Posts from — February 2010

Tired of spending a fortune to hang out with your friends?  Why not host a movie night in your own home?  Movie nights are not a new idea, but with these 7 suggestions you can put a new spin on an old classic and host a night to remember.

1. Make it a double-header. If you’re not sure exactly what films your audience will like, ask each guest to bring a movie, and play the two most popular choices.
2. Mix up your snack selection. Why settle on simple popcorn and jellybeans when you can offer a more exciting snack selection?  Consider adding ice cream sundaes, gourmet pretzels, fruit salad or other interesting snacks to your homemade concession stand.
3. Drink up. Sure, movie theaters are known for their oversized cups of soda.  But your personal movie theater can stock up on more exotic beverages.  Mix up some fruity spritzers or martinis, or encourage your friends to shake up their favorite drinks.
4. Open with a short comedy. It may be called a movie night, but there’s no reason that you must limit yourself to movies.  Why not start with a  short TV comedy or a classic skit that you haven’t seen in a while?  Consider Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Simpsons or the Honeymooners.
5. Go for surround sound. If you host movie nights regularly, consider installing speakers around your TV room so that you can get the full feeling of the movie’s sound effects.
6. Surprise your friends with your decorations. Watching a horror movie?  Why not play up your room with scary accents?  Watching a tear-jerker?  Consider leaving tissues and a wastebasket next to each seat (or row of seats).  Your guests will appreciate your thoughtfulness and may even laugh at your antics.  If you’re feeling particularly eager you can even print out homemade tickets (for an added giggle, try telling one your friends that the theater is full!).
7. Add another activity to the evening. There’s no reason why a movie night should be limited to only a movie.  Invite your friends to play a game either before or after the feature film, or to go for a walk to work off some of those snacks.

Have other ideas that can make movie nights a bit more exciting?  Feel free to share them!

There are so many web hosting services out there that it’s hard to choose the best hosting for your and your site.

A lot of site owners shop their hosting by price. Budget is an important thing to consider, but since the differences in hosting prices are negligible, there are other features and more important factors to consider when choosing the perfect hosting for you.

1. Uptime and Reliability

No matter how much fancy features the hosting offers you, they are no good if the site is down in many parts of the day. Look for hosting services that guarantee uptime, and tell you exactly how they implement this promise.

2. Customer and Technical Support

Customer support in a web hosting service should be efficient and effective, as well as polite and responsive. If you are quickly answered when contacting your hosting service, that’s a good sign. However, prompt responses aren’t enough – the hosting’s support should also be able to actually solve your problems. So – look for a combination of efficiency and responsiveness.

3. Control

If the hosting service offering you a full, user-friendly control panel? Do you have all the access you need? Is it easy to find all the functions you require for running your website? Is there proper documentation and help articles? If the answer is YES to all of these questions – than you are in the right place. The situation is ideal if you have full control of your site and can manage it on your own – most of the time.

4. Backups

A good hosting will not only enable you to back up your files, but will also do it for you, periodically. Choose a hosting service that backs up regularly.

5. Server Features

Whether you require a Linux or Windows server will depend on what you plan to do with your site. Linux servers are often cheaper, ideal for CMS like WordPress and Drupal and are more stable. However, if you need to host ASP scripts then you have no choice but to look for a Windows web host. A good hosting service will offer both kinds of servers, and enable you to move between plans when necessary.

With Valentine’s day quickly approaching, your mind may be racing with ideas of how you can romance your partner.  But, if you’re like one of the millions of people who are unhappy in their relationship, you are more likely to be thinking about how to dump your partner and find a new one before you’re stuck all alone on Valentine’s day.  According to a survey conducted by Cupid.com, January is an extremely popular month for breaking up, because most people are reluctant to do the deed before the holiday season, for obvious reasons.  And, although breaking up is seldom pleasant, there are a few ways in which you can minimize the discomfort (and hopefully the emotional turmoil).  Here are some practical suggestions for how to break up with dignity:

