PVC products stink because they contain volatile organic compounds (VOCs). These are poisonous carbon-containing chemicals that are volatile enough to evaporate at room temperature. This process, called outgassing, is also problem with building products such as plywood, particleboard, carpet and pads, paints, stains and glue.

Outgassing odours are most noticeable when products are new, but diminish over time until they finally disappear. A shower curtain can outgas for a month or longer, for example, depending on conditions. High temperature and humidity will speed up the release of VOCs.

VOCs can be toxic. Most commonly they irritate eyes, noses and throats, causing coughing, headaches, dizziness and nausea. The symptoms go away when outgassing ceases. But the danger doesn’t stop there. Did you know: From the time it is manufactured right up to its disposal, PVC keeps on releasing dangerous chemicals that can cause cancer, making it the worst plastic for our health and the environment.

Why PVC is dangerous

PVC is dangerous to human health and the environment thoughout its entire life cycle. The dangers of PVC are from the persistent pollutants it releases and the toxic additives used to produce PVC products. PVC is the only common plastic that contains chlorine. But PVC based products also often contain dangerous toxic additives such as mercury, dioxins, lead and phthalates (used as softeners) which can leach out and pose dangers to consumers – us.

PVC products also release toxic fumes if they catch fire.

Additives in PVC products
Phthalates – can cause cancer, kidney and liver damage, sperm damage and genital defects.

Lead – can damages brain and nervous system, causes developmental disabilities.

Organotins – can suppress immunity and disrupt endocrine system

Cadmium – is a potential neurotoxin, can cause cancer.

What is PVC?

Polyvinyl chloride, commonly known as PVC or vinyl, is one of the most synthetic materials. It’s widely used in construction materials, transport and packaging materials, medical supplies, and consumer products. It gained popularity as a natural rubber substitute. PVC is presently the second most widely used plastic in the world. And it’s one of today’s most dangerous toxic offenders. It cannot be recycled, and it is considered by many experts to be the most dangerous, carcinogenic plastic ever created by man.

Recommended reading:
* Bisphenol A | BPA – Avoid Using Plastic Type 3 and Type 7
* How to limit your family from BPA exposure
* Mister Squiggles the hamster is unsafe for children
* The Poison Plastic – There are SAFER ALTERNATIVES
* PVC The Poison Plastic – Unhealthy for Our Nation’s Children and Schools

The “I lost 20 lbs in 2 weeks!” tweet is send by users who have had their accounts hijacked. Access could have been gained through previous phishing schemes. However, one factor points to a likely suspect: all the Tweets are posted via “API”, meaning the spammers do not have direct access to the accounts. Rather, there’s likely some third party application that’s been compromised (or a rogue one permitted by the users) that’s pushing spam Tweets. Sound like “sponsored” tweet.

The best thing to do if you were in my shoes is first, to reset your Twitter password and contact the followers that send you the tweet phish scam and highlight them the problem and request them to change their Twitter password as well.

The Twitter spam goes around in a tweet titled “I lost 20 lbs in 2 weeks! “. Avoid this link as http://tinyurl.com/yk36jnr (which actually lead to http://weightloss.testproductsfree.com/).

And lastly, pass this alert to your readers as well.

Recommend reading:
* This you???? – Twitter latest phishing scam
* Killer ways to increase Twitter followers by Kevin Rose

The Courier is a hinged device that combines elements of a tablet, an e-reader, and a netbook (sans physical keyboard). It’s reported to be less an inch thick, slightly heavier than a pound and slightly larger than a 5×7 print when folded. Instead of running Windows (Windows) 7, the Courier will run the mobile OS Windows Mobile 7 Series, with an NVIDIA Tegra 2 chip under the hood.

Other features include handwriting recognition, cloud storage for all the data in the device (plus a way to integrate comments on shared items back into your journal), a built-in camera and headphone jack. Unfortunately, none of this is yet official from Microsoft itself, so everything including the loose “second half of 2010″ release date is still a bit speculative.

