Monthly Archives: April 2009

Barcode scanners are one of those pieces of technology that are seemingly everywhere you look.  They are an invaluable tool in many situations including retail, hospitals, warehouses and light industrial situations.  The Symbol LS2208 can help you maximize your productivity while still staying on (or even under!) budget. The popular “gun” style of barcode scanner is easy to use, compact and has intuitive use.  There is also a five year guarantee on the unit which shows that Motorola and Symbol stand behind their products.  It’s better to just buy something like this once rather than buy many lower quality items that will end up in the pile of obsolete or broken items to be recycled.

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There’s a new movement in travel companies — that of having specialized travel groups.  They have vacations and groups specifically designed for all kinds of different target audiences.  I know that my mom and son love to travel together.  Recently, they’ve discovered something called intergenerational travelling which is just a fancy term for grandparents and grandkids travelling together.  They’ve got all kinds of different specific interest destinations and considerations just for this group.  I think that it’s absolutely fantastic that such a wide range of travel plans are available now!  All travel related industries must really be hurting during the recession and this kind of innovation will really help to increase their lost sales.  Some of the other special interest travel groups are eco-travel, gay travel, seniors travel, family travel, volunteerism travel and couples travel.

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Earth day is even being celebrated at a place usually diametrically opposed to the planet — the mall (lol).  In a massive building designed to drive people to overconsumption full of chemically treated, overpackaged products from far, far away, the Earth is being celebrated.  It is a one day special though of course!  Limited time offer available at select retailers….hahaha.  I’m glad they’re doing something though.  First up is Starbucks which has already been involved in some environmentally friendly practices such as bring your own mug and buying fair trade coffee.  They even donate some of their massive profits to help less fortunate people.  Free coffee definitely sounds good though!

And there’s the Body Shop special as well which has been green way before anyone else was.  They’ve been involved in sustainable practices, fair trade, organically grown raw ingredients and donations long before it was cool to do so.  Today they’re giving out organic cotton reusable bags.  I’d rather see 100% recycled plastic bag recyclable bags instead of making an entirely new product but at least it’s organic!  You do have to buy $30 worth of products but at least they have a wide range of eco-friendly products from which to choose.  Happy Earth Day shopping everyone!!!

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The recession is a global phenomenon that seems to be effecting all areas of our lives — our homes, bank accounts, relationships and jobs are all suffering right now.  Industries from banking to real estate to government to technology to well pretty much everything are being negatively effected.  Sales, in particular, seem to be particularly vulnerable right now.  The sales of everything seems to be on the decline whether it’s the sale of retail goods or industrial equipment supplies or plumbing and building supplies or technological equipment.

One area that seems to be maintaining it’s value or even increasing is the area of environmentally friendly goods and services.  Barrack Obama has done many things to encourage this popularity surge from his ideas on oil independence to electricity conservation.  The recession has taught us that less is definitely more and this old adage fits right into the environmentally friendly lifestyle.  Conservation is key and overconsumption must be avoided.  Hopefully the strength of this areas of industry can help to provide much needed jobs that have been lost in other areas.  The advancements of new eco-friendly technology could definitely create thousands and thousands of jobs.  Every cloud has a silver lining.  Perhaps that lining is green this time!

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Woo hoo!  It’s Earth Day!  It’s hard to explain to a 3 year old that one day it’s her birthday and the next day it’s Earth Day.  It makes it even more confusing because she shares her birthday with the Queen. lol

For Earth Day this year I think we’ll be picking up garbage for a while.  I really want to teach her the importance of doing your part in working towards a greener future.  Every piece of litter contributes to an overall problem of lack of respect for the planet that we live on.  If we teach our children at a young age to respect and love nature then I think that they’re more likely to carry this morals into adulthood.  To me, it’s just as important as teaching them not to smoke or do drugs.

I’m ecstatic that more and more people are recognizing the importance of raising green kids.  Organically grown cotton is now used to make more and more kids products.  Bamboo and soy ink toys are gaining in popularity.  People are learning to buy less, even if it’s only the recession that is making them do so.  Plastic bags are becoming a thing of the past.  Heck, even my redneck, way behind the times, Western Canadian city (Calgary) is finally getting curbside recycling!  There’s so much to be happy about.

In our joy though, let’s not forget all the work that still remains to be done.  Even little things like picking up litter and random dog poo at your local park can help.  Not only does it get rid of that garbage, it also makes anyone who sees you doing it (or better yet, works at it with you!) think twice about doing their part.

So get out there and enjoy the day.  I’ve got to get at it if I want to get any litter picked up before the snow hits today.  Oh, why oh why do I still live here?  Winter is a beautiful season but I wish that it wasn’t so long here.

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The time and world we are living in right now is crazy.  Everyone rushes around trying to achieve more, buy more, become more, get more, have more than others, more, more, more…  It’s no wonder that people’s physical and mental health often breaks down.  Marriages become strained, jobs are lost in a failing economy, parental roles are not being met properly and no one even dares to slow down for a minute!

