Hotel Near Miami Beach - How To Get Online Away From Home Or Work

Source      - http://www.technewsworld.com/
By             - Patrick Nelson
Category   - Hotel Near Miami Beach
Posted By - Inn and Suites In West Miami

Hotel Near Miami Beach

Ever since the days of the fax machine and clamshell PC, I've delighted in the concept of working away from home or office.

I have fond memories of lugging those clunkers from the back of my car in and out of motel rooms through bone-chilling blizzards and driving rain -- adding to the carry-load, certainly, but bringing freedom.

With many of us now accumulating multiple connected mobile devices, including laptops, tablets, cameras and phones -- all of which can accompany us on sojourns out of the workspace and home -- one might ask: What's the most efficient and cost-effective way to keep online while away from the economical, unlimited Internet pipes available at our fixed locations?

Here's what you need to know.

Step 1: Determine how much Web browsing and email data you use in a month.

Are you streaming or downloading multimedia, or just browsing the Web and checking email?

If all you have is one smartphone that you use to check email and social networks, you can survive on a domestic data add-on from your smartphone wireless carrier, which will be a good combination of always-available convenience an arguably reasonable price.

For example, one hour of navigation directions per day and 1,500 Web pages and 1,500 text-only e-mails per month will often add up to less than 1 GB, which is often an entry-level phone plan offering.

Tip: Data counter apps are available in app stores. 3G Watchdog for Android, for example, will let you calculate real-time usage.

Step 2: Determine how much video or multimedia you use.

One hour of streaming video per day can add up to 7 GB per month. This is often more than wireless carriers allow before throttling, or than they will sell you at a reasonable price.

Two hours of streamed music per day requires 4 GB of data a month; 15 minutes of video calling per day requires 1 GB of data a month.

If you don't look at video, you'd be surprised at how little data you use. However, if you do, or you want to, and want to do it without being gouged, you need to improvise a bit.

Step 3: Look for free WiFi hotspots.

Use your wireless mobile network for non-data-intensive Internet, like email and Web only, and then find free hotspots for media downloads.

Free hotspots can include hotel lobbies; bars; Starbucks; McDonald's; and your cable company -- look for the CableWiFi identifier.

Tip: Boingo is a WiFi on-the-go service that provides access to free and paid hotspots for a monthly subscription.

Step 4: Pool resources with others.

If you, your coworkers or your family use multiple smartphones, tablets, e-readers, iPods and so on, you can avoid multiple payments to wireless carriers, or hotels and the like, by creating one connection that everyone hooks up to.

Look for the term "MiFi," or Mobile Hotspot, from your wireless carrier.

Tip: Verizon will sell you a prepay Jetpack Prepaid LTE hotspot for US$99.99 and then pay-in-advance service of $90 for 10GB valid for one month.

Step 5: Tether your devices to your phone.

Mobile phone networks offer a tethering option by which you can purchase a tethering add-on that lets you connect tablets and PCs to your smartphone wirelessly. The phone acts as modem.

Tip: Sprint offers mobile hotspot add-ons that range up to 6GB of shared data for $49.95 over and above your existing plan.

Step 6: Use your laptop as connection.

I've written about this recently: Your PC connects to the hotspot and the brood connects to the PC, saving configuration time and money.

Step 7: Choose satellite services in remote areas or at sea.

If all you want is your Twitter feed and there aren't any hotspots or mobile service where you spend time, Inmarsat's IsatPhone Pro is easily configured with free incoming tweets in an SMS text-like readout on the phone's handset.

 

Prepay SIM cards, newly available in the U.S., start at around $90 and last two years. The phone itself costs $660 on Amazon.

More data-intensive broadband solutions are available from Inmarsat's BGAN service. If you need to ask the price on that one, you can't afford it.

Hotel Near Miami Beach - How To Get Rid Of Bad Breath In Your Dog

Source       - http://shine.yahoo.com/
By             - vetstreet.com
Category   - Hotel Near Miami Beach
Posted By - Inn and Suites In West Miami

Hotel Near Miami Beach

Simple chronic halitosis. Whether we're talking humans or pets, bad breath is a big deal. It's a stinky problem, but take heart. In most cases there's a lot you can do to keep bad breath at bay. 

Causes

There are a variety of causes for bad breath in pets, these include: 

1. Periodontal disease. It's by far the most common cause of bad breath in pets. Studies show that after the age of 3 years, 80 percent of dogs and cats will have signs of periodontal disease. The cause of the offensive odor in these cases is the bacteria that coalesce as plaque and cause irritating gingivitis. As plaque matures and periodontal disease progresses, more destructive bacteria come into play. Periodontal disease is a painful condition that can lead to tooth loss and damage to organs like the heart and kidneys. 

2. Teething. Kittens and puppies often have ick breath when they are teething. Kittens, especially, seem prone to the problem, which typically lasts only a couple of months. What happens is that bacteria collects at the gumline as baby teeth are edged out by budding adult teeth. 

3. Oral disease. In addition to gum disease a host of other oral diseases can cause bad breath. These include stomatitis, a common feline condition that causes painful inflammation of the gums and mouth tissues; oral masses, which include both cancerous and benign growths; and gingival hyperplasia, a condition in which the gums overgrow, creating bumps and deep crevices where bacteria proliferate. 

4. Gastrointestinal disease. If the esophagus, stomach, or intestines are sick, they can make for stinky breath. It's a far less common reason for halitosis than periodontal disease, however. 

5. Metabolic disease. Diseases that affect the body's metabolic balance or allow for the presence of abnormal levels of certain toxins in the blood can yield impressive mouth odors. Kidney disease is the most well-known of these. The end-stage process called uremia causes a characteristically sour-smelling breath. 

What To Do at Home

 Taking an active role in your pet's dental care can help keep foul breath under control. 

1. Brush your pet's teeth. All pets - dogs and cats alike - should be trained early on to accept simple tooth brushing as part of their daily (at the very least, weekly) routine. 

