Research the Company

Just because you may be getting a great rate that doesn’t mean that it’s a reputable company. Before signing up with them make sure that you research them online to verify that they pay out claims on time, have good customer service and actually care about their customers.

Ask For Special Rates

Does the insurance company offer special bundled rates if you buy multiple policies with the same company? Do they offer senior or good student discounts? It never hurts to ask.

Thinking About Getting Married?

If you’re a single person but are planning on getting married soon you can save money on car insurance simply by telling the insurance company that you’re married now. This can easily save you hundreds per year.

Driving Less Than Last Year?

If you’re carpooling more and driving less, don’t forget to tell your insurance company. Why? The more that you drive per year, the more money you will spend on car insurance. This is why it always pays to drive less.

Prenuptial Agreements

If you have a substantial amount of money before you are married or plan on making it while married you may want to take the time to draw up a prenuptial agreement. It may not sound like the most romantic move in the world, but any lawyer will tell you that it is probably one of the smartest things that two people who plan to marry can do. It may take a little back and forth discussion, but eventually most couples can agree on some type of arrangement.

Always Cover Your Assets

If no prenuptial agreement was made and you got married anyways, the best way to manage your assets is probably with the advice of a financial planner. In this wavering economy, investments can be, at best, fleeting. Stocks are all over the place and even real estate has taken a hit.

Protect your assets before marriage or figure out how to split them down the middle; in divorce and money, nobody really wins.

Managing My Assets and Protecting My Interests

Being responsible for all aspects of media is a very important task. Quality is key when it comes to managing the assets. Proper licensing for any type of content is very important. Having content without proper licensing credits and maintaining all ad restrictions if there are any is crucial. Always research any form of media and be sure to document all issues with legal usage and rights disclaimers.
Maintaining yearly reports as well as files to keep all the disclaimers and releases on hand is always a smart idea. Getting caught without your paperwork on the media assets could be a mistake you would regret. Better to be safe than sorry.

Legal Ramifications

Anytime the word “legal” is mentioned, it creates this uneasy feeling of grief. If you ever receive a piece of media and there is nothing attached to it looking like a release, it is best to hit delete. Media owners finding their precious media posted on sites and being shared can get really nasty. Copyright laws are violated, and a huge can of worms is opened. Most of the time, it is a battle a smart person would want to avoid. No one would want their hard earned time and energy on a website or company destroyed because a simple approval was ignored. It is not worth it.

When working with media assets it is crucial you understand you are in possession of not only your media, but someone’s hard work. That person as well as yourself would not want it being violated and illegally copyrighted for another person’s gain. If you’re at all in doubt about the legality of the media you’re working with, contact your Arlington lawyer at once.

Oh, What a Tangled Web

Today’s intellectual property includes every point of light in the digital universe, which expands on a constant basis. Ten years ago, not many people could have conceptualized Facebook as we know it. Five years ago, if you had gone into a law firm asking about “tweets”, you’d have garnered some strange looks indeed. Music, video, literature, photography – it’s all subject to whims of the Web now. It takes a true professional to truly protect your media assets.

Local Lawyers Taking On Global Problems

Regardless of your walk of life, you may not be privy to the differences between “Members Only” and “List Members Only” assets, or even the implications that go along with public versus private assets, but a good IP lawyer is more than familiar with such things. The fact that you may live in Fort Worth doesn’t mean that your media assets are limited to your vicinity – quite the opposite, actually. Fort Worth lawyers who specialize in intellectual property will be able to manage your media assets on a global scale.

What everyone has going in their favor, by this time, is the fact that social networking sites and other negotiable forms of media have been around for a while now. IP divisions are not considered as exotic so much as they are essential in most major law firms (trademark infringement, for example, is a lucrative field in law practice these days). Media asset law is trending upward, and will continue to so in the future.

Set Up a Merchant Account

One of the easiest ways to begin accepting credit cards is to set up a merchant account. A merchant account can help manage your credit card processing needs. They will help you set up point of sale services and facilitate the collection process between you and the merchants. This is a great account to have – especially if you are going to accept credit cards often. It makes the work easier and simplifies everything.

There’s An App For That

If you are a smaller business, you might feel like a merchant account is unnecessary. However, you can still benefit from accepting credit cards. One of the easiest options for you might be to download an app on your phone to help you process a credit card. Many small businesses use these apps to facilitate their business needs. And it really does come in handy. You might be surprised how often a simple app like this one can help you.

There are so many advantages to accepting credit cards. Find the right process for you and begin managing your credit card payments today. You will most likely thank yourself when the money starts rolling in!

Simple Tips To Improve Your Game

1. Learn Some Odds – To learn to play well you need to understand the meaning of implied odds and the odds for catching draws.

2. Vary Your Play – You make money in No Limit Texas Holdem when you trap a player so they can’t fold their hand or call. Don’t only raise on pre-flop with AA, KK and AK. You should know the difference between a tough game that requires you to play good cards and a weak game that lets you play weak hands.

3. Don’t Get Trapped – It’s easy to loose your stack in no limit when you get a good starting hand. Always look at the AA and the KK always know that you’re going to lose a small pot or lose a big one.

4. Always Play In Good Games – Try to pick a good game where players have the same skills level as you.

5. Watch Other Players Play – In any type of poker game you must pay close attention to other players. Be watching your opponents you will be able to learn their tells and gain the advantage.

