The LuxMob Info Tags

The Forex Market—What, When and Why?

Forex, FX and the Forex market are some common abbreviations for the Foreign Exchange market. Actually it is the largest financial market in the world, where money is sold and bought freely. In its present condition the Forex market was launched in the seventies, when free exchange rates were introduced, and only the participants of the market determine the price of one currency against the other proceeding from demand and supply. As far as the freedom from any external control and free competition are concerned, the Forex market is a perfect market.

With a daily turnover of over trillions of dollars, the Foreign Exchange market conducts more than three times the aggregate amount volume of the United States Equity and Treasury markets combined. The Forex market is an over-the-counter market where buyers and sellers conduct foreign exchange business using different means of communication.

Unlike other financial markets, the Forex market has no physical location or central exchange. Since the Forex market lacks a physical exchange, the market trades continuously on a 24-hour basis, moving from one time zone to the next, across each of the world’s major financial centers every day. Trillions of dollars of foreign exchange activity takes place every day. From 1997 to the end of 2000, daily forex trading volume surged approximately from US$5 billion to US$1.5 trillion and more (according to various recent studies it has touched $1.7 trillion per day and dwarfs all other markets for trading in size and volume). It is really difficult, if not impossible; to determine an absolutely exact number because trading is not centralized on an exchange. But one thing is for sure that the Forex market continues to grow at a phenomenal rate.

Before the advent of Internet and ecommerce, only big corporations, multinational banks and wealthy individuals could trade currencies in the Forex market through the use of the proprietary trading systems of banks. These systems required as much as US$1 million to open an account. Thanks to advancements in online technology, today investors with only a few thousand dollars can have access to the Forex market 24 hours a day and around 5 ½ days of a week.

The Forex market is a nonstop cash market where currencies of nations are traded, typically via brokers called forex brokers. Foreign currencies are constantly and simultaneously bought and sold across local and global markets while traders increase or decrease value of an investment upon currency movements. Foreign exchange market conditions can change at any time in response to real-time events so it is also considered to be a highly volatile and fragile market too. Conditions of the Forex market never remain the same they changes every second.

The foreign exchange market dwarfs the combined operations of the New York, London, and Tokyo futures and stock exchanges. According to its size and scope it is many times larger than all other markets. Stats shows that spot transactions and forward outright Forex trading take place in the inter-bank market. 51% of the market is in spot Forex transactions, followed by 32% in currency swap transactions. Forward outright Forex transactions represent another 5% of this daily turnover, with options on ‘interbank’ Forex transactions making up another 8%. Therefore the inter-bank market accounts for 96% of the global foreign exchange market, with the remaining 4% being divided among all the global futures exchanges.

For traders, Forex trading provides an alternative to stock market trading. While there are thousands of stocks to choose from, there are only a few major currencies to trade (the Dollar, Yen, British Pound, Swiss Franc, and the Euro are the most popular). Forex trading also provides a lot more leverage than stock trading, and the minimum investment to get started is a lot lower. Add to that the ability to choose flexible trading hours (forex trading goes on 24 hours a day) and you have the reason why so many stock traders have flocked to day trade currencies.

Anthony Trister is a currency trader and is an owner of OneDayTrades which offers free, mechanical forex signals and an automated trading program for those wanting to trade forex. Free access available here: http://www.onedaytrades.com

In the fury of trying to accomplish our goals, we tend to lose site of our Vision. We get so caught up in “doing things” that we forget why we’re doing them. In the process, we lose hope, lose drive, and end up running in a circle trying to find our “reason” again. In our circular dance, we fill in the gaps with unnecessary activities, or “busy work”, to make us feel as though we’re moving forward. Instead, we’re merely weighting ourselves down further to create a wall around our newly developed “comfort zone”.

This cycle is actually more common than not as we all get caught up in the moment and forget about our ultimate objective, or Vision. We all require a target at which to aim so that we can determine which activities are necessary and which are “busy work”. Keep an eye on the objective while working on the goals that will get you there, else, get lost in the shuffle and end up on the wrong path.

In some of my clients’ cases, we have to work backward to find their underlying Vision from the morass of activities in which they are involved. The approach allows us to determine why they’re so lost and why they’re working so hard. Ultimately, we’re able to extract their Vision from their activities. We then adjust their Vision to suite their desires and strip off the excess activities that serve little purpose in moving them forward. By the time we’ve evaluated their situation, they find that the stresses in their lives fall away, along with the unnecessary tasks that have kept them so isolated and busy.

