Author Archives: myknowledge

Are You Ready to Cut the Cable Cord? Tips to Make the Transition Easier

If you have been watching channels on your cable TV connection for years, then the decision to cut the cable cord and switch to streaming services can really be big. Cable TV must have become your comfort zone and getting out of it after these many years and moving to an unknown streaming territory may be an overwhelming feeling.

Just to make your transition easier, we have listed a few tips below;

Cable TV and Streaming Services are Not Mutually Exclusive:

It is not necessary to opt for streaming services; you should cut off your cable. Subscribe to a streaming service, most of them offer a one-month free subscription. Test your waters and try to become comfortable watching streaming services, frankly, there is nothing to hate about it as it a brilliant way to keep you entertained. This trial phase will help you get used to watching streaming services and your cable TV can also be watched along so that you feel comfortable through the transition.

Reduce Your Cable TV Package:

Many cable TV services let you choose channels and only pay for the ones you want to watch just to compete with satellite TV. Make use of this feature and start reducing the channels you do not need to watch. This way, you will be able to afford to subscribe to streaming services.

Experiment by Pausing Your Cable TV Subscription:

The next step would be to call your operator to pause your subscription for a month just to experience how you feel about absolutely no cable TV and only watching streaming services. Most probably you will get so hooked on to streaming services that you may not miss your cable TV at all but if you do, then you can always turn it back on.

Consider What Your Family Feels:

Getting rid of cable TV cannot be your individual decision if you are living with a family. You need to ask individually everyone in your family about how they feel if you decided to cut off cable TV. They may not be as ready as you are to cut the cords then you just will have to wait for them to be prepared for the transition. Also, make sure to check the number of users that can access the streaming service you are opting for as a few do not allow multiple users and you will have to buy an individual subscription. Consider and compare the costings as well before making a decision.

Choose Streaming Services that Also Stream TV channels:

There are streaming services which streams video on demand as well as TV channels hence by subscribing to such a service, you will not miss your cable TV as well as you can enjoy the benefits of streaming. Opting to get an IPTV subscription can let you enjoy the perks of both TV channels as well as VOD (Video on Demand) on all your smart devices. You need not worry anymore about missing your favorite news broadcast or watching live sports anymore.

Most people get used to streaming services quite soon and do really miss cable TV, but if you feel that streaming service is not your cup of tea then you can always go back to your old cable TV until you are ready for the shift.

Vocabulary Building – Common Mistakes to Avoid

Building your vocabulary is an important part of learning. Many wish to get there; but very few manage to. The reason is mostly one of these common mistakes that they end up doing:

Learning words only to pass an exam

No matter how much time and money you spend on taking English lessons; if you cannot remember any of them, it is of no use. Building your vocabulary is not something you need to do just to pass an exam. In fact vocabulary is something that will be of use to you throughout your life, at each and every phase. Understand the real purpose of building your vocabulary and keep it in your mind.

Memorizing words without practicing

Many people try and learn at least 10 words on a daily basis. They write them down in their notebooks again and again. Yet they hardly get there when it comes to building vocabulary. The reason is because they don’t use them. You can memorize words perfectly; but unless you start using them again and again, you cannot expect them to get registered in your mind.

Practicing words before understanding them

What do you do when you come across a new word? Read stories that have that word? Sing songs about it? Play games with that word? Bad idea! These things might give you an explanation; but they won’t really help in making you understand the word. The main purpose of practicing words is to increase your understanding. Without any idea about the meaning of the word that you learn, such practicing it would be of no use.

Don’t just rely upon understanding the context

Many teachers feel that it is always better to understand words from their context. However, it may not work always. At times, this might make you end up with too many new words, the meanings of which you have no idea about. For instance, what would you make out by the sentence – “Marta has a parasol.” You can sit and guess the meaning all day long; but would it lead you to the right answer? Probably not! There is an easier way of understanding this. Look it up on the dictionary. Once you understand the meaning of the word, it starts to make better sense.

