Tuesday, February 04, 2014

Resources: Legal Matters

legalFor legal matters in general, visit American Bar Association Tel: (800) 285-2221.

Halt is an organization for Americans for legal Reform. They offer information and assistance on a variety of topics. Their site: HALT, Inc. Email: HALT@HALT.org, Tel: (888)-FOR-HALT, (202) 887-8255.

If you think arbitration might resolve your grievances, visit American Arbitration Association Tel: (800) 778-7879.

For assistance with age or sex or racial discrimination claims, visit Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) Email: info@ask.eeoc.gov, Tel: (800) 669-4000.

Legal Counsel for the Elderly provides information on a broad range of legal and healthcare issues and also performs some pro bono work. Tel: (888)-OUR-AARP. For related issues, one can also consult National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys (NAELA) Tel: (520) 881-4005.

Finally, as we know that death and tax are inevitable destiny of all of us, U.S. Tax Court could be a helpful site for you, if you have disputes with IRS on tax matters. Tel: (202) 521-0700.

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Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Recycle Ink cartridges and Cellphones

Today is Earth Day. ...And, among so many things that we can do for our beloved earth and its environment, we can at least start with some small steps first.

Please care to recycle your old cell phones and empty printing cartridges and help in keeping thousands of tons of potentially hazardous plastics and metal out of landfills and incinerators per year. You may find the following facts interesting:

o 78% of homes have inkjet printers.
o Only 5% of inkjet cartridges are recycled.
o 300,000 cartridges end up in a landfill each year.
o 5000 tons of plastic and metal goes into landfills each month from ink cartridges and cell phones.
o It takes 1000 years for industrial grade plastic to decompose.
o There are approximately 200 million cell phone users in USA.
o 18 months is the average life of a cell phone.
o 140 million cell phones were disposed of last year.

You may earn cash or make a fund-raiser campaign, while recycling ink cartridges or cell phones by using the service of freerecycling.com or fundingfactory.com among others. Office product chains like 'Office Depot' or 'Staples' also give you $3 coupon in exchange of a cartridge. To get more comprehensive information about recycling various potentially hazardous products, visit the non-profit organization, Earth911.org.

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Wednesday, April 16, 2008

E-visits : Health Care Goes Online

DoctorIn many cases of illness, the best care still calls for actual human touch. Still, in some special situation, if you're sick, you may not feel like wasting time in a doctor's office waiting room. And here comes a solution for such cases.

With the penetration of internet into all aspects of our daily life, health care couldn't remain aloof from all those advancements. It started with educational programs for degrees in healthcare management and nursing. Nowadays, more and more physicians are conducting online exams, and a growing number of insurance companies are supporting the concept. It's projected that one in five office visits could be eliminated through online communication. Recently, some of the biggest insurance companies, including Aetna and Cigna, started reimbursing doctors for E-exams.

The visits utilize questionnaires to help the doctor properly diagnose any problems in the patient. All of it is documented in the patient chart to refer to for future visits and care. The American Academy of Family Physicians also supports the idea, but stresses that only non-urgent medical issues can be handled this way. E-visits are best suited for people with easy to diagnose aches and pains, or for established patients who have previously received care from the physician's practice and now need follow-up visits.

E-visits should be a payable physician service. Usually, the patient initiates the process and agrees to e-visit service terms, privacy policy, and charge for receiving asynchronous care from a physician or other qualified health professional. Thereafter, electronic communication occurs over a HIPAA-compliant online connection, which includes the total interchange of online inquiries and other communications associated with this single patient encounter.

The physician appropriately documents the E-visits, including all pertinent communication related to the encounter. The physician or other qualified health professional has a defined period of time within which responses to an e-visit request are completed.

So, next time you are sick, may be putting your hand on the mouse would be a more convenient idea ....

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Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Countdown to Digital TV (DTV) Transition

DTVIf you have an analog TV, you need to be ready by February next year so that you have proper equipment to convert the digital broadcast signal. The conversion of broadcast television from analog to digital is scheduled for completion on February 17 of 2009.

For broadcasters, the intervening 12 months would be a challenging time to make sure that they have done all that they can to prepare for the Digital TV (DTV) transition and that consumers are aware of it and are doing all that they need to do to make certain that they will still able to be receive their television signals.

Electronic stores have already started selling new digital converter boxes, which will let viewers with stand-alone analog sets that rely on over the air transmissions, receive digital signals next year. The government is offering a $40 rebate coupon to help defray the cost of buying the box.

For more details, visit Federal Communications Commission's website on Digital TV transition or for comments or questions pertaining to the DTV transition, e-mail DTVinfo@fcc.gov.

