CMUThought Community Thought

If you have ever wanted to purchase something nice for your or your family for the holidays then you may want to consider a spa. These can be a great investment in your health and well being and something that can be used for the entire family. The upkeep for most spas are realtively simple and only require occasional treatments and changing of the spa filters. They can be used year round and provide some health benefits if you have a nagging back problem, or play sports and need to just soak after a big game. I remember having one growing up and it was great to be able to come after soccer practice or a game and just relax.

The video game market is a billion dollar industry. This market just continues to grow and the games are getting more advanced as the years go by. Does anyone remember Pong? Now that was the game back in the day and we use to play that for hours as kids. Pong was the best thing in town; until Pac Man came along. Now Pac Man was the bomb and that still remains one of the most played video games of all time. Ms. Pac Man was a little bit better than the original Pac Man, but it’s all called Pac Man when the subject is brought up. I remember a couple of local restaurants that had Pac Man and I would love going to those places as a kid. The song “Pac Man Fever” was a perfect song for the time. The line that says “I’m headed to the arcade with a pocket full of quarters” was so true. Every time I would see a quarter as a kid, I would think to myself “that’s enough for a game of Pac Man”.The arcade style games are now starting to become more popular as parents of the kids are wanting to join in on the fun.

Video games have come a long ways since the Pong and Pac Man days. Playstation, Microsoft, and Nintendo have brought 100’s of new games to the homes of kids and adults all over the world. I think the adults like the games better than the kids do sometimes. The Playstation 3 has created a unique following but has not sold as many systems as the Wii and the Xbox 360. They are now promoting their new sale price in preparation for what should be a good Christmas for the gamin world. With all the major game makers lowering the cost to the consumer of the consoles in the past month this may be a signal that there are new updated systems on their way. This should certainly help out the game makers as they rely on the robust sale of gaming units in order to sell their games like the classic “Pac Man” remade for high definition.

I still enjoy playing some of the video games myself. I like a good baseball video game or one of the hunting video games you can play these days. Who knows what tomorrow will hold for the video gaming industry, but it looks like it’s here to stay for awhile. We can also enjoy the latest video games on our computers now and this is only going to increase the number of video gamers out there. Who could ever imagine that interacting with our television screens could be so popular?

We are all trying to find the new and latest ways to get better search engine rankings. There are a lot of things you can do to help your website get a better search engine ranking . Simply having traffic to your website will help. Using traffic exchanges and emails can help bring visitors to your site. Then you need to insert a good meta tag, that will have a lot of good keywords, so when people type in the keywords into search engines they will find you. Then you have the best way of all, to get you moving up the search engines. That is simply having links from your site on other people’s websites.

You can find a lot of ways to help you get links on other websites. Using link building services is a good way to start. Customer Magnetism was recently voted as the #1 Best Link Popularity Service by Promotion World and the winner of the Organic Optimization category by Top SEOs. Getting with a company like this can dramatically improve your webiste’s listing on the search engines. Get someone to help you with your SEO (search engine optimization) so that you can get better rankings, and that means more traffic right there!

Protecting your computer on the internet is an everyday job. There are so many different viruses, Trojans, hijackers, and things trying to get in our computers to cause it harm. In most cases, it’s nothing that will actually damage your computer. It will just make your computer slow down, or crash more frequently. McAfee is one of the leading companies that has software and solutions to help you protect your computers and networks.

Now if you have noticed that your computer isn’t running as fast as it use to be. Then there’s a good chance that spyware is on your computer. Spyware removers can be found at many places. Internet Security Software is a booming business. There’s so many people out there that have no anti-virus protection for their computers. They are just left in the open, waiting on an attack by some hijacker or trojan out there. Getting some protection for your computer is almost a must these days. It’s practically impossible now, to surf the internet with no sypware or virus protection on your computer. If you are one of those people that doesn’t have any form of protection on your computer.  You can do searches on the search engines, to help find reviews on different products and find multiple options on sale. See if you see any that having raving reviews about them. You will probably have to spend a little money for a good one. It’s a small price to pay, for having some extra security on your computer.

So you started a company or business and now you have started to generate a profit for your self. Where do you go from here? Hopefully up and depending on what type of business you’re actually in, can determine the different ways to move forward. The important thing for all companies is not to rest or slow down on the accomplishments and strides you have made so far. Keep charging ahead and don’t let any days pass by, without trying to move your company to that next level.

