My IDEA Online

Composition is defined as the combining of distinct parts or elements to form a whole. In photography that definition is very important in taking quality pictures. The following rules of composition should be learned and considered but not necessarily used in every photo. Once you have learned these rules you will be more observant of the possible photo opportunities that surround you. But keep in mind that the really famous photographers usually find a creative way to stretch or break the rules of composition.RULE OF THIRDSThe rule of thirds has been used through the centuries and is probably the most recognized rule. The rule of thirds directs that the frame can be divided into three vertical sections and three horizontal sections. Wherever the separating lines connect is an ideal spot for a subject or point of interest. By positioning your main subject at any of the four intersection points, you are giving your subject more emphasis than if it is right in the middle of the photo. The intersection points can also work if there is more than one main subject in a photo. Most famous photographs and paintings have the rule of thirds applied to them in some way or another.SIMPLICITYThe simplicity rule directs that you should keep the items in your photo relatively simple. If your main subject is close to the lens, then your background should be very simple in order to avoid distractions. Another good idea is to avoid objects or lines that lead the eye away from your main subject.CONTRASTThe contrast rule directs that light subjects should be placed against dark backgrounds and vice versa.FRAMINGThe framing rule directs that using natural surroundings mindfully can add more meaning and focus to your subject. The surroundings could be anything such as bushes, windows, trees or even a doorway. When using this rule be sure to focus on the main subject and not on the surroundings that are framing it. It is also a good idea to use a narrow aperture (high f/stop) when using this rule in order to create a high depth-of-field.TEXTUREThe texture rule can add a great amount of interest to most photos. When people see texture in a photo it can spark their imagination and make the photo more real to life. Texture would be a good idea when taking photos of rocks, walls, surfaces, hands or even leaves. In order to create texture try to compose your photo so the light is coming from the side and therefore casting shadows in key places.DIAGONALSThe diagonal rule directs that diagonal elements or lines can make a photo more dynamic. Diagonal elements could be fence posts, roads or even tree branches.LEADING LINESThe leading lines rule can be used to direct the eye deeper into a photo and commonly to the main subject. Leading lines can lure the eye to a subject by leading to it from any side or depth of the photo. Leading lines could be roads, rivers, tree branches or even bridges.COLORThe color rule…

Mutual funds were created with the idea that one person can specialize and manage the investments of a large pool of money from multiple investors. Before the great depression mutual funds were called investment pools and mutual fund managers were called pool operators. The bull market of the 1920’s created a time of economic prosperity akin to the 1990s. The conceptualization of the pyramid scheme occurred at this time as well. Ironically, the pyramid scheme had been debunked in 1920 when Charles Ponzi was arrested for offering investors unsustainable returns on postal certificates. The investors lost all of their money in Ponzi’s elaborate con job for which his name became synonymous. He was reportedly making a killing buying the postal certificates in Europe at low price and selling them at high prices in the United States. Con jobs in general like the one perpetrated in the movie “The Sting” with Robert Redford and Paul Newman were labeled “Ponzi Schemes.” The public never saw through the investment pool concept as a new form of Ponzi scheme. Investment pools eventually became thought of as a rip-off in the mind of the public. This is because becoming a pool operator was like having a license to steal. Instead of focusing on the interests of the public who had money in the “fund” the pool operators would engage in risky investments because the money was not theirs. They would also pay themselves extremely large fees. It became very clear to the public that investment pools were a big-rip off in the aftermath of the stock market crash of 1929. There was so much abuse by pool managers that the Security Exchange Commission (SEC) was formed in large part to stop these rip off artists. The SEC effectively shut down the more blatant con jobs. Then the securities industry came up with a fancy new name for investment pools to suck the public back in: “Mutual Funds!”If your 401(k) provider offers an indexed mutual fund then put your money into that. An indexed mutual fund uses a stock market index such as the S&P500 to guide which stocks are bought. The biggest and oldest indexed mutual fund is the Vanguard 500 (VFINX).A computer divvies up the cash in the fund to match the index as closely as a possible. As such, there is not fund manager to sitting on your hard earned retirement savings to rip you off in bogus fees.

