The world is a scary place, and some of your most valuable data?be it medical information, business records, or government secrets?lives not on paper, but in zeros and ones. To keep your private data safe and secure, Kingston has the DataTraveler Vault Private, the single-user companion to the Kingston DataTraveler Vault Privacy-Managed Edition. With end-to-end encryption and a rugged design, it protects your data from almost anything that gets thrown at it.
The 4GB drive has very little preinstalled software, leaving you 3.68 GB of storage space. Formated in FAT32, the drive works with both Windows and Mac operating systems, letting you go from one to the other and back again without having to reformat the drive or install and conversion software. And unlike the consumer-grade Kingston DataTraveler Locker+ G2 (16GB), the DataTravaler Vault Privacy also supports Linux.
The drive earns the Vault Privacy name with 256-bit AES encryption in Cipher Block Chaining (CBC) mode. This is end-to-end hardware based encryption, meeting the same requirements needed for storing actual Top Secret government documents. On a regular drive, you'll need to use something like the CipherUSB to protect it with similar levels of encryption. With the DataTraveler Vault Privacy, you'll just need to set up a password. You'll need a password to even use the drive, and then unlock the drive with that password everytime you need to use it.
The design is also rugged to physically protect your data against moisture, dirt, and more. The aluminum case and locking cap provide protection against shock and crushing forces, while the cap seals out water up to four feet deep. While that ruggedness makes for a well-protected drive, it's a little chunky, measuring 0.5 by 0.9 by 3.1 inches (HWD)?just enough to potentially crowd an adjacent USB port?and weighs 0.5 ounce.
The initial setup is very simple?the entire process involves choosing a password, and it takes moments?but be sure you pick a password you'll remember. Once you've set your password, the drive will be discoverable by the PC, and you can open and use it just like any other drive. For a slightly easier, yet equally secure, option, there' always the Aegis Secure Key, which offers hardware based locking.
Don't forget the password! The drive's security has a lock feature which only allows 10 incorrect password attempts in a row before reformatting the drive and wiping out the data. This security feature prevents brute-force attacks from unlocking the drive. As an added dose of security, this 10-count doesn't reset when the drive is unplugged and plugged back in?so make sure you remember your password.
Also included on the drive is a program called Drive Security, a product of ESET and ClevX, which can be used to scan the drive for any security issues, such as malware or viruses. Kingston guarantees the drive with a five-year warranty and free technical support.
In our timed data transfer test, the drive offered 35 MBps write speeds and 10 MBps read speeds. That's faster than the consumer-oriented Editors' Choice, the DataTraveler Locker+, which had an average of 21MBps read and 12MBps write speed. It's also reasonably priced. While the 4GB capacity is a bit small?larger models are available (8, 16, 32, and 64GB)?the drive sells for $42.00 list, or $10.50 per GB. By comparison, the hardware locked Aegis Secure Key sells the same 4GB capacity for $65?or $16.25 per GB.
The Kingston DataTraveler Vault Privacy is a solid option for the security minded, with high-grade hardware-based encryption, a rugged design, and a decent price. Add it all up, and it takes a place alongside the best secure drives we've reviewed, though the Aegis Secure Key remains our top pick due its innovative physical keypad.
COMPARISON TABLE Compare the Kingston DataTraveler Vault Privacy (4GB) with several other flash drives side by side.
More flash drive reviews: ??? Kingston DataTraveler Vault Privacy (4GB) ??? IronKey Workspace W300 (64GB) ??? Roccat Apuri ??? PocketDesktop (16GB) ??? LaCie XtremKey USB 3.0 (32GB) ?? more
How can students learn to make informed decisions when it comes to saving money, using credit cards and taking on college debt?
In recognition of America Saves Week, we?ve put together a toolbox of activities to help students learn essential lessons about personal finance in these three areas.
For each, we start with tips from ?Money As You Grow,? a Web site created by the President?s Advisory Council on Financial Capability to provide children and families with straightforward financial advice. We then follow the tips in each category with classroom activities and related Times articles that can help students go further.
Saving Money
?Money As You Grow? Advice:
You should save at least a dime for every dollar you receive.
The sooner you save, the faster your money can grow from compound interest.
Your first paycheck may seem smaller than expected since money is taken out for taxes.
Classroom Activities and Related Times Articles:
1. Calculate Compound Interest. Read ?Investing: Money Plus (Lots of) Time Equals Excitement?, and then complete your own compound interest activity. Test out some numbers using this compound interest calculator, which explains the math involved, or this investor?s calculator. Or, use the formula for compound interest, A = P(1+(r/n))nt, to do your own calculations. What did you notice about the power of compound interest? Why does compound interest encourage people to save as early as possible?
2. Debate the Value of Saving. Read the discussion in ?Why Aren?t You Saving Money??, a Room for Debate feature, and then write your own response related to teenagers. You should address the questions: Why don?t more teenagers save money? Why should they start saving, even if it?s only a little money at a time? You may want to refer to the compound interest activity above for additional background.
3. Try Cutting Back. Read ?Cutting Back (but Not on Coffee!) To Save Money?, and then use the reviewed Web site to try your own cutting-back activity. How much money would you save if you stopped buying __________ every week? Is your weekly purchase worth the price in the long run?
4. Advise First-Time Job Holders. Read ?A Primer for Young People Starting Their First Job?, and then turn Mr. Lieber?s advice into a poster, pamphlet or social media campaign instructing teenagers and 20-somethings on how to navigate the confusing world of health insurance, taxes and retirement plans.
5. Teach Preschoolers About Money. Read ?Too Young for Finance? Think Again.? and have students create their own children?s books, fairy tales or dramatic sketches to teach preschoolers about personal finance based on the principles explained in the article: save, spend, share and earn.
6. Identify Your Own Attitudes Toward Money. We recently asked students, ?What Have Your Parents Taught You About Money?? Read our questions and post your response to think about the lessons and attitudes you?ve learned, directly or indirectly. How do you think these attitudes play out in your financial decisions now? Which are helpful and which do you think may be harmful to your long-term fiscal health? Why?
7. Just For Fun: Try your hand at our Student Crossword on Financial Literacy.
Credit Cards and Other Credit Tools
?Money As You Grow? Advice:
Using a credit card is like taking out a loan; if you don?t pay your bill in full every month, you?ll be charged interest and owe more than you originally spent.
You should avoid using credit cards to buy things you can?t afford to pay for with cash.
You should use a credit card only if you can pay off the money owed in full each month.
Classroom Activities and Related Times Articles:
1. Warn Consumers. Read ?Credit Cards and What You Need To Know? and then design a warning poster or label that advertises the potential dangers of using a credit card irresponsibly.
