LOST LUGGAGE TIPS

Last year my bags went missing when I arrived at Singapore. Fortunately I had taken some precautions which helped the airport customer services trace my luggage. This was the first time this had happened to me after many flights.

Make sure you put a label inside your bags with your home address and contact numbers. I also added a time line with all the flight numbers and dates.

Packing
You can get a lot more clothes in your bag if you roll them up and you will have much less creasing, for your nice outfits. Always take change of clothes and two days underwear in your hand baggage. Hotels have laundry or wash them yourself you can last a good while. Obviously you can buy some cheap clothes locally.

I put bright stickers on my cases to make them easy to spot on a busy luggage claim carousel.

Take photos of all your baggage. If you have a photo put flight number details on the back. Know the weight limits for your bags and weigh on bathroom scales to avoid embarrassment at check-in. Excess weight baggage can get expensive.

Make sure you keep the receipt for your bags you get at check-in. This will have a bar code on it which will help the airport staff to find your bags. KEEP COOL I was in a state of near panic!

Be polite with the staff, you are upset of course but they are trying to help you! You will have to fill a form in where you provide details of your hotel and forward journey. An email address is very useful if you don't have one get a free one like gmail or yahoo. Nearly all hotels have internet access these days.

My luggage finally turned up at my hotel after two days. I could have managed but my onward 3 week trip to Thailand, was so much better with all my stuff.

When back home, I sent an email thanking the customer services staff. Remember, they have a very difficult job handling abusive, upset people all day!

Perils & Risks Social Networking & Dating Scams

Most of us these days, have accounts with the large networks such as Facebook, Myspace. I recently corresponded with a lady for a month before realising all her photos were cloned from another person! It is easy to get sucked in.

In the world of finance it is called doing 'Due Dilligence' where you check and re-check the figures, does everything stack up with the deal. You must do the same ASL Age, Sex, Location! Proof of identity if you want to have a relationship with a person. Even if you don't want to meet a person, you want to know at least they are genuine! I spend a lot of time online and discovered the REAL persons profile completely by accident. She jumped out of the screen and hit me in the face BINGO!

Years ago, I got conned once out of £15 for a rail fare! In some ways it was a wakeup call and the BEST money I ever spent. Now I am ALWAYS on guard! You hear all the time of Bigamists and conmen & women using the internet to scam people.

Some of these scams are highly sophisticated. There are actual firms and groups of people in so called 'boiler rooms' sending out millions of emails everyday. They try and befriend people and then scam them. Lots of profiles on MySpace and Facebook are fakes known as bots. You can build up a large community quite quickly and sell them stuff. Men if you get a beautiful Russian lady writing to you, it is mostly likely a man working to a script! Some of the correspondence can go on for months! Some people will send thousands of pounds for airfare and Visas. If they trap 5% it is going to be VERY profitable.

There are a great many variations of these scams to get you hooked! One Tip. look at the email address does it look like a real or machine generated address? Copy & Paste into search in Yahoo and Google to see if it is a known scammer. There are lots of websites tracking these bad men and women who play on peoples fears, hopes, dreams, hearts and minds.

Finally, it sounds obvious but NEVER EVER send money (especially abroad), to someone you met on the internet, period!!!

CHOOSING A MORTGAGE

A house is the biggest purchase most of us will make. So sorting out a mortgage quite early on in the process of buying a home is most defiantly a priority. Having your mortgage ready to go will make a lot of difference when you are bidding on a property. Having a mortgage in place will signal to the seller that you are ready to move and serious about it too!
Most mortgage lenders will let you know that they are willing to offer you a mortgage up to a certain level as you start looking; this is called a mortgage in principal and will depend on your income? The application is finalised upon deciding which house you want to buy. However, it is still possible to sort it all out once your offer has been accepted.
The total amount of revenue you are allowed will depend on your income, who you are buying a home with (if you are buying a home alone then this is self explanatory,) a partner, friend or an associate. These factors will all contribute to the amount you can borrow. There are a number of ways to find a mortgage. The two best and well known ways are, Direct through a bank or building society, or a mortgage broker. These two ways can be done either, over the phone, on the internet and in person. As this is probably the largest purchase of your life, I do like to speak to someone face to face, this way you can ask as many questions as you see fit.
Some people feel save and more comfortable obtaining a mortgage from a high street name, and also find it convenient to have their mortgage with the same bank they have their other financial dealings with e.g. Direct debits and personal accounts. Alternatively, going through a mortgage broker does ensure you get a choice of a wider range of mortgage products and deals. Always be absolutely clear of what charges they will make for their services.

