Hotels In Northern California - How To Sweat With Soul

Source      - http://news.yahoo.com/
By            - Brett Hoebel
Category  - Hotels In Northern California
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Hotels In Northern California

When it comes to fitness, if your routine is just about sets and reps, you can get lost in an emotionless rut and will find it harder to stay fit; you will just be sweating - without passion. 

To make fitness a real part of your life, you need to make a connection that requires both your body AND soul. Because if it connects with you emotionally and spiritually, you will do it with passion, you will do it more often and it will change your life ... every day.

Lost the Soul

Have you lost some of your passion, some of your fire? Between family and work obligations, do you find it hard to see yourself as the individual you are? Has doing things out of duty turned your fitness routine into a "duty," leaving you exhausted instead of energized after a workout?

It's time to make a deeper connection. I always say "getting fit is hard ... staying fit is harder." To stay fit, you have to have a real connection to what your body is doing, or you won't stick to it. It's not enough to "just work out" if you want to make this a part of your life for the long haul. Today, I want you to figure out what your soul is attracted to when it comes to fitness.

The type of connection and attraction I'm talking about is like falling in love - it will energize you, and you will feel part of it, invested. That's the kind of passion you can create for fitness - going beyond the workout to have an experience.

Beyond the Sweat

You can find exercise routines anywhere: from gyms and the Internet to the best and worst personal trainer. And when you get fixed on doing the same sets and reps, it's easy to lose the emotion and the experience. So how do you go beyond that? Movement. Music. Mantra.

When I integrate the right movement, music and mantra, I have a spiritual experience. It frees me from my problems, my stress, my pain. It's my salvation - it's my "medicine." You can tell because my head will be bowed, and my fist will be pumping.

The music hits me emotionally, I get goose bumps and my body has to move. The movement gives me a physical outlet for the emotion pouring out of me and connects my body with my mind. Then, finally, the mantra or the message starts to echo inside of me - it inspires me, it gives me something to reach for and brings clarity to why I am doing this.

I can feel the ascension begin and the connection between my body, mind and soul.

One of my passions is Capoeira, an Afro-Brazilian martial art that incorporates fluid movements, beautiful music and inspiring meanings and mantras. There is so much to Capoeira beyond the martial art - the unforgettable people and mentors, the Portuguese language, the Brazilian culture, the musical instruments, the singing. Capoeira goes beyond the sweat and feeds a part of my soul.

Another passion of mine is spinning. The right music matched with the physical act of climbing, cruising and everything in between creates an energy in the room that hits me in my gut and makes me feel alive. These feelings create the mantras and messages I give to my students - and myself. It's powerful, and it's changed my life.

You can't get a fitness "experience" on a piece of paper. It's about being vulnerable, digging deep and investing your mind, body and soul into what you're doing. It's the commitment that gives you more than you imagined. And the more you give, the more you get. 

How to Sweat with Soul

There are three things you'll need to sweat with soul: community, commitment and challenge. In Capoeira, these elements flow together like mixing paint for your canvas of life.

-- The Community

The community that follows Capoeira is also committed to learning the three instruments: berimbau, atabaque drum and pandeiro tambourine. We know the corridos folk songs, we share the Portuguese language, and we understand the history of Capoeira from slavery to the resurrection of the art in the 1950's.

-- The Commitment

I am committed to the Brazilian culture, which is an important piece of Capoeira. I travel to Brazil and other countries where Capoeira is popular because it helps me stay invested in the art, and that feeds my passion. It's a part of who I am, so I have to stay committed to being a part of what it is.

-- The Challenge

I stay motivated by constantly recognizing and experiencing my own limitations as well as seeing others' amazing talents. I still have much to learn, and this challenge keeps me motivated. Capoeira is a gift that keeps me striving to be better in many areas of my life.

We all need a little soul in our fitness and in our lives. For you, maybe it's a martial art, meditation, yoga, Zumba or even CrossFit. But whatever it is, don't let your fitness life go on without soul. Once you find it, don't let it go. Because the more you feed your soul, the better you will treat your body ... and the happier and more fulfilling a life you will lead.

Hotels In Northern California - Facebook Changes Privacy Settings For Teens

Source      - http://edition.cnn.com/
By            - Heather Kelly
Category  - Hotels In Northern California
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

 

Hotels In Northern California

Facebook is relaxing its rules for teenagers. The 13- to 17-year-old set now has the option to share photos, updates and comments with the general public on Facebook. That means strangers, and companies collecting data for advertisers and marketing companies, will be able to see select posts. Strangers will also be able to "follow" teens they don't know and see their public posts in the main news feed.

The changes will take effect immediately, the company announced in a blog post. The new setting might help Facebook compete against other social networks that skew younger, and having public data on teens will also help the company appeal to advertisers.

The social network is trying to balance the less strict settings with two other privacy protections. When new underage users sign up for a Facebook account, their posts will be shown to a more limited audience by default -- only to friends instead of friends of friends. If a teen decides to change the setting to Public, she or he will see a pair of pop-up warnings explaining what "public" means. One warns they could end up "getting friend requests and messages from people they don't know personally." Default settings for existing teens with profiles won't change or affect past posts.

Facebook has been around for more than nine years and stopped being a hip place for kids long ago when it was invaded by parents, grandparents and advertisers. It has 1.2 billion users. Even as it expands to all ages, the company has to work to hang on to the coveted teen demographic.

In a recent Pew study, teens reported "waning enthusiasm" for the social network, citing the presence of adults and drama. The site has become too important to typical teen life to abandon, so 94% of teens on social media have a Facebook account, and the average teen user has 300 friends.

Other social networks such as Twitter, Tumblr and Last.fm don't prevent teens from posting publicly. However, if someone under 18 wanted to bypass the setting on Facebook before today, they could easily lie about their age when signing up for an account. Children under 13 are not officially allowed to sign up for a Facebook account, though they can skirt the rules in the same way. When someone underage does sign up for an account, Facebook assumes they have the permission of at least one guardian but does not verify it in any way.

