The 3 Most Common Affiliate Mistakes

The 3 Most Common Affiliate Mistakes

Affiliate marketing is one of the most effective and powerful ways of earning some money online. This program gives everybody a chance to make a profit through the Internet. Since these affiliate marketing programs are easy to join, implement and pays a commission on a regular basis, more an more people are now willing in this business.

However, like all businesses, there are lots of pitfalls in the affiliate marketing business. Committing some of the most common mistakes will cost the marketers a large portion taken from the profit they are making everyday. That is why it is better to avoid them than be regretful in the end.

Mistake number 1: Choosing the wrong affiliate.

Many people want to earn from affiliate marketing as fast as possible. In their rush to be part of one, they tend to choose a bandwagon product. This is the kind of products that the program thinks is “hot”. They choose the product that is in demand without actually considering if the product appeals to them. This is not a very wise move obviously.

Instead of jumping on the bandwagon, try top choose a product in which you are truly interested in. For any endeavor to succeed, you should take some time to plan and figure out your actions.

Pick a product that appeals to you. Then do some research about that product to see if they are in demand. Promoting a product you are more passionate about is easier than promoting one for the sake of the earnings only.

Mistake number 2: Joining too many affiliate programs.

Since affiliate programs are very easy to join, you might be tempted to join multiples of affiliate programs to try and maximize the earnings you will be getting. Besides you may think that there is nothing wrong and nothing to lose by being part of many affiliate programs.

True, that is a great way to have multiple sources of income. However, joining multiple programs and attempting to promote them all at the same time will prevent you from concentrating on each one of them.

The result? The maximum potential of your affiliate program is not realized and the income generated will not exactly be as huge as you were thinking initially it would. The best way to get excellent result is by joining just one program that pays a 40% commission at least. Then give it your best effort by promoting your products enthusiastically. As soon as you see that it is already making a reasonable profit, then maybe you can now join another affiliate program.

The technique is to do it slowly but surely. There is really no need to rush into things, especially with affiliate marketing. With the way things are going, the future is looking real bright and it seems affiliate marketing will be staying for a long time too.

Mistake number 3: Not buying the product or using the service.

As an affiliate, you main purpose is to effectively and convincingly promote a product or service and to find customers. For you to achieve this purpose, you must be able to relay to the customers that certain product and service. It is therefore difficult for you to do this when you yourself have not tried these things out. Thus, you will fail to promote and recommend them convincingly. You will also fail to create a desire in your customers to avail any of what you are offering.

Try the product or service personally first before you sign up as an affiliate to see if it is really delivering what it promises. If you have done so, then you are one of the credible and living testaments aware of its advantages and disadvantages. Your customers will then feel the sincerity and truthfulness in you and this will trigger them to try them out for themselves.

Many affiliate marketers makes these mistakes and are paying dearly for their actions. To not fall into the same situation they have been in, try to do everything to avoid making the same mistakes.

Time is the key. Take the time to analyze your marketing strategy and check if youa re in the right track. If done properly, you will be able to maximize your affiliate marketing program and earn higher profits.

How To Become A Super Affiliate In Niche Markets

How To Become A Super Affiliate In Niche Markets

Over the past years, web hosting has grown bigger than it used to be. With more companies getting into this business and finding the many benefits it can give them, the demand for web hosting has never been higher. These seem to be the trend of today.

38 million people have put up their very first websites online this year 2005 alone. It is estimated that by 2008, the internet sales industry will top then dollar bank. And to think, majority of those sites will be offering different affiliate programs for people to choose and participate into.

This only means one thing. It is easier now to find the right web host for your application. The possibility of quality web hosting companies separating themselves from the rest of the industry is anticipated. If this is done, the unprofessional and incompetent ones will suffer.

Support will be the number one consideration for people when choosing a web host. It will be obvious that traditional advertising will become less and less effective. Most people would rather opt for the web host based on things that they see and hear. Also based on the recommendations by those who have tried them and have proved to be a successful.

This is a great opportunity for web hosting affiliates and resellers alike. There would hundreds of web hosting and programs to choose from that the difficulty in finding the right one for them is not a problem anymore.

How does one become a successful affiliate in the niche markets using web hosting?

If you think about it, everyone who needs a website needs a web hosting company to host it for them. As of now, there is really no leading hosting industry so most people choose hosts based from recommendations. Usually, they get it from the ones that have already availed of a web hosting services.

With the many hosts offering affiliate programs, there is the tendency to find the one which you think will work best for you. Think of the product you will be promoting. Pattern them to the site and see if they are catering to the same things as you are.

