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The primary practical use of a calendar is to identify days: to be informed about and/or to agree on a future event and to record an event that has happened. Days may be significant for civil, religious or social reasons. For example, a calendar provides a way to determine which days are religious or civil holidays, which days mark the beginning and end of business accounting periods, and which days have legal significance, such as the day taxes are due or a contract expires. Also a calendar may, by identifying a day, provide other useful information about the day such as its season.

Fiscal calendars are also used by businesses. This is where the fiscal year is just any set of 12 months. This set of 12 months can start and end at any point on the Gregorian calendar. This is the most common usage of fiscal calendars.

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NEW YORK – Ed Gullo never thought he'd be on this side of a package delivery.
Gullo, 61, of Newburgh, N.Y., is driving a truck for FedEx during the holiday shipping rush that started after Thanksgiving. Gullo is no veteran truck driver. He's a news writer with experience at ABC and CNN, who found gigs hard to come by in the weak economy.
FedEx and UPS, the world's two largest package delivery companies, hire thousands of extra workers every holiday season, usually college students and 20-somethings. This year, the unemployment rate is at 10 percent and many experienced professionals are looking for work. A lot more people came to job fairs wearing a coat and tie, said UPS spokesman Norman Black.
Rolf Wick applied online with UPS after being laid off from an IT management position. The 42-year-old, who lives in San Francisco, was managing a staff of consultants and administrators. Now he's a driver's helper, tracking the status of packages and running from house to house making deliveries.
Gullo earns about $13 an hour with FedEx, far less than the $36 an hour he makes on average as a free-lancer in the news business. He said he felt out of his element at the start of training, where he made minimum wage for a week driving a small rental truck "around a lot of cones." That's some difference from last holiday season, when Gullo was writing for popular programs such as "World News Now" and "Good Morning America."
Another difference is the physical nature of the work. Both Gullo and Wick say they're sore after 50-hour weeks of loading and unloading packages filled with holiday gifts. UPS expects to deliver roughly 22 million small packages on its busiest day this year — projected to be Monday. FedEx, based in Memphis, Tenn., shipped about 14.1 million packages on Dec. 14, its peak holiday shipping day.
"I say sometimes, 'I know what I'm having for dessert tonight — and that will be a couple aspirin,'" Wick said.
UPS said it made fewer holiday hires this year to keep costs down — about 50,000 seasonal workers this year compared with 60,000 two years ago. The company did not release year-ago figures, although it said applications rose 20 percent compared with 2008. FedEx's ground division added 14,000 temporary workers — about the same as last year.
UPS expects to keep on 10,000 to 15,000 holiday hires this year. The company says many who stay on will get part-time jobs, where the turnover rate is high. According to Black, more than half of the company's part-time workers are college students. Black notes that 10 out of 12 of UPS' top executives started in entry-level jobs.
That's the path Wick aspires to. He's wants to get permanent work and eventually leave the deliveries to someone else, working his way up to management. Or possibly a gig in IT.
"The IT field is a very tough place to be in this economy," he said. "So I'm coming in as (a) seasonal (worker at UPS) with the hopes of turning it in to something better."
FedEx typically retains some temporary hires after the holidays. Rookie driver Gullo isn't interested in a permanent position. In fact, after long talks with his wife, the veteran of the news industry says he'll consider early retirement, if freelance gigs don't come more often. At his age, he said, he'd rather live on less in retirement than struggle from one temporary job to another.
"This experience (at FedEx) has really kind of forced me into thinking about it," he said. "I'm going to have to live more modestly, but I've decided that's OK."
But the younger Wicks has to take a different approach.
"I don't have a problem proving myself again if that's what it's going to take," he said.

