How To Be A Successful Internet Marketer - Maynas Eric

There is a wealth of knowledge surrounding Website marketing that is available. Some of the information you have probably read, but new strategies are popping up every day. No doubt, it will help you sharpen your marketing skills. This article is provided to help you do just that!

Flashy websites look neat, but avoid making your website too distracting. Since you only have about 5 seconds to grab your customers attention, you need to create a site that makes your visitors want to stay longer. If your site can?t quickly grab your visitor?s attention, they will click away to search elsewhere.

Your website?s tag provides a perfect opportunity to establish and shape your identity. This tag, found above the browser window, shows people what your site is about. Having mismatched titles and information is one of the quickest ways to drive people away from your site.

TIP! It?s important for your business that you?re receiving feedback on your brand and on your products. This can be crucial to your success because your perception of how your site looks or how your pricing is may not be the perception of others.

Even though you might not realize it yet, you possess all that is needed to be successful in internet promotion. Expensive tools of the trade that promise you can get rich quick are not what will prove important. Instead, rely on good, old-fashioned, hard work and imagination. Dedicate yourself to learning the ins and outs of the website marketing world, and you will be on your way to advertising success before you know it.

As you begin to market your products online, you will eventually create a website. Start your website small. Search engines also rank sites based on the number of indexed pages; therefore, it is essential to build your website with pertinent information and expanded it weekly with at least one blog entry.

Each email you send should include a signature. This is the calling card for your business on the web, and you should distribute it at every opportunity. Giving the recipient a glimpse of your business may result in a new customer and another sale.

TIP! To convince your audience before they buy the product, send them to a content page that presents content about the product such as a video. This will give them more information and they will be better able to decide if they should purchase the product.

If you make claims about any product you sell, provide proof. If you can prove the effectiveness of your product through videos or testimonials, your customers will be more apt to believe in your products and services. This is an excellent example of why selling products you have, in fact, used is always a good idea.

Avoid spending too much money on advertising. Shop around for the best deals, and don?t waste money on something that isn?t beneficial to your business. When you spend money, you want to get good deals and that?s why banner ads can be a good investment.

You should figure out whom you are trying to reach, and what content you need to produce to attract them to your site. After you know your target market, you can easily provide them with content that will attract them to your website repeatedly.

TIP! It is not necessary for Internet marketing to take place just on the Internet. Reaching out to bloggers and creating partnerships with mutual benefits is a great way to increase your presence.

You may even bundle the excess inventory with another similar product and sell the two for a discount. Make sure that the terms are stated clearly in all of your marketing literature.

Incorporating banners in a non-discrete fashion will help to improve your website. You should try your best to make them look like they are clickable links to reach more content. A lot of people are wary of ads, this will attract them.

Reward those people that buy things from you. Make sure that you keep your current customers, as they will provide a lot of value over time. This will get you a great reputation.

TIP! Put in some time to develop the web design basics. You can find online courses that will teach you HTML, CSS and many other programs that assist with web design.

If you send out regular emails to your customers, or to anyone who has signed up at your site, make sure you vary the emails up so it doesn?t always look the same. It is very easy for customers to begin ignoring emails if they look the same. Even a little bit of variety in your email links will keep the recipient?s attention from wandering.

If you use a mailing list to market via the Internet, be sure to personalize your messages to them. This helps to create a dialogue that is focused primarily on their interests. Aren?t you really tired of spam mail. Making something targeted and personalized, will set you apart from everyone else who is sending e-mails.

Many people respond to titles. Let others know that you hold a ranked position within your company. Use the term CEO or president for yourself.

TIP! Dumb luck plays little part in successful marketing, even on the internet. An investment of time and effort is what makes marketing pay off.

As important as it is to have numerous social networking sites, it is equally important that you update all of your profiles. Profiles that are stagnant are considered to be spam.

Implement the use of tech tools to see how well your marketing strategies are working; for instance, you could look to see how many people visit your site and then how many of those individuals buy something from you. The most successful sites use customizable applications that track site statistics like sales and traffic.

TIP! If you are offering certain claims about your product, they must be true. Be believable in your claims and try to demonstrate the benefits of what you are promoting with a video, so that customers can see for themselves.

One Affiliate marketing tip that everyone should implement is giving your customers the option of paying retail or wholesale prices depending on how many of each item they buy. Even the wholesale prices will leave you with some profit, but you will be selling much larger quantities than before.

If you give your customers an extra freebie if they refer friends, they may be more likely to sign up. This way you will be able to potentially gain many more customers by encouraging existing purchasers to bring their friends to the website to earn free prizes or rewards. People love free stuff and the more people you get onto your site, the greater your sales are.

