Can you imagine paying 8 month’s rent just to move into an apartment? Oh, and none of it will be returned! Well if you come to Japan and want an apartment this is a fact. That is where this other option comes in “Gaijin Houses” also known as Guest Houses!

A guest house or “gaijin house” as we say in Japan is an inexpensive type of accommodation for foreigners, who stay in Japan for one month or longer, and who want to avoid the hassle and the expense of renting and furnishing a regular apartment.

Renting an apartment in Japan not as expensive as most people think. But there are many fees applied when you move in. This is where it becomes a hassle. There is the realtor fee, deposit, gift money to the landlord, and a few others thrown in for fun. Each fee is equal to one month’s rent. Therefore your first month’s rent could be anywhere from 4-10 times the amount of rent. Only the deposit will be returned…hopefully.

There are many guesthouses in Tokyo, but they are sprouting up all across Japan. Guest houses are a much better deal. With only a small deposit and no extra fees, they provide safe, clean, affordable accommodation while searching for a long term apartment or on a short term stay. They come equipped with kitchen facilities, Internet access and laundry facilities, and each room is usually furnished with a small fridge, TV and a futon or bed. Since the actual features and overall quality of each guest house can vary enormously, however, a resource like Gaijin House Japan can make the difference between a successful and a miserable stay in Japan.

When trying to find a guest house it can be a dreary task not all guest houses have great English websites. And not knowing the country well you may have a hard time knowing where to look. Enter “Gaijin House Japan!” Gaijin House Japan’s main feature is a continually updated series of articles on every guest house across the length and breadth of Japan. Allowing travelers to comment on the guest houses they have stayed in, thus providing an “in person” view of Japanese guest houses – the good, the bad, and the dirty!

Features of Gaijin House Japan include:



Guest House FAQ – All the common questions asked about Guest Houses.

Guest House Articles – Detailed articles on every guest house across Japan, including photos, videos and travelers comments.

Gaijin House Lounge – A friendly forum where members can talk about travel in Japan and share helpful tips.

100% FREE Classifieds – Look for share-mates, roommates, rooms, and even “sayonara sales” for selling your stuff when you leave Japan or buying stuff when you arrive.

Useful Links - Learn even more at other recommended websites about Japan.



 

 

If you are planning on visiting Japan then this is a must bookmark website!

Helping travelers find the best guest houses across Japan as easy and quickly as possible. http://gaijinhousejapan.com

 

If you have embarked on some online moneymaking venture through the channels made possible by eBay, the virtual world’s most popular marketplace, then you’re sure to be on a constant crusade for some techniques that would help boost the profitability of your trade. Well, I have two words that would help you when it comes to such:

Drop shipping.

Drop shipping involves a contact with a wholesaler, known as a drop shipper. The drop shipper would offer some items for wholesale prices (i.e. big, big discounts). The clincher? There are a couple of them, actually:

1. You’d get to purchase these items at wholesale prices even if you’re going to get them per piece.

2. The drop shipper will take care of shipping the item to the designated location.

Immediately, you will see the potentials for profitability with this setup. You won’t have to buy items for resale. You won’t have to create items for your offers. You just need a relationship with a drop shipper, select from his selection of products, and market the same at eBay. You could place your own markup. And you wouldn’t have to worry about storage space or shipping. Better yet, you wouldn’t be too pressured to make a sale, as your items aren’t technically in stock, rather, they’re with the drop shipper who will be awaiting your word as when to deliver the same to the winning bidder.

Now, here’s what is of the essence. Where could you find drop shippers?

Here’s an important piece of advice: forget about offers that promise to provide a list of drop shippers. More often than not, these lists contain outdated information, dead links and even fabricated entities. This is a fact that has been confirmed by eBay itself.

Here’s another important piece of advice: forget about searching for “drop shipping” or “dropshipping” at Google. The term has been exploited beyond belief that it has almost lost its essence in many content sites.

Here’s a fact that you should know: 80% of manufacturers would be more than happy to do some drop shipping for you. Whereas a couple of years ago, drop shipping was a novel approach to selling items online, nowadays, manufacturers have realized that drop shipping can be an effective evolution of the direct selling model. It’s easier to look for drop shippers today than it was a couple of years ago.

The first thing you have to learn is how to focus. What do you want to sell, exactly? Have you researched the market for it? Is it a profitable market?

The second step should entail researching appropriate products for the market you have chosen. What are available for the same? What, among these choices, do you want to sell?

Subsequent steps would be easy. All that remains to be done is to pinpoint specific manufacturers based from the list you have prepared, and contacting them individually. Ask them if drop shipping is among the services they could offer for willing partners. Chances are, you will get an affirmative reply.

Of course, there are ways to streamline the process. The website world wide brands dot com offers a comprehensive directory of manufacturers that do drop shipping. Unlike the lists that have sprouted all over the internet, this website is very well known for its credibility as well as the equally credible information they offer. Each entry is verified to ensured accuracy. Their service isn’t free, however, but for a serious seller who wishes to make the most out of drop shipping, it would prove to be a good investment.

There are also some dedicated people maintaining websites about their experiences with drop shippers. Take webpuffs dot com for example. The webmaster offers reviews of the drop shipping manufacturers he encounters, and the information he provides for free is immediately worth a lot.

The bottom line is this: drop shipping can make your eBay business more profitable and more convenient. And finding drop shippers is not as difficult as advertised, if you know how to proceed with the same.

Well, now, you’re in a better position than your competitors.

Effective use of Photoshop:



Applying a Drop Shadow

 

Solution

Choose the layer to which you wish to apply the drop shadow, and select Layer >

Layer Style > Drop Shadow. Adjust the opacity, angle, distance, and other settings in the Layer Style dialog box until you’re satisfied.

Note that the value for Angle will affect all drop shadows in your document, so that the light source is consistent across your entire image.

Dragging your Shadow

You can also click directly in the document window and drag the drop shadow around, as shown here. Make sure Drop Shadow is highlighted in the Layer Style dialog box, otherwise this won’t work!



Moving the drop shadow

 

Images with Transparent Backgrounds

 

Solution

Open a Photoshop document that contains transparent areas.

You’ll see that Photoshop marks the transparent areas with a gray, checkered pattern.

 



 

 

Document with background layer turned off

 

Select File > Save For Web…, or press Shift-Alt-Ctrl-S (Shift-Option-Command-S on a Mac). In the dialog box that appears, choose GIF and check the Transparency option, as shown in the image to the right.

While both GIFs and PNGs support transparency, some browsers (including Internet Explorer 6) donot support PNG transparency. For this reason, we recommend that you use GIFs to meet your transparent image needs. Click Save and name your file.

 



 

 

Saving as a transparent GIF

 

Discussion

Images with curved, smooth edges, like the one in this example, maintain the illusion of crisp edges as a result of anti-aliasing — partially transparent pixels are added onto the edges of the image to smooth them, as shown below.

However, when you save an image as a GIF, these partially transparent pixels are saved as non-transparent pixels where white are the default “background”.

 



Close-up of anti-aliased shape

 

If you’re not placing this image on a white background, it might be wise to define a custom matte color by clicking on the Matte arrow, as shown below. Otherwise, you’ll end up with a white “color halo” around the image.

 



Choosing alternate matte color

 

Let us place this graphic against a bright red background. Click on the Matte arrow, choose ‘Other’…, and select a bright red.



 

 

Setting a bright red matte color

Now you’ll be able to see a red color halo around the graphic. If you zoom in, you’ll see that those anti-aliased pixels behave as though they’re sitting on a red background.

 



Close-up of color halo

 

Click the Save button to save your image.



 

No matte vs red matte

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