I love J-Lo. Always have.  Never loved her clothing line though…

According to Jennifer Lopez, the failure of her fashion line Sweetface to be one of her biggest career disappointments. The pop-star now American Idol judge was devastated when she was forced to retire her brand in 2009, due to inability of the brand to appeal to bargain shoppers.

I read in the  New York Times J-Lo said, “That was sad for me. I just felt like I never got a fair chance to do it right. And on top of it, I felt like I was trapped in a situation I couldn’t get out of, and my name was stamped on things that I didn’t believe in…(I) didn’t understand the business well enough.”

I heard JLo is teaming up with husband Marc Anthony to launch a lifestyle brand with the department store Kohls, and is focused on doing amazingly this time around. Tommy, who worked with her on the new partnership says  “The difference this time around is Jennifer is fully engaged with a company that is professionally staffed to really develop anything she wants from towels to knee-high suede boots.”

I think J-Lo has made a nice comeback since then, and I’m excited!

-Lynn

As I can definitely tell you, jewelry shopping has always been the most stressful part of a woman’s shopping spree, with endless searches through malls for high quality affordable jewelery,and attending mega jewelery sales that never deliver what we look for. Finally we can shop from the comforts of our own homes via the Internet, which brings the best jewelery in the world – from wedding bands, engagement rings, diamond anniversary bands, watches and more – to our doorstep.

Internet shopping is now widely popular among all social and age groups. They see it as an ideal alternative to wasting precious time, effort and money at crowded jewelery stores perusing through overpriced jewelery sold by commissioned sales associates. Especially on holidays like Valentine’s Day when the shops are filled with people,and you end up making wrong choices due to lack of time.

The net has a millions of stores to peruse thorough, selling amazing pieces of jewelery waiting to be discovered. The online stores stock a wide range of products such as earrings, gemstone jewelery, watches, rings and bands for special occasions. They also have jewelery made of many kinds of materials like white or yellow gold, stainless steel, tungsten carbide which sport precious gemstones – including emeralds, sapphires, garnet, rubies etc. The wide selection available online cannot be stocked by any one jewelery store, so your choices are endless.

The best feature of shopping online is the low prices in comparison to the conventional jewelery stores. Since online stores do not need costly showrooms, or high maintenance, they are able to pass on this saving to the customer. Many online stores also offer free shipping and money back guarantees, hence you buy for less with confidence.

Once you experience jewelery shopping online you will never go back to brick and mortar shops. The jewelery you desire is only a click away.

-Lynn

There are a plethora of circumstances where computer-matched ads are not a good fit. For example, what if a site for entomologists featured ads for spare parts for Volkswagen Beetles, or a site showcasing funny pratfalls showed ads for trips (vacations). This is exactly why Google is testing expanded category blocking with AdSense.

Before the testing began, site owners were able to use the category filter to stop ads appearing from up to five categories, but this was meant to be used in a rather broad fashion. According to Google, “General category blocking will allow you to block even more categories of ads from appearing on your site.  We’re testing this feature with 170 more specific categories, including finance, travel, job, and automotive.  This feature will allow publishers to block up to 50 ad categories from among a broad range of 170 fine grained categories.”

Just as before, the feature will show publishers exactly what sort of financial impact they can expect from their changes, with estimated earnings figures being calculated and shown. However, these new features will only be available on the new AdSense interface, and will only work in combination with ads in the English language.

The feature is very promising, and Google will continue to improve it and increase its availability over time. I’m excited as this is one of my favorite Google features!

-Lynn

I love this new invention, Wattpad. Wattpad is an e-book community where unpublished, budding authors can publish and share their work. They have launched a mobile e-book reader, which is an application available for free download and can be used on more than 1000 mobile devices including Blackberry, iPhone, Android, LG and Sony Ericsson.

It is currently featured on the front page of the Nokia Ovi Store and has over 3.5m downloads; making it the most popular mobile e-book application.

“Our mobile application supports virtually all Nokia models since we first started in late 2006,” said Allen Lau, co-founder of Wattpad, Toronto. “The availability on the Nokia Ovi Store will allow us to extend our reach through this new channel.”

Wattpad users can publish whatever they write from romance novels, fan-fiction, to essays and poetry. The content available via the e-book reader is also available on the community website and is accessible to all users.

