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There was a time when balloons were nothing more than kids toys but now they are used for so many different things. One of the most popular uses of balloons is for advertising. Advertising balloons are popular for so many reasons but the most important one is that people notice them. There is something about a balloon that is fascinating to adults and children alike. We all find out eyes drawn to these colorful floating things and we always want to see what they say on them.

Advertising balloons are pretty and they are effective. They also come in many different sizes. Some advertising balloons are gigantic and are as big as a small plane while others are tiny. Some balloons float while others hand from different things, things like walls or poles or flags, anything really.

These days the most popular kinds of advertising balloons are those shaped like different characters. You will see some shaped like giant gorillas or certain cartoon chartacters like Bart Simpson or Mickey Mouse. These are popular and they catch the eye as you drive down the road, some can even be seen from miles and miles away, they are colorful and fantastic.

The vast majority of advertising balloons are filled with helium gas so as to float in air with one end tied to the support that does not allow it to wander away. One good quality about advertising balloons is that they do not burst as they are not made from flimsy material. They have thick skins that keep them from getting poked and exploded by birds.

Though advertising balloons are dying out when compared to other neat things like laser beams that are used these days, they are certainly not going to leave the market anytime soon. Next time when you see a advertising balloon floating in mid air just think what it took to come with to come with simple yet such a brilliant method of advertising.

Balloons HQ http://balloons-hq.com/ for information about balloons from advertising balloons to weather balloons and much more.

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The concept of a decision support system (DSS) is extremely broad and its definitions vary depending upon the author’s point of view. A DSS can take many different forms and the term can be used in many different ways.

In a more precise way, it can be defined as:

An interactive, flexible, and adaptable computer-based information system, especially developed for supporting the solution of a non-structured management problem for improved decision making. It utilizes data, provides an easy-to-use interface, and allows for the decision maker’s own insights.

DSS are computer-based support for management decision makers who are dealing with semi-structured problems. With respect to computer terminology it can be defined as:

Interactive computer-based systems that help decision makers utilize data and models to solve unstructured problems.

Though, it is impossible to give a precise definition including all the facets of the DSS. Nevertheless, the term decision support system remains a useful and inclusive term for many types of information systems that support decision making. Every time a computerized system is not an on-line transaction processing system (OLTP), someone will be tempted to call it a DSS. As it can be see that there is no universally accepted definition of DSS.

Additionally, the specifics of it is what makes it less generalized and more detailed. In addition, a DSS also is a specific Software application that helps to analyze data contained with a customer database. This approach to customers is used when deciding on target markets as well as customer habits.

History of DSS

The concept of decision support has evolved from two main areas of research: the theoretical studies of organizational decision making done at the Carnegie Institute of Technology during the late 1950s and early 1960s, and the technical work on interactive computer systems, mainly carried out at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the 1960s. It is considered that the concept of DSS became an area of research of its own in the middle of the 1970s, before gaining in intensity during the 1980s. In the middle and late 1980s, executive information systems (EIS), group decision support systems (GDSS), and organizational decision support systems (ODSS) evolved from the single user and model-oriented DSS. Beginning in about 1990, data warehousing and on-line analytical processing (OLAP) began broadening the realm of DSS. As the turn of the millennium approached, new Web-based analytical applications were introduced.

It is clear that DSS belong to an environment with multidisciplinary foundations, including (but not exclusively) database research, artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction, simulation methods, software engineering, and telecommunications.

Historical development

The role of business information systems has changed and expanded over the last four decades. In the incipient decade (1950s and ’60s), electronic data processing systems could be afforded by only the largest organizations. They were used to record and store bookkeeping data such as journal entries, specialized journals, and ledger accounts. This was strictly an operations support role. By the 1960s management information systems were used to generate a limited range of predefined reports, including income statements (they were called P & Ls back then), balance sheets and sales reports. They were trying to perform a decision making support role, but they were not up to the task.

By the 1970s decision support systems were introduced. They were interactive in the sense that they allowed the user to choose between numerous options and configurations. Not only was the user allowed to customize outputs, they also could configure the programs to their specific needs.

