Two Types Of Door Bells For Your Home

By Jason, on December 28th, 2012

It has been a custom that people should knock before entering someone?s house or an office. Knuckles are what people use before they invented door knockers that were not that efficient to use. This is because of the small noise it creates that would let the person call out to announce his presence in the front door. With the improvements in the technology, door bells were invented and replaced these door knockers. It was further developed through the years and offered a great help in announcing one?s arrival in someone?s office or home.

With the continuous improvement that is happening, door bells nowadays may come in a wide range of sizes and shapes and made from different materials. These days, door bells can emit different sounds that would make it easy for you to know if a person is outside your home. Door bells come in two types of systems that would work with what is needed in a certain home.

The Types of Door Bells

What people want from different products are the choices. Its either they want a certain type because it would be very efficient or it would be very appealing to be placed in their house. But with devices such as door bells, there are just two types and this can be purchased in different sizes and styles. The first type of door bells is those with wired systems. As what the system implies, it has wires that connect the button to a transmitter which would signal the receiver and enable you to hear the doorbell sound. Once the button is pressed, the flat bars and solenoids react, which in turn allows the receiver to emit sound and alert the person of a presence of a visitor.

Another type of door bells is the wireless systems. With its name, the system does not require wires and would allow you to install it easily while keeping it functioning. The button and the receiver should be installed in the right place and the installation process is done. Whenever a visitor presses the button, a radio signal is transmitted to the receiver at the right range and this would create the sound that you have set for the system.

Choosing the right door bells would depend on the efficiency that a house owner wants. It is important that a person would choose the one that would be very helpful in indicating the presence of visitors at their door. Door bells would be the most helpful equipment that one can have in their home to know if there are people waiting outside the house. With lots of designs and styles for door bells, choosing the one that would perfectly fit in with the design of the house is an easy thing to do. Many variations and styles of the doorbells would easily compliment the design of a particular house. This advantage would not only allow you to know the presence of visitors, but your door bell would also serve as a decoration that would attract the attention of every passerby.?

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Source: http://www.1800doorbell.com/blog/doorbells-door-chimes/two-types-of-door-bells-for-your-home/

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Half of Americans leave landline behind

11 hrs.

Devin Coldewey , NBC News

A new study indicates that fully half of Americans are living in a household that uses only or mostly mobile phones ? but the remainder is slow to convert.

The Centers for Disease Control's?National Health Interview Study conducts in-person interviews throughout the year, asking about everything from health and insurance status to household telephones. They've put together some of the data from the first half of 2012 and the results, while not shocking, are significant.

Of the more than 20,000 households interviewed, just over half used wireless (i.e. cellular) phones for all or nearly all phone?calls ? 35.9 percent were wireless-only, and 15.9 percent had a landline but rarely used it. That adds up to 51.8 percent of all households, which is less than 2?percent more than for?the same period last year.

Why such a small increase? While younger people are adopting wireless phones as their only phone in record numbers, older folks are hanging onto their landlines. The percentage of people going wireless only steadily decreases as age increases: Only a quarter of those aged 45-64 were totally wireless, and just a tenth of those above age 64. That said, every age segment saw their wireless-only population increase by between 1 and 5 percent.

The highest percentage of wireless-only users appears to be among adults living with unrelated adult roommates ? 75.9 percent, almost three times the proportion of people living only with spouses or other adult family (but down slightly from last year's numbers).

So young people in population-dense areas, especially renters and people with low income, are happy to leave behind the expense and inconvenience of a landline. But for people who have had a landline for years, relatively few choose to abandon it.

The rest of the study, including methods and many more statistics, can be found at the CDC's website.

Devin Coldewey is a contributing writer for NBCNews Digital. His personal website is?coldewey.cc.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/half-americans-leave-landline-behind-1C7753028

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Drone use surges in Yemen, the frontline against Al Qaeda

Drone strikes in Yemen skyrocketed in 2012, as much as tripling in frequency when compared to 2011.?

By Adam Baron,?McClatchy Newspapers / December 28, 2012

A Yemeni soldier sits atop a military vehicle securing a street during a rally by pro-democracy protestors in Sanaa, Yemen, Friday.

Hani Mohammed/AP

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In the wake of the killing of Osama bin Laden, Yemen ? home to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) ? has come close to eclipsing Pakistan as a key focus of American counter-terrorism efforts.

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In 2011, then-CIA director David Petraeus characterized the group as the ?most dangerous node in the global jihad? and the American government?s action has appeared to echo the rhetoric. Notably, the number of American airstrikes in Yemen, largely carried out by unmanned drones, has surged over the past year, as much as tripling in frequency in comparison with 2011.

The airstrikes are just one element of a multifaceted engagement in Yemen. A small number of US forces are stationed there to provide strategic assistance to the Yemeni military, while Washington has provided more than $300 million, split among military, humanitarian and development aid.

Even as the drone strikes have increased in frequency, they remain a center of debate, overshadowing most other facets of the American and Yemeni governments? efforts against AQAP.

In contrast to those in Pakistan, drone strikes in Yemen take place with the government?s permission. Yemen?s president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who took power last February in the wake of an Arab Spring-inspired uprising against former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, has gone as far as publicly endorsing the strikes. That?s a marked shift from the official silence of his predecessor.

In remarks made during a September visit to the US, Mr. Hadi echoed Obama administration officials and cast the strikes as a key tool in the battle against AQAP. He explicitly contrasted the drones? capabilities with those of the aging fleet of the Yemeni air force, which is largely unable to operate at night.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/cR_bm-QNqWI/Drone-use-surges-in-Yemen-the-frontline-against-Al-Qaeda

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Doing the Lindy for fun and exercise in Moscow

A forbidden cultural import during the cold war, American swing dance and rock 'n' roll are now seeing a jump in popularity among Russians who embrace the retro Americana.

