Definitive Short Guide to Website Development Costs and Hitting That 'Sweet Spot' For Your Business

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Website design & development prices vary because agencies are trying to make a different level of profit, have a different level of skills and / or have a different understanding of client's requirements. It is not unheard of for an agency to quote one price at the beginning of a website development and for the costs to triple at the end.

Definitive Short Guide to Website Development Costs and Hitting That 'Sweet Spot' For Your Business

This generally comes down to inadequate planning from the start and one of the key reasons that we always recommend putting in place adequate budget at the start of a project for initial consultancy and documentation.

Is price a true reflection of an agency's quality?

There are some good digital design agencies out there that are inexpensive and other bad agencies that are expensive (even more so because they deliver poor quality products - doubly bad value). Value does not come down to low cost, value comes down to getting what you want or need at a price that is beneficial to your business - after all, if every time you invested £1,000 into your business, it returned £2,000 - that is good value, even though you are spending £1,000. Yet, if investing £10,000 was to return £20,000, that better value even though it's more expensive!

In general, you get what you pay for and a £150 website redesign (as we have heard quoted) sounds suspiciously low. Is the work being done in the UK? Do they have a good understanding of what is required? What is the quality of their work like? For a potential client, if they have received a low quote that becomes their price 'anchor', then all additional quotes that might be in the thousands can seems like bad value, but can offer much better value when viewed from a return on invest perspective.

Perhaps a best first step is to ask for a relevant professional reference from the agency. Make sure the website design agency matches the referee's turnover levels to yours, so that you have a realistic comparison. I have been involved in created websites for SME's for under £2,000 and on the other side, websites for larger corporations with budgets over £100,000. References must therefore be carefully selected in order to provide realistic expectations.

It may be difficult to image how there can be such a difference in the cost of designing a website, but put simply, a larger budget allows more time and resources to be allocated. Many smaller businesses have 'till shock' at the initial consultancy costs for the start of a project. However, the initial consultancy stage is incredibly important, creating a stable platform for the development of:

o content

o design

o code

o delivery

Without adequate consultancy, discussion and documentation, most projects are doomed to fail. Larger projects many have week and even months allocated for initial consultation and documention.

So what is a good ballpark idea of website development costs?

The 'average' business website would have between 10 and 30 pages of content created in HTML with contact form, some search engine optimisation, easy-to-use navigation and some basic animations throughout the site to engage with visitors visually. So let's estimate the cost for a hypothetical basic 10 page website with quality design.

Consultancy & content

There should be around 5,000 words of content (500 words per page minimum) with each page targeting three specific phrases. These phrases should be researched in search engines like Google in order to accurately target the best terms for you business.

This leads to clear content guidelines for the pages plus naming conventions for the pages themselves and can take several days on its own. A larger site, one with hundreds of pages, would take longer to 'rationalise' as access to content becomes more complex, as the navigation structure must work within a 'deep' content environment.

A good ballpark for the consultancy for a 10 page website would be £1,500, broken down into:

o 1 day for project consultancy & brainstorming

o 1 day to document the projects requirements & expectations

o 0.5 day to research other sites, terms in Google

Design

The creative process is perhaps the most difficult stage to pin down in terms of time scales and costs. If the client has a clear idea of what they want from a design perspective (and can illustrate it through other example websites, print materials and/or brand 'values'), the design process becomes quicker (and therefore costs less). However, if the client is looking for the creative agency to do all the work ("just make it look nice"), then there is more time and cost on the part of the agency.

Good creative design needs time to mature and develop otherwise the resulting product can be 'shallow'. In our experience, for the average 10 page website for a small sized business, the ideal balance of cost vs. creativity is:

o 1 day to consult, information gather and brainstorm with the client

o 3 days to create design concepts

o 2 days to artwork content pages

If branding is involved, then a further three days after the consultancy stage is required, bringing the overall design process to two weeks (a rough budget of £6,000).

These are broad generalisations of the design process and businesses in general. You only need to look at the breadth of businesses in the UK, to get an idea of the breadth of potential costs associated with a website development.

Multimedia details

Once you introduce multimedia & interactive elements, costs become significantly more 'spread' because of the types of technologies involves and the relative work required to make each perform.

Flash has become a common element in websites, helping to lift the design of website page by bringing animation & interactivity to the content. It is possible to create a short 10 second intro animation for a website for a cost of £600 but does this actually add value to the website? It is doubtful.

A series of animated components distributed across various pages of the website might cost more (perhaps £1,500) and in spite of the higher cost, deliver much better value in the form of a better experience for website visitors.

Video can very quickly communicate the 'values' of an organisation, but can incur significant frontend costs in terms of the creation of the video. However, cheap video cameras and home editing software, means that it is possible to high impact create video testimonials from clients very cost effectively.

Interactive navigation provides a good, cost effective element to your site, as it is going to be used by site visitors many times and therefore becomes one of the most 'noticeable' components of the website, yet applying creative flair to the navigation should not cost much in terms of design & coding time.

HTML coding

Putting together simple HTML pages doesn't take long or cost much. A simple HTML website can be code in a day, but again, the risk to your brand can be high. How often have you visited a website and immediately gotten the impression that the website was put together by someone's "brother in law" or a student? Did you continue to investigate that business as a potential supplier? No.

So why take that risk with your own business? The small details on the webpage are obvious signposts as to the quality of HTML code that businesses are likely to recognise. A well constructed, modern website is accessible (even if at the most basic level of users being able to set the size of the print), quick to load (but with the prevalence of broadband these days, an agency would have to be making some fundamental mistakes for the site to be slow to download), use CSS (making it easier to update the design across all pages of the website from a single file) and readable in all browsers.

Writing good quality HTML code does not rely on tools such as Dreamweaver. The job of these tools is to make writing code easy - but unfortunately, this is often to the detriment of the code quality itself - so ask the agency what tools they use to create their code. If the agency is writing code from scratch, then it is likely to write better quality code and to have a better understanding of how that code works.

For our fictional 10 page website, the cost of producing quality, well constructed HTML code would cost on average £3,000

o 1 day for setup of CSS, navigation & overall page layouts

o 1 day to chop-up graphics for the pages

o 2 day to write HTML code with quality details (such as meta tags, alt tags on images, code comments)

o 1 day for testing

Setup & installation

Website hosting is cheap as chips these days. It is possible to find hosting for as little as £5 per month. However, there are costs associated with setting the account up, purchase of domain name, putting the website online & testing. These costs are likely to vary depending on the complexity of your website but again, using the 10 page HTML model website, the whole process shouldn't take more than one day.

Ongoing maintenance costs

Keeping the content on your website up-to-day is essential - absolutely critical. Research indicates that after design, the most important factor in deciding the quality of a website is how often and how recently information on that website has been updated. People return to websites that update their content often and search engines ranking sites that update content often more highly.

The consultancy process should identify the best approach for keeping content up to date - whether a content management system is recommended or if it is more cost effective to edit HTML or text files directly. This may sound like a technical process, but it doesn't need to be. A couple hours of training, especially with a website that has only ten pages, is often all that is needed to put you in the driving seat - saving you on development & implementation costs.

Overview

The overall cost for a professional, quality 10 page website constructed in HTML can be broken down as follows:

Consultancy £1,500

Design £6,000

Programming £3,000

Setup & installation £600

Ongoing maintenance DIY and pay nothing!

Inevitably, the quality of your website and its business performance will be reflected in its price, but this does not mean that more expensive is necessarily better. We often hear of companies charging many £10,000's of points for websites that can obviously be created for much less.

Larger agencies have higher overhead costs and work on larger margins than smaller agencies. There is a sweet spot in terms of website development cost that is unique to you, so make sure you get at the very least three quotes for your project (and ensure that all the website design agencies has the same understanding of your requirements), but ideally try to target five quotes, from around the country.

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How to Make and Edit Your Video - Simple Steps That Makes it Fun to Do

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Most of us like making videos using a camcorder or even cell phones. However, the actual process of editing can cause anxiety to some of us. In this article I will give you some pointers about how you can make and edit a video in the simplest way you can enjoy..

How to Make and Edit Your Video - Simple Steps That Makes it Fun to Do

When you are doing a streaming video you must understand two things:

1. File format

This is the description of data files stored in your computer.. There are different formats for different kinds of files. Here are the common file formats.

o    JPEG -- This is designed to store static photographic images only.

o    GIF -- It supports storage for both still images and simple animation.

o    Quick Time -- This format supports various types of multimedia including music and videos.

o    MPEG 4 -- This is the standard format for digital video and audio.  It supports 3-D rendered objects.

o    Adobe Flash (formerly known as Macro media Flash) -- This is a popular format for animation and interactivity on web pages.

All of these formats have pros and cons but in the end, it's your own personal preference that matters. If you understand all the options, you can make an easy decision on what type of format is best for your project.

2. Streaming methods

If you want to view media on the Internet there are two ways to do it, downloading and streaming.

o    Downloading -- When you download a file, the complete file is usually saved in a temporary folder on your computer which you can open and view. The advantage of this is you can access different parts of the file anytime you prefer without even using the internet. And what is the downside? Well, you need to wait for the whole file to download before you can actually access it.

