I used PODS for selling my house and moving most of stuff across the country. I stored all my stuff in the pod while the place was for sale, which ended up being a great idea. They have a great service, but watch out for the fees! Since each PODS site is franchised, they don’t control who picks up and delivers the pod, they can be experienced or new and bad drivers.

All of my stuff was just fine coming off the pod, I only had a few rub marks from wood touching each other without have padding in between (missed some). Otherwise not much shifting which is surprising for 2000 miles of travel.

Great sites for tracking the latest trends:

http://www.trendhunter.com/ (has an email list you can get trend summaries on, user posted)

http://trendwatching.com/ (they have great summaries and paid trend reports for the year)

And for the nerdy, you can track trends with google:

http://www.google.com/trends

On a side note, you can track how the flu virus is hitting the U.S and per state:

http://www.google.org/flutrends/

This article is mostly Europe oriented but it applies to the U.S.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/nov/27/renewableenergy-energy

My second favorite site is Yahoo Finance. They have a crazy amount of historical data available for free. You can also use the current trending tools to see which stocks are taking a beating or rising fast during the day. This is accessible under the investing tab, then market stats.

There is always of course the Wall Street Journal, most of the information is free but there is some content that is pay only.

Other sites I check occasionally are the Motely Fool.com, Cnn Money, and Barrons.

Two magazines I read every month are Money and Smartmoney. Money is more geared towards the average person trying to make it and have a comfortable retirement. Smart money is a lot more stock market and company oriented. They compliment each other very nicely, and they are cheap subscriptions.

If you are researching a specific company, check their website in the investors section, or go right to the SEC and search the archives for financial reports.

If you are a TV person like me, there is a show that many have heard of, Jim Cramers Mad Money. Its on every night at 6PM EST on CNBC. Cramer is a great finance mind with a lot of information to share with the individual investor (he can be a little crazy). Cramer advocated 1 hour a week per stock you own if you purchase stocks directly.

The little advice I can offer is to save as much as you can since it will never hurt you!

I spoke about idrive.com, you can get 2GB of free space through them just by signing up.

There is a lesser known way to get free space by using a Google Gmail account. Sign up for a free account, and install the program called Gmail Drive that creates an actual drive on your system. This program is for windows only, Linux users can find GmailFS on the net to use. Gmail drive is as simple as running an executable then typing in the new username and password you created with Gmail. Once installed, you can use the drive just like a local disk. Google is currently giving away 3.6GB of free space and they increase it every day. The competition is fierce among the free email providers, so this space will only go up.

Another somewhat free (you pay for hosting) option is to use the extra space on your web site. If you pay for web hosting (1and1 sells 100GB for $5.99/month) you can use that extra space as your personal hard disk. There is a program called sftpdrive which creates a local disk drive and will secure ftp to your provider to store them. This means the data is encrypted while its being sent (but not on the server so be careful). Sftpdrive isn’t free, but if you don’t care so much about encryption, there is a free version called ftpdrive that works the same, just not encrypted transfers.

Everyone loves to talk about the environment, but very few people do anything about it. There are millions of ways to help out the world we live in, recycle, use less energy, etc.

A couple things that I have done are to replace all the light-bulbs in my house with the small fluorescents. Now there is a great debate on what to do once these bulbs die, because they contain a high amount of mercury in them. According to the EPA, you need to dispose of them properly and treat them as hazardous waste.

Another small thing is that I drive an efficient vehicle, the Volkswagon Jetta TDI. I have talked about it before so won’t bug you anymore. There are plenty of hybrid options out there as an alternative to the large crazy SUV’s and trucks that people drive all the time. The hybrids do have their downfalls, some say they are more expensive and harmful in the long run.

When I purchased new appliances, I bought ones that had a great energy star rating and low power consumption. This also comes into effect if you are replacing your furnace or air conditioner, new technologies have made remarkable improvements in their efficiencies.

Make sure your home has good insulation. This includes around outlets, windows, and in the attic. Insulation will pay for itself in the long run. New windows can sometimes pay themselves off, but you need to have leaky windows to start with.

Turn off those pesky electronics when you don’t need them. They now sell power strips that will turn off everything when your tv turns off. This is a great way to save some electricity. Also have power strips easily accessible in your computer and living rooms where you can flick off power to things that don’t need it during the day. Monitors, speakers, etc will eat power and they don’t need to be on.

A programmable thermostat will save a great deal of money. Keep it cold/hot during the day and the middle of the night when you are gone or asleep. Wear a sweater during the winter months and turn it down a couple degrees.

Make less trips around town. This is an easy one to do, just bundle all your errands to one trip and you can save time and gas.

Recycle! There are local recycling centers all over the U.S. Save your old magazines and papers, don’t just throw them away. They don’t always get properly recycled.

The easiest one to do, but I can’t seem to do it, is to stop buying so much stuff! We don’t all need it, and it wastes resources, money, and creates trash. I’m sure there are hundres of items you can think about that are not needed in your life.

If you live in an area where there is alot of sunlight, look into a solar panel or two for some extra power. The newer more efficient panels will pay for themselves in no time. If you get enough, you can even backfeed power into the grid! If you have room for a wind turbine, well then build one. They are not that expensive to build, its the space that matters.

Hopefully one of these ideas can help save the environment!

The security suite has a lot of built in apps, so its really an all-in-one solution. There is a firewall module, program control module, anti-virus, anti-spyware, e-mail scanners, IM scanners, and parental controls built in. I disabled the e-mail, IM, and parental controls because I am mostly concerned with firewalling and application control.

