By: Custom Cabinets

One of the more classy types of cabinets that are available for design or purchase is wine and bar cabinets. These cabinets are the classier type of cabinets because you are going to be enjoying wine and liquors here. Furthermore, they are not only effective in holding a lot of stuff for your bar, but more importantly, they are great for entertaining. Picking the right bar cabinets, though, can be a little difficult. Because bar cabinets are not necessary and are more about preference, your wants make finding the exact cabinets more arduous.

While you can always use cabinets that are already installed in the house for the bar, if you have a little money to spend consider purchasing cabinets specifically for your bar. No matter what the design of your house is, you’ll be able to find some sort of bar cabinets that fit perfectly for you. You are going to want to buy cabinets that fit the size of the room perfectly. If you have a very large space available, a tiny bar sort of disappears and doesn’t compliment the room. The same goes for a tiny room and a large bar except this time, there’s no room for partying.

On the bar, you’re going to want to have two separate cabinets for storing wine. For white wines, you’ll want one that you can put a refrigerating unit in so that the wines are kept cool. White wines should almost always be kept cool. On the flip side, you want a dry wine cabinet for the reds because these are usually served at room temperature. You’ll also want to have cabinet space for the different wine glasses that you’ll have. An effective way of implementing these cabinets and to save space is to insert hanging racks inside them to hang the glasses from.

Bar cabinets are a great way of storing all of your alcohol. They are not difficult to find, but picking the one that you want is one that relies on cost. A bar cabinet with a refrigerating unit inside of it is going to cost more money than one without. Furthermore, because of the size of bar cabinets, they are usually much more costly. Therefore, do some research and shop around so that you can get the ideal cabinets at the right price for your wallet. In the end, though, bar cabinets are a great way to increase the space for entertaining.

Every one of us dream of at least one vacation overseas or at least once travel abroad. To some, it is just a matter of time, and for others, it is a matter of lifetime. But today, as the tourism industry has flourished significantly, countries world wide have understood that if they can showcase their country in a proper way, tourism can earn handsome revenue for the economy. As a result, package tours to foreign destinations have become so popular. Countries are even advertising to attract more and more tourists every year.

If you find an opportunity coming your way, do not waste time. Grab it before it is late but do not forget the essential things that you would require on your trip abroad, and travel insurance is the most important one. A travel insurance policy keeps you prepared for any unfortunate possibility that may come. It is quite impossible even to think of anything going wrong when everything appears to be so perfect, yet it is better to stay safe than to be sorry.

There are number of renowned companies available in market that offer different plans for travel insurance. While choosing one for yourself, you might end up being confused and pick up a wrong one. This article will help you choose the one that suits your requirement best.

Do Some Homework of Quotes Research

Different companies offer different plans at various rates. If you don’t research properly, you may buy an expensive travel insurance policy even when same benefits were available at a cheaper rate too. By having quotes of the maximum companies, you will be sure to have the best priced insurance policy for yourself.

Go Through the Terms and Conditions Thoroughly

If you find a quote for travel insurance which you find too good to be true, go through the terms and conditions to know more about the exclusions and inclusions. Excellent policies do exist, do not ignore it thinking it to be a scam. But ask in detail about your part of job in order to make the claim and what does it cover you from.

Basic Coverage

The basic coverage provided by any travel insurance policy is the coverage for loss or theft of baggage, coverage for missed flights and medical coverage. Depending upon your kind of travel, you can go further to another level of inclusions, e.g. legal coverage, that is if you get involved in some legal issue, the cost of legal assistance will be taken care of.

Initially, it may occur to you that how feasible is it to spend so much on travel insurance when you are already spending so much on the trip itself. In that case, convince yourself to cut the cost at some different level because, this small cost can save you a fortune if you experience some serious trouble while on trip. Do not let any lingering fear of unknown spoil the excitement of your foreign trip. With the help of a good travel insurance policy, enjoy it to your fullest.