To know more about the TV convertor box and to get the rebate coupon, visit the TV Converter Box website or call the toll-free number 1-800-DTV-2009.

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Monday, December 10, 2007

Stop Catalogs in Mailbox

junk mailHoliday season is approaching fast. Malls and stores throughout USA are showing the start of another shopping spree! And with the holiday season come lots and lots of catalogs to your mailbox. Some people enjoy it but many of you may not! Want some relief from those more than 18 billion catalogs that overload U.S. mailboxes each year? Here are some tips for what to do:

The best way isn't to call the companies; There's a new FREE online service that lets you cancel unwanted catalogs. Catalogchoice.org lets you select the catalogs you don't want to receive and within 10 weeks, your mailbox will be empty of unwanted catalogs. This service is sponsored by The Ecology Center and endorsed by Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). To learn more, visit NRDC's site simplesteps.org.

There are other options, if you wish. You may choose to send a request by mail. Web sites like Junkbusters.com provide template letters for free that you can print out and sign.

The Abacus Alliance, a database used by mail-order catalogs, will remove you from it's listings upon request (abacusalliance.com). The Direct Marketing Association, too, will add your name to a "delete" list for direct marketers (free by mail; $5 online at dmaconsumers.org).

As last option you may pay the pros to do this job for you. For $20, StoptheJunkMail.com lets pick which catalogs you want to keep receiving; it then contacts the others repeatedly until you're removed from their lists. for good.

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Monday, August 13, 2007

Urgent Worldwide Toothpaste Voluntary Recall

toothpaste In a fresh development on the Chinese toothpaste issue, U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Web site posted a statement today that the company Gilchrist & Soames has voluntarily recalled tubes of Chinese-made toothpaste after tests showed some samples contained diethylene glycol (DEG), a chemical used in anti-freeze.

You may recall that FDA advised consumers on June 1 to toss out Chinese-made toothpaste because diethylene glycol may have been used in place of U.S.-approved thickening agents and sweeteners. Chinese brands cited by the FDA contained 3 to 4 percent of the chemical by weight, and some weren't labeled as having the ingredient, the agency said. The substance, mixed with cough syrup, was responsible for more than 40 deaths in Panama beginning in September 2006, according to the FDA Web site.

The company urged all hotel guests who took the toothpaste home with them to throw it away. The suspect product is from one of Gilchrist & Soames's two Chinese suppliers, Ming Fai Enterprises International Co. The only product being recalled is toothpaste in 0.65- ounce tubes with the label ``Made in China''. Concern about tainted Chinese imports developed in the U.S. after the discovery of contaminated pet food, seafood and toothpaste as well as defective tires and toys with lead paint.

Gilchrist & Soames has a distribution center in the U.S. that sent the toothpaste to hotels in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Bermuda, Barbados, the Dominican Republic and the Turks & Caicos Islands, according to the company's statement.

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Thursday, July 26, 2007

Standby Energy Wastage

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, about 10% to 15% of the energy load of a state is consumed by standby power. This wastage takes place through many electronic devices in your home that are always on, even when you think they're off. These "miscellaneous" devices include computers, digital video recorders, power tools and chargers for cellphones--which drain even when not charging. Some of these adapters can draw as much as 5 to 20 times more energy in standby mode that is actually stored in the battery. Most stay plugged 24 hours 7 days for their entire lifetime.

For example, computers are a huge standby drain. Traditional computers average 35.5 watts in standby, while laptops average 16.5 watts. Screen savers actually make things worse, using 28% more power than normal. Other large standby drainers include ink jet printers, which can use from three to 20 watts, and mini-stereos, which can consume from one to 25 watts.

In June 2001 President Bush required the government to purchase appliances, and chargers, that used the least standby power. At the time, the White House estimated the U.S. could save from $1 billion to 2 billion in energy bills if standby settings used one watt or less. The EPA estimates that there are 1 billion chargers in the U.S. and predicts that number will grow. In January, Energy Star began a major campaign to make chargers at least 35% more efficient. By doing this, the EPA believes it can save more than 1 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions, equal to that generated by 150,000 cars.

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Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Shoplifting: Beware of Consequences

shoplifterOur posting today starts with a special word -- Kleptomaniac -- people who feel compelled to steal at any opportunity. According to an estimate, every year US retailers lose about 10 billions due to shoplifting. The ratailers, of course, make sure that the amount is extracted from average consumers like you and us through higher prices for their merchandise.

