Data Recovery Training & Preparation: An Ounce of Preparation

I stumbled upon a website dedicated to training data recovery technicians and computer repair specialists called “ReclaiMe Data Recovery Training.” The best part is the training is not only very comprehensive, but totally free.

Companies who offer data recovery services would benefit from this free training by learning the latest techniques, tools and tips available. Even for beginners, the content is easy to follow, with short and digestible lessons containing videos and other materials to follow along with. I contend that all businesses with an IT department would benefit from educating their staff in the procedures and challenges covered in ReclaiMe’s training courses. Use it as a way to get your IT department engaged and prepared, as your own reference, or as a refresher course if you’ve ever endured the hassle of having to recover data from a hard drive before.

Understanding Data Recovery Will Save Your Company Money

It will inevitably happen. Your hard drives will fail and you will not be able to access your data, so if you own your own business with multiple computers, you would also benefit from the information you could learn from these free training guides if for no other reason than to avoid being swindled by some unscrupulous IT company that may try to take advantage of your naiveté and over charge you.
After all, sending out your hard drives with your sensitive company data comes with its own risks, but a data recovery company who is aware that you are more technically astute will be less likely to try to pull the wool over your eyes and charge you unfairly. Think of it as free insurance for your company data systems.

ReclaiMe Free Data Recovery Training Courses

As mentioned, besides companies that actually provide data recovery services, any business with a respectable IT department should require at least one person to “train up” with these materials. There are multiple training courses that ReclaiMe offers for free: “NAS – Network Attached Storage”, “RAID Recovery”, and “Partition Recovery”.

Each course provides data recovery videos in an informal training whiteboard/instructor setting, PDF summaries, tips provided by experts, practice exercises to reinforce the material, and even online tests with immediate results. The videos don’t waste anytime getting into the subject matter and are designed and presented as a pyramid of information where they first lay the basic foundation broadly then build upwards with more specific procedures and insights.

The experts at ReclaiMe obviously have a lot of experience and knowledge in data recovery and they present the information in the videos so it’s all easy to follow, akin to an informal TED talk.

Recommendation

Though the ReclaiMe training courses are designed primarily for data recovery technicians and computer repair specialists, many companies that rely on their internal IT departments to set up and take care of their own hardware needs would benefit from this free training. ReclaiMe’s Data Recovery Training website is an extensive and free resource for all types of different hard drive storage setups that provide valuable information and insights about how to restore vital data from failed hard drives.

Many companies never think about this until it happens then data recovery is all they think about until they recover their lost data, projects, and creative masterpieces locked mysteriously inside the corrupt hard drives. Understanding data recovery processes and techniques while picking up useful tips could save your business thousands of dollars in lost revenue or worst, in lost future business. No customer wants to hear that you lost their project and the work they paid for or you missed a critical deadline they were relying on you for because your hard drives crashed at the 11th hour.

Protecting your business and customers means you need to be prepared and be informed. For a free resource, ReclaiMe is providing a lot of information and training basically as a public service.

They obviously are in the business to sell their data recovery software, but they deserve praise for providing such comprehensive training for free. So many companies would really benefit investing some time in studying these materials and staying prepared in case of a data system failure.
It’s good business because protecting your data and understanding how to get it back in case of system failure is itself an insurance policy against potential business interruptions in the future. The only investment required is the time you need to take the courses. An ounce of prevention now could save your company thousands later.

Despair.com's Illboards so ruthlessly true, it may hurt some of your feelings

The geniuses at the anti-corporate capitalist capitalists Despair.com have done it again!

There are so many truisms that can make you smile, just go to http://www.despair.com/illboards.html.

My favorite is probably the Al Gore one.  The one about Dick Cheney was only half-true, I do believed he apologized to his friend for shooting him in the face, but I'm sure they're right about his personality!

If you're offended by Despair's messages, I'd like to apologize in advance for your thin skin and feel sorry for you.

Here's an example that exemplifies the arrogance and hypocrisy that epitomizes so many meddling, big government politicians.

I'd like to add another one about Michael Bloomberg.

"Michael Bloomberg:  Proof that if you're smart at least one thing you can become a billionaire then bash the system that helped you achieve your fortune."

