Watch the story of Michael Shannon, a three-year-old boy who was killed when a legal consumer firework struck him in the head during a July Fourth family celebration. Parents should understand the danger of all consumer fireworks.
1. Defend your computer
hackers across the globe - or maybe across the street - are working 24/7 to find ways to steal your passwords, take control of your computer or turn your hard drive into a whirring pile of scrap metal. Keep your computer up to date, Use security software, install anti virus, Take away your PC’s superpowers, Get a router and lock it down, Be careful at the coffee shop when using Wifi be sure your computer is not being shared, watch out for hackers.
2.Thwart ID thieves
You can spend big bucks and drive yourself nuts listening to the hype. Or you can take a few sensible precautions.Get three free credit reports a year,Monitor online banking and brokerage accounts a few times a week, Use cash or a credit card, not a debit card, when practical,Don’t share, Don’t fall for phishers
3. Guard your privacy at work
Work is a no-privacy zone. Understand that and you can save yourself embarrassment. Or worse.
Respond to inappropriate e-mails immediately,Don’t do, say or write anything at work that you don’t want your employer to know about, Disconnect from company technology,Guard against the office busybody
4. Keep your kids safe
Your parents worried that you watched too much TV. They never had to deal with IMs and MySpace.Consider a Web filter, Teach your kid to value privacy, Set firm family Web rules, Check in. You’re asking your kid to make a lot of careful decisions. He deserves some help. Ask him to show you his Web pages, blogs or profiles at networking sites & Treat your PC like a TV
Source: money.cnn.com
1. Nike+ iPod Sport Kit
Nike and Apple teamed up to allow joggers to monitor their daily exercises while listening to music using their iPod nano! The small transmitter from the sport kit can fit the pocket built into the Nike+ trainer.
2. Microsoft Zune
The rival to Apple’s iPod, this gadget is a 30GB music and video player with a Wi-Fi compatibility. You can send songs, download files and images from the Zune marketplace, or import your files of various formats.
3. Apple TV
Apple TV is a set top box that can wirelessly connect to your iTunes to play music, videos, and images on your television.
4. Nokia N95
It has a 5-megapixel camera and you can browse the internet. You can take photos and videos and listen to music! Despite all these features, and more, Nokia N95 is still one of the easiest phones ever made.
5. Sony Playstation 3
Faster than the CPU or the XBox, supporting existing CD and DVD formats, with Wi-Fi connectivity and compatible with the original PlayStation — it was worththe wait!
6. Sanyo Xacti HD2
It’s a 720p high-definition digital camcorder and a 7.1-megapixel digital still camera, and is HD TV compatible.
7. Apple iPhone
The handset combines the functions of a phone with that of the phenomenally successful iPod. It is also a handheld computer with Wi-Fi compatibility and comes with Apple’s OS X operating system and Safari web browser.
8. WowWee Roboquad
Roboquad is the four-legged robot that can move quickly in nearly any direction. It can identify motion at a distance of about 10 feet and can pursue a moving object. It is also sensitive enough to detect its environment.
9. Sony VAIO TP1
Unusual yet attractive. It’s got an HDMI port, a DVD burner, a memory card slot, and standard PC inputs. The keypad is wireless, and the gadget comes with Wi-Fi and Microsoft Vista Home Premium.
10. Sharp 108inch LCD TV
Sharp,and many more people, are sure that this is the best flat panel TV technology. It’s the biggest of its kind and is very much appreciated by the public, as was given at the Consumers Electronics Show last January.
Source: Supanet Men’s Room Galleries
First European road safety day aims to inform young and old alike, and to let them bear witness.
1. General Electric
Fairfield, CT, U.S.
Revenue1: $168.3 billion
No. of employees: 300,000
- For 50 years companies have tried to emulate GE’s legendary Crotonville training facility, a place where thousands of employees have honed their management skills. But GE now generates 50% of its revenue overseas - over half its employees work abroad too - so it has taken Crotonville on the road to hot spots around the world like Shanghai, Munich, and Bangalore.
2. Procter & Gamble
Cincinnati, OH, U.S.
Revenue1: $68.2 billion
No. of employees: 135,000
- The 170-year-old maker of household brands like Crest and Pampers has produced multiple generations of leaders by hiring employees who have what the company calls “in-touch capability.”
3. Nokia
Espoo, Finland
Revenue1: $51.6 billion
No. of employees: 68,500
- Developing the next wave of cutting-edge cellphones means thinking about what consumers will hanker for years from now.
4. Hindustan Unilever
Mumbai, India
Revenue1: $2.74 billion
No. of employees: 15,000
- At this Anglo-Dutch-owned Indian conglomerate, known for churning out leaders as fast as it produces Pears soap and Lipton tea, managers are rated in color coded boxes.
5. Capital One Financial
McLean, VA, U.S.
