Ricardo

I love to go out to eat. Any given day if I had the extra dinero I would visit one of my favorite restaurant or fast food joint and go to town. Now granted if you are healthy conscience person, some places do not appeal to you, but most of them do have healthy items on the menu. Places like Applebee's have weight watchers items so you won't have to feel guilty about eating out. Now the reality is our economy is very poor at the moment. With gas prices going sky high and some companies are not increasing our salaries, it's hard for us to go out and enjoy the simple luxury of dining out. One of my favorite restaurants to go to is Carrabba's. Their Chicken Marsala is to die for! Another favorite restaurant of mine is the Olive Garden. The soup and salad deal is bar-none! And the bread they serve you in the beginning of the dining adventure is sooo good on it's own. I'm sure reading this makes your mouth water and maybe your stomach is starting to growl.

In these hard times though, wouldn't it be nice to make those same dishes you eat at these fast food places and restaurants in your own kitchen? A lot of these establishments have their secret recipes on locked down. Imagine having a cookbook with these same secret recipes at your fingertips! Not only would you save time but also money! By re-creating the same food thats on their menu would make you a chef of a lifetime. Your family and friends will be amazed at your new found cooking skills. I found such cookbook and you will be astonished by how many yummy dishes you can whip up in your very own home. This cookbook created by Ron Douglas of RecipeSecrets is the only cookbook I found that has almost every fast food place and restaurant you have been to or heard of. You don't have to be an expert- just follow the step-by-step instructions and you'll be complimenting the chef...which will be yourself!! No more waiting in line or dealing with people with poor customer service skills. Give it a try and check it out yourself-you won't be disappointed!

http://www.squidoo.com/fastfoodsecretrecipes

Hard disk clone is one sure way to protect and safeguard your data. It presents to you the opportunity to back up all your data.

Cloning your Hard disk is easy and desirable if you know how. As you read on, you will discover the beatiful aspects to cloning your hard disk.

It is a known fact now to most of all computer system owners and users that there are times and moments that their hard disks fail and/or go bad.

Hard disk problem could generate from Virus infection and Spyware attack, Power surge/ fluctuation, Bad sector, Lost Chains, Cross linked files, Corruption of master boot record, Error during deletion of a file or folder, Errorneously formatting a hard drive, etc.

Any of the above mentioned fault or problem exposes you to the risk of losing all information and data on your hard disk.

A second reason why it is desirable to clone your hard disk is the fact that you may opt for a hard disk with memory storage capacity larger than what you presently have available on your computer system.

You may likely be faced with the challenge of desiring to still have all your present hard disk configuration and data intact on the new hard disk you have just bought.

One sure means of getting your heart's desire is hard disk cloning.

WHAT IS HARD DISK CLONING?

Hard disk cloning is the act of copying all your data from one hard disk drive to another. Your new hard disk will now have all your data intact and in the exact locations as the original hard disk that was cloned.

With hard disk cloning, you can be rest assured all your data is safe and preserved.

...to be continued in Hard Disk Clone (Part 2)

for additional information and resources, visit http://hard-disk-clone.blogspot.com

In his final novel, Island, Aldous Huxley wrote about the adventures of a shipwrecked Englishman on Pala, an imaginary island somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. The society on this island had evolved to the point where there was universal economic and social well-being and a high level of respect for individual rights and freedoms. Moreover, individuals were given every opportunity to develop emotionally and spiritually.

One of the many unusual features of Pala are specially trained birds - mynah birds - whose sole function is to loudly screech out Here and now! Here and now! at random intervals.

Huxley had studied many systems of personal development during his life, including the Alexander Technique. He met F. Matthias Alexander, the developer of the Technique in London in the mid-1930s. He was already an established author, best known for his 1930 novel, Brave New World. But his poor physical state threatened to end his writing career.

Huxley was very tall and awkward and subject to fatigue, insomnia and a weak stomach. He was deathly afraid to speak in public. By the time he met Alexander, he was virtually bed-ridden, reduced to writing lying down with his typewriter resting on his chest.

