By Sam Dunn

PUBLISHED: 17:56 EST, 10 July 2012 | UPDATED: 04:48 EST, 11 July 2012

How do you fancy having your own fund manager to try to boost your long-term savings?

They would keep a close eye on where you are invested, sell funds that were failing and buy new ones that are about to soar.

It sounds ideal and it ispossible. Increasing numbers of investors are turning to a fund of funds, a type of investment where one fund manager picks a whole range of funds for you based on how much risk you are willing totake.

Filtering down: How 'funds of funds' investments work to spread your risk

Typically, the money is invested in between 10 and 30 other investment funds these in turn invest in 20 to 30 other companies.

These type of funds helpyou take less riskbecause your cash is spread across a greater number of funds and companies.

So if one funds performance starts to fall off a cliff, you should, in theory at least, be able to rely on some of the others to prop it up.

Of course, the fund manager isnt actually working just for you but you and a host of other like-minded investors.

Read this article:
Will a personal fund manager be worth the extra expense?

IRVINE, Calif., July 11, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- WD (WDC), a world leader in external storage and connected home solutions, today introduced powerful new collaboration and file management features, including Dropbox integration, in the next generation of its popular WD 2go mobile app for their personal cloud products, the My Book Live, My Book Live Duo and My Net N900 Central HD router with storage.

WD's personal cloud products provide shared storage on the home network, letting customers centralize their important documents, photos, videos and music in one place as well as automatically backup all the computers in their home. With the WD 2go app customers can access and share that content from outside the home on their mobile devices.

The new version of WD 2go lets customers move, copy and share content between their mobile device, their Dropbox and their WD personal cloud combining the benefits of personal and public cloud storage into one, easy-to-use app. For example, if a user has a small number of photos they want to share with their friends, they can copy them from their personal cloud into their Dropbox using the WD 2go app. But if they have a very large number of photos, or files that are too big for their Dropbox, they can use WD 2go to send a secure link to the files via email. WD 2go is available for iPad, iPhone, iPod touch or Android compatible mobile devices.

"WD is committed to providing consumers with secure storage of digital content and access to it on any screen, on-the-go or at home," said Jim Welsh, executive vice president for WD's branded products and consumer electronics groups. "By combining access to Dropbox and personal cloud storage into a single intuitive mobile app, WD is empowering consumers with the flexibility and control of anytime, any-device management of their growing libraries of digital content."

WD 2go Features

Price and AvailabilityWD 2go (free download) is currently available for download from the iTunes App Store, Google Play and Amazon Appstore for Android. My Book Live personal cloud storage drives and the My Net N900 Central router with storage are available at select U.S. retailers and online at the wdstore.com.

About WDWD, a storage industry pioneer and long-time leader, provides products and services for people and organizations that collect, manage and use digital information. The company designs and produces reliable, high-performance hard drives and solid state drives that keep users' data accessible and secure from loss. Its storage technologies serve a wide range of host applications including client and enterprise computing, embedded systems and consumer electronics, as well as its own storage systems. Its home entertainment products enable rich engagement with stored digital content.

WD was founded in 1970. The company's products are marketed to leading OEMs, systems manufacturers, selected resellers and retailers under the Western Digital, WD and HGST brand names. Visit the Investor section of the company's website (www.westerndigital.com) to access a variety of financial and investor information.

Western Digital, WD, the WD logo, My Book Live and My Net are registered trademarks of Western Digital Technologies, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries; Other marks may be mentioned herein that belong to other companies. Pictures shown may vary from actual products. Not all products may be available in all regions of the world. All product and packaging specifications subject to change without notice. As used for storage capacity, one terabyte (TB) = one trillion bytes. Total accessible capacity varies depending on operating environment. As used for transfer rate, megabit per second (Mbps) = one million bits per second.

