2009/11/25

Developing Good Postcard Printing Habits

If you are into postcard printing for business on a regular basis, it is important to develop a few good habits when you print postcards. You don't want to produce worse postcards for each session of postcard printing. You actually want to maintain a degree of quality while trying to think of new and interesting design ideas. Below are a few good habits that you should develop on your own to ensure the quality and impact of your color postcards.

• Simple and straightforward images – One good design habit in printing color postcards is to always use simple and straightforward images. The simpler your images are the better usually it is for postcards. No one really wants to look at a postcard image that you have to figure out. Readers get bored easily this way. So don't give in to the temptation of creating intricately designed photographs and images for your postcard. As long as you have a simple and easily understandable image, your postcard will work. No need for further special effects, it only clutters things up.

• Short and understandable text – If the image is simple, then it is also a good habit to keep the text in postcard printing short and simple as well. Since postcards are a very visual medium, a long string of text is usually unwelcome. The best practice is to print easy phrases or one liners into the postcard (“wish you were here?”). This makes the postcard easily understandable while at the same time not obscuring the postcard design too much. This is how good postcards are and you must always practice the habit of doing it this way.

• Tough and durable postcard material – Also, you must always deem it necessary to use tough and durable postcard material in all your postcard printings. Postcards can encounter many kinds of weather effects and physical damage as they get distributed. It is important that they last long enough and keep their designs intact until someone receives them. You don't want your readers to receive shabby looking color postcards right? So make it a habit to spend always on tough and durable postcard material.

• High quality, durable prints – If the material is tough and durable, then the printing should also be on the same level. A good habit of printing your postcards with high quality printers is always recommended. This assures you that your postcards will always display the best quality images and text. Moreover, this also means that the prints will not deteriorate when in contact with moisture or any kind of dirt.

• Always improve and build upon ideas – Finally, you should always have the habit of improving your postcard printing designs for business. Don't just use the same design year in and year out. Always vary your images, your messages and make them always better year after year. Constant improvement and development is the key to really succeeding in a postcard marketing campaign
so make sure your practice the simple art of innovation and you will be rewarded with great benefits.

So those are the habits you should be looking for to create your own color postcards. Try to adapt these habits in your postcard printing process and you will never regret the postcards that you will be rolling out.

By: charen smith | 25/11/2009 | Advertising
Article Source :http://www.articlesbase.com

How to Build a Website in 5 Minutes

Autor: jeffyancey :: Views: 987 :: Send to Your Friends :: View PDF :: Print View
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You know you need a website for yourself or your organization. Now the only question is how you are going to go about doing it without breaking the bank. But at the same time, you don't want it to look cheap either, it needs to look professional and be easy to change when changes are needed.

Having a web site today has become a necessity for individuals and organizations alike. Your online presence matters much in the global world we live in, especially if you want to be heard, to make a difference, then having your website is essential.

Making your own website is even more important if you want to do business online, or want to promote your products or services online. An effective website can do wonders in the marketing domain and get you the sales you desperately need. What’s more is that a mere website can change you from having a local presence to having a global one.

So what do you do if you want to have a website? The first thoughts that come to mind are thoughts that will send jitters down your spine. Instantly when you think of making a professional, classy website, with a website design that is catchy, you think of hiring professional web designers, making them understand how you want your website to be, paying them hundreds (or thousands) of dollars to make the website and then paying them more, and possibly having to wait days or weeks, for every change you want in the future. That is sure to make you weary and your pocketbook thin. In the old days (a few years ago) that used to be about the only choice you had unless you wanted to grind it out on your own trying to learn HTML coding from scratch. Yuck!
Now with CSS programming, it's even more difficult to do on your own.

Fast forward to today: Now even a rank newbie can have their own professional website in just a few minutes. There are now some great options to make your very own website yourself with hardly any knowledge of programming or HTML or any of those complicated things. You can make your own website design, choose from a range of website templates and fill out the content the way you want, and, if you get the right website builder, you can make changes any time you want, whenever you want without it costing you anything extra. Making your own website has now become an affordable, do-it-yourself and easy thing to do, if, and I say if, you choose the right one.
But beware: choose the wrong web builder, and it could be a nightmare.
What you are looking for is an affordable, workable, professional looking website building tool preferably with a reasonable monthly fee of no more than $50 (to start) and preferably no contract. If you see them ask for a long-term contract, you should step back and reconsider.
About:
Other options to look for in a web page builder is a user-friendly interface that will take you right through the website designing and website publishing process from start to finish. You want to be able to choose from a range of website templates, and you want to be able to change the writing and pictures on your website anytime you desire, even at 2am in the morning, for no extra cost. With the rightwebsite builder , there is no need to buy or master expensive and difficult to learn graphics programs. Less effort, less time, less money and better results can be had with the properwebsite building program.

Article source :http://www.articlecircle.com

Make Money Online - The Power of Information Marketing Out Of It

Growing your online income from nothing to a fulltime income is not only possible, but it's been done by countless of others before you. But almost everybody has the same question at the beginning:

How do I get started?

