Ten Reasons You Aren't Rich

Ten Reasons You Aren't Rich - The reason why you aren't a millionaire (or on your way to becoming one) is really quite simple. You probably assume it's because you aren't earning enough money, but the truth is that for most people, whether or not you become a millionaire has very little to do with the amount of money you make. It's the way that you treat money in your daily life.

Here are 10 possible reasons you aren't a millionaire:

10. You Care What Your Neighbors Think

If you're competing against them and their material possessions, you're wasting your hard-earned money on toys to impress them instead of building your wealth.

9. You Aren't Patient

Until the era of credit cards, it was difficult to spend more than you had. That is not the case today. If you have credit card debt because you couldn't wait until you had enough money to purchase something in cash, you are making others wealthy while keeping yourself in debt.

8. You Have Bad Habits

Whether it's smoking, drinking, gambling or some other bad habit, the habit is using up a lot of money that could go toward building wealth. Most people don't realize that the cost of their bad habits extends far beyond the immediate cost. Take smoking, for example: It costs a lot more than the pack of cigarettes purchased. It also negatively affects your wealth in the form of higher insurance rates and decreased value of your home.

7. You Have No Goals

It's difficult to build wealth if you haven't taken the time to know what you want. If you haven't set wealth goals, you aren't likely to attain them. You need to do more than state, "I want to be a millionaire." You need to take the time to set saving and investing goals on a yearly basis and come up with a plan for how to achieve those goals.

6. You Haven't Prepared

Bad things happen to the best of people from time to time, and if you haven't prepared for such a thing to happen to you through insurance, any wealth that you might have built can be gone in an instant.

5. You Try to Make a Quick Buck

For the vast majority of us, wealth doesn't come instantly. You may believe that people winning the lottery are a dime a dozen, but the truth is you're far more likely to get struck by lightning than win the lottery. This desire to get rich quickly likely extends into the way you invest, with similar results.

4. You Rely on Others to Take Care of Your Money

You believe that others have more knowledge about money matters, and you rely exclusively on their judgment when deciding where you should invest your money. Unfortunately, most people want to make money themselves, and this is their primary objective when they tell you how to invest your money. Listen to other people's advice to get new ideas, but in the end you should know enough to make your own investing decisions.

3. You Invest in Things You Don't Understand

You hear that Bob has made a lot of money doing it, and you want to get in on the gravy train. If Bob really did make money, he did so because he understood how the investment worked. Throwing in your money because someone else has made money without fully understanding how the investment works will keep you from being wealthy.

2. You're Financially Afraid

You are so scared of risk that you keep all your money in a savings account that is actually losing money when inflation is put into the equation, yet you refuse to move it to a place where higher rates of return are possible because you're afraid that you will lose money.

1. You Ignore Your Finances

You take the attitude that if you make enough, the finances will take care of themselves. If you currently have debt, it will somehow resolve itself in the future. Unfortunately, it takes planning to become wealthy. It doesn't magically happen to the vast majority of people.

In reality, it is probably not just one of the above bad habits that has kept you from becoming a millionaire, but a combination of a few of them. Take a hard look at the list, and do some reflecting. If you want to be a millionaire, it's well within your power, but you'll have to face the issues that are currently keeping you from creating that wealth before you will have a chance to call yourself one. ( thestreet.com )

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Seven Ways to Make Extra Money in 2011

Seven Ways to Make Extra Money in 2011 - Job security might be out, but freelance, contract, and temporary work is in, which makes it easier than ever to moonlight as a graphic designer while you spend your days as a public relations rep. Slimmer staffs mean companies often need the extra help, and new websites offer free tools that match potential employers with workers. And earning extra money beyond your steady paycheck, if you're lucky enough to have one, can provide a big boost to your financial security.

Here are seven ways to make extra money off the new economy in 2011:

Launch a Brand

When Kimberly Seals-Allers, former senior editor at Essence magazine, was expecting her first child, she discovered that black women face higher risks during childbirth and pregnancy. "I realized we were a special group, and I wanted to write a book about everything in black women's lives. Not just pregnancy, but money, men, and myths in our community. [I wanted] to create a new way forward."

