AboutOne (beta)

Families of any size need a way to centralize and back up their most important information, such as medical histories, deeds to major purchases, and priceless photos. AboutOne (free) is an online hub where you can upload files, jot down important information about your loved ones, and otherwise manage all the paperwork and data that's associated with running a household.

AboutOne Use
AboutOne is simple to use and has decent search functionality, which is crucial for a service of this type. Unfortunately, it doesn't contain enough built-in suggestions for how to use it or reasons to log in often. Other online family organizers (Doxo comes to mind) encourage you to use the service by aggressively steering you toward different areas of the site every time you log in. Doxo can also link with utility providers and other billed services, much as Mint.com connects with financial accounts and paid services, giving you more reason to log in frequently. With AboutOne, on the other hand, it's easy to forget you have an account, because there's no compelling reason to visit the site?until a disaster strikes.

Set Up and Features
Signing up for an account takes little more than entering an email address, creating a password, and setting up a few additional security login measures. Once you have an account, AboutOne begins by having you enter information about your family, including pets. You can fill in details such as birthday, sex, blood type, and social security number.

Aside from entering information about family members, you can also add contacts and inventory your possessions. The contacts manager lets you import other address books as well, such as those stored in Facebook and Google.

Two other key features, a family calendar and centralized place for documents, show up as icons on the site but aren't available as of this writing (the site is technically still in beta). I should hope that by the time the site is launched in full, documents integrate neatly with possessions. If I were to list a vehicle that I own, I would also want to attach directly to it documentation for the license, registration, insurance, and any warranties associated with it, rather than stick that paperwork in a separate area.

Beta? You Betchya
AboutOne remains in beta, and having had a deeper look at its functionality and lack of finish, it's clear that it is. AboutOne understands the need to centralize important family information, but hasn't quite figured out the best way to do so yet. What's holding the service back at the moment is a compelling reason for users to return and continually update their information. It needs a hook, like Doxo's integration with services and bill pay, to keep people coming back.

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/XZ72JMinVE0/0,2817,2406508,00.asp

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HBT: McCutchen leads Pirates in everything

No, really, everything.

Andrew McCutchen leads the Pirates in average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, home runs, runs batted in, runs scored, walks (tied with Neil Walker), doubles, triples and stolen bases.

Root Sports Pittsburgh points out that he?s the first player to lead a team in all of those categories this late into the season since the Astros? Jose Cruz in 1984.

With a .342/.397/.586 line, McCutchen currently ranks sixth in the NL in OPS. He?s a big reason the Pirates are just two games back of the Reds in the NL Central, and he?d have to be in the top five in NL MVP balloting at the moment. Personally, I?d probably put him third behind Joey Votto and R.A. Dickey.

There is one word of warning here, though: McCutchen also appeared to be in the midst of a breakthrough season at this time last year, only to disappoint in the second half. He?s performing better now than he was then, but he needs to keep it going for a full year to truly establish himself as a superstar.

Source: http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/06/28/andrew-mccutchen-leads-the-pirates-in-everything/related/

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D-backs' Hill hits for second cycle of season

Arizona Diamondbacks' Aaron Hill, left, slides into third base for a triple as Milwaukee Brewers' Aramis Ramirez (16) looks on during the sixth inning of a baseball game on Friday, June 29, 2012, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps)

Arizona Diamondbacks' Aaron Hill, left, slides into third base for a triple as Milwaukee Brewers' Aramis Ramirez (16) looks on during the sixth inning of a baseball game on Friday, June 29, 2012, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps)

Arizona Diamondbacks' Aaron Hill hits a triple against the Milwaukee Brewers during the sixth inning of a baseball game on Friday, June 29, 2012, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps)

Milwaukee Brewers starting pitcher Randy Wolf, left, looks down as Arizona Diamondbacks' Aaron Hill, right, rounds third base after hitting a two-run home run during the third inning of a baseball game on Friday, June 29, 2012, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps)

MILWAUKEE (AP) ? Aaron Hill has hit for his second cycle of the season Friday night against the Milwaukee Brewers, becoming the second major league player since 1900 to accomplish the feat twice in the same year.

The Arizona Diamondbacks' second baseman also singled, doubled, tripled and homered on June 18 against Seattle.

Brooklyn's Babe Herman had two cycles in 1931, according to STATS LLC.

On Friday night, Hill doubled for his 1,000th hit in the first and then singled in the third. He hit his 11th home run of the season, a two-run shot in the fourth. All the hits came off Milwaukee starter Randy Wolf.

Hill tripled in the sixth inning off Livan Hernandez to complete the cycle.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2012-06-29-Diamondbacks-Hill-Cycle/id-7cc4008753ff4bfe9ed052ddeb1bcd61

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Chrome comes to iOS with browser sync, new interface

15 hrs.

Devin Coldewey

Google announced Thursday at its I/O developer conference in San Francisco that its?popular Chrome browser was coming to iOS devices. It has just gone live in Apple's App Store and we've gotten a chance to test out its capabilities.

