Home | Latest Issue | Archives | Email |
'elf Expressions Ezine

Get Hold of Your Elf!

“Get hold of your ‘elf!”

Your weekly collection of marketing tips, hints, and advice interspersed with humor, inspiration, and other goodies to spice things up a bit. It is being offered for entrepreneurs, would-be entrepreneurs, and online marketers, who need guidance, tutoring, advice, mentoring, and inspiration. The publisher’s philosophy is that most learn faster by taking small bites, rather than large gulps. Small bites are chewed more thoroughly, swallowed, and digested more readily. Keeping that in mind, many features will be solo items. That way, you will not be bombarded or overwhelmed.

Publisher: Mary Wilkey
Volume 1 - Issue 11 - June 5, 2001
Published every Tuesday evening

Hello, all! This has been a rather reflective week around here—you know, where you just stand back and regroup and take another look at the "big picture." It's a cathartic exercise—and always profitable. Kind of like cleaning out a cluttered closet. You know it's going to have to be done again, but it feels so good when you're finished—and you seem to get a new edge on things when the cobwebs are cleared out. Whenever an extraordinary number of inspirational things come in the mail, it seems to be natural to want to look at things from another, loftier perspective. This is one of those times, and I hope you all enjoy this week's feature article as much as I did.


 

Faith sees the invisible,
believes the impossible,
does the incredible.

CONTENTS:
Ad Contest
Subscriber Spotlight
Feature Article
Today’s Chuckle
Today's English lesson
Internet Tips & Hints
Guest Article
Inspiration
Etcetera


AD CONTEST

Results of last issue's ad contest: See Ray Petersen's ad above. C'mon, people—this doesn't take rocket science! Let's get a little competition going here!

For our subscribers only: Be the first person to submit the correct answer to the following and receive the next available top sponsor ad FREE!

A cowboy tells his two sons to race their horses to a distant town to see who will inherit his ranch. The one whose horse is slower will win. The brothers, after wandering aimlessly for days, ask a wise Indian for advice. After hearing the advice they jump on their horses and race as fast as they can to the town. What did the wise man say?

Check back next week for the answer.



Love is that state of heart and mind in which the loved one's health and happiness become absolutely vital to one's own.

Robert A. Heinlein


SUBSCRIBER SPOTLIGHT
The first subscriber to submit his or her personal profile sharing with the rest of us all about who he/she is, background, family, location, interests, hobbies, goals, dreams, etc., will be spotlighted right here next issue—and yes, an email and/or URL may be included!

Your biographical info could have been here—along with your URL—and/or email—but no one submitted his/her info this week. Folks, this is FREE publicity for you!


FEATURE ARTICLE
This week's feature article was not written by the editor, but someone sent it to me in an email, and it is such a poignant tale that I feel that we all could benefit by it.

One day, when I was a freshman in high school, I saw a kid from my class was walking home from school. His name was Kyle. It looked like he was carrying all of his books. I thought to myself, "Why would anyone bring home all his books on a Friday? He must really be a nerd."

I had quite a weekend planned (parties and a football game with my friends tomorrow afternoon), so I shrugged my shoulders and went on. As I was walking, I saw a bunch of kids running toward him. They ran at him, knocking all his books out of his arms and tripping him so he landed in the dirt. His glasses went flying, and I saw them land in the grass about ten feet from him. He looked up, and I saw this terrible sadness in his eyes.

My heart went out to him. So, I jogged over to him and as he crawled around looking for his glasses, I saw a tear in his eye. As I handed him his glasses, I said, "Those guys are jerks. They really should get lives." He looked at me and said, "Hey thanks!" There was a big smile on his face. It was one of those smiles that showed real gratitude. I helped him pick up his books and asked him where he lived. As it turned out, he lived near me, so I asked him why I had never seen him before. He said he had gone to private school before now. I would have never hung out with a private school kid before. We talked all the way home, and I carried his books. He turned out to be a pretty cool kid.

I asked him if he wanted to play football on Saturday with me and my friends. He said yes. We hung around all weekend, and the more I got to know Kyle, the more I liked him, and my friends thought the same of him.

Monday morning came, and there was Kyle with the huge stack of books again. I stopped him and said, "Boy, you are gonna really build some serious muscles with this pile of books everyday!" He just laughed and handed me half the books. Over the next four years Kyle and I became best friends. When we were seniors, we began to think about college. Kyle decided on Georgetown, and I was going to Duke. I knew that we would always be friends, that the miles would never be a problem. He was going to be a doctor, and I was going for business on a football scholarship.

Kyle was valedictorian of our class. I teased him all the time about being a nerd. He had to prepare a speech for graduation. I was so glad it wasn't me having to get up there and speak.

