ResidentialBusiness

Projects are made up of many moving parts. One of the ways that you can determine if the project is behind or ahead of schedule is called schedule control. Project planning, scheduling and control all go together when managing a project to stay on time and meet your deadlines. Learning what schedule control is and what you can do to best apply it can help you bring your next project in on-time and under budget. What Is Schedule Control? Schedule control is used in project management to monitor your activities and tasks to ensure you’re proceeding as planned. Of course, it’s more than just monitoring status. Project schedule control also means updating your project processes and managing change. The most common way to do this is by creating a baseline. A baseline represents how you expect the project to proceed. When you have a schedule baseline, you can look at your actual progress and compare it to the planned progress, which lets you know if you’re ahead or behind schedule. This whole process is simplified with the help of project scheduling software like ProjectManager. ProjectManager lets you build a project schedule, set a baseline and track progress in real time. It’s never been easier to keep your schedule under control. /wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Construction-Gantt-Task-Info-CTA-BUTTON-1.jpgCreate schedule baselines and track your progress from start to finish with ProjectManager. Learn more. Schedule control is part of the larger project management process of controlling and monitoring. That is, projects need to be closely watched, and as change occurs, which it will, those changes must be proactively controlled. This is the purview of the project manager, who created the schedule and is responsible for executing it. Why Is Project Schedule Control Important? Project schedule control is essential because it is used to monitor and control the progress of the project. A project that misses its deadline is not a success. While there are many metrics to measure the success of a project, keeping to the schedule is among the most fundamental. Another important aspect of schedule control is that it manages the expectations of your project stakeholders. It keeps them informed of changes and how they will impact the project. Furthermore, it tells the stakeholders how you’re going to respond to issues to get the project back on track. This process is key to keeping stakeholders in the loop and should be done throughout the life cycle of the project. Project planning, scheduling and control work hand-in-glove to reduce the impact on your budget. The benefit is financial stability, which projects need to deliver at a cost that has been approved by stakeholders. It also creates documentation that can be helpful when researching historical data for future projects similar to the one you’re managing currently. Who Manages Schedule Control? Schedule control is a collaborative effort, but specific roles within an organization are primarily responsible for managing and maintaining it. The project manager will oversee the project schedule and track progress against the actual schedule. If there are any schedule variances, the project manager will implement the needed changes to get the project back on track as quickly as possible. If the project is larger, a dedicated project scheduler or planner may oversee the technical aspects of schedule control. For example, they analyze scheduling data, generate reports, identify the critical path and help the project manager schedule recovery plans. A team member interacts with schedule control through their assigned tasks and communication with the project manager or team lead. They would complete tasks assigned to them within the specified timeframe and provide task status updates for the project manager. When Does Schedule Control Matter Most? The schedule control matters throughout the project. Stakeholders will want to know the state of the schedule, from the moment it’s created to when the project has been completed. Therefore, it should be baked into your schedule as you develop it. Of course, it’s most important when you begin executing the schedule. This is when the schedule is no longer an abstraction, but a practical tool to execute tasks on time and within budget. It is during the execution phase of a project that your schedule will be impacted by internal and external forces that could potentially derail your progress. Monitoring and controlling the schedule occurs throughout the execution, from the start of the first task to the finish of the last. However, while this is when schedule control matters most, it is never finished. Document your changes during execution: the way you responded to them and the results are key to this phase in the project. Related: Project Scheduling Templates How to Do Schedule Control in Project Management Schedule control in project management is a way to make sure the schedule is going as planned. There are five steps in this process: Set standards: In order to know if the schedule is not being met, you need to set standards. That is, you have to determine the metrics by which you’ll measure the performance of your project. Measure performance: As the schedule is being executed, you need to get data on its progress and keep records. Measurement is crucial. Being able to measure the performance of your schedule is how you compare it to the baseline. A dashboard can help. Compare your results: Compare your measurement of the project’s progress against that baseline you created. As you make these regular comparisons, you want to be alert for any deviations. Identify them, for they are crucial to the next step. Determine Issues: Once you have identified a deviation from the baseline, the next step is to figure out why that happened. Only by determining the reason behind the change can you work out a proper plan to respond and resolve it. Take action: Take up action to correct the issue as needed. This can be done by adjusting revenue, cost, profits, product, time, resources and so forth. 8 Schedule Control Techniques when Planning & Scheduling The best way to implement schedule control is by applying techniques to help you monitor and manage change. Here are eight: Performance Reviews: Use this to measure, compare and analyze the performance of your schedule. There are several ways to select the performance you want to review, such as the actual start and finish dates, percent complete and remaining duration for the work in progress. These reviews can help result in performance improvement such as mentoring or additional training to boost individual performance. Critical Path Method: The critical path helps you predict how long the project will take by analyzing the sequence of activities and discovering which are essential, and which you can skip and still deliver the project successfully. If there are potential schedule delays, project managers can develop mitigation strategies. Monte Carlo Simulation: This technique helps you quantify the total cost of your project, which allows you to calculate a defined distribution of total costs for the project and possible completion dates. By simulating various scenarios, this simulation helps identify potential schedule risks and how they impact the project. Resource Histogram: By using a resource histogram, you can show resource consumption and availability by time period. They also reveal periods of under-allocation to note when resources aren’t being used effectively. Variance Analysis: The variance is the difference between the planned and actual schedule of your project. This analysis helps you to determine the cause of the variance. If there is a positive analysis, the project is ahead of schedule while a negative variance indicates it’s behind schedule. Work Breakdown Structure (WBS): A work breakdown structure helps break down the project schedule into smaller and more manageable tasks. This results in more accurate time estimates and progress tracking. Resource Leveling: This schedule control tip aims to optimize resource allocation and prevent resource-related delays. It identifies periods of over-allocation where resources are assigned to too many tasks simultaneously, helping to improve schedule stability. Contingency Planning: Use this to identify potential schedule risks and their impact on the project’s timeline. Contingency planning accounts for potential delays and unexpected events, reducing the impact of risks on the project schedule. Free Schedule Control Templates Schedule control is an essential part of project management. If you’re not ready to use project management software, consider our free schedule control templates. These are only a handful of the many free project management templates available on our site. Gantt Chart Template Our free Gantt chart template for Excel makes it easy to plan and track complex projects. It uses a pre-defined structure to help organize project tasks, timelines and milestones that make up the project plan. Use it to spot issues and take action quickly. Critical Path Template To keep track of the project’s completion date, use our free critical path template for Excel. It’s an efficient way to visualize the longest, most important chain of tasks that must be completed to deliver the project successfully. PERT Chart Template Use this free PERT chart template to visually represent the project timeline. It helps estimate the minimum time needed to complete a project. A PERT chart helps illustrate dependent tasks, make a project timeline and calculate the critical path. How ProjectManager Helps with Schedule Control These techniques are all helpful, but to better monitor and track your progress and control the schedule, you need to use project management software. ProjectManager is a cloud-based tool that captures live information to help project managers make better and more insightful decisions. Build Dynamic Schedules on Gantt Charts Our interactive Gantt chart serves a powerful tool to schedule your projects. Unlike less powerful tools that only set priority, link dependencies and add milestones, you can also filter for the critical path and set project baselines instantly. /wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Construction-Gantt-Costs-Resources.jpg Track Your Schedule with a Dashboard Monitoring and tracking are a necessity for project schedule control. You need to see your actual progress in real time and act quickly when it deviates from the plan. Get a high-level view with our no-setup-required dashboard. The dashboard captures several project metrics, including variance, and displays the automated results in easy-to-read graphs and charts. /wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Dashboard_Construction_Wide_Zoom-150.jpg Use In-Depth Reports to Analyze Issues Sometimes you want a deeper view of the data. That’s where our one-click reports on variance, cost and much more come in handy. All the reports can be filtered to show just the information you want to see. Then, print or share the results as a PDF. This is great for managing stakeholders’ expectations and keeping them up-to-date. /wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Reports_Wide_Zoom-150_Portfolio-Status-Report.jpg Those are just a few of ProjectManager’s features that can help you with schedule control. There’s also automated alerts, resource management tools and timesheets to track the time your team spends on their tasks. Plus, teams can use multiple views, so everyone gets to work the way they want. Why bother with a handful of apps when one can do the trick of delivering quality on time and within budget? ProjectManager is award-winning software that organizes tasks, teams and projects. It has features to help you throughout every phase of a project, from planning to monitoring and reporting. Join the tens of thousands of teams at organizations from NASA to Ralph Lauren who is using our tool to deliver their projects. Try ProjectManager today. The post 8 Techniques for Schedule Control in Project Management appeared first on ProjectManager. View the full article

While Apple has offered password management solutions for years, it was only this past fall that the company finally rolled out a dedicated passwords app, appropriately named "Passwords." It's a bit basic, but it's built into the OS, and it gets the job done. (It's also free, which helps.) If you're fully into the Apple ecosystem, it's an easy way to create, store, and access the passwords of your numerous accounts. However, as it happens, Passwords has a critical security flaw that Apple only recently addressed. Here's the situation: Passwords has a security feature that helps you change an account's password directly within the Passwords app. This is particularly helpful if the app detects that one of your accounts' passwords has been compromised. You can tap on the account, choose "Change Password..." and open an in-app browser that will direct you to the account's website, where you can change your password. As convenient as this feature is, it contained a significant security risk. As discovered by security researchers with Mysk, whenever you tapped "Change Password..." on an account, Passwords would connect to the site using an unencrypted HTTP protocol, before redirecting to the encrypted HTTPS protocol. This encryption protects your connection between your device and the website you're visiting. Without it, an actor with privileged network access could take over the connection and redirect the link. Let's say the Passwords app warns you that your Yelp password has been compromised, and you need to change it. No problem: You tap your Yelp account in the app, then choose "Change Password..." However, a bad actor follows your activity, and before the real Yelp website can load, they redirect you to a fake Yelp site. Here, the fraudulent page encourages you to share your sensitive information, and since you think you're visiting the real Yelp site, perhaps you do. And just like that, you've been phished. As Mysk tells 9to5Mac, “We were surprised that Apple didn’t enforce HTTPS by default for such a sensitive app... Additionally, Apple should provide an option for security-conscious users to disable downloading icons completely. I don’t feel comfortable with my password manager constantly pinging each website I maintain a password for, even though the calls Passwords sends don’t contain any ID.” This problem isn't contained to the Passwords app, however. According to Mysk, this flaw has existed since Apple rolled out the ability to detect compromised passwords in iOS 14, all the way back in 2020: This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed. How to fix this 'Passwords' security flawApple quietly addressed this problem with the release of iOS 18.2. That update launched in December 2024, so changes are good you've updated your iPhone since then. However, if you haven't, you need to update to the latest version of iOS as soon as possible. (As of this article, that's iOS 18.3.2, which coincidentally contains another important security patch.) To update now, head to Settings > General > Software Update, then follow the on-screen instructions to download and install the update. View the full article

