Great memory at little to no cost....try it

Giving your memory a boost

It's amazing how a great memory can affect your business and the way you do business! Our memories declines as we get older.....but treating our body well can enhance our ability to process and recall information. The following are way we can slow our memory decline and boost our memory:

Cardiovascular exercise (as little as 15mins/ day):
Having a good memory relies on having a healthy brain and a healthy brain needs a good blood supply (oxygen). Increases oxygen to our brain reduces the risk for disorders that lead to memory loss.

Better diet: a diet based on antioxidant fruits and vegetables, whole grains and omega-3 fats from fish and nuts can improve memory. Monounsaturated fat is also best for our heart and blood vessels, and this is essential when it comes to providing a steady supply of oxygen and nutrients to our brain cells. Also, monounsaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats high in omega-3 fatty acids are essential for healthy cell membranes.

• Omega-3 (found within cold water fish like herring, salmon, tuna, halibut, trout, sardines and mackerel or non fish sources like walnuts, ground flaxseed, flaxseed oil, pumpkin seeds, and soybeans and fish oil supplements) protect the brain cells from damage and can even promote brain cell growth.
• Antioxidants (from superfood sources like colorful fruits like apricots, mangoes, cantaloupe, and watermelon and vegetables and leafy green vegetables such as spinach, broccoli, romaine lettuce, Swiss chard and arugula) protect your brain cells from damage. Drink green tea which contains polyphenols, powerful antioxidants that protect against free radicals that can damage brain cells. Also, regular consumption of green tea may enhance memory and mental alertness and slow brain aging.
• Alcohol kills brain cells but in moderation (around 1 glass a day for women; 2 for men), it is said to actually improve memory and cognition. Red wine (which is rich in resveratrol, a flavonoid that boosts blood flow in the brain and reduces the risk of Alzheimer’s disease) appears to be the best option. Other resveratrol-packed options include grape juice, cranberry juice, fresh grapes and berries, and peanuts.

Mental exercise:
With the right stimulation, our brain can form new neural pathways, alter existing connections, adapt and react in ever-changing ways (neuroplasticity) thereby increasing our cognitive abilities, enhancing our ability to learn new information and improve our memory. The more we work out our brain, the better we ’ll be at processing and remembering information.

Games such as Sudoku can improve memory health by encouraging the brain to think more strategically, learning a new language is one of the best ways to improve your memory, while listening to music can also help.
Teach your brain to remember -  focus your attention on an object or picture (any image) for about a minute, note as much detail as you can about the object or picture - try to note the colors, textures, smells, and tastes., link details to things to make them more memorable - connect information to something you already know, Look away and try to note or write down as much as possible - all you can remember, check to see how much you remembered and what you've missed out. Practice daily.

Reduce stress: chronic stress is not good for memory. It destroys brain cells and damages the hippocampus (the region of the brain involved in the formation of new memories and the retrieval of old ones).
        To reduce stress, try the following

• Try meditation as it can improve our focus, concentration, creativity, learning and reasoning skills. Meditation is said to increase the activity in the left prefrontal cortex (an area of the brain associated with feelings of joy and equanimity), increase the thickness of the cerebral cortex and encourage more connections between brain cells—all of which increases mental sharpness and memory ability.                                                                        
• Socializing stimulate our brains and reduces stress. Emotional responses that come from socialising engage specific areas of the brain. There are many ways to start taking advantage of this: volunteer, join a club, see friends more often, reach out over the phone....and if a human isn’t handy, don’t overlook the value of a pets like the highly social dog.                                                                                     
• Laughter engages multiple regions across the whole brain, activates areas of the brain vital to learning and creativity, ("help people think more broadly and associate more freely".....according to psychologist Daniel Goleman in his book Emotional Intelligence) and reduces stress........So listen to jokes, try working out punch lines, share your embarrassing moments and laugh at yourself, when you hear laughter, seek it out and ask, “What’s funny?”, Spend time with people who laugh easily both at themselves and at life’s absurdities and who routinely find the humor in everyday events as their playful point of view and laughter can be contagious, choose a computer screensaver that makes you laugh.  

Sleeping: it's important to have a minimum of at least 8 hours sleep.
Sleep is necessary for memory consolidation, with the key memory-enhancing activity occurring during the deepest stages of sleep. Creativity, problem-solving abilities, and critical thinking skills are compromised when you’re sleep deprived.


Source:
1. By Tamara Hinson, http://him.uk.msn.com/health-and-fitness/10-ways-to-give-your-memory-a-boost

2. By Melinda Smith, M.A., and Lawrence Robinson, http://www.helpguide.org/life/improving_memory.htm

Start your own: Online business

Stumbled upon, thought you might like to know about this. Share if you like it: twitter - google -facebook

To find more, visit:

http://www.startups.co.uk/online-business_1.html?utm_source=Etelligent&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=SU+02%2F08%2F2012&utm_content=Start+your+own%3A+Online+business

Internet companies can take many forms but we walk you through the basic principles

What is it and who’s it suited to?

