Epic Success Inc

   What's the worse business nightmare you can imagine? What's the one thing that, if it happened to your business, it would be devastating? There are many things that could easily fit into this category. Theft. Fire. Catastrophic weather. A huge personal injury to you or one of your staff. Loss of your data. Any of these things could be considered a terrible blow to your business.

   But what if that event had been avoidable if you had been properly prepared every day? What if one of these events happened but if you'd been following your own sage advice, it could have happened and yet not been a big deal?

   One of these huge events happened to me last week. No one was injured and we had no tornadoes. But it was almost as devastating to me as if those things had happened. I live in my laptop. Everything I do is in my laptop. Last Sunday morning before I went to my granddaughters’ 10th birthday party, I was getting some work done online. And it happened. I heard an odd noise near my laptop. My first thought was, “Where is that mouse chewing on paper? We’ve never had a mouse before.” After a minute or two of this odd sound, my laptop shut down all by itself. First I checked the power cord, all was good there. Then I decided it was just one of those things so I turned it back on. Except it didn’t come back on properly. I got butterflies in my stomach, turned it off and back on again, three times. All that came up was the system setup utilities screen.

   It was very hard to breathe as I realized what the sound was that I’d heard. It wasn’t a mouse chewing on paper. Something was sizzling inside my laptop. And my next thought was…….when was the last time I backed up my data? OMG! I can’t remember doing that in a long time! Now I’m in an absolute panic. I’ve had this laptop about 6 months, I have the flash drive, and can’t remember ever backing it up. My next thought? “What an idiot!!! You tell everyone to back up their data and you haven’t been backing up yours?!?!?!”

   I immediately get on the phone to find someone to tell me my worse nightmare had not come true. I had to attend this wonderful birthday party where we put on a carnival for my granddaughter’s birthday. Her entire neighborhood came. It was so much fun and allowed me to pretend that all was well. And on Monday I got the news. My hard drive had fried itself-data most likely not recoverable. Fortunately, I have a warranty on it and it leaves me tomorrow via UPS to be repaired. Most likely they’ll simply replace the hard drive and return it. They won’t try to recover my data. I’ve asked them to return the bad hard drive for possible data recovery. Who knows if they will. We’ll have to see what happens when it’s all said and done.

   In the meantime, I hope you learn from my HUGE mistake.   :-)   BACK UP YOUR DATA REGULARLY! A flash drive at Wal-Mart costs less than dinner out. You should back up often, depending on how much changes daily. At the very least, backup your data weekly. I lost 1000’s of documents. I lost 1000’s of hours of work. How much did this mistake cost me? More than I can calculate. Don’t make the same mistake I did. I guarantee you, I won’t make it again!

Well as you guys no doubt know, to really succeed with our internet marketing careers, we need to have great digital products that convert all of our qualified leads into real, cash-paying customers. For many people, coming up with products will involve them creating them on their own, or it may involve them commissioning other professionals to do the hard work for them.

Chances are though, like most smart internet marketers, you probably want to save a whole lot of time and money. After all, if you were to create your own e-book for instance, expect to spend tens of hours doing the research you need, and then writing the book itself ? and that's if you're only semi-decent at writing. If you're a good writer, it will still take you hours and hours and if you're terrible, well, forget it, because your e-book won't sell!

Now, you certainly won't go wrong by hiring a good writer to create a really good e-book, but think about how much a good writer is going to cost you. Wouldn't you rather spend that money on getting visitors to your site so you can make more money?

I'm pretty sure, like me, you're always looking for ways to save time and money on your internet marketing business. I'll easily spend hours each week just reading up on the latest internet marketing happenings and news, in the endless search of improving the way I do business. In my latest search, I came across a really unique website, that's well worth you checking out if you are serious about time and money saving:

http://tinyurl.com/PLWcvs

Now the name is pretty self-explanatory. This site was created by an internet marketer for internet marketers, and it's a one-stop shop for PLR material. E-books, reports, training videos, e-courses ? you name it!

The really wonderful thing about this site though is that membership is free. You can sign up as a VIP Member, which won't cost you a cent, and you can download a huge amount of PLR material for free!

You can sell that material yourself as part of your own internet marketing business, and of course, you can change any part of the product to suit your target audience.

Don't be put off by the free part either, in terms of the quality of the material that's on offer, because I've downloaded the free PLR stuff myself and it's of a really high quality.

I've paid plenty of writers in my time to create digital products, and I can honestly say that the quality of this material is just as good, if not better ? without me having to pay the money I would pay a writer.

In addition to the free PLR material you can download as VIP Member, you can also access heaps of great information about how to improve your internet marketing business.

You also have the option of paying a small one-time fee to become a Full Member of the site, and that will entitle you to even more fantastic PLR products to download and sell, plus you can become an affiliate of the PLR Wholesaler website itself, and receive a great commission whenever somebody you refer signs up as a Full Member.

Regardless of whether you're a paying member or not, you will have access to a regular e-newsletter that gets sent out, and if the testimonials are anything to go by, it's definitely one e-newsletter that's worth your while.

I can vouch for that too, and I am a real pro when it comes to deleting emails that bore me!

So, please do me a favor and join now ? this is a site that's definitely worth your time regardless of your level of experience in internet marketing, so visit it now at:

http://tinyurl.com/PLWcvs

I promise you won't be disappointed.

Until next time, may you keep on selling!

Charlotte VanSickle

By Jeremy Muncy - Fri, 07/31/2009 - 12:00

Mozilla preps new site for the milestone

Update: Firefox has now passed 1 billion total downloads.

Original Article: Lookout Microsoft! Mozilla's Firefox is closing the gap a bit, as they're about to pass 1 billion total downloads, and some think they might even pass the mark as early as Friday.

