Monday, April 26, 2010

The Bright Energy Saving Idea - Conserve Energy, Save Money

If all life were a movie, it would be all energy. But with gas and electricity prices moving on up, that same energy is better saved prudently than spent unwisely. In the same way, it pays to think of life as a movie that has to be kept within budget. That means every energy saving idea has to be used, whether it has to do with one's home, office, or equipment.

The best scenes are played out at the best locations, whether at home or in the office. A bright, energy saving idea would be to either scout for a good location, or fashion the one you have to fit your energy needs.

More than half the energy used for heating or cooling a space is lost because of wrong insulation. To keep your home or office warm through the winter, provide walls and windows with the proper insulating materials. Open all drapes and blinds on south-facing windows during the winter's daylight hours, but close them at night to keep the heat in.

During the balmy days of summer, install a fan in your attic to move hot air out of the house. This fan is another bright energy saving idea: you can change the direction of airflow in winter, so that warm air is pushed toward the floor, heating your space.

Any energy saving idea works best inside and outside of your home or office. A well-kept garden can keep your place looking fresh and clean. Plant grasses, flowers, and shrubs that are well-adapted or native to your area, and which will not require extra watering during the summer, or extra maintenance during off-seasons. If possible, plant trees, such as evergreens, to shade your home or office building, and to protect it from winds.

Much money and energy are spent on moving from one location to the next. It would help if you could either create incentives that would encourage staff to live close to the office, or relocate your business near a place where majority of your employees live. Keeping your workplace energy-efficient is an energy saving idea all its own - but bringing it closer to those who use it might be a better energy saving idea in the long run.

A location will not work without the proper costumes and, as in the movies, clothes not only give insight into a character, but into the character's environment as well.

The first bright energy saving idea would be to get the costumes washed. Clothes come out clean whether they're rinsed in cold or warm water - so to save on your water-heating bill, wash in cold rather than in warm, and warm rather than in hot water. Experiments have shown that you can use up to 50% less energy on washing with the heater off.

If you can't be there to watch your costumes dry, a good energy saving idea (though not necessarily money saving) would be to purchase a dryer with a motion sensor. This will allow the appliance to shut off automatically when the load is dry. Another energy saving idea would be to wash and dry clothes only when you have a full load. However, don't overload your dryer, since clothes dry faster when they have room enough to bounce around.

The best energy saving idea, however, is to wear the right clothing. During warm or hot weather, wear comfortable, light-colored, light clothing instead of heavy business suits to work. This not only helps reduce air-conditioning needs - it saves on your laundry load as well.

The scene is ready, the participants are clothed - but with no good energy saving idea in store, everything will remain dark. Lighting is important in both home and office, and it's proper lighting, more than the amount of light, that can best save energy.

If sunlight through the windows will do, shut your lights off and work in the sunbeams. Replace incandescent floodlight bulbs with compact fluorescent lamps. The latter can save you up to 15% on your lighting bill, and are brighter than ordinary bulbs. If you have more lights than you need, the best energy saving idea would be to remove them, and to keep the ones that you have clean. Grease, dirt, and dust reduce your lights' output and increase the energy they need to function.

The technique may be hard on the pocket, but energy is best saved when lighting is used only at the appropriate times. To ensure that this happens, install automatic room-lighting controls. These respond to the amount of available natural light, as well as to the number of occupants in a room. They can also be programmed to shut off lights at the end of the day, leading to your biggest energy savings yet.

Computers take up a big bulk of an office's electricity load. Another good energy saving idea would be to make sure that computers are turned off while they are not in use. Laptops also use up to 80-90% less energy than desktop computers, and smaller monitors use up less energy than larger ones. Smaller machines take up smaller energy, and though not quite a money saving idea yet, making the switch to compact computers is a good energy saving idea.

Energy saved is a chance for more scenes to be played out. That means that every energy saving idea has to be used, so that all locations, costumes, and lighting will always lead to action!

(c) 2006 All Rights Reserved. Tracy Linville This article may be freely distributed as long as this Resource Box stays intact. http://MyHomeEnergySavings.com/blog



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Friday, April 23, 2010

Dog Health - What is the Single, Most Important Thing You Can Do to Keep It?

It seems that dog health is on the decline. Depending on the breed, dogs can live to 20 years or more. Today, you're lucky if they reach eight.

Why is this?

Years ago, dogs were fed table scraps, kitchen scraps and homemade food, as commercial pet food hadn't been invented. The table scraps were more healthy then, as junk food didn't abound.

Years ago, it was rare to take a dog to a veterinarian. Vets, as doctors, were only visited when deemed absolutely necessary.

