At that time I tried to tell everyone I knew that “All AT&T former employees between lets say 1987 and 2007 have cause for a class action suit against MCI/Worldcom for back wages, bonuses, and raises. The number one reason they no longer had jobs was due to AT&T cutting costs (employees) to attempt to match the ROI being shown to Wall street by MCI/Worldcom. This ROI was impossible to achieve because it was Fraudulent. Bernie Ebbers went to jail for Fraud, case closed. Qwest followed the M/W model and also over-reported Revenues following practices Joe Naccchio tried to use at AT&T when he was head of Business Services there. Guess what AT&T wouldn’t swallow his “numbers” and let him go, he too spent jail time for Fraud. These Frauds cost 40-100,000 AT&T employees their jobs over the ‘87-07 period.

History Over! Let’s look at today’s situation, the US economy is in the worst shape its been in since 1929. The only thing that prevents a complete market crash, is computer controlled trading. The Robber Barons of the 90s and 00s protect themselves by shutting the market off if it appears too close to crashing. Meanwhile citizen investors continue to finance through their loss, the pillage and rape of American Capitalism. Trading companies taking bigger and bigger profits/earnings no matter what the crisis. Government stepped in and Bailed out some Financial Institutions, and Auto Makers, using taxpayer dollars to keep the “Big E” economy afloat.

Now both Congress (Republicans and Democrats) and President Obama agree that what will turn our economy around are jobs. Jobs haven’t even been mentioned in most news stories about AT&T and T-Mobile merging. History shows that an acquisition/merger like this as many as 40-50,000 more telecom jobs will be lost. Logic shows that the majority of those will be AT&T employees, they are generally the older, higher paid over the merged company. But will the Obama and the FCC allow sacrificing these jobs at this time? Couldn’t the point be made that it is in the best National Interest not to allow yet another blow to the economy.

I’ll try to stop here before this becomes a true “Rant”

My Comments and the Apology are near the bottom here.
___________________________

by Shéa Bennett

The Long Con – A List Of Known Internet Marketer System Scams On Twitter

As Twitter matures and grows in size and stature, it is exponentially rewarded with the benefits of the larger network: a richer, more diverse pool of users, which equates to a broader database of news and topic discourse. Conversely, it will attract the downside, too, which includes spam, trolls, a decreasing signal-to-noise ratio, and that consumer favourite of the online world, the internet marketer. More…
…

The List

You’ve read this far and maybe you’ve got some idea of what I’m talking about, so let’s talk specifics. Here is a list of known internet marketing scams on Twitter.

—-TweeterGetter
—-My Tweet Followers
—-Twitter Power System
—-Twitternet Marketing
—-Twitter Traffic Machine

Why These Systems Won’t Work For You

Here’s a scoop of reality: Nobody – nobody – would choose to sell any system that makes gazillions of dollars unless that same system has stopped working, has never worked, or only works for them because they’re the ones selling it. More…
…

All these ‘Twitter power systems’ are variations of the same long con, and work around similar principles (certainly in a sense of ethics) to pyramid and Ponzi schemes. Sure, most of them promise 60-day full money back guarantees, but that’s a known con/sales tactic in and of itself.

How I am so confident that this stuff doesn’t work for anybody but those at the very top of the tree? And how do I know that they all operate around the same principles? It’s very self-explanatory, to be honest – while it’s true that all of the ‘internet marketers’ in the list above have tens of thousands of followers, not one of them has a strongly positive follow-to-follower ratio. Meaning, they all have about the same, and often less, people following them than they are following themselves. More…
…

Conclusion

The con is as old as man. And it’s not just this kind of internet marketing that’s an issue on Twitter. It pains me when I see A-list bloggers hooking up with ‘affiliate programs’ that promise hundreds of thousands of dollars, all of which can be easily achieved via a laptop on a beach. And some of these sell at ridiculous prices – thousands of dollars. They are all variations of the same kind of scam – that you can have something for nothing.

