Superbug on the run: steps hospitals have taken to kill MRSA

Health & Fitness

Medical professionals of all kinds have done their part to help kill MRSA
Photo by unsplash.com and pexels.com

There are superbugs, and then there is MRSA. This is regarded as one of the most lethal out there and several years ago, there was something of an epidemic.

This isn’t some sort of minor infection that one can pick up; it’s a form of bacteria that happens to be hugely resistant to most antibiotics out there. In other words, it’s highly difficult to treat and as such, very dangerous for all of those patients who are already at risk from their existing problems.

Fortunately, the problem has eased substantially over recent times. Immense research has been conducted on MRSA, with conclusions being drawn on what can prevent it from becoming a problem again. Hospitals now have extremely strict protocol and to highlight some of steps they take, we’ve listed some of the policies that the majority implement to prevent the deadly superbug from endangering the health of patients.

The hospital environment is subject to risk-based cleaning

This is perhaps one of the biggest changes in the way in which hospitals deal with hygiene.

Now, each and every level of the hospital is ordered in terms of risk. Suffice to say, those environments which come into frequent contact with patients are treated regularly, while those that aren’t have slightly more relaxed rules.

Not only this, the method of cleaning the hospital environment has intensified. Now, hospitals are more than happy to invest in the appropriate equipment and chemicals, with CaviWipes and other medical-specific disinfectant products often being turned to.

It means that the surroundings in which patients are within are not only cleaned more frequently, but disinfected more efficiently as well.

Employees are monitored for their own hygiene

It would be grossly unfair to suggest that hospital employees have never been concerned with their own hygiene.

However, nowadays they are put under much more scrutiny. Hospital policies dictate that they have to wash thoroughly before caring for a patient, or touching anything that can be contaminated.

Similarly to the previous issue we spoke about, there is also more pressure to wash using the correct chemicals. Now, antiseptic solution should be used at all times, while disposable gloves must also be used whenever employees are coming into contact with open wounds.

Changes made to patients who are affected

Of course, even with the most stringent policies in the world, it’s difficult to stop something as powerful as MRSA once and for all. In other words, there will always be the odd case – it would not be possible to stop it in its tracks indefinitely.

It means that there has also been a change in policies in relation to those patients who are suffering with the infection. Anyone who does fall into this group must be immediately isolated, in a bid to prevent anyone else becoming susceptible to it.

As well as this, the movement of patients between wards is strongly discouraged. Again, it’s all with the aim to isolate and kill MRSA and prevent it from spreading around the building and onto other patients.

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Is Stainless Steel Cookware Better Than Aluminum Cookware?

DIY / Home Improvement

Is stainless steel cookware better than aluminum?
Photo by CC user Soerfm on Wikimedia Commons

This may not seem like a difficult question to answer but it is important that some facts are understood in a proper way. The one thing that all stainless steel fabricators will tell you that normally stainless steel will not be great for cooking as it is a heat conductor. That practically means that a part of the skillet or the pan will end up being hotter. That can cause the appearance of uneven cooking. Stainless steel cookware is now available and can be considered but it is really important that you think about alternatives. There are special stainless steel options that can be considered. However, let us first discuss aluminum cookware.

Aluminum Cookware

The sets that you find on the market made out of aluminum are quite affordable and have a durability that is actually higher than that of stainless steel. You can find some that are made out of various different colors, including dark gray or bronze. The surface is non-stick and most cooks prefer the option since it is going to offer even cooking, which is vital for cooking great dishes.

Stainless Steel Cookware

In most cases we have 304 Steel (also referred to as T304 Steel) that is used in cookware. This is actually the softest grade that is offered at the moment. Differences do appear but the durability is still higher than what you may think at first glance. Also, flexibility is pretty good.

What many do not know is that 304 Steel is actually used in many products we now see in the regular kitchen. This includes knives and forks. The steel is also available in machine parts, automobiles and personal care instruments. Corrosion resistance is pretty high and the only situation in which this is a problem is when referring to the presence of a salt water environment.

