Tips for the kitchen

Below is a list of tips that I have found in various places that should make your life in the kitchen a lot more efficient in both cost and energy.  Feel free to leave any others in the comment section.

• To determine whether an egg is fresh, immerse it in a pan of cool, salted water. If it sinks, it is fresh~if it rises to the surface, throw it away.
• Keep the linings from cereal boxes~they make great substitutes for waxed paper!
• To keep potatoes from budding, place an apple in the bag with the potatoes!
• Use a meat baster to “squeeze” your pancake batter onto the hot griddle~ perfect shaped pancakes every time!
• Use lifesavers candy to hold candles in place on your next birthday cake! Kids love ‘em!
• Poke an egg with a small sewing needle before hard-boiling, and the egg will peel with ease! And hold that needle in place with a magnet refrigerator clip!
• Stuff a miniature marshmallow in the bottom of a sugar cone to prevent ice cream drips!
• Zap garlic cloves in the microwave for 15 seconds and the skins slip right off!
• To prevent egg shells from cracking, add a pinch of salt to the water before hard-boiling!
• Use a pastry blender to cut ground beef into small pieces after browning!
• Sweeten whipped cream with confectioners’ sugar instead of granulated sugar~it will stay fluffy and hold it’s shape better!
• For easy “meatloaf mixing”, combine the ingredients with a potato masher!
• If you don’t have enough batter to fill all cupcake tins, pour 1 tablespoon of water into the unfilled spots…this helps preserve the life of your pans!
• To easily remove honey from a measuring spoon, first coat the spoon with nonstick cooking spray!
• Run your hands under cold water before pressing Rice Krispies treats in the pan~the marshmallow won’t stick to your fingers!
• Mash and freeze ripe bananas, in one-cup portions, for use in later baking~no wasted bananas (or you can freeze them whole, peeled, in plastic baggies)
• To quickly use that frozen juice concentrate, simply mash it with a potato masher~no need to wait for it to thaw!
• To get the most juice out of fresh lemons, bring them to room temperature and roll them under your palm against the kitchen counter before squeezing!
• Spray your tupperware with non-stick cooking spray before pouring in tomato-based sauces~no more stains!
• Transfer your jelly to a small plastic squeeze bottle~no more messy, sticky jars or knives! This also works well for homemade salad dressing!
• Save your store-bought-bread bags and ties~they make perfect storage bags for homemade bread!
• When a cake recipe calls for flouring the baking pan, use a bit of the dry cake mix instead~no white mess on the outside of the cake!
• Wrap celery in aluminum foil when putting in the refrigerator it will keep for weeks!
• When making bread, substitute non-dairy creamer for the dry milk~it works just as well! Rinse cooked, ground meat with water when draining off the fat~this helps “wash away” even more fat!
• Slicing meat when partially frozen makes it easier to get thin slices.
• Instead of throwing away bread heels or leftover cornbread, use them to make bread crumbs. For use later, store them in the freezer.
• Substitute half applesauce for the vegetable oil in your baking recipes~you’ll greatly reduce the fat content! (Example: 1/2 cup vegetable oil = 1/4 cup applesauce + 1/4 cup oil)
• To ripen avocados and bananas, enclose them in a brown paper bag with an apple for 2-3 days!
• Brush beaten egg white over pie crust before baking to yield a beautiful, glossy finish!
• In recipes calling for margarine, substitute reduced-calorie margarine to help cut back on fat! (Same goes with sour cream, milk, cheese, cream cheese, and cream soups)
• Place a slice of bread in hardened brown sugar to soften it back up!
• When boiling corn on the cob, add a pinch of sugar to help bring out the corns natural sweetness!
• Don’t throw out all that leftover wine. Freeze into ice cubes for future use in casseroles and sauces.
• If you have problem opening jars: Try using latex dishwashing gloves. They give a non-slip grip that makes opening jars easy!
• Potatoes will take food stains off your fingers. Just slice and rub raw potato on the stains and rinse with water.
• To take the tears out of chopping onions: Plug in a portable fan and turn it to high. It’ll help blow away the fumes from your eyes – no more tears!
