Monday, January 10, 2011

tracking personal finances

Best Mobile Personal Finance Tool: Mint

Earlier last week we asked you to share your favorite mobile personal finance tool. We rounded up the nominations and put the top five before you for a vote. Now we're back with your favorite.

Leading the pack by a brutal landslide; Mint's mobile finance application took home 76% of the vote. Following behind Mint, Pageonce pulled in 14%. Rounding out the bottom of the Hive were Pocket Money (3%), EasyMoney (2%), and ProOnGo (1%).

Click on the chart below to see the results in graph form.

Have an idea for the next Hive Five? Shoot us an email at tips@lifehacker.com with "Hive Five" in the subject line and we'll do our best to get your idea the attention it deserves.

Send an email to Jason Fitzpatrick, the author of this post, at jason@lifehacker.com.

Five Best Mobile Personal Finance Tools

It's easy to convince yourself to spend and save responsibly when the numbers are right in front of you, but it's a different story when you're on-the-go. These five great mobile personal finance tools keep your money goals nearby at all times.

Photo a composite of images by neernijus and mellowr.

Smartphones have brought nearly every aspect of desktop computers to your pocket; it only makes sense they'd bring money management, too. Earlier this week we asked you to share your favorite mobile personal finance tool. Now we're back to highlight the five most popular options.

Mint (Android/iOS, Free)

Popular web-based personal finance tool Mint has an equally as popular mobile application for Android and iOS devices. It sports the same simple design as Mint's main site and makes it easy to track your spending, receive alerts about bills and budget issues, and monitor your savings goals. It's polished, the graphs are easy to read, and the total-overview that Mint provides helps keep you on top of your personal finances in ways other tools don't.

Pageonce (Cross-Platform, Free)

Pageonce isn't only about personal finance, but it does personal finance well, and it's available for nearly every mobile platform around. On top of a web-based interface, they have highly polished apps for Android, iOS, BlackBerry, and Windows Mobile (including the newly released Windows Phone 7). It's easy to get real-time updates via email or push notifications on your phone, set alerts to warn you about impending bills or overspending, and view all of your financial stats in eye-catching charts and graphs.

EasyMoney (Android, $9.95)

EasyMoney is an Android-only personal finance manager that includes a home screen widget for speedy transaction inputs, bill notifications, graphs to help you analyze and chart your past and future spending, and a host of small but very useful features like the ability to split transactions between multiple categories. Easy Money also includes a tool for photographing receipts and importing data as well as a checkbook register and easy import/export to .CVS files. EasyMoney offers a 30 day-trial if you're on the fence about spending $10 on the app (consider also, many of the features in EasyMoney are paid upgrades on similar applications).

Pocket Money (iOS, $4.99)

Pocket Money puts a sweeping view of all your accounts and transactions right on your iPhone or iPad. You can manually enter transactions, create repeating transactions based on cycles or dates, create custom filters to view your money the way that is most useful to you, and more. On top of the plethora of features in the stock app you can expand the feature set with in-app purchases like the $0.99 Photo Receipts plugin that allows you to photograph your receipts and import the transaction data off them. Pocket Money has a companion desktop application available for Windows, Mac and Linux—a nice break from the common pattern of iOS apps having Mac-only desktop companions.

ProOnGo (Cross-Platform, Starting at $0.99/Month)

ProOnGo is the most distinctly business-oriented tool in this week's Hive Five. You could use it as a personal finance manager if you desired but the feature set is weighted heavily towards business users who need to track things like automotive mileage, business-related expenses, and generate reports for tax purposes and submission to their company. The basic package runs $0.99/month and is limited to manual entires and expense report generation, the premium package runs $4.99/month and includes web-based access, backups, custom spreadsheets, and synchronization to your American Express business card.

Now that you've had a chance to look over the five most popular mobile finance tools, it's time to vote for your favorite:

Have an idea for the next Hive Five? Shoot us an email at tips@lifehacker.com with "Hive Five" in the subject line and we'll do our best to give you idea the attention it deserves.

Send an email to Jason Fitzpatrick, the author of this post, at jason@lifehacker.com.

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Arizona Shooting News (LIVE UPDATES)

PHOENIX -- A 22-year-old man described as a social outcast with wild beliefs steeped in mistrust faces a federal court hearing on charges he tried to assassinate Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in a Tucson shooting rampage that left six people ...

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Probably Bad News: Masturbation Excuse FAIL - Epic Fail Funny ...