The general look and feel will be familiar to anyone who has used the desktop version of the browser: the tabs are on top, with the URL bar below and the usual navigation buttons to either side. A menu button on the right brings up handy options not found in Safari, the iPad's default browser.

You can create Incognito tabs for anonymous browsing, switch to the desktop version of the site if you've been served a mobile one, and of course edit your settings.You can also search for?text on the page you're looking at, which is extremely useful. Touching the URL selects the whole thing, too; no need to hunt around for the little "x" to erase it before typing in a new one.

There's also an "Other Devices" option that loads up current and recent tabs on any other device you own that's signed into Chrome. As you can see in this screenshot, it is detecting both my Mac and the Chromebook I was using last week. Opening a new tab can go either to this screen, your bookmarks (also synced), or frequently visited sites.

You can open as many tabs as you want, and navigating through them is accomplished by swiping your finger from the side of the screen, which hops between tabs, showing a black-and-white preview of tabs that may have changed since you last looked. It's handy when you have more than four or five tabs open and don't know which is the one you're trying to find.?On the iPhone, the tabs are spread out like cards and you sort of shuffle through them.

Chrome isn't as full-featured as other browsers in the sharing department: the only option at the moment is to email the current page. No Facebook, Twitter, or anything else. There is also no way to install extensions like ad-blockers, interface customizations?and add-on services. A Google representative said the company has no further details to share at this time, but it's likely that making extensions available for a platform like iOS is difficult when they're designed with the desktop in mind.

Web?pages look identical to Safari, probably because they use the same engine to render them?? a restriction Apple places on browsers on iOS. And unfortunately, you can't set Chrome as your default browser?? again, Apple won't let that happen. But for day-to-day browsing, Chrome appears to be a stronger candidate than Safari, especially if you're already using it on other devices.

You can download Chrome for free from the App Store here.

Devin Coldewey is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. His personal website is?coldewey.cc.

Source: http://www.gadgetbox.msnbc.msn.com/technology/gadgetbox/chrome-comes-ios-browser-sync-new-interface-852273

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Source: http://twitter.com/bashirgwakh/statuses/218582216576475136

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U.S. Preventive Medicine Announces Health & Fitness App and ...

Jacksonville, FL and Dallas, TX (PRWEB) June 26, 2012

U.S. Preventive Medicine, Inc., the leader in preventive medicine, announced today that Macaw from The Prevention Plan, its mobile health and fitness app, has integrated with the market leading all day fitness tracker, the Fitbit Ultra Wireless Tracker. This convergence of technology coincides with the two companies presence at Qualcomms Uplinq 2012 mobile developers conference.

Macaw is a full-featured app that assesses an individuals health risks and will serve as a hub to track health metrics and activity, as well as integrate information from other health and fitness apps, lab results and wireless devices.

The Fitibit Ultra was selected to be among the first to seamlessly integrate with the Macaw app. The Fitbit Ultra is the market leading digital health and fitness device, which tracks steps taken, distance travelled, flights of stairs climbed, calories burned and sleep. Using a 3-D motion sensor, the Fitbit Ultra Wireless Tracker captures the users activity throughout the day and then wirelessly uploads to their Fitbit account through their computer; no button needs to be pushed, no device needs to be plugged in. The Tracker is small, roughly the size of a USB drive, so it can be discreetly worn all day on the belt, in the pocket or clipped to an under garment.

For members of U.S. Preventive Medicines The Prevention Plan, Macaw will also integrate this data between the mobile app and the Plans online health management platform using technology and services provided by Qualcomm Life Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated. Macaw can be downloaded for free on the iPhone and Android devices.

The two-day Uplinq conference, being held in San Diego, will provide software developers a cross-platform view of how to exploit the complete hardware-software systems in todays leading mobile devices, while fostering the business connections essential to making money in mobile.

U.S. Preventive Medicines Director of Mobile Solutions, Jason Fey, will participate on a panel of industry experts and discuss the secret behind successful, disruptive mobile health and wellness apps on Wednesday, June 27, 2012, at 2:30 pm PT. Macaw was named Top App by industry experts and consumers at the recent Mobile Apps Showdown, a competition held in conjunction with the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and was the 2012 winner of CTIAs Emerging Technology Awards in the Mobile Applications: Health, Wellness and Fitness category.

We are excited to be on the cutting edge of mobile health and to be sharing our experience in this space with leading technology developers like Qualcomm Life and Fitbit, said Jason Fey, director of mobile solutions at U.S. Preventive Medicine. By bringing together tools like Macaw and the Fitbit tracker, we are helping people take control of their health in new and more engaging ways.

