MICE (Meeting, Incentive, Convetion, Exhibition)

First of all, I want to give everyone the disclaimer that I am not a registered financial advisor and I don’t play one on TV. Therefore, I cannot legally provide financial advice and I will not do so. This is for informational purposes only and I’m not recommending any of my personal investment strategies to anyone else. Now, with that being said, I will outline some techniques I use for my personal investment strategy, without going into a whole lot of specifics. I generally go against the conventional investment wisdom that you are accustomed to hearing, although I do use both a conservative and a not-so-conservative strategy.

Most financial advisors put a great deal of emphasis on diversification. While this is probably appropriate for most people, I personally don’t buy it. The idea is that it limits risk. While it does indeed limit risk, for me it also limits my upside potential way too much. Therefore, I basically disregard the whole concept. Most advisors will encourage investing for the long term. This strategy is generally successful in building wealth, but unfortunately for me, it wouldn’t until after I’m old or dead. I invest for the short and intermediate terms.

I also do not buy or trade individual stocks. Instead, I buy and trade no-load mutual funds, including index funds. Even with the use of a deep-discount broker, commissions from trading individual stocks will add up and cut into my profits. True no-load mutual funds don’t cost me anything to buy or sell. Besides, owning shares in a mutual fund is like owning shares of a lot of different stocks at one time without having to actually buy any of those stocks. Instead of buying individual stocks, I am buying classes or groups of stocks. I also don’t have to worry about which stocks to buy or sell, as that job is being taken care of by the fund managers.

Now, let’s talk about some guidelines I use specifically for my conservative strategy. I only buy funds that have earned a “Five-Star” rating from Morningstar (www.morningstar.com). They must also have a Morningstar risk rating of “low”, “below average”, or “average.” In addition, they must have a Morningstar return rating of “above average” or “high.” Also, they must be long-term winners, i.e., near the top of their categories in five-year and/or ten-year performance. I also require them to be “Lipper Leaders”, as deemed by Lipper (www.lipperleaders.com), in the categories of “Returns”, “Capital Preservation”, and “Consistency.”

In my mind, consistency is just as important as high overall return and capital preservation. An inconsistent or volatile fund can cause problems for short and intermediate term investors, even if its longer term performance is excellent. Here’s the problem: Let’s say a fund that I invested in went down 50% in the first year I owned it. It would have to go up a whopping 100% the next year for me to break even after two years. However, let’s say it went down 25% after the first year. In that case, the fund would only have to go up 33% in the second year for me to break even. A 20% drop in the first year would need only a 25% increase in the second year to break even; a 15% drop would need only an 18% increase; a 10% drop would require only an 11% increase; and so on. Therefore, I stick with funds that have never gone down more than 10-20% in any one year. I prefer funds that have never had a losing year, but those are very hard to find.

What about my more aggressive strategy? This is the one that I’m using more and more often and is becoming more profitable, although I probably couldn’t quit my job and make a living off of it just yet. Is it going to make me rich? Probably not. However, I hope it will eventually put me in a financial position to retire early. This strategy involves actively trading various no-load market index funds. The experts say you can’t successfully time the market. I believe this is true when using the strictest definition of the term, “market timing.”

However, I have been able to trade successfully with the short-term momentum already established by the market. Why no-load market index funds instead of individual stocks or Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) that mirror various market indexes? Because no-load market index funds allow leveraging and short selling without the need for a margin account. Also, some of these funds allow twice-daily trading (which is important for exiting early on bad days). In addition, the fund company I use doesn’t charge redemption fees for actively trading its funds. Most fund companies, even those that specialize in no-load funds, charge these fees.

Like I said at the beginning, I’m not going into great detail, especially about my more aggressive strategy. However, I should define some terms so all of this will make more sense to those who are novices in the world of investments.

What is leveraging? Leveraging, in this context, is the ability to buy shares of a stock or mutual fund and realize a multiple of its gain or loss during the time you hold it. For example, if you buy a fund leveraged at 2 times a given stock index and that fund goes up 20%, you realize a 40% gain. However, if it goes down 20%, you incur a 40% loss. With individual stocks or ETFs, you need a margin account to do this. With a margin account, your broker is loaning you money on “margin” at a rather high rate of interest to cover the leveraged (or extra) amount. Obviously, this could be very risky and costly. However, there are some funds that have this leveraging built in at no cost to you. These funds automatically give you one-and-a-half or two times the gain or loss of a given stock index.

What is short selling? Short selling is when you sell a stock (that you don’t already own) immediately at its current market price while agreeing to buy it at whatever the market price will be at a fixed point in the near future. In other words, you are betting that the stock will be going down, so you can buy it for less than you sold it for. Have you ever heard anyone say “don’t sell me short”? Well, this is where that term came from. Selling someone short is tantamount to treating them like a bad stock that you believe is going down. Yes, it’s backwards of the normal process of buying and selling stocks. As with leveraging, you need a margin account to do this for individual stocks or ETFs. Your broker loans you money on “margin” (actually buying the stock temporarily), so you can sell a stock that you don’t own yet.