There are a million answers to that question, but this article will be about my favorite option: information marketing. Never before has there been a product class that can deliver incredible profit margins, amazing speed to market, and low competition at the same time.

But information marketing does just that.

Let's talk about this in detail:

First let me say, in no ambiguous terms, that there has never been a batter time to start growing an online income. Internet marketing is absolutely exploding... and this expansion is opening up more opportunities every day.

Even in our current recession, there are tons of online business owners pulling down big figures every week. This is because, even when money is tight, folks need certain things and still have problems they want solved.

Anyways...

Information marketing is one of the easiest, most profitable areas of online marketing one can get into. It's dependable, because folks always have questions they need answered by an expert. It's profitable, because you are selling ideas instead of something that needs manufacturing plants. And it's relatively simple to do, since there are so many areas where folks need quality information at a good price.

The global economy is shifting from laborers to thought workers. Commerce is fueled by those that sit behind a desk and excel and creating certain thoughts. This might sound far fetched to you... but just think about yourself or maybe those in your social circle.

Salesmen? Thought workers. Writers? Thought workers. Teachers? Thought workers. Programmers? You guessed it... thought worker.

This is what makes information marketing so profitable... all of those thought workers need ideas that will improve their craft. Then when they get home, they need ideas that will make their hobbies and social life better.

This is especially true in the wake of the decline of public education. Especially in the West, we are woefully unequipped to compete in the global marketplace. We need specialized information, offered by experts or marketers that contract experts, to even the playing field.

Add the fact that publishing has never been easier for the "little guy" and you have a recipe for huge opportunity. With nothing more than a computer and a grasp of your native language you can make all kinds of information products people would gladly pay for.

Profit margins are enormous in the information marketing business. This might be reason enough to consider it. Think about it: you never have to contract for a prototype. You never have to have a warehouse. You never have to manufacture anything, beyond a product that sits on your computer's hard drive.

And that one product will be a constant paycheck as long as somebody wants the information you have to offer.

If you haven't picked up the punch line yet, the power of information marketing is staggering. If you plan on building an online income, there isn't a better way to do it... bar none. Don't let this boat pass you by... nobody knows for sure how long the window of opportunity stays open. Hop on board while you can; there's a crowd on shore starving for your insight.

By Brandon Dillon
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Brandon_Dillon

SCORM and the Learning Management System (LMS)

What actually is SCORM? SCORM, Shareable Content Object Reference Model, is a standard for web-based e-learning that has been developed to define communication between client-side content and a runtime environment. In the context of this article, the client-side content would be the course launched by a student and the runtime environment would be a Learning Management System. The SCORM standard has undergone several version releases from SCORM v1.0 in 1999 to the SCORM 2004 3rd Edition in 2006. The purpose of this article is to look in a little more detail at the communication flow between the LMS and a course that is SCORM v2.1 compliant. The intention is not to review every possible communication but just the main calls. We will look at SCORM in the context of a SCORM course, i.e. a course that has been developed and built to communicate with a Learning Management System using the SCORM standard.

First of all, let me define a few terms that I will use and that you may hear in reference to SCORM courses:

• API (Application Programming Interface)

The SCORM standard has a defined API. The term API is not unique to SCORM but is a well known term in application development. The SCORM API is a documented set of messages that are sent between the course and the LMS. The message may require a response so that the sender of the message is guaranteed that the message has been received and processed appropriately.

• Manifest

The manifest is the master file for the SCORM course that contains references to all other files that make up the complete content of the course.

• Single SCO

A single SCO is the most basic and most common form of a SCORM course. All files that make up the course, regardless of the number of lessons in the course, are packaged as one SCO unit. When the course is launched within the Learning Management System, it communicates with the SCO.

• Multiple SCO

A multiple SCO is where a group of files within the course can be treated as an individual SCO but packaged together with other SCOs to comprise one course. For example, the files that comprise each lesson of a SCORM course can be grouped together so that each lesson is a SCO in its own right and all the SCOs will comprise the one course.

Course Installation

For the course to be available in the Learning Management System, the SCORM package needs to be installed on the system. The method of installation will vary from LMS to LMS but will typically go through the following steps:

1. The manifest file will be located and interpreted.

2. The course identified in the manifest will be created in the Learning Management System and the course properties will be populated with the values defined in the manifest. These properties may include course name, creator, etc.

3. The lessons of the course will be created in the LMS and the lesson properties will be populated with the values defined in the manifest. Lesson properties would include information such as the path to the lesson file, passing grade, etc.

The Learning Management System should provide a facility to overwrite an already existing SCORM course so that if updates are made to the existing course, an installation will deploy those changes.