To be successful at marketing online, you need to maximize your website?s potential. Experiment with designs until you find a pleasing layout and color scheme. Then add the features and elements that will allow you to effectively present your product and communicate with your customers. Always keep in mind that the appeal of your site can keep a visitor shopping or turn them completely off and away.

TIP! In any Internet marketing campaign, your emails are highly valuable resources. Take steps to protect your email correspondence.

Hopefully, you have a new idea or have remembered something you want to use in your affiliate marketing plan from this article. Apply what fits your circumstances. Continue to sharpen your marketing skills!

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States fear losing aid for 'uninsurables'

FILE - In this April 30, 2013 file photo, President Barack Obama answers questions during his new conference in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington. State officials say thousands of people with medical problems are in danger of losing coverage as the Obama administration winds down one of the earliest programs in the federal health care overhaul. At risk is the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan, a transition program that has turned into a lifeline for the so-called ?uninsurables? _ people with serious medical conditions who can't get coverage elsewhere. The health care law capped spending on the program, and now money is running out. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)

FILE - In this April 30, 2013 file photo, President Barack Obama answers questions during his new conference in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington. State officials say thousands of people with medical problems are in danger of losing coverage as the Obama administration winds down one of the earliest programs in the federal health care overhaul. At risk is the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan, a transition program that has turned into a lifeline for the so-called ?uninsurables? _ people with serious medical conditions who can't get coverage elsewhere. The health care law capped spending on the program, and now money is running out. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)

FILE - In this April 12, 2013 file photo, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington. State officials say thousands of people with medical problems are in danger of losing coverage as the Obama administration winds down one of the earliest programs in the federal health care overhaul. At risk is the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan, a transition program that has turned into a lifeline for the so-called ?uninsurables? _ people with serious medical conditions who can't get coverage elsewhere. The health care law capped spending on the program, and now money is running out. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Thousands of people with serious medical problems are in danger of losing coverage under President Barack Obama's health care overhaul because of cost overruns, state officials say.

At risk is the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan, a transition program that's become a lifeline for the so-called uninsurables ? people with serious medical conditions who can't get coverage elsewhere. The program helps bridge the gap for those patients until next year, when under the new law insurance companies will be required to accept people regardless of their medical problems.

In a letter this week to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, state officials said they were "blindsided" and "very disappointed" by a federal proposal they contend would shift the risk for cost overruns to states in the waning days of the program. About 100,000 people are currently covered.

"We are concerned about what will become of our high risk members' access to this decent and affordable coverage," wrote Michael Keough, chairman of the National Association of State Comprehensive Health Insurance Plans. States and local nonprofits administer the program in 27 states, and the federal government runs the remaining plans.

"We fear...catastrophic disruption of coverage for these vulnerable individuals," added Keough, who runs North Carolina's program. He warned of "large-scale enrollee terminations at this critical transition time."

The crisis is surfacing at a politically awkward time for the Obama administration, which is trying to persuade states to embrace a major expansion of Medicaid under the health care law. One of the main arguments proponents of the expansion are making is that Washington is a reliable financial partner.

The root of the problem is that the federal health care law capped spending on the program at $5 billion, and the money is running out because the beneficiaries turned out to be costlier to care for than expected. Advanced heart disease and cancer are common diagnoses for the group.

Obama did not ask for any additional funding for the program in his latest budget, and a Republican bid to keep the program going by tapping other funds in the health care law failed to win support in the House last week.

Brian Cook, a spokesman for the HHS agency overseeing the health care law, took issue with idea that thousands of people could lose coverage, though he did not elaborate.

"These actions are part of our careful management of the program to ensure that there is a seamless transition ... for enrollees, and that funding is spent appropriately," he said in a written statement.

The administration has given the state-based plans until next Wednesday to respond to proposed contract terms for the program's remaining seven months.

Delivered last Friday, the new contract stipulated that states will be reimbursed "up to a ceiling."

"The 'ceiling' part is the issue for us," Keough said in an interview. "They are shifting the risk from the federal government, for a program that has experienced huge cost overruns on a per-member basis, to states. And that's a tall order."

State officials say one likely consequence of the money crunch will be a cost shift to people in the program, resulting in sudden increases in premiums and copayments. Many might just drop out, said Keough.

If a state and HHS can't come to an agreement, the federal government will take over that state's program for the rest of this year. Amie Goldman, director of the Wisconsin program, said that would be an unneeded and possibly risky disruption for patients who'll have to change insurance next year anyway, when the pre-existing conditions plan formally ends.