Getting the most out of your employees is the key to any successful business. Taking the time to check employee performance evaluations and learning new ways to keep them motivated will go a long ways to moving your company to that next level. It’s important that you let each employee know what your company does, what you expect from them and how their work provides a valuable part to the company’s success. When an employee knows the service or product they are helping to make successful, gives them a chance to follow along in the company’s success and helps them to understand what needs to be done each and every day. Make sure that all your employees know if they make the sacrifices today of helping the company move to the next level, that you will be rewarding them tomorrow. It’s the relationship between the boss and the worker that determines the faith of most businesses. Make sure they understand you and you understand them and there’s no telling where you might go next, when team work is on your side!

In today’s digital world more and more people are relying on their PC to be their safety deposit box. I was just looking at our hard drive and was astonished at the amount of valuable data and pictures that we have stored on our PC’s. I store all of my backup databases from several of our blogs and other sites. I do try and backup to DVD’s when I think about it which is not that often. Combined total I have estimated the files, programs, and information to cost about $10K to replace. We are protected with the latest virus software and firewalls but not much can protect against a hard drive failure and this is the where the data is stored. Having an alternate backup to host my valuable information is in my plans. Plus, storing this information off my PC and hosted remotely will give more access when I am on the road and need to access certain files on my main PC.

Now with solutions like the Fantom G-Force 1 TB external hard drive you can save thousands of photos and videos. Creating a  backup is easier than you think and the new larger external drives can be found on sale for under $100 which makes your total investment worth the price. Don’t rely on someone else to backup your digital photos, movies, music and more. With the Fantom’s automated feature you can schedule the time and date to have your files securely and safely backed up. Don’t let an unexpected disaster wipe out memories and potentially valuable data, backup in as little as five minutes and secure your own piece of mind.

There are several places you can look for a free message board, or discussion board. Adding one of these to your existing websites, is a good tool for keeping people interested in your promotions. GoBoardz Free Forums is an excellent place to start a new message board at. It is free, and they don’t put a lot of useless interface with their boards. In most cases, people don’t use the extra interface anyways, so if you’re looking for a good, simple message board. Then GoBoardsz would be a solid choice in starting your own message board up.

I have started a few message boards up myself. It’s fun when you are the admin on one of these message boards. You get to add in all the topics, and control any users that might not be using your message board in a civil manner. Now using one of these as a promotional tool is just one advantage. You can start one up just for fun and personal use. Maybe starting one up about your local sports team. You could choose a professional sport, or maybe the high school that is in your area. Your favorite tv show is another good start to a message board. I’m sure there are many people that already have an American Idol discussion board. The subjects are endless, on what you could discuss, if you had your own message board. Just check out GoBoardz to see if they meet your needs for a free discussion board.

We attended my wifes class reunion this past summer and it is amazing after 20 years to see how much people have changed from their high school days. They did the usual meet and greet and golf outing on a Saturday and the evening dinner. What was different is that they provided a digital cd of a high school slide show that was created during their senior year where everyone turned in 35mm slides of their best memories of high school. They were able to take and convert these old slides to a digital format and preserve them digitally and then put them to some of the hits of the 1980’s. While they had them done at a local print/camera shop for about $2 each there are devices available for those at home or looking to preserve those memories like the VuPoint film and digital converter. For just pennies you can now conveniently convert your 35mm slides to a digital format to share or store. I am thinking that this would be a great gift for those who have friends and family that are still holding onto those 35mm slides and want to be able to view them on their computer or laptop and not have to break out the projector anytime they want to see Uncle Mel dressed up as a Santa Claus.

For those that are looking to save some money while putting on their class reunion you can find these 35mm digital slide converters on sale at online retailers like buy.com for under $50.00. This is a great investment not only for class reunions but for those family reunions where you are looking to created DVD’s and want the ability to take your old family photos and create a slide show that will help preserve your memories.

It’s fun to go to the various stores and shop for electronics. I think we all like shopping in the electronics department. There is so many things that can catch our eyes in the electronic sections of department stores. The technology of gadgets has increased so much over the last few years. They are probably changing faster than you can get to the department stores to shop for them. There is a better way to keep up with the latest technology to come out. It’s by shopping for electronics online. It’s easy to do it this way, and any day through the week when you get off of work, you can check on the latest technology toys that are out there. So shopping on the internet makes a lot of sense, and can save us time too.

