The Help Tabloid

It seems we have to become aware of a new problem that is starting to invade our modern, industrial society, that being the problem of over stimulation. The Internet is an excellent tool but we have to remember that the mind is the most valuable tool imaginable. Some would argue that spirit or soul is of equal or more importance, I am not disagreeing with these people. The point that I am attempting to put forward for discussion is that although the Internet is an excellent new medium that can affect nearly all aspects of life in a positive way, like all things in existence it too has a shadow side. Over stimulation of the mind is a huge cloud in the blue sky of consciousness.

Have you ever sat at your desk searching through the Web for News information, then checking your emails with their accompanying attachments and links, and then doing general searches for random information? If you receive newsletters, or subscribe to blogs, you read these daily as well. The human mind is powerful, and scientists say that we only use an average of 10 % of it, but doesn’t that entail that we should be careful not to overload its present information processing capabilities?

I’ve read that in one New York Times newspaper there is more information to digest than one would have had to process in a whole lifetime of the Shakespearean era. With the advent of the Internet we have more access to knowledge and opinion than ever previously. We have to be cautious my friends. I personally have had to come to the realization that my spiritual, mental, physical and emotional health is of more importance than all other things in life. If I work too hard, or try to read too much, my mind starts to weigh down with all the thoughts that are produced with each and every tidbit of communication that I take in. After a while I sometimes feel like there is a giant cloud inside my mind and I no longer feel confident to do the daily activities that are required of me as a committed team player of our society.

So what’s the solution? Well, like all things in life solutions are often more simple than we could ever have hoped for. We just have to keep our eyes open to grasp the answers that are presented to us as opportunities everyday. Make a note when you are feeling bogged down and tired and think about how much information you have tried to compute in that moment. Give yourself time limits and a designated number of searches and downloads for a day. You can learn to take more breaks and find anecdotal means to sift through the information, or even block out all the stimuli in that break period.

Gardening, meditation, stretches, breathing exercises, tai chi, yoga, cooking, sports, music…all of these are options to undertake when you want to get away from the noise of too many ‘voices’.

The Internet is an awesome idea that has come to fruition. Like all tools and mediums of interaction it must be used mindfully, with care for the user as first priority. You would never use a power saw without gloves, boots, and ear and eye protection. You could lose a finger…you’ve heard the horror stories. Well the Internet hasn’t really been around long enough for too many stories to be circulating, and I think its negative effects could be more subtle than my example, but the case at hand is that we must be very careful how we interact with the world around us.

If we are all walking the streets with giant nebulous nimbus clouds in our minds, there is bound to be trouble.

Jesse S. Somer is an Internet writer who believes that the best ways to surf the Web are on the tiny ripples of a placid clear lake. http://www.m6.net

Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, is a term used to
describe the transmission of telephone calls using a data
network, rather than over traditional phone lines. It is a
simple concept, but one that is having a very significant impact
on the world of business communications.

VoIP is itself enabled by a much broader technological
evolution, namely the convergence of multiple forms of
communication, including voice, video and data, into a single
network. This transformation is creating a revolution in the way
communications works, and it has the potential to offer major
benefits to your business. It can help your company grow by
broadening your communications capabilities, it can save you
money on your telecommunications costs, and it can enable more
productivity, mobility and flexibility in your workforce.

Many small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) around the world
are already benefiting from the advantages of VoIP systems, many
of which are well suited to these kinds of organizations. Here
are some examples of why VoIP is making a major impact on
business communications for SMBs:

• It provides the ability to use an integrated voice and data
network at a lower cost than the separate parts. • It offers the
SMBs communications capabilities on a par with the largest of
companies. • It can open the door to new services and
applications that can drive additional revenue and help cope
with expansions in customer demand. • It can lead to increased
employee productivity by giving employees a more flexible means
of communicating and allowing more mobility, while increasing
the flow of information.

There are different ways for SMBs to take advantage of the
benefits from VoIP. An upgrade to an existing phone system, when
available, can allow VoIP communications between different
locations, without any major disruption to the infrastructure in
each office. Alternatively, a new VoIP system can be purchased
to replace an old phone switch and open up new capabilities. Yet
another option is to pay monthly for a Service Provider to
provide a hosted VoIP system, without buying any capital
equipment at all.

Small and medium sized businesses are often good candidates for
VoIP systems, and have represented a majority of the early
adopters of technology. While large companies have complex
networks, with a multitude of different phone systems that can
be difficult to integrate into a single converged network, small
companies’ networks are more straightforward, allowing an easier
transition to VoIP.

However, some companies have found that there are complexities
or difficulties that get in the way of them maximizing the
impact of the new technology. Lack of good advice, a
misconceived plan or a deployment by inexperienced personnel can
all led to problems.

The keys to a successful transition to a VoIP based network
start with a clear understanding of the business case behind it
and an implementation plan that best fits the company’s overall
objectives.