People steal things that they want to have but cannot afford like fancy cosmetics or apparels or the latest CD/DVD or things that they are forbidden to purchase like cigarettes. Some do this just out of fun. However, survey says that majority (about two-third) of shoplifters resort to this simply because they see the opportunity of doing that, even though they were not predetermined when they entered the shop.

Some retailers like Walmart take quite tough stand about this. Many retailers keep plain-cloth security people in aisles and exit. Walmart, for example, charges a high amount from the arrested person irrespective of the outcome of the court. The high cost of the procedures in court and complexity of expunging the act from the criminal record may take peace away from the arrested person's mind. So, never get into such a temptation and make your friends and family members, and young people, in particular, aware of this. One evening's temptation may haunt them and their career for a long time.

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Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Gas Prices All Time High

Road travel in the forthcoming Memorial Day weekend could be more expensive, as AAA announced today that gasoline prices hit an all-time high, $3.22 a gallon. According to AAA, since May 4, the average price for a gallon of gas has been above $3. In the last month, it has jumped 13%. Many experts predict prices will climb higher during the busy summer driving season. But others do not expect a supply shortage and predict prices will soon stabilize.

Here are a few websites which may come to your use for finding gas prices in your area:

-- Find out which gas station in your town has the best fuel prices by searching the handy state-by-state list at GasBuddy.com .

-- You may find the lowest gas prices in your neighborhood by visiting GasPriceWatch.com .

-- You can use AAA's fuelcostcalculator.com to find out the cost of making a trip by putting information about your starting point and destination.

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Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Telephone Nuisances

TelephoneBy now, everyone knows how to register their own telephone numbers in the National 'DoNotCall' registry ( http://www.donotcall.gov/ ) to get rid of those nagging calls in the evening and weekend from mortgage banks, phonecards etc. Note that the registry still does not save you from calls of charity organizations, but avoiding charity calls is easier than avoiding people trying to sell you interest-only mortgages or trying to extract your social security number.

But another common nuisance to do with telephone calls still exist. You may not even know it, if you do not check your phone bill with care. You may find in your telephone bill a hefty charge from nowhere for "collect calls", although your sharp memory tells you that you never accepted any such call.

What do you do? You call your local telephone company and they only ask you to contact that company (whose name may appear in you bill beside the charge for that collect call). You contact them and they say, "No way! You have to pay! Orrr ... Okay... We are giving a partial credit" .... as if they are doing you a favor.

Here is your solution: If you are unable to resolve your dispute, contact your local telephone company and ask confidently to offer you a "recourse adjustment". A recourse adjustment will remove those charges from your local telephone bill. However, the service provider company (who charged you those fictitious collect calls) may pursue collection of the charges directly from you. But hopefully they will not bother you because they know that the charge was fictitious in the first place. If they contact you - it's your turn to reject them! You may also complain to Better Business Bureau: http://www.bbb.org/.

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Thursday, January 25, 2007

To Stop Credit Card Offers

If you want relief from all those credit card offers that come to your mailbox, which, for example, are trying to attract you with 0% interest for 6 months, while taking away 4% of the amount as transaction fee which effectively becomes a loan for 8% APY? [They are not as Free as they look like.]

Well, there is a way. Simply remove your name from the lists credit bureaus provide to card-issuing banks by calling the toll-free number 1-888-5-OPTOUT.

Occasionally you may miss out some really good offer from competing banks. But a clutter-free mailbox may offer more pleasure to you.

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Tuesday, September 05, 2006

National Preparedness Month

September is National Preparedness month. National Preparedness Month 2006 is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The goal of the month is to increase public awareness about the importance of preparing for emergencies and to encourage individuals to take action. To know more about this visit the National Preparedness Month website.

This is a time we all should make a resolution to check regularly in future how prepared we are if a disaster strikes. However hard we try, we cannot avoid natural disasters but we can avoid a lot of misery and distress, if we are ready for it.

Here are a few tips for disaster preparedness:

Pick a day that's easy to remember, such as the first of the month, to test your home's smoke detectors and flashlights and radiobatteries.

Keep your emergency food and water supply fresh by consuming and replacing items before their expiration date.

Store your emergengy prepardness plan and disaster supplies kit in the same place.

Include books and games in your emergency supplies kit. You'll want something to do and keep your mind away from unnecessary anxieties.

Always have at least a half-tank of gas in your car, so you'll be prepared to evacuate.

Involve Children in emergency prepardness. they'll react better during a real-life emergency if they've practised beforehand

Hold a fire drill at night, to practise finding your way out of the dark.

Conduct a "household hazard hunt." look for furnature that needs securing, flammable products that require safe storage, and other items that could fall or cause a fire. Then fix problem areas.

