elainehendrixes: April 2013

Sunday, 7 April 2013

Halle Berry is expecting her second child

By Courtney Hazlett, TODAY

Halle Berry and her fianc? Olivier Martinez?are expecting a child, the actress' publicist confirmed to TODAY.com.

Kevin Winter / Getty Images file

Halle Berry and fiance Olivier Martinez are expecting their first child together.

This will be the first baby for the couple. Berry's rep said "we will not be commenting on or confirming any additional details," so if you're curious about the baby's sex or when he or she will join Berry's 5-year-old daughter Nahla (with ex-boyfriend Gabriel Aubry), you'll have to wait.

Berry, 46, and Martinez, 47, began dating in 2010 after co-starring in the thriller "Dark Tide." They became engaged about 15 months ago.?

Berry has talked about wanting to add to her familiy as recently as November 2012, during an appearance on "The Wendy Williams Show."

"Every night, we do our prayers," Berry said. "We pray to God, so sweet. She (Nahla) says, 'God, please bring me a bunk bed and a baby sister.' And I say, 'I can do one of those things, I know for sure. The other one, we've got to keep praying on.'"?

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Source: http://todayentertainment.today.com/_news/2013/04/05/17618344-halle-berry-expecting-second-child?lite

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Evil Dead Review: A Very Bloody Engagment

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/04/evil-dead-review-a-very-bloody-engagment/

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Virality Is The X-Factor Of Mobile-First Business Apps | TechCrunch

Editor?s Note: Joe Floyd is?a VC investor at Emergence Capital Partners. Follow him on Twitter?@thejoefloyd.

Away from the fickle eyes of consumers, deep in the basement of app stores, enterprise mobile apps are fighting each other for the attention of business users.

Given the restrictions of their target audience, business app developers simply cannot utilize the same techniques that consumer app companies leverage. Why is that? And more importantly, how can mobile business apps efficiently speed up user acquisition?

Customer Acquisition Models For Consumer Apps

First, let?s examine the methods consumer app developers have used to efficiently acquire large user bases and why business app developers cannot leverage the same techniques.

Obviously, consumer apps have a large target audience, as everyone with a smartphone is a potential customer. As a result, the size of the target audience is capable of generating enough web and app-store search volume to build an initial customer base for apps. Plus, the undifferentiated nature of consumers means that cross-promotional advertising on consumer apps can be a very effective and efficient user-acquisition technique.

For example, an advertisement for a mobile game can appear on any mobile app, and the end user is always a potential target. On the contrary, the target audiences for business apps are often much smaller and may be focused on a particular vertical niche, such as doctors or real estate professionals. As a result of the smaller target audience, business apps do not see a sufficient level of web and app-store search volume. Further, cross-promotional advertising is much less effective because of the niche target audiences. For example, less than 1 percent of U.S. smartphone users are doctors, which makes it very difficult to target that vertical with display ads.

Lastly, consumer app developers with deep pockets have been known to game app store rankings. At the launch of a new consumer app, the developer can pay for downloads through services, such as Chartboost and Tapjoy, until they crack the top 25 of an app store. At that point, their visibility on the app store leaderboard increases their discoverability to the point where organic downloads can take over. Given their smaller target market, mobile-first business apps simply cannot compete with consumer apps for space in app-store rankings (there are no business apps in the iOS Top 50 as of this writing).

crowded apps

Building Virality Into Enterprise Apps

Now that we?ve explored what is not working for enterprise mobile apps, let?s focus on what is working: designing your product work flows to drive direct exposure to new potential users and building in opportunities for indirect referrals through word-of-mouth virality.

Dropbox?is the quintessential paradigm of designing virality into a product. Users are incentivized to refer Dropbox because they receive free additional storage for doing so. Additionally, the act of sharing a file with a friend inherently exposes Dropbox to new potential users and serves as a trigger for customers to talk about the service.

Building on the lessons learned from Dropbox, there are three techniques that emerging mobile-first business app developers are using to build virality into their products: triggers, incentives and workflow.

There are three techniques that emerging mobile-first business app developers are using to build virality into their products.

