Your Inspirational World Die/s Every Minute You Dont Read This Article: america
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Showing posts with label america. Show all posts
Showing posts with label america. Show all posts

Sunday, July 06, 2008

Sterling On Wall Street - The Forbes Platinum 400, an exclusive list of the best big companies in America

Sunday, July 06, 2008 0
Sterling On Wall Street - The Forbes Platinum 400, an exclusive list of the best big companies in America

Forbes Announces; Sterling On Wall Street - The Forbes Platinum 400, an exclusive list of the best big companies in America


The Forbes Platinum 400, an exclusive list of the best big companies in America, is a good place to look for potential stock market stars.

In six of the past seven years, our annual list--also known as America's Best Big Companies --outperformed the stock market over the following 12 months. The Platinum 400 had its best 12-month run in 2003, when it gained an average 26% versus 13% from the S&P 500 and 10% for the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

he only time the Platinum 400 disappointed, was in its inaugural year, 1999, in which the median 400 stock lost 2% and the average stock was up 11%. During that stretch, the S&P 500 gained 19% and the Dow 20%.

Platinum 400 Performance Scorecard

Year Price Performance Relative To Issue Date* Actual S&P 500** Dow Jones**
1999 Average 11.1% 94 93
Median -1.9 82 81
2000 Average 6.5 111 110
Median 3.8 108 107
2001 Average 3.8 123 113
Median 0.9 119 110
2002 Average -2.5 118 106
Median -1.4 119 108
2003 Average 25.9 111 114
Median 19.7 106 109
2004 Average 16.0 105 109
Median 13.6 102 107
2005 Average 14.9 107 110
Median 8.7 101 104


* The price performance for each year is measured over 12 months beginning from the respective issue's pricing date. ** Relative to S&P and Dow figures are the ending value of $100 invested in the stock, divided by the ending value of $1 invested in the respective index.
Source: FT Interactive Data via FactSet Research Systems



Monday, June 02, 2008

Digital Marketing Abbreviations & Internet Acronyms You Should Definitely Know

Monday, June 02, 2008 0
Digital Marketing Abbreviations & Internet Acronyms You Should Definitely Know

Internet Marketing AcronymsDigital Marketing Abbreviations & Acronyms You Should Definitely KnowDigital Marketing Abbreviations & Acronyms You Should Definitely Know

AJ - Ask Jeeves 

AOL - America Online 

ASP - Application Service Provider 

AV - AltaVista 

B2B - Business to Business 

B2C - Business to Consumer 

CPA - Cost Per Action 

CPC - Cost Per Click 

CPS - Cost Per Sale 

CTR - Click-Through Rate 

DH - Direct Hit 

FFA - Free-For-All Link List 

HB - HotBot 

IM - Instant Messaging 

INK - Inktomi 

LS - LookSmart 

MSN - Microsoft Network 

NL - Northert Light 

NSI - Network Solutions 

PFI - Pay For Inclusion 

PFP - Pay For Performance 

PPC - Pay Per Click 

PPCSE - Pay Per Click Search Engine 

PPL - Pay Per Lead 

PPS - Pay Per Sale 

PV - Page View 

RON - Run Of Network 

ROS - Run Of Site 

SEO - Search Engine Optimization 

SEP - Search Engine Positioning 

UV - Unique Visitor 

WWW - World Wide Web 

Y! - Yahoo!

Thursday, May 29, 2008

R. K. Laxman's - A brilliant way to start your day on a lighter note

Thursday, May 29, 2008 0
R. K. Laxman's - A brilliant way to start your day on a lighter note

A brilliant way to start your day on a lighter note, From R. K. Laxman's selected ones!

 About R.K. Laxman - Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer Laxman was an Indian cartoonist, illustrator, and humorist. He is best known for his creation The Common Man and for his daily cartoon strip, You Said It in The Times of India, which started in 1951.


 A brilliant way to start your day on a lighter note, From R. K. Laxman's selected ones!
 A brilliant way to start your day on a lighter note, From R. K. Laxman's selected ones!
 A brilliant way to start your day on a lighter note, From R. K. Laxman's selected ones!
 A brilliant way to start your day on a lighter note, From R. K. Laxman's selected ones!
 A brilliant way to start your day on a lighter note, From R. K. Laxman's selected ones!
 A brilliant way to start your day on a lighter note, From R. K. Laxman's selected ones!

