Do you start out with faith in God or do you have to be inspired to search for Him? Where does the inspiration to believe in God come from? It seems everyone has an answer, but which answer is right?

I believe it depends on who is asking the question. If you are a person that is well grounded in your religious beliefs then faith probably comes first. If you are searching for God, then perhaps you need to be inspired to help you find your way.

I like to believe that we are all inspired to find our faith in God. To me it is a natural human instinct perhaps facilitated by an inborn genetic code or gene. I like to believe that the inspiration to find God comes from the Almighty Himself.

I think the inspiration comes from our need to experience God’s grace, to find inner peace, and to develop a sense of serenity. I think it comes from our need to seek God’s help in coping with our problems. I think it comes from a desire to believe that there is something more to our lives than the short span of our own mortality. I think it comes from a need to be assured that there is a Heaven.

Whatever inspires us to find our faith in God; the fact is that we do have the need to believe. Most of us have to believe in a higher power to make our lives tolerable. We want to have faith because it helps us achieve inner peace of mind. We are inspired to have faith because we want to succeed in our journey to find God.

May God grant us the strength and the inspiration and the faith to succeed in our search on a journey that never ends – the search to find God.
***

Arthur Levine is the author of the Faith Patch Manual and The Magic Of Faith. Please visit his Web sites to get inspired to continue your search for God at: http://www.faith-patch.com and http://www.Faith123.com or his blog at: http://searchfor-god.blogspot.com.

When it comes to weddings, everything is superstitious. There was a strong belief that weddings make the couple particularly vulnerable to evil spirits and bad luck, hence the many superstitions surrounding the event. Some are totally out of this world, while others may just have been created to keep the peace and order and prevent some naughty grooms from delaying the preparations. Whichever the case, here are some superstitions:

* It is considered bad luck for the bride to wear the wedding dress before the big day so much so that brides fit their gown in pieces to this day, never as a whole, and always with incomplete accessories.

* It is considered bad luck for the groom to see the bride in her wedding gown before she walks down the aisle. Doing so will result in an unhappy or tragic end to the marriage.

* If candles are lit on your wedding day and they sputter out, it means that there’s an evil spirit nearby.

* It is considered a very bad omen for the bridal party to come across a funeral hearse.

* If the groom drops the wedding band, the marriage is doomed.

* Pearls are not jewelry that a bride should wear because it means her marriage will be full of tears and sorrow.

* Throwing rice or confetti increases the couples good luck and fertility.

* Dress the bridesmaids in gowns similar to the bride to confuse evil spirits and keep the unwanted suitors from interrupting the bride and groom.

You may or may not agree with these superstitions but they’re good to know all the same. Good luck and blessings on your wedding!

Black holes are probably the most fascinating (theoretical) objects in astronomy. Such objects, which scientists believe must exist, would account for the spin-rate of our galaxy, which cannot be explained by the combined mass of the visible stars. But exactly what are black holes?

A paper, “Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in London,” written as early as 1783 by John Michell, a Cambridge don, pointed out how a star which was massive and compact enough could have such a strong gravitational force that light could not escape it. It took Einstein’s general theory of relativity in the 20th century and the work of an Indian graduate student, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, in 1928, to work out the mathematical details of how massive a star would have to be to spawn a black hole.

A black hole is believed to begin with a star. The sun, with a diameter of about 865,400 miles, is considered an average sized star, and is basically a huge thermonuclear “reactor” which has enough “fuel” to keep it burning for many, many generations. But what happens when a star’s fuel burns out?

There are various scenarios, depending on the size of the star. A cold (burned out) star about one and a half times the size of the sun (which is now known as the Chandrasekhar limit) will collapse under its own weight. A live star even many times the size of the sun does not collapse because of the outward force generated by its powerful nuclear explosions. When this nuclear force is gone, however, such massive bodies undergo dramatic changes.

A star less massive than the Chandrasekhar limit still has the ability to stop contracting at about a radius of just a few thousand miles. In such a state it is called a “white dwarf,” and one cubic inch of its mass weighs hundreds of tons.

Another scenario for a cold star about one or two times the mass of our sun is to contract into a “neutron star.” A neutron star can have a radius of roughly ten miles and weigh as much as hundreds of millions of tons per cubic inch.

