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There is a wealth of books out there on how to speak Chinese, from learning Chinese the ‘fast and fun way’, to Chinese for Dummies to Chinese ‘made easy for kids’. Of course, there are a wealth of basic courses on beginner’s Chinese, and let’s not forget a massive number of Chinese phrases and Chinese language dictionaries. The problem with these is that many of the books fail to produce a format that is user-friendly enough and inexpensive enough to be of adequate value.

Chinese language lessons often contain a word that describes the pinyin system, which is a term used to describe the romanticized (translated ‘readable’) Chinese language to facilitate English-speaking people who wish to learn Chinese. Unfortunately, many different books about learning Chinese offer their own spelling versions of many common words.

Many people who have spent hundreds of dollars on multiple Chinese language learning materials often wish they could utilize the services and expertise of a private tutor to help them grasp the many nuances and rules involved in speaking Chinese. Many people think that private language tutors are way beyond their budgets. In addition, some wishing to learn to speak Chinese live in rural areas, where Chinese language tutors are not to be found.

Searching online resources is one way to get around this, but finding an excellent online learning environment for learning to speak Chinese Mandarin dialects is also a little more difficult than one would think. The ideal way to learn any language is to be able to communicate with someone who speaks that language. Mando Mandarin is an online, one-on-one tutoring program that helps students learning Chinese from native Chinese language speakers.

Finally, that box of books can be put away, along with the audiotapes and CD-ROMs, after a brief experience with the experienced experts and teachers that are found on the Mando Mandarin website. Live lessons offer the best one-on-one language learning method than many other methods out there today.

Many folks across the world want to learn to speak Chinese.

Since China is developing into an economic powerhouse, it is seen as the language of the future. Nearly one out of every five people on this planet speak Chinese.

The question is, how to learn such a complex language? Below are five quick tips which can be useful to learn to speak Chinese, or any other language.

1. Group or private lessons?

Some people learn to speak Chinese at a faster rate than others. Therefore, there is a disadvantage to learning in larger groups. If you learn quickly in a large group, it’s difficult to advance, because the teacher needs to focus on teaching the entire group, versus one student. The same applies for slower learners.

If you can afford it, private lessons offer the fastest way to learn to speak Chinese. If you have an hour class, one hour is focused on you, and not divided between fifteen people. More corrections are given to the student, and the student learns at an accelerated pace.

2. One size fits all?

There is a false misconception that one teaching method, or one language textbook works for all learners.

Unfortunately, the way each of us learn best is probably as varied as our personalities.

Some learn to speak Chinese best by repetition. The more they repeat themselves, the more they remember. Other students learn better by seeing instructions in print, or looking at photos.

The Chinese use four different levels of tones when they speak. So, it’s possible for one word to have four different meanings, depending on how your pronounce it.

If you want to learn to speak Chinese, it is important that you always get in the practice of speaking out loud.

Pronunciation is everything, and by practicing these different tones, you will be able to develop confidence in your speaking abilities.

3. Find a native Chinese speaker

As complex as Chinese is, it’s difficult to learn to speak Chinese from a non-native Chinese speaker. I know that is probably hurting a few people’s feelings, but the reality is, a qualified native Chinese speaker will help you speak the language much better than a non-native speaker.

I have taught English as a Second Language for almost twenty years, and I can tell you that it’s difficult for people to teach English well when it isn’t their native tongue. Does that mean that they can’t be good teachers?

No. What it means is there are so many complexities within each language that a non-native speaker has a disadvantage because they cannot grasp these elements.

4. Have a good reason for learning Chinese

Remember, language learning requires dedication and persistence. It’s difficult if you don’t have any reasons for learning.

Do you want to learn to speak Chinese for traveling? Do you want to learn it for business, or education? These are all excellent reasons to learn a language. However, learning because a friend is learning and suggested you try, or your boss told you it is necessary for your job are not good reasons.

Fact is, if you’re not interested, you’re never going to learn.

5. Support groups

Finding a language club in your area helps motivate you to practice Chinese. The more you practice and face different situations, the more skilful you will become.

