CMUThought Community Thought

If you are like millions of Americans you know the expense and frustration of auto insurance. It varies between each state and the requirements needed just meet the minimum. Finding auto insurance quotes for a comparable cost can be confusing as each agent will try and put their own spin on what is needed. The great thing about getting your quotes online is that you set the exact parameters and then you have multiple agents bidding for your business. This way you can compare quotes across the board that have the same deductible and thresh holds of coverage. So don’t get frustrated when it comes time to renew your policy just find your quotes online and you may actually enjoy the experience.

This past few weeks have seen the launch of two new smart phones the iPhone 3G s and the Palm Pre which are some nice upgrades for those techy people who have to have the latest in technology. They both went on sale within a few days of each other and the demand to date appears to somewhat mixed and certainly not at the frenzy levels that we saw with the first iPhone debut. Having small portable devices that can easily get you on the web and allow you to not only surf the web but actually use various applications to write and perform business functions has been needed. That is probably why you are starting to see more introductions like the Asus Eee PC 900 which is great new mini notebook that has all the features of a laptop just in about half the size.

The new mini notebooks appear to be gaining traction as the push to go more mobile and hot spots are more widely available become greater. I am looking to purchase one since I do a lot of travel and having a simple way in which to get online and have a full use of some of my communication tools would be nice. And instead of having to drag my 17 Inch laptop with me everywhere I go could be a big plus. With the netbooks as they are called in some circles you get Wi-Fi enabled laptop with upgradeable memory to allow you to surf and perform business tasks while on the go. The next big feature that I can see being added will be the connection between your cell phone and these netbooks so that you will have access almost anywhere without the need to be tied into a hot spot.

You can tell that Summer is getting closer because of all the ads around various diets and diet supplements that are being advertised. There are a lot of people that are working out daily and trying to watch what they eat and not seeing the results as fast as they hoped. This is where finding and adding a diet supplement to your plan may be helpful. You can find various diet pill reviews that can help isolate which pills may be right for you and which ones that you may want to stay clear of. I am not a big fan of the pills that are loaded with caffeine so I look for the reviews and ingredients of pills that are low in caffeine to help me to lose those few additional pounds. Whatever route you take do your research and have a great Summer.

It appears that many of our friends are having kids and this time of year seems we seem to be getting a lot of birth announcements . While my wife is the main recipient of these announcements I have noticed that many of them have gotten quite creative in announcing the birth of their new boy or girl. I am still a fan of the HerSheIs announcement that comes wrapped around a candy bar with the weight of the baby where the Oz. should be for the candy bar.

These days everyone is storing pictures, music, videos and important documents on their PC. Most of have the latest virus protection software, and firewall to help lessen the chance that our PC can become affected with the latest virus. The other potential that is difficult to protect against is system failure such as your hard drive crashing. To help prevent your Hard drive from crashing here are some simple things to keep in mind. Over heating is one of the major contributors to systems failures. You should clean and check your cooling system fan as well as the fan on your power supply. Allow your PC and hard drive to cool off every once in a while by shutting down your PC every once in a while. With high speed internet most people will leave the computers 24 hours a day.You can invest in a software program that will monitor the vital signs of your PC and alert you in the event of potential overheating.

composite triple beatSome ways to improve your performance is to upgrade to a new Intel Core i7 Quad core processor that offer the best performance to date and add to that a 1 TB hard drive or external storage device. You can find these and other components on sale at buy.com where you can save hundreds of dollars and may be able to piece your new desktop together for less than buying a brand new unit. You can never backup to much and make sure that you backup regularly to make sure that you have the most current data. You can use backup devices such as CD/DVD, or even external hard drives, but the key is to be able to synch up your data and be able to only create the new files and not just re-save everything on your hard drive.

There’s a lot of buzz around about how you can make a quick and easy fortune using this AdSense course or that tool or this book.

And they show you their incomes from AdSense too (though not necessarily THIS month). Now, is it just me or is something a little odd in all this?

Say, I’m making $5000 – no make that $15,276 a month from AdSense on my sites. And now I’m going to sell all my secrets on how to do that for $67 or $97 or whatever.

So what happened, did I get all bored with my filthy riches and decide to become a philanthropist and sell stuff that makes me 15K a month for a pittance? Or is it something else?

Am I saying it’s impossible? Certainly not. I know people who make that more.

But a little reality. Those people don’t have 5 or 6 or 50 sites. They have maybe 500 or 3000 or more. Few sites make 20 or more a day. Very few. Average income is probably less than a dollar a day. So with 500 sites at a dollar a day, you’ve got your 15K a month.

Now the domain names cost you maybe $3500 to $4500. Then you need hosting and somehow you’ve got to build the sites and get traffic to them. There are excellent tools but the ones that will let you do this kind of thing in a reasonably short time are also very (very) expensive.

And you are continually dealing with sites that don’t get indexed or get de-indexed or even get banned. Traffic today, gone tomorrow. Plus, if you’re not real careful with those tools you may get an unpleasant letter from Google about a DMCA copyright infringement which could cost you your AdSense account.

You can make money, you can build an empire. But it isn’t easy or quick no matter what you hear. And it really isn’t a business. It’s not a long run proposition, it’s not stable. You need to keep creating more sites as older ones fail – or you need to be smart and use those AdSense revenues to build an enduring business.

