February 2023

Recordable DVD Primer

Picking your way through the ton of information available on recordabel, or DVD can be a nightmare. To help you out, we’ve done our best to distill it into this summary.
There are five recordable versions of DVD; DVD-R for General, DVD-R for Authoring, DVD-RAM, DVD-RW, and DVD+RW. None of the formats is fully compatible with the other although there are drives which will read,a nd in some cases write to more than one format.
DVD-R for General and DVD-R for Authoring are essentially DVD versions of CD-R. And DVD-RW is a DVD version of CD-RW. All three formats can be read in standard DVD-ROM drives and in most DVD video players. The difference between DVD-R for General and DVD-R for Authoring is that DVD-R for General is a format intended for widespread consumer use and doeasn’t support ‘professional’ features such as piracy protection or duplication in mass duplicators. The Pioneer DVD-RW drive which is the most popular PC device for writing to DVD uses the DVD for General format. And as as the case with CD, DVD-RW is essentially the same as DVD_R except that it can be erased and written to again and again.
DVD-RAM is slightly different as it is a sector based disc which mounts on the desktop of a PC when inserted into a drive. Files can then be copied to it in the same way as any other mounted media. Some single-sided DVD-RAM discs can be removed from their caddy and inserted in a DVD-ROM drive which will then be able to read the content of the disc. There are DVD video recorders which use the DVD-RAM format. This enables themn to pull off clever tricks like time shifting – where you can watch the beginning of a programme you have recorded while you are still recording the end on the same disc.
DVD+RW is the newest format and not supported by the DVD Forum (link), the body which sets the standards for DVD. However, it is supported by some of the biggest electronics and computer manufacturers, and is therefore likely to stick around. It is also the format used by Philips in its DVD video recorders (link). Despite not being authorised by the DVD Forum, DVD+RW is claimed by its supporterd to be compatible with more DVD video players than DVD-R and DVD+RW writers are found in PCS from quite a few manufacturers.

Five Steps to a Comfy Retirement

You’ve probably heard about the Nebraska meatpackers who won the largest lottery jackpot in the United States last week. One winner replied “I’ve been retired for about four days now” when asked what he would do with his winnings. His response did not surprise me; I’m sure my reaction would be similar!

What does surprise me is that many Americans believe that they cannot retire comfortably unless they win the lottery. A survey by the Consumer Federation of America shows that 27% of Americans believe that their best chance to gain $500,000 in their lifetime is to win a sweepstakes or lottery.

Fortunately, building a comfortable retirement nest egg is easier than you think. Here are five steps to help you build a comfortable retirement:

1. Start early! If you started saving $100 a month beginning at age 18, you would have over $500,000 by age 65. The power of compounding is great, and the earlier you start saving, the greater the benefit.

2. Have a plan. The best way to ensure that you will have a comfortable retirement is to plan how much you will need to retire. You can’t reach your destination if you don’t know where you’re going.

3. Participate in company sponsored retirement plans. Many companies offer matching contributions to your 401K or other retirement plan contributions. This is free money – take it!

4. Invest in a diversified portfolio of stocks and bonds, that fits your goals and risk tolerance. Studies show that your investment return is determined primarily by the allocation of your assets, not the individual investment selections you make.

5. Keep your costs down. Invest in no-load, low cost mutual funds (or other investments). Lowering the expenses in your portfolio by just 1% can equate to 20% more money in your portfolio after 20 years.

Although winning a large lottery certainly can’t hurt, following the steps above should send you well on your way to a comfortable retirement.

Inspire And Innovate

Water ski is practiced on waters and literally the
sport is in liquid form. You can mold it the way you
want it. The rules of the engagement are for fun and
safety.

No one stops another from trying to innovate. Once you
take to the sport, always remember that an individual
found it and promoted it. You could be the special one
who could make it better or even more spectacular.

Try out your permutation and combinations on the
flowing and still waters and hope for a new form.

The best portrait is always impersonated and not all
look bad, there are good impersonations too. In the
same way, water skiing has been branched and molded
into different types of adventurous, fun activities
and fortunately many of them have lived up to the
hype.