The land offensive comes after air strikes killed more than 400 people and shattered a two-month truceView the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Soundbars are the best way to take your home theater audio to the next level, especially if you complain about actors mumbling their lines. When it comes to high-end soundbars, there are a couple that beat out the competition, starting with the Sonos Arc (which is at its lowest price right now) for best overall sound—but the Samsung HW-Q900C is only marginally inferior to the Sonos, and you get a subwoofer as well for essentially the same price. The 7.1.2ch Samsung HW-Q900C soundbar and subwoofer combo are $565.68 (originally $1,399.00) right now, the lowest price it has ever been, according to price tracking tools. Samsung HW-Q900C Soundbar and Subwoofer $565.68 at Walmart $1,399.00 Save $833.32 Get Deal Get Deal $565.68 at Walmart $1,399.00 Save $833.32 The acoustics of the Samsung HW-Q900C won't reach the quality of the Sonos Arc, but it will get pretty close for significantly less money. It also includes more features and it's more adaptable. If you have multiple systems you want to hook up to your surround sound system, like gaming consoles or a Blu-Ray player, you'll make good use of the HDMI-switching feature to transition seamlessly between devices without the need to get down and dirty with the cables. The HW-Q900C is also highly adaptable, with four sound settings: standard, surround (gives a more soundstage presence), adaptive (adjusts on the fly based on what you're watching), and Game Pro (adjusts the volume for gaming). If you ever want to expand to a 9.1.4-channel system down the road, you'd just need to get the two rear satellite speakers, the SWA-9500S, and you'd have a top-of-the-line complete surround-sound system for under $900. However, if you have the money for it now, it's better to get the 11.1.4-channel HW-Q990C for $979 right away, which comes with better satellite speakers. Getting the same system set up from Sonos would run you much more money for not that much of an upgrade, but if money isn't an issue, then the Sonos surround system is the best you can get. View the full article

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: I’m wondering whether a good boss should ever show impatience. One of my employees, Jane, does a good job. I’ve given her a lot of (well-deserved) praise in public and private, and she’s said she’s happy in her work. However, she made a serious error the other day and when I brought it up with her, she shrugged and said it couldn’t be helped. I confess that my tone got impatient and I said something like, “No, we need to fix this because otherwise X.” I wasn’t shouting or otherwise being a jerk, but I definitely sounded impatient. I could see she was surprised, probably because I am usually cheerful and mellow. We worked together in the moment and found a solution. But later that same day, I noticed she was teary at her desk and I asked what was wrong. She could only shake her head and so I said, “Okay, I’ll leave you alone but let me know if you want to take a break or something.” Today I was meeting with another manager and she said, “I want to tell you something.” Evidently she too noticed that Jane was not okay and asked what was wrong. Jane answered that I’d been disrespectful to her, and that she needed to be respected at work or else she’d quit. The other manager was really good about bringing it up with me, phrasing it in terms of, “I know you weren’t horrible to her and she was being oversensitive, I am just letting you know. Maybe just say it more gently next time.” I was taken aback because it never even occurred to me that I had upset her! I found myself thinking that as I was going through my career, I have had a lot of harsh bosses who would shout and make demeaning comments. I didn’t think that saying something impatiently would even register with someone. Am I so inured now that I’m inadvertently perpetuating some of these negative patterns? The fact is, I’m responsible for the department’s work so if I point out a serious mistake, that needs to be taken seriously, not shrugged off. However, this has made me really question myself. Am I often upsetting people without even realizing it? Should I be more careful about sounding impatient or brusque while I am in this role? I answer this question over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here. View the full article

In previous articles, I’ve spoken about the dangers of sitting and the importance of using an ergonomic chair. at a glance: our top 5 picks for Office Chairs For Tall People Best Tall Office Chair: Herman Miller Aeron Ergonomic Chair - Size C Best Executive Chair: Serta Ergonomic Executive Motion Technology Chair Best Task Chair: Ergohuman High Back Swivel Chair With Headrest Best Drafting Chair: Harwick Evolve All Mesh Heavy Duty Drafting Chair Best Value Chair: Nouhaus Ergo3D Ergonomic Office Chair So what happens if you can’t find a comfortable chair because you’re a too tall? Actually this is quite a common problem for tall people. It’s an even bigger problem (no pun intended) for heavy people. So in this article, I will help you find the right ergonomic office chair that’s ideal for tall people. I will recommend the best chairs and also give you some advice about how to choose the right chair for you. Quick Comparison: Our Top 5 Picks for Office Chairs For Tall People IMAGEPRODUCT Best Tall Office ChairHerman Miller Aeron Ergonomic Chair - Size CFeatures 8Z pellicle technologyThe back of the chair is broken up into 8 distinct zonesThe backrest is built to support your spineView On Amazon → Best Executive ChairSerta Ergonomic Executive Motion Technology ChairThe chair features a unique back with motion technologyOffers lower back support that reclines with your bodyComfy padded headrestView On Amazon → Best Task ChairErgohuman High Back Swivel Chair With HeadrestHas multiple ergonomic featuresHas a durable polypropylene/chrome base and nylon castersMade from 97% recyclable materialsView On Amazon → Best Drafting ChairHarwick Evolve All Mesh Heavy Duty Drafting ChairIt has pneumatic seat height adjustability2-to-1 Syncro tilt and tension controlWaterfall set edge that eases the pressure on your legsView On Amazon → Best Value ChairNouhaus Ergo3D Ergonomic Office Chair135-degree tilt control4D adjustable lumbar supportUnique 5-point baseView On Amazon → View the full article

Staff told of redundancies in 12-minute call as firm retreats from British legal practice expansion plansView the full article

