Reference Variable

Six Basic Kinds of Life Insurance
Regardless of how fancy the policy title or sales presentation might appear, all life insurance policies contain benefits derived from one or more of the three basic kinds shown below. Some policies due combine more than one kind of life insurance and can be confusing.
Term Life Insurance Endowment Life Insurance Whole Life Insurance Variable Life Insurance Universal Life Insurance Variable Universal Life Insurance
Term Life Insurance
Term life insurance is death protection for a term of one or more years. Some companies are offering policies with terms up to thirty years. Premiums on term insurance remain level during the life of the policy. Term Life Insurance has no cash value account. Death benefits will be paid only if you die within that term of years. Term insurance generally provides the largest immediate death protection for your premium dollar.
Some term life insurance policies are renewable for one or more additional terms even if your health has changed. Each time you renew the policy for a new term, premiums will be higher. You should check the premiums at older ages and the length of time the policy can be continued.
Some term insurance policies are also convertible. This means that before the end of the conversion period, you may trade the term policy for a whole life or endowment insurance policy even if you are not in good health. Premiums for the new policy will be higher than you have been paying for the term insurance.
Life Insurance "Endowment"
An endowment insurance policy pays a sum or income to you, the policyholder, if you live to a certain age. If you were to die before then, the death benefit would be paid to your beneficiary. Premiums and cash values for endowment insurance are higher than for the same amount of whole life insurance. Thus endowment insurance gives you the least amount of death protection for your premium dollar.
Whole Life Insurance
Whole life insurance gives death protection for as long as you live. The most common type is called straight life or ordinary life insurance, for which you pay the same premiums for as long as you live. These premiums can be several times higher than you would pay initially for the same amount of term insurance. But they are smaller than the premiums you would eventually pay if you were to keep renewing a term insurance policy until your later years.
Some whole life policies let you pay premiums for a shorter period such as 20 years, or until age 65. Premiums for these policies are higher than for ordinary life insurance since the premium payments are squeezed into a shorter period.
Although you pay higher premiums, to begin with, for whole life insurance than for term insurance, whole life insurance policies develop cash values which you may have if you stop paying premiums. You can generally either take the cash, or use it to buy some continuing insurance protection. Technically speaking, these values are called nonforfeiture benefits. This refers to benefits you do not lose or forfeit when you stop paying premiums. The amount of these benefits depends on the kind of policy you have, its size, and how long you have owned it.
A policy with cash values may also be used as collateral for a loan. If you borrow from the life insurance company, the rate of interest is shown in your policy. Any money which you owe on a policy loan would be deducted from the benefits if you were to die, or from the cash value if you were to stop paying premiums.
Variable Life Insurance
Variable life insurance, provides permanent protection for you and death benefits to your beneficiary upon your death. The value of the death benefits may fluctuate up or down depending on the performance of the investment portion of the policy. Most variable life insurance policies guarantee that the death benefit will not fall below a specified minimum, however, a minimum cash value is seldom guaranteed. Variable is a form of whole life insurance and because of investment risks it is also considered a securities contract and is regulated as securities under the Federal Securities Laws and must be sold with a prospectus.
Universal Life Insurance
Universal Life insurance is a variation of Whole Life. The insurance part of the policy is separated from the investment portion of the policy. The investment portion is invested in bonds and mortgages, the investment portion of Universal Life is invested in money market funds. The cash value portion of the policy is set up as an accumulation fund. Investment income is credited to the accumulation fund. The death benefit portion is paid for out of the accumulation fund. Unlike Whole Life Insurance, the cash value of Universal Life Insurance grows at a variable rate. Normally, there is a guaranteed minimum interest rate applied to the policy. No matter how badly the investments go by the insurance company, you are guaranteed a certain minimal return on the cash portion. If the insurance company does well with its investments, the interest return on the cash portion will increase.
Variable-Universal Life
Variable universal life insurance pays your beneficiary a death benefit. The amount of the benefit is dependant on the success of your investments. If the investments fail, there is a guaranteed minimum death benefit paid to your beneficiary upon your death. Variable universal gives you more control of the cash value account portion of your policy than any other insurance type. A form of whole life insurance, it has elements of both life insurance and a securities contract. Because the policy owner assumes investment risks, variable universal products are regulated as securities under the Federal Securities Laws and must be sold with a prospectus.
Rates and coverage vary form state to state. Shop around on your own and talk to an independent insurance agent to make sure you get a plan that's right for you. It's amazing how much rates may vary from company to company for the same coverage.
Matt McWilliams is one of the co-founders of HometownQuotes.Com, an online insurance quotes web site. He is originally from Pinebluff, NC and attended Middle Tennessee State University. He is considered an expert in the field of online insurance shopping and finding new ways to help consumers save money on their insurance. For more information visit http://www.hometownquotes.com

