By Jeff Blumenthal Contributor

TD Bank said Thursday that it is the largest U.S.-based bank to go carbon neutral. It also unveiled a new “green” design for its future branches.

TD, a subsidiary of Toronto-based TD Bank Financial Group, said it reached its carbon neutral goal by building greener buildings, lowering its energy consumption, and making a significant investment in renewable energy from sources like wind, solar and low-impact hydro power. TD Bank has bought a block of wind energy large enough to power its network of 2,600 ATMs. TD Bank said it has also purchased 31,000 metric tons of carbon offset credits to eliminate its remaining emissions.

The bank, which has dual headquarters in Portland, Maine, and Cherry Hill, N.J., has pledged to develop LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified stores with its first planned prototype green branch set to open this spring in Queens Village, N.Y. The bank expects to open up to 10 new green branches in 2010…Read full story

• Android App Alert: Mobile Defense Hits the Market Android App Alert: Mobile Defense Hits the Market JR Raphael, PC World // < ![CDATA[ // < ![CDATA[ timestamp(1260915780000,'longDateTime') // ]]>Dec 15, 2009 4:23 pm The Android explosion is well underway -- and now, the platform's app market is starting to reflect the growth. The Android Market has just reached......
• Quick Green Reads For The Weekend Volume Thirty Three. After last weekend's tour of LA to all the different fairs, this weekend we are taking it easy. The crowds are gone and we are going to enjoy these last few weekends of sunny warm weather before it gets cold out. On that note, I'm outta here and here......
• Twelve tips for installing and maintaining an electric water heater A couple of weeks ago our electric water heater began leaking out the bottom.  I had an older copy of Black & Decker Complete Home Repair and it told me a couple of things.  First, there was no repairing mine; it needed to be replaced.  Second, it appeared that I......
• HedgeWorld | Deutsche Bank and HSBC come by to the waterhole A profit warning from Deutsche Bank AG and a prediction HSBC Holdings Plc may need fresh capital shook confidence in two European banks previously credited with dodging the worst of the economic crisis. Shares in Deutsche Bank and HSBC both tumbled by about 8% on Wednesday [Jan. 14], helping drag......
• Greenwash Of The Week: Carbon-Neutral Bottled Water. This week's Greenwash involves one of my favorite subjects - bottled water. Airtran, the budget airline, is now serving Icelandic Glacial in recycled plastic bottles that has been certified "Carbon Neutral"; by the bottler itself. While it seems that Icelandic Glacial has taken some steps to green up their product,......

The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority will award $8 million to help develop or commercialize 19 energy storage projects, including three projects in the Capital Region.

The awards being made to companies and universities across New York that are involved in advanced research and development of energy storage applications that could benefit transportation, utility “smart grid” applications, renewable energy technologies, and other industries.

Locally, General Electric Co. in Schenectady will receive $2.5 million to further develop its sodium halide batteries for locomotives, and for renewable power generation.

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy will receive $200,000 to

Read full story

• Bear Sterns Sold For $2 a Share? Fed Drops Interest Rate... It looks like JP Morgan is going to buy Bear Sterns for $235 Million dollars. I put the question mark above because I can't it would drop that much - Bear Sterns closed on Friday at $30 a share. It seems that JP Morgan is getting Bear Sterns at more......
• Complications looming for Android developers Complications looming for Android developers. According to ZDNet.co.uk, in November 2007 Google confirmed that all the OHA (Open Handset Alliance) members had signed a non-fragmentation agreement stating they wouldn’t modify the code in non-compatible ways, although the results don’t seem to be the expected ones. By Robert Green on Nov......
• Zultys Appoints Alloy as Australian Distributor — Alloy to Distribute the Zultys Family of IP Phone Systems and Unified Communications Solutions Melbourne, Australia/Sunnyvale, CA, November 23, 2009 — Zultys Inc., the leading provider of elegantly simple Unified Communications and VoIP Business Phone Systems since 2001, today announced a distribution partnership with Alloy Computer Products of Melbourne,......
• Tax Incentives For Energy-Efficiency Improvements. Dear EarthTalk: Since Obama took office, have any new incentives been put in place for homeowners looking to increase energy efficiency and reduce the overall environmental footprints of their homes? In fact, yes. Homeowners can get up to $1,500 back from the federal government for any number of energy efficiency......
• Financial Incentives For Energy Efficiency In New Mexico. The following is a guest post by Nan Fischer, a Certified EcoBroker specializing in green real estate in Taos, NM. Check out her website www.nanfischer.com, and follow her on Twitter for a daily green news feed, www.twitter.com/nan_fischer. You can dramatically lower the cost of energy upgrades with incentives offered by......

