6 Virtues to Teach Our Children

There are six virtues to instill in our children so that they will grow up to be wholesome people.

1. Respect:

· Treat others the way you want to be treated.

· Be respectful to others.

· When someone is talking to you , you must listen carefully

· Do not bully or cause troubles to others.

· Do not bad-mouth or scold others

· Understand the person before you pass judgment on him

2. Trustworthiness:

· Be honest, do not tell lies.

· Be reliable, deliver what you have promised.

· Be courageous to carry out the task, though it is difficult

· Do not betray the trust of your friends in you

3. Caring:

· Treat other kindly and generously

· Help the needy.

· Sensitive to the needs of others

· Do not harm or treat others shoddily

· Think of what you do will affect others

4. Responsibilities:

· Do it when you have agreed to do so.

· Do what is expected of you and don’t expect others to do it for you.

· Think carefully before you do it. Think of the consequences.

5. Fairness:

· Allow others to have their opportunities.

· Treat others like you treat yourself

· Tell the truth.

· Follow the rules.

· Listen to others with an open mind.

· Don’t blame others for your own mistakes.

· Don’t take advantage of others.

· Do not form cliques.

· Think of what you do will affect others.

6. Citizenship:

· Do your part for the school, community so that it is a better place to live

· Play your part for the things that are happening around you.

· Look after the environment.

· Respect others.

· Be a good neighbor.

· Abide the rules of family, school and the society.

These virtues highlight the importance of character building of our children so that they can become model citizens in future.

How to Catch a Copycat in the Blogosphere

When you have posted many articles, I am very sure some of the articles will be very popular with the readers. The articles are so good that copycats used them as their own articles on their own websites. How do you identify copycats in the Internet when there are more than100 million blogs out there with more and more blogs appearing each day? Believe me, copycats are very lazy people. They take your article without alteration or copy word for word with the same article title.

Here are 2 ways that I know:

1. Search engine queries: Select randomly an article that is likely to be copied, type the article title and do a search. You will be surprised to see two identical articles appearing in the search results. One is from your site and another one is from someone else's site.

2. http://www.copyscape.com/: Go to this website, key in the URL of your blog and do a check.

Can you think of any more ways to catch copycats? Please share with the readers and especially the article writers.

Article Writing and eHow.com

There is a lot we can learn from eHow.com (the world’s most popular place to find articles on How To instructions on just about everything) on writing compelling articles.

Let’s study their successful formula:

1. Title: All their article titles start with ‘How to….’ We are all interested in:

How to make money on the web

How to lose weight

How to be beautiful

How to be successful in life

How to….

The list is endless. Their article titles attract attention; make you want to read the content.

2. Introduction: Like any good article there is an introductory paragraph that brings you to the gist of the article.

3. Instructions: These are actually the essence of an article. The main ideas make up a powerful article and they are matching to the article title. They are given in bullet points called ‘steps’ in their articles.

4. Tips and Warnings: This is actually the ending paragraph of an article calling readers to take action. A good ending gives you more tips and motivates you to act.

The way an article is presented in eHow.com is actually a perfect way to present a normal article. The fact that it has a Traffic Rank of 468 and a PageRank of 7/10 speak for the site’s popularity and its quality articles. In addition, Simon & Schuster / The Free Press have published 4 books with some of their best "how to" instructions.

Do not just read the articles; the best part is that you can contribute your very own how- to articles as well. I do.

Enjoy a Healthy Lifestyle in 2009 – 7 Beneficial Tips

While you are working on your New Year’s resolutions why not consider the following to be part of your daily healthy living regime?


1. Eat: Consume more raw and fresh foods from the following food groups:

• Seeds, grain and nuts
• Vegetables
• Fruits

Eat less meat as it is cancer causing acidic food. Find out more about Cancer Prevention - Acidic and Alkaline Food

2. Sleep: A good night’s sleep keeps your body in good repairs and rejuvenates yourself. I listen to my biological clock. When I am tired I go to sleep so that when I wake up the next day, I feel fresh and full of energy. The best time to sleep is before mid-night and should be for about 7 to 8 hours. To sleep well read this article: Sleep Well - 10 Good Habits.

3. Relax: Life is full of tension and stress because we are always chasing after insatiable material wealth. Meditate or do deep-breathing exercise to counter the daily stress. Every morning I play Tai Chi for about fifteen minutes so that I start a new day calmly and gracefully. Check out Tai Chi Quan (太极拳) for Happiness and More.