When you have been with one host for quite some time and seem not to be making much despite all your effort, leave that one and look for another. There is no use in trying to stick to one when you would be before off in another one. Things will only have to get better from there because you already have been in worst situations.

Try this out. If you are quite happy and satisfied with your web host, try to see if they are offering an affiliate program you can participate on. Instead of you paying them, why not make it the other way around; them paying you. The process can be as easy as putting a small “powered by” or “hosted by” link at the bottom of your page and you are already in an affiliate business.

Why choose paying for your for your web hosting when you do not have to? Try to get paid by letting people know you like your web host.

Always remember that when choosing a web host, choose the one that is known for its fantastic customer support. There are also many hosting affiliate programs. Residual affiliate program is also being hosted. This is the program wherein you get paid a percentage every month for a client that you refer. This can allow you to have a steady source of income. With perseverance, you can even be quite successful in this field.

There are a lot of niche markets out there just waiting for the right affiliate to penetrate to them and make that dollars dream come true. Knowing which one to get into is being confident enough of your potentials and the good results you will be getting.

Web hosting is just one affiliate market you could try out and make some good and continuous income. Just remember that to be successful on your endeavor also means that time, effort and patience is needed.

Nobody has invented the perfect affiliate market yet. But some people do know how to make it big in this kind of market. It is just knowing your kind of market and making the earnings there.

Avril Lavigne Visits Her Old Pizza Parlour in Canada

March 12th, 2009
Avril Lavigne Visits Her Old Pizza Parlour in Canada

Avril Lavigne was in her hometown of Napanee, Canada back at the end of February and she paid a visit to her “favourite hometown pizza parlour,” La Pizzeria on February 21. Avril gave owners Bill and Maria Kosmopoulos and their son Kostas a special gift: a framed momento of her album, The Best Damn Thing. Apparently only special friends, family, and record company officials get these special, framed comemerative albums, which marks sales of six million CDs, 15 million track downloads, 100 million audio streams and 300 million video streams. Wow! That’s a lot of success that Avril’s had!

It’s reported that Avril was in the area to visit friends and family.

What is PageRank?

Chrysler faces July cash crunch even with more aid

Even if Chrysler LLC gets additional government loans, it could face another cash shortage in July when revenue dries up as the company shuts down its factories for two weeks to change from one model year to the next, its chief financial officer said.

CFO Ron Kolka, in a brief telephone interview with The Associated Press, said the company planned for the $4 billion it received Jan. 2 to last through March 31. The company is talking with the Obama administration’s autos task force about getting another $5 billion, and faces a March 31 deadline to complete its plan to show how it can become viable and repay the loans.

Kolka wouldn’t say what would happen if the company doesn’t get further government aid, saying only that he’s not planning to run out of money.

Chrysler’s viability plan submitted to the Treasury Department on Feb. 17, he said, calls for the additional government aid.

“Following that, the next critical low point in cash is July shutdown,” he said Friday.

Automakers generally book revenue from a vehicle once it leaves the factory and heads for a dealership. But when it doesn’t produce cars during the shutdown, the revenue stops flowing.

Kolka said Chrysler planned conservatively so the company can be viable even at the current U.S. industry annual sales rate of 9.1 million vehicles, the lowest level in 27 years.

Executives with Chrysler and General Motors Corp., which also is using government loans to stay out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, met with the government task force on Monday in Detroit, visiting GM’s tech center and a Chrysler pickup truck factory in the Detroit suburb of Warren.

The members, led by Wall Street financier Steven Rattner and Steelworkers union official Ron Bloom, asked probing questions of Chrysler executives, but didn’t express doubts about the company’s plans, Kolka said.

“They were not negative and they were not critical,” he said. “They were asking the right questions.”

Chrysler’s plan submitted to the government has conservative assumptions about industry sales and per-vehicle pricing, and doesn’t include the company benefiting from any potential uptick in per-vehicle pricing or a possible alliance with Italian automaker Fiat Group SpA.

Chrysler is in talks about Fiat taking a 35 percent stake in the Auburn Hills, Mich.-based automaker in exchange for its small-car technology.

Kolka also said Chrysler’s tentative deal on labor cost concessions with the United Auto Workers union will comply with the terms of the government loans. The loan term sheets set targets for GM and Chrysler to make their total hourly labor costs equal to those of Japanese automakers with U.S. factories.

UAW workers at Ford Motor Co. have ratified contract changes that cut labor costs to $55 per hour including wages, pensions, retiree health care and other benefits. That’s still about $6 more than the highest Japanese company.