1. Break up in a public place. While it may not be entirely comfortable to break the bad news in public, it may encourage your (ex)partner to keep yelling or crying to a minimum.  Hopefully, by the time he or she is able to let out the emotions, the potency will be significantly reduced.
2. Return your ex’s property on the spot. It’s always appropriate to return property that doesn’t belong to you, but doing it during while you’re actually breaking up will prevent you from having to see you ex in the immediate future.
3. Don’t be cruel. Explaining every precise reason about why you’ve decided to break up will not make your ex feel better.  It may, in fact, cause him (or her) to become further depressed.
4. Be honest. While you needn’t provide a laundry list of reasons that you’ve decided to beak up, it’s helpful to tell the truth.  Dancing around the issue or lying about your motives will only leave unresolved issues that will prevent both you and your ex from moving on properly.
5. Don’t spill the beans in advance. Even if you’ve been planning the breakup for a long time, don’t discuss it with too many people.  The process will be significantly more grueling if your partner finds out about it from someone else.
6. Be prepared. Although it may be unpleasant, there’s a chance that groveling may be involved.  If you’re sure that you’ve made the right decision, don’t be swayed by the begging or pleading.
7. Don’t suggest being friends. While many people have only the best intentions when they suggest remaining friends with their ex, studies show that in most cases, this friendship can hinder the healing process.
8. Don’t use email. Breaking up via email may be suitable if you’ve only gone on one or two date.  But if you’ve been seriously involved with someone (or even moderately involved) for a reasonable period of time, an email break up is completely déclassé.  Sure, it may sidestep some of the discomfort, but it may also create a reputation that you’re less than proud of.
9. Don’t point blame. The trite “it’s not you, it’s me” is never a good way to break up, even if you’re blaming yourself.  Likewise, blaming your ex can only lead to self-deprecation and guilt, neither of which are productive emotions.
10. Don’t be afraid to look ahead. It may be difficult to look ahead while you’re in the process of breaking up with someone, but keeping your eye on the future can provide hope instead of despair during this difficult time.

As dating websites go, eHarmony sets itself apart by offering technology-based matches based on “29 Dimensions of Compatibility” that have been confirmed by experts to play a role in creating long-lasting relationships.  The company, which has long been serving the heterosexual community launched a gay dating site in 2009 called Compatible Partners, based upon the same principles.  A recent court ruling, however, may be changing this duality.

Under a proposed settlement filed in the Los Angeles Superior Court on January 26th, eHarmony agreed to link its separate websites and better publicize that it offers gay dating services.  Among the changes that eHarmony agreed to make are to change the language on their site to say that their gay online dating services are ‘brought to you by eHarmony’ instead of simply ‘powered by eHarmony’.  In addition, eHarmony will add a section to its website specifically for gay dating, much like it currently offers “Jewish Dating,” “Senior Dating” and other types of targeted online dating options.  As of now, this change has not yet been implemented, but I will be curious to see how they affect eHarmony, if at all.

What makes this case interesting (in my opinion) is that while gay rights activists insist that mainstream online dating sites such as eHarmony expand their offerings to provide gay dating services, sites such as gay.com have not yet been required to add services for heterosexual singles.  Likewise, neither Jewish dating sites nor Christian dating sites have been forced to expand their services to include singles of other religions.

While I’m thrilled about this ‘victory’ for gay rights, I am a bit puzzled as to whether eHarmony’s previous behavior was truly offensive.  Wouldn’t gay singles enjoy finding matches on a site designed just for them?  Isn’t that why gay online dating sites have grown in leaps and bounds over the past few years?  I’m curious to hear what you think about this, as the issue is quite provocative and one that is sure to continually evolve in the coming years.  It’ll be interesting to see if other dating websites will be compelled to change their policies as well.

I guess I should start this post by saying that I haven’t actually seen the new Apple iPad firsthand.  But in all honesty, I don’t think it really matters.  I’ve read enough of the hype, seen enough of the videos, and read enough iPad reviews to form an opinion about whether the iPad could potentially be the next best thing since sliced bread.  And, while I’ll admit that it does sound pretty amazing, I do have a few concerns about it.

For anyone who is not yet familiar with the features of the Apple iPad, here’s a quick rundown:

- Will run all of your existing iPhone Apps and Games

- iBooks – Book Store like Amazon

- iWorks Suite of Apps (which, for the uninitiated, is Apple’s app for creating documents, spreadsheets and presentations)

- Mobile phone functionality

- Unlocked to accept the SIM card of any mobile phone provider

- .5 inches thin and weighs 1.5 lbs

- 9.7 inch IPS Capacitive multi-touch display

- 1GHz proc Apple A4 chip (PA Semi!)

