It's time for Small Businesses to embrace search engine friendly ...

Search engine friendly ecommerce is all about building roads on the internet that customers use to get to your site. The enabler is the search engine they choose, such as Google or Yahoo. Most Small Businesses have blogs and you should work on your blog once or twice a week for optimum results and use keywords that describe your business and what products and services you offer. This is really the simplicity of it.

In addition to that and what we are going to be talking most about today is that more and more small-business owners are using Social Media to promote their business. That?s the good news from a survey done by online-marketing firm Vertical Response. Indeed, business owners should be embracing Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. The survey results indicate there are two items that need to be addressed immediately: Tracking results from the use of Social Media and the glaring lack of use of LinkedIn.

While most business owners use Facebook and Twitter, they do so without having any idea of their effectiveness. The most important tool you can use to gauge your internet outreach is Google Analytics. It is chock full of information that will help you refine and tweak your use of Social Media and indeed, your website. In his article, 5 simple metrics to track your Social Media efforts, Jason Miller offers advice and encouragement that will benefit you today.

Jason writes, ?While we all know how important it is to market through the various social networks, it is vital to track and measure your efforts for success.? This is critically true, as more time and money are being spent on Social Media by Small Business as each day passes.

The lack of use of LinkedIn is surprising. Only 6 percent of Small Business people use it, according to the Vertical Response survey. Carol Tice, writing in Forbes magazine, puts it eloquently: ?My experience as a solo owner of my own freelance writing and coaching business is that LinkedIn is the online phone book for hiring solopreneurs. Heavyweight companies do searches on there every day, looking for providers to hire.

Seems foolish not to have a presence on LinkedIn, especially when the platform demands so much less of you than Facebook or Twitter. A weekly status update and maybe a few questions answered or comments made in groups, and you?re good. But only six percent of owners said they?re on LinkedIn once a week and others were there even less.?

So, it?s very important to establish and maintain both your ecommerce site as well as your Social Media presence. Effectively doing so will grow your business, perhaps in ways you?ve not thought of.

At AbleCommerce, we can assist merchants with ecommerce software and hosted sites beyond your wildest dreams. Contact us and let?s have a discussion about it today.

Posted in Business Marketing
Posted by ableblog

Source: http://blog.ablecommerce.com/it%E2%80%99s-time-for-small-businesses-to-embrace-search-engine-friendly-ecommerce-use-social-media-and-track-the-results?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=it%25e2%2580%2599s-time-for-small-businesses-to-embrace-search-engine-friendly-ecommerce-use-social-media-and-track-the-results

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Rice continues to lose ground with skeptical senators

ABC News' Sunlen Miller and Rosalyn Oshmyansky report:

Day two of Susan Rice's charm offensive on Capitol Hill brought little support for the U.N. ambassador to become the next secretary of state if nominated by President Obama.

After meeting privately with Rice this morning, moderate Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said she still had questions about the embassy attack in Libya that "remain troubling" and needed to be answered before she can support Rice for secretary of state.

"I continue to be troubled by the fact that the U.N. ambassador decided to play what was essentially a political role at the height of a contentious presidential election campaign by agreeing to go on the Sunday shows to present the administration's position," Collins said after her meeting with Rice. "I would need to have additional information before I could support her nomination."

By way of comparison, Collins jumped at the opportunity when asked about Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., whose name is also on the short list said to be considered for the next secretary of state.

"I think John Kerry would be an excellent appointment and would be easily confirmed by his colleagues," Collins said.

As for Rice, Collins brought up the 1998 bombing of the two U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya when Rice was the assistant secretary for African Affairs. The senator said it's troubling that lessons seemed to be missed because so much of what happened in Benghazi "eerily echoes" what happened in the African attacks when Rice was head of the African region for the State Department.

Get more pure politics at ABCNews.com/Politics and a lighter take on the news at OTUSNews.com

"In both cases, the ambassador begged for additional security," Collins said, "and those requests, as in the case of Benghazi, were turned down by the State Department."

Collins said today she asked Rice what role she played in turning down requested security at the two embassies in Africa before the 1998 bombings.

"She [Rice] said she would have to refresh her memory but that she was not involved directly in turning down the requests," Collins said, adding, "but, surely, given her position as assistant secretary for African affairs, she had to be aware of the general threat assessment and of the ambassadors repeated request for more security."

Rice has spent the past two days in meetings on Capitol Hill, specifically requested by her with individual senators who have voiced concern about her potential promotion to secretary of state.

