The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, Jeffrey Gitomer

By Bliss Sawyer

Jeffrey Gitomer's newest book Little Platinum Book of CHA-CHING! is a fantastic read. Based on principals from John Patterson, founder of The National Cash Register, these amazing strategies that are ever bit as relevant today as they were in the late 1800's.
I found this book to be interesting and motivating. One great quote: "What you read usually determines how you think. If you decide to read about success, the odds are you will become successful." Hmmmm.... maybe you should buy yourself a Christmas present. Then spend time reading, taking notes and moving your business forward with the great (and simple!) ideas spelled out in this book.
It certainly can't hurt, and this just might help you start 2008 with a bang. Happy reading!

Profiling Colorado Killer

By Laura Benjamin

Yes, I live in Colorado Springs, Colorado and yes, our community is stunned from the tragedy that occurred here at New Life Church and in Arvada, Colorado this past weekend. I’m sure it’s probably not much different than the way folks have been feeling in Omaha NE. Or in the countless other communities where senseless loss of life occurs. It seems we’ve had more than our share of it when you consider the gunman in Bailey CO and the horror of Columbine.

We sat at the dinner table last night trying to make some sense of it all. I’m very fortunate to have two wonderful sons and a great daughter in the same age range as the young man who committed this most recent atrocity. About the same time we sat down to eat, we learned of yet another youth shooting as high schoolers in Las Vegas got off their school bus.

Now, I don’t mean to simplify the complexity of what goes on in the heads of a young person (or even old person) who would pick up a gun and use it as a way to settle disputes or take out one’s frustrations. Obviously there has to be something mentally amiss. Obviously in a few of these cases, people weren’t paying close enough attention to what could possibly happen. You can argue all day that society let these troubled young people down, especially the young man who was bounced from one foster home to another.
My heart breaks for any young person who is described as a “lost puppy”. The last words from the Omaha shooter’s suicide note, “…I love you mommy…” still tightens my throat as I think of any young person feeling confused, frustrated, unwanted or lonely.

But does that minimize the impact of the crimes that were committed? No, not on your life.
And every time something like this happens, I wonder - surely at this point in time we know enough about the profiles of these people to keep it from happening. Certainly we have enough data, enough historical evidence to be able to anticipate who will snap and take people with them.
And in fact we do. I’ve written about this gentleman’s work before and sadly, because of the most recent circumstances it’s time to promote him again…

Dan Korem specializes in behavioral profiling. Yes, I said “profiling”. The term has been given dirty word status, but I stand behind the importance of profiling people’s BEHAVIORS in order to anticipate people’s actions to minimize the harm they can cause to others. Years ago, I was fortunate to speak at a professional association event where Dan was also presenting and purchased his book, The Art of Profiling. His subsequent book, Rage of the Random Actor, is particularly relevant right now, don’t ya think?

Here’s what I think: We need more training. We need to speak up much more often when all the signs point to potential for tragedy. Matthew Murray was sending hate mail to the youth ministry from which he was ejected years ago. While some say hindsite is always 20-20, this should have been a strong indication that the young man was dangerous and unpredictable.

Yes, we MUST profile people’s behaviors to keep others safe. I’m going to recommend - once again - that you visit Dan’s site (and I get no compensation to refer you there or recommend his books, by the way). Read the research he’s posted on his site, buy his book(s), hire him to come to your organization and speak to your company, school or group. I guarantee you, you will be much more aware and informed.
While we may not be able to catch every tragedy before it happens, it’s very possible with additional education, that we can anticipate and stop many more. But to do so means we’ve got to take the anti-social, angry, vindictive behaviors seriously. We can’t afford to ignore the warning signs in the interest of being “oh so polite”. We cannot afford to stand silently by and think, “…well, it’s really not MY problem…I shouldn’t get involved…surely, someone else will handle this…”

No folks, it’s up to us each and every time we see something, hear something or read something that strikes us as just plain wrong.

If we don’t watch out for one another, and our children, who will?
Writing from Colorado Springs, Colorado,
Laura B.

Predictions for Google's 2008

From http://googlesystem.blogspot.com

Some of these items are obvious, others are mostly wishful thinking.

