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The Editor's Desk - From Beneath the Clutter
Feature Article - How safe is your child’s play equipment?
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Guest Article - Understanding the Different Methods of Online Promotion
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How was your 4th of July? We had a lot of fun. Ariel thought the fireworks were great right up until the last few minutes, when she hit that overwhelmed point and just wanted to go home. Problem was, we had parked in an empty lot with a lot of other people, and some latecomers blocked the entrance, so we couldn't leave!
Fortunately, right after the show ended one car got out of the way right by where we were, so it didn't take long to get her home. And then this morning she asked to go see fireworks again. Clearly not that scared.
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It’s a wonderful thing to have a back yard big enough for your children to play in, and even have a swing set or other playground equipment? But are you sure it is safe?
If it is made from pressure treated wood, you may want to be check on what was used to treat the wood. Although they have finally agreed to stop, suppliers used to treat wood with a pesticide called chromated copper arsenate (CCA), which contains arsenic. Although CCA has not been formally banned, nor is it likely to be banned at this time, manufacturers no longer make it.
Now, the danger may not be terribly severe, but children are the most susceptible to poisoning from this kind of source. Not only are they smaller than adults, but children are the ones climbing all over the equipment, and may eat off it as well. Most will show no symptoms, but they may have increased cancer risk for their lifetime.
What can you do about this? The obvious one is to get rid of the equipment, but as such wood is also used in decks and picnic tables, this may not be viable for all families.
Fortunately, you can simply seal the deck twice a year to limit or prevent contact with the arsenic. The Consumer Products Safety Commission is testing to see which products work best, but for now I would simply suggest avoiding the cheapest of the products.
Also make sure your kids wash their hands after playing and do not allow food on the equipment.
If you have a picnic table you believe may have been treated with this, seal it as well and consider using a plastic tablecloth as well to minimize contact.
Although the arsenic exposure from such products is believe to be minimal, perhaps even less than from other sources, it is one form of contact which can be easily controlled.
Stephanie Foster is the owner of Home with the Kids, a resource that knows that there's more to staying home with your family than just business. From money saving tips to parenting and marriage tips, to work at home jobs and businesses, you can get information and support here. You can visit the site at http://www.homewiththekids.com.
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Copyright 2004 Stone Evans
Did you realize there are only three types of online promotion?... This statement may seem odd and even untrue in your mind, but I am speaking in more general terms than you might be thinking.
Let me explain.
The three types of promotion are Junk, Active and Passive promotions.
JUNK PROMOTIONS ARE MONEY PITS
Junk promotions are those that seem to produce results, but by their very nature are really only illusionary promotions.
For example, let me begin with FFA (Free For All) pages. You might find yourself subscribing to a submission program that tricks you into believing you are submitting your links to tens of thousands search engines.
According to the Open Directory website, they have only approved 1705 search engines and directories for inclusion in their database (http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Searching/).
I like using the DMOZ directory as an example because submitted links are tested by human beings with integrity, for the honesty used in site description. Search Engine Watch and other search watchers tend to show fewer than these 1705 engines, primarily because a lot of the engines provide very little value.
Yes, you can submit your URL to a FFA page, but FFA’s usually only permit 100 or 1000 links on their page at any one time. So, if ten thousand people are submitting a link to an FFA page on a daily basis, then the average life of your link is between seven minutes and 144 minutes. I suspect the actual number of submitters is much higher and the results are much worse. Given that few people surf FFA pages, the chances of your submission being of any real value is practically nill!
Most of the people telling you that you can submit your site to tens of thousands of search engines are truly only submitting your site to FFA pages! Beware of the false promises.
Another junk promotion method is Safe Lists. A safe list is a mailing group that is signed up to be received by people who want to submit their own ads. Now, most safe lists have thousands of subscribers who are able to submit their ads daily or weekly. The person signed up to receive the list will receive anywhere from twenty to 140+ messages a day from the list. These messages will be received by people only interested in promoting their own thing who do not have the right motivation to open, let alone read Your Advertising. As a result, thousands of messages go out daily or weekly that will never be seen by anyone but the sender of the ad. Where is the value in that? There is none.
ACTIVE PROMOTIONS
Active promotions are the type that require you to go out on a daily basis or a weekly basis and put out your advertisements. With active promotions, you will either place your advertising or you will not sell your products or services. Your choice is simple --- work or starve.
Examples of active promotions include Pay Per Click Search Engines (PPCSE’s), Direct Email, Ezine Advertising, Solo Ezine Ads, Newsletter Publishing, Ezine Ad Swaps, Classified Ads, Auctions, Site Sponsorship and Banner Ads.
Some people are able to utilize these methods very productively, while others are destined to drop their money into the bottomless pit of failed Internet promotions.
PASSIVE PROMOTIONS
Passive promotions are those promotions that can continue to provide results for you long after you have invested the work to make them available to the Internet community.
Examples of passive promotions include: Link Exchanges, Articles, Ebooks, Content Exchanges and Writing Testimonials for others.
Let’s look at articles as a solid example of my point.
You are reading an article that I have written to promote my own business. This article is timeless and therefore could have been written five years ago and still have been as valuable as it is today.
Due to the fact that the article is timeless, it can and will be placed in newsletters/ezines and their accompanying online archives, on websites and in ebooks for many more years to come.
As a result, this article will continue to serve me well beyond the time in which I wrote it and submitted it to publishers and webmasters for public consumption and publication.
This is the best example I can give you of an excellent passive promotional method.
AVOID THE MONEY PITS
Many try and even fewer succeed to conquer the Internet and to produce their dreams of online wealth.
My hope is that you will be one of the people who conquer the challenges before you and to make a nice living while working online. It will take drive, determination, study plus trial and error, but you can make it work for you.
Please continue to educate yourself so that you can avoid the money pits - instead, strive to find the money barrels. It can be done. I am living proof.
------------------------------
Stone Evans owns the Home Business Resource Directory where
you can find everything you'll ever need to start, run and
grow a home based business at: http://www.Home-Business.com
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