HOW TO BECOME A MILLIONAIRE IN THE NEXT 10 YEARS

Does it seem like becoming a millionaire is an unattainable dream? Perhaps it is not. Leigh Gallagher from SmartMoney magazine shares a strategy which if employed can make you a millionaire in just 10 years. Find out her recommendations here!

CBS News highlights…

Leigh Gallagher, senior editor at SmartMoney magazine, visited The Early Show Thursday and said, with the right strategies, many families can boost their savings to seven figures in 10 years. She gave co-anchor Harry Smith a roadmap to success.

Health
What it’s worth: $84,000

“Most people don’t really think about the links from your health to your wealth. But it has a surprising effect,” Gallagher said. “If you have good health habits, you eat well, you don’t smoke, you’re not overweight, obviously, you’ll have lower medical bills. Besides that, studies have shown that people that maintain those habits actually earn more over a long period of time.”

Spending
What it’s worth: $50,000

Gallagher says the average American household spends about $75,000 each year, which includes everything from housing to mocchacino. The first place to try cutting back is with your mortgage.

“If you just adjust your mortgage, get an adjustable rate mortgage for a few years, lower your percentage point by 1 percentage point, that over 10 years will save you about $22,000,” she said.

Another place to cut spending is on your cars. “A lot of people these days like to lease new cars,” said Gallagher. “If you just substitute a pair of used cars every five years for leased cars you’ll save, over 10 years, around $31,000.”

Saving
What it’s worth: $535,000

“You need to maximize your 401k,” said Gallagher. “That’s the best weapon at anyone’s disposal by far. If you put away 15 percent of your salary, we looked at a couple making a combined income of $120,000. Fifteen percent, over 10 years, before any investment gains, can add up to $397,000.”

Investing
What it’s worth: $478,000

The next question is how to invest this savings. Gallagher suggests putting the bulk of it, 80 to 90 percent, into mutual funds that track stock market indexes, and investing the rest more aggressively.

Career
What it’s worth: $171,000

Gallagher suggests working hard to double the amount of your annual raises, which might mean pushing yourself harder on the job. “It means going above and beyond,” she told Smith. “You can’t just do your job. You have to do your job times two. But if you do that and double your raise, that’s a very big deal.

Picking lottery numbers
Avoid 3, 7, 19

If you’re still convinced that the road to riches is through the lottery, you might as well do it right. Gallagher suggests avoiding the “lucky numbers,” three and seven, and avoiding 19, which occurs in every adult’s birthday.

Get more great information at CBS News!

HOW TECHNOLOGY CAN MAKE YOUR BUSINESS BETTER

Have you heard of an all in one computer? If not, you should learn about them. They have existed for ten years but the highlight is that they are much better now than they were then, as well as cheaper. Find out how they can serve your business here!

Entrepreneur explains…

1. They save space. Businesses are often tight on space and the best part about these computers is that there’s no separate, bulky tower. Owners want to save money by occupying less real estate, and since more of our staff is mobile, we don’t even need much space any more. In smaller quarters, you’re going to want any space-saving solution you can find. While notebook computers are great, you’ll find that when you’re at your desk for hours you want a larger monitor with a full-powered computer. An all-in-one computer can be your answer here.

2. Touch screens can improve communication. Not only are the touch screens that most all-in-ones have now functional wonders, they can also improve interactions between you, the computer and your customers, or others you work with. For example, a client or colleague in a product demo or training session is likely to be more engaged in your conversation when they touch the screen than when they use a mouse or keyboard.

Beyond running traditional Windows programs (like watching a video or your accounting program) you can work with a developer to create custom software for your industry. For example, maybe you’re a baker and you want to enable walk-in customers to choose a cake and its decorations through the touch screen of your all-in-one computer.

3. They look good. Let’s face it, all-in-one computers are thin and sleek. Depending on your industry (such as hotels, banking or hospitals) you might need to have a computer in a public place. Instead of having multiple components, a one-piece, touchscreen computer can help make your lobby, reception desk or other public place look much better.

Get more information at Entrepreneur!

