Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Top 1 life-threatening High Tec product - iPad !
A thief in Denver ran up to a man in a mall and grabbed a bag with a new iPad. The thief pulled the bag free. And part of the victim’s finger.
Denver resident Bill Jordan hadn’t even heard of an iPad last week. He knew that Apple had released a hot new product and that his company wanted him to go pick one up as a gift for a customer, but that is it. One trip to the mall later and Jordan was out roughly $500, the iPad he had just bought, and a finger.
On his way out of the Cherry Creek Mall, an unidentified thief ran up behind Jordan and grabbed the bag with the iPad. The strings had been wrapped around Jordan’s fingers, and the thief pulled the bag free- along with all the skin on the upper part of Jordan’s pinky, right down to the bone. Doctors were later forced to amputate the top of Jordan’s finger.
“I kind of wrapped it around my fingers so I didn’t drop it on the way out,” he told a local Denver TV station “It was a heavy duty bag they put it in, and had real thick cords.”
After the damage had been done, Jordan rushed to the food court for napkins to stem the bleeding, while the thief made his escape. Police have yet to capture the man in question, although the entire robbery was captured on tape. Metro Denver Crimestoppers are offering a $2,000 reward for the man in question.
Jordan gave the news station a message for the thief, “I hope you understand what you have done to me and to my family’s life – for a simple piece of apparatus that will be junk in a couple of years.”
Scroll down for video of the incident, but please no jokes about the iPad costing an arm and a leg (or a finger), or about Jordan giving the man the finger.
* By: Ryan Fleming •
* April 21, 2010
Friday, April 16, 2010
Design creative graduation banners, Show your school pride, Win an Apple iPad!
2010 Graduation Giveaway Student Design Contest Call For Entry
The Signazon.com has issued an open call for "2010 iPad Giveaway Graduation Banner Design Contest" a free nationwide contest for students and schools.
Dallas, TX (PRWEB) April 14, 2010 -- Signazon.com has issued its call for entries for the 2010 Graduation Giveaway Party Sign/Banner Design Contest ; the first self-judged student led design creativity contest. This one of a kind campus activity rewards both the talented student and the school by providing prizes to the students who design the top three designs and their associated schools. Schools are invited to take advantage of the unique sponsored graduation contest by encouraging their art class, school organizations, and entire student body to enter for additional prizes and discounts directed towards the schools.
2010 Graduation Giveaway Party Sign/Banner Design Contest
>
>Design creative graduation banners, Show your school pride, Win an Apple iPad!
Signazon will be awarding the top 3 graduation sign designers with a brand new Apple iPad, iPod Touch, or iTunes Gift card plus their design printed on high quality canvas. The winner's schools will receive the winning banners printed for their school to hang at graduation, free Signazon.com products, and a page full of products featuring their school.
With free entry, everyone from grades 6 thru college is qualified for the graduation competition. Students can send their design to friends, family, and fellow classmates for votes to help them reach that grand prize award. Voters are allowed to vote for or against student designs and have the control to push a design rank up or down. The more voters a student can find the better their chances.
Signazon.com will kick off the design contest on April 14, 2010 and close submission on May 24, 2010. Save the date and prepare your entry for this brand new student led design contest at official contest entry page:
http://www.signazon.com/banners/2010-graduation-banner-ipad-contest/
Design creative graduation banners, Show your school pride, Win an Apple IPAD.
Contact:
Crystal Winslet
1-800-517-1217
crystal(dot)winslet(at)signazon(dot)com
www.signazon.com
Disclaimer Information
Signazon.com is not affiliated with or endorsed by Apple Computers, Inc. Apple®, iPod®, iPod® and iTunes® are registered trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc.
# # #
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Best of the Web BOTW 20% off Coupon code.
I have a Best of the Web BOTW 20% off Coupon code, feel free to use!
Instant Savings! We would like to thank you for your purchase by awarding you a coupon discount of 20% off your next submissions. This offer is good for the next sixty minutes for both blog and web directory submissions.