• Don’t panic if your soup’s too salty: Add cut raw potatoes and throw them away once they are cooked and have absorbed the salt. Your soup’s saved!
• Instead of throwing away a sponge that has a stale odor, simply toss it in the dishwasher and wash it with the next load of dishes. It will come out clean and fresh smelling and will kill any bacteria in the sponge, so it’s a good idea to toss your sponges into the dishwasher often.
• Save celery leaves. Spread them out on paper towels or a paper plate and let them dry. Crumble them into soups, salads and stuffing’s. They will add an extra zippy flavor for free.
• Make giant ice cubes in muffin tins or plastic margarine bowls. These are perfect for using in picnic coolers or punch bowls. They look pretty and keep your drinks or food cold longer.
• Don’t throw those single serving gelatin plastic cups away, make your own single servings. Place the cups in a muffin holder, fill the cups and place in the refrigerator. It only takes a few minutes and no mess.
• Fruit Freshener – Use 2 vitamin C tablets in a big bowl of water…let them dissolve and stir…dunk any veggie or fruit and it will stay fresh for a couple of weeks and vitamin C won’t hurt you either! Try it out on a potato… dunk the potato and leave it out on the sink..it won’t discolor… It’s the short version of “fruit fresh “.
• Cottage cheese will remain fresher longer if you store it upside down in the refrigerator. This slows the effects of oxidation.
• To keep milk past it’s expiration date add salt. A pinch of salt in a gallon will do it. The salt slows the rate of bacteria growth.
• Brown sugar will not harden if stored in the freezer.
• If you freeze wild rice it will last 3-4 months compared to a week in the refrigerator. A good trick when you go away on vacation is to place a baggie with a few ice cubes in the freezer. If a power failure occurs while you are gone and the food thaws and then refreezes you will know about it when you get home.
• Ice cream container sealed in a plastic bag will stop ice crystals from forming when it is in the freezer.
• Potato chip bag open again and they’re all stale and yucky?? Pop them in the microwave for 30 to 60 seconds, let stand for two minutes and they’ll be crispy again.
• Regarding tomato paste, it seems a whole can of tomato paste is many times too much for some recipes. Suggestion: take a piece of waxed paper, putting it on a cookie sheet and putting teaspoonfuls of the leftover paste on the paper — another sheet on top and freeze this. When frozen just peel them off and put them in a baggie and when you need a tsp. or tbs. of paste you have it without opening a whole can and there is no waste. OR– put small amounts in an ice tray and then just pop them out when I need them.
• Quick Whipping — A teaspoonful of cold water added to the white of an egg causes it to whip more quickly while increasing the quantity.
• Moldy Fruit — What should you do with fruit with mold? Throw it away rather than simply cutting off the mold since mold on fruit goes much deeper than what appears on the fruit.
• Broccoli Stalks — Don’t discard the tough ends of broccoli stalks. Use them for making soups.
• Measuring Honey — Measuring honey with a spoon is easy but getting it all off the spoon is another matter–so first rub the spoon with margarine.
• Dropping Cookie Dough — To get cookie dough to drop without sticking dip the spoon in milk first.
• Leftover Pie Dough — Extra pie dough? Cover it with some parmesan and gruyere cheese and you’ll bake a delicious appetizer–at the very same meal with your pie as dessert.
• Easy Shelling — Pecans are easy to shell if they are first soaked in boilingwater for 10 minutes or so. Or microwave 2 cups of pecans or Brazil nuts in 1 cup of water for 5 to 6 minutes on HIGH.
• Storing Cake — If you store half and apple in the container which you are storing a cake, the cake will retain its freshness.
• Cheesy Apple Pie — Don’t just serve cheese with apple pie, bake it right in. Spread grated sharp Cheddar on the bottom of the crust before adding the apple filling.
• Sticking Cake Layers — Cake layers sticking to the bottom of the pans? Put them back in a warm oven for a short time. The layers will then come out without a problem. Or, try lining the bottom of your pans with waxed paper