The mortgage market in the United Kingdom is considered one of the most innovative and viable in the world. Compared to other countries, intervention in the market by state-funded entities and borrowing is controlled by either mutual organizations or proprietory lenders is limited or none at all.
The market got deregulated with important and essential innovations and differences in methods to attract borrowers since 1982. This has lead to a wide range of mortgage types:
The money market as well as deposits became the chief source of funds among lenders. As such, most mortgages returned to a variable rate, either the lenders standard variable rate or a tracker rate, which was to be linked to the underlying Bank of England repo rate (or sometime LIBOR). To attract new borrowers, an incentive deal was initially offered.
A fixed rate. Rate of interest does not change for a specified period of payment ranging from 2 to 10 years. Longer term interest rates are more expensive compared to shorter term rates of payment.
A discount rate. A margin of reduction is in place for a given period typically 1 to 5 years in a standard variable rate. The discount is sometimes declared as a margin over the base rate and sometimes stepped.
A cashback mortgage is a mortgage where the lump sum is typically a small portion of the advance
A capped rate. Rate of interest cannot be more than the cap but can change beneath the cap. A collar is coupled with a minimum rate imposed. Rates are often similar to a period equal to a fixed rate.
The lender may be offering a lower rate than the market cost of the borrowing with each incentive. If the borrower repays the loan, a penalty is imposed on the borrower. This is referred to as redemption penalty or tie-in, however they have been referred to as early repayment charge with the regulation of the Financial Services Authority.
UK Mortgage Process
A chartered surveyor is paid a certain fee, called valuation fee, for visiting the property and ensuring that is enough to cover the amount of the mortgage. Since it is not a full survey, all the defects that a house buyer needs to understand cannot be identified. A contract is not formed between the surveyor and buyer, so the buyer can sue the surveyor if no major problem has been detected. A building survey can be carried out by the surveyor for a cheaper fee.
John Mussi is the founder of Direct Online Loans who help homeowners find the best available loans via the http://www.directonlineloans.co.uk website.

Web site analytics, for those who might not be familiar with the term, is the tracking of various performance metrics for a given web site. The metrics themselves can range from the simple (and relatively useless) count of " hits", i.e. requests for a given resource such as a single web page, image file, etc., to the measure of far more complex interactions. These complicated interactions can be totally arbitrary; for example, you might want to know the number of orders from visitors who were referred by search engines and scrolled at least halfway down a long sales page.
That assumes, of course, that you can figure out how to configure all that tracking, interpret the results and afford the monthly fees for the providers of the service. The cost issue is apparently solved: Google Analytics (http://google.com/analytics) is currently free in its beta version, and early indications are that it will remain so. However, a word of caution is in order: The Terms of Service referenced on the Google Analytics home page seems to indicate that Google can and will make use of your site's data, at least in aggregate form (that is, mixed in with everybody else).
In many minds Google is starting to become a Big Brother-like presence on the web, hence its motives are suspect pretty much by definition. Personally, I consider my site's aggregate data a fair trade for the value I will extract from their software, but you will have to make up your own mind. If you're not bothered by Google knowing as much about your web site as you do, then Google Analytics looks very promising. It is a smart, easy-to-use implementation that hits the sweet spot of web analytics.
The Sweet Spot: Easy Yet Powerful
The sweet spot I'm referring to is really the point where most of us live. We don't have the technical know-how to configure the most complicated tracking scenarios and even if we could, we don't have the analytical savvy to make any sense of the data. Google has found the sweet spot by making tracking configuration quite easy, and providing pre-cooked role-based reports that provide lots of information you may not have even realized was readily available. In short, you can get an awful lot of strategic data for very little effort.
Configuration
Let's walk through setting up a simple and common scenario: We want to know how well our sales letter is converting web site visitors to customers. Where Google Analytics shines is how much valuable data it automatically gleans from such a simple test.
Google calls a tracking scenario a "profile". Although you can include URLs from many web sites in a single profile, it is easiest if you organize things such that a profile is fundamentally the same as a web site.
As part of setting up your profile, you provide the URLs of all the pages for which you want data. Google then provides you with a JavaScript snippet to include on each page. The snippet is self-contained and requires no editing; it looks like this:

_uacct = "xx-yyyyyyy-zz"; urchinTracker();
You can put the snippet anywhere inside the tags of your web pages.
Next, you want to specify a "goal". The goal in our case is sales; we know that the goal has been achieved when the customer reaches our "thank you" page, which we send them to immediately following a purchase. Therefore the URL associated with the goal is that of our thank you page. More sophisticated goals can involve defining a "funnel" of multiple pages; this can be extraordinarily useful in identifying a weak spot in a more complicated sales process.
At this point our setup is finished! You then need to just let your site run and accumulate statistics for at least 24 hours.
Reports
When you return and select View Reports, you will see an amazing array of statistics at your disposal. The first thing you'll notice is a pop-down menu with several roles, namely Executive, Marketer, and Webmaster. Each role has a suite of pre-cooked reports likely to be of interest to someone in that role.
We'll focus on the Marketer role; when you choose this option you'll see the Marketing Overview by default. It includes four charts:
- A line graph showing raw page views over time
- A pie chart showing the proportion of returning versus new visitors
- A world map showing the geographic distribution of visitors
- A pie chart showing the visitor counts based on the referrer, i.e. Google, Blogger.com (for my blog), etc.
The Overview is general data useful for knowing the overall popularity of your site and where your visitors are coming from.
The Marketing Summary report is a numerical chart that shows the top five referrers, the top five keywords used by searchers, and the top five campaigns. A campaign is indicated by a code that you attach to a URL. Even so, by default you get several campaign totals. These default campaigns are:
- Organic: Indicates visitors referred by an unpaid search engine listing.
- Referral: Indicates visitors referred by links which were not tagged with any campaign variables.
- Not set: Indicates visitors referred by links which were tagged with campaign variables but for which the campaign variable was not set.
- Direct: Indicates visitors who typed the URL directly into the browser.
The next report of interest is Overall Keyword Conversion. Since we have indicated a goal of "sales" and linked it to our thank you page, the Overall Keyword Conversion report is able to tell you which search engine keywords result in the most sales. This is a really useful and potentially profitable report.
The Campaign Conversion report shows which campaigns are creating the most sales and the Conversion Summary produces total visits and total goal percentages (i.e the number of visitors that achieved each goal).
Finally, the Entrance Bounce Rate is an interesting report that also has valuable data, even in our simple scenario: It provides the list of pages for which customers land and then leave right away. For some pages, our product download page for example, we expect a 100% bounce rate. For others it can illustrate a weak or problematic page.
Google Analytics provides an astonishing amount of data for very little effort—and no cost (so far, anyway). Although there a few advanced reports missing from its arsenal, it makes the bulk of the web site measurement you'll want to do very easy indeed.
Ross Lambert is the founder of MidnightMarketer.com, a community of web marketers (http://midnightmarketer.com). He also authored Sonic Page Blaster(http://spbsavestime.com) and Ross's Guide to the Masters of Marketing (http://saleslettergenius.com).

