President Obama’s Speech to Students

September 7, 2009 by JD · 2 Comments
Filed under: Musings, Politics, Success and Failure 

As you may, or may not, know, I no longer watch TV. That means that I no longer watch all the news shows and the Sunday morning political shows.

I find that I don’t miss all the bickering and misrepresentation that goes on and my life feels just a little more peaceful as a result.

So, I was pretty much unaware of President Obama’s scheduled speech to students in American classrooms until I saw tweets showing up (on Twitter, of course) saying that parents were being given the choice not to have their children watch the speech in their classrooms.

Now, that’s all I know about the controversy surrounding this, but it feels like more political wrangling and bickering more than anything else.

So, I went looking to see if the White House had released the text of the speech, and they have. Here are the Prepared Remarks of President Barack Obama, Back to School Event, Arlington, Virginia, September 8, 2009.

Being a somewhat thoughtful person who would rather respond to facts than react to vitriol, innuendo, and mischaracterizations, I read the speech for myself. The first time, I read it to understand the gist of it. The second time I read it, was to look for anything that might be objectionable. The third time was to enjoy the meaning of it.

I only wish I could write that well and be that inspirational.

Success is not easy. It takes a long time and lots of hard work, and education is a vital component in achieving the success we want.

Those who learn how to depend upon themselves for learning, who set goals and work to achieve them, and buckle down and keep working when the going gets tough are the people who will succeed at what they want to do.

We need more of these people.

When I was a student, I was complaining about one of my teachers and Mom told me, “The best teacher cannot teach someone who does not want to learn; the worst teacher cannot stop a dedicated student from mastering that subject.”

Now, my memory is dim on this, but I think she said that Martha Berry said that to the students when Mom was attending Berry Academy way back in the mid-20th century.

Tomorrow, President Obama will tell students across America this…

But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.

And that’s what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself.

Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That’s the opportunity an education can provide.

What parent would not want their child to hear the President of the United States of America address personal responsibility in such a way?

Why is this objectionable?

(Hang on a moment. I’m going to go and read that speech one last time…)

I’m back.

This paragraph jumped right off the page when I read it…

Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.

That’s the American dream expressed in four short sentences.

We make our own future.

He will continue…

But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.
That’s OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, “I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

These people succeeded because they understand that you can’t let your failures define you – you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time. If you get in trouble, that doesn’t mean you’re a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you get a bad grade, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying.

No one’s born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work. You’re not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don’t hit every note the first time you sing a song. You’ve got to practice. It’s the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it’s good enough to hand in.

No matter what we want to accomplish with our lives, in order to be successful, we need to set goals for ourselves and then work to achieve each of those goals, one step at a time.

Find ways over, around, under, or through the obstacles that will show up in our path. Keep on trying until we succeed at what we want to do.

If you’re looking for the secret to success, “keep on trying” may not be the only secret, but it is a vital component.

That doesn’t mean we have to keep knocking our heads against a wall when we run into one. We have to evaluate our approach and our goal and where we are at the moment. Then, we need to apply our intellect, imagination, and experiences to the problem and try a new approach.

Keep on trying.

Everyone encounters obstacles that must be overcome…

And even when you’re struggling, even when you’re discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you – don’t ever give up on yourself. Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country.

The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.

It’s the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.

So today, I want to ask you, what’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country?

Finally, President Obama will challenge the students to do their best…

…I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don’t let us down – don’t let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it….

This is a great speech. It tells the truth about accomplishing what we want for ourselves, our families, our communities, and our country – and I might extend that to include our world.

It reminds the students that everything won’t be smooth sailing, but we can accomplish the things we set our minds to achieving.

It challenges each student to do his or her best – to be an asset rather than a liability.

I feel sorry for any child who is not allowed to watch President Obama address the students of our nation tomorrow.

Do you think there may be something objectionable in it? Then take a few minutes and read it for yourself…

Prepared Remarks of President Barack Obama, Back to School Event, Arlington, Virginia, September 8, 2009

Act on your dream!

JD

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Arguing against your limitations

August 11, 2009 by JD · 4 Comments
Filed under: Musings 

First, I want to thank Susan Murphy for tweeting about her new favorite blog post. Otherwise, I probably never would have seen it.

