Avian influenza, or bird flu as it is most commonly known, is a viral disease that has been ravishing Asia, as well as other countries, for more than two years now. Some choose to ignore the threat, but most health experts agree what we see now in the Eastern Hemisphere could be witnessed soon all across the world. Since the first outbreaks of bird flu recorded in late 2003, there have been more than 140 deaths world wide and entire poultry populations decimated. Some estimates claim a flu pandemic (world wide epidemic) could infect hundreds of millions and cause major social disruption.

With these worries in mind, the United States have closely followed the situation and with general fears that the disease could spread to their territory as well, federal and local authorities have been handed over a plan to prevent and be ready to deal with a possible avian influenza outbreak in the country. It is not clear if and when this will happen, but one can look to previous experiences and other events for clues as to how serious the threat really is for the American country.

Recent violent outbreaks in places such as Indonesia, which is now the world’s most heavily hit country, counting 47 human victims, are now followed by discoveries of low pathogenic bird flu viruses in some spots in U.S. The first one to raise fears was the case of two wild swans living on a lake in the state of Michigan. Routine tests found traces of a mild form of bird flu virus on the birds. The announcement was made by a White House spokesman, with details being given afterwards by officials from the Agriculture and Interior Departments. While the news was given high importance, experts claim there is no reason for concern, as the virus in question is in no way related to the Asian form and is no threat to humans. More recently, wild mallard ducks from Queen Anne’s County, Maryland, were found to carry the same pathogenic agent. The same reassurances were given by U.S. officials and although some people see this as a preview for possible bird flu outbreaks, health experts say mild and low pathogenic strains of avian influenza such as this one are common in the United States, as well as other countries. Since 1975, the low pathogenic strain of the H5N1 virus (the highly pathogenic form of which is causing high mortality in Asia) has been found on six other occasions on U.S. soil.

However, claims from other researchers warn that a more aggressive form of the disease could come to the American continent as early as this fall. Indeed, summer is a rather quiet period for the virus and the large number of cases in Asia during this time is due to the virus residing there for a long period of time. Come fall, large populations of wild fowl will cover thousands of miles on regular migratory paths. These birds are the natural carriers of the virus and are also quite resistant to it. Thus, they can carry the disease for great distances, without falling ill or succumbing to the disease and showing any signs of an infection. One particular reason for concern is the Alaskan territory. Its vicinity to the Asian continent makes it one of the possible points of entry for the disease. It is also a meeting place for water fowl, as wild birds from both Asia and America choose it as a feeding and nesting environment during the summer months. U.S. authorities have implemented a plan for the summer of 2006 which included the testing of more than 15,000 birds from 27 species in the region.

The program was extended to a nationwide level as you can read on www.bird-flu-center.com, as surveillance and constant testing is seen as an effective method of preparing for a possible outbreak of the disease. Biologists are set to test tens of thousands of birds. Locally, individual counties have also prepared pandemic plans and are carrying out drills for a worst case scenario. Hospitals are setting up special units for avian influenza patients, while schools and university campuses are also preparing. In the case of a pandemic, social disruption might force such institutions to close down, as they would be a suitable environment for the virus to spread. Another prevention measure used is banning poultry and poultry products imports from countries where avian flu has been found.

Although it is widely believed that some form of bird flu epidemic will eventually occur, there are those that play down the warnings. However, countries around the world choose to play the safety card and take prevention measures. Grim estimates say that if a pandemic occurs, it will kill 1.7 million Americans in the first year alone, as a vaccine takes months to produce after the start of an epidemic. On the other hand, we can still hope the disease will be contained and dealt with before before such an outcome is reached. It is, in the end, just a matter of wait and see.

George Velicu is the senior editor at www.bird-flu-center.com http://www.bird-flu-center.com and the man responsible for making the website one of the most comprehensive sources for avian influenza information on the Internet. He is also the one keeping a daily record of bird flu’s developments.

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You’re a copywriter. What you do is use the power of words to PROMOTE. Promote products, promote brands.