Almost all the marketing for Wattpad is through word of mouth. “Writers who publish their novels, poetry, short stories etc. on wattpad.com have all the incentives to tell their friends and families,” Mr. Lau said. “We make sure our users can very easily recommend good reads on our Web site or mobile applications via Facebook, Twitter and email and etcetera. Every time they do that, we gain a new user.”

“Although Wattpad is already the most popular mobile e-book applications with 3.5 million cumulative downloads, there are still many people who have never heard of Wattpad,” Mr. Lau said.

Wattpad targets young users to do the marketing, mainly the 15-24 demographic. “Our users are quite young,” Mr. Laud said. “They use their mobile phones more than their PCs. As such, mobile has always been a key part of our strategy. Additionally, it is very important since having our app in as many app stores as possible will help us to market Wattpad very effectively.”

The application is mainly supported by ad networks such as Videoegg, Tribal Fusion, Admob and Quattro Wireless.

With the advent of applications like Wattpad, more and more readers are moving towards e-books, this may result in less books printed each year.

“Wattpad’s mission since day one is to revolutionize the way people publish and read written work,” Mr. Lau said. “We have decided from early on to focus on ePublishing and eReading. Although we believe print will still exist for a long long time, the high growth area is in digital.”

So here’s what I’ve got for you guys on our friends at Mozilla and their updates from Firefox.

Following the lead of rival Google, Mozilla plans to include silent security updating in Firefox 4. The feature has not received much attention from Mozilla in the past, but they are making sure plans to include it in Firefox 4 stay on track. The last month has seen two separate beta previews of Firefox 4, and a third edition is due for release next week.

The silent update will only be offered on the windows platform, and allows updates to be installed automatically without the user having to provide confirmation each time. It will not automatically update to major releases though, such as version 4.5 or 5.0, and will still be seen as a progress bar while downloading. Unlike Google, the Firefox 4 silent updates will be optional, and users can still select the traditional form of updating if they desire.

The automatic updating user by Google Chrome has been a voice of concern for many users. Unhappy with the ability to choose between turning the service on or off has been a major issue, and many are glad to see that Firefox has done it right with their release.

The silent updating feature is one which is sure to please many Firefox users, who were often complaining that Firefox updates too often. Now these users will have the ability to turn off the update notifications and interaction requirements, while those who only want to install updates they approve of are also catered for by being able to elect to disable the automatic updating.

Oh buddy.  This isn’t good.

US researchers have made an incredible finding this month – a woman’s body shape influences how good her memory is. In a startling discovery, carrying excess weight anywhere impairs old womens brain function, but the bulge on the hips is the worst.

Cognitive tests were performed by the Northwestern Medicine Team and they found that “apple-shaped” women performed much better than their “pear-shaped” counterparts.

If loss in brain function wasn’t enough, women who deposit fat around the waist are also at a higher risk of cancer, diabetes and heart disease. The findings were published in the Journal of American Geriatrics Society and clearly highlight the importance of maintaining a healthy figure.

conversely, women who lug a bit of extra weight around in the stomach area have been found to have added protection against cognitive decline. Considering the female hormone oestrogen declines after menopause, researchers have found that the belly fat can actually help to produce more oestrogen.

8,745 post-menopausal women aged between 65 and 79 were involved in the study, and had memory test results compared against their body mass index (BMI). The study showed that for every one point increase in a woman’s BMI, there would be a corresponding drop in the memory test score of the same value. Pear-shaped women in particular scored very poorly.

Dr. Diana Kerwin, the lead researcher has hypothesized “The fat may contribute to the formation of plaques associated with Alzheimer’s disease or a restricted blood flow to the brain.”  Whatever the reasoning behind the results, one thing is for certain: women need to take care of their bodies and keep an eye on their weight.

-Lynn

Marketers just can’t get enough of Facebook. And neither can I!

While many other companies were laying off workers and trying not to go bankrupt, Facebook has managed to increase the number of organizations which pay for advertising on its platform by over 400%.

Many may wonder if these statistics come from some dodgy calculations from a random blogger, or from a small case study by an unknown data firm. But the figures have come straight from the mouth of Brian Womack, who reported today “Facebook . . . said its advertisers have more than quadrupled since the start of 2009 as marketers aim to get their products before a growing global audience.”

The growth was not achieved by Facebook hiring a bunch of new salespeople either. Womack also informed the public that Facebook “doubled the number of salespeople last year from 2008, according to an e-mailed statement.”

