Using Opt-In Email Marketing For Your Website

If you're into opt-in email marketing, then you are taking a big step in the right direction towards making money with your product. You can do all kinds of things with an email list, and it's something that you should seriously consider if you want to blow the lid off your sales and profits.

Now when building up your email list, you need traffic. I generally recommend my clients to test the niche out by using some cheap pay per click marketing (PPC), and see if their squeeze page is collecting subscribers. If it isn't, then I recommend going into a different niche where the opt-in rate is high.

What is a good opt-in rate? Well in my opinion, anything between 20% and 40% are good rates. You can easily achieve this with advertising and free marketing - especially if you're in a small niche. You could takeover the niche and be perceived as the obvious expert in your market.

One of the things that you will want to do once you start building up your list is to keep them engaged. Offer them immense amounts of content that can help them achieve a goal or solve a problem. A few ways to keep them engaged is by offering them a blog, a forum, some articles on your site... and even encourage them to email you back in each email that you send out.

People will definitely email you back and engage in communications with you. They want to know some answers to the basic questions that they have. And sometimes, your answer will be so complex that you will just have to recommend that they purchase your course to get all of the answers that they are looking for.

Now to do all of these things, you need traffic... lots of targeted website traffic. Now this is an easy thing to do. There's always advertising, I'm sure you already know that. And there's also free marketing. There are a ton of free marketing strategies that you can use to take your business to the next level. A few of my favorite are blogging, article marketing, forum marketing, and video marketing.

You will have to test and see which options work best for your business. All of these ways can bring you the traffic you need to grow your list exponentially. The only drawback of free marketing is that it can take a while for it to really come into fruition for you.

However, the allure of earning 100% free profits is something that is enticing also. But this 100% free profits can be used to offset the costs of acquiring a new customer. So I highly recommend doing it. And they don't take a lot of time to implement.

Hopefully you will use opt-in email marketing in your business, because it can be a source of guaranteed profits for you. And this is especially true when it comes to backend marketing - but I'll reserve that topic for another day.

Good luck with using email marketing to earn more money in your online business today.

Identity Theft: What Is It?

Identity Theft. What do you think about when you see those two words? Possibly it makes chills go down your spine if you have been a victim, or know someone else who has been. Possibly you have heard the phrase, but don't really know what it is. Maybe both of the above apply, or maybe neither apply. This article is for anyone who wants to know what identity theft really is and what types of identity theft there are. There are many different types of identity theft to learn about and from which to protect yourself.

First of all, what really IS identity theft? Simply put, it's when someone gets your personal information and tries to pretend to be you for their personal gain. It is when someone tries to pretend to be you in some circumstance for some reason. It is a crime that is everywhere and continues to be on the rise. You can't guarantee that your personal information is safe. There is always the potential of someone watching long enough and being savvy enough to get your personal information. Without getting too much into it, people steal others' identities because there is something they want that they can't get with their own identities.

I don't know if you realized that there are five main types of identity theft. The first identity theft that people often think about is financial. This can include: credit card, child support, government benefits and charity, just to name a few. This type of identity theft is all about getting money, in whatever form the thieves can get. A common way to get this information of late is either e-mails or phone calls phishing for your personal information. Chances are, the credit card companies and banks/credit unions with which you have accounts won't need to send an e-mail or phone call to get your personal information again. These are definitely easy ways to protect yourself. If in doubt, don't give out any information until you speak directly with the financial institutions with which you have accounts. However, this form of identity theft only makes up less than 18% of all of the identity thefts in the world today.

What do you mean? There's more? Yes, in fact, one of the identity theft crimes on the rise today is medical identity theft. Some thieves like to take others' medical records to use as their own. They might do this because their own personal records are lacking and they need a medical identity with better health than their own. They also might want to hurt another by giving the wrong information so others will suffer. Whatever the reason, medical identity theft is rising as a form of identity theft in the nation.

Another form of identity theft is Social Security identity theft. There are many people who are immigrating from other countries into this country that don't have their own social security number of their own, so they like to steal ours. Many places in the nation, you can't even get a job or an apartment without a social security number. Think about all that you use your social security number for. What could you do without it? What can you NOT do without it? It's a pretty important set of numbers that identify you in a way you couldn't otherwise be identified.

However, maybe you don't want to be identified if you're a criminal. Criminals are looking for other peoples' identities, since they've messed up their own. They're looking for ways to pin the blame on someone else, and what a better person than a hard-working taxpayer, a good person like you. If you get a knock on the door in the middle of the night with a warrant for your arrest or a demand to take your children away, wouldn't you like to have a defense- someone to go to? How could you prove that you aren't the criminal the police may think you are? What a challenging situation in which you don't want to be involved.

Another challenging situation in which you might find yourself is having your driver's license stolen. What another important piece of identity THAT is. If someone stole that, what kind of damage could they do? Again, you might use your driver's license for a job or a place to live. You might use it to identify you in other circumstances. You might even have to go to court for some tickets you didn't earn. How devastating and humiliating THAT would be. Court is not a popular place to hang out for most people. It's probably some place you avoid at all costs, right? The courthouse is generally a stressful place for all involved.

What a stressful thing all of these types of identity theft can be in your life. Many people who are victims of identity theft spend hundreds of hours and hundreds of dollars trying to fix their identity. Why try to simply FIX something when you can easily RESTORE your identity back to the way it was BEFORE your identity was stolen? It's simple to do, once you know where to look. What a WONDERFUL way to protect yourself and your family against the most invasive crime in America!

Driving Down Risk for Younger Motorists

Younger drivers aged 17 to 21 are more at risk of accidents than any other age group. There are more penalties for speeding than ever before and insurance premiums are becoming more expensive each year. This article looks at the management of risk whilst driving.

