Download Adware programs from Lavasoft – for free!

Any computer connected to the Internet needs some sort of protection against unscrupulous companies and persons who use the Internet to spread malicious software. The new lavasoft.com Adware 6.0 has been designed to protect the computer from different types of Adware. Adware is short for advertising-supported software. Internet users are often tricked into installing an Adware program on their computer, and once it is installed the Adware program can take control over the computer and automatically play advertising material for the user, or download advertising material to the computer without the owners consent. It is very easy to involuntarily install Adware. A simple click on a fake X in the top right corner of an irritating pop-up add can be enough to `okay’ an installation, without you ever even noticing that a program is being installed. The fact that you are using a Firewall and a good Anti-virus program does not mean that you are safe when it comes to Adware. You need a program specifically designed to detected and remove Adware from your computer, and alert you every time an Adware program tries to install itself.

As mentioned above, the Adware is primarily used to display advertisements and commercials for you. Some Adware are however combined with so called Spyware. Once your computer has been infested with Spyware, the Spyware program will monitor you action and send back sensitive information to its owner. The information is used by the Adware program to more effectively target you with the right commercials. The gathered information can include very personal details such as lists of all your visited websites, how often you visit each site, online purchases and all your online searches. Adware are used by dishonest persons and companies to track your online habits and gather information about you without your knowledge or consent. The information is normally used to target you with commercials and advertising, but can be used for more malevolent actions as well.

There are also honest Adware products available, which are not installed without your consent. Adware can be a way to make it possible for a company or a programmer to provide the users with free versions of a software program, such as a popular game. The advertising displayed while you are using the program will help paying for programming development costs etcetera. Honest Adware programs are not installed without your knowledge and you can remove them when you do not wish to use the software product anymore.

Lavasoft.com Adware 6.0 is one of several programs design to protect your computer from Adware. Lavasoft.com Adware 6.0 will scan your computer and clean it from existing Adware. The program will also alert you every time an attempt to install a potentially harmful program on your computer is made. Lavasoft.com 6.0 has been designed to alert you of any potential security- and privacy breaches. Lavasoft.com Adware 6.0 can be downloaded for free online and most users will probably find it easy to install and use. Compared with many other Ad-Aware programs the file is relatively small and will therefore not take for ever to download, even if you are using a modem to connect to the Internet. Lavasoft.com Adware 6.0 will begin working immediately and do not require a reboot. Using Lavasoft.com Adware 6.0 to scan your computer and clean away any suspicious software will typically take a few minutes.

One drawback with the free version of Lavasoft.com Adware 6.0 is however that it does not include all features, and you will have to pay for an upgraded version if you want to have full program access. Regardless of which Ad-Aware program you choose to use, you must update the program regularly to keep the register up to date, since new types of malicious Adware are created constantly. With Lavasoft.com Adware 6.0, updates are available for free and you can also set the program to update for you automatically.

You can configure Lavasoft.com Adware 6.0 to make it suit your own preferences. The free version comes with plenty of different options, but if you wish to have access to all possible configurations you must buy the Plus or Professional versions of Lavasoft.com Adware 6.0. If an option is greyed out in your version of Lavasoft.com Adware 6.0, it means that this option is not available. All the changes you make concerning the configuration is saved, so it is very easy to go back to an earlier configuration if you find out that your current one does not suit you.

Jason Frovich

New forms of malicious Spyware and Adware are constantly created and in order to protect your computer from infestations you must choose a high-quality program and keep it updated. Supportcave.com offer all this and more.

How Hard Disk S.M.A.R.T. works?

Can we believe S.M.A.R.T. ?
Some time ago an article published about hard disk reliability and the failure prediction function of hard disks. We can think that this function is not working or not too reliable because it is not able to predict disk failure in all cases. It may be partially true – but the situation is not too simple. Now, we want to make things clear.

First, we examine what is S.M.A.R.T. and how it works. Advanced users may skip some paragraphs.

S.M.A.R.T.
S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology) is designed by IBM. It was created to monitor the disk status by using various methods and devices (sensors). A single ATA hard disk may have up to 30 such measured values, which are called attributes. Some of them directly or indirectly affect hard disk health status and others give statistical information.

Today all modern IDE/Serial ATA/SCSI hard disks have S.M.A.R.T. feature. It is not really a standard – so the meaning of the attributes may be different from manufacturer to manufacturer. In this article, we discuss ATA (IDE and Serial ATA) hard disks only. SCSI hard disks work differently: the failure predicition data is standard and there are strict rules about the sensors and algorythms. For example, the difference between real temperature and the result measured by the sensor should be less than +/- 3 Celsius degrees.

Many attributes are used by all manufacturers and they are used in the same (or near same) way. That’s why for example it is possible to detect the temperature and the total power on time of many hard disks. Newer applications are able to detect, process and display these information.

According the S.M.A.R.T. specifications, when a problem is detected (failure predicted), the hard disk should work for at least 24 hours to perform the data backup. But in many cases this time is not enough – that’s why it is important to recognize problems and prepare before it’s too late.

Click here to see the full list of S.M.A.R.T. attributes (for example: reallocated sector count, off-line uncorrectable sectors count, etc.) and their meanings.

S.M.A.R.T. in action
The current status of the hard disk are constantly examined by many sensors. The measured values are then processed by some algorythms and the corresponding attributes are modified according the results.

A single S.M.A.R.T. attribute has the following fields:

Identifier (byte): the meaning of the attribute. Many attributes have standard meanings (for example, 5 = number of reallocated sectors, 194 = temperature, etc). Most applications provide name and textual description about the attributes.

Data (6 bytes): raw measured values are stored in this field, provided by a sensor or a counter. This data is then processed by an algorythm designed by the hard disk manufacturer. Sometimes different parts (for example, low, middle, high 16 bits) of this value contain different kind of information.

Threshold (byte): the (failure) limit value for the attribute.

Value (byte): the current relative “health” of the attribute. This number is calculated by the algorythm, using the raw data (see above). On a new hard disk, this number is high (a theoretical maximum, for example 100, 200 or 253) and it is decreasing during the lifetime of the disk.

Worst (byte): the worst (smallest) value ever found in the previous lifetime of the hard disk.

Status flags: indicate the main purpose of the attribute. An attribute can be for example critical (able to predict failure) or statistical one (does not directly affect condition).

Note: software may display more information based on these fields (for example, the status of an attribute, which can be “OK” or “Always OK” etc.) and may give help in evaluation or management of the attributes.

Attributes with their details

An attribute is correct, when the Value is greater than or equal with the Threshold. If this is not true for a critical attribute, failure is predicted, the hard disk is considered bad and it should be replaced immediately (the attribute determines the problem). Manufacturers/vendors replace the hard disk in the terms of warranty. The S.M.A.R.T. function in modern motherboard BIOSes warns the user at this point before booting the operating system. If the Threshold is 0 for any attribute, that attribute is not able to predict failure (because the Value cannot be less than 0).

Mathematically, one attribute is perfect if the following inequality is TRUE (you may skip this paragraph if you hate maths):

A – f(r) >= C (1)
Where:

A – theoretical maximum value, the “best” possible value for the attribute.

f – a function to calculate the decrement based on the raw (r) values. Usually it is a linear function, so in most cases r is multiplied by a B constant.