With its doors and seas open, the sport invites one
and all and embraces them the prime example being
World water skiing championships.

The disabled people too can enjoy the joys of this
game. Of course, the rules for participation of the
disabled are mentioned and understood. This is a sport
where the competition is primarily between you and
yourself. To compete with oneself as anyone would
vouch is the toughest thing to do.

When you do that, you not only do well in this sport,
but also add an impressive attribute to your
character. Sports not only thrill, but educate too.
So, when you take to skiing next time just don’t think
of it as a sport, but a tutor to learn from.

Download Free And Legal Mp3

Free music? Of course! But free and legal music? Yes, it’s possible. Everybody who has ever surfed the Net knows that music can be downloaded freely. Although there are many questionable sites that offer free music, you do not have to do anything illegal to find good music on the Web.

So, where can you download free and legal MP3? Below are some great sites where you can download good music without having to break the law.

Download Free and Legal MP3s at Amazon.com

Amazon.com may be best known for its books, but the site also features a Free Music Downloads section where you can download free and legal MP3s. The site offers music from different genres, including Alternative, Indie, Punk, Blues, Broadway, Children’s Music, Christian, Classical, Country, Dance, Folk, International, Jazz, Latin, New Age, Opera, Pop, Rap, Hip Hop, Rock, R&B, Soundtracks, and more. If you’re a musician or an artist, you can also upload your own MP3s here for free and let music lovers discover and experience your own brand of music.

Download Free and Legal MP3s at eMusic.com

Perhaps one of the best places to look for and purchase MP3s online is eMusic.com. This is because the site offers files that are not copy-protected, thus letting you download an unlimited number of songs to satisfy your music needs. The music may not come for free but for every new sign up, the site offers up to 50 files completely without charge.

Download Free and Legal MP3s at IUMA.com

IUMA is where you can find and download free and legal MP3s from famous, not-so-famous, and unsigned artists all over the world. If you’re into Indie music then this is the place for you. IUMA is mainly dedicated to bringing you music from undiscovered artists whom you should know about.

Download Free and Legal MP3s at GarageBand.com

GarageBand is where you can find the best Independent music from the most talented Indie artists. The site has recently partnered itself with MSN music to realize the Internet’s true potential in providing a means for both artists and music fans to connect and transform the music business.

Download Free and Legal MP3s at Download.com

CNET’s Download.com is one of the premier places where you can download free and legal MP3s. The site has one of the largest music archives on the Web so you can have your choice of music to suit your taste. At this site, you do not only hear the artist’s music, but you can also take a closer look on how their music came to be by reading artist’s bios and stories.

Download Free and Legal MP3s at AmpCast.com

Ampcast is another music site where you can download free and legal MP3s. Search through their entire archive for Independent artists or music from popular rock/pop groups. And if you don’t like to download anything, you also have the choice to feeds from the Ampcast Surreal Radio. The site also offers great music videos which you can watch through video streaming and community features such as forums and chatroom where you can talk with other music lovers or Ampcast artists about your favorite topic – music.

Ideas To Help You With Making A Decision About Automobile Insurance (2)

Ideas To Help You With Making A Decision About Automobile Insurance

With so many cars and trucks to choose from in the world, people are sometimes overwhelmed and fail to make the best decisions when it comes to being fiscally responsible. No one ever thinks of the long-term implications of their automobile plus the insurance. Get informed about insurance. Read these tips to help you out when purchasing.

You can also save a bunch on a premium by having your teenager share the family car instead of them owning their own. Also, make sure to inform your agent if your child makes any type of honor roll or if they move away to college. Both of these can qualify you for discounts with many companies.

If you do not have a vehicle yet, be sure to think about what the insurance premium will be for the type of car that you will buy. The type of car that you drive plays a great part in calculating your premium. Your insurance premium will be higher if you own a sports car or a car that is high in value.

If you have an older car that does not have a high value, remove the collision coverage from your insurance to save money. It is possible that your car is worth less than your deductible, so consider carefully whether or not collision coverage is actually going to pay anything in the event of an accident.