Today, Christopher S. Penn wrote a great blog post about Arguing against your limitations, and I recommend that you read it.

All of us has something that holds us back, even if it exists only in our own thoughts. It doesn’t have to be this way.

Why accept your own self-imposed limitations?

I also enjoyed reading his thoughts on blue ocean marketing strategies. I think many people who do online marketing should think about this. Maybe you?

It won’t take long to read his post and the comments are interesting, too.

Act on your dream!

JD

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Printing 3-D models in stainless steel

August 4, 2009 by JD · Comments Off
Filed under: Arts and Crafts, Musings 

At one point in my life, I wanted to be an engineer. Well, yes, the kind that drives steam engine locomotives, but that’s not what I’m talking about here. I wanted to be the kind of engineer that used a slide rule when I was young and then moved to computers, later.

I’ve been fascinated with mathematics and doing practical things using math.

It turned out that I just wasn’t suited to be an engineer. But, I still love practical applications involving mathematics.

One such application is CAD/CAM (computer-aided drafting and manufacturing). I taught myself how to use a couple of CAD programs about 20 years ago and enjoyed it, but not much more than drafting using a big table and plastic triangles. It just isn’t for me.

Along the way, I learned a bit about 2.5-D and 3-D CAD.

Just as I’ve always wanted to be a sculptor, but lacked the talent, I’ve always wanted to build 3-D models, but lack the talent for that, too. So, I’ve remained an outside observer, watching the developments and learning a bit, here and there.

I’ve watched as it became possible to print a 3-D model in resin and plastic. In fact, I have a small, plastic sculpture of a human head that was printed using one of these techniques sitting on a bookshelf across the room.

Today, I ran across a company called Shapeways and loved their slogan, “Passionate about creating.”

What intrigued me, initially, about Shapeways is that it is kind of a Zazzle or CafePress for 3-D model designers. You can upload your model and they’ll print it for you. You can then have it shipped to you or even sell it in a Shapeways shop.

As I said, I don’t have the talent to do this, but I enjoyed looking at some of the galleries.

A friend of mine, who is a sculptor, and I spent some time experimenting with creating what are actually 2-D models with depth using a laser engraver many years ago. I could do the drawings for that and we tried printing the products in plastic and wood. We even tested creating wax models from the originals and casting them in silver and pewter.

It was intriguing and had some nice possibilities, but that was about the time Mom became sick and I chose to close my metalsmithing business and become her full-time caretaker. So, we never really did much with it, after that.

Still, every now and then, he sends me a link to a website or an article cut from one of the many magazines he reads that talks about new developments with laser engravers and 3-D model printing.

This time, I get to send him a link to something he may not know about.

One thing that really caught my attention is that Shapeways now offers the ability to print 3-D models in stainless steel.

That’s a huge jump forward, as far as I know.

It’s an interesting process. They print the model using layer after layer of stainless steel powder that is bound with some kind of binding material. When printing the model is completed, it is heated and cured, and then infused with bronze. After that, it is polished and ready for delivery.

One thing I really liked is their section on Expectation Management talking about the limitations of the process and the requirements for successful printing in stainless steel. It shows, to me, that they have caring people there who want you to be happy with the results you’ll obtain.

I know absolutely nothing about Shapeways other than what I read this morning. This is not a personal recommendation. However, if you have the talent to create 3-D CAD designs, Shapeways may be something to look into for fabricating your models.

It’s not something I’ll be doing, but I do find it fascinating.

Act on your dream!

JD

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I enjoyed taking a day off

July 30, 2009 by JD · 2 Comments
Filed under: Musings 

Yesterday and today, I did something that I rarely do. I took a day off and enjoyed napping and watching Stargate SG-1 DVDs I rented from Netflix.

I’ve been working very hard for the last few weeks updating older websites, creating a new one, working with clients, and blogging now and then.

Yesterday, around noon, I got offline to call my daughter on the phone. I missed her, but we got together today.

