Happy Holidays - Yes a Little Late

Happy Holidays even if it is a little late.  Just like my birthday (happens very close to Christmas) I got caught up in the swinging of things and let a few others go. But never fear I am back and here is another fascinating edition of small business news for Southeast Missouri. I got a bit of good news today - a client of mine was able to obtain a small business loan. This client is one of six

PET third stage COTS tank

.


Before:


During


After




Betterbottle makes 5 and 6 gal PET water bottles. I could only find a source for the 5 Gal, so that is what I tested.

Empty 674 gm
MR with water of 29 with peroxide 39!
Burst at 125 PSI.
Long period of plastic deformation at around 100 psi
It burst in the thin center with the ends remaining substantially thicker.
This means one could probably prevent the banana deformation and increase the pressure with a center overwrap.

He sees you when you're... ballin'

Santa Claus and his elves watch closely as the Lady Colts defeat North Hills 51-42 Wednesday night. No word if Mrs. Claus was also in attendance. Read both the boys and girls varsity basketball game stories on Chartiers Valley Patch.

Our favorite Docs things - 2010 Year in Review

[Cross-posted from the Google Docs Blog]

We’ve been keeping busy this year with over 85 new enhancements to Google Docs and Google Sites, making it possible for you to work, communicate and collaborate entirely in the cloud. We wanted to take a moment to share a few of the most exciting enhancements from 2010 that are making it easier for you to go “100% web.”

In addition to some of the most requested favorite features like mobile editing, OCR, advanced sorting rules and a more consistent look, here are more of our team’s favorite things from this last year:

• A new Google Docs built from the ground up for real-time collaboration
• The new Google drawings editor for making flowcharts, diagrams and more
• Upload and store your files in the cloud and stop worrying about losing files
• Simplified sharing with new features like “Private”
• New charts editor and chart types because pictures are worth 1000 words
• New revision history UI in documents and spreadsheets make it easier to see what has changed
• Horizontal navigation in Sites gives you more options when building your sites
• More fonts in documents provide you with more ways to express yourself
• Formula highlighting in spreadsheets makes it easier to understand your formulas
• Google Docs demo makes it easier for anyone to try Google Docs

We look forward to bringing you more improvements next year. Let us know what is at the top of your Google Docs and Sites wish list in the comments.

On behalf of the entire the Google Docs and Google Sites teams, happy holidays! We’ll see you in the New Year!

Posted by: Jonathan Rochelle, Director, Product Management

Way out of the box presure system...

Another out there concept... this won't work with the muiulti segment tank of the last wild idea, but will work for a single tank.

In a H2O2 rocket 80% of the propellant volume is H2O2, so you need to pay more attention to the H2O2 side than the fuel side.

Leave a small space at the top of the H2O2 tank. In this space put a solid silver screen/catalyst hung from a thermally compatible string. Unwind the string into the tank letting the silver decompose the H2O2 pressurizing the tank, raise and lower the catalyst to control pressure.

Fuel is pressurized with a bladder from the gas in the main oxidizer tank.

Main propellant valve is a simple burst disk.

Enhance your productivity with more applications for Google Apps

[Cross-posted from the Google Enterprise Blog]

Last month we launched an improvement that makes more than 60 additional Google services available to Google Apps users. Since the launch, we’ve featured posts from product teams across Google to showcase how you can benefit from the new services.


Our colleagues working on Google Reader, Google Alerts, Google News, and Google Finance described how their products give you new ways to discover content on the web. The Blogger and YouTube teams shared how their services can be used to connect with your customers and communicate information about your products and brand. We also featured posts from the Google Analytics, Google Website Optimizer, Google Custom Search, and Google Translator Toolkit teams to highligh tools that help your company build and optimize your web property. Posts from Google AdWords and Google Places showed how you can make it easier for potential customers to discover your business when they are searching online, and a post from Google Checkout described how you can let visitors purchase products from your site once they arrive. And if your business isn’t built around an online transaction model, the Google AdSense and DoubleClick for Publishers teams outlined tools that you can use to efficiently monetize traffic to your website. We also featured posts on Picasa Web Albums and Google SketchUp & 3D Warehouse that highlighted use cases for sharing and editing photos and 3D images at your organization. Finally, posts from Google Voice and Google Chrome Sync featured products that leverage the power of the web to allow you to work seamlessly across multiple devices, so you’re not tied to your desk phone or desktop PC to be productive.

This series has highlighted a few ways that you can use these additional Google applications, and we’re confident that you will discover many new and interesting use cases that fit your business. You can explore even more exciting Google services now available with your Google Apps account at http://www.google.com/apps/more.

All of these new services can be enabled by your domain administrator from the Google Apps Control Panel at https://www.google.com/a/[your_domain.com] (replace [your_domain.com] with your actual domain name). Your domain administrator can grant different groups of users access to different sets of applications, so your company can get up and running today with more than 60 productivity-boosting applications matched to those users that will benefit from them most.


Posted by Jeremiah Dillon, Google Apps team

Note: Some products may not be available in all areas.

Tips for creating a free business listing in Google Places: business types

Are you curious about what kind of businesses are eligible to appear in the free listings that appear on Google and Google Maps? In this second post in our blog series about how to create a clear and effective business listing via Google Places, we’ll help you to determine if Google Places is right for your business.

Business types and models that work with Google Places

Google Places is meant to facilitate customer interaction with brick-and-mortar businesses and service providers. Therefore, the business owner or employee who is officially authorized to represent their particular business location must have a physical address in order to comply with our quality guidelines.

