How to Draw Characters

Touch screen technology has been part of many game systems for a long time. The Nintendo DS for example has had a <a title=”Touch screen panel at Cirque!” href=http://www.cirque.com/uploads/products/touch_screen_panel.html>touch screen panel</a> for years. <a title=”Capacitive sensor at Cirque!” href=http://www.cirque.com/uploads/technologies/capacitive_sensor.html>Capacitive sensor</a>  technologies are definitely the rage these days. We could see even more systems moving this way in the future. I mean, hey, we already have touch screen phones, MP3 players and many other devices.

Gaming companies are continuing to revolutionize the way they interact with consumers. The Nintendo Wii for example allows users to interact with it. That is probably what people love about the touch screen as well. It allows integration and also more control. It allows players to really get into the game and step into the characters they are playing.

The word is that the Sony PSP will be sporting a new touch screen with the next version. It only makes sense since the DS has utilized it for so long. While the two systems target different audiences, it seems logical that they would take the step to join the in crowd with the latest technology.

Companies are working  to make this technology even more realistic. We like to the use of touch in our systems. Scientists are working on making the touch technology feel real. Haptics refers to the sense of touch and allows the user to interface with the technology. With haptic technology the device will respond back to the user invoking not only touch but feelings as well.

Where will our electronics go next? The Nintendo Wii, PS3, PSP, DS and Xbox 360 all hold potential for incorporating the latest technology and capacitive sensors. Perhaps the way we control the games will continue to change. While force feedback has been utilized in the past, perhaps a controller with a touch screen would allow a different type of experience with many of their games. Or, there might be a way to utilize the DS as a controller with the Wii or the PSP with the PS3 – there are many different options available to developers – where will they move gaming to next?

Let’s face it – we love touch screens and they love us. They can be utilized in so much which is why they are making their way across so many different areas of life. ATMs are becoming more sophisticated as are self-checkouts at retail stores. Our televisions are becoming larger, brighter and may incorporate this type of technology in the future. Computers too are using the touch screen to their advantage. Our phones, MP3 players and other electronic devices are all infused with touch screen technology. We can’t get away from it and we don’t want to.

So, where will we see it next? One thing is for certain – that we can’t wait to see where it will pop up next, especially in our gaming systems. Since gaming developers are no longer targeting the younger crowd, this type of technology would definitely be a draw. Older, wiser individuals want the most for their money and they want to make sure they have the best option available. Keep your eyes out for where touch screens will be making an appearance. They are revolutionizing the world – one electronic device at a time.

Rebecca Beckett

ozonetvonnethttp://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/users/ozonetvonnetHowtotechnology, Music, Fashion, mobilephone, cellularphone, Modern, Chic, LG, Secret, Mobile, Phone, Thailand, PremiumLG launches LG Secret,the third in the Black Label Series

Technorati Tags: cellularphone, Chic, Fashion, LG, Mobile, mobilephone, Modern, Music, Phone, Premium, Secret, technology, Thailand

LYRICS & MELODY WRITTEN BY: Patrick “Mista Vybe” Gordon “SOFT TUNE RIDDIM” COMPOSED & PRODUCED BY: The Great Zeee (Zowi Stapleton) in NY VOCALS RECORDED BY: Madman Johann of Madmen Productions in tnt LEAD AND BACKGROUND VOCALS: Mista Vybe ADDITIONAL BACKGROUND VOCALS: Nadia Batson FINAL MIX & MASTERING: The Great Zeee BOOKINGS/MANAGEMENT: Joanne Marcano Director of Operations & Marketing, Real Mark Global Group Phone: 416-579-7927 Email: realmarkglobal@gmail.com FOLLOW MISTA VYBE ON TWITTER: twitter.com MYSPACE PAGE: www.myspace.com FACEBOOK FAN PAGE: www.facebook.com ADD MISTA VYBE ON FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com

Affiliate marketers depend upon having their marketing emails opened, read, and acted upon. Unless those three things happen, the affiliate marketer will pretty much be out of the affiliate marketing business.

If you are formatted your email correctly and it is readable in all email programs, then you just need to be certain that you have done everything possible to encourage the recipients to:

Open the email: The subject line is one of the two determining factors of whether an email is in fact opened or sent unopened and unread to the deleted mail file of the recipient. The first factor is who the email is from. Since the recipient opted into your list, it is fair to assume that they want to get email from you. The second factor is the subject line.

Most autoresponders allow 50 character long subject lines. Only the first 25 or less have any real value. You must use those 25 words to entice the recipient into opening the email to see what you have to say.

Personalize the email in the subject line. Your autoreponder will allow you to do this. “John, you can save money and get a free gift!” is much more effective than just, “You can save money and get a free gift!” So first, personalize your subject line.