Music courses are a great way to learn about virtually any area of music; history, theory, and musical instrument instruction — you name it and somewhere music courses specialize in it. Though generally found through colleges, universities or high school programs, music courses are also offered via one-on-one instruction with a private teacher or community-based workshops. Some churches even offer music courses as a complement to their choirs; the music courses may be offered to the general public, but they”re often geared toward the choir members and congregation.In the last few years, however, a new dimension to learning music has appeared in the form of the internet – the world wide web. Now instead of being limited to classroom courses, students are free to create their own schedules and learn at their own pace. A quick search on Google or Yahoo will turn up online courses in:-Chord Piano-Classical Piano For Beginners-Improvising on the Piano & Guitar-Rock Guitar-Praise & Worship Guitar-Killer Drum Instuctions-Black Gospel Piano-Jazz Pianoand many many more…Music courses offered by colleges are generally far more in-depth than other music courses and are usually only available to degree-seeking students (though some colleges offer music courses as part of their continuing education programs). Lower level college music courses often focus on an amalgamation of music theory and history, teaching individual theory concepts based on the historical period to which they are particular. As the music courses grow in skill level so too does the number of specialized topics. Advanced music courses are available for nearly every historical music period and are sometimes based on one particular movement. Advanced music courses for theory grow increasingly more difficult and slowly teach every detail found in modern music theory; it”s during the theory music courses that students intending to major in music have their skills challenged the most — some even refer to these music courses as a weeding out period.Instrument-based music courses are equally as tough at the college level, though they usually assume a working knowledge of the instrument before the class begins. Those wishing to learn an instrument, therefore, are better off with private music courses or music courses offered by a community orchestra or social group. These music courses will focus on the basic details of learning an instrument, starting from the very beginning. Fingering, theory and music reading will be covered, in addition to the occasional bit of history. Students of these music courses may then wish to move on to college-level music courses after completing a few years of private instruction.But for those more interested in “recreational music” – in other words, music that is played for personal enjoyment or to entertain family and friends, college music classes are not at all necessary. The internet abounds with wonderful courses that will help you do everything from play at your church to accompany your child on their flute or trombone, or even play in a jazz or rock or fusion or country group.

If you’re an up and coming graphic/web designer just out of university, you’ll know it’s quite hard to break into the workforce. You have to contact employers one by one, spend your time traveling and lugging your portfolio to their offices. Well, things have changed, and for the better let me tell you. Now you can make your own on-line portfolio on the Internet, and send its web page address to numerous design companies at once so they can all see your work easily. You don’t even have to leave your house and organizations all over the world can access your work easily.Individual businesses will get to know your particular style and your capabilities. It’s exactly like having an interview but with no schedules to have to adhere to and they don’t have to meet you in person! You might even consider leaving your MSN address so people can conference with you instantly. As the quality of web sites are reaching great heights, you can exhibit very detailed artworks in full color and if you gain a little technical knowledge (easily attained) you can even make them interactive. You can also have links to graphics sites that you admire giving employers and potential clients knowledge about what truly drives you.The amazing factor in the equation is the idea that you’ll be sharing your identity with the wider community at large. If one graphics company feels your work doesn’t suit their style, they may have friends in the industry who they know will be interested, thus using the age old ‘word of mouth’ technique to get you out there. Other people that see your site can help you get work as well. They don’t have to be in the industry to see that your art is worthy of their projects. Another plus is that other designers may get in contact with you. Then you become part of a network, a miniature community that helps each other with ideas, access to jobs, and constructive criticism to help you improve your skills. Of course this is true with just about all industries today, the example of a graphic designer is only a good one because their work is often hard to duplicate. This means that normally they can only see one employer at a time. On the Internet you can get a list of all the graphic design companies with your search engine (Eg: Google and send them all your web site address at once.Having your personal portfolio on the Web will definitely save you a lot of money that would have otherwise gone to transportation and telephone costs. If you’re already an established designer, architect, or freelance writer you can exhibit your work and receive briefs on future jobs without ever leaving your office. Designers can send drafts of the work on PDF files, which are then read and directly commented on using Acrobat reader. What a time saver in the creative process! However, for those who are still convinced of the…

