Baby Shower Words, Verses and Sayings For Baby Shower Invitations

When you are planning a baby shower, there are a lot of details you have to finalize, including choosing the baby diaper cake and picking a location. You'll need to gather refreshments, compile a guest list, and handle the decorations. Of course, another factor in your massive list of responsibilities is the baby shower words on those invitations. That means you want to hold off on putting together the shower games, so you'll be able to prepare the appropriate invitation wording whether you are having a formal or an informal celebration.

Baby Shower Invitations for Formal Events

With a formal shower, you're going to want to take care to reflect that tone in your choice of baby shower words. A good way to start these formal invitations is with a phrase such as "You are cordially invited to a baby shower" or "The pleasure of your company is requested at a shower." Follow that line with who the shower is going to be for: the new baby if he or she has already entered the world, the parents-to-be, or the mother-to-be. When you are writing out the wording, be sure to use everyone's full name - that is standard when you are working with formal invitations. Once you reach this point of the wording, you should add in the details of the party, such as the location, date, and time of the baby showers. You also need to have all of the words written out completely. For example, if the shower is being held on the August 30th at noon, you would write it out as "the thirtieth of August at twelve o'clock noon." Remember not to use any types of abbreviations.

At the end of the wording, you'll need to write out the full names of the hosts of the party. Also, this is a good place to add the RSVP information at the bottom of the card unless you are going to be using a separate response card.

Baby Shower Invitations for an Informal Party

Formal invitations aren't needed if you are having a small, casual shower. However, that doesn't mean you can just call or email guests. You should still send out invitations and you will need to be careful with your baby shower words. However, you do have more flexibility with what those cards can say. For example, you could begin the message with "Susan and Jeff invite you to celebrate the approaching birth of Morgan and Matt's new baby at a special shower." Of course, you'd follow this up with celebration details.

Don't forget that if you send out informal invitations you need to plan a casual shower. That means you keep the refreshments simple, the guest list smaller, and the location more private. Just remember that the shower will be a fun experience whether it's formal or informal.

Gifts & the Baby Showers Wording

Finally, you also want to leave off some things from the baby shower words. The main thing you do not want to include is any information about gifts or the gift registry. When you mention gifts on the invitation, guests feel as if you expect them to buy a present in order to attend. That makes the party seem less like a celebration and more like a plea for cash and prizes. That doesn't mean you shouldn't have gift registry information handy when guests contact you with questions about what to buy.

s: Sarah Porter and Patti Paz have written several articles about Personalized Baby Shower Invitations, Sample Baby Shower Invitations, Wording, Verses and Sayings, Fun Baby Shower Party, Creative Baby Shower Games, Diaper Cakes for Baby Showers, Types of Baby Showers, All About Hosting Baby Shower, Hosting Surprise Baby Shower, Free Shower Invitations, Baby Invitations for Baby Shower, Baby Shower Words and many more for CardsShoppe and Express-Invitations.

Disadvantages of Outsourcing Your Online Business

Outsourcing your online business is a great idea, however, there are some disadvantages of outsourcing you should be aware of. Outsourcing is a great way to receive quality work at a great price and have this work completed quickly by someone who is committed to the success of your website. While most of the information that you will find on outsourcing will be positive there are still some negatives aspects that you will want to keep in mind when deciding if you should outsource your company's work to help your website succeed. If you simply do not have the time to complete all of the required tasks needed to help your internet business succeed, then you may want to consider outsourcing the work.

One of the biggest disadvantages of outsourcing is that you can sometimes be convinced to submit a payment or advancement in payment for services not yet rendered. This is a bad idea and can often lead to problems. If you choose to use an outsourcing employee it is best to keep the relationship on a professional level and do not let it become personal. All payments rendered for services should be paid after services have been delivered to your satisfaction. It is best to set up milestones that are agreed upon by both you and the outsourcing employee so that there is no confusion on when payment will be submitted.

Another thing that should be considered when determining if you want to use an outsourcing company is hidden charges. Any services that are not directly included in the contract are going to be charged for separately. Many people do not realize this and can be caught off guard when the additional funds are requested. Read over any contract very carefully and be sure that all of the requested work is stated clearly and in detail before agreeing on a set price for services. One of the best tips that I can give to you is to clearly read over any contract before signing it.

Sometimes there is a negative stigma that often follows outsourcing. Many people have preconceived notions of outsourcing that makes them to think of outsourcing work as a negative thing. many see it as the loss of American jobs, due to work being shipped overseas for the sake of saving a dollar. In this economy the thought of lost jobs is something that is frowned upon by most people. If you are considered using an outsourced employee for your business, you want to consider the negative perceptions that may come with this decision.

One of the biggest complaints of outsourcing is the loss of control. Allowing someone else to complete the necessary work for you may be difficult for some people. You will have a contract that determines the rates paid and the amount of work to be completed but overall it is out of your hands. You need to be comfortable with handing over the reins of control. You will need to be secure in allowing an outsourced employee to make decisions based on the information that you have provided them.

One last thing to consider when determining if you are going to use outsourcing for your business is security. This can possibly be a threat to the security of your online business. They will most likely have access to your websites, passwords and confidential information. You will want to be able to trust them, but you should employ safeguards to prevent them from fully accessing everything. Be sure to choose a reputable outsourcing company to help you find your outsourced employee. Just always keep in mind that there are disadvantages to outsourcing, but I feel that they are outweighed by the advantages.

For more information on using outsourcing to create passive income, check out my website http://www.outsourcingforpassiveincome.com.

Dealing With Customer Complaints - B.L.A.S.T

In a restaurant, not so far away, in the not so distant future, a telephone rings, a customer complains... and the battle begins!

Handling customer complaints doesn't have to always be a battle, with the right tools and responses you can use complaints to your advantage; to help you build your business. B.L.A.S.T is a great tool that is used by companies such as Yum! (Parent company of KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, A&W, and Long John Silvers). Training their employees in the basics of handling customer complaints. The acronym stands for:

Believe

Listen

Apologize

Satisfy

Thank

How does your company deal with customer complaints? The easiest way to find out is to pick up the phone and play the role of the complaining customer. What happened? If you were an irritated customer, would you return? Using the B.L.A.S.T guidelines, allows you to create a standardized method for dealing with your complainers and turning them into loyal customers.

Believe

This is the cornerstone of handling a customer complaint. Yes, the customer may be lying and be incorrect about their situation. It is important to understand that your customer believes that your establishment has wronged them.

Listen

Stop and listen to your customer's complaint. I'm not certain whether it's natural instinct or just plain stubbornness. As soon as a customer starts to complain, we start to think of how we will respond to the accusation before we are done listening, and too often the case, already have the response ready to fight back. Take a second, relax, and listen. On occasion a complaining customer will be rude, angry, and use vulgar language, stay the course and remain calm and level headed.

When the customer is done venting; in a calm, non-judgmental tone, repeat their problem. An example I used in my KFC for a mispacked order:

"What I hear you saying is that, you came in ordered and paid for 10 Pieces of chicken and when you got home, you only received 8, is that correct?"

By repeating the problem at hand, you've demonstrated your ability to the customer that you heard and understood their problem.

Listen and clarify. Never defend or justify. The customer doesn't care if you were shorthanded or if you're having a bad day, they only care that they get taken care of. No excuses, just solutions.

Apologize

Always apologize even if you did nothing wrong. From your customers' perspective, they have a legitimate complaint, and they expect an apology. It could be as simple as "I'm sorry we've inconvenienced you." or "I'm sorry I know how frustrating it is to buy dinner for my family, only not to have everything there when I get home" A sincere apology will usually diffuse a lot of frustration that the customer has. There is an exception to this rule though, if a customer calls with a critical complaint, such as food poisoning, don't apologize, it may be construed as an acceptance of guilt, instead refer to your company's procedures for such events.

Satisfy

Make it right. Ask the customer "What can I do to make this right for you"? Be the judge of what is fair of course, but allow them the opportunity to feel empowered over the situation. Many times they may ask for the problem be taken care of on their next visit or maybe that you talk to the person who made the mistake and correct them. We used a great system of sending out a personalized postcard apologizing for the mistake, it was a couple of handwritten sentences (yes, many times with spelling mistakes from my team members), but it was personal and always well received. We always gave them the unexpected as well, maybe a free dessert or an extra side dish just to show that we cared about them.

Thank

At the beginning, at the end, in the middle; it doesn't matter, thank the customer for calling and complaining.

Why? With the simple act of complaining, your customer is telling you "I care about your business and your success". They are giving you the opportunity to fix the problem and invite them back so they can give you more of their money. Puts a different spin on it doesn't it? Thank them for giving you that second chance, for letting you know that something in your restaurant didn't work like it normally does, for giving you the chance to make it right, and for the opportunity not to damage your reputation!

Reputation? I had to throw that one in. You work hard, day in day out, trying the best to make your business the best, and yet one unhappy customer can take it away from you. A happy customer will tell two or three friends about a good experience, but an unhappy customer will tell at least ten friends about their experience and it always multiplies through word of mouth. Case in point, when I moved cross country to my new hometown, I was at a Chamber of Commerce event and being the new person in the group, I introduced myself and what we did. No sooner than five minutes passed did I get a list of 10 restaurants in my area that in their opinion were in "need of my services". Only one person gave me a good restaurant. I didn't ask, I was told. To this day I still haven't been to those restaurants as a customer, why do I want to give them my hard earned money, when they made my new friends unhappy? It may not be a rational thought, but it is human nature.