KABUL – Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Sunday rejected criticism that his proposed new Cabinet amounts to business as usual and is unlikely to do much to tackle the country's array of problems.
Karzai has been under strong international pressure to clean up corruption in his government, anger over which has helped fuel the Taliban insurgency.
When Karzai's nominees for the Cabinet were presented Saturday, many legislators complained that he was keeping ministers who had performed badly and that he was appointing new faces who may be in the pocket of warlords and regional power brokers.
Karzai dismissed the criticism at a news conference with Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme.
"Confidently, I say if there is any question about corruption, they will be accountable and I will be accountable as well to the Afghan nation," he said.
Karzai meanwhile defended the mayor of Kabul, who this month was sentenced to four years in prison for corruption. Karzai previously said the mayor was a scapegoat and on Sunday he said he felt responsibility to defend someone who is "clean and honest."
The attorney general's office recently confirmed that it was investigating a few current ministers and a dozen former ministers for corruption. Members of parliament recently pushed Deputy Attorney General Fazel Ahmad Faqiryar to disclose the names of ministers under investigation.
Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta on Sunday sharply criticized Faqiryar for allegedly saying that his ministry was being investigated in connection with the transfer of $500,000 to a foreign travel agency that was supposed to take Afghans to the 2007 pilgrimage to Mecca but didn't.
In a letter to Karzai, Spanta said his ministry was involved only in seeking the return of the funds. Moreover, he wrote that his ministry also was working to find $10 million that remains unaccounted for following the 2008 pilgrimage.
"Although I know that my complaints of the misuse of authority by the attorney general's office will bear no fruit, I register my profound complaint on the unethical and illegal conduct of this office and refuse to accept any apologies of the deputy attorney general for his baseless allegations and wrongdoing," Spanta wrote.
Faqiryar said in a telephone interview that Spanta himself was never a target in the investigations.
Spanta was not among those nominated for Karzai's new Cabinet, although he has been asked to stay on as foreign minister through the international conference on Afghanistan that is to take place in London on Jan. 28.
"I am pressing him to stay" through the conference so it doesn't hamper preparations for the meeting, Karzai said Sunday. "Once that's done, you'll see that the Afghan government will look rather different."
Some legislators have criticized the Cabinet nominations because there was only one woman — the Minister of Women's Affairs. Karzai on Sunday said he plans to form a new ministry for literacy that would be headed by a woman, and said he also plans to appoint women to a number of deputy minister positions.
Leterme, whose country contributes more than 500 troops to the international military forces in Afghanistan, reaffirmed Belgium's military and aid commitments.
The NATO-led forces in Afghanistan said in a statement Sunday that a Polish serviceman was killed the day before when his unit came under small arms fire in eastern Afghanistan.
NATO also said that a joint Afghan and international force on Saturday uncovered a large weapons cache in the Panjwayi district of Kandahar province in southern Afghanistan. The joint unit discovered about 140 pounds of homemade explosive material, including six pounds of ammonium nitrate, which is used in making bombs, and parts for making a pressure plate and detonation cord.
____

Associated Press Writer Amir Shah in Kabul contributed.

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) –
The ruckus over MTV's "Jersey Shore" is getting as intense as the hot-headed dramatics on the show.

The controversial new reality series chronicling a spirited group of self-described "guidos" living in a New Jersey beach house has drawn protests of increasing volume. Now it appears that calls for a boycott are having an impact.

The Italian-American group UNICO (which also protested HBO's "The Sopranos") has asked members to complain to MTV's advertisers. In the past couple of days, two advertisers on the show -- Domino's Pizza and American Family Insurance -- have pulled out of the series.

In addition, one major media outlet reported that MTV New York offices were receiving death threats because of the show. The network has denied the report.

"('Jersey Shore' furthers) the popular TV notion that Italian-Americans are gel-haired, thuggish ignoramuses with fake tans, no manners, no diction, no taste, no education, no sexual discretion, no hairdressers (for sure), no real knowledge of Italian culture and no ambition beyond expanding steroid- and silicone-enhanced bodies," blasted New York Post critic Linda Stasi on Monday. "Would that programing ever have been allowed if the group were African-Americans, Asians, Hispanics, Jewish people?"

MTV president of programing Tony DiSanto, an Italian-American, has remained largely mum on the subject, though he told one group, "The cast takes pride in their ethnicity. In fact, it is a key driver of how they bond with each other and self-identify. They refer to themselves as 'guidos' in a positive manner."

Former "Hills" cast member Spencer Pratt defended the network on Twitter: "Linda Stasi you should change your name to Linda Boring if you can't be entertained by young Italian-Americans enjoying youth and partying!"

The initial round of criticism didn't seem to help "Jersey Shore," which debuted Thursday to a relatively modest 1.4 million viewers.