In the hectic activities of your daily life, step back for a moment and figure out where these activities are leading you. Set a Vision and focus your activities to reach it without expending unnecessary tangential efforts. In this way, not only will your stress be reduced, but you’ll feel more motivated, prouder, and more focused knowing that your actions are building toward your desires.

About The Author

Edward B. Toupin is an author, publisher, life-strategy coach, counselor, Reiki Master, technical writer, and PhD Candidate living in Las Vegas, NV. Among other things, he authors books, articles, and screenplays on topics ranging from career success through life organization and fulfillment. Check out some of his recent print and electronic books as well as his articles covering various life-changing topics! For more information, and to find out about his upcoming title on book publishing, e-mail Edward at etoupin@toupin.com or visit his site at http://www.toupin.com!

Copyright (c) 2004 Edward B. Toupin

etoupin@toupin.com

11 Ways to Promote Your Blog

1. Ping weblogs.com and other search engines. When you ping a blog, you are telling the search engine that you have updated your blog content and that your listing should be refreshed. Weblogs.com is a blog update notification service that many individuals and services use to track blog changes. Pinging your blogs to the search engines is the fastest way to get the search engine robots to visit your blog. Also, many people browse these sites to find something new.

2. Submit your blog address to blog search sites and directories. You can submit your blog’s url to websites such as Technorati, Daypop, Blogdex and Popdex. For a complete list of websites where you can submit your url, go to http://www.guidetorss.com

3. If you have some cash you can promote your blog using pay per click search engines such as Yahoo Search and Google Adwords.

4. Set your blog to display RSS feeds and submit your blog’s RSS feed to the major RSS feed directories online. A good place to start is http://www.guidetorss.com which provides a list of the top RSS directories.

5. Put your blog URL in your email signature. If you’re a regular at any online discussion forum, you can also add your url to your signature line at the bottom of each message you post.

6. Install a blogroll. A blogroll is a collection of links to other weblogs. Services such as Technorati spider your links to tell who’s linking to you and who you’re linking to. If you show up on someone’s Technorati link list for their site they’re likely to visit your site to see what you said, increasing your exposure. Blog owners can also visit your site to check it out if you show up on their referral logs.

7. Be an active commenter. Try to leave comments on the blogs that you regularly visit. Most comment systems also provide a way for you to leave a link back to your blog which begs a visit at the very least.

8. If you plan to have anything printed up, put your blog’s web address on it. You can print your blog URL on business cards, stickers, leaflets, etc.

9. Take advantage of blog software features that help to promote your Blog. For example, if you’re using Blogger, you can do this by turning on: “Email This Post”, “Post Pages” “Site feed” and the Blogger Navbar. These features will help attract new visitors to your blog.

10. Exchange Links with other Bloggers or blog owners. This is another effective strategy for generating targeted traffic to your blog for free. It involves contacting other blog owners for a possible link exchange partnership. All you have to do is locate blogs that are related to yours and contact the webmaster to swap links.

11. Write articles or free reports for other webmasters to publish and put your blog url in the byline. The ‘byline’ is the short paragraph that goes at the bottom of each article and describes who the author is and what they do. If you write good content, your articles will be published by other webmasters and many readers who like your article will go on to visit your blog. You can submit articles for free at: http://www.going-platinum.co.uk/

Copyright © 2005. Chileshe Mwape writes for Debt Consolidation Loans UK: http://www.best-debt-consolidation-loan.co.uk/ and http://www.secured-homeowner-loan.co.uk/. Visit these sites to consolidate debts and apply for a loan online. This article may be reprinted as long as all the above links are active and clickable.

If you’re interested in improving the selling results of your
ads, tweaking your headlines is a great place to start. Because
your headlines influence the sales results of your ad more than
any other element.

A great ad with the wrong headline can bomb, whereas a great
headline on an average ad will probably do OK. Let’s take a look
at a few techniques for coming up with sales-boosting headlines.
First things first: Avoid these proven sales-killing “headlines”
like the pox:

1. Your company name

2. A generic industry or service category (e.g. “Plumbing
Contractor”)

3. Or on a website or brochure, “Welcome to ABC Industries”

The points above sound basic (and they are), but it’s surprising
how many ads and websites make those mistakes.

So you’ve avoided those mistakes. What techniques can you use to
create great selling headlines that practically catapult your
readers into your ad? Here are a few ideas…

1. Call out to your target audience

If your message is aimed at stockbrokers, mention “stockbrokers”
in the headline.

