Special Speech

I was doing some keyword research on the Google AdWords site
recently, and discovered something interesting. There is intense
demand for keywords having to do with digital TV topics. Google
AdWords will predict the average CPC (cost per click) for any
given keyword (or phrase). “TiVo” averages $3.82 per click.
“DirecTV” is $7.27. “Dish Network” is a whopping $12.46.
I kid you not. People are willing to pay Google $12.46, on
average, to get their text ad listed at the top of the pile.
This doesn’t mean everyone pays this much, of course. It just
means that’s how much you have to pay to come out on top.

Now the obvious question becomes: “Why on earth would anyone pay
more than $12 for a single click?” The answer, I discovered
today, is that Dish Network has a pretty extensive multi-level
affiliate program. They don’t let individuals work with them
directly, but there are a number of resellers out there who do
most of their business through individual affiliates. The reason
people are willing to pay $12 for a click, is that if it results
in a sale, the affiliate can make $100 or more.

I did some more research, and I believe I’ve found the highest
paying site out there: BuyMyDish.com.
You can earn $120 per sale right off the bat, increasing to $140
if your volume increases. Also, if you get others to sign up for
the affiliate program, you can make a little extra on any sales
they make. Just Go
here, select “Affiliates” from the top menu, and then select
“Join”. It takes only about 2 minutes to get signed up. The
program is managed through MyAffiliateProgram.com, a reputable
online affiliate management company. They give you a wide range
of tracking tools, so you can figure out how often your banners
are being displayed, where your clicks come from, and which ones
result in sales. This is far more advanced than anything you’d
see from Clickbank. They also offer a pretty good “Affiliate
Training and Education Center”. This site has all sorts of
resources and ideas on how to be more successful as an
affiliate, including how to set up your own website easily, and
start to drive traffic to it.

One reason these affiliate sales programs are doing so well, is
that Dish Network is currently giving away the equipment. You
get a free dish, free receivers in up to four rooms, free DVR
upgrades, and free HD upgrades. Add to that the fact that the
service is cheaper than cable, and it’s pretty easy to get
people to make the switch. Satellite service from the likes of
DirecTV and Dish Network has been steadily gaining on cable for
the last several years now.

Once you’ve signed up, the question is how to get your affiliate
links out there for people to click. The easiest way would be
using Google AdWords. The problem with that, as you may have
figured out by now, is that it’s going to be expensive. One way
to get around this is to look for lower cost keywords that might
still grab interested visitors. Try some common misspellings.
“Dsih Network” and “Free Dsih” will be much cheaper, but you may
end up getting some decent traffic anyway. Also try some related
phrases like “satellite comparison”. This will be particularly
helpful if you have a website that has some sort of comparison
on it.

The other easy way to get some links out there is to set up a
blog. See my previous article about how to get set up with your
own blog site.

I think this is a pretty good program. You can’t really lose
anything, and it has potential for big profits if you start
making sales. Sign
up, and let me know how it goes!

There are numerous theories with regard to the causes of chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia, many of which may be indeed touching on the truth or at least touching on an aggravator or contributor to these afflictions. Diseases in general have been growing in epidemic proportion over at least the past 20 years, especially in the United States, where our increasingly toxic environment and lifestyles have drifted further and further away from what is natural in the name of progress, technology, and profit. Chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia are no exception, the two often being experienced together, and possibly symptoms of the same disease. Many agree that having one or both of these conditions reflects a compromised immune system, but whether this has resulted from viruses or chemicals or heredity or DNA mutations or other causes is much debated. As in the question of the chicken or the egg, I think the answer lies in what came first, at least in terms of triggering the disease.

We all have unique genetic weaknesses and tendencies, but usually a disease that we may be predisposed to will not surface unless an external environmental factor triggers it. Viruses lay dormant in all of us, as do many bacteria. The body’s immune system keeps them in check unless the body is damaged and becomes weak and imbalanced to the point that viruses and bacteria grow out of control and flourish, causing disease. But what external “triggering” factors came first to weaken the immune system to allow such a systemic breakdown to occur?