By Ann T?rnkvist,?Correspondent, Sven Hultberg Carlsson,?Correspondent / December 25, 2012

Pavel Sotnikov (r.) and his teammates take to the dance floor at an informal Friday night dance competition in Moscow.

Ann T?rnkvist

Enlarge

As teenagers during the Soviet era, Sergey and Lyudmila Gubarev used to copy American-inspired songs onto cassette tapes that then made the rounds among their friends. The music on the tapes, spanning from the 1940s onward, offered them a peek through the Iron Curtain that closed off Western cultural imports.

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Today, they still love the same American tunes, but it is not such a clandestine affair.

Sergey and Lyudmila, now both 40, dance swing and the Lindy Hop to keep ?young and fit.? And they?re far from alone. Dance instructor Olga Moiseeva says she has seen a tenfold hike in the number of Muscovites wanting to twist and shake. Ten years ago, only three pupils would show up to one of her classes. Nowadays she arranges Lindy-Hop parties that draw hundreds of dancers.

"The Lindy Hop is about freedom," Ms. Moiseeva says. "And the music is fantastic. But it's about more than the dance, it's about taking classes, competing and, for some, about the cars and the fashion." A burgundy skirt, discrete pumps, and a champagne-colored rose in her wavy hair sets the glamorous Moiseeva apart from her students during a weeknight beginners' class. But once dancers are ready to compete, they ramp it up in the style stakes.

Muscovites going retro

It's Friday night. The air smells of hairspray. Gym bags line the room ? a rehearsal space on the second floor of an anonymous theater just outside Moscow's city center ? where about 50 dancers are getting ready. A group of women apply fake eyelashes by a floor-to-ceiling mirror while a young man adjusts a white tie over his black shirt. "A lot of people are inspired by American '40s and '50s culture and want to express that," says the evening's emcee, Nasdiya Murashko, clad in a navy-blue sailor dress with a wide A-line skirt.

Upstairs, in the dance hall, Pavel Sotnikov is getting ready to compete in a getup of tight jeans and a checkered shirt. His passion is early rock 'n' roll, but tonight it is all about the boogie-woogie. "This music wasn't very popular before, but there are more and more people discovering it, and there's more of a general interest in retro culture than five years ago," Mr. Sotnikov says.

A few competitors have already performed when Sotnikov and his three partners enter the dance floor. The music starts, and the quartet doesn't have a single step out of beat. The audience rewards them with thunderous cheers as the music wraps up, and the dancers throw kisses in the air in all directions.

"Sure, we might win," says a sweaty and elated Sotnikov, "but it doesn't matter. These people are my friends, I want to feel that sense of community with the audience."

Act follows act as the competition continues, mixing high and low, but mostly the competitors stick to the swing and Lindy Hop.

Taking it on the road

As the evening draws to a close, Sotnikov and his teammates are crowned winners. Yet their sights are already set on the next target ? dance camps abroad.

"I'm in the habit of taking two weeks off every year to dance, usually a week in Sweden and the second week somewhere else. That's when I get to meet people from all over the world, which is the best thing about this scene," says Sotnikov.

He won't be going alone. The tiny town of Herr?ng in central Sweden is legendary in retro dance circles for its annual festival. "At this point we?re almost famous in Herr?ng," says one dancer, Oleg Rusakov. Like most middle-aged dancers in attendance, his fascination for Western pop culture began with furtive tape exchanges in the Soviet Union.

Roman Molkhanov, 24, is of another generation. He and his group of young dancers have traveled to Moscow from Tula, 120 miles south of the capital. Their eyes are also set on the Swedish dance camp. "We really want to go to Herr?ng. We don't have a lot of money but we're working hard to save up money to go."

Lindy-Hop instructor Moiseeva says Herr?ng is a nice change for Russian dancers. "It's a surprise for them, because we don't really have a dance culture in Russia ? we sit and sing more than we get up and dance ? so Herr?ng is light-hearted and fun for us. I try to copy Herr?ng here at my dance studio."

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/zQodjuxPS7U/Doing-the-Lindy-for-fun-and-exercise-in-Moscow

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Storm's high winds, snow, sleet lash Northeast

Traffic moves in the U.S. 41 By-Pass in Henderson, Ky., Wednesday, Dec. 26, 2012 as a snow storm moves through the area making travel treacherous. (AP Photo/The Gleaner, Mike Lawrence)

Traffic moves in the U.S. 41 By-Pass in Henderson, Ky., Wednesday, Dec. 26, 2012 as a snow storm moves through the area making travel treacherous. (AP Photo/The Gleaner, Mike Lawrence)

Snow blowers funnel snow onto Cannonsburg's main runs during Cannonsburg Ski Hill's opening day on Wednesday, Dec. 26, 2012 in Belmont, Mich. (AP Photo/The Grand Rapids Press, Matthew Busch)

Samantha Fox, 18, looks uphill as she scouts an opening for her friend Skylar Rundle, not pictured, to take off during Cannonsburg Ski Hill's opening day on Wednesday, Dec. 26, 2012 in Belmont, Mich. (AP Photo/The Grand Rapids Press, Matthew Busch)

Former Owensboro Catholic High School basketball player Mary Kate Clemens, 19, left, and her younger sister, Sarah Beth Clemens, 11, enjoy the thrill of sledding down the big hill at Chautaqua Park in Owensboro, Ky., on Wednesday morning, Dec. 26, 2012. (AP Photo/The Messenger-Inquirer, Gary Emord-Netzley)

A tree blown over by a storm sits in the home of Martha Cavin in Centreville, Miss. on Wednesday, Dec. 26, 2012. According to Centreville Police Chief Jimmy Ray Reese, Cavin had to be cut out from her home. She was taken by ambulance to the hospital to treat a gash to her head. More than 25 people were injured and at least 70 homes were damaged in Mississippi by the severe storms that pushed across the South on Christmas Day, authorities said Wednesday. (AP Photo/The Enterprise-Journal, Philip Hall)

A powerful winter storm system that pounded the nation's midsection, wrecking holiday travel plans and dumping a record snowfall in Arkansas, began lashing the Northeast on Wednesday with high winds, snow and sleet.

