The huge potential for growth in green jobs is being mandated and funded. The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 require large utilities to obtain 15 percent of their electricity from new renewable resources such as solar and wind by 2020. On May 18th, 2009, Secretary of the Department of Energy Chu announced the first 16 of the 100 standards that much be addressed by September in order to clear the way for the expenditure of Stimulus Package funds towards expanding the Smart Grid.

Small and medium-sized businesses particularly are predicted to expand the green jobs market rapidly over the next ten years with considerable financial support for the investment markets and government. The Cleantech Network reports that venture capitalists have put $1.74 billion into North American and European green technology start ups in just the third quarter of 2007.

Additionally, the energy crisis and the large number of retirements expected over the next 10 years in public utilities are contributing to the transition to a greener economy. According to the President of the Association of Energy Engineers, Rusty Hodopp, 41 percent of its members plan to retire within the next ten years.

The skill set that workers need to have in place is varied and multiple within the five green energy industries of wind, solar, biomass, geothermal, and smart grid.

Currently, Germany and Spain each generate 5 percent of their energy from the wind while U.S. total is only .5 percent. Wind power ranked second to biomass as a renewable energy job source as of 2006 in the U. S. The capacity to create all the energy needed for the entire country from just wind power is estimated to be within boundaries of four states—Texas, North Dakota, Kansas, and South Dakota, according to a U.S. Conference of Mayors Report.

Since 2000 installation of solar panels has increased by 45 percent each year and the industry growing by 35 percent each year. It is working on reducing cost associated with manufacturing and installation.

In the U. S. biomass is very research-oriented with a focus on corn ethanol. Biomass is used in Brazil with 40 percent of its transportation fuel made by using sugar cane. It reduces the carbon footprint of the consumer, but only by about 15 percent as energy must be used to convert plant and animal material into clean energy.

Smart Grid refers to increasing the proportion of renewable energy in the mix of energy sources to decrease vulnerability to terrorist attacks as well as brown-outs and black-outs. President Obama sited Xcel’s efforts to make Boulder, Colorado the country’s first smart grid city in his introduction of the Stimulus Package.

These emerging industries have companies throughout the world many of which have job listings across the disciplines on line. The common bond in this green jobs field market is the need for engineering professional or technical training experience. Many of the companies are also looking for team players with open communication styles. It seems prudent to develop our green jobs with the necessary skills and flexibility to adapt to our greener economy.

About The Author

There are certain basics that make up a woman’s healthy living. If you want to stay healthy, begin by sustaining proper weight for your height and build. This can be done through regular exercise and a balanced, healthy diet. In fact, the risk for heart disease in women could also be decreased considerably through a diet that is healthy for the heart combined with regular exercise.

Studies have also shown that 50 percent of all the risks for cancer can be lessened by observing a diet that has been modified to contain high fiber, less or no red meat at all, and less fat. Limiting the intake of alcoholic beverages, heightened activities for exercise, and stopping smoking could also help.

Aside from these basics to healthy living for women, there are also other things that a woman must do to ensure that she remains healthy everyday. These include going through medical examinations specially designed for women.

The Pap Smear

There are also other things that women need to do so they can sustain their healthy living, and one of these is to visit their gynecologist at least once a year. This is for a yearly physical checkup that should include a pap smear for those women who are already sexually active. A pap smear is very important because it is the only known screening for cervical cancer that has played a major role in the decrease of its incidence rate.

The Mammogram and the Breast Self-Exams

Mammograms are also very important in women’s lives, especially those who are already in their forties and fifties. Although there is still an ongoing debate over the age when women should really start having their annual mammogram checkup, a lot of women start going through this when they reach their mid-forties. Self-examinations of the breasts should be started as early as puberty though so that this will already become a habit when they reach adulthood.

Here are also some other tips to sustain healthy living:

1)Daily calcium intake is very important for women. Not only will this prevent her from going through almost up to 50 percent of all the symptoms that come with pre-menstrual syndrome like cramps, mood swings, and headaches, it will also play a major role in preventing osteoporosis during menopause.

2)The wearing of sunscreens every day is also an important thing for a woman to do when she steps out into the sun. This is to ensure the health of the skin and to make sure that the skin is able to retain its elasticity, smoothness, and suppleness even as she ages.

