blog about everything, news and views

Make sure you and your children have the right kind of shoe that will support running, walking, and your weight. 

Most people suffer from some kind of foot pain throughout the day.  There are many treatments and tips to get rid of serious foot pain relief if you follow expert advice.

Are your feet in agony?  From poor fitting shoes, to inherited toe woes, foot pain is no laughing matter.  We rarely take care of our feet until the pain has become so severe we can’t ignore it any longer.

According to the American Podiatric Medical Association, 84% of women have suffered from at least one painful foot problem. 

Do you purchase shoes because they’re cute or fashionable?  You wouldn’t think about putting shoes that hurt on your child’s foot!  Don’t do it on yours, either!

Here are six of the most common ailments women experience and smart tips to help alleviate their foot pain.  Take this advice and you’ll soon feel  as though you’re walking on air!

How To Put Your Best Foot Forward:

Disclaimer:  These foot ailments are the most common, but for serious foot pain, please consult your podiatrist or a podiatric surgeon.

1.       Do you have Plantar Fascitis?  This feels like a sharp stabbing pain in your heel and it is worse when you get up in the morning.

·         Cause – The plantar fascia is a that thick band of tissue running along the bottom of the foot from heel to toe and people with all types of insteps (arches)  are prone to this irritation.  If you wear very flat or really high heels, the problem will get worse.

·         A shoe should support the arch.  If not, the fascia will stretch and that will cause further inflammation.  Does your Achilles tendon feel tight?  That is also one of the symptoms.

·         Treatment – Choose shoes with some structure.  Pairs of shoes that have some arch support and enclose your heel will be much better than flip flops or flats.  Avoid going barefoot as much as possible.

·         Stretch Your Foot In the Mornings – When you sleep, your plantar fascia is relaxed.  It gets a real wake-up call of tension when your first put your weight on it.  Before beginning your busy day, wrap a towel around your feet and pull the toes back, gently  stretching the tendons. 

·         Reduce Swelling – Using a plastic bottle filled with water, freeze it, and then roll it under your foot for a few minutes to relieve the pain.

·         Consult a podiatrist for custom orthotics – I know you may not think it makes a difference, but these special inserts are molded specifically to your foot’s shape!  This will help control foot motion and decrease the daily strain on the plantar fasciae when added to the inside of your shoe. 

2.       Ingrown Toenails?  This feels like a throbbing sensation and is most often located on the side of one of your big toes.  Is it swollen and red?

·         Cause – When the nail edge grows sideways into the skin of the toe, it forms a toenail that is growing inward instead of straight outward.  The pressure on the nail bites into the surrounding skin and can really cause some pain or infection.  If your shoes are too tight or narrow around the toe area, you are at risk for getting an ingrown toenail. If you cut your toenails incorrectly, you could also get an ingrown toenail. 

·         Treatment – Don’t wear pointy toed shoes.  If you’re going to be walking a lot, carry your dress shoes and walk in structured walking shoes. 

·         Use moisture cream on your feet daily – Reduce callus formation by keeping feet well rubbed and moisturized.  Before wearing shoes, make sure the lotions and creams are absorbed and your feet are dry.  When a callus develops, it causes more pressure on the ingrown nail or other parts of your foot. 

·         Cut toenails strait across.  Don’t file the corners down.  If you get pedicures, make sure they follow these procedures, don’t assume they will or know what they’re doing.  Choose a reputable salon or go to a podiatrist.

·         See a podiatrist if you think you have an infection!  Don’t delay!  No “self-surgery” as digging around on your toenails or skin can lead to serious infection and deeper injury to the nail or foot.

3.       Bursitis – This feels like a painful bump and is located on the back of the heel. 

·         Cause – This can occur when you have an enlarged heel bone.  If you wear stiff-backed shoes, this can worsen the bump further, inflaming the bursa, which is a protective sac of fluid.

·         Treatment – Wear shoes with open backs, until the irritation has lessened, or all the time, whichever is necessary.

·         Use Dr. Scholl’s Foam Cushions (donut shaped pad) – Place this pad over the bump to alleviate pressure and use ice at the end of the day to soothe the inflammation.

·         Consult a Podiatrist – If you have chronic and constant pain in this area of the foot, consult a podiatrist for advice and possible removal of the bump.

4.       Stress Fracture? This feels like a tender area, frequently on the front part of the foot, along the 2^nd or 3^rd metatarsal, the long bones in the top middle of the foot.

·         Cause – Any repetitive stress on the bone, like walking and running on hard surfaces and while wearing shoes that are not absorbing enough of the shock.

·         Treatment – See a doctor!  You will need a surgical shoe while you heal.  That shoe has a hard bottom that will keep the affected bones from bending.

·         Be Patient – Stress fractures heal in about 4 – 8 weeks, normally.  Don’t over stress the foot, no running or long walks.

