January 15, 2012

How to Write a Newspaper Article Quickly and Easily!

Articles in a newspaper are quick and to the point, not infused with a whole lot of personal opinion or evaluation, and tend towards the facts plain and simple as you can possibly imagine. This style may not seem like a lot of fun to write, but it is one of the most important types of stories and writing skills that you could possibly have. After all, newspapers employ more writers than any other writing industry, and even most companies who are not in the writing industry will look to hire people for writing newspaper articles. So, if you're a writer, then you need to learn how to write a newspaper article quickly. And if you need to learn how to write newspaper article quickly, then follow this simple guide.

All good newspaper articles start off with a good headline that will entice the reader to follow up and read the whole article, so it would be remiss of me not to cover the basics in this how-to guide for writing newspaper articles. The type of headline will likely be determined by your placement in the newspaper if you write for a physical product, so make sure to have plenty handy. If your article is to appear on the cover, something enticing will work well, however, if you're stuck on the inside pages, you need to stick to the facts and write a more generic title. Your title also might need to be shortened depending on what kind of space has been allotted for your article. For online magazines and publications, you should find a more enticing title that will tell them about the key idea of your article, but mention that it contains a "surprise" or a "secret." These two words drive more clicks than you can possibly imagine, and work very well for driving people to your articles.

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For the body of the article, you need to find some good quotes from interviews. Nothing brings people in like quotes. It will make your article more personable and give it a human quality, plus it allows you to break the flow of facts.

There should be no more than three sentences per paragraph. If you have more to add about a particular topic, you should revisit it after a relevant quote or at the end of the article. Your article will be cramped into a corner and put in thin columns, so writing with short paragraphs will look more appealing and readable. Most people forget this, and will write long and interesting paragraphs, full of information, but will wonder why so many people skip reading them.

The last thing you need to know about how to write newspaper articles is that your article should contain a picture. Words are less powerful than a picture, and a captivating picture will make or break your readability. Without a picture, your article looks dry and unimportant. With a picture, you will suddenly gain notoriety and visibility.

If you follow those simple steps, then you will have learned the basics of how to write a newspaper article, and you can write a newspaper article quickly and easily. If you want to learn how to make some money with your newspaper articles, then click here to learn how to make money with your newspaper articles.

How to Write a Newspaper Article Quickly and Easily!

January 11, 2012

The Barriers to Effective Communication

D.E. McFarland has defined Communication as the process of meaningful interaction among human beings. More specifically, it is the process by which meanings are perceived and understandings are reached among human being. But there may be some faults /barriers in the communication system that prevents the message from reaching the receiver, these barriers are as follows:-

1. Language Barrier; - Different languages, vocabulary, accent, dialect represents a national/ regional barriers. Semantic gaps are words having similar pronunciation but multiple meanings like- round; badly expressed message, wrong interpretation and unqualified assumptions. The use of difficult or inappropriate words/ poorly explained or misunderstood messages can result in confusion.

How To Program A Pic Microcontroller

2. Cultural Barriers: - Age, education, gender, social status, economic position, cultural background, temperament, health, beauty, popularity, religion, political belief, ethics, values, motives, assumptions, aspirations, rules/regulations, standards, priorities can separate one person from another and create a barrier.

3. Individual Barrier: - It may be a result of an individual's perceptual and personal discomfort. Even when two persons have experienced the same event their mental perception may/may not be identical which acts as a barrier. Style, selective perception, halo effect, poor attention and retention, defensiveness, close mindedness, insufficient filtration are the Individual or Psychological barrier.

4. Organizational Barrier: - It includes Poor Organization's culture, climate, stringent rules, regulations, status, relationship, complexity, inadequate facilities/ opportunities of growth and improvement; whereas; the nature of the internal and external environment like large working areas physically separated from others, poor lightening, staff shortage, outdated equipments and background noise are Physical Organizational Barrier.

5. Interpersonal Barrier: - Barriers from Employers are :- Lack of Trust in employees; Lack of Knowledge of non-verbal clues like facial expression, body language, gestures, postures, eye contact; different experiences; shortage of time for employees; no consideration for employee needs; wish to capture authority; fear of losing power of control; bypassing and informational overloading, while Barriers from Employees includes Lack of Motivation, lack of co-operation, trust, fear of penalty and poor relationship with the employer.

6. Attitudinal Barrier: - It comes about as a result of problems with staff in the organisation. Limitation in physical and mental ability, intelligence, understanding, pre-conceived notions, and distrusted source divides the attention and create a mechanical barrier which affects the attitude and opinion.

7. Channel Barrier: - If the length of the communication is long, or the medium selected is inappropriate, the communication might break up; it can also be a result of the inter-personal conflicts between the sender and receiver; lack of interest to communicate; information sharing or access problems which can hamper the channel and affect the clarity, accuracy and effectiveness.

To communicate effectively one need to overcome these barriers. Working on breaking the barrier is a broad-brush activity and here are certain measures.