Sawsan Salim was convicted last month in a court in Rass, in Qassim province in the north, after petitioning Riyadh officials, including King Abdullah, over what she alleged was years of abuse by local justice officials, the US-based Human Rights Watch said in a statement on Wednesday.

Despite her request for intervention, two local judges charged her with filing 118 “spurious complaints” against officials, including the judges themselves, and “appearing … without a male guardian” between 2004 and 2008.

On January 25, she was convicted after a month-long trial before two judges, one of whom was a plaintiff in the case and the original target of Salim’s harassment allegations, according to Human Rights Watch.

The group has called for higher authorities to quash the verdict.

Salim alleges that ever since she rejected local judge Habib Abdullah al-Aqsa’s repeated urging to divorce her husband, who had been jailed over debts, in 2004, that judge and other officials have continually created trouble for her.

On numerous occasions through 2008, HRW said, officials “chided Salim for not being accompanied by a male guardian during her visits to their offices”.

Under Saudi Arabia’s ultra-strict version of Islam, women are not supposed to move around outside the home without a male guardian.

Salim and her lawyer petitioned top officials several times over the years of harassment.

“She owns a business, and they were making things very difficult for her,” said Nadya Khalife, a women’s rights researcher for the Middle East at Human Rights Watch.

“She didn’t keep things quiet.”

Two local judges, including Aqsa, countered with their own accusations, and their case went to trial in December, resulting in the conviction. Aqsa was one of the judges appointed to try the case.

“In Saudi Arabia, being a woman going about her legitimate business without a man’s protection is apparently a crime,” Khalife said.

Recommended reading:
* Saudi schoolgirl get 90 lashes for assaulting headmistress
* Saudi Man Get 1,000 Lashes For Sex Bragging

What the hell am I supposed to write about, I own a {insert your small business here}?

Really, who cares about your flower shop, bike shop, auto parts store, or coffee house?

Answer: Your customers certainly care.

We all know by now that consistent small business blogging can drastically improve your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and overall web presence. Additionally, a small business blog can increase your opportunities to interact with (and highlight) your customers and provide an additional occasion for you to share your expert knowledge.

Unfortunately, nothing stops a would be small business blogger faster than a perceived lack of time, and the frustration that comes with a lack of ideas to blog about.

While I can’t help you with your time issue, I can provide you with nine tips for creating more small business blogging ideas:

1. Keyword Tool

One of the best semi-secret sources of the more savvy small business bloggers are the free keyword tools that are available like Google Adwords and Wordtracker. If you are not familiar with searching for keywords, essentially you type in a word or phrase related to your small business and the tool shows you what people (your potential customers) are searching the internet for. You can easily get hundreds of new blog post ideas from a couple of keyword searches.

2. Your Backstory

Potential customers want to know about you and your business, it’s a cornerstone of trust building. One of the best ways to familiarize your customers with your business is to blog about your backstory and personal history. Backstory topics could include any of the following:

• Who you are?
• Where did you come from?
• Why did you choose your business location?
• What is it that makes you passionate about your small business?
• What have you done in your life that makes you unique?
• What struggles have led to the creation of who you are today as a business owner.

3. Customer of the Day

Presumably, if you are running a semi-successful business, you have customers coming in on a daily basis. If you are struggling for post ideas, why not make your customers the focus of your blog one or two days per week?

Not only will you get almost unlimited post material, but since customers like to feel special and appreciated, blogging about them is a great public relations tool. You could even give the participants an additional ten percent off of their purchase for their willingness to participate. Featuring your customers and telling their story gets them excited about your business and can help to establish a customer based community around your blog.

4. Create Resource Posts

Resource posts are great because they are fairly easy for you to put together and people love to read scannable and easily digested information. Ideas for small business resource posts might include:

• Top ten selling products in your store and why.
• Five reasons you love your business
• Twenty best ways to {insert business specific information here}.
• Eight reasons why customers loveÖ

5. Answer Customer Questions

Your customers have questions and you have expert knowledge. Do not take your knowledge for granted. If there is a specific set of questions that customers seem to ask on a daily basis then turn those queries into individual blog posts.