Imagine you have a 200 page MS Word document with repeating text elements like an address, a name, or a date which repeated over and over throughout the document.
And imagine, after finishing the document, or when it's time to update it, your boss tells you to change the name from "John" to "Bob."
One way to do it of course is to use a global Find and Replace.
But what if you'd like to replace only some of the "John"s to "Bob"? Are you going to check them one by one? Or what if you want to do it automatically without the need to remember to do a Find and Replace?
It's easy. You first mark the source text with a bookmark.
1) Select the text.
2) Select Insert > Bookmark from the main menu.
3) Enter a Bookmark Name (no spaces) and click Add. To see your bookmark on the screen, select Tools > Options > View Tab. Check the "Show Bookmarks" check-box.
The next step -- for all the other instances of this text, enter a REF (Reference) FIELD that points to the BOOKMARK of your reference TEXT.
1) Place your cursor where you want the next instance of the source text to appear.
2) Select Insert > Field from the main menu to display the Field dialog box.
3) Find the REF field in the "Field Names" scroll-down list box.
4) Select REF and then select your BOOKMARK in the "Bookmark Name" list box in the middle.
5) Click OK and your text will be inserted with a gray background screen (which will not be printed), denoting that this is not normal text but a variable field.
Now, every time you make a change to your original text, all other instances will also be changed automatically AFTER you do the following:
1) Select the whole document by selecting Edit > Select All from the main menu, or pressing Ctrl + A.
2) Press the F9 key and BINGO! You've got all instances of your text updated automatically.
P.S. Be careful not to delete the bookmark markers when you are editing your original text. That's why it is important to work by displaying your bookmark markers.
************* Creating RUNNING HEADERS and FOOTERS
Another great use of Bookmarkers and the REF field variable is in the Headers and Footers.
Imagine you'd like to include the Document Title (not the File Name but the actual name of the document printed on the front cover of the document) or a section title either in the header or the footer. This is also called a "running" header or footer since the header/footer on a page changes depending on selected section headings or titles like the way, for example, you'd see on any phone directory or dictionary page.
Adobe FrameMaker takes care of this much more elegantly by allowing you to assign one or more variables to your header or footer, variables that are fully customizable and indexed to your paragraph tags, so that you can actually have multiple levels of running headers and footers displaying on your pages.
Although MS Word does not provide the same easy functionality to key the headers/footers to paragraph styles, it still can be done by inserting bookmarks and REF variables.
This is how you do it:
Assign a bookmark to the title (or any other source text of your choice) and then insert its corresponding REF field variable into the header or the footer. After updating the text, go back to your header or the footer editing mode (View > Header and Footer) and press F9. All your headers or footers (within that given section) will be updated as well.
NOTE: There is a formatting problem with updating the headers and footers this way since MS Word has the tendency to insert the source text with its original formatting.
If, for example, you are referencing a 24 point document title in your header, your headers will look huge. You can of course select the header text manually and re-format it to a smaller size.
If the next time you update the source text, the length of the updated text is equal to or smaller than the original text, then the header/footer preserves its latest formatting properties.
If, however, your new updated text is LONGER than the previous one, then for only that part of the text which is longer, MS Word switches the formatting back to the original source text format.
For example, if your original document title is composed of two words, "Word Tricks," and your updated document title is either "Word Techniques" or just "Word," then the headers and footers are updated (after going into the header/footer editing mode) nicely by preserving your latest formatting corrections.
However, if your new title is "Word Tricks Explained," then the last extra word "Explained" is displayed in the headers/footers with the original formatting of your document title, creating a lop-sided and aesthetically unpleasant header/footer. In those cases you need to go back to your header/footer and reformat the extra new word(s) as well to match the rest of your header/footer. This is a bug that I hope Microsoft will take care of in the future.
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Ugur Akinci, Ph.D. is a Creative Copywriter, Editor, an experienced and award-winning Senior Technical Communicator specializing in fundraising packages, direct sales copy, web content, press releases, movie reviews and hi-tech documentation. He has worked as a Technical Writer for Fortune 100 corporations since 1999.
He is the editor of PRIVATE TUTOR FOR SAT MATH SUCCESS web site http://www.privatetutor.us
In addition to being an Ezine Articles Expert Author, he is also a Senior Member of the Society for Technical Communication (STC), and a Member of American Writers and Artists Institute (AWAI).
A true movie fan since he was a child, Akinci provides FREE MOVIE PLOT IDEAS every day of the year at SCRIPT BOILER. Visit http://scriptboiler.blogspot.com today.
You are most welcomed to visit his COPYWRITING WEB SITE http://www.writer111.com for more information on his multidisciplinary background, writing career, and client testimonials.