Once again, however, the funds I use have this short selling mechanism already built in to them at no cost to you. For example, you can buy a fund that gives you the inverse performance of the Nasdaq-100 Index. When that index goes up 10%, the fund goes down 10%; conversely, when that index goes down 10%, the fund goes up 10%. There are even funds with leveraging and short selling built in to them, at no cost to you! For example, there is an available fund that goes up 20% when the Nasdaq-100 Index goes down 10%. Of course, that same fund goes down 20% when then the Nasdaq-100 Index goes up 10%. As you can probably imagine, these funds can be powerful tools for profit-making for those who know how to use them, but can be highly dangerous for those who do not.

For more information about any or all of these concepts and to find out what kind of investment is right for you, contact your financial advisor and/or do your own research. Hopefully, I have provided some food for thought as well as several resources that might be helpful to you when doing your own research.

Terry Mitchell is a software engineer, freelance writer, and trivia buff from Hopewell, VA. He also serves as a political columnist for American Daily and operates his own website – http://www.commenterry.com – on which he posts commentaries on various subjects such as politics, technology, religion, health and well-being, personal finance, and sports. His commentaries offer a unique point of view that is not often found in mainstream media.

The next fundamental programming tip I can offer you is naming your variables appropriately. I find that a majority of logic or compile errors are caused by a misuse of variable names.

Here are some examples of bad naming conventions:
1. dim newvalue as Integer
2. int x = 0;
3. JLabel label1 = new JLabel();

Laid out here, it is pretty easy to recognize what each variable does, but in a simple program of at least 500 code lines it can prove rather difficult to track these variables.

Here are some suggestions.

In the first case, think about what “newvalue” represents. We know it is an integer but what is it used for? If it is a counter for a while loop, then how about doing this instead,
dim iCount as Integer
It is quite clear that this variable is of type interger and will be used as a counter.

The second example is sort of the same situation. A lot of the times one letter variables are declared in C++ and Java, for mathmatical algorithm or for loop statements. In those cases I feel it is perfectly good coding structure to use these variables as is. If this variable was to refer to a randomly produced interger used in a lottery machine, then the use of x as that variable name proves quite ambiguous.

In the third case JLabel label1 = new JLabel(); in this case, you should be more descriptive as to what label1 points to, either what sort of information is produced from this label, or where it is located.
If this label was created as the title of a program, then I would call it JLabel lblTitle = new JLabel();
If the label refered to a name of a person I would declare it as JLabel lblName = new JLabel();

Pretty straight forward, and these little tips will definitly help you efficently test your code.

Hungarian Notation
A few quick tips on composing your variables.
Hungarian notation is one of the most common format styles.
iNum = an integer value
dNum = a decimal value
sName = a string value
btnSubmit = a button used to submit
lblStudentAverage = a label
as Shown above, use the first initial of your variable to represent what data type it is. here are a few other examples
obj -> Object
arr -> Array
txt -> Text Box
cbx -> Combo Box

Graham McCarthy, has 6 years experiance developing software for both educational and business oriented purposes.
Website: http://concisecoding.blogspot.com/
Certification:

- A College Diploma in Computer Programming Analysis from Fanshawe College in London, Ontario Canada.

- A University Degree in Information Technology /w Honours from York University in Toronto, Ontario Canada.

Copiers have taken over!

Do a Google search for ‘acne myths’ and you’ll see what I mean. You’ll end up with an almost endless list of articles about acne myths – all parroting the same old things. Let’s take a fresh look at some of these acne myths and how the ‘conventional wisdom’ may have prevented you from curing your acne

The so called acne myth 1: Acne is caused by diet

This is one of the most common ones. Internet seems to be full of ‘experts’ quoting studies from the 60s saying that no scientific link has been established between diet and acne. That’s true, but it’s also equally true that it’s nearly impossible to study such a link.

Consider the following quotes by different doctors: (Dermatology Times – 5/1/2003)

“There are still a lot of people around who claim that if they eat a lot of chocolate, they break out worse. I don’t know that there are any good, scientifically controlled studies.” -Lee J. Vesper, M.D

“Teen diets vary so widely, you have to have a very controlled study, and how can you do that with teens? You can’t trust teenage boys. There’s no way you can dictate a diet for any length of time that would have an impact on the skin.” -David M. Spencer, M.D.

“A number of years ago, there was a study that said chocolate was not a factor in acne. That was funded by the Hershey Corporation. Some studies had college students eat a certain diet, and offered compensation for that, but they were never really hard, double-blind studies because, how do you do that with food?” -Dennis D. Knutson, M.D.

