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Extra! Extra! Getting into the Newspaper Business (writing news articles) The news is now and those who write it know the stories first. Getting into the newspaper business can be difficult because of the competitive nature of the news. The successful reporter needs to be organized, efficient and able to work under extreme pressure. The flip side is that a newspaper writer is almost always a celebrity. If he or she works for a large newspaper, his name may be known all over the country. If he only works for a small town paper, that town will recognize his name. Writing news articles involves ups and downs, so read on to learn more about it. Newspaper Overview A newspaper office is an interesting place to be. Bright and early at eight o’clock in the morning, the office is quiet and dark. As the rest of the world is counting down the minutes to quitting time, the reporters’ desks start to fill up with hurried typing and flipping through notes. Well after dark, the last stories get wrapped up and put to bed. They may have been changed a couple of time as new developments occurred. Some stories written will make it to the front page. Some stories though will get significantly cut or cut from the paper all together. Writing news articles may be very rewarding, but it also requires a different kind of lifestyle than most careers. Becoming a Reporter If you are interested in writing news articles, you may also be interested in learning a little bit more about what is involved in becoming a reporter. Writing is a very important piece of being a successful reporter. Writing news articles involves close attention to journalistic style. Most full time reporters have journalism degrees. Those that don’t have learned to imitate the style with precision. A good journalist must learn the art of interviewing a subject. Freelancing If the full time reporting job is not for you, look into writing news articles on a freelance basis. It will help if you develop a relationship with the editor of the newspaper you intend to write for. Since so many people want to see their names in print, it can be hard to break into the freelance newspaper business. Writing news articles on a freelance basis requires a good eye for newsworthy topics as well as a thorough and fair representation of the facts. Freelancing takes practice. Don’t be discouraged if the editor doesn’t like your work initially. If you keep trying, you’re bound to stumble onto something great. Once you are in and an editor likes you, you’ll be able to work more freely. What’s News? Before you are ready for writing news articles, you should be ready to judge for yourself what news is and what it is not. Regular reporters are assigned stories to write, so they rarely have to come up with topics on their own. Freelancers write their stories and then try to sell them. The first rule about deciding what is news is that if someone asks you to write about it, it’s not news. You should have to dig up the good stories. If you need inspiration, just start talking to people. Get to know a few of the prominent people in your community. Build relationships and keep asking questions. The stories will come out eventually. You can also take a tour of your community with your eyes wide open. Look for anything suspicious, dangerous or exceedingly beautiful. Take your camera wherever you go just in case you happen to be an eyewitness to something newsworthy. Writing news articles can be done as a career or as a freelance pursuit. Whichever you choose, you’re sure to lead a life with some adventure. The news is always happening and it’s always something new.

Getting Paid to Work for Yourself: Writing Grants and Grants for Writers (grants for writers) Do you have a fantastic idea to improve the world? Are you frustrated because no one is addressing the issues that you know are important? Writing is a powerful tool that can bring change and improvement to the world. Grants are available from various sources in order to fund important work that is not being done in the corporate world. If you are inspired to make improvements and make life better, you may be an ideal candidate for grant writing. How Do Grants Work? Grants are sums of money awarded by the government or other entities to those who can use that money effectively. Candidates for grants are usually those who can serve their community with the money given to them. The way it works is that you start with an idea. Your idea could benefit your community in areas that range from tourism to health care. If you have the capabilities to implement your idea, you then decide how much money it would take to do so. At that point you begin to write. You must convince those with the grant money of why they should give it to you. The writing of the grant may be the most important step in the process of receiving that grant money. Writing a Grant Writing a grant is a very precise process. It involves explaining very clearly what your idea for improvement is as well as why it is a worthwhile pursuit. In the actual grant writing, you must be very clear in your explanations as well as persuasive in your arguments. You can find actual templates or set up guidelines online or in style handbooks. Those resources will help you ensure that you are following