The Difference Between Strategy and Tactics

"Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat." - Sun Tzu

What are the fundamental differences between strategy and tactics? Even the savviest on-line and off-line entrepreneurs frequently confuse the two.

Tactics are the day-to-day activities that are repeatable in your business and relatively clear-cut. Like blocking and tackling in football, they comprise the basic components of the jobs and the daily activities of any organization - or any business - no matter the size.

The Difference Between Strategy and Tactics

They are such things as SEO Campaigns, writing an article, creating a website, making a sales call, or perhaps joining an on-line community such as StomperNet, or Rich Schefren's Business Growth System. Tactics are specifically created and selected to reach particular and measurable objectives.

Tactics are the actual ways in which the strategies are executed. They may also include such things as newsletters, press releases, teleseminars, blogs, advertising, websites, and any other tool that your target markets are usually exposed to.

Tactics are easy to copy. If one company observes innovations in another company's products, for example, the observing company can easily duplicate what it has seen, or develop something comparable if straight duplication is not possible. As soon as the process or product is copied, the competitive advantage of the innovation recedes or disappears.

If you are not careful, tactics may end up being simply quick fixes that can bring short term gain, but they will not lead to long-term success unless rigorously applied; and they must be part of an overall plan for success. Therefore, it is critical to look at each tactic from the standpoint of what it will do to achieve your overall strategy.

Most businesses today tend to be tactically focused. You work diligently every day in your office, doing task after task, but most often without a strategic focus.
Being mainly tactically focused will result in a lot of ups and downs in your business, and very likely a long, slow (or very fast) decline in the value of your business.

Strategy, on the other hand, is perspective, that is, your Future Picture and direction. Strategy involves the "big picture" - the overall plan, and how those plans will achieve your goals and objectives. It involves deciding who the important stakeholders are, and which of them will be the recipients of your messages (i.e., "target audiences"), or the targets of your activities.
Your strategy is the framework, your compass that you will use to make decisions that will benefit the future outcome of your business. Strategy is the set of directions you make to enhance your situation and position within your overall market.

Without a well thought out strategy, your business is merely like a person wandering around uselessly in the dark. There is neither a planned direction of where to go in the future, nor which methods to use to get there. Tactics and strategy are always relative to one another, and together they bridge the gap between ends and means.

To succeed in your business environment, it is vital to plan a strategy that connects your activities to your overall plans. If you have a solid understanding of where you want to be at some defined point in the future, it becomes a relatively simple exercise to create a set of activities to get you there. If you know where you are going, there will be a way to get there - always.

Recognize that there is a difference between strategy and tactics, and do not confuse the two. The company that clearly understands that difference is the business that will be the most successful, the most durable - and the most profitable.

The Difference Between Strategy and Tactics
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Certified Professional Management Consultant Jim McCarthy currently works in Oceanside, CA with his wife, Career Consultant Barbara McCarthy.
For information on a complete Strategic Planning System, please go to Internet Marketing

Caffeine and Headaches - Caffeine Addictions - Short Medical Article

Coffee drinkers - Caution!

Whats the most frustrating physical problem you face in this modern stressful life?? Yes headache!! Common but disgusting.

Got a headache! Whats your first thought? Hmmm, a cup of coffee!! Coffee is the first choice to get relief from headache for many. This is because it is an easy- to- get remedy which gives immediate beneficial effects.

Caffeine and Headaches - Caffeine Addictions - Short Medical Article

The main component of coffee is caffeine which jolts the central nervous system and act as a stimulant causing increase in alertness and awareness. It is used in many of the headache relievers like Excedrin and Fioricet.

Caffeine and its sources:
Caffeine is bitter crystalline alkaloid which acts as psychoactive stimulant.

It is present in many beverages like coffee, tea, soft drinks and energy drinks and also in small amounts in beans, leaves and fruits of some plants. Of these coffee occupies the first place.

Can Caffeine be a Cause of headaches:
The causes for headache can be stress, nutritional factors, and blood sugar levels commonly. Tension headache can be caused by muscle contraction in face, scalp, neck, shoulder and jaw when subjected to stress or even in cases of severe anxiety and depression. But migraine which is most common in women is caused by dilation of blood vessels.

Now an unexpected cause of headaches... caffeine!

Caffeine and headaches relation:
The most common occurrence of headache is due to blood vessels increasing in size and they gradually wreak havoc on the nerves surrounding them. So most of the headache relievers focus on bringing the blood vessels back to their normal size. Caffeine in small amounts can help to achieve this as it acts as vasoconstrictor.

But the darker side is caffeine when used in large amounts especially along with sugar can backfire and cause expansion of blood vessels and thereby resulting in headache.

