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2012-01-23T05:47:17-08:00

Most boneheaded financial moves of 2008

2009-01-12T17:24:00.000-08:00

We hardly know where to begin this year -- what with the rogue traders, megalomaniac CEOs, billion-dollar losses and utter financial meltdown -- but in the end, we think these 7 offenses, and their many practitioners, are the worst of the bunch.
By Catherine Holahan, MSN Money

This is part one of a year-end wrap-up package. To read Part 2, on the year's best moves, click here.

This year, many of the brightest minds in business made some truly boneheaded moves. Some may blame the messes they caused on bad luck. Some may blame it on fear. But investors should definitely blame some of it on greed. We do.

In fact, we blame billions of dollars in losses on greed, pride, sloth, gluttony and the rest of the seven deadly sins, to remind all that great wealth and power exist side by side with human frailties familiar to us all.

Here is MSN Money's staff-generated list of the biggest financial blunders of the year, together with our best shot at explaining how people could make mistakes this huge.

Tell us: Your pick for 2008's dumbest money moves
Greed
Jerome Kerviel, Société Générale's (SCGLF, news, msgs) rogue trader.

Kerviel, a former options trader at France's second-largest bank, is this year's poster boy for risk tolerance run amok. It didn't appear to bother Kerviel when risky positions collapsed. He doubled down, then doubled down again. Société Générale alleges the 31-year-old manipulated its systems to place as much as €50 billion (about $63 billion at today's exchange rate) on market bets, many of which went bad in the end.

In January, the bank blamed a nearly €5 billion loss on Kerviel. They said he had mocked up fraudulent hedges to conceal the all-or-nothing nature of the risk he had taken on, in essence treating bank funds like his own personal blackjack stash. Kerviel maintains the bank knew what he was doing and didn't care as long as he made money. Way to be greedy, Kerviel.

Also afflicted: mortgage-backed securities traders.

But let's not let the bank off the hook. Or Wall Street. Kerviel's alleged actions are emblematic of a trading culture that turned some of the world's biggest financial institutions into casinos. Obsession with quarterly profits encouraged too much risk taking, too much leverage and too little careful research and planning for the long term. The attitude on Wall Street seemed to be that as long as you're making money this quarter, the potential for disaster doesn't matter. Not to worry about those pesky cyclical real-estate downturns.

Pride
Jerry Yang, the departing CEO of Yahoo (YHOO, news, msgs).

Any observer who read the details on the negotiations between Jerry Yang and Microsoft (MSFT, news, msgs)CEO Steve Ballmer could see that something other than Yahoo's long-term earnings potential was behind Yang's dogged refusal to accept Microsoft's $33-per-share acquisition offer.

The problem was Yang's ego. Yang wanted to keep Yahoo -- the company he built from nothing with partner David Filo -- independent, so he could be the boss. His attitude seems to have changed after Yahoo's stock went into a nose dive last summer.

Now, Microsoft and Yahoo may be negotiating again for Yahoo's search business, according to London's Sunday Times. (Microsoft, the publisher of MSN Money, declined to comment on the news.)

You can bet that the offer on the table -- if there is one -- won't come close to what Microsoft was once willing to pay. Yahoo's stock was trading at less than $12 per share last time we checked, and its market capitalization was under $16 billion. When Microsoft made its initial offer in February, Yahoo was trading around $20 per share and had a market cap of $25.6 billion.

Also afflicted: Rick Wagoner, the CEO of General Motors (GM, news, msgs); Alan Mulally, the CEO of Ford Motor (F, news, msgs); and Robert Nardelli, the CEO of Chrysler.

Is coach really that bad? Why would the CEOs of America's three faltering auto manufacturers, on the eve of asking Congress to approve billions in taxpayer-supplied aid, in the midst of a recession, each fly a private jet to Washington to meet with lawmakers?

Talk about unapologetic pride. But they ain't too proud to beg. Now it seems they have learned their lesson. After Congress rejected initial appeals for aid, the CEOs returned to D.C. in a style more fitting for folks arguing to save American auto manufacturing. Mulally, Nardelli and Wagoner drove hybrid vehicles to Capitol Hill. Their entourages also traveled eco-friendly in ethanol-powered hybrids.

And while we're at it, CNBC's Jim Cramer belongs in this category for July comments about the financial press, whom he derided as uninformed for warning of financial disaster due to subprime-mortgage-backed securities and default insurance supplied by institutions such as American International Group (AIG, news, msgs). Three months later, he was telling his audience to pull out of the market altogether after the breadth of the subprime-fueled crisis had become clear.

"It is really important for journalists to look like they are in the room with the big boys, so you talk about CDOs (collateralized debt obligations), you talk about subprime -- it's a fascination with trying to prove that you know as much as the hedge fund managers," Cramer said in July. "Fortunately, I was a hedge fund manager . . . and so I know that the lack of importance it (bad paper) has versus U.S. Treasurys."

How's the hedge fund business lately, Cramer?

Sloth

Angelo Mozilo, the former CEO of Countrywide Financial, now owned by Bank of America (BAC, news, msgs).

Mozilo is one of the most recognizable faces in the subprime-lending fiasco -- a glib, smug, fast-talking salesman to the bitter end, even as his company went up in flames around him.

Countrywide issued billions in loans to subprime borrowers whose ability to repay was in doubt, then packaged up the loans as securities and sold them off to banks, hedge funds and other large investors who would later wonder what was in the packages.

As CEO, Mozilo should have made it his business to know. That's where sloth comes in. Mozilo and all the others doling out subprime mortgages should have taken the time to ensure better risk management. But that's work.

Also afflicted: Joe Cassano, the president of American International Group's financial-products division, and plenty of other high-ranking Wall Street executives.

Here's the thing about getting paid millions of dollars to manage money: You're supposed to know what you're doing. You can't blame the credit-ratings companies for your bad bets. AAA-rated or not, you made the bet. It's your job to know the finer points of what you bet on.
The same goes for selling insurance protection. You'd better have a pretty complete and accurate risk profile on whatever you're insuring, whether it's an ocean liner or a bond. Clearly, Cassano and a lot of other executives who supervised trading in credit default swaps and mortgage-backed securities were not doing their homework.

Gluttony

Aubrey K. McClendon, the CEO of Chesapeake Energy (CHK, news, msgs).

A CEO's willingness to invest in his own company's stock is admirable. But CEOs need to stay aligned with the interests of stockholders. When you use margin to leverage your investment to the point where you have to liquidate shares in your own company during a vicious downturn, that's a case of biting off far more than you can chew. McClendon did exactly that, and he likely has a terrible stomachache as a result.

Also afflicted: all the speculators in corn futures and the hedge fund managers who believed Goldman Sachs (GS, news, msgs) analysts' assertions that oil would hit $200 a barrel this year.

This is a vast country with a well-established taste for gas-guzzling automobiles, but even Americans couldn't stomach $200-a-barrel oil in a recession. We're not that gluttonous. But a lot of traders in oil futures were. In hopes of pocketing huge profits, they foolishly bet that we wouldn't change our consumption habits.

Now they are getting their just deserts. The same goes for the speculators in corn who helped drive the price to all-time highs with bets that ethanol would become the fuel of the future -- this year. Now that corn has dropped 50% from its highs, their profits are history.

Envy

J. Terrence Lanni, the former chairman and CEO of MGM Mirage (MGM, news, msgs).
So maybe Lanni always wanted an MBA. Presumably, he was envious of those who had them. We're not sure why, as his ascendance to the top spot at MGM Mirage would seem to indicate some real ability.

Anyway, rather than go back to business school, Lanni just put an MBA on his résumé. He resigned in November after The Wall Street Journal reported he had never received that master of business administration degree from the University of Southern California, as claimed.
Lanni has since been quoted explaining that his decision to resign was based on his desire to be closer to his family in California.

Lust

"Mortgage sluts," the mortgage wholesalers who traded sex for loan applications.

While destroying trillions in financial value, the subprime-lending bubble was apparently turning soccer moms and manicurists into near prostitutes. In a Nov. 13 article, BusinessWeek finance and banking department editor Mara Der Hovanesian exposed the sex-for-mortgages scandal behind some subprime loans.

According to the article, female mortgage wholesalers had sex with mortgage brokers in exchange for loan applications, which the women then bundled and sold as securities to investment houses.

Said one mortgage wholesaler quoted in the story, "Women who had sex for loans were known very quickly."

Wrath

Henry Paulson, Treasury secretary.

Paulson is not an angry man. But it seems he felt he had to punish somebody for the mortgage market meltdown, and Lehman Bros. (LEHMQ, news, msgs)happened to be first in line.

What Paulson hadn't realized was that this bit of retribution would plunge the world into downward spiral of doubt about the reliability of all credit instruments. If Lehman could go under, whom could we trust? Speaking of wrath, Paulson's flip-flop on bailout policy (he rode to the rescue of Bear Stearns creditors, then turned his back on those holding Lehman paper) made him a focus of fury among investors who got burned. In Paulson's defense, the mortgage market mess could not have occurred without the concerted efforts of hundreds of Wall Street traders and executives focusing single-mindedly on lining their own pockets. A mess that big cannot be blamed on the mistakes of one man.

Also afflicted: fiscal conservatives.

Another day, another multibillion-dollar bailout funded by you, the taxpayer.

P.S. Not that there's a gun to your head or anything, but if you don't sign up for this, we're probably looking at an outcome south of the Great Depression. If you're a fiscal conservative listening to that message, you've got a right to be enraged. But so far as we know, anger remains mostly a counterproductive behavior, and priority No. 1 has to be fixing this mess.

Source: MSN

10 home-buying tips for uneasy times

2009-01-12T17:11:00.000-08:00

Mortgages are harder to obtain today, and deals require more money down, but it's still a good time for buyers. Here's how to get the home you want at the best price.

By David Koeppel, MSN Money
Nervous about buying a home?

You should be. Your home is probably the single biggest investment you'll make in your lifetime. With an unpredictable economy, a mortgage crisis and record foreclosures, the commitment to buy can be downright overwhelming.

In recent years, lax lending standards eliminated some of the obstacles, but now lenders are once again getting picky.

The good news is that for those who qualify for a mortgage -- with a steady income, strong credit and a modicum of savings -- this is actually a good time to purchase a home. Mortgage rates are low, and home prices have been declining in most parts of the United States.

To help you navigate the uncertainties, especially if you're entering the market for the first time, here are 10 tips for buying a house:

1. Find out how much you can afford, and stay within your budget.
Don't overreach. Forget the McMansion on the hill if it's beyond your means. Focus on finding something that will offer affordable monthly payments and a debt load you can handle.
Calculator: How much can I afford?

To make sure you fully understand and remain within your boundaries, consider a preapproved mortgage. Many reputable lenders offer them. The preapproval process tells you exactly what you will have to pay. Preapproval also provides some extra peace of mind, ensuring that when the time comes, you'll have financing in place. That can be important to real-estate agents and sellers as well as to buyers.

If you're planning to buy, your household budget should allow for hefty savings toward a down payment, unless you're expecting a generous gift from a family member. The days when first-time buyers could purchase a home with a down payment of less than 10% are gone. Lenders are now requiring buyers to put down a minimum of 10% and sometimes up to 20% to 25%.
"First-time buyers must come to the table with some dollars," says Ilyce Glink, the author of "100 Questions Every First-Time Home Buyer Should Ask" and "100 Questions Every Home Seller Should Ask." "You need more income, a better credit score and to think about how much debt you can carry. It has become a more difficult process."

2. Shop around for the right agent.
Real-estate agents operate on different internal clocks. One may be inclined to call you every day, while another may want to call every few weeks. Ask questions about the agent's approach and try to find one well-suited to your situation.

Ideally, the agent you choose will do a lot of business in your neighborhood of choice and will have been in the business for years, gathering plenty of useful information about lending options, title searches and useful ways to compare properties. Try to avoid real-estate agents who are doing on-the-job training.

"Finding a Realtor is a lot like a short-term marriage," Glink says. "Shop around; look for the Realtor who is working the most. What's their level of experience? Are they a good fit with you personality-wise?"

3. Do your homework.
A diligent and dedicated agent by your side is not enough. Buyers need to research their potential new home and neighborhood as thoroughly as possible. Thankfully, a lot of that work can be done from your bedroom or office computer.

The National Association of Realtors says 84% of buyers use the Internet to help them find a home. Do not be part of that other 16%. You'll find the Net is packed with resources about cities, neighborhoods, crime statistics and school districts. Local bloggers can give today's homebuyers insight into everything from pricing trends to who's feuding with a neighbor down the block.

"The Internet is a terrific tool. When I last looked for a house in 1992, that kind of information was nonexistent," says Elliot Goldstein, 46, who, with his wife, Stacey, 45, and their two children, is planning to move to Hoboken, N.J. "I get virtual house tours, multiple listing services . . . everything I need to find out about Hoboken I can find out online."

4. Visit the neighborhood.
Rich as the information on the Internet is, it's no substitute for showing up. Experts suggest repeated visits to your neighborhood of choice, so you can check out homes for sale and attend open houses. Walk around. Shoot the breeze with the neighbors. Visit the community several times at different times of day.

"Walk it, smell it, hear it," says Dennis Torres, director of real-estate operations at Pepperdine University. "At 3 p.m., maybe your lawn will be overrun with kids getting off school. At 10 p.m., there could be a club that's only open at night playing loud music."

5. Don't be afraid to haggle.
How low can you go? Real-estate agents say it all depends on the pressures facing the individual seller. Some of those pressures are related to particular locations -- towns go up and down in appeal -- and some have to do with the individual's situation. But broadly speaking, if ever there was a buyer's market, this it.

"In a strong market, a seller would laugh off a lowball bid," Glink says. "Now you may be able to bid 20% less than you did nine or 12 months ago. Sellers will entertain lowball bids if they're truly desperate to get on with their lives."