The lessons he had from Alexander enabled him to resume his normal activities and live in good health for another quarter century. He was so impressed with Alexanders work that he referred to it several times in his later writings and even made Alexander a character in one of his novels.

After having lessons with Alexander, Huxley wrote: The Alexander Technique gives us all things we have been looking for in a system of physical education: relief from strain due to maladjustment, and constant improvement in physical and mental health. We cannot ask for more from any system; nor, if we seriously desire to alter human beings in a desirable direction, can we ask any less.

I believe the mynah birds of Island were inspired by his work with the Alexander Technique. Alexander teachers help people recognize and change harmful tension habits. This requires being present - not mentally wandering off into the past or the future. For an Alexander Teacher, helping students be consciously aware of themselves in the moment is a crucially important first step in their learning process.

And not always an easy one. We are bombarded with external tasks and distractions that draw our attention away from our own mental and physical state. More often than not, our work requires an outward focusing of attention on specific tasks, projects and co-workers. Our leisure time, too, is frequently spent on activities like driving, shopping, and watching TV - all of which tend to pull our attention away from ourselves.

As Nicholas Brockbank, a British Alexander Technique teacher, puts it: Most peoples' attention most of the time is anywhere but on what they're doing. Or if it is on what they're doing, they tend to overdo it. In an average day, filled with average tasks, there is only a small portion that requires the mind to be fully engaged; the rest of the time we are free to think about the past or the future - anything but the present! When we are "present", it's usually in an obsessive, almost trance like way.

On Pala, the mynah birds are whimsical devices to help bring people back to the present moment - which is really the only place we can make constructive changes in our lives.

Many spiritual teachers have stressed the importance of self-awareness - Ram Dass even titled one of his books Be Here Now! The Alexander Technique is a very powerful and practical method to learn to be present in yourself, even while engaged in your daily activities. Indeed, the primary focus of the Technique is the way one carries out the ordinary activities of life.

In a sense, Alexander Technique teaching supplies you with your own personal mynah bird, bringing you gently back in touch with yourself.

Freedom to Change - The Development and Science of the Alexander Technique by Frank Pierce Jones contains information about Alexander's connection with Aldous Huxley. You can order it at the Alexander Technique Bookstore (listed under Introductory Books) at http://www.alexandertechnique.com/books

Robert Rickover is an Alexander Technique teacher living in Lincoln, Nebraska. He also teaches regularly in Toronto, Canada. He is the author of Fitness Without Stress - A Guide to the Alexander Technique and is the creator of The Complete Guide to the Alexander Technique website at http://www.alexandertechnique.com

As a marketing consultant and copywriter, I see horrible marketing everyday. The most common mistake I see is what I call, "me too marketing".

"Me too marketing" is when a business creates a marketing piece (advertisement, brochure, sales letter, website, etc.) that looks and reads like an exact copy of their competitions marketing. Instead of demonstrating why their product or service is unique and offers outstanding benefits, they say exactly what their competition says.

For proof of "me too marketing", go to your phone book and look at advertising in almost any category. You can basically exchange the company names in the ads and the ads are identical. Nearly everybody is using the same dull clichs such as, "Our customers are #1", "Serving your needs for xx years", "Family owned", "Best Service", "Friendly Service", "Great Selection", etc. This kind of advertising is SO BORING and overused. That is why it produces such horrible results. If you want to have marketing that generates a lot of quality leads and puts you ahead of your competition, you need to be different and prove why your product or services offers the best benefits to your customer.

To make your marketing great so it consistently generates high quality leads, here is a list of the differences between great marketing and terrible marketing:

1. Great marketing includes an attention-grabbing headline that calls out to the target market and makes a benefit-based promise. Bad marketing does not include a headline and hopes that the reader will find the graphics interesting enough to read the marketing piece. Big mistake!

2. Great Marketing focuses on a powerful benefits-based sales message and promise. Bad marketing focuses on aesthetic graphic design and being "cute and creative" and using as little sales text as possible. A great sales message is a message that promises a specific result. For example, "If our skin care product does not make your face look 10 years younger in 30-days or less, well give you a 110% refund!"