6. Tutorials

Similar to answering questions, tutorial posts that are specific to your industry (e.g. teaching customers how to change a flat tire, make better coffee, repair their fishing rod, etc.) might be a common task for you, but could really provide value your customers. One simple way to liven up tutorial posts is to add video or photo which can help enhance your instructions.

7. Mind Mapping

If you are not familiar with mind mapping, you can read Darren’s terrific mind mapping articles here, here, and here.

To create small business blog post ideas with mind mapping, draw a square in the center of a piece of paper and write the name of your business in the square. Begin jotting down ideas as you work out from the center. Do not stop to think, over analyze, and critique just get your ideas down on paper and you can refine them later.

8. Comparison Post

Take two similar items in your business and do a side by side comparison of the benefits, cost savings, and overall value of each. Own a bike shop, why would I buy a Cannondale over a Trek? Or, own a flower shop, what are the similarities and differences between roses and sunflowers?

9. Day in the Life

Many small business owners find it difficult to write about themselves. But your daily activities are truly unique and blog post worthy.

• What is a day, a week, or a even a month in your small business life like?
• Do you get up at 5:00a.m. and work until 10:00p.m.?
• What are you doing during the workday at your small business?

10. Your Suggestions

We have gotten you to nine tips for creating more small business blog posts and now it’s your turn to help get us to 10, 11, 12…. 100 suggestions. What are your tips for creating small business blogging ideas?

Mark Hayward hates the snow and cold! Luckily, he owns a small business in the Caribbean. Mark is passionate about helping other small business owners avoid the online mistakes he has made. You can follow Mark on Twitter @mark_hayward and you can subscribe to his RSS Feed for weekly small business social media marketing tips.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

9 Tips for Creating More Small Business Blogging Ideas

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If you had to pick only one thing that makes a blog stand out from its peers, what would you pick and why?

I thought it’d be a good question to open up to a wider audience as its something I’ve touched on quite a few times over the last year or so and because what makes a blogger distinct is often, by definition, something that can vary from blog to blog.

What are you doing to make your blog stand out from the crowd? What have you seen other blogs do that makes them stand out?

Further Reading: Here’s a post I wrote on the topic earlier in the year – The Power of Uniqueness [19 Starting Points for Being a Unique Blogger]

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

What Do You Do With Your Blog to Make it Stand Out from the Crowd?

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No matter how big their blog is, every blogger loves and wants comments. When you’re just starting out, there are few bigger thrills than writing something and having people comment and give you feedback about what you’ve written. Veteran bloggers love comments and also know that the quantity and quality of the comments says a lot about the impact of the particular post in question.

But sometimes you write something that you think is awesome and the comment thread is like a ghost town. To say that this is discouraging is to put it too lightly. Not only does it suck, but it’s enough to make you start thinking that your writing sucks, and it makes it really hard to hit write and hit publish the next time, too.

Here’s the deal, though: just because you’re not getting a lot of comments doesn’t mean that your posts suck. Here are eight reasons why you might not be getting comments – and what you can do about it.

1. Your Posts Are Too Long

While it’s hard to say that long post always get fewer comments – there are a lot of different considerations at play – as a general rule, longer posts set a bigger barrier to commenting. I write a lot of long posts, and I’ve seen this bear out time and time again.

There are two things to keep in mind when you’re writing longer posts: 1) most blog posts are short(er) and 2) your readers are busy. If they’re used to reading 500 word posts on other blogs and then hit your 3,000 word post, they’re might be a bit overwhelmed. It’s not uncommon for them to bookmark your post for reading “when they have time” and move on to the next, shorter post, only to forget to come back and read yours. (For more considerations on blog length, check out Post Length ‚Äì How Long Should a Blog Post Be?)