There is another way to make video files downloadable and easy to grab. Embedding the file in a web page using special HTML code is a slightly more advanced method. This method is known as HTTP streaming. This is the same protocol used to deliver web pages. It is easy to set up and can be used in almost any website and it doesn't even require additional software or special hosting plans.

o    Streaming -- Streaming media works quite differently. You can start watching the file almost as soon as it begins downloading.  Actually, the file is sent to the user in a constant stream, and the user can watch it as it arrives. The best part about this is you can access the file right away. Net cast or web cast is an additional advantage of streaming media.  With this method you can broadcast live events.. 

Editing your videos

If you want to edit or improve your video, most new computers nowadays come with basic video-editing software installed such as Apple's iMovie or Windows Movie Maker. Once you have a copy of the video you made in your computer, you can open and edit the video using these programs. These programs allow you to edit the video, and also add effects, titles, and music to make your video look and sound more interesting.

Uploading your videos

If you are satisfied with the final outcome of the video you just made, you are now ready to upload it to some websites in the internet. But first  you'll need to make sure that the file format is compatible with the websites program. If you don't know anything about compatibilities, I recommend that you save your videos as Quick Time, Windows AVI, MOV, or MPG formats because these are the most common formats that work well with most websites. I specifically recommend the MPEG4 format at 640x480 resolutions with MP3 audio. Resizing your video to these formats before uploading will help your clips look better on the web.

And for the final touch, make descriptive tags. I recommend you to choose at least one category and write at least 3 tags to describe the content of your video. This information helps other people find your video.  The more accurate the tags are, the easier it is for everyone to find your videos.

With all of these steps, I bet even if you are not a computer geek, you'll start making videos and sharing them with the public. Who knows, this might be the first step you'll make towards video star dome. 

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Previsualization - How it Works For Film, Animation and Presentations

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Previsualization is a system of mapping out an artistic vision and script before the cameras roll - for decades, this process has been used to set up shots, share ideas, and generally get organized before the actual shoot. In the days before digital cameras, most shots were set up and practiced using foam shapes, low-tech handheld cameras, and paper or fabric "characters". Then, locations would be mocked up using still photos or realistic drawings. Simulating action sequences could be tricky - often, these would be mapped out on Bristol Board storyboards, or acted out with small-scale models or puppets. Seeing a crew member's arm or body in camera range (as he or she manipulated a crude model!) was par for the course back then!

Previsualization - How it Works For Film, Animation and Presentations

Obviously, a lot of care, effort, and consternation went into previz in the "old" days. Today, there are new methods for achieving a perfect previsualization of your film, cartoon, or presentation - digital storyboard software is now on the market, and it offers many benefits to budding directors, animators, ad execs, and presenters. For example, in prior decades, it was tough to deal with the drama, expense, and delays of hiring an artist. Often, the final drawings would cost more than anticipated, arrive late, and even clash with the director's vision for the project. Today, movie storyboard software comes with pre-loaded characters and backgrounds - with a simple click of the mouse, people and locations can be placed perfectly, and then, just as easily, be moved around or deleted.

Playing and experimenting are the essence of effective previz - it's about changing things up to see what's best. By utilizing film storyboard software, you can save different versions of your storyboards and then decide which one really works for you. It's also very easy to add music, text, dialogue, and special effects. Within minutes, you can create a workable storyboard that maps out the frame by frame action of your film or presentation. Within hours, you can create a veritable masterpiece that you'll be proud to show off to potential investors, corporate clients, or classmates or colleagues. Today's programs have so many layers and so many features - how far you want to go is really up to you!

You're probably already familiar with certain programs that you use to store and manipulate images and text. The designers of storyboard software have taken this into account, and designed programs that are compatible with popular programs. You can import and export files with ease. As well, you can even create Flash movies of your final storyboards, and then share them on the Internet. Compatibility with iPhones and other modern gadgets is also a possibility. Obviously, promoting your ideas (unless they're top secret) is a breeze when everything is digital. Although you need to purchase this software, it tends to pay for itself over time. Paying artists and wasting time with old-fashioned previz methods can cost more than a computer program!

For cool online demos, Google digital storyboard software or movie storyboard software. You'll be able to see how easy it will be to streamline your script and vision. The beauty of modern technology is the way it frees you up to be creative, have fun, and save money on your final shoot or presentation.

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Work 24x7x365 With a Website Builder

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Every type of business needs a web presence. Whether you are owner of a small-scale industry, Internet business, freelancer, affiliate marketer, you should make your business online. This has become more important as nowadays people spend some part of their time daily on the Web. Hence, along with television and print media, Internet has become a medium to communicate to the prospective clients. Every customer tries to verify a corporation's credibility. They do so by confirming a corporation's physical address, contact details, certification and its global reach. Web is a main medium through which they confirm an enterprise's credibility.

Work 24x7x365 With a Website Builder

A good website can make a very strong impression of a company. It signifies the global presence of an organization. The site can be accessed worldwide and at any time. It helps in exploring the business across the globe. It fetches clients for your self and brings more revenue. In other words, a website gives you online presence in the world interwoven with the web.

When a client visits your site, it has to be visually appealing. It should arouse curiosity in a client to know more about the company. You must be able to win his confidence and he must end up buying the product or service. In order to build such website there are many site builders available in the market. These tools are useful for those who have entered new in their business and need assistance in how to build a good and impressive website. A non-expert can also use it. You can create a Hypertext Mark-up Language site or a flash website. The advantage with Hypertext Mark-up Language sites is that they take less time to load. On the other hand, a flash site takes more time to load but it is visually appealing. It leaves an immediate and impressive impact on the minds of the clients. Due to its features, it has become popular among many professionals.

There are various types of software developed in the Information Technology market. Some products are less flexible whereas others are more flexible. Many tools provide a number of professional templates to choose but they do not enable a user to customize according to his needs. Other tools have the feature of customizing the templates. Much software restricts to add text to the templates. The advanced ones offer logos, banner and images to add to the templates. Nowadays more revised versions of the tools offer a user to use animations, video and media files.
Investing a little bit of time and money in few points can make you stay connected with the clients all the time. It will increase productivity as well as save much of your energy.

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Why Search Engine Optimization Is So Important For A Website

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So what are the most common mistakes web designers make when they design a website for a client? Most web designers are brilliant at making a website look flashy to the visitors eye. They will use software like Flash to create animations and create flashy logos and images to navigate from page to page on a website. This is great if you own a website like Facebook or Twitter that are self populating and doesn't really need search engine optimization to bring in traffic form search engines.

Why Search Engine Optimization Is So Important For A Website

So how do you create a website that brings in traffic?

1. Search engines love text links to connect pages to one another. They don't only use text links as a scoring system in websites themselves but also when you link from one website to another. This is called anchor text link building but I'll explain more about that later in the article. If you do decide to place some pictures or logos in your website make sure you use the alt tag to name each image. This will help Google to identify what the image is about and even use it in Google images to help bring in extra traffic to your website.

2. Make sure you have a lot of content about your topic. If your website has the most information about your niche Google will make your website an authority website and reward your handsomely. Big websites like Wikipedia rank not only on the 1st page of Google for millions of keywords but no.1. When you read their articles you will see that they are the most informative articles about that certain topic and the articles are very very long. They don't stuff the article full of keywords they just write it naturally and because of the amount of sentences each article has it spreads the keyword density evenly throughout the article. Wikipedia also doesn't write nonsense. People know they can read up or do research on a certain topic and Wikipedia won't give them bogus information only facts.

3. Make sure you build your website on a domain name that has your main keyword you want to rank for in it. If you do that you will only do a 4th of the work to get to the first page of Google. I see so many small business websites that don't do that. They don't have bug budgets to do marketing in anyway but still don't take advantage of this secret weapon. If you own a kitchen company and your company is called Howdens call your domain name howdenskitchens.com not just howdens.com. If you have a huge budget to spend on search engine optimization then it's fine but small companies don't and if you're a small company this is the best way to get to the first page and receive traffic.

4. The single most important way to get to the top of search engines is link building. 70% of my search engine optimization services consists of link building. Effective ways to build links that work would be writing articles and submitting them to article directories like EzineArticles.com. You receive two anchor text links back to your website that help your rank better in Google. Other ways would be blogging, Directory links, and partner website with related content.

So remember if you want to have a website that ranks well in Google and you follow these search engine optimization tips you'll be on the 1st page of Google in no time.

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Soccer Cliparts For Your Own Site

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Soccer cliparts can be acquired free from any websites that provide it. You can choose a variety of designs, logos and images. It is very easy to just copy paste it or to upload the file and in an instant you can have it as your own. This is very useful for those who create a sport site on football and for those who are into designs like a jersey or the seal.

Soccer Cliparts For Your Own Site

There are actually many images that you can pick, from simple to extraordinary art. This can be also use for business cards, greeting cards or for any occasion that fits with the sport. Soccer cliparts can also serve as an avatar or if you need pictures that corresponds about the game. It is just a matter of choosing the best image to have to make your site attractive.

If you want to be more creative, you can opt for an animated image, like a moving ball or a person kicking a ball. Have fun searching and surely you will find great discovery on cliparts. You can also customize a certain image like adding a text or a color to add more creativity. For t-shirt designers this is what they usually do. They will look for a plain design and then do some customization and print it on shirts or jerseys. It could be fun and a great business too.

