programs

NursingSchools4U.com

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Nursing Schools Guide & Degree Programs in the USA

My name is Emma Holmes – I’m a senior nursing student at the University of Missouri Kansas City’s RN-BSN program. I’m also the managing editor for NursingSchools4U.com – a website I co-founded to educate students who were wanting a side-by-side comparison of different nursing schools in the country. …

You can see the site here:
http://www.nursingschools4u.com

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We continuously search the web to gather the most detailed review of all nursing schools in the U.S. As you browse our website you will find hundreds of hand-gathered results and hand-written reviews and summaries on different nursing schools in the U.S.

Testing CanvaKala Plugin

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Canvakala is a new plugin that is getting rave reviews


The recently released plugin (special launch price $17) aims to give word-press users a replacement for the inadequate image handling that is built-in. Some people claimed it had the power of photoshop while being a lot easier to use, so I thought that I would try out.

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Here’s the link if you want to check it out (this is a direct link not one that would earn me a commission)

Claims:

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Find Royalty-free Images 

Easily Find images from sites like pixabay, flickr, openclipart & instagram, ALL from your WP dashboard!
YES, it did that but you have to have active accounts at Flickr & Pixabay first, so be prepared to upload some photos there first if you don’t have active accounts there already (at Pixabay at least)

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Manage & Edit Images EASILY 

Once you’ve picked an image you can resize/crop to any size you want or to built-in size suggestion like for FB ads, cover etc.
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Yes, this feature is excellent
 

Choose from 20 Automatic Special Effects also apply Instagram like filters to your image


Make your image UNIQUES and STANDOUT with some WOW effects!  – 

 

Lots of effects but of limited use in my opinion

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Insert Your Image Easily To Your Blog Post or Download it for other purposes!

After you finish designing or editing your image you can easily use it for whatever you want!

Yes, that can be done easily too.

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Adds a Full Photoshop like Editor to your site –

Well, it does add some features found in photoshop but the plugin is not designed to replace photoshop any more that a Mini would replace a Rolls, but they both will get you from one place to another in their own way.
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Some of the features advertised are only available in the Pro version (OTO1 – $27 at time of launch)> If you have a lot of WordPress sites, want to have more choice that people who only bought the regular edition or if price is not an issue for you, then the pro edition gives you a heap more choices.

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I’ve only tried it on two sites so far – but does the editor does not open to search for images on the other site. I’ll be sending a support ticket to see if there are any known incompatibilities with other plugins or themes.

Would I recommend it? Yes if your time is more valuable than the cost. It certainly made the finding & posting of the image above very easy, but I have many sources for graphics asn other good programs to edit them, so did not buy the upgrade (was very tempted though – I am one of those impulse buyers sellers love!)

 

Best wishes
Trish

 

IMA – A Review of Internet Marketing Apprentice

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Is this the site that has all you need?

Membership sites are still going strong this year and for good reason – a good membership site can have all the tools and resources you need to get your internet business up and running and making money. The only reason that often they don’t is that you go flitting from one site or ptoject to another (like I used to) and don’t get on and follow the suggestions, plans or programs that these excellent sites offer.

Mind you, they are not all excellent sites, but most are run by people who with integrity and who want to do all they can to get you making money and living the same lifestyle of freedom that they themselves have. SO how do you know if a particular membership site will be one of the good ones?

Here are a few pointers to help you decide:

  • Does the site just seem to be a product with a download area and an optin box for your email?
  • Is there a whole lot of hype and trumpet blowing and very little factual information about what is included?
  • Does the advertising tell you up front that the “free” offering is just a lead in and once you sign up, you’ll have to pay a fee, perhaps a monthly fee, to have any real benefit?

Now, don’t get me wrong  – there is nothing wrong with a membership site that has a monthly fee and offers great value for that fee – I belong to a few of them myself – but they have always been open and honest up front about the pricing structure, letting you decide beforehand whether this is for you.

So, here are some clues that a membership site you are considering is good value:

  • Are you offered something that you deem to be good value before you are even asked for any cash? Especially important for those who are in their early stages and don’t have much to spare yet.
  • What sort of training is on offer?
  • Is it at a level appropriate for your stage of learning? Some sites will only offer basic stuff, while others will bamboozle a beginner, maybe putting them off forever.
  • What other resources are provided? Can you get products to sell, resell, brand or rewrite & make your own?
  • Do they help you get traffic to your sites? After all, the best website ever won’t make any money if nobody sees it!

OK, enough of my views – I want to tell you about a new membership site started by a guy I’ve learned to trust, Randy Smith and his partner Craig Dawber. It’s called Internet Marketing Apprentice (or IMA for short) and it incorporates all the elements I’ve told you to look out for in a good membership site. You can get free coaching newsletters sent every 7 days and you don’t need to pay anything for that.

 

However, for those who are ready for more, there many aspects to the membership.

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Keeping your Brain Active

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Free Gift Membership to “Learning to Earn” see below.

