by kswingruber

Ariel: Silver I there it goes, Silver!

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It’s almost February and many of us have already let our new year resolutions fall by the wayside. Luckily, there’s still time to get your investing smarts on track for 2012.

Here are some themes to keep in mind to help you become a better investor this year:

1. Be News Agnostic — Avoid being swayed by the news of the day, whether it’s good or bad. Focus on trends versus headlines. Expose yourself to thoughtful interpretation of what’s going on by following analysts, journalists and bloggers you trust.
2. Cash is Not Necessarily King — You may sleep better at night if you are invested in cash and thus avoiding the ups and downs of the market. However,  cash has a price since it isn’t returning enough to cover even our current low inflation rate—so you are actually losing money when you are overly invested in cash.
3. Prudence is Queen — A diversified portfolio, modified for current economic, political and global circumstances, is the best approach. Make sure you are not over-invested in your company’s stock and that you have a good mix of various types of investments, including cash.
4. Time for Generosity — If your assets exceed million as an individual or million as a couple, you can reduce estate taxes in the future by making some strategic gifts to heirs now.  The million per person estate/gift tax exemption is going away by the end of 2012.
5. Give Plans Another Go-Around — Many experts are projecting lower returns on investments in the coming years.  So this is a good time to get a financial plan—or refresh your last one—and assess whether you are still on track to meet your retirement goals.

Advisor Intelligence

Our call for presentation proposals is now open and we will be accepting proposals through March 16, 2012. Speaking at Open Source Bridge is a great opportunity to share your knowledge and enthusiasm. Now is the time to submit a proposal to speak at the conference!

What kind of proposals, you ask? Open Source Bridge strives to be a different kind of open source conference: one that welcomes all open source languages, platforms, and pursuits while embracing responsible and engaged open source citizenship.

The conference’s tracks are:
Business: How do you build a successful open source business?
Chemistry: What makes this work? Take the technology apart and teach us about its components.
Cooking: How do you write the script, configure the utility, debug the code, make it work? What are your best recipes?
Culture: What makes open source work? What else does the open source ethic lead us to do?
Hacks: How did you pull that off?

For a little additional inspiration, we encourage you to look through previous years’ archives of sessions presented at Open Source Bridge, but don’t let that limit you, either! We know that certain topic areas have been underrepresented in previous years, and we would very much love a diverse and broad set of proposals for this year’s bridge. We would very much love to see more talks about hardware, security, user experience design and just about everything else related to open source. No idea is too out there. We’d love to see it all.

If you speak at Open Source Bridge, we’ll happily waive the fee for your attendance. Not sure if you should register now, or hold off to see if your talk is accepted? If you wait and your talk is not accepted, we’ll give you a special discount code that will get you a ticket at 0 (that’s off the early-bird rate).

So what are you waiting for? We’d love to hear what you have to say. Begin creating your proposal today.

Attend the conference

Register to attend Open Source Bridge 2012. We offer the following kinds of tickets:
Early bird tickets at 5 until April 30th.
Full price tickets at 0, great for corporate attendees.
As always, we offer a student rate of , available anytime.

Please register soon so you can help give the event some early support.

Interested in volunteering?

We encourage those of you interested in being more involved with Open Source Bridge to sign up for our volunteer list.

Interested in sponsoring?

Let us know by contacting sponsorship@opensourcebridge.org and we’ll send you a prospectus.

We hope that you are as excited as we are about Open Source Bridge 2012. Don’t hesitate to contact us at info@opensourcebridge.org if you have any questions. We thank you very much for your support and hope to see you in Portland in June!

–The Open Source Bridge Team

Open Source Bridge

There was a time in the United States when a baby or a small child could travel on the passport of one of their parents, usually the mother. Nowadays, however, even a newborn infant must have a passport of their own. When travel is urgent or imminent, an expedited passport for newborn may be obtained. Parents may go through the procedure themselves or they may avail themselves of the services of a specialized agent.

Requirements

Getting a passport for a newborn is not quite as straightforward as obtaining one for an adult. Proof of US citizenship of the baby is required. This is usually a certified copy of their birth certificate. Proof of parental consent is also a requirement. Parents need to complete a form, pay the fee, attach two photographs of the infant and include evidence of travel intent. The procedure is a little more involved if one of the parents is uncooperative or if they are absent altogether. There are five distinct levels of a child passport – Rush, Priority, Next Day, 24-Hour and Expedited. This latter category may take between eight days and two weeks to process. The completed passport is mailed directly to the child’s parent(s).