Adding to the drama is a clip from an MTV teaser for an upcoming episode of the show that's making the rounds online. It shows a man punching out one of the female housemates. But it's unclear if any of the conflict -- onscreen or off -- will improve the show's ratings.

On Tuesday, Dell rolled out a new laptop aimed at mobile entrepreneurs, the 13.3-inch Vostro V13. With a starting price of $449, Dell is sending a combined message of value and innovation with the latest addition to its small-business line of Vostro laptops.

The Vostro V13 is less than an inch thick and weighs 3.5 pounds. The laptop is equipped with ultra-low-voltage (ULV) Intel processors, encased in brushed aluminum with reinforced zinc hinges for durability, and has a suite of features to make mobile entrepreneurs more productive.

"Ultrathin laptops with processors in the ULV class compare favorably with netbooks," said Roger Kay, principal at Endpoint Technologies Associates. "The value proposition for small-business travelers is simple: For slightly more money, you get all the portability you want but a lot better experience."

Mobility and Affordability

The V13 offers an integrated webcam and microphone so users can make Internet calls, conduct video conferences, and remotely exchange files. Users also have multiple wireless options, including 802.11g/n wireless, Bluetooth and WWAN mobile broadband.

The laptop runs Windows 7 and offers 4GB of DDR3 SDRAM memory and data-encrypted hard drives. Dell is also offering entrepreneurs remote on-call support through DellConnect or Dell ProSupport to troubleshoot IT issues that road warriors may face.

"Not long ago, business travelers like me had to choose mobility and affordability at the expense of performance. That's no longer the case with the V13," said Sam Burd, global vice president of Dell Small and Medium Business. "This 13-inch small business laptop is in a category all its own, as entrepreneurs now have quality performance, battery life, and security combined with a thin and lightweight design sturdy enough for today's business."

Dell's Place in the Markets

According to Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT, the PC market has been roiled during the past 18 months by a pair of continuing trends: Apple's ability to succeed in multiple markets despite the worst economic downturn in a generation and the public's apparently insatiable desire for low-cost/low-performance netbooks.

As King sees it, the Vostro 13 is the latest example of Dell's design renaissance, which began with the redesign of the Latitude family earlier this year. Once excoriated for clunky utilitarianism, he said, Dell's Latitude models have become slimmer, shinier and more colorful. The new Dell Latitude Z and Adamo laptops, he added, are as slender and snazzy as anything in Apple's stable, proving the company is perfectly comfortable playing at the high end of the market.

"The new Vostro V13 demonstrates that Dell is taking that same 'no prisoners' attitude down market to small businesses, and by doing so seems ready and willing to challenge HP's traditional leadership position," King said. "While the V13's lightweight yet sturdy features and performance specs make it an excellent choice for business travelers, its eye-catching design shows that the company can successfully deliver stylish yet substantial business laptops at price points that press the netbook envelope."

Most importantly, King said, the Vostro V13 demonstrates that Dell understands the sometimes-conflicting needs of mobile small-business owners and employees who need to be careful with their budgets but don't want to be saddled with laptops that look and work as if they were rescued from a bargain bin.

Although the wireless 802.11n standard has just recently been made official, IEEE has begun work on the next iteration of WiFi. The coming upgrade may deliver speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second by improving on the effeciency of existing technology, according to Electronista.

Don't expect a revolution or a vast change in the way you use wireless. The IEEE 802.11ac standard, set to be in draft form by 2011, will mainly work with the current technology powering 802.11a. The new standard will continue to work on the 5.0Ghz band, but will provide larger channels for data throughput. Whereas current technology uses 20Mhz-wide channels, 802.11ac will be using either 40Mhz or 80Mhz-wide (and possibly 160Mhz) channels to deliver data. It's the equivalent of adding a wide-mouth tab to your beer can, so your files will be able to flow more freely on your home network come 2012.

Of course, none of these specs are standardized as yet and they may be drastically change in the next few years. On top of that, a fatter pipe for wireless data throughput does not increase our actual internet connection speeds. For most home users, the relevancy of 802.11ac may depend on the expansion of robust fiber optic internet infastructure or an increase in large-file data streaming as well.

