Microsoft has begun a very unique marketing campaign aimed at students to help combat piracy and boost the sales revenue of Office 2007. The campaign, known as itsnotcheating aims to stop piracy among students by selling Office Ultimate 2007 at extremely low and affordable prices.

Selling for a price of only $75 Australian dollars for an unlimited license and $25 for a one year license, Microsoft is in effect offering a discount of 94% to students. Office Ultimate 2007 has a recommended retail price in Australia of $1175. The commencement of the offer also marks the first time that Microsoft is selling its software on a subscription-model, which we will no doubt see more of in the near future.

Those customers who purchased Office 20007 Home and Student Editions before the commencement of this offer have effectively wasted $174 and didn’t even receive Outlook. When this offer was approved by Microsoft it is highly likely that they knew they weren’t losing $1100 per copy. So if Microsoft can afford to sell Office Ultimate 2007 for only $75, how much is Office Ultimate 2007 really worth?

This offer has no doubt upset many of Microsoft’s retail partners. They have been left with no possible way to compete against a $75 Office Ultimate 2007, because Microsoft wholesales Home and Student Editions for more than that price. This is a serious blunder on Microsoft’s part as the retail partners are the ones who have spent thousands of dollars on advertising, promoting Home and Student Editions, only to lose their business to Microsoft themselves.

Microsoft has no doubt embarked in this marketing campaign out of complete desperation because of the large-scale piracy it endures, from within institutions like universities. High software prices have no doubt forced many students to seek alternatives to purchasing legitimate software. It remains to be seen if this marketing campaign will actually work by combating piracy and boosting Office 2007 sales.

Visit Tech Sphere for more articles.

Windows Vista Ultimate was marketed by Microsoft as the operating system of “choice for those who want to have it all”. But Microsoft has left out something very important from their “most complete edition of Windows Vista”: Extended Lifecycle Support.

While browsing Microsoft’s Support Lifecycle pages I observed some interesting oddities. According to the Windows Vista Ultimate Support Lifecycle page support ends on April 10, 2012, putting it in the same boat as Windows Vista Home Basic and Home Premium. On the contrary both Windows Vista Business and Enterprise receive Extended Support, which means five more years of support until April 11, 2017.

Support for consumer products ends after five years and have no Extended Support option, according to Microsoft’s Support Lifecycle Web page. It was always assumed that Windows Vista Ultimate, marketed by Microsoft as having the most consumer and corporate features, would be supported for more than five years. Microsoft currently offers Vista Ultimate to businesses for volume-licensing purchases.

The problem of limited support potentially creates numerous problems for small businesses looking for improved security. BitLocker Drive Encryption, which is extremely helpful in protecting sensitive data from theft, is available only in Vista Enterprise and Vista Ultimate. However, Vista Enterprise is available only through volume licensing purchases, which is very rarely utilised by small businesses.

The designated five years of Mainstream Support for Windows XP Home Edition and Media Centre Edition ended one month before the release of Windows Vista. However, Microsoft responded by extending its support for Windows XP for another five years up until April 8, 2014.

It is highly likely that Microsoft will bow to the increased pressure from customers to extend its support for Windows Vista Ultimate, much like they did with Windows XP.

An even more baffling contradiction is that the Microsoft Office product range is treated in a different way. The Office 2007 Support Lifecycle page, states that the Student and Home Editions will receive extended support right up until April 4, 2017. Even though these two editions are lower-end versions for consumers, they receive extended support just like their more expensive counterparts.

It seems Microsoft has decided that its ultimate version of Windows Vista, the “choice for those who want to have it all”, is not worthy of Extended Support, while the lower cost consumer editions of Microsoft Office are. Only time will tell if Microsoft bows into the pressure from consumers of Windows Vista.

Visit Tech Sphere for more articles.

Inside us all, we have the knowledge and the resources for a life of creativity and happiness.

We’ve had enough of a taste and glimpse of being both creative and happy to know what we love and want more of, and what we don’t like and need less of.

The problem is getting through all the surface clutter and down to the pure source of that knowledge.

We’re each unique in our creativity, and so we each have a different recipe for a creative and happy life.

But there are some basic ingredients that are needed for everyone’s recipe.

Today we’re going to focus on one of the most important.