3)Practicing safe sex all the time is also another important thing to be done by a woman when it comes to her healthy living. This means always using a condom, even if she is in a long-term relationship with only one partner. This is to help prevent the contraction of any sexually transmitted diseases.

About The Author

"The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but only to have the law of nature for his rule."

--Samuel Adams, 1772
"The Rights of the Colonists"

In the United States, there are two political parties: Republicans and Democrats. For the past one hundred years, our government has held a rigid two-party system. Minority parties on the left include green activists and socialists. And minority parties on the right include nationalists and conservatives.

The alternatives to the Republicans and Democrats have always polled miserably low. Together, they have won every presidential election since 1852, and they have held control of congress since 1856. And counting the parties that the Democrats and Republicans came from, they've had majority power since 1792. All decisions on making and enforcing law, on economy and taxation, on war and peace, have been held exclusively in their hands.

"The distinct orders of men, nobles and people, soldiers and merchants, have all a distinct interest; but the more powerful oppresses the weaker with impunity, and without resistance; which begets a seeming tranquillity in such governments."

--David Hume, ~1700's
"On Parties in General"

Anyone who is interested in changing their social environment will find an interest in politics. But they'll be very discouraged at finding the dominance of the two-party system. To change society, you have option A and option B. That's it.

If you choose option C, your platform and proposed bills won't become law. In very few cases, a third party has triumphed in an election -- but the offices they hold are very few. At best, they'll hold 1% to 2% of the offices compared to either the Democrats or the Republicans.

"At present the governors, induced by the motives which I have named, treat their subjects badly; while they and their adherents, especially the young men of the governing class, are habituated to lead a life of luxury and idleness both of body and mind; they do nothing, and are incapable of resisting either pleasure or pain."

--Plato, 360 BC
"The Republic," Book 8

In order to get some of the power to change society, people have to make compromises. They have to set their values aside, join one of the two options, and then support their party. As a Republican, you are one out of fifty million voices. As a Democrat, you are one out of seventy million voices. With so many paddles in one direction, your oar will frantically wave about in helplessness. There is no redirecting the ship.

To make it up the party ladder, you'll have to go along with things. You'll have to listen to speeches, you'll have to distribute flyers, you'll have to canvass neighborhoods. If you complain about their agenda, everyday, you'll never reach the point where you can directly influence the politicians.

"Certainly then that people must needs be mad, or strangely infatuated, that build the chief hope of their common happiness or safety on a single person; who, if he happen to be good, can do no more than another man; if to be bad, hath in his hands to do more evil without check, than millions of other men."

--John Milton, 1660
"The Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth"

And the effect of the constant propaganda will be there. You joined the political party, so that you could change society, in a way that you felt was necessary. But in the end, you become disenchanted, because it was you who has become changed by the political party.

Politics is a dead end. It pacifies people by letting them think they have an option to change their world. This is the great benefit that political parties provide to politicians.

"Since there will be political power there will necessarily be subjects, got up in Republican fashion, as citizens, it is true, but who will none the less be subjects, and who as such will be forced to obey--because without obedience, there is no power possible. It will be said in answer to this that they will obey not men but laws which they will have made themselves. To that I shall reply that everybody knows how much, in the countries which are freest and most democratic, but politically governed, the people make the laws, and what their obedience to these laws signifies. Whoever is not deliberately desirous of taking fictions for realities must recognise quite well that, even in such countries, the people really obey not laws which they make themselves, but laws which are made in their name, and that to obey these laws means nothing else to them than to submit to the arbitrary will of some guarding and governing minority or, what amounts to the same thing, to be freely slaves."