C – the vendor specific threshold level, under this level, the attribute is considered problematic.

This method has some disadvantages. The A, B, C, values (or the f function) are not defined exactly (these may vary from model to model even on two hard disks from the same manufacturer). Other disadvantage is that the attributes are evaluated independently, the relationship between them is ignored.

The problems with S.M.A.R.T.
The model described above has many weak points. Because of these problems, in most cases failure prediction is not working at all. The major problems are:

#1 Incorrect thresholds
Most problems with S.M.A.R.T. (lack of failure prediction) are caused by incorrectly selected Thresholds. Because of this, the hard disk attributes have no chance to reach the thresholds – usually they fail (become useless) before reaching this point. In such cases, S.M.A.R.T. really does not predict the failure.

In practical, we can find non realistic threshold values. For example, on most hard disks, many thousands of bad (not readable and writable) sectors required (according to the size of the spare area) before S.M.A.R.T. shows the problem. It does not seem to be a big problem because 1000 such bad sector takes “just” 512000 bytes of data (and this does not mean capacity loss because of using the spare area instead), but it may be important how these bad sectors born, where they are located on the surface and what is the bad sector increase rate.

In most cases, problems can be detected long time before an attribute value reaches its threshold. For example, a head problem which can make many thousands of sectors unusable (bad), can cause bigger parts of the disk surface unreadable – preventing the recovery of data from this disk area. Also analysing a such problematic area and saving the data to spare area may need lots of time (even hours), and it is possible that the operation is not completed without errors. During this process, the operating system usually stops responding, so a problematic hard disk may cause complete system instability.

Value=253, Threshold=63, on this disk 1900 bad sector is required to reach the threshold. Fortunately, on this disk, there are no such bad sectors

We can discuss about improperly selected threshold values also. Some hard disk manufacturers may define 60-70 years or even more for a hard disk total lifetime when the corresponding attribute is examined. It is really interesting – because manufacturers usually define the designed lifetime in 5 years in product manuals. Moreover, S.M.A.R.T. will not alert when the end of the lifetime is reached because this attribute is usually not a critical one.

The Value decreased to 97 from 100 after 759 days of usage. How much time we would need to reach the end of the vendor specific lifetime?

Moreover, the threshold value is 0 for many critical attributes. Because the Value cannot be decreased below 0, these attributes will never indicate any sign of failure – even if they “want” to do this. So S.M.A.R.T. will never alert.

Critical attributes and the threshold is 0

Sometimes very important attributes are not marked as “critical”. It means that hard disk monitoring applications and the BIOS S.M.A.R.T. feature do not examine these attributes at all.

#2 Wrong evaluation method
Most applications use the vendor-specific method described above to calculate and display the health of the disk. The result is that most hard disks look much better than their real status. Hard disk manufacturers may choose thresholds or algorythms to show their hard disks better than an other hard disk from an other manufacturer also. This may mislead applications and users as well.

Software developers just use the manufacturer-dependent evaluation method and they do not do anything about detecting the real health status of the disks. Because of this, it is possible that the user use a hard disk monitoring application but the hard disk fail before showing any sign of problems or even a decrease in condition. Such applications may display 10-20 years or more as estimated remaining lifetime – which is at least questionable.

#3 Weight of attributes
Different attributes affect disk health differently. Some attributes (for example, 10 – spin retry count) are very critical. A small change in this attribute may indicate a serious problem, for example bad motor or bearing – but maybe a weak power supply can cause this problem also.

For such attributes, manufacturers often use a high threshold value, so they can be reached relatively easily. But because of the selection of the threshold and the f function described above in (1) inequality, some problems may be completely ignored. So users will not notice any changes of the critical attributes.

An other problem is that the relationship between the attributes is often ignored. It is possible that two or more attribute values almost reach their thresholds – but failure is not predicted because no value reached the threshold level.

#4 Lack of feedback
Without using a proper software which is able to read S.M.A.R.T. information, the user does not notice any problems with the hard disk, just when it’s too late. If the number of bad sectors increase slowly (the hard disk founds some new problematic sectors and tests them and reallocates them), the user may not notice anything, especially if only the screensaver is running. But during re-allocation procedure, the operating system seems to be frozen (not responding) and users may reset or power off the computer at this time. Such power loss does not help the hard disk too much in the recovery process (it will be re-started at a later time).

#5 Temperature, sensor problems
Without using software, the user may not notice high hard disk temperature also. Both CPU and newer VGA cards have protection (emergency shutdown) against high temperatures but hard disks have no such protection. Even worse, hard disks are much more sensitive to high temperatures than any other component inside the computer case. That’s why most manufacturers limit the maximum operating temperature in 50-55 Celsius degrees.

Most BIOSes have support to examine the power supply voltage, fan speeds, CPU temperature etc. But it is not possible to examine hard disk temperature from BIOS. The BIOS S.M.A.R.T. function does not alert if the hard disk temperature is too high. So it is possible that the hard disk is operating in a very hot environment.

But it is important to know that many hard disk temperature sensors are not too accurate (sometimes the difference between detected and real temperature can be 8-10 Celsius degrees or even more). It is recommended to use an external device (for example an infrared thermometer) to measure the hard disk temperature and configure the difference between the measured and displayed values (calibration). So the software then displays the correct (adjusted) temperature value (if this feature is supported).

It is also recommended to examine the temperature when the hard disk is idle and when it is operating for a longer time.

If the temperature is too high or too low (compared to the environment) when powering the computer, it is recommended to verify the accuracy of the temperature sensor

#6 Incorrect drivers
We may find many incorrect drivers for hard disk controllers. By using such drivers, one or more hard disks do not provide S.M.A.R.T. information connected to such controllers (or motherboards). This is usually independent from the used software because applications generally use the same method to access hard disk and detect information about it. It is possible that two hard disk provide 100% same information (usually the details of the first or PRIMARY MASTER hard disk). Software may filter this and display real (but partial) information but it is recommended to verify that the details are correct (for example, no hard disk serial number is displayed 2 or more times).

Usually, the drivers support only a limited range of hard disk commands. That’s why some features do not work in all cases (for example, acoustic management), even if the disk supports it.

It is recommended to examine if manufacturer has updated, fixed driver packages or firmware updates. These may improve the situation. If a controller has RAID and non-RAID drivers, it is important to use the correct (non-RAID if no RAID array used) drivers. Using the other package may limit some features and usually temperature, health status of the disk(s) will not be displayed.

Many motherboards or hard disk controllers do not have 100% correct drivers for Vista. This can also prevent detection of detailed hard disk information and failure prediction under the new operating system.

#7 Incorrect hardware or incorrect data
This is the extension of the previous problem #6. Some hard disk controllers or motherboards do not provide S.M.A.R.T. threshold values at all – or all threshold values are 0. Hard disks connected to such controllers will not show any sign of failure because the attribute values are not able to decrease below 0. Applications may also show the hard disk condition “excellent” because the Values are far from the thresholds.

All thresholds are 0 – the “forever young and healthy” hard disk. Really?

It is also possible that the information provided by the hard disk controller is not complete. This does not affect the hard disk failure prediction status but some information detected and displayed may not be correct. Fortunately this does not affect the temperature and the hard disk health also. Newer applications verify the ATA signature and checksum values (described on page 116 of “AT Attachment – 8 ATA/ATAPI Command Set”) and display a warning if these values are not correct.

