Do you need more money to pay for your family vacation, buy a new car, or to help your kids with college expenses? You might want to consider direct sales as a way to increase your income and perhaps to even live debt free.
I started selling Tastefully Simple Gourmet Foods just before my son started college at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. Tastefully Simple Gourmet Foods are sold through home parties, business expos, person to person and through my website. Tastefullysimple.com/web/dmayers
Tastefully Simple Gourmet Foods is based in Alexandria, Minnesota and the company is almost 14 years old. The products are delicious and are very simple to prepare (They make even ME a good cook).
During the time I have been selling Tastefully Simple, I have also worked full time as a Human Resources Administrator. Tastefully Simple allows me to work nights and weekends (on my own schedule) in order to earn the extra cash that my family needed.
My son Adam will graduate debt-free from Michigan State University in May of 2009. The extra money that I have earned has helped pay for tuition, books, rent, groceries and car insurance. Not having any debt when he graduates will make Adam’s life easier and not having to make loan payment for his education, will allow me to retire earlier (if I choose).
Are you thinking that gourmet food sales not for you? There a dozens, maybe even hundreds of direct sales businesses to consider. You can elect to sell a variety of products ranging from kitchenware, fashion, skincare, and jewelry, to tools, craft supplies, and cosmetics.
With (Tastefully Simple) direct sales, there are several ways to earn cash.
Most direct sales businesses offer additional incentives as well – things like trips and other gifts to keep consultants working hard for the company.
Besides my income, I have gotten several gifts from the company over the years – a clock, some pretty glassware, a serving tray, jewelry and other items.
With Tastefully Simple, we also earn points (based on our sales) to turn in for additional prizes of our choosing (almost like green stamps from the old days). I have earned a 6-foot fiberglass ladder and a Sawzall with those points. I am not sure what my next goal will be, but I suspect it will be something else from the tool section of the catalog.
There are dozens of ways to make extra cash in order to reach your goals, pick something about which you are passionate and have fun while earning cash!
Part three of the review of Majesty 2 can be found here. Part three of the review includes information on the differences between Majesty and Majesty 2. It also includes information on if the game is worth buying and where players can buy the game from.
Paradox Interactive has also shared their experience of the development and publishing process. That interview can be found here. As players will be able to see, Paradox Interactive truly cares about the world of Majesty 2.
Temples In Majesty 2
The way that temples work in Majesty 2 has also changed from the original Majesty. In the original game, players could build temples wherever they desired. Now temples can only be built on “locations of power.” This is a welcome addition from the original Majesty, as temples often times made missions too easy and made multiplayer unbalanced, because the heroes the temples produced were so powerful. (The temple of Helia was especially unbalanced for multiplayer.)
The temples available in Majesty 2 are:
As players from the original Majesty will immediately notice, the Temple to Lunord no longer exists. This is because, during the 500 years between games, Lunord decided to try and revolt against the other gods. Lunord is currently trapped beneath a volcano in Ardania. (Note that this does give Paradox the ability to bring him back at any time.)
Unique to Majesty 2, players can now upgrade their heroes to one of the temple classes (each character can upgrade to a choice of two classes. Rogues, Elves, Dwarfs, and wizards cannot upgrade their classes at all.) This method allows players to effectively take their high level characters and make them even more powerful, for a cost.
The Story and Missions of Majesty 2
The campaign of Majesty 2 tells the story of a king who summoned a demon to try and prove his worth as a king (as in his time, evil was gone from the lands of Ardania.) The demon defeated the king and now rules over the lands of Ardania. The player takes on the role of the heir to the throne. It will be up to the player to reunite the races in the land of Ardania, recollect the magical artifacts of the throne, and slay the demon.
After each mission, players will be able to promote one of their heroes to the Lord status. This allows the hero to be used in any campaign mission. To use the Lord in another mission, players must first build the Hall of Heroes. Then, after the Hall is built, players must higher the hero. Because the hero is a high level, it will cost a large sum of gold. (For instance, a level 12 cleric costs around 2200 gold to hire.) A player can have three Lords active on the field at any time.
Besides the campaign missions, players can also take part in single missions. These are missions that are unrelated to the storyline, but still prevent a variety of challenges to the player.
