Archive for the ‘Personal Performance’ Category
The Best New Personal Finance Apps
Posted: June 19, 2012 at 6:21 am
Your phone might be smart. But is it smart enough to replace your financial adviser?
As consumers ditch checkbooks and spreadsheets for services that let them pay bills and monitor their net worth online, a growing number of companies are betting they will choose to receive financial advice not only on their computers but also, increasingly, on their mobile devices.
Finovate, a conference series that showcases new financial applications, expects nearly 200 companies to present at its events this year -- nearly 10 times as many as in 2007. The company, which holds confabs in New York, San Francisco and Europe, will host its first-ever event in Asia in November.
The new web and mobile apps all pull data from the "cloud," that grand repository of storage in the sky. Taken together, the apps hold the potential to disrupt the personal-finance industry by offering new ways to help consumers stick to budgets, stay on top of their portfolios and reduce investment-management fees.
At the same time, critics warn, the apps also could pose security or privacy risks, and, by helping people automate their personal-finance decisions, could foster complacency.
Nonetheless, venture capitalists are betting big. In the first quarter, they gave $150 million in venture-capital funding to companies that have presented at Finovate, more than twice as much as they gave in the first quarter last year.
Their goal: to fund the next Mint.com, which launched five years ago and now boasts more than 9 million users. Its free service, which allows users to aggregate bank and investment information in one place through its website and mobile app (on iPhone and Android) and provides advice on ways to save, took direct aim at desktop personal-finance software such as Intuit (INTU)'s Quicken and Microsoft Money. In 2009, Intuit bought Mint for $170 million. Microsoft (MSFT) discontinued Money that same year.
The newer services aim to replace traditional financial advisers, or to expand on Mint and similar offerings by tapping into the latest research in behavioral finance to ensure you stick to your spending plans.
For example, HelloWallet (apps for iPhone and Android), which debuted last year and now has 350,000 participants, compares a user's spending and savings habits to those of people of similar ages and income levels. The company claims its average participant has increased his or her monthly contribution to savings by 80%.
The services don't always work as smoothly as advertised. Ginger Dean, 30 years old, of Washington, says many of the 10 personal-finance services she has used have experienced occasional glitches that prevent her from immediately updating her account information. When it comes to bill payments, she says, "I feel a lot safer with my bank."
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The Best New Personal Finance Apps
Crossing personal-work line can blow up in your face
Posted: June 18, 2012 at 5:17 pm
According to papers filed with the New York State Division of Human Rights, employee Deborah Stevens worked for the billion-dollar Atlantic Automotive Group (AAG) dealership. When she learned her supervisor, Brucia, needed a kidney transplant, she volunteered hers.
Although her kidney didn't prove a match, they worked out an arrangement under which Stevens donated her kidney and this elevated Brucia on the recipient list and she received a timely transplant.
After the surgery, Brucia said "thanks more than I can ever say." However, the prior positive work relationship disintegrated. According to Stevens, the boss who formerly praised her and to whom she'd given a life-saving gift "started treating me horribly, viciously, inhumanely."
On a day when supervisor Brucia was home recuperating and Stevens left work because she felt ill, Stevens said Brucia called her asking "Why aren't you at work? ...You can't come and go as you please." In later encounters, Stevens said Brucia added "don't expect to be treated special because of what you did for me."
When Stevens told Brucia about her continuing medical issues, Brucia allegedly responded "I don't care; sounds like a personal problem." Stevens said when she cried, Brucia sent her out of the office.
Stevens contacted the company's human resources department officer, Jeff Peck. Jeff convened a meeting between Brucia and Stevens. At this meeting, Brucia critiqued Stevens' work performance. Stevens alleged Peck told Stevens the situation was "too personal." Later, Stevens said she heard that although she was a great employee, the company stood behind her manager.
