Some deep thoughts heading into the new year.

5 Reasons People Resist Change

Julie Rains Senior Writer, Wise Bread, Wise Bread

December 29, 2011

I used to believe that there were two kinds of people.

1. Those who thrive on change
2. Those who avoid change

The former are inspired by freshness, embrace novel experiences and jump at opportunities to instigate innovations. The latter seek stability, enter new situations cautiously and place roadblocks before the slightest mention of anything different.
Now, I realize that there is a third category: people who want change but are not willing to do anything risky to achieve it.
They are intellectually curious and enjoy newness yet they hinder initiatives with their indecision and procrastination. Repeatedly (and predictably), they reject new ideas as relentlessly as they express concern that too much has stayed the same.
In short, the second and third types resist change. They avoid, dismiss and sabotage those who want to move forward in any of these areas.

• Pursuit of a new customer segment
• Deployment of a new technology or work process
• Launch of a new product
• Introduction of new techniques for sales, marketing and customer service

Understanding why they avoid newness is a key step in overcoming resistance. Addressing these concerns can help build a team that will evaluate new opportunities based on merit, not fear. Here are a few beliefs about change that inhibit creative responses and limit the willingness to let the business grow.
1. Productivity will plummet and stress will skyrocket
After years of mastering her job duties, she has an efficient routine. When employees bring problems to her attention, she gives direction by following a self-developed, mental image of a decision tree with a limited number of variables. The simplicity of her day-to-day tasks is comforting. The knowledge that she can easily complete assignments on time, on budget and on spec gives her confidence.
Changes bring complexity to her job. Decisions require new road maps. She anticipates that the mental heavy lifting will be exhausting. This extra time and effort will certainly detract from her productivity, output and peace of mind.
Fix: Establish a new performance metric when changes occur. If possible, move away from activity-based measures to assessments of creative output and profitable results. Give her enough time to assimilate new ways of doing her job and plenty of space to solve problems that require intense concentration.
2. Embracing change means admitting past mistakes.
He believes that championing new work processes or pursuing new customer segments mean public acknowledgement that previous procedures caused errors. Or perhaps marketing programs didn’t deliver the right kinds of customers.
Fix: Reassure him that the proposed changes reflect technological advances, emergence of new segments or other recent developments that have impacted the business. Emphasize the need for continual renewal, not as an indictment of the past, but as a strategy for ongoing success.
3. Failures are not occasions for learning.
She is not afraid of failure per se, and accepts that changes may not bring immediate results. What she fears is her inability to understand which factors influence success. Navigating change is like falling into an abyss rather than interpreting clues on a hidden-treasure map.
For example, she might express concerns about updating the features of a best-selling style. Her hesitation to introduce modifications has nothing to do with a perceived inconsistency between product characteristics and customer desires. Instead, her resistance masks her lack of analytical and problem-solving skills.
In the past, she has blamed failures on economic conditions, poor timing and customer misunderstanding. Unable to pinpoint (or at least guess) the reasons for certain outcomes and then make adjustments that improve results, she avoids change altogether.
Fix: Teach her how to learn from her mistakes, whether they lead to full-blown failures or lower-than-expected performance. Encourage her to articulate assumptions and predict likely outcomes of proposed changes. Then show her how to evaluate results in light of the accuracy of these assumptions.
By giving her the skills to learn from potentially risky moves, she should feel more comfortable with change and confident about her ability to correct missteps and move forward.
4. Difficult problems arise from change.
He is eager to positively impact the company but is reluctant to implement new ideas. The side effects of change may involve handling situations that he does not fully understand. He may have to deal with consequences that he cannot predict or control.
For example, he believes that staking a claim to the company’s online listing could be beneficial to marketing efforts. But the prospect of having to interact with customers who rate the business is unfamiliar and a little frightening. So he downplays the benefits. He wants to dodge possible headaches and avoid revealing his lack of competency in this area.
Fix: Identify known negatives that will likely surface as byproducts of changes. Investigate, identify and implement best practices for dealing with these situations. Acknowledge that unpredictable things may happen, ask him to alert you to these instances as soon as they occur, and assure him that you will handle problems quickly.
5. Preserving status among colleagues and employees is key.
She enjoys her title, position description and place in the organizational chart. The existing hierarchy allows her to get things done. Her colleagues and employees respect her, and she does not want to jeopardize these relationships for shaky ones with another group. She especially wants to avoid scenarios that put her in conflict with long-time associates.
Fix: Tell her the truth. Her current job and existing relationships are becoming irrelevant as the competitive landscape changes or key customers merge and go out of business. The new organization will challenge her alliances but also position her and the business more favorably in the long term. At the same time, uncover and address any areas of conflict among work groups, and coach her on methods of interacting with different personalities.

