Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Study Online To Get A Degree And A New Career

For a lot of people that want to study and get a degree, it's a question of allocating the time to do so. If you didn't leave school then go on to get a degree, the chances are you went and got a full time normal job, as oppose to a career. As time goes by, some people in this situation wish they had studied for a degree to earn a higher salary or do something they enjoy. Unfortunately by this stage many people have other commitments such as family and bills to pay, so it becomes a harder proposition to study.

Fortunately there are lots of ways you can study for a degree that don't require you having to go to university to do so. One such option is to study online for your degree.

Regardless of the type of degree you would like to study, there will be a program you can study online to get the job you would really like. You can do a PhD, Bachelors or Masters degree from the comfort of your own home. Both accredited universities and colleges are offering people the option to study online and get a degree.

Begin by looking through a directory listing of programs and universities online. This will help if you have not yet decided what vocation you would like to do once you have got your degree. The best way to start is to think about the things you really enjoy doing and have a passion for. Compile a shortlist then see what programs are available to you by topic.

This may enable you to look at careers that you otherwise may not have taken into consideration. There are a large number of careers that you can get into as a result of studying online, so studying at home is not a limiting factor in terms of what vocations you can pursue once you are qualified.

There are lots of positive advantages of studying online. For a start you can work around your other obligations and commitments in your personal life, such as your family and current job. You can also set your hours in which you choose to study and save time on travelling to and from a real university. You can find out more about getting a degree and Phd studies at http://www.phd-studies.com

It's not too late to study online and get that education you've always desired to open up new doors for you and start a new career. Neither does it involve having to give up your current job or other things you like doing.

Studying online to achieve your degree has never been easier to get started.

Article by Dean Forster at http://www.phd-studies.com a resource dedicated to Phd studies, including useful information on scholarships, degrees, masters, elements, modules and institutions. Phd Studies

Travel Insurance - How to Protect Your Vacation Investment

You've been saving up for your summer vacation for months, shopping around for the best rates and booking well ahead of time to get the best deals. You've made all of the non-refundable deposits, or maybe you paid for the whole trip upfront for extra savings. But did you think about what would happen if you couldn't take the trip? What would happen if a member of your family suddenly got seriously sick, either before or during the trip? And what about that crazy weather? How can you protect your investment and make your trip even more relaxing? Think ahead and think of Travel Insurance.

There are numerous situations that can either cause you to cancel or interrupt your vacation, and there are nearly as many travel insurance options that you can customize to your vacation and situation. Here are some general types of insurance that are available through various travel insurance companies. Always check the Terms of Coverage before you buy and make sure that it covers your areas of concern.

Trip Cancellation Insurance - Trip cancellation insurance generally covers the non-refundable portions of your trip, either in the form of deposits or pre-payments, in the event you need to completely cancel your trip. Reasons for cancellation can range from sickness or death of a family member to a home disaster such as burglary or fire. Depending on the terms of coverage or available optional coverage, trip cancellation insurance can cover cancellation costs due to events like serious sickness of a business partner, hurricanes or even jury duty. What if your boss cancels your vacation due to an impending merger? You may be covered if you purchased optional Work Related coverage.

Trip Interruption Insurance - Trip interruption insurance is most often offered hand in hand with Trip Cancellation Insurance. Many of the same reasons that could cause a cancellation could also cause your trip to be interrupted. Coverage could range from any loss of deposits to additional costs to change your return travel plans.

Trip Delays, Missed Connections, and Baggage - Travel insurance can also cover costs that you incur due to weather or airline mechanical delays, missed connections and problems with your baggage. What if a blizzard closes down your return destination airport and you have to stay longer in your vacation spot? Sounds ideal, but it can also be more than you budgeted for. Travel insurance can help cover these unexpected expenses.

Medical Coverage - Medical coverage can range from emergency medical and dental expenses incurred to costs for an emergency medical evacuation or transportation to an acceptable medical facility. In many cases, the travel insurance medical coverage may only kick in if they are not covered under any other insurance policy and pre-existing conditions may not be covered. Check the Description of Coverage for what is covered. If pre-existing conditions are not covered in the standard travel insurance medical coverage, you may be able to purchase an optional policy to have it covered. Travel Insurance Medical Coverage can be especially valuable for international travel where your personal insurance is not adequate or where medical facilities may not be up to standards.