The main development in the 1980s was the introduction of decentralized computing. Instead of having one large mainframe computer for the entire enterprise, numerous PCs were spread around the organization. This meant that instead of submitting a job to the computer department for batch processing and waiting for the experts to perform the procedure, each user had their own computer that they could customize for their own purposes. Many poor souls fought with the vagaries of DOS protocols, BIOS functions, and DOS batch programming.

As people became comfortable with their new skills, they discovered all the things their system was capable of. Computers, instead of creating a paperless society, as was expected, produced mountains of paper, most of it valueless. This information overload was mitigated somewhat in the 1980s with the introduction of executive information systems. They streamlined the process, giving the executive exactly what they wanted, and only what they wanted.

The 1980s also saw the first commercial application of artificial intelligence techniques in the form of expert systems. These programs could give advice within a very limited subject area. The promise of decision making support, first attempted in management information systems back in the 1960s, had step-by-step, come to fruition.

The 1990s saw the introduction of strategic information systems. This was largely because of developments in the subject of strategic management by scholars like M. Porter, T Peters, J. Reise, C. Markides, and J. Barney in the 1980s. Competitive advantage became a hot management topic and software developers were happy to provide the tools.

Applications

There are theoretical possibilities of building such systems in any knowledge domain.

One of the examples is Clinical decision support system for medical diagnosis. Other examples include a bank loan officer verifying the credit of a loan applicant or an engineering firm that has bids on several projects and wants to know if they can be competitive with their costs.

A specific example concerns the Canadian National Railway system, which tests its equipment on a regular basis using a Decision Support System. A problem faced by any railroad is worn-out or defective rails, which can result in hundreds of derailments per year. Under a DSS, CN managed to decrease the incidence of derailments at the same time other companies were experiencing an increase.

DSS has many applications that have already been spoken about. However, it can be used in any field where organization is necessary. Additionally, a DSS can be designed to help make decisions on the stock market, or deciding which area or segment to market a product toward. DSS has endless possibilities that can be used anywhere and anytime, for its decision making needs.

Zarfishan Batool
Dept. of Computer Science
University Of Karachi
Pakistan

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What is CSS?

CSS is a simple file which controls the visual appearance of a Web page without compromising its structure. Using CSS we can control our font size, font color, link color and many other attributes on our web page. This will make our HTML code much more readable and the page size will be reduced.

Why to use it and how to use it properly

If you don’t use CSS on your web pages and you have many tables and content on them, chances are that your HTML file size will be quite big. Fact is that we live in a busy world, and people are not will to wait more than 5 seconds web page to load.

From the other side some web developers implement the CSS on wrong way. They write their CSS in HTML code of the page, like this:

<html>

<head>

<title>My Page</title>

<style>

A

font-family: Verdana;

font-size:8pt;

color:black;

text-decoration:none

</style>

What is wrong with this technique? Well, imagine that you have site with more than 50 pages. One day, you decide that you want to change font color and colors of the links on your site. You will have to edit ALL the pages on your site, and do to that you will need time, because you place your CSS in your web page.

Better way is to save your visual attributes in separate, external CSS file, and to link that file with your page like this:

<html>

<head>

<title>My Page</title>

<link href=myStyle.css rel=stylesheet type=text/css>

Using this technique, you can change the look of your site within minutes, regardless of the number of pages, because your visual attributes are saved in ONE external CSS file. Edit that file, and you are done.

Benefits

Which are the benefits of using CSS? List is quite long and I will list here only the most important.

• Your web page will load faster
• Web page will become more search engine friendly
• You can change you site appearance within minutes
• You can write separate CSS file for handheld devices which will be called up instead of the regular CSS file
• You can forget about creating printer friendly version of your site using separate CSS file when user chooses to print the web page.

Avoiding standard HTML commands like:

<font color=#0000ff><font size=2>Product</font></font></font>

will help us to reduce file size, but that is not the only benefit. Using CSS word product in this example will be moved more close on the top of the document. Search engine will pick up more content and less code.

