Are you having tough times making money in affiliate marketing. 

Well yes, i agree that:   

- Traffic is tough to get.
- Search engine listings are extremely competitive.
- Building and maintaining your affiliate sites is too time consuming.
- Updates are incredibly hard to manage across more than 1 or 2 sites. 

All of these problems have one thing in common though – they’re all a result of trying to work manually.

By automating and streamlining your processes, almost ALL of these obstacles disappear and the ‘glass ceiling’ of affiliate marketing evaporates.  

Here’s what an AUTOMATED blog system will do for you… AND the GREAT thing, it can be used with ANY WordPress blog

a) Streamlines your affiliate site building process so you spend virutally NO time building your sites.  This is hours and hours of work that you no longer have to do and more time you can spend marketing your sites. 

It’s 8020, google 8020 Lifestyle and PRACTISE living it!

b) Your automatically built websites are injected with affiliate products that are exactly what your buying audience is looking for.  More products for buyers = more commissions, chhhhhaching$$$$

c) Your affiliate links, product images, descriptions, keyword tags and more are also automatically written.  So you have nothing to do here – everything is done for you.

d) The system even allows you to import targeted videos from youtube and relevant articles (from an archive of over 15k articles) into your websites for better search engine listings and longer traffic stays.  More listings and longer stays almost ALWAYS translate to more purchases through your website.

e) Your sites stay updated with an automatic update system.  New affiliate products, articles and videos are automatically inserted so the system is almost completely hands free and the search engines love it, meaning less time spent updating/writing and more search listings secured. 

okay I’ll stop tweeting off about it because it’s a lot to digest.  The point, which you probably got, is that this solution makes it vastly easier to make a killing as an affiliate.  It’s a documented fact that users who use this system see their income rise dramatically.

So blog for PROFITS! and put your ‘dawgs’ up!   Life is for LIVING and Blogging for Profitz! Happy success:)

It has been a long year working offshore… not a completely new experience since I worked on a Oil platform two years ago, but different in a way since this time I was  responsible for delivering the DCS system. In 2007 we  depend entirely in Dragados managing and decisions because for that project we were just another provider,but for PB-KU-H we are the EPC .

Now I feel we could work closer with ABB italy, but the circumstances where different some months ago and the pressure maked me take some different decision back then. I also feel that the technical group from PEMEX was not very open.

Hopefully this last travel was the last one, it was not the fourteen days stay month after month but the sum of all trips… and the boat of course… the boat and the diesel smell. That thirteen hour journey from Ciudad Del Carmen to KU-MALOOB-ZAAP I will never forget…

http://www.prweb.com/releases/Bryant/University/prweb3233594.htm

“Empirical Evidence of RFID Impacts on Supply Chain Performance,” offers the first extensive review of quantitative data on how RFID technology has improved the performance of a variety of businesses.

Smithfield, R.I. (Vocus/PRWEB ) November 20, 2009 — Anecdotally, radio-frequency identification (RFID) has a reputation as a technology that has failed to live up to expectations. But in fact, RFID delivers a strong return on investment in several key areas of supply chain performance.

Those are the findings of two Bryant University professors whose paper, “Empirical Evidence of RFID Impacts on Supply Chain Performance,” offers the first extensive review of quantitative data on how RFID technology has improved the performance of a variety of businesses.

The paper, co-written by Bryant University’s John K. Visich, associate professor of management, and Suhong Li, associate professor of computer information systems, appears in the latest issue (Vol. 29, Issue 12) of International Journal of Operations and Production Management. Basheer M. Khumawala of the University of Houston and Pedro Reyes of Baylor University also contributed to the article.

Though confidentiality clauses make the collection of empirical evidence difficult, the authors identified a number of areas in business operations and management in which the addition of RFID technology led to a variety of measurable improvements. These include reductions in labor costs, inventory costs and waste, and increases in efficiency, reliability, quality, responsiveness, operational flexibility and throughput.

“This study will be especially useful for organizations proposing to introduce RFID technology into the supply chain,” said Visich. “For managers, the empirical evidence presented can help them identify implementation areas where RFID can have the greatest impact. The data can be used to build the business case for RFID and therefore better estimate ROI and the payback period.”

EDITORS and REPORTERS: Li and Visich are available for interviews. Electronic copies of their paper are available through Tracie Sweeney, Bryant University’s director of public relations. Send email to tsweeney(at)bryant(dot)edu.

Contact
Tracie Sweeney
Bryant University director of public relations
401-232-6183
Online: http://blogs.bryant.edu/newsroom/?p=333

It was a gloomy, soggy and chilly day. I went down to our pantry to get some coffee…My office is right next to the famed “Durham Bulls Athletic Park”. I was looking out the window and found the green grass on the outfield particularly green and shiny. Then I noticed, despite the rain, the sprinklers were ON. I heard on the news that we are short of rainfall for the month, which means, come summer, restricted watering of lawns.

Anyway, the picture triggered off another thought i.e. Advantages & Disadvantages of Automation. The incident I just explained is a perfect example. By automating the watering of the outfield, the park maintenance team has done a good job of not only reducing the effort required but also ensured that it is done on a timely manner. However, what they forgot is to include a “Feedback” mechanism. This can be either automated or manually provided so that the sprinkler system is shutdown during the rains. If they have not built an automated feedback mechanism, then they should think of one. This could be either through a local news channel or national weather service, whatever is the easier way. Alternatively they can have personnel to check on the sprinkler system during the rains.

We can extend this analogy to organizations. This can be in terms of mission critical systems that are automated or even personnel related operations like “Annual Appraisals”. I have seen and experienced many organizations going through a very elaborate process to design and build a smart system or process. However, when it comes to obtaining feedback and improvising the system or process, they utterly fail. This could be either lack of a mechanism to collate and analyze feedback or gross negligence.

Moral of the story is, however smart the systems or processes are, unless until you build a good feedback mechanism to continuously improve, the systems will fail or will become outdated and costly over a period of time.

Caliper Life Science’s Facebook Page:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/pages/Caliper-Life-Sciences/119099371966

Caliper Life Science’s LabChip page:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/pages/Caliper-LabChip-GX/69779947543

Caliper Life Science’s LinkedIn page:

http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1913005&trk=hb_side_g

Caliper Life Science’s Twitter link

http://twitter.com/calipergenomics

Three waste companies serve my neighborhood.  The first truck in the cul-de-sac this morning was not from the company that we use, but they picked up the stack of boxes that I had placed by our big can.  Odd, I thought.  The final truck this morning was from Waste Industries – our service provider.  Unlike the manual operation I have seen in the past, the truck had a robotic arm that performed all the can handling.  Neat stuff.  I connected the dots and speculated that this company has invested in the robot hardware to improve per-driver productivity metrics (and increase revenue per driver).  I suspect that they also have subcontracted the less productive task of manually handling the incidental boxes and other odd extras.  Business models and innovation in such mundane services often go unnoticed, but if my speculation is true, then kudos to some bright business minds in the trash world.