--Mikhail Bakunin, ~1800's
"Marxism, Freedom, and the State," Chapter 5

Punkerslut,

 

About the Author

Punkerslut (or Andy Carloff) has traveled all across the United States and has experienced American life in the urban centers, as a homeless squatter and as a working-class laborer. With ideals that are ultra-leftist, politically an Anarchist, economically a Socialist, and culturally a Syndicalist. His writings are available through his website: http://www.punkerslut.com

Our mind is very powerful and what ever we can perceive with our five senses is affected by how we think and feel. How did I come to hate eating a particular food? The answer is "I didn’t like the taste so my tongue send the message to my brain and I formed a belief that I don’t like eating something". Next time, if someone brings it for me, I’ll turn down to eat it. The five senses we are talking about get their sense impressions from the outer world but our feelings are very subtle. We are not able to identify specifically why I am feeling bad or hurt. The reasons for a bad feeling generated in mind can result in storage of negative unresolved energy in our body unless we are able to identify the cause and treat it with awareness. This could otherwise result in disease.

Feelings and intellect are interrelated. They are not separate from each other. Our emotions affect intellect in the same way as our intellect informs emotions. We learn to affect our body by telling our mind what is is that we want. To do this, first we need to have a clear focus on the specific problem that we want to get rid of. Once we identify a problem we want to eliminate from our consciousness, we can take steps to heal it.

Some exercises that I find effective to resolve negativity within are as follows:

1 Tune to your Higher Self by tuning in to the silence within. Some of the ways to do this are meditation, silent gazing with the awareness of now. Practicing of silence is the foremost necessary state to start getting sensations of the things which we need to change. We are simultaneously attuning ourself to our intuition which will guide us further. By taking this first step, we are making an empowering choice to tune our consciousness into the positive rhythm of life.

2 Guided Imagery and Self affirmations
We think in images and the images are translated into words. Whatever beliefs, emotions and thoughts we carry are generated from each individual’s ability to perceive their personal truth differently. Through guided imagery we affect our body’s response and send a wish to make changes. How fast we get the results depend upon our faith and degree of motivation and discipline.

About the Author

Ashoo Modgil is an intuitive coach and counsellor. She uses her clairesentience gifts to access the information from the Higher Wisdom to help heal negative thought vibrations for the well being of mind, body and spirit. She can help individuals identify the patterns that block the flow of life energy in their lives and help them transform those blocks into empowering tools for happiness,success, health and life fulfillment. She regularly writes about developing emotional awareness and offers tips to enhance intuition and well being on her blog http://ashoomodgil.wordpress.com

Sometimes, I used to think what exactly is inspiration? I looked in the dictionary and thesaurus and found out that inspiration is similar with vision (which most people have), genius (hmm…maybe only a chosen few of us are), and also it’s synonymous to influence (now, this really depends on the person and circumstances). But how do you define inspiration-- is it something you do, see, hear, taste or smell? Is it anything which any of your five senses can perceive? It depends on the person really, the reasons behind why we look for it and the various situations surrounding it.

And real inspiration can be compared to a fingerprint, different for every person. My close friend Jessah is a musician and gets her motivation from the different sounds that we have around us. We were out walking in a rainforest one time and I brought along my camera as usual. Then, we came to a nearby clearing and we decided to sit awhile and bask in the relaxing atmosphere that surrounds us. Nature really has some of the greatest and the most original and best pieces of art for those of us that truly take time to notice. As for me, I started to take note all the things I can utilize in my work…the rough edges of the rocks, the shape and majesty of the trees, the grandeur and contour of the heavenly clouds.

However, my friend Jessah just sat down still while listening to the gay birds chirping, the subtle rustle of the leaves, and feeling the cool breeze over the mountains. She actually wanted to work out how to represent everything she absorbs in her music so that other people too would feel as what we did that day. Therefore, same feeling, different people, same atmosphere or setting, different focus—the common denominator is we were both inspired. For an artist like me, I am asked oftentimes where I get the needed inspiration for my work. So instead of my head, I can look into my heart for the answer to that.

Then, the best that I can come up with is anything that moves me as a person, fosters and animates me to do and prod me to do something that I enjoy and love doing. As to where inspiration could be found, well, that’s actually an easy one. If you want inspiration or need it that bad, look around you! It could be found wherever you go and just open your eyes to perceive it. Inspiration can be found everywhere. The universe can always provide something for you. But if you’re waiting for it to strike you like a flash of lightning, well, I suggest that you rely on yourself to get you off your cute little tush and go and look around to find the things to inspire you to lead you into the pathway to your destiny.

Inspiration is after all that very thing which makes you chase your dreams. It’s that blissful and exciting feeling that you get when your heart glides and your soul is moved.

