Blogging has taken the Internet by storm - it seems that everyone is doing it, from your neighbor down the street to famous celebrities and musicians. Blogging is a term that comes from “web logging” and was shortened to blogging; and thusly a weblog quickly became shortened to blog.

Perhaps you want to break into the world of blogging on your own but are feeling a little overwhelmed by the whole concept of starting your own blog. You can start your own blog in a matter of 10 minutes by following these simple steps. However, we are assuming that you have a basic idea of what you want to blog about. If not, that should probably be your first step.

A Place To Call Home
Start by finding a spot to blog. You can use a free blogging place, such as blogger.com, xanga.com or others. You can find the one that you like the best by doing a quick internet search for “free blogs”. There are many out there that use a variety of interfaces.

When you find the one that you choose to use, in this instance, we’re going to use blogger.com, all you have to do is click on the “sign up” button. Once you’ve signed up with your witty name (which is what your blog will be called) you’re almost ready to rock and roll and begin blogging.

Adding Your Own Touches
You can customize the way your blog will look by going to the options portion of your account. It’s not recommended to mess with any of the HTML tags unless you know how to. However, blogger.com allows you to customize your blog with just a few clicks of your mouse. You can choose from themes, color choices and much more.

Begin Blogging
Once you’ve done any of the tweaking to your account for the way it looks when it is published, you are ready to blog. All you have to do is click on “write page” or “write post” and start writing. When you hit submit and publish, the blog you wrote is live. It’s really that simple and takes no more than 10 minutes.

Now that you have an established blog, you can write about whatever you want. Perhaps your blog is just for personal friends and family to read about you and your life. So, your “my blog” is about you and your life. Perhaps you want to update everyone on a new job or promotion, or show off pictures of your kids doing something cute. All of these are easy to do - just point and click to add pictures, video, highlight text, bold, italics, change the font and color - all with just a click of your mouse.

If you are looking to blog about something in particular, for example gardening, ensure you’ve chosen a relevant blog name. George’s Green Thumb Gardening is a good example of a blog name for gardening, but not for writing. Having a relevant blog name will help bring other people to your blog to read. The most important thing to try and do in any niche like gardening is to establish yourself as an expert in the field, so be sure that you’re writing about something you know and that the information you’re putting on your blog is true. Establishing yourself as an expert will bring more people to your blog to read it regularly and soon enough, you’ll have a “fan base” of people waiting to read whatever else you have to say.

Click on one of these links to check out sample legal documents drafted by Amlaw 200 Law Firms for Fortune 500 Companies.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Most business professionals understand that when they step over the threshold at work each and every day, they are entering a professional environment where professional decorum is expected. For some reason, however, the same business professionals forget this little tidbit when they click over to their email. While there is no way to accurately quantify the number of clients that have been lost over the years due to inappropriate emails, the number is thought to be at least seven figures. Today, email clients have everything from grammar and spell checkers to loadable templates and much more. There is literally no excuse for any business professional to send out an unprofessional sounding email. Let’s take a look at some other common mistakes people make with their email each and every day.

Keep personal and business email separate

The average person today has several different email accounts. You have the ones that come with your Internet service provider, you may have a free web based one and you have a work one. It is essential that you keep the two separate, that way you don’t have to switch back and forth from writing casual emails to a family member to writing formal ones to your boss or to a client. If you can manage it, try to not answer any personal email at all at work so that there is never any kind of confusion or lapse in judgment.

Watch mass mailings

Recently, a high ranking official with an NFL team accidently sent a pornographic email to representatives from all the other teams and to the NFL front office by simply clicking one button incorrectly. We all receive mass emails from friends and maybe even from clients on a daily basis. Some are fun and cute while others are more serious. If it is at all possible, avoid sending out mass emails since the probability of something going wrong is greatly increased. A mass email also gives the impression that each person on the email list doesn’t deserve one-on-one attention, which can be alienating. It might take a little extra time, but there is a good chance this personal touch will be noticed and appreciated.

Eliminate email speak

As most of us have Blackberries on our hips and multiple cell phones at the ready, we have taken to the language of texting and emailing like a fish takes to water. While using “:p” and “;)” might work for talking to your child, it probably shouldn’t be used when talking to a potential client. It can be harder to break this habit than you think. This type of shorthand has become intricately ingrained in many people under the age of 35 who have been using the Internet since they were in high school. As more and more tech savvy graduates enter into the world of business, this problem is likely only going to get worse. Break the habit now or you will likely find yourself receiving a quite a lecture from your boss that will leave you.