As a fan of Despair for over a decade, I am fascinated with this company and it's ability to make most of its money with one simple principle as its guiding force:

Sarcasm!  :-(

Michael Bloomberg

PHOTO: Rubenstein

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Sensio Labs Symfony PHP framework cheatsheet and other resources

If you are learning or using the Symfony PHP framework, you will find a lot of free resources, including tutorial videos, code examples, bundles with sample projects and data.  Another resource for those frequently-used snippets and samples that can help you code faster and keep the project moving can be found at http://tools.belchamber.us/symfony-cheatsheet/.

- Aaron Belchamber
www.AaronBelchamber.com

Smashwords.com: A great place to get your book or screenplay published.

Smashwords, a self-publishing platform for authors of all kinds, is at the forefront of the exploding self-publishing revolution.  Blogging has made thousands of people millionaires by simply sharing their opinions in a forum they control online, earning income from ad revenue and endorsements, fueling the ability to reach the masses.  The irony is that many of these people who make money blogging would do it for free -- they just want to express themselves and be heard, so much so, there are people who would be happy to even pay to blog!

Web publishing has empowered millions of people to express themselves and Smashwords makes it easy to self-publish, it's so easy you could have your own ISBN and your book on Amazon and iTunes in the less than a day.  Pretty powerful!  The web, and its ability to deliver content at little cost has supplemented the income of millions of people in the form of blogs, websites, self-publishing, and self distribution.  The ability to self-publish and self distribute high resolution video content and reach a potential world audience with little distribution costs, little physical labor or material costs, and no costs in energy has already transformed many lives and revolutionized the publishing and entertainment industry.

I felt empowered when I published a short story I wrote for a writing contest and decided to publish it on Smashwords.  I haven't exceeded my goal of 10,000 downloads, but it get closer to that every day.  Not exactly Stephen King, but it was a great feeling that people actually took the time to download it on their e-reader and perhaps read the whole story, all 2,340 words of it!  Here's a snapshot and link to my short story if you would like to learn more about Smashwords and how explore how it works, no better place to start than a word-of-mouth recommendation!

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/353705

If you want to learn more, feel free to contact me through the contact form at my website or Google +.  I had such a great experience I decided to publish a screenplay I wrote back in 2008 called "Fine English".  You can visit the landing page for this full 27,000 word screenplay.  Smashwords help you market and distributes your book to a network of over 100 million subscribers throughout the world.  Here's the cover and link to the screenplay:

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/432465

I unfortunately encountered a few formatting errors, which Smashwords is very good at helping authors rectify.  They don't want your work showing up on iTunes and other digital libraries looking wonky.  You can even set a "sample" portion to "tease" readers and allow them to read a little bit of your book to help them decide if they want to download it.  Revenue sharing is a pretty fair arrangement, and the options for different readers to download your work in multiple formats for Kindles, iPads, etc are thorough and pretty reliable.

No more "middle-men" and publishing "gatekeepers"

Information and stories used to take so long to reach people because they had to be in physical forms and be physically distributed so they could be read.  All that energy and time to put into making copies then packing them on horseback or put in ships that sailed across the vast oceans.  It's amazing we humans ever bothered to leave the caves we lived in.  Now, we complain when our Internet connection is slow so the latest movie we're streaming pauses to fill the buffer.  Good grief, we're all such wusses now.

The Internet has unleashed the individual, it has empowered them to bypass the "middle man".  If you had enough creativity and guts, you not only can publish your book without dealing with an agent OR a pedantic publisher, you can produce your own movies and distribute them yourself without being beholden to distributors and agents and the other self-serving industry insiders who like to think their club is just too exclusive for the masses.  Likewise, a book author no longer has to go through a publisher, they can just post their writing online.  Many literary agents and book publishers are self-proclaimed experts and most of them, like all of us, are only human and subject to perceptions that are skewed, distorted and often too self-serving so they may think they're experts but in actuality they've lived too long in a bubble and aren't really in tune with what the plethora of markets ripe for paying readers.  One more thing about publishers, they always say they're looking for specific topics, genres and material, so they don't bother accepting or reading anything out of their own comfort zone.  Does this sound like a good business model?  Doesn't it cost the same to print 320 pages of novel X as it does novel Y?!

