Traveling Around Alicante And Benidorm

The most popular and convenient way to get around in Alicante, Spain is to rent a car. Whether you?re traveling up the Costa Blanca to Benidorm, or staying in Alicante to sightsee, it?s great to have a car at your disposal. Renting is simple to do, and depending on your itinerary, it will generally be more cost-effective than any other mode of transportation. There are several key things to take note of before you go.

Alicante Car Rental

When you land at the airport in Alicante, you?ll find several different car rental companies to choose from, including worldwide names such as Avis and Hertz, and regional companies like Auriga and Centuaro. They?re easily accessible from the arrival area.

It?s best to book your car rental before your vacation to ensure you get the best price. Also, depending on when you?re traveling, it?s a good idea to pre-arrange a car in advance to be sure that you?ll have one when you arrive. Particularly in the summer, which is peak season in Alicante, you?ll find that rental inventory goes quickly.

You can use several different ways to reserve your car. You can book online, through a travel agent, or directly with the company you select. Many times you can find a great deal on a car rental as part of a vacation package. Be sure to shop several companies for the best rates. When shopping, include any additional charges, such as insurance, as well as any restrictions that will apply, to get a clear picture when comparing prices.

The car doesn?t always have to be picked up at the airport, though for some, that?s most convenient. Sometimes you?ll find that renting in town is more affordable than renting at the airport. Think about where you?ll be picking up and dropping off to ensure that you?ll have transportation to and from the rental location. If you?re renting from a location other than the airport, most companies offer complimentary transportation to the rental company.

Don?t Forget the Extras

Consider any extra features or charges when renting. Find out what?s included in the price. Some rental companies may include insurance in their cost, some may not.

One important issue to address is whether or not you?ll need to bring a child safety seat. You may have already brought it for the flight, and it?s a simple procedure to get it into the rental car. Or you may have planned to rent one once you arrived. Either way, if you have an infant or child in the car, Spanish law states that he or she must be secured in a safety seat. If a rental company provides it, there?s an additional charge.

Be sure to get a car with air conditioning. It might be an obvious feature, but one you may not realize you need until you?re in the sweltering heat of Alicante without it.

Careful planning and review of all of your options will ensure you have the best possible car rental experience.

About the Author:

Peter J. Wilson is writing principally for http://www.alicante-spain.com , a web page on Costa Blanca . His abstracts on Alicante car rental are found on his website .

NICK'S BACKPACK CAREPAK MISSION/Darryl E. Owens

Saturday, September 22, 2001

`LUCKY' TEEN KNOWS THE DESPAIR OF CHILDREN
IN ROMANIA, TRIES TO HELP
by Darryl E. Owens THE ORLANDO SENTINEL
Used with permission

The castoff child escaped 11 years ago, rescued from a hell called Orphanage No. 4.

An Orlando woman moved by a television report and a hole in her soul plucked him from a Romanian orphanage brimming with garbage and apathy.

He had a shaven head, piercing brown eyes, and white spots streaking across his thighs where injections of sedatives had scarred him.

Soon he was thousands of miles from the smoldering reality of revolution, living in a safe, sun-drenched city where people only have to step through theme-park gates to experience lands of make-believe.

Day by day, the waif grew into Nick Simon, a suntanned Florida boy eager to catch up on years of missed chocolate bars and loving hugs.

In June, more than a decade after he left the orphanage, Nick stumbled upon a 20/20 TV special that captured his interest. ABC correspondent Tom Jarriel had returned to Romania to see if anything had changed for the orphans since his eye-opening 1990 report. It had: Thousands, now in their late teens and early 20s, were living in the sewers. Waves of haunting memories washed over Nick.

He searched the despairing faces of children -- once warehoused, now turned out on the streets -- staring, knowing. Knowing among the faces might be children with whom he shared a crib and a cry.

Knowing among those faces were children certain to barter their bodies to survive, sniff glue as an escape, die lonely deaths from AIDS. Knowing his face could have been among those flashed in a blur across a 32-inch television screen.

But he knew, most of all, something must be done. And so it was that a grass-roots campaign, Backpack Carepak, a drive to collect and send winterwear and hygiene products in gently-used or new backpacks to street urchins in Bucharest was born in the heart of a 16-year-old native son.

