If you are shopping around for a new credit card, it can seem like a very daunting task as everyone claims to be better than all the rest, when in reality there is very little difference.
Before you start you should be honest about your credit rating. As this can be hard to judge, head online to one of the free credit score calculators where there should be a section such as check my credit history, or pay a small fee to access your credit file and see how it is rated.

There are some great credit card offers around for new customers that offer the likes of 0% interest on purchases for a set period of time, usually around 3 to 6 months. As long as you pay for these purchases by the designated date, you will pay no interest, make only your minimum payment and the interest charges will come down on you like a ton of bricks, so check the interest rate of these cards in advance in case you don’t make that payment.

Credit cards also vary in value depending on the aforementioned credit rating. The best deals are often for those with excellent credit, and these offer the best rates of interest. If you have a poor or below average credit rating you will be limited to the credit card company’s you can apply to, and those that do accept these low credit ratings carry a very high interest rate as they are taking a risk on extending you a line of credit.

If you are looking to transfer a balance from one credit card to another, look for those that offer balance transfers at 0%. This effectively means that you will pay no interest on the transferred balance for a set period of time, and this can differ vastly. Some cards offer 0% interest for 6 months on balances of this kind, while others offer up to 22 months this, once again, can be affected by your credit rating so check out all the t’s and c’s before applying.

Axiom, a New York based law firm that offers global services, is set to move into Belfast, creating up to 100 new jobs for the community in the process. The firm plans to move to Northern Ireland after receiving over £1.6m in government grants to do so. £1.1m came from Invest NI while another £500,000 has been offered by the Department of Employment and Learning. 

Arlene Foster, the Enterprise minister, stated that the town of Belfast welcomes the law firm because the investment in a global company helps prove just how strong the reputation of the Northern Ireland workforce is. She added that the law firm will help to bring over 100 lawyers and paralegal jobs to the city with salaries that are higher than what people normally make in the private sector of Northern Ireland. The increased salaries should help add about £4m annually to the local economy.

Foster went on to say that this high level investment is exactly what Invest Northern Ireland is attempting to attract in order to build a stronger economy that will be sustainable for years to come. She also added that it will help strength the existing financial and legal companies that are located in Northern Ireland.

Stephen Farry, the DEL minister also mentioned that the Axiom move will also help boost the type of skills that are found in Belfast because they are a leader in the outsourcing market that have many proprietary tools that they will bring to the Belfast work environment.

Right now, most unsettled investors are looking at cold hard cash as the best way to ensure that their money will still be there in the morning, especially with the debt crisis and fear that the stock market could once again take a tumble. Of course, if you pull all of your investments into cash you need a place to put them, which is where the following options may come in handy.

Online savings accounts are a great choice for those who want to be able to access their money instantly, but as a trade-off you will have to deal with rates that are not that great, with most only numbering up to 1%.  These accounts can be a great location for storing emergency funds but not for long term returns.

Those who are looking to get some type of yield from their savings and do not need the money for at least six months can consider taking out a CD given the fact that they reach up to 1.25% in yields. The longer you keep a CD the higher yield, although even a five year CD is not going to earn much more than 2.5%.

Another great option are high yield cheque accounts which can pay out as much as 2.5-3% every month and the money is liquid. However, these accounts usually come with a list of requirements such as a limit to how much can sit in the account and a minimum amount of debit transactions that must be made. If you fail to meet the requirements your yield falls to about 0.1% so they are only for the most watchful savers.

Privacy advocates are concerned about a new bill passed in the US Congress titled the FAA Reauthorization Act that will allow the government to fly drone planes over US airspace without jumping through any hoops first. It is expected that President Obama will sign off the act that commands the Federal Aviation Administration to create a set of regulations for licensing and testing of commercial drones with a deadline assigned of 2015.

Opponents of the bill are afraid that this will allow police agencies and private companies to use drones for electronic surveillance whenever they wish. Head of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, Steven Aftergood, said that there are many policy questions that need to be addressed regarding surveillance and privacy as it pertains to commercial endeavors and government agencies.

Jennifer Lynch, attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, stated that their worry is about how much surveillance rights the government will be given and that the legislation is the result of a large push by the defence sector to utilise drones within the US.

Once the FAA clears the use of drones in US airspace some estimate that the commercial drone market could be valued at over hundreds of millions of dollars. It is also predicted that by 2020 there could be as many as 30,000 drones in the sky.  Drones are generally used now for surveillance in war zones and can range in size from a full sized jet to the size of a model aircraft.

The number one expense for most businesses is their operating budgets, because it can cost a great deal to keep a business running. Between computer software, computers themselves, other types of digital hardware, office supplies, and anything else that needs to be used at the office, the operating budget can quickly grow.

However, you can help to reduce your business costs if you learn how to use classifieds to your advantage. This is due to the fact that classifieds can be a wonderful way to get the supplies that you need for less. Now that there are hundreds of classified websites online, many of which are specialised to certain areas of expertise, it is easy to find low cost and even free goods online.

Therefore, you can pick up the items that you may need for an office at a lower cost than buying them new. If you need to upgrade a computer system this can be an excellent way to do so since upgrading to a medium device can make a big difference to a smaller company, and still end up costing less than the brand new product from a wholesaler.

Hardware and physical purchases are not the only way to take full advantage of classifieds in order to reduce business costs, as software is another thing to look at in the classifieds online. There are now many open source solutions to all of the top software needs of a business so instead of spending thousands licensing every machine in your office with the newest software products you may want to consider looking at the classifieds.

Simply using one or two open source software products in place of licensed products can trim your budget in half and make a large different in your monthly costs overall.