Brand owners and product owners hire a copywriter for that very purpose - to promote their brand. Promoting a brand is more than just shifting product - though this is important for a copywriter. Positioning a brand means that the brand name is not only familiar but is associated with a positive image in the mind of those who hear it. Think of big global brand names and consider what image any of them brings to mind.

But this principle doesn’t only apply to products. If you work for yourself, as a copywriter or in any other field, YOU are the brand.

When you see several different brands of a particular product on a supermarket shelf, which do you choose? The likelihood is you will choose the name that you know and trust. So will most other people. So the copywriters and admen have done a good job in promoting that particular brand.

As a copywriter, you have plenty of competition. It doesn’t matter how good you are at your job if nobody gives you any work. And why should they, if they don’t know who you are? It’s up to YOU to make sure people choose you rather than the competition. YOU have to promote your brand!

So how do you start promoting your brand? Well, as a copywriter how do you start promoting any other product?

First you look at the market and analyze it. Then you analyze the product in relation to the market. What is its potential? What is it about the product that will make people buy it rather that its competitors - its USP (unique selling point)? How are you going to maximize this?

So this is how you look at yourself as a copywriter. What are my specific strengths? What marks me out from the competiton? What extra value do I bring to a project? What will make people choose ME? What is my USP?

Once you’ve identified your USP, promote it, promote it, promote it. Forget about being modest. Modest doesn’t get business.

Create a tagline that encapsulates your USP. Use it in all your communications online and offline - preferably with your picture, or logo, or both.

Whenever someone is satisfied with your copywriting work, ask them for a testimonial. Build your personal portfolio and use it.

Have a newsletter and communicate regularly with existing and new customers. Build yourself up as a personality. If your personality doesn’t show up in your work, you’re not a good copywriter.

Make sure people get to know YOU, even if they’ve never actually met you.

Your brand is YOU. Promote yourself, and you’ll promote all the other brands much, much better.

Elaine Berry is the owner of Bizwrite, the only one-stop-shop for writing services. Bizwrite provides copywriting, ghostwriting, article writing and proofreading services, and also provides help and tuition in all aspects of writing. Visit www.bizwrite.co.uk http://www.bizwrite.co.uk for a FREE e-course on copywriting.

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The diagnostics that are associated with computers can help to identify any problem or failure that computers show when they are having problems. Diagnostics are used to test out the computer system, which includes both the BIOS and memory, software, and even the hardware that is attached to the computer.

The most common types of problems will occur when your computer is down to very low resources, which can either be a low amount of RAM, or a low disk space. These conditions are very common, and generally result in your computer running very slow. This can easily be fixed, all you have to do is defrag your hard drive, and get rid of some programs and files that you no longer use or need.

Almost all types of computer diagnostic software can find and fix just about any problem that you are having. It normally starts off with a BIOS examination, and goes on from there. PC diagnostics software can determine a lot from the BIOS, from the common settings to those that have a major impact on both boot up and performance.

No matter what you do, you should never modify or tamper with the BIOS settings, as it can lead to serious problems. If you do plan to modify or mess with your BIOS, you should always create a backup first, just in case something goes wrong. The BIOS settings can be very tricky, although they are responsible for a lot to do with your computer. If you have never been in the BIOS before, you really shouldn’t be modifying anything inside of it.

Depending on the diagnostics program that you are using, there will be several different features available. Right now, two of the most popular are Norton Systemworks and PC Doctor. Both of these programs offer full diagnostics software, good for fixing just about any software related computer program you can imagine.

Once you run the program, you’ll be able to select the diagnostic test that you are planning to run. Some offer you a full system scan, which will scan your entire computer and then display any problems that you having. After displaying any problems, the software will normally give you an option to go ahead and fix it. As long as the problem is nothing serious, the diagnostic software can generally fix it.

The more complicated problems, such as hardware failures or hard drive crashes, are a totally different story. They will require a technician who is very experienced, that can rebuild the hardware. Diagnostic software can report hardware problems to you, although most of the time it is unable to fix it.

