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You go to the mail box and scan – a couple fliers (nah), your magazine subscription (yes!) and
bills (groan). Every month the bills show up and as you sigh and take out your check book you
wonder if you will ever be free.

Each month you pay the minimums and although you KNOW you’ve got a handle on it – you are
not charging your credit card or accumulating new debts anymore – it seems that you will be
paying the minimum fees forever.

Did you know that HOW you pay your debts can affect how soon you will finishing paying them
off – even if you keep paying the same amount for debt every month? Of course you might be
able to get a consolidation loan, but if you’re not eligible or are not interested then there are
several other things you can do.

It’s not always the easiest to figure out the mathematics, but there are three steps to quicker
debt relief – guaranteed.

STEP ONE – Create a list.

List your smallest debts first followed by your largest high-interest debts (credit card) and then
your largest low-interest debts (Lines of credit and taxes).
Plan to pay the minimums on all debts with these goals in mind:

STEP TWO – Small bills first.

They may not be the highest interest, but every bill that you are paying some interest on
means you are usually only paying minimal amounts on the principal. Multiple debts are also a
sure way to bring your spirits down. Paying off small debts first is a quick way to start checking
them off – and freeing your mind.

STEP THREE – Move the payments along.

When one debt is paid add the funds to the next debt. For example, say you’re making $75
payments to a small debt. When the debt is cleared add the $75 to the next debt on your list. If
the next debt had a minimum payment of $100, you will now pay $175 until it is paid off. When
that one is finished, take the $175 and add it to the next payment and so on.

STEP FOUR – Save the cash!

Don’t forget that when your debts are cleared you have set yourself up for a better financial
future. The best way to take advantage of your new situation is to use all the money you were
spending on debts and start investing or saving it every month.

With this strategy your debts will clear faster meaning you will pay less interest, you will see
progress as you clear small debts first, and you will not be tempted to use the funds for
personal use instead of debt repayment.

It is a worthwhile goal to get out of debt. Seeing that goal come sooner and teaching yourself
discipline sets you up for a brighter financial future. You OWE yourself that!

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Well, I must be doing something right now when it comes to Twitter. Even though I don’t send out tweets on a regular basis and sometimes don’t send any at all some days, my follower count still continues to climb upward.

I have some automated posts that go out on a daily basis, normally one per day and that seems to bring in a little traffic to my blogs, so apparently, I’m not just tweeting to myself!

I have recently added a Follow Me on Twitter link and graphic to one of my blogs to see if this will help get more followers. So far, it seems to be helping raise my follower count.

Here are three sites that I have found with free Twitter Follow Me Graphics that you can use:

Free Twitter Buttons

Free Twitter Graphics

Free Twitter Follow Me Buttons

I have also added the TwitterCounter.com code to display the number of followers I currently have. This seems to add a touch of “social media proof” to encourage people to follow me.

You can check out TwitterCount here:
http://twittercounter.com/?username=robwhiteus

You can enter your own username to see your stats and get your own counter button code too!

There is also a WordPress Plugin you can download from:
http://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/twittercounter.zip

Now, I have also tried to avoid the irrelevant tweets like “I’m going to lunch now” or “Time for bed, goodnight!” as I know that these kind of tweets tend to put off some people unless there is some real content mixed in.

With the advent of the Twitter Grader, I can easily see how I rank with other Twitter users. My grade right now is 98.3 out of 100. This grade is calculated by a number of factors including how your profile is setup, whether it is complete, how many followers you have and the number of people you follow, plus a few other factors added in.

I went into my Twitter Profile and made sure that I had my blog address in and that I had my background set so that it didn’t appear to be an advertisement. I also uploaded a more current picture, just to change things up a little, so that people following me would have a better idea of who they were “listening to”.

When I’m sending out links over Twitter, I try to limit these type of posts when using affiliate links, so that I don’t look like I’m spamming my followers.

In any event, this is just a few of the things I have done to continue to get more followers. Currently, I am at 241 followers and climbing!

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Through web conferencing, there is an opportunity to chat and communicate with co-workers, even facilitate meetings, presentations and demonstrations. Web conferencing not just offers communication exchange but also allows participants to trade documents, share applications, access desktops, use whiteboards and PowerPoint.

How did this technology started?

Lucy P. Roberts, author of “History of Web Conferencing – Multifunction Conferencing Comes of Age” (2004) traced the roots of web conferencing long before there is internet.

The University of Illinois developed a system known as PLATO during the 1960s. This is for their Computer-based Education Research Laboratory (CERL). This is just a small system supporting just a single classroom of terminals connected to one mainframe computer. In 1972, the terminals being supported by PLATO increased to over a thousand.

Although PLATO was long before internet technology and it is mainly designed for computer-based education, it paved several communication features that became the foundation for web conferencing and instant messaging. PLATO Notes, was the world’s first online messaging boards, while Personal Notes is used for electronic mails. Talkomatic is used for real-time instant messaging or for chat. PLATO even developed a tool for monitor mode or remote screen sharing.

David Wooley, creator of PLATO Notes in 1973, eventually designed Lotus Notes which was released in 1989. Lotus Notes is mainly an e-mail client, but it can also be used as an instant messaging client, browser, notebook, and calendar reservation client. Roberts cited that Lotus Notes was the first commercially released product that offered document sharing, user-created data-bases and remote location communication.

The PLATO technology gave birth to several communication tools that paved the way for web conferencing. But it wasn’t until mid-1990s that the complete web conferencing started to shape up and become available in the market.

Roberts cited PlaceWare as one of the first companies to provide complete web conferencing. It was developed by Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in the 1990s. In 2003, Microsoft acquired PlaceWare and renamed its core product Microsoft Office Live Meeting.

Meanwhile, file sharing started proliferating the World Wide Web. Peer to peer (P2P) file sharing refers to sharing of file containing audio, video, data or anything in digital format. With peer to peer file sharing, peers act as equals, the roles of clients and servers are merged. There is no central server that manages the network nor a central router.

Peer to peer file sharing was seen as a way of hosting web conferencing, rather than running the application through a single server. With this P2P format, it is more dynamic and involving.

Groove was the first to apply the P2P concept in web conferencing. It was released on 2000 and was upgraded in 2002 with impressive results. WiredRed Software, in 2003, released the first web conferencing software that does not require significant installation time.

Most web conferencing providers offer packages that contains voice over IP,co-browsing and application sharing, additional features that can be readily available like polls, event management, PowerPoint presentation, playback, recording and live annotation and mark-up.

With a lot of web conferencing providers and vendors in the market today, web conferencing is becoming more and more common. A lot of people are using this technology in their businesses and companies. New development in the web conferencing system is inevitable due to competition and continuous technological innovation.

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