10 Effective Ways to Prevent Gaming Addiction for Kids

Gaming is two-faced. It can pose as fun diversion and before you know it, the fun games turn into an unstoppable monster consuming your time and lifestyle. For kids, computer games can be too tempting to resist. You just have to try that game and now you’re captivated. When mom asks for a time-out, you beg for more and whine when you’re not allowed that extra time. But there’s so much to do out there, you’re just too busy to notice the difference because you’re constantly facing the computer. When it looks like gaming is using up your time, activities and interaction with family and friends, it’s time for an intervention. Here are effective ways to prevent online gaming addiction.

1. Have a break between playing time. Preferably 30 minutes to an hour in between. Do not play games without stopping for intervals.

2. Have at least an hour and a half of your time each day on non-electronic activities such as reading, writing or drawing preferably before bedtime.

3. Remember that school days are spent on school activities, studying and doing homework. Playing video games/online games are strictly prohibited. When you spend less time facing the computer, you’re more likely to veer away from gaming addiction.

4. Board games are fun and healthy alternatives to gaming. Playing with family moves the fun up a notch. If you don’t like board games, try card games instead. Must trys are Scrabble, Uno, chess games etc.

5. Take a walk in the park with your pet, a family member or a friend. Walking is healthy and so is fresh air. Resist the temptation to stay at home facing the computer all day. Choose walking over sitting still for hours.

6. Help mom or dad in the kitchen. It’s not only healthy and fun but you get to bond with them too. If you love playing cooking games, now’s the time to put your cooking skills to the test.

7. Pick a new sport and work on it.

8. Make time for spiritual activities and join religious youth groups for diversion. These groups let you interact with other kids your age, improving your social skills and self-esteem and keep your mind off your virtual gaming buddies.

9. Help mom plan your family nights. Or you could initiate plans for your family activities. Plan movie nights where you could load up on the popcorn and soda and have loads of fun with family.

10. Spend time with your closest friends and have the usual sleepovers and bonding overload. Nothing beats the company of good friends, real friends and not those found online.

The trick to a balanced life is to spend more time on things that matter. Sure, gaming is fun but when you look around you, there are a lot of fun things that you can do. Gaming is ok but you should set your limits and focus more on other recreational activities as well. Just enjoy your other kiddie luxuries.

Guest post is provided by a writer of Kim Tyrone Agapito's Article Directory.

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Seven Ways To 'Green' Your Office

Environmental responsibility isn't only an issue for big business and large corporations. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) can also play their part. Here are seven ways to make your office greener.

1. Look After Lighting

Out with incandescent, in with fluorescent. Energy saving light bulbs are the way to go. Change all the lights in the office and not only will you be helping the environment but you will save money. Although energy savers have a higher up-front price tag, they last for years, slashing your budget for replacing them. Use task lighting so you only light areas where it's necessary and implement a 'lights-out' policy to encourage employees to turn off the lights - and other equipment - as they leave at the end of the day.

2. Hydrate

Providing an in-house water cooler means that your employees won't have to buy plastic bottles of water to bring to work. That means fewer bottles going into landfill. And you can also avoid waste - and improve office air quality - by placing a large plant near the water cooler and watering it with the contents of the drip tray.

3. Transportation

Lead by example and reduce the eco-load of your daily commute. If possible, use public transport or cycle into work, or work from home a couple of days a week. Even if you need a car, try carpooling so that there are fewer cars on the road. That will cut greenhouse gas emissions from your commute.

4. Recycling

Make the 3Rs part of company policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from resource extraction, manufacturing and disposal. You'd be surprised what you can recycle - paper, newspapers, drink containers and even electronic equipment and batteries.

5. Energy Saving at the Desk

Just like home electronics, office electronics use energy even in standby mode. Use the power management settings on your computer to save energy and unplug laptops when you can. To help with turning everything off at the end of the day, plug your computer and peripherals into a single power strip and make it a habit to unplug that when you leave.

6. Raise Awareness

Help your employees to take environmental responsibility from the office to their home by providing information on initiatives they can take part in. An office noticeboard is a great place to let people know about community recycling schemes, electric cars, how to compost and more.

7. Reward Innovation

Encourage employees to come up with new ways to save energy around the office and reward them when they do. This will keep everyone in an eco-conscious frame of mind.