Microsoft fixed eight flaws in Windows and Office on Tuesday, bringing the total number of security bulletins for 2010 up to 17.

The eight bugs patched today were far from the near-record 26 that Microsoft fixed last month when it delivered 13 security updates.

Gerhard Eschelbeck, chief technology officer and senior vice president of Webroot, explained via email that “Microsoft is [releasing] two security bulletins with corresponding patches affecting all supported version of its operating systems , as well as Office suites.”

Eschelbeck added that “both are rated as “important”, meaning they deserve attention. Even though this is significantly lighter compared to last month, these vulnerabilities could be exploited by opening a malicious document causing potential loss of confidential information. Users and IT organizations are encouraged to review these bulletins today, and plan for prompt rollout based on their priorities and environment.”…Read full story

• Get Online Office Phone Systems, Telephones For Your Business At A First Fleeting Look The significance of phone systems to a small or medium-sized business or offices can not be overstated. Like a storefront or symbol or a website, the office phone systems frequently is the first contact a client with your business.The phone systems are an enormously imperative section of equipment and......
• Reasons To Consider Home VOIP Phone Service VOIP is a type of phone service that uses broadband Internet. It is an alternative to the conventional phone services, and is becoming increasingly popular. It offers a solution to paying exorbitant phone bills every month by charging one flat rate. The only thing that you need to purchase......
• What’s in Your Wallet? - A Checklist No, this isn’t a Capital One commercial. Seriously, what is in your wallet? Some people carry nothing but cash in their wallet. Others carry just about every type of identification or financial information they have in their wallet. In a perfect world, the things you actually should carry in wallet......
• Microsoft Security Essentials download Install the beta version of Microsoft Security Essentials....
• Antioch Marina, Antioch, CA Antioch Marina is located in: Antioch, CA Phone: (925) 779-6957 Boat Launch: Yes, this facility does offer a boat launch. Berth Fees: - Open berths: $5.50 per foot per month. - Covered berths: $7.00 per foot per month "Charges are for the length of the berth, or the length of......

NEW YORK – Shares in Citigroup Inc , one of the big financial companies bailed out by the U.S. government, rose more than 4 percent on Wednesday, while another, American International Group Inc , jumped 10 percent.

The run-up built on Tuesday’s momentum that coincided with speculation that regulators might consider banning short-selling in the shares.

The talk, dismissed by the Securities and Exchange Commission as untrue, triggered a so-called short-squeeze as those who bet the stocks would go down covered short positions.

“Shorting has something to do with it. That is going to make the move over exaggerated,” said Dave Rovelli, managing director of U.S. equity trading at Canaccord Adams in New York. “If a lot of guys want to cover their shorts. then it would turn into a snowball effect.”

Other traders said the run-up appeared to be momentum play around the stocks. The shares were among the volume leaders.

“This morning we’re seeing more momentum. Why? Because this is where deep value will be realized in the event we have a meaningful recovery in the overall economy,” said Peter Kenny, managing director at Knight Equity Markets in Jersey City, New Jersey…Read full story

• PR for Entrepreneurs Entrepreneurs can benefit more from public relations than anyone else. Why? Every entrepreneur has a story and effective public relations comes down to one thing - effective story telling. Although people have a tendency to lump advertising and public relations together, they are extremely different animals. Advertising is generally what......
• Best Reads of the Week: Unemployment Above 10% for First Time Since 1980s Edition The last time the unemployment rate was this high, I was seven years old. I don't remember much about the 15% mortgage rates or people buying gold coins in mass out of fear of inflation, but I do remember the speeches that I heard about the benefits of working for......
• Book Review: Backpacker's Start Up By Doug Werner If you have ever dreamt about going on a hiking vacation, or you already enjoy this sport, it's important to stay on top of the latest news and to learn valuable new techniques that can make your trips safer and more enjoyable. There aren't many books that come out that......
• How To Short A Stock From my previous posts, you can tell I'm losing money being short on a stock that is defying all expectations and has gone up 20% since the day I jumped in. I'll admit, I'm not too bright and always forget to follow advice which I know to be true. Here's......
• Weakend: This Is Photobomb What the heck does that mean?  I thought that myself when I first saw the link to their website a couple of weeks ago.  If you don't know, I'm a huge fan of the ICanHasCheezburger network of blogs.  They include the before mentioned ICanHasCheezburger as well as Failblog, IHasAHotdog, and......