The main stainless steel competitor that is gaining popularity at the moment is T409. The price is actually lower and in many cases people prefer it because of this. We are also faced with a much higher reliability and durability, all with a better possible finish. Unfortunately, surface corrosion is a problem. However, the appearance of the corrosion will only affect surface. Structure is not going to be affected.

Conclusions

Choosing between stainless steel and aluminum is something that is not at all easy to do when thinking about cookware. You want to consider both of the options and you need to always analyze the opportunities. You can easily go for either stainless steel or aluminum but you want to also think about the other available options. Choosing without knowing everything about the options is a bad idea. Everything basically depends on what is really important for you at the end of the day. Choose after reading reviews about the cookware and never forget about the fact that some of the manufacturers are much better than others. Options available will have to be given the proper research time. Only then can you be sure that your choice is the proper one for your home.

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Psychological tips to reduce your portion sizes

Health & Fitness

By following tips to reduce your portion sizes, you can enjoy your favorite foods while staying healthy
Photo by CC user elsiehui on Flickr

There’s all sorts of varying advice being branded about in relation to weight loss, but one thing that all of the experts will agree on is that smaller portions sizes will result in you heading in the right direction.

It’s one of the simplest ways to lower the amount of calories that are entering your body yet for whatever reason, it’s a suggestion that’s often ignored.

If you are struggling to train your brain into accepting smaller portion sizes, it might be time to consider some shrewd psychological approaches that can fool your mind somewhat.

We’ve put together some of the best tips to reduce your portion sizes. Let’s take a look.

The 6 month approach in retraining your brain

Let’s start with one of the biggest steps you can take. There’s no doubt that weight loss surgery has come on a lot over the last few decades and one of the most risk-free ones comes in the form of the Orbera gastric balloon.

In relation to training your brain to approach food differently, this balloon will do exactly that. It shrinks your stomach until it is removed after six months, meaning that your food intake is immediately restricted.

The concept is that by the time the device is removed, you will have got used to your new portion sizes and will stick to your new diet.

Buy smaller plates

A solution which is perhaps a little simpler comes in the way of just buying smaller plates.

For most of us, a portion is the size of a plate. Therefore, if you can use plates that are smaller, your portion size theoretically reduces.

We’re far less likely to reach for a second plateful of food – psychologically it feels greedy.

Ditch politeness – you don’t have to clear your plate

On a similar note to above, from a young age we are taught to finish our meals. Again, usually a meal will come in the form of a plateful (when have you ever seen half of the plate empty upon serving?).

However, when obesity strikes, now is the time to ditch politeness. Don’t finish your serving just to be polite; if you are not hungry make sure you don’t overeat.

For years we have been taught the importance of leaving a clean plate after eating – when really it does nothing but harm for the obese section of the population.

Avoid the leftover temptation

It’s hard to cook correct proportions – everyone accepts this. It’s for this reason, as well as plain efficiency, that some people will make much more than they really need for an evening.

Initially, the idea is to eat the remains another day. In reality, second servings prove too tempting and the rest as they say, is history.

Before your cravings can get the better of you, try and put the remains in the fridge or freezer. That way, it should just be too much work to re-heat the food when you are willing for more.

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Charles Phillips and What He Achieved So Far at Infor

Business

Charles Phillips is a man with a vision. He developed his vision as a young boy, living on military bases. He knew then that he wanted to be involved in technology, and that is a dream he followed throughout his career. And it has been a very interesting career, one in which he has set himself apart as a true leader. His career now spans many years and many different companies, and includes the U.S. Military, Wall Street, and various tech companies. Where he really made his mark, however, was as President of Oracle. For Charles Phillips Oracle wasn’t the pinnacle of his success, but rather a stepping stone to his next career – CEO of Infor.