[Ars Technica via Electronista]

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(Reuters) –
U.S. stock index futures pointed to a higher open for equities, with investors waiting for a slew of economic data, including U.S. ISM figures for November and pending home sales numbers.

Futures for the S&P 500, Dow Jones industrial average and the Nasdaq 100 were up 0.8 to 0.9 percent.

European shares rose on Tuesday, bouncing back from falls in the previous session as fears eased about the fallout from Dubai's debt problems and investors' appetite increased for relatively riskier equities. The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 (.FTEU3) index of top shares was up 1.9 percent.

Crude oil prices climbed toward $78 a barrel, adding to the previous session's advance. Base metals prices also rose, with copper rising 0.8 percent and aluminum up 1.1 percent.

In economic news, the Institute for Supply Management is due to release its November manufacturing index at 1500 GMT. Economists in a Reuters survey expect a reading of 55.0 versus 55.7 in October.

At 1500 GMT (10 a.m. EST), the National Association of Realtors issues Pending Home Sales for October. Economists in a Reuters survey expect a 0.8 percent fall compared with a 6.1 percent rise in the previous month.

ICSC/Goldman Sachs releases chain store sales for the week ended November 28 versus the prior week at 1245 GMT (7:45 a.m. EST). In the previous week, sales were unchanged.

At 1355 GMT (8:55 a.m. EST), the Redbook releases its Retail Sales Index of department and chain store sales for November versus October. In the prior period, sales rose 4.8 percent.

At 1500 GMT (10 a.m. EST), the Commerce Department releases October construction spending. Economists in a Reuters survey forecast a fall of 0.5 percent compared with a 0.8 percent rise in the prior month.

U.S. automakers release November auto sales. Economists in a Reuters survey expect annualized sales of 3.70 million cars and 4.20 million trucks. In October, the figures were 3.71 million cars and 4.17 million trucks.

In earnings news, Staples (SPLS.O) is reporting third-quarter numbers, with analysts expecting the company to earn 0.38 cents a share compared to 0.42 cents a year ago.

General Electric Co (GE.N) and Vivendi SA (VIV.PA) have agreed in principle to a deal in which GE would buy the French company's 20 percent stake in NBC Universal for $5.8 billion, a source familiar with the matter said on Monday, paving the way for Comcast Corp's (CMCSA.O) proposed joint venture with GE.

The dollar fell against the yen on Tuesday, cutting earlier gains after the Bank of Japan said it would provide 10 trillion yen ($115 billion) in a new fixed-rate operation but stopped short of more aggressive measures to support the economy.

Shares of Guess Inc (GES.N) jumped more than 5 percent to $39.09 after the bell on Monday as the company posted a higher-than-expected quarterly profit and forecast holiday season earnings above Wall Street estimates.

Shares of Human Genome Sciences Inc (HGSI.O) dropped 5.1 percent to $26.40 after the bell on Monday as the biotechnology company announced plans for a common stock offering.

U.S. stocks rose on Monday, helping the Dow post its fifth straight monthly gain, on hopes that possible fallout from Dubai's debt woes will be contained.

The Dow Jones industrial average (.DJI) rose 0.3 percent, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index (.SPX) was up 0.4 percent and the Nasdaq Composite Index (.IXIC) gained 0.3 percent.

(Reporting by Joanne Frearson; editing by John Stonestreet)

There is a distinction between a beauty salon and a hair salon and although many small businesses do offer both sets of treatments; beauty salons provide more generalized services related to skin health, facial aesthetic, foot care, aromatherapy, — even meditation, oxygen therapy, mud baths, and innumerable other services.

Salons are in various business forms from sole traders, branches of salons or large franchise owned salon chains. Some larger chains offer their own brand of salon products.
[edit] Spa salon

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Photo Books

The novel is the most common form of fictional book. Novels are stories that typical feature a plot, setting, themes and characters. Stories and narrative are not restricted to any topic; a novel can be whimsical, serious or controversial. The novel has had a tremendous impact on entertainment and publishing markets.

Publishing is a process for producing books, magazines, newspapers, etc. pre-printed for the reader/user to buy, usually in large numbers by a publishing company. Such books can be categorized as fiction (made-up stories) or non-fiction (information written as fact). A book-length fiction story is called a novel.