Home Business Information

Stamps.com (Nasdaq: STMP), the leading provider of Internet mailing and shipping services, and Sprint (NYSE: FON) Wednesday announced the companies have entered into an agreement to deliver value-added services to owners of home-based businesses and offices.

Sprint will sponsor Stamps.com's new customer welcome kit and will offer up to $90 in free Internet Postage when customers sign-up for Sprint long-distance services. Additionally, Sprint will promote Stamps.com to its targeted home office customer base through Internet Postage CD mailings, bill inserts, inbound customer calls and other marketing activities.

"Both Stamps.com and Sprint are committed to providing value-added services to home office customers," said John Payne, chairman and CEO, Stamps.com.

"In addition to adding value to our customers, we want to add convenience and affordable products that simplify their telecommunications needs," said Larry Porterfield, vice president, Marketing and Sales, Sprint. "We are continuously striving to find new solutions to help home office customers bring efficiency to their business."

Stamps.com is the leading provider of easy, convenient and cost-effective Internet mailing and shipping services to small businesses, large corporations and e-commerce vendors. Anchored by its partnerships with the U.S. Postal Service and United Parcel Service (UPS), Stamps.com creates an efficient marketplace whereby customers can choose the best carrier for any transaction based on cost comparisons and delivery options. With just an Internet connection, Stamps.com customers will have immediate access to select a carrier, print postage or multi-carrier shipping labels, schedule a pick-up and track a package.

Stamps.com has partnerships with major companies such as America Online, eBay, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, Mail Boxes Etc., Microsoft, Office Depot, Intuit and 3M. Visit www.stamps.com for more information. Sprint is a global communications company -- at the forefront of integrating long-distance, local and wireless communications services, and one of the largest carriers of Internet traffic. Sprint operates and built the United States' first nationwide all digital, fiber-optic network and is a leader in advanced data communications services. Sprint has $20 billion in annual revenues and serves more than 20 million business and residential customers.

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Excite@Home (Nasdaq: ATHM - news) and AT&T Wireless (NYSE: AWE) Thursday announced the launch of Excite Mobile, Excite's portal for mobile users, on the new AT&T Digital PocketNet(SM) service. Excite Mobile is the only branded portal on the PocketNet Service's mobile homepage as well as the first portal to distribute its full service on the carrier. AT&T's wireless packet data network is unique in that users pay a low, monthly flat rate for unlimited Internet access, removing a significant barrier to mobile Web use.

Excite@Home and AT&T Wireless also announced Thursday a joint distribution deal to co-market the mobile services of each company. AT&T Wireless will include Excite Mobile on its $14.99-per-month unlimited-access service, and Excite will market AT&T wireless services through the Excite Mobile portal at mobile.excite.com, where users can purchase the AT&T Digital PocketNet service or cell phones with the service. An extension of Excite@Home's broadband online service strategy, Excite Mobile provides mobile Web users with their customized portfolio of news, directions, weather and other personal and location-based information to deliver relevant information directly to users. With AT&T's packet data network, users will no longer pay by the minute to, for example, compose e-mail, manage calendar information or access driving directions.

"Through this relationship, we are providing AT&T wireless subscribers with the next generation of wireless Web services: a cost-effective service that anticipates users' needs and presents them with a personalized experience that represents their interests," said Rob Wilen, senior director and group manager for Wireless at Excite@Home. "The Excite Mobile and PocketNet services work together to eliminate the barriers of complexity and cost to wireless Web access."

"We are pleased to have the Excite Mobile portal as part of AT&T Digital PocketNet service," said Kendra VanderMeulen, senior vice president of Product Development and Strategy at AT&T Wireless Services. "What's different is that where users once paid $15 per month for a limited number of minutes, they now have an unlimited number of minutes plus a personalized, relevant mobile environment."

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7am

One of the drawbacks of running a global software developer is that people assume that you are based in California's Silicon Valley. For Mike Lynch, the academic chief executive of Autonomy, that assumption means regular wake-up calls at four in the morning from customers in Asia who assume he works on Pacific standard time. Since Autonomy purchased its main rival, Verity, last year, the company has headquarters in both Cambridge and San Francisco, as well as an office in Beijing - cities eight hours apart. As a result, Mr Lynch now works around the clock.