Since gravitational pull increases in proportion to mass, when stars collapse, their surface gravity become stronger the more compact they become. That’s because with a neutron star, for example, you may have a body with a ten-mile radius exerting a gravitation pull equivalent to a star several times the size of the sun. And that’s massive (in the colloquial sense)!

But as spectacular as such transformations seem, they are nothing compared to the collapse of a star many times the size of the sun. In such a case, the collapse is not halted at a radius of thousands or even ten miles. The force of its massive weight ensures its continued collapse until it reaches a point, according to general relativity, where it has infinite density and space-time curvature. Its radius is a fraction of that of a neutron star. And, thus, a “black hole” comes into being.

A black hole has such a strong gravitational force that nothing, not even light, can escape its pull. This renders a black hole virtually “invisible” — if you shined the most powerful light at such a body, you couldn’t see it because the light would get trapped in the black hole and never reflect back to reach your eyes. Furthermore, inside a black hole, the laws of nature as we know them would break down completely, leaving no viable method of predicting any future events within the black hole.

But if we can’t see black holes, how do we know they exist? Although direct proof of their existence still alludes us, we have evidence which seem to support (not prove) their existence. We have cases of a star revolving around an invisible object, sometimes assumed to be a black hole. Occasionally we see spectacular “fireworks” in remote regions of space, which sometimes is assumed to be produced by matter spiraling into a black hole, creating powerful energy surges. (The reason this energy is capable of reaching us is because it has not yet entered the black hole’s “event horizon,” the point of no return, from where nothing can escape.)

So far, all of the above, even if not fully proven, are based on mathematical calculations, logical deductions and observations. However, some fanciful speculations that go beyond the basics, seem to border on the bizarre. One theory suggests that going through a black hole, if it were physically possible, might be like going through a “worm hole” in space. That is, you might come out in a completely different part of space.

As you can see, scientists sometimes go beyond the verifiable, and venture into the unknown and even into the downright bizarre. What I find even more bizarre is how some of the same scientists will not even venture into the concept of God, despite the fact that there is more than ample logical evidence to suggest that an intelligent creator must exit. Why? Because we can’t “prove” God’s existence? Like, we can really prove everything else that’s accepted as science.

Josh Greenberger: A computer consultant for over two decades, the author has developed software for such organizations as NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies, AT&T, Charles Schwab, Bell Laboratories and Chase Manhattan Bank. Since 1984, the author’s literary works have appeared in such periodicals as The New York Post, The Daily News, The Village Voice, The Jewish Press, and others. His articles have ranged from humor to scientific to topical events.

Visit his site ==>shopndrop.com

Dish Network is a satellite TV service that brings hundreds of channels directly into your home. This includes a wide selection of news, movies, sports, comedy, romance, and action. Dish Network is a low cost way for your family to enjoy a wide variety of entertainment.

When you choose to use Dish Network, you can expect to have quality digital content delivered to your television screen. The images you see will be encoded digitally, and will arrive to your screen the way it was programmed to arrive.

Basic cable services generally use analog technology in which the images are fuzzy, and tend to distort with static. Many of these cable companies don’t bother to inform their customers that when they upgrade to digital cable, only a portion of the channels are digital. Many of the channels are still analog.

But Dish network isn’t just about providing you with better pictures. There are many other technological advantages Dish Network has over standard cable companies. You have the opportunity to upgrade to high definition TV for low prices. High definition television offers you the sharpest images available on the market today.

You can also upgrade to DVR (Digital Video Recorder), giving you the ability to have more control over what you watch, pausing live shows or recording them without a tape. Using DVR you can also replay images and skip any commercials, which are recorded.

As of the beginning of 2006, 12 million people have chosen to use Dish Network. Its popularity has greatly increased, and it offers excellent prices in comparison to other cable companies. If you decide to choose Dish Network, it may be helpful for you to ask about any promotions they may be offering.

Some promotions allow you to get 30 days of free programming you if choose to sign up within a certain time period. You can also get free installation if you choose to purchase Dish Network under certain promotions.