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Arizona Shooting News (LIVE UPDATES)

Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes may boycott Oscars over Anne Hathaway ...

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Probably Bad News: Masturbation Excuse FAIL - Epic Fail Funny ...

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Arizona Shooting News (LIVE UPDATES)

Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes may boycott Oscars over Anne Hathaway ...

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Friday, January 7, 2011

Making Money Now

I recently watched the movie Exit Through the Gift Shop from well-known artist Banksy. I got a kick out of this film for multiple reasons having liked Banksy's artwork for years now.

What most amused me though is how well it goes about making you question what celebrity is and how much you can achieve by becoming famous. The key point for me is questioning whether you really need to be creative and innovative above and beyond being famous.

Then Mike Butcher over at Techcrunch went and posted something this morning about startup teams trumping celebrity tech entrepreneurs. In summary, he too is making the point that execution far outweighs celebrity.

Basically, what I'm getting at, is all the parallels you're starting to see between the startup world and the movie business. I am definitely not an expert on the movie business and can only imagine what it's truly like from afar. Yet, we've all seen enough of it to realize a bit how things work in Hollywood. You basically have a couple large companies or studios as they're usually called. There you have management at the top who are the power-brokers in the industry. They back films which are used as vehicles to market actors who either succeed or not. If they do succeed, they are cast in further films and a ton of marketing is thrown at these films, regardless of whether these actors have talent or not.

Ultimately, the goal is to make as much money as possible and if you're the one making all this money, keep other people out so you can continue to make as much money as possible. Sure, there are some stand-out actors, managers and studios who go against the grain but basically it's an industry optimized to make money. Simplified by me immensely but I believe you understand what I am saying.

Now let's switch over to the startup world. It's no longer Hollywood and we're now a bit north in Silicon Valley. You have a couple firms who call all the shots and are known as Tier 1 VC's (with some major players like Google, Apple, and Facebook thrown in for good measure).

These VC's fund firms instead of films run by entrepreneurs instead of actors. Some of these entrepreneurs are successful and some are not. Those who are get funded further by these Tier 1 firms. Lots of companies are started and sold since these power brokers in the Valley sit on each other's boards and pass deals back and forth. The power brokers continue to make money and those entrepreneurs who don't lead to successful exits get weeded out (where's the reality TV version of "out to pasture" for entrepreneurs?)

Ultimately, as in the movie business, you make as much money as possible and keep out the riff-raff who would keep you from making tons of money as long as possible.

Now don't get me wrong. I am in no way arguing about whether the movie or startup business is right or wrong or skewed in someone's favor or not. I'm also probably simplifying it too much as well. But the point I am making is that we are in a world where it's about making money. Sure, you can get your touchy-feely on and say you're changing the world but ultimately you wouldn't "work" if it wasn't about making some money.

Hence, my advice to any entrepreneur is to take advantage of whatever you have if you ultimately want to be successful. If you are naturally good looking, get your face out there. Be on TV and in the press. If it helps you make money, go for it.

At the same time, if media attention doesn't help you make more money, don't focus on it. Get your pretty head down to business and execute like hell to innovate, optimize and sell your product. Or have the best of both worlds. Be a CEO focussed on getting your brand or product out there and have a number two (great blog post by Ben Horowitz) who takes care of business. What you need to focus on is making money and being the scrappy entrepreneur that you are, you'll optimize wherever you can to achieve your goal.

In the end it's never about who was most popular that determines success. Just think back to all those football players and cheerleaders in high school. (I've seen some of them from my high school....thank you Facebook.....and had a good laugh!) So often there are people you never hear about making tons of cash since they don't need to focus on media.

On the other hand, if Twitter/Foursquare/Zynga/Groupon hadn't received so much media attention, you think they'd be where they are now? I highly doubt it and I guarantee you that they had a clear strategy in place to use media (and position their founders) from the start. Hence, don't waste time focussed on the wrong things. If you're a celebrity entrepreneur who's counting his millions hats off to you. If you've become a media darling and are broke, well tough luck kid. Try something new.

By the way, here's what Exit Through the Gift Shop is about cut and pasted from Wikipedia. Think what you will about whether it's a real story or not but reast assured the dollars earned by "Mr Brainwash" were real!!