Will some people take advantage of your kindness? Of course, a rule of thumb I used in my restaurant was:

First time shame on me,

Second time shame on me, but I'm watching you,

Third time... Shame on you and I will make the decision on how I will deal with you as a customer.
Keep track of who calls to complain, names, phone numbers for follow up, addresses for your postcards. Using a binder and tracking your complaints, you will be able to detect and deter those that would take advantage of your new complaint procedures.

Adding B.L.A.S.T to your expanding toolbox of customer service tools will help you in dealing with customer complaints and turn them around so they can tell their friends what great service you have!

Albert Barneto is a managing partner of CustomerTrend Mystery Shopping and Customer Satisfaction Surveys at http://www.CustomerTrend.com and has more than 15 years of professional experience as a front line manager evaluating the "pulse" of customers and employees. Customer satisfaction survey services are offered to restaurant and retail chains including Video Mystery Shopping, Telephone Mystery Shopping, and Employee Feedback Solutions. Albert Barneto may be reached toll free at 1-(866)-509-9888

Direct TV Internet - Is Direct TV Internet All it's Cracked Up to Be?

One day my wife came in from picking up our kids at her sister's house and wanted to know why we didn't have Internet service through our Direct TV subscription. She said her sister had just gotten it and loved it. I didn't want to tell her I didn't know Direct TV even offered Internet access. She looks up to me and thinks I know everything there is to know about any topic she has questions about. So I let her think it. (Hey, who's it hurting?) I told her I hadn't gotten around to finding the best deal yet, but I'd look into it.

Several days later I finally took a few minutes and poked around online, looking for information on Internet service from Direct TV. I did a MASSIVE amount of searching, wading through a bunch of nonsense, and came away with three and only three sites that are worth your time. I decided to bookmark those to come back to later when I had more time. I've listed them below so you can check them out for yourself. Anyway, a few more days went by, and my sister-in-law calls the house and wants to know if we've gotten Direct TV Internet service yet. Well, all that did was stir up my wife to nag me about why I hadn't done what I said I'd do. So back to the computer I went.

This time I was a bit more careful and took my time looking over first one site then another, but I just ended up going back to the same three sites I had bookmarked earlier. (Remember, the links to them are at the end of this story). I found all kinds of information I needed to make a smart decision about Direct TV's Internet services.

Seems it doesn't matter where you live, they're able to get the Internet to you, whether it's through your existing phone lines or via satellite. I even ran across an article in one of my searches that says Direct TV will be offering Internet access through your power lines, and that's going to be totally sweet when it gets rolled out nationally.

And Direct TV is partnered with several well-known companies in the communications industry in order to provide Internet access to you, no matter where your house is. Heavy hitters like AT&T, Verizon, Wildblue and others I'm sure you're familiar with.

According to the sites I've referenced below, there are times when you can find substantial savings when you bundle your Direct TV and Internet access together. The promotions vary, which is why it's important to order through a site that stays current like the ones below.

Anyway, we finally got it and the wife's happy...for now. And I have to admit, I am too. Internet access through Direct TV is light years faster than our old dial-up. Looking back, I can't believe I waited so long. Fortunately, you don't have to. All you have to do is click the links below and you can find the best deals running right now on Direct TV's Internet services. It costs nothing to click, and who knows, it might save you a bundle.

When it comes to getting the best deal on Direct TV's Internet service, here are the only three sites I found that you need to check out. The first one I'd recommend is this Direct TV Internet article at DigitalTVDojo (these guys really do it right!). You should also take a few minutes and check out the Direct TV Internet page on Squidoo, and this Direct TV Internet article on Hubpages. You'll be glad you did.

How You Can Make Money Reselling Hosting

Is it really true that you can make money by reselling hosting? Possibly, but first consider what web host reselling really is. This process involves a user that becomes a web host without having to invest in heavy equipment or a large infrastructure. For that matter, this new web host doesn't even have to know too much about the mechanics of Internet communications.

Basically, in this scenario you are selling a professional web hosting company's services as your own. This process is also known as private labeling. You are not so much a webmaster as you are a reseller. You could compare this type of business to becoming an affiliate or even a franchise store. The web host company will give you a discounted rate on their services and then wait for you to sell it off to others. You are not technically an affiliate because you are making profit on your own and not reporting back to the company. You are not a franchise because you don't give back anything to the parent store. Rather, you are selling a product (that is, web space) for a price that you set.

You do need some investment money, since you are essentially buying all of this web space that you are going to lease out, just as a landlord might. It should relieve you to know however, that investments costs are minimal. Some reseller hosting plans start as low as $20 a month. You can see why such a plan would be very profitable, as there are no huge startup costs involved.

You may be wondering how the technical aspects of this opportunity work. After all, how can you provide web space to a customer that expects fast and accurate customer support? Most companies that offer reseller website hosting will continue to provide technical support. This provision allows the company to worry about various technical considerations while you continue focusing your efforts on selling web space. In addition, the web hosting company continues to manage your servers and handle all billing issues on behalf of you.

What are some of the ways that people can make money with reselling hosting? Creating and selling businesses on auction sites like eBay have proven successful. Blogs are very trendy right now and so offering dedicated blog hosting services has also paid off. There really are no limits to how you could market this opportunity!

Compare Web Hosts is a premier web hosting directory that provides accurate and unbiased web hosting reviews. You can find the best cheap web hosting, Linux web hosting and Windows web hosting online at CompareWebHosts.com.

Basic Configuration Tutorial For the Cisco ASA 5510 Firewall

Continuing our series of articles about Cisco ASA 5500 firewalls, I'm offering you here a basic configuration tutorial for the Cisco ASA 5510 security appliance. This device is the second model in the ASA series (ASA 5505, 5510, 5520 etc) and is fairly popular since is intended for small to medium enterprises. Like the smallest ASA 5505 model, the 5510 comes with two license options: The Base license and the Security Plus license. The second one (security plus) provides some performance and hardware enhancements over the base license, such as 130,000 Maximum firewall connections (instead of 50,000), 100 Maximum VLANs (instead of 50), Failover Redundancy, etc. Also, the security plus license enables two of the five firewall network ports to work as 10/100/1000 instead of only 10/100.

Next we will see a simple Internet Access scenario which will help us understand the basic steps needed to setup an ASA 5510. Assume that we are assigned a static public IP address 100.100.100.1 from our ISP. Also, the internal LAN network belongs to subnet 192.168.10.0/24. Interface Ethernet0/0 will be connected on the outside (towards the ISP), and Ethernet0/1 will be connected to the Inside LAN switch.

The firewall will be configured to supply IP addresses dynamically (using DHCP) to the internal hosts. All outbound communication (from inside to outside) will be translated using Port Address Translation (PAT) on the outside public interface. Let's see a snippet of the required configuration steps for this basic scenario:

Step1: Configure a privileged level password (enable password)

By default there is no password for accessing the ASA firewall, so the first step before doing anything else is to configure a privileged level password, which will be needed to allow subsequent access to the appliance. Configure this under Configuration Mode:

ASA5510(config)# enable password mysecretpassword

Step2: Configure the public outside interface

ASA5510(config)# interface Ethernet0/0

ASA5510(config-if)# nameif outside

ASA5510(config-if)# security-level 0

ASA5510(config-if)# ip address 100.100.100.1 255.255.255.252

ASA5510(config-if)# no shut

Step3: Configure the trusted internal interface

ASA5510(config)# interface Ethernet0/1

ASA5510(config-if)# nameif inside

ASA5510(config-if)# security-level 100

ASA5510(config-if)# ip address 192.168.10.1 255.255.255.0

ASA5510(config-if)# no shut

Step 4: Configure PAT on the outside interface

ASA5510(config)# global (outside) 1 interface

ASA5510(config)# nat (inside) 1 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0

Step 5: Configure Default Route towards the ISP (assume default gateway is 100.100.100.2)

ASA5510(config)# route outside 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 100.100.100.2 1

Step 6: Configure the firewall to assign internal IP and DNS address to hosts using DHCP

ASA5510(config)# dhcpd dns 200.200.200.10

ASA5510(config)# dhcpd address 192.168.10.10-192.168.10.200 inside

ASA5510(config)# dhcpd enable inside

The above basic configuration is just the beginning for making the appliance operational. There are many more configuration features that you need to implement to increase the security of your network, such as Static and Dynamic NAT, Access Control Lists to control traffic flow, DMZ zones, VPN etc.

Visit my website in my resource box below for more information about Cisco products and solutions. You can also learn how to configure any Cisco ASA 5500 Firewall Here (applicable for ALL ASA models running software versions 7.x and 8.x).

You can check out my website for more Cisco configuration examples and other related details about designing and implementing Cisco solutions: Cisco ASA Training

Online Video Ads - Statistics 2008

Many years ago, business owners could only spread the word about their services about as far as a horse could travel. The invention of the telephone changed that, allowing us to reach other towns, cities, and states. Now, the internet has set an entirely new standard in international correspondence and e-commerce.

A recent poll on CNN.com determined that consumers feel that for businesses in the U.S.,"internet has become a necessity," yet many businesses still have not embraced this strange new world. With the introduction of online video ads, internet marketing has become the only way to remain competitive in many industries.