Although he was spared the early-morning wake-up call yesterday, the first thing he does upon waking is check his e-mails for any issues emanating from Asia. "The laptop lives by the side of the bed, I'm afraid," he said.

Irish-born but raised in Essex, Mr Lynch is one of the last men standing from the high-profile UK technology boom at the end of the last decade. Seen as somewhat of an evangelist, Mr Lynch's unwavering faith in the value of the company's context-based search technology has helped to steer the Cambridge-based company through hard times over the past few years. "The cult of personality is important in technology," he explained. Yet unlike in the US where the likes of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison are household names, Mr Lynch said that it can be a slight disadvantage in the UK, where people are a bit more wary of someone being too dominant within a company.

With revenue growth now over 20 per cent, Mr Lynch's position at the top of one of the UK's five largest software companies looks strong. His name is synonymous with Autonomy - in which he holds a 12 per cent stake - as the software is based in part on his Cambridge doctoral thesis, one of the most widely read pieces of research at the Cambridge University library. The thesis was submitted in 1990, and Mr Lynch founded Autonomy in 1994, with financial backing provided by an anonymous music-industry executive. In 1996 Autonomy became a fully independent company, and was listed in 1998. A decade later Autonomy is valued at around pounds 725m, and Mr Lynch is still steering the ship.

9.30am

A meeting with new investors is not as straightforward as pointing to revenue growth and future prospects. Mr Lynch, who turned 41 in April, spends much time and effort explaining what exactly his company does.

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The 22nd Annual DAU Alumni Association Acquisition Symposium was held April 19-20 on the Capital/Northeast Campus of DAU at Fort Belvoir, Va. It was billed as a practical learning experience on rapid acquisition processes and models, and it lived up to expectations in all aspects. The theme of the symposium was especially timely as our nation's warfighters are currently actively engaged in combat with terrorists world-wide, with particular emphasis on Iraq and Afghanistan. They rely on acquisition leaders and managers to provide the best technology available in a short period of time.

DAUAA's vision--to bring together the best leadership and management resources for improving defense systems acquisition--drives the association and is the key rationale for holding the symposium.

Outstanding Professional Development Work

The symposium opened with Jeff McKeel, retiring president of the DAUAA, recognizing the Capital Area Chapter and DAUAA South Region Chapter for their outstanding professional development work in joint DoD-industry events. He also paid tribute to the financial and intellectual support that the DAUAA has received from corporate sponsors Boeing. Northop-Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and ESI International.

Keynote Address: Retired Air Force Lt. Gen Lawrence P. Farrell Jr.

Frank J. Anderson Jr., DAU president, introduced the keynote speaker, first briefly describing some of the learning awards that DAU has earned over the past several years and the role of DAU in providing an agile, integrated learning environment where acquisition work in the field merges with learning.

Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Lawrence P. Farrell Jr., focused his keynote address on the need to use good old common sense in working program management issues, quoting Will Rogers to make his point: "If common sense is so common, how come we don't see more of it around?" Farrell stressed the need to pay attention to technology readiness levels in transitioning new technology to acquisition programs when we are trying to acquire materiel rapidly. Alluding to recent improprieties that have surfaced on some DoD programs, Farrell opined that acquisition leaders at all levels need to "just follow the rules and behave."

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When the board of KCET, L.A.'s public television station, ventured north to Santa Barbara earlier this month to consider the proposed budget for the fiscal year starting July 1, it faced a dilemma other public stations might envy.

While voting to hold its budget in line with the previous year's, at about $53 million, it chose to buck its smaller network brethren by approving an increase in dues paid to the Public Broadcasting Service.

The station's decision that it could afford to support a 7.5 percent increase to the roughly $5 million in dues it pays each year reflects the gains made in developing more home-grown programming.

