Let’s assume you’ve just completed an extensive landscaping project. You spent a lot of time planning and now its finished and you want to just sit back and enjoy. But, as the daylight fades, you start to lose sight of it all. You think, wow, there’s got to be a way to enjoy this after dark. You think, maybe some type of lighting, but what. You think that you hate to have wires hanging over your newly designed space, and you hate to think about digging up your new sod just to put in wires. You think, even after the lights are in, and what if they don’t give you the effect you wanted. The solution to this is to add solar lights.

Solar Lights come in many different styles, shapes, material, colors and designs. There are solar lights that would enhance any landscape. There are price ranges from very modest to very expensive. You just have to decide they budget you want and start shopping.

There are solar lights that will allow you to light up things like trees, shrubs, fences, or even house numbers or flag poles. These types are often spotlights and can be places anywhere and moved easily till you get the right effect.

There are solar rock lights that can be added to your rock garden to illuminate your different rock collections and design. Solar rock lights are spotlights and can also be used where that type of lighting is needed.

There is solar rock stepping stone lights. These lights come in 10 - 12 inch square or round shapes. They have a solar light in the middle of the stone and allow a walkway to be illuminated at night. Imagine taking a stroll at midnight under the glow of the moon and finding your way to the far reaches of you yard using the glow of these stepping-stones.

There are a variety of solar landscape lights that can line a pathway or just line the perimeter of a flower garden or rock garden as was mentioned before. These come in a large selection of styles, shapes and colors. Some of them even illuminate in different colors.

If that isn’t enough, there are different solar novelty lights that come in a variety of animal and amphibian shapes. To mention a few; there are dog figures holding a solar lantern, a frog spot light, an owl with a solar spot light, or a gnome holding a spot light or lantern.

There are so many different types of solar lights available that you will never need to leave your yard or patio in the dark again. Just use your imagination and watch your space become an after dark wonderland.

Key words: solar lights, solar landscape lights, solar patio lights, solar security lights, solar novelty lights

Jerome Sturgeleski enjoys being outdoors and spending a lot of time in the back yard. He started a website selling solar lights and also writes articles about them. His website has many of the types of lights he writes about.
Source for solar lights, see href="http://www.solarlightspro.com">http://www.solarlightspro.com.

Its common knowledge that smoking is an addiction but how much do we actually know about it? There are over 4000 known chemicals found in cigarette smoke. one of these such chemicals is known as nicotine. Nicotine is known to be more addictive than many illegal drugs, making it very difficult for the user to stop.

Smoking is the leading preventable cause of death in the western world. In the USA, an estimated $80 billion is spent on medical costs relating to smoking illnesses.

Second hand Smoke

This is a mixture of smoke from the cigarette and the chemicals from the smokers lungs. many of these chemicals are known to cause cancer. It is known to cause lung cancer even in non smokers inhaling second hand smoke. less damaging symptoms of second hand smoking is irritation of the eyes, lungs, nose and throat. When inhaled through the lungs this can cause chest discomfort, difficulty in breathing, excess coughing and phlegm from the chest.

Children are most at danger of second hand smoke because their bodies are not fully developed. Their exposure to the chemicals within second hand smoke can invoke severe respiratory diseases and can hinder their lung development.

Although ventilation systems in the home can reduce the effects a little, it is not sufficient and children are still at the mercy of second hand smoke.

Statistics on the effects of smoking

Smoking causes 1 in 5 deaths in the USA

Each day, over 1100 Americans die from smoking related diseases.

Smokers are twice as likely to die of cancer than non smokers

Over 150,000 Americans contract lung cancer each year. The mortality rate is less than 10%.

170,000 more of the population suffer heart attacks as a direct result of the effects of smoking.

More than 50% of heavy smokers will die prematurely as a result of a smoking related decease.

80% of people with emphysema smoke cigarettes.

More than 2500 infants deaths are direct results of their smoking mothers.

More than 6 million people under the legal age use tobacco.

Children who smoke are 15 times more likely to use drugs.

Cigarettes are the leading cause of fire deaths in the USA

Tobacco is a bigger killer than Aids, drugs or alcohol abuse combined.

The dangers of nicotine

Nicotine is a drug found naturally in tobacco. It is known to be as addictive as heroin. Smokers are known to develop both physical and psychological dependencies to the effects of nicotine.