Goldman said in her state, for example, the University of Wisconsin hospital isn't part of the federal government's provider network. "My colleagues in other states have similar concerns about holes in the network," she said. "I think it puts people at medical risk."

At his news conference this week, Obama acknowledged the rollout of his health care law wouldn't be perfect. There will be "glitches and bumps" he said, and his team is committed to working through them. However, it's unclear how the pre-existing conditions plan could get more money without the cooperation of Republicans in Congress.

The program got off to a slow start, partly because insurance isn't cheap. It offers policies at market rates, and that can mean premiums of $500 a month for someone in their 50s. The first inkling of financial problems came in February, when HHS announced a freeze on new applications.

The plan was intended only as a stopgap until the law's main push to cover the uninsured starts next year. Subsidized private insurance will be available through new state-based markets, as well as an expanded version of Medicaid for low-income people. At the same time, virtually all Americans will be required to carry a policy, or pay a fine.

States are free to accept or reject the Medicaid expansion, and the new problems with the stopgap insurance plan could well have a bearing on their decisions.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/bbd825583c8542898e6fa7d440b9febc/Article_2013-05-04-Health%20Overhaul-Uninsurables/id-86b5e27b33434f3e92bbcef0c707eedb

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Insight: 'Speed money' puts the brakes on India's retail growth

By Nandita Bose

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Hong-Kong entrepreneur Ramesh Tainwala spent 18 months operating branded clothing retail stores in India before deciding it was impossible to succeed without paying bribes.

Tainwala, a 55-year-old expatriate Indian, owns Planet Retail, which held the India franchise rights for U.S. fashion labels Guess and Nautica as well as UK retailers Next and Debenhams . He sold the brands last September to various Indian businesses.

"Right now it's not possible to do business in India without greasing palms, without paying bribes," said Tainwala, who is also luggage maker Samsonite's president for Asia Pacific and West Asia. Tainwala said he himself refused to pay bribes to licensing officials, though that could not be independently confirmed.

India is the next great frontier for global retailers, a $500 billion market growing at 20 percent a year. For now, small shops dominate the sector. Giants from Wal-Mart Stores Inc to IKEA AB have struggled merely for the right to enter, which they finally won last year.

But a daunting array of permits - more than 40 are required for a typical supermarket selling a range of products - force retailers to pay so-called "speed money" through middlemen or local partners to set up shop.

In interviews with middlemen and several retailers, Reuters found the official cost for key licenses is typically accompanied by significant expenses in the form of bribes. The added cost erodes profitability in an industry where margins tend to be razor-thin. It also creates risk for companies by making them complicit in activity that, while commonplace in India and other emerging markets, is nonetheless illegal.

That creates a handicap for foreign operators such as U.S.-based Wal-Mart, the world's biggest retailer, and Britain's Tesco Plc and Marks and Spencer Plc , which must comply with anti-bribery laws in their home countries even while operating abroad.

A Wal-Mart spokesperson said the company is strengthening its compliance programs, part of a global compliance review that has cost more than $35 million over the last 18 months. IKEA, which is awaiting final approval to enter India, has started assessing the market, a spokeswoman said, adding the group has "zero tolerance" for corruption in any form.

"HARASSED FOR MONEY"

Retail is especially prone to bribery because stores sell multiple types of merchandise, which in India increases the number of licenses and permits needed - a legacy of the so-called "Licence Raj" that was largely dismantled during the country's early 1990s economic reforms.

The World Bank's Ease of Doing Business survey ranks India 173rd out of 185 countries when it comes to starting a business, behind Malawi, Niger, Sudan and Guatemala. Transparency International in 2012 ranked it 94th out of 174 countries on its corruption table - a fall from 72nd five years earlier.

"Even for a simple thing like putting up signage in front of your store you are harassed for money," said Tainwala. "There are many bodies regulating that and the permits needed to set up one shop are baffling."

The License Raj, he said, substantially increases costs in a market where sluggish consumer demand, high rentals and a depreciating currency for over a year have made it hard for retailers like him to operate profitably. He plans to return when there is more order in the way business is done.

Ais Kumar, head of the western region for the Food Safety & Standards Authority of India (FSSA), acknowledged that graft exists across government ranks and departments. Many government departments also have staff shortages that cause delays.

"These licenses are required for compliance and safety and not because the government wants to delay or complicate things for anyone. It's the law of the land and it must be followed," he said, adding the government is striving to put licensing systems online to streamline the process and make it more transparent. Checks with three retailers, however, showed the online forms still need to be physically delivered to the respective licensing departments.