1. Google will try to unify its application and transform them into a big social network. The Maka-Maka project (or Google's activity stream) will enhance the already existing profiles. If Google doesn't understand that your Gmail contacts aren't necessarily your friends, we'll see a huge privacy backslash.

2. Google should finally go beyond indexing text and start to use image analysis and speech recognition in Google Image Search and Google Video. The NevenVision acquisition should produce visible results in the image search engine and we could see better results for famous people or the option to find similar images.

3. Google won't give up on universal search, but we'll see a different interface that separates standard search results from OneBoxes and other additions. Google's snippets will become smarter and they could include information about authors, locations, concepts.

4. Gmail will add another batch of new features, one of the most important being task management, and will finally go out of beta. Gmail will launch a Google Labs-like site with experimental features that could be added by those who are curious to see the next features before they are officially launched.

5. The first Android phones will be a disappointment, but developers will create a lot of interesting applications that could compensate for the poor designs.

6. Most Google applications will work offline using Google Gears, even if the functionality will be limited. Google Gears will also work on mobile phones and could become a part of Firefox.

7. Google Maps will be redesigned and could include more space for user-generated content. We'll start to see user's locations, important events from our area, recommendations from friends. Google Maps will become more personal.

8. OpenSocial won't work as well as expected and Google will focus on its own social network(s). iGoogle gadgets are about to become social and aggregate data from your contacts.

9. Google will launch a people search engine that gathers data from the web, especially from social networks.

10. Google Books will be more present in search results and Google will start to sell access to the full content of some of the books.

11. One word: sync. At the end of the year, Outlook and most mobile phones will be able to synchronize with Google Calendar and Gmail's contacts. Google Docs will have plug-ins that let you edit documents in Microsoft Office or OpenOffice and save the changes online. Google Toolbar will integrate Browser Sync and start to synchronize your bookmarks, cookies, passwords and your browser's history.

12. Multi-faceted search, searching from different points of view (objective information vs positive/negative opinions, official information vs comments from blogs, forums).

13. Google will differentiate commercial search results by integrating data from Google Base. Google will continue to try to promote Checkout, this time by showing small badges next to the search results from sites that accept Google Checkout.

14. Google Talk will move completely online: the embeddable gadget will let you create custom chat rooms, talk with other people and maybe even see them if they have webcams.

15. Picasa Web Albums will add some of the photo editing features from Picasa and will increase the free storage.

16. GDrive will finally launch, but it won't offer infinite storage or advanced features. It will let you access the files stored in different Google applications and upload new files from a single interface. Storage: 20 GB.

Big Brother Better Watch His P's and Q's

By Captain Capitalist

George Orwell's gloomy predictions in the book "1984" have turned out to be exactly backward. In Orwell's view, the advance of technology empowered authoritarian government (Big Brother) to keep tabs on individuals and control every aspect of their lives. The reality has been just the opposite.

First of all, for an economy to develop advanced technology, one must have free enterprise. That's where the money comes from. The Soviet Union lost the cold war because they couldn't afford to keep up. China is gradually moving toward free market capitalism because it pays well. They will never reach their full potential until their society is also free. If and when that happens, more power to them. The reason for that is simple: Resource allocation as determined by billions of individual decisions made every minute is a much more efficient system than resource allocation by a handful of self-anointed elites.

The advance of technology in the west has actually lead to scenario's like the recent rebirth of Radio Caracas Television. Venezuelan strongman and international idiot, Hugo Chavez (until recently lauded as a visionary by many dolts, I mean pundits), shut down the station because it did not promote views consistent with his agenda. The station is now broadcasting daily via YouTube. The authoritarian government shut them down and the private sector put them back up.

Many people are now up in arms about Google's new Street View technology. Google's satellites provide a panoramic view of streets and intersections. When you look up an address you can actually see exactly where the building is, and what it looks like. People fear this may lead to a "Big Brother" scenario where the government can keep tabs on you 24/7. A real "Big Brother" scenario would be if the government took control of Google's cameras and pulled them from the web so that you and I couldn't access them. What we speculate was a massacre (we have to speculate because there were no camera's) at Tienemin Square in 1989 didn't take place until after the government kicked out the media and shut down all the cameras.