Nicotine is inhaled deep into the lungs and is rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream. Then it is carried throughout the other body organs. Nicotine traces can be found in breast milk and in the placenta and umbilical chord of newborn babies.

Nicotine produces a happy feeling when doses are increased which induces the smokes to smoke more. After a while the body develops an tolerance to nicotine. Eventually the smoker will be smoking just to cope with the physically withdrawal symptoms of nicotine and to relieve their psychological dependency.

Nicotine is a poison and makes the heart work harder. It can cause circulatory problems within the body, restricting the blood flow which can result in hypertension to the addicted smoker.

The longer someone smokes, the higher their tolerance and the more difficult it is to quit. Attempts to stop are often beaten by the withdrawals symptoms chapping away at their will power.

Luckily smoking is commonly known to be detrimental to health in the long term and their are competent courses out there to help fight this addiction.

For more information go to

http://3d-pkr.com/quit-smoking-today.html

For a comprehensive guide to curb you habit.

Lori is a cartoonist and longtime winner at online poker. Having beaten the games for over five years, Lori now hopes to give something back to the game by sharing some of her winning poker strategies. You can see the full collection of Lori’s strategy articles with a combined collection of images and animation at her personal poker site with a unique twist

http://www.3d-pkr.com

When a marriage breaks up, often a battle starts, when my marriage broke up I wish someone had written this article for me to read. I hope you find it very helpful.

Your child is not a piece of furniture

Hearts are torn apart and unforgiveness rules in the hearts of every couple that separate and move toward divorce. In my case their were no assets to split up, all I knew was I was a father and I wanted equal custody of my child. But going to lawyers and courts to fight over a child like a piece of furniture is simply not the right thing to do.

Sure you can spilt the assets, the house the cars, all of the assets but a child has two arms and it really hurts a child when one parent is pulling on each of his arms in an emotional tug of war.

Better just to let your wife have her way.

Your child can feel the tension

At four years of age my wife was treating me really bad. I was just a few weeks from my first nervous breakdown and the onset of my mental illness. My son was being used as a messenger between two silly adults that were intent on hurting each other. One day my son let me know as I made a move not to fight or react to what my wife had done, saying “You’re the winner dad!”

,Our children feel the tension. Elijah house ministries has an excellent DVD on the damage that can be done to young children even from within the womb. It had me in tears. If an unborn baby can make life affecting decisions in the womb, what more our children.

When my wife finally re- married and said I could not see my son anymore, I backed away silently and did not fight for my right. It’s been eight years now since I have seen my son and this year he turns sixteen. Who knows if he types in my full name in Google he might be able to read my articles years before he meets me.

Don’t give you child tension.

If you’re hurting the child’s parent your hurting the child,

One day when my child Brandyn was eight years of age I had finally had enough of what his mother was doing to me and I told him I was going to get her back. My son started to cry and as I saw him cry I asked urgently what was the matter.

“I know mum hurts you dad. But you can’t hurt my mum. She’s my mum,” he said as another tear tricked down his cheek.

We as adults act as children. Fighting and fighting. One of us need to grow up and turn the other cheek and forgive. The child needs to know that even if you don’t live with their parent that you still love them and respect them. You have already broken a child’s heart when you separated and divorced, don’t add to it by attacking your former spouse.

If you want joint custody make sure you contribute equally

Many males are slack on child payments. You want your former partner to look favorably on you make sure your cash goes to her to support the child that you fathered. You want equal time be sure to help buy the clothes and buy the books for school and help with birthday parties. You may think your wife is a villain but they can be worse if you don’t pay your way.

You want equal custody, make sure you have it from the first week

If found out after eighteen months of having an Interim agreement of seeing my son one weekend a fortnight up till the time the matter came to court that a precedent had been set and the judge did not want to increase my access. They saw my child was settled in the Interim agreement and they were not willing as a court to disturb it.

So if you are a male and you want to see your child three days a week, make sure you start that in the first few weeks right through to the court case and this will most likely be passed in court. I did not know this when I was divorced and I found out when it was all too late.

A female lawyer won’t tell you about this. Mine didn’t. She advised me to do the once very two week access till court so as not to make waves. Her advice cost me dearly.

Of course if you don’t want to fight over your child like I suggest, this last point won’t be relevant.

