#you get a big city experience for cheaper than most cities (big and medium sized!!!

[we-re-always-alright]

seven years in a row!!!!!!!!

[voiptechsolutions]

How To Find A Reliable VoIP Wholesale Provider? Key Things To Consider!

  These days, most of the global workforce are opting for digital modes to make any kind of business communication. Be it through social networking sites and using live chats, and they are doing it in a convincing way. Despite the opposite trend and loads of new mediums, communication over the phone has not lost the #1 spot yet. It is still and will be the most viable and profitable way to establish business communication. And, the technological advancement in VoIP phones has taken it to the next level. And, when it comes to getting the right set of technology and features, VoIP Wholesale Provider can be a real help. How to find a reliable VoIP Wholesale Provider? Keep reading this blog. Though during the initial days, people were more concerned about the quality of the VoIP Phones, the rapid advancement in technology and constant upgrades has definitely elevated the calling quality and channeling capacities over the years. No more messy wiring, no traditional analog phone lines, it is just the internet connection and the device of your choice be it mobile, desktop, or laptop, you can make calls anytime from anywhere. For that, you don’t require to stay bound to your desk. With a number of VoIP providers having their presence in the Indian market and promising the best services at cheap prices, finding the right one for your business can be a daunting task. But, we can help you find the ideal VoIP Wholesale Provider. Listed below are the key things to consider while choosing a VoIP Wholesale Provider. Here you go: Business communication systems with poor voice quality or unavailability of multiple channels can certainly harm your future prospects and existing customers as well. By considering these key elements, you can map your route to find the best in the business. First of all, identify your VoIP needs: The very first and foremost thing that you should ask yourself is why you need VoIP service, the scope of the communication, and what exactly you need? Finding answers to these questions will definitely help you select the right VoIP wholesale provider in India. Because VoIP technology comes with a plethora of advanced features and amazing services, by knowing your business requirements, you can save big on what it didn’t require as of now. Why pay for the future that you don’t require or not a part of your current communication strategy. Apart from the standard features on offer, you can als ask your VoIP wholesale providing companies, the additional features they are offering and will they benefit your business communication. Provision of Redundancy: When it comes to the reliability of VoIP technology, there is no doubt that your business communication is in safe hands. However, you need to make sure that your VoIP wholesale provider doesn't have any serious connectivity issues. Your business communication may face the heat of poor connectivity that can leave you in chaos. You may not have to go through these kinds of situations if your VoIP providers assure with built-in redundancy security measures. Do make sure that your prospective providers have this feature. Quality of Service (QoS) and High Bandwidth: The quality of VoIP communication depends on the availability of bandwidth and a good one comes with a high-speed internet connection. Low bandwidth can trouble your communication process with call delays and poor audio/video quality. So, it’s very important to evaluate the bandwidth you require in order to maintain HD quality voice/video calling. Do make sure, you have the real-time statistical data to evaluate the bandwidth. 24/7 Technical Assistance & On-site Support: With high volume calls on the role, your business may feel the heat of unexpected situations at inappropriate hours. In that case, you will need the help of technically sound professionals that can answer your queries and help you restore the normal communication with all systems & software functioning well. Acquire References and Authenticate: You should ask your service providers for genuine references to authenticate their genuineness. It’s better to see the reviews and read the previous or current client testimonials to make sure you are dealing with the right organization.  If you believe in data, the rate at which the technology is growing will cross USD 140 billion in the next 3 years. Why? With data rates becoming cheaper, a huge drop in calling prices, and a futuristic networking infrastructure, you can expect a great jump in the VoIP market share, maybe more than the data projected above. If you take the present scenario into consideration, VoIP phone systems are clearly ahead in the market from their contemporaries. You can expect more surprises from VoIP technology. Why should organizations look beyond traditional phones?  With businesses of all sizes have already felt the heat of CoronaVirus and recession, they indeed need a communication push to restore the customer faith in their business and promise a better experience. And, Indian VoIP wholesale providers are the favorite among modern-day businesses all around the globe for fulfilling most of the basic and advanced communication needs.  Inexpensive Communication: One of the biggest reasons why businesses should look beyond the traditional phone systems is, the cost-saving features of VoIP phones. As the calls are made over the Internet, they are generally cheaper as compared to their traditional counterparts.  Streamlined Client Interaction: With cloud telephony, the chances of missing out on calls are zero, even if the agents are not present on the desk and during operational hours. It’s your support team or individuals that decide to answer the calls, how, and from where. With call routing and forwarding features, you can transfer the call to the next person into the devices of his/her choice. And, with the IVR system, you can reduce the load on your team by answering common queries. Virtual Numbers: With Virtual numbers, you are no more limited to certain boundaries; you can now go global and create history. You can ask your VoIP service provider to assign you a virtual number in any country, city, or location so that you can connect to the global audience as one of their own. You can operate your business and serve the local customers’ of any country be it the US, UK, Europe to name a few with a local number and area code of choice, while staying in India. Isn’t that great? With enterprises large to mid-size and small and startups from all around the globe are switching to VoIP services, sitting out of the race can cost you a large chunk of business that you could have got. With a number of providers in India, battling it out there in terms of pricing and innovation, you have to be really careful while choosing the best one for your business. VoIPTech Solution is a leading name in the industry known for its wholesale VoIP services at the best rates in the market. Its simple and secure Automated Carrier Platform empowers wholesale VoIP providers and carriers from all walks of life to make purchases, sell and do trading on a plethora of advanced VoIP termination services and routes you can name. It can ensure to double the customer satisfaction rate, by making your investment secure and save big on operational cost. And, the best part is, you are equipped with the right set of features and its quick setup saves your valuable time, which was not the case with others. You can transform your current organizational structure into world-class, by moving with enhanced efficiency and ensure better productivity in a time that requires more from a distributed business establishment.  Are you an enterprise, mid-size business, or startup of any size, looking for reliable VoIP wholesale Providers that can provide you with advanced VoIP termination services and routes? You couldn’t have a better choice than VoIPTech Solutions. With us, you get international phone numbers from over 165 countries. Our paid VoIP MInutes plan starts at $10 per month and goes up to $20 per month. Our featured VoIP services come with an extensive range of features to meet your business requirements. Sign Up and get FREE $5 credit today! To get more information about our VoIP plans, you can contact us anytime at +91-6746828203. Read the full article

[dominikagruzlewska]

MOVING IMAGE - RESEARCH

CAMERA MOVEMENTS 

PANNING  – the technique when the camera turns directly right or left. Camera is locked on a tripod in the axis of the photographed object. This technique refers to the movement that the human head makes when tracking an object.

TILT –  is similar to panning in that the camera is kept in a stationary position, but unlike panning (which looks from side to side) tilting focuses on upwards & downwards movements. Using a tilting motion helps to fit more into a single frame. A slow upwards tilt can be very effective in making a subject appear bigger or more significant while a downwards tilt has the opposite effect.

TRACKING - trucking involves moving the entire camera along a fixed point, but the motion goes from side to side, rather than in and out. It’s often used to follow characters in action. Mounting the camera on a fluid motion track will help to stamp out any jerking camera movements.

ZOOM - gives the impression of moving closer or further away from the subject. It can be used effectively to magnify a certain focus point in the frame. While a quick zoom can help add a sense of drama and energy when used correctly, avoid over-using zoom as your default.

DOLLY - dolly shot is when the entire camera is mounted on a track and is moved towards or away from a subject. Unlike a zoom shot, the world around the subject moves with the camera. A dolly gives the illusion that the viewer is walking towards the subject and can be a great way of creating a sense of intimacy between them.

PEDESTAL - (AKA Boom up/down or Jib up/down) involves moving the camera upwards or downwards in relation to a subject. It’s different from tilting in that the entire camera ascends or descends, rather than just the angle of the camera. A pedestal shot can be used to frame a tall or high subject (such as a building) while keeping the framing at eye level view for the viewer.

PULL FOCUS – is the change of your focus point from one area/subject to another. It can be used to emphasise and draw attention to a specific detail.

PAN SHOT - camera pans rotates the camera side to side on a horizontal axis. This can reveal something to your viewer or allow them to follow an action.

WHIP PAN SHOT - a whip pan happens when you pan the camera from one shot to another, creating a motion blur.

CRAB SHOT - the crab shot is basically a dolly shot that moves horizontally like a crab.

ARC SHOT - arc shots are camera shots where the camera moves around the subject in an arc pattern so as to show more of the surroundings.

SHOTS INDICATING SUBJECT SIZE 

LONG SHOT - (aka Wide Shot)  it is a camera shot that shows the entire subject from head to toe and places that subject in relation to their surroundings. The long shot is also called a “wide shot” or “full shot” and it’s used to show the relationship between characters and their environment. This shot often sets the scene and our character’s place in it.

MEDIUM SHOT - shows part of the subject in more detail. For a person, a medium shot typically frames them from about waist up. This is one of the most common shots seen in films, as it focuses on a character (or characters) in a scene while still showing some environment.

CLOSE UP - fills the screen with part of the subject, such as a person’s head/face. Framed this tightly, the emotions and reaction of a character dominate the scene.

EXTREME LONG SHOT - captures a very wide area to show the scale of subjects in relation to their environment, like tiny birds in a forest. It is typically used as an establishing shot when changing from one big area or city to another.

EXTREME CLOSE UP SHOT - emphasizes a small area or detail of the subject, such as the eye(s) or mouth. An Extreme Close Up of just the eyes is sometimes called an Italian Shot, getting its name from Sergio Leone’s Italian-Western films that popularized it.

CHOKER - a variant of a Close-Up, this shot frames the subject’s face from above the eyebrows to below the mouth.

FULL SHOT - frames character from head to toes, with the subject roughly filling the frame. The emphasis tends to be more on action and movement rather than a character’s emotional state.

MEDIUM LONG SHOT - medium Long Shot (aka 3/4 Shot)  Intermediate between Full Shot and Medium Shot. Shows subject from the knees up.

COWBOY SHOT - cowboy Shot (aka American Shot)  A variation of a Medium Shot, this gets its name from Western films from the 1930s and 1940s, which would frame the subject from mid-thighs up to fit the character’s gun holsters into the shot.

SHOTS INDICATING CAMERA ANGLE/PLACEMENT 

DUTCH ANGLE SHOT - shot in which the camera is set at an angle on its roll axis so that the horizon line is not level. It is often used to show a disoriented or uneasy psychological state.

HIGH ANGLE - subject is photographed from above eye level. This can have the effect of making the subject seem vulnerable, weak, or frightened.

EYE LEVEL - shot taken with the camera approximately at human eye level, resulting in a neutral effect on the audience.

LOW ANGLE - subject is photographed from below eye level. This can have the effect of making the subject look powerful, heroic, or dangerous.

OVER THE SHOULDER SHOT – a popular shot where a subject is shot from behind the shoulder of another, framing the subject anywhere from a Medium to Close-Up. The shoulder, neck, and/or back of the head of the subject facing away from the camera remains viewable, making the shot useful for showing reactions during conversations. It tends to place more of an emphasis on the connection between two speakers rather than the detachment or isolation that results from single shots.

BIRD’S EYE VIEW – (aka Top Shot) it’s a high-angle shot that’s taken from directly overhead and from a distance. The shot gives the audience a wider view and is useful for showing direction and that the subject is moving, to highlight special relations, or reveal to the audience elements outside the boundaries of the character’s awareness. The shot is often taken from on a crane or helicopter.

POINT OF VIEW - shot intended to mimic what a particular character in a scene is seeing. This puts the audience directly into the head of the character, letting them experience their emotional state. Common examples are of a character waking up, drifting into unconsciousness, or looking through a scope or binoculars.

OTHER COMMON SHOTS TYPE 

Cut-In - similar to a Cutaway, but shows a Close-Up shot of something visible in the main scene.

Cutaway - a shot of something other than the subject and away from the main scene. It is usually followed by a cut back to the first shot and is useful for avoiding a jump cut when editing down a section of dialogue, or editing together two separate takes.

Establishing Shot - usually the first shot of a scene, this is used to establish the location and environment. It can also be used to establish mood and give the audience visual clues regarding the time (night/day, year) and the general situation. Because they need to provide a great deal of information, Establishing Shots are usually Extreme Long Shots or Long Shots.

Master Shot - term given to a single, uninterrupted shot of a scene. This shot can be the only shot used by a director to cover a scene, or edited together with additional shots. While it’s commonly a Long or Full Shot, a Master Shot can be a closer shot, or consist of multiple shot types if the camera is moving throughout the scene.

Reaction Shot - shows a character’s reaction to the shot that has preceded it.

Reverse Angle Shot - a shot taken from an angle roughly 180 degrees opposite of the previous shot. The term is commonly used during conversation, indicating a reverse Over-the-Shoulder Shot, for example.

Two Shot - a shot in which two subjects appear in the frame.

EQUIPMENT 

TRIPOD – is used to stabilise the camera in static shots, also used for panning and tilt shot as movements can be smooth and controlled.

CAMERA SLIDER SHOT - a slider is a piece of equipment that “slides” your camera on a vertical or horizontal axis. It’s sort of like a dolly mounted on a tripod that creates smooth, sweeping camera moves.

HANDHELD CAMERA SHOT - are held and moved by a camera operator. They aren’t stabilized and often shaky. They can add a gritty feel to a shot.

STEADICAM SHOT - uses a camera stabilizing device that attaches to the camera operator. It uses a counterbalancing system for smooth and stable camera moves. Steadycam is the broad name for this camera mechanism, while the Tiffen Steadicam (with an 'i') is the model name used by Tiffen.

GIMBAL SHOT - gimbals are another camera stabilizing device that use motorized gyroscopes to reduce friction. It is more compact than a Steadicam and completely handheld. This allows it to fit through tight spaces.

CRANE SHOTS - a crane shot often sweeps up and over a scene. It is a great way to create first or final shot for a film.

JIB SHOT - a jib is a crane device that sweeps the camera up and over a setting. A jib is similar a crane, but with more limited range and movement. It's compact and utilizes counter-weights.

DRONE SHOTS - these camera shots attach to a drone to fly over or alongside your subject. They're often used for aerial shots or when shooting an exciting car chase. Drones are way cheaper than helicopters and can operate in spaces helicopters can’t.

WIRE SHOT- in this shot, the camera moves on a cable or wire for deliberate, smooth moves. Like drones, wires get much closer to the action than helicopters. These are often used in live concerts and sporting events.

[thoughtsofmine97]

Traveling: Greyhound Bus Addition!

Everyone has at least heard of the greyhound bus line.