Addictive nature of caffeine:
Can't miss your morning cup of coffee? Or can't start your work without enjoying your coffee daily? Then you are one of the millions suffering from caffeinism that is 'addiction to caffeine' or simply 'caffeine dependency'.

Caffeine is the most widely consumed psychoactive substance all over the world. Unlike other abused drugs its consumption is legal and also unregulated in most of the countries. But caffeine can act as a slow poison.

Why addiction to caffeine?

Intakes of caffeine causes rush of adrenaline which results in boost of energy. But when we fail to take caffeine at the usual time, the adrenaline levels decrease and withdrawal symptoms start. This drags us to coffee shop again and the addiction starts.

When a regular coffee consumer goes without his/her fix, 'caffeine withdrawal' symptoms start to appear. These include drowsiness, coffee cravings, irritability, mood swings, headache and loss of appetite, upset stomach.

Overcoming caffeine withdrawal symptoms:
Best one is decreasing caffeine consumption gradually.

Taking additional vitamins like vitamin B 12, vitamin C and vitamin E, B-complex can help in detoxifying the body or mineral supplements

How much of caffeine is excess caffeine?
Generally 300mg of caffeine per day is agreed to be safe. This would be the amount in 2 cups of coffee. For pregnant woman this should more less.

Alternatives of coffee:
Green tea, licorice tea, black tea can be very helpful.

Caffeine and Headaches - Caffeine Addictions - Short Medical Article
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We would be very happy, if we can change at least a few of the regular coffee addicts and decrease their coffee consumption. Digg, link to us, favorite us, bookmark us, share us, and link us on Facebook, LinkedIn and other social bookmarking sites so that others can read this article and change their coffee consumption habits.

Pediatric Asthma - Causes, Symptoms and Risk Factors: Read here

Role of Placental Membrane: Read here

Internet Marketing in 2011 - Social Bookmarking

Internet marketing is a tricky beast. However it can be tamed with the right plan. One major key that I have recently learned a great deal about is "social" bookmarking. What a difference it makes in promotion of your website, blog, product page, etc. If you are unaware of social bookmarking, it is a unique and phenomenal online marketing tool...truly like no other. It utilizes the power of recommendation in an extremely special way and can do it on a massive scale.

We all know that a bookmark is something that holds our place to remind of a page that we were on. We use bookmarks on our computers for the same reason. A "social" bookmark is a link that marks a webpage, not only for the individual, but also for others to view and share all across the world wide web. That's powerful stuff!

The popularity of social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and others have shown us the internet marketing power of word of mouth advertising, potentially WORLDWIDE! People love to discover new products and services and love to share what they have found. There are numerous social bookmarking sites to choose from though some are more widely used than others. Any and all could prove beneficial! No matter what type of online marketing you do, social bookmarking should be a part of any plan.

Internet Marketing in 2011 - Social Bookmarking

Don't be afraid to bookmark your own sites, in fact, it's mandatory. When someone sees that your link has been marked, they can bookmark it themselves. Also, even better if your content is relevant and the person enjoys it enough to share perhaps on their blog or website, fan page or portal. Good, quality content, with enough work on your part, will eventually get passed around. For you that means traffic! And that's the whole point. Do your research as some of the bookmarking sites are SEO friendly and some are not. It's worth making note however that all can be beneficial for SEO.

So try it yourself! There are some great tools out there for bookmarking many of the different sites all in one place and in a matter of minutes. I use SocialMarker and have been pleased for the most part. Bookmark your sites, blogs, articles etc! You wont be sorry. That combined with writing articles, blogs and creating a press release is a darn good start on getting your name out and traffic in.

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Thank you so much for your valuable time. I hope this article has been informative and helpful.
Paul J. Evans, ebizbuzznow.com CEO-Evans and Evans Mktg.
Phone:(918)916-6830
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How Skype Works

Skype is a software application that allows you to make free phone calls to more than 75 million people worldwide, and shockingly cheap calls to practically everywhere else on Earth! As a result of that, Skype has become the fastest growing service in the history of the Internet. Recently, the company was acquired by eBay, another step forward towards achieving the final goal of making Skype the world's largest communication company.

Skype is easy to install and use. It allows its users to make crystal clear calls, regardless of their location, send instant messages, switch seamlessly between text and voice communication, make video calls, conference calls, transfer files, call landlines and cell phones for a fraction of the cost of a traditional call. Skype is truly making a revolution in the way we communicate.

But how does it actually work? This article focuses on describing the Skype network and the technology behind it.

How Skype Works

Skype is a type of peer-to-peer Voice-Over-IP client, based on the Kazaa file sharing program. The developers of Skype claim that it provides better voice quality than similar applications like MSN and Yahoo Messenger. It also encrypts calls end-to-end.

