NEWSPAPERS AND THE WEEKLY FOOD SECTION by Pamela White

I love the food sections in our local newspapers. I scan the
recipes, note the food trends, look for food-filled events,
and visualize my name right along the other syndicated and
local food writers. Eventually, I finish reading the food
news and only have next week’s papers to look forward to.

No longer! Most newspapers have online versions that include
their popular food news and recipe articles. Not only is this
fun for food writers (and food lovers), it’s also an ongoing,
easily accessible, free education into what the different
newspapers are publishing.

- Scan the recipes for seasonal tips you can use in your own
writing, even if you have to hold on to them for nine months
before they come back into fashion.

- Read the food news - who is producing what new additive,
where are the hottest trends starting, which exotic cuisines
are marching across the U.S.

- Look for the names of the food section editor, food editor,
features editor, or Sunday editor. Most newspaper websites
have email contact information opening up opportunities for
food writers to pitch their own ideas.

- Notice the types of articles the largest newspapers (who
hire the most freelance work) use. Are they all related to
the newspapers home town? Are most from abroad? Use this
information to help you plan out your newspaper writing
goals.

- Look at the photography. Use a published photographer’s
work as a lesson for yourself. Is the food standing alone,
decorated, on a busy table, with serving spoon, with a
helping missing, with flowers, brightly colored or
monochromatic?

- Reading a few newspapers’ food sections also provides
insight into which papers syndicate their writers, and which
writers are syndicated. Note what type of columns are being
syndicated for your own reference.

Weekly food sections are more than entertainment. They
educate, guide and influence food writers. If you want to
learn, or especially if you plan on breaking into newspapers
with your food writing, make a weekly date, online, with food
sections around the country.

For easy reference to get you started visit:
http://www.whatscookingamerica.net/Q-A/newspaper.htm
for a round-up of newspapers online.

About the Author

Pamela White is the publisher of Food Writing, an online newsletter for writers who love food. She is also the teacher of the original online food writing class. More information on the newsletter and the class are avaialable at www.food-writing.com .

Bankruptcy will remain on your credit report for ten years. But you may be able to get credit fairly quickly - almost immediately after a bankruptcy - although you will pay dearly for it.

Due to anomalies in the credit scoring process, you’re likely to have a better score than you had while you were struggling with debt. Also if you handle debt responsibly from then on, you will find your credit score will be close to prime within a few years.

Credit scoring gives more weight to more recent events. So if you use of credit is down and you’re handling your debts responsibly, you score will go up. Remember you have to use credit to get a credit score.

Many lenders love to extend credit to recent bankrupts. They know you have more free cash because most of your debts were discharged. They also know you can’t go bankrupt again for another seven years. So they will extend credit, usually with outrageously high interest rates.

If you managed to keep your car and/or house through the bankruptcy, your first step is to pay these bills on time.

If you have to start fresh expect to pay. A car loan may carry a 21% interest rate. Credit cards you’re offered might have an interest rate around 24%. These rates will make it very difficult to stay on top your debt.

Many experts advise that if you need a new car to get it before you apply for bankruptcy and keep your payments up. You’ll have a lower interest rate and will be on your way to re-establishing credit.

You might only qualify for a secured credit card at first. You will have to make a deposit of several hundred dollars with a bank, which will then grant you a line of credit in the same amount. If you handle this card correctly, the card will be converted into a regular unsecured card in a year or so. Make sure the lender is making periodic reports about your good behavior to the credit bureaus.

Don’t use more than 20 - 25% of your available credit, even if it’s only $500. Pay your bills on time. If you act responsibly, in a few years you will be able to loans and mortgages at rates only slightly higher than prime borrowers get.

If you need to rent an apartment, you might have more difficulty. Landlords who check your credit report might not rent to you at all. Your auto insurance premium will likely rise and you might have difficulty getting a new job. These are some of the downsides of going bankrupt.

Everything is not all brightness and light, but the few sacrifices you will face might be worth the removal of the emotional and financial pain you are suffering every day you struggle with a load of unpayable debt.