 If you live in the U.S., Canada, or Mexico, and you have traveled on the highway, you may have seen one driving next to your car. Hell, you and your family members may have tried to be the first one to connect to the bus’s wifi before it got too far away or one of you got off at the next exit.

 But, if you haven’t, is is a form of mass travel (think of airplanes, but on the ground) that goes to over 3,800 destinations in North America (and yes, that means Mexico and Canada as well, and you need a passport for those trips), and it is an easy a cheap way to travel, if you don’t mind being in a sitting position for a long period of time.

 Here are some things that I wish I had known before I had decided to go this route (pun intended) or that I had to just figure out myself.

WARNING: This is my opinion, and I am in no way a professional since I had only taken this company once. This is just from my own experience. There is a man on YouTube by the name FrugalTravelGuru (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_NqsoFzUroeZ90ZZDdqSaA) who has good advice as well.

 I have also traveled by other means, and I will implementing tips from those as well!!!

Book your ticket well before hand

 You are going to want to book your ticket ahead of time.

Like a month or two before your travel date.

  Besides the obvious reasons (I.e. Cheaper, more seating options, and the fact the bus can fill up quickly), plans can change. And when plans change, you have to have ample time to change your means of travel.

  Lets say that you book your bus ticket two and a half months before the day that you leave, and it’s to go to a friends wedding. And a month goes by, and your friend (lets say the bride) Calls you and says that the wedding is moved up a week, and now you have to reschedule.

  If you give enough time between the booking of the ticket and the actual traveling date, you have more wiggle room. You never know when an emergency will pop up.

Keep your luggage in mind and what is a carry-on?

 No matter what kind of ticket you buy, the bus line allows you to have at least one free suitcase and one free carry on (This is just standard. Check online or your ticket to see which one you get and what it allows). 

  The weight limit for your suitcase is fifty pounds (50 lbs), and you do have to pay a fee if it is overweight. There are luggage weighing devices at the larger stations, but you can weigh them at home with luggage weighers that you can buy yourself or eyeball it (remember to keep the weight of the actual suitcase in mind) so you don’t get surprised when you get to check in.

 Just remember, your luggage goes underneath the bus in the luggage compartment, and you won’t have access to it until you get to where you are transferring to another bus, or to your final destination. I also suggest getting luggage locks from Walmart (Or your retailer of choice) to deter people from taking your things, and keep the key on you.

 Your carry-on is the small/medium sized bag that you can bring with you on to the main part of the bus. It has to be small enough to fit in the overhead bin, on the floor by your feet, or in your lap. Personally, I kept my most needed items in this bag to keep it close by. 

Here's a list of the items I personally think that you might need, but you probably don’t need everything on this list:

Your bus ticket

Passport (if traveling between the U.S. and Canada or the U.S. and Mexico)

Wallet

Phone/phone charger/headphones

Small travel pillow (they have these at Walmart with dust covers and cases that zip up and are in different colors or designs. They are perfect for keeping something between your head and the window)

Small throw blanket (It has be small enough to put back into your bag, and it comes in handy because the bus tends to get kind of cold)

Extra cash

Tylenol/allergy meds/other meds that you may need/cough drops

Gum

Some granola bars or small food items

Water

Hygiene products (small hair brush, toothbrush/paste, pads/tampons) I brushed my teeth when I had gotten to my layovers just to keep bad breath away. I also keep deodorant/body wipes on me so I can not smell bad. 

  Again, you don’t have to have everything on this list, but feel free to use it if you need to.

 Keep in mind that, more than likely, your gonna probably doze off or not have full attention on your bag, so get a luggage lock on it while you aren’t actually looking for something and keep the key on you (in your pocket). You might also want to keep your wallet/ticket in a hard to reach pocket just to keep your ID and ticket on you and no one tries to pick pocket you while you’re asleep or on the way to the bathroom.

TIP #1: I know that you may have heard this a thousand times, but get luggage that is brightly colored or had a different pattern on it (I’ve seen people get their faces printed onto their luggage). Stickers, paint, or bedazzling works as well, but keep anything that makes it look “expensive” to a minimum. The shinier and newer it looks, the more likely it is to be stolen (put a few dings and scuffs into it for good measure).

 This is because everyone and their 2x great Aunt Lucy has a black suitcase, and if your bag gets left at a station or stolen, they need identifiable features to find your bag(s). Don’t just put a luggage tag on it! It can be ripped/cut/torn off.

 Also, have a picture of certain items in your bag (I.e. a few of your shirts, a laptop, any personalized items, etc...). This way, if they located it, they can confirm that it is yours. Just remember that anyone can say that it’s theirs and walkaway with everything.

Have extra cash on you!

 Now, keep this in moderation. Don’t go around with large amounts of cash on you, especially at the larger stations in big cities where questionable people tend to hang around. Keep it under $100 if you can. Have two or three $20 bills, a few fives and a few ones.

 I say have extra cash on you because emergencies pop up, you can’t use your card for some reason, or other situations where cash is the best option.

  For example, if you have to change your ticket for whatever reason, the first time changing it is free, but each additional change has a $20 fee. 

 I had to change my ticket twice, and the second time was two in the morning in Nashville, and the card reader was off, and if I had waited for it to turn on, I would’ve eventually miss the bus I had my ticket changed for and would’ve had to wait four hours for the next bus in the morning. 

 Also, it’s just easier to pay in cash when at the vending machines or at the Cafes that are in the stations. 

HAVE PLEANTY OF WATER ON YOU!

 For the love of God (or whoever you pray to/believe in), bring some filled refillable water bottles with you onto the bus. The driver isn’t going to stop every hour whenever someone needs a drink.

  I went a solid nine to ten hours without a drink because I was stupid and didn’t bring any. It wasn’t until the driver had stopped at a McDonalds the next morning when I was finally able to get something to drink. 

  The drinks in the bus stations are expensive!! 

 Unlike airports, you are allowed to bring outside drinks (non-alcoholic!) onto the bus, So, put your favorite hydro flask(s) into your carryon!

 More than likely, your bus driver isn’t going to have trash cans/trash bags on board, so refrain from bringing plastic bottles or cans onto the bus. Plus, it’s just annoying to have someone else’s empty soda can roll down the middle aisle while you’re trying to take a nap at midnight (yes, this is from personal experience)

The Bathroom (dun dun dun!)

Now, I am talking about the bathroom that’s on board the busses themselves, not the ones at the stations. 

I’m just clarifying.

Wait, there are restrooms on board the greyhound busses?

Yes! 

 But, they are simply just port-a-potties put into the back of bus. They even have the blue toilet water that you normally see in them. The restroom is just a bit bigger than a port-a-potty, with just a toilet, a toilet paper dispenser, and enough room to stand up. That’s it. And the walls are thin, so the entire bus can hear you (to an extent).

 And, just as a heads up, the toilet doesn’t flush, so whatever you put in there, it stays in there until the greyhound employees drain it.

TIP #2: Bring hand sanitizer. There is no sink on the bus for you to wash your hands in, and who knows how many people have used it. 

TIP #3: DO NOT, and I mean DO NOT, attempt to stand up and pull up your pants in the restroom right as the bus starts to pull away (yes, I’m speaking from experience again). You may yell a four letter expiative that four Mennonites, an elderly woman, and the bus driver you are 100% sure saw clutching a rosary as you were boarding hears it.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well, I hope this helps! I can do a part two if this becomes popular!

  Remember: 

Drink your water

Take the fourteen cups, five spoons, your cereal bowl from two days ago, and a million water bottles down to the kitchen.

And light your favorite candle (within sight and don’t catch anything on fire) 

[poop4u]

Plan a Trip to Dog-Friendly Toronto

#Poop4U

Home to The Blue Jays, Raptors, Maple Leafs, Hockey Hall of Fame and the CN Tour, Toronto is characteristically Cancuk and generally dog loving.

But Canada’s largest multicultural metropolitan can be challenging to navigate with a dog in tow – unless you know where to go. If you’re visiting Toronto with your pooch, you’ll need a plan and good weather.

Warmer temperatures make for a better visit, because you’ll be spending most of your time outside. And this just got easier. As of January 2020, pets are no longer restricted from patios – that’s right, for years dogs couldn’t be near restaurants in Ontario (though a few neighborhood haunts flaunted the rule).

Thankfully, that’s all changed, and business owners now make their own policies.

So, it’s a great year to pack your dog in the car and check out Canada’s most populated province – starting with dog-friendly Toronto.

Where to run: High Park Dog Off-Leash Park

High Park (1873 Bloor Street West) is a 400-acre green oasis in Toronto’s west end and contained within is one awesome dog park. Many locals start and finish their off-leash experience at ‘Dog Hill,’ an open dirt mound, worn bare by four-legged friends, complete with picnic tables, a few trees, and a water faucet for canine hydration.

However, it’s better to veer off the beaten hill and follow the leash-free trail system through the woods. Thanks to rustic wire-mesh fencing lining the wide trails, you dog can freely find his way down the wood-chip road without interfering with wildlife, flora and fauna … or losing you. A map explains the looping trails and yellow markers mean no leash required.

But wait – there’s more. A dog-friendly zoo: inside High Park the 100-year-old charming High Park Zoo (77 Deer Pen Road) houses hooved animals such as deer, bison, capybara and llamas behind wire fences. This compact zoo essentially runs along a neighborhood pedestrian street, so leashed dogs are welcome, and you’ll see many tethered to baby strollers out for some afternoon air.

Where to tour: The Distillery District

Considering its nefarious past as a whisky running port, Toronto’s trendy Distillery District (9 Trinity Street) is an area ripe with ghost stories – a fact not lost on the Haunted Walk tour company running several tours in the Toronto. Some are dog friendly.

Specifically, the 75-minute Haunted Walks of Toronto’s Ghosts and Spirits of the Distillery, February to November, amusingly recounts tales of ghost sightings among the old industrial buildings currently filled with boutiques, galleries and coffee shops. First, bring your dog along to stroll the cobble stone walkways, then joined the tour.

The Haunted Walk of Toronto offers other walks throughout the city, but the Distillery District tour is the best because it is entirely outside, dog-friendly and confined to a reasonable walking distance.

Where to Party: Annual Dog Festivals

Woofstock claims status as North America’s largest pet festival. Admission is free at Woodbine Beach Park (1695 Queen St E) in Toronto during Woofstock, the first weekend of June each year (June 6 and 7, 2020), and if you arrive early, parking is free in the beach lot beside Lake Ontario.

At the festival, contests such as best-dressed dog grace the mainstage and a central lure course keeps pups busy. Big-named brands like Purina, Milkbone and Royal Canine hand out samples alongside pet product entrepreneurs selling anything from organic treats to dog closets. It’s crowded but festive.

If you’d rather stay inside, another large pet festival that sees people lining up to get in happens Easter Weekend each year – The Canadian Pet Expo finds a home at the International Centre (6900 Airport Rod., Mississauga) near Toronto’s Pearson Airport twice a year. The spring event is always Easter, but the fall/winter dates vary.

Where to stay: Pet Friendly Hotel

During the2013 ice storm that knocked out power to parts of Toronto for days, The Chelsea Hotel (33 Gerrard Street West) advertised fair rates for locals needing a place to stay. A newspaper ran a photo of a dog with its family at the hotel solidifying The Chelsea as the dog-friendly accommodation in downtown Toronto (but not the only one).

Book a Bring-your-Canine-Buddy suite (for $50 extra) at The Chelsea and you’ll find a dog bed, food and water bowl, and locally-made organic dog treats in your room.

Ask to be close to the ground floor for easier bathroom breaks because this is one of the largest tallest hotels in Toronto. It’s also the only one with a two-story waterslide jutting out the side – so the indoor pool (not dog friendly) is exceptionally fun for the family. No kids? Deck 27 is the alternate adult-only pool.

Young Street, the heart of downtown, is outside the Chelsea’s front door and where you’ll have to head for potty breaks. Pick up breakfast to go at the Expressio on-the-go café in the hotel, making eating with the dog possible and cheaper than room service. Bring your own dog food, though.

Where to nosh: Evergreen Brickworks Farmer’s Market

Beyond the downtown core, Evergreen Brickworks (550 Bayview Avenue) is a repurposed brick factory – now a trendy environmental space with landscaped trails, pond and open industrial space hosting events such as Toronto’s Saturday morning Farmer’s Market and permanent cafes, a bike shop and garden center.

Most of the area is dog-friendly, so much so the people drinking fountain has a ground level version for Fido. By farmer’s market standards, the Saturday morning event (8 am to 2 pm, June to September) is not that big, but it is exotic, chichi and dog-friendly featuring organic vegetables, artisan bread and even a few pet specific vendors like Healing Doggy treats and another selling raw Ostrich meat pet food.

Leashes are mandatory, and dogs can stroll all public places (including nearby green spaces) except one indoor building and the food prep area outside.

Have you visited dog-friendly Toronto?

Tell us about your experience in a comment below, or stop by the Everyday Dog Mom Collective, a private Facebook group for dog moms, and join in the conversation there.

About the Author:

Sherri Telenko is a freelance writer and publisher of Dog Trotting, global travel for dog lovers.

The post Plan a Trip to Dog-Friendly Toronto appeared first on The Everyday Dog Mom.

Poop4U Blog via www.Poop4U.com Christina, Khareem Sudlow

[wecityguidecom]

Explore The Great Pyramids of Egypt

Have you ever think to visit the great pyramids of Egpyt like pyramids of Giza. Their mystery still solved entirely yet.  These well-known ancient masonry buildings are located in Egypt. They have a mysterious and thriving history. There are more than 100 pyramids in Egypt and the most famous one of them is the pyramids of Giza and this guide will focus on them mostly.