“Millions of new teachers and health-care workers expected to be hired in the coming decade will need to become familiar with a retirement plan they may know little about: the 403(b commonly called a tax-sheltered annuity. 403(b) plans are salary-deferral plans designed for teachers, college professors, health workers at nonprofit facilities, and employees working for churches and charitable groups. As with 401(k) and similar defined-contribution plans for the private sector, contributions and earnings in a 403(b) are tax deferred. For 2005, the maximum an employee generally can defer out of pay into the 403(b) is $14,000 ($15,000 in 2006 or up to 100 percent of the employee’s compensation for that year, whichever is less. (Some plans may limit contributions to less than these maximum amounts.) Employers can kick in up to another $28,000 as long as the employer and the employee’s combined contributions don’t exceed 100 percent of the employee’s compensation. In 2005, employees 50 and older can make an additional “catch up” contribution of up to $4,000 (indexed annually).403(b) rules do allow a special additional deferral contribution for workers who have underfunded their plan. If you’ve worked for the same 403(b) employer for 15 years or more (not necessarily consecutively) and your plan contributions have averaged $5,000 or less annually, you can boost contributions as much as another $3,000 a year. But these special additional contributions cannot exceed a lifetime total of $15,000. Got all that? You may want to see your financial planner or other tax expert to make sure you do it right.As is the case with individual retirement accounts, and usually with 401(k) plans, the worker typically must begin making minimum taxable withdrawals from the 403(b) account when the worker turns 70 1/2. But from there, 403(b) plans tend to differ from similar private-sector plans.For one thing, 403(b) plans typically supplement the pension plans that government and nonprofit organizations use, unlike the private sector, where employers rely more on employee-funded plans such as 401(k)s. While it’s still important to fund your 403(b) plan as much as possible, because it probably won’t be your main source of retirement income, you may want to handle your investment allocations differently than you might a 401(k) plan that is your primary retirement account.Historically, 403(b) plans have been more restricted in their investment options than 401(k) plans, though that has improved over the years. While still referred to as tax-sheltered annuities, and although annuities still serve as the predominate investment vehicles, many of the 403(b) plans, especially larger ones, now offer mutual funds. Still, overall, choices can remain limited and 403(b) participants commonly complain about high fees. But some participants have an alternative. Federal law allows participants in 403(b) plans that are not subject to a federal law known as ERISA to shift money out of the plan and into a custodial account at a financial institution of their choice where ideally they’ll have lower fees and more investment choices (not individual stocks, however).But before making such a move, consider several…

People having hemorrhoids will know what I am talking about when I refer to these swollen veins as one of the most painful diseases to suffer from.Although hemorrhoid surgery is a very quick and safe procedure, it is always better to be avoid having hemorrhoids in the first place, so I thought it would be helpful for some people to read about some alimentation habits they may not be aware of, that will help prevent a lot of unnecessary awful pain.First of all, take care of yourself by eating healthy. I am not talking of you becoming a vegetarian or something like that; there is no need for such a radical change on your diet. Simply reduce fried meals. French fries every day will harm you, but once or maybe twice a week will not be cause of hemorrhoids at all. Another harmful practice is to eat huge amounts of very spicy food, such as Mexican or Indian food. Again, this will cause harm only when you abuse this kind of food, for instance by eating too much spicy food on a daily basis; once in a while will not only be harmless, but healthy as well, as it will introduce a certain variety within your diet.But perhaps the most common cause of hemorrhoids is the consumption of alcohol-saturated drinks. Wine has proven to be healthy, beer does not harm you when reasonably consumed, but if you are used to empty one Tequila, Whisky or Vodka bottle per week, then you have a big chance to suffer from hemorrhoids. And what may be worse, you will be doing irreversible harm to your liver as well. Have these tips in mind and you will avoid the terrible pain and awful inconvenience of getting hemorrhoids.

What can mobile marketing do for your business? Really what you should say is what can it not do for you? This high tech, amazingly simple marketing plan can transform virtually any business. Without marketing, what does your company have? As any business owner knows, telling your market that you are there is the most important thing to do in the first place. Secondly, you need to tell them that you have just what they need to better their lives. Third, you need to tell them about it when they are going to take action.You want to take your business to the next level. You know that there are hundreds of ways to market it. But, finding the right way with the most potential and driving home the sales is far from hard to find. In fact, mobile marketing is taking the nation by storm. That is due to the fact that more and more people are finding that life without their phone is next to impossible. With that said you know then that there is no limit to what can come across through screens and provide for them a wealth of all things that they need.Mobile marketing offers many advantages. It allows companies and brands to connect with their market easily and affordably. You have what they want and by putting that in front of them, your business will reap the rewards. One of the advantages of this type of marketing is that it is quite targeted to the audience that it is planned for. Why waste time and resources on the objectives that are not going to reach the right consumers when you have targeted marketing in front of you? That is the logic behind much of mobile marketing. Truly, it can benefit anyone’s business.

