Monthly Archives: November 2006

End to Net Neutrality?

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You can help save the Internet!

Please take a moment to invite your friends and colleagues to sign MoveOn.org’s petition here: http://civic.moveon.org/save_the_internet/

Protecting Network Neutrality affects nearly everyone–online activists, Google users, Ipod listeners, work-at-home parents, small businesses, economic innovators, and others.

Together, we can STOP Congress from selling out the interests of the public!

You can also forward the sample message below to your friends.

Spreading the word is critical, but please only pass this message along to those who know you–spam hurts our campaign.


Subject: Congress is selling out the Internet

Hi, _____,

Do you buy books online, use Google, or download to an iPod? Everything we do online will be hurt if Congress passes a radical law next week that gives giant corporations more control over what we do and see on the Internet.

Internet providers like AT&T are lobbying Congress hard to gut Network Neutrality–the Internet’s First Amendment and the key to Internet freedom. Net Neutrality prevents AT&T from choosing which websites open most easily for you based on which site pays AT&T more. BarnesandNoble.com doesn’t have to outbid Amazon for the right to work properly on your computer.

If Net Neutrality is gutted, many sites–including Google, eBay, and iTunes–must either pay protection money to companies like AT&T or risk having their websites process slowly. That why these high-tech pioneers, plus diverse groups ranging from MoveOn to Gun Owners of America, are opposing Congress’ effort to gut Internet freedom.

You can do your part today–can you sign this petition telling your member of Congress to preserve Internet freedom? Click here:

http://www.civic.moveon.org/save_the_internet

I signed this petition, along with 250,000 others so far. This petition will be delivered to Congress before the House of Representatives votes next week. When you sign, you’ll be kept informed of the next steps we can take to keep the heat on Congress.

Snopes.com, which monitors various causes that circulate on the Internet, explained:

Simply put, network neutrality means that no web site’s traffic has precedence over any other’s… Whether a user searches for recipes using Google, reads an article on snopes.com, or looks at a friend’s MySpace profile, all of that data is treated equally and delivered from the originating web site to the user’s web browser with the same priority. In recent months, however, some of the telephone and cable companies that control the telecommunications networks over which Internet data flows have floated the idea of creating the electronic equivalent of a paid carpool lane.

If companies like AT&T have their way, Web sites ranging from Google to eBay to iTunes either pay protection money to get into the "fast lane" or risk opening slowly on your computer. We can’t let the Internet–this incredible medium which has been such a revolutionary force for democratic participation, economic innovation, and free speech–become captive to large corporations.

Politicians don’t think we are paying attention to this issue. Together, we do care about preserving the free and open Internet.

Please sign this petition letting your member of Congress know you support preserving Internet freedom. Click here:

http://www.civic.moveon.org/save_the_internet

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My Yummiest Recipe – Cranberry Oat Bars

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Since it’s Thanksgiving, I thought I would share a recipe.

Don’t let me fool you–Betty Homemaker I am NOT.

But when the urge strikes me periodically to cook or bake, I do like to try to do it well. Soups and other things where you dump a bunch of stuff together in a pot are my speciality.

(Hmmm, you’d think someone like me would be a lifetime owner of a crockpot, but amazingly I don’t have one of those. I should, though.)

Anyhoo, I got hooked on the Cranberry Oat Bars at Starbucks. But I hate to be a part of feeding “The Machine” and realized I could get my fix by making my own. Found a recipe, tweaked some of the measurements and added a couple of my own touches, and oila! The best Cranberry Oat Bars. Mmmmm…

3 1/2 cups cranberries
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup water
1 pkg yellow cake mix (brand name–I prefer Betty Crocker super moist)
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, melted
1 cup oatmeal
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cook cranberries, sugar and water over medium heat on the stove until berries pop. Cool.

Mix cake mix, oatmeal, brown sugar and cinnamon in a bowl. Mix in eggs and butter. Set aside 1 1/2 cups of the mixture.