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Charles Phillips and Infor

At Infor, Phillips become a CEO for the first time in his impressive career. And it seemed that he started exactly where he left off at Oracle. Within just a few months of starting, he acquired Lawson Software for the sum of $2 billion. His acquisition strategies are what enabled Oracle to experience a 300% growth during his time as President, and he clearly wants to repeat this with Infor. By acquiring Lawson Software, he was able to add human resources and health care to the industry portfolio of Info. But what makes it different is that he doesn’t just focus on health care as a blanket industry. Rather, he pushes for products that serve niche markets within the industries. For instance, he has developed a software solution specifically designed for hospitals.

Since he started as Infor’s CEO, he has also been able to hire some 1,500 new members of staff. He has completely revamped the executive management team, hiring some high profile players, some who came directly from Oracle. He also moved the headquarters of Infor from Georgia to New York City, where he shares a single table with his management team. Plus, he has been able to create 70 new Infor products, leading to 2,500 new customers. These include Heineken and Ferrari. It is no surprise, therefore, that Infor is now at a really new level of playing field.

In fact, Infor seems to have found the leader of its dreams. Phillips has taken an aggressive acquisitions approach, with one of his latest acquisitions being GT Nexus, a true global player. GT Nexus is the world’s largest cloud-based software company. Today, Infor has some 70,000 individual companies. They have a presence in 194 countries the world over, and enjoy a revenue in excess of 43 billion per year. Clearly, with Phillips leading the way, Infor is really moving ahead. Now third largest of its kind, after Oracle and SAP, some believe it may soon grow to even overtake these two. Clearly, Charles Phillips aims to make Infor the leading software solutions company, and when he has a vision, he never stops until he actually gets it. Infor certainly is the company to watch at present, for some with anticipation and for others with real fear.

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Infor Truly the Third Titan?

Business

There has been a so-called ‘duopoly’ in the world of enterprise software, held by Oracle and SAP. Microsoft has been a third contender, but was never truly a competitor. But now, there is Infor. What frightens the industry is that it is led by Charles Phillips Infor CEO, previously Oracle President. The world is now holding its breath for a true battle of the titans!

Oracle and SAP have a big problem, which is that companies who need a new ERP system on premise simply won’t turn to them anymore. They are too expensive, and setting the system up leads to significant downtime. That said, the money still seems to go to them, albeit from customers who are still stuck in lengthy contracts for maintenance and licenses. In 2011, Oracle earned some $28 billion, and SAP earned some $17 billion. Infor, at that time, ‘only’ took in $3 billion. Not much of a competitor, in other words.

The_Infor_logo

However, Charles Phillips, Infor’s relatively new CEO, is trying to break the duopoly to pieces. He has worked for about two and a half years to make sure that the company goes through, in his words, “a complete reboot”. He has completely changed the company’s management team and their strategy. No longer will Infor focus on building scale to products and innovation. Rather, they completely revamped their key assumptions and totally redesigned the architecture to achieve this. In so doing, the company now has 800 new developers on their books, and they have already developed 300 products.

While this is a good strategy to make Infor profitable, it doesn’t mean that SAP and Oracle are vulnerable. According to Phillips, however, the duopoly doesn’t have a strong integration strategy, because they don’t integrate cohesively. Instead, they have a bunch of ‘loosely coupled’ pieces, which can get confusing. Plus, Infor is focused on specific verticals, rather than entire industries. Their hottest area is health care, which is a huge one.

Another issue that Phillips says the other two have is poor usability. The minute you walk into the Infor headquarters, you will see their motto, which is ‘no fugly software’. They have approached their user interface with a focus on design, creating a thing of beauty that is also easy to use. As an added bonus, Infor offers everything as software as a service, which means people can try it and install it with ease, through the Amazon Web Services cloud.

So is Infor a true competitor for the big two out there? Two years ago, people would have laughed at that idea. Today, however, Infor takes up a shared second position in the enterprise software world, together with Oracle. And considering much of Infor’s management team was previously employed by Oracle, there seem to be some ripples in the industry. What the future holds is always anybody’s guess, but dismissing Infor in the way that Microsoft has been dismissed for years would certainly not be a good idea for the duopoly as a whole.