Well, all except the money you put down to buy the system, of course. And that’s the bottom line. More…
___________________________

Well I’ve been very certain of all of this for a long time, I’m so happy to see it spelled out so elegantly. The only thing that really and truly works about Twitter and Social Media is RELATIONSHIPS! Building trust and friendship go hand in hand, you can’t do that with xx,xxx or more followers. You will have enough trouble keeping up with a few thousand and will probably want to use TweetDeck and group into Groups of Real Interesting Friends, Close Wise People to Follow, and Closest People. Writing that just reminds me, some of my Family have joined Twitter and I need to add them to that last group. I simply forgot to do that, especially since they haven’t quite caught on to Tweeting yet. These are RELATIONSHIPS! that are Lifetime. Yes I want to know What They are Doing!
___________________________
Now for the Apology Part
I haven’t been able to create a TweetDeck Grouping For You, the Members of Twitter for Internet Marketers Group. Mostly because Ning has set their system to focus on keeping everything internal. Its in their best interest to!

I want to know what each and everyone of you has to say, not just here on the Group, but in your Tweets every day. Crazy isn’t it?

So I’ve got a plan:
Tweet Me with these words “Mike1mb knows I like Yoga Wear” I have a filter set up for those words and If I’m not Following you I will. But everyone will be added to my TweetDeck Sta.rtUp.Biz grouping. These are very distinct words and make it easy to create the filter, perhaps you have a group you’d like to try something similar to, on.

I love Twitter and I love you Guys! Lets do what we can to Evangelize Twitter, and if along the way you can help this group grow, Id really appreciate it. Think of it this way, Sta.rtUp.Biz has 40K members and only One Thousand Forty Nine of us have made this Group part of their lives. Certainly Twitter is of value to many more than that, help them so they can help you.
___________________________

Mike Cunningham
Watch for My New Internet Presence for 2009.

See my page for it now!

2009 The Biggest and Best Ever!

http://twitter.com/mike1mb
Also follow me, I’ll follow you back.
___________________________

——————–

So how do you maximize the profit impact of your New Media Marketing Hub?

I’ve kept it real simple here and broken things down into 5 steps. Some require you to take action, other things happen auto-magically. And I’ve provided some images to help you envision how this would work for you.

Steps 1 and 2

In Step 1 you start at your hub with the creation of content that’s valuable to your Tribe. You choose a media format, post it and you’re off!

In Step 2, like the rays of the sun shining out across the sky; you begin to radiate additional sources of exposure for your new content. Some of these destinations you may have to actually take action yourself. (BLOGi360 members are lucky since most all of Step 2 is automated within the system as soon as they hit the “Save” button.)

Step 3

In Step 3 you (or one of your team) must go out and actively interact in the New Media channels available online. There is no cheating here. Step 3 requires personal interaction.

More…

$1,000,000,000,000

All this talk about “stimulus packages” and “bailouts”…

A billion dollars…

A hundred billion dollars…


Eight hundred billion dollars…

One TRILLION dollars…

What does that look like? I mean, these various numbers are tossed around like so many doggie treats.

Stay with me … to get a sense of what a trillion dollars looks like.

Take it slow….

We’ll start with a $100 dollar bill. Currently the largest U.S. denomination in general circulation. Most everyone has seen them; slightly fewer have owned them. Guaranteed to make friends wherever they go.

A packet of one hundred $100 bills is less than 1/2″ thick and contains $10,000. Fits in your pocket easily and is more than enough for a week or two of shamefully decadent fun.

Believe it or not, this next little pile is $1 million dollars (100 packets of $10,000). You could stuff that into a grocery bag and walk around with it.

While a measly $1 million looked a little unimpressive, $100 million is a little more respectable. It fits neatly on a standard pallet…

And $1 BILLION dollars… now we’re really getting somewhere… $1,000,000,000 (one billion dollars)

Next we’ll look at ONE TRILLION dollars. This is that number we’ve been hearing about so much. What is a trillion dollars? Well, it’s a million million. It’s a thousand billion. It’s a one followed by 12 zeros. You ready for this? It’s pretty surprising. Go ahead… Scroll down…

Ladies and gentlemen… I give you $1 trillion dollars…

(And notice those pallets are double stacked and how small the man looks.) So the next time you hear someone toss around the phrase “trillion dollars”… that’s what they’re talking about. Make sure you pass this on so everyone can see how much our government is really spending!!