- Comes in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB, all with varying prices

- 802.11n WiFi, BT 2.1 and Compass

- 10 hrs of battery life and 1 month standby

It might take me a bit of time to wrap my head around a computer that can also be a phone.  But OK, I can see why someone might not want to walk around town with 2 gadgets, when they can carry only 1 while enjoying the functionality of both.  My biggest concern comes, however, from the fact that if I had my computer so accessible and if I carried my computer around as I carried my phone, my social life would go down the toilet.  It’s bad enough when people are constantly checking their email (On the train! At the dinner table! In the bathroom!), but with an iPad, nobody would have an excuse as to why they didn’t do the requested work immediately – they could never use the excuse ‘I was away from my computer.’  While this type of availability could potentially turn is into an even more productive society, I have no doubt that it will detract considerably from the social nature of man.

I’m slightly disappointed by the missing features on the iPad including a lack of USB port and no camera feature.  I can’t quite picture how a 10 inch screen would be a camera.  But if I had to take a camera and an iPad, I might as well just take my iPhone and my laptop, right?  It’s the same 2 things to carry around.

Finally, I’m a bit puzzled about why people should invest in the iPad when they’ve only just begun to truly enjoy their iPhone.  And with an iPhone 4G speculated to debut as early as this summer, how can consumers decide which Apple product is really worth spending money on?  Still, as someone with a large-screen laptop that is incredibly heavy to carry, it might be time for me to upgrade – and choosing an iPad as an affordable and comfortable alternative to a standard laptop may not be out of the question.

If you’re a woman, you probably believe that the way you spend Valentine’s Day with your partner says a lot about where your relationship is headed.  And if you’re a man, you’re aware that your Valentine’s Day date will be the most over-scrutinized date of the year, so it’s imperative that it’s not just a good one, but a great one.  Here are some date ideas for Valentine’s Day- or for any day that you want to make a really good impression.

Adventurous Date Ideas:

- Hot-air ballooning.

- Mountain climbing (even if the nearest mountain is a few hours away, you can enjoy the private car ride together).

- Hiking.

- Sky diving (for a specifically intimate experience, jump together in a single parachute).

- Skiing or water-skiing (depending on where you live and the weather in your area in February).

Romantic Date Ideas:

- Create a treasure hunt in which your girlfriend will amass various trinkets such as a teddy bear, jewelry or flowers, and end at a fancy restaurant.

- Re-enact your first date.

- Moonlight walk along the beach (which, incidentally, is still romantic even in cold climates, as long as it’s not too cold outside).

- Home-cooked picnic (if it’s too cold outside, consider setting up a blanket on your living room floor, and heating up the fireplace).

-Limo ride around the city (with drinks, of course, since you won’t be driving).

Cute date ideas:

- Volunteer together (few things are more romantic than showing your compassionate side.  Let your partner see that you can be giving to others, not just to him).

- Apple picking.

- Drive-in movie.

- Karaoke (in which you each pick a song to represent your relationship).

- Plan a cheesy Valentine’s Day date with flowers, chocolate and a fancy dinner (it may be over-done, but most women agree that it’s still adorable!).

Business owners, web developers and bloggers often feel that even a moment of downtime for their website can be a life-altering event. That’s why they try to choose web hosting services that have guaranteed uptime, are known for their reliability and are committed to providing top notch service. These days, however, being a top web hosting services may be about more than just customer service – it’s about giving to others as well.

Hosting for Haiti is an initiative sponsored by the American Red Cross and some of the top web hosting providers who have joined together to provide Haiti relief to those who have suffered devastating loss in January 12th’s earthquake. If you are still looking for the ideal web host, why not consider one that gives back to its customers and to others as well? You can help Haiti in a myriad of ways, but one of the easiest ways to help Haiti is to choose a web hosting company that has already pledged its support. Among the participants in the Hosting for Haiti initiative are:

- HostGator
- Rackspace Hosting
- Laughing Squid
- Softlayer
- Peer1 Hosting
- Go Grid
- HostDime

And, of course, once your site is live, don’t be afraid to help Haiti by publicizing the Hosting for Haiti initiative or any other Haiti relief efforts – you may be surprised at how even a little publicity can help raise tremendous funds for this critical cause.