I’d been working yesterday for about nine hours when I stopped to call her and I was tired. A new DVD from season one of Stargate SG-1 had arrived the day before, so I microwaved a couple of corndogs and sat in my favorite easy chair to watch an episode and relax.

I love that show. I used to think that Star Trek was, without a doubt my favorite show of all time, but, lately, Stargate has been giving it a run for its money.

Since I don’t have cable or satellite TV, I missed all the original episodes of Stargate on Showtime and the Sci-Fi channel. But, now, years later, I can watch the entire series in order by renting them from Netflix.

I don’t spend much time watching TV, especially after the analog to digital conversion, because I don’t get any digital signals where I live. Analog reception was not always good, but digital is non-existent.

It’s just as well, because I’ve been concentrating so much on work for the last month.

Yesterday, however, I was caught up with most of the items on my to-do list and decided to take a break. I intended to take a few hours off, take a nap, and go back to work, but it didn’t turn out that way.

After watching a couple of episodes and taking a short nap, I woke to an approaching thunderstorm. I went around the house inserting manual air gaps into the power connections to my computer and major appliances (i.e., I unplugged them).

I pulled out a book to read and just as I got settled, the power went out.

Seeing my opportunity, I changed clothes and headed into Murphy to pick up some groceries.

I used to hate rain and storms, but after living in the dessert in Arizona for a few years, I’ve loved rain ever since.

I enjoyed the drive into town. All the trees and other vegetation are in their full summer lushness, and you won’t find many places on Earth with more variety than we have here in the mountains of western North Carolina.

Even with the overcast, rain, and steam rising from the road, the beauty of this area can be almost breathtaking.

The rain stopped about the time I got to the grocery store, so I spent a few minutes there before heading back home.

Armed with a fresh supply of corn dogs (I think I’m addicted to these lately, but don’t really know why. It’s not something I normally like.), I was set for another episode of Stargate.

About that time, another thunderstorm approached, so I settled into another nap until it passed. That was pretty much the pattern for the rest of the day, all night, and half the day, today.

I finally woke up and was ready to go to work today about 1:00 pm. It’s now about 12 hours later (1:45 am), and I’m thinking a break and another Stargate episode sounds good.

In a couple of hours, it will be time to pull out my to-do list and start working on the most important thing on the list, but I’ve enjoyed taking a day off and doing nothing but enjoy living and napping.

I hope you get to do what you love doing.

Act on your dream!

JD

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Goodbye to all my friends at WRCB TV

June 14, 2009 by JD · 2 Comments
Filed under: Musings 

I originally sent this as an email to the President of WRCB TV in Chattanooga, TN. He sent a nice reply, and I thank him for that.

These were some of my thoughts on the morning of the transition from analog to digital TV.

This morning, at midnight, while watching Conan O’Brien, the end of an era arrived and now it’s time to say goodbye to all my friends at Channel 3.

For almost 25 years, I’ve started and ended my day with your broadcasts.

Jed, Latrice, and David started my day with news and weather and the Tonight show ended my day with humor. During the day, the Today show provided information and news. I enjoyed watching Ellen and some of your afternoon game shows. Your evening news gave a recap to what was going on during the day.

I moved to Murphy in 1984, about the same time as Bill Markham and Paul Barys [moved to Chattanooga], I think. Even though I’ve never met them, it feels like I’m listening to friends when they come on TV.

Channel 3 has been my main source for news and weather, but now all I can do is visit your web site, which is very slow because I have only a slow dial-up connection to the Internet.

I live in an area north of Murphy where there is no broadband Internet nor cable TV available – and probably won’t be any time soon. Still, I would not exchange the peace, quiet, and beauty of where I live for better connections to the rest of the world.

When I first attached my new digital converter a few months ago, all I got was “no signal.” This was not unexpected. Reception here, where I am surrounded by mountains, has never been good, even with a signal booster.

I rescanned this morning and still, no signal.

So, goodbye TV. Goodbye Channel 3.

It was fun while it lasted.

All the best,

JD

As I said, above the quote, he sent a nice reply and suggested that I look into satellite services.

I’ve already thought of that and decided that what they offer isn’t worth the cost, as far as I’m concerned.

