Archive for February, 2009
Motivation – No Money Involved
Motivation is about moving. Trying to “move” yourself into the right direction. The question is: in what direction and what is right? Normally you follow a daily pattern. The “market” pressure is always high and stress is luring on you. Always ready to seduce.
A simple way to motivate others is to give them positive feedback and to set an example. When motivating people, you sort of act in the role of an advisor; you suggest people to move into a certain direction: the goal. However what goal should they pursue?
If you are to be your own advisor, a first step in (motivational) advising could be to take some distance.
Traveling is a way of taking distance. You literally go away for a certain period in which you are connecting with new situations and outdistancing home and work (if you can).
The distance will help you to perceive more accurately. What are your goals in life and are you heading in that direction?
Traveling, however, costs time and probably money. Second option than: read a book. Brake with you daily rituals and stay at “home” for a day or two. Look for a book that you have on the self unattended, or visit a library or bookshop. Or even visit the internet and do not search for words but let your cursor flow.
Don’t stay away too long. It is about refreshing your memory. It is about looking back and realizing that you have done well.
Breaking the pattern for less than a week, or even for a day, should give you enough energy to continue for years.
© 2006 Hans Bool
Hans Bool is the founder of Astor White a traditional management consulting company that offers online management advice. Astor Online solves issues in hours what normally would take days.
You can apply for a free demo account
February 27th, 2009
Brochure Designing Tips
“Don’t forget to remember me.” In today’s hustle and bustle world, making people remember is very important and it is a must to have something that they will remember you by.
The competition is fierce making it necessary to have all possible avenues explored and tools utilized. Making the right choice is vital for one’s success. The use of brochures is an effective way of promoting your business. They serve as a tool for communication between you and the reader, giving them an idea of what it is that you have to offer. But a poorly designed brochure will only prove to be a waste of time, money and a lot of paper. A well-designed brochure, on the other hand, is a formidable weapon in today’s cutthroat market. Creating the right one is required for the successful promotion of your company.
The first thing to do is to ask yourself what it is that you want to relay to your target reader. Your brochure should be tailor-made for your intended audience for them to be able to relate to what you are trying to say. Think of it as giving your Pop a pant and not a skirt. Next would be the layout of the brochure itself. This aspect requires good planning. You need to have a good cover page that includes information like the name of your company as well as a photo or other information that you may deem important. People are likely to read more if the reading material is attractive. Moreover, the sentences included in the body must be straightforward. There is no need for fancy words but just a direct to the point narrative with the use of powerful words that ought to capture the reader’s attention. Proofreading will also have to be done to avoid occurrence of misspelled words and wrong grammars. It certainly is not attractive for a brochure to have incorrect words and sentences.
Colors also play a big part in making brochures. Make it a point to use colors that are pleasing to the eye. I think you’ll agree that it’s not good to read something with a glaring bright yellow background and a neon green text. Try to put yourself in the shoe of the person who is going to read your brochure and you’ll understand. Finally, all these factors come down to one very important thing. Paper. Choose high-quality paper when you finally have to print your brochure. Remember that the quality of the paper you use will speak a lot about you and will help people make impressions about the truth of what you have been saying.
The brochure you provide will leave an impression more lasting than you can imagine. How well they perform will depend on how good you planned, designed and produced your brochure. If you’ve done your homework then there’s no need to worry.
About the Author
For additional information and comments about the article you may log on to http://www.printingquotesonline.com
February 26th, 2009
Repair Bad Credit – Is it Possible?
To start with, find out the exact cause of your bad credit. It is not possible to repair bad credit until you’re completely aware of the reason you got into it. A few likely reasons for this situation could be a delayed payment of a loan; maybe some sudden events such as medical bills, job difficulties, etc.
Continue Reading February 26th, 2009
Leading ERP Vendor for ETO Environment
The current issue of Automation.com includes a feature article by contributing editor, Thomas R. Cutler about ERP and CAD integration in the ETO (Engineer-to-Order) Environment. Chuck Stewart is Executive Vice-President of Engineer-to-Order (ETO) Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software Encompix based in Cincinnati, Ohio. Stewart said, “If you ask design engineers what an ERP system means to them, you are likely to hear something like “nothing” or “more work.”
According to Cutler’s feature, traditional ERP systems were developed for the repetitive, make-to-stock manufacturer, where there is a clear demarcation between design and production. In that environment the engineer designs the product in a CAD application. After testing and prototyping, the product is released to production, which is managed by the ERP system.
