The LuxMob Info Tags

Every once in a while, a rumor floats that Cisco’s getting ready to change the version number of their CCNA and CCNP exams, which also means the questions will be changed.

This prompts a flurry of posts to certification boards around the ‘Net (and my mailbox!), with Cisco certification candidates in particular wondering if they should hold off on their studies until the next exam versions come out.

The answer is an unequivocal no. NO. You should never delay your studies for any reason, but especially this one.

Let’s say Cisco changes the CCNA exams tomorrow. They’re not going to remove questions regarding LAN switching. They’re not going to take distance-vector protocols, OSPF, EIGRP, or subnetting questions off the exams. These are core subjects that everyone who works with Cisco technologies needs to know. And it goes double for anyone who wants to work with Cisco technologies.

The second reason is that studies that are delayed for one reason are often delayed again for another reason. “I’m too busy, it’s summertime, etc.”.

If you’re serious about your Cisco certifications, start studying today. The knowledge you acquire every time you study does not become invalid because an exam version changes. It’s not the certification that makes you valuable, it’s the knowledge behind the certification – and you need to start building that knowledge today.

To your success,

Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933, is the owner of The Bryant Advantage (http://www.thebryantadvantage.com), home of free CCNA and CCNP tutorials, The Ultimate CCNA Study Package, and Ultimate CCNP Study Packages. Video courses and training, binary and subnetting help, and corporate training are also available. Pass the CCNA exam with Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933!

In this article we’re going to go over filing a malpractice lawsuit, who can file, how to file and what is involved in proving malpractice.

Like it or not, malpractice lawsuits are a fact of life. The statistics of how many malpractice lawsuits that are filed each year in the United States alone is staggering. But the statistics are for another article.

So what does someone do if they feel they are the victim of malpractice?

For starters, they’d better file their claim early. That means getting a lawyer who specializes in malpractice and have him process the necessary paperwork. There is a statute of limitations on malpractice suits and filing even one day past the deadline can mean your suit never even makes it into court.

When getting together with your lawyer there is an enormous amount of information that you will need to provide him with. Most of it, if this is a medical malpractice lawsuit, can be obtained from your patient files. If the patient has died because of the malpractice then the family member responsible will be able to get access to the files.

Aside from the information in the files there is other information that the lawyer should be provided with. Any actions the patient took prior to the actual treatment should be noted. Sometimes it’s what’s not in the file that can mean the difference between winning a losing a case. For example, if the patient tried to get certain tests done but for some reason they kept getting put off, not because of the patient, this information may not be in the file. A call to a doctor’s office to make an appointment for tests that had to be put on hold won’t necessarily be in the file. Anything the patient or patient’s family can remember about all events leading up to treatment may be helpful.

Then, after the lawsuit is filed there is the matter of getting a hold of witnesses. These are people who are going to testify, hopefully on your behalf. The defense, of course will get their own witnesses to refute whatever claims are made.

Eventually, a court date is set for trial. The main duty of the prosecution is to prove that a case of malpractice exists. The duty of the defense, in the case of medical malpractice, is to show that a “standard of care” was given and that whatever happened was something that was out of their control.

Needless to say, this is a very long and expensive process. Some malpractice suits can take years to settle. Think about the current Vioxx problem. This is a suit that can go on for a very long time. That’s why in the cases of many malpractice lawsuits the two parties try to agree on a settlement to keep the case from going to trial. Sometimes they are able to come to an agreement but many times they are not.

Ultimately, the jury must decide if a case of malpractice exists and if so, what kind of damages the patient is entitled to. Sometimes this is actually the hardest part of the decision making process. Whatever money the plaintiff gets usually goes to cover medical, or unfortunately, sometimes funeral costs.

Malpractice is an ugly part of life, but it’s a part of life just the same.

——————————————————-
Michael Russell
Your Independent guide to Malpractice
——————————————————-

The Spaniard rider for the Caisse d’Epargne team: Alejandro Valverde has won La Flèche Wallonne. At the end of the race at Le Mur de Huy, Valverde left behind his compatriot from the Euskaltel-Euskadi team Samuel Sanchez Gonzalez who finished second. Karsten Kroon and his teammate Frank Schleck from the Team CSC finished third and fourth. T- Mobile’s rider Patrik Sinkewitz ended the run in the fifth place.