Just because one company offers the lowest rate does not mean it will be the best deal for you. Make sure the company has agents and adjusters in your area so that you can get the service you need if you ever have to actually use your insurance because of an accident.

Car insurance companies base their rates on events like cars being stolen. Installing alarms, trackers and/or immobilizers could lower your insurance rates more than you might think. The lower rates create a reduction in your insurance premium and with time the installations will more than pay for themselves.

Always have a new policy lined up before you cancel an insurance policy. Otherwise, you could end up with a lapse of coverage. Even a lapse of a single day can raise your car insurance rates significantly. The new company will be able to set up your policy to match up with cancellation of the old policy, so you don’t overpay.

A great tip for saving money on automobile insurance is to shop for, and purchase your policy online. It is common for insurers to provide discounts for internet customers, because it is less expensive for them to process an application received through their own website than it would be if purchasers were to consult with a live employee. In this way, it is possible for consumers to realize savings of between 5-10%.

Remember, insurance is something you need to approach with a sense of responsibility. It’s not only about your vehicle; it’s also about how that vehicle is insured. Use the tips you’ve just read here to make sure that you’re always getting the best possible deal on an auto insurance premium.

Hand Positions In Speed Reading

One of the most fascinating things about watching someone speed reading is the rate at which their hand glosses over the material they are reading. It moves so quickly and for the average reader, it seems as though it’s moving much too fast for the person to be absorbing any part of the text.

If you’ve always read at a natural speed, it might seem impossible to imagine that you could read several times faster. It might also seem unbelievable that you can adopt the principles behind speed reading without too much effort.

Speed reading is based on the principle that your mind absorbs the material that you read at a quicker rate than someone who reads at a normal pace. Normally we take our time reading each page of a book, trying to grasp the meaning of each word and how that word relates to not only the sentence it is in, but the paragraph as well.

For someone who speed reads, they are able to glance at the words and instead of concentrating on each and every single word; they see the words as blocks. They view the block of words and the meaning is absorbed.

There are different methods to speed reading, but the general idea remains common. That is, your eyes must quickly scan the text of the page. To do this you can use different techniques.

The most common of these techniques is to use your hand or your finger. This is typically what we associate with speed readers. Their hand moves remarkably quickly over the page; skimming line by line until they flip the next page to begin the process all over again. They need to do this so that their eyes can follow the text. When you are reading at a rapid rate, it is easy for your eyes to lose track of where you are on the page. By tracing an invisible line beneath the text, their eyes stay completely focused.

Another method that works the same way is to use a card or a straight edge, such as ruler. This keeps the reader’s eyes following the text. They aren’t tempted to skip ahead and miss words. Their concentration is focused on exactly what they are reading, and as they work through the page, the card or straight edge moves with them.

Concentration is one of the most important aspects in reading in general. It is much more important when a person is developing their speed reading skills. Anyone can implement this rule into their reading. Using either their finger or a card the eyes will follow the words of the text at a much quicker rate.

The next time you are reading give this a try and see the difference it makes. You’ll find yourself more focused on what you are reading and you won’t be tempted to skip ahead and miss words that are essential to comprehension. Small tricks like this can make a significant improvement in your reading speed.

The Right Marketing Tool For You

If you have a business to promote, you may want a marketing tool. But what is the best marketing tool for you? What marketing tool is widely used? Some of you may be asking what a marketing tool is. There are answers to these questions.
A marketing tool is something that a business uses to promote its product or service. This can be done through various means. But the main one is advertising (or marketing). A marketing tool can be any of the following: web design, SEO, photos or illustrations, autoresponders, and public relations.
The first marketing tool listed was web design. With a stunning web design, you can attract more people to your site. A web design that is easy to navigate also keeps people interested. It may also be memorable to keep them coming back.
The second marketing tool is SEO (search engine optimization). With search engine optimization you can guarantee that your site will be one of the first listed on a search engine. It does this by using link popularity and keyword popularity used in search engines. This will ensure more web traffic. In turn, this means more business.
The third marketing tool is photos or illustrations. If you have attractive photos or illustrations of your product or service, people will be more likely to purchase it. Get a professional to do this for you. The more photos or illustrations you have the better.
The fourth marketing tool is the use of an autoresponder. An autoresponder is a powerful marketing tool. It is used to automatically send out emails to people on your mailing list or to people who may have visited your sight. These automatic emails can list sales, promotions, or any other advertisement you’d like to have noticed to better promote your business.
The fifth and last marketing tool is public relations. Public relations are also a great marketing tool because it not only makes you look good, but it develops positive feedback of your business. This will in turn bring you more customers. Always build good rapport with your customers.
The best way to get different marketing tools is on the web. There are many sights that offer different marketing tools. They all vary in price from site to site. Most offer guaranteed results in a determined amount of time or they offer you a full refund. Some even offer a free trial period.
A marketing tool is the best way to promote you business. Using more than one marketing tool at a time will ensure even better results. Take your time and see which one is best suited for your business. If you can, try to use all 5!