Inside the DIY Weapons Workshop of the Libyan Rebels

A visit to one of the makeshift arms factories that helped liberate the country

By Sarah A. Topol

Fix-Up Firepower Libyan rebels stripped antiaircraft guns from planes and mounted the repurposed cannons to the beds of pickup trucks Xinhua/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

This weekend, the leader of Libya’s governing National Transitional Council, Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, announced that the country was officially “liberated.” After eight months of civil war, Sirte, the last loyalist city and Col. Moammar Qaddafi’s hometown, fell to former rebel control on Thursday. In the midst of chaotic fighting, NTC forces caught the ex-Brother Leader hiding in a drainage pipe.

Grainy but graphic YouTube videos of Qaddafi’s capture show Libyan fighters slapping, spitting and cursing their former despot. When Qaddafi made it to Misrata, Libya’s third largest city, he was dead. Conflicting reports on how exactly he was killed continue to circulate, but an autopsy showed it was a bullet to the head. Libya’s new leadership has said Qaddafi died in a crossfire, but most suspect he was killed by his captors. That hasn’t stopped thousands from queuing to see the mercurial leader’s body laid out on display in a storage cooler.

Jalil’s speech marked a way forward for the embattled country, setting a timeline for national elections in 2012. But now, Libya’s new leadership faces its newest challenge: disarming regional brigades and convincing the citizenry to turn in their weapons.

To take down the Qaddafi military, former rebels formed makeshift militias to clear large expanses of desert as well as urban blocks. In order to pose a real threat to Qaddafi’s conventional force, men from across the country ransacked regime weapons stockpiles and carted off any arms they could find. They formed regional militias and modified old weapons in innovative ways. Today, the weapons used to vanquish the loyalist army are everywhere.

Former fighters brandishing AK-47s and FN FAL rifles are just the tip of the iceberg. When I was in Libya in September, heavy weapons mounted on trucks were all over the place. Weapons modification garages were churning out new ideas and fixing their weapons for the final Sirte offensive.

Former rebels took apart 14.5mm machine guns from Russian-designed ZPU-4 antiaircraft weapons and mounted each one on a pickup truck. They did the same with ZU-23mms, Soviet anti-aircraft twin-barreled autocannons, and Grad multiple rocket launchers. They took 106mm recoilless rifles and sawed off the truck cab to make space for the cannon.

The trucks are a sight in themselves, armored by welded sheets of steel painted green, red and white, the colors of the revolutionary flag. Fighters from Regional militias drove in small convoys, their brigade name displayed prominently across the sides of their vehicles. Crammed with guns, grenades and ammo under their legs, everyone that could get it had a heavy artillery in the back.

I visited Misrata’s central weapons modification workshop after Libya’s third largest city threw off a three-month siege by loyalist troops. They took all the arms they could get their hands on and made them more lethal. They had fought for their lives on the city’s main thoroughfare that spring.

Arif Abuzed was an engineer in the national Libyan Steel Company. When the revolution began the 47-year-old decided he was too old to fight on the frontline, so he started using his expertise to help alter weapons. He joined Misrata’s central modification workshop in May. He told me he got some of his inspiration from watching television, seeing how other fighters across Libya were using weapons and trying to improve on their tactics.

Abuzed’s favorite was the improvised, shoulder-fired rocket launcher that was designed for use against armored vehicles. Initially, the workshops affixed the UB-32, a launcher designed to fire Russian S-5 rockets from a helicopter, on a truck. But they found they couldn’t hit designated targets properly—rockets from the middle of the pod shot straight while the outer ring curved to the side.

They discovered they could remove the 68mm rockets and shoot them out of a makeshift tube triggered by a button and nine-volt battery from their shoulder. Now easily mobile, it can take out tanks from a range of six miles and one battery lasts about 50 launches. “They’re effective and they’re easy to handle,” Abuzed told me, beaming with pride.

“We were all civilians, engineers, technicians, store keepers, ladies' fashion retail owners, and drivers," he explained on a narrow wooden bench over the cacophony of saws and blowtorches in the workshop’s welding room. "We never wanted to do this, it was a necessity."

Ali Mohamed, the workshop’s assistant director, was a truck driver before the revolution; he owned his own autorepair shop. He told me his weapon of choice is the 23mm. “It’s the most intimidating," he said. “It has an impact on whatever it hits and since it’s automatic, it can fire multiple hits.”