Course Communication

Initialization

When the course is launched within its run time environment, which for our purposes is the LMS, it will detect the existence of the API and attempt to make initial communication with the Learning Management System. This is a one-time handshake to ensure that communication has been established. The SCORM course is responsible for locating the API in the child browser session that it has launched in from the parent. The API is typically deployed using JavaScript. The API call that the course uses to do this is the LMSInitialize call. When the Learning Management System receives this API message call from the course, the LMS will initialize and respond to inform the course that communication has been established. An object model has been created in memory and the properties have been initialized to default values.

Intermediary Course Communication

Once the course has been launched and initialized with the LMS, the interaction between the two is determined by the course. It will use LMSGetValue and LMSSetValue API message calls to retrieve or populate data in the object model. Bear in mind that the object model exists in memory and has not been sent to the Learning Management System.

When the course needs to write the data so it exists in the database, it will send the API message LMSCommit. The LMSCommit will be received by the Learning Management System and the data stored to the LMS. The course developer will determine when an LMSCommit is required and it will be sent to the LMS when the event is activated. This could be at the end of each lesson or it could be at the end of the course.

The LMSCommit is an optional message and does not require a response from the Learning Management System.

Finalization

When the course is completed, it will send an LMSFinish API message to the LMS. This may be triggered by an event in the course that activates the LMSFinish or it may be on the Unload event of the HTML page when the user closes the browser. The LMSFinish indicates to the LMS that the user has ended the course and any further communication between the two will be rejected. The LMSFinish also initiates the Learning Management System to store any data that has been populated in the object model and complete the unloading of the course.

The key difference between the LMSCommit and LMSFinish API message calls is that the latter will prevent further communication with the course.

The LMSFinish is a mandatory message and does not require a response from the LMS.

Learning Management System Considerations

When the LMSFinish is received by the LMS, there are several scenarios that may need to be taken into account. Some of these may be the product of errors in course development but are scenarios that have been experienced in interfacing with a SCORM compliant course:

1. The SCORM course may indicate the student has failed a lesson but the score passed from the SCO may be greater than the lesson passing grade that was installed from the manifest.

2. The SCORM course may indicate a lesson status for the user and pass the score of the lesson but there has been no passing grade defined for the lesson.

3. It would be advantageous for the Learning Management System to provide API message logging so that a communication history may be recreated for debugging or historical purposes. Consideration should be given to the following:

a. Method of storage, whether it is stored in a database or out to a file.

b. Is logging on all the time or is there a switch to turn logging on or off? (There will be some overhead when logging is switched on, as opposed to being off.)

c. If logging is to file, is there a log file for each course, each user, or one large SCORM log file?

d. How is log data purged? When logging is stored in the database, how often is the table purged? Can the data be deleted or does it need to be archived? If logging is to a file, does the file build in size until it is manually renewed or does the logging mechanism have a trigger that automatically generates a new file? (If the file is left to grow too big, it becomes very impractical to open it in a text editor.)

Conclusions

SCORM has a proven track record in the web based e-learning world and is the accepted standard in the industry. Reputable LMS vendors should support your SCORM course out of the box. The SCORM 2004 version has added much more control and sequencing at a more granular level than SCORM v1.2 however those differences are significant enough to cause the user base to be slower in adopting the SCORM 2004 version.


About The Author
Stuart Campbell is Director of Software Development for SyberWorks, Inc. (http://www.syberworks.com), a privately-held supplier of e-Learning software and training. A native of the United Kingdom, he had previously served as a Principle Software Engineer, Senior Consultant, Senior Software Engineer, and Development Specialist for companies such as Brooks Automation Inc., Digital Equipment, and Honeywell Control Systems. His areas of expertise include Visual Studio.NET, C#, VB.NET, VB6, VBScript, XML, COBOL, WindowsXP, Windows2000, WindowsNT, VAX/VMS, UNIX, Oracle, SQLServer, Oracle Rdb, Oracle DBMS, and Agile Modeling Methodology.

The SyberWorks Learning Management System/Learning Content Management System

SyberWorks Training Center (STC) is a Web-based Learning Management System (LMS)/Learning Content Management System (LCMS) that provides complete solutions for managing and tracking all types of training at your organization — from e-Learning courses to traditional classroom training and self-paced study programs. The STC includes extensive testing and assessment tools, reporting, management, communication and collaboration tools, and quality control capabilities — all in one integrated database application that is highly scalable to precisely meet your organization’s needs. The SyberWorks Training Center LMS/LCMS can be purchased as an enterprise license or hosted application.

About SyberWorks, Inc.

SyberWorks, Inc. (http://www.syberworks.com) is a leader in the custom e-Learning Solutions and Learning Management System/Learning Content Management System (LMS/LCMS) industries for Fortune 1000 corporations, law enforcement, healthcare, and other industries. Located in Waltham, Massachusetts, the company serves the multi-billion-dollar e-Learning market. Since 1995, SyberWorks has developed and delivered unique and economical solutions to create, manage, measure, and improve e-Learning programs at companies and organizations in the United States, Canada, Europe, and around the world.

by: Stuart Campbell
Article source :http://www.articlecity.com