There are other computer diagnostic software that you run after starting the computer or rebooting, that will check everything from BIOS. These types are great, although the types such as Norton and PC Doctor are by far superior. They offer far more features, including defragment, cache cleaner, and the option to delete your temporary Internet files. These features are great to have, especially if you aren’t the technical type.

For more reasons than one, computer diagnostic software is the ideal way to find and prevent problems with your computer. Norton Systemworks offers you Ghost as well, which is the perfect way to back up your data. You can back up certain files, or just go ahead and back up your entire hard drive. Systemworks and Ghost are very easy to use, even if you are completely new to computers. For everything they offer you - computer diagnostic programs are the ideal way to prevent problems before they happen.

John Ugoshowa. You are welcome to use this article on your website or in your ezines as long as you have a link back to www.quickregister.net/partners/ http://www.quickregister.net/partners/

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South Street Seaport Restaurant is a perfect place to enjoy your evening.Usually, the atmosphere of a restaurant is mind-blowing and astonishing and so it is successful in attracting a lot of customers. The place is the favorite place of many people as they really have a wonderful time to splurge here. The restaurant offers an appeasing ambience to make your time very pleasant. The restaurant in South Street Seaport will undoubtedly give some exceptional and unforgettable experience of your life .You will be so much fascinated that you will always want to visit this place as they solve both the option of enjoying and dinning. You are so much spelled by this place that you always look out for some reason to visit it quite often. The delicious food and the enchanting atmosphere makes you so much involved in the activities that you forget rest of the things.

A restaurant is the preferred place of all those who are fond of mouth watering dishes and partying with friends, colleages and with beloved ones. You can have anything that you whether lunch, dinner or a party and others that you desire. It’s really a loving and romancing moment to visit the restaurant with your spouse or beloved ones to enjoy the candle light dinner. The ambience of a restaurant is the first thing that attracts all the visitors. It energizes you so much that you forget other stuffs and get fully engaged in the activities to make a pleasing evening. The furniture needs to be trendy and comfortable also to help you to have a good sitting. The lighting system of the restaurant should be classy and fashionable to spellbind you. A dim light is mostly preferred as it creates a soothing and gentle environment that most visitors prefer. Such a wonderful place is an ultimate destination where everyone would like to spend their quality time.

If you are residing in South Street Seaport then you can find various restaurants that delivers quality service. You can browse in internet or can ask your friend who has ever come across the best south street seaport restaurant in that place. You must look for the type of food and the quality of service that they cater to the customers. A good restaurant will definitely consider customer satisfaction as it will help them to business well and get reputed among the restaurant lovers. The manager of the restaurant has to ensure that the visitors get the best quality service and all their demands get fulfilled promptly. In this way the restaurant gets much advertised and it encounters an increase in the number of visitors.

A restaurant does have all the option of fooding.You can also have drinks on demand. The menu card contains all the food items that the restaurant has for the customers. Almost every restaurant has a food specialization and this thing makes it different from other restaurants. You can find all the beef products that are very popular among the guests. You can also party with your friends and colleagues or can throw a party if you want. The restaurant has all these arrangements to let you have a wonderful and mesmerizing moment .Before throwing a party in the restaurant ,you must look for their experience and the quality service that they deliver after all you are going to spend your money.

Neil Folley holds a Masters Degree in Hotel Management.He loves good food and arranging private parties.To book for Sunday Parties and enjoy tasteful food at South street seaport restaurant visit www.markjosephsteakhouse.com http://www.markjosephsteakhouse.com

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Las Vegas parks and recreation and Nevada National Parks

Las Vegas is known for its casinos, wild nightlife, gambling, girls and shows; but the greater Las Vegas area offers much more. From hiking, biking and horseback riding to amazing Nevada National Parks, lakes and canyons, the Las Vegas area is a recreational playground. Whether you have an afternoon to spare or a weekend, there are plenty of Las Vegas outdoor activities for everyone. After spending the week drinking and gambling in dark casinos, a little exercise and sunshine can do you some good and Nevada National Parks will offer just that.