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The Infor On Premise v SaaS Revenue Tipping Point for 2016 Is Now Set

Business

According to Charles Phillips Infor CEO and wife Karen Phillips, who may not be an Infor employee but always pays attention to her husband, there is going to be a tipping point between SaaS and on premise revenue in 2016. After the release of very strong second quarter numbers, the revenue of the company stood at $708.4 million. This is the highest it has been since Phillips took over the company.

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There has been revenue growth across every element of the Infor company, including consultancy, maintenance, and software. They have also attracted 628 new clients. This includes a 10 year SaaS deal for the City of Gold Coast, a Queensland, Australia company. That contract alone is worth $30 million. Here, Infor will replace 42 systems, some of which more than 25 years old, while also providing revenue functions, property management, and customer service.

For Phillips, clients like this one demonstrate that Infor is doing something that Oracle and SAP, its only real remaining competitors, aren’t doing: pushing for SaaS. There has been double digit growth in SaaS for Oracle, and he believes that the split between SaaS and on premise software will be larger than 50% by 2017, much sooner than expected by both Infor and the competition.

Naturally, making these types of predictions is always a bit of a gamble. You simply don’t know what people will want or need. That said, Infor doesn’t want to sell infrastructure, which means their entire focus is on SaaS.

So what does this all mean? It means that Infor is doing things with a difference. And these differences are often very daring. For instance:

  • Instead of developing its own cloud, Infor uses Amazon Web Services. According to Phillips, there is no point reinventing something that is already out there and that works perfectly.
  • They offer almost all their services on the cloud, which means customers don’t have to pay expensive licenses, have lengthy downtime, and more.
  • They don’t focus on huge industries. Where companies like Oracle and SAP develop products for the automotive industry as a whole, Infor develops it specifically for Ferrari. And where the competition focuses on the hospitality and catering industry as a whole, Infor goes for Heineken and bakers. The list is endless and demonstrates that their goal is micro-verticals.
  • Where most tech companies move to Silicon Valley in California, Infor moved to Silicon Alley in New York. Why? Because that is where the customers are, where staff want to live, and where designers and other tech talents can be found. Designers including fashion designers, by the way (another Infor micro vertical).

Seeing all the things that the company does differently, and how well those strategies are working, it seems logical to assume that Phillips’ prediction of SaaS tipping over on premise customers will also be true. Infor is certainly pushing for it, wanting to offer their clients something convenient and affordable, yet of the highest possible quality.

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Can Baby Toys be Learning Tools?

Education

At first glance it might be hard to see how that colored lump of plastic can be good for your baby, let alone aiding their development; with its flashing lights, jangling tunes and chunky features, does it serve any purpose at all? One thing that you’ll quickly come to realize, though, is that the toy’s lights, sounds and shapes are what make it special, serving as your child’s primary means of learning long before reading, writing and arithmetic are introduced. You see, regardless of appearance, almost any toy can be an educational tool during those formative years – you just need to know what to look out for.

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Why are toys important for learning?

Are toys not just a distraction technique used by parents in need of a five-minute break, or given by well-meaning relatives to buy affection? Actually, no: toys are so much more than that. Toys, while primarily bought for entertainment purposes, will serve as your child’s primary means of learning, and are going to prove vital throughout their development. Indeed, various studies agree that play is integral to childhood, helping children to cultivate the skills they need to become older children and, eventually, adults. Toys enrich experiences, stimulate the senses, improve coordination and cognitive function, and allow children to interact with the world; via play your child will gain confidence, learn to use his or her imagination and get to grips with emotion. More than all of that, though, toys give children a sense of fun and enable them to enjoy their formative years. Creativity, resourcefulness, problem solving and social interactions are all part of growing up and can be aided by toys.

Essential baby toys for your child’s development

When purchasing toys for your baby, it’s important to recognize the function they hold; is the toy designed to stimulate senses, encourage cognitive behavior, or to guide your child as he or she takes those first steps? Each stage of a child’s life is part of their developmental journey, and toys can be used to enhance the adventure, and aid their progression. So, what toys are best for each developmental stage, and how do you know what to choose?

