Chief Prognosticator

Here’s my recent train of thought which lead to a great new product idea. Steal it please! Just remember to remember me when you are rich!

What’s so great about DVD players versus VHS? Well one major point is that you can skip to different scenes with fast forwarding. I mean, its digital — like a CD versus a cassette tape.

Second thought — when you see a movie on TV, its been edited for content. Language, violence, nudity. I mean, I want to let my 3 year old see Iron Man but he’s too young for so much violence.

Put the two thoughts together and what do you have? A DVD or DVD Player where you can “set” the rating on each play. G, PG, PG-13, R — all available once a single disk! Its just a matter of “editing” out some parts and bleeping (or silencing) some audio parts! Why hasn’t this been done yet? Its shouldn’t be that difficult.

What do you think about my idea?

Last year was a slow year in terms of high tech purchases for me. Why? I’m not too sure — maybe I was too busy working to bother. The only high tech things I bought last year were an new Dell desktop with Windows XP and an iPod Shuffle. Both worthy purchases but 2009 will be like a flood in terms of high tech!

My first purchase of 2009 has got to be an HD radio receiver like the totally awesome Jensen JiMS 525i. Just look at it:

So what is HD Radio? Well for the past few years, radio stations around the country have been broadcasting their signal in HD (high definition) along with their regular signal. Huh? Didn’t know about that? Well not many people have, but I have and every since I heard about it I wanted to get it. HD radio is digital radio from ground based antennae — its free, clear, and has advanced features like data. With a receiver like the Jensen JiMS 525i you can perform song tagging which lets you mark songs you here so you can later download them from your favorite music site. There are local radio stations in most major markets — Atlanta included — and its just sitting there waiting for you to listen to. I like this Jensen model because it not only lets you listen to HD Radio but it also acts as an iPod dock. Isn’t that cool? Yeah, I totally want one and mark my word, I will post about it when I buy one in the coming months. Let me know if you have heard about HD Radio before and whether you’d consider buying one of these products for yourself. If you want me to write more about HD Radio than let me know and I will perform more research. Thanks.

If you haven’t heard about dollar cost averaging before, then listen up — it could be the strategy you need to make 2009 your best investing year ever. After 2008’s horrible market returns, you could be ready to give up, but now is actually the perfect time to invest! Why? Dollar cost averaging! Here’s how it works:

1. You make regular investments. Set it and forget it! For example, $200 a month.
2. You forget about it!

No seriously, that’s it. Your accounts automatically invest $200 in good times and in bad times — $200 when its up and $200 when its down. When prices are low, e.g. a down market, you buy more shares with your $200. When prices rise, you buy less (because $200 affords fewer shares). When prices drop, you get to buy more shares, so when prices rise, you make more money on each one! Its called dollar cost averaging because your price per share paid gets averaged out over time, thus making it less susceptible to volatility. 

Here’s a prediction I made last year which I really thought would have come true by now. Have you seen it anywhere in the world?

The idea is simple. Two or more screens which are stacked on top of each other while not in use. When you want a larger display on your handheld device, your flip the two screens out to create one large display! Why are we seeing this for pocket computers and mobile gaming devices?

Have you done your 2008 taxes yet? OK, just kidding. You won’t be getting your W-2s for at least a few more weeks, but you get my point, don’t you? Getting your taxed done early is peace of mind that you just can put a price on. Waiting until the last minute to file your taxes can be one of the worst things to do. All the stress and all the trouble. Do yourself a favor and do your taxes as soon as possible this year! Trust me!

So what if you are behind on your taxes or woe a lot of money to the IRS? Well if you have a troubling tax situation, seek professional help from the Tax Relief Specialists at TaxReliefSpecialists.com. They have all the expertise — over 40 years experience — at providing solid tax help to get your financial house in order. Lower the amount you owe to the government by getting professional help. They can help reduce the amount you owe and get you on an income tax payment plan to get you free and clear faster. And in the bad case where you are behind on your filings, the Tax Relief Specialists can file your delinquent tax returns so you can get current with the IRS. Don’t delay — its only going to get worse.

I type hundreds of blog posts every month. That’s a lot of clacking away at my keyboard. That’s why I was excited when I found out that there is another option. Check out the video and guest post below. You will then have the chance to Get Dragon Naturally Speaking using Discount code DNSMBG and you’ll end up with a total of 25% off Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 Preferred. When you are done with the video and guest post, check out the full white paper at http://www.softduit.com/mavenmappersinformation/category/software/dragon-naturally-speaking/ .

Nuance is allowing us to offer our readers a 25% Discount Coupon CODE Exclusive for Dragon Naturally Speaking, but you must click the image below and use this code (DNSMSBG) Together. Code will not work from other sources.