Two riders left the group early in the cycling race: Frédéric Finot from Française des Jeux and Ag2R’s José Luis Arrieta but around 80 Km to go the pack reached them. Conditions for the race were fine but the hard wind didn’t let some of the riders get ahead from the group.

The next important gap took place when Phonak’s Alexandre Moss and Rabobank’s Oscar Freire gained some distance from the other riders when they were at 63 Km from the end but they got caught by a group of almost 30 competitors on the penultimate climb of the day: Côte de Ahin with 12 km to go.

The circuit consisted of 202 Km from Charleroi to Huy and at the end, riders climb the Mur de Huy. The Flèche Wallonne is traditionally one of the most open of the spring classics, where as 2005 champion Danilo Di Luca says: “you need the power to explode in that grueling final ascent to the finish.”

The group of riders climbs the Huy three times during the race, including the summit finish. While stragglers have time to rejoin the leaders after the first two ascents, it is power what it takes at the end and that’s what Valverde proved when winning the race.

About the Author:
Julie Smith is one of the most recognized copy writers on Sports Betting and currently writes for Instant Action Sports. Feel free to reprint this article in its entirety on your site, make sure to leave all links in place and do not modify any of the content.

Do you know how many people are actually linking to your website? Like a lot of people, you probably have gone to Google, typed in link:yourdomain.com and had a peek at how many links there were. Even a lot of software will use the same method - looking for exactly that hyperlink within webpages. The problem is that this is very innacurate and gives you only a small glimpse into a much bigger picture.

How can that be?

Hyperlinking is far more advanced these days. It is common for many sites to have their links coded for statistical purposes or simply because the software they run on their server creates coded links so that sites can be easily edited or removed from the database. They may look something like this:

“www.somedomain.com/links.asp?url=http://yourwebsite.com”
or “www.somedomain.com/links.php?link=345″

There may be other reasons and variations of urls too, however the point is that because these links are coded, a simple backlink check just won’t work. So while it may appear that only 100 sites are linking to you, it could actually be 1000’s.

Case in Point: One of my websites shows only 74 exact backlinks through a basic check, when in fact there are about 11,800 links. While it is almost impossible to know just how many of those links are active (clickable), cross-referencing my own statistics supported these results.

Try it yourself. Type in something like:

“yourdomain.com”

But what about internal links from within your site showing up as backlinks? Wouldn’t that skew the actual backlink count?

You’re right, but you can easily exclude your own domain from the results by simply typing in:

“yourdomain.com” -site:yourdomain.com

Do the non-hyperlinked references really count?

I believe they do qualify as valuable backlinks (though I do prefer to call them references instead). Look at it this way, business cards contain your website url but aren’t clickable. So what makes non-hyperlinks on the web any less valuable? If people want to visit, they can copy and paste the link or type it in themselves. In fact, there is less chance of typos because of this.

The Traffic Time Forgot…

Another useful function of this method is the ability to locate dead spaces where people are linking to pages you no longer have on your website and perhaps have forgotten about. While 404 redirects and messages are fine for catching the traffic, why would you waste the space? These are prime areas to bring life to and can easily be filled with monetized content.

About 6 months ago I did a complete redesign of one of my websites. This meant removing a lot of pages that I was no longer using as I was condensing everything. A few weeks ago, I was doing a backlink check and noticed a large number of links and references (100’s actually) pointing to a page which I had long forgotten about. What was suprising is that the majority of these backlinks were coded, so that they did not show up in a basic link check. Instead of letting the 404 catcher manage it, I decided to recreate it with still relevant content and much to my surprise, it still had a pagerank of 5 immediately after being uploaded.

Imagine That!

Carole Nickerson has been a web developer and internet marketer since 1998. Visit http://www.thenetter.com for more free articles, tips and software.

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I recently had a conversation with one of my former students. She has been out of school for a few years now but isn’t satisfied with the direction her career has taken. In fact, she’s not too happy with her personal life either. Her voice developed more than a touch of whine as she said: “I don’t know what to do.”

So I asked her about her goals. Her response was a rather slack-jawed look of surprise. “Goals?” Well at least she wasn’t whining anymore.