Or at least negotiate a few additional amenities. That was the case for first-time homebuyer Jenna Smith, 23, whose six months of near-constant house hunting in suburban Atlanta taught her what she could and couldn't negotiate.

Smith wound up buying into a new suburban development in January. But first she asked the builder to install hardwood floors instead of carpeting. She also wanted a new refrigerator and microwave. The builder eventually agreed, and Smith had her home -- with hardwood floors and appliances -- for $197,000.

6. Buying foreclosed properties? Proceed with caution.
This gets a bit tricky. Real-estate experts are talking a lot about foreclosed properties. Many suggest that, under the right circumstances, exploitation of a foreclosure can give a buyer a nice home at a very nice price.

Foreclosure filings and bank repossessions are up dramatically, according to RealtyTrac, a California company that monitors homes in stages of foreclosure. So much so that some agents and lenders have been organizing weekend bus tours (one charges passengers $97 a ride) to showcase foreclosed properties in hard-hit cities such as Stockton, Calif., Chicago and New Haven, Conn. The tours have been popular both with shoppers searching for homes and with investors interested in buying multiple properties.

Though buying a foreclosed property can potentially provide big savings, it can also present a lot of problems that may not be apparent. Pepperdine's Torres recommends that buyers avoid homes with title uncertainties and consider only properties that have been officially foreclosed on and deeded back to the foreclosing bank.

7. Find the right lender and mortgage.
Many unscrupulous subprime lenders have been shut down. That doesn't mean there aren't still some shady characters around. Don't be tempted to deal with them. Find a lender with roots in the community and a record of integrity that offers reasonable rates.

It pays to do some comparison shopping. Real-estate agents can be a good source. A good agent should be able to recommend reputable area lenders and help a buyer compare types of loans.
"Mortgage rates are very near historic lows, and inventory is high," says Stephanie Singer, a spokeswoman for the National Association of Realtors.

Thorough research of loan offerings will pay off. Smith, the recent buyer from the Atlanta area, landed a 5.875%, 30-year fixed-rate mortgage from her employer, Merrill Lynch. Merrill required her to come up with a 20% down payment on the $197,000 home, or $39,400. Her monthly mortgage payments are about $1,100.

8. A good home inspector is hard to find. But find one.
In recessionary times, the pride of homeownership tends to suffer. It's not that people don't want to maintain their homes; it's that other priorities intervene. With competing pressures coming from credit card bills, skyrocketing gas prices and rising grocery bills, that new paint job on the house may not make it to the top of the list.

A good inspector can help you spot problems that may result from neglect. Bringing in a home inspector is relatively cheap (often from $200 to $300), but according to Torres, it's the least buyers should do to make sure they're purchasing a home in reasonably good shape. Torres recommends buyers accompany inspectors when they examine a home and look out for anything suspicious. Don't be afraid to ask plenty of questions, he adds.

"Ask what every crack, what every stain might be," Torres says. "Look beyond the cosmetic, the paint, the carpet and the flowers. Check under the steps, check under the eaves."

9. Buy for the long run.
Home buying should be viewed as a long-term investment. Don't expect the kind of price appreciation that occurred in the early 2000s. Buy a home you can live in happily for a good many years, if possible. A long-term commitment will pay dividends in peace of mind.

"A home is about putting down roots," author Glink says. "It's not about fixing or flipping or making a mint no matter what some infomercial tells you."

10. Don't time the market. Do take your time.
When will market prices hit rock-bottom? No one knows for sure, so waiting to get in at the lowest possible price isn't recommended. Still, experts predict it will remain a buyer's market for the foreseeable future, so don't rush.

Goldstein and his wife will be moving into their new three-story row house in Hoboken for about $1.2 million at the end of August, allowing his two children to spend a final summer at the family home in Closter, N.J. If negotiations hadn't gone his way, Goldstein was prepared to walk away, he said.

That's the way to do it.

"Don't let other people talk you into something you don't want," says buyer Smith. "It's your house; they don't have to live in it."

Produced by Anh Ly / Graphics by Joe Farro and Anh Ly

Source: MSN

Top 20 Figures of Speech

2009-01-12T16:57:00.000-08:00

By Richard Nordquist, About.com

A figure of speech is a rhetorical device that achieves a special effect by using words in distinctive ways. Though there are hundreds of figures of speech (many of them included in our Tool Kit for Rhetorical Analysis), here we'll focus on just 20 of the most common figures.

You will probably remember many of these terms from your English classes. Figurative language is often associated with literature--and with poetry in particular. But the fact is, whether we're conscious of it or not, we use figures of speech every day in our own writing and conversations.

For example, common expressions such as "falling in love," "racking our brains," "hitting a sales target," and "climbing the ladder of success" are all metaphors--the most pervasive figure of all. Likewise, we rely on similes when making explicit comparisons ("light as a feather") and hyperbole to emphasize a point ("I'm starving!").

Using original figures of speech in our writing is a way to convey meanings in fresh, unexpected ways. Figures can help our readers understand and stay interested in what we have to say. For advice on creating figures of speech, see Using Similes and Metaphors to Enrich Our Writing.

How to Review the Top 20 Figures of Speech
Click on each of the following terms to visit a glossary page. There you will find the definition and several examples of the figure as well as its etymology (which shows where the term came from) and a sound file (so that you'll know how to pronounce the term). For each figure of speech, try to come up with an example of your own.

The Top 20 Figures

1. Alliteration
Repetition of an initial consonant sound.

2. Anaphora
Repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses or verses.

3. Antithesis
The juxtaposition of contrasting ideas in balanced phrases.

4. Apostrophe
Breaking off discourse to address some absent person or thing, some abstract quality, an inanimate object, or a nonexistent character.

5. Assonance
Identity or similarity in sound between internal vowels in neighboring words.

6. Chiasmus
A verbal pattern in which the second half of an expression is balanced against the first but with the parts reversed.

7. Euphemism
The substitution of an inoffensive term for one considered offensively explicit.

8. Hyperbole
An extravagant statement; the use of exaggerated terms for the purpose of emphasis or heightened effect.

9. Irony
The use of words to convey the opposite of their literal meaning. A statement or situation where the meaning is contradicted by the appearance or presentation of the idea.

10. Litotes
A figure of speech consisting of an understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by negating its opposite.

11. Metaphor
An implied comparison between two unlike things that actually have something important in common.

12. Metonymy
A figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for another with which it is closely associated; also, the rhetorical strategy of describing something indirectly by referring to things around it.

13. Onomatopoeia
The formation or use of words that imitate the sounds associated with the objects or actions they refer to.

14. Oxymoron
A figure of speech in which incongruous or contradictory terms appear side by side.

15. Paradox
A statement that appears to contradict itself.

16. Personification
A figure of speech in which an inanimate object or abstraction is endowed with human qualities or abilities.

17. Pun
A play on words, sometimes on different senses of the same word and sometimes on the similar sense or sound of different words.

18. Simile
A stated comparison (usually formed with "like" or "as") between two fundamentally dissimilar things that have certain qualities in common.

19. Synechdoche
A figure of speech is which a part is used to represent the whole, the whole for a part, the specific for the general, the general for the specific, or the material for the thing made from it.

20. Understatement
A figure of speech in which a writer or a speaker deliberately makes a situation seem less important or serious than it is.

Source

The real threat to Google

2008-12-12T12:27:00.000-08:00

It's not the prospect of a Microsoft-Yahoo deal. The Web giant's bigger worry is the mobile phone in your pocket or purse. Here's why.
By BusinessWeek

Google's biggest threat may not be Microsoft (MSFT, news, msgs) or Yahoo (YHOO, news, msgs).

No, one of the most formidable challenges facing Google (GOOG, news, msgs) is likely sitting in your pocket or purse. It's your cell phone, and it will put added pressure on Google and other Internet companies to revamp the way they handle online marketing.

As more people use cell phones -- with their tiny glass screens -- to gain access to the Internet, Google and other online advertisers will have less space, or what's called ad inventory, in which to place marketing messages for customers. Google makes money selling ad inventory and a cell phone just doesn't provide much room for it.

Google can fit about 10 ads on a standard computer screen. (If you look at Google search results on a PC monitor, paid ads are the listings at the very top and along the right.) But on your cell phone, if you type in a search query at google.com you get only one or two paid ads in response.

Imagine the horror that would befall your business if a large slice of what you sell suddenly disappeared. A similar fate could befall companies that depend on online advertising, as small screens become the gateway to the Internet.

No one's suggesting that consumers will abandon standard computer screens overnight. And early research shows that mobile advertising may be more effective than standard online advertising, suggesting that it will be more lucrative for the companies that rely on it. Still, the shift is coming fast enough that Google must start preparing now.

It was Apple (AAPL, news, msgs), a frequent Google collaborator, that tipped the trend. Consumer use of mobile Internet in the United States has longed trailed that of Asia and Europe, where standardized cell networks made it easier for handset makers to produce gadgets that tap the Web at blazingly fast speeds. But in the summer of 2007, Apple rocked America by launching the iPhone. The computer maker wasn't the first to put the Web on phones, but for many consumers, the iPhone made the experience more robust.

Almost two-thirds of Americans have had some experience with mobile Internet use, and the adoption trend is most pronounced among teens and young adults, according to Pew Research Center. About 60% of adults 18 to 29 use text messaging every day, compared with only 14% of their parents. Nearly one-third of young adults use mobile Internet. This is the future; people take their media habits with them as they age.

So, as Apple and demographic trends thrust the mobile Internet upon us, how will advertisers and we consumers of electronics respond?

Google will try to expand ad "shelf space," especially by redesigning cell-phone software. In November, Google announced it was launching an Open Handset Alliance to design a new operating system, code-named Android, which would provide a "truly open and comprehensive platform" for cell-phone users. A few scratched their heads as to why Google would get into the cell-phone interface business. But now it's clear: Web screens will soon be two inches wide, and Google wants a say in what fits on that tiny screen.

Our bet is that the new Android interface will encourage mobile device users to flick through multiple layers or pages, similar to the iPhone album-art menu. This would create more room for ads.

Expanding the visual ad inventory will be crucial for Google, as evidenced by the recent announcement that it will begin selling small display ads on cell-phone screens.
Another implication is that consumers may have to start paying for "free" stuff.

Sure, there's a lot that's free on the Web now, as many, including Chris Anderson of Wired, have noted. Yet, even Anderson notes that most "free" content models really just transfer the hidden cost from you to third-party advertisers, who subsidize your content in hopes of getting attention. If online social media such as Twitter, Facebook or Digg can't figure out ways to entice money from advertisers, they'll have to grab it from you.

Our hunch is that free content systems may stick to the big Web pages, where more ads can fit. For tiny screens, systems such as Twitter that work well in small detail will eventually have to charge, make money some other way or go away. Consumers push back on paying for something that is already free, so the only solution may be to keep ads very minimal -- and very personal.
Which brings us to one of the biggest implications of wider use of the mobile Web. Advertisers will increasingly rely on personalization.

Today, collections of Web sites known as ad networks track consumer behavior across multiple sites, and then shoot targeted ads to users. This behavioral targeting approach, found via WPP Group's (WPPGY, news, msgs) 24/7 Real Media, Blue Lithium, Tremor Media and other Web networks, often results in ad response rates five to 10 times higher than standard banner ads.
Personalization works, and several companies are devising ways to make it work better.
Microsoft recently filed a patent application that would use offline data such as credit-card transactions, estimated physical location (from cell-phone towers) and TV viewing habits to serve you a customized ad the next time you go online. (Microsoft owns and publishes MSN Money.)

The fact that you bought cleats for your kids this morning, went to a high school football game in the afternoon and turned on ESPN when you got home would conceivably trigger a personalized sports ad on your cell phone.

ComScore (SCOR, news, msgs), the Web site ranking service, is taking a different approach, using "biometric signature" profiling to match the keystrokes and mouse-click patterns of different users on a single computer. The idea here is to get beyond the gadget to the individual user who touches it. The system can identify whether Dad or Mom or Sis is sitting at the keyboard, and then match the individual user with a rich profile of demographic data to improve ad targeting.

Pondering all this, we called Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, to see what concerns privacy groups might have about a future where marketers track your every move.

Personalization is actually a great idea," Rotenberg said, "but it should be done in a way that doesn't require detailed data collection" about an individual.

It's a nice hope -- that advertising and Google can survive in a world where the ways to reach consumers via glass screens grow smaller and smaller. But we suspect hyperintrusive data profiling is coming fast.

After all, Internet screens will soon be a lot smaller. And no company as rich or as smart as Google will give up so crucial a slice of sales without fighting back.

This article was reported and written by Ben Kunz for BusinessWeek.

Cell Phone Reverse Number Lookup - No More Unknown Phone Numbers

2008-12-12T12:22:00.000-08:00

By Jay Phillips

Cell phone reverse number lookup directories are not only useful to private detectives, lawyers and researchers but they can be very useful to regular people. For example, how many times have you received prank calls, did you know that there are people who are constantly harassed by such calls? Today thanks to the reverse phone lookup directory all you need to stop these calls is a phone number. Simply log in, type in the number and in two seconds you will have that persons name and address which you can then simply hand over to the police and have them solve this problem.

Or you find an old number in your wallet, cell phone memory or in your old phone book, it looks familiar but no matter how much you try you can't remember who it belongs to. You could simply call this number and find out who gave it to you, but that could possibly cause you a great embarrassment. Easier way to solve this predicament is to simply look it up and find out the owners name.

Perhaps your girlfriend or wife has been receiving a lot of calls from a number you can't recognize. Next time it happens memorize it or better yet write it down, and simply use reverse phone lookup to find out who owns it. Or perhaps you have noticed an unknown number constantly appearing on your phone bills, when you ask your wife or kids about they all play innocent, well now you have a way to find out who owns it without them ever finding out about it.

However not all reverse lookup websites will provide you with the all information you may need. If the number in question is a cell phone number free directories will not be of much use. Free directories can help you get more information regarding regular landline phones, but when it comes to cell phones you'll be just wasting your time by using them.