What really struck me, he says, was, like, `Whoa! Hold up a second. They're living in the streets now? I was lucky to get out of there at the time that I did. I could have been one of these kids living in the streets. Not enough people are speaking out for the kids out there that need help.

Nick slides into a cramped booth at Panera Bread near Lake Eola on a recent afternoon and regards his lunch: tuna on honey wheat, Greek salad, a Pepsi.

With his nut-brown mop, bushy eyebrows, and an elongated face that narrows to a rounded V at the chin, Nick could pass for the shy, boyish cog in a boy band -- if he were shy. Truth be told, Hollywood is where his head is. Already he has appeared as an extra in films and starred as Jesus in a Godspell production.

He likes his girls cute and speaks the lingo. As Nick puts it, he is, out there, which is, apparently, something desirable, in the way that bad means good.

By all appearances, Nick is your average red-blooded, American teenager. Nothing like the 51/2-year-old who came to America unacquainted with Santa Claus. He stabs at his feta, looks up glassy-eyed.

I still have dreams of Romania, he volunteers.

Sometimes when he sleeps, he says, his mind paints Jackson Pollocks, scored by Rambo.
Flashes of white, blue, red.
Dogs barking.
Guns rat-a-tat-tatting.
Sirens screeching across his mind.

It was only later, when the woman he would come to call Mama told him the story behind his coming to Orlando, that Nick would tie his dreams to the revolution in 1989 that swirled around Orphanage No. 4.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In 1992: They look like a typical family; Mom, Dad, kids and the family dog. But Connie & Paul Simon, with a young Nick and Liana, paint their own special portrait of that theme.

The brush, however, is the same: the need to love and be loved.

A SILENCE THAT SCREAMS

It began in the summer of 1990, when Connie Simon, then a teacher at Howard Middle School in Orlando, traveled to Romania to distribute 14 boxes filled with toys, clothes, and medical supplies gathered by students, staff and others moved by a 20/20 segment on Romanian orphans.

The report pried the lid off a secret shame, born of the tyrannical 25-year reign of Nicolae Ceausescu. In an effort to swell the Romanian population, he banned birth control and abortions and heavily fined couples that produced fewer than four children.

Unable to care for the offspring, many parents handed them over to the state. According to estimates, about 100,000 children languished in Romanian institutions.

When the government fell in December 1989, Ceausescu was overthrown and executed.

The misery didn't die with him.

Even braced for conditions she had heard were common at the orphanages, Simon had to steady herself at the odor blasting into her nostrils. The heat concentrated the stench of diapers, changed -- if at all -- once a day. It happened like this: children with sticky legs sat stacked on trays like loaves of bread, changed in one fell swoop.

More than the smell, what struck her about this particular orphanage was the silence. Wards of tiny creatures stared blankly through bars in cribs, or rocked, rocked, rocked on filthy bare pads. Children with bloated bellies and babies crawling with lice had learned not to cry. Rarely would their screams move a caretaker to dab at their tears.

Simon delivered the care packages to the Spitalul Children's Hospital and several orphanages. At the orphanages, children buzzed about her as if she were the queen bee. One child swooped down on a pink bunny, wetting its fur with kisses.

Simon returned home to Orlando, changed. She knew what she had to do.

HUG MELTS AWAY BLEAKNESS

In late October 1990, Simon again was bound for Romania.

She and her husband, Paul, in their early 40s at the time, had tried and failed to adopt children in the states. Five times, the same thing. It was as if the children were ice -- when the Simons believed they were grasping something solid, the children slipped like water through their fingers.

On her first trip to Romania, Simon became smitten with a 2-year-old named Ana and started the adoption paperwork.

But soon her optimism faded like the black-and-white snapshot of the brown-haired little girl.

Simon found the red tape virtually impenetrable. Each court appearance brought disappointment and more frustration. Each judge she appeared before had his own rules for signing off on the adoption. That she spoke little Romanian didn't help.

Complicating matters, Simon was under a deadline: She had been in Romania for several weeks and with an airlines strike looming, she was booked on the last flight out of Bucharest before Christmas.

At least she had tried, she thought.

As one door seemed to slam shut, another opened. An interpreter, aware of her dead-ends with Ana, told her about a slight boy at Orphanage No. 4.

Simon visited the place. The building was old, frigid. Inside there were no toys. Outside packs of wild dogs roamed. The children slept in military cots. They shared a bathroom with rusty showers and two sinks.

