Home Based Business - Manage Your Time For Success
As a home based business owner, have you ever struggled with choosing and setting your priorities? Have you given up on time management? The life of a home business owner and entrepreneur is complex. Of course home based business owners also struggle with time management issues.On any particular day home business owners have to deal with marketing, sales, human resources, financial management, customer service, increasing profits, systems, and strategic planning. It is true each of the areas need attention. So how in the world can a business owner stay focused and make sure that he/she is working on the right thing at any particular point of time?You are a busy person and you work extended working hours. You can imagine how it can consume most of your time. Whether you like it or not, most likely this happens when you attempt to run a business properly. After all, there are probably many things that you want to do with your time, such as spending time with your family, going out with your friends, reading books, play with your children, or what not. Taking care of your home business can take up all of your time. Time management skill is also a must for a home business owner.The key to becoming more effective in time management lies in developing the ability to ask good questions. The best question is a question that cannot be answered with a simple yes or no answer but has to be explained. The following are some questions to help home based business owners to become focused:What does the business need from me today? Based on my answer, what needs to change? What information do I need? What is my logical next step? What do I need from the business? How can I go about creating that? Who do I know that has experience dealing with this issue that I can get support from? Wi

Make Money On EBay While Others Are Scratching Their Heads!
Aaargh! Why is my competition getting way more hits than mine?There are several reasons why, but I hope to explain at least the major reason.Poor titles with a lack of highly targeted keywordsThe majority of eBay sellers are completely unaware that they are jeopardising their success through lack of knowledge. Knowledge is POWER and the most effective way to power-pack your auctions is to use highly targeted keywords in your auction titles and descriptions...Let’s start with your title …eBay estimates that over 90% of users search eBay by using the basic search feature which means they only search the auction titles.So what does this mean for me?Above all else ... it means focus more on your auction titles first and foremost and then consider integrating those same highly targeted keywords into your auction descriptions.So where do you find these highly targeted keywords and which ones should you use?The best place to start is with ‘eBay Pulse’ http://pulse.ebay.com/ and browse through the top popular searches in the category where you would like to list your auction using the Category drop-down box. Jot down the list of the top 10.Now the number of words allowed in your auction titles is limited so be sure to find several popular search terms that you can easily integrate into your auction title remembering to make it sound interesting also – not just a swag of keywords!You can generally assume that on average, people search for the same terms on eBay as they do in search engines. In light of this, to see how valuable your chosen keywords really are I suggest using the Overture Keyword Selector Tool at myname" in the user account management area and create a password for that user. Once this is done, an internet-accessible mailbox is created on the server which you can begin using to send and receive email by whatever connection methods your host allows.

What happens when I check my email?

Before we start this answer, there are two types of email accounts that you can use, POP and IMAP. POP (Post Office Protocol) is by far the most common and is what we will discuss first. IMAP will be described separately below.

As we said above, every email address has a username and a password. Wherever you log in to check your email, whether it is a web-based interface like hotmail.com or an email client like Outlook Express, you have to provide your username and password to receive mail. The username tells the server which mailbox file to retrieve or display the mail from, and the password confirms your identity to prove to the server that you are authorized to receive the mail. The server has your password stored in a file from the time your account was created, and whenever you log in, it compares the password you provide with the password it has on file. If they match, then the server allows you to access the mail in your mailbox.

All passwords are case-sensitive, so if your original password is "PassWord" and you try to log in with "password", it won't work. Usernames are not case-sensitive, however, so the server will recognize you whether you log in as "MyName" or "myname".

What is the difference between web-based email and using an email client?

The two primary ways to access an email account are from a web-based interface or by using an email client program, like Eudora, Thunderbird or Microsoft Outlook. Here's how they work:

1. Web-Based Mail: This type of access is done through your web browser. You would browse to a particular web page that has a login area connected to the web hosting server that houses your account. You put in your username and password and you are conveyed to a page that displays the contents of your mailbox on the server. From here you can read, reply to, forward or delete mail you have received, or generate and send new messages. All of this is done through a mail program running on the server such as Horde, Squirrelmail, or NeoMail, or a custom interface like those used by Yahoo!, GMail, etc. Some servers even offer you the option of logging in through different mail programs, depending on which one you like better. You can access web-based mail from anywhere in the world where you have internet access.