After the morning meeting with Collins, Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., had a private meeting with Rice but declined to say afterward whether he would support Rice if the president nominates her. Corker stressed that he hopes Obama will choose someone with independence.

"I would ask the president back step away from all the buzz around this particular situation and take a deep breath and decide who is the best secretary of state for our country," Corker said this afternoon. "Hopefully, it will be someone who shows independence and have the ability to lead this nation and the world."

The senator's careful response stands in direct comparison to comments he made Tuesday in an interview with Foreign Policy magazine in which he said Rice would make a better Democratic National Committee chairwoman than secretary of state, based on what happened in Benghazi and its aftermath.

Corker was more restrained today, saying he'll withhold judgment until someone is nominated and he's able to thoroughly examine that person's credentials in order to make his own determination.

Corker is next in line to the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee so will have a prominent role in the nomination process. He said today that he holds the secretary of state at a higher standard than most cabinet members.

"All of us here hold the secretary of state to a very different standard than most cabinet members," Corker said. "Secretary of state is, no doubt, one of those we want someone of independence. We understand they are going to support the administration and all of their efforts, [but] we want someone who's transparent and direct."

Rice Tuesday met with a vocal and tough crowd of Republican senators: Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., Sen. Lindsey Graham, R- S.C., and Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H. The three senators said they were more troubled after their meeting with Rice.

Sen. Joe Lieberman, the independent from Connecticut, so far has been the one lone senator to have met with Rice this week and come away with a positive view.

After his meeting Tuesday, Lieberman said he has his questions answered and does not see anything that would disqualify Rice from potentially becoming the next secretary of state, if nominated.

Also Read

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/susan-rice-gains-little-ground-day-2-skeptical-200803311--abc-news-politics.html

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Many Chinese Characters Fail to Appear

Many Chinese characters fail to show up after being input. For example, typing in the phrase "???? leaves one with only the ??? character. I've tried this on many laptops, with my friends testing characters out as well. I encounter this problem in as many as half of my sentences. Most characters--some being very obscure--show up perfectly, but surprisingly, many common ones do not!

1 person has
this problem +1

Source: http://community.prezi.com/prezi/topics/many_chinese_characters_fail_to_appear

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Why My Son Has A Closed Adoption | Portrait of an Adoption

In honor of November being National Adoption Awareness Month, Portrait of an Adoption is running a special series called 30 Adoption Portraits in 30 Days.? Designed to give a voice to the many different perspectives of adoption, this series will feature guest posts by people with widely varying experiences.

By Anonymous

Picture that your little boy - the light of your life - has two relatives who might be politely described as "troubled." ?They dropped out of high school - the male relative at 13- and they drink a lot. ?This is not good, because both their moms are alcoholics.

They both have tempers and the male relative has been arrested several times - once for hitting his own mother.? He might have sexually abused his little sister.? The female relative has borderline personality disorder, which means she is extremely emotional, needy and insecure.

When your little boy was an infant, these relatives spent time with him.? It didn't go well.? One time, when they were supposed to be watching the little boy, they left him naked and lying in his own pee while they went outside for a smoke. Other times they fought with each other in front of the boy. They forgot to change him and feed him.? He came home with his genitals bright red and you still don't know why.

These relatives - this young man and young woman - really love your little boy. They want to see him, spend time with him, get lots of pictures of him and be part of his life.

But you, as his mother, know they are not safe for him to be around.? They are good people at heart, but they are deeply troubled and you fear they might hurt him.? Either physically or psychologically. They say they "won't take him from you," which is horrifying for the very fact that they even brought it up. Their need for your son seems to have little to do with who he IS but instead, what he REPRESENTS to them as a relative.

Frankly, these relatives scare you.? If they weren't related to him, if they were just neighbors down the street, there is no way in hell that you would let your son spend time with them.

Now picture that these are your son's birth parents.

This is why my son has a closed adoption and always will.? His birth parents are not safe and I will do everything in my power to protect him.

I am the mom, the one who takes care of him and I know what's best.? When he is 18 and he wants to seek them out, I won't stop him.? But this is a CLOSED adoption and will remain so.? Blood is one thing, anger and instability is another.

Child welfare workers took this little boy from his teen parents as an infant because they couldn't even handle the first few weeks of his life.? They were charged with neglect.? I won't go into all the specifics.