Being recognised and appreciated are essential for a life of creativity and happiness.

What do we mean then by “recognised and appreciated”?

As creative people, as artists, we need to feel at a deep level that our work has some purpose.

We need to know that what we create – and therefore our creative life itself - has some point and some meaning.

Part of this comes from within ourselves.

Someone with very high self esteem, huge levels of motivation and endless courage can quite happily produce creative work in complete isolation.

They can comfortably rely on themselves and their “inner rudder” to guide them to through the right decisions, the right projects, the right areas of focus for their creative energy.

But that’s not what most of us are like.

The majority of us need constant recognition, acknowledgement and affirmation from others around us, those we trust, admire and respect.

We need to hear:

“Wow, that’s amazing. For me it’s the most powerful and emotive abstract work you’ve produced yet.”

“Eighteen months after their debut, this new record is even more ambitious, more rewarding and truly stirs the human soul.”

“You’ve written a quality article every week for the last 3 months, that’s great going, well done.”

And sometimes just:

“I really admire how you’ve chosen to live a creative life and follow your talents and your calling.”

What happens when we don’t get recognised and acknowledged?

We feel we’re beating our heads against a wall. We wonder why we bother to create anything when no-one ever sees it or takes pleasure in it.

We wonder if our work is any good, or if we’re making any progress at all.

We may even create our own version of the famous riddle: “If a tree falls in a forest and there’s no-one around to hear it, does it still make it sound?”

“If I create and there’s no-one to around to appreciate it, did I actually create anything at all, or was it just a dream??”

So how can we get the acknowledgment and recognition we need?

In fact this doesn’t begin with other people. It begins right here, right now, with ourselves.

When was the last time you actually acknowledged and appreciated something you’d just created?

When did you last take a moment to actually say: “I’m proud of that creative project. I really feel I’ve progressed, it’s the best I’ve created in a long while.”?

Once we start acknowledging our own creative work – and appreciating our own creative EXISTENCE – we can start to become more open to receiving it from any number of other sources.

We can then take it out to those people who’s opinion we respect and admire, knowing we’ve done the best we can and are now open to constructive feedback from others.

What are you going to do TODAY to acknowledge your creativity?

Start right now and get into a regular habit of acknowledging and recognising how much you achieve, and you’ll be giving yourself one of the essential ingredients for a creative and happy life.

Want to learn more about how to be more happy and be more creative? It’s easy: just sign up to “Create Create!” - Creativity Coach Dan Goodwin’s free twice monthly ezine - today, and get your FREE copy of the “Explode Your Creativity!” Action Workbook. Head on over now to http://www.CoachCreative.com

When playing Texas Holdem, whether it be tournament style or cash game you have to REALIZE that your game needs to be able to adapt.

What do I mean by this?

There are four types of players in Texas Hold’em:

Loose-passive

Loose-aggressive

Tight-passive

Tight-aggressive

Loose-passive players are the players that tend to be involved in MANY pots. They will call with just about any two cards and will chase any flush or straight. They came to gamble and dont mind going home early. They will either be out quickly or accumulate chips by getting lucky.

Tight-passive- these players are waiting for premium hands. they are tight but when the time is right they will play against you.

Loose-aggressive players - These players will drive you insane. They will play any hand no matter what. They basically play any hand they have like its aces. Unless you have a GREAT starting hand it is just best to stay out of their way.

Tight-aggressive - probably the most common player in Hold’em. This type of player is TIGHT but AGGRESSIVE when they know they have the best hand. They are smart and cunning players.

As you can see, these different types of players can present many different situations for a player. You must be able to correctly read what type of players are at your table and bet your hands accordingly.

How should you be playing?
It’s really up to you. If you are playing poker seriously and want to win consistently you should have somewhat of a TIGHT game. If you are trying to WIN and don’t care about losing then you should probably be a loose-passive player.

It all depends on you and what you are trying to get out the game.

Until next time, good luck at the tables!

Sean Moranse is a professional poker player. He has won numerous major tournaments. He was named as one of the Top Ten Online best players by Poker Rankings Online, the authority in online poker rankings. He has compiled an award winning poker course that is available at http://www.tournamentwinner.com

In this age of global warming more and more of us want to know how to become carbon neutral. There are two main ways of approaching the situation. We can think about offsetting or we can think about not producing the emissions in the first place. I think you’ll agree that the latter scenario is much more desirable course of action.