Nashville-based Bohan Advertising/Marketing has stretched its boundaries, opening an office in Knoxville to serve AAA of East Tennessee and Home Federal Bank of Knoxville, as well as Pennsylvania’s SuperPetz and Florida’s Brunswick Commercial and Government Products.

It is Bohan’s first office outside of Nashville and will have four employees….Read full story

• Voice, Data, & Video Communications: Strategic Resources or Bare Necessities? For companies to increase their competitiveness, they must examine their voice, data, and video communications as strategic resources for creating competitive advantages. As with microcomputers, the costs for equipment and services related to communications are rapidly falling. At the same time, functions and capabilities are rapidly increasing. Computer and......
• Online Marketing Using The Tools Of Search Engine Placement With The Help Of A Search Engine Optimisation Organisation Online marketing; how can it be achieved and how does one go about it? These are questions that are regularly asked in connection to the online business marketplace. To answer these questions we must initially define the vocabularly.Online Marketing: Promotion for your business so as to draw new, and keep......
• Key Tips On Setting Up Your Internet Marketing Business The Web would bring a ton of cash for your business if you've got invested the right strategy, effort and quality. Here are some basic tips that you'll be able to use to setup your own web promoting business. 1. Perform market research and decide which kind of business......
• the reform in retirement accounts that's not coming If you want me to get started on a rant about personal finance, ask me about retirement accounts. From the "no-taxation" benefit of Roth accounts (yeah, the government will never touch those) to the "benefit" of 401(k)s (no better benefit than having your retirement savings steered into a narrow......
• Using Article Marketing for a Blog One of the most popular things on the Internet today is blogging. In fact, if you notice the trends over the past few years, bloggers have gotten a bit of notoriety and attention even in the news. Bloggers are becoming quite an influential group in the news category and for......

By Anya Litvak

Chicago-based Lime Energy Co.won a $212,000 contract with Allegheny Country to perform energy audits at 104 of its municipal buildings, the county announced Tuesday.

The company will begin the audits at the end of March and finish by the end of July, recommending which energy conservation measures should be pursued with the county’s $2 million in stimulus grants available for such retrofits. Duquesne Light will also help with the efforts.

The grant money will be distributed based on municipalities’ income thresholds…Read full story

• Twelve Key Questions You Need to Ask About Your Computer Security for Your Home or Business Security technology is only a part of an overall security plan. If you own a small business or a home-based business, or if you've been tasked with implementing security at your organization, developing a comprehensive security plan should be a very important part of your overall security strategy. Get......
• Ebay Collectibles To make a living with ebay collectibles, you need to have a good way to find a stream of products to sell. Ebay can be a great marketing tool, but an ebay collectibles business will fail if you don't constantly find more items. The best advice is to get sellers......
• Starting A Home-Based Service Business The current trend online lately is towards more home-based businesses, in particular, service businesses.  Home-based businesses usually require lower overhead, and start-up costs are low, thus making it much easier for entrepreneurs with limited funds. If you've thought about starting a home-based service business, here are a few tips to......
• Frequency & Monetary Analysis For Subscription Based Services Frequency (F) and Monetary (M) analysis, form together with Recency (R) the framework of RFM analysis. Though recency is the strongest predictor of future behavior, frequency and monetary analysis act in a complementary mode (to recency), to create a complete picture of the Customer behavior. There are many cases......
• Pirates Nailed By Vampires MOVIE PRODUCERS GO AFTER T-SHIRTS SUPPLIER Summit Entertainment, L.L.C., owners of popular vampires' series "Twilight" has filed a lawsuit in a California district court against popular print-on-demand company Zazzle.com, Inc. for trademark and copyright infringement, among other charges, over their selling of protected names, phrases, and images. Zazzle allows its......

