Perhaps you are wondering what dedicated servers are and why you need one. Dedicated server refers to the type of web hosting provider for a web site. If you have a web site, you must need a host. There are several types of hosting options available on the internet. One is to rent a shared server. With a shared hosting also called “Virtual hosting” your website shares server space with other websites. Shared servers are relatively cheaper and require basic skill as all the server administration is done by the host. This type of hosting is ideal for entry level website owners and for those who don’t have high traffic volumes.

On the other hand there is dedicated hosting. Dedicated hosting is different from other normal hosting because it actually allows you to have the authority to control your own server and upload your files to the server. It also gives you the admin access to the server where you have all the space and bandwidth on the server so you can expand your website as much as you want like including database such as shopping carts and forums which usually requires quite a bit of space. It gives you more control over the safety of your server and website. You also have the authority to add some more security enhancing features on you site. But dedicated servers are more expensive than shared servers and require higher level of technical know how to operate. However for big companies with big websites that attracts heavy volume of traffic, dedicated server is the best choice because you don’t want to lose thousand of dollars you are earning a day if your server went down.

Dedicated hosting allows you to have unlimited access to the operating system and application softwares. You can also have the flexibility to run advanced customized e-commerce applications on your server. As your site grown you tend to attract more traffic and it becomes more demanding for the server. Dedicated servers allow you to upgrade your hard drive, Ram processor, software applications yourself with no limitations as compared to shared hosting. Dedicated server also provides you with your own firewall for the storage of sensitive and classified information on your server.

Dedicated Servers are available in different sizes as well as services. When pursuing different hosting option, when it comes to dedicated server, you can generally find anything from large servers to budget dedicated servers.

We love this boutique for little boys. Trendy Remedy is all about hip unique baby & toddler clothes and gifts for boys!

Chick Magnet Argyle T-Shirt
Classic “Chick Magnet” saying on a trendy new t-shirt maid from soft argyle fabric. Made in the USA of 100% cotton, combed for softness and comfort.

Mommy Rocks T-Shirt
Let Mommy know she rocks with this cool “Mommy Rocks” T-Shirt. Made in the USA of 100% Rib cotton, combed for softness and comfort. T-shirts run small.

For the past few weeks, precious metals have undergone significant, rapid declines. This follows a year of banner performance during 2009. I wanted to take a post to briefly examine the extent of the declines for gold, silver, platinum, and palladium.

Roughly two months ago, gold had reached a new all time high and silver had reached its highest level going back about twenty months. Less than three weeks ago, platinum and palladium had reached their highest levels in about sixteen months.

The figures below show the recent high compared to the recent low and the extent of the decline. All figures are London PM Fix.

Gold

Recent High: $1,212.50 (December 2, 2009)
Recent Low: $1,058.00 (February 5, 2010)
Decline: -$154.50 (-12.74%)

Silver

Recent High: $19.18 (December 2, 2009)
Recent Low: $15.14 (February 8, 2010)
Decline: -$4.04 (-21.06%)

Platinum

Recent High: $1,627.00 (January 20, 2010)
Recent Low: $1,475.00 (February 5, 2010)
Decline: -$152.00 (-9.34%)

Palladium

Recent High: $462.00 (January 21, 2010)
Recent Low: $395.00 (February 5, 2010)
Decline: -$67.00 (-14.50%)

On April 29, 2010, Colorado Governor Bill Ritter signed a consumer protection bill which requires gift card issuers to redeem the card, upon request, if the remaining value is $5 or less. In addition, it bans retailers, restaurants and others from selling gift cards that have any type of fee, including a service fee, a dormancy fee, an inactivity fee or a maintenance fee. This new law will apply to gift cards issued on or after August 11, 2010.

Under this law, “gift card” is defined as a prefunded tangible or electronic record of a specific monetary value evidencing an issuer’s agreement to provide goods, services, credit, money, or anything of value. A gift card includes a tangible card, electronic card, stored-value card, or certificate or similar instrument, card, or tangible record, all of which contain a microprocessor chip, magnetic chip, or other means for the storage of information and for which the value is decremented upon each use.

A gift card does not include a prefunded tangible or electronic record issued by, or on behalf of, any government agency, a gift certificate that is issued only on paper, a prepaid telecommunications or technology card, or a card that is donated or sold below face value at a volume discount to an employer or charitable organization for fundraising purposes. Likewise, a card or certificate issued to a consumer pursuant to an awards, loyalty, or promotional program for which no money or other item of monetary value was exchanged is expressly excluded from the definition of a gift card.

In addition, this new law does not apply to gift cards that are usable with multiple sellers of goods or services, but expressly applies to a gift card usable only with affiliated sellers of goods or services.

A violation of this new law will be deemed a violation of Colorado’s deceptive trade practice law.

Once the law is effective, Colorado will join a handful of other states with laws requiring redemption of gift cards with less than a certain cash value. Under California law, as just one example, any gift certificate with a cash value of less than $10 is redeemable in cash for its cash value.

