reliable Newsletter provider

Newsletters are a good method, to inform customers about developments or keep employees updated, what is going on in a company.

Besides the layout of the Newsletter and its content, it is very important, to use a well proven provider for sending the Newsletter, so that is is not deleted by spam filters.

We use the provider Newsletter2Go.

If one sends a newsletter to less than 1000 persons, then it is free of charge.

All what is needed for modern marketing, using Newsletters, is offered, like:

• an editor and templates for Newsletters
• autoresponder
• safety features, which are very important, that the Newsletters is accepted.

With the help of  tutorials, it is possible, to learn without frustration, in a reasonable short time, how to use all features.



 

How to store information safe and for hundreds of years

In our partner blog ( informationsbearbeitung )  a  post was published with the title:

Fanaticism and free exchange of information

Here we want to focus only on  the problem, how information can be stored safely, so that generations even after hundreds of years, can still use it.

We face at least following problems:

• which language shall be used 
• what storage devices shall be used
• where shall  the information storage devices be located
• how will people in the future know, where these locations are 

Apparently we need excellent tutorials, with which people can learn  how to use the information.

The best storage devices might be ceramic plates, in which all documents are engraved with lasers. But then also simple optical reading devices are needed, because we cannot expect, that any electronic devices will still function after hundreds of years.

The storage devices must be located probably inside mountains, so that they can survive any wars or natural catastrophes.

To deliver the information  to future generations, where these locations are, is also threatening these information to get destroyed by evil minded persons.

I expect, that we will find solutions for all the other problems, but do not have any good idea, how to deliver the information in a safe way to future generations, where they can find them.

Do you have some good ideas ?

Internet meetings, using Mikogo

Needed features of  an internet meeting provider:

 A good provider for internet meetings must meet at least following requirements:

• In many companies employees are not allowed to download any software onto their desktops or laptops, to avoid any infections by viruses.
• all communication must be encrypted, to defeat any spies, also the phone lines
•  it should be possible, to use several monitors, which makes it easier to switch between drawings, images and calculation sheets
• it should be possible for participants, also to use mobile devices
• the other features like whiteboard and chat are standards nowadays

Mikogo fulfills now all these requirements and is therefore an excellent communication tool.

website:  Mikogo

pricing:

• For 1 user and 1 participant  in an  internet  meeting, the account is free. This permits, to test Mikogo free of charge.

• For 1 user and up to 25 participants it costs 192 US Dollar per year, which is quite a good price, compared to many others.

At an internet meeting each participant should have his own desktop or laptop and his own headset with microphone. That avoids disturbing echoes and each participant feels much more comfortable, than if several people sit around one computer.

And then everybody can also stay in his office, which saves time.

How to get information, evaluate them and draw valid conclusions from them

On this blog we focus on, how to solve a problem. That means, that  we already have narrowed our view and are focusing on, if we know all needed facts and with what method we can solve the problem.

On the Blog:

Informationsbearbeitung

a more general view is taken:

• How can we find all needed  information
• How can we  store them safely
• How can we  structure and evaluate them
• How can we present them, so that they are easy to understand
• How can we draw the correct conclusions from them

I agreed with the owner of this Blog, that we will corporate in the future:

• detailed posts will be given on the blog, for which they are most relevant
• abstracts of these posts are also given on the other blog
• on each blog links lead  to the other blog

We will try to develop a ring of corporating blogs, which all together can develop efficient methods, to deal with information and with problems.

The Art of Correct Conclusions

Somebody, who must have had a lot of humor, gave the name "homo sapiens"  to humans, which live nowadays and which ancestors left Africa about 60 000 years ago.

If we look at, how we humans behave since thousands of years, then this name is totally wrong. Humans have always spent a lot of their resources to develop more efficient weapons, so that they could murder more humans.

And we go on with this behaviour. And we do our best, to destroy all resources, on which we depend, if we want to survive:

• we pollute all water on the globe with chemicals and plastics
• we destroy the farmland
• we do our best, to heat up the atmosphere as quickly as possible, so that the glaciers will melt, the sea levels will get higher and flood all towns near the coasts  and the number of earthquakes will increase, because the molten core of the earth will get loaded differently compared to today.
• vulcanic eruptions will also increase

• we waste our resources for miliary weapons and  wars, which increase the poverty in  the world, but do not solve one problem, but  only add much more.
• we accept, that the majority of humans live in poverty and will have no chance, to improve their living conditions

Question is, why are we so damned stupid on a larger scale but very intelligent on smaller scales ?
We must investigate, why human behaviour does not work on a larger scale. 

We  have the technical skills and all needed resources, so that all humans could have a fair share of  the global wealth and we all would even profit a lot from it.