Having a physical address means that your business has a specific location (typically including a street name and a street number), can be visited by potential customers or business partners, and has a specific phone number at that location where you can be reached during operating hours. Including your physical address in your free business listing helps customers figure out where they can find you.

Examples of business listings displayed on Google Maps

Businesses that aren’t right for Google Places

Here are a few examples of business types that are not currently eligible to use Google Places:

• Web shops that operate exclusively online and have no office for visitor traffic or direct client interaction

• Businesses without actual physical locations (your living room, the airfield where you offer paragliding lessons, nor the river where your rafting tours start do not qualify as business locations)

• Companies with non-permanent locations like a farmers market stall, a mobile hot dog vendor, or a one-time concert event at a local café

• Real estate companies that don’t have a central office and are trying to advertise individual apartments where no one can be reached in person or by phone

For operations like these, rather than appearing in Google and Google Maps search results associated with a physical location, other online tools might better fit your needs. One option is to advertise and generate awareness about your business activities through Google AdWords. This cost-effective program enables you to get the word out about your business, website or event via online ad campaigns, and does not require you to have a brick-and-mortar business address.

How to create a free listing if you’re eligible

If you’re a business with a physical office location that is open to customers and staffed both in person and via phone during regular business hours, we encourage you to create a free listing by signing in to Google Places here. For example, a real estate company with a corporate office can add the services it offers, the apartments it sells, and so on in the description field of the listing.

Be careful to create just one listing per physical location and to create listings only at places where your business is actually located. For example, if you run a DJ service and your office is at 41 Broadway in New York, you should only add that location in Google Places, even if you also DJ at 32 Main Street and at 14 Smith Street.

How to indicate service areas

For businesses that have one physical location but also offer their services elsewhere - such as the aforementioned businesses as well as locksmiths, translation services, delivery pizzerias, cleaning services and the like - you can use the Service Areas feature in your Google Places account. Marking a service area enables you to show your potential customers the range of places where you work.

Businesses that require travel to meet customers can define a radius around their main location or select specific areas they serve. If your main location is your home address and only used to receive business-related mail and phone calls, you can also hide that address and only show the service area in which you operate. This might be the case for babysitters, DJs, household services or IT repair services. Detailed instructions about how to set up this feature can be found in our help center.

Taxi and courier companies are particularly good examples for the use of the Service Areas feature. They offer a service that is location-independent and therefore shouldn't be associated with fixed locations on Google Maps. Even if you can find taxis often in front of train stations or airports, these are not locations owned by the business. The service area feature allows taxis to indicate the area in which they operate. If the taxis are coordinated over a dispatch centre, that can be listed as one physical location, otherwise the address should be hidden.

How to verify a listing

In order for your free business listing to appear on Google and Google Maps, you must verify your business via Google Places. This simple process includes providing a verification code by mail, automated call or text message. The phone number used for this process will be shown in your listing, so be sure that the number directs calls to your business.

We hope this information helps to explain our Google Places quality guidelines around setting up a free business listing. If you have any further questions about the types of businesses that are eligible for inclusion in Google Places, please visit our Google Places help forum.

Posted by Lina Paczensky, Local Search Quality

Way out of the box...

A 3rd stage made of 3L soda bottles surrounding a 3U Cube sat.
3L soda bottles are good to 100PSI with a Mass ratio of > 40 when used with H2O2.

The "goodness" of normal rocket tanks are usually rated by the PV/mass. The best aerospace composite tanks, like the Scorpius pressurization tanks used by Armadillo in the 180sec super mod can have mass ratios of better than 9 at 2200 PSI working pressure. If you could scale this to a 200 PSI tank then you get a water filled tank mass ratio of >80. The fundamental problem is for the small sizes we are talking about you can never get that low. The tank wall would be paper thin. At small sizes the issues are minimum gage not minimum strength. (Hard to beat a soda bottle 0.25mm thick. )

As soon as you go up in size bigger than minimalist nano sat launcher then properly built aerospace quality tanks are a must.

I also suspect that when fighting minimum gage issues going up in pressure for a tiny launcher can have benefits in motors size, expansion ratio, flow path sizes etc....
A big puzzle with too many knobs.

UPDATE:
Here is a link to the specs for high quality aerospace tanks...

Display advertising helps one small business minimize India’s education gap

Dinesh Mehta and Rajat Verma had always been aware of inequities in India’s educational system. As the gap widened, Mehta and Verma wondered how they could use technology to provide higher quality education to more people. In 2006, they founded TopChalks.com to provide technology enabled educational and training solutions for a wider population.

TopChalks works with some of India’s best instructors to develop and produce educational content for digital platforms. ‘With TopChalks content, students have the option to study online, with CDs, through handheld devices or on digital broadcast platforms such as digital cable TV,’ says Director of Products and Engineering Vishal Chadhuary.

TopChalks ambassador Javgal Srinath (Indian Cricketer)

Since TopChalks seeks to democratize education largely via digital content, Chadhaury turned to the Google Display Network to market the educational experience. ‘Our products are very unique in nature,’ says Chadhuary. ‘Once we show potential customers what we are offering, they better understand our products. All our ads have a demo button which leads to an actual product demo.’