Hotels In Northern California - Apple iPad Mini With Sharper Display Faces Delay

Source      - http://finance.yahoo.com/
By            - Clare Jim and Reiji Murai
Category  - Hotels In Northern California
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Hotels In Northern California

Apple Inc will be unable to widely roll out a new version of the iPad Mini with a high-resolution "retina" display this month, people who work in the company's supply chain said, leaving the gadget without the sharper screen found on rival tablets from Google Inc and Amazon.com Inc.

Apple's supply chain is only now gearing up to make retina displays for the iPad Mini, which means the gadgets could be available in only limited quantities this year, if at all, and the company may miss the chance to cash in on the year-end holiday shopping season, the sources said.

Cupertino, California-based Apple has come under pressure to preserve market share and bolster sales against rivals that are rapidly raising specifications and lowering prices.

It remains unclear exactly what new features and modifications could find their way into the next iPad Mini, which the sources said was due to be unveiled this month.

But higher-resolution screens and cameras, as well as thinner and lighter dimensions, are among the improvements users have come to expect with updated smartphones and tablets.

"If they don't put in retina ... there will be howls," said Frank Gillett, an analyst with Forrester.

Apple declined to comment about any product launches and the sources at companies in Apple's supply chain declined to be identified due to the confidentiality of the matter.

DISPLAY DISAPPOINTMENT

Apple defines retina display as resolution that is detailed enough that the human eye can't detect pixelation.

The feature is available on some full-sized iPads, and similar resolutions are available on iPad Mini competitors such as Google's Nexus 7, as well as Amazon's seven-inch Kindle Fire HDX due to go on sale this month.

The reason behind the delays in manufacturing the retina display screens for the iPad Mini were unclear. One source at a supplier said there were delays in Apple's certification of panel producers, which were given strict power-saving requirements.

LG Display Co Ltd, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd's display unit and Sharp Corp all vied to manufacture the panels, supply chain sources said.

The three display makers declined to comment.

Given the time required to ramp up screen production, a retina display-equipped iPad Mini would not be available in large volumes until early next year, the sources said.

The sources expected Apple to either wait until early next year for a full-fledged launch of a retina display iPad Mini, or to make a retina version only available in limited quantities before the end of the year.

Apple has also told suppliers to reduce costs, two of the sources said, with one person saying the U.S. firm is looking at rolling out an iPad Mini with a smaller 8 gigabytes of memory.

Less memory may allow Apple to lower the price of the Mini to boost sales in emerging markets like China where cheaper tablets, many of them running Google's Android operating system, are gaining market share.

"Right now the iPad Mini is more expensive than everyone else in the 7- to 8-inch tablet segment," said Arthur Liao, an analyst for Fubon Securities in Taipei. "If it could reduce its price by even just $50, it would appeal to more consumers."

The iPad's total market share almost halved to 32.5 percent in the second quarter from a year ago, while Android devices, including Samsung's Galaxy series, gained nearly a quarter to 62.6 percent, a survey by tech research company IDC showed.

Amazon's new 7-inch Kindle Fire is priced from $229 for 16GB wifi-only models, while Google's second-generation Nexus 7 offers a similar screen size and storage capacity at the same price. By comparison, the cheapest model in Apple's current 7.9-inch iPad Mini lineup with 16GB storage size starts at $329.

Anyone expecting Apple to dramatically cut prices is likely to be disappointed, analysts said, pointing to the higher-than-expected price tag for the iPhone 5C unveiled this month.

"Don't expect the prices to be significantly lower," said one of the sources. "Even though Apple aims to cut down on component costs, it still ends up around the same as the current Mini because the new Mini will have upgraded specifications."

Hotels In Northern California - European Space Agency Wants to Send a Snake Robot To Mars

Source      - abcnews.go.com/
By             - JON M. CHANG
Category   - Hotels In Northern California
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Hotels In Northern California

Snakes are crafty animals. They can be found slithering in the desert, swimming in the ocean and even flying in the air. But how would they deal with another planet altogether? 

Researchers at the SINTEF Research Institute in Norway and at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology aren't planning to launch the legless reptiles on a spaceship, but they are using them as inspiration for a new type of Mars exploration robot. Aksel Transeth, a senior research scientist at SINTEF, along with some of his colleagues, are conducting a feasibility study for the European Space Agency, examining how a snake robot would fare on the red planet. 

"We started the study back in June and will finish sometime in December," Transeth told ABC News. The study is more like a written report than it is a series of experiments, he said. However, the ideas on paper could make its way into a prototype within a few months. 

Transeth primarily researches how to make snake robots more efficient on Earth in search and rescue missions. "Biological snakes can climb rocks and slide through small holes," he said. "Imagine if you could have a snake trained to find people in fallen down buildings." 

It's because of a snake's ability to get past almost any type of obstacle that makes it useful. Howie Choset, a professor of robotics at Carnegie Mellon University, said that there are many places that current rovers can't reach. "The snake robot could travel to cliffs and look underneath overhangs," he said. "It could find a crevasse, crawl down it and extract a sample, which itself could tell us how Mars evolved as a planet." 

But Choset, a snake robot researcher himself, said that getting to that stage is still a long ways away. "There are a lot of challenges that we still have to address," he said. "We're still having a hard time figuring out how to make these robots work in bumpy and highly confined spaces here on Earth." 

"It could tell us how Mars evolved as a planet."

At this point in the feasibility study, many aspects of the snake robot are still up in the air. Mars is colder and has less gravity than Earth, both of which could impact how the robot behaves. But one thing that Transeth is almost certain about is that the Mars snake would be a companion and not a robot left to explore the planet solo.

"It takes energy to get from point A to point B," said Transeth. "I think a tethered solution might work better so it doesn't need its own power supply. But this is just speculation." 

The ESA plans to send its own rover, ExoMars, in 2016 and 2018. NASA, while still working with Curiosity, is also planning to send another rover to Mars in 2020. 

While Choset is cautiously optimistic about how a snake robot would fare on Mars, he said that there is plenty left for it to do on Earth. "Other applications like archaeology and surgery ... these applications are less out of this world than Mars," he said. "I wish NASA were sending snake robots to Mars though!"