The Internet contains many great resources to strengthen your learning. Use a search engine like Google to query:

Chinese lessons, or learn to speak Chinese.

These are just a few tips on learning Chinese. Learning a language shouldn’t be like a nine-to-five job, it should feel refreshing like a hobby.

In the end, the most important tip if you want to learn to speak Chinese, is to have fun!

Do you know Video marketing? If not, it is not too late to learn this,Video marketing has been approved to be an effective way to increase traffic to your website. Video marketing, as we know it is starting to revolutionize the way we view content on the Internet. With video sharing sites such as Yoube, Revver, and Break springing up clone sites daily, it is no wonder that people are looking to view video more than written content.

Here are a few reasons why you should be utilizing online video to drive traffic to your websites, products and affiliate products.

Reason 1. Video sites most likely are viewed as an authority site in Google. Such sites as Youtube, Revver and DailyMotion all sport respective Google page rank of 8, 7, and 7. With as this much importance, it only makes sense to have your videos shown on these sites, giving you a much better shot at a high search engine result.

Reason2. People love the idea of seeing whom they are dealing with. Whether you are a marketer or just a Webmaster, statistics show that video and a more personable appearance can dramatically increase conversions.

Reason 3. With the introduction of Googles Universal Search, the amount of videos being indexed and ranked is climbing at alarming rates. Google is aiming to provide a more comprehensive searching and information viewing experience for its search engine users, and videos with optimized titles are showing up in the free search engine ranking pages more and more each day.

Reason4. In the case of Youtube, it is currently ranked on Alexa as the fourth most visited site on the Internet. The traffic alone within Youtube just from its users is enough to change the initial growth period of any website. You can literally have a brand new website getting enormous amounts of traffic just minutes after you upload a video with a link back to your site.

Reason 5. Videos can be submitted to Social Bookmarking and NewSites such as Digg, Netscape, Reddit and Stumbleupon. With the amount of traffic these sites can potentially bring, you could literally turn a fresh website into a cash machine in a matter of days.

To begin your Video Marketing now, you need the  seo services of a professional Search Engine Optimization company.

SEO services is nothing more than a method to drive traffic to your website. It is very popular though because it works, it gives targeted visitors and the amount of visitors you can get is almost endless. All in all it is one of the best methods to get traffic.

To make money with SEO, you need a website or a blog. Here are the two most common and proven methods.

Blog and adsense.

Blogger blogs are better than wordpress in regards to search engines. It is because these tend to rank very well and very fast in Google search engine. You need to have great content on your blog for this method to work. Give your visitors the best thing they expect. Not a bunch of articles.

Just ask this question to yourself. If you are searching for what you are providing on your blog, what is your reaction? Do the blog posts solve or provide what you are looking for?

There are many methods to strategically place your adsense codes. The best position is to place adsense under images. They are more likely to get clicked.

Affiliate marketing and seo.

You can get your affiliate link in the top search engine results. Unlike what you may have heard it is very possible. But you have to do it in a special way. First of all you need to buy a domain name. Then you have two options. The best one is to create your own website, marketing the affiliate product. Then use one of those tools to link directly to the order form, instead of linking to the affiliate link.

Clickbank also provides a simple code to do this, even though you need to check if this is still available. Before linking to the order form, you need to get permission from the affiliate program owner. So send him an email. This is a time and tested method to sell affiliate products or services using search engine optimization traffic from your own domain name.

The other option is to use one of those tools that masks your affiliate link. Means when you visit your domain name, the affiliate link loads. It is important not to choose one of those tools that simple redirect your domain to the affiliate link.

There are tools that allow you to add meta tags on your domain and without redirects. With this method you cannot edit the homepage of your site. But you can get it ranked by getting backlinks.

Keep in mind it is not a good idea to read all affiliate marketing ebooks and courses before doing something. The right way is to become exited and enthusiastic about your new Internet business and start working on it instantly, even if you mess up many things. That is how you learn.