DS-11

The application form is called a DS-11 (Application for a pass port renewal). This may be obtained from a passport agency or an acceptance facility. It may be filled in online and then printed or it may be printed out first and then filled in by hand. It is essential that the form not be signed until instructed to.

Submission

The passport will be valid for five years and it may not be renewed. The application needs to be submitted in person and the baby itself has to be there.

Photos

Requirements for the two passport photographs are rather stringent. They need to be 2 inches by 2 inches in size with a white or whitish background. The head size has to be between 1 and 1.375 inches with no had or anything else worn on the head. It must be taken no more than six months before the date of the application.

Photo Requirements

The expression on the baby’s face must be ‘natural’. This means they cannot be smiling, crying, laughing or screaming. They have to keep their mouth closed and must not be sucking on a pacifier. Only the baby can be visible in the photo and there must be no parental face, hands or arms. There must not even be a car seat. It may be quicker to engage the services of a commercial photographer with experience in taking passport photos for infants.

Citizenship

The infant’s parents must provide proof of their own American citizenship. This can be a naturalization certificate, a valid passport, a Consular Report of Birth, a certificate of citizenship or a certified birth certificate.

The World Poker Tour (WPT) released its Season X television schedule Wednesday, circling February 12th as the jump-off point for the series. The first episode, along with all subsequent episodes, will air at both 8:00pm and 11:00pm local time.

The season, which will once again be broadcast on Fox Sports Net (FSN), will consist of 37 episodes, up 11 from Season IX. Part of the change is an increase in the number of episodes per tournament; the story of each tour stop will now be told across three episodes instead of just two. Strong ratings were likely another catalyst for the added episodes, as ratings increased 30 percent from Season VIII to Season IX.

“The steadfast effort put into revamping the World Poker Tour last season was rewarded with resounding fan and viewer support,” said WPT President Adam Pliska in a press release. “For WPT Season X, we’re debuting more innovations and giving our audience even more reasons to tune in each week.”

One of those innovations is a new segment called WPT Champions Cup in which some of the most memorable moments from WPT final tables will be relived. Another new segment, On the Road, will give viewers a sort of “behind the curtain” look at the lives of the WPT cast.

Speaking of cast, poker icons Mike Sexton and Vince Van Patten will again be the voices behind the microphones, just as they have been since the very first televised episode of the World Poker Tour. Kimberly Lansing is back as the WPT Anchor, while Tony “Bond18” Dunst returns as the analyst on Raw Deal.

The first episode of the new season will be a special Season X preview, setting viewers up for the months to come. The Legends of Poker will be the first tournament to air, running three consecutive Sundays from February 19th through March 4th. The season will continue from there with 11 more tournaments, each consisting of three weekly episodes. All tour stops in the United States will be broadcast except for the first Jacksonville and Seminole Hard Rock events. The second stops at both locations will be shown. Two different tournaments at the WPT World Championship will be aired: the ,000 World Championship itself as well as the 0,000 Super High Roller event.

For those who miss the Sunday broadcasts, each episode will re-air every Wednesday at 11:00pm local time.

The complete World Poker Tour Season X television schedule is as follows:

Feb. 12 – Season X Special
Feb. 19-Mar. 4 – Legends of Poker
Mar. 11-25 – WPT Grand Prix de Paris
Apr. 1-15 – Borgata Poker Open
Apr. 22-May 6 – World Poker Final
May 13-27 – Five Diamond World Poker Classic
June 3-17 – WPT Venice Grand Prix
June 24-July 8 – LA Poker Classic
July 15-29 – Bay 101 Shooting Star
Aug. 5-19 – Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown
Aug. 26-Sep. 9 – WPT Jacksonville
Sep. 16-30 – WPT World Championship Super High Roller
Oct. 7-21 – WPT World Championship

Poker News Daily

Retro Defense Lite a free tower defense game with a killer retro theme
Downloadplex.com – Mobile/Games – New Releases

Following a year of heightened stock market volatility marked by global political uncertainty, here is my current outlook for the economy and markets in 2012, where more volatility and political uncertainty is expected:

1) Expected continuation of slow, but steady, growth for the U.S. economy, call it an extended “U-shaped” economic recovery.

2) Consumer sentiment continues to rise but then stagnates as we get closer to the presidential election cycle–leading to a lack of substantial consumer spending necessary to build a sustainable economic recovery in the U.S.

