Stop Selling and Start Listening Marketing Strategies That Create Top Producers Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Over the past 10 years I have read many books on marketing only to find that most of them are too general to be effective. I found this book to be packed with laser focused strategies to help anyone directly reach their target or niche market. The best part is that all of the author's ideas can be implemented immediately for any business that requires a continuous influx of new prospects. He offers the steps A-Z for utilizing a website specifically designed to capture leads by providing the visitors what they want - information. This is a book that I will definitely keep on my bookshelf for future reference.

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Discover the secrets of Top Producing salespeople! This book reveals the strategies and techniques used by sales and marketing experts to attract, capture, convert, and retain customers using simple technology solutions - including website strategies, autoresponders, e-zines, audio and video techniques, and how to create "Personal Value".Learn the 7 key ingredients of Top Producers, the Marketing Map, and how to build your own personal marketing plan - your "Roadmap To Success"!Forward by Les Brown, with insights from Jay Conrad Levinson, Sig Anderman, Tim Braheem, and many others.

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Ruby on Rails Web Mashup Projects: A step-by-step tutorial to building web mashups Review

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(More customer reviews)Providing a whistlestop tour through building a range of Ruby on Rails applications on the back of other services, Ruby on Rails Web Mashup Projects is aimed at those who are already comfortable building rails applications and want some sense of how they can be enhanced using a variety of other visualisation, data and processing providers.
Aside: The term `mashup' is one of those tech terms that's almost impossible to pin down. I should note that the way it used in this book (seemingly any application that draws on a third-party services) is not a way I'd choose to use it, but I'd rather focus on the book itself than on titling semantics.
The book hits all the usual suspects--google maps, flickr, technorati, wikipedia--and also covers the basics of building a facebook application, using paypal for payment processing, and sending faxes and SMS messages through a third party gateway. For those who want a quick overview of all of those options it'll give you enough to get started, though as a result of the pace only the very basics of each service is covered and anyone wanting to build a sophisticated app will have quite a bit of work in front of them learning the nuances of their chosen service providers.
Along with providing little detail of each service, the book suffers from not really digging into a number of topics that would make it a much more useful companion. Big challenges when building applications dependent on other peoples' servers include effective testing, caching, surviving third-party service outages, and good ways of integrating your interface code into your application.
Lip service is paid to the need to be prepared for a third-party service outage, but no examples of how to survive are offered. It wouldn't have been hard to illustrate ways of falling back to local databases or to secondary services, but none is offered. There's no mention of writing tests, so no opportunity to offer ways to use mocks to test the local code or to discuss how you might automate your testing of the integration itself, and caching is similarly overlooked except in the case of amazon e-commerce services where it is used to preserve historical data that amazon doesn't make accessible.
The absence of testing really shows through in some of the code offered. Much of the code demonstrated in the book is overly complex and procedural, with little in the way of modular, reusable components. Similarly there's little by way of discussion of where such code fits into your rails application, with some classes that are clearly models (albeit non-ActiveRecord models) dropped into the lib folder, and numerous very fat controllers.
Rather than covering seven separate projects, this box would have been much stronger had it focussed on two or three, but worked through them in significantly more detail. Possibly there wouldn't have been a chance to touch on as many services, but by building up one of the more diverse systems like the ticketing application in detail, covering failover, testing, clean integration with a rails app, and other such topics this could have been a much richer book with appeal for a far wider range of developers. As is, it's worth skimming through if you're looking for advice on sending faxes or SMS, but won't help much with the real challenges of building a robust application that's dependent on third-party services.
Disclaimer: I was sent a copy of this book for review by the publisher.

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Use Ruby and Ruby on Rails to create seven practical mashup projects following step-by-step instructions. This book is for Ruby on Rails developers who want to expand the features of their site by consuming remote external data and services. Basic knowledge of Ruby on Rails programming is required but you need not have any experience of any of the APIs used.

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The Essential Horticultural Business Handbook: Proven techniques, forms, and resources to make your small business more focused, organized...and profitable (Volume 1) Review

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(More customer reviews)This book helped me go from lossing money to making money very quick. It is a must have for any landscaper.

