Donna, Thank you! The pleasure is mine. Y'all have taught me so much about Hippis, I will gladly help out wherever I can. :) I've attached a link about the differences in Copyrighting versus Watermarking (I didn't want to give any wrong answers). As for entering the (C) symbol, that's a good question. I know in programs like Microsoft Word, you can hold down the ALT button and type 0169 on the right numerical key pad to get the symbol. However, that didn't work for me on the Picmarkr website; and I don't always use a computer with a FULL keyboard - my laptop doesn't have the right numerical key pad, for example. So, I had to Google "copyright symbol" then copy and paste into Picmarkr. It worked though. OR you can go about it another way (this seems more complicated, but you can keep it open and use all kinds of symbols!): 1. Start Menu (if you have a Microsoft system) 2. All Programs 3. Accessories 4. System Tools 5. Character Map 6. Select the character you want to copy, and hit "Select". 7. Copy from the line at the bottom that reads "Characters to copy". Or hit the "Copy" button next to the "Select" button, and it'll copy for you! Awesome. I'm learning now too! Haha. 8. Paste where you want it to go (it will successfully paste into the Picmarkr text box for "text to display" if you choose a text watermark). 9. When you want a new character, you can backspace and clear it out of the way (or highlight and hit "delete"). I'm going to experiment with the above method to see if it works... Please excuse my character spam below. :) ÃÂ¥ õ è àThat's fun! I wonder how it will turn out when I post. Oh! I found a smiley face! ⺠While a little long to get to it, I like the character map version. It gives you lots of options for different characters. After previewing the message, it seems that the forum doesn't support all characters I goofed around with (the copyright symbol included). I'll try again and see what happens... And let it post this time. é é é é é é Here is a link that might be useful: Watermarking versus Copyrighting