Enter the following code on step 2 of the submission process: d1lsu6
Feel free to share it with a friend, but remember, it's only valid for the next 60 minutes.
Instant Savings! We would like to thank you for your purchase by awarding you a coupon discount of 20% off your next submissions. This offer is good for the next sixty minutes for both blog and web directory submissions.
Enter the following code on step 2 of the submission process: d1lsu6
Feel free to share it with a friend, but remember, it's only valid for the next 60 minutes.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Real estate lawsuit is on the top 5 legal services in 2009.
Real estate lawsuit is on the top 5 legal services in 2009.
The top five legal service requests for 2009 is based on the total volume of 2.3 million member requests for legal services to the 40 independent provider law firms that assisted Pre-Paid Legal members throughout the U.S. and four provinces of Canada for calendar year 2009.total requests for legal services, the top five requests account for approximately 45% or approximately 1.1 million of the total requests. The remaining 1.2 million requests were for a variety of other legal services such as traffic-related matters, employment issues and civil litigation.
Real Estate, Landlord/Tenant Issues and Foreclosure - Approximately 358,000 requests for legal services that include residential and commercial real estate transactions, landlord and tenant issues and legal counsel related to foreclosure and short sales
Consumer Finance - Approximately 195,000 requests for legal services related to retail transactions for warranties, guarantees and other contracts
Family Law – Approximately 193,000 requests for legal services related to divorce, child support, child custody and child visitation
Collections – Approximately 162,000 requests for legal assistance to support members against other parties and to defend members from third-party debt collectors
Estate Planning – Approximately 160,000 requests for legal services for preparation of wills and other counsel related to final estates.
Published by: RIS MEDIA
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Buying Guide: Compare Ipad Side-by-side !
Compare the specs side-by-side
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/sJtE2WQ_z-kzm_qQvEd0iw?feat=directlink
A very good article for small business owners.
We are a nation of dreamers.
Some of us yearn for an idyllic life as a novelist, shaping a story in a quaint country house. Or hope to wake up in a swank city apartment and take a company-paid town car to a top financial firm.
Still others want to be like the millions of entrepreneurs who had the guts and drive to push their big ideas into businesses that they own and operate — beholden only to themselves and the customers they cultivate.
Remarkably, even in dire economic times such as these, the desire to own a small business doesn't diminish. Annual business creation in the U.S. has remained consistent for nearly 30 years, even during downturns, according to a new study from the entrepreneurship-focused group Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.
"Entrepreneurs are not easily discouraged," Kauffman CEO Carl Schramm says. "In boom times and in tough times, roughly 600,000 firms are formed every year in America — about one per minute."
Even the harsh climate of the past two years, the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, hasn't smothered such aspirations. Credit has evaporated and consumers have closed their wallets, yet hordes of potential business owners still possess a can-do attitude.
"For a lot of entrepreneurs, when they have an idea, it becomes a passion, almost an obsession," Schramm says. "They cannot not do it."
Lots of contenders
The push to start a business is varied. Some decide after a layoff that they never want to report to another manager again. Others want to turn their passions — quilting, genealogy research, book collecting — into full-time vocations.
Last fall, USA TODAY published a six-part series about starting a business and asked prospective entrepreneurs to submit their business ideas for the Small Business Challenge, a six-month series that would follow their progress as they moved their businesses from ideas to making the first buck.
Near 1,800 budding business owners responded, pitching ideas displaying ambitiousness, earnestness, smarts and yes, even misguided drive and planning.
Submissions included: restaurants, a tattoo parlor, an Italian ice pushcart business, a dog-poop-scooping service, an iPhone app-creation firm, a tanning salon, the invention of an Easter egg dying kit targeted to dog owners, a tourist-photography business, a line of feminine-looking gun cases targeted to females, and an "ultra-thin, liquid nipple cover" that would help prevent chafing from workout clothes and other materials. Contenders covered all ages, ethnic backgrounds and geographic locations.