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Emeralds Stones are fascinating gemstones

Sunday, May 11, 2008 1
Emeralds Stones  are fascinating gemstones

Emeralds Stones  are fascinating gemstones

Emeralds Stones  are fascinating gemstones

Emeralds are fascinating gemstones. They have the most beautiful, most intense and most radiant green that can possibly be imagined: emerald green. Inclusions are tolerated. In top quality, fine emeralds are even more valuable than diamonds.


The name emerald comes from the Greek smaragdos via the Old French esmeralde, and really just means 'green gemstone'. Innumerable fantastic stories have grown up around this magnificent gem. The Incas and Aztecs of South America, where the best emeralds are still found today, regarded the emerald as a holy gemstone. However, probably the oldest known finds were once made near the Red Sea in Egypt. Having said that, these gemstone mines, already exploited by Egyptian pharaohs between 3000 and 1500 B.C. and later referred to as 'Cleopatra's Mines', had already been exhausted by the time they were rediscovered in the early 19th century.


Written many centuries ago, the Vedas, the holy scriptures of the Indians, say of the precious green gems and their healing properties: 'Emeralds promise good luck ...'; and 'The emerald enhances the well-being ...'. So it was no wonder that the treasure chests of Indian maharajas and maharanis contained wonderful emeralds. One of the world's largest is the so-called 'Mogul Emerald'. It dates from 1695, weighs 217.80 carats, and is some 10cm tall. One side of it is inscribed with prayer texts, and engraved on the other there are magnificent floral ornaments. This legendary emerald was auctioned by Christie's of London to an unidentified buyer for 2.2m US Dollars on September 28th 2001.


Emeralds have been held in high esteem since ancient times. For that reason, some of the most famous emeralds are to be seen in museums and collections. The New York Museum of Natural History, for example, has an exhibit in which a cup made of pure emerald which belonged to the Emperor Jehangir is shown next to the 'Patricia', one of the largest Colombian emerald crystals, which weighs 632 carats. The collection of the Bank of Bogota includes five valuable emerald crystals with weights of between 220 and 1796 carats, and splendid emeralds also form part of the Iranian National Treasury, adorning, for example, the diadem of the former Empress Farah. The Turkish sultans also loved emeralds. In Istanbul's Topkapi Palace there are exhibits with items of jewellery, writing-implements and daggers, each lavishly adorned with emeralds and other gems.

The green of life and of love


“Emerastone of successful loveld is known as the “stone of successful love”. It is said to provide for domestic bliss and to instil both sensitivity and loyalty. It can be used to open, activate and stimulate the heart chakra. It is a stone to bring harmony to all areas of ones life.”

“Emerald can be used to enhance the memory and stimulate the use of greater mental capacity. The emerald helps combine intelligence with discernment, allowing for the choice of right action”.


The green of the emerald is the colour of life and of the springtime, which comes round again and again. But it has also, for centuries, been the colour of beauty and of constant love. In ancient Rome, green was the colour of Venus, the goddess of beauty and love. And today, this colour still occupies a special position in many cultures and religions. Green, for example, is the holy colour of Islam. Many of the states of the Arab League have green in their flags as a symbol of the unity of their faith. Yet this colour has a high status in the Catholic Church too, where green is regarded as the most natural and the most elemental of the liturgical colours.

The magnificent green of the emerald is a colour which conveys harmony, love of Nature and elemental joie de vivre. The human eye can never see enough of this unique colour. Pliny commented that green gladdened the eye without tiring it. Green is perceived as fresh and vivid, never as monotonous. And in view of the fact that this colour always changes somewhat between the bright light of day and the artificial light of a lamp, emerald green retains its lively vigour in all its nuances.