Imagine that you have 3 columns table on your page. When you see the code, you will notice that first come code for your table, and after that it come your content. Positioning your 3 columns using CSS instead of standard inline elements:

<table width=90% border=0 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0>

<tr>

<td width=381 height=150 valign=top bgcolor=FFEDD4>

My Product

</td>

<td height=150 valign=top bgcolor=FFEDD4>

When CSS is used, your code might look like this:

<div id=leftcontent>

My Product

</div>

Again your code is much more clear, and your content is moved on the top of your document, making your HTML page search engine friendly, and reducing your file size.

Content is one of the most important factors in Search Engine Optimization, and you will benefit with removing the unnecessary code in your HTML and create search engine friendly web page.

Validate it

Browser war is far behind us. Reality is that most of the people today use Internet Explorer, but you should try to be on safe side and ensure that your CSS code is valid. Not all browsers interpret the CSS on same way. You can validate your CSS here: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

About The Author

Zoran Makrevski is founder and CEO of SEO.Goto.gr.

Since 1998 has focused on E-Commerce and attempts to bring more traffic to the customer sites bring him in the SEO industry, and he is running his own company today.

Search Engine Positioning Firm

SEO.Goto.gr

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Home Page

Home page should clearly indicate what the site is about. Provide top level navigation on the first page, your logo, and tell to the visitor what he can found on your web site. Your home page should be informative, and should call your visitor on action. Home page is the place where the visitor decides what he will do, click on some of your links, or leave the site. If you have a discount, or if you offer some free service in attempt to make a contact with potential customers, make sure to provide link to that service on your home page.

If you decide to implement flash intro on your first page, make sure to give the user possibility to skip the flash intro. The link skip intro should be outside of the flash, because you will force the visitor to wait until the Flash movie is loaded.

Navigation structure

Place the navigation on the place where the people are used too look for it. Dont experiment with the navigation! I cant stress enough this. Keep the navigation system same on ALL pages. Visitors are not ready to learn your site navigation system. Consistency is the most important thing here. You should focus your effort on building consistent rhythm across all pages of your site.

Font size

Your font size should be enough big so your text can be read without effort. There are many people who will not bother to read very small letters. Dont loose your visitors because of font size. Optimal size seems to be 12-13 points. Visitors should be able to read your text easy, without any effort. Broke big chunks of texts in paragraphs and make them easy to follow.

Line Length

The length of a line of type should be comfortable to read. The optimal line length for printed materials seems to be about 10 to 12 words, or 60 to 70 characters. Somewhat shorter lines of about 40 to 50 characters may be more appropriate for larger displays. If the line is too long the reader must search for the beginning of it; if it is too short it will break up words or phrases awkwardly.

Creating emphasis

Creating emphasis is an important and integral part of designing and typesetting. Handled with taste and good judgment it can help direct and inform the reader. When these qualities are lacking, or someone feels that every word is important and must be emphasized in some way then your web page starts to look like a battlefield and becomes difficult to read!

Graphics

Its well known that one picture worth more than million words. This rule applies on Internet too. Do your best to show clear, attractive photo of your product. If you offer a service, find a photo which will best describe him. However, be careful about file size. Dont compress your photo to that level to not be clear, but also dont leave the photo on full quality. That will make file size too big, and will increase download time.

Gif vs. JPEG

Less experienced web designers many times use wrong format to store their picture. Here are few guidelines which will help mistakes to be avoided. If your photo has small number of colors (less then 64) GIF will be better choice. Make sure however to reduce the palette size too. That is, if your image have10-15 colors only, reduce your palette on 16 or 32 colors.

Also, if your image contains text, GIF format should be your choice. JPEG use loosy compression method and will cause text and edges to become blurry.

If you are saving a photograph save it as JPEG

JPEG images can contain over 32 million different colours. That is much more than the human eye can see.

If you want to incorporate large text into a photographic image, JPEG may be a good format to use. While the edges may still get blurred, danger of it becoming unreadable is slim. If you think your image is more important than the text, go ahead and use the JPEG format.

Speed

Do your best to reduce the download time. We live in a busy world and people are not will to wait long time. Try to reduce size of your graphics as much as possible without to destroy the image. Image must look good, but size (in KB) should be as small as possible.