About U.S. Preventive Medicine

U.S. Preventive Medicine is leading a global preventive health movement focused on saving lives and money by keeping people healthy and better managing chronic conditions before they progress. Innovative productsThe Prevention Plan web-based health management platform and Macaw mobile health & fitness appare based on the clinical science of preventive medicine: primary (wellness and health promotion to keep healthy people healthy), secondary (screening for earlier detection/diagnosis) and tertiary (early evidence-based treatment to reduce complications and disability). The company is accredited in wellness and health promotion by NCQA (the National Committee for Quality Assurance) and disease management by URAC. More information can be found on Facebook, Twitter (@USPM) and YouTube.

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Arizona law hurts Hispanic citizens (CNN)

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Air Force Reserve wants an app for basic training

8 hrs.

InnovationNewsDaily Staff

Military recruits have marched off to boot camp with nothing more than their families' well-wishes in the past, but today's warriors could get a little help from their smartphones. The U.S. Air Force Reserve has drawn up a wish list for a smartphone app that can help recruits adjust to basic training and military life.

The dream app combines nutrition and exercise features that even civilian smartphone owners might envy. One app feature would count calories based on photos of food taken by the phone. Another would map a recruit's runs based on their smartphone GPS. A third feature would even provide a digital assistant similar to the Apple iPhone's Siri that can talk fitness encouragement to trainees.

But the app ideas list also has plenty of military-centric features based on learning military law, chain of command or individual responsibilities as an Air Force Reserve member. Even suggested games have themes, including "Name the Military Tune" or "Weapons Familiarization" for the U.S. military's standard-issue M-16 assault rifle ? not to mention games for learning rank, chain of command, military law, and Air Force history.

Such games would combine with possible social networking features that include basic profile information (including gender, base of assignment and ship date) and help bring people together for carpooling or to cooperate in fitness challenges. The Air Force Reserve envisions the app allowing up to 4,000 users at a time accessing the Internet through smartphone, netbook, tablet or computer.

The Air Force Reserve put out the call for interested smartphone app-makers in a "request for information" notice on June 13 with an original deadline of June 26 for any interested app-makers. But it has already extended the contact due date to July 6 because of "significant interest and questions."

Follow InnovationNewsDaily on Twitter @News_Innovation, or on Facebook.

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Gifts for Dads: A Political Wish List

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Clues to nervous system evolution found in nerve-less sponge

ScienceDaily (June 18, 2012) ? UC Santa Barbara scientists turned to the simple sponge to find clues about the evolution of the complex nervous system and found that, but for a mechanism that coordinates the expression of genes that lead to the formation of neural synapses, sponges and the rest of the animal world may not be so distant after all. Their findings, titled "Functionalization of a protosynaptic gene expression network," are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"If you're interested in finding the truly ancient origins of the nervous system itself, we know where to look," said Kenneth Kosik, Harriman Professor of Neuroscience Research in the Department of Molecular, Cellular & Developmental Biology, and co-director of UCSB's Neuroscience Research Institute.

That place, said Kosik, is the evolutionary period of time when virtually the rest of the animal kingdom branched off from a common ancestor it shared with sponges, the oldest known animal group with living representatives. Something must have happened to spur the evolution of the nervous system, a characteristic shared by creatures as simple as jellyfish and hydra to complex humans, according to Kosik.

A previous sequencing of the genome of the Amphimedon queenslandica -- a sponge that lives in Australia's Great Barrier Reef -- showed that it contained the same genes that lead to the formation of synapses, the highly specialized characteristic component of the nervous system that sends chemical and electrical signals between cells. Synapses are like microprocessors, said Kosik explaining that they carry out many sophisticated functions: They send and receive signals, and they also change behaviors with interaction -- a property called "plasticity."

"Specifically, we were hoping to understand why the marine sponge, despite having almost all the genes necessary to build a neuronal synapse, does not have any neurons at all," said the paper's first author, UCSB postdoctoral researcher Cecilia Conaco, from the UCSB Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology (MCDB) and Neuroscience Research Institute (NRI). "In the bigger scheme of things, we were hoping to gain an understanding of the various factors that contribute to the evolution of these complex cellular machines."

This time the scientists, including Danielle Bassett, from the Department of Physics and the Sage Center for the Study of the Mind, and Hongjun Zhou and Mary Luz Arcila, from NRI and MCDB, examined the sponge's RNA (ribonucleic acid), a macromolecule that controls gene expression. They followed the activity of the genes that encode for the proteins in a synapse throughout the different stages of the sponge's development.

"We found a lot of them turning on and off, as if they were doing something," said Kosik. However, compared to the same genes in other animals, which are expressed in unison, suggesting a coordinated effort to make a synapse, the ones in sponges were not coordinated.

"It was as if the synapse gene network was not wired together yet," said Kosik. The critical step in the evolution of the nervous system as we know it, he said, was not the invention of a gene that created the synapse, but the regulation of preexisting genes that were somehow coordinated to express simultaneously, a mechanism that took hold in the rest of the animal kingdom.

The work isn't over, said Kosik. Plans for future research include a deeper look at some of the steps that lead to the formation of the synapse; and a study of the changes in nervous systems after they began to evolve.

"Is the human brain just a lot more of the same stuff, or has it changed in a qualitative way?" he asked.