About The Author The author of this article Amy Twain is a Self Improvement Coach who has been successfully coaching and guiding clients for many years. Amy recently published a new home study course on how to boost your Self Esteem overnight. More info about this “Quick-Action Plan for A More Confident You” is available at http://www.FabulousSelfEsteem.com.

Are you over 40?

Good. Then you won't need permission from your parents to read this article. If you are under 40, I give you permission now! I would guess if you are over 40 you have begun to question your life and your work. Good. This is normal and healthy. Perhaps you have also started to question your contributions to society. Perhaps your accomplishments for this period of your life have not reached up to your internal or external expectations. That’s ok. Life tends to get in the way as we are making plans. And, this is the right time to deal with the disparity between where you are and where you expected to be in your life. This is important now so you can change your internal expectations to the one that suit you better at this point of your life. This can be a magical process. Do you experience sometimes that you are no longer young? This can generate an awareness of who you are, what you have done and where you might be going. It’s normal from time to time now to sense a recognition of your own mortality as this can drive new healthy change. This is an invaluable time to ask yourself key questions around what is most important and whether your lifestyle aligned to your values and sense of identity.

Do you love your work?

If your answer is no, you are not alone. Most people don’t find meaning in their work. Many people afraid of failure continue to work harder at jobs which have no meaning. This overemphasis on productivity and sense of doing things which are not personally rewarding causes their inner conflict.

Stop doing what didn't work before

This is the most important lesson to learn from. For example, don’t go back to jobs which didn’t provide joy or meaning. Don't go back to jobs which you didn’t enjoy or lowered your self-esteem. Don’t go back to jobs which you didn’t feel made a difference to yourself or others. For sure don’t go back to jobs JUST for the money as this has a way of catching up to you. You will spend the money you earn faster than you can earn it and then the emptiness of the work will set in.

Try something completely new!

This usually requires risk, courage, and an openness to change in one’s life. Why not? What have you got to lose or gain? What could you do which would be completely different with regards to your work? What small steps might you take now to get started?

Become an expert at something you enjoy

What can you become an expert at? Being really good at one thing vs. average at many things can raise self-esteem and give one especially those over 40 a greater sense of self and contribution in the world.

Make a product or service and sell it to at least one person

This is not just for fun. Even if your goal is to work for someone else, the process of thinking through what you could make as a product or service and then selling this to just one other person can create even more possibilities in your life and work.

Learn from others

The world of learning is unlimited. For each idea which you want to pursue you will find many people already doing this. Within seconds you have the world’s knowledge to pursue new learning and new ideas.

What are your first five steps now?

Let me help. Decide what you want to change in your life and work now. Define WHY you want to change. Define how your life will be different if you do change. Define what your life will be like if you don’t change. Take one action now which will start to build new habits.

Take a new approach for the New Year to your work

Why not? It might just be the right prescription for a healthier and happier life.

I’ll be cheering you on as you go-Craig Nathanson and Happy New Year-2010!

About the Author

Craig Nathanson is The Vocational Coach and is a coaching expert who works with people over forty. Visit Craig’s online community at http://www.vocationalcoach.com.com where you can take a class, get more ideas through Craig Nathanson’s books and CD’s, get some private coaching over the phone or skype using webcam or in Craig’s office, or read other stories of mid-life change and renewal. Craig lives and works in Petaluma, California. His office is located at P.O Box 2823, Petaluma Ca, 94953. You can reach him at 707-775-4020

The identification of this syndrome from among various symptoms of senile dementia, and its increasing incidence due to the ageing of the population, has made it a symbol of the (terrifying) burdens of old age. The report therefore focuses on this illness as it reflects in detail on the looming crisis of caregiving and the ethical challenges it poses.

Crisis of caregiving
Until now, family members,spouses, daughters and sometimes sons have supplied the bulk of long-term care. We have done it in our family, nursing our mother at home before she died and now helping with care of my eldest sister who lives in a nursing home.

But this sort of thing will be more difficult in the future (I have no idea who would do this for me!). Families are smaller and there are fewer adult children to care for their aged parents. Many more old people are childless and alone single-adult homes are already the most common type in the US. Increased family instability and greater geographic mobility have an impact, as does the pre-occupation of younger women with paid work.