Red Rock Canyon

Only 20 miles from downtown Las Vegas, the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area covers nearly 200,000 acres of multicolored sandstone and limestone, canyons, mountains, washes and waterfalls, a variety of desert flora and fauna, and wildlife, including bobcats, desert bighorn sheep and wild burros. I don’t know how wild the burros actually are though. While hiking, biking, rock climbing and seasonal camping is offered, the most popular choice is the 13-mile scenic drive through the park. Whether you spend the afternoon or weekend, Red Rock Canyon offers up natural scenic beauty and is worth the visit.

Lake Mead and the Hoover Dam

Lake Mead is the perfect place to cool off from the summer heat. Located 25 miles east of Vegas, the Lake Mead National Recreation Area has about 1.5 million acres of desert land and clear water, with 550 miles of shoreline for swimming, boating, sunbathing, water skiing and fishing. Other activities include hiking, camping, horseback riding, roadside sightseeing and wildlife photography. Lake Mead wildlife include bighorn sheep, mule deer, coyotes, kit foxes, bobcats, ringtail cats, jack rabbits and the endangered desert tortoise and peregrine falcons. The amazing Hoover Dam is also nearby with daily tours.

Valley of Fire

Located only six miles from Lake Mead and 55 miles from Las Vegas, the Valley of Fire is Nevada’s first state park and its largest. This Nevada National Park is named for its fiery sandstone formations of reds, purples, tans, whites, oranges and yellows, which were formed from shifting sand dunes, years of erosion, wind and climate. Although the geology is similar to Red Rock, the park also offers early Native American culture and their rock art and petroglyphs are found throughout the area. The area was frequently visited by the ancient Basket Makers and Anasazi, who used the area for hunting and religious ceremonies. A popular scenic drive is around the White Domes. For recreational activities there is climbing, picnicking, camping and rock scrambling.

Mount Charleston

Get away from the slots and visit Mt. Charleston for fresh air, amazing views and majestic mountain scenery and wildlife.

Only 35 miles from Vegas, Mt. Charleston Recreation Area is a welcome relief from not only the city bustle, but the stifling desert heat during the summer. At an elevation of 11,918 feet, Mount Charleston is the third highest peak in Nevada.

The recreation area offers 180 campsites, 150 picnic sites, hiking, biking, picnicking, horseback riding, skiing and snowboarding.

Zion and Bryce Canyons

If you’re feeling a bit adventurous, cross the border to Utah and visit Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon National Park.

Zion has everything from amazing river carved canyons to scenic waterfalls. The area also has amazing wildlife consisting of 75 mammal species, including mountain lions and mule deer to hundreds of bird varieties and 32 reptiles and amphibians. An hour further away from the 2 ? hour drive to Zion, Bryce Canyon is a geologic wonder of colorful limestone, with thousands of arches, spires and mazes. Don’t miss the Grand Staircase, which is a series of colored sandstone cliffs, stretching from Bryce Canyons to the Grand Canyon.

Recreational opportunities include camping, biking, backpacking, cayoneering, climbing, swimming and tubing.

Grand Canyon

Depending on which rim of the Grand Canyon you venture to, it will be a good day’s drive from Las Vegas, but well worth the visit. Carved over millennia through the rocks of the Colorado Plateau, the Grand Canyon never ceases to be awe- inspiring, with its beauty and size. If the scenic views aren’t enough, there’s hiking, backpacking, biking, bird watching, boating, camping, cross country skiing, fishing, horseback riding, nature walks and more.

Jillian Scheeler is a spontaneous road-tripper and avid writer working on assignment for TravelPost.com http://TravelPost.com - The Premier Source for Unbiased Hotel Reviews and Ratings. This article can be reprinted freely as long as all links remain active.

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Have debts left you helpless and unable to have stability in your life? Well then it is time for you to think of a solution to these multiple debts. Looking for an answer, debt consolidation loans come out to be the most convincing of them all. With the debt consolidation loans, you can come out of your debt problems without any hassles.