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This is a valuable business handbook for small horticultural companies: landscapers, nurseries, garden centers, design firms, college horticultural students, educators, and those involved in horticultural services.This book is a compilation of 38 years running an award-winning landscape design, construction, and maintenance firm in southern New England. Topics covered include developing a mission, completing a business plan, establishing a brand, marketing tips, creating an effective estimating and job costing system,how to attract, hire, and fire employees, computerizing for efficiencies, the importance of leadership, increasing sales, management tips, and the future of horticulture. The handbook contains proven forms, formulas, and templates that the reader can readily adopt and adapt to their company.An extensive bibliography and sources for additional information are included. Essential lessons learned from Wood River Evergreen's experiences are summarized at the end of each chapter, giving the reader practical advice that can be quickly incorporated into the operation of their firm. With an easy-to-use format and comprehensive content, this handbook will assist new companies just starting up and advise established firms trying to improve their financial performance.

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Big Book of Windows Hacks Review

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(More customer reviews)§
Despite Microsoft's claims that their vaunted "focus groups" and client experience consultants have allowed them to offer us painless computing, you and the rest of the world know it isn't true. Waiting for Windows XP or Vista to boot up and shut down certainly are irritations in themselves worth a hack or two.
As you can imagine, this is a large book. That is not just the number of pages (650) but also the format -- of the fold-flat variety. This big book of hacks is easy to work with physically.
The editorial review on this page describes the contents well except that I would alter "contains more than 100 hacks" to "contains almost 200 hacks." Quite a difference.
The writing is clear and informed. I'm sure you have read many of Gralla's magazine contributions over the years. Be sure that the book is not all text. There are plenty of illustrations and even photos (for the hardware hacks) to guide you. The hacks themselves are directed at all versions of Windows, with the focus on XP and Vista.
Consider this book a compendium of all those tips you always rip out of your computer magazine subscriptions to save -- then lose track of. Here they are, all in one place, not easily lost given the size of this book!
§

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Bigger, better, and broader in scope, the Big Book of Windows Hacks gives you everything you need to get the most out of your Windows Vista or XP system, including its related applications and the hardware it runs on or connects to. Whether you want to tweak Vista's Aero interface, build customized sidebar gadgets and run them from a USB key, or hack the "unhackable" screensavers, you'll find quick and ingenious ways to bend these recalcitrant operating systems to your will.The Big Book of Windows Hacks focuses on Vista, the new bad boy on Microsoft's block, with hacks and workarounds that also work for Windows XP. You can read each hack in just a few minutes, saving countless hours of searching for the right answer. The step-by-step instructions let you apply the solutions in no time. This book takes you beyond the operating system with hacks for applications like Internet Explorer 7 and Office 2007, and hardware such as the Zune, your wireless router, and the PC itself. The Big Book of Windows Hacks includes:

Expanded tutorials, new background material, a series of "quick hacks", and informative sidebars
Security hacks, including protection at wireless hotspots, hacking Vista file permissions and user account protection, and more
Efficiency hacks, such as tweaking your PC hardware, troubleshooting hardware problems, and speeding up system performance
Fun hacks, like building a custom Media Center PC or turning a PC into a digital video recorder
"Beyond Windows" hacks for running Linux inside Vista, dual-booting Linux/Windows or XP/Vista, or emulate classic video games on your PC
In all, this remarkable book contains more than 100 hacks so that the power user in you never again needs to be at the mercy of systems and hardware run by Microsoft's omnipotent Vista and XP operating systems.

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My New Mac: 52 Simple Projects to Get You Started Review

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(More customer reviews)I'm a Macintosh tech. Just perusing the excerpt of this book available on Amazon, I found a couple errors. First'', he says that pressing the power button will bring up the Shut Down dialog. This is only true of laptops and certain very old Macs which had the power button on the keyboard. All current non-laptops will by default just go to sleep if you press the power button.
He then recommends the keystroke combination "CTRL-OPTION-ESC" as a way to shut down your Mac if it is frozen. This too is incorrect. To begin with, that keystroke does nothing whatsoever. The keystroke he is looking for is "COMMAND-OPTION-ESC"... and even that keystroke doesn't shut down your Mac. Instead it brings up a list of programs you can force to quit.
Since it seems this book is targeted at beginners, every small error like these will cause considerable confusion and frustration. Whether the rest of the book is like this, I do not know, but felt a review might be helpful to someone. Best of luck!