After a while, Simon and the boy she came to meet were brought together, two strangers in the strangest of places. His father was dead and his mother was poor. His aunts, uncles, and cousins lived in a commune outside of Bucharest.

The child, in a sweater, long stockings, and knitted pants, reacted the only way he could: he ran as fast as he could over to Simon, snaked his arms around just under her waist and squeezed.

Within the week, the boy she called Nick was gorging on chocolates on a flight bound for Orlando.

Nick was miles away from speaking English, save for the words, chocolate and Mickey. And this: Her son could say mama.

DISCOVERING TIRE TREADS

After a while, when the newness rubbed away, the Simons confronted some unpleasant realities.

An institutionalized child -- one who had been warehoused virtually all his life without an encouraging word, without love -- was going to bear scars.

The first night he spent in his room, Nick stripped the sheets and ignored the pillow -- luxuries he had never had. He spent nights haunting the hallway, snacking on bowls of sugar.

Precious few things came naturally to him. He knew how to march and salute -- the orphans were groomed to be crack soldiers -- and when placed in a bathtub, Nick would grab a cloth and buff the chrome.

Since he had never seen a toy, he had to learn how to play.

Since he was rarely allowed to venture beyond the crib, he had to learn to explore. Once at school, teachers found Nick under a school bus, weaving his fingers through the tire treads. News story THE ORLANDO SENTINEL and may not be republished without permission.

Darryl E. Owens
Features Writer
The Orlando Sentinel
633 North Orange Avenue
Orlando, FL 32801
(407) 420-5095
Fax: (407) 420-5457

COME FIND OUT HOW YOU CAN HELP, TOO. :)

http://joanbramsch.com eens/backpack.shtml

`LUCKY' TEEN KNOWS THE DESPAIR OF CHILDREN
IN ROMANIA, TRIES TO HELP
by Darryl E. Owens THE ORLANDO SENTINEL
Used with permission

The castoff child escaped 11 years ago, rescued from a hell called Orphanage No. 4.

An Orlando woman moved by a television report and a hole in her soul plucked him from a Romanian orphanage brimming with garbage and apathy.

He had a shaven head, piercing brown eyes, and white spots streaking across his thighs where injections of sedatives had scarred him.

Soon he was thousands of miles from the smoldering reality of revolution, living in a safe, sun-drenched city where people only have to step through theme-park gates to experience lands of make-believe.

Day by day, the waif grew into Nick Simon, a suntanned Florida boy eager to catch up on years of missed chocolate bars and loving hugs.

In June, more than a decade after he left the orphanage, Nick stumbled upon a 20/20 TV special that captured his interest. ABC correspondent Tom Jarriel had returned to Romania to see if anything had changed for the orphans since his eye-opening 1990 report. It had: Thousands, now in their late teens and early 20s, were living in the sewers. Waves of haunting memories washed over Nick.

He searched the despairing faces of children -- once warehoused, now turned out on the streets -- staring, knowing. Knowing among the faces might be children with whom he shared a crib and a cry.

Knowing among those faces were children certain to barter their bodies to survive, sniff glue as an escape, die lonely deaths from AIDS. Knowing his face could have been among those flashed in a blur across a 32-inch television screen.

But he knew, most of all, something must be done. And so it was that a grass-roots campaign, Backpack Carepak, a drive to collect and send winterwear and hygiene products in gently-used or new backpacks to street urchins in Bucharest was born in the heart of a 16-year-old native son.

What really struck me, he says, was, like, `Whoa! Hold up a second. They're living in the streets now? I was lucky to get out of there at the time that I did. I could have been one of these kids living in the streets. Not enough people are speaking out for the kids out there that need help.

Nick slides into a cramped booth at Panera Bread near Lake Eola on a recent afternoon and regards his lunch: tuna on honey wheat, Greek salad, a Pepsi.

With his nut-brown mop, bushy eyebrows, and an elongated face that narrows to a rounded V at the chin, Nick could pass for the shy, boyish cog in a boy band -- if he were shy. Truth be told, Hollywood is where his head is. Already he has appeared as an extra in films and starred as Jesus in a Godspell production.

He likes his girls cute and speaks the lingo. As Nick puts it, he is, out there, which is, apparently, something desirable, in the way that bad means good.