Sure you can write, but can you write crisp, compelling copy thatezine publishers, related Web sites, and book audiences willclamor for? To sell well, your articles, reports, books, and copywriting need to pass the checklist below: 1.___Make your book or article title or headlines grab your reader by the collar. If your titles and headlines are ho hum, your prospective audience will leave you instantly. Headlines and titles are far more important than the copy that follows. A clever title is great, but an even better title is clever and clear. Shorter titles sell better than longer ones, because they are easier to remember. Make each word count because your potential buyer will spend only four-eight seconds on the book front cover. On your Web site sales letters and your Web home page, your headlines must grab your visitors’ emotions and curiosity to lead them to buy. While some long titles have succeeded, usually the shorter, the better. 2.___Create your opening paragraph of your book chapter, your introduction, or your web copy to entice your reader continue. It’s not the book, it’s the hook. In fiction, start with the most exciting and important incident first. For fiction and non-fiction, open with dialogue. It’s more present and exciting. It shows rather than tells. In non-fiction open with two or three compelling questions your reader can connect with. Point out your readers’ challenges through them. Then follow with the thesis, a story and other solutions. 3.___Make each part of your non-fiction book, report, article, or sales letter support the thesis. For instance, the thesis of this article is “You will sell more books or services when you use these 10 ways to write like a pro.” Once you give each book, each chapter, each article a thesis, you’ll write more compelling, organized, and easy-to-read copy. 4.___Pursue friends and associates to edit your work. Send them a survey asking for their feedback on small amounts at a time. Always reward them with a free book at the finish, or a free special report you create from your longer pieces. Edit three times before you submit your piece to a professional editor or book coach. . 6.___Use strong, emotional or visual, power verbs rather thanlinking verbs like “is,” “there is,” or “start to or begin.” These linking verbs create passive, long sentences. They stop movement and slow readers down or bore them. Readersexpect straight forward copy, and when they don’t get it, will put your book or other writing down, never to return. Not a good way to receive word of mouth referrals. Start your sentences with the subject, then add a power verb. Find these listed in the eBook, “Use Power words to Spice Up Every Page of your Book or Web Site.” 7. Stop loading your copy with telling words like adverbs. Every time you see a “very” or an -ly ending in your work, rethink. Check with your Thesaurus to see the more compelling possibilities. Think corpulent instead of very fat.…

You can get the best price for your used car only when a new care of the same model is being sold at the highest price. If a manufacturer gives discounted prices for a new car of the same model, you can’t sell your car at the best price. In other words, the best time to sell your used car is when the prices for the model you have are at the highest. Hence the important factor that affects the price of a used car is the price of a new car of that model you own. So it is better to wait until the price of a new car of your model goes up rather than selling it when the manufacturer gives discounts for a new car of your model.Preparing your car for selling it is a must. You have to consider what the potential buyer thinks of your car. So you have to maintain the interior and the exteriors of your car properly. If your car is not clean inside and out, the potential buyer may not think positively about your car. This simple issue might make you lose a possible deal. Therefore proper maintenance of your car is essential to fetch a good price for your used car. Some people might overlook some serious problems in the car if the car looks shiny and glowing. Touch up scratches on the exterior and interior. Make up the small dents in it. Balance the tires properly. Clean inside and out. This might fetch you a profitable deal.The price of your car should take into consideration the mileage and the condition of the car. You might also consider the demand for that model. Cars that have run for more miles are often not preferred and they are considered ‘used up’. Hence most of the people prefer cars that have run for fewer miles per year. Usually a potential buyer would consider the price that you have fixed for your car as the asking price and he would negotiate the price. It is always better to have a margin of 5 f the price that you want to sell so that your can negotiate that 5