Her first book, "The Mocha Manual to a Fabulous Pregnancy," turned into a series as well as an online magazine, maternity line, and consultancy. Seals-Allers also licensed use of the Mocha Manual name to create an instructional DVD sold at Walmart and supermarkets.

Start a Blog

The anonymous blogger behind Lazy Man and Money defies his site's name. He works about 14 hours a day on weekdays and then puts in nine hours on Saturday and Sunday. But his hard work is paying off -- his blog earns him enough to support his lifestyle; back in 2008, he estimated his annual earnings at around $30,000. But it's tough for part-time bloggers with full-time jobs to keep up with all the demands of a lucrative blog. "There's simply a lot more [to do] than what the average reader sees," he says.

Even if the blog itself doesn't generate a six-figure salary, it can lead to other money-making opportunities, such as consulting or speaking gigs. Silicon Valley Blogger at The Digerati Life has carved out a successful niche as the expert on personal finance and technology in Silicon Valley. While she says she didn't earn much during the first six months of her blog's life, she received her first $100 check from Google AdSense shortly after that point, when she was getting around 600 unique visitors a day. She now earns money from her blog-related consulting, as well.

Sell Your Skills

Whether your expertise lies in social networking, editing, or web development, several new websites can help you find potential clients willing to pay you for your work. Elance.com, Odesk.com, and Guru.com make it easy to advertise your skills and find work, which you can do from the comfort of your home at all hours of the night. To get started, explore the websites to see what might be a good fit. You can also stick with a more traditional approach and use Craigslist.org, which allows users to post advertising for their services, ranging from household labor to music lessons.

Sell a Wacky Service

For those interested in a more unusual approach, the innovative website fiverr.com allows users to sell (and buy) services for $5. Current offerings include sketching a stylized portrait, writing a name on a grain of rice, and digitally restoring a photograph. It's one of the trendiest ways to make a quick buck for the internet-savvy; dozens of videos, websites, and blogs offer advice on how best to earn money off the site. The best advice? Since you're only going to make $5 a pop, sell a service that you can do easily and quickly.

Talk and Teach

Colleges, organizations, and companies are constantly on the lookout for new experts that can inspire an audience. If you've built up an expertise on a subject, perhaps through your blog, then consider branching out with some speaking gigs. Offer to talk for free at first to build up your reputation, and then a speakers' bureau can help connect you to paying gigs (for a cut of your fee).

Design T-Shirts

Companies such as CafePress.com allow people to design and sell their T-shirts for a cut of the profits. According to the company's website, some users earn over $100,000 a year. But it's not always easy: Jen Goode, who earns enough through CafePress to pay her mortgage each month, found success after a year and a half of long, sometimes 16-hour days. Her time is spent creating designs and then uploading them. She has uploaded about 2,500 designs, many of which are cartoon oriented, including the popular penguin series. For her, she says, the secret has been to make many different images that are steady sellers, as opposed to creating one or two megahits. Now, she says she doesn't need to put as much time into her shop because she has such a large inventory of designs.

Sell Other People's Products

Make-up companies such as Avon and Mary Kay are always looking for new sales representatives, as are other companies such as kitchen products seller Pampered Chef. "If you don't have to make a big investment to get into it, it's probably not a bad idea," says Marcia Brixey, author of "The Money Therapist." But she warns people to stay away from businesses that require sellers to make significant up-front purchases that they might not be able to unload. ( finance.yahoo.com )

The bottom line: The new economy offers plenty of creative ways to earn extra money; to find the best fit for you, consider your skills, lifestyle, and ambitions.

READ MORE - Seven Ways to Make Extra Money in 2011

A Guide For Start-Up CEOs

A Guide For Start-Up CEOs - How to survive LeWeb 2010: a guide for start-up CEOs - Who to see, what to do, and how to avoid getting overwhelmed by Europe's largest tech conference

Europe's largest - and most daunting - gathering of geeks is almost upon us. LeWeb's 2010 incarnation promises to be bigger and even more extravagant than ever before. But before I get into telling you how to prepare for the mother of all tech conferences, I suppose first of all you should think about whether it's for you.

First things first: the tickets aren't cheap (although there are plenty of sneaky discounts around if you're smart). And then there's the travel and hotel to consider. But aside from the fact that you can lump all that under marketing spend - especially if you follow the tips below - to be honest it's money well spent, whatever stage your company's at.