Mechanicsville Mechanics Concentrate on the Competition

The Flexicell-sponsored Tobor Fanatics won the Norfolk Regional competition of the FIRST Robotics Lego League, taking the titles of:

• Division 1 Championship
• 1st Place in Robot Design

The regional competition was held Saturday, November 22, 2009 in Norfolk, Virginia.  For the Division 1 Championship, the Tobor Fanatics scored 280 in the practice round, 1,270 in competition Round One, 1,270 in Round Two, and 280 in Round Three out of a possible 400 points per round. The next closest competitor scored their highest round at 165 points.

The team is also an alternate to compete in the Commonwealth of Virginia’s statewide event to be held December 5 and 6, 2009 in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

The Tobor Fanatics
The Tobor Fanatics is a team of four fourth-graders from Watkins Elementary School and one third grader from another school who reported he found this experience “extremely worthwhile and rewarding.”  The team met twice a week for the three months leading up to this year’s challenge.

Mechanicsville Mechanics Show Off their Awards

Mechanicsville Mechanics FIRST Robotics Lego League Team Also Advances
The Flexicell-sponsored Mechanicsville Mechanics will also advance to the statewide competition in Harrisonburg, VA. Their regional competition was held Saturday, November 7, 2009 at the Maggie Walker School in Richmond, Virginia. The Mechanics placed among the top five teams and took two awards:

• 2nd Place in Robot Design
• 2nd Place in Robot Performance

Flexicell-Sponsored Teams
In 2009, for the first time, Flexicell sponsored teams in the FIRST Robotics Lego League division, including the Tobor Fanatics and the Mechanicsville Mechanics.  These teams are comprised of elementary and/or middle school students grades four through eight (ages 9-14).  The LEGO League is an introduction contest to the more intricate FIRST Robotics competitions held by high school teams around the globe.   Flexicell has been a long-time sponsor of FIRST Robotics champion teams in the high school level.

Flexicell, Inc.
Flexicell, Inc. is a leading robotic system integrator, providing custom packing, palletizing, and material handling solutions such as case packing, assembly, feeding of product to other machinery, vision inspecting, collating, machine loading and unloading, conveying, palletizing/depalletizing, and automatic guided vehicles (AGVs).  Since its founding in 1992, Flexicell has created automation systems for companies located throughout North America in diverse markets such as food & beverage, pharmaceutical & medical, manufacturing, electronics, automotive, and household.  Flexicell is headquartered in Ashland, Virginia.

Visit us at www.flexicell.com.

TNAU3E4A4F5V

While I was enjoying reading the series of articles and discussions around the subject, some points of concern questions were crystallizing in my mind, and now I feel ready to join the discussion by asking them.

Part I – Overview

What’s it about?

In the nutshell (in my humble opinion), a dire need in terms separation was inspired by highly analytical nature of authors on the one side, and a serious misunderstanding of the subject (Software Testing) by business (and I mean Sr. Management and all kinds of recruiters here) on the other side.

Long time ago

Historically testing derived from debugging. Since programs that times didn’t have much of “User Interface”, testing was closely involving looking at the source code and tracing it. Once program functionalities were wrapped around with user interface, functional testing (“Black Box”) arose. With years, bad coding practices were identified, good coding practices were proven, and code testing (“White Box”) separated from debugging. In the mean time, functional testing was growing mature on its own, no longer requiring programming knowledge and skills, but indistinctly separating to functionality-oriented testing and defect-oriented testing.

Added 11/25/2009

“With years, bad coding practices were identified, good coding practices were proven”

Coding, i.e. creation of program code, could be done in a variety of ways, utilizing different logic and following different patterns.

Programming language (compiler or interpreter) looks after syntax but not the logic. Some logics may seem to be working but not for the all user scenarios. Some other logics work perfectly but they are hardly maintainable or they may impact other areas, security, for example.

 
Creation of code that is defect-prone, hardly maintainable, or may impose other issues is a bad coding practice.
Following coding standards and using right programming patterns is good coding practice.

Please refer to “Making Wrong Code Look Wrong” article by Joel Spolsky for detailed examples. 

Added 11/25/2009

“indistinctly separating to functionality-oriented testing and defect-oriented testing”

Functionality-oriented testing is not a new definition or type of testing but is about verification and validation testing types, like User Acceptance Testing and Business Acceptance Testing processes used in Waterfall software development model.

On the other hand, User Story Testing in Agile methodology, is also a process of verification of implemented functionalities, allowing to confirm that it works as expected.

Defect-oriented testing is an exploratory process targeting any unwanted (defective, inconsistent, unsafe, etc.) functionalities, side effects, any other behavior of an application. That involves “improper” interaction with the application-under-test (Negative Testing, Stress Testing, etc.), or putting the application-under-test into “improper” conditions (Disk Failure, Low Memory, Network Timeout, etc.), or “hacking” the application (Security Testing, DB Attacks, etc.).
“Improper” is quoted because it’s not a regular interaction way or environment state but most likely may accidentally happen or be created on purpose with harmful intensions and thus have to be tried.

New branches on a tree

Certain types of tests were impossible to conduct purely manually  sapiently, and they were called “non-functional” (load/performance testing, security testing, etc.). However, those tests are generally conducted NOT on development team’s side.
Certain testing activities (i.e. GUI and non-GUI interaction, data entry, verification, reporting, etc.) became possible to conduct with help of other programs, and this is how computer-aided testing appeared. In turn, it could be separated to manual sapient testing with help of a tool, and automatic test case execution by a tool.
Certain managers found out that when requirements are clearly documented, and the all possible “needed” test cases are created, test execution tasks do not require much of tough testing skills. Testing becomes simple data entry task which can be done by virtually anyone.

Automation of “Black Box” testing activities

Creation of automatically executable test cases requires programming skills; the more comprehensive tests are, the more powerful test automation framework should be, and the more skilled and experienced developer is required to create the framework. Note that it is still about testing activities automation with test results as an output, and the final judgment is still on human. Anyway, here’s how we got automated testers (obviously, oxymoron, but look how many positions are named so), and automation developers (ironically, hands-on testing skills very often are not considered mandatory, while they should be critical in automation skillset).