Read more:
WD® Redefines Personal Cloud With Dropbox Integration

EL PASO, Texas, July 10, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Helen of Troy Limited (NASDAQ, NM: HELE), designer, developer and worldwide marketer of brand-name household, personal care and healthcare/home environment consumer products, today reported record first quarter net sales revenue and record operating income for the quarter ended May 31, 2012.

Fiscal first quarter net sales revenue increased 10.6 percent to $300,211,000 from $271,467,000 in the same period of the prior year.

Housewares. First quarter net sales revenue in the Housewares segment increased 13.8 percent to $60,249,000 compared to $52,946,000 for the same period last year, demonstrating the continued strength of our OXO brands.

Personal Care. First quarter net sales revenue in the Personal Care segment decreased 4.2 percent to $117,552,000 compared to $122,718,000 for the same period last year, resulting from a difficult retail environment in the U.S., Latin America and Europe, increased competitive trade promotional activities, product availability issues with certain suppliers, and the impact of foreign currency fluctuations.

Healthcare/Home Environment. First quarter net sales revenue in the Healthcare/Home Environment segment increased 27.8 percent to $122,410,000 compared to $95,803,000 for the same period last year, reflecting the addition of $24,291,000 of incremental sales from our recent acquisition of the PUR water filtration business on December 30, 2011.

Net income for the fiscal first quarter was $23,472,000, or $0.74 per fully diluted share, compared to $24,605,000, or $0.78 per fully diluted share, in the prior year first quarter, a decrease in net income of $1,133,000 or 4.6 percent.

Consolidated gross profit margin as a percentage of net sales revenue for the fiscal quarter ended May 31, 2012 decreased 0.1 percentage point to 40.4 percent compared to 40.5 percent for the same period last year. Our consolidated gross profit margin was unfavorably impacted by the effects of foreign currency exchange rates on sales, increased air freight costs incurred in the Personal Care segment, higher closeout sales in the Housewares segment and general product cost increases across all segments. These unfavorable impacts were mostly offset by the PUR water filtration acquisition.

Selling, general and administrative expense as a percentage of net sales revenue increased by 0.8 percentage points to 30.0 percent for the three months ended May 31, 2012 compared to 29.2 percent for the same period last year. The factors that contributed to the increase in SG&A include additional advertising spending, transition service fees incurred in connection with the PUR acquisition, higher depreciation as a result of an upgrade of our enterprise resource planning system, higher amortization as a result of the PUR acquisition, the impact of revaluation losses from foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations, and higher incentive compensation expenses under new performance compensation arrangements.

Operating income for the fiscal first quarter was $31,148,000 compared to $30,654,000 in the same period last year, an increase of 1.6%. EBITDA without share-based compensation for the fiscal first quarter was $41,846,000 compared to $38,253,000 in the same period last year, an increase of $3,593,000 or 9.4%. The increases in operating income and EBITDA without share-based compensation reflect the impact of the PUR acquisition and organic growth in the Housewares segment and the Healthcare/Home Environment core business.

Net income and earnings per fully diluted share were unfavorably impacted by a year-over-year increase in tax expense of $1,624,000, to $4,387,000 for the fiscal quarter ended May 31, 2012, which equates to 15.7 percent of pretax earnings compared to 10.1 percent for the same period last year. The increase in tax expense is due to an increase in the proportion of taxable income in higher tax rate jurisdictions, resulting primarily from the Kaz and PUR acquisitions.

Read the rest here:
Helen of Troy Limited Reports Record Net Sales Revenue And Record Operating Income For The First Quarter Of Fiscal 2013

One of the most memorable medals from the 1992 Barcelona Olympics wasnt actually issued until 16 months later. On December 6, 1993, Sylvie Frchette received the synchronized swimming gold medal shed initially been denied because of an error entering a judges score.