UNDER THE TABLE

Permits needed to open a store range from the mundane, such as a trade license, to the petty: lighted shelves require a separate permit, and even a shop window needs a license.

Want to play music in the store? That requires a license. So does selling cosmetics or providing valet parking.

A convenience store that sells basics such as milk, vegetables, cereal, bread, eggs, meat and baby food will require a minimum of 29 licenses from nearly 20 different authorities, according to a list of licenses compiled by the Retailers Association of India and obtained by Reuters.

Those include a food license; a license for sale, storage and distribution; a food-handler's certificate; a license for milk products and another for frozen non-vegetarian food. All those licenses comes from the state-level FSSA, but require separate applications.

But the FSSA does not give permission for operating freezers and chillers. That requires a separate license from a municipal body. Selling baby food requires a permit from a state Controller of Food and Supply. The state Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee must give permission to sell vegetables; the central Directorate of Marketing and Inspection gives permission to grade and sort those vegetables; the Controller of Rationing grants licenses for selling essential commodities like rice.

All those licenses need to be renewed, sometimes annually.

The Directorate of Marketing and Inspection declined comment, while the other departments were not available.

Most of the licenses required can either be done away with completely or combined into one, said Lalit Agarwal, chairman of V-Mart Retail . "Every day, you have new licenses added to the list, but nothing ever gets deleted."

It's not just the red tape of getting those licenses, it's also the under-the-table money that retailers typically have to pay on top of the official fees.

In Bandra, a high-end suburb of Mumbai, a state-issued trade license for a 10,000-square-foot (930 square-meter) store - very large by Indian standards - officially costs 100,000 rupees ($1,825). But there is an "additional charge" of 1.25 million rupees ($22,800), according to documents obtained by Reuters from the Employee State Insurance, Provident Fund and Industrial Law Practitioners Association of India (EPILPA), which assist retailers in obtaining permits.

EPILPA said their members, who are consultants, collect the "speed money" from retailers and pass it on to the government officials. They act as middlemen who do not take a cut and hence should not be held responsible for the bribes being paid.

"In India, you don't need to ask retailers if you need to pay bribes," said Punit Agarwal, CEO of Promart, a mid-sized multi-brand clothing retailer. "It's known. Here you have a price tag for everything."

He said his company hires middlemen and pays their fees because he knows bribes have to be paid, but does not want his company to get directly involved.

SPEED MERCHANTS

Middlemen sell speed. They provide access to government officers who can sign off on permits as soon as they are paid. The middleman negotiates the bribes, thus keeping company officials from being directly involved.

Take the case of British footwear retailer Clarks. It entered India through a partnership with Future Group, which runs the country's largest listed retail entity, Future Retail . Clarks has hired consultants and, according to one of them, is negotiating with municipal officials for a 365-day license that would allow it to open three of its five stores in Mumbai every day of the year.

For each of the three stores, the company was asked to pay 60,000 rupees ($1,100) per officer for the eight officers involved in its case - a total of 500,000 rupees ($9,100) per store, said Oovesh Sarabhai, of Atlas AVA Consultants, who is working with Clarks to secure the licenses. The official fee is about 6,000 rupees ($110) per store, he said.

The government officials involved in issuing the license declined to comment when contacted by Reuters. Future and Clarks declined to comment.

A senior Clarks official, who declined to be identified, confirmed the company had applied for a 365-day license for the three Mumbai stores in January 2012 and received notifications from the government related to this, but has so far failed to receive the licenses. "It's stuck because of the bureaucracy," the official said.

No high-level official dealing with licenses ever accepts a bribe directly, said Raichand Jiwani, owner of Emkay Consultancy Services, who is a member of EPILPA and helps several top Indian retailers to procure licenses. Officials use subordinates to collect the money and only from trusted people. The payment is then shared by junior and senior officers and up the bureaucratic chain.

"The nexus runs far deeper than just a few corrupt officials at the local level," said Jiwani, noting that if a retailer approaches an official directly he will not be told about the bribe, but his papers will take months to be approved.

IS INDIA WORTH IT?

While India holds vast promise for retailers, with its growing spending power and rising middle class, most local supermarket chains lose money due to low prices, poor supply chains and high rents. Wal-Mart has said it aims to turn a profit in 10 years, something it hasn't managed in China after 12 years.

Tainwala thinks India offers miniscule retail returns for the massive investment of time and energy that is needed. Fast expansion requires paying speed money, he said.