2. Do the Math. Read ?Impatient? It May Be Hurting Your Credit Score? and then calculate the risks of buying something you cannot afford with a credit card. For example, think of a big-ticket item, whether it?s a new iPad, fancy clothing or a new car, and imagine purchasing that product with an imaginary credit card. Then do the math using a credit card repayment calculator. How long will it take to pay off your credit card balance for that one item if you only pay the minimum balance every month? How much additional money will you pay in interest?
3. Learn About Credit Scores. Read ?Perfect 10? Never Mind That. Ask Her for Her Credit Score.? Then, do research to find out what a credit score is, how financial decisions affect your score, and why it matters.
To answer these questions you might learn about the basics here, at the MoneyUnder30 site, then continue by reading about credit scores in The Times. After you finish your research, discuss your findings with the class and consider the premise reported in the article: Should a credit score affect decisions about love and marriage? Why or why not?
The Cost of College
?Money As You Grow? Advice:
When comparing colleges, be sure to consider how much each school would cost you.
Classroom Activities and Related Times Articles:
1. Calculate the Cost of College. Read ?A New Way To Compare College Costs Online? and ?Clarity and Confusion From Tuition Calculators.? Then compare the costs of two or more colleges using the colleges? own online calculators. What were the results? Were you surprised? Also, how would you rate the different calculators? Were they clear and easy to use?
To go further, you might choose ideas from the many listed in the Learning Network lesson plan, ?When College May Not Be Worth the Cost: Examining Student Loan Debt.?
2. Write a Personal Essay. George Edwards is a senior in high school in New York City, and he shares his own concerns about the high cost of a college education in an essay for the Learning Network. Write your own personal essay about your anxieties about going to college, including being able to pay for it, and share any helpful advice you have learned. (If you?re eligible, the Your Money column is extending An Invitation for High School Seniors to Write About Finances until April 1, 2013. Alternatively, you may want to answer our Student Opinion question, ?What Investment Are You Willing to Make to Get Your Dream Job??.)
3. Compare Colleges. Read ?Generation Hobbled by the Soaring Cost of College? and ?Battling College Costs, a Paycheck at a Time?, two articles in the ?Degrees of Debt? series that examines the implications of soaring college costs and the indebtedness of students and their families. Then visit the government?s college scorecard Web site, which allows you to compare different schools based on graduation rates, average cost, loan default rates and median borrowing levels. You can search schools based on name, location or degree, among other criteria. Choose colleges that interest you, or ones that are near your home, and make a chart comparing their scores. Which school has the highest graduation rate or the lowest loan default rate, for example?
4. Make a Plan to Pay for College. Read questions and answers in The Choice Blog?s six-post series about FAFSA, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, and its five-post series about scholarships. Then visit the studentaid.ed.gov Web site, which gives users tools to research loans, scholarships and grants. Compare colleges that interest you, and write a preliminary plan that explains how you plan to pay for college.
How do you teach financial literacy? Tell us below!
While some notable big names in Android were mostly missing, Mobile World Congress 2013 still had a lot of Android to show off -- not counting what was in Phil's shoulder bag. We saw this years upcoming gear from Huawei, ZTE, ASUS, and more. Some of it looks absolutely fabulous, some not so much. But that's just our opinion, and we want to hear yours.
We've set up a poll so you can sound off and tell us what you liked best. Will it be the Fonepad from ASUS? How about the ZTE Grand Memo? Hit the break, or look for the poll in the sidebar to the right and let us know, then discuss it all in the comments.
'Gigantic jet' lightning isn't well understood, but could balance out the electrical charge of thunderstorms. One of the biggest ever observed was documented over China, scientists reported this week.
By Elizabeth Howell,?Our Amazing Planet / February 26, 2013
A 'gigantic jet' captured above a storm in North Carolina in 2009. One of the biggest of these 'gigantic jet' lightning bursts was recorded over China in 2010, scientists report this week.
Steven Cummer / LiveScience.com
Enlarge
A rare glimpse of a "gigantic jet" ? a huge and mysterious burst of lightning that connects a thunderstorm with the upper atmosphere ? was made over China in 2010 and was recently described by scientists.
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The gigantic jet took place in eastern China on Aug. 12, 2010 ? the farthest a ground-based one has ever been observed from the equator, according to the research team.
Previous jets were mainly seen in tropical or subtropical regions, but this one took place around 35 degrees latitude, about the same as the southern part of Tennessee in the United States.
"This is the first report from mainland China," lead researcher Jing Yang, an atmospheric scientist with the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, told OurAmazingPlanet. The results were recently published in the Chinese Science Bulletin.
Researchers got a good look at the storm using a variety of tools, including Doppler radar data and weather pictures in the infrared band of radiation.
The gigantic jet peaked at about 55 miles (89 kilometers) above the ground, far above the cloudtops that were measured with Doppler radar at an altitude of 11 miles (17 km).?
Yang added that her team had possibly seen another gigantic jet in the same area during a different thunderstorm, but said they needed to recheck the data to confirm.
"It's not as clear as this one if it is a gigantic jet or not," she said.
It wasn't until the last century that electrical activity above thunderclouds was scientifically proven, although rumors based on undocumented observations circulated long before that time.
These electrical discharges can take several forms, such as sprites (orange-red flashes) and blue jets, which appear as blue cones.
The first confirmed gigantic jet was reported in 2001, after American researchers saw a blue jet reaching 44 miles (70 km) above the clouds at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. This was nearly double the 26-mile (42 km) limit for jets that was previously observed.
Two years later, researchers described shapes such as "tree jets" and "carrot jets" that they spotted during a 2002 thunderstorm over the South China Sea near the Philippines.
While scientists are still trying to understand how these gigantic jets work, they believe the jets balance out the electrical charge during thunderstorms by discharging the ionosphere ? a part of the upper atmosphere filled with charged particles.
Follow Elizabeth Howell @howellspace, or OurAmazingPlanet on Twitter @OAPlanet. We're also on Facebook?and Google+.
Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, right, meets with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Berlin on Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2013. Berlin is the second stop in Kerry?s first trip overseas as Secretary of State. (AP Photo/dpa,Maurizio Gambarini)
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, right, meets with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Berlin on Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2013. Berlin is the second stop in Kerry?s first trip overseas as Secretary of State. (AP Photo/dpa,Maurizio Gambarini)
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry speaks at a ?Youth Connect: Berlin? event in Berlin on Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2013. Berlin is the second stop in Kerry?s first trip overseas as secretary. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry shakes hands with the children of U.S. Embassy staff at the Embassy in Berlin on Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2013. Berlin is the second stop in Kerry?s first trip overseas as secretary. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry adjusts his translation earphones while listening to German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, not pictured, at a news conference at the Foreign Ministry in Berlin on Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2013. Berlin is the second stop in Kerry?s first trip overseas as secretary. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)
PARIS (AP) ? The Obama administration, in coordination with some European allies, is for the first time considering supplying direct assistance to elements of the Free Syrian Army as they seek to ramp up pressure on Syrian President Bashar Assad to step down and end nearly two years of brutal and increasingly deadly violence.