History of The Pyramids

During the Early Dynastic Period of Egpyt (3100 BC) people who holds the power were buried in mastabas. They look like half of the pyramids. History of pyramids are little complex so I won't bother you with these confusing details but will give brief information about them. The main aim of building a pyramid-like a mastaba or v-shaped ones is to help the soul of the pharaoh to reach the heavens. The biggest pyramids of Egpyt were built during the Old Kingdom (2686-2181 BC) which also known as an "Age of Pyramids" or "Age of the Pyramid Builders" is the pyramids of Giza. During those time centralized management style of the kingdom were allows building this kind of massive buildings. But in years, the ability and willingness of building pyramids like this big decreased like the size of the pyramids. That's the main reason there arent much pyramids like Giza. That's enough for brief history :)

The Mastaba al-Fir’aun at Saqqara (Source)

Pyramids of Giza

As mentioned above there are more than 100 pyramids in Egpyt. Abu Rawash, Giza, Zawyet el-Aryan, Abusir, Saqqara, Dahsur, Mazghuna, Lisht, Meidum, Hawara, el-Lahun, El-Kurru, and Nuri are the location of the pyramid in Egypt. Each of them has a unique and different style of the pyramid which needs separate guides to visit them. Bu the most famous and glorious one is the pyramids of Giza of course. You can find a map of them. Where are the pyramids of Giza? Everyone thinks that all of the pyramids are located in the middle of the desert but the truth is quite different. For example, pyramids of Giza are located very close to the city of Giza, just 9 km and 13 km to Cairo. These numbers are for the centres of course but the settlements are few hundred meters away from the pyramids. You can check it from the map above. How many pyramids are there in Giza? Pyramids of Giza also known as Giza pyramid complex or Giza Necropolis. From these names, you will get there are more than one pyramids in Giza. List of the ancient wonders in Giza like this: the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Pyramid of Khafre, and the Pyramid of Menkaure, along with their associated pyramid complexes and the Great Sphinx of Giza. All of the were built during the Fourth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom of Ancient Egpyt. You will also see there are few cemeteries for the workers who lost their lives during the constructions.

The Great Pyramid of Giza, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. (source) The Great Pyramid of Giza and the Pyramid of Khafre are the biggest and largest pyramids in Egypt. Antipater of Sidon who is the ancient Greek poet lived the second half of the 2nd century BC listed the Great Pyramids of Giza one the Seven Wonders of the World. It is the oldest of the ancient wonder and the only one still remains. You will the map of the pyramids of Giza on the image given below.

Map of the pyramids of Giza (Source)

Visiting the pyramid of Giza as a tourist

Egpyt could be a bad place for tourist. If you rad comment and post from the various website you will people in Egpyt can bother you for money almost everywhere. Especially in the Giza area, the management of the pyramids is quite bad. Vey basic services like garbage can, signs or other things can help tourist almost not exist. If you're planning to visit pyramids by yourself that could be a bad experience. Because of that limitation, you can think to join some guided tours.

Pyramids of the Giza Necropolis (Source), The Great Pyramid of Giza is also known as the Pyramid of Cheops or Khufu. This one was built between 2580-2560 BC. A smaller one is the Pyramid of Khafre which is located a few hundred meters to the south-west and the medium-sized Pyramid of Menkaure farther south-west. How to go pyramids of Giza? If you don't join the tour and want to visit Giza by yourself. You have two options, taxi or public transportation. If you will take the taxi ready for the mess. most of the taxi drivers in Egpyt will try to screw you and get more money. Before taking a taxi to be sure about the price. Tell the driver to take to the entrance gate without stopping anywhere and the price should not exceed 2 dollars. You can also take the subway to reach the pyramids. Subway won't go to the pyramids directly but you will get very close of them and take a minibus from station to the entrance. This way is more secure and cheaper of course. During your visitation to the pyramids of Giza, you will face with so many hustlers. The only way to avoid them is to join a guided tour. But if you visited pyramids by yourself always be careful. Hide your passport and wallet to a safe place and never show them to the people. Egyptian officials probably won't help you on these cases, probably they don't bother. If you ever visited the pyramids of Giza please share your experiences and suggestions for the people who are planning to visit this spectacular ancient world wonders. Read the full article

[emilysn2019-blog]

We love Tanuki, Japan’s magical scrotumonster. Or more accurately, scrotum-monster. If you’re unfamiliar with Tanuki, the Japanese raccoon dog, perhaps you thought these ubiquitous character statues are just a weird thing we are into. Although in fairness, if you are familiar with Tanuki, there’s an even greater chance you thought it was a weird thing we’re into.

For the uninitiated, Tanuki is a real animal–the aforementioned Japanese raccoon dog. More importantly, Tanuki is a key figure in Asian folklore and art. He’s a magical, shapeshifting creature that is mischievous and jolly, a master of disguise, and throughout history has transformed from evil to benevolent. In the words of Al Gore (probably), Tanuki is half raccoon, half dog, half fox.

Oh, and Tanuki has giant scrotum with special powers that signify the ability to stretch money and bring good fortune. That’s right, Tanuki has huge balls with their own magical powers. If you follow Sarah or me on Instagram, you’ve probably seen the above critter in our stories, along with a slew of different odd hashtags expressing our affinity for Tanuki…

If you have not seen these, we post them pretty much daily when we’re in Japan. Here’s just a few of our Tanuki selfies from the last couple of years:

Now, I realize this is a family site that you all trust to educate and culture your children, but any conversation about Tanuki must encompass his scrotum, and that’s a tall order, because they’re so danged big.

If it assuages you, it should be noted that Tanuki’s mammoth scrotum is said to have nothing to do with his sexual prowess or proclivities.

Apparently, the Japanese term for ‘small ball of gold’ (kin no tama) is very close to a term for testicles (kintama), and there was confusion about this in creating in early representations of the character.

Japanese artists had so much fun depicting Tanuki’s testicles in various situations–including stretched out as a rescue parachute and lifeboat–that it just sort of stuck. (For further reading about Tanuki’s history, here’s a pretty comprehensive resource.)

I have no clue to what degree that origin story is accurate, but I love it.

I’ve always been a sucker for folklore, and there’s something especially delightful about the existence of legitimate works of art older than the United States depicting a raccoon dog using his scrotum to save lives.

It’s also quite amusing that no one in Japan, a sexually conservative country, bats an eye at the prevalence of Tanuki.

There are children’s songs about him (and his testicles), television commercials of Tanuki swinging his CGI balls, depictions of Tanuki making music by drumming on his large sack, ‘larger than life’ statues dotting almost every block in Kyoto, and a literal Tanuki Temple in Tokyo (the statue pictured below is from the temple).

Tanuki is so engrained in the culture that he and his giant balls are just taken for granted. I can’t think of any analog in American culture.

I mean, it’s safe to make certain assumptions about Paul Bunyan, but that’s just something that we all tacitly understand, and no one talks about it.

Despite American culture being among the most sexually suggestive in the world, the United States is still, at its core, fairly conservative about sexuality.

I doubt public depictions of Tanuki would ever be accepted in the U.S. due to his scrotum, and it wouldn’t even surprise me if some adults are taken aback by the photos and text in this post.

The beauty of Tanuki is that even though his features are very much overt, he’s innocent and pure. He symbolizes generosity, cheer, prosperity, and nothing even remotely sexual.

I’d hazard a guess this is part of why Tanuki is so popular–he’s a bringer of good fortune, but there’s also a certain understated stupidity to it all–he’s goofy, bizarre, and fun.

This is the basis for our enthusiasm of Tanuki. Although the tone here is tongue in cheek (how could it not be?), we find depictions of Tanuki, his folklore, and his prominence to be very interesting.

In ways, he seems at odds with Japanese culture, and in other ways, totally at home in it. I wouldn’t say we have reverence or respect for Tanuki, as there’s an underlying sense of immaturity to our interest, but it is sincere. We find his place in Japanese culture to be truly fascinating.

One day we were hiking in Ohara, a rural area in the mountains north of Kyoto. We passed by a small shop on the side of the trail selling Tanuki figures.

We always stop for this sort of thing, and were elated to find that a medium-sized Tanuki was only 2,000 yen. We had exactly 2,000 yen on us, which would’ve been perfect…had we not needed bus fare to get back to the city.

From that point on, we got serious about acquiring a Tanuki figure. It’s not that they were difficult to find–a number of shops in touristy areas of Kyoto carry them–it’s that we believed there must be a wholesale purveyor of Tanuki figures selling them for significantly cheaper prices than the stores in tourist districts.

My dream was to purchase a life-sized Tanuki figure. Since I have no clue how tall Tanuki is “in real life,” what I mean by that is one as tall as me. It’s totally impractical, I know, but I think it’d also be pretty awesome.

Logistically speaking, I’m not even sure how we would’ve gotten it home, but in the comical scenario I envision, Tanuki would’ve sat in an empty seat next to us on the return flight.

I knew we’d actually end up settling for a smaller one, but held out hope that somehow we’d find an gigantic one for an inexpensive price, and could have him shipped to us.

Suffice to say, we put a lot of effort and (too much) time into finding a Tanuki to adopt. I researched Japanese hardware, home improvement, and outdoor goods stores, and we visited several in Kyoto, all to no avail.

We also made a special trip to Kappabashi Street in Tokyo, where we did find a store specializing in Tanuki, but it was laughably overpriced.

Anyway, this story is entirely in past tense because we’ve completed our quest for Tanuki. One day while wandering in the Arashiyama district of Kyoto, we decided to stop at Kotouen, a ceramics store we had passed many times before (in fact, there are a handful of photos of its life-size Tanukis in past posts here).

Previously, we had stopped in Kotouen but the prices of the giant Tanuki figures gave us sticker shock. Out of options, we decided to do a more thorough search this time. It turns out that Kotouen is actually a fairly reasonably priced shop with beautiful goods. (It’s located between Jojakkoji and Nisonin Temples–you’ll walk right past it during our 1-Day Western Kyoto Itinerary.)

After a bit of browsing, we found a smaller Tanuki that was reasonably priced–at least compared to prices we had seen in Tokyo, or even Gion and Higashiyama.

The price coupled with “adopting” our Tanuki from a shop with which we were familiar made it a no-brainer. We had to do it.

And so we did. It was really exciting, and the shopkeepers went to great lengths to build a custom box for our Tanuki so he would fit in our carry-on suitcase. (On the flight home, almost everything else in Sarah’s suitcase was relegated to a checked duffle.) It was a joyous occasion, and we took turns carrying Tanuki all around Kyoto that day.

Now, our Tanuki lives on a shelf that’s also fittingly home to books about Kyoto and Japan. And now you know more about Tanuki, and our obsession with the magical little guy, than any normal person should!

If you’re planning a trip to Japan that includes Kyoto, we recommend that you start by consulting our Ultimate Guide to Kyoto, Japan to plan all aspects of our vacation. You should also check out our other posts about Japan for ideas on other places to visit! 

Your Thoughts

Have you seen Tanuki figures in Japan? Wondered what they were, or why they’re so popular? What do you think of this heroic little guy? How many Tanukis do you own? Any thoughts or tips of your own to add? Any questions about what we’ve covered here? Does visiting this spot in Kyoto interest you? Hearing about your experiences—even when you disagree with us—is both interesting and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!

The post A Tribute to Tanuki: Japan’s Magical Scrotumonster appeared first on Travel Caffeine.

[shopofast]

T-Shirt The Yard Stick to Measure the Fashion Trends

T-blouse: The yardstick to degree the style traits

T-blouse: the building block of style

As season changes from summer season to monsoon and monsoon to wintry weather, fashion developments also alternate for that reason. But after every 3 or four months most of the people of us do not have the time or the need to buy new clothes. Then the query comes: What form of casual clothes or clothes will trade you in step with your variety of styles, hues and temper? - Obviously the T-shirts.

T-shirts have continually been believed as the mere essentials - those primary necessities that form the bottom of style - the building block of fashion. If you need to understand how much style fashion in T-shirts have changed within the remaining couple of years, take your degree tape.

Fashion, which had commenced inside the 50's, became inspired with its sociological and business advances. It become a noble time to be young, and fashion became a rip alongside the location of age. In the 60's humans commenced to wear the tie dye and display screen-printed cotton T-shirts. Improvement in printing and dyeing stood out for extra range and got here in to style and it bloomed inside the 60's. Tight fashion of the seventies In the 1970s the disco scene was sizable, live performance dancing was famous with dance events and tight pants with T-shirts have been a trend. The whole '70s fashion became form-fitting - 'very tight', in which the extra-large, loose-fitting, urban-influenced tees moved out and tight T-shirts with tight polyester, generally with bell-bottomed guys's pants escorted by standy shoes had been used to draw the younger ladies seeming for romance, have been very famous.

Chemin de fer pants, Elephant Ear Pants, embroidery on pant legs, flag pants, Gabardine Pants, HASH Jeans with Bonds T-shirt (raglan cut T-shirt with ribbing round neck and sleeves), Rock Concert T-shirts (with a brand photo of a rock big name or a rock band or trademark of rock band) and tie-dye T-shirts (homemade T-shirts with stripes and curved in one of a kind colors of dye) were commonly popular in 70s and ladies generally have been short mini skirt, maxi get dressed, midi skirt or warm pants with T-shirts.

The eighties: Iron-on T-shirts with stonewashed jeans pant trend

In 80s Iron-on, the good kind of T-shirts turned into popular. Tight Stonewashed Jeans, Parachute Pants, Corduroy Pants, Tight Leather Pants, Super Tight Minis with Fido Dido, Ocean Pacific T-shirts, Long T-shirts, and Hard Rock Café and so on T-shirts have been famous amongst them.

The nineties - Baggy and vibrant denim trend

Levi brand T-shirt that had "Button Your Fly" written in very huge letters have been very famous in 90s. Flare Jeans, Baggy & Bright denim, the schoolgirl look of baby doll dresses with puffed sleeves and thigh-excessive stockings, slip clothes worn over T-shirts became famous and became a trend of 90s.

Fashion of 2000

T-shirts with "Boys Are Great", "I Make Boys Cry", and many others slogan T-shirts with zip off at or round knee pants had been popular in 2000. Duller shades had been more famous at the beginning of that decade and V-neck sweater and feature accents woven in around the neck, waist changed into very famous.

T-shirts have passed thru each social, cultural and economic stage of human existence and got a amazing acceptance in daily lifestyles from large towns to small cities everywhere in the globe.

Age alternative: Feel young forever with T-blouse

T-shirts are not handiest a first-rate object, but have end up elegant and best career apparel. Fashion has always been impelled by using more youthful people, of course, and not something says young like the T-blouse. As ordinary, the young are looking for some thing out of the regular. Wearing T-shirts in vintage age presents a lifestyle option as opposed to an age alternative and offers feeling of more youthful.

Women T-blouse: A separate recognized marketplace

During the final -three decades, girls's participation stages in the corporate houses, commercial enterprise, fashion, jobs, sports, sporting activities or yoga and so forth have reached an all-time high all around the international. The antique unisex T-shirts became a element of the history; today women require T-shirts that suit them that wash and feel secure at paintings region or at the same time as transporting and adopting a greater female method to styling, have made a large difference in the type of designs and merchandise. Women also are thinking about T-shirts as a multi-motive garment and by way of both ways the ladies's T-shirt market is growing. Today, girls have such a lot of alternatives in the marketplace as many T-shirt manufacturers have seen the brilliant prospectus and are producing better ladies's T-shirts in brief converting state of affairs of demand, which covers higher fabrics, state-of-the-art designs, appropriate color combinations, exceptional patterns etc. And the ladies's T-blouse is going to acquire a separate identification from guys's T-shirt.