Tainwala recalls he was asked to pay either a 22,000 rupee ($400) monthly fee to have signage outside his store in Mumbai's plush Atria mall, or a 2,000 rupee ($36) bribe every month to circumvent it. He said he chose to pack up rather than bribe the municipal officials needed to get his signs approved.

"My people said we have to close the stores, and we decided to do that," he said. "You get excited about the Indian middle class but then you wonder - is it really worth it?"

($1 = 54.80 Indian rupees)

(Editing by Tony Munroe, Bill Tarrant and Ian Geoghegan)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/insight-speed-money-puts-brakes-indias-retail-growth-041548698.html

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Anne Margaret Daniel: F. Scott Fitzgerald and Hollywood: Writing for ...

Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) and Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio) have lunch. (Courtesy Warner Brothers)

With the new movie version of The Great Gatsby getting more attention by the moment, and since I positively reveled in its New York premiere last week, I've been thinking about F. Scott Fitzgerald's own career as a writer -- of novels, certainly, but also of screenplays.

In 1937, Fitzgerald went to work in Hollywood. He had never, despite the flop of his play The Vegetable in 1923, quite given up on the idea of drama. The stage had failed him, and his first trip to Hollywood as a screenwriter in 1927 was a fiasco. But Fitzgerald loved plays, acting (and actresses), and writing dialogue. He was not the first prominent writer, nor would he be the last, to pay his bills writing and doctoring screenplays. William Faulkner, Dorothy Parker, Raymond Chandler, Larry McMurtry, Tom Stoppard and many others have drawn paychecks, and the occasional Oscar, from their work in "the pictures."

Fitzgerald worked for MGM for over a year on movies including A Yank at Oxford, in which Robert Taylor arrives from America to become an Oxford man and Vivien Leigh co-stars; Three Comrades, based upon Erich Maria Remarque's bestselling novel about three soldiers after World War I; and The Women, that staggering saga of high-society desperate housewives with its all-female cast headed by Norma Shearer (whose real-life late husband, Irving Thalberg, was Fitzgerald's model for Monroe Stahr in The Last Tycoon).

After his contract expired, Fitzgerald picked up work where he could, including a brief pass through Gone With the Wind before it opened in 1939, and an ill-fated trip, marked by drinking that got him fired, with Budd Schulberg to Dartmouth, New Hampshire for Winter Carnival. He met, in the summer of 1937, the Hollywood gossip columnist Sheilah Graham. They would be lovers from shortly after their meeting until his death.

Fitzgerald's freelance screenwriting gave way to his real talent by the summer of 1939, when he began working hard on both short stories, most featuring a struggling screenwriter named Pat Hobby, and a longer work about Hollywood, unfinished at his death, and edited and published as The Last Tycoon by Fitzgerald's old Princeton friend Edmund Wilson in 1941. The best general account of Fitzgerald's Hollywood years remains Aaron Latham's book Crazy Sundays (1972).

Fitzgerald's prose is uncontrollably attractive, and particularly to anyone with a visual imagination. His writing is, quite literally, colorful -- full of palpable colors, of unforgettable images: golden shoulders and yellow-y hair and golden and silver slippers shuffling to the "Beale Street Blues"; Daisy Buchanan's white dresses; Gatsby's "gorgeous pink rag" of a suit; the "blue and gigantic" eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg; a woman "like an angry diamond"; a "dust-covered wreck of a Ford which crouched in a dim corner." Baz Luhrmann has learnedly and lovingly tapped into this keen visual sensibility throughout Fitzgerald's novel in the new movie, I was delighted, and dazzled, to see.

Not surprisingly, films have been made of Fitzgerald's own books and short stories from the early 1920s to today. However, the earlier movies have all failed, and for the same reason. Fitzgerald's so hard to film -- and I think this is what made it hard for him to write workable screenplays, too -- because his words already have done all the cinematic work. His novels, and especially Gatsby and Tender Is the Night, are visually stunning, colorful and laden with light, constraining anyone trying to translate them to film by the sheer success of the language.