Insurance is important for every one whether it is your car insurance, vehicle insurance, health insurance, dental insurance, life insurance or marine insurance. Each type of insurance has some kind of new safety that is given to your asset or yourself. Insurance is very important in every aspect.

The benefits that you can gain from insurance are plenty. But you need to take a good decision which type of insurance is required for you and why. For instance, if you are an employee who works for 18 hrs a day and you are in need of dental insurance. Once when you take a decision that you are in need of dental insurance, you can consult an insurance broker or an insurance company and find out details about the procedure of dental insurance.

Similarly, if you have purchased a new car, and you wish to insure your new car, you can consult a good insurance company to provide with the best car insurance policy. Similarly, you can insure your home, vehicle, business or any industry or factory. Almost every thing that is in your home can be insured which include your refrigerator, aquarium, television set or your expensive dining table on which you have spent lot of your earnings.

Insurance saves lot of your expenses and costs. An unforeseen event or accident which can damage your car, vehicle or home, can come back to you, in the form of insurance annuity. This is because, once you have insured your home, you pay regular premium fixed by the company and when there is a genuine situation of accident or damage caused to your home, insurance company has to pay you the sum insured on the home. With this amount, either you can buy a new home or you can repair the present home.

Therefore benefits such as this are plenty through insurance. Once you have registered yourself with an insurance company, the company will be able to give you proper guidance and advice on which type of insurance is suitable for you and what is the procedure and formalities that are required to be done. In this pattern, the entire functioning of insurance company is aimed at in the interests of the consumers.

Further there is always safety and protection ensured for the consumer in all aspects of assets, health and life. There are many people who gain benefits from insurance company. It is true that the laws of insurance are very elaborative and exhaustive but these are aimed at the well being and well functioning of the insurance companies and also for the protection of consumers.

Apart from providing benefits to the assets and health of people, insurance companies also promote disability insurance which can provide financial security to the employees who lose their health during the performance of their duties. This is also one of the advantages of insurance that it provides care and attention to the disabled employees.

There are different products, saving plan and premium calculations offered by insurance companies depending on the total income earned by people.

We all know plain English isn’t a strong point of insurance companies.  Some of the terms used don’t make much sense until you know them, which is why we have compiled this short list of the most popular terms we use.

Actual cash value - The current value of the car right now.

Anti-theft device - An alarm, immobilizer or any other approved device that deters theft.

Assigned risk insurance -Insurance issued for high risk drivers in states where insurance is mandatory.  Insurance companies operating in these states have to have a given number of these drivers on their books.

Auto replacement coverage - Supplement that allows for your entire vehicle to be completely repaired or replaced, regardless of cost to the insurance company.

Bodily injury liability coverage - Covers third party personal injuries if involved in a crash with you.

Betterment - This is where damage can be repaired using higher specification parts than were present on the vehicle at the time.  Usually involves the owner paying the difference in cost.

Collision coverage - The most basic auto insurance.  Replaces or repairs your vehicle in the event of a collision.

Comprehensive insurance - The “everything else” coverage.  Covers events that collision coverage doesn’t like theft and vandalism.

Deductible - This is a voluntary premium excess you offer to pay before the insurance has to.  The higher the deductible, the lower the premium.

Gap car insurance - Mainly for cars under finance.  It insures you for the difference between what the car is worth and the amount of finance owed.

Good driver plan - An incentive offered by some insurance companies for being a good driver over a specific time period.

Liability insurance - Another insurance staple.  This covers you for losses and claims from third parties through your proven negligence.

Passive restraint system - While not passive, this covers things like seatbelts, airbags, impact protection and other systems that are design to protect the occupants of a vehicle.

No-fault auto insurance - Replaces liability insurance in some states.  It covers you and your vehicle regardless of fault.  It costs more, but covers more.  It does have defined limits though so read the small print.

Total loss - This is where the cost of repairing the car exceeds the nominal value of it.  The insurer will pay the insured or current value and will then own the car.

Uninsured motorist coverage - Essential for most people.  With premiums rising, more people are going without insurance.  This covers you if you have an accident with an uninsured driver.

