AC Cobra 427 : The Car That Forced UK To Create Their Highway Speed Limit

In the mid 1960's, AC Cobra 427 captured the heart and imagination of world's performance. It happened because Cobra had been following the recipe for the performance car to be successful.

The recipe was by squeezing the biggest and most powerful engine into a small frame that could carry out the power. They also made it come with an elegant design and attractive body with a top that can be opened to make your cruise more fun in open road.

Being the oldest manufacturer in Britain, the AC caught everybody's attention in 1953 at London Motor Show. The fact that it was one of post war sport cars in Britain with supporting chassis and its attractive body made it much admired by everyone.

In 1962, Carol Shelby impressed by AC's performance and saw a potential in it so that he talked AC to fit the Ford V-8 engine into the AC body. Fitting the 260 Cu in 4.4 lt lightweight engine was no problem at all, but they found difficulty in doubling up the power output.

Later on, Shelby put a Ford 7-liter engine and revamped the chassis and suspension. The 4.7 version in 1964 is based on the this version. Cobra then won its first championship on the race track in 1965. The AC Cobra did not join the international racing, but they were successful with American SCCA events. Shelby had found the very car that can beat Chevrolet Corvette.

It has been said as a rumor that Cobra was the reason of national speed limit regulation in UK. It was known that in 1964, Jack Sears and Peter Bolton reached 185 mph while testing Cobra on the M1 motorway in anticipation of 24th Le Mans race. However, the officials from UK denied this rumor and claiming that the main reason they created the regulation to limit the speed in highway is because of the increasing death rate.

Cobra was by far the perfect sport car ever made. It was fast with an immortal elegance despite its lacking in comfort features. These all made Cobra as the best car ever.

Megadeth United Abdominations Album Review

The new Megadeth album, “United Abominations”, is considered as a sonic assault, in the first album which featured a stable line up since their album “The World Needs A Hero” David Mustaine speaks up his mind on nuclear war and government corruption in the United States.

In first impression, the songs in the album are similar to other Megadeth's late albums. The music focuses on the song structure and the guitar rhythm without insane speed and technique. Megadeth is an old rock band, but they can play with the same intensity with other groups younger than their age. The album is steady and easygoing while full of lyrical message. Mustaine tries to deliver instead of the skill show-off as in “Rust in Peace.”

The album starts with a song with a catchy tunes in “Sleepwalker”. This is the typical song same with the opener of the previous album “The System Has Failed”, the song full with unique lyrical structure that unfortunately never reach the peak as Megadeth's songs use to be. “Washington Is Next” has catchy chorus and faster speed. “United Abominations” is definitely the catchiest song in the album, as it becomes the title of the album. Next comes “Never Walk Alone...A Call To Arms," a long paced song slipping in the middle of the album. The songs after “United Abominations” unfortunately get worse in comparison to the previous songs. "Gears Of War" is full of metal frenzy yet too amateur for Megadeth's reputation. The same music also goes for "Blessed Are The Dead" and "Play For Blood.” The next remake of “A Tout Le Monde” which features Cristina Scabbia from Lacuna Coil fails to impress since it is played the same with its previous version in “Youthanasia.” Cristina Scabbia's voice barely heard in the song and Glen Drover's guitar solo are lame and out of technique. The last three songs "Amerikhastan," "You're Dead," and "Burnt Ice" do not come any better. The closing of the album gives an impression that the album completion is rushed so that they just grab any song to fill in the album. The guitar solo is painful to hear and lack of creativity. Dave's guitar sounds chaotic, but Drover's is actually good, only he's an artist who can only re-create others' works and without creativity.

The sound quality in “United Abominations” is no good compared to “The System has Failed” album. The album sounds as if it is made not in a professional recording establishment, but in a home studio. The good thing about this album is that it can easily be listened to. The sound is average and not full of music and instrumental distortion.

To Megadeth fans, even though they buy the album, this album is disappointing. The songs are not as what they may have been expected. There are no heavy metal music, only simple hard rock. Mustaine fails to do a great job this time.

Secret to Developing Excellent Customer Service in Your Business - Part 2

To achieve a good customer service, your company must have good representatives in the field. You need to train your employees well since they are the ones who represent your company in the eyes of your customers. You need to train your employees on how they should handle customers and respond to their inquiries.