It sounds like I watch(ed) a lot of TV, but that’s not really true.

I have a TV in my office and have it on with the volume turned down low much of the time, but I rarely give it my full attention. There were some exceptions, however.

I enjoyed watching the first half-hour of the Today show to get a daily summary of the news. I was a big fan of Meet The Press when Tim Russert was the host, but not so much now that David Gregory has succeeded him. I liked watching the evening news and weather and usually stopped what I was doing to watch the monologue on the Tonight show.

Otherwise, it was on in case there was breaking news and as a background so that barking dogs and passing vehicles didn’t distract me as much as they may have otherwise.

I might be interested in cable TV, if I could also get broadband, but I’m not interested in satellite TV and don’t want their Internet service either.

So, after about 30 hours with no TV, I don’t miss it as much as I thought I might.

Act on your dream!

JD

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Thoughts on being sick and having a dead computer

February 10, 2009 by JD · 4 Comments
Filed under: Macintosh Computers, Musings 

The last two weeks have been interesting.

In late January, I was sick for about a week and just didn’t feel like doing much of anything. On top of that, I’m still going through Mom’s personal papers and some of her notes about the pain she tolerated for years and the gradual abandonment she felt as her friends visited less often were depressing to read.

Normally, I’m a rather optimistic person, even though I’ve been trained to look for problems over the last 30 years. Still, I plan for the worst and hope for the best.

But, for about a week, between being sick and depressed, I just didn’t feel like doing anything and it was one of the lowest weeks of my life.

Finally, last week, I started feeling better and I came into my office and booted my computer. It came up, as it normally does, and I was copying some files into a new folder in preparation of writing them to a CD when my Mac suddenly froze up.

This is not something I expect from a Mac. Of the several I’ve owned since 1984, I’ve never seen one do what this one did.

I tried to shut it off, but eventually had to unplug the power cord when nothing else worked. I let it sit a few minutes and then I plugged it back in and hit the power button.

Nothing.

What!??!

I was ready to panic, but it was too early in the morning and I wasn’t awake enough to exert that much energy.

So, I sat back in my chair and started wondering what was wrong.

But, I didn’t have enough time to really deal with it, because I had a couple of appointments later in the day and I started preparing for them.

I pulled out my old iMac and at least I was able to check my email and write a couple of documents.

The next day, I started thinking about what I was going to do to get my computer up and going, again.

I wasn’t worried about losing anything, because the computer has two harddrives and I make regular backups, but I needed that computer working if I was going to get some vital work completed.

I tried a couple of things I knew, but they didn’t work.

Finally, late on Friday afternoon, I contacted Bob Nunn at Operator Headgap Systems in Memphis, TN.

Bob is a Mac genius and knows more about Macintosh hardware and software than anyone else I know. I’ve purchased a couple of refurbished Macs from him and some other peripherals and it was the last computer I bought from him that was having the trouble.

When I got him on the phone and started describing what happened, he told me step by step what I needed to do.

I’m not a hardware guy at all. I hate opening a computer’s case, but I love to dig around in the software.

He told me to unplug everything, open the case, remove the battery, press the CUDA switch, press the front power switch, replace the battery, let it sit for a few hours, and then plug it back in and try rebooting it.

Now, I didn’t even know a Mac had a CUDA switch, and I’ve been using them since about a week before the original Mac was introduced. (I was a computer salesman and bought one after participating in a demo before they were introduced.)

It was Sunday morning, before dawn, when I finally had the time to work on this. Frankly, I put it off all day Saturday, because I hate doing anything with computer hardware.

It took only a few minutes to do what he told me, and then I let the system sit a few hours while I worked on email on my older computer.

When I reached a point where I was ready to tackle it, I plugged in only the power cord, the monitor, and the keyboard and mouse.

I prepared myself for disappointment, because I’d never seen a computer that wouldn’t do anything come back to life after pressing a couple of buttons.

I pressed the power key on the keyboard and heard the familiar chime as the computer came back to life.

It took several minutes to start up, but when I came back with a fresh cup of coffee, there was my familiar login screen with a list of users I’d defined.