Co-relation of T-blouse and ink call for

Fashion or choice of colours also vary, when season or tendencies adjustments. Color is taken into consideration as a serious enterprise whilst it comes up to T-shirts, as a key differentiation in wearable apparels.

T-blouse printing is in truth silk-screening or, more properly, display screen printing. The 70s introduced massive development in T-shirt printing started out with making display screen-printing machines in the basements and garages and those revealed T-shirt enterprise referred as Imprinted Sportswear Industry in general. In the Nineteen Eighties the development in ink enterprise greater and T-shirts became a part of every thing of our way of life, promoting groups, government, and non-profit corporations. Retailers determined the importance and eminence of T-shirts and have sold tons of merchandise in numerous issues, logo-call and patterns.

The most important advancement throughout the 80s changed into the growth created by means of the automated T-blouse printing system, allowing display screen printers to print a many T-blouse printing in a unmarried day. Automation modified everything and with the approaching of the 90s, the pc turned into fetched into the mixture of designs and styles in T-shirts. In the give up of 2000 the over all fabric display-printing enterprise had passed through a totally hard stage, but as improvement of printing era correctly finished the want of ink and screen printing era, sustained nevertheless and received higher role. And now with the development and development of latest printing generation, you could have a number of options like two-size and 3-size; virtual published, animated or printed T-shirts. Today the ink or printing is exclusively depends on T-shirt industry/productions whilst considering fabric printing industry.

T - Shirt used as a vast advertising and marketing or publicity tool

Would you like to make a assertion? Then you'll want a T-shirt: A T-shirt is a cheap idea of apparel or a portable ad with its garb to declare political, musical or social connection for anybody to look at, like The Tennis Women's T-blouse with the statement on the court docket. "I am going to make you run!", or as Indian tennis participant Sania Mirza had statements "Well-behaved girls hardly ever make history", "Attitude Unlimited". It affords a cheaper advertising or exposure weapon. Events, campaigns or programmes like women's rights, civil rights and more located their manner to the face and rear of T-shirts. People began to kingdom who they're/have been and what they positioned for without ever pronouncing a phrase without a doubt with emblem or slogan. Today, further to appearing as a medium for declaring non-public ideals, group affiliations, pursuits and more, T-shirts are favored, because in a word they are relaxed - no insignificant trouble in modern place of business, an ecosystem wherein T-shirts are going up in greater figures via the day.

More choice than ever before

The T-shirt by no means going out of fashion, it's far the base or foundation of the over all textile and garment marketplace and drives the whole business. It is a very giant a part of the enigma for what humans require and select and lots marketplace studies have a look at confirmed that one can not forget about the commodity in addition to new modern day marketplace. There are many alternatives or picks that you didn't have only some years earlier than.

Today, there are numerous sorts of cotton T-shirts to be had in market. Open-stop cottons give a softer experience for an exquisite charge. Ring-spun cotton has an exceedingly tender hand and organic T-shirts to guard from chemical substances. Though, more realistic, overall performance-driven fabrics which include dry-fiber are growing in recognition which is lousy because of plenty of segregation in which a fashion that the consumer is famous and relaxed with. T-shirts crafted from a 60/forty cotton/poly mixture in unisex sizes XS-4XL, ANSI-licensed polyester and non-licensed 50/50 are very famous. High-performance polyester micro fibers T-shirts are usually desired via working people because of their feature of reducing the moisture hastily from body. On plain material setting of lace and crochet also are being used, to create female appears. Recently DuPont's Sorona fiber (polymers that lend higher stretch, recovery and stain resistance to fabrics) is likewise used in T-blouse as a cloth.

The T-shirts are completed with jazzier for party put on with gold inside the prints and trimmings also are a strong fashion in recent times. To create prints greater charming, sequins, beads, buttons and embroidery and to craft a sparkle look on the tees cotton laces lose out to metallic laces and glitter, texture weaves at the side of layered contrasting fabric of tulle, chiffons, bubble fabrics, crinkle printed semi sheer crepes, also are used. Ethnic, jungle, picture or graffiti-inspired, prints with brilliant or muted, more than one shades are extremely used now a days. Styles of tees encompass rose, forest and blue, layering, retro men, graffiti and pix, khaki and blues and striped patterns are a robust fashion in T-shirts for guys.

More and more alternatives are available with lots texture desire, together with ribs, hemp, pique, ottoman, and so on. And greater fits for guys, ladies and junior are available. T-shirts are supplied in variety from the exceptionally mild of three.8 oz. To the regular 5.5 oz and be able to as excessive as 7.1 oz.. Heavier weights have the benefit of lifestyles of durability and ultimate their define beneath common carrying and washing. Lighter-weight tees are more relaxed, specially in hotter climates, and offer a great in shape. Higher-stop T-shirts will provide the extra energy of double-needle sewing and shoulder to shoulder string. In 2004 stretch T-shirts introduced excessive call for in girls's jersey merchandise both made of 95 percentage combed ring-spun cotton and five percent Lycra and heavyweight T-shirts in 50/50 combination, a hundred percent cotton, extremely heavyweight in a hundred percent cotton and top class extremely heavyweight T-blouse in 100 percentage combed ring-spun cotton.

Worldwide style designers cited that common consumers had been only worried about denims and T-shirts in 2004-05 for sunlight hours and nevertheless the trend is continuing. Sportswear, sports styling will continue to possess clients who wish comfort in normal put on and could maintain to call for for ever. In current instances wearing the company T-shirts in workplaces became a trend, and the call for is increasing, even it's miles more demanding for the motive of corporate gifting with particular emblem or company statements.

Conclusion

Today, a common shift towards sporty and comfortable put on in style existence seen, and T-shirts have become popular and "lively put on" with many manufacturers, designers and turn out to be a fundamental a part of each person's casual cloth cabinet and favored in athletic teams, faculties, gyms, athletic occasions, golfing events, outdoor active corporations, firefighters, the university bookshop market, emergency service workers, police offices, camps and outside workers and even in company homes. In a nut shell, humans with energetic jobs or pursuits are motivating to apply extra for a tee that stay them cool, dry and greater relaxed.

The coming out of standard fashion trends is a social manner however as appearance of new competitor inside the textiles industry T-shirts are transforming into more elegant and are changed with tailor garment shirts and other wears and the T-shirts are considered as a multi-reason garment by using majority consumer.

Whether color aggregate, cloth used, publicity tool, new or old traits of men's or women's fashion, new printing technology, and so on adjustments style traits or whether or not fashion developments arrive and pass on, clothing ought to usually be amusing with T-shirt because of a robust motive of more availability of alternatives. Hence, T-shirts will no way get out of style, over all be take into account as a constructing block of fashion.

Fibre2fashion.Com- Leading B2B Portal of Fashion, Textile and Apparel Industry offers Free Fashion Articles, Free Fashion Trends Articles, Free Industry Reports, Free Articles, Free Fashion Designers Articles, Women’s Fashion Tips, Fashion http://shopofast.com/  Tips Free Fashion Case Studies and Fashion Market Country Reports – post your reprinted articles, featured articles unfastened and get gain of largest community of textile clothing, style and retail industries.

[sheliabarley]

Finding the #1 Cheap Color Copies Near Me

Cheap Color Copies Printer Near Me

Is it easy to find cheap color copies near me? We believe it is very easy, you just need to know where to look for it. Finding the cheaper color copy printing company near me and you might be a task of a little research first. We could run a research on a local city, but that would be pointless at some level, as this article will reach people from all over the United States. Instead, we will provide you with steps on how to find the cheaper color copies near you and at the end, will also run a local search around us (Los Angeles, California).

cheap-color-copies-near-me-icon

First Choice Would Be Search for “Cheap Copies Near Me”

Internet is the most powerful tool available for us now a day, but never disregard the power of yellow pages. When searching for business locally, yellow pages might be your best choice as not many local color copy printing businesses are aware of the importance of being online. Yellow pages instead, adds every business registered even without their “known” consent. When a new cheap color copy printing business signs the phone contract, look at the fine lines you will notice there is a section on where you accept to be included in local businesses listings like YP.

YP will make it very easy for you to finding any sort of print and copy business near you. As they say in the ads: “Let your fingers walk for you!”, that means you could stay at home and use your fingers to find providers options near you. YP is available either online or by accessing the actual book. Online might be your best choice for many reasons as we will discuss next:

The online database gets updated more often and usually has better accurate information.

For Online search, you could use your own words “Cheap Color Copies Near Me” to find a business instead of going by a broad Category.

Sometimes you can also find deals, coupons, and discounts at the business YP online page profile.

Online reviews are among the most important aspects of choosing the right copy printer provider, at the YP Profile you will have that too.

To find a business near you, select your city and state first before running the search.

By the way, if you feel more comfortable looking at the YP book, you are also welcome to do so. With the YP you could also find some tear-off discount coupons for color copies. If you are familiar with your area and know a few of the street names near you, it will not be so hard to find a local shop near where you are.

Should I Search For Local General Printers and Color Copy Providers Near Me?

Locally owned businesses often offer better services than global entities. At the same time by buying copies at your local shop you also cooperate with your neighbor economy. We always recommend having a look at local providers and see if their product and price fits your needs before going to big companies.

Believe it or not, local printers are ofter cheaper than chain print providers. If you plan on printing copies now and then, this would be a very good choice as building a local relationship with a provider helps a lot in the long run. You may find yourself later with the need of sending files thru email for them to print, maybe even WhatsApp so they can start printing while you get to the store. This is seen very often and this sort of personal touch. Locals give local printers a very hard edge on the market as the service quality is way higher the going to a ROBOT-LIKE customer experience provided by big nationwide companies.

Why are local printers cheaper?

A locally-owned near your shop has a lot better equipment, faster services and better-maintained machinery as the owner life depends on it. Copier machines are the heart of any small business owner trying to succeed in a local and competitive market as there is in the United States. A lot of new top-of-the-line printer offerings arrive at the local shop for analysis on a regular basis. Updated copy printer equipment is among the main reason why a local provider can offer cheaper prices for you.

Newer machines print cheaper and faster, those savings go on to you. For a nationwide print company, it is virtually impossible to update all of their machines and re-train all the personal on a constant basis. At least a few years has to pass by for nationwide companies to update their machinery, this lower the quality of the product and increase the print cost by not using the latest technology.

How to Find Out About Big Chain Color Copy Local Companies Near Me?

If you rather chain printer providers, you might run luck as they are well located for each city and you might one very close to you without much research. Companies like Staples, Kinkos, minuteman, are local color copy printer providers with very efficient ways to promote their business. Huge budget for location selection helps them find the best place to establish their business. Often located within the main avenues of your local city, these companies might be a good choice for a customer that lives or work inside the city and can just walk over and get the copies done.

To find nationwide color copy printing chains near you, use these names in your search: Staples, FedEx, Kinkos, Alpha-Graphics, UPS Printing, among others.

In this article, you find a comparison on some of them for pricing and services: https://mangolassi.it/topic/5046/staples-vs-fedex-kinkos-vs-others/22

Reference:

YellowPages

Yelp

Google

55printing.com

Source: https://cheap55printing.com/ Finding the #1 Cheap Color Copies Near Me published first on https://cheap55printing.com/

[airoasis]

Is Law School Worth It?

New Post has been published on https://hititem.kr/is-law-school-worth-it/

Is Law School Worth It?

