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A free traffic exchange offers webmasters the ability to promote their websites or affiliate marketing campaigns for free, or at very low cost. The idea is to surf around other members websites, and for each viewing, you get so many of your own URLs and banners added into the rotation for other members to view. There are hundreds, if not thousands of free traffic exchanges online today. The trick is to find the ones that work best for you. Not all free traffic exchanges are created equal and the most active ones are not necessarily the best ones for your needs.

Free traffic exchanges are a great marketing tool for a variety of reasons. The most obvious reason is that you get lots of people looking, and hopefully clicking on your website or promotional pages. But there are hidden benefits to free traffic exchanges you may not have even considered.

Search engines love free traffic exchanges because of all the incoming and outgoing links they generate. Plus the rapidly changing content is another reason the search bots love these things. Exchanges that have more content also generate a higher pagerank, and therefore more traffic, and increased memberships. The key is to find exchanges that are very active and have lots of members. The more members they have, the more potential customers you get looking at your offer and your chances for sales conversions are that much better. But bigger isn’t always better.

Some free traffic exchanges may convert sales like crazy for one person, and be a complete waste of time for another. If everyone were promoting the same website or affiliate program is the same traffic exchange for example, then chances are you would not make many sales. Even if you were promoting the #1 thing on the internet, if everyone promoted the same program, your chances are much lower that someone will purchase through your website or link to make you any money. Also, when people see the same ad over and over again, they get desensitized to it. Don’t fall into this trap. It’s one thing to try and sell a very popular product/service/ebook etc, but it’s another thing when a million other people are trying to do it too. Competition is a good thing, because it validates your market, but too much competition is tough and it’s time to move on to something else.

We all know clicking on ads in a free traffic exchange can be very boring, monotonous and can take a lot of time. That’s why you need to make the best of your opportunity or you will just be wasting a lot of your time and effort on something that just isn’t working. If you have your own niche website, then you already differentiated yourself from the pack. If you are an affiliate marketer, then you need to find products/services that everyone else isn’t promoting, especially within that particular traffic exchange.

One way to use free traffic exchanges to your advantage is to join a few at first, and see if your sales pick up. If your sales aren’t doing well, then test out a few more. When you do find a few traffic exchanges that appear to be generating sales for you, then narrow those down until you find the one, or two that are working. Now concentrate your efforts on those because they’re the ones you want. At least for now anyway. Things may change, so keep an eye on your campaigns and if sales seem to be falling off, then it might be time to change your offer or find another traffic exchange that could pick your profits up again.

As I mentioned, your individual promotion is everything. If you’re trying to promote something everyone else is, I don’t care what traffic exchange service you’re using, your sales conversions are going to be very low, or nothing at all. You cannot always blame the exchange. Sometimes you have to look at yourself and think if you’re doing all you can to make sales.

If you’re going to be using multiple free traffic exchanges, and I recommend that you do, your first priority should be to pick up a multi-tab web browser. Many of these browsers are free and run on PCs and MACs. The tabs feature allows you to have one web browser open with multiple tabs each going to a separate website. You could easily put 5 or 6 of your free exchange sites in these tabs, and earn credits for all of them at the same time. So instead of surfing for 1/2 an hour or an hour earning 200 hits for one exchange, you could earn 200 hits for 5 exchanges in the same amount of time. This is a huge time saver and multiplies your earned hits by 5X or 6X.

Getting free traffic to your website is a lot of work. If you don’t have the money to spend on full blown PPC (pay-per-click) campaigns like Google AdWords, free traffic exchanges are a great way to get the traffic you need.

Copyright 2005 East Tech LLC

Andrew Daigle is owner and creator of TrumpTraffic.com, a Free Traffic Exchange http://www.trumptraffic.com, DXInOne Free Training Site and Forum http://www.dxout.com and Google AdWords Training http://www.adwording.com

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How is rollover of a Medical Savings Account (MSA) into an HSA treated by the federal government for tax purposes?

Funds from an “Archer MSA” may be rolled-over into an HSA within 60 days of withdrawing the funds from the MSA. There are 2 different types of rollovers and the differences are critical in terms of tax implications:

1) Trustee-to-Trustee: this involves a direct transfer of funds from the old MSA trustee to the new HSA trustee, and there is no money or checks that the individual receives directly. This is technically not a rollover, because a rollover means that the funds were first distributed to the individual participant. This trustee-to-trustee method does not trigger a taxable event since the participant never touches the money. Trustee-to-trustee transfers are not subject to any tax withholding and are exempt from the one per 60 day rollover rule.

