May 2008
Homeowners Insurance Guide
Like life and health insurance, homeowners insurance is also extremely important nowadays because for most of us it takes a whole lifetime to build or purchase a house and maintain it. Homeowners insurance as we all know refers to safeguarding our house and things kept in it against all warranted and unwarranted dangers.
Homeowners insurance is a package policy that covers damage to both property and liability or legal responsibility for any injuries and property damage you or your family cause to other people. This also includes damage due to pets in the house. Though the homeowner’s insurance also provides coverage for damage caused by disasters and other natural calamities, yet there are quite a few exceptions to it. In case you desire to cover both, flood and earthquake, purchase two separate policies.
There are different types of homeowners’ insurance policies. For instance the policy is different for the owner of a house and for the person who has rented his house. Usually companies categorize their polices under the terms ’standard’ and ‘deluxe’. However if you have your own house then there are several options open in front of you. The most preferred and popular policy in this case is HO-3. In comparison to all kinds of homeowners’ policies the HO-3 policy offers the widest coverage and thus protects your home against all dangers except a few traditionally excluded.
HO-1 or Limited coverage policy for the homeowners is rarely found provides coverage against a set of 10 disasters. The Basic Policy i.e. the HO-2 policy is a protection against 16 disasters while the HO-8 i.e. Older home policy is designed for older homes and reimburses you for damage on actual cash value basis which means replacement cost less depreciation. In case of very old homes full replacement might not be possible.
For those who put their house on rent HO-4 Renter policy is the best of all. This policy safeguards your possessions and all the parts of apartment owned by you against not more than 16 disasters.
The HO-6 policy is devised for people who own a condo or co-op. The policy covers your property and structural parts of the building owned by you against commonly considered 16 disasters.
However an owner as well as a renter can avail three opportunities of coverage. The first is actual cash value policy, which pays to replace your home possessions subtracting the deduction or depreciation. Second level of coverage is the replacement cost where the policy pays the expense of reconstructing your house or belongings with no subtraction of depreciation. The third type is the guaranteed or extended replacement cost policy that reimburses for the expenditure you incur in rebuilding your house that is ruined by fire or any natural calamity. The policy also ensures money if the cost of construction increases after a disaster due to increase in price of raw material. Though the policy will not cover the cost of upgrading the house to fulfill the latest building codes yet additional costs can be met by getting an endorsement to your policy known as Ordinance or Law. Due to the amount of benefits offered, this policy is quite expensive.
Mansi Aggarwal recommends that you visit Homeowners Insurance for more information.
Book Review of “Leadership Wisdom From The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari”
You know, I was very happy to have been able to review this
book. Robin Sharma is a Toronto-based self-improvement and
management consultant that is becoming very well known
internationally.
Aside from having really good book titles, Robin also has some
really good content in those books. I have already read this
book’s predecessor, which is called: The Monk Who Sold His
Ferrari, so let me give you some back-ground.
These fiction books are about a fast-living lawyer that goes to
live with monks in the Himalayas to seek enlightenment after a
sudden heart attack. Now, he’s returned, long flowing robes and
all, in order to spread the word to friends of what he’d learned
about visionary leadership in business and success in life.
The story line shares certain rituals about this success. In the
first few rituals you’ll learn how to make your workplace a
better place to be. What good does it do your company if
everyone hates you and the place they work? Trust me: It doesn’t
help you. You might just find that your greatest resource is
your people and this book could help you unlock their potential.
The rest of the rituals are about things to do for yourself, or
change about yourself that will help you bring your operations
to new levels. If you’ve read this far, then maybe this book has
been brought to your attention just at the right time for you to
be receiving it.
Lastly, I highly recommend spending a few hours on Robin’s
website: RobinSharma.com and take a look at his new book: Who
Will Cry When You Die? Both are VERY impressive.