Fingerprints of nature

The lively luminosity of its colour makes the emerald a unique gemstone. However, really good qualityemerald a unique gemstone is fairly rare, with inclusions often marring the evenness of the colour – signs of the turbulent genesis which has characterised this gemstone. Fine inclusions, however, do not by any means diminish the high regard in which it is held. On the contrary: even with inclusions, an emerald in a deep, lively green still has a much higher value than an almost flawless emerald whose colour is paler. Affectionately, and rather poetically, the specialists call the numerous crystal inclusions, cracks or fissures which are typical of this gemstone 'jardin'. They regard the tender little green plants in the emerald garden as features of the identity of a gem which has grown naturally.


So where do they come from and how is it that they exist at all? In order to answer these questions, we need to look far, far back into the time of the emerald's origin. Emeralds from Zimbabwe are among the oldest gemstones anywhere in the world. They were already growing 2600 million years ago, whilst some specimens from Pakistan, for example, are a mere 9 million years young. From a chemical-mineralogical point of view, emeralds are beryllium-aluminium-silicates with a good hardness of 7_ to 8, and belong, like the light blue aquamarine, the tender pink morganite, the golden heliodor and the pale green beryl, to the large gemstone family of the beryls. Pure beryl is colourless. The colours do not occur until traces of some other element are added. In the case of the emerald, it is mainly traces of chromium and vanadium which are responsible for the fascinating colour. Normally, these elements are concentrated in quite different parts of the Earth's crust to beryllium, so the emerald should, strictly speaking, perhaps not exist at all. But during intensive tectonic processes such as orogenesis, metamorphism, emergences and erosion of the land, these contrasting elements found each other and crystallised out to make one of our most beautiful gemstones. The tension involved in the geological conditions conducive to the above processes produced some minor flaws, and some major ones. A glance through the magnifying-glass or microscope into the interior of an emerald tells us something about the eventful genesis of this unique gem: here we see small or large fissures; here the sparkle of a mini-crystal or a small bubble; here shapes of all kinds. While the crystals were still growing, some of these manifestations had the chance to 'heal', and thus the jagged three-phase inclusions typical of Colombian emeralds were formed: cavities filled with fluid, which often also contain a small bubble of gas and some tiny crystals.

Logically enough, a genesis as turbulent as that of the emerald impedes the undisturbed formation of large, flawless crystals. For this reason, it is only seldom that a large emerald with good colour and good transparency is found. That is why fine emeralds are so valuable. But for the very reason that the emerald has such a stormy past, it is surely entitled to show it - that is, as long as only a fine jardin is to be seen, and not a rank garden which spoils both colour and transparency.

The world of fine emeralds

Colombia continues to be at the top of the list in terms of the countries in which fine emeralds are found. It has about 150 known deposits, though not all of these are currently being exploited. The best known names are Muzo and Chivor, where emeralds were mined by the Incas in pre-Columbian times. In economic terms, the most important mine is at Coscuez, where some 60 faces are being worked. According to estimates, approximately three quarters of Colombia's emerald production now comes from the Coscuez Mine. Colombian emeralds differ from emeralds from other deposits in that they have an especially fine, shining emerald green unimpaired by any kind of bluish tint. The colour may vary slightly from find to find. This fascinatingly beautiful colour is so highly esteemed in the international emerald trade that even obvious inclusions are regarded as acceptable. But Colombia has yet more to offer: now and then the Colombian emerald mines throw up rarities such as Trapiche emeralds with their six rays emanating from the centre which resemble the spokes of a millwheel.

Even if many of the best emeralds are undisputedly of Colombian origin, the 'birthplace' of a stone is never an absolute guarantee of its immaculate quality. Fine emeralds are also found in other countries, such as Zambia, Brazil, Zimbabwe, Madagascar, Pakistan, India, Afghanistan and Russia. Zambia, Zimbabwe and Brazil in particular have a good reputation for fine emeralds in the international trade. Excellent emerald crystals in a beautiful, deep emerald green and with good transparency come from Zambia. Their colour is mostly darker than that of Colombian emeralds and often has a fine, slightly bluish undertone. Emeralds which are mostly smaller, but very fine, in a vivacious, intense green come from Zimbabwe's famous Sandawana Mine, and they often have a delicate yellowish-green nuance. And the famous emerald mines of Colombia currently face competition from right next door: Brazil's gemstone mine Nova Era also produces emeralds in beautiful green tones, and if they are less attractive than those of their famous neighbour it is only by a small margin. Brazil also supplies rare emerald cat's eyes and extremely rare emeralds with a six-spoked star. Thanks to the finds in Africa and Brazil, there are more emeralds on the market now than there used to be - to the delight of emerald enthusiasts - .

