Life Brings…

It’s very likely that you have run across a Wiki and not even know it.  Wikipedia, the online free encyclopedia, is near the top of the list very frequently when web users search for a specific term in their browser.  At first glance it looks like a nice place to find some concise definition and sometimes very thorough detail for a term.  But understand a little more about how it is maintained and you will realize it is much more than that.  It allows anyone to access information about a topic and contribute to it.  Like any wiki, it is a powerful collaboration tool that allows information to be enhanced, grow and clarify over time.

Wikis have fast become a nice simple way to share information in a format that is easy to navigate and manage.  It has become an essential tool for business topics as well as personal topics.  Internally businesses use wikis to communicate information with their employees or to allow employees to collaborate with each other. Businesses are even using wikis with their customers to create a more collaborative environment.

Why consider a wiki?  There are several inherent features of a wiki which make it a compelling option to consider:

• allows documents and information about a topic to be written collaboratively across any number of users
• pages are written using simple markup languages that will allow it to be broadly accepted by all types of users
• has features that automatically associate topics together
• topics can be organized in webs, sub-webs and various degrees of hierarchies
• additional security can be introduced to specific topics, webs, sub-webs, etc if open collaboration is not desired
• versions of topics and documents are inherently maintained

If you are considering implementing a wiki, there are many software options available.  The most popular are freeware or open source and can be installed fairly easily.  It does however take some effort to customize the installation, webs and controls for your specific need.

Here are a couple of sites if you want to understand more about the different wikis.  For installation instructions, you should search specifically for instructions as they relate for the product you chose to install.

• Wikimatrix Comparison of Wiki Software

• Wikipedia Wiki Product Comparison

I have to admit on my recent trip Westward bound with the family, my mind was set on Yellowstone and nothing more. After all, the experiences at Yellowstone is all you hear about. The stops between Chicago to Yellowstone were nothing more than places to break up the long drive. Well, I was in for a pleasant surprise. One of our stops was Thermopolis Wyoming. Wow…what a wonderful experience! It is known for being the home of the World’s Largest Mineral Hot Spring. But beyond this is a beautiful landscape and the gorgeous Big Horn River. I was able to sneak off and do some fly fishing on the Big Horn River and walked away with a big smile on my face; a 21″ Rainbow Trout and a beautiful Brown Trout. But you don’t have to be a fisherman to enjoy the river. It is incredibly clean with a soothing meandering presence that carves through the mountainous terrain. I included just a few of the pictures of the surrounding area of Thermopolis. You can spend hours snapping pictures! If you can afford a couple of spare days, Thermopolis is not only a nice break before Yellowstone but it has an appeal that is uniquely its own.

Thermopolis Hot Spring

Hot Spring stream from the mountain above.

Big Horn River

Big Horn River invites you to its’ banks.

Hot Spring in Campground

Local campground in Thermopolis with its own Hot Spring that feeds 3 swimming pools; one pool is pleasantly warm, the second more like a hot tub and the third pool is too dangerously hot to enter.

Even to small business owners with virtual offices, having a  phone system that  still appears very professional is a must-have.  It becomes quite important for new customers to reach the right individual quickly.  The good news is that with virtual PBX systems it is very easy to set up a phone system that not only sounds professional but gives you some valuable features.

I have several businesses that use virtual phone systems.  A favorite of mine is GotVmail (www.gotvmail.com).  You can choose from a local phone number or a toll-free number, a nice touch for a company that wants to depict a national presence.  Within that number, you can set up mailboxes or extensions for as many individuals or categories as you are allowed for your plan.  For example, a separate mailbox for each individual in your company or a separate mailbox for sales versus the help desk.  A nice feature is a dial-by-name directory that callers can use to locate an individual mailbox.  The initial greeting as well as individual mailbox greetings can all be customized.  They even offer professional voices that can do the greetings for you.