If “all Things Are Possible,” Why Can’t I Balance My Checkbo
For me, the most terrible time of each month is the day our bank statement comes. We commonly call it BSS (Bank Statement Syndrome). I don’t know why it is, but I have trouble getting the parsonage checkbook to balance with the monthly bank statement.
For me, the most terrible time of each month is the day our bank statement comes. We commonly call it BSS (Bank Statement Syndrome). I don’t know why it is, but I have trouble getting the parsonage checkbook to balance with the monthly bank statement.
That ominous document intimidates me every time it arrives. After all, the bank’s business is keeping track of accounts. They have hundreds, maybe thousands of accounts and I have just one. On the surface, it seems a rather simple thing for me to keep our checking account up to date, but I assure you, it is not. Every time I try, I lose interest.
Keeping our checkbook accurately balanced is almost like a circus balancing act; everything is up in the air. No matter how often I add those figures, I never get the same result twice. I have resorted to adding up the figures at least three times and then take the average. So far, I’ve been batting a .195 and have been dropped by the major league, which has lost interest in my career. This may satisfy my conscience but it does little to appease the accounting department of my friendly banking institution.
The thing flustering me more than anything else are those fees. The average bank has more fees than a West Virginia hound dog has fleas. Everything I turn around there is another fee. (I need to stop turning around.) Somebody needs to invent a fee powder.
Each bank must employ a stable of employees whose only job is to dream up these fees. How else can you explain it? These fees are creative enough to cover every aspect of a person’s wallet, retroactive three generations back.
To open an account there is a fee. Each account carries a monthly maintenance fee. I have been paying this monthly maintenance fee for several years and I have yet to see someone from the bank come out and mow my lawn. What is this maintenance fee? What are they maintaining? They certainly are not maintaining my checkbook. With all the fees I am paying, I would expect someone from the bank come to my house, sit around my table, and help me balance my checkbook. I would supply the coffee and donuts -for a small fee of course.
Another thing I do not understand is the ATM fee. Why do I have to pay money to the bank to get my money out of the bank? Whose money is it anyway?
I think banks offer monthly bonuses to the employee who comes up with the most creative fee for that month to impose on its customers. Fe‑Fi‑Fo‑Fum all those bank fees are dumb.
Once upon a time and far far away, banks would bribe customers with toasters or umbrellas to open accounts with them. Those very days are over, you can be sure. Now, I’m the one bribing the bank to keep my account with them.
Last week I slipped the cashier the usual quarter and asked her to make sure my deposit got in my account, please. I do not know whether it is bribery or just a gamble and probably would do better with the Florida lottery.
I would not mind it so much if only my checkbook would occasionally agree with the bank statement. It takes a lot of effort on my part to keep some semblance of order in my checkbook. I am not always as successful as I would like. I make mistakes and sometimes they cost me. At my bank when I bounce a $3.75 check, I have to take a second mortgage out on my house to pay the fee.
I would close my account and transferred to another bank that there is a closing fee, a transfer fee and a fee that has no explanation whatsoever. Just a goodbye jester from my bank, one last chance for them to screw up my checking book.
Some people think God should do everything for them. All they have to do is sit back and enjoy themselves and God will do everything for them. A prevalent attitude about faith supports this erroneous notion. Someone once compared this idea of faith as putting a “nickel in the slot and pull the lever” and you get what you want.
Some things in my life only God can do and I need to understand what they are and allow Him to do them. However, some things in my life God expects me to do. God will never do these things for me. I must come to grips with this distinction. If I don’t, my life will be miserable.
Some people are sitting around waiting for God to do something He is expecting them to do. As they wait, they become frustrated and start accusing God of all sorts of sinister things.
Part of getting to know God is understanding this. What is my responsibility as a Christian? What does God expect from me?
An Old Testament verse puts much of this into perspective. After Solomon dedicated the Temple God responded by saying, “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14 KJV).