Tips to better photos

The Top 10 Photo Techniques of 2011

By Dave Johnson, PCWorld    Dec 26, 2011 2:15 PM

Being a photographer is sort of like being in school--in a good way. There's always something new to learn. (Or if you prefer, you could just let your photo editor do most of the hard work for you.) As I write my very last Digital Focus of 2011, I thought it would be fun to take a look back and round up the ten most essential articles. If you're looking to brush up on some photography techniques over the holiday break, here are my recommendations.

1. Learn and Apply the Rules of Composition

It's true that rules are made to be broken, but you should really understand the basics before you start flouting convention. There are a few simple rules of photo composition that, when you can consistently apply them, will elevate your photos above "snapshot" status. Spend some time mastering tricks like the rule of thirds and the rule of diagonals by reading "The Rules of Photographic Composition."

2. Understand Megapixels, Megabytes, and DPI

Never again feel confused when someone asks for a photo "in 300 dpi" or be unsure if your picture is too big to email. Submit a photo to the Digital Focus Hot Pic of the Week contest with confidence. How? Read "Everything You Want to Know About Megapixels, Megabytes, and DPI," where I demystify all these terms.

3. Improve Exposure with Histograms

In the old days, the only way to improve the exposure of a photo was in a darkroom. Now, you can easily brighten and darken your photos until they look just right. Unfortunately, that's not as easy as it sounds. One easy way to improve your exposure is with the Histogram tool--get the scoop in "Improve the Exposure of Your Photos With Just a Few Clicks."

4. Master Hyperfocal Photography

It might sound intimidating, but hyperfocal photography is really just a technique for ensuring your entire image, from foreground to background, is in sharp focus. Not every photo benefits from this technique, since you often want to "focus" on a single subject (sorry, pun was sort of intended). But hyperfocal photos can look stunning. I explain how to use this technique in "Maximize Your Depth of Field With Hyperfocal Photography."

5. Add Some Bokeh to Your Photos

While we're talking about cool effects, how about taking a fresh look at your bokeh? No, it's not some sort of medical condition. Bokeh refers to the character of the blurry elements in your photos, generally most obvious in light sources and reflections that occur in the background of your photos. You can control many aspects of your bokeh with your choice of lens, and you can tweak bokeh with software as well. Check out "Making the Most of Your Photo's Bokeh."

6. Take Stunning Silhouettes

You generally don't want your subject to turn out dark and featureless, but occasionally that's exactly what you need to make a great photo. Of course, I'm referring to shooting silhouettes. Creating a good silhouette is generally little more than making sure the subject is adequately underexposed to strip out the color and detail. Learn all the details in "5 Tips for Shooting Dramatic Silhouettes."

7. Fix Unwanted Shadows

Of course, most times when you're taking photos you don't want the subject to look underexposed, and you don't want shadows creeping into your photos. There are some easy techniques to brighten those regions and add energy and detail back into your shot. You can read all about it in "Brighten Unwanted Shadows in Your Photos" and "More Image Editing Tricks for Brightening Shadows."

8. Take Portraits at Night

There are 24 hours in the day, but it seems that most cameras really only take good photos for less than half of that time. Want to take better people pictures after the sun goes down? There are a few ways to do that, like investing in a camera that is designed with night photography in mind, or trying a few easy tricks to improve your night photos with the camera you have. The details are in "Taking Good Portraits at Night."

9. Take Beautiful Slow-Shutter Photos of Water

I love capturing the essence of motion in my photos, and there are few better subjects for that sort of thing than water. It covers three quarters of the earth's surface, and it looks wonderful on film when you slow down the shutter. Check out "Taking Dreamy, Misty Ocean Photos at the Beach."

10. Create Dreamy Photos Wth Orton's Help

Finally, I wanted to remind you about a very pretty photo editing trick that you can perform with almost any photo editing program and learn in just minutes. Check out "Apply the Orton Effect for Glowing, Vibrant Photos" to learn how to stack two photos--one sharp, the other blurry--to get a gorgeous, ethereal photo that looks like a work of art.

