Friday, February 27, 2015

Aging Quickly: Habits that Can Make You Age Faster

Aging is a natural and normal process. Certain lifestyle choices, however, can make you look older than you actually are. It might not look like it, but there are seemingly harmless habits and activities that can speed up your aging clock.

Here are a few habits that can add years to your physical appearance:

Sun Exposure

The biggest cause of premature aging in the face is exposure to UV rays. Too much sun exposure without sun protection can severely damage your skin. Make sure to apply sunscreen to protect your skin from sunspots and wrinkles. Cosmetic dermatology experts recommend using products with SPF 30 to 50 for daily use.

TV Marathon

Research suggests that with every hour of television watched, you cut your life expectancy by 22 minutes. Furthermore, people who spend an average of six hours of watching TV every day live five years less than people who don’t. Sitting for more than 30 minutes adds more inches to your waistline and increases your risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.

Too Much Makeup

Wearing excessive makeup can clog your pores and cause skin problems. Moreover, overusing skincare products with irritating chemicals and alcohol agents removes natural oils in the skin, causing wrinkles and premature lines. Always go for lighter makeup and use oil-free face products.

Crash Dieting

Quick weight loss solutions like crash dieting can cause long-term threats to your health. According to research, it can make you feel older by affecting your concentration, reducing energy levels, and making you irritable. Quick fixes can also cause sagging and wrinkles. If you want to lose weight, do it gradually; don’t lose more than one or two pounds a week.

Too Much Worrying

Apart from making you feel tired and stressed, too much negativity or worrying can speed up the aging process and make you prone to depression. When you worry, you don’t eat well and don’t maintain a healthy sleep schedule, which can affect your appearance. Try to maintain a positive outlook in life and stay away from negative things, people, and places.


Aging gracefully is all about making good choices early in life. This means avoiding things that could put your general health at risk. Steer clear of these habits to stay younger and vibrant longer. 

Forget the Weekends: How to Make Your Staff Love Going to the Office

Smart office design opens up free-flowing ideas and attracts talents who recoil sitting in a cubicle. But there’s more to designing an office that fosters teamwork and collaboration than just demolishing cube walls. Design experts in Perth recommend refitting office partitions, letting in natural light, and even revamping the office pantry.

Here’s how to design your workplace to get more done:

Consider Clusters or Quads in Terms of Seating

There’s no one-size-fits-all way to design your workplace to best encourage productivity, but the rule of thumb is to allow sharing of workspace, open sight lines and arrange it to break the feeling of working in a corporate farm.

Establishing a communal feeling is more important than granting employees the privacy afforded by corner offices and walled conference rooms. Adding glass so that employees can see one another is a clever decision.

Cut Down Noise with Soundproofing Walls

Cut down noise in your workplace to maximise productivity and minimise stress. Many commercial interior design companies in Perth can soundproof ceiling and walls in noise-sensitive rooms, such as conference and meeting rooms. They help you create visually interesting space that brings a new level of interest to an otherwise unremarkable workplace. This keeps conversations from being overheard and maximises privacy.

Don’t Neglect Ergonomics

Several studies have been done about the impact of office furniture and phone usage on employee health and comfort. You should make the most of these studies and give thought to furniture design and the way it suits the needs of your employees and their work habits. Ask your staff about what they prefer and make sure they know the proper way to adjust their furniture.

Your workplace reflects your business’s culture and personality. Art, amenities, wall colours and comfortable spaces all enhance your brand and productivity. After all, we spend most of our time at work than any place these days, so it should be an inspiring and comfortable environment.

Living with Kids and Pets: Keeping a Clean Home

Pets are part of the family. They provide joy after a long, tiring day at work, guard your home from intruders and always make playtime an extra fun time for the kids. But pets can pass on infections and diseases to the family, especially kids. If you have a pet at home, make sure that they are clean and healthy so that your kids are safe from illnesses.

Practise Hygiene

It’s important that you keep your pets clean and well groomed. This is not just to keep the family from catching diseases and infections, but also to ensure that your pet enjoys good health. Wash them with hypoallergenic pet cleaning products regularly so they will not have the odour and skin problems. Schedule a day of grooming and stick to it. If you have a dog, experts generally recommend that you bathe your dogs once a month. Consult a veterinarian, though, if you have dogs that have skin problems.

Part of the pet’s hygiene is frequent nail trimming. If your pet has long nails, your kids may be scratched and wounded. Take your pets to a groomer and have their nails trimmed to ensure the safety of the kids.

Infections from Pets

Pets carry germs and bacteria that can be caught by your kids when they play with them. Dogs and cats may carry roundworms and if ingested, they can impair body organs. When your child touches your pet or helps in cleaning the litter box, tell them to wash their hands after. Toxoplasmosis is an infection, caused by a parasite that may come from getting in contact with infected cat faeces.

Teach Children 

If your kids are still toddlers, it’s better to keep an eye on them when they play with the pets. Remind them as well to wash their hands after touching your dog or cat. Teach them how to care for animals by involving them in washing and cleaning your pets.

Having a pet doesn’t have to mean a cluttered and chaotic home. Practice good hygiene habits on the pets and teach them discipline. Your kids will see what you’re doing and they will learn from you. With this, you can have a clean home, healthy pets and caring kids.

Friday, January 9, 2015

Beyond Google: Why Other Search Engines are also Important

For companies that are keen on developing a strong online presence, search engine optimisation is not optional. While ‘search engine’ is a collective term for dozens, or even hundreds of others, the first site that comes to mind is Google, with Yahoo and Bing coming as a distant second.

This now begs the question: is it important to optimise for these other sites or just stick to requesting for Google marketing services?

The easy answer would be to optimise your online channels to rank at the top of these search engines. Given the difference between these engines, however, you might encounter contradictory techniques to rank on one or the other. For most people, the solution is simple. Do whatever it takes to make Google happy.

Of course, this is not a universal solution

A fair amount of market research still needs to be done. Google may have the majority, but certain places may prefer one engine over the other. This is especially crucial for small businesses employing local SEO techniques. To optimise your website for Google when Bing is the most popular engine in your area limits you from reaping the maximum profits of this technique.

While you can concentrate your efforts on marketing strategies to rank on a specific search engine, authentic and excellent content remains the most important strategy of all. Only high quality content will keep visitors on your website, hopefully long enough to retain your services or purchase your product.

All optimisation efforts should revolve around the visitors and to make them happy. Optimising for search engines, even Google, should only be secondary to the satisfaction of your future patrons.

Successful marketing strategies always involve a well-rounded scheme. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, as they say. If you’re going to invest in SEO, invest in other methods of advertisement and PR as well.