Hi there legal eagles it’s no secret that law institution is pricey it takes three years of your lifestyles it is annoying however it is usually lucrative and it’s the gateway to fitting a attorney but the query is is it worth it good at present we’ll explore whether it can be the right selection for you and whether it’s valued at the big upfront investment so stick round so the charges of legislation university are famous and they are very big common tuition alone is greater than $forty,000 per 12 months and when you add in living fees you’re truly assured to spend over fifty thousand bucks per yr for three years unless you get an extraordinarily generous economic aid package deal from your institution the normal legislation school graduate in 2015 had over one hundred and forty thousand dollars in scholar debt to obtain his or her regulation measure and those numbers are increasing each year at about four to six times the price of inflation obviously matters get extra pricey over time but legislation university is getting more costly so much rapid than close to the whole lot else regulation tuition debt is mainly at excessive curiosity rates like seven or eight percent and for perspective if you happen to had $one hundred fifty,000 in debt at 8 percent amortized over 10 years you would ought to pay back about $30,000 per yr and of course you have to pay that using after-tax money considering there are only a few tax incentives for paying back law college loans so whilst you look on the common revenue of an lawyer you should subtract about $30,000 per year in after-tax cash from the cash when you consider that that’s the contribution that you simply ought to make for law tuition loans however that’s now not the one fee there’s additionally the opportunity rate it can be not just the sticky label fee of legislation schools it is also the cash you could have earned somewhere else if you happen to had not gone to legislation institution for example median family earnings in the usIs about $60,000 and if you’re the style of person who can get into a cheap legislation school odds are you may have the expertise to earn over $60,000 per 12 months after you graduate from tuition so over the three years that you would have gone to regulation institution you would have made about a hundred and eighty thousand dollars on common and that’s cash that you would not make and you may have got to forego in the event you go to legislation tuition now for context if you are capable to get a large corporation job they more commonly begin in significant cities paying between a hundred sixty five and a hundred ninety thousand greenbacks per year plus most commonly a bonus in the event you work a quantity of hours and inside three years of working as a significant firm partner that you can make well over two hundred thousand dollars but there’s more often than not a big rate to pay with a view to get these colossal paychecks giant organizations are usually placed in probably the most luxurious cities this means that you are going to be paying essentially the most in dwelling bills in order to make that that colossal paycheck and of course simplest prime graduates from top law faculties get those jobs we did yet another video on the potentialities of getting a high law company job the link to with the intention to be down in the description so determine that out to peer what your odds are situated on what law university you go to and the place you need to graduate in those specified regulation schools however that being stated best a small portion of law tuition graduates in reality get a colossal company job once they graduate according to the new York instances in 2015 more than 20% of legislation college graduates held jobs that didn’t even require a law measure so imagine going to legislation institution for three years after which now not even practising as an lawyer well 20% of graduates do not even practice as attorneys whilst in 2015 most effective forty% labored in regulation organizations compared to 60% from the class of 2000 so the odds of getting a massive organization job or perhaps a medium or small-sized organization job are much decrease now than they have been ten years in the past so maintain that in intellect when you’re factoring in whether or not law tuition is valued at the funding so I are aware of it’s relatively handy to focus on the highest regulation colleges and the highest legislation firms to see what style of numbers men and women make once they graduate and it is convenient to fixate on people making nearly $200,000 proper they graduate from regulation school but those variety of numbers can particularly skew matters in 2015 median pay for regulation tuition graduates throughout the board used to be simplest sixty-4 thousand eight hundred so that’s a bump against the median u.S.A.Salary of only about 5 thousand greenbacks per yr so watching at averages handiest many men and women are paying almost two hundred thousand greenbacks it for regulation college for the opportunity to only make 5 thousand bucks extra per year so given the debt and the opportunity price and the upfront rate of going to law institution is it valued at it good it relies a sweet it undoubtedly used to be for me but it is usually no longer for every body here’s commonly how I think about it if you recognize you have got to be a lawyer you must ordinarily go to legislation tuition if you realize deep down on your coronary heart and your bones that no job is for you except being a attorney then legislation university perhaps a excellent alternative if you happen to are not certain whether or not you want to be a attorney or no longer don’t go to legislation institution full stop and a discussion that is it it can be not valued at it you are going to have a terrible time and it can be now not worth the individual cost and the financial rate to go to law institution regulation tuition is a vital step to come to be a lawyer and any ancillary benefits like studying the way to argue would be learned higher faster and cheaper somewhere else however should you is not going to be joyful except you’re a lawyer then legislation tuition is frequently for you law college would be for you if you’re all set for a tremendous debt liability those are some colossal numbers it may be manageable when you are paying it off over ten years i might now not count on public interest fund the place they pay off your loans that can require you to pay off your loans over a 20 or 30 12 months time scale which it could possibly add lots of fees and charges so i would count on that I was once going to repay the debt over a ten-12 months period at roughly a seven or eight percentage interest if you’re prepared for that form of debt then legislation tuition perhaps a good choice for you um if that you can get lots of scholarships regulation college possibly a just right option for you if that you would be able to avert the upfront price of the released fee of law tuition then then that changes the metric of whether or not it can be valued at it to incur the opportunity fee of law school if you’re optimistic that you would be able to be in a prime 10% of your category now law tuition is form of like Lake Wobegon the place each person thinks they’re above typical but if you are a hundred percentage definite that you could kick ass in legislation university and specifically if you are going to a prime law university then odds are you can be on the right-hand side of the distribution and that you can get a type of jobs that can pay good over the median salary and also you stand a good threat of being able to pay off your debt someday additionally if you are prepared to work three,000 hours per yr at a tremendous firm that can additionally sway matters to your desire to make legislation tuition a just right resolution if you are prepared to do the type of tremendous organization work then it possibly a just right stepping stone to getting into that large corporation job if none of these matters describe you do not forget legislation institution very carefully you cannot discharge the debt of law college in chapter so it’ll stick with you truly perpetually i know that this will likely sound like i’m speakme down about regulation college I had a quality time in law tuition I suggestion it was once a individual experience and opposite to general belief I had a ton of enjoyable I fairly adored it but at the same time I admire that it can be no longer for each person for some individuals it is no longer valued at it to incur that debt and a few folks particularly remorse it I was fortunate after which i am now not a kind of humans i don’t remorse my selection to go to legislation college I without doubt don’t regret my choice to emerge as a working towards trial attorney but it surely’s not for everyone and you need to come to a decision for your self and optimistically this will likely help you are making that decision but if you have made up our minds that law school is for you be definite to download our free excellent pre-launch checklist it can be our free reward to you and it’ll offer you a head start by the point that you just get to law institution and also please click on the like and subscribe buttons the extra individuals that subscribe the extra movies we will make on how one can crush law university so do you believe the ought to emerge as a attorney on your bones is legislation institution worth it for you let me be aware of within the comments under i’d love to hear from you and unless next time it legal eagle consider like a attorney and ace the exam well at present we will explore whether or not it’s the correct resolution for you and whether it can be valued at it howdy legal eagles regulation institution mmm and whether it’s valued at it so the rate of regulation university that you could assess out the other video that we did on the prospects of

[batterymonster2021]

Is Law School Worth It?

New Post has been published on https://hititem.kr/is-law-school-worth-it/

Is Law School Worth It?

Hi there legal eagles it’s no secret that law institution is pricey it takes three years of your lifestyles it is annoying however it is usually lucrative and it’s the gateway to fitting a attorney but the query is is it worth it good at present we’ll explore whether it can be the right selection for you and whether it’s valued at the big upfront investment so stick round so the charges of legislation university are famous and they are very big common tuition alone is greater than $forty,000 per 12 months and when you add in living fees you’re truly assured to spend over fifty thousand bucks per yr for three years unless you get an extraordinarily generous economic aid package deal from your institution the normal legislation school graduate in 2015 had over one hundred and forty thousand dollars in scholar debt to obtain his or her regulation measure and those numbers are increasing each year at about four to six times the price of inflation obviously matters get extra pricey over time but legislation university is getting more costly so much rapid than close to the whole lot else regulation tuition debt is mainly at excessive curiosity rates like seven or eight percent and for perspective if you happen to had $one hundred fifty,000 in debt at 8 percent amortized over 10 years you would ought to pay back about $30,000 per yr and of course you have to pay that using after-tax money considering there are only a few tax incentives for paying back law college loans so whilst you look on the common revenue of an lawyer you should subtract about $30,000 per year in after-tax cash from the cash when you consider that that’s the contribution that you simply ought to make for law tuition loans however that’s now not the one fee there’s additionally the opportunity rate it can be not just the sticky label fee of legislation schools it is also the cash you could have earned somewhere else if you happen to had not gone to legislation institution for example median family earnings in the usIs about $60,000 and if you’re the style of person who can get into a cheap legislation school odds are you may have the expertise to earn over $60,000 per 12 months after you graduate from tuition so over the three years that you would have gone to regulation institution you would have made about a hundred and eighty thousand dollars on common and that’s cash that you would not make and you may have got to forego in the event you go to legislation tuition now for context if you are capable to get a large corporation job they more commonly begin in significant cities paying between a hundred sixty five and a hundred ninety thousand greenbacks per year plus most commonly a bonus in the event you work a quantity of hours and inside three years of working as a significant firm partner that you can make well over two hundred thousand dollars but there’s more often than not a big rate to pay with a view to get these colossal paychecks giant organizations are usually placed in probably the most luxurious cities this means that you are going to be paying essentially the most in dwelling bills in order to make that that colossal paycheck and of course simplest prime graduates from top law faculties get those jobs we did yet another video on the potentialities of getting a high law company job the link to with the intention to be down in the description so determine that out to peer what your odds are situated on what law university you go to and the place you need to graduate in those specified regulation schools however that being stated best a small portion of law tuition graduates in reality get a colossal company job once they graduate according to the new York instances in 2015 more than 20% of legislation college graduates held jobs that didn’t even require a law measure so imagine going to legislation institution for three years after which now not even practising as an lawyer well 20% of graduates do not even practice as attorneys whilst in 2015 most effective forty% labored in regulation organizations compared to 60% from the class of 2000 so the odds of getting a massive organization job or perhaps a medium or small-sized organization job are much decrease now than they have been ten years in the past so maintain that in intellect when you’re factoring in whether or not law tuition is valued at the funding so I are aware of it’s relatively handy to focus on the highest regulation colleges and the highest legislation firms to see what style of numbers men and women make once they graduate and it is convenient to fixate on people making nearly $200,000 proper they graduate from regulation school but those variety of numbers can particularly skew matters in 2015 median pay for regulation tuition graduates throughout the board used to be simplest sixty-4 thousand eight hundred so that’s a bump against the median u.S.A.Salary of only about 5 thousand greenbacks per yr so watching at averages handiest many men and women are paying almost two hundred thousand greenbacks it for regulation college for the opportunity to only make 5 thousand bucks extra per year so given the debt and the opportunity price and the upfront rate of going to law institution is it valued at it good it relies a sweet it undoubtedly used to be for me but it is usually no longer for every body here’s commonly how I think about it if you recognize you have got to be a lawyer you must ordinarily go to legislation tuition if you realize deep down on your coronary heart and your bones that no job is for you except being a attorney then legislation university perhaps a excellent alternative if you happen to are not certain whether or not you want to be a attorney or no longer don’t go to legislation institution full stop and a discussion that is it it can be not valued at it you are going to have a terrible time and it can be now not worth the individual cost and the financial rate to go to law institution regulation tuition is a vital step to come to be a lawyer and any ancillary benefits like studying the way to argue would be learned higher faster and cheaper somewhere else however should you is not going to be joyful except you’re a lawyer then legislation tuition is frequently for you law college would be for you if you’re all set for a tremendous debt liability those are some colossal numbers it may be manageable when you are paying it off over ten years i might now not count on public interest fund the place they pay off your loans that can require you to pay off your loans over a 20 or 30 12 months time scale which it could possibly add lots of fees and charges so i would count on that I was once going to repay the debt over a ten-12 months period at roughly a seven or eight percentage interest if you’re prepared for that form of debt then legislation tuition perhaps a good choice for you um if that you can get lots of scholarships regulation college possibly a just right option for you if that you would be able to avert the upfront price of the released fee of law tuition then then that changes the metric of whether or not it can be valued at it to incur the opportunity fee of law school if you’re optimistic that you would be able to be in a prime 10% of your category now law tuition is form of like Lake Wobegon the place each person thinks they’re above typical but if you are a hundred percentage definite that you could kick ass in legislation university and specifically if you are going to a prime law university then odds are you can be on the right-hand side of the distribution and that you can get a type of jobs that can pay good over the median salary and also you stand a good threat of being able to pay off your debt someday additionally if you are prepared to work three,000 hours per yr at a tremendous firm that can additionally sway matters to your desire to make legislation tuition a just right resolution if you are prepared to do the type of tremendous organization work then it possibly a just right stepping stone to getting into that large corporation job if none of these matters describe you do not forget legislation institution very carefully you cannot discharge the debt of law college in chapter so it’ll stick with you truly perpetually i know that this will likely sound like i’m speakme down about regulation college I had a quality time in law tuition I suggestion it was once a individual experience and opposite to general belief I had a ton of enjoyable I fairly adored it but at the same time I admire that it can be no longer for each person for some individuals it is no longer valued at it to incur that debt and a few folks particularly remorse it I was fortunate after which i am now not a kind of humans i don’t remorse my selection to go to legislation college I without doubt don’t regret my choice to emerge as a working towards trial attorney but it surely’s not for everyone and you need to come to a decision for your self and optimistically this will likely help you are making that decision but if you have made up our minds that law school is for you be definite to download our free excellent pre-launch checklist it can be our free reward to you and it’ll offer you a head start by the point that you just get to law institution and also please click on the like and subscribe buttons the extra individuals that subscribe the extra movies we will make on how one can crush law university so do you believe the ought to emerge as a attorney on your bones is legislation institution worth it for you let me be aware of within the comments under i’d love to hear from you and unless next time it legal eagle consider like a attorney and ace the exam well at present we will explore whether or not it’s the correct resolution for you and whether it can be valued at it howdy legal eagles regulation institution mmm and whether it’s valued at it so the rate of regulation university that you could assess out the other video that we did on the prospects of

[mikemortgage]

‘They think we are gouging them’: Early lessons from the front lines of cannabis retail

It’s been a bumpy first few months for cannabis retailers in Canada, with product shortages and regulatory uncertainty dominating public discussion. As Ontario’s first wave of bricks-and-mortar stores get ready to open on April 1, the Financial Post’s Vanmala Subramaniam spoke to four people on the front lines about what’s working, what isn’t and the biggest lessons they’ve learned so far. The following interviews have been edited and condensed.

***

Krystian Wetulani, a former grey market operator, is the owner of City Cannabis Co. and runs two licensed cannabis stores in Vancouver.

What’s been the biggest problem you’ve encountered so far? 

We are kind of spoiled here in Vancouver because we have some of the best cannabis in the world. Bringing in new types of products that were grown in large facilities, they haven’t caught up yet. The quality of the product hasn’t been there. We know which LPs are providing quality stuff and which aren’t. So we’re going to throw it back onto the licensed producers soon and make sure they are stepping up their game and giving us quality product. We are actually creating our own kind of scoring sheet based on customer feedback — how it smells, how it burns, etc, so that when customers come in to the store we’ll show them our score.

Ontario’s cannabis retailers are stuck in costly limbo. Here’s how to free them

Former dispensary operator sues Ontario over ‘arbitrary’ and ‘unlawful’ cannabis retail lottery

Ontario delivers yet another cannabis decision that hurts retailers and helps illegal dealers

What have your customers been most unhappy about? 

The quality and the price. Our strains range anywhere from $11 to $20 per gram and they are used to prices between $6 and $12. The other obstacle to us is competing with the BC Cannabis Store because they price their stuff 30 per cent lower than us. So we have customers coming in saying, “Look, I can get this online for cheaper.” That’s something we are working with the province on and hopefully we can make things more competitive for us.

A woman smokes cannabis on legalization day in Vancouver, B.C.

Has the range of available products been a concern? 

Oh absolutely. Range of products is a big problem. Moving from the unlicensed market (Wetulani ran a grey market dispensary for five years) to the legal market, we’ve lost 40 per cent of our revenue just because we aren’t allowed to sell many of the products that we used to. I would say CBD has been the biggest missing product that we’re seeing the most opportunity for. Lots of people coming in asking for it.

If you had advice for someone going into the legal cannabis retail space right now what would it be? 

I would say it is quite challenging. The municipal and provincial regulations you have to go through are intense, the time and money it requires to open the store. I would say to people to be careful before starting to throw in all their life savings. Not all locations make money. I would just caution them. There are a lot of procedures you have to go through: all your staff have to be vetted and go through security checks, there are SOPs (standard operating procedures), there’s tons more than people think there is to operate the stores.

***

Trevor Fencott, Fire & Flower CEO.

Trevor Fencott is the CEO of Fire & Flower, a chain of 18 cannabis and cannabis accessory shops in Alberta and Saskatchewan.

What is your assessment of the state of cannabis retail in Canada, five months in?

The issue that the retail industry in general is facing is logistical problems with cannabis supply. Some people talk about it as if it’s a supply issue, but I think it’s also due to the newness of the industry. To me that’s a growing pain and that’s something that makes sense and is working itself out. Frankly for us, we are well capitalized and our goal from the beginning was to be a dominant market player so we’re planning for this, we know that it never works perfectly so we have ample contingencies.