The primary reason for Dish Network’s rising popularity is the type of programming they offer. With the dozens of services they offer, many other cable companies simply cannot compete. In addition to the excellent image quality you will experience with Dish Network, you will also be amazed by the digital audio quality of the shows you watch.

Dish Network is the first company in the world with the new HD receiver, which uses a MPEG-4/DVB system. They also operate their own satellite, and plan to launch more in the future. They manufacture their own hardware, which is state of the art. Dish Network gives its customers unprecedented control over the channels they watch.

Customers are also allowed to create their own programming packages, giving them more control over what channels they choose to view. Dish Network also operates an installation service, which is professional, and is located nationwide.

If you want a satellite TV service that offers you the best value at the lowest prices, Dish Network is for you. They have 15 years of experience in satellite television and installation. Dish Network will give you quality service, and quality programming.

Cisco certification candidates, particularly CCNA candidates, must master binary math. This includes basic conversions, such as binary-to-decimal and decimal-to-binary, as well as more advanced scenarios involving subnetting and VLSM.

There’s another conversion that might rear its ugly head on your Cisco exam, though, and that involves hexadecimal numbering.

Newcomers to hexadecimal numbering are often confused as to how a letter of the alphabet can possibly represent a number. Worse, they may be intimidated – after all, there must be some incredibly complicated formula involved with representing the decimal 11 with the letter “b”, right?

Wrong.

The numbering system we use every day, decimal, concerns itself with units of ten. Although we rarely stop to think of it this way, if you read a decimal number from right to left, the number indicates how many units of one, ten, and one hundred we have. That is, the number “15″ is five units of one and one unit of ten. The number “289″ is nine units of one, eight units of ten, and two units of one hundred. Simple enough!

Hex numbers are read much the same way, except the units here are units of 16. The number “15″ in hex is read as having five units of one and one unit of sixteen. The number “289″ in hex is nine units of one, eight units of sixteen, and two units of 256 (16 x 16).

Since hex uses units of sixteen, how can we possibly represent a value of 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, or 15? We do so with letters. The decimal “10″ is represented in hex with the letter “a”; the decimal 11 with “b”; the decimal “12″ with “c”, “13″ with “d”, “14″ with “e”, and finally, “15″ with “f”. (CCNA candidates will remember that a MAC address of “ffff.ffff.ffff” is a Layer 2 broadcast.)

Practice Your Conversions For Exam Success

Now that you know where the letters fall into place in the hexadecimal numbering world, you’ll have little trouble converting hex to decimal and decimal to hex – if you practice.

How would you convert the decimal 27 to hex? You can see that there is one unit of 16 in this decimal; that leaves 11 units of one. This is represented in hex with “1b” – one unit of sixteen, 11 units of one.

Converting the decimal 322 to hex is no problem. There is one unit of 256; that leaves 66. There are four units of 16 in 66; that leaves 2, or two units of one. The hex equivalent of the decimal 322 is the hex figure 142 – one unit of 256, four units of 32, and 2 units of 2.

Hex-to-decimal conversions are even simpler. Given the hex number 144, what is the decimal equivalent? We have one unit of 256, four units of 16, and four units of 4. This gives us the decimal figure 324.

What about the hex figure c2? We now know that the letter “c” represents the decimal number “12″. This means we have 12 units of 16, and two units of 2. This gives us the decimal figure 194.

Tips For Exam Day

Practice your binary and hexadecimal conversions over and over again before you take your CCNA exams. Binary math questions come in many different forms; make sure you have practiced all of them before exam day. The number one reason CCNA candidates fail their exam is that they’re not prepared for the different types of binary math questions they’re going to be asked, and that they aren’t ready for hexadecimal questions at all.

You don’t have time to learn how to do in on exam day. You’ve got to be ready before you go into the exam room, and the only way to be ready is a lot of practice.

Finally, make sure you read the question carefully. You’ve got hex, decimal, and binary numbers to concern yourself with on your CCNA exams. Make sure you give Cisco the answer in the format they’re looking for.

Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933, is the owner of The Bryant Advantage, home of free CCNA and CCNP tutorials, The Ultimate CCNA Study Package, and Ultimate CCNP Study Packages.
For a FREE copy of his latest e-books, “How To Pass The CCNA” and “How To Pass The CCNP”, visit the website and download your free copies. You can also get FREE CCNA and CCNP exam questions every day! Pass the CCNA exam with The Bryant Advantage!