Bad guys and bad governments are like cockroaches. They don't like the light. The technologies being deployed today are not part of a monolithic enterprise, working together to keep you down. They are individual pieces of technology being made available to the public by a wide variety of organizations with differing and sometimes conflicting agendas. They are competing for your business and when one steps out of line, the others are more than happy to point that out to you.

Information technology is an extension of memory, but it's much more reliable and accurate. The current boom in sharing, transferring and storing information is akin to the invention of the written word. Billions of individuals can now share and build on each others ideas, and carry the effort forward to future generations. It's much harder now for governments and con men to hide the truth from the masses, and good ideas have a better chance of being brought to fruition than ever before.

If you're concerned about individuals being able to see what you're doing in public, here's an idea: Stop cheating on your wife, lying to your business partner, running red lights, stealing from you boss or trying to dupe the public. Then go home and get a good night's sleep.

Big Brother, we're watching you.

Put A Lid On Your "ANT" Farm And Boost Productivity

Put A Lid On Your "ANT" Farm And Boost Productivity
by: Laurie Hayes

You wouldn't leave the lid off a live ant farm in your home or office would you?

Why not?

Because you know they'd create a huge mess and eventually drive you mad once they've multiplied a hundred times over and covered everything in their path.

For this very same reason, you want to keep a lid on your mind's "ants."

Your mind's ants are those "action needed tasks" that tie up valuable headspace and divert your focus from the single most important thing that needs your attention.

Mind ants are those constant little reminders you have in your head of things you have to do like, "pick up supper tonight," "call the bank about the overcharge," "increase Ms. Jones' monthly order" or "set up an interview with the media."

These mind ants are generated every time you create a task that requires an action, no matter how big or small that action is.

And the problem is -- these mind ants are like swarming insects inside your brain, blocking productivity.

They cloud your focus and take your attention away from important matters.

So, how do you keep a lid on the ant farm?

With two simple rules...

Whenever you create a new task that requires action, do one of two things.

1. If the action can be taken care of within two minutes, tend to it right away. It may be as simple as delegating it to someone else. You have prevented the birth of a mind ant.

2. If the item requires more than two minutes of your time, record it on an action list. By writing it down, you have spared yourself from having to carry it around in your mind as a rampant ant.

You don't have to clutter your mind because you have a list to refer to when you're able to give it your attention.

Because your mind is clear, you can focus on your most important tasks and follow them through to completion.

Follow these two simple rules and you should observe an instant boost in productivity.

Leave the ant farm in little Johnny's science class. ;-)

2007 © Laurie Hayes - The HBB Source

About The Author

Laurie Hayes, founder of The HBB Source, and creator of The Complete 12-Step Guide To Starting A Home-Based Business and The HBB Survival Guide, helps freedom seekers fast track their journey from employee to home-based entrepreneur. Get her free ezine packed with helpful resources at http://www.thehbbsource.com

Resolve not to get ripped off! New Year's Diet Plans

From WifezillasWay.Blogspot.com

As the end of the year approaches, many start thinking about New Year's resolutions. Losing weight is a perennial favorite, and the diet industry is well aware of this. Ads for prepackaged food plans, diet pills, exercise equipment and gym memberships abound in print and on the air waves this time of year. Unfortunately, most of them will not help you lose weight, and some are an outright rip off.

Dr. Barry Groves, author of Eat Fat Get Thin and Natural Health & Weight Loss has a great understanding of the core issue. "The overweight are a ready source of income....They rely on you for a very comfortable living."

According to a CBS report in December of last year, Americans spend somewhere near $35 billion a year on weight-loss products. Yet, for all that money spent, obesity rates are not going down. Not only are people making money off of you if you are fat, they aren't doing what you paid them to do...help you get skinny.

So when you see the latest diet, the newest exercise gadget, or the hottest new weight loss pill, pause for a minute and think about those 35 billion reasons they are being pushed on you. Below are just a few examples of how an overweight person and their money can end up being parted.