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Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Coupon from Google Map


















Google has started a new service that allows users to print out discount coupons for local merchants when they use Google Maps to search or locate a business. Coupons will be supplied by Cox Enterprises' ValPak Direct Marketing Systems. ValPak is best known for direct mailing light blue envelopes overflowing with discounts from local merchants such as pizza shops, carpet care and hardware stores.

Google is opening the service to businesses of all types -- at no fee. Companies may submit coupons directly to the search engine index. Links to the coupons will appear automatically when users search for local businesses on the mapping site.

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Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Google Map in Mobile Phones

Today Google began offering mobile phone users in more than 30 U.S. major metropolitan areas the ability to view highway maps with live traffic updates.

The users can get partial information for smaller cities as well, Google said. The search engine's mobile map service for cell phones is also available as a small download for compatible models. Traffic information will be provided as an additional layer that users can toggle on and off. Routes are shown in green, yellow, or red depending on the severity of traffic congestion, along with detailed information on incidents. So mobile phone users will now see the expected drive time as well as any unexpected traffic delays, making travel planning much easier and more effective.

Another new feature -- the ability to store their favorite searches and driving directions -- will allow users to access frequently used routes and compare traffic conditions on them. To date, none of the major online services offer such a service in their own map products for mobile devices. Yahoo offers traffic conditions in the desktop version of their product but the mobile version does not.

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Thursday, July 06, 2006

Garage Sale

Things that pile up over the years in your cupboard, kitchen and Garage need to be disposed at some point of time and Garage sale is a great way to do that in exchange of some small but significant income.

But before you go for it, sort out items which you may rather sell/auction at ebay.com or amazon.com . Those provide a national exposure to your items like textbooks or DVDs and you may hope to get better prices. If you just depend on your neighborhood or pedestrians walking by, you may not even be able to sell it or may sell it at a much less price for the urge of disposing what you think is junk.

You may also take the service of some other Auction places as we described in one of our past postings. You may use those for large items in particular, which you may not like to ship.

You may now list rest of the items for your garage sale. Take permission from your city office (if your city requires it), put free advertisements at following websites well in advance (about 3 weeks so that ads appear just before the target weekend), put signs at road-crossings around your home and then open up your Garage door and enjoy talking to people who appear from nowhere and buy things that you wish to get rid of.

The following sites offer free listings :
GarageSaleHunter, GarageSaleZone, Craigslist, PennySaverUsa .
GarageSale-Guru is also a good site that offers information for buyers and sellers.

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Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Flea Market

The term "flea market" originated in the open-air "le marche aux puces of Paris". The word 'flea' got assiciated with such markets possibly from the merchants who had to "flee" the gentrification of the Emperor Napoleon III. Some also say that the word came from those old furnitures infested with the bloodsucking pests that were sold in such markets.

Open-air markets always had a presence in American life. Those enormous tent-city flea markets of today have simply taken shape out of the city vendors and crossroad stands that filled up a broad spectrum of our lives. In addition to providing a livelihood for new immigrants and others on the lower economic groups, flea markets served as a low-overhead incubator for new micro-enterprises. Starbucks Coffee Corp. began as a vendor in Seattle's Pike Place Market. The Cabbage Patch dolls were born in Southern craft fairs.

According to the National Flea Market Association, America has more than 5,000 flea markets (also called swap meets, farmer's markets and public markets) that employ more than 80,000 workers. The association estimates that more than 500,000 vendors sell in excess of $5 billion annually at flea markets. The association classifies flea markets into 3 categories: large (5,000 to 10,000 vendors) medium (500 to 5,000) and small (fewer than 500). The Association is having its 9th Annual convention in Las Vegas from September 26th to 28th.

The nation's largest flea market is an annual affair called the Highway 127 Corridor. It happens in August along a 450 miles long way starting from Covington, KY, and goes all the way through Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama.

The Association has a useful flea market finder that you can use to find one in your neighborhood.

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Monday, June 19, 2006

Free Directory Assistance

When you dial 411 for directory assistance, you need to pay an average of $1.25 per call. That is what prompted the creation of a news crop of 800 services offering free directory assistance. Here are 3 of those: 1-800-411-SAVE launched this month and 1-800-FREE-411 and 1-800-411-METRO which were rolled out last fall.

If you call these numbers, you will find the same service as 411, but instead of you paying for it, the cost is covered by businesses who have offers you may be interested in. You first have to listen to a commercial for up to 15 seconds. So, it's like Google or Yahoo offering you advertisements depending on the business phone number that you are trying to find out. If you are interested in an offer, they will connect you free of charge. If not you'll just receive the information you've asked for.

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