A huge and growing mobile market following the rule of introducing ‘a phone a day’ has now made it wonderfully hard for individuals to compare cell phone special offers. Most of the time, there are numerous aspects that folk may need to look into when making mobile phone comparisons that some of the most fundamental ones get forgotten about.

As a result, you consistently end up having a mobile phone which is either too high priced or a mobile phone which is not suited for your mobile phone usage profile. Thus we discuss in this blog about the 2 very most chief things that customers should always investigate when making mobile phone purchases. This can often help individuals land a mobile phone that at least meets the basic criteria mobile phone customers are looking for. Get some help with finding the best Mobile Phones and deals with MobileShop.

The total mobile UK market is booming on the basis of astonishing features like camcorders that keep getting added every other day. Though, a particularly large majority of people buy phones based on their appearance, brand and mind-blowing marketing only to regret later on when individuals see that their astonishing phone lacks an uncommonly basic feature like sending emails or MMS. Tons of astonishing dear mobiles sell on the basis of marketing, brand and looks at prices that are unjustified if you look at the lack of features. For example the most current Apple Iphone 3G does not let mobile phone customers forward text messages to all. Unfortunately, this phone’s target audience, 18 – 35, gets to regret the removal of this feature only after spending weeks worth of wages on it. And so make sure that your lovely new cell phone has all the features like interactive maps you require before tying yourself into a 12 month contract. Since mobile phone businesses will never tell individuals about the sensational features like movie players that their phones lack, reading up online phone write ups is the very best way to do it.

In fighting under biological warfare conditions you cannot simply stop fighting the war merely because the enemy has unleashed biological or chemical weapons and you must indeed abate the threat and eliminate the risks by removing the bio-toxins.

The best way to do this is through early detection and counter measures to remove and clean up the toxins or move thru them quickly until sensors show it is safe to remove specialty gear and then completely clean the equipment and use foam to remove any problematic situations.

This is easier said than done and one who studies warfare might agree to move towards a more Carl von Clauswitz approach if biological or chemical weapons were used. In other would remove the your team, leave equipment there and then use nuclear incineration on the entire population of the enemy to insure you have one.

In other words go from modern net-centric warfare to total annihilation warfare. And any nation worth their salt and serious about winning should consider this option and plausible and doable.

No it is not pretty, but once bio-weapons are used you either proceed thru them or you remove yourself from the threat and pull out all the stops? Too harsh to consider; yes maybe, but any enemy who would use these biological weapons on us, deserves no sympathy and neither do their airs. Consider this in 2006.

“Lance Winslow” – Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/

In the 16 years that I have known my friend Mario I have heard many different tales of his world travels and he is one of those people who have lived, worked and hitchhiked through different exotic countries. Mario is a Toronto high school teacher and teaches French and world issues. He spent time living and working in places like Thailand, Indonesia, Mexico and Quebec and came face-to-face with often vastly different cultures.

Mario is also an immigrant in two different countries, Australia where he moved as a small child in the 50s, and Canada, where he arrived as a teenager. Here is his story, the story of an immigrant, traveler and global adventurer.

1. Please tell us a bit about your background. Where were you born and where did you grow up?

I was born in San Vita al Tagliamento in northeastern Italy in the province of Friuli. But my parents are of Calabrese origin from Southern Italy. After his military service in the north of Italy my father decided to stay there due to his fondness for Friuli culture. In 1953 my father moved our family to Australia where he worked with a French contracting firm and we settled in Brisbane, Queensland when I was 2.5 years old. It was there that I had my first memories of the immigrant reality which was a very simple house made of wood. The roof leaked into our house and we had plants growing through the floor in the kitchen. The conditions were very basic, but this would set the stage for 11 years of a very challenging cultural adjustment period, following which my father moved us to Canada in 1964.

At that time, Italians faced a lot of discrimination, even harassment or sometimes violence in different forms, physical and psychological. My family was actually the target of a number of different forms of attack because we were immigrants. It made for a rather paranoid existence, constantly having to looking over your shoulder.

Remember, this was the 50s and Australia was still governed within the framework of the “White Australia Policy”, a form of institutionalized apartheid. I witnessed various acts of brutality towards Australian aborigines with whom I was often mistaken, given the darkness of my skin. The proximity to the sea, however, made me appreciate the beauty of Australia in its purest form. During this time I developed a strong sense of self-reliance and I learned the importance of defending myself.