J.K. Rowling was rejected over 6 times before a publisher accepted her work, enough said about the "wisdom" of the publishing industry.  No longer do individuals and groups have to produce their creative vision to please these gatekeepers!  It's been a revolution in the making that will soon reach its apex the first time a complete unknown, perhaps the next Thomas Payne, breaks the 10 million book download threshold for his (or her) masterpiece that will shape America's future and mold its destiny much like Thomas Payne's Common Sense did centuries ago.  The miracle here will not just be the feat of obscurity beaten merely by the pure quality of one's writing, but the very fact not a single book will be physically printed and the book will manage to reach and impact so many people.  Possible?  You bet.  Will it happen?  I believe so, eventually.

Speed up your Wordpress website quickly at no cost

Please check out my latest review of "WP Fastest Cache", a Wordpress plug-in that I have been using this past year.  I hope it helps speed up your website.  In some cases, I have seen a 10 fold decrease in load times!

http://tools.belchamber.us/wordpress-caching-accelerating-your-website-reliably-with-wp-fastest-cache/

Filing Taxes Last Minute? H & R Block Tax Preparation Easy and Fast

If you are looking for a last minute recommendation to filing your taxes, I haven't experienced a better service than H & R Block.  In less than 30 minutes, you can file your taxes at www.HRBlock.com and it's free unless you have some crazy deductions or need to file a Schedule C for a small business.  If you have a couple of businesses, you will only be charged once for one or more Schedule C's.

It's well worth the $34.99 they charge for those extra business write-offs.  H & R Block has continuously improved their website useability and overall cover almost every dreaded IRS income tax detail to the very last stone which they do not leave unturned.  It has been a very good service, it's just, well.... unfortunate that we Americans do it to ourselves and have voted for politicians and created such a monstrous machine.

Why do we subject ourselves to the torture of having to file taxes?   Seriously.

...It's just unfortunate and a waste of our country's resources and collective time that we have this silly annual filing fest in the first place

Why can't it just be a simple pay-as-you-go and WHY, someone please tell me, WHY do we tax peoples' income of all things?!  Taxing income is the most counter-productive, idiotic, self-destructive scam ever invented.  There's no surer way to hold back a nation's potential, burden the poor, and encourage waste, fraud, and sloth.  Why do we punish people for working to put food on the table?  Why do we discourage industry and productivity so directly?  Why don't we just come out and say it -- "If you work you will have to pay for the privilege."  How stupid can you get?

I know what you're going to say, it's because we need to pay taxes for all the government provides us.  Do you really think the government provides us?  Is taxing income really the only way a government can get money from its citizens?  Really?!  Think about this -- your taxes are providing for the government and in return you get to categorize, file, claim, mail, vouch, record, stamp, sign, seal, file (again), notarize, pay, deposit, dispute, amend, stand in line like some paralegal clerk on endless fools errands.  Yes, all these fun things for us all to do, enacted by us all.

We're all a bunch of foolish chumps getting fleeced, out to turn hard working Americans into pencil pushing, paper filing, tie-wearing, accountant and attorney supporting misguided, misallocating sissies our predecessors, ancestors, forefathers, past titans of industry, previous philosophers and other real people who helped build this country with their blood and sweat would shake their head in disgust at.  We have lost our way, America.

For those who would also appreciate the absurdity of carrying a typewriter into a battlefield, I hope one day we regain our common sense and find a better way and lean our government to the size and scope the Constitution is meant to restrict it to -- before it's too late.

Until then, be a chump like me and file your taxes on time then go to work and earn the right to do it again.  Aren't we lucky.  ... or start voting Libertarian!

Looking for an affordable email campaign service? The free version of this one is better than paid versions of most.

Talking eblasts: If it comes down to MyEmma or Mail Chimp, go with the monkey.  I've used both systems pretty extensively for different clients/employers in the past.  I know there are others, but I'm only reviewing what I know.  Constant Contact I hear is good, I know MyEmma is acceptable, Campaigner's a bit clunky, but when it comes to simple, fast, easy to use, yet very powerful, on top of performing best, being more reliable, and has by far the best interface, dashboard, campaign list manager, flexible ways to import your email addresses and other business contacts, it's no contest.