Test before publishing

Do your homework, and do it well. Your visitors will not bother to send you an E-Mail that some of your links does not work or that some of your images does not appear. Even if someone do so, it is quite embarrassing. Perform spell and grammar checking. Remember that in many cases visitor will build his opinion about you or your company on base on your web site. When published, site should not contain any under construction or coming soon messages.

About The Author

Zoran Makrevski is founder and CEO of SEO.Goto.gr.

Since 1998 has focused on E-Commerce and attempts to bring more traffic to the customer sites bring him in the SEO industry, and he is running his own company today.

Search Engine Positioning Firm

SEO.Goto.gr

More articles at Database for Articles

LET THERE BE LIGHT: To understand this story, we must return to the beginning — September 5th, 2001. One of my associates had placed a free ad in a newsletter that she had just subscribed to. For that effort, she was accused of spam! Mind you the person filing the complaint was not the editor of the newsletter, but rather a subscriber of the newsletter.

The man was frustrated because he was having difficulty getting unsubscribed from the newsletter, so he filed a complaint against everyone who was listed in the body of the message, rather than just the list owner. It was his frustration, anger and ignorance that fueled this nasty little affair.

My friend lives in a very small town in Canada that has only one ISP. The Upline Provider for the local ISP was demanding her account to be turned off permanently because of this accusation which was later dropped. The local ISP stood their ground on behalf of their customer — my friend — though this action could have seriously hampered their ability to provide their customers with Internet access.

Even in dropping his claim against my friend, the person who filed the complaint insisted that my friend was somehow still responsible for his inability to unsubscribe from the newsletter in question!

The person who filed this complaint was using a system designed by programmer Julian Haight to combat spam email called SpamCops.net.

INTO THE PIT: In my original copy written September 10th, I had compared the tactics of the few diehard SpamCop anti-spammers to the tactics of a terrorist.

In the wake of September 11th, it did not seem appropriate to refer to the SpamCop fanatics as terrorists. However closely the tactics of intimidation and coercion used by the SpamCop fanatics coincides with the tactics used by the al-Qaida terrorist network led by Osama bin Laden, SpamCop does not resort to murder.

Due to SpamCop.net’s unwillingness to provide a real person contact for the resolution of complaints, I was forced to turn to their discussion board to find the resolution I was seeking — a resolution, which by the way, was never found.

My major complaint was that for someone to file against another simply because their email address or website appeared in someone else’s ezine was improper.

Many members had knee jerk reactions to my questioning their system from within their inner sanctum. Many resorted to name calling and angry retort until a list administrator called them down. After the list administrator directly addressed their inappropriate comments, I received three open apologies from members of the group.

PUBLISHERS BEWARE. Over the course of the next few days, I watched their discussions. I was appalled to learn that many of them put email addresses in circulation just so that they can torment others with spam accusations.

As an owner of several discussion lists and newsletters, I now make it a standard policy to bar participation in my groups by someone sporting a SpamCop.net email address.

I had tried to observe their group with an open mind, as I too find spam mail to be annoying. I receive nearly 50 pieces a day from four to five people, who send me the same ads day after day. What is really annoying is they send the spam to my autoresponders with a fake address, so I get another 50 messages a day telling me that I used an invalid email address in my autoresponder message. All have spidered my website to get the email addresses.

A SPAMCOP SPEAKS. In all fairness, I was leaning towards a semi-favorable opinion of the SpamCop program until Jerry lashed out.

In his message, Jerry told me things which will just make you want to explode in frustration.

He said of the innocent who get caught in the cross-fire of the spam wars: They should stay home.

He went on to say, it is far better for thousands of innocents to burn in Hell than one spammer prevail.

And, Truth, Justice, and the American Way - or lack thereof - is irrelevant. Spammers must believe there are no loopholes, no gray areas, that the righteous will be sacrificed (in vast numbers if need be) in order to expunge the evildoers.

In conclusion, it was stated, Spam, like the one true faith, is in the eye of the beholder. Again, if it looks like a bird, it might be a duck. Better the condor dies than risk a quack.

These of course are just excerpts. If you would care to read his entire message to me, you may do so at the bottom of this page:

http://shopmystate.com/niba/BillP.html

NO SAFE HAVEN: On two occasions, I have found myself squarely in the cross-hairs of the radicals or the angry that wear the shield of SpamCop. I publish articles for free-reprint on the web — much as this article has come to you today.

