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Make your Joomla site a membership site using free components

For webmasters on a budget Joomla has already proven a very powerful tool. With easy installation through fantastico, an unofficial estimate of Joomla websites is around 5.000.000.

A quick yahoo search of the Joomla “powered by” tag provides -

At least five million existing installations, proving that Joomla is a solid & reliable platform to build your website on.

As the Joomla Community has grown so has the number of free modules available for it. Users can use the script as is, or install additional components to add specific features enhancing their website.

Now you have the ability to create fully functional membership sites using free Joomla components.

But which extensions do you use, & how do you configure them to work with payment processors etc. to turn Joomla into a fully functional e-commerce membership site?

To start you need to have an installation of Joomla 1.5, if your web host includes cpanel it is a simple matter of clicking the fantastico logo “smiley face” on cpanel under software / services.

Joomla 1.5 will be listed on the left hand side in Content Management, click the link & follow the on screen installation instructions.

Download A.E.C (Account Expiration Control) component from the Joomala extensions area & unzip. Then complete the following steps.

How to install the A.E.C. Component

* Enable Legacy – Joomla Admin / Extensions / Plugin Manager

* Upload & install A.E.C Component ( Extensions Install / Uninstall)

* In the same zip file as the A.E.C. component are the plugins, Access, Error, Routing & User – Upload & install these as well.

* In Plugin Mgr ensure the plugins are lower than Legacy plugin, move using the down arrows.

* Enable the plugins

* Open AEC control Panel (Components/ AEC Subscription Mgr / AEC Central)

* Commit any Hacks – Settings / Hacks

* Next download & install Docman ( Extensions / Install )

You now have all the required components installed to run your very first Joomla membership site! Configure these components to your choosing & start accepting your first members.

E-mail newsletter is an email marketing technique that you can use to market your products and services using email messaging. There is a belief that e-mail newsletter must be created and sent by professionals who dedicate their time and skills in delivering e-mail newsletters and might do it better than you. Some people are afraid of sending e-mail newsletter because of the tricky anti-spam laws existing in the United States. If you do so, you miss the opportunity of earning some 50% extra cash delivering e-mail newsletters.

There is nothing complex in advertising with e-mail newsletter. If you understand some simple basics, you will avoid all mistakes made by others on the way to success. Master it, and do it yourself paying only pennies in expenses using simple rules of thumb and an inexpensive email newsletter software. Let others to pay a big buck for a simple job everyone can do. The people who are in this business like your money, and they will do everything to make you believe it is difficult.

Let us start from the basics. To understand what you should do and what you must avoid, put yourself into customer’s shoes. Imagine yourself sitting home after a tough day totally exhausted. The only thing you want to do is to rest. Probably, you want to read a book or dedicate yourself to your hobby. When you just begin to have fun, your phone starts to ring every 10 minutes, and a brisk voice tries to sell you something you do not really need. You go to your computer to view your photos or chat with friends and you notice your mailbox is full of colourful junk. Be sure that all junk messages will be deleted even without reading. The telemarketers will be advised to go some place far away no-one returns from. Do not do this mistake. Treat your customers the same way you would treat yourself. This is the most important rule of thumb.

Avoid sending email newsletters excessively often and understand your customer interests. If you sell magazines, pay attention to the types of magazines your customer buys. Send information only about related magazines in your e-mail newsletter. Somebody who reads computer magazines might not be interested in fashion magazines. Try to study how many magazines can an average person read a month. Do not try to sell more magazines a month than an average person can read. 2 – 3 e-mail newsletters a month would be more than enough.

Always use a short and informative content for your e-mail newsletter. If you send HTML newsletters with graphics and font colours or styles, use it in moderation. Human brain is trained to delete all e-mail newsletters that are either too long or too colourful without reading. Your e-mail newsletter must contain only the key information and be strait-to-the-point starting from the first word (no introductions and conclusions whatsoever). If you use images in your e-mail newsletter, limit yourself to only a few images displaying the product key features only.

Please make sure you ask permission from each of your customers to subscribe them on your e-mail newsletter. Most appropriate place would be during or after his first purchase or any other business contact. You also have to have an easy way to unsubscribe from your e-mail list and it’s a good manner to put a reminder (with instructions) about it at the end of each message you send. Stop sending to those people who remove themselves from your e-mail newsletter. It is also a good practice to remove all those invalid and bounced back emails from your list.

Now let us talk about an email newsletter software. Normally, you use a content management software (CMS) with a database on your website and a shopping cart linked to your e-commerce provider. You can get a targeted e-mail list either from your website database or from your e-commerce provider. Getting e-mail list from your website database is preferable because you can narrow your quires and get e-mail lists of customers associated with purchased products. You should get your data in form of plain text files either tab-delimited or CSV that can be imported in any email newsletter software.