Inventing your own clipart is not difficult though, there is software available in the internet or if you want, you can just get ideas or possibly download for free in the web for a much faster result.

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10 Top Ways to Explode Your Online Business Profits

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Do you have an online business that's not generating the online income you expected? Well if it's any consolation, you're not alone. Many online businesses have experienced the 'deadly silence' of the Information Super Highway at some time. If you're selling a product or service online, the necessity for website traffic is obvious, but the methods used to steer visitors to websites, seems to be constantly changing.

10 Top Ways to Explode Your Online Business Profits

What should you do to get more traffic to your website? Firstly, you could invest a little time and money and follow these 10 ways to explode your online business profits. Whether you have an affiliate site or teach people to make money from real estate investing, these guidelines will apply to you.

1. Back to basics with your website

Your website is your store front, and as such should be set out in a way that everyone can easily find their way around. It should be easy to navigate with text links or buttons displayed where your visitors would expect them, which is at the top of the page or on the left-hand side. Also, ensure text links are blue and underlined because that's what people are used to and expect to see.

Don't clutter your website. You can have as many web pages as you need, so there's no point in trying to cram everything onto one page. Spread it out and allow for plenty of white space. It will make your site appear 'open' and friendly. You don't want to make your visitors feel confused or intimidated by too much information. Also, and for the same reason, keep graphics and images to a minimum and never use animated graphics. They cause too much distraction.

2. Make buying from your website a pleasurable experience

Whatever you're selling from your website, It's imperative that your visitor can quickly find the product they want, order it and pay for it in one fluent transaction. To enable them to do this, make sure your products are properly listed and categorized. Always give a good description of the product, its features, benefits and price. It's a good idea to include packing and shipping in the price, so your visitors know exactly what it will cost them.

Wherever possible, always give a guarantee. Online customers need to be assured that they can return the product if faulty or unsuitable. Create a webpage clearly outlining your returns and refunds policy. A guarantee will encourage trust and help build credibility. Making a buying decision and the payment process easy for your customers, may bring them back again. Repeat business is key to boosting your online profits.

3. Give your online customers a reason to come back to your website

If a customer has bought a product or service from you and is completely satisfied with the whole transaction, chances are they will come back. But it is only a chance. So how do you persuade a customer to come back and buy from you again? You could give them something for free, or a bonus each time they buy. You could create loyalty by giving them a virtual 'money off' coupon or voucher, which they can redeem against their next purchase.

You could ask them to subscribe to your 'savers club' in return for 10% off all future purchases. Each purchase they make could earn them points, which could be redeemed for prizes. Every time they purchase a product, their name could be entered into a weekly or monthly draw for a special prize. Make buying from your website fun and rewarding if you want your visitors to become multiple purchasers.

4. Get up close and personal with your prospects

At least as close and personal as you can, without causing undue suspicion of ulterior motives. One way to get closer to your customers is to capture their name and email so you can stay in touch with them. You could make your website a free subscription site. Customers could complete a short online form, giving their name and email and creating a user name and password. You could then email them on a regular basis with relevant product information and news of special offers.

Alternatively, you could ask your site visitors to subscribe to your online newsletter in return for freebies or discounts. This way you'll be able to provide them with more information about your products, new lines, end of lines, special offers, discounts and provide direct links to any part of your website. Keeping in touch with your customers makes them feel valued.

5. Free online promotion tactics

If you want traffic, and traffic equals customers, there are a number of essentially basic things you must do to promote your website. Here, we'll look at the free options. Firstly, submit your website to the search engines. Over the course of a month you should make additions/changes to your website. Even minor changes will count. This lets the search engines know that your site is active.

An active website will maintain its position and even rise above inactive websites. Submit your website to all the local directories. People like to buy local. It makes them feel as though you're operating within their local community. Join a reciprocal link program. Exchanging links with other related, but non-competitive, sites could help with your search engine ranking. A website that has a lot of links pointing to it is considered a popular website. But make sure it is a quality reciprocal link program. I prefer to do my own links. It isn't hard but it takes time and some patience.

6. Search engine optimization - keywords

There have been books written on this subject, companies specialize in it and everyone wants it for their website. Here are the basics. Make sure your web pages each have a 'title' tag. Individual pages should have separate titles and not default titles like 'new_page_1.htm'. By far the most important aspect of SEO is keywords. These are the words or phrases that potential customers are likely to type into the search field of major search engines.

When looking for keywords, search engines will first check your pages' title, then the headline followed by the first 2 paragraphs of text. While it's important to place as many relevant keywords into your web pages' Meta tags, it's equally important to include main keywords and phrases in the content of your viewing page. Keyword density or frequency within the first 2 paragraphs is also significant to search engines in determining how relevant your site is.

7. Web page content. The new king of the road

Fresh, interesting, informative, keyword-rich content is king. Search engines just can't get enough of it. Why? Simple! Because the Internet is primarily an 'Information Highway'. If people use the Internet to search for information, it's logical to assume that search engines are designed to find it for them. A web page that is constantly providing its visitors with news, reviews and interesting articles is high on a search engines hit list.

A websites' level of popularity depends on the value of the relevant content it provides. So, it must be valuable, relevant and it must be grammatically sound. It also needs that infusion of keywords. Adding regular content to your web pages, is a sure fire way of getting your site noticed, and should be placed high on your list of Internet marketing strategies.

8. Internet marketing - your success depends on it

If you're selling anything online, your success will, to a large extent, depend on your level of knowledge and experience in marketing. Marketing is responsible for making or breaking a business, and that applies to both online and offline businesses. To be successful online you must learn to become an all-round successful Internet marketer. Here's one very effective tip...

Write an interesting article about your business or products. It must be informative and not contain blatant advertising. Submit your article to ezines and free article websites. Go to Google and type in 'article submissions'. Register your details, copy and paste your article, assuming you have pre-written it in MS Word, and put your website URL in the resource box provided.

With so many website owners desperate for content, they'll put your article, together with your details and URL, in their newsletters, ezines and on their websites for all their customers to see. Result? Instant free advertising and recognition.

9. Viral marketing - spreading the word

Another marketing strategy worthy of inclusion is viral marketing. This may take a bit of time but it's very effective and is well worth the effort. Here's an example. Write a short e-book, say 10 pages, about your products or services. Include as many facts and figures, features and benefits as you can in order to make the book 'valuable' to your prospective customers. But more importantly, include several links back to your website.

Turn your book into a Portable Document File (pdf). Get the free software to do this by typing 'free pdf' into Google. When you have created your book as a pdf file, submit to 'free ebook submissions' and 'ebook submission', again using Google to find the relevant websites. Also, allow your site visitors to download a free copy from your own website and encourage them to give it to others for free. The idea is to get your free book with your website links circulating around the Internet and bringing new customers to your site.

10. Paid advertising - make it count

Online advertising and marketing are both forms of online promotion. Whilst there are many aspects, which are free, the alternative is to pay for results. The most important thing to consider when choosing to pay is the return you can expect from your investment. If you invest 0, the very least you should expect is to cover that sum. Everything above that is profit. But which is the best way to go for online advertising?

Let's look at a few of the choices. Banner ads, ezine and newsletter ads, pop-up ads, classified ads, email lists and pay per click. Online advertising companies will create banner ads and pop-up ads for you and display them on certain participating websites. If a prospect clicks on the banner or pop-up they are redirected to your website. Ezine, newsletter, email lists and classifieds will generally consist of a written ad, with a text link, being placed into a high volume traffic website, email or subscriber list. With pay per click ads, you only pay for the amount of clicks your ad receives. To know which is the most effective, will require some online research and investigation.

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Select the Most Appropriate One From the Variety of Banner Templates

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In the current times, people are moving away from the traditional ways of designing online banners due to the easy availability of software products, which provide a variety of banner templates that can be personalized easily. The ready-made template provides you a strong base for creating the desirable banner design that can project the highlighted features of your website. Thus, you can become free from fulfilling the whims and fancies of the banner designing experts who charge an obnoxious amount of money for banner designing, and never keep the prescribed deadlines. If you are a self-motivated person, then it will be far better to take an initiative in designing an online poster, rather than looking at the eyes of others, and too after paying sufficiently well for their services.

Select the Most Appropriate One From the Variety of Banner Templates

When you start using software, you will come across a gallery of banner templates which will provide you with a variety of them. You have to be attentive enough to choose the right one for you that suits your business category. It will help you to make use of suitable symbols, shapes, and images, to add meaning to the message attached to your web banner. Although, there are no hard and fast rules for designing the website, still you must follow some ethics, which will help you to grab potential customers in a tricky manner.

If you want to earn the returns on advertisement, you can utilize the banner templates in the following ways:

• Create original design: Being an entrepreneur and banner designer, you should explore new ways to expose the best offers from your company. The text, image and graphic you are going to use on the online banner should be unique and convincing.
• Choose appropriate size: If, you don't want to follow standardized norms of size, you should carefully choose from the different sizes of banner templates.
• Use Animation and Graphics: It is always better to use animation and graphics on the web banners for your website.
• Flash banners are quite trendy to use: Flash banners are much in vogue, and they provide greater flexibility to the designers to add interactive elements on the web banner.

Banner designing is a crucial part of online marketing, and a little effort from your side will be helpful in achieving the marketing goals. All you need to do is to learn using the banner templates, which is the easy and cost-effective way of promoting your business.

