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Tips Links and Tidbits Newsletter


Tuesday 10th July 2007

Index




Basic Computer User



Microsoft readies six security bulletins, 3 of them for critical vulnerabilities
With six security bulletins on tap for next week’s Patch Tuesday, Microsoft is preparing to issue three critical updates, two important, and one moderate more


Information scientists Liu Wei and Chen Junjie, of the Taiyuan University of Technology in Shanxi, China, have combined two different types of web search tools which could revolutionise the effectiveness of internet searching, academics believe. more


Using a variety of nefarious methods, phishing and pharming are a consistent problem that threatens everyone with identity theft. If you recognize what these methods are and how malicious users employ them, you can keep yourself and your users from becoming a victim. more


Can a Hefty Graphics Card Upgrade Overload my Computer?
An upgrade to a powerful graphics card could cause stability issues with your computer. Read today’s tip here to learn why this might happen, and what you can do about it.

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Advanced Computer User



Five things you never knew about flash drives more


Scientists tap “wobble power” for wireless sensors
Tiny generator is capable of producing microwatts of power by using vibrations from the surrounding environment, say U.K. scientists. more


Laser innovation speeds up hard disks
Researchers claim that lasers can be used to boost read/write speed of magnetic media by 100 times, with prototype due within decade. more


Bitty Bots compete in Nano-Soccer more

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Health



Lillian Reekie, Author of Hidden Dangers, is speaking at two locations in Sydney soon...
Her web site is www.hiddendangers.com.au

Her Sydney events are:

Dee Why RSL
Thursday August 16th, 6:50 - 10:00pm
Colonial Room. 932 Pittwater Road, Dee Why
Tickets $15 at the door or pre paid $10
Call Linton or Ginny: 02 8213 8985 or 0425 783 654

Parramatta RSL
Friday August 17th, 6:50 - 10:00pm
Cnr Macquarie & O’Connell Sts, Parramatta
Tickets $15 at the door or pre paid $10
Call Joann: 02 9674 1161


Taking your meds? Sensors (big brother) will know
High-tech monitors, Webcams and GPS devices can help caregivers check in on elderly parents--from afar. more


Finding “Berried" Treasure in the Hills of Tennessee

By Jon Herring

One of my favorite memories of growing up in Tennessee was walking in the woods picking blackberries during the summer. And I wasn’t disappointed on my recent trip back home. This past weekend, my fiancee Kelley and I grabbed a basket and went out to pick our fill from the prickly bushes.

In less than an hour, we had a basket full of berries, which we used to make a cobbler, top salads, add to a smoothie, and garnish an evening martini.

Delicious though they are, berries are a lot more than a sweet summer treat. They are low in calories and low on the glycemic index, and they are an excellent source of fiber, vitamins (particularly B, C, and E), minerals, ellagic acid (a potent cancer fighter), and antioxidants. In fact, according to the USDA, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, and blueberries all rank in the top 10 in antioxidant capacity of over 100 common foods.

Some of the most potent antioxidants in berries are called anthocyanins. They are responsible for the purplish-black color of blackberries and blueberries, and have been shown to fight everything from heart disease and cancer to memory loss.

So, whether you pick ’em in the woods or pick ’em up at the store... whether you eat ’em fresh or frozen... have some berries a few times a week. A handful makes a great snack.
From the www.earlytorise.com newsletter
[Early to Rise Copyright ETR, LLC, 2007]
If you’d like to subscribe to Early to Rise or suggest it to a friend, please visit: here


Women: Just Say No to Cholesterol Drugs

By Al Sears, MD

Despite spending their money on millions of prescriptions, women continue to die in record numbers from heart disease. And don’t expect the American Heart Association to tell you why. Their new guidelines for women sound like they came directly from the drug companies and processed-food manufacturers.

Their advice? Avoid nutritional supplements... take aspirin... eat more low-fat foods... and have your doctor “monitor" your cholesterol. (That’s just asking him to hand you a prescription.)

This advice is troubling. For one thing, cholesterol doesn’t cause heart disease. New science shows that abnormal inflammation inside blood vessels is the underlying cause of our epidemic of heart disease. This inflammation then acts upon cholesterol to cause diseased arteries and plaque build-up.

Cholesterol is a central part of your metabolism, not the enemy. You need cholesterol to make cell walls, vitamin D, and hormones. Yet, many doctors put their patients on statin cholesterol drugs without even considering the alternatives. This is unwarranted and dangerous - especially for women.

Women have different risk factors for heart disease than men. For them, triglycerides and HDL are far more important than total cholesterol or LDL (bad cholesterol). What’s more, there is currently no evidence that lowering cholesterol in women with no history of heart disease has any benefit.

Unfortunately, most doctors still recommend statin drugs when they see a “high" LDL result on a woman’s blood test.