Sharon Hurley Hall likes to do her bit for the environment. Today she's writing for Eden Springs, the UK's No.1 water cooler rental company.

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How to Get Yourself to Workout

There are two kinds of people in this world: those who love to exercise and those who don't even want to touch a dumbbell. If you belong to the former, then good for you. You are most likely getting your regular dose of physical activity and reaping the benefits of it. For those on the other side, well there is still hope. You really do not need to love working out to get its benefits. Confused? Well read on to know how you can enjoy the advantages of being a gym freak without actually becoming one.

Maybe you don't like to exercise but it is possible that you like to move. Think back when you were just a kid. If you were like most of the kids out there, then for sure you are also like the Energizer bunny, always running around and jumping all over the place. Somewhere along the way though, you've lost that energy, you've lost the desire to move. And it doesn't help that moving in the world of adults means paying a hefty monthly gym fee to have people force you to “move” in a structured and organized manner.

When you were a kid, you didn't think that you are working out. All you know is that you are having fun. You do the things that seems fun to you such as ride a bike, run around inside your house, chase animals, climb tress and play ball with other kids. This is also why you have more energy when you were a kid. The paradox of exercise is that you get more energy from expending energy. If you are more active, you get more things done. You were also happier back then because of the amount of endorphin that gets released when you do some physical activity.

Does this mean that you have to be childlike to love exercise? The point is that you don't have to look at exercise as exercise. You need to view it as a fun activity that you do as recreation and not because you are after some goal such as to lose weight or to build muscles. When you were a kid, you were not at all concerned about having big muscles or a six pack. You just wanted to move because it is fun to do so.

Of course, it would help if you can really find some fun activities. If you love the outdoors, then you can try hiking or even running. If you love team sports, then you can play basketball. There's nothing like a fun activity to bring back the kid inside you. One fun activity that you can do at home is rebounding. It is an activity that uses a needak rebounder or a mini trampoline. If you think that jumping up and down a trampoline is fun then you will definitely have a blast with rebounding.

You don't have to force yourself to love exercise to get its benefits. All you need to do is to change your perspective.

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How to Easily Earn An Income with Link Insertion

With these tough times, many bloggers are asking how to make more money online. There are many ways to do this, of course, but perhaps the easiest and most effective way is through link insertion.

A lot of bloggers start with Google AdSense when trying to earn from their constant web traffic. This is a good start—AdSense can generate a regular revenue for your website. But isn’t there another way to add to this?

I’ve been using link insertion, a form of advertising that works great for websites and blogs that already have a lot of content. It’s a proven fact that consumers generally respond better to integrated advertising.

So if you need to make a little (or a lot) more income from your content-rich website, without scaring away your readers, you need to use advertisements in a more subtle, not so in-your-face way.

AdSense works well in this regard, which is why it’s been heavily used, because it adapts your ads in real-time so that the viewers see the adverts of products or services relative to their interests. Link insertion, which utilizes this same instantly-modified ads, is actually integrated into your website’s already-published content. Again, this kind of inadvertent advertising has been proven to have better content monetization results while giving readers a more non-obtrusive, engaging blog experience.

I determined, through trial and error, that the new INTENTclick is the easiest, most rewarding and all around best program available for this task. It’s aimed primarily toward bloggers with content about making money or saving money online. And it works side-by-side AdSense, without any issues. So really, if you’re trying to make money from your content, there isn’t a real reason as to why you shouldn’t use it on your website.

INTENTclick is also free to signup, although registration does have a few requirements (you need to maintain a money-making or content monetization-themed blog, for example), but this helpful technology can really help you capitalize your great content.

All-in-all, link insertion is a great way to monetize the content you already own.

Please read a more specific post I wrote about the INTENTclick process or read the INTENTclick eBook I wrote. 

Guest Post By Murray Newlands

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Exercise for Kids

The increasing number of cases of obesity among children is alarming. Parents can point their fingers to what they think is the real culprit of the problem but the bottom line is they are still responsible for whatever it is that their kids have become. To sum it up, the main cause of the problem is overeating and lack of physical activity. Kids nowadays have easy access to tasty yet unhealthy and nutritionally-lacking foods. Most of them also do not know what real “play” is. To kids nowadays, playing is getting in front of the television and an Xbox or burying their heads on their hand held games. 