Loic Le Meur on stage at LeWeb in 2006

Why? Well, without going into too much of sales pitch on organiser Loïc Le Meur's behalf, there's a lot on offer - most importantly the opportunity to grab any one of 2,500 attendees from over 60 countries, including some of the biggest names in tech, and the chance to show off your start-up or Next Big Idea to whoever you can lay your hands on - including about 500 journalists. (That sounds like a huge number of journos per start-up, but as a CEO that's to your advantage: just think how many of them you'll be able to get hold of if you're clever about it.) All the big tech firms are there - Google, Facebook, Twitter, you name it - and a healthy smattering of investors. Plus there's the usual keynotes, panel discussions, fireside chats and all that sort of stuff.

So how do you navigate this hulking great monster of a conference? Here are some tips.


1. Bring business cards.

A lot of them. Sure, it's a technology conference and everyone will be tweeting, checking in to their geolocation app of choice and even, if they're lucky, swapping hotel room keys, but the real business is done when you get back home, presuming you can remember who's who out of the fistful of cards that tumble out of your hand luggage. I'd say 500 of your own card should do the trick: after all, if you don't give them all away personally, you can always crash the stage and throw them into the crowd in handfuls. Yeah, it'll probably get you thrown out and arrested, but it'll sure as hell get your start-up noticed.


2. Check the programme.

There's no point sitting there for every panel discussion - though, mercifully, most of the stuff on stage is limited to 20 minutes. All the exciting stuff happens in the corridors at this sort of conference. At least, it will if you follow step three...


3. Make appointments beforehand.

Check who's going and contact them before the event, suggesting a time to duck out of the main show and have a chat. If you're clever about this you ought to be arranging at least ten coffees per day. (So, item 3.1: make sure you know where the loos are.) LeWeb is your chance to connect with useful people from all over the world and you shouldn't waste it wandering the corridors eating free bonbons from the corporate stands.


4. Pick one or two of the big names to approach.

When you do, make it quick. Tell them exactly why you want to speak to them and offer them your card. Don't take up any more of their time than you have to. If you're in any doubt about how to approach one of the big hitters...


5. Follow Parisian PR guru Colette Ballou on Twitter.

Her infamous "conference tips" are unmissable, and frequently very funny.


6. Bring a charger, plus whatever adapters you need.

I know that sounds ridiculously obvious but you'll be surprised by how quickly your phone battery will die with all the tweeting and emailing. There are power sockets behind every chair, so there's really no excuse to be out of battery by the time the parties start, which is when you'll really need it. Seriously, no excuse. Even if you have an iPhone.


7. Get plenty of sleep beforehand.

You'll want to party until the early hours and then be at the conference venue ready to go by 8.30am. This is a lot easier said than done; ask anyone who was at F.ounders.


8. Take naps! Real, actual naps on real, actual beds! There are resting areas at LeWeb with plasma screens in the ceiling (yes, we are living that far into the future) so you can doze but not miss yours truly making a tit of himself on stage or one of the TechCrunch guys making the 94th Aol joke of the day.


9. Take full advantage of the free coffee.

There's a Nespresso lounge which last year distributed 15,000 cups of coffee to conference attendees. Stop being so British, barge to the front and grab a cup. Or two cups. (q.v. point 3.1, above)


10. One last thing.

Le Meur tells me there's an official dress code at LeWeb, and it is: "No suits!" So unless you're from IBM, or you're a venture capitalist who doesn't own anything that isn't from Savile Row, it's jeans and tees all the way. And if you see someone in a suit, conference rules state that you're allowed to throw your free coffee over them.*

So there you have it. And if all that wasn't enough to whet your appetite, there's a huge party being thrown by one of Europe's most prestigious newspapers; you'll hear about it once you get to Paris. See you there! ( telegraph.co.uk )

(*OK, I may have made that last one up. Don't throw your coffee over any Microsoft SVPs. Please.)

READ MORE - A Guide For Start-Up CEOs

The 20 most useful dating websites

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This is absolutely delightful news

This is absolutely delightful news - The nonprofit body that oversees Internet addresses approved Friday the use of Hebrew, Hindi, Korean and other scripts not based on the Latin alphabet in a decision that could make the Web dramatically more inclusive.