And yet, still dogs lived longer.

Could there be a connection between dog health today and their diet?

In my opinion, the answer to that is a resounding YES!

As with most people, I'm sure you're blissfully unaware of what goes into making your own food, let alone that of your dogs. When people are asked if they know, the frequent answer is "I don't want to know".

Obviously you suspect the worst.

But why don't you want to know?

Is it because you're caught out not knowing, so fear looking stupid?

I can understand that.

Or perhaps the knowledge of what goes into dog food is too revolting to consider. If this is the case, don't you think your dog might agree with you? Maybe he thinks it's revolting too, but if he doesn't eat it, he fears he may not be offered an alternative. Even revolting food will keep you alive.

Well, now you have the chance of finding out what really goes into pet food, so next time someone accosts you in the street, you can answer with confidence. Not only that, you can change the diet of your dog to something he will love and that will keep him in peak condition, to boot.

There's a saying 'garbage in, garbage out'. Dog health IS dog food, by the very nature of its frequent consumption.

The pet food industry remains more or less unregulated in all countries. The little regulation there is, is poorly policed. It would require too much funding, which tends to be spent on human needs.

So the industry gets away with whatever it wants.

Low quality meat (called meat by-products) is the start of the slippery slope. While dogs can eat some low quality food (hair, beaks, feathers, intestines and contents, fat), they can't survive on it. They need some good quality to maintain health.

Euthanized animals may be rejected by a more ethical company, but may be eagerly snapped up by those who are less so. The lethal injection forms part of the resulting food. Can this be contributing to poor dog health?

To bulk out the food, to make it more profitable, a filler is added. This can be whatever is available cheaply. It might be melamine. It might be sugar. It may be sawdust.

All pet food is cooked under high temperatures and pressures. This kills off enzymes, vitamins and other nutrients that are essential for good dog health.

To redress this shortfall, nutrients are added. But these are normally the synthetic ones as they're the cheapest. Synthetic nutrients are not easily absorbed by the body. As most of them are also isolated, they are of little value. Dog health is all about getting complex nutrients in a complete and natural form, which are easily absorbed.

To give the resulting dog 'food' a long shelf life (which is good for business, but not for dog health), toxic preservatives are used, preservatives that would never be allowed in human food because of their highly poisonous nature. Poisons such as ethoxyquin and formalin.

Don't be fooled by packets which maintain they use 'natural' preservatives, or are even preservative free. Ask yourself this - can meat be kept indefinitely at room temperature, without the use of preservatives?

It's down to you to be vigilant in the quality of your dog's food. To maintain good health, you need to be in control, which means you need to know the worst. Putting your head in the sand isn't going to keep your dog healthy.

If you liked this article, then I invite you to sign up for my free, weekly ezine on how to improve your health and that of your family, including pets, naturally. Included is a complementary ebook on how to have a healthy dog, starting today. Visit http://www.naturallyhealthydogs.com


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Thursday, April 22, 2010

Examining 5 Kitchen Design Styles

As you are planning your new kitchen design, the look and style you select is very important in determining the overall feel your kitchen will portray.

From the country charm of wood cabinets to modern-looking stainless steel appliances, kitchen design styles come in many choices and styles.

So just what determines your kitchen's design style?

Well many of the more successful kitchen design styles are made up of many components go together the right way. The color you select, and the styles of fabrics, furniture, flooring, windows, cabinetry, appliances, and lighting can help to determine a kitchen design style. You will discover that various design elements of the kitchen provide each style with its own unique flavor.

The type of kitchen cabinets you have are an important consideration in regards to the overall kitchen design style. The cabinetry can have a powerful effect on the design of your kitchen.

The style of kitchen cabinet you choose will give personality and a specific atmosphere to your kitchen.
Some of the popular styles of kitchen cabinets today are:

English Country - Consists of open china display racks, unique paints and finishes.

Shaker - This style is characterized by purity, simplicity, and utility. Uses flat panel doors that are inset and flush with the cabinet frame. Other features include wood counter tops, wooden knobs, and brass hardware pieces. It combines simple furniture design with clear crisp lines, and strength.

Country - This style creates an old farm kitchen look with glazes and layered finishes. Includes open shelves, pot racks for cast iron cookware, butcher block, and multi-colored cabinet pieces that look like they are separate pieces of furniture.

French Country - There are so many elements that go into the French country kitchen including the use of large pieces of furniture that are made mainly of light colored woods and can be decorated with ornate carving. Natural materials are an important element in walls, cabinetry and furniture that is used in the design of French country kitchens.