Sylvie Frechette with her silver medal which was eventually upgraded to gold. (The Canadian Press) It was a long-awaited gold for Frchette, and one made even more special by the tough circumstances she battled through to claim it; she lost her grandfather a few months before the Olympics, and her fiance and business manager, Sylvain Lake, committed suicide in their shared condo just a week before the Games. Frchette somehow managed to fight through those personal tragedies and give the performance of her career in the Barcelona pool.

Yet, that wasnt even enough at first. Frchette turned in a strong performance in the preliminary round of the solo competition, and she was rewarded for it with judges scores ranging from 9.2 to 9.6 all except one. That score, a shockingly low 8.7 for one of Frchettes compulsory scores from Brazilian judge Ana Maria da Silveira Lobo, stood out not just as an outlier, but as an accident.

Da Silveira Lobo had meant to give Frchette a 9.7, but misentered the score, pressed the wrong button when she tried to change it and couldnt explain what went wrong to the Japanese assistant referee, making the score permanent. Protests from the Canadian team were ignored, and that put Frchette at a huge disadvantage heading into the final. It didnt dissuade her from putting on an incredible show, though.

Despite Frchettes remarkable performance in the final round, the inadvertent preliminary 8.7 meant she finished second behind American swimmer Kristen Babb-Sprague. Even with her taking the still-impressive silver medal, it must have seemed like the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune were still dragging her down. Frchette had a powerful ally in her corner, though, and that led to a remarkable ending to her 1992 Olympic odyssey.

That ally was Dick Pound. Long before he was the head of the World Anti-Doping Agency and embroiled in countless conflicts with figures from sports ranging from hockey to cycling, Pound was a major Olympic power broker. He competed for Canada in swimming at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, then went on to several prominent roles with the Canadian Olympic Committee and eventually became its president. Pound was elected to the International Olympic Committee in 1978 and went on to take some of its most prominent roles, including negotiating the television and sponsorship deals that were crucial to making the Olympics the modern sporting force they are.

He was an IOC vice-president at the time of the 1992 Games and was soon to be seen as the front-runner to succeed president Juan Antonio Samaranch (that job eventually went to Jacques Rogge). It was no secret that Pound was one of the most influential figures in the IOC, and he put that influence to work to get Frchette the medal she had been robbed of by a technical judging mistake.

After 16 months, those efforts paid off. The international swimming federation, FINA, gave their blessing to awarding Frchette a gold medal, and the IOC eventually concurred. She finally put the long-awaited gold around her neck on December 6, 1993 in front of 2,000 supportive fans at the Montreal Forum. It wasnt the end of the line for Frchette, who made a remarkable comeback after two years away from the sport and was part of the Canadian synchronized swimming teams silver medal at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, but it was an amazingly upbeat finish to her tragedy-marred odyssey.

Whats perhaps most interesting about Frchettes story is the precedent it set. The IOCs decision to admit to a judging error and give Frchette a gold medal was a remarkable one; it meant Babb-Sprague was allowed to keep the initial gold she picked up in Barcelona, and both are considered gold medalists in the official books. Its a difficult situation to deal with, as downgrading a gold-winning performance 16 months after the fact would also be problematic, so the organization chose to attempt to rectify their mistake by boosting the athlete hurt by it without diminishing the one who benefited from it (a different approach from the one the IOC had taken in cases of positive drug tests, such as the 1988 one that saw the 100-metre gold medal stripped from Ben Johnson and given to Carl Lewis).

Whether one views the move to offer dual gold medals as laudable or disingenuous, its almost official IOC policy now, and has come up in subsequent Games, most famously when Canadian figure skaters Jamie Sale and David Pelletier were awarded gold medals after the fact (to join the original winners, Russians Yelena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze) in the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics following a significant judging controversy.

The rest is here:
Sylvie Frechette's long wait for the gold she deserved

Spencer Platt/Getty Images; SAUL LOEB/AFP/GettyImages

Economic discontent and substantial dissatisfaction with Barack Obamas performance in office are keeping Mitt Romney competitive in the presidential race but not by enough of a margin to overcome Obamas stronger personal profile. The result: A dead heat in voter preferences at the midsummer stage, with the prospect of an epic battle ahead.