And I thought I was the only one knowing it! Over the past three days I have received six telephone calls and four e-mails all from alarmed people (one my own niece) very concerned about rising mortgage interest rates, and all asking the very same, panicking question: 'Now what'? For one thing, you could try doing nothing about it - it normally works well for me and, who knows, perhaps with a little luck tomorrow interest rates will drop. For another thing, you may want to hug your Teddy Bear - and buy one also for your friendly neighborhood banker, turned overnight into a voracious T-Rex.
When you last went shopping for a mortgage you found yourself facing an array of options, from a six-month 'open' to a 10-year 'closed' and everything in-between. And chances are you didn't quite grasp or paid attention to the differences among all those many options, mostly because you never envisioned a time of interest rates increase. Now that the tide is changing direction, of course, the basic question becomes the most important: which option is the best to minimize mortgage costs? To answer this, let's take a look first at a few definitions.
For starters and contrary to popular belief a mortgage is not a loan. It is both an interest in land created by contract and a type of security for a debt. In essence, a mortgage is not a debt but, rather, the evidence of a debt. More importantly, a mortgage is a transfer of a legal or equitable interest in land on the condition that the interest will be returned when the terms of the mortgage contract are fully satisfied. This usually means upon repayment of the underlying debt. Mortgage Law originated in the English feudal system as early as the 12th century. At that time the effect of a mortgage was to legally convey both the title of the interest in land and possession of the land to the lender. This conveyance was 'absolute', that is subject only to the lender's promise to re-convey the property to the borrower if the specified sum was repaid by the specified date.
If, on the other hand, the borrower failed to comply with the terms, then the interest in land automatically became the lender's and the borrower had no further claims or recourses at law. There were, back in feudal England, basically two kinds of mortgages: 'ad vivum vadium', Latin for 'a live pledge' in which the income from the land was used by the borrower to repay the debt, and 'ad mortuum vadium', Latin for 'a dead pledge' where the lender was entitled to the income from the land and the borrower had to raise funds elsewhere to repay the debt. Whereas at the beginning only 'live pledges' were legal and 'dead pledges' were considered an infringement of the laws of usury and of religious teachings, by the 14th century only dead pledges remained and were all very legal and very religious. And, apparently, they are still very religious in the 21st century.
Mortgages are better known to consumers by their re-payment schemes:
Interest Accruing Loans
Typically used by builders, an Interest Accruing Loan is one on which no payment of interest and no repayment of principal are required to be made during the life of the loan. These type of loan may be 'closed', i.e. booked at an interest rate fixed throughout the term of the loan or 'open', that is with a fluctuating rate. In effect, in this type of loan the lender actually lends to the borrower the additional amount corresponding to the interest payable during the term.
Interest Only Loans
Typically preferred by lenders, in this type of loan the borrower contracts out to make fixed payments of only interest to the lender, with the principal due in one lump sum at the end of the term. Obviously, the principal amount never increases because interest is discharged at fixed intervals.
Straight-Line Principal Reduction Loans
Favored in the United States and continental Europe, this type of loan has an equal amount of principal repaid every interest compounding period plus interest for the period. For example, a mortgage may call for complete repayment of principal over a fifteen-year period through monthly payments of interest, so that 180 payments will be made in the entirety of the term of the loan. The principal balance and the amount of interest due decrease over time.
Constant Payment Repayment Schemes
Favored in Canada, England and throughout the Commonwealth, these can be fully amortized or partially amortized. Payments are equal throughout the life of the loan and consist of both principal repayment and interest. However, as each payment installment becomes due, an increasing portion of the principal is repaid thereby reducing the outstanding balance on which interest is charged during the next period. As a result of the decreasing principal balance on which interest is charged, interest as well decreases over time thereby increasing the amount of principal repaid on each subsequent installment. When fully amortized, the principal balance is fully repaid at the end of the term. However, most loans are partially amortized so that repayment of principal plus interest are calculated so as to repay the debt over an amortization period which is longer than the term of the loan. This means that at the end of the term of the loan the principal ourstanding balance must either be paid off or it is refinanced for an additional term. Also, because of the way payments are structured, early payments consist largely of interest and little repayment, so that typically the principal outstanding balance at the end of the first terms is large.
Variable Rate Mortgages
This type of loan differs from a costant payment mortgage because the interest rate charged may be changed during the term of the loan. Generally, these loans are initially set up like standard, partially amortized payment repayment loans based on the current interest rate, then the rate is revised at fixed intervals and the mortgage repayment scheme is altered as well by changing either the size of the payments or the length of the amortization period, or a combination of both.
Open Mortgages
The term 'Open' does not refer, like many people believe, to a fluctuating interest rate. The term 'Open' refers to the possibility granted to the borrower to pay off the loan without penalty prior to maturity. In general, lenders do not like Open Mortgages because the early payoff reduces the interest they earn. Open Mortgages can be written either with a 'fixed rate' or with a 'variable rate'. In Variable Rates Open Mortgages the payment stays the same, but what changes is the ratio of interest to principal. If market rates increase, principal repayment decrease during the life of the loan.
Closed Mortgages
In general, Closed Mortgages offer a better rate than Open Mortgages but the drawback is the borrower is not afforded the right of payoff at anytime. If the borrower intends to payoff the loan, a penalty is applied typically amounting to three months interest payments. If the borrower anticipates making only fixed payments and no early payoffs, Closed Mortgages are usually preferable.
Convertible Mortgages
These are yet another variation of the same product wherein the rate is fixed for an initial period, say six months or even one year, with the provision that at any time during this period the borrower may 'lock in' into a longer term with little or no cost. This is clearly the best mortgage if rates are in a downward trend.
Now that I have managed to drive you up the wall, let me point out that another couple of considerations ought to be made by the expert consumer (which, by now, it is definitely not you …):
Fixed v.Variable Interest Rate Mortgages
The choice is whether the borrower prefers the security of fixed payments as opposed to the volatility of the market. Typically, security of fixed interest rates comes at a premium: the borrower can fix the principal repayment and interest for a term ranging from 6 months to 10 years, but the longer the term the higher the rate. On the other hand, Variable Interest Rate Mortgages will fluctuate sometimes literally overnight with the market, but interest rate will typically be less. So really, the choice is between the security of fixed rates and the potential savings afforded by a fluctuating variable rate.
Short v. Long Term
Short Term Mortgages are appropriate when the borrower believes that interest rates will fall substantially by the time renewal date comes up. Alternatively, Long Term Mortgages are suitable when current interest rates are reasonable and it is deemed preferable to lock in so that a budget can be laid out for future fixed payments.
So, again, going back to the original question which option is best to minimize costs? To find out, Canada Mortgage Housing Corporation (CMHC) developed the measure of effective mortgage rate differential between five-year and one-year mortgage rates over five-year moving spans between 1980 and 2005. The model assumes that the borrower has the option every year of taking on a five-year mortgage term or a one-year mortgage term at the rates then prevailing, and that there is no difference in mortgage principal. The results are surprising. CHMC has found that it is cheaper more than 85 percent of the times to opt for a one-year term and roll it over than to take a five-year mortgage up front.
More importantly, CHMC has found that borrowers with Variable Rate Mortgages benefited of substantial savings over each five-year span than their Fixed Rate Mortgages counterparts. Whereas they paid more interest in the short term they ultimately and invariably ended up saving more over the long run, which then gives credo to the belief that security and peace of mind when it comes to mortgages are purely a matter of perception.
Luigi Frascati
Luigi Frascati is a Real Estate Agent based in Vancouver, British Columbia. He holds a Bachelor Degree in Economics and maintains a weblog entitled the Real Estate Chronicle at http://wwwrealestatechronicle.blogspot.com where you can find the full collection of his articles. Luigi is associated with the Sutton Group, the largest real estate organization in Canada, and is based with Sutton-Centre Realty in Burnaby, BC.
Luigi is very proud to be an EzineArticles Platinum Expert Author. Your rating at the footer of this Article is very much appreciated. Thank you.