This is an excerpt from a white paper discussing how bloggers can earn more money through several different monetization and freelance writing services. It shows that bloggers that utilize Dragon Naturally Speaking can earn more money through these various services and how fast these extra earnings will pay for the software itself.
Dragon Naturally Speaking 10 Blogger Break Even Analysis with Average PayPerPost Earnings

Basically, Dragon NaturallySpeaking can help you type so much faster, that you can earn a lot more money per hour.
In this article I’m going to walk you through another scenario focusing on how much extra you could earn if you wrote for PayPerPost.com and you had a single average blog. Now at PayPerPost.com, the amount of money that you earn for your writing is not paid on a per word basis.
PayPerPost.com offers up opportunities, they call them opportunities, but you can also think of them as piecework or a job, and these “opportunities” typically have a minimum word count. The minimum word count is typically 200 words for your average article. In general the average article at PayPerPost on a high earning blog pays about $8.3. Sometimes they pay a little less, and sometimes they pay a little bit more, and a few go to extremes on the positive side.
Now if you are paid $8.3 to write a 200 word article, then that breaks down to about 4.2 cents per word. That is about 6 times more than what you can make at textbroker.com. I mentioned that only for comparison purposes, because PayPerPost.com limits you to writing three articles per blog per day.
That means that you cannot write at PayPerPost all day long for your single blog. (If you have additional blogs, you might be able to write additional articles on those other blogs.)
Tip! – You can write your three articles at PayPerPost, write some additional articles without any sponsors in between those articles (as is required), and then write some articles at PayU2Blog, and when the work is exhausted there, you can write some articles at TextBroker.com! The trick is working for the company that pays you the most first, then moving on to the next highest margin provider, over and over again.
You will see in the case studies with Adsense that writing MORE articles is actually good for building traffic to your blog!
But if we assume, just to have a comparison to our textbroker.com example, if we assume that you could type articles at PayPerPost for fifty minutes straight, earning 4.2 cents per word, and you could type 35 words per minute, you could earn $72.88 dollars per hour at PayPerPost. Now obviously, you cannot take 9 articles on a single blog in a single day, but this does point to the rate at which you can earn things with the work that is available. That $72.88 would be the earnings you could make from about 8.8 Opportunities at $8.3 per Opportunity.
So bear with me again with this example.
So what can faster typing skills do to help you earn more money at PayPerPost?
Well if you could type at 150 words per minute with Dragon NaturallySpeaking, and you currently type at 35 words per minute, then you could earn about $239 per hour more! (Dragon only costs between $99 and $199 remember!)
Reminder - This would assume that you could type articles nonstop at a hundred and fifty words per minute for fifty minutes. For most of us, that doesn’t mean a whole lot.
But to put this in better perspective, if you earned $72.88 from writing about nine articles, and those articles were each 200 words long, then you would have written a total of 1800 words.
• 1800 words can be typed and 50 minutes at 35 words per minute
• 1800 words can be typed in 12 minutes at 150 words per minute
Dragon NaturallySpeaking can essentially save you 38 minutes when you write nine articles.
Now with those additional thirty-eight minutes, you can spend more time:
• promoting your blog,
• networking with people,
• researching other projects,
• taking on other work from other networks
• build up a new blog to command $8.3 per article!
• Go write some articles for PayU2Blog
• Go write some articles for TextBroker
• Go write some articles to bring in more traffic and earn more money through Adsense!

You can pocket your $72.88 from twelve minutes worth of work. You can then spend the rest of that hour, working to ensure that the blog you publish those on performs very well. But the point is this, Dragon NaturallySpeaking can save you so much time, that it will pay for itself very quickly.
Your average part-time blogger will easily pay for Dragon NaturallySpeaking with the additional profits that they would earn from using Dragon NaturallySpeaking in less than 1 hour worth of blogging through PayPerPost alone.
Plus just think of all of the time, that you would now have to make yourself and your site even more successful!

For business, there are a few life lines to which the success of the enterprise is dependent on. Hard working employees are one; a valuable product or service is another; and a third, perhaps as important or more so than the first two is, credit! Without cash flow either from bank loans or lines of credits, most businesses will face a cash crisis during their operation and likely fail. Its not enough to have cash from sales — sometimes you need a little more or a little less to continue operating with things like Payroll and Accounts Payable. For this reason, finding and obtaining the correct Business Credit Cards is a crucial activity for your small business. A business credit card will provide you access to credit with no preset spending limit and automatically gives you a short-term interest free loan. Think about it — how can you grow your business without credit? How can you expand and improve with cash? You need business credit to succeed in business. If you don’t have the right lines of credit open now, you need to make it a top priority to do so immediately. You can succeed at business - you just need to know the ways to secure continued financing for operations and business credit cards are one of them.