While most Americans continue to disapprove of Obamas handling of the economy, thats not his only problem. More than half fault him on health care and immigration as well. Sixty-three percent say the countrys headed in the wrong direction, an unhelpful view for an incumbent. And among groups, hes losing swing-voting independents by a record 14 percentage points.

See PDF with full results, charts and tables here.

Yet Romney faces significant challenges of his own in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll. His supporters are more apt to be against Obama than explicitly for Romney a negative vote that can be less compelling than an affirmative one. His supporters are less strongly enthusiastic than Obamas. While Obama is vulnerable on the economy, Romney is weakly rated on having offered a clear economic plan. And Obama leads on a range of personal attributes empathy, standing up for his beliefs and, especially, basic likeability.

Obama also continues to prevail in expectations: Despite his troubles, this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates, finds that Americans by 58-34 percent expect him ultimately to defeat Romney and win a second term. Thats Obamas best on this gauge to date (previously measured against the Republican nominee), a sharp difference from last October, when, with economic discontent at a higher pitch, 55 percent thought Obama would lose. Today, even among Romneys supporters, a quarter think Obama will win.

With a 47-47 percent Obama-Romney contest among registered voters, the overall results point to a sharply defined race: On one hand Obama, the more personally popular candidate, with a larger and more energized partisan base, yet weak performance scores; on the other Romney, his opportunities to capitalize on Obamas vulnerabilities complicated by his difficulties in capturing the publics imagination.

Helpful to Obama, given the economy, is the fact that in deciding their vote, Americans by 51-33 percent are focused more on what hed do in his second term as president than on what hes done in his first. Among registered voters who are more concerned about what Obamas done so far, Romney leads by 18 points, 55-37 percent. Among those more focused on what hed do if elected to a second term, by contrast, Obama leads by 59-36 percent, a 23-point margin. It marks why hes trying to point ahead (Forward is the campaign slogan); Romney, back.

ROOM Theres room to move: One in five of Romneys current supporters, and one in six of Obamas, say theres a chance they could change their mind and support the other candidate. Very few, though, say theres a good chance they could shift a mere 4 percent of Obamas supporters, 8 percent of Romneys.

That suggests that more than changing minds, the contest likely is to be about motivating turnout and here Obama has an edge. Among registered voters, half of his supporters (51 percent) are very enthusiastic, vs. 38 percent of Romneys. It can matter: Strong enthusiasm is a measure on which Obama crushed John McCain in 2008, and on which George W. Bush beat John Kerry in 2004. Still, while lagging, Romneys strong enthusiasm has improved by a dozen points since spring.

Link:
Dead Heat for Obama, Romney in Voter Preferences

Its been a rough couple of weeks for Hollywood good guys, who now number three fewer as a result of the recent deaths of 71-year-old Nora Ephron, 86-year-old Andy Griffith, and -- earlier today -- 95-year-old Ernest Borgnine. While the death of a 95-year-old isnt shocking to anyone, the death of this particular one is certainly saddening to me because of who he was and what he represented, in terms of both the history of American cinema and my own life.

Ermes Effron Borgnino was one of the greatest character actors to ever grace the big or small screen. The son of Italian immigrants, he was literally a walking contradiction. He was a giant of a man, with a face only a mother could love -- big eyes, big nose, and big gap-toothed smile, all attached to a hulking body -- but, as anyone who ever crossed paths with him at any point in his life attests, he also possessed the gentlest of souls. (To get a great sense of what a lovely guy he was and how much he liked people, check out the 1997 documentary Ernest Borgnine on the Bus.) Once he decided to try acting, for lack of a better idea, at the age of 28, it was this very dichotomy that enabled him to vibrantly bring to life, for multiple generations, as wide an array of characters as anyone in his profession.