Whenever you use a web-based interface to manage your mail, you are accessing the contents of your mailbox on the server directly. If the server allows you 20 megabytes of disk space for your mailbox, then that is the maximum amount of mail you can have in your box at any one time. If you fill up all of that space, then you will not be able to receive any more mail until you delete some messages or get your host to give you more storage space, so your ability to archive messages is limited. If you delete a message, then it is gone forever. Web-based mail is fairly slow because your computer is continuously making connections with the mail server, and most web-based mail programs have fairly limited features.

2. Email Clients: You are probably familiar with email programs such as Microsoft Outlook or Eudora. They are what is known as an email client. Email clients can only be accessed from the computer on which the program is installed, but instead of only being able to access one server like the web-based mail programs, an email client can be set up to check multiple email accounts hosted on different servers at the same time. All you need to check an email address from an email account are the following settings:

• Username
• Password
• POP3 (Incoming Mail) Server
• SMTP (Outgoing Mail) Server

You already know about the username and password, and the two mail servers tell your email client where to find the web hosting server that you

to send and receive mail and the disk space to store received messages in a mailbox file.

All web hosting accounts come with the ability to create user email accounts. To create the email address myname@mydomain.com, you would log into your hosting control panel for mydomain.com and create a new user called "myname" in the user account management area and create a password for that user. Once this is done, an internet-accessible mailbox is created on the server which you can begin using to send and receive email by whatever connection methods your host allows.

What happens when I check my email?

Before we start this answer, there are two types of email accounts that you can use, POP and IMAP. POP (Post Office Protocol) is by far the most common and is what we will discuss first. IMAP will be described separately below.

As we said above, every email address has a username and a password. Wherever you log in to check your email, whether it is a web-based interface like hotmail.com or an email client like Outlook Express, you have to provide your username and password to receive mail. The username tells the server which mailbox file to retrieve or display the mail from, and the password confirms your identity to prove to the server that you are authorized to receive the mail. The server has your password stored in a file from the time your account was created, and whenever you log in, it compares the password you provide with the password it has on file. If they match, then the server allows you to access the mail in your mailbox.

All passwords are case-sensitive, so if your original password is "PassWord" and you try to log in with "password", it won't work. Usernames are not case-sensitive, however, so the server will recognize you whether you log in as "MyName" or "myname".

What is the difference between web-based email and using an email client?

The two primary ways to access an email account are from a web-based interface or by using an email client program, like Eudora, Thunderbird or Microsoft Outlook. Here's how they work:

1. Web-Based Mail: This type of access is done through your web browser. You would browse to a particular web page that has a login area connected to the web hosting server that houses your account. You put in your username and password and you are conveyed to a page that displays the contents of your mailbox on the server. From here you can read, reply to, forward or delete mail you have received, or generate and send new messages. All of this is done through a mail program running on the server such as Horde, Squirrelmail, or NeoMail, or a custom interface like those used by Yahoo!, GMail, etc. Some servers even offer you the option of logging in through different mail programs, depending on which one you like better. You can access web-based mail from anywhere in the world where you have internet access.

Whenever you use a web-based interface to manage your mail, you are accessing the contents of your mailbox on the server directly. If the server allows you 20 megabytes of disk space for your mailbox, then that is the maximum amount of mail you can have in your box at any one time. If you fill up all of that space, then you will not be able to receive any more mail until you delete some messages or get your host to give you more storage space, so your ability to archive messages is limited. If you delete a message, then it is gone forever. Web-based mail is fairly slow because your computer is continuously making connections with the mail server, and most web-based mail programs have fairly limited features.