Some bloggers manage to thrive in the long post format, but you’ve got to understand that you’ll be going against the current if you write in that style. That’s not a bad thing – just understand that you might not get as many comments as if you wrote shorter posts.

Once your post is published, it’s probably best to leave it, though. In the future, see if you can take a long draft of a post and split it into a series or discrete post. Also try varying the tempo of your blog by following a long post with a short post and vice versa.

2. You Haven’t Asked Them to Comment

Sometimes a post just ends and it’s not clear to your readers whether you actually want a response. Because they don’t know whether you want a response or not, they might not comment.

Furthermore, if you don’t answer comments at all or regularly enough, it sends the message that you don’t really value comments. Larger blogs get a pass on this one, since many people understand that bloggers with larger audiences can’t answer every response.

When you conclude a post, ask your readers what they think or end it with a question that makes it clear that you’d like a comment. If you haven’t been responding to comments on your blog, start doing so.

3. They Don’t Know What To Say

Have you ever read a post and were so inspired that you felt that anything you might say wouldn’t do the post service, but at the same time didn’t want to say “Great post!”? Or have you read a post that was so deep or complex that you honestly didn’t know how to respond?

I’m sure you have. Now, why don’t you think that can happen with your own posts?

Before you write off a lack of comments as a sign of your utter brilliance, though, check your post to see if you wrote clearly and simply. Ask if what you wrote was relevant, useful, or interesting to your readers>. And if it is a bit of inspirational awesomeness, consider editing it and including a question or statement that lets people know that you’d appreciate some feedback.

4. They’re Doing What You Told Them To Do

If you give your readers a great tip that requires them to do something to implement it, be prepared for the possibility that they might actually go implement it.

Similarly, if you’re doing a link roll-up and you tell people to go check out the links you’re talking about, there’s a good chance that they might go do that.

I know that this is obvious in hindsight, but it’s easy to forget that our words can influence people into action, and it’s possible to unintentionally steer people away from commenting.

5. They’re Chasing Links On Your Blog

Writing posts that include links to older posts or using plugins that show related posts do have an effect on the number of comments you’ll get. If they click a link that’s midway in your post, they’ll probably read the second post before they comment on the first, and if that second post is linked to others, they might just keep clicking.

It’s for this very reason that you don’t find many links on a sales or landing page, and if you do find them, they eventually lead back to the original page. Marketers know that people will click on the links, and if those links lead away from the original page, that’s probably a lost sale.

While it’s not exactly an exclusive either/or choice, think about the relationship between how long people stay on your blog (due to interlinking) and comments. If you write compelling headlines, there’s a good chance that those related post plugins have an effect on the number of comments you’re getting. Change your linking strategy or consider turning those plugins off a bit if you’d like to see if they’re making a difference.

6. They’re Following Your Social Media Trail

This is very similar to the last two points, but if you’ve given your readers a bunch of different ways to connect with you, then that’s another thing that might keep people from commenting.

Think about how many times you’ve clicked to follow someone on Facebook only to get lost in a chat on Facebook, or how many times you’ve followed someone on Twitter only to get engaged in conversations there. The same thing goes for badges and links that send people to blog networks.

If you’d prefer more comments than social media connections, consider placing your social media links further down the page or only keeping the ones where you’re active.

While you’re at it, it’s probably a good time to declutter your sidebar.

7. It’s Hard For Them To Comment

I ran into this one the other day. I wanted to reply to a friend’s blog that was hosted on Blogger and found myself frustrated that I couldn’t just leave a comment like I can on other websites. It gave me five or six different options – none of which I use – and, ten minutes later, I finally went with the “best fit” option just so that I could comment. If she weren’t my friend, I probably would’ve given up.

Some of the other comment implementations like Disqus can also set a barrier to comment. I’ve often bailed on those, too, because I didn’t remember my OpenID and didn’t feel like figuring it out. (Luckily, they’ve improved substantially over the last year.)