This article is about the importance of exercise to kids and how parents can encourage their children to be more physically active. 

When it comes to exercise for kids, there are many things that parents should consider. The first thing that they need to know is the amount of time that children need to spend on exercise to become healthy. Many experts recommend that kids should be getting at least an hour of moderate activity everyday. This can come from playing with other kids or through formal exercise routines such as the ones they do during physical education classes. As children gets older, the number of hours they ares spending on exercise should also increase. Kids in their teens should get at least two hours of physical activity everyday. 

Your kid doesn't have to really sweat it out. He doesn't have to be panting after each exercise session. Exercise could include simple activities such as playing with or walking the family dog or as intense as an hour-long game of basketball or baseball. 

Of course,with all the distractions around, encouraging your kid to get some exercise is easier said than done. One of the things that you can do is to “play” along with your kid. For example, if you like to ride a bike, then why don't you invite your kid to go on a bike trip? If you are into sports, then why don't you challenge your kid to a friendly game of basketball? Doing physical activities together with your kid will also allow you to bond with him or her. 

You can also expose him or her to kids who are active. Take him to a practice of your local baseball team. Take him to a park where other kids are  skateboarding or biking. You can even take your kid to a martial arts exhibition. By exposing your child to many kinds of physical activities, his interest will surely be piqued sooner or later. 

You can also encourage your kid to exercise by buying an exercise equipment. You can get a stationary bike, a treadmill or a mini trampoline such as a Needak or bellicon rebounder. Sooner or later, curiosity will get the better of him and he will be asking you if he can try out the gym equipment himself. 

In encouraging your kid to love exercise, the key is to be creative and to always be at his side.

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5 Ways Facebook Complicates Our Dating and Social Lives

Analysis Paralysis

Freely available information or slander concerning your current partner, your ex-partner or even a prospective love interest can simply be too much to handle! Including your partner in your Facebook dialogue and friends list is a recipe for disaster. Things have a nasty way of being taken out of context on Facebook. For example, you might happen to come across a photo of some girl who has been tagged in a photo up close and flirty with the guy you’re dating. It might be totally innocent, yet a state of anxiety and panic starts to set in regardless.        

Rumor Mill

Part of the Facebook functionality allows people on your friends list to speculate about your relationship and dating status. Regardless of how you choose to set your relationship status, your friends have the ability to post all kinds of pictures of you that could easily raise speculation about your single status - a picture says a thousand words.

Humiliation

Dating is awkward enough at the best of times. Facebook makes dating even worse. Many guys won't hesitate in firing off a compulsive introduction email to a girl he doesn't know that's on his friends list. Even if she doesn't reply, he may go a step further and write on her wall, so EVERYONE can see how desperate his is. And if this girl has somehow ended up on his friends list, there's a chance they'll cross paths in real life through mutual friends making his efforts not only embarrassing, as well as a public spectacle both on and offline.

Unwanted Facebook Stalkers

Meaning: Lonely men + Facebook = Stalkers. Most stalkers go away after a few failed attempts to engage their admirer. But like anything in life, there's always a bad apple no matter where you go, it comes down to the law of averages. However, Facebook does allow people to minimize their exposure to unwanted communications via their profile settings, unfortunately, few people make use of this option. You can limit access to your Facebook account by limiting access to your wall and other photo or status updates.

Facebook Crush

Rather than providing you with loads of dating options on Facebook, the guy or girl you have a crush on tends to keep giving you more questions rather than answers in terms of their relationship status. "Why doesn't he/she set their relationship status, they must be a player." Or "I wonder who that girl is that seems to be in lots of his photo's, sister? cousin? lover?"     

Seemingly, Facebook looks like an enormous smorgas board of single people. But of you speak to people who use Facebook as a means for finding dating opportunities, the facade doesn't always live up to the truth.

What Facebook does offer though, are sophisticated online dating apps for single people. And it's through these apps that are connecting millions of single guys and girls who have downloaded the same app. These dating applications tap into the Facebook network thus pairing people up based on compatibility thanks to their Facebook information.