Each mailbox can be configured to route through any number of phone numbers as it tries to reach the person associated with the mailbox.  For example, you can set up a forward to your cell phone from 9-5, car phone from 5-6 and home office from 6-8.  While the virtual phone system tries to reach you, the caller has a pleasant experience listening to music-on-hold.  If it fails to reach you (or you indicate you don’t to take that particular call), it will allow the caller to leave you a message on your mailbox.  Messages can be checked very easily and there is even a feature that sends a notification that you have a voicemail message to your email address.  Another feature is the ability to use the same number to receive faxes that are then sent to an email address.  While these are all very nice features there are even more benefits that you will discover when you research this option for your business.

The charges are very straight-forward.  It is based on the number of minutes that are used.  It is important to note that if you receive a call through the virtual PBX, you are charged for all of the minutes on that call.  This is because you are still on the system and can use features while on the call such as forwarding to another mailbox.  You can manage the costs in a couple of ways.  You can call back the individual rather than stay on the PBX.  Or not doing things such as trying to place calls through the PBX.  This feature is useful because it is like a phone card when you don’t have access to long distance but it can take away minutes available.  I am able to keep costs to less than $50 per month; compare this to having a local phone system that can run into hundreds a month.

Virtual PBX or phone systems are a really nice way to portray your professionalism and still maintain low operating costs.

It’s no wonder with ever increasing gas prices that everyone is looking for ways to improve gas mileage for their vehicles. I will share with you the two simple strategies that I have found to really improve gas mileage. I will also outline a few others that have been mentioned by a number of reputable resources.
Air Up

Keeping tires inflated to the maximum recommended tire pressure has a tremendous impact on improving gas mileage. Some sources state that you should expect about a 3% improvement. My results showed even better improvement. In my tests, I compared the miles per gallon (MPG) that I received when I kept my tire pressure at 34 PSI against the MPG I received by increasing it to the maximum of 44 PSI. The result was an increase of a whopping 7% to 9% in gas mileage. If you normally fill up a 15 gallon tank every week, you now need only 14 gallons or less to cover the same amount of miles. With the cost of gasoline these days, you could save upwards of $200 per year. You may ask “what’s the reason why tire pressure makes such a big difference?”. The answer is fairly simple if you understand some basic physics principals. Tires low in pressure have an increased surface area which will result in more friction and drag for the vehicle as it drives. The more friction, the greater the force necessary to move it forward. Increasing air pressure reduces the surface area on the ground leading to less friction while moving. There is one more small consideration. When you increase the air in a tire, you increase the diameter and circumference. One rotation will now cover more surface when it travels. Of course, not everyone’s tires will need to be inflated as dramatically as my tests used.  You may not gain as much as I did but nonetheless you will see some very good results with this simple change.

Ease Up

Driving habits have a lot to do with gas consumption. Fast starts and hard stops simply burn more fuel than necessary. Fast starts aren’t allowing you to cover more area, only to get you there faster. Steady acceleration results in less waste. Rather than making a hard stop, ease up on the accelerator and coast to a stop. You save yourself a few seconds of fuel burning every time. As you can guess, driving in the city means lots of stops and lots of opportunity to save fuel. Similarly, while going downhill let the momentum of the car take to the bottom and minimize the use of the accelerator. Another consideration is when you are approaching curves such is the case on an on-ramp that enters an expressway. The faster you drive into a curve the more force required to keep the car on the road. Part of the force is opposite to the direction you proceed forcing your engine to overcome this force to maintain speed, leading to burning more fuel. Simple modifications to driving habits can make small but collectively measurable impacts to fuel consumption.