Click on one of these links to check out sample legal documents drafted by Amlaw 200 Law Firms for Fortune 500 Companies.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Today’s business person will spend hours at the tailor crafting a fine business suit, hours at a power lunch sweet talking their next big client and hours pouring over proposals or negotiations to try to get every last penny they can, and then spend 30 seconds banging out an important email that will single handedly cost them a dozen more potential clients. While grammar and spelling aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, knowing basic email rules is an absolute must in this day and age where email has taken over as the primary form of communication used in today’s business world. Here are a few simple tips.

Let your email utilities work for you

The world of email has come a long way since Outlook Express. Today’s email clients are quite sophisticated and come with all sorts of bells and whistles that can make sending an email easier. It used to be that email spell checkers were absolutely horrible, but they have been vastly improved and most use the same spell check library as Microsoft Word. If your email client is old and doesn’t have a grammar or spell checker, upgrade now, or simply type your emails in Microsoft Word and copy/paste. Make sure you check how the format looks before you do by sending yourself an email.

Use a template

If you have trouble setting up the formal date/address/body/signature form in every one of your emails, than simply write one and save it as a template that you can go back and use again and again. You can even have multiple templates ready to go for clients you email on a frequent basis; that way, much of the hard work is done before you even get started.

Avoid being overly casual

Since most people still view email as a casual way to communicate, the one problem that costs more businesses clients more than any other is the urge to be overly friendly and casual when communicating with current clients or future clients. When writing a professional email, it is always better to sound formal and stilted than casual and overly friendly. If you have trouble coming up with the proper vocabulary, have a dictionary and a thesaurus on your desk that you can flip through to come up with better verbiage. You can even use websites like Dictionary.com or similar sites to help increase your vocabulary so you don’t sound unprofessional in your correspondence.

If all else fails, ask for help

We all know that many competitive office environments will take asking for help as a sign of weakness, but if you want to get the process of writing compelling emails down, there is no shame in asking for an occasional email to be proofread by someone else in the office who has an English background. Most bosses will take asking for help as a sign of maturity, and before you know it, you’ll be a master of the formal email.
Many people think that if you can write a compelling letter then you can automatically write a compelling email. The truth is that writing a compelling email is a learned skill that takes practice.

Click on one of these links to check out sample legal documents drafted by Amlaw 200 Law Firms for Fortune 500 Companies.

Popularity: 6% [?]

With technology at an all-time sophisticated high, there comes the low blow that we are all subject to becoming identity stealing, online bashing, computer hacking, and virus getting victims. However, just when you think the negatives of computer using is getting combated by big bad software that can prevent these unnecessary evils, yet another story hits the media that makes all of us cringe. And this story, in particular, is highly alarming to women.

In Gainesville, Florida, Marisel Garcia was having those annoying glitches with her laptop computer and was in need of some help. Referred to University of Florida student Craig Matthew Feigin by her friends, Garcia trustingly left her laptop with him overnight and happily discovered that her computer was problem-free the following day after picking it up.

However, a few weeks later, other problems occurred. Now having a reduced battery life, she told the Gainesville Sun that her lap-top also had a light that turned on every time she got near it. This go around, Garcia went to a trusted friend for help and that is when he discovered that Feigin had installed two pieces of software onto her machine: Log Me In and Web Cam Spy Hacker, (which is suspected to have been written by Feigin himself.)

Garcia was astounded by the news and felt violated to no end. Having her laptop mainly in her bedroom, she’ll never know exactly how many pics Feigin still has stashed away. After he was arrested, Feigin confessed, stating that he had done this same thing to other women, as well.

“We have eight or nine more potential victims that we know of now,” Gainesville Police detective Joseph Mayo told the Gainesville Sun.

And as for Garcia, an estimated 20,000 photos of her, her friends, and her boyfriend have been taken and in some of these pictures, she wasn’t fully clothed. Feigin was charged with modifying computer data and disrupting or denying computer system services. According to Florida Statute 815.06 on computer-related crimes, Feigin’s offense could be considered a felony (as it should be), and is punishable by prison time.

Popularity: 12% [?]