2. Plaque-reducing treats can be helpful, but they are not all created equal. Ask your veterinarian for a recommendation. 

3. Water additives promise fresh breath, but do they deliver? It seems some do. Ask your veterinarian for advice before buying the first kind you spy in the pet store. 

What Your Veterinarian May Do

When you take your pet to the vet, here are things the doctor may do: 

1. History. Most veterinarians will start by asking a few questions to understand the history of the bad breath. When did you first notice it? Has it changed? How has you pet been otherwise? 

2. Physical examination. Examining the whole body, not just the mouth, is a crucial part of the process. The oral examination, however, is by far the most important aspect of bad breath assessment. 

3. Anesthetic evaluation. Unfortunately, a thorough assessment of a pet's oral cavity is almost always impossible without sedation or anesthesia. Once the pet is sedated, each individual tooth can be probed, x-rays can be taken, and other structures in the mouth can be examined. 

4. Dental cleaning. Dental cleaning is indispensable when combatting bad breath. That's because ridding the teeth (and area under the gumline) of plaque bacteria goes a long way toward improving the health of the teeth and gums, and therefore treating bad breath. 

5. Biopsy. It may sometimes be necessary to obtain a sample of apparently abnormal tissue to determine its origins before definitive treatment can be initiated. This tends to be the case when oral masses are involved. 

Treatment

 Treatment of halitosis depends wholly on the underlying cause. Because most halitosis is born of periodontal disease, treatment for bad breath tends to rely heavily on at-home care in addition to professional dental cleanings. Talk with your vet about what is the best action plan for your pet.

Hotel Near Miami Beach - Two Years After Steve Jobs' Death, How's That New CEO Working Out?

Source      - http://www.theregister.co.uk/
By            - Rik Myslewski
Category  - Hotel Near Miami Beach
Posted By - Inn and Suites In West Miami

Hotel Near Miami Beach

Two years ago today, Apple cofounder Steve Jobs died. Since then, much has changed at Apple, with the most visible difference being Tim Cook stepping out from under the shadow of his larger-than-lfe predecessor, shepherding Apple's product lines, expanding its distribution, reshuffling its executive team, mollifying investors – and watching its stock take a beating.

Not that Apple's share price was soaring on October 5, 2011; on the day Jobs died, it closed at $378.25. Its highest closing price since then was its highest of all time: $702.10 on September 19, 2012, having hit $705.07 in intraday trading. On that day, one analyst predicted that the stock would hit $1,650 per share by 2015.

Needless to say, that now doesn't appear likely. Is Cook to blame – or, at least, does he share the blame with his fellow execs? Or was Apple simply wildly overvalued in September 2012, and has it merely slipped comfortably back into more-realistic territory?

When evaluating Cook's performance as Apple CEO, it's instructive to remember that he wasn't suddenly thrust into the top job with no preparation, nor was he brought in from the outside to save a floundering business as was, say, Yahoo!'s Marissa Mayer or HP's Léo Apotheker.

As with the former, the jury is still out about Cook's tenure. And as for the latter, well, we all remember how well that worked out. Cook, by the way, was rumored to be in line for the HP CEO position after Mark Hurd hit the skids – a rumor that was quickly pooh-poohed.

Jobs first left Tim Cook in charge of Apple's day-to-day operations in early August 2004, when he took a short leave to have a pancreatic cancer tumor removed; he returned to Apple that September, as expected. In 2009, he took a second medical leave of absence from Apple, saying that his health problems were "more complex" than previously thought – it was later revealed that he had received a liver transplant around three months later. Cook was again in charge during Jobs' absence.

When Jobs took a third medical leave of absence in January 2011, he still remained CEO – in title, at least – saying only that "I have asked Tim Cook to be responsible for all of Apple's day to day operations." In August of that year, however, Jobs relinquished that title, and formally passed the baton to Cook. Less than two months later, Jobs died, and Cook was on his own.

Well, not completely on his own, of course. Design guru Jony Ive had joined Apple in 1992, rising to SVP of industrial design in 1996. Hardware brainiac Bob Mansfield, who joined Apple in 1999, was head of Devices Hardware Engineering, having taken over that position when Mark Papermaster left for Cisco in 2010 (Papermaster became AMD's CTO a year later).

And then there was the man whom one former Apple engineer said was recognized by rank-and-file Cupertinians as "the only legit successor to Jobs" and whom that same ex-staffer called "the best approximation of Steve Jobs that Apple had left." That "best approximation" was Scott Forstall, formerly head of iOS, whose ouster last year provides insight into Cook's management style as compared to Jobs'.

The similarity of Forstall and Jobs, according to multiple sources, meant that he was known to be creative and dynamic, but also pushy, non-collaborative, imperious, polarizing, arrogant, and, well, a thesaurus-worth of obnoxious.

He was also regarded by many – and perhaps by himself, as there were rumors that he was marshaling opposition to Cook's leadership – as a possible successor for the CEO's corner office. That wasn't to be.

Although the details of his fall from grace have been kept hidden behind the Great Wall of Cupertino, Forstall "resigned" from his software-honcho position on October 29, 2012, as part of a sweeping executive reorganization at Apple. At the time, the company said that he would serve as an adviser to Cook until he left Apple for good at some unspecified date in 2013. How much advising he has done, however, remains murky.

At the time, there was speculation that Forstall was shown the door because of refusing to apologize along with Cook for iOS 6's botched Google Maps–replacing Maps app for which he had been responsible, as well as the disappointing performance of that operating system's marquee feature, Siri – performance so iffy that it lead to lawsuits.

The iOS 6 cockup may have been one proverbial camel-back straw, but the real reasons for Forstall's exit were many and varied. Last December, for example, Cook confirmed to Bloomberg Businessweek that Forstall's personality was indeed, one reason behind his ouster – although, of course, he didn't say so in exactly those words.