Knowing words is not going to help build your vocabulary.  You have to understand their meaning and figure out ways to use them during your conversation. You can’t just invent new meanings to words. The guessing game hardly works when it comes to building vocabulary. The secret lies in understanding the words and then practicing them again and again. With time, you will be amazed to see how far you have gone.

Thankfully technology has brought to light many options such as Vocabulary builder app and Vocabulary quiz, which can help you understand the new words that you learn, efficiently. Make sure you choose the best option make the most out of it.

Remember – it is not just to pass your exams that you should build your vocabulary. Make sure you understand the purpose of building vocabulary before you give it a try.

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E-cycle Waste Management: The Door to a Cleaner Future

We live in the world of IoT, where manufacturers are continuously investing in how everything shall be done using mobile devices. This means the next generation of mobile devices are becoming increasingly complex, and at the same time, older generation devices such as laptops are suffering from a lower product lifecycle. We tend to buy new gadgets, and sometimes either keep the older ones or discard them in thrash.

This is particularly dangerous because older gadgets have dangerous metals like Mercury, lead, cadmium, lithium, copper, and arsenic, which if not disposed of properly, has harmful effects not only to you but also to the environment. Many manufacturers have initiated a buy-back recycle program, where the buyer is given discounts on new purchases of their products. But that is just roughly 1% of the manufacturers who have dedicatedly worked towards e-waste recycling. In developing countries, there is hardly any incentive to recycle e-waste, which causes a deluge of the unorganized sector for e-waste management, which in turn does more harm than good.

However, there are some important points to consider before you think to dispose off your old laptops.

  1. Wipe off all Your Personal Data:

Before discarding your laptops, do make sure that the hard-disk is erased completely. You do not want your personal photos/videos to land in the hands of anyone else.

  1. Do Not Discard Laptop Battery in the Thrash-Can

Laptop batteries are made up of Lithium-ion, which in the wrong hands, is an explosive device. Hence, before discarding, do make sure that the battery is properly disposed off separately.

  1. Reuse is Better than Recycle:

Rather than discarding the laptop completely, you can reuse the working components to build your own personal desktop or just an extended monitor device.

  1. Do Not Attempt to Disassemble Old Laptops without Proper Training:

Laptops contain harmful carcinogenic chemicals and metals in components, which may adversely harm you if you do not have proper training of the correct and safe way of disassembly. You can recycle old laptop by selling it to companies and make a profit of your old useless laptop easily.

Laptops also contain precious metals such as copper, aluminum and even gold in the housings. Hence, one can separate them to be given back to the government, so that precious metal mining can be reduced. E-waste recycling reduces the waste in the landfill, thus making landfill maintenance cheaper. The main reason as to why people avoid recycling e-waste is because it is time-consuming and tedious. Critical components recycling such as power-ICs and step-down transformer are universal in all gadgets. These need to be recycled and re-used in other components.

Mandatory regulations with respect to recycling of e-waste needs to be implemented. This would force manufacturers to follow important regulations and safety guidelines while processing e-waste. This would not only reduce the chances of accidentally poisoning of an individual but also make sure that there is proper recycling and re-use of the essential products. This would, in turn, bring down the overall cost of the manufacturing of new gadgets by re-using old components in it.

The Unexpected Environmental Consequences of the Cannabis Industry

As you probably know, the liberalization of laws on cannabis use has been speeding up in recent years. Towards the end of 2018, Canada’s administration took the momentous step of legalizing the recreational use of cannabis. Just a few months later, the US Congress voted in favor of the farm bill, thus legalizing medicinal cannabis across the country.

These two important events, in particular, caused the cannabis market to expand rapidly. Since then, people up and down the continent have been growing, purchasing, and using cannabis at unprecedented rates.

In light of this, a lot of attention has been directed at the potential consequences that this widespread adoption of cannabis can have on people.

For example, billboards across Canada have been erected warning people not to drive after smoking or eating cannabis. Meanwhile, policymakers in the US are paying close attention to medical research and using it to inform regulations on how medicinal cannabis can and can’t be used and sold.