When do you think Firefox will pass the 1 billion mark? Tell us.

Mozilla is prepping for the occasion with a new site, OneBillionPlusYou.com. Little is currently known about the site, but we assume it will feature information about Firefox's success along with various download statistics.

At the beginning of the month Chris Crum wrote about how Firefox's newest release, version 3.5, had more than 1 million downloads in its first day of launch. Instead of just sitting around revealing in their success, Mozilla is currently hard at work on version 4.0.

It should be noted that the one billion total downloads is in reference to ALL versions of Firefox, which dates back to 2002.

Hello!

Check this out...

Derrick VanDyke just released this amazing software that will automatically add 1,000s of new followers to your Twitter account... And it's 100% FREE!

http://twitterlistbuilder.com/Charlotte_VS

He's also giving away a free report that shows you how to generate clicks, leads, and sales from your Twitter account.

This is very cool...

http://twitterlistbuilder.com/Charlotte_VS

Regards,

Charlotte

Do you know how to protect your business in case of a severe storm? Here are some great tips on making sure your business can pick up and go on after the storm is over!

? Make advance arrangements with key vendors to provide support services to get you back in business.

? Develop a vendor services list or database with key contact phone numbers to help you return your business to operation as soon as possible.

? Familiarize yourself with your insurance policy, riders, etc.

? Secure financial records such as accounts payable and receivable, payroll and banking information, as well as customer databases or information and employee records.

? Protect your equipment, relocate it if possible, if not elevate it above flood level, protect with plastic sheeting, plastic bags and duct tape.

? Don?t forget you can use Internet Banking services

? Internet access: If you need to get information off of the internet, remember that your local library has computers that can be used. If you have a laptop with wireless connectivity, many coffee houses and restaurants have WiFi connections.

7/01/2009 12:03:00 PM

I love labels in Gmail. Most email programs use folders, which only let me put mail in one place at a time. With labels, I can organize mail in multiple ways. Combined with filters to automatically label incoming messages, Gmail offers powerful ways to organize email.

When I joined the Gmail team, I was surprised to learn that only 29% of Gmail users had created any labels. At first, I thought perhaps conversation threading and search made the need to organize our mail less important. But when we talked to people who use Gmail, we got a different story. People often asked us to add folders to Gmail, assuming no system of organization existed. As one person said in a usability study, "What are labels... and where are my folders?"

We realized that if you didn't know about labels, it would be easy to assume Gmail had no way to organize your mail. Not only were "labels" unfamiliar, they were kind of hidden. So, we set out to make labels more accessible, as well as more powerful. Most of the changes have been in Gmail for a while, but we're adding some new features today. We thought you'd enjoy a peek at the method to our madness.

The first thing we did was make labels look more like the sticky notes you use in real life. Making the interface mimic things you interact with outside the computer can sometimes improve ease of use.

We also made it easier to remove a label from an open conversation:

Then we worked on the actions you take to apply and remove labels. Before, to put a label on a message, you had to look under "More actions> Apply label." Not only was this option hidden in a generic menu, but the language wasn't what people are familiar with when it comes to organizing mail. We explored several alternatives:

We also learned that if we made labels sound too much like folders, people got confused. For instance, while "Copy to" and "Add to" were easy to use, these terms made people think they were creating multiple copies of a message. "Move to" was familiar but didn't lead people to think they were creating copies. And people seem to have picked it up fast! Since the launch of the new menu buttons in March, we're seeing a 50% increase in new Gmail users trying labels in their first 2 weeks. And overall usage of the "Move to" menu surpassed that of the "Labels" menu within 7 weeks of launching:

For our latest set of changes, we looked at how you access labels on the left side. In other email applications, folders get the royal treatment and are given a seat at the top near your inbox. But in Gmail, labels were stuck in a box below Chat ? almost like we were telling people, "you don't want to use these." In testing, we discovered that it worked best to remove the terminology altogether and just place custom labels right under the system labels (e.g. "Inbox"):

The last step was to add drag-and-drop. Now, you can drag mail into a label, or even drag a label directly onto a message:

Making it easier to process and organize your mail requires more than just labels, but we hope these changes start to improve the process. We have much more in store, so stay tuned and keep the feedback coming.

Posted by Michael Leggett, Gmail User Experience Designer

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/evolution-of-gmail-labels.html

Since January 16th of this year, Fridays have become a big day for Twitter users. The reason for the hype is a result of the hot trend called #FollowFriday. Micah Baldwin, the Creator of #FollowFriday and the VP of Business Development at Lijit, talks with WebProNews in the above video and tells how he had no idea his one tweet would reach the level it has.

When he sent out that initial tweet, Micah simply wanted to recommend a couple of his friends. As he recalled the experience in a blog post, Micah wrote: “I started thinking about how proud I was to be friends with Danny and Jeffrey, and more people should follow them on Twitter.”

Shortly after his tweet went out, Mykl Roventine suggested he add a hashtag to his Follow Friday and from there #FollowFriday began. By the end of that first day, tweets were going out with the hashtag of #FollowFriday nearly every half second.

Many people have found #FollowFriday to be very useful, but recently the trend has received a lot of criticism. We went out and asked few people first-hand how they feel about #FollowFriday. While some were fans of the trend early on, they believe #FollowFriday has turned into name recommendations with no reasons. In response to the negativity, Micah believes #FollowFriday has gotten away from his original intention. He says a #FollowFriday should consist of a name(s) followed by a short reason for the recommendation.

Posted on: May 29th, 2009

What do you think about #FollowFriday? Do you find it useful? Could it be improved? What do you think is in store for the future of #FollowFriday?