Even institutional care is beset by problems. In my country, New Zealand, church-based trusts are selling their rest homes and hospital to investment companies, whose bottom line is profit. Nurses and geriatricians are becoming scarcer, while the wages and conditions offered nurse aides do not attract sufficient committed workers. These factors, combined with wider economic pressures, have the makings of a genuine crisis and demand "urgent social attention".

When society does turn its attention to the problem, however, it must be guided by basic ethical principles. Taking Care says it is necessary to steer between two rocks: "We need to prevent the worst kinds of betrayal and inhumanity towards the dependent elderly such as relying on institutions that 'warehouse' elderly persons," promoting assisted suicide and embracing euthanasia.

But we must also "avert the danger of inter-generational conflict over scarce resources, meeting our obligations also to our children and grandchildren, sustaining other social goods, and avoiding a major new drag on the economy that would (among other things) weaken the economic capacity of working families to provide care for their loved ones".

Put positively, this means "we need to encourage families and local communities to become responsible caregivers and to sustain one another in giving care, while recognising the role of the state in providing a safety net of decent care for those who lack adequate economic resources or a network of family support".

The test of Alzheimer's disease
Whether a society manages to steer this middle course will depend very much on how it responds to the test of dementia, and, specifically, Alzheimer's. Loss of the power to act and communicate, to recognise and remember; total dependency and physical decay over, perhaps, many years all this is a fearful threat to the modern mentality that sees personal autonomy as the highest ethical good and dependence as a fate worse than death.

Yet, as the report points out, the burden of the disease for the sufferer is greatest in the early stages when more awareness remains "the more the disease progresses, the more the sadness resides with the family." Having to deal with dependent relatives may account for the greater part of our fear of dementia.

Personally, I have not found dementia such a dreadful thing. My mother became helpless through dementia of the stroke-related variety at the end of her 91st year and died after a mercifully short period of 2.5 years. My eldest sister is now at a late stage of a decline that began with early-onset Parkinson's disease and has brought a related dementia.

We (another sister and I) were sad to see our mother fail, but her dementia had many communicative and even funny moments during the first year or so, and we were never tempted to think her personality had been destroyed. Something similar happens with my sister, who continues to recognise us and engage in limited repartee. I am sure this is related to the amount of time we spend with her. The greatest burden for us at present is seeing many other helpless people who seem to have no one of their own to spend time with them.

Burdens and benefits
If our sister's condition is not unduly burdensome to us, however, perhaps it is to society. One of Dr Kass's own colleagues on the bioethics council would probably see it that way. In a personal statement appended to Taking Care, Dr Janet Rowley, a geneticist from the University of Chicago, denounces the report as a "scary document" that would cost countless billions to implement and thus runs straight into the rock of stealing from the youngest generations to fund unwarranted care for "demented elderly individuals".

Dr Rowley's regards dementia as an inhuman state and her solution is assisted suicide. She is furious that bioethics council report has ruled it out: "The clear message of this report is, if you feel strongly about not living in a decerebrate state, you better kill yourself while you still have control over your fate!"

Ideally, she says, every individual would have a living will specifying the "level of medical care desired if mentally incapacitated" (typically, none). At the same time government guidelines would put limits on what could be offered to patients in various stages of dementia (very little).

If nothing else, Dr Rowley's vehement dissent serves to show why the rest of the report, with its calm, humane and thorough reasoning, is necessary. As we grapple with what exactly we owe the old in the evolving state of society, we should be clear about the ground rules:

In the first place, we must continue to respect them as equal members of the human community and seek their well-being "here and now" not by launching them into the hereafter. "We should always seek to benefit the life incapacitated persons still have, and never treat even the most diminished individuals as unworthy of our company and care."

"No euthanasia, no assisted suicide." Besides the long-standing moral and legal prohibitions against the taking of an innocent life there is another reason: "one cannot think wholeheartedly about how best to care for the life the patient now has if ending his or her life becomes, for us, always an eligible treatment option".

The goal of ethical caregiving in the clinical setting is not extend life as long as possible but to benefit the patient. Comfort care must always be given but feeding tubes, respirators, and other medical interventions may be omitted if they would not be effective or if they would add to the patient's burdens.

