• Civic and community organizations
• Cultural institutions
• Your parents' place of employment
• Your state Department of Education
• The internet

Many scholarships need to be renewed annually, and you may qualify for new loans throughout your college years.Develop your interestsWhile some scholarships are based on financial need or academic achievement, others are based on particular interests, extracurricular achievements, ethnicity, or religious affiliation. Meet deadlinesPay attention to the scholarship requirements ? meet them in as creative a way as possible, and always be on time!DiversifyApply for every scholarship that you qualify for. Even small scholarships can add up to big money if you win enough of them.Beware of scamsAs you search for scholarships, especially on the internet, look out for scam artists who

• Charge application fees
• Guarantee you will receive a scholarship
• Ask for unnecessary personal information, such as your bank account number

If you don't try to get some sort of credit, and the apartment complex requires a co-signer, they usually want the guarantor to be a parent or legal guardian. In this case, you still have the security of your parent's money to fall back on. If you want your apartment to be your apartment, you need to consider your options.What are my options?The most common choice in developing a credit history is to apply for a credit card. You can get credit by making payments on anything in your name from bills at school, to car payments, but be aware that most complexes require a credit history of at least six months.How do I get a Credit Card?The opportunities are endless. If the credit card representatives aren't already beating down your doors and tying up your phone lines like they are mine, you can search for credit cards using your favorite search engine.

Just type in "credit cards". Most of the major credit card pages such as Mastercard and Visa even give you opportunities to apply on-line.Should I get a secured or an unsecured card?If you don't meet certain criteria, you are required to secure your credit card with a deposit, and that becomes your credit line. The criteria depends on the credit card, so you will want to clarify with the card company you choose. Secured credit cards are also good for people who do not trust themselves with an astronomical credit card limit, or who do not want to worry about exactly how much they can afford to spend. Sometimes people get carried away with unsecured credit cards and forget that they will eventually have to pay the bills.I Already have a credit card.

How can I get a Credit Report?If you do have a credit history, you will definitely want to check it before you apply to apartments. That way you avoid the embarrassment of having the landlord discover a black mark before you do. In checking your credit, you might find that there's an error in the records you can fix before it becomes a setback. You can visit apartments.com for an inexpensive credit checking report.If you're thinking about moving out in the next year, you should consider applying for a credit card now. That way, you can begin to establish some sort of history before you begin apartment hunting.

You have to start building a good report sometime, and when is a better time than now?.

They are the people who make the markets work, providing a forum for the buyers and sellers of these pieces of companies we call stocks. But, for the rest of us, it might be good if they closed the stock market for a while."Here are Kelley's reasons:? Most of us are long-term investors. We invest for our retirement, our children's education and our financial security. As long-term investors, we must endure negative market cycles and still manage to stay the course. ? Unfortunately, staying the course is easier said than done.

Financial news is everywhere: television, radio, newspapers and the Internet. Markets move with lightning speed and the play-by-play coverage of the action may often sound more like an exciting sporting event than a financial report. ? How we react to the news as investors is one of the keys to long-term success. ? In our jobs and everyday lives, we work hard. Our society is one of the most work-centered on Earth.

When it comes to building a house, selling merchandise or teaching our youth, idle time is not considered productive time ? we are rewarded for "doing something." But, when it comes to investing, the urge to "do something" often hinders our success. ? Successful investing is really about buying a dollar of value for less than a dollar, then waiting until the true value is recognized and selling at a profit. Opportunities to buy stocks "on sale" don't come along every day. In fact, you may see only a few "sale" periods during your lifetime. ? When market declines do come along, it's akin to being able to buy winter coats in the summertime, when nobody seems to want them.

We witnessed just such an opportunity during the bear market of 2002. ? None of us can predict when the next "sale" will come along, we can stay alert and be ready to take advantage of good opportunities. The wait can be long ? years, in fact. What do you do in the meantime? ? Make sure your portfolio is diversified, don't put all your eggs in one basket.? Maintain exposure in all asset classes including bonds, large company stock, small company stocks, growth and value style stock, international stock, real estate and cash equivalents. Index mutual funds are available in all these asset classes and at a relatively low cost.

? Proper asset allocation helps you reduce overall portfolio risk, while increasing the chances of good overall returns over longer periods of time. When one investment zigs, the non-correlate investments may zag. ? Also, be sure to match your investment selections to your risk tolerance. Don't take on more risk than you can bear. You'll sleep a lot better as a result.