Chris Cooper is a retired attorney who has spent several periods of his life deep in debt. At http://www.credit-yourself.com he tries to pass on some of the knowledge he picked up in his journey to become debt free.

Wine is a drink that has been enjoyed by humans for thousands of years. Recent archaeological finds have now even found wine dating back to almost 5,000 years in China.

Nowadays there is an amazing array of wine racks available. Wine has become a passion for millions of people. There are wooden wine racks, but now also various metal ones as well.

Some of the metal wine racks are almost works of art in their own right: fashioned in elegant spirals, or circles, or made to hang on the wall.

But, if you want traditional wine racks, then you should stick to wooden wine racks. Wood such as cedar or pine has been used effectively for hundreds of years to store precious wine.

Wooden wine racks have two distinct advantages over metal ones: first, many people are interested in stackable wine racks. This allows you to grow your wine collection over time; as you procure more wine, you simply buy another stackable unit and place it on top of the one you already have. The second advantage is that wood does not conduct heat as metal can. If you plan to store wine for prolonged periods of time to age it, you want to make sure your wine rack will not conduct heat to the bottle.

This can unfavorably affect the taste of the wine. What a same! Especially if you’ve been saving some bottles to open years later for a special occassion.

In short, traditional wine racks are wooden wine racks….stackable wine racks.

However, if you don’t plan on storing your wine for long periods of time. And you want to purchase an artistic wine rack that is a conversation piece and display it prominently, metal wine racks are the way to go. You would be amazed at how beautiful and classy some of these metal wine racks are.

View the best traditional wine racks and stackable wine racks we’ve found at our resource http://www.wine-racks-selection-guide.com

Great web site design, heaps of content. But do you know which areas may be totally ignored. How can we avoid these blind spots and get the page viewers to concentrate on important information relating to the web site.

The first stage of any web site design is the most important, planning the site layout page by page. Taking as read that we have all the information we need to construct the site, now we need to fill the pages. We have the content, but is it all going to be read? Are the viewers going to get your message or are they going to exit in less than 5 seconds?

The internet is a fantastic medium to present all kinds of information but differs greatly from many other forms of medium. As opposed to the print medium for example, where readers take in most the information relayed to them, a web page is predominantly scanned, whereby one or two key phrases are identified and read thoroughly. So how do we ensure that these key facts are read?

One common design principle that is often ignored in the planning stage is to identify where the viewer will read or is more likely to concentrate on. This is known as a viewing hotspot. The area in question is the centre of the monitor. Viewers are more likely to view here first and decide to either read on or exit the site. To ensure maximum impact in this area, careful consideration of what to put into this space and more importantly how to format the content must be given.

If using text, formatting is vital, highlight key phrases using font format tactics such as bold or italic style fonts. Attempt to lead the viewer by the hand into your website. Direct them to where you want them to go. Keep the text clear and concise, tantalise them, and attempt to make them interested and hungry for more. Break up your paragraphs and above all, keep it pertinent. Using active text, such as links within the text, is a tactic that is also proved to be effective. But do try not to over use this; we do not want to make the navigational structure of the site complicated.

The second most viewed area is the banner space. Using this effectively can ensure important messages, branding and contact information is spotted almost instantly. Use this space badly and your viewers will leave rapidly. One of the main factors for bad viewer feedback (or a sharp exit) is to have an over elaborate banner. Using animated images or flash is fine, but they must be optimised effectively by minimising file size (dial up is still the most common form of internet usage). Using this tactic, you may well run the risk of running into banner blindness. People either block these using their firewalls and thus all they will see is your alt text or indeed they will not look at it at all and just leave your site.

Concentrate on these two areas and your site will be well received. The remaining areas of your page space are best described as incidental. So the best practice here would be to conform to design standards such as left side for static or navigational material, right side for news items or changing content and finally the footer, a great place to present your privacy statement, terms and conditions and of course your copyright statement.

There are many other areas of web site design tactics to employ but overall, if you concentrate on where the viewer will look, you will not go far wrong. Always remember to pay respect to your viewers, keep the text short and simple, keep the content optimised and above all, try to avoid the ‘bells and whistles’. Internet viewers do not like too much change so stick to a tried and tested formula.