Be blessed.

Let me pray

Father

I pray that you might bring your peace to this person life and that they might take some of these lessons on board and have a more constructive custody arrangement. Be with them through the tears and bring good hearted people with the right advice into their life.

In Jesus name I ask

Amen

Matthew is one of two people that operate a site at http://www.escapeministries.net Escape ministries is a place where people can be ministered to over the internet, by reading articles, watching videos and receiving personal prophetic words. James and Matthew invite you to visit today to look at some of the articles they have collected and watch some of the video teachings they are setting about to produce for you. You are encouraged to sign up for our monthly newsletter or simply email James or Matthew with any of your comments. We hope that you might bookmark it and come back to visit often as we pursue our mission statement that is found on our home page.

You can visit and view their video’s live at youtube by going direct to http://www.youtube.com/EscapeMinistries

You’re all psyched up, upbeat and excited about your new workout regime. Last week, you hit the gym three times and even managed to put in some extra, light cardio at home during two other days.

Wow! You can’t wait to see your body taking shape over the next few weeks. And if you continue like this, there’s no reason it won’t work right?

This may be true until the following week comes along. On Tuesday, you get this important task you just have to get done that just happens to fall right smack at the same time you were planning to workout.

Ooh, you have to skip that workout!

This really ticks me off the most.

I mean, I’d be in some late meetings at the office that usually last for an hour but, this one just went on and on.

So I leave the office physically exhausted and at an emotional low (darn I hate long meetings!), and to top it all off, I am forced to miss my scheduled workout that day.

Ok, so how do you deal with this?

In all honesty, it isn’t easy for me to deal with these set-backs.

By missing my scheduled workouts, a lot of negative things happen to me like missing meals, sleep loss and having a generally foul disposition.

Since I didn’t want these things happening again, I managed to research three simple solutions to help me avoid a similar problem in the future.

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1) Plan Some Redundancy Into Your Workouts:

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Let’s say you usually do cardio on Mondays and Wednesdays and strength training on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Now it just so happens that you can’t make Tuesday’s scheduled strength training. (groan) Another long meeting!

Can you do some cardio instead and shift it to another day? Maybe at home and like, on a Friday?

Sounds obvious right?

Well, I’ve seen many people abandon their workouts that day and wait for next week. What if something else comes along next week? If the same thing happens again, then they’ve skipped two workout sessions.

Instead, treat your workouts like appointments. Give it serious though when scheduling… give it some priority (compared to things like grocery shopping, watching TV, etc.)

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2) Have Some Guaranteed Time:

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For example, I try to put in at least one strength training session during weekends plus one cardio.

Unless something really urgent comes up, I know for sure that I can be faithful to my workouts. The best part is that by doing so, I’ve already taken care of a big chunk of my workouts even before the week starts.

So now it’s less pressure mentally, plus I got more room to move my workouts on other days (as explained in (1) above).

So, ask yourself these questions: are there certain days (and times) of the week where you’re almost certain you can fit your workouts in? Is the place you train in (e.g. your health club) not crowded at those times?

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3) The Mini-workout Alternative:

== == == == == == == == == == == == ==

So your workout’s been delayed today… but you’ve still got 30 minutes remaining (instead of that 1 hour you initially planned for).

Could you do a quick workout instead of just passing it off?

Let’s say you were planning two sets of exercises for your shoulders, two for your arms and some abs workouts. Don’t simply abandon your whole workout because you can’t do the full set.

Why not do one set for your shoulders, one for your arms and one for your abs.

These cut-down versions of your exercise routine will still benefit you. Those 30 minutes are definitely better than none. Don’t let it go.

Just avoid getting into the same kind of situation every other day (save this for those rare unavoidable circumstances).

After removing those excess pounds, you have to have a routine for maintenance. To establish a routine, you have to make it a habit to always perform your workouts on time.

Once the habit grows, then it really becomes a part of your life.

Mohamed Jamal is founder of FunLadyFitness.com an exciting
resource for women interested in boosting their body toning
efforts… plus, simple tips and downloadable special reports that
could enhance your next workout.

Visit http://funladyfitness.com to see the latest special reports and tips.

Fitness ball exercises are not to be confused with medicine ball exercises. Fitness balls, also know as Swiss balls, are much bigger and much lighter. Unlike medicine ball exercises which primarily consist of needing two people, fitness ball exercises can be done alone at any time, almost anywhere.

