4 Computer Money-saving TipsWritten by Sharron Senter
Here are four tips that’ll save you money when buying your next computer.Tip #1 -- Rebates: A rebate is not always a bargain. Computers with rebates are often close to being discontinued. You may pick up a good deal or purchase technology that's about to become yesterday’s news. What's more, stores will often package computers with a bunch of free items to make it look like you're getting more value. Chances are extras are either poor quality or items you're unlikely to use. Also, they’re counting on you to not redeem your rebate, a very common occurrence. Tip #2 -- Extended Service Warrantees: Buyer Beware! They're a gamble, but not always a bad idea. If you're purchasing a laptop and you plan to travel a lot, an extended warranty that covers replacement of monitor/display can be a good gamble. Replacing a display can cost $400-$600, making warranty worthwhile. On other hand, if you plan on buying warranty for routine maintenance; save your money. Oftentimes it can take weeks for store to send your PC out for service. Also, remember store where you purchased your computer does not always do warranty work during first year, instead you may have to ship it directly to manufacturer. In general, extended warranties cover electronics [things you can't see]. They don't usually cover physical damage. Most extended warranties have large gray areas, leaving warranty provider a lot of room to reject claims.
| | Practical Tips for Designing HTML & Plain Text NewslettersWritten by Carla Ballatan
If you’re completely unfamiliar with how e-newsletters are designed and what benefits they bring, you might wonder why people put so much attention into laying out design and details of e-newsletters. You might think that all that matters is that information we want written there is present. In contrary, this article shall explain to you why HOW lay out of your e-newsletter is as important as information you wish to impart to your readers. Lots of newsletters appear on internet. The basic types of newsletters are in HTML or plain text. Good newsletters explain themselves clearly and are very focused making them well-written information sources. Lately, HTML newsletters are increasingly taking place of plain text newsletters in e-mail. These types of newsletters tend to have a few graphics, hyperlinks and more complicated layouts than those of plain text newsletters, which don’t have any links or complex layout and rely more on good writing and organization. If you make online newsletters, keep in mind these newsletters are likely to be seen on computer screens. Users, have little patience on long, poorly organized and hard-to-read newsletters. They want to get to important stuff right away. For an effective newsletter that would peak your target’s interests, here are some basic design tips for you: For HTML newsletter-makers, basically, keep your writing plain, simple and immediately hits target. Avoid use of incredible jargons that would only confuse readers and lose their interest. Learn to use links extensively by providing it in context, for example, give an article’s short summary and then link them to complete versions. Don’t provide links in a bunch at beginning or end of newsletter - use them like in a typical web page would. After a descriptive article for your HTML newsletter, follow up an easy to use and hyperlinked table of contents. Be sure that these would lead to anchors in articles contained in newsletter or will launch a browser, especially if newsletter doesn’t actually contain articles mentioned in table of contents. Make sure that summaries of longer articles contained in your newsletter are not computer generated – meaning, they should have to be written by humans. These would add to summary’s element of being meaningful.
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