To ensure he’s seeing positive results from his display ads, Chadhuary pays close attention to the performance of the ads across the Display Network. ‘We keep a close eye on which sites to exclude or add as managed placements,’ says Chadhuary. ‘When we see a site with a stronger clickthrough rate, for example, we might add this site as a managed placement.’

Chadhuary also monitors the effectiveness of his display ads by testing multiple formats for each ad. He then tracks the clickthrough rate of each ad and either pauses the poorer performing ads or edits them to mimic the well performing ads.

TopChalks ambassador Javgal Srinath (Indian Cricketer)

Chadhuary’s diligence with the Google Display Network proves that small businesses can use display advertising to generate new business. ‘Now we get well over half of our leads from ads on the Google Display Network,’ says Chadhuary. ‘There are numerous education websites with great content and millions of users. Showing relevant ads there generates good quality leads for us.’

Mehta, Verma, and Chadhuary’s vision to impact India’s education is spreading with rapid success. With the help of display ads, they are able to clearly communicate and actually show customers what they can achieve with TopChalk’s help. ‘With India growing at a rate that it is, we believe that such growth cannot be sustained and will not be meaningful unless we think out of the box and educate the masses,’ says Chadhuary. ‘Every person in the company is driven by this vision.’

Posted by Julian Sonego, Marketing Manager, Google Display Network

Old train station found new life as library

By Mike Jones
Chartiers Valley Patch
Dec. 19, 2010

Passenger trains had all but stopped rolling through Bridgeville by the early 1960s, and the freight lines from Pittsburgh were being used less and less. So the old Bridgeville train station sat unused and unattended for more than a decade. And as it rotted away, it became a symbol for what the railroads used to mean to the borough.

Meanwhile, the newly formed Bridgeville Public Library had already moved out of its cramped space inside the Trust Building on Washington Avenue and into a slightly larger home in a nearby apartment building. Looking to expand even more, Ernie Mihaly of the local Kiwanis Club had a wild idea: rebuild the dilapidated train station and turn it into a literary hub for the borough.

That decision likely saved a century's worth of history.

Read more...

When is Enough, Enough? and Happy Holidays

I'm taking time off until the New Year, unless something major happens in the markets.

On Friday, we saw the volume shrinking. I have never forgotten a X-mas period in, I think, 1981 or 1982 when my head was handed to me. I lost a 100,000 dollars in two weeks. That certainly brought me down to earth. I blamed it on the slow holiday markets, but on reflection it was probably a much less experienced man's lack of discipline and skill. Nevertheless, I usually don't trade over the X-mas/New Year period.

My final post for the year is about an email I received a couple of days ago:

"One other philosophical question....

-When is enough....enough???  My biggest struggle is overtrading.  I am the worlds best trader (just in case you haven't heard of me), but I am the worlds worst money manager. 

-I recently came across a simple "blackjack formula" that went like this...Today I am willing to lose $250 per day and every time I have a winner or loser I subtract that from that $250.  So, if I had 3 winners and was up $200 and the next trade was a loser of $60 then I should be done trading for the day with a net profit of $140 (per contract).

-Now that sounds all fine and dandy, but I struggle with the fact that it's 10am and I am done working for the day.  I grew up in a family where one has to work 50 hours a week to justify what you are doing.  Maybe its the midwest mentality or maybe I have ants in my pants, but I just struggle being done for the day.

-How have you handled this over the years???  I know there has to be others like me out there."

As with many things in trading, the answer is simple but not easy. Trading is a business, not a computer game. The basis of my business is the same as most successful businesses: I have a business plan. As I have written before, my Dad taught me to work with inspiration, not perspiration. My goal in my trading business is to make money.

In writing my trading plan, I had to decide many things, including how many hours a day I trade, whether I have a daily target or daily stop loss, as well as a host of other things.

Making my TP very specific helps my discipline. I try and have as few decisions to make in the heat of battle as possible. I don't want to have to work out whether I should stop trading if I have had 4 losers in a row. I don't want to have to decide whether to stop trading if the market is trading sideways on the day before a Fed announcement. All these decision have been made in a quiet and considered way beforehand so that when sh*t happens, and it does, I can react instead of having to work out what to do while under pressure. These days I try and save the sweating for the sauna.

If I'm finished trading for the day, I have a long to do list that will keep me and my brain busy. My work ethic is so strong I also have a hard time not doing something.  If I've followed my plan and trading is done, then I've finished my business for the day and I move onto something else. Whether it's taking care of my longer term trades, making a training video, mentoring a student, getting some exercise, doing research or just walking with my dog.  

If you feel that you need to work longer, make a daily agenda like you would if you had a 9-5, but fill the planner with things you like to do or want to do. Back testing or research if you want additional trading work or working on your hobby, or learn a new one. Have lunch with your wife or girlfriend or other friends or help your kids with their homework, volunteer, etc.  The list is endless and you will find that you will feel more energized and ready to trade the following day.  Your brain needs that switching off from trading so you can see the next day's trades with fresh eyes.

Sadly, a lot of it comes down to money. The less money you have available to trade, the more urgent you believe it is to take the next trade to make more. Sometimes working at trading less, makes more money. Taking the better trades with bigger size or staying out of the dead zone and giving profits back. Over the years, I've tested every trading scenario I could think of. The idea is to optimize your time. I remember when the S and P pit was a big deal, there were locals who only went down onto the floor for the first hour and a half and the last hour.

I wish you and yours all the best over the holidays. Be well and safe and ready for the year to come. There will be a bunch of what I hope are interesting new things to come from ElectronicLocal in 2011. Posting resumes again on January 3, 2011.