When asked about the Forstall departure, along with the exit of Apple's retail headman John Browett on the same day, Cook was diplomatic. "The key in the change that you're referencing is my deep belief that collaboration is essential for innovation," he said.

The design of iOS was also a point of contention. Forstall – and, for that matter, Jobs – was a fan of skeuomorphism, the translation of real-world objects into user-interface elements. Cook, apparently, is not – but more importantly neither is Jony Ive, whom Cook elevated from merely hardware-design headman to head of all design at Apple and tasked to drop skeuomorphism in iOS 7, released last month.

As an aside, there have been suggestions that Ive may be a possible successor to Cook. He's a visionary like Jobs, some argue, and vision is something that Cook lacks. This observer, however, finds that recommendation risible. Ive is a designer, not an administrator; a blue-sky thinker, not a nuts-and-bolts supply-chain negotiator; a manager of line, curve, color, and materials, not of a global army of 80,000 employees, well over 40,000 retail staffers, and – perhaps most important – seven fellow board members. Installing Ive as CEO would be the Peter Principle turned up to 11.

So back to reality, and fittingly back to skeuomorphism. Another beneficiary of Forstall's departure, Craig Federighi, who was elevated to head of all Apple's software engineering in the same reorg that put Ive in charge of all design, and who is also an anti-skeuomorph. As he explained in a USA Today interview with Ive last month, the new flat-design look of iOS 7 is "about a different philosophy."

One final detail of recent Apple history may lend another bit of conjecture regarding Forstall's departure. Valuable hardware headman Bob Mansfield "retired" in late June of last year. Cook lured him back in late August. The Forstall exit and reorg occurred two months later. Mansfield is now working on undefined "Special Projects" – think iWatch, iBigScreenTV, iWhatever.

Neither Mansfield nor Cook have publicly discussed whether their negotiations involved Forstall's role in the company, but one does wonder, doesn't one – especially considering that there had been reports that both Mansfield and Ive avoided contact with Forstall unless Cook was present to act as an executive DMZ.

Whatever the details of Forstall's departure, there can be no question that the reorganization that accompanied it showed that the Jobsian era had ended, and that Apple was now Cook's company. Cook is not Jobs – and he knows it.

And he also knows that for a company to thrive, the presence of an inspired visionary may be a wonderful thing, but the contribution of such a rara avis is not a make-or-break necessity.

Hotel Near Miami Beach - Sunscreens for babies, kids, recalled for contamination

Source      - http://www.usatoday.com/
By            - Kim Painter
Category  - Hotel Near Miami Beach
Posted By - Inn and Suites In West Miami

Hotel Near Miami Beach

About 30,000 tubes of Badger sunscreens for babies and children have been recalled after testing found they could be contaminated with bacteria and fungi, the manufacturer says.

The voluntary recall from a leading maker of natural and organic sunscreens includes all lots of the company's 4-ounce SPF 30 Baby Sunscreen Lotion and one lot of 4-ounce SPF 30 Kids Sunscreen Lotion, according to a statement from W.S. Badger Co. Inc.

The New Hampshire company says the products all passed testing before they were put on sale, starting in February, but routine quality checks later turned up three microbes: Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Candida parapsilosis and Acremonium fungis. The third microbe was found only in one open sample that had been handled and contaminated, the company says.

The testing suggested all the problems were caused by "preservative instability," the company says.

The recalled products include:

• SPF 30 Baby Sunscreen Lotion tubes with UPC codes of 34084490091 and 634084490114. (Lot #'s 3024A, 3057B, 3063A, 3063B, 3132A, 3133A)
• SPF 30 Kids Sunscreen Lotion tubes with UPC codes of 634084490145 and 634084490169 ( Lot # 3164A)

In an online message, Badger CEO Bill Whyte apologizes for the problems and says no adverse reactions have been reported. He also says he has been reassured by toxicologists that the organisms found in the sunscreens are "unlikely to cause problems except for in immune-compromised persons or for persons with severely damaged skin."

Company spokeswoman Deirdre Fitzgerald says: "We are already reformulating all products in question for improved shelf-life stability for next year's sunscreen season."

Hotel Near Miami Beach - How To Upgrade To iOS 7 Without Messing Up Your Phone

Source       - http://finance.yahoo.com/
By             - Caroline Moss
Category   - Hotel Near Miami Beach
Posted By - Inn and Suites In West Miami

Hotel Near Miami Beach

The iOS 7 software is available today.

Apple has made the new iOS 7 software available today. While it's a drastic change in interface from iOS 6, change is not necessarily a bad thing.

If you're thinking about making the switch, here's what you need to do:

Make Sure You Have A Compatible Device

iOS 7 will only work on iPhones that are iPhone 4 and later, Retina display iPads, iPad 2, and the fifth-generation iPod touch. 

iOS 7 comes on the new iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c, available September 20.

Carve Out Some Time

Historically, Apple makes its software available around 1pm on the release day. When lots of people download it at the same time, it crowds Apple's servers. If you can wait, try downloading iOS 7 in a few days. If you're impatient, be prepared for a sluggish download.

Update iTunes

If you back up your iPhone or iPad to iTunes, or if you plan to install iOS 7 from iTunes, make sure you are running the latest version (11.0).

You can check by opening iTunes and going to Help > Check for Updates. Make sure you restart iTunes after installing the latest version.

Back Up Your Device

Back up your device to iTunes. This is extremely important as it will let you keep your contacts, photos, and apps from the previous iOS.

You can also back it up to iCloud. Go to Settings > iCloud > Storage & Backup. Under Backup, turn on the switch for iCloud Backup.

Update iOS 

When iOS 7 becomes available, you can update with a good Wi-Fi connection by going into your settings and grabbing the software update. This is an easy way to do it if you're on the go. 

You can also use iTunes to upgrade your software. 