Create a new project in your email newsletter software and import recipients that should receive your e-mail newsletter. You want to import your recipients along with all personal information including the products they ordered and dates of purchase because you will use it to personalize your e-mail newsletters.

In your email newsletter template, reference as much customer information as you have and as logically appropriate. Always start by a personal salutation like Hello, FIRSTNAME!”. This lets you greet every customer by his or her name, which is always a good starter. If they bought something from you in the past, thank them for it, do not forget to mention it in your message. That is where your PRODUCT_PURCHASED and PURCHASE_DATE become very handy. Then go to your point. You may describe a related product, that will make a very good fit with this product.

Now you are ready to send your e-mail newsletter. You must use the lowest possible sending speed that lets you deliver your e-mail newsletter within an acceptable time interval but not faster than it is necessary. The slower you send the better delivery rate you get. Super fast delivery may cause your IP address to be blocked by email servers for 24 hours which will cause your e-mail newsletter to be rejected.

To send your messages, you can use an email account that comes from your Internet provider. Please check thoroughly if they have any limits on the number of messages you can send per hour and per day. Many will have imposed limits. Depending on the number of messages you need to send, you can consider using multiple free accounts from Gmail. If you have huge amounts, consider installing and using your own SMTP server, because no other option will be viable enough.

You can also use any paid SMTP email account where you pay for the number of e-mail newsletters you send. They usually sell packages with monthly limits. For example, you can order a package for $30 a month that will allow you to send 5000 e-mail newsletters a month or a package for $50 allowing you to send 10000 e-mail newsletters a month. The more you pay monthly the greater the number of allowed e-mail newsletters will be.

When thinking of a holiday on a Spanish island, most people think about Ibiza, but whilst Majorca may not have as much of a party spirit reputation as Ibiza, its not a destination that you should overlook.

Having solved the transfer issue, youre ready for a great holiday at a beautiful destination. Majorca (also known as Mallorca), has a varied range of activities, from the restful historically steeped fishing towns of Porto Cristo, and Porto Pollensia, to the high octane nightlife of Magaluf or El Arenal, there is something for everyone.

Now youve got the transfer situation sorted out you can sit back and eagerly await your holiday. Majorca is a stunning island that has something to please everyone. Whether its dancing till dawn at El Arenal or Magluf, or exploring the fishing towns Porto Pollensia and Porto Cristo, that makes you happy, youre sure to have a wonderful holiday.

For accommodation theres a good variety of hotels in Majorca. Whether you have got a large budget for your Majorca stay, or a small one the choice of hotels in Majorca is wide. If youve got a special kind of Majorca hotel in mind however you should try and book up as far in advance as possible. For example, hotels in Majorca that are almost on the beach, and especially those that have an ocean view, will get booked up quickly. The other option to a hotel room is booking a Majorca apartment. Whether you want a small apartment for just yourself and your partner, or a larger one to share, there are many apartments in Majorca to choose from. As with the hotels in Majorca however, the best situated apartments, and those with the best prices, will book up fast so dont leave it until the last minute.

For those more interested in the Spanish lifestyle, culture and architecture theres a wide range to explore. With zoos, museums and more, theres something for all ages and abilities. If you would prefer an area unspoiled by the usual tourist activity, Camp de Mar is a great choice. This hasnt been added to most package holiday tours as yet and so offers an off the beaten track feel, whilst still maintaining a very high standard of accommodation. Especially recognised for the locality of high quality golf courses, this resort is mainly in house entertainment and designed for those looking to just relax, rather than fill their days with activities.

El Arenal is the key young persons nightclub spot, but is also great for families wanting a bit of excitement and for those perpetual teens that still enjoy the bustle of night-time activity. It is especially favoured by continental 18-30s. During the summer, the nightclubs stay open till dawn allowing you to leave the club just in time to grab the best place on the beach to soak in the sun and snooze off the booze!

Whatever your age, and whatever youre looking for in a holiday, Majorca is a great destination. Its a place you can visit as a 18-30s single person to enjoy the night and beach life, then again with your family once youre more settled down, and later as an older person more interested in golf than grooving the night away!

We review peoples CVs all the time. You would be surprised at the mistakes that people make when writing their CV. The tragedy of this is that most people never get to know exactly what is going wrong with their CV- they carry on in complete ignorance of what is stopping them from getting an interview

When a resume is too long, people quickly lose interest. When a resume is too short, it is dismissed as being sub standard. Two sheets of foolscap is the perfect length. Long enough to be considered as a serious contender, short enough to be understood in the time available to the employer and moved on for proper discussion later in the recruitment process.

Never use bright colours, fonts, print sizes, or textured paper on which to submit your resume. Unless creativity is part of the job requirements, conservative is definitely best. Black print on a plain white or neutral background like light brown works the best. Recruiters are expecting a certain style of resume and you won’t get far sticking to this rule. Of course there are always variations to any rule but you won’t go far wrong listening to this sage piece of advice.