A newcomer to the world of investments in the notion of “Virtual Real Estate Investing“. What is meant by “Virtual Real Estate Investing” ranges from online games like SecondLife (where real profit can be made) to the use of internet technologies to make normal real estate investors more profitable.

To get the facts, I sought out the man generally considered to be the father of virtual real estate investing: Bryan Ellis.

Ellis says he adopted the term “virtual real estate investing” sometime before Y2K after he realized that making money online is conceptually very similar to making money with physical real estate.

One example of the parallels between virtual and physical real estate Bryan Ellis cites is the similarity between the monetization of domain names versus physical property. “These types of assets – websites and physical real estate – can be monetized in very similar ways like buy lo/sell high, leasing/rental and advertising opportunities” he says.

The parallels really are obvious. For example, if you’re the owner of a desirable property, its desirability is (in a business context) largely due to its being in a location that is of interest to others. Likewise, if you own a desirable domain name, others will find value in it because it serves their purposes. So it doesn’t matter if you own physical real estate or virtual real estate – you’ll likely use similar strategies to turn them into money in your pocket.

In our next installment of this series on virtual real estate investing, Bryan Ellis will share the internet analogies to the physical concept of real estate development.

There are four primary activities that successful salespeople engage in on an ongoing basis. These are Prospecting (45% of time), Presenting (20%), Product Knowledge/Malleability (20%), and Professional and Personal Development (15%)

Recently we were presenting this information in a workshop on Prospect Management, when one of the participants raised his hand and said: “That’s great. But you just don’t understand. We spend so much of our time having to service our existing clients and putting out fires, there’s no way to have that much time for prospecting and all this other stuff.”

Sound like something you face?

We understand, because we’re out there selling too. Just like you, we go out and find new prospects, show them how we can help them, deal with client service, make sure training materials show up where they’re supposed to be, etc… And, we spend a good deal of time consulting, conducting workshops, and working with clients.

Like most sales professionals, we, too, have to juggle my time to focus on actually selling and prospecting.

The key is effective time planning.

Time planning is really more than time management. You really can’t manage time at all when you think about it – no matter what we do time marches on. No matter what we do there are 52 weeks in a year, 24 hours in day, and 60 minutes in an hour. Try as we might, we just ain’t gonna change that. So, let’s not bemoan that we don’t have enough time – the time you spend complaining about not having enough time is time you could spend on something more productive and rewarding. (Ever notice that the people who complain the most about not having enough time are usually the ones getting the least amount done? Think about it and observe.)

So, we can’t control time itself, but what we can control is how we use our time. In fact, when you come right down to it, our use of own time is the ONLY thing in life that we really have complete control over. Every minute of every day you are making a choice, whether consciously or not, over how you use your time. The key to effective time planning is to make conscious decisions over how you spend this most valuable resource.

Here are some tips to help you plan and utilize your time more effectively:

Be obsessive about planning:

Everybody these days uses some sort of planner whether electronic or paper; that’s a personal choice and either one is fine. But, real effective planning is more than making a daily to-do list.

Plan Weekly: Look at everything you have going on for the next two weeks. First appointments, follow-up meetings, presentations, internal meetings etc… In addition to actual meetings, you need to schedule in time for:

- meeting preparation
- travel time to and from meetings
- administrative and paperwork

Schedule these things into your calendar so you know exactly when you are going to do them!

Next, schedule in time – make a firm appointment with yourself – for prospecting activities. When will you make calls? I can guarantee that if you don’t make a firm appointment with yourself, those calls won’t happen.

Taking this weekly view is vital to effective time planning; many things that we do can’t get done in one day, but if know what we want and need to accomplish in the broader space of a week, we’re more likely to be productive with our time.

Plan Daily: Look ahead to the next day. What urgent things will you need to attend to? When will you do them? What things did you not get done today that you need to do tomorrow? Do this each day at the end of the day so you can start your next day fresh with the knowledge of exactly what you’re setting out to do.

TIP: Don’t overpack your time too much. You do need to allow for the unexpected. You also need to constantly reevaluate your time in the face of changing priorities. Give yourself the cushion for this.