Ideal case: the controller and driver provide correct and reliable information

Bad sectors?
Users often ask about what is a “bad sector”, how they born and what they can do to fix these. Users are confused because verifying the disk surface with software (for example by using Windows Scandisk) does not report any problems or bad sectors.

S.M.A.R.T. is constantly analysing the disk surface during normal operations. If it finds a problematic area (one or more sectors where the data is hard to read or write), it tries to read the data and copy it to the spare area. The original location is then (internally) marked as bad and all further read/write operations pointing to the original location is then redirected to the spare area.

When the operation is completed, the original (bad) area is not accessible by software any more. Even re-install or many complete format operations will not show problems because the original bad area is not used any more. That’s why software (for example Windows’ Scandisk) will not found problematic sectors. Only the hardware security erase function will access this area (clearing these sectors also).

That’s why for example DOS “format” command will never show bad sectors on most modern hard disks because of S.M.A.R.T. (except if the spare area is full but it is really hard to find a such hard disk).

Reallocation of the sectors may be completed with or without some errors (hard disks are working much better now compared to older models). But the reallocation procedure may cause system instability if it takes too much time.

The user should not notice anything about the steps described above – just when the number of bad sectors is high enough (the threshold is reached) and then S.M.A.R.T. predicts a possible failure.

Solution
A hard disk failure without any signs before the catastrophe is extremely rare, except if drive fall down, or if high power (bias) or natural disaster cause problem. But these situations cannot be predicted by S.M.A.R.T. of course. Usually some bad sectors born, their number is slowly increasing (maybe weeks can elapse without any sign of new problems). In other cases, high temperature and/or few but really critical problems can cause the death of a drive.

It is also very common that the combined effect of two or more attributes indicate different problems. For example, if the hard disk motor is not able spin up easily (it needs some retries) or the disk spins up too slowly, it may indicate a possible motor or bearing problem. Such problems have written traces in the corresponding S.M.A.R.T. attributes. So all (even very small) changes can be detected.

It is important to detect these signs long time before they can lead to failure. It is recommended to completely discard the whole model described above and ignore the incorrectly choosen (or missing) threshold values and evaluate only the raw measured data numbers, to detect the real amount of different problems about the hard disks. It is advisable to examine the connection between different attributes also. This way we’ll have correct picture about the real status and we can prepare and even avoid data loss.

It is also recommended to select how we want to evaluate the hard disk status, depending on the real usage and “stress” of a hard disk. For example, in case of a server, notebook or a hard disk with critical information, the smallest problem can be dangerous, so any problem (even small one) should be noticed.

Some applications may offer such different evaluation methods for different uses of hard disks and they may give textual description about the current situation and tips to improve the condition. It is a nice function if the software can make passive alarms (send e-mail, play sound or shut down the computer) but it may be better if the application is able to actively prevent data loss, for example by performing an automatic backup operation if a new problem is found.

Hard Disk Sentinel application was developed considering these requirements. During the development, the S.M.A.R.T. information of many (failed, not working) hard disks were examined from many different manufacturers. The evaluation methods were designed based on the collected information. It is important to say that the “traditional” S.M.A.R.T. did not predicted failure for most of these hard disks.

Example
We received a not working hard disk for data recovery with the following S.M.A.R.T. attributes:

ID Attribute name Threshold Value Worst Data Status flags Critical?
1 Raw Read Error Rate 50 100 100 000000000000 000B Yes
2 Throughput Performance 50 100 100 000000000000 0005
3 Spin Up Time 1 100 100 0000000001E9 0027
4 Start/Stop Count 0 100 100 000000000A5A 0032
5 Reallocated Sectors Count 50 100 100 000000000015 0033 Yes
7 Seek Error Rate 50 100 100 000000000000 000B Yes
8 Seek Time Performance 50 100 100 000000000000 0005
9 Power-On Time Count 0 87 87 0000000014C1 0032
10 Spin Retry Count 30 152 100 000000000000 0033 Yes
12 Drive Power Cycle Count 0 100 100 0000000009EA 0032
192 Vendor-specific 0 100 100 000000000058 0032
193 Load/Unload Cycle Count 0 73 73 00000004218D 0032
194 HDD Temperature 0 100 100 003B00020024 0022
196 Reallocation Event Count 0 100 100 00000000000F 0032
197 Current Pending Sector Count 0 100 100 000000000004 0032
198 Off-Line Uncorrectable Sector Count 0 100 100 000000000000 0030
199 Ultra ATA CRC Error Count 0 200 200 000000000000 0032
220 Disk Shift 0 100 100 0000000000B3 0002
222 Loaded Hours 0 95 95 0000000007EA 0032
223 Load/Unload Retry Count 0 100 100 000000000000 0032
224 Load Friction 0 100 100 000000000000 0022
226 Load-in Time 0 100 100 00000000017F 0026
240 Head flying hours 1 100 100 000000000000 0001 Yes

The BIOS S.M.A.R.T. function did not show any problems. According to the table, the Values (100 and above) are very far from the corresponding Threshold limits. Most of them (Value = 100) are still on the theoretical maximum. If we would use the traditional evaluation method (by checking the values and thresholds), the hard disk condition seems to be perfect. Values under 100 are caused by the age and usage of the drive. But the total power on time of this hard disk is only 5313 (0×14C1) hours (the manufacturer defined he total lifetime correctly: the total lifetime is approximately 4.7 years, using the disk 24 hours every day (5313/0.13)/24/365 = 4.665 years). So the drive is not too old.

In contrast, if we use Hard Disk Sentinel and select the strict evaluation method (because this hard disk is a 2.5″ one, used in a notebook), we will get a completely different result. During the evaluation, the software examines the important attributes (even if they are not marked as “critical” by the manufacturer).

The health of the hard disk (checking the Data field of attributes 5, 196 and 197):

100 x (100 – 10×6) x (100 – 30) x (100 – 4×4) = 23.52 %

According to this number, the health is disquieting. By default, this software would alert the user if the health value is as low as this number. By selecting the correct evaluation method and the correct alert levels, it is possible to predict failure long before the catastrophe. The owner of this hard disk could prevent data loss if he’d install this software before.

A low health value alone does not neccessary mean that the hard disk will surely die in the near future (to verify this, a complete (hardware) examination is required), but there is a real chance for failure. The problem of the hard disk described above can not be easily detected but as we can see, there were some signs in the S.M.A.R.T. attributes. Other hard disks with other problems may work for a long time, months or years (even if they have lower health value). Problems caused by a short period (for example, too hot environment or an incorrect power supply) will not disappear. But after fixing the reasons of such problems (using a heatsink, fan or replacing the power supply), the hard disk lifetime can be extended. Anyway, it is recommended to examine the status of these hard disks constantly or regulary and to use them as secondary data storage only. Users should make sure that their important and valuable files are stored on an other hard disk also (with a higher “health” value).

You may use, redistribute this article or any part of it if you add a link also to the original source.

www.hdsentinel.com – Back to Hard Disk Sentinel homepage

Bibliography
Information technology – AT Attachment 8 – ATA/ATAPI Command Set (ATA8-ACS) (Revision 3f December 11, 2006)
www.t13.org, D1699r3f-ATA8-ACS.pdf

Click here to see the full list of known S.M.A.R.T. attributes (for example: reallocated sector count, off-line uncorrectable sectors count, etc.) and their meanings.