Paid cell phone reverse number lookup directories do charge a small fee for their services, but it is a one time only charge and a small one as well. In return you will receive at least a full year of unlimited lookups as well as access to more advanced search services like people search, criminal and background records check and e-mail lookup to mention just a few.

It is important to choose the right reverse phone lookup directory, as not even all paid directories will have these additional services. If you are already paying for something why not get the best service you can for the same cost?

No matter if you are a professional or not, and for whatever reason you may need it - good cell phone reverse number lookup directory can help you feel more secure and get you the information you need.

Need to trace a cell phone number? Visit us and use our cell phone number reverse lookup directory! We are not free, but we are cheap and reliable and will get you the information you need!

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14 surprising signs you'll live longer than you think

2008-10-18T16:14:00.000-07:00

Here's what you're doing right, and how to do it even better

Consider this: In the 20th century, the average life expectancy shot up 30 years - the greatest gain in 5,000 years of human history. And this: Centenarians - folks who make it into the triple digits - aren't such an exclusive club anymore, increasing 51% from 1990 to 2000.
How to account for these dramatic leaps? Advances in health, education, and disease prevention and treatments are high on the list - and that makes sense. But what you may not know is that seemingly unimportant everyday habits, or circumstances in your past, can influence how long and how well you'll live. Here, the latest research on longevity - science-based signs you're on a long-life path, plus tips on how to get on track.

1.Your mom had you young
If she was under age 25, you're twice as likely to live to 100 as someone born to an older mom, according to University of Chicago scientists. They suspect that younger moms' best eggs go first to fertilization, thus healthier offspring.

2.You're a tea lover
Both green and black teas contain a concentrated dose of catechins, substances that help blood vessels relax and protect your heart. In a study of more than 40,500 Japanese men and women, those who drank 5 or more cups of green tea every day had the lowest risk of dying from heart disease and stroke. Other studies involving black tea showed similar results.

You really need only 1 or 2 cups of tea daily to start doing your heart some good - just make sure it's a fresh brew. Ready-to-drink teas (the kind you find in the supermarket beverage section) don't offer the same health benefits. "Once water is added to tea leaves, their catechins degrade within a few days," says Jeffrey Blumberg, PhD, a professor of nutrition science and policy at Tufts University. Also, some studies show that adding milk may eliminate tea's protective effects on the cardiovascular system, so stick to just lemon or honey.

3.You'd rather walk
"Fit" people - defined as those who walk for about 30 minutes a day - are more likely to live longer than those who walk less, regardless of how much body fat they have, according to a recent study of 2,603 men and women.

Similarly, overweight women can improve their heart health by adding just 10 minutes of activity to their daily routine, says recent research. So take a walk on your lunch hour, do laps around the field while your kid is at soccer practice - find ways to move a little more, every day.

4.You skip soda (even diet)
Scientists in Boston found that drinking one or more regular or diet colas every day doubles your risk of metabolic syndrome - a cluster of conditions, including high blood pressure, elevated insulin levels, and excess fat around the waist, that increase your chance of heart disease and diabetes. One culprit could be the additive that gives soda its caramel color, which upped the risk of metabolic syndrome in animal studies. Scientists also speculate that soda drinkers regularly expose their tastebuds to natural or artificial sweeteners, conditioning themselves to prefer and crave sweeter foods, which may lead to weight gain, says Vasan S. Ramachandran, MD, a professor of medicine at Boston University School of Medicine and the study's lead researcher.

Better choices: Switch to tea if you need a caffeine hit. If it's fizz you're after, try sparkling water with a splash of juice. By controlling blood pressure and cholesterol levels, preventing diabetes, and not smoking, you can add 6 to 9 1/2 healthy years to your life.

5.You have strong legs
Lower-body strength translates into good balance, flexibility, and endurance. As you get older, those attributes are key to reducing your risk of falls and injuries - particularly hip fractures, which often quickly lead to declining health. Up to 20% of hip-fracture patients die within 1 year because of complications from the trauma.

"Having weak thigh muscles is the number one predictor of frailty in old age," says Robert Butler, MD, president of the International Longevity Center–USA in New York City. To strengthen them, target your quads with the "phantom chair" move, says Joan Price, author of The Anytime, Anywhere Exercise Book. Here's how: Stand with back against wall. Slowly walk feet out and slide back down until you're in a seated position, ensuring knees aren't beyond toes and lower back is pressed against wall. Hold until your thighs tell you, Enough! Do this daily, increasing your hold by a few seconds each time.

6.You eat purple food
Concord grapes, blueberries, red wine: They all get that deep, rich color from polyphenols - compounds that reduce heart disease risk and may also protect against Alzheimer's disease, according to the new research. Polyphenols help keep blood vessels and arteries flexible and healthy.

"What's good for your coronary arteries is also good for your brain's blood vessels," says Robert Krikorian, PhD, director of the Cognitive Disorders Center at the University of Cincinnati. Preliminary animal studies suggest that adding dark grapes to your diet may improve brain function. What's more, in a recent human study, researchers found that eating 1 or more cups of blueberries every day may improve communication between brain cells, enhancing your memory.

7.You were a healthy-weight teen
A study in the Journal of Pediatrics that followed 137 African Americans from birth to age 28 found that being overweight at age 14 increases your risk of developing type 2 diabetes in adulthood. Adults with diabetes are two to four times more likely to develop heart disease than those without the condition, according to the American Heart Association.

8.You don't like burgers
A few palm-size servings (about 2 1/2 ounces) of beef, pork, or lamb now and then is no big deal, but eating more than 18 ounces of red meat per week ups your risk of colorectal cancer - the third most common type, according to a major report by the American Institute for Cancer Research. Colorectal cancer risk also rises by 42% with every 3 1/2-ounce serving of processed meat (such as hot dogs, bacon, and deli meats) eaten per day, the report determined. Experts aren't sure why red and processed meats are so harmful, but one of their suspects is the carcinogens that can form when meat is grilled, smoked, or cured - or when preservatives, such as nitrates, are added.

"You can have an occasional hot dog at a baseball game, but just don't make it a habit," says Karen Collins, RD, a nutrition advisor at AICR. And when you do grill red meat, marinate it first, keep pieces small (kebab-size), and flip them often - all of which can help prevent carcinogens from forming. If you're baking or roasting it, keep the oven temp under 400�F.

9.You've been a college freshman
A recent Harvard Medical School study found that people with more than 12 years of formal education (even if it's only 1 year of college) live 18 months longer than those with fewer years of schooling. Why? The more education you have, the less likely you are to smoke. In fact, only about 10% of adults with an undergraduate degree smoke, compared with 35% of those with a high school education or less, according to the CDC.

10.You really like your friends ...
"Good interpersonal relationships act as a buffer against stress," says Micah Sadigh, PhD, an associate professor of psychology at Cedar Crest College. Knowing you have people who support you keeps you healthy, mentally and physically: Chronic stress weakens the immune system and ages cells faster, ultimately shortening life span by 4 to 8 years, according to one study.

Not just any person will do, however. "You need friends you can talk to without being judged or criticized," says Sadigh.

11.� and they're healthy
If your closest friends gain weight, your chance of doing the same could increase by 57%, according to a study in the New England of Journal of Medicine. "To maintain a healthy lifestyle, it's important to associate with people who have similar goals," says Nicholas A. Christakis, MD, PhD, the study's lead researcher. Join a weight loss group, or train with a pal for a charity walk.

12.You embrace the challenge
People who consider themselves self-disciplined, organized achievers live longer and have up to an 89% lower risk of developing Alzheimer's than the less conscientious, according to two studies.

When you're good at focusing your attention, you use more brainpower, says the lead researcher in both studies, Robert S. Wilson, PhD, a professor of neurological sciences and psychology at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. Set personal or career goals, and challenge yourself to meet them by a certain time. Also, try new things to stimulate your brain: If you always read fiction, pick up an autobiography instead. The next day, try to recall three facts you learned from the reading.

13.You don't have a housekeeper
Just by vacuuming, mopping floors, or washing windows for a little more than an hour, the average person can burn about 285 calories, lowering risk of death by 30%, according to a study of 302 adults in their 70s and 80s.

You're a flourisher
About 17% of Americans are flourishers, says a study in American Psychologist. They have a positive outlook on life, a sense of purpose and community, and are healthier than "languishers" - about 10% of adults who don't feel good about them selves. Most of us fall somewhere in between.

"We should strive to flourish, to find meaning in our lives," says Corey Keyes, PhD, a professor of sociology at Emory University. "In Sardinia and Okinawa, where people live the longest, hard work is important, but not more so than spending time with family, nurturing spirituality, and doing for others."

Copyright© 2007 Rodale Inc. All rights reserved. No reproduction, transmission or display is permitted without the written permissions of Rodale Inc.

[Source & MSNBC]

Nightmare Hair Scenarios and How to Fix Them

2008-09-04T19:11:00.000-07:00

The best-selling Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook may have taught you how to fend off a shark and escape from quicksand, but what about the real catastrophes in a chick's life — like having a heinous hair moment before a big date or botching an at-home dye job? Fear not...Cosmo comes to the rescue with our own EMT (Emergency Mane Treatment) advice.

Disentangle Your Hair from a Round Brush

Resist the urge to grab the nearest steak knife and slice off that entire section of strands. The better approach:

Don't panic and tug. "That will only make the knots tighter," says Guy Romeo, a stylist at the Privé salon in Los Angeles.
Pin up loose strands. Gently remove as much hair as you can with your fingers, and clip up the freed strands as you go.
Pick the locks. Take a rattail comb, knitting needle, or similar skinny stick and use the pointed tip to dislodge the remaining hair bit by bit from the bristles.

How to avoid barrel-brush entanglements:

Never work with a section of hair that's wider than the brush you're using.
Lift each section up and away from your head before you start rolling the brush underneath it. (Tangles often occur when you inadvertently involve hair that's below the section you're working on.)

Fix a Dud Dye Job

While nobody's saying that orange roots couldn't have a big fashion moment, now's not it. So in the meantime:

Go to a pro. See a colorist as soon as possible. If you try to fix the problem on your own, you'll just make it worse. This process is typically more complicated than a straight coloring job, so be prepared to pay more.
Style curls into your coif. Until your appointment, wear your hair curly. "Curls help the botched color blend in and be less noticeable," explains Rodney Cutler, owner of NYC's Cutler Salon.

How to Prevent Home Hair-Color Mishaps:

Watch the clock. Leaving color on for too long can be a disaster, says Cutler. You might wind up with tangerine tresses.

Disguise a Botched at-Home Bang Trim

You thought you were so savvy trimming your own fringe — until you lopped off an inch where a centimeter would've sufficed. Some possible remedies:

Go for a side sweep. Part your hair on the side where your bangs are the longest, then sweep them across your forehead so they fall over the too-short bits.
Create piece-y texture. The more intentionally piece-y your do looks, the more effectively your bad bang job will be camouflaged. Work a dab of pomade between your palms and fingertips, then twirl little sections of hair from roots to ends.
Tie on a hip head-scarf. If your bangs are too short but not crooked, Romeo offers this approach: Brush them against your forehead and place a scarf or headband at your hairline to nudge them down to a normal-looking length.

How to Avoid Bad Bang Cuts:

Rather than cut your own bangs, finagle a free fringe trim at the hands of a pro. "Many salons offer complimentary bang trims to regular clients," says Cutler.
If you're set on doing it yourself, don't make the all-too-common mistakes of wetting your bangs and taping or holding them down (either way, they'll seem longer than they really are and you're likely to overcompensate by cutting too much off). Instead, start with dry bangs and let them hang naturally to get the most accurate sense of their length. Then use sharp, fine-tipped scissors and a slow, steady hand to do the deed.

Deal with Last-Minute Product Overload

If you overestimated the amount of styling goo to use and now your strands look more oil-slicked than glamorously styled, take these measures:

Remove excess product. Wrap your head in a dry towel, then scrunch with your hands to absorb whatever you can.
Powder your roots. To absorb the rest, use cornstarch, talcum powder, or a dry shampoo. Create a part two inches above one ear and sprinkle powder into the roots. Use your fingertips to rub it in. Repeat every two inches until you get to the other ear.
Tousle your tresses. Flip your head upside down, and with your dryer blowing on cool, run your fingers through your hair.

How to Prevent Product Overload:

Start with less product than you think you'll need — you can always add more.
Begin your product application at the nape of the neck. "When you work from the undersections of your hair, you'll deposit the bulk of the product in the least noticeable places," explains Cutler.

Treat a Curling-Iron Burn on Your Face

"Burn, baby, burn" has a nice ring to it on the dance floor — but if this is what happens when wielding a curling iron, here's first aid for your beauty flub:

Prevent inflammation. Apply ice (wrapped in a washcloth or plastic bag) to the burn immediately for 10 to 15 minutes, says New York City dermatologist Arielle Kauvar. Take a break for a few minutes, then repeat for up to an hour or as long as you can.
Assess the damage. Determine if the burn is first degree (redness but no blistering) or second degree (inflammation and mild blistering). Note: The chance of getting a curling iron-inflicted second-degree burn is pretty slim.
Treat the skin. If it looks like a first-degree burn, apply an OTC antibiotic ointment (such as Bacitracin or Polysporin) twice a day to guard against infection, and stay out of the sun to prevent discoloration. If you've managed to get a second-degree burn, see a physician for a prescription topical antibiotic.
Disguise damage. Don't use makeup on the burn, but obscure it by leaving your locks loose and tousling them forward.

How to Avoid Curling-Iron Burns:

When rolling the curling iron against your head, stick a thin plastic comb between your scalp and the iron, suggests Cutler. A basic black comb that's about an eighth of an inch thick fits the bill — it's enough to block the heat but not so thick that it will block access to your roots. "I use this trick at shoots, because if you burn a model's face, she hates you for life," says Cutler.