The word, “free” has been maligned but don’t believe everything you hear. People like free. Everybody likes free….poor people, middle class people and maybe especially rich people.

There are other words that have proven to be effective in subject lines as well. Ease or easy, magic or magical, are some of them. You must use some mystery and some tease in your subject line, in order to get the recipients to open them.

Read the email: Once the recipient has been convinced to open the marketing email from you, the next trick is to get them to read what you have to say. The problem is that most computer users do not in fact READ anything. They SCAN. So it is up to you to get them to actually slow down and really read what you have to say.

The email must be interesting. If you can start with a story….and I’m not talking about a novel…I’m talking about a two line story, you can get their attention. “Bill thought of himself as a loser until he tried our product.” This is a story.

You must include bullet points in order to make your marketing email easy to read. You don’t ever want to include large blocks of text. Short simple bulleted points that list the advantages that your product can provide will make it easy for the recipients to see the important facts as a glance.

Act on the email: Once you have convinced the recipients to open and read your marketing email, the next step is to get them to actually act on your suggestions you have made, (i.e. buy what you are selling).

The first thing you need to do is to make the link for ordering your product or service easy to see. Remember to never word-wrap links. All email programs don’t deliver email with word wrapped links. All the recipient will see is the word…the link will not be included.

The second thing to do is to either make the offer for a specific limited time (midnight on Thursday, November 30th) and not just say “limited time” or to limit the offer to a specific number of people (this offer is limited to the first 200 applicants) and not just limited space is available.

Common Mistakes People Make when Writing Promo Emails:
There are at least as many ways to do a promotional email wrong as there are ways to get it right. One of the first mistakes that affiliate marketers make when writing their promo emails is that they…

Lose sight of the objective: The ONLY objective of a marketing email is to sell the product or service that you are promoting to the members of your opt-in list. Every word of the email needs to be directed at realizing that one objective.

See their list as email addresses: An opt-in list is much more than a list of names and email addresses. It is a list of people! Real, live, human people are what make up your opt-in list. You must market your product or service to humans and not email addresses.

Fail to provide themselves with the right tools for the job: If you are painting a room, you need paintbrushes, paint rollers, drop cloths, etc. If you are send promotional emails, you need the right tools for the job, as well.

Use weak and ineffective subject lines: Most auto responders allow you to use up to 50 characters in a subject line. The first 25 of those characters are what stands between the marketer and an email that actually opened and read. (The second 25 should be left on the table.) If marketing emails are deleted without being read, they are totally useless. Writing powerful, attention-getting subject lines that inspire recipients to open your marketing emails is an ability that needs to be developed to a high degree of expertise.

Effective subject lines are short, to the point, have a tease quality and never promise more than what will be delivered in the attached marketing email.

Use all capital letters: The use of all capital letters in any kind of email is the equivalent of shouting or yelling at a person that you are having a real world conversation with. It is rude and completely unproductive. Don’t yell at the members of your opt-in list. All capital letters do not draw attention nor convey excitement.

Use a lot of exclamation points: One exclamation point at the end of a sentence means that the sentence is an exclamatory one. Multiple exclamation points at the end of a sentence are another form of yelling and they do not denote added excitement. They are taking up valuable space in your marketing email and maybe even irritating the recipients.

Never use bullet points: It is a known fact that people don’t read marketing emails word for word. People scan marketing emails. Marketing emails need to be easy to SCAN. The use of bullet points makes it easy for recipients to easily identify the important information that is contained in the email. You should always use bullet points for the main points that you are making in your marketing email.

Make their emails too long: Marketing emails should be short. They shouldn’t have a scroll bar and they should only be 300 to 400 words long. They should never contain large blocks of text. It won’t be read.

Fail to use the P.S. line effectively: The P.S. line(s) of a marketing email appear last but they are as important as the first word of a marketing email. The P.S. line needs to be used to hit the most important aspect of the email again or as a tease for an upcoming email.

Email marketing is a critical element for any successful internet marketing. Take time to learn these specific tips and they will pay you back 100 fold!

Pj Germain

Technorati Tags: "Mista, Music, Soca, Vybe"

For many reenactors, military and civilian, one of the pleasures of a weekend spent in the field is that elusive moment when everything works. I’ve heard the sensation called “the bubble,” or simply “the magic.” There’s no way to predict exactly when it will happen. The feeling may last only seconds. But once you’ve experienced a moment that suddenly looks, smells, sounds, and feels so real that you completely forget your modern existence, you’ll be hungry for more.

