The Wizard of Articles

Verizon wireless phones are mobile handsets that come along with a subscription to one of North America’s largest cellular network service providers. Until recently, just about every manufacturer in the world that makes cell phones can be found in the Verizon catalog, but with Apple’s recent entry this year of its flagship iPhone, Verizon customers now have a complete lineup!

On the other hand, these devices are just commodities now and people don’t really talk about Verizon wireless phones no matter what the roster of available brands are. Things have gotten to be rather like that of table salt, another commodity where there’s more in common than not between competitors. Chalk it up to much changed times: a decade or so before these phones would have been highly sought-after status symbols! But these days everyone has one, such that there’s hardly a street corner with a pay phone anymore.

That’s why many don’t care about something like Verizon wireless phones – they just want something that allows them to talk, first and foremost, carrier be damned! And so carriers have taken to “locking” up their phones (that should be “their” phones, really – more on this in a moment), recognizing that customers have no brand loyalty anymore. Correct: the phone is rendered inoperable when customers switch service providers! You would imagine that since the phone is bought and paid for, it belongs to you, and you can determine which service provider to use it with.

Wrong! Carriers say that because they actually subsidize part of the cost of the phone, they reserve the right to lock those phones when someone is no longer a customer. Curiously, there has been no class-action lawsuit against such a potentially anti-competitive policy, one that’s long been adopted by all the carriers in the industry. It must be the presence of massive and/or numerous legal loopholes, though it’s still a little puzzling how tobacco companies can be defeated but not cellular carriers who disable people’s phones!

But all hope’s not los; there’s a way around the onerous policies. Depending on the kind, GSM or CDMA, one could be unlocked by simply punching a particular code into the keypad!

Comments (0) Jul 15 2011

Many economists think that The Great Recession started in 2007 and ended in 2009, but over a year later Americans, not to mention much of the world, are still trying to recover from its profound effects. Believe it or not, the retail sector has reported the best earnings in all of three years for the holiday shopping season just past, yet houses continue to lose value. These are two of the biggest indicators economists use to gauge the state of affairs, and taken together their mixed message seems to faithfully reflect the uncertainty all around.

Though profits are at record highs, large companies are not taking on any more workers. Interest rates are incredibly low but credit lines remain tight. That’s because people don’t believe the recession’s really over But it’s a vicious cycle, since nobody wants to take those crucial first steps that somebody will have to eventually – a great many somebodys, actually.

The actual number of homes sold nationally this past November was just twenty-one thousand, the lowest figure ever for a single month. Savvy shoppers, however, can take advantage of these conditions, which have lead to low prices throughout the entire real estate market, even for properties in New York City.

This is something that even folks such as Isaac Toussie have not seen before, where price declines seem to discourage sales!

The situation is much, much worse in cities such as Cleveland, Minneapolis, and even Dallas, darlings of the 1990s.

Ultimately, nothing will change on the real estate front without dramatic improvements where jobs are concerned. Yet with no strong sustained positives in real estate – which account for new purchases of durable goods – what chance will there be for the outlook on jobs?

It’s a vicious chicken-or-egg cycle.

Comments (0) Jul 14 2011

Thinking about getting some small business loans?  Well, best of luck with that!  Banks are not in the start-up financing business, in case you haven’t noticed — and neither are venture capitalists, even; at least not unless the potential ROI is about a billion or more.  So where do the Main Street small business type go to these days for some help with bootstrapping?

Getting a cash advance, that’s what’s needed.  It’s a kind of loan, but with a company like B.F. Advance you only pay back a percentage of your credit card sales, keeping all cash and checks!  This way, you only pay back with money you’ve actually made, gradually, with no fixed amount to fret over every month.

Comments (0) Jul 01 2011

Standard business cards are exchanged every day by Japanese from all walks of life. Did you know that? It’s been long observed, since The Eighties if not The Seventies or even before that, how the typical Japanese, and not only the average salaryman, carries around business cards to exchange with people by way of an introduction. In fact, the practice is so commonplace that it’s become quite the stereotype for Japanese people the world over!