Revive Limp Locks

If your do has drooped, you don't have to spend the day with strands that are as flat as a pancake. To make your flapjack style look more full:

Shake dry any damp spots. If you were stuck in bad weather or in a sweaty situation (hmmm...), use a towel (or tissue if that's all you have) to get your tresses as dry as possible.
Tease your roots. Pull out a comb, hold a two-inch section of hair straight up, then briskly move the comb up and down the backside over the roots only (from your scalp to two inches away). Make sure to do the back of your head as well.
Pull it back. When all else fails, try a sleek ponytail.

How to Prevent Limp Locks:

Don't overload on product. If you expect wet weather, use a humidity-proof styler.
Use a root-boosting volumizer when styling.
While blow-drying, lift your roots up and point the nozzle up into them to lock
in lift.

Reprinted with permission of Hearst Communications, Inc.

Source

How to Answer: 'Why Should I Hire You?'

2008-09-04T19:05:00.000-07:00

By Joe Turner, author of "Job Search Secrets Unlocked"

"Why should I hire you?"

This is the classic question most of us hear during an interview. It's often preceded by the phrase, "I've already interviewed another person for this position who looks perfect." Then comes the killer question, "Why should I hire YOU?"

Sometimes the most innocent interview question can prove to be the key to the empire for some, while it can be the swan song for others.

The next time an employer asks, "Why should I hire you?" see the question in a new light -- as an opportunity to shine and pull ahead of your competitors.

Be careful to avoid clever retorts or comedic one-liners here. Your interview is serious business and a wrong answer will send you packing. This is the one question that interviewers like to ask because the answer can separate the contenders from the also-rans. Give a wrong answer and the large "game over" sign flashes above your head.

What hiring managers really want to know is, "What's special or different about you?" or "How are you different than all the other candidates who have applied for this position?" With this in mind, a good way to approach your answer here is to launch into your best "story" that answers this question: "Will you go the extra mile?"

Why is the employer asking why he or she should hire you? Because there are only five areas of interest he or she is concerned with:

1. Your skills2. Your knowledge about the company3. Your manageability4. Your affordability5. Whether you can go above and beyond your job description.

In this day of "lean and mean" operations philosophy, employers are looking for employees who can think bigger and perform duties beyond their jobs.

Realize that there will always be competing candidates with a higher skill level, more experience, more education and training or even a smoother interviewing style. The one equalizer though, is the ability to demonstrate how you have risen above and gone that extra mile to accomplish an important task, complete the job or realize an important goal.

Here, you recount that story of exactly how you worked 60-hour weeks, acquired new skills or did whatever it took to distinguish yourself and meet the challenge head on to successfully make the sale, save the project or rescue a client. If you can put a dollar value on the result, your story will only be that much more dramatic.

Knowing this ahead of time, it's wise to put in the time beforehand to work on your answer to this question. Pick your best example of how you went above and beyond in your job. Work on your story to perfect it. Set the scene, describe the challenge and describe your role and the successful conclusion. Use this as an example of how you use your particular set of skills in an extraordinary time to "give it your all" and produce a clear benefit to your employer.

Since no other candidate can duplicate your own personal story here, you'll make a memorable impression. Not only that, but quite possibly you'll pull yourself ahead of that "perfect" candidate who preceded you.

As a recruiter, Joe Turner has spent the past 15 years finding and placing top candidates in some of the best jobs of their careers. Author of "Job Search Secrets Unlocked," Turner has been interviewed on radio talk shows and offers free insider job search secrets at: http://www.jobchangesecrets.com/

Sexy Shape-Up Secrets

2008-09-04T19:02:00.000-07:00

Workout tips from Carmen Electra's trainer.
by Kate Dailey for ExerciseTV

You need a body-boosting workout but you don't have time to spend hours in the gym. Celebrity trainer Michael Carson feels your pain. His client Carmen Electra doesn’t have a lot of time to spend doing squats either. Carson’s solution? Spend as little time as possible working out—and avoid exercise moves you hate.

To follow Carson’s advice, you need to maximize your gym time with a series of dynamic movements that tone muscle, increase flexibility, and burn calories. That means giving tried-and-true exercises a mobility makeover and using more muscles at once.

Carson calls his workout system “rotational”--think of it as three-dimensional body movement. You’re not just moving back and forth and side to side, but in all directions. “It gives you a lot of muscular use with very little impact, and it helps prevent injury,” Carson says. “It’s all about fluidly increasing circulation, improving metabolism, burning calories, and doing everything with one movement.” Sounds good to us.

Follow his tips for a body you’ll want to show off:

Twist and shout: Crunches and traditional core exercises shorten your torso and can actually do more harm than good for your posture. “The more you twist and stretch, the more you make your muscles elongated. Traditional abs training shortens them,” he says. Carson emphasizes moves that encourage full range of motion, like the HELICOPTER SQUAT. Not only do they make you look longer and leaner, they can help prevent injury as well.

Don’t ignore your core: Everybody knows the importance of core training to increase stability, posture and strength. But do you know what your “core” is? If you think abs and back, think again. “Your core goes down below your thighs, almost to your knees,” says Carson. It’s made up of many muscles that all work together to keep you stable and strong. That’s why when you work out, you should engage them all in tandem instead of trying to spot train. Try moves like the BENT OVER PRESS to give your core a real-life workout.

Posture makes perfect: How you stand when executing a move can impact how your muscles fire, which in turn can hinder the effect of your workout. When lunging, keep your weight on your heels and squeeze your glutes for maximum impact, says Carson. Throughout your workout, shift your weight from the ball of your foot to the pads of your feet. Pay attention to which muscles are firing as you move, as well as which moves challenge you more. (If it hurts, don’t push it; check with a trainer to ensure you’re not setting yourself up for injury.)

Ugly moves have pretty results. It’s a natural impulse to want to check yourself out in the mirror when you’re working out. But doing so can sometimes hurt, not help, your form. “To do a squat properly, you want to lower your shoulders to the same degree that you’re lowering your hips,” says Carson. The result can be a move that looks awkward, but it’s better for you.

“Otherwise, you’re putting too much pressure on your knees and shins,” says Carson. “It might feel like there’s a lot going on down there, but there’s no benefit.” Watch him in the FIGURE 8 SQUAT for perfect form.

For more workouts with Michael Carson or to check out Carmen Electra’s Aerobic Striptease workouts, go to http://www.exercisetv.tv/.

© 2008 ExerciseTV LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Flatten Your Abs Without Hurting Your Back

2008-09-04T18:58:00.000-07:00

Which exercise can help without hurting?
By Martica Heaner, M.A., M.Ed., for MSN Health & Fitness

Q. I have a herniated disc. What is the best way to flatten and strengthen my upper and lower abdomen, but avoid straining my lower back?

A. A common misconception is that specific exercises will “flatten” the abdomen. Another common misconception is that different abdominal muscles need to be worked—upper vs. lower, for example. Here’s the truth:

If you wish to flatten your abdomen, this suggests that you have extra fat in the area. You can lie on your back and do zillions of ab crunches, V-sits, bicycle moves, reverse curls, curls on the ball, and so on—and not make a dent in the fat on your belly. Why? Because lying on your back and contracting your abdominal muscles burns very few calories. It burns about as many as lying on your back and watching TV (OK, maybe half a calorie per minute more).

To reduce body fat, you need to burn more calories—and a lot of them. This is best accomplished through a combination of eating fewer calories than you normally do, and burning up more calories with greater-than-normal amounts of exercise. The best calorie-burning activities are cardio or highly vigorous workouts such as walking, running, cycling, cardio machines, dancing, and vigorous, quick-paced heavy-weight-lifting circuit routines.

What’s deceptive about ab exercises is that they feel like something is happening. The more you lie on your back and pummel away at those muscles, the bigger the burn. But, don’t be fooled—that burn is not burning fat. It’s simply the result of the occlusion of blood flow and muscle fatigue from the repeated muscle contractions.

You can’t feel fat burning. When you walk for an hour, even at a slow pace, you are burning extra fat, but you can’t feel it being sizzled off your thighs or arms. When you eat less, you also burn extra fat. But again, you can’t feel this happening. What you might think is happening to your abs as you pound away at them with core exercise, is not. So what is happening? You’re strengthening the muscles, or developing increased muscle endurance. This is beneficial, as long as the type of ab training you do is not stressful to your back—especially if your back is already vulnerable from a previous injury or weakness.

To reduce your waistline, do more cardio. You can improve the strength and endurance of your core muscles by making sure that you have good posture during any cardio that you do. Stand up tall, lengthen your spine, and engage your abs—but don’t suck them in too deeply, because then you flex the lower back and increase the pressure on it.

I’ve written extensively about the best exercises for strengthening your lower back. Ab muscles work synergistically: When you work one, you work them all. Also, there are no separate upper and lower muscles. The rectus abdominis (your six-pack muscle), for example, is one long muscle that spans from your ribs to your pubis. When you do a reverse curl that targets the “lower” area, the upper area still contracts. When you do a curl and feel it more in the upper area, the lower area still contracts.

But these moves may not be the best way to help your spine. Instead, concentrate on exercises that stabilize, rather than mobilize (or move) your spine. Pushups, planks, and hands-and-knee ab-tightening exercises are best. Check out my columns Six-Pack Abs, As Seen On TV and Are Crunches The Wrong Move? And try these exercises in MSN’s Fit Zone: Build a Better Back Now and Flat, Sexy Abs in Five Moves.

Find all articles by Martica.

Do you have a fitness or weight-loss question for Martica? Send e-mail to experts@microsoft.com. Please include Ask Martica in the subject line.

Each of our experts responds to one question each week and the responses are posted on Mondays on MSN Health. We regret that we cannot provide a personalized response to every submission.

Martica is a Manhattan-based exercise physiologist and nutritionist and an award-winning fitness instructor. She has written for a variety of publications including Self, Health, Prevention, The New York Times and others. Martica is the author of seven books, including her latest, Cross-training for Dummies. (Read her full bio.)

Romantic Ideas for Everyday

2008-09-04T18:45:00.000-07:00

20 romantic ways to show your sweetie you care no matter what the occasion.
By The Nest

Valentine's Day, First-Date Anniversary, Tuesday — when you're in love, just about any day is a perfect excuse for sparking romance. Any time you feel the need to connect with your sweetheart, these ideas are perfect — no holiday necessary.

1. Stuff a little love note in your sweetie's pocket, sock, or shoe. For maximum impact, try email.

2. Secretly load a photo of the two of you as the desktop wallpaper on your honey's computer.

3. Burn a CD with tunes from your dating days and include your first dance (or favorite) song.

4. Buy a heart-shaped cookie-cutter and use it to make toast the next morning.

5. Look up the date of the next full moon and celebrate with a champagne toast.

6. Learn to ice skate or in-line skate together. This works best when both of you are beginners — the more clinging to each other, the better.

7. Hate basketball and your main squeeze is addicted to it? Get tickets to a game. Despise musicals? Surprise your sweetie with tickets to a show. Go against the grain, and endure with grace and cheer.

8. Spend the day at a museum, holding hands.

9. Forget breakfast in bed. Have dinner in bed (and don't worry about the crumbs).

10. Go to bed early. No books, no magazines, no remote control.

11. Tell a secret — it'll bring you closer.

12. Create your own cocktail together. Then make up a name for it by combining your two names.

13. Write "I Love You" on the steamy mirror while your beloved is in the shower.

14. Go to a bookstore or music store together, then split up. Your mission: Buy something you know your sweetie will love. Then, wrap and exchange.

15. Have a picnic. It doesn't have to be outdoors, it can be on your living room floor.

16. Absence is an aphrodisiac. Spend a weekend without each other (substitute your best pal, your sister, your old college roommate) and plan to meet back at your place after 48 hours apart.

17. Teach each other about something the other knows nothing about. He can teach her all the rules of chess, or how to make a perfect omelet. She can teach him ten phrases in French and how to use the digital camera.

18. Get away from it all close to home — spend a night in a very luxurious hotel or cozy bed-and-breakfast in your own city.

19. Get dressed together — choose each other's attire (for work, for dinner out, whatever). Then, later, get undressed together.

20. Find your sweetie's car in the parking lot and tuck a love note under the windshield wiper.

[via MSN]

10 Killer Texting Tricks

2008-07-24T08:18:00.000-07:00

By Rick Broida, PC World

Text messaging isn't just kid's stuff anymore. Use these amazing online tools to turn any SMS-capable phone into a productivity powerhouse.

To many people over 30, text messaging can seem like one of those strange, complicated behaviors only teenagers understand. In reality, it's one more great tool in your productivity arsenal, right up there with e-mail and instant messaging.

In function, texting treads a fine line between those two communication capabilities, essentially serving as a basic form of e-mail for even the simplest of today's cell phones. Text messaging relies on a decades-old technology called SMS -- Short Message Service -- that's used to relay brief messages (usually no more than 160 characters, equivalent to a couple of average-length sentences).

Teens typically use texting for trivial cell-to-cell communication ("WHERE R U?", "AT THE MALL!"). But savvy travelers can leverage SMS for a whole lot more. Let your thumbs do a little walking (over your phone's keypad) and you can check flight status, update your calendar, track a package, check your bank balance and get driving directions to almost anywhere.

You don't even always need your thumbs: Some services let you send messages and retrieve information using just your voice. Best of all, most of these text-messaging marvels cost nothing to use -- though you'll want to check with your carrier to see how many messages (if any) are allowed as part of your monthly plan.

1. Remember Your Appointments and Schedule New Ones
Can't remember what time your next meeting takes place? If you're a Google Calendar user, you can find out in a flash: Just send a message with the word "next" to GVENT (dial 48368) and you'll get back the time and details of your next scheduled event. Send "day" for a full list of today's appointments and "nday" for tomorrow's.

Google Calendar also lets you add new events via SMS -- and you can use plain English to do it. For example: "Lunch with Joe at Panera Bread tomorrow at noon." Shoot a message like that to GVENT, and Google will add it to your calendar with all the appropriate details.