Free Stuff That's Good To Have.

Six Free Software Packages to Load on Your New PC

By Katherine Noyes, PCWorld

If you're among the lucky ones to receive a new PC this holiday season, rejoice. There are few things as exciting as the potential of a brand-new machine.

Assuming it's not a Mac--or a machine with Linux preloaded--Windows almost certainly came installed on your device. If you're a Windows fan, that's great--you're all set for an operating system, then. If not, the hard part is choosing what to install instead.
In any case, the world of free and open source software has you covered, both for an operating system and for just about any other software you might need. Where to begin? Here are six suggestions.
1. Ubuntu Linux or Linux Mint
If you're not crazy about Microsoft Windows, or if you'd like to have an alternative on hand, there are countless Linux options you could try.
Among the two most popular, though--and the ones most agree are best suited for new users--are Ubuntu Linux and Linux Mint.
Ubuntu, of course, was long the No. 1 Linux distribution out there, and rightfully so. It was the first to put Linux on the “map” with mainstream users, I'd argue, and it still offers a really nice, easy-to-use open source operating system. The latest version of Ubuntu is “Oneiric Ocelot,” or version 11.10, which can be downloaded for free from the Ubuntu site.
Linux Mint, however, has recently usurped Ubuntu's No. 1 spot, largely because of Canonical's decision to begin using the Unity interface by default in Ubuntu. That's been less than entirely popular with many longtime users, in particular, giving Mint a new boost.
Mint is a great distribution as well--also very focused on ease of use--and it gives users a number of choices for the desktop environment they want to use. So, for flexibility in your computing environment, you won't go wrong with Mint.
There are, of course, numerous other Linux distributions as well. I'd say pick one and give it a try; if you don't like what you see, it's easy to switch.
2. Firefox or Chrome
Assuming you have Windows, you probably have Internet Explorer as well. There are many reasons to consider installing something else, however--either in addition or instead of that browser--and Firefox and Chrome are the most obvious examples.
Chrome recently assumed the No. 2 spot in the browser market--displacing Mozilla Firefox--and it's widely considered the most secure choice. Firefox, however, just got a really speedy update, and it's designed with numerous ethical considerations in mind.
All in all you really can't go wrong with either of those, and of course they're both free.
3. Thunderbird
Also made by Mozilla, Thunderbird is free, cross-platform e-mail client software that I've been using for years. It's very easy to set up and customize, and it's available in countless languages. Numerous extensions are available as well.
4. LibreOffice
It used to be OpenOffice.org that was the most commonly recommended free and open source office productivity suite, but over the past year or so LibreOffice has taken its place.
I use LibreOffice every day for my writing, and I can attest that it's a great alternative to Microsoft Office and the other big competitors out there. Just like Office, it includes modules for word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations.
LibreOffice is free, it's open source, it's business-ready, and it does everything most people need. There are also lots of extensions that extend its capabilities even further.
5. GIMP
If you ever work with photos or other images, GIMP is a must-have alternative to Adobe's expensive Photoshop software. GIMP is great for making Web graphics, creating marketing materials, and retouching product photos, and any images you create can be saved in numerous formats, including Photoshop. Once you try out GIMP's high-end graphics editing and creation features, you'll be amazed that it doesn't cost anything.
6. ClamAV
Finally, whether you're running Windows or not, it's a good idea to have some sort of antivirus protection in place, and ClamAV is a great free choice. The popular cross-platform tool detects Trojans, viruses, malware, and more.

WOW!!! That's BIG news!

Microsoft's 2012 CES will be its last

By Julianne Pepitone @CNNMoneyTech December 21, 2011: 3:22 PM ET

Keynotes from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer have kicked off the last three CES shows. But now the company says its product news doesn't align with the show's timing.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- One of the tech industry's biggest annual rituals, the January Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, is losing an iconic headliner. Microsoft has decided to pull out of the show, starting next year.

For the past three years, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer kicked off CES with a keynote speech. It's a role he inherited from Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who gave almost a dozen CES talks over the years.

But after CES 2012, Microsoft will no longer give a keynote or have a booth at the Las Vegas show. Microsoft made the announcement Wednesday in a blog post by communications VP Frank Shaw.
"Our product news milestones generally don't align with the show's January timing," Shaw wrote in the short post. So Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) began to ask itself: "Are we doing something because it's the right thing to do, or because 'it's the way we've always done it'?"

