In Matagorda, Texas, Hurricane Shutters Are a Must

Matagorda, Texas is an historic town located in the center of the coastline on the Colorado River in Texas. The town is very close to the Gulf of Mexico, just seven miles away by car. The area is not highly populated, but in the summer the numbers swell impressively, because it is very popular for both its fine fishing and its beaches.

Some of the best saltwater fishing in the world is to be found in the area. The more than fifty mile long coastline pulls Houston fishermen in, and they are discovering that they don't mind the two hour drive. If you are looking for prize-winning fish, Matagorda is the place to catch them.

But because it's right on the coast, it's a prime target for hurricanes. The position makes it vulnerable to the tropical storms and hurricanes that move inland from the gulf. It has a long history of being hard hit by storms.

When a 1941 hurricane formed in the Gulf of Mexico, it made a loop, turned toward the northwest, and then made landfall near Matagorda, Texas. The hurricane sat over the area for a while, and damage from the storm amounted to about 6.5 million in 1940's dollars. All the crops in the region were destroyed.

Installing hurricane shutters is a must for homes so close to the Gulf of Mexico. Even if hurricanes don't make landfall exactly dead-on to your property, the resulting high winds, rain, and tornadoes can do damage. Hurricane Ike made landfall approximately 80 miles to the north of them, yet still did extensive damage to the area. Even though the hurricane was not that close, the outer bands carry a lot of weather problems with them, and as they move over the area, they do a lot of damage. FEMA declared it a disaster area, in fact, in September of 2008.

Pressure changes that happen during the storm can actually rip a hole in your windows if they are not covered by storm shutters. The hurricane will then tear through your home and do major structural damage. During hurricanes, windows have been torn off, roofs have been ripped away, and porches or pool cages have been carried away for miles before landing. Storm shutters protect your windows, and while no hurricane shutter can keep you completely safe, it can keep the damage at a minimum. Hurricane shutters are tested for missile impact, and come standard with the ability to withstand winds up to 150 miles per hour. Hurricane shutters keep your family and your home safe during a storm.

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Why Governments Will Never Build Effective Disaster Early Warning Networks

We do have the technology and the social and economic need to create effective disaster early warning systems in all modern societies.  And yes,  the "conventional wisdom" is that Governments or insurance companies should build them!  The fact remains obvious that neither governments nor insurance companies have built suchs systems nor are they ever likely to do so.  Governments will not do this because the people who actually make government policy and spending decisions have very little political incentive to create a disaster warning network that can save lives and reduce property damages.  The risks and challenges in actually creating such a system far exceed the small potential political gain by decision makers. Governments do however achieve substantial political benefit from disaster planning and repeated calls for future action.  Politicians always find that disaster recovery funding gets a lot more political support for them than prevention of death and property loss.  Standing on a soapbox and writing disaster relief checks is the long preferred method of dealing with disasters.  Long term actions required for implementation of an effective early warning network create minimal political gain and therefore are not likely to ever be accomplished.  This is the sad reality, but reality is not an optional choice. 

Insurance companies will not build or fund disaster warning systems because they operate as individual entities. Each individual insurance company has no economic incentive to reduce overall deaths and property damages in society.  Insurance companies insure risk.  With less risk, there will be less to insure.  There is no "common" good served for any one company to create and implement a warning system and they have no framework for cooperative actions of this type.  It is not a core competency of insurance companies. Their profit motive is not served for all risk to be reduced, only the risk for each companies insured's.

Opportunity is created by the ability and willingness to solve major problems in people's lives. The time has come to build an effective Disaster Warning Network.  What do you think?

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How to Choose Perfect Plus Size Cocktail Dresses

Plus size cocktail dresses are great for a night out. They're flirty and fun, without being too dressed up and formal. For full-figured women, choosing plus size dresses with a strategic cut is important. When your best assets are your curves, there's no reason to hide um. It's all a matter of de-emphasizing certain parts of your body you don't want to draw attention to. This can be done by choosing plus size cocktail dresses with the right cut and fit.