Travel Assistance - While not technically insurance, many travel insurance companies offer special assistance while you are covered. This can include help with identity theft, passport loss, emergency situation assistance or even restaurant reservations.

Optional Travel Insurance Coverage - Many Travel Insurance companies also offer various optional coverages for things like car collision protection, flight insurance, cancellation for any reason (as opposed to "covered" reasons), and cancellation for work reasons. What if your boss cancels your vacation due to an impending merger? You may be covered if you purchased optional Work Related coverage.

Your vacation may be one of you greatest single expenditures you'll make this year and may be essential to helping you recharge and enjoy the fruits of your labor. Make it even more stress-free by making the decision to purchase travel insurance. If something goes wrong, you'll be glad you did. If everything goes right, at least you didn't ruin your vacation by worrying about not being covered!

Big Red Security is dedicated to information to help you maintain the security and safety of your greatest assets - you, your family, and your finances. Visit Big Red Security to see other articles regarding Travel Insurance and links to Travel Insurance sites.

Stay Ahead on Cool Electronic Gadgets and Get It before Anyone Else

Every day new electronic products are coming out on the market. These are ideal for the person who loves gadgets and likes to try new things. For someone hard to buy for, find a new gadget and get it before anyone else. They'll love being among the firsts to have it!

New Gadgets Every Day

There are numerous products available for all different lifestyles. Companies are constantly upgrading and redesigning products to interest all ages. It is easy to get excited about something that is smaller, better and more fun than previous models. These new gadgets are hard to resist and make cool gifts.

In our modern times it is easy to stay ahead on the new products as they hit the market. There are various websites that cater to those interested in gadgets. If you want to get it before anyone else, these sites offer you the first look at new products.

Get It before Anyone Else

If you enjoy buying gadgets, bookmark the sites that interest you. Check on these sites frequently to see what they are offering. Watch for accessories to gadgets you already have and keep a watch for innovative products that are just coming out. Get it before anyone else by staying updated through the Web.

Take time to browse websites to find the best deals and lowest prices on electronic gadgets. This will give you a chance to find gift ideas and innovative devices not found in other places. Get it before anyone else by finding the latest unique electronic gadgets and accessories.

Gadgets for All Ages

Buying electronic gadgets can make everyone's life more enjoyable and less stressful. There are products for babies and children to learn with as well as play with. All ages of children and teens enjoy electronic games, computers, cameras, phones, etc. These products are always being upgraded and improved. They make great gifts, and the next generation will be even more dependent on them than presently.

Adults are making use of electronic gadgets every day. In the same way as computers and calculators have evolved, electronics are being improved. Every-day language now includes references to all manner of electronic gadgets. Senior adults down to the young adults use these devices to communicate, work and relax. Keeping up with the new products will give you new gadgets to make your life more interesting.

Don't miss out on the newest electronic gadgets! For original gifts or a treat for your self, watch for those new gadgets that are "must-haves." Be the first, and get it before anyone else!

Chris Robertson is an author of Majon International, one of the worlds MOST popular internet marketing companies on the web. Learn more about Get Cool Electronics First or Majon's Electronics directory.

The New Party Poker

Online gaming sites are always changing -- upgrading software, improving features and functionality, getting rid of bugs and bad ideas, inventing new offerings, etc. -- all in a furious effort to remain competitive. A consistent leader of the online gambling pack, Party Poker, is often at the cutting edge of these new and improved releases. Not only has Party Poker done it again with their latest upgrade, but with the elimination of one of their programs (skins), and brand new partnerships with other leading edge online casinos and online poker rooms.

The first thing to be aware of with Party Poker’s new upgrade is that all the bugs may not yet have been completely ironed out (which simply means updates to the upgrades will be forthcoming). There have been some reports that uninstalling earlier versions of the Party Poker software after installing the new upgrade could lead to problems, so we would hold off on that uninstall if we were you. Of course, now that we said that, some of you may be wondering why you would even bother downloading the upgrade. Here’s why:

re: Lobby
- Games are listed by blinds rather than maximum buy-in
- Hands per Hour are included amongst the lobby stats
- Cash games are divided into Limit, No Limit, and Pot Limit
- More limits added to Cash Games
- Player’s available cash and Party Points are prominently displayed
- Filters are given to help narrow down your selection of tables/games
- Tables are given names rather than numbers
- The news ticker has been made more prominent
- Tournaments are divided into groups for easier searching

re: Tournaments
- Tournament buy-ins now include entry fees
- Tournament players start with more chips (Sit-and-Go’s: 2,000, Multi-Table: 3,000, “Events”: 5,000)
- There’s a new tournament blind structure
- More buy-ins available for Sit-and-Go’s
- Sit-and-Go levels have changed so that now they are based on time rather than hands played
- The payout structure is flatter

re: Party Poker Accounts
- Players can easily switch between Party Poker and Party Casino all from one place
- The Account Page has been streamlined for greater efficiency and ease of use

re: Miscellaneous features
- Players can shrink windows for multi-tabling
- Optional automatic window tiling and cascading