The answer most likely lies in how increasingly toxic and contaminated our bodies are becoming. This cumulative toxic overload is the result of the growing number of harmful chemicals we’re exposed to in our everyday life — over 10,000 in food processing and preservation alone. We eat chemically-processed foods that contain preservatives, pesticides, dyes, hormones, bleaching agents, neurotoxic artificial sweeteners, steroids, and antibiotics, drink hundreds of chemicals in our tap water, breathe in fumes from factories, are bombarded with radiation from numerous and growing sources, and chemicals are outgassed in our homes from our Teflon-coated pans to our stain-resistant carpets. We are surrounded with plastics, paints, solvents, cleaners, medications, and many other toxic chemicals, and when you mix them all together in our bodies with our own natural chemistry, as in a chemistry lab, the results can be unpredictable and potentially explosive. In addition, antibiotics that destroy good bacteria along with the bad have been dangerously overprescribed, contributing to weakened immune systems, and expensive unnatural synthetic drugs are being dispensed in record numbers that do not cure but only suppress symptoms, while causing a plethora of harmful side effects to the tune of billions of dollars for the pharmaceutical industry.

Recent studies have shown that antibiotics and chemicals can permeate cell walls and destroy, damage, or mutate mitochondria, which most claim cannot be regenerated. What are mitochondria? In short, they are the powerhouses of our bodies. They assimilate food and produce critical nutrients, but their primary function is to manufacture adenosine triphosphate (ATP), a vital component of life. ATP is believed to provide 90-95% of all cellular energy and has been found to act as a neurotransmitter extracellularly. Also, an enormous amount of ATP is required by our energy-hungry muscles. Unfortunately, the brain does not store ATP, ATP cannot be shared between organ systems, its supply is very limited, and the demand for it by the body is very high. Therefore, ATP must be constantly synthesized to provide a continuous supply of energy or an ATP-imbalance occurs, which may lead to neuronal cell deaths, chronic fatigue from lack of energy, nutritional deficiencies, and muscle weakness and pain as in fibromyalgia, among many other symptoms. ATP imbalance or poor regulation can be very dangerous - too much ATP in a few areas of the body can actually be just as damaging as too little, such as in spinal cord injuries.

Scientists have theorized that mutations in mitochondrial DNA also contribute to aging, and when the production of ATP is interrupted or stopped for any number of reasons, a cascade of free-radical damage begins. The key to chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia, and many other diseases, may lie in cellular damage by chemicals, while the road to recovery may lie in eliminating toxins that cause cellular damage and pursuing natural courses of treatment that help the body heal itself.

Although most doctors and researchers do not believe mitochondria can be repaired or regenerated, they used to say the same thing about brain cells, and that has since been disproved. The body is a miraculous creation, and if it is not abused, it has many self-healing and regenerative abilities. I came across one University of California-Berkeley research project recently where mitochondria in rats were able to be rejuvenated with large doses of acetyl-L-carnitine and alpha-lipoic acid, common natural dietary supplements, which also appeared to make the old rats more youthful. Also, Cordyceps given to mice caused an increased supply of ATP in the liver, has substantially benefitted chronic fatigue sufferers, and when given in human clinical trials, demonstrated overall improved liver health. And to relieve pain, guaifenesin has been used successfully by individuals with fibromyalgia. It is believed that guaifenesin works both by causing urinary excretion of excess uric acid, phosphate, and other substances that should have been excreted by the kidneys that have built up in the cells and tissue to the point that they depress ATP formation, and by actually reinforcing cell walls to minimize entry by toxins and further damage to the cells. (There seem to be very few all-natural products that contain guaifenesin without ephedrine or chemicals. I found one product made by Naturade called Herbal Expec that I would recommend)