I asked her what she would like to see her career in a few years. I asked her where she’d like to see her life in a few years. She knew the answers to those questions and quickly became animated as she discussed her desire to start her own business. We talked about what she would need to accomplish her goal and what she would have to change.

When we parted ways she felt a lot better about her job because she knew that she wasn’t trapped in it. She was taking a necessary step to prepare herself for a long-term goal. She had her eye on the prize and that focus energized her.

That is the power of goals. What are your goals? There are seven reasons why you need to have goals.

~ To give direction to life
~ To make sure we are the one choosing the direction of our life — not others, not fate, not the media, etc.
~ To motivate
~ To make sure we get what we want from life
~ To save time
~ To reduce stress
~ To give a sense of accomplishment

While it can be fun to live without direction in the short-term, in the long-term human beings are wired to need a purpose and direction. Goals give a sense of direction and purpose to life.

It is often easy to let others set our direction for us. We take a job because family or friends point us in that direction and then we follow the dictates of our bosses. We move in other directions because popular culture or the media tells us to do so. The simple truth is that if we do not set our own goals then we will find it too easy to follow a path set by others. This can lead to stress and unhappiness. We have a greater chance of happiness and fulfillment following our own path and pursuing our own goals.

While goals certainly give our lives direction, they also provide the motivation to get us through difficult times and choices. Perhaps going to college at night while working full-time may be stressful and difficult in the short-term, but in the long run being able to pursue the professional goals we desire will make it worthwhile.

Goals also serve as the destination for what we really want out of life. For some people, goals are measured in money or material goods, while for others goals are measured in time or freedom. If we do not have goals outlined that suit our unique perspective on life it is easy to become sidetracked by life and others.

Goals can also help save time. When your “To Do” list becomes too long and your calendar too full, then you can simply compare your goals to the list. What items help you achieve your goal? What items are necessary to your goal? Scratch off the rest as unimportant.

Just as goals save time they also reduce stress because using your goals to focus your life and choices makes it easier to make those choices. Should you take that new position at work? How does it match your goals?

Finally, goals give you a measurable sense of accomplishment. Every goal you achieve, in fact every step you make toward that goal, can give you a boost of energy and momentum to keep going. Each success powers you toward the next level of success.

Now go out and set your goals!

Deanna Mascle publishes the ezine Words Of Inspiration Online and blog Smiles By Dawggone.com

This article overlaps a little with our earlier article about
finding a suitable topic to use for marketing your online
information products. This time, though, we’ll go into how to go
about marketing to a specific group of people.

First, though, why do people buy information online? Why would
someone shell out their hard-earned dollars for your product?
When you start your advertising campaign, you’ve got to think
about that. This brings up the question: Why do people buy any
kind of information, or for that matter, why do they buy
anything at all? Think about that for a few minutes before
continuing to the next paragraph.

Think…think…think…think…think…

Got it? Have you figured out what makes people buy stuff? The
answer, in its most basic form, is that people buy stuff in
order to solve a problem. Their problem can be real or merely
perceived to be real. It doesn’t really matter from the point of
view of the seller. People will be interested in your
information only if you can solve a problem for them or provide
some unique or new information that they would like to have.

When you figure out what problem it is you’re going to solve,
you can then sell your solution to your target audience. You
must be creative and open to seeing solutions. Evaluate if
they’re willing to pay for info. Maybe your info is available
for free, but the problem is that it’s scattered all over the
Internet and not available in any one concise location. People
will pay for the convenience of not having to assemble all of
the info themselves, because it saves them time, even if the
free info is available elsewhere.

A great example of this kind of info repackaging can be found in
the Linux movement. Linux is a Unix-based PC operating system
that many people are using instead of Microsoft Windows. Linux
was developed by a multitude of programmers all sharing their
efforts with each other online. Their sources are completely
open to the public, but unless you’re a serious hacker it still
requires a lot of effort to successfully install and set up a
Linux PC correctly. Along comes a company called Red Hat (there
are others, too), that took all that free, open-source stuff and
packaged it on a CD in a way that made it convenient for the
general public to be able to buy and install Linux. The draw is
that it’s way, way cheaper than buying Microsoft Windows. While
most people still prefer Windows, there is still a large enough
market to make Red Hat’s “free” information product profitable.
(By the way, I’m not in ANY way connected to Red Hat, and yes I
still prefer Windows!)