As you may know, a skin is an independent site that uses another site’s software (in this case Party Poker’s) in exchange for a percentage of revenues. PartyGaming, parent company of Party Poker as well as host of Party Casino and Party Bingo has decided to terminate its skins, instead purchasing those sites as secondary PartyGaming sites (and presumably raking in 100% of the revenues).

In place of their newly defunct skins, Party Poker is now joined by the following new members of the PartyGaming family: IntertopsPoker, MultiPoker, PlanetLuck Casino, PokerNow, and Starluck Casino Online. Party Poker’s most recent acquisition, as of February 2006, was former Party Poker skin Empire Poker, which they purchased for $250 million. Those Party Poker folks are building quite the Empire (some bad puns just beg to be voiced).

Party Poker, who according to Reuters signed up a record number of new players last year, is a publicly traded company on the London Stock Exchange.

Poker-Ranking.com is the premier resource for online poker reviews. Visit http://www.poker-ranking.com for informative articles, poker rules, game strategy, and comprehensive reviews of over 60 online poker rooms, including Party Poker.

Real Estate Investing

Flipping through late-night infomercials recently, I saw two real estate get-rich quick schemes, and I couldn't help but wonder--why do people still fall for those old scams? Has anyone really talked a seller out of his home for no money down with owner financing lately?

Real estate infomercials do great harm to beginning investors, who waste hundreds of dollars on old information. Worse yet, those beginners soon get discouraged and miss out on the true (and profitable) adventure of real estate investing.

One of the most popular late night infomercial shows tells beginners that it's possible to make a fortune by buying houses with no money down and then renting them out to cover the monthly payments. It's true that you can buy a home for no money down, but the requirements include having good credit, good income, and the home should be owner-occupied.

Rentals don't normally qualify for no money down financing. Institutional lenders aren't supposed to make no money down loans on investment properties, and even if you could buy an investment home with no money down, the monthly payments would generally eat up the rent.

Late-night scammers also claim that investors can get owners to pay the closing costs, including the down payment. But when a lender asks where your down payment will be coming from, saying, "the seller" is not the right answer! Today's sellers are also fairly savvy, and understand that with no money invested in a property, a buyer could easily walk away and leave them with a home that's been ruined by careless tenants.

Another TV program offers a bogus system for buying houses at ridiculous prices, but think about it: has anyone bought a home, free and clear, for $345.00 at a tax sale recently? Hordes of investors flock to the tax sales in the area where I live, bidding up the prices of foreclosure properties far beyond a few cents on the dollar. It just doesn't happen.

Today, another real estate investment scam is popular in Southern California. Here's how it works: a young person we'll call Charles charged $4,000 on his credit card to hire a real estate "mentor," after the mentor wined and dined him at a fancy Beverly Hills restaurant.

In exchange for the fee, the mentor instructed Charles to find distressed houses by driving around the area and writing down the addresses of ugly houses in nice neighborhoods. Once Charles had given him the addresses, the mentor obtained the owner's address and sometimes a phone number. Then it was up to Charles to call the owners and talk them into selling their houses for no money down, and carrying the paper (mortgage), too!

I met Charles when he called me about buying a property that my husband and I had on the market for $1.2 million. When I asked him how such a young man was going to make the payments on $1.2 million home, he told me that he planned to rent the house out for enough to make the payments.

As a real estate investor myself, I tried not to laugh at his naivete, and after talking to Charles and listening to his frustration about trying so hard to follow his mentor's advice, I offered to help him find a property, and I'm happy to say that Charles now owns his own home. But he'll still have to spend years paying off a $4,000 credit card bill.

If you want to make money as a real estate investor, a good first step is to buy your own home, like Charles did. You can do that for no money down if you have good credit, or for a relatively little amount of money down if your credit is poor. Once you've purchased your own home, fix it up and then either sell it or refinance it and use your profits as the down payment on an investment property.