Officials in the United States and Europe said Tuesday the administration is nearing a decision on whether to provide non-lethal assistance to carefully vetted fighters opposed to the Assad regime in addition to what it is already supplying to the political opposition. A decision is expected by Thursday when U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will attend an international conference on Syria in Rome that leaders of the opposition Syrian National Coalition have been persuaded to attend, the officials said.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the shift in strategy has not yet been finalized and still needs to be coordinated with European nations, notably Britain. They are eager to vastly increase the size and scope of assistance for Assad's foes.
Kerry, who was a cautious proponent of supplying arms to the rebels while he was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has been consulting with European leaders on how to step up pressure on Assad to leave power. The effort has been as a major focus of his first official trip abroad as America's top diplomat. On the first two stops on his hectic nine-nation tour of Europe and the Middle East, in London and Berlin, he has sought to assure the Syrian opposition that more help is on the way.
In London on Monday, he made a public appeal to opposition coalition leader Mouaz al-Khatib not to boycott the Rome meeting as had been threatened and to attend the conference despite concerns among Assad foes that international community is not doing enough. Kerry and Vice President Joe Biden made private telephone calls to al-Khatib to make the same case.
"We are determined that the Syrian opposition is not going to be dangling in the wind, wondering where the support is, if it is coming," Kerry told reporters after meeting British Prime Minister David Cameron and Foreign Secretary William Hague.
Hague said that the deteriorating conditions in Syria, especially recent scud missile attacks on the city of Aleppo, were unacceptable and that the West's current position could not be sustained while an "appalling injustice" is being done to Syrian citizens.
"In the face of such murder and threat of instability, our policy cannot stay static as the weeks go by," Hague told reporters, standing beside Kerry. "We must significantly increase support for the Syrian opposition. We are preparing to do just that."
The officials in Washington and European capitals said the British are pushing proposals to provide military training, body armor and other technical support to members of the Free Syrian Army who have been determined not to have links to extremists. The officials said, however, that the U.S. was not yet ready to consider such action although Washington would not object if the Europeans moved ahead with the plans.
The Obama administration has been deeply concerned about military equipment falling into the hands of radical Islamists who have become a significant factor in the Syrian conflict and could then use that materiel for terrorist attacks or strikes on Israel.
The Italian government, which is hosting Thursday's conference, said on Monday that the Europeans would use the meeting "to urge the United States' greater flexibility on measures in favor of the opposition to the Assad regime."
"They will be asking, in particular, that 'non-lethal' aid be extended to include technical assistance and training so as to consolidate the coalition's efforts in the light of what emerged at the latest meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Council," the foreign ministry said in a statement. In a recent meeting, European Union foreign ministers agreed that support to the rebels needed to be boosted.
Officials in Washington said the United States was leaning toward providing tens of millions of dollars more in non-lethal assistance to the opposition, including vetted members of the Free Syrian Army who had not been receiving direct U.S. assistance. So far, assistance has been limited to funding for communications and other logistical equipment, a formalized liaison office and an invitation to al-Khatib to visit the United States in the coming weeks.
The officials stressed, however, that the administration did not envision American military training for the rebels nor U.S. provision of combat items such as body armor that the British are advocating.
The officials said the U.S. is also looking at stepping up its civilian technical assistance devoted to rule of law, civil society and good governance, in order to prepare an eventual transition government to run the country once Assad leaves.
In Europe, meanwhile, Kerry on Tuesday visited Berlin where he met his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, for the first time in his new post, spending more than an hour discussing the Syria conflict. Russia has been a strong supporter of Assad and has, along with China, repeatedly blocked efforts at the United Nations to impose global sanctions against the regime unless it stops the violence that has killed nearly 70,000 people.
State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the two met for an hour and 45 minutes, spending more than half that time on Syria in what she called a "really serious and hardworking session."
Kerry and Lavrov discussed how they could implement the so-called Geneva Agreement, which is designed to get the Syrian government and rebels to plan a transitional government for the time after Assad leaves office, Nuland said.
Lavrov told Russian news agencies that his talks with Kerry were "quite constructive." On Syria, he said the two reaffirmed their "intention to do all Russia and the U.S. can do. It's not that everything depends on us, but we shall do all we can to create conditions for the soonest start of a dialogue between the government and the opposition."
Syria's foreign minister was in Moscow on Monday and while there expressed a willingness to meet with opposition leaders.
The Syrian National Coalition is skeptical about outside help from the West and threatened to boycott the Rome meeting until a series of phone calls and meetings between Kerry and his ambassadors and Syrian opposition leaders repaired the schism. The council now says it will attend the meeting, but is hoping for more concrete offers of help, including military assistance.
___
Klapper contributed to this report from Washington.
PTSD symptoms common among ICU survivorsPublic release date: 26-Feb-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Stephanie Desmon sdesmon1@jhmi.edu 410-955-8665 Johns Hopkins Medicine
Condition long linked to war veterans found in one in 3 ventilated patients
One in three people who survived stays in an intensive care unit (ICU) and required use of a mechanical ventilator showed substantial post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms that lasted for up to two years, according to a new Johns Hopkins study of patients with acute lung injury.
Because acute lung injury (ALI) a syndrome marked by excessive fluid in the lungs and frequent multi-organ failure is considered an archetype for critical illness, the researchers suspect PTSD is common among other ICU survivors as well.
"We usually think of PTSD as something you develop if you go to war, are sexually assaulted or suffer a similar emotional trauma," says Dale Needham, M.D., Ph.D., a critical care specialist at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and senior author of the study published online in Psychological Medicine. "Instead, it may be as common, or more common, in ICU patients as in soldiers, but it's something many doctors including psychiatrists don't fully appreciate."
"Physical weakness usually gets better, but these mental symptoms often just linger," says study leader O. Joseph Bienvenu, M.D., Ph.D., an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins. "We need to pay more attention to preventing and treating PTSD in these patients."
Bienvenu says the unusual thing about PTSD in ICU survivors is that they often experience flashbacks about delusions or hallucinations they had in the hospital, rather than events that actually occurred. Having a life-threatening illness is itself frightening, but delirium in these patients who are attached to breathing machines and being given sedatives and narcotics may lead to "memories" of horrible things that didn't happen, he adds.
"One woman thought her husband and the nurse were plotting to kill her," Bienvenu recalls.
For the study, the Johns Hopkins team observed 520 mechanically ventilated patients with ALI, recruited from 13 ICUs at four Baltimore hospitals between October 2004 and October 2007. Fifty-three percent survived their hospitalization, and 186 patients had at least one research visit over the subsequent two-year follow-up period.