Stewart asserts in the February issue of Automation.com, “The design engineer has little or no interaction with the ERP system and works quite happily in a CAD environment. Following the work of the design engineer, a production engineer then creates a bill of materials (BOM), based on how it will be manufactured, not on how the product is designed. “
In the Engineer-to-Order (ETO) world the role of the design engineer is very different. By its nature an ETO company builds a unique product designed to meet the specification of a single customer. The two worlds of design and manufacturing are closely linked. In many cased the design of the product continues through the product process (design-in-process), incorporating a multitude of engineering changes. These changes can be driven by the customer or by the manufacturer. In this environment a seamless flow of data between engineering and production is critical. An ETO company must integrate CAD and ERP.
Automation.com is for manufacturers and suppliers of industrial, factory and process automation, motion control, machine control, process control and instrumentation products and services. Automation.com attracts engineers, programmers, designers, technicians and other professionals who specify, purchase and use control systems, software, robotics, sensors and other supporting products to automate machines, equipment and factories in both discrete and continuous manufacturing processes.
Encompix (www.encompix.com) has filled the manufacturing software requirements of Engineer-to-Order companies since 1992. The company name reflects the commitment to developing business application solutions that encompass the complex areas of project-based and job-based manufacturing. Encompix provides ETO manufacturers with a competitive advantage by improving bottom line results.
Encompix www.encompix.com Roger Meloy rmeloy@encompix.com 513-733-0066
February 25th, 2009
Sorting through your cellular phone options
Some people purchase a cellular phone for emergency use only, but others use their cellular phone on a daily basis as a replacement for their land-line home phone. With the number of options available for your cellular phone, finding the right phone for your needs can be confusing. However, there are a few basic points to remember that can help you make a more informed purchasing decision.
Battery life is an extremely important consideration when purchasing a cellular phone. Battery life affects how long your phone can last on standby as well as how long you’ll be able to talk before you will need to recharge the battery. Investing in a second battery for your phone will keep you from missing important calls because of a dead battery.
If you’re planning to use your cellular phone as a replacement for your land-line home phone, signal strength will be a crucial factor in your purchasing decision. You don’t want to discover that you can’t call for help in an emergency because your cellular phone isn’t getting a strong enough signal.
Accessories can make your cellular phone more enjoyable to use, but they can also significantly increase your phone’s price. Some of the accessories available on newer cellular phones include storage for frequently called numbers, caller ID, voice mail, call waiting, text messaging, e-mail, and conference calling. Cellular phones can also play simple games, provide Internet access, and integrate with MP3 players or PDAs. Think carefully about how you’ll use your cellular phone to avoid adding a lot of unnecessary accessories.
Weight, size, and color are really just a matter of personal preference. Some people believe lighter and smaller cellular phones are easier to carry around. Since cellular phones have become something of a fashion accessory in recent years, you can choose almost any color you’d like to add a personal touch to your phone.
About the Author
Timothy Gorman is a successful webmaster and publisher of Cellular-Phone-Solutions.com. He provides cellular phone plans, service and free cellular phones on his website that you can research in your pajamas.
February 23rd, 2009
The Most Common Bladder Infection Symptoms
What is a Bladder Infection?
Bladder infection or Urinary Tract Infection (UTI) is a bacterial infection that affects every part of the urinary system. Normal urine contains salts, waste, and liquids but does not contain bacteria. UTI is caused by bacteria that enters into the bladder and then multiplies. These bacteria are usually found in the intestines and often times on the skin surrounding the rectal and vaginal areas. Around 85 percent of UTI cases are caused by the so-called E. coli or Escherichia coli. When this bacterium passes into the urethra it may easily enter the bladder and cause an infection.
Cystitis, also known as inflammation of the bladder, is an infection that covers a wide range of infections and includes irritations on the lower part of the urinary system. Intestinal bacteria are the most common cause of this infection. The bladder wall may get irritated even scarred. A pinpoint bleeding that is caused by recurrent irritation, also called glomerulations, appears on the bladder wall. It is also possible that a person with a worse case of cystitis urinates of up to 60 times per day. People with this kind of infection often experience painful sexual intercourse.
