| 8 smart ways to insure your home insurance
Hurricane Katrina swept away all the old rules about homeowner's insurance. These days, filing a single small claim, switching insurers to save a few bucks, or assuming your coverage hasn't changed can expose you to huge financial hardships. A study released this week by the Consumer Federation of America supports what many homeowners have been feeling over the past several years: We're paying a lot more to protect our homes and getting a lot less in return. It's more important than ever to check up on your coverage, so here are eight defensive moves to keep you adequately covered and cut costs. Appraise your coverage
Surveys show that more than half of U.S. homes are underinsured by an average of 22%. Coverage based on generic formulas ($65 to $150 per square foot) won't cut it if you've renovated or failed to account for rising building costs.
Juniper Networks exec to succeed Microsoft Business Division President ...
In what I consider surprising timing, Microsoft announced on January 10 that one of its three corporate presidents, Jeff Raikes, is retiring in September 2008. Raikes will be succeeded by Stephen Elop, who until today was chief operating officer at Juniper Networks, according to a Microsoft statement. Elop will oversee the Microsoft Business Division, the group Raikes currently leads, which includes the Information Worker (Microsoft Office), Unified Communications and Microsoft Business Solutions (ERP/CRM) groups. Why do I consider the announcement about Raikes surprising? If I were Microsoft, I wouldn't want a lot of churn during the year that Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates is discontinuing his day-to-day duties at the company as of July 1. hanging up his CSA hat and remaining Chairman only (My mistake: Even though Gates still is quite involved in product/strategy decisions, he hasn't been Chief Software Architect on paper since 2006.
Stocks: A Big Blue Bounce
Stocks gained ground Monday, attempting to recapture large losses from the first two weeks of the year. News from the financial sector continued to worry investors Monday, with Merrill Lynch (MER) still looking for extra capital and smaller banks reporting hits from deteriorating credit. News reports also circulated of a potential $24 billion writedown from Citigroup (C). But technology giant IBM (IBM) offered investors some rare good news. In the early afternoon on Monday, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 117.54 points, or 0.93%, to 12,723.84. The broader S&P 500 index moved 7.71 points, or 0.55%, higher to 1,408.73. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index rose 21.4 points, or 0.88%, to 2,461.34. Twenty stocks were rising for every nine falling on the New York Stock Exchange, while the ratio on the Nasdaq was 17 to 10 positive.
New faces delight Colorado caucus organizers
Coloradans attending caucuses will take a "preference poll," indicating which presidential candidates they support. The idea of a record turnout is hard to fathom for Wes Skiles, a precinct leader in Arapahoe County for several years. "In 2000 we had three people attend - and I was one of them," he said. Democrat Carolyn Boller, a state Democratic Party office and a precinct leader in Aurora for years, knows the feeling. "People are excited this year, but the process of trying to explain to them how this works is another matter. It can be confusing," she said. Colorado traditionally participated in the presidential selection process in March and often the nominees were already known by then. Not this time, which is why campaigns are working so feverishly to make sure their candidate wins on Feb.
McDonald's: McBusted
McDonald's challenge is painfully obvious from a May visit to a franchise on Midwest Road in Oak Brook, only a few miles from where Cantalupo spoke to stockholders. In a restaurant last redecorated in the 1980s, among faux black marble wall tiles and fraying brown leatherette booth benches, a manager repeated the same phrase to customers as their orders were finally filled: "I'm sorry about the wait." With only three customers at the counter, an order for a single Extra Value Meal took more than seven minutes to fill. .
Sir Ed passes away - Legendary explorer and mountaineer left mark on ...
Sir Edmund Hillary, New Zealand's favorite and most famous son, died Jan. 11 (local time) at the age of 88 in an Auckland hospital. Hillary, more popularly referred to as Sir Ed, rose to fame in 1953 as the first man to summit Mount Everest, along with Sherpa Tenzing Norgay. But the former beekeeper also left his mark in the Antarctic, helping to establish New Zealand's Scott Base on Ross Island in 1957 and leading the first overland vehicle traverse to the South Pole in 1958. The residents at Scott Base, located near the U.S. Antarctic Program (USAP)'s McMurdo Station, held a brief memorial ceremony at 1 p.m. local time and lowered the New Zealand flag in his memory. The flag remained down until midnight Jan. 12. The base staff will lower the flag again on the day of his funeral, which had not been set at the time of this writing.
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