Online access to bank account has been a problem for many home-based entrepreneurs for several years now, but it may come to end soon. Citibank is now offering ease and comfort for enterprising people who want to get more information and services from their credit cards and bank accounts right in the comfort of their own home. They even adopted the mobile banking application for Android phones to get in touch with Citi Mobile Payments.

The main purpose of this tool was to help track bank accounts, pay bills, transfer funds, view electronic statements and allow entrepreneurs to experience online banking services without having to go to the bank through the Citibank Online.

The Citibank’s mobile banking application or App for Android phones will also show its users shopping and dining offers exclusively for Citibank customers wherever they may be. This could easily be done by downloading from the Marketplace application in the Android phone.

"It is simple to navigate, assures you of secure access and has world-class banking features that allow you to do your transactions whenever you wish," said Roy Villareal, Consumer eBusiness director. "It even has a personal budgeting tool that can help you keep a close watch of your credit card expenses by creating a monthly budget for all your spending."

However, some sceptics are not too excited with this new application. Even if this is still new to many people and no known issues have been identified so far, some consumers are worried about the security measures the application has adopted. There are several cases in the past where mobile applications were hacked to either steal the user’s identity or to open their accounts and transfer their money without difficulty.

Read More ...

For the past five years, IBM has come up with a list of five innovations it believes will become popular within the next five years. In this, the sixth year, IBM revealed to the public a list of mind-boggling and unbelievable innovations that it believes will gain traction to change the way people work, live and play.

"At IBM, we are bridging the gap between science fiction and science fact on a daily basis," said Lope Doromal, chief technologist of IBM Philippines.

Hold on to your sci-fi novels, because some of these are pretty far out there. And some of them, well, I wish we had them today to help us change the future of this planet:

1. Anybody can power their homes with the energy that they created themselves.
2. Nobody will ever need a password again.
3. Mind reading is no longer science fiction.
4. The digital divide will cease to exist.
5. Junk mail will become priority mail.

According to IBM, the next Five in Five is based on market and societal trends as well as emerging technologies from their labs around the world that can make these transformations possible.

On the power that can be generated to power a home, IBM explained that anything that moves or produces heat has the potential to create energy that can be captured. From walking, jogging, bicycling to the water flowing through the pipes has energy. Advances in renewable energy technology will allow individuals to collect this kinetic energy, which now goes to waste, and use it to help power homes, workplaces and cities.

On the claim that password will not be necessary anymore, IBM said that the biological makeup is the key to individual’s identity, and soon, it will become the key to safeguarding it. Nobody will again need to create, track or remember multiple passwords for various log-ins.

On their observation that mind reading will no longer be a thing in science fiction literature, IBM scientists are currently researching how to link a brain to devices, such as a computer or a smartphone.

On their prediction that the digital divide will cease to exist, IBM explained that the global society, growth and wealth of economies are increasingly decided by the level of access to information. And in five years, the gap between information haves and have-nots will narrow considerably due to advances in mobile technology.

Incredulously, IBM also thinks that junk mail will become priority mail because unsolicited advertisements may feel so personalized and relevant it may seem spam is dead. At the same time, spam filters will be so precise nobody will ever be bothered by unwanted sales pitches again.


"Trends #4 and #5 are especially relevant to the Filipinos because of the prevalent use of smartphones and gadgets. In addition, the Philippines is considered the most social media-addicted market globally according to comScore.com," Doromal added.

However, how good IBM predictions really are? Well, their track record of predictions over the past five years has been somewhat mixed. For instance, in 2006 they predicted that everyone will be able to access health care remotely, from just about anywhere in the world; there will be a 3D Internet and mobile phones will start to read minds.

At this time, we all know that remote health care is a reality, but real-time speech translation is, well, not quite as real. Also, we still waiting for the 3D Internet, but those mobile phones are becoming awfully smart.

Read More ...

Before business owners decide who among their applicants is best suited to manage new ventures and critical enterprises it may be better if they should try to read first the result of MasterCards survey on Consumer Purchasing Priorities - Money Management. The survey reports that women have stronger money management skills than men in areas such as everyday financing and planning but struggle around more complex financial concepts.