In 1957, Hollywood released The Deadly Mantis, a B-grade monster movie starring a praying mantis of nightmare proportions. Its premise: Melting Arctic ice has released a very hungry, million-year-old megabug, and scientists and the U.S. military will have to stop it. The rampaging insect menaces America’s Arctic military outposts, part of a critical line of national defense, before heading south and meeting its end in New York City. Yes, it’s over-the-top fiction, but the movie holds some truth about the U.S. military’s concerns then and now about the Arctic’s stability and its role in national security. A poster advertises The Deadly Mantis, a movie released in 1957, a time when Americans worried about a Russian invasion. The film used military footage to promote the nation’s radar defenses along the Distant Early Warning line in the Arctic. [Image: IMDB] In the late 1940s, Arctic temperatures were warming and the Cold War was heating up. The U.S. military had grown increasingly nervous about a Soviet invasion across the Arctic. It built bases and a line of radar stations. The movie used actual military footage of these polar outposts. But officials wondered: What if sodden snow and vanishing ice stalled American men and machines and weakened these northern defenses? In response to those concerns, the military created the Snow, Ice and Permafrost Research Establishment, a research center dedicated to the science and engineering of all things frozen: glacier runways, the behavior of ice, the physics of snow and the climates of the past. It was the beginning of the military’s understanding that climate change couldn’t be ignored. Army engineers test the properties of snow on Greenland’s ice sheet in 1955, a critical determinant of mobility on the ice and one that changes rapidly with temperature and climate. [Photo: U.S. Army] As I was writing “When the Ice is Gone,” my recent book about Greenland, climate science and the U.S. military, I read government documents from the 1950s and 1960s showing how the Pentagon poured support into climate and cold-region research to boost the national defense. Initially, military planners recognized threats to their own ability to protect the nation. Over time, the U.S. military would come to see climate change as both a threat in itself and a threat multiplier for national security. Ice roads, ice cores and bases inside the ice sheet The military’s snow and ice engineering in the 1950s made it possible for convoys of tracked vehicles to routinely cross Greenland’s ice sheet, while planes landed and took off from ice and snow runways. In 1953, the Army even built a pair of secret surveillance sites inside the ice sheet, both equipped with Air Force radar units looking 24/7 for Soviet missiles and aircraft, but also with weather stations to understand the Arctic climate system. The public reveal of U.S. military bases somewhere—that remained classified—inside Greenland’s ice sheet, in the February 1955 edition of REAL. [Image: Paul Bierman collection] The Army drilled the world’s first deep ice core from a base it built within the Greenland ice sheet, Camp Century. Its goal: to understand how climate had changed in the past so they would know how it might change in the future. The military wasn’t shy about its climate change research successes. The Army’s chief ice scientist, Dr. Henri Bader, spoke on the Voice of America. He promoted ice coring as a way to investigate climates of the past, provide a new understanding of weather, and understand past climatic patterns to gauge and predict the one we are living in today – all strategically important. In the 1970s, painstaking laboratory work on the Camp Century ice core extracted minuscule amounts of ancient air trapped in tiny bubbles in the ice. Analyses of that gas revealed that levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere were lower for tens of thousands of years before the industrial revolution. After 1850, carbon dioxide levels crept up slowly at first and then rapidly accelerated. It was direct evidence that people’s actions, including burning coal and oil, were changing the composition of the atmosphere. Since 1850, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have spiked and global temperatures have warmed by more than 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit (1.3 Celsius). The past 10 years have been the hottest since recordkeeping began, with 2024 now holding the record. Climate change is now affecting the entire Earth – but most especially the Arctic, which is warming several times faster than the rest of the planet. Since 1850, global average temperature and carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere have risen together, reflecting human emissions of greenhouse gases. Red bars indicate warmer years; blue bars indicate colder years. [Image: NOAA] Seeing climate change as a threat multiplier For decades, military leaders have been discussing climate change as a threat and a threat multiplier that could worsen instability and mass migration in already fragile regions of the world. Climate change can fuel storms, wildfires and rising seas that threaten important military bases. It puts personnel at risk in rising heat and melts sea ice, creating new national security concerns in the Arctic. Climate change can also contribute to instability and conflict when water and food shortages trigger increasing competition for resources, internal and cross-border tensions, or mass migrations. The military understands that these threats can’t be ignored. As Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro told a conference in September 2024: “Climate resilience is force resilience.” A view of ships docked at the sprawling Naval Station Norfolk show how much of the region is within a few feet of sea level. [Photo: Petty Officer 2nd Class Christopher Stoltz/US Navy] Consider Naval Station Norfolk. It’s the largest military port facility in the world and sits just above sea level on Virginia’s Atlantic coast. Sea level there rose more than 1.5 feet in the last century, and it’s on track to rise that much again by 2050 as glaciers around the world melt and warming ocean water expands. High tides already cause delays in repair work, and major storms and their storm surges have damaged expensive equipment. The Navy has built sea walls and worked to restore coastal dunes and marshlands to protect its Virginia properties, but the risks continue to increase. Planning for the future, the Navy incorporates scientists’ projections of sea level rise and increasing hurricane strength to design more resilient facilities. By adapting to climate change, the U.S. Navy will avoid the fate of another famous marine power: the Norse, forced to abandon their flooded Greenland settlements when sea level there rose about 600 years ago. Norse ruins in Igaliku in southern Greenland, illustrated in the late 1800s while flooded at spring tide by sea level, which had risen since the settlement was abandoned around 1400. [Image: Steenstrup, K.J.V., and A. Kornerup. 1881. Expeditionen til Julianehaabs distrikt i 1876. MeddelelseromGrønland] Climate change is costly to ignore As the impacts of climate change grow in both frequency and magnitude, the costs of inaction are increasing. Most economists agree that it’s cheaper to act now than deal with the consequences. Yet, in the past 20 years, the political discourse around addressing the cause and effects of climate change has become increasingly politicized and partisan, stymieing effective action. In my view, the military’s approach to problem-solving and threat reduction provides a model for civil society to address climate change in two ways: reducing carbon emissions and adapting to inevitable climate change impacts. The U.S. military emits more planet warming carbon than Sweden and spent more than US$2 billion on energy in 2021. It accounts for more than 70% of energy used by the federal government. In that context, its embrace of alternative energy, including solar generation, microgrids and wind power, makes economic and environmental sense. The U.S. military is moving away from fossil fuels, not because of any political agenda, but because of the cost-savings, increased reliability and energy independence the alternatives provide. As sea ice melts and Arctic temperatures rise, the polar region has again become a strategic priority. Russia and China are expanding Arctic shipping routes and eyeing critical mineral deposits as they become accessible. The military knows climate change affects national security, which is why it continues to take steps to address the threats a changing climate presents. Paul Bierman is a fellow of the Gund Institute for Environment and professor of natural resources and environmental Science at the University of Vermont. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. View the full article

This post is part of our Home Remedy Handbook, a tour of the landscape of home remedies from the iffy to the doctor-approved. Read more here. Thanks to a loophole in the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938, some of the “drugs” you can buy at pharmacies are actually nothing but magic water. I am, I promise, not exaggerating. I don’t mean supplements, which are legal because they are considered to be not drugs. And I don’t mean foods that make iffy or overblown health claims (nothing as boring as that). I mean that you can walk into a pharmacy and pay seven dollars of legal tender for a “natural” kids cold & cough remedy and walk away with a bottle of mostly water—or at least what is hopefully mostly water. That bottle may bear a Drug Facts label and a seemingly factual statement that it “temporarily relieves symptoms of common cold in children.” And it does not contain any medicine. That’s because it isn’t formulated with modern medications, nor with medicinal quantities of herbs that are believed to have healing properties. Homeopathic drugs are just water (with or without alcohol or sugar) that have been imbued with the magical vibrations of substances that, if used straight, would make your symptoms worse. My friends: Homeopathy is not only nonsense—it is some of the wildest nonsense you will read about today. What the hell is homeopathy, really?Let’s step back in our time machine to 1796. A German physician, Samuel Hahnemann, was disappointed with the state of medicine at the time. This was the age of bloodletting, when doctors responded to illnesses by trying to balance the body’s “humors.” The treatments of the time often did more harm than good, so Hahnemann wasn’t necessarily wrong for wanting to find other ways of doctoring. But his alternative didn’t work, either. Remember, this is well before anybody knew that germs could cause illness, or that operating rooms should be clean, or that vitamins existed, or what made herbal medicines work (when they did). Clinical trials, as we know them, were not a standard tool of science or medicine. So, one day, Hahnemann ate some cinchona bark. This is the tree bark from South America that is now recognized as one of the first modern pharmaceuticals. It’s where we get quinine, the “tonic” in tonic water. We now know that a chemical found in the bark can kill the parasite that causes malaria. In the understanding of the time, though, all anybody knew was that taking this bark would cure your recurring fever. Hahnemann did not have malaria. He reportedly took notes on the symptoms he experienced from mildly overdosing on cinchona, which included weakness, trembling, and fever, among others. These sounded to him like the symptoms of malaria itself, and this observation led him to the “law of similars” that forms the basis for homeopathic medicine. According to this so-called law, the way you treat an illness is to find a substance that causes the same symptoms of that illness in healthy people. So how is that not making the sick person’s illness worse? Well, the (incorrect) theory goes: You separate the substance from the healing properties of that substance. You put the healing properties into water. Then you have magic water. How homeopathy is supposed to workFirst, you find a substance that can produce the same symptoms as the condition you are trying to treat. For example, coffee can give you jitters and sleeplessness, so a homeopathic medicine made from coffee is supposed to be an appropriate treatment for a hyperactive child, or a person with insomnia. Onion makes your eyes water and your nose run, so onion extract is used in homeopathic remedies with the intention of stopping your eyes from watering and your nose from running. Onion is actually one of the ingredients you may find in homeopathic children’s cold medicines—“Allium cepa 6X HPUS” means that a preparation made from onions was diluted in water at a ratio of 1:10. Then a small amount of that preparation was diluted at a 1:10 ratio, and so on, a total of six times. The result, if I have done my math right, is an onion-to-water ratio of one to one million. To be clear, we are not just diluting the onion water. We are “succusing” the water, or shaking it in a particular way, to transfer the memory of the onion into the water. Homeopaths—who, yes, exist today—are convinced that water does indeed have memory, and to them, the only question remaining is how to convince real scientists that this must be true. Since the water remembers the onion, homeopaths don’t need to worry whether or not there is any onion in the finished cold medicine—although the preparation is statistically likely to include a good bit of it. The dilution is only 6X. Homeopaths consider this number of dilutions to make a weak or mild medicine; to get the extra-strength stuff, you would need to dilute it more. This is no secret. The American Association of Homeopathic Pharmacists is happy to tell you that homeopathic preparations often contain none of their supposed active ingredient. In their FAQ, they answer the question “Can I take an overdose or too much of a homeopathic medicine?” by saying: "Because of the extremely small amount of highly diluted active ingredients, you need not worry about suffering an overdose by taking more homeopathic medicine than the recommended dosage. In dilutions above 8X or 4C, any toxic properties of the original substance have disappeared; the medicine is safe and sold over-the-counter (OTC)." And yes, that means “over-the-counter” as in something you can buy at your neighborhood pharmacy or your favorite big-box store. Look next to the regular cold medicines and pain relievers, and you’ll find homeopathic products from brands like Hyland’s and Boiron. Homeopathic "remedies" can be dangerousHomeopaths love to point out that the dilution keeps their products safe. But many homeopathic medicines are not diluted to extremes. We have already seen that there are products that are less diluted, like the 6X ingredients in our example. If that were something more toxic than onion, we might worry. And then there are products sold as “homeopathic” even though they contain a substantial amount of the active ingredient. I’ve seen arnica gel, for example, that is offered at a “1X” dilution. Sambucol sells elderberry products to treat colds where some are supplements (containing substantial amounts of elderberry) and others are homeopathic (containing little to no elderberry). You can tell the difference if you know how to read a Supplement Facts label versus a homeopathic Drug Facts label, but the fronts of the packages both seem to claim the same benefits. The law of similars would seem to dictate that these two products cannot possibly treat the same condition; in homeopathy world, if homeopathic elderberry cures a cold, then non-homeopathic elderberry would give you cold symptoms. But there is no FDA regulation requiring your marketing strategy to stick to a single theory of medicine. It really isn't fair for critics of homeopathy to say that these medicines are “just” water, since they are often not. And by the same token, it does not follow that homeopathic medicines are “safe” because they are diluted. In fact, products labeled as homeopathic have allegedly killed people. In 2016, the FDA investigated a brand of homeopathic teething tablets that was linked to the deaths of 10 infants and another 400 reports of adverse events like seizures. One of the ingredients was belladonna, or deadly nightshade. The FDA’s lab testing found that the tablets contained significant amounts of belladonna, often more than stated on the label, and warned people not to buy them. The company issued a recall in 2017, just like it had in 2010 when the same damn thing happened. Or to take another example, homeopathic nasal gels and nasal swabs contained enough zinc to cause people to permanently lose their sense of smell. The FDA issued warning letters, saying that even though the product is labeled as homeopathic, it does include zinc and the FDA is not aware of any trials showing zinc in the nose to be safe and effective. The dilution in that case was 2X, meaning the products had 0.1% zinc. How is any of this legal?Well, it’s sort of not. But the FDA also isn’t trying very hard to stop it. Homeopathic “drugs” got a carveout in the 1938 law that defined what, exactly, the FDA exists to regulate. Over the years, the FDA has struggled with the fact that drugs are defined as either drugs that work or remedies that were grandfathered in for being homeopathic. Homeopathic medicines aren’t tested with clinical trials. They rely on “provings,” in which the raw ingredients are given to healthy volunteers and their symptoms documented. According to homeopathic theory, no clinical trials are needed. And this isn’t just a loophole for over-the-counter drugs: There exist schools of homeopathy and private-practice homeopaths who will customize remedies to your particular temperament. (Remember, homeopathy is all about matching symptoms to symptoms; the cause of the illness, homeopaths will tell you, is irrelevant.) Over the years, the FDA has slowly come to terms with the fact that drugs are required to be safe and effective, and homeopathic drugs are not. I think my favorite moment—perhaps my favorite government document of all time—is when the Federal Trade Commission sent the FDA a spicy letter pointing out that it is, in fact, illegal for companies to lie about their products. The FDA finally decided in 2022 that they can, in fact, boot products off the market for being unsafe or ineffective. But instead of a blanket declaration that homeopathic products were thenceforth illegal, the agency stated that it would “focus its enforcement authorities” on products that seem to be particularly dangerous. Which means that a lot of this nonsense is still on store shelves and will stay there probably forever. How to avoid buying homeopathic products by accidentFirst of all, beware the stuff that seems too good to be true. For example, a lot of real medications that are appropriate for adults and older children aren’t OK for babies or toddlers. (Cough medicine, for example, is not for children under the age of four.) So homeopathy companies have pounced on this market because they know you want to buy some kind of cough medicine for your baby. And since most people don’t know what homeopathy is, you’ll probably look the box over and figure it must be legit. So here’s how to read the label: First, see if it’s a Drug Facts label or not. (Some of the products you’ll find in the drugstore are supplements, which may or may not be useful in some way. But supplements are not medicine.) Next, if it’s a Drug Facts label, look for these signs: Dilutions listed with a number and letter, like 6X or 20C The acronym HPUS next to an ingredient, which refers to the Homeopathic Pharmacopeia of the United States (a government-recognized giant database of bullshit) Ingredients with (usually) two-word Latin names, like “natrum muriaticum” (that one is sea salt) Some homeopathic products will include a disclaimer like “Claims based on traditional homeopathic practice, not accepted medical evidence.” A lot hides behind that Latin, by the way. Sometimes ingredients are plant extracts or chemical elements, and sometimes they are common items like onions or salt. In other cases, they are eye-of-newt caliber preparations, like the “Hepar Sulph Calc” in one cold medicine that is the inner layer of oyster shells, ground finely and cooked with sulfur. That’s a special recipe from Hahnemann himself. And to leave you with just one more “what the hell” moment for today, I’ll tell you about oscillococcinum, a homeopathic product you can commonly pick up at any neighborhood pharmacy. The ingredient is often listed as Anas barbariae, which is meant to refer to the Muscovy duck. (The Muscovy duck is now known by the scientific name Cairina moschata, so this isn’t even its scientific name, just a Latinized version of the common name.) Anyway, the reason this is sold to treat “flu-like symptoms” is because of a breathtakingly fantastical hypothesis, long disproven, about the cause of the flu. Today we know that influenza is caused by the influenza virus. But in 1920, viruses had yet to be discovered. Bacteria were known, though, so scientists were constantly looking through microscopes at blood and tissue samples from sick people, hoping to find the germ that would explain everything. As McGill University’s Office of Science and Society tells it: [Dr. Joseph] Roy naturally took a great interest in the flu and sought to solve its mysterious cause by examining the blood of victims under the microscope. He described seeing tiny microbes that darted or “oscillated” quickly back and forth. He named these “oscillococci” and claimed that they were also to be found in the blood of patients suffering from diseases as diverse as cancer, tuberculosis and gonorrhea. This “universal germ” as he called it, was responsible for many illnesses! If these oscillococci were causing the symptoms of disease, Roy concluded, then a homeopathic solution of the same should be curative. Yep, a vibrating microbe that causes all illness. Make a homeopathic preparation of that, and Bob’s your uncle! Now, how do you make a homeopathic preparation of that? Well, Roy thought he had found the same vibrating microbes in duck livers. (To this day, nobody knows what he actually saw. There are no vibrating microbes in duck livers—you can go look.) So you make a preparation from duck organs, dilute the heck out of it, infuse the resulting water into sugar pills, and sell those pills for $29.99 at Target. (A real price I just confirmed. God, I wish I were making this up.) You know what actually works for cases of flu that are mild enough to treat at home? Fluids. Rest. Maybe a little saline to flush out the mucus in your nose. You know: home remedies. View the full article