The storm, which knocked out power to thousands of utility customers mainly in Arkansas, was blamed in at least six deaths.

Hundreds of flights were canceled or delayed, scores of motorists got stuck on icy roads or slid into drifts and blizzard warnings were issued amid snowy gusts of 30 mph that blanketed roads and windshields, at times causing whiteout conditions.

"The way I've been describing it is as a low-end blizzard, but that's sort of like saying a small Tyrannosaurus rex," said John Kwiatkowski, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Indianapolis.

The system, which spawned Gulf Coast region tornadoes on Christmas Day, pushed through the Upper Ohio Valley and headed into the Northeast Wednesday night. High winds, snow and sleet slickened roads in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut, causing dozens of minor accidents and spinouts. Forecasts called for 12 to 18 inches of snow inland from western New York to Maine into Thursday.

The National Weather Service said early Thursday that snow was falling heavily in Pennsylvania, upstate New York and some New England states. Among the highest snow totals were 2 to five inches in southeastern Massachusetts, 3 to 6 inches in Connecticut, up to a foot in some Pennsylvania counties and 10 to 11 inches in some parts of western New York.

The system was expected to taper off into a mix of rain and snow closer to the coast, where little or no accumulation was expected in such cities as Philadelphia, Boston and New York.

The storm left freezing temperatures in its aftermath, and forecasters also said parts of the Southeast from Virginia to Florida would see severe thunderstorms.

Schools on break and workers taking holiday vacations meant that many people could avoid messy commutes, but those who had to travel were implored to avoid it. Snow was blamed for scores of vehicle accidents as far east as Maryland, and about two dozen counties in Indiana and Ohio issued snow emergency travel alerts, urging people to go out on the roads only if necessary.

About 40 vehicles got bogged down trying to make it up a slick hill in central Indiana, and four state snowplows slid off roads as snow fell at the rate of 3 inches an hour in some places.

Two passengers in a car on a sleet-slickened Arkansas highway were killed Wednesday in a head-on collision, and two people, including a 76-year-old Milwaukee woman, were killed Tuesday on Oklahoma highways. Deaths from wind-toppled trees were reported in Texas and Louisiana.

The day after Christmas wasn't expected to be particularly busy for AAA, but its Cincinnati-area branch had its busiest Wednesday of the year. By mid-afternoon, nearly 400 members had been helped with tows, jump starts and other aid, with calls still coming in, spokesman Mike Mills said.

Jennifer Miller was taking a bus Wednesday from Cincinnati to visit family in Columbus.

"I wish this had come yesterday and was gone today," she said, struggling with a rolling suitcase and three smaller bags on a slushy sidewalk near the station. "I'm glad I don't have to drive in this."

Traffic crawled at 25 mph on Interstate 81 in Maryland, where authorities reported scores of accidents.

"We're going to try to go down south and get below" the storm, said Richard Power, traveling from home in Levittown, N.Y., to Kentucky with his wife, two children and their beagle, Lucky.

He said they were well on their way until they hit snow in Pennsylvania, then 15-mph traffic on I-81 at Hagerstown, Md.

"We're going to go as far as we can go. ... If it doesn't get better, we're going to just get a hotel," he said.

More than 1,600 flights were canceled, according to the aviation tracking website FlightAware.com, and some airlines said they would waive change fees. Lengthy delays were reported Wednesday at the three major New York City-area airports, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

In Arkansas, some of the nearly 200,000 people who lost power could be without it for as long as a week because of snapped poles and wires after ice and 10 inches of snow coated power lines, said the state's largest utility, Entergy Arkansas.

Gov. Mike Beebe, who declared a statewide emergency, sent out National Guard teams, and Humvees transported medical workers and patients. Snow hadn't fallen in Little Rock on Christmas since 1926, but the capital ended Tuesday with 10.3 inches of it.

Other states also had scattered outages. Duke Energy said it had nearly 300 outages in Indiana, with few left in Ohio by early afternoon after scores were reported in the morning.

As the storm moved east, New England state highway departments were treating roads and getting ready to mobilize with snowfall forecasts of a foot or more.

"People are picking up salt and a lot of shovels today," said Andy Greenwood, an assistant manager at Aubuchon Hardware in Keene, N.H.

As usual, winter-sports enthusiasts welcomed the snow. At Smiling Hill Farm in Maine, Warren Knight was hoping for enough snow to allow the opening of trails.

"We watch the weather more carefully for cross-country skiing than we do for farming. And we're pretty diligent about farming. We're glued to the weather radio," said Knight, who described the weather at the 500-acre farm in Westbrook as being akin to the prizes in "Cracker Jacks ? we don't know what we're going to get."

Behind the storm, Mississippi's governor declared states of emergency in eight counties with more than 25 people reported injured and 70 homes left damaged.

Cindy Williams stood near a home in McNeill, Miss., where its front had collapsed into a pile of wood and brick, a balcony and the porch ripped apart. Large oak trees were uprooted and winds sheared off treetops in a nearby grove. But she focused instead on the fact that all her family members had escaped harm.

"We are so thankful," she said. "God took care of us."

___

Associated Press writers Rick Callahan and Charles Wilson in Indianapolis, Kelly P. Kissel in Little Rock, Ark.; Jim Van Anglen in Mobile, Ala.; Holbrook Mohr in Jackson, Miss.; Julie Carr Smyth and Mitch Stacy in Columbus, Ohio; Amanda Lee Myers in Cincinnati; David Dishneau in Hagerstown, Md.; Holly Ramer in Concord, N.H.; and David Sharp in Portland, Maine, contributed to this report.