Facebook is an extremely powerful social tool, but it is wise to know the best ways in which to utilize the massive reach it provides.

Matt Fuller

About the Author

Matt offers advice relating to singles dating sites, social networking platforms, and free online dating sites reviews.

Follow Matt on Twitter @mattdating101

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Embed Google Analytics Data in Your Reports Automatically

Google Analytics is at the heart of retail websites around the globe, recently tipping the scales in over 50% of surveyed sites. Website owners are attracted by the easy installation, intuitive user-interface and of course the price point (free), as well Google’s reputation for innovation in the online industry.

Many medium to large sized business owners will find that what Google Analytics lacks compared to its paid-for rivals is the big budget investment in customised reporting.

Google Analytics Dashboards

Google have made a valiant effort recently with their new customised dashboard, an extremely useful feature which allows you to build up a dashboard of your favourite widgets, all of which will load when you arrive. From here you can even download as PDF or in Excel, or schedule a regular report by email.

What’s this good for? Well let’s say you have a site which sells things. You probably know how much you sell each week, but you need to know where these customers are coming from in order to manage your business.

Head over to your dashboard, hit ‘Add a widget’ and make a pie chart showing Transactions grouped by Source (see below).

Ta-da! Well almost half of the sales shown here came direct, no surprise there as I know about half of my transactions are from repeat customers, but there’s a new site in 3rd place whose traffic has generated 30 sales. I should head over to that site and find out why, and maybe cut a deal with the site owner to promote this further.

What if I now want another widget which just shows the same information for a sub-set of products, perhaps the most profitable ones? Well this is where we reach the limits of the Google Analytics Dashboards, as segments and sub-sections of tables can’t be applied here.

Vuedata

For business dashboards and reports which require a bit more customised functionality, third party tools are available which will allow me to create these views automatically.

Vuedata is a new tool launched to allow site owners to build automatic dashboards quickly and easily, with no manual intervention. It pulls its data straight out of Google Analytics, so no code changes are required to get it working.

Vuedata’s interface follows the same familiar list of dimensions and metrics as the dashboard from Google Analytics, allowing you to quickly recreate reports. The headline feature is segmentation, making Vuedata one of the only external tools which allows advanced segmentation on all of your reports.

Creating My Business Dashboard with Vuedata

Once inside Vuedata, my report can be recreated by selecting ‘source’ from the list of dimensions and ‘transactions’ from the list of metrics. I also enter ‘-transactions’ in the sort box to ensure that the report shows the highest numbers first, and select ‘Last 3 months’ as my date range.

Hitting generate brings up my data in bar graph form, and flicking this over to Pie Chart gives me the end result I was looking for:

My favourite feature is the ‘Save to dashboard’ button, which saves all settings for future use.

Building on the example above, I’m also able to create a sub-report which looks specifically at my most important product. To do this I can create a segment, which is achieved through the slick new segmentation interface. In this example I’m segmenting ‘productName’ contains ‘widget’ to focus in on visitors who bought a specific item:

Using my Business Dashboard with Vuedata

Once set up, all my business reports are helpfully stored within the My Dashboard section of the site.

From here, all reports can be reopened, edited or shared using the build-in shortlink feature. The real business benefit here is convenience.

Once created, I can take any graph, and copy the automatically generated code into a blog, intranet site or client report.

The polished chart appears automatically and even allows viewers to hover and click on it to see further detail.

Vuedata is available to anyone who currently has a Google Analytics account.. Head over to www.vuedata.com to find out more.

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Home Organization Tools to Simplify Your Life

These products make our lives easier and less stressful by keeping things neat and making them easy to find. Organizers are great for solving clutter problems and making the best out of a small area. Use these space-savers to add invisible square footage to your home and make organizing your living space that much easier.

■ In the Bedroom

• Whether you have a library in your bedroom or you have magazines in your office, you can purchase hanging racks to help you organize your literary collection and keep files, magazines and papers all in one location.
• For your children’s rooms, you may want to invest in an under-bed storage bag so that they can keep their belongings in one spot and then hide it from view.
• If you have a large jewelry collection, you can buy either a hanging jewelry organizer or a jewelry box armoire. While the hanging organizer takes up less space because it can be hung up in the closet, the armoire is a great conversation piece and a beautiful addition to any bedroom.

