Q: Can you tell me the difference between a copyright and a patent? Also is that something I should let a lawyer handle for me?

A: A wise man once said, “The biggest difference between a copyright and a patent is the number of lawyers it takes to do the paperwork.” There is a point to be made there, mainly that if this wise man had paid his attorney to copyright that tidbit of wisdom I probably would have had to pay him five bucks to use the quote.

Copyrights, trademarks and patents are similar in that they are designed by law to protect your rights of ownership, but that’s where the similarity ends. A copyright protects a creative work; a trademark protects a brand or company identity; and a patent protects an invention or process.

A copyright protects the rights of anyone who creates an “original work of authorship.” A copyright owner has the exclusive right to reproduce the work; prepare spin-off works based on the copyrighted work; and to sell, perform and/or display the copyrighted work in public.

Copyright protection is afforded to eight categories of creative works: literary works (the written word); musical works (lyrics, music, melodies); dramatic works (plays, scripts, screenplays); artistic works (pictorial and sculptural), sound recordings (LPs, CDs, audio tapes); choreographic works (dance, pantomime); audiovisual works; and architectural works (blueprints, designs, renderings).

An original work is automatically copyrighted the moment it is put into a fixed format such as a paper copy or recording. In other words, once you put your original story in writing or make a recording of an original song, your copyright is automatically secured. From that moment on your work has copyright protection for your lifetime, plus 50 years after your death.

Registering a work with the U.S. Copyright Office is not required, but since it is relatively simple and inexpensive to do so, I advise that you register a copyright for each work you wish to protect. Also, your copyright must be registered in order to take legal action against someone who might infringe on the copyright in the future.

You can register a copyright without the assistance of an attorney. Simply visit the U.S. Copyright office website at http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/ and download the appropriate form. Complete the form and send it in with a $30 nonrefundable filing fee. This must be done for each individual work you wish to protect.

A patent is a form of protection granted to an inventor that protects his invention in the United States for up to 20 years from the date of application. Patent law states that, “whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, composition of matter, or any new and useful improvements thereof may obtain a patent.” Owning a patent gives you the legal right to stop someone else from making, using or selling your invention (or one that’s very close to it) without your permission. However, proving that someone is infringing on your patent is often difficult and usually requires a trial to settle the dispute.

Since the first U.S. patent was awarded in 1790, more than five million patents have been awarded. The patent office receives more than 230,000 patent applications every year and I can tell you from personal experience that a turtle on Prozac moves faster than the patent process. Patents can take several years, truckloads of paperwork, and considerable legal fees to obtain. The cost of obtaining a patent can run from $500 for a simple design patent to $50,000 and more for a complex utility patent. However, if your company has a truly patentable idea, you would be wise to invest the time and money required to secure your rights. A good patent can be a valuable business asset.

While you can file a patent yourself, I strongly advise that you use an attorney since a naively written patent application often isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. Just recently my attorney did a patent search for me only to discover that a patent for a similar product was already in place. However, due to the ineffectual language of the patent application, the patent was practically impossible for the owner to enforce.

Good news for me. Not so good news for the wise man who wrote his own patent.

Here’s to your success!

A well-stocked, easily accessible toolbox can make anyones life just a little easier. Placing your tools in a convenient location can help you avoid the hassle of digging out the toolbox each time. You might be surprised how often you actually need your tools once they are more accessible to you. The following tools will get you on the right path toward a complete tool collection. Along with these tools, do not forget to purchase a toolkit and find a home repair manual that you can easily understand.

How is your grocery bill month to month? Do you end up spending more than you wanted every month? If you are at all like me, a working wife and mother, grocery shopping and meal time can be a stressful and time consuming endeavor. And, if getting the meal on the table for a descent price is not enough, there is the health issue that factors in. Attempting to provide healthy meals that will not empty the pocketbook can be difficult to find! With some great tips, you will see the benefits you receive when you start shopping smart and eating at home. It is worth it!

One of my greatest struggle with sticking to a budget, is that I always overspend what I budget on food. Here are some of my tips to help an Adult with ADD when going Grocery Shopping:

1. Write a menu of what you want to eat for the week. Make sure to include breakfast, lunch, and snacks. There are software products available to help adults with ADD who are more visual thinkers.

2. Based on the menu create a list of what you will need to prepare the items on your menu.

3. Look in your cabinets and refrigerator, for items that are on your list, remove those items from your list. If you go the supermarkets to buy cleaning products or toiletries, you will need to check your bathroom, closets, and if you are like me anywhere else in the house where you put these items. Add items that you are running low on, on to the list.

4. Can you afford the items that are on your list? This will be difficult to determine if this is the first time that you have set a limit for yourself, or if grocery shopping is new to you. Once you have shopped a couple of times with a set limit, you will understand whether your food budget is realistic, or if you will have to make changes to your limit or what you buy. A lot of adults with ADD like to use online services that will deliver the groceries to you. This can be helpful for several reasons; it will total up all you purchases before you make them, it reduce the time of a mundane task, and it helps to control impulse buying.

5. If you are planning to go out shopping, make sure you eat a proper meal before hand. This helps you keep a clear head and reduce impulse buying, by not buying things that you are craving because you are hungry.

6. Have you checked circulars, newspapers or the Internet for coupons for the products that are on your list? This can be dangerous because you might also be tempted to buy additional items that you do not really need.

7. Before you head out decide if you want to go to one store or more than one store. While you can save money by going to additional stores, I would not recommend it. First the additional money and time that you spend traveling could negate any savings that you get. Second it adds a lot of complexity to a task that should be done as simply as possible.

Keeping a computer running smoothly and quickly is a never-ending job. It seems like no time after you take your brand-new PC out of the box, your computer starts acting up and performing more like the old PC you got rid of than the new one it.is supposed to be. While this is extremely frustrating, it can be prevented if you know what is causing your PCs poor performance and how to fix the problems behind it or avoid them in the first place.