Exit Through the Gift Shop: A Banksy Film is a Gonzo Documentary which tells the story of Thierry Guetta, a French immigrant in Los Angeles, and his obsession with street art. It is presented as a documentary, but reviewers have questioned its factuality. The film charts Guetta's constant documenting of his every moment on film, to his chance contact with his cousin, the artist Invader, and his documenting of a host of street artists with focus on Shepard Fairey, and also Banksy though the latter's face is never shown, and his voice is distorted to preserve his anonymity

Values, Value and Valuation — The money is all relative

Oh how timing sometimes works out to be funny. I was driving home tonight and started thinking about the value of products, the valuation of companies and how the values that a company portrays can change the rest. No sooner had I sat down to write this piece than the news of Goldman Sachs investing $500 million into Facebook broke and refreshed the entire thing in my mind. So let’s look at these three things, and try to see if one manages to sway the rest.

Values

Do you, like me, find yourself more inclined to use or purchase something that comes from a company that you can believe in? The ethos of a company can — for me at least — completely break me away from the product. That very fact, because I feel that I’m likely not alone in my actions (or lack thereof) can have a serious impact on the bottom line of a company.

Look at Facebook, for instance. When the Social Graph was announced and the new privacy changes went into effect, many people threw up their hands in disgust. But many others continued with life as usual, even if a bit annoyed. Why? Because Facebook has this outward appearance of a company that’s simply trying to do cool things, and it needs information in order to do them. The company’s values seem, for the most part, to be in line with the things that we Internet users want. As such, there was a lot more wagging and a lot less barking from the angry dogs crowd.

You’re starting a company? There’s likely something to be said for developing an ethos ahead of time, making it known and then sticking to it. Would Google be where it is today if not for the “don’t be evil” tag line? Even if you don’t fully believe that the company runs that way, you still remember it. Point made.

Value

When value exceeds cost, even by a single cent, the purchase will be made – Grant Cardone

That quote is one that has stuck with me for some time now. A few years ago I was making my living selling cars and it is sometimes exceedingly difficult to overcome the objection of price. In the technology world, we’re constantly being offered products for “free”. The only cost? A bit of information, a slice of our privacy or somethings similar. But then, after using those “free” products, we start to build our own value for them.

Don’t believe me? Just look at some of the things that you likely use every day. Gmail? You’d pay for that. Twitter? You don’t want to admit it, but it’s likely become a valuable asset to your daily Internet life. The same can be said for so many things and yet we get them for “free”. But there’s a down side to this issue as well — it becomes very difficult for a maker to charge for a product when there are free alternatives. Don’t believe that? When was the last time that a box office movie didn’t get a torrent version?

And yet, even as companies try to build value in their products, still others think that the economy allows for them to set their own values and tell us what something is worth. TV networks are probably the most well-known perpetrators of this heresy. Apple TV launched, ABC and Fox decided to jump on board and see what would happen. Some of the rest? They decided that $.99 was devaluing the product and yet as the provider of the product, there is no one entity that is more unqualified to name the value.

Consider it a lesson in business, I suppose. The potential buyer will determine the value of your product. Always.

Valuation

Now here’s a sticky one. Valuation is one of those strange things because it means so many different things to different people. To the potential investors, it’s a measure of how much money can be made. To the business owner it’s a gauge of how well the business has done. To the end user? It’s…honestly not much.

As a case in point, around TNW we love Twitter. We want to see it succeed and we are sure that it will. The valuation continues to climb prior to any IPO and yet, as users of the service, it really doesn’t matter much to us. Sure, it would matter if the site closed its doors, but beyond that there simply isn’t anything about the valuation number that matters.

And so, as an entrepreneur you have to ask yourself where the balance lies. Do your company values allow you to build value in your product? If so, then the chances are that your valuation will end up right where it needs to be. There’s a fair amount of truth in the thought that, if you handle the small stuff, the big stuff will fall into place.

So with that, I offer you a thought going into the new year — start with your values. The rest will fall into place.

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Thursday, January 6, 2011

Moms Making Money

@MikeBulger Read this article in French

The Health Benefits Of Raw Milk

From Grass-Fed Animals

By Ron Schmid, ND

In 1970, I went to live on the island of Martha's Vineyard. I was quite ill with gastrointestinal problems. I began living mostly on seafood, fresh vegetables and salads, and raw milk and eggs purchased from a local farmer, with a little meat and whole grain bread. My health problems, which had been intractable for years, disappeared.

