Seven Simple Steps to Small Business Success

Date June 26, 2010

Many businesspeople achieve their greatest successes in unexpected areas. They begin a business and then they find that it isn’t as profitable as they had anticipated, so they change direction, using their experience and their momentum, and strike paydirt in something else. The most important thing is to begin. To take action. To move forward one step at a time, learning and growing as you go. There is enough information available in virtually every field for you to become knowledgeable enough to achieve success. But action is necessary.

The Two Parts of Success

Success author Orison Swett Marden once wrote, the first part of success is get-to-it-ivness. The second part is stick-to-it-iveness. Every business beginning requires an act of faith and courage, a bold leap into the unknown. Only one in ten people who want to start their own businesses ever develop enough courage to begin and enough persistence to continue. Get-to-it-iveness. And stick-to-it-iveness. The fear of failure, more than anything else, holds people back. It paralyzes action. And it makes failure inevitable.

Begin With a Dream

Fortunately, even if you know nothing about business, you can begin with a dream, a castle in the air, and then build a foundation under it.

Seven Simple Steps

The starting point of many great fortunes has been these seven simple steps. Number one, set a goal and back it with a burning desire. Number two, begin accumulating capital with a regular savings program. Nothing else is possible without this. You cannot move forward until you start a savings program.

Use Your Current Job As A Springboard

Number three, use your current job as a springboard to later success. Learn while you earn. Take the long view. Number four, experiment in business on a limited scale so you can learn the key abilities necessary for success. Number five, search for problems, needs unmet, products or services you can supply of good quality at reasonable prices.

Read Everything You Can Find

Number six, read everything you can find on your chosen field. Remain flexible. Be willing to change your mind if you get different information. And number seven, implement your plans with courage and persistence. Have complete faith in your ability to succeed and never, never give up.

Action Exercises

Now, here are two actions you can take immediately to start moving toward entrepreneurial success:

First, set a goal, make a plan and then launch your plan. Get started. Do something. Begin on a small scale with limited risk and investment but get going!

Second, resolve that, no matter what happens, you will never, never give up until you are successful. Before you accomplish anything worthwhile, you will have to pass the persistence test. And the test will come far sooner than you imagine.

Reference: http://success-bytes.blogspot.com/2010/06/seven-simple-steps-to-small-business.html


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Pretty WordPress Permalinks on IIS6

Date May 31, 2010

Most of the blogger started their blog on windows environment with IIS6 without any component installed for URL rewriting like ISAPI_REWRITE. And they don’t know the importance of URL rewriting but when they came to know about rewriting its too late. Following is the solution for those blogger who are willing to rewrite url on their blog.

< ?php
// This is the default file for the site. Usually index.php
$default = 'index.php';

// The name of this file.
// Set this value for the URL in Custom Error Properties of your website in IIS.
// Goto: IIS Manager > Websites > [Site Name] > Properties > Custom Errors >
// 404 & 404;2 & 404;3 > URL (Requires a '/' prefix in IIS).
$thisfile = '404-handler.php';

$_SERVER['ORIG_PATH_TRANSLATED'] = str_replace($thisfile, $default, $_SERVER['ORIG_PATH_TRANSLATED']);
$_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME'] = str_replace($thisfile, $default, $_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME']);
$_SERVER['ORIG_PATH_INFO'] = str_replace($thisfile, $default, $_SERVER['ORIG_PATH_INFO']);
$_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME'] = str_replace($thisfile, $default, $_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME']);
$_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] = str_replace($thisfile, $default, $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']);
$_SERVER['PATH_INFO'] = false;

$qs =& $_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'];
$ru =& $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];
$pos = strrpos($qs, '://');
$pos = strpos($qs, '/', $pos + 4);
$_SERVER['URL'] = $ru = substr($qs, $pos);
$qs = trim(stristr($ru, '?'), '?');

// Required for WordPress 2.8+
$_SERVER['HTTP_X_ORIGINAL_URL'] = $ru;

// Fix GET vars
foreach ( $_GET as $var => $val ) {
  if ( substr($var, 0, 3) == '404') {
    if ( strstr($var, '?') ) {
      $newvar = substr($var, strpos($var, '?') + 1);
      $_GET[$newvar] = $val;
    }
    unset($_GET[$var]);
  }
  break;
}
include($default);
?>

Follow the steps.

  1. Create the file wp-404-handler.php in your base WordPress folder.
  2. Set your sites 404 page to point to the wp-404-handler.php url. Most control panels at web hosts allow you to do this. If you’ve got the option to select between FILE and URL then choose URL.
  3. Go to WordPress Options -> Permalinks in your WordPress admin page, and choose an appropriate structure for your links. I chose Custom with this pattern:/%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%.html
  4. Enjoy Pretty URLs

Ikariam Web-based Strategic Game

Date April 9, 2010

Ikariam Web-based Strategic Game

Ikariam is a browser based massively multiplayer online game in the strategy genre produced and maintained by Gameforge AG. The game is set in a world resembling classical Greece, with players being made tyrant of a small town, which they must expand and lead. Ikariam has received generally positive reviews.