Gradually supervisor Brucia removed Stevens' responsibilities, ultimately demoting her by banishment to a dealership informally called "Siberia" 50 miles from her home. This added 100 miles of commute time to an already pressured working mom and gave her a new boss who said "here come the fake tears" when Stevens cried.
Stevens sought psychiatric and legal advice. Shortly after Stevens' attorney sent a letter to AAG concerning Stevens' mental stress, the company offered Stevens a return to her former work location but then fired her. Stevens plans to sue AAG for millions for disability-related discrimination and retaliation.
This situation, which appears wrong on so many levels, inspires the desire to hang Brucia and the company that didn't adequately accommodate a medically-challenged employee who'd given so much to a supervisor. Further, it illuminates traps both employees and employers may fall into.
Like other victims, Stevens further demonizes an already unlikable supervisor. Stevens alleges Brucia only hired her to gain access to her kidney and "groomed" her as a "back up" donor. She bases this on a conversation she had with Brucia between her two stints at AAG, when Brucia told her she needed a transplant, had a possible donor and Stevens told her if something happened she'd be willing to donate her kidney.
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Crossing personal-work line can blow up in your face
Michael Fosberg comes to ICC 'Incognito'
Posted: June 17, 2012 at 2:15 pm
The Illinois Central College Guest Artists Series presents "Incognito," an autobiographical one-man show by Michael Fosberg about his personal journey for self-discovery.
The show takes place at 7:30 p.m. on Friday in the ICC Performing Arts Center in East Peoria.
This show was originally scheduled for Jan. 20 but was postponed due to inclement weather. Tickets sold for the Jan. 20 performance will be honored at the June 22 show.
At the age of 34, Fosberg began a quest to find his biological father. Along the way, he uncovered surprising information that forever changed the dynamics of his family. Armed only with the name of his father and the knowledge that he had lived in the Detroit area two decades earlier, Fosberg makes a phone call which starts to uncover long-concealed family secrets. "Incognito" is the resulting true-life account of Fosberg's emotion-packed experience which touches on themes of race, diversity, identity, stereotyping and family history.
Fosberg, a Chicago native, has been writing, acting and directing for more than 20 years. He has performed in Chicago at Steppenwolf Theatre, Remains Theatre, Wisdom Bridge Theatre, the Goodman Theatre, and the Huron Theatre Ensemble, of which he was a co-founder. He has worked with directors Gary Sinise, John Malkovich and Robert Falls. Fosberg received a Jeff Citation for Best Actor for his performance in "Savage Love" by Sam Shepard and Joseph Chaikin.
Following the performance, Fosberg will conduct a question-and-answer session with audience members.
The Peoria Branch NAACP is the highlighted Community Partner for this ICC Guest Artists Series performance. The "Community Partner" program highlights a different, local organization during each Guest Artists Series performance.
Tickets cost $16 for adults and $14 for students and senior citizens.
For more information, call the ICC Performing Arts Center box office at 694-5136.
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Michael Fosberg comes to ICC 'Incognito'
EXTRA: John Travolta talks marriage, family and new film
Posted: June 16, 2012 at 1:16 pm
Posted on: 6:16 am, June 16, 2012, by Nick Dutton, updated on: 11:55pm, June 15, 2012
GLENSIDE, Ca. (EXTRA) John Travolta sat down with Extras Jerry Penacoli to discuss his new film Savages and opens up about his 20-year marriage and dealing with personal adversity.
On working with Director Oliver Stone for his new film Savages:
It matters to him your performance. You dont get that a lot. Meaning that a lot of directors are preoccupied with everything, as they should be. But hes preoccupied with your performance. He listens to every word and every choice. And he takes it apart and wonders if it can be done differently or better.
On keeping his marriage together:
Well, weve always been stable with each other. We use our communication skills. We understand what is going on in life and in the industry.
Coping with personal family tragedy:
I think the toughest part was just the loss of our son and once we were able to get through that, and times we didnt think we were going to. I think we figured we could handle anything. Everything else pales in comparison.