3. Great marketing offers quantitative proof of why a product or service is better than the competition. Bad marketing just says, "we are the best." For examples of how to show proof that your product is better than the competition, your marketing should make statements that you can prove such as, your widget lasts 3.7 times longer, it costs 27% less, our company offers a 90-day 100% money-back guarantee while our competitors offer no guarantee, our widget is guaranteed to last 5 years or we will replace it for free, while our competition only offers a 6-month replacement guarantee, etc. You need to make your marketing promise so strong that people would have to be a fool to do business with anybody but you.

4. Great marketing uses customer testimonials to give social proof of the quality of a product or service. Bad marketing does not. How many times have you purchased something because you read a lot of customer testimonials praising the quality of the product? I know I sure have. Testimonials are one of the most powerful marketing tools you can use, so take advantage of them and use them in ALL of your marketing. You will instantly generate more sales.

5. Great marketing asks the customer to purchase by a specific date and explains step-by-step how to place an order. Bad marketing does NOT ask the customer to buy and does not have a time-limit for the offer. To make your marketing great, you must ask for the order and give a specific time-limit for taking advantage of the offer. For example, "Buy our widget by March 25 and get an instant 10% off", or, "Buy our widget by March 25 and get a second widget at half price". You may think this is a clich but it works over and over. That is why you see it used so often on TV, particularly in infomercials and other direct-response advertising. I promise you that these companies would not be making these offers if it was not leading to a lot of sales and profits.

If you apply these simple strategies in your marketing, I guarantee you will see an increase in sales. Remember, fortune favors the bold.

Peter Geisheker is the CEO of The Geisheker Group Marketing Company. Peter specializes in developing and implementing strategic marketing programs for small businesses. For more information and a free marketing plan ebook, please visit http://www.marketing-consulting-company.com

If you are planning a birthday party for your child, one of the most important considerations should be the food you plan on serving. After all what kid doesn't love to eat?

Finger foods are a great menu choice for kids of all ages. Many of the choices are quite low on the "messy scale," easy to make and just plain fun to eat! (Yes, even when you are preparing them.)You don't need a plate, fork, or spoon.

You are really only limited by your creativity and your budget. Finger foods work best when they are 100% edible that means nothing to pick out or cut off. They include things like cheese and crackers, fruit and a variety of little sandwiches, just to name a few.

Cut the crusts off of white bread and spread with cream cheese and jelly. A combination of cream cheese and a thin slice of cucumber works well too. Cut in quarters.

Cut a small dinner roll in half. Remove some of the bread to make a hollow. Stuff the hollow with chicken, ham or tuna salad. Serve as a topless sandwich with the fillings showing.

Hollow out cherry tomatoes, salt lightly and place upside down on a paper towel to drain for a few minutes. Stuff with cottage cheese mixed with ranch dip.

Deviled eggs are easy and quick and most children like them.

Stuff celery stalks with peanut butter and raisins, spreadable cheese, or cream cheese then cut into bite size chunks.

Baby vegetables intrigue children. Serve baby patty pan squash, zucchini, string beans, and carrots with or without a dip. If you decide on a dip make it with cottage cheese whirled in a blender till smooth, that's a healthier choice than sour cream or mayonnaise.

Spread small tortillas with refried beans, grated cheese and a bit of mild salsa. Fold as for a burrito, tucking the ends in, then cut in half. These can be served at room temperature.

Crackers are available in almost every shape and flavor imaginable. Graham crackers are even fair game, in this case. Younger kids will appreciate those that are animal shaped, such as Teddy Grahams.

Pineapple chunks, apple slices, grapes or raisins, strawberries, banana chunks and peach slices all make great finger foods. Whether you serve them with or without some type of fruit dip, kids will love them.

Buy miniature hot dogs and serve with dips of ketchup, bbq sauce, and a mild honey mustard sauce. French fries are delicious with these sauces as well. Children love chicken wing drummets. Buy them prepared or make them yourself. If you buy them get the plain ones.

Keep portions tiny so little fingers can handle these fun finger food ideas.

Dee Power is the author of several nonfiction books. Pick up your free booklet Party Ideas for Kids Dee's hobbies include gardening and cooking.