You put up with this down to here, so here are the real 7 “secret” keys to AdSense.

1. The best performing AdSense type is the large rectangle. This has been tested over and over.

2. The best colors are blue for the link – surfers know that blue means click me. And darkish almost black and grey for the text and url. No borders. The same background as your page. Will it merge into your content? No, that’s bogus. There are maybe 4 surfers in this galaxy who can’t tell a Google ad when they see one. They are not going to believe it’s part of the text. Wake up, OK?

3. Another format which is being reported to more or less work is the full wide banner type layout with text ads and images directly above the links. Try it and see if it works for you. Maybe it’s a fad.

4. Keywords and related content are critical if you want targeted ads. If you want high paying clicks you need to target the costly keywords AND have content that supports the keywords.

5. You need traffic interested in the ads. Which means your traffic generation techniques have to be targeted not scattershot. You might hear that 1% or 1.5% clickthrough rate is OK and 3% is good. Nonsense. Really successful people get CTRs that are often well above 30%. Even with modest efforts you should be getting an average 6 to 15% CTR (per ad impression, not pages).

6. You have to track what you’re doing and you have to test variations in ad layout, placement, color and related content to optimize your income. No one can tell you how to do it except the traffic coming to your site. If you don’t test and track, you’re flying blind.

7. You need to keep building new sites.

You are now a member of the AdSense Illuminati. Quite possibly you already knew all that. So why are you looking for something else? Really. This is all you need to start doing it.

Probably any course or book can help you if that’s what it takes to get you moving and doing. Ultimately, no one can really show you exactly how to do it. You’re going to have to learn the ropes and put in the time.

Like everything in life – the greatest traffic generator, the ultimate course or the super MLM opportunity, if it sounds too good to be true, then it is. There’s no magic bullet, no ultimate secret to buy. There’s no easy, painless, work free, certain road to riches (except, maybe, inheriting it and that can be very hard on the heirs).

Whatever you do on the net, do it wide awake and with your brain actually functioning. The final un-numbered key is that a technique, a shortcut, an idea that will make what you do easier, faster, or more profitable – one single tiny thing – is worth more than any book or course costs. One useable idea and you’ve gotten a great deal. If you learned something you didn’t know or had forgotten, then it’s worth much more than you paid. There may not be any magic solution out there, but there are useful concepts, techniques and ideas. You just have to see them for what they are, and then get busy and really use them.

About the author:
Richard writes, teaches, trains and consults on business and professional presentations and eCommerce related matters. For more information on eCommerce sites and eCommerce site building visit http://www.building-ecommerce-websites.com- you can find more articles at http://www.building-ecommerce-websites.com/articles.

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We have been listening to some of the latest talk shows and financial experts on ways to help stimulate the economy and one simple solution is to actually spend of the money that we have been holding onto. There are hundreds of companies that are holding a sale of one type or another so why not help out the economy and save some money for yourself. We cannot rely on the large companies to accept more money in order to help keep them afloat but rather take the measure upon ourselves to spend and kick start the economy. Shopping online is safe and fast and allows you to quickly comparison shop for items that you may be looking for like gifts for Dad.

Take for example this Fossil watch that is now on sale at buy.com for under $55. This is about $140 off the actual retail price. Having a stylish watch is always a way to make a fashion statement. This Fossil watch helps to make a simple elegant statement and would look great with a suit or just worn casually. Making a simple purchase would make that special someones day and actually help the economy. Just imagine that if each of the estimated 200 million people that have access to the internet were to spend just $50-$60 each that would equal over $10 billion in additional dollars that is placed back in the economy that will help create and maintain jobs.

If you are seriously looking to get into a specific field then working as an Intern will give you great visibility. An internship is when you work for a company in a chosen field for a short period of time. THis helps you to gain some knowledge of the industry, and make contacts, and allows the company to see what young talent is going to be available.

At Intern Town, they help to provide Internships Abroad by creating a place where you can post your interests and then interested companies can match your skills to the positions they have available. It is a free service to sign up and post your resume and your goals. Companies from all over the world will now have a chance to view a pool of Interns, and select those most suited to the role. So if you are looking to work abroad and get some great exposure and learnings, then check out Intern Town today.

It is that time of year where Dad’s and Grads are the focus of gift giving. I believe this year I may be getting my Dad a new Zune MP3 player to upgrade his old player. The reason is that he loves to listen to his old classics that he has converted from albums and tapes and his current system is not very user friendly. The software that came with it is pretty basic and only allows you to convert tunes into one format that is only useful to that player. Plus the fact that on his old MP3 player you are unable to create playlists and because it lacks an LED screen you have to skip through numerous songs just to find one that you want to listen too.

I am looking at the Zune MP3 player because I saw it for sale at buy.com for under $90 with free shipping. I have an iPod and an MP3 player and I know that my Dad would love to have either but since many of his songs are outside of the iTunes format I felt it would be an easier transition to the MP3 player.Plus with this Zune devise it allows my Dad to view and create playlists, watch vidoes of some of his favorite shows, and all the uploading is simple and much more user friendly. And because it is more Windows friendly you can even record and watch TV shows on your Zune that you have captured via your Windows Media center. There is also a cool feature that allows you to easily change the background of your Zune to scenes like this one. All in all this should be a very good fathers day and now all I have to do is somehow get his old LP’s converted over to MP3 files and he will good to go.