4. Exercise: Vigorous daily exercise is necessary to bring maximum amount of oxygen to our organs especially the lymphatic system. You will get less and less oxygen into your body with a sedentary lifestyle. I jog regularly to take in more oxygen into my body and I eliminate toxic waste through perspiration.

5. Preventive maintenance: You service your car regularly to avoid expensive repairs. Likewise you should take preventive measures to look after your health by taking vitamin-mineral supplements. Taking supplements is necessary because of the following:

• Over cooking of food damages the heat-sensitive vitamins and other nutrients
• Smoking
• Alcohol consumption
• Stress
• Accident and illnesses
• Poor food storage methods
• Eating too much of the wrong kind of food

I take Centrum, a multimineral-multivitamin tablet every morning after my breakfast. It’s like taking an insurance cover for my health.

6. Positive thinking: Change your mindset to a positive, health-oriented attitude. Remember every cloud has a silver lining. It does not matter what happens to you, it is your positive reaction to it that counts. Find out how positive thinking can bring happiness to your life in this article: Positive Thinking - 10 Delightful Tips to Make You Happy.

7. Be happy: Live life fully by enjoying every moment of your life. Every morning when I wake up I thank God for allowing me another day to live. Look at the greenery, listen to the music. Just think about it, all these things are not possible for those who are deaf and blind. Fill your heart with love instead of anger and jealousy, because your negative thoughts will only hurt yourself and your well-being and nobody else. Look at the bright side of things.


We are always in a hurry. Let us slow down and learn to live and enjoy a healthy lifestyle.

Cheers to your good health and have a happy day!

My 10 Blogging Activities

I love blogging and these are my blogging activities:


1. Article writing: Since my posting schedule is an article a day, I try to make it a point to write an article a day. I will scribble and get the points down and then in another session I’ll edit the article.

2. Article posting: I do it the first thing in the morning. The post will appear at around 4 pm, just the start of a new day for my friends in the United States.

3. Social networking and bookmarking: In the evening I’ll, with the help of Ping.fm and Socialmarker.com, bookmark my article for the day to various networks. They are Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Stumbleupon, Delicious and many more.

4. Comments, forums and community activities: On a daily basis I will do one or more of these activities. Community activities are joining groups that I have an interest at Facebook, Propeller and other network sites.

5. Reading relevant articles: It is important for me to catch up with essential reading of articles similar to my posts to broaden my outlook and to get refreshing ideas.

6. Participate in carnivals: On a regular interval, usually monthly, I will look for and join carnivals on themes that I blog about.

7. Making friends: It’s great to make friends at Digg, Facebook and Twitter.
Connecting to people is an important activity in the cyber world.

8. Checking statistics: I log on to Statcounter everyday to check recent visitors so that I know the sources of my readers and also my popular pages. The information is vital from me to write relevant articles and also promote my articles at the right places.

9. E-mail: Checking, reading and replying to incoming mail is an indispensable part of blogging. I am delighted whenever there is a notification from Twitter telling me that I have followers.

10. Keep on learning: Study successful blogs and bloggers. Learn new things and keep myself up-to-date in the blogosphere.


What are you doing? Share with readers your blogging activities.

Foods to Boost Your Sex Life

William Shakespeare once said: let music be the food of love. What about the foods for sex drive? Let’s check out the following:

Bananas: Bananas offer a good source of potassium and B vitamins which are important for the production of sex hormones. Moreover, the presence of the enzyme bromelain helps boost libido. It also contains bufotenine, a chemical that stimulates the brain to increase happiness, self-confidence and sex drive. My favorite fruit is bananas and it is yummy and I eat regularly as they help digestion.

Asparagus; It is very rich in potassium, phosphorous, calcium, vitamin E to excite the urinary passages and increase hormone production. It is one the Chinese dishes that I enjoy very much.

Garlic: It contains high levels of allicin, a compound that can improve blood flow to the sexual organ. Allicin is only produced once garlic has been chopped as it is produced through an enzymes reaction. It is one of the ingredients commonly used in Chinese cuisine and you should eat more of it.