The harder your readers have to work to comment, the less likely that they’ll do it. Think long and hard about all the comment plugins you might want to implement – and remember that sometimes the best solution is the simplest one.

8. You’re Posting At The Wrong Time

If you post when all your readers are asleep, then the soonest they’ll comment is the next day, but then your post is in with a bunch of others in an RSS feed. Likewise, if you post after the time that your email subscribers get their daily email, the soonest many of them will read what post is the next day when they get that hit.

Figure out when your readers are active and try to publish when they’re reading posts. This takes a bit of homework and observation on your part, but it makes a huge difference in terms of the number of comments you’ll get on your post.

There’s More To Comments Than Content

What you may have noticed is that the first five of these points have to do with the content of your individual posts and the last three don’t have anything to do with your posts. It’s hard to say what would have the biggest effect since each of our blogs are different, so take a look at your post and blog from your reader’s point of view, pick one that you’d like to tweak, and see if it has any effect. (By far the easiest place to start is by changing your comment plugin/solution, though.)

As you can see, there are a lot of different reasons that people might not be leaving comments on your blog, and many of them have nothing to do with you or your posts being unworthy. Keep writing and testing what works – that’s the only way you can become a better writer and grow your blog.

About the Author: Charlie Gilkey writes about meaningful action, creativity, and entrepreneurship at Productive Flourishing. Follow him on Twitter to get bite-sized slices of mojo.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

8 Reasons You Might Not Be Getting Many Comments

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My friend Jonathan Volk is hosting a free PPV (Pay Per View) webinar this Wednesday night for all the people who downloaded his new Affiliate Marketing 101 guide. If you have the guide, you’ll be receiving an email with the time and URL to the webinar room sometime today or tomorrow.

If you haven’t downloaded Affiliate Marketing 101 yet, you’re missing out big time. The guide contains 17 sections of pure content. It even comes with a warning declaimer that states, “Your brain might explode from awesome information.” Not only is the guide free but it might win you a brand new Apple iPad as well!

Learn the techniques I have used to personally generate over $4,000,000 in affiliate commissions!

In this guide I go over the who, what, where, when, and why of affiliate marketing. I then take you step by step to learn Pay per click affiliate marketing, Pay per view (cost per view) affiliate marketing, social media marketing (facebook ads), and finally media buying.

Download Affiliate Marketing 101

I have been getting more and more into PPV marketing. In many ways, it’s better than PPC marketing and has more potential. Johnathon Van Clute used PPV to win the Top Affiliate Challenge. He was generating over $4,000 per day in affiliate commission with PPV.

This is one webinar you will not want to miss. Jonathan promises to reveal a bunch of great tips and inside secrets on how to really make money with PPV marketing. Ensure your spot now by downloading Jonathan’s free guide. See you at the Webinar!

Download Affiliate Marketing 101 by Jonathan Volk

Discover the SECRETS I’ve Learned to go from zero a month to over $40,000 a month from blogging. Download Make Money Online with John Chow dot Com for FREE!

Viral marketing is the art of getting others to spread your message for free. Whether it’s a tell a friend script or some kind of contest, viral marketing is something every blogger should learn. When done correctly, it’s one of the best ways to generate traffic and sales. Someone who can help you with viral marketing is Glen Allsopp of ViperChill.com.

Who Is Glen Allsopp?

Glen is a 20 year old successful blogger and affiliate marketer but spend as much time as he can genuinely helping people to make a living online. He built the 10th biggest personal development blog online in just 12 months and recently sold it for mid five-figures. Glen has also worked as the social media manager for companies like Land Rover and Hewlett Packard. Right now, Glen is living the Dot Com Lifestyle by traveling the globe and making five-figure monthly income from his affiliate websites.

