http://www.microcenter.com/understand_tech/index.html#byopc
Build Your Own PC
Tech Pages with tutorials on their website
The also host in-store clinics on specific subjects
MicroCenter has both online sales and store locations with free tech assistance
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Macy’s Inc. Page with interesting facts, pictures and request for comments
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http://www.entrepreneur.com/startingabusiness/howtoguides/index115868.html
Start Your Own Business – Building Your Business Guide – How To Guides for Small Businesses
Research Your Business Idea
Your brilliant idea may indeed be brilliant–or it may need some work. Here’s how to find out whether you’re ready for startup.
More Starting How-Tos:
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Asheesh Advani: Startup Financing
3 Honest Ways to Raise Startup Money
Create a healthy foundation for your business by combining enthusiasm with honesty.
By Asheesh Advani | September 23, 2008
Develop financial projections that are rooted in verifiable assumptions
Venture capital firms and angel investors typically want to see financial projections that shoot up like a hockey stick. Entrepreneurs often feel compelled to exaggerate projections to look like their businesses can reach a billion dollars of market value in a few years. There’s no point in just fabricating a set of projections that aren’t based on reality.
Write paychecks that don’t bounce, but increase as the business grows
One of the most difficult tasks for entrepreneurs is to convince talented employees to join the team and stay on the team before their company is profitable or stable. As a startup business owner, you’re faced with a choice:
{very interesting}
Get your clients to compete to be first
Successful entrepreneurs love to tell stories about how they got their first client. While working out of a closet or a garage, they print up business cards with a prestigious address and fancy logo and close the deal. That’s what it takes to sell. Exaggerating the stability or size of your enterprise to secure your first client is the stuff of legend. Even if your product isn’t ready, you can use a similar approach to raise money for your business by getting investors and business partners–who can provide financial support–to compete to be first. There’s a certain prestige in being part of the first group of investors, partners or customers to help launch a business. Create the feeling of exclusivity. Require an invitation to use your beta product. Generate buzz about your product plans and your team among blogs that investors read. There’s less need to exaggerate if you can set expectations that your product is still being tested among early adopters.
- How Do Investors Get Paid?
- How to Raise Your First Round of Financing
- Where the Money is
- 3 Honest Ways to Raise Startup Money
- Startup Financing During the Credit Crunch
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Look Like a Multimillion Dollar Brand
Five ways to look like you make a lot of money without spending a lot.
By Scott Gerber | April 16, 2009
You may have a great product or service, but to be taken seriously, clients need to believe that you’re on the same playing field as the bigger guys. Even if you’re a consultant that works from a home office, you’ll need to position your company as a polished brand that touts confidence, experience and quality.
[ . . . ]
Website
Vanity Numbers
Automated Phone Systems
Virtual Offices
The Business Card
“Now you have a slick website, a jingle-worthy toll free number and a captain-of-industry street address. It’s time to combine all of those elements into a single tool. The business card is a vital part of the first impression experience and an instant reflection of you and your company’s work.”
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Outlets for getting free-lance and contract work -
Elance.com, GetACoder.com and Freelance.com
Use Guru.com’s free service to search for and find Freelancers. Post your project. Get free quotes within hours. Outsource your contract work today.
Free service. No obligation to hire.
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Escrow guarantee
Get up to 2% money back and a chance to win $100 when you pay Freelancers via SafePay.
No tax form hassles. We issue 1099 tax forms for you for free.
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Planning for a Successful Start
The old adage goes: failure to plan is a plan for failure. Your business plan does not need to be complex or convoluted, but it is necessary. If you are having a hard time pulling your plan together, our experts can help.
http://www.entrepreneur.com/startingabusiness/howtoguides/index115868.html
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Without customers, it doesn’t matter how great your product is, how well you branded you are, or how well funded your start-up is. Learn how to get your product to market, target your audience and build a customer base.
http://www.entrepreneur.com/startingabusiness/howtoguides/index115868.html
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Design your own card.com prints raised- or flat-ink business cards, letterhead, envelopes, and invitations using the layout that you design online with our exclusive editor. You can pick from dozens of templates; enter your text in a wide selection of fonts; and then move, resize, and rotate it. Upload your logo or pick from thousands of pieces of clip art at no extra charge. We carry a variety of paper, most of which is recycled. We also offer traditional mounted and self-inking rubber stamps and custom laser-engraved signs. We offer quick turnaround. Most business card orders are shipped the next business day.
What’s special about Design your own card.com? We’ve been online since 1999 and in business since 1993. We print your order “short-run” on a printing press using the solid ink colors and paper you specify. We do not use “digital printing” (which uses toner, not ink) or the four-color process (which makes all colors out of small dots of four primary colors). You can choose from dozens of papers (not just glossy or matte) and your layout is sharp and clear, not made up of fuzzy “built” colors. And we never put our logo on your cards.
(very nifty – let’s you design it online)
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http://www.developerfox.com/19-photoshop-tutorials-to-design-a-own-business-card/480
AMAZING
http://www.photoshopnerds.com/creating-a-business-card.htm
Creating a business card First of all, what you should know is that the standard measures for a business card are these: Width: 3.75 inches and 2.25 inches Height. Be careful not to forget to put a 300DPI resolution, the minimum DPI for printing purpose. So let’s create a document with these specifications.