The researchers found that 66 of the 186 patients (35 percent) had clinically significant symptoms of PTSD, with the greatest apparent onset occurring by the initial, three-month follow-up visit. Sixty-two percent of the survivors who developed PTSD still had symptoms at their two-year visit. Half of this same group was taking psychiatric medications, and 40 percent had seen a psychiatrist in the two years since being hospitalized with ALI.
The researchers also found that patients with depression before hospitalization were twice as likely to develop PTSD, and that those who spent more time in the ICU were more likely to experience symptoms.
Those who had sepsis (a severe response to infection) during their ICU stay, and those who were given high doses of opiates, were more likely to develop PTSD as well. Those given corticosteroids while in the ICU were less likely to develop PTSD, though the exact reasons why are unknown.
The delirium often associated with ICU stays and post-ICU PTSD may be partially a consequence of inflammation caused by sepsis. This inflammation may lead to a breakdown in the blood-brain barrier, which alters the impact on the brain of narcotics, sedatives and other drugs prescribed in the ICU.
Bienvenu says patients who have these risk factors need special attention. Simply educating them and their primary care doctors about the increased risk for PTSD would be a step in the right direction, he adds.
Each year, almost 1 million patients in the United States are hooked up to ventilators in an ICU, and 200,000 are estimated to develop ALI, usually as the result of infection. The lungs of healthy people allow the easy exchange of gases to enable oxygen to enter the bloodstream, and carbon dioxide to exit the body. In ALI patients, the normally light and dry lungs become heavy and soggy like a wet sponge.
People with PTSD, a form of anxiety disorder, may feel severely stressed or frightened even when they're no longer in danger. The symptoms fall into three categories: reliving the traumatic experience (flashbacks, nightmares), avoidance (feeling numb, detached, staying away from people and places that serve as reminders of the experience), and hyperarousal (being easily startled, having difficulty sleeping, irritability).
PTSD can impair quality of life and slow patients' recovery from a critical illness, keeping victims from returning to work or performing usual activities of daily life.
Needham, Bienvenu and others at Johns Hopkins are interested in whether changing care in the ICU can reduce the incidence of PTSD. Needham's team has reported on studies showing that early physical rehabilitation for ICU patients can speed and enhance recovery, and he says "psychological rehab" now deserves attention.
One European study looked at the use of ICU diaries, where nurses and family members recorded what was happening with the patients daily while they were in the ICU, sometimes taking photographs. The diaries were then given to the patients a month after leaving the ICU, with phone debriefing from a nurse. The intervention reduced PTSD symptoms by helping patients make sense of their ICU memories, Bienvenu says.
###
Other Johns Hopkins researchers involved in the study include Jonathan Gellar, M.P.H.; Benjamin M. Althouse, Sc.M.; Elizabeth Colantuoni, Ph.D.; Thiti Sricharoenchai, M.D.; Pedro A. Mendez-Tellez, M.D.; Cheryl R. Dennison, R.N., Ph.D.; and Peter J. Pronovost, M.D., Ph.D.
This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health's National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (Acute Lung Injury SCCOR Grant P050 HL73994 and R01 HL88045).
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
PTSD symptoms common among ICU survivorsPublic release date: 26-Feb-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Stephanie Desmon sdesmon1@jhmi.edu 410-955-8665 Johns Hopkins Medicine
Condition long linked to war veterans found in one in 3 ventilated patients
One in three people who survived stays in an intensive care unit (ICU) and required use of a mechanical ventilator showed substantial post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms that lasted for up to two years, according to a new Johns Hopkins study of patients with acute lung injury.
Because acute lung injury (ALI) a syndrome marked by excessive fluid in the lungs and frequent multi-organ failure is considered an archetype for critical illness, the researchers suspect PTSD is common among other ICU survivors as well.
"We usually think of PTSD as something you develop if you go to war, are sexually assaulted or suffer a similar emotional trauma," says Dale Needham, M.D., Ph.D., a critical care specialist at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and senior author of the study published online in Psychological Medicine. "Instead, it may be as common, or more common, in ICU patients as in soldiers, but it's something many doctors including psychiatrists don't fully appreciate."
"Physical weakness usually gets better, but these mental symptoms often just linger," says study leader O. Joseph Bienvenu, M.D., Ph.D., an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins. "We need to pay more attention to preventing and treating PTSD in these patients."
Bienvenu says the unusual thing about PTSD in ICU survivors is that they often experience flashbacks about delusions or hallucinations they had in the hospital, rather than events that actually occurred. Having a life-threatening illness is itself frightening, but delirium in these patients who are attached to breathing machines and being given sedatives and narcotics may lead to "memories" of horrible things that didn't happen, he adds.
"One woman thought her husband and the nurse were plotting to kill her," Bienvenu recalls.
For the study, the Johns Hopkins team observed 520 mechanically ventilated patients with ALI, recruited from 13 ICUs at four Baltimore hospitals between October 2004 and October 2007. Fifty-three percent survived their hospitalization, and 186 patients had at least one research visit over the subsequent two-year follow-up period.
The researchers found that 66 of the 186 patients (35 percent) had clinically significant symptoms of PTSD, with the greatest apparent onset occurring by the initial, three-month follow-up visit. Sixty-two percent of the survivors who developed PTSD still had symptoms at their two-year visit. Half of this same group was taking psychiatric medications, and 40 percent had seen a psychiatrist in the two years since being hospitalized with ALI.
The researchers also found that patients with depression before hospitalization were twice as likely to develop PTSD, and that those who spent more time in the ICU were more likely to experience symptoms.
Those who had sepsis (a severe response to infection) during their ICU stay, and those who were given high doses of opiates, were more likely to develop PTSD as well. Those given corticosteroids while in the ICU were less likely to develop PTSD, though the exact reasons why are unknown.
The delirium often associated with ICU stays and post-ICU PTSD may be partially a consequence of inflammation caused by sepsis. This inflammation may lead to a breakdown in the blood-brain barrier, which alters the impact on the brain of narcotics, sedatives and other drugs prescribed in the ICU.
Bienvenu says patients who have these risk factors need special attention. Simply educating them and their primary care doctors about the increased risk for PTSD would be a step in the right direction, he adds.
Each year, almost 1 million patients in the United States are hooked up to ventilators in an ICU, and 200,000 are estimated to develop ALI, usually as the result of infection. The lungs of healthy people allow the easy exchange of gases to enable oxygen to enter the bloodstream, and carbon dioxide to exit the body. In ALI patients, the normally light and dry lungs become heavy and soggy like a wet sponge.