Glen In The Guardian Newspaper

ViperChill – Great Blog That Makes No Money

Glen’s blog, ViperChill, is unique in two ways. The first is the blog makes no money. Now, you might be asking, “What’s so unique about that? My blog makes no money!” This by choice and not by design. ViperChill has nearly 5,000 RSS readers and each post has over 50 comments in them. The blog gets enough traffic to make thousands per month but Glen has chosen to not monetize it.

Welcome to ViperChill. I’m Glen – one of the few people who makes a living online without doing it by teaching you how to make a living online. Because of that, you’ll find no ads and no affiliate links here. It’s all about the content and helping you as much as possible. As it should be.

The second thing that make ViperChill unique is the size of Glen’s blog posts. Most articles are 2,000 to 3,000 words in length and extremely detailed. Because of the size of the posts, Glen updates ViperChill only one or two times per week. Some of the more noteworthy posts include:

• How I Really Build a Blog with 6,500 Subscribers
• Cloud Jacking: 7 Steps to Dominate Your Niche
• How I Wrote a $30,000 eBook (And You Can Too)
• 7 Life Lessons I Apply to Internet Marketing
• Guest Blogging: The Ultimate Guide
• 28 Resources from my Internet Marketing Toolbox
• Building a $1,000,000 Website in 12 Months

Living In The Cloud

Want to live in the cloud like Glen? You can start by reading all his post from the ViperChill Base. If that doesn’t get your juices flowing and you want more step-by-step instructions, then you can buy Glen’s eBook, Cloud Living (It’s the eBook he made $30,000 with).

Cloud Living includes a 176-page eBook, six video tutorials, a free affiliate website template, 8-page documentation guide and free email support from Glen. Not a bad deal for $37. You can find out more about Cloud Living here.

It’s OK To Make Money

While I don’t have a problem with Glen not monetizing ViperChill, I feel it’s a poor use of resources. I was making money online long before John Chow dot Com came along. The main reason I monetized the blog was to show money can be made by blogging, but another reason was I don’t like seeing sites that could be making a ton of money not making it.

Yes, it sounds good to say you’re not making money off the blog because you want to provide pure information. However, from a business point of view, leaving money on the table isn’t so smart. If Glen doesn’t need any income from ViperChill, I think he can actually increase his brand by monetizing the blog and giving the money away to charity. What sounds better? I don’t make money from this blog or I donate every dollar this blog makes? Whether Glen makes money from ViperChill or not, I’ll still be reading it.

ViperChill : Viral Marketing

Discover the SECRETS I’ve Learned to go from zero a month to over $40,000 a month from blogging. Download Make Money Online with John Chow dot Com for FREE!

Shoe is looking for a theme song for his Shoemoney System and he’s willing to pay $1,000 in cold hard cash for it as well.

Upload your ShoeMoney System theme song and post the URL in the comments below. We will accept submissions until March 26th and then we will have a final vote off for the winner.

The winner will receive $1,000.00 cash.

Shoe took a shot at creating his own theme song. You can see the results in the video below. While I got a good laugh out of it, I think Shoe should stick to making money online.

Free Shoemoney System Webinar for John Chow dot Com Readers

In addition to the theme song contest, I got Shoe to agreed to give Shoemoney System students who signed up with John Chow dot Com a special live webinar just for them. The Shoemoney System has over 1000 students in it and while Shoe will be doing live calls and webinars, trying to get your questions answered maybe difficult when so many others are trying to ask questions as well.

This private webinar will be a much smaller group and Shoe will be able to work with you on a more personal level. In addition, Shoe will be giving away a special prize to the student who gives him the best question of the night. I can’t tell you what the prize is but I guarantee you will love it.

If you’ve signed up for Shoemoney System via this blog, you’ll be receiving an email with the secret time and URL for the webinar. Any new students signing up between now and this Friday will also receive an invite to this exclusive event. I’m really looking forward to this webinar and I know you guys will receive some great benefits from it.

Sign Up For Shoemoney System

Discover the SECRETS I’ve Learned to go from zero a month to over $40,000 a month from blogging. Download Make Money Online with John Chow dot Com for FREE!