He played mean-spirited tough guys in From Here to Eternity (1953), Johnny Guitar (1954), Bad Day at Black Rock (1955), and The Wild Bunch (1969), and a sensitive bachelor who struggles to find love in Marty (1955), for which he won a best actor Oscar. He played a stern but lovable skipper on the comedic TV series McHale's Navy (1963-1966), and also semi-retired superhero on the animated TV series SpongeBob SquarePants (2008-2011). He played a general in The Dirty Dozen (1967), a cabbie in Escape from New York (1981), and a feisty survivor in the disaster films The Flight of the Phoenix (1965) and The Poseidon Adventure (1972). In short, he could play just about anything.

I first learned about Borgnine, who happened to be a fellow Connecticut native, when I was almost 15 years old and my father brought home a VHS of Marty, the movie that had won the best picture Oscar back when he was 15 years old, and which he remembered enjoying. My younger siblings and I, like most kids, had no interest whatsoever in an old black-and-white movie -- with so much dialogue and so little action it couldn't possibly be good, we reasoned -- but, on that particular night, my father pleaded so hard with us to watch it with him that we didn't have the heart to say no. I'm very grateful that he did, because even though I didn't love the film (I was far too young to fully appreciate it), I also didn't dislike it, and it opened my mind to the possibility that classic movies might not be so bad, after all. In fact, it was just a short time later that I came across a list of the 100 greatest movies of all-time and decided to try to make my way through the selections just for the heck of it, a project that quickly evolved into an irrepressible love affair with film history that set me on the course of doing the very thing that I do for a living -- and, yes, still for pleasure -- today.

You can therefore imagine how cool it was for me that I got to speak with Ernest Borgnine -- or "Ernie," as he insisted that I call him -- on a number of memorable occasions in recent years.

When I was still in high school, I started interviewing as many key players from film history as I could convince to speak with me for what I intended -- and still intend -- to be a book about old movies for young people. My stated objective was to help to keep those movies, and interest in them, alive and well for generations to come, which is something that a considerable number of stars were willing to help me to try to do. One of the first people who I managed to contact, and who was kind enough to agree to speak with me, was Borgnine. Another actor had given me his home telephone number and told me that he was sure that he wouldn't mind speaking with me, so I called him up one afternoon after school, and he couldn't have been more gregarious. He listened to my spiel, and then told me that he would be very happy to be interviewed by me if I called him a few days later, on Saturday morning, at 8 a.m.

Thrilled by this big "get," I spent hours and hours preparing for the interview -- watching and re-watching his films, reading other interviews he had given, and writing out provocative questions -- and eventually came to feel fairly confident that it would all turn out well. On the appointed day, at 8 a.m., I called Borgnine again. When he answered the phone, sounding disoriented and bewildered, I just assumed that he had forgotten that I would be calling him, so I said, "Hi, Mr. Borgnine, it's Scott Feinberg. How are you?" After a bit of a pause and then some stuttering, he replied, "My boy, do you know what time it is?" My heart sank. I realized that, in my excitement about the interview, I had somehow just assumed that Borgnine was in New York, not Los Angeles, and was therefore operating on Eastern Standard Time just like me. It was now clear to me that he wasn't. I was mortified, quickly tried to explain the mistake, and then hung up. He was very nice about it all, but when 8 a.m. PST finally came around three hours later, I just didn't have the nerve to call him back.

Flash-forward a number of years to September 26, 2008, my first day on the job as a blogger about the film industry, generally, and the awards season, specifically, for the Los Angeles Times. I was very excited about this new opportunity, but also very nervous about proving that I deserved it and, most importantly, deserved to retain it. Fortunately, my first day on the job provided me with a perfect opportunity to do just that: film great Paul Newman passed away unexpectedly, and I quickly set to work figuring out which old movie stars I had in my Rolodex who had some sort of a connection to Newman. Within an hour, I had reached out to -- and gotten some great quotes for a post from -- the actress Patricia Neal, who won an Oscar for her performance opposite Newman in Hud (1963), the actor Cliff Robertson, who studied with Newman at the Actors Studio (and eventually won an Oscar of his own), the actor Mickey Rooney, one of the legendary elders of the industry who knew and admired Newman, and, yes, Ernest Borgnine, who worked with Newman in When Time Ran Out (1980).