Automation of “White Box” testing activities

Apart from code reviews conducted by a human being, isolated pieces of code (functions, procedures) could be verified by calling and executing them. The core idea here that for a call with particular arguments a function is expected to return specified value. If the value is wrong then the test is failed. This is how automatic unit testing appeared. Once test rules were created (either manually by programmer or by using code-generator), tests could be run by a person without programming skills. Note that even if “right” result was returned by a function-under-test, it does not 100% guarantee that the functionality is always correct, or even the function will work the same way in production environment.

“Data entry testing”

Degradation of testing to data entry opens wide saving opportunities for business. Surprisingly, some managers also find it beneficial because they get more [junior] people to manage. All kinds of outsourcing perfectly fit here too, from summer students to off-shore companies. However, down this road company will face two types of critical issues. First of all, “data entry testing” is purely verification-oriented; except of trivial ones, defects won’t be revealed. Second, as automatic test execution requires final human judgment, “data entry testers” are incapable of qualified analysis and investigation of defects they may encounter. Outsourced teams require heavy coaching and support. As a result, either somebody has to do re-testing, or software product’s quality degrades. 

Why separate?

From a hiring perspective, job requirements for QA/testing positions are total mess. Irrelevant subjects are often thrown in, and mandatory skills are overlooked. Separation and, more importantly, clear description of the each role in testing world might help in getting higher quality candidates. That in turn will benefit teams with higher quality resources, and companies – with higher quality of testing.
Clear distinction will benefit professionals too. At the end, 10 years of “data entry testing” are not nearly equal to 1 year of sapient testing, and such experiences must be treated differently. 

Conclusion

I strongly support the initiative of distinction and clarification. However, looking on how it evolves so far I see that it becomes unclear itself. Certain subjects and concepts that are distinct by nature are now mixed up.

I hope my questions will be considered by authors. (I don’t put any obligation to reply, of course). 

Part II – Questions

1. Code Testing vs. Product Testing – why mixing up?

Any program code becomes a software product after the build. Before that happens, code modules and atomic functions also can be (and should be) tested. This phase of testing does not substitute Functional Testing in any manner. Code testing is not meant to be only function checks. Primarily, it is code review, which is purely sapient activity.
The original article, however, fully disregards the sapient part of code testing, and also sets code testing as opposite to functional testing. Why?

Added 11/25/2009

Testing vs. Checking, “Testing Is Not Quality Assurance, But Checking Might Be”

“Checking, when done by a programmer, is mostly a quality assurance practice. When an programmer writes code, he checks his work. He might do this by running it directly and observing the results, or observing the behaviour of the code under the debugger, but often he writes a set of routines that exercise the code and perform some assertions on it. We call these unit “tests”, but they’re really checks, since the idea is to confirm existing knowledge. In this context, finding new information would be considered a surprise, and typically an unpleasant one. A failing check prompts the programmer to change the code to make it work the way he expects. That’s the quality assurance angle: a programmer helps to assure the quality of his work by checking it.”

The whole chapter and the quoted block put label “checking” on programmer’s part of testing – the code testing. Since “checking” is posed as non-sapient, and code testing is checking only, does it mean programmers don’t do any sapient testing as opposite to software testers?

In fact, when a programmer writes code, he reviews every created block. Before code is checked-in to the code base it has to be reviewed.

In the article I see “compliant” examples were elaborated (e.g. Automated Unit Testing) but “non-compliant” (what about Pair Programming ?)  were omitted.

2. Why checking is a confirmation?

As per suggested definition, checking is rule-based, while the rule itself is comparison-based. It is also assumed that the comparison rule returns either “TRUE” or “FALSE”. But that’s not the end! Any verification (or checking) also needs to be validated. Validation is a context-specific rule, outside-of-the-box rule, which is applied with sapience.
Example: “Check if the door is open”. Both TRUE and FALSE could be VALID, depending on the context. Without validation, checking results are useless.

3. Why testing must be done only through exploration and investigation?

Any sapient investigation, broken down to atomic steps, involves obtaining actual results, defining or retrieving expected results, defining or retrieving a comparison rule, applying the rule, and finally validating the check performed, based on the context.

5. Testing programs do not create new rules. Testers do. Why didn’t you clearly state that? 

Added 11/25/2009

Regular computer programs may strictly follow the predefined rules, may come up with one of the predefined rules, even may build-up a new statement from the predefined blocks, but they do not learn and do not create.

The whole idea of “Testing vs. Checking” is in “Testing is a sapient activity”. Large part of the article is dedicated to proving of that with examples and logical chains. Did it have to be so complicated?  

Testing programs do not create new checking rules. Testers do.

What could be more sapient than the act of creation of something new?  

6. What is the value of testing if it doesn’t help improving the quality?

Added 11/25/2009

  

If a tester finds a lot of defects and throws reports via email or into ticketing system is it the end of tester’s job? Developers may reject them [defect reports]; sales people may urge with the release; PM may not realize severity of issues…

  

Bug fixing improves the quality. Bug finding without hunting them down until they’re fixed has zero business value. That’s useless (no profit, no saving and minus tester’s paycheck) gathering of information.

 

Testers should not and don’t have to be able forcing bug fixing through management or business power. They have other means to do it. Communication, first of all.

 

Not having power is not an excuse. It’s just stepping back from quality.

I don’t know what business would hire people interested in “gathering of information” only, and careless about product’s quality.

 

The latest developments in the field of protection testing encompass the testing of relays and protection schemes which use the IEC 61850 protocol. The International IEC 61850 standard is relatively new. It was developed to control and protect power systems by standardizing the exchange of information between intelligent electronic devices (IED) within an automated substation and a remote control link. The substation high speed per-to-peer messaging is accomplished using what is called the “Goose” (generic object oriented substation event) message. This message will be used extensively when performing tests… (more)

This post was originally published on Angry Bear. I wrote this primarily in response to a comment on The Economist’s Free Exchange blog which picked up my original post on the likelihood of structural unemployment due to accelerating job automation technology. Free Exchange basically said we don’t have to worry about a serious unemployment problem because the principle of comparative advantage will insure that people will be  able to find jobs.

Comparative advantage is an economic concept which says that individuals (or countries) will always be better of trading with each other even if one party has an absolute advantage in everything. (See the Wikipedia entry on comparative advantage for some examples.) Comparative advantage is usually attributed to David Ricardo’s work in the early 1800s and is generally considered to be one of the biggest ideas in economics.