The risk factor can never be fully eradicated from driving. Every time we get into a car and move away we are taking a risk as we cannot foresee what will happen next. Risk is an important part of human development and we all react to it in different ways depending upon our personality and the situation we find ourselves in. the secret to safe driving relies on the control of risk rather than ignoring it or simply shrinking away and avoiding it altogether.

The younger age group are more willing to take risks as they are at a developmental stage where they are trying to find out where their limits are. This can translate into reckless driving and carelessness with the inevitable consequences. I have seen former pupils speeding around and going against everything they were taught during their driving lessons. They listened at the time and were successful in passing their test but the message did not stick. The sense of freedom and self identity which goes hand in hand with gaining a driving licence overrides any previous teaching. It seems rules and advice are ineffective against our natural impulses to seek excitement and danger.

At the other end of the scale we see younger drivers who fear risk and will do almost anything to avoid it. Fear of emerging at junctions or even of moving off on a hill in case they roll backwards are symptoms of an inability to control risk. A dependence on being warned in advance or denying the element of risk altogether play a part in making a driver unsafe on the road. The timid driver is unpredictable and slow which can be a danger to other motorists. This can be seen on the road when drivers hold up traffic and invite others who are impatient into dangerous overtaking. Knowing there is risk involved in a task and managing it helps us to function well and gain a sense of self control. This is the middle ground we are looking for when it comes to good driving.

Younger drivers need to be taught active risk management from the very beginning of their driving career. When risk is neither feared nor embraced it can be controlled and decision making made all the more easier. Peer pressure will always be a factor for younger drivers especially males and this can be hard to account for as they are willing to allow others to tell them what level of risk is acceptable for fear of ridicule. Younger drivers need to have an idea of personal responsibility and this could be instilled if traffic education was on the school syllabus and they were taught about attitudes to driving from a young age.

What Evolution Is

The Theory of Evolution began with Charles Darwin and his book, Origin of Species. Interestingly, he did not conclude that evolution began billions of years ago in a chance combination of just the right chemicals. He simply observed that many species were similar enough that they appeared to come from a common ancestor. Despite its "evolution" into what it is today, it has become the default scientific explanation of the origin of life.

To understand evolution, one must understand the difference between the origin of life and the tiny changes that we do see happen and are clearly happening. The origin of life is thought to have taken place billions of years ago when the earth was rather young and was bathed in water and a plethora of simple molecules that included carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, chlorine, etc. In other words, the ingredients of life. It is believed that with the aid of energy from the sun, these chemicals combined in various combinations and every once in a while, or maybe just once, the one in a million chance (so to speak) would cause a combination that could be classified as primitive life giving molecules. Eventually these combined to make more complex molecules until they formed into what would be considered a very simple cell of come sort.

Now of course it is thought that even basic molecules were very uncommon, and the more complex they became the lesser and lesser chance they had of forming, but that the one in a billion billion billion billion, etc. ended up as a cell. Of course this took place over millions of years, it is not supposed to have happened in a short time. However, for some random reason, a tiny fraction, or perhaps even just one of these few primitive cells, through pure chance, happened to have the ability to divide, which it began doing. Soon there were lots of these cells and as they filled the ocean, natural selection began to take effect and most of them died off, but every once in a while, one would have a mutation that allowed it to adapt a little better and therefore reproduce.

It is this natural selection that we see every day. We know for example that wolves were the original ancestors of dogs. This is an example of evolution, just evolution that humans forced. Every once in a while, a wolf was a little tamer than normal and then bred to produce offspring that were also tame. Over many generations, they became what we call dogs today. There are also clear similarities between animals in different places because their environments demanded slightly different survival properties.

These distinctions are important because no one is positing that species can't change over time, but many deny that life could have come from a pool of non-living molecules purely by chance. So when you say that you don't buy into evolution, you don't usually mean that minor attributes of species cannot change over time, you mean that you don't think life originated with a pool of slime. Not understanding the difference can make it seem that you do not know what is evolution.

How to Play Links Golf

When sheep huddled in hollows of sandy linksland to shelter from freezing North Sea winds off the coast of Scotland, the first golf bunkers were created. When roaming livestock grazed on the tough links grasses man saw an opportunity to mark out hard running greens and fairways for a new sport called golf.

To this day, playing links golf - in Scotland and Ireland - or at one of the prestigious venues for the Open Championship, is the dream golf tour. Many golfers travel from all over the world on a pilgrimage to the world's best links golf courses.

If you've never battled strong sea breezes, or aimed down a fairway lined by gorse bushes you'll probably feel you are playing a different game.

Global Golfer's editor Matthew Moore, a one handicap golfer, lived in St Andrews for four years and devoted himself to learning the art of links golf.

Here is a practical guide to playing links golf.

Learn to knuckle the ball off the tee

Fairways at links courses can be narrow and lined by gorse (a hard dense prickly shrub), pot bunkers and thick tall rough fescue grasses.

When the wind blows hard, it's difficult to keep the ball in play and out of trouble, especially if you are used to driving the ball high through the air with a lot of spin and shape.

To play links courses well you need to drive the ball low and straight, under the wind, with less spin so that it lands and runs down the fairways.

You can do this by hitting the "knuckle ball" with your driver. This shot creates a low top spinning flight that releases and runs on landing.

Here's how:

· Tee the ball low, quite tight to the turf

· Choke right down on the grip

· Address the ball out of the middle of your stance

· Stack 60% of your weight on your left side

· Swing with a three quarter length at a smooth tempo, resisting the temptation to hit the ball hard and focusing on making a sweet strike

Remember, as with all full shots in the wind, the harder you hit the ball the more spin you create and the higher you will hit it, exposing it to the wind.