The nastiest things that corrupt your PC are the things you cant see. Nasty bugs like viruses, adware and spyware can wreak havoc with your system without you even being aware of it. At their most lethal, viruses can completely destroy your PCs operation, but normally they just work to interfere with the daily operations of your computer. Adware and spyware, on the other hand, stay running in the background of your PC and can slow it down considerably.

Heres a closer look:

Computer viruses are PC software programs that you accidentally download to your computer through an email attachment or other type of download. Once installed on your computer, a virus can interfere with your PCs operation; record, corrupt or delete data; and spread itself to other computers through your network or the internet.

Spyware and adware are software programs that you download onto your computer along with many other software applications. This software is then used to track your online browsing habits so that you can be hit with pop ups that you will be more likely to respond to. Not only is this software an invasion of your privacy, it also can compromise your data and affect your PCs performance.

Not only can things that you download from the internet onto your computer affect its performance, software that is already installed or software that you install through your CD drive can also create problems. You see, some software that you have on your PC stays running in the background even if you are not using the program. This can dramatically affect your PCs execution times, especially if there is more than one hidden program running. To see if you have programs running in the background, press Ctrl + Alt + Delete at the same time. The box that pops up will show you all applications that are running.

Other things that can affect your PCs performance include a hard drive that is too full, not enough memory to perform tasks and a fragmented hard drive. All of these problems can be solved by performing routine maintenance on your PC or purchasing a software package that does it all for you. If you choose to do it yourself, you will need to manually go into your Windows System Tools and launch each program. Here you will find several system optimizers to help you free up your disk space, defragment your PC, and detect and repair disk errors.

Even the process of adding and deleting programs can affect your PCs performance. When you install and uninstall Windows programs, they leave behind parts or applications that can slow down your computer. You may even unknowingly delete a file needed for other software applications. This can result in a minor glitch or a complete failure with some programs or even your whole system.

Keep Your PC Performing Like New

One of the first things that you should do to protect your PCs performance is install a firewall if you dont already have one and use adequate security software to prevent intrusions. You should also have additional spyware and adware detectors if your security software does not have them.

You can also purchase additional software that will keep your system optimized on a regular basis and take care of all of the problems that we talked about. This is an advantage over doing it yourself because it is very easy to forget to perform maintenance, and lets face it; who has time to manually perform all of these functions?

You should also get a free hidden error scan to see if your PC is operating with any hidden errors that can ruin your PCs performance. Since 94% of computers do have hidden errors, yours probably does too, but hidden errors are easy to eliminate with the right software.

With all of these things that can affect your PCs performance, there is no wonder that it continually loses efficiency over time. But you can prevent it, if you stay on top of it.

There you are many pubic Autosurf Investment opportunities available today. One simple search for Autosurf returns about 1 million results on Yahoo. Anyone could get started in these types of internet investments.

The question is Would you want to?

With the ease at which budding HYIP starters can obtain scripts used by popular programs such as 12DailyPro, do you really want to invest your hard-earned cash with these people?

While reading various Autosurf related forums, it became obvious that these programs were nothing more than elaborate pyramid schemes put together with ready-to-go scripts. To avoid any legal issues, they claim to pay you for viewing ads and that the investment you make is, in fact, not an investment but a membership fee. Administrators of these programs claim that they are able to sustain paying high returns (usually over 30% per month) because of money coming in from people wanting to purchase untargeted traffic at their Autosurf. Do you believe them? I certainly dont.

In the month of December, I managed to track 18 Autosurf closures. The real figure was probably more than that because new Autosurfs seem to spring up every day and disappear the next. On the 31st of December 2005, 12 new Autosurfs have miraculously appeared out of nowhere. How many will last one week? Not a lot.

Internet investments can be profitable though. You just have to know where to invest. My advice to newcomers would be to avoid investing in public Autosurfs completely. Its not worth surfing an hour each day, just to lose your money to some 10-year-old crook with a script. Sure, there may be some which last for a longer period of time, but sooner of later they will close.

Instead, look for reliable private investments which have a great chance of surviving and have a constant stream of income. Private investments are usually have money coming in from trading on stock exchanges and buying small businesses. Although the returns may not be as great as promised by Autosurfs they are much safer.

Choosing a hotel, especially in a large city like Barcelona can be a gigantic headache. But if you read on, this article can give you a wonderful solution for flights, transport, hotel and a marvellous stay at the leading theme park from the time you step foot off the plane at the Barcelona airport. There are many kinds of accomodations for everyones holiday stay in Barcelona, Spain like hotels ranging from five to three stars, hostels, youth hostels, campings and apartments. But what I really understand for the word holiday is having everything at a snap of your fingers and here is how you can get it.

Barcelona Hotels at a snap of your fingers

Your holiday plans are set on Barcelona, and before heading into the busy city to enjoy all the cultural and architectural delights it has to offer, I recommend the following itinerary which I have personally done twice ( and hope to do a few more times). When arriving at the El Prat Barcelona Airport, you can get a special transfer which will take you directly to your Barcelona hotel at the fantastic theme park called Port Aventura. If you are planning to travel to other places and have decided on a car hire, remember that Europcar has special prices for vacationers staying at Port Aventura. You will have previously chosen one of these wonderful four star hotels, each uniquely decorated and offering a package deal of hotel lodging and breakfast, entrance tickets to Port Aventura and also to the Carribbean Water Park ( Caribe Aquatic Park ).

The Portaventura Hotel is nicely decorated in a Mediterranean colonial style, The El Paso Hotel intricately shows the pre-Colombian and Mexican decor and the Caribe Port hotel is the biggest swimming pool with white sand in the world. You are not going to get this type of Barcelona Hotels even booking the best ones right on the waterfront. At the highest season which is categorized as A, one night with two days in the park could cost about 218 euros single and 136 double with a child for 68 euros. There are combinations of 4 people in one room including child and longer stay offers. At the El Paso Hotel, in the lowest season, still being able to enjoy very favourable Barcelonian weather, 2 people would be about 84 euros and a child 42. Cant beat that! Enjoy the parks fully and snoop around and relax completely at these magnificent hotels in Barcelona.