Plug your device into your computer with the USB cord and launch iTunes. On the left side of iTunes, find and select your device. Click "Check for Update" which will appear automatically. When the dialog box appears, select "Download and Update".

Wait

Be patient as you wait for the download. If you interrupt the process you could risk disrupting the update.

Hotel Near Miami Beach - Apple's New iPhones May Underwhelm In China

Source    - http://www.usatoday.com/
By           - Bill Bishop
Category  - Hotel Near Miami Beach
Posted By  - Inn and Suites In West Miami

Hotel Near Miami Beach

So much for the expectation that Apple's Beijing satellite iPhone launch event would be anything special. Apple simply replayed a video recording of the California show and then allowed attendees to play with the new devices.

The new iPhones go on sale next week in China and they are very expensive. The starting prices for the 5c and 5s are $735 and $867, respectively. Given the supposed market segmentation strategy it seems strange that the 32G 5c model is the exact same price as the 16G 5s model.

Those prices are firmly at the high-end of the China market and the 5c is priced well above what many analysts expected. Those hoping that Apple was going to have a credible mid-market phone to regain market share will likely be disappointed.

The iPhone was once both the best phone and a highly coveted status symbol in China, and Apple stores witnessed near riots as customers rushed to buy. But the iPhone is no longer such an object of desire here and these models, while technically impressive, look to be too aesthetically undifferentiated to help return the iPhone to "bling" status.

As predicted in my previous post there was no announcement of a deal with China Mobile, the country's dominant mobile operator. For the first time the iPhone is compatible with China Mobile's network existing 3G and forthcoming 4G networks, which some interpret as a sign a deal is near.

Apple generates billions of dollars in China and its business here is the envy of many companies. Without a significant deal with China Mobile though it is hard to see how these new models reignite Apple's growth in this market.

Apple may have once had leverage with China Mobile, but no longer. The iPhone is a nice-to-have product for China Mobile but a deal with the carrier is now absolutely essential for Apple. Perhaps in addition to the new iPhones Apple will also have to show China Mobile an iKowtow?

Hotel Near Miami Beach - Could A Daily Dose Of Red Wine Reduce One's Risk Of Depression?

Source       - http://www.forbes.com/
By             - Pharma & Healthcare
Category    - Hotel Near Miami Beach
Posted By  - Inn and Suites In West Miami

Hotel Near Miami Beach

An enticing new study from BMC Medicine reports that people over 55 who drink a little alcohol, averaging about a glass – generally of wine – per day, are less likely to be clinically depressed than those who drink more and those who don’t drink at all. The study comes in direct contrast to many earlier studies that have found an opposite effect: That drinking is more often associated with increased risk for depression. While are some legitimate reasons that wine could have some slight beneficial effects on depression risk, before you go picking up the habit if it’s not already there, it’s important to understand not only the reasons behind the connection, but also the risks involved.

The new study followed 5,000 Spanish men and women between 55 and 80 for about seven years, periodically querying them about their lifestyle habits via questionnaires and doctor visits. No one suffered from depression or alcohol use disorders at the beginning of the study. At the end of the seven years, about 443 people had become depressed.

It turned out that low-to-moderate alcohol consumption was linked to reduced risk of depression: People who drank between two and seven glasses of wine per week seemed to derive the greatest benefit, having a third the risk of being depressed as people who did not drink. Moderate drinkers also had lower risk of depression, but it wasn’t as large as the low-to-moderate group. The results held true even after multiple lifestyle factors were controlled for, such as smoking, marital status, age, physical activity level, and diet, which can all influence depression risk. Heavy drinkers seemed to have an increased risk of depression, although there were too few of these people in the study to say for sure.

If the connection really does exist, one explanation might have to do with the neuroprotective effects of the antioxidants in wine, like resveratrol, which has gotten a lot of attention in recent years. “Lower amounts of alcohol intake might exert protection in a similar way to what has been observed for coronary heart disease,” said author Miguel A. Martínez-González in a statement. “In fact, it is believed that depression and coronary heart disease share some common disease mechanisms.” The mechanisms Martínez-González mentions have to do with inflammation, which is known to be a central cause of heart disease, and there is increasing evidence for its role in depression as well. The polyphenol antioxidants in wine could help repair inflammatory damage to the brain that has contributed to depression.

“Previous investigations suggest that the hippocampal complex may play a role in the development of major depression,” say the authors. “This neuroprotection applied to the hippocampus may prevent moderate wine drinkers from developing depression.”

Another explanation, which is unrelated to the content of wine, might have to do with social factors, which have long been known to influence depression risk. People who enjoy a glass of wine or two might be more likely to be doing so in a crowd of people. Write the authors, the study’s cohort “includes an older, traditional Spanish Mediterranean population, that consumed chiefly wine, and mainly in a context of socialization with family or friends.” Enjoying a rich social life has been well illustrated to reduced depression risk, and could easily influence the results seen here.

Finally, also important to keep in mind is the large body of evidence suggesting that alcohol and depression are linked adversely, with one increasing the risk of the other. It may also be the case that some people, because of genes and environment, are predisposed to problems with both – so in essence there could be a third variable at play, which might increase one’s likelihood of alcohol use and of depression.

For all of these reasons, the results should be taken with caution. This is especially true since they were, after all, derived from a relatively restricted sample of people in a Spanish Mediterranean population, none of whom had ever had depression, and who were all over 55 years old. So how the results would relate, if at all, to a more inclusive sample is largely unknown.

As with most studies looking at a particular ingestible item – wine, coffee, sugar, fat – to look for a single answer is perhaps naïve. Alcohol does not likely reduce the risk of depression across the board, since there are so many other variables, like quantity, type, and existing health and mental health conditions. So the best advice might be that if you enjoy a glass of red wine every now and then, you might do well to continue for the health of your heart and brain. But if you’re not a fan, it’s not worth picking up the habit, since it carries with it a number of risks that just aren’t worth messing around with.