In the mid 70s I returned to Australia and I noticed that the work of many of those earlier immigrants had born fruit in the form of comfortable lifestyles and accomplished middle-class experiences. Italians had finally become mainstream and accepted. This also corresponded with Australia’s new multi-cultural policy. Australia started to open up to different nationalities, which made for a more tolerant society.

2. You are a gifted multi-lingual individual. How many languages do you speak and what are they?

English and Italian are my first two languages. I also speak French, Spanish and Portuguese at a pretty high level. In addition, I also get by in Indonesian and I speak basic German and some phrases in Russian. The sound of different foreign languages fascinates me and I also appreciate that speaking the language is the key to these foreign cultures. Apart from the initial period during high school when I was exposed to English, French and German for the first time, the rest of my languages were acquired through living in the culture.

3. What was it like when you first came to Canada?

I remember it being very very cold since we arrived in Canada on February 16, 1964. My first observation was a very abrupt introduction to the Canadian climate. For a good several years I found it very difficult to adapt to the climate. On the other hand, as far as culture went, I could finally tap into my Italian-ness. It was actually in Toronto that the whole notion of being an Italian took on a new meaning for me because I felt accepted. I felt embraced here and felt that I could express my Italian heritage which led to me perfecting my Italian, considering I had suppressed speaking Italian in Australia. Once we came to Toronto I felt a desire to further go into the language.

High school in Canada was an appreciation of many other languages. We were offered courses in French, German, Latin and Spanish at the high school level. The school I went to reflected the transitional nature of Toronto at that time, which had been very WASP (white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant) until the 1960s and from then on started to change into a more cosmopolitan environment. There were people of different backgrounds which made you comfortable expressing yourself. By the time I went to university I was fairly at ease with my own intercultural identity.

My appreciation for Portuguese started on a construction job in Tecumseh, Ontario, where 2 gangs of construction workers, one Italian, one Portuguese, were confined to a very small house, provided by the construction company and were forced to live and interact with one another. I started to appreciate the similarities and differences with Portuguese culture, which I found absolutely fascinating. This was my initiation into the Portuguese language.

4. What were your earliest travel experiences?

Apart from the immigrant boat travels, my first travel memories were when I hitchhiked to Niagara Falls and Barrie, a medium-size town 90 minutes north of Toronto, when I was 15 years old. This gave me a sense of independence and the ability to design my own path on any trip. I felt in control and decided where I wanted to go. We did not realize that we needed a passport to cross into the United States, so we learned the lesson that you need your documents in order when traveling to foreign countries.

The next big trip was at the age of 17, crossing Canada with a fellow student in a VW beetle. We went to Vancouver for one month, picking strawberries, working on farms to survive. The second leg of that trip was to Mexico via California. This was the period of Height-Ashbury, the Summer of 68, and we truly experienced Flower Power in San Francisco. This left a lasting impression on me because of the freedom and the camaraderie among the youth. Anybody would open their house to you and you felt a bond with many young people.

The paradox of this period was that it was during the Vietnam War. So just as you had young people bonding with each other, believing that peace was the answer to the world’s dilemmas, people were getting killed on the other side of the globe. The administration in Washington believed that war was the answer and these young people had in effect opted out of the system.

Mexico in itself was an eye-opener. It was my initiation into Latino culture and decrepit third world conditions of the masses. This was my politicization when I realized the plight of the majority of humanity and it made me even more curious to go back and get in contact with these people.

When I came back from Mexico it was very difficult to adjust to mundane middle-class values, just fitting into my place into my system. So I dropped out of 2nd year university and continued traveling without a set itinerary.

I went to Europe first, starting with London, worked in a hospital, and then spent 2 months traveling Europe on a Eurail pass. After Spain I visited Morocco where I met a guy called Giovanni Pozzi who turned me onto images and illusions of Afghanistan, a place he had been to before. This created a great desire in me to also discover that part of the world.

After Morocco I intended to meet up with Giovanni and travel with him from Brindisi, Italy, overland to Afghanistan. In September of 1971 I visited him in Milan after having gone back to discover my Italian heritage, and I then linked up with him in Brindisi from where we took a ferry to Greece and began our overland journey in the direction of Afghanistan.