The recession has made these pressures even worse.  People’s homes are being foreclosed on, jobs are being cut, spending is being cut, salaries and benefits are being cut all at the same time as any savings you have is being steadily depleted.  People are having to go back to work from retirement or put off the hope of ever retiring.  All of these things are just feeding off of each other.  Politicans tell us not to stop spending our money or the economy will become even worse.  They want us to continue spending money that we don’t have to buy things that we don’t need and our planet cannot even support!  Craziness!!!

Our ideas of overconsumption and living better than our neighbours have lead us down this path of self destruction.  Living beyond our means to buy things that we don’t need that end up polluting our planet and clogging our landfills.  Now is the opportunity to change the way things are going, at least on a personal scale.

People need to stop and think about what is truly important to them.  Does it matter if they have a brand new car even 4 years if their health is failing?  Would their money and time be better spent at a Downtown Chicago spa that will help to soothe the stress away, give yourself time on your own, time to think, be pampered and enjoy the natural benefits of massage and aroma therapy?  Do you need to live in a McMansion with four kids while your marriage, mental health and relationships with your kids crumble from stress?  A McMansion that is unsustainable on both a global and personal scale.  Or would it be better to take the time required for your relationships with your spouse, your children and yourself and let go of some of those seemingly unneccessary neccessities?  A day at the spa with just you and your spouse can give you both the perk you need while allowing you both to truly unwind, destress, and take care of your physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual needs all at the same time.

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IT Security is one of the few areas of the economy that is not being horribly effected by the global recession.  In fact, IT security salaries are actually on the rise!  So, how do you get the higher pay associated with this specialized area?

EC-Council is offering a range of specialized IT classes for professionals with a range of different needs and schedules all taught by certified, knowledgeable instructors.  They have classes in many different areas including: Security Fundamentals, Ethical Hacking, Penetration Testing, Computer Forensics
, Disaster Recovery and Secure Programming.

Security is an issue of rising importance as hackers become more and more sophisticated in their methods.  It’s not uncommon now for systems worldwide to be hacked, have everything of value stolen and all traces of the attack erased within 20 minutes!  And the problem is only growing.

That’s what makes Ethical Hacking such an up and coming area of expertise that actually borders on being cool.  Imagine that — a job that’s actually cool and interesting!  As a Certified Ethical Hacker, you’ll learn how to discover weaknesses in systems by learning how to think like hackers do.  In fact, a major part of your job will be to hack systems themselves that you are authorized to attack.  When hacking a system at the request of organization, it is legal.  This job involves creativity, out of the box thinking and independence to help protect company’s major assets.  You will pre-emptively look for areas of weakness for malicious attacks as a highly trusted and respected employee who is being actively sought out in many different areas of business.

One of the best things about this particular company offering training is that there are so many ways to become certified.  They offer a free one day look at the class to ensure that it’s something of interest and relevance to you.  You can take the classes live, online led by a qualified instructor for five full days or you can have it broken up into four hour segments twice a week.  This makes the course more available to people who are unable to take a full week off of work for training.  There’s also a new self-paced, instructor led online class that means you can finish as quickly or slowly as you’d like.  Lastly, there’s authorized training centers in select cities and conferences ongoing in IT security.  They definitely have many different training modalities for you to choose from.  So, what are you waiting for?  This one is definitely worth checking out!

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I have recently became a member of Shaklee and bought their entire line of environmentally friendly cleaners.  I’m not doing an ad for them or being sponsored by them in any way.  What I’m going to do is review what I think of their products, their service and just how effective their cleaners really are.  That way, my readers can decide whether or not to bother with them or if they should seek an alternate supplier for their cleaning supplies that are chemical free.  Consider it light investigative journalism of a sort.  I’ll be posting soon pictures of the box that I received, packing materials used and exactly what the order consisted of.  Keep your eyes peeled.  More information coming soon!

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Foreclosures are reaching record highs in some states during this global slowdown.  Some states have so many foreclosures that homes are being sold for less than $100.  Some have sold for as little as one dollar!  The recession just keeps rolling on with little hope of an end in the near future.  The question is what can you do to stop foreclosures in your state?  Foreclosurezine.com is running a series of really informative and useful articles right now.  The most recent one is stop foreclosure ohio.  I don’t know if they’ll be running through Canada’s provinces as well but I’d definitely keep an eye out.  Whatever can be done to slow this recession down while being financially and environmentally responsible should definitely be looked into!

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Eye twitches are quite common but very annoying.  There are many things that can cause you to develop an eye twitch.  High up on the list of causes is stress.  Stress can lead to all kinds of physical symptoms such as depression, insomnia and anxiety.  These symptoms of stress also tend to aggravate each other and make everything worse.  For example, insomnia can cause both depression and eye twitches.  It can get really rough to get out of the cycle.

The important thing to remember is that there are treatments available.  Make sure that you talk to your doctor if you start to develop an eye twitch.  It could be a reaction to a medication, a sign of further illness or it could be stress related.  All of these can be treated.  You don’t have to get caught up in a cycle of stressful symptoms.  There is a way out.  Sometimes the answer could be as simple as just getting more exercise or changing medications.  Don’t put off or ignore problems with your body.  It’s best just to get it over and done with!

Many naturopaths can help you seek more organic treatments for ailments such as eye twitches and depression if these things are bothering you.  Counselling, aromatherapy or accupuncture sometimes do the trick too.  If you feel that one treatment path isn’t working, you can always try another.

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