When you think of grandfather clocks you probably think of grand wood and metal contraptions with lots of brass and moving parts. Well its certainly true that most grandfather clocks (like howard millers clocks) look that way but it isn’t always the rule. Just check out this amazingly modern interpretation of the floor clock by Hermle:

Wow! Its certainly a modern piece but it also is easily recognizable as a grandfather clock. This beauty is available from 1-800-4clocks.com for an amazingly low price.Just how low? Well let’s just say its under $800 (and that’s a steal). Even better is that when you shop from 1-800-4clocks.com, you get free shipping and free in-home setup on qualifying clocks. That’s a couple of hundreds collars in benefits right there.

I would love to have a modern piece like this in my entrance way at home. Its modern and cool. Check out this blog post from the grandfatherclocksblog.com blog “Grandfather Clocks Relevance in Modern Times” to learn more about the relevance and beauty of grandfather clocks in the modern era. Its really eye opening. Would you believe that Howard Miller makes a grandfather clock with a built in waterfall? No seriously — its called the Howard Miller Oasis Waterfall Grandfather Clock and it is available from 1-800-4clocks.com. Check it out!

The U.S. housing market is down in the dumps. You would be in great luck if you had saved a nest egg for a new home in the past few years and just coincidentally happen to be looking to buy a home. Check out this site with great Austin Homes For Sale. The deals are everywhere and you could really get an amazing house at a great price. But what if you didn’t save like a mouse? Well maybe your credit is good enough to qualify for a good loan. Austin Real Estate like much of the real estate around the country is priced to sell. Its definitely a buyer’s market — hopefully you can be a buyer too!

Where will the world of pod-casting go next? I love listening to podcasts on my home computer and my iPod. So what’s next? Well maybe you will be able to subscribe to podcasts over Satellite Radio like XM/Sirius. You could download them on the fly and listen to them in your car or maybe even on airplanes. This sort of on-demand listening is the future!

The auto industry slump and the threat of bankruptcy by GM anf Ford has a lot bigger effect than just on their bottom line. Car Dealerships are suffering worse and they have some new fears to worry about. Here’s a frightening one to ponder:
GM (and other makers) advertise national cash back incentives, like $5000 off a Chevy Tahoe. Well how do you think that works? The dealer sells the car for $5000 less than he would normally, and then asks GM for the money back. Well what if GM files bankruptcy and can’t pay these incentives back to dealers?! Imagine being a car dealership owner and having 50 incentive packages to claim, each at $5000? That’s $250,000 on the line!
I predict that it could come to be that GM offers an incentive and the dealers refuse to honor them, telling their customers they can’t have them! Can you imagine?!

How does Debt Consolidation mean more money? Easy — with debt consolidation you will end up paying less for your debts over the long run and therefore have more money at the end of the day. How does this work? Bills.com explains! When you have a debt and you pay if off over time, you end up paying for the debt amount (the principle) and the interest accruing on the debt (the interest). This means a $1000 debt today could end up costing you $1500 or $2500 after you finish paying it off. Every month when you make a payment, your payment is split, some going to the principle and the rest going to the interest. That stinks, doesn’t it?

Well this is where Debt Consolidation comes into play. You consolidate your debts into a single debt at a lower interest rate. A lower interest rate means you pay less interest each month and more towards the debt itself. You pay it off quicker and have more money in the end! The benefits from this can be lower monthly payment, a quicker path to debt free life, and more money in your pocket! Check it out today at Bills.com.

Bills.com has all the information you need to manage your bills and get back on track. The economy is bad, the jobs outlook is bad — above all, you need to get your bills in order and brace yourself for the future.

Isn’t it difficult to type in search queries on your handheld device? Typing on your BlackBerry or iPhone isn’t easy. This why I am excited about the news out this week that Google has added voice recognition to its search software used in the Apple iPhone. You can ask virtually anything and the technology will translated into a search. It could be the beginning of the future when it comes to how you access the Internet on the go.

Mobile Marketing is really the future of online advertising. Thought Google made a lot of money selling ads online? Well imagine what will happen when 10 times the number of people have access on their mobile phone to the net! This is why you need to get involved with a company like Pepperjam Mobile. They are the mobile marketing specialists — they can set up the right campaign for you and your business, manage the deployment, monitor the metrics, and provide follow-up. Powered by M3 Mobile Marketing, they can take your business to the cell phones and hand held internet devices with Mobile Marketing that works!