By all appearances, Nick is your average red-blooded, American teenager. Nothing like the 51/2-year-old who came to America unacquainted with Santa Claus. He stabs at his feta, looks up glassy-eyed.

I still have dreams of Romania, he volunteers.

Sometimes when he sleeps, he says, his mind paints Jackson Pollocks, scored by Rambo.
Flashes of white, blue, red.
Dogs barking.
Guns rat-a-tat-tatting.
Sirens screeching across his mind.

It was only later, when the woman he would come to call Mama told him the story behind his coming to Orlando, that Nick would tie his dreams to the revolution in 1989 that swirled around Orphanage No. 4.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In 1992: They look like a typical family; Mom, Dad, kids and the family dog. But Connie & Paul Simon, with a young Nick and Liana, paint their own special portrait of that theme.

The brush, however, is the same: the need to love and be loved.

A SILENCE THAT SCREAMS

It began in the summer of 1990, when Connie Simon, then a teacher at Howard Middle School in Orlando, traveled to Romania to distribute 14 boxes filled with toys, clothes, and medical supplies gathered by students, staff and others moved by a 20/20 segment on Romanian orphans.

The report pried the lid off a secret shame, born of the tyrannical 25-year reign of Nicolae Ceausescu. In an effort to swell the Romanian population, he banned birth control and abortions and heavily fined couples that produced fewer than four children.

Unable to care for the offspring, many parents handed them over to the state. According to estimates, about 100,000 children languished in Romanian institutions.

When the government fell in December 1989, Ceausescu was overthrown and executed.

The misery didn't die with him.

Even braced for conditions she had heard were common at the orphanages, Simon had to steady herself at the odor blasting into her nostrils. The heat concentrated the stench of diapers, changed -- if at all -- once a day. It happened like this: children with sticky legs sat stacked on trays like loaves of bread, changed in one fell swoop.

More than the smell, what struck her about this particular orphanage was the silence. Wards of tiny creatures stared blankly through bars in cribs, or rocked, rocked, rocked on filthy bare pads. Children with bloated bellies and babies crawling with lice had learned not to cry. Rarely would their screams move a caretaker to dab at their tears.

Simon delivered the care packages to the Spitalul Children's Hospital and several orphanages. At the orphanages, children buzzed about her as if she were the queen bee. One child swooped down on a pink bunny, wetting its fur with kisses.

Simon returned home to Orlando, changed. She knew what she had to do.

HUG MELTS AWAY BLEAKNESS

In late October 1990, Simon again was bound for Romania.

She and her husband, Paul, in their early 40s at the time, had tried and failed to adopt children in the states. Five times, the same thing. It was as if the children were ice -- when the Simons believed they were grasping something solid, the children slipped like water through their fingers.

On her first trip to Romania, Simon became smitten with a 2-year-old named Ana and started the adoption paperwork.

But soon her optimism faded like the black-and-white snapshot of the brown-haired little girl.

Simon found the red tape virtually impenetrable. Each court appearance brought disappointment and more frustration. Each judge she appeared before had his own rules for signing off on the adoption. That she spoke little Romanian didn't help.

Complicating matters, Simon was under a deadline: She had been in Romania for several weeks and with an airlines strike looming, she was booked on the last flight out of Bucharest before Christmas.

At least she had tried, she thought.

As one door seemed to slam shut, another opened. An interpreter, aware of her dead-ends with Ana, told her about a slight boy at Orphanage No. 4.

Simon visited the place. The building was old, frigid. Inside there were no toys. Outside packs of wild dogs roamed. The children slept in military cots. They shared a bathroom with rusty showers and two sinks.

After a while, Simon and the boy she came to meet were brought together, two strangers in the strangest of places. His father was dead and his mother was poor. His aunts, uncles, and cousins lived in a commune outside of Bucharest.

The child, in a sweater, long stockings, and knitted pants, reacted the only way he could: he ran as fast as he could over to Simon, snaked his arms around just under her waist and squeezed.

Within the week, the boy she called Nick was gorging on chocolates on a flight bound for Orlando.

Nick was miles away from speaking English, save for the words, chocolate and Mickey. And this: Her son could say mama.

DISCOVERING TIRE TREADS

After a while, when the newness rubbed away, the Simons confronted some unpleasant realities.

An institutionalized child -- one who had been warehoused virtually all his life without an encouraging word, without love -- was going to bear scars.