Respondents from across seven Asia/Pacific markets were asked about their ability to handle everyday budgeting; keeping track of expenses; paying bills on time; knowledge of compound interest, and whether paying minimum amounts on unstructured loans such as credit cards was a good idea. The survey then polled the consumers on various aspects of financial literacy such as their basic money management skills, investment knowledge and financial planning.

From the data gathered from 15 March to 27 April 2011 and involving 4,359 consumers, it appeared that women scored better than men in most markets when it came to tracking expenses regularly, but trailed when it came to understanding investments and inflation compared to their male counterparts.

The data collection was made via internet surveys, personal, telephone and computer aided telephone interviews, with the questionnaire translated to the local language wherever appropriate and necessary. The survey and its accompanying reports do not represent MasterCard financial performance.

Results also showed that both men and women were adept at budgeting for their everyday finances-eight out of 10 respondents overall said they could handle budgeting. The survey also found that women believed it unwise to only pay the minimum amount for unsecured loan facilities such as credit cards, led by New Zealand (76 percent women vs 73 percent men) and Hong Kong (76 percent women vs. 66 percent men).

Survey findings further revealed a generally weak understanding of the concept of compound interest across most markets, with the exception of Chinese women who had the highest score (47 percent), followed by Chinese men (37 percent), and Japanese respondents (men 33 percent, women 30 percent). Women were found to be more money conscious and better at keeping track of their spending more regularly than men. Women in both Australia and New Zealand (76 percent of respondents) were especially systematic account keepers.

Women also edged ahead of men in their prudence, with Taiwanese women leading in regular savings (96 percent women vs 92 percent men) and the belief in having three to six months’ emergency cash savings. In a majority of the markets surveyed, women also showed up as being more financially prepared in taking out insurance for anything unexpected, led by Taiwan (92 percent women vs 89 percent men).

Survey questions about more complex financial concepts-such as understanding inflation or investment-favored men, with a significant proportion of women unable to answer or answering incorrectly when questioned about the concept of inflation. In Japan, 65 percent of the women did not know the answer or answered incorrectly, compared with 49 percent of men, with Australia a close second from the bottom (63 percent women vs 49 percent men).

Similarly, women did not have a clear understanding of whether single company stocks provide safer returns than a diversified stock portfolio. Across seven markets surveyed, on average 63 percent said they did not know or answer incorrectly on whether a single company stock portfolio was better than a diversified one compared to 57 percent for men.

Read More ...

I. Preparing the Fishpond

• Construct a small fishpond in areas having suitable clay soil and abundant water supply, about 10 meters wide, 20 meters long and 1 meter depth.
• Irrigate up to 3 to 5 centimeters (cm.) water level.
• Apply 1 kilo of dried chicken manure fertilizer per square meter (sqm.) of the pond
• Let natural fish food organisms grow in 15 to 17 days.
• Irrigate the pond up to 50 cm. level. The pond is now prepared for stocking of the tilapia breeders/adults.

II. Stocking of Tilapia Breeders

• This is done early in the morning or in the afternoon when the weather is cool.
• The ratio is, 1 male is to 3 female. Avoid to pair many male tilapias because it tends to slow down the production of fingerlings because they tend to eat their own fingerlings due to lack of feed. 1-2 tilapias may be dropped per square meter.

III. Management
Feeding System

• Feed the tilapias twice a day by using a duck layer mash or broiler mash, about 3 to 5 percent of the fish body weight. Do not give feeds with high protein as it tends to make the fish fat and incapable to lay eggs.

IV. Harvesting

• The tilapias lay eggs from 20 to 26 days. Three to five days after the eggs are hatched, the fingerlings should be collected early in the morning and transfer it in the rearing net enclosures.
  

Source: http://www.da.gov.ph/tips/tilapia/fingerlingway.html

Read More ...

The growing and aging population worldwide is generating an increasing need for medical professionals. This is already evident in the increasing number of nurses migrating and working abroad. The elderly require a considerably greater number of medical tests, treatments, and procedures that all require documentation. There is also an increased awareness in the importance of preventative health care. This particular trend is opening up a new avenue for work prospects in the Philippines.

The country is currently benefiting from a total of PhP 1.63 billion investment in the IT sector, most of which come from outsource service providers. While the country is busy looking at call centers, there is a growing and untapped need for medical transcriptionists.