So how are you going to get that 1st shopping bagful? Check out our Internet Marketing Software

You might ask: Where did I find this?

Ken Laitinen

http://www.reality-networkers.com/index.php?refid=697854

TweetDeck is the most useful application for managing Twitter that I’ve found. While many call it “intuitive,” some of my clients are intimidated by it. Perhaps they don’t realize it has tooltip-type hints when you mouse over the various buttons, or maybe the tips don’t explain enough. For those of you who want more than tooltips, here is a basic introduction to TweetDeck.

Organize your screen with these buttons

The following nine buttons function as toggles. That is, click once to open, and click again to close. They are found at the upper left of your screen. (Where appropriate, I’ve linked to some tutorials on another site that explain certain functions in more detail.)

More…

1. Click here to type a message (status update). When you click this button, several other buttons become available which I will collectively refer to as the tweetbox. They are explained below.
2. This opens or closes a column that shows all updates from everyone you follow. Usually it’s open.
3. Click this button to start a new group.
4. Click here to set up a search column.
5. Click here to start a column that monitors all replies to you. (That is, all messages that have @yourtwittername in them.)
6. If you want to have a column of all your direct messages, click here.
7. This button sets up a column with all your favorited tweets.
8. Twitscoop enables you to see what the hot twitter topics are.
9. 12seconds is “the best place online for video status updates.” When you click this button it will ask you for your login.

More…

Other Twitter tutorials

The advantage of a still tutorial such as this one is that you can refer to it as you’re using TweetDeck. But a video tutorial can help give you the big picture. I chose these particular tutorials because they illustrated features of TweetDeck that I haven’t covered in this tutorial. You will find a lot more videos on YouTube about TweetDeck, but most are of poor quality.

* How to Create a Group and Use the Search Function
* Rearranging Columns, Search Function, Change Settings (including colors)
* New features in the latest version 0.21b
More…

Look for the links to Ian Dodsworth Interview, the originator of Tweetdeck.
I love Tweetdeck and Find Grouping makes Twitter so much more managable.

Mike
http://www.twitter.com/mike1mb

by Richard on Feb.22, 2009,

Welcome to All your TweetDeck Questions Answered, the blog post that has grown from a few words of advice into the most comprehensive list available of frequently-asked questions (FAQs) about TweetDeck.

I hope that you find these FAQs helpful. If you did, do let me know either by leaving a comment or reaching out to me on Twitter (@richardbarley).

And if you know of anyone else who is new to TweetDeck and looking for some tips, why not help them out by directing them to this site? They’ll think you’re a great friend and I’ll love you forever (in an author/reader kind of way, nothing funny…)

If you leave this post thinking “darn, he never did answer my question”, then I want to know about it. If there’s a question about TweetDeck that you want answered, let me know and I’ll see if I can add it into the list. If I feature a question you suggested (or an answer you provided), I’ll give you my thanks and a link to your site, so don’t be shy!

The TweetDeck FAQs

• • 1. TweetDeck takes up too much space. Can I resize the columns?
  • 2. That notification sound is rather annoying. Can I turn it off?
  • 3. I liked getting the TwitterCounter statistics in my stream. How do I get it back?
  • 4. Some tweets go over 140 characters but these do not get fully displayed in TweetDeck. Can I quickly see the tweet on the web site?
  • 5. How do I see which tweet a tweet is in reply to?
  • 6. I get fed up with seeing the notification for new tweets in my All Friends column. Can I turn that off?
  • 7. What is the API? And why is my “Rate limit exceeded”?
  • 8. How can I mark a tweet as Favourite? And how do I remove it from my favourites?
  • 9. I know I can use TweetDeck to keep up with my friends tweets, but can I stay up-to-date with what is being discussed on Twitter generally?
  • 10. How do I see my list of followers in TweetDeck? How about the list of people who I follow?
  • 11. How do I search for people in TweetDeck like I can on the Twitter website?
  • 12. Why are links that I click in TweetDeck not opening in my default browser?
  • 13. Why don’t all my friends show up in the list when I’m creating a group?
  • 14. How do I use the TwitterKeys characters in TweetDeck?
  • 15. I tweet from more than one Twitter account. Can I easily handle both accounts in TweetDeck?
  • 16. My TweetDeck columns are full of tweets. How can I filter what I see?
  • 17. What’s all the recent fuss about 12seconds? What does that “12″ button do?
  • 18. Why does TweetDeck take up so much memory?
  • 19. Is there an easy way to upload photos from TweetDeck? Is that TwitPic?
  • 20. I use TweetDeck on two different computers. Can I sync my settings on both machines?
  • 21. I sometimes struggle to fit my message into just 140 characters. Is there an easy way to compress my tweet?
  • 22. How does Search work in TweetDeck?  Why am I still receiving notifications for a search I performed ages ago? *New*
  • 23. How do I use groups to organise my Tweets? *New*
  • 24. What is ReTweeting and how do I do it inTweetDeck? *New*