Oysters: According to a team of US and Italian chemists, shellfish like oysters, clams and mussels contain compounds that have been shown to be effective in releasing sexual hormones in humans. At the American Chemical Society meeting it was mentioned that there might be a scientific basis for the aphrodisiac properties in shellfish because the presence of compounds such as D-aspartic acid and NMDA (N-methyl-D-aspartate) stimulate the secretion of testosterone and oestrogen in humans.

Ginseng: Apart from strengthening the heart, revitalizing the nervous system it also increases hormone production. I usually take a few slices to chew whenever I do long distance driving. It helps maintain my alertness on the road. Check out further health benefits of Ginseng (人参 renshen).

Honey: It is rich in aspartic acid, an important amino acid which is involved, particularly, in the rejuvenation of sex glands. There is always a jar of honey in our fridge. It is a delicious thirst quencher and when you drink regularly you can reduce the chances of getting cold and cough. Find out more about the health benefits of honey: Honey is a Many-Splendored Thing.

Raisins: Due to the presence of an amino acid called arginine raisins are known to stimulate libido, induce arousal and treat problems in erection. It is my favorite snack food. Ii is sweet and a delight to munch. And it is good for ocular and oral health. You can find more goodness in raisins by reading my article: Raisins - Health Benefits.

Pumpkin seeds: They contain zinc, an essential mineral for the production of testosterone in men and also helps sustain sexual desire in women.

You can get most of the natural foods easily. In addition to taking advantage of their aphrodisiac properties you should consume them regularly to maintain robust health and abundant energy.

QUOTE

My ambition is to say in ten sentences what everyone else says in a book.


Friedrich Nietzsche

Magnetic Copper Bracelet

Recently I used the points that I have accumulated in my credit card account to redeem a magnetic copper bracelet.

According to the leaflet enclosed it is stated that the bracelet is used to reduce the aches and pains of rheumatism. It is mentioned that when it is worn for a long time, the heat generated when the bracelet rubs against the skin would set free the copper element which penetrate into the skin by dissolving in the sweat.

The bracelet is 5 to 10 times stronger than normal magnetic field because of the material neodymium, iron and boron. Moreover it is coated with 24K gold (without nickel and hence non-toxic) to keep the appearance beautiful.

It is further stated that magnet can improve blood circulation, cure thrombosis, lower the blood pressure and promote the metabolism of cells. The bracelet has two open-ends so that magnetic field can be produced.

As I am not suffering from rheumatism I don’t feel any difference after wearing it for about a month. It is just an ornamental piece on my wrist.

Are you wearing a magnetic copper bracelet? Is it effective to reduce rheumatic pain? Share your story with the readers.

Get to Know Your Monthly Expenses the Quick and Easy Way

You have no time to gather information about your household expenses and yet you want to know your monthly spending. There is an easy and quick way to find out: You only need to do it once a month instead of keeping track of your expenditure every day.


This is the formula:

A) Determine your total cash at the beginning of the month:

Cash
Savings accounts (for making payments and receiving deposits)
Current accounts (for making payments and receiving deposits)

Add

B) Cash income for the month:

Salary
Dividends and Interest receipts
Other income (e.g. earnings from AdSense)

Less

C) Fund at the end of the month:

Cash in hand
Savings accounts (for making payments and receiving deposits)
Current accounts (for making payments and receiving deposits)

Equal

D) Your expenses for the month

In short: A+B-C=D

This method is only good when you actually pay in full the expenses that you have incurred for the month. Bear in mind also that the outflow of cash includes your payment made towards credit cards and other non-expense items such as savings and investment. It does not include charges for the month made on credit cards which you have not yet settled and any other outstanding bills. There is a difference between expenses incurred for the month and actual cash outflow for the month

I would suggest you do a detail record of your expenses for a few months so that you know the pattern of your monthly spending in the following areas:

Grocery items
Utility bills
Children's education
Petrol and traveling
Housing loan
Insurance premiums
Car loan
Entertainment
Clothing
Medical expenses

When you have done that you can review and do a cutback on unnecessary expenses in this trying time.

Happy budgeting and prudent spending!

Girls – 10 Safety Tips to Look After Yourselves

Young girls must always beware of those people closest to them, especially those newly acquainted. They could be your nightmare and they may leave a permanent scar in your life. Have you heard of “date rape” and “acquaintance rape”? Check out the following safety tips:


1. Always think safety: When you are not comfortable with the person or you think the location of the meeting/interview is not suitable, don’t go.