“I do think the issue needs to be re-looked at, because there have never been very good studies.” -on the subject of diet and acne, Dennis D. Knutson, M.D.

And that’s just from one issue of one magazine!

The truth of the matter is that there are no scientifically valid studies to prove a point in either direction. Just use your common sense.

Ok, what’s your average Western diet compromised of? Potatoes, bread (mostly wheat), meat, milk and other dairy products, sugars and fats.

Now, what do all those things have in common? They are hard to digest and take long time to digest and/or don’t digest properly. They sit long time in your stomach giving all the millions of bacteria there time to putrefy them. When something putrefies in your stomach you know it’s not good. You can smell it once the stuff comes out.

Point being, that all those foods create a lots of toxic or acidic waste during metabolism that needs to be eliminated. Your liver is your primary organ for doing that, along with colon and kidneys. However, those organs have only a finite capacity for handling that stuff.

What happens when they reach that capacity? Your body pushes all those toxins out through secondary channels (your skin and lungs, for example).

Now, guess in what kind of environment all that ‘bad’, pimple producing bacteria thrive? Yes, they like acidic/toxic environment. And you just discovered that your body is doing a hell-of-a-job in providing your skin just that.

Could this contribute to acne?

The so-called acne myths 2 & 3: Stress, sex/masturbation causes acne

Let’s deal those together since the mechanisms are basically same.

Levels of certain hormones affect your sex drive. Having sex causes your body to release hormones. Your body responds to stress by releasing hormones. Simple, we all know this.

Once those hormones have served their purpose your body needs to process them to less active stuff and expel them. You probably guessed already that your liver is responsible for processing most of the hormones.

Now your liver is probably already fully booked with all the stuff that you eat. So it needs to push some of the toxics, that it would have otherwise processed, out through your skin to deal with the extra load.

Those hormones alone are probably not enough to cause acne. Combine them with a bad diet (which 90% of the Western population has) and they can make things worse.

The so-called acne myth 4: There is no cure for acne

If you keep on with the life style that caused acne then this acne myth is true. Acne is an effect not a cause. As long as you maintain the cause (overload of toxins/acids) nothing will permanently remove the effect (acne). Clean up your system and acne will be gone all by itself.

Don’t let your hopes down because of some ‘debunkers’ whose only intention is to continue selling you ineffective acne products that will never cure your acne.

Get a fresh perspective on acne, take action and claim the skin you deserve.

After all – if you continue doing the same things you are going to get the same results.

Seppo Puusa

http://www.natural-acne-solution.com

Give me 20 minutes and I’ll show you that acne can be cured – and how to do it.
Click here for FREE information on natural acne treatments, acne cures and acne medications.

Hybrid cars are getting a lot of attention from consumers looking to purchase a new car. One reason is that they use less gas and therefore save you a lot of money at the pumps. However, their popularity is not just based on their fuel saving design, they also require less maintenance than that of their conventional cousins.

It can be frustrating to have to take time off from work to go to the mechanic for maintenance checks and repairs. It is equally frustrating to use up part of your weekends for this as well. Owning a Hybrid helps you to avoid this frustration, thanks to their unique design. There are various features that contribute to these benefits.

One reason is that they have fewer parts than conventional cars. For example, the Hybrid vehicle does not have a starter. A car that has fewer parts requires less maintenance and less maintenance means less expense. Another important factor is that the engine is smaller, between 10 to 20 horsepower and designed to run more efficiently by using only one speed.

The generator runs on a separate, gas powered motor and contributes to the lesser need for maintenance. It also does things that conventional vehicles need additional parts for. The generator handles 80 percent of the braking, which helps to extend the life of the brake system. It does this in several ways, such as preserving brake fluid. Brake fluid can be contaminated by the effects of over heating, so by minimizing the heat exposure, the life of the brake fluid is extended. The lesser heat usage also helps reduce the risk of warped rotors. By the generator taking on more tasks, the battery usage is less and therefore will have to be replaced less often.

Another great feature that the design offers is that the air conditioner runs off of electricity and not gas. The steering system is superior in that it is also electric and does not require a belt the way hydraulic systems do. It also provides a smoother ride on rough road surfaces.

Other maintenance saving features are that the valve system requires no adjustments and the injectors don’t have to be cleaned.

Hybrid vehicles offer longer warranties that also include the battery. This definitely adds to their attraction. The Prius, offered by Toyota, offers an eight year or 100,000 mile warranty that includes the hybrid system. The Honda Insight warranty offers 8 years or 80,000 miles and includes the power train.

When considering purchasing a new vehicle, definitely think about owning a hybrid. They require less maintenance than the conventional cars and therefore save you money and time spent at the auto shop. They are much more fuel efficient, and offer attractive warranties.

Gregg Hall is an author living in Navarre Florida. Find more about this as well as Car Care Wizards at http://www.carcarewizard.com