$8,000 Tax Credit

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — There’s a nice windfall for some homebuyers in the economic stimulus bill awaiting President Obama’s signature on Tuesday. First-time buyers can claim a credit worth $8,000 – or 10% of the home’s value, whichever is less – on their 2008 or 2009 taxes.

A big plus is that the credit is refundable, meaning tax filers see a refund of the full $8,000 even if their total tax bill – the amount of witholding they paid during the year plus anything extra they had to pony up when they filed their returns – was less than that amount. But there has been a lot of confusion over this provision. Adam Billings of Knoxville, Tenn. wrote to CNNMoney.com asking:

“I will qualify as a first-time home buyer, and I am currently set to get a small tax refund for 2008. Does that mean if I purchased now that I would get an extra $8,000 added on top of my current refund?”

The short answer? Yes, Billings would get back the $8,000 plus what he’d overpaid. The long answer? It depends. Here are three scenarios:

Scenario 1: Your final tax liability is normally $6,000. You’ve had taxes withheld from every paycheck and at the end of the year you’ve paid Uncle Sam $6,000. Since you’ve already paid him all you owe, you get the entire $8,000 tax credit as a refund check.

Scenario 2: Your final tax liability is $6,000, but you’ve overpaid by $1,000 through your payroll witholding. Normally you would get a $1,000 refund check. In this scenario, you get $9,000, the $8,000 credit plus the $1,000 you overpaid.

Scenario 3: Your final tax liability is $6,000, but you’ve underpaid through your payroll witholding by $1,000. Normally, you would have to write the IRS a $1,000 check. This time, the first $1,000 of the tax credit pays your bill, and you get the remaining $7,000 as a refund.

To qualify for the credit, the purchase must be made between Jan. 1, 2009 and Nov. 30, 2009. Buyers may not have owned a home for the past three years to qualify as “first time” buyer. They must also live in the house for at least three years, or they will be obligated to pay back the credit.

Additionally, there are income restrictions: To qualify, buyers must make less than $75,000 for singles or $150,000 for couples. (Higher-income buyers may receive a partial credit.)

Applying for the credit will be easy – or at least as easy as doing your income taxes. Just claim it on your return. No other forms or papers have to be filed. Taxpayers who have already completed their returns can file amended returns for 2008 to claim the credit.

Lukewarm reception
The housing industry is somewhat pleased with the result because the stimulus plan improves on the current $7,500 tax credit, which was passed in July and was more of a low-interest loan than an actual credit. But the industry was also disappointed that Congress did not go even further and adopt the Senate’s proposal of a $15,000 non-refundable credit for all homebuyers.

“[The Senate version] would have done a lot more to turn around the housing market,” said Bernard Markstein, an economist and director of forecasting for the National Association of Homebuilders (NAHB). “We have a lot of reports of people who would be coming off the fence because of it.”

Even so, the $8,000 credit will bring an additional 300,000 new homebuyers into the market, according to estimates by Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors.

The credit could also create a domino effect, he said, because each first-time homebuyer sale will lead to two more trade-up transactions down the line. “I think there are many homeowners who would be trading-up but they have had no buyers for their own homes,” Yun said.

Who won’t benefit, according to Mark Goldman, a real estate lecturer at San Diego State University, are those first-time homebuyers struggling to come up with down payments. The credit does not help get them over that hurdle – they still have to close the sale before claiming the bonus.

One state, Missouri, is trying to get around that problem by creating a short-term loan on the tax credit of up to $6,750. The state would loan borrowers the money so they could use it at closing as part of the downpayment. Then, when the buyers receive their tax credit from the IRS, they pay back the state. Other states may follow with similar programs, according to NAHB’s Dietz.

Many may look at the tax credit as a discount on the home price, according to Yun. A $100,000 purchase effectively becomes a $92,000 one. That can reassure buyers apprehensive about purchasing and then watching prices continue falling, he added.

And it provides a nice nest egg for the often-difficult early years of homeownership, when unexpected repairs and expenses often crop up. Recipients could also use the money to buy new stuff for their home – a lawnmower, a rug, a sofa – and, in that way, help stimulate the economy.

Origional story found here

Rental Reductions in Manhattan

Like many hedge funds, Amber Capital spent lavishly when times were flush, pouring $8 million into its new offices on the 57th floor at 601 Lexington Avenue, the angled tower at 53rd Street known as the Citigroup Center until this year. The money bought Amber custom cabinetry with luxurious finishes and the latest in communications, ventilation and acoustical systems.

Last year, when the company’s fortunes waned, Amber put its offices on the sublease market. But prospective tenants balked at subletting space from a company with an uncertain future. If the business went under, Amber would be legally entitled to cancel the lease and the subtenant’s claim to the space could be jeopardized, resulting in a costly disruption.

Recently, a new tenant, a Brazilian company called BTG Investments, agreed to take Amber’s space. But instead of becoming a subtenant, BTG signed a lease for eight and a half years directly with the landlord, Boston Properties.