Triggers are events that spur an action. In this particular context, triggers are actions that an app user takes that provide for an opportunity to discuss the application. Expensify, a mobile app for business users to submit expense reports, has built in two word-of-mouth referral triggers: 1) every time a user takes a picture of a receipt for expense reporting, they are triggered to talk about the app with the coworkers or clients present; 2) the act of submitting an expense report triggers an explanation of the product to the person approving the report.

Incentives play on the concept that users are much more likely to actively refer a product if they receive some practical value for doing so. Plangrid, an iPad app for managing construction-site blueprints, uses incentives to spread among the different companies that collaborate on construction sites. Plangrid?s value to each site user increases with each additional company and user that joins and adds to the project. Thus, users have a practical incentive to refer the product to new target users.

Lastly, building virality directly into the workflow of how a customer uses an app is a very effective way to expose the app to new potential users. Doximity, a mobile professional network for physicians, has built virality into its product workflow through its secure messaging capability. Doctors use Doximity to send HIPAA-compliant messages to other doctors. Every message sent from a user to a doctor not yet on the platform exposes a new potential user to the product, because the message recipient must install Doximity to read the message.

Key For Enterprise Apps

Mobile-first business apps have to follow different rules for customer acquisition in order to achieve the scale and marketing efficiency of their consumer-focused brethren. The key for enterprise apps is to focus on building virality into the product so users directly or indirectly spread the app within their target audience. The mobile-first business apps that emerge victorious will be the ones that leverage triggers, incentives and workflow to kick their user acquisition flywheel into overdrive.

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/06/virality-is-the-x-factor-of-mobile-first-business-apps/

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Thursday, 4 April 2013

Customers pack Conn. gun stores after deal on laws

Shoppers leave Hoffman's Gun Center with their purchases in Newington, Conn., Tuesday, April 2, 2013. Customers are packing gun stores around Connecticut following the unveiling of new gun-control legislation, which could take effect as soon as Wednesday evening. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Cars jam the parking lot as shoppers leave Hoffman's Gun Center with their purchases in Newington, Conn., Tuesday, April 2, 2013. Customers are packing gun stores around Connecticut following the unveiling of new gun-control legislation, which could take effect as soon as Wednesday evening. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

NEWINGTON, Conn. (AP) ? Customers packed gun stores around Connecticut on Tuesday ahead of a vote expected to bring sweeping changes to the state's gun control laws, including a ban on the sale of large-capacity ammunition magazines like the ones used in the Newtown shooting and a new classification for more than 100 types of guns as banned assault weapons.

Lawmakers have touted the legislation expected to pass the General Assembly on Wednesday as the toughest in the country. Some measures would take effect right away, including the expansion of the state's assault weapons ban, universal background checks for all firearms sales, and a ban on the sale or purchase of ammunition magazines holding more than 10 rounds. The bill also addresses mental health and school security measures in response to the massacre.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, a Democrat, supports the bill and could sign it into law as soon as Wednesday night.

In a state with a rich history of gun manufacturing, some companies said they feel the legislation made them into scapegoats for the deaths of 20 first-graders and six educators in the Dec. 14 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School. At least one ammunition magazine maker is more seriously considering offers to leave.

"My home is in Connecticut, but at this point, I don't know if I can operate here legally come Wednesday afternoon," said Jonathan Scalise, owner of Ammunition Storage Components in New Britain. He said it's unclear to him whether employees in possession of banned firearms or ammunition would be breaking the law.

Gun shops across the state reported brisk sales Tuesday and said customers also checked on the status of orders that they worried could be canceled once the new laws take effect.

The parking lot at Hoffman's Gun Center and Indoor Range in Newington was full Tuesday morning, with some drivers parking on the front lawn. Inside, customers waited in long lines to purchase what was left.

"I walked through. I walked out because they didn't have anything. The girl told me what's on the shelf is what they have. And I totally believe that," said Nick Viccione, a gun owner from Wallingford. He said people are trying to load up on ammunition and buy "anything semi-automatic."

At other shops, including the Delta Arsenal gun store in Wallingford, employees reported difficulty getting through to the state police to run background checks needed to complete gun sales.

Connecticut State Police Lt. J. Paul Vance said he hadn't received any complaints of people not getting through to the office that handles such checks but acknowledged they might get a busy signal once in a while.

"The special licensing and firearms unit is going full bore," he said.

