Dear Friend,

This past week I've been on vacation with my family in Myrtle Beach. Many of our writers and support team are using this month for their own vacations.

When we come back refreshed, we look forward to helping you ramp back up for business this month to be able to hit the ground running for the fall.

If you're finding that economic factors are just finally hitting your business causing things to slow a bit, now's the time to consider pay per click advertising to help reach more people and to cost effectively give yourself a sales "boost".

Best Regards,

Nancy McCord

Ghost Blogger Spotlight | Browser Tune Up | Setting Up Email Member Groups

Ghost Blogger Spotlight on Sue Guirl, Director of Writing

Sue Guirl is one of our most prolific ghost bloggers and feature article writers. Sue lives in Columbus, Ohio and is a long distance employee with McCord Web Services. She is a graduate from the University of Missouri with a degree in Journalism. As a professional writer, and one who truly loves her craft, Sue writes in a wonderfully engaging style. Personally, I have great respect for her talent, I have not found a topic yet that she cannot make interesting reading and I have tried!

Sue has been working with the McCord Web Services team for over two years and was just recently promoted to Director of Writing. I consider her an integral part of our team, and one who has become our "go-to" person for many of our commercial writing projects. With her capabilities, we have been able to expand our writing business into new areas. We are now able to provide writing services for web content, magazine articles, articles for trade show journals, e-newsletter content, feature articles for posting on the Web to be used as link generators, and website link bait articles.

Currently Sue is blogging and writing on several unusual topics for our clients: warehouse and industrial ergonomic equipment and practices, criminal law defense for a variety of misdemeanor and felony crimes in California, bed bugs and their extermination, professional auto detailing tips and tools, drug and alcohol abuse recovery programs, national nursing trends, and even GPS products. She can take a topic, that others may find hard to write on, and create an interesting piece, informative product review, layperson explanation, or even a "personal" case study.

Sue has three adult children and four cats. She loves the flexibility that professional writing affords to her lifestyle; allowing her to write on her own schedule. Personally she likes to write late at night when most of us are in bed asleep. She has become our most in-demand top tier writer; meaning that she writes the majority of our published pieces for professional syndication both in print and Web.

Sue is currently writing for these blogs that you may want to check out to review her writing style: DJ Products, LA Criminal Defense under the pen name Legal Pro, Stern's Chatter under the name Sqrl Guirl, and for the Transitions Recovery Blog. We have additional clients that she regularly writes for, but they prefer to remain anonymous.

When you need a professionally written piece for the Web, think of contacting us for services to be provided by Sue Guirl.

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Give Your Browser a Tune Up

We've got a few tools that can help you to give your browser a tune up to be able to improve your surfing experience. First a few details, it used to be that Internet Explorer was the browser of choice. Now, close to 40% of all users have migrated to Firefox for their browser uses. Out of the remaining nearly 60% of users only a few more use Internet Explore 7 versus Internet Explorer 6. Nearly 26% of the Internet Explorer uses have not migrated to the more secure Internet Explorer 7.

On our website here are the statistics for the year 2007 through 2008 for screen resolution settings.

Screen Resolution	Percent
1024 pixels wide x 768 pixels tall or more	39%
1280 pixels wide x 1024 pixels tall	20%
1280 pixels wide x 800 pixels tall	11%
1440 pixels wide x 900 pixels tall	6%
800 pixels wide x 600 pixels tall	5%
1680 pixels wide x 1050 pixels tall	5%
1152 pixels wide x 864 pixels tall	4%
1920 pixels wide x 1200 pixels tall	2%

Here's a tip, if you do not have your screen set to it's maximum resolution, you should you will see images in your browser cleaner and sharper. If the font is too small adjust the font using Tools and then Font Size in your browser versus changing your resolution. We'll check your own screen resolution now.

Statistics on the average color depth setting for the year 2007 through 2008.

Color Depth	Percent
32 bit (max color power)	88%
24 bit (16 million colors)	4%
16 bit (65000 colors)	7%
8 bit (256 colors)	less than 1%

Here's a tip, check to see if you can increase your color depth which will improve your browsing experience by going to your desk top click setting or properties and then click advanced. Move your color setting to the highest range your computer will allow.

Not sure what your settings are. Visit this link and we'll check for you online and let you know your color depth and number of colors set for your computer and browser.

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How to Set Up Email Member Groups

Want to send out an email to a group of people with one click? We've got the solution - email member groups. They're easy to set up and you'll find using them a real time saving feature. Here's how to set up your first group in Outlook.

How to set up email member groups in Outlook 2007

1. On the main Outlook page at the very top menu select File, and then New, and then Distribution List.
2. In the name box create a name to identify your new email group.
3. Click Select Members if you are selecting persons that are already in your address book.
4. Or click Add New Member to enter information for a person not already in your address book. You may also check the box Add To Contacts at the bottom left if you would like that name added to your main address book.
5. Add as many members as you desire. When done, click Save and Close.
6. To send a note with one click to all on your list, simply click To: while on the compose e-mail screen, select your group name, and click Send.
7. What is nice about Outlook is that we you select view your contacts, you will see all your member address groups also and can easily manage them to add new members or delete them from that screen.

How to set up email member groups in Outlook 2003

1. On the main Outlook page at the very top menu select Actions, and then New Distribution List.
2. In the first text box to the right of the Name icon, enter the name of your new distribution list.
3. Click Select Members if you are selecting persons that are already in your address book.
4. Or click Add New Member to enter information for a person not already in your address book. You may also check the box Add To Contacts at the bottom left if you would like that name added to your main address book.
5. Add as many members as you desire. When done, click Save and Close.
6. To send a note with one click to all on your list, simply click To: while on the compose e-mail screen, select your group name, and click Send.
7. What is nice about Outlook is that we you select view your contacts, you will see all your member address groups also and can easily manage them to add new members or delete them from that screen.

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