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You finally took the plunge and bought a Mac. Whether yours is a MacBook, Mac Pro, Mac mini, or iMac &mdash it's still a Mac, and it runs the Macintosh operating system, Mac OS X. But what do you do with your Mac after you turn it on? Do you even know how to turn it on and off properly or put it to sleep? You need a book like My New Mac to make everything easy. Wallace Wang, author of the best-selling Steal This Computer Book, will show you, step-by-step, how to use tools like iPhoto to organize your photos, track birthdays with iCal, and clip and save information from the Internet so you can find it again. You'll find simple projects that will show you how to:

Organize your files and folders by color and keyword
View stocks, flights, and the weather
Set up and manage parental controls to limit your children's computer and Internet access
Play and burn CDs and DVDs
Transfer photos from your digital camera to your computer
Share songs, images, and documents wirelessly between Macs
Don't put off learning how to use your new computer. Let Wallace Wang show you the ropes with My New Mac.

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I Don't Need a Record Deal: Your Survival Guide for the Indie Music Revolution Review

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(More customer reviews)If you are looking for a book to tell you, "..don't get discouraged..keep trying..look people in the eye..give a firm handshake..don't forget to say thank you..", and other various cliches and platitudes, then this might just be the book for you. It will even help you decide what fast food to eat. As for me, after the first hundred pages of fluff, I felt that I was seriously wasting my time.
If you are looking for solid, detailed business advice, you are sure to be disappointed. For example, when discussing whether to use ASCAP or BMI, you are advised to use whichever one you think will do the best for you. That is not advice. How about a real comparison between them? When should you join? What might be a possible negative against joining? What is the difference in their perspectives? What is the difference in their payment formula? You can get more information from a Google search than from this book.
I am suspicious when I see shallow books getting wall-papered with flowery five-star reviews. It is hard enough to select books online, without having to deal with all that glowing misrepresentation.


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Thousands of people want to be recording stars, but lack a deal with a record label. While today's musicians have all the tools they need to build a recording career on their own-pro-tools for inexpensive recording and home recording, marketing on the Internet, and opportunities to license their music for use in films, television, advertising, and video games-they don't always have the skills to use them. I Don't Need a Record Deal! is a completely comprehensive step-by-step guide to the new world of independent recording. Drawing on interviews from over 150 musicians and industry pros, Schwartz shows readers how to put out a CD and market it through the media, radio, clubs, and retail. But more importantly, she shows musicians how to create a business around music and to develop opportunities for earning a living. Truly a survival guide for novice and professional musicians alike, I Don't Need a Record Deal! brings information on developing one's own independent music career together, adding new resources and taking the reader into the future of music.

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MODx Web Development Review

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(More customer reviews)I've been developing sites with MODx for years. It's a great content management system. What it needed was better documentation, and that's where this book comes in. It begins with a cool overview of content management system types, and where MODx fits into that continuum. Then it goes on to describe in clear steps how to build and manage a site. Although I am very experienced with the system by this time, I still picked up some good new things.
It's well-organized, and pretty easy to follow, as long as you have a basic understanding of website concepts. I wish I had had this while I was learning (he said enviously)!
I think the author is an excellent writer, and has done an exemplary job. Very nice!

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Build a fully-functional, dynamic website with MODx-the powerful content management system and PHP web application framework. This book is a tutorial packed with examples that will show you how to install, configure, and customize MODx to create feature-rich, professional-looking web pages. This book is an example-driven tutorial, which will take you from the installation of MODx through to configuration, customization, and deployment. Step-by-step instructions will enable you to build a fully-functional, feature-rich website quickly and without any programming language. This book is ideal for those who want to learn to use MODx. Both beginner and experienced web developers will benefit from this comprehensive guide to MODx. No knowledge of PHP programming or any templating language is needed, but the more advanced chapters towards the end of the book will allow more confident developers to extend their applications even further by creating their own snippets.

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CIW: Foundations Study Guide (Exam 1D0-410) Review

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(More customer reviews)I'm a CIW instructor. I've been using Prosoft courseware in my classes for two years, and have never been pleased with it -- especially the Foundations courseware. This book is written by the same people and it's just as bad. Dry as a bone and full of inane information that none of my students have ever been asked on an exam. This biggest challenge on the Foundations exam for most of my students is the Networking Fundamentals portion and while this book does cover the needed material, it doesn't do a very good job of breaking down some of the most complicated concepts -- such as the OSI model. I encourage my students to get supplemental materials that enhance the material covered in the courseware -- not rehash it.