Finally, you can configure Google Calendar to send automatic reminders in advance of an event. For any existing entry, click Edit Event Details, then Add a Reminder. Choose SMS from the list of options, and then specify how far in advance of the event the notification should arrive.

Before you can leverage Google Calendar's SMS features, you have to configure it for use with your phone. In your Web browser, open Google Calendar and click the Settings link, then choose Mobile Setup. Follow the simple cues to enable cell-phone notifications, and you're all set.

Of course, Google Calendar isn't the only game in cyberspace. Services like PingMe and Sandy can deliver notifications to your phone and process new reminders that you send from it. And Kwiry helps you remember things you're supposed to do by routing text messages created on your phone to your e-mail inbox.

2. Track Packages, Calories and Cash
A number of Web services now offer alerting and information options via SMS to help keep you in the loop. For example, are you dying to know when your newly ordered MacBook Air will arrive? Forward your delivery-confirmation e-mail to TrackMyShipments.com, and you'll subsequently receive SMS updates on your package's status, location and delays (if any). You can also monitor your own shipments by sending its tracking number to a special e-mail address.
If you're watching your weight, Diet.com can help you count your calories. Text any major restaurant chain's name and menu item to DIET1 (dial 34381) and Diet.com will shoot you back the nutrition stats: calories, fat, carbs and protein.

Quicken Online can send you a text-message reminder when a bill is due, so you won't have to worry about racking up late fees. Other Web-based money managers like Buxfer and Mint offer even more SMS-alert options: They can notify you of low balances, unusual spending and large deposits (such as a paycheck). You can even record transactions (great for tracking expenses on the run) or request an account balance.

3. Compose Text Messages with Your Voice
Most people who hate text messaging do so for the simple reason that it's such a hassle to compose messages using a cell-phone keypad. You could always upgrade to a keyboard-equipped phone like the AT&T Tilt, LG Voyager or RIM BlackBerry Curve, but even those models are "all thumbs" when it comes to text input. Plus, it probably seems excessive to spend hundreds of dollars on a new phone just for the sake of easier text messaging.

Instead, let your voice do the legwork -- or fingerwork. A free service called Jott will transcribe your spoken message into text and deliver it via SMS to anyone in your contact list (which you have to set up in advance on the Jott site). Just speed-dial Jott from your cell phone, say the name of the person you want to contact, and then start talking. (Remember to keep it short: Text messages can't be longer than a few sentences.) This is also a much safer way to send a message while you're at the wheel. (Note, however, that some states ban or discourage using the phone while driving, or are considering laws against it.)

4. Get Driving Directions
If your phone lacks GPS and you need to find your way between points A and B, let SMS be your guide. Before you hit the road, head to MapQuest in your desktop browser and input your destination. Once the site generates the driving directions, click the Send to Cell option and enter your cell number. In seconds you'll receive a text message containing a link to turn-by-turn directions for your route.

If you're away from your PC, tap Google SMS for on-the-fly navigation. Create a new message with your starting point and destination, then send it to GOOGLE (dial 466453). In return, you'll receive Google Maps directions in one or more text messages (depending on the length of the route). You can also get an actual map by texting "map" and your location.

Need directions but don't want to take your hands off the wheel? Dial 800-FREE-411, 800-GOOG-411 or DIRECTIONS (dial 347-328-4667) for voice-prompted assistance. State your starting address and where you want to go; all three services will whip up directions and shoot them to your phone via SMS. Best of all, they're free. You pay only standard calling and text-message charges.

5. Search Google From the Road
Google SMS offers more than just driving directions: You can text your way to stock quotes, movie show times, currency conversions and much more. The trick lies in remembering the proper syntax to receive the information you want. To access Google's glossary, for instance, your message should read "Define" and then the word. Looking for a particular business in your area? Send the business name (or category, such as "pizza") and the Zip code or the city and state. If you can't remember the proper format for a particular inquiry, just send "help" or "tips" to Google SMS (dial 466453), and the service will send you a cheat sheet.

4INFO offers a similar batch of SMS services, but adds helpful extras like package tracking and a Wi-Fi hotspot finder. You'll find fun stuff, too, such as jokes, drink recipes and pickup lines. You can also sign up for text-message alerts: 4INFO will send you the game scores for your favorite teams, educate you with a word of the day, and even deliver Craigslist ad updates (so you can swoop in the moment playoff tickets go on sale).

6. Keep Tabs on Flights ...
Jet-setters can also tap Google SMS and 4INFO for flight information. Just text your airline and flight number to receive up-to-the-minute arrival and departure times. If you'd rather have flight updates pushed to your phone, head to FlightStats, sign up for a free account, and then set up some Flight Alerts. The site will send you a status report up to three hours before departure, notifications of any flight delays or cancellations, and a notification when the flight lands (helpful if you're on airport-pickup detail).

7. … And Keep Tabs on Friends
Fans of Twitter, the micro-blogging service that lets others know what you're doing at this very minute, will find SMS virtually indispensable for sending and receiving updates. Start by configuring your Twitter account to support text messaging: Click the Settings link and then click Phone & IM. Follow the instructions to enable your phone, then set Device Updates to "on." (While you're at it, click the Notices option and set "sleep" hours so you're not bothered by new messages all through the night.)

To receive text-message updates from your friends and family, click the Following link in your profile and set Device Updates to "on" for each person. To broadcast your own updates straight from your phone, text your messages to 40404.

8. Transfer Files to Your Phone
Savvy users know that the easiest way to move a file between PCs is to e-mail it to yourself. So why not take the same approach for transferring a file to your phone? Unfortunately, it's not always that easy: Many phones balk at e-mail file attachments due to size or format. And what if your phone isn't set up to fetch e-mail anyway? Your only option is a traditional PC-to-phone connection, which usually requires a special cable or a complicated Bluetooth configuration.

Enter Beam It Up Scotty, a free Web-based service that leverages SMS to send just about any kind of file to your phone. Just browse your hard drive for the desired file -- document, photo, MP3, movie or whatever -- and then choose a compression setting. Beam It Up Scotty can automatically optimize video and audio files for mobile-phone playback and can compress other kinds of files for speedier transfer.

Finally, enter your cell-phone number. Within a few minutes you'll receive a text message containing a link to download the file straight to your phone.

9. Send Text Messages From Your PC
Suppose a text message arrives on your phone while you're sitting at your desk. Do you really have to peck out the reply on the phone's tiny keypad? Not if you know the recipient's phone number and carrier. Just fire up Outlook or any other mail client and compose your reply like an ordinary e-mail. The trick lies in knowing the proper way to address the message.

For example, e-mails sent to phones on the Sprint network must be formatted like this: phonenumber@messaging.sprintpcs.com. To send e-mail-via-SMS to a Verizon customer, use phonenumber@vtext.com. You can find a full list of carriers and their text-message addresses at SMS 411.

If you don't know the recipient's carrier or can't remember all those different suffixes, take a shortcut: Send your e-mail to phonenumber@teleflip.com. The free Teleflip service does the legwork for you, routing your message to the appropriate carrier. Whatever method you use, keep in mind that replies will come to your e-mail inbox, not to your cell phone -- which can be a good thing if you're spending the day at your desk anyway.

10. Archive Your Messages
Need to save an important message for posterity (or a pending court case)? In an ideal world, you'd simply connect your phone to your PC and copy the messages to your hard drive. Few phones can do that out of the box, however. But the free utility BitPim makes this possible for many models from LG, Motorola, Samsung and Sanyo. You'll also need a USB cable that's compatible with your phone; check with the manufacturer (or eBay) to hunt down the proper cable.

To preserve only a select few messages (and avoid the hassles of software and cables), check out Treasuremytext. This free Web service archives and manages all messages forwarded from your phone. Later, you can visit the Treasuremytext site to review your messages, add notes and organize them in custom folders.

10 Books You Should (Re)Discover

2008-07-24T07:51:00.000-07:00

School just ain't what it used to be. Or is it? Some books can take us back to our school days and teach us valuable lessons all over again. Here are some of our favorites.

1. Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans
Ahh, adventures in Paris--what could be better? Madeline and 11 other little girls live "in an old house in Paris," under the care and tutelage of Miss Clavel. This edition captures their exploits in three-dimensional pop-up spreads of selected scenes from the book based on Ludwig Bemelmans's original illustrations.

2. Goodbye, Mr. Chips by James Hilton
A gentle schoolmaster is ridiculed at first by his rowdy charges, but gradually his dignity and generosity gain the students' respect. Did you have a teacher you tortured, whom you later grew to admire? You're bound to identify your former teacher with Mr. Chips, who over the years has come to represent all beloved teachers, whose lessons extend beyond the classroom.

3. A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
An heiress has a difficult time at boarding school after her father suddenly dies, leaving her penniless. No longer a "princess," she endures cruel treatment from the other students. Despite her change in fortunes, she remains determined to maintain her dignity and to give voice to her princess within.

4. The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
What happens after Holden Caulfield flunks out of boarding school yet again? The school of hard knocks has some bitter--and often hilarious--lessons in store. Sixteen-year old Holden narrates this classic coming-of-age story, offering wry commentary on the "phoniness" of the adult world around him and hinting at the emptiness inside.

5. Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh
Harriet is a young girl determined to be a famous writer. To gather material, she faithfully writes in her secret notebook everything she sees and hears while walking her daily "spy route." She makes brilliant observations of life's absurdities, and her writing career seems assured--until the notebook is discovered by her classmates who read it aloud. Suddenly, she finds herself a social outcast and the target of her vengeful classmates.

6. The Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling
The unbelievably popular series about life at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry starts with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. As you must know by now, Harry's unbearable childhood is transformed when an owl delivers a mysterious letter inviting him to attend a school for wizards. The young wizard-in-training encounters one adventure after another, and confronts the great destiny that awaits him. While you're waiting for the next novel in the series, have you reread the first one yet?

7. A Separate Peace by John Knowles
A tale of friendship and betrayal at a private New England school for boys during World War II. One is brainy and lonely. The other is handsome and athletic. The two form an intense bond that draws out both the best and worst in each. A Separate Peace is an unflinching look at the dark side of adolescence and a classic portrayal of the complexity of friendship.

8. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
An eccentric teacher in Edinburgh in the 1930s has a soft spot for all things Italian, including Il Duce. Is she liberating young minds or preaching fascism? A defense of individual thought in the face of unchecked conventionality, the novel explores Miss Brodie's intense, and ultimately dangerous, relationship with six of her students.

9. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
A teenager refuses to be bullied--into selling chocolate--and winds up in a larger battle. Did your school have fundraisers? Did you ever sell raffle tickets or wash cars? Well, things could be worse. When Jerry Renault refuses to sell chocolate for his school's fundraiser, he provokes such divisiveness that the entire social fabric of the school seems to come apart at the seams.

10. Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume
Surviving fourth grade and a rambunctious little brother isn't easy--can Peter do it? His little brother Fudgie is so disgustingly cute and so meddlesome that Peter's often not sure if he'll be able to make it another day. If you have a younger brother or sister, Peter's story may sound all too familiar--but this time it's fun.

Fitness: Gyms Go Designer

2008-07-24T07:14:00.001-07:00

Mood Lighting: Milan's Younique gym and spa pays attention to the details
By Tiffanie Wen NEWSWEEK

Those seeking a gym worthy of their exercise clothes are in luck. A new wave of luxury fitness centers allows exercise lovers to work up a sweat in high-concept spaces designed by brand-name architects.

's trendy $10 million Gymbox even resembles a high-end nightclub. Created by and the award-winning firm Light and Design, the space offers neon lighting, film projections, split-level flooring and a "floating" dance studio that can turn into a nightclub at the flip of a switch (www.gymbox.co.uk).

The 1,700-square-meter Younique fitness club and spa in features a downstairs spa area that includes a Swarovski-crystal-studded sauna, Turkish bath and warm-massage waterbeds (yhc.it). Famed design firm Conran and Partners transformed an old glass factory in Cambridge, England, into Glassworks, a sleek new health club that preserves the original timber roof and exposed-brick walls. It also boasts a ground-level Jacuzzi, where members can view boats passing on the river through one-way glass (theglassworksgym.co.uk).

New York's Equinox gym chain features the by-invitation-only E Club, which is limited to 200 members. Entrance to the gym on Columbus Circle is gained through an iris scan. The $2,000 monthly membership includes access to private changing cabanas and Frette robes, an elite group of personal trainers and Olympic-quality training equipment (equinoxfitness.com).

For complete privacy, the Technogym Kinesis Personal Heritage home machine allows for more than 200 resistance-based exercises but takes up just one square meter of space. The limited-edition gold model is completely hand-covered in gold leaf, guaranteeing that even those who slack off from their workout routines have something pretty to look at ($19,950; www.technogym.com).

Six of the Worst Workout Habits

2008-07-03T08:36:00.000-07:00

Some of the most common exercise routines could be turning your gym sessions into wasted time. Here's how to make every minute count.
By Sarah Kliff Newsweek Web Exclusive

Simply going to the gym doesn't guarantee you'll have a great workout. Reading a magazine on the treadmill, skipping breakfast before aerobics class, and ditching the weight room altogether are all things people often do that diminish the value of their visit. Here are six of the worst exercise habits many personal trainers say they see every day-and the best ways to avoid wasting time at the gym:

It's Not a Library: If you're concentrating on an article in Cosmo, it probably means that you're not focusing enough on your workout. , a fitness consultant with New York Sports Clubs, says that reading can be one of the worst things to do while exercising. "If you're going to be there to work out, you have to focus on pushing your body," she says. If you do need a distraction to make it through, Hoff suggests watching television with earphones instead, since it tends to take up a little less attention.

Don't Sweat It: While getting drenched in sweat may feel like a more intense workout, shedding a few pounds of water weight is anything but healthy. "One of the things that continues to amaze me after 30 or 40 years is that people still try to sweat fat off," says , president of the American Fitness Practitioners and Associates. "They exercise in a hot environment, thinking that they're losing fat or weight, but all they're doing is dehydrating themselves." And serious sweat can come with serious risks-the dehydration can lead to cramping and injuries. Your water intake-making sure that you have a bottle of water on hand at all times-is much more important than your water output.

