The iPod isn’t built for easy battery replacement like a cell phone. In order to replace the battery, the casing must be completely removed, exposing all of the internal components and introducing risk of damage.

Apple initially offered a battery replacement service for $249. They later offered a one year extended warranty for $60 that covers the battery. However, it’s important to note that when Apple sends the replacement, it will be in a refurbished model iPod, not your original. Today you can find qualified repair shops to replace the battery for as little as $59 or do-it-yourself kits between $19 and $39 depending on the model.

The caution with the do-it-yourself (DIY) kits however, is that the iPod wasn’t designed for the average user to change the battery. Plenty of people have been able to change their batteries without problem while countless online forums divulge a long list of complications faced as a result of users trying to change the battery.

Many specialty repair shops will do the replacement for little more than the cost of the battery itself. Some offer additional incentives such as iPod Mod’s consumer-friendly lifetime battery replacement program. Under the program, the company will replace the battery once a year for life. Even better, your iPod is back in your hands within 48 hours with 30% more power than Apple’s original battery.

Should you choose to replace the battery yourself, there are a few tips you’ll want to keep in mind:

-Some models like the Nano require soldering directly onto the board. Be sure to check the details of the battery replacement before sending off for a DIY kit.

-Have a small thin tool on hand to pry apart the casing. Once the screws that hold the case together are removed, you still need to apply some force to open it and reveal the circuitry. Many have damaged their cases by trying to pry their iPods apart without the proper tools. Many replacement batteries come with special tools to help pry the case open.

-When disconnecting the battery, don’t remove the rubber pad located on the hard drive.

Regardless of the battery complications, people still love the fun and freedom that the iPod offers. Do a little research before deciding how to handle your battery replacement as it’s a routine that you’ll need to repeat about once every year. Even if you’re not thrilled about the fact that your unit will need to go through major surgery every year, there are customer-friendly iPod specialty companies available to make the process smooth and simple.

Run a tight ship
One of the primary reasons small businesses fail is a lack of discipline and direction. Business owners have vague ideas of goals, but goals are useless without concrete plans on how to reach them.

For example, a business owner wants to make enough money to be self sufficient. A training seminar teaches the owner to turn that fuzzy idea into something more substantial. How much money is needed to be considered self sufficient? When should that goal be reached? How will the business grow to meet that goal?

This quantification of time and money is a critical tool for the private consultant. New clients want cost and time estimates, and an inaccurate estimate can be costly. Estimate too low and you get an angry customer when the bill comes much higher than the estimate. Estimate too high and you might find yourself turning away work thinking you don’t have enough time for it. Project estimation is much easier with the skills learned in a MS training seminar.

Work expands to fill the time
Many small business owners allow the work to dictate the schedule, which is the wrong way around. For example, let’s say a person is given a task with a three-day deadline and completes it. If the same person is given the same task but a four-day deadline, often the task will take four days. We naturally adjust our speed to meet the deadline which is an inefficient use of the time.

Using the techniques learned in a Microsoft Project training seminar, small business owners learn to let schedule dictate the work. By assigning tasks to the schedule and rigidly observing self-imposed project deadlines, many owners find that they suddenly have more time than they thought.

Using the example above, a business owner using the skills from MS training would schedule the four-day task. It would be clear that only three days of work would be needed. By scheduling additional projects into the excess hours, the owner can now complete the task at full speed without wasted time.

A Project training seminar might lead to a new career
Project management skills are in great demand in the UK. Many businesses are struggling and need an outside consultant to help them get organized. A Microsoft training seminar might not only save your own business but could open up a new opportunity for a career. Start your own project management consultancy and let your new knowledge get others back on the right track.

The best training courses try to explain not just the “how” but the “why”, and more importantly the “why not”. All of the features of PowerPoint have their place, but that place may not be in your current presentation.

It’s about the message not the medium
The goal of your presentation is to convey a message. It doesn’t matter how long you spent on the document, how accurate your figures are, or how many animated dancing puppies are on each slide. If your audience walks out without receiving your message, your presentation has failed.

Good PowerPoint courses help you focus on the message. Training classes should show you methods that can emphasize key points in your presentation to drive your message home and how to avoid techniques that are distracting or confusing.

Less is more
Early in PowerPoint courses you learn how to make the basic, boring slide: large, black text on a white background. It is stark, simple, and yet effective.

Colour can be distracting. If the font and background colours don’t contrast sufficiently, your slides are going to be hard to read. If certain text is coloured differently than others, it can cause your viewers to dismiss the uncoloured text completely.

Clip art or background images can also distract your audience away from the facts being presented. Animation is an even bigger problem. Music can help set the mood you are trying to establish, but can also be a jarring counterpoint if not carefully selected.