The knuckle ball drive will be shorter than your usual drives, but will make up for it by running on the hard links fairways. Best of all, it's accurate and great for beating the wind and keeping the ball on short grass rather than in the gorse - which almost certainly equals a penalty drop.

Play with Punch not Ego

It's not unusual to find yourself facing a shot of 125 yards into a tiny raised up green with a gale force wind blowing into your face. This is when you have to leave your ego behind, forget you hit gap wedge 130 yards if you swing full out, and play smart by choosing a much longer club and punching it to keep the flight down and reduce spin.

To play links golf well, you have to accept you will sometimes hit a 4-iron from 140 yards or an 8-iron when you only have 85 yards left. You do this by playing the punch shot - the links golfer's best friend.

To punch the shot means to play with a shorter backswing, de-lofting the club for a lower flight and using your forearms and body together to shorten your follow through and punch aggressively through the ball at impact.

Top tips for punch shots:

· Grip down the shaft

· Position the ball further back in your stance towards your right foot

· Move your hands slightly further ahead of the ball

· Shift 65% of your weight onto your left side

· Swing ¾ length and punch through the shot with a shortened follow through below shoulder height

The lower the flight the less likely it is to be affected by the wind.

Make adjustments for the ball flying in lower and aim to land it short of the flagstick and allow it to run out towards the hole.

Practical Putting

If you usually play on inland golf courses or at golf resorts, you probably use your lob wedge and your sand wedge most when chipping around the green, throwing the ball high and landing it soft.

At a links courses the strong winds can buffet the ball from the shortest of distances and make accurate chipping difficult. Also, it's rare to find thick rough around a links green, the most common hazards are bunkers, run offs, bank sides and hollows, which makes it possible to put the wedge away and use the putter from off the green.

At The Open Championship you will have seen top professionals putting from 25 yards off the green with great results. This is because putting from off the green is one of the best short game choices you can make on a links. The fairways are usually extremely tight making nipping the ball off the hard turf a precise skill - and it's easy to thin, blade or skull the shot.

Your worst putt will always be better than your worse chip, so look at the slope and undulation of the land, be practical and use your putter to get the ball up and down.

Bump and Run makes the game fun

You will have heard about the Scottish bump and run or seen it played. This low flying shot lands short of the green or just on the green and rolls out towards the hole like a putt.

If you have nothing between yourself and the flag then the bump and run is a brilliant option because once it lands it starts to behave like a putt and can track towards the hole. Links greens can be undulating and sloping and so landing a high chip or pitch onto a hard downslope can cause inconsistent bounces and erratic results.

How to bump and run:

· Address the ball off the right foot

· Use anything from a five iron to a 9-iron

· Weight 70% on the left side

· Sternum ahead of the ball

· Heads ahead of the ball, club sitting upright

· Make a putting stroke and hit crisply down into the back off the ball

· Pick a spot just on the green to land it and let it run towards the hole

Lie of the land

A caddie at The Old Course at St Andrews, Turnberry or Troon would tell you that it takes time to get to know the subtleties and nuances of links land and learn the bounce of the ball. Often slopes and natural features can funnel the ball towards the hole, squeeze extra yards from a drive or prevent a ball from going in a hazard.

Buying a yardage chart and studying the contours and slopes of each hole is a good idea but you can't beat being alert and observant when you are playing the course. Watch how partners balls bounce, look at sloping fairways and anticipate if you need to play to the right for a kick to the left.

Sometimes on a links the last place you will aim is the flag, because you might need to hit it 30 yards right to catch a shoot that funnels the ball left to the hole.

Hybrid Heaven

The worst thing you can do when playing links golf in a wind is hit hard onto the back of the ball with a steep swing squeezing the ball up into the air and applying backspin to it. The shot will balloon and the wind will exaggerate the spin forcing it into trouble.

A good way to get around this is to have a number of hybrid clubs or utility clubs to pick from. By using a hybrid with a shallower flatter swing you can pick the ball off the top of the grass and sweep it towards the target.

It's easier to hit lower shots that have less spin and are more accurate by hitting hybrids rather than trying to drive down hard on long irons.

Make the wind your friend

The chances are that it will be windy on your links golf tour. It's vital you make the wind your friend not your foe. The easiest way is to play with the wind rather than against it. Instead of trying to cut a three iron into a right to left wind, take a 5-iron and aim further right allowing the ball to ride the wind. It's the same with a driver, cutting a ball into a right to left wind can take fully 80-yards off your tee shot, but, set up for a right to left draw and aim further right can result in big drives and simpler second shots.

Use the wind to your advantage and remember the harder you hit, the higher it flies and the stronger the effect on the ball and its spin.

Take your medicine in Bunkers

Our final tip for playing links golf is to be able to take your medicine and play safe when you find yourself in bunkers. Have you heard of the "Sands of Nakijima"?, more commonly called the "Road Hole" bunker at the 17th on The Old Course at St Andrews.

It's typical of the deep pot bunkers with riveted faces common on the links courses of Scotland, Ireland and Wales. I mention it here because it's a classic example of how a round can come unstuck when a golfer tries to execute a miracle recovery from a deep bunker. If you aren't at least 90% certain you can clear the lip don't risk duffing it into a riveted face and having it drop straight down into an even worse spot.

It's no shame to play out sideways or even backwards from a links pot bunker if it means you can save a bogey or even better stop yourself making a quad or scoring in double figures.

Opt for the conservative shot that will guarantee you have at least a chance of a reasonable score - if you don't you might find a bunker named after you.