2. Mention specific benefits

Face it - consumers are jaded. We all are. Heck, I can hardly
get out of bed in the morning General statements like “Lose
weight fast” or “Save Money on _____” are no longer effective.
Specific numbers and images evoke much more potent images in
your prospects’ minds than generalities. That’s why they sell
much better.

3. Use vivid, evocative verbs

Especially online, high-energy headlines work very well.

Here’s a headline that uses all 3 of the above techniques…

“New Software Boosts Stockbrokers’ Income by 34, 43, even
125% - by Slashing Time Spent Chasing “Dead” Accounts and
Laser-Focusing Your Energies on the Big Players”

OK, it needs a bit of work, but you get the idea. Some people
don’t like this type of headline - it’s too “hypey”. And it’s
certainly not right for every kind of product or service - but
I’ve had very good success with this type of headline,
especially online.

4. Use “cognitive dissonance”

That’s a fancy way of saying, make your audience curious. Here’s
a headline we’re testing for a client who sells bumper stickers:

“Do You Wonder How We Can Sell Full-Colour Stickers At A
1-Color Price, with FREE Artwork?”

This type of headline makes people curious - they feel compelled
to find the answer and relieve a sense of “dissonance” with this
apparent paradox.

5. Include some challenging or surprising information

Here’s a headline that I wrote for a lead-generating website for
a rubbish removal contractor, 1300 Rubbish:

“Fast, Professional Rubbish Removal, Sydney-wide…We’ll
Pay You $1 Per Minute In Cash If We’re Late!”

The “hook” is the guarantee. Also bear in mind that most of the
people who see this headline will have already searched for the
term “rubbish removal sydney” or similar, so they are expecting
to see something related to those keywords.

How are your headlines? Can you use any of the above tips to get
better response?

Did you ever go to jumpstart your car, and notice that you can barely see your battery underneath all the gunk? This ‘gunk’ is actually battery corrosion, which is formed by acid condensation. Since this is formed by acid, a basic chemical solution will do the cleaning trick. Battery acid is actually very easy to clean away with a common household item- baking soda! But still, precautions must be followed. This article will inform you step by step how to clean the battery while keeping safe.

First, you will need to gather supplies for this project. Most of these items you may already have in your home.
Safety glasses or goggles
Box of baking soda
Adjustable pliers with insulated handles
Screwdrivers with insulated handles
A small, stiff-bristled brush (an old toothbrush will work just fine!)
Assorted small open-end and box wrenches
Small metal or plastic scraper
Special battery tools, including a cable puller and cable terminal cleaning brushes
A turkey baster or small funnel
All-purpose household cleaner in a spray bottle
Sponges or clean cloths
A source of ample clean water such as a garden hose or a large bucket and sponge
Rubber gloves for protecting your hands

There are a few safety tips to keep in mind when getting ready to clean the battery. First of all, you safety glasses and gloves must be worn to protect your eyes and skin from sulfuric acid that can linger in the corrosion deposits. Also, this material can eat away at your car’s paint, so keep it away from that as well.

Because the amount of dirt and corrosion on batteries may differ from one another, battery cleaning will vary, so some of the steps below may or may not need to be performed. Sometimes, to thoroughly remove severe corrosion and dirt, you may even need to remove the battery from the vehicle.

First, scrape off any white or greenish corrosion deposits with the stiff-bristled brush or small metal or plastic scraper. Next, use the solution of baking soda mixed with water, approximately one heaping tablespoon to each pint of water. Carefully apply it to the outside of the battery and its cable connections with the turkey baster or small funnel. Then, you can use your brush to work the baking soda solution into the heavily corroded areas. If you find that the cable clamps or terminals are badly corroded at the battery, you can disconnect them for easier cleaning. For this, you may need to use pliers, assorted wrenches and a small battery cable puller to disconnect them. You should disconnect the negative first, followed by the positive.

Then, use your battery cable scrapers or brush to remove the corrosion from the terminals, battery posts and hold down clamps and brackets. Flush these parts with your baking soda solution to rid them of any trace of corrosion. After this, wash the outside of the battery, the cable ends and the hold down parts with a liquid cleaner in a spray bottle. After that, use a sponge or rag to get off any remaining dirt or grease. After everything is clean, dry off the battery and all its parts with a dry rag or cloth.

The final step is just reinstalling any part that was removed and tightening everything so it is secure. Reconnect the battery, positive cable first. You’re done! You’re battery is now safe and clean.

Michael Walker is a freelance author providing tips and hints on engine related topics such as JDM engines and remanufactured engines.