GM and Chrysler have reached labor cost deals with the UAW but details haven’t been released pending a vote by workers. Both companies are still negotiating changes in payments to a union-run trust fund that will take over retiree health care expenses starting next year.

The loan terms also set a target for Chrysler and GM to swap equity for 50 percent of the cash they were scheduled to pay into the trust funds.

Kolka said Ford’s deal on the trust fund doesn’t comply with the terms of the government loans and won’t work for Chrysler. He said Chrysler and the UAW have agreed in principle to an equity swap, but the mechanics are still being negotiated.

Ford agreed to swap 50 percent of its payments for stock, with plans to issue more stock to the trust if the price falls.

Now you can share your kids dreams

Not so many centuries ago, when I was young and tender I had a special hobby: dreaming worlds. And which is a good way to dream? Drawing. Drawing maps became a little secret passion of mine; developing worlds of fantasy with knights, cavalry charge and long treks beyond the mountains to find the holy plant that would save a kingdom from the black death.

I could even make up the government, flags, laws and languages -to a point-. It was the merriest of fun for my brothers and me. (Specially me, bossy big brother reporting).

So a few days ago I had this wacky idea: Why not a family fantasy world book? Stories and dreams that can be shared, drawings, poems, games, stories, you name it.

The first few pages could hold a map

We’d start drawing our home in the center. It could be realistic or not. Maybe we want our home to be a palace. Or a dark cave. Or a hut in the middle of the forest. Or a sailing ship. Or an airship. Or even Dracula’s castle. What’s stopping us? It’s our fantasy!

Then we can draw a few locations. Where are the mountains? What about a forest? Or even a mushroom forest with tiny chimpanzees. Do you want a river? Draw it. And don’t forget a wooden submarine. You need a few villages and don’t forget the great city of the king. Maybe you have friends that will want their homes too or the lair of an extra evil monster with six heads and twelve tongues.

That’s gross!

Then you can add a few roads. Monsters don’t use roads, so they are safe. But if they get into a forest, there could be bandits inside. Bandits won’t eat you, but they can rob you, if you let them.

Build Character

Now you need to know who lives in your magical world. You can be yourselves, that is ok, or you can be somebody else. Dad could be a pirate captain or a cabin boy; what about a crocodile for mom? If that’s a bit too strange, she can be the fairy queen or the CEO of Flying Brooms Inc. And what about you? You can even switch characters if you want.

Use a page or half a page for each character. You can draw a portrait of your character and write down stuff like name, strength, powers or if he is allergic to mushrooms.

Now you have the beginning of your own adventure!

That’s all, now it’s just up to you and to your imagination. You can rescue the King, explore the dark forest, go to pirate island and search for treasures or just go picnic with the hobbits, or even visit Narnia. Then play it out.  You know how to play, don’t you? It might be raining outside, but your room can be a jungle, or a beach or an alien planet just if you want so.

Write down your adventures.

The game is over, the fun isn’t. Go to your book, and write down what you, your siblings and your friends did or make your big-ones write it down for you. Add pictures if you want. Bit by bit you will fantasy world will be bigger, and better.

Now a section for grown ups.

If you played roleplaying games, and I mean the real games you played on a board with dice, soda and chips, you’d remember what fun it was. Why don’t bring back those memories with your kids? It does not need to be sat around a table, you know. After all, what’s a roleplaying game but imagination plus a few rules to stop the ever classic “I hit you”, “No you didn’t”, “No I did”.

There are a few roleplaying games developed specifically for very young people. I’m sharing with you my two favorites:

Forgotten Futures

I remember the first time I heard about this gem was in Ulster, where I was learning English. This guy practically invented the ebooks, then selling the whole thing in diskettes… do you remember those? Forgotten Futures revolves around the Future as the Victorian “Science Fiction” imagined it. Yes, that means you can travel to Mars and find it with Martians and canals. Now Forgotten Futures can be read online for free, and even downloaded. It’s shareware so you don’t have to pay unless you actually like it. (If I still remember how shareware works, I bought the old fashioned book version).

Rules are pretty simple, and possible characters include children and dogs. As for the gaming worlds available you have ten different worlds, from Kiplings Airship Utopia to a world of civilized dragons. And of course, our favorite: (from the website)

FORGOTTEN FUTURES VIII FABLES AND FROLICS
FF VIII is based on Victorian children’s fantasy and especially the stories of Edith Nesbit. The collection includes the three “Psammead” novels: Five Children and It, The Phoenix and the Carpet and The Story of the Amulet, 23 short stories, and a series of autobiographical articles describing Nesbit’s childhood. Role playing includes extensive material on Victorian and Edwardian childhood, magic rules, and various settings for magical campaigns, and three long adventures.