Now available with Google Apps: Google Chrome Sync

[Cross-posted from the Google Enterprise Blog]

Editor’s note: We recently launched an improvement that makes over 60 additional Google services available to Google Apps users. This series showcases what’s new and how your organization can benefit.



Welcome to Google Chrome Sync
These days, we spend more and more time working in a web browser, in fact, the number of hours the average American spends online has grown by over 120% in the last 5 years.* Much of the information we consume is delivered through the web, and tools like Google Apps make it easier than ever for workers to collaborate and create using nothing but the web. This shift of data and applications to the cloud makes us less dependent on the specific hardware device that we use to get our work done.

You may use a desktop or laptop PC or Linux box at your desk, then a netbook or maybe even a pilot program Chrome OS notebook when you’re on the go, and then perhaps work from a personal computer when you need to send a quick email from home. Traditionally, your experience has been different on each of these devices depending on how the browser is configured. Now, recently added integration with Google Apps lets you unify your browsing experience across the different devices you use to get your work done, just like millions of Chrome users already do with Google Chrome Sync.

Google Chrome is a modern web browser that was built with today’s web in mind, with a focus on speed, security, and simplicity, and it’s used by more than 120 million people worldwide. One of the features of Chrome that makes it so simple and easy to use is the ability to synchronize your bookmarks, extensions, apps, theme and browser preferences with a Google account, so they are always available in the browser, no matter where you are signed in. Google Apps users now have access to this functionality, allowing you to make these components of your browsing experience available across any device you use to access the Chrome browser.



With Chrome Sync, many of the inefficiencies that result when you switch from one device to another are eliminated. When you bookmark a news article relevant to your business on your desktop PC as you're running out the door to catch a flight, that bookmark will be there when you connect to WiFi as you’re waiting at the airport. The Google Mail Checker extension you discovered last week was synced to your laptop so you notice the email that comes in at the last minute before you close your laptop for take-off. And when the passenger in the seat next to you spills coffee on your keyboard in the middle of the flight, you’re secure in the knowledge that Chrome on your new laptop will have all of the personalization you added on your old one.

Now that Google Chrome is ready for business, Chrome and Chrome Sync combined with Google Apps make a powerful combination for workers leveraging the power of the cloud to be productive no matter where they are and what device they are using.

Learn more and get started
Google Chrome Sync can be enabled by your domain administrator from the Google Apps Control Panel at https://www.google.com/a/[your_domain.com] (replace [your_domain.com] with your actual domain name). If your organization isn’t using Google Apps yet, you can learn more and sign up today at http://www.google.com/apps/more.

You can find more information about using Chrome in your organization on our Chrome for Business webpage or take a look at a product overview.


Posted by Nick Carter, Software Engineer, Google Chrome

Note: Google Chrome Sync may not be available in all areas.
* Forreseter Research, 2010

Level Playing Field or Is It?

When I was on the floor, we had a huge advantage over "the paper". Off floor traders, be they the big boys trading size or the retail traders, were at the mercy of the floor. We could front run the paper, hit tick and low tick, run stops, you name it and it happened.

Those days are gone! As electronic traders, we have all the advantages. We can use whatever technology we can think up and afford. We can see lots of markets at once and trade whatever has juice. Yes, some of the big boys can peak a little ahead of us, but on the whole there is a level playing field and if you have the technology edge or a brain edge then the playing field is tilted in your favour.

Not having the millions to throw at the latest technology, lots of traders work smarter. My Dad always told me to use more inspiration than perspiration and that is especially true of trading. Creating a methodology that gives an edge is the answer, and we have a lot bigger edge now off floor than when we were floor traders.

The picture below is a scalping system I use when I have limited time. We had an overnight and morning snow fall and I was doing some snow blowing on the farm, so didn't really follow the markets in the morning as I usually do. I sat down for a couple of hours to scalp the Euro using 3 tick range bars. The picture below is the result. Nice and profitable, but hard yakka (work) as they say in Oz. Same methodology, just faster bars.

Just remember that usually the last trade in the sequence is likely to be a loser. I'm particularly watchful after the 3rd trade, although in these really short term periodicities there can be many more than 3.

Now available with Google Apps: Picasa Web Albums

[Cross-posted from the Google Enterprise Blog]

Editor’s note: We recently launched an improvement that makes over 60 additional Google services available to Google Apps users. This series showcases what’s new and how your organization can benefit.



Welcome to Picasa Web Albums
Sharing and collaboration are central to Google Apps with over 30 million users in businesses, schools, and government already using products such as Gmail, Google Docs and Google Sites to work together more efficiently. As part of the effort to enhance the tools available to our Apps users, we’re pleased to bring the the photo sharing capabilities of Picasa Web Albums to your Google Apps account.

Picasa Web Albums makes it easy to organize, share and edit your photos, and collaborate with others. You can create web albums to group your images, add tags for organization and searching, edit your photos using Picnik to ensure they look their best, add places to your photos with geotagging via Google Maps, and easily share your photos with colleagues.

Whether it’s photos from a recent corporate offsite or holiday party, or visuals for insertion in a document or blog post, Picasa Web Albums allows you to store your images in the cloud and access them from any browser on any device. Sharing with colleagues is easy as well using your Google Apps account with email address autocomplete linked to your existing Contacts list.


