Tag: RECESSION

When times are tough, people turn to schemes and scams to solve their money woes. And as drivers are having an increasingly hard time dealing with gas-consuming vehicles that require monthly payments and insurance fees, some have fallen back on a good old-fashioned solution: insurance fraud by setting fire to, intentionally crashing, or ditching their own rides. The Los Angeles Times reports ...

Well, folks, the recession is officially in full swing. You know we're living in tough times when a full-grown man can no longer afford to indulge in his childhood fantasies (in this case, wearing a handmade costume and spending six figures on a matching airplane). That's just the situation Jay Maynard, a.k.a. Tron Guy, is facing, according to Wired. Maynard recently posted to eBay his ...

Microsoft has been trimming the fat recently, and not just by laying off employees. The company is ending entire product lines; 'Encarta,' 'Flight Simulator,' and 'Windows OneCare' have all bitten the dust, and now joining the list of deceased software packages is 'Money.' The personal finance program, which has been available online since last year, will be taken off the market at the end of ...

We've heard of people putting money in their mattresses before, when they're afraid there is going to be a run on the banks, but stashing your life's savings in a computer is a new one to us. Sometime in the last week, a publicly unidentified man dropped off his computer tower at a St. Louis-area Best Buy for repairs, but forgot to remove his savings from inside, according to STLToday.com. ...

Despite its raging popularity, Twitter often receives criticism for being the realm of the narcissistic and self-indulgent. Combine that with a proliferation of celebrities and extreme overexposure in the media, and it's easy to see why a hard-working, everyday American might dismiss the site as totally worthless. Before you judge too quickly, the New York Times earlier this week reported that ...

According to Bill Gates, the key to digging the U.S. out of the recession is technology. Reuters reports that the former head of Microsoft told a group of high-level executives gathered at Microsoft's annual CEO summit, "the opportunities for innovation are stronger today than ever." Gates believes that the software and IT revolution are still in their formative stages -- and that it's up to IT ...

Bad news for traditional phone companies: Apparently, the recession has only accelerated the move away from landline phones. Now, one in every five American homes has ditched their landline all together, and cellular-only households outnumber those relying exclusively on traditional phones. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of cell phone only homes jumped ...

The owner and operator of GoldmanSachs666.com, Mike Morgan clearly makes no effort to cover up his distaste for the Goldman Sachs Group. In fact, the Floridian's hatred for the financial firm runs so deep that he recently turned down an anonymous $2 million offer for the rights to the Web site, according to DailyFinance. Morgan started the site after he became outraged by the federal ...

GeoCities (you know, that aging homepage hosting service that you only ever arrived at by accident) is getting ready to shut its doors. The pioneering service, which eventually sold out to Yahoo! and slowly slipped into complete irrelevance, became popular in the 90's during the early dot-com boom for allowing geeks to quickly and easily create their own basic Web sites. Yahoo! very quietly ...

As more and more major newspapers fold, in the face of dwindling advertisers and subscribers, bloggers are usurping their roles in record numbers. According to The Wall Street Journal, over 20 million people now blog in the United States. Of those, 1.7 million earn money doing so, while 450,000 primarily earn their livings through the blogged word. Those statistics indicate that there are now ...

If you're out of work and looking for a job, you don't need us to tell you how hard it is to get hired right now -- with the unemployment rate ballooning every week, there have never been so many qualified people competing for so few jobs. So how do you get yourself noticed? This article on Forbes.com suggests starting a blog about your profession or industry. The concept is simple -- keep ...

If you've been negatively affected by the global recession and are struggling to get by, then trust us when we reassure you that you're not alone. Many careers have been shredded like so much paperwork, leaving many to search for new jobs. Admirably, Microsoft is doing what it can to help by offering people free vouchers to get trained and certified in various computer technologies. Over the next ...

When consultant jobs are few and far between, you have to make the most out of the ones you can get. Take, for instance, Zeldon Morris. When the Family First Credit Union in Orem, Utah hired the Provo man to fix some bugs in a recent computer upgrade, Morris decided to take some liberties with a few of the accounts, according to Provo's Daily Herald. According to recently submitted court ...

digg_url = 'http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/09/600k-dsis-sold-opening-weekend-in-us-and-europe/'; It wasn't the most hyped launch ever, but Nintendo's DSi had itself a fine little opening weekend, with 300,000 units moving in the US and Europe each. Not bad at all, considering that the first DS only sold 500,000 units in its first entire week in the US -- we're guessing the DSi will manage to ...

As part of its newfound bankruptcy status, Ritz Camera's gearing up to close more than 300 of its around 700 brick-and-mortar stores across the US, or about 43 percent of its retail presence. Starting April 4th, the affect stores will begin liquidation sales that'll go on until -- in the words of the press release -- "everything is sold to the bare walls." Forget DSLRs, if you were needing any ...