Right pricing for the right clients. By Jody Padar Radical Pricing – By The Radical CPA Go PRO for members-only access to more Jody Padar. View the full article

Right pricing for the right clients. By Jody Padar Radical Pricing – By The Radical CPA Go PRO for members-only access to more Jody Padar. View the full article

Are you guilty of any of these? By Ed Mendlowitz Tax Season Opportunity Guide Go PRO for members-only access to more Edward Mendlowitz. View the full article

Are you guilty of any of these? By Ed Mendlowitz Tax Season Opportunity Guide Go PRO for members-only access to more Edward Mendlowitz. View the full article

Billionaire businessman, investor, former shark, and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban knows a bit about running a company and leading employees. The serial entrepreneur has founded and invested in successful businesses from food brands to tech startups and pretty much everything in between. Cuban often shares his insights about sweat equity and staying involved in running one’s own business. Here are three of the most actionable pearls of leadership wisdom from Mark Cuban—and how you can put these quotes into action in your own leadership. 1. Embrace Sweat Equity “Sweat equity is the most valuable equity there is.” Put simply, “sweat equity” is the value you create through your own hard work. This might be the unpaid work you put into researching your competitor’s products, perfecting your public-speaking skills, getting to know your customers, or recruiting the best employees for your company. Your time and your effort don’t cost you anything, and pouring both into your work can make all the difference. As a leader, you should also encourage your employees to contribute their sweat equity. This doesn’t mean forcing unpaid overtime, of course. According to Cuban, the key to leadership is knowing your employees and finding out how their goals and the business’s goals align. Maybe you have an employee who wants to get into videography and your company’s marketing could benefit from some custom videos. Perhaps someone wants to move into management in the future, and there’s a cross-functional project they could manage. Mark Cuban isn’t the only successful leader who embraces the idea of sweat equity. Other business leaders who have spoken on the value of hard work are: Warren Buffett, CEO and chairperson of Berkshire Hathaway (aka the “Oracle of Omaha”) Dan Graham, cofounder and CEO of BuildASign.com Justin Gray, founder and CEO of five successful companies 2. Be the Expert in Your Field “Know your business and industry better than anyone else in the world.” There are countless ways to boost your knowledge through effort rather than financial investment, making learning one of the most valuable ways to build sweat equity. The more you know about your business and industry, the more you, as a leader, will be ready for any problem or decision that comes your way. “What I’ve learned is that if you really want to be successful at something, you’ll find that you put the time in,” Cuban said at the 2017 Inc. 5000 Conference. “You won’t just ask somebody if it’s a good idea, you’ll go figure out if it’s a good idea.” You can work continuous learning into your life by: Keeping a running list of any new ideas or concepts you come across so you know which topics you want to learn Breaking new topics down into subtopics that you can learn in small bursts when you have the time Scheduling regular learning time—whether it’s a scheduled course, a set hour a day, or a few hours each weekend Continuous learning is also an important practice for staying ahead of industry trends. You could: Follow others in your industry on social media and pay attention to new topics Attend industry events and network regularly Use frequent customer and employee surveys Invite your employees to share new trends they come across 3. Lead with Passion and Purpose “Love what you do or don’t do it.” If you’re truly passionate about your work, putting in the sweat equity will be a lot easier. If you’re bored every time you read about a new development in your field—it’s not the field for you, and it’s going to be hard to put in the work you need to really thrive. Think about your values. What truly drives you? Are you living out those values in your work? For example, if you value helping others, are you consistently soliciting customer and employee feedback and acting on it? If you value recognition, are you going after awards in your field? Not everyone will be as excited about your passions as you are, of course, but passionate leaders can inspire employees. Speak openly with your employees about your vision and you’re more likely to get their buy-in. Check in with those you lead to find out where their passions lie and see how they align with your goals. “Leadership is having a vision,” Cuban said on The Draymond Green Show. “What’s my goal? Part two is getting to know the people who are working with me, and what their goals are. And then the real definition of leadership is making those two merge.” Conclusion: The Cuban Formula for Success Cuban’s advice can be boiled down to three key principles: Hard work Constant learning Passion Living out these principles will not only make you more effective at your job, but inspire your employees to do the same—as long as you give them the tools and support they need. View the full article