___

Contact Dan Sewell at http://www.twitter.com/dansewell

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-12-27-Christmas%20Weather/id-7b74192812fb41e6b30cda9c1ec33864

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How many times can you recycle a piece of paper?

What happens to wrapping paper after Christmas?

Polka Dot Images

At the end of Christmas morning, many holiday revelers found themselves sitting cross-legged in the center of an enormous pile of wrapping paper and empty cardboard boxes. Some of that wrapping paper is made of recycled paper. As one Explainer reader crammed her used wrapping paper into the recycle bin for another go-around, she wondered: How many times can a piece of paper be recycled?

Five or six times, on average. At a recycling plant, paper is heated and chopped into tiny bits to make a pulp. During that process, each of the long fibers that characterize virgin paper has an approximately 20 percent chance of being cut into a strand that?s too small to be useful to paper makers. (Short strands of wood fiber make extremely weak paper, and are suitable for newsprint or other applications in which quality is less important.) In theory, a strand could survive the pulping process unscathed for 20, 30, or 100 rounds of recycling, but the odds suggest that a paper fiber only has about five lives.

Even if a paper fiber were to maintain its shape after several instances of recycling, it would still lose some of its virgin qualities. Paper that has been dried and then resoaked in water undergoes a process known as ?hornification.? The internal structures contract, causing the fiber to collapse slightly and lose structural integrity. Recyclers usually add virgin paper to a batch of recycled pulp to combat hornification. In addition, paper fibers are often lost in the washing process that separates ink from paper. The paper?s brightness also fades each time it is recycled, which is why some batches of earth-friendly paper have a slightly grayish hue. (On a more positive note, recycled paper often has better opacity than the more porcelain virgin version.)

Since paper loses quality after each recycling, there is a hierarchy that paper descends on its way toward retirement. The fibers that make up a piece of writing paper, for example, may be returned to a notepad if they maintain most of their good qualities. As they age, however, they typically are recycled into something less distinguished, like facial tissues, milk cartons, or toilet paper. The corrugated boxes that carried to your home Christmas presents purchased online will eventually become shoe boxes or cereal boxes.

There?s a good chance you won?t get to see your cardboard box?s next life, no matter what form it takes after rising from the dead. Approximately 40 percent of U.S. waste paper is shipped abroad, often to China, which doesn?t have enough forestland to feed the country?s demand for paper. Waste for recycling is, in fact, the largest U.S. export to China, according to some experts. China?s hunger for used paper is a good thing for recyclers. At times, the price of a ton of recyclable paper has dropped below $5, making the business nearly impossible without foreign demand and government requirements that paper contain a certain percentage of recycled content.

Got a question about today?s news? Ask the Explainer.

Explainer thanks Richard Venditti of North Carolina State University.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=02354743fae5c76c59a3f3d28d24305d

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Social Media: New Tools For Business Growth | Business 2 ...

Since the industrial age, businesses have learnt to acquire tools that bring mechanical advantage and help achieve more with less effort. Now, the digital age has brought a lot of enterprise applications to improve business efficiency. Social Media has further added social productivity tools, which bring fun, ease and convenience to business.

In this piece, we present some of the social media tools already helping businesses worldwide become more efficient.

Businesses now use social media for more activities than just chatting with existing customers. Moreover, different business departments now have peculiar ways of using social media. Sales departments use social media to get new leads, monitor the leads and close sales. Human resource departments use social media to get new employees. Advertising departments reach out to more customers on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social networks. Similarly, marketing and R&D departments now mine forums, blogs, social networks and review sites to get better understanding of their target markets.

There are several social media tools to use. It doesn?t matter what tools you use as long as you get the results you want to achieve. However, it is best to focus on using tools that are easy to use, secure and really efficient, and most importantly get tools that fit your business requirements. Also, you should ensure the tools you finally decide on can serve your local needs. One of the major advantages of web applications is that even the most expensive ones usually allow trial periods, during which you can evaluate whether a tool suits your business needs or not. Besides, many paid applications have free alternatives. However, it is advisable for big businesses to opt for paid versions over the free alternatives in order to get more security and guarantees.

The Web Has Changed Our World

The web has grown so fast and tightly woven into the normal lifestyle of almost everybody. According to reports, the number of active users of Facebook is already over 900 million, now pushing 1 billion; that?s about 14% of the population of the world. Also, Twitter is expected to hit 500 million registered users in the next few months. LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube and other social platforms are growing in leaps and bounds. Obviously, people are becoming more comfortable using online social platforms to interact with one another.

The present generation of consumers and the next generation spend most of their time on mobile devices and computers. They tend to find things like chatting, texting, sending instant messages and making other short continuous conversations more convenient than emailing or writing long letters. They spend most of their time with laptops, netbooks, smartphones, tablets and other new gadgets. Secondly as business competition gets stiffer, more and more people tend to consume media (news, entertainment etc) on their mobile devices while commuting in order to save time. Hence, the new best place to stay connected with team members, employees and partners is on these devices.

Therefore, you cannot continue to neglect social media and expect your business to survive for long. No matter the size of your business, getting involved and using social media is your sure bet towards mastering the language of this generation and the coming generations. To be frank, this is just the beginning of the new lifestyle of the world, and social media is not going away any soon. So get your business to adjust to this new culture and enjoy better business results.

There are several social media tools to choose from. You can?t possibly use all the available tools for your business. The solution today is to decide the best set of tools that can be adapted for your business based on your business peculiarity.