When I called Borgnine that day, I didn't mention that I was the same guy who had once awakened him at 5 a.m. (I was too embarassed), but just told him that I was a reporter who hoped that he might have a memory or thought to share, and he was very happy to oblige. Because he was so friendly and helpful, I took the liberty of contacting him for quotes on several other occasions over the years between then and now, during which my own career has taken me from the Los Angeles Times back to my personal website and now to The Hollywood Reporter, and he was always lovely.

The most memorable of those exchanges came when Joe Mantell, the great character actor who earned a best supporting actor Oscar nomination for his memorable performance as Marty's best friend Angie opposite Borgnine in Marty, passed away in 2010 at the age of 94. Mantell's family, whom I had gotten to know a little while trying to schedule an interview with Mantell, shared the sad news with me before virtually anyone else, and asked me to help get the word out to the press. I did so, and also decided to call up Borgnine. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I felt that, in this case, it would be no worse, and would perhaps be better, if he learned it from me rather than reading about it in the newspaper -- assuming a newspaper would even cover it.

See the rest here:
Ernest Borgnine (1917-2012): A Personal Remembrance and An Unforgettable Interview

APPLETON, Wis. - Miller Electric Mfg. Co. introduces new digital controls and new headgear for its Arc Armor Digital Elite(TM), Digital Performance(TM) and Digital Pro-Hobby(TM) Series auto-darkening welding helmets. The all-new digital controls make it easier for the welder to adjust shade, delay and sensitivity - even when wearing gloves - compared to previous digital and analog designs. The Digital Performance and Digital Pro-Hobby product lines replace previous product designs that only featured analog controls.

The new headgear is designed to increase comfort, is substantially easier to adjust to personal preferences than previous models and has been tested to withstand the rigors of daily use. The headgear conforms to the user's head and offers more flexibility with six points of adjustment. The integrated comfort cushion mounted on the back of the headgear further ensures a secure and sturdy fit.

"The updates to our full Arc Armor line of digital auto-darkening welding helmets makes settings and adjustments much more intuitive, with easy manipulation and clear markings on the control panel," said Eric Sommers, product manager, Miller. "The updated headgear is more flexible, more durable and the welder is more comfortable for longer periods of time. Whether welding all day for work or on the weekends in your home garage, the new upgrades ensure maximum comfort, productivity and performance."

The updates also include the introduction of two new female-inspired graphic designs: Fury(TM) and Illusion(TM). These are the industry's first large-window professional-grade helmets with graphics for women.

"Personal identity is very important to welders," said Sommers. "While we see women wearing our current graphic designs, we've heard many requests to create designs with more of a feminine appeal. These two new designs are our first steps in that direction."

The full line of Arc Armor digital helmets comes with a new three-year warranty that matches the longest warranty in the industry for a welding helmet.

"Welders can take comfort in knowing the helmets will provide long lasting performance in addition to enhanced functionality and comfort," said Sommers.

Product links MillerWelds.com Product Page New Digital Elite Series Video Overview New Headgear Video Overview

Additional product information The Arc Armor line of digital auto-darkening welding helmets offers something for welders of all skill levels and applications:

Digital Elite Series: These helmets feature four operating modes: weld, cut, grind and x-mode. X-mode eliminates sunlight interference and low-amperage lens opening caused by obstructed views. The helmet features a nine-square-inch viewing area and four independent arc sensors for maximum viewing and dependable lens response. An auto-on/auto-off feature triggers the lens immediately upon arc strikes, ensuring protection and saving batteries when not in use. Digital Elite Series helmets offer variable shades #8-13 for welding (including in x-mode), #5-8 for cutting, and light state #3.5 for grinding. TIG rating: 5 amps.