Other Barcelona Hotels Options

When my piggy bank exploded, or did I explode it, it doesnt matter, I went mad and stayed at the Arts Hotel in Barcelona. I wanted to have a perfect view of the marina port area and was told that any of the suites, splendid double rooms or luminous duplex apartments would give me that pleasure. I wanted to be catered to as I was, with its friendly, well-trained staff and incredible facilities. As a last effort to live it up, I had my taste buds tickled at the Goyescas restaurant. Everything on the menu was teasing so I tried the house specialty and was recommended an exquisite wine to accompany it.

After working hard on a few projects, I was tempted to go back to visit the new port area in Barcelona, and as I wanted to get more details on the Barcelona hotels I went straight for the three star Montecarlo hotel located on the Ramblas Promenade, well known for being lined with flower stands. This medieval 14th century building has been newly renovated and decorated but always respecting the original architectural features. This time I concentrated on the complete buffet breakfast and its centrical location to be able to walk into the centre, to the port area and to get a glimpse at the crazy nightlife in the Exaimple area.

Barcelona has been recognized as one of the most vanguard places for hotels and gastronomy. Therefore, the tourist bureau and town hall of Barcelona has decided to make the period from March 2005 to March 2006 a national and international promotion of Catalunya and its rich fresh products. Some of the restaurants promoting these products like the shop Can Ravell ( an excellent delicatessen ) or Club del Gourmet ( coffee,tea and sweets) are near the two Barcelona hotels I have mentioned.

Originally from England, Maureen Mo Feduniak has been a competitive Poker player for over a decade. Her mentor, none other than T. J. Cloutier, no doubt was a major factor in developing Maureen into the fine competitor she is today.

T. J. himself has won more than fifty Tournaments world-wide, including a collection of no less than six World Series of Poker Bracelets.

Maureen became enthralled with Poker after watching a telecast of a WSOP tournament, plus the fact that her husband Bob is quite a Poker pro himself.

Accomplished Poker enthusiast, Maureen Feduniak can be considered the Grand Dame of Tournament poker. Grandmother to 5, she received coaching from poker super star T. J. Cloutier. Mrs. Feduniak considers herself an instinctual rather than an analytical player, and is an avid online player.

Maureen Feduniak lives in beautiful Las Vegas and plays online poker on the following sites, www.pokerstores.com and www.partypoker.com. Her skillful Poker playing has resulted in the following accomplishments:

-2005 Fourth Annual Five Diamond World Poker Classic No Limit Holdem Championship Day 2 Chip Count 99th place – $54,600

-World Poker Tour Ladies Night Main Event 4th Place – $0

-Fiesta al Lago Seven Card Stud 5th place – $5,450

-2004 Plaza Ultimate Poker Challenge No Limit Holdem 8th place – $1,600

-35th Annual World Series of Poker Event #29 Limit Holdem 15th place- $10,020

-35th Annual WSOP Event #13 No Limit Holdem 31st Place – $7,160

-35th Annual WSOP Event #3 Limit Seven Card Stud 13th place – $4,280

-2003 Five Diamond World Poker Tournament Season 2 Limit Seven Card Stud 8th place – $6,620

-2003 Bellagio Special Poker Events No Limit Holdem 1st Place – $43,650

Maureen is best known for her appearance in the Travel Channels World Poker Tour Ladies Only Event. Her greatest achievement thus far has been 4th place in the WPT Poker Million Event in 2003 with a prize of almost $80,000.

If you want customers to spend money with you online, you have to make them feel confident theyre dealing with a legitimate business. Theyre giving you their personal information, as well as their credit card number. If your website sends a clear message you run your business from home, they may not feel comfortable entrusting you with that kind of info. Thats why its important to create a brand your customers recognize and trust.

Whats a Brand?

A brand is what differentiates you from every other eBiz out there:

A brand is a set of expectations you create in your customers minds in regards to your business. It comprises everything from the quality of your website to your customer service to your actual merchandise. More than just a name and logo, its your buyers entire experience with your company.

A brand is a reputation. A good brand adds value to your productbuyers expect a certain quality based on the brand name. If they recognize your brand and have a good association with it, theyre likely to choose it over other similar products, even if it costs a little more.

Your Branding Should Be Consistent

Explains Eileen Parzek, of http://SohoItGoes.com, Consistently use a brand design throughout all your different marketing material It gives a sense youre bigger than you really are. You need to figure out what your marketing message is and carry that message through all your promotional materials. If you have business cards, press kits, and print materials, they should reflect the design of your website from the fonts and color palette to the logo and tagline.

Your format should also persist through all of your web pagesthe layout, the tone of your copy, even your navigation. Having a unified, professional-looking web store can go a long way towards building a customers confidence in you. A well-designed site gives your business credibilitycustomers associate the quality of your site with the quality of service and merchandise they expect from you.

Your Branding Should Be Continuous

Your brand should evolve to reflect the changing needs of your target marketbrandings an ongoing process. It begins, ideally, in your business startup phase and continues through the life cycle of your business. Says Parzek, [Branding] is not something you ever stop doing. You have to be conscious of it at all times.

Most of us eat at restaurants for a variety of reasons; time and convenience are the most common motives. Below is a prepared list of quick tips for eating out of your home.

If you eat healthy food or sensible portions, that you like, you can stick with eating healthy for life.

Your portions should be spaced out over the course of the day. Water should be a part of every meal.

After you eat, your stomach should be half full, or less, with food. For every two parts of food consumed, you should drink one part water. Leave your stomach at least one quarter empty for movement of air.

When eating at a restaurant, eat half a portion, maximum, and wait five or ten minutes. Restaurant portions are commonly two to four meals on a single or double plate.

This is way too much to consume at a single sitting and you may find out that, once you pause and sip your drink, you are already full.