Living with bipolar disorder is difficult at best, whether you have the disorder or are supporting someone who does. Although researchers are working on it, there is still no cure for bipolar disorder at this time. Still I pose the question - is recovery possible?

When we're discussing cancer, the term "in remission" is used rather than the term "cured." In other words, since there is no cure for cancer as of yet, when a person goes into remission it means the alleviation of the signs and symptoms of their cancer.

With bipolar disorder, we don't use the term "in remission," but the terms "unstable" and "stable" are heard quite frequently in medical circles instead. When signs and symptoms of the disorder area present, the person is referred to as "unstable" (i.e., in a bipolar episode), and when they are absent, the person is referred to as "stable." However, what you don't hear a doctor say is that you or your loved one are "recovered" from bipolar disorder. I believe this is because the term "recovery" is associated with the term "cure" and, again, there is no cure for bipolar disorder.

After all this discussion of terms, I think it just comes down to semantics. Let's get away from the term "recovery" and use the term "stability" instead. I definitely believe that as far as bipolar disorder goes, stability is not only a possibility, but a probability (as long as certain variables are in place).

For example, there can be no stability without medication. However, as long as you or your loved one take your medication as directed, you can achieve stability with your bipolar disorder.

Therapy would be next as far as degree of importance when it comes to stability variables. Medication is half the treatment for bipolar disorder, while therapy would be the other half. People who take their medication and also see a psychiatrist and therapist achieve the greatest stability with their disorder.

Another variable in the stability equation would be sticking to a good sleep schedule (8-9 hours per night). Exercise and a healthy diet are two more variables as well. The more variables you add, the greater your chances of stability with bipolar disorder.

Other variables for stability might include any/all of the following: strong support system; mood chart; journal; hobbies; productivity; volunteer work; part-time job or home business; spirituality; social life; family ties; leisure time; relaxation; and enjoyment.

Although there may not be recovery from bipolar disorder per se, stability is a definite possibility - if not probability - for those who are willing to do the work necessary to attain that stability; for those who will add the above variables into their lives.

David Oliver is the author of the shocking new report called Bipolar Disorder "The REAL Silent Killer" Visit http://www.how-bipolar-disorder-kills.com for free information on this new report so you can discover how and why bipolar disorder is killing people

Offering a calendar to your site is a popular and easy addition to any site. In this article I will explain the relatively simple logic to allow you to create your own calendar. To be more specific, we'll create a calendar which shows either a monthly or weekly view and assume you can pass variables into the program.
The first thing needed are the minimum variables or parameters necessary to give ourselves a fair amount of flexibility. These variables will be the starting day, number of days to show, and any offset needed. The first two variables are pretty obvious, but the purpose of offset may not be clear. offset can be used to show previous and next calendars while maintaining view (e.g. monthly or weekly).
Next, considering that we would like to be able to show periods such as "this week", "this month", "next week", etc. we will need to create some logic to handle these options. To do this, we'll have 3 variables the program will accept: calendar, showdays, & offset. calendar will be used to request a specific calendar (e.g. "this week") while the other two variables come from those defined above. Our script will need to take the calendar and offset variables to populate the starting day. Note: All code shown here is pseudo-code and will not work in any known language. For the example calendar script in PHP, please visit the author's site.
// First, establish the starting day and number of days to show.
// Express number of days using "month" for a monthly show because months vary in number of days.

