Business: Keep Employees By Letting Them Go . . .

. . . on paid sabbaticals that is. In "8 Work Perks You Wish You Had," MSN Money contributor Melissa Fulmer discusses companies that give benefits above and beyond medical and dental coverage. Patagonia is known for its three-month sabbaticals, where employees can run a surf school (unpaid) or save the whales (paid for on the company dime.) Other companies offer such perks as help with a mortgage or on-site massage.

Unfortunately, only 4% of all companies offer such extras due to high costs. However, the cost of hiring a new employee can be much higher. While small business owners may not have the resources to provide such high-end perks, they can keep employee contentedness--and therefore retention---higher by offering perks such as flexible hours and a couple of extra days of vacation time.

To read the full article, click here.

Business: World May Run Out of Chocolate

It sounds apocalyptic-- a world completely lacking in the rich, tasty, and antioxidant-filled treat that is chocolate---but a drought, political unrest, and an increase in demand for dark chocolate might lead to just that. For now, though, you might have to pay a little extra for your sweet fix.

For the full story, click here.

Home & Garden: Cheap Chic and Carpet Runners

Wood floors and nice carpeting are expensive and require lots of maintenance. This article explores the return of carpet runners to protect your investment in flooring. Carpet rugs have come a long way from being an ugly piece of leftover carpet. Designer runners can be used to enhance and define a stairwell or hallway. They also are easy to maintain and provide traction on slick wooden floors.

Click here to read the full article.

Digital Life: Elton John Making Entire Career of Music Available on iTunes

Elton John recently announced that his entire back collection will be available for electronic download. Starting March 26th, you will be able to download the collection exclusively through iTunes.

This is an amazing collection containing over 30 albums and 400+ songs. This may lead to other acts like the Beatles releasing their entire collections electronically soon.

For those readers who haven't had much experience with iTunes, checkout our upcoming iTunes & iPod class.

Click here for more information on Elton John's announcement.

Computers: Thinking About Switching to Vista?

If you aren't sure whether you should upgrade to Vista or stick with Windows XP for the time being, this article from The Washington Post's TechNews.com newsletter, XP's Fate in a Vista World, answers frequently asked questions about making the switch. And be sure to watch for our new Vista classes beginning Fall 2007 and Winter 2008!

Business: Lots of People Are Flunking Retirement

Last year, my mother couldn't wait to retire after teaching for over 35 years. Last week, she told me that she got a new job---teaching! I told her that she flunked retirement.

And she's not alone. According to a BusinessWeek survey, 67% of retired people want to keep on working. The catch--they want less stress, flexible hours, and a job that they enjoy. These respondents don't want to play shuffleboard, but instead want to make a difference in their community and continue to be a part of the workforce.

For businesses owners, this is great news, as these potential employees can bring a lot of skills and passion to the table. However, they should work on retaining these employees by offering perks that these new retirees desire, such as flexible schedules.

To see the details of the survey and read the full article, "The New Retirement: Going Back to Work," click here.

Business: Community Education Instructor in the News

Tony Branch is a Community Education instructor who teaches small business owners how to manage their cash flow in the course "Show Me the Money--Or At Least Where It's Going." Another hat he wears is that of the Vice President of the Barkley Business Association. Barkley Village is a rapidly growing urban core teeming with retail stores, restaurants, and services. The Barkley Business Association is hoping to make connections between the businesses and the surrounding neighborhood.

Other Community Education instructors who are involved in the Barkley Business Association are Lynn Berman, Kathy Herndon, and Susan Sandell. This trio of businesswomen shared their stories and advice with at the Whatcom Professional Women's Luncheon, and many participants left inspired by their words.

To read the full article about the Barkley Business Association, click here.

Cooking: Irish Soda Bread for Saint Patricks Day

Found a great recipe for Irish Soda Bread compliments of the Simple Recipes website. Irish Soda Bread is easy to make (for a bread) and very tasty. A great offering for the upcoming "green" holiday!

Click here for the recipe.

Business: Great Resource

It's amazing what you can find while poking around on the Internet. The Educators Corner is a resource center for entrepreneurs. This totally free collection of entrepreneurship resources was brought together by Stanford University, the Kauffman Foundation, and the Stanford Technologies Venture Program.

The variety of resources includes curriculum from various Stanford classes, case studies, information hubs on various topics and video/podcasts of interviews and lectures. One of my favorites is the video interview with Dave Neeleman of Jetblu discussing Creating a Customer Experience.

Many of these topics complement the hands-on learning in our Thursday Morning Seminar series for small businesses. Another great site for your bookmark list!

Digital Imaging: Taking Great Shots With Your Camera Phone

Many cell phones in use today have a built-in camera. Most of these are not very good at taking high quality pictures. The Digital Photography Weblog list some easy to follow steps for taking better pictures with your camera phone.

Many of these steps are the same ones we teach in our digital imaging class like Getting to Know Your Digital Camera and Your Digital Camera: Beyond the Basics. Steps like, watching the light and taking multiple shots apply to all digital cameras. Many of the steps listed become a lot more critical with a cell phone camera because there is less margin for error when you have such a basic camera and lens.

This site is a great candidate for your bookmark list. It has lots of articles useful to the novice and intermediate digital camera user.

Behind the Scenes at Community Ed: Getting Green

The Community Education staff is joining a campus-wide effort to introduce more environmentally sustainable practices within our day-to-day operations. In the weeks and months ahead we will be taking a close look at how we can reduce waste and the amount of resources we consume in everything from cooking classes to how we market our program to our daily office routines. Our hope is to initiate meaningful green practices wherever possible.

If you have any suggestions for us, based on your observations during classes, we would appreciate hearing from you. Feel free to comment on this post or contact Mitch at 676-2170, ext. 3380. Thanks.