There are certain circumstances, however, where the technology
is likely to have a more significant impact than others. If your
company is in one or more of the following situations you will
tend to get a faster payback:

• expanding and need or likely to need larger offices • have a
significant percentage of employees that travel on business or
work full-time or part-time from home, using laptops • making
acquisitions and need to integrate with other business • have
international offices • have a growing volume of incoming calls
• have not replaced or upgraded their phone infrastructure in
the last 5 years • have a good penetration of Ethernet cabling
and have communications equipment that is less than 3 years old
• operate in an industry with dynamic competition where strong
customer service levels are essential

Overall, VoIP based phone systems offer great potential for
small companies and can help to keep costs under control while
growing a successful business.

If you haven’t heard about RSS or Atom feeds don’t feel bad. I just started using
them about 4 months ago myself. Still, you can take a step right now to take your web
surfing to the next level.
Perhaps you have heard of Blogs or Weblogs as they are properly called. These
gems of the web started out and still continue today as diaries or journals put up on the
net by those that just like to write and share their everyday world with the outside. These,
still at this time, June, 2005, are still the largest part of blogging on the world wide web.
You can find these very easily by going to Google or Yahoo and typing in a subject
followed by the word blog. For example, I just typed in Tornado Blogs into a Google
search box and got 150 different blogs about tornadoes.
With that kind of exposure you can find blogs on any subject on earth. The great
thing about this is that after you decide which blogs are your favorite you can put them in
your favorites, bookmarked or otherwise presented on you desktop. The great thing is that
many, including myself, have gone to the next level and have turned their blogs into RSS
Feeds. A very simple process if you use Blogger.com
If RSS is the same as blogs then what’s all this blog stuff? Let me explain, Blogs
and RSS feeds are not quite the same. In short, the blogging idea was picked up and many
major news sources like Fox and CNN and on and on started putting their own blogs out
in the form of newfeeds. Simply RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. And we as
end users can gain access to the latest news about anything including weather on our
desktops.
Yet, doing this is a mystery to so many that I decided to put this report on the
website so that you could gain instant access to newsfeeds and hopefully my own
TipsOnTornadoes blog and RSS feeds. Now, you should understand that newfeeds are
similar to HTML and require a special piece of software that allows you to read the feed.
The computer language is similar to HTML on a web page but not really the same. To
read a feed we need a “reader”. There are many “readers” available for free online.
The one that I use is Feedreader, available at Feedreader.com. The download is
free. It is simple to download and easy to use. It has a great feature that helps me out a
great deal. That feature is a little balloon that rises up off your task bar when one of your
favorite feeds has just uploaded a new article for you to read. The significance of this will
become apparent in a moment.
I wrote this article for my subscribers to enjoy my tornado blogs as well as any
other content they can subscribe to. Every time I upload a new blog to my RSS feed you
can receive the notice that something new is available. And let me say, I update a great
deal with stories from all over the globe which relate to weather. While I would like to
think that you would love to see my feeds show up on your desktop every time I upload
one, I’m not that naive.
The real beauty of this feature, for those interested in weather, occurs when you
subscribe to a NOAA feed for your state. You see as the NWS issues alerts for your state
the Feedreader window will pop up and you can take a look to see if your exact area is
going to be effected by the weather that is maturing. How cool is that? It’s like a Weather
Alert radio on your computer.
These feeds are not exactly easy to find. The NOAA feeds for your state come in
this format http://www.nws.noaa.gov/alerts/co.rss where “co” is the state of Colorado or
the two-letter postal identifier for your state. So, all you have to do is copy this link into
your feedreader and change the co (in this link) to the two-letter identifier for your own
state.
As you may expect that there are search engines for RSS feeds. They work similar
to Yahoo, MSN, Google and others. The trouble is finding them. So here are a few for
you to peruse and choose your favorite(s). My favorite is Feedster.com.
Chordata.info
Syndic8.com
Feedsfarm.com
Feedster.com
Now, that you know what RSS feeds are you may be wondering about these little
RSS and Atom tags you see on some web pages. First, let me show you a tag that I am
speaking about.
While there are subtle differences in the programming of RSS, RSS 2.0 and Atom
feeds most readers like Feedreader and Pluck read either format so to you, the viewer, the
operation is seamless. However, it should note that RSS 2.0 is written to include
enclosures. An enclosure as applied to RSS is the same as an attachment with your email.
It simply is something added to the entire file. You may have heard of Podcasts. Podcasts
use RSS 2.0 or RSS with enclosures and that is where the audio portion of the feed is
kept. The regular part of the RSS is used to present show data like who the artist is and
title of the podcast.
I only added this here to help you understand what the differences were when you
see the various tags. Now, that you have seen these tags let us examine how to use these
tags to our benefit.
In general, these RSS or Atom tags are encoded with the link to the various links.
You will see these on my websites like TipsOnTornadoes.com or GetYourBizGoing.com
However, just clicking on these images or RSS tags as I have been calling them. Nothing
happens. A newsfeed doesn’t pop up or do you get redirected to some other page. What
you have to do is “right click” the tag and save the link You click on “copy link” as shown
and then install it in your feedreader.
Then after you have internally saved the link or copied the link, you can go to your
feedreader so that you can save that newfeed and update it as you prefer. New updates
when using feedreader will appear in the bottom right corner by your systray. On the next
page I will show you how to enter the feed into your Feedreader .
How To Enter the RSS Feed into Feedreader
To add the copied link to your Feedreader you open the “File” tab at the top left
of the page and choose “Add New Feed”. Using your keyboard command of Ctrl + V the
link will magically appear in the window. Then you choose the “Next” button and finish
the process. It is just that simple and now you have a new feed entered into your
Feedreader. You will start getting updates immediately if there are any to be updated to
your chosen feed. If you want to check you can just check on the green button with Ying
and Yang arrows to update all feeds on your Feedreader.
At this point you should be able to procede to the feedreader site of your choice, I
recommend Feedreader.com and Pluck.com for the best or most used readers. Once you
download your reader you’ll be able to enjoy a whole new world of online surfing. Plus,
you get alerts that will inform you when your favorite RSS feeds have new content. This
is a very sweeeeeet thing. You will wonder, just like the internet, how you did without
this for so long. You won’t want to do without it after this. Enjoy!
================================================================
About the Author
Jeff “Griff” Griffin is an author for major publishers for over 25 years. Retiring soon from
being an airline pilot he has chosen to market his writing skills in various forms online.
RSS feeds are available at his websites of various interests listed below. He invites you to
copy the RSS feed addresses for your use. This article is available for republishing on
your webpage as long as this resource box and all material is unaltered.
http://tipsontornadoes.com
http://kg0ye.typepad.com/tips_on_tornadoes/atom.xml
http://getyourbizgoing.com
h ttp://kg0ye.typepad.com/get_your_biz_going/atom.xml
================================================================