Arts and Crafts - This kitchen design style is becoming a popular style for kitchens. In this type of style glass doors and natural wood tones with a matte sheen are used. The style can be eclectic and artistic.

Contemporary - Kitchens that are done in the contemporary kitchen design style often use plastic laminates, special wood veneers, enamels, lacquers, or metal foil laminate for the kitchen cabinet facings. Cabinet doors in this kitchen design style usually use frameless construction with overlay door and no toe kick panel.

Homes can come in many different styles, and built using a variety of materials. So the same goes for kitchen design styles. However, in most cases, people will want their kitchen to match the overall design and style of their home.

It may not be absolutely necessary to select a kitchen design style that is the same as your home's exterior architectural style. Although it is considered a good idea that you should really try to select the kitchen design style that will best complement your home's style.




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Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Common Hearing Aid Myths

MYTH: Hearing aids will cure hearing loss or restore a hearing impaired individual’s hearing to normal.

TRUTH: No hearing aid will ever allow a hearing impaired individual to have normal hearing. A hearing aid just cannot provide what the ear and its intricate working of nerves can. What it can do is amplify sounds so that those wearing them can benefit from and enjoy a wide variety of listening situations. Hearing better helps one to respond appropriately thus improving communication skills.

MYTH: Hearing aids will resolve all of a hearing impaired individual’s communication difficulties.

TRUTH: This is impossible, although hearing aids go a long way in helping a hearing impaired individual with their communication skills. Hearing aid wearers often still have problems following conversations when background noise is present or in noisy public settings, thus inhibiting their ability to communicate effectively in those situations.

MYTH: Hearing aids will destroy residual hearing.

TRUTH: Since hearing aids are prescribed according to an individual wearer’s specific hearing loss, it would be a rare occurrence for a hearing aid to cause further damage to a person’s hearing. There are several things a hearing impaired individual can do to further reduce the possibility of damage caused by hearing aids. They must be well maintained, worn correctly and well fitted.

MYTH: Smaller hearing aids have better technology.

TRUTH: Both larger hearing aids and smaller ones are equipped with cutting edge technology. The two most common types of hearing aids are behind the ear (BTE) and completely in the canal (CIC) hearing aids. Whether or not an individual will be able to wear a hearing aid that is nearly invisible to a casual observer, depends on the type of hearing impairment they have. The hearing aid that is most appropriate for one person’s degree of impairment or listening needs, may not necessarily be best suited to another person.

MYTH: Hearing aids are not absolutely necessary for relatively minor hearing losses.

TRUTH: It is not advisable to put off obtaining hearing aids until hearing loss becomes a bigger problem. Over time the risk of permanent sound distortion increases. In this case, even when hearing aids amplify the volume of the spoken word it can still sound garbled.

MYTH: Hearing aids will not be effective for some types of hearing losses.

TRUTH: Generations ago people with certain types of hearing losses, such as high frequency, were told there was little or no help out there for them. With advances in hearing aid technology this is no longer true. Hearing aids are now effective for at least 95 % of hearing impaired individuals.

MYTH: Babies can’t be fitted with hearing aids.

TRUTH: Actually infants as young as a month old can be fitted with hearing aids. With the increase in hearing tests for at risk newborns, hearing impairments are being detected earlier then ever and the world of hearing aid research and technology is doing its best to keep pace.

MYTH: It doesn’t matter where hearing aids are purchased.

TRUTH: While buying hearing aids through mail order or off the internet may be less expensive, it is not necessarily advisable. By purchasing through these venues, a hearing aid consumer may be giving up the quality of care they will get by working with an audiologist. This includes things such as a qualified hearing evaluation, professional recommendations as to the most appropriate type of hearing aid, expert instruction regarding proper hearing aid usage, follow up care, etc.


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Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Euromillions Lottery Agency


The EuroMillions lottery agency was started in 2004 and is operated by Camelot from the UK, also lottery operators in France, Belgium, Austria, Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland.

Combining the forces of the government backed UK National lottery, Spanish lottery and French lottery. The EuroMillions lottery agency is the biggest, tax free, lottery in Europe and now, it doesn't matter where you live in the world, you can play the EuroMillions lottery. Players must be at least eighteen years old in order to play the EuroMillions lottery.

Millions

At first glance the EuroMillions lottery appears to be a complicated lotto game to play, but this isn't the case. One of the safest and easiest ways to play the EuroMillions lottery is to join a well managed and reputable lottery agency syndicate. The lucky dip or quick pick option allows the user to play EuroMillions lottery without having to fill out a play slip. Odds of winning any prize, as low as 1 in 13 in the UK Lotto and 1 in 10 in Euro Millions.