The main discipline in fitness ball exercises is aimed at the core muscle group. Areas like abdominal muscles and the lower back muscles are the primary target. Many people are often looking for ways to enhance the look and feel of their abdominal muscles, but I believe that one of the areas lacking most in terms of health is the lower back. How many times have you felt that pain in your lower back at work in the office chair or in the car on the way home.

The fitness ball is an inexpensive alternative to increasing the overall strength of your core muscles
without spending hours upon hours at the gym. The typical workout will be anywhere from twenty to thirty minutes and done two to three days a week.

When getting started there are various different difficulty levels. Beginners should use a softer ball when just getting started. Softer balls make for easier exercises, but once it becomes routine, you can then move up to the next level. You’ll notice that when you first use a fitness ball, is just how unsteady they are. When applying your exercises, the muscles you use in order to maintain your stability will be the ones you are focusing on depending on your workout.

As with any exercise program, you want to make sure you do some stretching before you begin your workout. This especially goes for those who have not exercised in a while and are not in the best physical condition.

Fitness ball exercises are great for those who don’t have a lot of time to go to the gym, but still would like to do something to try and get in a little better shape. And although you can do them at work, I wouldn’t recommend it. Picture yourself wedging a ball in between you and a wall. You start to move ferociously up and down while on your lunch break when your attention starts to move elsewhere.
You look over to see your coworkers trying to muscle down that greasy hamburger they’re having for lunch, all the while staring at you in amazement.

On the brighter side of it, you can do them quite comfortably at home in private. And the good part about fitness ball exercises is that you don’t necessarily have to sacrifice your TV time to do it.
Just set yourself up in a open area, and do your workout to your favorite half-hour television show.

So if you’re looking for an easy exercise regimen and don’t have the time to go to the gym. Give a fitness ball a try. They’re much cheaper than a home exercise station. So if six months from now you decide it’s not for you, you won’t have to keep looking at that gaudy piece of metal in the corner of your garage wishing you never would have spent all that money on something that got so little use.

You got the fitness ball …. you got the outfit… Now you’re wondering what to do next
To learn what exercises to actually put that ball to work Go Here!

Everyone is a writer. Writing is the basis of all wealth, as my mentor says. You need to be writing (something) every single day. You can’t keep all that stuff bottled up inside. It’s not good for you. Write, write, write.

Everyone is in marketing. Your words, actions, emails and conversations are either supporting or refuting your brand. Everyone in your company is responsible for marketing your company.

Everyone is in sales. Because people buy people first. Because people aren’t loyal to companies, they’re loyal to people. Because it doesn’t matter what product or service you sell, customers buy YOU before anything.

Everyone is the CEO (of You, Inc.). Tom Peters was the first to coin this phrase. It’s been around for a good 10 years now. There are books written about it, articles explaining it, even experts who can show you how to do it. It’s no longer a fad. It’s just the way it is.

Everyone has a voice. God bless the Internet! With the advent of blogs, social networking and other virtual soapboxes, there’s no excuse for not having a forum to voice your opinion. If you want to say something, say it. Odds are, with the potential audience of billions of people, somebody’s gonna hear it.

Everyone has customers. Sure, you can call ‘em whatever you want. Clients. Members. Congregants. Children. Students. Employees. Audience members. Readers. Subscribers. Either way, everyone has customers. And customers are two things: 1) People that BUY (your products, your ideas, you as a person) and 2) People that YOU SERVE.

Everyone is a leader. I don’t know much about being a leader. But I get the feeling that just about anybody within a company or organization can be one. I once heard leadership defined by author Meg Wheatley as, “Anyone who is willing to help.” That’s you!

Everyone is a manager. Even if you’re not the manager of a team, group, staff, etc., you’re still the manager of your time, life, family, priorities, choices, health, blah blah blah. Thank you, Steven Covey.

Everyone is an artist. OK, so you don’t paint. Or sing. Or create any other type of artsy fartsy stuff. Big deal! You’re still creating some kind of art every day. Hell, your life is one big work of art! And similar to the word “love,” art is pretty much impossible to define. So, whatever art means to you, just remember that 1) Everyone is an artist, and 2) Let the definition of art be decided by those who make it.

