The Importance of Light Colored or Backlit Computer Keyboard

Not until eyes have problems do people realize how a dark keyboard is troublesome. While many touch type and can easily 'feel' their way through a typing exercise even the most experienced will find a lighter and easier to read keyboard is better. It's probably not something given a lot of weight in the mind of purchasers until they get it home but the choice of a computer should depend on more than just its performance and memory.

As a long time user of computers and typewriters before their invention my fingers generally fly over the keyboard in seconds when typing alone is involved. But the experience of my last laptop with a backlight and easy to read keys is far more appreciated than a recently acquired one from my daughter. Even the amount of energy required to press the keys is important.

Recently a major store that was closing was having a sale and computers were on their customers minds as they seemed to be rushing out the doors. On inspection only one keyboard was white and they quickly sold out of that particular brand. So why do not the manufacturers wake up to the fact that people want easier to read and operate machines.

Aging is devastating to the eyes and cataracts make it almost impossible to tolerate glare. This makes dark colors problematic and many will stop using their computer if such a health issue arises and conflicts with using the machine becomes too great.

It's time, therefore, that people's needs are met by manufacturers of what has become an important part of the lives of many. Young children will also have these needs, especially if they are vision impaired.

My age and work are important to those who are spiritual and writing on a keyboard is the main way my work can be published. The handicap of a dark keyboard is hindering that process if and when I have to use one.

A Short Article on Technology

The world has undergone severe changes over the past decade. We now live in a world where communication is paramount. It seems that everyone and everything is connected in some way.

For school students this has made things much more efficient. Research papers that used to involve hours of laborious effort, can now be searched and documented without ever touching a card catalog or a periodic index. Worlds of information are now available at the click of a mouse.

Questions that people pondered without any answer previously can now simply be typed into any convenient search engine and answered almost immediately. There are countless sites filled with informative short articles all over the Internet. Videos and music can now be seen on demand and news from across the world can be delivered in an instant.

There are some people who worry that the technological revolution and evolution we are experiencing today is moving too fast. There seems to be a loss of privacy in some respects and the specter of a Big Brother society looms larger than it has since 1984. Whether their fears are well founded or not will remain to be seen, but it is unlikely that people will ever willingly give up the almost instant connections to our wired world.

Flying in the face of these fears are individuals who share their worlds through their blogs. What used to be shared with only close friends is now put online for millions of people to see if they should happen upon the blogger's website. Individuals are learning to take advantage of this by using their well placed blogs to sell products and services. The internet has allowed individuals an opportunity to step on to the same playing field as the big boys of business. With the right information and the ability to get it seen, anyone can now reach the masses and share their thoughts, feelings and even sales pitches.

Businesses as well as individuals have come to rely on the Internet as a source of advertising and actual sales. Entire business models have been constructed and thriving based solely on using Internet websites. It is rare today to find a traditional brick and mortar establishment that does not have some type of online presence. Any business that does not adapt and grow to keep up with the latest technology seriously risks being left behind in the wake of their competitors who choose to ride technology's leading edge.

Time will tell where this all will lead. We should make the most of the positive capabilities technology promises, but we should also keep a careful watch on where we are going.

How to Select the Best Mobile Payment Application

Mobile point-of-sale (POS) solutions enable merchants to accept credit card payments where it is most convenient for their customers. Mobile payments allow merchants to accept and process credit card payments in the aisle, outside the store or anyplace customers prefer to pay. Small business owners or large enterprise merchants with a mobile sales team or non-traditional storefronts can expand their business and increase revenue by accepting mobile credit card payments using their existing smart phone.

Mobile POS systems are setting a new standard in convenience and are easy to implement and support. Merchants equipped with an iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile or Google Android device can submit, authorize and settle transactions quickly and securely.

Mobile POS systems offer several advantages:

• Decrease Processing Cost - Merchant can lower their processing cost by using a single merchant account to accept retail and mobile payments.
• Customer Satisfaction - Improve the customer experience by offering multiple payment options.
• Flexibility - Mobile transactions allow merchants to take your storefront anywhere you go.
• Stability and Reliability - Mobile POS software rivals those of the largest e-commerce, trading, and portal Web sites. Mobile POS applications can handle millions of transactions every month.