The Magical Land of Yeld

This game it is so new it is still in beta. The pdf ebook (which can be read by almost every computer on earth, I presume) costs just $2.00 -two bucks- and it will give you a lot of punch for that money. It is a game that would appeal to younger children and would not scare parents. Nobody can die, when the adventurer party is wiped out, they just appear back in home. It’s incredibly funny, with many subtle references to Japanese anime for kids. In other words, this game speaks your children language. Most of the game world is left to the players. They give you a blank map and tons of ideas to fill it up. And not just combat and persecutions and those boyish jolly stuff, there are holidays and parties too!

And you always have an adventure. That is, you have arrived to the Magical Land of Yeld but you want to return home… which is a wee tricky, you need to collect keys, badges and very cool equipment. Kids would love that.

Rules are super easy to catch and the character sheet is a sweet to understand. And in this game even the GM has to obey the rules, and plays a character too. (GM = the player who “tells” the story for you non-roleplayers )

Beta means it’s rough around the edges. No flashy pics, very simple format (your printer would love that) and there are few typos, but for $2.00 I’m more than willing to forgive those. (Plus you can email the authors and tell them how to improve the game). Seriously, I’m loving this one.

Also, you could visit this comprehensive list for a good guide on what roleplaying games are available to play with children.

The chief is to feed the imagination.

If you have not understood a word of what I have being saying, if a rule book seems a bit over the top to you, remember this litle sentence:

Feed the imagination: Locations, Character, Conflict

That’s all anybody needs to start dreaming or playing out a story, that’s the essential, and everything else just trinkets for our souls.

Climate Thinkers Blog

European leadership on the road to Copenhagen

The financial and economic crisis continues to dominate the news, and understandably so. In the short term we all face a painful reduction in global prosperity. But in the long term perhaps the greatest threat of all – not only to our prosperity but also to the survival of millions of people in vulnerable areas of the globe – comes from climate change.

Stavros Dimas, European Commissioner for the Environment 13/03/2009 15:50

The crucial new United Nations climate agreement that we must reach in Copenhagen in December has to put the world firmly on the path to a low-carbon future. This shift will require  a massive innovation and investment in clean technologies, energy efficiency, renewable energy, and carbon capture and storage as well as individual efforts to reduce energy consumption.

Political leaders in Europe and beyond are recognising that meeting the climate challenge opens up opportunities to stimulate the economy and create new jobs – exactly what today’s economic crisis demands. We can, and must, tackle the recession and climate change together. The different recovery packages that are being prepared offer opportunities to green the economy that we should not miss….

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Climate change and disaster reduction

The debate about the reality of climate change is over. Climate change is a fact, and it poses the greatest single global threat faced by humankind in our generation.

L. Craig Johnstone, Deputy High Commissioner, UNHCR 10/03/2009 16:15

Mitigating the effects of climate change is not the task for future generations; it is the most pressing task of our lifetime. If we underestimate the humanitarian implications of this threat, the consequences will be profound.

People all over the globe are already being affected by climate change….

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Global Change: The System Crisis

The financial crisis that started in the USA and extended to the other continents has caused an economic recession that analysts compare, with certain reservations, to the crash in 1929. However, this crisis could be beneficial in decreasing the environmental impact caused by man in the developed world. This is one of the conclusions of the National Environment Congress, held in Madrid in December 2008.

Ezequiel Martínez, journalist, communicator, lecturer, writer and director of the programme “Tierra y Mar” of Canal Sur TV 06/03/2009 15:15

The Ecological Footprint* helps us analyse the negative impact that humans have on nature. The average Ecologic Footprint of one human being is 2.7 global hectares (gha)**; the footprint of one Spanish person is 5.7 gha and the footprint of an American is 9.4 gha according to the report “ Informe Planeta Vivo 2008 ” ( The Living Planet Report 2008 ) by WWF Spain, published in 2008. According to this study, humankind will need two planets to maintain its level of consumption. The carbon footprint represents 45% of the global ecological footprint of the planet. What to do? WWF offers us an urgent recipe: 1/ Reduce consumption. 2/ Slow down the increase of world population. 3/ Increase efficiency in the use of resources. And we add the three Rs: Reduce, Re-use and Recycle , and moreover: Cut down on consumption and generate less waste .

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Who Holds the Key Card to Copenhagen?