Graduation day, I saw Kyle. He looked great. He was one of those guys that really found himself during high school. He filled out and actually looked good in glasses. He had more dates than I had, and all the girls loved him. Boy, sometimes I was jealous. Today was one of those days. I could see that he was nervous about his speech. So I smacked him on the back and said, "Hey, big guy, you'll be great!" He looked at me with one of those looks (the really grateful one) and smiled. "Thanks," he said.

As he started his speech, he cleared his throat and began. "Graduation is a time to thank those who helped you make it rough those tough years. Your parents, your teachers, your siblings, maybe a coach, but mostly your friends. I am here to tell all of you that being a friend to someone is the best gift you can give them. I am going to tell you a story." I just looked at my friend with disbelief as he told the story of the first day we met. He had planned to kill himself over the weekend. He talked of how he had cleaned out his locker so his Mom wouldn't have to do it later and was carrying all his stuff home.

He looked hard at me and gave me a little smile. "Thankfully, I was saved. My friend saved me from doing the unspeakable." I heard the gasp go through the crowd as this handsome, popular boy told us all about his weakest moment. I saw his mom and dad looking at me and smiling that same grateful smile.

Not until that moment did I realize its depth. Never underestimate the power of your actions. With one small gesture you can change person's life. For better or for worse. God puts us all in each other's lives to impact one another in some way. Look for God in others.

—Author unknown


This One Thing I Do

How do you tackle your work each day?
Do you grapple the task that comes your way with a confident, easy mind?
Do you start to toil with a sense of dread
Or feel that you're going to do it?

You can do as much as you think you can,
But you'll never accomplish more;
If you're afraid of yourself, young man,
There's little for you in store.
For failure comes from the inside first,
It's there, if we only knew it.
And you can win, though you face the worst,
If you feel that you're going to do it!


TODAY'S CHUCKLE

Welcome to the Mental Health Telephone Helpline.

Please note that due to a shortage of rooms, today's Agoraphobia Workshop has been moved to the picnic area.

If you have short-term memory loss, please press 0.

If you are obsessive-compulsive, please press 1 repeatedly.

If you are co-dependent, please ask someone to press 2 for you.

If you have multiple personalities, please press 3, 4 and 5.

If you are in denial, please press 6 to confirm that everything is OK.

We already know if you are paranoid and are tracing your call right now. We'll get you soon.

If you have short-term memory loss, please press 0.

If you are delusional, please press 7, and we will beam you back to your mothership.

If you are schizophrenic, the voices will tell you which number to press.

If you are depressed, it doesn't matter which button you press—no one will answer.

If you have a nervous disorder, please fiddle with the # key until a representative comes on the line.

If you are dyslexic, please press 69969696996.

If you have short-term memory loss, please press 0.

For details of the anger management class, please press 8 VERY GENTLY.

If you have amnesia, please press 9 and state your name, address, phone number, date and place of birth, social security number, bank account number, and your mother's maiden name, then memorize the reference number we give you.

If you are suffering from a guilt complex, you shouldn't have phoned us in the first place and you are just wasting our valuable time.

If you have short-term memory loss, please press 0.

If you are anorexic, your pizza will be delivered within 30 minutes.

If you have low self-esteem, please hang up now. No one wants to talk to a pitiful loser like you.

If you are disoriented, please a message leave the bleep after, or before the bleep, or leave a bleep after the message. Or after the bleep. Please tone the wait for.

If you have an addictive personality, please press * to repeat this message.

. . . Submitted by Giles


TODAY'S ENGLISH LESSON

Seeing the same elementary mistakes over and over again has prompted this publisher to write an English lesson each issue. This one concerns the misuse of "your" and "you're."

"Your" is a pronoun, pure and simple. It refers to something that belongs to someone, e.g., your hat, your things—they are yours.

"You're" is the contraction of "you are." Simple. How can anyone possibly misuse it? The apostrophe merely replaces the "a" in "are."


INTERNET HINTS & TIPS

Copying vs. Synchronization

When you copy a file or folder from one disk or folder (master) to another (slave), it does just that. It replaces older versions on the slave, with the newer ones on the master that bear the same name. If a file is no longer on the master that exists on the slave, the copy process does not remove files from the slave.

This is a very safe way to back up files; however, you could have many temporary files on the slave, and they will not be removed if they no longer exist on the master. You may quickly find that the temporary files outnumber the good ones you wish to keep.

Synchronization, on the other hand, makes the two disks identical. If a file is on the master that is not on the slave, it will be copied. If the master file is the same as the one on the slave, nothing will happen. If the slave contains a file that is not on the master (such as a temporary file), it will be deleted from the slave. The master files are never affected—only those on the slave.

I synchronize our files every day. I do mine when I'm going to be away for awhile, such as mealtime. I only do the folders that change on a daily basis. This takes about fifteen minutes. I use a package called "Visual Batch File" by Corban software. This is free software, and you can get it at: http://www.corbanware.com. The documentation is not that great, but you should be able to figure it out.