From mom and pop brick and mortars, to small start-ups, to large multi-million dollar corporations, businesses of all sizes have discovered one basic truth: Online video ads lead to sales. The Online Publishers Association recently published a report entitled "Frames of Reference: Online Video Advertising, Content and Consumer Behavior". The report finds that out of 80% of viewers who watched an online video ad, over half took some type of action. Close to a third had visited a related Web site, 22% looked for more information, 15% percent had gone to a store, and 12% made a purchase.

Now you may be saying, "well only 12% made a purchase, that's not very good," Well consider this...if you have $100,000 in sales, 12% of that is $12,000. Online video ads are very affordable, and can cost $300 to $3000, but not using a video ad can cost you $12,000. The marketers already using online video ads have obviously already done this math, and arrived at this conclusion on their own.

But here's what's really interesting; this study also found that "if a consumer has a positive attitude towards an advertised brand, and likes the video content that the ad appeared within, brand consideration jumps 61%. If the consumer's initial attitude toward the brand is neutral or even negative, brand consideration still rises 21% if they like the adjacent video content."

In addition to being powerfully effective at informing your prospects and converting them to customers, online video ads also get incredible search engine placement. Search engines give online video content priority over all other forms of content online.

An online video ad uploaded to many different video sharing websites will be indexed quicker, and placed higher on the search engines because 1) there are multiple websites linking to and hosting your content, and 2) your content is video. Some video ad production services, such as CommercialMaker.com, will create your video ad, and upload it to over 60 content sharing websites for you, many times giving you first page search engine placement in less than 24 hours.

So whether you use online spokesmodels, a repurposed TV commercial, or an online video ad created specifically for the internet, online video ads should be an important part of your marketing campaign.

Arik Bannister is the owner of CommercialMaker, the leading online video ad production company, helping businesses throughout the world market their products and services online and on television. Arik is also the author of the Market University Product Marketing Kit, a complete guide to producing and selling new inventions.

Free Tattoo Designs Online - Stencils, Templates & Flash Tattoos That Are Downloadable and Printable

The tattooing world is indeed an art-filled world. The tattoo itself is considered art. Once you decide to get one, means you're letting your body be the canvas for this skillful art. But like other important things in life, getting a tattoo requires careful planning. The creation of a masterpiece - that is your tattoo - involves making right and wise decisions.

Tattoos are very popular and a lot of people wanting to get one have loads of ideas, but often feel stuck at times on the tattoo design they want to get. The planning starts here. The tattoo design probably is the most important thing that you have to consider. We're living in the so-called Internet era, where everything is just a click on your computer away. If you're trying to find a design for your tattoo, you can just Google it up, my friend! Voila! You'll see stencils, templates, and even flash tattoo designs pop on your screen. All you need to do is download and print them. That seems simple...but not quite alright.

Why? Because these free tattoo designs online are usually of low quality. More so, they are not unique. Would you want to have a tribal tattoo and find that a stranger on the bus has that exact same design? I don't think so. Don't rely completely on these free designs. It's better to think of an idea and try some initial sketches if you're artistically inclined. If not, you can have it sketched and designed by an artist-friend or just go directly to your trusted tattooist.

Now you're sure of your design, be ready for the pain and the final outcome. You'll soon be a walking work of art. Wear your tattoo with pride!

For more photos and ideas for your Superb Tattoo Designs, check out the Printable Tattoo Gallery online.

Hosting a Scrapbook Crop - Three Inspiring Ideas For You

You may be a consultant wanting to interest your customers in coming to more of your events, or equally you may be hosting a crop made up of a group of friends getting together for fun. If you are the Hostess/Consultant, it is always good to have a few ideas up your sleeve to keep people inspired, including yourself!

The beauty of scrapbooking is that each person is making an album that suits them alone. Beginners and more advanced scrappers can comfortably sit in a crop together. Each person will take an idea you give them and make it their own at their own level and in their own style. I am yet to find a wrong way to make a scrapbook page. Encourage your guests along these lines with the aim of making them feel comfortable enough to explore their own tastes, ideas and goals for their albums.

Things to keep in mind

Everyone wants to find their mojo (their artistic muse or inspirational voice) and often you hear scrappers and paper crafters in general saying their mojo has gone on vacation! Coming to scrapbook crops can kick start the mojo in all of us again.

Encourage scrappers to share their ideas, pages, techniques and creations with each other. Be willing (as the Hostess) to be first to share. You can do it informally, leaning across and verbally admiring another person's work, then showing a page or idea of your own. Or you can be a bit more formal and offer to let people in on your thinking process behind making one of your pages, or explain how you came up with a whole album. Or ask a more experienced scrapper to share some of their work and thinking about these same things.

You may just see a light bulb go off in someone's mind as you speak! That is their mojo returning from vacation!

When you can see people are inspired it takes very little else for them to enjoy the day. You certainly can add value to the event however with the following inspirational concepts.

Three Inspiring Ideas

1. Idea: Have a series of Charity Crops throughout the year! Do you support a charity or have a cause you would like to promote? One of my friends fund raises for breast cancer research. She goes to the Breast Cancer Awareness website for inspiration about how to crop a page. You could do the same with your own charity or passion. Most charities have websites these days and you can get a feel for their theme quite easily.
   
   Here are some ideas for how to use your charity or passion to inspire yourself and your scrappers:
   
   
   
   
   • Pick the theme colour of your charity and challenge your croppers to scrap in tones or shades of it on the day. For example, for breast cancer awareness, the colour is pink. Ask people to make a layout with a pink ribbon on it, or pink flowers or rhinestones, or all three.
     
   
   
   • Encourage people to bring along a photo of someone they love or admire who has had the condition you are trying to raise awareness about. You may not have considered scrapping about your friends or relatives who have been touched by cancer, for example, but you may be very glad you were encouraged to make pages about them
     
   
   
   • Do something fun around the theme of your charity. For example, we 'scrapped a bra' this year for one of my friend's events. We each chose a favourite bra (or bought a new one just for the occasion!) and decorated it in ribbons, lace, beads, flowers, feathers, stitching, Cuttlebugged felt cutouts, iron on embroidered patches and any other embellishments we could think of. Some of the finished items were wearable and some were not, but we all felt inspired to use our scrapping supplies in new ways afterward
     
   
   
   • Encourage scrappers to make a greeting card to cheer someone or encourage that person, then to actually send it. Scrapping supplies are very good for making cards. You can even do a little research and find a stranger affected by your issue to encourage. For example, if you were supporting Muscular Dystrophy awareness, find a person has the condition and send that person some cheerful 'thinking of you' cards. Or choose a tireless charity worker and make thank you cards for that person to show their efforts are recognised. This kind of behaviour is called a RAK -- a Random Act of Kindness
   
   
   
   


2. Idea: You could have a series of Masquerade Crops throughout the year! Pick a theme and ask people to come along dressed in costume. Choose a theme from a period in history that was fun like the Roaring 20's, the 1950s (or choose another favourite decade from history), or pick a theme like Circus events, Cowboys and Indians, Hawaiian days (or beach days), Space, The Grand Old Oprey, or fit in with a holiday that is coming up. Ask people to find photos they could work on that will fit with the theme. When they arrive, provide an ideas page for them such as a sketch or a hand made embellishment they can make, or even a small packet of scrapping material such as lace, raffia or ribbons that would fit in with the theme. Your friends could agree to bring a plate of food in the style of the theme and you would have a reason and means to crop all day.
   
   


3. Idea: Have a series of Technique and Tip Crops throughout the year! Pick a series of techniques you would like to know more about yourself and learn how to show them to your friends. Or pick a few friends who know how to use particular techniques very well and ask for a demonstration of them. Provide little kits of sample materials for people to try out the technique you have chosen to highlight. Ask friends to bring a page or two to show others how they have used the technique in the past. Have a place set up (the ironing board with a sheet over it is a great slim line display area) to show off the pages people make using the new technique. You may be amazed at the different interpretations people come up with when using the very same techniques.

I hope these three concepts may assist you in conducting some enjoyable scrapbooking crops and that your Hostess mojo is well and truly back now!

Would you like to find out more about papercraft tools, tips and techniques that could help you with your scrapbooking crops? At http://PaperCraftCentral.com you will find step-by-step guides for making many beautiful paper craft projects. You can even ask questions about paper crafting, submit your own work and subscribe to Paper Twists, a newsletter all about papercrafts, for free! Just go to http://PaperCraftCentral.com/subscribe.html

(Copyright: you may freely republish this article, provided the text, author credit, the active links and this copyright notice remain intact).

Download Fake Doctors Notes - Using Doctors Notes Printable As Excuse Letters For School Or Work

Today there is a new phenomenon that is going around and becoming quite popular with students and employees of businesses- the ability to download fake doctors notes. These excuse letters for school are being very commonly used today and these doctors notes printable allow people to get out of a variety of different events.

However, if you decide to download fake doctors notes for excuse letters for school or work, it is important that you get a good one that won't get you in trouble. Many people are using these fake notes for a variety of reasons, including to get out of school and work, and many of them actually have legitimate reasons for using them.

Get Out of Class With Excuse Letters For School

For kids you are in college, actually paying to go to the doctor can be out of the question, since most college students are not loaded down with excess money. However, miss a class, and many teachers require that you have a note from a doctor in order to make up the work and get a decent grade.

This is a difficult problem for college students to face. Many students are now deciding to download fake excuse letters for school in order to make up their work and get out of school when they are sick without actually having to go to the doctor.

Take That Day Off Work With Doctors Notes Printable

Of course it is not just students that are deciding to download fake doctors notes today. Many people who work are also finding that these notes are helpful as well. There are many people who work hard at their job, but when they get sick, they don't always have the money available to pay for that doctors' visit.