Meal Programs: Jenny Craig and Nutrisystem are two well-known examples (though they are not the only ones). For a fee, they ship you prepackaged, pre-portioned foods. The good news is they will actually send you the food if you pay for it. The bad news is that you could make the same foods for yourself for much less. Those tv ads you see for these plans? Next time one pops up, look for the following words...RESULTS NOT TYPICAL. They are there on every single skinny person shown as an example of what their diets can do. What are the typical results? More like the results for diets in general, which have an abysmal failure rate of over 95%. Instead of forking over the money for a plan like this, take a cooking class instead. Or go to the book store and pick up some low carb cook books. It will cost a lot less and you will most likely actually lose some weight.

Gyms: Gyms love New Year! This is when they get the most sign-ups, but by Spring time, up to 30% of paying members are no longer around. Of course, they are still PAYING, because a gym membership can be as hard to quit as a crack habit. Long term contracts you can't get out of even if you move, get injured, or just don't use the facilities, don't sound like a good idea to me. Add the fact that exercise has been shown to have little effect on weight loss (Good Calories, Bad Calories - Gary Taubes), gym memberships are just not worth it in my book. A local community center that has a pay as you go plan, or per class charge is a much smarter option. You can also always use the local park for free. (more)

Membership Websites: There are online sites that charge you to join to get access to their diet plans, discussion forums and recipe sites. Some charge per month while others offer a lifetime membership. The problem with these sites is you can't see what the plan is until you've already ponied up the cash to join. You have no way to evaluate the quality of the information being offered, or if the dietary advice you are getting is even medically safe or sound. In one well publicized case, a woman running a diet site claimed to have lost 198 pounds in a year, and maintained her weight loss for over 5 years. Her site offered the way to lose weight just like her if you paid $59.95. After an investigation prompted by a disgruntled business partner and upset members who were denied access to the site after paying for the "lifetime" membership, it was revealed that the diet's founder was, in fact, over 300 lbs. She had not lost 198 pounds. Her "after" photo she used on her site and in an issue of Women's World magazine was lifted from a Russian Bride website. Not only was her photo faked, several other "success" stories were fictitious, their photos also coming from Russian dating sites. (more) This diet founder is now the target of a lawsuit for her fraud as well as health problems experienced by those who followed her plan.

There is really no need to pay an upfront fee for recipes, articles or forums in the first place since these are already available for FREE. Two excellent forums are Low Carb Friends and Active Low Carb Forums. Both have an extensive collection of articles, information and personal experiences, as well as fun, helpful people who are in the same boat as you. There are also forums created by individuals like Jimmy Moore, who himself lost a lot of weight and blogs extensively about low carb eating, health and weight loss. There is addition information available from blogs and websites of Doctors like Mike & Mary Eades, authors of Protein Power, and Barry Groves, author of Natural Health and Weight Loss. While they are ultimately selling books, their free information in an education all by itself. As for recipes, RecipeZaar. com, Cooks.com and more have low carb recipes, or you can stop by Linda Sue's website. She has been low carb cooking for a long time and has a fantastic collection of tried and true low carb recipes.

Exercise Gadgets: Remember the thigh master? The ab roller? The stair climber? While people who buy these gadgets start off with the best of intentions, what most commonly happens is that it gets used a few times and then hidden in the basement. Pimped on tv commercials and infomercials, they usually end up in garage sales and thrift stores after gathering dust in a basement or closet. If you really believe the thing you see on tv is YOUR ANSWER to permanent weight loss, wait 6 months. You will be able to get it for less than 1/10th of the advertised price at your local Goodwill. Plus, if you really think you can stick with a regular plan, like you need for one of these products, try a walking plan. If you can't commit to taking a walk 3 times a week for a couple of months, the odds of you using an exercise gadget consistently are slim to none anyway.

Diet Pills: From Chortislim to Liposene to Hoodia, each promises outstanding results. Many often have a "money back" guarantee. How can you lose? Easy. Shipping and handling. You don't get that portion back if you return the pills. Most use cheap ground shipping and pay a discounted rate to their shippers. You pay more like $9.95-$12.95 for the shipping and handling alone. Should you return the package, they already have been paid for all of their costs (including that of the product) and have lost nothing. And since most people never bother to return the products, they profit no matter what. Besides, the pills don't address the actual causes of obesity, and are just a neat way for pill makers to get rich.

