Exposing "Free" Offers in Business

Of course they're going to try to sell you something!

I'm going off to a Publishing seminar downtown Toronto, in a few hours and I'm curious to see what I can glean from it.

As a newly-published Children's book author, I'm hoping to find subscribers for my list to show off my snazzy audiobook digital flyer to!

Well, getting some good, honest reviews for my new puppy cartoon Prissy Little Chloe: Time of the Year, would be sweet of course!

Networking is one thing. A lot of these "free" seminars that happen at hotels, aren't free. The hotel has to pay the speakers, really mostly out of the attendees pockets - as a lot of them decide to stay for the duration of the conference.

Brilliant.

I won't be one.

Not because I don't love a weekend getaway, but because hotels for me, are a last resort - unless, I'm staying you know, at a resort. I can sleep better in those beds, anyway.

With any sort of training, especially a paid course it's great to evaluate where it can benefit you, but even better to give it a try!

A lot of them have money-back guarantees, but then again it still takes days for a full refund.

But do not unknowingly let them auto-bill you, under any circumstance!

This is what may companies do to suck us in; they know the customers will often times forget they signed-up for that $1 trial that becomes $45 every month.

Then they wonder why they're in overdraft.

Great tactic - don't be a victim.

I was registered for a paid publishing course and they charge monthly - I couldn't even log into it. I waited days to get a response and even longer to get my $50 back.

Tsk, tsk - an otherwise good course, with paltry customer service.

The same thing happened with a video-creation program I purchased.

I spent 3 hours making this nice whiteboard video, complete with music and effects - only not be able to export it.

I thought it was a program bug or my file was corrupt or something, so I restarted the program - losing everything, since it didn't have an autosave; well I mean how could there be without a working control-s save or even regular file > save!

Basic!

So I spent another two hours recreating the entire video, complete with music and effects and - nope, couldn't save it!

When I sent them a less-than-friendly message I never got an email back; it's been four months.

Although, that one could have been my fault.

Easy Tip #1: respond to your customers with 24 hours! It's expected in this day of automated list management and email auto-responders!

Any more tips I run away with from this seminar, I'll post them here, if that's the only real value you get from this post!

The nice part of building a contact base, I can say is getting fan mail - where you guys can tell me what you think of my new book series; which is why I want you guys to be on the lookout this Sunday for my brand new book Prissy Little Chloe: Terrier Trouble!

Level Design in God of War (Part 1)

Becoming the God of War God of War is one of the most-critically acclaimed franchises to ever hit the Playstation market. In this pipeline deconstruction, I will refer to elements of the series as a whole. Dominus the main character in concept, needed to be summed up in a single word -- wrath . Covered in the ash of his wife and child, the character is a demigod who seeks revenge on the gods who betrayed him. Once the artists stripped away his armor and shield, the character’s true raw, animalistic side was exposed. Tall with upper-body musculature, covered in ashes and hunched over with his signature Blades of Chaos, Dominus was a force to be reckoned with. Dominus set the stage for the today’s Playstation mascot -- Kratos. Level Design Mood and exploration is a staple part of level design in God of War . Areas that are more open are also relatively barren; while many objects are placed around smaller areas like rooms. I think this encourages the player’s sense o...

Time Manipulation in Game Design

Time Manipulation in Games Introduction The gameplay mechanic that I wish I had come up with first, is Time Manipulation. This is includes the concept of time dilation and the reversal of time in games. Implementing the Manipulation of Time Time manipulation is a robust mechanic. It involves non-exploitable time manipulation, with the goal of being fast and smooth, while not computationally-taxing on memory or hardware resources. The best way to implement this mechanic can be seen in Braid - an indie platform and puzzle game, developed by Number None, Inc. In this game, the world state is recorded for every frame, where the data is stored and compressed. With the recorded frames, any changing entities are extracted and mixed into the final state, which can be manipulated or rewound by the player. The player’s position is recorded and other properties such as color and rotation are stored as an integer that can be reconstructed, along with time information taken fro...

Review of the Alienware Graphics Amplifier

Laptop VS Desktop? Have both. What is a "graphics amplifier"? In essence an external GPU you can plug right into your system. Many companies have tried to release these onto the market, but sadly many haven't gotten past announcement phase. Users either resort to painstakingly building custom external graphics cards with components purchased all over the web or simply tossing aside their laptop and building a $10000 gaming PC for their graphics power needs. Both are acceptable, but Alienware and Razor (or any other company to announce one aain) give you another option: a mini-tower outfitted with a build-in PSU and cooling fan for your graphics power needs. Easier and More Flexible Wouldn't it be great to bring your laptop to work, coming back to your home office 2 hours later and gaming away as if it were that $10000 desktop? What a versatile workstation! No stray red, black and yellow cables sticking out of a shoebox or melted G...

Prissy Little Chloe

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