Here, we shall highlight a few major social media tools based on their relevance to your business:

Monitoring and Managing Your Brand

One way to describe the digital age is the ?age of information overload?. Consumers have access to all sorts of information, which they use in making buying decisions. Social media tools for monitoring brands help you track the mentions of your brand anywhere on the Internet. By tracking where your brand is mentioned, you will be able to encourage positive reviews and quickly tackle negative comments and also understand your customers better.

Hootsuite

Keeping track of all your social network accounts can be very daunting. Hootsuite is an incredible tool, in this respect, for managing multiple Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts, monitoring the mentions of your name and replying where necessary. It also enables you to schedule updates and get reports on the number of people that share your updates. Similar tools you can try are SocialOomph, Sprout Social and Monitter.

Crowbooster

Crowdbooster is another tool for managing social networks and is specifically built for businesses. It autoposts contents, monitors new fans and followers and provides statistics about how your content is being shared It also lets you know the fans that are most interested in your posts and recommends the best time of the day to post updates to enable you get the highest engagement. It also helps to remind you to reply tweets. A similar tool is Bufferapp.

Google Alerts

Google Alerts is an indispensable tool for monitoring your business reputation online. It is a free tool from Google that works excellently well for monitoring your brand. Every time your business is mentioned on any website on the Internet, Google will send you an email. You can choose to receive the emails as it happens, daily or weekly. You can also use Google Alerts to monitor the mentions of specific products, brand names or name of a person.

Creating a Strong Online Presence and Maintaining It

Your website and blog form the home-base and fortress of your online presence. They are the best place to get fans to connect with your brand more deeply. They are like the headquarters of your business, built and furnished to your taste; whereas other social media destinations are like outlets of your company, where you try to attract and retain more customers. Your blog and website are always yours to fully control, but Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media destinations can be tweaked and changed by the providers. So, get your website and blog in order as much as you can.

WordPress

You can use WordPress to build great blogs and really powerful and dynamic websites or both. As a small business owner, you can begin with their free domain name and webhost and later upgrade to a personal one. WordPress blogs are well optimized for search engines, and they integrate excellently with social networks. That?s why WordPress powers many of the sites you see online.

Blogger

A great alternative to WordPress is Blogger, which is a free blog publishing service provided by Google. It lets you create blogs for one or more people. The blogs are hosted free by Google at a sub-domain of blogspot.com. Like WordPress blogs, Blogger blogs can be built on very low budget.

Other alternatives for building free websites are GNBO (for Nigerians) and Tumblr. The advantage of these platforms is that they can help you have a website on very low budget.

Connecting on Social Networks

Though a lot of people do not know, some of the most amazing business tools today are social networking sites. They let you find customers based on their interests, locate partners easily and also maintain a presence for prospecting, gaining leads and getting customers.

LinkedIn

For business connections, try and spend more time with LinkedIn, and you will be amazed at the potentials. LinkedIn can be regarded as the best social network for getting new leads. It is a professional social networking site of over 161 million users. To properly harness the power of LinkedIn for your business, you need to create a complete profile, join relevant professional groups and participate in discussions. On LinkedIn, you can ask business questions and get answers from experts all over the world, or you can simply read the conversation of others to learn practical business wisdom.

Facebook

Aside the regular chatting and messaging, you can use Facebook to create brand pages for your business, install relevant extensions and use it to keep your fans abreast of your business updates. You can set up a vibrant discussion group for communicating with your partners or customers. Having a Facebook business page is indispensable for your business. Currently, Facebook has over 900 million active users, making it a place you should go and spend time with your customers and not lose them to competitors.

Twitter

Twitter is excellent for disseminating short information and keeping track of discussion trends around the world. It is a real time information network that connects users to latest news, stories, opinions and ideas. It lets you send and receive text-based posts of up to 140 characters. Twitter currently has over 140 million active users and is pushing 500 million registered users according to Twopchart.

Google Plus

One of the best business features of Google Plus is their Hangout. It is a free but powerful video chat service for up to 10 persons. With the relevant extensions, you can share documents and much more while video chatting. While ten persons can participate in the video chat, many more people can watch the discussion.

YouTube

Today, many people share videos on social networks. This presents a unique opportunity for your business to get new customers and engage existing ones. By uploading short videos to YouTube and sharing with friends, you will be taking advantage of the over 800 million unique visits to YouTube every month from all over the world.

Reaching Out to Customers

Email still remains the most effective means of business communication to clients. Here is an effective tool for email campaigns:

MailChimp

Currently, 1.8 million people are using MailChimp to get effective results from email campaigns involving large number of email subscribers. It has all the features you need to create effective email marketing campaigns. It lets you create great designs of newsletters and preview them before sending to your subscribers. Also before sending your emails, MailChimp checks all your emails with Delivery Doctor to ensure your emails will not end up in spam boxes. Additionally, it lets you use social networking in conjunction with emails. You also get excellent graphical reports of your subscribers? activities ? open rates, clicked URLs and so on.

Team Collaboration

Without the possibility of collaborating, managing businesses and executing projects would have been a nightmare. Impressively, one of the greatest good brought by the social media is greater ease and fun in business collaboration. Here are some tools that make collaboration on the web very easy:

Manymoon

Manymoon is one of the best free tool available on the web for collaborating on projects. It is a free social productivity, project management and task management web application that lets you create as many projects as possible, assign tasks, set milestones, and monitor completed projects among team members. Also, members of your team can easily update everyone on the team about the progress of their work, and also view the projects handled by other members. A paid alternative to Manymoon is Basecamp. It is more expensive, but it provides greater convenience.

Yammer

Yammer is an enterprise social network. Unlike Twitter that lets you broadcast post to the public, Yammer enables groups of people to keep conversations private. It provides a unique and secure way for employees to communicate, collaborate and share information. Users can share ideas, posts, news, links and also ask and get answers to questions within a close network. Using the basic service is free; and anyone can start a Yammer network and begin inviting others. A paid alternative to Yammer is Precurio, built in Nigeria by Nigerians.