Because now we are so stupid, to waste  the huge potential of all the poor people, who could attribute a lot to the global wealth, if we would give them a fair chance.

• How can it happen, that so many corrupt and cruel politicians come into power and why does nobody hinder them directly, before they get too powerful ?  Is it, because we are mammals and just accept everybody, who claims to be the strongest leader, without thinking about it for a second ?
• are we just too lazy to think in a rational and logical  way, based on facts and not on claims, which politicians make ?
• How can we find out, why we do not think correctly and how can we change it ?

Architecture with Bamboo

The poverty on earth increases and  solutions are needed to defeat it.

One solution could be, to plant more bamboo worldwide.

• it grows quite fast
• it is very strong
• it is cheap

  In total it is an excellent construction material and houses built with it will probably also withstand earthquakes.

Elora Hardy gives a very good presnetation about it on TED

Cameron Sinclair  is also engaged since many years, to design emergency houses, using locally available materials.

Online webinars

Nowadays it is easy and cheap, to use the internet for communication with others.

Most people  use only emails and the social media.

 But there is much more possible:

• online phoning and  online video conferences  ( using for instance skype:  www.skype.com )

• online reports and online seminars  ( using: www.edudip.com )

Skype is simple to use and can also be used with smartphones, which can save quite some money, if one has to do far distance phone calls.

But it lacks several features  compared with edudip, which makes the last the better choice for online reports and especially online seminars:

• private and public seminars

• number of participants  ( 500 in the free version and unlimited in the paid version )

• duration ( 60 minutes in the free version and unlimited in the paid version )

• Sale of webinars is possible

and  several more useful features. Just have a look at their website.

Assuming, that your internet bandwidth is large enough and you have a high speed internet connection, then  this is an excellent tool, to inform and educate people.

And for such a purpose  it can be used by:

•  private groups 
•  companies 
• organizations 

If only informations  are exchanged, then it is as good as  face to face meetings, saving a lot of  time and money for all participants.

Best is, to take part at some free  webinars,  then offer some  free webinars    and later decide, if one should use the paid version.

How to Use Problems, Using Blogs and Wikipedia

To get ideas, how a problem could get solved or even to get  guidelines, how  to solve it,  blogs can be  an excellent information source.

Many engaged people are active on blogs and more than happy, to  help others with their know how, to solve  problems.

The main problem is, to find the right blogs, which is not always so easy, because there exist millions of them.

But for  that purpose search engines were developed,  which  search only in blogs;  but they search only in  the title of blogs  or at the title of posts in a blog.

Let us assume, that we want to solve a technical problem:

• the blog search engine Technorati is an excellent search engine.
• at first we open it at:  technorati  and we see, that there are about 37 000 blogs. It is of course almost impossible, to go through the total list and we must start, to use search terms.  The search field  is on the right side of the technorati logo at the top of  the website.
• now let's go  on with "proa", which we already used with  "YouTube".  No research result is shown, but a remark, that we shall refine our search.  It is almost unbelievable, that nobody should have mentioned  "proa" in so many blogs. Therefore lets start now with "sailing boat".  Only  3  posts are shown, what is quite peculiar. What is wrong ?  If we look at the search field, we see, that there are 2  search functions:   One for blogs and one for posts.  We had kept posts activated and now we will activate "Blogs" and repeat the search with "Sailing boat".  A list with many blogs about sailing boats is shown.

• we now repeat the search with "proa"   and indeed, we find 2 blogs:

        proa17ufrgs.blogspot.com
        proaufrgsb.blogspot.com

If we activate the shown web sites, then we see, that they are in Spanish and have nothing to do  with sailing boats.

Therefore we have to go back to use "sailing boats"   A list with 84 blogs are shown, which we can go through. But no blog shows up, which fits well.  So this search was not successful. We now could try other  search engines for blogs or we look at wikipedia, to find some good links there:

• http://www.wikipedia.org/
• We give in "proa" and find directly a special site  about it.

From that experience, we can learn, that it can be better, to start at first directly with wikipedia,  check the given links and if that is not enough, then use search engines or look at YouTube.

But we can use blogs, even if they are not specialised onto our topic:  We  can  ask the experts on the blogs for their support. Because it is very probable, that they know something also beyond   the special topic of the blog.

How to Use YouTube for Problem Solving

On YouTube  are many informative videos, which  show,  how problems can be solved.