Daren Jephcote. BSc. Is the owner of Leicester Office Solutions and has over 5 years experience in his chosen field. With professional qualifications in design and website applications, he has chosen to provide ground breaking service levels in the internet industry that has been shrouded in mystery for far too long.

Visit his business website at http://www.losdesign.co.uk to find out more about his services and products.

I can customize everything else, but can I make my Nokia cell phone unique? The answer, I found, is that I can do so very easily with a Nokia face plate. Cell phones, to many of us, are a big part of who we are. Our friends are in the contact list, we use the phone for calls, emails, and even to surf the internet. If that is the case, then, shouldn’t we make our phones unique to us? Of course we should, and it is possible. Even though so many cell phones look exactly alike, with the use of Nokia face plates, you can make your phone unique to you.

The face plate is basically the front of your phone. A Nokia face plate offers a very easy way to change that front to show off a theme, color, or idea without putting a lot of effort into it or having to tear apart your phone too much. It is easy to change a Nokia face plate so that you can get the look you want in what is likely a very important and highly personal possession.

In this day and age, personal expression is a big deal. You want to be able to express yourself and display who you are to everyone in every aspect of your life. There was a time when you couldn’t really do that with a cell phone. That is not true anymore, though. Thanks to the easy to use Nokia face plates, you can make your phone unique http://www.tahomatimes.com/category/technology-reviews/. Change the ring tone to fit you then add a cool new face plate that best represents you and you are ready to go. Your phone will then not only be your planner, internet browser, contact to the world, and lifeline to your own schedule, but it will also be an representation of who you are to everyone who sees or hears it.

The other advantage to an easy to change Nokia face plate is that you can change it often. You can, if you so desire, change your Nokia face plate to reflect your mood on a given day. Face plates, as a rule, are not very expensive, so it would be easy to make sure you have plenty of them on hand. You will be able to get up in the morning, think about how you feel that day and how you want to show the world you feel and do so with a new Nokia face plate. The options are almost endless in the message you can send when you combine ring tones with face plates to make your phone a total message sending source of self-expression.

Cell phones were once mundane pieces of chrome coloring and digital numbers. Now, though, you can change all of that with little trouble. By using Nokia face plates, can you can turn your cell phone into an expression of who you are or even of your mood on a given day. By adding changing ring tones, your options for your phone’s ambiance become limitless. So go out there, grab yourself some Nokia face plates, and start expressing yourself to the world through your phone!

If you are interested in additional cell phone articles of mine, please feel free to visit my cell phone site.

When memorizing music there are several things you can do that will make your job that much easier. Memorizing music is important as most people know you play better when having the music in your head rather than having your head in the music. So where to start when memorizing music effectively?

I agree with Fred Noad, when discussing memorization in his book, Solo Guitar playing, he states…Learn to play a piece from beginning to end with absolutely correct fingering and with complete continuity (however slow) before committing it to memory.

To learn music in this fashion helps with an overall visual memory of the piece and it helps with continuity rather than have the piece sound disjointed and fragmented. If you think about it you will realize that our thoughts and memories are nothing more than powerful images or, pictures, if you like.

To prove my point let’s say I ask you to think of an elephant. What do you see? Is it the word elephant written down (which could be a picture) or is it a picture or part picture the animal itself? I bet you I know the answer. Another test would be to ask how you dreamed at night. Do you dream in words or are your dreams a series of pictures rather like a scene from a movie?

You need to work with your brain rather than against it. Why not utilize the natural operation of your memory? It’s crazy not to!

I also know from my days at Teacher’s College that most people have different strengths when it comes to learning something new based on the body’s different senses. Some people are visual learners, some learn better with their tactile (touching) sense and some are strong auditory learners.

What is clear in most literature about memory is that a combination of as many of your senses as possible is a stronger way of learning anything. Because of this we should employ most of our senses when learning a new piece of music. Of course we can’t include taste and smell to any great degree (unless you want to eat your music!) but we should definitely try to use our other senses of sight, hearing and touch.