However, it’s not just people that the cannabis industry can have consequences for – it’s the environment too. Unfortunately, far less attention has been directed towards this important topic.

Energy Consumption: A Cause For Concern

The biggest cause for environmental concern in this area relates to the cultivation of cannabis. Regulations and policies on cannabis cultivation in the US favor indoor operations, which is pushing many farmers to grow their cannabis plants indoors.

The problem with this is that cultivating cannabis indoors really isn’t all that energy efficient. According to a study by the International Cannabis Farmers Association, just half an acre of indoor cannabis production uses the same amount of energy as 298 households would use across a whole year.

The reason energy consumption is so high is that artificial lighting and heating is required to maintain the right climate for the plants to grow. If these farmers were to grow their plants using the sun’s light instead, operations would be much more energy efficient.

In fact, data shows that four season greenhouses use as much energy as 82 households, whereas greenhouses that rely on the sunlight use as much as just 15 households – that’s more than 5 times less.

Energy consumption is the driving force behind climate change, and reducing national energy use should be a key goal of all environmentally conscious nations. The US and Canada need to do more to address this pressing concern and encourage more sustainable farming practices if they want to meet the energy consumption targets set by the Paris Accords.

The Impact of Cannabis on Fresh Water Supplies

The effects of the cannabis industry on the environment extends beyond energy consumption. Another area of concern is how it may affect our fresh water supplies. The problem is that all pharmaceuticals can potentially have a significant impact on the freshwater environment by contaminating bodies of water.

More governmental discussion is needed to ensure that this doesn’t become a problem, especially seeing ass North America’s lakes account for a huge portion of the world’s freshwater supplies, and millions of citizens are dependent on them for clean, safe drinking water.

15 Questions You Should Ask Your Wedding Baker

Your Wedding Cake will be one of the major decoration pieces on your wedding day hence you need to be very careful about the design and the flavors. The cake industry has progressed so well in the past few years that you can get any damn cake you have dreamed about on your wedding day. There are hundreds of bakers out there and you can easily shortlist a few of them who fit your requirements from Wedding Cakes – Styckie.

Before you make your first deposit, ask these basic questions to the baker as it is important to clear all points before you finally hire them;

  1. Are You Available to Bake the Cake on My Wedding Date?

This should probably be the first question you need to ask as there is no point of further discussion if the baker is unavailable on your wedding day.

  1. How are your Cakes Priced?

This is another important question you need to ask as it is essential to know beforehand if you could afford that baker. Roughly tell the baker your requirements and ask them to provide approximate pricing before you proceed.

  1. Does the Price Include the Cake’s Top Tier?

Many couples like to save the top tier for their first anniversary, but few bakers do not include the pricing of the top tier in the overall price hence make it clear beforehand.

  1. Where can I View the Gallery of Your Work?

It is no use talking in detail with a baker if you are not convinced by their baking skills hence view a gallery of their work first to decide if you like what they have to offer.

  1. Is Your Speciality Fondant or Buttercream?

Different bakers work with different frosting. If you have a particular frosting in mind, make sure that the baker has already worked with it.

  1. What are the Filling Options?

Again, there are multiple filling options and you may be hell-bent to include a few particular fillings in your wedding cake. Discuss beforehand the filling they do.

  1. Can You Make Sugar Ornaments? 

The cake has become more of a wedding ornament nowadays hence cake decoration is really important. The latest trend going around in the wedding cake business is sugar flowers and jewels. Make sure the baker knows to make these elements.

  1. Is There a Sample Tasting Before I Place a Deposit?

Make sure that the baker is letting you taste the flavors to choose from before you make a payment as at the end of the day apart from decoration, the taste of the cake is also important.

  1. How Many Days Prior to My Wedding the Cake Will be Prepared?

Do not be surprised to know that the bakers complete baking and decorating a wedding cake 3-4 days prior to the wedding if they have multiple orders. This should not be a problem but make sure that it is not too many days prior to the wedding as you do not want the cake to taste stale.