2. Notify your family members or your close friends: Keep your parents posted about the person, the place and the time of the meeting. It does not matter you know the person very well. Be very careful in meeting someone you get to know through cell phone or from the Internet. Go with a companion.

3. Places to avoid: Avoid places where alcoholic beverages are served. Furthermore, romantic places like beaches, mountains and the country sides are dangerous spots. Do not enter his house alone especially his bedroom.

4. Avoid situational changes: It is supposed to be meeting for just two of your but now there is a whole group of them and you don't know them. Get away from such a situation to avoid gang rape.

5. Mind your dressing: Dress conservatively. Don't think that you are sexy and you can over expose yourself. Don't ever ask for troubles.

6. Time to go home: Do not allow the meeting to end very late at night. Always make prior arrangement with your parents to take you home.

7. Your beauty is your weakest spot: Don’t think that you are stunning and sexy you allow flattery to get the better of you. Be on guard, when people are trying to talk sweetly to you.

8. Say “No”: There is no misbehavior when a male respect a female. When his behavior is unbecoming you always say “no”.

9. Equip yourself: Keep the following items handy in your bag - spray, pocket knife, whistle and other devises that can be used to protect yourself.

10. Engage and delay: When you are unfortunate enough to be in a desperate situation, try to delay by agreeing to have sex but request for a change of venue. Be calm and talk to the other person and find ways to escape.


Girls, always be alert. Do not allow curiosity to overcome your senses and if you do, you will regret your whole life.

Socialmarker.com

Every time when you have written an article and you want to submit it to many social bookmarking sites, the tedious job turns you off. Despair no more. There is a website that can help you to submit your articles to 49 of the top bookmaking sites easily. The website that is doing this valuable service is Socialmarker.com.

According to Socialmarker it can help you save the time and effort needed to bookmark a website and it can help spread a link on 49 of the best social bookmarking sites in less than 15 minute

The list of social bookmarking sites that you can link to is impressive and they include the following:

Propeller
Digg
Twitter
Diigo
Health Ranker
Tehnorati
Stumbleupon
Reddit
Mister-wong
Mixx
YuppMarks

When you submit your article links to the social bookmarking sites you get one-way backlinks and more traffic to your site. Your link is also indexed by Google within minutes.

I use Socialmarker on a daily basis. I don’t bookmark on all but I select only the most popular and relevant sites. Bookmarking is a breeze for me.

The best part of Socialmarker is that the service is FREE. Get it today.

Article Writing and My Articles

I am very glad that recently two of my articles were selected and hosted at another site. The two articles are:

1. AeroSnap for Windows XP/Vista- Powerful and Useful Software

2. Article Writing - 7 Areas to Take Note

The articles were posted at:

1. AeroSnap for Windows XP/Vista
2. Article Writing - 7 Areas to Take Note

Ever since I started blogging at the end of 2007 I have posted close to 500 articles. As I write an article a day my writing skills improve over time. The fact that readers of Stumbleupon have recently given me a thumbs-up for some of my articles, especially this article about happiness, proves the point:

Positive Thinking - 10 Delightful Tips to Make You Happy

I am glad that my writing skills has improved but it is also important that I continue to improve further because I know there is always room for further improvement.

My suggestion to those who are new to article writing is that they should write every day. The more your write the better will be the quality of your articles. Quantity develops into quality.

A special thank to Wolfdog who hosted my two articles at http://darkevil.net/blog. I am delighted and motivated.

Twitter – How to Get Followers Without Trying

When you are a part of Twitter you want to have as many followers as possible. Of course when you want people to follow you, you need to follow people first. But when you follow people, they may not follow you.

What do you do? There is an easier way out – use your compelling articles that your post to your website regularly. How do you do it? You sign up with Twitterfeed. Read my article on Twittefeed at:

Twitterfeed and OpenID

and make arrangement with the site to bookmark your article at Twitter on a regular basis. If you write an article a day you inform Twitterfeed to bookmark Twitter every 24 hours. When you tweet on a regular basis people are attracted by your articles and after reading a few of your interesting articles they are inclined to follow you.

As I post one article per day it is bookmarked daily on Twitter. I get followers every day. Of course, do remember when others follow you; you follow them so that everyone is happy.

Related article:

Twitter - Getting more followers

Quote

Every word that contributes neither to the sense nor the embellishment of what we write may be called vicious.