Raw milk remained a mainstay of my diet. Since 1981 I have strongly recommended raw milk to thousands of people who have seen me in my practice as a naturopathic physician. I practice in Connecticut, where we enjoy the right to purchase certified raw milk throughout the state (with the exception of the town of Fairfield, where a fascist local health board has instituted an unchallenged-for-lack-of-funds town ordinance prohibiting the sale of raw milk.)

The raw milk available in the part of Connecticut where I live is from Debra Tyler's farm in Cornwall Bridge, called "Local Farm." Debra has nine cows on fourteen acres. Eight health food stores in central and northern Connecticut pick up milk regularly at Local Farm. There are about a dozen other certified raw milk dairies among Connecticut's 210 dairy farms.

Debra has Jersey cows. Most farms have Holsteins, which provide large quantities of milk, but milk that is lower in protein, fat and calcium. Jerseys were originally bred by the French to produce milk for ...read more

On December 8th, Raghav Gupta, CEO of GeoTerrestrial, Inc., launched a free, geo-social mobile app that allows groups, large or small, private or public, to interact, explore, and share real-time information (photos, links, tips, etc.), all using the same map. Think: Harry Potter's Marauder's Map, if everyone you knew had one.

Perhaps it was all those years Mr. Gupta spent creating algorithms to make eBay more people-friendly, only to come to terms with the realization that it's not about people, it's about making money. Perhaps it's the nature of a mathematician to question the make-up of the universe and our place in it. Whatever the reason, when Gupta walked away from his job at eBay, he spent the next two years focusing on helping people find themselves--and the things they care most about--without having to rely on stores or other venues the way FourSquare does to provide locational context.

"The venue-based check-in services are only a sliver of what is possible in the geo-social space," says Gupta. "We worked with our thousands of beta users to create a platform that gives anyone the freedom to simply and easily build very personalized groups limited only by their imaginations. Very soon, the platform will also let group owners monetize their networks."

Riffing on recent mapping advances such as geocoding and GPS tracking, this public/private, location-based networking holds all the potential that can be poured into it by its users. New users create either public or private groups and utilize these to build unique, personalized maps with the help of others within their groups.

Private maps may be the most interesting of the app's inventions. For example, a private group might include several friends meeting up at the Half Moon Bay, CA Pumpkin Festival. As these friends approach the group's designated meeting spot at a local cafe, they find that two of their buddies have been waylaid, nearby. The missing duo suddenly post for their friends the location and photo of a pub they want to share with everyone. By following the movements of the two, missing friends' dots on the map in real-time, and passing in-app chat messages (without incurring SMS charges!), the rest of the group catch up with their pioneering friends and the day's fun begins. In fact, the female staff at all of the pubs in town are so cute, the lone bachelor of the bunch sets up a GeoAlert so he'll be notified every time he comes within a specified distance of any beer vendor. And the rest of his friends can set a GeoAlert on him, so they'll be able to grab him if he strays too far from the group.

Continued on the next page

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Helen Thomas Joins Falls Church News-Press | ARLnow.com

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"I'm so tired of [my sisters] copying everything I do with my hair, so I wanted to go red," she says.

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"I'm so tired of [my sisters] copying everything I do with my hair, so I wanted to go red," she says.

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News - Khloe Kardashian Becomes a Redhead! - Style & Beauty ...

"I'm so tired of [my sisters] copying everything I do with my hair, so I wanted to go red," she says.

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"I'm so tired of [my sisters] copying everything I do with my hair, so I wanted to go red," she says.

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Helen Thomas Joins Falls Church News-Press | ARLnow.com

Former White House correspondent Helen Thomas has come out of a seven-month retirement to write a column for the Falls Church News-Press. Thomas was a.

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"I'm so tired of [my sisters] copying everything I do with my hair, so I wanted to go red," she says.

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"I'm so tired of [my sisters] copying everything I do with my hair, so I wanted to go red," she says.

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Helen Thomas Joins Falls Church News-Press | ARLnow.com

Former White House correspondent Helen Thomas has come out of a seven-month retirement to write a column for the Falls Church News-Press. Thomas was a.

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"I'm so tired of [my sisters] copying everything I do with my hair, so I wanted to go red," she says.

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Helen Thomas Joins Falls Church News-Press | ARLnow.com

Former White House correspondent Helen Thomas has come out of a seven-month retirement to write a column for the Falls Church News-Press. Thomas was a.

News - Khloe Kardashian Becomes a Redhead! - Style & Beauty ...

"I'm so tired of [my sisters] copying everything I do with my hair, so I wanted to go red," she says.