CES representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But it's clearly a blow for the trade show, which depends on big-name attendees to stay relevant.
Organizers of the Comdex conference, a computer expo that began in 1979 in Las Vegas, learned that the hard way. It was once a must-go event for techies, but interest began to wane in 1999, and the show was shuttered after 2003.

Since then, things have gotten tougher for big trade shows. Companies like Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) -- which hasn't formally participated in CES for years -- hold their own conferences and product-launch events. Microsoft also hosts its own gatherings, and increasingly relies on communications channels like webcasts, social media, retail stores and other outlets to spread its message.

At 2011's CES conference, Ballmer talked mainly about the company's big holiday hit: its Kinect motion-sensor gaming platform. He also touched on Windows Phone 7 and a new, tablet-optimized version of Windows under development -- though the word "tablet" was never spoken.
Ballmer learned the hard way to avoid that dreaded word. In his 2010 CES keynote, he waved around a tablet prototype that never made it to market. 

I'll bet he didn't think it through.

Feds warn Fremont man who gives out his sperm for free

December 20, 2011 |  8:42 am

 
Trent Arsenault is spreading his seed for free and the feds are not amused.

The 36-year-old Fremont man has been offering his sperm free of cost to needy couples for five years, mostly in the Bay Area, according to ABC News.com. But the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently stepped in and threatened to fine him or shut him down.

They call his service a commercial operation and say he doesn't adequately test for communicable diseases, such as HIV, hepatitis and chlamydia. Arsenault could be fined $100,000 or spend a year in jail. He is appealing.

Arsenault, who is 6-foot-1 and of French, Irish and German descent, said he feels called to provide sperm as "my version of love." The son of evangelicals and a former U.S. Naval Academy midshipman, Arsenault says he has fathered 14 children with several more on the way.

Many of his recipients are lesbian couples who are grateful for a cost-free donor whom they can personally meet and introduce to future progeny, according to ABC News.com.

In a related story…

Can a sperm donor be forced to pay child support?

March 3, 2007

Dear Straight Dope:

I'm looking for the straight dope on paternity law involving sperm donation. How likely is it that a guy could wind up owing child support in exchange for his efforts and the quick cash at the donation center? I have yet to hear anything but hearsay on the issue.

— Nick from Indiana

SDSTAFF Gfactor replies::

Nobody's really sure, Nick. Believe it or not, the law is just catching up with these newfangled biological advances. There's a case pending before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on the issue of sperm donor child support, and some states have handled it by statute. Most courts that have considered the question have ordered the donor to pay support, which may seem a perverse result, but the issue is more complicated than you might think.

The parties in the Pennsylvania case, Joel McKiernan and Ivonne Ferguson, met at work and had a two-year extramarital affair. After the affair ended, Ferguson asked McKiernan to help her conceive. The two agreed McKiernan would not be obligated for child support if he acted as sperm donor. (Ferguson had had a tubal ligation and could only conceive by in vitro fertilization, or IVF.) She had another man pose as her husband, told the doctor it was her husband's sperm, and had twins. McKiernan had little contact with the twins at first, but five years out Ferguson thought better of their agreement, sued McKiernan for child support, and won. In 2004, the Superior Court of Pennsylvania affirmed the trial court's decision ordering McKiernan to pay $1,500 a month to support the twins. The court reasoned that the contract between McKiernan and Ferguson was unenforceable — a parent can't bargain away a child's right to support. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has not yet decided the case.

This isn't the only case in which a sperm donor has been ordered to pay support, nor is it the only case involving nontraditional ways of getting pregnant. First, there are the stolen sperm cases. For example, in a New York case, Deon Francois banked some frozen sperm at an NYU lab while he and his wife were trying to get pregnant. They broke up; he moved out, stopped paying the storage fee to NYU, and assumed NYU would discard the sperm. Instead, his estranged wife forged his signature on a release and notarized it with a stolen notary stamp. She used the release to get the sperm from NYU, which hadn't discarded it; got pregnant; and then sought child support in her divorce case. The judge awarded her $150 per week.

In other cases women have inseminated themselves with sperm from fellatio or from a condom (or so their male acquaintances alleged), then sought child support — and won. That's because the paramount consideration in child support cases is providing the child with support from two parents. Wisely or not, courts traditionally have defined parents as those who contributed the gametes that made the baby. In most cases, courts will overlook the adults' agreements or despicable conduct in the interest of providing for the children.