Debt consolidation loans help in the removal of the multiple debts of a borrower which he is not able to repay at that point of time. More than two debts amounting to more than ?5000 can be consolidated using debt consolidation loans.

The debt consolidation loans unify all the debts of the borrower that he owes to various lenders and pays all of them with a lump sum payment. Now the borrower has only one loan to repay which is the debt consolidation loan. All this reduces the hassles of the borrower considerably.

The debt consolidation loans provide various benefits to the borrower like:

* Unification of multiple debts into one single loan
* Reduces monthly installments payable by the borrower
* Saves money as the loan is borrowed at a lower interest rate.
* Hassle free processing
* Can help in improvement of bad credit history

Bad credit score, CCJs, arrears and defaults do not impede the borrowers from taking up debt consolidation loans. Although they are offered slightly higher rates but that can be cut down by proper research for the loan which can be done online.

Debt consolidation loans can prove to be the appropriate choice for borrowers having debts amounting to more than ?5000. However borrowers are suggested to spend with more care in the future so that such conditions are not created again.

So, an apt choice can do wonders for the financial status. Opting for debt consolidation loan can improve the financial condition of a borrower and reduces his hassles.

Peter Taylor is a senior financial analyst at LoansUK with an acumen for finance and insurance. In recent years he has taken up to provide independant financial advice through his informative articles.To find Debt Consolidation Loans, secured Loans, unsecured loans, personal loans, personal loans UK, secured loans UK, unsecured loans UK open that best suits your need visit www.loansuk.eu.com http://www.loansuk.eu.com

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RSS is technology - a simple software program - that allows you to access web and blog content automatically. The acronym’s most popular translation is Really Simple Syndication. Once your browser or computer has an RSS reader on board, you can subscribe to any number of RSS feeds. A feed is simply a way in which a reader may subscribe to website content - most commonly blogs or news sites. A news site, for example, may list their latest headlines or entire articles in their feed every time a new article is published. A blog would publish this feed as a series of recent posts.

Feeds are published by millions of publishers, from small individuals to large organizations like Newsweek. The value of a feed is that it brings the most current site content to you in a format that is easily scanned; further, you are spared the task of visiting each source site each day. This is typically done through the use of what is called an ‘aggregator’ or ‘feed reader’.

Feed readers or RSS readers, are software programs that run on your computer (or PDA or phone); let you easily subscribe to feeds, and allow you to read through them efficiently. Some are relatively simple, showing the headline and summary. The fancier ones often work with (or in) your browser to make viewing the material look much like the source page. Once you have a reader on your computer, subscribing to a feed with is an easy click or drag from your browser. Sites that provide RSS feeds will usually have a button for that purpose.

There are several RSS feed formats as well as one with an entirely different methodology called Atom. Atom has become popular with some bloggers and blogging tools. Some aggregators can read both. The other acronyms you will see in feedspeak are XML, which stands for ‘extensible markup language’ and is the code standard for these simple text feeds. An ‘OPML file is a format for indexing hierarchical feed lists. If you dive into this web habit in a big way, your aggregator or reader may keep your subscription list in an OPML file.

An RSS feed is a great method for staying abreast of issues and topics that interest you. There are a number of feed libraries, so to speak, from which you can learn what’s out there in your areas of interest. Google has a built-in reader that makes the subscription process easy, as does Yahoo. Firefox has a downloadable extension for the purpose of aggregating RSS feeds, as well as a default ability to save RSS feeds as live bookmarks that update via the RSS feed. You can download a number of stand alone readers and aggregators; you can find them through a simple web search.

The whole RSS movement is a step towards utilizing the Internet more efficiently. The trick is to avoid overloading your email inbox with daily reports that you end up ignoring most of the time. For that purpose, there are sites like Feedster that will search millions of RSS feeds for articles that are relevant to your interests. Like any search tool, however, these services are hit and miss. They are still working off keywords and sometimes what they find is relevant, sometimes not. But if you want daily news broken into categories, it’s great technology once you learn how to make it work for you.