'Friday Night Lights': The Bad News Lions - From Inside the Box ...

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Helen Thomas Joins Falls Church News-Press | ARLnow.com

Former White House correspondent Helen Thomas has come out of a seven-month retirement to write a column for the Falls Church News-Press. Thomas was a.

News - Khloe Kardashian Becomes a Redhead! - Style & Beauty ...

"I'm so tired of [my sisters] copying everything I do with my hair, so I wanted to go red," she says.

'Friday Night Lights': The Bad News Lions - From Inside the Box ...

surface encounters
surface encounters macomb mi

Helen Thomas Joins Falls Church News-Press | ARLnow.com

Former White House correspondent Helen Thomas has come out of a seven-month retirement to write a column for the Falls Church News-Press. Thomas was a.

News - Khloe Kardashian Becomes a Redhead! - Style & Beauty ...

"I'm so tired of [my sisters] copying everything I do with my hair, so I wanted to go red," she says.

'Friday Night Lights': The Bad News Lions - From Inside the Box ...

surface encounters macomb mi
surface encounters macomb mi

Helen Thomas Joins Falls Church News-Press | ARLnow.com

Former White House correspondent Helen Thomas has come out of a seven-month retirement to write a column for the Falls Church News-Press. Thomas was a.

News - Khloe Kardashian Becomes a Redhead! - Style & Beauty ...

"I'm so tired of [my sisters] copying everything I do with my hair, so I wanted to go red," she says.

'Friday Night Lights': The Bad News Lions - From Inside the Box ...

surface encounters macomb
surface encounters rock tops

Helen Thomas Joins Falls Church News-Press | ARLnow.com

Former White House correspondent Helen Thomas has come out of a seven-month retirement to write a column for the Falls Church News-Press. Thomas was a.

News - Khloe Kardashian Becomes a Redhead! - Style & Beauty ...

"I'm so tired of [my sisters] copying everything I do with my hair, so I wanted to go red," she says.

'Friday Night Lights': The Bad News Lions - From Inside the Box ...

surface encounters noblesville
surface encounters noblesville

Helen Thomas Joins Falls Church News-Press | ARLnow.com

Former White House correspondent Helen Thomas has come out of a seven-month retirement to write a column for the Falls Church News-Press. Thomas was a.

News - Khloe Kardashian Becomes a Redhead! - Style & Beauty ...

"I'm so tired of [my sisters] copying everything I do with my hair, so I wanted to go red," she says.

'Friday Night Lights': The Bad News Lions - From Inside the Box ...

surface encounters noblesville

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Money Making Schemes

I'm not a big fan of boycotts, but if you can avoid buying Nike, Best Buy, Levi Strauss and Target stuff, you might help stop their support of the global warming scam.

Crony capitalism is a stepping-stone to socialism. The term is used to describe the unholy, anti-citizen alliances between corporations and big government. These kinds of companies generally engage in massive lobbying efforts (read: backscratching) to coerce government into various taxpayer-funded schemes:

• by paying them directly through government purchases...
• by carving out market segments for them through regulation...
• and otherwise increasing profit margins by suppressing the free market.

With this as our context, let's examine The American Spectator's article entitled "What Do Nike, Best Buy, Levi Strauss and Target Have in Common?".

They all support EPA efforts to regulate greenhouse gases, even though that circumvents the citizens' right to have their elected representatives make U.S. laws. More on the Obama Administration overreach and his crony corporatists support at the National Legal and Policy Center blog today.

Heading over to the NLPC, we can discover the sordid details.

Earlier this month corporate climateers including Nike and 3M were given awards -- supposedly "the equivalent of an Oscar for the climate change mitigation world" -- for their efforts to reduce their carbon emissions... Nike also co-signed a letter to President Obama that called for U.S. leadership in an initiative to create and finance the Global Climate Fund, which was established at the UN climate talks in Cancun in early December.

Other members of [this group include] Levi Strauss & Co., Starbucks, Timberland, Best Buy, Ben & Jerry's, eBay, Gap Inc., The North Face, and Target Corporation. Mark them down as corporations who favor the circumvention of the peoples' right to have their elected representatives make U.S. laws.

Carbon dioxide is plant food. It can no more be a pollutant than water vapor or oxygen. The Marxist Left progressives believe, or want us to think they believe, that capping CO2 emissions can act as a thermostat on the climate.

The reality is quite different. Trying to control carbon dioxide is a money-making scam and it has been since the original IPCC reports that were issued by folks poised to make millions through inherent conflicts-of-interest.