The Beautiful and Damned made $2,500 when Fitzgerald sold it to Warner Brothers, but he thought the 1922 movie poorly and cheaply made, as well as vulgar. The now-lost first film of Gatsby got mixed reviews in 1926; Fitzgerald himself didn't like it when he and Zelda saw it in early 1927. The lighting was evidently bad, Warner Baxter too aristocratic as Gatsby, Lois Wilson too shockingly drunk as Daisy, and in trying to convincingly supply Nick Carraway's narration the film relied too much on printed titles that wrecked any visual flow. Another Gatsby, with Alan Ladd as the protean hero, flopped in 1949. Tender is the Night, with Jennifer Jones and Jason Robards as Nicole and Dick, was David O. Selznick's last movie in 1961, but was a failure. The Last Tycoon (1976) boasted a screenplay by Harold Pinter, was directed by Elia Kazan, and stars Robert DeNiro, Jack Nicholson and Robert Mitchum, but no one remembers it today. Only the Robert Redford vehicle The Great Gatsby (1974), survives in popular culture, chiefly because of Redford himself. Luhrmann's imminent 3D version, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Gatsby, has proved quite different. Luhrmann's pyrotechnic cinematic vision, coupled with Fitzgerald's language, and lovely, intense performances by DiCaprio and by Tobey Maguire as Nick Carraway, make for a marvelous connection. The quality of 3D makes it feel like you're watching a play instead of a movie -- creating the sort of stage drama, intent upon three-dimensional characters and their settings, that Fitzgerald himself loved and so wanted to create.

Of Fitzgerald's filmed short stories, of note is "Berenice Bobs her Hair," with sad-eyed Shelley Duvall as the silly modern Samson at first devastated, and then empowered, by the loss of her hair. "Babylon Revisited" morphed into The Last Time I Saw Paris in 1954, a star vehicle for Elizabeth Taylor.

Fitzgerald's work, and Fitzgerald himself, have been the subject of television biographies and dramatizations including a mediocre movie of Sheilah Graham's story of their three years together, Beloved Infidel, with Gregory Peck as Fitzgerald; Winter Dreams (American Masters series, 2001); Last Call (Showtime Productions, 2002); and the forthcoming Sincerely F. Scott Fitzgerald, narrated by Jay McInerney (BBC Two/The Culture Show, to be broadcast later this month).

In Last Call, which stars Jeremy Irons as Fitzgerald and Neve Campbell as his last secretary, Frances Kroll, Fitzgerald is a man broken in health but eager to write, at any cost; a man vicious in his anger when drunk, but poetic and gentlemanly when sober. The stereotypes of Fitzgerald's last year had to arise from some realities: Frances Kroll Ring, indefatigable and radiant as she approached 90 when Last Call was being filmed, acknowledged some of them, but insisted above all on his still-great, and even increasing, literary capability. What survives of the novel now titled The Love of the Last Tycoon: A Western, the half-completed story of an outsider seeking success in the Factory of Dreams, bears out what she says.

In one of his many notebooks and scrapbooks, Fitzgerald wrote two drafts of an autobiography: "Drunk at 20, wrecked at 30, dead at 40" and "drunk at 21, human at 31, mellow at 41, dead at 51." He died following one plan or the other, depending on your point of view; I prefer the latter, and wish he'd made it on past 51. Fitzgerald was just 44 when he died. He had been hard at work on his new novel about the movies, but had been forced to take a break from writing because of heart trouble. On December 21, 1940, while relaxing in a chair at the home of Sheilah Graham, Fitzgerald was eating a chocolate bar and making notes on a football story in the Princeton Alumni Weekly. He stood up suddenly, in the grip of a heart attack (the third or fourth he had had that year), and fell to the floor, dead within minutes. Fitzgerald's death was long taken to be the final note of pathos in a pathetic life: that he could still care about Princeton football, so many years after he himself had famously declared, in This Side of Paradise, that we'd never be so young again. Yet the last words Fitzgerald ever wrote, in his usual No. 2 pencil, on that article were a critical comment: "Good prose."

Good prose is what Scott Fitzgerald labored over and turned out, and what keeps his writing popular today -- good prose that, at its best, is poetry and drama and everyday talk and criticism and fairy tale and all sorts of genres wrapped up in a single page, like the last page of Gatsby, or a single paragraph, like that at the beginning of "May Day." Even when he describes the inability to write, to speak, to create, Fitzgerald's eloquence and elegance amaze, and linger. Recall Nick Carraway, listening to Jay Gatsby speaking: "Through all he said, even through his appalling sentimentality, I was reminded of something -- an elusive rhythm, a fragment of lost words, that I had heard somewhere a long time ago. For a moment a phrase tried to take shape in my mouth and my lips parted like a dumb man's, as though there was more struggling on them than a wisp of startled air. But they made no sound and what I had remembered was uncommunicable forever." Uncommunicable forever: the paradox, and beauty, of Fitzgerald's writing is in its sheer inimitability -- words constantly recalled, but too perfectly said ever to be replicated.