After “Yuppie Flu” first surfaced in the 1980’s, a few progressive doctors tried giving patients injections of adenosine monophosphate (AMP), a chemical precursor of ATP, but this was expensive, inconvenient, difficult to tolerate, and the results were very slow and gradual. Next, in the 1990’s, oral ATP supplements were tried, and are still available today, but they had side effects and did not allow the body to naturally assimilate the ATP itself which makes it less targeted and effective. But more recently, there has been significant success with another precursor to ATP - D-Ribose. D-Ribose is a complex sugar with no side effects. It goes to work quickly in the body, effectively fueling the mitochondria so that additional needed ATP can be produced for many hours at a time. In particular, it increases ATP production in muscles, including the heart, therefore besides improving muscle strength and helping alleviate pain, it additionally benefits individuals with heart problems, and increases blood circulation, oxygen levels, and energy levels. Ribose formulas often include creatine, as the two are believed to work synergistically together to increase overall ATP production.

With cellular damage, and the accompanying gut damage from ingesting chemicals, there are also often multiple nutritional deficiencies that result from poor absorption and assimilation, regardless if you think you have been eating well, therefore a potent vitamin and mineral supplement and an immune system builder are also recommended, preferably liquid sublinguals (under the tongue) to enhance absorption. Since our soil has been damaged from chemicals, and thus much of our food is lacking in vitamins and minerals, the vitamin/mineral nutritional supplement should be the one thing you take for life to maintain health even if you feel fine. For those who can afford it, a new spectroscopic test is available from Spectracell that examines white blood cells, which help protect the body and combat disease, and can pinpoint your specific and unique cellular deficiencies.

Although the natural supplements mentioned above may be extremely helpful in repairing cell damage over time, increasing energy, and may potentially help alleviate symptoms in the short-term, in order to foster long-term healing and maintenance of health, it is critical that toxins that store in fatty tissue be removed from the body, such as with binding whole grains, natural detoxifiers, and chelation therapy, and further toxic exposure that contributes to cellular damage and other health problems be avoided. Since your body is likely chemically addicted to many substances, a natural course of treatment that involves the elimination of chemicals often results in short-term withdrawal symptoms or temporary exacerbation of symptoms where you feel worse before you feel better, but this stage passes quickly.

The more you understand what you’re fighting and your options, the better armed you will be to battle it. And half the battle is knowing and eliminating what caused the disease in the first place. Although there are supplements that may help, natural steps to better health do not have to cost a fortune. There are many inexpensive dietary measures that can be taken. To learn more about the thousands of harmful toxins in our food and everyday environment and how to avoid them, how to bind toxins and remove them from your body, how to treat symptoms of disease naturally, and how to adopt a non-toxic chemical-free diet and natural lifestyle that will help your body heal itself, please visit the NatureGem website at http://www.naturegem.com. From the home page, you can also link to a copy of this article with active links to helpful resources.

About the Author: Deb Bromley is a science and technology researcher and the President of NatureGem Nontoxic Living, an organization devoted to promoting awareness of toxins in our food and environment that can cause disease, and providing access to nutrition information, natural remedies, and alternative health resources.

Every industry has a lingo. Whether you’re an engineer or a
firefighter, verbal shortcuts, acronyms and slang pepper our
workdays. The graphics world is no exception. Here are a
few terms you might hear while working with a graphic artist
or a program producer on your PowerPoint presentation.

Aliasing:
This technical term is also referred to as “stair-stepping” or
“jaggies.” It can occur on the rounded edges of lettering or
placed objects, particularly those with diagonal lines.

Aspect Ratio:
The area of your projected or viewed image. Referred to as
a width-by-height ratio such as 4:3 or 16:9. A standard US
video monitor is 4:3, widescreen is 16:9. These ratios
translate into pixel dimensions, which then translate into
inches when setting up your presentation document.

Banding:
On graphics saved with less than one million colors, large
areas of color may become defined as colored sections
rather than one continuous field. A photographic sky may
split into light blue, medium blue and dark blue, for
example.

B-A-T:
B-A-T stands for Big (Blank) Text. The “A” is interchangeable
with a few different words, so we’ll leave the most common
three-lettered one up to your imagination!