So, they either have to lose pay at work, possibility get fired, or figure out a way to get an excuse from a doctor. It is easy to see why many of them are choosing to download fake doctors notes so that they can keep their job without having to spend a huge amount of money on a doctor or on a visit to the emergency room.

Use Excuse Letters For School And Work Cautiously

If you do decide to download fake doctors notes, there is something that you need to keep in mind. You really need to make sure that you use these notes cautiously. Of course you may get away with it a few times when you are trying to avoid going to a doctor, but you probably won't want to use them just to get a free day off work. So, make sure that you use these doctors notes printable with caution and try to use them when you really need them.

Need to get out of work or school? No problem. Get the excuse you need now! Click here for the best DOCTOR'S EXCUSE NOTES online

Outsourcing - Pros And Cons

Stripped of its technical terms, outsourcing is basically the practice of one company to contract another company to provide the services that could have been performed by their own staff. There are many reasons why companies now are on the bandwagon of having some of their services done by others. (It had been an old practice, really.) These outsourced services passed on to other companies are usually call center services, e-mail services, and payroll. These particular jobs are part of the outsourcing trend practiced by many companies these days.

Reasons

One of the main reasons why companies are into outsourcing is diminished company resources, both in financial terms and in manpower costs. When a company expands (which can be sudden), the growth can start to eat up on the companies resources.

Financially, the company might not be able to match the growth with the needed infusion of money to sustain the expansion. This holds true with their human resources as well.

With the growth, manpower might be sucked up with the new growth and diminish the company's productivity in its core areas. The service-providing companies can do the work for less costs (thus not over-stretching most of the company's resources), and has the manpower to do it.

Other reasons

Efficiency sometimes suffers once there is a sudden expansion that cannot be absorbed by the company's present staff setup and other resources. If, for instance, there is a huge demand for huge number of their products, other departments might not be up to it.

The purchasing department might need so many men to do the buying of raw materials, for instance. Outsourcing the purchasing department is a good move and costs less.

Other reasons could be that overhead costs might be disastrous to the company's budget and current plans. Or, perhaps an offshoot to its growth is impossible to meet. If the company had grown to such an extent that it needs a bigger office, outsourcing the functions of the projected new additional staff is cheaper. (Transfer of the whole office to someplace bigger is definitely expensive in time, effort and money values.)

Companies are also bound to experience production demands that come and go in cycles within a year. Outsourcing additional resources during times of so much demand can ease up the company's problems.

The good part of the deal is that the contracted periods of having these extra jobs outsourced can follow the cyclical production demands. (A toy company's production department might need more manpower in the middle months of the year to produce the goods needed for, say, Christmas or some holidays.)

Cons

On the other hand, this new business model of parceling some important work aspects of a company to another had sparked a mini-controversy which had not been thoroughly resolved even until now. Definitely, there are those who are not fully convinced of the viability of such an arrangement.

The biggest argument against this deal is actually focused on the relationship of the company and its clients. In short, it may invite dissatisfaction from client side. Reasons could range from lower quality of work output, unnecessary dilution of company-client trade secrets, etc.

Control

Control is also put to the test. Some aspects of the company are in danger of spinning out of the company's control since the outsourced company conducts the decisions that would have been better handled by the parent company.

Some clients are not fully convinced that the outsourced company can function as efficiently as the original contracted company. If they do (most companies can, in practice), clients feel it might be better to deal with the new company rather than their old supplier or contracted business partner.

Riding on this threat is the mounting danger of delayed communications that causes delayed implementation. Without proper management and apportioning of responsibilities, there is tendency that confusion might set in.

Outsourcing had also allowed a political issue to float around - social responsibility. It is said that with more and more companies allocating jobs to foreign countries, the people of the parent company will have reduced opportunities. While this debate and questions are still up in the air, more and more companies are outsourcing some of their work. Offhand, companies and their managers think the current trend is the result of the current situation in commerce and trade all over the world. At the moment, outsourcing looks like it will stay for a while.

Note: If you're looking for a legitimate way to earn income online and want to learn how to build a successful internet business, then I STRONGLY recommend you click here - http://Leverage-Income-Plan.com

How to Avoid the Top 5 Mistakes Made by Parents with Adult Children Living at Home

Whether they've never left the nest or, like so many in the "boomerang generation, they're returning home after some time away, you're likely struggling to find ways to make the relationship with your adult children living at home work. The good news is, grown-up kids can live successfully at home - but only if you avoid some critical mistakes right from the start (or correct them right away!).

1. Encouraging rebellion by taking up parenting right where you left off

It may be hard to remember sometimes, but adult children living at home are still adults. A sure way to set yourself up for conflict is to over-parent them.

Adults who are over-parented and over-supervised will rebel as quickly as teenagers, so you need to develop some strategies to establish a new adult-to-adult relationship - quick!

2. Stealing your child's independence by giving them a "free ride"

It can be very tempting to try to help your "boomerang" kids by covering all of their living expenses - especially if they've returned home after a personal crisis like losing a job or the end of a relationship.

But why should they ever learn to take care of themselves when you're all too eager to do it for them? Even a short-term stay should require your "boomerang" kids to contribute to household expenses and chores. The best way to set these expectations clearly is by working out a household budget, so everyone is on the same page in terms of the extra costs your adult child is causing at home.

3. Assuming that since you're all grown-ups, there's no need for rules

If you think you don't need ground rules for your adult children living at home, consider how you'd feel about them smoking, drinking, or using drugs in your home - or even bringing a lover to stay overnight.

As strange as it may sound, experts agree that the best way to discuss - and stick to - these household rules is to draft up a customized contract between you and your "boomerang" kids.

4. Compromising your own financial situation to support your adult child

With adult children living at home, you'll be using more heat, hot water, and electricity. You'll need to buy more groceries. In fact, all your household expenses will increase. But no matter what you do, do not put your own financial future on the line to support your adult child. You do neither yourself nor your children any good by creating extra debt or obligations for yourself.

If you don't know where the money to make the situation work will come from, you need to think long and hard about whether you can help your adult child by having them live at your home.

5. Assuming they will leave when the time is right

The best way to ensure your "boomerang" kids leave within a reasonable timeframe is to establish a clear timeline for their stay and milestones to help them reach independence.

Most adult children living at home don't plan to stay forever. But if they don't have any clear idea of when they need to leave - or how they'll work towards being able to do so, they may end up stuck.

By establishing a timeline with clear milestones, you can empower your adult child to leave the nest. If you don't create a timeline, they may end up calling your house "home" for much longer than you - or even they - had planned.

Final Thoughts

Having adult children living at home can be extremely challenging for everyone involved. But there are some simple ways to make the situation easier for everyone, and avoiding these 5 dangerous mistakes is a key step.

Remember that a successful relationship with your adult child really boils down to establishing good ground rules and managing expectations. One of the best ways to do that is to create a contract that everyone in the home will stick to.

Christina Newberry is co-author of The Hands-On Guide to Surviving Adult Children Living at Home. For detailed information on how to avoid the common mistakes mentioned in this article, along with a customizable "Under one Roof" contract and household budget calculator, visit her website at http://www.AdultChildrenLivingAtHome.com

Creating the Perfect Vegetable Tray

If you are hosting a party, you will need to create a presentably appealing vegetable tray. Creating a veggie tray is really easy if you plan ahead and gather everything that you will need before you begin to assemble your tray.

You will need a round serving tray or a specially designed veggie tray that has divided cavities for placing your vegetables in. If your tray doesn't come with a vegetable dip container, you will need to supply one.

It is recommended that you choose 5-7 vegetables to present on your party tray.

Preparation:

Wash and pat dry all of your vegetables. Cut off any roots, stems or unwanted leafy portions.

Vegetable Selection:

Leafy Lettuce: Separate the lettuce leaves and use them to line your vegetable tray.

Broccoli: Cut florets off the stalk into individual serving-sized pieces.

Cauliflower: Cut pieces from head of cauliflower into individual serving-sized pieces.

Cherry Tomatoes: Remove stems. Wash and pat dry.

Cucumbers: You can remove the skin or leave it, that is entirely up to you. Slice cucumber into 1/4" thick round slices.

Carrots: If using baby carrots, you will will not need to slice them down. If using full-sized carrots, you will need to slice them down into sticks measuring approximately 1/4" by 4" in size.

Celery: Cut off leafy portions. Cut celery stalks into 4" long pieces.

Radishes: Cut off top portion of radishes and any roots that might remain. It is best to use radishes that are less than 1 1/2" in diameter.

Mushrooms: If you are using baby mushrooms, leave just a 1/4" of the stem remaining. If using larger sized mushrooms, slice them down into individual pieces.

Green Pepper: Remove the stem and seeds. Cut down into sticks measuring 1/4" by 4" in length.

Assembly:

Arrange the lettuce leaves on your tray, covering the entire bottom of the tray. Take your prepared vegetables and arrange them around the tray in sections. Try to keep your colors separated and spread out the green colored vegetables. I like to use a green vegetable, then a colored vegetable and then another green vegetable and so forth as I go around my tray. Leave an opening in the center of your tray for your vegetable dip.

Once you have all your vegetables onto the tray, its time to garnish the tray.

Garnish Ideas:

If you are using a flat serving tray, you can separate your vegetable sections by laying a celery stick or carrot stick between each section. I like to add some additional color by garnishing with green and black olives, purple cabbage curls, radish shaped flowers or even a few green and red grapes.