I clicked on my main account, entered the password, and everything loaded as expected. I had to reset the date and time and a couple of preferences, and it was working great.

After shutting it down, I plugged in the other cables and rebooted and it has been working flawlessly since then.

I was sure it was time to replace the power supply or maybe the motherboard, but Bob saved me a lot of time and money by knowing what was really wrong with it.

Is it any wonder that I buy my computers from him, now?

He told me that now and then he sees a Mac go completely crazy and the procedure he outlined is able to bring many of them back to life. After all the computers he has repaired and refurbished, he has learned some things that many of us never discover.

If you’re a Mac user, you may want to read his Bob’s Mac User Tips page. He has some great advice there.

I’m not one to waste money on buying new computers. I’ve been burned too many times in the past few decades by being an early adopter and living on the bleeding edge of technology. Now, I like to buy computers that are a couple of years old and still in great condition and I don’t use the current release of any operating systems, especially if they’re major version updates.

I’ll let someone else work through all the new-release bugs and I’ll get the system after the issues have been resolved and someone else has paid the price premium for buying the new computer.

With my last four Macs, the average useful life of the computer has been around ten years and I just don’t experience problems with them. Is there any wonder that I have refused to use a Windows computer for about 15 years.

Now, I’m feeling much better and my trusty old Macintosh is once again working flawlessly, as I’ve come to expect.

Life goes on.

If you are a fan of Macs and especially if you have some of the older models, you need to get to know Bob Nunn. He has some fantastic deals on used Macs and be sure to note that the prices on his site include shipping.

I am happy to personally recommend Bob and his business to you.

Act on your dream!

JD

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NeoOffice – a great replacement for Microsoft Office on Mac OS X

July 31, 2007 by JD · Comments Off
Filed under: Macintosh Computers, Musings 

A couple of weeks ago, I installed NeoOffice.

Now, to be perfectly honest, I wasn’t replacing Microsoft Office. I quit using Microsoft products over ten years ago and didn’t upgrade after Word version 5 for the Mac, several years before.

I’ve been using Microsoft products seemingly forever. I started with Word version 1.0 on the Mac and I used Microsoft Office on both Mac and PC for quite some time, since Windows 1.0 and Microsoft Office 1.0.

I even wrote a book using Word 5 for Mac that included table of contents and an index, so I feel like I know the product, even if I haven’t used any of the most recent versions.

For most of the last ten years, ClarisWorks and AppleWorks have offered everything I needed, and since I own my own business, I’m not tied to any corporate dictates about the software I have to use.

The only problems I faced were people who sent me documents in .doc format, which I could not read and didn’t feel much of a need to read. If they sent the files as Rich Text Format (.rtf) files, then I could import most of them into AppleWorks – at least well enough to read.

I was perfectly content until last month, but then my needs changed.

I have plans to write a variety of reports and short ebooks over the coming months. I spend a lot of time researching various things and I’m going to write about them and make the reports and ebooks available – some free and some paid.

In the past, I would have written in PageMaker and produced the PDF files by printing to the included Acrobat distiller.

With my new iMac, I can no longer use PageMaker, so I had to look at different solutions.

As you may already know, it is easy to print to PDF from just about all Mac OS X applications, but I discovered something that was very surprising.

It seems that the applications I had available could create active hyperlinks in the docments, but those hyperlinks would not be active when I printed the documents to a PDF file.

I tried AppleWorks, and, while the PDF showed the correct words styled with underlines and blue text, the links were not active; I could not click on the text and go to the URL in my designated browser.

I downloaded Nisus Express with the same results.

I tried Voodoo Pad with the same results.

While researching the problem, I found on a forum (don’t remember which one) that Word would create PDF files with active hyperlinks. That wasn’t an option for me.

So, if Word would do the job, I wondered if there was an alternative that would do what I wanted. I’d been following OpenOffice for awhile, and I was willing to install X11 and OpenOffice if it would do the job.

While researching this, I ran across a project I’d never heard of: NeoOffice.

NeoOffice takes the OpenOffice code and turns it into a Mac OS X application, complete with easy installation, and the Mac look and feel.

Best of all, it wasn’t related to Microsoft and it was free.