"On January 4, 2007, the Federal Trade Commission fined the marketers of four over-the-counter, non-prescription diet pills a combined $25 million for making false advertising claims"
http://www.bestdietforme.com/DietPills.htm

The real reason for obesity is because of metabolic problems caused by the shift of our natural diet to one high in refined carbohydrates. Anything that does not address the underlying cause is just a waste of time of money. You don't need gadgets or pills to fix it, you need good, solid information. Trust me, nobody likes being fat, and the obese feel a desperation to lose weight for many reasons. Health, beauty, to fit in to society better...I know what it feels like. I have wasted my share of money on pills and plans, but the only thing that has worked has been a low carb way of eating. It's the only thing I have tried that addresses the cause, it's healthy, it works, and it doesn't cost a fortune. A few books and some helpful internet buddies were all I needed to drop 35 pounds, lower my blood pressure, and feel so much better overall. Sure I still have work to do, but I will not get it done by spending my money on crap and neither will you. It's time to resolve to get healthy, and not to give ripoff artists your hard earned money in the process.

Happy New Year!

Books to buy NOW. Seriously!
Protein Power by Mike & Mary Eades
Natural Health & Weight Loss by Barry Groves
Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes

Tornado Power, Wild Energy Alternative

From Triplepundit: http://www.triplepundit.com/

When people think of tornados they think of mayhem and destruction. A man named Louis Michaud would rather create constructive tornados, very big ones. Louis is a Canadian engineer who intends to turn tornadoes into power plants by creating and containing tornados. Imagine descending into an urban environment aboard a commercial aircraft and seeing a 30 foot-wide, miles high spinning vortex of hot air as if it was meant to be there. These man-made turbulences could generate enough electricity to power thousands of homes; just hope your pilot has planned a way around them on his flight plan.

This so-called atmospheric vortex engine will suck in hot air through a series of ducts at the base and channel it into an open roof arena. This would lead to the production of a tornado-like funnel of air that would provide the turbulent push to turn power-generating turbines.

To ramp up the power this system draws in hot water from an excess heat source vented from a nearby nuclear power plant for example and disperses this heat around the perimeter of the vortex engine. To create the wind you will find fans stationed in a mad series of cells spaced around the exterior of the engine which suck in the hot air warmed by the water and blow it through angled channels into the 330-foot-wide central air chamber. The twister is created by the hot air that rushes out along the walls of the chamber and swirls up and out through a 100-foot-wide hole in the top of the machine. The flow pattern that is created coupled with the constant supply of hot air beneath it is supposed to produce a 30-foot-wide tornado that Michaud believes will reach several miles into the sky.

In order to generate electricity from this crazy machine the fans that create the vortex double as the power generators as well. Once the vortex is generated the twister will spin on its own without any additional or constant energy input needed claims Michaud. This self propelled full-grown tornado will suck in air through its base to continue spinning. This influx of air will turn the fans which will convert the mechanical energy into a claimed 100 megawatts of electricity.

As hair-brained as this idea seems to be, the idea has generated some serious interest. The Centre for Energy at the Ontario Centre’s of Excellence recently awarded Michaud with a grant to study the three-foot-tall model he built in his garage. Several notable scientists, such as Kerry Emanuel (renowned hurricane expert of MIT) now sit on the advisory board.

The critics contend that there is some question as to whether the energy the tornado yields would offset the amount required to create it. Others worry that crosswinds could be a constant problem, severing the tornado and sapping its power generating strength or send it spinning out of control. Michaud counters that the start-up energy would be free in the form of heat vented from other power plants even increasing their electrical output by 20%. And as for safety, the tornado can be shut down at any time by closing off the vents, “it’s a tethered tornado” he says. This spring Michaud will get his chance to prove his wild idea in Sarnia, Ontario where he will be demonstrating a 12-foot-wide model.