Digital Photo Printer Choices

Digital photo printers come in variety shapes and sizes nowadays. But whatever they may look like, they still do one thing; they transform colored digital pictures into high-quality photo prints while you sit back and wait. Thanks to the inventors of digital camera, most printers are now affordable and easy to use. Many of them do not even have to be connected to a computer to print.

Before you indulge yourself into buying your own digital printer, there are questions that needed answering first to ensure that what printer you will be shopping for is the one right for you.

Will the digital printer work with your camera?

Buy a digital printer with a media slot that has the same kind of memory card your camera uses. Or a printer that connects directly, using a cable of course, to your camera. A USB-capable printer that connects to your computer is a nice option. The process is fairly simple. You just have to drop the photos into the hard drive, edit and print them from there.

What printing technology suit you best?

There are basically two kinds of technology that is inherent in photo printers. Dye sublimation and inkjet. Both kinds can produce brilliant images.

Some people believe that dye sublimation excels at continuous tone printing. While others prefer the crisp colors, inexpensive supplies and print flexibility of inkjet and bubble jet printers. Whichever kind you choose, remember that optimizing a printer for photo printing will do a much better job than general use printer.

How much resolution do you need?

Take note that the higher the resolution, the crisper the print result will be. For example, a 400 dpi resolution is finer than a 300 dpi resolution.

Take note also that resolution cannot be compared between dye sublimation and inkjet printers. The numbers of dpi required to make the same quality photo print may vary depending on the different aspects of the printers.

Does the printer have editing capabilities?

Some printers let you edit digital photos. This editing capability can range from a few limited text messages and crop sizes to a touch screen LCD that allows multiple picture editing before printing.

The type you will use would depend if whether you want to do some editing, in the first place. And if you do want, choose if you rather do sophisticated editing on a computer or quick adjustments from a printer.

You choose. Your digital printer will do it for you.

For comments and inquiries about the article visit http://www.digitalprintingcompany.com

Florie Lyn Masarate got the flair for reading and writing when she got her first subscription of the school newsletter in kindergarten. She had her first article published on that same newsletter in the third grade.

How to Improve Your Game

It is a mistaken belief that playing chess is a god-gifted art and barring reaching an ordinary ‘cognizable standard’ you cannot improve. The ‘cognizable standard’ means you are reaching to the standard which makes you only recognize the good and bad points of the game but without any ability to develop your game accordingly. No doubt, it is a game of superior intelligence. The alertness of the mind, capacity to contemplate on and select the right future are some basic requirements of this brainy game. Of course, you cannot cultivate talent only with the help of your labor but if you have a little of it you can surely bone it. Do not forget the age-old maxim that genius is five percents inspiration and ninety-nine percents perspiration. Moreover, hardly any human being is totally devoid of the element of talent. Only when we fail to perspire for making it develop that we lag behind the others who do. This is what we purpose to do with this article.

There are times when in the absence of the right kind of guidance our talents wither. Since they don’t know how to properly irrigate and fertilize this plant of talent, this get withered away. Remember that like any other discipline, chess also needs your unwaivering devotion. The young boys normally don’t know how to utilize their free time, especially those who have the potentials. Follow the guidelines given ahead and become a good chess player.

1. Read Chess-books and Magazines

After playing some games, read the book carefully. Play more games and the read the book. Each time you absorb some points that seemed previously obscure or did not grip you.

The way you improve most is not by playing opponents, but by playing over well-annotated games. Cover one side’s move usually the winner’s) and think out of each move before looking.

If you are eager to improve your play rapidly, write down the moves of all your games, not only the competitive one (in which recording is compulsory). It is best to write them in chess scorebooks, as loose score-sheets are easily lost. Afterwards, play each game and jot down critical comments. This how the grandmaster developed his skill in chess and became proficient in a short time without any coaching. It is surprising how much the game became clearer when you see every position a second time, in the light of what happened first time. You become your own tutor. If, after writing your comments you submit some of your games and your comments to a competent coach or top player for assessment for a suitable fee will improve more rapidly still.

Reading chess books by standard authors will also help. Try to follow the notations in a particular style. In case you get hold of those old books in which the notations are not in algebraic form, try to convert it in that form. Even this conversion exercise would give you a good peep inside the intricacies of the game. Write them down in a separate exercise book and the same way you do to develop you ability, say in Mathematics. This is very enlightening exercise. Just keep a small chess board with pieces alongside and convert descriptive notations into Algebraic notations. It is necessary because the algebraic notation was devised only a couple years ago while the earlier chess-books where only written in descriptive style. Remember that it is not a time consuming and boring exercise but a very rewarding one.

Besides doing this read some good magazines or newspapers having chess columns. Nowadays there is hardly any good journal or newspaper not having chess columns. Read those problems and solve them. Your intention while solving them should be to prove the given solution to be wrong! The idea is that you should independently try to attack the problem. In the process if you happen to hit some different solution deem it that you are on the right path of progress in your chess studies. You may join a club having the facility of chess. You might develop you chess skill in the company of the other learners.

Of course, you can enjoy chess without worrying about improvements. However, this is a natural tendency of an awakened mind to improve one’s performance in any sphere. By following the methods recommended here, almost anybody can become a strong player in a fraction of time normally taken.

Doctor Emanual Lasker (World Champion 1897-1921) considered that given a logical approach, a person of average talent would not need to give chess more than 200 hours to reach a stage where a master player who conceded him or her handicap would surely lose.

Lasker’s 200 hours was an underestimate, no doubt, but certain it is that most players could reach in months a standard that usually takes them years to attain.

Some newspapers publish regular chess columns in which composed chess problems are a feature. In a problem, an artificial position is setup and a solver is required to find a way to check mate in a specified number of moves, usually 2 or 3, no matter what replies the defender makes. In these, for the sake of uniformity, White always makes the first (key) move. In 2-move problems, only the key move is required. In 3-move problems, the second moves are required for correct solutions. As the composer’s purpose is to make the task difficult, the key move is usually on that would be unlikely to occur to a player in an actual game, and is never capture (except of a Pawn) and never a check.

2. Play Handicap Chess with Senior Players

The often given advice to play against stronger players has two distinct drawbacks. Firstly, it is discouraging if you invariably lose. Secondly, it is painful boring for the opponent if the different in skill is great. The strong player would be too polite to tell you this, but will find some excuse to stop playing. To fore stat this, ask the opponent to give you a handicap (give you odds in the chess parlance) e.g. to remove a Knight, a Rook, a Rook plus Knight, or even the Queen. Once the right odds found, both players can have exciting game. When removing a Knight or a Rook as a handicap, convention decrees that it shall be the one on the Queen’s wing.

Another kind of handicap is possible with the use of chess clocks. The expert can play with a very short time limit, his opponents at a much greater one. If the difference in skill is not too wide, this sort of handicap is better, as there is no alteration of the starting position. If the difference in skill is very great, it is a good idea to use both systems.

For single games, you cannot use a time handicap unless you have chess clocks. However, in simultaneous exhibitions, a time handicap operates automatically.