If you’re approaching retirement age and wondering what you can do to enjoy a long and healthy life in your golden years then consider adopting the attitude of a lifelong learner. Most people think of lifelong learning as being confined to academic endeavors however the lifelong learning approach covers all areas of life including spiritual, social, academic and physical.

Lifelong learning is based on an attitude of constantly growing and evolving in various areas of your life. The old saying that whenever anything is not growing it is decaying could be just as true for us as humans. No matter what a person’s age there are great benefits to be gained by challenging yourself in the different areas of your life, physical, mental and self-deveopment.

Physical challenges must be appropriate for your level of fitness, but regular exercise of some kind will leep your body healthier and your brain healthier too. Mental challenges do not have to be academic study, they can be a new hobby or interest, a new caring or chrity venture, more involvement with family. The most growth in personal development will come when you take on something that is currently outside your comfort zone (nasty words those, aren’t they? How we love to stay in our comfort zone, even when it isn’t all that comfortable really).

Lifelong learners live by the motto “you’re never too old to learn” and this attitude is a big part of the reason that people who approach life with this mindset are seen to perhaps live longer but definitely enjoy a better quality of life – is the so-called law of nature known as the “use it or lose it” true?

It does seem to be the case that those who are considerably inactive develop mobility problems as they age, whereas those who are quite active do not develop these mobility problems. A similar effect takes place with anyone who takes no part in any mentally challenging activity or pursuit. After years of mental inactivity

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Saving Downloads so you can Find Them

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This is a tip for beginners only! (If you’ve been using PCs for a while you’ll have worked out a method that suits you already).

Have you ever downloaded a piece of software from the internet and couldn’t find it later? It happens to thousands of people all over the world every day! An easy way to find it later is to first prepare a landing zone or a place where you know you can always find it.

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Software Crashes – Prevention & Recovery

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These days, most of us have a lot of software on our PCs and we need to know how to take care of our system to minimize the possibility of a crash.

(For beginners, the following words  have a computer specific meaning)

1. Crash – When a program or your entire computer stops working and you cannot move the mouse or use the keyboard, and the screen is frozen.

2. Reboot – When you restart your computer after a crash.

3. Control Panel – A feature of Windows that will give you access to system utilities and settings.

4. PC – just another term for your computer (short for Personal Computer – from early computing days)

What should you do first if your PC crashes? Try to stop work, go away & leave it for a few minutes. Often, the computer is trying to process a whole string of commands and might just need to take a little more time. Pressing more keys will just add to the computer’s processing queue, maybe even forcing a crash.

Most of the time the hardware is OK, but the software has caused a problem. A good way to try to recover from a problem is to press the Ctrl + Alt + Delete keys. In XP this will open the Task Manager and show you all the programs running. Note that at least one will probably have a non-responsive indication. Try clicking one at a time on the programs listed that are “Not Responding” and click “End Task”. After that, close the dialog box and see if your computer is working again.

This should solve about 98% of your crashes. If your computer is not responding after all this, you can try restarting. Switching off the entire power is the last resort and should not be done unless everything else has not worked.

To prevent computer crashes, it’s worthwhile to carry out ongoing file maintenance. Check that you have room on your hard drives. To do this, open My Computer and right click on the drive you want to check (e.g. C:) and then click “Properties”. You will get a pie chart showing how much used & free space is on the drive. Windows needs plenty of working space & the suggestion is not to go over 70% usage of your total hard drive space.

You may need to delete or move  any large audio or video files that are occupying too much space to another hard drive or a CD.  When you are short of space,  it is also advisable to remove software programs that you don’t use by going to “Start”, “Control Panel”,  “Add or Remove Programs”.

Make sure you have enough Memory or RAM (Random Access Memory).  If your RAM is low,  help out your computer by not opening too many programs at once.  To find out how much RAM your computer has, select Control Panel from the Start Menu, Double Click System Tools, and then open the System Information tab. The total and available memory is listed towards the bottom of the right panel when you click on System Summary.

Software programs that use the most RAM are those that include a lot of graphics, video or sound capabilities. If your system runs slowly and you use this type of program a lot, it might be worthwhile to upgrade your RAM

Back up your hard drive regularly. There are notes on how to do this online and it is very important and should be done consistently. This way you will not lose a lot of work should you have to turn off power or restart your computer due to a crash (or a power failure!). Losing work is never fun and can be avoided by a little preventive maintenance.

Best Wishes
Trish

7 Simple Ways To Speed Up Windows XP

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I’m sure we have all complained that our PC is slowing down at some stage, so perhaps some of the tips here can help in your own particular case. They are all fairly simple, designed for beginners to implement if you follow the steps given.

1. Defrag Your Disks to Speed Up Access to Data

One of the factors that slow the performance of the computer is disk fragmentation. When files are fragmented, the computer must search the hard disk when the file is opened to piece it back together. To speed up the response time, you should monthly run Disk Defragmenter, a Windows utility that defrags and consolidates fragmented files for quicker computer response.

