Burning Desire -- Golden Key or Red Herring?

Acres of Diamonds... you've read the famous story, or at least had it related to you.

A farmer hears tales of diamonds and begins dreaming of vast riches. He sells his farm and hikes off over the horizon, never to be heard from again. Rumors say that years later he died destitute, never having found the diamonds he spent his life seeking.

Meanwhile, the man who bought that farm found a large and "interesting looking" stone in a stream that ran through the property. He put the stone on his mantle where a visitor recognized the large stone as a rough diamond.

It turned out to be the Hope Diamond, the largest such stone ever found. That stream bed was littered with diamonds, and the new owner became fabulously wealthy. No doubt he also lived happily ever after.

But doesn't something in that story set strangely with you?

What about the guy with the burning desire and the grand vision? He ended up disappointed and broke, dying far from his family and friends. Not a happy ending.

Meanwhile, the guy who just wanted to do some farming got all the riches. Make no mistake, the new owner already had money, or he could not have bought the land. There's nothing in this story to make us think he was dreaming about riches, vast or otherwise. No burning desire. But he got the goodies.

Was this just another little prank, courtesy of a mischievous Universe?

Or is it possible to get good things coming your way with only mild desire -- maybe even a calm indifference?

Many inspirational writers, including Napoleon Hill, have assured us that a burning desire is one of the prerequisites of acquiring a fortune. I've even said it myself, although I added the qualifier that the powerful desire is not so much for the Universe. It's for you, to help you overcome and battle past your own doubts and resistances.

But haven't you seen people who seem to coast into good things, like the farmer who found the Hope Diamond? I've known people like that. In fact, after I'd been in Japan for a while and had set up a "channel" for business to flow through, I could just think about receiving more money, and I'd get an immediate surge of business within hours.

This pattern went on for 16 or 17 years, till I shut down my writing and editing business. So it wasn't an occasional fluke.

Now, I must admit I had a burning determination to stay in Japan, and for the first year or two I never knew if things would work out for me or not. Then, things started shifting my way, and they stayed that way. Why?

Truthfully, I don't think the deciding factor was the desire. Lots of people come here to Japan, but never quite find out how to stay. Many, many foreigners who come here end up losing their toehold and slinking back home.

On the other hand, the ones who do stay are often not especially hard working, dedicated, sensible or qualified. More than one long-time English teacher or copywriter remains here because they enjoy the hard drinking culture, the many women who like foreigners, or the feel of being a round peg in a square hole.

Achieving their dream doesn't appear to have a lot to do with burning desire.

Instead, it seems to be more a matter of what they can allow themselves to have. Some people call this a sense of deserving. Others call it a sense of entitlement. No matter what term you use, it's basically the same thing. Either way, it's governed by who you think you are and what circumstances you accept as appropriate for you.

In other words, it all starts from who you are in your own mind.

A Quick Guide To Google Analytics

Google, the best search engine ever built, has been famous for everything that it provides – free of course. It has even increased the size of the Email (G-mail) storage to 2.6 GB. Since then, it has started launching a huge variety of products & services, which contains 50 online services. It was in May 2005 that Google acquired a company named Urchin Software Corporation which provided a web service called 'Urchin on Demand'. Henceforth, the service was renamed to Google Analytics.

Google Analytics is an excellent solution for all the website related needs, starting from the source which brought the visitors to your site to how they interacted with your website. Hence, it provides good results as to how the site should be designed/ modified so as to attract more visitors or how to do better marketing for your product online. Some of the features of Google Analytics are given below.

Firstly, it is much easier to use. With the special AdWords feature, Google provides more flexibility with the keywords and also provides you immediate ROI results. It also provides good suggestions as to which keywords can make the site or product more attractive. Nextly, it focuses on only those modifications (in your website) which will gain you profits. As the service is available in many languages (English, German, Spanish, Korean, etc.) there is a wider scope for improvement of the site along with the marketing campaign.