Ikariam has been compared to the Civilization series created by Sid Meier. It has also been compared to the critically acclaimed Travian series created by Travian Games GmbH. The aim of the game is to expand the town which is controlled by the player, to gather resources and conquer or placate other players. The game can be played for short periods of time; building and researching takes place in real time so the player can return at a later point and assign the town’s inhabitants new tasks.

Upon registering, players are given control of a small town. The town’s inhabitants pay taxes to the player or can be sent to gather resources instead. The game world is split into islands, each of which can support up to 16 players and their towns. Each island has its own saw mill for producing wood and one of the other buildings which produces a luxury resource. There are five main types of resources: Wood, Wine, Marble, Crystal Glass and Sulphur. They are available from the Sawmill, Vineyard, Quarry, Crystal Mine and Sulphur Pit respectively. All these resources are required to progress in the game, making resource acquisition through conquest or trading mandatory. If a certain resource is lacking locally the player may trade with other players to acquire it. Each island’s inhabitants may cooperate and donate building materials to improve the efficiency of their island’s resource gathering facilities, which enables all local players to obtain resources more quickly. Failure to do so may result in hostilities between island inhabitants.

With resources the player may construct buildings such as barracks, dockyards and academies. Citizens of the town can then be trained as soldiers, sent to research new technologies, or perform other tasks, which they are paid tax money for undertaking. Citizens must be kept happy to prevent them from leaving the town.

Buildings

Town hall- every town starts with one research requirements:none

Academy- here research can be done for new buildings, units, ships…ETC research requirements: none

Warehouse- keeps your items safe depending on the level of this building research requirements:conservation

Tavern- allows the serving of wine. increses happiness with every level research requirements:wine culture

Palace- allows the founding of a new colony research requirements: Expansion

Governors residence- required in a colony to stop corruption research requirements: expansion

Museum- does the same as tavern research requirements:cultural exchange

Trading port- Allows trading to be done research requirements:none

Shipyard- allows the construction of war ships research requirements:dry dock

Barracks- allows the construction of war units research requirements:none

Town wall- A 10% bonus is given for every level to soldiers when defending research requirements:none

Embassy- allows the player to join an alliance research requirements:foreign cultures

Trading post- lets the player purchase resources of one another research requirements: wealth

Hideout- Spys are trained here to go and spy on other towns research requirements:espionage

Workshop- improves troop’s weapons research requirements: invention

Forester’s House- increases building material gathering by 2% per level research requirements: improved resource gathering

Glassblower- increases crystal glass mining by 2% per level research requirements:improved resource gathering

Alchemist`s Tower- increases sulpher production by 2% per level research requirements:improved resource gathering

Winery- increases wine growing by 2% per level research requirements:improved resource gathering

Stonemasons Workshop- increases marble minining by 2% per level research requirements: improved resource gathering

Optician- demand for crystal on a building is reduced by 1% per level research requirements:optics

Firework Test Area- demand for sulphur on a building is reduced by 1% per level research requirements:pyrotechnics

Wine Cellars- demand for wine for any building is reduced by 1% per level research requirements:wine press house

Architect`s Office- demand for marble on any building is reduced by 1% per level research requirements:architecture

Temple- increases faith on the island research requirements: polytheism

http://www.ikariam.com

Split CSV String into Table in SQL Server

Date April 5, 2010

By default there is no function in SQL Server that can split comma separated string into Table (Rows). Following t-sql is custom made function that can split csv string into table.

CREATE FUNCTION dbo.SplitCSV (@CSVString VARCHAR(8000), @Delimiter CHAR(1))
RETURNS @temptable TABLE (items VARCHAR(8000))
AS
BEGIN
	DECLARE @pos INT;
	DECLARE @slice VARCHAR(8000);

	SELECT @pos = 1;
	IF LEN(@CSVString) < 1 OR @CSVString IS NULL RETURN;

	WHILE @pos!= 0
	BEGIN
		SET @pos = CHARINDEX(@Delimiter,@CSVString);
		IF @pos != 0
			SET @slice = LEFT(@CSVString, @pos - 1);
		ELSE
			SET @slice = @CSVString;

		IF( LEN(@slice) > 0)
			INSERT INTO @temptable(Items) VALUES (@slice);

		SET @CSVString = RIGHT(@CSVString, LEN(@CSVString) - @pos);
		IF LEN(@CSVString) = 0 BREAK;
	END
	RETURN
END

Usage:

SELECT * FROM dbo.SplitCSV ('Computer,Keyboard,Mouse,USB', ',');

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