Sensory development

Sensory development is the very first stage that your baby will encounter – long before ABCs and 123s come into play. While their sight is limited at first, babies need visual stimulation and to experience textures and sounds. For these reasons, brightly colored toys, those with a variety of materials, and musical objects are perfect; think of a baby play gym, cot mobile, rattle, teether and play mat. These kinds of toys will keep little one occupied, and play a vital role in their earliest days of development.

Motor development

As your baby develops, so too will his or her ability to move and recognize his or her body; you will no doubt discover endless enjoyment as your child learns to interact with toys, plays patty cake and grasps at items just out of reach. Again, rattles are excellent for teaching babies cause and effect as well as movement, while building blocks, activity cubes, bead frames and baby jigsaws will be adored. Art supplies, patterned items and books will be vital for fine motor skills and language development, so don’t forget these.

Cognitive development

Research has shown that children develop 50 percent of their adult intelligence by the time they are four-years-old: astounding, when you think about it. In order to aid your child’s cognitive development, provide toys that will encourage a new way of thinking; shape sorters, jigsaw puzzles, threading activities, building bricks, play dough and stackers are all fantastic cognitive aids.

Physical development

While all toys can be used to encourage movement, particularly if they’re placed far enough away, there are plenty of aids designed to develop physical skills. Toys that can be pushed and pulled, such as shopping carts, pushchairs, and animals on string, as well as walkers, will ensure your little one is moving around as much as possible, while ride-on toys, which require balance and foot power, and rockers, improve a baby’s capability to stand firm. Balls will encourage your child’s hand-eye coordination skills, while play tunnels and climbing frames introduce outdoor play.

Social development

As your baby grows, he or she will soon notice that they’re not the center of the universe; now is the time for sharing, imaginative play and language development. Games that involve multiple players are essential in creating bonds and teaching sharing skills, while books will continue to aid your little one’s ability to understand and form words. Finally, consider role-play games and the toys that inspire creativity; puppets and dolls, dress-up, play food, a home corner and messy activities can all help children to play with others, while helping them to gain confidence and self-awareness, and identify their place in the world.

We’re sure after this blog post that you will regard all toys in a new light. Whether your child is learning to grasp, identifying himself for the first time, developing speech or moving around for the very first time, toys will play an integral part in that journey. Brightly colored, designed to sing the ABC or interesting to touch, toys have always served a far greater purpose, although you’d do well to remember the fun factor when choosing your child’s playthings. Your child’s toybox should be a veritable playground of discovery, enjoyment and education, engaging them from their earliest moments – what will you choose to play with first?

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Transforming Your Life for Better Health

Health & Fitness

Eating better is part of transforming your life for better health
Photo by CC user FotoshopTofs on Pixabay

You may already know that the foods you eat can affect your health, but did you know that some of those foods can increase your chances of developing a chronic illness? As you get older, your body starts to alter its functions a bit. Depending on the way you’ve lived your life up to this point and the foods you have eaten, you may be on track to develop heart disease, diabetes, or some other type of disease.

Just because you may have health insurance and access to a good doctor doesn’t mean that you don’t need to be mindful of your actions or the foods you eat. On the contrary, you need to be more proactive about your health because once you develop a severe health issues, there’s often no turning back the clock. Medication can only do so much, and while it may enable you to live symptom-free and comfortably, you may not enjoy the side effects of those medicines. Regardless of your age, health, and current lifestyle, you may want to consider making the following changes to your daily routine.

Educate Yourself

Life is all about changes and some of those changes are not very fun or exciting to make. Sometimes, making changes can be hard because of the habits you have. However, in order for you to overcome the personal limitations that are interfering with your health, you need to know what they are, how you’ve become restrained by them, and what you can do to break free of them. Don’t just look for surface information and accept everything that you read with no questions asked. Challenge yourself to dig deeper so that you know that the information you are going to rely on to change your life is credible, sensible, and valid.