Tell your employees that the phrase "I don't know" is illegal to be delivered to your customers, yet replace it with something like "I can get the information for you" and not to fail what they have promise. Teach your employees to never reject what a customer requires even though what s/he require is beyond the employee's knowledge or responsibility. When that happens, tell your employees to direct the customer to the right person to answer his/her concern.

Customers need a feeling that the company's employees have interests in their problems and have found every way possible to solve it. Therefore, never imply that the solution that your employees offer is the only way and they have no choice but to accept it. Avoid the phrase "This is the only way" and use "The best option is..." instead. This phrase brings positive meaning that will meet customers' expectation for options and alternatives.

Enthusiastic employees are also a positive point to your customers. Your employees need to show that they enjoy their job and are ready to help whenever your customers need them. Do not show the faces which consider that customers are troubles, but greet them with best smiles and friendly words like "What can I do for you?" However, do not overdo the enthusiasm or it may feel fake to your customers.

Secret to Developing Excellent Customer Service in Your Business - Part 1

How do you know if you have done an outstanding customer service? The answer to that question can only be answered by your customers since they are the ones who directly affected by your services. Conduct research on the opinions of your customers about your company to know whether your customers are satisfied with your customer service or not.

There are companies that customers find easy to deal with and there are those which do not. Which kind of company is yours in the eyes of your customers? If your company is the former one, then your company is practicing what is called customer-focused behavior. However, if your company is included to the later one, then you must improve your customer service.

To be regarded as a company which is easy to have business with, a company must know the customers' needs and expectations. Once you know their needs and expectations, act appropriately to meet their expectations to improve your customer service quality.

How to Maximize Consumer Value

When Easter time is coming, parents and grandparents are busy to prepare for the Easter eggs hunt. They boil the eggs, color them with bright colors, and find great spots to hide the eggs. Then when the day comes, the children will be happily running and screaming around the house to find the hidden eggs which may result candy as rewards in the end. The older people are filled with laughter and watch from afar to their happiness and joy in finding the eggs.

However, nowadays many moms or grandmoms are too busy to boil their own eggs and paint them with unique pictures and designs come from their own imaginations. To make things easier, they just buy the ready Easter eggs sold in stores and bring them home for tommorow hunt. Some moms probably will miss the fun of boiling and painting the eggs together, but they will still be able to experience the joyful moment of hunting the eggs in the next day.

Busy customers like those moms are one of the targets in the marketing world. There are three ways to approach this kind of customer.

1. Listen
Do a lot of listening to your customer and make sure that you are really listening to them. Do not just hear what they want without giving and feedback and doing no response. Do not just hear like a stubborn child ignoring whatever his mother's says. Listening means that you are taking in the new data and responding to them. The case of poisoned Easter Eggs is one of the example where the company do not do a serious listening. The company has ignored the risk of poisoning in favor of low cost and keeps importing from China manufacturer.

2. The Plan and The Execution
The plan of reselling cheap eggs manufactured abroad is definitely a good plan in making great profit for the company. However, the fact that the products will be used by the children and most likey will come to their mouth makes the plan to be the worst of all. The children are exposed to the lead poisoning from the very items that suppossed to create joy and good memories in their lives.

3. The Evaluation
The final thing to do is evaluation. This step is probably useless for the lead poisoning case, but evaluation is always important to set up for the strategy in the future. This poisoned Easter eggs case will remind other competitors that low price is nothing compared to quality and safety. This case will make them improve their listening skill for the next products they create. Moms also will take more precautions too regarding the things they give to their children.

Review of Gish Album From Smashing Pumpkins

Gish, an album from Smashing Pumkins, definitely has a great opening song to set the tone for the entire half of the life band. I Am One, the first song in the album, starts with the simple drum beat from Jimmy Chamberlain to keep listener's interest. Then the guitar riffs from Billy Corgan come in. When the vocal comes in, the greatness of the band comes into its full picture. Not just I Am One, all the songs in the album are great songs too, making Gish one of the best albums from a legendary band ever.