Though Manhattan office rents continued to fall in the second quarter of the year, some signs of life have emerged in the last few weeks. “The paralysis has been shaken off,” said Cynthia Wasserberger, a managing director at Jones Lang LaSalle, the national brokerage firm.

In June, for example, about 1.5 million square feet were leased, up significantly from the 980,000 square feet leased in May, according to another brokerage firm, CB Richard Ellis.

But more than ever, tenants are going to great lengths to protect themselves while taking advantage of good deals.

“There was not even a chance we were going to do a sublease with Amber,” said BTG’s broker, Brian G. Goldman, an executive managing director at Newmark Knight Frank.

Mr. Goldman would not discuss the terms of the deal, but other real estate professionals said that BTG not only got the benefit of a fashionable turnkey office, but it also negotiated a starting annual rent of $78 a square foot, with nine months of free rent — a much better deal than Amber had at $110 a foot. Amber is also said to have paid the landlord an undisclosed sum to tear up its lease. Neither Boston Properties nor Amber would comment.

Many landlords who bought or refinanced their properties at the height of the market are facing challenges in the next couple of years, so tenants are seeking legal assurances that they will not have to move if a building changes hands. And some are getting landlords to set up escrow accounts to make sure that refurbishing commitments are fulfilled, brokers say.

Despite a slight increase in new and renewed leases in the quarter that ended June 30, the proportion of space that is vacant now or will become available within a year increased to 13.1 percent, from 11.8 percent on March 31, according to Studley, a brokerage firm that represents tenants. Nearly one-third of the available space is for sublet.

For prime buildings in Midtown, the availability rate is 15.1 percent, the highest it has been since the early 1990s.

Even so, the average annual asking rent of $53.76 a square foot for Manhattan office space as a whole — 22.4 percent lower than it was a year ago — is still 50 percent higher than it was when the last real estate downturn was ending, in 2003, said Steven Coutts, who directs Studley’s national research services. “That tells me there’s definitely some way to go,” he said.

Until the last few weeks, so few leasing transactions had occurred that it was impossible to establish a reliable indication of where rents actually stood, said Ben Friedland, a senior vice president at CB Richard Ellis. The spread between what landlords were asking and what they were accepting seemed to depend on the individual deal. “Now the gap between the asking price and the taking rent is beginning to stabilize,” Mr. Friedland said.

Earlier this year, tenants and landlords were buying time, signing short-term renewals rather than standard leases, brokers and landlords say. Regardless of whether rents have reached their low point, there are strong signs that tenants are taking advantage of their bargaining power and are more willing to make long-term commitments.

“They have better clarity as to where their businesses are going,” said Steven M. Durels, director of leasing for SL Green, Manhattan’s largest office landlord. “Landlords have gotten more realistic, and tenants have realized a major price correction.”

Only a handful of the deals that closed in the last quarter involved office space of 100,000 square feet or more, and all were renewals. The Bonnier Corporation, a magazine publisher, is subletting 100,700 square feet previously occupied by the Tribune Company at 2 Park Avenue, at 33rd Street, but recently signed a direct lease with the landlord, L & L Holding. “It’s pretty consistent with what you’re seeing — where a tenant can stay in place and not have the expense of moving,” said David W. Levinson, the chief executive of L & L.

Mr. Levinson said Showtime Networks had wanted to move to an L & L property, 200 Fifth Avenue, the former International Toy Center, but decided to hang on to its 144,000 square feet at 1633 Broadway, at 50th Street, because it would have cost too much to move.

But some smaller and medium-size tenants need to move for the sake of their business. Marcum, an accounting firm with 200 employees in Manhattan, had outgrown its current Midtown offices and was on the verge of leasing larger quarters last September at 733 Third Avenue, at 45th Street, for an annual rent of $65 a square foot. Then, Lehman Brothers collapsed.

“We decided to wait a couple of months to see what would happen in the market,” said Jeffrey M. Weiner, a managing partner. In May, Marcum leased two floors at 750 Third Avenue for $50 a foot, a considerable saving, Mr. Weiner said. The company also got SL Green to agree to build its new offices.

Another tenant that has apparently worked the market to its advantage is Direct Access Partners, a small trading firm that is seeking to expand its offices while maintaining its proximity to the New York Stock Exchange and, if possible, its Wall Street address. Its current offices at 14 Wall Street have become so cramped that the company has installed work stations in the conference room, said the chairman, James B. Craig.

