airCloud Communications offers free Wifi in downtown Pleasant Hill. Their service has been extended to include Taylor Blvd. and can be accessed from our classroom.
You are more than welcome to to use your laptops in class. Unfortunately, you will not be able to access our network drives or print, but you will be able to access the Internet for free.
People who have exhausted their state unemployment benefits but are still jobless could get up to 13 weeks of additional benefits under a bill signed this week by President Bush.
Those who filed an unemployment claim as far back as May 7, 2006, could be eligible for extended benefits if they meet other criteria. To qualify, a person generally must have worked for at least 20 weeks full time during a certain 12-month period before filing the original claim.
Extended benefits will come from a federal fund but be administered by the states. They are a response to rising unemployment.
The national jobless rate jumped one-half of a percentage point, to 5.5 percent, in May. The June number, which comes out today, is likely to be even higher. California’s May unemployment rate, 6.8 percent, was fifth-highest among the states.
Next week, the California Employment Development Department will send notices to people who might qualify for extended benefits. Here are answers to questions about them:
Q: Who qualifies?
A: You must have filed for state unemployment benefits on May 7, 2006, or later and used up your regular benefits.
You must be unemployed, looking for and able to work.
You must have worked full time for at least 20 weeks during a 12-month period before filing your initial claim. This base period varies by state.
In California, the base period is the first four of the last five completed quarters. In other words, it usually excludes the quarter in which you filed your original claim and the previous quarter but includes the four quarters before that. (For filing purposes, a new quarter begins on the Sunday of the first full week in January, April, July and October.)
For example, if you filed on June 30, your base period would be calendar 2007. If you file on July 15, your base period would be the last three calendar quarters of 2007 and the first quarter of 2008.
Many states, including California, don’t have the same 20-week requirement for regular benefits. As a result, some people who got substantial regular benefits might get zero extended benefits.
This could happen if you earned a large amount of money in one quarter of your base period, which qualified you for state benefits, but did not work at all during the other three quarters, says Deborah Bronow, branch deputy of the state’s unemployment insurance program.
Maurice Emsellem of the National Employment Law Project says low-income workers, who are often new to the workforce or have gaps in employment, are most likely to be hurt by the 20-week rule.
Q: How much is the extended benefit?
A: In general, it will be the same dollar amount as your regular benefit but will last half as long, up to 13 weeks.
If your original benefit was $450 per week for 26 weeks (the maximum in California) your extended benefit will be $450 per week for 13 weeks.
If your original benefit was $180 per week for 22 weeks, the extension would be $180 per week for 11 weeks.
Q: When do benefits begin?
A: Benefits will be paid for any weeks of unemployment starting next week. As long as you apply before the end of July, you can get paid retroactively for weeks of unemployment starting Monday. You cannot get paid for any periods before next week, though.
Q: When do extended benefits end?
A: The program expires at the end of March unless Congress renews it. If you run out of regular benefits before then and are eligible for extended benefits, you can keep getting them past March 31. However, nobody new will qualify after the end of March.
Q: What if I have been on unemployment more than once since May 2006?
A: Extended benefits will be based on your most recent claim.
The federal law requires you to first exhaust all state benefits before getting extended ones.
Suppose your regular unemployment ran out in March 2007. You worked on and off since then but did not file a new claim. The state will first see if you were eligible for benefits based on your intermittent work. If so, you will receive a second round of state benefits, which could be less than the extended benefits you would have received based on your first claim.
Q: How do I apply?
A: File online at www.edd.ca.gov/Unemployment or https://eapply4ui.edd.ca.gov/ (direct link) for fastest service, or call (800) 300-5616.
Net Worth runs Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. E-mail Kathleen Pender at kpender@sfchronicle.com.
This article appeared on page C - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
Purpose: Training Program that helps low-income women start or expand businesses.
Cost: $100 or less - $25 for materials and $75 for the course
Languages: Spanish and English
Address: 1465 Enea Circle, Building E, Suite 900, Concord (by Water World)
Phone: (925) 603-2770
Contact: Carmen Angulo
Web site: http://www.womensinitiative.org
Next course: Mar 24 - Jun 9 (Concord Campus) You must attend a Business Action Plan session prior to enrolling in the course
Women’s Initiative for Self Employment provides a one-stop shop where high-potential, lower-income women receive training to start and grow their business. The business management training, technical assistance, and financial services we provide — in English and Spanish — improve the quality of life for the women we serve, their families and our communities.
Now you can see all of the presentations that you may have missed or couldn’t afford online. What a deal!
See these presentations at MacWorld Encore.
Eric Meyer has posted his reset styles CSS for the public on his blog. The CSS will help you to reduce browser inconsistencies like different margins, padding and line height. It’s a good idea to use a reset CSS file any time you are creating a new site or page.
Check out the reset styles CSS.
Noupe.com has created a small showcase of more than 70 outstanding header graphics with excellent use of visual elements and interface design. This is an excellent example of current trends in Web development.
Take a look at this article @ http://www.noupe.com/design/70-visually-impressing-header-graphics.html
Sometimes it is just worlds easier watching a tutorial than reading it, and the Internet has made video tutorials of all kinds very available. Photoshop tutorials are especially popular due to the complexity of the popular program.
Continue reading 20+ Photoshop Video Tutorials.
Usability and the utility, not the visual design, determine the success or failure of a web-site. Since the visitor of the page is the only person who clicks the mouse and therefore decides everything, user-centric design has established as a standard approach for successful and profit-oriented web design. After all, if users can’t use a feature, it might as well not exist.
We aren’t going to discuss the implementation details (e.g. where the search box should be placed) as it has already been done in a number of articles; instead we focus on the main principles, heuristics and approaches for effective web design — approaches which, used properly, can lead to more sophisticated design decisions and simplify the process of perceiving presented information.
Continue reading 10 Principles Of Effective Web Design
Imagine that you are designing an online-store. Since stakeholders are only interested in the number of sells, the success of your work directly depends on how well you manage to drive users to the “Checkout”-button. In this case you might want to consider some design approaches which will set you apart from your competitors. After all, the probability that they’ve done it wrongly is extremely high.One of the simplest examples of flawed design decisions is the incorrect use of the shopping cart icon — a traditional icon which stands for the virtual holding place for any products of the store. Used properly, this little yet powerful element can help users to buy a product as quickly and painless as possible. As such, it is essential for the purchasing procedure and therefore deserves to be considered carefully during the design process.
Read the rest of Shopping Carts Gallery: Examples and Good Practices
As with everything in life, it can be very helpful to know NOT what to do just as much as what to do! If you’re new to job hunting, you’ve probably been reading about how to act during a job interview. You should also be studying how not to act.If there’s a common complaint among many hiring agents and human resources professionals, it’s how many of today’s generation of job hunters show up for job interviews unprepared or come with a sense of entitlement. While confidence is never a bad thing, it’s not always a good idea to show up to a job interview with the wrong attitude.
Continue reading 35 Things To Avoid At Your Job Interview