  More…
  

Twitter Gaming & How It’s Costing Everyone

Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Warning: This is a bit of a rant.

I am getting sick and tired of the gaming for numbers I am seeing on Twitter. Before it was people that would follow as many as Twitter limits allow…

Twitter allows you to follow up to 2000 people. At that point, you can only follow 10% more than are following you.

… that was one thing. It didn’t put a lot of “stress” on the system and wasn’t a huge manipulation tactic.

The more recent trend is one that I personally find disturbing – and I’m not the only one. I’ll explain what the trend is and then share why I think it is costing everyone.

Some people have figured out an “easy” way to game the system. Basically it is to bulk unfollow existing followers and then bulk follow new ones. Presumably the people doing this believe that a couple of things will happen: a. new people they follow will be “impressed” and a good percentage will follow back and b. that the people they unfollow won’t notice they have been unfollowed.

Why is this a bad thing? Let me count the ways…
More…

There is so much of this going on with Twitter, it’s getting really annoying. I view some of these the same as those Litterers, who stick something under your windshield wiper at the mall. They have no care that the parking lot will become trashy with discarded flyers. At best you end up stuck with something that you have to take home and add to your garbage.

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How to Become a Super Affiliate

Solid advice about Affiliate Networks or Affiliate Programs.

Which Affiliate Networks Should I Choose

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If you want to learn to draw animals, you should understand that this is a complicated  art.  It helps to remember that your subject are a living being. In fact, the difficulty of this form of art is comparable to how hard the human figure is to draw.  You not only have to depict the shape of the animal, but you need to capture its essence as  well.  The problem here is unlike drawing people, you cannot tell an animal to sit still until you finish your drawing. So you need to employ more imagination.

Other things that you should know in drawing animals.  Because They Are Unique, Be Creative!  It’s important for you to become extra creative when drawing an animal,  because they are not all a like.  Each one of them is unique.  You have to approach each in a different viewpoint, this difference  is important in all aspects.

For example, the way you approach them physically can be different. You can have a one-on-one play session with them, as with the family pet.  Avoid being noticed and watch them from afar or have a personal close-up encounter still in their area.  The various ways you encounter animals can have a very obvious effect on the outcome of your drawing.

There are different ways that you can draw an animal.  They can be drawn from different viewpoints, you can choose to show them as cartoons.  In fact they can even be drawn as a mere line or swirl, or you can opt for a much realistic portrait, depends on you.

Observe Then Draw!  It is imperative that you first observe your subject before you can start drawing it.   It is alway best to see them in their natural environment.   If you can’t find a place to have a live encounter then you can always opt for videos, and there are always  photos or books.  You will find that there are lots of ways that one kind of animal can be drawn.   Although it is possible to master a lot of styles, it is better that you concentrate on one style and make it yours.

To find your style, gather a variety of materials.   By seeing animals in their different forms, you are now being exposed to their basic shapes.  If you want to know precisely the  shapes of your chosen animal, the best way is to photograph or photocopying its picture.  Once you have a picture, start drawing out basic shape you see.  Study how the outer lines of its body  manage to bring all these shapes together and form the subject.

The best way to start is with the basics.   Start drawing the basic shapes, you can then build on them by the use of layers.   Then start adding details by shading, using your observed important animal muscles that have become your subjects trademark.   Keep on practicing,  you’ll be able to perfect your drawing in very little time and enjoy the process.