Now those are just some of the terms used frequently in the insurance industry.  So hopefully when dealing with agents, or the companies themselves you will have more of an idea of what they’re talking about.

VeriSign's iDefense security lab has published a report with technical details about the recent cyberattack that hit Google and over 30 other companies. The iDefense researchers traced the attack back to its origin and also identified the command-and-control servers that were used to manage the malware.

The cyber-assault came to light on Tuesday when Google disclosed to the public that the Gmail Web service was targeted in a highly-organized attack in late December. Google said that the intrusion attempt originated from China and was executed with the goal of obtaining information about political dissidents, but the company declined to speculate about the identity of the perpetrator.

Citing sources in the defense contracting and intelligence consulting community, the iDefense report unambiguously declares that the Chinese government was, in fact, behind the effort. The report also says that the malicious code was deployed in PDF files that were crafted to exploit a vulnerability in Adobe's software.

“The source IPs and drop server of the attack correspond to a single foreign entity consisting either of agents of the Chinese state or proxies thereof,” the report says.

The researchers have determined that there are significant similarities between the recent attack and a seemingly related one that was carried out in July against a large number of US companies. Both attacks were apparently managed through the same command-and-control servers.

“The servers used in both attacks employ the HomeLinux DynamicDNS provider, and both are currently pointing to IP addresses owned by Linode, a US-based company that offers Virtual Private Server hosting. The IP addresses in question are within the same subnet, and they are six IP addresses apart from each other,” the report says. “Considering this proximity, it is possible that the two attacks are one and the same, and that the organizations targeted in the Silicon Valley attacks have been compromised since July.”

If the report's findings are correct, it suggests that the government of China has been engaged for months in a massive campaign of industrial espionage against US companies.

Update: Adobe disputes iDefense's claim that PDFs were used to deploy the malware. In a statement issued today, Adobe says that they have found no evidence that their technology was used as an attack vector in this recent incident. This is supported by independent research conducted by security firm McAfee, which has found evidence that a vulnerability in Internet Explorer—but not Acrobat Reader—was exploited in the attack.

A few weeks ago, Computer Choppers teased us with an image of the shell of it’s 24k Gold PS3.  At that time nothing was known except that it was a PS3 Slim dipped in 24k gold.  Today, Computer Choppers has released it’s 24k Gold PS3 to the world and been kind enough to supply us with some information.

The 24k gold PS3’s are now available and can be ordered like any of their other products.  Units start at $4,999, come with 2 24k gold controllers, and a 1 year warranty(just in case).  Customers who purchase one of these can get custom logos in chrome, black chrome, 24kt gold, white gold, rose gold, or platinum.

If customers would like to take things a step further and make theirs a little more unique, they will be allowed to create a PS3 logo with diamonds or almost any exotic material.  No word on how much extra that will cost you, but I’m sure it will.

There is a “jeweled” limited edition PS3 on the way for those seeking something more extravagant and limited.  Computer Choppers told us, “The limited edition model will be released in the coming weeks, unfortunately not in time for the Christmas holiday.”  By limited there will only be a few of these “jeweled” PS3s made.

We believe these will be the five 24kt Gold & Diamonds PS3 slims we were told about a few weeks back. We’ll let you know when those come around.  Those will probably be a bit more pricey, but for those who can’t afford those, the $5000 model is perfect for you!

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Start-Up Promises More Game Realism

Engineers Say Technology Will Speed Production of Film-Like 3-D Images

A start-up founded by former Apple Inc. engineers said it has developed technology that could bring film-like realism to computer games and change the way movie makers and other design professionals work.

The San Francisco company, Caustic Graphics Inc., plans to exploit a technique called ray-tracing that generates extremely accurate three-dimensional images. Ray-tracing is a mainstay of Hollywood studios, but remains out of reach for most PC users. A single image can take hours to generate; rendering a film can take months on hundreds of server systems.