IF calendar = "this month"
start_day = first of the month
num_days = "month"
ELSE IF calendar = "this week"
start_day = last Sunday
num_days = 7
ELSE IF
... continue for all acceptable forms
ELSE
start_day = default day
num_days = default number
END IF

// Now modify start_day by the appropriate offset and establish number of days (count_max) to
// show appropriate for the value of num_days
IF num_days = "month"
start_day = first of the month adjusted by offset number of months
count_max = number of days in the month
ELSE
start_day = start_day adjusted by offset number of days
count_max = num_days
END IF

// Determine the day of the week start_day falls on
start_day_of_week = day of week for start_day, this should be a number from 0 to 6.
We have now collected all the information necessary to show the appropriate calendar. Moving on, we now need to generate our calendar. Our calendar should output the header information and the name of the month as a caption. Then all which remains is to output each row. Let's take a look at how that can be achieved:
column_position = start_day_of_week

IF column_position > 0
OUTPUT: empty TD cell spanning column_position+1 cells
INCREMENT: column_position
END IF

original_start_day = start_day

current_day = start_day

WHILE (current_day - start_day) < count_max)
IF (column_position MOD 7) = 0
OUTPUT: open TR tag
END IF
OUTPUT: TD cell with current_day in it
INCREMENT: column_position
INCREMENT: current_day
IF (column_position MOD 7) = 0
OUTPUT: close TR tag
END IF
END WHILE
This will output each of the rows, wrapping on Saturday, but will leave the last TR tag open, so be sure to close it and the table. Then, all you need to do is save your file and use the code, setting the appropriate variables, wherever you would like! Now, this is an extremely simple example and adding features such as navigation and event management are definite pluses. For a copy of this script with functioning code, please see the author's website.
Jeremy Miller - Webmaster of Script Reference - The *NEW* PHP Reference & Tutorial Site For Non-Programmers

As you surf the web take a look around at many of the sites you see. Do you notice anything that seems strange? Well, let me point it out to you. There are hundreds of thousands of web sites that just don't get much traffic. Some of these sites house hundreds of articles, reviews, tutorials, tools, products, forums to mention a few things, yet still they do not receive large amounts of traffic. What is their problem? They have the content. What is left?
The problem is these sites aren't optimized for the search engines. SEO, Search Engine Optimization, SE Friendliness, however you refer to it doesn't matter, the fact is it works and I'm going to tell you what's involved.
Before we continue let me familiarize you with some relevant terminology in my own words.
**Search Engine Optimization**
Search engine optimization can be referred to as the addition and modification of all variables and extended variables of a web site in hopes of achieving a better position in the search engines. By variables I mean components of a website such as META tags and content. By extended variable I mean things such as links from other sites.
Different SEOs, search engine optimizers, may have different opinions on this but alas this is only my own.
**What is a Search Engine Optimization Company? **
A search engine optimization company is a company that offers the service of creating and adjusting all the variables involved in search engine optimization in order to get your web site the best ranking they can achieve, during the designated project period, for all the major search engines.
**Search Engine Optimization Hurdles**
Back to the question of why these sites rich with content aren't bringing in the numbers. There are several reasons why sites small and large aren't optimized for the search engines, fortunately these can be remedied.
1. Many webmasters/site owners believe in "If You Build It They Will Come". This attitude will get your web site no where fast. Sure if you build it you will get users maybe even a decent amount of users but you will not be unleashing the real potential of your web site.
2. Not feeling that your site can do better than it is. Websites can always be further optimized. Search engines change their algorithms all the time so what worked 2 months ago may not work as well or at all in present times. For any of you that fee you can get your site optimized better, think of the story of the Little Engine and don't think you can, KNOW YOU CAN.
3. Laziness is also a major contributing factor. Many webmasters feel it is just too hard or too time consuming to do search engine optimization.
This is partially true. Search engine optimization is not easy but then again, anyone can do it. It does take time though and time is a precious commodity. In situations where you just can't devote the time to search engine optimize your site I would recommend seeking the services of a professional search engine optimization company. You can choose one here http://www.lilengine.com/seo-companies.php
4. Time + cost = a deterrent. For a situation like this I would recommend optimizing little by little on your own. Eventually you will become better and better at it and be able to accomplish more in less time.
5. Another problem is many people think "Well my site is only a small site, there is no way I will be able to compete with the larger sites that have top spots in the search engines". If you think like this I'd like to say this to you. It is possible that that if you optimize your web site you may not be able to compete with the larger sites and may not be able to get a page 1 or 2 ranking in any of the search engines, BUT, what if you did. Always shoot for the stars so if you fall short you will at least hit the sky.
Now for those of you who plan to better your websites via Search Engine Optimization here are the stages you need to follow in order to have an efficient and effective SEO campaign.
**Planning Your Search Engine Optimization Campaign**
Planning is an essential factor in your SEO campaign. Knowing exactly what steps you are going to make and in what order and how you are going to go about achieving each of those steps will save you not only time but it will save you frustration as well. Planning is essential.
**Researching the Most Effective SEO Strategies**
What works and what does not. You will need to learn as many optimization strategies as you can that are currently effective with the search engines. This will be one of the most time consuming steps in your SEO campaign as you will have to sift through information as well as participate in SEO related forums to get additional information from professional. You can take this process in stages and apply your newly gained knowledge as you get it. There is also some useful software available both free and paid that will greatly help with this effort. WebPosition Gold is one of the more popular ones.
**Search Engine Optimize Your Site**
This should be done in stages so you can see the effectiveness of the applied strategies you are using. Don't change your entire site all at once, instead, change a few areas at a time and see what results they produce. If you are satisfied with this then move on and optimize another section.
Search engine optimization does not only deal with your site it also deals with the relationship other sites have with yours and yours with theirs. Keep this in mind when utilizing your link building strategies.
**Monitor Your SEO Progress**
There are many ways to do this you will have to find the best method for you. You will need to monitor your search engine ranking for the keywords you are targeting after each update. Changes should be recorded and used as references to monitor progress and for strategy adjustments. There are many tools for this process as well. I recommend SEOCount.com for monitoring your progress on the Google search engine as it is very easy to use and you can monitor several domains and keywords all from within the same account. It also gives you the option of viewing the number of backlinks.
These steps follow the Plan Do Review methodology which is a proven strategy for engaging in any task. It is again unfortunate that there are so many webmasters who overlook this entire process; hopefully this article will stop you from making this same mistake. For more information on search engine optimization visit http://www.lilengine.com
Copyright ฉ LilEngine.com 2003