As Analytics is powered by the same server which runs Google, it can be reliably used for even top corporate projects. Also, it is very much easy to use. For e.g. instead of purchasing or downloading some software or script, just pasting the tracking code in the web pages directly begins the tracking. Google Analytics also provides Executive summaries of the conversions, traffic directly to you so that you don't have to hunt for the reports. You can then comfortably compare keywords, revenue & basically, the performance of the website. It also provides you the comparative reports of the performance, for e.g. if you need to compare this weeks performance with last week's you can very well get the entire tabular data. This service extends so much that you can tally this winter's reports with last summer's reports. Google Analytics can also be used for e-commerce websites, as you can compare revenues, arrange & modify campaigns & get a whole view of the metrics

Another special feature of Google Analytics is the Funnel visualization. Sometimes it so happens that a visitor starts exploring your site but quits in the middle. Mostly, it is due to puzzling or maze-like data or irrelevant information on the site that confuses the visitor. Google tracks the positions of the quitting & hence provides you the opportunity of modifying that particular area of the site. Google also provides you the segmented visitor report, which includes sorting of visitor information by location, by action, by new versus returning visitor, making it easier to compare the keywords and the traffic. Geotargeting helps in tracking the location of the visitor and also gives your information about markets in various areas & their potentials. Hence, it provides you a better option of the market analysis & gives you more options of setting up or modifying your campaign in order to increase the market value of your website.

The Mind Set Of Success - In The Beginning, There Was A Thought

Thoughts are the starting point to all that we do, both good and bad, either success or failure. People underestimate the power of thought. Thoughts are things. They are energy. Every thought leaves its trace upon our minds.

What we let into our minds and hold onto governs what our circumstances and our actions are.

Each individual has the seeds of success within him. The seeds of success are the thoughts that they carry around with them. We are all the product of our own thinking and beliefs.

"Every thought seed sown or allowed to fall into the mind, and take root there, produces its own, blossoming sooner or later into act, and bearing its own fruitage of opportunity and circumstances."

James Allen – "As a Man Thinketh"

Sustained mind control is one of the most difficult endeavors one may undertake but it is also one of the most rewarding.

Create and control your thoughts and you can become what you want to become. A person can live the way they want to live when they learn to think what they want to think.

You are what you think about most of the time. A person who is seeking success and a higher life, strives to keep their mind on the positive and the constructive. We gradually grow into what we are holding in our minds.

"We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. And with our thoughts, we make our world.

Buddha

If you want to make positive changes in your life, you need to begin with what is in your mind. Our thoughts are the tools with which we build our lives.

The key is to keep your mind on the big picture and the goals leading to it. Think only of what you want, not on what you don't want.

Replace negative thinking, unproductive worrying, and thoughts of fear with positive, imaginative, and constructive thinking.

"Your life is controlled by your thoughts. Your thoughts are controlled by your goals."

Earl Nightingale

A great way to keep your mind on what you want is to carry a goal card with you. The goal card lists the top goals you are working on. Just thinking of your goal, particularly, the end result, keeps your mind productive and under your control.

Keeping your mind busy with productive matters will prevent negative thoughts from creeping in.

"If you fail to control your own mind, you may be sure you will control nothing else."

Napoleon Hill"

Mind control is a result of self-discipline and habit. You either control your mind or it controls you."

Napoleon Hill

A controlled, focused mind pays attention to thoughts, words, actions, and plans. A person who lets their mind wander aimlessly around will never achieve lasting success.

Hold your ideal in your mind until it becomes a mental habit. Focus on it to the exclusion of all other things until it becomes a reality.

Slowly but surely, sustained positive thinking creates an irresistible momentum. People begin to notice a change in you. More opportunities come your way. You feel more confident. Gradually your outer environment begins to grow in the likeness of your inner environment.

The Many Uses of Phone Cards

One of the best ways to keep in touch with your family, kids and employees without having to pay for a sky rocketing phone bill when the month ends is to have a phone card. Most people who have been using phone cards found out that using it for long distance calling really make sense. Phone cards have various practical uses such as:

For your kids or Employees to Stay in Touch with You
If you're the type of person that gives phone cards so that your kids or your employees can keep in touch with you, be very sure that the cards have been purchased from a trusted company. You'll find some phone cards undesirable due to their busy signals. This means that, when you call in, you will hear a recording that says the circuits are all busy at the moment and you should try to call up again later. This kind of phone cards can't do any good especially if the call is very important or urgent and you are unable to contact someone.