Computer games and other PC software typically rely on a technology called rasterization. Though the results keep getting more realistic, developing an interactive form of ray-tracing has been a longtime quest in the computer industry.

Caustic Graphics’ technology helps computer-generated images look more like photographs.

Caustic, whose name refers to light rays reflecting off a curved object, says it is close to achieving that goal. The company says its software and chips allow graphics chips to carry out ray-tracing calculations at a 20-fold speed-up compared with existing PC hardware. It said it expects to deliver chips by early 2010 that will be about 200 times faster.

In a demonstration, Caustic executives manipulated a photo-quality image of a sports car, removing components and changing lighting and background settings to change reflections on the vehicle’s surface.

“It’s the first honest acceleration of ray-tracing I’ve seen,” said Jon Peddie, a market researcher in Tiburon, Calif., who specializes in graphics technology.

Caustic faces many challenges. They include larger competitors and the need to persuade PC users to buy a second add-in card containing its chips, in addition to conventional graphics accelerators.

Caustic is largely the brainchild of James McCombe, a 26-year-old native of Northern Ireland who worked on graphics technology used in Apple’s iPhone and iPod. He left in 2006 with two other Apple engineers to form Caustic, a closely held company that employs 35 people and has raised \$11 million.

Mr. McCombe said graphics chips have hundreds of specialized calculating engines that are particularly good at rasterization, which converts three-dimensional models into pixels on a computer screen. Ray-tracing, by contrast, emulates the ways light rays bounce off objects in a scene. Graphics chips can’t easily handle those complex calculations, which require extensive communication between processors. Caustic has developed ways to keep data flowing to them efficiently, Mr. McCombe said.

Armed with the technology, Caustic executives say, designers who now work with the software equivalent of stick figures could manipulate realistic designs — without having to stop to render their images periodically. “This would really represent a breakthrough for us,” said Ron Frankel, president of Proof Inc., which develops “pre-visualizations” to show film directors and designers how movie scenes might be shot.

The company hopes to initially target architects, engineers and animators, and later entertainment applications on PCs and gaming consoles. Mr. McCombe expects accelerator cards using its chips to cost about the same as existing graphics accelerators, adding that its circuitry eventually could be combined with graphics chips. High-end graphics cards typically cost several hundred dollars.

But exploiting Caustic’s chips will require modifications to existing ray-tracing programs. Other companies, meanwhile, are finding ways to do ray-tracing using the microprocessors in PCs, rather than graphics chips. One is Bunkspeed Inc., which has a program called HyperShot that can make photo-quality images from three-dimensional computer models.

Philip Lunn, Bunkspeed’s chief executive, says that Caustic also faces potential competition from larger chip makers that include Intel Corp. and Nvidia Corp. The latter is collaborating with Mental Images GmbH, a software maker Nvidia acquired in 2007, to accelerate ray-tracing using graphics chips.

Mr. McCombe “is one of the smartest people in the business,” says Rolf Herken, Mental Images’ chief executive and chief technology officer. But “whether Caustic will have an impact on the design of future chips, that is an open question,” he added.

Write to Don Clark at don.clark@wsj.com

Adrianne Curry announced to Planet Twitter on December 6 that she planned to spend the afternoon playing World of Warcraft – naked and stoned. And, indeed, she did.

Adrianne Curry doesn’t mind sharing her peccadilloes with the world. A most recent case was December 6, when she tweeted her Sunday plans of getting high and playing video games in her birthday suit. The festivities followed her morning kickboxing workout.

“Jumping into shower,” the America’s Next Top Model winner wrote. “Going to spend my afternoon playing World of Warcraft butt naked and stoned. Perfect Sunday!”

To quell doubt, she snapped a picture and posted it on Twitter with the caption “Me… naked… playing World of Warcraft.”

Well, who’s to stop her? Aside from her own presence in the world as a modeling superpower, she’s married to none other than Christopher Knight, nee Peter Brady. And it was reportedly her husband’s joking around about Curry’s breast asymmetry – nicknaming her “One Hung Low” – that inspired plastic surgery to align her breasts.