Abt Electronics has been doing electronics since 1936. They haven’t been online since then, because I don’t think they sold too many computers back in 1936. The important thing is that they are online now and have anything in electronics that you might want. A very big selection to choose from, if your looking for televisions, dvd players, portable satellite radio, digital cameras, printers, radar detectors, or even audio for your boat. They will have it at Abt Electronics.

Many people today are turned off by telemarketers by the simple fact that they call during dinner or some other bad time. Businesses have been using Telemarketing lists for years and the results must still be good as they are continuously sold and updated. The problem with most lists is that they are resold over and over and by the time that most companies get a hold of them they are outdated. Some businesses in the marketing arena are experimenting with generating newer more on demand lists to add more value to the companies that are actually using the data. They can use this data to help with order fulfillment once the contact is made and the product is sold reducing the number of steps it takes to complete the sale. Thus helping to reduce time and increase their customer base.

If you are looking for something different for your wife or girlfriend this holiday then you may want to check out tenthousandvillages.com where they are a Fair Trade retailer which means many of the items that they sell benefit those countries where they are made. They have hundreds of gifts for her that are handmade in their respective countries and provide unique items for that special someone. The concept of Fair Trade has been gaining more attention as more and more retailers and online vendors are participating in offering their handmade items to their customers. This is a sign that corporations are trying to give back to those countries from which they have business units and one of the more notable ones is Starbucks with their offering and promoting of Fair Trade coffees to their customers.

It is amazing to think how far computer memory and flash drives have come over the last two years. I still have one of my first thumb drives that held about 8 MB which was pretty impressive when I first received it. It was used mainly for transporting powerpoint presentations and other word documents back and forth to the office and on the road when I was traveling. Now with all the multimedia files and graphics that we use on a day to day basis having a USB flash drive like the Kingston 32GB data traveler is like having another computer with you. You can use it to store videos, important files, and documents and with it’s security enabled features you can feel safe that if lost your data will not be accessible by just anyone.
They are now on sale at buy.com for an incredible price of only $64 with free shipping. This would make a great Christmas gift if you were looking to send photos and videos to the family by being able to copy over the files and then have them played on their laptop or PC. Instead of opting for the digital photo frame imagine your parents or grandparents being to play the videos of their kids wherever they had a computer. The USB flash drive has taken on more of a useful day to day function outside of the work place because they are so portable and easy to use. For most users you just drag and drop the files you need onto the flash drive without the need for special software so they can be shared from PC to PC.

Wireless connectivity has become so common that you see wi-fi signs in almost every restaurant and shop that you visit. With so many places offering internet connectivity having a secure and high band width modem like the Netgear Rangemax dual-band 3700 is becoming more of the standard. This is because these newer modems offer a higher throughput with multiple layers of security to help both home based wireless connections as well small business application. With the current rise of mobile broadband and the authority of a few large wireless companies, the word dongle has become synonymous with mobile broadband modems.

Simply stated, mobile broadband dongles are portable modems that plug into your laptop or desktop computer’s USB port to provide mobile Internet access over a 3G network. Dongles are popular with users who want the accessibility of being able to access the Internet where ever there is a mobile phone network. Dongles offer great flexibility and increased broadband range for Internet use on the go. These laptop accessories can help you gain access to mobile broadband access as well stay connected while you are at home or on the road. We have recently upgraded our home router to a dual band Netgear router and the coverage and speeds have been awesome. You can now find these high end wireless routers on sale at buy.com where they are currently offering shipping and costing under $160.00. It was just a few short months ago that these newer high end routers were tipping the price point at $200 plus. If you are seriously considering upgrading your home or small business connection then would recommend looking at the dual-band models to provide future growth and backwards compatibility.

The college football season is in full swing and there have been some major upsets that have changed the BSC rankings on a weekly basis. Now we are starting to get into homecoming weeks where some of the top teams have scheduled a lower opponent in hopes to provide a victory for the Alumni. The men will put on their tuxedo and the women will get into their formal dresses to participate in the weekend long functions that make up college homecoming. There is nothing like the atmosphere on a college campus as the school prepares for a football game during homecoming week.