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Here's the book you need to prepare for exam 1D0-410, CIW Foundations.This study guide provides:* In-depth coverage of official exam objective groups* Hundreds of challenging review questions, in the book and on the CD* Leading-edge exam preparation software, including a testing engine and electronic flashcardsAuthoritative coverage of all exam topics, including:* Networking fundamentals* OSI reference model* TCP/IP protocol suite* HTML basics and web page authoring tools* Multimedia and active web content* Risk assessment and security* E-commerce fundamentals

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The Standard & Poor's Guide to Long-term Investing: 7 Keys to Building Wealth Review

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(More customer reviews)This book explains, in simple terms, how to be a successful investor based on proven techniques. It covers almost all aspects of investments (stocks, bonds, funds, and more)
A great book. I changed my investment strategy because of this book. I am also going to keep in mind a lot of the tips that were covered in the book. Good job, Tigue.

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VALUABLE ADVICE FOR INVESTORS OF ALL TYPES FROM STANDARD & POOR'S, TODAY'S MOST TRUSTED RESOURCE FOR RELIABLE INVESTMENT INFORMATION

Standard & Poor's Press brings the impressive knowledge and resources of Standard & Poor's to some of today's most challenging financial issues. Covering subjects from saving for college to technical analysis to risk management, books in the series will give both independent and institutional investors the knowledge they need to dramatically improve their overall financial decisions.

Sensible, straightforward Standard & Poor's secrets for achieving worry-free investing success

Successful investing doesn't have to be a pressure-packed chore. The Standard & Poor's Guide to Profitable Long-Term Investing provides investors with commonsense rules and guidelines to take the pain out of investing and replace it with certainty and confidence. It unveils a simple approach, one that demystifies and simplifies the path to profitable investing without relying on buzzwords and confusing mathematics.

From knowing the best times to buy and sell to saving for education or retirement, this easy-to-follow book uses Standard & Poor's data, tables, charts, and graphs to illustrate and explain exactly how anyone can construct a sensible, low-maintenance portfolio.

Covering topics that books of its type often overlook, it discusses:

Why stockbrokers and financial advisers can be hazardous to an investor's financial health
Seven simple steps to follow to help ensure profitable investing
How and when to buy a stock and--even more important--when to take profits

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You're Hired Interview Skills to Get the Job Review

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(More customer reviews)As a former HR manager, career coach and consultant, I've read a lot of hiring and selection books.
When I received a copy of You're Hired for review, I rolled my eyes and thought, "Please, not another book on how to get a job. I've already read the best, like the timeless, What Color is Your Parachute? Fortunately, You're Hired was a nice change of pace. It's concise and focused on key aspects of interviewing for a job, without the fluff.
In five chapters with 10 brief Appendices, Epstein discusses three phases of job interviews: Before, During, and After the Interview.
-- In Chapter One, Epstein highlights the importance of "Creating Right Livelihood" in order to craft a satisfying and financially productive career. He shows the reader how to envision and plan this "Right Livelihood" through a lengthy but useful activity in Appendix A.
--In Chapter Two, the author comments on preparation of an effective resume and thoughtful research in order to land an interview.
-- In Chapter Three, Mr. Epstein talks about the importance of selling yourself during the interview by being prepared, authentic, confident, and connected with the interviewers.
-- Chapter Four highlights the importance of written "thank you" notes, timely follow-up and declining counter-offers made by one's current employer.
-- Chapter Five features a one-page conclusion summarizing the contents of the book.
The writing style is down-to-earth and personalized as if Epstein is coaching and encouraging the reader through the process of interviewing. The tone is not pretentious as I've observed in other books of a similar nature. The chapters are well-organized and build upon each other.
I didn't understand the relevance of Appendix C on "Boolean Searching on the Internet" and can't imagine a busy job searcher would actually read those 10 pages that seemed out of place in this guide. I would have found it more helpful to read an additional chapter on networking through associations or organizations in order to discover the "hidden" job market.
Armchair Interviews recommends this book for professionals in career transition or students seeking a concise guide for learning the basics of interviewing for success.


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You re Hired! - Interview Skills to Get the Job demystifies the interviewing process with wisdom and wit from an authoritative source. For first-time job seekers and seasoned professionals alike, the realities of the current job market make a competitive edge mission-critical. In You re Hired! Interview Skills to Get the Job, corporate recruitment specialist and motivational speaker Lorne Epstein prepares both novice and just-plain-nervous job seekers for the interviewing experience with insider tips and strategic advice. This book is a practical, engaging and altogether indispensable career companion. After reading this book you will learn what to do before, during, and after the interview to ensure you re success!