MyEmma?  Yo Emma

MyEmma claims it is designed by designers for designers.  I believe it, there's just something behind the scenes and under the hood that feels like the website was written by designers instead of industry-leading web developers.  Don't get people who mostly write code for a living to design websites, that's a good rule of thumb, but it also goes the other way.  Designers, leave the coding to the coders!

MyEmma's import functions are often clunky and I found them downright unreliable.  In the past, our graphic designer had to upload an Excel spreadsheet sometimes over the course of a couple days.  I found their customer support was slow and unresponsive, but I'll give them credit for following up and correcting the issues... eventually.  It came down to a few services and MyEmma came highly recommended.  They changed their pricing, yet for almost a year, a client of mine was not notified so they kept paying per email sent instead of the unlimited emails sent and pricing structure based on the total list of email recipients.  Not too happy with the fact they were not forthcoming and proactive with their customers.  One client was paying over $400 more each month than if they knew they qualified for the other plan!

Mail Chimp doesn't monkey around

Mail Chimp, on the other hand, I find is not only much easier to use, but for very small businesses with less than a thousand email addresses, you can run email campaigns at absolutely no cost as of this post.  Not only that, I found Mail Chimp's website to be the best in reliability, speed, performance, and interface design.  If you don't know HTML, there are plenty of great templates and a very easy and intuitive editor that will help you compose an email campaign that is fully scalable to mobile devices.  It's also very easy to clone and existing campaign so you don't have to start from scratch.  Before you send the email, or schedule it to be emailed, you can preview it on different devices.  Having tested it on my phone and other devices, it is a very reliable WYSIWYG.

Don't let their playful, goofy name fool you.  Mail Chimp's free service is pretty robust, going pro will unlock many other useful features that will allow you to optimize your campaigns.  As popular and powerful as email is becoming as the premier digital marketing medium, increasing your click through and conversion ratse by a half a percent could yield an amazing increase in profitable results.  Like many of the other email campaigner services, Mail Chimp has all the major features including merging certain data to customize each outgoing email, say, with the recipient's actual name or other useful data that will enable you to optimize your messaging and increase your email marketing effectiveness.

Split A/B Testing and more

Mail Chimp offers an easy way to manage split testing of your emails, it's amazing how small variances to your email design can often yield a 20% improvement.  This is an invaluable research tool that will allow you to increase your email campaigns while also providing you data that can help you determine the most effective marketing calls to action.  What appeals more?  What words inspire action in the market place?  The web is a great source of marketing research that will give you data to help make better and more informed marketing decisions later in other mediums and advertising, such as long form videos, TV commercials, radio ads, print ads, and even billboards.  Regional analytics, if your company has a wide service area, can help you rebalance your store inventory based on regional preferences and what is trending up and down in certain areas.  The web is your front line to experiment and run surveys and test sample your products and services.

A great free introduction

Mail Chimp has a great introductory program so if you have a small business and you don't know where to start, or you don't have much of a budget, you will thank me later by having learned about Mail Chimp here.  It's free to sign up, the website is excellent, its services are extremely powerful, I could go on with my praise.  I've been very impressed.  It's the easiest service to upload or import your client contact data.  They have a great feature where you can select a table from a customer list and copy it to your computer clipboard with Ctrl-C, then just paste it into the import text box.  No clicking "Browse" and having to find the Excel file to only find out it's not formatted right.  That was the problem Riddle's Jewelry was having with MyEmma, it plagued our Advertising Department for over a year.

I've saved a lot of time and also money using Mail Chimp.  It's also a great service for you to learn how to leverage your emails, they make it really easy, but it also has a lot of more powerful features I hope your company will grow and need to take advantage of.


Aaron Belchamber is the former GM of Random Art House advertising agency, former Advertising Director and Lead Web Developer for Riddle's Jewelry, and is currently a Business Consultant and Web Developer in Jacksonville, Florida.

Where do YOU stand politically? Take "The World's Smallest Political Quiz" to find out!

This is a very interesting and probably pretty accurate test that also helps explain where you stand on personal and fiscal political issues.  Are you more of a freedom-loving Libertarian or do you think Socialism or Communism is the way to go?  Personally, no personal issues belong in politics, but unfortunately many people in the U.S. think politics should command every aspect of our lives.  Often, people are all for a centralized big brother but are for making exceptions for themselves, their companies, families, and peers.