A sophisticated gemstone

Whilst its good hardness protects the emerald to a large extent from scratches, its brittleness and its many fissures can make cutting, setting and cleaning rather difficult. Even for a skilled gem cutter, cutting emeralds presents a special challenge, firstly because of the high value of the raw crystals, and secondly because of the frequent inclusions. However, this does not detract from the cutters' love of this unique gem. Indeed, they have developed a special cut just for this gem: the emerald cut. The clear design of this rectangular or square cut with its bevelled corners brings out the beauty of this valuable gemstone to the full, at the same time protecting it from mechanical strain.

Emeralds are also cut in many other, mainly classical shapes, but if the raw material contains a large number of inclusions, it may often be cut into a gently rounded cabochon, or into one of the emerald beads which are so popular in India.

Today, many emeralds are enhanced with colourless oils or resins. This is a general trade practice, but it does have the consequence that these green treasures react very sensitively to inappropriate treatment. For example, they cannot be cleaned in an ultrasonic bath. The substances that may have been used by the cutter during his work, or applied subsequently, seal the fine pores in the surface of the gem. Removing them will end up giving the stone a matt appearance. For this reason, emerald rings should always be taken off before the wearer puts his or her hands in water containing cleansing agent.

A matter of trust

Unfortunately, because the emerald is not only one of the most beautiful gemstones, but also one of the most valuable, there are innumerable synthetics and imitations. So hoemerald is not only one of the most beautiful gemstonesw can you protect yourself from these 'fakes'? Well, the best way is to buy from a specialist in whom you have confidence. Large emeralds in particular should only be purchased with a report from a reputable gemmological institute. Such an institute will be able, thanks to the most modern examination techniques, to differentiate reliably between natural and synthetic emeralds, and will inform you as to whether the stone has undergone any treatment of the kind a purchaser has the right to know about.

And one more piece of advice on the purchase of an emerald: whilst diamonds generously scintillate their fire in sizes below 1 carat, you should go for larger dimensions when acquiring a coloured gemstone. True, there are some lovely pieces of jewellery with small coloured gems to set decorative accents, but emeralds, like other coloured gemstones, do not really begin to show that beautiful glow below a certain size. How large 'your' emerald ends up will depend on your personal taste, and on your budget. Really large specimens of top quality are rare. This means that the price of a top-quality emerald may be higher than that of a diamond of the same weight. The fascination exuded by a fine emerald is simply unique.

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Saturday, May 10, 2008

Charles Schultz Philosophy

Saturday, May 10, 2008 0
Charles Schultz Philosophy

Charles Schultz Philosophy  Charles Schultz Philosophy


Peanuts" comic strip 

The following is the philosophy of Charles Schultz, the creator of the "Peanuts" comic strip. You don't have to actually answer the questions. Just read the e-mail straight through, and you'll get the point.





1. Name the five wealthiest people in the world.


2. Name the last five Heisman trophy winners.


3. Name the last five winners of the Miss America Contest.


4. Name ten people who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer Prize.


5. Name the last half dozen Academy Award winners for best actor and actress.


6. Name the last decade's worth of World Series winners.

Peanuts" comic strip

How did you do?

The point is, none of us remember the headliners of yesterday. They are not second-rate achievers. They are the best in their fields. But the applause dies. Awards tarnish. Achievements are forgotten. Accolades and certificates are buried with their owners.




Here's another quiz. See how you do on this one:Here's another quiz. See how you do on this one:

1. List a few teachers who aided your journey through school.

2. Name three friends who have helped you through a difficult time.


3. Name five people who have taught you something worthwhile.

4. Think of a few people who have made you feel appreciated and special.

5. Think of five people you enjoy spending time with.

Easier?

Easier?

The lesson: The people who make a difference in your life are NOT the ones with the most credentials, the most money, or the most awards. They are the ones who care.







Share this with those who have made a difference in your life.

I just did!

"Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia."

(Charles Schultz)