Quintilian

Coffee – Health Benefits

I am a regular and moderate coffee drinker. I take one cup with my breakfast and another cup to go with a light snack before I go to bed. Believe me; it doesn’t interfere with my sleep. I have been doing it for years. It’s wonderful to know that drinking coffee has so many health benefits. Let me share with you:

1. Alzheimer’s disease: A study by Finnish and Swedish researchers showed that middle-aged people who drink moderate amount of coffee significantly reduce their risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.

2. Antioxidants: Coffee contains a lot of antioxidants that starve off cancer, heart disease, diabetes and stroke.

3. Parkinson’s disease: The presence of caffeine helps reduce the risk of Parkinson’s disease. Caffeine also helps in treating asthma and headaches.

4. Physical performance: Substantial research has concluded that caffeine does improve physical performance and reduce fatigue.

5. Mental performance: Drinking coffee helps improve alertness, attention and wakefulness. Coffee also helps in short term memory.

6. Promote Digestion: The presence of caffeine induces the secretion of stomach acids which help improve digestion. Coffee also stimulates peristalsis (wavelike contractions that move food thorough the digestive tract) which helps prevent constipation. It is also a diuretic.

It’s such a delightful way to start a new day with a cup of coffee. Are you a regular coffee drinker? Let’s drink it moderately to our health.

Ping.fm, Social Networking Sites and Your Articles

Recently I joined Ping.fm. It is a website that helps you send your messages to most of the social networking sites in the blogosphere. Here 's how it is done:

1. Sign up with social networking sites if you have not done so. I am sure most of you have already joined such great networks like Facebook, Plurk, MySpace, Twitter, Yahoo 360 and Friendfeed.
2. Sign up with Ping.fm. It is a simple process to do so.
3. Add the desired social networking sites to your account.
4. Write a message and include a link to your article on the message board and then ping it.
5. Your message and your article link are simultaneously posted to all the sites that you have earmarked.

Other networks that you can add include Blogger, Bebo, hi5, Friendster and many more. In fact, it has more than 30 networking sites for you to choose.

It is so easy and convenient to send messages and your article links in such a short time. Go and sign up for an account. It's FREE. You will be glad that you have done so.

Comments, Trackbacks and Backlinks for Blogger

Comments


When you write a fantastic post readers will pass comments at the comment section at the end of the post. Of course the sensible thing to do is to reply to the comments as soon as possible. If one of the readers goes back to his own blog and do a write-up about your appealing article, how do you find out? Google currently does not support trackbacks.


Trackbacks

According to Wikipedia trackbacks are used primarily to facilitate communication between blogs; if a blogger writes a new entry commenting on, or referring to, an entry at another blog, and both blogging tools support the TrackBack protocol, then the commenting blogger can notify the other blog with a “TrackBack ping”, the receiving blog will typically display summaries of, and links to, all the commenting entries below the original entry.


Banklinks

There is a way for Blogger to keep track of comments at other sites.
By using backlinks you are able to know who is commenting about your post:
Backlinks work the same way as trackbacks if not better.

Blogger’s default templates are already set up with the necessary code for backlinks. To see the setup, go to one of your articles and click on the title. When you scroll down you will see the following:


0 comments:

Post a Comment

Links to this post

Create a Link


Clicking the triangle next to each link will display a snippet of text from the page linking to you as well as some author and date information. You can look at this article to try out the feature of “Links to this post”.

To check the functioning of backlinks you go to “Setting/Comments” and at “Backlinks” make sure that “Show” is activated.

Article Writing & A Good Dictionary

An indispensable tool for article writing is a good dictionary. A good dictionary is more than telling you the meaning of words and their correct spelling. Here are, among others, some of the features of a good dictionary, Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English:

Spelling: It tells you the difference between British and American spelling, such as 'emphasize', and it is also 'emphasise' in British English.

Countable and uncountable nouns: It is stated when a noun is countable or not, so you can decide to add an‘s’ to a noun when it is in plural form. In the dictionary ‘equipment’ is listed as uncountable so you can't add an‘s’ to it.

Pronunciation: It gives the pronunciation in American English as well as British English. Such a word is ‘lieutenant’ (lef'tenənt, British) and (lu:'tenənt, American). Moreover, there is a CD-ROM that you can listen to the correct pronunciation. It also tells you the different pronunciation of, say, ‘live’ in different contexts.