With less than two months to go before Christmas, now is the time to order your Corporate Christmas Cards. No seriously — you want to have them in the mail right after Thanksgiving in order for them to be received by December 1. That way your card gets displayed for almost an entire month — giving your name and company exposure. To order your Corporate Christmas Cards, visit ChristmasCardsDirect.com. They have an amazing selection of Christmas and Hliday cards to choose from. Want a closer look? Well you can request a sample of up to 6 cards for free to see them in person. With over two hundreds card designs to choose from, ChristmasCardsDirect.com is sure you will find the perfect cards to represent your company and product. I love the idea of corporate holiday cards — people who receive them are usually proud to display them for weeks and this means more exposure for your business. They also have a great selection of photo cards. You just upload your photo online and then make the perfect card. I like the idea of having your whole office pose for a group photo and then using that picture. ChristmasCardsDirect.com is a proud supporter of ‘Operation Christmas Tree’ by helping send over 5,000 Christmas trees and Christmas cards to U.S. Military troops stationed around the world. Hearing stuff like that makes me proud to be an American!

Do you have plans for the holidays? Are you going to stay at home and visit or are you going to go somewhere on vacation? Well here’s an idea for a great vacation holiday — Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party is a once-a year celebration at Walk Disney World in Orlando Florida. Held in the months of November and December in the Magic Kingdom, Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party is holiday fun for the whole family. Since its the off-season (e.g. winter), you can find discount Disney tickets for simply amazing prices. If you can drive to Orlando, you get the advantage of super-low gas prices (how long will that last) in combination with cheap park tickets. Its really a great deal! Find great discounted tickets to the winter celebration at Orlando Fun Tickets. A superior online provider of attraction tickets, Orlando Fun Tickets has the best discounts around. Best of all, they are a name you can trust to get genuine tickets, delivered safe and fast. No worrying about this year’s vacation — visit Orlando Fun Tickets and get the party started! Give them a call toll free at (866) 225-4712 or visit them online at www.orlandofuntickets.com to get started planning the best winter vacation of your lifetime.

Why are we seeing my prediction come true?

The idea is simple. Two or more screens which are stacked on top of each other while not in use. When you want a larger display on your handheld device, your flip the two screens out to create one large display! Why are we seeing this for pocket computers and mobile gaming devices?

I think new cars should start coming with a digital camera and necessary power adapters to power it up whenever its needed. There should be a special spot in the center console to store it. Why? Why not?! Digital camera technology is very inexpensive and the benefits of having one handy can be huge. Here are some examples:

• Insurance claims - You get into an accident and wait 1 hours for the police to arrive. Wouldn’t it be useful to take photos to help hold up your claim?
• Hit and Run - What if you get into an accident and the other party flees? Get a photo of that license plate.
• Special Occasions - What if you see something really amazing and think “I wish I had a camera”. Bingo!

I don’t know about you, but I love the outdoors. Spending an afternoon hiking in the woods is a good time. Why not enjoy it more with a little bit of high tech gear? Check out the Nikon All Terrain Binocular product line. The Nikon ATB is all about high tech meets ruggedness. Check out the products online at NikonProGear.com. There is a Nikon ATB Promotion going on right now which means you get can valuable gift cards when you buy a new Nikon ATB product. Buy the Action Extreme ATB or Trailblazer ATB amnd get a free $25 gift card. Nice! High tech meets the great outdoors — that’s the way I like it. You can take advantage of this offer through December 31, 2008. Visit nikonpromo.com for more details. Don’t delay — you need this stuff before Christmas!

What is the Jaksta Streaming Media Recorder and Converter? Just about the coolest new application I’ve seen! Love online video? Love streaming content? Well the Jaksta Ultimate Streaming Media Recorder and Converter lets you record virtually any online video or audio stream you come across. From MySpace, YouTube, Hulu, Yahoo! Music — you name it! Just click the record button, go to the site, and the software automatically finds and records the streaming content. From there you can convert it into one of many formats (iPod, Zune, PSP, MP3, and more) and use it wherever you want. Imagine the possibilities. You could record your favorite do-it-yourself/how to videos to take with you in the gym or in the kitchen, you can record your favorite video-casts to view on the go — you name it! Go ahead and give it a try — you can download a free trial version from www.jaksta.com and try out the program yourself. This software is not meant for illegal activities, but under the fair-use doctrine you can record streaming online content for private use. Why be limited to just viewing stuff while online? Get this software and be able to take it with you on your favorite mobile video or audio device.

Netflix is working hard to make the future arrive faster. I predicted a long time ago that the future of the DVD (or Blu-Ray, as the case is now) is in streaming video from the internet. Why rent or buy a movie when you can watch it on demand whenever you want, from wherever you want. Netflix announced today that it is improving its streaming feature by using a Microsoft’s Silverlight technology. This should speed up the stream and expand the options for videos. They also announced that this new method will allow people using Intel-based Macs to stream Netflix movie. Great idea!