Mr. Craig has had his eye on 40 Wall for the last year, but said he would have spent 35 percent more had he signed a lease right away. He has yet to make a decision. “The longer I look, the cheaper the prices keep getting,” he said.

Mr. Craig’s broker, Ruth Colp-Haber, a partner at Wharton Property Advisors, said landlords were willing to provide as much as a year’s free rent and invest $80 a square foot to create new offices. “For these niche players in the financial arena, there are tremendous opportunities,” she said.

Some tenants are grabbing the chance to move to more prestigious locations. Tenants who were priced out of Midtown are finding that this is no longer the case, Ms. Wasserberger said.

Her client, InnerWorkings, a print and promotional material management company, had offices scattered among three locations in Midtown. But it wanted to consolidate its space, save some money and create an office of the same caliber as its headquarters in Chicago.

A month ago, InnerWorkings signed a lease for the 22nd floor at 1440 Broadway, at 40th Street. “We were able to accomplish our strategic goal and get everyone under the same roof,” said David Freundlich, a managing director. “And we were able to take advantage of market conditions to trade up.”

Origional story can be found here

Why does hair turn gray?

Wash away your gray? Maybe. A team of European scientists have finally solved a mystery that has perplexed humans throughout the ages: why we turn gray. Despite the notion that gray hair is a sign of wisdom, these researchers show that wisdom has nothing to do with it.

Going gray is caused by a massive build up of hydrogen peroxide due to wear and tear of our hair follicles. The peroxide winds up blocking the normal synthesis of melanin, our hair’s natural pigment.

“Not only blondes change their hair color with hydrogen peroxide,” said Gerald Weissmann, MD, Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal. “All of our hair cells make a tiny bit of hydrogen peroxide, but as we get older, this little bit becomes a lot. We bleach our hair pigment from within, and our hair turns gray and then white. This research, however, is an important first step to get at the root of the problem, so to speak.”

The researchers made this discovery by examining cell cultures of human hair follicles. They found that the build up of hydrogen peroxide was caused by a reduction of an enzyme that breaks up hydrogen peroxide into water and oxygen (catalase). They also discovered that hair follicles could not repair the damage caused by the hydrogen peroxide because of low levels of enzymes that normally serve this function (MSR A and B). Further complicating matters, the high levels of hydrogen peroxide and low levels of MSR A and B, disrupt the formation of an enzyme (tyrosinase) that leads to the production of melanin in hair follicles. Melanin is the pigment responsible for hair color, skin color, and eye color. The researchers speculate that a similar breakdown in the skin could be the root cause of vitiligo.

“As any blue-haired lady will attest, sometimes hair dyes don’t quite work as anticipated,” Weissmann added. “This study is a prime example of how basic research in biology can benefit us in ways never imagined.”

This story and others can be found here

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Speed up your computer…

One of the easiest ways to boost overall performance from your PC is to do regular hard disk maintenance. It’s not glamorous or even exciting, as a matter of fact, it’s downright boring. However it is relatively painless and easy to do. In this article, I want to discuss defragmenting your hard drive. I’ll give you a moment to finish yawning before continuing…..OK feel better now? Let’s get to it. Most PC users, even a lot of beginners, know about the defrag utility built into Windows. Some people even use it occasionally. However, judging by my experiences in the field, even those who use it fairly regularly could use a few pointers on how to get the most out of it.

First of all, what is disk fragmentation? We could get really technical and discuss file systems, cluster sizes and the like but I doubt you want to read it anymore than I want to write about it (BORING!…). You don’t really need to understand all of the technical details to understand that fragmentation can and does have a big impact on overall computer performance. I should explain however, that of all the major components of your computer, the hard drive is far and away the slowest. Knowing this, it should make sense that anything we can do to help this “weak link” with performance will improve the the overall computing experience.

Without going into a lot of detail, I’ll start with a brief explanation of how a hard drive works and what causes data fragmentation. Ready? Here goes: The hard drive has a series of platters that contain all of the stored data on your PC (including the operating system, programs and all of your personal data). These platters rotate at a high rate of speed and as they rotate, a mechanical read/write head moves along the surface of the platters and… well, reads and writes data. Your data is stored on this disk in clusters. A single file usually consists of many of these clusters. Over time as you use the computer these clusters get scattered all over the drive and as a result, the files contained in the clusters become fragmented. The reason that this negatively affects performance is that when the read head looks for a particular file, it can find that information much faster and more efficiently if the clusters containing that file are in contiguous order as opposed to being scattered all over the drive. Think of it this way: If you have a stack of money in various bill denominations, how much faster and more efficiently could you count it if the bills are grouped according to denomination and placed in descending (contiguous) order! The process of defragmentation finds these scattered clusters of data and puts them back in order so that the read head can find them faster.