SELLING YOUR HOME QUICKLY

Selling Your Home Quickly - Mortgages - The Complete Guide: "Do you have a new job that requires you to move to a new home? Has a divorce or death required you to liquidate your home as soon as possible? Or have bad times turned worse and the only hope of rescuing the investment you've made in your home is to sell it before the bank forecloses on it?
When changes happen in your life - for good or bad - you may have to face the need to sell your home and sell it quick.
If you need to move you probably don't want the anxiety or cost of trying to sell from another town while your home stays empty and unprotected. You may also not want the burden of the cost of paying for two mortgages and utilities for any length of time.
WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF MY HOME DOESN'T SELL?
Let's face it, there are times when the best thing that could happen to you is for your home to sell quickly. The cost and burden of having your home sit on the market for weeks and even months means more money wasted and energy spent.
If you live in your home while selling it you will be faced with the constant distraction of potential buyers coming to view your home. You will need to suffer the irritation of strangers looking into your closets and personal space. You will have the burden of maintaining a spotless home that will show beautifully even on short notice. If you have children that will be even more difficult.
Along with that you may find your realtor is busy with so many properties that your home is not given enough attention. Potential buyers may be picky about the negotiating details, critical of your home and deals may fall through at the last minute meaning you must start again. The process can be long, tiring and frustrating. 

HOW TO PRICE YOUR PROPERTY

A house properly priced is half sold.
But there are plenty of ways to price it improperly..

* You can't go by what you paid for the place. Perhaps you bought two years ago when local prices were skyrocketing, and things have cooled off since. Perhaps houses like yours can now be bought for less, and if you hold out for what you paid, you'll just waste your time..

On the other hand, perhaps prices in your area have taken off, and you'd short-change yourself if you just tried to 'get my money out' (but you'd have a fast sale.).

* You can't go by how much you've spent on improvements. A given street will support only a given price range. If you've invested so much that yours would be the most expensive house on the street, the buying public is not likely to reimburse you..

* You can't go by your tax assessment figure. Even in communities that aim at full-value assessments, the figures are almost never in line with what buyers are currently ready to pay..

So how do you price your house?.
By putting yourself in a buyer's shoes..
What else is for sale in the area? How does it compare with your house? How long has it been on the market? What has sold recently, and how much did the buying public value it at? What has failed to sell in the past year?. "

INTERNET MARKETING

Have you ever been lost in the woods - wondering around aimlessly, not knowing where to go or
what to do next?
Most online marketers are lost in the woods of the internet.
So if you want to get out of the woods and be an online marketer, you better start thinking strategically! That is, you need to practice strategic internet marketing techniques.
You're probably asking, what are strategic internet marketing techniques?
Let me start by telling you what it is not!
Strategic internet marketing is not buying 100,000 guaranteed hits.
It is not aimlessly placing banner ads all over the internet. It is not about using free classified ads and it is certainly not about depending on surfing for traffic sites.