See the rest here:
Welding Helmets offer digital controls, ergonomic headgear.

SUNNYVALE, Calif., July 9, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --Ruckus Wireless today announced that Atlantic Aviation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Macquarie Infrastructure Company,has selected and deployed its Smart Wi-Fi products and technology at the company's 65 fixed base operations (FBOs) at general aviation airports across the United States. Based in Plano, Texas, Atlantic Aviation operates the largest network of FBOs in the country.

The new Wi-Fi infrastructure was built to provide high-capacity, high-performance Wi-Fi to users of its FBOs, including pilots, private aircraft users and visitors.

Atlantic Aviation provides a variety of aviation services to its FBO locations such as concierge services for private aircraft owners and pilots, as well as luggage handling, fueling, and food service. Because its clients are primarily business executives and high-worth individuals, Atlantic Aviation required reliable, high-performance Wi-Fi for guest access as well as to streamline the efficiency of its operations.

"Our clientele is demanding and expects both quality and speed when it comes to pretty much everything. Wi-Fi is no different," said Joel Collins, project management office manager for Atlantic Aviation. "Wi-Fi access is an essential part of using our operations especially since private aircraft owners and their guests carry multiple wireless-only devices when they're at one of our locations.

"We'd had nothing but problems with Wi-Fi for years, and it had become the number one complaint we were receiving," continued Collins. "The challenge was how to implement consistently high-quality Wi-Fi across all of our locations and also provide coverage outdoors on the actual runways without placing too many demands on IT staff at our headquarters."

Atlantic Aviation Gets Its Wings with Smart Wi-Fi

The company's previous Wi-Fi infrastructure was mediocre at best, according to Collins. "The technology was inconsistent from location to location, which caused performance issues at nearly all of the sites and made it difficult to manage."

After a rigorous RFP process, Collins' team chose Blueprint RF to install and manage the network. Blueprint RF's proposal was for an upgrade to a higher performance, high-capacity network powered by Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi technology and products. Blueprint RF handled the deployment and now manages Atlantic Aviation's Wi-Fi infrastructure.

"Given the compelling price/performance and range of coverage Ruckus delivers, there's wasn't a lot of debate," said Ron Peterson, Blueprint RF CEO. "Because of the ever-changing nature of the environment at every FBO site, Ruckus' adaptive antenna technology was the best to address Atlantic Aviation's needs. The performance is very impressive."

Built with its patented adaptive antenna array, the Ruckus ZoneFlex system is designed to overcome the physical and technical challenges of delivering high-capacity, high-performance access to indoor and outdoor areas which are prone to interference or which pose physical barriers to signal penetration for seamless connections. By focusing and directing Wi-Fi signals over the best signal path, the ZoneFlex system is the only one on the market that automatically avoids interference to ensure consistent performance and high throughput.

The rest is here:
Atlantic Aviation Upgrades to Higher Performance Wi-Fi at General Aviation Airports Across the United States

OLeary flying high as personal taxi service firm remains profitable

By Gordon Deegan

Monday, July 09, 2012

Tillingdale Ltds financial performance last year may not be enough to persuade Michael OLeary to leave the airline business anytime soon, but the Ryanair bosss taxi firm remains profitable.

The firm provides a personal taxi service to Mr OLeary and the figures show that its accumulated profits increased by more than 7% from 582,637 to 624,144 last year.

Mr OLeary and his wife, Anita, are Tillingdale Ltds directors and the firm provides a taxi service for Mr OLeary to his workplace at Ryanairs Dublin Airport headquaraters from his home in Mullingar.

Mr OLearys purchase of a taxi plate sparked outrage and amusement in 2003, allowing the Ryanair chief executive to travel to work on the 174km round trip in taxi and bus lanes.