Hotels In Northern California - How And Why To Rid Sugar From Your Diet

Source      - http://news.yahoo.com/
By            - Rachel Pomerance
Category   - Hotels In Northern California
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Hotels In Northern California

Ask most people how they feel about grocery shopping, and they may talk about the supermarket they'll never set foot into, where it smells bad and the produce looks pitiful, or the sunny one with nice cuts of meat and good prices on children's cereal. But to Robert Lustig, a professor of clinical pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, the supermarket is something else entirely. It's ground zero in the fight for your life, where decisions between plain or flavored Greek yogurt, oranges or orange juice, and red kidney beans or Bush's Grillin' Beans mean the difference between sickness and health.

The last 30 years have seen an onslaught of sugar and dwindling of fiber in the food environment, a deadly combination for consumers who have been duped by the food industry, Lustig argues. He sounded this battle cry in his 2009 lecture, "Sugar: The Bitter Truth," which became a viral hit with nearly 4 million views on YouTube, and in his 2012 book, "Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity and Disease."

Now, he's putting his message in more practical terms, offering consumers a handbook for the supermarket with "Sugar Has 56 Names: A Shopper's Guide." An e-book that's meant to travel with shoppers on their smartphones or tablets, the guide, released this month, provides consumers with a new nutrition label for hundreds of processed foods that puts the spotlight on where it should be, he argues: sugar. From soy milk to sausage, and Sara Lee to supermarket brands, the data delineates the quality and quantity of sugar in products. Why the distinction? Because, as the book's title indicates, sugar goes by varied names - from fructose to fruit juice, and these derivatives differ greatly in how they're processed by the body.

"By paying attention to the sugar portion of the label people can do better in terms of making their own decisions," Lustig says. The current nutrition label falls far short of that, he says, noting that the label lacks a percent daily value for sugar, which makes it difficult for people to calculate how much is too much.

Meanwhile, added sugar has crept into the food supply in everything from bread to barbecue sauce, and often the ingredients are cloaked in curious names and orders. For example, products list ingredients according to quantity, but a product might include various forms of sugar as its fifth through ninth ingredients, which, when added together, render sugar worthy of the first listing. But by reading a nutrition label, you can't distinguish between a food's inherent and added sugar, the behemoth between you and good health.

At stake, Lustig argues, is less the issue of obesity than the risk of metabolic diseases, which includes diabetes, heart disease, fatty liver disease, cancer and dementia. And sugar, he says, is a big part of the problem.

More details about the interaction of food substances on our physiology are provided in the book - he also has a low-sugar, high-fiber cookbook slated for release next year - but he leaves readers with some overarching directives, like these six tips: don't go to the supermarket hungry; shop along the perimeter of the supermarket where fresh, whole foods abound; if it comes with a logo you've heard of, it's been processed; avoid anything "partially hydrogenated" ("it will outlive you," he writes); just because it says "whole grain" doesn't mean it is, but if it doesn't say whole grain it isn't; if sugar is listed among the first three ingredients, it's dessert.

What else? Start your supper with a salad free of sugary dressing to fill up on fiber-rich food. Skip the cereal and granola bars and make a fast, healthy breakfast by scrambling eggs or frying some bacon the night before. Let your kids pack their (dessert-free) lunch with items they choose so they're more likely to eat it.

For his part, there's "no such thing as a sugared beverage" in his home. "We have milk, we have water and occasionally we have some alcoholic drinks when we have friends over," he says. "There is no reason to drink your calories." To ensure sufficient fiber, the Lustigs have salad with every meal, which typically consists of a protein and green vegetables and whole-grain bread instead of white rice, pasta and potatoes. For dessert, it's whole fruit, except for weekends, when they treat their daughters, ages 8 and 14, to something "a little more elaborate," he says.

"We have to get back to dessert being once a week, not once a meal," Lustig says. As he writes, "Sugar is reward. Sugar is fun, but if every meal is fun, then no meal is fun. And I promise, you won't be having fun taking your insulin shots while you're on dialysis."

To change the food culture, and the food supply, he encourages consumers to vote with their mouths and wallets. "We, as a society, have to reduce availability, and we cannot do that right now without the food industry helping us do it," he says. "If you won't buy it, they won't sell it."

Hotels In Northern California - Study Shows Men Just As Likely To Be Depressed As Women

Source        - http://www.latimes.com/
By              - Melissa Healy
Category    - Hotels In Northern California
Posted By  - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Hotels In Northern California

Depression can look very different in men and women. And many of its hallmarks — rage, risk-taking, substance abuse and even workaholism — can hide in plain sight.

Now researchers say that when these symptoms are factored into a diagnosis, the long-standing disparity between depression rates in men and women disappears.

That conclusion overturns long-accepted statistics indicating that, over their lifetimes, women are 70% more likely to have major depression than men. In fact, when its symptoms are properly recognized in men, major depression may be even more common in men than in women, according to a study published Wednesday by the journal JAMA Psychiatry.

The findings help unravel a mystery that has long puzzled mental health authorities: If men are so much less likely than women to be depressed, why are they four times more likely to commit suicide?

"When it comes to depression in men, to some extent we have blinders on," said Dr. Andrew Leuchter, a psychiatrist who studies depression at UCLA. "We have not been asking about and taking into account a range of symptoms that may be gender-specific."

Health policy researchers from the University of Michigan and Vanderbilt University set out to test the feasibility of two new checklists that might diagnose depression in men as well as women with greater accuracy.

In addition to familiar depression symptoms such as sadness, difficulty sleeping, feelings of guilt or worthlessness and loss of interest in pleasurable activities, the researchers expanded the list to include anger attacks, aggression or irritability, substance abuse, risk-taking behavior and hyperactivity. They devised two scales — one designed to be gender-neutral and one tuned toward the way the disease manifests itself in men.

The researchers tested these diagnostic criteria in a group of nearly 5,700 American adults who had been interviewed as part of a long-term study of mental health organized by researchers at Harvard Medical School; 41% of the participants were men.

The results of the analysis were striking.

When assessed using the "gender inclusive depression scale" that included widely recognized depressive symptoms such as sadness and hopelessness as well as symptoms commonly seen in men, 30.6% of men and 33.3% of women were found to have experienced a depressive episode at some point in their lives. In research terms, that gap between men and women was so narrow it may have been a statistical fluke.

And when the subjects were evaluated with the "male symptoms scale," 26.3% of men and 21.9% of women were said to have experienced a major depressive episode in their lifetimes. That difference was large enough that it could not be due to chance, the researchers reported.