2) Actual Rollover: a rollover occurs when the trustee distributes the MSA assets directly to the individual participant (the participant receives the check). In this case, the individual must transfer the assets to the new trustee within calendar 60 days after the receipt of the distribution. An IRS reporting requirement and potential tax penalties are imposed if the person misses the 60 day deadline.

In general, individuals are allowed one MSA to HSA rollover per 12 month period. In addition, asset rolled-over during the previous 12 months (e.g. MSA to MSA) are not eligible for rollover.
If a rollover is made from the MSA that does not meet the criteria described above, the action will be considered a non-qualified distribution that should be included in the account beneficiary’s gross income and also subject to an additional 10% tax.

Tax treatment of MSA to HSA rollovers can vary at the state level. The federal government does not tax MSA to HSA rollovers as long as the rollover meets the criteria described in item 5 above. Therefore, states that have harmonized their tax treatment of HSAs with the federal government will also allow tax-free rollovers. In states that have not harmonized HSA tax treatment with the federal government, MSA to HSA rollovers would be considered a non-qualified distribution. The rollover funds would therefore be subject to state income tax plus a 10% penalty.

If I live in a state that has not harmonized its HSA tax treatment with the federal government, then what are my record-keeping overheads to do my federal and state taxes correctly?

In this situation, the individual has significant record-keeping responsibilities. Record-keeping requirements would pertain to HSA contributions as well as the account’s earnings as the earnings would be subject to state income tax. Qualified distributions would be tax-free since fund contributions have already been taxed at the state level. Tracking the income (e.g. interest, dividends, realized capital gains) that an account holder should report on a state tax return could prove challenging and is significantly affected by the reporting capabilities of the given financial institution.

Generally, the HSA owner needs to keep a permanent record of: a) the deduction taken at the federal level for the HSA contribution; b) the amount of income generated during the course of a given year, and; c) the amount of income that has been reported each year for state income tax purposes.

If you rollover an MSA into an HSA in a state like California, those rollover funds would be considered a “non-qualified distribution” and would be subject to state income tax as well as the 10% penalty.

Kurt Stammberger is VP, Marketing at Healthia Inc. Healthia provides integrated comparison-shopping information on health insurance, health care products and services, doctors and health insurance plans to empower the drive towards Consumer-Driven Health Care.

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Broadband satellite Internet has provided hope for rural subscribers who are outside the coverage areas of most Internet service providers. Most home subscribers opt for cable and DSL Internet connections. But in areas which are not under the range of the high-speed broadband connection, or where dial-up access is extremely slow, satellite broadband Internet is a boon. The technology has been there for a long time, but it has evolved in more recent times.

The connection does not use wire, but requires an intermediary satellite. Requests are logged through a home computer and a special satellite modem to a satellite dish, which is installed on the roof of the subscriber’s office or house. These signals are sent or received from the dish satellite to an orbiting satellite, which in turn sends or transmits information to the dish satellite at the service provider’s office. The connection speed is a little less in comparison to DSL and cable Internet connections. This can be a drawback while using certain applications, such as real-time interactive games.

However, does not affect web surfing and sighting. A lot of these shortcomings can be overcome by using a signal amplifier, to cater to external or climatic disturbance and signal locators, to catch signals faster. Some other problems associated with satellite broadband Internet connections are that the installation charge for the dish satellite and the monthly subscription charges are a bit expensive, in comparison to DSL and cable connections.

The satellite dish being installed outside on the roof is liable to damage due to climatic conditions like rain and high-intensity wind. The expenses required for setting up the right kind of infrastructure for the rural subscribers has been one more reason for the technological lag in this area. Despite all of these shortcomings it is the best option for those who are placed at a geographically disadvantaged condition, and the promise of a better future lies ahead.

Broadband Internet provides detailed information on Broadband Internet, Broadband Internet Access, Broadband Satellite Internet, Broadband Internet Providers and more. Broadband Internet is affiliated with Broadband Speeds.

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If you didn’t have a healthy lawn last summer, your lawn care
practices might be at the root of the problem. Actually, a
healthy lawn needs very little care and quite often learning
what lawn care tips not to try is the best advice you can get.

Don’t over water. A healthy lawn needs about an inch of water a
week and it’s best if it gets it all at once. You can check this
easily by digging a plastic cup into your lawn. Watering deep
allows the water to sink and gives your grass incentive to grow
roots and find the water. Saturating your lawn will drown the
roots and watering too shallow will keep them satisfied with
their present depth. Shallow rooted grass is no competition for
deep-rooted weeds.