The Multiplayer Aspects of Majesty 2
The multiplayer aspects of Majesty 2 provide players with a completely different playing experience. To join a multiplayer game, players will first need to click on the “Multiplayer” tab in Majesty 2. Once there, they will see the option to pick between a “LAN” game and an “Online” game. A LAN game is where you are playing someone on your network. The online game, on the other hand, will allow players to play each other around the world. To play in an online game, players will need to minimize or alt – tab from Majesty 2 and go to an internet browser, and then register a Gamespy Arcade account. (Players can skip this step if they already have one.) Then, once they have their login information, all players need to do is enter it in the game, and they will be taken to the multiplayer games lobby. Multiplayer games in Majesty 2 allow players to select from a variety of courses. On these courses, players may be presented with a variety of quests as they are trying to defeat the other player. For instance, on one of the 1 vs 1 maps, the first player who holds 20,000 gold in their treasury will be given three of the artifacts to the throne to be used against their opponent. The game is quite balance, unit wise, in the way of multiplayer. When playing a multiplayer game, it is recommended for players to try and secure the trading posts, as it is often money that determines who can overwhelm the other kingdom.
With it being a few weeks since Majesty 2 has been released, some players are having issues with the multiplayer. When these players try to play in an online multiplayer game, they will almost immediately be kicked out of the game, and then they will be told that there was a “Desyncing” issue. Paradox Interactive has released a patch that should address the problem.
As a temporary solution, some players have started using Himachi. Himachi is a third-party program that allows players to create a virtual network. This allows players to play on LAN with no desyncing issues. (Himachi can be downloaded here: http://hamachi.en.softonic.com/free-download)
To access one of these servers that is being used, players will need to first install Himachi. Then, once the program is installed, install the Network Server: Majesty2-USA . The password to this server is gamespysucks . Once this information is typed in, players should be able to play against others that are logged into this server. This provides an effective temporary fix to the situation.
Part three of the review of Majesty 2 can be found here (edit in after publishing) Part three of the review includes information on the differences between Majesty and Majesty 2. It also includes information on if the game is worth buying and where players can buy the game from.
Paradox Interactive has also shared their experience of the development and publishing process. That interview can be found here: (edit in after publishing) As players will be able to see, Paradox Interactive truly cares about the world of Majesty 2
to choose for different covers without having to use different providers.
If you are looking for insurance policies with different types of coverage and services, looking for a one stop insurance provider can be a daunting task, especially if you have no idea where to look into and the factors you need to consider in finding the best insurance provider that can offer you different types of services for different insurance coverage, without having to visit one insurance company to another. A well established insurance provider can be easily determined by knowing the extent of their services and the flexibility they can offer to their clients based on the needs and requirements demanded by the customer.
One of the most basic coverage an insurance company can offer to their clients is the personal possessions insurance. In today’s economy, it is only important to get an insurance that will cover not only the person, but his or her possessions as well. This is worth taking because not only does to cover your belongings while inside your home, but also when you are outside when something happened to an insured personal property. Personal possessions insurance often covers personal belongings that are accidentally damaged, lost, or stolen. Especially those possessing expensive and state of the art mobile phones, laptops or computer notebooks, credit cards, passports, ID’s and other important documents, digital cameras and video cams, portable gaming consoles, and other important personal belongings, personal possession insurance is their security whenever unforeseen events happen to them.
Another type of insurance an insurance provider with flexible services offers, is the small business insurance, which is the protection given to SME owners and operators. There are a number of SME insurance providers that are focused on offering SME insurance solutions that are exclusively designed to provide excellent coverage and risk management requirements for varied types of SME’s. With a wide range of well developed insurance packages ideal for small businesses that can be delivered through well directed avenues, these companies can provide any of the following services which include, but are not limited to office insurance, leisure industries- mainly hotels, pubs, and other type of industries focused in providing leisure services, business insurance, marine, and/or general properties, financial lines, and other SME coverage.