"Everything we think we know about depression is a reflection of how we defined it to begin with," Leuchter said.

That bias, he added, may have fostered the perception that depression is predominantly a "woman's disease" — and that men don't need treatment for emotional suffering.

Sigmund Freud, the father of psychiatry, portrayed depression as rage turned inward. But for many men today, depression's rage appears not so much directed at oneself as it is spat outward — at spouses, co-workers and friends.

While women may not feel shame in acknowledging their sadness and sagging self-esteem, mental health experts find that depressed men often respond to such feelings with actions that look like their opposite: They bluster and bully. They throw themselves into harm's way. They numb themselves with sex, drugs and endless workdays.

If the emotional pain of many men is to be understood for what it is, depression's definition should be expanded to include these "externalizing" symptoms — the opposite of "internalizing" symptoms that have long defined depression, some mental health professionals argue.

"These findings could lead to important changes in the way depression is conceptualized and measured," the study authors concluded.

If psychiatrists update their official diagnostic criteria to reflect these gender differences, that would be only a first step, Leuchter said.

Doctors, including primary care physicians who now diagnose most depression, would have to be educated to look for an expanded set of symptoms, he said. Researchers would not only need to understand how seemingly separate diseases such as substance abuse and depression relate to each other, they would also need to assess whether the treatments currently available — antidepressants and talk therapy — would help men with these symptoms, he said.

For men as well as women, the checklists now in wide use to diagnose depression may fail to capture the experience and language of the emotional distress they feel, said study leader Lisa Martin, a health policy studies professor at the University of Michigan.

Hotels In Northern California - Heavy Coffee Consumption Linked To Higher Death Risk

Source              - http://www.usatoday.com/
By                     - Cathy Payne
Category          - Hotels In Northern California
Posted By        - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Hotels In Northern California

The debate over coffee's health risks continues to brew. A new study, out Thursday, finds that heavy coffee consumption is associated with a higher death risk in men and women younger than 55.

In the study published online in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings, men younger than 55 who drank more than 28 cups of coffee a week (four cups a day) were 56% more likely to have died from any cause. Women in that age range had a twofold greater risk of dying than other women. The study looked at 43,727 men and women ages 20-87 from 1971 to 2002.

"From our study, it seems safe to drink one to three cups of coffee a day," says the study's second co-author Xuemei Sui. "Drinking more than four cups of coffee a day may endanger health," says Sui, assistant professor of exercise science with the Arnold School of Public Health at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. She defines a cup of coffee as 6 to 8 ounces.

The study did not find a higher death risk for adults 55 and older. Sui says there may be a bias — the research may not include unhealthy older people because they might have already died.

The reasons for the higher death risk among younger adults are not clear since experts through the years have found both health benefits and problems associated with coffee.

Sui says the caffeine in coffee can elevate heart rate as well as raise blood pressure and blood sugar levels. However, coffee is a major source of antioxidants, she says.

Sui says the study didn't find a significant association between coffee consumption and heart disease death. Further research is needed to look at any connection between coffee and cancer, she says.

Gregg Fonarow, co-chief of clinical cardiology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, says, "Differences in other dietary factors, marital status and other socioeconomic factors that were not adjusted for in this study may account for some or all of these observations."

Fonarow, who was not involved in this research, says observational studies that survey people about their coffee intake and tie that to how many died from any cause have yielded mixed results.

Consider a 2012 study that found that coffee drinkers ages 50-71 had a lower risk of death than their peers who did not consume coffee. In that study, researchers from the National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, and AARP found that the more coffee consumed, the more a person's death risk declined.

Joseph DeRupo, a spokesman for the National Coffee Association of USA, says the new study "presents findings that are out of step with prevailing science as well as with widely accepted research methods."

Because coffee still stirs debate, Sui says more research is needed. In the meantime, people should watch their coffee intake, she says. "Avoid excessive coffee drinking."

Hotels In Northern California - Samsung Brings Dual View Feature To OLED TV

Source - http://www.usatoday.com/
By - Mike Snider
Category - Hotels In Northern California
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Hotels In Northern California

The OLED TV competition is heating up.

Samsung has joined LG Electronics in offering the long-awaited organic light-emitting diode TVs. Samsung's new 55-inch curved display, priced at $9,000 (actually $8,999.99), is shipping to retailers and is also available to order on Samsung.com.

The TV and electronics maker, which, like LG, is based in South Korea, had originally priced the set to arrive in the U.S. at $15,000 — the same price as that of LG's curved OLED display that began arriving in stores last month. Samsung says it improved its manufacturing process enough to yield displays more efficiently and decided to drop the price, undercutting LG in the process.

While still pricey, the $9,000 price tag could help Samsung gain OLED market share, which, in turn, could lead to LG cutting its OLED price, says Richard Doherty of The Envisioneering Group. "It makes it easier to sell it to a spouse or put it on a credit card," he says. "I'm sure we'll see LG do something to bridge the gap or beat it."

Samsung's set has a unique MultiView feature that lets two people watch different programming simultaneously on the display while wearing 3-D glasses. "Some of us at Samsung call it 'the marriage saver' because my wife and I can be sitting on the couch watching two different programs on the same OLED TV," says David Das, vice president of home entertainment for Samsung Electronics America.

Each person has personal ear bud headphones built into the 3-D glasses (two pairs come with the set) that deliver individual audio streams to the viewer.

The half-inch thick display, like the new LG OLED TV, has a concave shape. "It actually mimics that of an arena or amphitheater," Das says.

Consumers have coveted OLED TVs since they first were shown more than five years ago, because the super-thin displays reproduce super-saturated colors, ultra-distinct blacks and whites and virtually no motion blur. But they have been hard to manufacture.

As few as 20,000 OLED displays may be shipped globally this year, estimates DisplaySearch analyst Ken Park. He expects that to grow to about 400,000 in 2014, before approaching 2 million in 2015. "Consumers may find it difficult to pay for hugely expensive OLED TVs, so volume will be limited until mass production is fully stabilized," Park says.

But OLED's promise remains because of the picture quality. "The images were very bright, well above what we've seen from any plasma TV, so you get an unparalleled contrast range that makes images pop off the screen," says Jim Willcox, senior electronics editor at Consumer Reports, who got to test the display.