HDL is your trump card, especially if you’re a woman. Keep that number high to stay out of danger. The best way to raise HDL is with brief, energetic exercises. And if your triglycerides are high, you can drive them down by decreasing your consumption of starchy, hi-carb, and high-glycemic foods.

[Ed. Note: Dr. Sears, a practicing physician and the author of The Doctor’s Heart Cure, is a leading authority on longevity, physical fitness, and heart health. For a brief, energetic exercise program that can help boost your HDL, click here. And get Dr. Sears’ glycemic index list here.]
From the www.earlytorise.com newsletter
[Early to Rise Copyright ETR, LLC, 2007]
If you’d like to subscribe to Early to Rise or suggest it to a friend, please visit: here


More Evidence Against Pharmaceutical Hormone Replacement

By Jon Herring

In ETR #1657 and #1658, I told you about the efforts of Wyeth Pharmaceuticals to restrict your access to safe, natural hormone replacement therapy (HRT). The drug giant was petitioning the FDA to prohibit bio-identical hormones. As you might expect, the stated reason was that these products “endanger human health."

Wyeth has never proven that statement - but it is quite clear that these increasingly popular products endanger the company’s multi-billion-dollar revenues in the HRT sector. And, not surprisingly, it is Wyeth’s products that appear to “endanger human health."

I’ve told you before about studies showing that taking synthetic hormones can raise a woman’s risk of heart attack, stroke, and breast cancer. Now you can add ovarian cancer to the list. Results from the UK-sponsored Million Women Study, published in The Lancet, suggest that synthetic HRT has resulted in approximately 70 deaths per year due to ovarian cancer.

To be fair, there are some who question the results of this study, and certainly much is still to be verified. But it does seem to confirm what has already been shown: that synthetic HRT drugs come with significant potential risks. So why take the risk when a safer, natural alternative is available?

If you are considering HRT to combat symptoms of menopause, do it with bio-identical hormones. Here is what Dr. Sears recommends:

"You should get your total estrogens, progesterone, testosterone, and DHEA-S tested before considering any hormone therapy. So ask your doctor for a blood test to look at your ’hormone panel.’ Once you begin real bio-identical hormone therapy, you should get a hormone panel every three months until your levels are in balance."
From the www.earlytorise.com newsletter
[Early to Rise Copyright ETR, LLC, 2007]
If you’d like to subscribe to Early to Rise or suggest it to a friend, please visit: here


Prevent a Lifelong Degenerative Condition With a Little Sunlight

By Jon Herring

I received this e-mail from my stepmother today:

"I have a friend who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis last year. He is Puerto Rican, but he lives in New York City and grew up in Columbus, Ohio. I know that a history of living in cold and wet weather is one of the factors MS patients have in common. Could this be part of the reason, and do you know of any nutritional considerations that might help?"

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune disease that causes the body’s own immune system to attack healthy tissues - in this case, the myelin sheath that insulates the nerves. My stepmother is correct when she says that where people live plays an important role in the development of the disease. But it has nothing to do with “cold, wet weather." In many cases, it has everything to do with a lack of exposure to the sun and, thus, not enough vitamin D.

Numerous population studies show that the incidence and severity of MS is much higher in regions that receive less sunlight. In one study, researchers examined all deaths from MS in 24 states over a 10-year period. They found that the people who got sun exposure as part of their jobs had the lowest rates of mortality from MS - and that for those who got the most sun exposure, the incidence of death from MS was reduced by as much as 76 percent. Other studies have shown that people who are exposed to a lot of sunlight during childhood have less risk of getting the disease later in life.

The results of these population studies corresponds to a Harvard study of 200,000 nurses which showed that vitamin D had a strong protective effect against MS. The researchers found that the women who got at least 400 IUs of vitamin D per day showed 40 percent less risk of developing MS as compared with those who got less vitamin D.

Vitamin D is profoundly important to your health. And unless you spend some time with your skin exposed to the sun several times a week, it is likely that you are deficient.

Very few foods contain appreciable amounts of this vital nutrient. So if you live in an area where you are unable to get frequent sun exposure, or if you spend most of your time indoors, it is important to supplement with vitamin D. And the 400 IUs in most multi-vitamins is not nearly enough. Aim for 2,000 IUs per day, either from cod liver oil or a vitamin D3 supplement such as this one from Carlson’s.]
From the www.earlytorise.com newsletter
[Early to Rise Copyright ETR, LLC, 2007]
If you’d like to subscribe to Early to Rise or suggest it to a friend, please visit: here


84% of sunscreen products are harmful to health, says alarming EWG study
For 29 years, the FDA has refused to publish safety standards for sunscreen products. Here’s the News Target article... here and here’s the shortcut to the sunscreens that stacked up best here


Study Says Eldest Children Have Higher IQ’s
Fifty years of scientific debate on birth order and intelligence may finally be resolved by this landmark study. More
Higher IQ linked to longer life span... more


Sand more deadly than sharks at the beach... more


The words of Linus Pauling enforces the seriousness of this article on Magnesium and high blood pressure. Twice a Nobel Prize winner, he once said, “You can trace every sickness, every disease and every ailment to a mineral deficiency." more


From the site http://www.goldenglow.com.au/health.asp?id=382
Vitamin D is important for a range of functions in the body, but its main function is the regulation of calcium metabolism .Vitamin D enhances the ability of the small intestine to absorb calcium from the diet.