The B-A-T slide is simply a slide with a few words or
perhaps a short quotation in big, bold text. It could be a
“chapter” header like “Economics” or “Summary.” There is a
current trend to use more B-A-Ts than bulleted slides. Many
communications experts believe these types of slides have
more impact and retention potential on the audience.

Build:
The presentation process of starting with a title or headline,
then introducing other elements to the slide such as bullet
points, artwork or photographs.

Bullets or Readers:
The standard bullet point slide is more simply referred to as
a bullet or bullets. Older graphic artists and producers,
particularly those with backgrounds in video production, may
refer to bulleted slides as “readers.” This term comes from
the use of a device called a character generator (CG) that
“reads” text over a camera shot or background artwork.

Bump:
Making the type size, charts or other objects bigger to
improve readability.

Deck:
A common alternative term for a presentation.

Foils:
Another term for slides, often used by European
presenters.

MTL or Cover:
MTL stands for Meeting Theme Logo. The MTL is typically
your first and last slide in a presentation. It may have your
corporate logo, the name of your presentation, artwork that
matches your conference or meeting signage, or a
combination of all of these things. The MTL may be part of
an opening loop of material as the audience arrives in the
staging area.

The MTL may also be referred to as a “cover” within the
presentation, and appear as two presenters hand off to
each other or any other place where there is a change in the
show flow.

On shows using cameras for image magnification (I-Mag),
the video director will usually freeze an image of the MTL to
use onscreen when there is not a suitable camera angle.

Points and Picas:
These two “P” words all have to do with sizing. Points and
Picas refer to the height of lettering. You may hear an artist
discuss an increase in “point size” to make a slide more
readable to the audience.

Pica (pie-kah) is a printing term and heard less often. It may
come up if creating handouts is part of the presentation job,
but most artists stick with points these days.

Pixels:
As many digital photographers already know, Pixels are the
tiny squares making up your presentation. Creating a
presentation for 16×9 widescreen monitors will require your
artist to translate pixel dimensions into inches in the
PowerPoint page setup.

Pings:
With the newer versions of PowerPoint,
ping
(.png) files are supported. Graphic artists may use pings for
placing logos or other special artwork into the presentation
because they include a transparency channel allowing the
artwork to “float” over the background.

Power Prompt:
In some lower budget productions, a second computer may
use PowerPoint as a makeshift TelePrompTer. The
operator will create high-contrast slides - bright yellow
letters over black for example - and enter large bulleted
points to keep the presenter on track with key points.

The second computer is wired to a video monitor that only
the presenter can see.

Rollout:
Spoken more often by producers, the
rollout
is any plan for distributing your presentation to audience
members or other interested parties after your show is
completed. It could be via e-mail, duplicated CDs, print or
many other electronic methods.

Safe Action and Safe Title Areas:
These are
technical video terms and refer to the area within
10% and 20% of your screen edges, respectively. It is a
safety measure to ensure your graphics will not be cutoff on
any edge due to a poorly adjusted video monitor. Not as
applicable when using projection, although scrims and
drapes may block portions of the full image.

Walk-In Look:
This may be as simple as your MTL, or it could be
something more complex like an animated, timed loop of
moving art and images. The walk-in look is what your
audience will see while being seated prior to your
presentation.

PowerPoint is a registered trademark of Microsoft
Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

Gary Lewis is a graphic designer with over twenty years of
experience in television production, post production and
presentation design.

For creative, Royalty-Free backgrounds and stock photos
(and plenty of free samples!) visit Pro Background
Art today!

Ah, the crisp cool breeze, the invigorating feel of the outdoors as the leaves start to turn colors, the sound of kids laughing on their way to school.

Fall is the time for new beginnings. New classes, new curriculum, new programs, new start. You’ve relaxed over the summer and now you’re ready to reach higher, push further.

You’re pumped. You’re excited about starting a new season. You’re ready to tackle new challenges.

