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Standards – Part 12 – The trouble with being a parking company

Monday, April 14th, 2008 by admin

Written by Michael Gilmour , Monday, 31 March 2008 
I think that there should be a saying, “Parking, damned if you don’t, damned if you do….”. This is definitely the cast for domain parking companies that are under pressure from multiple directions and now most recently standards and transparency.

My experience has shown that parking companies have either embraced, been silent or have actively worked against the introduction to standards. The reasons for these reactions are sound and are typically self serving (which is not wrong!). Let me share with you a story about a friend of mine and his experience with one particular parking company.
For the past 12 months he had been faithfully adding a lot of domains to his parking account at “Park X” (I won’t say who it is to protect my friend). A strange thing happened, the more domains he added and the more traffic that they accrued the lower his Earnings Per Click fell. This was obviously not a good outcome.

Through a Park X disaffected employee he found out that during this time his revenue share had been reduced by 10%. When he queried his account representative no reasons were given and the length of time it had been reduced was not known.

This simple experience clearly illustrates that due to a lack of transparency a parking company was able to do whatever they liked to a domainers account and the only recourse that the domain owner has is to leave.

This brings me to a point that I raised in an earlier article. There are a number of parking companies that are trying to implement a level of transparency. It is a difficult process and but more importantly what are they being transparent about? The nice thing about these companies is that they are trying to head down the road towards transparency and standards as they are viewing the lack of movement by other companies as a potential competitive advantage. All power to these guys!

Source: Posted on WhizzBangsBlog by Michael Gilmore – Reprinted with Permission – March 31, 2008
 

Bunny Trouble

Sunday, March 23rd, 2008 by admin

Bunny Trouble by Hans Wilhelm is the story of Ralph, a soccer crazy bunny who would rather play soccer than decorating Easter eggs. The story narrates how Ralph’s fondness for soccer lands him in big trouble and he nearly ends up becoming Easter dinner.

Ralph lives in a rabbit colony and the rabbits perform the task of decorating all the Easter eggs for the Easter Bunny. Although members of this colony work all the year round, Ralph would have none of it and instead spend time playing soccer.

Fed up with Ralph’s obsession with soccer, the rabbits scolded him for playing so much soccer and barred him from playing near them. Undeterred, Ralph went to play soccer in a near-by field but fell into a trap laid by a farmer. Ralph almost ended up as the farmer’s Easter dinner but his brave sister managed to rescue him with the help of some Easter eggs.

Caffeine, Could, Spell, Trouble, for, Diabetics,People, with, heart, disease, and, diabetes, may, need, to, alter, their, habits, Find, the, symptoms, of, diabetes

Monday, March 3rd, 2008 by admin

MONDAY, Jan. 28 (HealthDay News) — New research suggests the caffeine in those daily cups of java might spell blood sugar trouble for diabetics.
In a small group of 10 diabetics, glucose levels rose by 8 percent when participants took pills filled with the level of caffeine found in four cups of coffee.
“There’s reason to believe that caffeine consumption — and coffee is the most common source of caffeine — may be harmful to people with type 2 diabetes and make it more difficult for them to keep their glucose levels under proper control,” said study author James Lane, a professor of medical psychology at Duke University.
While some research has suggested that the antioxidants in coffee could prevent diabetes in women, laboratory tests have questioned whether caffeine disrupts the body’s ability to process blood sugar. “We want to demonstrate that what we’ve seen in the lab takes place in the real world when people are living their normal lives,” Lane said.
In the new study, researchers inserted a small sensor into the abdomens of 10 patients who had diabetes but didn’t take insulin. The sensor kept track of blood sugar levels for up to 72 hours.
Over several days, the patients — all coffee drinkers — alternated between taking placebos and 500 milligrams of caffeine a day in capsule form. That level of caffeine is equal to four eight-ounce cups of coffee.
The findings appear in the February issue of Diabetes Care.
On days when they consumed the caffeine pills, the blood sugar levels of the patients went up by 8 percent compared to when they took placebos. Glucose also rose after meals, most notably after dinner when blood sugar levels grew by 26 percent.
There are a couple possible explanations, according to Lane. In one, caffeine may interfere with the transfer of glucose from blood into the cells of the body, boosting blood sugar levels. Another possibility, he said, is that caffeine may stimulate the liver to release glucose when it’s not needed.
A researcher who studies coffee said the new study has some limitations. For one, it looks at effects over one day, rather than over the long term, said Rob van Dam, a research scientist at Harvard School of Public Health. For another, “it should be noted that effects of caffeine in capsules cannot be directly translated to effects of caffeinated coffee, as studies have previously found less pronounced effects of caffeinated coffee on blood glucose levels as compared with caffeine in isolation,” he added.
What to do? Keep coffee consumption under control, Lane suggested. “It would be worthwhile for people with diabetes who drink coffee to try quitting for a time and see if their glucose improves,” Lane said. “It’s a simple thing that might make their diabetes better.”
Decaf may also do the trick. Indeed, van Dam said a previous study showed decaffeinated coffee actually reduced spikes in glucose levels after people ate sugary food. “It may thus be useful for persons with diabetes to try switching from caffeinated to decaffeinated coffee and see whether this improves their glycemic control, he said.

source:health.yahoo