So, having established a method of learning a new piece of music what comes next? What are the nuts and bolts, so to speak?

I would actually take a step back. That is, start not with playing a piece of music but rather just reading it, just like a book, on its own. What I would be looking for is how it is put together. I would look at the key, form, and structure of the music? What about sequences and repetitions? What about dynamics, articulation and tone?

Breaking a piece up into its component parts first before you start to play it and get a visual memory of the piece allows you to take a short-cut of sorts. If you understand where the repeats are, for example, you have already cut down on the amount of bars you have to memorize. If you know about the dynamics of the piece before you play it physically your brain won’t have to deal with too much information at once.

As Sharon Isbin says in the Classical Guitar Answer Book…”The more you understand the language and structure of a piece, the easier it will be to memorize.”

I liken it to driving to an unfamiliar place or suburb in your car and using a roadmap. If you just turn up and expect to find the street it would be very difficult indeed. But if you look at the map beforehand you stand a much better chance of finding your destination by noticing the signs along the way. You recognize where you are, with much less stress!

Of course, I’m talking about reading the music AWAY from the guitar. This should be your very first step. I would then employ the Noad method after this.

Next I would test my memory by playing the separate phrases in the music. If you definitely know a phrase, try to string it together with the next phrase in the piece and so on until you get to the end of the piece. If you are not confident to play phrases try playing one bar at a time and going back to the printed music when a bar is forgotten.

In this way the music can be overlapped until the whole piece can be played by memory.

I would leave the piece for several days to a week after that. Then I would test my memory again by trying to play the whole piece, making note of where I faltered or needed to consolidate. Leaving it for a period of time allows your subconscious brain to keep “working” on it for you. The subconscious is really quite powerful and when you get out of its way, you’ll be amazed at what it can achieve.

Studying a new piece in this fashion should yield results. And remember, the more you practice (properly) the easier it will become. Good luck!

Trevor Maurice is an Australian, living in beautiful seaside Maroubra, in the eastern suburbs of Sydney.

He’s been involved in playing guitar (mainly classical) for longer than he cares to remember and has also taught the instrument for many years. He is teacher trained, having a Diploma of Education (Majoring in music)

He has also taught Primary (Elementary) school for many years and had a long-held dream to build a quality website for the classical guitar that is of use to anyone even slightly interested in this beautiful instrument. He has now made that dream a reality with the highly rated…

http://www.learnclassicalguitar.com/index.html

Good kitchen design online means having a layout for your kitchen that provides an efficient and pleasant area in which to prepare meals and do related tasks. Understanding the kitchen work triangle concept and basic kitchen layout types is a valuable starting point to design a kitchen online that you like.

The kitchen work triangle consists of the distance between the sink, refrigerator and range or cooktop. Each one of these areas becomes a focal point in the kitchen and forms the three points of a triangle with different distances between them. Done correctly, proper kitchen design online will give you the most efficient food preparation area layout in your kitchen.

Whether you’re remodeling an existing kitchen or building a new one, an efficient kitchen design online means that your work triangle minimizes the number of steps the cook must take between the three areas during meal preparation and cleanup. The total distance from the sink to the stove to the refrigerator and back to the sink should be not less than 12 feet total nor more than 27 feet. Each triangle leg should measure between 4 and 9 feet in length. The kitchen isles should be at least 42 to 48 inches wide to allow people to move around easily and for appliances to be opened with ease.

When selecting the floor plan for your kitchen design online, here are basic kitchen layouts to consider:

* L-Shaped Kitchen - this is the most popular kitchen design. It consists of a long leg and a shorter one and this type of design can be used in small and large kitchens. The L-shaped kitchen gives you the possibility of having a center island depending on the space available. In general, this design will have 2 or 3 appliances on one wall. The usual arrangement is to have the refrigerator at one end, the range or cooktop at the other end with the sink located in the middle. This shape of kitchen generally provides good traffic flow.

* Double L-Shaped Kitchen - this kitchen design has a lot of cabinet space and plenty of counter space. This design is used in large kitchens with two cooks, and it has two or more entering areas, which can cause traffic flow problems. To avoid some of these problems, create two separate working areas on each L of the kitchen so that work flow does not get interrupted by human traffic.

* U-Shaped Kitchen - this kitchen design online shape has three walls instead of two, and the sink usually is located in the middle wall section. The refrigerator and range or cooktop are usually on the side walls opposite each other. The U-shaped kitchen design gives room for ample countertop space, and you have three walls for cabinets and appliances. This kitchen layout tends to create a working triangle that is very efficient.

The working triangle for the U-shaped kitchen should be around 26 feet or less. The only problem with this type of kitchen design online is that sometimes the two U corners are not used appropriately. Make sure you buy the appropriate storage items for the corner cabinets created by the U shape design. The U shape design can also create dark kitchens because of the shape and the quantity of cabinets. Using skylights, large windows, lots of under-cabinet task lighting and light colors will help keep the kitchen bright with sufficient light to see what you’re doing.

* G-Shaped Kitchen - this type of kitchen shape is becoming very popular, and it gives you a fourth wall to use. The G-shape can be used if you have more than one cook in the house. This fourth wall section can be used for a counter, island and storage space. With this kitchen layout you can have two sinks, perhaps two cooktops or two ranges. You could have two working triangles — one for sink, cook top or range and refrigerator and a second working triangle with another sink, built-in grill and cooktop. It allows two cooks to do different things at the same time and entertain large groups of people.

* Single-Wall Kitchen - if you do not have much space, you may only be able to have an I-shaped kitchen. No problem. Just be sure the sink is placed between the refrigerator and the stove. Locate the refrigerator so that the refrigerator door opens away from the kitchen sink. This is a very common arrangement for small kitchen design online where narrow spaces exists.

* Galley-Shaped Kitchen - this type of kitchen design is more common in apartments or in homes where space is limited. It is often called the corridor style. The kitchen cabinets and the appliances can be located on opposite walls for better work flow. Place the range or cooktop on one side of the kitchen along one wall and the refrigerator and sink on the opposite wall.

To eliminate traffic issues in this type of kitchen design online, one entry is often closed off. This type of layout should only be used by one cook. If you want to maintain both exits, place the refrigerator near the end of the galley kitchen for easy access. This way, your family and friends can reach the refrigerator without interfering with the person who is cooking.

If you need extra storage in the galley kitchen, install tall kitchen cabinets that go all the way to the ceiling. Wall storage is crucial. Buy a stepladder to use when you need to reach the upper shelf of the cabinets, and place the items you use less frequently on the upper shelves.

By understanding the kitchen work triangle concept and how you want your kitchen to function, you’ll be more likely to create the kind of kitchen design online you’ve always wanted. Today, kitchens are often viewed as the hub of the home as well as a social center for family and friends. Planning your kitchen and doing kitchen design online can be a challenge, but the rewards you’ll receive are very much worth the time and effort.

Copyright 2005 InfoSearch Publishing

Read more about how to design a kitchen online that’s right for you at kitchen design online. David Buster is webmaster of http://www.yourdreamloghome.com and VP of InfoSearch Publishing - visit the website and learn more about home decorating and remodeling, bathroom design and décor tips, home plans, storage, fireplaces, log cabin rentals and more.

Cardiff Pinacle award new contract to Missing Ingredients

Cardif Pinnacle has awarded Missing Ingredients- the Crown
Group’s Business and Industry Caterer, a one year rolling
contract to provide catering services from July 2005 across its
four sites in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire.

The contract has an estimated annual turnover of £300k, of which
Rushes Restaurant makes a major contribution, will require 11
new MI team members to operate over the four sites.

Cardif Pinnacle was formed in 1971 and is established as a
leading supplier of financial services and investment products.
MI won the contract from a local catering company who operated
over only two of Cardif Pinnacle sites.

MI will be providing a comprehensive catering service at each
site to over 600 staff. One of the sites to receive a MI
makeover is Rushes Restaurant and Café Bar, a popular, high
street style venue offering speciality coffee, caesar salads,
baguettes and mouth watering main courses, such as sausages
infused in mash potato and organic vegetables.

An additional Cardif Pinnacle site that MI will be responsible
for was not previously providing a catering facility, yet Cardif
Pinnacle expressed a keen desire to do so. ‘New Horizons’ will
now offer ‘Grab’n’ Go’- a brand from MI’s Deliverance Range to
include freshly made sandwiches, paninis and a selection of
snacks and drinks.

MI competed against four other caterers, including Compass
Group, to gain the contract which will see the company design,
develop and build the new catering facilities. “We came in with
realistic pricing levels and innovation,” explains MI’s Managing
Director Sean Valentine. “MI has the reputation of Midsummer
House, a two Michelin star restaurant, which is regarded highly
in terms of focus on quality and an excellent place to train
chefs. ”

Being a novice website developer the hardest part of creating a new website is getting actual people to look at your website. Coming up with the next great idea seems to be the easy part but it will never be a real success if you are the only person reading your work. I have been doing some experimenting with this problem and here are some of the things that seem to work for me.

1. Social Bookmarking - this is my number one pick because in large it has brought the lions share of the traffic to my site, there are some great sites that do this www.digg.com is my favorite it seems to be one of the most popular at the moment you can submit a link to one of your stories with a brief description and if it intrest the rests of the diggers you might make it to the homepage.

2. Article Directories - I have to admit that there are a lot of crappy articles on most article directories so if you put your well written article on one it is bound to get snapped up by hundreds of content starved websites looking for new stories all they will all have backlinks pointing to you,
target=”_blank”>Articledashboard.com seems to be a nice one.

4. Website crawled - This is one of the hardest things to do but it has the potential to pay off big if you get a good ranking from Google. One thing that needs to be checked is your Robots.txt file this allows search engine spiders to correctly craw your pages a more detailed article on the subject can be found here www.searchengineworld.com. You also might consider trying to implement Google’s new Sitemap generator - this is on my to do list

5. Directory Submissions - Submit your site to human edited web directories like http://dmoz.org/. It will help your page rank and may even get you some traffic.

To comment on this article or check out the rest of my site that specializes in technology based content please stop by www.combobulate.com/.

Credit cards can be a wonderful financial tool when used responsibly and with caution. There are many risks that go with credit cards besides the possibility of surmounting debt. Some of these risks such as identity theft and theft can be minimized if you take the time to follow some basic steps in protecting your credit card.

Steps to Protect Your Credit Cards:

1 - Sign your credit card immeditately
This protects you from having someone else use your credit card.

2 - Activate your credit card
Activating your credit card is as simple as a phone call, and you may not be able to use your card until you make that call. This should be done after signing your card.

3 - Write down credit card information and store in a safe place
When you get your credit card, write down the credit card number and any customer service telephone numbers. These should be kept in a safe place separate from your credit cards, like a floor safe. After thoroughly reading any documentation that came with your credit card, be sure to store this in a safe as well. You may need to refer back to this information.

4 - Keep credit card information private
Do not give out your credit card number or expiration date over the phone unless you know who it is your doing business with. Giving out this information can lead to identity theft, which can be difficult to solve.

5 - Keep credit card receipts
Your credit card receipts should be kept until the bill come, even those gas receipts you forget to collect at the gas pump. They should be checked against the bill and any descrepancies should be noted and resolved immediately.

6 - Do not lend your credit card to anyone
Your credit card is a financial tool that can be easily abused, and even more so if you lend it out to friends. Protect your credit and never lend your credit card to anyone for any reason.

These basic steps are not a foolproof way of protecting your credit cards as those who are out to commit fraud and theft will go to any length in order to do so as long as it seems to pay off in the long run. Your best bet is to follow these steps and then remain diligent about keeping track of all the information and following up on anything suspicious.

For more information on credit cards and debt management, visit Opinedmind.com

The author of this article runs OpinedMind.com and is currently a Ph.D. student writing articles geared toward the college student. Topics include student loans and debt management.