Hotel Near Miami Beach - Should You Trust Your Doctor?

Source         - http://www.nbc33tv.com/
By               - Press Release
Category     - Hotel Near Miami Beach
Posted By   - Inn and Suites In West Miami

Hotel Near Miami Beach

Most of us assume that our doctors are trustworthy. They undergo a minimum of seven years of postgraduate schooling, pass rigorous tests and are responsible for our health and the health of our families.

But are they as trustworthy as we think?

A Michigan oncologist was arrested recently for allegedly running a multimillion-dollar scheme to defraud Medicare. He's accused of administering chemotherapy to patients with no real chance of survival and misdiagnosing patients in order to charge for their expensive treatments.

And earlier this month an Ohio spine surgeon was indicted on charges that he persuaded patients to undergo millions of dollars worth of treatments that they didn't need. Among the things he allegedly told patients was that their heads would fall off without his operation.

While these egregious stories are truly shocking and uncommon, there are unfortunately many less dramatic examples of untrustworthy doctors that don't make big news. My field of cosmetic plastic surgery has its share of doctors who don't necessarily place their patients' best interests first. I encounter these patients' subsequent problems nearly every week.

One middle-aged woman was left with scarred legs resembling a burn patient's after undergoing unnecessary laser liposuction by a cardiologist. Another was abandoned by his ENT surgeon after undergoing a lunchtime facelift and contracting a staph infection. One woman underwent a botched tummy tuck by an emergency room physician, leaving her abdomen a scarred, lumpy mess.

So what's a patient to do?

Here are some tips to make sure your physician, and the advice he or she gives you, are trustworthy:

Research your doctor. The easiest way to do this is online. There are several doctor-rating websites where patients share their reviews and experiences with physicians. You can also check with your state's Board of Medicine to determine whether your physician has had his or her license suspended or revoked.

County courts can also provide information regarding any lawsuits your doctor may have been involved with. Keep in mind, though, that we live in a litigious society, and even the best doctors get sued, often more than once.

Make sure your doctor isn't practicing outside his/her field. This is mainly a problem in plastic surgery, where doctors of all kinds are ditching their chosen specialties to masquerade as cosmetic surgeons.

If you're considering plastic surgery, make sure your surgeon is certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery, or better yet, is a member of the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. If you're considering facial plastic surgery, then the American Board of Facial Plastic Surgery is considered an equivalent in all states.

Be cautious of doctors who advertise too much. The quality of a doctor is often inversely proportional to the size of his or her ad.

Young, new physicians may use ads to introduce themselves to the community, but once word of mouth kicks in, most doctors don't need to pay for a lot of expensive advertising in order to maintain a busy practice.

Ask a nurse or other hospital support staff. Hospital workers know who the good and bad doctors are in town. Ask who they go to for advice or treatment.

Get a second opinion. If you're undergoing treatment with a specialist and aren't comfortable with the doctor's recommendations, ask your primary care physician what he or she thinks. Or get a second opinion by another specialist in the same field.

While stories of unethical physicians are indeed concerning, the majority of doctors are honest, ethical people who place their patients' best interests first. We just don't hear about it in the media.

Doctors contribute billions of dollars worth of pro bono care every year. Thousands of doctors staff inner-city and rural clinics to help the disadvantaged at a fraction of what they would earn in an upper-class neighborhood. And we don't often recognize the doctors who get out of bed in the middle of the night to tend to a person injured in a car accident, a woman about to give birth, or an ICU patient on the brink of death.

So should you trust your doctor? Yes, after doing a little research.

Hotel Near Miami Beach - Could Facebook Be Making You Miserable?

Source        - http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/
By               - Honor Whiteman
Category     - Hotel Near Miami Beach
Posted By   - Inn and Suites In West Miami

Hotel Near Miami Beach

For many of us, checking our Facebook activity has become a daily routine. Over 133 million people in the US alone are estimated to be subscribed to the social media site. But although it has become a large part of our lives, researchers have discovered that it actually makes us miserable.

 

A study, published in the journal PLOS ONE, analyzed 82 young Facebook users who used the site frequently - 53 females and 29 males. 

Researchers from the University of Michigan adopted an "experience sampling" technique - a way of measuring how people think, feel, and behave in each moment of their daily lives. 

Participants were sent a series of text messages every day for 14 days, containing links to an online survey asking them five questions:

• How do you feel right now?
• How worried are you right now?
• How lonely do you feel right now?
• How much have you used Facebook since the last time we asked?
• How much have you interacted with people "directly" since the last time we asked?

The participants were also asked to rate their level of life satisfaction at the beginning and end of the study. 

When participants increased their use of Facebook over the 14-day study period, their state of well-being declined.

 

The findings also showed that even when the participants increased their interaction with other people away from the site - face-to-face or via phone - they felt better over time. 

Ethan Kross, social psychologist at the University of Michigan and lead author of the study, says:

The researchers found no evidence, however, that people used Facebook more when they felt bad - contrary to their predictions. 

Additionally, although people were more likely to use the networking site when they were lonely, Facebook use and loneliness were both independent predictors of how happy participants felt. 

"This is the advantage of studying Facebook use and well-being as dynamic processes that unfold over time," says Phillipe Verduyn, post-doctoral fellow of the Research Foundation - Flanders in Belgium, and co-author of the study. 

"It allows us to draw inferences about the likely causal sequence of Facebook use and well-being." 

The researchers hope to do additional research within a variety of age groups in order to analyze their results further and determine the psychological reasons behind them. 

They researchers add: 

"Facebook use predicts declines in affective well-being. It is possible that interacting with other people directly either enhances the frequency of such comparisons or magnifies their emotional impact."

 

"Examining whether these or other mechanisms explain the relationship between Facebook usage and well-being is important both from a basic science and practical perspective." 

This is not the first study to analyze the psychological and emotional effects of Facebook. A study from the University of Missouri suggested that Facebook activity may be an indicator of person's psychological health.

