Success Story: A Business Planning Success

Success Story: A Business Planning Success

Ms. Hasina Jahan is the CEO of a small business in Bangladesh that produces coir mattresses. She started off in a small way but her business grew quickly, and keeping up with the increasing demand for her product proved to be a challenge. In an experience-sharing session organized by the South Asia Enterprise Development Facility's Knowledge Center at the Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Hasina explained some of the challenges that her business was facing—chief among them was obtaining a bank loan.

Hasina had previously heard about a local bank that provides loans to SMEs without collateral. She went to the bank and spoke to a loan officer, who requested that she provide certain financial documents and a business plan. Fortunately, she already had the financial documents ready, and after soliciting suggestions from colleagues and friends, she quickly prepared an informal business plan. But after reviewing Hasina’s documentation, the loan officer said he would be unable to give her the loan due to uncertainty that she would be able to repay it. Hasina left the bank feeling disheartened and unsure of what her next step should be.

It was at the Knowledge Center session that Hasina first heard about the SME Toolkit and its tools for assisting managers of small and medium enterprises in preparing a standard business plan. Hasina promptly returned to the Knowledge Center, where an associate guided her through the process of utilizing the SME Toolkit to create a formal business plan.

Shortly thereafter, Hasina’s new business plan enabled her to obtain the loan of US$2,000 that she needed. The loan provided a major boost to her business, and now Hasina is ready to apply for larger loans when she needs them.

http://www.smetoolkit.org/smetoolkit/en/content/en/136/Success-Story-A-Business-Planning-Success

How To Keep Accurate Time On Your Computer

How To Keep Accurate Time On Your Computer

Most computers have internal clocks dedicated to maintaining system time. The internal real-time clocks rely on relatively cheap crystal oscillators, which are very inaccurate. In many cases computer system time can drift by several minutes each day. This article describes various methods of keeping a highly accurate time on your computer. It describes how to utilise Internet time servers, radio and GPS clocks and dedicated NTP server systems.

Internet Time Servers

The Internet utilises the Network Time Protocol, NTP, to disseminate accurate time information to network time clients. NTP has been an important part of the Internet for more than 25 years. The protocol was born through the desire to provide synchronization of time critical procedures throughout the Internet.

Most modern operating systems, including Microsoft Windows 2003, XP, 2000, UNIX and LINUX have the ability to synchronize time with a NTP Time Server. There are a host of Internet based NTP Time Servers that the public can access that can be used to synchronise your computer. Below is a list of popular Internet based public access NTP Server time references:

ptbtime1.ptb.de - German NTP server time reference.
canon.inria.fr - French NTP server time reference.
time.nist.gov - US based NTP server time reference.
clock.isc.org - Canadian NTP server time reference.
ntp.my-inbox.co.uk - UK NTP server time reference.

Microsoft Windows XP has pre-installed SNTP client software that can synchronize time with a NTP server time reference. This is achieved by simply entering the domain name of a NTP Server in the time properties tab. The host computer will then periodically contact the NTP Server and synchronise the system time to the specified NTP reference.

LINUX and UNIX operating systems have the network time protocol software distribution available from the NTP website. The NTP application runs, in background, as a daemon, constantly monitoring specified NTP servers. The NTP daemon application reads a list of NTP servers from a configuration file, �ntp.conf�, and periodically synchronizes time. A list of NTP server references is specified with the �server� configuration command thus:

server clock.isc.org # Canadian NTP server time reference
server ntp.my-inbox.co.uk # UK NTP server time reference.

Once configured, the network time protocol daemon can be started, stopped and restarted using the daemon commands: �ntpd start�; �ntpd stop� and �ntpd restart�.

GPS Clock and Radio Time References

There a number of commercially available GPS clock and radio time references for computers. GPS and radio clocks obtain accurate time from national radio timing references or from the global positioning system. The devices have either serial or USB computer interfaces and provide an accurate timing reference to computers. Software drivers periodically synchronise the system time of the host computer to the received reference time. Often reference clock drivers are available that interface to the NTP daemon to provide your own dedicated NTP server resource.