The problem with carbon offsetting, in my opinion, is that it lulls one into a false sense of security. If some company tells you that you have successfully offset your entire CO2 output then subconsciously you may not worry so much about leaving a light on or leaving your electronic equipment on standby. Maybe you’ll hold off buying that energy-efficient lightbulb just now.

There’s a whole new carbon industry which is popping up around the idea of carbon credits. Equating your business or your everyday life with a certain number of carbon credits allows you to buy up enough carbon credits from these offsetting companies in order to eliminate your carbon footprint. Is this how to become carbon neutral? The problem is you’re not making any effort to reduce your emissions you’re simply relying on some pretty shaky theories based predominantly around tree planting and carbon dioxide absorption.

In another article I went into more detail about why carbon offsetting is not the way forward. So what is the alternative when you’re trying to learn how to become carbon neutral? Well you need to think in reverse. Rather than paying some organization to offset your carbon emissions you need to be thinking about reducing your emissions at a grass-roots level.

You should be thinking about driving a more environmentally friendly car. When you move house maybe you should be thinking about purchasing a low carbon house. Be aware of your carbon neutral travel options when you go on holiday. Any activity which creates one of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide should be identified and you should try and find ways of reducing and ideally eliminating that footprint.

It is not as difficult as you may think. The industry is moving on rapidly. Unfortunately, to date, governments have been slow to invest in alternative energy technology. They are quite happy to pump millions of dollars into existing fossil fuel technology which is becoming more and more unsustainable. If the money was invested in alternative energy schemes and research and development we would progress in leaps and bounds.

So if we cannot count on our governments we must take action ourselves. Every single one of us has a responsibility for future generations. We need to look at what we are doing and what we are passing on to our children. We need to be educated, we need to know how to become carbon neutral. It’s time for the human race to wake up. We need to examine our lifestyles and identify areas in which we can make a difference.

The author believes the human race is inventive enough to crawl out of this big hole we are digging for ourselves in our oil hungry world. For a more detailed explanation of how to become carbon neutral check out this site where you’ll find plenty of information about making a difference to our environment.

You may have heard of Guerilla Marketing… But does it work in 2007? The answer is absolutely!

How does a new business owner get their new customers talking? After all, that is the crux of successfully marketing a business. When customers or clients like a business for whatever reason, you can bet they will recommend it to others. That’s why word of mouth advertising is so important to a good marketing system. Guerilla Marketing can show you how to do just that. It will help you find the market niche and the uniqueness of your particular product. When people are excited about a product and they are telling their friends and relatives, they will save you lots of dollars and many hours of time in marketing. When they do the advertising, you can better invest your energies into working IN your business instead of FOR it.

Get your product into the hands of the right people at the right time. Use those folks who are upstanding and reputable in your community and encourage them to try, use, and let others know about your product or service. Become involved with community and charitable events to get your business name on the mouths of the people. It can definitely promote a healthy and optimistic attitude in the minds of those who attend. In many cases, they will frequent your business or buy your products initially because of a single like minded event you were a part of.

This is a great way to appeal to the side of people who wants to help a person who helps others. You have seen it, we all have. A person volunteers to help the homeless for years and then suddenly, their house burns down. You usually then see a news story on it locally and see that tons of friends and businesses rally together to help the person rebuild.

Create new catch phrases and promotions to bring attention to the name, nature, and product of your
business. The goal of word of mouth advertising is obviously to get them talking. For more original and
exciting tips and information concerning this and other tools for your own guerilla marketing campaign,
just look for new guerilla marketing guides and I stress new as it is a very different “animal” in 2007. As you can clearly see, this short communication is only the tip of the iceberg. Guerilla marketing is an excellent way to advance your online profits and to a certain extent has become a forgotten method when it comes to marketing online. So jump aboard now before it becomes overcrowded again.

Richard Henderson runs his own internet marketing business from home and enjoys publishing articles and ebooks for websites as well as his own customers.
Check out this great new guide called Guerilla Marketing 101 which has all the latest methods for 2007
http://www.guerillamarketing101.net/

Are you a professional person living with teens? If so, you need to watch your language.