This weekend, I went into a pet store called Especially for Pets in Westborough, Massachusetts along with my wife, Linda, and dog, Rusty. Unbeknownst to us, there was a cutest pet competition photographer there soliciting applicants for the low cost of $25. Well naturally we think Rusty is the cutest pet so we immediately signed up and before too long Rusty was posing on a purple chair for elegant mug shots (see attached photo). I think you will agree that he has a winning smile.

Anyway, just like in American Idol, I am rooting for you all to go to the photographer’s website and vote for Rusty if you agree he is the most handsome dog (or even if you don’t). All you have to do is go to www.sunnydayphotography.net . Click on find all details of the contest here and you will see some elegant portraits of dogs including one of my Rusty. He’s the one with the star-shaped tag who has boxer coloration and looks for all the world like a black mouth cur, perhaps with a bit of Rhodesian ridgeback (Zimbabwe zipperback?) thrown in. When you see his laughing face, shining eyes, and cute floppy ears, you are bound to vote for him.

Actually, now that I look closer I see his name is underneath his picture so that will save you some bother. If we win the contest, Rusty will be famous, we’ll be happy dog parents, and we will donate the prize (a gift certificate for goods at the Westborough pet store) to the Bay Path Shelter in Hopkinton, MA. So without further ado, vote for Rusty, vote for Rusty, vote for Rusty, and thank you.

First, I have to say that I had a lovely ‘Halloween.’ Because I live in a high-rise, all the kids are regulated to going to the mangement office to pick up their candy, so no knocking on my door. I went out for a couple of drinks with friends, talked about business journalism and American politics, went home, did a bit of writing and was in bed by 10. At my age and because I do not have a house to throw a party, I find dressing up kinda pointless.

On Monday, I was tagged via Facebook by a friend who urged me and some of her other friends to check out a post she had written. Entering a rather large drugstore chain in Canada, she noticed that one of the costumes that she noticed the store was selling was a “Rasta Man” outfit:

Retailers have been selling dreadlocks wigs, Bob Marley costumes etc for years, but I found the image on this packaging to be particularly offensive. Why is the Black man wearing the wig also wearing a bone necklace? Why does he have tribal markings on his face? If you went to a Halloween party and saw a person dressed up as this “Rasta Mon” would you not be offended? Prince Harry dressed up as a Nazi soldier a few years ago, and he was publicly rebuked.

I believe that the costume that ________Mart is selling is just as offensive as it would be to squint one’s eyes and be “Asian grocer” or wear a prosthetic nose and be “Jewish banker”. They wouldn’t dare sell an image with a swastika on it so why is it acceptable for them to sell an image such as the one in the picture above? It’s just not ok. It’s not about the locs, the bone necklace or the “tribal” markings, it’s about the way in which they’ve been put together to represent a “rasta mon”. Sell a “dreadlock” wig, but why one with that particular image?
I contacted _______Mart to voice my concern and was less than impressed with their response. (see below).

Here is the response:

Thank you for writing to us……. One of the great underlying perils of merchandising and retailing, regardless of diligent testing for possible hidden, offensive, or unintended messages, it may be interpreted that a product is unsuitable for the general public. To refuse to sell a product that one takes issue with would clearly be a form of censorship on our part which is a position we will not take.

Thank you for your feedback. We will continue to monitor your concern and make any necessary adjustments.

Say what?

They don’t sell Porn, do they?

One of the things ( many things) that continues to boggle my mind is how the opinions (or facts) that people of color raise when they object to offensive images, are always symbolically trumped by people who most likely, have never had any personal experience with being objectified because of their ethnicity.

In essence, we do not have control over stopping hyper-characterized images. There is this assumption that we can be mocked and we do not have any say over the mockery. In essence ( and because of the vitriol that we get after a public complaint), we are supposed to bend over and take it up the…..If the, ahem, ‘majority’ thinks it’s funny and not offensive then gosh golly gee, I guess ‘dat whut it is, massa.

But this shit happens every Halloween. After all, Halloween is no longer an evening where kids dress up and get some free junk food, encouraging the onset of juvenile diabetes;  it signifies a time when grown-ass men and women can act out their ignorant and racial resentment. White girls can act “ghetto” and people laugh. And some sorry fools feel that they can dress up like President Obama and Michael Jackson.

It’s not funny.

We are supposed to guffaw and brush it off our shoulders, but when a large store essentially says ‘f$%k you’ when you make a legitimate complaint, Halloween doesn’t seem so much like fun anymore.

However, there have been a number of pre-Halloween incidents that lead me to believe that this blackface is not just about ‘Trickin’ and Treatin’ but more about how ‘post-racial our world has become. Umm, no so much.

Minh-Ha T. Pham over at Threadbared writes about a photo layout in the October 2009 issue of French Vogue. Now to be fair, any publicity is good publicity is good for those who need to sell their overpriced garments. But this ‘ish is tired, yo:

“…..(S)ome are defending French Vogue for its provocativeness (“creative images . . . can sometimes [be] off-putting”) and for its postracialism (arguing that it is “sort of beautiful in that having a person of one ethnic background look convincingly like she might be of another race shows the interconnectedness of us all”). But what is on display in French Vogue and on Diez’s runway is not beautiful black bodies, but what Nirmal Puwar describes as “the universal empty point” that white female bodies are able to occupy precisely because their bodies are racially unmarked: “[Thus] they can play with the assigned particularity of ethnicized dress without suffering the ‘violence of revulsion.’”