Shopify is one of the most impressive internet success stories. According to BuiltWith, the Canadian ecommerce giant now powers almost five million stores worldwide. Merchants choose Shopify for its ease of use, robust features, scalability, and cost-effectiveness. Let’s go over the main reasons for choosing Shopify. Table of contents What is Shopify and what does it do? How does Shopify work? 7 Key benefits of choosing Shopify Unique selling points of Shopify Considerations before choosing Shopify These are the main reasons to choose Shopify What is Shopify and what does it do? Shopify is an ecommerce platform that has everything under one roof. It’s a cloud-based solution that lets merchants create, customize, and manage online stores without issues. Shopify focuses heavily on ease of use and functionality, and with the thought of having businesses run an online business without technical expertise. Shopify has quickly become one of the most popular ecommerce platforms. For instance, Shopify dominates the US market, with a market share of around 30%. It helps by easily serving businesses of all shapes and sizes, from small startups to large enterprises. Choosing the right ecommerce platform is critical to your online success. There are many good reasons to choose Shopify, as it’s versatile, user-friendly, and scalable. It’s a good solution for most businesses and even comes with tools like Yoast SEO for Shopify that help you with your content marketing and SEO efforts. Primary features and services of Shopify One of Shopify’s main features is hosting and scalability. As a managed hosting solution, Shopify offers fast and reliable performance for your pages. Its infrastructure can handle traffic spikes and high-demand sales peaks like those during Black Friday sales. Next, Shopify is well-known for its template and customization options. The theme store has over 240 themes, all of which are mobile-friendly. You even get a selection of industry-specific themes to help businesses get online quickly. Another strong aspect of Shopify is its tools section and the way it integrates with nearly everything. The app store has almost any app you need, from Shopify SEO tools like Yoast SEO to inventory management options. This breadth of options is very impressive. Last but not least, Shopify makes it easy to manage payments and financial transactions. It runs its own payment gateway, Shopify Payments, but it also supports various third-party payment processors. These options together form a fully formed product that helps merchants with everything from server management to brand building and marketing. No wonder so many merchants choose Shopify as their ecommerce platform. How does Shopify work? Shopify’s intuitive platform makes starting and running an ecommerce store very easy. It doesn’t matter if you sell just one product or thousands — the software makes it accessible for every type of merchant. Simple setup process One of Shopify’s most impressive aspects is the setup. Entrepreneurs can literally launch an online store within a few hours — without prior technical know-how. The platform offers easy-to-use tools that work by simply dragging and dropping elements. In addition, it offers user-friendly walkthroughs to guide merchants through the process. There are pre-built themes to get started with quickly, and buying premium themes from the Shopify Theme Store is also possible. Effortless management Shopify has a clearly organized admin dashboard. Store owners can track orders, manage inventory, and check customer data in a single place. Merchants also enjoy the automation features. For instance, it automatically calculates taxes, handles shipping integrations, and manages checkout processes — a huge time saver! Of course, as we live in the mobile age, Shopify offers mobile app access. Merchants can manage their stores on the go, so they don’t have to miss anything when they are out and about. We’ve already mentioned that Shopify store themes all scale with and perform properly on mobile devices. All of these possibilities make Shopify a very good solution for most stores. Even a solo entrepreneur can build and manage a professional store without issues. This makes it a far more accessible option than platforms like WooCommerce or Adobe Commerce. 7 Key benefits of choosing Shopify Shopify’s impressive features, scalability, and customer-centric design stand out. Here are some key reasons merchants choose Shopify as their preferred ecommerce platform. 1. The user-friendly interface Time and time again, Shopify merchants mention that the clean, intuitive interface is the most important reason for choosing this ecommerce platform. Shopify is one of the most user-friendly e-commerce builders out there, and it’s intuitive for beginners and powerful for experienced users. Shopify has an innovative drag-and-drop builder that lets merchants customize the store layout and product pages without coding. The admin interface is clearly organized and simple, even for non-developers. Thanks to Shopify’s guided setup and well-designed templates, business owners can quickly move from concept to live store. In addition, the admin panel gives an easy-to-understand overview of the store’s performance so merchants can manage orders and inventory without issues. Shopify’s easy-to-use interface makes it a joy to work with 2. Shopify AI Magic One of the newest benefits is Shopify Magic, an AI-powered solution that makes work easier and more fun. For instance, it has an image editor that automatically cleans up and optimizes product images, and a content generation tool that uses generative AI to write FAQs, product descriptions, and blogs. Email improvements also help dynamically tailor email campaigns for higher engagement rates. Shopify also has Sidekick, an AI assistant that can help you get more done in your store. This chatbot answers all your questions and advises you on your specific situation, as it knows everything about your store. As a result, you have more time to focus on important things like strategy. 3. Flexible and scalable Another big benefit of choosing Shopify as an ecommerce platform is its flexibility and scalability. Shopify can grow with a merchant and offers options for large and small businesses. It has an affordable pricing structure. The $29/month plan helps small businesses get online quickly without investing too much. For large businesses, there’s Shopify Plus, which supports global enterprise brands like Heinz and Gymshark. This plan offers advanced features like a multi-store setup, custom checkout-out options, and very high API limits. Shopify is also very proud of its 99.98% uptime guarantee, which keeps stores online even in the busiest seasons. 4. Integrated payment solutions Another big benefit of Shopify is its ability to simplify payment processes for clients worldwide. It hosts its own payment system, Shopify Payments, a hassle-free payment gateway. Shopify includes this in the subscription costs, and there are no set-up fees, just the going credit card and transaction fees. Shopify also supports over a hundred payment integrations, from Stripe to PayPal. 5. Robust app ecosystem Shopify is a very extendable ecommerce platform. It has an excellent app store, where developers offer a wide range of good apps that improve and expand what Shopify can do. Currently, over 10,000 apps are available in the app store, and new ones are arriving daily. Many of these apps integrate deeply with Shopify, allowing marketing automation and personalization that can increase sales. Merchants can install apps to recover abandoned carts, upsell related products, or integrate with CRM and advertising platforms. Merchants can find apps for nearly everything. Some of the most popular ones are Oberlo for dropshipping, Klaviya and Mailchimp for email marketing, Judge.me and Loox for product and store reviews, and PageFly for building custom landing pages. This extendability helps merchants scale their work whenever they need it most. Shopify has over 10.000 apps in its app store 6. Comprehensive support Running an online store is difficult enough without having to worry about technical issues. Luckily, Shopify helps remove that worry with 24/7 technical and customer support. Merchants can access professional assistance via live chat, email, or phone. In addition, it offers loads of learning material in the form of Shopify Academy, community forums, and tutorials. Business owners can quickly learn to make the most of their online stores. 7. Yoast SEO for Shopify Shopify comes with all merchants need to run their stores, including tools to improve search engine visibility. While SEO is always in Shopify’s mind, it is good to think beyond the basics that the e-commerce platform offers. Getting traffic is too important to leave it to chance. Yoast SEO for Shopify is the perfect tool for merchants looking to get that traffic. This Shopify app is built by a team of SEO experts with decades of experience. Yoast SEO has innovative features like real-time SEO suggestions, helping you optimize your pages and products with actionable insights. Or enhanced structured data for your products to make these stand out in Google. Yoast SEO for Shopify also helps you write better product content. Enter your focus keyword and use the feedback to make your product descriptions stand out. A readability analysis also helps you make the content as readable for your customers as possible. There’s a Semrush integration to get keyword data from the editor and AI-powered features to automate some parts of the optimization process. Combining Shopify’s framework with Yoast SEO makes your store accessible to search engines and customers. Optimize your products with Yoast SEO for Shopify to make them stand out Unique selling points of Shopify Shopify has a lot going for it as an ecommerce platform, and there are more things it does to stay ahead of the competition. Multi-channel selling One reason Shopify could be chosen over the competition is its ability to sell across multiple channels. Multi-channel options allow merchants to sell their products on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, with all the management and insights happening on the main dashboard. Shopify also has point-of-sale options that help merchants offer in-store sales and integrate online and offline. Shopify can sync listings to third-party platforms like Amazon, eBay, or Google Shopping, increasing merchants’ visibility. The platform also has many more options for going omnichannel with your store, which makes it a great fit for managing everything all at once. Strong security and reliability Trust is an important aspect of ecommerce. Merchants need to trust ecommerce platforms with their data and trust that they keep it safe and sound. Luckily, Shopify is working hard to provide store owners with a secure shopping environment. Shopify is certified Level 1 PCI-DSS compliant, the highest level of payment security standard, which helps protect customer data. It also has built-in fraud detection features that minimize the risk of chargeback. Compared to hosted platforms like WooCommerce, Shopify automatically handles almost every security aspect. This gives merchants peace of mind that their customer’s data is safe. Considerations before choosing Shopify Shopify is an all-around great ecommerce platform, but there are some things to remember when merchants choose between the many other options. For one, Shopify’s pricing is decent, with basic monthly plans starting at $29. Still, the cost can add up when you want to add apps, third-party integrations, or want to have a custom theme developed. However, Shopify is often easier to set up and cheaper to run compared to platforms like Adobe Commerce. Another consideration is the platform’s limitations. Shopify is closed software, so store owners have limited code access. WordPress solutions like WooCommerce might be better if openness is an issue. These are the main reasons to choose Shopify Shopify provides a great combination of ease of use, scalability, and features that help merchants thrive. It doesn’t matter if you run a simple store with a small budget or juggle millions of dollars; Shopify has the necessary solutions. It grows with your needs and offers you many options and possibilities to make the most of your business. Moreover, if you add Yoast SEO for Shopify to your store, you can boost visibility on Google, hopefully translating to more traffic and business growth. So, why wait? Sign up for a free trial with Shopify, add Yoast SEO to your store, and get your business on the road! The post Reasons to choose Shopify as your ecommerce platform appeared first on Yoast. View the full article

Government demands to access encrypted data via back doors will leave it vulnerable to hacks, breaches and theft View the full article

Join us as we dive into the advanced techniques top brands use to enhance search performance and skyrocket conversions. The post High-Quality Conversions: How To Optimize Your Website & Boost Growth appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