Child welfare workers kept him away from his birth parents because they couldn't get it together to even visit with him regularly.? The judge favored them at first because they were such young teens - they were given visitation of two times a week, for several hours at a time.

So in a one-year period, they could have seen this lovely little boy more than 100 times.? Do you know how many times they showed up?? In a whole year?? Fourteen.? And that was with social workers driving TO THEIR HOUSE to pick them up.? Often, they just wouldn't get in the van.? Even if the little boy was inside.

For several of those visits, I actually drove my son there and back.? He was my foster baby, they were his birth parents.? I knew I had no rights; I knew the score.? He needed to visit with them; I would help make that happen, even though I loved him, too.

The birth parents met me four times.? They knew I was adopting their son.? After a year of these failed attempts to parent him, they decided not to fight his adoption.? Since he was my foster baby, I got the first say in whether I wanted to adopt him.? Of course I said yes.? Since he was being adopted through foster care, they knew it would be a closed adoption - no contact.

The last time I saw his birth parents was at the courthouse for a hearing. They paused long enough from fighting with each other to talk to me briefly. They asked me to send photos once a year, around his birthday. That was it.

He was supposed to have one final visit with them, for his first birthday.? They cancelled three times.

After a year of dealing with their nuttiness and drama, I was glad to be dome with them.? I didn't send pictures that year.? If they wanted to know how he was, they could have shown up for the visit.

But when his second birthday rolled around, I was feeling guilty.? Open adoptions are much more in vogue these days. ?And I was watching a lot of "Teen Mom" with Caitlyn and Tyler.? My Catholic guilt set in.

I knew their names, hometowns, etc.? So I looked them up on MySpace (this was a couple years ago) and messaged them.? They responded right away.? To protect my son, I never told them my last name, where we live or where I work.? But we chatted about our son and I sent pictures.? Things were okay for a couple months.? They were, surprisingly, still together as a couple.? They had an apartment and he had a job.

Then the craziness reappeared.? She emailed all the time, in a very needy way, not just for our son but for contact with ME.? I felt like I had to mother her, too.? She didn't understand why I wouldn't text her (um, because then she would know my phone number).

By this point, we had switched over to Facebook.? She started complaining, to all her FB friends, about how she "wasn't allowed to see her son."? I emailed and tried to tell her my reasons why: He was still so young and they were still not all that stable.? Her emails got nasty.? They got mean.? I got angry.? She wanted to see him, talk to him, visit him.? She WANTED him.? It became clear to me that not only is she manipulative, but delusional.

I didn't initiate contact for a while. Then after many months, the guilt returned. i was probably watching "Teen Mom" again, or maybe "Juno." So I responded to her emails. They started off fine and then BOOM she unloaded a crap ton of negative emotions and hate onto me.? It was awful and upsetting.? Her reaction should not be surprising, given the instability of her life and her borderline personality disorder diagnosis.

But having that much hate and vitriol directed at me was horrible.? And it made me very, very worried for my son's safety.? From now on, they will get a very brief email once or twice a year, letting them know our son is fine.? But that's it.? That is it.

I know I screwed up by contacting them. I thought it would make this better for them, but instead, I made it worse.? For that, I am sorry and regretful.? I know they are hurting, I do.? But I have to do what's best for this little boy, since they cannot or will not.

They still don't know our last name, where we live or where I work.? But I know his birth mom is always looking for him.? She is on the Internet all day and we live in the same state.? As soon as my son turns 13 and gets a Facebook account (or its future iteration), I know she will be there: BOOM!? Trying to explode into his life.? I am trying to prevent that from happening for as long as I can.

That's why this blog post is anonymous.? It's why he doesn't show up in my Facebook profile pictures.? It's why I refuse permission for his Little League team or his school to post pictures of him online.? It's why I am not telling you his name or age.

I tried to open up our adoption, maybe just a little bit.? And it was a huge mistake.? The state created closed adoptions from foster care for a reason.

I wish we could all be one happy family.? I envy Carrie's relationship with M (the Portrait of an Adoption family).? But M is older, got her issues worked out and is not harmful to K.

That is not the case here.? I will never badmouth his birth parents to him.? He has seen their photos and I answer whatever basic questions he has.? But he hasn't had many.? When he is 18, he can read my huge, thick file of his records from the state, including his birth parents' full names etc.

But while he is underage, I will protect him and keep him safe. Even from his own relatives.