Analyze Regularly: Keep track of how you spend your time, and analyze its level of productivity; look at whether each activity is moving you closer to your goals or is not. Try doing this for a period of two weeks; you’ll be amazed to realize how much time we spend on non-productive things. Just the sheer act of tracking this will make you more productive, guaranteed.

Apply “Zero-Based Thinking”: Author and speaker Brian Tracy, in his book “Focal Point” talks about applying “Zero-Based Thinking” as a way to form your goals and mission. It applies at this level as well. As you get a sense of where you’re time is currently spent, ask yourself these questions:

- What things do I need to start doing?
- What am I currently doing that I need to do more of?
- What am I currently doing that I need to stop doing?

What things can you delegate? What things could you stop doing that aren’t really necessary? (Think hard on this one; there are certainly things we all do that don’t really need to be done at all.)

Take time for reflection and planning: “But wait”, you say! “I don’t have time to do stuff now, how can I take all this time for planning. Sounds nice in an ideal world, but I have to live in reality!” Taking the time for planning and thinking will actually make you more productive. You will be in more control of your time, and you will be focused on the activities that will yield you the best results. 15 minutes a day is all you’ll really need. And those 15 minute could well be the most important time you spend!

To help you, here some great tools you can download:

Daily Time Tracking Worksheet

Weekly Planning Worksheet

Mark Dembo and Thomas J. Baskind are Managing Partners in DEI/Lexien of Greater New York, a sales performance improvement and management consulting company. They invite you to visit their website, http://www.lexien.com/, and welcome your comments and inquiries.

Hands up who has an opinion?

I did think it a passing craze, something that was really only getting a decent number of subscribers because of the various 3G mobile broadband companies pushing it like mad, including offering some good free laptops with the sign ups.

But that was before I decided to give it a go, and found a package to suit my needs on broadbandgenie.co.uk.

I have to say I am impressed. It’s only been a fortnight so there is still time for the ‘honeymoon period’ to wear off, but right now, it does feel like the real deal.

The ability to take my laptop anywhere in the UK and still be connected to the Internet is wonderful. It has really changed my working practices. No longer is the office or house my workplace, the whole of the UK is. So far, I have worked from the park, a little cafe and a very smart wine bar.

If this is just a passing craze it is one I am very into. Hopefully it’s not though and I it is the start of a new working practice. Work from anywhere. Far more relaxing in my opinion.

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Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation whilst innovation can be defined as idea selection, development and commercialisation.

There are distinct processes that enhance problem identification and idea generation and, similarly, distinct processes that enhance idea selection, development and commercialisation. Whilst there is no sure fire route to commercial success, these processes improve the probability that good ideas will be generated and selected and that investment in developing and commercialising those ideas will not be wasted.

One useful tool in the idea generation phase is to simply be prolific. It can be said with great confidence that quality is related to sheer quantity. Some of the most highly recognised creative products came about when the creator was being most prolific.

In addition to the above, the best ideas usually occur late on in the idea generation process. It is after the creator has produced fifty, one hundred and two hundred ideas that he starts to really produce quality output in higher numbers.

But before that stage the creator tends to hit a wall.

The wall is similar to the experience curve. Initially relative lack of experience, knowledge and refined methodology limits performance to sub-optimal levels. With time these factors improve and productivity increases exponentially. Along the way valuable competencies are learned. This is encompassed in the expression “you have to write a million words before you write anything good.”

These topics are covered in depth in the MBA dissertation on Managing Creativity & Innovation, which can be purchased (along with a Creativity and Innovation DIY Audit, Good Idea Generator Software and Power Point Presentation) from http://www.managing-creativity.com.

You can also receive a regular, free newsletter by entering your email address at this site.

Kal Bishop, MBA

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You are free to reproduce this article as long as no changes are made and the author’s name and site URL are retained.

Kal Bishop is a management consultant based in London, UK. He has consulted in the visual media and software industries and for clients such as Toshiba and Transport for London. He has led Improv, creativity and innovation workshops, exhibited artwork in San Francisco, Los Angeles and London and written a number of screenplays. He is a passionate traveller. He can be reached on http://www.managing-creativity.com.