Converting a .pdf to a .docx and back again may seem like a quick and easy thing you can do online for free—but that doesn't mean it's safe. A new notice from the FBI Denver Field Office warns that some online document converters are also loading malware onto unsuspecting users' computers, giving bad actors access to your device and your data. The tools may also scrape files submitted for conversion for sensitive information, such as Social Security numbers, birthdates, email addresses, passwords or tokens to bypass multi-factor authentication, banking information, and cryptocurrency seed phrases and wallet addresses. How to spot malicious file convertersThis scheme may be easy to miss, as the malicious file converters will do what they advertise, such as converting a .docx to a .pdf or joining multiple files into one. However, the file you download may contain hidden ransomware, adware, or riskware that exposes your computer to attackers. You may also be prompted to download a conversion tool (that is actually malware) to your device or install a malicious browser extension. According to a Malwarebytes Labs report on the scam, the following domains have been found to contain malware: Imageconvertors[.]com (Phishing) convertitoremp3[.]it (Riskware) convertisseurs-pdf[.]com (Riskware) convertscloud[.]com (Phishing) convertix-api[.]xyz (Trojan) convertallfiles[.]com (Adware) freejpgtopdfconverter[.]com (Riskware) primeconvertapp[.]com (Riskware) 9convert[.]com (Riskware) Convertpro[.]org (Riskware) While these are known scams, that doesn't mean there aren't other free, malware-containing file converters out there waiting to infect your device. The best thing you can do is avoid these tools entirely and utilize trusted software instead. But if you suspect you've been exposed, start by taking basic steps to secure your identity, including changing passwords using a clean, trusted device, and running an anti-malware program to catch any threats. How to convert files safelyWhen you need to quickly convert from one document type to another, you may be tempted to google "free file converter" and click on whatever comes up—but don't. Instead, start with the software or applications you have that can open the file, and check if you can export or save it in a different format (look under File > Export or File > Save As). Microsoft Office and many PDF editors have this functionality, or you can use Adobe's free tools to convert to and from a PDF, as well as a handful of other document converters available for free. Remember that when you convert files, you may lose some formatting in the process. View the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Bang & Olufsen’s Beosound A1 (2nd Gen) is a speaker that packs a serious punch for its size. Normally priced at $299.99, it’s down to $139.99 on Woot for the next 13 days or until stock runs out—and if you have Amazon Prime, shipping is free. Non-Prime members will have to pay $6, but either way, it’s only available to the contiguous U.S. (no shipping to Alaska, Hawaii, or PO boxes). Bang & Olufsen’s Beosound A1 (2nd Gen) $139.99 at Woot $299.99 Save $160.00 Get Deal Get Deal $139.99 at Woot $299.99 Save $160.00 PCMag gave this Bluetooth speaker an Editor’s Choice award when it launched in 2020, and it’s still a strong contender today. At just 1.2 pounds, the Beosound A1 is not exactly light for its size, though it comes with a leather lanyard for easy carrying. With an IP67 rating that can handle dust, sand, and submersion, it's ready to accompany you on outdoor adventures. Setup is handled through the Bang & Olufsen app, which also enables its built-in Alexa—though you’ll need to link accounts first. It's Bluetooth 5.1-compatible with support for AAC and AptX Adaptive codecs, though it doesn’t have LDAC support for high-res listening. The battery life of the Beosound A1 is rated at 18 hours, but that’ll depend on your volume settings. This little speaker gets loud, driven by a 3.5-inch woofer and a 0.4-inch tweeter, both powered by dedicated 30-watt Class D amps. The result is a deep bass (enough to shake a table but without the speaker itself moving around) that stays full even at moderate to high volumes. It’s a bass-heavy tuning, which makes sense given its size—though at max volume, the DSP kicks in to prevent distortion, thinning out the sound slightly, notes the PCMag review. Its frequency range of 55Hz-20kHz means you’ll get solid lows and clear highs, but don’t expect a perfectly balanced studio monitor sound. The app’s EQ adjustment isn’t the most intuitive, using a circular chart instead of sliders, but it offers some control over tuning. If you’re looking for something newer with the latest Bluetooth tech (and one that's a little more budget-friendly), the Beats Pill is currently $99.99 (down from $149.95) and might be worth considering instead. View the full article