The SpamCop’s suggested that I was hiding behind the free- reprint rights connected to my articles. They suggested that I was encouraging spam by making my work available to be published by anyone. In response to their suggestions that I am the enemy, I have added one term to my Terms of Reprint:

* You may not use this article in UCE (Unsolicited Commercial Email). Email distribution of this article must be opt-in email only.

Despite this step, I have been accused of spam twice because my article appeared in a newsletter that a complaint was lodged against. In both cases, the SpamCop member did not file a complaint against the person who was responsible for the newsletter — they filed against everyone who was in the body of the email.

Their complaint was received by the editor of the newsletter, the article writers, the advertisers, and anyone who was fortunate enough to be mentioned in the resources section or the Letters to the Editor. We each had our ISP and Upline Providers contacted if our email address appeared in the body of the newsletter and our webhosts contacted if our domain appeared within the body of the newsletter.

The only way I can completely avoid spam complaints against my domains is to stop writing altogether. I am a writer. That is what writers do, we write. To please the SpamCop’s, I must quit being a writer or just stay home.

POLICING THE POLICE. This is silly. If we cannot trust the cops to make sure they nab the right person, who can we trust?

There is in fact a movement afoot to bring SpamCop down called Arresting SpamCop: http://www.niba.shopmystate.com/

While some of the SpamCop members are simply tired of the same kinds of spam that irritates us, there are others within the movement who have an axe to grind with everyone who crosses their path.

To suggest to a SpamCop member that folks should be trained in the nuances of who to complain against in a complaint, you can expect a reply like this. Jerry answered my suggestion precisely this way:

SpamCop users are literate, intelligent, virtually all college educated, well-versed in spam, and are more computer-savvy than 99% of the world’s population. It is presumptuous and arrogant in the extreme to imply they need a Learning Annex class to detect spam.

The question I have is to whom the term arrogant should be applied?

This is what my webhost said about my last SpamCop spam complaint, As far as I know spam is generally considered to be high volume unsolicited email. So, as long as you are not doing that then I am not sure why it would be called spam.

CONCLUSION: While the anti-spammers rail on the ugliness of spam, it seems they are perfectly willing and likely prefer that the only people permitted to send email should be those they directly give permission to.

Personally, I find the practices of the radicals of SpamCop to be more offensive than the activities of the spammers. It is a terrible thing to say, I know, but the spammers simply irritate me and the SpamCop fanatics try to oppress my activities.

We all must make a choice, do we stay home or do we fight the oppressors who seek to diminish our freedom.

For other stories on this subject:

http://www.niba.shopmystate.com/
http://www.smithfam.com/news/june01m.html

Copyright Bill Platt - All Rights Reserved

Bill Platt is the owner of http://www.LinksAndTraffic.com

• When you are tired of the struggle of the link building process, it might be time to consider our Links And Traffic services.

• When you are ready to employ more Natural Linking Strategies in increasing your link popularity, Links And Traffic can help.

• When you are ready for your links to actually generate click-through traffic, we are here.

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When you first start to look for a work at home job, its easy to get discouraged. Postings for work at home jobs can be scarce and when they do come up, competition among applicants is fierce. What many moms new to telecommuting dont realize is that there is another way to land a work at home job Networking. Many people get their work at home jobs either directly from or as a referral through other people they network with.

When you are networking, you are not actively pursuing a work at home job. Your main focus should be on making new friends in the Telecommuting community. Down the road those friends may send you a lead for a great job, but first you have to make those friends.

Lets take a look at four different ways to network in the Work at Home Community.

Message Boards

Message boards are a great way to network with other telecommuters. Spend your time asking questions and answer the questions of other people. You may not see any immediate return for the time invested in networking on the boards, but it will pay off in the long run.

If you are a person that is helpful and well liked on the message board, and one of the other board members comes across a position they are not qualified for, or they just dont need the extra work at the moment, they will likely think of you and send the lead your way (and you should do the same).

Creating those types of relationships are what you are working to create through networking on message boards.

