Soft LED Kitchen Lighting

Soft LED kitchen lightingThere are many ways to light a kitchen; numerous design possibilities and products. It is not necessary to install overly bright or sterile fluorescents that make you feel unwell after an hour of food preparation and cooking. You still need good lighting and you would probably love it if your bulbs were efficient too. Consider LED kitchen lighting if you are still using traditional bulbs.

The initial cost of LED bulbs is marginally more at the outset, but remember they last much longer and cost far less to operate than even CFL bulbs. Since they are so much more efficient than any other kinds of bulbs, they are far less expensive to run. They last much longer, meaning you are going to be less wasteful. Their efficiency allows them to burn cooler so they are far safer too, while they tend to be more durable than ordinary lights. Plus they do not contain any mercury so they are much safer.

You will appreciate the warmth of the lighting. Although you can choose a style that is perfectly bright enough for the area where you do most of your chopping and slicing, the clean adjustable light will still be just right, not a glare that makes your eyes hurt.

Two of the most convenient forms of LED kitchen lighting are strip lighting and long, narrow lamps. LED bulbs are very small so they lend themselves to either format. A lamp can be built into a ceiling or wall sconce, suspended from your ceiling to a desired height, or supported from the counter upwards and designed to hang slightly away from the wall. You get the light exactly where you want it in every instance.

Warm white light is not just for practical purposes like as cooking. You might like to install LED strip lights in areas of the kitchen where there are items for display. Install them inside the glass cupboard where you keep your china or above an antique appliance. Place them along the bottoms of cupboards to offer a welcoming, guiding presence late at night. Strip lights are flexible so you can adjust them to take a corner or a curve. They are also flat, so the fixture disappears while its glow shines through. Strip lights are also helpful in the dark recesses of a deep cupboard, such as your Lazy Susan, where bottles and jars have a tendency to hide.

For areas of the kitchen that get wet, such as right behind the sink, there are waterproof strip lights. Gain that extra feeling of security knowing that your LED kitchen lighting will not shatter if exposed to cold water, or cause an electrical accident. Use these to enhance a water feature in your kitchen or somewhere else in your home such as a soothing indoor fountain.


Working With A Professional: Why You Need A Trademark Lawyer

trademark lawyers protect your interests in complicated trademark casesTrademark cases are complex. They involve not only showing that you own (or that others do not own) a particular mark, and they also tread into various areas of use, intellectual property rights and a dozen other assorted subjects. If you find yourself looking down the barrel of a trademark case, you owe it to yourself to consider hiring an attorney. Starting out you might be overwhelmed by the sheer number of lawyers in your area – it seems that even small towns have a couple of dozen people hanging around the courthouse looking for work. Rather than simply hiring the first person you see to represent you, you should make sure that you contact an attorney with a specialization in trademark law.

A Specialized Discipline

Trademarks are, to put it bluntly, complicated. While they are not quite the sort of thing that the average lawyer will shrink away from in terror, the cases that feature trademarks will almost always be passed off to an individual with considerable trademark experience. Most state bars require attorneys to pass on a case if they cannot provide the proper level of representation, and trademarks usually fall outside the scope of most attorneys’ knowledge. If you find yourself heading towards a trademark case, you might as well contact a trademark lawyer from the beginning- if you do not, you will likely find yourself being recommended to one anyway.

But Really, Why a Trademark Lawyer?

Perhaps the best reason to seek out a lawyer with experience in trademarks can be found by look at the average law school curriculum. First year students get a good foundation in topics as diverse as criminal law and federal civil procedure, but trademarks are nowhere to be found in the required subjects. In fact, an individual has to go out of his or her way to become educated on the topic – most classes are elective, and the topic may not even be covered on the bar exam. Trademark lawyers are those individuals who actually seek out the knowledge for use in later practice.

This educational gap transfers over to professional practice, as well. Trademark cases are not the stuff of daily practice for most lawyers, and most will go an entire career without ever having a client ask for trademark advice. A trademark lawyer, however, will represent individuals in these cases all the time – it is, after all, the area of law that these individuals choose to practice.