* Follow Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter
* Click the drives you want to defrag and click Analyze
* Click Defragment

This may take some time, so perhaps leave a defrag running overnight or while you do something away from your PC.

2. Detect and Repair Disk Errors

Over time, your hard disk develops bad sectors. Bad sectors slow down hard disk performance and sometimes make data writing difficult or even impossible. To detect and repair disk errors, Windows has a built-in tool called the Error Checking utility. It’ll search the hard disk for bad sectors and system errors and repair them for faster performance.

* Follow Start > My Computer
* In My Computer right-click the hard disk you want to scan and click Properties
* Click the Tools tab
* Click Check Now
* Select the Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors check box
* Click Start

3. Disable Indexing Services

Indexing Services is a little application that uses a lot of CPU. By indexing and updating lists of all the files on the computer, it helps you to do a search for something faster as it scans the index list. But if you know where your files are, you can disable this system service. It won’t do any harm to you machine, whether you search often or not very often.

* Go to Start
* Click Settings
* Click Control Panel
* Double-click Add/Remove Programs
* Click the Add/Remove Window Components
* Uncheck the Indexing services
* Click Next

4. Optimize Display Settings

Windows XP has a nice visual appearance but it costs you system resources that are used to display all the visual items and effects. To customize your settings, right click My Computer, select Properties and then the Advanced tab and under Performance, click Settings. Windows looks fine if you disable most of the settings and leave the following:

* Show shadows under menus
* Show shadows under mouse pointer
* Show translucent selection rectangle
* Use drop shadows for icons labels on the desktop
* Use visual styles on windows and buttons

5. Speedup Folder Browsing

You may have noticed that every time you open My Computer to browse folders that there is a little delay. This is because Windows XP automatically searches for network files and printers every time you open Windows Explorer. To fix this and to increase browsing speed, you can disable the “Automatically search for network folders and printers” option as follows:

Click Start, and then click Control Panel, Double-click Folder Options and on the View tab, de-select the “Automatically search for network folders and printers” check box.

6. Optimize Your Pagefile

You can optimize your pagefile. Setting a fixed size to your pagefile saves the operating system from the need to resize the pagefile.

* Right click on My Computer and select Properties
* Select the Advanced tab
* Under Performance choose the Settings button
* Select the Advanced tab again and under Virtual Memory select Change
* Highlight the drive containing your page file and make the initial Size of the file the same as the Maximum Size of the file.

Windows XP sizes the page file to about 1.5X the amount of actual physical memory by default. While this is good for systems with smaller amounts of memory (under 512MB) it is unlikely that a typical XP desktop system will ever need 1.5 X 512MB or more of virtual memory. If you have less than 512MB of memory, leave the page file at its default size. If you have 512MB or more, change the ratio to 1:1 page file size to physical memory size.

7. Remove Fonts for Speed

Fonts, especially TrueType fonts, use quite a bit of system resources. For optimal performance, trim your fonts down to just those that you need to use on a daily basis and fonts that applications may require.

* Open Control Panel
* Open Fonts folder
* Move fonts you don’t need to a temporary directory (e.g. C:\FONTBKUP?) just in case you need or want to bring a few of them back. The more fonts you uninstall, the more system resources you will gain.

Hope you find these tips useful.
Best wishes
Trish


Should You Use Twitter?

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What is Twitter?

Firstly, Twitter is a free service that allows users to publish short messages (called “tweets”) that are read by “followers” – people who choose to subscribe to your messages and have them delivered to their own Twitter home pages.

After you sign up, you join in by answering the question “What are you doing?” on the home page in 140 characters or less. The small number of characters allowed forces you to be concise and to the point. The home page is also where you read all the tweets written by the people you are following and you can reply to these if you want to.

When I first heard about twitter, I didn’t see any use for it, rather thought it would be a waste of time to read what other people are saying about themselves, their families, how they feel, what they’re wearing and whatever else they think is important, then I realised that Twitter was about forming relationships, just as all social networking tools were. So do I use it now? Yes I do, my twitter name is plfbus – I am still new to it, but am getting the idea now.

Is Twitter for you?

I’d say, think about why you might want to use it. Here are some of the different reasons I can think of and there will be a whole lot more that will occur to you I’m sure:

  • to share common interests & ask questions of experts
  • to follow the links to good resources & special offers
  • to get feedback about other people’s experience with anything from a purchased program to how to get the baby to sleep
  • to meet people in a special niche or just people generally
  • to keep up with news, opinion and happenings in your field
  • to get news of updates to programs you run
  • to get general news, like from CNN
  • because there’s buzz about it
  • to keep people in your personal life updated
  • to build business contacts

Thanks to Twitter I’ve been able to learn from, get to know better and have online conversations with many people I hadn’t heard about before. Give it a go – if it’s not for you, just delete your account.