Uploading, storing and sharing your photos is just the beginning. Picasa Web Albums is also integrated with other Google products such as Google Docs, Google Sites and Blogger, which allows users to seamlessly insert images stored or shared with you in Picasa Web Albums into documents, sites or blog posts in just a few clicks. It’s never been easier to compose a multimedia document using nothing but the web.


Stop sending photos to colleagues as attachments and load them into the cloud instead. Just like Google Apps, Picasa Web Albums runs in your web browser so your photos are at your fingertips anywhere you have an Internet connection.

Learn more and get started
Picasa Web Albums can be enabled by your domain administrator from the Google Apps Control Panel at https://www.google.com/a/[your_domain.com] (replace [your_domain.com] with your actual domain name). If your organization isn’t using Google Apps yet, you can learn more and sign up today at http://www.google.com/apps/more.

You can learn more about Picasa Web Albums in our Help Center or you can stay up to date on product news as well as tips and tricks on our blog.


Posted by Lisa Conquergood, Picasa Team

Note: Picasa Web Albums may not be available in all areas.

Introducing the Big Small Business Plan

A few weeks ago we asked about your wishes for your business in 2011, and yesterday we shared what you said. Near the top of your list: growing your small business. As one of you put it, "I want to replace the word 'small' with 'biggest.'" At Google, we’re all for dreaming big. So today we’re introducing something we’re calling the Big Small Business Plan. If you haven’t yet tried AdWords, Google’s advertising program, just sign up by December 31 and spend $100 by February 15, 2011. When you do, we’ll match your $100 investment with a $100 investment of our own.

Need a little inspiration before getting started? Meet Shoes of Prey and Biztree, two small businesses that grew with the help of AdWords.

If you already use AdWords, the Big Small Business Plan works for you, too. Just install free AdWords Conversion Tracking and spend $100 by February 15, and we’ll give you the $100 credit. AdWords Conversion Tracking shows you which of your keywords and ads lead to sales (or whatever action you want customers to take on your site). This free tool will help you grow by making the most of your advertising investment. Get started by registering for this offer no later than December 31.

The Google Small Business team wishes you truly big success in 2011!

Posted by Gordon Zhu, Inside AdWords Crew

Sending your customers holiday cheer with Google Maps

I love walking around my neighborhood during the holiday season and seeing all of the winter and holiday decorations adorning the storefronts. The neighborhood bakery is looking even more festive than usual, and the local boutique’s storefront is full of gift boxes and holiday lights.

The holiday season is a great time for local businesses to connect with customers as they do their shopping or stop by for a family meal. So to help you tell your customers how much you appreciate their business, or to let them know about any holiday events or in-store activities, consider sending them online holiday cards featuring Google Maps.

In addition to selecting from ten holiday card covers, you can add a specific place from Google Maps on the inside of the card - whether it’s your business listing, a Street View image of your store location, or directions from downtown. Just add a personal message and email address, and we’ll send the card on your behalf.

You can also spread the holiday spirit by sending these cards to friends and family, suggesting a place to go ice skating, or just to share holiday greetings.

To start sending these cards, visit googlemapsholidays.appspot.com. Happy holidays!

Posted by Katie Mandel, Product Marketing Manager, Google Maps

I Love Those Neutral Days

Yesterday in the ES was a neutral day. For those who don't follow Market Profile, a Neutral Day occurs when there is range extension in both directions after the Initial Balance.

OK, what is the big deal about a neutral day? Well most of the time,  after the market's second range extension, it retraces back to the middle of the Profile. I say "most" but in the ES RTH, I can't remember it not happening unless it was too late in the day.

It doesn't take a lot of smarts to figure out that this is a high probability trade that should be traded by me in every instance I see it. This is an automatic response on my part. No thinking required, I just do it. Sometimes the move is not completed entirely within the RTH session but goes into the Asian time zone. See the pic.

A salute to the Military etc...

For my U.S. followers remember the Americans that voluntarily offer to pay the ultimate price in defense of this nation. Reguardless of how you view the current conflicts, you can not help but be humbled by the voluntary sacrifce these men and women give in our name.

Give them something, I contribute every year to http://www.lbeh.org/

Now available with Google Apps: Google News

[Cross-posted from the Google Enterprise Blog]

Editor’s note: We recently launched an improvement that makes over 60 additional Google services available to Google Apps users. This series showcases what’s new and how your organization can benefit.



Welcome to Google News
Staying up to date on all the day’s news is a challenge – even when that news might be absolutely critical to your business. Missing a story could mean missing an opportunity. That’s why we’re pleased to make Google News available with your Google Apps account.

Google News is a computer-generated news site that aggregates headlines from news sources worldwide, groups similar stories together, and displays them according to your personalized interests. You can customize Google News with topics you are interested in, and even indicate which publications you’d like to prioritize in your personalized news stream.


Google News will surface stories relevant to the interests you indicate and will aggregate articles from multiple news sources covering that story. For example, if a story about changes in the funding environment for small businesses shows up in your news stream, you’ll be able to click through to coverage from a variety of news outlets in order to get a spectrum of views on the issue.

Now that Google News is integrated with Google Apps, sharing the articles that you discover with coworkers is easier than ever. You can email a link directly from the News interface with address autocomplete linked to your existing Contacts list.


And Google News even makes it easy to stay current on the latest developments in the news when you’re away from your desk. When you connect to Google News on your smartphone with your Google Apps account, you will find an experience optimized for viewing on your mobile device and get the same personalized stream of news you see in the full browser version.