Of  course,   a bit time is needed, to find the really good ones, for which we can apply a step by step procedure, like for instance:

• At first we have to open the website:  http://www.youtube.com

• then we give some search words into the search field at the top of the screen, right of   the YouTube logo

• lets  take a look at  sailing boats:   We give  in  "sailing boat"  and a list with many video titles is shown, which we  scroll down, to find out, what interests  us

• I find  a  "proa"  interesting and give  this term  into the search field, to get an overview, how many videos deal with proas.  Again, many videos are shown, but also videos, which have nothing to do with the sailing boat proa, but with some sport teams.

• Thereore I now give "sailing boat proa"  into the search field,  to find only the videos, in which I am intested

• again, many videos are shown, one of them is an outrigger canoe and because  I have a canoe, I want to get more information about it and  give in now  "sailing boat outrigger canoe" and I find the video " sailing canoe" interesting and open it,  but because this video shows a trimaran sailing canoe, I now give in "canoe proa"   and find  "Guam Chamorro Traditional Canoes ", which shoes the rebuild of a traditional proa and  we can see very well, how the sailing mast is fastend in an oblique angle and not as in modern types vertically, which is not as good, because the wind  forces  destabilize the boat much more.

We see, that this video was uploaded in 2009.   7800 people have seen it,  but only23 gave positive comments. I think, that this is a shame.  If we see an informative video, even if it is  not  perfectly done, then we should leave a positive comment.

Some other excellent videos, also about proas:

• Outrigger Marshall Island's-National Cup Race

• KiteMaran BaliWind   ( modern proa )

• and an interesting model boat:   Hydroptère RC à Casteljaloux 47

By the way; it is a good idea, to build at first a functional model, to study some of its features, before building a full scale boat. and here a real sailing boat, using this design:  Hobie TriFoiler Promotional Video
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If anybody is interested, to build a sailing boat himself, he will find many execellent information on YouTube, which will help him, to develop his own innovative ideas.

Of course, using the same search procedure, we will find many informations about almost any topic.

Free Flowchart Program yEdit

This is a free flowchart program with many useful features.

I especially like, that I can add text to arrows, which is  fixed at the arrows,  even  if  the objects with the arrows are moved around.

With this feature it is possible, to create concept maps with presentation quality.

Also morphological boxes can be constructed with it and many other useful structured graphical representations.

yEdit  is free of charge for dowload at:
http://www.yworks.com/en/products_yed_about.html

For other programs on this website  one has to pay.

Wisdom of Mankind: What can we Learn from it ?

Religions,  ideologies  and  also philosophy  have taught high ideals,  but in practice the organizations, which represented these ideals, have done  the most horrible crimes in the history of mankind.

Therefore  in the time of renaissance and later in the time of enlightenment, men have developed an attitude, to negate all the  teachings of them.

In the 19 th century Marxism and in 20 th Fascism and Leninism, Maoism etc. have done the most horrible crimes in the history of mankind.

Therefore many people follow now the ideology of atheism, which is nothing  else as also an ideology, because it pretends to know at least, that there does not exist something like a God, which is impossible to prove or disprove, as already the german philosopher Kant in the 18. century demonstrated.

Also natural science cannot teach us anything about this question, because  it cannot investigate it.

Therefore we should take a pragmatic attitude and differentiate between the organizations ( which are dominated by men ) and the teachings of wise women and men.

Perhaps we can learn something from them, which may help us, to lead a happy life.

Therefore I will now and then write about the wisdom of mankind, without making any difference, if it comes from ancient times of the Aborigines in Australia, the Indians in America, the Indian Hinduism, Buddhism etc.

Only the arguments count.

So lets start with a teaching  of Laotse, the wise teacher of  Taoism in ancient China:

One of his famous teachings was:

"The  soft will defeat the hard."

He has used several of those apparently unlogical teachings, to overcome our limited thinking, which is determined by prejudices.

And we must get aware of our prejudices and overcome them, so that we can really solve problems and get creative.

We know, that Laotse is right  in  at least   several cases:

1.   water can destroy the hardest rock
2.   one man, without any arms like Ghandi, could  defeat the British  Empire,  full with  military weapons

What have both cases in common ?

     Persistence.

Never give up, overcome any frustration and go on.

And that is the attitude, which every inventor and entrepreneur needs.

We will experience a lot of  frustration, but we have to overcome it, to get successful in the end.

Of course, we should  carefully analyse every defeat and learn from it and not just go on stubbornly. That could lead us into  the wrong direction.

We  must critically analyze our motivation and collect any needed information, so that we can make  rational decisions.

But then we should overcome our frustration and go on.

"The soft will defeat the hard".

Open Source Software: A Viewer for 3 dim Chemical Structures

Many chemicals, especially orgranic ones,  have a 3 dim structure, which is important to understand their performance, but  almost impossible to visualize without  suitable tools.