The board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers — or ICANN — voted to allow such scripts in so-called domain names at the conclusion of a weeklong meeting in Seoul, South Korea's capital. The decision follows years of debate and testing.

The decision clears the way for governments or their designees to submit requests for specific names, likely beginning Nov. 16. Internet users could start seeing them in use early next year, particularly in Arabic, Chinese and other scripts in which demand has been among the highest, ICANN officials say.

"This is absolutely delightful news," said Edward Yu, CEO of Analysys International, an Internet research and consulting firm in Beijing, emphasizing that the Internet would become more accessible to users with lower incomes and education. Yu spoke ahead of the approval, which had been widely expected.

Domain names — the Internet addresses that end in ".com" and other suffixes — are the key monikers behind every Web site, e-mail address and Twitter post.

Since their creation in the 1980s, domain names have been limited to the 26 characters in the Latin alphabet used in English — A-Z — as well as 10 numerals and the hyphen. Technical tricks have been used to allow portions of the Internet address to use other scripts, but until now, the suffix had to use those 37 characters.

That has meant Internet users with little or no knowledge of English might still have to type in Latin characters to access Web pages in Chinese or Arabic. Although search engines can sometimes help users reach those sites, companies still need to include Latin characters on billboards and other advertisements.

Now, ICANN is allowing those same technical tricks to apply to the suffix as well, allowing the Internet to be truly multilingual.

Many of the estimated 1.5 billion people online use languages such as Chinese, Thai, Arabic and Japanese, which have writing systems entirely different from English, French, German, Indonesian, Swahili and others that use Latin characters./AP

READ MORE - This is absolutely delightful news

The conundrum facing publishers

The conundrum facing publishers. With their advertising revenue drying up, newspaper publishers spent much of the spring and summer debating whether to cut off free online access to some of the material they run in their shrinking print editions.

It looks like the talk will turn to action this fall, when some large newspapers are expected to put up Internet toll booths.

They'll be testing readers' willingness to pay for information and entertainment that mostly has been given away online for the past 15 years. That happened largely because most publishers could afford to subsidize their Web sites with profits from their print franchises. But now those profits have crumbled, just as the prices for online ads are tumbling, too.

A recent study by the American Press Institute found 58 percent of the responding newspapers are considering online fees. Of that group, 22 percent expect to introduce the fee before the end of the year. The findings drew upon 118 interviews of newspaper executives in the U.S. and Canada.

The free-to-fee transition likely will occur in tentative steps rather than bold leaps that would lock all online content behind a pay gate. Publishers are taking this cautious approach because they are still trying to devise online payment plans that will generate more revenue without alienating too many of their readers.

For instance, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, a newspaper with a weekday circulation of about 206,500, recently launched a Web site that includes coverage and commentary on sports, politics and entertainment that isn't in its printed product or free online edition. The service costs $36 annually or $3.99 per month.

Other newspapers that have talked up subscription plans remain reticent. Newsday of Long Island, N.Y., still hasn't rolled out fees for its Web site, even though the newspaper's owner, Cablevision Systems Corp., said it was going to do so this summer. Newsday spokesman Paul Fleishman declined to comment.

The conundrum facing publishers: It's hard to figure out how much, if anything, readers will be willing to pay. Internet search engines and digital communication tools such as Twitter and Facebook ensure people still will be able to find and share plenty of free content.

But running totally free sites hasn't been paying off for most newspapers. Even before the online market began to slump this year, Web ads were generating only a small fraction of the revenue that print ads do. The disparity has made publishers realize they need more ways to make money on the Internet, but few of them have been able to figure out how.

"This is like a four-dimensional chess game. It's really complex," said former newspaper editor Alan Mutter, who is now an industry consultant when he isn't writing "Reflections of a Newsosaur," a free blog.

The Associated Press also has been part of the online fee movement. The not-for-profit cooperative, which is owned by newspapers, is setting up a system that will track the usage of its stories. It's a crucial piece of a plan that could improve the AP's ability to run ads next to news stories and perhaps even lead the AP to charge readers to see major scoops or other "premium" content.

"The value of content has to rise," said Tom Curley, the AP's chief executive. "We are all looking how to make that happen."