Once again, here's the short version of Global Golfer's top-tips for playing Links Golf.

· Knuckle ball your drives

· Play with punch not ego

· Be practical putt from off the green

· Bump and run to make the game fun

· Learn the lie of the land

· Hybrids are heavenly on the links

· Make the wind your friend

· Take your medicine in the bunkers

4 Home Inspection Tips for a Buyer's Peace of Mind

Buying a home is a major event for most people. Since we do it so infrequently, there are many facets of the process which are not familiar to the average buyer. One very important aspect of the home buying process is getting a professional home inspection.

Home inspections can uncover hidden flaws an untrained person would not notice. Sometimes the inspectors discover defects that could cost hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars to correct. Even when they discover minor flaws, you can add to your contract that the seller will correct them. Alternatively, you will have some ammunition to possibly negotiate a lower price. Here are a few inspection tips:

Home Inspection Tip No. 1

Be sure to select an inspector who has had training and a lot of experience in inspection. An experienced inspector will be familiar with good construction methods, and will recognize any visible defects in the structure, or in the installation of ancillary systems such as electrical, plumbing, and HVAC systems. He or she will likely be aware of current recalls of various appliances and what options are available to owners.

Home Inspection Tip No. 2

Choose an inspector from the local area. An inspector from the area will be familiar with local building codes. He or she will also be familiar with common problems associated with the neighborhood, and with individual home builders in the area.

Home Inspection Tip No. 3

Be sure you are present and tag along with the inspector while he or she inspects your potential purchase. Most inspectors prefer you to be there so they can point out specific defects, as well as the good features of your prospective purchase. This will give you a much better understanding of the items in his or her report. Ask questions about anything you see or don't understand.

Home Inspection Tip No. 4

Don't plan on doing your own inspection. There are hundreds of items that need to be inspected. Without formal training or years in the home construction trades, the average person will not be able to recognize many potential defects. A professional home inspection only costs a few hundred dollars to protect your investment of more than 500 times as much. This is no time to be penny wise and pound foolish.

You will get an unbiased evaluation from your inspector. You should expect to get a detailed report, with a description of both good and bad findings, along with appropriate diagrams and photos as necessary to document those findings.

Following the tips above will make you aware of any potential problems, and allow you to proceed with your transaction with the confidence that you are buying a sound property, or will be once any potential defects are addressed. A thorough inspection takes the emotion out of the equation, and gives you peace of mind knowing you are making your decision based on the facts.

Is a Vacation Home Right For You?

Many of us dream about owning the vacation home in the Mountains, or on the Lake or Ocean. A place where one can retreat periodically from the hustle-bustle of everyday life. However, for those who do achieve the financial resources to make such a purchase, there are several factors that should be considered first prior to taking the plunge.

Owning a Vacation Home can be a wonderful experience, but it is a huge commitment and responsibility. When one first thinks of owning a Vacation Home, we think of only the positives, such as a quiet remote location where we can get away from it all. A place where we can swim, fish, hike, and ski. Unfortunately for many, they forget about the other realities: location and travel time, upkeep and the associated costs, high property taxes, their children's school and other home activities, guests. All of these put stress on the new Vacation Home owner, and how they prepare ahead of time to address these issues determines how enjoyable their new purchase will be.

The first item to consider when purchasing a Vacation Home is location. Is it near enough from your main home such that you can enjoy it regularly enough? If not, consider another investment. The last thing you want to do is make a huge investment in property that you can not regularly enjoy. Though real estate has always been considered a good investment it is not considered liquid, and expensive vacation homes can take a long time to sell.

Cost of upkeep and property taxes should also be heavily considered. Maintaining a vacation home is not cheap and the local town officials love to hit the vacation homes hard with property tax bills.

One also needs to consider his or her own weekend responsibilities and those of their children. Sports team events, clubs and organizations as well as maintaining the main house will eat into the time available to head to the weekend get-away. And if you have teenagers, they have their own dates and plans. Be prepared, more times than not, for having to forgo the weekend retreat for your children and other responsibilities.

One of the other aspects of owning a Vacation Home is having guests. This is a double edge sword. You want to have guests to share in your retreat. However, the upkeep, food and cooking can become overwhelming. Also, when guests visit, they are on vacation, but you may not necessarily be. It is important to let friends and families understand this, otherwise prepare for unexpected meals outs and other activities.

Owning a Vacation Home can be, and is for most, a wonderful experience. Those who truly enjoy them, usually have to go through an adjustment cycle. First the euphoria phase, followed by a frustration and exhaustion phase, and finally the true enjoyment stage. The enjoyment phase occurs when one has developed a balance between the pros of owning a vacation home and the other responsibilities of their lives.

Male Infertility and Glutathione

Are You Half The Man Your Father Was?

It is a well-known fact that sperm counts have dropped by half in the last 50 years, and that modern men have 20 percent less semen volume than their fathers (BMJ, 1992, volume 305).

A recent report from researchers in Aberdeen presented preliminary data that suggests the sperm concentration of the men seen in their clinic had declined by 29% over the past 14 years. (British Fertility Society; 5 January 2004)

Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and endocrine-disrupting chemicals from normal, everyday plastics are known to cause reproductive damage, as documented in Theo Colborn's book "Our Stolen Future."

Damage to sperm caused by exposure to common chemicals like alcohol, pesticides in food, has been linked to lowered intelligence and behavioral disorders in children.

Lifestyle risk factors known to decrease sperm quality include

> Cigarette smoking

> Alcohol consumption

> Chronic stress

> Nutritional deficiencies.