Establishing parentage on the basis of genetics is a double-edged sword. Genetic parents can be required to pay child support, but they can also get custody and visitation rights, sometimes even if they've agreed they won't be a parent. It gets even more complex when we factor in surrogacy and embryo implantation. For example, in a New York case, Perry-Rogers v. Fasano, Donna Fasano underwent IVF and gave birth to two male infants of two different races. One child was the result of mistaken implantation of an embryo created with genetic materials from another couple, the Rogers. A New York appellate court awarded the Rogers exclusive custody of their genetic child. The Fasanos wanted visitation rights but their request was denied — Donna Fasano had given birth to the child but was not genetically related to him.

In another case from California, Robert B. and Denise B. v. Susan B., Susan Buchweitz was accidentally given Robert and Denise B.'s embryos during IVF. According to the court, Robert and Denise B. had contracted with an anonymous ovum donor to obtain the donor's eggs for fertilization with Robert's sperm. Meanwhile, Susan went to the same fertility clinic with the intent of purchasing genetic material from "two strangers who would contractually sign away their rights" so that "there would be no paternity case against her, ever." She therefore contracted with the clinic for an embryo created from anonymously donated ova and sperm. About 13 embryos were produced for Robert and Denise. In June 2000 some of them were implanted in Denise's uterus. Apparently through clinical error, Susan received three of these embryos. When she became pregnant, Susan believed the child she was carrying was the result of the anonymous procedure for which she had contracted. In February 2001, 10 days apart, Susan gave birth to Daniel and Denise gave birth to Daniel's genetic sister, Madeline. Learning of the mistake, Robert and Denise sued Susan for parental rights to Daniel. The trial court awarded temporary custody to Susan and visitation to Robert, the genetic father. Denise was left out of the picture because she had no genetic connection to the child.

Some jurisdictions have adopted a version of the Uniform Parentage Act (either the 1973 version or the 2000 version), which tries to settle some of these issues. Among other things, the act makes clear that in most cases donors aren't parents. But only about a third of the states have adopted some version of the UPA, and in states that have, courts tend to interpret the law narrowly. For example, several cases under the 1973 version of the act hold that the donor provisions don't bar claims involving known sperm donors unless the sperm was obtained and implanted by a licensed physician. Presumably the rationale is that if sperm donation is handled professionally, we'll absolve the donor of parental responsibility, whereas if we're talking about the tawdry dealings of the trailer-park set, we'll continue to let genetics be our guide.

To further complicate matters, in the U.S. the law changes if the child is moved to a different state, at least under some circumstances. So yes, sperm donors are sometimes liable for child support, and it doesn't look like the situation will change any time soon.

Facebook is not user friendly!!!

How Facebook Can Hurt Your Credit Rating

Analysis: Bank on it -- Financial institutions are checking social media profiles to identify credit risks. It's time to ditch those deadbeat friends.

By Dan Tynan, ITworld    Dec 18, 2011 7:36 am

You know those deadbeat friends of yours on Facebook? They could end up killing your credit score and costing you a loan. At the very least, your no-account pals could bump up your interest rate.
A chilling story in the New York Observer’ BetaBeat blog this week details the efforts of several online banks that plan to analyze your social media profiles to determine how big a credit risk you are. It’s yet more evidence that, unlike Las Vegas, what happens on Facebook doesn’t stay on Facebook – and could come back to bite you in unexpected and unpleasant ways.
How are banks going to use this information? First, they’re going to use your friends list to troll for future prospects. If you just took out a line of credit against the equity in your house, maybe your friends will too – assuming they’ve got any equity left.

• 'Likejacking' exploit fools Facebook users and friends
• 30 ways Twitter will get you in trouble

But that’s only the start. Per author Adrianne Jeffries:

…in the last year or so, financial institutions have started exploring ways to use data from Facebook, Twitter and other networks to round out an individual borrower’s risk profile—although most entrepreneurs working on the problem say the technology is three to five years away from mainstream adoption…
But there’s a nightmare scenario: if banks learn how to use social media, they could gather information they aren’t allowed to ask for on a credit application—including race, marital status and receipt of public assistance—or worse, to redline segments of the social graph.
In other words: choose your online friends wisely, for they may one day determine your APR.