Medical Talk
Medical transcriptionists (MTs) interpret and transcribe dictated recordings by physicians and healthcare professionals into medical reports, correspondence, and administrative materials. These can include patient assess-ments, therapeutic procedures, clinical course, diagnosis, and prognosis. The technological processes differ but the intention is to convert electronically stored voice-dictation by medical professionals into written form.

A doctor based abroad can call a 1-800 number, key in a patient's ID number, and dictate his findings. The dictation will then be transcribed in the Philippines, stored in a database and e-mailed back to the doctor. Some institutions use speech recognition technology and the resulting document is then checked and edited to ensure accuracy and cohesion. It may require extensive editing depending on the capabilities of the speech recognition software and, of course, the habits of the professional dictating the text. It is also necessary to make corrections that relate to grammar, punctuation, and style.

Jobs in Transcription
The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that employment for medical transcriptionists will grow faster than the average for all occupations through the year 2012. This growth is the result of the pressure for hospitals to convert their medical files to electronic formats in compliance with requirements for federal certification.

With the Internet becoming secure enough to handle transmission of confidential health information, there is an increased demand for overseas transcription. It is estimated that about 47 percent of the US medical transcription market is outsourced to countries like the Philippines.

Medical transcriptionists can earn a minimum of PhP 10,000 a month with additional incentives depending on production output. Those with their own US-based clients can earn in dollars while working at home (US labor statistics place the median hourly earnings of a transcriptionist at US$ 13.05).

The US medical transcription industry is estimated at US$ 10-20 billion dollars with an annual growth rate of 13 percent, which also translates to an additional 150,000 additional medical transcriptionists needed yearly. Cornering ten percent of the US market alone means a PhP 50 billion industry -- at a minimum -- in just a few years. With this figure, medical transcription has been identified as a priority area in the information and communications technology (ICT) development in the Philippines.

It is projected that the medical transcription industry might be the next employment generator in the country. The low labor cost and the English proficient, IT skilled workers which account for the popularity of the country as an outsourcing venue for call centers are the same factors that make the country viable for medical transcription.

More than Talk

However, there is big difference between call centers and medical transcription. While any additional training in a call center would be in small amounts and would be limited to the product that one is representing, medical transcription requires intensive and very specialized training. Unlike the common misconception which pegs medical transcription as purely a data entry job, being a medical transcriptionist requires certain skills unique to the field.

Transcribing medical records is a sensitive vocation because there is an absolute need for accuracy. A small mistake can literally be the difference between life and death. More than just the skill to understand the English language Ð its structure and nuances -- there is a need to understand the human anatomy. It requires extensive knowledge in medical terminology, anatomy and physiology, diagnostic procedures, pharmacology, and treatment assessments.

These requirements make the country more attractive than other outsourcing destinations. The Philippines has the advantage of having doctors and nurses who have studied and worked abroad. These professionals are familiar with foreign healthcare systems, particularly the United States' and have the edge of being already familiar with American English usage, accents, and idioms.

Another thing that makes the country particularly attractive for medical transcription is the advanced and comparatively cost-efficient telecommunications and business infrastructure. The time difference factor also plays a role in such instances where there is an immediate need for results.

Blossoming Industry

There are at least 17 companies in the Philippines that offer MT services to US-based clients. Several schools have already sprung to help train future transcriptionists. These schools, like MTC Academy, offer training that incorporates lectures with laboratory work before handling actual transcription work as their on-the-job training.

MTC Academy was established initially to supply the manpower demands of its sister company, Accutype Medical Services (AMS), an MT production facility and joint venture partner of a Kansas-based MT organization. The president and founder of the school, Eugenio G. Gonzalez, explains that their difficulty to find qualified medical transcriptionists who could deliver the quality standards required by Accutype was their key driver in putting up the school.

With the number of US-based transcriptionists decreasing at a rate of ten percent yearly, there is no doubt that the Philippines will continue to benefit from medical transcription outsourcing. But the country is still under-utilizing the potential of this IT-enabled service.

The Technical Education Skills Development Authority (TESDA) has already set the guidelines and requirements for certification in the medical transcription field. But more than just support in marketing the skills and product, there is a need to give full administrative and legislative support to these programs.