The point I try to make in this post is that comparative advantage may not be all that helpful when people have to compete directly with machines that hold a substantial absolute advantage, and the primary reason is that machines (or software automation applications) —unlike people or countries—can be replicated on demand.

More on the Looming Structural Unemployment Crisis, and on Comparative Advantage

In my previous post, I suggested that job automation technology might someday advance to the point where most routine or repetitive jobs will be performed by machines or software, and that, as a result, we may end up with a serious structural unemployment problem. I’d like to respond to some of the objections that were raised regarding that idea.

I thought I would start with a response at the Economist’s Free Exchange blog, which said:

… in general I am pretty sanguine about the long-term prospects for continued voluntary employment of humans. Technology isn’t free, and even if we arrive at a world where some pieces of technology are better at everything than humans, the principle of comparative advantage nonetheless suggests that people will find work.

The idea is that, since everyone has a comparative advantage in something, just about everyone should be able to find some sort of a job. Thus we can be “sanguine.” Nearly every explanation of comparative advantage I have seen involves either individual people or countries. I haven’t seen examples where machines or automation technology come into play, so I thought I’d take a shot at it here.

Suppose we have a tractor and a team of oxen. Both can be used to plow fields, pull wagons or do other things around the farm. Clearly, the tractor out-performs the oxen in every task. Still, there ought to be some area in which the oxen don’t perform quite so badly relative to the tractor. Maybe the tractor is a little less efficient at plowing smaller fields since it has to make many turns. Or maybe fuel for the tractor is much more expensive in some regions, and so the oxen ought, in those cases, to have some sort of comparative advantage. So why have oxen been completely put out of work in developed countries like the United States?

It seems to me that there are two reasons. First, there is the magnitude of the absolute advantage that the tractor has. A tractor is a disruptive technology relative to the oxen. In order to have a meaningful comparative advantage, it’s probably helpful if you can get fairly close to the competition in at least one area.

The second reason is, perhaps, even more important: tractors, being machines, can be replicated on demand. If we imagine that a shortage of tractors existed, then comparative advantage would work. The available tractors would be deployed in their most productive uses, and the remaining work might well go to the oxen. But, in reality, the farmer can acquire as many tractors as he needs to do all his work, and in fact, he has no choice but to do so in order to remain competitive with other farmers.

As another example, suppose you are a brain surgeon who is also an excellent cook. Now, you might choose to employ a cook who is not quite as good as you are because doing so would free up your time and energy to do more brain surgery. So comparative advantage works there. But suppose you develop a machine (or two machines) with a dramatic absolute advantage in both cooking and brain surgery. Then, you could replicate your machine, and pretty soon there would be no jobs for cooks or brain surgeons.

So it seems like that might be a rule: If an affordable machine (or software algorithm) achieves a dramatic absolute advantage in a job or task, it will most likely be replicated and deployed until all competitors are eliminated. Comparative advantage is not much of a defense against that.

It seems to me that over time (not next week, but over years and decades), machines and software automation applications are likely to achieve that type of dominance in a great many areas, and they will be replicated until they consume all the available work. Any enterprise that failed to deploy this new technology would be less competitive.

All of this, of course, really amounts to nothing more than a restatement of the principle of obsolescence: in the long run, disruptive new technologies don’t find an equilibrium with old technologies. Old technologies get replaced. This applies equally to biological technologies like oxen—and perhaps it will someday even apply to human workers.

That’s an idea that economics is probably not ready to accept. Interestingly, other disciplines like biology or physics don’t give any special status to people. We are assumed to be subject to the same overall rules of nature as anything else. No so, with economics. For economists, people are very special; people are labor, and people get a special “L” in all the equations. Economists assume that people—and not just a few people but the vast majority of available workers—are indispensable to the production process. That has been true historically, but will it always be true?

Then again, maybe I’ve missed something. Maybe there is an area where human workers will always have an absolute advantage: in jobs that require uniquely human qualities or creativity, artistic ability and so forth. A lot of the conventional wisdom seems to suggest that we simply need to retrain, re-educate and redeploy workers into these areas, and everything will be fine. Is that likely to be the case? I’ll look at that idea in my next post.
__________________________
Martin Ford is the author of The Lights in the Tunnel: Automation, Accelerating Technology and the Economy of the Future and has a blog at Econfuture

A factor that is driving the trend towards automating the sales department is the extent to which speed has become a strategic advantage in the selling process. Once, it was acceptable for salespeople to promise to get back to customers with answers to questions. Increasingly, those salespeople are finding that by the time they get back to their customers with the necessary information, the sales opportunity has evaporated. The ability to respond to customers quickly is crucial to success, and the tolerances are narrower than ever before.

Similarly, the ability to compress the sales order cycle is becoming an extremely significant factor in a competitive situation. Your customers, who are under the same competitive pressures as you, are placing more and more emphasis on increased cash flow and reduced inventories. Reducing your sales order cycle from four days to two can make an important and measurable difference, certainly enough of a difference to determine whether or not you get the order.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir - Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

This position is an Application Administrator to support operations within our client’s department. This position has a critical role in delivering our services to clients and ensuring successful ongoing operation of our applications and services. It services a highly interactive software development build/release process as well as a rich operational environment with many interrelated applications/database services. The candidate should be self-motivated, detail oriented, adaptable to change and must work well in a flexible team environment with developers, QA, operations staff, system administrators and managers.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

Application and database support

• Provide on-going database administration in both back-end and front-end with application infrastructure support for our client’s administration systems, including the deployment of new applications.
• Review the physical design of existing databases for optimal database structures, database performance tuning, security, database backup/recovery strategy, implementing high-availability, and pro-active and reactive performance analysis, monitoring, troubleshooting and resolution of issues, capacity planning, monitoring data growth and system utilization, trend analysis and predicting future database resource requirements.
• Install web-base applications from ground up to full-ballooned implementation and support, including configuration at Unix/Linux/Windows system level, back-end integration with database, front-end integration with user-interface, final delivery to users to fulfill users’ requirement and on-going maintenance.
• Take the lead in ensuring that application and web services are configured and tuned according to application needs; provide troubleshooting as needed.
• Work with System Administrators to ensure test and production boxes conform to the software application configuration needs.
• Support the department-wide infrastructure application for database management, system monitoring and notification, job scheduling, deployment, provision and patching automation, application topology and service level management for campus-wide system performance.