Here is a great dip recipe.

Dill Weed Vegetable Dip

1 c. sour cream
1 c. mayonnaise
1 tbsp. dill weed
1 tbsp. parsley
1 1/2 tbsp. lemon juice
1 tbsp. minced onion

Mix all ingredients together until well blended. Chill for several hours before serving. Serve with raw vegetables. Makes 2 cups.

Shelly Hill has been working from home in Direct Sales since 1989. Shelly is a Manager with Tupperware. You can contact Shelly at:
Web: http://www.classybusinesswomen.com
Recipe Blog: http://wahmshelly.blogspot.com

The Internet - Life without It

For seven days this month, my Internet connection ceased to be; apparently (according to the engineer) because the cable-modem box thingy gave up the ghost. Seven whole days with no link to the outside world, except for the telephone of course, which isn't quite the same is it? Now normally a very short period without Internet access would not cause too much of a problem; fortunately I can complete most of my work off-line so I saw this as only a minor inconvenience.

However, the big shock to my system came with the realisation that for a period of time during those days I was extremely bored. It was fine while I was working, but afterwards without the Internet to distract me, I had nothing to do for the remainder of any working day. The evenings were fine because I have a very active social life, so no problem, but it did get me thinking about how the absence of the Internet might affect the majority of us in one way or another.

Since the 'arrival' of the phenomenon that is known as the Internet, we have become obsessed to some extent with the speed in which it lets us live our lives. We rarely expect to get letters from friends, family or businesses - email is there, ready, waiting and fast. We can visit just about any virtual shop in the world, buy more than we could physically carry and arrange to have it delivered, and all this can be done in just an hour of surfing without even getting out of a chair.

I began to wonder about the vast number of companies whose day-to-day business is conducted online, and what would happen if for some reason the whole Internet suddenly ceased to work. The effects would be extremely far-reaching, for example; a substantial amount of daily business communication is conducted via email, the loss of which would severely disrupt and significantly slow down the companies who rely totally on this media to send and receive information where speed is of the essence. Other parties to be considered are the private individuals whose emails possibly compare or even exceed in numbers that of corporate traffic, and business websites; without these virtual showrooms to look at, a customer would have to revert back to the old way of doing things and visit a real one - very hard on the feet!

We are all aware that the rapid advances made in Internet technology over recent years have been nothing short of astonishing. From mobile phones and their ability to send messages and photo images, as well as being able to access the Internet, to email and its almost instant delivery capability. Both have transformed information exchange and communication beyond our wildest dreams, whilst simultaneously creating a mindset that has us expecting immediate answers to any questions we care to ask. It's up to each individual to decide for themselves whether or not the Internet is for the better. I am sure there are a vast number of people in the world that prefer life the way it used to be, and their opinions must be respected.

However, to be off-line felt like some sort of isolation even though it was only temporary. It's not something I would want to happen on a regular basis, and whilst I am sure that although we would undoubtedly cope without the Internet if we had to, the question is - would we want to?

Sure, the simplicity and speed of email would be sorely missed; the comparative ease of online shopping; the click of a mouse to pay the bills; the creature comforts that the Internet provides and what we have quickly grown to accept and expect, would eventually be forgotten or committed to a nostalgic memory, but I sincerely doubt it would be an easy transition.

We are all increasingly reliant on the Internet to make life run a bit smoother - and for me, seven days without it was more than enough to prove that.

I am a professional proofreader of hard copy items and website copy. I also write web copy and occasionally accept small copy-editing assignments.

Mafia in the 1920's

The origins of the mafia phenomenon dating back to the Middle Ages, when Sicily was under foreign domination and obedience wealthy families obtained through formal social control of land. The Mafia, organizationally, did not have a hierarchy, but was composed of autonomous groups who called themselves "men of honor." In those years, the landed aristocracy allied with social leaders and created a conservative power structure and stable, a strategy that allowed it to retain its dominance in Sicily thereafter.

Guided by a code of conduct called Omerta, the Mafia has quickly become an organization completely outside the law. The mob forced the code to be against justice, and also avoid any contact with her.In the early twentieth century, some members of this organization migrated to North America, specifically to the United States, thus spreading internationally clandestine criminal organizations.

Over time, the U.S. became the center of all crimes of the Mafia, since this country was restricting gambling and alcohol, which led to a large smuggling.The history of the Mafia has served to understand the source, structure, functioning and control mechanisms of criminal organizations, which has been a useful tool to study how they operate smugglers, murderers and drug cartels in the world more dangerous.

From 1920 began the golden age for international gangsters. Sicilian criminals soon found followers worldwide, prompting the organization of organized crime groups in China, Russia, Cuba and the United States. The latter country was the favorite of these criminals, because it could easily be corrupted, to perform any illegal act at the time.

Here are the most renowned gangsters:

Al Capone (1899-1947).

He is also known as Scarface. It was the most important representation as to the history of the Mafia is concerned. It was noted for having the dirtiest business in the city of Chicago and for hosting the worst wars between the gangs of mobsters. By 1925, Al Capone became the owner of the Chicago underworld and his fortune amounted to one hundred million dollars. He was persecuted by the law for years, but his ability to corrupt evaded any justice.
Without clutch, after many years of persecution, Al Capone was caught for tax evasion and sentenced to eleven years in prison. He was transferred to Alcatraz federal prison and was granted after eight years parole.

Johnny Torrio (1882-1957).

Famous for his illegal business conduct in a violent manner, this criminal was a mentor to Al Capone and a leader within the hierarchy of the gangster. In 1924 he had been shot while fighting another band.

Dutch Schultz (1902-1935).

It was called the Beer Capo, for conducting all negotiations of this drink smuggled into New York City. He was killed by the justice of this city for being a threat to the district attorneys.

Want to learn more about The 1920 Mafia?. Please visit http://www.the-old-mafia.com.

3 Easy And Quick Money Making Ideas

Are you looking for quick money making ideas to make
some extra cash to take a vacation, pay bills, or buy
a new car?

Maybe you want to make money full time from your home?

Then here are some ways to do it easy and fast.

#1 - Start an online auction.

This is a quick and easy money making idea that will
require no cash out of your pocket.

First, go look in your closets, basements, attics or
anyplace you use as storage.

Look for antiques, rare books, collector cards, etc.

Many times, what seems like junk to you is another
persons goldmine.

If you can find a few items, clean them up and list
them for sale on ebay.

There are many people making thousands of dollars per
month by doing this.

#2 - Start a blog.

This is a great money making idea. What you'll want
to do is start a blog on a topic that interests you
and then look for products to recommend.

What you'll be doing is writing reviews on many
different products that relate to your topic.

You can get a free blog at blogger.com

You can find hundreds of products to write reviews
on at clickbank.com

You can sign up for free as an affiliate and get a
percentage of each sale you make with your reviews.

This money making idea is being used by many people
and they are making small fortunes.

#3 - Become a freelancer.

This is a great money making idea and here is how
you do it.

You can sign up at elance.com

There you'll find all types of freelance jobs that
you do for money such as: accounting services, web
design, copywriting, translation, programming and
many more.

It's up to you as to how you want to use these money
making ideas.

The more you use, the more you make. Simple as that.

Learn Real Ways To Make Money On The Internet That Really Work, As Well As The Latest Money Making Ideas, And Hot New Information Products And Services! http://www.opportunity-advisor.com

Popular Modern Baby Girl Themes For Baby Showers

You may have found out that your best friend is about to have a baby girl and thought of hosting a baby shower for her. Well, if that is true, you have landed on the right page. Here are some of the popular modern baby girl themes you can use for the baby shower and find out why these are timeless.

Soft shades of pink have always been associated to girls. It could be by tradition or just because the society believes so that pinks are for girls. Light Pinks or Baby Pinks are very relaxing and has a soothing effect. Moreover, pink is a color that symbolizes love, romance, and excitement - a better reason why pinks are always popular to modern themed baby showers. The color adds excitement to the parents-to-be and to the guests as all are anticipating for the baby's soon arrival.

Butterflies are undeniably among the most beautiful insects we have here on Earth. And we're lucky enough to see one considering that they have a very short lifespan. Butterflies are more likely associated to dreams, fantasies, and paradise. But symbolically, it tells us about transformation, growth, maturity, and relationship. The transformation from a caterpillar to a very beautiful butterfly is just like the new phase the parents-to-be are about to go through. It can also be a good representation of how quickly the baby will grow into a beautiful girl someday. Butterflies are popular modern theme in baby showers not only because of its ideals but also of its deeper meaning to life.

Flowers are very significant to any occasion. Each variety of flowers has its unique symbolical meaning that we associate to certain events like weddings, birth, holidays, graduation, and death. In baby showers, flowers symbolize purity, innocence, love, beauty, and simplicity. Flowers best to use for such events are usually daisies, baby's breath, asters and others that have harmonized petals and sizes. These types of flowers preserve the simplicity of the occasion, as the highlight of a baby shower is the new family - neither the theme nor the flowers.

Animal themes are some of the latest trends in baby showers. These work well for parents who are not sure about the baby's gender or they just prefer balanced and unprejudiced colors for their baby girl. Animal themes can be colorful or earthy. Ideally, modern animal themes are better in shades of brown and green. Too much color may overwhelm the significance and simplicity of the event and could turn out like a children's party instead. So when choosing an animal theme, do not let the jungle take over the celebration. Always remember your focal points, which are the parents and their baby girl.