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U.S. deserter in Sweden steps forward after 28 years

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Tracking MRSA in real time

Thursday, June 14, 2012

In a new study released today in New England Journal of Medicine, researchers demonstrate that whole genome sequencing can provide clinically relevant data on bacterial transmission within a timescale that can influence infection control and patient management.

Scientists from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, University of Cambridge, and Illumina collaborated to use whole genome sequencing to identify which isolates of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) were part of a hospital outbreak.

Current laboratory techniques often cannot distinguish between MRSA isolates. This study indicates that whole genome sequencing can provide precise information in a fast turnaround time, and could make a clear distinction between MRSA isolates in a way that was not previously possible.

MRSA infection is a major public health problem. For example, in the United States, an estimated 89,785 invasive MRSA infections associated with 15,249 deaths occurred in 2008. Even when the disease is treated, MRSA infections double the average length of hospital stay and increase healthcare costs. Fast and accurate detection of bacterial transmission is crucial to better control of healthcare-associated infection.

"An important limitation of current infection control methodology is that the available bacterial typing methods cannot distinguish between different strains of MRSA," explains Professor Sharon Peacock, lead author from the University of Cambridge and clinical specialist at the Health Protection Agency. "The purpose of our study was to see if whole genome sequencing of MRSA could be used to distinguish between related strains at a genome level, and if this would inform and guide outbreak investigations."

The team focused on an outbreak in a neonatal intensive care unit that had already ended. They took the samples and sequenced them as if they had been working in real time. They found they could distinguish between strains that were part of the outbreak and strains that were not, and showed that they could have identified the outbreak earlier than current clinical testing, potentially shortening the outbreak.

"This study demonstrates how advances in whole genome sequencing can provide essential information to help combat hospital outbreaks in clinically relevant turnaround times," says Dr Geoffrey Smith, co-lead author and Senior Director of Research at Illumina. "As sequencing has become increasingly accurate and comprehensive, it can be used to answer a wide range of questions. Not only could we distinguish different MRSA strains in the hospital, we were also able to rapidly characterise antibiotic resistance and toxin genes present in the clinical isolates."

The team constructed a list of all the MRSA genes that cause antibiotic resistance. Rapidly identifying drug resistance in MRSA strains will guide healthcare professionals to give each infected patient the most appropriate treatment possible. This also provides a powerful tool for the discovery of new drug resistance mechanisms.

MRSA produces numerous unique toxins that can inflict severe clinical syndromes, including septic shock, pneumonia, and complicated skin and soft tissue infections. The team created a list of toxin genes to rapidly identify those present in the MRSA strains, which currently can only be identified with multiple assays in reference laboratories.

"Distinguishing between strains is important for infection control management," says Dr Julian Parkhill, lead author from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. "Quick action is essential to control a suspected outbreak, but it is of equal importance to identify unrelated strains to prevent unnecessary ward closures and other disruptive control measures. Healthcare needs better, more efficient ways of identifying an outbreak and then processing the data."

"Current clinical methods to make links between related strains compare the pattern of bacterial susceptibility to a profile of antibiotics. We found this method to be inaccurate. We showed that two MRSA strains, which seemed by current methods to be identical, were genetically very different."

The use of whole genome sequencing will ultimately become part of routine health care. This study indicates that whole genome sequencing in real time will be valuable in controlling MRSA and other outbreaks in a hospital setting.

"The next stage is to develop interactive tools that provide automated interpretation of genome sequence and provide clinically meaningful information to healthcare workers, a necessary advance before this can be rolled out into clinical practice," adds Professor Peacock.

###

Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute: http://www.sanger.ac.uk

Thanks to Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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TNT's "Dallas" debut a gusher with 6.9 million viewers

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Several reportedly shot near Ala.'s Auburn U.

Mourners walk out of a housing complex at the scene of an overnight shooting, Sunday, June 10, 2012, in Auburn, Ala. Auburn Police Chief Tommy Dawson said authorities responded during the night to a report of multiple gunshot victims at the apartment complex, but he released no immediate information early Sunday. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Mourners walk out of a housing complex at the scene of an overnight shooting, Sunday, June 10, 2012, in Auburn, Ala. Auburn Police Chief Tommy Dawson said authorities responded during the night to a report of multiple gunshot victims at the apartment complex, but he released no immediate information early Sunday. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

A man, at left, is greeted by an investigator inside a housing complex at the scene of a shooting, Sunday, June 10, 2012, in Auburn, Ala. Auburn Police Chief Tommy Dawson said authorities responded during the night to a report of multiple gunshot victims at the apartment complex, but he released no immediate information as the building dawned Sunday cordoned in yellow tape. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Mourners walk out of a housing complex at the scene of an overnight shooting, Sunday, June 10, 2012, in Auburn, Ala. Auburn Police Chief Tommy Dawson said authorities responded during the night to a report of multiple gunshot victims at the apartment complex, but he released no immediate information early Sunday. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