Companies that feed this government-run monstrosity should be treated as the anti-free market pariahs they are.

Image: Fox News.

USA Today unveiled their database of college football assistants’ salaries. Here are the five most overpaid with two caveats. (1) Monte Kiffin’s salary was unavailable because USC is private (2) I stuck to those currently employed, so Greg Davis and Steve Addazio were spared.

Nick Holt (Washington – $650,000): He’s the nation’s 7th highest paid assistant. Neither of his Husky defenses have finished in the Top 75 in yards against. A DC pulling down his money should slow down top opposing offenses. His unit gave up 56 against Nebraska, 44 against Arizona, 41 against Stanford and 53 against Oregon. Yes, he got it done at USC, under Pete Carroll’s tutelage with Pete Carroll’s players.

Norm Chow (UCLA – $640,000): Norm Chow is a delicate genius. He’s 65. He doesn’t recruit. He’s there for his schemes, which have been ineffective. After having offenses ranked 111th in 2008 and 87th in 2009, Rick Neuheisel forced Chow to change his system to the Pistol. They were ranked 98th. At this point Chow is an empty name and he’s the exact sort of uninventive hire that will leave Rick Neuheisel unemployed by this time next year.

Gary Crowton (LSU – $450,000): LSU’s offense ranked 89th in total yardage. The unit probably cost the Tigers a national title shot. What’s pathetic is that this was a marked improvement over 2009, when they ranked 111th. LSU has not ranked in the Top 50 since 2007. That’s inexcusable with the amount of talent available.

Chuck Long (Kansas – $350,000): Long inherited a Kansas offense that was Top 25 three years in a row. This year, Long’s focus-less spread/pro hybrid left them ranked 113th. Long has not been affiliated with an offense that finished higher than 70th in total yardage since 2004 and that was when he piggy-backed on the work of Leach and Mangino. He was bad enough this year to overshadow “former Detroit Lions quarterback” and “worst head coach in San Diego State history” from his resume.

Tony Gibson (Michigan – $231,500): Gibson has a dual role. He is Michigan’s secondary coach and its Special Teams coach. Both units were among the worst in Division I-A. However, you have to give him credit.

[Photo via Getty]

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News - FIRST PIC: See Natalie Portman's Baby Bump - Moms & Babies ...

Profs Tell Fox News: Stop Making Viewers Dumber | Education ...

Need any more proof that Fox News is actually making its viewers dumber? Look no further than the latest study out of the University of Maryland. Fox's fake news program has actually managed to con... Read more of this post, Profs Tell ...

Climate News Snooze? - NYTimes.com

Coverage of human-driven climate change implodes. And so?

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Making Money on Line

Ikea has declared war on the incandescent light bulb.

OK, maybe it’s not so much a war than a flat-out refusal to engage. At any rate, the mass furniture and household goods retailer — not to mention purveyor of Swedish meatballs — announced today that it will no longer stock or sell traditional light bulbs, a making good on a plan to phase out the bulbs announced last year. Instead, it will offer light bulbs that are more efficient and last longer than the Edison bulb, like compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs; 80 percent more efficient), LED lamps (70 percent more efficient), halogen lamps and even a line of lamps that are solar-powered (pictured).

It’s a sign of good times for the LED and energy-efficient lighting sector, which is poised to boom this year. Lighting has become an increasing focus among cleantech startups, many of which make smart lighting systems (some LED-based, others that make use of networking and sensors) that yield energy savings by automatically dimming and shutting off lights. And Ikea has shown a lot of interest in carrying LED light bulbs, according to sources cited by Greentech Media.

But as a trendy European company that sells bookshelves and patterned couch cushions that are a staple of the trendy, young and cash-strapped, it’s not really a surprise that Ikea is going green. It’d be a mark of a more fundamental shift if one of the broader-market big box retailers with a huge supply chain like Wal-Mart or Target decided to stop carrying incandescents.

An interesting side note, though, in the company’s release and noted by CleanTechnica: The company says its move is partly a reaction to the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. The what? You don’t know? Well, neither does anyone else.

The legislation mandates that light bulbs for general use become 30 percent more efficient by 2012 to 2014, placing a set of standards that some have argued will effectively ban the incandescent light bulb in favor of CFLs and other energy-efficient lights. A survey Ikea commissioned in December through Harris Interactive found that 61 percent of Americans were not aware of the legislation. The number jumped to 84 percent in the 18 to 24-year-old crowd.