Madison Lockwood is a customer relations associate for www.apollohosting.com http://www.apollohosting.com . She helps clients understand how a website may benefit them both personally and professionally. Apollo Hosting provides website hosting, ecommerce hosting, & VPS hosting to a wide range of customers.

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Sarah Jane was a typical 9 year old girl with a very untypical question. Having just lost her closest friend to cancer, in the midst of her tearful, half hidden face, Sarah Jane sobbed out the question, Why do bad things happen to good people?

Like Sarah Jane, each of us experiences situations where we feel the pains of life’s circumstances. For Sarah Jane it was losing a close friend to cancer, but for many of us it can be the pain experienced when someone spreads hurtful gossip about us, abuses us, betrays us, or simply jerks us around in life. Those circumstances might result in our losing a job, a friend, a love interest, a business deal, or the creation of a rift between family members. The pain we feel is very real, very deep, and sometimes very private. Most people near us don’t understand the scope, or the depth of the pain we carry as a result of the emotional wounding we’ve experienced.

There are varying degrees of pain we often feel in response to situations inflicted upon us by life, or by people. Some levels of pain are small, some are not. For some, there are situations where the wound is so deep, they end up struggling to know how to get out from under the deep inner pain that results. It’s in the midst of a surrounding, choking pain that many people struggle, not knowing what to do, or how to cope.

There are key steps that help us deal with life’s pain. First, we need to privately admit to ourselves, we’ve been hurt, or are hurting! Own it, and recognize that whenever we experience a change in life that results in a loss, no matter how big or small, we will go through a grieving process. It’s important to start at a place of honesty, recognizing your pain for what it is.

Secondly, (and this step in the process, is not easy, for it often goes against our human nature) the next step if the cause of our pain is an offense, is to forgive our offender. By forgiving our offender, we are not letting him or her off the hook as far as consequences are concerned. By forgiving, we’re letting our self off the hook. We are giving up any motivation or thought of revenge. When a person refuses to forgive, they choose to carry the pain, the anger, the bitterness, of the situation around with them every minute of the day and night. The situation becomes an emotional wound that festers like an emotional infection. Until we forgive our offender, our offender ends up owning our emotions.

The third step in our process of responding to life’s deep hurt’s is to find a safe friend and share our pain with them. We all have friends in our lives, but what do I mean by the term safe friend ? Safe friends are friends who listen to you, are empathetic with you, can advise you, but the most important quality in a safe friend, is the person’s ability to respect confidentiality. Not all friends are safe friends . Safe friends are often few and far between. Safe friends can be a current friend, a counselor, a priest, a therapist, a law enforcement officer, someone who’s been through a similar situation, or a person recommended to you by a friend who feels they simply can’t help you but know of a better person who could.

Finally, at some point in our daily life, we need to carry on in life. If we don’t carry on in life, then we’re choosing to let our offender win, and we’re choosing to be our offender’s victim. While this can be difficult to hear when we’re in the depths of a painful experience, being a victim is a choice, it’s a mental state, and it can be terribly crippling. For those caught in a victim mentality, they are in the position of strength, for they can choose to no longer be a victim by removing themselves from the situation. If we are being abused or bullied by a person, and we remove our self from that situation, then our abuser or bullier has no more power over us.

Recently, a woman began to share her story of a serious internal family conflict with her brother. The situation was critical and she shared how she was considering using a gun as a solution against her abusive drug addicted sibling. Her pain was real, as was the abuse, but the use of a gun is never a solution, for it would haunt her in years to come at every family event. Her brother would end up owning her emotions from his grave. For this lady, her solution lay in forgiveness, then seeking out a safe friend in the law enforcement or legal community who could help her establish safe legal boundaries with this sibling. Those boundaries might take on the form of a drug rehabilitation intervention program, perhaps a restraining order, or jail time. While these boundaries might seem harsh for a family member to consider, in the presence of illegal drugs, harsh steps and strong boundaries must be respected. The establishing of proper boundaries is always a healthy life direction, and the best way for people to remove themselves from the role of a victim.