In the Providence, RI area, there are some restaurants where the single portions could feed a family of four. No wonder a man of 200 lbs. is now considered thin. Do not make comparisons to other people. Eat to live and enjoy your food, but do not use someone elses over indulgence as an excuse for your own.

Establish control over your appetite. Most of us feel guilty if we dont finish a plate. This is usually conditioning from your childhood. Bury your guilty past and have the rest wrapped to go.

Always eat something for breakfast and never skip it. When you skip breakfast, you will over-consume for it, later in the day.

Eat slowly and thoroughly chew your food.

Make sure your last meal, or last snack of the day, is small and nutritionally dense. Examples: Cereal with fruit, vegetable salad with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, rice with vegetables, and light popcorn, without the extra butter and salt. For those who eat meat or fish: turkey, chicken, or salmon salad on top of fresh greens.

In the later part of your day, skip desserts, sugary cereals, bread, and second portions.

If you absolutely must have sugar: Eat fruit, strawberries with yogurt or low fat cottage cheese, fruit with rice, or almonds with yogurt.

If you must have coffee or alcohol, beware that these should be consumed in extreme moderation. Both substances will dehydrate your body, and you will have to drink extra water to make up for it. Wine is much better than hard alcohol, but one or two glasses a day is the limit.

Open your horizons. Find quality in small things, not the big ones. A more spiritual orientation brings about observing the details that go by unseen when you look for the big things.
SHET

Can you control your attention? The ability to control your attention, to control where you focus your attention, endows you with the ability to create your environment. It furnishes you with energy to do work, study, finish projects, succeed in your endeavors when you can see both the whole picture and also the details, and in general, it enables you to react to situations with enough rationality to direct them toward your objectives. You become aware by focusing your attention on something. Before placing your attention on that something, it didnt exist for you. Now that you focused on it, you became aware of it and it exists for you. By observing you make things alive in your own universe. And obversely, when you put less attention on something, it tends to disappear. Is your life precisely what you wish it to be? If not, no matter the reason, you can still learn to control your attention, and thereby, learn to create.

Is your attention being controlled by external events when everything disturbs you, when the smallest rustling distracts you? If that is the case, then you certainly dont know how to handle energy. When instead of being directed by you, your attention is controlled by external events, then your energy too is controlled by external events. We have bodies to learn how to handle energy. An expression of wasting it could be the lack of cash flow as wished. People who have a high concentration level, who can control the flow of their attention, have more energy than others do. Its not that they have more energy they simply know how to handle it better. So control it. You see, usually, when not working on it, awareness, or one’s attention is guided, controlled by outside events: by emotions, unwanted emotions, the chattering of the mind, etc. However, when you work on it and develop your control, consciousness is the one directing the awareness, and that’s as it should be. Then you flow with the universal energy, which therewith can flow through you and imbue you with its plenty. When you allow your attention to float like a boat without a rudder on high seas, you block the universe from being able to give to you.

Individuals with easily dispersed attention often seem to act neurotically. They could be said to be unstable. They feel guilt-ridden, having too many unfinished tasks on their conscience. They get into something, then something else comes up and they give that something else attention while they leave the first thing unattended and so on and so on. Too many loose ends. They seldom finish things before going on to the next thing, and yet they leave their attention on the unfinished projects or wishes. They don’t even end them in their minds, so they are kept in a constant state of distraction, their concentration dispersed, and then they judge themselves on all those things they haven’t done. Instead of treating these individuals with antidepressants, tranquilizers, barbiturates or other goodies, instead of beating to death their childhood or past life traumas, it would suffice to teach them step by step how to control their attention and how to finish what they began.

An inability to control ones attention may be regarded as just another symptom, and consequently, treatment may be aimed at something else. Yet learning to control ones attention could cure many psychological disorders. Your energy is your ability to focus your attention where you wish.

Perhaps, you keep playing the same record in your private chatterbox you call your brains, disabled by the automatic repetitions of babble you call your thoughts. Maybe your attention is stuck in past events, thinking that if you had only said this or that, then whatever, or maybe you hold onto all those terrible things that were done to you. When your attention is trapped in past unfulfilled wills, you have less attention, less energy to carry on. If you become more in control of your attention, you can learn to let go and thus become involved in the present rather than in the past. For that to occur, however, you need to know how to control your attention.

Of course, you could be one of those who lack self-confidence, which is the result of being too self-conscious, which means your attention is stuck on yourself the condition I named the bubble syndrome. This may be the result of being afraid of critical attention. If thats the case, then you should turn your attention outward instead of focusing it on the self. Thats listening. I call listening everything that has to do with putting your attention outside yourself. Listening can be achieved by being interested in the other instead of being interested in oneself.

Self-confidence is the ability to not focus upon yourself, the ability to give others your full attention. But since your attention is curved back on you, the external world goes unnoticed and you are either unaware or uninterested in others predicaments or joys. Because your attention is trapped in the narrow circle described between you and you, there is not much left over for others. When you direct your attention on yourself, you don’t direct it upon others. Then these others can’t feel you care for them. To really experience and this has been a great secret you should experience others by being them, loving them, without expecting something miraculous to happen as a result of this act. The pure joy of being, existing, is the greatest miracle.

How to love would be a relevant question here. The first thing in learning to love is to be Nothing, which means not being beautiful or ugly, happy or unhappy, not this and not that, just being and then seeing seeing other life forms and listening to them. This means that all your attention is on them, not on yourself. You see them and become them as much as you can. You feel what they feel. You participate in their hopes, loves, whatever, and then it is only natural that you want to make them happy by giving them what they want because you are no longer separate from them. You are they, so you would do unto them what you would have done unto yourself only it is their wish you fulfill. You are they when you want the same, and since you have gone through being Nothing, you can be anything and you are able to love anyone.