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How to Produce Great Internet Marketing Videos

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To produce a great marketing video you need to be well organized. Start by writing a script, the better the script then the happier will be your viewers. For this article we will assume that we are producing a video to promote sales of a digital camera from Amazon. Go to the product features page at Amazon and write down all the features using the FAB technique as explained below.

How to Produce Great Internet Marketing Videos

F = Feature, A = Advantage and B = Benefit. Write down the advantages and benefits of each feature. For instance:

Feature = 'The Kodak Zi8 lets you take full 1080p videos where ever you go.

Advantage = 'Full 1080p is the highest resolution of HD video available.

Benefit = Your videos will capture every important detail, from your kids smile to that race you won at the parents sports day and funny moments you will cherish forever.

You will have 8-15 secs to grab the viewers attention but it should be enough time to make a statement about the product. Start of with something like this. 'In this video I am going to show you why the Kodak Zi8 is going to revolutionize the way you make videos, why it might be the only video camera you will ever need and saving you money at the same time.' This is a proven formula, start your video with 'In this video I am going to show you why'

You don't want your viewers to concentrate on the product but concentrate on what is being said in the video about its benefits. Next, The key outcome, what the viewer will get, 'The Kodak Zi8 is going to revolutionize the way you make videos'. Next, why the product will help the viewer. Why it might be 'the only video camera you'll ever need and saving you money at the same time,' making it simple to make video and save time and money learning to use another video.

Write the script, turn it into a visual presentation using Powerpoint or Keynote. You will never be short of PowerPoint resources on the internet, cheap and free. Just use Google to find suitable templates and start writing the FAB slides. A slide per feature, feature = quantity or type. Full HD 1080p is a quantity of resolution so spell out features in the slides. Advantages and benefits = Quality or condition. Qualities and conditions have emotional value. Hearing benefits causes emotion in people including your viewers.

After all the benefits have been added to the slide it is time to add graphics, pictures of the KodakXi8. If a feature is its compact size then show picture of the camera alongside a pro video camera. Then go through slides and add emotional images to emphasize the feature. An emotional image for example, could be a clipart figure weighed down with a dollar sign to emphasize the cost of a comparable product. But hey, the KodakXi8 is nothing like the cost of that one. There is a powerful relationship between what's said and what's seen, add emotional images that illustrate advantages and benefits. Clip art images are found on the internet for free and for purchase at sites like clipart.com or animationfactory.com.

Now give your slides energy, make things move. Every time something flies in or moves in a slide it resets the viewers attention. Set up transitions in PowerPoint. You can add animation to every element on a slide, the text, the clipart and the pics. Practice and practice again to perfect you skill to produce quality videos. Pretend you are telling a story to your best friend, having a natural conversation and not forcing a sales pitch.

Click through your slides and edit as necessary to amend mistakes or improve what is already there. Once you are happy with the result plugin the microphone and start reading the text in your slides. If you feel that you cannot do this then you might have to have a voice over produced, but let's assume that you have the voice and confidence to read through the slides. Use the Export function to make a movie file in Keynote. In PowerPoint you will need a screen recorder application such as Camtasia or Camstudio to record your slide show to a movie file. Camstudio is freely available and Camtasia, which has more functions, can be downloaded for a one month trial.

Following these steps will get you making great videos or at least you now have a great introduction to what is involved in making quality marketing videos without a video camera and with some basic software that can be improved and added to as you produce more videos. It is easier and cheaper than you might think.

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Free E-Books - Use Them to Market Your Products More Effectively

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EBooks are nothing more than virtual books published on a digital medium. Savvy users of the internet use free eBooks to great effect to spread information about any online business.

Free E-Books - Use Them to Market Your Products More Effectively

EBooks are relatively easy to create and publish. There is plenty of software available to help you with this. You could even create an attractive cover with any easily available paint program or eBook cover template. Computer users can access your book in any form such as PDF, HTML, or Word document. A very important aspect of eBooks is that you can add animation and graphics as well. An eBook can consist of any number of pages, but you should keep it just long enough to retain the reader's attention span.

Free eBooks can be used to attract potential customers to a company's website if the subject it is on is sufficiently attractive and informative. Books have greater credibility than paid advertising. They are perfectly suited to create a need for a product or service. Since your potential customer has already given you his attention by downloading your free eBook, you can go into considerable details regarding your subject.

Once you have created the need for any particular thing in the mind of your potential customer, you can direct him to your company's website where he can buy the product.

Needless to say, eBooks are far cheaper to produce and distribute than conventional books. They have a greater reach to your targeted market using specific software packages that target your likely users. The money you spend to create and market your free eBook should be considered a long term investment, although the software required to create the eBook can be available for free. You can create customer loyalty by distributing your book free of cost.

Apart from getting your message across to your audience, you will also be able to hear from them. If you give your customers a forum to post their feedback online, you can be in a position to better understand their requirements in the quickest possible time.

Like any marketing tool, free eBooks will only succeed if you produce and distribute them well. You could use an eBook distribution site for this. You could also give the eBook to people who subscribe to your website newsletter.

Remember to give updated contact information on your free eBook without which a lot of your effort would be wasted. Get set to handle the deluge of queries and orders that this will generate.

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Create a Virtual 3D World on Your Website

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VRML, which stands for virtual reality markup language, is a technology for animation and 3D modeling that lets you create 3D scenes for websites. A special VRML browser plug in lets you control the viewing of VRML components on web sites. Panoramas are another type of virtual reality component, similar in some ways to VRML in that the user needs a special plug in to view and control the viewing of the panoramic virtual reality component. However, unlike VRML panoramas are made up of a series of photographs stitched together to create one image that you can view entirely as you move your cursor across the image.

Create a Virtual 3D World on Your Website

Web designers add virtual reality (VR) components to web pages for several reasons, including to make web pages more interesting and interactive, and to display an item in a 3D view.

Some common formats for panoramas include Quick Time VR, VRML2, Black Diamond's Surround Video, and Infinite Pictures SmoothMove.

VRML offers uses for many types of websites, including entertainment, education, computer aided design, product marketing, virtual malls, and much more. Panoramas are useful for these same types of websites, as well as real estate and travel.

VR components offer many advantages to web site designers. They make web sites more interesting and interactive, provide more detail for objects or places than regular flat photos, there is no need for complex programming to add a VR component to your web site , and they generally have cross-platform and cross-browser compatibility. Some disadvantages include requirement of a plug in for viewing, (in many cases), long download time for some web VR components, depending on the file size and type, and the needed skills and creativity for quality output.

Many software programs, such as Caligari's TrueSpace, Micrografx Simply 3D, Silicon Graphics Internet 3D Space Builder, and Platinum Technology's VRCreator learning edition, automatically creat VRML files for you.

Some software options for panorama creation include Apple's Quick Time VR Authoring Studio, Enroute Imaging's QuickStitch 360, Video Brush Corporation's VideoBrush Panorama, Live Picture's Photo Vista, Infinite Picture's Smooth Move, Ulead's Cool 360, and Black Diamond's Surround Video.

Now, go forth and CREATE!

By M Adley

http://www.your3dsource.com

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Game Design Software For Aspiring Video Game Designers

3D ANIMATION SOFTWARE :

If you have a passion for video games and you already know you want a future job in the game design industry, right now is the best time to start developing your skills and getting some experience. If you're not yet in a position to take college level courses in programming or design, one of the best things you can do is start working with game design software at home. Here are three titles you can start with - all of them free.

Game Design Software For Aspiring Video Game Designers

1. Crystal Space - 3D Game Design Engine

This open source game engine is an excellent way to get your feet wet if you're interested in multi-platform game development. Since it allows you to develop games using the C++ programming language, it is an an excellent design software title to start with. Besides allowing you to gain first hand experience in 3D visualization, Crystal Space will also help you develop your keyframe and skeletal frame game animation design skills too.

Since there are versions to download for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X, anyone aspiring to get into the game design industry can gain a lot of experience by working with this on their home computer first. There is also a large support community online that can answer your questions and help you learn and develop your design skills with this title.

2. Cube - First Person Shooter Game Design Software

If you're not quite up to programming in C++ yet, but still want to get a feel for game design, you should certainly download and try working with Cube. This is a first person shooter (FPS) game and game engine that is open source. If you enjoy titles like Quake and Doom, this engine will allow you to create your own game with similar action and physics.

With this software, you can design your own FPS game world and learn to work with basic game design features such as lighting, textures, and other graphics. You'll also learn to program collision detection and other physics necessary to create realistic weapon functions. To top it off, the game you design can be programmed for single player and multiplayer modes. Again, this title is perfect for starting out in game design as it can be downloaded and run from a Windows PC, a Linux machine or a Mac.

3. DimensioneX - MMORPG Game Design Engine

With the popularity of massively multi-player online role playing games (MMORPGs) such as World of Warcraft, you'll probably want to get some experience with designing these types of games as well. If so, you should download and spend some time with DimensioneX. While most of the design software for MMORPGs is quite expensive, this title, like the ones above, is open source and free.

DimensioneX will allow you to develop multi-player games that run on a Java servlet and use a scripting code similar to BASIC. This means that not only is the programming language easy to master, but after you create the game, you can easily upload it to a webserver and others can play it with you online. Although you can't create massive in-depth worlds with it, it will at least allow you to learn and work with important MMORPG game design concepts including maps, player communications, sounds and more.