  1. Who is Going to Bake my Cake?

Do not talk to the assistant or accountant but talk directly to the person who is baking your cake as you do not need a third person specifying your requirements to the baker.

  1. Will You Provide the Cake Stand?

Many bakers let you rent a stand for a day. They will have multiple options hence choose a cake stand for your cake.

  1. How do You Deliver?

Make sure that the pricing includes delivery charges as well. Plan beforehand the time they will arrive at the venue, how long they need to set it up, if they need a refrigerator at the venue and how much space they need for setting up and arranging the cake on the venue.

  1. How many Years have You Been in This Business?

You will not want to hire a newbie on your wedding day. Know clearly how many years they have been baking wedding cakes to feel assured that you have hired a baking company which knows how to do its job.

 

How To Choose The Best Paint For Your Home?

There are different varieties of paints available in the market to paint the home or any other building. There are paints for interior surfaces, paints for the exterior areas, there are acrylic matt finish paints, there are water resistant and water repellent paints etc. It is necessary to select the best paint for your need carefully, if you want it to give the appropriate look to your home to last for a long time. It is necessary to consider various things when you are buying the paint online.

Reputable Online Dealers

It is necessary to shop paint and other materials for painting like putty, seals etc from a reputable dealer. Look for online sites with e-commerce certificate. These websites ensure safety for online shopping. Look for quality products from good dealers. The reputed companies will be able to offer the fairest price for the paints you need.  Select companies with easy payment option and prompt shipping of the items. It is also necessary to select online dealers who offer 24 hour customer service to clear your doubts regarding the pain or the shipping of the item ordered.  Reputable companies will haves widest choice of types as well as colors of paints to suit your rooms, wet areas, exterior walls etc.  You can get all the information needed about the different varieties of paints they are dealing by visiting their website. Check out here to know more about the online purchase of best paints.

Selecting The Paint

You should select the pain according to the climate of your area, the type of the house, the environment etc. if you get regular rains it is necessary to use water resistant paints for the exterior. You can use washable paints for your interiors and water repellent paints for bathroom areas. It is necessary to select bright shades for interiors if you want to make them look more spacious. Darker shades can be used for large halls or open areas.  The paint you select should match with the furniture and other décor of the rooms. Sometimes the experts in the paint company will help you to select the paint colors for the different rooms in your house.  It is necessary to get the best painting services to achieve perfection in the painting work of any home.

7 Ways to Stay Healthy on the Go

Busy professionals cannot afford to lose a single minute in a day. they are always on the go hence to be able to incorporate a healthy lifestyle in such a busy schedule seems to be extremely difficult, but it is not an impossible task.

By being smart and making simple changes, you can easily stay healthy on the go;

1. Start Your Day with Health Boosting Drinks:

Starting your day with body rejuvenation drink such as hot lemon water and honey or metabolism boosting drink such as Apple Cider Vinegar just takes a few minutes, but the health benefits provided by them lasts the entire day. Apple Cider Vinegar also aids in digestion, lowers the risk of cardiovascular disease and controls the insulin levels in the blood which adds on to its many advantages

2. Keep the Breakfast Simple:

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day and you should never skip it. Remember skipping breakfast will cause lowering of your body metabolism hence without fail, eat the first meal of your day and follow the same routine every day. Planning complex breakfast will consume a lot of your time and will eventually lead to missing it a few days. Instead, plan simple meals such as boiled eggs and bread, or just a simple sandwich with some fruits, this will make sure that you do not skip this meal.

3. Pre-Pack Snacks for the Entire Day:

When you are busy at work, you may forget to eat regular snacks timely hence packing the snacks every morning so that you can just grab the snack from your bag and eat it within minutes would encourage you to maintain a healthy diet which will improve your overall health.

4. Buy Grocery for the Entire Week:

Busy executives do not have the time to visit the supermarket every day to purchase one or two items. Make a list of food items you will require the entire week and shop ahead during the weekend so that ingredients for your entire week’s meal is readily available.

