Archive: Business & Technology

ITHACA, NY - Cayuga Radio Group announced WOMEN’S EXPO 2008 Monday.  This year’s Expo will be held Thursday, May 8th from 4p.m. to 8p.m., at the TC3 Sports Complex in Dryden, NY.  Due to the success of last year’s event, which drew over 700 people, the new TC3 location will allow for an expanded event with more vendors and free parking.

This evening will include interactive exhibits, entertainment, wine tasting, and door prizes.  The Expo is free and open to the public.

(Ithaca, NY) In reaction to Wednesday's 2008 State of the State Address delivered by Governor Spitzer, Jean McPheeters, President of the Tompkins County Chamber of Commerce, stated, "New York State government must create policies to help business achieve real economic growth and the people of New York must hold the government accountable for delivering results.

"As I listened to the Governor's State of the State address today, I was pleased to hear the Governor articulate a strategy for upstate revitalization. Capital investment is absolutely critical and has been lacking for many years. The $1 billion Upstate Revitalization fund should be instrumental in helping us build our local economy.

(Ithaca, NY)  For decades, brötchen (pronounced "BRERT-khen") have been served in the finest coffee shops and coffee houses in Austria, Germany and other northern European cities.  For Michael Horzing, the owner of Ithaca's newest coffee shop Brötchen, cooking is the ultimate expression of life.   If you ask him, food is not only sustenance, but the meals we cook and the desserts we eat all contain history, art, culture, mathematics, science and, yes, even love.  A special ribbon cutting ceremony was held at Brötchen Thursday morning.

As a young child growing up with his grandparents in Austria, Michael's idea of good food and the love of home were always intertwined. Michael began his formal training in Vienna, Austria and continued in Rome, Italy where the love of great food is no less essential to life. There, Michael apprenticed in Alfredo Di Roma becoming fluent in the Italian language and cuisine.

Dr. DigitDr. Digit 'Splains It All

At the end of last year I wrote about my new MacBook and how a dyed-in-the-wool PC guy like me adjusted to it.  I had also been thinking for a long time about setting up a Linux computer, mostly for the geeky fun of it, but partly to try setting up a local version of the Lansing Star for testing purposes.  I haven't done that yet, but just before the holiday I did set up Linux on an old computer.

Linux is a popular version of Unix, the operating system that is used in the majority of Web servers, and, by the way, to power OS X on the Mac.  The Lansing Star and our various other sites are hosted on Unix based computers.  It is a command line system kind of like DOS -- yes, little black and white windows in which you type commands to make things happen.  It runs on the same computers Windows runs on, but uses far fewer resources and is far more secure.

In the old days, if you worked for a company, your retirement income would likely have been in the form of a pension, with the amount based on your income level and years of service. Apart from those factors, you had little control over the size of your pension benefits. That pension model is still around, but it's not as prevalent as it once was.

Today, many employers offer 401(k) plans, which give you the responsibility of choosing the right investment mix for your risk tolerance and retirement goals. Yet, along with their 401(k)s, many employers also provide some level of financial education - so you'll want to take full advantage of it.

Ithaca, NY (January 2008) –   Four RE/MAX IN MOTION Real Estate Agents have earned the respected RE/MAX Executive Club Award for leadership in their field.  To earn this award, agents must achieve a high set monetary amount in gross closed commissions.  This respected award is appointed by RE/MAX of New York Inc.   The 2007 recipients are:

• Barbara Blanchard, Licensed Broker Associate, GRI, of Trumansburg
• Marge Hovanec, Licensed Real Estate Salesperson, GRI, of Ithaca
• Michelle Miller, Licensed Real Estate Salesperson, of Aurora
• Amanda K. Ryen-Yowhan, Licensed Broker Associate, GRI, of Lansing

Since Windows Vista was released over the past year, it has caused more compatibility issues with its users than the previous XP version. Whether you bought a new PC with Vista installed or upgraded an old one running Windows-XP, something did not work right. Whether your printer, your favorite photo editing software, your gaming software and controller or even your email - Vista was intended to make your life a mess.