“When you have a nice C-cup on one side and a very small boob on the other, it’s not cute,” Curry told Entertainment Tonight in 2006. “Especially when the other boob starts to sag because that’s the natural process of life.”

To fix the ordeal, she enlisted Beverly Hills surgeon Dr. Frank Ryan to reconstruct the area. He deliberately installed a mismatched pair of implants to even out the mounds.

“They’d go in with an implant, they’d sit me up while I was sleeping and look, and go, ‘It’s still not big enough to match the other,’ lay me back down, take it out, put a bigger one in, sit me up again and say, ‘Still not big enough,’ and kept going in and out to match me up,” she said.

Finally they got her straightened out. Curry indeed posted a nude photo of herself on Twitter this past week – but she is sitting in a way that obscures any real nudity. Try as you might, you can’t see much bareness. Even still, nothing above her waist seems to hang low.

Christmas is almost here and that means the NY Times has released a brand new list of the top 10 video games you shouldn’t buy for kids! Obviously you and I take this as a “run out and buy” list and, to give credit where credit is due, it is a pretty damn good list:

•Assassin’s Creed II
•Borderlands
•Brutal Legend
•Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
•Dead Space: Extraction
•Dragon Age: Origins
•Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony
•Demon’s Souls
•Left 4 Dead 2

A lot of this season’s most talked-about games include ones with excessive violence, negative role models, extreme gore, sociopathic behavior and other things that have been proven to have a negative effect on children.

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Blogging The Bombers - NY Daily News

Mark Feinsand is in his first season as the Daily News' Yankees beat writer, though he has been covering the Yankees since 2001.

uction of a massive iron wall along its border with the Gaza Strip, in a bid to shut down smuggling tunnels into the territory. The wall will be nine to 10 kilometers long, and will go 20 to 30 meters into the ground, Egyptian sources said. It will be impossible to cut or melt.

The new plan is the latest move by Egypt to step up its counter-smuggling efforts. Although some progress had been made, the smuggling market in Gaza still flourishes.

Egyptian forces demolish tunnels or fill them with gas almost every week, often with people still inside them, and Palestinian casualties in the tunnels have been steadily rising.
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Recently, Egypt examined several possibilities of blocking the tunnels, and joint American-Egyptian patrols have been seen in Rafah attempting to detect tunnels using underground sensors.

Construction of the wall has already begun. It will be made of enormous slates of steel, reaching deep into the ground. However, it is not expected to stem smuggling completely.

Several defense sources told Haaretz they believe that once captive soldier Gilad Shalit is released, Israel will have to re-examine the benefits of closing Gaza off. The closure has been undermined by the tunnel system, which provides not only munitions but food, cars, motorcycles, drugs, medicine and fuel, much more than what Israel allows into the Strip through the official border crossing.

The tunnels also allow people to cross in and out of the Strip, including terrorists who linked up with pro-Al-Qaida groups in Gaza and tried to carry out attacks in Egypt, defense sources said.

The smuggling industry is so institutionalized that tunnel operators purchase licenses from the Rafah municipality, allowing them to connect to electricity and water. Hamas has also been ensuring no children are employed in the tunnels, and is taxing all smuggled goods.

The Egyptians often intercept munitions before they can enter the Strip and have stepped up checks at internal roadblocks and checkpoints in the Sinai. Observers say mounting American pressure is in part responsible for increasing Egyptian efforts to combat the smugglers.

An Egyptian source told the daily “Haaretz” that "this wall is made of steel." It will be difficult to cross in any manner whatsoever, or to dig tunnels for the transfer of goods and ammunition to the Ghaza Strip.

The construction of this wall is another step on the part of Egypt that could reduce the "traffic" from Sinai into Ghaza, noted the same source which said that "the growing concern of Egypt to declare War to tunnels for several reasons including U.S. pressure on Cairo.

Ennaharonline / arabs48.com/ M. O.