Even as newspapers mull just how much to commit to charging readers, a competition is already brewing to provide the technology to enable it.

Four of the world's largest technology companies — Google Inc., Microsoft Corp., IBM Corp. and Oracle Corp. — have expressed an interest in developing an online payment system for publishers. Mutter also has been promoting his own approach to Internet fees, a concept he calls ViewPass.

Separately, more than 1,000 newspapers and magazines have signed nonbinding letters of intent to join an Internet fee system being assembled by Journalism Online LLC. It intends to begin collecting money on behalf of publishers before winter.

Backed by former leaders from Court TV and The Wall Street Journal, Journalism Online wants to run the cash register for a digital news smorgasbord. Readers will be able to buy stories from a wide range of participating publishers without having to repeatedly provide their credit card numbers and other personal information at each Web site. The content would be distributed on the Web and electronic reading devices, with each publisher dictating its own terms. As a commission, Journalism Online plans to keep 20 percent of the revenue collected through its system.

Although he isn't jumping on board with Journalism Online, News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch is sold on online fees.

News Corp. already owns the newspaper industry's most successful Internet subscription model in The Wall Street Journal, with more than 1 million customers who pay for online access. The annual rates vary from $103 for an online-only subscription to $140 for a package that includes delivery of the print edition too. Now, Murdoch hopes to make online fees pay off for his other publications, which include the New York Post and The Times of London. Murdoch hasn't provided a timeline or specifics about his plans, however.

The New York Times is considering charging online readers a membership fee, with more details promised in the fall. It's a road the newspaper has been down before, only to reverse course after management concluded that the online subscription it required to read the Times' top columnists was crimping its Internet ad sales. The subscription service, which cost $50 per year, was scrapped in 2007 after a two-year run. It had 221,000 customers when the Times tore down the toll booth.

These days, the printed versions of newspapers are suffering so much that publishers appear determined to find a way to get readers on the Internet and mobile devices to pay something, even if it's just a few bucks per month. The question is mainly which publisher will jump off the sidelines first.

"There's still a lot of `wait-and-see' attitudes out there," said Randy Bennett, senior vice president of business development for the Newspaper Association of America. "I think a lot of publishers would like to see some empirical evidence of what happens to other publishers who dip their toes into the water."

In a worst-case scenario, imposing online fees would drive away so much of a newspaper's Web audience that publishers would lose more in Internet ad sales than they would gain in new revenue.

In a best-case scenario, newspapers charging their online readers would still retain enough of the audience for their Web sites to remain attractive marketing channels. What may be even more important, the fees might make readers more willing to pay for the print editions if the same content isn't on the Web for free, especially if print subscriptions include free or discounted Web access.

Preserving the value of their print franchises is one of the main reasons for publishers to charge for Web access. That's because newspapers still get most of their money from print ads, which accounted for $35 billion of the industry's revenue last year. Newspaper print ads are on pace to fall below $30 billion this year.

Online ads, in contrast, contributed just $3.1 billion in revenue last year. And while that category had been growing until this year, it wasn't fast enough to offset the erosion in print ads. From 2005 through 2008, the industry's annual revenue from print ads dropped by $12.7 billion. Meanwhile, newspapers' annual revenue from online ads increased by just $1 billion.

Journalism Online's co-founder, Steven Brill, believes newspapers can still hold on to most of their online readership by charging for only their best work — information, images and audio unlikely to be found anywhere else on the Web. This presumes publishers will be able to prevent the content from being copied and pasted or even just summarized at other sites, a potentially daunting task.

Some publishers still have no intention to charge for online access because they have concluded online fees are bound to backfire on the newspaper Web sites that adopt them, Mutter said. The American Press Institute study found 44 percent of the respondents don't think Internet fees will provide a significant lift to newspapers' future revenue.

"The guys who hold off (on Internet fees)," Mutter said, "could get a have a huge windfall in new traffic." [ AP ]

READ MORE - The conundrum facing publishers

Terrorism mastermind Noordin M Top dead

Terrorism mastermind Noordin M Top dead. Noordin Muhammed Top, a militant mastermind who eluded capture for seven years and terrorized Indonesia with a string of deadly al-Qaida-funded bombings, was killed during a raid Thursday, the Indonesian police chief said.