Additionally, there are platforms where you can hire best talents from different parts of the world to perform tasks that do not necessarily require physical presence. They are called online outsourcing platforms. The next time you need a website, mobile app, press reports and so on, you can simply go to any of these websites, publish your request and get job applications from people across several continents. The platforms have different operating models; so you may have to stick with one or two that fit your requirements. Some of them are Freelancer, oDesk, eLance, Scriptlance and vWorker.

Final Tip

Don?t allow the competition come crashing on you. Social media tools have been tried and tested to greatly improve results. Moreover, social media tools enable you to properly monitor and analyze your business efforts more easily. Even if your business is large already, these tools will greatly improve your business.

Source: http://www.business2community.com/social-media/social-media-new-tools-for-business-growth-0363831

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Capital STEEZ Remembered As Integral Part Of Pro Era

'Honestly, I couldn't do it without these dudes,' Joey Bada$$ tells MTV News of working with Capital STEEZ and his Pro Era crew.
By Nadeska Alexis, with reporting by Rob Markman

Capital STEEZ
Photo: MTV News

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1699408/capital-steez-remembered-pro-era.jhtml

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Gifts For IT Field In This Christmas | Amar Infotech

Well the IT industry has like ever been good and Santa heard the prayers of the field and has left a gift this year. IT business will have revelation with growing demand for web development as the businesses go and grow online. E-commerce will be able to set a new record with development in Web designing industry.

Today?s world is dependent on Information Technology and Web. They will continue to be, the driving force of every industry on the planet. IT and web services forms the infrastructure of business and are the enablers of the information age. IT and web services permeates your everyday life. IT and web services brings it all together.

All the IT services and web development, customization and maintenance will take businesses to next level. Be it php, Asp.net or mobile media development applications can enhance efficiency and increase your business. Web designs will offer businesses features like never before. There will be a boom in IT with increased users and more profits. Online presence will have reached a new high by features such as eye-catching logos, graphics, cool colors, easy fonts, center layout, clutter-free design, strategically placed call to action buttons, and a lot of white space.

The custom made Web apps will help in streamlining internal and external workflows and processes. Content management system like word press will shape ideas of B2B / B2C, social community portals and job portals.

It is important to assess and acquire a limiting factor that determines if a user/visitor will perform an action or not and for this building trust is a very essential concept. Purchasing from an e-commerce website, hiring someone based on their portfolio, downloading data and even accepting the advice or opinion of a blog post all require trust beforehand. Trust therefore a scarce but highly valuable commodity.

Social media has come to aid through analytics for restructuring web development with help of analytics and build trust with what a user/visitor wants. Many data extracted from social media discussions aids in understanding the user demand from websites of various businesses and helps IT industry focus on the gaps. Many output of analytics state exactly what a website of particular businesses lack. Web developer can now focus on all the available information and build a website which is not only user friendly but also attention gripping and give a stimulating experience that a visitor was hoping for. ?Today, many businesses and services exist only online and therefore website will be the sole point of contact for such businesses. A professional level of design will ensure that a significant amount of both time and money have been invested, will ensure a successful outcome and therefore a return on that investment.

This gift to IT field will prove to be beneficial as now businesses can depend on the solution offered by the developers. Web developers will be able to offer effective Portal Solutions, Social Networking Solutions, Rich Internet Applications (RIAs), Internet Marketing Strategy, Software development solutions and maintenance.

Tags: 2013, Christmas, IT field, web design company

Source: http://blog.amarinfotech.com/christmas-gifts-to-it-field.html

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Discipline OK even if employee has complained ? Business ...

Courts are consistently hesitant to second-guess well-founded employment decisions. Of course, they won?t let you get away with discriminating or retaliating against an employee for filing an EEOC complaint or lawsuit. But that doesn?t mean you can?t discipline an employee if she needs prodding to meet your legitimate expectations.

You can and should discipline everyone who deserves it, whether she?s involved in litigation or not.

Recent case: Raquel worked for the U.S. Department of Justice. On an evaluation, she received a lower ranking than she had on earlier appraisals, which had rated her ?outstanding.? Her supervisor said the downgrade was because she made slow progress on a big project. She filed a discrimination complaint.

Two years later, she was suspended for five days. Her supervisor said she was punished for missing work for two days without letting her supervisors know and then refusing to submit medical paperwork when she claimed she had been ill.

Raquel sued, alleging discrimination and retaliation for her earlier complaint.

The court tossed out her case. It reasoned that Raquel?s lower evaluation wasn?t enough to justify a lawsuit, since she hadn?t lost pay, benefits or anything else important. Plus, it was clear that there was a legitimate reason for her downgrade from ?outstanding??she had missed important deadlines.

Finally, the court said too much time had passed for the suspension to be retaliation for her earlier complaint. In addition, the suspension was clearly based on her own misconduct. (Allard v. Holder, No. 11-50481, 5th Cir., 2012)

Final note: As long as you treat all employees alike when it comes to discipline, you have little to fear. The employers that get in trouble are those that target or ?throw the book? at employees they?re seeking to get rid of for reasons that aren?t legitimate?or legal.