For many of us in the climate profession today, Copenhagen feels like a show time when every party is expected to show their last card in hand and put all the oral commitments together for a new international process.

Changhua Wu, Greater China Director, The Climate Group 05/03/2009 14:50

For the developed world, it means real leadership and fulfillment of their due responsibility. And the developing countries, especially the large emerging economies, shall deliver the commitments laid out in the Bali Roadmap. A successful international process in Copenhagen will be key to setting global climate policy direction, thus to gearing our global economy towards a low carbon future.

This sounds simple, clear and even noble. And yet the reality tells a rather different story. At this very late stage, finger-pointing is still happening….

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Welcome, Commitments and Measures!

The seriousness of man-made climate change becomes increasingly clear. Climate change has entered the political agendas, but still we see little progress internationally: CO2 emissions are increasing, despite years of negotiations, target plans and political settlements. The UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen must lead to change. We need an ambitious, broad and binding successor to the Kyoto Protocol.

Roar Flåthen, President of the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions, LO Norway 03/03/2009 15:05

The global financial crisis has caused major consequences to nations, companies, banks and people. In many parts of the world, this crisis certainly feels more acute than climate change. The financial crisis came as quite a surprise to most people, and is experienced as dramatic.

But, climate change is also happening now. It is indeed a matter of urgency to get actions and measures in place to prevent the grave consequences these changes will lead to….

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Financing the EU’s global responsibility

In the coming weeks, EU environment and finance ministers will be discussing the block’s position for the international climate negotiations in Copenhagen.

Joris den Blanken, EU Climate and Energy Policy Director, Greenpeace 27/02/2009 14:55

In March, EU leaders will have the final word on how the Copenhagen agreement should generate a stream of funds from industrialised countries towards developing nations, in order to support their clean energy investments, deforestation protection and adaptation to the impacts of climate change.

So far, the EU’s political leaders have not committed to any substantial financial support for developing countries….

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Climate Change: Is Business Doing Enough?

Most people today understand the urgency of climate change. But few are prepared to act.

Georg Kell, Executive Director, United Nations Global Compact 23/02/2009 16:25

As economic gloom and government intervention of unprecedented proportions mark a new era, today’s key question is whether we can turn crisis into opportunity and lay the foundation for a low-carbon economy that creates jobs, fosters innovation and advances economic efficiency.

Certainly, this will require much political will. To begin with, governments participating in COP 15 must step up to the plate and deliver a comprehensive and effective global climate framework. But business has a vital stake in this process. In fact, it is only with the private sector that we will be able to turn the tide on climate change….

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Less Carbon Can Mean More Growth

Although the global recession is serious and its duration uncertain, the world must nevertheless continue to focus on the far-reaching threat of climate change. Indeed, if we are smart, public policy can serve the twin goals of stimulating growth and fighting global warming.

Jeroen van der Veer, Chief Executive of Royal Dutch Shell 22/02/2009 15:00

Governments hammering out a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol at the United Nations climate conference in Copenhagen later this year should adopt strong incentives to cut greenhouse-gas emissions. Doing so could kick-start private investment and help to fuel economic recovery.

The broad outlines of an effective and efficient response to global warming have been clear for years. A system to cap CO2 emissions and trade emission allowances would channel resources toward the most cost-effective reduction measures….

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Technology Cooperation – More Than Just a North-South Deal

To achieve a successful outcome in Copenhagen there is an urgent need for negotiators to focus on cooperative action around innovation, rather than narrow trade-offs between the North and South.

Nick Mabey, Founding Director and the Chief Executive of E3G and Shane Tomlinson, leader of E3G’s work on ‘Systems for Change’ 20/02/2009 12:20

As negotiations progress, discussions are increasingly moving to a blinkered debate on the level of financial and technology transfers. This debate is often based on an outdated model which assumes technology will be ‘generated’ in the North and then ‘transferred’ to the South. Continuing on this path will undermine our efforts to prevent dangerous climate change and will limit the scope for agreement in Copenhagen….

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A Global Green New Deal

With unemployment soaring, bankruptcies climbing, and stock markets in free-fall, it may at first glance seem sensible to ditch the fight against climate change and put environmental investments on hold. But this would be a devastating mistake of immediate, as well as inter-generational, proportions.

Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General, Executive Director of the UN Environment Program (UNEP) 19/02/2009 13:20

Far from burdening an already over-stressed, over-stretched global economy, environmental investments are exactly what is needed to get people back to work, get order books flowing, and assist in powering economies back to health.

In the past, concern for the environment was viewed as a luxury; today, it is a necessity – a point grasped by some, but by no means all, economic architects yet….