Researchers from Norway also created a new psychological scale to measure Facebook addiction called BFAS

Hotel Near Miami Beach - Apple vs. Samsung Scorecard

Source - http://www.ktxs.com/
By -  Julianne Pepitone
Category - Hotel Near Miami Beach
Posted By - Inn and Suites In West Miami

Hotel Near Miami Beach

Apple and Samsung's fiercest battle isn't playing out in the smartphone market.

The companies are currently embroiled in dozens of high-stakes patent disputes, four of which are playing out in the United States. Billions of dollars are on the line, and the titans are fighting to take each other's products off the shelves. 

The good news for consumers is that the trial proceedings in such disputes typically take so long that the products in question are often long obsolete by the time a judge rules on the case.

The latest ruling is expected to take place on Friday, in which a federal court will decide whether to ban the sale of some older Samsung smartphones in the United States. Here's a look at the serpentine path of Apple v. Samsung, and its many spinoffs.

Round 1: The Apple v. Samsung saga began in April 2011, when Apple accused Samsung of "slavishly" copying the iPhone and iPad. Samsung replied by counter-suing Apple, accusing the Cupertino company of infringing on its software patents. 

In August 2012, a California jury found Samsung had infringed on the most of the patents in question -- including the design of the hardware and software features like double-tap zooming. The jury recommended that Apple be awarded more than $1 billion in damages, a figure which U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh later reduced by more than $450 million due to a "jury error" in determining damages. Koh also refused to ban the eight Samsung smartphones in question.

Both Apple and Samsung have appealed the ruling.

"It is unfortunate that patent law can be manipulated to give one company a monopoly over rectangles with rounded corners," Samsung scoffed.

Winner: Apple.

Round 2: In a separate battle, Samsung sued Apple in a special court in June 2011. Samsung alleged that the iPhone 4 and iPad 2 -- both of which are still on store shelves -- violated the Korean company's patents. 

The International Trade Commission ruled in favor of Samsung in June 2013, and said the Apple phones in question couldn't be sold within the United States. Companies like to bring their cases before the ITC because it is generally easier to get a ban on the sale of patent-violating goods than by going through the traditional patent court system.

But the ITC is required by law to send such "exclusion orders" to the president for a 60-day review. In an extremely rare move, President Obama did veto the ITC's order just before the review period was up.

Winner: Samsung.

Round 3: One week after Samsung sued Apple in the ITC court, Apple filed a counter-suit citing several patent infringements, including on the hardware design of the iPhone.

The ITC made a preliminary ruling in favor of Apple, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. In the previous ITC case that ultimately ended in favor of Samsung, the preliminary judgment had exonerated Apple.

Winner: We'll find out Friday. But if Obama was willing to veto a ban on Apple, it's possible that he would do the same if the ITC rules against Samsung.

Round 4: In February 2012, Apple filed another lawsuit in California district court accusing Samsung of infringing on utility patents in its newer products.

And so the counter-suit dance played out again, with Samsung shooting back that "all generations" of the iPhone and iPad infringe on its own patents. Apple, meanwhile, added new Samsung products to its list of infringing products about as quickly as they were released on the market. 

The court soon grew tired of this, and recently denied Apple's bid to add Samsung's Galaxy 4 phone to the case.

Winner: We'll see. The second Apple vs. Samsung is slated to go to trial in March 2014.

Hotel Near Miami Beach - PC Industry Fights To Adapt As Tablets Muscle In

Source - http://www.nytimes.com/
By - NICK WINGFIELD
Category - Hotel Near Miami Beach
Posted By - Inn and Suites In West Miami

 

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The death of the personal computer may be an exaggeration. But the industry around personal computers seems to be in limbo. 

Like the mainframe, which was said to be dead decades ago but has remained a meaningful business, the PC will almost certainly cheat death. True, mobile devices like the iPad will continue to gore PC sales. Those mobile devices, though, will most likely never satisfy spreadsheet masters, film editors and other workers who depend on multiple screens and the precision of a keyboard and mouse. 

Still, there is a strong view among many longtime tech executives that the PC’s relevance will steadily diminish. 

“In my humble opinion, the PC as we have known it is in a continuous decline and being relegated to a utility device for businesses,” said Hector Ruiz, the former chief executive of Advanced Micro Devices, a company that makes chips for PCs and other devices. 

The mood around the PC industry has become increasingly glum. The business is effectively in a recession, and there is no upturn in sight. During the second quarter of the year, global PC shipments fell around 11 percent, for their fifth consecutive quarter of declines, the worst downturn since the advent of the PC more than 30 years ago. 

Intel, supplier of the chips in most PCs, and Microsoft, which makes the Windows operating system on the vast majority of those machines, have delivered disappointing financial results. An overhaul of Microsoft’s software, Windows 8, did not lift sales and may have made them worse. 

The once-mighty Dell, deeply weakened by the PC slump, is mired in a struggle with shareholders over a plan to go private, seeking relief from investor pressure. In their bid to take the company private, Michael S. Dell, the founder, and the investment firm Silver Lake have argued that they would turn the company into a corporate software services provider. A vote on Dell’s future is expected this week. 

While sales of PCs to businesses remain steady, demand among consumers has plunged, largely because people are instead buying iPads, Kindle Fires and other tablets. 

Still, a reality check: more than 300 million PCs are expected to be shipped this year globally. That is a lot of widgets for a business that has caught a cold. 

Tablet sales are growing explosively. This year, there are expected to be more than 200 million shipments of the devices, which will for the first time exceed shipments of notebooks, the largest category of PCs, estimates Gartner, the research firm. 

Steven P. Jobs, the Apple chief executive who died in 2011, predicted several years ago that PCs would become something like trucks, workhorses used by many people but outnumbered by tablets, the cars of the technology business. (The analogy is somewhat undercut by stats: the most popular vehicle in the United States for several years has been a truck, the Ford F-150.) 