Get a Second Opinion

You may trust your current physician with your life, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t benefit from getting a professional second opinion about your health. Physicians are human and sometimes they make mistakes. To avoid being one of those people you hear about on the news that has been duped by their doctors into taking medications and undergoing treatments that they don’t need, you should see another doctor just to be safe. A professional second opinion may also alert you to underlying health conditions that you may have been unaware of.

Redo Your Household Menu

Now you don’t need to revamp your kitchen, refrigerator, and cupboards so that they only contain products from your favorite chefs, but you do need to stock them up with healthier foods. Keep in mind that everything that is advertised as good for you really isn’t. Learn how to identify common marketing terms that are used in the food industry to camouflage the more popular names for sugar, fructose syrup, sodium, and other unhealthy ingredients. You should also learn the names of popular ingredients that are beneficial to your health. Food items that are made by Hamptoncreek are just one of many brands that made for health enthusiasts that you should buy.

Get Your Home in Order

If you have gotten used to living a certain way that is not conducive to the lifestyle you want to live, you need to start making changes inside of your home. Throw out those items that you have been holding onto for years with no plans to use. Donate any furniture, clothing, and any household goods that you no longer need to charity. Get organized and toss out all of the clutter. By getting rid of these things, you are letting go of the clutter that has attached itself to you in the form of emotional baggage. Don’t be surprised if you feel like a fog has been lifted or a great weight has been removed from your shoulders.

Use Fitness Tools

You won’t believe how hard it is to get motivated about improving your health and activity level until you can see your progress as you make it. Even though you may not see those inches sliding off the very split second that they disappear, you will be able to see how many steps you are taking, measure your blood glucose levels, and keep track of your heart rate. Depending on the kind of fitness tools you decide to use you may be able to track more of your vitals.

It is never too late for you to commit to transforming your life for better health. Regardless of your motivation for doing so, the changes you need to make to get the results you want are worth it.

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Essential online shopping tips

Shopping

These online shopping tips will help you get what you want, faster and cheaper
Photo by CC user intelfreepress on Flickr

Since 1995, when the first Internet retailers attracted 16 million shoppers, online shopping has been a growth industry. Innovations such as payment services, coupon deals, and apps are everyday to us, but have made a huge impact on the numbers of online shoppers. While countries around the world have varying levels of online shopping, some estimates put the online shopping population at 1.75 billion people.

Why is online shopping so popular?

Most of you probably shop because of the convenience of shopping at any time of day from the comfort of home. You can buy everything from avocados to refrigerators online. It saves time, travel costs, and sometimes taxes. Add delivery to your front door and it’s a wonder anyone goes out anymore!

Online shopping is also helpful for pricing items. You may end up going to a physical store, but doing some research beforehand can save you going from store to store to find the best price.

The relative privacy of online shopping is another of its attractive features. Sometimes, you just don’t want to be seen purchasing items that are either personal, such as prescription drugs or lingerie, or that might open you up to theft, such as jewelry, electronics, or artwork.

If you hate crowds or the pushy techniques of sales associates, then online shopping is the perfect way to complete your wish list.

Online shopping has also opened the doors of the world to shoppers. You can buy hand-made finger puppets from China, premium chocolate from the Skelligs in Ireland, leather pumps from Italy, or an antique armoire from New Zealand.

Sellers up their game

As great as online shopping is for buyers, it has many benefits for retailers as well. Perhaps the greatest is the exposure of products and services to a worldwide marketplace. It doesn’t matter what size your company is – for the price of web hosting, you can open your sales potential exponentially with an online presence that is open around the clock.

With omnichannel, retailers can offer their products in the format most accessible to customers. Omnichannel selling uses brick and mortar, catalog, television, and whatever else you can imagine to reach customers. Adding online to this definitely increases sales potential.

Of course, more exposure also means more competition. Online retailers need to offer shoppers a reason to pick their product or service. A sampling of services includes allowing customers to order items online and pick them up from a brick-and-mortar store, virtual mannequins for clothes shopping, and selling via smartphones.