Just Resist: Simply riding a stationary bike or running on a treadmill means missing out on the benefits of resistance training, which can have an even more significant impact on weight loss than a lap around the track. "You might burn 100 calories walking a mile but in the same 20 minutes with a weight machine you may burn 300-400 calories," says Occhipinti. Resistance training will also strengthen the muscles necessary for every day activity, like climbing stairs or reaching for groceries, and keep muscles in shape for old age.

Weigh In: Scared that a round of weight lifting will cause you to look like Mr. Universe? Fear no more-it's a common misconception that heavy weight lifting or resistance training will cause females to bulk up. "That doesn't happen unless you're doing growth hormones," says Occhipinti. "You're not going to become a feared freak of nature if you add some weights."

Take a Bite: Exercising on an empty stomach is like driving on an empty tank. Your body needs energy to work with. A healthy snack, such as oatmeal and a banana, can digest during the drive to the gym and provide the extra boost you need. This is especially important in the morning. Because your body has been fasting overnight, you need to give it fuel to get moving.

Speak Up: Trying to look like a know-it-all will win you few workout points. For those new to the gym, one of the worst habits can be scanning the room, attempting to copy those around you. Most gyms have trainers on the floor and Hoff suggests taking advantage of them. "Don't abuse it, but if you're really questioning whether it's proper form, then go ahead and ask," she says.
"You really want to prevent injuries." The same goes when you're new to a fitness class-let the instructor know about any injuries or concerns. Your body will thank you.

Gym Sins

2008-07-03T08:18:00.000-07:00

Fitness club managers dish about their members' most obnoxious habits.
By Tina Peng Newsweek Web Exclusive

It was perhaps the most extreme case of gym rage—ever. While taking a Manhattan spin class last August, became so annoyed by the unrelenting grunts and shouts of a fellow spinner that he tipped the other guy right off his bike and into a wall. The grunter was hospitalized for two weeks after the incident. Carter was acquitted of assault charges on June 2. Hopefully, the acquittal won't inspire a rash of altercations, as other exercisers decide that they too have had it with obnoxious gym behavior. Because any gym rat can tell you, grunting isn't the most irritating thing people do in fitness clubs. From making lunch in the sauna to sporting unsavory yoga attire, club managers report that some of their patrons are clueless when it comes to gym etiquette, or general decency. Here are nine of the most outrageous fitness club offenses.

1. The Sauna Stovetop A manager at a New York Sports Club was walking through the women's locker room a few years ago when she smelled cheese. Puzzled, she opened the door to the sauna, where a woman had placed bread and cheese on the hot rocks to make a postworkout grilled cheese sandwich. "Not only was it a health code violation, it was not really respectful to the other people in the sauna," says NYSC PR director . "She said, 'I do this all the time.' That was, obviously, the last time she ever did it.'"

2. Nude Fitness? A couple of visitors to a Gold's Gym in Paramus, N.J., decided to get naked and weigh themselves before they started working out. The two men didn't seem daunted by the fact that the scale was outside the locker room. They hung out by the scale, in full view of the other, clothed patrons, until a manager asked them to put some clothes on. They told Mike Epstein, the gym's owner, that they did that sort of thing all the time at their home gym. Perhaps they meant "home gym" as in the one in their basement.

3. Creative Blow-Drying A man in a California Crunch gym decided that the best way to dry out his sweaty shoes was to stick a hair dryer in each of them while he took his after-workout shower. He was shocked when managers asked him to cease and desist. "He said, 'I didn't even realize I shouldn't be doing this'," says , chief operating officer of Crunch, a national fitness chain.

4. Downward Dog? At another Crunch location a man had a habit of taking a yoga class while wearing shorts without underwear. He was more than happy to correct his faux pas as soon as managers made him aware that other members were uncomfortable with the view they were getting.

5. Work Out, Sleep In Some people get a little too relaxed at the gym. Gold's Gym managers have reported finding customers who fell asleep in the tanning facility and didn't wake up until the gym was closed, as well as customers who fell asleep on the bench press in between sets.

6. Killer Karaoke It's common and profoundly annoying: gymgoers get carried away listening to their music players. Before they know it they've treated everyone in the room to an off-key rendition of "...Baby One More Time." "I call it karaoke gone bad, because there is no background music and they're singing at the top of their lungs," says Harry Reo, a regional vice president for 24 Hour Fitness.

7. Talking (Too Much of) the Talk Fed up with people gabbing on their cell phones as they used the elliptical, many gyms have banned cell phones around workout equipment and designated areas for patrons to make calls. Still, people forget. "There's nothing worse than running on the treadmill and having someone next to you conducting an extremely loud conversation," says Hufcut, who's seen some people use walkie-talkies while on the treadmill.

8. Sweat Sins It seems basic, but enough people forget to wipe down their equipment after using it that this was one of the four deadly gym sins included on an informational video NYSC taped a few years ago. During the segment a careless gymgoer didn't dry off his machine; when he stood up, the entire machine was covered in dripping goo.

9. Scrimmage to Scuffle It's only logical that testosterone can run high at the gym, and sometimes managers need to break up altercations on the basketball court, says Nancy Pattee Francini, co-founder and president of the Sports Club/LA, which has 10 locations around the country. "Those guys, when they're playing basketball, can get into fights," she says. "They're not terrible fights—we're a high-end club."

These are, of course, the worst offenses, not the norm. Obnoxious behavior can usually be curbed with a little etiquette education, say gym owners. "Most of the time it's really an awareness issue with members," says Worts of Crunch. "We have to remind them that they're in a shared public space." Nonetheless, it might not be a bad idea to look over the list and make sure you're not committing any gym sins.

Five Jobs That Let You Be Your Own Boss

2008-05-25T10:16:00.000-07:00

By Christina Couch, ClassesUSA

Thinking of moving from the corner office to the home office? Approach with caution, says Barbara Weltman, author of "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Starting a Home-based Business" (Third Edition). From building a clientele base and deciphering individual health insurance to creating (and sticking to) a regular schedule, home-based entrepreneurs face a wide array of challenges those chained to a cubicle can easily avoid.

So before taking the entrepreneurial plunge, check out some of the top home-based businesses and learn how education can put you – and keep you – in the entrepreneurial driver's seat.

Graphic/Web Designer:
Technologically savvy folks looking for creative freedom will be happy to know that one out of every four Web designers find the autonomy they're craving by working for themselves, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. One of the easier fields to transition into a home-based business, Web design firms require little more than a phone line, computer and professional contacts. Though 75 percent of the industry still works for "the man," Web designers armed with an associate or bachelor's degree can frequently pick up freelance work on the side, giving them the ability to build a network of clients before shifting into being their own boss.

EBay Entrepreneur:
No space? No problem, say the 1.3 million people who use eBay as their source of income. A $45 billion-plus-per-year business, eBay generates more than $2,000 in sales per second. Whether your passion is daybeds or dog sweaters, the estimated 600,000-plus eBay PowerSellers rake in between $1,000 and $150,000 per month without ever leaving home. Instead of battling to make a local name, eBay entrepreneurs have instant access to the site's 276 million users spanning 39 global markets, giving anyone with an Internet connection and a knack for writing product descriptions a low-cost way to tap into buyers across the globe. While there's no official eBay major, many eBay entrepreneurs bone up on their business skills through marketing, finance and accounting courses through their local community college or Chamber of Commerce.

Financial Consultant:
"People who are consultants are ideal candidates for having a home-based business because they can conduct work from anywhere," says Weltman. She adds that businesses such as consulting – those that are based on providing expertise rather than a physical product – work well for entrepreneurs looking to escape the common cubicle. An estimated 35 percent of those in the management, business or financial sector are home-based CEOs. Though financial consultants hail from a wide array of educational backgrounds, the BLS reports that the majority hold bachelor's degrees in a business-related field and many hold a master's in accounting or finance as well.

Interior Designer:
"For a residential interior designer, a home-based business works fine because it has nothing to do with where you actually run your business from," reports Suzanne Davis, president of the Richmond, Va.-based firm I Design Interiors, Inc. "Everything important happens in the client's home." Requiring little more than a bachelor's or specialized degree in interior design to get started, interior designers (26 percent of whom the BLS reports are self-employed, frequently from their own homes) say that working in a residential environment can be more inspiring than staying in a cubicle. "Homes are my job, so it makes sense to work from one," Davis says.

Salesperson:
Phone line: check. Internet access: check. Vehicle for making sales calls: check. For Cathy Koch, president of the Pleasant Ridge, Mich.-based industrial temperature control systems distribution firm K-Tec Systems, Inc. that's all the equipment she needs to generate $800,000 in annual sales.

"When a customer places an order with us, we buy what we need from the factory and ship it directly," Koch explains. "I can do this from my home because I can order exactly what I sell."

Like many sales-based businesses, Koch's firm works because little on-site stocking is required and, thanks to modern technology, Koch can take orders from anywhere. "Servicewise, there's no difference between working with me and working with a large company," Koch comments. "None of my clients know that we're based from home."

Though educational requirements for salespeople vary tremendously from industry to industry, those looking to jump into sales can get started with general business classes at either the community or four-year college level.

No matter what type of business you launch, Giovanni Carotolo, executive director for the small and mid-market business councils for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, says that all future home CEOs need to consider the space requirements, zoning laws and number of employees they'll need to manage. "Write a reasonable business plan and do some research on whether this business is feasible," Carotolo recommends. "Not having basic business management skills is the reason many [home CEOs] fail."

Copyright 2008 ClassesUSA. All rights reserved. The information contained in this article may not be published, broadcast or otherwise distributed without prior written authority.

Fun Facts: Gemini

2008-05-25T09:56:00.000-07:00

Versatility is a great keyword for this dual sign. Expressive and quick-witted, the Gemini presents two distinctive sides to his or her personality, and you can never be sure with which one you're going to come face-to-face. On one hand, the Gemini can be outgoing, flirtatious, communicative, and ready for fun, fun, fun. Yet when the other twin is present, you can find this air sign contemplative, serious, restless, and even indecisive. Both twins are able to adapt to life's circumstances well, making them wonderful people to know. Things are never boring when a Gemini is on the scene.

Friends and Family
Geminians are social and love spending time with friends and family. There will be times when this outgoing sign would want to go bungee jumping, and there will be times when sitting at home playing cards will suit them. Either way, friends are plentiful. Those who can match the Geminian intellect and love of variety will go the distance. One quality they seek out in others is communication. The Gemini loves to talk and gain insight from others. Without a clear flow of talk, the Gemini will lose interest pretty quick. Family is important, especially those of like mind. Friendship with siblings is quite common for the Geminian, and time spent together is cherished. Meeting responsibilities with family can pose a challenge at times, but almost always, the Geminian comes through.

Career and Money
The best-suited careers for a Gemini are those that stimulate the intellect. "I think" is the key phrase for this sign. Geminians are inventive and often literary. It's important that the work they commit themselves to doing is dynamic and challenging so boredom doesn't set in.

Careers as a teacher, debater, reporter, writer, preacher, or lawyer are all well-suited to this sign. Any platform that gives the Geminian room to talk is best! A sales profession is another excellent choice. You can expect to see many tools for communication around this sign, such as PDAs, laptops, and cell phones. Generating new ideas and problem solving are other areas where the Geminian will shine.

Deciding between practicality and pleasure can be a tough thing for a Gemini. While money is a necessary evil, most don't spend a lot of time worrying about where their next dollar is coming from. They don't put much thought into balancing their checkbooks, yet they manage to get by just fine. This is largely due to the flexibility Geminians have.

Love and Sex
Fun-loving and always up for an intellectual challenge, the Gemini is a spirited lover. The talk that precedes the interlude is just as important as the actual contact for this sign, and when it comes to wit, this sign holds nothing back. Flirtatious and curious, the Geminian will spend time with a lot of different lovers until they find one that can match their intellect and energy level. The Gemini needs to experience excitement, versatility, and stimulation to feel fully satisfied. Once the perfect match is found, though, the Geminian can settle into a lifestyle for two for the long haul.

GEMINI TIDBITS:

Health
Each sign has a part of the anatomy attached to it, making this the area of the body that is most sensitive to stimulation. The anatomical areas for Gemini are the lungs, collarbone, hands, arms, shoulders, and the nervous system.

Ruling Planet
The ruling planet for Gemini is Mercury. Representing intellectual urge and the avenue of expression, this planet rules reason, rationalization, words, awareness, and communication. Its action is quick, and it deals with travel, speaking, writing, trade, and emotional capacity and technique.

Color
The color of choice for Gemini is green.

Gemstone
Gemini's star stone is the Moss Agate.

Lucky Numbers
Gemini's lucky numbers are 3 and 7.

Compatibility
Geminis are most compatible with Libra and Aquarius.

Opposite Sign
The opposite sign of Gemini is Sagittarius.

The Perfect Gift
A surprise party, gift certificate to a bookstore, any activity with friends, Scrabble or other intellectual game

Likes
Music, magazines, books, music, blogs, chats with nearly anyone, short trips around town

Dislikes
Repetition and routine, being alone, being confined

House
Natural sign of the Third House. This house focuses on short trips, communication, conscious mind, brothers and sisters, and early education.

Famous Geminians
Hugh Laurie, Johnny Depp, Rudy Giuliani, Angelina Jolie, Nicole Kidman, Helena Bonham Carter

Best travel destination
Switzerland, Wales, London, San Francisco, Melbourne

Strength
Curiosity, ability to share ideas, adaptable, affectionate, kind

Weakness
Scattering energy in too many places at once, fickle in love, nervous, short attention span

Charismatic marks
Expressive eyes, quick, bright, often small-boned, refined features

Best environment
Any busy neighborhood, places where people gather to gossip, bookstores, museums

Content by: MSN

Where The Web Is Weak

2008-05-25T09:47:00.000-07:00

By Andy Greenberg, Forbes.com

Tolstoy wrote that happy families are all alike, while every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Something like the opposite might be said for Web sites. Many of the Web's millions of insecure pages can be hacked with just one or two tricks. But patching the bugs in each of those vulnerable sites requires a unique solution.