No, not because you need to be careful what your kids hear. They’ve been hearing from you all their lives, so changing your speech habits now won’t make much difference.

I’m talking about what you pick up from listening to them - words and figures of speech that simply aren’t appropriate in the business world. These are words you wouldn’t intend to use, but when kids pick up slang at school and use it at home, it is very easy for parents to “catch it” and start using it too.

One of the worst habits has been around for quite a while now - it has unfortunately not died out the way some fads do. That one is “like.” It has invaded society to such an extent that you might even hear prominent people using it in televised interviews. And it makes them sound unintelligent every time.

Once several years ago I overheard a Realtor talking with a client on the phone. She was describing a house they should see, and when she got to the living room she said: “It has like a fireplace.”

After she hung up I asked her what that room had that was like a fireplace. She answered that it was a fireplace. I asked why she didn’t say so instead of saying it was something that was like a fireplace. Of course she got mad.

But hey, she was representing my company with that Junior High School language - and that wasn’t the image we needed to project. Thank goodness she hadn’t picked up ALL of her daughter’s language. She didn’t say “I want to like tell you about the like living room because it has this like fireplace.” But some people have picked it up to that degree.

I’ll admit to being paranoid about that one. So much so that if I really mean that something is “like” something else I’ll often change my words to say it “resembles” something else. I’m afraid that with current usage, some people might not understand.

Women especially need to watch out. I don’t know if we pick up our children’s speech habits more easily than men do, but it appears that way. And, since we still have to work a little harder than men do to be respected, we can’t afford to come off sounding like school children.

A second habit that is more common for women than men is sounding unsure. It happens with the voice inflections rather than the words. That is the habit of putting a question mark at the end of a statement. I’ve known several women — and a few men –who do it all the time.

They make a statement such as: “I’ll have that report on your desk in the morning?” or “I’ll expect your decision on Monday?”

The words say one thing, and the voice says another. What should the listener believe?

For women who need to “make it” in the world of business, a very good resource is A Woman’s Guide to the Language of Success, by Phyllis Mindell.

Marte Cliff is a Freelance Copywriter and former real estate broker who specializes in writing for real estate and related industries.

Her e-book, Getting Clients, is a resource for beginning real estate agents as well as seasoned agents who want to know how to make more money in less time. Read all about it at http://www.marte-cliff.com/career.html

Marte offers a weekly ezine for real estate professionals and others with an interest in marketing themselves or their property. Subscribe by sending a blank e-mail to realestatehelp@getresponse.com and you’ll immediately receive a copy of her real estate ad writing report.

Visit her at http://www.marte-cliff.com or contact her at: writer@marte-cliff.com

Marte’s e-book on saving yourself from disaster in a land purchase is now available at http://www.landguidebook.com Go visit - find out what you don’t know about land buying - and how much it can hurt you.

Who doesn’t wish to go back in time and tell their younger self all the things we have learned along the way of life that we WISHED we had known oh-so long ago? I recall one of my first sales gigs was a vacuum cleaner salesman for Kirby Vacuum. Door-to-door no less. I rode around all day with my demo-vac in a van full of people trained less than the first-timer in a hopeless MLM. I recall mostly my poor attitude, my lack of willingness to get rich off of the comical selling of vacuum cleaners in upper middle class neighborhoods full of vacuum cleaners. The first day of that sales gig would be “when” I’d go back and whisper whatever my resistant younger self could hear.

What would you tell your younger self and “when” would you go back? I would give my younger self a few tips. The first tip I would give is that Anything you are willing to offer someone else you must first offer it to yourself. In my many sales management tours I always talked to the sales force as if that one thing I had to say in the moment was the only thing they would ever remember of me or my knowledge. What I told them, I would of course go back and tell myself: A client can have anything they want (no matter what) as long as they are willing to pay for it. If I have to offer this to myself first before I can offer it to the client - what does that mean? It means in the world of Negotiations that the only thing that limits my deal-making is the edges of my absurdity.