■ In the Living Room

• Keep your phone and keys all in one place by using a SmartPad. The pad sticks to almost any surface and hold the objects in place.
• If you have children, instead of buying a toy box that sits in the middle of your living room, consider purchasing one on wheels that your children can take with them. It also doubles as a handy tool for grownup items like transferring laundry from one room to another.
• If you and your spouse have a large movie collection, a DVD tower holds all of your films and makes a fantastic addition to your living room furniture at the same time.  
• Storage chairs are available that vastly cut down on closet space you would need for blankets and pillows. Simply lift up the seat of the chair and use the hollow space beneath for your throw pillows when guests or messy children come to visit.

■ In the Kitchen

• Depending on how your home is laid out, you may come through the door and into your kitchen. To avoid tracking mud and dirt, install a shoe cabby to house and keep track of your shoes.
• Some Tupperware manufacturers market storage containers that come with their own storage racks so, when they are not in use, you can still keep the containers and the lids together.
• No longer will you have to dig through cupboards and drawers to find the right size pot; instead, invest in a ceiling pot rack that hangs from your kitchen ceiling. Not only will you be able to find the item you need easily, but it also adds a special decorate touch to the room.
• Silverware can often get disorganized, especially if you have young children helping out with the dishes who may confuse a salad fork with a “regular” fork. However, with an expandable flatware tray, you can keep your silverware in line and you can adjust the size to fit in any drawer.
• If you really run out of counter space, hang an organizer rail system on the wall. This type of mounted organizer can hold a variety of utensils as well as spices so that you never have to go digging for what you need.

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What's Your Engagement Dream

I used to believe that all girls have already imagined since they were at least 7 years old how they want to be engaged and then have played with the thought of prince charming and marriage altogether. I am guilty of that, I have played scenarios and dialogues in my imagination that I wonder how many times my boyfriend would propose to me for all my imagined scenarios to come true. But then I have a friend from college who haven't thought of a marriage proposal. I mean, she does want to get engaged and get married but she hasn't imagined how she wants her prince to propose, how she'd say yes, what her ring would look like, etc. That broke my long streak of friends who have imagined where their future husbands would propose at least to those who are like me who already imagined even the whole dialogue at most. How about you?

Are Engagement Stories Important?

I have made up the whole wedding proposal scenario in my head not solely because of how sweet and wonderful it would sound to others when I share the story to them, that is just a bonus. I thought of it because that is how I want it to happen, that is how I prefer things, that is what I think would make me melt like butter. I know from my friends who are already engaged how completely surprised they were how their boyfriends proposed to them. The proposal wasn't that much of a surprise since most of their relationships are more than 3-6 years already, it's how the guys proposed that caught them all off guard. There were things done that made them wonder how the guys did it, where did they get the time to prepare, who helped them and where did they get the ideas. Engagement stories are important for memories, something you can treasure and go back to if you want to feel the joy of that moment that got proposed to. And well yes, something to share with your friends who are all too excited for you and maybe even lend a hand to your boyfriend with the proposal thing.

Got Ring?

The most important thing when proposing: the ring. Depending on the girl's preference, the guy proposing would at least have an idea (or ask the girl's closest friends to help out, that works too) on what ring best suits his girl. It's sweet how guys really take time and exert effort on deciding and looking around for their girl's engagement rings. But if the girl would have to choose she'd probably choose a customized engagement ring, or something with a name like Tiffany, I personally find it more thoughtful if the guy would buy one from what he knows about me, that'll be sweet. Aside from the classic Tiffany choice, David Yurman rings are also a popular choice if you have the budget for it. Just an idea.

The Proposal

How did you imagine your boyfriend to propose to you? Where? When? Do you want it in a restaurant while having dinner? Do you want it just the two of you or with a few close friends? On Valentine's Day, your anniversary or some other special occasion meaningful to both of you? However and whenever the question "will you marry me?" pops out, it will surely be a memorable moment!

Maria Constantine

Written by Maria Constantine:

David Yurman provides a style that is uniquely its own: classic, edgy and modern in one. This is true for all its jewelry lines including its rings. With a consistent theme, it isn’t afraid to explore the possibilities of its philosophy. Find out more about David Yurman Inspired Jewelry here.

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