Your web site is located by an IP (Internet Protocol) address such as 67.15.4.94 and is accessible on the Internet by typing http://67.15.4.94. Instead of typing a series of numbers which are difficult to remember, you can register an easier to remember domain name which becomes associated with your IP address. Visitors typing an easy to remember domain name will be pointed to your IP address. Similar to a 1-800 vanity phone number, some domain names pertain to the subject of the web site, while others may simply be the name or an abbreviation of your firm.

Lawyer-Advertising-Blog.com is the primary domain name for my blog, which is instantly obvious that it is a blog concerning lawyer advertising. When you type that domain name into the address bar of your browser, the domain name servers on the Internet know that you’re looking for http://67.15.4.94 and take you there. You can have multiple domain names pointing to the same web site. For instance, I also registered LawyerAdvertisingBlog.com (without hyphens) which is used for branding because people never type hyphens. Because some people may remember the name incorrectly, I also registered many other domain names such as AttorneyAdvertisingBlog.com, LawFirmAdvertisingBlog.com and others, all of which will bring the visitor to Lawyer-Advertising-Blog.com.

Tips to help you pick a domain name:

1) Choosing: Choosing a domain name is a lot like choosing a name for your company or law firm. Ideally the name should be consistent with your branding. Determine whether you are branding the name of your company, product or service. Your domain name should be good for branding - short, easy to remember, and has a “ring” to it or creates an image in the mind of the consumer.

2) Trademark: Before registering your domain name, be sure to check the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to make sure that the name has not been trademarked. You can check at www.uspto.gov, click on Search under Trademarks. Assuming that your choice has not been trademarked and you have now registered a non-generic domain name, you may want to protect your name by filing a Trademark or Service mark application.

3) Ownership: When you register a domain name, make sure that you are the registrant of your domain name. Some web site design firms will register your domain name with their name as the registrant. This will give them ownership of your name keeping you hostage. You can easily register your domain name yourself for $8.95 per year at 8.95Domains.com or GoDaddy.com.

4) Hyphens: There have been misunderstandings about whether to use hyphens in a domain name. First of all, the domain name you give out to the public must not have hyphens. The domain name without hyphens is the domain name that everyone will type in the address bar of their Internet browser.

The reason that some people say that you should have a domain name with hyphens is to force the search engines to see keywords in your domain name so that your web site does better in search engine results. The bigger search engines can now see individual words without hyphens, however, smaller search engines may not and even the bigger ones may see a word differently than you want.

Thus, the importance of using a hyphenated domain name has diminished. If you wish to use a hyphenated domain name as I did with Lawyer-Advertising-Blog.com, you should also register the unhyphenated domain name which you will forward to the hyphenated domain name. Use the unhyphenated domain name in print and advertising.

5) Extensions: Domain names are available with various extensions, such as .com, .net, .org and many other extensions. If it’s really important to you, you can register domain names in several extensions, however, for most firms only the .com extension is important. If you feel that you need to use .org, you should also register your name in the .com extension.

The .com extension is similar to 1-800 for telephone numbers. Most people automatically dial 1-800 even when they see 1-888. Likewise, most people will type
.com even when they see .net or .org. Additionally, many people including myself simply type in the domain name without http://www. or .com and press “Control, Enter”. Pressing “Control, Enter” will type http://www. and .com for you, automatically taking you to a web site with .com.

6) Top Level Domain vs. Sub-Level Domains: A sub level domain is a second level domain under a first level domain name and can look like yourfirm.freehosting.com. You must have your own domain name. Do not under any circumstances use a free hosting service, since free hosting services will only give you a sub level domain. No one will ever remember it and it’s sort of like handwriting your own letterhead.

7) Ethics for Law Firm Domain Names: A website name should be used as an address, not a trade name which is prohibited. Advertise your web site name as an address, a means for people to find your web site, not a trade name. Like a vanity telephone number, some web site domain names can violate legal ethics. Make sure that your web site name avoids use of certain words which could create a potentially incorrect expectation in the mind of the consumer or violate one of the other ethics rules.

Your domain name should not imply that you are better than another lawyer or that you can accomplish something that may not actually occur. Use of words such as “BEST”, “TOP”, “FOREMOST, “LEADING”, “WIN” and similar words in a web site domain name could create a misleading expectation in the mind of the consumer and will violate ethics rules in most states.

For instance, LeadingLawyer.com or BestLawyer.com will likely violate lawyer ethics rules by implying that you are a leading lawyer or the best lawyer. The question is by what standards are you leading or the best and in what? WinningLawyer.com or WinningCase.com may be better for a casino, because it will imply that the person who becomes a client of the firm will win money when, that may not happen and even if it does, it’s an award for just compensation, not gambling.