For the most part, many people are sitting around waiting for God to balance their checkbook when He has put the pencil in our hands.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Reverend Snyder is currently ministering at the “Family of God
Fellowship” in Ocala, Florida. More of his articles are available
for reprint at his website: http://www.godspenman.com/
Rev. Snyder is available as a guest speaker. He writes a weekly
column and is the author of “You Can Always Tell a Pastor; But Not Very Much ” available at: http://www.jamessnyderministries.com/
Websites and Newsletters
If you are selling anything, you should have a website. If you are selling ebooks, you should consider it mandatory. How many people do you know who read ebooks but don’t access the Internet? None come to my mind.
The best thing about having a website is that you can quite probably do it free. Later, once you know what you’re doing, you can choose to buy a domain name and pay a hosting service if you want.
You can pay someone to design a gorgeous site for you, loaded with graphics, complete with a secure server and the option to buy right there, but I didn’t. My publisher does the selling. Writing a site yourself, loaded with information and a place to click to send someone to your publisher, is simple.
For the actual mechanics of web site construction, send a blank email to website@sendfree.com.
So let’s talk strategy.
“Hi, I’m Michael LaRocca and these are my books.” This approach will guarantee that anyone looking for Michael LaRocca will find my site. But when we consider that no one’s heard of Michael LaRocca, how many people will seek out my site?
Here’s a possible solution.
Let’s say you’ve written a book where most of the action happens on a snowmobile. Put together the best damn snowmobile page in history. Everything that anyone wants to know about snowmobiles should be on your site. Make it the kind of resource that any snowmobiler will go visit again and again. Then slip a little note in there mentioning your fiction book. People will find your site, and during one of those repeat visits they’ll buy that book.
Basically, fill a need. Give folks a reason to keep coming back even if they think they’ll never buy your book. And please, put more on there than just your book. In my case, I kept a high- traffic site running for almost a year without a single product to sell. My site is a reference source for readers and writers. More writers than readers, probably, but writers read too. Maybe not the most original approach, but I write in so many genres that I haven’t come up with anything better yet. I might later on.
Being helpful is my “sales gimmick,” but I just so happen to enjoy it. People don’t log onto the Internet with the purpose of spending money. They log on for information or entertainment, then maybe make an impulse buy while they’re at it. Give them information and/or entertainment and they’ll keep coming back.
If you throw in just a little soft sell, and do it right, they’ll eventually make that impulse buy as a favor to you. Hopefully after they read one of your books, you’ll hook them and they’ll come back specifically to buy the rest.
Search Engines
The single most important and effective way to bring traffic to your website is to place it in the search engines, in the appropriate categories. You want to place it in the top ten or twenty slots.
The best way to learn how to do this is to send a blank email to tamswriteangles@sitesell.net. You’ll receive a free five-day course by email, over 200 pages long in all, that will tell you more than you ever wanted to know.
Also, visit Search Engine Watch and subscribe to the free newsletter. http://www.searchenginewatch.com. Useful advice on a monthly basis.
Newsletter
Why do I have a newsletter? To tell you when my books are for sale, of course. To announce each new book as it becomes available. It also comes in handy whenever I change the address of my website, as a way to tell folks I’ve moved.
But of course, almost nobody will subscribe to a newsletter just for that info alone. Just groupies. I’ve got over 600 subscribers, and certainly they’re not all groupies. Nope, I’m actually providing useful info and filling a need again. And slipping in occassional the “read my book” message while I’m at it.
If you don’t feel you can write a newsletter, you can use the “free content” sites to get someone else to do the writing. Instead of paying contributors, you simply allow them to include their URL. They’ll appreciate the free advertising, and you won’t have to write for your newsletter unless you feel like it.
But really, why have a newsletter? There are ways to promote web sites (search engines) and there are ways to promote newsletters (announcement lists). Each generates a different type of traffic.
Your newsletter can mention your website, your website can mention your newsletter, and you will gain more users in both areas.
Newsletter Promotion
One quick and easy trick for promoting your newsletter or discussion group is to take advantage of the free announcement lists. It’ll take you about two minutes a week.
