Renovation for Your Home

By Frida Miller

Frequently, we associate renovation with our existing budgets, or on a larger scale, on the current economic state. However there may be some renovations for your home that you should not postpone. In fact a lot of home renovations when dealt early can actually help you save in the long run. Renovate your home not only for aesthetics purposes but also to make your home eco-friendly. Here are some home renovation ideas:

1. Add a small extra padding for your attic. This will help reduce energy consumption and thus be more frugal in the long run. Right insulation can trim down heating and cooling bills by 10%.

2. Renovate your windows by upgrading old single-pane windows with Energy Star qualified windows. These window types can save you a lot when it comes to energy bills. Energy Star qualified windows usually more than a couple panes of glass, warm edge spacers between the window panes and better framing materials

3. Water heater is another of most home's top energy expenditure. Not only that, it accounts a large chunk of the household's monthly energy bill. It's time to renovate your heater if your existing one is more than 10 years old. Why? If your water heater is old, it is most likely operating at a less effective rate, with an efficiency level of 50 per cent or lower. However, you can still spare some money by insulating the water heater with a water heater jacket. You can purchase water heater jackets at most hardware stores or by lowering the temperature setting on the water heater.

There are many profits in making energy saving renovations to your abode. These renovations can shrink your energy consumption and thus save you money in the long run. Energy-saving renovations can improve your indoor air quality, and your overall comfort level.

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Button Badges - Useful Promotional Gifts

By Sheila Lang

Some examples of excellent corporate gifts or promotional gifts are button badges & clothing. These materials are effective because of the large exposure they receive, especially at big events. This makes them perfect corporate gifts to be given out at the beach, at large company functions, sporting events, or any other place where a lot of people will gather.

Corporate gifts like button badges go automatically with company sponsored events. If a big community event is being planned by your company or business, such as a company picnic, you should know there should be enough button badges and promotional clothing to be distributed. People who go to these events come to expect that they will be given promotional products such as button badges as part of the package. They will most likely end up thinking badly of your company if they do not get such items.

Name tags and button badges portray an essential role. They not only get attention to your logo; people at the event are easily identifiable as well. If you create a button badge or name tag, put your logo on it. This not only gives you an opportunity to advertise your brand; it also makes everybody feel that they are part of the same event.

You should always think of the several different choices you have for corporate gifts whenever you are hosting or planning any large event or function. At first, giving these gifts away might seem to hurt your advertising or marketing budget, but it is very worth it. It will make every person at the function appreciate your business & think positively of your brand.

The purpose of these corporate gifts is to improve & promote the image of the company. It is unusual that free items are rejected, but often your company's logo will be ignored unless other efforts are created to make the receivers aware of your business or brand. When people are heavily targeted with a combination of advertising & corporate gifts, they will surely remember your company's name whenever they need your merchandise.

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Home Security on a Budget

By Pierre Levingston

It can be hard to know where to place your money, especially during these hard, economic times. However, even on the smallest of budgets, there are still a lot of things you can do to protect your home. There are many basic, and often free, things you can do to enhance the security of your home.

You can still keep your budget and also keep your home safe. There are many inexpensive things you can do now to continue to add to the security of your home. Here are a few suggestions you can use to secure your home while on a budget.

Don't forget to lock your doors or windows. Even the best locks are not going to work if you leave your doors and windows unlocked. Make it a habit now to check your doors and windows every time you leave your home.

Keep your shrubs and bushes under control. Make it a priority to keep your yard well taken care of. Burglars like using shrubs and trees to hide behind so they can't be seen by passing motorist or pedestrians.

Turn on the lights. Having good outdoor lighting during the night can be a great deterrent for burglars. Burglars don't want to be seen breaking in to your home.

Put your items away. Thieves like to use tool sheds to use ladders or other tools to break in to your home. Don't leave your items all around your lawn or unlocked.

Don't forget to lock your garage. Thieves are opportunists. If your home is well protected, that won't stop them from trying to find something in your garage they can steal.