It gets worse. Let’s say you fall a few months behind on your payments and you’ve decided to banish the bill collecting goons to voice mail. Hong Kong-based micro-lender Lenddo – which asks for your Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Yahoo, and Windows Live logons when you sign up -- reserves the right to rat you out to all your friends. Per Lenddo’s FAQ:

As long as you don't fall behind on any Lenddo loan installments, you have complete control over your privacy settings and your information will only be shared with your permission. IF YOU FAIL TO REPAY, Lenddo MAINTAINS THE RIGHT TO NOTIFY YOUR FRIENDS, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY. [boldface caps in original]

Also, they’ll break your legs – but only your virtual ones. And then sell you virtual crutches to hobble around on.
The problems here are several. As Jeffries notes, banks may become privy to all kinds of information that’s really none of their business, and use that to determine your creditworthiness. There’s also the Faux Friend problem; these models appear to assume your Facebook friends are your actual friends. Some may be, others certainly are not. Why should anyone’s troubled financial past impact mine (or, vice versa), especially a stranger with whom I have shared nothing more than the occasional “Like”?
This is not what we signed up for when we all agreed to engage in this massive social media experiment. First it was employers and college recruiters who began to use our tweets and status updates against us. Then potential mates and cops. Now banks? Who will be next?
Of course, these are just online small fry you can safely avoid ever having to deal with. The big banks would never stoop to such measures. Right? Wrong. Per the Observer article, the companies involved in these schemes claim to have been approached by “the who’s who of banking,” who were keenly interested in their social media parsing algorithms.
Jeffries managed to get credit reporting agency Equifax to respond to her queries; their response was telling:

“Our corporate development professionals are very aware of the opportunities to enhance our proprietary data and partner with companies who add value to the accuracy of our reporting, which helps our customers make better decisions prior to lending.”

I translate that as “we’re looking carefully at this and are prepared to jump in with both feet when the time is right.”
Will you be legally required to give your bank access to your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn profiles when you need credit? Probably not. But they won’t be legally required to approve your loan, either.

The business of dying.

13 Things the Funeral Director Won’t Tell You

By Michelle Crouch from Reader's Digest Magazine, June/July 2011

© Hemera/Thinkstock

1. Go ahead and plan your funeral, but think twice before paying in advance. You risk losing everything if the funeral home goes out of business. Instead, keep your money in a pay-on-death account at your bank.
Plus: 13 Things Your Financial Adviser Won’t Tell You
2. If you or your spouse is an honorably discharged veteran, burial is free at a Veterans Affairs National Cemetery. This includes the grave, vault, opening and closing, marker, and setting fee. Many State Veterans Cemeteries offer free burial for veterans and, often, spouses (www.cem.va.gov).
3. You can buy caskets that are just as nice as the ones in my showroom for thousands of dollars less online from Walmart, Costco, or straight from a manufacturer.
4. On a budget or concerned about the environment? Consider a rental casket. The body stays inside the casket in a thick cardboard container, which is then removed for burial or cremation.
5. Running a funeral home without a refrigerated holding room is like running a restaurant without a walk-in cooler. But many funeral homes don’t offer one because they want you to pay for the more costly option: embalming. Most bodies can be presented very nicely without it if you have the viewing within a few days of death.
6. Some hard-sell phrases to be wary of: “Given your position in the community …,” “I’m sure you want what’s best for your mother,” and “Your mother had excellent taste. When she made arrangements for Aunt Nellie, this is what she chose.”

7. “Protective” caskets with a rubber gasket? They don’t stop decomposition. In fact, the moisture and gases they trap inside have caused caskets to explode.
8. If there’s no low-cost casket in the display room, ask to see one anyway. Some funeral homes hide them in the basement or the boiler room.
9. Ask the crematory to return the ashes in a plain metal or plastic container — not one stamped temporary container. That’s just a sleazy tactic to get you to purchase a more expensive urn.
10. Shop around. Prices at funeral homes vary wildly, with direct cremation costing $500 at one funeral home and $3,000 down the street. (Federal law requires that prices be provided over the phone.)
11. We remove pacemakers because the batteries damage our crematories.
12. If I try to sell you a package that I say will save you money, ask for the individual price list anyway. Our packages often include services you don’t want or need.
13. Yes, technically I am an undertaker or a mortician. But doesn’t funeral director have a nicer ring to it?