You want to know how your child is doing from time to time, but you are worried that he/she is unable to memorize the number of the phone card? This trouble is easy to work out. You can retain their phone cards and just recharge it every now and then so that your child can call you up anytime. If you are recharging the same phone card consistently, there is no need for your kid to memorize more than one contact number. Should you plan to do this, just see to it that the phone card has been purchased from a highly-reputable phone card company that will be around over time so that you can keep on recharging the card.

For travel
Among the most common uses of phone cards is for traveling. This will save you from paying big bucks on hotel incidentals particularly if there's a need for you to call in your office or home or any person that you want to talk to while you are on travel. Phone cards are extremely used for journey overseas.

For students
Students, especially those who are taking their college studies in another country or state, usually use phone cards to call home from their dormitories. Phone cards are advisable in case you do not have a long-distance provider. Some people choose phone cards than long distance service providers for the reason that these cards help minimize the use of phone for the month.

For home use
If you find it hard to get an excellent long distance phone service at a reasonable cost, then phone cards can surely help you out. These cards can be the answer to your needs for various reasons. With phone cards, you pay as you go so there will never be a chance that you have to pay for a gigantic long distance phone bill when the month ends. As long as you charge your long distance calls on your phone card, expect that you only have to pay for basic service. However, you have to go through the hassle of dialing first the phone card number before you can make a call.

Another downside of using phone cards is that the calls made using these cards usually give uncommon caller identification number to the call recipient. So if you are calling a person who simply does not answer the phone if they don't know the caller, make sure you inform them that you are using phone cards so your home number will not appear on their caller ID.

Top 5 Google Adwords Campaign Mistakes

You have heard or maybe experienced the Adwords horror stories. Mistakes can be quite costly with Google Adwords
let's take a look at the most common adwords mistakes newbies make and how they can be avoided.

1)Poor landing page
2)Turning on the Content Network
3)Daily budget too high
4)Grouping Keywords
5)bidding too low


Poor Landing Page

A decent landing page is a key factor in sales conversions. There are many different styles of pages, and going into
great detail what makes a good landing page would be a full article itself but basically, organized layout, proper
use of graphics, getting your message across clearly & no frames are the main components to a quality landing page.
When using Adwords Google really takes the content of your site as a main factor. Whatever keywords you are
advertising, you should try to have on your page. Not only will the searcher identify this as relevant information,
and Google will reward you with a better quality score which can mean higher rankings, cheaper minimum bids and they
can shave the cost of the clicks down from what you have bid. Google rewards relevancy and Adwords is no exception.


Turning on the Content Network

The content network is plagued with click fraud and poor quality traffic. When I started with Adwords I didn't
realize this and left the content network on and lost money. That being said, once you have a handle on Adwords you
can use the content network just make sure to bid very low. Personally I don't bid over 0.06 cents a click. Some
people claim that they profit higher and get better sales conversions from the content network than they do with the
search network. I have never experienced this myself.


Daily Budget Too High

Putting the daily budget up higher than the recommended amount used to be recommended by top marketers to increase
traffic. Recently Google has increased the impressions on campaigns that use this technique. The problem is that the
increase is on keywords broad match phrases that aren't targeted very well which leads to a huge spike in conversions.

and a poor CTR. This will hurt your Quality score and can really hinder your campaign's performance. Another reason
you want to be careful when raising your daily budget high is sometimes marketers forget that they have done so.
They might not check their account for a couple of days and when they do they end up blowing through a lot of money.

Grouping Keywords

When creating your ad groups you want to use similar keywords in each ad group with at least one keyword the same.
eg. ad group - electric guitars, keywords:

electric guitars
cheap electric guitars
vintage electric guitars

The root keyword in the above example is electric guitars and this phrase should be in every keyword you would use in
this group. The root keyword should also be used in your ad:

Cheap Electric Guitars
Save huge on electric guitars
Huge selection & Free shipping
http://example.com/guitarstore

Grouping your ads properly will help you tailor your ad and landing page to your targeted keywords and will help
Google serve your ads on the keywords you want.


Bidding Too Low

Bidding too low can leave you buried at the bottom of the pack getting little exposure. When you do have a visitor
interested in your products, they will typically keep searching after they have left your website and compare you
to your competitors. If they have forgotten the name of your website (they usually do) They will most likely do another
search to find you again, if you are not on the first page they may not dig to the other pages for you even if they
found you on the 3rd page originally, they may not be willing to do it again people get tired of comparing prices
and searching after a while and burying yourself may save you money in bids but can also cost you a lot in sales.