An investigator uses a metal detector to search for evidence at the scene of an overnight shooting at an apartment complex Sunday, June 10, 2012, in Auburn, Ala. Auburn Police Chief Tommy Dawson said authorities responded during the night to a report of multiple gunshot victims at the apartment complex, but he released no immediate information early Sunday. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

A police officer stands guard at the scene of an overnight shooting at an apartment complex Sunday, June 10, 2012, in Auburn, Ala. Auburn Police Chief Tommy Dawson said authorities responded during the night to a report of multiple gunshot victims at the apartment complex, but he released no immediate information early Sunday. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

AUBURN, Ala. (AP) ? Several people were shot at an apartment complex near Auburn University in Alabama when a fight broke out during a pool party, authorities and a witness said.

Auburn Police Chief Tommy Dawson told the Opelika-Auburn News that police were called Saturday night. He did not say who was shot or discuss their conditions.

Turquorius Vines, 23, said he was at the pool party Saturday evening at the University Heights apartments with one of his friends. He said he and his friend were approached by two other men who started arguing with them over a woman.

Vines said he punched one of the men, while his friend hit both of the men over the head with a bottle. Either one or both of the two men then started shooting, he said. He said his friend was shot and killed, while two others also were hit by gunfire. Vines said he had never before seen the men who he had been arguing with.

"It's like I lost a lung," Vines said of his friend. "I don't know how I'm going to survive this."

Several emergency vehicles had converged overnight around the University Heights apartment complex where reports indicated a number of students who attend Auburn University typically reside. The building was swathed in yellow police tape.

It appeared that the shooting happened in an archway near the apartment complex information center, near the edge of the parking lot. Five uniformed officers guarded the area, which was sealed off with crime scene tape, and a handful of crime scene investigators were at work.

After daybreak Sunday, several uniformed officers stood near a disaster relief trailer parked at the building's entrance, which appeared to be a sort of command center. Some bystanders milled about, looking on at the scene.

An Auburn police dispatcher contacted by The Associated Press said early Sunday she had no immediate information. Police did not immediately return repeated telephone messages seeking comment. Local coroner's officials also said they had no immediate comment.

Auburn University campus police said they had no information and referred calls to city police.

Vasha Hunt, a photographer with the Opelika-Auburn News, was at the apartment complex hours earlier and told the AP by telephone before dawn that authorities had set up a white tent there where there was a lot of activity. He said police kept a number of bystanders back for hours away from the scene.

Hunt said at least some of those who initially gathered outside appeared to be residents waiting for permission to enter their apartments.

Associated Press

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Tips for Negotiating in China - China Business Connect

China is the fastest growing economy in the world and the second biggest economy in the world after US.

China?s burgeoning economic prowess makes it a lucrative country for trade and consequently, businesses around the world are endeavoring to cement economic ties with this economic behemoth. In China, business deals are made or broken on the whims of the negotiation styles of the businessmen or business delegations. Far too many businesses have failed to take advantage of the lucrative opportunities which China offers, owing to the lack of proper understanding of how to negotiate with the Chinese. In this article, we will address this issue and highlight some of the proven techniques to successfully negotiate with the Chinese.

In order to understand the underlying principles behind some of the techniques which are going to be highlighted later, we need to first understand the cultural patterns of the Chinese people. The Chinese culture is in stark contrast to the American and the European cultures where individuality, egalitarianism, quick meetings, informality, direct information exchange, aggression, short term business relationships and impatience are the important traits of the society. Conversely, negotiating with the Chinese people require an approach which fosters collectivism, holistic thinking, long term business relationships, formality, indirect information exchange, endurance, long meetings and social capital. Due to these basic differences, negotiating with the Chinese businesses can be an uphill task for businessmen if they do not conform to these cultural traits.

Now that we have discussed the basic underlying cultural patterns and differences, let us highlight some ways which can be instrumental in successfully negotiating with the Chinese. One of the foremost things to remember while negotiating with the Chinese is to pay attention to GUANXI, which refers to one?s social connections in the society or the social capital. The Chinese pay close attention to their friends and close associations. They remember favors and return them. Thus it is important to pay attention to this element while negotiating with the Chinese and create deep associations with them in the first place.

Secondly, it is very important to have an intermediary if you expect to strike a business deal with your Chinese counterparts. It is rare for the Chinese to open up to strangers. Thus, it is important to have someone, from among their own ranks, as an intermediary to convene the negotiation process, bridge the differences and build trust between the parties.
Moreover, it is imperative that you establish interpersonal harmony with the Chinese through multiple home visits, dinners, souvenirs etc. The Chinese do not rush into business deals like the Westerners before completely trusting their counterparts. Thus it is of extreme importance to build trust with the Chinese people.

Another thing to remember is to think in a holistic manner, the Chinese always think about the bigger picture and consider all the aspects of any negotiation process. So expect the negotiation process to take a long time to complete.