Generative AI is rewriting the SEO playbook. The days of simply ranking high and earning clicks are fading and being replaced by a zero-click reality where the search journey is fragmented across multiple touchpoints. Google still dominates the search market, but AI-powered answer engines have quickly emerged as alternative discovery tools. ChatGPT alone has seen impressive growth, doubling its users in the past six months alone. As of February 2025, it has 400 million weekly active users. Visibility now comes down to being a part of the answers users see – wherever they search – and whether or not they click. Some might say it’s time to prepare for the future of search. But let’s get real. That future isn’t coming; it’s already here. This article shows how AI-driven search differs from traditional search and how to blend generative engine optimization (GEO) with SEO to stay ahead. What GEO is and how it works with SEO. How AI search is different from traditional search. Why rankings don’t guarantee visibility in AI search. Why authority is built through brand mentions, not backlinks. How LLMs learn and predict responses. How AI retrieves real-time information to ground responses with RAG. Optimizing retrievability: Presence + recognition + accessibility. The multichannel reality of GEO. How to integrate GEO with SEO. On-page SEO. Off-page SEO. Technical SEO. GEO + SEO: Welcome to your new playbook. What GEO is and how it works with SEO GEO is the process of optimizing an entity (whether that’s your brand, products, concepts, people, or ideas) to appear in AI-generated responses across features and tools like ChatGPT, Google’s AI Overviews, Gemini, and Perplexity. SEO and GEO are partners, each playing distinct yet interconnected roles: SEO provides the foundational layer for discoverability in search engines while evolving strategically for visibility in AI search. GEO blends on-site content strategies with efforts that extend beyond your website. It focuses on establishing brand recognition and a consistent presence across influential datasets, authoritative industry sources, and trusted knowledge hubs that shape AI’s training data and retrieval sources. Together, SEO and GEO form a cohesive strategy that aims to position your brand and related entities in the spaces that AI turns to for information. How AI search is different from traditional search Traditional search revolves around three core stages: Crawlability: How effectively search engines can access and read your content. Indexability: Whether your content meets the criteria to be stored in their index. Rankability: How well your content can rank within traditional search results. It’s a familiar dance that SEOs have mastered over the years. But AI-driven search introduces a new one into the mix: retrievability. Retrievability represents how effectively AI can access, interpret, and prioritize information about your brand when forming responses. As Crystal Carter, head of SEO communications at Wix Studio, explains: “As SEOs, we do not need to abandon the tactics we’ve always relied on, but we do need to evolve them. Where in the past we looked at crawlability, indexability, and stopped at rankability, we now need to add in retrievability. That is, taking extra steps to make sure that core information about our brands is available, accessible, and prioritized for LLMs.” – “Investigating ChatGPT Search: Insights from 80 Million Clickstream Records,” Semrush Blog Retrievability matters because it directly influences whether your brand appears within AI’s answers – answers that aren’t dictated solely by traditional rankings. Let’s unpack exactly why traditional rankings alone aren’t enough to secure visibility in AI search. Why rankings don’t guarantee visibility in AI search If your goal is visibility within generative AI responses, it’s time to shift your thinking away from traditional “ranking.” Many brands still assume that ranking at the top of traditional search results automatically means visibility within generative AI models. But the reality is that it’s not that simple. Sure, ranking well in search engines still matters, especially for search-powered large language models (LLMs) like Perplexity, ChatGPT search, and features like Google’s AI Overviews. But ranking alone won’t guarantee visibility in AI search. Why? Because LLMs don’t rank the way traditional search engines do. Instead, they build responses dynamically by recognizing patterns in context and making connections between words, ideas, and entities. This pushes us to rethink what “authority” really means in an AI-first landscape. Why authority is built through brand mentions, not backlinks For years, SEO has focused heavily on backlinks as the go-to method of building authority. High-quality links have acted as signals of trust, credibility, and relevance, directly influencing your search rankings. They still hold value in the right contexts. But the rules of authority have fundamentally changed. AI recognizes authority through contextual relevance, entity associations, and consistent brand mentions in authoritative sources. In short, mentions in influential conversations now carry tremendous weight. To fully grasp why brand mentions are so powerful, let’s dig into exactly how AI models generate their responses. Dig deeper: AI optimization: How to optimize your content for AI search and agents How LLMs learn and predict responses LLMs build their foundational knowledge by ingesting vast amounts of content from various unstructured data sources. During training, they identify patterns based on how often and in what contexts specific words and entities appear together. When you ask an LLM a question, it’s not searching through a database of facts. Instead, it uses its understanding of entities to predict what words should logically come next in the response. For example, let’s say you ask an LLM: “What is Nike known for?” The model processes your query and references patterns it has learned about the entity, “Nike” – specifically, words that commonly appear alongside the brand in relevant contexts. It then dynamically generates a ranked set of possible following words or phrases, each with an estimated probability. Hypothetically, here’s how this might look: Because “innovation” has the highest probability in this example, the model might respond with: “Nike is known for innovation.” But slight changes in wording or context could shift the response to: “Nike is known for sportswear.” “Nike is known for athletic footwear.“ “Nike is known for sneakers.” “Nike is known for branding.” Each response AI gives is generated dynamically, guided by the context of the query, and learned probability patterns. Because Nike consistently appears alongside words like “innovation,” “sportswear,” and “branding” in trusted, authoritative contexts within training data, these associations are reinforced over time. The takeaway for your brand? Frequent, contextually relevant mentions alongside core products, concepts, and well-known entities enhance your brand’s recognition in LLMs. Ultimately, when these mentions accumulate across influential industry discussions and widely referenced datasets, they help shape how AI understands your expertise. If you’re curious to dive deeper into the details of how ChatGPT makes its predictions, I highly recommend Stephen Wolfram’s excellent explanation in “What Is ChatGPT Doing … and Why Does It Work?” Rand Fishkin recently shared it on LinkedIn, and it’s a fantastic resource that reinforces exactly why strategic mentions carry so much weight in AI-driven search. Dig deeper: How to implement generative engine optimization (GEO) strategies How AI retrieves real-time information to ground responses with RAG Some advanced LLMs go a step further by integrating their foundational knowledge with real-time information through retrieval-augmented generation (RAG). Think of RAG as a research assistant for AI. The model uses its foundational knowledge to form the initial context and then dynamically retrieves real-time insights from web search indexes or other external databases. The sources they prioritize typically include: Timely and authoritative news websites. Reputable industry publications. Established knowledge platforms. Discussion forums. Knowledge graphs. As such, optimizing your brand’s presence across these sources is essential for influencing how your information is retrieved and shaping the responses generated by AI. Get the newsletter search marketers rely on. Business email address Sign me up! Processing... See terms. Optimizing retrievability: Presence + recognition + accessibility Retrievability is the key to visibility in AI search. It defines how well AI can access, interpret, and prioritize your brand’s information when generating responses. This optimization framework will guide your GEO strategies and position your brand for success. Presence Ensuring your brand is consistently mentioned in the right places and contexts that shape AI’s training data and retrieval sources. Recognition Building credibility through consistent, contextually relevant mentions, clear associations with trusted entities, and strategic content so AI sees your brand as a recognized, authoritative voice within your space. Accessibility Structuring your brand’s information both on your website and across the web so AI can easily retrieve and prioritize core information about you and your entities when generating responses. The multichannel reality of GEO Building your brand’s presence and recognition requires close collaboration across digital marketing teams. No single channel wins AI search alone. To position your brand strategically wherever influential discussions are happening in your niche, SEO teams need to work alongside: Owned media. Earned media. Digital PR. Branding. Social media. Creative teams. Each discipline plays a vital role in shaping visibility. And real success happens when every channel works toward a common goal. Bottom line: GEO is a team sport. How to integrate GEO with SEO Now that we’ve explored how LLMs learn, predict responses, and why retrievability matters, let’s dive into exactly how to weave these insights into your existing SEO pillars. On-page SEO Integrating GEO into your on-page SEO strategy doesn’t mean throwing out everything you already know. All that great advice about creating relevant and valuable content for your audience still rings true. Good content has always been about the user first, and that’s not going away. But your content now has another audience: the AI that powers generative search. Think of your website as a training ground. Your content isn’t just ranking and engaging readers anymore; it’s actively teaching AI about your expertise, your relevance, and your role within larger industry conversations. The strategy expands to emphasize structured, entity-driven content that influences how AI recognizes and references your brand. Here’s your playbook for evolving your on-page SEO strategy: Build topical authority with entity-rich content Pinpoint core topics and essential entities in your space. Structure content into clear, interconnected topic clusters around comprehensive pillar pages. Produce pieces to fill gaps in the content across your site and within the industry, ensuring you cover the entire search journey. Reference widely known entities, concepts, and experts in your niche to strengthen recognition. Reinforce entity relationships through strategic linking Internally link content to strengthen how AI associates related entities. Externally link to and cite authoritative, AI-recognized sources to build contextual associations. Create contextually relevant content aligned with evolving user intent Regularly review AI-generated responses around your core topics to identify shifts in user intent and context. Identify and close any content gaps based on AI’s current understanding of these topics. Refine and expand existing content to clearly, concisely, and comprehensively address user queries and intent. Create content optimized for long-tail queries and natural, question-based language. Establish thought leadership through research-driven insights Publish unique insights, original research, or data-backed reports to inspire citations and mentions. Cite reliable, credible sources in your content to reinforce trustworthiness. Highlight expert quotes and opinions clearly to strengthen the authority of your insights. Structure content for AI processing Use clear content formats like FAQs, bullet points, step-by-step instructions, and tables. Prioritize straightforward, concise, and natural language for efficient processing and retrieval. Use simple sentence structure when discussing your brand’s entities and expertise to clearly define associations. Keep your content timely and relevant Track real-time discussions on platforms like Reddit, Quora, social channels, and niche forums. Regularly update content to reflect trending topics, emerging questions, and shifting industry conversations. Determine the queries triggering search in hybrid LLMs and prioritize keeping that content fresh. Dig deeper: How to optimize your 2025 content strategy for AI-powered SERPs and LLMs Off-page SEO Integrating GEO into your off-page SEO strategy takes a fresh approach to building authority and recognition across the web. It’s like being at the right party with the right people. When your brand consistently shows up in the right contexts alongside well-known industry concepts and established entities in your space, AI begins to recognize you as a credible player in those discussions. Here’s your playbook for evolving your off-page SEO strategy: Identify and target AI-trusted sources in your niche Figure out where your audience and AI overlap. Think major industry websites, trusted niche publications, authoritative forums, and influential communities. Prioritize earning contextual brand mentions in these key spaces to directly shape how AI recognizes your relevance and authority. Stay actively involved in these discussions to continually reinforce your brand’s position as a trusted industry voice. Use digital PR to influence the conversations that shape AI’s understanding See which publications AI consistently references for your target topics and queries, and intentionally pursue mentions in those spaces. Build genuine relationships with journalists, influential bloggers, and respected voices in your niche who drive meaningful industry conversations. Produce insightful, original research or thought leadership content designed to naturally earn citations and reinforce your authority in spaces AI trusts. Maintain consistency in brand representation across all channels Ensure your brand messaging, descriptions, and associations are consistent everywhere your brand is mentioned across the web. Reinforce clear and repeated associations with key industry entities, topics, and concepts to help AI clearly understand who your brand is and why you matter. Strengthen your Knowledge Graph presence If your brand meets notability criteria, optimize your Wikipedia presence to ensure content accuracy and reference credible external sources. Regularly update Wikidata entries with precise, detailed information to clarify your brand’s connections to related entities and topics. Actively manage your Google Business Profile to solidify your brand’s structured presence and credibility within Google’s Knowledge Graph. Dig deeper: When and how to use knowledge graphs and entities for SEO Proactively engage in topical and real-time conversations Join timely, relevant conversations happening right now across influential forums like Reddit, Quora, niche forums, and social channels. Monitor these spaces regularly to quickly identify opportunities and add valuable, relevant perspectives. Position your brand at the center of emerging trends and conversations that AI references. Continuously track, learn, and adapt your strategy Monitor how your brand appears in AI-generated content to track your visibility and the effectiveness of your efforts. Regularly refine your off-page approach based on what you learn and quickly adapt to shifts in how AI perceives your brand. Dig deeper: Reactive PR & AI – How to capitalize on trending topics faster Technical SEO Integrating GEO into your technical SEO strategy doesn’t require reinventing the wheel. The core technical principles that have always mattered just need to be fully optimized for how AI retrieves and processes information. Your website’s technical structure should act as a clear road map, making it effortless for both AI and your audience to understand your expertise and access your most valuable insights. These best practices have long supported search visibility, but they’re now non-negotiable in a world where AI models dynamically process content, prioritize structured data, and retrieve real-time insights. Here’s your playbook for evolving your technical SEO strategy: Keep data simple and clear Use straightforward HTML, limiting complex JavaScript for important content. Write clear, descriptive metadata to highlight the content’s key topics. Clearly organize your content semantically, making your pages easy for AI to understand. Use structured data to enhance entity recognition and retrieval Implement schema markup (Organization, Person, Product, Article) to reinforce entity relationships. Use structured data strategically to make key brand information easier to retrieve. Ensure your brand and concepts are clearly defined in markup to establish relevance. Prioritize site speed and performance Optimize images and scripts, and leverage content delivery networks. Regularly improve Core Web Vitals, ensuring your site loads quickly and reliably. Enable browser caching to deliver consistent experiences. Help AI easily crawl your content Explicitly allow AI crawlers (GPTBot, PerplexityBot, etc.) via robots.txt. Regularly fix crawl issues like broken links and blocked resources. Use structured XML sitemaps strategically to guide AI to your best content. Optimize media assets for multimodal visibility Give images and videos descriptive file names and clear alt text. Leverage OpenGraph tags and schema markup to enhance visibility in AI previews. Include accurate transcripts and captions for video content to assist processing. How to measure success in AI-driven search One of the biggest changes with AI-driven search is how we measure success. Traditional SEO KPIs like rankings, click-through rate, and traffic don’t fully capture what’s actually happening anymore. People are using more nuanced, hyperspecific queries, and many of these zero-click interactions aren’t tracked through traditional methods. Adding to the challenge, AI platforms aren’t yet transparent about how they drive visibility. Instead of waiting on better data, it’s up to us to find new ways to measure how people see and engage with our brands in AI-powered environments. Here’s the reality we’re facing: Rankings don’t capture the whole story: Queries are now hyperpersonalized, often with little measurable search volume, even when they trigger AI-generated responses. Traditional tracking doesn’t capture how your brand actually appears in these contexts. Traffic is dropping, but demand isn’t: Zero-click searches are lowering organic traffic, but brands are still being discovered through AI. We just have to measure differently. Branded searches are rising: Many people now start searches with AI tools and then head directly to Google to find brands they’ve discovered along the way. A study by Rand Fishkin highlights that over 44% of Google searches are for branded terms, which confirms that AI is reshaping, instead of replacing, traditional search habits. Here’s your playbook for evolving your metrics to capture true GEO impact: Look beyond rankings to impressions and visibility Track your presence in AI Overviews, knowledge panels, discussions, and featured snippets. Impressions used to feel like a vanity metric, but now they help reflect your visibility within zero-click AI-generated answers. Even without clicks, strong impressions indicate that your brand is surfacing exactly where your audience is discovering information. Focus on branded engagement, not just traffic Monitor branded search volume, direct traffic, and returning visitors as indicators your brand was initially discovered through AI. A rise in branded searches shows your visibility across the search ecosystem is successfully creating demand. Prioritize real business outcomes: leads, conversions, and revenue Are leads stable or increasing? Are conversions and revenue strong despite declining organic traffic? Steady or growing conversions signal your brand is effectively visible and influential across AI-driven discovery. Track referral traffic from AI tools Set up regex filters in GA4 to capture visits from ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and others: (.*gpt.*|.*chatgpt.*|.*openai.*|.*neeva.*|.*writesonic.*|.*nimble.*|.*outrider.*|.*perplexity.*|.*google.*bard.*|.*bard.*|.*edgeservices.*|.*gemini.*google.*|.*copilot.*) Even though AI-generated answers don’t always send direct clicks, tracking helps you identify content that’s resonating within these platforms. Dig deeper: How to segment traffic from LLMs in GA4 Monitor AI citations and mentions Regularly check how your brand appears in AI-generated responses across platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, etc. Use automated workflows (e.g., Google Sheets + ChatGPT API) to track and analyze these references consistently at scale. While things continue to evolve, tracking these metrics can help you clearly see how your efforts are shaping your brand’s reach and visibility. GEO + SEO: Welcome to your new playbook Ultimately, SEO and GEO aren’t separate games anymore. They’re two essential halves of your brand’s visibility puzzle in an AI-first landscape. Your traditional SEO foundation remains strong and vital, but now it needs GEO as its partner to amplify your reach across generative search experiences. Forget trying to “hack” AI visibility. Focus instead on building topical authority through strategic content and a strong digital identity that AI naturally gravitates toward. Show up authentically, consistently, and strategically in places your audience already trusts. Let AI discover you through meaningful conversations, relevant context, and valuable content. This isn’t just optimization anymore; it’s reputation-building at scale. Welcome to the future of search, where being known matters more than ranking first, and staying relevant means showing up everywhere your audience (and AI) expects you to be. Dig deeper: The new SEO imperative – Building your brand View the full article