The first night he spent in his room, Nick stripped the sheets and ignored the pillow -- luxuries he had never had. He spent nights haunting the hallway, snacking on bowls of sugar.

Precious few things came naturally to him. He knew how to march and salute -- the orphans were groomed to be crack soldiers -- and when placed in a bathtub, Nick would grab a cloth and buff the chrome.

Since he had never seen a toy, he had to learn how to play.

Since he was rarely allowed to venture beyond the crib, he had to learn to explore. Once at school, teachers found Nick under a school bus, weaving his fingers through the tire treads. News story THE ORLANDO SENTINEL and may not be republished without permission.

Darryl E. Owens
Features Writer
The Orlando Sentinel
633 North Orange Avenue
Orlando, FL 32801
(407) 420-5095
Fax: (407) 420-5457

COME FIND OUT HOW YOU CAN HELP, TOO. :)

http://joanbramsch.com eens/backpack.shtml

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JOAN BRAMSCH is a family person, educator, writer and E-publisher. Her articles appear internationally in print and online. Six of her best-selling adult novels - near one million copies - have worldwide distribution. Her
Empowered Parenting Ezine serves 1000 parents around the globe.
http://www.JoanBramsch.com mailto:hijoan@joanbramsch.com

Real Estate Investment Tip Getting Far Lower Property Taxes!

When buying real estate for investment many buyers look overseas and one of the big advantages is normally the generous tax incentives on real estate investment property.

How does real estate taxes and no capital gains tax sound?

Combine this with fantastic growth potential and you can make money and save tax. Let?s look at one market as an example.

1.Low property Tax.

Property taxes in Costa Rica are extremely low when compared to say the United States. Property taxes vary from 0.5% to 1.5% of the declared value of the property.

The Municipal Tax is administered at the municipal level and varies throughout the country. Paid quarterly, the type of property, location and other factors contribute to the calculation of this tax.

2. No Corporation Tax

A great incentive provided by the Government for overseas investment is that there is no capital gains tax.

A buyer would not be taxed by the government on the profit from the future sale of the property as long as this is not undertaken as a primary means of business.

3. Legal rights of overseas buyers are protected

Ownership of real estate in Costa Rica by foreigners is fully guaranteed by the Government.

In addition, foreigners enjoy the same ownership rights as Cost Rican residents, regardless of whether the property is placed in the name of a corporation or in the name of the buyer.

The decision to have the property under the name of a corporation is up to the investor.

Corporations are very common and can offer benefits of asset protection and anonymity for the actual owner. The cost is approximately $500.00

Costa Rica is looking for overseas investment and its steadily rising with American buyers in particular for the following reasons:

? Its just a 3 hour direct flight yet property can be up to 70%

? Living costs are far lower

? Amenities and infrastructure are good

? The country is peaceful and beautiful and one of the top adventure tourism spots in the world

? Capital growth potential is fantastic those buyers who bought near the popular town of Jaco with 30,000 dollars 15 years ago are worth $750,000 today and with investment at record levels further growth is expected

? Buying is easy, with very little red tape

Consider this

The baby boomer generation are buying second and retirement homes in record numbers and low taxes, cheap properties, great growth potential and in a safe and stable environment is very appealing.

Check out overseas destinations like Costa Rica for yourself and see.

FREE REPORT

On how to invest in property and get great growth potential, as well as low risk and pay less tax visit: http://www.net-planet.org/costarica.php

Heart Rate Monitor Fitness Information

Almost everyone would like to change something about their body. Many want to slim down, lose fat, develop more muscle tone ? in general, just look better. But physical fitness also opens the door to a healthier, more active and energetic lifestyle. Everyone understands the merits of having a physically fit body?but how can you get there? Use heart rate monitor fitness to meet all your fitness goals.

Heart rate monitors are becoming more and more popular in gyms and workout classes. Wearing a heart rate monitor on wrist (like a watch) or workout clothes (in the strapless variety) may seem like a small thing, but heart rate monitor fitness can change the way you look at exercising. By using this small, simple tool, you can get the most out of your workout and meet your personal fitness goals.

Because they are becoming more widely used, heart rate monitors for fitness training are getting less expensive and more chock-full of features all the time. Now, you can see your heart rate by number or percentage, and displays are easy to access with one-touch buttons. Many heart rate monitors designed for fitness will show you the calories you burn, and even show targeted heart rates on the display. Using a heart rate monitor in your fitness program will help you stay on track with your workout. The more effective your workout, the easier it will be to reach those slim, toned, physically fit results. The results are the reason you exercise, right?