© 2007 All Rights Reserved.
Scott Ginsberg, aka “The Nametag Guy,” is the internationally recognized author of three books and a professional speaker who helps businesspeople make a name for themselves - one conversation at a time. To book Scott for your next association meeting, conference or corporate event, contact HELLO, my name is Scott! at 314/256-1800 or email scott@hellomynameisscott.com

When blacks arrived in the New World over 400 years ago, they quickly learned to devalue the color of their skin, their eyes, and the texture of their hair. Clearly in this New World, white skin was synonymous with beauty and prestige, and those blacks lucky enough to closely resemble the slave master were given jobs in the big house as cooks and menservants, while their darker skinned counterparts were consigned to the fields. This division of work along color lines gave birth to a de-facto caste system, the vestiges of which have survived today.

In the South, where the effects of this caste system were most evident, lighter skinned Blacks enjoyed higher levels of education, resulting in greater social status and financial rewards. Lighter Blacks also experienced better relationships with Whites, who viewed them as less threatening than darker Blacks. Fully aware of the advantages of light skin, fair blacks frequently married those of the same skin color, and in subsequent generations, forbade their children to marry dark complexioned Blacks. If fair skinned enough, blacks could “pass,” or move unnoticed into white society, thereby avoiding forever the social pitfalls blackness.

Of course no self respecting Black person would try to pass in this era. Though there is still a stigma attached to being Black, our progress in gaining political and socioeconomic parity has made the need to “pass” unneccessary. Not only that, but we have come to appreciate our African heritage, and at present are experiencing a resurgence of the Black pride movement that began in the mid-1960’s. Back then, blacks threw off the yolk of the dominant culture opting for an Afro-centric approach to their lives. All across the country, Black college students were demanding that African and African American history become a permanent part of the curriculum, tossing out their pressing combs and bleaching cream and adopting natural hairstyles while celebrating the beauty of darker skin. In the blink of an eye “Black power!” became the rallying cry of the day.

Unfortunately that swelling of ethnic pride had subsided by the 1980’s and its seeming re-birth in the 90’s lacked the fire and vision that had defined its predecessor. With no discernible challenge to the values of the dominate culture, Black Pride circa 1990 emerged as little more than a commodity, commercially packaged and exploited for mass consumption. Poorly rendered portraits of great African and African American leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, abounded in K-marts and on street corners. Leather necklaces fashioned in the shape of the African continent decorated the necks of black teens while the likeness of Malcolm X graced everything from T-shirts to baseball caps. The traditional clothing of Africa, worn with such pride over twenty five years ago, was usurped by Madison Avenue to satisfy the public’s craze for ethnic clothing.

Fast forward to the new millennium. Once again wearing one’s hair natural is frowned upon except in the entertainment industry and certain counter cultural circles; and the chemical relaxer, ironically bearing such names as Dark and Lovely and African Pride, has become the millennial version of the pressing comb. Even bleaching cream, now euphemistically referred to as skin evener, is back. The smiling blonde ideal continues to influence and define the physical perceptions of Black Americans years after we supposedly shook her influence for good.

But there is another image driving Black self-hatred, an image which is perhaps the most insidious of all. Of course this woman’s face is also a fantasy, an ideal thrust upon us by the dominant culture. Her face is supposed to represent Blacks, but in reality she is something in between. This woman is very light skinned, her hair is long, brown and loosely curled, her eyes often hazel or green. Like most media images this one is non-representative, but it exists because it puts White America more at ease. The harm in such an image is its ubiquitousness in a medium with incredible influence over so many young Blacks. The message of such an image is obvious and culturally tragic. Because of it, many of us endlessly straighten our hair, bleach our skins, mutilate our African features and wear colored contact lenses, effectively denying our cultural identity. We demean ourselves by accepting a beauty standard imposed upon us for the twin purposes of dividing our people and assuring that we remain second class citizens, if only in our minds.

Not to say that Blacks born with more Caucasoid features are somehow less black or that those of us who chose to straighten our hair are ignorant of or ashamed of their African identity. The argument isn’t about who is black or who is not. There is far more at stake than this simple statement. At stake is our universal identity as a people. For who are we truly if we continue to allow ourselves to be defined by a culture that often refused to recognize us as full citizens? Who are we if we continue to allow such a culture to define us in a way that negatively affects the self esteem of our children and sometimes our own?