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Pokemon Illustrator - Is it the Rarest Pokemon Card Ever?

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Back in 1997 right after Pokemon was introduced in Japan, a little known drawing contest took place. This contest was held a total of 3 times during 1997 in Japan. Each time, two of the best drawings were selected and the prize was a rare Japanese Pokemon card. This card came to be known as "the Illustrator" or the "Pikachu Illustrator" as it is sometimes called.

Pokemon Illustrator - Is it the Rarest Pokemon Card Ever?

Is this card truly the rarest Pokemon card of all time?

The answer I believe is a definite "Yes". It is by far the rarest Japanese Pokemon card of all time and I would say that it is the rarest Pokemon card the world has ever seen. There was a total of only six of these cards ever produced. But to make it even more rare, most of the cards were given out to very young children. The only one I have ever seen was given out to a 6 year old boy. So, of the 6 cards that were given out 13 years ago, how many exist today? And in what condition? Nobody knows for sure, but there have only been 1 or 2 of these cards to surface in the 13 years that I have been following Pokemon. The one that is currently for sale is priced at a whopping .500.00 A small fortune for most of us, but the card has been steadily increasing in value ever since its creation in 1997. This particular one is in mint or very near mint condition which is very rare considering the card was mainly given to very small children.

The card is a beautiful holofoil that says "Illustrator" instead of "Trainer" on the top of the card. It shows Pikachu holding a paintbrush and has two stars at the bottom of the card indicating its rarity. In addition, it also has a paintbrush logo on the bottom of the card instead of a series mark.

Other people argue that some of the other rare Japanese Pokemon cards are just as rare. For example, the Pikachu trophy trainer no. 1 card, the Super Secret Battle Mewtwo 1st place gold trophy card, or the Tropical Mega Battle no. 1 trainer with Exeggutor on it come to mind. These are all very rare Japanese promo cards and each were also produced in extremely low quantity, but I would still have to say the Pikachu Illustrator would have to be the rarest Pokemon card of all time, simply because of the fact that the card seems to be almost impossible to find. The other cards surface once in a great while and are all valued at about 00-7000 per card, but the Illustrator is the king of them all in my book.

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What's the Difference Between 2D and 3D Anyway?

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Isn't it obvious? Well, apparently not quite, when you consider how many people are still struggling with this topic!

What's the Difference Between 2D and 3D Anyway?

The first concept you must grasp is that 3D means 3 dimensional and 2D means 2 dimensional. Now before you think I'm stating the obvious, let me go on to say that the 3D and 2D in animation refer to the dimension in which the animation was created. Ahhhh. The plot thickens eh?

For 2D animation, everything happens on a 2 dimensional platform. Pictures are flat, without depth and offer only one perspective. Objects and characters are usually drawn without the subtle soft shadows we see in real life and colours have few varying shades. In 3D animation, everything happens on a 3 dimensional platform. Pictures have depth and offer multiple perspectives just like in real life and have soft subtle shadows casted on the objects and characters within.

In 2D, characters look cartoonish and unrealisitc. In 3D, characters can look cartoonish but realistic at the same time.

Another way to think of this is to think in terms of a painting and a sculpture. 2D is a painting, and 3D is a sculpture. 3D introduces "depth perspective," so we not only see a rectangle (2D) but a CUBE (3D). You may also want to think of it like being the difference between a photograph of a glass of water (2D) and being able to reach out and actually pick up the glass of water (3D).

Typically, 2D involves "drawing," or movement on, say, a flat surface (sketch pad, etc.) or in the vertical and horizontal planes. 3D involves "modeling," i.e., creating objects in 3-dimensions using a computer software, residing in an expansive virtual environment, complete with lights, reflections, other objects, shadows, etc.

You could start training yourself by comparing a cartoon like Bugs Bunny, Aladdin, Lion King (2D) to "Toy Story 1,2 & 3, "Finding Nemo" and "Incredibles" (3D). If you have not watched any of these great cartoons, you should grab one right away or be branded a neantherdal forever!

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Learn Japanese Fast: 3 Must-Follow Tips for Learning the Japanese Language

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Japanese, with its unique alphabet and complex sentence structures, can be quite a challenge for Westerners to learn. Like all learning endeavors, though, you can make the process much easier and more efficient by doing a little planning before you dive in. In this article I am going to tell you three things you should do to make your Japanese language learning experience a pleasant, efficient and worthwhile one.

Learn Japanese Fast: 3 Must-Follow Tips for Learning the Japanese Language

Discover Your Learning Strengths

Contemporary research based on Howard Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences shows that there are 7 distinct types of learners: visual-spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, linguistic, and logical-mathematical. Before you jump into Japanese do yourself a huge favor and find out what kind of learner you are. To discover whether you're a linguistic or a logical-mathematical learner, just take one of the many free tests on the Internet. Go to Google and type in "Theory of Multiple Intelligences free test," and you'll find one.

Look at a few and use the one that has the most questions; you'll get the most accurate results that way. When doing this, keep in mind that you won't be just one type of learner. You will have much more strength in certain areas, though. Find your strengths and then design a Japanese language learning strategy that's best for you.

Get Friendly With the Katakana Alphabet

You may not know this, but the Japanese writing system has more than one alphabet. One of them is called Katakana. It is the simplest alphabet, and it is used to transcribe foreign words, to represent the names of plants, animals, and minerals, and to type out technical and scientific terms.

It is also commonly used to write the names of foods, which makes it very useful for you to know. In addition, it's a phonetic alphabet, so it's not too difficult to learn. If you study hard, you can master the sounds of the 48 characters of the system in an afternoon or two. So, before going out and trying to tackle Kanji, the much more difficult system of characters that make up the primary written form of the Japanese language, get familiar with Katakana. This will ease you into success, one step at a time.

Work With a Native Speaker From the Beginning

When learning a language that uses the same alphabet as your own, for example, if you're a native English speaker learning Spanish, you can learn a lot just by adjusting your own pronunciation. When learning Japanese, though, you will be making sounds that are totally and completely different than anything you are used to. For this reason, it is imperative that you work with a native Japanese speaker from day one.

Fortunately, doing this is as easy as ever. You have several options. One is to find a local Japanese speaker and work with him or her in person. This is a great option, but it is also the most expensive. The next option is to use language learning software or online instruction. These programs, in the early days, were not very good. Today, however, you can get high-quality, fully interactive language learning software programs recorded by native speakers for under a hundred dollars. This is much cheaper than hiring a personal Japanese tutor, and you can repeat lessons over and over until you're satisfied that you have learned them.

Finally, if you want a totally free option, you can do a language exchange over the Internet. All you do is go to a language learning forum and search for a native Japanese speaker who is willing to teach you Japanese in return for you teaching him or her your native language, whatever it may be.

It doesn't really matter which option you choose. Just make sure that you're working with a native Japanese speaker right from the beginning; it's much harder to fix bad Japanese pronunciation than it is to just learn it correctly in the first place.

Final Thoughts

Learning Japanese can be challenging for Westerners, but, with a bit of planning, you can have a great learning experience. To ensure success, find out what type of learner you are, learn the Katakana alphabet, and work with a native Japanese speaker from day one.

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Considering a 3D Animation Career? Some Things You Should Know

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What skills do you need to be a 3D animator? First of all, you must be able to draw. Additionally, you should be familiar with the process of creating a storyline and know a little about acting. Added skills that would help greatly would be sculpting experience and a knowledge of anatomy. Even though animators use computers to create animations, the ability to draw is one skill they absolutely must have. Due to the number of employment applications received by the big Hollywood animation studios, If you aren't fantastic at drawing, you can forget about ever getting hired by one. So where do all the animators who can draw good but not great work? Well, making films is not the only job animators can get. They also work in industrial design, architecture, interior design, on the Internet, producing media such as CD-ROMs, creating computer games, and many other fields.

Considering a 3D Animation Career? Some Things You Should Know

Additionally, an animator position is not the only job available in the animation field. Animators are supported by storyboard artists, graphic designers, layout artists, animator's assistants, background artists, in-betweeners, and many others.

Regardless of where you work, you're probably not going to start at the top rung of the ladder. Most people who aspire to eventually work as animators start their animation career as an in-betweener. This job can help you to learn the basics of professional animation and get paid for it. The in-betweener's job is to help the animator's assistants to fill in the movement between key drawings. These in-between drawings are called transition drawings.

On the other hand, people who are more interested in the technical aspects of animation might get their start as a storyboard artist's assistant. The storyboard is the outline of the film that the animators work from, and the storyboard artist creates it from the script. An assistant usually starts their career by doing clean up and revisions, with the aim to eventually prepare portions of the storyboard with instruction and assistance from the artist.

Most likely the biggest future advances in animation will occur in 3D animation, so if you want to be on the cutting edge, that's what you want to learn. New techniques are being developed all the time, while many old ones are continually being updated to keep pace with all the technological advancements that are occurring in the field. Nary a week passes without news of some improvement in either the hardware or software used for 3D animation. If you intend to work in the field, be prepared to continually re-educate yourself. The good news is that many employers will either provide the training or foot the bill.