Willcox calls the display "arguably the best all-around TV we've ever tested." He's looking forward to putting LG's competing curved display through its paces.

But because of the high price and difficulty of manufacturing, he says, "all OLED TV manufacturers face formidable challenges before these sets can become a mainstream choice for consumers."

Samsung also announced that retailers were now offering two new Ultra HD displays, a 55-inch model ($5,500) and 65-inch model ($7,500). Consumers could be overwhelmed by choice with new OLED and Ultra HD sets joining traditional big-screen flat-panel displays at retail, so Samsung will have detailed descriptions in stores.

"We feel that each of these technologies meets a certain consumer's needs," Das says. "Ultra HD offers the highest resolution, four times that of full HD; and in OLED, it is this amazing picture quality. It stops people in their tracks."

Hotels In Northern California - Android Jelly Bean 4.3 Shines On Nexus 7 But It’s No Key Lime Pie 5.0

Source - http://www.stableytimes.com/
By -  Jerry Miller
Category - Hotels In Northern California
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Hotels In Northern California

Android 4.3 shines as a medium sized update on the new Nexus 7, but it’s not the ‘droid most users were looking for. Android users will have to wait awhile for the Key Lime Pie 5.0 software update, as Google prepares to release yet another Jelly Bean update next week. As far as consolation prizes go, Jelly Bean 4.3 update is not a bad one. In fact when the beta build of 4.3 was first discovered it was thought to be Key Lime Pie based on the significance of what it brings to the table, until the code letters of its build name revealed it to be yet another Jelly Bean release. Now the question is just how many current Android phones and tablets will be compatible with 4.3 upon its release.

Android 4.3 will seek to improve upon that, with full compatibility with Google’s own new Nexus 7 next week. And if vendors are serious about moving beyond the fragmentation era, Samsung and HTC will announce that their Galaxy S4 and One, respectively, have also been built to be forward compatible with the new Jelly Bean release. But while which fraction of Android users will be able to take advantage of the 4.3 update is still in question, it does serve up a decent set of improvements for an x.x release. It’s just no Key Lime Pie, whose features are still unknown but whose 5.0 designation means it’ll bring a significant overhaul to the platform.

Hotels In Northern California - A Pregnant Pause: 8 Things Every Woman Should Know About PCOS

Source - http://shine.yahoo.com/
By - Babble.com
Category - Hotels In Northern California
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Hotels In Northern California

Are you having trouble getting pregnant? Do you have an onset of adult acne? Is your hair starting to fall out? Then you might just have some other signs of PCOS, too.

Polycystic (pah-lee-SIS-tik) ovary syndrome, commonly known as PCOS, affects as many as 5 million women in the United States. It is the result of a hormonal imbalance whereby the ovaries make more androgens than normal. Androgens are male hormones that females also make, and having higher than normal levels of these hormones affects the development and release of eggs during ovulation. In women with PCOS, mature eggs are not released from the ovaries, and instead become very small cysts inside the ovary.

I have PCOS. It was not until I had issues with infertility that it was discovered, but looking back the diagnosis makes a lot of sense. (That is a sentiment I have heard from several women who have it as well.) PCOS is actually the most common cause of female infertility. Since then I have come to know my own symptoms (such as severe pelvic pain) and take medicine to ease them.

 Symptoms of PCOS can vary, and while there is no known cure - there are several treatment options available. Here is what you need to know about PCOS:

1. Causes

There is no one known cause of PCOS. Experts theorize that genetics can play a factor, though in my case that theory does not hold true.

A woman's level and resistance to insulin may also play a role in causing PCOS. Experts have found that many women with PCOS have too much insulin stored in their bodies because they have problems using it. Too much insulin in the body seems to increase the production of androgen, thus starting the hormonal imbalance that is PCOS.

2. Reproductive Symptoms and Concerns

Because of the high levels of androgens in the body, PCOS can result in reproductive issues, such as:

• Cysts on the ovaries
• Problems with ovulation
• Pelvic pain
• Infertility
• Irregular or painful menstrual periods

3. Cosmetic Symptoms and Concerns

There are cosmetic symptoms of PCOS too, including:

• Acne or oily skin
• Weight gain, often around the waist
• Issues with hair, such as: dandruff, thinning hair or hair loss
• Excessive hair growth on the face, chest, stomach, back, thumbs, or toes
• Dark patches of skin on the neck, arms, breasts, or thighs
• Skin tags - excess flaps of skin in the armpits or neck area
• Weight gain, often around the waist

4. Pregnancy Symptoms & Concerns

Many women (like myself) are diagnosed when they have fertility issues. However, there can also be issues arising from PCOS during pregnancy, such as:

• Miscarriage
• Gestational diabetes
• Pregnancy-induced high blood pressure
• Premature delivery

5. Long Term Symptoms and Concerns

Some of the other serious, more long-term concerns associated with PCOS are:

• Anxiety or depression
• Sleep apnea
• Diabetes
• High blood pressure
• High cholesterol
• Endometrial cancer

6. Tests

There is no single test to diagnose PCOS. If you or your doctor suspects that you may have PCOS, he or she will look at any or all of the following:

• Medical history
• Physical exam
• Pelvic exam
• Blood tests
• Vaginal ultrasound (sonogram)

7. Treatment Options

Treatment options may vary depending on whether you are at an age or stage where pregnancy is an issue. Some people may also wish to treat the issues that happen as a result of PCOS, such as acne and hair loss.

Most healthcare practitioners will encourage following a healthy lifestyle, including:

• limiting processed foods and high sugar foods
• eating healthy meals with lean meats, vegetables and whole grains
• engaging in regular moderate-to-vigorous exercise

8. Other Treatment Options

Other treatments for PCOS may include:

• Birth control pills (for those who do not wish to be pregnant)
• Progesterone pills (such as Provera)
• Diabetes medications (such as Metformin, which is also known as Glucophage)
• Fertility medications (for those who wish to become pregnant)
• "Ovarian drilling" surgery (for those who wish to become pregnant who have not responded to fertility medications)
• Anti-androgen medicines (such as Spironolactone or Finasteride)

Again, please note that treatment options will vary from person-to-person and all treatment options should be discussed with a healthcare practitioner.