Being self-centered is often the result of a fear of criticism, of what-will-others-think-of-me. Wanting to be accepted and loved, one can become wary of not being accepted and loved. This vigilance is achieved by constantly searching for revealing signs and statements uttered by others to detect what they think of you. Such behavior may be misconceived as attentiveness, and yet what is the self-conscious person really interested in? In the other? No. He is interested in himself through the other. That is still curving ones attention back on oneself, investing in looking good in the eyes of the other.

Be the actor, not the act. When your whole world is you and only you, it is a small world and you are the act. When you are interested in others, when you can turn your attention outward, then you are the actor, and then you are the world, the big world.

As long as your attention is on yourself instead of the joy of doing and acting, you draw critical attention back at you and you receive evaluations. When you enhance your self as the object, then it is you who is getting graded and judged, not the act. This is why you feel you are losing confidence in yourself. Enjoy the doing and you will see the difference. Stop dreaming of how you will be admired, and instead, revel in acting out the different parts, sense the feelings and emotions of the roles. That makes the whole difference.

This constant preoccupation with ones self prevents one from having experiences, real, enriching experiences. Affirmations of being good, or getting gooder by the day, is such a preoccupation that too often turns into self-criticism, intensifying the labels of whats wrong with oneself. When thats the main theme of ones existence, then what do you think this person experiences? Occupy yourself with experiencing things. Turn your attention outward rather than toward what you think to be your deficiencies.

You may be unhappy because you dont have: you dont have money, you dont have youth, you dont have health, you dont have beauty, you dont have a sex-partner, you dont have parents, you dont have a job, and the list goes on and on. Look at you! You center your attention on what you miss and miss what you have. Life can pass you by and you won’t notice that you forgot to live and experience. As if this wasnt serious enough, the consequences of focusing on what we miss are even more morbid.

About 99% of humans fear uncertainty and lack of stability. However, when you look at the lack, then that is what you increase since you create your own reality by focusing. By putting your attention on things, you make them real. So when you put your attention on a lack, you increase that lack. In order to feel stability which is a feeling, an attitude, and not something objective you ought to change your attitude. You are not confronting immediate life threatening problems. You are afraid of the future, afraid of how you will perform in the future. To solve this problem, think of uncertainty in a different way: try to learn to live with uncertainty. How? Through faith in the universe, in knowing you belong to the universe, faith in yourself. The wider your scope of activity becomes, the more uncertainties you will face. Learn to live with uncertainty and then you won’t need to shrink the sphere of your activities and interests in order to entomb yourself in certainty. Expand, have faith, and then you can live with uncertainty and live well, feeling stable in spite of uncertainty uncertainty (how to achieve that, see my article, Could Holophany Guide us to Live Comfortably in Uncertainty?). Know that you, the real you, can never be hurt, only the role, the possessions, the temporary part. That is indeed a leap into the spiritual realm. Faith. When you have faith, your attitude changes, and you won’t view uncertainty as an unwelcome guest. When you have that attitude, then you will have freed attention to work with and expand into more stability in your everyday life, without pressure, without feeling that doom hangs over your head, which was placed there by your own self in the first place.

Stability is due to control. Life is one big uncertainty, which you cannot control. What you can control is your attention, which when controlled can guarantee your stability even within uncertainty. This ensures that you can live well in uncertainty.

Happiness could be a few blocks down the road, once you can control your attention and when you know where to direct it. If you are bored, uncreative, or you feel life is a drag because of all those things you have to do, put your attention on things that really interest you, and then you will be able to enjoy your life in full. However, this is not always as simply done as said, because you may feel you have to do those things you dont enjoy and you have no choice. To overcome this platitude (which seems to you the coercion of facts), you may need to understand Holophany enough so you can change your attitude in those areas where indicated and thereby turn your environment into a more desirable scene. Even to learn Holophany and to understand the philosophy of how things work, you need a certain span of attention and concentration, and a certain control of your energy. The main lesson to learn is to handle energy, which includes knowing where your attention is aimed at and controlling it. This teaches you to look and observe, to see others including their problems and desperation. This is exercising control over your energy.

When you are familiar with the techniques of controlling your attention, you can become a virtuoso with abilities that may seem supernatural to those who dont know how to observe. Your memory and intelligence will improve as well as your creativity. First, however, you need to learn to focus. Focusing is the ability to concentrate on one thing for a long time (long defined as relative to you). It is putting attention on something, investing your energy as stated above. It is also paying attention to detail. When you can lock out the automatic mind chatter, then you can start splitting attention and focus on more than one thing at a time, thereby creating a kind of field, which is very creative in all respects. Thats when you get insights, connect between things you have not connected before. Splitting your attention allows you to trigger things within an area in which you focus and then things happen. This focus allows you to see the nature of things as a process, the relations within a certain complex structure, and from there you can easily create changes by changing the dynamic aspect, the relations of the complex structure. Then the whole structure changes somewhat as seen from your point of view. Try to visualize this paragraph, even in meditation, until you get it. This is the result of the ability to focus, which of course starts, as I have stated, with a laser-like ability to center, locking out all other noise.

Controlling the wanderings of ones attention is controlling awareness, which is the access code of consciousness. Our attention is the most basic dynamic aspect of our creation.
Clara Szalai

While a great many individuals dream of getting a degree, it is sometimes seemingly impossible to interrupt your career and or family life to go back to school. Many of us, of course, have jobs and find that the traditional schedules offered by community colleges and universities often make it impossible for us to juggle our schedules to attend. Or perhaps we have family members, kids more than likely, that we simply must dedicate our time to. These are the very things that are making online college courses ever so more attractive. And don’t think for a second that the colleges and universities across the country aren’t recognizing this and responding in kind.

A great alternative for the person who desires to attend college classes is to go the route of an online accredited degree. This is a degree from a college or university with accreditation, which means it meets the state’s guidelines and is deemed to be every bit as credible as a brick-and-mortar earned degree.

The programs offered in the form of online degrees very greatly. It is advised that anyone pursuing this avenue of higher learning do their homework and learn as much as they possibly can before making their decision as to which classes to pursue. There is ample information to be had, so by all means request as much as you feel is necessary to obtain the information that you’re after. We must remember that there are so many degrees offered through the online accreditation process that your choices are becoming ever more diversified. Degree levels include Associates, Bachelors, Masters and Doctorates.