·         Prevent re-injuries – Keep your weight at a healthy level and wear supportive shoes.

5.       Bunions – These are sensitive and protruding lumps or bumps at the heads of the big-toe joints and can pull your toe to an angle. 

·         Cause – These might be hereditary, and can be developed if you have low arches, or your feet tend to roll inward.  Your bone actually moves as the bump seems to get larger.

·           Pointy toed shoes can make the bunions worsen.

·         Treatment – Shoe choice is critical.  Best choices are shoes with a wide toe area and a lower heel but not flat.

·         Gel Pads – Placing a gel pad over the bunions to cushion them and reduce the pain is helpful.

6.       Neuroma – This is a shooting pain in the ball of the foot.

·         Cause – This pain is caused by pressure on the nerve in the underside of the foot.  Swelling can occur.  Narrow, pointed shoes put more pressure on an already irritated nerve so pick shoes with wider toe room.

·         Treatment – Wide toe areas, and low heels. 

·         Use anti-inflammatories.  Ibuprofen is good but if you don’t experience relief see a podiatrist.

·         Surgery – For chronic neuroma that doesn’t get better, surgery such as cryotreatment can help .  Your podiatrist can make that determination.

Take care of your feet, they need to carry you through the rest of your life!  

anthonycee General

Included as part of every good shower, including bridal showers are the use of party favors. The use of party favors has become a very trendy thing to include as part of the activity of the party and there are lots of ideas available.

Wedding favors and shower favors can be the same but shower favors do come in many various forms. Favors come in themes and some are made just for the bridal shower. There are a couple good methods of distributing bridal shower favors. When the guests arrive or leave they can take a gift as a keepsake which makes this a very easy way to distribute the favors. This assures that your guests will all have a keepsake party favor and all feel they were treated in the same way.The internet can help with trying to find wedding shower games and bridal shower invites.

The other way to distribute the party favors is to make them a part of the activity of the bridal shower. The activities at the shower are often games and the favors are then used to aware the party game winners. There are no steadfast rules about party favors as prizes but it is always fun for the guests if the favors are not only theme related but also related to the particular game for which the favor was the prize. Making the favors a part of the fun of the party also makes them a great keepsake for the guests to take home. .}And again you can ask a friend for advise when looking into bridal shower invitations.

There are many ideas available in party stores and online to help you come up with innovative ideas for favors at your party. Using floating candles for votives is a great party favor that comes in many colors and also many scents. Using personalized items are also a great hit and wonderful keepsake for the guests.

anthonycee General

Establishing your own E-commerce site is not like what it used to be. There are thousands of competition that is all too willing to get a bigger share of the pie. Every scheme and method you can find to augment your sales would be very beneficial.

We have got to admit to ourselves. Most of us are into it for the money. We are not going to waste our time and effort just for the fun of it. Many sites would not wait until hell freezes over just to see their profits. While there are some who takes things lightly there are always those who would rather see profit any given day.

It is common knowledge that without traffic we have no business. Like any business, without any customers you don’t get sales. Traffic represents all the people that gets a chance to see what you have to offer. The more people who see your products the more people there would be to buy them.

Nobody puts up an E-commerce site that doesn’t expect profit. We have a startup capital that needs to be regained. With a consistent traffic, we at least have a fighting chance to achieve that probability. Monetizing your traffic would optimize your chances of making the best out of it.

Making Money out of your Traffic

The best and most proven method of making a profit out of your traffic is using advertising. The internet generates hundreds of thousands upon hundred of thousands of traffic everyday. Most of them are searching for something. While some are just looking for information there is also a good percentage that is looking for something that they need.

The internet has proven to be a very reliable source in finding what was deemed to be a very unsearchable product. The internet has made the world a smaller place; you can advertise a product from the depths of Istanbul and still find a buyer from the center of Philadelphia.

Generating traffic is not an easy task. You have to contend with a great number of sites to generate a good number of traffic flow. But if done successfully this could open up a Pandora’s Box of possibilities. One of the benefits is monetizing your traffic flow.

So, to get to the core of it the more traffic you generate the more likely you are considered as a desirable, desirable, in a sense that a good traffic flowing site is easily convertible to profit. Basically traffic equals profit. Advertising is the name of the game; with the good advertising scheme you can use your traffic flow to your advantage.

When you have good traffic you have a good number of potential customers, customers that are willing to pour money into your coffers. Other than that these are also traffic that can be redirected to sponsored links that are willing to pay you for a sizeable portion of the traffic that you have generated.

This scheme is called “pay-per-click”. With every click a visitor of your site makes on an advertised link you will be paid. The more traffic you generate and the more clicks that happens would spell to more profits.

Affiliate Programs

Another method of monetizing your traffic are affiliate programs. You can link up with other tried and tested sites and online companies and monetize your traffic by having a percentage of sales generated by traffic coming from your site.

