Archive for January, 2010
Work at Home Mom Summer Survival Guide
January 31st, 2010 | 
Author: Working at home during the summer creates challenges for the WAHM. As the summer begins, there’s a lot to keep the kids entertained and give Mom time to work on her business. As the summer progresses, however, choruses of ‘Mom I’m bored’ ring out, causing otherwise mild mannered Moms to throw up their hands in complete desperation; right before they start planning an escape route.
Moms can’t escape for too long however, and kids have an uncanny knack of finding the hiding spot anyway. So what can you do to keep your business in tact during the summer months when the cherubs are effectively running the show?
How flexible are you? No, I don’t mean can you play a mean game of Twister while baking a pan of blueberry muffins, but rather, how willing or able are you to adjust your normal work at home day to meet the ever changing demands of tireless children?
Leslie Spencer, founder of Home Based Working Hom, suggests using a laptop with a wireless internet connection. You’ll be a mobile mom, able to take your work anywhere your kids go.
Planning and preparation will make your life less stressful. Before summer vacation begins, do some research to find local youth programs being offered and enroll your kids. Make lists of ‘things to do’ and have ready all of the needed supplies so your school age kids can entertain themselves.
Be realistic. Come to terms with the fact that you may not be as productive during the summer, and schedule your work to make the best use of your time.
Summer challenges for WAHMs do not have to cripple your business. Find local groups and activities for your kids to participate in and remember, time with your kids will pass all too soon, and summer vacation is just one part of WAHM life.
How to Find Liquidation Sale Items Such as Furniture, Jewelry, Clothing and More
With today’s amazing tools and internet access to information like never before, there are many great resources sitting at our finger tips that can really help in finding liquidation sale items at low costs. Some items we will focus on this article will be finding furniture, jewelry and clothing.
Many people don’t know that their ability to buy items in bulk or in small lots is a only a few clicks away! Imagine being able to find great bargains at liquidation pricing. It is easier than you think.
Lets start by learning a little bit about hunting for great bargains on the web. There are literally thousands of companies out there wanting to get rid of their overstock product, and also companies that specialize in just liquidation sales. First off, lets start by pointing our browsers to google in a new window and performing some simple searches to locate our bargains. Go ahead and type in the search query “liquidation sale”. This is going to show you a vast number of web sites that specialize in offering cost cutting to internet shoppers. Some of the web sites you will encounter will sell in bulk, and some in small lots.
Another great way to find wholesale products would be to perform a search for items you are directly interested in. Below is a select few recommended terms to use.
From our research “liquidation furniture sale” will produce great results within Google and other search engines. Next lets try a few similar terms – “liquidation furniture sale”, “liquidation clothing sale”, and “liquidation jewelry sale”.
You will find when sifting through these results that there are so many amazing bargains. Yes, it does take time to sift through the results, however these tactics will dramatically cut down on the time it takes to locate your next discounted find.
Some other great ways to shop is to find liquidation company lists and such.
Most all companies that offer products in this area are trying to get rid of products fast to free up extra cash flow for new products. Many of these companies have large warehouses of extra inventory just waiting to be bought up.
Buyer beware, a majority of liquidation sale companies have terms and agreements you must pay attention to. This is because some liquidation sale products you buy will have the chance of being DOA or damaged. You can also locate local companies that sell online and often times they will allow you to come to their warehouse to view products before purchasing. This is a great way to protect yourself from any financial losses.
So in conslusion, start searching away for those great deals and take your time before making a purchase. We always recommend buying from companies that offer telephone support and have a long standing internet history.
Posted in Furniture Sale | 
Tags: Liquidation Sale, Liquidation Sales, Recommended Terms | 
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Making Better Web Graphics That Grab your Attention and Load Fast
Is it possible to create quality web graphics that grabs attention and load fast at the same time? take a look at the illustration samples at our site and see what I talking about
Understanding the basics of GIF and JPEG compression will not only help you choose the best format for your Web graphics but will also enable you to create graphics that look better and load faster. Many graphics programs and compression utilities allow you to compare an image in different formats with various palette and compression settings before you actually save the file. While this takes much of the guess work out of choosing the best format for an image, it’s still a good idea to have a basic understanding of how each type of compression works. With that knowledge, you can make changes to the graphic before compression takes place, creating an image that compresses to a smaller file size and looks better, too.
Optimize for Best Images
Q. I was asked a question by one of my customer’s earlier this year. How do I put together a quality web site with great pictures that don’t take a long time to load on older equipment or just in general?
As a general rule, the following guideline will give you the best quality images with the smallest file sizes: GIF: images with large areas of solid color, such as vector clip art. JPEG: images with many shaded or gradient colors, such as photos. GIF Compression & Optimization GIF compression is lossless. This means that there is no loss of information when the file is compressed. When decompressed the image will be the same as before compression. Use this file format to save line drawings, text, or even small photos.
The compression scheme for GIF format works by identifying repetitions or runs of color within the image and identifying these repetitions with an algorithm. The more repetition and the longer the color runs are, the smaller the image will be after compression. To better understand how this works:
JPEG Compression & Optimization
The JPEG format is most often used for photographs. When decompressed, the image will not be the same as before compression. It will have lost some of the information contained in the original file. Each time you save a JPEG image it will lose more information. For this reason, it is best to save an original of your image in a lossless format (such as TIF, PSD, etc.), and work from that file when making changes. JPEG compression does not work with runs of color, like GIF compression. Instead it breaks the image into zones and throws away subtle color differences. When saving an image in JPEG format, you can select how much compression to use and, therefore, how much information will be lost. The more the image is compressed, the more the quality is reduced but the smaller the file size becomes. This format has overhead, so it is not necessarily a good format for small photos. Generally images that are smaller than 100 x 100 pixels should be saved in GIF format. Sometimes experimenting is the only way to determine which format will give you the smallest file size with the best quality.
W3C – World Wide Web Consortium
One of the most popular and mind bending questions I get is. Where do I find all those nifty web tools and solutions for graphic tools code validation ?
The W3C writes the standards for the Web. HTML, XHTML, CSS, XML, DOM and many more are all produced and maintained by them. This site is not for the faint of heart but contains everything you need to know about the standards and much more.
www.w3.org and also take a look at Macromedia MX web site for great development software.
Now if your looking for a site that will give you all the tools and a whole lot more. Here is a link that will knock your socks off it’s web reference at www.webreference.com this site has Java Scripts, news letters, code tools, services, references, database, how to’s articles and a the list goes on.
Where do I go from here?
As we discussed in this article there are a lot of ways to find resources and to create great graphics. Now I can not tell a lie you will have to do some work. But don’t get stressed if you need help contact Albany Graphics Design Studio NOW. We have a great package for any size company.
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