The range of sophistication and — in some cases the lack of it — does not surprise experts. The entrepreneur coaching groups Score and the Association of Small Business Development Centers, which combined help more than a million people a year, say they regularly see clients who have each, and sometimes all, of these traits.
But it's enthusiasm that often stands out more than any other characteristic. That's expected among entrepreneurs, says Rick Wade, the U.S. Commerce Department senior adviser and deputy chief of staff.
In general, Americans are hopeful, he says: "It's at the core of who we are."
But he stresses that small business owners, in particular, "have a different kind of drive."
"They're accustomed to overcoming obstacles," he says. "I don't know of any start-up that didn't have a challenge."
Meeting these challenges gives entrepreneurs the inherent knowledge that they will be able to survive hard times. It's the mindset of "we fall down, but we are going to get up," he says.
Up-and-down emotions
When Carl Edmunds' division at a corporate printing company was on the potential chopping block, the West Windsor, N.J., resident morphed an interest in household repairs into a new career as a home inspector and energy use auditor.
"It's time to take control of my own destiny!" Edmunds, 56, wrote in his submission to USA TODAY. "I will not continue to live in constant fear of the inevitable arrival of the proverbial 'Pink Slip.' "
Edmunds' business, NuVision Inspections, is one of five start-up firms that USA TODAY will follow for the next six months. The others: a wine bar in Gainesville, Va.; a high-end property rental service for homes in Vail and Golden, Colo.; a Botox-provider in Mequon, Wis.; and an all-natural butter-toffee-peanut seller in Orlando.
Although each business is beyond the idea stage and through initial struggles, the neophyte owners will continue to experience the self-fulfilling highs and gut-wrenching lows that come with self-employment.
Running a business is "an extremely messy process," says Dane Stangler, a senior analyst at Kauffman.
"We may boil it down to business-plan-writing at universities," he says. But it's not that simple. "It's one step forward and one step back, and then some side steps."
Edmunds has been mentally taxed as he has taken six different licensing tests in two months, as well as insuring and incorporating his new firm. Tasks such as developing a company website have been placed on the back burner.
"I've hit a lot of stumbling blocks," he says. "I had no idea how difficult this would be."
Yet, on Jan. 12, he received some uplifting news: He passed a vital home-inspection exam. With that final license secured, he should be able to launch his business in time for the spring real estate push.
"I've always wanted to be my own boss," he says. "I can work out of a little 8-by-8-foot office in the back of my house and a pickup, and be happy."
A long road
Start-up accomplishments come in many forms, such as getting a website's e-commerce function to work, creating a high-impact marketing campaign and even persuading a potential distributor to take a chance on novel new products.
But for new business owners, rejection and unexpected obstacles will come with the territory, Stangler says.
Each year, home shopping giant QVC gets pitched hundreds of thousands of ideas from hopeful business people. Yet only about 15,000 new products will get on the air each year. (Another 45,000 products come from existing suppliers.)
The long odds also come into play at TeleBrands, the infomercial seller of products such as the PedEgg foot callus remover, Pedi Paws pet nail trimmer and Stick Up Bulb wireless light bulb. Telebrands receives about a thousand product pitches from entrepreneurs annually but typically markets only four or five new products.
"The majority of ideas — the majority of products — do not sell commercially," CEO A.J. Khubani says. "Take Thomas Edison: He had over 1,000 patents to his name, yet how many were commercially viable? We only know of a few."
Small stumbles and all-out defeats are common for entrepreneurs. Yet, one way to work around those pitfalls is to rely on advice from others, as well as learning from past mistakes. "Everyone has a dream," says Doug Rose, QVC head of programming and marketing. "But if you're really, really wise about how to develop it, you'll listen to feedback from others, and you'll welcome it, even if it's hard to hear"
Rodney Hughes, a USA TODAY small business challenger who is selling the butter-toffee peanuts, knows what it's like to see entrepreneurial dreams crumble. One of his past businesses, a printing shop in Tennessee, went under in the economic downturn after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
"It was one of the roughest times of my life," he says. "But I learned some lessons."