Other reasons for infertility include congenital factors, and health conditions like prostatitis and diabetes that can affect sperm production.

Pollution is stealing our future, and there's little anyone can do to avoid it. There may not be a lot you can do to reduce your exposure to persistent environmental toxins.

But there are definite measures you can take to reduce the impact of the environmental pollutants and toxins on your body.

You can prevent and, to a certain extent, repair the damage they cause to your body, through a better lifestyle and nutrition.

Some nutritional therapies and antioxidants that have proven beneficial in treating male infertility and improving sperm counts, sperm morphology and motility include:

> Carnitine

> Arginine

> Zinc

> Selenium

> Vitamin B-12

> Vitamin C

> Vitamin E

> Glutathione

> Coenzyme Q10

Studies show that anti-oxidant supplementation - glutathione in particular - can improve sperm quality, and possibly increase your chances of conceiving.

If you smoke, drink, are exposed to stress, chemicals, radiation, pesticides or take medication or drugs (like sulfasalazine, ketoconazole, azulfidine, anabolic steroids, marijuana) that affect fertility, you should consider taking an antioxidant supplement to reverse some of the damage.

Why are Antioxidants Important for Sperm Quality?

Mammalian spermatozoa are coated by a membrane rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids. These fatty acids are extremely susceptible to oxidative damage by free radicals or Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) by a process called lipid peroxidation (LPO).

Lipid peroxidation damages the sperm cell membrane. It is considered to be the key mechanism of ROS-induced sperm damage and leads to

> Loss of sperm motility

> Abnormal sperm morphology

> Reduced capacity for oocyte penetration

> Infertility

To protect sperm from damage, the body depends on powerful antioxidant enzymes in the body such as superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase, and glutathione peroxidase/reductase (GPX/GRD).

Seminal plasma and spermatozoa have several antioxidant enzymes - glutathione peroxidase, glutathione reductase, superoxide dismutase.

Some amount of all the antioxidant enzymes, which may protect spermatozoa from oxidative attack, are also made by the epididymis during storage.

The glutathione peroxidase/reductase enzymes play a central role in the defense against oxidative damage in human sperm.

Why is Glutathione important for Sperm Quality and Fertility?

A decrease in levels of reduced glutathione (GSH) during sperm production is known to disrupt the membrane integrity of spermatozoa due to increased oxidative stress.

Intracellular glutathione levels of spermatozoa are known to be decreased in certain populations of infertile men. Compared with a control group, the infertile men in all groups had significantly higher levels of ROS and lower levels of total antioxidants.

There is strong clinical evidence to show that men diagnosed with infertility have high levels of oxidative stress that may impair the quality of their sperm.

In some groups, higher levels of ROS were associated with lower sperm counts and defective sperm structure, while lower antioxidant levels correlated with reduced sperm movement.

Previous evidence has also shown that oxidative stress can decrease a sperm's life span, its motility, and its ability to penetrate the oocyst, or egg cell.

Up to 40% of men with unexplained male infertility have higher levels of free radical activity in their bodies.

Because men with high levels of ROS have a seven-fold lower likelihood of inducing a pregnancy than men with lower levels, researchers recommend that treatment for infertile men should include strategies to reduce oxidative stress and improve sperm quality.

How can Glutathione help in the Treatment of Infertility?

Glutathione is not only vital to sperm antioxidant defenses, but selenium and glutathione are essential to the formation of "phospholipid hydroperoxide glutathione peroxidase" - an enzyme present in spermatids - which becomes a structural protein in the mid-piece of mature spermatozoa.

When either substance is deficient, it can lead to instability of the mid-piece of the spermatozoa, resulting in defective motility.

Free radical scavengers - such as glutathione - that restore the structure and function of poly-unsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) in the cell membrane, can be used to treat these cases.

In a double-blind cross-over study of twenty infertile men, treatment with glutathione led to a statistically significant improvement of the sperm quality.

The study concerned men in whom the sperm quality was poor due to unilateral varicocele or germ-free genital tract inflammation - two conditions in which ROS or other toxic compounds are indicated as causative factors.

Treatment with glutathione was also found to have a statistically significantly positive effect on sperm motility (in particular forward motility) and on sperm morphology.

The findings of these studies indicate that glutathione therapy could represent a possible therapeutical tool in cases where ROS or exposure to toxins is the probable cause of infertility.

Read the complete report with references on Male Infertility and Glutathione

Copyright © 2004 Priya Shah

Getting The Most From Your RSS Feeds

What is the most complicated component on your website? Do you even know? Do you have a blog? Are you getting traffic to it on a daily basis? Depending on the answers to these questions, your internet dream of having a wildly successful online business will fade away very quickly.

One component of your website or blog that I think you should incorporate is something called RSS marketing. RSS stands for "really simple syndication", and it's a great way to get traffic to your blog or website automatically. In fact the more people who have your RSS feed, the better.

Some bloggers understand this concept very well, and because of it, they post to their blog about 3-5 times per day. And these aren't those 150-word blog posts... these are 500-700 word blog posts that their readers love, and that gets them repeat traffic to their blog simply and easily.

Now to use RSS feeds in your business, you don't have to be a hardcore blogger (although I must admit, you do need some sort of dedication when it comes to posting to your blog and getting your content seen). You can set up your RSS feed so that whenever you post to your blog, your RSS feed gets updated, and its signaled that new content is available on your blog.

You will get many website owners trying to use your content as content for their site or blog. As long as your website information is posted at the bottom of your blog, you should be good to go. If you find anyone using your content without keeping your website information at the end of the letter, you need to jump on the case immediately and tell them that they will be reported if they don't leave your website information intact.