Look in to getting a simple alarm system. They can be a great asset for the protection of your home. Most alarm systems are very affordable, even for those on a budget.

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What To Look For When Hiring An Interior Designer

By Alex Adams

A good interior designer can turn a house of bricks and mortar into a cosy home, which you can proudly declare your own. However, choosing an interior designer is not simple and you have to assess the candidates on a number of factors before deciding on the best one for the job.

A good interior design expert should have a creative mind set. A design that makes the house both cosy for its dwellers and appealing to outsiders can be successfully achieved by a designer who can effectively combine attractiveness with utility in his work.

The interior designer must be able to lead his team and organize matters successfully. With different jobs at hand, the interior designer has to be a good time manager to prevent delays that might cause the owner to incur more expenses and exceed his budget. The designer also has to make sure that the project follows stringent safety norms so that no untoward incidents occur during work.

A knack for planning the design and for detailed examination of blue prints should be the marks of a capable designer. He has to know what lighting would suit the rooms and how to set them up properly throughout the house. For example, he must be sensitive to the fact that every single room needs to be designed according to its own needs. He also needs to give careful attention to spaces like the kitchen and bathroom and see that they don't have poor ventilation.

Another quality of a good interior designer is his ability to come up with practical solutions to problems. Unforeseen situations often crop up during the designing project that the designer should be able to solve with his common sense and by taking the right decisions without any delays. Moreover, he should always be prepared for new ideas and suggestions, but must not get deviated from the ultimate goals of the project.

Lastly, a good interior designer must be able to strongly affirm his capabilities so that you feel you have assigned the job to a competent professional. He needs to give a patient ear to your advice and attempt to fit your ideas into the design. After all it is your house and you would not want to sacrifice on any aspect, whether it is elegance or functionality.

If you are mindful of all these factors while choosing a designer, you can be certain that you will appoint the right person. If the end result is up to your expectations, you will be glad that you were able to pick the right person for this critical task.

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Japan's Judo Gold Medalist Satoshi Ishii Looks For A 'Home' In MMA

By Ross Everett

It may be a bit of a stretch to call Satoshi Ishii the Michael Phelps of Japan, but not by much. His victory in the heavyweight judo competition at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing was easily the defining moment of the games for his countrymen and was considered by most media outlets the #1 highlight of the year in all of sports. Though Japan does well at the Olympics for a country of its size and has won gold medals in a number of sports, its important to keep in mind that until the late'70s judo was the countrys most popular sport. While its popularity in the intervening decades has been supplanted by imported team sports like soccer and baseball, judo still holds especially high prestige among the Japanese sports fans and general public.

Ishii himself is also a marketing dream. Hes especially big by Japanese standards with 240 pounds packed on his bulky 511 frame. Not surprisingly, hes tough as nails and a terror on the mat but away from the gym he comes off like an awkwardly cheerful overgrown boy. He definitely seems younger than his 22 years, but gives off the vibe of a nice neighbor boy who youd gladly pay to mow your lawn. Unlike his telegenic American gold medalist counterpart Phelps, who acts as if he spent as much time working on media relations as his backstroke heading up to the Olympic games, Ishii's demeanor is of an athlete who literally spent the bulk of his life in a gym only to emerge and find himself a national hero and superstar. He alternately seems to be having the time of his life at the vortex of a media frenzy as he is somewhat overwhelmed by the attention.

With the ability to offer him the most money and exposure, it seemed almost a fait accompli that Ishii would sign with DREAM and K-1 parent group FEG. Obviously its a good idea to keep your options open in negotiations, so he also reportedly talked to Sengoku parent World Victory Road and Antonio Inokis Inoki Genome Federation pro wrestling group. As expected, however, FEG reportedly presented Ishii with the most lucrative offer: 500 million yen (roughly $5.5 million US) to fight on DREAM and K-1 cards, with incentive bonuses based on his drawing power and performance. He would very likely become the highest paid mixed martial artist in the world before hed even stepped into the ring for the first time.