By An Anonymous Adoptive Mother

Portrait of an Adoption has been nominated to the Circle of Moms Top 25 Book Author Mom Blogs!? If you are enjoying this adoption series, please support Portrait by clicking here and voting!? So easy to do, and you can vote once a day until December 7, 2012.

Portrait of an Adoption is hosted by Carrie Goldman, author of Bullied: What Every Parent, Teacher, and Kid Needs to Know About Ending the Cycle of Fear.? This year?s adoption series is full, but if you have a story you would like to submit as a candidate for next year?s series, please email it to portraitofanadoption@gmail.com.

Find the Portrait of an Adoption community on Facebook
Follow Carrie Goldman on Twitter

Filed under: adoption, adoption agency, attachment in adoption, birthmothers, closed adoption, domestic adoption, foster care, honesty in adoption

Tags: 30 Adoption Portraits in 30 Days, closed adoption, Foster Care, Foster-to-Adopt, protective custody

Source: http://www.chicagonow.com/portrait-of-an-adoption/2012/11/why-my-son-has-a-closed-adoption/

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7 HOLIDAY SHOPPING TIPS | Barbara Friedberg Personal Finance

And Wealth Building Links

Sales abound. Commercials entice. Shopping is in the air.

I like to shop as much as the next. I get swayed by advertisers too! In fact after swearing against buying an iPhone, iPad, or eReader I succumbed to a tablet for my holiday present. True confession; the Samsung Galaxy was on sale for $179, cheaper than the iPad and Kindle Fire I was checking out! And I?ve had fun with the ?toy? downloading apps, playing games, and reading my favorite books. It turns out, it is a great gift. (Okay, so I opened it a bit before the Chanukah?holiday begins.)

Gifts, indulgences and holidays are some of the important things that make life worth living. They build a wealthy life, it?s not only about the money. It?s important to celebrate the joys of life. Where the celebrations go awry are when they go beyond your pocketbook and put you in debt.

Follow these simple tips to celebrate without breaking the bank.

Beautiful and Affordable Gift

HOLIDAY SHOPPING TIPS:

1. Figure out who?s on the list. Make sure you?re not giving to impress but for a genuine reason.
2. Create a reasonable spending budget for the holiday. If you can?t pay for your spending within the month or two, cut back the list and/or the holiday budget.
3. Match a dollar amount to the recipients? gifts. For office friends we usually go to the dollar store, buy a bunch of beautiful containers ($1 each), buy big bags of candy, clear wrapping paper, and ribbon. Place candy in the containers wrap and tie with a ribbon. Each gift costs less than $2 each. Write a meaningful card to show you care!
4. For the kids; big gifts don?t equal love. Give what you can afford and teach the children the holidays are more than just indulgence. Make sure to show the kids how to give to the less fortunate. Donate toys and coats to the holiday drives.
5. Shop for sales and know the regular prices so you recognize a deal. You still have a few weeks until the holidays so take it slow. Don?t make the holidays a strain, enjoy the time of year and remember what the season is really about.
6. Make a list-and stick to it.
7. ?If it?s not on the the list, don?t buy!

Enjoy the Season

?

?Wealth Building & Gift Giving Reads:

Barbara Friedberg Personal Finance Across the Web

How do you keep shopping and spending under control during this time of year?

image credit; destination wedding favors from google images?

Source: http://barbarafriedbergpersonalfinance.com/7-holiday-shopping-tips/

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Energy efficient windows ? Home Improvement: House Plans

November 20th, 2012 by admin Leave a reply ?

I must change the windows of my home. My old windows aren't bad looking. But although they go well with the house and I still like them, they are lacking the much needed energy efficiency. Heating and cooling my home takes five times longer than it is supposed to. I talked to the contractor that I always use, and after inspecting them, he told me that is time for windows upgrade. Because I really like the window design I have, I went in search for the similar window style only with a better energy efficiency index. I found something that looks promising at the Nitro Windows store my next door neighbor suggested. I?ll see soon enough how they will do.?

Source: http://redtreeinteractive.com/energy-efficient-windows/

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Source: http://wlbt-breaking-news.blogspot.com/2012/11/energy-efficient-windows-home.html

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Source: http://bustermcgowan.typepad.com/blog/2012/11/energy-efficient-windows-home-improvement-house-plans.html

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Source: http://allowably-differentiability.blogspot.com/2012/11/energy-efficient-windows-home.html

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Gay/Lesbian relationships | new beginnings

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Source: http://dancingmom72.blogspot.com/2012/11/gaylesbian-relationships.html

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