Category: Tools and Information

The Best Deal Sites Can Save You up to 95% | lifefactopia

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Everyone loves the idea of the killer deals that days like Cyber Monday and Black Friday bring, but they often come at a price. Either you find yourself waking up super early to secure the best deal, or the savings are to be had on specific products that don’t interest you. Worst of all, nobody wants to stand in line for hours only to find out the deal is no longer available.

What you’ll also discover during the season is that not all deals are created equal – some sites offer bigger discounts on better products than others. Some offer up to 95% off brand new popular gadgets like an iPad whereas others offer up to 50% off a Jelly-of-the-Month membership!

Savvy deal seekers spend hours each year discovering which sites have the best deals listed, and what online retailers are willing to offer insane deals.  You’ll be surprised that you might not have heard of these sites.

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How to Prepare Your Business for 2014|businessnewsdaily.com

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4 Ways to Prepare Your Business for 2014

Key things you should do to prepare your business for the future.

With the year starting to wind down, it is important that business owners are prepared for any dangers and risks that may lie ahead.

Judy Coblentz, chief underwriting officer at small business insurance provider Travelers Small Commercial, said this is the perfect time for business owners to evaluate their business to ensure they are properly prepared for any unforeseen circumstances that could arise in 2014.

“As you cross over calendar years, whether you do it in your personal life or whether you do it in your business life, I think most people view the end of the year as time to take stock,” Coblentz told BusinessNewsDaily.

With that in mind, she says there are four things business owners should be doing to ensure they are properly protected in 2014 from any risks they may encounter in the new year, including:

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8 Steps to Having Wildly Productive Mornings | Entrepreneur.com

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You’ll wake up for about 25,000 mornings in your adult life, give or take a few.Once I realized this, I started thinking about how I could develop a better morning routine. I still have a lot to learn, but here are some strategies that you can use to get the most out of your 25,000 mornings.Here are eight strategies that I’ve found to be most effective for getting the most out of my morning:

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A Simple Guide to Taking Better Holiday Party Photos | Wired.com

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It’s holiday party season. Chill the eggnog, steal a bottle of bourbon from the accounting department’s file cabinet, and get ready for some awkward dancing. Sure, some parties will hire a professional photographer, and maybe even dress up the IT guy as Santa Claus for some photos. But the real party photos will be the ones you take. Here are a few tips to make sure those photos actually look good enough to get you all the Instagram likes you deserve.

Lighting

If it can be helped, get a photo with lights pointing at your subject. If a bright light is behind your subject, the camera will try to expose to that light and your subject will be end up being under-exposed. If you’re having a day party lame, get between the windows and your subjects. The natural light will be better than your office lighting.

Speaking of office lighting, beware of overhead fluorescent lights.

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How to Find the Best Cloud Services Partner|businessnewsdaily.com

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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.”

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Business Referrals — You’re Doing It Wrong! | AllBusiness

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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

See Video.

BoatBox Launches Car Roof Container That Doubles Up as Boat |GreenPacks.org

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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.

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Saving Too Much For Retirement? Is It Really Possible? | Generation X Finance

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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.

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New Credit Card Security Rules Slap Merchants | Inc.com

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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:

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