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Creating Mashups with Adobe Flex and AIR (Friends of Ed Abobe Learning Library) Review

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(More customer reviews)This book starts out ok but after the first example, it goes downhill fast. Even while working on the first example, they constantly tell you to read the api's and never go into it beyond a superficial level.
Even the writing is pretty boring which makes this very hard to read...

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AIR is a hot topic. Mashups are a hot topic. This book brings them together.Mashups are the integration of data from different sources to create one unified experience. For example, you might create a music browser application that took the name of a band you entered, and supplied you with concert photos (from Flickr), videos (from YouTube), streaming songs and similar artists (from last.fm), tour dates (from the band's blog) and the nearest location on the tour to you (displayed in Google maps). As an indication of what big-business mashups are, Microsoft has just released a beta of its own mashup-creation application: Popfly.Adobe's AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime) platform is revolutionary in that it allows web developers to create applications using familiar technologies (such as Flex, Flash and HTML) but now they can deploy them on the desktop rather than having them locked to a web browser. This means that rather than opening their browser and searching for the information in the example above, they can keep an application on their desktop and run it whenever they want to.This book is the only title announced that covers mashups from a web designer and developer point of view, rather than a programmer. It is also the only book announced to leverage AIR to create desktop mashups and widgets. The book covers everything from the basics and background of mashups, to advanced functionality and integrating mashups with the desktop.

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Marketing Plan Workbook (Sunday Times Business Enterprise Guide) Review

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(More customer reviews)Written by a sales and marketing professional with a lifetime of experience, John Westwood's The Marketing Plan Workbook is a guide to principles and practical methods of marketing planning. Chapters cover how to conduct a marketing audit, setting reasonable marketing objectives, advertising and sales promotion, budgets and income statements, writing and presenting a plan, and much more. Charts and graphs illustrate the points, and periodic exercises offer opportunities for the reader to reinforce his or her understanding. A "must-have" educational resource for marketing students, and a valuable refresher course for working professionals.


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Endorsed by the Sunday Times and the Institute of Directors

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Seven: The Number for Happiness, Love, and Success Review

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(More customer reviews)Seven by Jacqueline Leo
Rating: 3/5 Seven is an intriguing book about the phenomenon of the number seven, the appeal we feel for it, the psychology behind the appeal, and so on. Unlike some non-fiction, Seven is very readable and interesting, and is written in a way that doesn't make it funny or witty, but doesn't make it dry either. There is the perfect balance of information and interest to make it quite enjoyable.
Seven is filled with interesting stories, ranging from Tiger Woods' religion to Josh Waitzkin's martial arts experience to robot's facial expressions. Seven has many lists of sevens that make a lot of sense--seven reasons why people still smoke, seven strategies for a successful start-up in a company, comparing the seven media items in 1956 to the thirty-five (at least) in 2008, and so on.
Seven is a thought provoking book that will hopefully give its readers insight into the psychological attraction to numbers, and also some valuable advice for day to day life.
Recommendation: Ages 12+. I would recommend reading a chapter here and there on a lonely boring rainy day (hey, it worked for me!) with a cup of hot tea at your side. Leave plenty of time for musing and meditation while you read this one, and be prepared to entertained by this read!
**Thank you to Anna from Hachette for providing my review copy!**