Now that you are familiar with that concept, let’s get going with the defrag. For those of you who aren’t familiar, the windows defrag utility is located under ‘Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools’. When you start the application, the user interface is pretty straightforward. You just select the drive that you want to defragment and click the button that says “Defragment”. If you don’t do any more than this, you’ll go a long way toward improving the responsiveness of your computer. However, there are a couple major limitations in the defrag utility that can easily be overcome if you know what to do. Here are a couple of tricks you can use to really get the most out of the defrag process.

Temporarily remove the pagefile. Windows uses a section of the hard disk as virtual memory to help speed up performance of the PC. This virtual memory space is known as the paging file or swap file. Windows uses this reserved space to move frequently accessed data into and out of as you work (or play) on your computer. Because this space is reserved as system file space, the defrag utility cannot defragment this section of the disk. This reserved space can be quite large and will become very fragmented over time and since this is the first area of the disk that is accessed by the system when requesting data, it goes without saying that it’s counterproductive for this file to be highly fragmented. So to get this file back in order you have to delete it. (?!) Don’t worry, you are not going to delete anything important and it’s only temporary. Here’s how to do it:

First, save all work and close all open windows. Once you have done this, go to ‘Start > Control Panel(Classic View) > System’. Select the ‘Advanced’ tab and click on the ‘Settings’ button under ‘Performance’. Again, select the ‘Advanced’ tab and under ‘Virtual memory’ click the ‘Change’ button. Click the radio button that says “No paging file” and click the ‘Set’ button. Now close each dialog box by clicking ‘OK’ on each one. You’ll get a message stating that the changes require the computer to be restarted. Click ‘OK’ and restart the PC. When the computer reboots it may seem a little sluggish, but that’s OK because when you’re finished with the defrag, you will restore the swap file and it will be one big contiguous file. That’s a VERY good thing!

Now, before you run the defrag utility, there is one more thing you can do to help optimize the defragmenting process. If your PC has hibernation enabled (it is by default), it uses a file called hiberfil.sys to store the current state of your PC before it “goes to sleep”. This file is then restored when the computer “wakes up” so that it is in the exact same state it was in before hibernating. The whole hibernation thing is a long story and the subject of another article, so for now just understand that hiberfil.sys is a very large file that becomes fragmented over time and because it is designated as reserved system space, can’t be defragmented. So again, the solution is to remove the file. Windows doesn’t need hiberfil.sys to run properly. It is only necessary if you want your computer to have the ability to hibernate when left unattended, so restoring hiberfil.sys is completely optional after you defragment the hard drive. To delete hiberfil.sys, right click any open area on the desktop and choose ‘properties’. Select the ‘Screen Saver’ tab and click the button toward the bottom labeled “Power”. When the ‘Power Options’ dialog box opens, select the ‘Hibernate’ tab. Remove the check from the box that says “Enable hibernation”. The hiberfil.sys file will automatically be deleted.

Now that you have removed these two rather large and uncooperative files run the defrag utility as described above. This time the ENTIRE hard drive will be defragmented! See now, that wasn’t so bad. After windows finishes defragging the disk, don’t forget to re-enable the paging file. Navigate to the virtual memory dialog as described above and this time click the radio button that says “System managed size”. Click ‘Set’ and close all the dialog boxes. Optionally, you can re-enable hibernation also, but it’s not necessary unless you use the hibernate feature.

Well there you have it! A completely defragmented and optimized hard drive and it didn’t cost you a dime. After following this procedure, you’ll definitely notice that your PC has a little more “spring in it’s step”. I certainly hope this article has been useful to you. If it has, be sure to visit my website at http://www.odessacomputerguy.com and while you’re there sign up for my newsletter. It’s free and full of useful tips and tricks you can use to get the most out of your PC.