The same question a year earlier at first yielded an operating budget of $42.2 million. But the addition of three locally produced programs, two of which were picked up by public television stations across the country, tacked on another $10 million.

Though new program costs meant the station had to come up with about 25 percent more money, it also meant it was taking steps to overcome a stigma that it has done little to develop its own creative content in one of the largest television markets in the United States.

Debbi Hinton, KCET's chief financial officer and executive vice president in charge of operations, said that while the 2005 budget was likely to fluctuate because of the difficulty in projecting donation levels and final production costs, it still signals stability for the station.

Nationwide, corporate underwriting of public television programming fell 32 percent in the two-year period ended June 30, 2003, according to Lea Sloan, vice president of media relations for PBS, the private, non-profit enterprise that serves the nation's 349 non-commercial television stations.

At KCET, station officials said production and programming revenue collected annually through corporate underwriting has remained stable in recent years--hovering in the range of $3 million. The bulk of its production and programming revenue--roughly 75 percent of the total pot of $20 million in its current fiscal year--has flowed from non-profit foundations.

Hinton said the station had been more successful raising funds from foundations than corporations, so "we weren't so vulnerable" when corporations tightened their philanthropic budgets.

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OFTEN, ONE OF THE PLUSES OF URBAN LIVING IS A QUICK, CAR-FREE commute to the office. Even so, increasing numbers of work-at-home city dwellers are prompting real estate developers to build more suitable housing. Apartments and condo units designed especially for urban home-business owners and teleworkers are popping up in major U.S. cities.

In New York City, Full Spectrum Building & Development recently broke ground for The Millennium on Fifth, dubbed "Harlem's first smart home office building," a city-subsidized planned community. Tenants will have access to a T1 line for high-speed Internet access and a fully equipped business center on-site.

"Typically, renovating a house in Harlem means adding a coat of paint and nailing down the loose floorboards. No thought is given to how the tenant will use the space," explains Full Spectrum vice president Carlton Brown. "Information workers are the fastest growing segment of our city's economy. They need to be wired at home."

New York has plans to upgrade its infrastructure to allow for more buildings like The Millennium, including a project to transform a 175-mile stretch of an unused water-main system into a pipeline for fiber optic lines.

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Does this sound familiar? You have more than one computer in your home or office but in order to exchange information, you often find yourself going back and forth between them with a floppy disk. Commonly called a "sneaker net," this is one of the most inefficient ways of sharing information between PCs (the other would be osmosis). Before you wear out the soles of your shoes, it may be time to consider a local area network (LAN). This series will take you from the planning stage through the deployment of a full-scale network. Even a household with I only two computers can benefit from a LAN. Take this quick quiz to determine if a local area network is right for you.

1. Do you have more than one computer in your home or office?

2. Do you need to share files, applications or resources between these computers?

If you answered yes to both questions, a LAN is probably right for you.

A LAN can save you money by allowing you to share expensive computer hardware. Rather than purchasing a printer, fax machine, modem, etc., for each workstation in your home or office, a LAN allows you to connect multiple PCs to these devices for more efficient use of your resources. It also distributes your company's informational assets, such as files and applications, to everyone connected. The ability to share computer resources and information increases productivity by helping people do their jobs more efficiently and with less hassle than stand-alone PCs.

There is no cut-and-dry method of deciding what kind of network to install. "The type of LAN you install depends heavily on the kind of work you do and what your needs are," says Zuri Stanback, president and CEO of VisionOne Consulting, an Atlanta-based technology consulting firm.

First, adds Stanback, accurately assess your company's present and future computer needs. Of course, cost will play a role, but it should determine your method of implementation, not your needs assessment. Remember to plan for expansion--a network never shrinks, it only grows.

There are two types of LANs: peer-to-peer and client/server. A peer-to-peer network is best if you have five or fewer PCs and light file and printer sharing is your main reason for implementing a network. Peer-to-peer is the least costly method of connecting PCs and requires little setup and maintenance, but it doesn't have the network security and management features of a client/server network.