Revenue1: $15.2 billion
No. of employees: 32,000
- Personal trainers aren’t what you’d expect at a company focused on interest rates or loan payments. But at financial services company Capital One, CEO Richard Fairbank created a program to ensure managers are in shape to lead.
6. General Mills
Minneapolis, MN, U.S.
Revenue1: $11.6 billion
No. of employees: 27,500
- Last year the cereal maker launched a three-day simulation program that prepares employees for situations that might not occur on a typical day.
7. McKinsey
None, 2
Revenue1: More than $1 billion3
No. of employees: 14,000
- With offices in 45 countries and business that’s rarely nation-specific, global cross-pollination of employees is essential to this firm’s mission.
8. IBM
Armonk, NY, U.S.
Revenue1: $91.4 billion
No. of employees: 330,000
- Last year Palmisano created a task force of 300 senior executives to tackle the challenges of integrating Big Blue’s myriad services.
9. BBVA
Bilbao, Spain
Revenue1: $38.3 billion
No. of employees: 108,000
- Proving yourself at BBVA, Spain’s second-largest bank, isn’t just about meeting your boss’s expectations. When it’s time for your biannual review, peer sentiment and self-evaluation are just as important.
10. Infosys Technologies
Bangalore, India
Revenue1: $2.2 billion
No. of employees: 76,000
- At Indian information-technology powerhouse Infosys, the average age of an employee is 26. But senior executives, who were looking to young up-and-comers for feedback and new ideas, grew frustrated when they realized that many of those recruits were keeping their opinions to themselves.
Source: Moneycnn.com
Liz Pulliam Weston is an author of many books and a personal finance columnist for MSN Money. Her 3 Costly Myths About On Insurance is just one of her many contributions to the financial world. The following is from the said article and talks of the 3 myths in insurance that can cost you a lot of money:
Myth: Your benefits should roughly equal the premiums you’ve paid
Many people feel cheated if they aren’t “using” their insurance — in other words, if they pay premiums for years and never make a claim.
That, however, is exactly what you want to happen with most types of insurance.
Sound insane? It’s really not. Most of the time, insurance should be thought of as your protection against true financial catastrophe, not as a buffer against the normal ups and downs of daily living.
You want your homeowners insurance to be there if your house ever burns down, for example, because you probably don’t have enough savings to rebuild your home or pay off your mortgage otherwise. On the other hand, you can easily swing the cost of replacing a pane when Sally down the street knocks a line drive through your window.
So why pay extra for a policy with a low deductible, just so you can get your insurance company to cover a cost you could readily handle on your own?
Opting for deductibles of $500 to $1,000, instead of $100 to $250, can save you as much as 35% on your premiums.
Myth: Insurance should cover disasters that are likely to happen
More than 80% of California homeowners don’t have earthquake insurance. That figure often stuns people from out of state, because of the widely held notion that the Golden State is a bowlful of geological jelly.
Californians, however, know that serious earthquakes are pretty rare. Most are mild, and almost all are very localized. So, the chances of your own home getting totaled in one are actually pretty slim. That excuses Californians from buying coverage, right? Hardly. Similarly, you may not be off the hook if you don’t have flood or windstorm insurance.
* Video: Save money on home insurance
Remember, insurance is meant to protect you from financial catastrophe — disasters from which you could not easily recover on your own.
Some people ignore this advice, figuring the federal government will come through for them in a disaster. You should know, however, that typically this help isn’t free. Most help comes in the form of low-interest loans.
One look at the wake of Hurricane Katrina should make you wary of relying on government help. Even with such aid, many people lost their homes in the 1994 Northridge quake in California. They found they couldn’t simultaneously pay their mortgages and afford places to live while their homes were being rebuilt.
So, if you don’t have enough cash saved up to rebuild your home or pay off the mortgage, and you live in an area where natural disasters are a distinct possibility, you need appropriate coverage.
Myth: Insurance is a rip-off; buy only the minimum required
This idea occasionally surfaces on the Your Money message boards and in e-mails I get from readers. People’s suspicion of the insurance industry can be so profound, they’ll put themselves in real financial danger — the old cut-off-your-schnoz-to-spite-your-face response.
It’s scariest when people skimp on liability insurance. This pays for the damage you do to other people or that they do to themselves on your property.
Say you’re held responsible for an auto accident in which somebody is paralyzed. You can be on the hook for that person’s medical expenses, lost income and care for the rest of his or her life. Injure more than one person, and the cost goes up exponentially.
If you don’t have liability insurance, or you’re carrying too little, most of what you own could be at risk. You could be sued and lose just about everything you’ve spent a lifetime working and saving to accumulate, plus perhaps your future earnings as well. All this because you wanted to save a couple of bucks on your premiums.
A smarter choice is to get enough liability coverage at least to equal your net worth. (Your net worth is everything you own minus everything you owe.) If your net worth is $250,000, for example, boost the liability coverage on both your auto insurance and your homeowners insurance to at least $250,000.
Source: MSN: 3 Costly Myths About Insurance