Despite the great opening from I Am One, I consider Siva as the best song in this album. Even though Siva cannot be considered as a hit, it is the only song from the album that got radio play. The song is dark and very cool, which is the original character from Smashing Pumpkins that made them famous.

The fourth song, Bury Me, is the representation of the poppier song the band also famous for. It is the chorus of this song that sells and makes this song famous, even though the whole song is also wonderful. Crush, a ballad in this album, sounds ordinary when first you hear it. However, when you get used to it, the song will be your favorite song and won't get off your mind easily.

Snail is the grunge ballad that is so powerful and emotional. The music is exceptional with hard driving guitar parts and drum plays. As a mediator from emotional ballads to weird songs in the end, comes Tristessa, a song with typical rocking music. In the end of the album, there are Window Paine and Day Dream, two songs that drive the listeners to think what kind of music those songs carry. Two similar yet different songs with the style that Smashing Pumpkins must have in each of their album.

Gish is very good album to have and must have if you consider yourself as a Smashing Pumpkins fan. Buy it, and you won't regret it.

How to Conduct Effective Marketing For a Successful Business - Part 2

After your target market is determined, now your job is to find the best and most effective way in reaching your targets. There are several mediums in delivering your campaign such as newspaper, TV, poster, radio, internet, etc. Remember that each medium of advertising has its own characteristics and affects different groups of people. So, make sure that you choose the right medium for your advertisement.

Once you have launched your advertisements to the outside world, prepare yourself or your employees to respond to the questions and queries come from your potential customers after they see your advertisement. Do not just be able to read out the sentences from your advertisement. You must also be able to explain comprehensively about your product. Prepare yourself to answer to the question of why your potential customers should buy your product instead of what they buy. Those people come to you to get more reasons on why they should buy your product because they are obviously interested already by coming to you.

You do need lots of hard works to promote your business when you first start it. You may find most of your time is dedicated to the activity and hardly have time for rest. However, with never ending perseverance you can get the surprising result. Keep in mind that you also need to do it in the most effective way.

How to Conduct Effective Marketing For a Successful Business - Part 1

Boosting your business is not only about working harder, but more importantly is working smarter. You may work really hard, but if you do it in inefficiently in inappropriate ways, then you will only waste lots of your energy and money for minimum result.

An important factor in boosting your business is having an effective marketing campaign. The way you advertise your business is very crucial. A good campaign will bring customers in your way. Some business owners may think that cutting the advertisement budget in hard times is a reasonable action to do in order to survive. However, there are those who also believe that your business will need the same amount of advertisement budget in hard times to keep the customer coming.

The most important thing in doing an effective marketing is by knowing exactly who your customers are. You must identify your possible customer before designing your marketing plan. Who are the potential customers for your product or service? You may find your market ranges very broad targeting almost everyone, but you can focus your product to target chiefly on particular groups such as senior citizens, working moms, teenagers, or children.

Secrets for Changing Your Bad Luck Into Business Success

If you add luck and attitude together, you will find success. But people who really stand out achieve their success by knowing the right time and the right way to take advantage of their luck. Successful people are not ones already blesssed with good luck, but they are the ones who know how to turn bad luck into good luck. They are people who can take the most bitter criticism and not be crushed by it. They rise and take it as a lesson for their next steps. To sum it up, success depends on how your attitude is towards your luck.

There are two more qualities which make people become successful. First, they have perseverance and the ability to focus. You can see these abilities in the athletes who drag themselves every dawn to have their routine exercises and follow their tight schedules for the whole day. You can also see how the small business owners face repetitive drudgery and racing to their shops to open it before anyone arrives, and then stay behind to do the cleaning at the end of the day. These people focus their life in their goals and sacrifice other aspects of their lives. They don't really care about the latest gadget or the newest fashion trend.

The second quality is the passion and the drive they have. People don't just walk into success out of nowhere. They have dreams and passions on what they do to have the strength and power to keep on going through every obstacle. Sometimes, the passion of the money itself is enough to give the greatest power to them to cross the finish line. However, that is not always the case.

The urge to survive also can give great drive in being successful in your business. For example, a mother who retired because she wanted to take care her two children has just found difficulties in paying the bills. This drives her to establish a home industry and work really hard in it which eventually becomes a great success.