Ishii then shocked the Japanese fight sport world by categorically rejecting FEGs offer, saying that it was his lifelong dream to fight in the UFC. While this rationale might sound plausible to a US based fan, its akin to a top college baseball player from a SEC school turning down a big offer from the Atlanta Braves saying that its his lifelong dream to play for the Yomiuri Giants in Japan Central League. It frequently comes a shock to US MMA fans when immersed in Japans culture for the first time just how low the UFC ranks in the countrys fight sport pantheon. In MMA, their profile is lower than DREAM and Sengoku, but even smaller groups like Shooto and DEEP. Overall, the interest in and prestige of the UFC is well below not only boxing but even Japanese pro wrestling (puroresu). The UFC is making some progress, and big fights like GSP/Penn and Lesnar/Couture now get higher profile coverage (Lesnar/Couture owed most of its interest in the Japanese press to Brocks run as IWGP pro wrestling champ) but by no means is the #1 US MMA promotion considered on par with any of the major Japanese fighting groups.

Ishii then travelled to Las Vegas for UFC 92, with the Japanese media in tow covering his every move. Upon his return to Japan, he appeared at the Sengoku card in January addressing the audience from the ring and wearing his ubiquitous UFC shirt; his message was that he was going to fight in America for awhile but would eventually return to Japan.

At age 22, Ishiis got plenty of time to develop as a fighter. His biggest downside risk from signing with Zuffa is financial since hed be lucky to get a fraction of what FEG is willing to pay him. The competitive logic of learning his craft slowly notwithstanding, theres a huge risk in automatically assuming that he can fight for the UFC for a few years and then cash a big check when he returns to Japan as the potential of injury and changing market conditions could seriously impact his market value. On the other hand, it could be a risk hes willing to take given that hes got his celebrity both with the mainstream public and in the judo community to fall back on.

Theres another very realistic scenario that it was all a negotiating ploy by Ishii. The UFC was likely willing to play along, figuring that their investment of a few plane tickets and hotel suites would be worth the resulting PR surge in Japan.

With the recent revelation that Ishii has broken off UFC negotiations to entertain offers from other parties thats starting to look like the plausible explanation for the once hot and heavy courtship between Ishii and Zuffa.

As a postscript to the Ishiis relationship with the UFC, it apparently opened the doors for his move to the US where hell be training with the American Top Team in Florida. That alone is a positive for his future development as a fighter, as hell be training with a whos who of professional fighting.

About the Author:

Ross Everett is a widely published freelance writer and respected authority on sports betting odds comparison. He writing has appeared on a variety of sports sites including sportsbooks and betting odds portal sites. He lives in Las Vegas, Nevada with three Jack Russell Terriers and a kangaroo. He is currently working on an autobiography of former energy secretary Donald Hodell.

Learn About Retail Design

By Eric Stone

The core aim of a retail space is to provide an environment in which the retailer can effectively promote and sell goods to the customers, and where the customers can purchase those products with ease. This is why the design of retail areas and stores, that is the retail design, involves features of graphic design, ergonomics and marketing, along with other customary features of interior designing and architecture.

While designing a retail space, it is critical that the specific needs of that particular retail space are taken into account. Art galleries and supermarkets serve as good examples of retail spaces that have completely different needs for their design. Many aspects need to be considered while developing the design, such as the kind of goods being put on sale, the degree of involvement of shop assistants in the purchasing process, the number of products that need to be put on display, and so on. Many a times it is also essential for customers to be able to try the goods, while several other retail environments may only need exhibiting the products. Depending on such requirements, the retail design will have to be different.

Other than the functional aspects of retail design, consideration should also be given to the attractiveness of the retail atmosphere for the buyers. It is vital that customers feel welcome in the store once they walk in, and are inspired to make purchases before leaving. The designing of the retail space can immensely contribute in this respect. There should also be space inside the store for promoting the products through promotions to enhance the probability of a sale.