We made it to the Turkish-Iranian border after a harrowing incident on a Turkish train which derailed. Unfortunately I had not learned the lesson of my teen years and had not checked out visa requirements for Canadians. Iran required a visa for Canadians, so I had to return to an Iranian consulate on the Black Sea where I obtained my Iranian travel visa. Somehow Giovanni and I got separated and this was the beginning of true independent traveling. I learned never to depend on other people’s information, always double-check everything yourself.

3. Please tell us of your experiences and impressions during your first trip to Asia.

After traveling through Iran for about a week, which was during the repressive reign of the Shah, I hitchhiked with 2 Pakistani truck drivers from Tehran to Mashad, the site of the Blue Mosque, one of the most beautiful mosques in the Islamic world. From there we went to Herat, Kandahar and Kabul in Afghanistan, where I was privy to some of the most fantastic images of Afghan culture. I saw horsemen in bright green silk pants, in attire suited more to the Middle Ages than the 1970s. Afghanis appeared to be a very proud people, dignified and ferociously independent.

After a short stay in Kabul I went through the Khyber Pass into Peshawar in Pakistan. This too was an amazing view into the gun culture of this region. Every man had a gun 4, 5 feet long and it was truly an overwhelming sight to see this much weaponry on display. Unfortunately this was to continue since a war would erupt between Pakistan and India at this time, and after leaving Pakistan I ended up traveling through India during a time of war.

I was traveling on trains with a mobilized army, a people in frenetic motion not knowing what to do. The whole country was in a state of tension. Foreigners were asked to leave the country, so after a month in New Delhi I had to change my plans of visiting Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka) and take the next flight out of Calcutta in the direction of Bangkok. The flight ticket at that time cost US$80 one way in 1971. Calcutta was also the site of millions of refugees pouring in from what would eventually become Bangladesh. They literally overtook Calcutta. I was about to sleep outside when I was approached by a couple of Anglo-Bengalis who insisted that it was absolutely improper for a European to sleep on the ground that way. They then insisted that I go and stay with them for a couple of nights. Their only requested favour in return was to send them a Levi jacket when I’d get back to Australia.

4. From India you moved on to Thailand. Please tell us about your experience in South East Asia.

In Bangkok of 1971 I would stay at the Atlantic Hotel for $1 a night, Bangkok was still a relatively small capital at that time. I left Bangkok and headed south, hitchhiking where I was brutally initiated to Thai culture. I was at the back of a pickup truck and dangling my feet out of it, the pickup truck was passed by another vehicle whose occupants got out and threatened me, pointing to my feet. Luckily a young Canadian from Saskatoon, Murray Wright, was sitting in the front of my pickup and explained that it was a big mistake to show the soles of your feet. This is a major insult in Thai culture. I then realized that when traveling it is very important to understand non-verbal communication as well. This was a major lesson for me.

This meeting with Murray was fortuitous. He had had an accident building a Japanese sugar factory and asked me if I would take over his job as a carpenter. This led to one month working with Thais and understanding to some degree Thai culture. It was also my first experience of amoebic dysentery, a tropical disease, which nearly killed me. This is how I was initiated to eating conditions in the developing world.

The full interview with photos is published at Travel and Transitions – Interviews

Susanne Pacher is the publisher of a website called Travel and Transitions(http://www.travelandtransitions.com). Travel and Transitions deals with unconventional travel and is chock full of advice, tips, real life travel experiences, interviews with travellers and travel experts, insights and reflections, cross-cultural issues, contests and many other features. You will also find stories about life and the transitions that we face as we go through our own personal life-long journeys.

Submit your own travel stories in our first travel story contest(http://www.travelandtransitions.com/contests.htm) and have a chance to win an amazing adventure cruise on the Amazon River.

“Life is a Journey Explore New Horizons”.