Hotels In Northern California - Late Nights 'Sap Children's Brain Power'

Source - http://www.bbc.co.uk/
By - Michelle Roberts
Category - Hotels In Northern California 
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Hotels In Northern California

The findings on sleep patterns and brain power come from a UK study of more than 11,000 seven-year-olds. 

Youngsters who had no regular bedtime or who went to bed later than 21:00 had lower scores for reading and maths. 

Lack of sleep may disrupt natural body rhythms and impair how well the brain learns new information say the study authors. 

They gathered data on the children at the ages of three, five and then seven to find out how well they were doing with their learning and whether this might be related to their sleeping habits. 

Erratic bedtimes were most common at the age of three, when around one in five of the children went to bed at varying times. 

By the age of seven, more than half the children had a regular bedtime of between 19:30 and 20:30.

Overall, children who had never had regular bedtimes tended to fare worse than their peers in terms of test scores for reading, maths and spatial awareness. 

The impact was more obvious throughout early childhood in girls than in boys and appeared to be cumulative. 

The researchers, led by Prof Amanda Sacker from University College London, said it was possible that inconsistent bedtimes were a reflection of chaotic family settings and it was this, rather than disrupted sleep, that had an impact on cognitive performance in children.

"We tried to take these things into account," said Prof Sacker.

The children with late and erratic bedtimes came from more socially disadvantaged backgrounds and were less likely to be read to each night and, generally, watched more TV - often on a set in their own bedroom.

After controlling for such factors, the link between poorer mental performance and lax bedtimes remained.

The findings are published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health

.

Prof Sacker said: "The take-home message is really that routines really do seem to be important for children.

"Establishing a good bedtime routine early in childhood is probably best, but it's never too late."

She said there was no evidence that putting children to bed much earlier than 19:30 added anything in terms of brain power. 

Dr Robert Scott-Jupp of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health said: "At first glance, this research might seem to suggest that less sleep makes children less intelligent, however, it is clearly more complicated than that.

"While it's likely that social and biological brain development factors are inter-related in a complex way, in my opinion, for schoolchildren to perform their best, they should all, whatever their background, get a good night's sleep."

Hotels In Northern California - Mandela's Health Worsens, Condition Now 'Critical'

Source - http://www.reuters.com/
By - Ed Cropley
Category - Hotels In Northern California 
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Hotels In Northern California

The worsening of his condition is bound to concern South Africa's 53 million people, for whom Mandela remains the architect of a peaceful transition to democracy in 1994 after three centuries of white domination.

A government statement said President Jacob Zuma and the deputy leader of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), Cyril Ramaphosa, visited Mandela in his Pretoria hospital, where doctors said his condition had gone downhill in the last 24 hours.

"The doctors are doing everything possible to get his condition to improve and are ensuring that Madiba is well looked after and is comfortable," it said, referring to him by his clan name.

Mandela, who became South Africa's first black president after historic all-race elections nearly two decades ago, was rushed to a Pretoria hospital on June 8 with a recurrence of a lung infection, his fourth hospitalisation in six months.

Until Sunday, official communiques had described his condition as "serious but stable" although comments last week from Mandela family members and his presidential successor, Thabo Mbeki, suggested he was on the mend.

Since stepping down after one term as president, Mandela has played little role in the public or political life of the continent's biggest and most important economy.

His last public appearance was waving to fans from the back of a golf cart before the final of the soccer World Cup in Johannesburg's Soccer City stadium in July 2010.

During his retirement, he has divided his time between his home in the wealthy Johannesburg suburb of Houghton, and Qunu, the village in the impoverished Eastern Cape province where he was born.

The public's last glimpse of him was a brief clip aired by state television in April during a visit to his home by Zuma and other senior ANC officials.

At the time, the 101-year-old liberation movement, which led the fight against white-minority rule, assured the public Mandela was "in good shape" although the footage showed a thin and frail old man sitting expressionless in an armchair.

"Obviously we are very worried," ANC spokesman Jackson Mthembu told Johannesburg station Talk Radio 702. "We are praying for him, his family and the doctors."

"ABSOLUTELY AN ICON"

Since his latest admission to hospital, well-wishers have been arriving at his Johannesburg home, with scores of school-children leaving painted stones outside the gates bearing prayers for his recovery.

However, for the first time, South African media have broken a taboo against contemplating the inevitable passing of the father of the post-apartheid "Rainbow Nation" and one of the 20th century's most influential figures.

The day after he went into hospital, South Africa's Sunday Times newspaper carried a front-page headline saying it was "time to let him go".

"He's absolutely an icon and if he's gone we just have to accept that. He will be gone but his teachings, what he stood for, I'm sure we've all learnt and we should be able to live with it and reproduce it wherever we go," said Tshepho Langa, a customer at a Johannesburg hotel.

"He's done his best," he added. "We are grateful for it and we are willing to do the good that he has done."

Despite the widespread adulation, Mandela is not without detractors at home and in the rest of Africa who feel that in the dying days of apartheid he made too many concessions to whites, who make up just 10 percent of the population.

After more than 10 years of affirmative action policies aimed at redressing the balance, South Africa remains one of the world's most unequal societies, with whites still controlling much of the economy and the average white household earning six times more than a black one.

"Mandela has gone a bit too far in doing good to the non-black communities, really in some cases at the expense of (blacks)," Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, 89, said in a documentary aired on South African television this month.

"That's being too saintly, too good, too much of a saint."

Hotels In Northern California - Big Banks Are Violating National Mortgage Settlement, Report Says

Source - http://www.washingtonpost.com/
By - Danielle Douglas
Category - Hotels In Northern California 
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Hotels In Northern California

A new study supports complaints by state prosecutors that some of the nation’s biggest banks have violated the terms of the $25 billion national mortgage settlement, a landmark agreement to clean up shoddy foreclosure practices.

The court-appointed monitor of the settlement said in a report Wednesday that Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo have dragged their feet in processing homeowners’ requests for lower monthly loan payments.

It is the same charge being made against the banks by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. The two were among the 49 state attorneys general who brokered the settlement with the top five mortgage servicers last year.

The deal was supposed to ensure that struggling homeowners would not have to endure the same miscommunication, delays and botched paperwork that was commonplace after the housing bust. But, according the monitor, some things haven’t changed.