Don’t over fertilize. In fact, if you rarely fertilize, both
your turf and your topsoil would be better off. Aside from the
fact that chemical fertilizers aren’t safe for your family and
the critters that live in your lawn (which are mostly
beneficial), chemical fertilizers aren’t safe for your soil.
Although they are called “lawn food”, what they really are is
“turf candy”. Grass, like any other plant gets its true
nourishment from the soil. Don’t feed the plant… learn how to
feed the soil through sound organic lawn care methods.

Healthy lawn care starts with healthy topsoil. Your lawn will
thrive with four inches of healthy top soil, but it will be at
its best with six. The problem is how do you get more top soil
without ruining the turf you already have? Simply said, topsoil
is the top four to ten inches of dirt under your turf except
that this layer of earth should be nutrient rich and robust with
organic matter and some little critters (like earthworms). If
you don’t have good topsoil, you won’t be able to maintain good
turf. You can start building good topsoil in the fall by
mulching with good organic compost. About a third of an inch of
fine compost on top of your grass will fall between the blades
and soak into the earth over winter.

In the spring, aerate your lawn. This will work some of the left
over compost deeper and in addition give your lawn and the
critters that live in the soil a breath of fresh air. Aeration
also makes new channels for water to pass through and helps
break up clumps of earth that impede drainage.

When mowing, mow high. Mowing high gives your grass takes weeds
out of the competition for sunlight. In addition, longer grass
is more apt to propagate through rhizome growth. More grass
means less weeds and less weeds mean more healthy grass! Healthy
grass means less lawn care and more time to enjoy your lawn!

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The consumption and collection of wine has been growing over the last few years. While more and more money has been going into wine as investment or for future consumption, questions about the wine’s history are asked. So the question often arises when it comes time to understand the provenance of a wine: How has this wine been stored?

This question is important, as it can mean the difference between euphoria and depression in the wine drinker. The glory of opening a beautiful bottle of perfectly stored wine, or the agony and letdown of opening poorly stored wine. That poorly stored wine that upon opening is nothing more than vinegar.

So what are the issues of how to properly store wine? The issues are: Temperature, humidity, lighting, cleanliness of the storage unit or facility, vibration, and the angle of the bottle in storage.

Temperature is relatively simple. The ideal temperature is between 50 and 55 degrees Fahrenheit. The lower the temperature, the more the aging process can be retarded in the wine. Fluctuations in temperature, as long as they are not drastic, are ok, though not completely ideal. One does not have to worry that because the wine was stored at 63 degrees versus 56 degrees does not affect the provenance of the wine. As long as the fluctuations in temperature occur slowly, it is fine. However, the higher the temperature is in the storage facility, the wine can age more quickly.

The recommended humidity of a wine storage facility is 70 percent, though it is fine to be 10-15% above or below that level. Humidity of the cellar is important to the wine for a couple of reasons: the cork and the labels. If there is too much humidity (over 80% for example) the labels are susceptible to rot and mold, which can affect the value of the wine. If it is too dry (below 50%), the corks can dry out, which can cause the cork to shrink, increasing the likelihood of air coming in contact with the wine, which would begin an oxidation process, and ruin the wine.

Making sure that the wine is stored at a horizontal angle is important, as the cork will not dry out if the wine is in contact with the cork. Otherwise, the cork drying out can cause air to come into contact with the wine prematurely.
Light can have an affect on the wine as well. Light will prematurely age a wine, cause it to be ruined. Florescent lighting can cause the most damage, and too much light can “turn” the wine.

Vibration can be another issue. The sediment in the wine can be affected, and can cause damage to the wine. So keeping the wine in a “vibration-free” environment is very important. Often times, the term “bottle shock” is used for wines that have been excessively jostled during the shipping process. Even in drinking a wine that has been shipped or brought from the store is often well served by waiting a few days to weeks before opening, allowing the sediment in the wine to “settle down”.

Another factor to point to is how clean where the wine is being stored. Poorly ventilated, dirty, grimy facilities can have very negative affects. The label can get very dirty and will negatively affect the resale value of the wine, and poor ventilation can affect the taste of the wine, giving a musty component that is certainly a negative attribute!

All in all, the storage and care of wine is very important to the investment quality of the wine, as well as the potential enjoyment to the drinker down the road. There may be little else as disappointing in the wine world as opening a poorly stored wine that has turned to vinegar. However, when storage conditions have been appropriately kept, and the wine has been well cared for, the aging process happens the right way, and the beauty of that wine can be savored as it was intended to be when it was acquired in the first place.

Robert E. Enslein, Jr., is Managing Member of Brix Wine Vault, LLC, a wine storage company based in New York City. Brix is a professional quality wine storage facility that serves individuals, retailers, restaurants as well as wholesale customers. Learn more at http://www.brixwinevault.com

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