It is important not to mange multiple sites at once, it becomes difficult and you cannot focus deeply. SEO on one website will bring in more results than if you do SEO on several websites at once. Your goal is simple to pick one of the methods and stick with it until the website is successful. It means until you see results, which you can then double and triple.

MSN has removed the beta-wrap from its proprietary search engine and is now showing self-generated results at MSN.Com. Beta results had started bleeding into MSN listings over the past three weeks but since Sunday (Jan 16), the .COM (US / Global) version of MSN has consistently mirrored those found at MSN(beta). Regional versions of MSN continue to display Inktomi (Yahoo owned) / Regional partner generated results (Jan19, 05).

At this time two years ago, Google was the only major search database, feeding search results to Yahoo and eventually by extension to MSN. Around this time last year, Yahoo began to break away from Google by amalgamating data from its acquisitions of Overture, AlltheWeb, AltaVista and Inktomi into a monster database built on the dbase they bought from FAST. This was a huge project that resulted in a database almost as large as Google’s.

The introduction of an MSN search engine makes the business world of search a lot more interesting and might help open the door for other smaller firms such as Lycos and Ask Jeeves to gain a toehold against Google. However MSN changes the business of search, it will help improve on the science of it by innovation rather than invention.

The engineers at MSN have had the luxury of watching everyone else invent dozens of wheels. They have had the time to see what works well and what makes money. They have watched great ideas that should have succeeded fall to failure and not so great ideas flourish until the market determined their death. Having created much of the environment themselves, they also know the histories of the web and appear to have learned when to act and when to lay-low.

The search engine that they have produced takes factors that worked well for others and combined them to make what could become a very popular search tool.

Like Google, MSN’s spider finds new sites by following links directed to those sites. MSNbot is active all the time. So active in fact that about five weeks ago a few webmasters reported so many visits their servers crashed. MSN revisits sites very frequently. Over the past year, MSN has compiled a 5-Billion site database.

Once a site is in the database, MSN looks at the number of links directed to that site. There is no hard data on the role topical relevancy plays in how MSN determines links however it is assumed by most that anchor text plays a major role. (Anchor text did factor in our initial tests however with the beta version of the engine)

Next, MSN looks at the content of the site. This is where much of the ranking determination is made. Sites with great text and clear internal link-paths are ranking very well with MSN. Of our entire client base, only one site with excellent text and internal linking lost a top placement at MSN when the new version was introduced. Strong, keyword enriched titles and body texts continue to provide strong placements. We are fairly certain that the anchor text of internal links can influence placements as well.

Size matters with MSN as larger sites with long-term content appear to be doing very well under more generic keyword searches. Content rich news and information sites and large corporate sites should be able to leverage their size and content-scope into high placements. The size and content-scope factor should also work well with large e-commerce sites, provided a very clear mapping technique makes the site as easy to access as possible for MSNbot.

Look for similarities between what you know works at Google and Yahoo and you can learn what works well at MSN. The Field Turf website ranks #1 at each of the Big3 under the phrase “artificial turf”. The index page itself is dynamically generated and does not always present the same text information limiting the effectiveness of SEO-copyrighting and keyword densities. There are several remaining areas on the site  search engine optimization work could be applied and a number of off-site factors that collectively contribute to the site’s top placements. Based on this simple test, we can determine the following.

Titles make a big difference at all three and are an important area to work on when doing basic SEO for MSN. MSN also seems to be able to read text found in drop-down menus such as the ones on the right hand side of the Field Turf index page.

The business of search has changed radically over the past four months, working through a scenario that has been building for about two years. MSN going live with their own search engine is huge news with as many unknown implications as known ones. Its presence will challenge many basic assumptions about  SEO services  and will play a large hand in determining the future of the search industry itself. The greatest general change is the burst of corporate diversity and identity in the search marketplace. A range of new products and services has been introduced by every search tool from the Big3 to the dozen or so smaller but notable search firms. Google is buying ad-space and fiber optics. Yahoo is reporting massive earnings as it pushes into the Chinese market, and MSN is suddenly in the house, so to speak. The precursors of change are written on the wall and MSN is betting much of that change will be found between the walls of your home.