Fitness with a heart rate monitor is fitness made simple. Use this small device to learn if you?re reaching your target heart rate, and how much time you?re spending there. After going through your normal workout routine only once, you?ll have the right tool to begin making changes that can help you custom-design a workout that?s best for your body. Using a heart rate monitor to help you with physical fitness is as good as having your own personal trainer ? only better, because this tool can tell you exactly how many calories you?re burning.

Best of all, you can use your heart rate monitor to work on physical fitness anywhere. Take it to the gym, out on a jog, or use it inside your own home. Most heart rate monitors store past recordings, so that you can look at your workouts over a period of time. You?ll be able to design an exercise routine that really helps you get the most out of your workout. When you?re getting the most out of your routine, you?re producing results. With a heart rate monitor, the body you want is much, much easier to obtain.

Heart rate monitors are extremely popular, so it?s easy to find products and product reviews online. Any search engine will yield results, so with a few clicks of your mouse you can start comparing and shopping for heart rate monitors. Even if you don?t buy over the Internet, you can still read product reviews, compare prices, and get a good idea of what kind of heart rate monitor you want. Using a small, handheld monitor as part of your fitness program will help you spend more quality minutes working out ? so you can spend all your other quality minutes enjoying the results.

Looking for Top Brand Heart Rate Monitors at Below Retail Prices?

FITZZ.COM - Personal Health & Sports Products Home Fitness Exercise Equipment Online

Broadband and Internet 101

Internet is the World Wide Web. Broadband is the medium that carries it. Internet is the international computer network linking together thousands of individual networks. Broadband is the transmitter of these signals.

The most popular features of the Internet include electronic mail (of course you know e-mail), discussion groups (called newsgroups or bulletin boards, where users can post messages and look for responses on a system called Usenet). There is also the online conversations or chats, adventure and role-playing games and information retrieval You can also find electronic commerce (e-commerce) in the Net where you can buy and sell stuff at the click of a button.

On the other hand, broadband is the high-speed transmission. It is used to refer to Internet access which uses cable modems or DSL (Digital Subscriber Line). Broadband DSL connections are faster compared to dial-up connections.

Dial-up connections utilize phone lines to connect to the Internet while broadband uses cables.

High-speed transmission is commonly used to refer to Internet access via cable modems or DSL, which is faster than dial-up. For years, roadband has referred to a higher-speed connection, but the actual speed threshold has varied.

Along with digital subscriber line technology, cable modems ushered in the age of broadband Internet access in developed countries. Before DSL and cable modems, Internet access involved slow dial-up access over a public switched telephone network.

Users in a neighborhood share the available bandwidth provided by a single cable line. Therefore, connection speed can vary depending on how many people are using the service at the same time.

While T1 (1.5 Mbps) has been widely used as the threshold, others have used T3 (45 Mbps) for broadband. For example, after the turn of the century, South Korea leapfrogged the U.S. in Internet access, offering DSL up to 50 Mbps and calling their 1.5 Mbps service light.

Mbps is an abbreviation for megabits per second. It is the data transfer speeds as measured in megabits. This unit is mostly used in networking technologies such as broadband.

The World Wide Web (WWW) is the greatest force to the popularization of the Internet. It is a hypertext system (a computer based retrieval system) which makes browsing the Internet both fast and intuitive.

The information stored in the computer networks connected to the Internet forms a huge cyber library. But the enormous quantity of data and information in these interconnected computers makes it difficult to retrieve the information.

This is where broadband comes in because with the use of these cables, the information available in the Internet can be retrieved really fast and without hassles.

The broadband medium can carry signals from different network carriers. This is done through fiber-optic cable. Fiber-optic cable is a thin glass strand designed for transmission. It is capable of transmitting trillions of bits per second

Broadband technology can support a wide range of frequencies. Broadband in general refers to data transmission where multiple pieces of data are sent simultaneously to increase the effective rate of transmission. In network engineering this term is used for methods where two or more signals share a medium.