Lower Entry Cost

Considering that most people would rather lose their wallet than misplace their cell phone, it comes as no surprise that the mobile platform is quickly becoming a new payment option for small business owners. For many, our cell phone never leaves our side. It maintains its place at the dinner table, is easily accessible on your belt clip or in your pocket, and often, somehow it even manages to end up sharing your pillow at night. Today, cost conscience merchants can accept credit card payments without purchase traditional point-of-sale equipment or paying for expensive system customizations.

Market Expansion

Mobile POS solutions are priced for the small business owner and independent sales representative. Merchants can purchase a quality smart phone payment application from $ 0- $ 29.95. Questions to ask your mobile payment provider:

· Is the mobile application PCI compliant?

· Does the application support both small and large payments?

· Does the system require a payment gateway service? If so, recognize payment gateways require an additional recurring monthly fee.

· Does the application support swipe and non swipe transactions? Swipe transactions provide lower processing fees.

· What card readers are supported?

· Does the card reader support data encryption?

· Does your system provide online statements for viewing customer transactions?

· What mobile phones are supported?

· Does the system ensure no customer payment information is stored on the cell phone?

· What are all the fees associated with accepting payment?

· How quickly are customer payments funded to the merchant's bank account?

· What is the license agreement? Specifically can the merchant load the mobile payment application on multiple devices?

We'll unduly see many mobile application providers come out of the woodwork as the industry matures. However, merchants should look for a mobile payment provider with multiple years of experience in the payment processing industry.

Top Mobile Payment Applications

1. MobileAuthorize (Google Android, BlackBerry, iPhone / iTouch, Windows Mobile)

2. iPayPOS (iPhone)

3. RoadMerchant (BlackBerry)

4. MobileMerchant (iPhone, Windows Mobile)

How to Accelerate Your Computer Start-Up

The day from you add programs to your computer, many of these applications automatically add themselves to your Windows Start-up folder. You may not notice it until overload of your system packed with too many applications causes obvious slowness.

Additionally, these applications can hide them quietly to an invisible area but still joining the boot process via the MSCONFIG run command. In extreme case, your PC will appear frozen feint and can not be used as usual. Except for the overload, there may be some other little errors, which put you in frustration after rebooting it several times. What comes to you first should be seeking help from a computer doctor or reinstalling the system. They are either expensive or time-consuming, which may be not what you want. There must be something you can do personally and more effectively.

To speed things up, finding out and limiting these applications and services that are loaded during start-up can help very much. This area plays a very important role in the boot up your computer. Typically, an average PC user has no idea that controlling what starts up is the main way of speed-up. From the day you use the Windows, if you pay no attention to hold back some processes, it adds more and more services at startup which are not absolutely necessary. The trouble will absolutely break to your computer after it has been brewing for quite some time.

To kick out the ingrained habit and manage your startup in person, Perfect Uninstall is the right one to help and evaluated here.

Typically, anti-virus and anti-spyware programs will have the ones that affect the processing ability. If you are careful enough, you will notice whenever you have installed either of them your system will run slowly. They will start up automatically by default and gravely delay the working time. Perfect Uninstall is able to find out and offers a complete control to these loading programs including the anti-virus and anti-spyware programs, by monitoring them with intuitive customized settings. You can decide the applications to launch when you start your computer. If you think an application is not useful anymore, you can remove it or uninstall it with the three uninstall options, according to the strength of the program to be uninstall. Any removal of program can greatly free up the space and accelerate your PC. The ease of use is designed very much for the average uses, which is just selecting the programs in the start-up list and clicking the Enable, Disable, or Remove Button.

A study has shown that cutting down on the number of fonts being loaded will speed things up. If you have many hundreds of fonts, you might consider removing some. Or else the huge accumulation of unnecessary things will result in a hard time to access too many files and applications at booting up for your processor and your suffering of wasting time.

The most significant improvement by far results from managing the programs loaded at start up. So alert your outlook to fix your PC problems and make yourself much stronger as a go-getter by equipping. Everyone can be an expert if you have your toolkit to be independent.