Are you a political hypocrite?  Maybe you are and just don't know it, maybe you know someone who would refuse to take this quiz because they're so opinionated they will never have an open mind.  Well, how about challenging them to take it?!  Or better yet, share this link with your family and friends, if nothing else, it's a great conversation starter.  Who else doesn't want to get into a political argument with friends and family?!  It could be better than board game night, at least after the kids go to bed...

http://theadvocates.org/quiz/quiz.php

Incidentally, I scored heavy on both personal and financial freedom.  I'm a Libertarian and proud of it.  So where are you on the political map?!  Find out now!

“ The Quiz has gained respect as a valid measure of a person’s political leanings. ” - The Washington Post “ The World’s Smallest Political Quiz stands ready to help you determine your political identity. Quick and relatively painless. ” - USA Today

“ The World’s Smallest Political Quiz is savvy and willing to tell you the truth. ” - YAHOO! Magazine “ Give this quiz a try. It’s fun, and who knows, you may be surprised at what you find. ” - Politics on the Net by Bill Mann

Filing Taxes? H&R Block's Website Simple, Secure, and Affordable.

I don't know why it's affordable, and in most instances, it's absolutely free.  How do these tax prepare companies make any money if the majority of people who use them can file their taxes for less than $25?  It's probably too much of a good thing and it won't last, but I recommend filing your taxes online at hrblock.com.  I know tax time is over, thankfully, for another year, at least.  But perhaps you are filing late because of an extension, or you just weren't happy with the services you paid for last time.

The website and interface are secure and it guides you through all the mundane and just plain boring steps to file your taxes probably in less than an hour if you have all your tax forms already gathered.  Then, you can even file your taxes electronically and send it all to the IRS at the same time.  Job finished.  Go back to raking leaves or doing those other weekend tasks -- almost anything would be more fun, I'm sure you will agree!

If only taxes were pay-as-you-go and the income tax form was a simple post card with a basic mathematical formula.  I guess that would be too predictable and help us all be more productive.  Wouldn't that be the real American way?  One can only dream that we will stop oppressing ourselves with a growing 19 million words of tax code and counting.  Such lunacy, idiocy, complacency, bureaucracy -- and a lot of other words I could use that don't end in "cy".  Good luck, my fellow Americans, we're all going to need it....

Dolly Parton's Imagination Library -- Don't Miss Registering Your Kids!

This isn't really a review, but if you stumble upon this article and help spread the word about the "Imagination Library," well, it was well worth my writing about it.  I hope your family, friends and neighbors benefit from learning about a way to get free children's books mailed directly to your house.  Yes, it's true -- free books delivered to your kids through a national literacy advocacy program.



Just a few of the books our kids have received from Dolly Parton's Imagination Library this past year.

Strewn within a pile of magazines, bills, junk mail, and cryptic statements regarding health insurance arrives a wrapped package with your child's name officially printed on the mailing label, adding some excitement and pleasure to the otherwise blah business of life's daily postal encounter.  Alas, a diverse collection of many different books to enlighten your kids awaits -- many of these titles you may find in the library, or in book stores, others you may never find on public shelves.  Either way, you and your kids will be glad you registered -- classics and new stories, hand-drawn and photographed storybooks of all themes ready to encourage them to read more while you guide them through the stories.

If you have children, you really should go onto Dolly Parton's Imagination Library website  (http://www.imaginationlibrary.com/) and register them to receive free children's books.  The United Way of the Black Hills out here in South Dakota is an affiliate partner that we encountered in a public Rapid City event who gave us some literature about the program.  What a great cause -- and story.  Way back in 1996, America's own sweetheart, Dolly Parton, launched this literacy program to help kids in East Tennessee.  It has now grown to over 679,000 registered kids.  A heartfelt success story in a way that mirrors Dolly's own story of humble beginnings.

You can also visit their online store, they're always looking for businesses to sponsor them and their website also features Dolly's latest book, "Dream More", along with T-shirts and other paraphernalia they sell to help support the cause.  Please spread the word, and this link www.imaginationlibrary.com, to your friends and circles.