"The great investor Warren Buffett once said, 'In the short run the market is a voting machine; in the long run, it's a weighing machine.' Whether you invest in individual stocks or index mutual funds, the principle is the same," Kelley says. "Invest regularly. Set aside a portion of all you earn to save and invest." "Be prepared to take advantage of bargains. Have your shopping list ready," he counsels. "Watch for the stocks (or stock mutual funds) you think have long-term worth.

Buy them when they are 'on sale.' The companies and mutual funds that increase their earnings over time will eventually be weighed in the market place and rewarded with higher share prices."Will the stock market really close? No, but you can act as if it is ? and stay the course during volatile and uncertain times. You'll be a much more disciplined and successful long-term investor a result.Joel Kelley is a fee-only financial planner practicing in Asheville, North Carolina. He is the manager of Woodstone Financial, LLC. For more information, visit www.woodstonefinancial.com.Contact:???Joel Kelley, PrincipalWoodstone Financial, LLCOne Town Square Boulevard, Suite 204Asheville, NC 28803 Phone: 828.687.8082 Email: e-mail protected from spam bots.

First, medical bills need to be paid, so having good medical insurance is important. Few insurance plans cover everything, so you'll need to have a cash reserve to cover deductibles and extras, not to mention the furniture, clothing and sundries you'll need when the newborn comes home.With a new addition to the family, you'll want to make sure that the entire family (baby, too) is protected if something should happened to you -- that means reviewing life and disability insurance to be sure it's adequate for your new responsibilities.There's the future to start thinking about, too. Will your child go to college? If so, the College Board estimates that secondary education costs are rising 7% to 8% annually, a rate much higher than the rate of inflation. To afford the average $7,000 total costs for a state university, you need to start saving $195 a month. Wait until your child is 7 years old and the monthly amount jumps to $240! So, it's smart to put away a little sum each month.What can you do to accommodate new strains on your paycheck? How can you meet all of your new responsibilities? With an important financial goal (such as educating a child) you'll want to work with a generalist -- a financial planner.

A lot of professionals specialize in areas such as taxes or stocks, but a financial planner helps you understand the "big picture." A qualified financial planner can help you sort through your current financial situation, help you set short- and long-term goals and objectives, then present a "blueprint" designed to show you how you can meet your goals while staying within your means.There's nothing more certain than change. And just as you learn to adapt to the changes life throws your way, you can count on things changing with your finances as well. Trevor J. Wisniewski, MSFinancial AdvisorRaymond James & Associates, Inc..

His article details the painstaking, and sometimes volatile, progression of planning for the future. "It is a difficult process, but we are committed to servicing our customers in the way that they are accustomed to with Caribbean Shipping Services, so we feel it is very important to be proactive with this matter," said Paul Robbins. "We have created a culture here but we have also created value. The company is operating at a level that I am comfortable with. I see bigger and better things for it but I am not the guy to take it to the next level."Paul's entrepreneurial spirit is still going strong.

Revolutionary Cold Technologies, another company he is deeply involved with, was also mentioned in the article. Always committed to new technology, Robbins has had a part in creating a new material that, when installed into the roof of reefer containers, will enable shippers to maintain a chilled or frozen temperature for up to six days without mechanical refrigeration. "We have been beta testing this new technology with Caribbean Shipping for 4 years and the results have been incredible" said Robbins. Caribbean Shipping Services was founded in 1993 by Paul and Julie Robbins. Today they operate from their main offices in Jacksonville, FL and satellite offices in San Juan, PR, Charlotte, NC and Howell, NJ.

The company has twice been named to INC Magazine's list of 100 Fastest Growing Inner City Companies. Since 1999 they have also been included in the First Coast 50, a listing of the top fifty companies in Northeast Florida. Caribbean Shipping Services and Caribbean Cold Storage offer ocean, air, inland transportation, warehousing and consolidation services..

Conservative estimates place that cost at 30% of an employee's salary. For example, an organization that loses and replaces 150 employees a year, each at an average annualized salary of $50,000, incurs an estimated turnover cost of $2,250,000 in one year.However, making changes to recruitment and retention programs can generate positive fiscal returns. If the same organization that replaced 150 employees were to implement changes, financial savings would accrue. The organization would enjoy a $22,500 decline in recruitment and retention costs with each 1% decline in turnover. By working to improve the employment relationship, the organization would also reap the recruiting benefits of a reputation as an employer of choice.How can employers cost-effectively retain and motivate employees? Communication is the key ingredient in finding what will best motivate and meet employee needs.