People with PTSD, a form of anxiety disorder, may feel severely stressed or frightened even when they're no longer in danger. The symptoms fall into three categories: reliving the traumatic experience (flashbacks, nightmares), avoidance (feeling numb, detached, staying away from people and places that serve as reminders of the experience), and hyperarousal (being easily startled, having difficulty sleeping, irritability).
PTSD can impair quality of life and slow patients' recovery from a critical illness, keeping victims from returning to work or performing usual activities of daily life.
Needham, Bienvenu and others at Johns Hopkins are interested in whether changing care in the ICU can reduce the incidence of PTSD. Needham's team has reported on studies showing that early physical rehabilitation for ICU patients can speed and enhance recovery, and he says "psychological rehab" now deserves attention.
One European study looked at the use of ICU diaries, where nurses and family members recorded what was happening with the patients daily while they were in the ICU, sometimes taking photographs. The diaries were then given to the patients a month after leaving the ICU, with phone debriefing from a nurse. The intervention reduced PTSD symptoms by helping patients make sense of their ICU memories, Bienvenu says.
###
Other Johns Hopkins researchers involved in the study include Jonathan Gellar, M.P.H.; Benjamin M. Althouse, Sc.M.; Elizabeth Colantuoni, Ph.D.; Thiti Sricharoenchai, M.D.; Pedro A. Mendez-Tellez, M.D.; Cheryl R. Dennison, R.N., Ph.D.; and Peter J. Pronovost, M.D., Ph.D.
This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health's National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (Acute Lung Injury SCCOR Grant P050 HL73994 and R01 HL88045).
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Historical Echoes: Cash or Credit? Payments and Finance in Ancient Rome Marco Del Negro and Mary Tao
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Imagine yourself a Roman citizen in the 1st Century B.C. You?ve gone shopping with your partner, who?s trying to convince you to buy a particular item. The thing?s pretty expensive, and you demur because you?re short of cash. You may think that back then such an excuse would get you off scot-free. What else can you possibly do: Write a check? Well, yes, writes the poet Ovid in his ?Ars Amatoria, Book I.? And since your partner knows it, you have no way out (the example below shows some gender bias on Ovid?s part. Fortunately, a few things have changed over the past 2,000 years):
But when she has her purchase in her eye, She hugs thee close, and kisses thee to buy; ?Tis what I want, and ?tis a pen?orth too; In many years I will not trouble you.? If you complain you have no ready coin, No matter, ?tis but writing of a line; A little bill, not to be paid at sight: (Now curse the time when thou wert taught to write.)
In a previous Historical Echoes post, we describe some of the characters in early Roman high and low finance. Here, we look at their modus operandi.
Large sums of money changed hands in Roman times. People bought real estate, financed trade, and invested in the provinces occupied by the Roman legions. How did that happen? Cicero writes, in Epistulae ad Familiares 5.6 and Epistulae ad Atticum 13.31, respectively: ?I have bought that very house for 3.5 million sesterces? and ?Gaius Albanius is the nearest neighbor: he bought 1,000 iugera [625 acres] of M. Pilius, as far as I can remember, for 11.5 million sesterces.? How? asks historian H. W. Harris (in ?The Nature of Roman Money?)??mechanically speaking, did Cicero pay three and half million sesterces he laid out for his famous house in the Palatine . . . . That would have meant packing and carrying some three and half tons of coins through the streets of Rome. When C. Albanius bought an estate from C. Pilius for eleven and half million sesterces, did he physically send the sum in silver coins?? Harris? answer is: ?Without much doubt, these were at least for the most part documentary [i.e., paper] transactions. The commonest procedure for large property purchases in this period was the one casually alluded to by Cicero [De?Officiis 3.59] . . . ?nomina facit, negotium conficit? . . . provides the credit [or ?bonds??nomina], completes the purchase.?
What exactly are these nomina??from which, by the way, comes the term ?nominal,? so commonly used in economics. In his Ph.D. dissertation ?Bankers, Moneylenders, and Interest Rates in the Roman Republic,? C. T. Barlow writes (pp. 156-7): ?An entry in an account book was called a nomen. Originally the word meant just that?a name with some numbers attached. By Cicero?s day . . . [n]omen could also mean ?debt,? referring to the entries in the creditor?s and the debtor?s account books.? And this ?debt was in fact the lifeblood of the Roman economy, at all levels . . . nomina were a completely standard part of the lives of people of property, as well as being an everyday fact of life for a great number of others? (Harris, p. 184). Pliny the Younger writes, for example, (in Epistulae 3.19): ?Perhaps you will ask whether I can raise these three millions without difficulty. Well, nearly all my capital is invested in land, but I have some money out at interest and I can borrow without any trouble.?
For concreteness, say that some fellow, Sempronius, owes you one million sesterces. You?or in case you?re a wealthy senator, or eques, your financial advisor (procurator?Titus Pomponius Atticus was Cicero?s)?would record the debt in the ledger. What if you suddenly needed the money to buy some property? Do you have to wait for Sempronius to bring you a bag with 1 million sesterces? No! As long as Sempronius is a worthy creditor (a bonum nomen [see Barlow, p. 156]; in the modern parlance of credit rating agencies, a triple-A creditor), you?d do what Cicero says: transfer the nomina, strike the deal. For example, Cicero writes to his financial advisor Atticus (Ad Atticum 12.31): ?If I were to sell my claim on Faberius, I don?t doubt my being able to settle for the grounds of Silius even by a ready money payment.? As Harris (p. 192) observes: ?Nomina were transferable, and by the second century B.C., if not earlier, were routinely used as a means of payment for other assets . . . . The Latin term for the procedure by which the payer transferred a nomen that was owed to him to the seller was delegatio.?
So, we?ve seen that Romans could settle payments by transferring nomina. But was there a market for nomina, just like there?s one today in, say, mortgage-backed securities? According to both Barlow and Harris, the answer is yes. They claim that the Romans took the transferability one step further and essentially turned ?mere entries in account books? into ?negotiable notes? (see Barlow, p. 159, and Harris, p. 192). Not everyone agrees. The economic historian P. Temin (?Financial Intermediation in the Early Roman Empire?) also reports evidence of assignability of loans, opening the possibility of ?wider negotiability, but,? he adds, ?we do not have any evidence that it happened? (p. 721). Yet some indirect evidence is there. For instance, the idea of negotiable notes appears to be well understood by Roman jurists, such as Ulpian (The Digest of Justinian XXX.I.44): ?A party who bequeaths a note bequeaths the claim and not merely the material on which the writing appears. This is proved by a sale, for when a note is sold, the debt by which it is evidenced is also considered to be sold.?