Sixty-seven percent of respondents said they cared about energy-saving lights,with more than half — 56 percent — ready to make the switch. Nearly 80 percent said they believed the switch would help them save money (Ikea attributes 25 percent of American households’ electricity bills to lighting costs).

Next Story: Forrester: yearly refresh cycle means double tablet sales in 2011 Previous Story: Dell picks up security firm SecureWorks to slow migration to the public cloud

It’s being reported by BGR that some Best Buys may be unable to activate new T-Mobile lines at their stores. Normally, you may think “What’s the big deal?” but it’s causing issue for those hoping to buy the new Nexus S superphone. With Best Buy unable to activate a new service line through T-Mobile, some BGR readers are reportedly having to pay the full retail contract-free price of the Nexus S ($530) in order to assure that nobody else nabs their phone. Brutal!

According to the reader, he couldn’t activate the new line in store, and after heading home, he called back and after repeated calls, they said that if he wanted to get a Nexus S, he would have to pay full retail for the phone. Now, this seems to be an isolated incident, and who knows if the guy was black listed by T-Mobile or something.

BGR reached out to Best Buy’s press relations people, who apparently didn’t respond to their questions. Have any of our readers had this issue? We’d love to find out. Tell us about it in the comments section.

To briefly recap the specs of the Nexus S, it’s not a bad phone, though it’s basically a Galaxy S with Google branding and a curved display:

4-inch OLED contour display
1GHZ processor
512MB RAM
16GB storage
Android 2.3
5MP Camera w/ LED flash

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CNN's John Roberts Joining Fox News | John Roberts | Mediaite

CNN's John Roberts is expected to join FOX News Channel as a senior national correspondent based in Atlanta and will be reporting on major domestic and international stories for the network. Roberts came up the ranks of CBS News, ...

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WASHINGTON -- Baby boomers have long been derided as a bunch of spoiled brats -- a.

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A leaked costume test from MGM's completed-but-shelved remake of 1984's 'Red Dawn' has found its way online. It's not much, but thanks to MGM's.

robert shumake detroit

CNN's John Roberts Joining Fox News | John Roberts | Mediaite

Baby Boomers and Sacrifice - AOL News

WASHINGTON -- Baby boomers have long been derided as a bunch of spoiled brats -- a.

Movie News Quick Hits: Bigfoot to get the 'Avatar' Treatment ...

A leaked costume test from MGM's completed-but-shelved remake of 1984's 'Red Dawn' has found its way online. It's not much, but thanks to MGM's.

robert shumake

Ikea has declared war on the incandescent light bulb.

Next Story: Forrester: yearly refresh cycle means double tablet sales in 2011 Previous Story: Dell picks up security firm SecureWorks to slow migration to the public cloud

To briefly recap the specs of the Nexus S, it’s not a bad phone, though it’s basically a Galaxy S with Google branding and a curved display:

4-inch OLED contour display
1GHZ processor
512MB RAM
16GB storage
Android 2.3
5MP Camera w/ LED flash

robert shumake detroit

robert shumake

CNN's John Roberts Joining Fox News | John Roberts | Mediaite

Baby Boomers and Sacrifice - AOL News

WASHINGTON -- Baby boomers have long been derided as a bunch of spoiled brats -- a.

Movie News Quick Hits: Bigfoot to get the 'Avatar' Treatment ...

A leaked costume test from MGM's completed-but-shelved remake of 1984's 'Red Dawn' has found its way online. It's not much, but thanks to MGM's.

robert shumake

CNN's John Roberts Joining Fox News | John Roberts | Mediaite

Baby Boomers and Sacrifice - AOL News

WASHINGTON -- Baby boomers have long been derided as a bunch of spoiled brats -- a.

Movie News Quick Hits: Bigfoot to get the 'Avatar' Treatment ...

A leaked costume test from MGM's completed-but-shelved remake of 1984's 'Red Dawn' has found its way online. It's not much, but thanks to MGM's.

robert shumake detroit

Making money with a newspaper clipping service may seem to be a strange way to make extra money, but it can and is being done, and starting your own clipping service to make that extra money is easier than you think.

All it takes is a few hours a day, a few supplies, a little patience and you're in business. To help you start this business, I'm going to give you a few tips on where to begin, and the list of supplies you will need. The hours and patients will have to come from you.