Online shopping tips

With all this online activity, you need to be aware of ways that your shopping experience can be maximized. These tips will help you get the best deals while shopping securely.

For convenience and safety, you should use and bookmark your favorite sites. For example, when you decide to purchase a DVD, a winter coat, and a juicer, you want to avoid an online search for those items because you could end up with malicious sites in your results. Go to a reputable, trustworthy site such as As seen on TV, which attracts shoppers because it can offer you all the items on your list and more. You know that you’ll get a great price as well. Bookmark the page so that you can return to it easily and safely in the future.

If it’s too good to be true, pass it up. Getting ads in your email with requests to click on a link should be ignored. If an online ad is offering huge discounts, you may face a threat to your computer if you try to check it out. You can block fake sites with up-to-date security software.

Companies will sometimes base prices on your spending patterns, so you can end up paying more than other shoppers. The companies do this by saving cookies. You can avoid this pricing tactic by erasing cookies on your browser. While shopping, use a private window, and log out of your account when you are finished.

You can use social media to find deals. Facebook, Twitter, and email subscriptions are great ways to get notice of sales. Many retailers will offer special discounts to their followers and subscribers. You can also compare the prices of different retailers with an online comparison website such as Bizrate, and look for coupons on sites such as RetailMeNot.

You can find more variety and flexibility than ever before with the growth of online stores. You can feel secure and get great deals, so start shopping!

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You Are Free to Live Your Life the Way You Want To – Or Are You?

Health & Fitness

You Are Free to Live Your Life the Way You Want To ... except when you are sick
Photo by CC user erix on Flickr

The funny thing is that ‘freedom’ is one of those words that is relative to what you are talking about and what one person considers to be ‘free’ the next person may see as being anything but. In this country there is an old saying that “I can do whatever I want. I am free and 21.” Well, that really isn’t the case and never has been, really – unless of course you don’t ever accept the consequences for what you have done or are about to do. This is one of the reasons why we require so many people to study the Master of Public Health program. With too few people really paying attention to the ramifications of what they are doing, there is always some public health crisis to be dealt with. So are you free? Here is some food for thought.

Communicable Diseases

Whenever the latest scare of a pandemic hits there are too few people who take it upon themselves to stay home when they come down with flu-like symptoms. The only way to stop the spread of contagions effectively is to keep them at home – the sufferer and the contagion that is! Imagine you, as a person studying for your degree in public health. If you took conventional classes and attended the college campus, then you’d need to stay home if you came down with what appeared to be the flu so you didn’t pass it around campus.

However, since you are probably studying a Master of Public Health online program, you wouldn’t have this concern. The point is, those who are sick with something that is communicable should consider what the next person would do if they came down with the illness. Babies and old people could die. Yes, you are free to choose whether or not to stay home but are those people free from your ill-placed decision to take your germs in public? Not so much.

HIV and STDs

Then, what about HIV and STDs of all kinds? In the 60s it was all about ‘Free Love’ and sleeping with whoever struck your fancy. Well, times probably haven’t changed much but is that ‘free love’ really free? Having sexual relations with multiple partners puts everyone at greater risk for these potentially fatal diseases and so in reality, you may not be as free as you thought you were.

Teen Pregnancy

Teen pregnancies seem to be slowing down to some extent but they are still a consequence of failing to act responsibly. While kids have more liberty in their lives than at any time in the past, they are not free from the consequences of unprotected sex. Yes, they may be free to run around town and in that respect, free to choose whether or not to have sex, but what happens if the girl becomes pregnant? She may be free to abort the baby but is she free from any kind of consequence at all? It’s a terrible decision for anyone to face so all that ‘freedom’ isn’t really free, is it? There is always a price to pay.

No matter where you stand on the ethics of these very real public health issues, you have to admit that there are always consequences for everything you do. Simply by asserting your freedom to act in a certain way doesn’t necessarily mean you are free from the consequences of your behavior. So again, the question – you are free to live your life the way you want to but does this mean you are really free? You decide.

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