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The Science Behind Santa's Christmas Eve Journey

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Source: http://www.npr.org/2012/12/24/167946053/the-science-behind-santas-christmas-eve-journey?ft=1&f=1007

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Chinese Congenital Deficiency Of Color

By: Bright Anderson

Western criticism of the fine arts of Chinese oil paintings tends to focus on two aspects: indifference in shape and color. The argument goes straight to the heart of the matter, because it is indeed a common problem for most Chinese painters.
In contemporary China, there are few painters that could skillfully take charge of color, which may be caused by three aspects. First, as a separate discipline, color art came into being in the 80s of the last century with a weak foundation. Second, affected by the combination of Chinese and western thinking, a lot of Chinese painters cannot help trying to make oil painting by using Chinese techniques. Chinese painting emphasized exquisite description, which was clearly not the same thing with oil painting. Third, influenced by Russian painting style, Russia's geography and climate affected the perception and understanding of the Russian painter for color. On the other hand, the melancholy tone in the Russian culture of 19th century also had a significant impact on Russian painting: in literature, such as Tolstoy, Turgenev; in music, such as Tchaikovsky; in painting, such as Surikov, Repin. If corresponded in color, that was grey and brown.
As is known to all, the painting education in New China was introduced from the former Soviet Union, which has influenced generations of Chinese painters. In addition, the majority of Chinese painters focused more on techniques and less on feeling, and was diligent in writing and lazy in sketch. Such a bad painting habit was also the main reason leading to Chinese painters difficulty in the comprehension of color art. I have seen a lot of paintings made by some well known painters, but I still do not understand why they treat their figures even young girls in a funeral-like gray color scene. In Paintings of Venice by a famous painter, the whole sky and waters are processed into cloudy dark gray. I have been to Venice in four seasons, and I really do not know where he felt this color.
Painting consumption in China has gradually entered the homes of the middle class, but most people do not know how to appreciate the painting. It is necessary to know some knowledge of color art. If you cannot understand the significance of color art for oil painting, you cannot have a real understanding of it.

---

About the Author:
China has developed the paintingfor Thousands of years .Artisoo offers hand painted oil reproductions on canvas of the Old World masters and original Chinese Painting. Also features custom paintings.

Article Originally Published On: http://www.articlesnatch.com

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GLHFCasting ? Trustworthy Automobile Repairs

Visiting a shop for Automotive Experts is something everyone must have done from time to time and it is critically important that you use a place where you can find quality workmanship, reliable customer service, and affordable prices. Some people worry about going to a mechanic, as there are many places with a reputation for poor service and high prices. But there are many respectable repair shops who take this job seriously and are genuinely concerned about the safety and performance of your vehicle. These mechanics use the highest quality tools and are familiar with the procedures that find problem areas and fix them as efficiently as possible. They also focus on providing customer service and will make sure you understand what is happening to your car and the complete costs to you. Find your trusted auto repair shop today and you will never have to worry about fixing your car again. Transmission Rebuild Austin

Source: http://www.glhfcasting.com/trustworthy-automobile-repairs-3/

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NRA: Public wants armed guards in every school

The National Rifle Association executive vice president Wayne LaPierre, gestures during a news conference in response to the Connecticut school shooting on Friday, Dec. 21, 2012 in Washington. The nation's largest gun-rights lobby is calling for armed police officers to be posted in every American school to stop the next killer "waiting in the wings." (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)

The National Rifle Association executive vice president Wayne LaPierre, gestures during a news conference in response to the Connecticut school shooting on Friday, Dec. 21, 2012 in Washington. The nation's largest gun-rights lobby is calling for armed police officers to be posted in every American school to stop the next killer "waiting in the wings." (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)

The National Rifle Association executive vice president Wayne LaPierre pauses as he makes a statement during a news conference in response to the Connecticut school shooting, on Friday, Dec. 21, 2012 in Washington. The National Rifle Association broke its silence Friday on last week's shooting rampage at a Connecticut elementary school that left 26 children and staff dead. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The National Rifle Association on Sunday forcefully stuck to its call for placing armed police officers and security guards in every school as the best way to avoid shootings such as the recent massacre at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.

Wayne LaPierre, CEO of the nation's largest gun rights lobbying organization, said the NRA would push Congress to put a police officer in every school and would coordinate a national effort to put former military and police offers in schools as volunteer guards.

The NRA's response to the Newtown shooting has been panned on several fronts since the group broke its weeklong silence on Friday about the rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Rep. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., called it "the most revolting, tone deaf statement I've ever seen." A headline from the New York Post summarized LaPierre's initial presentation before reporters in Washington with the headline: "Gun Nut! NRA loon in bizarre rant over Newtown."

"If it's crazy to call for putting police and armed security in our schools to protect our children, then call me crazy," LaPierre told NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday. "I think the American people think it's crazy not to do it. It's the one thing that would keep people safe."

LaPierre also contended that any new efforts by Congress to regulate guns or ammunition would not prevent mass shootings. His fresh comments reinforced the position that the NRA took on Friday.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said LaPierre appears to blame everything but guns for a series of mass shootings in recent years.

"Trying to prevent shootings in schools without talking about guns is like trying to prevent lung cancer without talking about cigarettes," Schumer said.

The NRA plans to develop an emergency response program that would include using volunteers from the group's 4.3 million members to help guard children, and has named former Rep. Asa Hutchinson, R-Ark., as national director of the school program.

Hutchinson said the NRA's position was a "very reasonable approach" that he compared to the federal air marshal program that places armed guards on flights.

"Are our children less important to protect than our air transportation? I don't think so," said Hutchinson, who served as an undersecretary at the Department of Homeland Security when it was formed.

Hutchinson said schools should not be required to use armed security. LaPierre also argued that local law enforcement should have final say on how the security is put into place, such as where officers would be stationed.

"I've made it clear that it should not be a mandatory law, that every school has this. There should be local choice, but absolutely, I believe that protecting our children with an armed guard who is trained is an important part of the equation," Hutchinson told ABC's "This Week."

LaPierre cited Israel as a model for the type of school security system the NRA envisions.

""Israel had a whole lot of school shootings until they did one thing: They said 'we're going to stop it,' and they put armed security in every school and they have not had a problem since then," he said.

Democratic lawmakers in Congress have become more adamant about the need for stricter gun laws since the shooting. Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California is promising to push for a renewal of legislation that banned certain weapons and limited the number of bullets a gun magazine could hold to 10. NRA officials made clear the legislation is a non-starter for them.

