Could I Build my Credit Score with a Credit Card?

Most of us will need access to credit at some point in our lives and so having a good credit rating is important. Credit cards are often thought to be one financial tool that can be used to help build a credit score – but how does this actually work?

One important thing to note is that a credit card by itself is unlikely to turn around a poor credit rating as this will depend on a number of factors. However, credit cards can be useful if you want to boost your credit rating as long as you meet all of the necessary obligations such as sticking to your credit limit and meeting all of your payments.

This helps to show that you can be responsible with your money and it also gives you a track record that future creditors can look at to see whether you would be a good prospect to lend to. I Read more…

Recent SCTCC grads’ solar specialty brings brighter futures

The panel of reflectors in back of Scott Randalls house is 12 feet high and 40 feet long. Its rotated monthly to get just the right angle to the sun which on a recent clear day glinted off the dozens of photovoltaic cells.

Randall believes the future is just as bright for his new vocation in solar energy. He and his friend and business associate Jack Kluempke are recent graduates of an energy technical specialist program at St. Cloud Technical & Community College. Both have launched ventures they say have given new life to their careers.

Randall, 50, was a cabinet maker who needed to look for a different line of work because of a back injury. A visit to the Minnesota WorkForce Center identified his interest in energy, but it wasnt until he installed his own solar system that he knew the path he wanted to follow.

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SOPA Blackout Strike Already Started; Why Major Sites and Blogs are Going Black in Support

If you haven’t heard about the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) so far you are bound to notice today when you are unable to get to many of your favorite sites from Wikipedia to Reddit to WordPress to Mozilla to Craigslist.

SOPA LOSING SUPPORT VIDEO

Do not fall for the red herring that these bills – both SOPA (in the House) and Protect IP Act (PIPA) (in the Senate) are ONLY about stopping “renegade pirate sites”. 

ANY site could be taken down!

MUST READ post: Click Image for MPAA Rant against SOPA Blackout

SOPA and PIPA are NOT only a threat to big sites. See this

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Apple announce record sales of iPhones and iPads

Record sales of iPhones and iPads resulted in record profits at Apple in the final quarter of 2011, the first since the death of its co-founder, Steve Jobs.

Apple more than doubled its profits: to $13.06bn (£8.35bn), compared with $6bn for the same quarter in 2010. The result easily beat analysts’ forecasts, taking pressure off the chief executive, Tim Cook, handpicked by Jobs as his successor. Last October Apple shares recorded their biggest single-day dollar drop after iPhone sales missed their forecast.

Cook said he was “thrilled” the company sold a record 37.04m iPhones in the final quarter of 2011, a 128% rise on a year ago. “We could have sold more if we’d had more supply,” he said. The recently launched iPhone 4S proved to be the company’s best seller in the quarter. “We could not be happier,” said Cook.

In record sales across nearly all product categories, Apple sold a record 15.43m iPads over the quarter, more than double a year ago.

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Sports broadcaster finds online audience

Jon Wekkin is a sports broadcaster whose play-by-play accounts of Twin Cities high school and college sports aren’t carried on any TV channel, cable network or radio station.

Instead, Wekkin and a team of professional announcers broadcast games at , where the menu includes live and archived hockey, football and basketball games, plus a smattering of wrestling and volleyball. Hundreds of viewers watch for free on nights when the website broadcasts multiple games simultaneously, most produced by a company crew on site.

Webcasting, or streaming live video and audio over the Internet, is hardly new. But in the age of YouTube, Wekkin’s Minnesota Sports Broadcast Network (MSBN) appears to be offering the most extensive high school sports webcasts in the Twin Cities. Schools pay $1,000 a year or more for the service.

Wekkin, MSBN’s owner and CEO, got the idea while he was a communications student at the University of Minnesota in the early 1990s.

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Businesses welcome the coalition agreement

But the party leaders and MPs weren’t the only ones biting their fingernails, the impact of the result was also nervously awaited by small business owners.

Now, with a new coalition government in place, small businesses might be able to breathe a sigh of relief. But what can we expect from the new government in charge?

While the increase in VAT seems inevitable, employers should be pleased by the scrapped one per cent increase in employers’ National Insurance Contributions (NICs) and the income tax threshold increasing by £1,000 in April 2011. But with an emergency Budget on Tuesday 22nd June should we be counting chickens just yet?

The Federation of Small Businesses chairman, John Walker, welcomes the certainty that the Coalition Government provides to businesses and the markets and looks forward to working with the new Government ministers.

‘We are pleased that coalition negotiators have listened to the business community and plan to reverse the proposed one per cent increase in NICs for employers,’ he said. ‘A healt

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Zappos Online Shoe Store Hacked: Bought Shoes Lately?

Buy any shoes online lately? Online popular shoe retailer, Zappos, which is owned by Amazon.com, has announced that it is one of the latest victims to be hacked. Over 24 million customers’ information including email addresses, names, billing and shipping addresses, phone numbers and the last four digits of credit card numbers have been stolen. This is not very comforting for those who enjoy shopping online.

Zappos is a huge retailer and one that has a really good reputation for great customer service. Will this recent cyber attack affect future sales and shoe buyers’ trust in the safety of putting their valuable personal information online?

As explained by Tony Hsieh, Zappos chief executive, the attack took place through one of the servers in Kentucky.

In the meantime, customers should not panic. Zappos is suggesting that those who believe their information has been compromised change their passwords.

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EDA’s tax credit to Prudential ‘corporate welfare at its worst,’ landlords charge

If Prudential vacates nearly 1 million square feet of office space at the Gateway Complex in Newark in favor of a new building, it could take 10 years for the citys commercial real estate market to recover, Gateways landlords charged yesterday.

The insurance giant has said it is considering its options before its leases there expire in 2014, including constructing a new tower elsewhere in the city or staying at Gateway. In November, the state Economic Development Authority said it would award a $250.8 million Urban Transit Hub tax credit to the company for its proposed $369 million, 600,000-square-foot office tower on land across the street from the New Jersey Performing Arts Center.

Calling the decision “corporate welfare at its worst,” the owners of Gateway 2, 3 and 4 have filed a lawsuit with the state appellate court, arguing the EDA failed to consider the “devastating financial impact” its decision would have on the city and state, and it approved the award without notice to or consultation with the landlords.

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SUPPLIER DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION INITIATIVE RECEIVES $50,000 GRANT

SUPPLIER DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION INITIATIVE RECEIVES $50,000 GRANT January 4, 2012

– Foundation for Louisiana has granted the LSU Foundation $50,000 to support the E. J. Ourso College of Business’ Supplier Diversity and Inclusion Initiative. The grant will provide small, women- and minority-owned businesses in 37 rural parishes with resources and information that will enable them to compete for state contracts and increase economic resiliency in rural communities.

LSU is among 22 nonprofit organizations that Foundation for Louisiana has granted awards to totaling $843,000, which were awarded in three areas: small business, housing and policy & advocacy. 

“These grants exemplify Foundation for Louisiana’s mission to build resilience in the state’s most vulnerable communities. They also

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