Baby girl themes are the most common and probably the most popular theme of all time. It is simple and straightforward. If you plan the celebration with this theme, you can never go wrong. There are plenty of ways how to enhance the preparations for this theme while keeping it simple and wholesome. Combine it with any of the above mentioned and you are sure to bring this baby shower to a blast.

Alice White is a mother and a writer for babyshowerparty.net where a complete resource on Baby shower decoration ideas can be found. Click here to get free information and inside tips for planning hassle-free baby showers.

Top 10 Meeting Ice Breakers

Getting people comfortable in a group setting before a team meeting can be the best investment of ten to 15 minutes of time that you can make. Ice breakers get creative juices flowing, can increase the exchange of ideas, establish team identity, and create a sense of community. All of these items are important in forging top productive teams. But how do you get people to participate and not feel uncomfortable with an ice breaker?

For meetings in a business setting in which participants are professionals, ice breakers that require actions not normally associated with day-to-day behaviors in the office generally make people uncomfortable. Successful ice breakers for these type of groups generally consist of having attendees share memorable information with each other, create innovative ways to get people to introduce themselves to each other, or have group members collectively work on a problem where everyone has to contribute.

We've selected our top ten team meeting ice breakers that are sure to get your meeting participants relaxed and ready to focus on your agenda as well as to connect with others in the group.

1. Brainstorm!:Break the meeting into teams of four or five. Give each team a topic. Pick topics that are fun and simple like, "What would you take on a trip to the desert?" or "List things that are purple". Give your teams two minutes, no more, and tell them "This is a contest and the team with the most items on their list wins." Encourage the teams to write down as many things as they can and not to discuss anything, just list things as quickly as possible. At the end of two minutes, the team with the most items on their list wins! This helps people to share ideas without fearing what other people will think.

2. Same or Different:

Divide the meeting into teams of three or four and give each team a large sheet of paper and then give each person a different colored marker. Have each person draw a large oval such that each oval overlaps with the other ovals in the center of the piece of paper. Give the group or groups, a theme that pertains to your meeting objectives. Ask the participants to write down at least five or more entries in the non-overlapping and mutually overlapping areas of their ovals. Give them five minutes, no more than that, to talk about their similarities and differences and write them in their own ovals on the paper. If there is more than one group, compare results and identify common themes in both parts of the diagrams and what light these similarities and differences shed on the purpose of the meeting. This helps team members develop an understanding of shared objectives and in a non-confrontational way learn how their views differ from others in the group.

3. Fact or Fiction:

Have everyone write down three surprising things about themselves, two of which are true, and one of which is made up. Each person, in turn, reads their list and then the rest of the group votes on which "fact" they feel is the "false" one. If the group does not correctly pick a person's made up "fact", then that person wins. A group can have more than one winner. At the end, the whole group votes on which of the "winners" of the final round, had the most deceiving "fact". This helps people get to know and remember their colleagues.

4. Free Association:

The object of this ice breaker is to have small groups generate as many words or phrases as they can that are related to a particular topic that focuses on the objective of your meeting. Give the group or groups a key word you want them to associate with and then give them two minutes to list, as quickly as possible, as many words or thoughts that pop into their heads. For example, if your company is trying to decide on whether to reduce travel and increase the use of teleconferencing, you might use the word "teleconferencing" and have people list as many words or phrases they can that they associate with the key word. For example they might say: "saves money", "saves time", "impersonal", "need to see other people", "get distracted", "sound quality".... This reveals what people are thinking, similarities in viewpoints, and possibly even problem areas or topics that need addressing or further discussion.

5. Nametags:

Prepare nametags for each person and put them in a box. As people walk into the room, each person picks a nametag (not their own). When everyone is present, participants are told to find the person whose nametag they drew and introduce and say a few interesting things about themselves. When everyone has their own nametag, each person in the group will introduce the person whose nametag they were initially given and mention something of interest about that person. This helps participants get to know and remember each other.

6. Desert Island:

Group people in teams of five or six and tell them they will be marooned on a desert island. Give them 30 seconds to list all the things they think they should take and each person has to contribute at least three items. At the end of 30 seconds, tell the teams they can only take three things. Have the person who suggested each item on the list tell why they suggested it and defend why their item should be one of the chosen three. This helps the team learn about how each of them thinks, get to know each other's values, and how they solve problems.

7. Commonality Plus:

Group your meeting participants at tables. At each table ask the group to list ten ways that everyone in that group is similar. Let them know that they cannot list body parts or clothing and that what they select cannot have anything to do with work. One person at the table should be tasked to make their list. At the end of your time limit have the group share their list with all meeting members. This is a great opportunity for your meeting attendees to learn about each other's hobbies, families, and common interests.

8. Line Up:

As people enter your meeting hand each one a piece of paper with a different number written on it. Ask the group to arrange themselves in numeric order without using their voices, hands, or showing their number. This helps the team to think of other ways to communicate with each other and to work together to achieve a common goal.

9. Meet and Greet Shoe Pile:

This works great in large groups and is a variation of the name tag ice breaker. Have everyone take off one of their shoes and throw it into a pile. Have each group member pick up a shoe and walk around the meeting room greeting other people as they try to match their selected shoe to the one another team member is wearing. This is a great way for new people to meet several members in a group.

10. First or Worst:

Have each member tell the group their first or worst job in turn. This easy to use ice breaker works great with teleconferences too and allows team members to spark conversation with each other and to have some fun commenting on the jobs that they have each done. Many of our top ten ice breakers can be used for on-site meetings and teleconferences alike. The nature of ice breakers is to get the group to talk, to share, and to get to know each other in a casual exchange. The best and most successful teams start with a little bit of fun; learning how to value what each member brings into the group. Ice breakers can help facilitate this exchange of information and comfort in doing so at the very start of the team forging process.

Amy Linley gives practical and usable advice regarding communication and meetings at AccuConference.

Find out more about our conference call, web conferencing and video conferencing services from AccuConference.

Hosting a Mad Hatter's Tea Party is EasyPeazy

We all know the importance of celebrating our accomplishments. It allows us time to let the moment actually sink in before moving onto the next project, and time to reflect and rejoice. A theme party is a unique and rewarding way to celebrate an accomplishment, and an adult Mad Hatter's Tea Party is the perfect choice!

Putting this celebration from the heart together is simple with my easy six-element approach to party planning:

Element 1 - Theme, Mood & Color: Creating the Backdrop for the Party

A Mad Hatter's Tea Party theme is all about using zany and mismatched items to create a mood of fun and whimsy. Bright, bold colors, such as sunshine yellow, tangerine orange, purple, lime green and sky blue, are the order of the day, with a unifying black and white checkerboard pattern to tie your color scheme and create a festive backdrop for your celebration.

Element 2 - Invitations: Using Vellum to Embellish a Store Bought Invite

Add vellum to a store-bought invite for a fun and creative invitation. Find a teacup invitation that you like and buy either plain or designed vellum from an office supply store. Choose whichever looks best with your invitation, one that's not too busy or overpowering.

Create a rhyme, poem, or sentiment using words or phrases from Alice in Wonderland. Print it on the vellum, cut to size, and attach to the teacup invite using a hole-punch and a color-coordinating ribbon.

Element 3 - Decor & Ambiance: Creating an Indoor Garden

Transform your party room into an indoor garden starting from the ground up. Start with the grass. Astroturf® is a good option and there are many styles to choose from starting as low as 45 cents a square foot. You can also rent it from a party rental company or buy it from a carpet supplier or local home improvement store.

Next, create a garden backdrop by using a "scene setter." You can buy a variety of cost effective scene setters online or at brick and mortar party supply stores. Each typically covers 20 feet of wall space. My favorite comes in two 4-foot rolls, giving you both a garden scene and daytime sky. Manufacturers recommend using tacky putty to adhere scene setters to your walls; however, if it isn't sticking or you're not comfortable putting putty directly on your walls, here's a tip: use blue painters tape every 6 inches or so on the wall, and then put the tacky putty or other double-sided adhesive on top of that.

To enhance the garden feeling, consider crafting large crepe paper flowers that are easy and inexpensive to make. Mix them with artificial flowers and put them in a planter box filled with Styrofoam®. Cover the Styrofoam with moss and you've created a colorful and unique indoor flower bed.

Finally, it's time to dress your Tea Party table in fun and whimsy. You'll need a tablecloth, mismatched tea cups and saucers, zany plates and napkins, and of course a few added surprises, such as a Mad Hatter nut cracker, a ceramic White Rabbit, or a teeny teacup set. Enjoy finding clever and unique Alice in Wonderland inspired items that could easily sit on your tea table.

Element 4 - Food & Beverage: Tempest in a Teapot

Because I believe it creates merrymaking right off the bat, I am a huge fan of serving a signature beverage at every occasion. Be it alcoholic or non, I prefer one suited to my theme and served in a unique vessel. To add a madcap element of fun to this celebration, serve your signature beverage in teapots and mismatched tea cups.

Tie your teapots into your Mad Hatter's theme by customizing them to match your décor. With a zany napkin as my inspiration, I decorated three teapots to match using puff paints and glitter glue. Simply follow the patterns on your inspiration piece, or add a few easy swirls, polka dots, and fancy "s" shapes in bright colors to create wacky serving pieces for your tea table.

Once the pots are dry, fill them with your own special "Tempest in a Teapot" concoction. Mine is available under the recipes tab at YouCanPlanAParty.