This covers some of the major mistakes and I sincerely hope this article saves people from losing money.

Making More Money With Affiliate Feeds

I love my RSS reader. I have a gazillion website, blog and news feeds set up in there, and I get the latest information from all of my favorite sites. That means I can be one of the first to share it with you. And RSS Reader 1.0 has a doorbell sound effect that rings when there are new feed entries to read. So wherever I am in the house I hear it and take a look. I also get the additional bonus of six barking dogs to announce the new feed entries.

As an aside, I noticed something very interesting. Because of my RSS reader I was one of the first to cover adsenseblacklist.com, a terrific new web site that will help you screen out the cheesy AdSense ads. Because I was on it first, I popped up in the first five Google search results for this keyword for a while, which drove traffic to this site. So watch your RSS reader.

All that being said, we are beginning to see RSS used as auto update feature for websites and blogs. The first application was RSS feeds that automagically update your site with articles in your subject area from a free article site. The rationale is that this will give you fresh content that search engines will eat right up. They call it spiderfood. I call it a dumb idea. Have you read some of these articles? There's a wide disparity in quality from one to another, and I would never allow articles to be put blindly on my web site without my approval. For crying out loud…you spend hours and hours of time getting your site to a certain level of quality to build a certain level of trust with your visitors, and then you're going to allow some hack to put his content on your site without your approval, just so maybe a search engine will come a few extra times? That's just stupid.

Need more content? Turn off the football game and write some.

Seriously…if you want to use articles as supplemental content, hand pick them. Just like famous Internet marketer Wille Crawford did on his blog when he picked my article Chitika - What Went Wrong (a little humor there). I have at least 20 - 30 articles in an Outlook Folder that I'm going to post on the site as soon as a I get a chance. That's the good news - the bad news is I went through 500 or so articles to get those.

Closer to home, affiliate merchants are starting to get into datafeeds, which are sort of like file-based RSS feeds. Datafeeds provide direct access to merchant products using text files. The file contains a list of products, services, special offers, coupons or other information that you can display on your site. You then upload that information to your server and use some kind of tool or script to display the different items in that file. There are programs on CJ, LinkShare and Shareasale that have datafeeds.

While others are absolutely gaga over this, I look at it with the same jaundiced eye as the whole article thing - it all depends on your niche, the level of trust you want to maintain with your customer, and how technical you want to get.

If you have a niche that has a well-matched affiliate program, you might try a product feed. If you want to put up an occasional coupon or special offer, you can probably do it by hand rather than going through all of this mumbo jumbo.

We are starting to see products that convert merchant datafeeds to RSS, allowing you to auto-display products from affiiliate programs. Again, if you can maintain relevance across the entire affiliate line, it's a good idea. If not, you're not going to get conversion anyway, so you're wasting your time. Personally I want everything including the advertising, to have relevance to my visitors.

There's always a shortcut - in this case you're shortcutting the time and effort involved in finding relevant offers for your visitors. That may work with some sites.

If you want to know more or give it a shot, here are some resources:

1. FiveStarAffiliatePrograms - They love the idea, but I think they're plugging their own tool.
2. Smartsville has a nice synopsis. Oh…they also have a tool.

One last thing - while I was out looking for links and information, this is what someone said about using datafeeds:

Soon, I will let you know how I put this all on autopilot and never have to think about the blog again after I spend a few hours setting it up!

How do you think that blog is doing?

Great Portraits in the Great Outdoors

If you have ever photographed your weekend outing, family reunion, or a special vacation getaway with your friends or family, you know that outdoor photography can present some very special challenges. This is true even for the most seasoned photographer. Direct sunlight can be harsh. Unwanted objects can interfere with your composition. Proper color rendering can be problematic. And many times, good old Mother Nature is just not feeling cooperative. Perhaps, there's not much that can be done about Mother Nature, but with some practice and patience you can overcome many of the other challenges you face as an outdoor portrait photographer. Along my journey as a photographer I've learned some outdoor techniques that may benefit those who choose to follow:
1. Keep it simple. The subtle pattern and color of an adobe wall, the simple repeating pattern and muted tones of planks on a fishing pier, or the uniform color of a patch of blue bonnets, snapdragons, or yellow primrose can serve as wonderful backdrops for your outdoor portraits. When you are composing your portrait, you want your subject to be the focal point that all eyes are drawn to. Busy patterns, large areas of excessively vibrant colors (especially a mixture of different colors), or over imposing forms in your foreground or background that are not treated properly, can really distract from her if you are not careful.