Some things will help us along this path and some will not. Living wills, by and large, will not, since "there are too many situations in which following orders is not the best way to give care". Advance proxy directives, on the other hand, are very helpful since they specify who should make crucial decisions on our behalf.

Discussing options for care while one is still competent is also highly desirable. Social support is vital, and good policy in this area is so important that the report recommends a Presidential Commission on Aging, Dementia and Long-Term Care.

Above all we need a change of attitude. As Dr Kass wrote in a column in the Washington Post: "Against our confidence in mastery and control, we need to remember that old age and dying are not problems to be solved but human experiences that must be faced. In the years ahead, we will be judged as a people by our willingness to stand by one another, not only in the rare event of a natural disaster but also in the everyday care of those who gave us life and to whom we owe so much."

About the Author

Carolyn Moynihan is Deputy Editor of MercatorNet. MercatorNet analyses current affairs and international news and believes that ethics is more than opinions, that there is a transcendent dimension to our lives, and that facts are sturdier than ideology. Learn more at mercatornet.com.

 

You be very good at managing your people if you want business success. These are skills that are mostly ones that you can learn and develop, and, of course, it really helps if you have a natural capacity to get on well with people too.

Practicing and building your abilities is not as hard as you might think. Here are the simple secrets that you can focus on to make the difference.

1. Do What It Says On The Tin - Manage!

Your people see the name on your badge, or your door (or your parking space) and they expect you to do what's expected of you. They want you to lead from the front and show you're in charge. This is about leadership; being the last on the ship and heading the charge into battle. When things get tough you dig in and show up.

Managing is about making sure you recognize what your responsibilities are and deliver them, and only them. People management skills deliver by giving others some responsibility and letting them get on with it. And that you are accountable for it all. No-one else; no shirking and blaming others. It's you.

2. Build A Great Team

If you really want to make the best of your people asset, you get great at leveraging the amazing talents of all your people. Squeezing their potential to the full by supporting, guiding and coaching (maybe even 'coaxing' them!), to realize what is possible.

You see, a manager's role is to deliver success. And not just in the results in their business - psst, it's more. People management skills are totally about a legacy of developing and utilizing capability fully. Gluing individual talents together. Making the whole bigger than the sum of the parts.

3. Ooops - And Let's Not Forget Those Results

Bottom line, is that you have to deliver the day to day, year by year business and profits or other success measures expected of you. It's what pays you and your people.

So, you have an obligation to keep your eye on the ball and deliver. Your people will depend on you to lead them to success, with their help, of course (and believe it, they will be your rocks, if you do this right). They trust you to work hard enough to make the numbers stack. In the tough business world we inhabit, their jobs depend on it.

4. Build Relationships

OK - let's rewind a little. It helps you as a people manager if you get on well with people. If you are a people person. It's pretty much a pre-requisite. When you are wringing out performance from your people, it really helps if you have a rapport together.

And it's easy to do.

You show an interest in them. You ask them questions that show an interest in them as people and not just colleagues - what's important in life to them. You listen effectively and hear what they say. More, you start to anticipate what they are on about when they talk to you. Or before even. And, of course, you treat them as equal human beings and show trust and respect to them.

Then it works.

5. Accept Feedback

The final key people management skill is an ability to show a little humility. You aren't perfect - not at all. The very best managers listen hard and learn much from their people too. It's a fine-edged balance that they get just right. Managing how they absorb and react to feedback is a testament to who they are. And they get back the reward for the way they handle what their people share with them about them.

Listen, your best advocates are the people you listen to and help you develop yourself. Then they listen to the constructive way you help them. It's two-way traffic and mutual support. It's invaluable. It's terrific.

Five little steps that will help your people management skills succeed. You may need to flex and change a bit. You may need to gulp down a bit of your pride too and change your behaviors.

And wow - is that OK!