The most common symptoms of this kind of infection are a burning sensation when urinating, strong or persistent urge for urination, passing frequent small amounts of urine, hematuria or blood in the urine, passing cloudy or strong foul smelling urine, a feeling of pressure in the lower abdomen, bladder spasm and low-grade fever. In elderly people, the symptoms can also be weakness, falls, confusion, or fever confusions and also changes in mental state. In cases of young children, UTI is exhibited by enuresis or bed-wetting.
In women, 20 to 40 percent experienced the symptoms of weakness, irritability, reduced appetite, vomiting and diarrhea. This infection occurs mostly in women who have very short urethra. Likewise, women often get worse symptoms during menstruation. In men, a chronic prostate problem increases the risk of bladder infection. Men have the same symptoms as women. There are some cases where symptoms of cystitis vanish without any reason or treatment. Even though these symptoms disappear, they can return after days, weeks, even months or years later.
As of today, scientists have not found any cure for cystitis and are unable to predict which treatment is best for curing the bladder infection. The only good advice is that people should drink sufficient water so that the bladder is completely flushed. The bladder should be thoroughly emptied during urination. Likewise wearing warm clothing on lower parts of the body also stops cystitis. It may also be helpful to drink cranberry juice daily to prevent this infection. Immediate urination after sexual intercourse flushes out bacteria from the urethra. And also it is advised to urinate once every three hours. Most women who pass on urinating for a long period are prone to suffer more infections in their urinary system.
February 22nd, 2009
Can I Sell My House in this Market
Appointing A1 brokers in order to keep your home secure against all potential disasters is essential
You can sell your own house by adopting some sales guides to facilitate you with a buyer.
Renovate your house with a new design by installing new furniture, new, well built doors and windows in place of the damaged and dilapidated ones.
Decorate the garden by planting a few more shrubs, leveling and properly shaping hedges and grass and inserting a new and fashionable water feature in the garden. Painting the walls of a house can provide a new fresh shine.
The kitchen and bathroom gain the maximum attention from buyers. Provide additional features and repair the tiles and dimmers and clean the bath-tub to impress the viewers.
Use the advertisements in newspapers and other print media to advertise the sale of your house. And make use of the many internet selling sites where you can provide creative advertisements for your home.
February 21st, 2009
France’s Winter Towns Could Suffer because of the Higher Cost of Energy
The OECD has anticipated that Europes biggest 675 snowboarding resorts could be abridged to 405 by 2048. Rodolfo Bellucci said that the holiday industry will hurt earlier than that date, not because of a lack of precipitation merely from a worldwide reduction in buying ability related to the price of crude oil. What about global warming? Experts have demonstrated that a doubling of CO2 levels in the atmosphere will augment floor temps by 3 – 6 degrees Celsius. Even so there are still several open queries. The speed of warming and the effects on local climate. Several Celsius warming last century hasn’t been recorded over the last 1000000 years. During the end of the ice-age 19000 yrs ago the warming of six degrees was during a period of 6 to ten thousand years. Prior to that La Tania and Espace Killy were below thick ice and Les Menuires was like Antarctica.
Therefore what is the future for low level skiing mountains areas? Fuel troubles will begin to be sensed by 2013 to 18, with higher costs for a catered chalet, airport taxi firms and skiing lift firms alike – so it could well be the end of weekend ski deals. One half of our economic output depends upon crude oil and the French purchases 85 %. Currently the amount amounts to four % of GDP. Should the price of oil increases as predicted that will constitute 42 percent of gross domestic product, one can envisage the down turn. The European Alps will see the cost of agrarian trade goods climbing, flora species will alter because of a change in rainfall. Locals will depart the area because of the summertime stifling heat. Hydro-power will be a worthwhile source of power on the other hand it’s not obvious whether it will be an advantage since there will be less snow, additional water in the winter seasons and fewer in the spring.
February 14th, 2009
UAV Stealth and Radar Energy Capture for Power and Propulsion
A Feasible Idea for UAV Flight, Possible Research and Development Test; UAV Stealth and Radar Energy Capture for Power and Propulsion to drive your enemy crazy.
Powering a UAV, while being able to reuse it, increasing it’s payload takes a lot of trial and error and engineering and research, which of course costs lots of money. Recently we saw the NASA announced flying a mini-model using lasers to power it.
Search under; (“Mylar Film” Laser Powered Aircraft). This was done by a team of researchers at NASA’s Marshall Space Center. Now then, when we originally thought of such a concept it appears NASA was in fact already on their project. But our idea during the same time period had a few twists. Rather than using the Lasers to power it, we will use the enemies radar. This could be used for surveillance of perimeters of airports, we would in this case use the radar already in the area used by the control tower and approach control. This would men anyone hanging around an airport with a suspicious looking shoulder mounted tube would be seen by the air.