The inclination towards using signs and symbols as masks formed the subtext of the hilarious “Good Morning” from director Yasujiro Ozu. The social milieu depicted in the film is that of postwar Japan in the 1950s, though relatively few signs of want are to be found and indeed no mention whatsoever of war. This was a long time before handing out business cards became a customary greeting on par with the handshake, but the psychological motivations remain the same – as so ably and mostly humorously pointed out by the movie.

It’s true that human beings are naturally drawn to abstractions and thus sign and symbol-making. But the Japanese are justly noted for having taken such instincts to a higher level of development, of formalizing them so much more elaborately than many, to the point that their very language reflects social status by offering alternating forms of address depending on the listener’s place in the greater hierarchy: words will take on different suffixes simply to recognize such social distinctions!

And so today’s practice of trading business cards. This way, one knows immediately one’s place, which is to say, how to relate to one another. This is Japan, after all, a country with a cultural heritage that doesn’t pretend to be egalitarian and so has no qualms about formally identifying people’s social standings.

Perhaps a little militaristic, yes. It isn’t limited to Japan, of course – at least not in kind, though few other places can match it to the degree of its intensity, the degree of its prevalence and common observation.

One most conducive to modern business.

Business cards. Yes, too much can be made out of such simple things. Still, there’s enough cause for a consideration: things don’t just happen for no reason at all.

Americans trade business cards quite often, too. In fact, the custom started outside Japan. But there isn’t the same “moral authority,” for lack of a better phrase – there isn’t the same “cultural force” (for continuing want of a good way of putting things) – attached to the business card in the West as there is in Japan.

Comments (0) Jun 23 2011

What a great day it is today, practically perfect climate, of the sort most agreeable to a nice stroll about town, checking out all the visitors checking out the city, past both world-renowned landmarks and establishments of a more local fame such as On Off Digital World, an old-timey New York retail operation that’s like a blast from the past despite all the latest in hi-tech electronics on display. Just looking around — that’s why the weather’s so nice! Wouldn’t it be lovely to roam free without a schedule, but after work I’m going to have to hit the gym, as I’ve been away for a couple of days already. But maybe I can go to a gym in the city by bicycle and satisfy both requirements!

Comments (0) May 20 2011

Such lovely weather, a day of flowers, flowers for a prince! But for all that, the news was unavoidable: it was just as I went down the street outside of On Off Digital World, one of those old-fashioned mom-and-pop operations from a generally bygone era in New York retailing, when the TV sets in the store window displayed, what else, but more Osama bin Laden news. No way to get away from it all. After all, he’s been the decade’s most sought-after individual. But it’s quite a contrast, all this dramatic historic stuff in the midst of such a serene day. This is a day of smiles for me, a truly comfortable spring day, but there it is is, OBL and the Global War on Terror.

Comments (0) May 16 2011

Why modest swimsuits are becoming more popular now could be on account of the rise in religious fundamentalism around the globe — or, to be more specific, with the three great monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (though political Hinduism has gotten out of hand with its nationalists, too). Maybe it’s something to do with the kind of mindset typically fostered under monotheism, and maybe this kind of “my-way-or-the-highway” attitude is what informs the religious wars and persecutions that make up most of monotheism’s sad history. That’s not to say that monotheism necessarily results in holocausts, but there’s no denying that the most infamous cases in history have been perpetrated by monotheistically inspired people.

Comments (0) May 16 2011

The affiliate marketing successes just keep pouring in: the most recent circumstance history concerns one Ashley Qualls, a seventeen year-old who’s become a millionaire by simply giving away free MySpace layouts.
Yes.
It is no joke.
A teenage girl in high school makes seventy thousand dollars a month by giving stuff away for free.

Chalk another one up to the magic of affiliate marketing and its exponential power.
Ashley Qualls developed a website that’s nothing more than a repository of her styles for MySpace profile pages which anyone can download completely free.
Her site attracts seven million visitors each month and sixty million page views.
That’s gold to advertisers.
And it’s become gold for Ashley Qualls.