The last thing to have to be a successful person is the willingness to take risks and play with your luck. Of course this will lead to the possibility of loss, but business is always full of risks. One thing is for sure, you need to have an attitude to be a successful person.

Volkswagen Beetle : The People's Car of the Century

Volkswagen Beetle was originally known as Kfer, a word in German which means “Beetle”. The VW then became the most famous small car model in the world due to its superiority in comfort compared to other European small cars and also because of its unique design. It also becomes the generation trade mark style for many decades until now.
Adolf Hitler was the inventor of VW Beetle in 1924 when he was imprisoned in jail. He came up with the idea when he was trying to find the solution to the unemployment problem in German. His passion in cars, although it never made him to obtain a driving license, definitely played a big part in the idea. With the production of the people’s car (Volkswagen), the average man would be able to have car and the government would need to build autobahns as the infrastructure support for the cars. Once the Nazi ruled, the project was started immediately.

There were no other cars which could compete with the momentum the Beetle had seized. No other creators could compete with the comfort, price, and reliability. The Beetle came with 62 mph max speed for 42 miles per gallon, air-cooled engine, and space for 2 adults and 3 children for under $200 market price. In other words, the Beetle had been the support of West Germany economic miracle.

VW Beetle also served as a change in trend and style. It symbolized the stability, self-discipline and lust for life. It was soon becoming the best seller in USA and a benchmark for US compact cars. Beetle also ranks fourth in the 20 most influential cars in 20th century.

Small variations then took place in 1970’s. Super Beetle was launched offering MacPherson strut front suspension. There were also several changes in design and fuel injection system from 1971 to 1976.

The 1976’s version did not only undergo engineering changes, it also underwent some cosmetic changes mainly in paint and interiors such as adjusted and improved seats, full carpets, blinkers in front bumpers, etc. In complete, the engineering changes in 1976 Beetle were dual port 1600cc engine, rear window defogger, front disc brakes, two speed air fresh fans, elephant’s foot tail lights, trim chrome plated, and rubber inserts in the bumper bars. The Beetle then stopped being produced in German on January 1978 and was then produced in Puebla, Mexico until 1985.

1978 Pontiac Grand Prix : Smaller Than Before Yet Just as Powerful

General Motors had an odd year in 1977. It had a very strange circumstance where its intermediate cars were larger than its full-size cars. This happened as General Motors downsized their full size cars prior to this which apparently became the most successful project in view of the number of the cars sold in public. Then there was of course a suggestion to downsize all their cars, partly also because there were new standards of Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE). This was a very difficult decision to carry out since 1977 was also known as the booming of luxury cars such as Pontiac Grand Prix, Chevy Monte Carlo, and Ford Thunderbird with Pontiac on the top of the sales record with 270,000 units sold.

In 1978, General Motors tried to find the way to change the design of the Grand Prix without affecting much on the sales record. Then a Grand Prix with a body platform with a 108 inch wheelbase shorter in height and a foot shorter in length with 600 pounds weigh was born. Despite the smaller dimension, it still had the trademarks of a Grand Prix. Long hood, sweeping fenders, and short deck.
The Grand Prix was all 2 coupes and available in three forms. They were base, LJ, and SJ. Following the new CAFE standards, a 231 cubic inch V-6 standard was used to replac the old V-8. The luxury type LJ got 301 two-barrel while the sporty SJ got 301 four-barrel. When a 1978 Grand Prix was ordered with a V-8 engine however, it would come with a 3 speed turbo Hydra-Matic as standard.

So, had this new design fulfilled General Motors' goal to maintain the selling when they were downsizing the dimension According to the record, they were successful. The sales record did not move far from the year 1977. With the SJ being the most expensive Grand Prix car line, it sold 228,000 units. This SJ Grand Prix also lasted until 1987 with only minor changes in it.

In conclusion, 1978 Pontiac Grand Prix was a car with a mix between comfort and sportiness. It could not be deemed as a muscle car nor as a car with a luxurious idea, yet it had the biggest contribution to General Motors. It was so memorable and was kept in buyers mind for almost ten years when General Motors had 57.9 % market share. In short, 1978 Pontiac Grand Prix was a job very nicely done.