If you like to capture special moments on video and have a good eye and steady hand for composing a shot, then you could easily become a wedding videographer and start your own home wedding video business.

With video camera technology improving considerably every year, wedding videos are becoming much more popular due to the high quality results they produce. Brides and grooms are realizing that photography is just not enough to capture every special moment from their wedding day. With your part-time wedding video business, you can offer them an edited and personal video that captures every moment from the vows and cake cutting to the first dance and the final goodbyes.

Read more…

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. stocks rallied in a brief pre-holiday session on Thursday, closing at 2009 highs, after data showing a drop in initial jobless claims and growth in durable goods orders suggested an economic recovery was picking up steam.

Stocks racked up a fifth day of gains on light volume before the Christmas holiday. After finishing early for Christmas Eve on Thursday, markets will be closed on Friday.

Data showed initial jobless claims fell more than forecast last week to the lowest tally since September 2008, while a separate report showed durable goods orders, excluding transportation, surged 2.0 percent, beating expectations.

The reports were “more wind at the market’s back,” said

Michael James, senior trader at regional investment bank Wedbush Morgan in Los Angeles.

Stocks that have performed well this year received an extra lift from year-end window dressing as portfolio managers sold laggards to buy shares that have rallied recently. A

Read more…

VETERANS recognised many familiar faces among the shareholders at the Allied Irish Banks shareholder meeting in the bank’s headquarters yesterday.

They had travelled across the treacherous and icy roads from Kerry and Mayo to be in Ballsbridge for the 11am start of the bank’s special shareholder meeting called to approve the transfer of loans to the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA).

The etiquette of such meetings demands nobody mentions the fact that the bank’s major shareholders had long since voted and the decision was a foregone conclusion.

Read more…

How can you promote your holiday sales for free and still reach a wide and targeted customer base? Through your company blog! If you have previously taken advice to start a blog and acquire readers and subscribers, then you already have a loyal customer market to whom you can offer great holiday sales promotions.

Remember, a blog is one of the essential elements to search engine optimization (SEO) as well. The more frequently you update your company blog with helpful and insightful articles that are rich in keywords, the more likely your blog will get noticed by search engine “bots” that may place your website in a high ranking.

Read more…

According to the Wall Street Journal, the percentage of job seekers who started their own companies increased to 9 percent in the third quarter of 2009, up from 5 percent at the end of 2008. This spike coincides with class of 2009 university graduations, when graduates’ employment rate dropped 22 percent from the previous class year.

“Given the state of the economy, and the state of the job market, many young people are getting the push they needed to become entrepreneurs,” Bo Fishback, vice president of entrepreneurship at the Kauffman Foundation, told the source.

The number of young entrepreneurs is only expected to grow; according to the source, employers are planning to hire 7 percent fewer graduates from the class of 2010 than they hired from the class of 2009.

Read more…

Just as the old saying goes, there is no free lunch in this world. But there are freebies attached to credit cards – including perks like no annual fee or yearly membership. These so-called free credit card deals may not be completely free of charges – such as interest you still have to pay on any balances you carry forward from month to month – but when it comes to owning a credit card one with no annual fee is as close to a free credit card as it gets. Pair that free yearly membership with a competitive interest rate – or a low or zero introductory rate deal – and you have a formula for a really attractive credit card.

Keep in mind that some cards that do charge an annual fee may have other benefits that can help to justify the cost of your yearly membership. Many rewa Read more…