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WHEN MARTIN SIMENC'S father had a stroke back in the 1990s, he knew he'd have to make some safety changes to his father's home.

He installed grab bars along the walls and added stair railings to the garage to make it safer for his father, who had decreased mobility and was using a walker.

Simenc's father recovered from the stroke, but the event changed Martin Simenc's life. The safety changes planted a seed about a new business, and Simenc went on to start a home safety business in Foster City called Home Safety Services.

The goal: making homes safe for seniors and babies.

"Seniors and babies are the most vulnerable people, and injuries to them can be life-changing events," said Simenc, who gave up a solid corporate job at Hewlett-Packard Co. to start down the entrepreneurial path. As a mechanical engineer, Simenc was a property risk manager at Hewlett-Packard. He helped prevent accidents at the workplace and decided to take the philosophy to the home environment.

The humanitarian concern of easing people's minds with safety solutions gives him greater rewards than the corporate world, he says.

"Our customers really appreciate how we're helpingthem," Simenc said. "It's for the elderly and young, but it also eases the mind of family members."

Mary Louise Zernicke, a health-care manager for Alameda County's Area Agency for Aging, recently helped her 80-something mother by putting in grab bars in the shower at her mother's San Mateo home.

"It's for peace of mind for me and her," Zernicke said. "She says she's using them and feels much more confident." Zernicke well knows that falls by seniors can be serious and are the No. 1 cause of seniors having to be institutionalized.

Simenc's business is growing at a 15 percent annual clip, and it's expected to climb even faster as Baby Boomers age.

For seniors, typical help includes indoor and outdoor stair railings, grab bars, wheelchair ramps, walker ramps, enhanced lighting and hand-held showers and non-slip tub strips.

"It's about prevention," Simenc said.

It's also about prevention for the other half of his business. That would be the so-called "baby proofing" of the homes of new parents.

No doubt, infants and small children can get into big trouble around the house in ways people don't even think of.

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"When I go on vacation, my favorite part is the spa," Hasler said.

BeautiControl, which many remember for telling people what their "season's colors" were to look their best in makeup and clothes, is now focusing on people being able to enjoy a spa experience at home. Hasler leads spa parties in her home or in hosts' homes where guests are pampered and taught to relax. Guests experience heated neck wraps, dead sea salt scrub hand treatments, hand repair lotions, lip masks, foot treatment creams, warm spa booties that they get to take home as gifts, and therapeutic eye pads.

Hasler plays music, leading guests in visualization and relaxation techniques, including deep breathing. Then she gives head massages and teaches skin care techniques.

Each spa can consist of what the guests would like and can include detoxifying mud facials, green tea warming masks, chemical peels or information about makeup.

After learning how to create a spa experience, guests can duplicate it in their own homes.

Hasler went to a spa party about 18 months ago, fell in love with the skin care and spa products, and her teenage daughter loved the makeup, she said. Hasler initially became involved with the company so that she and her daughter could have discounts on the products. Sharing information about the products was easy, she said, and she soon found herself setting more and more goals for herself in the company.

"Selling BeautiControl is not something I thought I would ever want to do," Hasler said, "My family was in retail, and I know how hard that is."

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In his studio in Hampton, New Brunswick, Canada, sculptor John Hooper is just finishing life size figures of four students and a dog for a new piece of public art that will stand at the entrance to Pilgrim School. Made of laminated Honduran mahogany, painted in bright colors, and weighing just about a ton, the sculpture will be driven 3,472 miles to Los Angeles in a rented truck by one of Hooper's sons. The arrival date is expected to be sometime in mid-September.

How did the idea for this dynamic, new public art sculpture germinate? The story is as interesting as the diversity of the people of Los Angeles. Attorney Laurence K. Brown, whose office is at 6222 Wilshire Boulevard near Museum Row, began five years ago to make frequent visits to LACMA and became more and more interested and knowledgeable about art. Although his mother had been an amateur artist, Mr. Brown had not been especially interested in art earlier. Among his interests are First Congregational Church of Los Angeles and Pilgrim School. He has been on both the church and school Board since his son began Kindergarten in the early seventies, and has been a contributor to a variety of projects at both the church and school.