It’s absurd enough to get in a van full of sales-pretenders, each armed with a vacuum cleaner. It’s more absurd to walk through a neighborhood you have never been to before and stroll around in the hot sun with your vacuum cleaner door-to-door with the hopes of selling those 5 vacuum cleaners you have to sell before they will start paying you. It’s absolutely absurd that some stranger would let you in their house, vacuum the underside of their bed and then write a check for 500 percent more than the vacuum cleaner costs you.

And of course - selling vacuum cleaners is not nearly as absurd as I wish to stretch my sales force, your sales force, myself or anyone else that REALLY wants to master the art of the deal, but it’s a start.

Resourceful Questions is the one thing I would spend endless days teaching my younger self if I could. The Art of Deal is almost completely about capturing, directing, redirecting and mastering someone’s attention. Where attention goes, energy flows is not just some flimsy metaphysical idiom - it’s pure science. In nearly every negotiation you will ever make - the person you are negotiating with (I call them my negotiating complement)is focused on what he’s suppose to get from you and how he’s supposed to do that. Even power negotiators sometimes get caught in this trap and as they do - their attention moves away from the absurd and toward the predictable where they will loose their shirt to the patently absurd negotiator.

Here is a guide (though you can certainly be more creative than me)to getting in character for the absurd negotiator: If you are Negotiating for a bag full of golf clubs - see if you can get your negotiating complement to throw in a golf-car, golf-course or trip on the golf-yacht. If you are ordering a burger from some nasty fast-food restaurant - ask them to cook the meat well done, toast the buns twice, have them grill your onions, pickles and request they put all your condiments in small containers instead of on the burger. If being blatantly absurd is too scary then just ask questions all the time to people until you realize they will tell you anything and let you say just about anything to them. Interview everyone you meet in your daily life if you get a chance. The arab sounding woman that is taking your drive-thru order - ask her how many hours of English she’s studied, where she studied it at and what the requirements are at “that” restaurant to be work the drive through in terms of basic english.

If you are braver than the drive-thru litmus test then lets step up the challenge to determine your maximum absurdity. Start by reading Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. Never let your complement determine the terrain where you Negotiate. The more absurd the location of the negotiation the better. One of the rules of N.L.P. is that people can consciously focus on 7 plus or minus 2 things at any given time. Your job is to fill up the buffer of your complement’s conscious mind with irrelevant things. As he drowns in the noise of Chucky Cheese restaurant where 6 different birthday parties are going on at the same time and struggles to maneuver you into a position where he thinks he can reach your business jugular vein, simply have your secretary or maid call your cell phone every 10 minutes. Always over or under dress for a negotiation. The Art of the Deal has almost nothing to do with the logic of a presentation. Deals are made and broken on the passion and fears of your complement. They either go for what you offer because of hope or dread.

True absurdity for a Negotiator means turning your complement’s “set” into a minor sub-set of your own negotiation. Most people are not trained as Negotiators - they just think they are Negotiators. Asking Resourceful Questions really just means getting the Complement to tip his hand completely. Once your complement gives you the very strategy to wrench the lion’s share of the Negotiation from him then all that is left is to decide how long to gloat before you rip it from his paws.

If you are still unsure which way is up on The Absurd Factor, then go rent a clown suit and sell your daughters Girl Scout cookies door-to-door in some strange neighborhood. It is all the places that our complements WONT go that makes us powerful as Negotiators.

I offer Intervention, Negotiation and Arbitration as personal services. If you wish to hear more Negotiation Tips you can listen to my Audio Tips on my website: http://www.yourownbestgood.com and of course you can email me if you wish at bruce@yourownbestgood.com

Okay, so you want to be like Jaime Gold who wins 12 million in the World Series of Poker?

I don’t blame you, but for now stop dreaming.

Winning the WSOP for most of us is a goal that is out of reach.

Setting short term goals is how you succeed doing anything in your life.

Even with a game like Texas Hold’em you MUST set goals.

I teach beginner and professionals in poker everyday who tell me, Sean I just really want to hit it big. I respond by saying, you tell me where you want to be in 5 years and I will devise a plan to get you there.

Texas Hold’em can really teach you a lot about life. Do you want to be chasing flushes your whole life or do you want to be the one holding the aces?