Unless the job application states that you need to, then never send anyone a photograph. We have no idea who will be receiving the job application or what they will do with your personal details. You need to protect your identity. As well as this, keep your actual date of birth private- never put these details on the resume either- your age alone is fine or just leave it out. Personal details can be used to clone identities- keep your personal details safely.

Never ever lie. You will get caught out.

Bad mouthing your previous employers or employees isn’t smart- nobody wants to be disrespected. If there is a genuine reason why you left your last employer under difficult circumstances, leave it for the interview. A resume is a positive personal selling document that has no room for private vendettas or agendas.

Clean up your facebook, twitter, bebo etc. More and more employers are becoming social networking savvy. It is fast becoming the norm that people check you out in other ways than the obvious. If your personal pages cause your family some shame, you can bet that a future employer will be none too happy if they are made to look foolish.

A gap in a resume leaves an employer asking the question as to what you were doing. Never leave yourself open to rejection as employers have more and more CVs to plough through at the moment.

Humour has little place on a resume. You may be the life and soul of the party but nobody wants to employ a clown. Sober and serious is normal- of course you need to be uplifting in highlighting your achievements but no jokes. They don’t come across in print and will get you rejected

Business ethics is becoming increasingly prominent on our culture as the world is becoming more and more connected which in turn makes businesses more and more transparent. Conducting business in an ethical behavior used to be for only the do-gooders (an unfortunately small percentage) of the business world but today, if you and your business want to stick around, practicing business ethics will keep you in the black for the long run.

The reign of the scam is coming to a close.

It has traditionally been fairly easy to start a simple scam to con people out of their hard earned money. These scams would crop up everywhere and would be wildly successful at the expense of its ‘customers’. However these days they’re much easier to spot because you can very easily hop on the computer and check out what people are saying about them. This hasn’t always been the case.

Because of the ease of finding good information about companies and individuals on the Internet and many others sources it is just good business sense to be straight-forward, honest and transparent. These qualities alone will often be enough to close the sale and ramp up your business considerably.

Although you can make some money scamming people, inevitably you will be discovered. With a scam there’s only so much you can accomplish then it ends. If you were to go with legitimacy from the beginning your success would only beget success. If people were suspicious you would have no fear of what they discovered and their findings, rather than destroying you, would strengthen you.

Just look at Bernard Madoff. Here was a sharp man with the world at his fingertips. Had he just done business ethically he could still have a VERY comfortable living and never have to worry about the FBI showing up at his door to toss him in prison. He scammed hundreds of thousands of people using a Ponzi scheme like model that he himself said was, “One big lie.” For his offenses he is now serving a term of 150 years. Essentially he has been sentenced for life.

Another example of bad business ethics is Enron. Enron was named as Americas Most Innovative Company six years in row but as we all found out later, their claimed growth and success was merely tricky, deceiving accounting. We all know the outcome of such fraudulent behavior. Enron has bust and are now trying to sell off all its remaining assets.

To avoid scandals like Madoff’s and Enron’s just be honest and straightforward. This is the most certain way to long-term success and financial stability.

NCR forms printing are amazing work of the printing industry. Every piece of paper goes through chemical treatment, which produces impressions on pressure. The pressure is created by writing with a ball point pen or by a dot matrix printer. The role of this skill needs knowledge and know-how to create quality stuff.

NCR forms present the idea of getting copies of the original wording without the use of carbon papers. Generally, NCR form has a white paper on top and colored papers for duplicate, triplicate or quadruplicate copies. The number of papers is fixed as per the requirement. Every set of papers has serial numbers printed on them for future reference. Loose pages of 50 or so constitute one set, which depends on requirement.

The NCR form printing provides you the original and its copies for your type of business. Printing companies experienced in this type of project, would produce customized NCR forms for business with printed matter on sheets. With professional approach and excellent printing service, reliable companies have earned fame in this type of job.

Any trade can use NCR forms suitably and flourish. It has different colored pages. You can ask for a colored top like pink or yellow or whatever. Most of the business owners choose the white top. NCR forms are mainly required in agreements to serve the purpose of identical copies for each party.

Normally, they are used in invoices, purchase memos, order pads in cafes and pads for passing telephone messages. Communicate a message to some people with ease with the help of NCR forms printing. In business, an invoice is raised for a client, one copy for the cash section and the third copy for the general record. NCR forms serve the function of sales, service, estimation and tenders.

Latest NCR forms are prepared in color with high quality production value. It is very easy to select a design from the general templates for your need. Custom – made NCR forms are developed to achieve the best grade in the industry at a rational cost. Perforation of papers is made for easier use of the forms in routine work. Special printing is done on the opposite side of the paper on request.