Used sparingly, special techniques are very powerful
This doesn’t mean you can’t use the skills you take away from a training courses. You just need to be sure you are using them appropriately.

Colour can draw your audience’s attention to particular information, which is sometimes exactly what you want to do. PowerPoint classes show you how to draw their attention to important aspects of the information presented.

Images are also a powerful technique you learn in PowerPoint courses. A graph is more effective than columns of numbers. A presentation on a company’s expansion can be supplemented with a few photographs of the new construction. An image can provide a background during a period in the presentation where the speaker is telling a story rather than presenting statistics.

Pick up useful new techniques
Training courses give you access to tools that let you bring your presentations to a new level. If used with some restraint, these tools allow you to make your presentations more informative and more persuasive.

Numerical solution of differential equations
A Microsoft Excel course can introduce you to macros which can allow you to take calculations to the next level-to the point of writing your own statistical functions. However, Excel macros are written in a language that is interpreted rather than compiled (for you non-programmers out there, read that as “slow rather than fast”) so complex numerical models seem impossible.

I used to use a complex numerical code to model contaminant transport in groundwater. The calculations were fast, but it was clumsy to get data in and out of the applications. A MS course had turned me on to macros, and I realized that I could call this fast code from a macro by turning it into a DLL. The Excel interface provided an easy way to create scenarios, to view the data, and to tweak on settings to see how the model changed. The compiled code provided fast results that Excel couldn’t match. The combination created a powerful and unique tool.

Wine tasting
I’ve recently become a bit of an oenophile, and I’ve started a database of wines I’ve tasted. I track wines by type, country, vineyard, and year. As the information grows, I examine trends. I’ve noticed my highest rated wines are generally Australian, something I might not have otherwise noticed.

An Excel course will illustrate techniques in sorting and filtering that allows you to pull important kernels of information out of a mass of data.

Computer game statistics
I am an avid computer gamer and Excel has been a vital tool. I can provide complex demographic data on my population in The Sims 2. I can calculate engine efficiency of the different locomotives in Railroad Tycoon 3. In Oblivion I can track quests, merchant prices, and trainers.

I can also list my alchemical ingredients and have it tell me which potions I can make. I can track the changing economy in Sid Meier’s Pirates, color coding prices so I can easily see the best ports to sell my plunder. A course in Excel can teach you about features such as conditional formatting or database functions that make these kinds of workbooks possible.

Learn more fun uses from a Microsoft Excel course
Excel is not just about numbers, as these examples are meant to illustrate. The techniques picked up in a MS Excel course can inspire you to use Excel for tasks you may have never considered. There is more to this software than you think, so get ready to explore its full potential in a Excel course.

Use the Alt field to reach all viewers
One problem with images is that not everyone can see them. Some visitors may be vision impaired and “viewing” your page on software that reads the text to them. Others might have images turned off so they can browse the web faster. If you put important information in your images, those visitors may be frustrated and leave, leading to lost business. Alt fields are also important places to insert keywords to enhance your search engine ranking.

When Dreamweaver courses teach you how to insert images into your web pages, they will discuss the Alt field on the property inspector. This is a line of text that will be displayed in browsers that have images turned off, or will be read to vision impaired visitors. By making your web site accessible to all users, you are able to serve a larger customer base and take a step toward improving your search engine ranking.

Use image maps for easy site navigation
Basic Dreamweaver courses demonstrate how easy it is to add images to your web site. At its simplest, an image is simply a decoration on the page. It is easy to turn the entire image into a link to allow the user to click on a thumbnail to see the full size image. Heat map studies have shown that users are more likely to click on images than on hyperlinked text.

A more sophisticated use of an image taught in Dreamweaver courses is to allow the user to click on different parts of the image to go to different destinations. For example, a travel agent could use a map of Europe to allow users to easily select their destination country and list hotels and other amenities in that region.

Give a page some flair with a background image
Most images on web pages are foreground images that the text flows around. Dreamweaver courses teach students how to add a background image that will display behind the text. A simple texture can give a page the appearance of parchment or vellum. A landscaping company might want a background of lush vegetation. Another company might want copy of the company logo behind the text on every page like a watermark.

A background image can add sophistication to a page and can even transmit subtle messages to the visitor. However, care must be used that such images don’t interfere with the text. The colours should be muted and low-contrast and the final product should be viewed at a variety of resolutions to be sure the desired effect is maintained.

Let’s look one of the early phases of project management, defining phases and tasks, and show how Microsoft Project training can simplify this process.

Define and enter tasks
Clear task definition is one of the challenges of project management and Microsoft Project training can help users understand this important step.