Now you can make the most of those spare minutes between meetings or the transit time on your morning commute by reading the latest news, complied and organized just for you.

Learn more and get started
Google News can be enabled by your domain administrator from the Google Apps Control Panel at https://www.google.com/a/[your_domain.com] (replace [your_domain.com] with your actual domain name). If your organization isn’t using Google Apps yet, you can learn more and sign up today at http://www.google.com/apps/more.

For answers to specific questions you can visit our Help Center or you can follow the latest updates on our product blog.


Posted by Chase Hensel, Product Manager, Google News

Note: Google News may not be available in all areas.

We Asked. You Told Us Your Wishes for 2011

Two weeks ago, the Small Business Marketing team asked about your aspirations for the coming year. You told us the biggest wish for your business, and the wish for expanding your business’ online presence. Today, we’d like to share what we heard.

We combined your responses from our blog, Facebook and Twitter and organized them into three main themes and then sub-themes. Of course, not all wishes fell neatly into these themes, so we did create a Miscellaneous category.

Before the drum roll, thanks to everyone that took time to share and participate. Some wishes were big and audacious and others more practical, but all with an underlying tone of passion for what you do and a focus on delighting your customers. On with the results…

Theme 1: Move my business online

Not surprisingly, you’re passionate about the business products you’re using and made very specific feature requests. Rest assured if they were Google product related, we’ve shared your wishes with our product teams. Additionally, you said you want more online resources to help your business grow. Your comments acknowledged that referrals are now happening online through social media channels and, as such, you want to understand how to use these online tools. You also want more out of your websites. Ultimately, you said you want to do more online to run your business more efficiently and spend more time concentrating on your customers.

Click for larger image.

Theme 2: Grow my business

We heard that you want to continue to grow your business with increased profits, more customers, or more people. Lots of wishes for more marketing tools to increase your business’ visibility – the range included the entire marketing mix. You want simple tools made specifically for you. There were wishes for funds to buy equipment, spend more on advertising, build e-commerce into your offering, and lease real estate – to name a few.

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Theme 3: Love my business

Many resounding wishes to continue fueling your passion because you love what you do. You’d love to learn more – from social media, AdWords and Places to creating marketing plans. You prefer support face-to-face with people and training at a relatively low cost. Many of you want more opportunities to network and support your fellow business owners. Whether it’s help getting the most out of applications and tools, or navigating a healthcare plan, you’d like some expertise to assist.

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We thank you again for telling us your wishes for the coming year. Stay tuned as we will use these wishes to build upon our plans to help small businesses succeed in 2011.

Posted by Leslie Hernandez, Product Marketing Manager, Google Small Business Team

Repetition Is Key

Over half of what a good trader does is repetition, much like professional athletes. As Reggie Jackson says, "A baseball swing is a finely tuned instrument. It is repetition, and more repetition, and a little more after that". He could easily have been talking about trading instead.

Developing trading skills, as I have often repeated, is all about repetition. A trader needs to hone his skills with repetition in SIM. A trader needs to test and develop his trading plan through repetition in SIM. A trader needs to perfect his entry and exit skills with repetition in SIM.

I had a comment to yesterday's post that said: "Your blog has become a broken record."

Mate, you're missing the point.

This is my 351st blog post since October 2009. I blog almost every trading day. Yes, there is repetition. It's repetition because I say it and show it in different ways. Some people don't get a concept the first time or they don't get it the way I first showed it. Learning can be tedious unless you really love to trade. I learn every day. When I'm not trading I'm either researching or teaching.

On top of it all, there is not a lot of "new" in learning to trade. Trading is simple, but not easy. To achieve that "aha" moment can take months, but usually years. Mentoring and seeing ideas such as those in this blog helps shorten the learning curve. I know, because readers and students have told me so.

Additionally, a lot of time and effort has gone into writing blog posts that I think readers would enjoy or benefit from. And that is my criteria- Would I want to read that post?

On that note, I will be blogging on some additional topics in 2011, including exploring ways to make money using longer term trading techniques. I'm also bringing back the video trading recaps.

Today's trades show the benefits of identifying the beginning of a trend. This was the topic with one of the guys I am mentoring today during our 1 to one.

We begin anew

My new journalism website, Chartiers Valley Patch, launched at 6 a.m. Monday. I welcome all of my followers here to visit the site and pass along the hyperlink to anyone who lives in and around Bridgeville, Collier Township, Heidelberg and Scott Township. Your support, opinions and suggestions on this blog over the past 17 months have been very-much appreciated. Thank you.

http://chartiersvalley.patch.com

Now available with Google Apps: DoubleClick for Publishers

[Cross-posted from the Google Enterprise Blog]

Editor’s note: We recently launched an improvement that makes over 60 additional Google services available to Google Apps users. This series showcases what’s new and how your organization can benefit.



Welcome to DoubleClick for Publishers
For millions of online publishers—from the smallest blogger to the largest entertainment, news, e-commerce and information sites—online advertising revenue is vital. When publishers can maximize their returns, everyone benefits from more vibrant online content and websites. A publisher's ability to manage this process can have a significant impact on how much money they make from their online content, which is why we’re happy to bring our Google Apps customers our next generation ad serving platform to solve these problems: DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) from Google.