In 1989, while working at the European Particle Physics Laboratory, Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the world wide web. More than two decades later and the face of communication, the flow of information and the world of business are unrecognisable as a result.

The internet has created a whole new generation of millionaires, and quite a few billionaires, since its conception. After its creation, globalisation suddenly had a whole new vehicle, and entrepreneurs had a completely new route to market. Amazon, eBay and Google immediately come to mind when thinking of the internet establishment, but at the other end of the spectrum is the sole trading entrepreneur building a business empire from the comfort of a spare bedroom.

Starting an online business can be as simple as setting up a basic shop on eBay to sell a few wholesale items, to coming up with a completely new online concept with a novel way of monetising it.

The beauty of the online business is that it’s suited to just about anyone. You don’t need to be an MBA graduate based in London to succeed. You can start your operation from anywhere, as long as you’ve got access to an internet connection and a bit of business acumen.

You can start off small, work on it part-time or even view it as a hobby before you decide whether to commit to it. Claire Lewis and Pat Wood started their online retro t-shirt shop Truffleshuffle.com as a part-time venture.

“It all started after Pat bought a retro t-shirt in the States and friends kept asking where he’d got it. Truffleshuffle was only ever intended to be a hobby – something to bring in a bit of spare cash. It was only when the site went live and started growing that we thought: ‘there’s mileage in this’.”

At the other end of the scale, Sophie Cornish and Holly Tucker did a five year profit and loss feasibility plan before they started work on their site, Notonthehighstreet.com, an online marketplace where customers can buy from a whole range of independent, quirky and specialised small businesses in a single transaction.

Online business models

Having established how much time, money and resources you plan to put into your online venture, there are four basic online business models you can follow:

E-commerce  – the most closely aligned to the traditional business model of selling. With an e-commerce site you sell a product or service. Customers buy directly from your site, and the products are then either delivered to them or downloaded.

Advertising – with this type of site, the aim is to get as many visitors as possible, increasing the amount of customers your advertisers reach. Content on this kind of site is usually completely free for the site user, providing them either with information or entertainment.

Subscription – similar to the advertising model subscription sites generally provide information or entertainment, but the difference is the user pays to access all or part of that content.

Freemium – with this business model, you offer a basic service for free but customers can pay for premium features.

You can of course base your site around a combination of these internet models.

Domain name

Everything about your online company revolves around your domain name. It’s the gateway for your customers to enter your business and consume either your products or service.

In a literal sense, your domain name is what the user types into their browser to reach your site, but it’s also your brand, your business identity and your most important marketing tool.

When the internet was in its infancy, picking up a domain name was easy. With millions to choose from and more generic names such as business.com, early internet adopters had few problems registering the names they wanted. Nowadays, it's a different story. All businesses, from sole traders to multinational conglomerates are encouraged to have some kind of online presence, making the process of securing a decent domain name increasingly difficult.

Seven ways to secure and manage a great online reputation

Stumbled upon this, wanted to share...hope you find it as useful and informative as I did!
To get more like this, visit:

 http://www.startups.co.uk/seven-ways-to-secure-and-manage-a-great-online-reputation.html   

If your personal brand matters to your business, follow these golden rules to effectively manage your online reputation

In business, as in life, reputation is everything. Protecting, managing and maintaining a strong, positive, professional reputation is vital to your success, whether you’re looking to freelance, starting or growing a new business or trying to close a deal with a new customer.

In recent years however, much of our day-to-day business communication has moved on to the web: the growth of business networks means that our contacts books, CVs and referrals now tend to live online. For example, the professional networking site LinkedIn has over 135 million members worldwide and is often the first source of information an employer or recruitment consultant will turn to before diving into your CV.

It therefore becomes important to take steps to protect your reputation online – especially if you’re a freelancer and visible on LinkedIn or other sites. With a little bit of effort and some on-going maintenance, it’s relatively easy to do. Follow these seven simple steps:

1. Set up Google Alerts

Firstly, in order to protect your reputation, it’s necessary to know what is being said about you online. The easiest way to monitor this is to set up some Google Alerts using your name and some key words you’d expect to be found for, such as your company, your job title or your industry.

2. Monitor mentions using a tool such as Google’s Me

Google has a tool called Me on the Web that helps you manage your alerts and provides information on how to control what third-party information is posted about you. The alerts should pick up links to forums, blogs, websites, news articles and images where you are mentioned. Alternatively, you could use a free online service such as Social Mention, which looks for your name or key words across all of the major social networks.

3. Read and respond

Make sure you read what is being said about you and respond where possible to show the author that you are actively involved in your reputation online. Remember to always be calm, polite and professional with your responses, no matter what has been said about you!

4. Regularly update your online profiles

It’s also very important that you make sure all your online profiles are up-to-date and consistent with each other. The best way to keep on top of this is to make a list of all of the sites you have a profile on, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, connect.me, etc., then go through and update them once every couple of  months. Make a note on your list of the date, so when you revisit them next time you can easily remember what’s changed since then and update accordingly.