The cut needs to be something that emphasizes and defines, so if you have a naturally large bust, wearing a low cut top would be overkill. Drawing attention to a naturally attention-grabbing body part will only work to your disadvantage. Opt for something with more coverage. For large-breasted women, plus size cocktail dresses with an empire waist works best, as it defines your waist. This cut also works well with those who have broader hips, as it helps draw attention away from that area. Empire waist plus size dresses usually have a flowing skirt.

Choose plus size cocktail dresses with a ¾ length sleeve to hide flabby arms

Many full figured women are self-conscious with their arms. If you are one of them, you can still step out in style. Choose plus size cocktail dresses with a ¾ length sleeve. These plus size dresses are still stylish, but helps minimize flabby arms. You can still opt for sleeveless plus size cocktail dresses, one with a wider strap as they make shoulders look a lot narrower.

We've all heard that if you want to slim down your silhouette, you need to wear black plus size dresses. This isn't always the case. Sure, a little black dress (LBD) can work wonders for your body, given that it falls right at the knee. However, there's no reason why you should stay away from color. Tints of light color will work well for your body.

Avoid Ruffles on plus size cocktail dresses

Don't be a slave to the trends. Remember that although something is in style right now, it might not necessarily work for you. Not all styles of Plus Size Dresses are wearable by every plus size women. Stick to what looks good to avoid being a fashion victim. Ruffles on these types of dresses, for example, are not something you want to wear as they add a lot of bulk to the frame. Choose plus size cocktail dresses with strategic accents to nip at the waist. They should define your curves - not make them bigger.

Ladies don't forget to accessorize Your Plus Size Cocktail Dresses

A wide, chunky belt is just the thing to define your waist. Pair it with wrap-around plus size cocktail dresses or an A-line skirt. This helps create the illusion of an hourglass shape. Remember that your plus size cocktail dresses should not just hang over your body; it should cling at the right places. If you're worried about the bulges showing, there's nothing some control-top underwear can't fix. A pair of Spanx and a good bra will work wonders for your plus size figure, creating a smoother silhouette. They also give more definition to your curves, making them stand out more. It creates more shape, and gives the illusion of a leaner, more slender body.

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When Is A Good Time To Buy Plus Size Dresses For Women?

Looking at the way the many stores and online retailers are constantly offering sales, you would probably wonder when is the right time to buy any plus size dresses for women! Or any other womens clothing for that matter. Anyway, here are a few tips that will help you in your shopping for plus size womens clothing.

Patience Will Pay Off

For those who wish to save some money, they would need to be a bit more patient than the usual crowd of people who always want to get their hands on the latest fashion. Take for example when you see the latest tech gadget or smart phones being launched. They are offered at premium price. Now observe. Just wait a few months and you will begin to see the prices drop as more new models are announced throughout the year. The same goes for clothing. When there is a latest trend or fashion that is announced, it will most likely be priced at premium. So if you can wait for a few months, the price will eventually come down.

Take Advantage Of Stock Clearance

If you want to stretch your dollar a bit more, then look out for the stock clearance season where many retailers drop the prices of their plus size dresses for women in order to clear their inventory. These usually happen when the season is about to change. For example, we are quite used to summer sales when everything seems to be offered at very good prices. Did you know that you could get even better deals when you shop towards the end of summer? However, if you are really in need of the outfit or clothing and there is already a price slash on the item, you might as well get it. Beats paying the full price for it as there's already some form of savings.

When You Have Your Plans Worked Out

If you already have in mind what you want and when you need it, then save yourself the hassle and time by getting it online. Better still if the online retailer is offering free shipping as that will save you a trip to the store and back. As long as you have the time to wait for the clothes to arrive as it they won't appear instantly. Most people would buy a few sets of clothing together if that would qualify them for free shipping.

Summary

Anyway, take note of the change of season as that's when you will be able to get better bargains of the stock clearance that stores have. Have a great time shopping!

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The No 1 Reason for an Online Business to Fail

Let's see. You created an online business planning for it to fail? That might explain why you are reading this article.

No. That can't be. People start an online business to succeed in making money, not to fail it. So why should you continue reading?

Think about this.

To be successful online, wouldn't it make sense to study the core reason why people failed, so as to avoid it at all cost. With that half the battle is won.

"A wise man learns from his mistakes. But the wiser man avoids them by learning from the mistakes of others."