As the year comes to an end and all of the holiday shopping is put behind us the whole mall is put on sale. Everyone is trying to get their inventory out of there to make room for what is coming in and give their numbers a boost a the end of the year. This end of year sales happen every year, and it seems like the only winner in these types of sales is really the consumer. We are really able to shop around for some amazing deals and get discounts sometimes way below of what the store paid for them. The last four to five days before the year-end are really the best time to get to a mall and really do some bargaining shopping for the whole family. In fact a great idea that maybe you should implement for next year is to actually do Holiday gifts later like the second or third of January, since you will find amazing deals and as a results probably gifts that are a thousand times better and they will be a lot more happy with then if you were to buy it before the Sales. When at the mall take your time and walk before you start buying, If you need a little energy boost, take Acceletrim and do some shopping around and really find the best bargain, by the time you get home you will be very happy.

December gives us the perfect excuse to pamper ourselves with holiday cheer. No matter which holiday tradition you celebrate, decorating your home is good for you. Psychologists report that change, planning, and entertainment make people happy. Change your environment for the holidays and plan to entertain yourself as well as guests.

Holiday decorations change stagnant rooms. When your accessories and mementos stay in the same place day after day, you soon get used to them and no longer notice your treasure in the same old location. Moving things around and adding holiday decorations to your spaces makes everything feel new again.

You increase your happiness when you decorate your home for the holidays. If you take out the stress. When you make a huge production out of decorating your home for the holidays, you can easily become overwhelmed and turn a happy event into a stress-filled ordeal. Balance, the key to happiness, will help you keep holiday decorating FUN. Don’t take on too much. It doesn’t take a lot of decorations to instill holiday cheer!

Have you ever noticed that when you plan a party that the actual planning makes you happy? Psychologists say that’s because people love to daydream and plan. An added bonus, the more time you take to plan a party, the more organized the event, and the better the result.

Guests love to come to a home decked out in holiday splendor. The festive air created with candles, decorations, and music provides the backdrop for happy interactions. It’s hard for someone to not be happy when they enter a home in celebration mood.

Take some time for yourself and enjoy your holiday decorating. Pamper yourself and your guests.

Copyright © Jeanette J. Fisher

Jeanette Fisher teaches homemakers how to makeover their homes for joyful living. For holiday interior design tips see http://JoyHolidays.com For FREE Design Psychology ebooks, see http://designpsych.com/

Space tourist Gregory Olsen and the twelfth ISS crew lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome launch pad inside their Soyuz TMA-7 at about 11:55 p.m. EDT on October 1. Olsen, who paid $20 million to be a “spaceflight participant” as he calls it, joins an elite group of space tourists: Dennis Tito was the first paying passenger ($20 million) in April 2001 and Mark Shuttleworth was the second ($20 million) in April 2002.

Space tourism has indeed arrived and is not going anywhere but up. In an article published by Aviation Week in 2000, Norman Augustine, ex-CEO of Lockhead Martin, predicted that space tourism would become the main space activity. In 1997 the US “National Leisure Travel Monitor” survey included questions on space tourism for the first time. Of 1,500 Americans surveyed, 42% said they’d be interested in flying in a space cruise vessel, and would be willing to spend on average $10,800 for the trip.

For the industry to succeed, however, private enterprise will need to take the reigns from Russia and turn space tourism into a corporate affair rather than a government program. Unfortunately, the laws governing space travel and the use of outer space were legislated through international treaties in the 60’s and 70’s and were focused primarily on government operations. Of course, when these treaties were adopted, government space programs were the only game in town. Not to mention that the Cold War was in full swing. The “space race” attitude favored complete government control over space operations which dampened any need to address the rights of private enterprise. This lack of vision has and will continue to complicate the future of commercial space tourism unless changes are made.

Current laws dictate that national states are responsible for any outer space activities carried out by its government agencies or private enterprises. For example, if a private Japanese company launches a rocket that explodes over Alaska and causes loss of life, the Japanese government would be liable in addition to the company. Given this setup, a nation can either prohibit all commercial space related activities to mitigate risk, or in the alternative it can enact laws which set certain safety and quality standards to help reduce its liability exposure.

On December 23, 2004, President Bush signed into law the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act. This act advances the development of the emerging commercial spaceflight industry and designates both the Transportation Department and the FAA as the responsible agencies for regulating private human spaceflight.

But if each country does its part to legislatively promote the industry, the resulting patch quilt of national regulations will give rise to totally different levels of safety and quality standards. We’ve seen this in the maritime sector where cheap-flag-states allow ships and crews to fall well below sensible safety requirements. Not the safest regime for those traveling into space.