Skype 4.0

For me, Skype is the best thing since sliced bread the cell phone!  As some of you may know, I am a brit, living in New York.  My parents are currently on their life travels and are currently in Cambodia, my sisiter Rachael lives in New Zealand with her Kiwi husband and two children, my brother Anthony is currently backpacking in Australia (www.TrailOfAnts.com), the only one of us left in the UK is my other sister Natalie, which makes for tough times when it comes to communicating with everyone.   Nowadays (even in remote areas of Cambodia), my family can find a computer and connect to me via Skype.  What makes internet calling so great is that it is mostly free, and even if you call a cell phone in another country, the cost is pennies as opposed to dollars (depending on how long you are connected), and these days, that helps a lot.

Seeing your Niece and Nephew on the webcam is also a major plus, Christmas 08′ I got to watch my Neice and Nephew open their presents all the way over in New Zealand…. awesome. 

You can download Skype for free by clicking on the banner below.  You can sign up for a free account where you can call anywhere in the world to anyone of your friends or family that has also downloaded Skype to their home computer, or, as I have also done, to my Nokia E71 cell phone.

 

Give your partner a goodnight kiss when they’re working away from home.  Check in with your family wherever you’re travelling to let them know you’re safe and well. Pick up your weekly call to your mom and this time, remember to ask for her knockout cheesecake recipe.

Bigger video
Feel like you’re talking face-to-face with great sound and picture. Fill your screen with the faces you love.

Best-ever sound
Calls are crystal clear and even more reliable. Plus our ’smart help’ picks up any sound issues and helps you fix them during a call.

Juggle conversations
Pick up and switch between conversations. Organize everything in one main screen or choose separate windows for each conversation.

Main features
Free Skype-to-Skype calls.  Call phones and mobiles, send SMS.  Free instant messaging.Voicemail.  Free video call.  Forward calls to a phone when you’re offline.

Skype-to-Skype calls, video calls and instant messaging are free, any time of the day or night, anywhere in the world.  Call phones and mobiles and send SMS messages at great value Pay As You Go rates, or call unlimited* to certain countries with a subscriptions.

I had no idea!!!

Life changes so fast sometimes.  One minute the earth is flat, then it’s not.  One minute the Elvis dies, the next, he’s alive and well and works in a diner flipping burgers.  One minute Bill Gates is the richest man in the world, the next he’s not.  So many changes, I just cant keep up.  So I’ll write them down with hopes that it’ll keep you all up to date.

Bill Gates is no longer the richest man in the world.  He’s the third!!  See here

GM is no longer the largest seller of automobiles in the world.  Toyoto is.  On top of this, Toyota is no longer the man in charge.  It’s his Grandson Toyoda!!).  See here

Scientists have discovered that it may be possible to charge things wirelessly.  See here

OK, please bare with me, this list will grow.  Add any strange but true comments below.

Sales advice from a stripper

Like you, I like strippers.  However, I generally find myself leaving the strip club with an empty wallet. Any business that can get you to spend all of your money is a good one to be in. But while walking out of a club one evening, I realized that a big reason they have such a good business is because strippers are such great salespeople. It is not simply due to the fact that they are selling to stupid, horny men like myself, but because they use a lot of highly effective sales and marketing techniques.

You too can achieve great success by applying sales and marketing techniques of strippers.

Here are the 10 sales and marketing techniques I have learned from strippers:

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Clover Field (Boerum Hill, Brooklyn)

Note to me:  Check out this new bar!!

Back when most of Brooklyn was still farmland, a group of Philadelphia bluebloods, scribblers and general men-about-town formed one of the original exclusive booze clubs, bound together by a favorite spot, a single cocktail and a name: The Clover Club. 

You may be a few years late, but the scene is starting up again just in time—minus the frock coats and mustache wax, that is. Welcome to Clover Club, a Victorian Gothic-style cocktail spot opening tonight in Brooklyn.

The mastermind behind the spot is Julie Reiner, who also brought you the Flatiron Lounge, so be grateful. This time around, the cocktails are even older, including the house cocktail The Clover Club (Plymouth gin, dry vermouth, lemon juice and housemade raspberry syrup) and old-school punches served in antique bowls big enough for eight—meaning you can plunk down at a leather booth and engage your whole entourage in some communal high society punch-bowl boozing.

The front bar space sets the mood with paneled mahogany walls and turn-of-the-century chandeliers, but if you’re looking for the real prize, ask the hostess to take you behind the velvet curtain in back. There, you’ll find a private parlor with its own bar, some refurbished Victorian couches and a direct line to fried oysters and caviar deviled eggs coming out of the kitchen.

When caviar’s involved, a direct line is always appreciated.

This great article, and others, can be found at www.UrbanDaddy.com

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