This happens frequently with bloggers who struggle to get traffic to their blog, and are trying to make themselves look credible with good content on their website. But in truth, they are struggling business owners who have no idea of how to market their business on the internet.

Aside from them, you should definitely focus on getting your RSS feed out there on the internet. Start with a site called "feedcat.net". It's one of my favorites, and you can see just how many people have signed up for feedcat just to stay in touch with your blog. Some will click through to read the rest of your post, and others won't. But that's okay, because you get free traffic anyway from some who are watching your posts, and that's just the nature of marketing.

RSS feeds are incredibly easy to make and is easy to distribute. If you need an RSS feed for your blog, head on over to Feedburner.com. After you've signed up for them, all of your feed's updates will be hosted here - and they have a pretty good looking interface also.

These tips for using RSS feeds are things that I think are crucial to the success of your business. The more you focus on marketing your feed, the more traffic you will get for your website, and the more sales you will get also. So get on the ball today.

Good luck with marketing your RSS feeds today.

Male Infertility and Glutathione

Are You Half The Man Your Father Was?

It is a well-known fact that sperm counts have dropped by half in the last 50 years, and that modern men have 20 percent less semen volume than their fathers (BMJ, 1992, volume 305).

A recent report from researchers in Aberdeen presented preliminary data that suggests the sperm concentration of the men seen in their clinic had declined by 29% over the past 14 years. (British Fertility Society; 5 January 2004)

Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and endocrine-disrupting chemicals from normal, everyday plastics are known to cause reproductive damage, as documented in Theo Colborn's book "Our Stolen Future."

Damage to sperm caused by exposure to common chemicals like alcohol, pesticides in food, has been linked to lowered intelligence and behavioral disorders in children.

Lifestyle risk factors known to decrease sperm quality include

> Cigarette smoking

> Alcohol consumption

> Chronic stress

> Nutritional deficiencies.

Other reasons for infertility include congenital factors, and health conditions like prostatitis and diabetes that can affect sperm production.

Pollution is stealing our future, and there's little anyone can do to avoid it. There may not be a lot you can do to reduce your exposure to persistent environmental toxins.

But there are definite measures you can take to reduce the impact of the environmental pollutants and toxins on your body.

You can prevent and, to a certain extent, repair the damage they cause to your body, through a better lifestyle and nutrition.

Some nutritional therapies and antioxidants that have proven beneficial in treating male infertility and improving sperm counts, sperm morphology and motility include:

> Carnitine

> Arginine

> Zinc

> Selenium

> Vitamin B-12

> Vitamin C

> Vitamin E

> Glutathione

> Coenzyme Q10

Studies show that anti-oxidant supplementation - glutathione in particular - can improve sperm quality, and possibly increase your chances of conceiving.

If you smoke, drink, are exposed to stress, chemicals, radiation, pesticides or take medication or drugs (like sulfasalazine, ketoconazole, azulfidine, anabolic steroids, marijuana) that affect fertility, you should consider taking an antioxidant supplement to reverse some of the damage.

Why are Antioxidants Important for Sperm Quality?

Mammalian spermatozoa are coated by a membrane rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids. These fatty acids are extremely susceptible to oxidative damage by free radicals or Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) by a process called lipid peroxidation (LPO).

Lipid peroxidation damages the sperm cell membrane. It is considered to be the key mechanism of ROS-induced sperm damage and leads to

> Loss of sperm motility

> Abnormal sperm morphology

> Reduced capacity for oocyte penetration

> Infertility

To protect sperm from damage, the body depends on powerful antioxidant enzymes in the body such as superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase, and glutathione peroxidase/reductase (GPX/GRD).

Seminal plasma and spermatozoa have several antioxidant enzymes - glutathione peroxidase, glutathione reductase, superoxide dismutase.

Some amount of all the antioxidant enzymes, which may protect spermatozoa from oxidative attack, are also made by the epididymis during storage.

The glutathione peroxidase/reductase enzymes play a central role in the defense against oxidative damage in human sperm.

Why is Glutathione important for Sperm Quality and Fertility?

A decrease in levels of reduced glutathione (GSH) during sperm production is known to disrupt the membrane integrity of spermatozoa due to increased oxidative stress.

Intracellular glutathione levels of spermatozoa are known to be decreased in certain populations of infertile men. Compared with a control group, the infertile men in all groups had significantly higher levels of ROS and lower levels of total antioxidants.

There is strong clinical evidence to show that men diagnosed with infertility have high levels of oxidative stress that may impair the quality of their sperm.

In some groups, higher levels of ROS were associated with lower sperm counts and defective sperm structure, while lower antioxidant levels correlated with reduced sperm movement.

Previous evidence has also shown that oxidative stress can decrease a sperm's life span, its motility, and its ability to penetrate the oocyst, or egg cell.

Up to 40% of men with unexplained male infertility have higher levels of free radical activity in their bodies.

Because men with high levels of ROS have a seven-fold lower likelihood of inducing a pregnancy than men with lower levels, researchers recommend that treatment for infertile men should include strategies to reduce oxidative stress and improve sperm quality.

How can Glutathione help in the Treatment of Infertility?

Glutathione is not only vital to sperm antioxidant defenses, but selenium and glutathione are essential to the formation of "phospholipid hydroperoxide glutathione peroxidase" - an enzyme present in spermatids - which becomes a structural protein in the mid-piece of mature spermatozoa.

When either substance is deficient, it can lead to instability of the mid-piece of the spermatozoa, resulting in defective motility.

Free radical scavengers - such as glutathione - that restore the structure and function of poly-unsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) in the cell membrane, can be used to treat these cases.