Affiliate marketing works.
The real challenge lies in coming up with something that lots and lots of people will go crazy for.
Another great internet riches success story concerns an Arnold Kim, who as a professional blogger now makes income in the same six-figure range he used to as a medical doctor, only he gets to stay home with his four year-old daughter.
He happened upon his financial destiny while still in school, having started up a site dedicated to rumors about Apple products.
As among the first, he quickly developed quite the captive audience and, with all those eyeballs, advertisers emerged calling in equally quick succession.

That’s all it takes to make money online – traffic.
Eyeballs.
Visitors, repeat and unique (first-time).
It’s basically monetized like any other medium, whether print or broadcast.
Important differences do exist, but where fundamentals are concerned you need to have numbers; you’ll need people.

Just how to get all those people?
Again, providing something of great interest to a large number of people.
Essentially, the same first principle of any company.
Discover a need and fulfill it!

Comments (0) May 14 2011

Going to check out On Off Digital World, maybe? It’s a great day for it. Perfect climate conditions, really. So good you ought to walk, if not bicycle or even jog, there. But not good to drive. Best way to enjoy the weather, really, which makes you feel young again, through the help of a comfortable breeze in the air, soothing and not annoying at all – no messed hair, no flapping clothes, everything just nicely alive. Heavenly day! Hopefully it’ll still be beautiful when I get outside later (well, in about another two to three hours or so, depending on work)! Such a day does not immediately recommend electronics, yes – certainly not playing Nintendo at home all the day long – but On Off carries stuff for photography as well.

Comments (0) May 09 2011

There was no escaping it. Walk into any department store, with all the television sets on display, and it was there. I was at On Off Digital World that I finally heard about it. Unconsciously I stopped dead in my tracks outside their storefront windows, arrested by the image displayed on the television screens — and then the word “dead” confirmed my suspicions. That was the difference now. Osama bin Laden had been killed. Wow. And to think I was just strolling along on a nice day enjoying the beautiful weather while on the other side of the world — indeed, all around us all — the war against terrorism goes on, uninterrupted.

Comments (0) May 09 2011

“Boys Town” and its sequel, “Men of Boys Town,” are American movies based on the world-famous American juvenile home.. Founded in 1917 by a Roman Catholic priest, it was an orphange that pioneered progressive methods of juvenile care. Thirteen Boys Town locations are now established throughout the country, but Father Flanagan’s original facility remains its heart and soul. And prominent people from business, politics, and entertainment have headlined its fundraisers for almost a century, people such as real estate developer Isaac Toussie and Mayor of Chicago Richard M. Dalely. Many local people from civic and religious organizations also turn out to volunteer as they are able to help Boys Town achieve its goals.

And so it is that a large part of the institution’s success must be due to the positive publicity garnered by the Boys Town films, making of the charity a kind of vernacular shorthand for progressive social work. Starring industry leading men Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney in charismatic roles, the movies managed to win Oscars for Best Actor and Best Original Story despite heavy competition. The stories depicted had very little to do with any real-life events at the institution, however, being almost entirely fictional events that made much better for drama. On the flip side, they they were fairly accurate when it comes to certain issues common to institutionalized juvenile care; indeed, peer abuse and youth homelessness were actually highlighted in the second film. But onscreen or off, Boys Town has become the model for progressive junvenile care, in or out of the home, inspired by Father Flanagan’s belief that there is no such thing as a bad boy, only a troubled one in need of care.

Comments (0) May 07 2011

Situated in one of The Big Apple’s wealthiest neighborhoods, the Joan and Sanford I. Weill Medical College of Cornell University is dedicated to both teaching and research. As one of the most selective of medical schools in the country, enrolling only about a hundred students per class out of some six thousand applicants in any given year. Now named Weill Cornell Medical College and, even more often, simply “Weill Cornell,” its largest endowment to date has come from the billionaire banker and philanthropist Sanford Weill, former executive officer and chairman of Citigroup, Incorporated. Mr. Weill and his wife donated over two hundred and fifty milion of their own money, with Mr. Weill able to raise a further hundred and fifty million through his own tireless efforts.