About the Author

(c) 2007 "How To Land Your Dream Job". You can have the job of your dreams. It takes application, attention and the information you need to get you there, young or old. There's all you need at Martin Haworth's website, http://www.HowToLandYourDreamJob.com

Recently the blogosphere has been rife with rumour about Google’s new smartphone. Tweets and blog posts were popping up everywhere late last year signifying the amount of expectation this release has on it. That rumour is now a reality as pictures of the handset started cropping up all over the web after the phone was launched yesterday the 5th of January to great tech anticipation. The Nexus One model is manufactured by HTC and runs on Google’s Android open source operating system, boasting extra features such as voice directions while driving, a native Gmail application, and the ability to transcribe voice to text.

With moderate success after releasing the Android system on other handsets such as the Motorola Droid, Google are now hoping to really challenge Apple’s domination of the smartphone market. Initial reactions suggest the Nexus One looks like a handset that has the potential to knock the iPhone from its podium as the most popular web capable mobile phone.
The design of the device is much like the HTC passion, ultra slim and sleek and not far removed from the iPhone’s style. As for its hardware the powerful 1ghz Snapdragon processer makes it faster than the Motorola Droid and the iPhone 3GS, particularly for browsing the web. The Nexus One’s OLED screen is slightly larger at 3.7 inches producing a higher contrast ratio with vivid colours and a brighter picture. The camera is only 5-megapixels but it there is a competent flash and the pixel spec should soon improve.

The usability of the touch screen is top notch, it’s up there with Apple’s user experience, which is just what you’d expect from a Google device. But is launching it as an official Google model enough to distinguish it against the other market leaders? In November 2009 Blackberry released the 9700 Bold to massive acclaim and now that the iPhone’s available on Orange as well as O2 contract deals are becoming more competitive opening it up to yet more people. I’ve found no evidence of MP3 abilities but I’m sure this will be rectified before long.

Google are top of their game in most digital endeavours and it’s been interesting to watch their steady approach into the mobile market, first offering an alternative operating system and now introducing a handset under the Google moniker. The answer’s now will come from the public’s reception and whether the Nexus One can appeal to the mainstream or if it’s only going to be revered by geeks and gadget enthusiasts.

About the Author

The author knows a lot about smartphones and mobile phone cases because he used to work for a mobile case manufacturer.

 

Sometimes, I used to think what exactly is inspiration? I looked in the dictionary and thesaurus and found out that inspiration is similar with vision (which most people have), genius (hmm…maybe only a chosen few of us are), and also it’s synonymous to influence (now, this really depends on the person and circumstances). But how do you define inspiration-- is it something you do, see, hear, taste or smell? Is it anything which any of your five senses can perceive? It depends on the person really, the reasons behind why we look for it and the various situations surrounding it.

And real inspiration can be compared to a fingerprint, different for every person. My close friend Jessah is a musician and gets her motivation from the different sounds that we have around us. We were out walking in a rainforest one time and I brought along my camera as usual. Then, we came to a nearby clearing and we decided to sit awhile and bask in the relaxing atmosphere that surrounds us. Nature really has some of the greatest and the most original and best pieces of art for those of us that truly take time to notice. As for me, I started to take note all the things I can utilize in my work…the rough edges of the rocks, the shape and majesty of the trees, the grandeur and contour of the heavenly clouds.

However, my friend Jessah just sat down still while listening to the gay birds chirping, the subtle rustle of the leaves, and feeling the cool breeze over the mountains. She actually wanted to work out how to represent everything she absorbs in her music so that other people too would feel as what we did that day. Therefore, same feeling, different people, same atmosphere or setting, different focus—the common denominator is we were both inspired. For an artist like me, I am asked oftentimes where I get the needed inspiration for my work. So instead of my head, I can look into my heart for the answer to that.

Then, the best that I can come up with is anything that moves me as a person, fosters and animates me to do and prod me to do something that I enjoy and love doing. As to where inspiration could be found, well, that’s actually an easy one. If you want inspiration or need it that bad, look around you! It could be found wherever you go and just open your eyes to perceive it. Inspiration can be found everywhere. The universe can always provide something for you. But if you’re waiting for it to strike you like a flash of lightning, well, I suggest that you rely on yourself to get you off your cute little tush and go and look around to find the things to inspire you to lead you into the pathway to your destiny.

Inspiration is after all that very thing which makes you chase your dreams. It’s that blissful and exciting feeling that you get when your heart glides and your soul is moved.

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