Imagine you're a major online publisher with a popular global surfing website and an ad sales team. Every second of every day, you have difficult decisions about what ads to show and how to measure their relative performance. For example:

• In the same ad space, a surfboard wax advertiser wants to run a static image ad for your Australian readers, while an airline offering flights to Hawaii wants to run an expandable interactive ad for your American readers.


• A fast-food restaurant wants to run its burger ads before noon and its pizza ads in the afternoon.


• You've sold 10 different surfboard makers a million ad slots at slightly different prices; now you have to allocate them across your various webpages to fulfill all these orders over the next two weeks.


• One of your surfing tournament reviews is linked to by a popular news site and you have a surge in traffic. Your sales team couldn't predict this, so you’re left without any ads for thousands of readers. You want to fill this ad space by selling it via an ad network that has ads available.

These examples illustrate how complicated it can be to optimize ad serving on your website, and they only scratch the surface.

DFP comes in two flavors, tailored for different publishers' needs: DoubleClick for Publishers, for the largest online publishers, and DFP Small Business, a simple, free version designed for growing online publishers. As a Google Apps user, you now have access to both versions of DFP with your existing Apps account.


With advanced features such as streamlined ad trafficking, inventory management and forecasting, revenue optimization, granular reporting, and an open API, DFP offers a complete toolkit to easily sell ads on your site directly to advertisers while also working dynamically to help you get the most money from inventory you sell through partners like AdSense and ad networks.

Just like Google Apps, DFP runs in Google’s cloud so you get the same reliability, flexibility, and easy access without any software to install or hardware for IT to maintain. Also, DFP is fully supported by Google so you don't have to worry about manual system updates or downtime.

Learn more and get started
DoubleClick for Publishers can be enabled by your domain administrator from the Google Apps Control Panel at https://www.google.com/a/[your_domain.com] (replace [your_domain.com] with your actual domain name). If your organization isn’t using Google Apps yet, you can learn more and sign up today at http://www.google.com/apps/more.

To learn more about how DFP can help you manage and grow all of your online ad inventory, please visit our website or follow along with the latest news and release updates at the DoubleClick for Publishers blog.

Share your story
Have you already started using Google Custom Search at your organization, or plan to now that it’s available? Please share your story and your organization could be featured in the next Gone Google ad campaign!


Posted by Stephen Kliff, DoubleClick Team

Note: DoubleClick for Publishers may not be available in all areas.

The Euro FX and Market Profile

I have been working on using Market Profile for the truly 24 hour markets, such as the currencies. My current conclusion is to treat those markets, such as the Euro, in the same way that the big trading houses treat them.

Most of these trading houses have trading presences in the three major time zones: New York, London and Hong Kong. There are slight variations to the cities - Hong Kong may be Sydney, Singapore or Shanghai, but broadly speaking these are the areas where the trading originates.

These same houses run "trading books" - positions - that they pass around the world when each regional office stops trading for the day as the dawn is breaking and the sun heads west.

If you look at the markets, the usual human characteristics are evident. Everyone is different, and as the book is passed the local office puts it's own slant on things, adjusting the book in line with it's opinions and news.

So, I join these guys and start my Profile when Globex opens in the U.S. on Sunday afternoon (9.30 pm in London) and create 3 Profiles every 24 hours from that moment - each profile being 480 minutes (8 hours) long. This roughly meets the beginning of activity in the U.S. at about 8.30 pm NY time.

The Euro FX future looks like this in Market Profile:

I use each Profile as I use other Profiles. I split the Profiles as necessary and merge them too. But this is a good starting point for me.

Now available with Google Apps: Google AdSense

[Cross-posted from the Google Enterprise Blog]

Editor’s note: We recently launched an improvement that makes over 60 additional Google services available to Google Apps users. This series showcases what’s new and how your organization can benefit.



Welcome to Google AdSense
Do you have traffic to a web property that you would like to monetize? Whether you’ve invested time and energy in developing web content that brings in tons of traffic or would just like another income stream to support your business’s online presence, there is a solution for you that now works with your Google Apps account: Google AdSense.

Google AdSense enables millions of website owners of all sizes to display relevant ads alongside their online content. AdSense taps into Google’s vast network of local and international advertisers so there is great variety in ads, and Google technology selects ads specifically targeted for your website and visitors. By allowing advertisers to compete to display ads you can easily monetize traffic to your website and earn revenue.

Setting up an AdSense account is easy and free. As soon as you set up your account you can begin to place ads on your website. AdSense provides actionable data to help maximize your revenue, rich controls to protect your brand, and other helpful resources to improve your efficiency in managing and optimizing your revenue streams.



AdSense is simple to set up, you just have to add a few lines of code to the HTML of your site and you’re ready to start displaying ads. With AdSense, you stay in control of the user experience on your site by customizing the size, location, and types of ads that appear, and there is no commitment so you can turn the ads off at any time.

Before this improvement enabled access to additional applications, Google Apps users had to create a separate account to sign in to AdSense. Now, Apps users can access their cloud-based productivity applications, along with AdSense, using the same account. As an Apps user, you will now be able to seamlessly control your AdSense ads, as well as view a wide range of descriptive statistics and graphs about your ad performance using your existing Google Apps account.



Just like Google Apps, AdSense runs in Google’s cloud so you get easy access from anywhere without any software to install or hardware for IT to maintain.

Learn more and get started
Google AdSense can be enabled by your domain administrator from the Google Apps Control Panel at https://www.google.com/a/[your_domain.com] (replace [your_domain.com] with your actual domain name). If your organization isn’t using Google Apps yet, you can learn more and sign up today at http://www.google.com/apps/more.