Build/release activities

• Manage the build, tagging and release processes for a number of interdependent Java web applications and background processes in the QA and production environments. Ensure the build and release process is scalable and repeatable.
• Work with the development team to ensure efficient and understandable build procedures are adhered to and conform to a standard process for configuration and release management
• Develop and maintain tools that automate the building of software releases for an Agile-based development process. This is one of continuous integration, where the automated build process can be run many times a day if necessary.
• Work with and support the QA team to ensure automated test suites run as part of the continuous integration build process.

REQUIREMENT FOR SKILL AND COMPETENCIES:

• Expert hands-on with shell scripts, other scripting languages, preferably Perl, and tool automations
• Minimum 2 years database administration experience in Oracle and 3 years Application administration experience in Unix/Linux infrastructure environments is required.
• Hands-on experience of Oracle databases 10g for 24/7 database operations and tool automation in installation, configuration, backup/recovery, startup/shutdown, data refresh, and application integrations.
• Experience with OEM/Grid Control is highly desired.
• Knowledge and understanding of large scale ERP implementation and support like Oracle Financial and PeopleSoft systems.
• Expert knowledge of Apache and Tomcat, and other web/application servers such as JBoss
• Strong Unix and system administration skills with basic network and security knowledge
• Strong experience and ability in web applications deployment, configuration and integration from both OpenSource and Commercial based systems with or without sophisticated vendor support.
• Java/J2EE based programs
• Java/servlet/JSP based web applications
• Experience with Subversion, PVCS or similar source code repository
• Experience with Maven and familiarity with automated build processes
• Experience with the Agile development methodology and concepts of extreme programming and continuous integration
• Understanding of the layers/tiers of web applications and the communication protocol between the tiers with networking protocols (TCP/IP, HTTP, SSL, DNS, FTP, etc.)
• Ability to multi-task and work in a team environment is critical and should have excellent communication skills in both verbal and written forms.
• Ability to manage multiple competing priorities and work under pressure in high stress situations
• Excellent communication skills in both verbal and written
• Ability to work under pressure and to deliver results in a complex and dynamic operational environment

Qualifications

Minimum 5 years as an IT professional in build/release and application/database administration, plus one or more of the following areas: IT infrastructure operations 24/7, systems analysis and design, or application development.

Education
Bachelors Degree in Computer Science, Engineering or related field or equivalent experience

If you are interested, please send your resume to tsotelo@mindsource.com.

Extensis, a division of Celartem Inc., today announced the immediate availability of Portfolio NetMediaMAX, an add-on for Portfolio Server 9. This media-processing software lets digital imaging professionals automate their media workflows for increased productivity and faster turn-around times.

Seasoned designers and marketers spend significant time performing repetitive production tasks as part of their imaging workflow. The NetMediaMAX add-on for Portfolio Server manages this repetitive work for faster production. Complex export operations no longer require manual work and multiple applications, meaning users spend more time on their core tasks, translating into faster output and profits for organizations.

“We have heard from many of our customers that their creative teams spend too much time doing repetitive, non-value added activities,” says Martin Stein, VP of Products and Services at Extensis. “NetMediaMAX is designed to automate manual processes, eliminate routine tasks, create consistency and standardize processes, resulting in individuals focusing back on their creative tasks.”

Converting batches of images into derivatives for use on the Web and in print would typically take many hours. With NetMediaMAX, which offers graphical tools to simplify processing tasks, file conversions are created on the fly for faster output. Templates can be utilized to accomplish common batch-processing operations-such as file resizing and format conversion-to ensure standardization and eliminate errors.

NetMediaMAX Highlights:

” Automates repetitive image production tasks

” Increases efficiency, quality and output

” On-demand generation of digital assets

” Download files and ’save as’ many file types as you choose-on the fly

” Batch-convert images and other files into any standard format

” Utilizes MediaScript™, an open, standards-based scripting language to automate and customize for many different workflow needs

” Publish web portals that allow users to download files in a variety of file types

” Distributed processing for high-volume environments with multiple media engines

NetMediaMAX is built on the Portfolio Server platform that provides support for Windows® and Macintosh® environments and utilizes server-side processing, freeing up desktops from media-processing tasks. The MediaRich® technology inside NetMediaMAX provides organizations with heavy workloads the ability to process media-related tasks dynamically and automatically, saving significant time and manual effort. Organizations can distribute media-processing tasks to one or more external servers for even faster performance.

NetMediaMAX provides support for a wide range of image file formats. Users can convert to the most popular file types such as TIFF, JPEG, PNG, GIF, PSD, TGA, BMP, PDF and EPS.

For enhanced capabilities, IT professionals can create limitless customizations by enabling custom scripts to automate steps such as transferring multiple digital assets, updating metadata, building composite logos, colorizing, resizing and more. NetMediaMAX comes with sample scripts to get you started. Scripts can be easily customized using MediaScript, Equilibrium’s easy-to-learn ECMAScript-based scripting language (like JavaScript) that is uniquely designed for media-processing environments.

Pricing and Availability

NetMediaMAX is available immediately. Current Portfolio Server 9 customers can purchase NetMediaMAX as an add-on to their existing installation for USD $2,964.50. A full NetMediaMAX Bundle is available for USD $9,161.64 and includes Portfolio Server 9 and three clients. All prices include an annual service agreement. Academic pricing is also available.

NetMediaMAX will be available in English, French, German, and Japanese. For more information visit www.NetMediaMAX.com

About NetMediaMAX

NetMediaMAX is an extensible media-processing engine that allows organizations to automate media-centric workflows and edit, update and convert digital assets on demand. It’s a turnkey solution that can be set up in hours to automate routine jobs and distribute media processing tasks. It is an open system built on trusted technologies such as Java™ J2EE™, Adobe® FLEX®, JBoss and OpenOffice.org. For end users, this translates into superior usability and unique integration with their existing workflow. For IT managers, it delivers power and efficiency with central and remote web-based administration. In addition, the optional SQL Connect module provides greater scalability, superior data integration and advanced administration.

One of the most important IT business practices that every company large and small should engage in is IT asset management. To ensure your various software and hardware assets are both visible, and measurable over their useful life – generally the use of automated tools to manage the discovery of these types of assets is very important. The ability to establish a complete and accurate picture of your current base of information technology assets not only will have an impact on your ability to properly support your current base of users, but it will also have a direct impact your ability to identify and remediate any type of previously unidentified vulnerabilities.

One of the key steps that necessary to take relative to the implementation of a good IT asset management methodology is the ability to define a measurable process to manage these assets from acquisition through final disposition. This process should include the following components:

Item 1 – Establish a clear set of policies around the acquisition and appropriate use of these type of assets. This process should include a means of tracking existing software and hardware assets, capturing, at a minimum, product name, version, and manufacturer. Additionally, this information can be used to proactively determine software license compliance – which should be measured annually.