What if you had to transfer money to somebody in a different part of the globe? As the Roman dominions expanded into Greece, Spain, North Africa, and Asia, Roman finance actually faced this logistical problem. If you?re in Rome and want to, say, finance Caius? mines in Thapsus, North Africa, how do you get him the money? He needs the silver to buy material, slaves, and other things, but you?re naturally very reluctant to see your money sail away for Africa, as the chances of it getting there aren?t that high (see pirates, shipwrecks, etc.). ?Permutatio, the transfer of funds from place to place through paper transactions, was Rome?s great contribution to ancient banking? (Barlow, p. 168). It worked as follows: The publicani were private companies in charge of tax collection in the provinces (as well as many other tasks; see ?Publicani,? by U. Malmendier). They had a branch in Rome and one in Thapsus. So, you?d give them the silver in Rome (or transfer them some nomina) and they?d divert some of their tax collection in North Africa to Caius. This is also how the Republic would finance its public spending overseas. Since taxes were collected throughout the provinces, by trading claims on taxes Romans could transfer funds across the globe?or at least to the part of the globe they had conquered.
Interestingly, some historians measure the sophistication of Roman finance ?by the extent banks were present? (Temin, p. 719). While it is true that we have no evidence of a 1st Century B.C. Wells Fargo, this may not necessarily imply lack of sophistication. Prior to the Great Recession in the United States, a large chunk of financial intermediation didn?t involve banks?it went through the ?shadow banking system.? Roman high finance ?functioned primarily on the basis of brokerage? (K. Verboven, ?Faeneratores, Negotiatores and Financial Intermediation in the Roman World,? p. 12), and hence was a bit like a proto-shadow banking system, as we suggest in our prior post. Like the shadow-banking system in the United States, it was fragile. Going back to our earlier example, we note that if whomever you want to buy property from starts wondering about the creditworthiness of Sempronius, she will not accept his nomina in payment and will want cash. That?ll force you to call in the loan to Sempronius, who in order to pay you will call in his loan to Titus, and so on. But financial crises in ancient Rome are the subject of a future post.
We are grateful to Cameron Hawkins of the University of Chicago for help navigating the literature.
LONDON (Reuters) - Pippa Middleton, the sister of the Duchess of Cambridge, is to give cooking tips to the masses in a new column for supermarket chain Waitrose.
Middleton, 29, will write a column for the upmarket chain's monthly magazine, Waitrose Kitchen, called "Pippa's Friday Night Feasts".
Her foray into kitchen advice comes after she released a book called "Celebrate" last year, which was a guide to entertaining through the year and built on the experience she gained working for her family's party-planning business.
The book by the sister of Britain's future queen was both praised and pilloried in equal measure but did not sell well and was quickly discounted in book stores.
William Sitwell, editor of Waitrose Kitchen, said readers would enjoy Middleton's relaxed and easy entertaining ideas.
"Pippa will be an excellent contributor to the magazine, bringing with her a wealth of experience of entertaining, gained in part from working at her family's party business," he said in a statement.
Her first column will appear in the magazine's April issue and will feature casual dining ideas and recipes.
Middleton said her column would be an "exciting opportunity to share my own passion and enthusiasm for food and entertaining and I can't wait to get started".
(Reporting by Belinda Goldsmith; Editing by Michael Roddy)
STOCKHOLM (AP) ? Swedish furniture giant Ikea was drawn into Europe's widening food labeling scandal Monday as authorities said they had detected horse meat in frozen meatballs labeled as beef and pork and sold in 13 countries across the continent.
The Czech State Veterinary Administration said that horse meat was found in one-kilogram (2.2 pound) packs of frozen meatballs made in Sweden and shipped to the Czech Republic for sale in Ikea stores there. A total of 760 kilograms (1,675 pounds) of the meatballs were stopped from reaching the shelves.
Ikea spokeswoman Ylva Magnusson said meatballs from the same batch had gone out to Slovakia, Hungary, France, Britain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Greece, Cyprus and Ireland. Magnusson said meatballs from that batch were taken off the shelves in Ikea stores in all those countries. Other shipments of meatballs were not affected, including to the U.S., even though they all come from the same Swedish supplier, Magnusson said.
"Our global recommendation is to not recall or stop selling meatballs," she said.
However, the company's Swedish branch announced on its Facebook page that it won't sell or serve any meatballs at its stores in Sweden out of concern for "potential worries among our customers."
Magnusson said Ikea saw no reason to extend that guidance globally. She said Ikea was conducting its own tests of the affected batch "to validate" the Czech results. She also said that two weeks ago Ikea tested a range of frozen food products, including meatballs, and found no traces of horse meat.
"But, of course, we take the tests that Czech authorities have done very seriously," Magnusson said. "We don't tolerate any other ingredients than those on the label."
European authorities have said the horse meat found in lasagna and other prepared dishes is a case of fraudulent labeling but does not pose a health risk.
Ikea's trademark blue-and-yellow stores typically feature a restaurant that serves traditional Swedish food, including meatballs served with boiled or mashed potatoes, gravy and lingonberry jam. Meatballs ? "Kottbullar" in Swedish ? are also available in the frozen foods section.
Magnusson said all of the meatballs are supplied by Gunnar Dafgard AB, a family-owned frozen foods company in southwestern Sweden. Calls to the company were not immediately returned, but it posted a brief statement on its website saying "the batch in question has been blocked and we are investigating the situation."
Sweden's food safety authority said it wasn't taking any action but was waiting for Czech authorities to specify the quantity of horsemeat detected.
"If it's less than 1 percent it could mean that they handled horsemeat at the same facility. If it's more, we assess that it's been mixed into the product," said Karin Cerenius of Sweden's National Food Agency.
European Union officials were meeting Monday to discuss tougher food labeling rules after the discovery of horse meat in a range of frozen supermarket meals such as burgers and lasagna that were supposed to contain beef or pork.
The Czech authority also announced Monday that it found horse meat in beef burgers imported from Poland during random tests of food products.
Spanish authorities, meanwhile, announced that traces of horse meat were found in a beef cannelloni product by one of the brands of Nestle, a Switzerland-based food giant.
In a statement on its website, Nestle Spain said that after carrying out tests on meat supplied to its factories in Spain it was withdrawing six "La Cocinera" products and one "Buitoni" product from store shelves.
It said it was taking the action after the traces of horse meat were found in beef bought from a supplier in central Spain. Nestle said it was taking legal action against the company, adding that the products would be replaced by ones with 100 percent beef.
Some EU member states are pressing for tougher labeling rules to regain consumer confidence.
The 27-nation bloc must agree on binding origin disclosures for food product ingredients, starting with a better labeling of meat products, German Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner said.
"Consumers have every right to the greatest-possible transparency," she insisted.
Austria backs the German initiative; but others like Ireland say existing rules are sufficient although Europe-wide controls must be strengthened to address the problem of fraudulent labeling.
The scandal has created a split between nations like Britain which see further rules as a protectionist hindrance of free trade under the bloc's single market, and those calling for tougher regulation.