In a double-blind cross-over study of twenty infertile men, treatment with glutathione led to a statistically significant improvement of the sperm quality.

The study concerned men in whom the sperm quality was poor due to unilateral varicocele or germ-free genital tract inflammation - two conditions in which ROS or other toxic compounds are indicated as causative factors.

Treatment with glutathione was also found to have a statistically significantly positive effect on sperm motility (in particular forward motility) and on sperm morphology.

The findings of these studies indicate that glutathione therapy could represent a possible therapeutical tool in cases where ROS or exposure to toxins is the probable cause of infertility.

Read the complete report with references on Male Infertility and Glutathione

Copyright © 2004 Priya Shah

Improve Your eBay Sales - 3

So, how can you improve your sales results on eBay? - Lots of time could be devoted to this, so I'm going to try to tell you in a series of articles about some of those ways. Let's pick some areas for improvement:

1. Search for similar items for sale

2. Completed Listings

The first thing you need to do is to put into the eBay search box (on the home page, top left) about four words or less describing your item. Make the first word the most important and obvious, then progressively use less important words. Don't use small non-descriptive words like 'the' or 'it'.

If too many results come back, try to describe your item a bit more accurately, or use more search words. Alternatively, if you reveal no searches, reduce the number of search words, or describe the item more generically.

If your item is very specific or unique, this search idea may not work, but selling rare or unique items on eBay may not be your best bet. Sometimes it works, sometimes not!

This will tell you whether other people are trying to sell the same thing as you are. Quite often they are. Look at the current price and the number of bids. If there are no bids, then either the auction still has a long time to run, or more likely, the seller is greedy and wants a lot for his item. There could also be a whole host of other reasons.

It is probably better to see if a similar item to yours has sold in the past. To do this, we look at 'Completed listings'.

In the 'filters' section on the left hand side of the page, there is a section labelled 'Show only'. Click the 'Completed listings' box and the browser will automatically search for only those items that have finished listings, whether they have sold or not. It is very important for you to see if there are any items like yours and more importantly, whether they sold (in green) or not (in red) and at what price.

From this information you can work out how much to start selling your item for and how much to expect for it. In my other articles I suggest a starting price of 99 pence to attract as many potential buyers as possible and get the bids going.

If there is someone selling the same item, you need to look at their description to see if you have forgotten to mention any key points and then write more about the item than they do! Is your item in better condition than theirs? Use a similar but competitive starting price to theirs and try to take more and better photographs than they have. This will hopefully give you the edge and you will then get more bids.

You may want to wait until that other seller has finished their listing, so you can be the only one selling the item. Sellers do come online all the time, so waiting isn't always the best policy.

Remember that this is only a guide and the amount you get may be substantially less or even more, especially if you have the perfect situation of two people fighting over buying your item and putting in more and more bids.

Where to Find Banner Generators

By now, everyone is used to the endless banners which are a prominent part of all internet webpages. Banner generators are creating them in ever increasing numbers, as online advertisers vie for the limited number of dollars spent online. For anyone born before the Internet became woven into our daily lives, banners were simply large pieces of cloth or paper or vinyl, printed with colorful logos, photos, and pertinent information about what was being sold, given away, advertised, or announced. Banners could be could be found painted on the sides of barns, industrial buildings, and garages. Banners flew above parades, baseball diamonds, ice hockey rinks, and just about every High School or College event one could think of. Those who generated these banners were most likely artists who excelled with their outlined drawings, and finally their buckets of bright paint.

But where to find banner generators in this age of the Internet and computer graphics? How much should one pay for a banner? Do the free banner services have value? When doing a search on Google for Banner Generators, this was the answer ~ About 8,130,000 results. It was slightly better when the parentheses were put around the word ~ About 102,000 results. Still and all, that is a huge list of people advertising their Banner Generator services! It would be well worth the time to peruse a few dozen of the most attractive pages for the designs which will best suit your purposes and budget. An important question to ask the designer is if they will edit your banner with little, or no, extra charge. It is likely that you will want to tweak your banner after you have tried it out for a week or two. If it is not performing up to your expectations, not attracting the customers you desire, then you will want to make some changes which will make it the powerful marketing tool is is designed to be.

Because banners are such an important tool for today's online businesses, it is important to choose one which not only attracts the eye of the potential customer, but which is easy to navigate. When thinking about choosing a banner, also choose a variety of width and height combinations to suit the various blogs, webpages, online newspapers, and other locations where your banner will be seen. Depending on your budget, a graphic designer specializing in banner generation can be hired to create exactly what you want. A banner can be a simple static, or image, style, or it can be the dynamic, animated style. Depending on the mood you wish to create with your banner, you can let your imagination be your guide; there is almost no limit to the lights, colors, and actions of these dynamic banners.

Another option for finding banner generators is to look for one which has online software. These you can customize yourself, and often they take only minutes to complete. If you are someone who is handy on a computer, who enjoys graphics and images, and has a good eye for design and color, then one of these websites might be your best option. Although some of the free ones may not have all the bells and whistles of the paid sights, it would be well worth taking a look. After all, if you have made a free banner, and it is not performing the way want it to, you can easily return to the banner generation site and either edit your existing banner, or create a new one.

Why You Should Write Remarkable Content

If you are seeking great popularity for your website or blog, then there is really only one thing that you need to do. The solution is to generate content that is remarkable and entices people to keep coming back to your blog over and over again. This is a simple solution in theory, but quite challenging in practice.