LF radio time receivers often have the advantage of having the ability to obtain a signal, indoors. However, the radio signals can only be received locally to the reference transmitter. There are a number of world-wide radio time broadcasts available: WWVB transmitted from Colorado, USA; CHU, Canada; DCF-77 transmitted from Frankfurt, Germany; MSF transmitted from Rugby, UK and TDF, France. GPS has the advantage of providing a world-wide time and frequency system, however, an externally mounted antenna is required which can be impractical in many cases.

Dedicated NTP Servers

NTP servers are time servers that obtain time from an external timing reference, such as GPS or radio, and provide a network with an accurate time resource. NTP servers are usually rack-mounted devices with an antenna and an LAN connection. The devices obtain accurate time from a radio or GPS timing transmission and maintain an accurate internal time. The accurate time is distributed to network clients using UDP over an IP network. Dedicated NTP servers often minimize the set-up and configuration time required to get a NTP server up and running.

Biography:
Dave Evans is a software engineer involved in the development of NTP Server time synchronisation systems. Dave has developed dedicated NTP time server systems, NTP clock and atomic clock synchronisation products. Find out more about SNTP and NTP Server Systems here.

Next Generation of Gaming by Shelby Childers

Next Generation of Gaming

Ever since I once I young kid, I've loved playing video games. There is no better entertainment in the world to me than video games. I find it fascinating being able to interact with the environments and do things myself rather than just watching a movie or television show in which you can't control.
Video games bring out the kid in all of us. Even timid people may find themselves yelling at the screen and pouncing on the floor in front of large audience or via internet play. I find video games to be great for social activities also. Nothing will cause a tough jock and a scrawny nerd to socialize more than a video game.

Video games are huge and they're becoming more mainstream everyday. It would be difficult to find a male kid in school who doesn't own some kind of video game console. Even female video gamers are increasing rapidly. Nintendo released a handheld called, "Nintendo DS" which features some games more directed to the female and non-gamer audience. These games include titles such as "Nintendogs", "Brain Training", and "Super Princess Peach".

The future of video games maybe rather interesting. Graphics keep improving and look more realistic than ever. XBox 360 and Playstation 3 have graphics better than most computers in houses. They say the future of gaming within the next 5 years is HD and crystal clear graphics. Nintendo Wii is taking a rather different approach. They say the future is a new, free movement hand controller. It will change the way people play games and make them look more fun. Nintendo hopes developers can come up with innovative ideas that make people think outside the box. They believe a wide range of people with purchace the console including the elderly, females, and non-gamers.

Tips For Cost Effective Pay Per Click Advertising by Michael Laleye

Tips For Cost Effective Pay Per Click Advertising

Pay per click advertising is one of the fastest ways to targeting prospective customers to your business products or services. A website can contract with one of the search engines, such as Google, Yahoo! or MSN and bid on keywords. When a person using the search engine enters one of the keywords in the search box, their ad pops up on the search results page as a sponsored ad. Here are some tips to make sure your ad is seen above your competition.

Know Your Niche
Knowing your niche when it comes to pay per click advertising involves knowing what search terms surfers are most likely to type into an internet search engine when looking for a site such as yours. Coming up with as many phrases that describe your website or your product or service is your most handy tool. With this basic list of keywords that describe your niche market you can then proceed to use the internet to help you find more words or phrases that you might not have thought of to add to your list. You can also find derivatives of the main words you thought up to give you a broader scope of keywords to bid on. To find free tools to use online to assist you simply type in "keyword too" into any search engine.