Here the expert opposes a large number of players seated in a circle or rectangle, each with a board and pieces in front of him or her. The expert steps from board to board, making a move at each one. Obviously, the expert can take only a fraction of time that opponents take, as the master may have to make 10,20,30,40 or more moves in the time that each opponent has for one move.

Simultaneous exhibitions have provided, from time immemorial, an excellent opportunity for a large number of players to oppose a master under conditions that give the amateurs some chance of bringing off a draw or even a win.

3. Have chess software

Playing chess against a well-programmed computer also helps in your developing chess-skill.

It was inevitable in our age of electronics that chess would engage the attention of computer engineers.

The real revolution in computer chess was brought about by the introduction of portable, relatively inexpensive microcomputers. These have been steadily improving and the latest models feature up to sixty-four levels of play, programmed openings and games, a voice announcing moves, and sensitized squares to eliminate the need for a keyboard. Most can play a reasonable game, while the more advanced models complete successfully in open tournaments.

As hinted before, microcomputers are most useful to players who have a problem in finding an opponent. Teaching level with programmed opening variations and suggested best moves are provided to help the students.

For top players computers provide a convenient way of storing information on openings and end games. Most top players use personal computer for this purpose.

4. General Advice

You should start playing preferably with another beginner, as soon as you have learned the moves. Do not be discouraged if you are slow in remembering the rules. With a little practice, you will get accustomed to the moves of the pieces and will be able to start working things out without trying to remember how each one move and capture.

Chess is competitive and a desire to win is its strongest motivation. This is why you should play with another beginner whom you have a chance to defeating. It is better if you have an instructor who can supervise the game to make you sure that the rules are observed and to point out where you went wrong after the game.

Textbook dealing with all aspects of the game in one volume, vary in scope and price. Some chess manuals are written by champions, others by chess teachers – they all help the beginner to delve deeper into the mysteries of chess. Later the person wishing to improve skills further more can specialize by studying various aspects of the game and here there is a vast choice of aids.

Books dealing with openings range from comprehensive manuals in several large volumes, not recommended for beginners, to books designed to explain the reasons why the openings are played in a certain way.

The Middle game is dealt with by explaining the basic strategic principles and by giving examples of tactical combinations. There are many books dealing with this subject.

The end game is part of the game, which all aspiring players should study. Here again there is a choice of many books. Best for beginners are elementary books, which explain basic principles that are most likely to occur in practical way. For advanced players there are books, which deal with specific ending in depth. Finally, we come to collection of games of great players. We recommend the books with detailed comments, especially those designed for beginners.

The young learners are advice not to rely heavily on chess problems to acquire mastery in this game. These problems are as removed from as crossword puzzles are from literature. Surely, they bone one’s power of visualization of the moves. Play as many actual games as possible and solve chess problem to keep your mind alert in the chess-sense. Remember in chess (the actual game) the object of the game is to defeat the opponent, the means by which this end is achieve or the time is takes, being unimportant. In problems, however, the opponent represents by time. Mate must be effect with in the stipulated number of moves. Since the position given in the problems is frequently quizotic, most of the seasoned chess players dismiss then as situation unworthy of consideration. On the other hand, the problemists maintain that game involves too much laborious and profitless wood shifting, and that the artistry of fifty games can be compound into a single artificial position. Nevertheless, the best courses open for young learners to have the judicious mixture of the two.

About the Author

The author is the site admin of Chess Learning . If you want to read and learn more about the game of chess, check out http://www.chess-learning.com

Exercise for Weight Loss: Carving a Healthy Sphere of Life

Weight loss has become the trend of the modern day scenario. Owing to the unhealthy lifestyle we lead in the contemporary world, most of us fall prey to obesity and overweight. Are you an obese or overweight individual? Take some concrete steps to shed excessive weight before it becomes too late. You must have heard the proverb ‘Health is Wealth’, which implies only a healthy body can be competent enough to achieve higher goals like wealth, rather than one who is unhealthy.

If you are thinking of losing weight, there is nothing better than exercise. Doctors and dieticians often recommend a regular exercise regime for healthy living, but most of us hardly bother to take heed of this advice. Lack of exercise forms ground for accumulation of unwanted bodily fat. Don’t make excuses for skipping regular work out, because if you love yourself, you would surely take out some time for your well-being. Exercise is essential for weight loss, as it keeps the body’s metabolism at an optimum level facilitating it to burn calories.

Even 20 minutes workout each day can help you in lose weight provided it is done with sincerity. Brisk walks, swimming, running, aerobics, bicycling, indulging in sports like soccer or basketball, workout in the gym are just to mention a few options of exercises which can facilitate weight loss. It is to be noted that workout in the gym should be undertaken under professional supervision. Speak with a medical professional prior to beginning with any option for work out.

Doctors recommend a regular work out even if you are consuming Diet pills, in order to achieve better weight loss results. Growing consciousness for fitness has encouraged man TV channels to broadcast special programmes especially focusing on exercise for weight be it yoga, aerobics or simple workout tips. Every now and then you would see TV programmes marketing exercise equipments which can facilitate Weight loss. With the usage of internet on the rise, many websites have been designed especially to educate obese and over weight individuals about workouts.

Don’t get over indulged into exercising, initiate with simple exercises to let you settle in the mood for it. If you are still not motivated enough to go ahead with exercise for weight loss, think about the adverse effects it can have on your health. Unwanted bodily fat can make you prone to health related risk factors such as diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure. Make a wise decision of exercise for weight loss, because health matters.

About the Author

Clarence Carter received training as a health care scientist. She has been working in the same field and writes informative articles, weight loss being her pet subject. To find Diet pills, Weight loss drug, Weight loss, Xenical, Acomplia, Reductil visit http://www.weight-loss-drug.co.uk

SEO Is The Turbo Of Targeted Internet Marketing

This the idea of targeted internet marketing, which will bring you tons of free, constant traffic. The key to success is to use hundreds of targeted keywords in your internet marketing.

Why? Because keywords are your markets and the more markets you can cover the more business you get. So simple. Do you want to market on one market or one hundred markets. Do not answer, it is self clear.

Here are the best tips for targeted internet marketing. Optimize all what you write. This means for example, that if your page has 500 words and you use from 2 to 3 keywords, each keyword must represent from 1 to 3 % of the amount of total words on that page.

Why? Because search engines must put the search results in some order to be able to do targeted intenet marketing. So SE must choose which site is number one, number two etc. They must have rules according to which they serve the searchers.

Now the 1.000 euros question is, how search engines put sites in certain order, if you know that, you can reach the numero uno position. Unfortunately or fortunately no one really know these criterias.

However tons of analyzes have been made about number one sites and compared them to find out the common factors, so I am quite sure, what they are. And to make targeted internet marketing, which is the most effective way to promote, keyword optimized pages are very important.

Search engines simply think that when keyword is mentioned many times, but not too many, the content of that page is important for the searcher of that keyword.

But off page optimization is still the most important. Search engines simply thinks that the more popular the site is in the internet, the more important or useful it is also to the searchers.

What is the popularity in this connection? Popularity means, how many links from other sites are pointing back to this site. Links are seen like votes, so other webmasters vote that site and the more votes the site has, the more useful it is in the eyes of the search engines.

It is naturally important, what is the quality of linking sites. Are the links from high page rank or low page rank sites and are the sites related?