Draw

The EuroMillions lottery agency draw is a combination draw where 5 balls are drawn from 50, PLUS 2 balls are drawn from 9 termed "Lucky Stars". Each drawing takes place on Friday evenings and if there is no EuroMillions lottery jackpot winner, the jackpot amount rolls over to the next drawing increasing the amount of the new lottery jackpot.

Your overall odds of winning a "cash" prize when playing the EuroMillions lottery, when playing by yourself are 1:24. The newer multiple country EuroMillions lottery agency is now the richest and largest lottery agency of it's kind in the world today and pays out lump sum cash prizes and tax free. Get your EuroMillions Lottery Agency tickets online, the next EuroMillions drawing is coming up soon, so don't let your chance to become the next EuroMillions winner slip away.





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Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Adult Personals Review - How to Choose the Best Personals Site

There are dozens of good adult dating sites. It would be impossible to name the best of the bunch. Instead, by an adult personals review, this short article will teach you how to spot the best adult dating sites for yourself. This is handy knowledge to have. It can also mean the difference between paying for dating and getting it for free.

So what makes a good adult dating site?

Well, a dating site is no good without members. And a good dating site will have not only millions of members but thousands in your own town or city. When you look at a dating site for the first time just check to see how many members are online; this is a good gage of popularity and whether or not you will be able to find someone local.

Some adult personals are free, some are paid and some are paid but offer a free account. Which is best? Simple. Like your life depended on it, avoid the free sites and the entirely paid sites. Why? The free sites are, on the whole, scams setup to steal your identity or spam you with various paid offers (such as live cams). The entirely paid sites are also a scam; they make you pay before giving you a chance to see if anyone lives near to you. When you join the paid site, you are more often than not disappointed and have to go through the hassle of getting your money back. The best solution is a popular, trustworthy, well-known dating site that offers free access.

What should you get with a free access membership to a top adult dating site? You should be able to send and receive emails, view member-profiles, add friends, search users in your town or city and upload photos or videos. They should not ask you for a credit card. When you join it should be a simple matter of entering an email and making a profile. The entire joining process should take about 2 minutes, no more. If you get all of these features you can then use the dating site as you would a free dating site, but without the hassle of spam.

If you do upgrade your account, what should you expect? You want instant messaging; live cam chat with other members and models; more advanced searching; bigger upload limits for photos and videos; better placement of your profile in searches, getting you more views; advanced match-making software that finds people on your behalf; adult movies and images; text (SMS) and phone access. These are the standard features you receive upon upgrading your account from free to paid.

So the next time you go looking for an adult personals site, keep in mind this adult personals review. Avoid the totally free sites and only join a paid dating site if it offers the benefits we have listed for free accounts.

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Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Benefits of Working In a Data Center


As the Internet continues to grow and produce large amounts of traffic the need for data centers and data center management increases. This continued growth creates data center jobs and IT careers in the technology field. Data Centers not only provide large hubs for Internet traffic, but it also completes the network infrastructure of most mid-large size companies. Data centers usually house thousands of computers, servers, and technical components. This in itself tells why it is a tremendous benefit to working within a data center. Just the amount of knowledge you can gain while on the job is rewarding enough. Having a data center job puts you on the bleeding edge of technology and hi-tech equipment. By working in a data center you will naturally be more advance than your peers who work in different industries experienced in technology.

Data center jobs consist of many different job types which fall under information technology, such as: system administration, network administration, IT security, computer operations, help desk support, server administration, pc repair, engineering, and so much more. If you ever been to school for a computer-related field or you always had an interest to work with computers then working in a data center should have been at the top of your list. Though, most do not consider data center jobs when looking for a job in the information technology field. This is mainly because data center jobs are merely overlooked. Most individuals consider working for a company or corporation in an industry other than data centers, mainly in a company like where they previously worked, before being technically inclined. Gaining a data center job is exactly why you went to school or aligned yourself within the technology field of work.

Data centers are inhabited with individuals who are fairly intelligent, usually skilled professionals with an educational background. The benefit of surrounding yourself with knowledgeable individuals is that it enhances your own technical aptitude and empowers your keen technical sense. Another benefit to working in a data center is many times the operations are around the clock (24/7), which means you may have the option of being flexible and working flex schedules, at your leisure. The biggest benefit of working in a data center is “stability”. The fact being that so many operations, calculations, and transactions depend solely on data centers - society cannot afford to lose data centers. Data centers will always be around and continue to thrive, so this means data center jobs will never fall short. Even in the wake of economic hardships, data centers still did not take a plunge or lose its clarity. If you are reading this article right now, then more than likely at some point a data center involvement allowed me to deliver this article to you. Data center jobs are for life!



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