Other noteworthy tips

• Tune your car : Make sure to replace, clean or re-gap spark plugs regularly. There are also more expensive types of spark plugs that are more efficient and can improve mileage slightly.
• Replace air filters: Air filters tend to be a forgotten maintenance item. Replace them as recommended for your car and based on driving conditions. If you drive on dirt roads or places with blowing debris, replace your air filter more frequently.
• Use cruise control smartly: Cruise control under normal circumstances is more efficient at applying acceleration only when it needed. However, be smart about when to use it. I am sure you have noticed how the cruise behaves on hilly roads. It tends to get aggressive uphill to maintain the same speed, hence unnecessarily burning fuel. You may be better off not using cruise under that situation.
• Reduce use of air conditioning: Early mornings, late evenings or nighttime usually bring cooler temperatures. Ask yourself if opening the window slightly will bring enough cool air rather than immediately turning to your air conditioner. But be smart about using windows. Having too much wind blowing into the car creates internally drag; similar to what we discussed earlier, the more drag there is, the harder the car needs to work to overcome that force.
• Reduce trips : Avoid making unnecessary trips or try to combine several smaller trips into one larger one. It won’t improve your mileage much but it will reduce how many miles you need to drive on one tank of gas.

Some additional resources

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/FEG/drive.shtml

http://www.mpgplus.com/

http://www.pureenergysystems.com/

In this day and age, many of us simply measure the performance of a stock or fund by looking at an annualized rate of return calculated by evaluating the price difference from the beginning of the period to the end. For example, a stock that is $10 at the beginning of the year and ends the year at $10.50 is said to have a 5% annualized rate of return. Most of the available tools on the internet with charts and graphs show us this type of rate of return. We simply choose to take it for granted as the only way to look at a security. However, I am here to remind you of a more accurate way of measuring a security that also has a dividend rate. I refer to this as the reinvested rate of return and it is something that will have you re-evaluate how you look at returns. It may even prevent you from taking undue risk simply due to the perceived increase in return from more glamorous non-dividend paying securities.

Let me start with a few tables that will illustrate this simple but forgotten approach.

Stock Price

Transaction History

The Stock Price table simply shows the price of a security for 3 subsequent years. It also contains a good dividend rate starting with $.50 per share and increasing very slowly each year. As you will see, it only assumes an annual price increase of 5% per year; pretty darn meager for a return but you will see that the annual dividend changes that perception.

The Transaction History table shows the initial purchase of 100 shares and each dividend reinvestment at the end of each of the 3 years.

So, let me just cut to the chase. The tables below depict the rate of return after 3 years using the calculation that simply looks at the stock price changes versus the reinvested rate of return that takes the reinvested dividends into consideration.

Wow! Taking only the stock price into consideration gives you an annualized return of 5.25% a year while a reinvested rate of return gives you an annualized return of 10.86% a year. The 3 year accumulated rate of return is 32.58%. That security looks a little more appealing now … wouldn’t you agree. Not only does the dividend rate add to the annual rate but it allows any increase in the stock price to have a greater impact on the ending balance. When it all comes down to it, what really matters is how much balance you really have in your account each year as compared to the prior year and as compared to the beginning of your investing.

So what is the lesson to be learned from this little story reminder. Measure the value of a security using more than just its’ price appreciation; see how the dividends with help your bottom line.

Recently I decided to make some painting improvements to our home. I had to paint a wall that was going to merge with another wall at a 90 degree corner. However, only one of the two walls required paint. What I needed was a clean, corner paint line from ceiling to floor.

In order to make it look professional, I tried using the ‘blue painter’s tape’. After applying the wall paint and allowing it to dry for about 45 minutes, I removed the blue painter’s tape. Much to my dismay, I found the wall paint had crept around the 90 degree corner to the other wall that was to remain unpainted! What was a novice to do?

I quickly remembered my miracle cleaning device in my home…the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. I ran to my endless stash of Mr. Clean Magic Erasers and quickly wet one of the eraser sponges. From there I was able to easily remove the paint from the unpainted wall by simply wiping the area clean. I did have to continuously rinse the eraser sponge as paint was accumulating. By just running the eraser down the wall, which was not supposed to be painted, a beautiful clean, professional corner was made!

The eraser helped with creating perfect lines, in conjunction with the blue painter’s tape. Plus, the eraser sponge was great for wiping away other mistakes that happened along the way… hitting the ceiling with the roller, etc.

So now you know a simple trick to making painting easier and hiding any novice imperfections… the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser!