proper procedures in writing grants. Grants for writers are potential job opportunities. Since some brilliant minds do not necessarily have the appropriate writing talent, they may hire a writer to actually complete the grant proposal. Writers have more opportunities to enter into the grant writing process than just being the executer though. Is it Possible to Get Grants to Write? Grants for writers are definitely available. What would you write that would be worthy of a grant? There are many possibilities. You may be able to write a guidebook that fulfills a community need. A tourism guide would be of particular interest to the government. Keep in mind though, that only unfulfilled needs will merit grants. Grants for writers are not given to those who are writing redundantly on a topic or who are writing about an issue that no one cares about. You may be thinking that writing is free. Aside from the actual printing and publishing costs, there is no money required to produce text. Especially if you think of writing as opposed to creating a clean burning engine, the costs are not even comparable. The great thing is that even if you don’t need very much money to get the words on the page, there are grants available just to write you a paycheck. On top of any costs incurred through research and development of your ideas, you will also get paid should you be awarded grant money. There are two different meanings for the phrase, ‘grants for writers.’ A grant may need to be written by a qualified writer. The other possibility is that a writer could actually be awarded grant money for their contributions. Writing is a powerful tool. It can persuade and benefit people from where it sits on the page. For that reason, writers and grants are inseparable. If you have a great idea that needs funding, consider writing a grant. If you are not a writer yourself, be comforted by the fact that there is someone out there who can do the writing for you.

Web Hosting - Bandwidth and Server Load, What's That? Two key performance metrics will impact every web site owner sooner or later: bandwidth and server load. Bandwidth is the amount of network capacity available, and the term actually covers two different aspects. 'Bandwidth' can mean�the measure of network capacity for web traffic back and forth at a given time. Or, it sometimes is used to mean the amount that is allowed for some interval, such as one month. Both are important. As files are transferred, emails sent and received, and web pages accessed, network bandwidth is being used. If you want to send water through a pipe, you have to have a pipe. Those pipes can vary in size and the amount of water going through them at any time can also vary. Total monthly bandwidth is a cap that hosting companies place on sites in order to share fairly a limited resource. Companies monitor sites in order to keep one site from accidentally or deliberately consuming all the network capacity. Similar considerations apply to instantaneous bandwidth, though companies usually have such large network 'pipes' that it's much less common for heavy use by one user to be a problem. Server load is a more generic concept. It often refers, in more technical discussions, solely to CPU utilization. The CPU (central processing unit) is the component in a computer that processes instructions from programs, ordering memory to be used a certain way, moving files from one place to the next and more. Every function you perform consumes some CPU and its role is so central (hence the name) that it has come to be used as a synonym for the computer itself. People point to their case and say 'That is the CPU'. But, the computer actually has memory, disk drive(s) and several other features required in order to do its job. Server load refers, in more general circumstances, to the amount of use of each of those other components in total. Disk drives can be busy fetching files which they do in pieces, which are then assembled in memory and presented on the monitor, all controlled by instructions managed by the CPU. Memory capacity is limited. It's often the case that not all programs can use as much as they need at the same time. Special operating system routines control who gets how much, when and for how long, sharing the total 'pool' among competing processes. So, how 'loaded' the server is at any given time or over time is a matter of how heavily used any one, or all, of these components are. Why should you care? Because every web site owner will want to understand why a server becomes slow or unresponsive, and be able to optimize their use of it. When you share a server with other sites, which is extremely common, the traffic other sites receive creates load on the server that can affect your site. There's a limited amount you can do to influence that situation. But if you're aware of it, you can request the company move you to a less heavily loaded server. Or, if the other site (which you generally have no visibility to) is misbehaving, it's possible to get them moved or banned. But when you have a dedicated server, you have much more control over load issues. You can optimize your own site's HTML pages and programs, tune a database and carry out other activities that maximize throughput. Your users will see that as quicker page accesses and a more enjoyable user experience.