However, the enterprise is perfectly legal as long as Mr OLearys journeys are metered and the vehicle has a driver present.

The company established in 2000 and which also provides horse breeding services is wholly owned by the OLearys.

Tillingdales cash decreased from 813,197 to 547,218 in the 12 months to the end of August last year. But, in spite of the drop in cash, the firms balance sheet strengthened with net assets increasing from 582,640 to 624,147. This followed a large drop in the companys creditors, decreasing from 482,162 to 204,590.

See the rest here:
O’Leary flying high as personal taxi service firm remains profitable

PALO ALTO, CA--(Marketwire -07/09/12)- HP (HPQ) today expanded its all-in-one desktop PC portfolio with business and consumer designs that deliver multimedia-rich performance, trusted reliability and enhanced security in a small footprint.

The new all-in-ones are designed as cost-, space- and energy-efficient alternatives to a traditional desktop and monitor combination for consumers and businesses, including government, healthcare, education and retail customers. The new lineup also includes touch-enabled solutions for businesses, building on 30 years of touch-technology innovation for convenient and intuitive computing.

"Customers have been asking for all-in-one PC designs that do not compromise on performance, reliability or security," said Emilio Ghilardi, vice president, PC Division, Americas, HP. "With these sleek, elegant designs and powerful options, HP continues to innovate to meet the needs of a growing marketplace."

Products announced today are:

"All-in-one PCs are expected to grow in popularity, accounting for 27 percent(1) of worldwide desktop PC sales by 2016," said Danielle Levitas, group vice president, IDC. "In a recent commercial PC buyer study in the United States, IDC found that the purchase intent for all-in-ones was up across the range of small to large businesses. This trend puts vendors with a broad offering of all-in-one products and options -- like HP -- in a very good position to meet that growing commercial demand."

Smart designs for accelerated business efficiency The HP Compaq Elite 8300 All-in-One Business PC, HP's most powerful and multimedia-rich all-in-one PC, provides demanding enterprise users with proven performance and the option for intuitive touch experiences. An attractive, space-efficient solution ideal for customer-facing work areas, kiosks and more, the PC features a 23-inch diagonal, full high-definition (HD)(2) display with an optional built-in 2-megapixel (MP) webcam and dual microphone array. SRS Premium Sound PRO also comes standard for high-frequency definition in a variety of listening environments.

Powered by third- and second-generation Intel Core vPro processors(3, 4) that provide outstanding performance, the HP Compaq Elite 8300 All-in-One offers Intel HD Graphics or a choice of discrete graphics to enhance imagery and multimedia capabilities. Intel Smart Response Technology disk cache solution(5) also delivers a level of performance normally associated with solid state drives, while retaining the data-storage capacity of today's large hard disk drives.

With its added touch functionality, the HP Compaq Elite 8300 Touch All-in-One employs multitouch, optical technology for interactive healthcare, retail and other applications. The multitouch technology recognizes simultaneous input from two fingers to enable the use of gestures, and the onboard suite of HP touch-enabled software provides interaction with files, media and productivity applications.

The HP Compaq Elite 8300 Touch All-in-One provides a solution for healthcare patients to conveniently enter personal data and for students to stay engaged. Both of the space-saving HP Compaq Elite 8300 models also feature VESA-compatible mounting,(6) which allows retail business to save valuable floor space and lets manufacturing facilities deploy systems in easily accessible areas without cluttering work space.

The HP Compaq Pro 6300 All-in-One Business PC is a mainstream business-class all-in-one designed for reliable and consistent computing. The non-touch PC sports third- and second-generation Intel Core processors(3) with optional discrete graphics for solid performance and simple manageability for growing business environments, including government organizations. It offers a 21.5-inch diagonal, full HD,(2) LED-backlit display, internal stereo speakers and optional 2MP webcam.

View post:
HP Expands All-in-One PC Portfolio, Offering Businesses and Consumers Performance, Reliability and Security