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: I’m writing to you because I believe what happened to me today (literally 30 minutes ago) is a lesson to be learned — though I’m struggling to identify exactly what that lesson is. For the past eight months, I’ve been working for a small company, and I absolutely love my job. In fact, since starting here, I’ve grown to love it even more. My manager (the CEO) told me that I would be receiving a promotion, but I decided to wait until everything was officially confirmed in writing before getting too excited. That day finally arrived, and I received an email with my promotion letter. However, the salary increase was disappointingly low — almost £35K below market rates. (I work in the UK.) I responded with a huge thank you for the opportunity, while also asking if there was room for a discussion regarding the salary. I followed your advice and went into the salary discussion well-prepared. I outlined the projects I have successfully worked on and delivered, highlighting my achievements. I also provided data on market salary benchmarks for the role and detailed what the new position would entail, including line management responsibilities. During the discussion, my manager tried to downplay the promotion, saying it was “just a change of title” and that I was “already doing the job” — as if that justified the lack of a meaningful salary increase. Fast forward to the actual discussion, and he was very adamant that the salary wouldn’t be changed. We ended the conversation with him saying, “I’ll think about it.” During the discussion, I also mentioned that I was looking forward to contributing to the leadership team. Then today, completely out of the blue, he told me that he didn’t like the conversation and that I would no longer be getting promoted. I feel absolutely shattered. I tried to understand his reasoning, and he said it was because of the conversation we had. I explained that salary discussions are completely normal and that if I was hiring/promoting someone, I would expect to have a salary conversation. I suggested that perhaps we weren’t on the same page, but to me, it didn’t seem like a terrible conversation at all. I’d really appreciate your thoughts on this. Wow. Your manager … kind of sucks here. I suppose it’s possible that something about the way you handled the conversation was really off — you were rude or overly argumentative, or the number you were asking for was wildly out of whack with what the role is envisioned as. But if that were the case, a decent manager would have been more explicit about what the issue was. It would be one thing if he’d said, “This position will require handling delicate negotiations with skill and tact, and after you shouted at me, slammed your fist on the table, and cited numbers for a completely different job, I’m rethinking whether it makes sense to move you into the role as we conceived it.” But it sounds like what he said was more that he didn’t like that you had the audacity to think you could try to negotiate salary at all and should have just been grateful for what you were offered. Now, maybe I’m wrong about that. I wasn’t there for the conversation, and I don’t know what your boss’s side of this would be. But it sounds like you don’t know either, because he didn’t bother to elaborate — and that itself makes his handling of it suspect. Also, his statement that it was “just a change of title” doesn’t make a lot of sense because they did offer you a raise with it, so a raise was already on the table; you were just negotiating the amount. It is true that salaries for internal promotions don’t always match up well with market benchmarks. A lot of companies, either formally or informally, put limits on the increase they’ll give when you take an internal promotion, even if that puts your new salary below market rates for the role. That generally doesn’t make sense; they should pay what the work is worth, which is what they’d pay an outside candidate. However, there are cases where that approach is more defensible, like if you’re getting a chance at a job that you probably wouldn’t have been competitive for as an outside candidate, but which you’re getting because you’re internal. (Even then, though, once you’ve demonstrated you can do the job at a high level, you should be bumped to market rate for the work.) It’s possible there was something like that at work here — but then your manager should have explained that, not left the impression that he was yanking the offer solely because you tried to negotiate. If I were in your shoes, I’d go back to your manager to talk, framing it as, “I hoped we could talk through what happened with the promotion discussion because it’s important to me to be on the same page as you. My understanding has always been that it’s normal to negotiate salary, whether as an outside candidate or an internal one, and I want to make sure I understand what happened. Was there something about the way I approached the conversation that raised concerns for you?” View the full article

A keyword with 50,000 searches/month sounds like a goldmine, until you realize it’s already in decline. Investing in a fading trend is like buying MySpace stock today. Every keyword follows a lifecycle moving through these distinct phases: Intro stage –…Read more ›View the full article

Rising insurance costs are leading providers and condo associations to consider changes to policies that would make some loans ineligible for GSE sale. View the full article

Delaware is trying to protect its status as the corporate capital of the world amid fallout from a judge’s rejection of billionaire Elon Musk’s landmark Tesla compensation package, although critics say fast-tracked legislation will tilt the playing field against investors, including pensioners and middle-class savers. A Delaware House committee was expected to vote Wednesday on the bill, which is backed by Democratic Gov. Matt Meyer who says it’ll ensure the state remains the “premier home for U.S. and global businesses” to incorporate. Backers say it’ll modernize the law and maintain balance between corporate officers and shareholders in a state where the courts, for a century, have settled all sorts of business disputes as the legal home of more than two million corporate entities, including two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies. Critics—including institutional investors, pension funds and asset managers—say it’ll lower corporate governance standards, curb shareholder rights and, as a result, limit the ability to hold corporate officers accountable for decisions that violate their fiduciary duty. The bill passed the state Senate unanimously last week. What happened in Elon Musk’s case? A Delaware judge last year invalidated Musk’s compensation package from Tesla that was potentially worth more than $55 billion. Lawyers for shareholders had sued over the package that Tesla’s board of directors awarded Musk in 2018. Chancellor Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick said it was developed by directors who weren’t independent of Musk and approved by shareholders who had been given misleading and incomplete disclosures in a proxy statement. The ruling bumped Musk out of the top spot on Forbes’s list of wealthiest people, although he has since climbed back up. Musk and Tesla are appealing in the state Supreme Court. But Musk unloaded on Delaware, saying “Never incorporate your company in the state of Delaware” and instead recommended competitors Nevada or Texas as destinations. Now, lawmakers are being warned by corporate lawyers that their clients are considering heading to the exits—making a “Dexit,” as it’s been dubbed—and that startups are being advised to incorporate elsewhere. What did Musk and others do? Must took his own advice, moving Tesla’s corporate listing to Texas after a shareholder vote and his companies SpaceX to Texas and Neuralink to Nevada. Backers of the bill say corporate unrest had been simmering the past couple years over various Delaware Supreme Court decisions in corporate conflict-of-interest cases and that Musk inflamed the discontent. The fallout seemed to accelerate in recent weeks when the Wall Street Journal reported that Meta Platforms—the parent company of social media platforms Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp—was considering moving its incorporation to Texas. Meta didn’t confirm the report. DropBox, the online file-sharing platform, moved its corporate listing to Nevada, and Bill Ackman, founder of Pershing Square Capital Management, a major hedge fund, said he’d leave Delaware, too. On Feb. 1, Musk took to his social media platform X to crow about it, saying, “Companies are flooding out of Delaware, because the activist chief judge of the Delaware court has no respect for shareholder rights.” That said, critics of the bill say there’s no evidence that corporations are fleeing Delaware in any numbers. What does the bill do? It changes several things. One, it gives corporations more protections in conflict-of-interest cases—such as a pay package for a CEO or intercompany agreements—in state courts when fighting shareholder lawsuits. Two, it limits the kind of documents that a company must produce in court cases and makes it harder for stockholders to get access to internal documents or communication that could prove time-consuming and expensive for a company to produce—not to mention, damaging to its case. Eric Talley, a Columbia University law professor, has compiled a running list of three dozen Delaware Supreme Court precedents that the legislation stands to change. Lawrence Hamermesh, a former professor at Widener University’s Delaware Law School, disagreed. Hamermesh, who helped draft the legislation after Meyer asked him last month, said perhaps only a couple doctrines would be wiped out. A legal challenge is widely expected should Meyer get the bill and sign it into law. Meanwhile, institutional investors say such a law may prompt them to push corporations that they own to incorporate elsewhere. Why is this a big deal for Delaware? Money. Approximately one-third of Delaware’s state government revenue—about $2.2 billion—comes from corporate license fees and associated tax revenues, according to the governor’s office. That helps the state to maintain a 0% sales tax and keep property taxes relatively low, a nice perk for the beach vacation home industry along its Atlantic coast. Beyond that, Wilmington is home to a cottage industry that caters to the corporate lawyers who live, stay, dine and shop around the state Supreme Court and the Chancery Court of Delaware buildings where they argue their cases. __ Follow Marc Levy on X at: https://x.com/timelywriter. —Marc Levy, Associated Press View the full article

Decision comes even as government joins other European countries in seeking to raise military spending View the full article