Element #5 - Activities: Playing For Prizes

My favorite initial party activity is one I call "Bring from Home." It involves asking your guests to wear something special as their ticket into the party; in this case hats, of course. Be sure to include this request in your invitation. This activity is a great conversation starter and quickly gets everyone into the spirit of the theme. You can bump up the fun by making your Mad Hatter celebration a costume party, the more zany and mismatched the better.

This second activity is inspired by a scene from Alice in Wonderland: Whenever someone toasts the guest of honor or congratulates him or her on their accomplishment, everyone drinks, then someone shouts, "Clean-cup, clean-cup. I need a clean-cup. Move on!" Watching everyone pick up and move one seat to the right is hilarious fun!

Lastly, invite your guests to entertain you. Encourage them to tell a joke, sing a song, or act out a skit from Alice in Wonderland. Have a few skits on hand like The Jabberwocky, Alice and the Caterpillar, The Walrus and the Carpenter, Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dee, maybe even the Mad Hatter's Tea Party.

Be ready with plenty of prizes wrapped in theme-related paper bags or boxes to reward them for their efforts. But here's the best part of this activity; when your guests are done performing, instead of handing them a prize, hand them a note card with a riddle on it that tells them where their prize is located. For instance, "Hickory dickory dock, the mouse ran up the _________." Once they've found the right clock in the house, they'll either find their prize, or a note telling them where their real prize is hidden.

Element #6 - Special Touches: A Memento of the Night

Give your guests a small token that will remind them of the fun they had at your Mad Hatter's Tea Party whenever they look at it. My choice is a mini teacup and saucer. Put some candy in the cup, preferably the guest of honor's favorite, and wrap it in Cellophane® with some colorful crinkle grass at the bottom of the bag. Tie with a few zany ribbons to match everything else you've used throughout the party, and you've created a lovely favor. Another tip: Decrease the chance of breakage by using double stick adhesive on the bottom of the cup. Add a thank you card that reads, "You're just my cup of tea. Thanks for coming to my party."

When throwing this or any party for someone with the intention of celebrating an accomplishment, please consider a special gift for the guest of honor. This can be as simple as a toast, as thoughtful as a store-bought gift, or as elaborate as a performance presentation. Whatever you choose is not nearly as important as the time carved out at the party for acknowledgment. Without fail, this is one of the best ways to create an experience that will be remembered for a lifetime.

Life was meant to be celebrated! So when it comes to planning parties, use my easy six-element approach to make it simple to bring people together. Enjoy the memories!

Shelby Phillips is known as the "Queen of Connection" because this Party Design expert, author and TV host brings people together with parties. Teaching her easy six-element approach to party planning has helped thousands of people take the confusion out of gathering, giving them more time to play and make memories they'll cherish for a lifetime. Shelby provides a how-to video show called "Shelby's Secrets to a Great Party!" on YouCanPlanAParty.com and her "Enlightened Party Planner" book series is available at Amazon and LuLu. See how Shelby can enrich your life today by connecting to http://www.YouCanPlanAParty.com.

Be a Responsible Person

There are many crossroads in our lives where we make a decision to either take on a new commitment in our lives - or not.

• Accepting a new job


• Starting a new business


• Taking on a new customer


• Buying a house Adopting a pet


• Buying a new car


• Getting married


• Having children

A responsible person will step back and analyze the entire situation and its possible outcomes (good and bad) before making a final decision that will be based on realities.

A responsible person will:

Make the right decision. An example would be buying a new car or house and making the commitment to meet the monthly payments. Before we make our decision, we weigh the pros and cons and hopefully analyze our finances to determine if it's affordable or not, and as a responsible person we make the best decision (even if it's not the one we hoped for).

Respect the rewards. Taking on new responsibilities certainly can lead to rewards - that's partly why we take them on in the first place! Like accepting a new job or new customer can lead to career advancement or increased business - but not without continued hard work.

Think of others first. Sometimes new responsibilities reinforce our own selflessness like adopting a pet or deciding to have children. They will be totally dependent upon us for many years to come and even though there will be trying and challenging times, we'll always have their love and adoration.

Stick to life-altering decisions. Deciding to get married or start a business are life altering decisions that will only work if we are dedicated to them. These are (usually) team efforts that will require devotion and communication for many years to come.

A responsible person is someone who realizes that they are in charge of their thoughts, feelings, actions and reactions and ultimately all their choices. They are people who are conscientious of their decisions and stick to them.

If we think we are willing to take on a new commitment, we should prepare for it: research, set up systems to keep it moving smoothly, stay interested, read related material, and nurture it.

The bottom line is: We shouldn't commit to something if we aren't ready to take it on and be completely dedicated to it.

Authored by Kimberly J. McCloskey, Virtual Business Professional, 6/28/2009. Kimberly publishes the newsletter "Productive Pointers" featuring articles on how to improve personal and professional efficiency. Request your subscription at http://kimberlymccloskey.wordpress.com.

Basic Configuration Tutorial For the Cisco ASA 5505 Firewall

The Cisco ASA 5505 Firewall is the smallest model in the new 5500 Cisco series of hardware appliances. Although this model is suitable for small businesses, branch offices or even home use, its firewall security capabilities are the same as the biggest models (5510, 5520, 5540 etc). The Adaptive Security technology of the ASA firewalls offers solid and reliable firewall protection, advanced application aware security, denial of service attack protection and much more. Moreover, the performance of the ASA 5505 appliance supports 150Mbps firewall throughput and 4000 firewall connections per second, which is more than enough for small networks.

In this article I will explain the basic configuration steps needed to setup a Cisco 5505 ASA firewall for connecting a small network to the Internet. We assume that our ISP has assigned us a static public IP address (e.g 200.200.200.1 as an example) and that our internal network range is 192.168.1.0/24. We will use Port Address Translation (PAT) to translate our internal IP addresses to the public address of the outside interface. The difference of the 5505 model from the bigger ASA models is that it has an 8-port 10/100 switch which acts as Layer 2 only. That is, you can not configure the physical ports as Layer 3 ports, rather you have to create interface Vlans and assign the Layer 2 interfaces in each VLAN. By default, interface Ethernet0/0 is assigned to VLAN 2 and it's the outside interface (the one which connects to the Internet), and the other 7 interfaces (Ethernet0/1 to 0/7) are assigned by default to VLAN 1 and are used for connecting to the internal network. Let's see the basic configuration setup of the most important steps that you need to configure.

Step1: Configure the internal interface vlan
------------------------------------------------------
ASA5505(config)# interface Vlan 1
ASA5505(config-if)# nameif inside
ASA5505(config-if)# security-level 100
ASA5505(config-if)# ip address 192.168.1.1 255.255.255.0
ASA5505(config-if)# no shut

Step 2: Configure the external interface vlan (connected to Internet)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ASA5505(config)# interface Vlan 2
ASA5505(config-if)# nameif outside
ASA5505(config-if)# security-level 0
ASA5505(config-if)# ip address 200.200.200.1 255.255.255.0
ASA5505(config-if)# no shut

Step 3: Assign Ethernet 0/0 to Vlan 2
-------------------------------------------------
ASA5505(config)# interface Ethernet0/0
ASA5505(config-if)# switchport access vlan 2
ASA5505(config-if)# no shut

Step 4: Enable the rest interfaces with no shut
--------------------------------------------------
ASA5505(config)# interface Ethernet0/1
ASA5505(config-if)# no shut

Do the same for Ethernet0/1 to 0/7.

Step 5: Configure PAT on the outside interface
-----------------------------------------------------
ASA5505(config)# global (outside) 1 interface
ASA5505(config)# nat (inside) 1 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0

Step 6: Configure default route towards the ISP (assume default gateway is 200.200.200.2
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ASA5505(config)# route outside 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 200.200.200.2 1

The above steps are the absolutely necessary steps you need to configure for making the appliance operational. Of course there are much more configuration details that you need to implement in order to enhance the security and functionality of your appliance, such as Access Control Lists, Static NAT, DHCP, DMZ zones, authentication etc.

Visit my website in my resource box below for more information about Cisco products and solutions. You can also learn how to configure any Cisco ASA 5500 Firewall Here.

You can check out my website for more Cisco configuration examples and other related details about designing and implementing Cisco solutions: Cisco Tips and Tutorials.

POP3, IMAP, SMTP: Different Email Server Types and How to Use Them to Setup Windows Mail

Email services all utilize one (or more) of the three standard email servers: POP3, IMAP, and SMTP. Each of these servers store and deliver emails in different ways. They are all used by Internet-based companies, like Gmail, Microsoft, AOL and Yahoo!, so customers can conveniently check their email from anywhere.

What is a POP3 server?

POP3 stands for Post Office Protocol 3. This kind of server works a lot like a post office box, it holds your mail there on the server until you check it. When you check your email, your messages are downloaded from the server to your computer. Usually your messages will be deleted off of the server once you download them by checking your mail. This is probably the most common type of server used by personal email accounts.

What is an IMAP server?

IMAP stands for Internet Message Access Protocol. This is traditionally more of a business-oriented mail server. With an IMAP server, you have access to your messages without downloading them first. You can organize, preview, and even delete messages directly on the server. Copies of your emails are stored on the server until you delete them, even if you download the messages to your computer.

What is an SMTP server?

SMTP stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. This kind of server only handles outgoing email messages. It works in conjunction with either a POP3 or an IMAP server by sending out any and all outgoing mail while the other server handles the incoming mail.