2. Email Clients: You are probably familiar with email programs such as Microsoft Outlook or Eudora. They are what is known as an email client. Email clients can only be accessed from the computer on which the program is installed, but instead of only being able to access one server like the web-based mail programs, an email client can be set up to check multiple email accounts hosted on different servers at the same time. All you need to check an email address from an email account are the following settings:

• Username
• Password
• POP3 (Incoming Mail) Server
• SMTP (Outgoing Mail) Server

You already know about the username and password, and the two mail servers tell your email client where to find the web hosting server that you

eceive mail. The username tells the server which mailbox file to retrieve or display the mail from, and the password confirms your identity to prove to the server that you are authorized to receive the mail. The server has your password stored in a file from the time your account was created, and whenever you log in, it compares the password you provide with the password it has on file. If they match, then the server allows you to access the mail in your mailbox.

All passwords are case-sensitive, so if your original password is "PassWord" and you try to log in with "password", it won't work. Usernames are not case-sensitive, however, so the server will recognize you whether you log in as "MyName" or "myname".

What is the difference between web-based email and using an email client?

The two primary ways to access an email account are from a web-based interface or by using an email client program, like Eudora, Thunderbird or Microsoft Outlook. Here's how they work:

1. Web-Based Mail: This type of access is done through your web browser. You would browse to a particular web page that has a login area connected to the web hosting server that houses your account. You put in your username and password and you are conveyed to a page that displays the contents of your mailbox on the server. From here you can read, reply to, forward or delete mail you have received, or generate and send new messages. All of this is done through a mail program running on the server such as Horde, Squirrelmail, or NeoMail, or a custom interface like those used by Yahoo!, GMail, etc. Some servers even offer you the option of logging in through different mail programs, depending on which one you like better. You can access web-based mail from anywhere in the world where you have internet access.

Whenever you use a web-based interface to manage your mail, you are accessing the contents of your mailbox on the server directly. If the server allows you 20 megabytes of disk space for your mailbox, then that is the maximum amount of mail you can have in your box at any one time. If you fill up all of that space, then you will not be able to receive any more mail until you delete some messages or get your host to give you more storage space, so your ability to archive messages is limited. If you delete a message, then it is gone forever. Web-based mail is fairly slow because your computer is continuously making connections with the mail server, and most web-based mail programs have fairly limited features.

2. Email Clients: You are probably familiar with email programs such as Microsoft Outlook or Eudora. They are what is known as an email client. Email clients can only be accessed from the computer on which the program is installed, but instead of only being able to access one server like the web-based mail programs, an email client can be set up to check multiple email accounts hosted on different servers at the same time. All you need to check an email address from an email account are the following settings:

• Username
• Password
• POP3 (Incoming Mail) Server
• SMTP (Outgoing Mail) Server

You already know about the username and password, and the two mail servers tell your email client where to find the web hosting server that you

particular web page that has a login area connected to the web hosting server that houses your account. You put in your username and password and you are conveyed to a page that displays the contents of your mailbox on the server. From here you can read, reply to, forward or delete mail you have received, or generate and send new messages. All of this is done through a mail program running on the server such as Horde, Squirrelmail, or NeoMail, or a custom interface like those used by Yahoo!, GMail, etc. Some servers even offer you the option of logging in through different mail programs, depending on which one you like better. You can access web-based mail from anywhere in the world where you have internet access.

Whenever you use a web-based interface to manage your mail, you are accessing the contents of your mailbox on the server directly. If the server allows you 20 megabytes of disk space for your mailbox, then that is the maximum amount of mail you can have in your box at any one time. If you fill up all of that space, then you will not be able to receive any more mail until you delete some messages or get your host to give you more storage space, so your ability to archive messages is limited. If you delete a message, then it is gone forever. Web-based mail is fairly slow because your computer is continuously making connections with the mail server, and most web-based mail programs have fairly limited features.