DO'S FOR BREAKING THE BARRIER:

- Allow employees access to resources, self expression and idea generation.
- Express your expectations to others.
- Use less of absolute words such as "never", "always", "forever", etc.
- Be a good, attentive and active listener.
- Filter the information correctly before passing on to someone else.
- Try to establish one communication channel and eliminate the intermediaries.
- Use specific and accurate words which audiences can easily understand.
- Try and view the situations through the eyes of the speaker.
- The "you" attitude must be used on all occasions.
- Maintain eye contact with the speaker and make him comfortable.
- Write the instructions if the information is very detailed or complicated.
- Oral communication must be clear and not heavily accented.
- Avoid miscommunication of words and semantic noise.
- Ask for clarifications, repetition where necessary.
- Make the organisational structure more flexible, dynamic and transparent.
- Foster congenial relationship which strengths coordination between superior and subordinate.
- Focus on purposeful and well focused communication.
- The message of communication should be clear and practical.
- Get Proper Feedback.

DONT'S FOR BREAKING THE BARRIER:

- Be a Selective Listener, this is when a person hears another but selects not to hear what is being said by choice or desire to hear some other message.
- Be a "Fixer", a fixer is a person that tries to find other person's fault.
- Be a daydreamer.
- Use long chain of command for communication.
- Use too many technical jargons.
- Jump to conclusions immediately.
- Interrupt the speakers and distract him by asking too many irrelevant questions.

The Barriers to Effective Communication

January 7, 2012

How Do I Decrease the File Size of a PDF File?

There are many factors that can affect the size of a PDF file. If you know these factors it would be possible for you to get the smallest possible file size of the PDF document that you create. The factors that affect the size of PDF files are the way the fonts are embedded, the images resolution and image type, and the version of the PDF and level of compression.

To make your PDF file smaller, Adobe suggests that you use "Save as" instead of "Save" every time you make a change in the PDF document you are creating. When you use the "Save" changes you make are appended to your file and this of course adds to the size. When you use the "Save as" you will overwrite the entire PDF and you are saving just the latest form of your document after the change.

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Another thing that could add to the size of the PDF file is the named destination, every ten or so named destinations could add at least a kilobyte to the PDF size. So if you think that named destinations is not that necessary in your PDF document do not include them.

You can also use Adobe Acrobat's PDF optimizer to see which elements in your PDF document could take up the most space. To use the PDF Optimizer, click "Advanced" in the menu bar and select PDF Optimizer and then click on Audit Space Usage.

The elements in your PDF document that obviously add a lot to the total size of the final PDF are the images. as much as possible use vector-based graphics. Vector-based graphics are better than GIF in many aspects: they scale perfectly, look better, and take up lesser space. Avoid inseting bitmap graphics but if it could not be avoided, prepare it for maximum compression and minimum dimensions.

If you are creating PDF for the web and not for printing use RGB which has one less data channel than CMYK. As much as possible do not embed your fonts, fonts take up a lot of space.

Lastly, it is good to use newer versions of Acrobat because they have a more advanced compression system that can result in smaller PDF file size.

How Do I Decrease the File Size of a PDF File?

January 3, 2012

The 12F675 - A PIC Microcontroller Project Guide

The 12F675 is one of the smallest PIC Microcontrollers - it's a tiny device with 8 pins but it's packed with peripherals and it even has a built in 10bit ADC which can read analogue inputs from 4 pins.

It has the following internal peripherals:

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1. Two timers.

2. An analogue comparator.

3. 10 bit ADC.

It also has an internal oscillator and internal reset circuit. This means the device uses minimal external components to make it work (other devices require an external crystal oscillator). Of course it also has the usual internal programming memory, EEPROM and RAM needed for programming.

Ideas for projects:

1. 4 channel volt meter.

2. Multi channel Servo controller.

3. Temperature controller.

4. Inductance meter.

5. Touch lamp.

6. Courtesy light time delay.

Note: To get data out of the device you can implement a serial RS232 transmit interface to your PC.

Why use it?
One reason is that because of its size its easy to put into restricted spaces e.g. for a model aircraft or model trains and it's cheaper than the larger devices.

Note: The 12F629 is the same device without the ADC - so it's even more cost effective.

So it's useful in designs that you would not normally think of using a microcontroller for instance you could make a touch lamp dimmer - Note using the microcontroller means you can make far better functionality than using discrete hardware (and even change its programming later on).

With a lamp dimmer you could have an auto off delay function e.g. if no activity for an hour then turn off.

State machines
You could also implement a state machine for more complex control of the functionality e.g. pressing once moves to the next dimming level in the current direction while press and hold changes the dimming direction.

Using a state machine while not trivial lets you control complex operation which you could not achieve (without a great deal of effort) using discrete hardware - and the advantage of using the microcontroller is that if you get it wrong you just re code your software and test it again.

Note: The 12F675 and 12F629 use Flash programming memory i.e. they are re-programmable - you can change their functionality instantaneously with NO re-wiring.

The only problems are:

1. You need to program the device.

2. You need a programming language.

Programming the Device
Surprisingly you can program the device using the standard 4 pin PIC serial interface - ICSP (In Circuit Serial Programming) and with careful design you can even connect your programmer to the same pins that your circuit uses.

Programming language
The programming language normally recommended is assembler and there are good reasons for using assembler - e.g. very fast code and smaller final code size but I would recommend using a high level language such as Basic or C

This is because for assembler you need to work at such a low level that you spend a lot of effort to do trivial tasks and this is better left to the high level language.

For the example mentioned setting up and maintaining a state machine would be extremely difficult in assembler but much easier in C.

The 12F675 - A PIC Microcontroller Project Guide