When life really hurts, there are positive solutions that empower us to live life to the fullest in spite of our wounding. As with Sarah Jane, in time, we can bounce back, we can smile again, we can laugh, and we can rise above the hurt we carry deep inside.

James C. Tanner of www.silent-wonder.com http://www.silent-wonder.com , and of www.whats-he-like.com http://www.whats-he-like.com is a retired entrepreneur, a former special Investigator, and a published writer who’s articles are enjoyed by 12.5 million readers monthly.

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What if you were able to buy a decent two bedroom home for about $30,000, fix it up a little and put it on the market for $80,000? Do you think you could make some money that way? This is the story of a man who lost it all that way, followed by a few lessons to be learned from his sad tale.

The story takes place in 2002, in a mountain town in Montana, where the last of the good jobs had left town twenty-two years earlier when the copper smelter closed. It is a beautiful town, but the resulting economic decline caused a population decline of more than 30%, down to about 7,000 or 8,000 people. My wife and I bought a great little house there for $17,500, so home prices had obviously tumbled along with the population.

A neighbor, at eighty-years-old, decided to become a real estate investor. He bought the house next to us for around $30,000, and borrowed more from the bank to fix the place up. Given the price of our own home and the fact that this other house wasn’t nearly as nice, I wondered if he had overpaid. He seemed sure that he had a good deal, though and could make some money.

As the weeks went by, he did get the place looking better. He put in an incredible fireplace, and new carpeting. The electricians worked on the old wiring on and off for a long time, always finding something else that needed to be done, and then taking their time doing it. The old guy was paying by the hour, with no contract, of course. The heating system needed replacing, at which point our neighbor mentioned, I didn’t know the house had so many problems. At some point his enthusiasm started to fail.

His bank account started to fail too. Eventually he admitted to me that he had over $65,000 into the place, but still seemed certain he could sell the home for $80,000. I politely nodded. It was too late to say anything anyhow. He didn’t even have money to fix up the rusty iron fence around the house. In fact, from the outside, the appearance had hardly changed at all, since all his money went into the interior.

The sign went up, though I am not sure why the real estate agent wanted such a listing. Perhaps it was with the hope that he would maintain the listing when the bank took the house and dropped the price. In the end, that is exactly what happened. I gave the house back to the bank, the old guy told me one day.

A Few Real Estate Lessons

I like this story because my old neighbor did so many things wrong. This makes it a great teaching story. Often real estate success consists as much in avoiding common mistakes as knowing intricate techniques. Here, then are some of the mistakes he made.

1. He had no plan. He had only a vague idea about what he would do and how much the home would sell for.

2. He had no idea of how to value a house. If he had compared the home to recent sales (like our $17,500 purchase next door) he would have realized that the most he would get for the home was probably around $30,000, if that.

3. He had no concept of his market. This was a two bedroom starter home. Buyers for these homes are not looking for a fancy fireplace.

4. He had no contracts or firm quotes from contractors. He let them find as much as they wanted to do and charge him by the hour.

5. He didn’t get an inspection. Had he gotten the home inspected, he might have had some idea of how many problems it had, and how much it would take to correct them.

6. He didn’t understand the concept of return on investment. Even if buyers liked the fireplace and other features he put into the home, these features probably increased the value less than what they cost.

7. He didn’t have enough money or financing lined up. This was a fortunate mistake, perhaps. Since the project was doomed to fail, it may have been good that he ran out of money.

Why not learn from the mistakes of others? As a side note, we selectively put $1,900 into our home there for a total investment (with purchase price and closing costs) of $19,800, and sold it for $28,000 four months after we bought it. We might have been lucky, but we also avoided some common real estate investing mistakes.

Copyright Steve Gillman. For a Free Real Estate Investing Course, visit: www.HousesUnderFiftyThousand.com http://www.HousesUnderFiftyThousand.com .