The META tags located within the invisible source of your web page. They were originally designed to provide the details of your web site to visiting search engine spiders and they still do, to a degree. Since this part of your web page is invisible, META tags were increasingly used to misinform the SEO services of the content of a web site – spamming. As a result, META tags play a lesser role but they should still be properly optimized so that they contribute to the topical relevance of your web site.

META tags are basically composed of the Description and Keyword tags. The Description tag should provide the same or similar 25-30 word description of your web site that you created earlier for the first text within your visible page. The description is occasionally used as your description within the search engines but it is unpredictable. The Keyword tag should include the keywords/phrases that you are targeting in order of importance. Start with the most important and then proceed to less important but still relevant keywords. It is extremely important that you do not repeat any word more than 3 times within the Keyword tag. This includes words within target sentences. Also do not place repeated keywords close together.

Save yourself the time of creating a Keyword META Tag; they are mainly not good to search engines optimization today. The fact is that the Keyword META Tag was abused too heavily by Spammers and have little or no effect due to their suspect nature. The Description Tag, however, is just as important as ever and should be carefully crafted for each webpage.

Navigation. Provide Clear Paths

Is the navigation within your site entirely graphical or programming oriented? In this case I recommend that you create a textual link menu at the bottom of your page. For added punch (and this is a big hit) you should make each link count by using the keyword/phrase that best describes the target page. For example:

BMW Accessories | Used BMW for Sale | More About My BMW.com

versus these less powerful links:

Accessories | Used Cars | About Us

1 Tumi LXT Achievement [pound]580

Tumi’s luxury range is made from durable and lightweight nylon with calf-leather trim. This is fitted with a metal barcoded panel that helps reunite the bag with you if it gets lost.

www.tumi.com; 020-7493 4138

2 Knomo Bungo [pound]154.99

This leather messenger bag fits a 15-inch laptop and has a quilted removable pocket for your computer. It’s made of soft leather on the front and strong nylon or canvas on the back.

www.knomobags.com; 08000 437 924

3 Pakuma Akara K1 [pound]49.99

This is good for bigger notebook computers, and will hold a 17- inch laptop in its Cocoon memory-foam protection system. It has an MP3 player pouch with a headphone-out port.

www.pakuma.com; 08708 113 614

4 Acme Made Designer Slim [pound]83.99

The Designer Slim bags from Acme Made are available in more than a dozen patterns. Cute and light, the bags come in three sizes so every laptop is catered for.

www.laptopstuff.co.uk; 08703 892 122

5 Delsey Loading PC Compatible [pound]89

Delsey’s computer case has two compartments, expandable from 17 inches to 21 inches in depth. It’s light and hard-wearing, and there’s padding to protect your laptop as well as straps.

www.delsey.com; 020-8731 3530

6 Knomo Kiki [pound]139.99

Available in red or black, this hide-leather bag is small and light, suitable for 12-inch laptops. It has padded handles and a removable padded, non-slip shoulder strap.

www.knomobags.com; 020-7462 0750

7 Timbuk2 Outtawhack [pound]99.99

Lots of colours to choose from in this tough, cool bag. You can carry it like a briefcase or messenger bag and the laptop compartment (lined with corduroy) has sturdy padding.

www.laptopstuff.co.uk; 08703 892 122

8 Knomo Orkney [pound]184.99

The traditional look of the leather Orkney hides a defiantly modern inner laptop pocket with quilted sides and removable cable pouch. It has pockets for iPod and mobile phone.

www.laptopstuff.co.uk; 08703 892 122

9 Tumi Gen 4 Essential Computer Brief [pound]275

Tumi’s bags are solid and light. This one is small enough to fit into an overhead compartment but has plenty of pockets, plus holders for pens, an umbrella, tickets and power cables.

www.tumi.com; 020-7493 4138

10 Mandarina Duck Vaio Shopper [pound]160

Designed to match Sony’s collection of adorable coloured laptops, this has a padded neoprene computer pouch perfectly sized to fit the Vaio. A matching purse is part of the deal.

www.selfridges.com; 08708 377 377

The Ten Best is edited by Rebecca Armstrong

Copyright 2007 Independent Newspapers UK Limited
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.