Why do I need to know this?

If you ever need to set up one common email account (Windows Live, Outlook) that will check and download emails from multiple accounts, you'll need to know what type of servers are used for incoming and outgoing mail on each account.

SET UP WINDOWS MAIL FOR ALL YOUR EMAIL ACCOUNTS

An integrated part of Windows Live Essentials, Windows Mail allows you one-stop access for all of your email accounts. This localized email program can integrate Hotmail, AOL Mail, Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, etc. into one convenient location on your PC.

Each email address belongs to a separate folder in your Windows Mail Inbox, allowing you to keep your emails organized while still accessing them from one place.

What Do I Need to Set Up My Account?

For each email account you want to add to your Windows Mail, collect the following information.

1. The email address and password.

2. The type of email server your account uses: POP3, IMAP, SMTP.

3. The incoming and outgoing addresses of your email servers. Server addresses for some of the more popular email services are as follows:

a. Gmail Incoming: pop.gmail.com, Gmail Outgoing: smtp.gmail.com

b. Yahoo! Incoming: pop.mail.yahoo.com, Yahoo! Outgoing: smtp.mail.yahoo.com

c. AOL Incoming: imap.aol.com, AOL Outgoing: smtp.aol.com

4. Whether or not your outgoing email server requires authentication.

Setting up Your Windows Mail Account

1. Click on your Start button and then All Programs.

2. Find Windows Mail and click on it.

3. Under your Windows Mail Tools menu, click on Accounts.

4. Click Add.

5. Click on Email Account and then click Next. Just follow the instructions for filling in the necessary info about that particular account.

6. Repeat the process for each additional email account you wish to set up.

Now you're all set to start accessing all your email accounts from one program and cross off Simplify Life from today's To Do list.

For more information on Optimizing your PC, visit our extensive information blog at http://www.fixcleaner.com/blog Here, you can find easy access to articles on fixing errors and optimizing all sorts of Windows functions. You can even get tips and tricks on how to navigate your way across the new frontier of Internet Social Media.

Julie Dreese is a freelance writer and editor who attempts to perform her own tech support through thorough research and anyone-can-do-it solutions.

Email Archiving and Mailbox Size - Best Practice Recommendations Under Microsoft's Exchange Server

Background

Today's businesses, large and small, depend on their email systems for a significant majority of their communication needs. Email has developed from a rudimentary, inaccessible technology used only by the tech-savvy to its current role as a rapid, reliable communications tool for just about everyone. Along the way, as user needs and data storage have evolved - remember when 1 Mb of storage was a big deal? - the use of email systems has increased well beyond their original scope of sending and receiving short messages. Today's email systems provide calendaring, group collaboration, task management, workflow and, ever-increasingly, file and data storage. Users now store many years worth of email and attachments, and refer back to them on a frequent basis for important historical information.

This increasing document retention, along with the ever-increasing size of attachments, has caused email systems to dramatically increase in size and therefore demand higher technical capacity and management. Meanwhile, the email content itself has increased in value - often being sensitive, proprietary or even mission-critical in nature. It is essential that today's business protects its email investment and associated systems with document retention and archiving policies. An effective policy will balance system needs for security & stability with user needs that include rapid access.

Over the years of working with our clients, Seitel Systems has developed a set of best practices for dealing with these complex needs. Outlined below are our recommendations for retention and archiving under Microsoft's Exchange Server.

Group Policy Templates

Regardless of whether Outlook Auto Archive is used to manage mailboxes, the Outlook Group Policy Template should be used to centrally control settings (including whether or not archiving is allowed). Configuration information is available below.

Outlook 2007: Outlk12.adm Outlook 2003: Outlk11.adm

Exchange 2000 Environments Exchange 2000 is limited in the amount of available storage to 16 GB (17 GB for short term repairs). As a result, SSL recommends that these organizations implement mailbox management policies as follows:

1. Mailbox Size Limits: to 500 MB or smaller depending on the overall size of the organization. Smaller organizations can have larger mailbox limits. This should be managed through mailbox quotas enforced by Exchange Server. As users approach their assigned quota they'll receive warning messages to that effect. Once they reach the quota they'll be restricted from sending and receiving emails.

2. Outlook Email Auto Archive should be configured for all users to run with the following settings:

Turn On Auto Archive: Yes

Run AutoArchive every days: 7

Prompt before AutoArchive runs: No

Delete Expired Items: No

Archive or delete old items: No

(note: this is a setting relevant to email retention policies and expiration dates, not the deleted items folder)

Show archive folder in folder list: Yes

Clean out items older than: Never

Permanently delete old items: No

(note: this is a setting relevant to email retention policies and expiration dates, not the deleted items folder)

3. Archive folders should be stored in the following locations:

· Workstation users should archive to a pst file located on the network. This runs the risk of file corruption as MSFT recommends against using a network share for email auto archiving but alternative solutions (such as archiving locally) entail greater risk of data loss due to disk or backup issues.Search the Microsoft support site for kb/297019 to find the supporting article.

· Laptop users should archive to a pst file located on their local hard drive. A manual process will be required to copy these psts to the network on a regular basis (minimum weekly) to ensure that they are backed up. SSL recommends placing a recurring appointment on the user's calendar.

· A manual process will be required for all users to ensure that individual pst files do not exceed 2 GB in size. The frequency of this process will depend on the rate of email sending & receiving, but should be checked on at least an annual basis. SSL recommends placing a recurring appointment on the user's calendar.

Exchange 2003 Environments Exchange 2003 is limited in the amount of available storage to 75 GB. This is likely more storage space than will be consumed by the average small business, but for those businesses that approach this limit SSL recommends one of the following solutions:

· Upgrade to Exchange Server 2007 with its near-unlimited storage space. This is the likely solution for businesses on older hardware or simply wanting to take advantage of the features of 2007.

· Add in a second mailbox store on the existing Exchange Server and migrate mailboxes to balance the storage load. This solution assumes available disk space and remaining useful life of the server hardware.

Due to the large available storage space and the inherent complexities of archive files SSL does not recommend implementing mailbox size limits or email auto-archiving policies except for laptop (mobile) users. Prudent user management of their mailboxes is encouraged through deletion of non-essential emails especially those with large attachments that do not need to be archived. The Outlook Group Policy Template should be used to prevent users from enabling Auto Archive on their mailbox.

Mobile users with large mailboxes will experience significant performance degradation when operating outside of the office LAN. Cached exchange mode or offline storage files are not recommended as they are both limited to 2 GB file sizes, plus their required synchronization time can be painful when done over a WAN connection (broadband or otherwise). For mobile users SSL recommends the following:

1. Outlook should be configured to use RPC over HTTPS to allow secure access to the Exchange Server whenever the laptop is connected to the internet

2. To keep performance at an acceptable level it is recommended that mobile users need to keep their mailboxes below 500 MB in size. This could be managed through mailbox quotas enforced by Exchange Server.

3. Auto Archive should be enabled for mobile users to run quietly every 7 days and archive information to a pst file located on their local hard drive. A manual process will be required to copy these psts to the network on a regular basis (minimum weekly) to ensure that they are backed up. SSL recommends placing a recurring appointment on the user's calendar.

4. A manual process will be required for mobile users to ensure that individual pst files do not exceed 2 GB in size. The frequency of this process will depend on the rate of email sending & receiving, but should be checked on at least an annual basis. SSL recommends placing a recurring appointment on the user's calendar.

Exchange 2007 Environments Exchange 2007 offers near unlimited storage limited only by the available hard drive space. As a result, SSL does not recommend implementing mailbox size limits or email auto-archiving policies except for laptop (mobile) users. Prudent user management of their mailboxes is encouraged through deletion of non-essential emails especially those with large attachments that do not need to be archived. The Outlook Group Policy Template should be used to prevent users from enabling Auto Archive on their mailbox.

Mobile users with large mailboxes will experience significant performance degradation when operating outside of the office LAN. Cached exchange mode or offline storage files are not recommended as they are both limited to 2 GB file sizes, plus their required synchronization time can be painful when done over a WAN connection (broadband or otherwise). For mobile users SSL recommends the following:

1. Outlook should be configured to use RPC over HTTPS to allow secure access to the Exchange Server whenever the laptop is connected to the internet

2. To keep performance at an acceptable level it is recommended that mobile users need to keep their mailboxes below 500 MB in size. This could be managed through mailbox quotas enforced by Exchange Server.

3. Auto Archive should be enabled for mobile users to run quietly every 7 days and archive information to a pst file located on their local hard drive. A manual process will be required to copy these psts to the network on a regular basis (minimum weekly) to ensure that they are backed up. SSL recommends placing a recurring appointment on the user's calendar.

4. A manual process will be required for mobile users to ensure that individual pst files do not exceed 2 GB in size. The frequency of this process will depend on the rate of email sending & receiving, but should be checked on at least an annual basis. SSL recommends placing a recurring appointment on the user's calendar.

Links:

Configuration information for retention settings is available at: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc303413.aspx (Click on "configure retention settings).

The Outlook Administrative template is located in the Office Resource Kit which can be downloaded from: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/desktop/default.aspx. Different versions are available via the Home->Versions link.

Seitel Systems provides network, server, telecommunications, and desktop services that include system design, implementation and support. Seitel Systems has been serving Puget Sound businesses, government agencies, and non-profit organizations since 1990. Contact us at http://www.seitelsystems.com