During the last decade both the church and the school have completed projects that have helped beautify their acreage just across from the Superior Court House at Sixth and Commonwealth. In 1992, to celebrate the 125th Anniversary of the founding of First Congregational Church of Los Angeles, The Gardens of the Church project was created. Don Battjes, Chief of Operations and Facility Planning for LACMA and Chair at that time of the Church Board's Building and Grounds Committee, oversaw the project. Melendrew Design Associates created a landscape, lighting and wrought iron fencing plan for the entire church property, including the beautiful memorial entry gates at the front of the church. Today the cherry and jacaranda trees, the many blooming rose bushes, as well as extensive use of other trees and ground cover give delight and solace to the citizens of Los Angeles who live in the area or drive by on their way to and from work. Several years later an impressive entrance walkway and plantings

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It takes more than money to buy your first home in the West. It takes determination, organization, and a lot of legwork--and that's just the beginning. Figuring out how to remodel or redecorate to fit the way you want to live comes next.

We focus this special section on the entire daunting but exhilarating process. You'll find purchasing information and case studies of four families who have met the challenge, as well as painting techniques, suggestions for creating instant art, storage tips, appliance shopping advice, and more. It's all here to help you unlock the door to your dream.

Buying your first home

1. Find the right agent

Many of the buyers we interviewed found their real estate agents by getting recommendations from friends. But if you don't know whom to consult for a referral, experts suggest the following strategies.

* INTERVIEW AT OPEN HOUSES. Steve Goddard, a longtime broker at RE/MAX Beach Cities Realty in Manhattan Beach, California, says going to open houses gives you a chance to informally interview agents. "You will be able to meet agents face-to-face and set up a meeting f you like them," Goddard says. His key advice: "Make sure they are good listeners. f they don't listen to you, they won't be able to determine what kind of house you want."

* SURF THE WEB. "Almost half of the first-time hcme buyers I get come to me after checking out my site on the Internet," Goddard says. The website for the National Association of Realtors (www.realton.org) can help you start the search.

* GO WITH SOMEONE YOU TRUST. Paul Calver, an associate broker with Seattle's Lake & Company Real Estate, says an agent's trustworthiness is as important as years of experience. "When you sit down with potential agents and ask questions, determine whether you feel comfortable with them," Calver says. "This is a person who is going to be privy to your financial information and helping you find the place you will live. If you can't trust them, it's going to be a long, hard process."

How to find the house that's right for you

The four cornerstones of a successful first-home quest are working with a trustworthy agent, securing your financing, setting realistic goals, and becoming very detail oriented. That last point is especially important, and so is plain old patience. As the photographs on these pages show, it all begins at the Sunday open house.

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Tokyo, Japan, Oct 12, 2005 - (JCN Newswire) - Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE:HIT/TSE:6501) today announced plans to further strengthen the security business, one of the targeted fields for the Hitachi Group. Hitachi has decided to launch a full-scale drive to globally expand its finger vein authentication system business, one of the central businesses of its security business.

In August this year, Hitachi established the Finger Vein Global Business Center within the Smart Identification Solutions Division in the Information & Telecommunication Systems Group. The center will coordinate global expansion efforts. In a subsequent step on November 1, Hitachi will establish a dedicated Finger Vein Authentication Business Center (tentative name) within four subsidiaries that function as regional headquarters in North America, Europe, China and Asia. Hitachi will provide finger vein authentication systems tailored to the social conditions and customer needs of these four regions, including Japan, by using optimum authentication equipment for each area.

Presently, Hitachi's finger vein authentication system business generates sales of several billions of yen, including related systems. However, through the global development of this business, Hitachi aspires for sales of 100 billion yen over the three-year period from fiscal 2006 (beginning April 1, 2006) through fiscal 2008.