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Follow Anne Margaret Daniel on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@venetianblonde

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App lets amputees program their own bionic hands

Double amputee Jason Koger, 34, of Owensboro, Ky., demonstrates his i-limb ultra revolution hands during an interview with the Associated Press, Thursday, May 2, 2013, in Philadelphia. Koger, a husband and father of three who lost his limbs in an accident, can now activate with an iPhone app 24 different grip patterns for his new hands. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Double amputee Jason Koger, 34, of Owensboro, Ky., demonstrates his i-limb ultra revolution hands during an interview with the Associated Press, Thursday, May 2, 2013, in Philadelphia. Koger, a husband and father of three who lost his limbs in an accident, can now activate with an iPhone app 24 different grip patterns for his new hands. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Double amputee Jason Koger, 34, of Owensboro, Ky., demonstrates his i-limb ultra revolution hands during an interview with the Associated Press, Thursday, May 2, 2013, in Philadelphia. Koger, a husband and father of three who lost his limbs in an accident, can now activate with an iPhone app 24 different grip patterns for his new hands. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Double amputee Jason Koger, 34, of Owensboro, Ky., demonstrates his i-limb ultra revolution hands decorated with images of his children during an interview with the Associated Press, Thursday, May 2, 2013, in Philadelphia. Koger, a husband and father of three who lost his limbs in an accident, can now activate with an iPhone app 24 different grip patterns for his new hands. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Double amputee Jason Koger, 34, of Owensboro, Ky., demonstrates his i-limb ultra revolution hands during an interview with the Associated Press, Thursday, May 2, 2013, in Philadelphia. Koger, a husband and father of three who lost his limbs in an accident, can now activate with an iPhone app 24 different grip patterns for his new hands. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Double amputee Jason Koger, 34, of Owensboro, Ky., smiles during an interview with the Associated Press, Thursday, May 2, 2013, in Philadelphia. Koger, a husband and father of three who lost his limbs in an accident, can now activate with an iPhone app 24 different grip patterns for his new bionic hands. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

PHILADELPHIA (AP) ? Double-amputee Jason Koger used to fly hundreds of miles to visit a clinician when he wanted to adjust the grips on his bionic hands.

Now, he's got an app.

Koger came to Philadelphia this week to demonstrate the i-limb ultra revolution, a prosthetic developed by the British firm Touch Bionics. Using a stylus and an iPhone, Koger can choose any of 24 grip patterns that best suit his needs.

It's the latest evolution in equipment for Koger, a 34-year-old married father of three from Owensboro, Ky., who lost his hands in an all-terrain vehicle accident in 2008.

"Five years ago, I couldn't pull my pants up by myself," said Koger. "Today, I go hunting and do some of the things that I probably never imagined I could have done five years ago."

The technology indicates how rapidly the field of prosthetics is changing, benefiting patients from injured military members to victims of the Boston Marathon bombing. Practitioners say increased government research in the wake of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is driving some of the advances.

In Koger's case, he was shocked by a downed power line. He went into a coma and had no idea until he woke up three days later that doctors had amputated both his limbs at mid-forearm.

His wife spent those three days researching prosthetics, Koger said.

Since then, he's used a variety of prostheses, which he considers like tools ? different extensions for different tasks. Electric hooks have allowed him to pursue his passion for hunting. Myoelectric hands, which react to electrical impulses generated by his remaining arm muscles, offer more precise movements.

The previous version of Koger's myoelectric device required programming by a prosthetist, meaning Koger had to fly to Advanced Arm Dynamics in Dallas. The prosthetist would work with Koger to pick a few grip patterns ? such as pinching, pointing or shaking hands ? to program into the i-limb.

Yet sometimes Koger would get home and realize they weren't the ones he needed. Now, the latest i-limb comes with iPhone or iPad app that allows Koger to reprogram his hand with the touch of a stylus. On Thursday, he demonstrated by gripping an orange, a baseball and a can of soda.

The i-limb allows fingers and thumbs move independently to conform around certain objects, said Ryan Spill, a prosthetist for Advanced Arm Dynamics' new office in Philadelphia, who is working with Koger. The thumb is also motorized, not passive, as in previous prostheses.

The Boston Marathon bombings, which wounded more than 260 people including many with serious leg injuries, have shined a light on the advances in prostheses. But experts note that technology for upper extremity bionics, which involve fine motor skills, is much different from what's needed for lower extremities, which focuses on weight distribution and gait.

There have also been huge advances in computerized knees and feet, said Joe Reda, assistant director of orthotic and prosthetic services at the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation in West Orange, N.J.

"The changes are happening rather rapidly now and I think it's because of our wars overseas," said Reda. "The government is trying to put more money into research and development."