Is there a specific retail system in the country that is working better than others?

In Saskatchewan, we deal directly with LPs. I think that system has been really effective for us, because it’s business solving its own problems. If we don’t have product on our shelves in Saskatchewan, it is only on us. I would suggest that provinces look very seriously at allowing private retail to run the show. There seems to be no compelling reason to me that the government needs to be doing this. We’re competing with the black market and this is not a business the government is generally used to participating in. It feels like there’s a lot of weight being put on provincial buyers and we simply haven’t seen any of these problems in Saskatchewan, where we supply ourselves.

An aquaponics grow operation by licensed marijuana producer Green Relief in Flamborough, Ont.

Why are the provinces so eager to be involved?

They are coming from a sincere desire for public safety. This is a new substance. I think it has to be done right. Having said that, having approached the six-month mark, they do not need to remain. Nothing catastrophic happened. Our society did not disintegrate. There aren’t people running through the streets smoking cannabis, because it has always been part of our society — we just daylighted it and now we’re taxing it, which is appropriate. But it would be better if the provinces weren’t involved.

Do you have any suggestions for making the retail experience better?

If there’s a way for the provincial systems to incentivize private industry to supplement their programs, I think that’s really something that should be considered. The black market offers those modalities. They offer different products. What sort of surprised us was however great this demand was, we’re not significantly displacing the black market at all. We are getting a lot of new consumers in the system that have some familiarity with cannabis but would not buy from the black market, but who want to know more.

Has being a publicly traded company given you an advantage over mom-and-pop retailers?

On the one hand, being a public company and having access to capital is important, but on the other hand we are quite small. Our problems are similar to the problems of mom-and-pop stores. We are just as much at the whim of municipal governments that are having a difficult time developing permits and at the whim of provincial governments. We are all in the same boat. I think it will be a number of years before you have retailers with the kind of scale you can expect of “big retail brands.”

***

Trina Fraser specializes in cannabis law.

Trina Fraser is a partner at Brazeau Seller Law and one of the country’s foremost cannabis lawyers.

What are some of the biggest challenges in cannabis retail right now?

I can only really talk about Ontario, but everything about the lottery. The fact that it was announced at the very last minute before the original application process was intended to open, which means that a lot of people had done a lot of preparatory work structuring, hiring people — a lot of things had already happened because they wanted to be ready on the first day applications were ready to be filed.

What could they have done better?

It would have made a lot more sense to open the operator licence applications for a period of time and then done the lottery out of the parties that had been successfully approved as operators. That would have avoided a lot of the awkwardness we’re experiencing now, with retail operators who don’t have the experience needed to open a store.

More generally, what problems do you see going forward?

The whole supply issue, which is a national issue. I frankly think it’s going to get worse before it gets better. As we see the final regulations for edibles, concentrates and extracts come out and we start seeing processors start to actually allocate raw materials to those product types, we’re going to see inventory that would have otherwise gone to oil production and dried cannabis go to those new products. I think there is going to be this awkward phase where everyone is going to try and figure out what consumers really want to buy. Until we get that product mix right and until we fill up the supply chain with those products, I think we’re going to see stores selling out of things.

Packaged cannabis in the vault at Canopy Growth Corp. in Aldergrove, B.C.

What would be an ideal retail system for you, based on the challenges that your clients tell you they are facing?

My personal leaning is toward a privatized system. Subject to government regulation and oversight, but not government operation. I mean, Saskatchewan. That’s what I’m looking at. I’ve been negotiating supply deals between licensed processors and retailers directly and just cutting out that provincial distributor middleman because to me it is just unnecessary. It is completely possible for the province to ensure security of the supply chain without actually having to physically receive and purchase and resell and ship inventory. I think it is unnecessary and I think it is just adding to the inefficiency of the overall industry.

Are you concerned about rules restricting what store employees can tell customers about cannabis products?

We always knew this was going to be a tricky issue. In the budtender/dispensary world, it was common to be asked not just what the experience was like, what product should I buy. When it comes to therapeutic applications, employees are definitely not going to be able to go there, but when it comes to effects and experiences, its going to be tricky. It’s going to have to be genericized. But we have to give some flexibility to help guide users in the right direction. Because if you literally have someone completely new to cannabis come into the store and ask for advice and you say, “I’m sorry I’m not allowed to provide any information to you,” and they make a poor choice and they have a bad experience, that’s on us. As an industry and government we haven’t given them the information and the tools that they need to get to the experience that they are seeking.

***

Mike Babins is the owner of Evergreen Cannabis Store in Vancouver.

Has it been useful having the provincial retailer as a middleman?

The issue with the province I would say is that they add a mark-up before they send it to me. That plus I have to pay the shipping, so by the time I get it, I’m almost getting it for what they are selling it for on their retail site. So for the layman who doesn’t know, for most people, they think we are gouging them on the prices. But it is not that. It is unfair that the provinces are our main competition but they pay less than we do for the same stock. And I have spoken to them about that, but I don’t think that will change anytime soon. So we just have to deal with it.

A selection of marijuana ordered from the Ontario Cannabis Store.

What has the process of acquiring cannabis been like?

The first few times were pretty rough for me because I was used to buying cannabis in a very different way, and I wasn’t sure what was good, but it has been a pretty smooth transition and I figured it out pretty fast. The province said to us, you’re learning as much as we are, you’re our front line, so tell us if there’s something wrong with the website, tell us if there are forms that could be smoother and easier. In B.C. anyways, they are working really closely with the retailers. So they are saying, you know better than me, tell us what’s wrong.

How do you compare the ease of the supply chain in the grey market days to its current state?

It’s comparing apples and oranges. Ninety per cent of the product in the illegal dispensaries tested positive for mould and mildew. People say, “Well, it didn’t hurt us before,” but yeah, romaine lettuce didn’t hurt you before — it happens. Everything gets tested first now, and if something goes wrong, somebody is there to pull it from the shelves. Because I know, in the grey market, if some weed has mould on it, they don’t call the person who brought it and tell them to take it back. They say, “OK we’ll just put it in pre-rolls and no one will notice.”

• Email: vsubramaniam@nationalpost.com | Twitter: VanmalaS

from Financial Post https://ift.tt/2Y8OFAO via IFTTT Blogger Mortgage Tumblr Mortgage Evernote Mortgage Wordpress Mortgage href="https://www.diigo.com/user/gelsi11">Diigo Mortgage

[licencedtoretire]

A few weeks ago I wrote a blog about buying your first motorhome. Later when I was talking with some friends we started talking about E Bikes and the benefits of having one with you when you travel in your motorhome. From there the discussion turned to “why don’t you write a blog about E Bikes?” so here we are a blog about buying your first E Bike.

Just a few years ago E Bikes where something of a rarity seen by some as just a flash toy. This is highlighted by the numbers of bikes on the shelves for sale. In 2014 according to another blog who quoted Statistic’s New Zealand only 3000 E Bikes where imported into this country. Three years later (2017) that figure has grown to over 20,000 and who knows where it will end up in 2018.

The really interesting thing is that the price of the E Bikes hasn’t really come down what’s changed is the attitude of the people buying the bikes. As well as a large number of people adopting a different lifestyle. Since 2014 almost 30,000 motorhomes (so maybe 60,000 people) have been added as members of the NZMCA.

Most of these newer members have moved away from what the traditional motorhomers did, with less of these people attending rallies and more of them becoming involved in other mostly recreational activities. Seeing bikes mounted on the back of a motorhome is becoming much more common.

There are three main components to an E Bike, the bike frame, the battery and then the motor. Pricing for an E Bike is firstly about the price of battery and motor which currently run from around $1200 to $2000 for anything half decent the balance of the price is the bike itself. So a $1500 bike is really a $300 frame with motor and battery added. With a $3000 bike more likely to be a $1200 frame and $1800 motor and battery and so on upwards.

The old rule of you get what you pay for really applies when it comes to E Bikes. However nobody is expecting you to spend thousands of dollars on something that you may not even enjoy doing. So how do you go about getting a bike that fits both you and your budget.

You should first ask yourself when was the last time I rode a bicycle and how confident will I be if I do get on one. The reason for asking this question is that could help you chose a type of E Bike that suits your abilities better than others.

Front drive motor

The motor in an E Bike can be in one of three places, Front Wheel, Rear Wheel or Centre Drive. The advantage of the front and rear wheel bikes is that they generally come with a throttle and this gives the unsteady rider a huge advantage on take off as you don’t have to peddle to get moving. This is especially true starting off in an uphill situation. Whereas with the centre drive bike the motor will not engage unless you peddle, not so good if you are a bit wobbly on the bike.

However for the more experienced rider the centre drive gives the bike better weight balance and has a feel more like riding a traditional bike.

One thing I will always remember is that not long after we purchased our bikes we went for a ride along Tokerau beach (at low tide) then rode around the village. On the way back rather than peddle Sarah decided to use the throttle and was zooming across the hard sand at over 30kmh without peddling!!! She covered around 9 kms just on the throttle.

At the finish of the Otago Rail Trail with our friend Brian who rode with us.

Ask yourself where am I going to ride this bike. If the answer is I intend to stick mainly to sealed cycleways and ride around the city then a front drive bike is fine. If however your intention is to ride some serious rail trails then you should be looking for centre or rear wheel drive. Having said that Sarah and I rode the Otago Rail Trail both ways without any issues and hers is front drive.

Some bikes also have a progressive power range so the slower you are going the more assistance you are getting. This is really useful when climbing hills or into a strong head wind. The assistance will drop away as you go faster and help conserve battery life. I have this on my bike and find it really good to have that passive assistance if needed.

What type of tyres are on the bike and are they suitable for the type of riding you intend to do. We have some friends (Dave and Nita) who although happy with their bikes didn’t feel that their tyres where up to it and had to change them. I watched Dave doing this and given all the wires, cables and clips involved with the drive unit, it is not an easy task.

Talking about changing tyres have you considered what you will do if you get a puncture. We had an experience in Hokitika on the West Coast Wilderness Trail where Sarah went for a 25 km bike ride and I went for a 19 km bike ride and a 6 km walk when I had a puncture 6 km from home. This made me realise the importance of a puncture repair kit. The problem is that without specialist tools it’s almost impossible to repair one of these wheels on the side of the road.

After the problem I had in Hokitika I found one of these bike repair tyre fix cans at the local bike shop and now carry it where ever we go. These work by spraying a sealant into the tube at the same time as inflating it, this sealant then fills your puncture and you are good to go. Very handy.

There is another way to sort this problem and that’s to have the tyres treated with the sealant before you set out on your first ride. You can ask the seller to do this before you collect the bikes which most will do for a small additional cost. If it saves you a huge walk with a flat tyre it’s a great investment.

There are three main areas where the battery can be mounted. With each one having it’s own advantages. The more serious you are about riding the better balance you probably want with the bike and most people find that the centre placement of the battery achieves this, however it again comes down to personal choice.

The important thing when it comes to batteries is just how much capacity they have. Again a simple rule applies the cheaper the battery the lower the capacity equalling a shorter ride. So if you are only planning shorter journeys it may suit to have a cheaper option but what happens when you get fitter and want to start stretching out those distances.

The capacity of my battery on a low or minimal assistance setting is around 90 kms whereas Sarah’s bike with the lower capacity battery is around 50 kms. Which sounds plenty until you want to start riding the Rail Trail that’s 150 kms long.

You should also remember that if you have had a big days riding it’s always at the end of the ride that assistance will be needed the most as you start to tire.

Charging the bike

Using the inverter

The next question you have to ask yourself is how are you going to charge the bike batteries if you aren’t connected to power. When we purchased our new motorhome we had a 2000W inverter fitted to it but have found even with 400W solar, that unless it’s an absolutely blazing hot summers day with no clouds and the sun directly above the van, there is just too much drain on the batteries trying to charge both at the same time. We where lucky when we rode the Rail Trail that Brian had a generator on board to help charge everyone’s batteries each night.

Some of this is because mine is an 48V battery so the draw of amp hours needed is much greater than Sarah’s 36 volt. It’s also the length of time charging with mine taking 6 hours and Sarah’s 4 hours from empty to charge. It’s just as well that I have got fit enough to mostly ride without using the motor. So if you are planning on using yours quite a bit think about how you will recharge it.

Of course the more you use it the quicker it will discharge but also the size of the motor driving you comes into consideration. When we rode the Otago Rail Trail we met Brian who has what some would consider an electric trail bike (see photo above) with a 750W motor when he rode this on full power, which he usually did the battery would be exhausted in 20 kms.

Technically there is a maximum limit of 300W for any E Bike sold in New Zealand with most in the 250 -300w range. The agreement also covers the maximum speed assistance with the motor cutting out at 32 kmh. As these are only agreements rather than law you can still purchase bikes well beyond these like our friend Brian’s.

The next consideration is how you are going to transport these with the obvious solution being a bike rack fitted to the rear of your motorhome. Just remember that these bikes are heavy with an average weight around 23/4 kgs or a bit less when you remove the battery. You do need to ask yourself how will I lift these up and down. Don’t forget to remove the battery before storing to reduce weight.

In various campsites around the country I have seen people with all sorts of methods for this but a small step ladder or the stool  from the habitation door seem to be the most common method people have used to give themselves additional height to work with.

An important thing to remember in this whole process is that everyone you speak to in a bike shop (we visited numerous) is trying to sell their own product. With this in mind you will hear lots of conflicting advice and it can be very confusing, so how do you choose. Simply get on the bikes and ride them find the one that feels most comfortable and suits you and your budget the best. Then ask about warranties and back up service.

When Sarah and I brought our bikes in Auckland I asked about back up and was told of all the service agents around the country. The first day on our South Island trip in Blenheim, Sarah’s bike stopped working and we used one of those service agents to get it back on the road quickly. I have read and heard horror stories of people who have brought, generally a cheaper bike, to discover no back up no spare parts or worst of all the selling dealer closed and gone. So do your homework in this area!

I should mention here that we both went for a ride that day as you can of course ride without the power assistance it’s just not quite as easy. To even things up I also took my battery out while we rode.

One thing you should consider an essential and it’s something that I wish we had added long before we did, a pannier and bags to the back of the bike. So useful for carrying the groceries, rain coats, water, picnic etc. It also works as a mudguard on my bike and saves water being sprayed up my back in the rain.

Remember the Internet is your friend, when you have found something that you like and before you part with your money look at what other people are saying about the bike you are considering. There are so many online reviews these days that there should be some for the bike you are looking at. What are other people saying? Is it a good bike?