I know I am. After a decade of reenacting, I’m not able to participate much any more. Instead I read, disappearing into the magic of good historical novels. And I write historical fiction as well, a hobby-turned-career that lets me spend time in imaginary scenes of my own creation. My most recent novel, Hearts of Stone, grew out of a Civil War refugee camp scenario at an event in Tennessee. And one of those “bubble” moments provided the kernel of raw inspiration.

Is there a novel in your future? If, like a number of reenactors I know, you’re interested in trying your hand at fiction, why wait until someday?

Reenactors are well poised to write historical fiction-much more so than many of the beginning writers I meet when I teach general workshops on the genre. As a serious reenactor, you’re already steeped in the history and social fabric of your chosen period. You know a lot about material culture and historical process. You’re experienced a
Gettysburg Visitor Center Museum & Cyclorama HD

t traditional research, and you conduct experiential research every time you participate in a new event or try your hand at a new activity. And you probably have an innate sense of story. The things that you find most interesting about your hobby would likely make a strong foundation for a novel.

If you are ready to get to work, here are a few suggestions.

1. Develop a fresh story idea. If you want to write a children’s book about the Civil War, see how many stories about drummer boys exist before writing one of your own.

2. Once you’ve settled on your idea, focus first on writing your story, not publishing your novel. Enjoy the process. Take a class. Learn your craft. Let the marketing stuff come later.

3. Create a compelling, memorable main character. The best fiction is character-driven, so spend a lot of time thinking about the people you’ll be writing about. Develop a complete history for them. All the information won’t make it into the story, but it will help you present a complex, believable, consistent character.

4. Once you have a strong sense of your character, shape your plot. Think in terms of having your character struggle to achieve something. Short stories and books for young children may have one clear plotline. More complex novels have multiple plotlines. I like to think in terms of “outer” and “inner” struggles. In Hearts of Stone, my main character Hannah’s outer plot involves struggling to keep her family together after she and her younger siblings become orphaned and homeless during the Civil War. Her inner plot focuses on her emotional struggle to accept both her father’s decision to fight for the Union Army and her best friend’s support of the Confederacy.

5. Some writers outline their novels in advance; some don’t. Choose whatever approach works for you. I don’t outline, but I do build a graphic organizer as I go. I create a table with four headings across the top: Chapter, Date, Scenes, Historical Events. That helps me keep track of what my characters are doing, and how their actions fit into the actual timeline of events that form the backdrop for my story.

6. Research, of course, is essential and ongoing. The historical details we love can also bog down a novel’s pace. If you fall in love with some fact or process, don’t just describe it in your fiction. Use that information to help reveal something new about your character, or to advance your plot.

7. Also, decide in advance where you are going to draw the line on historical accuracy. Are you willing to fictionalize weather details, or to make up business names for the merchants in a particular town? Reenactors are often fanatical about getting the details right. At some point, you’ll have to say: Enough. I’m done.

8. Keep a journal when you are at events. With a well-chosen pencil and notebook, you can even make it part of your impression. Make a point of recording specific, sensory details. Those details will bring your fiction to life, and will signal to readers that you are a trustworthy narrator.

9. Read as many different primary accounts as possible. Becoming steeped in period literature of all kinds will help you impart the flavor of period-appropriate speech in your fiction. (Note I said “flavor.” You don’t want to overwhelm readers with period-perfect but hard-to-understand speech.)

10. Join a professional writers’ organization. Membership can be an excellent way to learn more about both writing and publishing. The groups’ informative newsletters are often worth the price of membership. Most groups also hold regular conferences, which let pre-published authors meet other writers, agents and editors. The Historical Novel Society is an umbrella group for all historical fiction writers. Genre-specific groups like the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, Mystery Writers of America, and Romance Writers of America may help you find professional success.

Once your story is as good as you can make it, you have options for publishing. If your top priority is creating a book that your family and friends can enjoy, sooner than later, you may want to self-publish. If your only dream is a book contract from a major publisher, hunker down for the long haul. Learn everything you can about the industry. Read what’s being published and make note of what different presses are looking for.

Having a book published is an amazing experience. Still, if someone told me that I’d never be published again, I wouldn’t stop writing. The process of researching, imagining, and writing my stories brings its own rewards. I hope you can find that magic as well.

Kathleen Ernst

Technorati Tags: army, authentic, battlefield, Bobby, bonus, Center, Charge, Civil, Confederacy, Cyclorama, definition, Den, Devil's, DVD, Event, extra, feature, Field, Films, Finley, finleyholiday, Foundation, General, Gettysburg, Grant, HD, High, Holiday, Horton, Lee, little, Mark, Military, Museum, Music, National, Network, new, Of, Orchard, park", Peach, Pickett's, Round, the, Top, Visitor, War, Water, Wheat