In targeted internet marketing the key target is to beat the number one site of certain keyword. To make it simple, your site must have more and or better links than the present leader.

Good thing is that you can get other webmasters to link your site. The best long term way is to have a quality content site. That is the core of targeted internet marketing, because other webmasters really want to link to your site as a service to their website own visitors. Of course this will take time, we speak about months.

More rapid way is to write articles and distribute them by some software to hundreds of directories with one click. By this way you get links from hundreds of sites and also targeted traffic.

To use targeted internet marketing, use different ways. One manual way is to type add ur or submit site on Google search bar and submit your site to hundreds of sites. Remember that you neeed thousands of links to reach first page position. Internet marketing is a numbers game.

Of course you can buy a software, which will submit your site to hundreds of directories more rapidly.

After you have optimized your page and built enough links, it will take time before search engines will find and raise your site to the targeted position but when you have reached it with many pages, you will get tons of regular, targeted and free traffic. What a JOY.

About the Author

I am a full time internet marketer.Get SEO Made Easy, free ebook and more SEO tips.

Improve Conversion Rates – How To Turn Your Visitors Into Customers

Its pretty well documented that the most cost effective way to generate more sales on your website is to convert more of your visitors into buyers. After all, you’ve done most of the hard work (and probably spent a great deal of money) getting them there in the first place.

Here are our Top Tips that we’ve learned over the years at http://www.totsplanet.co.uk to increase conversion rates (in no particular order):

1. Homepage – Make an impression; its your shop window

You’ve only got one chance and a matter of seconds to draw your visitor in; so get it right!

Let’s assume that if someone has landed at your store, as a result of your highly targeted marketing campaign they are actually looking for something that you sell.

Half of the work is therefore done – all you now have to do is ensure that they can see that they are in the right place, as soon as they hit your homepage. Here’s how:

- Stick to standard navigation practices. Make sure all departments/categories have meaningful names and are clearly visible either in the left hand nav bar or across the top of the site.

- Have a search box prominently displayed – but consider not having one if your range is not that big as you dont want many searches producing n0 results)

- In your main middle section (above the fold) make sure you display clear, descriptive and eye-catching images alongside explanatory text links – arty pictures not related to what you’re selling and too many ‘more info’ or ‘view all’ links are not interesting to a fleeting eye.

- Display a best sellers list (as by their very nature they will probably be recognized by your visitors).

- Have some sort of link to your Clearance or Bargains page. You can bet that a % of your shoppers will be specifically looking for a deal.

- If there is a seasonal event related to your offer, create a category containing relevant products and link to it from here. Chances are your shoppers are looking for something for this event (e.g. a ”Valentines Gifts” page if you are a lingerie store)

- Don’t make the page too busy – i know it sound like a contradiction but this is very important – if you have everything you think you need on the page but the layout is too busy, the visitor will feel under pressure to take it all in and will likely lose interest. Here’s a great resource for modern homepage layout design

2. Landing Pages – are also your shop window (but often forgotten)

Although the majority of people will arrive at your homepage, many will arrive at a product or category page – especially as a) you will no doubt be running an effective PPC campaign that links to targeted destination pages, and b) your site is built in such a way that Google has indexed all of your pages and you are top of the search results for the entire long tail of keywords and phrases that relate to your products…

So, now that is established you’ll understand the importance of making sure the landing pages follow the same principles as the homepage in gaining the customers attention and their confidence that they have landed at the right place.

- Keywords – as the visitor is likely to have come to this page from some type of search, make sure this page clearly display images of what the search was for and that the keywords or phrase that they used to search for is nice and prominent . It also doesn’t hurt to repeat the word/s a 2 or 3 times on the page (but don’t over do it)

- Call to Action – again, as the visitor has landed on a product or category page, they are arguably even more likely to make a purchase as their search was probably quite specific. So make sure you have some sort of ‘buy’ or ‘add to basket’ button available.

- Route back to the homepage or related items – Bear in mind that a visitor may hit the landing page mistakenly, or may not actually like what they see but are interested in seeing what else is on offer. Always provide clear links back to the homepage and to similar items or related categories. 3. ‘Findability’ – help customers find what they’re looking for

A simple and easy to use navigational structure is important to cater for those visitors who like to browse , not search – but , unless you display a vast list of categories (which I strongly advise against – see Point 1), not every category will contain items for everyone. People naturally have different tastes and criteria. So how do you put the right products in front of them? The answer is in refining and sorting the results to suit the users needs.

This feature is probably best described in pictures and one of my favourite sites to utilize these tools in Bluefly – a US fashion site.

In this example I’ve visited Bluefly because I’m looking for a black t-shirt. I could search for a black t-shirt but i don’t really want to see womens black t-shirts and there is a t-shirts category in the men’s section, so i think i’ll browse.

In the first screen shot you can see I have selected T-Shirts as the category I’m interested in. There are 6 pages of results; so quite a lot to browse through to get to what i want, and then it may not be available in my size anyway.

This is where the refining tool comes into its own – you can see that i’m able to narrow the displayed results down to my desired size, colour, price and even brand if i’d like. When my results are displayed i can then sort by price, bestsellers or the newest items.

So, back to the point – I’ve found exactly what I’m looking for in seconds and am now extremely likely to now buy something from here!

4. Product, Product, Product

Scrap everything I’ve just said!

Well, don’t, but hear this. Product, Product, Product – if you don’t have the right product to cater for the demand of your target market, you may as well forget it.

I cannot stress enough that is it is the product that makes the sale – not pretty graphics, an easy to use site, or anything else for that matter – if the product stinks, people wont buy it – there, I’ve said it.

For the sake of carrying on and not pressing ‘delete post’, I’ll assume you have the hottest products in your sector!

5. Something for Everyone – the long tail….

So you’ve got the hot products (!) and you’ve got a hot refining tool to quickly get people to what they want – now its time to expand the range. Fill up your store with everything your target market could possibly want. The wider the range, the more likely a visitor will buy something. Its simple really. And this is where the Internet comes into its own. You may have a warehouse with space limitations and overhead costs; I do appreciate that; but its nowhere near the cost and space limitations of a high street store – use this to your advantage and become a one-stop shop for your target market – why should they go anywhere else?

6. Price Competitively

Basic retailing rules still apply – if your not competitive people will go elsewhere – on the Internet your competitor is just a click away. Do your research, and keep it up.

7. Simple checkout – make it easy to buy

So you’ve given the customers what they want – well done. But it is well documented that this is in fact a waste of time when it comes to at least 1/3 of them (some sources say 70% or more), who abandon their shopping baskets without making a purchase.

Granted, some people just change their mind, but there is undoubtedly a large % who just cant make it through the Checkout process. When reviewing your shopping basket , make sure you:

- Don’t hide any extra charges such as Delivery costs or VAT Provide the customer with a clear indication of where they are in the checkout process

- Give customers the option of not creating an account – Make it clear that your checkout pages are secure

8. Easy customer & contact information – be available

There are thousands of sites out there. You probably don’t have the luxury of being a household brand, so you need to stand out from the crowd as a retailer of quality and integrity.

Be open and honest with your customers. Let them know how to contact you and what all of your policies are, every step of the way. They are far more likely to trust you if you trust them with this information.

9. Accreditation to consumer watchdogs – for peace of mind

On a similar note, a good way to provide peace of mind for your customers – and therefore a greater propensity to buy from you – is to join an industry body and advertise this on your site.