Most likely you will have come up with a topic that is only of
interest to a rather small group of people. Here we use the word
small in a relative way. There could still be a very large
number of potential customers in your target group, but compared
to the entire population in general, it is a very small
percentage. For example, let’s say you are going to sell
information on how to create a profitable jewelry-making
business. You probably wouldn’t want to advertise to hot-rod car
building enthusiasts.

Selling to your targeted group might not be as hard as you
think. You simply have to find out where they already go for
information and start advertising there. How do you find them?
Once again, your best bet is to start with the Internet. Find
out where they hang out online. Yahoo groups would be a start.
Join some forums or email lists and listen in on where they go
for their info. Some forums will let you do a little bit of
self-promotion as long as you’re not overbearing about it. Keep
in mind these people are there to learn and exchange information
with each other, not to be subjected to lots of advertising. If
you can provide some meaningful discussion along with your
self-promotion you will gain their respect and build credibility
for yourself.

If you have a quality product, this group will do your
advertising for you by word of mouth. This is especially
important when you’re first starting out and your resources are
slim and you need to build your revenue base.

Don’t limit yourself to advertising exclusively online, either.
There are many, many print publications that cater to
increasingly smaller target audiences. These can be a great
source of additional advertising for you. This type of ad will
probably be more expensive than advertising online, but since
many people hang onto these publications, your ad will be in
front of them a lot longer than your web page will be. Since it
usually takes more than one exposure to your product before
someone buys, this can be a big help to you. There are other
ways to ensure multiple exposures of your products to your
customers, but that’s a big subject for another day!

So, till next time…Success to you!

-Ted

I read it all the time in the newspapers and online sports reports how players suffer leg cramps literally in the last quarter and how this can mean the difference to a win, lose or draw. Especially in tough physical contests such as football (soccer), American football, rugby union, rugby league and Australian ‘Aussie’ Rules.

Imagine the impact it would have if a coach could eliminate and prevent cramps that plague sports teams during games. In this article I’m going to touch on some of the things the coach or the assistant coach or trainer needs to keep an eye out for.

Well, the first place I look at is the environment the players are in and how much they physically sweat. If they sweat a lot that’s one thing that will promote cramps.

The other thing you could do is watch what they eat before they go into an event. If they’re going to a fast food restaurant and get a burger or a soda they’re going to get more challenges than someone that ate a high protein, high carbohydrate meal.

You can’t look at a person and say he’s tall so he’s more likely to get a cramp but if you look at their eating habits or see them perform and they’re sweating excessively and losing a lot of liquids then you can assess more accurately what’s going to happen.

I’ve worked with teams for a long time as a trainer and after starting with a new team I could tell you after 2 weeks who’s going to get cramps & who’s not - poor diet or a good diet, their eating habits, whether they sweat profusely, whether they take care of themselves or not, you can tell. For example if someone’s drinking a litre of fizzy pop before they work out and that’s their only method of drinking water, that’s going to create a lot of problems.

In a recent study of Australian Rules players, it was revealed that players are running at close to their maximum speed for 15 to 20km per game.

Interestingly the coaches began analysing their players because they started showing signs of severe fatigue and cramping as a result of a rule change which had bigger defenders running more.

The increase in the number of players suffering leg cramps and calf cramps is a direct example of how environment – in this case causing fatigue – can influence how much and how often a person can cramp.

And in ‘wet and heavy track’ conditions the percentage of players suffering leg cramps in particular gets much higher.

Copyright www.Running-Cramp-Relief.com

Paul Newland is a health and nutrition consultant, trainer, martial arts instructor, commercial helicopter pilot and author. His Ultimate Cramp Busting Guide is one of the internet’s leading health information books and is the definitive guide to preventing, treating and curing cramps associated with exercise. In the Ultimate Cramp Busting Guide Newland speaks with 6 health, sports, nutrition, medical and complimentary health care professionals and explains why you get cramps, the best ways to treat them and how to prevent them from happening again. You can read more on nutrition and the simple steps you can take to eliminate crmaps and give you a sporting edge that will also extend your sporting life and improve your health.

Whenever we invest, it’s our basic nature – to research on that particular business – isn’t it? Yes that’s what I want to summarize you. Well, I was not an expert but practice made me.