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Public Speaking Opportunities, How Effective Speaking Increases Business & Expands Reputation

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Public Speaking holds the key to many opportunities professionally and personally. Public speaking skills may seem to come naturally for some people, but for most, these skills can be learned. The fear of public speaking may keep some from making the effort to develop speeches and opportunities to present views and information effectively. Why is it beneficial to overcome public speaking phobias, to be able to deliver quality presentations, seminars and speeches? First, every speech is an opportunity to present information, product offerings, and viewpoints to an audience. Second, Audience members are customers or potential customers. Thirdly, Public speaking is a great method for building a reputation and expanding reach. Lastly, Speaking engagements can be used as continuing promotional material with little additional effort or costs.

Public Speaking Opportunities, How Effective Speaking Increases Business & Expands Reputation

Every presentation should be focused on a key purpose. As a speaker, are you looking to present information, offer product information and samples or to shape viewpoints and persuade listeners to take a particular action or point of view? When taking an opportunity for speaking, it is important to consider your purpose, but also the purposes of those in attendance. If there is little or no match, it may not be worth the time, but there is an old adage, no exposure is bad exposure. This boils down to what is your time worth to you, and what is the long-term value of a public speaking engagement? If the speaker's purpose is informational, make sure that there is accompanying written copy for the audience members. Brochures, presentation slides, speaker notes, and business cards can all assist the speaker to ensure that the speech transfers sustained information to the audience. These items, when properly designed also increase exposure for the speaker and their business, by providing additional sources of contact information and business offerings. Do not think only on the large scale for public speaking/presentation opportunities, the same tools work well in board room presentations, one on one or small group sales presentations and on large, diverse venues and audiences. A well laid out presentation should be persuasive to the audience without being pushy or demanding of them.

The vast majority of participants at an event are looking for something. Some are just looking for information, but others are looking for guidance or for information which will allow them to meet their needs effectively, be that purchasing a product or service or learning how to move forward with a task on their own. Knowing what the audience is looking for can help a speaker to tailor his/her speech and supporting documents. The most productive speaking engagements are likely to be ones where the speaker's goals and those of the audience have synergy. In example, a sales seminar is best suited to an audience that is looking to invest in the broad type of product or service discussed in the seminar. Speaking to a PETA convention about investing in genetically altered animal food products would not be lucrative or likely good for your physical or mental well being either. On the other hand, the same presentation may be extremely lucrative if given to an Agribusiness Conference. This is not to say that appearing at opposition functions cannot serve a purpose too. Relationship building and information sharing, especially on new research promoting your side of an issue can be helpful in limiting dissent or opposition or even in turning the tide to create a friendlier environment for your business. Personal contacts and relationships carry much greater weight in peoples minds and hearts than a faceless, often nameless "other" as opposition groups are often labeled. This is why it is important to know your audience's goals, but also to focus on yours in developing a presentation.

Being asked to speak in front of an organization or event tacitly implies endorsement of the speaker as a person with insight and quality information, if not of the speaker's views or product offerings themselves. While this is not universally true, in the subconscious minds of many, a speaker being granted a podium by an organization means that the organization values the input of that individual. The truth of this lies in the fact that time is a valuable commodity at any conference or gathering, as well as in business or our personal lives. A speaker's information should be of great enough value to warrant the time given. Be sure to include information in the presentation which will justify your value in the mind of the audience. It is better to over saturate with information than to leave the audience feeling like their time was wasted. Do not take the reputation boost of a conference or organizational "endorsement" lightly; it can have great value in relationship building, brand building and business metrics. On the flip side, failing to deliver can cause harm in those areas which will be difficult to repair. Be well prepared and well rehearsed well ahead of the presentation to be sure that things go smoothly.

Speaking engagements can easily be converted in to promotional material with the use of simple recording and presentation software. This is one area which has become increasingly true in the age of new media. PowerPoint presentations are easily converted to use on websites and email marketing. They can also be readily converted to YouTube videos. With the growing impact of social networking sites on business, the use of i-commerce media such as these is even more useful. Pushing links to videos and presentations through MySpace, Facebook and Twitter, or promoting them on StumbleUpon can offer great low labor sources of business. These sites are also free sources, meaning there is not the high cost of advertising often associate with traditional media. Couple the presentations with videos of a speaker and audience participation, an infomercial can be a short edit away. Brochures, which can serve as informational aids in a presentation can also be used as sales copy for direct sales forces or mailings. A speaking engagement can also provide the opportunity to get information from potential customers and existing customers to build a better Customer Relations Database for marketing campaigns. Never fail to take advantage of opportunities to further your marketing efforts.

The opportunity to speak is one that must be actively sought out, not passively awaited. While well known speakers may be sought out and able to rely on unsolicited requests, most speakers cannot. Speak with trade show promoters, industry leaders, community organizations and Chambers of Commerce; let them know of your interest in speaking, your credentials and the areas which you are considered an expert speaker. Submit papers for conferences and proposals for presentations. A speaker will likely need to submit many times to many sources to get one prime speaking opportunity. Work on the presentations with smaller groups and hone speaking skills before looking for large venues. Good sources for these public speaking engagements are Kiwanis Clubs, Rotary Clubs, Lodges and other civic groups, as well as church and school groups. They are often less critical and open to many different types of presentations, although they are also likely to look for more social interactions than strictly business speech. Every opportunity to speak is also an opportunity to learn, grow and refine presentations. Seek honest feedback from those who attend and use that feedback to improve. If a formal survey is possible, use one, if not, garner information through social interactions after the presentation. The suggestions offered in this article on effective public speaking skills will allow a speaker to increase business reach and reputation, as well as personal reputation and value when coupled with refining speaking skills overall.

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Our Simulated Universe

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An Initial Advisory: I need to say this from the get-go, that there is no connection whatever, in this essay, postulating a simulation scenario that includes us, between a supernatural all-knowing, all-powerful creator God and what I see as a flawed flesh-and-blood creator person (or extraterrestrial) actually responsible. This 'Supreme Simulator' is no God (with a capital G), any more than the creator of a video game is a God (with a capital G). This has absolutely nothing to do with a supernaturally based religion; everything to do with the natural order and evolution of technological things. This is science (or technology); not superstition or mythology.

Our Simulated Universe

Unlike God, for those who believe in a loving God, the Supreme Simulator may not give a royal stuff about you and your fate any more than the creator of a video game cares whether the characters in that creation live happy ever after or not - probably not. I mean, if you simulated billions and billions of humans; generations and generations of them, and assuming you're not all knowing and all powerful, could you keep track of them all?

Now one is perfectly entitled to reject the truism of this simulation hypothesis. I'm not sure I really believe it myself. But of course what we believe or disbelieve is ultimately irrelevant - it's all a function of what is, or is not. While the simulation scenario is straight forward enough, being able to prove, or disprove it, is the real intellectual challenge. That's the issue I'm attempting to think through. And sadly, while I'd like to claim this as my own, the idea isn't original with me - far higher intellects than I have pondered this and there's a massive degree of literature in academic journals and web sites on the possibility.

Terrestrial Examples of Current or Near Future Simulations:

*The Practical: Simulation scenarios prove useful in dealing with everyday traffic management issues and of course the military use them for war-game purposes. Engineers use them to figure out things like will this aircraft fly if we build it this way? Can we build a bridge this way using these materials of such and such a length? It's far cheaper to simulate first - build afterward - secure in the knowledge that what you build will work. Available on the market are all manner of brands of automobile navigation simulations in virtual map form that can guide you from point A to point B without muss or fuss.

*Training: Airline pilots, air traffic controllers, astronauts, medical doctors can practice on simulators first to gain proficiency. Simulations could prove useful in driver training, before actually going out on the road.

*Scientific: Many scientists use simulations to examine 'what if'. Program these set of initial conditions; add these relationships; run for a period of time and see what happens.

*Education: One can explore the planets of the solar system; the realms of interstellar and intergalactic space; the depths of our terrestrial oceans, and other realms too where it isn't really practical or realistic to send someone in person. Data acquired by robotic probes can be translated into simulations that we all can enjoy.

*Entertainment: Video games! Quite apart from that, it's now possible to create entire feature films (note: not cartoon or animation) where all characters and all environments are 100% simulated. No filming on location; no actors need apply for the parts. There's also the tourist trade without all that messing about with airlines and hotels and taxis and suitcases and bad weather. There's all manner of virtual tourist guide packages where you can 'visit' cities and all their tourist attractions (traps).

*Role Playing: It's difficult to insert yourself into a video game, but eventually the technology might be available to do just that. The best futuristic example is the holodeck that features in the latter Star Trek incarnations.

There's one important facet of your life that's already virtual or simulated - at least in theory if not in actual practice. That is, your personal finances. I mean, we've heard of the so-called paperless office (which never really did come to pass - yet). Now we have the virtual wallet and simulated purse. I mean, your payslip or pension is deposited electronically into your account at your financial institution. You can arrange to have your standard bills paid automatically from that account; or you can go online and pay your bills yourself - electronically. You can shop online or at brick-and-mortar stores without the need to carry cash - just use your credit or debit card. You can pay your credit card bill online, or at your financial institution without any cash actually changing hands. You can even use your credit card now to get a soft drink at the vending machine!