We've all seen those messages on some websites warning not to click a button more than once or negative consequences, like paying a bill twice, may result. Sometimes we can cause these problems by hitting the back or refresh buttons. In this article I will explain a methodology whereby a site can ensure each form is submitted only once, thereby demonstrating that such warnings are unnecessary and, depending on the nature of the problems caused, worth repairing immediately. Let's begin by taking a look at the process we are studying: Form Submission. As pedantic as it may seem, it will be worthwhile to detail each of the steps in this process: Visitor requests a page from the server which has a form on it.Server retrieves form and sends to user.User enters data on form and submits to server.Server processes form data and returns resultant page. The scenario we now need to analyze is when the user re-triggers a previous form submission process. What we need to find or create is something which changes during the form submission process which does not depend on the specific form being submitted and which we can tell changed. That was a loaded sentence which fully details our solution, so let's break it down. Find or create something which changes during the form submission process,does not depend on the specific form being submitted, andwe can tell changed.
Since the item which changes does not depend on the form being submitted (e.g. it doesn't matter if it's a newsletter registration form, customer signup form, payment form, etc.), the item is not something which already exists and therefore must be created, so let's create a form variable called submissionId and assume it has the 3 properties mentioned above. So far, so good -- or so it appears! The third "property" is that "we can tell [it] changed", but "changed" is not a property of a variable, so we need to look at this more closely. In order to tell something changed, we must have a reference point, an answer to the question "changed from what?" This is where a session variable will come into play. If we define a session variable, say $_SESSION['nextValidSubmission'] and treat it as a reference point, we will have all of the tools necessary to protect our visitors. The idea will be to keep the session variable updated with the last submissionId sent out and change the submissionId each time it is sent out to the user. Then, if they try to resubmit the data, they will be submitting an old submissionId which doesn't match nextValidSubmission and we will know not to re-process this data. Let's look at this in terms of the processes: Visitor requests a page from the server which has a form on it.Server retrieves form, generates a new submissionId which is embedded into the form, updates nextValidSubmission, and sends to user.User enters data on form and submits to server.Server processes form data, changes nextValidSubmission, and returns resultant page. Now, if the visitor somehow resends the data, they will be sending the old submissionId which will not match the new nextValidSubmission. So, you can now say goodbye to relying on javascript to remove/disable buttons, silly warning messages, and upset customers by preventing form re-submission.
Webmaster of Script Reference - The *NEW* PHP Reference & Tutorial Site For Non-Programmers
See here for more detailed information, an example using PHP, and an alternate method which doesn't require sessions.

There are many different types of life insurance. There are two types of ordinary life insurance. One is the very common, Term Insurance. The other is what is called Permanent insurance. The two types of insurance are absolutely separate forms of insurance with well distinguished characteristics, respectively. If it is Permanent insurance that is being referenced that means insurance that will last for the life of the policy owner.

Conversely, Term insurance is only valid for the Term, or period of time, that the policy was written for. Most commonly used terms are 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 years. Sometimes this is referred to as Temporary coverage. It does not build cash value.

Moreover, there are other life insurance products that are deemed Permanent policies. There is Whole Life, Variable Whole Life, Universal Life and Variable Universal Life. For Whole Life there is a fixed death benefit and a fixed premium that are characteristics. The growth of the cash value has fixed and guaranteed features. With Variable Whole Life there is a variable death benefit with minimum guarantees and a fixed premium characteristic. The growth of the cash value here is variable and there are no guarantees like with the regular Whole Life.

The next kind of product mentioned is the Universal Life policy. The death benefit with this type of policy is adjustable. Unlike the Whole Life policy features, Universal Life policies have two death benefit options, a level and an increasing. The increasing death benefit is when the amount of the face value of the policy is added to the policy's cash value. These two added together create the increased death benefit to be paid out. To purchase this type of policy would be somewhat more expensive than a policy with a level death benefit. But the advantage with the increasing death benefit Universal Life policy is that the insured is buying more pure insurance protection in this scenario.

Then there is Variable Universal Life policies where the death benefit is variable and adjustable. The variable feature is based on an underlying securities account, such as stocks, bond or a money market. A policy owner would allocate a selected percent of the cash value to be invested. Additionally, another characteristic of these types of policies is that the growth of the cash value is variable and doesn't have guarantees.

The difference between the Whole Life policies and the Universal Life policies with reference to the premium payments is that Whole Life has premiums that are fixed. With Universal Life policies the premiums are flexible. This means that premium payments can be made in any amount and any frequency desired by the policy owner. The only thing that needs to be done is that their needs to be enough premium paid to keep the policy in force.

There is a lot to learn about life insurance. If you are thinking of getting a quote for a purchasing a policy it is a good time to start learning about the different and unique aspects of life insurance.

Know more about Individual Life Insurance and Benefits of Life Insurance

There are various artificial life or synthetic life intiatives aimed at creating from non-living components, quasi natural life forms, chemical systems that are self contained and infinitely self-replicating. If such an effort were successful it would provide a great deal of knowledge about the nature of living systems. It would also provide methodology for engineering new life forms on a new level beyond the current genetic engineering methods.