One theory is that tablets are leading PC shoppers to postpone purchases of new computers, perhaps by a year or two, but that eventually people will be ready for a fresh machine. “Replacement cycles are being pushed out,” said Toni Sacconaghi, an analyst at Bernstein Research. 

A more pessimistic view is that a lot of the consumer demand for PCs will never return. Daniel Huttenlocher, the dean and vice provost of Cornell University’s new New York City technology campus, said consumers began buying PCs in big numbers beginning in the 1990s largely because no better device existed for getting on the Internet. 

But the PC, he said, was always better suited as an office machine for the production of documents, presentations and other work. In his view, tablets are better for the consumption of content, whether that is watching Netflix or surfing the Web. 

“There are way more consumers than producers, period, even in a world with lots of user-generated content,” Dr. Huttenlocher said. 

In the first quarter, 53 percent of computer shipments were to the consumer market while 47 percent were to the commercial market, estimates the research firm IDC. 

Many consumers will still favor PCs for tasks like editing home movies and writing term papers. But tablets are already invading the turf of PCs in many professional niches, from flight manuals for airline pilots to cash registers in restaurants. 

The incumbents in the PC industry — especially Microsoft and Intel, the software-chip duopoly with the most to lose from the decline of the business — have a seemingly straightforward response: redefine the PC to make it more tabletlike. Microsoft designed Windows 8 to work well on touch-screen devices. If users tire of finger gestures, they can switch to a classic Windows desktop interface that they can operate with a mouse and keyboard. 

Intel, meanwhile, has refined its chips so that they are more thrifty with their consumption of battery power, an important requirement for mobile devices. 

The changes have given rise to a frenzy of crossbreeding in devices, effectively blurring the boundaries between PCs and tablets. Now notebooks can turn into tablets either by flipping their screens or through fully detachable displays. Many otherwise ordinary notebooks come with touch displays for quickly jumping between different modes of operation. 

Microsoft and Intel are betting that devices coming out in the fall will finally get PC shoppers back in stores. Microsoft plans to release a new version of its operating system, Windows 8.1, that responds to complaints its customers had with the earlier version. 

“What you’re going to see over the next few months is a lot more designs from every PC manufacturer,” said Adam King, a director of product marketing at Intel. 

Using the automotive analogy of Mr. Jobs to different effect, Frank Shaw, a spokesman for Microsoft, said the car business kept subdividing into many categories, including luxury models and electric vehicles. “You can say the same thing is happening in computing,” Mr. Shaw said. 

Anand Chandrasekher, the chief marketing officer of Qualcomm, which supplies chips for some mobile Windows devices, says he expects Microsoft will successfully adapt to the changes in its business. “I admire Microsoft for the changes they’ve made,” Mr. Chandrasekher said. “We’re bullish that they will have a strong presence in the marketplace.” 

Some people are deeply skeptical that creating a new hybrid class of devices will help stop the momentum of tablets from Apple and companies with devices based on Google’s Android operating system. Marc Benioff, the chief executive of Salesforce.com and a frequent Microsoft antagonist, said customers had already shunned new types of devices, like Microsoft’s Surface. 

“The reason why they’re not accelerating growth is for one simple reason,” Mr. Benioff said. “There’s a better technology.” 

Whatever happens to the PC business, the iron grip that companies like Microsoft and Intel once wielded over hardware makers appears to be no more. Hewlett-Packard now makes a notebook using Google’s Chrome OS software and a tablet based on Android, Google’s mobile operating system. Lenovo, the world’s top seller of PCs, is big seller of Android smartphones and tablets, especially in China. 

In an earlier era of computing, those would have been considered intolerable acts of disloyalty. 

“We’re a device company,” said Gerry Smith, a Lenovo senior vice president and head of its Americas division. “We’re agnostic on hardware and agnostic on software, whether Android or Windows.” 

Meanwhile, Microsoft has struggled to maintain its influence with software developers, which have gravitated in ever greater numbers to Apple and Google’s mobile technologies. 

Aaron Levie, the chief executive of Box, an online storage company that has developed software for Windows 8, said that influence was once Microsoft’s most powerful asset. 

“It wasn’t the absolute value of the technology,” Mr. Levie said. “It’s that you have mindshare and ecosystem support. Microsoft is now in a very different world these days.”

Hotel Near Miami Beach - Apple Tests Larger Screens For iPhones, iPads

Source - http://online.wsj.com/
By - LORRAINE LUK
Category - Hotel Near Miami Beach
Posted By - Inn and Suites In West Miami

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TAIPEI—Apple Inc. AAPL -1.58% and its Asian suppliers are testing larger screens for iPhones and tablets, officials at the company's suppliers say. 

In recent months, Apple has asked for prototype smartphone screens larger than 4 inches and has also asked for screen designs for a new tablet device measuring slightly less than 13 inches diagonally, they said. The current iPhone 5 has a four-inch screen, while the iPad has a 9.7-inch screen. The iPad Mini, a stripped-down version of its tablet computer, has a 7.9-inch screen.

Whether either design will make their way to market is unclear. The Cupertino, Calif., company routinely tests different designs for its products as it refines them during development. The company also changed its offerings of the iPhone and iPod last year to include larger screens, while adding a variant of the iPad with a smaller display.

An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment. 

The tests with suppliers seems to suggest that Apple is exploring ways to capture diversifying customer needs at a time when many mobile device makers offer smartphones and tablets in various sizes. Its biggest rival in the tablet and smartphone markets, South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co., 005930.SE 0.00% has an "all things to all people" strategy, covering many different product sizes to capture as many customers as possible. The move has allowed Samsung to leapfrog Apple in the smartphone market even though Apple still leads in tablets. In the first quarter, Samsung was the leading smartphone maker with 33.1% of the market, while Apple trailed in second place with 17.9%, according to researcher Strategy Analytics. In tablets, Apple is still the dominant player but its market share fell to 39.6% in the three months ended March 31 from 58.1% a year earlier, according to IDC. Samsung, which uses Google Inc.'s GOOG -1.55% Android operating system, saw its tablet market share rise to 17.9% from 11.3% a year earlier. 