Police hunting for suspects in bombings of two luxury Jakarta hotels raided a hide-out in central Indonesia, sparking an hours-long gunfight that ended at dawn with an explosion. Four suspected militants died, including Noordin, national police Chief Bambang Hendarso Danuri said. Three suspects also were captured.

The operation left behind a charred house with no roof and blown-out walls. Noordin's remains were found inside the house on the outskirts of the town of Solo in central Java, the main Indonesian island, Danuri said.

Fingerprints of Noordin's obtained from authorities in his native Malaysia and stored on a police database matched those of the body, Danuri said. DNA tests have not yet been conducted. The bodies were flown to Jakarta for autopsies.

"It is Noordin M. Top," Danuri told a nationally televised news conference to loud cheers from the audience of reporters, photographers and TV crews. Documents and laptop computers confiscated from the house prove that Noordin "is the leader of al-Qaida in Southeast Asia," he said.

Hundreds of pounds (kilograms) of explosives, M-16 assault rifles, grenades and bombs were removed from the house as ambulances shuttled away the dead and injured.

"We asked Noordin M. Top to surrender, but they kept firing," Danuri said. "That is how he died. ... He even had bullets in his pockets."

Noordin fled to Indonesia in 2002 amid a crackdown on Muslim extremists in Malaysia in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States. He is accused of heading a splinter group of the al-Qaida-funded regional terror group Jemaah Islamiyah and has been implicated in every major attack in Indonesia since 2002, including two separate bombings on the resort island of Bali that together killed 222 people, mostly foreigners.

He has also been blamed for a pair of suicide bombings at Jakarta's J.W. Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in July, an earlier attack on the Marriott in 2003 and a bombing at the Australian Embassy in 2004.

"The most dangerous terrorist in Southeast Asia has been put out of commission," said Jim Della-Giacoma, Southeast Asia project director for the International Crisis Group think tank.

"It would have been better if police had managed to arrest him alive, but it appears that this was not an option," he said. "Unfortunately, Noordin's death does not mean an end to terrorism in Indonesia, though it has been dealt a significant blow."

In the Philippines, where authorities are fighting an Islamist insurgency in the south, Noordin's death was welcomed by authorities as a sign that terrorists cannot hide from the law forever.

"It's a major accomplishment, it's a big blow to their leadership, to their capability to train new bombers," said Maj. Gen. Benjamin Dolorfino, who leads assaults against al-Qaida-linked militants. "There are gains being made in the anti-terrrorism campaign in the region."

A spokesman for Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said he was aware of reports of Noordin's death. "We are awaiting official confirmation from the Indonesian government," he said. Dozens of Australians were killed in the 2002 bombing of Bali nightclubs.

An Indonesian counterterrorism official said the militants killed Thursday included alleged bomb-maker Bagus Budi Pranato. The captured militants included a pregnant woman who is being treated at a hospital, national police spokesman Nanan Sukarna said. She was in stable condition. [ Associated Press ]

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How to Check Your Website for Search Engine Friendliness

How to Check Your Website for Search Engine Friendliness. One way to check your website to see if it's search engine friendly is to configure your browser to not display any graphics, not to use plugins and not to run JavaScripts. If your site only shows a blank screen in such a case, that's what the search engine will see as well. If you only see a few meaningless words on the screen, then that's what the search engine will think your site is about as well. If you find you cannot visit any other pages on your website from the main page, the search engines will have the same problem as well.

The easiest browser to use for such checks is the free Opera web browser. The latter makes it very easy to disable and re-enable everything, either on a site-by-site basis, or on a global basis. To globally disable the things I mentioned, hit the F12 key (F12 for Windows and Linux users; Alt+F12 if you use a Mac), uncheck "Enable Java", "Enable plug-ins" and "Enable JavaScript". You can enable them again easily by hitting the same F12 (or Alt+F12 for Mac) key and checking those items. To disable images, hit Shift+I (all operating systems). (This is a toggle between "No images", "Cached Images", and "Show Images", so hitting Shift+I again will switch between these three modes.)