I think about my youngest sister, who is not bi-racial, but for all the world appears to be. She is a lovely young lady with tawny skin, hazel eyes and wavy, chocolate-brown hair. How often I have heard other blacks praise hair like hers as being good while in the same breath deriding the woolly textured hair more prevalent among us as “nappy”, “kinky”, and even plain “bad”. In truth there is nothing intrinsically beautiful nor superior in straight or woolly hair, in light or dark skin in blue or brown eyes. Racial phenotype, the major physical differences found among the “races” are nothing more than climatic adaptations, much like the white coats of arctic animals. The beauty in one’s racial features derives from the recognition that they are one’s own. Each of us should take pride in how we look. Whites and Asians certainly do, why don’t we?

Black people come in a rainbow of skin colors, ranging from fair ivory to deep ebony, and our hair textures vary from bone straight to woolly. We should celebrate all of our beautiful variances, and we, not some European standard, should and indeed must, define our outer beauty. If we cannot define who we are, what we are, and how we should look, we will forever remain victims of the worst type of slavery.

Lynnel A. Hampton is a native of Seattle, Washington, and a graduate of the University of Washington. She holds a BA in English with creative writing emphasis and is currently pursuing an MBA in Marketing.

She is a past winner of The University of Washington’s Annual Black History Month Essay Contest and currently works as a Marketing Communications Specialist in Kent, WA.

Are you considering adding a newsletter to your website but need some newsletter writing tips to get you started?

Do you have concerns like: How much of my time is this going to take up? How long should each email be and how many emails should I send out in total? What if I no longer have anything relevant to say? Can I keep up the quality of my newsletter over a certain length of time?

The first thing that you must remember is to always offer some interesting and useful information. You will no longer have any subscribers if you do not. Next, you will want your newsletter to remain fairly short. These days, people are inundated with emails, so they will appreciate it if you send them something that they can quickly scan and then put to good use.

Put some thought into the best possible format for your emails. You will want a model that can be easily reproduced week after week. To make your job simplier, you can choose any one of the following newsletter writing tips as your standard format or you can combine them, whichever. The final choice is yours.

1.-Tip of the Week

Come up with at least 24 tips on your main topic. You could brainstorm a specific topic and get enough content for at least 6 months of weekly newsletters. When you focus on your area of expertise this should not be a problem. You will find it best to do this by (a) explaining the problem and then (b) offering a tip that will solve the problem. The length of each email should be from 150-500 words.

2.- Top Ten

This format is easy to create and it works. For example, if you are an expert in health and fitness you could give advice on the “Top Ten Health and Fitness Tips”,”Top Ten Tummy Flattening Techniques”, “Top Ten Weight Lose Tricks for 2007″. Be sure not to go over board with the word length, just a few sentences for each tip will be fine, not half the page.

3.-Three Ways to…

Finding ten ways to do things can sometimes be a little challenging. A quick newsletter tip is to provide only three tips instead; it is much simpler and can be alternated with the “Top Ten” format.

4.-Before and After

Just like the “Tip of the Week” format, this tip introduces a problem and then immediately provides a solution. The “before and after” format does however work better with case studies as this is one way of interacting directly with your clients.You can ask them to send in details of something in their possession that requires a makeover; such as a website page, an article, their wardrobe etc, and then you can present them with your solutions.

Or you can ask for “before and after” examples from your readers who have been able to do this themselves, and with their permission show them to your other subscribers. (If you are using text only format for your newsletter, then you can include a link to your website page which has the photos on it). This especially works well if your newsletter is related to health and fitness - the photos will motivate your readers when they see the changes of others through diet and exercise, even weight training.

5.-Checklists

Are you trying to learn something new? There is nothing quite like the checklist format to make sure that you do not leave out any steps along the way. Checklists can really save loads of time and your readers will appreciate getting one. All you will need to do is write a short introductory paragraph, make your list and then close with some final tips. You can base the whole of your newsletter on the checklist format, or you can just present one on occasion as a change from the regular newsletter format.

One final tip: You may want to set up a yahoo or gmail account just for your newsletters. Spend some time checking out websites related to your interests, and subscribe to their newsletters. Occasionally, check your emails and study what layout other editors are using. If you see a specific format that you like, print it out and put it in an “ideas” folder. Just unsubscribe from those that are only filled with never-ending sales pitches or junk.