A task must have a clear beginning and end so the manager can see when it is complete. The level of detail depends on the scope of the project. Too much detail requires constant updates and wastes time, while too little detail means a manager may not know a project is running behind until too late.

Students learn about two kinds of tasks in Microsoft Project training: one-time and recurring. One-time tasks are entered as easily as typing in the task name. Recurring tasks also need recurrence pattern (daily, weekly, etc.) and range of recurrence.

Project management pre-planning often uses other software and Microsoft Project training demonstrates methods to import tasks from other locations. A task list can be imported from Outlook 2003. A variety of task data can be imported from other file formats such as Excel, Access, or Microsoft SQL Server. If nothing else, task information can be simply copied and pasted.

Group tasks into summary tasks
Once all the tasks are entered, group them into an outline to make it easier to see related tasks together or see how different tasks interrelate.

Microsoft Project training shows how related tasks can be grouped under a summary task, which is a major phase or sub-phase of a project. The summary tasks combine any subtask values such as cost into sum values. Since these values are calculated, they cannot be edited at the summary task level. Instead, the planner must edit the underlying subtasks.

The summary tasks give a high-level view of the project and make it easy to monitor a project’s progress. If a summary task is running behind, examination of the subtasks reveals which of them is the bottleneck.

Go back and fill in the detail
Once a list of tasks has been generated, Microsoft Project training shows how more detail can be added to each one. Notes and images give more detail about a task. Project related documents can be loaded and assigned to the project as a whole or to specific tasks on the list. Information such as cost and work required help define a task further. The more information available, the more accurate the final project management plan will be.

There is a vast array of on-line solutions available to you that can provide answers to MS Office questions quickly.

F1 - your best friend
Every professional application has extensive help documentation available, usually accessible by pressing the F1 key or clicking on the help menu. You can either browse the file to find your answer or type a phrase into the search window to get instant answers.

Help files are great for basic or even advanced functionality. However they focus on how the application works, not how it doesn’t work, so are less useful when you have problems. They are also no help if you don’t know the right phrase to search on; you can’t find help on how to use a widget if the help file calls it a doodad.

Knowledge bases
Software manufacturers often have extensive knowledge bases at their web sites. These take the help file one step further, illustrating techniques beyond what on-line documentation does. They can also be excellent troubleshooting sources.

Copying and pasting an error message into a knowledge base can give specific help on your problem. But knowledge bases suffer from some of the same limitations as help files, most notably the “I don’t know what to call it” syndrome.

Official support forums
Official support forums can be an important addition to a knowledge base, allowing users to ask a wider range of questions. They can get those questions answered by experts who are well versed in all aspects of the applications.

The problem is that most software companies don’t offer support forums, since they require too much employee time to be effective. Those that do are often swamped by users, so it can seem hard to get anyone’s attention.

User group support forums
The lack of official support forums has spawned the creation of many user groups with their own support forums. There may be expert users in the crowd who can provide insight on troubleshooting and techniques that would be hard to find in some dusty manual.

Then again, these people are under no obligation. There is no guarantee that a question will be answered quickly or at all. Nor is there any guarantee a given forum will actually have those “expert users” you need. Plus, some people on these forums are just jerks.

Training Centre User Support Forums
Some MS Office training centres fill that support gap with User Support Forums. Originally set up for customers of training courses, some like the one at Best Training are now open to everyone. Here, Microsoft Certified Trainers answer questions on Microsoft product, usually within just a few hours.

Training Centre User Support forums offer a nice balance of benefits. You can explore open ended topics without tedious browsing of help files or knowledge bases. Answers are customized and relevant to your unique situation, not just general instructions. You can also rely on professional demeanor and certified experts.

Smart data entry
One Excel programmer created a spreadsheet for the marketing department. They could copy and paste entries from phone directory websites into the sheet, and a macro would automatically parse the important data from the entry and create prospect lists. These lists could be imported into the company’s database without errors that might have been introduced through traditional data entry.

An Excel training course will illustrate many techniques that can reduce errors from data entry. Cells can be restricted to certain ranges or data types, other cells can be locked out so users can’t accidentally change them, and macros can automatically process any new data found.

Task tracking
Excel might seem like overkill for a to-do list, but an Excel training course can add a new dimension. Many people use Excel to create a list of quantifiable tasks along with a due date. This allows them to track the percentage of a task that should be complete by a given date so they know how much work needs to be accomplished to stay on track.

What movie should I see?
One self-described “nerdy and obsessive” woman created charts of all movies that she wanted to see, colour coded by the price she was willing to pay for tickets. Her friends could contribute their opinions, and she could create a weighted score to plan their movie nights. An Excel training course can illustrate the database and conditional formatting functions that such a spreadsheet would require.