This is not a foolproof solution for checking your website though, since Opera is a modern frames-capable browser, so sites using something called "frames" will still show up correctly in Opera, even though they won't necessarily be indexed properly by a real search engine. But for quick checks, this is by far the most user-friendly way to do that works on all the major desktop operating systems. Note that I'm not forcing you to switch to Opera or anything like that - use whatever browser you like as your normal browser. But as a web developer, since you will probably have all the major browsers around to test your site anyway, you should use Opera's additional convenience features to give your web pages a quick going-over.

(Additional tip: while you do this, you can also check how your site will appear in small-screen devices like mobile phones by hitting Shift+F11 on Windows/Linux or Shift+Alt+F11 on the Mac. Hit the same key again to return to normal mode.)

What Do You Want to Rank For?

A very important thing to bear in mind when designing your website is to ask yourself what your site is all about. What do you want to rank for? If you want to rank for "Widget X", the words "Widget X" must appear on your website in ordinary, visible text. This may seem obvious when I say it, but judging from what I see when I review some websites, it may not necessarily be apparent to some people. (Don't take this as an accusation or anything like that, it wasn't obvious to me either, when I first started.)

So here's the article in a nutshell: When someone searches for a particular term, and you want your site to be listed for those keywords, the terms must appear somewhere on your page, or the engine will not know your site talks about those things. And those words, to be most effective, must appear in normal text, not in a picture, not created by JavaScript, and not embedded in a Flash window on your page. You also need links pointing to your website. [ thesitewizard.com ]

READ MORE - How to Check Your Website for Search Engine Friendliness

If Seven Days In A Row Is Loo Much

If Seven Days In A Row Is Loo Much. Devote just one week to creating order out of chaos, and see how it can change your life. If seven days in a row is too much, too soon, take seven Saturdays in a row. You'll be glad you did.

Monday:

Organize your inbox.Slip into the office an hour early for an uninterrupted cleaning session. Activate your out-of-office e-mail reply and turn off the auto chime for 2 hours. Create new electronic folders for contacts, projects, and meetings. Sort alphabetically, then redirect e-mails to folders or delete them. In the future, be relentless and begin filing/deleting e-mails on arrival. When you get a request for a project update, the information will be only a click away.

Tuesday:

Calm cabinet chaos.Roll up your sleeves and tackle your kitchen cabinets. Gather two cardboard boxes. Place punch bowls and platters you haven't used in months in basement- or yard sale-bound boxes. Replace cabinet lining and sift through cans, teas, and cracker boxes, throwing out the expired and moving older cans to the front. Pour flour, cereal, and sugar into transparent plastic containers to keep them fresh and protected against bugs.

Wednesday:

Create a hassle-free hall closet. Plow through the gear crowding the hall closet. Pair up miscellaneous shoes and place them on a door hanger; chuck sporting equipment into large, round wicker baskets and move them to the garage; discard worn-out sneakers. Group similar items such as umbrellas in a stout round container. And keep it seasonal: If sweltering temps have you in tanks every day, relegate the winter woollies to plastic storage boxes.

Thursday:

Lick the linen closet. Pull out all like items and organize your linens by shelf. Keep towels together and group by type: washcloths, hand towels, bath towels, etc. If tattered towels are in the mix, tear them into cleaning rags. Keep top sheets separate from bottom sheets. Put any appliances--hair dryers, irons, curlers-- on another shelf, and toiletries on yet another.

Friday:

Manage your meds. Sort through the prescriptions in your medicine cabinet. Trash expired meds and throw out lotions and cosmetics you haven't used in the past 3 or so months. Put Q-tips and cotton balls in easy-to-reach glass containers. Replace hand soaps and toothbrushes; stock extras for unexpected houseguests.

Saturday:

Draft your family. Time to extend your organization to the family. Identify on a cleaning schedule weekly and monthly tasks that include each person. Create incentives: Pitch in and clean today, hit the amusement park next Saturday. Give each family member a job: vacuum, dust, do the laundry, get rid of outdated newspapers. Finish at noon and switch to relaxation mode.

Sunday:

Plot your pleasures.This day is all about you! Order takeout, spin your favorite tunes, and resist the boob tube temptation. In a notebook, scribble wish lists: books and mags to read, movies to see, restaurants to try, old friends to call. Think about the people and places you want to visit in the coming year (keep in mind what's realistic and affordable). Then grab your calendar and schedule your trips. [ prevention ]

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