The gun industry in Connecticut dates back to the Revolutionary War and says it supports more than 7,000 jobs in the state. Some companies say the new restrictions have them considering a move.

O.F. Mossberg & Sons Inc. in North Haven does not support a ban on firearms or equipment, said Joe Bartozzi, senior vice president and general counsel, adding that "they've never reduced crime or violence."

Mossberg has been in business since 1919 and employs 270 workers in Connecticut. It also has a manufacturing plant in Eagle Pass, Texas, and has been courted for years by other states.

"I've got a stack of invitations from governors, congressmen and economic development groups right here on my desk," he said.

Mark Malkowski, owner and president of Stag Arms in New Britain, said he's not threatening to move but that his biggest concern about staying in Connecticut is "staying in a state that does not support us."

He said Stag Arms, which employs 200 people, manufactures about 72,000 rifles a year, at a cost of about $1,000 each. About 5 percent of the company's sales are in Connecticut.

"It's actually quite hypocritical, quite insulting," he said. "If our products are so dangerous and so horrible that no Connecticut resident should be in possession of it, why is it OK to send it to the rest of the country?"

Echoing that was the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

"Connecticut's firearms manufacturers will be forced to pay a price economically for the state's double standard of you can build it here, but not sell it here, public policy formulation," the Newtown-based trade association said in a statement.

Malloy said Tuesday he plans to write to the state's gun manufacturers, informing them that as long as they are manufacturing a product that can be legally sold in the U.S. that they're still welcome in Connecticut.

"Having said that, there are other things that need to be taken into consideration," Malloy said. "And the public's safety is one of those things."

Nicole Hockley, whose 6-year-old son, Dylan, was killed at Sandy Hook, welcomed the legislation. She credited lawmakers with listening to the parents, who had opposed allowing existing high-capacity magazines to be grandfathered into the law. Legislators did allow that but also required the magazines to be registered by Jan. 1 with the state.

"This is going to be one of the strongest gun laws in the nation, and that will be a model for other states to follow and for federal leaders to follow," she said.

Associated Press reporters Michael Melia, Stephen Singer and Stephen Kalin in Hartford contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-04-02-Gun%20Control-Conn/id-139678b0b81142f6b0d1c73a472229ce

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finding joy: 10 Motherhood Secrets

I'm often asked what I've learned being a mother. And besides never running out of all forms of paper products at one time or to buy the gallon pails of vanilla icecream in the summer because you can use those pails for so many things most of what I'd tell you I've learned is from my kids. Through trial and error and tears and laughter and storms and sun. Life isn't perfect. But us mothers? We're amazing people - we just need to believe it - to start walking boldly through life wearing the motherhood badge proudly. ~Rachel

Here are ten simple things that I've learned in the almost seventeen years that someone has looked at me as mom. They're life things, secrets, I guess.

1. You don't need to know everything. Do you remember those months before that first child came in your home? I do. I remember stacks of books bought at Border's book (this was early internet years - there was no google for me - just thinking about that makes me wonder how on earth I did it - what did I do when I needed a quick recipe? A book? grin) that I would devour, underline, and reference. What to expect the first day, week, year, and so on. And I had this other one - this portable pediatrician one - that I'd scour symptoms making sure that my Hannah was fine. And she was. In fact, she's almost 17 and survived those early years of me looking everything up and calling my mother and worrying. You know what? I didn't know so much, and we did okay. We muddled through, and I figured stuff out, and it's been okay. So I've learned that even if I don't know it all that I'll be okay. And, honestly, sometimes I'd like to know a bit less. We live in a data rich information saturated world and sometimes google search can just stay unopened.

2. Listen first, speak second. My argument, my reasoning, and why I'm right seems to always play in my head when I'm talking with my kids. But, after almost seventeen years of parenting I've truly begun to learn the value in listening first - hearing their point of view - and truly trying to understand before I end up speaking mine. It doesn't mean that they're always right, but rather is this sign of respect for the feelings of their hearts. So I've learned - listen, listen, listen, bite your tongue, listen, and listen. This skill? Applies to all of life and relationships. We can learn a great deal by listening to others and shelving our agenda for a bit. When we bless others with attentiveness we get a glimpse into their heart and their importants. Those things matter.