2. Email Clients: You are probably familiar with email programs such as Microsoft Outlook or Eudora. They are what is known as an email client. Email clients can only be accessed from the computer on which the program is installed, but instead of only being able to access one server like the web-based mail programs, an email client can be set up to check multiple email accounts hosted on different servers at the same time. All you need to check an email address from an email account are the following settings:

• Username
• Password
• POP3 (Incoming Mail) Server
• SMTP (Outgoing Mail) Server

You already know about the username and password, and the two mail servers tell your email client where to find the web hosting server that you

r host to give you more storage space, so your ability to archive messages is limited. If you delete a message, then it is gone forever. Web-based mail is fairly slow because your computer is continuously making connections with the mail server, and most web-based mail programs have fairly limited features.

2. Email Clients: You are probably familiar with email programs such as Microsoft Outlook or Eudora. They are what is known as an email client. Email clients can only be accessed from the computer on which the program is installed, but instead of only being able to access one server like the web-based mail programs, an email client can be set up to check multiple email accounts hosted on different servers at the same time. All you need to check an email address from an email account are the following settings:

• Username
• Password
• POP3 (Incoming Mail) Server
• SMTP (Outgoing Mail) Server

You already know about the username and password, and the two mail servers tell your email client where to find the web hosting server that your account resides on so that it can connect to the mail software on that computer and allow you to send and receive mail. Whenever you sign up for a web hosting account, the hosting provider will tell you what the names of these servers are, and they are usually related to your domain name. A typical POP3 server name would be mail.mydomain.com or pop3.mydomain.com.

The SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) server is a separate part of the server's mail software which handles outgoing email. Its name might look like mail.mydomain.com or smtp.mydomain.com. Most servers require you to check your incoming mail first, and thus verify your identity with your password, before they will allow you to send mail out. On average servers will store this verification for 30 minutes before requiring you to check your mail again. Some internet service providers (ISPs), such as Earthlink and SBC, may require you to use their corporate SMTP servers instead of the one set up with your domain, in order to help them control junk email being sent out through their network. You can find out what their SMTP server is by contacting the ISP's technical support or looking it up on their website.

A key difference in how an email client works compared with a webbased interface is that the email client downloads the contents of the mailbox to your computer's hard drive and removes them from your mailbox on the server. This way, you can store as much old email as your hard drive can hold and you rarely have to worry about your disk space on the server getting full as long as you check your mail frequently. If you go a long time without checking your email or you receive several large attachments, then your mailbox on the server can still get full, but as soon as you check your mail with the mail client, the mailbox is emptied just like a regular postal mailbox and the cycle starts over. An email client usually also comes with a larger range of features, such as address books, mail filtering and folder storage options, read receipt notices and other things that a web-based program can't handle because it would bog the server down trying to handle all that for hundreds or thousands of accounts.

The downside of using an email client is that you can only check the mail from wherever you have the client set up with your account settings entered into it. If you want to check the mail from two different computers, then whichever computer checks the mail first will get it and the other one won't, just like two people checking the corner mailbox. Most email clients have a setting that allows you to leave a copy of messages on the server so that multiple computers can get the same mail, but this has to be carefully coordinated among the different computers involved. A more convenient way to do this is using the IMAP protocol, as you'll see below.

Can I use both web-based mail and an email client at the same time?

Yes, absolutely. Many people use an email client when they are in their office or at home and check their mail through the web-based interface provided by their web host when they are away from their computer. One does not interfere with the other.

What is IMAP?

IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) was designed to solve the problem of checking mail from multiple computers in an email client. When you are checking mail on multiple computers with the POP method, then each computer has its own record of how the mail has been managed. If you delete an old message on one computer and the other computer also has a copy of the same message, you will have to delete it a second time on the other computer in order for both clients to match. IMAP solves this problem by maintaining the mailbox on the server without sacrificing the client software's added functionality. Any client checking an IMAP-enabled email account will see the same mailbox contents no matter where it is, but will still be able to execute all of the functions programmed into the client on that mail as if it were using a POP account.

IMAP has the same disadvantages as web-based email in that you are limited to the amount of disk space allowed by your host and access speed is slow because you are accessing a remote server repeatedly. For this reason, IMAP is much less common than POP email.

What is an email alias?

Suppose your email address is bobsmith@mydomain.com, but you want peo