The advantages to getting an online degree are virtually endless. You do not have to commute and there is no need to schedule classes and reshuffle your life around someone else’s schedule. The only thing you really have to do is be on yourself to stay disciplined to get your work done.

I will again repeat what I said earlier because of its great importance. It is absolutely paramount that you make sure that the degree that you are pursuing and the classes that you are taking are indeed accredited. There’s nothing worse than wasting your time and money taking classes that you will not get credit for, unless of course you are doing it for your own edification.

If you were ever considering getting a degree to improve your chances of landing a job, or getting paid more, or even to perhaps change careers completely, now is the time to do it. The future is promised to no one and now with the advantages of online accredited degrees, there really is no excuse for not pursuing these wonderful opportunities. Most of these online classes are delivered by way of computer. Don’t be intimidated by this if you are not computer savvy. A simple computer and Internet connection will be more than enough to get you through. So now you know. No excuses, get out there and get it done.

Article Source:
http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Charles_Cheow

Each team in the NHL plays 82 regular season games, 41 games at home and 41 on the road. Teams used to play all other teams in the league at least once, but this will no longer be the case following implementation of post-lockout changes. Teams will now play 10 interconference (that is, not in their own conference) games throughout the entire season, 1 game against each team in two of the three divisions in the opposite conference. Teams will also play 40 games against non-divisional, conference opponents (4 games against each), and 32 games within their division (8 games against each). Two points are awarded for wins, one point for losing in overtime or a shootout, and zero points for a loss in regulation time. At the end of the regular season, the team that finishes with the most points in each division is crowned the division champion. Each Conference consists of three divisions, so these three division champions and five more teams fill out each Conference’s playoff field. In total, 16 teams (3 division champions and 5 additional teams, for a total of 8 from each Conference) qualify for the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

The Stanley Cup Playoffs is an elimination tournament, where two teams battle to win a best-of-seven series in order to advance to the next round. If the score is tied at the end of the third period an overtime period is played. If the score is tied at the end of an overtime period, additional overtime periods are played until a winner is determined. Overtimes are also full periods of twenty minutes (of five-on-five hockey), rather than the five minutes (of four-on-four hockey, followed by a shootout,) in the regular season. The overtime is played with golden goal.rule (sudden death) so the game ends as soon as either team scores a goal. The higher-ranked team is said to be the team with the home-ice advantage. Four of the seven games are played at this team’s home venue – the first and second, and, where necessary, the fifth and seventh, with the other games played at the lower-ranked team’s home venue.

One playoff that was contested in the NHL used the following format: the division winners were seeded one through three, and then the next five teams with the best records in the conference were seeded four through eight. However, the league has yet to announce the playoff format for the 2005-06 season, and with the new scheduling format that emphasises division play, the league is reportedly exploring placing greater emphasis on division standings by taking the top 2 teams in each division, along with the teams with the next two best records for each Conference’s playoff field. In the event of a tie in points in the standings, ties are broken first by amount of wins, then by record against the team that is tied (disregarding the first game played at the arena of the team that hosted more games than the other during the season series, if applicable). Next, the tied team with the better positive differential between goals scored for and against is given preference, and in the rare circumstance these tiebreakers are insufficient, the Commissioner has the authority to devise some other means of breaking the tie. The first round of the playoffs, or Conference Quarterfinals, consists of the first seed playing the eighth seed, the second playing the seventh, third playing the sixth, and the fourth playing the fifth. In the Conference Semifinals, the top remaining Conference seed plays against the fourth remaining seed, and the second remaining seed plays the third remaining seed. In the next round, the Conference Finals, the two remaining teams in each conference play each other, with the Conference champions proceeding to the Stanley Cup Finals.

First of all, there may be some of you that have never even heard of Autoblogger Pro. So lets examine this new script. Autoblogger Pro is really a very simple concept. It integrates itself into a WordPress blog and then uses RSS feeds from news sources and blogs to populate the blog with relevant content. For example, if you want to build a blog that focuses on Mortgages then you would simply locate several blog or news feeds that focus on mortgages and then load them into the admin area of the script. Every time the script is executed it will then pull in the RSS feed from all of the sites youve entered, and post them to the blog. In essence, you end up with a blog that contains highly targeted content, blended and unique because it comes from a variety of sources. All maintained by you with the click of a button! (A sample ABP blog can be seen here: http://www.dogs.pn )

Let me say this now. I am an advocate of Autoblogger Pro and I think that its a fantastic and logical development of the expected use of RSS feeds. Its evolution people, and I think its fantastic!

But this morning I was surfing the web and I happened to do a search for Autoblogger Pro to see what other people were saying. To my shock and dismay I found many sites screaming that Autoblogger Pro users are content thieves , content RAPISTS, Scam artists etc. I found this very disturbing, so I researched a few of their websites to see if their content was in some way being actually stolen. To be honest, I really had to laugh when I looked at most of their sites. Prominently displayed on all of them were buttons for their various RSS feeds, asking for syndication!

What exactly did you expect when you put that feed on your site? RSS is defined as Really Simple Syndication. So arent you asking that your content be syndicated when you put the feed link on your website??? Of course you are. Either they are too uneducated to understand what RSS is and put it on their sites without knowing what it is, or they are just ignorant or nave and believe that only a few people with news readers will use the feed.

Theres a very simple solution for this if youre one of those people crying foul. TAKE THE FEED DOWN. If you dont want your content syndicated, dont put up a feed!

Now there are some responsibilities that must be held by users of Autoblogger Pro, its a very powerful script, and there are options to use it unethically. When syndicating someones content you need to give CREDIT to the source. Remember writing term papers in college or high school? You always have to give credit to your sources. Autoblogger Pro gives you the option in its configuration to give credit and a link back to every post you get from syndication. USE THIS FEATURE. Its only right to give credit where credit is due. If this is done properly, all of those blogs youre getting your content from will stay happy, because they are in turn getting quality links back to their site, from another relevant site, and that in turn helps them in their search engine standings. It may even send them some traffic if your Autoblogger Pro site has some.

