How to Stay Awake While Driving Late at Night

More automobile accidents that occur worldwide each year are related drowsiness than to alcohol consumption.  If you have no choice but to drive late at night, here are some tips to stay awake.

Open the windows and let the wind blow through the car.  If the weather is too bad, adjust the air conditioning to cold and turn it on full blast.  If anyone in the car complains about being too cold, point the closest vents towards the driver and close the rest.  Ask them to cover up with something or if they are old enough and wide awake; let them take a turn driving.

Turn on some loud music.  Don’t choose soft piano music or talk radio.  Find some heavy-hitting rock and roll; something that you will want to sing along with.  Keep the beat on the steering wheel so that your body keeps moving.

If you are fortunate enough to have passengers in the car, do not let them sleep, but instead have them talk to you or play some travel games that require you to stay alert but nothing that distracts you from watching the road.

Shake your head every now and then and scream out loud.  Try drinking drinks that contain caffeine, like coffee or sodas.  If you still feel tired, find somewhere to pull over.  Get out of the car and do some exercises, like jumping jacks to increase your heart rate.  If you can find somewhere that is open late at night, go inside and splash some cold water on your face.  Buy a fountain drink with ice.  Keep a piece of ice in your mouth until it melts and then replace it with another.

How to Promote a Small Business Using Free Online Tools

Promoting a small business on the Internet seems straightforward, but many small business owners and marketing managers overlook important online tools that can transform a simple web presence into a powerful Internet traffic generating instrument. The most useful online tools available for promoting small businesses are easy-to-use and completely free, with the exception of the time invested. Save your advertising dollars to use on printed publications and real-world trade shows and discover surprising opportunities that are just a few mouse-clicks away.

Register for a free Google account by visiting the Google home page and providing the necessary personal information. Provided with the free Google account are several key items that will be useful for promoting your business. Gmail is a free web-based email service that may be accessed from anywhere an Internet connection is available and it has a great anti-spam filter. Google Documents is an important application because it includes a word processor which may be used to create and save documents online. For the best results using Google Documents, try the free Google Chrome web browser, which may also be downloaded from Google's home page.

Write simple, but informative articles about your small business using Google Documents. Articles may be about products, services and any interesting news or updates that are taking place within the company. Save each article as its own document. These articles are very important and will be used to provide content for other websites. Because the articles were created and saved online, each will be easily accessible when needed. Write several articles every day in order to build a collection of information, and have someone proofread each one for spelling and grammar errors.

Take pictures in and around the company using a digital camera. Photograph products, employees (with permission) and services as they are being provided by the company. Upload the photos from the digital camera to Picasa, which is also accessible through a link in your free Google account. These pictures may be used in conjunction with the articles to present a powerful representation of your small business and what it can do for the customer. Content is crucial to attracting visitors; it will be useful to have this collection of articles and pictures to draw upon as you build an online presence for the company.

Register a free Facebook account for your business. Sign up for a business page using the link toward the bottom of the page, which says "Create a page for a celebrity, band or business." Be creative and personalize the Facebook profile page for the business using your collection of pictures and articles. Refer new and existing customers to the company's Facebook page both over the phone and through links in email messages so that you will slowly build a following of loyal friends and customers. Designate time each week to update the company's profile page in order to keep the content fresh and relevant.

Create a personalized blog using a free blogging website. The same Google account login information may be used to access Blogger, which is owned and operated by Google. Tailor the topic and content of the blog to closely match the message that you feel will convince visitors to contact your company. If you already have a company website, use links from the blog to direct visitors to that site; otherwise direct them to the company's Facebook page, which should present all of the necessary contact information.

Promote both the Facebook profile page and the company blog using other free online resources such as Reddit, Twitter and Squidoo. Regardless of how many online accounts are created for the company, the most important component is always the content provided. Without premium content, your company's online presence is just another obstacle in the customer's way to finding the information they seek.

Warning:
Do not create empty profile pages and on-line persona that leave visitors with too little information. Consumers search for products on the Internet because they want to learn more about them. If you can satisfy a visitor's need for information, your company stands a better chance of converting that visitor into a paying customer.

How to Automate a Haunted House Using Sensors

You've built a creepy haunted house and it's the scariest one around. How do you take it to the next level? Automate it using non-contact infrared photoelectric sensors to control electronic scare devices.

Haunted houses are designed to be very creepy and with enough volunteers, they may be loaded with frights around every corner. What if there are not enough volunteers available to haunt the house? Infrared photoelectric sensors are the perfect device to detect guests and to trigger electronic gadgets, such as noise makers or motorized animatronic characters, giving visitors a scare they won't soon forget.

Sensors are used every day in various industries ranging from food processing to automotive assembly lines. Some of the top commercial haunted houses in the country are now using the very same sensors to automate their haunted attractions, providing a far creepier presentation. Industrial sensors are available to the general public for less money than you might expect, giving the average Joe an opportunity to built a haunted house that rivals even the ones presented by major theme parks.

The easiest type of photoelectric sensor to use in a haunted house attraction is one that uses a mechanical relay switch. This type of sensor is as easy to wire and operate as a light switch. Also be sure that the photoelectric sensors use infrared light and do not display a visible light which would draw attention to them. Arrange the photoelectric sensors across from each other in a hallway or door jamb, or anywhere that a guest will pass between them. The guest will break the infrared beam of light, causing the mechanical relay switch in the photoelectric controller to close, which will provide power to a noise maker or animatronic device. Each time a guest passes the sensors, the same action will occur repeatedly without operator intervention. This allows volunteers in the haunted house to spend time mingling with the guests and not hiding behind walls, just making noise.

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