You should ensure that the shop helps you set up the bike with the correct seating and handlebar position as if this is not done it makes for uncomfortable riding caused by bad posture on the bike. You will start making excuses not to ride because it doesn’t feel right giving your sore knees, bad back etc.

Before we went to the South Island we considered towing a car to use for shopping, sightseeing etc. We decided against this and at the end of the trip there where maybe three places that we didn’t get to because the motorhome wouldn’t have made it down the road and it was too far to cycle. But what we did do is hundreds of kilometres on our bikes we lost weight, got fit, saw sights and thoroughly enjoyed having them. We strongly recommend that you consider getting one.

Once you have made your decision get out there and enjoy your riding experience . The health benefits are enormous. The chance to see parts of the country you would not otherwise see are not to be missed.

I welcome your feedback on this post and if you do have any questions please feel free to email me mail@johnpedersen.co.nz with any questions.

To view the places we have visited click here to see them on Google maps. You can click the links to read the blog about that area. [cardoza_facebook_like_box] To view the Ratings we have done for other camps click here  [jetpack_subscription_form]

A Guide To Buying Your First E Bike A few weeks ago I wrote a blog about buying your first motorhome. Later when I was talking with some friends we started talking about E Bikes and the benefits of having one with you when you travel in your motorhome.

[myongfisher]

How to outsource graphic design (and grow your business)

Outsourcing makes the world go ‘round. It makes it possible for companies to serve their clients efficiently by delegating tasks to others who can do them better, cheaper, and in many cases, both. One prominent example of outsourcing is how Apple’s products are manufactured by Foxconn and Samsung. By having other companies build their iPhones and Macbooks, Apple can focus on developing its proprietary software and furthering its brand.

The big guys aren’t the only ones who outsource—small and medium-sized businesses, agencies and nonprofits do it too. Over the past decade, online freelancing companies (like 99designs) have made it very easy for small business owners to outsource graphic design work with no risk of losing money.

As a digital agency, you’re already involved in the outsourcing chain; your clients come to you for work they can’t or don’t want to produce in-house. And you yourself may outsource work, for example by hiring an accountant to do your taxes (instead of having a full-time employee handle them).

Outsourcing can be the quickest, most effective way to achieve a goal. By IndraS3hat

Initially, the thought of outsourcing work can seem counterintuitive. It might even feel like cutting corners. After all, your clients hire you because they expect the quality work you provide. But it’s not scrimping, it’s a sophisticated, pragmatic move when you’re growing your business. And outsourcing doesn’t mean a drop in the quality of the work your clients receive. There are a lot of freelancers out there who can provide the same quality of work—or better—than an in-house employee.

The economics of outsourcing graphic design —

Use time wisely to increase your profits. Outsourcing graphic design frees up your time to focus on the parts of running your business that you can’t outsource. By Rom@n.

Every business owner’s goal is to scale their company into something bigger, something that can serve the market better. Agencies shouldn’t be any different. Outsourcing fits right into a scaling plan because:

It’s a smaller upfront economic investment than hiring an employee. Choosing to work with a freelancer gives you the flexibility to get work done when you need it, rather than having somebody on staff, costing a salary and employment benefits when work is slow

It saves you time. Remember, time = money. If you have four freelancers working on individual projects simultaneously, you can deliver all four within roughly the same time frame and quadruple your profit.

Here’s a brief look at scaling in action:

Unicorn Marketing Co. (UMC), a one-person marketing startup. According to its calculations, it can earn an additional $100,000 in gross profit next year by providing website design and logo services to its clients.

At a salary of $50,000, hiring a full time graphic designer would cost UMC at minimum, $62,000 with benefits. This cuts the additional $100,000 in gross profit to a net of $38,000.

UMC is up and coming, and the choices it makes in these early stages will affect its profits for years. TechCrunch conference bag design by Cross the Lime.

Having the designer on staff is still an asset to the company, but it’s an expensive asset even when there’s enough work to support a full time designer position. When there isn’t enough work to justify a 40-hour week for the designer, their compensation can cut into profits quickly while the designer’s skills stagnate as they stay bound to one company, rather than pursuing freelance projects.

But say UMC hires that same freelancer at an hourly rate of $40. At 40 hours per week, the designer costs UMC $1,600 per week, or $83,000 per year. Keep in mind that hourly rates for freelancers tend to be higher than hourly rates for employees because freelancers have to buy their own equipment, pay self-employment taxes and cover their own healthcare benefits. If UMC needs a full time graphic designer, creating a salaried position is the more economically sound choice. But since it’s a young company, it might not be at that stage yet. Like most startups, UMC’s early graphic design needs might look like this:

Week 1: 15 human hours needed for graphic design Week 2: 25 human hours needed Week 3: 0 human hours needed Week 4: 50 human hours needed

At $40/hour, UMC pays freelance designers a total of $3,600 for this month’s work. If it hired a full time in-house designer, the same month of work would have cost $6,400. Also remember the flexibility working with freelancers can get your company in terms of cost. You can outsource work to freelancers who live in areas with lower living costs, which typically means they charge less per hour. A graphic design budget of $40/hour puts you in a much different designer market in Indonesia than it does in New York City.

When you outsource work, you’re not limited to your city’s talent and price pool. Via dimitrisvetsikas1969.

Why outsource? —

In the example above, a marketing agency was looking to expand to include design as a service. But what if you already produce great design work? Would it ever make sense for you to consider outsourcing work?

The answer is yes. Here’s why:

Specialization

Choose a freelancer who fits the role your team needs to fill. By Handcrafted Graphics

You might be a great marketing agency, but are you a great real estate marketing agency? By choosing a graphic designer who focuses on one particular niche, you can expect a finished product that fits your client’s needs more accurately. Niches aren’t just specific industries, either. If you’re working with clients who want more technical-looking graphics, work with a graphic designer who has a background in CAD to deliver exactly what the client wants.

Sometimes, time isn’t the issue that drives a company to outsource its graphic design, but specialization is. Your in-house designer might be awesome at logo designs, but not have much experience with merchandise packaging designs. Instead of having your graphic designer create a good-enough packaging design to sell to the client, outsource the project to a freelancer who specializes in product packaging and who can knock it out of the park.

Breaking out of the box

Outsourcing can also help your company expand into a new niche or offer services outside your typical offerings to give the client what they want. Say your experience is strictly in web design, and you want to expand into print work. Working with a freelancer who has a strong background in print design can help your company bridge that gap and deliver work that exceeds the client’s expectations.

Give yourself options with a design contest. By Imkakoy

Outsourcing work is an effective way to work with fresh ideas. Bringing in a freelancer is bringing in outside creativity that can inspire the rest of your team. They’ll approach your project from a different angle and bring innovation to your company’s designs.

A great way to find the freelancer who’ll bring an outside perspective that complements your agency’s workflow needs, rather than clashing with them, is to hold a design contest through 99designs. A variety of freelancers with unique approaches to your request will enter the contest, then you can choose whose work is a best fit for the design you need to deliver. Alternatively, you can curate bids in a similar way by sending your project needs to a few trusted freelancers, then making your choice based on their drafts.

Adapting to varying workflow demands

A freelancer can slip right into a project and get it done without disrupting your agency’s workflow. By Nico Strike

As you know, your agency has busy times and slow times. When outsourcing graphic design is part of your business plan, you can adapt to the volume of work you’re facing at any time. More work? More freelancers. Only a little bit of work? Hire one designer to take care of it. Businesses rarely scale at a consistent pace. Speed up the process (and slow it down when you need to) by hiring the number of freelancers you need to meet the demand you’re facing without having to take time to hire and onboard new employees at specific growth benchmarks.

Outsourcing is also a way to get overflow work done—there might be less glamorous design tasks (like a bunch of banner ads) that you need to do. Freelancers are great for this!

And of course, outsourcing work can get it done faster. If your in-house designer already has five projects on her plate when a new one comes in, don’t bog her down with a sixth. Outsource that project to somebody who can get on it immediately.

How to outsource graphic design effectively —

Check your inbox

We’ve just sent you an email with more information.

Want to see how 99designs can help your agency grow?

Enter your email to learn more about 99designs Pro for Agencies.

Zionks! Looks like something went wrong.

Get more info

View our privacy policy

The flexibility and savings that come with outsourcing can make it an attractive option, but don’t let them eclipse the importance of delivering quality work that meets your client’s specifications. This should always be your priority when you decide which projects to outsource and how to handle outsourcing them.

One option is to hire an in-house designer or design manager who creates relationships with freelancers to complete projects. The individual in this role should have the background to effectively vet potential freelancers and do some of the design work themselves, which can mean creating high-level design concepts, tweaking freelancers’ work, and/or maintaining your company’s style standards to ensure that all graphic work conforms to your style and standard.

Today it’s easy to work with graphic designers from all over the world. By BATHI

If you’re a smaller agency, you might have to be the one in this role. You can find quality work and talented designers through online freelancers and contests. If you aren’t confident in your design skills and ability to vet freelancers, consider choosing a freelance creative director you trust to take on all or part of this role. Services like 99designs Pro for Agencies can also make this easier as they hand-pick the best creative talent and help you learn to source the best designers for your needs.

Five years down the road, your company’s graphic design needs could be a lot different from its needs today. And that’s normal. You might find that by that point, your cashflow and work volume make it economically feasible to buy “white glove service” from a design agency.

Or you might find that you were able to do the outsourcing yourself in the agency’s early days, but later, you’re too busy to continue giving this aspect of the business the attention it needs. When it comes to that point, it’s time to hire somebody. Whatever decisions you make regarding your company’s graphic work, always ask yourself how the decision will positively impact the company and its ability to serve its clients. If a decision won’t save money, make your workflow more efficient, save time, or result in a better product, it’s probably not a good decision.

Considerations to make when you outsource graphic design —

Outsourcing your graphic design needs can be a great choice, but it’s not always the right choice. Before you set up a 99designs contest or post a job listing, take some time to consider the following:

By designer_work (Julia)

Your graphic design budget. Determine what you can afford to spend on graphic design and what the work you need will cost you if you work with a freelancer.

Who will manage the graphic designer, whether they’re a freelancer or you create an in-house position?

Will you tell your clients that you outsourced the graphics they ordered? You might feel they have the right to know or you might feel there’s no reason to tell them—there’s no “right” answer to this; you’ll need to determine what works for your company.. If you do want to white label designs, make sure the freelancer you’re working with is comfortable with this. (Sites like 99designs offer you the ability to setup an NDA with designers so they know off the bat how you’re working.)

How do you plan to have the designer work? Do you need them to be in the office full time or can they work remotely and only come in for specific meetings? Do you need the graphic designer to come to the office at all, or can your relationship be purely remote?

How will you handle conflicts with the designer? Always have them sign a contract before work begins that clearly states how much they will be paid, their pay schedule, and how conflicts will be resolved. Work with an experienced employment lawyer to draft an enforceable contract. It’s also a good idea to understand the differences between an employee and an independent contractor and what they mean for you, the employer, before you outsource graphic design work.

When outsourcing isn’t the right choice —

You might determine that outsourcing graphic design work isn’t the right choice for your company. If you anticipate making graphic design an integral, ongoing part of your operation, it could be better to hire one or more in-house designers. Doing this can save the agency money by paying a salaried designer for the volume of work you need produced, rather than paying hourly or by piece for the work. It also means your design costs are fixed, rather than variable according to the amount of work you need, which makes budgeting and projections easier to calculate. With an in-house designer or design team, you also get more consistent work—you know how your designer/team works, you know where their strength lies, and they know your agency’s demands, your company culture and your niche in a more intimate way than a freelancer could. It’s also a lot easier to discuss projects when your designer is sitting a few cubicles away, rather than on the other side of the world.

Make outsourcing a sustainable part of your growth strategy. By Gundriveth

On the flip side, working with a freelancer can save the company time and money while allowing it to allocate more resources to the things it can’t outsource as easily. It can also be the beginning of a strong relationship with the freelancer you choose, who could become a full time employee some day or continue to work with the agency, potentially helping to grow its business by referring new clients to you.

Like every other choice you make to scale your agency, determining how to handle your graphic design needs requires you crunch numbers and look closely at all the relevant factors. Start your calculation with numbers to develop an understanding of how outsourcing graphic design will impact your bottom line. Use this figure as a starting point, not an end point. Never sacrifice quality to save money, but don’t lose sight of your financial resources. Having a firm grasp of the financial side of outsourcing graphic design work will help you walk through your thought process to determine how to fit it into your growth strategy. You should always approach outsourcing asking yourself “how can this help my agency deliver better designs now and in the long term?”

Check your inbox

We’ve just sent you an email with more information.

Want to see how 99designs can help your agency grow?

Enter your email to learn more about 99designs Pro for Agencies.

Zionks! Looks like something went wrong.

Get more info

View our privacy policy

The post How to outsource graphic design (and grow your business) appeared first on 99designs.

How to outsource graphic design (and grow your business) published first on https://www.lilpackaging.com/

[susaanrogers]

How to outsource graphic design (and grow your business)

Outsourcing makes the world go ‘round. It makes it possible for companies to serve their clients efficiently by delegating tasks to others who can do them better, cheaper, and in many cases, both. One prominent example of outsourcing is how Apple’s products are manufactured by Foxconn and Samsung. By having other companies build their iPhones and Macbooks, Apple can focus on developing its proprietary software and furthering its brand.

The big guys aren’t the only ones who outsource—small and medium-sized businesses, agencies and nonprofits do it too. Over the past decade, online freelancing companies (like 99designs) have made it very easy for small business owners to outsource graphic design work with no risk of losing money.

As a digital agency, you’re already involved in the outsourcing chain; your clients come to you for work they can’t or don’t want to produce in-house. And you yourself may outsource work, for example by hiring an accountant to do your taxes (instead of having a full-time employee handle them).

Outsourcing can be the quickest, most effective way to achieve a goal. By IndraS3hat

Initially, the thought of outsourcing work can seem counterintuitive. It might even feel like cutting corners. After all, your clients hire you because they expect the quality work you provide. But it’s not scrimping, it’s a sophisticated, pragmatic move when you’re growing your business. And outsourcing doesn’t mean a drop in the quality of the work your clients receive. There are a lot of freelancers out there who can provide the same quality of work—or better—than an in-house employee.

The economics of outsourcing graphic design —

Use time wisely to increase your profits. Outsourcing graphic design frees up your time to focus on the parts of running your business that you can’t outsource. By Rom@n.