The trouble was, however, that it was a 145 MB download, and on my slow dial-up connection, that just wasn’t feasible.

I mentioned this on the NeoOffice forum and several people offered to burn a CD and send it to me. I accepted an offer from one very generous person and a few days later, when the CD arrived, I was able to install and start using NeoOffice in less than an hour.

The NeoOffice team used to ship CDs, but discontinued doing so due to lack of demand.

Linboo.com had been shipping the NeoOffice CD, but when I tried their site, it was offline. I didn’t know if it would come back or not.

Since then, it has, and LinBoo ships a variety of Unix and Linux CDs, including NeoOffice 2.1 and OpenOffice. If I’d waited a day or so, I could have ordered directly from them.

I am perfectly happy with NeoOffice 2.1. It does exactly what I want to do.

At first, I was really disappointed. I tested a short report with multiple hyperlinks, and, when I printed it to PDF, I got the same results I’d been getting with all the other applications I tried. The resulting PDF had what looked like links (underlined and blue), but they were not active.

So, apparently, the fault lies with the Print to PDF feature of Mac OS X. I would say that not creating active hyperlinks is a rather major shortcoming of the programming. I’m surprised that Apple hasn’t fixed this problem.

However, when I went looking through the NeoOffice menus, I noticed “Export to PDF.” That sounded promising.

Instead of printing to PDF, I chose to export to PDF and that made all the difference.

The resulting PDF file has real, active hyperlinks.

Why is this so important?

If I were writing a short report of 10 pages or less, I would have to edit the document and print to PDF. Then, I’d have to load my full version of Acrobat (version 4), add hyperlinks to the PDF in the appropriate places, and then re-save the PDF report.

For a one-off version of a short report, this is not much of a problem. However, the longer the report or ebook, the more the links and the more trouble to rewrite and update all the links. I don’t even want to get started if I have to go through such a complicated process.

I intend to update these reports and ebooks as it becomes necessary, and I don’t intend to go throught this process over and over. I should be able to modify the report and produce an updated PDF with all the links in place, directly from my word processor.

Now, with the NeoOffice export to PDF command, I can do this exactly how I want. Perhaps I’m getting lazier as I get older, or maybe I’m finally learning about this “work smarter, not harder” concept.

I tried a variety of different links of varying complexity and all of them worked as desired when I exported the document to PDF.

I’ve tried exporting word processing docs (Writer) and spreadsheets (Calc) and the resulting PDFs were exactly what I wanted.

Now, I am not a corporate power user and have no need for probably 99% of what NeoOffice provides, but now I have the perfect application for creating reports, ebooks, and even books with tables of contents and indexes.

A side benefit – that some of my friends may appreciate more than I will – is that I can open .doc files directly and they don’t have to send the files to me in .rtf format. I still serve on a nonprofit committee that makes small seed grants and matching grants for fundraisers to small grassroots nonprofits in western North Carolina, and the standard format for sharing information by nonprofits is Microsoft Word.

If you have a broadband connection, you can downlowad NeoOffice for free, or you can get a CD from LinBoo.com.

If you don’t use a Mac, you may want to look at OpenOffice.org or purchase a CD with OpenOffice from LinBoo.

I’ve had no problem with NeoOffice and I spent half-a-day putting the various modules through their paces. The only thing that feels weird is that NeoOffice opens all the modules in one integrated whole and that feels more like AppleWorks than Microsoft Office. As long as your computer has enough RAM, it shouldn’t be a problem. Right now, I have Radio Userland, TextWrangler, Safari, Preview, and NeoOffice all running in a Mac with 512 MB of RAM.

I’m happy with NeoOffice, and I recommend it to you if you want to dump Microsoft Office.

Will it do everything you need or want?

I don’t know. You’ll have to test this for yourself, but the cost is right. There is very little work or risk involved in trying it for yourself.

Act on your dream!

JD

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Ken Evoy releases an updated edition of the Affiliate Masters Course

November 25, 2006 by JD · Comments Off
Filed under: Affiliate Marketing, Musings 

Several years ago, I needed a way to earn a living while staying home and being a full-time caretaker for my Mom.