When do you need a Tax Lawyer? Probably when you feel you have to ask that question! No seriously, people in normal lives and under normal conditions can sometimes find themselves in need of legal tax help. It could be misfiled tax returns or complex tax situations, but you could certainly find yourself needing a qualified Tax Attorney. This is not something you want to face on your own, up to your own devices. Visit Certified Tax Inc. for the help you need in finding a qualified Tax Lawyer. Sure you could try to handle this situation on your own, but it could end up costing you thousands of dollars in overpayment or tax penalties. Its not like you’ve got extra money laying around waiting for the IRS to claim it — get the Tax Releif you need by using a qualified lawyer. It could easily save you more in tax payments than the cost of the help. Certified Tax Inc.’s staff of former IRS agents, Tax Specialists, and Tax Lawyers who know all the insider actions to take to limit your tax penalty. They really care about you and your tax situation — don’t just get tax help, get help from a company which cares.

That’s the thing with virus removal software — you download it, run your scan, and then what? How do you stay updated? Previous software I’ve had never quite worked well with the updates. Something went wrong with the server login and I lever got the right update. So how can you get consistent virus removal protection for your computer?

This is why I’m excited about Cyberdefender. CyberDefender’s security applications provide real-time security updates you can believe in. With their service you get Anti-spyware, Virus Removal, anti-spam, and anti-phishing protection for your computer. They also provide something called the MyIdentityDefender toolbar. This tool helps protect you from online threats. It works with your Internet Explorer to alert you to security threats online. Go even further than regular protection software by using CyberDefender’s Early Detection Center service. This gets you everything you need for online protection including access to live technical support. I’ve tried some free anti-virus, anti-malware programs before but they have failed to live up to my expectations. Spend a little money (but not too much) and get real protection for your computer and the valuable data you store on it. You won’t regret it!

There are many important decisions to make when setting up or running your e-business. One of the most important, yet often overlooked, is the selection of the right web hosting provider. Why? Here are my top 3 reasons:

• You Want Reliability - your website is your 24/7 presence to the world.  If your site goes down due to a problem at the host, you will miss out on potential visitors and potential customers. This is why reliability is one of the most important factors when considering a web host. Don’t take this decision lightly.
• You Want Enough Storage - outgrowing your host is bad news. You either have to fork up even more money or switch hosts altogether. Make sure your hosting service provides enough storage and enough bandwidth not just for today but for the future.
• You Don’t Want to Have to Switch - although switching is not impossible, you really don’t want to have to switch web hosting providers every year. Make sure you pick the right one and avoid this annoying possibility.

There are lots of things to consider beyond this — from The Benefits of Dedicated Server Hosting to How Many Domains you Want to Host. Make sure you get the inside scoop. Do a little research before you sign up — visit webhostingrating.com and read up. Check out their “Top 10 Web Hosting Provider” list. Depending on your needs and budget, there is the perfect host on this list — just name your tune! Webhostingrating.com has one of the largest directories of web hosts available. They take web hosting rating to a new level of coverage and honesty. Honesty, really? Yes — this is what makes their service so useful. The site is full of reviews from real web hosting customers. These reviews are not edited to make a point — instead they provide an honest look at the perceived pros and cons of the web hosting services provided.

No matter if you are looking for the cheapest, the most reliable, the fastest, or the most storage, visit webhostingrating.com and get the inside scoop you need to make the best decision.

Have you become afraid to answer the phone? Are your being harassed by creditors or weirdos? Well arm yourself with the knowledge of who is calling you by using this website to Trace Phone Numbers. Tracephonenumbers.org makes it easy to figure out where those numbers on your caller ID is coming from. Information on every state and area code at your fingertips. When you want to take the next step and find exactly who is calling you, then the website lets you get all the info you need through a phone look up service.

When you think “vacation” what comes to mind? Well there are many hundreds of different things that may come to mind because a vacation can be so many things to so many different people. But what if I say “magical vacation”? Chances are when you think about a magical vacation, you are going to think about Walt Disney World right off the bat! I have been to Walt Disney world twice already. The first time was as a child with my family. We flew down to Orlando and had a great time at all the Disney theme parks. My little sister and I have such great memories from that time — the main street parade, space mountain, the different countries at Epcot. The second I went as a young adult with my future wife. We had a great time riding all the thrill rides, visiting the haunted mansion and taking in the night life.

Now as an adult with 2 small children of my own, I am looking forward to going back a third time. This time the thrill will be watching the joy on my kids’ faces as they see Mickey Mouse, ride the tea cups and more. It is going to be a wonderful experience. We plan on going in a couple years when my kids are 8 and 5 years old.

If you love Disney, drop me a comment and let me know your memories.  If you are planning a new trip then visit OrlandoFunTickets.com for the inside scoop. The best way to go is to plan your trip ahead of time. When you plan online and find discount disney tickets, you can realyl save a lot of money. Shop with OrlandoFunTickets.com and be confident that you are getting a great deal. They have been making dreams come true almost as long as the big mouse himself. Good luck and have a safe and magical vacation!