The more children read early on, the more prepared they will be later for life's challenges.  As a country, we all benefit when kids can read, so anytime we can encourage literacy, the better off we will all be.  Early reading skills lead to children being more capable to learn on their own, which empowers them to teach themselves.  It's also true that strong reading skills keep teenagers out of more trouble and they perform better in school.  Let's face it, kids are America's future, we need them to be smarter than we are.  In light of recent events, that might not be too hard, so let's encourage them to be A LOT smarter than we collectively as a country are now.  The more they can read for themselves, the more they can learn for themselves later and be more self-sufficient, skilled, dynamic, productive, marketable, innovative, and capable.  That's real progress.

UPDATE:   I think the database the Imagination Library uses could use some fixing up -- it seems sometimes people are receiving the same books at the same household if they have multiple children.  This could be an easy system update and save a lot of money in the future.  Please consider asking for some help -- I would be happy to look into this at no charge.

Side note:  Dolly, if you happen to be reading this article, we'd really love for you to sing our company's jingle....  I'm being serious.

- Aaron Belchamber

Need to Launch An Ecommerce Site Fast That Looks Clean and Professional? This Shopping Cart System Is Amazing at the Price of FREE!

Everyone wants to make money online.  Selling things is probably the easiest and clear-cut way to do this.  To sell effectively, you need a website that not only looks great, it must be reliable and secure.   I manage a few websites that net over $1 million in annual sales.  We are looking to fully redesign these ecommerce sites with the newest adaptive design and other technologies.  Being an "old-school" web programmer, the frameworks, templates and CMS's that have cropped up to assist businesses to launch a full-out web presence faster while looking better and being more reliable than ever, is quickly reaching its apex.  So much technology and innovation happen on the web so quickly, it's a bit overwhelming trying to live your life, do your job, and just keep up with all the changes and improvements.  The cycles of innovation are shortening and the lifespan of websites and designs are shortening even faster.

Your websites need to adapt to new devices.  If your website is not fully integrated to accommodate touch screens and tablets, you might as well start thinking about redesigning your website now.  More than 50% of your website visitors won't be using a mouse come late summer 2014.  The time to think about adapting and redesigning your web assets to improve your customer experience with your brand and increase your sales has long past.  It's better to react late than to stay the course with your outdated website with the small pull down buttons that most people on a tablet either won't be able to read or won't be able to click on.

Our team did some extensive research and decided to go with a shopping cart system and an easily-customizable theme.  We looked at all the options, including a bunch of free shopping cart systems.  The features in some communities are lacking, but we found Magento, www.magento.com, offered a "community" version that was full of features and affordable add-ons (or "plug-ins") that would reduce the SLDC (software development life cycle) from 3-4 months to less than a month.  We went with Magento and bought a theme pack from Envato.com that gave us the ground work already built within the Magento framework, saving us weeks of conceptual design phases.  Even though the customizable theme was less than $100, we still needed it to be adaptive so our website would look good on any device.  By the way, there are plenty of basic themes that look amazing on any device for the very low price of ..... free, you just have to look. 

We wanted some extra features with a particular design and style so we opted for a gorgeous template (I don't believe I'm saying this -- remember when "templates" looked so gaudy?  You could spot a template right when the page loaded?  Not any more.  Web developers, beware, if you're more of a web designer, you best refine your programming and database skills, because you will be going the way of graphic design for the print industry if you don't adapt....)  Anyway, it only took about 20 minutes to download the theme and install it into Magento.  It integrated seamlessly as you would hope, but probably not expect.  (I say "not expect" because that's when you usually get some cryptic error to only find out your web host doesn't allow you to change file permissions for certain directories in which case you should look for a new host.)  Speaking from experience, please make sure your web host accommodates Magento and ask for them to provide any guidelines in the case their server requires some changes to some files or settings before you go full bore into an install only to find out later you have to changes hosts or upgrade to a different server.