I am talking about your web-site, on which you have invest hundreds of human hours and thousands of dollars to make it presentable, but what if it doesn’t returns profit? Now this I would call a real BIG problem.

It requires substantial efforts and research, to bring your website in initial pages of search-engine. Why first, second and third page? Now you tell me keeping hand on your heart, have you ever gone beyond initial few pages to search your product?

To drag your website on top positions, search engine’s robots look for many things like keywords, content, internal and external links, quality of website etc.

Let’s take little tour to make you known, what requires and what not to make your website reviewed in top positions in search engines.

Keywords: Your keywords must be focused and specific, precise to what your product is. For example: Using a key phrase like “Jeans” will result in an innumerable flow of different searches like women’s jeans, kids jeans, men’s jeans, stone washed jeans, gun shot jeans and many more. It will make you confused where to go, but instead if you use “LEE mens regular fit jeans” would target only mass, interested in buying regular fit jeans.

Hence, there is a huge possibility of converting that aimed mass to a sale. Your keywords are your sales power; you can call them “Magic Box”. They must be selected rightly.

Compare with top sites: Evaluate your first page with the top sites on the search engine, study them as well. Look for their style, keywords and key phrase. It requires a deep research to find out the similarities and difference between your page and their.

Try to make out dissimilarity in keyword bulk, number of times your phrase and each word in your phrase appears compared to the text around URL address, page title, meta description, meta keywords, first paragraph on the page, body copy, bold or emphasized phrases, header or other tags, Alt tags, navigation system.

You might feel it hectic job to compare all these, you can use spreadsheet or commercial products that makes ease this repellent task. Uphold habit to keep looking for other new patterns and differences.

If you want to imitate that style in your own page, please do not duplicate or steal, just follow in your own words but without moving out from the pattern

Links can do miracle: Links are one of the most important factor to raise your site to top positioning (i.e. your web page deals with links to, from and within a web page, both internal and external).

In this evaluation, as you must compare and differentiate your page against the top contenders.

What you should look for: Total no. of internal links on that page; total no. of external links; and Number of links pointing to that page like the link/anchor text- which keywords are used and where, Google page rank value of incoming links, Alexa rank of incoming links.

Content: Its an key factor for constant expansion of your website is to add new content on incessant foundation since the most thing search engines are after is good quality websites with relevant content.

Google Sitemap : Google Sitemaps is a new tool for website owners and publishers released by Google themselves. It facilitates to submit a sitemap (a map containing links to every page of your site) from your own homepage in .XML or in plain .TXT format that will support robots to spider your pages. This will result in a rapid indexing process of your site and could therefore even result in better search engine placements.

Have Patience: Though this process is not a one shot task, but continuously ongoing. Remember to verify your key phrases in short interval of time.

You would be thinking that how one can do all this with a single hand, don’t worry there are software programs that can help doing some of the digging and mathematical computations, outlining densities and organizing information for you.

Beware of dishonest SEOs: There are many SEOs out there to help you, but beware of untruthful ones. If someone says that he can raise your web-site positioning in a days or in a short duration, don’t trust him because its an long process to do. However, you can take help of someone knowledgeable and truthful.

Paras Yadav - I am freelance Content/Article writer. I have experience of editing over 3500 news/articles.

You can contact me at: reach2paras@gmail.com.

Before buying any jewelry with gems, you want to familiarize yourself with the various terms used with various gems. Most important, check over the terms used for substitute gems, especially those of any gems in which you might be interested. Although no reliable jeweler would knowingly pass off one gem for another, if you are going to shop around you are going to have to expect to run into jewelers who may be less fussy.

Keep in mind that you cannot always tell what gem is by looking at it. Emeralds are green. Also, Tourmalines are green, and that name itself comes from the Singhalese word for mixed gems. Smoky quartz can outwardly resemble the more precious smoky topaz. Then, there are the gems of which few consumers have heard, like spinel.

There is no rule of thumb of what you can expect to pay. Any price list today is out of date before it is printed. The only way you can tell what is a fair price is to ask jewelers. If you don’t have a regular jeweler whom you trust, it is even more important to shop around and check the prices of particular gems. If you want smoky topaz, look at smoky topazes in as many stores as possible to get a general idea of the current price, although prices will vary with size and quality as well as setting. Still, you can get fair idea of fair topazes, or other gems, as possible.