The future of humanity is in space — that’s the claim by one of the most renowned scientists in the entire world, Professor Stephen Hawking. As he states in an exclusive interview to CNN, “I believe that the long-term future of the human race must be in space.”I cannot agree with him more! If not for the “running out of space” and “running out of natural resources” issues, there is still the danger of an asteroid or comet coming to crash into the EARTH and wipeout the whole planet!

The future of video conferencing lives resoundingly in high definition. HD Video Teleconferencing could not only revolutionize the technology but bring it into the mainstream. What do I mean? Well you don’t see too much Videcoonference actually in play in business — I think its been the limits of the technology which has kept it down. Now HD videoconferencing can be accomplished with a pair of 1080p HD Screens, HD video cameras, and a high speed Internet connection! Brilliant!

Email marketing is the one of the most popular forms of direct marketing these days. Buy you need to do it carefully or else you’ll just end up making your customers and potential customers angry. When you look to start your own email marketing campaign, you’ll want a service that has some key features like customizable newsletter templates, autoresponders which can provide time-set emails (like when a new subscriber joins your list) and tools to manage your vast contact lists effectively. One Email marketing company that fills the bill is Big Response. They have helped over 30,000 clients in 65 countires around the world. Based in Australia, these email marketing experts can help you get setup for a successful campaign in no time!

If you’ve run into a spell of bad luck and find yourself with poor credit, it will be tough to get new credit or use existing lines of credit. This may be good because it prevents you from misusing credit and getting deeper into trouble, but there comes a time where you need to start rebuilding it.

BadCreditOffers.com is a specialized financial website aimed at finding you the right partner to rebuild your credit. It has in depth comparison of bad credit credit cards and provides useful information on rebuilding your credit. Once you find the right card, you can click right through to the site’s secure online application. It’s that easy.

When you are ready to start the rebuilding process, visit BadCreditOffers.com first.

Sure there might be a “credit crunch” going on in the United States, but that doesn’t mean your small business can get away with NOT accepting credit cards. In fact, the downturn in the U.S. economy will likely bring a rise in credit card usage and fewer cash transactions. If you haven’t already, get your business setup for credit card processing. The fees are low and actually you will probably see an uptick in business once you start accepting major credit cards. The downturn in the economy will be tough enough to weather — make sure your business is setup to accept credit cards and help yourself keep up in the business world.

“Wall Street hits 5-year lows” — that’s the headlines you’ll see tonight and tomorrow. It was a brutal day on Wall Street today with the Dow being down up to 800 points at one point. The market rebounded a bit at the end to close down 445.31 (-4.31%). That means if you bought stock back in 2003, your investment today might be worth less than it was 5 years ago! What will tomorrow bring? Another 500 down? Or 500 up?

Well a great way to answer this question is to look at an example of such a visionary. Jim Piccolo is a classic example — he made his mark in the world by starting and growing several successful companies. His secret isn’t that mysterious but it does take guts. His keen ability is to quickly recognize a golden opportunity and to act on that act on opportunity quickly. Jim Piccolo’s biggest idea was that business professionals and entrepreneurs needed a platform to accelerate their careers and abilities. The path to this real world education would be through practical business knowledge and cutting edge business skills. The result is known as Nouveau Riche University. This simple skill combined with a lot of guts has made Jim Piccolo a CEO Visionary many look towards for answers.

As with many  successful leaders and entrepreneurs, Jim has widened his focus to many charitable organizations. Sure helping people reach their maximum professional potential is good, but using those same skills to help people with their lives is even better. Jim is involved in Celebrity Fight Night, Judi’s House, The Solid Rock Foundation and Project Water Purifiers to Africa. A visionary in both the boardroom and in the world of charity, Jim Piccolo means business and makes his living driving success.

Remember how the U.S. stock market sunk after the U.S. House of Representatives voted down the $700 billion rescue package? Yeah, 777 point was a horror. What will the stock market do tomorrow morning? The U.S. Senate just passed a very similar bill to the one that was voted down Monday. Now the bill goes to the House, where hopefully it will pass this time. I see the U.S. stock market going up at least 500 point tomorrow, with a small chance that it rises 1000!

Dog, The Bounty Hunter is pretty much washed up (remember his racist crazy phone call to his son?), but that doesn’t mean you can start your career in nabbing perps and bail jumpers! Just take a look at the kind of cool gear you’ll need from LAPoliceGear.com. They have all the top brands like 5.11 Tactical and Blackhawk. Shop with confidence and pay with your credit card — this site even has live customer support during business hours. Start your bounty hunter career right with the right gear (and hopefully the right training).