Processed food products ? a business segment with traditionally low margins that often leads producers to hunt for the cheapest suppliers ? often contain ingredients from multiple suppliers in different countries, who themselves at times subcontract production to others, making it hard to monitor every link in the production chain.
Standardized DNA checks with meat suppliers and more stringent labeling rules will add costs that producers will most likely hand down to consumers, making food more expensive.
The scandal began in Ireland in mid-January when the country announced the results of its first-ever DNA tests on beef products. It tested frozen beef burgers taken from store shelves and found that more than a third of brands at five supermarkets contained at least a trace of horse. The sample of one brand sold by British supermarket kingpin Tesco was more than a quarter horse.
Such discoveries have spread like wildfire across Europe as governments, supermarkets, meat traders and processors began their own DNA testing of products labeled beef and have been forced to withdraw tens of millions of products from store shelves.
More than a dozen nations have detected horse flesh in processed products such as factory-made burger patties, lasagnas, meat pies and meat-filled pastas. The investigations have been complicated by elaborate supply chains involving multiple cross-border middlemen.
___
Associated Press writers Juergen Baetz in Brussels, Karel Janicek in Prague and Ciaran Giles in Madrid contributed to this report.
The remains of a small continent have been hiding right under our noses for the past 85 million years or so.
That's according to a new study published Sunday in the journal Nature Geoscience. Scientists looked at lava sands from beaches on Mauritius to determine when and where the material might have originated.
Their conclusion? The lava sands, containing particles called zircon xenocrysts, came from a Precambrian microcontinent dubbed "Mauritia" that was sandwiched between the land masses that today make up Madagascar and India. It was all part of a supercontinent known as Rodinia that existed between 2 billion and 85 million years ago. (Not to be confused with the better known and slightly more contemporary supercontinent Pangaea).
Mauritia was a sliver of land that broke apart and disappeared under the sea as the Rodinia ripped itself apart as part of the process of plate tectonics, scientists believe.
The BBC quotes the study's lead author, Trond Torsvik, as saying the sand his team examined dates to a 9-million-year-old eruption near the modern-day islands of Marion and Reunion that spewed much older material.
"We found zircons that we extracted from the beach sands, and these are something you typically find in a continental crust. They are very old in age," said Torsvik of the University of Oslo in Norway.
Torsvik believes pieces of Mauritia have been interred under 6 miles of surface and spread over a swath of the Indian Ocean, according to the BBC.
"However, a small part could have survived.
" 'At the moment the Seychelles is a piece of granite, or continental crust, which is sitting practically in the middle of the Indian Ocean,' explained Prof Torsvik.
" 'But once upon a time, it was sitting north of Madagascar. And what we are saying is that maybe this was much bigger, and there are many of these continental fragments that are spread around in the ocean.' "
BARCELONA (Reuters) - When the bosses of global mobile operators meet in Barcelona this week, there will be an elephant in the room: the widening gap between fast-growing and richly-valued U.S. telecoms companies and their ailing European counterparts.
A overcrowded market, tough regulations and recession are hampering European telcos' ability to invest in faster networks, increasing the risk that the region's flagging economy falls further behind the United States and parts of Asia.
As a result, a transatlantic gap in company valuations has opened to its widest since 2008, with European telco stocks now trading at roughly 9.9 times earnings against 17.6 times for U.S. peers.
The gap reflects differences in the competitive landscape. Europe has about 100 mobile firms to the United States' six, as well as harsher rules that have sapped profitability and contributed to four straight years of revenue decline.
And it has real world consequences. As investors' confidence in them wanes, European telcos find it harder to raise or borrow money and become increasingly wary of funding network upgrades that take years to pay off, but are vital to economic growth.
"If it were just a valuation gap of 5 percent it wouldn't really matter, but when it is so large, it does have serious consequences," said France Telecom Chief Financial Officer Gervais Pellissier in an interview.
"If European operators don't get their financing capacity back and regain higher stock market valuations, investment in networks may be lower than many would wish."
To keep up with the smartphone and tablet computer boom, global carriers must invest $800 billion in their networks through 2016, according to trade group GSMA, notably on fourth generation (4G) mobile technology and fibre broadband that offer up to ten times faster internet speeds.
While U.S., Japanese, and South Korean telcos invest heavily in networks, Europe's players have been struggling to pay off debts as their ability to generate cash is hit by fierce competition. As a result, they are building 4G and fibre broadband only slowly, leaving swathes of Europe poorly covered.
The situation has led many European telco executives to lobby the European Union for a more benign approach to mergers and acquisitions and regulations on, for example, call charges.
Europe's top technology regulator Neelie Kroes supports consolidation to create a handful of strong cross-border telecom leaders. But European antitrust watchdogs led by competition commissioner Joaquin Almunia have been cold on such deals over fears they will raise prices for consumers.
The valuation gap could even make European telcos acquisition targets for U.S. and Asian rivals, a tough pill to swallow for proud, former state-backed monopolies that build key national infrastructure.
However, the heavy losses faced by Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim since he bought stakes in Dutch group KPN and Telekom Austria suggest foreigners must tread carefully before bargain shopping in Europe.
ACROSS THE POND
In the United States, Verizon Wireless and AT&T control 70 percent of the mobile market and their virtual duopoly has allowed them to grow sales and profits, avoiding the fate of European peers to become investor darlings.
As they have upped investment to build faster 4G networks, they have secured higher prices from consumers increasingly addicted to smartphones from the likes of Apple and Samsung.
Their financial performance last year is the stuff of dreams for Europe's operators. Verizon grew mobile revenues by 7.7 percent last year on a margin of 46.6 percent, while AT&T mobile sales grew 5.7 percent on a margin of 39.6 percent.
In contrast, Europe's biggest mobile operator Vodafone saw its revenue dip 0.4 percent in the first half of its current fiscal year, and its operating margin was 30.5 percent.
The two smaller U.S. players - Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile, a unit of Deutsche Telekom - have some 30 percent of the market, but are far from matching the two leaders' network quality or profitability. That could change if the market gets more competitive after Japan's Softbank bought about 70 percent of Sprint last year. T-Mobile USA is also in the process of buying smaller rival Metro PCS.
Average revenue per U.S. mobile user (ARPU) has grown 25 percent to $49 (39.24 euros) since 2007, according to Sanford Bernstein. In Europe, ARPU has fallen 15 percent to 24 euros.
To cope with lower sales, Europe's telcos have cut costs, But that has not improved profits because prices keep falling. The sector index dropped more than 8 percent in 2012, making it the region's worst-performer.
For Bernstein analyst Robin Bienenstock the problem is European telcos have no confidence that investing in networks to offer superior service than rivals will pay off.
"So they don't invest, they just cut costs and tweak pricing, locking themselves in a vicious cycle of selling an increasingly commoditized service," she said.