Moreover, the retail area should have a long lasting impression on the mind of the customers, and must motivate them to come back and make more purchases. Hence, a specialist retail designer will always give due attention to the ambience of the shop that would ensure that the customers have a nice and pleasant time in the shop.

In order to develop an effective retail design, it is necessary to have an adequate functional knowledge of customer psychology, space planning, marketing etc. It is important that the owner of the store understands these concepts in order to communicate the designer about his particular needs and the retail designer understands them to properly work as per the requirements.

Lastly, it is not just the inside of the store that should be carefully designed. The exteriors of the store are equally important and must be striking so that the buyers are tempted to come in and look at the merchandise.

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Consult A Professional Interior Designer To Make Your Home Suits Your Taste

By Alex Young

You would be able to affectionately call your house as your home only if it is designed in line with your likes and dislikes. People who do not regard themselves to be very artistic find it tough to manage interior design themselves as they constantly fear about getting it terribly wrong.

Even if you think about giving the job of design of your home to a specialist in interior designing, you might still not like the thought of completely trusting an outsider for doing such an important job on your home all by himself. Thus, it is prudent not to go to either extreme, instead think about your options and preferences before hiring an interior designer for working on your house.

Here are some guidelines, which can simplify the tough but significant task of selecting an interior designer. Go for someone who has several years of experience in this field and has a good reputation in the market.

You can tell the designer about your ideas for your home. A good interior designer will recommend some options to you, which will give you hints about his aptness for the project. Several other things which you can look at while choosing the interior designer are his previous jobs, his awareness of new developments, and references from clients.

Even if you take up the task of renovation and interior design of your home by yourself, you should pay special attention to some key things. First, you need to have knowledge about the look you desire for your house. Once that is decided, you can take help from magazines, TV, or other sources to ascertain the kind of furniture and other articles that are needed, and whether they will fit within your budget. Once you are done buying all the articles, all that is required is to organize them according to your pre-decided layout.

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Find Car Locksmith Services in Staten Island NY

By Ked Tennedy

Have you been searching for an easy upgrade for your car? Let our Staten Island lock experts install a push button start on the vehicle today. You may have heard of these in most ritzy luxury cars. These licensed, professional locksmiths in Staten Island are now able to install these features in any automobile. This technology is easy to use and always ensures security.

With push button start you will no longer need a igntion key. All you require is a simple key fob. You can keep this key fob in your pants pocket, wallet, or a purse. With this fob, you can instantly unlock your auto just by pressing a little button on your door handle. This saves you time of feeling through your purse or pockets to find your vehicle keys.

With push button start, you will be taken aback by how easy it becomes to fire up and stop your ride. Before you can turn on the automobile, you must have the key fob inside of the auto with you. You will also need to ensure that the whip is in not in drive. When you are in the whip with your key fob, just simply apply pressure on the break peddle and press the ignition button. A small indicator light on your ignition should change from red to green when the engine turns on. Before you can shut down your ride, you need to put the vehicle in park, push down on the breaks and push the ignition button. Once the light turns to red you know your car is not on.

This excellent new feature will drastically decrease the occurance of lock outs or locking the trunk with your keys inside. Because the key fob is still within range of the ride, you are still able to unlock the car doors. You are also easily able to open up the trunk without the need to to hire a locksmith service. This will save you time and money.

Besides this new feature being commodious, push button starters are also good for people with a disability. Let's say that you can no longer grip and twist a small key. It may seem strange but this is a very difficult task for people with arthritis of the fingers, wrist, elbow, or shoulder. Now, you won't have to endure this nuisance every time you have to turn on your ignition.

By choosing a licensed lock experts, you will be able to enhance your vehicle in a breeze. If you want help installing a push button ignition in your car, feel free to call us at your earliest convenience. We always keep multiple lock experts on staff, which means you can receive a push button starter within a couple of days, maybe even hours.

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