Welcome to www.minisinbox.com

To Enter or Not to Enter Writing Contests (writing contests) If you are a freelance writer, it is because you love to write. Why not put those abilities to use and enter a writing contest? You have nothing to loose and a lot to gain. You can find writing contests by simply searching the Internet. Writing groups and message boards may also have listing for these contests. No matter what you writing genre maybe poetry, fiction, non fiction, there is a contest out there for you. Read about them and choose which ones are right for you. It is not necessarily about winning or loosing but about the experience and knowledge that you gain to get there. Whether you win or not there are still valuable things that can be learned or gained by entering into contests. Entering writing contests will help you hone the skills that you have. Try something new, you may choose to write in a niche that you normally wouldn’t. You get constructive criticism from someone new. Someone that doesn’t have to worry about hurting your feelings and that is unbiased can be a wonderful asset to your career. The feedback you receive can be invaluable to you. It will get your name out there and give you a place to showcase your work. Depending on how good your story, if you make it to the next round your writings could be in front of editors and agents. This feedback and criticism is even more important than the first. Do not your eggs all in one basket. Enter a couple contests to get multiple feedback sources. Not every editor or agent is going to agree. By entering multiple contests and find common points about your writing that need perfecting you will be able to concentrate on a general consensus about your abilities. There are some downsides to entering writing contests, too. Chances are that a simple contest is not going to launch your career into star status. Do your research just as if you were going to write an article about contests. For many contests you give up your rights to your entry whether it wins or not. You need to decide whether or not you are willing to give up all rights to your story. If you win it is not a big deal, but if you loose your giving your work away. Are you willing to do this? Research the contest. You can search the Internet for reports or opinions on contests run by the company. You can find valuable information on if the contest is legitimate, if entering has had any effect of previous entrant’s careers, and if it is really worth it in the long run. The bigger and well-established companies will give credibility to your work if you win. But the bigger and more well know the companies are will also bring in tougher competition with well know authors. Some companies offer contests as a disguise. Yes they will give away prizes and declare winners but their main goal with the contest is advertising. It can be in the form of offering you to buy obscure book featuring your contest submission. Sometimes it is an editing company that offers a discount for its services or a company that will offer you discounts on writing classes. A writing contest is just a possible stepping stone. Whether it helps you or not is the unknown, but it definitely won’t hurt you. It may help you reach the next level of your career. You and only you will be able to make the decision on whether or not writing contests are a good move for your career.

Web Hosting - When Changing Web Hosts Nearly everyone will want to change to a new web host at some point. It may involve just changing out old hardware for new. It usually means finding an entirely new web hosting company. When faced with that decision there are a number of issues to be considered. Swapping hardware and/or software is a fairly straightforward decision. There are two possible scenarios. Either you maintain your own hardware and software at a facility managed by others, or you are considering upgrading to newer (usually more expensive) systems maintained by others. In either case, it's simply a matter of estimating the cost and the short-term impact versus the long-term benefits. If the system(s) you currently use are short on capacity, sooner or later you'll be sufficiently motivated to make the change. Either the hardware will become unreliable or loaded to the point you'll be forced to migrate, or your needs will expand enough to justify the effort and expense of moving. Similar considerations apply to the scenario in which you rely on the web hosting company for everything, and want to find someone else to rely on. Regrettably, that's a very common situation. Many web hosting companies provide systems and staff that sooner or later fall below an acceptable level. Most people make the decision to change based on emotion. That's not entirely bad. Emotions incent you to take action. But you need to keep a cool head, too, in order to calculate your long-range self-interest. Bearing some minor inconveniences from time to time is usually worth the trade off. When it begins to affect your site to the point you're losing visitors, it's time to make a change. To get a more objective handle on when that point is reached, reach for some numbers. Maintain, or get from the hosting company, a factual report about availability and current usage. If the server is down so much, or so heavily loaded, that it drives your visitors away, it's time to take action. There are other less easily quantifiable but equally important factors, as well. You will at some point need to communicate with one or more persons who help maintain your site. Even if you do all your own server, database and web site maintenance, someone behind the scenes is helping to keep things running smoothly. That's called 'infrastructure'. If the road you drive on has potholes, it's not enough that you can fix your own car. In terms of network bandwidth and availability, server capacity, disk space, security and a whole array of other aspects, the web hosting company has to have competent people who care (and are allowed) to do the job well. When the company's people fall down - because of incompetence, lack of resources or absence of a culture of excellence - or for any other reason - your web site suffers. This issue more than any other is what drives people to seek another web hosting company. Even if you choose well at the outset, things can change. Management changes, staff changes and companies are taken over by other companies. Sometimes, it isn't simply a matter of swapping out an unreliable piece of hardware or software. When it's time to swap out people, you look for the same aspect: doing the job required.

Find a copyright lawyer How to find copyright lawyer Finding a copyright lawyer isn’t as hard as it use to be, not as long as you actually know how to find a copyright lawyer. Today, there are more copyright lawyers popping up than there were 10 years ago. It seems that having a copyright or needing to protect one has become very popular with the way our technology is advancing. One way to find a copyright lawyer is to simply type the phrase, “copyright lawyer” into a search engine and click on a few links. Many pages will actually allow you to choose the state in which you live to find one nearby. You’ll may even be given a choice of cities to choose from and if you are lucky enough one will be the actual town you live in. If not that is fine too, most copyright lawyers will have a phone number or an email address for you to contact them. Chances are they may even be willing to work with you online instead of you having to drive down and meet with them. Copyright lawyers know the world is changing and that most people searching for them want someone that actually practices what they preach. They want someone that knows the internet and is up-to-date with the times, not someone that has a degree in the field but only does it as a hobby. You want them because they’ve done several cases and know what they are doing and will have the time to do it. Which is probably why many people are able to find copyright lawyer homepages or their own websites, which means getting to know the lawyer before they even call them. Search the lawyers name and find out all there is to know about them before you hire him/her. You don’t want someone that has a lot of complaints about; you want the person that has high praises. When you are trying to find a copyright lawyer keep in mind exactly what it is you need them for. There are certain types of copyright lawyers they deal with different areas such as lyrics, stories, website designs and many other forms. For instance if you have just found out that someone has copied an article or a blog you have out there in cyberspace you may want to find a copyright lawyer that deals with copyright infringement, maybe a intellectual property lawyer. If you aren’t sure if you have stuff out there that is being copied you may want to check over at copyscape.com. Before you find a copyright lawyer you should make sure you have all your information in order. If you are insisting someone else is using your stuff, make sure you have proof. One good way to do this is by marking the date you wrote it and then sealing it in an envelope and mailing it to yourself. Making sure to never open the sealed envelope. Make sure any work you do online is saved to a disk so you‘ll always have proof. Your lawyer should be able to tell you everything you need before meeting with him/her. Finding a lawyer wasn’t hard and you even learned how to find out if he/she is any good by browsing the internet. Don’t just take them at their word, find out for sure. Or if you are lucky enough, you may know someone that has already used one and can recommend a good one for you. Now that you know how to find a copyright lawyer, you just need to make sure you can afford him/her.