At regular intervals your financial institution will send you a piece of paper, or you can see it online, telling you what your accounts are worth. In short, it's now possible to go through your entire financial day-to-day existence, within the entirety of your financial world, without actually having to see or handle actual cash. Money is all virtual money; financial transactions are all simulations of what used to be cash transactions.

So we see that there is nothing unusual with the simulation idea. As an aside, one should note that as little as 100 years ago, such imaginations as would postulate such activities as simulations would have either been writers of fiction or individuals consigned pretty much to the 'nice young men in their clean white coats; coming to take me away, ha-ha, he-he, to the funny farm' set! Given the exponential grown in computing crunch power, what might 100 years from now be like with respect to simulations of reality? Writers of fiction are still pretty safe in speculating; others might still be expecting visits from those 'nice young men in their clean white coats'! All too often however, futurology guesstimates ended up erring too much on the side of caution. What's sort-of expected 100 years hence often proves to be reality in a far shorter time frame. That holodeck might be closer than we think! Now, what kind of simulation might be possible of an extraterrestrial civilization a thousand, ten thousand, one hundred thousand years in technological advance of ours? A simulation of our Universe (or at least Planet Earth) to them might be as sophisticated as Pac-Man is to us.

The Supreme Simulator: Given the above examples of purpose behind simulations, what's the purpose behind a Supreme Simulator simulating us? Let's assume we're not somebody's toy - created for amusement, rather let's says our Supreme Simulator is a scientist and we're part of their 'what if' experiment. What might be simulated and in what detail?

*The Universe and all it contains to an equal degree of detail.

*The Milky Way Galaxy and all it contains to an equal degree of detail, and all that is beyond that to a far lesser extent of detail.

*Our Solar System and all it contains to an equal degree of detail, and all that is beyond that to a far lesser extent of detail.

*Planet Earth and all it contains to an equal degree of detail, and all that is beyond that to a far lesser extent of detail.

*Your immediate environment and all it contains to an equal degree of detail, and all that is beyond that to a far lesser extent of detail.

*Your mind and all it contains to an equal degree of detail, and all that is beyond that to a far lesser extent of detail except any such time as you interact with something outside of your mind's sphere.

The more detail the simulation has to include, the greater the complexity, the more crunch power is needed to run it. It stands to reason to minimise unnecessary detail, while having the flexibility to add in layers of detail as required. Some examples:

Prior to the invention of the telescope, all you needed to simulate Mars was a moving red dot in the sky. Post telescope, but pre space probes, a bit more detail in the image department was required. Once the Mariner flybys and orbiting probes and landing craft like Viking, Sojourner, Spirit, Opportunity and Phoenix, and a host of others to boot did their thing, a great more detail was required to be simulated, but of course only in those areas where the probes travelled and associated cameras pointed to.

You know there are billions of other simulated people on the simulated Planet Earth and millions of miles of simulated real estate (and tourist traps) and zillions of other simulated animated and unanimated life forms/objects inhabiting that real estate. However, you don't have anything but the vaguest comprehension of the nitty-gritty - the fine print you know not - the details are broad-brush in the extreme. Yet if the simulated you actually goes and visits some of those square miles of real estate and interacts with the natives - animal, mineral or vegetable - then the Supreme Simulator must be able to ramp up the details, and then the fine print leaps into your focus.

Maybe however the Supreme Simulator has for the simulation an unlimited capacity and everything in existence is at the maximum level of detail required, and just because you are ignorant of the landscape detail of Mars or haven't seen every brick in the Great Wall of China doesn't mean that that landscape, and those bricks, exist (in the absence of your presence) in any less detail than the landscape of your backyard and the bricks that make up your home.

In any event, assuming the Supreme Simulator isn't omnipotent and all-knowing and all-powerful then mistakes will be made. Software will need tweaking to minimise if not eliminate inconsistencies, paradoxes, contradictions, and all those nasty square pegs in round holes.

OOPS: Tweaking, Miracles, Upgrades and Patches: So say you feel like playing God and creating a universe, not a real one of course but a simulated one, on your supercomputer (which presumably has greater capacity than your wetware brain which could also create one). So, you (the Supreme Simulator) start writing the initial 'in the beginning' set(s) of software with a view to creating a Big Bang and dictating the parameters that will control the subsequent evolution of your cosmos. Of course, not being a real God, it's hard to think of everything and initially Part 'A' may not mesh totally well with Part 'B', and by the time you get to Part 'Z', everything's an absolute mess. So, you start rewriting and revising and patching things up by tweaking the software here and there so that you end up, down the track, with a cosmos that's a unified and consistent whole.

Oops #1 - Part 'A' created matter; Part 'B' you dictated and created an equal amount of antimatter, making Parts 'C' through 'Z' pretty irrelevant because your cosmos is now pretty boring - just a universe of pure energy! So, tweak #1 is to create Part 'B' but under the surface set the value to an extremely low number. You now have a matter dominated universe.

Oops #2 - In Part 'C' you create gravity along with your matter so as to keep your universe orderly and behaving in a nice clockwork way. Oops, your universe now quickly contracts and undergoes a Big Crunch - end of evolution; end of simulation. Tweak #2: create some antigravity in the form of Dark Energy to prevent that Big Crunch while allowing gravity to maintain the desired clockwork predictability.

Oops #3 - Having taken care of the macro (you've evolved your matter via gravity into planets and stars and galaxies and associated debris) in Part 'D', you now polish off the software, all the bits and pieces needed to control the micro - Part 'E'. Oops, you find that turns out not to be compatible with your macro software. Well, that apparently has no actual bearing on the other parts of your cosmic creation and since you're ultra busy dealing with 1001 other problems and issues, you don't bother to tweak this. You ignore this - no one will be any the wiser! (Oops, you didn't plan on the eventual evolution of cosmologists and quantum physicists!!)

OOPS: Why Are Miracles A Tweak? A miracle is something unexplained and unexplainable. It's a direct violation of the known laws of science. To my mind, a miracle is something that corrects a mistake; a mistake that never should have happened in the first place if the Supreme Simulator had been on the ball. For example, say you have to have a limb amputated, only at a later date it grows back! That's a miracle that corrects what presumably the Supreme Simulator hadn't counted on or programmed or desired. So, count up the number of alleged miraculous events that have been recorded over the eras of human history - that's a lot of alleged tweaks!

Why Don't I Know This? If you and everything around you (out to the farthest boundaries of the Universe) are just a simulation (created either inside the wetware mind or as software in a machine - the Supreme Simulator's supercomputer) you wouldn't know. You'd be programmed not to know or otherwise plain ignorant in the same way that the character in your dream in unaware it's a mental creation - an artefact of your mind. Ditto the characters in a video game - they don't know they are an artificial creation; an artificial life form. Since you are a simulated entity, you are not in control since you are pre-programmed and have to just go with the predetermined flow - the Supreme Simulator's puppet. You can no more control your activity than a calculator can help but calculate that the cube root of 27 is 3. Ditto the entity in your dreams does what your mind commands it to do, even if you aren't aware at the time that your mind is a puppeteer. Your dream character(s) has/have no free will in other words.

Never-the-less there may be ways to come to terms with the correctness or otherwise of the basic scenario that you are simulated and a Supreme Simulator is in control. The hint comes from the above - the need for The Boss to tweak their simulation creation to eliminate discrepancies or paradoxes, which is the same as saying there's evidence that the Supreme Simulator has failed to tweak. The fact that tweaks are necessary in our natural environment is suggestive that we are indeed in a simulation; otherwise parts of the Universe (assuming it's really real) make no real sense. Either Mother Nature screwed up, or the Supreme Simulator did.

Example: Crop circles exist. No explanation for their existence makes total sense. They are obviously made by intelligence, but Mother Nature isn't the guilty party in this case (although Mother Nature is responsible for some geometrical shapes like the spirals in some sea shells, flowers, snowflakes, etc.). No known natural force can account for crop circles. Human intelligence is the most likely explanation, but problems abound like the making of complex patterns in the dark of the night and why haven't those responsible been caught and dealt with? I could list other problems like why England and not Australia? Surely Australia has its share of pranksters. Is an extraterrestrial intelligence responsible perhaps? But what's their possible motive? I'm damned if anything rational comes to the fore. So, I think a tweak is in order here for this puzzlement has gone on far too long

As a general rule of thumb, just about anything science says is near impossible, yet for which there's some degree of credible eyewitness testimony to the contrary, might be a candidate as a quirk courteous of our Supreme Simulator! Collectively, these topics fall under a general umbrella called 'anomalies' and whole books can be read that are full of case histories. For example, your attention is directed to the many volumes compiled by William R. Corliss of anomalies culled from the scientific literature in his Sourcebook Project series. Then there are those wonderful collections of anomaly tomes penned by Charles Fort.

So why are these anomalies allowed to continue? Why hasn't the Supreme Simulator tweaked these? My best guess is that probably its because having set the simulation program in motion, and since none of the quirks are serious enough to cause the program simulation to crash, it's easier just to allow everything to run its course and not 'end program' for the sake of relatively major, but not Universe-threatening, repairs. Minor fixes, like those 'miracle' tweaks can be fixed on the run without interrupting the simulation, just like some upgrades to your computer software can take place while you work, while others don't take effect unless you shut down and boot up again. If you can soldier on and not shut down your operation and live without the upgrade(s), that's okay.