Then, there is the trait of displaying thrift. The Chinese expect concessions from both the sides sitting on the negotiation table so you can expect a lot of haggling while negotiating with the Chinese.

One of the most important things to remember is that the Chinese prize their social standing and as such can go to extreme lengths to save face, thus if you insult them, even unintentionally, or renege on your commitment, this would be tantamount to a disaster while negotiating with the Chinese.
Lastly, the Chinese display endurance in their negotiations. Consequently you should prepare yourself to reciprocate this endurance and be prepared for lengthy, multiple meetings where loads of questions would be thrown at you. Make sure that you do your research thoroughly and answer their questions in a satisfactory manner.

If you are looking forward to meet your Chinese counterparts for the sake of a business meeting, or for any other social event, make sure you keep these points in mind in order to have a fruitful time at the negotiating table with the Chinese people.

What are you think about it? Please ?leave a response in comment?.

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Are we killing off the cover letter? - Fortune Management

By Denis Wilson

FORTUNE -- In theory, the cover letter is a great idea. It's intended to be a direct line of communication to the people who make hiring decisions. And if it's actually read, it can build rapport with recruiters, set you apart from other candidates, and add context to your application. But that's a big "if."

Increasingly, employers aren't even giving a first glance to cover letters that applicants submit. In 2009, Phil Rosenberg, president of reCareered, an online hub for job search advice, surveyed over 2,000 hiring managers, HR reps, and recruiters working in different industries and found that, more often than not, cover letters don't come into play. "I found 90% ignored them and 97% made a decision whether to interview or not based only on the resume."

So who or what is at fault for the demise of the cover letter? Any why are so many employers requiring it if they don't even read them? It comes down to a combination of changes in technology, human behavior, and the job market in general.

How we got here

In the 1990s, employers and recruiting firms started building relationships with early job boards, such as Monster and Careerbuilder. At this time, the job boards and the applicant tracking systems (ATS) that companies and recruiting firms use internally were integrated and the level of automation and default options were set up. This job was primarily handled by IT departments, not recruiters or HR, says Rosenberg, who was a manager at staffing firm Robert Half in the mid-2000s. "There were default options. And one of those default options was to ask for cover letters. So every ad my company ran asked for cover letters but, strangely, my recruiters didn't get them."

MORE:?When your office is like a reality TV show

Rosenberg noticed that his colleagues in the recruiting field were experiencing this too. He found the problem was that in most cases the ATS and other internal HR systems weren't set up to keyword search cover letters. So recruiters would never see the cover letters as they typed in a few keywords when looking for solid candidates.

Recruiters weren't shedding any tears over the loss. A lot of recruiters don't have time to dig into the cover letter anyhow. "Whether it's a recruiter or an HR department, the job is to efficiently find people that meet minimum qualifications," says Rosenberg. "It's not to find people with best qualifications. And these are processes that have been almost universally adopted, even with small firms."

Add to that the fact that in a stagnant job market there are an overwhelming number of candidates for every open position. "You gotta remember we used to be in a job market that was pretty consistently, from WWII to 2007, a job market of candidate shortages and skill shortages," says Rosenberg.

Inevitably, as companies grow, they're less likely to put as much individual attention into their recruiting, says Don Charlton, founder and CEO of The Resumator, an online hiring software firm. "The larger the company, the more it becomes automated and robotic. That's why large companies have so many mediocre people. That's why a company's heyday is when they're hiring the best 75 people they can find."

Is it curtains for the cover letter?

Things have gotten so bad for the cover letter that Rosenberg has started advising clients to put their effort into customizing their resumes and forget the cover letter entirely. "The process is set up to reward candidates that heavily customize their resumes for each individual opportunity, company, and hiring manager," he says.

While you can't blame candidates for playing into the system, are we really prepared to abandon the resume's longtime companion altogether? We'll always need a tool to introduce ourselves and sell folks on our best qualities. We've been doing it for centuries. Even Leonardo?da?Vinci?used?a?cover?letter?of sorts to pitch his services to the Duke of Milan. Although this has been called the first resume, it's really more of a cover letter, or what probably would have been referred to as a letter of introduction. It's likely that the curriculum vitae (CV) and resume evolved from the cover letter as a more nuts and bolts presentation of a candidate's skills and accomplishments.

MORE:?A closer look at the labor market's 'new normal'

It's hard to say when the cover letter and resume emerged as separate entities, says Sean Weinberg, co-founder of RezScore, an online resume analyzer, but he places it somewhere in the early twentieth century. "It's been a slow evolution. The cover letter as we know it has evolved in parallel with the resume." (His company published a nifty infographic on the history of the resume.).

When a letter just doesn't cut it?

Job openings that don't require a high level of verbal and written skills place less emphasis on the cover letter. As COO of Knewton, an online learning company, David Liu oversees the company's recruiting strategy, and he does not put much stock in the cover letter. "We're hiring engineers to business people 20-to-one right now. When we're looking for people in the areas of software development and engineering, we're not really looking to see how well you write prose. We're looking to see how well you code and how well you can design a system."