Among them: Don't rely on one client for most of your business. Hughes had one buyer who represented 70% of his sales, and when that buyer stopped purchasing printing services, it had a dramatic effect on his business.
Hughes has a more cautious path to entrepreneurship now.
He holds a full-time job working in business development at the Metro Orlando Economic Development Commission but has invested in other firms such as a bar in Orlando.
Facing the challenges of starting a small business
He also took some of the pressure off himself by partnering with friend Lee Goldberg and several others to start the nut line. So far, the venture has had its share of setbacks, but the group also is proud to have created a logo and aggressively seeded online media with mentions of their brand.
Successful entrepreneurs learn to balance the good times and bad.
"The most important (trait) is resilience," says Kauffman's Stangler. "It's about not giving up hope."
Hughes and his peers at Poppa D's haven't sold their first commercial bag of nuts, but they still have confidence.
"For us, it's just the fact that we feel in our hearts that we can make this work," Hughes says.
By , USA TODAY
Some of us yearn for an idyllic life as a novelist, shaping a story in a quaint country house. Or hope to wake up in a swank city apartment and take a company-paid town car to a top financial firm.
Still others want to be like the millions of entrepreneurs who had the guts and drive to push their big ideas into businesses that they own and operate — beholden only to themselves and the customers they cultivate.
Remarkably, even in dire economic times such as these, the desire to own a small business doesn't diminish. Annual business creation in the U.S. has remained consistent for nearly 30 years, even during downturns, according to a new study from the entrepreneurship-focused group Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.
"Entrepreneurs are not easily discouraged," Kauffman CEO Carl Schramm says. "In boom times and in tough times, roughly 600,000 firms are formed every year in America — about one per minute."
Even the harsh climate of the past two years, the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, hasn't smothered such aspirations. Credit has evaporated and consumers have closed their wallets, yet hordes of potential business owners still possess a can-do attitude.
"For a lot of entrepreneurs, when they have an idea, it becomes a passion, almost an obsession," Schramm says. "They cannot not do it."
Lots of contenders
The push to start a business is varied. Some decide after a layoff that they never want to report to another manager again. Others want to turn their passions — quilting, genealogy research, book collecting — into full-time vocations.
Last fall, USA TODAY published a six-part series about starting a business and asked prospective entrepreneurs to submit their business ideas for the Small Business Challenge, a six-month series that would follow their progress as they moved their businesses from ideas to making the first buck.
Near 1,800 budding business owners responded, pitching ideas displaying ambitiousness, earnestness, smarts and yes, even misguided drive and planning.
Submissions included: restaurants, a tattoo parlor, an Italian ice pushcart business, a dog-poop-scooping service, an iPhone app-creation firm, a tanning salon, the invention of an Easter egg dying kit targeted to dog owners, a tourist-photography business, a line of feminine-looking gun cases targeted to females, and an "ultra-thin, liquid nipple cover" that would help prevent chafing from workout clothes and other materials. Contenders covered all ages, ethnic backgrounds and geographic locations.
The range of sophistication and — in some cases the lack of it — does not surprise experts. The entrepreneur coaching groups Score and the Association of Small Business Development Centers, which combined help more than a million people a year, say they regularly see clients who have each, and sometimes all, of these traits.
But it's enthusiasm that often stands out more than any other characteristic. That's expected among entrepreneurs, says Rick Wade, the U.S. Commerce Department senior adviser and deputy chief of staff.
In general, Americans are hopeful, he says: "It's at the core of who we are."
But he stresses that small business owners, in particular, "have a different kind of drive."
"They're accustomed to overcoming obstacles," he says. "I don't know of any start-up that didn't have a challenge."
Meeting these challenges gives entrepreneurs the inherent knowledge that they will be able to survive hard times. It's the mindset of "we fall down, but we are going to get up," he says.
Up-and-down emotions
When Carl Edmunds' division at a corporate printing company was on the potential chopping block, the West Windsor, N.J., resident morphed an interest in household repairs into a new career as a home inspector and energy use auditor.