Four out of five banks failed at least one of the 29 metrics the monitor used to measure their compliance with the 304 servicing standards outlined in the settlement.

The report “affirms that the pattern of violations by Wells Fargo that my office documented in New York is harming homeowners nationwide,” said Schneiderman, who threatened to sue Wells Fargo and Bank of America in May over the violations. “These flagrant violations put homeowners in New York and across the nation at greater risk of foreclosure.”

The most common problem found among the servicers, in particular at Citigroup, Bank of America and Wells Fargo, was failure to notify homeowners of any missing documents in their modification requests within five days of receipt, according to the settlement monitor, Joseph A. Smith Jr. Citigroup and Bank of America were also cited for providing inaccurate information to borrowers before beginning a foreclosure.

“Progress is being made in a number of areas, but other harmful practices endure,” Shaun Donovan, secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, said during a call with reporters.

Donovan said other banks are likely to join the settlement agreement in coming weeks.

“It is time for [the banks] to live up to their end of the deal,” he said. “. . . If they don’t, we’ll explore all options to remedy this situation, from fining them to hauling them back into court.”

Servicers cited in the report must put in place a plan approved by the monitor to correct the problem. If the problem reoccurs within six months, the monitor can take legal action and seek fines of up to $5 million.

The report said all of the banks cited are fixing the problems. JPMorgan has given refunds to 2,000 borrowers after improperly charging them for a type of mortgage insurance.

Bank of America spokesman Dan Frahm said the bank “took immediate action” to resolve the problems found in the report. He said the issues did not result in “inaccurate foreclosures or improper loan modification denials.”

ResCap, formerly known as Ally Financial, passed the monitor’s tests through the end of 2012, but the company’s bankruptcy proceedings this year delayed additional testing. The monitor is now working to continue the process.

The monitor’s office received nearly 60,000 consumer complaints between October and March. A majority of the grievances involved borrowers who said they were bounced around to different bank employees rather than being given a single point of contact. Homeowners also complained that banks were initiating foreclosures while simultaneously negotiating a modification, a practice known as dual tracking.

“A lot of the complaints closely correlate with the failures that we found,” Smith said.

He said his office is developing some new metrics to, among other things, clearly define what documents borrowers have to file when applying for a loan modification.

A key objective of the settlement was to improve the way servicers interact with struggling homeowners. In some respects, the banks have accomplished that goal. There were no reports of servicers losing documents or using forged paperwork to quickly foreclose on borrowers — the sorts of allegations that led to investigations and the eventual agreement in the first place, said Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller.

“There is a difference,” he said. “You look at the dysfunctional system that we saw three years ago . . . banks never could have provided the kind of homeowner relief we’re seeing today under their old system.”

The five servicers have provided $50.6 billion worth of loan modifications, short sales, refinancing and forbearance assistance to more than half a million borrowers across the country, according to a report released last month by the settlement monitor.

“We have some more work to do, but we’re better off today than we were a year ago,” Smith said. “A lot of the metrics were passed. The process has gotten better. Servicers are more responsive.”

Hotels In Northern California - U.S. Is Secretly Collecting Records Of Verizon Calls

Source - http://www.nytimes.com/
By - CHARLIE SAVAGE and EDWARD WYATT
Category - Hotels In Northern California 
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Hotels In Northern California

The Obama administration is secretly carrying out a domestic surveillance program under which it is collecting business communications records involving Americans under a hotly debated section of the Patriot Act, according to a highly classified court order disclosed on Wednesday night.

 The order, signed by Judge Roger Vinson of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in April, directs a Verizon Communications subsidiary, Verizon Business Network Services, to turn over “on an ongoing daily basis” to the National Security Agency all call logs “between the United States and abroad” or “wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls.”

The order does not apply to the content of the communications.

Verizon Business Network Services is one of the nation’s largest telecommunications and Internet providers for corporations. It is not clear whether similar orders have gone to other parts of Verizon, like its residential or cellphone services, or to other telecommunications carriers. The order prohibits its recipient from discussing its existence, and representatives of both Verizon and AT&T declined to comment Wednesday evening.

The four-page order was disclosed Wednesday evening by the newspaper The Guardian. Obama administration officials at the F.B.I. and the White House also declined to comment on it Wednesday evening, but did not deny the report, and a person familiar with the order confirmed its authenticity. “We will respond as soon as we can,” said Marci Green Miller, a National Security Agency spokeswoman, in an e-mail.

The order was sought by the Federal Bureau of Investigation under a section of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the 1978 law that regulates domestic surveillance for national security purposes, including “tangible things” like a business’s customer records. The provision was expanded by Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which Congress enacted after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The order was marked “TOP SECRET//SI//NOFORN,” referring to communications-related intelligence information that may not be released to noncitizens. That would make it among the most closely held secrets in the federal government, and its disclosure comes amid a furor over the Obama administration’s aggressive tactics in its investigations of leaks.

The collection of call logs is set to expire in July unless the court extends it.

The collection of communications logs — or calling “metadata” — is believed to be a major component of the Bush administration’s program of surveillance that took place without court orders. The newly disclosed order raised the question of whether the government continued that type of information collection by bringing it under the Patriot Act.

The disclosure late Wednesday seemed likely to inspire further controversy over the scope of government surveillance. Kate Martin of the Center for National Security Studies, a civil liberties advocacy group, said that “absent some explanation I haven’t thought of, this looks like the largest assault on privacy since the N.S.A. wiretapped Americans in clear violation of the law” under the Bush administration. “On what possible basis has the government refused to tell us that it believes that the law authorizes this kind of request?” she said.

For several years, two Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon and Senator Mark Udall of Colorado, have been cryptically warning that the government was interpreting its surveillance powers under that section of the Patriot Act in a way that would be alarming to the public if it knew about it.

“We believe most Americans would be stunned to learn the details of how these secret court opinions have interpreted Section 215 of the Patriot Act,” they wrote last year in a letter to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.

They added: “As we see it, there is now a significant gap between what most Americans think the law allows and what the government secretly claims the law allows. This is a problem, because it is impossible to have an informed public debate about what the law should say when the public doesn’t know what its government thinks the law says.”