Case in point: Last month, a single attack ripped through the Web, infecting more than half a million sites including those of the Department of Homeland Security, the United Nations and the British Government. Using Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ) searches, the attackers' software--written partly in Chinese characters--identified sites vulnerable to a hacking technique called SQL injection and infected them en masse with malware designed to steal the bank codes of the sites' visitors. (See " Google Hacking Goes to China.")

In late April, the sites hosting that malware were identified by security researchers who in turn notified the Chinese Internet service provider and had them disconnected from the Internet. But the job of cleaning up the Web's mess, says Jeremiah Grossman, the chief technology officer of White Hat Security, is far from over.

In fact, Grossman says that the majority of those sites remain vulnerable to the same attack. The typical SQL injection vulnerability, he says, takes a site's owner more than four months to locate and fix. That's because, unlike exploits that affect a typical software program, Web vulnerabilities can't be secured with an update downloaded from a vendor--every site has its own bug to excise.

"We can't issue a mass patch," says Grossman. "Each issue is unique. Together they present an almost catastrophic problem."

In Pictures: Eight Ways To Hack The Web

The 500,000 or so sites compromised in the latest attack are just a fraction of the threat to the Web. In a study released last February by Google, more than 3 million of the 60 million pages analyzed were found to invisibly download malicious software to users' computers. According to the study, about 1.3% of Google searches turned up at least one of those malicious pages, more than triple the percentage of malicious results from just eight months earlier.

The number of legitimate sites vulnerable to being hacked and corrupted with malware that infects visitors is far higher still. According to White Hat Security's most recent analysis of about a thousand major Web sites, 16% were vulnerable to SQL injection, an exploit based on mixing malicious commands with innocent user input to gain access to a site's server. Fully 65% of the sites analyzed were vulnerable to another exploit known as cross-site scripting, which can mix malicious elements into a legitimate site when a user clicks on a carefully crafted link.

Grossman has also repeatedly warned of another common Web vulnerability he calls a "sleeping giant." So-called "cross-site request forgery" can be used to steal information from many password-protected sites. If a Web user logs in to a Web service and then is tricked into visiting a compromised page, the second malicious page can steal the user's "cookies"--files collected by his browser used to verify his identity. Those identifying files give the coders of the malicious page temporary access to whatever sensitive information can be found on the password-protected site.

The persistence of vulnerabilities like these, says Johannes Ullrich, who teaches a class on Web vulnerabilities at the SANS Institute, is partly a cultural problem. To patch a vulnerability before it's exploited, an enterprise's security team has to convince Web developers to devote their resources to what may seem like a minor issue--but a big-time drain. Making fixes often involves wading through thousands of lines of code, Ullrich says, in some cases written by developers who left the company long ago.

Last month's massive round of SQL injections was the largest-ever round of malicious Web hackings, but hardly the first. Last February, the server hosting the Dolphin Stadium Web site was compromised just before the Superbowl began. In June, thousands of Italian-language sites were similarly targeted with SQL injections in an incident that security researchers now refer to as "the Italian Job." The same Internet service provider that hosted those sites was attacked again in early May, infecting another round of sites with malware designed to exploit users.

But securing the Web isn't just about protecting sites' visitors, Ullrich argues. It's also about protecting a company's own data. The attackers who used SQL injections to plant malware on hundreds of thousands of sites last month, for instance, could just as easily have stolen corporate data. "If the attackers hadn't left a trail by inserting malware on the sites, we probably wouldn't even have known that they had gained access to the databases," Ullrich says.

Even for a security conscious business, protecting against Web attacks isn't easy, Ullrich says. Because a Web page has to be accessible by all visitors, keeping out cybercriminals isn't as easy as building a firewall. "You can't block all visitors to your Web site. So quite frankly it comes down to the fact that only the code itself prevents an attacker from accessing your database," he says. "The Web is simply a very thin layer of defense."

Making Social Sites Safer

2008-05-25T09:39:00.000-07:00

By Wendy Tanaka, Forbes.com

Maggie didn't always feel safe on MySpace. The 17-year-old New Rochelle, N.Y., resident used to receive lewd instant messages from a man who found her on the popular social networking site.

But after making a few changes to her profile recently, Maggie, who asked us not to publish her last name, got rid of the perpetrator and reclaimed her sense of security on the site. "I blocked the person's screen name, reported him on MySpace, changed my age to 99 and made my profile private," she says.

These small, common-sense actions can make a huge difference in safety on social networks, experts say. MySpace, Facebook and other social networks advocate taking such measures and post safety guidelines on their sites. While the majority of people on social networks are safe, a few high-profile cases of sexual predators and cyberbullying, such as the Missouri teen who committed suicide in 2006 after receiving taunting comments on her MySpace page, have prompted the industry to seek more ways to keep users out of harm's way.

At the behest of 49 states and the District of Columbia, MySpace in January agreed to implement a number of new safety policies. So far, MySpace has taken several steps, including creating an online tutorial to help parents better understand social networking and adding a software tool that allows parents to determine if their teens have a MySpace profile. In May, Facebook agreed to similar measures to make its site safer.

See: "Seven Tips For Keeping Kids Safe Online"

MySpace, the world's largest social network with more than 117 million monthly users, also created a task force to develop age and identity verification technology to protect minors from inappropriate behavior and content. In February, the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School was selected to head the task force, and two dozen other companies and organizations, including Facebook, Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ), Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) and the Progress and Freedom Foundation, joined the initiative.

The task force, which is working on recommending identity verification technologies that can be used in the industry, has met twice so far. The discussions have centered on whether identity technologies can make social sites safer, or whether consumer education works best. State attorneys general believe more technological solutions are necessary, but some task force members contend that identity technologies on the market aren't adequate. And even if they were better, they likely can't prevent every unwanted incident and they could block contact between friends and relatives.

"So, if he's 16 and she's 21, they shouldn't talk? Maybe they're brother and sister," says Adam Thierer, a senior fellow at the Progress and Freedom Foundation.

Thierer also says that too many checks and restrictions could turn off users and hamper advertising on social networks. "There's only so far the sites can go before undermining their business and cutting off their customer base," he says. "At some point, it becomes an annoyance for users."

Both Facebook and MySpace, however, say safety improvements should make their sites more attractive to advertisers. "It makes users loyal and advertisers want to come to our site," says Chris Kelly, chief privacy officer at Facebook.

MySpace Chief Security Officer Hemanshu Nigam agrees that advertisers like secure sites. "Every advertiser wants to make sure its brand isn't tarnished on a particular site," he says.

The focus on identity technologies makes the assumption that sexual predators are the biggest safety problems for social networks, but cyberbullying is far more common. According to a recent report in the journal Pediatrics, a third of children age 10 to 15 said they have been verbally harassed online, while half as many reported being sexually solicited.

Larry Magid, co-director of task force member ConnectSafely.org, an Internet safety site for families, says most children who get involved with sexual predators understand the situation. "It appears that kids who do get in trouble with predators are high-risk kids," he says. "In one way or another, they are seeking out this attention."

Magid and Thierer say there should be more consumer education to prevent cyberbullying and more common-sense practices to ensure greater safety on social sites. "There are no easy technical fixes for complex human behavioral problems," Thierer says. "We need to teach kids 'Netiquette.' "

Parry Aftab, a former Internet lawyer who now runs WiredSafety.org, another task force member, says it's too early to say how the task force will handle all these issues. "It's going to take us a little while to gather everything together," she says. "When you're dealing with social issues, everyone comes at it with his own perspective. The most important thing to come out of this is a reality check: this is important, this isn't. Do a lay of the land and here's where we go."

The Power of a Mother's Promise

2008-05-25T09:21:00.000-07:00

Twenty-seven years ago this month, my mom made a promise that changed our lives forever.
by Stacy Wiebe

Now that I'm also a mother, I've come to see that promise as a kind of spiritual umbilical cord, a maternal link God used to bring new to life me and my family, and to countless others.

Prayer from a mother's heart
On May 30, 1975 my sister Carey was born. She was a true angel baby - sleeping through the night from the day we brought her home. She completed a trio of girls; I was four, and Amy, two.

A week after Carey's birth, Mom knew something was terribly wrong. Her left leg suddenly stopped working, dragging behind her.

By the time she arrived at the hospital, her leg was dead black. An astute nurse immediately nailed the cause: blood clots. Two hundred of them, the doctor said, coursed through her veins. One passed through her lung, causing pneumonia and kidney failure.

In her hospital bed, Mom had a conversation with God - something that had often comforted her battered heart as a child. Growing up, her parents partied hard and often abandoned her; when they were home, they were more harsh than loving. God's was the best listening ear she knew.

Now she turned to it again: "Oh, God, I want to live to see my babies grow up and get married," she prayed. "Please help me. I will do anything…" And then she made a promise: "I'll… I'll read the Bible. From cover to cover."

After 10 days in the hospital, Mom came home. The doctor said that if the clot that had passed through her lung had been a hair bigger, she wouldn't have survived.

Revelation
As she recovered, Mom remembered her promise. Starting in Genesis, she plodded through the super-size Bible she had bought, even though much of it seemed to reinforce her childhood notion that it was decipherable only by men who wore stiff collars.

Even so, a lot of what she read moved her, and when she came upon the question "What must I do to be saved?" in the book of Acts, chapter 16, the answer spoke directly to her: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household."

She responded then to God's voice in her spirit, and was filled with understanding of how His love had led Him to send His Son, Jesus, to take the punishment for everything she had ever done wrong in her life - and ever would do. "It was quite a revelation," she later told me.

One thing I remember around this time is an earnest, private conversation with my mom. She revealed to me the truth about Santa Claus, and afterwards pulled out a book and read about a woman named Mary who had a baby named Jesus. She told me, "This story is real."

The cross and the barber pole
When I was eight, Mom decided our family needed to go to church. We attended various services, but church felt like a foreign, impenetrable culture with its own language and customs.

Mom found herself offering up another big prayer, "God, if You really want us to go to church, You're going to have to send one to our back yard."

God answered three months later in the form of a short Norwegian pastor in his 70s. He came to our door to invite us to a new church starting up at the barber/beauty shop three miles down the road. By country standards, three miles is on your front porch!

We went to the inaugural service, walking past the hair-washing sinks to the main room of the A-frame building. Though we sat discreetly in the back, we failed to make ourselves invisible. In fact, that little community of about 20 people immediately embraced us and over time, through their lives, showed us the winsomeness and Truth of genuine Christianity. My mom grew in her faith, and it wasn't long before my dad, my two sisters and I each decided to follow Jesus as our Forgiver and Leader.

Life, BC and AD
In the following years, I had a front-row seat to changed lives. God re-fashioned my parents' character, their habits, their attitudes.

Their abundant affection and the inner experience I had of God's love under girded me during my awkward school-age years.

Then I became a teenager.

In ninth grade, I decided to change my misfit image for the gloss of popularity, whatever the cost. I'll come back to God later when I'm done doing things my way, I reasoned. I shrugged off any consequences and believed that to have a "good" testimony, like so many of the dramatic ones I had heard, that I had to have a "past."

At 17, I finally woke up. God helped me imagine how my life might turn out if I continued shunning His love and leadership. I thanked God for protecting me in spite of my unwise choices and I realized the incredible privilege of having been spared the pain that my parents had experienced before knowing Christ.

Three weddings and a baby
When my sisters and I each married, Mom relished in the weddings. God answered her prayer that she would see us wed, and the subsequent ones that each of us would choose a mate who loved God.

Her joy ballooned with the arrival of grandchildren, and when it was my husband Mike's and my turn to tell them we were adding to the brood, we flew home to share the news in person.

A few days into our visit , my nurse-practioner called. A blood test had come back positive for "Factor V Leiden," a genetic blood disorder that can cause clotting during pregnancy and post-partum. The nurse wanted me to start right away on injections of heparin, a blood-thinning medication. Without it there was a high risk for miscarriage, still birth or blood clots.

At first I felt sorry for myself. Suddenly I was having a "high risk" pregnancy. Sticking my stomach with a needle twice a day was not the way I had envisioned enjoying my growing abdomen.

Mom felt guilty: "How could I have passed this on to you?" she thought.

It wasn't long before our emotions melted to thankfulness. God had intervened and prevented me from suffering what my mother had - or something worse. My obstetrician told me that few doctors are screening for this genetic blood disorder, which was discovered just 10 years ago.

"Why me?" became, "Why have I been singled out for so great a grace?"

A new branch
On March 30, 2001 my mom witnessed for the first time the birth of a baby - my son, Liam.

My greatest hope for Liam is that he will respond to God's gift of grace and follow Him with all his heart. As he grows, I will tell him that God has a plan for his life, and that He intervened to protect him in the womb. I'll tell him this parallels the way God's grace intervened to touch the spiritual deadwood that characterized our family tree, grafting in a new branch - one that is spiritually alive.

