Writing an article doesn’t just mean putting down thoughts into words then typing and writing it. You have to capture the interest of your readers and get them to keep on reading. To send your message across you have to get the attention of the reader and have a firm grasp of their interest and pique their curiosity.

The main ingredient in baking up an article is a large dose of creativity. While creativity may come natural to many people, some just gets into a block or something to that effect that can drive someone crazy. Many writers have literally torn their hair out when they get writers block and just can’t seem to get their creative juices flowing.

Putting words into images in the readers mind is an art. A clear and crisp depiction requires a certain flair that only creativity can provide. Similes and metaphors help a lot, but the way an article gets entwined word for word, sentence by sentence then paragraph by paragraph into a whole article develops the essence of the article.

» Read more after the jump →

My husband asked me to explain Twitter and its uses to him yesterday. Mind you - my husband has zero clue what Twitter actually IS - he’s just heard me talking about it. So, I tried my best …

Twitter is best described as a micro blogging platform. You are limited to 140 characters each time you do an update, which initially, may seem a small amount. However, as you become more experienced, it’s just amazing what you can fit into 140 characters.

That said, Twitter is much, much more than that. It is like one huge global chat room, but then again, it doesn’t have to be. It all depends on how many people you follow on Twitter. If it’s in the thousands, then your “Tweetstream” will be running fast and furious with everything that’s coming in. If you are only following a few hundred, or even less, then things are much easier to keep up with.

Twitter is also a great way to meet new people online, particularly those with similar interests to you. In fact - I explained to my husband how I usually get online and “Tweet” while watching shows like American Idol (using the hashtag #idol or #americanidol). When you use a hashtag you can go to Twitter Search and search for that particular hashtag and find a ton of (or barely any) people talking about the same thing you are. It’s a great way to find more Followers with the same interests as you!

Twitter is pretty cool - you should check it out! There is SO much you can do with it! Don’t forget to follow me @ starryskye81!

As some of you know, I am currently attending classes in order to obtain my Bachelor’s degree in Computer Information Systems with a leaning towards Web Development; so, I’m always poking around the web looking for interesting things that might help me along the way. I was incredibly surprised to find out that a company that I’ve worked with and ordered from in the past, Vistaprint, is offering website hosting now! The websites are inexpensive – from $6.99 up to $21.97 per month – and require no programming skills to create and maintain.

This offer is awesome for businesses who just want a nice, simple website that they can match to business cards in order to create and market their “brand.” I know that often times a new business or even a business that is new to e-Commerce doesn’t have the budget it takes to hire a “professional” web developer. With Vistaprint you can create an unlimited number of websites and your site is fully customizable, including your URL, text, and design.

The “Professional” package enables you to include a PayPal shopping cart, have unlimited pages, and have unlimited domain pointers. Both the “Professional” and “Standard” packages include ability to include custom contact forms, image galleries, maps, a music player, and YouTube videos.

The “Starter” package is your basic package – but it includes 3 pages, a good chunk of disk space, customer contact forms and image galleries.

All packages come with VIstaPrint’s great phone support where you can use their free of charge number to access the customer support team (although the “Pro” package has priority phone support). You also have the ability to load documents you have created via VistaPrint including business cards, postcards, etc, to your website.

Right now – you can try out the VistaPrint website packages for free! During the free trial, you can create a website especially for you and your business. The free trial lasts for one month. If you cancel before the trial ends, you will have paid nothing and will owe nothing. The package fee will only be charged when free trial offer period ends, and will be charged monthly to the credit or debit card used for your order.

April 7, 2009 (Computerworld) (original article)

Microsoft Corp. today asked people running the Windows 7 beta to return their machines to Vista before upgrading again to the impending release candidate of Windows 7.

The company will, in fact, block upgrades from the beta to the release candidate, and plans to require users who balk at the request to edit an installation file to successfully update Windows 7.

Microsoft urged users who have downloaded and installed the beta of Windows 7 — the offered to the general public — to restore their PCs to Vista.

"We want to encourage you to revert to a Vista image and upgrade or to do a clean install, rather than upgrade the existing beta," Microsoft said in the blog. " As an extended member of the development team and a participant in the beta program that has helped us so much, we want to ask that you experience real-world setup and provide us real-world telemetry."

The problem with upgrading from one pre-release build to another, Microsoft said, is that the bugs or other problems users report in those scenarios are essentially worthless. "We don’t always track them down and fix them because they take time away from bugs that would only manifest themselves during this one-time pre-release operation," the company admitted.

The Windows 7 Release Candidate is the next major milestone for the operating system, and is expected to hit the street sometime next month.

ER departed on a high note on Thursday night, with the series finale receiving one of its biggest ratings in 3 years, pulling in 16.3 million viewers with a "6.0 preliminary adults 18-49 rating."

Its performance bested the 1996 finale of Murder She Wrote and was among the top rated adult shows since The X-Files closed its doors in 2002.

The finale also helped NBC clear out the night over CBS, Fox, and ABC.

Way to go out with a bang!