Sure Horizon

Archive for December, 2010

When you create a store on ebay it is automatically assigned the standard template available through the site. Most one-type or casual sellers find that this is more than adequate for their needs. Those who plan to operate their store as a real business or even a regular hobby will want to invest more time and money in creating a customizable store design. There are several companies that provide ebay shop design services and templates for just this purpose.

While many of these are based on a template, they should be fully customizable. The purpose is to create an identifiable brand within the ebay environment. Any design should be capable of supporting not just a store logo, but also to match the colors and overall “look and feel” of an existing business or to create an identity for a new business. Branding is vital to building repeat customers and for fueling customer referrals.

When designing a shop, sellers should focus on the user experience. They need to make it as easy as possible for visitors to find the products they are interested in buying and sellers want to make those products as appealing and attractive as they can. A good shop design will provide detailed product information and the ability to tie related products together for the purpose of cross promotion. Good search and navigation elements are also important.

Sellers need to remember that attention spans on the web are very short — and getting shorter all the time. A good design is going to catch the interest of a browser and make it as easy as possible for them to become a paying customer.

It is easy to look at big office buildings and sports arenas and think about all of the energy that they are using compared to your average size house. While they do use a lot of energy, it is all of the millions of homes combined that makes the difference. It’s easy to look the other and think that what you do in your one house doesn’t make a difference, but if we all have that attitude we’ll have a big problem. Fortunately there are some things that you can do around your house that will help the environment, save energy, and save you some money.

Heating and cooling are definitely among the most expensive and energy using aspects of your home. Installing a more energy efficient heating/cooling unit is a start. You can also install dual pane windows that help keep the cool air in and the hot air out (and vice versa during the winter months). To really eliminate your energy bill you can install solar panels. Although they can be expensive upfront, there are California solar power rebates . And they will pay for themselves over time.

However, not everything has to be extreme. Taking the time to turn lights off when you aren’t in a room and replacing light bulbs with CFL bulbs can also go a long way toward making your home more energy efficient and earth friendly.

The story of the very first measuring tape is lost somewhere in history. There’s no record of when people first realized that they could use a tape with marking on it to measure size, length, and width. By the eighteenth century tailors and dress makers in Europe were commonly using measuring tapes to design and fit garments to their customers. These cloth tapes with markings for inches, fractions of inches, and even feet, slowly became mainstream and women used these tape measures for home sewing projects.

By the nineteenth century the concept of tapes for measurements was adapted to carpentry. Unlike rulers and bulky folding rulers used by carpenters, tape measures could be wound up into a small coil. Credit for designing the first steel tape measure goess to Justus Roe & Sons of New York who began selling them in 1865 while the first spring tape measure was patented by Alvin Fellows of Connecticut in 1868. The steel construction allowed the tape to hold steady when measuring out longer distances for construction and the spring made it self-winding once the measurement was taken.

There was some resistance to these “newfagled” tools. Many carpenters stayed loyal to the traditional folding rulers for several decades. It wasn’t until the twentieth century that the spring loaded steel tapes became popular. Today while most homes have both sewing and carpentry measures, more and more homes are using laser measuring tools or tools that use ultrasonic technology to determining the distance between the reader and an end point.