And I'll tell him how it all began with a mother's promise.

~~~~~~

A new branch in your family tree could start with you!
As a young girl, my mom told her parents, " I am going to raise my family differently." They laughed and said, "You will see." She did not know then that the difference she would raise us girls with was Christ.

Following Christ and creating a Christian home is something no one can do though, by just "trying really hard." We need help - or better - the one Jesus called the "Helper."

If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, God has given you His Holy Spirit to help you live life according to His perfect plan. Why not pray this simple prayer and by faith invite Him to fill you with His Spirit:

Dear Father, I need You. I acknowledge that I have sinned against You by
directing my own life. I thank You that You have forgiven my sins through
Christ's death on the cross for me. I now invite Christ to again take His place
on the throne of my life. Fill me with the Holy Spirit as You commanded me to be
filled, and as You promised in Your Word that You would do if I asked in faith.
I pray this in the name of Jesus. As an expression of my faith, I thank You for
directing my life and for filling me with the Holy Spirit. Amen

If you prayed this prayer today, we would love to hear from you . Perhaps we could connect you with a mentor or provide resourceful links that could help you in this new journey.

Content By: Thoughts-About-God

Where’s the best place to live in America?

2008-05-25T09:12:00.000-07:00

Charlotte, N.C., leads Relocate-America.com’s annual ranking of the top 100 cities.
By Amy Hoak, Marketwatch.com

Apparently, there's just something about North Carolina. For the second year in a row, America's best city in which to live lies within its borders, according to Relocate-America.com's annual list.

This year, Charlotte is in the top spot, the site announced late last week. Last year's winner was Asheville, which slipped to No. 7 on this year's list.

"North Carolina is very active on our radar," said Steve Nickerson, president and CEO of HomeRoute. "It continues to get a flood of interest from all over."

HomeRoute is the real-estate firm that operates Relocate-America.com, a source of community information and real-estate resources for people who are relocating. Each year, the site ranks the top 100 places to live in the country.

Areas need to be nominated on the site in order to be eligible for the list; more than 2,000 were nominated this year, Nickerson said. Special efforts are made to prevent spamming campaigns from influencing the results, he added.

But the site's editorial team also takes into account an area's growth, its educational and employment opportunities, crime rates and housing options before granting it a spot in the top 100. Environmental highlights also play a role, with a city gaining points for good air and water quality or the strength of its recycling efforts, Nickerson said.

Home-price appreciation does get some consideration; however, it's only one piece of the analysis, Nickerson said — explaining why some struggling real-estate markets in California and Florida, for example, still made the top 100. Areas that offer a comfortable climate and economic opportunity tend to be the most sought-after communities on the site, he said.

Charlotte's diversity of housing options and home affordability were two of the reasons users nominated the city, Nickerson said. The city's strong economy, boosted largely by the banking industry, was another selling point.

Second on this year's list was San Antonio, which people praised for its cost of living, recreational opportunities and diversity, he said. Chattanooga, Tenn., came in third place, noted for its vibrant downtown and affordable home prices in the nominations.

Below are the top 10 cities on Relocate-America.com's 2008 list:

Charlotte, N.C.
San Antonio
Chattanooga, Tenn.
Greenville, S.C.
Tulsa, Okla.
Stevens Point, Wis.
Asheville, N.C.
Albuquerque, N.M.
Huntsville, Ala.
Seattle

Read the full list at Relocate-America.com.

The firm also plans to release a coffee-table book on the top 100 soon, Nickerson said. Proceeds will benefit American Red Cross and Habitat for Humanity, he added.

The view from the topCertainly, being ranked as the top city to live in has its benefits, mainly as a marketing tool for the area, said Tony Crumbley, vice president of research for the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce. An e-mail blast sent news of this list to thousands of residents, and the chamber actively keeps track of where Charlotte falls in many of the lists that are published.

"They are important," Crumbley said of the good rankings the city receives. But he also knows that these rankings come and go and that they're somewhat subjective; the city's appeal can change from one day to the next, depending on who is writing the list.

There weren't any significant changes in Charlotte during the past year that would account for boosting the city to the top of this particular list, he said. But the city definitely gets recognized a lot more today than it did 25 years ago, he added.

Bank of America and Wachovia have their headquarters in Charlotte, and it's also a hub for US Airways — all of which seem to have increased the visibility of the city outside its boundaries, Crumbley said. The addition of professional sports teams since the 1980s has also helped.

In recent years, Charlotte has been successful in attracting young, educated workers to relocate there, he said. Asheville, on the other hand, has become a popular choice with retirees, he added.
But cities can easily make it to the top of one list and rank poorly on another, he said. Case in point: One recent Forbes.com list ranked Charlotte as one of the country's most miserable cities, a ranking, not surprisingly, that Crumbley and others disagree with.

Forbes also ranked it as one of the best places to invest in foreclosures, in part because the real-estate market there is relatively stable.

"If they're good, you use them. If they're bad, I won't tell you you should ignore them — you look at them," he said of the lists on which Charlotte appears. But negative rankings aren't likely to end up getting used as a marketing piece for the city.

An Easy Understanding Of IP Security Cameras

2008-05-21T15:43:00.000-07:00

By Steve Strong

Computer security cameras are the latest way of providing security to your home or business. Computer security cameras are very cost effective. For people, who have limited budget and do not want to spend much on security camera, computer security camera is a good option. Mostly, computer security cameras are used for home security.

Technically, computer security cameras send the images to a DVR hard drive with a recorder. The output produced by computer security cameras differs depending on the camera. Occupying hard disk space is one of the major issues in computer security camera. A computer security camera fills up the hard disk space very fast because it generates lot of files. However there are ways to lessen this problem. Computer security camera provides easy navigation in comparison to traditional video tape system.

If you are looking for reasonable computer security camera, then you should go for webcam. Web cam is inexpensive and easy to use. Web cam is used for general monitoring of a place. But the drawback is that it requires proper lighting condition. In low light conditions, webcam can become ineffective and provide low quality image. But for money conscious people web cam is a good option. Obviously, with a security camera, which is as cheap as less than $100, you cannot expect great performance.

Web cam is very easy to install. Anyone who has general knowledge of computers can install a webcam. Web cam installation requires connection of the device with USB port, configuration, and installation of the software. It takes few minutes to install a web cam. The advantage of web cam is if you are not at home, it enables you to scan the images later on. Web cam also has an email alert service feature which can be activated to incorporate images. And if required you can forward these images to the police.

The other types of computer security camera are IP security camera systems. IP security cameras provide better quality image and range than a web cam. IP security cameras are also very easy to install. The price differs depending on the level of coverage and quality of image.
But you can get IP cameras in less than 100 dollars also. IP cameras can be accessed from a remote location through internet. These cameras can be connected to the network and you can access them from a web browser. Additional IP cameras can be added to the computer provided your computer has enough storage space.

There are many other computer security cameras available with advanced features. These advanced cameras have many features like counting the number of people who have walked in your premises, or faster devices to take the snapshots after the motion detector finds some movement. These cameras are capable of performing many things other than monitoring. But these cameras are expensive than web cam and IP Network security cameras

Steve Strong's is an employee with Sun Security which is an innovative and growth oriented company who uses a fresh and new approach to meet the security needs of millions of consumers throughout North America. Sun Security supplies IP Network Security Cameras Visit us at: http://www.sunsecurity.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Steve_Strong

Repair Pro 2007 - New Revolutionary Online Repair Tool

2008-05-21T15:38:00.000-07:00

By Evelyn Sims

XP Repair Pro 2007 is a revolutionary new product that is designed specifically to target areas of Windows that cause most software related system problems. XP Repair Pro 2007 is a one of a kind system utility and no other repair tool operates as efficiently and thoroughly.

There is nothing more frustrating than a computer that continually locks up or crashes right in the middle of something you are trying to do. Most software based crashes are caused by a single program asking the computer to do something. XP Repair Pro 2007 crash monitoring service can typically prevent these commands from being run, keeping the system stable.

No matter if you're a novice or a computer professional. XP Repair Pro 2007 is user friendly software designed to help your PC run its maximum capacity. XP Repair Pro 2007 also allows users to diagnose and repair system problems and increase system performance with no upgrades needed. If XP Repair Pro 2007 is purchased, it is for certain to work. The investment is a good one. The support team is worth the purchase of the product. I can attest to this because I have dealt with a slow running computer and loss of valuable information.

The software works and is worth the investment. However, it is extremely important to be sure that you back up important documents before installation on a separated hard dirve. This backup should be located on a separate hard drive, CD, DVD etc. that will not be affected by the repair installation.

Great repair tool.

http://www.currentsolutionsoftoday.com or ewsims@gmail.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Evelyn_Sims

Top 10 Ways To Get More People To Your Next Gig

2008-05-21T15:32:00.000-07:00

By David Hooper

For an up-and-coming band every gig is a vital step toward your success. Your shows are where you get the chance to prove yourself. They are your opportunity to do what you do best. A good gig can also have a ripple effect, securing you a loyal fan base and ensuring good crowds at future shows. So when you land a gig, the key is to make it count. Hours of practice and rehearsal won't matter unless you have a decent crowd that can go back and tell their friends how great you are.

Your mission is not only to kick ass on stage-but to convince other people to come and see you.

Sure, it would be nice to be able to just focus on your music and let someone else handle the promotions, but few unsigned bands have those kinds of resources. It's up to you to get people in the door.

With that in mind, I've put together a list of ways you can make sure you have a full house at your next gig.

1. Start early.

Don't wait until a week before your gig to start advertising. As soon as you have a booking, sit down with the band and come up with a strategy for marketing the show to the public. Remember, you're competing with about a million other things someone can choose to do on a Saturday night-movies, other bands' shows, parties, sporting events. You want to get yourself on the calendar as soon as humanly possible, and give yourself plenty of time to remind people a few times before the show date.

2. Posters, flyers, and cards.

You have to have them. There's no excuse these days not to have cards, flyers, and posters. With the online digital printing websites you can upload your own art, or use their existing art to create marketing materials that are professional and eye-catching. Remember, you're competing with professional bands which have marketing departments and public relations people, so put some thought into it.

One way you can get some great art done for little money is checking out high school and junior college art departments. Some of these young artists would love the chance to do your design work and earn a little cash-and they'll charge you a mere fraction of the amount that a professional graphic designer would.

However, even if you can only go the old-fashioned route of hand-drawing a flyer and photocopying it on eye-catching colored paper, do it.

Make sure everyone in the band has stacks and that they're giving them out, hanging them up, and making them available. Leave them at the record store hang them on community bulletin boards at schools, coffee shops, bookstores and libraries.

3. Get your family and friends involved.

These people can be your best allies as you start your career. People that love you are your cheerleaders. They are going to promote the hell out of your band even if they aren't particularly interested in your style of music. Maybe grandma won't come to a show, but she knows a lot of people and can help spread the word. She's just the type of person who would relentlessly hand out your flyers to everyone and anyone, just because she loves you. Take a stack of flyers to each of your friends and family, tell them how important it is for you to get people to your show, and ask them to spread the word. Unless they still haven't forgiven you for breaking their favorite crystal vase when you were eight-years-old, chances are they'll be happy to be part of your success.

4. Use Myspace, Facebook, and other online social networking tools.

Technology is one of the most powerful tools you have. If you are one of the last five people on earth without a MySpace or Facebook account, get one NOW. Make sure you regularly update the pages with news and show dates, upload MP3's or videos of your songs, and respond when people leave you a message. Look for bands on MySpace with a similar style to yours and go through their "friends" lists-and invite those people to be your friends. You can generate so much interest in your band with regular "farming" of these sites, even people who live in other cities and states can become fans and your impact can quickly go from being local to you having a national presence.

5. Create a press release.

This sounds more complicated than it is. Not just big names can create and circulate a press release. Basically, it is a formal description of something current-like a show or a new CD release-that you can give to different media outlets. Sending a press release doesn't ensure that you will get publicity, but it will definitely get you noticed and the media folks in your town are going to pay attention to your professionalism. Send your press release to entertainment papers; corporate, public, and college radio stations; bloggers and online communities that feature local events.

Check out this site for a description of how to write a professional press release:
http://www.publicityinsider.com/release.asp

6. Tell everyone you know-and don't know.

This is not the time to be shy. If you can get up in front of a crowd and pour your blood, sweat, and tears into your performance, you can strike up a conversation when you're out getting coffee and tell people about your show. Think of yourself as a really cool Jehovah's Witness. Have flyers in your pocket and be ready to hand them out any time any place. A personal connection with someone, even for a couple minutes, is more compelling than a thousand flyers stuck to the side
of a building.

7. Go to other shows and network.

Get out there and see other shows. Hang out before and after and talk to people about your music. The people you meet at a show are people you know are interested in seeing live performances. Again, making a single personal connection is one of the most effective ways you can generate interest in your music. You can be cool and still be friendly. This is not the time to be stand-offish. In the beginning you can't just rely on your music to attract people, because in the beginning, no one has heard your music. They're going to come to see you.

8. Offer to play a couple songs unplugged at an event to warm up the crowd.

In every city there are about a thousand things going on any given weekend. There are plenty of opportunities to warm up the crowd at a charity, a school play, an art show, or any other number of events. You don't need to drag all the equipment out. Go and play a couple songs acoustic.
Give away a couple CDs in a raffle at the event. Ask if you can leave some flyers on the registration table so that when people come in they can grab one with their name tag or program. There are endless possibilities for getting yourself in front of people and giving them a little taste of your music-plus, you might just get to support a worthwhile organization or event.

9. Advertise a giveaway at the show.

People love free stuff. It's just a fact of life. It doesn't even have to be good free stuff, but if you advertise that you are giving something away, there is a much higher likelihood that more people will show up. Give away a couple discs, a couple t-shirts. If you have the cash, give away an iPod Shuffle ($49) or some gift certificates. It is a small investment that will pay off in spades. Make sure you let everyone know-on flyers, on MySpace, and by word of mouth-what you're giving away and when.

10. Open for an established band a couple weeks before the gig.

Be a part of your indie community. Make friends and allies with other bands. If you can open for another band a couple weeks before your gig, you are going to give people a chance to see you in action. You'll have a ready-made audience you can pitch your upcoming show to. Hang out after your performance and work the room while you enjoy the main show and support your friends.
There are so many creative ways to promote your show, and these are just a few suggestions to get you going. Remember, if you don't promote yourself, no one else is going to. Be fearless and let the world know who you are and where your next show is going to be!

David Hooper is a music business expert based out of Nashville, TN. He is host of the syndicated radio show, Music Business Radio. For more on David, visit him at http://www.musicmarketing.com

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