Put the rest of the mixture in a 9×13 inch pan. Press down. Pour in the cranberry mixture and spread.

Use the 1 1/2 cup cake mixture to cover the cranberries. Sprinke chopped walnuts evenly over the top. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes. Cool and cut into squares.

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Happy Turkey Day

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Well, it’s that time of gorging again, LOL, and before the food coma, I wanted to be sure and thank my occasional visitors here for reading my very poorly attended blog. I do plan to be more diligent in the new year.

I sure am grateful for a lot of things. Among others, I’m very thankful for having the Internet where we can do business, learn new stuff, and meet all kinds of interesting people and participate in conversations with them that we’d never otherwise have an opportunity to do.

That’s pretty fantastic.

I hope you’ll remember to take your own secret moment to share your gratitude with the universe. I really think it makes the world a nicer place.

Have a great Turkey Day, and try not to eat too much. :)

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What is an Entrepreneur?

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As I read blogs and participate in the various online networking forums I belong to, I see this question over and over again.

My answer? Who cares?!

If you want to have more control the quality of your life, and your financial future–Just do it! as Nike says.

I don’t mean to say that you don’t have to be smart, plan well and be prepared for a lot of hard work, dedication and perservance ahead.

But, jeez, Louise! Don’t sit and agonize over whether you are an entrepreneur or not–what a complete waste of time and energy.

Put those thought processes to work on actually DOING something and go for your dreams!

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November 16 Teleclass: Finding Your Right Price

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Over at my Virtual Assistant organization, the Virtual Assistance Chamber of Commerce, we hold a free monthly Guest Expert Teleclass with experts from the business world in the areas of business and marketing.This month’s teleclass was designed with Virtual Assistants in mind, but any business owner who provides professional services and has struggled with setting rates will benefit from this powerful class–registration is free and I welcome you to sign up.
Your Right Price: How to Charge What You’re Worth and Have Your Customers Pay

with Mark Silver, Heart of Business

DATE: Thursday, November 16
TIME: 5pm PST / 6pm MST / 7pm CST / 8pm EST
LENGTH: 60 minutes (please call in 10 min. early)
COST: FREE!

REGISTER HERE: http://www.virtualassistantnetworking.com/webinar-registration.htm

The subject of pricing often brings up feelings of fear and scarcity, and yet there is little guidance on how to handle it.

“Just raise your prices,” and “You have to charge what your’re worth” might sound good on paper, but don’t really tell you how to price without starving yourself, or pushing away your clients.

Yet, pricing doesn’t have to be such a struggle. You’ve had experiences when something was the right price, even if it was a lot of money, and you felt great about paying it.

So how do you get there in your own business?

You do need some practical guidelines, but you also need permission to bring your heart into the picture, because your heart knows more than you think about “Your Right Price.”

A few concepts we’ll be covering:

  • The “Resonant” Price and how to find it;
  • The myth of “worth” and how it keeps your prices low;
  • The dangers that transactional thinking poses to your profits, and how to avoid them;
  • Why what your competition is charging is irrelevant, and how you can set your own pricing confidently;
  • Plus more, with whatever questions come up.

Please join us, and help lay to rest any uneasiness you feel around pricing.

For a sneak peak on some of what we’ll be covering, please check out: http://www.HeartOfBusiness.com/VACOC

About Mark Silver and Heart of Business: Heart of Business is dedicated to helping people who are in business to make a difference in the world, and who also need to make a profit. It’s founder, Mark Silver, is a dedicated user of Virtual Assistance, and teaches that any successful business is going to require more than a single person’s efforts. The author of Unveiling the Heart of Your Business: How money, marketing and sales can deepen your heart, heal the world and still add to your bottom line, Mark is a fourth-generation entrepreneur who has also been named a master teacher in his Sufi spiritual lineage. Thousands of heart-centered business people around the globe read his weekly Business Heart articles, published every Wednesday and available here at http://www.HeartOfBusiness.com

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