Like it or not, syndication of content is what RSS was designed for. If you dont like how your content is being syndicated, dont put up a feed. But if you see the positives for content syndication youll understand that Autoblogger Pro sites will enhance your site, not detract from it. In the long run youll be glad to see your content in tons of places on the web!

Till next time,
Chuck Crawford

Mystery shopping is a work at home business that many people has come to enjoy. With this business, there are no real requirements you need to be able to apply to become a mystery shopper. However, you should not that some niche areas have certain requirements, but for the most part the only limitation is that you be of legal working age. As with any job, you must be dependable and reliable, while representing the mystery shopping company you will not be able to cancel or miss jobs on a regular basis or you run the risk of losing the position.

Other qualities you should possess, is observation, you should be able to be very aware of all your surroundings, because this is required for mystery shopping. You will be asked to make specific notes of various aspects and report them back. You may also be required to have internet access, if you are reading this article, you likely have that aspect taken care of already. In mystery shopping you are given detailed instructions by the company as what they want you to do.

They will want you to visit a particular store on a specified day, what you do at the store can vary depending on the particular company and what they hope to gain from the mystery shopping experience. You may have only have to report on the appearance of the store and the overall helpfulness of the staff. On the other hand, you may be given very specific and detailed instructions. For example, you might need to ask for a specific product or member of the sales staff, you could also be asked to make a particular statement on the policy of the store.

Mystery shopping can take place in a variety of establishments, for example you could be asked to visit a particular fast food restaurant, a casual restaurant, department stores, retail or grocery stores. The time spent at these varies depending on the instructions the mystery shopper receives. Mystery shopping has turned into a very lucrative business for many people and it allows people to earn money by doing what they like to do SHOP!

Green tea, which has greatly increased in popularity, is a genuine tea. Although it has always been popular in China, Japan and Taiwan, green tea has recently undergone a surge in popularity throughout the rest of the world.

Historically, green tea has always been thought to have special healing properties. Modern studies and research have concluded that, to this day, green tea possesses undeniable health benefits. Physicians do not have to prescribe it and patients are eager to learn about its historic healing properties.

Alzheimers Disease, which is a neurological illness commonly affecting the elderly, gradually causes ones memory to be reduced until there is sometimes nothing familiar about their environment. Green tea is believed to stop certain neurodegenerative illnesses, including Alzheimers.

Cancer is one of the most devastating illnesses in the United States. For years, researchers have sought a way to prevent or cure the disease. Current treatments include radiation, chemotherapy and various forms of medication. Green tea is also believed to aid in the prevention and/or treatment of cancer.

Arthritis is a painful ailment that affects the bodys joints. It can be painful to walk, stand up or make even the slightest movements that would otherwise go unnoticed. While there is no known cure for arthritis, green tea is believed to aid in its treatment.

MS, which is the abbreviated usage to describe Multiple Sclerosis, is also a very painful illness that gradually takes away usage of movement. Green tea is thought to possibly aid in the treatment of MS.

As mentioned earlier, green tea has been long since linked to the treatment or healing of certain illnesses. It requires no prescription, is readily available at most retail and online stores and is very affordable. Green tea is also found online at many specialty and health stores, which may offer special discounted pricing or bulk availability. With a taste that is unique and unmistakable, green tea was used in ancient medicine and is believed to help in traditional treatments as well.

This article is intended to be used for informational purposes only. It is not to be used in place of, or in conjunction with, professional medical advice or a doctors recommendation. Prior to beginning any green tea treatment regimen, individuals should consult a physician for proper diagnosis and/or treatment. The use of green tea may cause some individuals to experience an upset stomach, so moderation is the key here. If you have any stomach problems or become extremely sick after using green tea, consult a physician.

Intuition was a wonderful gift. It was also an awful curse. By instantly recognizing patterns, intuition was nature’s vital tool for survival. Life ceaselessly faced a train of unlimited choices and, often, baffling problems. These demanded instant decisions. An animal could not remain undecided, whether to drink water, or to eat grass. Should it be aggressive and fight, run away, or relax and accept the situation? It was intuition, which interpreted events to trigger emotions. Anger made them aggressive. Fear made them retreat. And familiarity supported relaxation. Each emotion eliminated groups of thoughts. If fighting was the option, amicable thoughts did not fit. If the decision was to cut and run, it was useless to marshal one’s militant strengths. The intuitive process eliminated mental activity, which did not fit the chosen course of action. Sadly, this elimination process was also the biggest weakness of the system.

Each emotion set off a focused drive seeking solutions. Anger, fear, or friendliness triggered competing drives. Intuition focused each drive by eliminating views that did not fit its compulsive focus. Anger eliminated amicable memories. Fear lost sight of fighting strengths. As any situation evolved, the emotional strengths of these partisan drives varied. Opposing emotions competed for control. Intuition acted in the emotional center, the limbic system, to select the most powerful emotion, which then ruled. If it was anger, it pulled the trigger. When the choice was made, the process inhibited competing drives, with contrary feelings. Opposing views were largely lost to consciousness.

Across species, fear dictated an escape drive, which sought safety. A deer bounded away. A bird took flight. A fish swam off. While the activities of running, flying and swimming differed, it was the drive, which achieved the objective of escaping. Each drive evaluated experience and the environment. Escape was hardly possible by heading into the predator. Getting away demanded evaluation of many escape routes, including slipping into a safe sanctuary, inaccessible to the predator. Like the underside of a rock. Drives involved a search of multiple contexts to uncover the right answer. While intuitive drives usually delivered the answer instantly, some drives failed to uncover solutions.