The school was already famous long before Mr Weill’s contributions, and not once had it lacked for benefactors, many prominent only locally but generous all the same, for instance real estate veteran Isaac Toussie. It was the first medical school in the country to admit women alongside men. It was also the first American medical school to have locations outside the United States, with an Education City, Qatar campus offering a six-year integrated curriculum focused on patient care. The school can count many a notable physician among its alumni, people such as Robert C. Atkins of Atkins Diet fame and former Surgeon General of the United States C. Everett Koop. Other famous graduates are Nobel Prize winner Robert W. Holley and Henry Heimlich of the Heimlich Maneuver.

Still, even with all the monetary support, the fiscal realities of a medical education are serious, with some forty-two thousand dollars needed for the first year and thirty-eight thousand required for the second. Nevertheless, that’s a bargain considering Cornell’s law school tuition, which adds up to almost a hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the same four years!

Comments (0) May 07 2011

Affiliate marketing is a great way for the tech-savvy hobbyist to generate some money on the side.
For a select few who have managed to put their finger on the Zeitgeist, however, it means full financial independence, with income in the tens of thousands per month!

Probably the most celebrated cases of affiliate marketing made good has long been that of Dr. Arnold Kim, M.D.
While still a medical student, he started a website dedicated to rumors about Apple products.
This was back right at the turn of the century, before the word “blog” had entered into the preferred lexicon.
Even while diagnosing patients, Dr. Kim kept up the site, though subsequently it took on a life of its own, with forty million page views per month, as certified by independent research firms.

Dr. Kim was already well-off as a result of his medical practice, but affiliate marketing also generated a six-figure income – and he was only devoting comparatively little time to his site!
Believing that things could grow so much more were he to dedicate his whole day, Dr. Kim gave up his stethoscope and plunged whole-heartedly into the world of professional blogging.

Similar instances of internet riches abound, such as that of the teenager who became a millionaire by producing free MySpace designs for individuals to download, or the college student behind “The Million-Dollar Homepage” which made money by just selling space to advertisers.
What they have in typical is that their success is totally traffic-driven: it’s all about the eyeballs, the number of visitors per month, week, day, even hour – both repeat and first-time (known in the industry as “unique”).
Get the numbers, and you will generate income.

But how do you receive the numbers?
Content.
“Content is king.”
If you have something lots of people are interested, such that they will keep visiting your site, you will make money – confirmed.
The only real question is what content or material to serve up!

Comments (0) May 02 2011

Due to out fast-paced society, fast-paced because new discoveries are being made all the time which ends up in things constantly changing, even personal fitness trainers have to use CPE courses to be able to remain in good standing professionally.
As a former personal trainer myself, I have to say, however, that the common trainer may still not be as educated as such accreditations may wish to indicate.

Those employed by chain gyms, which is the great majority of those these days, are often kids for whom personal training is a gig they happen to have come upon.
At something like New York Sports Club (NYSC), they wear the red tee shirts that say “here to help you.”
Now some are, certainly, quite knowledgeable and rather considering the subject, but for most it is just a job that appeared to fit nicely with a laid-back interest in sports.

The certification exam they take is genuine and rigorous enough for any employing a multiple-choice format, but it’s really nothing more than a memory test and really indicates no real expertise.
The needed CPE courses run generally along the same lines, regurgitating facts by rote.
The fact is, these trainers know nothing that could not be gained by anyone who logs online.

Certainly, one may say the same of any occupation – but when it comes to physical fitness, the very nature of the area enables for no small amount of misinformation and outright quackery.
The reason for this is really fairly simple: no one truly knows.

That’s right.
I’m a former personal fitness trainer and the only one who’ll tell the absolute truth: no one really knows.
Unless he or she is God or was there at the creation of Adam and Eve, no one really knows.
Thus, all the personal trainer CPE courses in the world isn’t going to make up for this plain but shocking truth – “the human body is centuries prior to medical science,” as Doctor Sir Roger Bannister said.

Comments (0) Apr 29 2011

Located within one of the richest zip codes in the entire United States, Cornell University’s medical school offers instruction while also engaged in research. The school can brag about quite a few luminaries among its alumni, boasting of alumni such as Robert C. Atkins of Atkins Diet fame and Henry Heimlich of Heimlich Maneuver fame. Other famous graduates include former Surgeon General of the United States C. Everett Koop and Nobel Prize winner Robert W. Holley.