Premium Bond and ERNIE

Premium bonds are bonds that do not pay interest. They do something much better. You purchase premium bonds and let it sit just like in a savings account. Each month there is a lottery and if your bond number is picked, then you have a chance to win over a million dollars. Over one and a half million cash prizes are given away each month and if your bond number is picked, you win from fifty British pounds to well over a million pounds. The great thing is if you do not want to participate in the program anymore you can take back your money like it was never invested at all. This program is so popular that over a third of the population of Great Britain participates in it.

Unlike the American lottery system where numbers are picked randomly from ping pong balls, Great Britain uses ERNIE to generate numbers from premium bonds. ERNIE is a random number generator hardware system and has been around since 1957. ERNIE first generated the bond numbers by picking up on signal noise from a bank of neon tubes. It was the size of a mini van and could only generate about 2000 numbers an hour. The first number generator lasted almost seventeen years and was replaced by an updated version in 1972.

The computer age came to age in the eighties and in 1988 ERNIE 3 was invented. The generator was about the size of a personal computer but ran at no where near the speed personal computers run today. It took ERNIE 3 almost six hours to generate the numbers for the monthly lottery. ERNIE 4 is being used today and it came of age in 2004. Working at speeds five hundred times as fast as the original model, ERNIE 4 uses thermal noise instead of the noise from neon lights. It can compute over a million numbers and hour

Once the numbers are generated, a staff of hundreds validates the generated numbers with real bond numbers that the numbers match. Once matched, prizes are allotted to the public. The machine is checked over monthly to ensure proper validation and to keep the system honest. With over a million and a half winners monthly, the machine keeps every thing running smoothly. The investments pay off as winners are awarded their prizes depending on the order that their premium bond number was generated.

ERNIE is so popular in Great Britain that the machine actually receives cards on holidays such as Christmas. Jethro Tull, a poetic singer and song writer even wrote mentions ERNIE in his song, “Thick as a Brick.” The magic of ERNIE and the thrill of lottery and a chance to win a million has the majority of the population of Britain investing more and more. The idea that your money can earn more than a mere one or two percent that savings accounts earn has the British public flocking to the bank to let ERNIE make them a million.

A New Life – A New Career

For many the idea of retirement comes with the automatic translation that it means that you will stop working is just not acceptable. For many, retirement from work is equivalent with no longer living. If you have been a productive worker all of your life and someone asked you what your dream retirement might look like, you might respond “to work” because you may be one of those people for whom work is what gives meaning and purpose to life.

It isn’t fair for us to impose the same standards of retirement on everyone. To say that to enjoy your golden years, you must take up fishing, start sleeping until noon, sit in a rocker and watch the day go by and gradually turn into a senior citizen would to many be the same as sentencing them to life in prison without parole. So for many it’s very possible that working would be the thing that would make your retirement meaningful.

Still others must continue to work into their retirement years because they did not or could not prepare for retirement. Whatever the situation, there are some adjustments that should be made to shift to a retirement career that you can continue to do well into your senior years.

You can get a running start on your retirement planning if you find that a career change is appropriate later in life. Many times we do find that the career we are in may either be changing so fast that it’s hard to keep up, it’s too physically demanding when you are older or in some other way that job has become a “young man’s game”. If that has happened to you, you can get a jump start on finding a career that you can stick with well into your retirement years, that career can be an income generator that might never go away.