Once a week I do the entire disk, but that takes some time, and I usually start that just before retiring for the night and let it run to completion. As part of that chore, I remove all the temporary files from the master before starting it.

Now here is the nice part. We have other computers on our network, and I back those up from mine. The job runs very nicely in the background, and I can continue doing other tasks at the same time. The only computer that is affected is the one being synchronized.

**********************
Visit Bob Osgoodby's site at
http://www.adv-marketing.com/business


GUEST ARTICLE

Web Page Litmus Tests:
How to Immediately Know If Your Site is Effective
By Stefene Russell

We all have myopia when it comes to our own projects, and web sites are no different. Why use rainbow fun fonts, neon wallpaper, and spastic animated GIFs when you find them highly obnoxious on other sites? The cause may be the mystery of human nature, but the answer is pretty simple: take a fearless inventory.

The next time you get ambitious and decide to revamp your site, try this little exercise. Sit down and surf, but bring a notebook and a pen. Write down anything that elicits an emotional response, even if it's just a slight annoyance. For example: "Pixelated-looking unicorn image with rainbow mane, blinking title that I can't read, and text pushed all the way down at the bottom of the page. Felt very grouchy and left the site ASAP." Chances are, the things that turn you off are things that turn everyone off. So make a nice long list. Okay? Now go back and turn an objective eye to your own site. See what mistakes you're making, and try to correct them.

Some common problems include:

——Coding problems: your text is wrapping this way and that, or your images are stretched or distorted.

——Copy problems: awkward, confusing sentences; spelling, grammar, or punctuation errors.

——Design problems: too many images, blinking fonts, too much text crammed on one page.

——Organizational problems: users can't figure out how to get to the relevant information, or even worse, can't even figure out what the topic of the page is supposed to be.

Another quick litmus test is to remember who your audience is. If this is a business website, then treat it that way. You wouldn't print your resume on shocking pink paper using some goofy font, and you wouldn't show up at a job interview in acid green trousers and clown shoes. Though there's a little more leeway in website design, you still want to come across as competent and professional. That means purging your site of all copy errors, using clean, legible images, and fixing any strange coding quirk as soon as you see it. After all, how is a customer supposed to trust you with a product if your website is a mess? As for acid green, well, I think the jury's still out on that one. If you do decide to use it, use it wisely!

********************

Stefene Russell helps people make their websites more effective. Get her free website analysis at http://FixMyWebsite.com Reach Stefene at stefene@drnunley.com or 801-322-3996.

INSPIRATION


"ATTITUDE"

The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstance, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do.

Attitude is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill. It will make or break a company . . . a church . . . a home. The remarkable thing is, we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day.

We cannot change the past . . . we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude.

I am convinced that life is ten percent what happens to me and ninety percent how I react to it. And so it is with you . . . we are in charge of our attitudes.

. . . Charles Swindoll


ETCETERA

Contact publisher at:
mailto:elfbutter@erinet.com
©2001, Mary Wilkey

To advertise, please send your 7-line, 65-character classified (including URL or email address) 20-lines for sponsor ads, up to 50 for SOLO ads—pay thru PayPal by check or credit card or send money order or cashier's check to PO Box 854, Franklin OH 45005. Email ads to: mailto:elfbutter@erinet.com
All classified ads are free for right now and are for subscribers only. The top sponsor ad is $10/issue. SOLO ads are $25/issue.

To subscribe/unsubscribe, to submit an article for publication, to make suggestions or comments, just email me at mailto:elfbutter@erinet.com

"DISCLAIMER: We disclaim any liability for the use of any contributed information contained herein. We also claim no responsibility for the legality or accuracy of advertisements or articles submitted and reprinted by permission. It is the contributor's and/or advertiser's responsibility to abide by all pertinent jurisdictional laws and regulations pertaining to that person's business."


Click to Vote for this E-zine!

Rate This Ezine!

This Ezine Is Listed At FreeZinesOnline.
http://Globemark.net/FreeZinesOnline.htm

Find any E-zine with the Master E-zine List!
The best source for any e-zine you are looking for.
If you have an e-zine get it listed FREE Today!
http://www.bluechiptraffic.com/ezines/

Please rate this Ezine at the Cumuli Ezine Finder.
http://www.cumuli.com/ezines/ra20843.rate AOL Users Click Here

FREE AND LOW COST ADVERTISING!
Ezine publishers: you need to click this link at least once!
If you have a Bizz Opp to promote you still need to click it!
ian@itsaworld.com?subject=hotprogramsinfo_pubs Or pay us a visit:- http://www.itsaworld-of-ezines.com

 Home | Latest Issue | Archives | Email |