What costs more in 2011?

Paying-more-for-stuff

After seeing this article and graphic on the rising cost of food in The New York Times week in review, I was curious about how prices for other stuff has changed in the past year. The Bureau of Labor Statistics provides this data monthly via Consumer Price Index (CPI).

Why they have to provide it in an equal-spaced text file over a plain CSV or a spreadsheet still confuses me, but at least they publish the data regularly, which is more than I can say for other government departments. I originally wanted to see how obesity rates have changed over the past year, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) hasn't updated obesity trend data since 2009.

In any case, price changes alone are still interesting. Relative to overall inflation (2.7 percent), transportation prices increased the most by far, at plus 9.8 percent. The cost of gasoline alone went up 27.5 percent.

Education also took a hit, going up 4.0 percent. Meanwhile, the cost of apparel and technology went down this past year by 0.6 and 1.4 percent, respectively. Having a baby? Now might be good time to buy some onesies.

How to Write a Chrome Extension in Two Easy Steps

i will show you on This tutorial how to creating a simple extension. You'll add an icon to Google Chrome that, when clicked, displays an automatically generated page. The icon and page will look something like this:

 You can create and develop extensions using any release of Google Chrome, on Windows, Mac, or Linux.


Create and load an extension

 

 First i will write an extension that adds a browser action to the toolbar of Google Chrome.

  1. Create a folder on your computer to contain your extension's code.
  2. Inside your extension's folder, create a text file called  manifest.json, and put this code in it:
    {
      "name": "My First Extension",
      "version": "1.0",
      "description": "The first extension that I made.",
      "browser_action": {
        "default_icon": "icon.png"
      },
      "permissions": [
        "http://api.flickr.com/"
      ]
    }
  3. Copy this icon to the same folder:

     

 

  1. Load the extension.
    1. Bring up the extensions management page by clicking the Tools menu
      (or the Window menu on Mac) and choosing Extensions. (If you're using version 6 or later, choose Tools > Extensions.)
    2. If Developer mode has a + by it, click the + to add developer information to the page. The + changes to a -, and more buttons and information appear.
    3. Click on Load unpacked extension button. A file dialog appears.
    4. In the file dialog, navigate to your extension's folder and click OK.

    If your extension is valid, its icon appears next to the address bar, and information about the extension appears in the extensions page, as the following screenshot shows

     

    Add code to the extension


    Second step, you'll make your extension do something besides just look good.

    1. Edit  manifest.json  to add the following line:

      ...
        "browser_action": {
          "default_icon": "icon.png",
          "popup": "popup.html"
        },
        ...
      Inside your extension's folder, create a text file called popup.html, and download this file add the  code to it
    2. Return to the extensions management page, and click the Reload button to load the new version of the extension.
    3. Click the extension's icon. A popup should appear that displays the contents of popup.html.

    It should look something like this:

     

    Source

Autoresponders and Spam – What You Need To



.
In order to be in compliance with the anti-spam laws

in various states in the US, each commercial email

that you send must include your name or business

name, your street address, city, state, zip code,

and phone number. You must also include

instructions that will allow the recipient to remove

themselves from your mailing list. If you fail to do

any of this, you are essentially breaking the law in

various states – no matter what state or country you

live in!

Protect yourself from spam complaints in any way

that you can. Make sure that when a customer

requests any type of information from you that an

email is sent requesting confirmation before any

other email is sent. If someone is placing an order

from you, include a check box on the order form,

asking for permission to send them periodic emails.

Never use your autoresponder to send unsolicited

The advantages of satellite radio

One of the great advantages of satellite radio is the fact that the programs are not interrupted by commercials. This is because the provider’s income comes from listeners and not from advertisers. Satellite radio services offer around 70 programs of commercial fee music channels each and you have a great variety of choices, from mainstream rock, hip-hop and dance music to folk music, opera, blues and many more.
Another great thing about satellite radio is the absence of static. You can be driving from the West Coast to the East Coast in the United States of America and you will not get any static at all on the way. The satellite radio signal is digital, which means that you will get crystal-clear sound wherever you go.

Satellite radio tuners receive, along with the actual radio programs, an influx of metadata that consists of information regarding song title, artist, radio program and radio channel. This means that your satellite radio receiver will display all the necessary information about what you are listening to. For instance, if you hear a great song and you want to know which artist sings it, you just look at the receiver‘s display. 
All satellite radio programs are uncensored. This is one of the reasons why artists like Howard Stern chose to move their shows on satellite radio. You can also listen to your favorite hip-hop songs without the interruption of those annoying ‘beep’ sounds.  
Satellite radio programs also offer information about local traffic and weather conditions. The information is very detailed especially for those who live in big cities. If there is a major national calamity and other terrestrial radio stations will not work, you can always count on getting accurate information from satellite radio program. You can also listen to satellite radio online on your computer.

If you still are not convinced on why you should pay money for something that you can get for free, think about how much time you have wasted listening to commercials and all kinds of other boring stuff on terrestrial radio programs. Traditional radio is not free, despite the popular belief. It is time-consuming and irritating because you have to listen to five minutes or more of commercials so that you can finally hear a song you like. The satellite radio subscriptions are very affordable and, for around 13 dollars per month, you get exactly the programs you want, which you can listen to wherever you are, at the best sound quality. 

Satellite radio is great for you especially if you travel a lot. If you are traveling across the United States of America, for example, you can listen to the channel or channels you want during your whole trip, without losing signal or getting static. If you have a traditional radio, you will have to keep changing channels every hundred miles, but if you are using satellite radio you do not have to do that because the geographically availability of programs is not a problem. Satellite radio subscribers will soon get the chance to watch video programs as well. Both Sirius and XM services have announced their intention of introducing in the near future a variety of video satellite channels that will have some of the great advantages that are currently available to satellite radio: commercial free programs, great quality of sound and vast geographical availability.

Blogging: Free Internet Marketing Method

It's been years since blogging has been practiced. But it's just recently that it has been considered as one of the addicting fads. Many teenagers have resorted to blogging as an outlet for their emotions, a little online nook where they can blurt out whatever just bugs them or whatever makes them feel elated. Savvy marketers have discovered that blogging is one of the best Internet marketing methods that won't cost you a cent.

What exactly is blogging? Blog is the widely used term that refers to web log. Basically, a blog is an online journal. A blog could be set up to no cost at all, and can be used for just for the fun of it or for business reasons.

Blogging for your Internet business is one surefire way to boost the visibility of your products and services. Here are a few ways to boost your internet advertising with the help of a blog:

1. Make your clients or customers abreast on your website's alterations. Your new products and affiliate websites could also be announced through your blog.

2. Keep track of your business objectives and plans through open writing. Your blog content can be easily stored through archives. What could be better than searchable information that could be easily accessed by anyone browsing the web, right?

3. Air your opinions, advice or reviews on specific services or products that are related to your business. Publishing is a very easy process with blogging.

4. Include links that will fetch back links and subsequently improve your ranking on search engines. This could be better executed through putting well-written articles in your website. Affiliate links could also be included in your blog to earn more extra income.

5. Collect response through the ability of blogs to fetch comments from your blog readers. You can learn and improve your products and services through with the feedback from your readers.

6. Connect easily with other bloggers. When other bloggers notice that you have something good in your blog, they will put you in their favorite lists that will automatically link you to their blogs.

So, how do you set up a blog? Here are some of the options you can make use of to take advantage of this fun way to advertise your Internet business.

Either you load a blogging software or let a blogging hosting service do it for you. Host services such as LiveJournal and Blogger.com are the most popular in this field. Those hosts will provide you with easy instructions on how to put up your blog.