I tried several things before I decided that affiliate marketing was for me.

There were many reasons for this decision. There was a low cost to entry since I didn’t have to buy merchandise, pay for inventory or interest, hire staff, set up an online order entry system, manage customer service, deal with shipping and returns, and do many of the other things that are necessary when you are selling products or services to the general public.

As an affiliate marketer, basically I work in advertising and marketing, and someone else handles all the rest of the necessary activities.

The downside to affiliate marketing is that there is a lot to learn, there is cut-throat competition, what works for me may not work for you and vice versa, and the Internet and online marketing is changing all the time.

At first, I knew a lot about the technical aspects of building websites, but I did not know nearly enough to be effective as an affiliate.

Fortunately for me, I found Ken Evoy and I have been successfully following his advice for several years. My affiliate marketing business is growing and I’m earning more as time goes by.

Ken provided a couple of things that made a huge difference in my affiliate marketing success. I appreciate his down-to-earth, practical advice and the products he has created to help me become a more-effective affiliate marketer.

The first was a free email course he called the Affiliate Masters Course. It was a five part course sent via email. Later, it was redone as an ebook in PDF format. Earlier this month, he released the November, 2006 updated edition of the Affiliate Masters course. I just finished reading it and the updated edition offers lots of information that was not included in the previous version. I recommend this book to you.

The cost? It’s free.

Download your copy of the Affiliate Masters course now. You’ll find about 160 pages of outstanding information. Others sell ebooks with much less information for $50 or $100 or more. Get this one and read it. Learn what you need to know and put it to work. I believe your affiliate marketing efforts will be more successful if you implement what Ken tells you.

Along the same lines, Ken wrote an ebook called “Make Your Site Sell!” a few years ago. The original version sold for under $20 and the updated 2002 version sold for about $30.

A couple of months ago, Ken decided to offer Make Your Site Sell! 2002 as a free download.

This multi-volume ebook contains over 1,500 pages of outstanding information and has been worth thousands of dollars to me in revenue I may not have earned if I hadn’t followed Ken’s advice.

While some of the information is a bit dated, the core information remains very valuable and you will find much information of use to you in this PDF format ebook. I regularly refer to it and continually discover useful tips and techniques to improve my marketing efforts.

If you want to build an online business, you need to read this ebook. Download it today.

These two ebooks made a great impact on the effectiveness of my online marketing and my affiliate marketing business continues to grow today based on what I learned from them.

Of course, reading and learning isn’t going to build a business. You have to take what you learn, plan how it will help your business grow, and then put it into action.

Act on your dreams!

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Make Your Content PREsell! is now free. Download it today.

October 16, 2006 by JD · Comments Off
Filed under: Affiliate Marketing, Musings, Site Build It 

Only one week after deciding to stop charging $30 for Make Your Site Sell! and to give it away for free, Ken Evoy decided to give another of his products away as a free download.

Now, Make Your Content PREsell!, which sold for $10, is free and you can download it without even giving your email address.

This ebook, in .PDF format, can be read in a relatively short time span.

If you are attempting to earn all or part of your income through online marketing, you should read this book at least once. There is absolutely no risk. It’s free.

Dr. Evoy, through the information released in Make Your Site Sell! and all the integrated tools and webhosting incorporated into Site Build It! in the years since MYSS was released, has proven that his C-T-P-M model of online marketing works successfully.

What does “PREsell” mean?

It is the job of a merchant to do the selling.

It is the job of an affiliate to offer information of value that will help the reader get into a more receptive frame of mind and then link to the merchant.

This process of passing along valuable information and linking to a merchant is called PREselling.

It is not our job to sell, just to get the reader interested enough to click on the link and see what the merchant offers.

You can learn more by downloading Make Your Content PREsell!, reading it, and learning how to more effectively communicate with the people who visit your websites and blogs.

Don’t miss this free offer.

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Happy Birthday, Dena!

October 13, 2006 by JD · Comments Off
Filed under: Family, Musings 

Today is my daughter’s birthday.

Happy Birthday, Dena!

I hope this is your best year yet.

I love you.

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