They generally act as a middle man for any dispute that may occur between you and a customer, and provide a code of practice that you must adhere to. The fees to join these (around £100) are well worth the peace of mind that their logo on your site provides customers.

In the UK I would recommend the IMRG and Safebuy schemes. We at http://www.totsplanet.co.uk are members of these schemes as they provide peace of mind to our customers.

About the Author

James Hart has 10 years experience in the e-commerce industry, helping to build and promote high-profile sites including most recently the UK baby e-tailer, http://www.totsplanet.co.uk

Camping with Kids

There’s nothing 6 year olds or older kids love more than being in the outdoors. Camping is an outdoor recreational activity involving spending one or more nights in a tent, a primitive structure, a travel trailer or recreational vehicle at a campsite with the purpose of getting away from civilization and enjoying nature. National parks and other publicly owned natural areas are popular venues for camping. Camping is often restricted by law to designated sites in order to prevent campers from damaging the environment.

You can use camping to teach the kids independence and self-sufficiency. Survivalist campers set off with little more than their boots on the roughest of trails–the idea being to really gut it out. However, you might prefer to set up a tent within a few hundred feet of a campsite. This can serve as base camp from where you can set out on nature hikes, which include fishing and swimming.

Camping usually is a breeze with kids this age. They can help set up the tent and unload the car and can be trusted to remain nearby without continual supervision. One thing though–every child must have their own flashlight! Everyone loves making cool shadows on the tent walls and all hell breaks loose if sharing is required. Kids enjoy looking at the different kinds of insects that they can find. They might even catch frogs and minnows near the lakes and streams. You could let them examine these creatures and return them unharmed to the wild. Also, carry bug jars, nets, and buckets.

Hiking with six to eight year olds is generally a comedy of errors. Buy some of those disposable cameras or provide your kids with cheap cameras at the start of a hike. The novelty of being able to carry their own cameras will get you through your travels that day. Get the photos developed at a one-hour place if possible while you are still traveling – and then make a huge deal about their incredible pictures. Alternatively, you could provide them with some of the latest digital cameras that give an instant printout–however, you better be a “richdad” if you decide to make this choice. The next time you hike, the kids will be eager as long as you provide them with enough batteries and enough film or digital storage media!

Pick a theme for the trips. It helps you organize activities around a central concept. Much easier! Some favorites are “Western” including a chuck wagon meal, corn bread muffins and tea. You could come up with 20 ways to use a bandana around camp and practice tying knots with one-foot sections of rope. At night, you could have a small campfire with twigs and sing old western cowboy songs, try some cowboy poetry and learn a little about the stars.

The “Survivor” theme is another hit, focusing on back-to-the-basics camping essentials. Children this age can grate cheese, stir a cooking pot, fetch water, hand wash and hang laundry, clean up around camp and even pitch the tents with a little help. They love to hike (1 to 2 miles) with frequent breaks. Be sure to take along a trail mix snack the kids can make themselves. You could even make it a bit of a competition. Kids love competitions.

“Explorer” themes like Lewis and Clark are great for this age group, too. They naturally love to explore. Take along magnifying glasses, containers, nets and plastic cups to catch and examine insects. Set a firm, no touching policy for reptiles, insects and plants until they’ve been identified–this saves a lot of worry. Use handbooks to make identification.

Always involve the kids in the basics of the camp. If the adults do all the preparing, cooking, and cleaning, the kids don’t learn. The look on children’s faces is priceless when they’ve made their first wood campfire or pitched their first tent. The best advices is plan with the kids, but always leave plenty of room for running, swimming, biking or just kicking around a ball. Kids love to comb beaches, draw in the dirt and gather rocks. Always have paper and crayons handy, cards are good, too – but don’t worry about entertaining the kids 24×7. Camping is all about learning to entertain you without TV and games. Throw in a book or favorite magazine for yourself, and use your imagination to fill in the rest.

If the kids behave well, reinforce their behavior with a prize. The prizes can be simple little things usually picked up at the local five and dime store…i.e. bubbles, a comic book, a toy car, a box of crackerjacks…etc. You could also shop for your prizes online. Wrap the prizes to make it even more exciting. Gift wrapping material is available in an assortment of colors. With the short attention spans kids have, the new prize will tide them over ’til the next stop.

Take the illuminated “glow” sticks (the kind in the foil cover that you break and shake) to use at bedtime for night lights. Tie one to the ceiling of the tent when the children retire and untie and lower it when you retire. Bring one for each night of camping. The soft glow becomes softer as the night wears on and is gentle on adult eyes! You may prefer the green ones versus the red one–the red are brighter it seems.

The camp journal. Take plain white paper – about 5 sheets per kid. Get you kids to fold the pile in half and hold it together with a paper clip. Get them to color the front cover and title it My Camp Journal. Kids are very proud of their journal. If there are some kids who can’t read or write yet, tell them to do pictures instead of writing in them. They will have a nice memory of their first trip.

Bring cards. You can play many games with a simple deck of cards. They can even be a deck that is missing cards. Young kids don’t know/care. Go fish, and war, and let the kids explore their wild side under controlled conditions.

Pack lots of socks for each child–at least two pairs or more per day. If there is a drop of water, or mud puddle of any kind to be found, they will find it! Don’t expect the socks to come clean even with the best of detergents.

If you have an FRS (family radio service walkie talkies), one of the neat things you and your kids could do, is a game of high tech hide-and-seek of sorts… they can hide out, and you have to find them (providing they can see you when they hide, for safety’s sake)… and vice versa… lots of fun, and you can use the walkie talkies all the time, in stores when you go shopping and she is with her stepmother, or other times. A walkie talkie is a wonderful little gadget for kids!

Just use your imagination and remember what it was like to be a kid… ideas of things, little things you can do to make anything more fun will fill your mind almost instantly! One last thing, when talking with a kid about anything serious, get down to their level! Squat down or get them up on something high so they can see eye to eye with you and not feel intimidated… hug your kid, and be thankful everyday for the blessing they truly are… they can be a challenge, but they are there for you too… remember that.

For more information about parenting dads, please visit: http://www.greatdad.com

About the Author

Paul B

How To Build a Portfolio Without Giving Your Voice Away For Free

There are many practical and rewarding ways to go about gaining experience and prospective clients. When I had a few moments at VOICE 2007 to myself (very rare moments, I assure you), I got thinking about ways that you could create a respectable voice over portfolio without undercutting for work, or worse, giving your voice overs away for free to people who could pay for the service you provided but had chosen to take advantage of you instead. Many beginner voice talent find themselves in a bit of a quandary. They can’t get an agent because they haven’t received any work, and they need an agent (or so some may think) in order to get the work in the first place!