There are two types of machines in the Skype network - ordinary host (Skype Client) and Super Node (SN). An ordinary host is the computer of a regular user who has the application installed and connects to the network in order to communicate with other users. The Super Nodes are the end-point of ordinary hosts in the network. In other words, ordinary hosts connect to the Super Nodes. Any computer with a public IP and proper hardware configuration can be a SN. An ordinary host must connect to a super node and must register itself with the Skype login server for a successful login. The Skype login server is the only central unit in the whole network. It stores the usernames and respective passwords of all Skype users. Nslookups have shown that this server is located in Denmark. All Super Nodes connect to the login server in attempt to verify the username password of the client. It stores your Skype Name, your e-mail address, and an encrypted representation of your password.

If you are a regular Skype user, then your computer is considered an 'ordinary host' that connects to a Super Node. The Super Nodes are servers, located in different parts of the world. But your Skype client, must know to which SN it has to connect. Therefore, every Skype client (SC) maintains a local table that contains the IPs and corresponding ports of Super Nodes. This is called a host cache and it stored in the Windows Registry of the given SC. So basically, every time you load up Skype, it reads the date from the host cache, takes the first IP and port from there and tries to connect to this SN. If the connection fails for some reason (the SN is offline; it is no longer part of the network, etc) then it reads the next line from the table. In case it fails to connect to any of the IPs listed, the Skype returns a login error upon start-up. Hence, the host cache must contain at least one valid entry in order for the application to connect to the network and work properly. Valid entry means an IP address and port number of an online Super Node. The path to the table in the Windows Registry is HKEY_CURRENT_USER / SOFTWARE / SKYPE / PHONE / LIB / CONNECTION / HOSTCACHE. You can verify that on your computer by opening the Start menu, then click Run and enter 'regedit', without the dashes. Of course, the exact path could be different in the next versions of the application.

As a concept, Super Nodes were introduced in the third-generation P2P networks. They allow improved search performance, reduced file-transfer latency, network scalability, and the ability to resume interrupted downloads and simultaneously download segments of one file from multiple peers. Basically, they help ordinary hosts connect to each other and guide efficiently the encrypted network traffic.

Super Nodes are also responsible for the 'Global Indexing'. This technology enables you to search for other users in the network. The company guarantees that it will find a user if he has registered and has logged in during the last 72 hours.

A very interesting moment about the Skype network is that it 'self-modifiable'. If you have the application installed, your computer may turn into a Super Node, without you even knowing it, because those capabilities don't have a noticeable impact on a computer's performance. SNs basically store the addresses of up to several hundred Skype users, without carrying any voice, text or file-transfer data. In that manner, the more Skype users come online, the more supernodes become available to expand the capacity of the network.

Skype routes the traffic intelligently by choosing the optimum data transfer path. Since it uses either TCP or UDP protocol, it breaks the whole data stream into separate packets, which can take different paths to the end destination. The final arrangement is done at the receiving end.

As far as safety and privacy are concerned, Skype uses Advanced Encryption Standard, known as Rijndel, used also by the U.S. Government organizations to protect sensitive data. Skype uses 256-bit encryption.

The programmers of Skype have implemented wideband codecs which allows it to maintain a good sound quality at a bandwidth of 32kb/s and allow frequencies between 5-8,000Hz to pass trough.

Your list of contacts, the application stores in the Windows Registry. This is called the Buddy list and once again, it is digitally encrypted. So, the list is local for every machine, or in other words, it's not downloaded from the central server.

Let's briefly describe the tasks of the Skype client. First it connects to the network. It then listens on particular ports for incoming calls, refreshes the host cache table, uses wideband codecs, maintains the buddy list, encrypts messages and determines if there is a firewall or not.

The login process:

The login process is the most important one and it consists of several phases. As mentioned, SC must connect to a valid SN in order to authenticate the username and password with the Central Server.

Skype gets the fist IP from the host cache, sends it a UDP packet and waits for response. If there is no response after 5 seconds, it sends a TCP packet to the same IP. It tries to establish a TCP connection to the HC IP address and port 80 (HTTP port). If still unsuccessful, it tried to connect to IP address and port 443 (HTTPS port). If this does not work either, it reads the next address in the HC. If Skype is unable to connect to a SN, it will report a login failure.

The application comes with several build-in addresses of different nodes, called bootstrap super nodes.

If the connection attempt is successful, the client must authenticate the user name and password with the Skype login server, which holds all user names and passwords and makes sure they are unique across the whole network. When the application connects to an SN, it receives an up-to-date list of other active SNs, so it has the most current information.

The Media Transfer process:

The video/voice communication through Skype is established through UDP. The trick here is that quite often, one of the users is behind a firewall or a router, hence it doesn't have a real IP address. But if both Skype clients are on real IPs, then the media traffic flows directly between them over UDP. The size of the voice packet is 67 bytes, which is actually the size of UDP payload. One second conversation results in roughly 140 voice packets being exchanged both ways, or 3-16 kilobytes/s.