Liu says they get to know candidates by looking at their portfolios, through coding tests, and in conversations so that they can understand what they've actually accomplished. "With cover letters, you can't really get into a lot of detail without it getting blown into an eight-page document."

Liu argues that a resume with a referral or approaching employers through another context would work better than any cover letter. "Just sending in a blind cover letter is absolutely dated," he says. "You need to figure out a way to identify with the folks that are in those companies. There are meetups. There are ways to find out who's working there, for how long, and what they do."

MORE:?Recent college grads: They're not so bad at work

But not everyone is ready to call it quits on the cover letter. "The cover letter is the only thing you have that separates the person from being a candidate and being a human being," says Charlton. "Resumes are about skills, cover letters are an opportunity for a person to indicate their desire to work for a company."

In other cases, the cover letter can help answer questions about the candidate that may have been raised by the resume, says Brian Bruce, vice president, Premier Solutions Restaurant Recruiting. "Sometimes there's some explanation needed. If they're sending me a resume and all their experience is in California, in the cover letter portion they can say, 'I'm moving to Pennsylvania in six weeks.'"

Charlton sees the marginalization of the cover letter as an "erosion of professionalism" and if nobody is looking at these cover letters, that's a problem with recruiting. "A good cover letter followed by a good resume, that's like brains and beauty.

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Transit of Venus

By Bora Zivkovic?| June 6, 2012 |??

Share ?Email ?Print

---

Video of the Week #46 June 6th, 2012:

From: The Venus Movies by Caleb A. Scharf at Life, Unbounded.

Source: NASA.

NASA?s SDO (Solar Dynamics Observatory) captured incredible footage of the Transit of Venus (now that?s out of the way for another 120 years or so) in several different formats. The videos were originally released individually as shared in Caleb?s post, The Venus Movies, but are even more resplendent in this beautiful montage, with appropriately majestic music for this rare event.

Also see all the coverage of the Transit of Venus at Scientific American.

About the Author: Bora Zivkovic is the Blog Editor at Scientific American, chronobiologist, biology teacher, organizer of ScienceOnline conferences and editor of Open Laboratory anthologies of best science writing on the Web. Follow on Twitter @boraz.

More??

The views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.

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NEW YORK: Oil price slips on weak economy | National Business ...

NEW YORK ? The price of oil fell slightly Friday on the prospect of weak economic growth with no immediate assistance from the U.S Federal Reserve.

Oil ended the week at $84.10 per barrel, within $1 of its close last week. It remains near its lowest level since October of last year.

Higher oil production and weakness in economies around the world that are now burning less gasoline and other fuels have helped push down crude prices 14 percent in the last month and 25 percent from a high in February. Reports in recent days of weak job growth in the U.S., a deepening financial crisis in Spain and slowing growth in China have rattled markets.

"It's a world of terrible news and a huge build (of oil stocks)," says Rich Ilczyszyn, an analyst and founder of the trading firm iiTrader.com.

U.S. drivers have welcomed the lower oil prices, though. Retail gasoline prices have fallen steadily since their peak of $3.94 a gallon April 6. The national average fell half a penny to $3.555 Friday, according to the Oil Price Information Service, AAA, and Wright Express.

U.S. benchmark crude fell 72 cents Friday, a drop of 0.8 percent. Brent crude, which is used to make gasoline in much of the U.S., fell 46 cents to $99.47.

More declines could be on the way. Julian Jessop, Chief Global Economist at Capital Economics, thinks oil prices will end the year "much lower than they are now."

Demand for oil to make fuels for shippers and travelers is down because Europe remains mired in a debt crisis and economic growth in the U.S. and China has slowed. At the same time, oil supply has risen in recent months.

Production in Libya, Iraq and the United States is growing. Saudi Arabia has been pumping more oil to offset supply loses from Iran, which is struggling to export crude under tightening Western sanctions. Output from the OPEC rose in May to its highest level since October of 2008, according to Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos.

By the end of last week, oil prices had fallen to $83.23, down 25 percent from a high of $109.77 on Feb. 24 and down 14 percent from $97.01 on May 8.

This week, though, oil began to rise on hopes of a U.S. financial stimulus plan before returning to very close to their recent lows.

Investors thought Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke would unveil a plan to buy bonds or take other measures that would lower interest rates. When borrowing costs fall, it effectively boosts the amount of money in the economy, giving investors cheap money to buy oil and other assets. This also lowers the value of the dollar and makes oil less expensive for overseas buyers.

But Bernanke told Congress Thursday that no plan was imminent. That sent the value of the dollar higher.

Without the prospect of cheap and abundant dollars Friday, investors were left with simple choice: Whether to buy or sell oil based on world supply and demand. They sold.

Addison Armstrong, an analyst at Tradition Energy, said that based on supply and demand, there was no reason for oil to cost as much as it did earlier this year. It is now near a price he considers "fair value."

