Archive for the ‘Business News’ Category

10 Ways Having a Baby Changes Your Finances

Posted by Paul Thompson on February 22nd, 2012

 

Having a child brings about intense financial changes for at least the next 18 years of a parents life, but thats a pretty vague statement. What are those implications? How can you be sure that your budget accounts for every new change in your finances? Here are at least 10 ways in which a child changes your finances, all of which you should work into your budget to ensure that the babys needs are met without putting you in (too much) debt.  

 

 

   The first and most obvious change to your finances is that your entire budget has to be revamped to include your child and all his or her needs. The best idea here is to scrap your entire budget and start from scratch. Not only will you need to account for the childs needs, but youll probably be whittling down on some of your own expenses while increasing others. 
 

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NFIB: 2011 Was ‘Flat’ for Small Business

Posted by Paul Thompson on February 15th, 2012

There’s been some positive news coming from the retail sales and employment fronts, but small business owners aren’t doing cartwheels just yet.

After four months straight of positive gains, the National Federation of Independent Business optimism index continued its positive streak in January, although just barely. The index rose just one-tenth of one percent for the month, to 93.9, and readings are still in recession levels. Readings for January and February 2011 were both also higher than this months’ reading, the survey said.

Holly Wade, policy analyst at the NFIB, said the index shows a slow improvement in small business owners’ confidence levels over the past year. In the months leading up to the election, things may turn negative for small business owners, she said.

Small business owners increasingly name taxes and regulations as the top issue, with a combined 40% saying it is the single most important issue to them, according to the index.

“Unfortunately, the elections and what they are doing in D.C.

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nivio has announced it has secured $21 million in funding, hot on the heels of its US launch at Macworld|iWorld. The investment will support nivios mission to bring the magic back to computing, by expanding engineering efforts in nivios Palo Alto office and further roll-out of the cloud platform across nivios operating regions in Europe, Middle East, India and Australia.

The round was completed by Videocon (& Group Companies), a $5 billion conglomerate headquartered in India, and AEC Partners, a boutique private equity firm in Kansas City with specialized holdings in telecommunications and technology.

“We are extremely happy to bring two new passionate investors into our team,” said Sachin Dev Duggal, founder and chief wizard at nivio. “We’re also very proud that nivio has successfully delivered 7x returns to some of our angels in this round. The sup

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Google: From Grad School to $150 Billion Company

Posted by Paul Thompson on January 30th, 2012

A lot of tech companies often start out with the most humble of beginnings in this case: Google. Now standing as one of the most powerful companies in the world, their journey has been chronicled since the conception of Backrub the first search engine for the world wide web.

The interactive infographic youre about to see sheds some light into the world of Sergey Brinn and Larry Pages brainchild weve all come to know, love, and respect.

Created by Online PhD

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Five Top Tips for Soliciting Accredited Investors

Posted by Paul Thompson on January 18th, 2012

Individual investors in startup companies are known in small business finance circles as “angel” investors. This term originated not in the well-known epicenters of startup activity, but in the Broadway theater district. To

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The White House has responded to two petitions about legislative approaches to combat online piracy. In their response, Victoria Espinel, Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator at Office of Management and Budget, Aneesh Chopra, U.S. Chief Technology Officer, and Howard Schmidt, Special Assistant to the President and Cybersecurity Coordinator for National Security Staff stress that the important task of protecting intellectual property online must not threaten an open and innovative internet.

COMBATING ONLINE PIRACY WHILE PROTECTING AN OPEN AND INNOVATIVE INTERNET

By Victoria Espinel, Aneesh Chopra, and Howard Schmidt

Thanks for taking the time to sign this petition. Bot

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5 Worst As Seen on TV Products

Posted by Paul Thompson on January 4th, 2012

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If you’ve ever been stuck at home during the day, The Price is Right has already come and gone, and you weren’t desperate enough to watch General Hospital, odds are you saw quite a few “As Seen on TV” ads.  Some of these products seemed genuinely useful in the alterna-world of infomercials where people seem incapable of opening jars or hanging clothes without a specialized tool.  Hell, some of us even bought one or two of these products (I love you, Slap Chop).  But God help you and have mercy on your progeny if you were the type of person who impulsively bought these things that initially seemed useful, and then later you still thought were useful — because you are obviously mentally ill.  The rest of us, however, should stay away from some of the worst of these products, things like:   

 

 

  
  Famously known as The Boob Apron, the Cami Secret is the only as seen on TV product that could potentially ignite World War III if it ever saw widespread use.  This is due to the fact that oogling tits comprises somewhere in the neighborhood of 60-100 percent of a man’s daily happiness.  Ask a (straight) man whether he’d rather live in a war-torn post-apocalyptic hellscape, or live in a world without boobs, and you will understand the fragile underpinnings that hold society in place that the Cami Secret is trying to make even more flaccid. 

Fortunately for men, women and the future of humanity in general, the Cami Secret is not only a terrible idea, it’s a straight-up shitty product.  In an Internet where the average rating is 4.4-5.0+++!!!!OMGWOULDBUYAGAIN, the Cami Secret nets a kiss-of-death three stars on average at Amazon.  Browsing through the comments, it seems like the most common review consists of “This product works really well as long as I don’t do anything but sit perfectly still all day”.  Though perhaps men shouldn’t hate on the Cami Secret so much, given its tendency to slip out with the slightest gust of wind.  After all, experts speculate that the remaining 40 to 0 percent of men’s happiness that is not derived from boobs, comes from secretly rooting for nip slips. 
 

 

 

    Designed for people who hate their dogs and also like to kick kittens and small children (allegedly), the  Barkoff emits a high-pitched whistle every time it detects a bark.  Sort of like the canine version of Dr. Evil’s “sh!”, this is supposed to aggravate and annoy you

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