3) Consumers, as well as state/local governments and businesses, continue to deleverage while refraining from taking on new debt, which furthers constrains spending growth.

4) Larger companies with strong dividend histories within traditionally defensive sectors (such as utilities, health care and telecommunications) should fare well given the expected slow growth environment. Should economic growth exceed expectations (i.e. GDP annualized growth of > 3.0%), depressed cyclical sectors such as Basic Materials and energy should perform well.

5) Expectation for consistent, but not staggering, earnings growth by U.S. companies, many of whom possess exceptionally strong balance sheets with overall record cash balances now exceeding billion. Positive earnings surprises, in areas such as autos where there is pent-up consumer demand, could provide sparks for short-term market rallies.

6) Bond yields, while edging higher, likely to remain at historic lows–at least through the end of the year–perhaps being maintained by intermittent flights to quality spurred by market volatility in addition to the previously telegraphed liquidity intentions of the Federal Reserve.

7) Growth investors may continue to turn to gold, and perhaps silver, as an alternative to U.S. Treasuries, for “flights to quality/safe haven” trading opportunities during periods of heightened volatility throughout the year.

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More noise to come from the European debt markets, potentially leading to a further tightening of the credit markets and concerns over the future of the euro currency.

9) Demographic trends place continued pricing pressures on certain commodity types (examples include agriculture, energy and industrial metals) despite a lackluster economy and elevated prices that exist for specific commodities–which could be offset to a degree by weakened demand/slower growth in China.

10) Real growth takes place away from developed markets in well positioned emerging markets such as Brazil and Colombia in Latin America, Turkey and Egypt in the Middle East and Indonesia and China in Asia.

11) Slight improvements on the jobs front (primarily in a further reduction of initial jobless claims as opposed to a significant reduction in the unemployment rate) and gradual, yet no material, improvements in the real estate market on a national basis.

12) Despite a non-robust economy, an unclear domestic political picture and lingering European debt risks, the stock market can, and should, still do well in 2012 and growth investors can benefit from a well diversified portfolio built to withstand the many fits and starts that are expected throughout the year.

Given the many moving pieces in the complex, global investment puzzle, I believe that investors would be wise to revisit their asset allocation strategies at the beginning of this year to help ensure that they have the diversification in place to withstand potential periods of heightened volatility as well as the breadth of asset classes and sectors to help deliver risk adjusted growth opportunities.

Advisor Intelligence

A US passport comes with only 24 visa pages in it. For people who engage in a lot of foreign travel, this can often be too few sheets to hold all the entry visas they need. If you’re one of those travelers, you have a number of options to get additional pasport pages fastet way.

Passport Pages

As a frequent world traveler, you should be keeping close tabs of how many blank sheets you still have and how many you might need on your next trip. When you find yourself with fewer than four blank visa pages, you should apply for your extra blank sheets. Even if you don’t need them immediately, you’ll be glad to have them.

Required Federal Forms

The first step is to fill out federal form DS-4085, which is the application for the extra sheets. You can download the form from a variety of websites. However you decide to put through your application, you’ll need to have this completed and signed form.

Application Fees

To complete your application packet, you’ll also have to include your current, valid passport and the applicable fee. If you opt to manage this process on your own, you’ll send your application packet to the processing office. There are two offices where you can send an additional page request, each which will turn your request around on different schedules. The typical wait time is four to six weeks. However, if you want it in two to three weeks, you’ll send it to the special, expediting office address.

Passport Expedition

If you need additional sheets more quickly, you can use any one of a number of private companies that are authorized expediters. By sending your application package to them, they will work with the federal agency to get you your extra sheets as quickly as you want them. The reputable services will all guarantee the speed promised to get your travel documents back to you. So, getting your passport application is easy!.

Locality

You decide how quickly you want the private company to get your passport back to you based on how much you are willing to pay. The most expensive service will be for its fastest turnaround time – same day service. The same day service is usually only available if you live in a city where the company is located. Anywhere else, the fastest service is 24 hours. However, you have a number of speed options ranging up to two weeks.

Blank Visa Pages

When you are renewing your passport, the fastest way to get extra pages is to request them in your renewal application. If you know you travel a lot, you don’t have to wait until you’re down to just a few blank pages. As you go through the renewal process, you can ask to get a 52-page book instead of the standard 24 pages.

Looking for a biz dev contact @samsung_dev. @Apppromo coming to SF this week and hoping to meet/speak

App~Promo

It is a simple tower defence game
Downloadplex.com – Mobile/Games – New Releases