Laura Hodes in her article for the ABA Journal entitled Vanity Phone Numbers Make Your Firm Less Forgettable, at http://www.hurt911.org/hurt-911-articles/ABAJournal.htm, quoted Will Hornsby, an expert on lawyer advertising and staff counsel in the ABA Division for Legal Services, who said that while there is nothing unethical about vanity numbers, “1-800-I-WIN-CASES would be unethical because it is making an unsubstantiated claim, creating unjustified expectations that can be true but still be misleading.” The same can be said about domain names.

Advertising Your Domain Name: Be sure to include your domain name on your business cards, letterhead, and all advertising. When advertising in off-line media, always advertise your domain name with www. and without http://, such as www.LawyerAdvertisingBlog.com. Note that when publishing your domain name on the Internet, you may sometimes want to use http:// to ensure that you create a link back to your web site. When advertising in off-line media, always advertise a domain name without hyphens.

Philip L. Franckel, Esq., publishes articles on Lawyer Advertising at www.Lawyer-Advertising-Blog.com and created www.HURT911.org an accident and injury research web site for people hurt in an accident and personal injury lawyers.

Someone can say, ‘Why do you oppose this?’ So I’d like to prevent such attacks and tell that this article is dedicated mainly to the issue if it’s worth to look for the cheapest solution.

Software and web development market is overwhelmed nowadays. Hence, as soon as there is a possibility to get something for nothing the usual approach in search for developers is a choice of the lowest price. The logic is understandable enough, ‘Why should I pay $1000 for this bit of software if I can find somebody that will develop the same for as much as $200?’ Is it true? I bet it is.

Anyhow, think once again about the phrase ’something for nothing’. Do you really believe it’s possible? If you really think so, I’d suggest you should consider several issues while picking up a developer.

1. You are paying for what you are getting.
Normally, any developer will charge you on a basis of the total man-hour they need to complete the project. Talking about offshore development will let us take the price of $8-$15 per man-hour as a base. So any project’s price consists roughly of these two elements. Should you want to get a lower cost, you should either negotiate the lower hourly rate, or find people who need less time to develop the application. However, as soon as you won’t fall lower than $8 at any Indian company (not prestigious enough to charge extra money for quality insurance etc.), let’s look for somebody who needs just less time.

2. People can do as much work per hour as they can.
It’s obvious, different people have different efficiency. So if it will take just 2 weeks to develop a simple application for some programmer, it can take several months to do the same for another one. It’s logical, professionals charge more for their services. In return they can develop things other programmers can’t make for you even for the less money. But keep you brain cool. Even the best programmer is not a speedy typist. Typing of code, in addition to its design and development, also takes some time. So don’t demand programmers to develop something in a day just because you believe the task is simple.

3. Someone’s told you he can develop it two times sooner? Ask him what exactly he’ll do?
As I’ve already told, definitely, there is a great lag in programmer’s capacities. However, the speedier the programmer is, the more expensive his services are. Surely, there are some ways to shorten the development time. They are:

• Usage of existing open source software.
  Although, some products are just great, don’t expect continuous support and the developer’s awareness of how everything works within his product.
• Denial of the code’s optimization necessity.
  There are situations when e.g. web based software refuses to work properly on servers just because it consumes too much server resources. Why? It’s mainly because the code is clumsy and under-optimized. The more quality code takes more time.
• Absence of any single line of comments in the source code.
  Commenting of the source code takes time but doesn’t impact on the final product. Surely, you can get such product and be happy with it. However, should any bug happen, it will take astronomic amount of time to find the proper line and change it even for the original developer. As for another programmer, it would be in most cases almost impossible.

So consider all advantages and disadvantages once more. You have a choice of paying e.g. $1000 to a reliable company that can’t afford to provide you with a poor quality product; hence, it does everything to make it properly. Or you can spare about $800 and get running, however unstable software without comments and under-optimized enough for its best performance. Surely, it’s up to you what you should choose.

And again, there is no equivalence between “cheap” and “bad quality”, as well as between “expensive” and “good quality”. However, if somebody offers you just unreasonably low price, make sure that at the end you will get not just an imitation but the product you actually need.

Alex Polonski is a Senior Sales Manager at XITEX Software Company, Ukraine. The company works in offshore software development market since 1999 and has a fair expertise in J2EE and .NET technologies. Among company’s own-developed and marketed solutions, one can see a J2EE content management system, Xitex WebContent M1.