By Maria Sheahan

FRANKFURT – Deutsche Post DHL unveiled a conservative financial strategy that focuses on saving cash to safeguard its credit rating and gave a 2010 earnings outlook that missed market expectations.

The move, announced by new Chief Financial Officer Larry Rosen on Tuesday, comes after Deutsche Post disappointed investors with major strategic moves that failed to produce hoped-for gains and long-term growth.

Europe’s biggest mail and express delivery company sees its express delivery and freight businesses boosting underlying group earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) to 1.6-1.9 billion euros ($2.2-2.6 billion) from 1.47 billion in 2009.

That outlook is well below the average estimate of 2.1 billion euros in a Reuters poll of analysts.

Post shares fell 1.6 percent to 12.59 euros at 1106 GMT, while the German blue-chip index <.GDAXI> was 0.52 percent lower.

Shrinking business investing hurt Deutsche Post and its peers last year. The World Trade Organization has said that 2009 global trade volumes contracted by about 12 percent, the sharpest decline since World War Two… Read full story

• A Sunday PF Blogger's Roundup Let's start this week with Nicole at Rainy Day Saver wrote Paying Down the Mortgage: Another View and shared her view which is that she's prefer to take the fixed 5% return offered by paying the mortgage off more quickly than taking the risk of investing it in the stock......
• Rapid Growth in Telecom & VoIP Employment Opportunities U.S. Department of Labor forecasts show that the second fastest growing occupation through 2014 is that of Network Systems and Data Communication Analysts. Jobs in this category are expected to increase by 55% compared to the employment level in 2004.Ranked 5th in this time horizon were jobs for Computer......
• Fun Facts about... Babies 1 baby is born every 8 seconds in the U.S. 105 boys are born for every 100 girls - worldwide The population of the world is approximately 6.63 billion people. In 6 months it is estimated to be 6.67 billion. That's roughly 40 million more people! In essence: a lot......
• Macau News January 2007 Stanley Ho buys into Star Cruises Stanley Ho is reported to be forming an alliance with Star Cruises, the fast-expanding cruise and gaming company controlled by Malaysia's Genting Group. He will be invited to buy up to 10 per cent of Singapore-listed Star Cruises, for which he will give rights......
• UK property prices to increase by twenty percent by 2014. According to a recent report by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) UK house prices are liable to rise by about a fifth in the next four years. The forces that will push property prices up are increased lending levels by the banks and interest rates remaining......

By Patrick O’Grady

SolarCity has moved into expanded facilities in Phoenix as the system installer prepares to step up work.

The company plans to hire 20 to 30 workers in the next few months and could double its current base of about 60 employees by the end of the year.

The office, at 1725 W. Williams in Phoenix, was designed to coordinate the 10 to 15 installation jobs the Foster City, Calif.-based SolarCity has in the region each day.

“We’ve run out of space in our existing installation facility to handle the demand for new solar projects in the area,” said Peter Rive, SolarCity’s chief operating officer…Read full story

• Baby Boomers, Jobs, and Starting a Small Business Baby boomers are prime candidates for starting and running small businesses.  According to the Kaufmann Foundation (www.kaufmann.org) which studies entrepreneurial activity in the U.S., Americans in the 55-64 age group start small businesses at a rate that is greater than all other age groups. In my view, there at least......
• Build a Backyard DIY Pond A backyard DIY pond is a beautiful addition to your home that doesn't have to cost a fortune. Having a pond installed can be pricey, but worth it if you don't want to tackle the job yourself. To save on labor costs, look at the steps and you'll probably realize......
• The Best Home Improvements for Home Value Home improvement is a field that is relatively widespread in nature as there are a number of different ideas for you to choose from when it comes to choosing the best home improvements for your space. During the summer months, many people put thought into remodeling and improving their home,......
• Hosted PBX Systems - Easy to Install and Operate Business communication requirements of small and medium sized business organizations can be efficiently met with the innovative business phone system, hosted PBX. Virtual PBX phone systems have built-in quality voice and data functions; these phone systems are easy to install and operate.Cost-effective Option for Your Business OfficeHosted PBX systems......
• Small Business Telephone Systems Do you ever wonder who in your office makes and receives the most calls? Or who they are from and to? It is difficult to really know how effective your office is without a way of managing calls and messages. Whether your business is a national one with offices......