So does that mean our Supreme Simulator, The Boss, is at least 13.7 billion years old since the program running our (presumably) simulated Universe is 13.7 billion years old because it's been 13.7 billion years since the Big Bang? Not really, since there doesn't have to be any relationship between time as experienced by the Supreme Simulator and our perception of time, just like you can watch a two hour movie, but as far as the characters in the movie are concerned, perhaps two days, two weeks, two months, two years or two decades have elapsed. So, perhaps one second passing to The Boss is the equivalent of a decade going by the boards to us.

And just like watching a movie, you can speed the film up, or slow it down - even freeze frame it if you're so inclined. Now if our Supreme Simulator decided to speed up, slow down, even freeze frame (stop) the action, we wouldn't notice because all of our surroundings would be speeded up, or slowed down, or stopped by the exact same amount (which has some obvious parallels with general relativity).

What's the Best Piece of Evidence? If the Universe and all it contains; its physics (relationships, principles, laws, etc.), were created by either Mother Nature (i.e. - naturally) or via an all-knowing, all-powerful, creator God (i.e. - supernaturally), then presumably everything physics would mesh/interlock and be comprehensible, understandable, with no paradoxes, contradictions, anomalies, etc. Translated, one Universe, one set of hardware; contains just one set of unified physics, one set of software. Now your computer hardware runs on not one, but many sets of software - various functions; various sets of software. So, is the Universe like the way the Universe should be, or is it more akin to your computer programs? Unfortunately, the Universe is like your computer. The Universe's physics contains two programs; two sets of software. They don't mesh/interlock; they can not be unified; they are not compatible. Its relativity (macro) software; its quantum mechanics (micro) software and never the twain shall meet. The two are like your basic square peg in a round hole. That's a flawed creation - it's an 'Oops #3' (see above) - the work of a flawed creator, like of the flesh-and-blood kind. The sort that churns out video game programs - like a Supreme Simulator.

Apart from the above observed anomalies, our simulated Universe theory is also potentially testable. While I can think of no way to prove I'm not a simulated being, one can find evidence that we do live in a simulated universe, and by implication that we too are simulated beings. No computer software is perfect. Computer software - from our experience - is always being upgraded / updated. If the same applies elsewhere, we could perhaps notice it if we're a product of that software. So, if there are any software upgrades, they might be detectable as anomalous phenomena in some context or another. Like say one of the physical constants were tweaked and altered ever so slightly (and there is some evidence for that - the fine structure constant for example has apparently changed over astronomical time periods). If physical constants aren't - constant that is - but variable, then we got troubles with a capital T.

One of the, no, in fact THE most fundamental bedrock of all cosmology is that the physics of the universe are the same everywhere. If that's not the case, and apparently it's not seeing as how there's evidence that the fine structure constant doesn't have the same value in all parts of the cosmos, then cosmologists are forced to go back to square one. Nothing in terms of what the universe is and what governs it can now be taken anymore as gospel.

Can you really imagine either a supernatural God or a natural Mother Nature creating a cosmos where the physics therein aren't uniform? If your answer is 'no', then you are nearly forced into accepting a third alternative - the universe as we know it is a simulation by a hardly all powerful flesh and blood (supreme simulator). Since the value of the fine structure constant is critical in terms of the Universe being bio-friendly, if it's not constant, then parts of the Universe are bio-unfriendly. So our Supreme Simulator is apparently happy to create a software detailed pocket of bio-friendly universe within a far larger software un-friendly cosmos. That makes sense to create a small pocket of the simulation to be bio-friendly and just have the rest of the bio-unfriendly Universe simulated by way less sophisticated software as a sort of background wallpaper to the bio-friendly part.

The Multitudes of You: If we exist via a simulation, there of course could exist in turn more than one copy of that simulation; lots, and lots, and lots of copies. If so, there's more than one copy of you. It's a kind of parallel universe scenario. The saving grace is that you don't ever get to meet yourself!

What Are the Odds I'm A Simulated Entity? I think it's fair to say that based on the level of sophistication of my simulation scenario, you and I aren't part of a dream, or someone else's overactive imagination, nor a terrestrial computer software package. So, no terrestrial Supreme Simulator has created us. The possible exception to that observation is the assumption that the simulation that creates us is the product of the terrestrial 20th or 21st Century. Of course it's possible that our simulator is in the terrestrial 30th or 31st Century. The simulation's time period doesn't have to reflect the same time period as that of the simulator. That aside however, and assuming a non-terrestrial origin, that leaves the rest of the Universe and an extraterrestrial(s) Supreme Simulator(s).

The apparent bottom line, using Planet Earth's supposed reality as a guide, is that any one real world and real inhabitants can create, wetware and software combined, more, vastly more, nearly infinitely more, simulated worlds and inhabitants with varying degrees of complexity and duration. How many dreams (or active mentally imagined scenarios) have humanity collectively racked up? How many video games have been, are now, and will be on the market? Certainly it's way more than just one. So, one real world and just one real entity can ultimately create hundreds (maybe thousands plus) of simulated worlds and hundreds (maybe thousands plus) of simulated entities. If that logic applies to Planet Earth's supposed reality and her actual simulation (wetware and software) packages, then what of those extraterrestrial abodes and advanced civilizations? If there are hundreds, thousands, maybe millions of extraterrestrial technological advanced civilizations out there and each create hundreds, thousands, maybe millions of simulated worlds and beings, well, what odds we're one of the rare real worlds relative to the massive number of simulated ones?

Objection! We exist in a 3-D environment. Surely simulations, even dreams, are 2-D. Therefore, we're not in a simulation! Unfortunately for that argument, 2-D technology is now old hat. Well, there's now a plethora of 3-D films; 3-D TV is the latest thing. Can the 3-D Internet be far behind? Surely 3-D video games, etc. will soon be available too. Of course the Star Trek holodeck was 3-D, but that's way future technology, but who knows how quickly those advances in future technology will come. I'm sure holodeck technology, or some reasonable variation of it, will be part and parcel of our future entertainment as well as being useful in training and other role playing scenarios.

Apart from that, I'm sure the characters in computer or video games; the entities in your dreams, would, if they could, tell you that they do indeed navigate through a 3-D environment - as viewed through their senses. But wait a minute, that's something that equally applies to us. You navigate in a 3-D world, yet the actual images, or your perception of 3-D reality of that apparent 3-D environment, lies totally inside your mind and in the biochemistry of your brain. Inside your brain, that projection of reality is actually 2-D; interpretation by you however is 3-D, in much the same way perhaps as that hologram image on your credit card is 2-D, but appears 3-D. So, does that really make you any different from the video game or dream counterparts? They say they exist in 3-D; you say they are 2-D. You say you exist in 3-D, but...?

What If I Knew This? What if I knew that I and everything around me was but a simulation and I had no free will? Well, there's not a hell of a lot I or you can do about it! At best, all we can wish for is that the Supreme Simulator's wetware or software that's responsible doesn't contain any nasty surprises, or that the dreaming Supreme Simulator doesn't have an alarm clock set to go off or the temptation to press the delete button.

Free Will: If you wrote (programmed) yourself into a video game; even if you star in your own dream as a whole separate character, you're dancing to the beat of your drummer software or your drumming mind. The 'You' in your own creation, in your own dream, has no free will! If you're dancing to somebody else's tune either through their wetware dreams or software programming, you don't have any free will. Sorry 'bout that!

Ultimate Origins: Even if the simulation of our Universe / world / us is an accurate scenario, that doesn't explain the origin of the simulator(s) or of their world and universe - which may, or may not, mirror this (our) simulated one. Ultimate origins get even harder if the Supreme Simulator(s) are in turn simulations from an even more remote reality. One could well argue that if we're a simulation within a simulation within a simulation, etc., and we in turn are simulating, then the ultimate first cause is the one with the, presumably, free will - the first Supreme (flesh and blood) Simulator starts things off and all else that follows is just programming originating from him / her / it. Knowledge of such ultimate origins might be forever beyond our reach.

Wetware Versus Software: For all their sophistication - to date anyway - no one has any real difficulty in recognising virtual reality software in the form of a training exercise, a video game, or even a cinema feature 'filmed' without real actors and real background. However, the evolution in realism in such media is improving by leaps and bounds. Still, the computer software behind such simulated generations isn't yet in the same ballpark, or even the same league compared to wetware. Your dreams, nightmares, hallucinations, imaginings, etc. are very realistic indeed.

What If We Are Not Simulated? Well then its business as usual, though it still leaves scientists with a lot of hard work to do to explain the normal everyday life, the Universe and everything, with all its myriad of weird stuffs!

The Return of the Gods: Once upon a time there were many gods (Thor, Odin, Zeus, Apollo, Ares, etc.) and polytheism ruled the roost and the affairs of mortals. Unfortunately they were overthrown and monotheism became flavour of the month. That's a pity as the old gods had way more appeal - they were flawed and thus way more interesting because they were way more 'human'. Well, the gods have returned in their new form of Supreme Simulators; the writers of software and creators of video games, their associated characters and environments.

You too could be a Supreme Simulator and create your own video game. Why not? Others have done it. Not into writing software and creating brave new worlds and new life forms? Well, despite that you too can be (and have been) a Supreme Simulator - sleep, perchance to dream, and for a brief while at least create your own virtual realities.

I rest my case!

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