5. Carry a Water Bottle:

Drinking water is essential to maintain healthy digestion, high metabolism, and controlled weight but most of us forget to drink water while being busy at work and even if we remember, we postpone it just because we tend to concentrate on completing the assignment first. A simple solution is to keep a bottle of water on your desk and keep sipping water from it. You can refill it during lunch hours, this will help you to keep your body plenty hydrated.

6. Walk and Talk:

Incorporating an active lifestyle is also important to maintain fitness but most of us who have a desk job have a sedentary lifestyle. Just to break this trend, start walking more in the office. Take calls on your mobile so that you can walk and talk. Conduct standing meetings, if possible, stand and work in between so that you get more active during the daytime in office.

7. Conduct Work Discussion in the Office Fitness Area:

Many executives are so busy that they work for 8-10 hours every day which practically gives them no time to work-out. A new trend can be created in the workspace where long discussions can be held in fitness and gym area. Working out moderately and engaging in the discussion will help you stay active as well which will increase the blood flow to the brain and make you more productive. And you can also look for Kratom for sale.It is a win-win.

Maintaining a healthy lifestyle while being super-busy is not impossible if you can plan your meals well ahead and commit to moving whenever you can.

How Organic Vaping is Helping Smokers Quit

‘Quit Smoking’ is a resolution which many people pledge every year and they dedicatedly try to really get rid of this habit but because smoking is really addictive, most people relapse into old habits.

A recent survey has suggested that the smoking habits of people have reduced as compared to the last decade as people have become more and more health conscious nowadays.

To quit smoking, people are shifting towards e-cigarette, vaping and patches but it could take multiple attempts before a smoker can quit smoking completely. People are nowadays bent towards organic vaping products from safest e-liquid brand which is less toxic resulting in higher health benefits.

Tips for Getting Rid of Nicotine Addiction:

Getting rid of the addiction to nicotine will not happen overnight. getting rid of this addiction is a slow and steady process.

Below are some tips to help you quit smoking;

Decide a Date:

You need to fix a date when you will quit smoking forever. This date needs to be entered in your calendar and you should stick to it. This is the first step towards better health.

Discard all Cigarettes:

Keeping cigarettes in your vicinity may really tempt you to take a drag and before you know you will fall back into your old habits hence discard all the cigarettes you possess.

Download a ‘Quit Smoking App’

Keeping a track of the number of days you have quit smoking and your mood swings in an app are helpful. Such apps motive you more to not fall back into your old patterns.

Reduce Nicotine Content Gradually:

You cannot just stop smoking overnight. Quitting such addiction can only happen gradually or else relapse is definitive. One of the safest approaches is that once you quit smoking, vape organic e-liquid with a certain amount of nicotine. You will find several different nicotine content options, choose as per your requirement. You can start with 12mg or 6 mg and gradually reduce it over a period of time to 3mg and 0 mg but do not stop taking the organic vape liquid as you may get tempted to smoke again.

Join a Support Group:

To quit smoking alone is not easy. Join a support group of people who are also trying to quit. This will help all of you to keep each other motivated and you will have someone to talk you out if you ever crave for a cigarette again.

See a Therapist:

Many times, people smoke because they are emotionally stressed hence such people relapse again and again into their old habits. Quitting smoking is not going to help them if they are unable to process their emotions. Visiting a therapist may ease out their emotions and help against relapsing.

Conclusion:

Many entrepreneurs are shifting to the industry of organic cigarettes as they believe that this is a booming industry as it provides natural ingredients in its products which provides both, satisfactory experience and health benefits.

As people are shifting towards healthier options, the organic vaping industry is going to boom in future opening opportunities for new businesses to grow. 

 

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Top Factors to Consider for On-page SEO

Gone are those days when search engines relied solely on document analysis and traditional text to rank their indexes. Today, SEO is more like an organic ecosystem, where even the smallest snippet of code can affect the performance of your website, either directly or indirectly. Here are a few things you may want to consider while optimizing your site for the search engines:

Content

Although content is still very much the king in SEO, mere creation of content can do no good when it comes to improving the ranking of your website.  In fact 91 percent of online content gets no traffic at all from Google.