The 35-year-old has a nine-month-old son and a five-year-old daughter. His blue eyes light up when I asked, back in September, what would happen to his newfound weapons expertise next?

“When the war is over, I’m going to remove all I’ve seen and bury it. Erase it from my memory, we’re peaceful people,” he said, almost pleading, after he spent the morning guiding me through various weapons systems and modifications.

Now, over a month after I met Mohamed, the war is officially over and Libya is free. In Misrata, Libyans gaze at the body of their former despot. Somewhere Mohamed is probably rejoicing. After eight months of civil war, the world will be watching to see if former rebels like Mohamed make good on their promises.

To Save Fuel, Cars Will Drop Off Drivers, Then Search For Parking Spaces on Their Own

No more circling the block

By Rebecca Boyle

Parallel Parking Parallel and not parallel parking at a market in Tel Aviv. upyernoz via Flickr

Automakers are doing all sorts of things to cars to make them smarter and more autonomous, as regular readers are aware. Here’s a new one: GM wants to take self-parking cars to a new level, letting them drop off their drivers and go off in search of empty spaces on their own. It’ll be more fuel-efficient than having humans circle the block waiting for a spot to open up, GM says.

Fuel efficiency is one of the promised benefits of increasingly intelligent cars, which could cut down on fuel consumption by predicting where drivers will go, re-routing around predicted traffic jams and traveling in convoys. Smarter cars would also be able to communicate with each other, preventing collisions and congestion.

We have seen several self-parking car concepts, and GM has demonstrated the technology with its EN-V concept, says Technology Review. But self-parking has mostly been limited to some bleeping sounds as an SUV glides into a tight parallel space — the driver is still there and can resume control at any time.

This new concept lets the driver hop out, leaving the car to drive itself to the nearest available empty space — even if that’s several blocks or even miles away, Tech Review says. When it’s time to leave, the driver can summon his or her car via a smartphone app, and it will reappear KITT-style to whisk its driver away. GM's Electrical and Controls Integration Lab is developing the technology to make this possible.

For anyone who has ever tried to park in, say, New York or San Francisco, this sounds mighty handy. But would you trust your empty car to go find a safe spot to bide its time while you go about your business? In some ways that may be a greater leap than the technology itself.

[Technology Review]

Most People Are In Favor Of Wild Geoengineering Projects

By Rebecca Boyle

Chemicals in the Atmosphere sirqitous via Flickr

A majority of people in Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States support studying ways to reflect sunlight as a method to cool the planet, according to a new study. Researchers at Harvard and two Canadian universities say nearly three-quarters of survey respondents approved of geoengineering research.

The survey, which was just published although it was conducted last year, focused on solar radiation management, a type of geoengineering that seeks to increase the Earth’s albedo by creating clouds or through other means. Support for the technique was spread across the political spectrum, the researchers say. But people who defined themselves as politically conservative expressed the strongest opposition to geoengineering.

Only eight per cent of people could correctly define what geoengineering means, with about 45 per cent able to determine the alternative term “climate engineering,” which is apparently easier to figure out.

The survey findings come at an exciting time because a solar radiation management experiment that was supposed to start this month in the UK was just delayed by 6 months to address concerns by critics. The Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate Engineering (SPICE) project plans to loft a gigantic balloon towing a garden hose to spew particles into the atmosphere to reduce global warming. An initial proof-of-concept test would use a kilometre-long hose spraying water droplets.

However, the survey, conducted online, didn’t get too specific regarding this method or others. The survey asked 18 questions of 3,105 participants, two-thirds of whom were from the U.S. Of those respondents, 72% supported further geoengineering research. But 75 per cent of respondents thought the Earth’s climate is “too complicated to fix with one technology,” the study says.

The survey findings are published in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

[BBC]

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WHAT A UNIQUE WAY TO PRESENT THIS...
Someone ought to get an award for this. We know the facts, but this brings it into perspective quickly, doesn???t it?

                                                        Each cube is a teaspoonful.??

From now on it's strawberries, carrots, Cheerios, Special K and corn for me! 

Now they need to do this for salt... 
'When someone shares something of value with you that your health can benefit from, it would show you care if you share it with others.'