One of the chief reasons for the recent drop in global oil prices is the change in the growth prospects in China. Judith Dwarkin, Chief Energy Economist at ITG Investment Research, said China is expected to account for half of the overall growth in global oil demand.

But growth in China has been slowing sharply. Investors expect the country will soon reveal that growth continued to slacken in May. If China is not using more oil, global demand won't rise nearly as much as expected - if it rises at all.

"Imports of crude (into China) have fallen, taking the steam out of world crude prices," Dwarkin said.

China cut state-set gasoline and diesel prices for the second time in a month on Friday in an effort to reduce costs for drivers and shippers, part of a larger plan to try to reverse a sharp slowdown in the world's second-largest economy. The 26-cent-per gallon cut reduced gasoline prices in Beijing, which has among the most expensive gasoline prices in China, to $4.58 per gallon.

Though the government price cut may boost oil demand somewhat in China, investors interpreted the cut as an indication that the slowdown in economic growth might be even more drastic than anticipated.

In other energy trading, natural gas futures rose 3 cents to close at $2.30 per thousand cubic feet. Heating oil fell less than one cent to close at $2.67 per gallon. Wholesale gasoline rose 6 cents to close at $2.68 per gallon.

Jonathan Fahey can be reached at http://twitter.com/JonathanFahey.

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This Psychedelic Shrimp Will Get You Hammered [Video]

Peacock mantis shrimp with its rock-hard hammer clubs; courtesy of S. Baron

The psychedelic-looking peacock mantis shrimp (Odontodactylus scyllarus) has a decidedly non-peacenik way of getting a meal: clubbing it.

This small (3 to 18-centimeter-long), solitary stomatopod wields two dastardly hammer-like appendages. At just 5 millimeters wide, each dactyl club can generate a force of 500 Newtons. That?s enough punch to shatter the glass of a standard home aquarium. But more to the shrimp?s interests, it can smash into the shells of gastropods and other well-protected prey, allowing it to grab some escargot to go.

But how does this crazy crustacean?s club inflict such punishing blows thousands of times without damaging itself? A new study, published online June 7 in Science, examines the inner hardware of this impressive weapon.

The club features multiple layers of mineralized hard and shock-absorbing materials, according to the researchers, led by James Weaver, of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University. If the club does sustain a small fracture, it is unlikely to spread thanks to the jagged structure of its chitosan fibers, which run at cross-angles.

?The insights gained from natural materials such as those described may find applications in armor plating,? K. Elizabeth Tanner, of the University of Glasgow?s School of Engineering, wrote in an essay in the same issue of Science. The shrimp?s club suggests some small structural elements could make a big difference. ?Designers of armor could use the models of the nanoscale composites to optimize the impact resistance,? she wrote.

And history shows that humans had been using a similar, if less high-tech, approach at least as far back as Ancient Roman times. Like the crisscrossing fibers of the mantis club, Roman shields were made so that ?layers of wood were combined such that the grain direction alternated between vertical and horizontal, and were joined together with glue,? Tanner wrote. ?The resulting shield containing alternating stiff and compliant layers, resembling those found in the periodic and striated regions of the dactyl club,? she noted.

The shrimp?s impressive abilities hardly stop with the composition of its club. The speed of its blows, which can accelerate to some 23 meters per second, create cavitation bubbles, which increase the force of impact on the target (such as ?mollusk shells, crab exoskeletons, the skulls of small fish and the occasional weary fisherman,? the researchers noted). These arthropods are also outfitted with some of the most awesome vision hardware in the animal kingdom. Instead of being equipped with three color-sensing pigments like we are, they have a dozen. Talk about trippy.

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MPAA may let Megaupload users retrieve non-infringing files, does it for the Armed Forces

Megaupload's still immersed in hot water, but there are signs the legal temperature could be cooling... slightly. Don't breathe a sigh of relief just yet though, as a significant portion of that confiscated cache of cloud-stored files remains somewhat indefinitely under lock and key. A minor reprieve may be on the way, however, owing to a much more "sympathetic" MPAA which has asked the court to consider releasing non-illegally obtained content to previous users. And lest your evil eye be trained too heavily upon the Hollywood group behind the shutdown, the association's made it quite clear that, under the site's TOS, users were never guaranteed continued access to uploaded content anyway.

The change of heart comes in response to a motion filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, on behalf of a member of the U.S. military, petitioning the return of personal, non-IP infringing files. According to the now-defunct site's founder Kim Dotcom, that group of "legitimate" users comprised nearly 16,000 accounts utilized primarily to share photos and video with far away family and friends. Of course, should this retrieval request be granted, a requisite procedure will need to be put in place to filter out copyrighted media -- a system that's sure to pose countless headaches for those involved. Nothing's yet been decided so, for now, the fate of your lost files rests firmly in the court's hands. Such are the perils of the cloud.

MPAA may let Megaupload users retrieve non-infringing files, does it for the Armed Forces originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 07 Jun 2012 15:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Video: Jada Pinkett Smith: ?I get my inner hippo on!?

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