Item 2 – Once the asset(s) (software or hardware) have been acquired, you’ll need to implement some form of automation to track their status – from their initial deployment to their disposition. Considering the frequency by which systems and applications change, this type of “best practice” will help optimize the use and performance of these assets throughout their useful life.

There was an excellent article published recently titled, “Back to Basics: 5 Things IT Could Do Better in 2010” – that does an excellent job touching on the importance of asset inventory management. The author and I agree – we both firmly believe that asset inventory management is important security best practice.

http://www.technewsworld.com/story/Back-to-Basics-5-Things-IT-Could-Do-Better-in-2010-68662.html?wlc=1258469771

Other advantages that can be realized from a well throughout IT asset management program centers around:

Help Desk / Support Reduction – The asset management information you able to garner is invaluable in terms of diagnosing individual system problems, as well as minimizing end-user downtime. Help Desk or Client Support should have access to individual system details directly from whatever system you put into place – which will certainly help improve support levels via a more accurate diagnosis of the problem.

Risk Reduction – These days, with the sheer number of vulnerabilities on the rise, the ability to accurately assess your inventory of both software and hardware go a long way towards helping you reduce risk. It’s very difficult to protect yourself from things that your unaware of…thus (again) the importance of good automation to assist with the process.

In summary…by better understanding the types of assets you currently manage, you’ll quickly realize a much greater level of efficiency, as well as reduce your potential for risk.

Dave Eike

Shavlik Technologies

DOD open-source memo could change software landscape

http://defensesystems.com/Articles/2009/10/28/DoD-OSS-II.aspx?s=ds_041109&Page=1

By Joab Jackson

· Oct 29, 2009

The Defense Department’s guidance on the military use of open-source software has been a long time in coming, and should ease the widespread concerns in the military about open source-use, observers say.

Earlier this month, DOD issued guidance that clarifies the use of open-source software, or software whose code is made freely available for others to use and modify. Although many of today’s most popular software programs are open-source, such as the Linux operating system and the Apache Web server, questions around procurement persisted in the military services. The guidance is not formally policy, but it offers clarifications on how to use open source software.

Acting DOD Chief Information Officer David Wennergren is expected to talk more about the guidance at the Government Open Source Conference, being held next week in Washington, according to sources.

The document has been needed for a while, observers note.

“A lot of people both within and around the Defense Department have been working on this for a long time. It’s very significant that this has been done,” said John Weathersby, the founder and executive director of the Open Source Software Institute, a non-profit institute dedicated to broadening the use of open source in government. “It is very significant in that it states — in writing— that open-source is a viable option and must be considered.”

The document had been in draft at least since mid-2008. Daniel Risacher, who handles enterprise services and integration issues for the office of the CIO, has led the effort to develop it.

However, even before this clarification earlier efforts had been made to fit the strange new world of open-source software into the world of highly standardized government procurement procedures. Weathersby points to the study authored by Mitre’s Terry Bollinger, “Use of Free and Open-Source Software (FOSS) in the U.S. Department of Defense,” which highlighted the then-largely underreported widespread use of the open source within government.

Later that year, 2003, then-DOD CIO John Stenbit issued some basic guidance on the use of open source software, asking services to check its legality. In 2007, the Navy gave its okay for using the technology.

John Scott, director of open integration and open-source software for Mercury Federal Systems, who commented on early drafts of the new report, noted that the document is important because it clarifies that open-source software is a version of commercial software, an idea that had been widely debated given the grass roots development of many software programs.

“Its basically reiterating federal law, which states you have to look at commercial items [when building out new capabilities], and open-source is a commercial item,” Scott said. “It will be interesting to see what the impact of this will be over the long haul, because [services] will have to look at open-source software to meet the capability they have to build.”

So my previous post about using PathTools isn’t working at the moment but the tip below does get the file open in Finder (well Pathfinder in my case). External Tools can obviously be quite powerful.

In eclipse, reveal current file in filesystem – Stack Overflow

Great tip. On Mac OS X, replace the location with /usr/bin/open and the arguments should be just ${container_loc}. – zvikico Jul 22 at 5:27

After seeing the following post, many possibilities came to mind.

Notes: Pretty print XML

But working with XMPP and SAPO Broker, I’m always copy&pasting XML from one place to the other and it would be nice to format the XML snippet sitting in the clipboard.

This pipe does the trick quite nicely:

pbpaste | xmllint –format – | pbcopy

I wrapped this into a script, called x-xml-format-clipboard and now its just one command away from gratification.

In the end I came up with a couple that I use a lot after searching the web. The possibilities are endless but these are neat for me. In Eclipse I can’t easily transform text unless I install AnyEdit which I have on other systems. But I haven’t yet on this one. So the transforms are simple:

upper to lower:

#!/bin/bash

pbpaste | tr '[:lower:]' '[:upper:]' | pbcopy

lower to upper:

#!/bin/bash<br /><br />pbpaste | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]' | pbcopy<br />

remove blank lines:

#!/bin/bash<br /><br />pbpaste | grep -v '^

These are made into executable scripts on my path which I can then pull up with Quicksilver. So now to remove blank lines, I select the text in any editor, trigger Quicksilver, highlight the command, press enter, and paste it back. Nice. Of course this means that you can do just about anything with this kind of thing as discussed here. | pbcopy
These are made into executable scripts on my path which I can then pull up with Quicksilver. So now to remove blank lines, I select the text in any editor, trigger Quicksilver, highlight the command, press enter, and paste it back. Nice. Of course this means that you can do just about anything with this kind of thing as discussed here.

Note to self: check this list again later.

20 Photoshop Actions to Add Flair to Your Photos

The non-professional photographers among us are often left with boring and flat shots from our cameras, the photos lack the flair and energy that is achieved with expert techniques and equipment. Photoshop Actions on the other hand, can help recreate some amazing photo effects, just by pressing a button! This post rounds up 20 of the best Photoshop Actions that allow you to easily spice up your photos with popular effects, including HDR, Soft Focus, Lomo, Velvia and more!

This post will explain the process of automating your build / publish (web or windows) with windows Powershell and MSBUILD

What I use ?
1) MSBUILD
2) VS 2008 – The sample that i will provide will depend upon a windows application and a web application
3) Powershell – ease of scripting, next generation script for windows, search for Windows Powershell to learn more
4) SVN – Source code repos (you can alternatively use any source code repos for integrating)

Before you Start(I mean : prerequisites)
1) Install MSBUILD – (if you already don’t have it)
2) open PowerShell and type – MSBUILD, you must see something like this
Microsoft (R) Build Engine Version 3.5.21022.8
[Microsoft .NET Framework, Version 2.0.50727.1433]
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation 2007. All rights reserved.