This is my son, #N/A
An Excel training course can name your child. One couple created a spreadsheet that used objective metrics to find the best name for their son. They rated all their choices by factors from how the name sounded compared to their first son’s name, to what his initials would spell. In the end, they ignored the results and went with their gut reaction.

Looking for love
Finally, there is the young man who set up a database of the women he met. By using the filtering and sorting techniques you could learn in an Excel training course, he was able to create a spreadsheet which would objectively tell him which women were worthy of his interest.

And people think romance is dead.

An Excel training course lets you take your spreadsheet to its limits
There are countless other examples, including shopping lists generated from a recipe database, a functioning version of PacMan, solvers for cryptograms and sudoku puzzles, wedding planners, dance choreography, and timing of labour contractions. You probably won’t learn any of these in an Excel training course, but you just might find techniques that let you do your own fun things.

When a company does suspect that a computer crime is underway, bringing in a computer forensics team is usually the only way to discover the truth. With more intelligent crimes come more intelligent cover ups. The standard computer user may not find a trace of evidence on the employee’s computer, but computer forensics can expose a secret world of lies, deceit, and crafty cover ups.

Some of the most common inside employee computer crimes are:

-Embezzlement
-Fraud
-Insider trading
-Bribery
-Money laundering
-Identity theft
-Intellectual property theft

How White Collar Criminals Try to Cover Their Tracks:

Someone who is intentionally engaging in illegal activities will take often predicable precautions to cover their tracks. Some protective measures that a criminal may use to avoid being caught are:

-Wiping tools
-Encrypting data
-Secure deletion tools
-Remote data storage devices
-Steganography (writing hidden messages)
-Digital data compression

Although tech-savvy criminals can make the process of uncovering data difficult, it i’s not impossible. Every digital action leaves a footprint and even data that appears to be “deleted” to the standard user can be uncovered using computer forensics.

When Computer Forensics Evidence Doesn’t Stand Up in Court:

Sometimes employees will walk away without punishment even with undeniable evidence that they are guilty. When data recovered through computer forensics doesn’t stand up in court, it’s usually not the data itself, but the way in which it was collected. While an internal IT employee trained in computer forensics is an invaluable asset to any company, forensic evidence to be used in court is often best handled by an impartial, outside party.

A court will consider several things when considering the merit of the data collected such as:

-Who gathered the information (were they an impartial party?)
-Credentials and training of the person collecting the data
-Who had access to the data once collected?
-What was the chain of custody of the evidence?
-What security measures were in place to ensure interested parties did not have access to the information?

For companies that will choose to use their in house IT team to gather information, it is essential to have a well-documented standard process for handling data, detailing the chain of custody and the way in which the data will be stored. When computer forensics is handled inside of a company, the integrity of the data after it has been collected is at a much higher risk than when choosing an independent third party. Using the proper tools and procedures can help to mitigate that risk.

Gumball machines - the foundation of the vending business

For all the progress over the last few decades, there is still a special place in the heart of the American consumer for the good old-fashioned gumball machine.

Gumball machines are a great place for the budding entrepreneur to start. You can start a business with a single machine with an upfront cost of less than $100. You won’t need a truck or a van, since the machines are small enough to fit in your car.

Once you get your first machine, you’ll need to find a business that will allow you to place it on their property. By offering the owner a percentage of the profits, you allow their business to make extra money.

Team up with good partners

One key to a successful business is the partnerships you make, and one of the most important partners will be your supplier. You need a dependable business that has high-quality vending machines and a wide variety of refills so you can appeal to as many customers as possible. Gumball Machine Warehouse is the fastest growing manufacturer of vending machines and can provide an important foundation to your vending business.

The other important partners are going to be the business owners who agree to let you place your gumball machines on their property. Your vending business can’t survive without them so be sure to show your gratitude. Many business owners will appreciate the service you offer and the extra income your machines provide for them.

Your vending business grows with you

Once your first vending machine is placed, you come around once or twice a month to refill it and collect the cash. As you start to make a profit, invest in more gumball machines and scout locations for them. The more machines you have, the more your income, and the steadier that income will be.

One advantage to gumball machines over other vending machines is that they appeal to the owners of retail businesses. These businesses are usually open evenings and weekends, allowing you to maintain a vending business while working another job. You can bring in steady extra income with just a few hours a week.

At some point you might be ready to break away from the 9-to-5 cubicle game and go to managing your vending machine business full time. You can expand into candy machines, soda machines, and all kinds of specialty vending services. The more experience you get, the more easily you will be able to spot good locations before anyone else can.

A gumball machine might just be the first step on the road to owning your own successful vending business.