Many scientists will assume that a living system is simply a molecular mechanism no different from in its fundamental nature from an artificial mechanism. However, there are other scientists who have suggested that perhaps this isn't true. An early example of such a comment was made by the physicist, Erwin Schroendinger. In a thin volume entitled, "What is Life?", he suggested that living systems are perhaps not fully covered by known laws of chemistry and physics. However, he didn't really develop the idea in his book.

Perhaps the first formal development of such an idea is contained in an essay by another physicist, Eugene Wigner, entitled "The probability of the existence of a self-replicating unit". His conclusion is that the probability is zero. In this model, a living system is represented as a state vector: v. Its environment would also have at least one state which permits the organism to multiply: w. The total state vector of the system, the organism and its environment would be represented by the direct Kronecker product of these two vectors: v X w. After replication, the state vector would be represented as v X v X r, that is two vectors representing a pair of organisms in the altered environment. This interaction was assumed to be random, more specifically, to be governed by a random symmetric Hamiltonian matrix. This assumption might be questioned, however, it was the same assumption that enabled John Von Neumann to complete a proof that the second law of thermodynamics is a consequence of quantum mechanics.

This is an article for a popular audience so these comments probably go over the heads of most readers. Suffice to say that Eugene Wigner and John Von Neumann most definitely were not cranks.

In 1964, P. T. Landsburg, a professor at University College in Cardiff, England published an article in Nature that reiterated Wigner's results and developed them further. More recently, Prashant Chakrabarty has compiled various arguments along these lines in a paper called, "Non existence of quantum mechanical self replicating machine" that can be found on-line. So there has been some suggestion over the years that a self-contained, infinitely self-replicating system is paradoxical from the standpoint of quantum mechanics.

In this article, we try to develop this idea and suggest some implications and possible experiments.

Perhaps the most pressing and immediate implication is that any effort to create an artificial quasi-natural self-replicating system based on the the assumption that such a system can be purely mechanistic may encounter problems. The products of such an effort may not be infinitely self-replicating. They might divide a few times, but there may be a cumulative degradation of the species with each replication that causes each lineage to eventually terminate as a result of non-viability.

One of the problems may be that a quasi natural system must necessarily exist in an aqueous environment at room temperature. Under these conditions, there is a large amount of molecular motion within the system that will cause disruption to any structured activity. The result is likely to be a chaotic system. As such, it exhibits characteristics for which chaotic systems are known such as:


Sensitive dependence on initial conditions.
Bifurcations that exist at intervals of a reference variable that are dictated by Feigenbaum's number.
While definite statements might be made about average state of a population of such systems, it is impossible to predict the outcome in any specific instance because of the sensitive dependency and the effects of Brownian motion which are essentially random.

Therefore, with each successive generation, there may be a cumulative divergence from a vector state that is the functional equivalent of a known good initial state. The inevitable average outcome may be a divergence that is so great that it results in non-viability.

What sort of stabilization would keep the system "on-track". It would have to be plausible yet obscure. An idea that occurred to me a number of years ago is derived from what is known as Landauer's principle, first argued in 1961 by Rolf Landauer, a researcher with IBM. Roughly speaking, the idea is that a single bit of information is equivalent to an amount of negative entropy equal to k ln 2, that is, Planck's constant multiplied by the natural logarithm of 2.

Now most physicists would say that entropy is not a thing - it is an abstraction. It is the capacity of a system to do work, a convenient method for computing efficiency of heat engine cycles among other things. However, like everything else, as the frame of reference becomes smaller and smaller, there develops a sort of granularity. Space, for example, no longer conforms to the model proposed by Euclid. The number of points in a given volume are still infinite, but the infinity is now denumerable (a term taken from set theory) and the scale of this transition is defined by Heisenberg's principle of uncertainty. Likewise, going down to a molecular level, it may be that entropy no longer conforms to a Euclidean continuum of classical physics but starts to congeal into quanta: k ln 2 being of very plausible size of such a granulation. However, a quanta of entropy starts to assume characteristics associated with a "thing". It might possess something equivalent to a location within a system or it might associate itself in some way with a particular part of a molecular system.

One might imagine many such quanta in a cell, moving around, actually being used in such a way as to convey data from one part of the cell to another. After all, a quanta of entropy would be the thermodynamic equivalent of a bit of data. An artificial system might be able to use such a concept, however, artificial systems are generally far too large for such an effect to relevant.

So is this concept verifiable? Well, first of all, would-be creators of life may find that artificial systems have a very small amount of viability compared to natural systems. That would provide an impetus to look at this aspect of the problem much more carefully. Chemists will swear up and down that a molecule of synthetic biochemical is identical to a molecule of the same compound derived from a natural source. But it may turn out, that examination of individual molecules using something like force probe microscopy will show that molecules from a natural source are not quite the same as molecules created synthetically. They might exhibit quantum entanglement, which is a well-known and experimentally demonstrated effect. But it may be something of a more subtle nature such as residual entropic quanta that are still bound to the molecules. With entanglement, once it is detected, it is destroyed. So it may be possible to show that the effect is reproducible in a population of molecules but it may be inherently impossible to replicate a single measurement. Such is the almost ephemeral nature of quantum mechanics.

I thought of trying to develop the theoretical basis of this speculation further. I bought a copy of Schaum's "General Topology" and a book by Sterling Berberian called "Introduction to Hilbert Space". But I have to conclude I am not up to it and I have other projects to work on.

This article as well as others are posted on my forum at:
http://www.rimkor7.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=105#p117