Zone Alarm has an automatic mode that you can run for a few days to let Zone Alarm figure out what the norm is for your computer.  This is nice for the users who don’t really want to tweak every little aspect of the security suite. For other users like myself, you can turn off the automatic learning, and make it prompt you for every little detail. I have to warn you, this can get very tedious! Most applications call other applications, and Zone Alarm treats those as a new program to restrict. You can disable this feature per program by not authenticating components in the program tab by right clicking on the application that calls them.

The firewall/program feature is nice for keeping you aware of what your programs are doing. It is amazing how many phone home automatically without you even knowing it. You can now block those requests if you want. Per application you can restrict local and internet serving, and access to the local network or internet.

The virus scanning engine updates every day and seems to work well, I haven’t had a virus in a long time but it has caught some bad internet cache.

Overall I would recommend it as a great security suite that covers all the bases; it works for power users and normal users alike.

You most likely have done it; Google yourself! Type your name with quotes “a name” and see what comes up. Try all the different varients of your name. Use a different search engine too, they all have different results. A couple things that might show up, old message board postings, companies you have worked at, and organizations you are affiliated with. Google groups also keeps track of every usenet posting from the beginning of time. Be careful what you post!

Find out where you live. Try the major sites like whitepages.com, switchboard.com, yahoo white pages. Use a search engine to find other white pages. Most of these sites offer a way for you to remove your information, it isn’t a bad idea to remove as much as possible.

See your credit report. If you are a U.S. resident, you can get a copy of your credit report from the three major credit agencies once a year. So its a good idea to get one report every four months so you can keep a good look all year. The site is annualcreditreport.com.

See what your insurance companies look at. There is a company called Choicetrust that all the major insurance companies report to. Any accident you have ever had, claim on your house insurance, even if it is small will show up on their system. You can get a free copy of your report and hopefully see why your insurance rates are so high. The report you need is a C.L.U.E report. You can get one online through the website. They have personal property and auto reports. Each of these are free every year.

Run a background check. There are tons of sites that offer cheap background reports, A site that seems legit is Intelius. You can run background checks, cell phone checks, social security checks, etc.

There is a great deal of free information online through your local township or city websites. Most of the time you can search through your property reports and get tax info, purchase prices, and typically a picture of the house and its layout. Check sites like zillow.com to get information about everyone around you.

Check the social sites like myspace.com, youtube.com, and facebook.com. Run a search for your name, you never know what might show up. Check the online dating world, like match.com or yahoo personals to see if someone has posted anything on you.

Classmates.com is a resource that many people don’t realize gives away a great deal of information.

If you find any incorrect information on your credit report, or insurance reports, fix them asap. There are a ton of documented procedures for fixing these things, so just do some searches.

Hopefully this gives you a little insight into your online self, happy searching!

Note: I am not a lawyer, before doing this, you should consult a business lawyer to determine what the best type of corporation to start for your needs. LLC’s and Class C corporations are not for everyone. A Partnership might be best, etc. Do not take my advice as fact..

With that said, if you are starting a small business and do not plan to sell shares of your company, you can start a Limited Liability Corporation or LLC. This allows the income from the company to flow through to the owners, or members as they are called. In Michigan you are allowed to have a one member LLC, so you can open this by yourself. When it comes to tax time, you fill out a few more forms and the income is added to your personal taxes. The LLC gives you the protection of a Corporation by keeping the business operations separate but having income flow to you. The members must be careful to keep all accounting separate in case a disagreement comes up. This goes as far as having a separate business computer system if you work from home, a business checking account, credit card, etc. There are different types of LLC’s, so research the one you may need. If you are a non-profit, professional services, etc there are different forms to fill out.

My steps here will be for a single member Domestic LLC which should cover the majority of businesses.

There is a great guide online with the more information here. There are a great deal of things to think about like federal and state taxes, and if you have employees it gets more complicated.

To get started, search to see if your kind of business requires a license here. If you are running a service, most require state licensing. You can apply for licenses here at MI TAPS.

The first step to creating your corporation is to name it! You can search the current business names online at Michigan.gov Business Lookup. This site is also great if you want to research a local company and see who owns it, etc.

Once you have determined a name and checked that no one else has it, you need to send in an Articles of Organization form which specifies the members and the business name to the state. Follow all the instructions and get it right! The fee will be payed through your MICH-ELF account described below.

The process for sending forms into Michigan is through the MICH-ELF system. This is a fax based system where you create an account, and can fax in most forms. The information is available here. You can use email to send in forms with FILEonline once your ELF account is established.

Once the state accepts your Organization, they will fax back the OK. You now have an LLC!

The next step is to create a federal ID tax number to keep it separate from your social security number. You can register for federal EIN here. You should consult your attorney or accountant before making some of those tax decisions in that form, they can have implications down the road.

Once you have an EIN, you then must register for Michigan taxes online, so you can purchase tax free, then charge customers sales tax. You will then receive a tax license. After that you must file with the state the amount of taxes you expect to charge, and if its over a certain amount, you will have to pay them up front. Read up on the ETF payments for taxes, it makes your life easier. Make sure to read up on this as much as possible. Don’t get caught by not paying up!

After you have completed your EIN you have the business setup. The sales tax portion takes longer, so you need to wait if you are purchasing products. You can register for a business checking account, credit card and start finding suppliers. If you are serious about this, you might need a DUNS number which is what other businesses look at; it is your businesses credit report. The cheap version is $299.

The various state taxes, unemployment, social security, etc can overwhelm you. Just read through them all, and hire an accountant to help with the details.

Make sure to file your state taxes (whatever the timing you need based on income), and yearly articles of organization with the state to keep your business! They will send out a mailing once your articles are due.

It is also a good idea to look into trademarking your business name and logo when you create it. You can do this at the state and federal levels. State information is here, and the federal information is at the USPTO website.

Good luck and I hope you succeed!