"If you are an American consumer, especially in a big city, there has been a tangible improvement in what you're being offered on mobile speeds, whereas for Europeans, there has been a deterioration in quality."
TARGETS
If the valuation gap persists, it could open the door to outside companies looking for bargain acquisitions in Europe.
AT&T, for example, has signaled it would look for opportunities to expand in Europe, although people familiar with its thinking said no decisions had been made on such moves.
Verizon Communications CEO Lowell McAdam, meanwhile, said last month it was "feasible" to achieve a long-held goal to buy out the 45 percent of Verizon Wireless owned by Vodafone, though it is unclear whether Vodafone would want to cash in on all or part of a stake that is a rich source of revenue.
Carlos Slim's experience, however, shows the risks of dealmaking in Europe. The founder of America Movil spent 3 billion euros to invest in KPN and Telekom Austria, only to see the value of his investments plummet.
European telco bosses are likely to sound the alarm when they see regulator Neelie Kroes at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Tuesday.
"The European industry should look very carefully at the American model and more seriously ask ourselves why there is such a successful model for customers, shareholders and governments that we seem not to be able to replicate," Vodafone CEO Vittorio Colao recently told the Wall Street Journal.
Few expect things to change quickly though. "From a European perspective, I have little hope that the valuations will improve as long as there is no change to the regulatory environment or the macroeconomic environment," said Heinrich Ey, director of research at Allianz Global Investors.
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My name is Brad Callen. I?ve been marketing online since the early 2000s and have been fortunate enough to have generated millions of dollars solely from the internet.
I got my start online in the weight loss niche, marketing an eBook I?d written that is no longer on the market. It was an eBook called "Ultimate Weight Loss Revealed".
Here?s a picture of my very first website and product. Not too bad for having no idea what I was doing, eh?
While marketing to that industry, my website achieved #1 and #2 Google rankings for every single major keyword related to the weight loss niche!
That?s pretty much unheard of to rank #1 or #2 for every single major keyword in a niche, but I did it all from my 2 bedroom apartment, on a dial-up internet connection!
At the time, My dinky little website selling my eBook was beating out fortune 500 companies like Jenny Craig and LA Weight Loss, who had million dollar marketing and advertising budgets. I was spending exactly $0.00 and I was doing this from my 2 bedroom apartment, on a dial up modem!
I?ve since moved out of the weight loss industry completely and into something I have much more passion for? the software/marketing industry. I?ve also taken my new websites to the top for their chosen keywords. Also, very competitive keywords, in that the owners of the sites competing for these keywords know "search engine optimization" extremely well.
We rank #1 in Google for the term: SEO Software
We rank #1 in Google for the term: Search Engine Optimization Software
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We all know that, the Baltimore Ravens are saying bye to ILB Ray Lewis for upcoming season, as he?s elected to retire. So who is going to replace Ray Lewis? Also the Ravens, may be losing ILB Dannell Ellerbe is an impending free agent, and it?s no certainty that he?ll be signing a new deal [...]
The post NFL Update ? Who are the Baltimore Ravens going to Get to replace Ray Lewis? appeared first on Free Sports Picks Daily.
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A statistic came out a few years ago about how the first
thing 70 percent of people do when looking for local businesses is fire up
their browsers and head online to do a search. Pretty amazing, right? Not too
long ago, Googling something was called ?using the Yellow pages,? but now
you?re lucky if you can find someone under 30 who knows what the Yellow Pages
are.
How does this relate to you, your job search, and digital
resumes? It?s pretty simple, really: every single day, more and more of the
world is online, and as that trend continues the internet is becoming our de
facto first choice of where to go to find things, whether that means the
closest deli to our apartment, a quality used car, or someone to fill the
position that just opened up at our company.
If you want to make sure that companies can find you quickly
and easily, it?s vital that you create a digital resume for yourself. But what
does ?digital resume? mean, exactly? Here?s where it gets interesting.
The Digital Resume
Because it?s a relatively new creation, there are few strict
definitions of what a digital resume has to be. Some people make talking head
videos of themselves and post this as their ?resume? on YouTube. Others create
ambitious, fully-featured websites where they post their work and include
gorgeous designs and animations. When it comes to creating a digital resume,
the only real limits are your imagination and skillset.
But don?t lose heart if those descriptions make you feel
inadequate and unprepared. All ?digital resume? really means is that your
resume is available online. Employers want to see that you?re web savvy enough
to at least put your resume on the internet, because using a computer is pretty
much essential in most companies these days. Here are several simple ways to
set yourself up with a digital resume just in case a prospective employer asks
to see it.
Use LinkedIn. Probably the easiest way to get your
resume online if you?re not particularly comfortable messing around on the
internet, LinkedIn doesn?t require and special knowledge of things like graphic
design or web design. It?s also a good choice because LinkedIn is
well-respected within the business community, and it allows you to network with
past and current colleagues. Their straightforward system provides a form where
you can input all of the information that you would use on a traditional
resume, including education, work history, and other important facts. The downside
is that a lot of people use LinkedIn as their online resume home, so you?re not
going to stand out as much.
Try an
online resume builder. A great way to stand out more without putting in a
lot of extra work is to use a free online resume builder, like Career Igniter or Resume Builder Online, that
allows you to host your resume on their site. These sites are not only
incredibly easy to use, with dropdown menus leading you through each step of
the resume-creation process and making sure you don?t forget any important
information, they often help with the design of your resume by outputting it to
a variety of templates and letting you choose the one you like best. And, of
course, when it?s done, most let you both download a copy of your resume and
host a copy of it on your own private resume web page. All you have to do is
give companies a link and you?re set.
Put it on
your site. If you already have your own website, hosting it there is a
great way to go because employers will automatically see you as someone who
knows what they are doing on the web. Meanwhile, all that you really have to do
is take five minutes to create the new page and copy or upload your
already-finished resume file to it. Just make sure to do a quick test before
sending the link out to any potential employers, because you don?t want to
direct them to a link that doesn?t work or a resume where the formatting got
screwed up. For most people, this is only worth it if you already have a site;
there?s no point in spending a ridiculous amount of time building yourself a
webpage just to get a receptionist gig.
Ultimately, the main reason that digital resumes are
valuable is because companies want you to have one, but they can be helpful in
other ways as well. Unlike paper resumes and even digital files, once a resume
is online, there?s no real way for you to, um, misplace it, and having one can
be quite helpful in a pinch if you have to provide someone with your resume
quickly or lose out on a job.
Josh Weiss-Roessler is a professional resume writer and also
co-owner of Weiss-Roessler
Writing, which helps individuals and small businesses market their products
and services online through blogs, website copy, social media, search engine
optimization, and other content marketing strategies.
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Public release date: 26-Feb-2013
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