There’s nothing like feeling the momentum of new beginnings. If you’ve been wanting to lose weight and get into amazing shape, why not use this momentum to your advantage?

Momentum is one of the most underrated factors in achieving a better body.

Momentum can give you what you need to start an exercise program, stick with it and reap major rewards.

As we all know, it’s very easy to do something when we feel excited about it. This is not a bad thing if you learn to use it.

This initial excitement does wear off eventually, but by the time it does, you could be so far ahead already, that maintenance is easy.

Why not use this initial excitement to kick-start your treadmill exercise program?

Plan a program that you can get excited about, something that will push you just beyond where you are at right now physically. Then go for it! Don’t wait until that excitement wears off. Do it! Live in the moment.

With that in mind, here are 3 steps to planning a treadmill exercise program that gets results:

1) Grab a journal or notebook and write down everything you want to achieve in vivid detail. How do you want to look? How do you want to feel? What would you like to fit into? etc.

Reread this vivid description at least once a day. By keeping in mind the end result, you’ll be highly motivated to push yourself further.

2) Start exercising and make notes on every workout session that you do. How long did you go? What was your perceived exertion? How many miles did you cover?

3) Review your workout session notes every week and then add something a little bit more challenging to the next week’s workout.

For example, if your average exercise time last week was 20 minutes - up your average time to 30 minutes. If your perceived exertion was 5 on a scale of 1 to 10 then up it to 7. Make these little adjustments every week and you will be progressing leaps and bounds towards your fitness goals!

Plus the inspiration you get from charting your progress will keep you going long after that initial momentum is fizzling out.

By following these steps and using the fall momentum to inspire you, starting a treadmill exercise program becomes both exciting AND easy. Learn to use momentum to your advantage and you’ll achieve more than you ever dreamed possible!

About the Author

Kathryn O’Neill is chief editor for Treadmill Review, a consumer oriented website focusing on the home treadmill market.

For weekly best buys, sales and free treadmill brand reviews, go to http://www.TreadmillReview.net.

There is no real cure for canine hip dysplasia (CHD) just yet,
but there are conservative or non-surgical ways to relieve its
symptoms. These include the use of drugs to relieve pain and
inflammation. Rimadyl, Ectogesic and Deramaxx are effective and
have given a lot of suffering dogs the relief needed to live a
normal life. Weight loss programs, controlled exercise and
physical therapy are also very effective in certain cases.

When conservative treatment is not enough, the only other option
is surgery. Surgery can be very effective as it corrects the
underlying cause of hip pain which is a malformed joint. Surgery
is approached in two different ways when dealing with hip
dysplasia. Prophylactic surgery is done to prevent the
progression af arthritis while therapeutic surgery aims to treat
already arthritic hips.

Triple pelvic osteotomy is the primary preventive procedure
available. It involves cutting the pelvis in three places and
rotating the hip sockets to provide better coverage. This
procedure is effective as long as it is done before arthritis
sets in or before the joint is damaged. Another kind of
preventive surgery, although still being studied if it is
effective or not, is pubic symphysiodesis. This involves
manipulating the way the pelvis grows to ensure a tighter hip.
This procedure is done on very young dogs.

Therapeutic procedures include total hip replacement and femoral
head ostectomy. Total hip replacement is performed mainly on
larger dogs. High density, medical plastic is used to replace
the socket and a high-quality, non-corrosive alloy is used for
the ball. This procedure has a high success rate, almost
completely eliminates pain and enables the dog to completely
resume activity.

Another therapeutic procedure for hip dysplasia is femoral head
ostectomy. It involves the removal of the top of the femur which
then eliminates the painful grinding at the hip joint. The femur
is then allowed to float freely causing the formation of scar
tisue which then serves as a false joint. This procedure is not
recommended for mild cases of arthritis and is generally
effective only on smaller, well-muscled dogs.

For more answers on questions about canine hip dysplasia, please
visit us at AllAboutPetArthritis.com and read our report, “Your Questions on Canine
Hip Dysplasia - Answered”.