Apple Inc. has been a leader in the touch screen techno-world with their iPhone and iPod Touch. The next logical thing for them to do is bring this technology to the computer world. Maybe the next iMac will be a giant display that’s all-touch! Imagine that! Would you even still need a keyboard? Maybe they’d still offer one but that wouldn’t be the point. Anyone else out there believe a touch-screen iMac is the next big secret out of Apple?

Think about how cool GPS devices are. Seriously — they are amazing when you think about what they actually do. If you don’t already have one for your car, you are missing a whole lot of fun and a lot less hassle. But what does the future hold for the GPS? Well sure they are now storing MP3s and give real time traffic data (for an added fee), but I’m thinking way beyond that.

I see in the future a GPS that is as thin as a sheet of paper. Flexible, portable, powerful — when you sit in your car, you just slap it on the windshield like a vinyl cling. So what does this GPS resemble? You guessed it — a paper map! But this map actually tells you where you are, which direction you are heading, and how to get to your destination. Amazing!

That’s the opinion coming out of several corners this Olympics as more and more records are being broken for speed. What’s this all about? Technology! Here’s an article from Slate Magazine on the subject titled “Olympic Inflation“.

What’s the number one reason:
The Very High Tech LZR Racer suit.
“It reduces friction (compared with skin) and is structurally designed to compress and streamline the body for maximum speed. Estimated drag reduction: 5 percent to 10 percent. Estimated average improvement in top swimmers’ best times: 2 percent.”

There is an interesting trend going on in several major countries around the world. The life expectancy of people in those countries are going up while the birthrate is going down. This generally means people are living longer but having fewer babies. This turns into the situation where the general population is an aging one, where the average age is… you guessed it… increasing. Is this a problem? Well maybe and maybe not. In places like Germany and Japan, people are worried that this older population will not be able to be supported by the government (e.g. retirement benefits and social medicine) because there are not enough young people. But there is a caveat to this — if people work longer, into their 60s and 70s, then the problem is removed. I think this is the only remedy for a planet where people are living longer and longer — have fewer children and prevent the population from exploding to unsustainable levels.

What makes the subject of investing on U.S. Infrastructure such a boring thing for politicians to do? I mean, investing U.S. dollars in U.S. equipment and U.S. structures using U.S. labor just makes sense. We need new roads, new dams, new power plants, and new railroad lines. Why can’t the might U.S. Government take their trillions and trillions of dollar federal budget and put it to some good use?

I only see a few drawbacks to such wide scale actions. The first would be a rise in material prices. Raw materials like steel and concrete are in high demand right now thanks to Dubai and China going “Infrastructure-wild”, but if the U.S. got involved, prices would go even higher.  Second might be failure due to lack of people willing to fill these jobs or skilled labor to perform them. You’ve all seen how long it takes to build a road… imagine if there were millions of more projects to accomplish.

But I think these downsides are nothing compared to the potential upside. Come on Obama and McCain — push this agenda.

Have you ever been on one of these New York City tours? Well if you have been to NYC and not taken any of them, then you have missed out! New York is such a vast and historical city that its easy to find the perfect tour to take. I would love to take The Sopranos tour. Isn’t that just plain cool? You get taken around to the filming locations from The Sopranos. A classic! Here’s a list of things to do in New York City.

When I visited New York for summer vacation, I took an unbelievable double decker bus sightseeing tour of the city. Whats cool about that is that you are up high, getting a Birdseye view of the streets as you drive around. Its like something out of a movie. Whether you want to find a great NYC tour or a list of things to do in Las Vegas, Nevada, check out Trusted Tours & Attractions. They have great tour deals in all your favorite American Cities. Whether you are coming from out of town, or just moved to a new city, taking a tour is a great way to take in the sights. Trusted Tours & Attractions has a great collection of online travel guides to help you plan your next vacation.

Sign up for their useful email newsletter and you can win a $150 iTunes Gift Card. That would sure buy a lot of summer music to enjoy on your next road trip. Thanks Trusted Tours & Attractions.

Isn’t it funny how neither Obama or McCain is talking about the concept of Gay Marriage? Even when reporters ask them questions, they back down, saying that there are more important things going on right now like wars and the economy. President G.W. Bush, on the other hand, used the subject of Gay Marriage (not the wars) to win re-election in 2004. But this time around, the subject is not “needed” by either party to drum up support. I thought it was a little awkward when a reporter asked Obama “Don’t you think only allowing civil unions and not marriage is sort of like “separate but equal” doctorine?” Yikes! (Obama is for civil unoins but against full fledged marriage).

Ever buy a new piece of tech gadget and the next week, your model becomes obsolete? Yeah, it really stinks. If you are planning to buy an Apple Inc. product like an iPod or iMac, you can avoid this unpleasant occurrence if you do one thing first. Check out the MacRumors Buyer’s Guide and save yourself the pain of buying too soon or too late. For example, if you want to buy an iPhone, the guide says “buy Now” since the product has just been updated. An iPod Classic, on the other hand, is long overdue for an update, so the guide says “Don’t Buy Now”! Thanks MacRumors!