What is an announcement list? Put simply, the Internet has users who enjoy receiving newsletters, and receiving regular announcements of what newsletters are out there. These are people with some time on their hands, probably the same people who will be the most receptive to buying your books.
The way I’ve set things up on my computer is, I’ve written an ad for my newsletter. I send the same ad to the announcement lists as often as they’ll allow it. In the same file with my announcement, I have a “monthly list” and a “weekly list” of email addresses that I send this ad to. Also in the file, I record when I last sent my announcement to them.
Once a week, with a two-minute copy-and-paste job, I’m advertising. Every time I do this, more subscribers arrive. Apparently different people are always joining these announcement lists, and some of them are joining my newsletter subscriber list.
You have to join any announcement list before you can announce on it, but you don’t have to receive the announcements yourself. All the major newsletter/discussion group hosts will allow you to set your options to “No Mail/Read On The Website.”
Visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/michaellarocca/files/ and pick up a copy of the file I use. It’s called NewsletterAd.rtf. All typed in and ready to go, except for the “signing up” bit. (If you’re not receiving my free newsletter, you might want to join while you’re there. *grin*)
Once you join each group — that might take you an hour or two — you’ll be ready to send out those weekly emails.
To join the SmartGroups lists, log onto http://www.smartgroups.com. Each group address is http://www.smartgroups.com/groups/{listname}
{listname} refers to the part of the email address before the @
To join the Topica lists, log onto http://www.topica.com Each group address is http://www.topica.com/lists/{listname}
To join the YahooGroups lists, log onto http://groups.yahoo.com Each group address is http://groups.yahoo.com/group/{listname}
Free Content
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PublishInYours is a good starting place. Also in Yahoo Groups are articles_announce, articles_archives, Free-Content, and publisher_archives.
You can also look in any search engine for “free content” and find some more.
I recommend Media Peak (http://www.mediapeak.com) and Nerdworld (http://www.nerdworld.com).
Newsletter Unveiling
I’m not going to list all these sites in my article. You can find them at http://free_reads.tripod.com/websitenewsletter.html. There are 31 of them. When I visited them all, I watched my subscriber base grow by about 200 in a month. I don’t know which sites should get the credit.
Most of them allow you to list your newsletter for a month. I may or may not visit them again at some point, because they take a lot longer than the two-minute job I mentioned before.
Conclusion
Okay, that should keep you busy for a while! Set up your website, set up your newsletter, and do some announcing. If you have any questions along the way, write to michaellarocca@lycos.com and I’ll do what I can.
Michael LaRocca is the author of four published novels and an EPPIE 2002 Award finalist. He is an American living in Asia, and he’s been a full-time author and editor since December 2000. His website is designed to help you find the best free and low-cost quality reads, and to help you improve/publish/promote your own writing free and avoid scams. http://free_reads.tripod.com
Read This Article If You Want To Date A Dream Babe
Are you envious of those guys who get all the babes? Do you want to date a dream babe? Well really it is not all that hard, perhaps you need to work on your approach a little? You know people are people and there is not a whole of difference from dating a total babe or a regular girl next door type. They are just people you know. Perhaps you just need to practice talking to women more, perhaps try to take with some not so perfect “10″ babes. What you might find out is you may end up liking them better anyway, many are much more down to Earth and very nice.
If you have your heart set on dating a Super Model type and you lack the courage to ask one out, you may want to practice on some regular women first and really get to know them and listen to all their concerns. Once you have done this you can study their reactions to various topics of discussions. It maybe you just do not understand women at all. You can of course over come this, by practice, but it will take some time on your part and some genuine interest otherwise well it is just never going to happen you see?
So where do you find the dream babes? Well you can find them everywhere, there are good looking people with pleasurable features everywhere really. Maybe after you date a few of them you will see how silly you were for worrying so much about how a person looks, rather than what they are really all about on the inside. Anyway, good luck in your quest to date the dream babe, but do think on this.
“Lance Winslow” – Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/