It’s the age old question: What came first? The Chicken or the Egg? I’ve always subscribed to the philosophy that the chicken came first. If not, how would the egg have survived? There are many dangers out there for aspiring talent just waiting to take advantage of them. When you think in terms of being the chicken as opposed to the egg, you are given a variety of choices and the ability to pick the best solution for you to carry you through the longterm when building a voice over career. I often say and reiterate frequently that voice over is not an easy business or a cakewalk. It’s a business first of all and one that demands vocal talent as well as technical skills in order to succeed as a work from home or independent studio operation. One of the best ways to gain experience in both the voice over and recording process (that is of no cost to you) is to volunteer and learn from others who can mentor you. Here are some ideas to gain experience in specific voice over niches:

1. Narration and Audio Books

If you’d like to try your hand at recording for audio books or narration pieces, consider starting with some public domain material available at Project Gutenberg. This database contains tens of thousands of works that are in the public domain that you can practice with or record that are royalty-free and no cost to you to download. Another resource available to you in this field is to join the community at LibriVox.org. I happen to have met the founder, Hugh McGuire, at PodCamp in Toronto. Essentially, this is a community of people who are dedicated to producing audio books that are in the public domain. These audio books are accessible for people to download. The service acts as a creative outlet for many, community, and a means for amateur voice talent to record audio books and receive reviews from others on the website.

2. Children’s Books and Voice Acting

Volunteer at local libraries, hospitals, schools, nursing homes, and so on. Oftentimes, these organizations are more than thrilled to accept your offer to volunteer and you have the opportunity to make a direct impact on individual people or a group of people. This is also an excellent way to get comfortable with reading aloud and developing characters. Your audience will let you know how you are doing and you may find yourself feeding off of them, becoming a better storyteller and voice actor for it.

3. Character Voices and Animation Voice Overs

Join a small voice acting or theatre group that performs radio and or audio drama. There are several groups that you can be a part of online if you are looking for international communities and others that are locally based. Elie Hirschman is a member of Darker Projects, a community of voice talent from around the world who produce audio dramas. Elie has mentioned this group before in his Biz segments on the VOX Talk podcast. Dave Johnson runs a voice acting group in San Diego called the Amateur Voice Acting Group. You can build a credit list through roles that you have performed and count it as voice acting experience.

4. PSAs and Commercials

To try your hand at this kind of work, you could volunteer at non profit organizations or charities. You could look at this volunteering as a form of community service or as a donation or gift. A great example of some serious VO donating was shortly after Hurricane Katrina struck. Voice talents including Peter O’Connell lent their voices in PSAs created for the American Red Cross to help spread the message and encourage financial donations to help facilitate rescue and rebuilding efforts.

5. Technical Skills

If you need to hone your technical recording and editing skills, see if you can arrange to be mentored for a brief time by a professional audio engineer or voice over professional who is a proficient audio engineer. A few hours in their presence, watching, learning and applying what you’ve discovered, coupled with study in online forums or books will greatly help you to develop your audio editing skills. Internships or volunteering on a regular basis at actual recording facilities is also a good idea if you have the time and opportunity to do so.

Volunteering your time and talent, although still providing a service without charge, is quite different from giving your voice away for free. When you volunteer, you do it on your own terms and for the good of others, receiving more than you gave in return. Referrals (or treasures) will be more likely to spring for you professionally from the seeds that you had sown when volunteering your time and talent.

About the Author

Stephanie Ciccarelli is the VP of Marketing with Voices.com, the voice over marketplace hosting more than 10,000 professional voice talents. Stephanie is also the author of The Definitive Guide To Voice-Over Success.

The Secret of Getting Ahead !

“We are what we think!” ~ Robert G. Allen, author of all time best seller Nothing Down, One Minute Millionaire and Cracking the Millionaire Code.
Do you know research has shown that an average person communicates to himself/herself for about 50,000 times per day?!!! In these inner conversations, most of them are about himself/herself, and psychological researchers have found that 80% of our self talk is negative … things like … I shouldn’t have done this… How foolish am I to cause this … Why am I so stupid … Doing these will kill me … Do you know these negative thoughts have a huge impact on us? Research has shown they affect our attitude, our physiology and our motivation to act! In experiments using polygraph (lie-detector) they have shown our thought patterns change our body temperature, heart rate, blood pressure, breathing rate, muscle tension and how much we sweat. In short, every cell in our body response to every thought we create and negative thoughts affect our body negatively. It weakens us, creates tension within us, changes our mood causing us to feel tired and procrastinate over things. While positive thoughts change our body in a positive way making us feel more relax, centered and alert. Also, positive thoughts induce the secretion of endorphins in the brain that help us to reduce pain and increase pleasure.

In order for us to manifest abundance, we had to stomp those ANT! So, what is ANT? According to psychiatrist Daniel G. Amen, ANT are those limiting thoughts we hear in our heads repeatedly…. Automatic Negative Thoughts. So how do we get rid of them just like the real ants that irritate us in life? According to Dr. Amem, we must learn how to stomp the ANT. How??? We must first acknowledge their present, shake them off and stomp them by confronting them. The final phase to eradicate them is by replacing them with positive and empowering affirmation. Remember the law of attraction? …. We are what we think!

First, one has to know is that we are the master of our thoughts. We have the ability to agree or disagree with what we say to ourselves. So how do we judge what to agree and what not? You start by asking questions … Is what is communicating to me empowering or impoverished? Do they lead me to my ultimate dreams or my ultimate nightmare? How do you feel about your inner conversation … are they peaceful, loving and joyful feelings or are they energy draining, tension generating, anxious and uptight feelings? See, our subconscious mind do not communicate to us with words like good or bad…. but it uses feelings as a bridge to reach our conscious mind. So, if we feel good, then continue with that thought, like wise, if we feel terrible then tell ourselves, ok ANT, I know you are here, but there is no place for you right now, please leave. If the ANT is so stubborn and it still persist and affect us emotionally, then I suggest to go thru’ this 2 minute process which I find it very helpful in release negative feelings and emotions that I learnt from the Sedona Training …..
1) First, take a deep breath…. breath in and then out for 3 times.

2) Ask yourself this question….. “Could I let it go?”

3) Ask yourself the second question…. “Would I let it go?”

4) Ask yourself the final question….. “When?”

5) Answer the last question with…. “Now!’ … release it and let it go!”

Last, do positive affirmation every day to reaffirm positive beliefs. Below are some of the positive affirmations that I do….
1) I am a conduit of wealth to God to serve his children.

2) I am that all powerful self that is here to love, to give to create.

3) It is my divine destiny to be successful.

4) Making money is fun, enjoyable and allows me to help more people.

5) Multiple streams of income come to me in a consistence and continual basis.

6) I am a genius and a creator of ideas.

7) I have the skills, knowledge and resources to live my dream.

I take good care of myself and am rich in Body, Mind and Spirit.

9) I am constantly attracted to similar like-minded and action oriented people to my life.

10) I live every day with joy, fulfillment and empowerment.

The more you perform positive affirmation, and visualize on what you really want with feelings and emotions, the more you will saturate your sub-conscious mind with empowering desires and the sooner will those ANT find no place in you. Also, there are accelerated learning techniques that one can employ to turbo charge these cognitive processes in a quicker and more permanent ways. They are now been used by “The Secret” teachers, information and motivational gurus like Bob Proctor, Jack Canfield, Stephen Pierce and many more. For more information, you could perhaps visit my site.

About the AuthorBrightnSunny is a follower of the Law of Attraction and a keen student in accelerated learning by leveraging the sub-conscious. His passion in life is in inspiring and empowering like-minded people to love, to give, to create and to achieve the fullest potential in one’s higher self. You can visit his web site at www.abundancemanifesting.com/freereport for a free exclusive report with Bob Proctor on the science of getting rich!