About the Author

Jeff Griffin has been a published author for 28 years with major publishers writing on weather and flying. Nearing retirement he now focuses on internet marketing of his books, courses and music.

Even though the holiday season is still a little ways off,
retailers are already reporting that shortages of Apple’s uber
popular iPod mp3 player are very likely. As has been a problem
with iPod’s, especially with the popular iPod Nano being
released and the video enabled iPod hitting shelves, is that
there simply aren’t enough of them. Apple can’t make them fast
enough to meet the ridiculously high demand.

As Businessweek reports, “”All iPods are in very tight supply,
and Apple isn’t filling 100% of its orders from us by any
means,” says Charlie Tebele, president of Manhattan-based RCS
Experience. And Crutchfield’s Anderson says Apple typically
ships less than 30% of what the retailer requests each week. The
Charlottesville (Va.)-based company put in an order for $3
million worth of iPod nanos after the product was released, and
the order still hasn’t been nearly filled. It currently has $4
million of all iPod models on order.”

The question of where there will be shortages isn’t really a
question at all, predict most analysts. Shortages are
practically guaranteed. The only question at this point is how
bad the shortages will be. No one knows how many stores will
sell out and have barren shelves when shoppers walk in looking
for an iPod to buy as a gift for the holidays. Needless to say,
it would be well advised to head out and buy that gift as soon
as possible rather than wait until the holiday rush.

Thomas R. Cutler, the nation’s leading manufacturing journalist
profiled Midwest Patterns (MPI), a custom moldmaking
manufacturer based in Quincy, IL. The feature article can be
found
http://www.reedlink.com/SingleArticle~ContentId~56398~pub~IP.html
or www.trcutlerinc.com.

Technology solutions are designed to help these manufacturing
heroes, yet the results are mixed. Selecting the correct
technology can be tantamount to an adding a group of employees;
selecting the wrong technology can bring the enterprise to a
screeching halt.

Rob Stull is IT Manager, Quality Assurance Manager who noted,
“Our Y2K quick purchase of an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning)
software system turned out to be a poor choice as far as the
company goes. The ERP company was bought shortly after our
purchase and then put out of business. This left MPI without
support or upgrades or an opportunity for continuous
improvement…which did not match our lean goals.”

Stull insisted that ETO (engineer-to-order) issues characterized
Midwest Patterns business, “The need for flexibility in all we
do was central in finding the best technology solution. On-time
delivery is critical to Midwest Patterns. Saving time and
paperwork was essential…We have molds to build not paperwork!”

Midwest Patterns’ selection of a new ERP system came down to a
choice between two software providers; Encompix
(www.encompix.com) won due to its flexibility and its
Engineer-to-Order appropriateness. Stull noted that, “The
interface has a simplistic layout which is less intimidating to
the users. Let’s face it, not all users have degrees in computer
science and you need to make them comfortable in their
environment.”

Midwest Patterns has a philosophy that is indicative of other
ETO manufacturers working to achieve a competitive advantage.
Stull suggests with the commitment to delivery and service,
“Most companies remain loyal if they get what they want and get
it early. Service above all!”

Mike Merten advised Midwest Patterns in the new technology
selection. Merten noticed how many functions Stull fulfilled at
the company. “They do not have a large IT staff. Stull does
double (sometimes triple) duty as Quality Assurance Manager, IT
Manager and whatever other duties might be thrown his way. This
made the selection of the proper ERP system critical for them.”

Encompix www.encompix.com Roger Meloy 513-733-0066

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