Modern life offered few speedy answers. Senior positions had added problems. The higher the position, more the solutions needed for the myriad problems faced by a venture. Intuition, driven by emotions, was the creative force, which delivered answers. Hidden from view, drives constantly sought solutions. While one problem was consciously evaluated, subconscious drives continued search processes to solve other issues. Since, anger, fear or jealousy powered such searches, they often sought to achieve conflicting objectives. These hidden emotions troubled the mind, creating distressing internal conflicts. Sadly, this was the negative face of intuition, standing in the way of achieving peace of mind.

Conflicting viewpoints surged in the subconscious. How could they be integrated? In a harsh and unforgiving world, how could a multitude of clashing drives be graciously focused? How could the mind be stilled? Across the ages, many solutions were offered to focus the mind and still conflicts. Meditation, chanting and breathing routines were found to be beneficial. But, those practices treated the symptom, not the problem. The long term solution was to quiet the internal battles of these competing drives. All knowledge and experience lived within. These same drives were powerful search processes, which could delve deep, to deliver answers. Unique new insights and solutions waited to be discovered.

Drives provided windows into the mind. It was a drive, which assisted in the preparation of a simple shopping list. It searched memory and current context to deliver, line by line, a list of all the items you needed to buy. By contextually searching the mind, drives could be made to play a valuable, creative role. When particularly burdened by a problem, drives could draw out a list of one’s deepest concerns. With its sort facility, a spreadsheet could be used to list and comprehend the turmoils of the mind.

The routine could begin by listing, line by line, different aspects of a problem, as it came to mind. Each, a short entry in a single cell of the spread sheet. It may have just begun with, say, “Feel awful” and gone on down. That was the first thought. Many conflicting emotions surged in the background. Each line would sum up a single feeling and its concern. It could be Negative departmental report Or, it could be just a hunch. David will support me. The worst fears were noted down. Mortgage payments. And the common sense thoughts. This too will pass.

Writing a list was a calming process. The questioning drive helped still the mind. Differing viewpoints were noted down. These views would arrive in conspicuous sequence. Each entry brought one viewpoint into consciousness into the general view of isolated and competing drives. Sensible viewpoints would normally have been eliminated from view by angry emotions. Typically, about 60 odd entries would empty the mind of every related thought. Entering opposing viewpoints usually brought balance. The inquiry process stilled background turmoil. The most critical part of this process came next.

A label was entered for each line in an adjacent cell on the spreadsheet. Fear, Opportunity, or even Unlikely could be the labels. With every aspect already considered, it was easier to label an entry. Each label fitted a few more entries. The picture slowly cleared. Underground fears surfaced. Solutions emerged. The closing of one door usually opened another. Those 60 entries would fit a dozen or so categories. A “sort” of the labels column would arrange similar ones together, in alphabetic order. Listing similarly labeled ideas together would bring clarity. They became groups of consistent, allied thoughts. The sorted spreadsheet list integrated the mind.

Isolated drives were forced into the open and a balanced view emerged. Viewed together, Unlikely put a label on needless worries. The less likely outcomes could be ignored. The inevitable ones had to be accepted. That left you with the actions you could take. Opportunities formed the basis for a future plan. The rest of the list just climbed off your chest. Another threatening issue would have been acknowledged, accepted and foreseen. The spreadsheet evaluation balanced the mind and stilled hidden anxieties and conflicts. Lifted burdens. Anger and fear, love and altruism cooperated to search for solutions which met all the concerns of the mind. With the power of intuition, an integrated mind became the most creative force in the world.

The health and fitness trend influences even people’s gift giving practices with the increasing popularity of fruit baskets. Studies show that more fruit baskets are given in recent years than in the last decade. The further improvement of online fruit basket services also increase sales of fruit baskets as gifts. It does not only make shopping for gift baskets easier; most sites even provide delivery services. People can express their thanks and give their gifts while sitting comfortably in their home or office.

When searching for the perfect fruit basket for home use or as a present, there are several things and choices to consider. From the fruits to be included, to the kind of baskets and fillers to be used, care must be taken for your fruit basket to remain special and avoid looking generic. More fruit baskets’ sites are developing and along with this, the choice of fruit basket sites becomes a critical consideration.

First, find sites that suits your needs. Do you need a holiday basket? A Valentine basket or an Easter basket? Search engines are a great tool for looking up these sites. Just type “fruit baskets” and search away. Refine your search when you logged on a particular site. Compare and see if their selections and designs suit your taste. Usually, these sites feature pictures, descriptions, and the price of displayed baskets. Second, more fruit baskets sites usually lets customers choose the fruits to be included in their baskets. Check if the site has a harvest listing wherein the fruits’ name and harvest period are displayed. The more recent the harvest date is, the fresher the fruits are, and thus, better quality. Select the freshest fruits for your fruit baskets. Third, check arrival periods. Does the site ship orders immediately or do they ask for day allowances? This is important as long travel may damage the quality of the fruits in your basket. Fourth, check the website for its security measures; FAQ pages usually answers security questions about the site. This is important because sensitive information is to be used to purchase your order such as bank account and credit card numbers. Also, be ready with the credit card to furnish the site with the necessary information to confirm your order. However, before confirming, consult the price list, delivery charges, delivery time, and method before closing the deal. Most fruit basket sites also feature promos such as overnight deliveries and extra gift items. It might be worthwhile to check these. As most sites have this feature, you can include a card in your purchase with your desired message if the baskets are to be shipped directly to your recipient.

You didn’t even break a sweat in sending your gift, plus your recipient would be glad that you are concerned about his health (hence, the healthy gift). Continue clicking and send your friends and loved ones more fruit baskets. It is a great, healthy, and easy way to show you care.

With airline travel increasing in record numbers, more people are experiencing the frustration of understanding the airlines industry language, & leaving them feeling that they need an interpreter for the travel information they are receiving from the airline industry! It seems that air companies think that every individual that flies should have to understand all that travel Jargon they place on their flight reservations, & maybe it’s about time they figure out what they are talking about, because it’s costing you funds & valuable time!