Community Education: How Daylight Savings Time Works

This is a great article about the history and reasoning behind Daylight Savings Time. The article looks at when it started, the relationships with time zones, and upcoming date changes for the next few years.
Written by one of my favorite websites, www.howstuffworks.com, this article covers everything you ever (and never!) wanted to know about daylight savings.

Click here to see the full article.

Just for Fun: Gummy Chandelier

This Chandelier is made completely out of Gummi Bears! Supposed to be over 2,000 gummi Bears involved in its creation. Artist Ya Ya Chou says it "will remain fresh for over two years." I'll just take his word for it.

Business: The Best Companies for Customer Service

The next time you fly Southwest Airlines, rest assured that they won't leave you on the tarmac for 10 hours. The airline ranked as one of the top companies in Business Week's list of the top 25 best customer-service companies.

It is said that when a customer is satisfied by a company's service they will tell 3 people. However, when someone is NOT satisfied, they will tell 12 people. In this case, they'll even tell Business Week!

For the full list of the 25 top customer service companies, click here

Computer: Test Drive Office 2007 in Your Browser

The new version of Office 2007 is upon us. You may not be ready to upgrade to this new version, but, I bet your a bit curious about what the new programs look like. Microsoft has given us a way to try out the new versions of Office through your web browser. You can actually use the programs, play with the features, and work with tutorials that give you a bit of training about what to expect when you upgrade.

I have found the entire experience of using the software online really cool! Here in Community Education we are using this site to understand what changes have been made to Word, Excel, etc. and are using that information to plan what classes we will be offering for Fall and Winter quarters.

To run the the Test Drive, you will need to be using Internet Explorer, Windows XP, and have a high-speed Internet connection. The website will actually test your computer to make sure you can properly run the software.

For anyone thinking about upgrading to the new Office 2007 products, the Test Drive is a good way to see what your getting into and to make a decision whether the costs of updating are worth the new features you are getting.

Click here to visit the Office 2007 Test Drive Site.

Digital Life: Parents, Don't Let Your Kids Grow Up to Be Pirates

The music industry in the form of the Recording Industry Association is still actively hunting people across the Internet who download illegal copies of songs or movies. In a recently posted article on the Bellingham Herald's website it was noted that the first two cases in Washington State have hit the court system.

It's very important for parents to discuss pirating songs and movies with their kids. A huge chunk of the teenage population engages in this illegal activity and it breaks current copyright laws. The penalties when caught usually have been between $2500-$5000 dollars but some people have seen fines go even higher. The Recording industry will file thousands of cases at one time, and yes, they can get information about the down loader through your Internet provider.

I don't agree with the Recording Industry Association's tactics, but, I think all parents should be aware that the music sharing their kids are doing, may be putting them at financial risk.

Click here for more information on copyright issues related to file sharing from Wikipedia.

Digital Life: The Hidden Cost to Selling on eBay...Shipping

This great article from www.entrepreneur.com focuses on how to lower your shipping cost when selling on eBay. I can remember the early days of eBay when you could throw your sold item into any old box and every small store was dying to give you all their extra packing peanuts. Nowadays, packing peanuts and boxes have value and nothing is for free anymore.

The expectations of buyers have also gone up substantially with many expecting professional looking packaging and multiple shipping options. This article explores how to lower your shipping costs from purchasing supplies, shipping insurance, and various shipping methods.

Click here to see our Spring eBay workshop!

Business: 4th Place Ain't Bad for Washington

Whatcom County entrepreneurs are in a good state--both mentally and geographically. In Business Week's "Ranking States for the New Economy", the Kaufman Foundation has compiled a list of states that are most prepared for a soft skill, knowledge-based, entrepreneurial economy--the economy of the future.

While Massachusetts grabbed top honors, Washington came in at a very respectable 4th place, ranking highly in areas of export manufacturing and "job churning."

To read the full article, plus a slide show of the top ten states, click here.

Digital Life: Secret Searching By Google

Google has a secret website that very few people know about where they test new interfaces for their main website. Known as SearchMash, this site utilizes the newest web technologies as Google works to design the newest hottest interface. For those of you who have taken our Google class, this is a fascinating look at where Google may be going with search technology.

Behind the Scenes at Community Ed: Choosing Our Schedule Covers

Have you ever wondered where those happy images come from that you see on our printed schedule covers? Those heart-warming slices of life that make you want to look inside (we hope) and browse through all the fun and useful classes we offer each quarter? Well, we know how important our covers are and so we put a fair amount of time and effort into creating them.

It starts with Mitch, our graphics guy, who pores over hundreds and hundreds of images available online in the Getty collection of stock photos. He looks for images that convey energy and a positive feeling for the upcoming season. The images also need to cleanly fit the layout proportions and accommodate all the type that goes on the cover. From roughly 5 hours of searching he chooses 8 to 12 potential images and mocks them up as thumbnail layouts with the cover type.

Next our director, Greg, and staff members Linda, Shandeen, and Katie, who plan all the classes, get together with Mitch and discuss the choices. It's always a lively give and take as each person champions an image and tells the others why. Eventually we all seem to agree on THE ONE image that will best promote our classes for that quarter. And that is what you eventually see in your mailbox or in locations around town.

Computer: Kodak Set to Launch Printer Line with Cheap Ink!

Kodak is entering the home printer world with a brand new line of printers. These photo-quality printers most exciting feature is the ink cartridges which will be 50% less expensive than those from rival printer manufacturers.
Most manufacturers sell you the printer really cheap and make their money by charging a lot of money on the ink cartridge. Kodak is going to sell their ink cartridges for $10-$15 dollars. For those people looking for a new printer, this may be a great purchase this summer.
Click here for the full story.