2. Control the depth of field (the range of distances from your camera that are in focus). The edge of a forest, or mountains in the distance may render beautifully as a backdrop for your subject with proper control over the depth of field. If you have an SLR camera, you can adjust your depth of field to bring the background more or less out of focus relative to your subject. This serves as eye control for the observer of your portrait. The eye is naturally drawn to what is brightest and most sharply focused. If your subject is sharply focused relative to the background, she will be accentuated as the focal point of your portrait. Controlling the depth of field is accomplished by adjusting your aperture setting (the size of your lens opening, expressed in f-stops). The smaller the f-stop the larger the opening of your lens, and the smaller the depth of field will be. For instance, when you see a photograph in a nature magazine of a beautiful butterfly in a patch of flowers, and the butterfly is in razor sharp focus but the flowers are gently blurred; this was accomplished by the photographer using a narrow depth of field (small f-stop setting). For bright light situations this may be difficult to achieve. For any given intensity of light, as you open up the aperture (lower the f-stop) you must increase the shutter speed (thereby decreasing exposure time) to avoid over exposure. Increasing the shutter speed generally reduces resolution in the image. Experiment to find the combination of aperture setting and shutter speed that gives the result you desire.

3. Be mindful of distracting objects behind your subject. What is plainly a bush, a mailbox, or a birdhouse to your eye, can appear like an extra appendage growing out of the top of your subject's head in your two dimensional portrait. You may get some interesting effects this way, but generally they will not make a good impression on your subject. Take the time to find an interesting angle that eliminates distracting objects from the background.

4. Control the light. "Down light" (e.g. harsh midday light) is generally undesirable. Due to the shadow patterns it creates, it can bring out the worst in your subject … can anyone say, "Raccoon eyes"? "Lateral light" (e.g. early morning and late afternoon light) is much more desirable. Lateral light can be controlled and directed to create beautiful shadow patterns across the face of your subject. There is a saying with many photographers who shoot outdoors, "the first tree in the forest is best" for a background. The reason is, the canopy of the first tree controls the harsh down light, but being on the edge of the forest, you still have lateral light to work with. The same idea holds true for porches or the edge of any other type of overhang. Professional photographers sometimes use shade cloth and reflectors to block down light while directing available lateral light to enhance their subject and achieve their desired effect.

5. Correct the color. Before the digital age, corrective filters or special films were mostly used for color correction in outdoor portraits. With digital cameras, the color can be corrected using your white balance setting (expressed as color temperature in degrees Kelvin). Most digital cameras today do a pretty good job of automatically adjusting the white balance for outdoor exposures. If you would like to experiment with your manual white balance setting use the table below as a guide. For a more detailed understanding of the meaning of color temperature correction, see the article at: http://www.sizes.com/units/color_temperature.htm

Temperature Typical Sources
1000K....... Candles; oil lamps
2400K....... Early morning sunrise
3200K....... Tungsten light bulbs
4000K....... Fluorescent
5200K....... Typical daylight; electronic flash
6000K....... Cloudy Day
7000K....... Shade


Keeping your composition simple, controlling the depth of field, and eliminating objects that may distract from your subject, all help to accentuate your subject as the focal point of your portrait. Controlling the available natural light and correcting the white balance of your photographs can reveal and enhance the true beauty of your subject. Beyond this, make it your aim each day to unleash your creativity that you may see the world around you in fresh and unique ways. Never be content with seeing the ordinary as ordinary. Just stop and think for a moment, everything there is, is ordinary to someone. Art is created by those with the ability to see beyond the ordinary, to interpret their world in an exceptional way, and to reflect their interpretation for others to see. So, experiment and don't be afraid to try something new. The world is abundant in forms, textures, colors, and patterns of light ... all the handy-work of God. Grand landscapes and magnificent manmade structures are not required for great photos in the great outdoors. May Mother Nature always cooperate with you. Good day and happy clicking!

Buying a Second Hand Guitar

If you are on a budget, but still want to buy a decent guitar, you should look into purchasing a used guitar. For little money you can buy a quality guitar that will be able to suit all of your needs.