Trademark litigation or protection requires an attorney who is actually skilled in the practice. It is always better to seek out someone who has skills and experience rather than depending on a local attorney – it might hurt not to work with your family’s lawyer, but trademarks are simply too complicated to trust to anyone other than a skilled trademark lawyer. Finding that lawyer can take time, but it is well worth the effort.


Most Popular Places To Use Stair Lighting

stair lightingThere are a number of different types of stair lighting systems, but the one that most homeowners use just consists of individual strip lights that can be attached to the bottoms of the stairs. They go under the slight lip at the top of the stair, meaning that they are mostly hidden from the naked eye, even when you are going up the stairs. All that you see is the warm glow illuminating your path. Below are the most common places where people you these types of lights. It is interesting to see how others have used them to change the appearance and functionality of their homes.

On Garage Stairs

The number one place where people use stair lighting systems is on the stairs that lead out to the garage. The reason for this is that more trips are made into or out of the garage in the dark than in any part of the home. When you get home and get out of your car, carrying a late-night load of groceries, you probably do not have any way to turn on the lights that are by the front door. You just have to stumble across the dark room, looking for the concrete stairs with your feet. If they have their own lighting, you can protect yourself from tripping and falling in the dark.

On the Back Porch

It can be great to sit out in your backyard on a summer night, looking at the stars as dusk falls. However, when you decide to go back inside and go to bed, the walk up the wooden steps can be rather treacherous. Unless you have remembered to turn the interior light on beforehand, you won’t be able to see. If you have turned the light on, your peaceful view of the stars will be interrupted. You need a compromise, something that will make it possible for you to see without obstructing your view and ruining the atmosphere. Strip lights are ideal because they are not overwhelming, and they show you just what you need to see.

On In-Home Stairs

Finally, you could use stair lighting on the main staircase that leads from the living area to the bedrooms. You probably will not want to go upstairs and turn on a light when it is not even dark out, but this means that it will be very dark when you turn off all of the downstairs lights and then try to make your way to bed. Stair lighting makes it so that you can see. The low-powered LED lights can then be turned off when you get upstairs, using a second switch, or they can just be left on all night long.


The Important Role Of A Trademark Attorney In Your Business

trademark attorneyAn attorney who guides clients through the trademark process is involved in intellectual property law. In other words, the property in question is not a physical object one can touch, but an idea. The idea is a company slogan, name, or logo: a trademark. Think of the jingles and symbols you remember from certain products you loved. These were forms of advertising. Even a catchy name is one way to garner consumer attention and is, thus, important. When an entrepreneur first starts up his business, he often turns to a trademark attorney who will ensure that he does not infringe on someone else’s rights.

How might he make this mistake? If a new business owner registers a name, logo, or slogan without conducting a proper search of existing intellectual property, he might find himself facing a law suit. It all depends on the perspective of the trademark holder and the success of this new business which is using another person’s intellectual property unwittingly. Sometimes the issue will be dropped because the applicant was clearly unaware of his mistake and no damage was really done. In other cases, the plaintiff will seek reparations of some kind.

A trademark attorney is tasked to protect a client from making this kind of mistake, but also to protect a client from being compromised by someone else’s poor decision making. He conducts a search of registered trademarks and makes a trademark application for his client. There is often a set, one-time fee for this service based on the extent of the search plus the application. Clients can ask for more extensive searching to be done, thus paying a higher fee. Going deeper means reaching into not just federal but also state databases.

If the client wishes, he can request a letter of attorney opinion stating his findings. This will reflect the extent of his search into the legality of a trademark application and is part of a thorough search rather than a basic, federal one.

Yearly services are also available if a client is concerned that his trademark is going to be infringed upon. The trademark attorney protects this trademark by monitoring upcoming applications and various commercial markets to see if anyone is at risk of committing trademark infringement. The client also has obligations as the holder of a trademark and will be advised by her attorney if she is crossing any legal boundaries which put her at risk of litigation.

Not all cases of infringement are accidental. Sometimes a business person will take the risk of assuming that he will not be caught stealing someone else’s intellectual property. This is when attorneys act to protect the client from losing the power of a well-chosen name, symbol, or phrase.