I know little about illustrator Jon Sullivan, except that he has done numerous science fiction and fantasy themed illustrations and covers for companies like TSR and Tor.

His scenes of dragons, aliens, warriors, beasts and the landscapes of strange worlds are ablaze with fiery electric color, brilliant lights, arcs of electricity and the neon glow of futuristic technology.

Sullivan uses lots of contrasting complimentary colors to punch up the intensity of his hues, along with juxtapositions of sharp value contrasts. In some images he also utilizes a limited palette with the attention drawn to limited passages of one or two high chroma colors.

Everything is in the service of drama and the suggestion of epic struggles, which is part fo the great fun in this kind of fantasy illustration.

The galleries on his site are unfortunately a bit awkward to navigate. There are several galleries of thumbnails that can be clicked on for larger images. Some of them reward subsequent clicks with larger images or detail crops, while others return you to the thumbnails, and some of them return you to a different thumbnail page than the one from which you first accessed the image, making it difficult to systematically look through the images.

There is also a Flickr set of his illustrations, and a smaller gallery accompanying an article on io9.

Costa Mesa, CA – Seller Short Sale Success Story: This article is a case study for a short sale that our team conducted on a detached home located in Costa Mesa, California.   Certain details about this property will not be revealed to protect the privacy of the previous home owner.  This single story detached home was 3 bedroom, 2 bath,  1640 square foot home, with 2 car garage, and was built about 60 years.

This ranch style home was bought many years ago, but was refinanced in the Summer of 2004′ for a loan amount of $680,000.  Then a 2nd mortgage HELOC loan was also obtained in the Winter of 2005″ for an amount of $140,000.   At the peak of the market in mid 2006′, this home had appraised for, and was worth about $875,000.  In the past 3 years though, prices have dropped about 35% in Orange county in in most of Costa Mesa.

The homeowner had a severe medical problem and was not able to work full time.  They inquired about a loan Modification, but their Debt to Income ratio was to high to qualify for a Lona Mod, given the decrease in income.  Also, due to this financial hardship the home owner was having difficulty keeping up with their mortgage payments.   They went on the Internet and found us and contacted us inquiring about a Short Sale.  The Short Sale process is broken down into 3 Phases as follows:

PHASE A: The Costa Mesa property was first put in our Short Sale Preparation Phase.   To start, our team obtains all of the required documents from the homeowner and contact the banks to present our short sale case.   Then, our negotiations personnel begins the process of negotiating the preliminary terms, price and conditions of the short sale.  Our expert team was able to obtain preliminary approval for the Short Sale from both the 1st and 2nd mortgage banks.   This Preparation Phase took about 6 weeks to complete. During that time the home owner lived in the property as usual, and was not bothered by any collection firms, other agents or prospective home buyers.  And, due to their hardship, were forced to stop making their mortgage payments and lived rent free.

PHASE B: At this stage, we started the Short Sale Marketing and Sales Phase.  Our team markets the property for sale in the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) for a price of at a price of $715,000.  After a period of about 3 weeks, we did not receive much interest, so we dropped the price to $675,000.  Within 2 weeks later, we received an offer a solid buyer for $620,000. After several days of back and forth negotiations, headed up by our short sale Realtor Nick Roshdieh, we obtained a purchase price of $645,000.

PHASE C: This final Phase of this Short Sale process is primarily the escrow closing and final bank negotiations stage.  Here we first gather the signed offer from the Buyer, and package the purchase offer, along with required Short Sale disclosures and Buyers loan qualification paperwork. We submit this  updated package to the 1st and 2nd mortgage banks, to conduct the final short sale adjustments of the terms, conditions and costs.  After some difficult negotiations utilizing our associate  attorney, we got Mortgage Banks to agree to this modified short sale offer.  Once we received the bank short sale approval letters, we moved forward with the buyers closing through escrow. The last Phase took about 43 days to complete.

When all was said and done, the entire debt on the home was removed from the back of the home owner.  Due to their financial hardship, the home owner was able to live in their property during this short sale process and did not make any mortgage payments payments. They were also able to rent a comparable home for substantially less then what their payments used to be. In addition, the homeowners credit was not as badly damaged as it would have been if the banks had foreclosed. They are now working with our credit restoration affiliate and their credit rating should be repaired to a level where they should be able to buy a home again in the near future.  Finally, we were able to convince the 2nd Mortgage HELOC loan to not come after the home owner for unpaid debt, and accept a complete satisfaction of debt for the $10,000 that we were able to negotiate for them.  If the homeowner had let this home got to Foreclosure, then the HELOC would have had a legal right to try to come after the property owner for satisfaction of the unpaid debt.