It is misconception to think that you need a fanciful website to be successful. No doubt that a well designed website attracts visitors visually, but that is only useful if you have visitors to began with.

Yes, the key to success for an online business is about having traffic. No point having a great website that is like an island lost in the great ocean. Trust me that you rather have a decent website with thousands or millions of daily visitors.

Many people invested time in learning html and creating complex websites. I invest my time in driving traffic to my simple website. They used a delicate fishing line with fanciful hooks. I cast a wide net and go for the volume. Who do you think will end up catching more fishes? The answer is pretty obvious.

I will share some tips on how to drive traffic. There are 2 types of traffic - Paid and Free.

While paid traffic such as classified ads or solo ads provides instant results, it will be costly in the long term. These are good for a start but it is not advisable to rely on them forever.

It makes more sense to acquire constant free traffic over time. Just on this alone, you will find many techniques ranging from article, video, forum marketing, to blogging and ad swapping. There are even special techniques known as "stealing free traffic".

You might have heard or practiced some of the above, and I would like to ask this question.

"How are your results thus far?"

We all know that story of throwing the same product to 3 salesperson and they will come back with different results. What differentiate them is the exact method and strategy used in executing those techniques.

If your answer to my above is anything from bad to mediocre, I will suggest that you spend some time in learning from the successful marketers.

To conclude, your take away is to avoid the terrible mistakes of many. Don't fall into the trap of having a website with no traffic!

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Sales Page Example

If you are attempting to get your online business off the ground you will need to use landing pages. It doesn't matter how uniquely you position your business you will still use some form of a landing page. Landing pages, most generally, are used as a tool to get the reader or viewer in the case of a video landing page to do something.

An opt-in landing page or squeeze page is used to add people to your list. How it's done: A potential customer clicks on a link that's strategically placed in an article or on a banner ad or somewhere else on the web that leads to your opt-in page. This page looks like this:

The page tells the reader what he or she gets if they subscribe to your newsletter. Usually the promise of receiving a free newsletter is not enough of an incentive which leads many to offer reports and ebooks or other perks to get readers to subscribe.

A good opt-in page starts with a headline that is similar if not the exact wording of the link that enticed them to click here in the first place. A good headline is 10 words or less that grabs the reader's attention by telling them what it is they get from clicking on that link. There is so much information available on the Internet and readers are bombarded every second with some kind of come on or another it's hard to get their attention but if you have a headline that says something that they were just thinking, you will get your click. I'm not saying you will get everyone's attention, that's not what you want. Target in on a few people and build and grow. " If you appeal to everyone you appeal to no one". It's not mine but it applies here.

After the headline you can add a sub-head that reinforces or adds to the heading. Remember that the goal here is to get the reader to add their name to your list so lead them toward that end.

I think testimonials are great and should come right after the subhead if you can do it. Many times the reader will not scroll down the page. If you can get him interested by the benefits a testimonial describes he is more likely to continue reading your page.

After the testimonials describe what exactly the benefits of taking the action you would like him to take are. Not the benefits that you realize, the benefits he will see once he takes action. Be specific and think in terms of the reader's interests. "Cutting edge information" is not as informative as "3 things to do to attract 1000 more readers every month"

After you've described in detail what the benefits of taking action are to the reader you can offer bonuses such as a Free Ebook, Free Special Reports, Free Workbooks or Free Videos. You are giving your reader every reason to enter his email address and hit submit.

Reduce the risk. When using an opt-in page you must understand that even though the risk is very low to the reader there still is some. We all must clean our in-boxes regularly and agreeing to accept another email message every couple of days will add to the work. Reminding the reader that if they aren't 100% satisfied with your newsletter they can just as easily unsubscribe and keep all the goodies you gave them helps to reduce almost all the risk.

Form: The forms I use are provided by my email marketing company and only contain 2 fields; Name and Email Address. There are some forms that only ask for an email address but I like to personalize all the emails I send out with the customer's first name that's why I have two fields. The argument behind fewer fields is that you shouldn't ask the reader to do too much or he will click away. You want to make it as easy as possible for him to take action.

The use of audio or video can help to enhance your page but remember what it is you want to accomplish. If you have a two-minute video that doesn't immediately grab the viewer's attention he may click away before he subscribes to your list.

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