Extras exclusive interview with John Travolta airs Monday, June 18 right after CBS 6 News at 7 p.m. withBill Fitzgerald.
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EXTRA: John Travolta talks marriage, family and new film
Performance Fanatics Fitness Guru – Video
Posted: June 15, 2012 at 10:13 pm
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Performance Fanatics Fitness Guru - Video
Kraton Performance Polymers, Inc. Announces First Commercial Application of NEXAR™ Polymer Technology
Posted: at 10:13 pm
HOUSTON, June 14, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Kraton Performance Polymers, Inc. (KRA), a leading global producer of styrenic block copolymers today announced the first commercial application of its NEXAR polymer technology.
(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20100728/DA42514LOGO)
"With the launch of Columbia Sportswear's latest cooling technology, the first commercial application of our NEXAR specialty polymer technology has been achieved," said Holger R. Jung, Kraton's Vice President, Sales and Marketing."As a leader in the performance apparel industry, Columbia Sportswear is known for pioneering the use of new and innovative technologies in its products.Our NEXAR polymer technology possesses unique performance attributes which we believe make it ideal for use in performance apparel," Jung added. "We believe that NEXAR also has application in humidification and dehumidification and water management processes, and we look forward to announcement of additional commercial applications for NEXAR in the future."
Kraton will highlight applications for its NEXAR polymer technology and will review other products and innovations at its 2012 Investor Day to be held on August 2, 2012 at the Ritz Carlton Battery Park in New York.
About Kraton
Kraton Performance Polymers, Inc., through its operating subsidiary Kraton Polymers LLC and its subsidiaries, is a leading global producer of engineered polymers and, we believe, the world's largest producer of styrenic block copolymers (SBCs), a family of products whose chemistry was pioneered by us almost fifty years ago. SBCs are highly-engineered thermoplastic elastomers which enhance the performance of numerous products by delivering a variety of attributes, including greater flexibility, resilience, strength, durability and processability. Our polymers are used in a wide range of applications, including adhesives, coatings, consumer and personal care products, sealants and lubricants, and medical, packaging, automotive, paving, roofing and footwear products. We offer a broad range of products to more than 800 customers in over 60 countries worldwide, and are the only SBC producer with manufacturing and service capabilities on four continents. We manufacture products at five plants globally, including our flagship plant in Belpre, Ohio, as well as plants in Germany, France and Brazil, and a joint venture plant operated in Japan.
Forward Looking Statements
This press release may contain "forward-looking statements," which are statements other than statements of historical fact and are often characterized by the use of words such as "believes," "expects," "estimates," "projects," "may," "will," "intends," "plans" or "anticipates," or by discussions of strategy, anticipated performance, plans or intentions. All forward-looking statements in this press release are made based on management's current expectations and estimates, which involve risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause results to differ materially from those expressed in forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties are more fully described in "Part I. Item 1A. Risk Factors" contained in our Annual Report on 10-K, as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and as subsequently updated in our Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q. We hereby make reference to all such filings for all purposes. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. We assume no obligation to update such information.
Omni-Freeze is a trademark of Columbia Sportswear North America, Inc.
Kraton, the Kraton logo and design, and the "Giving Innovators Their Edge" tagline are all trademarks of Kraton Polymers LLC.
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Kraton Performance Polymers, Inc. Announces First Commercial Application of NEXAR™ Polymer Technology
Girls up the pace as personal bests are clocked up at meet
Posted: at 10:13 pm
DESPITE being held right in the middle of the four day Jubilee weekend, a small Thanet Athletics Club youth team travelled to Bromley for the second of this year's Kent Young Athletes League meetings.
Omega Skeen enhanced her growing reputation with equal second in the U13 Girls 75m with a new personal best of 10.7s and national Grade 3, her first such grading.
Personal best: Diana Adegoke
javelin win: Amber Guyatt
She followed that with a 22 second-run and fourth place in the 150m, another personal best and another national grade, this time Grade 4.