Connie McKenzie is a full-time work at home mom who is dedicated to providing detailed information on various subjects including working from home. Discover how you can build a website, turn it into a profitable online business and work from home, watch the free video at => http://www.getqualityresults.com

“CMS” stands for “Content Management System.” Content management systems are software applications that record, store and categorize written material and images in order to make them easier to find, use later and combine.

If your company has a CEO, a technical writer, a marketing director, a human resources manager and a dozen other people all producing written content, then it won’t take long before nobody really knows what was written, by whom, when, or where it’s hidden away. In situations like that, most people sigh and start again from scratch - because the prospect of a little redundant work is less frightening than plunging into hundreds of half-forgotten documents looking for something that might not exist.

The result of this unenviable situation is known as the “Silo Effect” - when every department, and sometimes every member of every department creates a mass of content that exists in isolation from everybody else’s content. This lack of communication is hugely inefficient. Not only does it mean that people have to waste time replicating each other’s work, but it also results in patchwork, inconsistent final products. If a company’s written output varies wildly in tone, design and quality, that’s a good sign that they don’t have a CMS - and probably need one.

So how do content management systems eliminate the Silo Effect?

• They automatically identify who wrote what and when
• They track different versions of the same content
• They allow pieces of content to be broken up into “chunks” so that they can be re-used
• They can store those chunks in a common database that anyone can draw from
• They can set roles so that different users have different levels of authority in the system
• They can set rules and templates so that elements of design and style are kept consistent between writers

Content management systems are quickly becoming a key way that companies improve efficiency. They make certain that content is consistent and accessible by everybody. A good CMS means that nobody has to unknowingly duplicate somebody else’s work.

No system of software can generate content - we need humans for that. The genius of CMS’s is putting computers to work at what they do best; storing, tracking and retrieving information according to a logical system. If you want your company to spend more time writing new content and less time trying to figure out what they wrote last month or where they put it, then content management systems might be the answer for you.

Nigel Fogden is an English teacher and writer with 24 by 5 Tech Comm, a technical writing company that specializes in fast, high-quality writing and editing. For more articles on writing, technology and business, sign up for the 24 by 5 Tech Comm Newsletter at http://www.24by5.com and stop by our blog at http://www.24by5.com/wordpress/

Between 1948 and 1963 the silver half dollar was known as the Franklin Half Dollar and on one side could be seen a picture of Benjamin Franklin and on the reverse side was the Liberty Bell with a small eagle. At the time of it first being minted this coin was required to have a small eagle to the right of the Liberty Bell by law. But what is ironic is that Benjamin Franklin actually opposed the use of the eagle as the USA’s national symbol and would have preferred that they turkey (a more noble bird) was used instead.

Then in 1963 the coin was changed upon the death of John F Kennedy the president at that time he was assassinated. But what is the 1963 half dollar coin value and how is it calculated. But the value of this coin changed also because the value of silver had risen between 1962 and 1963 and as this coin contains such a high amount of silver compared to those that were minted in 1964 and onwards.

In the beginning the 1963 half dollar coin was being hoarded by many people for sentimental reasons (as a reminder of a US President who was truly loved) and also because they were the only precious metal US coin that remained in circulation at the time.

At present the 1963 half dollar coin is worth around $4.8141724190 and this relates to its rounded silver value. In order to reach this value a coin dealer will use the following equation. First they will need to get hold of the latest metal prices which at present are $13.31 an ounce for silver and $3.1256 an ounce for copper. They will then take the weight of the coin (12.5g) and convert the weight of the silver and copper within the coin in ounces. They then times the weight of the silver in the coin by the price of silver at the time and then times this by the weight of the coin and then times this finally by the percentage of silver that is contained within the coin and this will give you the final rounded silver value of the coin.

In order to arrive at the 1963 half dollar coin value if the half dollar were melted down, they need to use the same calculations shown above for the copper contained within the coin. Once you have the value of the copper held within the coin you then add this to the value of the silver and this provides the coin dealer with the 1963 half dollar coin melt value.

For more information on how to value coins using a coin value guide visit http://www.find-coins.com where will find useful tips, articles and resources to help you find old coins.