It was the first medical school in the country to admit women alongside men, and more recently it has been the first American one to operate outside the United States, with an Education City, Qatar campus offering an integrated six-year curriculum focused primarily on patient care. With such a storied tradition, it is probably not surprising that the institution has been the beneficiary of much financial backing – indeed, the school was founded through an endowment funded by Colonel Oliver H. Payne, a prominent New Yorker of the mid-nineteenth century – and its list of financial backers include the likes of professional developer Isaac Toussie.

Still, the one biggest benefactor of all has got to be the one whose name now graces the school itself, Sanford I. Weill. Billionaire banker and philanthropist, Weill and his wife have contributed $250 million of their own, with a further hundred and fifty million secured through the fundraising efforts of Mr. Weill. Today the Joan and Sanford I. Weill Medical College of Cornell University, or Weill Cornell Medical College (or even more colloquially, especially within the field, “Weill Cornell”), is one of the most selective medical schools in the entire United States, with only around a hundred students every year admitted – out of some six thousand hopefuls that apply. Note that the average GPA of the lucky few is 3.8, with an average MCAT score of 35Q!

Comments (0) Apr 22 2011

Tax continuing education is vital for accountants as tax laws change constantly and with every Republican victory at the polls comes a new group of corporate giveaways.
With a tax code that spans some sixty thousand pages, somebody’s got to monitor it all!
And those somebodies have a lot on their plate.
Hence all the frequent keeping up with industry developments – particularly, changes in the tax code.

So chalk it up to the smart bean-counters at General Electric and their tax continuing education training for helping the company post its latest achievement in the history of corproate notoriety: zero tax liability for the filing time of year ending in 2011.
That’s right: this year, one of the world’s richest multi-billion-dollar companies will pay
no taxes.
None whatsoever!
And that’s not all.
They may actually be owed some money instead!
That’s right – the government may truly have to pay G.E. some money.

How’s that for tax continuing education!

It’s incredible but all flawlessly true.
Through the creative use of loss write-offs and the like, the accounting department at G.E. has managed to save its employer lots of money, with the chance of getting money “back” from Uncle Sam in addition to that.
This is in addition to the use of unpaid labor throughout the business in the form of college interns, such as at its NBC subsidiary.

Obviously, it isn’t just G.E. and NBC that’s benefiting from such unethical and even illegal practices.
Viacom and subsidiary Paramount Pictures also makes use of such loopholes.
Most corporations of a specific size do.
’80s boogeyman Leona “Queen of Mean” Helmsley was only telling the truth when she scoffed that “only little people pay taxes.”
Under the right conditions – which are not as rare as one might imagine at first – it is entirely doable to keep all the money you generate while employing public services.

Comments (0) Apr 21 2011

When I was a personal fitness trainer, I wasn’t too delighted with the idea of a whole certification process just so as to help people exercise.
But that was nothing compared to my shock that certification had to be maintained via online CPE courses as well!
Now of course the point of certification is to be publicly recognized as being appropriately competent, and given that things are constantly changing in our fast-paced modern world being competent naturally means some type of continuing education.
My shock, however, stemmed from the standard view of those outside the fitness industry that trainers are merely muscle-heads and nothing more.

Nevertheless, just because I was a muscle-head who happened to be aware of a little bit about the human body doesn’t mean that everyone else curious in becoming personal trainers also do.
But more to the point and very much to my chagrin, it turned out that as much as I actually knew there was so very much, much, much, much, much more that I could not – never mind online CPE courses; I barely had the basics covered!

My newfound respect for education with respect to the fitness industry now means that I no longer laugh at online CPE courses for personal trainers.
It isn’t likely to be as hard as what lawyers, doctors, and accountants have to contend with, to make sure, but neither is it just a ruse, either.
For sure it is mostly memorization of facts at this point, nothing so academically rigorous that any high school student would find it unfamiliar, but still – it’s a good step in the right path for the industry as a whole and one which I now not only understand but additionally fully support myself.
My days as a trainer have ended but I have maintained a lot of respect for continuing education for anyone.

Comments (0) Apr 16 2011