Computers and simulation programs are becoming more and more powerful. What’s the apex for this field of engineering and computer science? Computers which can model the real world, in real time! Think of it as one step away from The Matrix.

Here’s a great example. Flomerics, a leading computer simulation engineering firm which specializes in fluid flow and heat transfer simulations (some of the hardest stuff around!), recently used their powerful FLOVENT software to model the effects of wingsuits used for base jumping. This sort of software is not just cool but is extremely valuable too. Companies use it to figure out stuff from how to cool computer processors and electronics to how to build better skyscrapers (which are under extreme wind pressure constantly). Amazing!

What could Apple Inc do to keep their crown as top innovator? Well there are two lists to be made. The first is product improvements and the second is new products. Please share your thoughts.
Improvements:
- Thinner iPhone / iPod. Is there a new type of solid state memory out there being developed which could shrink these devices more?
- Apple (hd)TV. Make it 1080p capable and stock those movies on iTune!
- iMac Air. Think about it… an even thinner iMac ala Macbook Air. Make it float in the air too!
New Products:
- iPod Nano + Watch? Wear it on your wrist.
- iPod Shuffle the size of earbuds. Keep the cord connecting both ears just for show.
- A way to expand screen size. My personal favorite idea. I’ve written about it before. Screens so thin that they stack when not in use, but then can fold out to a 2×1 or 2×2 array in your hand!

According to a study done by Merck Medco, about 50% of all adults in the U.S. who have insurance are on long term prescription medicine. This means they take a medicine on an ongoing basis like that for high blood pressure or high cholesterol. What do these study findings mean and is it necessarily a good thing or a bad thing? Or mixed?

Unhealthy Population
Does this figure of 50% mean that the population is more unhealthy than ever? Looking at the obesity rate for adults (and children) we see that America has never been fatter, so this data support that?
Better Medicine
Maybe this data shows that science and medicine has done a great job of developing medicines which treat chronic conditions (which always existed) and therefore extend life and quality of life. That’s a good thing, if you can afford it.
Sales and Marketing Pressured
This data could just be evidence that the sales and marketing divisions of Pharma companies are getting too good. With a plethora of television, radio and magaine advertisements. Try to think about how many ads you’ve seen this week for ED, Depression, Cholesteral, and Birth Control!

I don’t know about you but by the time I was in my mid-20s, I pretty much figured out how mortgages work and the different kinds of them out there. This was also about the time that I took out a 3-year adjustable rate mortgage on my house! But there was a method to my madness — I knew we were moving in before that three years were up.

But with the current mortgage crisis in the U.S, it looks like many people are confused. With so many different types of Mortgages out there for the average consumer to select from, there are many ways to get confused. What is a good rate? Should I go fixed or variable rate? How much cash should I put down? All these questions can be met with just as confusing answers depending on where you look. If you feel you are one of these folks who are not exactly sure which mortgage is right, make sure you do your research well before you are forced to make a decision. Making decisions under pressure gets a lot worse when you aren’t comfortable with the subject matter.

How will developed countries deal with limits to CO2 emissions? The Cap and Trade method seems like a good, capitalism-based method to create an incentive to reduce emissions. In a Cap and Trade system, the amount of CO2 emissions would be “Capped” (limited) to a certain annual amount. Companies which emit less than the cap would be able to sell their excess “polluting capacity” to companies which are over the cap (this is the “trade” part). Sounds bad? Well sure, selling pollution rights is bad, but think about the outcomes. There would then be an economic incentive NOT to pollute, namely the ability to make more money. If the total sum of the caps were kept constant (or decrease annually), pollution levels would drop while companies would be able to make money. It’s really the best hope I see for us.

Did you notice or did it sneak under your radar? I’m talking about the new way Music is being sold in stores. Sure it’s old fashioned CDs but now they are being sold with the digital copy (MP3) included in the purchase price. Of course you can easily convert a CD to MP3 once you get it home, but these new packages include the digital download with the CD Price. Another trend is to sell a “cheap” ($9.99) CD only price (that’s significantly less expensive than CDs were a decade ago) and an “enhanced” release ($14.99 or more) with included music videos, exclusive content, or concert footage. Will these new techniques be enough to keep the music CD alive? Nah, but it has at least slowed down the decline.

Do you know who Virginia Dare was? She was the first English baby born in the New World. She signified a new generation of immigrants who would eventually colonize an entire continent. So my question is, who will be the Virginia Dare of the 21st century. I’m talking about the moon or Mars! Eventually (maybe not in the 21st century, but then for sure in the 22nd century) a baby will be born outside of Earth. That will be itself a new era in human civilization. Who will it be and where will he/she come from?