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What is it about the number seven that has such a hold on us? Why are there seven deadly sins? Seven days of the week? Seven wonders of the world, seven colors of the spectrum, seven ages of man, and seven sister colleges? Why can we hold seven numbers or words in our working memory--but no more? Author Jackie Leo explores everything about this mystical, magical, useful, and fun number in her new book.SEVEN REASONS YOU NEED THIS BOOK1. SEVEN is a tool to improve the quality of your life. It is a way to define time, synthesize ideas, and keep your mind performing at top speed in an era of distractions.2. SEVEN is culturally significant. It pops up everywhere, structuring our world in ways so fundamental, we notice them only when we pause to look. Across the ages and across cultures, the number has acquired a huge scientific, psychological, and religious significance.3. SEVEN is intriguing. Why, out of hundreds of recipes in a cookbook, do people return to the same seven, over and over? Why, when asked to choose a number between one and ten, does such a large majority of people choose seven? Why does it take seven rounds of shuffling to obtain a fully mixed deck of cards?4. SEVEN is influential. You'll learn how the number seven shapes our thinking, our choices, and even our relationships.5. SEVEN is practical. Throughout this book are Top Seven lists covering the best ways to get someone's attention, to build your personal brand, and to put yourself in the path of prosperity and good luck.6. SEVEN is fun. You'll encounter surprising facts, intriguing puzzles, and hilarious anecdotes.7. SEVEN is wise. You'll hear stories about the meaning of seven from Mehmet Oz, Sally Quinn, Liz Smith, Christina Ricci, and many others.Artfully designed and full of enough insights to keep you engaged in conversation at the water cooler for years, SEVEN will provoke, enlighten, and amuse.

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Holy IT: A Guide to Finding and Doing Your Thing - Your 'IT' (Volume 2) Review

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(More customer reviews)What are you doing about what you aren't doing? This is the jump-start question Scott Wittig asks his readers in his book, Holy IT!: A Guide to Finding and Doing Your Thing. Wittig challenges his readers to take that uncomfortable first step in determining what they really want to do with the rest of their lives and then do it! According to Wittig, all you have to do to determine your IT is 1)Identify 2)Predict 3)Determine 4)Execute. Wittig borrowed these steps from Driver's Ed. He also emphasizes that your IT must have the 3 P's: passion, but must also include purpose and be a project (put stuff on your calendar you can do!) or it'll never get off of the ground.
Holy IT! is a fun read packed with quotes (mostly from John Maxwell) and graphics. You can probably read this text in one sitting and start working on your IT immediately afterwards. This book is also a workbook with lots of available white space to take notes and to GET QUIET. Wittig discusses how important meditating and reflecting on your IT is so you can shut out the other voices and get to work on what YOU need to do. Wittig advocates forming a mastermind group. Forming and getting the most out of mastermind groups is another key element in successfully manifesting your IT. In these groups the members forge a safe place to discuss issues and problems. Members offer feedback and accountabilty, which is necessary when you're starting out on your IT and need reinforcement that your path is the correct one to follow. In fact, one of his mastermind partners who is a graphic designer created Wittig's eye-catching book cover of an acorn.
The acorn is a symbol of growth, but it's also part of the squirrel's story in Chapter 10: The Law of the Squirrel. If a squirrel is indecisive and darts back into the road because he thinks he can get a bigger acorn, then he most likely to get squashed by a car. The analogy works: if you're indecisive about your IT, you'll never get past "go." Wittig reminds us to get rid of our friends who are naysayers, the "toppers" (who try to best you at every turn) and stick to the cheerleaders, even if they are outnumbered by the previous groups.
Wittig wants his readers to achieve clarity as well as take a honest look at themselves. Many times, the IT isn't far from home. Tom Rath says, "You cannot be everything you want to be-but you can be more of who you already are." Coach K of Duke University echoes this sentiment with, "Look in your house, not out of your window." On the flip side, Wittig also makes you ask yourself, "How can I drop something and hand that over to someone else?" and "What is it that I've always done (that's kind of bugged me) that I could just quit doing?"
Written in a down-to-earth style that is exactly how Wittig speaks in person, this fun-to-read book with short chapters is infused with positivity. The book of course mirrors Scott Wittig's IT of helping others achieve. One of my favorite take-aways was how Wittig tells us that when we switch careers our previous career helps us with what will do now. And as as someone who has switched careers from a retail environment to a creative writing one, Wittig provides much-needed validation to everyone who wants to know that their previous jobs weren't a waste of time or effort.


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With a mix of humor, honesty and boldness, Holy IT! helps you identify - and start acting on - the thing you know you should be doing, but aren't. We all have one.What's yours?If I was to walk into your birthday party and ask the people in the room what it is that you should be doing with your life, everyone would have an answer.Many of the answers would be the same.Holy IT! is written to help you identify your 'It' - whether that is your purpose in life, a passion you have or just a project that you have been putting off.The book walks you through all of the 'What If?' questions and many other pitfalls that we fear.A short and easy read from an author who lived it himself - that is, trying to do his 'It' while working a full-time job to support his young family.Holy IT! - a little book from a little guy with a big idea.