Every business owner’s goal is to scale their company into something bigger, something that can serve the market better. Agencies shouldn’t be any different. Outsourcing fits right into a scaling plan because:

It’s a smaller upfront economic investment than hiring an employee. Choosing to work with a freelancer gives you the flexibility to get work done when you need it, rather than having somebody on staff, costing a salary and employment benefits when work is slow

It saves you time. Remember, time = money. If you have four freelancers working on individual projects simultaneously, you can deliver all four within roughly the same time frame and quadruple your profit.

Here’s a brief look at scaling in action:

Unicorn Marketing Co. (UMC), a one-person marketing startup. According to its calculations, it can earn an additional $100,000 in gross profit next year by providing website design and logo services to its clients.

At a salary of $50,000, hiring a full time graphic designer would cost UMC at minimum, $62,000 with benefits. This cuts the additional $100,000 in gross profit to a net of $38,000.

UMC is up and coming, and the choices it makes in these early stages will affect its profits for years. TechCrunch conference bag design by Cross the Lime.

Having the designer on staff is still an asset to the company, but it’s an expensive asset even when there’s enough work to support a full time designer position. When there isn’t enough work to justify a 40-hour week for the designer, their compensation can cut into profits quickly while the designer’s skills stagnate as they stay bound to one company, rather than pursuing freelance projects.

But say UMC hires that same freelancer at an hourly rate of $40. At 40 hours per week, the designer costs UMC $1,600 per week, or $83,000 per year. Keep in mind that hourly rates for freelancers tend to be higher than hourly rates for employees because freelancers have to buy their own equipment, pay self-employment taxes and cover their own healthcare benefits. If UMC needs a full time graphic designer, creating a salaried position is the more economically sound choice. But since it’s a young company, it might not be at that stage yet. Like most startups, UMC’s early graphic design needs might look like this:

Week 1: 15 human hours needed for graphic design Week 2: 25 human hours needed Week 3: 0 human hours needed Week 4: 50 human hours needed

At $40/hour, UMC pays freelance designers a total of $3,600 for this month’s work. If it hired a full time in-house designer, the same month of work would have cost $6,400. Also remember the flexibility working with freelancers can get your company in terms of cost. You can outsource work to freelancers who live in areas with lower living costs, which typically means they charge less per hour. A graphic design budget of $40/hour puts you in a much different designer market in Indonesia than it does in New York City.

When you outsource work, you’re not limited to your city’s talent and price pool. Via dimitrisvetsikas1969.

Why outsource? —

In the example above, a marketing agency was looking to expand to include design as a service. But what if you already produce great design work? Would it ever make sense for you to consider outsourcing work?

The answer is yes. Here’s why:

Specialization

Choose a freelancer who fits the role your team needs to fill. By Handcrafted Graphics

You might be a great marketing agency, but are you a great real estate marketing agency? By choosing a graphic designer who focuses on one particular niche, you can expect a finished product that fits your client’s needs more accurately. Niches aren’t just specific industries, either. If you’re working with clients who want more technical-looking graphics, work with a graphic designer who has a background in CAD to deliver exactly what the client wants.

Sometimes, time isn’t the issue that drives a company to outsource its graphic design, but specialization is. Your in-house designer might be awesome at logo designs, but not have much experience with merchandise packaging designs. Instead of having your graphic designer create a good-enough packaging design to sell to the client, outsource the project to a freelancer who specializes in product packaging and who can knock it out of the park.

Breaking out of the box

Outsourcing can also help your company expand into a new niche or offer services outside your typical offerings to give the client what they want. Say your experience is strictly in web design, and you want to expand into print work. Working with a freelancer who has a strong background in print design can help your company bridge that gap and deliver work that exceeds the client’s expectations.

Give yourself options with a design contest. By Imkakoy

Outsourcing work is an effective way to work with fresh ideas. Bringing in a freelancer is bringing in outside creativity that can inspire the rest of your team. They’ll approach your project from a different angle and bring innovation to your company’s designs.

A great way to find the freelancer who’ll bring an outside perspective that complements your agency’s workflow needs, rather than clashing with them, is to hold a design contest through 99designs. A variety of freelancers with unique approaches to your request will enter the contest, then you can choose whose work is a best fit for the design you need to deliver. Alternatively, you can curate bids in a similar way by sending your project needs to a few trusted freelancers, then making your choice based on their drafts.

Adapting to varying workflow demands

A freelancer can slip right into a project and get it done without disrupting your agency’s workflow. By Nico Strike

As you know, your agency has busy times and slow times. When outsourcing graphic design is part of your business plan, you can adapt to the volume of work you’re facing at any time. More work? More freelancers. Only a little bit of work? Hire one designer to take care of it. Businesses rarely scale at a consistent pace. Speed up the process (and slow it down when you need to) by hiring the number of freelancers you need to meet the demand you’re facing without having to take time to hire and onboard new employees at specific growth benchmarks.

Outsourcing is also a way to get overflow work done—there might be less glamorous design tasks (like a bunch of banner ads) that you need to do. Freelancers are great for this!

And of course, outsourcing work can get it done faster. If your in-house designer already has five projects on her plate when a new one comes in, don’t bog her down with a sixth. Outsource that project to somebody who can get on it immediately.

How to outsource graphic design effectively —

Check your inbox

We've just sent you an email with more information.

Want to see how 99designs can help your agency grow?

Enter your email to learn more about 99designs Pro for Agencies.

Zionks! Looks like something went wrong.

Get more info

View our privacy policy

The flexibility and savings that come with outsourcing can make it an attractive option, but don’t let them eclipse the importance of delivering quality work that meets your client’s specifications. This should always be your priority when you decide which projects to outsource and how to handle outsourcing them.

One option is to hire an in-house designer or design manager who creates relationships with freelancers to complete projects. The individual in this role should have the background to effectively vet potential freelancers and do some of the design work themselves, which can mean creating high-level design concepts, tweaking freelancers’ work, and/or maintaining your company’s style standards to ensure that all graphic work conforms to your style and standard.

Today it’s easy to work with graphic designers from all over the world. By BATHI

If you’re a smaller agency, you might have to be the one in this role. You can find quality work and talented designers through online freelancers and contests. If you aren’t confident in your design skills and ability to vet freelancers, consider choosing a freelance creative director you trust to take on all or part of this role. Services like 99designs Pro for Agencies can also make this easier as they hand-pick the best creative talent and help you learn to source the best designers for your needs.

Five years down the road, your company’s graphic design needs could be a lot different from its needs today. And that’s normal. You might find that by that point, your cashflow and work volume make it economically feasible to buy “white glove service” from a design agency.

Or you might find that you were able to do the outsourcing yourself in the agency’s early days, but later, you’re too busy to continue giving this aspect of the business the attention it needs. When it comes to that point, it’s time to hire somebody. Whatever decisions you make regarding your company’s graphic work, always ask yourself how the decision will positively impact the company and its ability to serve its clients. If a decision won’t save money, make your workflow more efficient, save time, or result in a better product, it’s probably not a good decision.

Considerations to make when you outsource graphic design —

Outsourcing your graphic design needs can be a great choice, but it’s not always the right choice. Before you set up a 99designs contest or post a job listing, take some time to consider the following:

By designer_work (Julia)

Your graphic design budget. Determine what you can afford to spend on graphic design and what the work you need will cost you if you work with a freelancer.

Who will manage the graphic designer, whether they’re a freelancer or you create an in-house position?

Will you tell your clients that you outsourced the graphics they ordered? You might feel they have the right to know or you might feel there’s no reason to tell them—there’s no “right” answer to this; you’ll need to determine what works for your company.. If you do want to white label designs, make sure the freelancer you’re working with is comfortable with this. (Sites like 99designs offer you the ability to setup an NDA with designers so they know off the bat how you’re working.)

How do you plan to have the designer work? Do you need them to be in the office full time or can they work remotely and only come in for specific meetings? Do you need the graphic designer to come to the office at all, or can your relationship be purely remote?

How will you handle conflicts with the designer? Always have them sign a contract before work begins that clearly states how much they will be paid, their pay schedule, and how conflicts will be resolved. Work with an experienced employment lawyer to draft an enforceable contract. It’s also a good idea to understand the differences between an employee and an independent contractor and what they mean for you, the employer, before you outsource graphic design work.

When outsourcing isn’t the right choice —

You might determine that outsourcing graphic design work isn’t the right choice for your company. If you anticipate making graphic design an integral, ongoing part of your operation, it could be better to hire one or more in-house designers. Doing this can save the agency money by paying a salaried designer for the volume of work you need produced, rather than paying hourly or by piece for the work. It also means your design costs are fixed, rather than variable according to the amount of work you need, which makes budgeting and projections easier to calculate. With an in-house designer or design team, you also get more consistent work—you know how your designer/team works, you know where their strength lies, and they know your agency’s demands, your company culture and your niche in a more intimate way than a freelancer could. It’s also a lot easier to discuss projects when your designer is sitting a few cubicles away, rather than on the other side of the world.

Make outsourcing a sustainable part of your growth strategy. By Gundriveth

On the flip side, working with a freelancer can save the company time and money while allowing it to allocate more resources to the things it can’t outsource as easily. It can also be the beginning of a strong relationship with the freelancer you choose, who could become a full time employee some day or continue to work with the agency, potentially helping to grow its business by referring new clients to you.

Like every other choice you make to scale your agency, determining how to handle your graphic design needs requires you crunch numbers and look closely at all the relevant factors. Start your calculation with numbers to develop an understanding of how outsourcing graphic design will impact your bottom line. Use this figure as a starting point, not an end point. Never sacrifice quality to save money, but don’t lose sight of your financial resources. Having a firm grasp of the financial side of outsourcing graphic design work will help you walk through your thought process to determine how to fit it into your growth strategy. You should always approach outsourcing asking yourself “how can this help my agency deliver better designs now and in the long term?”

Check your inbox

We've just sent you an email with more information.

Want to see how 99designs can help your agency grow?

Enter your email to learn more about 99designs Pro for Agencies.

Zionks! Looks like something went wrong.

Get more info

View our privacy policy

The post How to outsource graphic design (and grow your business) appeared first on 99designs.

[wecityguidecom]

Explore The Great Pyramids of Egypt

Have you ever think to visit the great pyramids of Egpyt like pyramids of Giza. Their mystery still solved entirely yet.  These well-known ancient masonry buildings are located in Egypt. They have a mysterious and thriving history. There are more than 100 pyramids in Egypt and the most famous one of them is the pyramids of Giza and this guide will focus on them mostly.

History of The Pyramids

During the Early Dynastic Period of Egpyt (3100 BC) people who holds the power were buried in mastabas. They look like half of the pyramids. History of pyramids are little complex so I won't bother you with these confusing details but will give brief information about them. The main aim of building a pyramid like a mastaba or v-shaped ones is to help the soul of the pharaoh to reach the heavens. The biggest pyramids of Egpyt were built during the Old Kingdom (2686-2181 BC) which also known as an "Age of Pyramids" or "Age of the Pyramid Builders" is the pyramids of Giza. During those time centralized management style of the kingdom were allows building this kind of massive buildings. But in years, the ability and willingness of building pyramids like this big decreased like the size of the pyramids. That's the main reason there arent much pyramids like Giza. That's enough for brief history :)

The Mastaba al-Fir’aun at Saqqara (Source)

Pyramids of Giza

As mentioned above there are more than 100 pyramids in Egpyt. Abu Rawash, Giza, Zawyet el-Aryan, Abusir, Saqqara, Dahsur, Mazghuna, Lisht, Meidum, Hawara, el-Lahun, El-Kurru, and Nuri are the location of the pyramid in Egypt. Each of them has a unique and different style of the pyramid which needs separate guides to visit them. Bu the most famous and glorious one is the pyramids of Giza of course. You can find a map of them. Where are the pyramids of Giza? Everyone thinks that all of the pyramids are located in the middle of the desert but the truth is quite different. For example, pyramids of Giza are located very close to the city of Giza, just 9 km and 13 km to Cairo. These numbers are for the centers of course but the settlements are few hundred meters away from the pyramids. You can check it from the map above. How many pyramids are there in Giza? Pyramids of Giza also known as Giza pyramid complex or Giza Necropolis. From these names, you will get there are more than one pyramids in Giza. List of the ancient wonders in Giza like this: the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Pyramid of Khafre, and the Pyramid of Menkaure, along with their associated pyramid complexes and the Great Sphinx of Giza. All of the were built during the Fourth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom of Ancient Egpyt. You will also see there are few cemeteries for the workers who lost their lives during the constructions.

The Great Pyramid of Giza, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. (source) The Great Pyramid of Giza and the Pyramid of Khafre are the biggest and largest pyramids in Egypt. Antipater of Sidon who is the ancient Greek poet lived the second half of the 2nd century BC listed the Great Pyramids of Giza one the Seven Wonders of the World. It is the oldest of the ancient wonder and the only one still remains. You will the map of the pyramids of Giza on the image given below.

Map of the pyramids of Giza (Source)

Visiting the pyramid of Giza as a tourist

Egpyt could be a bad place for tourist. If you rad comment and post from the various website you will people in Egpyt can bother you for money almost everywhere. Especially in the Giza area, the management of the pyramids is quite bad. Vey basic services like garbage can, signs or other things can help tourist almost not exist. If you're planning to visit pyramids by yourself that could be a bad experience. Because of that limitation, you can think to join some guided tours.

Pyramids of the Giza Necropolis (Source), The Great Pyramid of Giza is also known as the Pyramid of Cheops or Khufu. This one was built between 2580-2560 BC. A smaller one is the Pyramid of Khafre which is located a few hundred meters to the south-west and the medium-sized Pyramid of Menkaure farther south-west. How to go pyramids of Giza? If you don't join the tour and want to visit Giza by yourself. You have two options, taxi or public transportation. If you will take the taxi ready for the mess. most of the taxi drivers in Egpyt will try to screw you and get more money. Before taking a taxi to be sure about the price. Tell the driver to take to the entrance gate without stopping anywhere and the price should not exceed 2 dollars. You can also take the subway to reach the pyramids. Subway won't go to the pyramids directly but you will get very close of them and take a minibus from station to the entrance. This way is more secure and cheaper of course. During your visitation to the pyramids of Giza, you will face with so many hustlers. The only way to avoid them is to join a guided tour. But if you visited pyramids by yourself always be careful. Hide your passport and wallet to a safe place and never show them to the people. Egyptian officials probably won't help you on these cases, probably they don't bother. If you ever visited the pyramids of Giza please share your experiences and suggestions for the people who are planning to visit this spectacular ancient world wonders.   Read the full article