culture and society.”

Teaching groups, organizations like the National Science Foundation and the Association for Computing Machinery and companies like Google, Microsoft, and Intel are recent additions to the movement and hope to help reform not only high-school computer courses but also higher education computer courses and programs. The groups are also advocating making technology and computer education more widely available through online courses and online instruction.