Although the terms “precious gem” and “semi precious gem” have little meaning as the prices of all jewelry increase, the less expensive gems are probably safer buys from the point of view that there is less reason for anyone to try to sell a gem that isn’t what it is supposed to be. However, some inexpensive gems, such as turquoise and zircon, can have nature improved on by various kinds of treatment, and spinel and garnet can be synthetic.

Another problem in buying jewelry with gems is that the gems are already set. Once a gem is in the setting, you may not be able to see all the inclusions, nor may an appraiser, because the setting can hide them. A setting can also make up for imperfect cutting. That doesn’t mean you should buy only unset gems. The average person can be as taken in by unset gems as by set ones. It does mean that where you buy can be more important than how to buy.

Still and all, there are some precautions you can take in shopping around and looking at gems. These precautions hold particularly true for diamonds, which are most common gem purchased, and for few other stones.

A) Buying diamonds.
B) A diamond is not a diamond, any more than all that glitters is gold. There are two broad categories of diamonds, gem and industrial diamonds, and the first is the one that concerns the consumer.

The term “gem diamonds,” however, covers a broad spectrum of quality, based on the four Cs of clarity, color, cut, and carat weight. Although the terminology can vary from store to store and country to country, more and more jewelers in the United States are using the standards and terminology established by the Gemological Institute of America, GIA. These and other standards and terminology you may hear or see. Granted, you may find still other terms, but any reliable jeweler should be able to translate his terminology into GIA terms, particularly if he has taken GIA courses. The GIA standards and GIA quality certificates, incidentally, are accepted and may be used worldwide, especially for investment diamonds.

Investment diamonds are at the very top of the standards used to judge gem diamonds. At the lower end are jewelry diamonds, the diamonds you are most likely to find in jewelry. In Between are diamonds that are too good for ordinary jewelry. Hey are used in the best jewelry but are not good enough for investment purpose.

Although buying diamonds for investment purposes is entirely different from buying diamond jewelry and diamonds for jewelry, whose purpose is adornment, you should be aware of, and be aware, talk of investing in diamonds for the sake of diamonds. Diamonds have been bought by investors in other countries and are beginning to be thought of as being investments in the United States because of their dramatic increase in value over the past few years.

What you want to beware, as mentioned before, is the fact that the diamonds that have increased in value so much are the top quality stones and not all diamonds. As has been pointed out by a well-known diamond expert broker, an investment diamond must be flawless, be of top color (D – H on the color table), and at least 1 carat in size. Cut and color are more important to a diamond’s attractiveness in jewelry than minor inclusions that can be hidden by a setting, but even the tiniest inclusions can lower a diamond’s value as an investment.

You also want to be aware that diamonds meeting the investment criteria are rarely found in jewelry. For one thing, they are usually bought before they can reach the jeweler. For another, the cost at retail, often 100 percent above wholesale price, would not only make such a diamond prohibitive in price to the average consumer but also mean that the diamond would have to be held a considerably longer time. In addition, prices would have to rise much more dramatically for the average consumer to break even on his investment.

Buying investment diamonds, therefore, means going to a wholesaler, whom the average consumer doesn’t know and doesn’t have access to. In addition, a wholesaler must be picked with all the care of a retail jeweler. All the experts in, a wholesaler must be picked with all the care of a retail jeweler.

Despite the fact that investing in diamonds is a subject far too complicated, if you thinking of diamonds in this sense, you want to:

1) Consider only diamonds of very top quality, color and cut and of at least 1 carat in size. The smaller the stone, the less demand there is for it and the less it will get on resale.

2) Buy the stone out of the setting, if possible. The gem must be removed from its setting for GIA certificate anyway.

3) Make sure the seller gives you a GIA diamond certificate attesting to the four Cs. With so much money at stake and so few people knowing much about diamonds, there is always the possibility of fraud. A company or person that will take thousands of dollars of your money without providing GIA, and only GIA, certification of quality may not always be fraudulent but should be treated warily.

4) Try to get a Gemprint, which is a photograph made with a laser beam that “fingerprints” the stone. No two diamonds are ever exactly alike, and the Gemprint is proof both of the gem’s authenticity and identification.