So one of two things must have happened. Either Facebook’s advertising staff found the magic bullet when it comes to getting new advertisers, or a great number of businesses have realized the benefits of advertising on the social network giant. When you consider that Facebook is notorious for releasing conservative figures, the true growth in advertiser numbers may potentially be a lot higher.

Unfortunately the conservative stance also including being tight-lipped on sharing their revenue figures. It would be interesting to see just how much of an increase in profits that the advertiser wave has been responsible for.

-Lynn

As a spectacle wearing woman, this topic is one that I can definitely relate to. Not so long ago people who wore glasses were categorized as being nerdy. The typical stereotype was formed by the movies and television featuring one too many librarians with thick dark rimmed glasses, and a bucketload of dorky looking computer-loving guys. As a child growing up, I was horrified at the thought of having to wear glasses. Just as many other children are, I was afraid to be labelled as a nerd.

Fast-forward to today, an individual wearing glasses is automatically assumed to have above-average intelligence. Historically, the only people who could afford glasses were the upper class and better educated within society, and while this isn’t the case today, maybe some of the same line of thinking remains.

People today are far more open towards expressing individuality. This is something that we were all frightened of 10 years ago, but it is now a trend that has become fashionable in its own sense. From headbands, to tattoos, piercings, or hair colours, people will do anything to create an individual persona. For many people it has taken the form of spectacles. Just look at celebrities such as Elton John and Bono, or even Sarah Palin.

There has even been a large increase in demand for glasses frames from people who have perfect eyesight. They use a regular glass with no prescription changes. When these types of people start wearing glasses purely for fashion and image, it is a clear confirmation that the old geek stereotype is fading and withering. Being in the website design and internet fields, it has certainly proved to be an added advantage for my business.

Can’t wait until chubby is considered sexy!

- Lynn

Gotta say, it looks to me like Agnilux is the latest secret weapon in the Apple-Google rivalry.

Google just added the mysterious tech start-up Agnilux to its growing list of acquisitions. There is very little information about Agnilux on the web, and even the New York Times has not uncovered much information about it.

What we do know is that Agnilux was founded by former employees of P.A. Semi, the chip manufacturer that was acquired by Apple a couple of years back. It produced chips for iPad and iPhone. The employees of P.A. Semi who left Apple ,went off on their own to form Agnilux.

The Google/Apple competition keeps getting more interesting. No one knows what Google plans to do with Agnilux, or what Agnilux is capable of doing. A former employee of P.A. Semi revealed to the New York Times recently that Agnilux was working on “some kind of server, and that the company has a partnership with Cisco.”

According to various LinkedIn profiles listed under the company, Agnilux has people who have worked at P.A. Semi, Apple, Cisco, IBM, TiVo, Real Networks, Boeing, and various other tech companies.

Google has given out generic statements like “We’re pleased to welcome the Agnilux team to Google, but we don’t have any additional information to share right now,” which confirms the news is real.

The Google/Apple story is is one of a friendship gone sour. Essentially, it boils down to competition in smartphones, mobile advertising, and soon to be tablets/netbooks. MG Siegler has a pretty good recap of it up until now, “Who knows, maybe this move was a response to Apple snatching away RJ Pittman, Google’s director of product management,” he says.

It is apparent that the gloves are off at this point,we’ll just have to wait and see what Google does with this acquisition, and how Apple retaliates.

Apple posted record non-holiday-quarter earnings this week.

The movie starts off with Duke, played by James Garner, reading out a story about a young couple in the 1940s who fall in love and endure life. It phases between present day and the 1940s.

It focuses on young love that grows and endures through wars and parental dissent. Though the core theme is “Romeo and Juliet”, the exceptional charisma of the actors and the way the story is played out makes it feel fresh and not so predictable. It is a very romantic movie and those who are cynical about romance, timeless love and dedication to another person may roll their eyes at it. But since am not cynical about emotional ties, I was totally taken in by the movie.

All the actors turn out compelling and engrossing performances, making the characters very humane and likable.

Technically, this movie is exceptional, too. The scenes during the opening credits are absolutely breathtaking. The editing is very good. The story is compelling from the opening credits to the closing credits.

All in all, this movie is certainly going into my favorite movies collection. It was worth every cent. I totally loved it.

- Lynn