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The Egypt Game: Descent into Heathenry

In Childhood, Creative Nonficiton, Family, Narrative on 9 December 2009 with no comments

When I was in ele­men­tary school, I read a won­der­ful novel called The Egypt Game. It was about five chil­dren who decided to recre­ate ancient Egypt on a piece of aban­doned prop­erty, and how the gods of the game inte­grated them­selves into the children’s every­day lives in spooky and enter­tain­ing ways.

I fell in love with the book, and knew imme­di­ately that I wanted to cre­ate ancient Egypt for myself, because I would cer­tainly be a very fetch­ing priest­ess for Isis. I looked very good in sparkly gold eyeshadow.

My baby brother and I were deeply imag­i­na­tive. In fact, my brother was so imag­i­na­tive that my mother wasn’t always entirely sure that he was alto­gether sane. He went through a phase of his life where he would gather very small objects of roughly equal size, such as peb­bles or pen­nies, and would con­fine him­self to a cor­ner, cross legged, toss­ing the objects around on the floor, rock­ing back and forth, and mak­ing strange sound effects. If a kid did that kind of thing today, doc­tors would call him autis­tic or some­such non­sense and dope him up with drugs until that silli­ness was knocked right out of him. But in those days, folks just fig­ured it was kids being kids. My mother thought it was strange, and it was, but even­tu­ally my brother grew out of it and that was that.

I say all that to say that the fact my brother and I owned noth­ing at all that even remotely resem­bled idols from ancient Egypt did noth­ing at all to deter us from our stead­fast deter­mi­na­tion to blas­pheme against Jesus Christ Our Lord and Savior right there in my mother’s backyard.

“We don’t have any stat­ues of Isis or Anubis,” I pointed out thought­fully, pre­tend­ing I knew what I was talk­ing about. The for­eign names felt good on my tongue, and made me sound intel­li­gent. “But we got those two empty water cooler jugs and some art sup­plies in the garage. We could paint ‘em up and stick some jew­els on them, and then we could just pre­tend they’re ancient gods from Egypt, okay?”

My brother was two and half years younger than I, which made him about five at the time, and he did just about any­thing I told him. He nod­ded his head, hav­ing absolutely no idea what I was say­ing, and helped me lug the over­sized plas­tic con­tain­ers into the backyard.

We must have painted and glued for hours before I was sat­is­fied with how our makeshift gods looked. Painstakingly, we draped our mother’s red, silk Christmas tree skirt over a cou­ple of over­turned card­board boxes for an altar, and set the freshly dec­o­rated five gal­lon jugs on top.

“Those look great!” I exclaimed, step­ping back to admire our hand­i­work. My brother silently agreed, lift­ing up the cro­cheted afghan he held in his left hand.

“Oh, right,” I said, turn­ing him around and drap­ing the blan­ket over his shoul­ders. I took a safety pin from my pocket and secured the blan­ket in a cape-like fash­ion around his neck. I don’t know why we decided that ancient Egyptians wore capes like Superman, but it seemed right at the time. And, really, if you can use a painted water cooler jug for the god­dess Isis, I sup­pose noth­ing is com­pletely out of the question.

We arranged our­selves around the altar, and I raised my hands to the sky, throw­ing my head back melo­dra­mat­i­cally. I sum­moned all the seri­ous I had at my dis­posal, along with the biggest, most impres­sive words in my vocab­u­lary. I had for­got­ten the gold eye glit­ter; fancy words would have to suffice.

“O won­drous and inim­itable lady Isis! We are your hum­ble ser­vants, born to honor and serve thee!” Ancient Egyptians cer­tainly spoke in Elizabethan English. If it was good enough for the Hebrews, it was def­i­nitely good enough for a priest­ess of Isis, even if I didn’t have any idea what “inim­itable” meant.

My lit­tle brother raised his arms, too, and said, “Amen!” I didn’t think it was right to say “amen”to an Egyptian god, but I didn’t know what else to say, so I repeated him. “Amen!”