The most appropriate solution would be to create an international treaty that creates an equal standardization while promoting greater transparency and reliability for private enterprises in space tourism or any other commercial activity in outer space. The principles of such a treaty could then be adopted into national law thus making each country responsible for monitoring private enterprises under its control and enforcing the uniform standards.

But so far, the need for standardization hasn’t thwarted those seeking their first commercial flight into outer space. In fact, there’s already a waiting list. Sir Richard Branson, billionaire founder of Virgin Atlantic airline, has formed Virgin Galactic LLC which will begin launching commercial passengers into space sometime in 2008 from U.S. soil. The going rate for a seat onboard a Virgin Galactic suborbital spaceship is $200,000. You can secure your seat today with a $20,000 deposit.

Will Whitehorn, the president of Virgin Galactic, has been quoted by SPACE.com stating that, “We have a significant level of deposits now . . . nearly $10 million worth . . . I’m sure we would have sold out at least the first couple of years by the time we start flying.”

Copyright 2005 by Aaron S. Thiel

Attorney Aaron S. Thiel is an avid Space Law enthusiast and published author. Mr. Thiel has written his latest novel, The Payload, to captivate readers with issues relevant to today’s Mars rover missions and not-so fictional scenarios that will thrill and excite the imagination. To learn more about the author and his writings, please visit his website http://www.aaronsthiel.com or his blog at http://dutchbennettnovelseries.blogspot.com

“Virtual Real Estate Investing” is a relatively new concept. There are many variations on what this term means, encompassing everything from using the internet to aid in real estate investing efforts to participating in online games such as SecondLife.

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

“I began using the term ‘virtual real estate investing’ in the late 1990’s when I realized the clear similiarities in profit strategies, regardless of whether the “real estate” is “virtual” or “physical” said Ellis.

Bryan Ellis cites the similar strategies one can employe to make money from “virtual property” and “physical property” as a primary parallel of the two markets. “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. Consider: A valuable piece of real estate is valuable largely due to the interest that other people have in that specific location. Likewise, if you own a desirable domain name, others will find value in it because it serves their purposes. Regardless of the type of asset, you can sell or lease or use any number of strategies to turn the assets into cash.

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.

Mobile broadband has been announced as the latest discovery in the internet world which holds the key to the future of fast speed connection. Only a few year ago, high speed connection was available only through a normal telephone landline, Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line connection, which connects to a PC terminal via a modem. Wireless high speed internet has become more and more spread, whereby the Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line connection is linked to the PC via a wireless intranet, and many people are getting rid of cables. However mobile broad band is taking the internet technology further and offering another important step in the evolution of internet connectivity; a broadband line nearly in all the house without the use of a telephone landline cable.

The concept of connecting with a reliable broadband speed anywhere is surely an interesting idea for potential users, especially those people that generally connect with their personal computer away from home. Business people who often travel for business meetings are the main target for mobile broad band because they will like the great opportunity of not having to search at all for a WiFi hotspot for internet connection. Mobile broad band is going further than that, and as soon as costs begin to come down and internet connection lines is faster soon we will witness most of broadband potential clients subscribing for mobile high speed internet. Find the latest mobile broadband offers with Compare Broadband UK.

Mobile high speed internet works by connecting a portable modem to a pc, generally called a ‘dongle’, from where a PC terminal will work with the mobile broadband service the users have registered for. Internet companies are now marketing mobile ADSL packages and coverage of the networks, famous as third generation networks, which covers more than 90% of GB.

Speed is a serious issue for any internet line and mobile high speed connection companies at the beginning had problems to market potential clients that mobile broad band could compete with conventional, landline high speed broadband. High speed connections are improving, however, with Vodafone reporting mobile high speed connection speeds up to 7 mb, similar to most of the traditional landline internet broadband. Most countries, including England, will soon finance with capitals in fibre optic cable networks, in an attempt to increase broadband speeds to up to 100 mb.

In New Zealand, however, a leading telecommunications provider has claimed that mobile broadband networks are going to develop rapidly in the next future and they have announced that mobile broadband could be delivering speeds of up to 100mb by early 2011, which is when the GB’s fibre optic network is due to be completed. This could create a serious turning point in industry thinking, with the discovery of a super fast mobile broad band connection network having obvious advantages over the cabling of thousands of miles of fibre optic cables, without mentioning the practical point of view.