Understanding Male Psychology - Why Ignoring Your Ex-Boyfriend Works

You've heard the same advice time and time again since the break up. You're supposed to ignore your ex boyfriend if you want to get him back. At first glance it makes absolutely no sense at all. How in the world could ignoring a man make him decide that he wants you back? The opposite seems much more likely, does not it? Internally you feel that right now would be the perfect time to pick up the phone to call your ex boyfriend and suggest you two try and work things out. But everyone is screaming at you to not do that. You're confused, you feel desperate and you're worried that you're going to make a mistake that's going to cost you the man you love. Before you do anything, you need a short and concise lesson in male psychology. There's a very good reason why you should pay attention to those who tell you to forget your ex boyfriend's phone number, address and place of work.

Right Now You're Not in Control of Your Failed Relationship

After a break up the individual who is chasing their ex partner is not in control of the future of the relationship. As women we often wished we could live our lives in the pages of a romance novel. We imagine that moment when our ex boyfriend picks up the phone to say he can not live another day without us. The problem is that in reality that's not likely to happen if you're chasing him non-stop. Your actions really do speak louder than your words in this scenario and your actions are screaming a message that loudly declares, "I'm desperate and I do not care who knows it."

He is completely in control of what happens next. If he chooses to ignore you, he knows instinctively that you're just going to step up your efforts and pursue him even more. Essentially you're telling him that the more he ignores you, the harder you'll try. Your life revolves around him and that feeds his ego. Most men in this position are not quick to give their ex girlfriend the time of day because they want to see how far she'll push herself in an effort to win him back.

You must shift the dynamic of the relationship so that you're the one in control of the future. The best way to do that is to change your own behavior. You'll actually be surprised at how quickly he'll decide he wants you when he suddenly believes you no longer want him.

There's More to Ignoring Your Ex Boyfriend Than Not Answering His Texts

One relationship changing error that many women make before they start no contact with their ex boyfriend is tell him of their intentions in such a way that he realizes that it's little more than a game. If you announce to your ex boyfriend that you're no longer talking to him, and you do that while you're overly emotional, he's going to view it as a tactic to get him back. His competitive spirit will kick itself into overdrive and he'll set out on his own course to ignore you. Before you know it, weeks or months will have passed and you'll both be too stubborn to reach out to connect with the other.

You're much better off just dropping off the face of the earth. The best advice you can follow is to decide one moment (now is good) that you're not going to talk or try to try to your ex boyfriend again for at least a month. Do not let anyone know that you're doing this as mutual friends love to gossip and your ex boyfriend will once again realize you're using no contact as a tool to remind him how much he needs you.

During the next month, try your best to shift your focus to something positive and enriching. It's very tempting to sit and wallow in the memories of when you two were together but that's not going to accomplish anything productive for you. This should be a month when you rediscover who you are, as a woman, and you get in touch with what you want out of life.

Redefine What Your Life Goals Are As You Distance Yourself From Your Ex

You're in for a couple of welcome surprises when you do begin the journey of ignoring your ex boyfriend. First and foremost, you're going to be shocked with how he responds. Typically a man will want a woman who no longer wants him. Once your ex boyfriend realizes that you've stopped your never-ending quest to regain his love and devotion, he'll set out to recapture your heart. It's amazing how that works. Men are notorious for wanting things in life that are just beyond their reach. When one of those things becomes an ex girlfriend, a man will kick his charm into high gear in an effort to win her back. Basically, if you take away the knowledge that you want him, he 'll start to question who you do want. Once that happens, he'll come running back to you full force, trying to get you to explain to him what's changed.

The other, more welcome, benefit of ignoring your ex boyfriend is you get to finally decide, in an emotionally uncluttered way, whether getting back together is actually something that you want or need. Things look and feel much different a month after the break up. Your emotions are settled, your future is less defined and you are open to a whole array of possibilities.

Giving yourself the opportunity to take a breath from your ex boyfriend is one of the best gifts you can possibly ever get. You will finally be able to decide what is best for you and whether reuniting with him is truly the best way to make all your romantic dreams come true.