Jmol is an excellent open source software, which does a great job, to visualize complicated 3 dim molecular structures.

For instance it is quite easy, to create a 3 dim structure  of graphen.

To study organic chemistry or biochemistry,  it is a must, to use such a program, otherwise it is impossible, to understand the details of these complicated chemical structures.

Here is a  download link:
http://jmol.sourceforge.net/


Using  a  good meta search engine like mamma  (  http://www.mamma.com ), it is easy to find many informative sources about using this program.

Advanced Material for Solving Many Problems: Graphen

Graphen consists of  Carbon atoms, which form  a  plane network  of hexagonally arranged Carbon atoms.

This material, which has been developed  about 10 years ago and can now be bought  ( for instance at:  http://www.angstronmaterials.com/in-the-news/ ),  has several  outstanding features like:

•  4 times higher electrically conductivity than copper  ( 20 000 S/cm)

•  5 times higher thermal conductivity than copper  ( 5 300 W/(mK)

• extreme large surface  ot 2600  square meter per gram graphen

• 50  times higher strength than steel

These outstanding features will be the base for many future inventions, like:

• filters for water or separation   of  particles in liquids

• super batteries

• super capacitors

• similar devices like heat pipes, but probably much cheaper

• solar cells

• ropes

• paper like products

• semi permeable membranes ( separation of nitrogen and oxygen in the air ? )

At least it  is worth while for every technically oriented inventor, to have a look at this material.

How to Earn Money with Fish Farming Part 3: Tilapia

Tilapia  is fish, which   lives  only from vegetables and cereals and the fry do not pass a planktonic phase.  Therefore it is a very good choice for us. Also the taste of the fish meat is very good.

Detailed information is given at:  http://www.appropedia.org/Tilapia_Fish_Farming_Notions

The main draw back could be, that Tilapia  need warm water, for which energy may be needed, when we live in cold countries. But using  solar collectors, to heat up the water, especially fresh water in separate vessels, should help, to minimize the needed energy.All water tanks and the fish tanks should be insulated of course.

If  a heat exchanger is installed in the house, then  two benefits can be combined:

• Reduce the energy demand to heat  the house
•  use the exhaust air to heat up the water tanks. In the exhaust air  is still enough oxygen for the fishes.

How to Earn Money with Fish Farming Part 2: Aquaponics

What is needed  for intensive  aquaponics ?

• Plastic tanks are placed in green houses with hydroponic beds, in which oftenly herbs like parsley and basil are raised.
• water purification system; recommended is a combination of hydroponic horticulture and water treatment.
• What is the best fish for us ?  Salmon and trout need expensive food  and they need much oxygen in the water. 
• Much  less demanding  are Catfish and Clarias. Up to 10% of the water volume can be fishes.  That means, in  a vessel with 1 cubicmetre  there could be raised up to  100  kg  fish.
• The draw back of too high fish density is the danger of  infections and of course, the fishes should lead a good life. That means, they need enough free space to swim, good water quality and good food.

Integrated recycling systems look to be the best solution for us, because we need not an expensive water cleaning system. Nature works  for us and we can also raise vegetables. But we need a filter and and an air supply system into the water.

• We  can use the waste water in the garden

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaponics

How to Earn Money with Fishfarming. Part 1 Basics

There exist many poor or unemployed people worldwide.   The best opportunity for them to earn their living,    to work  as a self employed person.

But also for self employed people it can be interesting, to find additional opportunities to earn money, because it is always safer to have  several  income sources.

We will therefore discuss several opportunities in the category:   How to earn money.   It is good to have a core business, but we  should also try, to learn enough about other businesses, so that we can start with a new business, if the core business runs into problems.

Here we discuss, how we could earn money with fish farming.

• Assuming, that not much money is available, we have to start small, but with the goal, to earn  our living in the future.
• How do we start, if we know  nothing about fish farming ?  The easiest way is, to search in the internet, starting   with   http://www.wikipedia.org  
• Using the search words     "fish farming" ,   we are directly  led to the main article  at:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish_farm 

This article gives us a good first overview, so that we know enough, to focus on the topics of fish farming, which are of interest for us.

What do we learn from this article ?

• extensive fish farming is done in lakes or at sea  coasts. But it is not of interest for us, because we need large lakes to live from.
• The most common fishes raised are: salmon,carp,tilapia, catfish and cod.
•  intensive aquaculture:   With intensive aquaculture, we can raise a lot of fishes in  tanks, combined with the culture of vegetables and need  not much  footprint, to live from.