You can learn more about Google AdSense in the Help Center or stay up-to-date on the latest launches on the Inside AdSense Blog.

Share your story
Have you already started using Google AdSense at your organization, or plan to now that it’s available? Please share your story and your organization could be featured in the next Gone Google ad campaign!


Posted by Nate DeOms, AdSense Team

Note: Google AdSense may not be available in all areas.
Update: For those of you who already have a Google AdSense account, we're in the process of finalizing the infrastructure that will allow you to seamlessly transition your existing AdSense account and data over to your Google Apps account.

Longer Time Frame Trading

As I said in earlier posts, I do some longer term trading with pairs and options. The methodology I use is very similar to my day trading, except that I usually only need to look at the trades once a day.

Today's chart is an example from the Gold market. It's a daily chart, but if I had cut off the information that gave away the time frame, it could just as easily have been an intra day one.

I just keep it simple, add proper money management to a high win rate and it all comes together. Again, I need different bits of information in my picture and then the order flow tells it all. The Market Profile adds the context and in the longer daily time frames, it adds the "volume" component.

These longer time frames can be traded with futures out right, options, option spreads, ETFs and options on ETFs. We are spoiled for choice for instruments and can choose the one(s) that best suit our financial objectives.

List of significant parts....

In trying to determine the scope of a Nano sat launcher project I generated the following list or physical hardware. There is an equivalent scope of work for Ground support, Software, Logistics, Regulatory issues etc...

1. Nose cone/aero shell
1. Aero shell separation system
2. Nano sat mount
1. Nano Sat ejection system.

3. Avionics:
1. GPS/ MEMS IMU Integrated system
2. Avionics control
3. Telemetry system
4. Battery System

4. Third Stage
1. Tanks (assuming tanks are the structure)
2. Valves and Actuators
3. Pressurization System
4. Motor
5. Motor Thrust transfer structure
6. TVC Actuators.
7. Separation mechanism
8. Fill and Drain Umbilical system.
9. Roll Control TVC

5. Second Stage
1. Third Stage Support Structure
2. Battery for second stage actuators.
3. Tanks (assuming tanks are the structure)
4. Valves and Actuators
5. Pressurization System
6. TVC Actuators.
7. Motor
8. Motor Thrust transfer structure
9. Separation mechanism
10. Fill and Drain Umbilical system.

6. First Stage
1. 2nd Stage Support Structure
2. Battery for first stage actuators.
3. Tanks (assuming tanks are the structure)
4. Valves and Actuators
5. Pressurization System
6. TVC Actuators.
7. Motor
8. Motor Thrust transfer structure
9. Fill and Drain Umbilical system.
10. Launch Hold down mechanism

Welcome to my first attempt at blogging

Welcome to this effort to reach out to more of the entrepreneurs and small business owners of Southeast Missouri.  I hope you will come back to this blog from time to time as I plan on weekly updating it with tips and news about the small business world.  I really would like for this to be a vehicle for you to communicate to me also. For my first entry, let's talk about  making money online with

Now available with Google Apps: Google Custom Search

[Cross-posted from the Google Enterprise Blog]

Editor’s note: We recently launched an improvement that makes over 60 additional Google services available to Google Apps users. This series showcases what’s new and how your organization can benefit.



Welcome to Google Custom Search
These days, content is being created faster than ever. In fact, the data equivalent of 250,000 years of DVD-quality video is created every two days, which is more than the entire amount of digital information that was created from the birth of the world up to 2003. Users are faced with the challenge of wading through all of this data to find the information they are looking for, and businesses are faced with the challenge of making this easy to do for their customers and employees. Most businesses consolidate their information on a public-facing website, internal micro-sites, product blogs and customer portals to help visitors surface relevant content. But even with this type of organization and structure, information can still be difficult to locate. That’s why we are pleased to introduce Google Apps customers to a product that will make finding easy for their employees and for their customers: Google Custom Search.

Google Custom Search brings the power, speed and relevance of Google.com to any website through a hosted search bar.


Custom Search allows visitors to your site to scour your web pages in fractions of a second with the same speed and familiarity that they are used to when performing a search on Google.com. The technology behind Google Custom Search powers the built-in search capabilities of Google Sites and Blogger, so if you organize your web content using these tools then you’re already using it. For other websites you create, set-up takes only a few minutes and adding the search box is as easy as pasting a few lines of pre-generated code to the HTML of the page where you want the search box to appear. Just like Google Apps, with Google Custom Search there’s no hardware or software to maintain or upgrade - it gets better as Google gets better.

Google Custom Search will automatically display advertisements and allows you to monetize them using AdSense for search. If you prefer that ads not be displayed you can upgrade to Google Site Search.

Learn more and get started
Google Custom Search can be enabled by your domain administrator from the Google Apps Control Panel at https://www.google.com/a/[your_domain.com] (replace [your_domain.com] with your actual domain name). If your organization isn’t using Google Apps yet, you can learn more and sign up today at http://www.google.com/apps/more.

For more detailed information, you can take a look at our Help Center or follow the latest news and updates on the Google Custom Search blog.

Share your story
Have you already started using Google Custom Search at your organization, or plan to now that it’s available? Please share your story and your organization could be featured in the next Gone Google ad campaign!


Posted by Guillaume De Zwirek, Google Enterprise Search Team

Note: Google Custom Search may not be available in all areas.