According to the February 2001 Workspan article, "Igniting Passion in Employees," employers should first ask their employees a series of detailed questions. For example, answers to why they stay at the organization, what would make them leave, and what should be done to keep them from leaving, can be essential in planning incentive programs. Variable compensation, or incentives, used to be the domain of senior management and executives but are now increasingly being used in a number of organizations. According to a recent WorldatWork study, 77% of organizations in 2004 provided variable compensation opportunities to their employees at all organizational levels.Team and small group variable compensation programs provide several benefits to the employee and the organization:

• Increased total cash compensation opportunities
• No increase to fixed salary costs
• Greater opportunities to reward top-performing employees and departments
• Enhanced line of sight helps employees to achieve goals
• Improvement in organizational processes and fiscal situations as a result of goal achievement

A quarterly incentive program was formulated focusing on the department's efforts to decrease days in receivable, with a maximum incentive pool equivalent to 20% of the department's total quarterly payroll. Cash payouts were equal among all employees, with the understanding that performance needed to be kept at satisfactory levels in order to be eligible for participation and payouts. The result was a positive return on investment for the hospital. In addition, the employees learned how to work more efficiently together as a team, the hospital decreased its days in receivable which generated positive cash flow, and the employees increased their take-home cash without causing the organization fiscal strain.Spot awards are another option for organizations looking to motivate their employees. According to the William M.

Mercer 2004 / 2005 Compensation Planning Survey, 55% of organizations continue to use spot cash awards to reward, motivate, and retain key performers, which is 7% more than in 1998. Another 8% of organizations are considering implementing a spot cash award program in the future. Non-monetary recognition awards also continue to grow in popularity. As also indicated in the Mercer survey, 72% of organizations offer non-monetary recognition awards to reward, motivate, and retain key performers, with an additional 10% of organizations considering implementing a non-monetary recognition award program in the future. Since 1998, non-monetary recognition awards have been the primary emerging reward and recognition practice.

These rewards include a public "thank you" or recognition in a company newsletter for a job well done, a special one-on-one lunch, and job restructuring. "Employers should ask their employees how they would like to be rewarded. Employees who work for not-for-profit organizations know that money is tight, and will often be an organization's best source of ideas with faster buy-in and appreciation," said Loftus.Career matrix programs, which link individual competency and varying levels of job complexity to support career advancement, are also another low-cost motivational tool. Creating a career matrix involves various steps. Briefly, these include defining the job level outcomes for three levels of complexity of a job or job family, the activities and requirements that support the outcomes at each level, the three levels of individual core competencies, and the behavioral indicators as well as assessment processes that will be used to determine individual competency.

Once defined, employees are then slotted into the matrix using defined criteria, and the guidelines are finalized for placement. This is followed by an overlay of the current pay system and establishment of compensation policies.Astron Solutions' client, Northeast Georgia Health System (NGHS), like all hospitals, faced a nationwide nursing shortage. They were having difficulty attracting new graduate nurses to work at the organization, much less attracting RNs to work at their soon-to-be unveiled Open Heart program. After implementing a career matrix program for their Open Heart Program nursing staff, NGHS turnover is now at 5.2%, significantly below the national average of 15.2%. Vacancy rates have also dropped to 8.4%, again lower than the national average of 14.3% (average for Med / Surg and Critical Care.) In addition, 83% of NGHS's RN positions were filled before the Open Heart Program opened and the fees spent on traveling nurses / agencies declined by $68,000.NGHS's career matrix program reinforced their commitment toward employer of choice status, the link between human resource programs, employee satisfaction, and responsibility for contributing to NGHS' financial objectives, as well as the organization's commitment to developing clinical expertise internally.

Instituting the program also helped establish NGHS as a "learning organization" and has provided them with a competitive edge in local and regional recruitment of both new graduate and experienced RN staff. The program has also required Nursing Management to become more aware of their dual roles as career developers and patient care coordinators. With the RN shortage continuing, NGHS is in a position to continue to meet growing patient demands, while addressing career advancement desires of the new generation of RNs. The success of the program did not go unnoticed by the American Society for Healthcare Human Resources Administration's (ASHHRA), who honored both NGHS and Astron Solutions with the 2004 "Best Practice" award at ASHHRA's annual conference.With all of these various choices, employers should not feel like the spinning impaired miller's daughter from the beloved children's fable, "Rumplestiltskin." Low cost solutions to retaining and motivating employees are readily available, proven to be effective, and are relatively easy to execute, resulting in a "happy ending" for employers. --Astron Solutions is a consulting firm dedicated to the delivery of HR consulting services and supportive technology.