A spokesman for Senator Wyden did not respond Wednesday to a request for comment on the Verizon order.

The senators were angry because the Obama administration described Section 215 orders as being similar to a grand jury subpoena for obtaining business records, like a suspect’s hotel or credit card records, in the course of an ordinary criminal investigation. The senators said the secret interpretation of the law was nothing like that.

Section 215 of the Patriot Act made it easier to get an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to obtain business records so long as they were merely deemed “relevant” to a national-security investigation.

The Justice Department has denied being misleading about the Patriot Act. Department officials have acknowledged since 2009 that a secret, sensitive intelligence program is based on the law and have insisted that their statements about the matter have been accurate.

The New York Times filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in 2011 for a report describing the government’s interpretation of its surveillance powers under the Patriot Act. But the Obama administration withheld the report, and a judge dismissed the case.

Hotels In Northern California - EU Investigating Apple's iPhone Agreements With Mobile Operators

Source - http://www.pcworld.com/
By - John Ribeiro
Category - Hotels In Northern California
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

 

Hotels In Northern California

The European Commission has sent a questionnaire to a number of mobile operators in the European Union, focusing on whether its distribution terms with these providers may put Apple at an advantage over other smartphone makers, according to a newspaper report.

"The Commission has information indicating that Apple and Mobile Network Operators ("MNOs") have concluded distribution agreements which may potentially lead to the foreclosure of other smartphone manufacturers from the markets," the nine-page questionnaire states, The Financial Times reported Sunday.

The commission referred to the possibility that certain technical functions are disabled on certain Apple products in certain countries in the EU and the European Economic Area, which if confirmed could constitute an infringement of antitrust law. The questionnaire also probes operators on Apple's sales practices, including whether they are required to buy a minimum number of phones, and are required to always offer Apple no worse subsidies and sales terms than other smartphone vendors, according to the newspaper.

The European inquiry, based on private complaints from some mobile operators, is at a preliminary stage, and would require that Apple be found to be dominant in the EU smartphone market, the newspaper said.

Apple could not be immediately reached for comment. The company was questioned last week in the U.S. by a Senate subcommittee looking into charges that the company avoided tax by diverting profits to subsidiaries in Ireland. Apple said it did not break the laws.

Samsung Electronics became the top smartphone manufacturer in Europe in April last year, a position it has maintained through the rest of the year, Web and mobile usage tracking firm comScore said in February. The South Korean company had a 32.3 percent share of the market by December, followed by Apple with 20.5 and Nokia with 16.3 percent.

Hotels In Northern California - Selling through social media

Source - http://www.charlotteobserver.com/
By - Charlotte Blogs
Category - Hotels In Northern California
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Hotels In Northern California

Every business owner seems to be at a different point in their journey with social media.  If you’re just starting out, take a moment to read Glenn Burkins’s recent articles that describe the popular social media sites and give general guidance on building your social media brand.  They provide an excellent primer for the newcomer.

If you've already laid a basic foundation for your business, such as creating a Facebook business page or LinkedIn profile, then you might be wondering about specific strategies for turning your efforts into revenue.  Your next step depends on what kind of business you’re in.

Ecommerce

If you sell products or services online, social media is likely your key to customer loyalty, referrals, and repeat purchases.

The Adobe Digital Index showed social traffic to online retailers doubled from 2011 to 2012.  When measured by “last click” referrals, this amounts to 2% of total online shopping traffic, which may sound small --  until you consider the possibility of continued doubling, year after year

Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, applied Moore’s Law to sharing back in 2008, positing that “(N)ext year, people will share twice as much information as they share this year, and next year, they will be sharing twice as much as they did the year before.”  This idea has come to be known as Zuckerberg’s Law.

I predict that we’ll see a similar trend in the convergence of social media and ecommerce, with the percentage of ecommerce that is socially referred continuing to double every coming year -- to 4% in 2013, 8% in 2014, and 16% in 2015.  So what do you need to know to capitalize on this trend?

Mauria Finley, founder and CEO of Citrus Lane, is a master of leveraging social for selling, without ever asking for the sale.  Citrus Lane is a fast growing subscription company delivering monthly collections of curated baby products, and their Facebook strategy relies more on human psychology than hard-sell techniques for drawing in new converts into the fold.

Finley says, “We use our happy customers as our advocates and let the natural triggers of envy and scarcity do the selling for us.”  And indeed, the Citrus Lane Facebook page is full of pictures of subscriber babies clutching their latest sold-out toy of the moment, irresistible fodder for keeping up with the Joneses

Finley adds, “We don’t see ourselves as leading the conversation with our customers, but rather our job is to facilitate their interactions with each other.”  One recent post illustrates this principle by posting a question from “Patty,” who needs help with getting her 2-year-old to sleep in her own bed.  In less than 60 minutes, Patty’s question had 75 comments, a testament to their approach.

Traditional commerce

If you sell products or services through an offline model, social media can help you do everything from generate leads to increase foot traffic to advertise new offerings.  The key is to understand your customer’s habits and motivations.

Find out where your customers spend their time online and experiment to discover what content they’ll respond to.  What’s keeping them up at night, and conversely, what do they do to escape their worries for a while

Liz Guthridge, managing director and change management consultant at Connect, says she devotes time to participating in LinkedIn groups where her prospects hang out.  “The groups are an under-utilized feature of LinkedIn, and they’re a great way to see what your clients are discussing.  I’ll comment whenever I can add something of value, which builds my credibility as a trustworthy resource.”

In all of the hurry to get your message out, don’t forget to listen to your customers and act on what they say.  For example, use social media to poll your customers about what inventory you should be stocking.  When a customer sees that the cupcake flavor she voted for on Monday is on sale Tuesday, she’ll be that much more motivated to make a purchase.

You can also combine tracking your results from various social channels with incentivizing your customers by issuing different discount codes by channel.  For example, you might offer 10% off using code “ABC” on Facebook and using code “123” on Instagram.  These are sometimes called whisper codes and can generate useful insights as to whether Twitter is working better than Pinterest, or vice versa.

In summary, social is here to stay, and no matter if you sell online or offline, socially referred business is going to continue to grow as a driver of revenues.  So it behooves you to figure out where your customers are congregating, what content they want to see, and to create engagement in a way that builds loyalty to your business.