Let's examine what fantastic content will do for you. For starters, other webmasters in your niche will start reading it and pointing links to it as they share it with their readers. Therefore, you get more traffic. And since quality links are pointing at your blog, then Google begins to recognize you as a trustworthy source of information, so they begin to reward you with higher search engine rankings. And when you get higher search engine rankings, then you begin getting scooped up by all the various RSS feeds that are posted on hundreds if not thousands of sites. And this is just the first good thing that happens to you!

The second wonderful thing that happens is that as your content becomes popular, then it begins popping up on all the various social media sites like Twitter, Digg, and Facebook. With a little bit of luck in momentum it begins picking up tons of traffic from all the different social users. So what does all this do? Once again, Google recognizes that your contribution to the Internet is golden and they reward you even further. At this point, not only do your primary keywords get high rankings, you will start seeing secondary keywords getting high rankings as well. And to think that this all started just because you generated some nice content that people love to read.

The best acid test here is to read your content thoroughly and then put it down for awhile and read it again. Does it move you in any way? Is it something that you would take the time out to read yourself? Next, have a close friend or loved one read it. Make sure that this person is honest with you.

When you think about the potential here, then why on earth would you even try to write content that is below average? Obviously, there is no future in doing this. As Ben Franklin had once said, you should either write something that is worth reading or you should do something that is worth writing about. If you can do both of these things, then you should have no trouble getting traffic to your blog.

Plastic Surgery - Where's The "Plastic"?

Don't be looking for the Dupont Company sales rep the next time you visit a Plastic Surgeon's office because, despite popular belief, there's no "Plastic" in Plastic Surgery. The name is taken from the Greek word "plastikos" which means to "mold or shape."

Initially plastic surgery procedures were limited to facial and body reconstruction caused by accidents, trauma, illness or birth defects.

As people began to see the purely cosmetic possibilities, many surgeons expanded their services to include facelifts, rhinoplasty (nose jobs), breast augmentation and liposuction.

Plastic Surgery Or Cosmetic Surgery?

It's important to know the difference between plastic surgery and cosmetic surgery, especially if you're planning on having your insurance company foot the bill for your procedure.

Cosmetic surgery is performed solely to improve a person's outward physical appearance and self-esteem by correcting naturally occurring conditions that the patient is unhappy with. Cosmetic surgery may be performed by either a Plastic Surgeon or a Cosmetic Surgeon.

Cosmetic surgery is generally not covered by health insurance.

Reconstructive plastic surgery is performed to correct or reduce the effects of congenital defects, accidental trauma injury, infections, tumors, and other health-related conditions.

It's primary purpose is rarely to simply improve appearance except for extreme cases involving major facial or bodily damage resulting from automobile accidents, etc. Plastic Surgery may only be performed by a Plastic Surgeon.

Insurance And The Reason

In most cases insurance does pay for plastic surgery although there are some cases where your claim may be reduced or denied completely. That's why it is always important to coordinate the planned procedure with your health insurance provider BEFORE you get the procedure.

Often times the difference between whether or not your insurance company will cover the bill is the REASON for the procedure. If, for example, you are having your nose reshaped because you're unhappy with your profile -- no deal. You're on your own.

However, get that same nose job because your doctor has diagnosed a chronic breathing problem that results in the potentially dangerous condition known as "Sleep Apnea" and you could end up with a new nose courtesy of your health insurance provider!

If you are planning to visit a Plastic Surgeon, keep the following items in mind:

Your plastic surgeon should be "Board Certified" by the American Board of Plastic Surgery.

If your doctor will be using anesthesia then make sure that only a licensed Anesthesiologist administers the medicine and make sure that the facility where the procedure is being performed is accredited by at least one of the following organizations:

American Association for Accreditation of Ambulatory Surgery Facilities(AAAASF) Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care (AAAHC) Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO)

Although making sure that all of these certifications are present is no guarantee of a trouble-free experience , NOT having these certifications means that both the doctor performing plastic surgery, as well as the people who run the facility, have a serious lack of regard for your health and well being!

You should NEVER use an uncertified plastic surgeon or uncertified plastic surgery facility. The risk is simply not worth it!

The Good, The Bad and The Unbelievable of RSS

Syndication is probably the best way to distribute content, and it is widely used by authors who are aiming to gain exposure or publish original content that otherwise might not be immediately available to the masses if following a traditional publishing way. Although RSS is not exclusive to writers, anyone who publishes content on the net is responsible for it when it reflects an original idea, thoughts, or simply express a personal opinion.

It is also certain that not all the content on the web is original and that all of us have to cite or quote other's words from time to time but if content is your main concern, understanding what RSS can do for you and against is a must.

Like said above, syndicating your work is the best way to get your readers involved in your work, whether you are publishing a fictional story or your last findings developing software or a marketing strategy. This is the good side of RSS feeds, but turning your head to the dark you will find that anyone cannot only retrieve your content for reading purposes, but also to reproduce it on other websites.

RSS format may be easily integrated into any web page with a minimum effort using a programming language such as PHP or even in simple HTML pages with the aid of JavaScript. There are many online tools to achieve this purpose. This is good when it comes to get acknowledgement, exposure or publicize a work, but bad if you want to keep exclusivity over syndicated content.

Many websites add terms of use to prevent people copy, reproduce or distribute the content, but not all people abide by those rules and the only way to learn who is breaking the TOS is monitoring continuously the web. Google has an alert system which is useful for this purpose, which sends an email whenever a given keyword or keyword chain occurs, delivered immediately, or on a pre-defined time basis.

The Unbelievable of all this is that you can do exactly the same reproducing other's content using RSS, and that those who reproduce RSS content when it is void may end being penalized by search engines for posting duplicate content. So whenever you want to include external feeds on your site, first make sure there is not restriction to grab the feed, and then be cautious with the amount of content reproduced to avoid penalizations.