Why business cares about climate change

We are at a critical time in the thinking about how we handle climate change and its consequences. Much work has been done – and much more remains to be done – on achieving a new climate agreement in Copenhagen later this year. There is an increasing acceptance that business needs to be part of the solution.

Björn Stigson, President, World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) 17/02/2009 14:00

Solutions to climate change will depend on how we develop and deploy low-carbon and energy-efficient technologies. However, there will need for a new international treaty that supports this.

The lion’s share of the responsibility for investing in developing and deploying technologies falls on business.  The UNFCCC Secretariat has suggested that more than 85 percent of the financial flows to support the investment needed to address climate change in the developing world will come from the private sector…..

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Growing Green: Challenges and opportunities for business

For decades the most prescient public and corporate leaders have recognized the critical need for and immense desirability of growing the economy green.

Michael P. Totten, Chief Advisor, Climate, Water and Ecosystem Services, Conservation International’s Center for Environmental Leadership in Business and Dr. Joanna Durbin, Executive Director, Climate, Community and Biodiversity Alliance 16/02/2009 15:30

Indeed, green growth theorist and practitioner Amory Lovins nicely summed up this importance, saying it was “spherically sensible.”  Whether viewed through the lens of economics, equity, or ecologics, green growth provides a myriad of benefits valued alike by fiscal conservatives, human rights advocates and environmentalists.

It is not just referred to as green growth.  Many leaders prefer calling it “smart” growth, while others view it as straightforward applications of common sense….

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Human rights and climate change

Climate change is one of the most serious challenges mankind has ever faced and has serious implications for the realization of human rights. A human rights analysis brings into focus how lives of individuals and communities are affected and why human rights safeguards must be integrated into policies and measures to address climate change.

Ms. Navanethem Pillay, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights 13/02/2009 11:45

It is now evident that the effects of climate change are not merely projections of what might happen in some distant future. As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) empirically documents, climate change is already affecting the lives and livelihoods of individuals and communities across the globe. Moreover, our action today and over the next years will be of crucial importance to avert irreversible climate change of catastrophic dimensions and its impact for human rights protection….

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Seizing the opportunity of climate change

For decades now, our politicians, business leaders and economists have argued that responding to climate change will hurt our economy.

Dr. Chris Riedy, Research Director, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology, Sydney 09/02/2009 14:35

They tell us that limiting greenhouse gas emissions will slow economic growth and harm our industries. In troubled economic times, some argue that we cannot afford the luxury of deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions and must lower the scale of our ambition.

This year, as we move towards Copenhagen, we need to jettison this old way of thinking. In 2006, the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change demonstrated that “the benefits of strong early action on climate change outweigh the costs”….

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Low Carbon Cities – A New Paradigm for Sustainable Urbanization for China

The concept of sustainable development has long attracted attention of the central and local governments, the planning profession as well as the development industry in China. Various efforts have been undertaken to search for sustainable development model for China and to pursue a solution to manage the unprecedented speed of urbanization in the country.

Stanley Yip, Director of Planning & Development, ARUP China – Past President, Hong Kong Institute of Planners 06/02/2009 15:40

The concept of sustainable development has long attracted attention of the central and local governments, the planning profession as well as the development industry in China. Various efforts have been undertaken to search for sustainable development model for China and to pursue a solution to manage the unprecedented speed of urbanization in the country….

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While The World Fights Recession, Let Us Not Forget Climate Change

We are all keenly aware that the scientific evidence that our climate is changing is overwhelming.

Kemal Derviş, Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) 05/02/2009 10:25

The link between human activity and climate change is also established. There is uncertainty as to how exactly the physical processes that mediate between greenhouse gases emissions and changes to our planet’s climate will unfold, but these processes are not easy to reverse, and may even be irreversible. Catastrophic effects are possible in the long-run and the more we wait the greater the risks. We must step up our efforts to mitigate climate change now as a form of insurance against these growing risks. At the same time, we now know with certainty that climate change will have a larger and more immediate negative impact on many of the world’s poor….

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The need for a new and innovative financial mechanism to combat climate change

If we look at the globe from outer space, we can observe a beautiful, exciting and magic place with a great variety of species, nature and living conditions. We can see the white ice covered Poles, the green rainforests around equator, the mountains of Himalaya and the big blue oceans.

Erik Solheim – Minister of the Environment and International Cooperation of Norway 02/02/2009 10:40

If we take a closer look, we also can observe that the globe is dominated by three major problems: Wars, poverty and environmental degradation. These problems need to be solved by the international community. They are to some extent made by man and therefore can be solved by man.