The weekend was pretty good for Lenovo execs as the company revealed its Q1 earnings report that shows almost a doubling in profits on their oversees clubs not to mention a handful of other great profit reports as well. In fact, the revenues for the company jumped by almost $5.90 billion over the last quarter which comes out to be a 15% increase for the company when compared to the first quarter results of last year. Their global PC sales saw increased growth of 50% jumping up to $108m from just $54.9m during the 2010.

COO Rory Read commented at an earnings conference after the quarter profits were released that the Ultrabook sector may have helped boost sales with the news that the company may be reducing the price tags on the popular items soon in order to open up the market. Reed also stated that Lenovo will continue to be a leader in the Ultrabook market adding that prices will become much more affordable as next year goes on opening up their potential to a new crowd of potential consumers that likely will also boost sales again.

The head of CIC (China Investment Corporation), Lou Jiwei, stated that they are thinking about ways to invest in the UK’s infrastructure development as are they interested in investing in other private/public partnerships in other countries that are developed as well.  This is good news for the British government which has been looking for ways to upgrade their transportation network to help promote growth. The CIC is the main sovereign wealth fund in China.

Lou stated that the CIC believes that a proper investment, that has commercial principles behind it, would offer a great solution for all parties. There have been many concerns about the economy slowing down on a global scale due to the European debt crisis that appears ongoing and the lowered rate of growth in the US, which is faced with unemployment rates that continue to increase.

Lou addressed this issue by stating that as the issues continue to reduce growth economies that are developed, their investment could help boost their infrastructure spending to help increase demand. He also suggested that authorities need to get more investment into their countries by offering bank loans to applicable lenders at discounted rates and reducing the amount of taxes imposed on oversea investments.

If this were done, he said it would increase demand for the manufacturing of equipment helping to get more people jobs and reduce the amount that overburdened governments are paying out on unemployment spending. David Cameron, the Prime Minister of the UK has already promised to get infrastructure projects started.

In a sharp contrast to just a few years ago, offices are quickly losing their austerity and are becoming fun environments to work in.Leading the way in this revolution in the workplace is search engine giant Google.They have turned the old fashioned ideas on their head and provided a fun place for their staff to work in, and have proved that this makes people want to come to work, resulting in high performance and low absenteeism.

If you think your office space needs a make over, and want to go down the Google route, it is a lot easier to accomplish than you may think. While you may not be able to install fireman’s poles, slides and Swiss chalet style meeting pods, the objective of achieving a bright and airy workspace can be accomplished without a great deal of outlay. A good starting point is to ask your staff for their realistic ideas as to how the workplace can be improved and then to take a look at furniture hire in London to see what is available and how it matches up..

Dismiss the ridiculous and the outlandish and concentrate on the doable. Also look at the specific areas they have said need the most improvement. The communal staff areas where breaks and lunches are taken are one of the most important, and a few comfy chairs and TV will no longer cut the mustard. Wi- Fi is always a plus, and if there is room for a few games consoles, or even several hand held ones for them to use.

Seating is all important after several hours in an office chair; bean bags, a few chaise lounges and comfy chairs and sofas are the orders of the day. Vending machines offering both drinks and snacks are popular, bright colours, decorative items and prints on the wall all add up to a welcoming ambience that staff will enjoy entering. We create this type of atmosphere in our homes, and our workplaces should be no different.

The deadline for Zynga’s first public opening is fast approaching and the online gaming company that has created both Mafia Wars and Farmville is ready to get the IPO roadshow on the road starting this coming Monday, according to a source that was close to the company. The San Francisco based gaming company known for its many Facebook games is expected to file a new prospectus by the close of the week with plans to officially go public by the middle of December.

Zynga is known as easily the largest social gaming company on the internet, with over 227 million regular monthly users. In fact, over the first nine months of 2011 the company had already made an astounding $828.9 million in revenues which is almost double the amount it made during the same period in 2010.

In terms of profit, the company is estimated to have pocketed about $121 million since the beginning of 2010, making it a very desirable IPO. Many internet companies are waiting to see how the Zynga offering goes before dipping their own toes into the water due to the lacklustre opening of Groupon, which has discouraged other internet companies from going public.

A great deal of internet companies have seen strong debuts followed by heavy losses making them less desirable stock options. It is likely that Facebook will also be watching the IPO offering of Zynga as the company is getting ready for its own public IPO to be announced sometime next year.

With the current economic climate and the experts warning us that there is no real end in sight and things are likely to get worse before they get better, it is highly unlikely that we are going to see the emergence of the number of new markets that we saw in 2011. That said, there are always surprises in the world of finance, and there are early indicators that a few could be on the cards.

The eurozone crisis looks likely to continue for some time to come, which is good news for the likes of India and China with the likelihood being that they will start to play an even bigger role in global manufacturing. Whilst trading has only just re-started after the holidays, those which were open make interesting reading.

Although the MXEF, MSCI Emerging Markets Index, slipped by 0.3% to 914.1 on the 2^nd January 2012, India’s  Sensex index and Brazil’s Bovespa recorded rises of 0.4% and 0.3% respectively. While these aren’t large gains, any gains are welcome at this time. It was also good news in Poland where there stocks  rallied to a higher level than they have been at for over a month.

It is difficult to gauge the full effect of these figures with so many emerging markets being closed, but it is likely that these are three countries are likely to benefit from the current economic clime and are certainly worth watching in 2012. The news that the German factories well exceeded predicted production in December is also somewhat of a surprise, and this is hoped that the prospects will also be improved for trading partners in central Europe.

Another market to watch is Hungary, as their BUX stock exchange has also recorded a rise of 0.9%, and they could well be one of the emerging markets to make themselves known in 2012.