There are many very effective ways to advertise your business online and equally, there are some highly dubious methods too!While I usually prefer to focus on positive subjects for my articles, the merry-go-round of the traffic exchange “industry” is something I feel I have a duty to warn you of. If you”re new to marketing your business online then you”ve been doing some searches here and there, trying to find ways of “getting out there”.You”ve discovered that there”s a million and one different websites making fantastic claims and promising the earth! Whilst most traffic exchanges don”t claim to be able to make you a millionaire, they do claim to be able to send you untold numbers of “hot prospects”. This is what I have a problem with – the quality of the traffic is almost always very poor.No doubt you”ve discovered a few of these traffic exchanges yourself. Why don”t they work?The giveaway is in the name but first a little history will help you understand the context in which traffic exchanges have come to exist. Back in the primordial days of the internet, at least as long ago as 2001, the first traffic exchange was born. It was a beautiful concept and it worked very well. Users signed up and agreed to view or “surf” other members” pages. As the user surfed, so credits built up which were used to display the users site across the network.Because this concept was new, it worked fantastically well. It was a great way to get traffic to your new site. Then, inevitably, the business model was copied. The traffic exchange “industry” was now upon us. There seemed to be a new exchange being released every week. Different exchanges had different surf/display ratios. All the same people joined all the same exchanges.Let”s jump right back into the present. With a little research, it won”t take you long to find out that these days it”s the search engines driving more than 80% of the traffic on the internet. The only people using traffic exchanges are new webmasters and people trying to find a free way of promoting their website.Look at this user base for a minute.No-one is interested in what you have to sell. All they care about (just like you) is getting traffic to their own website. People who still insist on using the exchanges have devised ways of surfing more than 15 exchanges simultaneously, never spending more than a second or two on one site. This all adds up to nobody really seeing your page and equates to a very poor return on your investment – that investment being time, your most precious commodity.Traffic exchanges began when SEO was a term that had not even been coined. With the rise and rise of Google, the other engines playing catch-up and many smaller niche directories now appearing on the scene, the overriding focus in this day and age is search engine optimisation or SEO. When you see the awesome power of a top…

1. Stay in contact with customers on a regular basis. Offer them a free e-zine subscription. Ask customers if they want to be updated by e-mail when you make changes to your Web site. After every sale, follow-up with the customer to see if they are satisfied with their purchase.2. Create a customer focus group. Invite ten to twenty of your most loyal customers to meet regularly. They will give you ideas and input on how to improve your customerservice. You could pay them, take them out to dinner or give them free products.3. Make it easy for your customers to navigate on your web site. Have a “FAQ” page on your Web site to explain anything that might confuse your customers. Ask them to fill out an electronic survey to find out how make your web site more customer friendly.4. Resolve your customers complaints quickly and successfully. Answer all e-mail and phone calls within an hour. If possible, you the owner of the business, personally take care of the problem. This will show your customers you really care about them.5. Make it easy for your customers to contact you. Offer as many contact methods as possible. Allow customers to contact you by e-mail. Hyperlink your e-mail address so customers won”t have to type it. Offer toll free numbers for phone and fax contacts.6. Make sure employees know and use your customer service policy. Give your employees bonuses or incentives to practice excellent customer service. Tell employees to be flexible with each individual customer, each one has different concerns, needs and wants.7. Give your customers more than they expect. Send thank you gifts to lifetime customers. E-mail them online greetingcards on holidays or birthdays. Award bonuses to your customers who make a big purchase.8. Always be polite to your customers. Use the words your welcome, please, and thank you. Be polite to your customers even if they are being irate with you. Alwaysapologize to your customers should you make a mistake. Admit your mistakes quickly and make it up to them in a big way.9. Reward customers a point for every one dollar they spend. Let”s say customers can get a free computer for 300 points. That means customers will spend $300 dollars onyour products and services to get enough points to get the free computer.10. Build strong relationships with your customers. Invite them to company meetings, luncheons, workshops or seminars. Create special events for your customers likeparties, barbecue”s, dances etc. This will make them feel important when you include them in regular business operations and special events.