Pick Low Competition Keywords
The world of pay per click advertising is very competitive and the words you might want to bid on can be out of your budget. The key is to find the low competition variations of your main keyword that are less popular and therefore will cost less. The best tool one can have when looking for low competition keywords in their niche is a keyword analyzer software which can be purchased or found for free online. Some keywords tools are very good for doing pay per click research because they not only give you a list of alternatives for any search word you enter, they will also display the number of searches for that keyword and the number of campaigns already running for the keyword phrase you entered. This gives you a good view of what words you can bid on without going over budget, and also allows you to find keywords to bid on that are uncharted, meaning they get a good number of monthly searches but there are no campaigns running for that keyword. Without a keyword analyzer tool you can also find out how many campaigns are running for any keyword by simply typing the word into in the search engine and counting the ads.

Write Engaging Ads
Pay per click ads are typically less than 125 characters. You don't get lots of ad space to sell, so the object is to get into your customers head and ask yourself how they will benefit from your product or service. Listing a benefit in the form a question is a good way to engage those who view your ads. Some search engines such as Google allow you to score points through relevancy to search terms. Meaning the more relevant your ad is, based on how many times it is view verses how many it is clicked, the higher your ad will be on the list of ads bidding for that keyword. Using your main keyword in the title of the ad and in the ad itself will show your ad as having the exact phase that surfer searched for and thus increases the likeliness that they will click through to your web page.

Test Your Ads
Once you've written an add and included the keywords you'd like to bid on, your next step is to write a different ad and run it along side your first ad to test which one gets more click through's or sales. Once you've found this out, write another one and try and beat your previous stats. This will eventually lead to you having the best ads possible. Most pay per click companies will allow you to run two ads simultaneously, sharing the account funds to each and displaying each ad the same number of times.

Once you have a few pay per click campaigns under your belt this system for choosing the right keywords and creating relevant ads will become routine. Done the right way pay per click advertising can be a very cost effective way to promote any online venture you are involved in.

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Internet And Business Online – The Act Of Interdependence by: Scott Lindsay

The best role of business online is that of interdependency. We’ve all heard the old saying, “No man is an island.” When it comes to online business this is especially true.

If a business owner who takes their business into the online world determines they will be self reliant and never accept the help of anyone then that individual will not be in business long enough to change their minds.

It is accepted fact that the greatest tool for long-term exposure to your website is through Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Without it potential customers can’t find you. It is unreasonable to expect that you can adequately develop a website without optimizing your website for the best possible search engine ranking.

Search engines also place a high value on sites that have links placed on existing sites. These ‘backlinks’ demonstrate to search engines that others trust your site. By placing your link on their website these other businesses indicate a trust and recommendation for your site.

In effect the two strategies listed above rely exclusively on what others can do for you when it comes to your online business.

Shirley Temple once proclaimed in her movie Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, “I’m very self-reliant.” American westerns are filled with lines dealing with pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and holding down the fort. Many of us have grown up to believe if we want something done right we have to do it ourselves.

This thinking is in opposition to the rules associated with an online business.

The online world can only exist because people share. Individuals share technology, but the also share links, reviews, blogs, forums and a wide range of other marketing strategies that find a commingling of interdependency.

In online business you are as dependent on others as they may be on you. Unlike the word ‘dependent’, the term interdependent indicates a mutual dependency. In other words you are depending on others to help provide links back to your site while they are equally dependent on you (or others) for the success of their business.

Have you really taken a proactive approach to networking? It’s possible you are reading this today and you’ve never considered asking someone else to place a link to your site on his or her online business site.

It can feel awkward depending on others to achieve online success especially if you’ve been lead to believe reliance on others is also a sign of imposing on their otherwise brilliant generosity.

I suppose it could be a deep-seated sense of pride that makes it hard to consider the need to ask others for help. However, the truth is depending on others is really what has made the Internet possible. The growth of this online world is comprised of a link of computers, networks and servers that are connected in a way that provides the maximum benefit for all.

Building an online business can feel a bit like trying to build a house of cards. Without the ability to rely on the other ‘cards’ around you it is virtually impossible to build.

Interdependence. This is the essence of online business.