3. The agenda doesn't need to be set in stone. Even though you'd sometimes like it to be. Flexibility has been what I've learned - adapt, change, recalculate - and to not let the adaptations taint my mood for the day. Raising a family, having children, and just living life has truly emphasized me the idea of grace and flexibility. If you can learn to laugh, and to brush things off, then your day will go so much smoother. Just pick up where you can, press on, and use the remainder of your day well. Instead of looking where things didn't go right look to what did. And often some of the sweetest life lessons and moments come in those times where you went off schedule and tried something new.

4. Others may not agree, but you can still be respectful. Us mothers can work ourselves up in a tizzy about all the different things mothers debate. And all of these things - vaccinations, education, etc - are all good things. Needed things. Remember? It's good that we're not the same - that's beautiful. But here's the deal even if others don't agree with you or you don't agree with them there still needs to be a level of respect. I expect that from my kids when they don't agree with me or with their siblings. As women let's hold that bar high and respect each other even when we don't agree. Our children are watching.

5. Playing matters more than the dishes. There has been so many in a minutes and just a seconds in my life because I've wanted to get those dishes done. You know what? They always get done. Inevitably. But sometimes, playing, and getting on the floor or throwing that baseball in the backyard matters way more than the pile of dishes waiting to get done. I have had to discipline myself to say no to those things and time and yes to my children. They need us there doing life with them. If you need to read more read Dear In a Minute Mom.

6. Start saying yes. Several months ago I wrote a post called Becoming a Yes Mom. My good friend Toni at The Happy Housewife has been doing a series of pictures called Today I said Yes to... You know what? It's easier for me to say no. I'm being honest. When I say no most of the time it means less effort, less work from me. But I need to say yes. I never realized how often I said no until I had children. Now, now I've learned that I need to start saying yes before it comes to the point that they stop asking. What can you say yes to today?

7. Chores are good. Even though my children might tell you otherwise. From a young age we've expected chores around our home. Nothing excessive, but keeping your room tidy, making your bed, putting your clothes in the laundry. My kids rotate with the dishes, and help with the garbage and help with folding. All of that is good. Our society needs kids that are taught the value in work, and that it is not always something that needs to have a dollar sign attached to it. Part of living in a family and in a home is working together to get it all done. So don't run from chores - incorporate them into your life. Now, the kids do get an allowance, but that is for specific chores outside of the general expected stewardship roles. Find the balance, but don't run from chores.

8. Optimism is worth it. Sometimes it's easier for me to be pessimistic and see all that doesn't work. But, when I do that I find myself scurrying around from thing to thing to thing. Optimism is worth it. It's an attitude, a heart adjustment, really. It's being willing to see the good before seeing the things that don't work. It's kind of like the listening before speaking bit - it's practice, but worth the effort. Optimism takes work and choosing to see the good, but living an optimistic life allows for many more finding joy loving the little things moments.

9. Choose {find} joy. It would be easy to sit and lament how hard everything was during the day. And you know what? Sometimes we simply need to do that. But do you know that it is also of utmost importance for our children to see us happy? Not all the time, but some of the time? Once a little one of mine asked me why I didn't smile much during the day. I didn't even realize that I had been so focused that I was kind of moving through my house like a bull in a china shop. I remember looking in his eyes and telling him that I was so happy to be his momma and he told me then I needed to smile. Mothers, smile at your kids today. Tell them you love being their momma even though inside it might have been a really hard day. Those words matter.
10. Tell your kids you like them. Remember how I said words matter? Well, let me tell you, make sure you tell your kids that you simply like them. Love is unconditional. Like is the word that tells them you like being around them, you like who they are, and that you simply like them as your child. My Samuel the other night was resting in my bed and he said, momma, I like you. Talk about melt my heart. Learn from that - take a minute and walk with your little one or your big one and let them know that you like them. Simple words, but very powerful heart words to cherish.

Ten secrets, ten facts, ten things I learned being a mother. Children are often the best teachers - their tenacity, zest for life, and unending curiosity inspires me to look at life through a different lens.

Life is good.

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Images and original content are sole property of Rachel Martin and may not be used, copied or transmitted without prior written consent.

Source: http://rachelmariemartin.blogspot.com/2013/04/10-motherhood-secrets.html

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