Build it and they will come is not always true; you have to form a relationship with the company before you will get quality attendees or participants for a free service.The key to a human’s heart is through food. The key to a web surfer is free information and products. Simply offering free information is not enough to bring visitors to your site. The offering has to have substance and also be worthwhile. The web surfer is constantly asking, “What is in it for me?” If what you are providing is of value, then the word will get out fast. Your service can be anything from free training, white papers, advice, or even a newsletter. Even though you will have the information available, you must still advise everyone you know that it is in place.My husband does a lot of volunteer work for Rotary and is the district webmaster. He has placed hundreds of pages of information on this site, offering the various clubs tools they can use. Although some do extensively, there are others that have difficulty understanding why they would go there. He spends a great deal of his time showing the value of the site. He even posted free e-learning components on the site so that they could learn how to use an application. It takes work to show people the value.Eventually over a period of a couple of years, the website was being used by almost every club. Now, they are submitting information about events so that their club is part of the process. You should look at your site in the same way, it is a tool for your customers to access free information, and the more valuable you make that information, the more often they will look on the web. If your free information is only hype, they will turn away in droves.Although you do not want to overwhelm anyone with information, you can make your site very informative. Make it easy to navigate and find what they want. If you have more information to give out than can be professionally displayed, you could consider putting out a newsletter on current events and other newsworthy items.Bette Daoust, Ph.D. has been networking with others since leaving high school years ago. Realizing that no one really cared about what she did in life unless she had someone to tell and excite. She decided to find the best ways to get people’s attention, be creative in how she presented herself and products, getting people to know who she was, and being visible all the time. Her friends and colleagues have often dubbed her the “Networking Queen”. Blueprint for Networking Success: 150 ways to promote yourself is the first in this series. Blueprint for Branding Yourself: Another 150 ways to promote yourself is planned for release in 2005. For more information visit target=”_new” href=”http://www.blueprintbooks.com/” rel=”noopener noreferrer”>http://www.BlueprintBooks.com

There seems to be a huge craze lately with everyone trying to blog and ping to get their websites indexed into the search engines. Although this can be a great tool, all marketers should first understand exactly what they’re getting themselves into before starting.This article is to serve as a beginners guide to getting started with blogging and pinging.1. What is a blog?A “blog” is short for “web log.” A web log is an online diary or journal. The main aspect blog is that it is frequently updated – at least once a week, sometimes every day or even more.Since blogs are regularly updated, they tend to carry more value than regular static HTML pages (in some cases).2. What is a ping?A ping is a program that sends out a brief request for a response from another computer or server. When you ping on the Internet, you send out a program to see if a remote server is responding.3. How do bloggers use pings?Two main reasons to use pings with blogs: First and foremost is to let the search engines know that you have updated your website so they can send their spiders.Secondly, pings also update the websites on the internet who are using your blog on their site (through a feature called RSS feeds, they are displaying your messages on their site).4. So what is the big deal about blogging and pinging?Smart affiliate marketers use blogging and pinging to help get their sites crawled and indexed by the search engine spiders a lot quicker than they normally would.They set up a blog either on their main site or on a sub-domain of their site. They then post links to their product pages on their blog and send out a ping to all the major servers on the Internet.That ping says “This site has fresh content, time to go add it to your database!” It’s a trigger that sends the search spiders looking for updated pages on your site. When they find the new pages, search engines tend to index them much faster.Blogging and pinging will not get you into EVERY search engine overnight. As of this writing, it is most effective with getting into Yahoo. But often MSN, and even Google, will follow in short order.Combine blogging and pinging with good link recruiting for the best indexing.Also, blog and ping on a regular basis if you want to “stay” indexed in the search engines.6. Is blogging and pinging a requirement to get indexed?No. You can get indexed quickly by getting plenty of natural backlinks. But for backlinks to be most effective, they have to appear as if they were natural and this can take weeks if not months. Blogging and pinging does seem to drastically shorten the process.7. Is there a downside to blogging and pinging?Yes, some marketers are starting to abuse this strategy and the engines are getting wise to it! If you go over-board you risk getting your website completely banned and removed.Also, many marketers are blogging…