Online Groups

One of the biggest online groups is the Ryze Network, but there are also Google, Yahoo and MSN Groups. Each of these networks has groups on any topic under the sun.

Search for Telecommuting groups and lurk around a few for a while. Youll find one or two groups that seem like a good fit for you and then start participating.

Instant Messenger

After you have gotten to know some other telecommuters on the boards or in the groups, approach them about exchanging Instant Messenger ids. You know have a fast one-on-one way to stay in touch with them and to further build a relationship.

Local Work At Home Mom Groups

Check with your local chamber of commerce or the small business organization to find some local offline networking events. Just like networking in the online world, you are there to meet new people and develop relationships with them.

Some of the best places to network online are WAHM.com - the first work at home mom website with an active forum and of course TelecommutingMoms.com/BB - the only message board devoted to telecommuting moms. Head over there today and make some new friends!

Be careful not to get too wrapped up with chatting thoughits all too easy to get wrapped up in message boards and spend hours a day networking!

Nell Taliercio is the owner and founder of http://www.TelecommutingMoms.com which is a leading resource website with work at home jobs and everything a telecommuting mom would need. Come visit us today!

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Skills must be developed over a period of time, and practiced to attain an acceptable level of professional competence. Practice needs to take place within the business arena. Time has become an ever-valuable commodity and this gap between talent availability and business need resulting from high-speed business ramp-up, is one of the reasons why expatriation is an important factor in the success of the region.

There is one main ingredient that is missing and that is provenance.

The difficulties associated with striving to attain superior performance in the global business arena, creates its own unique hurdles. Unfortunately, there is a line of thought that implies resentment towards some of the expatriate workforce from those who mistakenly believe that there is an unfair bias.

This feeling often draws attention to the connection made by hiring staff, that roles are skills and competency based and as such, this should be the leveler across all the installed talent pool. If selection of managers were solely based on these criteria and, these alone were adequate to determine their fitness for purpose, then this assumption would make sense. However, it overlooks the fact that at senior level, either at functional head, specialist or business leader, quite often external requirements mandate the qualifications of the new incumbent.

I believe career progression is contingent upon a combination of personal and importantly, external factors. Market drivers, competitive threat, company positioning and brand value, removal of trade barriers, regional growth and the turbulence and instability within the markets, the whirlpool effect, alignment with protocols such as WTO, incorrect business model causing bad hiring decisions, and in addition the impact of external pressure resulting in companies establishing hiring barriers and an uncertain US Dollar.

One of the main effects of WTO compliance is the removal of trade barriers enabling overseas companies to compete with regional based organisations, increasing consumer choice. Locally owned companies are now playing in the international business arena, large domestic companies have become international players with their home base acting as the international headquarters.

Quite often we see that new businesses are formed and are managed by for example western expats. This has raised questions within regional communities, for if the role has a particular scope and a particular form, then why would there be a bias.

Business is no longer regional, it is international and boundaries are dissolving and overall standards have to improve in order to become competitive, or to be the market leader, or, to simply survive.

This cannot be achieved with inexperienced staff or business inefficiency due to incorrect hiring choices. The ramp-up rates for business is rapidly increasing as the region goes though a phase of re-generation. This ramp-up is disproportionate to the availability of capable, locally available talent It is becoming increasingly more common to see complex strategic alliances and the establishment of innovative ventures.

In this era of collaboration, driven by for example, the need to become world class or to comply with WTO rules on monopolistic practices, organisations often share intellectual platforms or they establish a combined business form to capitalize on individual business expertise. This implies the need to recruit the best available talent.

There is an increasing number of major projects, with cross border assets and the need for external financing. Project finance comes from a variety of disparate sources often as a part of syndication and often amounting to several hundred million US$. Investors such as western- based venture capitalists, will need to mitigate their investment risk, see a return rate in excess of 30% per annum and a workable exit strategy.

Herein lies the answer to some of the questions raised about bias. Many companies are obligated to employ key staff who are not only professionally capable, but who have the right provenance to satisfy their investors.

Regional growth and the move towards a more competitive business platform will automatically filter out those who no longer fit with tomorrows business model. This is not unfair bias and neither is it prejudicial, it is sound business necessity

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