Due to the sensitivity of the business, the US government passed the Health Insurance Portability and Accountancy Act (HIPAA) of 1996 that gives guidelines for safeguarding medical data. This arose from an incident where a transcriptionist threatened to disclose confidential information on the Internet because of problems with payment. This raised concerns in the US and threatened to slow down the outsourcing of transcription business. The Medical Transcription Industry Association of the Philippines (MTIAPI) calls for the government to help in providing corresponding legislation that will give assurance to clients that the privacy laws would also be held up in the country.

Read More ...

Everytime people think of a car wash, they tend to think of it as an exterior-conveyor wash. These are the washes that put cars on a motorized track and drag them through a tunnel where they are rinsed, soaped up, washed, rinsed again and possibly waxed. The cars then emerge clean (and perhaps even relatively dry) at the other end. But this is only one type of car wash.

Other types of washes include:

• Full-service: This is basically a combination of the exterior conveyor with an inside cleaning (also known as detailing) added in.
• In-bay automatic (also called a rollover): This type of car wash is an automatic wash consisting of a machine that literally “rolls over” a stationary car parked in a washing bay.
• Self-service: Most self-service car washes are coin-operated brush-and-hose combinations that the driver uses to dispense soap, wash the car and rinse it off.

Aside from stereotyping car wash operation, there are also a few common misconceptions most people have about what a typical car wash business involves. Because of these misconceptions, entrepreneurs who wanted to go into car wash business or trying to invest in one are often times disappointed when what they had in mind was not the one that actually transpired.

To correct the wrong impression about the operation of a car wash business, here are some of the common myths:

Myth #1: This Business Is A Cash Cow

Sure, if you drive by your local car wash on a sunny Saturday morning, you’ll see cars waiting in line for a wash. But drive by that same car wash on a rainy Thursday afternoon, and you’ll be lucky if you see one or two cars waiting. You might even see that the shop is closed for the day. Variables such as the time of the week as well as the weather affect how profitable car wash businesses can be on any given day, or for any given week, month or season. Sometimes, people are content to let their cars stay dirty for "one more day." Or, if the season is particularly wet, snowy or some other factor that would make people reluctant to pay good money for a car that’s likely to be filthy again in a few days, months can pass where business is down—sometimes severely so.

Myth #2: This Is A Hands-Off Business

As an outsider, all you see are cars being dragged along a conveyor as a bunch of gizmos and do-dads spray, buff, rinse, wax and even dry them. You might not ever see a human being doing any work at all (though even most automatic conveyor washes do employ at least a few workers to complete the drying process by hand). In truth though, this is not a business that you can put on autopilot. For one thing, those gizmos and do-dads can and will break down. And, depending on the type of equipment you buy, they might break down much more than you think.

Cars emerge from those washing tunnels not clean enough to satisfy some customers or with a scratch that you didn't cause but that the customer blames you for anyway. Employees sometimes will not treat customers the way they should be treated, especially if you haven't trained them well.

Shipments of supplies will be late, and someone (usually you) will have to be there to deal with it. After all, it's pretty much impossible to wash a car with no soap. The bottom line is that you'll be spending a lot of time at your car wash—at least until you learn the business well enough to be able to hire a professional manager who can take over when you’re not there.

Myth #3: You Won't Have Employees To Worry About

This might actually be true for certain types of car washes (most likely self-service and, to a lesser extent, in-bay automatic washes), but for a full-service or exterior-conveyor wash, you're going to have to hire employees and inherit the headaches and responsibilities that go along with them. In fact, aside from the initial investment in equipment and commercial space, employees will probably be one of the biggest costs you incur while running your business.

Myth #4: You're In Total Control

Well, you are your own boss, that's for sure. But until someone figures out how to control factors like the weather, you're still going to have to answer to a higher authority. No matter how much time you put into your business, there are still going to be things that go wrong—things you just can’t control.

Even if you're a mechanical whiz, some of your equipment is going to break down. And if it happens at a peak washing time, like that glorious sunny Saturday morning we keep talking about, you're going to watch a lot of potential profit go down the drain.

You will have to suffer through days or maybe even weeks at a time (depending on where your business is located) when the weather is so bad that the furthest thing on anyone's mind is getting a car wash. And unfortunately, the bank won’t care about the lousy weather when your loan payment comes due.

Read More ...