"It hasn't worked," LaPierre said. "Dianne Feinstein had her ban and Columbine occurred."

There also has been little indication from Republican leaders that they'll go along with any efforts to curb what kind of guns can be purchased or how much ammunition gun magazines can hold. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., noted that he had an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle in his home. He said America would not be made safer by preventing him from buying another one. As to gun magazine limits, he said he can quickly reload by putting in a new magazine.

"The best way to interrupt a shooter is to keep them out of the school, and if they get into the school, have somebody who can interrupt them through armed force," Graham said.

Schumer said that he believes gun owners have even been taken aback by LaPierre's refusal to include additional gun regulation as part of an overall response to the Newtown massacre.

"He's turning people off. That's not where America is at and he's actually helping us," Schumer said on NBC, where he appeared with Graham.

LaPierre also addressed other factors that he said contribute to gun violence in America, but he would not concede that the types of weapons being used are part of the problem.

He was particularly critical of states, which he said are not placing the names of people into a national database designed to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and the dangerously mentally ill. He said some states are not entering names into the system and 23 others are only putting in a small number of records.

"So when they go through the national instant-check system, and they go to try to screen out one of those lunatics, the records are not even in the system," LaPierre said.

Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut said he found the NRA's statements in recent days disheartening because they deal with every possible cause of gun violence, except guns. He said the NRA's position means that any new regulations that the administration wants to put into place early next year "is not going to happen easily."

"It's going to be a battle, but the president, I think, and vice president, are really ready to lead the fight," Lieberman said on CNN's "State of the Union."

___

Associated Press writer Adam Goldman contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-12-23-Connecticut%20School%20Shooting-NRA/id-bc000a9842a64565ae46267ee25c4d65

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Is This Santa Claus' Home Entrance?

I don't buy this whole Santa lives in the North Pole thing. Obviously—looking at this picture of this incredible ice structure by Sander Klaassen—the real Santa must live in Pleneau Bay, Antarctica. The fake Coca-Cola one is the one who lives in the North Pole, with the polar beards. [National Geographic] More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/I0VQbYG6umg/is-this-santa-claus-home-entrance

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HBT: Report: Ross reaches three-year deal with Arizona

UPDATE: Jim Bowden of ESPN.com and MLB Network Radio on Sirius XM reports that Ross got a three-year, $26 million contract. The deal includes a club option for 2016 which carries a $1 million buyout. Not a bad deal for someone who made $3 million in 2012.

12:01 PM: According to Mark Feinsand of the New York Daily News, Cody Ross has reached agreement with the Diamondbacks on a three-year contract. No word yet on the terms involved.

This is a pretty surprising destination for Ross, as he hasn?t been linked to the Diamondbacks at all this winter. The latest we heard was a meeting with the Rangers earlier this week.

The Diamondbacks already have Justin Upton, Jason Kubel, Gerardo Parra and Adam Eaton in-house, so the addition of Ross is a bit superfluous on the surface. However, general manager Kevin Towers now figures to step up his efforts to trade an outfielder, likely Kubel. And I suppose it?s possible Upton could be dealt if they are blown away by an offer.

Ross, who turns 32 tomorrow, batted .267/.326/.481 with 22 home runs, 81 RBI and an .807 OPS in 130 games this past season with the Red Sox. He enjoyed most of his success at Fenway Park, but he should have a decent chance at a comparable follow-up playing half of his games at the hitter-friendly Chase Field.

Source: http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/12/22/report-diamondbacks-reach-three-year-deal-with-cody-ross/related/

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Here's a Guide to Last-Chance Store Hours

Still gotta go out and do some shopping? I'll bet plenty of us do, but now that its pretty much too late to do that wonderful online thing, it's time to hoof it to stores. You just have to make sure they'll be open first. Here's a handy little guide to help with that. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/fMz8byVPQzM/heres-a-guide-to-last+chance-store-hours

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Appeals court puts gay therapy ban on hold, for now

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A California ban on controversial therapy designed to reverse homosexuality in children cannot be enforced while the constitutionality of the law is being challenged in court, a U.S. appeals court ruled late on Friday.

California's Democratic Governor Jerry Brown signed the ban into law in September, making the nation's most populous state the first to ban so-called conversion therapy among youths.

Earlier this month U.S. District Court Judge Kimberly Mueller denied an injunction request against the law filed by the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality and the American Association of Christian Counselors, as well as unnamed individuals who sued shortly after the law was signed.

Those groups appealed Mueller's ruling. In a brief order on Friday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco put the law on hold during the appeals process. The law had been scheduled to take effect January 1.

"California was correct to outlaw this unsound and harmful practice, and the Attorney General will vigorously defend this law," said Lynda Gledhill, a spokeswoman for California Attorney General Kamala Harris.

In a press release on Friday, Liberty Counsel attorneys who represent the plaintiffs praised the order.

"The minors we represent have not and do not want to act on same-sex attractions, nor do they want to engage in such behavior," said lead counsel Matthew Staver.

"They are greatly benefiting from counseling."

In its brief supporting the law, California state attorneys wrote that it regulates professional conduct, not constitutionally protected speech.

"The statute is based on a scientific and professional consensus reached decades ago that homosexuality is a normal expression of human sexuality," state attorneys wrote, "and not a disease, condition or disorder in need of a 'cure.'"

Attorneys for both sides are scheduled to file further legal briefs at the 9th Circuit in January.

The case in the 9th Circuit is David H. Pickup et al. vs. Edmund G. Brown et al., 12-17681.

(Reporting By Dan Levine in Oakland, California; editing by Todd Eastham)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/appeals-court-puts-gay-therapy-ban-hold-now-031731932.html

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Tax Vote Delay Raises Fiscal Uncertainty in US (Voice Of America)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, News Feeds and News via Feedzilla.

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