The i-limb ultra revolution costs about $100,000, though some insurance might cover it. Koger, who received his free in exchange for testing them and providing feedback, met Friday in Philadelphia with other amputees interested in the new technology.

Mark Dowling, 50, of Newark, Del., lost his arm to cancer several months ago. He said he cried while watching Koger demonstrate how the hand worked.

"I'm very touched with his story," Dowling said.

___

Online:

http://www.jasonkoger.com

http://www.touchbionics.com

http://www.armdynamics.com

___

Follow Kathy Matheson at www.twitter.com/kmatheson

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/bbd825583c8542898e6fa7d440b9febc/Article_2013-05-03-US-Bionic-Hands-App/id-8b3cd7b870c44105bc91cdf139e2f675

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Solar plane lands in Ariz., 1st leg of major trip

PHOENIX (AP) ? Alone in the single-seat cockpit and high above the American Southwest, pilot Bertrand Piccard could hear only his plane's gear box and the quiet whine of four electric motors. No noisy jet engines.

He's flying Solar Impulse, considered the world's most advanced sun-powered plane.

Piccard piloted the craft for 20 hours, first cruising along the California coast after taking off from Moffett Field in Mountain View near San Francisco just after dawn Friday. He passed over Edwards Air Force Base, where other aviation milestones have been made, and then touched down early Saturday morning at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport.

He landed having used only three-quarters of the plane's battery power.

"It's a little bit like being in a dream," Piccard said as he stepped on the tarmac.

The plane's creators, Piccard and fellow pilot Andre Borschberg, said the trip is the first attempt by a solar airplane capable of flying day and night without fuel to fly across America.

But Piccard said Saturday afternoon that even more important than marking another aviation milestone is the hope that the journey will provide an exponential boost for interest in renewable energy and clean technologies.

"If an airplane can fly day or night with no fuel, just on the sun's power, of course it means that everybody in daily life can use this technology for his house, for heating and cooling systems, for lighting, for cars, for trucks. There's so much we can do now to have a cleaner future," Piccard said.

From Phoenix, the aircraft will travel to Dallas-Fort Worth airport in Texas, Lambert-St. Louis airport, Dulles airport in the Washington area and New York's John F. Kennedy airport. Each flight leg will take about 19 to 25 hours, with 10-day stops in each city.

Borschberg is hoping to pilot the last leg, which could afford him the chance to fly past the Statue of Liberty.

The plane, which has previously impressed audiences in Europe, is powered by about 12,000 photovoltaic cells that cover massive wings and charge its batteries.

The delicate, single-seat Solar Impulse flies around 40 mph and can't go through clouds. It weighs about as much as a car, making it vulnerable to bad weather.

Its average speed for the first leg of the trip was about 60 knots with a tail wind, Borschberg said. Ideally, the plane climbs up to about 27,000 feet or so during the day to collect solar and charge the batteries.

Borschberg and Piccard were ready for a series of tours over the next few days to show off the technology to Phoenix school children, university researchers and others.

"There are a lot of people who want to see this airplane," Piccard said.

So how hard is it to fly a solar plane?

Despite the aviation advancements made over the last century, Piccard said he and Borschberg have a lot in common with the early pioneers.

"One hundred years ago, the planes had to fly in good weather and there was only one person on board," Piccard said. "Now we have completely new technology, we fly with no fuel at all. But, of course, we need to fly in good weather and we carry only one pilot on board.

"We're starting a new cycle. It's really the beginning of something new."

___

Montoya Bryan reported from Albuquerque, N.M. Associated Press writer Haven Daley in Mountain View, Calif., also contributed to this report.

___

Online:

http://www.solarimpulse.com

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/solar-plane-lands-ariz-1st-leg-major-trip-074043953.html

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No charges for Calif. teacher accused of tying toddler

PLEASANTON, Calif. (AP) ? Prosecutors in Northern California have decided not to pursue any criminal charges against a former teacher accused of tying up a 2-year-old girl when she worked at a preschool.

Alameda County District Attorney's Office spokeswoman Teresa Drenick declined to elaborate on the decision to the Oakland Tribune (http://bit.ly/ZFFMwH ) this week except to say the DA's office reviewed the evidence and declined to file charges.

The girl's parents have sued Centerpointe Church and Preschool in Pleasanton and the teacher, alleging she bound their daughter's hands and feet with masking tape when the toddler wouldn't take a nap. The lawsuit identifies the teacher as 25-year-old Angela Calcagno.

It says Calcagno later shared photos of the bound child with teachers and the child's mother.

A call to Calcagno was not immediately returned on Friday.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/no-charges-calif-teacher-accused-tying-kid-214326538.html

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