Setting Itself Atop the Industry – YNAB

YNAB 4It’s truly amazing to review how personal financial software has taken off since the days of Microsoft Money and Quicken being the first to battle for market share.  Today, over 100 applications have been developed, all built upon the same time tested principles that will be employed 100 years from now.  Despite so many variations, some have become more popular than others.  Among the leaders is a budgeting tool called “You Need A Budget”, better known as YNAB.

YNAB provides people with a pro-active strategy based upon the practical approach of planning their money before it is spent.  YNAB’s unique methodology begins by employing savings to cover one months worth of expenses instead of using the estimated income that will be earned during the month to cover those costs.  This, in YNAB jargon, is referred to as a “buffer.”  And comparatively, the YNAB system offers an improved ability for delivering on short and long term objectives while breaking people free from the living paycheck to paycheck mentality.  As income is earned throughout the month, the buffer is replenished for the next month.

The YNAB Methodology uses four rules of cash flow management:

ynab 4RULE 1 – Give Every Dollar a Job   Each dollar must be either saved or spent resulting in a “zero budget” result for the monthly income.

RULE 2 – Save for a Rainy Day   YNAB addresses the need for paying for unplanned events such as auto repairs or other similar emergencies which allow for reduced emotional stress when these events occur.

RULE 3 – Roll with the Punches   Since even with a forward looking and planning system you can sometimes overspend in a Budget Category, YNAB has a method that spreads that overage across the next month’s budget where it can be absorbed more readily. Since (by design) a person has money reserves at hand (The Buffer) the overage can be covered easily.

RULE 4: Stop Living Paycheck to Paycheck   This is the end state YNAB will enable people achieve. It is measured complete when the person has gone through an entire month without using any of the income earned during that period.  The budget categories for the next month is has that money applied towards those expenses.

Consider the path YNAB had to take to reach it’s current spot atop the personal financial software competition.  It’s amazing that something this successful and well designed began as a cool spreadsheet.  YNAB is popular because it focuses people on activities that will actually make a difference in the way they manage their money.  It’s simple and effective.

It is no wonder why YNAB is a leader in the market.


Todays Modern Machine Shop

machine shop in BoiseAccording to National Tooling and Machining Association (NTMA), lights-out machining or unmanned machining is increasingly gaining prominence in many machine shops and industries throughout the United States. It is a great way to improve both efficiency and productivity. Once the automated system has been fully implemented, the machine operator’s job would be reduced to just inputting commands/instructions into the computer. The machine follows the instructions to the letter. The end result is exemplary workmanship. However, just like any other technology, lights-out machining comes with its own unique set of challenges. Because of this, it is important to note that there is nothing like unmanned production. However, there is industrial production or machining that is largely automated and requires minimum human attention. Irrespective of the perspective that you look at it lights-out machining presents factories, machines shops and industrial plants with several tangible benefits. However, it is important to carry out a detailed analysis before jumping into the lights-out machining bandwagon.

New technology is almost always used in the monitoring of machining conditions. This task was previously undertaken by human operators. More often than not, lights-out machining means swapping labor costs with costly capital expenditures. Capital expenditures may be beneficial in the long term, but they do not offer quick paybacks. Being a new technology, lights-out machining comes with its own risks. Before implementing such a system, you should carefully review the associated risks. A thorough review should include tool monitoring systems, power monitors, fire suppression systems, part gauging techniques, bar feed machines, replacement tooling systems and multipallet pools.

Tool monitoring systems are a vital part of lights-out machining. For example, an automated bar-fed lathe may be set to run from 6pm to 11pm. Once the tap, drill and turning tools are properly set, the drill is set to on-mode. Should the drill bit break at around 8 PM without a tool monitoring system in place, the tap will be next to break and the machine will continue to process scrap parts till the programmed 11 PM stoppage time. Three hours worth of metal scrap is by no means a small loss. Tool monitoring systems avoid such eventualities by engaging emergency shutdown procedures. These systems also eliminate costly damage due to simple malfunctions and human errors.

Multipallet tools enable the machining of one part in a single cycle. There are stand-alone systems that process complicated work pieces in a complete unmanned or lights-out situation. A single machine is capable of churning out up to 32 unique parts in a single cycle. So, the next time you visit a machine shop in Boise and witness lights-out machining, remember the owner may be operating second and third shifts with few or no machine operators. On average, these machines return roughly 30 percent reduction in labor costs.


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