Here is a thought.
Use a composite fiber, with blown chemically coated foam. The main ingredient of the foam, which will make up its body and wings will be Helium and/or N2. Reason being that it will be hard to shoot down with a chemical laser or CO2 Laser, which finds it, shoots at it or is tracking it as a kill target. Also realize that if the inside of the foam contains a substance which can absorb the radar of the enemy into the composite and then use that energy for power of the craft, by way of chemical reaction or enhancement of the battery pack, then you can use the enemies radar to self propel your aircraft, UAV, MAV (micro-air vehicle).
CO2 is the most efficient laser known for drilling lasers, and would also work well with RF to shoot down a UAV, but in this case trying to shoot it down only adds power to the UAV, therefore shoot away, because we can use that same energy all day.
But there maybe a way to have the heat caused by the hitting of the target UAV to trigger a pressure heat switch, which would cause an immediate 90-degree turn as soon as the battery packs were at maximum charge. So in fact the batteries fully charged would speed up the propulsion device and use it up faster while taking on even more energy to while avoiding over load.
If you had many of these units then of course you would over whelm the enemy’s resources. After full charged those UAVs fired up on, each time would trigger another turn and the ones needing charge would look or appear like sitting ducks.
Thus one UAV in a swarm could cause the laser system to go berserk. If you had UAVs in a swarm crisscrossing each other and flying erratically, then you cannot shoot down any of them and drives your enemy crazy to try, while they pay all your fuel costs to and from the mission or target. Or perhaps you can soak up the energy of the laser and use it for recharging batteries to fly another 10 hours. Once charged it would simply start the 90-degree turns and speed up and slow down in a randomly calibrated simulation of a pattern only known to you.
This could also be done using material memory of heated parts of the craft so there would be no electronics on board to scramble or interfere with. As the control surface heats up it bends and cools and bends back at specified intervals and temperatures. This would give it the appearance of totally random flight characteristics and an unrecognizable pattern.
“Lance Winslow” – Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/
February 14th, 2009
Controls – The Building Blocks to Automation
As man learns to make machines that no longer rely on animal
or human power, he finds that he has to develop some means to
manage and control them. Powerful machines let loosed by
themselves will create havoc and destruction.
Control systems have been developed for machines or processes
so as to reduce the chances of failure and to provide the
required results.
Basically, there are open loop control systems and close loop
control systems.
Open loop systems are those where the controller action is not
related to the final result. This means that there is no
feedback to the controller to adjust the control action. A
simple example is when you fill up a tank using a garden hose.
As long as the tap is opened, the water will flow. The height
of the water in the tank will not make the tap close.
However, when you see the tank becoming full and decide to
close the tap, you are adding the element of feedback to the
loop. It then becomes a closed loop. But it is a human
controlled closed loop.
Closed loop systems use feedback from the final result to
adjust the control action accordingly.
But how would you like to stand in one position, watch the
process going on and operate valves, or switches according to
the conditions you want? This is very tiring, isn’t it?
Moreover, human beings are prone to fatigue, boredom, and
misjudgment. Manual control works very well only if the speed
of the response is very slow, and the result is not very
critical or important. Human controlled systems can become
very unreliable.
Machines are made to replace humans in most control systems
today.
The basic feature of any control system consists of 4 elements.
These are the measuring element, the controlling element, the
set value, and the correcting element.
The measuring element provides a means of detection/measurement
of the conditions required. This is the “eyes” or “ears” (or
other senses) of the system.
The controlling element is the place where all the decisions on
what actions to take are being made. It can be considered the
“brains” of the system. It must make decisions based on certain
guidelines or values required. The set values are inputted into
the system by humans.
The correcting element is where the correction to the process
is done. It can be considered like the “hands” or “feet” of the
system. It must take certain physical actions to bring the
processes back to the set value.
Well folks, be in control!
“Gain MORE Time and Get MORE Profits!”
Proven Time Management System sharpens your Focus.
Direct your efforts to things that really matter.
Watch your Business Grow and your Profits soar.
Time Management System
About the Author
Many years of working experience in Marine, Facilities,
Construction has given the author material for writing e-books
and articles related to engineering, and management. Subscribe to facworld ezine
More information at Marine and M & E
February 13th, 2009
| Previous Posts |