Collocation: Collocation is words that are typically used together so that it sounds nice in speech and in writing. For examples, there is ‘strong wind’ but ‘heavy rain’. For the word ‘effect’ you will find many examples like long-term effect, positive effect, the desired effect, knock-on effect and cumulative effect.

Antonyms and synonyms: When you look for the word 'beautiful' it tells all the words with similar meaning: pretty, handsome, good-looking, attractive, gorgeous and stunning. When you look at the word ‘criticise’ (British English), it gives you the opposite word ‘praise’.

Word choice: Choose between destroy, ruin and spoil -

Destroy means to damage something so badly that it no longer exists or people can no longer use it. If you ruin or spoil something, it still exists but it has lost all its qualities or features. It is also stated that ‘ruin’ is a stronger word than ‘spoil’. Such are examples of a good dictionary.

Transitive and intransitive words: You look up say, ‘offend’, you will see two examples:

(T)A solution must be found that it doesn't offend too many people.

(I) Many of the young men here are likely to offend.

Grammar: As an example, Philip ‘hung’ his coat on a hook behind the door but he was ‘hanged’ for murder.

Preposition: The dictionary also gives you the correct preposition, like curious about and duck under/behind.

Formal or informal words: For example, ‘accord’ is a formal word. 'Suck-up’ is informal and it is a phrasal verb and the right preposition to use is ' to'- He’s always sucking up to the boss.

Words used in different contexts: It tells whether a word is: biblical ,relating to law, not polite, old-fashioned, in old use, usually spoken, taboo , technical, a trademark or nearly always in written form.

2000 commonly used words: You can find 2000 common words that you can use in the dictionary. Use common words to communicate with readers. Its simple to use and it’s easy for the readers to understand. The list is from abbreviation in A to zero in Z.

A good dictionary is a versatile tool. It is your best writing companion.

Article Directories, Social Bookmarking & Networking Sites and Your Articles

To attract more readers reading your articles it is necessary to:

Submit your articles to article directories
Bookmark your articles at social bookmaking and networking sites.


Article Directories:

To direct traffic to your site submit some of your original articles to the following article directories where their Traffic Rank are high:

Ezinearticles (254)
HubPages (595)
ArticlesBase (1759)

There is a resource box at the end of an article that you can include a link to your website. When readers are interested to read more of your articles they will click the link and go directly to your site. By adding a link to your blog you have actually created a one-way link to your website.


Social bookmarking and networking sites:

Here are some of the social bookmaking sites that you should bookmark your articles:

Technorati (457)
Mixx. (673)
Digg (284)

You can even bookmark you articles at social networking sites such as:

Facebook (5)
Twitter (599)
Bebo (97)
MySpace (7)
LinkedIn (192)

Remember that there is link juice to your website for each and every article that you bookmark. By bookmaking your articles you are also updating your friends by telling them what you are dong now - writing and posting new articles.


Recommendation:

Submitting articles to article directories should be done selectively. Choose your popular articles to entice readers to visit your site. Sending too many articles will defeat the purpose. When readers can read most of you articles in full somewhere else there is no incentive to visit your site any more.

On the other hand bookmaking your articles at social bookmaking and networking sites should be done extensively if not all of your articles because at the social bookmarking and networking sites there are only links or snippets of your actual articles. When readers are attracted to read your full articles they will have to go directly to your site.

A catchy title, with the right key words plus matching and unique content will make readers want to visit your site to read your compelling articles.

(Traffic Rank as at January 23. 2009 in bracket)

Stumbleupon and My Most Popular Article

On January 29, 2009 I bookmarked my article “Positive Thinking - 10 Delightful Tips to Make You Happy” at Stumbleupon. Later, upon checking with Statcounter, I noticed a massive traffic to my blog to read the article (see image). At the end of the day I have 607 unique visitors and 853 page loads. Almost all of the traffic is from Stumbleupon. I was overwhelmed, excited and thrilled. Until today the article is still popular among the readers of Stumbleupon.

I wish to express my sincere appreciation to readers of Stumbleupon for identifying my most popular article. Your thumbs-up for my article motivate me to write more articles of this nature- articles that are relevant, useful, helpful and uplifting to readers.

Once again I wish to thank the readers of Stumbleupon for the tremendous support that you have given to me. I am touched by your enthusiasm. It is a challenge for me to write more articles as popular as “Positive Thinking” if not better.