Helix Energy Solutions Group Inc. on Monday said it was looking to divest its oil and gas business.

Helix (NYSE: HLX), which offers offshore energy services, has engaged financial advisors to assist with the deal.

The move is a continuation of the Houston company’s strategy to divest non-core assets that began in December of 2008.

The company also already divested nearly all of its stake in Houston-based Cal Dive International Inc. (NYSE: DVR). It offered the remainder of its interest in the company — 20.6 million shares — to the public in September 2009….Read full story

• Temasek and KKR join with GTV, Coffee Day In November, KKR and Blackrock picked up portfolios in China AXA had earlier been trying to sell its Taikang stake because China ruled in favor of not allowing multiple life insurance holdings for overseas players. Blackrock, Temasek and KKR eventually picked it up after some bickering for $1 billion......
• BofA Names Top Banking Business Heads - Mergers, Acquisitions, Venture Capital, Hedge Funds -- DealBook - New York Times Bank of America announced the names of the senior business heads for its corporate, commercial and investment banking operations on Thursday in an internal memo, obtained by Reuters. The changes go into effect after the company completes its acquisition of Merrill Lynch, which goes to a vote among shareholders at......
• Hosted PBX - Powerful Telecommunication Features Hosted PBX system with its powerful telecommunication features ideally suits businesses of all sizes. This phone system enjoys great demand among small business operators since it enables them to project a flourishing business image in an affordable manner.Professional Call Handling Features to Impress Your CallersHosted PBX systems come with......
• MonaVie is Trying to Sue Me... ... and I couldn't be happier about it. For those who don't know, MonaVie is a juice, that retails for $1.70 an ounce (yes ounce). Being the consumer advocate that I am, I wrote that I think MonaVie is a scam since it's around $1500-$2000 a year per person and......
• Top 5 Industries That Were Ruined by Capitalism If Capitalism were a religion I'd be its clergy.  What would I wear?  A white collar of course.  In a nutshell capitalism is the belief that private industry can drive progress and the economy much better than public entities (I'm talking about government here).  The motivation for profit seems to......

China has pledged to punish hackers who attacked Google if there is evidence to prove it, but said it has yet to receive any complaint from the world’s top search engine.

Google sent shockwaves across business and political circles in January when it declared it would stop censoring Chinese search results, and threatened to pull out of China — the world’s largest online community with 384 million users at the end of last year — over hacking and censorship concerns.

Google had never filed a report to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology over the cyber attacks or sought negotiations, Vice Minister Miao Wei was quoted as saying by state news agency Xinhua late on Saturday.

“If Google has had evidence that the attacks came from China, the Chinese government will welcome them to provide the information and will severely punish the offenders according to the law,” Miao said.

“We never support hacking attacks because China also falls victim to hacking attacks,” he said…Read full story

• 6 Killer Online Business Ideas For The SEO Article Title The persuasive title is the most important element on the SEO article, it must be a tempting promise to the reader and at the same time optimized for the search engines, i.e. it must include the main keyword of your online business ideas.1.Research The Keywords Of Your Online Business......
• Strong Earthquake Shakes Haiti Again [/caption] A strong earthquake has once again struck Haiti, shaking buildings and causing panic, eight days after a 7.0 magnitude quake left much of the nation in ruins. The U.S. Geological survey said latest quake had a magnitude of 6.1 and was centered 59 kilometers from the devastated capital......
• Jobs, calls it like he sees it! (Like it is) If for some reason you still think Apple and Google are all buddy-buddy when it comes to accepting your dollars, well, CEO Steve Jobs just put an end to that when addressing his employees at a town hall-style event later in the day. Speaking anonymously to Wired, a tipster says......
• Why Big Companies Are Blogging? There are still some old school business people out there that consider the whole idea of blogging for their business rather ridiculous. Unfortunately for these people, they will never understand that the world is changing and blogging is a whole lot more than just a bunch of people in their......
• Twelve Key Questions You Need to Ask About Your Computer Security for Your Home or Business Security technology is only a part of an overall security plan. If you own a small business or a home-based business, or if you've been tasked with implementing security at your organization, developing a comprehensive security plan should be a very important part of your overall security strategy. Get......