It is not at all uncommon for men in their later years to start a new career. Perhaps you just want a career where you can use the creative side of you and one that can be a natural transition into retirement. Perhaps you reached the maximum vesting of your retirement account with a job you held for decades so you can “retire” from that job with full benefits and funding and still start another career that you can take on into retirement and keep doing as you enjoy the fruits of retirement as well.

Many times the skills and knowledge you learned in the business world during your first career can transition you into a lucrative consulting career late in life. One way to explore this option is to think of the venders who sold goods and services to you when you were in your previous career and contact them to see if you might now represent their services as a former satisfied customer. If you had specialized knowledge and training in how to use their software or a technical product, that training which your former employer paid for can now transition into an exciting career as a sales representative or sale support for the very companies who once had you as a customer.

The internet can also open up worlds of money making opportunities that you can use to land work or sell something you may have made by setting up your own web site and learning how to promote yourself online. Many cottage industries have taken off and been hugely successful just getting what you do out into cyberspace. For example, if you are talented at making beautiful artistic pottery, you can create a line of pots that is perfect for sale over the internet. You can work with a skilled internet web developer and marketer to get your product out on the internet and before long, you might have more orders than you know what to do with all flying out through your web site which is collecting the money and filling your back account up with all the profits.

The ways you can create a new business in your retirement years are only limited by your imagination. And once you have a good new career going that you can continue well into your retirement years, you won’t have many of the worries other retired people have. You can enjoy the freedoms of a retirement lifestyle and made plenty of money at the same time. And that’s a great combination.

Personal Mastery And Career

Personal mastery is not something that you can only to help you deal with stress and improve you confidence. Actually, it is possible to apply mastery into you career as well. There are numerous studies showing personal mastery to have impact on your everyday life as well as with working effectively.

Applying personal mastery in your career development is called career mastery. Career mastery is when you can integrate your personal development and growth to your professional growth and development.

There are different elements for career mastery.

• Being proactive. It is important to go after what you want. In the application of career mastery, you need to identify your goal and take necessary action towards it. With this element, you get to overcome barriers and limitations daily. You do not have to overcome everything at once, you just need to do consistent action everyday.
• Connect with others. To effectively connect with other people or network, you need to connect with yourself first. You get the power and the intelligence of connecting to other with how you understand and interact with the inner you.
• Getting informed. Being informed is not only concentrated on your existing job. There are people who are in search for other career options. When choosing other career options or job ideas, you need to know your options. And making the correct decision is all about gathering enough information.
• Being focused. When setting your goals, you need to make decisions on how you can attain them. The method for achieving your goal depends on your decisions. Which is why you need to keep your focus on making the decisions and directing your career.
• Know your potential. It is important to know your potential and your strengths and weaknesses. You get to take responsibility for your actions and would be able to figure what works for you when achieving your dream.

These elements are actually there to improve the individual’s behaviour and attitude. These basic elements can be applied whether you are working for an organization or self-employed. Even those who are facing career choices like college students and professionals who would like to change a career can apply career mastery to be able to develop. Executives and employees who would like to make some changes with their current organization also follow career mastery.

It is important to take charge with your career. You have to take the move yourself and not other people should discover or promote them for you. All throughout your career, the five elements of career mastery will keep on popping up. This is why it is essential for a successful person to be familiar with career mastery.

Basically, it goes down to the basic. Do something that you love. Successful people not only create and build their business just because for economic reasons, but because they love their business and their company.

But for some people, knowing what you want is not that easy. Sometimes what is logical and radical is confused with something that you want. According to Peter Senge, “ adults have little sense of real vision.” They may have goals and objectives in their lives but these are necessarily not their vision in life.

Achieving personal mastery with one skill and behaviour can produce remarkable results. Changing or shifting your career as a professional or an entrepreneur is not easy. You have to master yourself and your skills first before you start changing, otherwise changing careers would happen a lot or you would not be able to put your skill into maximum use.