Climate change caused by human activity threatens human life and biodiversity in a scale we have never experienced before, and can lead to increased poverty for millions of people and a rise in the number of armed conflicts if nothing is done….

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2009 – Why it is time to make history

On an icy day in January, a new President in the United States took the oath of office with soaring words of hope, idealism and courage. At a time of the worst global recession in living memory and a multitude of challenges, he did not shrink from reality but embraced the capacity to change it. And those who heard him were lifted.

Malini Mehra, Founder and CEO of the Centre for Social Markets 30/01/2009 10:10

Speaking to the millions in America but heard by billions around the world, President Barack Obama said “What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them – that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply.”

Obama spoke of America, but he could have been speaking of the world. We are everywhere in need of renewal and hope. None more so than on the climate challenge where we need fresh vision and a politics that looks forwards not backwards….

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Eight Principles for a Global Agreement on Climate Change

The great challenge for Copenhagen is to fashion an agreement that meets the needs of all participating countries, both rich and poor, and succeeds in creating a framework to head off dangerous anthropogenic interference in the climate system.

Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Colombia University 28/01/2009 08:00

I propose a set of eight principles that I believe can help to bridge the existing wide gaps between rich and poor countries.  My starting point is to note that the UNFCCC rightly places climate change squarely within the context of sustainable development, and this remains the key to achieving a global agreement on a Copenhagen Protocol (hereafter, CP) that represents the interests of both developed and developing countries. Since these principles are necessarily quite general, I put them forward to stimulate a constructive exchange of ideas on the “architecture” of the Copenhagen Protocol….

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Climate change is everybody’s concern – engage!

The clock is ticking. Before the end of this year, Denmark will host one of the most important political events of our time. In just ten months, we will open the doors to Bella Center in Copenhagen, and, for a couple of weeks, the place will be crowded with stern-looking ministers, busy negotiators, and enthusiastic NGO representatives.

Connie Hedegaard, Minister for Climate and Energy, Denmark 23/01/2009 09:00

The task is daunting. 192 countries must forge an agreement that can contain what may be mankind’s largest challenge in the 21st century: man-made climate change.

The consequences are dire. And they are already taking place. All over the world the weather is changing. Rainfalls are getting heavier, storms are getting tougher, and droughts are getting longer….

The Way Ahead on Climate Change

The financial crisis has been uppermost in the minds of most world leaders. Yet, however high the price of a global bail-out, we know one thing: it pales next to the enormous costs – and profound human consequences – of delaying action on climate change.

Gro Harlem Brundtland, Ricardo Lagos, Festus Mogae, Srgjan Kerim 19/01/2009 09:00

There is a sort of beauty in this predicament: if we act wisely, we can tackle both crises at once. Climate change negotiations over the next year offer an unprecedented opportunity to build a more profitable, safer, and sustainable global economy.

Today’s challenges – finance, food, and energy, for example – are many. Yet they share a root cause, whereby speculative and often narrow interests have superseded the common interest, common responsibilities, and common sense….

One simple way you can improve your life

I was struggling with the title for this article. The one I chose seemed a wee too incredible to my taste. And Kaizen, what has this  to do with Kaizen? Nothing, but it was using the Kaizen method this idea came to my mind.

And you know what?, the whole thing is so simple and common sense that… I thought, hey, am I to blog about that? Well knowing, I did not practice it systematically until a few days ago, somebody else could benefit too.

The thought came working in my novel. To keep it organized I use a free application developed for media pre production. (You know movies, theater and that sort of stuff). I first downloaded it for script frenzy last year, the crazy adventure into writing 100 pages of scripts in April . That did not turn out that good as I’m much slower (and worse, yet you know that) writer in English; but I then used celtx to organize other stuff too, like my novel. And just a few days ago, to keep this blog.

Yet, I am not posting this article to sing the praises of Celtx, but to spark your mind. Think: you visit blogs, search the web or ask friends, hoping to find some advice, but what if your own experience can be your best guru?

Let’s suppose you are good at football but bad at, I don’t know, drawing. So, in that case, what did you do that make you good at football? Oh know, I don’t thinking kicking a ball for hours every day will make you good at drawing… but what about drawing for hours every day? Think in the professionals you followed… now do you follow any great artist?

So this is my tip for the weekend. Consider your successes, everybody has some of those, and don’t stop thinking until you discover why you got to the top. And see how you can expand it.