My colleagues in our IT department have given up and finally downgradeiMac for Business or Homed their PCs from Vista back to Windows XP. Like the latest Apple commercial with the PR lady - "they upgraded to an older way of new Windows experience". Many companies that have upgraded their systems to Vista have held off due to many glitches found since its release. Microsoft is now pleading with its business customers to give it another look.

Why take that chance?  Say Hasta La Vista to Windows and get a big screen iMac desktop.  Right out of the box - your new iMac is ready to go.

If you make a New Year's resolution, and you don't follow through on it, what are the consequences? It all depends. If you vow to learn French, but you never get past "Oui, mademoiselle," your life will probably go on pretty much as before (unless, of course, you're now living in France). But if you make some financial resolutions, and you abandon them, you could fall short of your long-term goals - such as a comfortable retirement.

Consequently, you'll want to set reasonable and attainable financial resolutions - and then discipline yourself to achieve them. What sort of resolutions might you make? Consider the following:

The Tompkins County Chamber of Commerce opened its expanded facility and Visitor's Center this summer that added 2000 square feet to the building.  The Chamber was in the news again when it honored Lansing businesswoman Julie Crowley's Ithaca Coffee Company was named the 2007 New Business of the Year, along with Warren Real Estate as the David R. Strong Small Business of the Year.

Meanwhile Lisa's Dream Salon opened at Lansing Plaza.  Sincredible Pasteries opened an amazing old fashioned kitchen, and Colonial Veterinary Hospital began constructing a two-storey 16,000 facility.

With its security paranoia and high resource usage Vista has people looking at alternatives, so Dr. Digit tried out a  Mac at the end of 2007.  Is it that Lansing has a lot of Mac users?  Or are a lot of PC users worrying about the problems Vista brings to Windows?  Whichever it was, a lot of readers read with interest our three part series on how a died in the wool PC guy adjusts to a Mac.  In January Dr. Digit will also review Ubuntu, a popular Linux package striving to rival Windows.

• Chamber of Commerce Building on Success
• Chamber Recognizes Outstanding Local Businesses
• Lisa's Dream
• Sincredible Pastries
• Colonial Veterinary Builds State of the Art Hospital
• PC vs. Mac  Part 1  Part 2   Part 3

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Dr. Digit 'Splains it AllDr. Digit 'Splains It All

	Did you miss the beginning of this series? Part 1 Part 2

Last week I talked about how I dealt with getting my MacBook to function in ways that I could live with after years of computing on PCs.  I'm going to wrap up this series with what I love and hate about my new Mac.

I loved two things when I turned it on for the first time.  There was a wizard that wanted me to tell it things about me.  It was short.  It only took a minute.  In Windows it takes a lot longer than that.  A LOT longer!

Read more ...

If you've even casually followed the news over the past several months, you've probably heard about "subprime loans." But the issue can be confusing, and if you're like most people, you really just want a couple of questions answered: How might these subprime loans affect the economy? And will I need to adjust my investment strategy?

To begin with, let's define subprime loans. Generally speaking, a subprime loan is a mortgage made to a borrower who might not otherwise qualify for a loan. Subprime lenders typically charged these borrowers higher interest rates, but some subprimes were adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs), which meant they carried a lower rate for the first few years of the loan. Many subprime borrowers took out ARMs, hoping their credit would improve enough for them to qualify for a better rate before the mortgage rate was adjusted upward. When this didn't happen, they were hit with higher payments and many faced foreclosure. Because many of these mortgages had been resold and then packaged into other financial vehicles, the bad loans hurt these investments.

Ithaca, NY (December 18, 2007) - Local RE/MAX Real Estate Agents Barbara Blanchard and Marge Hovanec have been named to the Top 100 individuals in Real Estate by transactions for 2007. This respected title is appointed by RE/MAX of New York Inc. Barbara and Marge were chosen out of a field of 2,110 RE/MAX of New York agents.