Aside from the things stated above, insurance provides for it to be considered as a one stop shop, you must have excellent and affordable travel insurance coverage ideal for individuals planning a trip abroad either for business or leisure. When you are overseas, there are a lot of unforeseen things that can happen to you, and finding an insurance provider that can offer a policy with the best travel insurance coverage is one thing you must never take lightly or take for granted. Most of the time, travelers often overlook the importance of a travel insurance without knowing that it can cover them from any liabilities and unnecessary expenses incurred while traveling abroad. Important coverage, like emergency repatriation or evacuation, medical expenses, accident coverage, travel cancellation and/or restriction, accidental loss of personal possessions due to theft or any other factors, coverage for loss travel documents or missed connections for individuals with connecting flights.
All in all, as long as an insurance provider is able to offer different kinds of insurance requirements from different people with varying needs, you can rely on their services to provide you with any type of insurance option that will best fit your requirements.
My Jornada 720 is my constant companion, and for good reason. You can do nearly anything that you can with a full-sized PC at the fraction of the size of a notebook.
By today’s standards, handheld PCs like the Jornada 720 are dead. With a 206 MHz StrongARM processor and 32MB of RAM split between program memory and storage, it’s not for people looking to swell their egos. The Jornada 720 does have a PCMCIA slot and CompactFlash slot, so it can be upgraded to reasonable power and function, but they were big from 1999 to 2001; nobody makes them, nobody supports them, and only the rogue developers are writing programs for them. So why do I use one, and for that matter, why should you?
Have you ever tried writing a long sentence, never mind a paragraph or full article, on a smartphone or Pocket PC? It’s a nightmare — your typing skills are moot. If you carry around a notebook PC for writing, you’re probably the best candidate for a handheld PC; the Jornada 720 has a suite of office applications, including Word, that can be started with the press of a keyboard button.
Not everyone will find the Jornada 720’s keyboard touch-typeable, but it’s the perfect fit under my medium-sized fingers, and with a little practice it’s not hard to reach a quick typing speed.
Other advantages of the keyboard will become apparent with a little use. If you like killing programs and windows with Alt-F4 or Ctrl-Alt-Del, utilities can be installed to let these key combinations function as they do on a regular PC. Arrow keys and home/end keys let you hop around a document or webpage quickly.
That’s right, the Jornada 720 can be used to browse the Web too. A built-in 56k modem allows access from any phone line. Its 640×240 resolution is perfect for reading text, though viewing large images becomes tedious. Network interface cards and wireless adapters can be purchased, letting you work on your home or business LAN as a full PC. Getting these up and running takes a little work, and Web surfing many sites requires modifying the Registry, but it can be done.
By now, you’re probably thinking that this little machine takes a lot of work. And it’s true that getting the most out of it requires a geeky devotion to pushing the Jornada 720’s limits. But out of the box it’s a great productivity tool, and it can be an excellent game machine as well.
Dozens of games written specifically for the Jornada 720’s operating system, a version of Windows CE called HPC 2000. Warfare Incorporated, for example, is a complex and popular commercial title, but the real gems are in the freeware arena. Chess, card games, puzzle games and even a few action games are on the Internet for download. You can even run Doom and Quake on this little handheld!
I think the Nintendo emulators provide the most fun — they fit nicely on the Jornada 720’s screen, run fast and smoothly, and offer a huge number of games, especially when you factor in the Japanese games translated by fans. I’ve found a great number of strategy and RPG titles this way.
Now for the bad parts, which mostly involve the display. Jornada 720s often have problems with the stylus becoming uncalibrated, very badly in some cases, and if it will not resolve through recalibration the best way around this issue is the program FakeMouse, which lets you hold the Windows key and move a cursor around the screen.
A real show-stopper that comes up infrequently is a dead screen. The data cable comes loose, so you’ll see the glow of the backlight but nothing appears on-screen. It’s difficult if not impossible for most users to fix; mine has done this and, after letting it sit in a drafty area for a week it worked fine. It’s a sort of voodoo repair trick, but many users say it works for them.
Jornadas are cheap, at around $150 on eBay, giving them a wealth of financial advantages over notebook PCs.
Unless you really need the power of a laptop, there’s no reason to lug one around. Get a Jornada 720 — with a keyboard, Pocket Office, and dozens of games available, it can give you countless hours of fun and productivity.