Choosing the right colors for your website is just as important as selecting graphics and content. This article discusses what factors to consider when selecting your website colors.

Colors have many effects on people. Certain colors can invoke specific emotions in people. Emotional reactions can affect the image of your company in the visitors mind and can have a major effect or your company’s “brand”.

If you doubt color evokes emotion, consider the phrases, “green eyed monster” “seeing red” or “in a black mood”. The green-eyed monster is a reference to jealousy, seeing red means a person is angry and a black mood refers to depression. People do associate colors with specific moods. Scientific texts have proven that different colors can make people happy, sad, relaxed, excited, angry or afraid.

Anything that can evoke those responses in people needs to be looked at carefully when designing your website. Colors tend to be classified as “neutral, “warm” or “cool”. So, let’s take a look at some of them.

Neutral Colors

Whites – Whites stand for purity and cleanliness. In eastern cultures white is the color of death while in western cultures in is the color of marriage and hope.

Grays – Grays exude reliability and conservatism. Shades of gray are one of the most popular colors for business attire.

Browns – Browns stand for the earth, home and family.

Blacks – Blacks tend to signify power, elegance and sophistication. In western cultures also stands for death.

Warm Colors

Reds – Reds are good for attracting attention. That is why they are frequently used in sales letters to emphasize specific points. Red symbolizes, anger, violence, lust, passion and can actually raise people’s blood pressure.

Yellows – Yellow can mean weakness or cowardice as well warmth and happiness.

Oranges – Orange is associated with fall harvesting and Halloween. It can also stimulate a person’s appetite.

Pinks – Pinks usually symbolize innocence, femininity and romance.

Cool Colors

Blue – Blue has a calming effect on people. It exudes intelligence and trust. It is a surprising that many financial and health care institutions use blue themes. Blue can also suppress appetite.

Green – While the green stands for jealousy, greed and inexperience, it also stands for money and wealth.

Purple – Purple tends to symbolize creativity. The darker shades were once reserved for royalty and the lighter shades are usually associated with romance.

Web Safe Colors

Vacuum tubes, LCD and Plasma screens all display colors differently. There are 216 colors that can be displayed on every type of monitor in every web browser and will look almost identical. These 216 are called web safe colors. If consistent color is important, you should only use web safe colors on your websites.

Color Schemes

Color schemes can be composed of a single color, complimentary colors or contrasting colors.

Single Color — Single color schemes uses several different shades and intensities of a single color on a white background. For example, if you want to use a red color scheme, you can use everything from the lightest pink to a red so dark it is almost black.

Complementary Colors – Complementary color schemes use two or more colors that look good together and create a pleasant blend that is appealing to most people. One color may be dominant and the other used to compliment it.

Contrasting Colors – Contrasting color schemes use two or more dominant colors to create an “eye grabbing effect”. For example, using a dark blue page background, a deep red frame around a white background text area with black text is a typical contrasting color scheme.

Web designers need to be careful when using contrasting colors because some combinations tend to “vibrate” such as red text on a blue background and can hurt some people’s eyes, while other combinations are just had to focus on. Other combinations “clash” and are unpleasant to look at.

General Color Guidelines

The following guidelines are suggestions that should make your web pages readable for everyone.

• Text should be readable. Obviously black on white is the default choice but others are also good. White or Yellow or other light colors work on black or any other dark color background. But, Yellow, Green or Gray on white does not.
• Use colors that are attractive and pleasing to the eye.
• Select the colors that portray the image you want to give your visitors.
• For consistent colors across different browsers, use web safe colors.
• Do not use a normal color intensity images as a background behind text. It makes it difficult to read. If you use an image, use it as a faded watermark.
• Colors should be uniform on all your web pages to create a “brand” for your site and let your visitors know they are still on your website.

When you come to designing your website, choose you color scheme just as carefully as you choose your graphics and content. The overall appearance will determine the impression the visitor gets of your company and can mean the difference between success and failure.