Category: Tools and Information
How to Find the Best Cloud Services Partner|businessnewsdaily.com
While the first wave of cloud integration was driven by businesses’ needs to reduce costs and increase efficiency, the next wave will focus on leveraging cloud services to expand company offerings and improve competitive positions.
Todd Benjamin, vice president of hosted services at Hostway Corp., said this is especially true for companies that provide technical services to businesses. He said a growing number of IT firms are now looking for partners with cloud delivery expertise so that they can deliver cloud services as resellers.
“Companies that provide IT services to businesses rightly want to focus on their core competencies to succeed in a highly competitive economy,” Benjamin said. “They are looking for cloud experts as partners to round out their portfolio of offerings.”
Business Referrals — You’re Doing It Wrong! | AllBusiness
Would you like to get more new customers without spending a dime? Business referrals are a great way to increase your business’s customer base while developing long-term business relationships that will have a positive impact on your bottom line.
In this episode of “The Little Big Show,” small business expert Denise O’Berry shares three simple steps you must take to get better business referrals today.
How to Get Better Business Referrals in Three Easy Steps
BoatBox Launches Car Roof Container That Doubles Up as Boat |GreenPacks.org
Did you always want to take your boat along while you are on a camping trip near a lake, but could not do so, simply because of the hassle you have to go through in transporting it? Also, what if you also get a roof top storage along with the boat? Yes, it is true. BoatBox has launched a little boat that will also act as a storage mechanism that you can strap to the roof of your car.
Saving Too Much For Retirement? Is It Really Possible? | Generation X Finance
Conventional wisdom tells us it’s impossible to be saving too much for retirement, but is this really true? We’ve been hearing about the need to save more for retirement, and for good reason. Ask many of the Baby Boomers who are getting ready to retire and you’ll find that many of them have come to the realization that they don’t have as much saved up as they had hoped, or that they may need to even put off retirement for a few years.
So, is it possible to save too much for retirement? Of course it is, but it’s far from the norm. The real issue comes from the sacrifices you need to make today in order to plan and save for a retirement that may be decades away. There is a balance in life.
New Credit Card Security Rules Slap Merchants | Inc.com
New security standards released today by Visa, Mastercard, and other credit card companies are going to have a big impact on any business that accepts credit card payments from customers.
The rules, formulated by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council, which represents the major card brands, are aimed at making your customers’ credit card data more secure–but they will undoubtedly add to your administrative and operational costs too.
Take a look at the requirements you must follow, as of January 1, 2014:
How to be happy: Tips for cultivating contentment | MayoClinic.com
Do you know how to be happy? Or are you waiting for happiness to find you?
Despite what the fairy tales depict, happiness doesn’t appear by magic. It’s not even something that happens to you. It’s something you can cultivate.
So, what are you waiting for? Start discovering how to be happy.
How to be happy: What science tells us
Only 10 percent or so of the variation in people’s reports of happiness can be explained by differences in their circumstances. It appears that the bulk of what determines happiness is due to personality and — more importantly — thoughts and behaviors that can be changed.
So, yes, you can learn how to be happy — or at least happier.
3 Food Tips to Help You Sleep Better | Eating Well
Learn how to get a better night’s sleep with these 3 tips to beat insomnia.
Relaxation techniques, like deep breathing, getting into a “bedtime routine” of winding down, even journaling those stressful thoughts that keep your mind jumping. These tips can all help you sleep but as the associate nutrition editor at EatingWell Magazine and a registered dietitian, I’m also interested in how to use food to beat insomnia.
green driving tips | greenercars.org
Driving Green
Buying green is just the first step in reducing the environmental impacts of automobile use. Your choice of vehicle is most important, but how you drive and how well you maintain your car, van, or light truck will also make a difference.
- Avoid \”jack rabbit\” starts and aggressive driving. Flooring the gas pedal not only wastes gas, it leads to drastically higher pollution rates. One second of high-powered driving can produce nearly the same volume of carbon monoxide emissions as a half hour of normal driving.
- Think ahead. Try to anticipate stops and let your vehicle coast down as much as possible. Avoid the increased pollution, wasted gas, and wear on your brakes created by accelerating hard and braking hard.
- Follow the speed limit! Driving 75 mph instead of 65 mph will lower your fuel economy by about 10 percent, and can dramatically increase tailpipe pollution in many vehicles.
- When possible, plan your trips to avoid rush hour. Stop-and-go driving burns gas and increases emissions of smog-forming pollutants.
- Combine trips. Warmed-up engines and catalysts generate much less air pollution, so combining several short trips into one can make a big difference.
- Take a load off. Carrying around an extra 100 pounds reduces fuel economy by about 1 percent. Take a few moments to unload your cargo area.
Three Credit Mistakes That Will Lower Your Credit Scores|creditcardinsider
When it comes to the world of credit reporting and scoring, misinformation and myths abound. You will find many self-proclaimed “experts” or “gurus” laugh out loud who are all too quick to give consumers advice regarding how to improve credit scores. Even your cousin, your parent, your banker, or your Realtor may think that they have great credit advice to give you.
While your loved ones and even some of the “experts” may have good intentions at heart, you should be very careful before blindly following advice about how to improve credit scores. Following the wrong advice could damage your credit scores and might cost you a lot of money in the long run. Controlling your credit scores isnt like making a pizza, where even if you do it wrong it still tastes decent.
Here are a few of the most popular credit myths which, if followed, could have very negative consequences for your credit scores:
Dispatches From The Front 