On a day when 11 of the 12 girls in the 75m achieved national grades, Maddy Johnson clocked a new personal best of 11 seconds and national Grade 4.
But she eclipsed that with an incredible performance in the high jump, which Maddy won with a 1.41m leap, smashing her previous official best of 1.30m, achieving national Grade 1 and a place in the top 15 of the national rankings.
The personal bests continued to come thick and fast in the U15 Girls, with Diana Adegoke and Tamara Anderson clocking 27.2 and 27.7 for national Grade 3 and Grade 4 respectively. Diana also won the long jump with 4.84m.
Georgina Anderson produced a massive 1.55m in the U15 Girls high jump, winning the competition by 10cm, adding 2cm to her own personal best, achieving national Grade 1 and also a place in the national top 20.
Chantelle Bailey matched her personal best and national Grade 4 with 1.40cm in the high jump. Amber Guyatt won the javelin with 26.47cm, just 5cm short of her own best.
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Girls up the pace as personal bests are clocked up at meet
MMRGlobal Reports Growth in Physician Usage of MMRPro and Increase in Web Traffic to Personal Health Record Sites
Posted: at 10:13 pm
LOS ANGELES, CA--(Marketwire -06/15/12)- MMRGlobal, Inc. (MMRF) ("MMR") today announced that usage of the Company's MMRPro document management and imaging systems processed nearly 3 million pages of medical records from an estimated 100,000 patients including more than 500,000 EOB forms for use with medical billing and collection services. MMRPro also makes medical records available to patients using the system's integrated patient portal, MMRPatientView, and the joint MMR-Interbit Data solution certified for meaningful use with MEDITECH EMR systems. Over the past five months, the Company continued to see usage grow at more than 12% over last year.
According to Bob Lorsch, MMRGlobal Chairman and CEO, "Opportunities with MMRPro seem to be opening up. Originally designed for small physician practices, we find growth coming from other areas such as surgery centers, compliance departments and in support of billing and collections. The increase in document imaging should continue to track to rising implementation of Electronic Medical Records systems which require digitizing paper-based patient charts for use with EMR and EHR systems."
Separately, the Company also reported that it sees measurable increases in video tours of its MyMedicalrecords.com Personal Health Record, MyEsafeDepositbox.com online storage system and other MMR websites all of which can be viewed at http://www.mmrtheater.com. Continued Lorsch, "Increasing numbers of consumers are beginning to see the importance and cost saving benefits of having a PHR (http://coosaw.wordpress.com/2012/03/15/medical/). Based on comments from users, we believe that we offer the most user-friendly interface to all of a family's healthcare providers, including veterinarians for the family's pets."
The Company has also been running a Facebook advertising campaign that has already delivered 18 million impressions since the first of June. The campaign uses targeted messages which drive people to both disease-specific and family wellness pages such as https://www.mymedicalrecords.com/diabetes and https://www.mymedicalrecords.com/family. Based on the Facebook campaign and an article about the Company in yesterday's edition of The Daily Beast (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/06/14/inside-real-housewives-star-taylor-armstrong-s-lawsuit-settlement.html), the Company is seeing thousands of visitors to its websites.
About MMRGlobal, Inc.
