Methods and apparatuses are described for making a charitable contribution. Coupon data and advertising data are encrypted to thereby reduce the likelihood that such data may be misused, such as by unauthorized duplication. In some embodiments, the signal power control loop controls transmitted signal power of the terminal andor the terrestrial station independent of signal power control for a link between the terrestrial station and the satellite. The percent color value at the selected address is compared with the computed average and is changed by a predetermined amount if the percent color value is greater or less than the computed average. The two-phase commit operation includes preparing for committing the transaction, writing a committed transaction to a memory, optimizing the two-phase commit operation by omitting a phase of the two-phase commit operation, generating an acknowledgement of the committed transaction.