Now go to Image > Mode > CMYK Color (this is the color mode that is used for printing.
Now let’s create guidelines: make the first guidelines to 0.125 inches from the margins. The outermost lines are called cut/trim lines. The cut lines show where your design will be cut away from the much larger sheet of paper it was printed on. This ensures color all the way to the very edge of your cards. This method is called full bleed. The innermost lines are called the safety lines. Anything outside these lines run the risk of being cut off. Although the cutting machines are very accurate, staying inside of this area ensures that important text/graphics won’t be chopped off. It also helps make your card more readable. Keep all your non-background text, logos, pictures, etc. inside of these lines. These lines should be 0.250 inches from the margins.
USING These Pages Walks Through – every step of the process showing the expected screens and commands to use in photoshop – AMAZING -
[Find all the choices these pages will help you create - on this page:]
http://www.developerfox.com/19-photoshop-tutorials-to-design-a-own-business-card/480
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19 Photoshop tutorials to design your own business card
If you need business cards we recommend business-cards.com
Everybody or every company like to have a beautiful unique business card, but if you aren’t going to outsource it, this post is your chance to learn how to make your own professional business card using these awesome Adobe Photoshop tutorials.
Also if you need inspiration take a look to the links blow:
- 10 Brilliantly Creative Business Cards Ideas
- Cool business card designs
1- Making a Print-Ready Business Card Using Only Photoshop
2- Create Stylish Business Card in Photoshop
3- Creating a Business Card
http://www.dtptutorials.com/photoshop-tutorials/create-a-stylish-business-card-in-photoshop
How To Create This - found here : http://www.dtptutorials.com/photoshop-tutorials/create-a-stylish-business-card-in-photoshop
[and others]
4- Custom Sim Cards Tutorial
5- Blue-Grey Visiting-Card
6- create a new Business card
7- Cardboard And Torn Paper Business Card
11- Make business card in Photoshop
11- Make business card in Photoshop
12- Making a grungy business card
1- Making a Print-Ready Business Card Using Only Photoshop
http://www.developerfox.com/19-photoshop-tutorials-to-design-a-own-business-card/480
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http://www.microcenter.com/understand_tech/index.html#byopc
[and other stuff]
• Computer Ergonomics or… How to Exercise at Your Computer
• PC Troubleshooting Part 1: 5 Steps to Solve Common Problems
• PC Troubleshooting Part 2: A Real-world Example
• PC Troubleshooting Part 3: Network Troubleshooting
http://www.microcenter.com/understand_tech/index.html#byopc
***
Geek Candy
OpenOffice.org
by rob
http://www.microcenter.com/random_access/newsletters/08_newsletters/0308/geek_candy.html
Office programs are essential for productivity, not only on the job but at home. But not everyone has $400 to throw down for a copy of Microsoft Office, especially if it’s for a second or third PC. What do you do if your budget can’t handle the price tag? No, you don’t install a single copy on multiple systems. There is another way. This month we’ll look at a replacement for Microsoft Office’s Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access. The best part? It’s free!
OpenOffice.org is a free open-source multi-platform suite that includes the core office productivity programs Writer (word processor), Calc (spreadsheet), Impress (presentations) and Base (database). Other office applications in the suite are Draw (vector graphics editor) and Math (mathematical equation editor). There are versions of OpenOffice.org for Windows, Mac OS X (through X11), and Linux (for which there is no Microsoft Office version).
Writer
Writer
The look and feel of Writer is very similar to that of Microsoft Word, with familiar layout, icons and toolbars. You can import a long list of document types including Word, RTF, WordPerfect, MS Word StarOffice and the OpenDocument text format. Your documents can be saved into these formats as well as exported to PDF directly from within Writer. Like other word processors, Writer has a built-in spell checker but it lacks a grammar checker.
[and a description of the others, CALC, IMPRESS, BASE, DRAW, MATH, MACROS, and how support is available for them)
Math
Math
Math is a program for creating and editing mathematical formulas and equations similar to Microsoft Equation Editor (which comes with Office). These equations can be embedded into Writer or Impress documents.
http://www.microcenter.com/random_access/newsletters/08_newsletters/0308/geek_candy.html
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April 25, 2009 at 5:45 pm
I tried to start a regular business but found that I couldn’t raise the hundreds of thousands/millions of dollars that was need to capitalize the business. So, I have started an online business that cost me less than $200 to start and allows me to benefit from the three main ways of making money online, pay per click, pay per lead and pay per sale. I don’t inventory the product, I don’t have to develop the website or anything. It was turn key and they had an amazing complete step by step marketing program with amazing free opportunities to help me market my site.
April 26, 2009 at 1:06 pm
Just a tip, starting a business is pretty easy. There are many business idesa floating around and a lot of them are free. Its only case of finding the product of interest, getting a paypal account and a website – whci anyone can do and off you go.
April 27, 2009 at 11:22 pm
Thank you !! Send me more !! I am hungry !!
-http://probablefuture.com/cmd.php?af=711646
-http://linkedin.com/in/jg2009
Have a GREAT day !!
Smile !