REALTORS® need to be masters of communication and to understand what their clients and colleagues are really trying to say. But negotiation is more than just words and tone. Real Simple takes a quick tour of what various types of body language reveal about the speaker.
Last week, we posted about recycling or selling old electronics after the holidays. But what happens after you take it to a recycling center? What actually is recycled and reused – and how? More often then not, they head overseas where lots of nasty things happen. Fresh Air had an interesting story (and audio podcast) giving the details on what happens to electronic waste in this country.
You may think you’re revealing precious little when you tell your Facebook friends that you’re dressing your pooch, Puddles, in your favorite color, red, for brunch at Grandma’s on Sunday. But you’ve actually just opened a Pandora’s box of risks. MarketWatch details What Your Facebook Profile May Be Telling ID Thieves.
“New Year, New You” is often heard this time of year. But what about your stuff? As you open your latest credit card bill, are you thinking of re-evaluating your material lifestyle? CNN suggests when trying to decide what’s important, pretend you’re moving overseas and need to get rid of most of your possessions. What would you keep? What would you junk? Living on less is not only easier, cheaper and less demanding, it also can free you from the trap of always having/wanting more:
Living this way isn’t about having nothing. It’s about everything in your life having value. It’s looking at all your belongings and knowing that you’ve given that thing permission to be there, that the item is truly adding value and beauty to your life.
Verizon announced this week that it’s getting the iPhone starting in February. Gizmodo says don’t buy it…yet. Some kind of an upgrade will probably be coming this summer. Let others be the beta testers for Verizon’s network.
Already have an iPhone? Looking to spruce up your iPhone photos on the fly? The Chicago Tribune highlights the must-haves.
Can watching a cute video of cats playing pattycake make you a better, smarter employee? Researchers at the University of Western Ontario have studied the effect of viral videos on mood and problem solving.
The results of the study, which were published in Psychological Science, the journal of the Association for Psychological Science, showed that the participants in the happy group were vastly better at discerning the pattern than those who were put into negative or neutral moods. Ruby Nadler, one of the study researchers and a graduate student at the University of Ontario, said the takeaway from this study was that positive moods are helpful in enhancing creative problem solving, while also promoting flexible and careful thinking.
Now back to work.
If your New Year’s resolution involves selling a home in 2011, you’ve got some work to do: There’s lots of inventory out there and in a buyer’s market like this one, getting an offer on a home can be challenging.
An interesting opinion piece in the New York Times this week on what would happen if the government got out of supporting 30-year mortgages via GSE’s like Freddie and Fannie. The author concludes it would almost certainly be the end of the road for the fixed-rate 30-year mortgage. And it would be harder to implement than it looks.
Was there a new smart phone under the tree for you this year? Feeling out of the loop when it comes to iPhone apps? New York Times technology writer Bob Tedeschi shares the Top 10 Must-Have Apps for the iPhone. And if you have a new Android or Blackberry, Gizmodo has its guide to How to Make that New Smartphone Actually Smart.
Now that you have a new phone, what do you do with the old one? With the U.S. generating over 2 million tons of electronics waste each year, many states have opted for recycling and safe disposal laws. Before you dump your old TV, computer or other equipment in the trash, know where your state stands. The Washington Post gives the scoop.
And if your old phone still is in working order, why not see if you can get some cash for it? Eric Gwinn of the Chicago Tribune has some suggestions for selling your old electronics. To get the most out of your sale, be sure you have the model number, smaller items sell faster and it’s best to include all the original manuals, box and disks.
And what about the Christmas tree? Lots of towns and communities now offer ways to recycle via local parks departments and such, but there are other more creative solutions. In Chico, CA you can donate them to the local goat farm where they will become a tasty treat. Or how about a new habitat for fish (good news for anglers).
Wrapping paper, boxes, broken ornaments – this is generally a heavy season for trash. Unless you’re the Johnson family from Mill Valley, CA. The generally have no trash and only minimal recycling each week. Longing for the simple life yourself? It sounds like a full-time job to me (could I even bring my own jars and containers to the local supermarket?), but Sunset has a slide show of how they do it.