Therefore this will be our choice, to focus on  in part 2:   Aquaponics

How to Get the Needed Information to Solve a Problem

The steps to solve a problem are following:

1.    get aware that a problem exists

2.   analyse and structure the problem

• divide it into  smaller pieces
•  start to solve the easiest pieces

3.   collect the needed information, to solve the more difficulty pieces


Here I will focus only onto  point 3:


                     Where can we find the needed information ?

1.    ask  others
2.    read books, reports  and patents
3.    search in databases
4.    use the internet

• To ask others  is a good method. Even, if they don`t know the solution,  each discusssion with others helps, to understand the  problem and get new solution ideas.

• In a good library there should be many books or reports in journals, which deal with similar problems, from which we can learn and we get pieces of the needed information.

• There exist many databases worldwide about almost any subject, in which a huge amount of information is stored. Many are free, for others one has to pay.

Nowadays a very comfortable method to find information,  is of course the internet. Problem with it is, that it oftenly is difficulty to judge, how reliable the information is.

For searches in the internet not only the well known search engines should be used, but meta search engines. These are either specialised  to a subject or they  use many other search engines, so that they can give better results.

There are a lot of meta search engines available and the best is, to test them, searching about a topic, which is well known.

Here is a small collection only:

Meta  Search Engine
http://www.metasearchengine.com

Meta Crawler
http://www.metacrawler.com

Mamma
http://www.mamma.com/


Computational Knowledge Engine and  facts in technology and sciences
http://www.wolframalpha.com/

General Approach to Solve a Problem

Isaksen, Doval and Trefflinger have developed some general guidelines, how to solve a problem:


Understand the challenge

• look for opportunities

• collect all needed data

• structure the problem, using visual maps ( mindmaps, concept maps )

 Generate several ideas, how to solve the problem

• use brainstorming and similar heuristic methods

• use a  morphological box

 Prepare for Action

• Develop detailed solution plan

• convince others, so that they support you

Prepare project management plan

• define resources and responsibilities

• prepare a flowchart, how the problem can be solved step by step.

Literature:

• Treffinger, D. (2000). Practice Problems for Creative Problem Solving. ISBN-10: 1882664647

• Scott,Isaksen,Dorval: Creative Approaches to Problem Solving. ISBN 1412977738

How to Forecast the Life Cycle of Products

It is well known,  that the life cycle of a product can be calculated quite good with a sigmoid  curve. Such a  curve describes the growth of a population,  like bacteria for instance, over time  and  has  a  S-shape.

A simple sigmoid curve is the  logistic curve, which  is symmetric ( point-symmetry ); that means, that the beginning of the growth and the end of it, show the same, but opposite changes in time.

This is seldom the case in real world problems and therefore more general sigmoid curves like the Gomperz function should be used, to model  the growth in production of  a   product  for instance, for which the available resources are limited.

Assuming, that the total production can be sold,   one can forecast the life cycle of the product.

But in  general there are several competing products available  and one must develop a  more sophisticated mathematical model, to forecast the life-cycle of each product.

With  a set of mathematical equations,  such more general situation can also be modeled.

Most important for each decision maker is the understanding, that  the  production output will never only grow, but will reach a constant level and thereafter decrease.  Linear forecasting, based on past data  often forecasts completely wrong results for the future.

For the mathematical background look at wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gompertz_curve

How to: relax and motivate

There exist several methods,  to reach  a deep state of relaxation for body and mind.  Yoga  and Autogenic Training for instance teach such methods.

But quite some training is needed, to master these methods and many people are not patient enough  to train these methods.

A very efficient and easy to use method is a combination of brainwave entrainment, hypnosis and visualization method, which is called

        audio / visual brainwave entrainment

Many explanations about this method are given on the website:

       http://www.transparentcorp.com/products/np/index.php

They offer a software program, with which this method can be applied. A headphone is recommendable for its use.

A free trial verions can be used for 2 weeks

The software  is called Neuro Programmer 3, the regular version costs 60 US and the Ultimate Editon 90 US.

This is a very good price for this excellent tool, to relax and reprogram oneself.

After one has experienced, how a state of deep relaxation feels, it should be also much easier, to reach it, using Yoga or Autogenic Training.

To relax once per day or more oftenly is an excellent method to counteract stress and avoid the burn out syndrom. Using these methods,   the motivation gets stronger and therefore  it  is  much easier to study or master some difficulty skills.

It is also possible, to experience altered states of mind, like they are experienced after many years of training of meditation, using a special collection of soundtracks ( 3 hours sound ), which is called "Beyond Being".     It costs 50 US.


This one I did not yet check myself,   but I use the other methods and can confirm, that they really work very well.

Use the trial version and check yourself, if these methods help you.