Various forms of DSL service are broadband in the sense that digital information is sent over one channel and voice over another channel sharing a single pair of wires.
About the Author

James Monahan is the owner and senior editor of

Protect Your Investment: Real Estate Investing Secrets For A Zero Vacancy Factor

I hate empty rentals - as a landlord, as a neighbor and citizen. As a landlord, yeah I lose lots of money and time, not to mention the extra hassles.

And no matter what, empty rentals bring extra worries and headaches: vandalism, neighborhood kids, landscaping upkeep...

What most property owners don't know or understand is the concept of marketing their rentals. I try to be flexible and treat my renters as partners, because they are. If you don't have tenants, you're left with empty houses and costly real estate investments.

If the property has been vacant for only 1 month, the entire years profit from that property is affected. If it's vacant longer, well, you can do the math.

Here are some investing secrets and strategies that I use to get my units rented faster.

Give the first months rent for free. If a unit is vacant, your renter will many times be ready to move in sometime during the monthly cycle, not necessarily at the beginning of the month.

So give them the rest of the month for free as an incentive. You'd lose the rest of the month anyway if the renter doesn't move it, but now you have the place rented, and the security that (and since I only do 1 year leases) you have them for a full year - because their full paid year doesn't start until the first month they pay rent.

Reward your tenants. Yeah, we all fall for this tactic. If my tenants keep the unit in great condition, keep the landscaping up, pay on time... sometimes I pay their water bill, or give them a gift certificate for a free dinner or pizza.

It it's a multi-unit, I tell the other tenants about the reward to get the other tenants motivated.

Stage the place. No matter what kind of neighborhood, I always stage my rentals. Many people don't have the vision to see what the place will look like with furniture. Most people are driven by emotions, and if they like what they see, they go with it.

Helping them with the deposit and rental monies. It's about being flexible again, but you have to be careful of course. I meet with them first, check their background, their credit, and other factors, and sometimes I do cut them a break if I feel they need it. There are people who are trying hard to get themselves back on track. And others who aren't. So you need to decide who is up for the extra help and who it won't work with.

Provide an upgrade. Since I know my rentals, I know the things that are targeted for upgrades or replacement. Every so often, I'll take care of one of those. The tenants love it and it keeps the value of my properties up. Another win/win situation.

And last but not least, marketing, marketing and more marketing. Real estate investing is no different than other businesses. You have to keep marketing and keep your leads coming in. Expose your marketing to as many people as you can.

Send postcards in the neighborhood, even to other rental properties. Give them reasons why they should rent from me instead of where they are. Give them the benefits of living with me. I take pictures of my rentals and send them to my prospects so they can see the beautiful places I have.

You have to take care of your tenant's interest first before you own. I've learned that in life, the problems start when we take care of ourselves first before others. When you help other people and take care of their interest first, your own interests will be taken care of automatically.

Raul Luna officially became a millionaire before he turned 21! This successful speaker and educator is turning ordinary people into millionaires. Discover his secrets: http://www.moonvesting.com

INDIE GAMES ARE SOCIAL AND INTERACTIVE

Non- gamers often say that gamers are unsocial people. Not true. Of course it is not a very social activity like hanging out with friends. But the popularity of multiplayer games goes to emphasize on the social factors.

Increasing role-playing has reduced the barriers between the players with others. Now a gamer can connect with another gamer at any part of the world. You can be a friend or a complete stranger it doesn't matter. So if you are a social recluse take heart.

For you could be miles apart, but still playing the game together, since the gulf between the gamer and the virtual world is almost non-existent.

Even if you are a loner, indie-games can relieve you of your boredom. The games are tightly constructed. Also the content is such that you are not left talking to yourself. -- Although, some people like to talk to themselves!

However indie-games are not claustrophobic. They give you a chance to speak, you are an active listener not a passive one. We know that people do not like to sit and listen. So indie games will compel you to play since interaction is a top priority in our list.

Look at the past. The board games that you played on a rainy day were also very interactive. But they were closed games. There were these fixed set of rules. The tools were limited to cards, dices etc. Even after so many years, those games may use different designs, but the basic concepts are unchanged. You don't seem to have much of a choice there.

The interaction quotient work best when you are not aware. That you are actually being interactive and you connect to indie games effortlessly.

And as your skills increase you can play more complex games that need extra dedication. You will find that gamers increase the popularity of games simply by the word of mouth. That is why we do not sell clones. Our games are original and they compel you to play because playing them becomes an enjoyable experience.

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