The basic idea is, traffic generated from your site will go to another site that can offer a product that you do not carry. Many programs can keep track and make records of transactions that was made possible because of site linkage.

When purchases are made by customers that was led by your site to their site you get a percentage of that sale. Affiliate programs would give you the benefit of monetizing your traffic without the actual need of carrying or promoting a certain product.

There are so many ways and methods to monetize your traffic. All it takes is a bit of hard work and the desire to successfully launch a income producing online business. The internet is a veritable source of information, many tips and guides are offered everywhere in how to monetize your traffic and make your site a good profit earner.

anthonycee General

Corporate branding can make a great deal of difference from one company to another. Corporate branding separates you from your competitors. There are many ways to do this, however some of the most common ways are as follows. A business should use the same logo and tag line throughout their marketing plan. This means on Brochures, business card and trade show booth. Your company logo and tag should be consistent in color and style

Using pictures or image that relates to what your company do can make branding much easier. Pictures sticks in one in much longer and faster than words. We respond to pictures quicker than a word, that’s why we use symbols on the freeway to give directions. One company that stands out at this is Marlboro They use a picture of a cowboy on a horse, anytime you see this image you think of Marlboro. They achieve this by being consistent

Sales force at trade shows should wear similar dress and attire. They should have name tags with the company logo on them. If one of your sales forces is not in the trade show booth he or she serves as a working public notice for you. Many times in communication with existing client ask them what they think of your product, ask them if you can quote them on their answer. Use this on your website or in your brochures.

Give away brochures at your trade show display booth, and have enough to last thought-out the show. Renewing the look on your brochure from year to year is important. Do not wait to use up your inventory of old brochure to change the look. It’s important to look fresh and new at each and every event. Remember to keep the same tag line as well as logo. Visitor likes to get new material each and every time they visit you. The same should be done for your website

Sticking to what you do and do best help brand your company. McDonald’s serves fast foods, when you think of McDonalds you think of Hamburger not hotdogs. Stick to what you know best and create your brand around that.

Sticking a good tag line is very important in branding. Nike came up with the term “Just Do It” Burger King “you can have it your way” These mean different things and it gives a good insight about your company. You want to say something about your company, something unique that’s separates you from your competition. Be creative with this.

Most client come to us for their trade show booth wanting something unique and different from their competition. We ultimately allow then to talk about their company, one of the main things we try to get out of them what makes you different from your competitors. The answer they give will give us a direction to begin their booth design|We then use this answer to begin our design process. Branding starts within your special services and the character of you company, then it spreads.

For more on trade show displays and branding for your company contact ELDS, INC at (626) 969-3399

anthonycee General

German to English
What about Sentence Structure? Aside from my occasional struggles with certain individual terminology, nothing has giving me more of a challenge than the difference between German and English sentence structures. Surely, restructuring the word order would not be as hard were it not for the all important theme/rheme considerations. This has been particularly difficult with some of the long-winded legal texts where slight changes in the word order can lead to slight, but significant changes in the overall message.

German-Swedish
Understanding passive as imperative. When translating from German into Swedish, I now and then encounter a problem with understanding the passive German tense.

For instance, quite often a technical text doesn’t include clear imperative instructions like “Check value A to judge if you need to stop the machine”, but rather “The value A has to be checked in order to judge if the machine needs to be stopped”. So the problem is who is supposed to check this. The reader of the text? Or should he/she get some expert to do this for him/her? Just like in English, in Swedish we often have clear instructions about who is going to do what in order to get this or that. German, otherwise a very precise language, isn’t that clear in this aspect. Very often the “pure” imperative is avoided in German, and passive is used instead.

Check out our German Translation Services website.

Another problem is an illogical order of different actions: “Press button A and then B. Before doing so, please check if the temperature is below 50 centrigrades”. For my understanding, it would be much better (and most technical writers would agree, I think), to structure the sentences in the same order as the actions have to be carried out. But this would be a life task.

German to Swedish (reply)
Quote ‘I now and then encounter a problem with understanding the passive German tense’.Reply ‘Wouldn’t that be a fault on the writer’s part?’

Reply to above:
Well, it’s not really seen as a fault, rather than a standard style used to “keep a certain level” – nobody seems to care if the message is confused! Apart from many passive constructions, in German texts you find very many nouns (originally from verbs) which often need to be translated as verbs.

Check out our German Translation Services website.

Example of garbled German (badly translated, but shows the case with noun): “The opening of this door is forbidden”

This needs to be translated at “It is forbidden to open this door”, or “You may not open this door” etc.

From my point of view, the written German in manuals and other documents is very focused on nouns and passive forms, and doesn’t have much in common with the standard spoken language.

These tips are brought to you by Translation Services UK who also offer a free translation service on their website. Remember, if you are going to get your document(s) translated then printed please make sure you use people and NOT software.

anthonycee General