If you want your content to be effective you need to first understand the user intent. Unless the content you publish seems relevant to your users, they are not going to read it. Choosing the right keywords is important; but you should also analyze the kind of content that is ranking for these keywords. Today search engines prioritize long-form content over other forms of content, since it gives a fresh perspective to the topic and addresses many user concerns.

User Engagement

It is not just the search engines; you have to think about the people who visit your site while designing your site. So apart from creating an impressive website with lots of content, you need to make sure that content comes from a fresh perspective and seems engaging enough to your readers.

Technical Structure

Apart from the content and design, the technical structure of your site can also affect your keyword rankings and user engagement. You have to make sure your website is crawlable so that it becomes easy for the search engine crawlers to index your website. You should also take steps to improve the security of transactions that are carried on, on your site. If you want your website to be accessed by people with disabilities, you need to make sure it is ADA-compatible. Use user-friendly URLs and ensure there are no broken links or redirected pages. This will ensure good site speed.

Interlinking

Internal linking is one of the best on-page SEO practices you need to keep in mind. Apart from organizing your content and improving your website crawlability, it also helps enhance user experience. Through proper interlinking you can make sure the lower pages of your site can pull some authority from your high-ranking pages. It also makes it easier for your readers to navigate through your website and read more about what interests them.

The dynamics of SEO keep changing every now and then. But by focusing more on enhancing user experience you can always be where you want to be. And if you’re new to seo than you should go ahead and learn some Advanced SEO for Free courses online.

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Why it is better to Stand and Work than Sit?

Sitting and working might seem comfortable to many. But did you know that it can be seriously bad for your health?

By sitting a lot every day you are putting yourself at an increased risk of heart disease, diabetes, and even an early death. Weight gain and obesity are two more problems that have been linked to sitting for too long.

The number of calories you burn while sitting is very less. This is why many office workers today prefer standing desks over sitting desks.

Standing desk or a stand-up desk is a desk that allows you to work while standing up comfortably. You can check a few such stand up desks on https://kickofftech.com/autonomous-desk-review/ . There are modern versions that come with adjustable height so that you can alternate between standing and sitting.

Using a standing desk on a regular basis not only increases your productivity, it can also have immense benefits on your health. Here are some such benefits you can expect:

Standing can reduce your risk of obesity

You can burn about 1000 more calories by standing at your desk rather than sitting. In the long run this can result in effective weight loss, keeping you away from metabolic disease and obesity that are common problems of sitting for long hours.

Standing for long can lower your blood sugar levels

Your blood sugar levels tend to increase after every meal. This can be dangerous for people with insulin resistance or type 2 diabetes. By standing for some time after lunch, you can reduce your blood sugar spike considerably.  Add to it, a few additional physical movements around your office, you can bring your sugar levels completely under control.

Standing Minimizes Your Risk of Heart Disease

Sitting for long can have really negative effects on your heart health. You won’t be able to make up for these effects even if you include an hour of intense exercise in your schedule. So it is very important that you spend more time on your feet.

Standing appears to reduce back pains

One of the major problems of office workers is back pain. This is more common with people who sit all day. By using a stand-up desk you can strengthen your lower back and reduce your back and neck pain significantly.

Standing improves your mood and energy levels

People who use stand-up desks have reported less fatigue and stress when compared to those who sit at work all day. It can also have a positive effect on your mental health, reducing your risk of anxiety and depression.

Standing and working can boost your productivity

You might wonder how it is possible to type while standing. It does take some time to get used to. But once you do, you will see that you are able to do your typical work tasks faster while standing.

Standing helps you live longer

Many studies have linked early death to sitting for long hours. By reducing your sitting time to 3 hours per day, you can increase your average life expectancy by two years.

You can improve your physical, mental, and metabolic health significantly by reducing your sedentary time. It might take a while to adopt this lifestyle change. But it is high time you invested in a stand-up desk and took your step to stand.

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