Apr
8
While typically thought of as currency, coins can also be custom created to commemorate something such an event or an organization. They can also be used as an award, being a token of excellence for example. Custom Coins are often created for the military, with a military symbol or logo engraved into copper or brass and optionally dyed (to add color). Here’s a good example of a coin used by the U.S. Naval Academy:
In this example, you can see both the color from the dye as well as the engraving of the logo they used, and it looks fantastic.
A coin can also be created to memorialize an event such as a wedding, as illustrated in this example:
As you can see here, color can either be added to the point of near photo quality, or not added whatsoever to present a more traditional style coin. I prefer the traditional style as it looks more artistic.
Custom coins that bear an organization’s insignia or emblem are called Challenge Coins. As aforementioned, they are often as a reward for outstanding service or exceptional performance of duty, typically in the military. These types of awards are traditionally given to the recipient through a handshake. Outside of the military, challenge coins are also commonly used by NASCAR, the NFL, the World Series of Poker, and many other organizations.
The same manufacturers for custom coins also create Custom Lapel Pins. Though that is their technical name, they are often used as badges as a means of identification, sometimes for security purposes. An intricate design on a custom lapel pin can be a great way to help identify people you work with. With the same high quality design as their coin counterparts, custom lapel pins look great too as you can see here:
The last thing I should mention is that both custom coins and custom pins are inexpensive. Each individual unit may only cost a couple dollars, and you can usually have them produced in bulk for a discount.
Mar
14
It can be difficult to find a job in your field if you’re restricting yourself to public job boards such as the ones posted Craigslist, Monster, etc. Finding the most appealing jobs is easy as long as you know where to look; often the easy ones to find are easy because either no one wants them. Good positions will be filled up fast, so if you can find job listings that no other job website has posted about, you can increase your chances of finding the right one to keep you on track with your career. In addition, sometimes a good position might be posted on one job website but not another, so if you aren’t keeping track of all of the relevant websites in your area, you might miss out on an opportunity.
I found a website called Employment Crossing that addresses these matters brilliantly. Though there is a monthly fee for this service, Employment Crossing brings you all of the jobs from every career page, putting them all in one place for your convenience. Normally websites like this charge the employers to put up job advertisements, and let the users browse them for free. Employment Crossing does it the other way, making it free for employers to post jobs, but charging a fee for their members to browse job listings. Since there’s no fees for Employers to post jobs, the number of jobs posted here are higher than on other websites. It makes sense that employers will be more likely to add a job posting when there’s no charge involved. The monthly fee is money well spent to give you more results in your search for a new job.
Lastly, to employers: there’s more features for you here than just a place to put up free job postings. For a fee, Employment Crossing also offers a tool to search resumes, allowing you to browse through resumes that are relevant to your company. Though I can’t really comment on it due to lack of knowledge regarding hiring processes, it definitely sounds like something worth checking out, especially if you’ve had trouble recruiting for a specific position.
Feb
28
 Aluratek Bump Digital
MP3/FM Radio BoomBox
Buy It Now for $50.94
This is a review of the Aluratek Bump Digital MP3/FM Radio Boombox that comes with a Remote Wireless Speaker. These are also sold separately and although the price fluctuates you can frequently find individual expansion speakers cheapest on Amazon. I picked up 8 additional expansion speakers. The order came through a few days later and the cost was $296.86 (8 x $30.24 + $50.94).
Let me start off with the critical elements. If you’re looking for top of the line perfect audiophile sound this isn’t going to be what you want. There’s definitely some humming sound that is sometimes output depending on how many speakers you have connected and the distance they are from the source. Also, with some experimenting, I found that it does this randomly to some degree as well. The audio output isn’t going to be as loud more professional speakers.
All that said, I find these little speakers are an amazing. The sound output given the size dimensions of 7x4x4 inches and weight of 6.4 ounces is incredible. The digital boombox output seems to work well when hooked to a usb port from a computer, my ipod & the built in radio. The charge time for each speaker seems to last a little bit more than the 4 hour battery life stated on their website on a full charge. It can also be hooked into both a usb port as well as a wall outlet to charge at any time.