MSBUILD : error MSB1003: Specify a project or solution file. The current working directory does not contain a project or solution file.

–if you get this then you have MSBUILD properlly installed
– if not then you probably must add the Env. Variables – to do this – right click my computer –> props –> Env. variables –> select path and add “C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5″ (for vs2008 installations, this might differ for vs2005 as it uses the 2.0 framework)
3) Make sure you have MSBUILD community tasks – its a freely available over the net…
4) SVN – a source code control management
5) I Tunes or any other music player – a good collection of songs – my favorite was OST – Batman, The Dark kinght .

ok, this is how it works
MSBUILD is blah blah blah, there is already enuf said abt this throughout the net…
We need to give a solution file / .proj file with some target specified to msbuild to perform the BUILD. So create a fine named yourproject.proj, copy the following contents to it…
<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”utf-8″?>

<Project DefaultTargets=”Build” xmlns=”http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003″>
<Import Project=”$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\MSBuildCommunityTasks\MSBuild.Community.Tasks.Targets”/>

<PropertyGroup>
<Major>2</Major>
<Minor>2</Minor>
<Build>0</Build>
<Revision>0</Revision>
</PropertyGroup>

<ItemGroup>
<DefaultExclude Include=”**\.svn\**” />
<DefaultExclude Include=”**\bin\**” />
<DefaultExclude Include=”**\obj\**” />
<DefaultExclude Include=”**\Release\**” />
<DefaultExclude Include=”**\Debug\**” />
<DefaultExclude Include=”**\Test\**” />
<DefaultExclude Include=”**\TestResults\**” />
<DefaultExclude Include=”**\doc\**” />
<DefaultExclude Include=”**\www\**” />
<DefaultExclude Include=”**\*.user” />
<DefaultExclude Include=”**\*.suo” />
<DefaultExclude Include=”**\*.zip” />
<DefaultExclude Include=”**\*.txt” />
<DefaultExclude Include=”**\*.pdb” />
</ItemGroup>

<PropertyGroup>
<SourceFileRootFolder>TODO: YOUR WORKING FOLDER PATH</SourceFileRootFolder>
<WebFolder>TODO: YOUR WEB SITE DIRECTORY FOLDER PATH</WebFolder>
<ReleaseFolder>TODO: GIVE THE PATH OF THE PUBLISH FOLDER(C:\PublishedSource</ReleaseFolder>
</PropertyGroup>

<ItemGroup>
<ZipFiles Include=”../MyProject/bin/Release/*.*;” Exclude=”@(DefaultExclude)” />
</ItemGroup>

<ItemGroup>
<DefaultBinFiles Include=”$(SourceFileRootFolder)\DefaultBinFiles\*.*”/>
<ProjectBinFiles Include=”$(SourceFileRootFolder)\$(WebFolder)\bin\*.*”/>
</ItemGroup>

<Target Name=”Compile”>
<MSBuild Projects=”../MyProject/MyProject.csproj” Properties=”Configuration=Release” />
</Target>

<Target Name=”CleanSource”>
<Message Text=”Removing all source files from $(ReleaseFolder)” />
<RemoveDir Directories=”$(ReleaseFolder)” />
</Target>

<Target Name=”PublishWeb” DependsOnTargets=”Mimify”>
<MSBuild Projects=”$(SourceFileRootFolder)\$(WebFolder)\WebProject.csproj” Targets=”Clean;Build” />
<CallTarget Targets=”CleanSource”/>
<MSBuild Projects=”$(SourceFileRootFolder)\$(WebFolder)\WebProject.csproj” Targets=”_CopyWebApplication;_BuiltWebOutputGroupOutput” Properties=”OutDir=$(ReleaseFolder)\” ></MSBuild>
<Copy SourceFiles=”@(DefaultBinFiles)” DestinationFolder=”$(ReleaseFolder)\$(WebFolder)\bin\”></Copy>
<Copy SourceFiles=”@(ProjectBinFiles)” DestinationFolder=”$(ReleaseFolder)\$(WebFolder)\bin\”></Copy>
</Target>

<Target Name=”BuildWeb” DependsOnTargets=”PublishWeb”>
<Message Text=”Build of web application complete”/>
</Target>

<Target Name=”Zip” DependsOnTargets=”Compile”>
<Zip Files=”@(ZipFiles)” ZipFileName=”SOMENAME.v$(Major).$(Minor).$(Build).$(Revision).zip” />
</Target>

<Target Name=”BuildTool” DependsOnTargets=”Zip”>
<Message Text=”Tool build completed”/>
</Target>
<UsingTask
TaskName=”CompressorTask”
AssemblyFile=”Yahoo.Yui.Compressor.dll” />
<PropertyGroup>
<CssOutputFile Condition=” ‘$(CssOutputFile)’==” “>SylesSheetFinal.css</CssOutputFile>
<JavaScriptOutputFile Condition=” ‘$(JavaScriptOutputFile)’==” “>$(SourceFileRootFolder)\$(WebFolder)\myjs\</JavaScriptOutputFile>
</PropertyGroup>

<Target Name=”Mimify”>
<!–
ItemGroup\CssFiles or ItemGroup\JavaScriptFiles: add zero to many files you wish to include in this compression task.
Don’t forget, you can use the wildcard (eg. *.css, *.js) if you feel up to it.
Finally, at least one item is required – either a css file or a js file.