These sites are a great place to build your ‘professional brand’ and communicate your skills, achievements and contact information but they only work well if they are consistent, accurate and current.

5. Make some noise

Many UK entrepreneurs struggle when it comes to promoting themselves and their businesses and are uncomfortable ‘bragging’ about their achievements. Unfortunately, the bottom line is that if you don’t talk yourself up, no one else will.

Don’t be shy – take a proactive approach and put yourself in a positive light at every opportunity. This includes posting your achievements, contributing your ideas and opinions to forums, groups and in your networks, take the opportunity to guest blog about things you’re an expert on and answer comments or respond to questions about you, your company or the industry you’re involved in.

6. Create a personal website

You may even want to register a website or blog in your name and add your bio, update it with content regularly, and link in your other profile sites. When you contribute to other sites you should drop in a link back to your site. Creating as much content as you can will help secure a top search engine position for yourself and ensure you shine online.

7. Update your security settings

The recent incident of a hacker is a timely reminder to revisit your privacy and security settings on all your accounts. There is a risk of identity theft and impersonation if your accounts are not secured and a hacker gets access to your passwords.

The first line of defence is to use unique complex passwords (at least 12 characters, consisting of upper and lower case letters, numbers and special characters) on each account. Free online password managers can also help you generate and keep track of super-strong passwords.

The way we use the Internet is rapidly changing and as we do more professionally online – from business deals, to recruitment, networking and collaborations – there is a growing need for trust. The kind of trust that comes with knowing the person on the other end of the browser is really who they say they are.

From the UK government ID assurance program to some key online reputation and identity verification services, expect to see some robust solutions that go beyond the traditional means of information validation, to bring real trust to the web and enable us to do more.

James Varga is the CEO of internet identify specialist MiiCard.

Diary of a start-up: Designing a logo

Dear diary,
I read this really interestinpiece from http://www.startups.co.uk/diary-of-a-start-up-designing-a-logo.html and wanted to tweet it but unfortunately, it wasn't possible. So I decided to copy it and paste it on my blog for future reference and for others to read......I hope you find it as useful as I did!

This month, first-time entrepreneur Lisa Edoff walks us through the process of designing her company logo

28 August 2012 12:02 by Lisa Edoff

Over the past six months or so I have been planning, researching and developing my company’s logo. Figuring out what your logo should look like is probably one of the hardest things to do when you’re starting up; it needs to represent the look and feel of your company, and in some cases even communicate what it is that you do. I certainly found it challenging, and I am a designer myself!

Although I don’t actually specialise in typography or logo design I decided to give it a go, and now I can finally say I am very happy with it!

The first thing I did was to look at loads of typefaces online. I had a style in mind so I went onto websites such as myfonts.com and typed in some keywords. I also looked at websites with nice designs and got inspiration from design blogs.

I looked at elegant fonts:

Playful fonts:

And crazy swirly fonts:

On Myfonts.com there is a really good service, called “What The Font”. It's a type of search engine for fonts that you only have an image of, so if you see a font you love on a website and you want to find out which one it is, you can take a screen grab of it and upload it. What The Font will then match it to the closest fonts it has in its database, or most often, find the exact same one.

When I made my logo for my portfolio website I used a font that I then customised, as I didn’t like how all of the letters looked so I drew a few new ones:

The final logo ended up looking like this:

Although this design works well on my website, www.edoffdesign.com, I failed to take one thing into account: what the logo would look like when it was really small, printed on a label or in the last page of a notebook. The design was too detailed and the swirls too delicate to work on such a small scale. I decided this logo would have to be limited to my website, and that’s when I started to look at new fonts for a product logo.

So after browsing what felt like thousands of fonts and trying lots of different layouts, my logo is now finalised:

This logo represents my design products well; it’s modern, decorative yet stylised.

Here are my top tips for developing a company logo:

• Before you start designing (or start talking to a designer), do some research; look at lots of different logos and typefaces, and collect a few that you really like.

• Analyse what it is about your collected logos that you like, then think about which style would work for your company. What message is your logo supposed to convey? The style of the font must represent your company well.

• If you are incorporating a symbol within your logo, try to keep it as simple as possible.

• Think about where your logo will be used, on your website, stationery, business card or product, or on all of the above? Keep this in mind when developing the design; your logo must look as good displayed large as it does in its smallest size.

• If you’re not a designer, hire a professional to create your logo. It’s well worth the investment. You wouldn’t try and fix your own washing machine if you knew nothing about plumbing; the same should apply to design work.

To catch up on the first three chapters of Lisa's start-up story, visit our Diary of a start-up channel,  or for more updates on Lisa's progress, follow her blog A Piece of Lisa and Twitter: @LisaEdoff

Free Accounting Software For Small Business

After you read this article, you will find out:

• What are free accounting software available to download and use?
• What are the top rating free accounting software packages?
• What is the best free accounting program for small business?
• What are free accounting applications which available for Windows, Mac and Linux?

CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW TO READ THE ARTICLE --->
                 http://www.isoftwarereviews.com/free-accounting-software-for-small-business/