Have a happy day!

Quote

In all pointed sentences, some degree of accuracy must be sacrificed to conciseness


Samuel Johnson

More Years to Your Life - 6 Longevity Tips

According to New Straits Times, a local newspaper, you can add more years to your life. Here's how:

1. Having faith (+7 years): Scientists at the University of Iowa in the United States found those who attended religious services at least once a week were 35 per cent more likely to live longer than those who never attended church or other faith-based events. Being actively involved in a spiritual community boosts the immune system and keeps clogged arteries at bay.
2. Being female: (+10 years): Women outlive men in nearly all countries, usually by about 10 per cent of the average life span. While the male hormone, testosterone, can lower "good' cholesterol levels, the female hormone estrogen increases "good' cholesterol levels.
3. Caring for a pet (+2 years): Pet owners tend to visit their doctors less often and are less likely to suffer from depression. Stroking or being near a pet can also lower heart rates and reduce blood pressure levels.
4. A room with a view (+2 years): A room with a good view lift our mood, ease stress and provide a deep sense of optimism. Research has shown that hospital patients who were assigned to rooms with a pleasant view recovered faster from an operation and were discharged sooner than those looking at a brick wall.
5. Being happy (+9 years): Research has found that optimistic people tend to act in healthier ways than those who are negative - getting more exercise and taking part in more life-affirming social activities. According to a variety of studies, a positive outlook also means quicker recovery from illness and injury, a longer life and less chance of disability. It's also thought that happiness may boost the immune system by increasing the number of cells available to fight viruses and bacteria.
6. Marriage (+7 years): Married couples generally outlive their divorced, widowed or unmarried counterparts. Californian research found people who never marry are two-thirds more likely to die early. Those who are happily married are less likely to have financial difficulties or physical or mental problems than those who aren't married.

Just imagine, you exercise every day, you eat a balanced diet and you don't smoke and by adding the above contributing factors to your life, giving an average life span of 70, how much longer will you live?

Turn Your Business Cards Into a Marketing Tool - 7 Superb Ideas

Your business cards or calling cards can do more than just telling others about your name, your telephone and fax numbers and your business address. Here are what you can do with your business cards:

1. Unique Selling Proposition: Use the back of your card in a special way to market your products or services.

2. Original and compelling design: Create a design that is attractive and appealing so that it keeps people talking about it. Match it with a logo that it can identify with your business.

3. Give freely: Distribute your cards to people you meet - taxi drivers, counter staff, petrol station attendants, receptionists….

4. A part of your correspondence: Include a copy of your card whenever you send out a business letter, a statement or a quotation. It’s handy for the recipients to slot it into their card file.

5. Promote your website: Besides having your e-mail address printed, be sure to include your website address.

6. Business to business: Place you business cards at various business outlets is one way to promote your business - restaurants, hotels, stores, shops...

7. Jot down vital information: Your business card comes in handy when people ask you for certain information that your can write it down on your business card and give it away. They will definitely remember you for your help.

Your business cards are such wonderful marketing tools. Do not let them sit idly on your desk.

Enzymes, Food and Cancer

What can enzymes do for you?

Digestive Enzymes help digest large food molecules into simple forms and deliver nutrients into the body. Enzymes carry away toxic wastes and purify the blood. They also deliver hormones by feeding and fortifying the endocrine system, balance cholesterol and triglyceride levels and feed the brain. All these factors contribute to the strengthening of the immune system.


The food that you eat makes enzymes overwork at the wrong place

Enzymes naturally occur in all raw and fresh foods and they support the body during the digestive process. When we eat cooked and highly processed foods there are no enzymes within the foods and your immune system drastically has to lower its performance and moves its enzyme into the digestive system.


Things that destroy the enzymes in the body

There are things that destroy or reduce the quality of the enzymes in our body.

Food additives
Pesticides
Alcohol
Coffee
Second-hand smoke
Stress
Accidents
Diseases


The danger sign of cancer

With all the years of eating cooked and difficult-to-digest foods the body becomes more and more acidic, therefore slowing down the activity of enzymes because they react negatively to variations of ph levels. Remember this: for all cancer sufferers their body is always acidic.