9 More Funeral Director Secrets

By Michelle Crouch 1. Sure, you can store ashes in an urn or scatter them somewhere special, but nowadays you can also have them crushed into a real diamond, integrated into an underwater coral reef, or blasted into space.
2. It’s usually less expensive if the body is not present for the funeral.
3. If the deceased’s favorite outfit is a size too small or a size too big, bring it to us anyway. Part of our job is making the clothes lie perfectly.
4. If I ask you for a photograph of the deceased to help me prepare the body, I don’t mean her honeymoon picture from decades ago.
5. That may be real gold in your loved one’s dental fillings or crowns, but don’t ask me to remove them for you.
6. You don’t need to spend money to have a meaningful service. Consider a potluck at the widow’s home or an informal ceremony at a favorite park, and ask survivors to tell stories or read poetry.
7. Never trust a funeral director who says, “This is the last thing you can do for your loved one.”
8. Always bring another person when you meet with me, ideally someone who’s not as emotionally attached to the deceased.
9. It might be wise to check out just who owns your local funeral home. Corporate chains have bought out hundreds of family-owned funeral homes in recent years, but they often keep the original name, appearance, and even some employees after a buyout. The one thing they usually do change? The prices.

Cut The Cable

Ways To Watch TV Without Paying An Arm And A Leg For Cable Or Satellite

by Peter Anderson · 119 comments ·  Print ·  Email ·

Television Can Be Expensive (It Doesn’t Have To Be)

One way that my wife and I have saved money over the years is that while most of our friends have cable or satellite TV, we’ve never paid subscription costs to receive TV programming.  That means that we are saving ourselves a good chunk of money every year.  If you’re in debt, you probably shouldn’t be paying for TV either!
Rates for cable in our area range anywhere from around $12/month for the basic package with only local channels to well over $100/month for upgraded offerings with premium channels and shows. We probably would have ended up going for a middle of the road package, somewhere between $50-60/month. How much have we saved every year by not paying subscription costs for our TV entertainment? Probably between $600-720! That’s a lot of money!  The good news is,  TV doesn’t have to be that expensive! In fact, TV can be cheap or free!
While we haven’t paid for cable TV, we haven’t exactly been deprived, or had to watch only the shows offered by the over the air networks.  There are tons of free video options out there! In fact, we actually still watch a lot of the same shows that our friends do. How do we do it you ask? Through a combination of free over-the-air digital TV,  free online video services (the legal kind), a video streaming software, and a Xbox 360.

Our Low Cost Home TV Setup

Here’s how we watch TV at our house.  Keep in mind that this package isn’t free, but it is lower in cost than the above mentioned $720/year package.   Things we needed:

• TV:  A TV to watch your shows on!  -  Cost:  Free (you probably already have one)
• Playon Software:  This software that can be found at http://www.playon.tv and allows you to stream online video from popular services like Hulu.com, straight to your TV through a networked media device (see below).  -  Cost:  Fee of $39.99 for the first year, $29.99 every year after that. (there is a 14 day free trial)
  
• Networked Media Device – Like Our Xbox 360 (list of Playon supported DLNA-compliant networked media devices):  You can get a brand new Xbox 360 for around $200 nowadays, sometimes cheaper if you buy used or refurbished.  We just got our second one for $75 from a friend. Tons of other networked media devices are compatible as well including Playstation 3, HP Mediasmart TVs, and Nintendo Wii.  Check the link above to see if your device is supported. -  Cost:  Free-$200 (depends on if you have one of these already)
• Video Streaming Services:  There are tons of online video streaming services like Hulu.com, Netflix,  CBS.com, Youtube,  Comedy Central, HGTV, and ESPN that support the Playon software!  The software also now supports plugins, so additional channels are appearing all the time including the Food Network, NBA/NFL content, and others! -  Cost:  Free

In our case, we already had everything at our house, except for the Playon software.  So for this setup we paid $29.99 (the software has since become a subscription software, costing $39.99 the first year, and $29.99 each additional year), plus the $8.99/month for the basic Netflix streaming package (get it, it’s worth it!).  That’s $138 for the first year, and $108 for every year after. That is a lot cheaper than if we were paying for cable!  Here’s a video showing how easy it is to install PlayOn.
For a more detailed look at installing playon, check out this post on Installing Playon.
So here’s how the above cited items are setup at our house in order to stream video from the web, to our TV

1. The Playon software is installed on our home computer connected to the network.
2. Once installed Playon has a media server running in the background that pulls in RSS feeds from major video content providers, which allows the PC to pull in the video streams in the same way that a web browser does.
3. Video is sent over our home network, and played full screen through the Xbox 360 on our 50″ Plasma TV.   Much better than trying to watch shows on our tiny 19″ computer monitor!