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Clients can get in the way of a perfectly good career; or at least that’s the impression given by some freelance copywriters who work in the advertising and Internet marketing sector. Like it or not, learning to love clients - warts and all - is essential if you want to succeed as a freelance copywriter. This article gives some useful tips for those on the threshold of what could be a truly great future.

Copywriters need clients

So you set yourself up as a freelance copywriter. You’ve always fancied yourself as an advertising copywriting sort of person. So what’s stopping you scaling the heights of fame and fortune as a true copywriting professional?

The stark lesson is - and it’s a lesson that comes as a shock to so many who are new to freelance copywriting: copywriters need clients. Convincing clients to use the services of an unknown copywriter is hard enough in itself. If you don’t have a thick skin, an adaptable personality and a physical presence that confirms you can at least spin a sentence together, you’re likely to have a hard time of it.

Like copywriters, clients come in all shapes and sizes. As they’re paying the bill, they’re likely to come in some surprising flavours too. There’s ‘bitter lemon’, the type that will always be hard to please. There’s ‘humbug’ who will always downgrade your offering, the more to minimise your fee. And you may also come across ‘peppermint’-flavoured clients whose sharpness and critical faculties are so highly tuned, you’ll wonder why they bothered to hire a freelance copywriter in the first place!

But - despair not! With a little more experience you can at least purport to be an expert - although, it has to be said, any copywriter who cannot back up his or her claims to be able to walk on water will soon be found out.

Depending on which copywriting sector you enter and what type of expertise you are offering, there’s a wide spectrum of responses that could greet you. In the early days, you’re probably best to avoid copywriting projects which require an understanding of the marketing context of whatever it is you’re writing about. This requires commercial insight and experience that doesn’t come with a degree in English, useful though that is.

Clients who are used to hiring creative copywriting talent will find you out in seconds. Obviously, they won’t expect you to know as much about their business as they do, but naivety is the kiss-of-death for freelance copywriters, especially in the world of owner-managers of small and medium-size companies.

Off-line or online copywriting?

Before ‘the ubiquitous Internet’ entered the marketing fray, an aspiring copywriter could sometimes get away with selling his or her ‘creativity’ - as opposed to good, solid commercial awareness. The good news is that off-line copywriting techniques still make up a big part of the total marketing mix. That isn’t to say that online copywriting isn’t creatively demanding. It is. But in a different way!

The BIG change is that Internet marketing is an informational medium that sets out to inform. In this respect, it is more like PR. The type of copywriting this calls for is therefore more akin to a journalistic style that ‘tells before it sells’.

There is a subtle difference here and one which demands even greater subtlety on the part of copywriters who need to develop an informal yet authoritative style. Many clients themselves will not be aware of the changes the web has brought to copywriting techniques. Unaware, that is, until their website, e-zine, online articles or blogs simply bomb out.

Despite all this, for aspiring copywriters, the web has to be good news. It’s not ALL about fiddling with on-page search engine optimisation (SEO). In many cases, a half-way decent freelance copywriter with a lively style could satisfy the needs of many companies.

The web is a massive consumer of words in the quest for developing keyword-rich content to generate website links. The need for informative press releases and newsletters (on and off-line), for example, has never been greater. Website content, articles, e-mails, blogs… the world of opportunity for aspiring freelance copywriters is exciting and full of potential if you’re looking to make your mark - and a dollar or two!

Already, there are website copywriting ‘gurus’, especially in the USA, who could claim to match the legendary status of direct marketing copywriters of the past. And although nothing stays the same - even in the world of freelance copywriting - clients of the ‘bitter lemon’, ‘humbug’ and ‘peppermint’ persuasion will always be around to get under the skin of new and experienced copywriters alike.

Mike Beeson is a UK freelance copywriter, PR consultant and journalist specialising in advertising copywriting, media relations, website copywriting and direct marketing. Mike’s company, Buzzwords Limited, was established over 20 years ago and is located in Knutsford, Cheshire (south Manchester). For more information, visit: www.buzzwords.ltd.uk http://www.buzzwords.ltd.uk or e-mail: open@buzzwords.ltd.uk open@buzzwords.ltd.uk

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