What you can do

There is a very simple solution. Eat more raw and fresh food and less cooked and highly processed foods. To prove the point primitive Eskimos eat raw meat and uncooked fish, yet they show no sign of circulatory disease. Uncooked meats contain high level of lipase, the enzyme that breaks down fat in the bloodstream and keeps it from clogging arteries. In a study conducted by Dr. Francis Pottinger over a period of 10 years he took 2 sets of cats and fed them only raw milk and raw meat. And he took 3 more sets of cats and fed them with cooked meat and pasteurized milk. The cats eating the raw food were disease free and healthy generation after generation but not the cats that eat cooked and processed foods.


Conclusion

Eating the right kind of food will lessen the strain on your enzymes as their main function is to fortify your immune system. Eating the wrong kind of food will make your enzymes work harder on food digestion and less on your immune system. In the end your body becomes more and more acidic – getting cancer is the only end result.

Engaging New Staff - 3 Vetting and Screening Tips

When you are happy and satisfied to employ someone after an interview, take one step further to do a proper vetting and screening before you send out the appointment letter.

Failure to do so will incur the following consequences:

• Employee fraud
• Damage to company’s image
• Possible litigation
• Theft of vital business information
• High cost of staff turnover

Here are the three tips:

1. Check and verify original personal identification document and other documents: When a potential employee cannot produce his or her original personal identification card you should be suspicious especially when there is no police report lodged for the missing identity card.

2. Reference checks: Check all references with all his or her previous employers to ensue that the information supplied matches with actual history. Ask the former employer why the candidate left the company. Ask for his or her strengths at work and working habits. It is also a good idea to check the candidate’s financial status.

3. Refer to the police: It is to make sure that you are not hiring someone with a criminal record with the police department.

Proper employee vetting is essential to avoid potential disaster in the company,

Resume - 10 Top Writing Tips

In order to get an interview you need to write a persuasive resume to get pass the gatekeeper, that is, the HR department. Here are the top 10 tips:

1. Keep it short, clear and concise: The HR department has no time for lengthy resume. Go straight to the point and provide relevant and essential information on one to two pages.

2. What can you do? Your experience and qualifications are fine. But the employer wants to know what you can do for them. Identify their problems and show them how you can solve their problems in the position that you are applying for.

3. Flawless writing on quality paper: Make you first impression count. Make it a perfect resume without grammar and spelling mistakes. No slang and jargon. Use fonts such as Times New Roman or Arial with12 points which are easy to read and print your resume on quality paper. Use bullet points to make life easier for someone who is reading your resume.

4. Vital information: Crucial information such as your contact number and related work experience should be on the front page. Dot not let the HR staff hunt high and low for it.

5. Covering letter: It would be better if you know the person who reads your resume so you can address him or her personally. The person will be pleased and impressed.

6. Key words and title: Like the title of an article, your heading will attract attention or it will land in the waste paper basket. It takes only a few seconds for the HR personnel to decide whether to proceed further or reject your application outright. Focus on the appropriate key words of the job that you are applying for. As an example: “Accounts Payable Clerk with 2 years experience” is better than just “Accounts clerk”.

7. Highlight your achievement: Instead of listing your duties and responsibilities emphasize your achievement at the workplace.

8. Match your experience with the job you are applying for: Tell the prospective employer how your experience can benefit them in the job that you are applying for. As an example, when you apply for the position of Accounts Manager you should mention that you will cut down the time necessary to come up with the monthly reports.

9. Tailor-made your resume: Don’t use a standard resume for every job application. One resume should be used exclusively to apply for a particular position.

10. Your traits and strengths: Highlight your strong points and avoid negative remarks about yourself. Sell yourself and project a receptive image.

A compelling resume will definitely impact and increase your chances of getting an interview.

Wish you good luck.

AeroSnap for Windows XP/Vista- Powerful and Useful Software

One of the new features of Windows 7 is Aero Snap. With this feature you can move Windows to the left, right or top screen. I find that the most useful part is that you can display two windows equally side by side. It is very convenient when you are working on two files.

This feature is also available to windows Vista and Windows XP. Thanks to AeroSnap.

It is a powerful software that allows you to resize, arrange or maximize your desktop windows with just drag’n’drop. Just drag a window to a side of your desktop to snap it or drag it to the top to maximize. When you drag it back to the last position, the last window size will be restored.

Watch the video to see the features of this software.

AeroSnap is free to download. Go to http://www.aerosnap.de/index_eng.htm.

However, it is in beta version.