Newspaper clipping is nothing new. It's been around for years now, but as long as the newspapers and magazines continue to report news and information on businesses, organizations and individuals , there will be a need to provide this service.

Some people do this as a full-time job, but how far you take this will depend solely on you. Making extra money doing this part-time is easy, but making a full-time income from a clipping service will take a lot of time and effort.

I've listed step by step instructions on the supplies you will need, the type of news clippings to look for, and how to look for buyers.

What Type Of Articles To Look For

The news clippings you want to focus on are the ones that have any exciting or unusual news about businesses, organizations and individuals. The news could be about awards received or given, notable achievements, acts of heroism, contracts received, good deeds done in the community, advertising, promotion of product lines from competitors, birth announcements, wedding and engagement announcements and even deaths.

You can also check out articles about sports figures, locally and nationally. Any news clipping you can find on a popular sports figure would be of interest to him or her. They also have a desire to know what the newspapers and magazines are saying about them.

Well, they all have an interest in knowing what is being printed about them. The businesses and organizations are particularly interested in their "public image," and so do the sports figures, so any articles featuring the items mentioned above are candidates for clipping.

Don't forget articles about retail stores, whose competitors are interested in what they are promoting, selling or where they are building expansions. Individuals who are having babies, getting married or getting divorced are also good candidates, and unfortunately, the same goes for deaths.

Supplies You Will Need For Your Newspaper Clipping Service

• Scissors
• Clear Plastic Sheets (To hold your articles)
• Filing Box (Large enough to hold your articles)
• Envelopes
• Book of Stamps
• Printer Paper
• Laminating Machine (Optional)
• Laminating Pouches (Optional)
• Lots of Local and National Newspapers and Magazines

How To Contact Companies And Individuals About News Clippings

When you have compiled quite a few clippings and have them all organized in your filing box, now is the time to start making money with your newspaper clipping service.

For any local companies and organizations, you can find their addresses in the local directory or on line. Individual addresses for anyone getting married, divorced, having babies or deaths can be found on line, at your local court house, listed under public records. If you want to contact a company on a national level, you should be able to find them on line.

All you have to do is write them a letter (envelopes, stamps, printer paper), and explain that you have news clippings about their company, or wedding, or what ever the occasion might be, and ask them if they are interested in purchasing them. Let them know how many clippings you have, and what each clipping is about.

If you want to, you can even send them a copy of one of the clippings. This way they get to see what they will be receiving. This is also why I suggested a laminating machine. Instead of sending them a copy of the clipping inside one of the clear plastic page holders, you can laminate the copy and make it look more professional. The same would go for any wedding announcements and obituaries.

When you send your letter, also quote the price you are asking for each article. If you have different size articles, charge according to size... with the larger clippings costing more. I'll leave the pricing to you.

But I will tell you that when my mother died, I received a beautiful laminated obituary of her death, that had been copied onto a sheet of pink printer paper the size of your remote control, and decorated with a picture of a cross and lilies at the top. This person was asking $5 dollars for each, and I ordered five.

What Not To Do In Your Newspaper Clipping Service

Be very careful about the news clippings you clip from newspapers and magazines, especially magazines. You don't want to clip anything that is copyrighted, and a lot of the magazine articles are copyrighted. However, you can still find some that aren't, so don't despair.

The same goes for newspapers. Don't clip anything with UP/AP or other codes (United Press or Associated Press). Also be aware that all syndicated features and cartoons are copyrighted. Don't even bother clipping these, because no one will purchase clippings if you have stolen someone's copyright.

robert shumake detroit

CNN's John Roberts Joining Fox News | John Roberts | Mediaite

Baby Boomers and Sacrifice - AOL News

WASHINGTON -- Baby boomers have long been derided as a bunch of spoiled brats -- a.

Movie News Quick Hits: Bigfoot to get the 'Avatar' Treatment ...

A leaked costume test from MGM's completed-but-shelved remake of 1984's 'Red Dawn' has found its way online. It's not much, but thanks to MGM's.

robert shumake detroit

Ikea has declared war on the incandescent light bulb.

Next Story: Forrester: yearly refresh cycle means double tablet sales in 2011 Previous Story: Dell picks up security firm SecureWorks to slow migration to the public cloud

To briefly recap the specs of the Nexus S, it’s not a bad phone, though it’s basically a Galaxy S with Google branding and a curved display:

4-inch OLED contour display
1GHZ processor
512MB RAM
16GB storage
Android 2.3
5MP Camera w/ LED flash

robert shumake detroit