We got down on our knees and began pros­trat­ing our­selves before these plas­tic water bot­tle idols. We man­aged a few “hal­lelu­jahs” and quite a few “amens” before my mother appeared before us, arms crossed angrily across her chest, face twisted in a fury.

“What the hell are you doing?” she asked.

Common sense fled me. I knew what I was about to say was the wrong answer, but I couldn’t help myself. A good, believ­able lie escaped me. My only option was the truth.

“We’re wor­ship­ing Isis and Anubis like the ancient Egyptians did,” I said.

My mother breathed in deeply, try­ing to keep her voice level. My mother could be quite a spec­ta­cle when she got angry. “We are Christians,”she hissed. “And you know that! Thou shalt have no other gods before me, remem­ber? What are you think­ing? And bring­ing your baby brother into your hea­thenry? Get your ass in the house and don’t let me ever catch you wor­ship­ing idols again! Really! What’s got­ten into you lately?”

Forlorn, I unclasped my brother’s cape and fol­lowed him into the house. The paint hadn’t even dried on our idols before we were forced to aban­don them to the twi­light. The next morn­ing, they were gone.

It was about that time my mother decided my brother and I needed to be baptized.

NEW YORK (WUSA) — Statement from Tom Brokaw From NBC WASHINGTON:

Tom and Meredith Brokaw, at around 1pm today, were in a three vehicle accident on the Bruckner Expressway. The Brokaws were in the far left lane when they noticed a spool of cable bouncing along the far right lane. Just then, a green SUV in the right lane came up fast and tried to avoid the cable. The driver lost control of her vehicle and slid into the middle lane, forcing a mail truck into the Brokaw lane of traffic.

As the mail truck careened into the Brokaw lane, Tom hit the brakes hard and skidded along the median. When the mail truck catapulted the median the Brokaw vehicle slid into it. Neither Tom nor Meredith were injured but tragically the driver of the SUV was thrown from her vehicle and killed.

Tom and Meredith are greatly saddened by this loss of life.

Email compliance has become essential for all types of businesses. It can help protect harassment, security and your business. There are solutions in which those who violate email compliance can be stopped before they occur. Of course, for this to happen, there are automated tools to help accomplish this amazing task. There are even email compliance laws that all public businesses have to abide by. Even HIPAA, (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) has to engage in email compliance laws. The problem with this as many suggest, some HIPAA and email compliance laws contradict each other making this a controversial subject.

I understand that businesses must have a policy with email compliance, but some businesses are subject to privacy. Files are becoming increasingly kept in databases and archived. The government is allowed to track email in certain businesses, but if I am writing this business, the government should have no business interfering. For example, if I go to a doctor and I am diagnosed with a chronic cough. He prescribes me codeine to relieve the cough. A week or so later, I email the doctor and say I need more. If a government official wants to check email records, he/she may think I am addicted. This violates doctor – patient confidentiality. This scenario was light, but what if it was about a girl revealing teenage pregnancy. Government does not have the right to know about it. At the same time, if the doctor told his staff through email about someone’s diagnosis, he/she would be violating email compliance and HIPAA, which could result in serious consequences for the doctor.

One positive aspect of email compliance is that it can reduce spamming of real businesses. What do I mean by this exactly? For some businesses, it is a good idea to get a mailing list and send bulk email. It’s really no different than an annoying telemarketer. Legitimate businesses send bulk email after you sign up for certain things online like how to make money off the internet. The specific site that you signed up for may be a partner with another site you are now receiving email from. The email compliance they have to follow is usually an opt-out choice. The opt outs are usually in the fine print at the bottom of the email saying “you have received this email because you signed up for (whatever you signed up for) and if you would like to opt out from receiving this email, please click this link.” When you sign up for a lot of these, it does feel like spam. If this email compliance rule was not in affect, my inbox would be full on a daily basis.

Email compliance can be positive or negative. In any case, every business needs a policy. The use of phones, radio, television, or any other form of communication has a policy. Email may be relatively new, but it is communication, which gives right to all businesses to have an email compliance policy.