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Other



4 TIPS FOR INCREASING YOUR PRODUCTIVITY ... AND PROFITS By Will Newman

There are two core secrets to success in any career, and they are crucial in copywriting.

First: Continuously improve your skills. Second: Improve your productivity so you can get more work done and earn more money.

Simply put, the more productive you are, the faster you can get high-quality copy to clients ... and the faster your rise to success will be.

If you’re one of those people who is working all the time but accomplishing less than you need to, the following 4 techniques for improving productivity will get you on track.

Two of these techniques relate directly to your copywriting, and two relate to your life in general. (After all, you don’t spend your entire life in your office -- and all that “stuff" sitting in piles on your kitchen table can be a huge productivity zapper.)


1. Use the “Jerry Rice System."

San Francisco 49er Jerry Rice is generally considered the best wide receiver in football history. All during his career -- even at the very peak -- Rice took two- to three-hour extra practice sessions by himself.

He practiced so much that everything he did on the field became second nature to him.

You can do the same. Because the best way to learn how to write productively is to write. And write. And write. If you don’t have a current project from a client or an AWAI exercise to work on, go back to the tried-and-true practice of copying successful sales letters by hand. Or rewrite a less-than-stellar promotion that you get in the mail.

By practicing like Jerry Rice -- over and over again -- you do more than increase your writing skills. Writing becomes easier. You’re able to write more efficiently ... and more profitably.


2. Organize for Success.

Your productivity drops drastically when you have to spend time looking for the things you need to get a job done. You know the feeling: “I know it’s here. Where is it?"

When you have an assignment from a client, get all the pertinent information organized so you can quickly get your hands on what you need.

Develop an organizational system that makes sense to you.

Here’s what I do. I stick research into individual, clearly labeled file folders. I put all the material provided by the client in another folder. “Miscellaneous" items go into another folder. Then everything goes into one of those expanding folders, labeled with the name of the client and the title of the project.

Here’s a warning. Being too organized will zap your productivity. I used to insist on computer-printed, color-coded labels for my folders. My file cabinets looked great ... but I was wasting time.

Don’t fall down the same rabbit hole. Organize for greater productivity, not for a stunning visual effect.

A note about computer files: If you save everything to “My Documents" or your computer’s desktop without organizing it, it won’t be long before you can’t find anything. Instead, create a folder in “My Documents" called “Copywriting." Inside that folder, create individual folders for each of your clients and for your copywriting training ("AWAI").


3. Reduce Piles of “Stuff" Lying Around.

Papers, promos to be read, work-related items, and other “stuff" will pile up everywhere if you let it happen. Eventually, this will impact your productivity.

Keep your work area and your life free of the distractions these piles bring with them. Get control of them and improve your productivity by asking yourself these questions:

* Does this require action? (If so, act on it immediately.)

* Can I identify a specific use for this in the next two months that will benefit me? ("I may need this someday" doesn’t count.)

* If I toss this now but need it later, can I get it easily? (If not, keep it -- but only if you can identify a specific use for it.)

* What is the worst possible thing that would happen if I did not have this? (Legal or tax problems, for example.)


4. Perfection Inhibits Productivity.

You want your copy to be “perfect" -- but you will never get it there if you insist on perfection as you write, constantly revising as you go along. (Strong, compelling copy is the result of numerous revisions. It never happens in the first draft.)

Insisting on perfection will keep you running in place in your career. "I’ll send the AWAI exercise in as soon it’s perfect" is likely to lead to your never sending it in.

If you don’t take that first, less-than-perfect step, you won’t get the valuable feedback on your copy that makes you better at what you’re doing.

This is true not only in copywriting, but in anything else you want to accomplish in your life ... including getting clients and promoting your career.

Strive for perfection, yes. But realize that true perfection is not humanly possible. Instead, work to your highest capabilities and constantly work toward improving them.


Hubble captures stellar fireworks display Astronomers enjoy show that is 12.5 million light years away. more


Some really cool (literally and figuratively) sculpting of an ice hotel... here


NEC pushes plastics made from crops
The Japanese electronics maker says it’s close to a bioplastics breakthrough. But can greener gadgets be good for earnings? more


Russia President has some interesting things to say... here


NASA set to send robot to dig on Martian surface
NASA is set to launch a robotic spacecraft next month that will dig into the soil near the northern pole of Mars to check for conditions favourable to microbial life now or in the planet’s past. more

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