Sorry for the length of this: It's half-amusing, half-offensive to be accused of shilling for anyone, since Im as self-taught as one can possibly be. Dreamgarden seems to have ignored all my many posts on other threads over the years. So let me restate my (lack of) credentials to reassure you that I have no vested interest in whether anyone ever uses a planner, advisor, broker, or banker. Havent earned a penny from anyone since 2006 when I retired and the last time I met my ex-boss for lunch, I bought HIM lunch, LOL. For the record, most of my friends and all of my family are like DH & me - we don't have enough liquid assets to be of interest to most financial planners. I have free access to CFPs thru DHs retirement portfolio, but I dont need them. Why? Because I enjoy finance and investing the same way I enjoy reading history, science, and mystery novels IOW, for the sheer fun of it. I read extensively Ive had a subscription to the on-line WSJournal since it was first offered, and read it every day plus I clip articles obsessively from a variety of websites. But I would NEVER assume that others want to spend their time the same way. Old Joyful, for instance, likes to invest in individual stocks. He and I had a recent discussion thread about this. I have no interest in anything but mutual funds. Individual stocks dont fit into our tax and financial situation. I have the healthiest respect for his knowledge and acumen, but the fact remains, he lives in Canada and I live in the US. My financial planning is going to be very different than his, just as my goals are different. I know from our own experience how hard it is to sit down and do estate planning. We dont have much of an estate compared to many, yet it took us decades to learn to identify the things we needed to do, so we could finally do the things we wanted to do. Ignorance is most certainly NOT bliss, as we, and so many others, have discovered! I am a firm believer that we should be teaching some of this stuff in school. The world has changed rapidly and drastically, and us middle-class Boomers are stuck trying to figure out a world so much more dangerous than our parents grew up with. If you read my post more carefully, you would see that I wrote that even cheapie (e.g., simple) plans can at least provide a starting point. I do my own planning, using the WSJournal calculators (a subset of which are available on Schwabs website, or so Ive been told). Ive tried others on the web, but wasnt satisfied as they cant be altered to fit our own unusual circumstances. If a simple planning software can help someone, all to the good. I havent found them very helpful, but that doesnt mean I call them all garbage. WSJs toolset comes closest to allowing me to set the appropriate parameters, without having to pay someone to do a plan for us. Why should I pay, when I have the knowledge to do it myself? Its not hard, it just takes some effort and decision-making. THIS is what a planner is for: to help you (if you cant do it yourself) quantify where you are right now, and where you want to be. This is related to investing, but investing is only a very modest part of it. Its the planning process thats critical, yet not well understood. YOU must do the decision-making. No software program or customized plan means anything if you cant accept the reality of what your current circumstances are, and are willing to work at reaching your goals. I recently talked a young family member out of seeing a planner because I was able to help her identify some long-term goals. She also needed some very basic help diversifying her portfolio. In a decade or so they should probably meet with a planner to ensure theyre on track for whatever their goals are at that time. But until then I told her there was no reason to consult with anyone unless a life-changing event occurs. Its more important for her to have all legal docs in order, at this stage of life. I learned a lot from my ex-boss "G", but I have never referred anyone to him. The people I know who have enough money for financial advisors, already have them. The one time I was emailed off-line to ask for an intro, I refused to do so as the specific circumstances of that person made it inappropriate, in my view. "G" is semi-retired, but stays in the business because he loves working with people. He does a lot of pro bono work and is both well known and respected here as he's been active in professional organizations for over 30 yrs now. He trains his office staff not so much on what to do, but what NOT to do. He is ethical and very, very precise about working for the good of his clients, which is why he has many families who are second- and third-generation clients. BTW, Madoffs clients should have known something was "funny" just in the fact he had them writing out checks to his name. Thats a definite no-no the assets should always be held by a third-party institution. The woman (also a CFP) who works in "Gs" office and produces the financial plans is a former elder care specialist who got into the financial side late in life. These customized plans cost a minimum of $4K and range up to $10K. They are certainly NOT for everyone, but when appropriate, can make a huge difference in someone's life. Most people dont need them, but the ones who do, need them a great deal! I worked with some of those clients, and their lives were definitely better for having gotten a good financial plan and then executed it properly. Actually, now that I think of it I did refer someone to my ex-boss. I told my DH that if I die before he does, he's to sell the house (I maintain it and the garden in addition to all the finances; he has no interest in such things), take the insurance proceeds, and bring the money to "G" to handle. You did not have a good advisor. Thats not your fault. Its hard to evaluate credentials when youre on that steep learning curve. But a good advisor isnt looking for the next hot thing for you a good advisor helps you identify your goals and gives you a roadmap on how to get from where you are to where you want to be. A good advisor says "no" to you almost as often as s/he says "yes." Its important, but difficult, to learn how to differentiate the good from the bad. The more educated we are in this area, the better we can tell who can help us and who cannot. Id liken financial planning/investing to painting a room. You can do it the sloppy easy way. You can do a "sorta-kinda" okay paintjob, shoving the furniture out the way and covering it. Or, you can do more extensive prep work: masking the moldings, laying dropcloths, priming and using two coats. You can use cheap paint and cheap brushes. You can use top quality paint and the best brushes or rollers. Its always your choice. Each method gets the job done, to varying levels of satisfaction, cost, time expended, and durability. Saying that **ALL** CFPs are worthless is like saying all professional painters are worthless. Some are, and some arent. Some people need one all the time/every time, and some only need one on occasion. It isnt for me OR for you to make that unilateral judgment. Using a pro for anything is always an individual decision that should never be taken lightly. Nor should that decision be disparaged, once made. Often a pro does do a better job than an amateur can. Sure, a talented amateur can sometimes better a pro but they need the talent, the interest, the skill, and the time. Not everyone has those in equal measure. To expect it of every person is unrealistic and unfair. I feel fortunate to have had the generous and thoughtful assistance of others in my life. Weve had some serious setbacks that could easily have turned out badly, but in the end everything worked out (so far at least!). If I can help others avoid some of the mistakes we've made, then I feel its worth the effort. We did okay (my ROI over 25 yrs is way better than average), but perhaps we could have done better if we hadnt been so ignorant for so long. We were at times the recipients of sheer dumb luck, but thats something one shouldnt be counting on to happen. Dreamgarden, may you have better luck in the future finding people or resources able to help you.

You can make and test the "site" on your own computer, as long as the directory and file names match what you will be using on the web and you stick to plain HTML and JAVA applets. It gets tricky if you want to do server-side things like CGI and PHP. Example: If you have a home page as ~fred just make a directory called website and make all the subdirectories you willuse. website/images website/auctions website/blah As long as you keep the links RELATIVE (/images/picture.jpg and not C:\\website\images\picture.jpg) you can test the links and debug the site structure. Then up-load.

my first language as a child was Cajun French then English, back then everyone spoke a lot of Cajun French especially any business was all handled in French so if we went to see the bank manager for instance that was all in French. All the music was in Cajun French too. I also took all the French courses I could in High School and also at university, I was exempted up. I did also take several years of German and was pretty fluent but not much these days. I had a neighbor that was from Germany so we used to converse, I miss that now I have no one and I am losing it all. I would love to have more languages under my belt.