There’s a wide range and variety of sources you can use to play your audio. It has a usb connection as well as a 3.5 mm jack. Most mp3 devices like ipods will play through this system. The built in radio is also an option. Additionally, you can connect the usb port to a computer and play virtually any sound that outputs from there.
On ranging indoors through a lot of doors in an office it’s not going to achieve the same range as it would outdoors. Although, I haven’t really done any testing outdoors the range seems reasonable indoors as it can stretch over 120 ft in any direction and still output solid sound. Any further through multiple doors may cause some issues but you’ll be able to figure out the exact range through a little bit of testing.
Syncing your speaker with the boombox is very easy and requires just pushing the wireless button enabled the wireless than turning on your speaker. It should begin transmitting sound within a few seconds. One small note I don’t like is unhooking the power supply on the boombox speaker will often kill the audio from the device to the boombox. The simplest solution is to just leave it plugged into the wall at all times or the usb device(like a computer). To turn off the signal to all the wireless speakers you can simply hit the wireless button on the boombox.
Saving the best for last, I thought since we had about 9 spots we wanted to put the speakers in our office that I would have to use two units. I was pleasantly surprised to see the boombox device connect to all 8 speakers from one unit. I noticed sometimes there was a bit of increased humming noise but it’s still able to do it. I can’t guarantee you’ll achieve the same results but this is how it worked for me.
At a price point of under $300 you will get synchronized sound from up to 9 locations that can be spread as much as 120 feet or more indoors and perhaps a distance of 300 feet or more outdoors. The battery life seems to work a little bit longer than expected at around 4 1/2 hours in my experiences on a full charge.
This post by John Hoang an internet marketing specialist created using Dragon speech recognition technology. For more information check out the dragon naturally speaking review.
Feb
27
I recently read an article recently that suggests the following:
Imagine if schools were judged not by how well students achieved while they were in school, but in how well they achieved once they left. If schools saw their worth not in how many kids got accepted to college, but in how many kids went on to live meaningful and engaged lives and who would point back to their school years as the point of relevancy that was the foundation of it all.
These measurements for the most part are just impossible though. First the metrics couldn’t be collected till many years after the person had left the school institution. Next, there’s no level or gauge for a meaningful engaged life. What some people would consider a complete and utter failure others are perfectly content. Are you going to put contentment into a statistical metric? I seriously doubt it.
I think the underlying issue is the flaws with the school system. I also don’t think there’s any easy or quick fix answer. Looking back on my days at school I can only say what I wish would have been handled and done better. I remember growing up learning the same materials in math through 2nd grade all the way to 7th. This turned something I actually enjoyed into something extremely boring. It’s the same with many areas of English, history & science where you “re-learn” the same material year to year. I’m sure many people feel the same way about a wide variety of subjects.
Most individuals will go on to do something in a specialized field. I understand its rather useful to have some core skills in a variety of areas but I think its taken to a ridiculous level sometimes. If someone doesn’t excel at a subject say math…why make them take it over and over again? Does the general majority of the population that reside in this country need to use Algebra I, Algebra II, Geometry, Trigonometry & Calculus? Think about how often you use these skills in the real world day to day. Why not have a core curriculum taught in elementary school then in middle school proceed to a more specialized analysis based upon what you’re good at and what you enjoy. High school serves as mostly a training grounds for achieving the knowledge you need to succeed in the fields you choose.
Moving on to core skills that I wish were included into the curriculum. I don’t understand why public speaking wasn’t some type of required class to graduate in high school. I remember growing up I never placed much emphasis on presentation. How you present something can have drastic effects on the outcome. I remember completely failing at one job interview project we had to do in 10th grade simply because I was too shy to interact with the interviewer properly. I think because of this learning experience I was able to react much better the next time I had to do a major interview to get into college. (Side note: Yes, I didn’t really work in high school mainly because I always found different entrepreneurial ways of making my own money.)