Make Easy With Shopwiki

Make Easy With Shopwiki

[7:44 AM | 3 comments ]

.fullpost{display:inline;}As we know an Internet can do many things. Browsing, chatting, downloading, email, blogging etc. But I don’t want to talking about all of that. I want to talk about shopping. What the relevancy between internet and shopping? Let we find out the answer. In traditional market buyer and seller meet each other to make a transaction. But now internet can make a transaction without a buyer and a seller meet each other. It’s called an online shopping.

Some times some people very busy, they working every day almost full of day. They don’t have much time to go to plaza, mall, or mini market for shopping. By shopping via the Internet we can save time, money and energy. If we shop at the mall or traditional markets, we often have difficulty in determining the best product, but with shopping via the Internet then we will find a lot easier. Shopwiki offers a new way to shop for everything you need. They have 6,000 AU stores instead of the usual 500 stores that other shopping sites have.

In Shopwiki homepage you can search many things that you want to buy by brand, or may be you can search that many things that you need by keyword that you entered. Sometimes we don’t remember a brand some product, but we can still find the product with keyword. For example I try to find a sunglasses by entering that keyword, and I found the result of product by brand like Savage, Armany, Oakley, Bvlgari, etc

Schlock Market Smackdown

rom the Los Angeles Times:

The “weeklong feud of the century” reached its climax Thursday night as Jon Stewart welcomed freshly minted nemesis Jim Cramer to ” The Daily Show.”

Cramer, who hosts the CNBC show “Mad Money,” had figured heavily in a “Daily Show” piece highlighting that network’s poor track record on the financial apocalypse, an attack originally inspired by reporter Rick Santelli’s diatribe against over-leveraged homeowners. (”If I only followed CNBC’s advice,” Stewart said then, “I’d have a million dollars today — provided I’d started with $100 million.”)

When Cramer objected publicly to what he considered unfair treatment, Stewart and his writers, smelling comedy blood, turned their sights toward him. Or, as the host described it last night, “We threw some Boston cream pies at CNBC, you got a little, obviously, shmutz on your jacket from it, you took exception, and then we decided to hit you with pies.”

The back-and-forth generated a lot of Web hits to the Comedy Central page and comments among the punditry, taking on a patina of “news” and turning a comic riff into a self-inflating media moment: “People on TV have talked about how much people on TV have talked about it,” “Daily Show” announcer Drew Birns intoned with customary mock gravity at the opening of last night’s show, which was being pitched like some WWE grudge match, excited certainly by memories of Stewart’s 2004 dust-up with Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala of CNN’s “Crossfire.”

Stewart’s point this time was much the same: that CNBC practiced irresponsible journalism while selling itself as a source of superior insight and information.

…snip…

Although Stewart took some care to separate Cramer personally from his larger attack on CNBC — whose misrepresentation of the financial crisis as “some sort of crazy once-in-a-lifetime tsunami that nobody could have seen coming” he called “disingenuous at best and criminal at worst” — the net he was throwing was certainly meant to include him.

…snip…

Cramer is a star in his own world, but in the larger hierarchy of cable TV and pop-political culture, “The Daily Show” ranks higher than “Mad Money.” And though he had told Martha Stewart earlier that “I’m going to have to fight back. I’m not a doormat,” he came off as chastened, conciliatory, pleading and overwhelmed:

“I try really hard to make as many good calls as I can.”

“I should do a better job.”

“I wish I’d done a better job.”

“I’m trying. I’m trying.”

Jon Stewart had a home-court advantage, of course, as well as a few damning clips, not meant for broadcast, of Cramer describing, in a positive way, certain barely to not-even-barely legal things a hedge fund manager might do to work the market to his advantage. And he also had editorial control — the interview that went out over the air was cut for time; Cramer comes off somewhat better in the complete exchange, which is available online. But what makes Stewart formidable is that he also has a passion greater than the irony in which it is often couched.

Cramer, who repeatedly characterized the illegal and merely immoral doings of the market as “shenanigans,” tried to downplay his own importance [...]

…snip…

Stewart was having none of it. “I understand you want to make finance entertaining,” he said, “but . . . you knew what the banks were doing and yet were touting it for months and months. . . . These guys were on a Sherman’s march through their companies financed by our 401(k)s, and all the incentives for their companies were for short term . . . and they . . . walked away rich as hell. And you guys knew it was going on.”

Closing the show, Stewart added, “I hope that was as uncomfortable to watch as it was to do.”

Just a note–If you clicked over to the Crossfire poster, please be aware that it was done in MSPaint. It was before I learned Photoshop, but I was rather proud of the result. If you asked me to recreate it in MSPaint today, there’s no way on earth I could do it.