"It's time to take control of my own destiny!" Edmunds, 56, wrote in his submission to USA TODAY. "I will not continue to live in constant fear of the inevitable arrival of the proverbial 'Pink Slip.' "
Edmunds' business, NuVision Inspections, is one of five start-up firms that USA TODAY will follow for the next six months. The others: a wine bar in Gainesville, Va.; a high-end property rental service for homes in Vail and Golden, Colo.; a Botox-provider in Mequon, Wis.; and an all-natural butter-toffee-peanut seller in Orlando.
Although each business is beyond the idea stage and through initial struggles, the neophyte owners will continue to experience the self-fulfilling highs and gut-wrenching lows that come with self-employment.
Running a business is "an extremely messy process," says Dane Stangler, a senior analyst at Kauffman.
"We may boil it down to business-plan-writing at universities," he says. But it's not that simple. "It's one step forward and one step back, and then some side steps."
Edmunds has been mentally taxed as he has taken six different licensing tests in two months, as well as insuring and incorporating his new firm. Tasks such as developing a company website have been placed on the back burner.
"I've hit a lot of stumbling blocks," he says. "I had no idea how difficult this would be."
Yet, on Jan. 12, he received some uplifting news: He passed a vital home-inspection exam. With that final license secured, he should be able to launch his business in time for the spring real estate push.
"I've always wanted to be my own boss," he says. "I can work out of a little 8-by-8-foot office in the back of my house and a pickup, and be happy."
A long road
Start-up accomplishments come in many forms, such as getting a website's e-commerce function to work, creating a high-impact marketing campaign and even persuading a potential distributor to take a chance on novel new products.
But for new business owners, rejection and unexpected obstacles will come with the territory, Stangler says.
Each year, home shopping giant QVC gets pitched hundreds of thousands of ideas from hopeful business people. Yet only about 15,000 new products will get on the air each year. (Another 45,000 products come from existing suppliers.)
The long odds also come into play at TeleBrands, the infomercial seller of products such as the PedEgg foot callus remover, Pedi Paws pet nail trimmer and Stick Up Bulb wireless light bulb. Telebrands receives about a thousand product pitches from entrepreneurs annually but typically markets only four or five new products.
"The majority of ideas — the majority of products — do not sell commercially," CEO A.J. Khubani says. "Take Thomas Edison: He had over 1,000 patents to his name, yet how many were commercially viable? We only know of a few."
Small stumbles and all-out defeats are common for entrepreneurs. Yet, one way to work around those pitfalls is to rely on advice from others, as well as learning from past mistakes. "Everyone has a dream," says Doug Rose, QVC head of programming and marketing. "But if you're really, really wise about how to develop it, you'll listen to feedback from others, and you'll welcome it, even if it's hard to hear"
Rodney Hughes, a USA TODAY small business challenger who is selling the butter-toffee peanuts, knows what it's like to see entrepreneurial dreams crumble. One of his past businesses, a printing shop in Tennessee, went under in the economic downturn after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
"It was one of the roughest times of my life," he says. "But I learned some lessons."
Among them: Don't rely on one client for most of your business. Hughes had one buyer who represented 70% of his sales, and when that buyer stopped purchasing printing services, it had a dramatic effect on his business.
Hughes has a more cautious path to entrepreneurship now.
He holds a full-time job working in business development at the Metro Orlando Economic Development Commission but has invested in other firms such as a bar in Orlando.
Facing the challenges of starting a small business
He also took some of the pressure off himself by partnering with friend Lee Goldberg and several others to start the nut line. So far, the venture has had its share of setbacks, but the group also is proud to have created a logo and aggressively seeded online media with mentions of their brand.
Successful entrepreneurs learn to balance the good times and bad.
"The most important (trait) is resilience," says Kauffman's Stangler. "It's about not giving up hope."
Hughes and his peers at Poppa D's haven't sold their first commercial bag of nuts, but they still have confidence.
"For us, it's just the fact that we feel in our hearts that we can make this work," Hughes says.
By , USA TODAY