Magento's back end can be a little daunting, but there are tools that you can install to make life a little easier, including to help you automate the uploading of your products, images, and information in case you have a lot of SKUs and different product lines.  Depending on the size and scope of your online store, and the type of merchandise you have to offer, I would highly recommend saving the time and limited resources in the development process by setting up this free system instead of insisting your development team write it all from scratch.  I have developed plenty of websites from scratch -- the shopping cart, their back end and product databases, to the front end and full design from the ground up.  There is no need to reinvent the wheel when the open-source community has fully taken on the upkeep of these more labor and code-intensive (not to mention mundane) functions.  Imagine what you can accomplish by freeing up your business resources and the web talent around you to focus on more effective design, marketing, and performance!  You could treat your web development team to breakfast and boost morale instead.  (Sorry, subliminal message there, please ignore.)

Speaking of marketing, Magento is fully integrated with the big players in the industry.  Your website will end up high on searches very quickly, it's SEO performance index is astounding.  More people will find you faster because search engines trust sites that use Magento.  Setting up payments is as easy as plugging in your Pay Pal merchant account information, your Authorize.net, or whatever you use within minutes.  Magento handles many other tasks as well, such as customer log-ins, wish lists, customer reviews.  There are modules to help you "recover" abandoned carts.  Sales reports and everything you need to keep you up with accounting and tax records are built right in.

All these tools are managed through Magento's back end as an administrator and require very little actual web coding knowledge, though it would help tremendously if you had someone who could write PHP and knew CSS and HTML to refine pages and fix any issues that may arise.  There's so much to Magento, I couldn't begin to cover anything but the basics here.  I highly recommend visiting its website at www.Magento.com and learning more about the "Community" edition.  It's amazing what open source gives the masses access to.  Come to think of it, "open source" is the masses -- it's true empowerment for all, worldwide.  Long live open source code, the engine of innovation, the "Libertarians" of the web.

Need Trees? Lots of Trees?! Try the Arbor Day Foundation!

Once you buy a pass to any national park, you will start getting some interesting mailers.  Greenpeace.  No thanks, their approach towards environmentalism by demonizing capitalism is kind of disturbing to me.  The Smithsonian Institute.  We subscribed to their magazine, a very interesting read.

We then received some literature from the Arbor Day Foundation.  We learned you can become a member for only $20.  Another $15 and we bought ten saplings, baby trees, that were proper for our region of the country.  They arrived inside a single plastic bag in the mail a few months later.  The instructions were kind of vague, but they're trees.  You plant them in the ground.  Though there were 5 different trees in our package, they were color-coded but there was no print out explaining what each color meant.  Only later did I find this link that explained on their website what the colors meant.

We paid for 10 trees but only 9 arrived in the package.  Despite these few flaws, I think these trees will be an excellent value.  I say I think, only because it's only been six months since we followed the directions and planted them -- just in time for winter to come.  I want to share this information because no one else I've spoken with knew they could get baby trees from a respectable source for such an excellent value. 

I found the Arbor Day Foundation website was a plethora of interesting information all things regarding trees.  We all know trees are important, they also help property values. Trees aren't just good for the environment, they enhance your yard.  They provide shade, they prevent the ground eroding, they also attract and provide shelter for all sorts of wildlife.  Not to knock your local tree nursery, but if you have the patience to wait 3 or 4 years to watch a small sapling grow into the pretty picture in the Arbor Day Foundation brochure, remember that you paid only about $3 for that tree which has matured to fetch $30, $50, maybe even over $100 for each 5 to 10 gallon tree it has grown into.

Try to get that kind of return on ANY investment!  From the perspective of a sound financial investment, investing in a membership and some trees from the Arbor Day Foundation outperforms any stock value or investment most people will ever see in their lifetime.  Provided you are willing to be patient and invest in some water and a little fertilizer.

If only making your investments in your 401K grow that quickly would be that easy, and that straight-forward.  The best part is you don't have to wait 30 years until you retire to enjoy the many tangible benefits each and everyday from owning trees that, unlike your investments, will continue to grow well into the future.

Domain Registrars: Omnis.com for Registering New Websites

If you are looking to register a new website address (domain name), I suggest using Omnis.com.  Unlike Network Solutions that charges upwards of $35, Omnis charges less than $10 for most domain names.  It's the same level of service and their account user interface is easy and convenient to navigate.

You don't have to pay more for web registration.  I don't use Omnis for hosting websites any more, but have used them in the past.  I was very pleased with their server reliability and up times.  Also, Omnis' customer service has been helpful in the past.