For more information about variable compensation or career path program development please call Astron Solutions at 800-520-3889 or visit their website at http://www.astronsolutions.com.

gomembers is a leading provider of software solutions for membership, meetings and management of member-based organizations. gomembers' software and technology enable its customers to automate a number of enterprise resource planning, member relationship management, transaction processing and member-to-member communications functions in a single software platform with seamless inter-processing of data across all applications.gomembers' membership, meeting, event planning and related solutions are used to improve operating efficiencies, enhance member services and enable interaction with and between members. Meeting and convention planning software products enable customers to coordinate virtually all of the required functions for complete event management. All gomembers' products are built using the latest technology including Microsoft's .NET framework.gomembers sells its solutions through a direct sales force and provides a wide range of customizations, training and support service to their customers.Because many of gomembers' customers organize meetings and conventions on a regular basis, they also offer industry leading prepackaged software products that enable its customers to coordinate virtually all of the required functions relating to meeting and convention planning..

Let us give you typical troubleshooting steps:

• SYSDATA. FRx stores its report in one directory, named SYSDATA, so when you move FRx or upgrade it ? you upgrade files in this directory. Be sure that FRx points to the proper SYSDATA directory.
• Directories Structure problem. When you move FRx to different server or change directories structure on your workstation, typical issue is hardcoded report output path mismatch. You can see it if you look at report output destination tab.

  The hint ? FRx stores output directory in SYSDATA on the server, so if your workstations are not structure-unified ? you may have this issue.

• Service Pack fixes. FRx is known to be unstable in CD version and you typically apply latest service pack from Microsoft Business Solutions partner source (or Customer Source if you support your Great Plains internally)
• Back Arrow problem. This is very typical and funny issue. When you install FRx ? you should never hit Back button. If you do ? FRx installation will be corrupted.

  Just for you to know. This was FRx 6.0 very-very known issue

• Corrupt Catalogue. Well ? this may happen with every application. FRx is not an exception. If you have strange error message ? you may try export and reimport.

  The same is applicable to Great Plains ReportWriter

• Drilldown Viewer problem. This happens when you are upgrading. You should check that you are selecting XML Drilldown Viewer ? this is newest version. Old report tries to keep old Drilldown Viewer and you get error message when launching it.

Often times a refinishing a bathroom tub will cost less than half price of replacing it. Old bathroom vanities and sinks are often the spark that ignites the bathroom remodeling process to begin with. Spend time at the hardware store to get some quick ideas on vanities, tubs and showers.When choosing a vanity, consider:

• Storage area - is the vanity designed in such a way that you'll be using all the space available
• Drawer space vs. cabinet space - take a look at your current "inventory" of stuff - do you need more or less drawers for convenient storage
• Integrated sink - a vanity with an integrated sink will make quick clean up a snap.

You may consider doing demolition and preparation work yourself to save a bit of money.Divide and conquer - (Delegate the work)Prior to starting your project make as complete a list as possible regarding the tasks involved. If you are using a contractor, you may want to discuss with them how you can effectively be involved to help reduce expenses without "getting in the way" of a good job.Start!Although planning is an essential beginning to any successful project, nothing will change until you START the process. So get started already!.

Saving telephone costs, fast data transfer, leaving messages on the workplace and so on though your workers could be in different countries!? a online support. You would be able to advise your customers every time, send them important complements and data, clue your customers of your shop system on products and support them with their order.? a meeting and conference application. Conferences of your workers could be taken place without planning so long, projects and decisions could be discussed very fast. Meeting with customers wouldn't waste so much time anymore and they even would be not too expensive.But the best thing is that the participants don't have to be together on one place!? a schooling or eLearning software. No rooms would be needed.

Everybody could learn at home and therefore in the leisure time, which would be very comfortably. Thereby you could achieve a higher attendance quote because there aren't long distances or planning needed. Docents could do more teachings without being on spot and they even could save costs.? a virtual workplace. Independent workers could work on projects from every place of the world; projects could be discussed every time etc. Of course the costs of your projects would be more reviewable.

A common data pool would be extant and every worker would be informed about current changes.Supported development environments:Visual Basic .NET, Visual C++ .NET, Visual C# .NET, Visual Basic, Visual C++, Borland Delphi, C++ Builder, JavaScript/HTML (ActiveX) and all development environments with ActiveX support.Download here the free SDK trial: More information's http://www.conaito.com.