Investment in Ukraine Land Makes Sense

Soft commodities are widely believed to be the investment of the future and a must-have in any self-discerning portfolio. Recent studies and statistics show that if you invest in soft commodities via agricultural land in Ukraine you are on to be a winner.

Farmland in Ukraine is one of the world's most fertile and has the potential to become one of the most productive. New technology and better farming techniques are being introduced with excellent results. The ever-increasing yields from land mean that Ukraine is now among global leaders in grain sales. In 2009, Ukraine became the market leader in Spain, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt and Saudi, and also entered the Far Eastern markets of Japan and Korea for the first time.

Ukraine farmland has several advantages in a very competitive industry. Along with more effective farming methods, Ukraine has reduced freight prices. In addition, the devaluation of the hryvnia currency has increased profitability.

Agricultural land in Ukraine is currently under-exploited. However, as the pressure for more food rises globally, more land in Ukraine is being farmed. Just a decade ago one million hectares were under crops. In 2009, Ukraine farmed 4.2 million hectares, a massive increase of 420%. Likewise, farms are getting larger - the average farm size larger than just 28 hectares to 101 between 1999 and 2009. Reflecting this growth in agriculture is the production volumes from Ukraine land. These saw a year-on-year increase of 5% in January this year.

The rich and fertile soil found through Ukraine produces grains (corn, barley and wheat) and sunflower. Together with Argentina and Russia, Ukraine forms part of the so-called Sunflower Triangle. The increased quality of Ukraine sunflower crops plus a consistent export level of an average of 1.76 million tonnes over the last three years ensures that Ukraine is a leader in the sunflower industry.

But all this is just the tip of the iceberg. According to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), Ukraine has huge potential in agriculture, a potential that will gradually be realized over the next ten years. The recent USDA 'Agricultural Projections to 2019' report finds that Ukraine along with Russia and Kazakhstan will become major agricultural players by 2020.

The report says that traditional exporters such as Australia, the EU and US will "remain important in global trade in the coming decade. But countries that are making significant investments in their agricultural sectors and increasingly pursuing policies to encourage agricultural production, including Ukraine and Kazakhstan , are expected to have an increasing presence in export markets for basic agricultural commodities ".

The report highlights corn exports from the Former Soviet Union, which are predicted to rise to 8.4 million tonnes by 2019. The bulk of these exports will come from Ukraine where "favorable resource endowments, wider use of hybrid seed, and greater investment in agriculture, stimulate corn production ".

Barley is also hugely important crop for Ukraine, which together with Russia, has an almost 50% share of the world's barley trade. According to USDA, "Ukraine became the world's largest barley exporter in 2009 and is projected to remain so through the projection period (2019)". With farming productivity increasing annually, the future for investment in Ukraine land is very bright.

How to Block Your Cell Phone Number When Calling Someone

There may be times when you do not want the person you are calling to see your phone number. Reasons why you may want to conceive your cell number include:

o You do not want the person you are calling to see that you've called them 10 times in a row.

o You do not know the person you are calling and do not want them to have access to your number.

o You are calling a business or an unknown number and do not want them to know your number.

If you decide that you would like to keep your cell phone number a secret, you will need to block your number. Blocking your number can be done temporarily or permanently. Temporarily blocking your number on a call by call basis is a good idea if there are only a few people who you wish to hide your number from. To temporarily block your number so it is not displayed on the recipients caller ID simply dial * 67 before dialing the number (IE * 67 111-111-1111).

Keep in mind, you should know that when you use * 67 to temporarily block your number there will be nothing to inform you that your number has been successfully blocked. Therefore, if you want to make sure it works, do a quick check and call your home number first before you attempt to use this service on someone else.

If you really want your cell number to be private, and wish to block your mobile phone number permanently, you will need to contact your wireless provider and request a "line block". Once the line block has been established, your number will not appear to anyone. However, if, for some reason, you would like your phone number to be displayed for the recipient, you can reveal your phone number by dialing * 82 before dialing their phone number.

Finally, you need to know is that your cell phone number will not be blocked from any toll free numbers (IE 800 numbers), or from emergency services.
In addition, blocking your cell phone number may be a good idea if you are trying to find out who owns a phone number by calling the mystery number back.