For the most part there’s probably about a one day to a one week period of actual real world experience in school. Maybe you shadow someone you want to be like when you grow up for a day. Maybe you prepare for a job interview which you don’t know if it’s mock or real. Spending more time in a work place which may be similar to what you want to do for the rest of your life seems like it would be a much better use of time than going over the same “core” materials over and over.
Will school stay relevant? How can we improve the public school system? I am interested to hear your thoughts. Unfortunately, this blog cannot be open for comments due to spam. But email us at:
and I’ll try to post / address your comment.
This post by John Hoang an internet marketing specialist created using Dragon speech recognition technology. For more information check out the dragon naturally speaking review.
Feb
26
At a Consumer Electronic Show in January this eagerly anticipated tablet the OLPC XO 3.0 was unveiled. The design is by Yves Behar the visionary behind such items as: Jawbone Jambox sound system, Herman Miller’s Sayl chairs, Swarovski chandeliers. The OLPC XO 3.0 tablet is designed to be durable and inexpensive at a price point of $100.
This new tablet is designed to be an educational device for students in the developing world where both electricity and internet access is often scarce. The initiative is one laptop to every child. The battery life lasts approximately 8 to 10 hours and can be recharged with both a hand crank or solar panel that doubles as the tablet’s cover. The OLPC XO 3.0 actually has two covers one of which containers a four-watt solar panel that can be placed in the sun to recharge and then reconnected in order to provide power to the tablet.
There’s a lot of interest and excitement in the development of these low-cost tablets for many reasons. A few months ago the $35 Aakash tablet was released and according to the New York Times received around 1.4 million orders. The company was unprepared to meet the demand. It has since stop taking orders and may be struggling to meet the orders already made. The reviews of this tablet have not been overwhelmingly good. The poor battery life of just one hour or two, the slugglishly slow software & “sticky” touchscreen seem to be the main areas of criticism.
But the OLPC project has had a fair share of struggles itself. The inability to meet production deadlines, some performance issues with the laptops(The first attempts were aimed at providing laptops to children in 3rd world countries) & concerns that the device will not be able to meet the promised $100 price point. According to the OLPC organization the But the OLPC project has had its own fair share of struggles — the inability to meet production deadlines, performance problems with the laptops(Previous OLPC versions were delivered as laptops.), as well as concerns that the devices would not be able to meet that promised $100 price point.
This table is also thicker than most tablets on the market. The specifications are 1 GHz processor, 512 MB of RAM & 4 GB of storage. The OLPC XO 3.0 also containers a USB port, a Micro USB port, headphone/microphone jacks & a power jack. The power jack can be used for a regular AC adapter as well as for a hand crank. The tablet has two 8 inch display options: LCD Versions & PixelQi version. The PixelQI is meant to make it easier to read outside. Another issue of concern is the tablet’s touchscreen seems extremely responsive but the software appears to be holding it back / slowing it down. The XO 3.0 has two software options: Android or a Linux operating system. Here’s a little more on the delay from someone who actually got to play around with it for a bit:
“The delay between tapping the browser icon and it opening was noticeable. The second problem is that the software doesn’t seem to be optimized for touch. When I tried to scroll in the Wikipedia program, it highlighted text; I had to select the scroll bar to get to the bottom of the page. OLPC says it is working on this and that it does work in some applications. Speaking of applications, many of the apps for this tablet are built by countries that buy the tablets or laptops, so while there are native browser, camera, word processing programs, the others have to come from the open source community.”
Another concern still is the cell phone penetration in the developing world which has reached around 80%. One has to ask the question if tablets are the right device? Or when we think of putting one computing device into the hands of every child, should we be thinking about a mobile phone instead?
This post by John Hoang an internet marketing specialist created using Dragon speech recognition technology. For more information check out the dragon naturally speaking review.
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