Used Fender basses or used Fender Stratocaster guitars can be had for relatively cheap compared with buying a new one. This is the route that a lot of people go when they are looking for their first guitar. The best place to find a used guitar is at a music store that is specialized in selling second hand equipment. If you can't find a store like this in your area, you may also want to search the internet. There are hundreds of online stores that sell used instruments.

Used, cheap electric guitars are also a top seller. Brands like Ibanez, Squier or Epiphone can be found for very little money. Used Gibson guitars or a second hand Fender Stratocaster will cost you probably more, but will still save you a lot of money. In return you will get a top quality guitar which will last you a very, very long time!

You may also be able to find used guitars at a flea market or garage sale. The best way to go about doing this is find a large flea market in your area, and frequent it as often as possible. You will eventually come across what you are looking for

Many people have also turned to eBay in order to find a second hand guitar. EBay offers hundreds of guitars that you can bid on. The best thing about using this service is that you can keep an eye on each listing, and only purchase what you can afford.

A used guitar can be a great buy for anybody that is just learning, or anybody who simply wants a new guitar. In most cases you can buy a second hand guitar for half the price it would cost you when buying it brand new. Ok it probably will have some scratches on it, but the quality and the sound of the instrument will still remain the same and that's what counts!

If you know where to look, and stay persistent you should not have any problems at all finding a guitar that suits your needs. Remember, stay patient until you find the guitar that suits your needs and fits your budget.

5 Steps to Securing Your Windows XP Home Computer

Most people are aware that there are continuous security issues with Microsoft's Windows operating system and other programs. However, what most people do not realize is how easy it is to significantly improve your computer's security and reduce the likelihood of becoming a victim to ever increasingly sophisticated threats that lurk on the internet. These steps should take less than a couple of hours to complete and should not clean out your wallet.

1) Windows Update – the first crucial step you need to take to make sure that all your Microsoft applications have all the latest product updates installed. These updates or "patches" address security vulnerabilities and other issues. Microsoft usually issues these updates on a monthly cycle. Visit the Microsoft website or switch on automatic updates from the Windows Control panel. Even if your "new" computer is second hand this is still a critical first step. If you buy a used computer with Windows XP make sure Service Pack 2 or SP2 is installed.

2) Strong Passwords - people often overlook this but having well thought through passwords is an important element of your computer security. A strong password should include at least 8 characters with a mixture of text, symbols and numbers. As a minimum you need to make sure the services most at risk have a strong log-in password. These services include your bank, credit card, other financial services like PayPal, your email address and any other services like Ebay which hackers can use to generate profit.

3) Anti Virus Protection – while it is fair to say the threat of the computer virus has receded during the last couple of years they can still inflict serious damage on your computer. Part of the reason why the threat has reduced is because PC manufactures are now more frequently bundling anti virus packages with their new computers. For example last year my new Dell shipped with a 90-day trial of McAfee's Internet Security Suite. The best bet here is to purchase a security package which includes firewall and anti virus software as a minimum. Top brands include McAfee and Symantec Norton products. However, Microsoft has recently entered the market with their "OneCare" offering which is very aggressively priced.

4) Firewall - if you are using a broadband connection then a firewall is definite requirement to manage the traffic flowing between your computer and the internet. A firewall monitors the inbound internet traffic passing through the ports of your computer. Better products also monitor outbound traffic from your computer to the internet. As per above the best bet here is buy a firewall application as part of a security package which most vendors offer as standard. If a hardware firewall is included as part of your router package then you do not need anything else. A company called Zone Labs offer a great free firewall product called Zone Alarm which should be used as a minimum. Windows XP does now ship with a free firewall but the product does not monitor outbound communication and therefore I believe does not offer adequate protection.

5) Anti Spyware Tool - this software is the last piece in your basic internet security set up. This tool helps combat spyware and adware. There is a good mixture of free and paid versions on offer. Good free software include Microsoft's Windows Defender, Spybot S&D or Ewido Anti-Malware. Ewido Anti-Malware is frequently recommended in computer help forums. Be careful if you decide to purchase a solution. There are a number of rogue vendors out there which aggressively push products which offer you little value. Stick to trusted names like Webroot's Spy Sweeper or PC Tool's Spyware Doctor. These products always come out well on independent tests.