"In the long run, we will see touch screens in all sizes as the future vision of the technology industry is to offer the same user experience across all screens," said IDC analyst Helen Chiang. "The key is to bring down the cost and introduce compelling applications for large-screen devices."

Apple's move, if adopted, fits into a broader trend of mobile device makers offering many size options. Competitors including Samsung, Sony Corp. 6758.TO +1.42% and Huawei Technologies Co. have launched smartphones with displays larger than 5 inches. The category is called 'phablets' to refer to devices that cross over between a smartphone and tablet. 

The new tests come as Apple and its suppliers are also preparing to ramp up production of a new iPad later this month, according to officials at component suppliers. The new version is expected to be the same size and have the same resolution as the existing 9.7-inch model, but with a lighter and thinner display structure, they said. The new display structure integrates touch sensors with a thin film instead of glass which is used in existing iPads. 

Suppliers have also started mass producing components for the new iPhone last month, said officials at the suppliers. One person said Apple told its assembler, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., 2317.TW +0.26% to get ready to ship the new iPhones in late August.

The Wall Street Journal reported in April that the refreshed iPhone that is likely to be launched in the second half of this year will be the same size and have the same resolution as the current iPhone 5. At the same time, Apple has also been working with its manufacturing partners in Asia on a less expensive iPhone that will likely use nonmetal casing, to differentiate itself from the aluminum casing of high-end iPhone 5. The shells of both iPhone models will come in multiple color options, officials at suppliers said earlier.

Hotel Near Miami Beach - Nokia Announces Lumia 1020 with 41-Megapixel PureView Camera

Source - http://asia.cnet.com
By - John Chan
Category - Hotel Near Miami Beach
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At an event in New York, Nokia announced its latest Windows Phone, the Nokia Lumia 1020. This new smartphone has the company's PureView camera technology, which includes the 41-megapixel sensor first seen in the Nokia 808 PureView Symbian smartphone.

The high number of pixels doesn't mean you get incredibly large images. What the phone does is to combine the pixels to give you a smaller image that has better quality. Other strengths of this camera compared with regular smartphone cameras are lossless zoom and optical image stabilization.

Camera aside, the Lumia 1020 is lighter than the bulky Lumia 920, and is slightly thinner. It comes in white, yellow and black. In addition, there are accessories including a snap-on wireless charging back cover and a camera grip (US$79) that makes the smartphone look even more like a compact digicam.

As a phone, you get everything you expect from a Windows Phone. Furthermore, CEO Stephen Elop announced new apps including one called Oggl Pro from Hipstamatic that will allow image uploads to Instagram.

Find out more about the new smartphone in our preview.

The Nokia Lumia 1020 will first be available in the US through AT&T on July 26 for US$300 with a mobile contract. It will then ship in China and in "key European markets" this quarter. We have contacted Nokia about availability in Asia Pacific and will update this article when we have more information.

Hotel Near Miami Beach - New Blood Pressure Treatments Emerging

Source - http://www.startribune.com/
By - ASHLEY GRIFFIN
Category - Hotel Near Miami Beach
Posted By - Inn and Suites In West Miami

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Patients who monitor their blood pressure at home and discuss the results with a pharmacist can make dramatic progress against the disease, according to a Minnesota study that could chart a new course in treating the nation’s most common and costly chronic ailment.

Among people using the new technique, 57 percent brought their blood pressure within a healthy range, compared to 30 percent in a control group, according to a study conducted by Bloomington-based HealthPartners and published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Patients using “telemonitors” — a device which allowed them to take their own blood pressure six times a week and transmit the results to a pharmacist — also kept their blood pressure under control for six months after the experiment ended.

“The telemonitors allowed patients to work with their pharmacist over the phone instead of coming to the [doctor’s] office,” said Dr. Karen Margolis, a senior investigator at the HealthPartners Institute for Education and Research. As a result, she said, “they were able to get a lot more done” in treating their condition.

Margolis said some patients also came away with a better understanding of hypertension, felt they could communicate more effectively with their health care team and felt more confident monitoring their condition.

High blood pressure is one of the leading causes of death in the United States and can lead to other ailments such as heart disease and stroke. The condition affects nearly one in three adult Americans, with costs estimated at more than $50 billion annually.

The study used 450 patients who receive care from Health Partners Medical Group clinics — some with other underlying conditions such as diabetes and kidney disease. One group was sent home with telemonitors, with pharmacists interpreting those results to make adjustments in the patients’ medication levels and answer patients’ questions. Patients in the second group received their usual hypertension care, with no home-based follow-up.

The study does not specifically indicate what produced the results, but Margolis said “it was the whole package” that appealed to patients.

A follow-up study will be conducted to explore how much money the program could cost. It could be some time before HealthPartners extensively adopts the technique.

An accompanying editorial in JAMA said the study shows hope for modernizing medicine much the way ATMs changed banking a generation ago. “It is clear that bringing hypertension care out of the office and into patients’ homes works,” it said.

The editorial also urged health insurers to change their reimbursement practices to cover the cost of home blood-pressure monitors and compensate clinics for services related to home monitoring — both practices pioneered by the U.S. Veterans Health Administration.

The HealthPartners study is the latest in a series of efforts to increase “patient engagement” in their own care, on the theory that some conditions are beyond the direct control of a doctor or nurse and that patients do better when they understand their illnesses and treatment.

Margolis said it was a former mentor at Hennepin County Medical Center who sparked the idea for the experiment.

“He would always say if you could involve nurses and other health care professionals with patients who have high blood pressure, it would work a lot better than just having a physician” telling patients what to do, she said.