Strategic internet marketing is simply about having an advertising PLAN that utilizes proven marketing tactics to get high converting results. Every promotion must have a purpose and it is critical to track the results of each and every advertisement.
Tracking is vital to finding ads that are successful and more importantly finding those that are NOT. Ads that do not perform need to be thrown out and those that do convert need to be rolled out on a larger scale.
If you are going to be serious about marketing online then you have to get serious about tracking your marketing methods. I will only say this once, if you do not track the results of your advertising methods you might as well throw your money out the window of a moving vehicle.
Now, that you know the importance of tracking your ads, let's talk about marketing techniques that work! To make a living marketing on the internet, you need to use these methods. If you don't, you will join the long list of people that say you can't make any money selling on the internet.
Below I have listed some of the marketing techniques I have used to build a profitable online business from the ground up:
Pay per Click Advertising - For the fastest and most predictable results Pay per Click can't be beat. If done properly, you can get immediate traffic that is laser targeted and high converting.
Write and Submit Articles - This is one of my favorite marketing techniques because it does two things for you. The first is that it builds credibility for you and your web site. Second, it is a tremendous way to drive tons of targeted traffic to your site for free. You don't have to be Hemingway, your articles just need to be informative and have very few grammatical errors.
Start Your Own Ezine - This is probably the most powerful marketing tactic on the web today. Having your own list of subscribers to send a newsletter to on a regular basis is powerful! I would much rather obtain a new subscriber over a single hit to my web site.
Banner Ads - Banner ads can be extremely successful and are a very cost effective way to drive traffic to your site. The most effective banner ads are text rather than graphics. Write a compelling ad that forces them to click, and this technique can provide you lots of sales.
Viral Marketing - Give something away that people can use and put links to your web site in it. Information is a powerful tool in marketing. Allow them to share it with their friends and family. Before you know, you will be getting a stampede of traffic to your site.
Linking - Reciprocal linking is critical to your online success. This is a time consuming tactic but it is well worth your time and effort. Search engines judge the importance of your web site by the number (and quality) of incoming links pointing to your site. By the way, writing articles is a great way to get high quality incoming links pointing to your site.
Ezine Ads - Purchasing ads in quality ezines is like doing joint ventures without sharing the profits. You need to identify ezines in your niche that you can run promotions in. This is an excellent way to get your ads in front of thousands of potential customers at an excellent value.
Search Engine Optimization - You need to make sure that your pages are fully optimized for the search engines. The cheapest and most targeted traffic you can receive still comes from high search engine rankings! Make sure your site is optimized and anchored to certain keywords that are relevant to your site.
If you will stick with these proven marketing strategies you will get more laser targeted traffic to your site than you know what to do with. You may even have to get more server space and buy a wheel barrow to get your deposits to the bank!
So forget about the gimmick marketing tactics that are all over the internet. Stick to what works! This list is not that long and online marketing is not that complicated. To be successful you need to implement proven marketing methods and have a strategic internet marketing plan. Make sure that every ad is tracked and that it has a definite purpose in your marketing plan.
So quit wondering around aimlessly in the woods and start thinking about marketing strategically!

INCREASE YOUR INTERNET SPEED

3 Easy Steps to Build a High Speed Internet Connection

First things first – you're no doubt here to have a Super Fast Internet Connection – and this guide will do exactly that for you. But the fun doesn't stop there, there are tons of more tweaks waiting for you here. Enjoy these goodies whilst you're here, and don't forget to bookmark this page with various Social Bookmarking sites if you like it.

                                                                                     

This method works for DSL or Cable connections only.

Step 1: Modifying your LAN Properties.

a) Go to Start>Network Connections.

b) Right Click>Properties on your main Internet connection.

c) Make the following changes: [Unselect everything except "Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)"

Step 2: Running Lvllords Patch.
In Win XP SP 1, TCP connections were set to unlimited. However, Microsoft limited these connections to 10 in SP2. You can open more TCP connections and give your speed an all time high by following these steps:

a) Extract the patch and run it:

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b) Press "C" to change the limit and set it to 100.

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c) Press "Y". After you do that, you'll be prompted with a Windows XP message saying that your original files are being replaced and blah blah. Thats normal so DONT PANIC. Click "Ignore" or "Cancel" to that window, and press "Yes" after it asks for a confirmation.

d) You'll get a message that your patch was successfully executed. Exit and reboot your computer. Don't forget to Bookmark this page (Hit CTRL+D) so you can return once you've rebooted.


3) SG TCP Optimizer - using it!

Back already? Cool! So, this is where you use SpeedGuide's TCP Optimizer. How? Its your lucky day, my friend.

a) This program modifies your system registry (Nothing to worry about!) in order to boost your Internet speed. Here's what you have to do:

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b) Choose your connection speed - mine is 256 kbps. Go down and select "Optimal Settings". Click on Apply changes after that. You'll be promoted with a box somewhat like this after that:

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c) Click OK, and click "Yes" to reboot your computer. Thats all you need to have a full-on High Speed Internet Connection! Enjoy browsing, and don't forget to check out other tweaks & tricks present on this site. (Hint: Bookmark this page in order to make an easy comeback).

Congratulations, you're done. Start browsing and you'll notice a considerable change in your connection speed. Whilst you're here, you may want to check other guides available here: