• Intro
  
• Article - 5 Easy (Free) Tips for Getting Lots of Website Traffic
  
• The Office Corner
  
• Grammar Question of the Month - discreet vs. discrete
  
• Tech Tips by Terence Kierans - Access, Excel, and Word
  
• Tech Corner
  
• Writing Corner
  
• Word of the Month - aegis
  
• Recommendations
  
• Judy's Corner
  

* After a long hiatus, Peggi Ridgway is back with another excellent article. She just published a dynamic workbook written to create a bridge for small business owners who seek more information about promoting their websites. The workbook is intended as a beginning step, and, says Ridgway, "It simplifies presentations that are often abandoned due to their complexity, and was written for modest budgets." For some powerful website tips, visit www.MyWebSavvy.com.

* If you want to take reasonably priced online courses, go to http://www.lvsonline.com/schedule.shtml.

By Peggi Ridgway

If your beautiful website costs dollars without making dollars, take heart. By investing time and some Internet exploration, you can turn your website into Grand Cyber Station. Never mind getting a high Google page rank; that will happen when traffic heads your way. Just watch.

1. Create focus pages. At least one page on your site should be highly focused on one area of service or one product line. Choose a keyword term that people might use to search for you and repeat the term at least three times in 200 words of text. Use the term in a headline at the top. Write every occurrence of the term in sentence form and real text (not a graphic image). Ask your webmaster to include the keyword term in the HTML title for the page and in the meta tag keywords.

2. Add calls to action. Ask users to "Make this your home page." Every time the user goes online, your site pops up and you get another "hit," which helps boost your site's value (and position). You can also ask users to "Add this site to your Favorites," so they can come back easily; and to "Send this page to a friend," which helps bring others to your site.

3. Completely finish your website. There must be no "coming soon" or "under construction" pages.

4. Register with www.dmoz.org. This is the Open Directory and it supplies search listings for AOL, Google and others. It will take months for the editors to review your site, so register now. Look for the "Suggest URL" link and follow the instructions. They're not hard, and they'll do your site a world of good.

5. Get back links. Search for sites with products and services that relate or compliment yours. Request they install a link to your website. Give them a line of text about your site. (Note: Search engine spiders analyze your back links and may detract points from your site's score for reciprocal links and links from site with low page rank.) Back links have been shown to be the most effective method for (A) increasing traffic to a website, and (B) bringing targeted customers to a website.

This is the "natural" way, i.e., no investment in paid advertising or pay-per-click programs, to get better site rankings. It takes time - but it's free and fun to do.

Peggi Ridgway
Author of Successful Website Marketing
www.MyWebSavvy.com
peg@mywebsavvy.com

1. SMALL BUSINESS ASSOCIATION: BASIC LOAN PROGRAMS
http://www.sba.gov/financing/sbaloan/7a.html

2. USING WORD'S SHRINK TO FIT FEATURE
When you're creating a document that must adhere to a certain page count, it can be frustrating to try to achieve that perfect length. If you find that the text has run a few lines longer than anticipated, causing you to exceed your page-count limitations, use Word's Shrink To Fit feature. This will prevent you from having to cut any text from your document. To try:

(1) Open the document you'd like to shrink and then select File/Print Preview from the menu bar. (Or click the Print Preview button on the Standard toolbar.)

(2) Then, in the Preview window, click the Shrink To Fit button on the Print Preview toolbar. Word automatically adjusts your document fonts proportionally to reduce the document length by one page.

(3) If you're unhappy with the results, simply press [Ctrl]Z to undo the action.

Submitted by Patricia L. Johnson, Application Training Specialist www.mhric.org

3. Corel recently bought JASC and its products, including PaintShopPro. LVS Online (www.lvsonline.com) is now a Corel Training Partner, and LVS will be offering more classes in the Corel product line soon. LVS students will also be able to purchase products directly from Corel at the educational discounted rate. I (Judy) have just finished a PaintShopPro course and am ready to go to the next level. And I look forward using to the educational discounts.

Q. What's the difference between discreet and discrete?

A. Discreet is an adjective that suggests good judgment in speech or conduct, unpretentious, and unobtrusive, e.g., he had a discreet manner; followed at a discreet distance.

Discrete (think "distinct") is also an adjective and means a separate entity or individually distinct elements, e.g., a discrete random variable.

*By permission. From Merriam-Webster's Collegiate(R) Dictionary at www.m-w.com by Merriam-Webster, Incorporated.

ACCESS

UPDATE DATA WITH A DEFAULT FIELD VALUE

You are probably aware of the ability to set a default value for Access to enter into a field when a new record is created. It is usually done in the "Design" view for a table or form by setting the "Default Value" property. Sometimes you may need to set a default value after you have already entered records into the database. If you do that the existing records are not automatically updated to include the new default. So, if you are editing a record and you want to update the field to the current default value, simply select the appropriate field and press Ctrl+Alt+Spacebar

EXCEL

COUNT WITH MULTIPLE CRITERIA

We can use the "COUNTIF" function to count the number of items that meet a certain condition. But suppose you want to count the number of items that meet two or more criteria?

Follow these steps:

1. Enter State, Gender, and Age in A1:C1 as column headings.
2. Enter state abbreviations, gender (M or F), and ages in cells A2:C15.

Use the following formula to count all rows where the state is TX and the gender is F:

=SUMPRODUCT(N(A2:A15="TX"),N(B2:B15="F")),

And use this formula to count all rows where the state is FL, the gender is M, and the age is above 50:

=SUMPRODUCT(N(A2:A15="FL"),N(B2:B15="M"),N(C2:C15>50))

WORD

BE GRAPHIC WITH HEADINGS

You want to make your chapter titles or section headings stand out? You can make the font bigger or bolder. Another, more creative, way is to go graphical and put an eye-catching image on the same line as your major headings. The problem will be getting the image to look right and keeping it in line.

Here is a way to make short work of creating "in-line" graphics for your Word documents:

1.	Create a table with two columns and one row.
2.	Insert the chosen image in the first cell.
3.	Type and format your heading in the second cell.
4.	I suggest you format the text so it aligns along the bottom of the cell. (In Word 2000, choose "Cell Alignment" from the shortcut menu and select one of the graphic choices).
5.	Adjust the size of the image and fine tune the widths of the columns as required.
6.	Remove or change the default table cell borders. (Right-click the table, choose "Borders and Shading", and make your selections from the "Borders" tab).

If you use the same artwork throughout your document, create new section headings simply by copying this two-cell table and changing the heading.

Terence Kierans
Cyberspace Virtual Services
tkierans@virtualservices.com.au
http://www.virtualservices.com.au/
We keep your project on the boil, while you sleep

1. BASIC DIGITAL IMAGING TERMINOLOGY FAQ
http://www.sphoto.com/techinfo/wdtech.html#FAQ

2. ORGANIZING YOUR FILES
http://www.serif.com/community/techtips/20020303.asp

1. SYNONYM AND ANTONYM FINDER
http://www.synonym.com/synonym/

2. SO YOU WANT TO BE A CONSULTANT
http://www.unixwiz.net/techtips/be-consultant.html

3. WRITING DEN'S TIPS-O-MATIC Help with paragraphs, sentences, and essays
http://www2.actden.com/writ_den/tips/contents.htm

Main Entry: aegis
Variant: also egis
Function: noun
Etymology: Latin, from Greek aigis, literally, goatskin, from aig-, aix goat; akin to Armenian ayc goat
Date:1581

1 : a shield or breastplate emblematic of majesty that was associated with Zeus and Athena
2 a : PROTECTION *under the aegis of the Constitution* b : controlling or conditioning influence *many American mothers, under the aegis of benevolent permissiveness actually neglect their children — Time*
3 a : AUSPICES, SPONSORSHIP *under the aegis of the museum* b : control or guidance especially by an individual, group, or system *acted under the court's aegis*

*By permission. From Merriam-Webster's Collegiate(R) Dictionary at www.m-w.com by Merriam-Webster, Incorporated.

1. PATRICE HALLEY: PHOTOGRAPHER
www.patricehalley.com

2. INTERACTIVE BODY: Challenges you to assemble various organs, bones
and muscles in the right places, and tests your nervous system and senses.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/body/index_interactivebody.shtml

3. COLLAGE MACHINE 1.0
http://www.pentacom.jp/soft/ex/collage/collage.html

Time to get last year's records in order and take a good look at your current inventory. I find that a total analysis of my supplies and accumulated catalogs, brochures, etc. about every 4-6 months works.

My New Year's resolution, a bit late, is to ensure that I make sure my clients know how important they are to me. Not because they're an income source, but because they represent the best of the best in terms of quality. They are my teachers. And my friends.

See you in March!

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