5) Plan to keep the diamond for at least two years. Diamonds are a long-term investment.

6) Above all, make sure you can afford the investment and the gamble that diamond values will continue to go up. Diamonds, particularly those rare top quality stones, may continue to increase in price, but they can always go down in value for a number reasons. One reason is a recession. Another reason is that some dealers feel prices are so high they will have to level off or no one will be able to afford diamonds.

Many of the above points pertain to buying diamond jewelry and diamonds for jewelry, too. To begin with, you want to familiarize yourself with the terminology. Then, you have to consider how much money you want or have to spend, keeping in mind that you will have a far greater selection of diamonds to choose from for jewelry than you have for investment purposes.
The benchmark in price is one carat regardless of the kind of diamond. The smaller the stone, the less valuable it is and the less value it has.
Size is the first factor to consider because of its relationship to price. The second factor is color. Colors D – H are the whitest, most transparent stones. The problem with color is that it can be deceiving. The color you se may not be what you get, depending on lighting, the background against which you look at the diamond, and the setting of the gem.

A well know diamond expert whose firm buys only investment diamonds, offers the following suggestions for jewelry buyers:

1) Look at the diamond only under direct lighting. That means real light, which may be daylight or pure white fluorescence. Blue light will make any diamond sparkle with the desirable blue fire, and any diamond looks good in simulated candlelight. In addition, never buy a diamond at night, when no daylight is available.

2) Look at diamond against an off white or white background. The best diamonds are transparent, even those that may be tinged with yellow, and the slightly off white will give a better idea of the true color than any other color background. By the same token, yellow surroundings may make even the bluest-white diamond appear yellow. Thus, the background against which you look at a diamond can change the color or give the illusion that the stone is whiter or more transparent than it actually is.

3) Look at the top of the diamond, how the table disperses and refracts the light, to see how much fire and dispersion the diamond has.

4) Look at the diamond at a 45-degree angle to the crown, the 1/3 of the diamond above the girdle or setting, to tell the color. The top or table is only an indication of brilliance.

5) Try to buy or look at the diamond unset. A setting can hide inclusions. In addition, a diamond with a yellow tint will look better in a yellow gold setting, while a white diamond will look better in a white gold or platinum setting. Remember, a setting can hide inclusions, making it look better in the setting than it may look unset.

6) With a diamond of 1 carat or larger, insist on a GIA certificate. Any reliable jeweler should get you one for a small fee. Even though you are not investing in diamonds, the GIA certificate is your assurance that the diamond is what it is supposed to be, what the jeweler tells you, and what is written on your sales receipt. Although the gem will not be appraised for price, it will be appraised for all the other qualities.

Most, if not all, reliable jewelers will be willing to get you the certificate for a small fee that is well worth it considering what you are spending. In any case, your sale receipt should specify what the diamond is, as far as the four Cs go, and you should make sure it does or that you are given a certificate that spells them out. Both will also come in handy for insurance. In this case make sure you get a complete sales receipt, identifying the diamond exactly.

Based on these criteria, what you may have to decide is whether size or quality is more important, depending on what you can afford. Is size important? You may have to settle for an included stone with a slight yellow tint, if you want a diamond of 1 carat or larger. Is color important? You may have to settle for a white (D – H color) diamond, with a number of flaws depending on the size and cut. Is clarity important? You may have to settle for a very, very slightly include diamond of lesser color, again depending on size and cut. The Prices of these examples may be the same or so similar that there is little difference. So, how do you decide?

No jeweler or expert can answer the question of which is the better diamond because each has its own drawbacks. One stone is better from the point of view of size, another from color, and another from clarity. Still, color is what the average person sees. Clarity is actually less important for jewelry, as long as the inclusions do not interfere with the gem’s fire or brilliance. On the other hand, you may go along with the people who prefer a colored or “fancy” diamond and truly yellow diamonds, what are called “canary,” are as valuable as any fine white diamond of equal clarity. They may be more expensive, because they are rarer.

The decision is therefore, is one only you can make.

The GIA also appraises diamonds for individuals. You must make an appointment, however, because although laboratory facilities are extensive in equipment they are limited in size and space. In addition, the diamond must be at least 1 carat and must be un-mounted.

To be continued in Part 6!