Electrician Advises You to Unplug Your Electronics and Save Energy

In these tough economic times, saving money by any means can really help individuals and families. Unplugging electronics and appliances when they’re not in use can save money and it also helps to conserve energy. This is important for any family that is eco-conscious or that could use a few extra dollars at the end of the month. An electrician recommends unplugging all appliances and electronics when they’re not being used and the money saved might be more than you would think.Unplug It: Energy Savings Add UpMany people don’t realize just how much of their energy consumption is taking place when their appliances are plugged in but not in use. In fact, the government’s Energy Star program warns individuals that 40% of energy consumption is from appliances and electronics that are plugged in and not turned off. This translates to a huge portion of your electric bill and according to one Berkeley study; you could reduce your bill by 6% to 26%. In fact, most homes have approximately 19 appliances and electronic devices that operate on standby power. Typically, the larger the home is, the more energy there is that can be saved by eliminating standby power.Hunt Standby Power AppliancesYou don’t have to be an electrician to find energy savings in your home. Go through your home and write down the appliances and electronic devices that are always plugged in, even when they’re not in use. The most common “standby energy” appliances and devices are the cable and satellite dish, sound systems, gaming consoles, DVD players, computers, printers, televisions, lamps and coffee pots. Instruct the family to keep things unplugged until they’re ready to use them. You can track your energy savings by looking at your electric bill the month before unplugging and then the months after unplugging the items.Biggest Energy WastersWhile an electrician might warn you to unplug all of the appliances you’re using, there are some that waste more energy than others. For instance, computer printers in most homes aren’t used on a daily basis but they suck a lot of energy. Some use up to 11.5 watts when they are not in use. Televisions use a comparable amount of power in standby. Cable boxes can use double the amount of computer printers; up to 23 watts when not in use, but still plugged in. One of the biggest drains on your energy savings is the TiVo or similar devices, which can use up to 50 watts when the machine is off, but plugged in. By understanding the biggest energy wasters, you can really save energy by unplugging them.Energy Savings TimersTimers of all sorts are available to help you save energy and money in your home. Outdoor appliances and lights can be set with specific timers that withstand extreme temperatures and turn off items when they’re not in use. This includes flood lights, the hot tub, outdoor decorations and more. Indoor timers can be used on big appliances like the stove, washing machine and dryer. Smaller indoor timers can be used for lamps, lights and exhaust fans. These timers can be set for specific times so that the coffee pot can kick on in the morning or heat can turn on a few minutes before you get home from work. However, they keep appliances from sucking energy when they’re not in use or when you’re not home.

What Is Functional Fitness Training?

More and more people are signing up to gyms these days, but worryingly a lot of those people seem to believe that the quality of the gym they join depends more on the definition of the TV screens in the treadmills than any definition their torso might see from training correctly. It seems that in the Fitness and Leisure industry, far too much emphasis is being placed on the leisure rather than the fitness… but fortunately there is another option for those who truly want to improve, and more and more people are realising this: enter Functional Fitness Training.Now there are many Internet articles and threads that simply debate the definition of functional fitness training… this is not one of them. I understand that any training can be classed as functional depending on what you’re training for. For example if you’re job description includes a need to have to largest biceps in the world then yes, 2 hours of bicep curls a day could be classed as functional training.The goal here is not to argue the vagueness of the term, but to highlight the benefits, so for the purpose of this article functional fitness training will refer to an exercise or group of exercises that mimic, adapt and allow the improved performance of life’s daily tasks for the majority of people, with a reserve left for individual goals.Here a goal could be, and usually is, to improve quality of life outside the gym; that is to have an increased capacity for recreation and play, whether this be a grandmother having fun with her grandchildren, or a teenager playing football.Life’s daily tasks include movement in the 6 degrees of freedom, namely back/forward, up/down, left/right, roll, pitch, and yaw. Or more specifically to human movement, push/pull, jump/squat, step, twist, and bend. So functional training is training that seeks to improve as many of these movements as possible through one or a series of exercises. So consider functional fitness training defined… for this article at least!So, if there exists functional fitness training, does this mean some training is un-functional? The answer to this is a definite yes… and unfortunately it’s all around us, and we’ll be writing an article on the topic of un-functional training shortly, so hold tight.The many benefits of functional fitness trainingMuch of what goes on in gyms today is impossible to recreate outside of that environment. Functional fitness training allows you to develop strength in a controlled environment and then apply it to everyday life outside of that controlled environment.Many favorable improvements gained from functional fitness training are down to the amount of ‘fitness bases’ covered in any one session. Indeed in one movement you could be improving strength, coordination, balance, agility, accuracy, flexibility, endurance and stamina. There are very few activities that can produce an improvement in both neurological fitness (balance, coordination, agility, accuracy) and physical skills (strength, flexibility, endurance, stamina). This is achieved by using a large number of the body’s joints and muscles at once, training your body as one unit… (Your body was designed to be used like this!)Training your muscles to work together this way means more focus is on training movements rather than isolating individual muscles. Anytime you’re body is moving rather than remaining stationary you rely on dynamic balance as opposed to static balance, and dynamic balance requires a great deal of core stability amongst other things. Functional fitness training will only seek to further improve core stability and strength, which has the knock-on effect of improving most aspects of your moving life, in particular, improved intra-abdominal pressure, posture, and injury prevention. So, functional fitness training boasts numerous physiological benefits, but there is more to it than this…One of the most important aspects of functional fitness training is that it can be scaled to suit anybody’s level of ability. Intensity, duration, and resistance can be altered on all of the movements trained to match the individual levels of fitness and allow everyone, and anyone to get the most out of their training. On top of this, functional fitness training is constantly varied and is very often different every session, a trait that should be absolutely necessary in any fitness plan or schedule. The ability to not get bored with your training is a luxury that very few people training in conventional gyms have.Finally, and perhaps most importantly, is the return from your exercise investment that you get from functional fitness training. Your exercise investment includes the money you spend (on your gym membership, kit, nutrition, and travel) and the time/effort you put into your training. As alluded to earlier, for most people using conventional gyms the value is more in the luxuries and less in the fitness aspects, where as, when it comes to functional fitness training, the return you get is the increase in your capacity to enjoy your recreations and play having reached your goals. In short, it gives you an increased work capacity over all fitness domains, which means in any given time period you can do more of whatever it is you want to do. Essentially, functional fitness training is real fitness training!Healthiest Regards

How to Make Money Online Using Your SEO Skills?

Search engine optimization has grown as the best way to earn money online. Constant hard work and experience will count on for making money online. For promoting a website SEO has to perform a lot of tasks. You can initially start promoting the website by writing articles for them. Content writing is one of the best choice to increase the rating of your website. Choose the appropriate content and keywords. Keyword selection is very crucial as far as SEO is concerned. Increase the keyword density. The proximity of the chosen keywords should also be maintained. This can result in rapid indexing of that particular site.You can also write articles related to the business interest and submit to article directories. Always provide the link to your web-page in the articles. The anchor text should be placed in the content of the article and it should contain the maximum possible keywords. Always try to update your knowledge about the latest trends and practices in the online marketing industry and work accordingly. You can also create back links to your site that are relevant to your business and thus increase your earnings.There are a lot of tools that are available online that will help you to earn money by a professional SEO work. You can take the help of Keyword density checker, Page rank checker, Centro meta analyzer etc. You cal also check your score in Google webmaster central and also in the domain tools. You can also read the blogs of successful professionals in online marketing to enrich your knowledge and also to get new tips for your profession.