Mr. Clean Magic Eraser

If you have never heard about the Lua language, you should really take a close look. Lua is fast becoming a very popular scripting language. It is already a leading scripting language for games. The incredibly famous game World of Warcraft uses it extensively for interface customization. There are several industrial grade software products that use Lua as well. It is a fast and light-weight language with a simple yet powerful procedural syntax.

Lua’s best known characteristic is its ability to be used as an embedded language. It is often used to extend languages such as C and C++ but has also been used to extend other popular languages including Java.

Another key characteristic of Lua is its portability. It can run virtually anywhere including most UNIX and Windows platforms and mobile devices. Using its source code it can be built for all platforms that have an ANSI/ISO C compiler. Having such a portable reputation helps Lua’s popularity among developers creating products that can be deployed across many platforms.

If you want to get started understanding this language, here are a few good resources. For me to put sample code and describe the language wouldn’t give you a real sense of what makes Lua so attractive to developers. These are some great sources of information.

Programming in Lua : Good introduction to the Lua Language within site lua.org.

Tutorial Directory: An excellent directory of Lua Tutorials within site lua-users.org

List of Lua Editors: Nice list of editors supporting Lua.

Article in IBM’s DeveloperWorks Site Another nicely written article on Lua features.

Like an eclipse, it covered the sun and then gradually glided away. With no second thought, a nearby old village bloke quickly short back, “it’s a sign, it’s a sign, didn’t I tell you, it’s definitely a sign”. That wasn’t a sign. That was an American Pilot, Caril Ridley, conducting a high altitude flight test using a hang glider in India. Since that day, December of 1974, and today, February 2007, the industry has grown tremendously.

Some people might like to call it an air sport, but then the people who’ve been there know that it takes more than air to get you up there. However, hang gliding definitely is a recreational and competitive sport at the same time.

Although hang gliding is quite similar to paragliding, yet its craft is a bit complicated. The craft is controlled by shifting the body weight of the pilot who is suspended hanging attached to the frame of the wing. The craft is much lighter compared to its cousins and much cheaper too. Its body consist an aluminum/ composite framed fabric wing.

This outdoor sport is quite popular in the Western United States and California and its popularity covers all the corners of the world. There are many sport and outdoor recreational companies that offer training and tandem flights for inexperienced to have their majestic adventure in a safe-mode.

Hang gliding is done by suspending an individual from the wing of the craft in a harness that is attached to the frame of the wing for safety and stability. For maneuvering, there is a control bar provided for the pilot, with which he can turn right, left, lift and descend. The maneuvering is done in accordance with the prevailing wind conditions. While landing, the craft is stalled because of which the pilot can land safely on his feet.

The craft can be easily transported because it can be dismantled and pack into a smaller compact form. Once on location, it can be reassembled and the pilot can strap back in the harness system. The pilot has to take a running start for the craft to get enough lift and once that’s done, hang gliding begins. Once the craft is in air, it is kept in forward motion by the gravitational pull. In addition to this, the pilot can take advantage of the wind currents to stay aloft. The glider is pulled in the upward direction by the pilot that allows the pilot to float back to the ground.

Though hang gliding has a fare share of its fans, yet the fatal accidents remain its arch enemy. The craft, by its self, is a fairly safe and sturdy construction but the outside condition and inexperience of the pilot can turn it into a coffin. Otto Liliethal, the ‘glider king’ of Germany and the pioneer of human aviation, himself was claimed by fatal glider crash.

Hang gliding has a tendency to be dangerous and for that matter should be practiced in under proper assistance and supervision. There are many outdoor adventure clubs and companies that help in training and certification of hang gliders; they make a good reference for an accredited training school. Along with good training, a good knowledge of weather and geographic conditions is required. It shouldn’t be practiced in an unsafe environment.

Many countries have imposed restrictions that allow hang gliding in certain specific areas. Along with that the pilot would have to sign in a log book and prove his credentials. Such designated places have a landing zone so that the bystanders are not harmed. Although hang gliding can be carried out almost anywhere, yet staying in such designated areas help minimizing the risk.