MMRGlobal, Inc., through its wholly-owned operating subsidiary, MyMedicalRecords, Inc., provides secure and easy-to-use online Personal Health Records ("PHRs") and electronic safe deposit box storage solutions, serving consumers, healthcare professionals, employers, insurance companies, financial institutions, and professional organizations and affinity groups. The MyMedicalRecords PHR enables individuals and families to access their medical records and other important documents, such as birth certificates, passports, insurance policies and wills, anytime from anywhere using the Internet. MyMedicalRecords is built on proprietary, patented technologies to allow documents, images and voicemail messages to be transmitted and stored in the system using a variety of methods, including fax, phone, or file upload without relying on any specific electronic medical record platform to populate a user's account. The Company's professional offering, MMRPro, is designed to give physicians' offices an easy and cost-effective solution to digitizing paper-based medical records and sharing them with patients in real time through an integrated patient portal. Through its merger with Favrille, Inc. in January 2009, the Company acquired intellectual property biotech assets that include anti-CD20 antibodies and data and samples from its FavId/Specifid vaccine clinical trials for the treatment of B-Cell Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. To learn more about MMRGlobal, Inc. visit http://www.mmrglobal.com. View demos and video tutorials of the Company's products and services at http://www.mmrtheater.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
All statements in this press release that are not strictly historical in nature, including future performance, management's expectations, beliefs, intentions, estimates or projections, constitute "forward-looking statements." Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the Company's actual results to be materially different from historical results or from any results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Some can be identified by the use of words (and their derivations) such as "need," "possibility," "intend," "offer," "development," "if," "negotiate," "when," "begun," "believe," "achieve," "will," "estimate," "expect," "maintain," "plan," and "continue," or the negative of these words. Actual results and the timing of selected events may differ materially from the results predicted, and reported results should not be considered as an indication of future performance. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, the risk the Company's products are not adopted or viewed favorably by the healthcare community and consumer retail market; business prospects, results of operations or financial condition; success of new distribution channels and personal health records adoption; timing and volume of MMRPro sales and installations; length of sales cycles and the installation process; market acceptance of new product introductions; ability to establish and maintain strategic relationships; relationships with licensees; competitive product offerings and promotions; changes in government laws and regulations and future changes in tax legislation and initiatives in the healthcare industry; undetected errors in our products; possibility of interruption at our data centers; risks related to third party vendors; risks related to obtaining and integrating third-party licensed technology; risks related to a security breach by third parties; maintaining, developing and defending our intellectual property rights; marketing and exploitation of our patent portfolio both in the U.S. and internationally; and additional risks discussed in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Company is providing this information as of the date of this release and, except as required by law, does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this release as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
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MMRGlobal Reports Growth in Physician Usage of MMRPro and Increase in Web Traffic to Personal Health Record Sites
Torres not out for personal glory
Posted: at 10:12 pm
Fernando Torres insists he will happily sit on the bench if it means Spain win Euro 2012.
The Chelsea striker dumped the Republic of Ireland out of the competition on Thursday as he plundered a double in a 4-0 rout in Gdansk after being recalled to the starting line-up.
Torres was used only as a substitute in Sunday's night's opening 1-1 Group C draw with Italy, but he said: "It was not a disappointment. I know all my team-mates we have here, we are all playing in the best team in the world - at least we won the World Cup and the Euros. Anyone can play, so it's not a disappointment to be on the bench with the kind of players in the team."
He added: "We work in the training sessions to be in the starting XI, but if we can't we have to give some help to our team-mates who start and hope to have the chance to go on from the bench and do something good for the team.
"Against Italy, it was not a good result for us, but the performance was really good from everyone.
"I was lucky enough today to be selected for the first XI - two goals was nice - but if in the next game the manager decides to play without a striker that's fine.
"The main thing is for Spain to reach the final and win this title again."
It proved a sobering experience for Giovanni Trapattoni's men who, having lost 3-1 to Croatia in their first game, will line up against Italy on Monday night knowing they have nothing but pride for which to play.
Trapattoni said: "I have always had faith and confidence in our attitude. It has always got us good results.
"I will ask the lads how on earth it is possible, after two games, we have conceded two goals in the opening three or four minutes. Something has changed from our qualifying campaign. Fear and tension has meant that we have made mistakes we didn't make in the qualifiers. We can see the weight on the players' shoulders, but I haven't seen this in training and I am very sad about this."
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Torres not out for personal glory
Kay Visuals | MISTA SILVA , Flava
Posted: June 14, 2012 at 7:16 pm