As today's network-based society continues to develop, information is increasingly becoming a key part of our everyday lives, leading to even greater convenience. Furthermore, with the impending arrival of the ubiquitous information society, which is expected to further accelerate this tempo, system providers worldwide are pushing ahead with the development of new systems for technological advances. Conversely, in a society interconnected by global networks, damage due to crimes such as cyber terrorism and personal information leaks, as well as accidents, has precipitated a rapid increase in risk with a potentially global impact. The frequent occurrence of theft targeting luxury cars and other valuable property, break-ins and other crime in condominium complexes and other criminal acts is shaking the foundations of safe societies.

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Generation 'D' meant disappointment on Thursday as WorldCom [WCOM] announced lower- than-expected third-quarter revenue figures, especially in its UUNet division.

Overall, the company's revenues rose 10.7 percent to $10.0 billion, but some analysts expected figures of about $10.5 billion.

Some of that shortfall was due to "significantly slower-than-expected revenue growth in the Internet UUNet division of 26.5 percent, well below our 37 percent estimate and (second quarter) 40.2 percent growth," wrote CS First Boston's Dan Reingold in a research report.

Reingold said WorldCom's flat Internet revenues for the third quarter were "startling."

WorldCom attributed the disappointing sales figures to price pressure in its dial-up Internet and long distance sectors. The company could not be reached for comment on whether or not it has plans to spin off its long distance business or create a tracking stock, similar to a move announced yesterday by AT&T [T].

The only good news in the third quarter report was that WorldCom's international sales grew a healthy 42 percent, fueled primarily by strong European sales.

WorldCom said in its earnings report that it expects stiff pricing competition in the long distance market to continue for the next few quarters.

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If you love to cook and people love your your cooking, then you can make money from your home kitchen

DO family and friends often compliment you on your cooking? Do your guests repeatedly request your recipes? Do you add interesting ingredients and present your dishes in an attractive manner? If so, your culinary skills could help you fatten your wallet rather than your waistline.

Many amateur cooks have turned their cooking skills into a profitable enterprise. Some are small, part-time businesses while others have grown into multimillion-dollar ventures. There are many ways to turn a profit from the kitchen, depending on your strong points. You can cater parties, enter recipe contests, teach specialty cooking classes at home, or sell a single delicious product, such as baked goods or cookies. Many food businesses can be started with a small investment and budget. And they are great ways to profit from your kitchen.

CATERING. Catered parties were once a luxury only for the rich and famous, but things certainly have changed. Now working people have little time for all the details of entertaining, and increasingly they are turning to the professionals. Consequently, good caterers are finding themselves among the most popular people in town. If you love to cook and have an affection for a people-oriented profession, you can be a caterer.

Start small so you can establish your clientele as you learn and grow. Decide whether you want to be a full-service caterer, meaning that you prepare the food, deliver it, and handle the serving and cleanup. Or you might decide to provide partial service or simply prepare the food and provide no additional services. You must also consider whether your potential clients will host social, corporate or cultural affairs. Each of these three main categories has its desirable aspects as well as its irritations. At first, you may want to limit your bookings to what can be prepared in a well-equipped home kitchen.

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Home-based business has turned into a $102-billion industry in America, according to a study released Thursday by the Office of Advocacy of the U.S. Small Business Administration.

Sole proprietorships are a vital part of our economy, said Thomas M. Sullivan, Advocacy chief counsel. Many are homebased micro businesses; collectively they generate a significant amount of economic activity. For the average sole proprietor, their business provides benefits of entrepreneurship that go beyond just income and revenue.

The study examines federal income tax data from year 2002 sole proprietorship returns and presents a comparison of homebased and non-homebased sole proprietorships. For example, it finds that the average homebased sole proprietor earned $22,569 in net income while their non-homebased counterparts earned $38,243. Due to lower expenses, particularly in rent and labor costs, the average homebased sole proprietor consistently gained a higher return on gross revenues at 36 percent, versus 21 percent for the non- homebased.

The report also finds the percent of homebased sole proprietorships was greatest in the administrative support, waste management, information and construction sectors. For the non- homebased, the percentage was greatest in the accommodation and food services, finance and insurance, and the catch-all all other services sectors.

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