Here’s  an explanation of how Playon works from the software’s website:

MediaMall’s PlayOn software is a UPnP digital media server and browser that pulls RSS feeds from content providers, and presents them to DLNA-compliant networked media devices. In plain English, this means you can use your game console or networked television to access content from providers like YouTube, Netflix and Hulu. The PC software pulls in the media streams, in the same way as your web browser, and then sends them directly over your home network to your device, even converting their formats on the fly to make sure the devices can play them. Simple as that.

MyLifeROI.com talks about how he setup the same Playon to Xbox 360 streaming at his house.

Watch Free Over-The-Air HDTV

The setup I talked about above is only one way to get free or low cost TV content.   Another way we get free content at home is through the free over-the-air HDTV channels that are now available to everyone who has a HDTV tuner and an antenna.   If you have a TV with a built in digital tuner and a simple antenna, you should be able to just turn your TV on, and get all the network TV stations in their full HD glory! Check for your local digital stations here.
If you have a regular TV, you’ll need to buy a digital converter box to continue watching TV by this summer anyway, and once you get one, you will then get tons of crystal clear TV stations for free!  When we started watching Digital TV we instantly gained about 5-10 TV stations because some channels have the main channel, and then sub channels as well.
Honestly we could probably survive on our over the air channels alone, although my wife likes to have our cable TV fix every once in a while – which is why we have Playon.

Watch Free TV Online

In addition to the options above, you can also watch TV for free through a variety of websites online.  While it isn’t as fun to watch the shows on a small computer monitor, it is still a good option I think.   Many of these online options may be available for streaming through the Playon software in the future as well.

• Hulu.com: probably the best one out there in my opinion, already works through Playon, but you can watch it on your computer as well if you’d like.
• Fancast.com: Similar to Hulu, not quite as good, but still has tons of great content.
• TV Network Websites: ABC, NBC, CBS all have good full episode streaming options available.
• Joost.com:  Full episodes from a wide variety of shows.
• Tioti.com: Tape It Off The Internet is a social media site for TV shows – allowing you to view episode information, and then see where you can find the show online.
• Veoh.com: Tons of content, including TV shows!
• TidalTV.com: Tons of TV content, not my favorite site or layout, but it works.
• FreeTVOnline.com: Haven’t used this site much, but was recommended to me.
• Sidereel.com: I’m new to this one, but it looks to have lots of good free TV options.
• AOL Video: Both short and long video clips and full shows.

There are a ton of other free video sites out there, this list only lists some of the ones I found to be the best.  Have some free online video options that you use?  Let us know about them in the comments and maybe I’ll add them to the list.

Rent Movies And TV Shows – And Use The Library

Another low cost option to get your TV and movie fix is to either rent your TV shows and movies, or to get them from your local library. My favorite options are:

• Redbox:  Redbox allows you to rent a new release movie for $1 a night,  which is an extremely low cost movie rental option. Search for coupon codes online for free redbox rentals, and it can be even cheaper!
• Netflix.com:  Slightly more, but the added convenience of keeping the movies and TV shows as long as you want, and being able to stream a selection of movies and TV shows over the computer, or networked media device.  $7.99 for the basic streaming only package, $9.99 for 1 DVD at a time plan.  Find all plans and how to maximize your return on this post:  How Much Netflix Costs.
• Your Local Library: Your local library will most likely have  a decent selection of DVD movies that you can check out for a week or more.  My local library tends to be a bit picked over, but if you get on a waiting list you can usually find movies or TV shows you’d enjoy watching.
• Borrow From Friends: Borrow movies and TV shows from friends and family.  They already own a ton of DVDs, they may as well get some use out of them!

Conclusion

A lot of people pay a lot of money in order to be able to watch the TV shows that they want, when they want.  In the process they end up spending upwards of $500-1000 a year, mostly for programming that they don’t watch.  If they would just look a little deeper they might find that there are a lot of free or low cost options out there, and they can get a lot of the same TV shows, movies and other video content for free.
My suggestion?  Read this article, do some research, and find your own low cost option for watching the TV shows that you love.  If you put a few of these tips above into practice, you can save thousands of dollars, just like we have.