1. Why Croatia ?

Croatia is the closest Mediterranean destination to central Europe. It takes 2 hours by plane from London, 45 minutes from Munchen… Croatian natural beauties are significant and amongst the best preserved in the world ( over 5,800 km of coast, over 1,000 islands, numerous national parks … ). More about Croatia find on the official web site www.croatia.hr

2. How to Croatia ?

Traveling by car you have to keep in mind that the traffic is increased in summer season. National ferry line is Jadrolinija and the national airline company is Croatia Airlines

3. Where in Croatia ?

Although the inland of Croatia is beautiful as well, lot of tourists decide for one of the places along the Croatian coast. Most of the beautiful places in Croatia are located on the Adriatic sea coast ( National Park Brijuni islands, Roman arena in Pula, National Park Kornati islands, old towns Dubrovnik, Zadar, Trogir, Sibenik, Split, National Park island Mljet … ). Having one day trip in inland you can visit more Croatian beauties like National Park Plitvice lakes, National Park on river Krka, National Park Paklenica, … )

4. Stay (sail) in Croatia ?

Usually tourists rent a hotel room or an apartment and spend a week laying on a beach not aware that there are plenty other places around worth to be visited. Instead of changing hotels and moving your stuff from one place to another trying to see as much as possible , you can rent a boat ( skipper if necessary ), visit all the places along the Croatian coast and islands and have an extraordinary holidays. Croatian coast has 1000 of islands so there are no big waves and high sea. The conditons are perfect for nice and easy sailing. There are no long distance routes across the open sea. You can achor anytime you want and take a swimm. The price for sailing holidays in Croatia is equal to price for a hotel accomodation. More about yacht charter in Croatia find on web site www.Yacht-Rent.com ( or www.star.hr ). There you can find a complete yacht charter offer in Croatia: more than 1500 charter yachts belonging to all relevant charter companies in Croatia ( having at least 10 to 100 boats in their fleet). You can compare the prices for different boat models and select the most appropriate one.

To answer the question how to enjoy in Croatia – sail in Croatia!

About The Author

Neven Grubisic

When you’re looking for the right directory to list in or to use for research, it can be a nightmare. Everyone thinks of Yahoo!, of course, but there are quite literally thousands of other directories out there, many specialized, others not. How can you tell the difference?

By being educated on what you’re looking for. When you’re looking for the right directories to list in, use the following guidelines.

1. Everyone lists in free directories. Why not? You can list in as many as you want, and you’re not losing anything by doing so. Free directories include Yahoo! and Dmoz, as well as hundreds of others who either use their own listings or license listings from Yahoo! and Dmoz. You shouldn’t stop here, though, especially if you’re running a commercial website.

2. The more directories you’re listed in, the more inbound links to your website you’ve got. And the more inbound links your website has, the higher the search engines will rank your page. Make sure when you create your directory listing to use your keywords in the text; in some search engines, this will help your ranking as well.

3. Some of the free directories are not being listed well by Google and other standard search engines. This is not because of some nefarious competitive advantage, but because the free directories often look like search engine spam or because they don’t optimize their sites well. The paid directories are careful to watch for this; after all, the more hits they get, the more they can charge for their services.

4. After listing in all the free directories – which you should, as it costs you nothing but a little time – you should start listing in the better paid directories. Even though you have to pay to get in them, they give you an edge that the free ones don’t. For one thing, they’re more exclusive, and customers won’t be looking at your competitors as much. For another, as noted above, the directory will probably place higher in a search engine. And they tend to be specialized. If you sell medical equipment, listing in a medical equipment directory will almost certainly be a worthwhile investment.

5. If you list in really good and specific directories with proven traffic from customers you want to draw, you’re investing your money in the right place. A few good quality links will draw the perfect customers for your business. Finding the right directory is hard, but search for directories that specialize in your industry and in industries that cross into yours; for instance, if you provide medical equipment, don’t overlook listings for scientific and laboratory equipment.

6. The next generation of directories is here now. With sites like MSN’s Small Business Directory, targeted searching for exactly what you want is easier than ever before. In addition, many of the newer directories offer you additional small business tools, more information, specialized content for your industry, and many other services. You’ll only find these with paid directories.