This article courtesy of www.extremesportsweb.com. You’ll find articles on a few of the popular extreme sports.

Buying and selling businesses is one of those activities I find myself doing more and more. The world of business is changing and it’s a good idea to be diverse as well as diligent. You can expand your business strategy or realize your business goals by looking at expansion through acquisition. Similarly, when you identify a part of your business strategy that doesn’t fit your growth strategy or business model, you can look at an option of selling it. Through my recent experiences, I have identified a few good website services that can help you buy and sell a business.

Here are a couple of sites that are standard models for buying and selling a business; bizbuysell.com , businessesforsale.com, and businessnation.com. I don’t want to say which is better than another because it depends on which characteristics fit you best. You will notice a price difference between the sites but don’t use that as a primary criteria. Take a look at the categories and types of businesses that are most prominent on the site. This may prove to be a guide in terms of the audience visiting the site. For example, if the site features a vast majority of sites focused on storefronts, your chances of buying and selling an ecommerce site may be lower. Another factor you may want to consider is the process by which prospective buyers inquire about a site for sale. Some sites require only registered users to request information or contact the site seller. This has its’ positives and negatives. The positive consideration is that it will limit inquiries to more serious prospects, not just the curious site visitor. The negative consideration is that it limits the number of inquiries you receive and can prove to be restrictive to a site visitor that also happens to be a bit more than curious. One last point is to take a close look at how businesses are highlighted. Some sites show summary information for most listings while others show more detailed. If selling, take care in the content for descriptions otherwise you could lose a prospective buyer before he even reads further about your business. If buying, a seller’s careless description may discourage you from requesting further details and possibly cause you to miss an opportunity with good potential.

One last type of site I would like to mention is an auction site for buying and selling a business. One that I like is sitepoint.com. It allows a seller to set up an auction to sell a business. Registered users can make a bid to buy. The registration does not really require much personal information and the site allows for private messaging to allow buyers, sellers and other users to interact. Kind of nice way to control the exchange of information. Additionally, most comments are included in the site listing which allows new visitors to get feedback and any additional fresh information about the listing. There are some things to note about using such a service. Don’t expect very formal means of buying a business. For example, you may not get very detailed financial metrics. You will want to do some research on your own about a site’s potential. The site attracts talented developers that are in the business of creating and selling new businesses. It also has more established businesses as well for someone looking for a proven business. You can pick up some nice websites with potential if you have the capability and insight to take those businesses to the next level. I recently bought a few websites and have already started expanding them; www.extremesportsweb.com , www.find-snowmobiles.info and www.atv-bargains.info. I purchased them for good prices with the intent of using my knowledge of marketing to expand their customer reach; so far so good.

From time to time I like to share investment ideas with my friends and colleagues. One of my consistent strategies is to keep enough free cash within my brokerage accounts to take advantage of opportunities that arise. I like to keep about 10%, which may sound high but with periodic buys and sells it still means there is a good amount of money at play and leveraged at all times for returns. So you are probably wondering how I define opportunities. The general definition is something I will leave for a future article; it’s an art rather than a science. Instead let me point out a couple of ETFs that I believe are ripe even though the market as a whole is doing poorly as of late. These are real examples of potential opportunities in today’s market.

There are so many companies that are offering ETFs but I have to admit I have a favorite. iShares provides me with sufficient diversity in its offering. I recently re-bought shares of iShares Brazil (EWZ). Its track record has been incredible and it is currently going through an adjustment that has brought the price to a buy range. Brazil as a country will continue to do well with the momentum of its energy companies as a contributing factor.

Other mentionable ETFs that are offered by Powershares are focused around the Clean Fuel and Clean Energy Technology sectors. Their holdings include companies offering alternative fuel technologies, clean energy options or services supporting those offerings. It’s clear that momentum on developing and utilizing alternative fuels is building and this sector will continue to do well. In today’s market, Powershares Wilderhill Clean Energy (PBW) and Powershares Cleantech (PZD) have been adjusted lower and should be priced right for a buy.