CssFiles/JavaScriptFiles data format: Please do not touch this.
DeleteCssFiles: [Optional] True | Yes | Yeah | Yep | True | FoSho | Fo Sho. Default is False. Anything else is False. (eg. blah = false, xxxx111 = false, etc)
CssCompressionType: YuiStockCompression | MichaelAshsRegexEnhancements | HaveMyCakeAndEatIt or BestOfBothWorlds or Hybrid; Default is YuiStockCompression.
ObfuscateJavaScript: [Optional] refer to DeleteCssFiles, above.
PreserveAllSemicolons: [Optional] refer to DeleteCssFiles, above.
DisableOptimizations: [Optional] refer to DeleteCssFiles, above.
EncodingType: [Optional] ASCII, BigEndianUnicode, Unicode, UTF32, UTF7, UTF8, Default. Default is ‘Default’.
DeleteJavaScriptFiles: [Optional] refer to DeleteCssFiles, above.
LineBreakPosition: [Optional] the position where a line feed is appened when the next semicolon is reached. Default is -1 (never add a line break).
0 (zero) means add a line break after every semicolon. (This might help with debugging troublesome files).
LoggingType: None | ALittleBit | HardcoreBringItOn; Hardcore also lists javascript verbose warnings, if there are any (and there usually is ).
ThreadCulture: [Optional] the culture you want the thread to run under. Default is ‘en-gb’.
IsEvalIgnored: [Optional] compress any functions that contain ‘eval’. Default is False, which means a function that contains
‘eval’ will NOT be compressed. It’s deemed risky to compress a function containing ‘eval’. That said,
if the usages are deemed safe this check can be disabled by setting this value to True.
–>
<ItemGroup>
<JavaScriptFiles Include=”$(SourceFileRootFolder)\$(WebFolder)\Javascript\*.js” />
<CSSFiles Include=”$(SourceFileRootFolder)\$(WebFolder)\Themes\*.css” />
</ItemGroup>
<CompressorTask
DeleteCssFiles=”false”
CssOutputFile=”%(CSSFiles.Identity)”
CssCompressionType=”YuiStockCompression”
JavaScriptFiles=”@(JavaScriptFiles)”
CSSFiles=”@(CSSFiles)”
ObfuscateJavaScript=”True”
PreserveAllSemicolons=”False”
DisableOptimizations=”Nope”
EncodingType=”Default”
DeleteJavaScriptFiles=”false”
LineBreakPosition=”-1″
JavaScriptOutputFile=”%(JavaScriptFiles.Identity)”
LoggingType=”ALittleBit”
ThreadCulture=”en-au”
IsEvalIgnored=”false”
/>
</Target>

</Project>

Change your relevant project details in it – i have placed TODO: to specify what has to be done.

There are lot of targets specified in my .proj fle
Compile – compiles the source files
PublishTool – publishes the windows application
PublishWeb – publishes the web application
Mimify – Obfuscate Javascript and CSS files – uses external dll, freely available on net

I have several things in my build project…like for example all my JAVASCRIPT and CSS will be obfuscated during the publish time so that i don’t allow anyone to re-engineer my JS logic…

Execute the build
To execute the build
1) open powershell / command prompt
2) msbuild.exe c:\whereever\yourproject.proj (remember the target file we created in the previous step)
you can provide a target as
msbuild.exe c:\whereever\yourproject.proj /t:Publishweb

so its pretty much of it…any questions please feel free to email me – consoleart@gmail.com

in my next article we shall see how to automate the build process…

These concepts may be little old, but there are several projects who are struggling with build automation, may be this article will help them to provide a bit of understanding…

thnx to the people who have shown me that there are several tools that exists to make our life easier…

Author: Matt Lehr
Source: ezinearticles.com

In the past 4 months I have read nearly 2 books per week – each pertaining to Marketing, Goals, Motivation, Entrepreneurship, and Making Money. I recommend this strategy to any motivated individual and suggest that there is no better way to truly understand yourself and develop your own ideas, Find Email, than starting, Find Email, by reading and then transitioning to writing as well.

A great place to start for any entrepreneur: “The 4-Hour Work Week” – By Timothy Ferriss

The first time read though this book I must admit that I felt Tim was rough around the edges and subscribed, Find, Find Email, Email, to some philosophies I never could take on as my own. But after reading it twice, Find Email, through and a third go around on CD, I have changed my stance and believe that nearly every idea and concept he presents is doable, Find Email, and beneficial.

Here are the main points of my interpretation of Tim Ferriss’, Find Email, work:

1)The Rat Race

Is this really your life? Working hard everyday and planning for a retirement 40 years down the road. Tim offers suggestions to shake it up do some extraordinary things that will make all the difference in the world. Understanding that you have the freedom to do what you want to do and go where you want to go is the hardest step for most people. Determine why it is you want something and then start to figure out how you can make it happen. Do not be afraid to reject the norm and live life differently than the rest.

2)Understand your Time

Tim explains, Find Email, that the goal of the “New Rich” is not just to attain more money, but the, Find Email, , Find Email, most important treasure is time. After all, how can any of us fully enjoy the money you make if we don’t have time to enjoy it or people to experience it with. Find ways to work and make money but do not sacrifice, Find Email, the most important opportunity which is the time to do what you want in life. Strategy’s from the book include checking email very rarely and training clients, employees, and even, Find Email, your boss to not rely on you as a bottleneck

3)Automate Everything

Why, Find Email, do something yourself when you can pay someone else, Find Email, to do it for you? Find a way to make money that doesn’t need your constant maintenance, Find Email, . My understanding of this concept is the “business owner vs. the self employed.” Business, Find Email, owners sit back and let others run their company while they collect the pay check, meanwhile the, Find Email, self-employed put in their sweat equity on an hourly basis to earn the money. Both are considered entrepreneurs, but the self employed have only eliminated their boss, but still do all the work.

Tim explains that the goal is to move towards automation – Meaning whether or not someone is sitting on a beach or sleeping, money is being made either way. He explains to take “you” out of the equation and benefit from the goal which is not only more money but more time, Find Email, .

4)Outsource Everything

Having someone in India do your work for you is not something left to major Nike and Coca Cola type companies of the world. Using the internet, outsourcing is available at, Find Email, the click of a button and can be set up by using one email.

I took this one to heart and have not looked back. Mr. Ferriss was right on and once you learn to outsource effectively it changes everything. From paying per project or low hourly wages, having someone work while you sleep is priceless. I found the best site to, Find Email, use (that is not mentioned in the book) is odesk.com. This website makes it easier than finding new friends on Facebook – the difference being for 20 bucks this friend will do your research project – and do it well.

5) Get Away

The “4-Hour Work Week” subscribes to lifestyle design and world travel. Tim teaches you how to live abroad and do it both on a budget and while you manage your business. He includes success stories of others and offers up ways to cut loose, Find Email, and experience it all.

You have to actually read or listen to the book to truly understand Tim’s off the wall approach and view of life. As I stated his methods are not for all. Yet I have accepted that following them in principle, Find Email, can work out great. Putting your own spin on his thoughts and ideas and applying it to your situation can be very beneficial. His book has been one of many that has empowered my journey. I recommend it as great pushing off point for the budding entrepreneur.

Author of Book: Tim Ferriss
Book Title: “The 4-Hour Work Week”

Author of Review: Matt Lehr
Blog: http://www.mattlehr.com