The current economy is causing most companies to tighten their belts. With limited staffing and a restricted budget, how do you continue to promote your business? The simple solution is the occasional or ongoing use of outside resources such as graphic designers, writers, webmasters, and other creative talent.There are some real advantages to outsourcing.First, your business only has to purchase the services you need, when you need them. This saves on overhead costs such as equipment, office space, salaries, and benefits. Project costs are specified in a contract and monitored on a regular basis.Second, by outsourcing services to a firm, your organization can realize the expertise of an entire group of creative talent. With more resources, you can rest assured your deadlines are met without compromising quality. With an expanded network of creative experts, customized skills are focused on designated projects, providing a higher level of service.You may also want to consider a retainer agreement. In a retainer agreement, you pay an outside firm a specified amount each month to retain their services for your company. This can be an advantage if your business has an ongoing need for project management for websites, publications, advertising placement, and ongoing campaigns and marketing efforts.However, many people are not sure how to hire a firm. Here are some tips to help you evaluate any type of creative services: Don’t just go with the first creative firm you find. Do your research. Ask colleagues, customers, and other professional organizations for suggestions. Visit the company’s website to view their online portfolio and read any articles they have written. This will help you understand the firm’s areas of expertise and their approach. Meet in-person with a representative from the firm. This will help you gain a deeper understanding of the firm’s personality. When you meet with a creative firm for the first time, be sure to ask all the questions you might have about communication, workflow, billing, timelines, and so on. When considering which firm you want to work with, take some time to review their list of clients and ask about past projects. Ask for references. Every firm has a unique look and feel to their design pieces. Review a potential firm’s portfolio to see if you like their creative work. Ask the designer if they can help you develop a targeted product that will address your unique needs. Do you feel comfortable with the person you will be working with? Will they be able to get back to you in a timely manner? Can they meet your deadlines? Take time to discuss their pricing structure. When evaluating the cost, ask how value is added to justify certain pricing structures. For example, working with a freelancer will probably cost less than working with an entire firm. However, it may take more time and one person has a limited range of expertise, as well as time constraints. He or she may have to outsource certain components of your project. In the long run, you may be…

History has shown, time and time again that the way we choose to sleep, will, affect our quality of life. We do not sleep on mattresses by mere coincidence, but rather because of a basic human need to sleep well. Thousands of years ago, in the Neolithic period, people had beds made of stone, but still slept on animal skin. Mattresses appeared around 5,000 years ago, but luxury mattresses began to appear as early as the decline of the Roman Empire. Velvet and silks were heavily used in the Renaissance, as well as lattice worked rope beds. Iron cast beds appeared in the early 19th century, springs only being introduced after the year 1865. Modern mattresses with inner spring workings were first commercialized before WW II. In the late 60’s memory oam was discovered, and by the 80’s cotton, foam and inner spring mattresses were all readily available around the world.12,000 years ago before mattresses, people slept in caves, on the ground, on stone beds covered with animal skins while dreaming of touching the stars. In Scotland, primitive stone beds can be found in the Neolithic village of Skara Brae, with its advanced stone astronomical calendar. The development of the first cotton mattresses in Mesopotamia, Egypt and Babylonia, around 3,000 BC, brought with it a turning point in mattress evolution until the end of Antiquity around the year 529 AD, with the plunge into the Dark Ages. In the eastern civilizations of China and Japan, the futon continued to evolve, as well as the tatami, but western culture seemed to be more interested in dry weeds, hay, wool, feathers and reads until the beginning of the age of rebirth around 1432 AD, with the death of Joan of Arc. Her sacrifice in “La Place Rouge” in the city of Rouen, not only echoed through the royal courts of France, but carried with it the cry for an “age of reason” throughout the entire known world. The Renaissance revived the passion for comfort and the value of a good nights sleep.The passion for dreaming and enlightenment that fueled the Renaissance, survived all the way up to the 19th century with such works of art as the hand carved beds in the fantasy castle Neueschwanstein in Bavaria. But insect and mite free mattresses as we know them today began to appear as early as the late 1700’s with the first cast iron beds, with cotton mattresses. The need for hygiene and comfort led to the invention of springs. NASA brought about the invention of memory foam mattresses, which have shown time and time again to be far more efficient than the conventional spring-cotton design inherited from the Industrial Revolution.In a quickly globalizing world, much can be learned by getting a good nights rest. In the dawn of civilization, humankind first learned to value their sleep and look to the stars. During the Middle Ages, western civilization slowly began the rebirth of its dreams, until 1969 when the first man landed on the…