If one of the callee or both of them do not have a public IP, then they send voice traffic to another online Skype node over UDP or TCP. The developers of Skype have preferred to use UDP for voice transmission as much as possible.

An interesting fact is that even if both sides are not speaking, voice packets will still be flowing between them. The purpose of these so called 'silent packages' is to keep the connection alive.

Conclusion:

There are several factors responsible for the success of Skype. First of all, the voice quality is better compared to other applications. It works without a problem on computers with firewall. It is very easy to install and use. Skype's security is also a big advantage. Everything that is being transferred across the network is being encrypted to ensure privacy. As a result of that, even if hackers intercept the data being transferred, they won't be able to decode it.

The Skype application does not include any adware or spyware. But, there are cases when third parties have managed to add such functionalities (not only for Skype), so it's really important that you download it from the right place. Therefore, do it either from the official website, or from respected sites as http://www.freesecuredownloads.com/skype/index.html.

How Skype Works
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Social Bookmarking - The Benefits and Pitfalls of "Folksonomy"

Social bookmarking has become extremely popular and is a very useful information sorting and searching mechanism in today's Web 2.0 page.

It has a benefit in the sense that the users who are searching for and discovering information are then bookmarking and adding as favorites that information because it is useful. Therefore if it is useful to one person, it is more than likely relevant to an entire group of people.

This counteracts the search engine problem of relevancy, where a search engine can be fooled into thinking a document is relevant, but a human being cannot.

Social Bookmarking - The Benefits and Pitfalls of "Folksonomy"

The process is that a user finds a site that is of use to them in the present and could be in the future, and is then bookmarked in their favorites list. Before social bookmarking, this is where it ended. But in this case, that bookmark is then submitted to a directory which holds collections of bookmarks.

That bookmark is then tagged with a series of words or phrases that roughly describes the content, the context and any related subjects by the user. The bookmark is then made publicly available so that other users can search against the tags and find information that is useful and relevant, because a human being has validated it.

On top of this, other users can then update the tags, effectively fine tuning the search fields that the search engine will search against. In this way, the social bookmarking mechanism works in the same way as a wiki, as the users themselves update and maintain the tags that accompany a bookmark. Over time, useless and irrelevant information will be weeded out from the tags, therefore making future searches more efficient and even more relevant.

This system of social bookmarking and classification is known as "folksonomy", which is a word formed out of conjoining the words "taxonomy" and "folk". Taxonomy is a process of hierarchical and metric-based scientific classification. Crossing this word with the idea of folk, i.e. groups of people, leads us to the word folksonomy.

While this is a very useful community-based system, there are some downfalls to folksonomy and social bookmarking in general.

Because it is a social and group managed system, the system has no definitive and official vocabulary for its tagging mechanism. Effectively, the tags are dictated by the users community, so therefore what one person means by the use of one word could be completely different to another person. This ambiguity can sometimes cause difficulty in the actual searches themselves.

Also, because it is a collective and collaborative version of taxonomy, hierarchical relationships can be difficult to define. A person may be able to a bookmark with the word "diamond" and "gemstone", but will not be able to indicate that gemstone is a parent class of diamond. Yet, social bookmarking, due to the very same interaction of users that can potentially cause confusion in the tagging, exhibits the dynamics of a self organizing system. This means that, over time, a common trend appears in how a tag is defined for subjects with specific words.

Another downfall is the continual battle on the Internet with spam. Some spam distributors will bookmark a site for the distribution of spam using popular and upwardly trending tagging keywords, in an attempt to promote the site in line with any frequently searched for topics. However, the majority of social bookmarking system operators work hard to continuously update their security and validation systems to ensure that spammers do not interfere with the sites main purpose.

Social Bookmarking - The Benefits and Pitfalls of "Folksonomy"
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Which ever way you look at it, social bookmarking is here to stay. It has its downfalls and it's problems, yet it is highly useful in finding both validated and relevant information. This is something that search engine algorithms are continually tweaked and modified for, because they have a problem with it. For instance, there are several projects right now that involve search engines where every page is validated by a human being, the Open Directory Project being one of them. Yet, this is nearly identical to the same mechanism that social bookmarking follows!

If you are a creator of legitimate Internet resources and want to look into social bookmarking as a way to promote your site, social bookmarking may well be a very useful tool for you. Unfortunately, it can take a lot of time given all the various social bookmarking sites that exist on the Internet.

Consider looking into time-saving tools like this one [http://bookmarkingdemon.net/bookmarking-demon/], which will allow you to automate the process of submitting your social bookmarks to a multitude of sites.

When you're ready to read more about the subject come and visit us at [http://www.bookmarkingdemon.net]