Here is a quick tip I hope all of you will follow in your quest to win a major tournament. It has to do with bankroll management. Never risk more then 1-2% of your total bankroll on any one tournament. I suggest making an excel spreadsheet with your TOTAL MONEY at the TOP and then keeping track of every tournament under it. If your total bankroll is $2000, then you should never be risking more then $40 in one cash game, sit n go tournament, heads up, or multi table tournament.

1-2% is a healthy way to build your bankroll. As you begin to consistently win, then you can up the stakes accordingly and be on the way to your future goals.

Until next time, good luck at the tables!

Sean Moranse is a professional poker player. He has won numerous major tournaments. He was named as one of the Top Ten Online best players by Poker Rankings Online, the authority in online poker rankings. He has compiled an award winning poker course that is available at http://www.tournamentwinner.com

Colourful, chaotic, contradictory. Argentina is a country with a dark, bloody past and an alluring, beguiling future. Interestingly, the investors who left the former golden child of Latin America reeling from their mass exodus at the beginning of the century are proving most susceptible to the come hither flirtations of the resurgent Argentina.

An aromatic blend of European chic and rich Latin American heritage is an unlikely, quirky pairing but one that has proven strangely successful this second time around.

Once considered one of the most stable countries in the complicated, fragile southern Americas, Argentina’s spectacular fall from grace left its property market in freefall for several years. Now however, Argentina is riding a second wave of European investment with financiers willingly injecting money into a country which little over five years ago was a crumbling shell of its normal, vibrant self.

Then, front pages told stories of looting and destruction of property. Homes and businesses were lost and land abandoned as the aftershocks of economic implosion resonated throughout the country.

Today, prime waterfront real estate is a supremely desirable commodity and available for a tenth of the cost of comparable properties in America or Europe.

New properties are plentiful and boast all of the modern conveniences and luxury living you’d expect to find in the world’s eighth largest country. The architecture has a European flavour, with wide tree lined esplanades and cobbled streets sitting side by side with Michelin standard restaurants and rolling, fertile grasslands.

Argentina’s blend of old and new, of city and country, European and Latin really does offer something for everyone and its booming property market reflects this. The rental market in particular is proving to be a real emerging force as tourists slowly begin to rediscover all of the charms inherent in Argentina and its people.

Those scared off by the economic and political insecurity at the beginning of the decade are once again looking towards Argentina. Buenos Aires in particular is booming – the Puerto Madero neighbourhood is fashioning itself on the redeveloped warehouses of Manhattan’s Meatpacking District, attracting property investors with ultra chic loft conversions. These fashionable residences are already proving popular with British investors looking to add a Latin American flavour to their portfolio.

Used to the convenience of European living, the new patrons of resurgent Argentina are young professionals easily won over by the cosmopolitan nature of the city and the wealth of schools, health services, public transport, bars, restaurants and leisure facilities which lay within easy reach.

For those looking for a slower pace of life, Argentina too has succumbed to the booming golf tourism market. Embraced with a zeal you’d only find in Latin America, the game is a recent import to the country but has already spawned state of the art country clubs and championship standard golf courses which are rapidly becoming a force to be reckoned with.

The San Eliseo Golf and Country Club is one of the finest golf courses in South America and offers the best tennis facility in Buenos Aries. It is exactly this juxtaposition of town and country so typical of Argentina that makes for great property rental prospects.

Set in 253 hectres, San Eliseo is a luxurious residential community with world class facilities. The construction and commercialisation of the resort has been overseen by a development board backed by European and American investors, offering a reassuring safety net for new investors or investors new to the area.

As befitting its fledgling status, property prices are very reasonable and within reach of the first time overseas buyer. Properties in San Eliseo start at just 56,000 US dollars with rental income projected at around 1000US dollars a week in high season.

Head further out of town, and rambling vineyards in the Valle de Uco can be snapped up for as little as 80,000 US dollars. Offering staggering development potential, the vineyards benefit from Argentina’s rich fertile soil, hours of sunlight and a thriving wine industry overseen by some of the most respected names in the business.

Find out more about investing in Argentina at http://www.davidstanleyredfern.com

David Stanley Redfern is the director of David Stanley Redfern Ltd, an overseas property specialist. David works closely with developers in more than forty countries and oversees the David Stanley Redfern Ltd. education programme which lectures individuals and organisations on property investment. David Stanley Redfern Ltd is AIPP accredited.