Don't pay hundreds of dollars for out-dated methods that may have worked in the middle of last century! They're a waste of your time and money. Real estate investing is truly a great way to make a fortune, but you must stick to tried-and-true proven strategies, ones that work in today's real estate market.

Copyright © Jeanette J. Fisher

Get started today making money in real estate without worries about the "pending" real estate crash. Free real estate investing business plan from Jeanette Fisher and free ebook, The Truth about Making Money Flipping Houses: http://doghousetodollhouse.com

How to Title Your Business Books

As an author, one must realize that people really do judge books by their cover and the title of your book is paramount to the profits you will make if it sells. If you ever read the titles of the American Management Association you will note how dry some of the titles are and how they actually turn you off and make you think that sounds boring.

Let us go through a little case study. Below are the sample titles, I have chosen for a series of Business eBooks that I am working on. I know that no one will wish to read the eBooks or purchase them unless the titles capture or hook the reader. If I want to get any of them published, I had better make sure that I clearly define my work, without narrowing the niche so tight that no one will buy it. Below are some sample titles to read thru and then we can discuss what we have learned:

1.) Change Management - Averting the Chaos and Understanding What is Really Happening During this Time of Turmoil, Designed for Organizations, Agencies and Businesses of All Sizes

2.) Customer Service - Developing a Personalized Strategy to Energize Referrals and Keep Your Customers Coming Back in Waves

3.) The Entrepreneurial Advantage - Take It! Insight from a Retired Entrepreneurial Over Achiever - Step by Step Strategies to Turbo Charge Any Size Company and Go All the Way

4.) Business Strategies & Systems Thinking A Look Into the Secret Efficiencies of Finite Capacity Scheduling Models as Applied to Small Business

5.) How to Buy a Franchise Business: Step-by-Step Guide to Investing in a Franchised Outlet

6.) Marketing Magic and Market Share Management - Developing a World Class Marketing, Branding and Grass Roots Strategy for Peanuts

7.) Non-MBA Business Management Strategies - Secret Strategies to Propel Your Small Business without an MBA

8.) Over Regulation in America - How Government Regulators are Crippling America's Growth

9.) Sales Management Strategies - Sales People are a Different Breed - Learn the Secrets into Harnessing this Powerful Personality to get Quantifiable Results on Your Time Schedule

10.) Sales Training Tips from the Real World: Overcoming the Barriers of the Dominant Sales Personality to Teach them the Techniques and Relationship Strategies to Win for Your Company's Bottom Line

11.) Winning at the Sales Game - Tips, Techniques and Tactics to Turbo Charge Your Sales and Top Your Customer's Expectations During the Sales Process

12.) Strategic Planning for the Entrepreneurial Start-Up - Turn Your Business Planning into an On-going Planning Process without Losing the 'Entrepreneur's Edge'

13.) The Case for Outsourcing and Off Shoring - Considering the Importance of Free Markets, Free Trade and Profits and How These Realities can Make or Break Your Company's Future

14.) Understanding the Franchise Business Model - The Greatest Business Format Ever Created is Often the Most Misunderstood - Dive into the Philosophy, Economies of Scale and Branding of Modern Day Franchising

15.) Choosing the Best Franchise for You - Strategically Selecting the Best Business Situation for Your Lifestyle, Skills Sets, Financial ability and Future - Navigating the Maze of Sales Tactics, Disclosure Documents and PR Hype

Now then, while all this is fresh in your mind, consider some of the books you are planning to write and revise the titles to hook the reader into desiring to read your book. One interesting thing about author's titling their books is that often the publisher will re-title them, but that is okay. Remember a good title also hooks the publisher into considering the market that will be most apropos to purchasing the completed product.

L. Winslow is an Economic, Political and Technology Advisor to the Online Think Tank, a Futurist and retired entrepreneur http://www.worldthinktank.net Currently Mr. Winslow is planning a bicycle ride from Canada to Mexico and in Spring across the US from San Diego to Virginia Beach to raise money for charity. Previously he was a track star athlete, private pilot, involved in politics, community volunteerism and a Franchising Founder. Mr. Winslow has chosen 100 titles of Books he wishes to write and has completed ten thus far. The subjects include; Community Planning, Future Tech, Franchising, Small Business, and Third World Issues.