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The Complete PC Upgrade and Maintenance Guide, 16th Edition Review

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(More customer reviews)Minasi's earlier editions were good (and hardcover - what happened to that?). This one was apparently rushed out without any proofreading just to keep up with the Joneses (Mueller). There are so many errors in the first two chapters, it's unbelievable... Maybe the rest of the book actually got re-written and proofed, but the first part is very disappointing and makes me unlikely to grab this volume when I need an accurate answer.
E.G.
p.17 figure 1.5 shows connectors on back of PC, points to a Centronics 36 connector, labeling it a 25-pin parallel port. Same figure labels a DB-25 port (male? female?) as "External SCSI". (Could be, if a VERY old scsi card is in there... )
p.17 "... be the expert on how many millions of polygons a particular sound card can render per second." Huh?? Since when did sound cards start rendering geometric shapes?
p.22 "Quick Steps: Installing a CPU" gives 6 steps. No mention of heatsinks/fans. Just pop it in, button up the case, and get the marshmallows ready!

Click Here to see more reviews about: The Complete PC Upgrade and Maintenance Guide, 16th Edition

Clear, Expert Advice for PC Users of Every StripeNo matter how you use your PC--as a business tool, an entertainment center, or an Internet on-ramp--this latest edition of The Complete PC Upgrade & Maintenance Guide has you covered. Inside, you'll find the clear, expert advice on maintaining, upgrading, and troubleshooting for which this book is famous. It's all updated to cover the latest technologies and guaranteed to help you extend the life and power of your PC. You also get targeted instruction on a wide range of entertainment upgrades--ways to enhance your enjoyment of music, photo, movies, and more. Coverage includes:* Preventing hardware disasters* Upgrading memory* Replacing power supplies* Partitioning drives using NTFS and FAT32* Solving data backup challenges* Protecting your PC from viruses, worms, and spyware* Adding SCSI cards and drives* Installing DVDs, CD-ROMs, and EIDE and Serial ATA hard drives* Troubleshooting printers and scanners* Installing communications devices* Resolving mouse and keyboard problems* Installing video and sound cards* Tackling networking issues, both wired and wireless* Troubleshooting Internet connectivity* Solving laptop problems* Capturing and editing video* Managing music and image files* Watching movies on DVD* Getting the most out of new storage and networking technologies

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I Found It on the Internet: Coming of Age Online Review

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(More customer reviews)Young adults, Internet ethics, and digital information are the intense focus of communities all across the U.S. Frances Jacobson Harris is a widely published librarian/author who addresses issues that concern library boards and parents. Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are examined with clarity. Every library serving young adults in public libraries and schools should read this book and deliberate on the issues. This book is especially important for private and charter school staff who often struggle with little context. I believe I Found It on the Internet will broaden understanding and lead to fewer unfounded fears.

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Webkinz For Kids: Webkinz Pets Are The Virtual Pets That Teach Real Values Review

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(More customer reviews)Webkinz pets are more that just make-believe pets in a meaningless game. This book shows parents how the very simple game can impart values which the child can similarly acquire in the real world. The book is a very accurate portrayal of how caring for a virtual pet in a virtual world can teach children actual values they need in life such as the responsibility and accountability of caring for a pet, connecting with other children, the importance of honesty and sharing, the consequences of cheating and negligence to name a few.


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Webkinz are virtual pets. They exist online and one interacts and cares for them in a virtual world. They are more than just a computer game, they teach real values to children and grown-ups as well. They give comfort to the elderly and disabled, acting as virtual companions. They teach children responsibility and how to overcome challenges as the child will need to take care of his virtual pet just like a real-life pet, feed him, give him a bath, see to it that the virtual pet is happy so that he continues to live in the virtual world and evolves to a higher level. If you are a parent concerned about your child spending too much useless time over the computer, introduce him to the Webkinz virtual pet and teach him the values of responsibility and caring using the computer. This book is your complete handbook on the Webkinz Virtual Reality Pet. Here you will learn:* All you need to know about the Virtual Reality World, what it is and how everything works there, and how it is a safe environment for your child to be. * All about virtual pets, the many kinds, choosing a pet, how to adopt a pet, caring for the adopted virtual pet and evolving to a higher level.* Buying guidelines on purchasing Webkinz Pet products, how to buy locally and online, and all about cheat codes.Adopt a Webkinz virtual pet now and dominate the virtual Webkinz world!

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