Improve Your Holdem Game

You should always be studying, learning and preparing for your next game either by playing online Texas Holdem games or any other type of Online Poker Game. You can also improve your game by learning more about the pros through online research via Wiki Poker Sites, Wikipedia and search on about.com.

MAM Metadata Dictionary
This Association project will evaluate, assemble, and propose “generic” sets of nomenclature for digital media, the Web, digital video. This includes developing specific terminology for a select vertical industries, such as advertising, TV, etc. Process will require participation in regular telephonic and / or web-based meetings, with pre-scheduled meetings. Version 1.0 scheduled for April 2000.

MAM RFP Project
MAM Open RFP Project reflects focused charter to provide a suite of templates, documents and business model protocols for the development MAM project bids, vendor agreements, and technology providers contracts. Version 1.0 scheduled for May 2000.

MAM Metadata Protocol Framework
This deliverable will be focused on a metadata protocols that will allow for the ability to share catalog, directory and other related metadata between and among various content creation, catalog, application and database systems. The Association board of advisors will evaluate and organize the current and proposed industry standards affecting key digital media applications. This includes analyzing specific new standards and protocols for a select vertical industries, such as broadcast TV, video post, advertising, publishing, etc. Process will require participation in regular telephonic and / or web-based meetings, with pre-scheduled meetings. There will be a call for papers at the NAB Conference, April 9-14, 2000. The final candidate papers will be determined by IBC Amsterdam and Seybold, San Francisco, in September, with the final version approved and released at the April, 2001 NAB, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

MAM Seminars and Symposium
The Association will support the organization of a series of Seminars to be presented in conjunction with member activities at select industry trade show and conferences. Other industry events in development include ShowBiz Expo, Post LA, SIGGRAPH, Broadcast Design Association, Billboard, and NATPE.

MAM Industry Market Education
Starting in April 2000, the Association will co-sponsor iStudioWorld.com an online magazine and e-business-to-business service with membership and guest editorial, including updates on the Association’s User Group and Technology Forum activities.

ISLIP Media Sponsors, and IBM and the Media Asset Management Association Co-sponsor Multi-vendor Solutions Area

Solutions available on the market today will be able to do so in one place later this month: a special showcase, to be unveiled at the upcoming National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention in Las Vegas from April 19th-22nd.

For the first time, attendees can evaluate a spectrum of mature, interoperable solutions from leading Media Asset Management vendors providing capabilities to manage video, audio, image, and text in one place (Booth # 2059 in the Sands Expo Center).

The showcase is sponsored by ISLIP Media, Inc. (the leading developer and supplier of software, systems and services to create searchable, Web-based video and audio Media Sites), and co-sponsored by IBM (offering IBM DB2 Digital Library-based solutions for managing media assets for broadcasting, publishing, advertising, sports and entertainment industries) and the Media Asset Management Association (MAMA)(an industry consortium promoting interoperable solutions). Participating industry-leading organizations include AdWare, AlterMedia, Avid, Cinebase, Content Magazine, Excalibur, IBM, Informix, ISLIP, Oracle, RealNetworks, Silicon Graphics, and TEAMS.

One of the key initiatives of MAM is to promote interoperable solutions, so that users of these products can integrate multi-vendor products to best suit their unique needs. This showcase allows us to bring vendors together to highlight the many advantages of Media Asset Management systems to the global broadcast production and digital media management communities.

Users will see real, integrated, multi-vendor, currently available hardware, software, and systems for Media Asset Management. MAM has moved from a collection of separate vendors, to an industry offering complete, integrated solutions.

“Our goal for Media Asset Management is to provide for a rich set of common services and sharing of media across products integrated to a Digital Library repository. The MAM Showcase is a great vehicle to exhibit to our customers the exciting new solutions available to them to manage all of their information assets,” said Jim Kelly, vice president, IBM Data Management Marketing. “We look forward to working with key solution providers in the MAM marketplace to deliver compelling e-business solutions that derive business value for our mutual customers.”

John Noon, publisher of Content Magazine, the first MAM industry publication commented, “Digital asset management is one of the most pressing issues media companies are facing today. We are pleased to participate in this event with other MAM exhibitors to help educate attendees and MAM users of the wide-array of products available to them.”

For more information about the Media Asset Management Vendor Showcase at NAB ’99, or to participate in the showcase, please contact ISLIP Media.

Media Asset Management

Media Asset Management includes the tools and technologies that enable organizations across a range of industries to manage video, audio, image, and text-based assets. Media Asset Management also includes the rights and usage management of these media. MAM enables organizations to search, find, reuse and manage their media effectively.

About ISLIP Media

ISLIP (Integrated Speech, Language, and Image Processed) Media, Inc. is the leading developer of software, systems and services to create searchable video and audio Media Sites. ISLIP operates a Web site, which offers searchable video with e-commerce purchasing. ISLIP also offers the MediaSite System, a core set of software, systems and services required to develop a superior Media Site. With ISLIP’s MediaSite System, video becomes as searchable as text.

The unique feature of MediaSite technical approach is the integrated application of speech recognition, language understanding and image understanding technologies based on software components of Carnegie Mellon University’s Informedia Digital Video Library Project, an $8 million public-private sponsored research project. ISLIP Media is located in Pittsburgh, PA. and was founded in 1996.

Media Asset Management

An industry executive education association, MAM serves as an industry organizing group developing voluntary business-to-business conventions and digital media and Internet file exchange protocols to meet the needs of content asset management customers. The group makes the related technical specifications and business information easily accessible to developers and end-users at industry trade shows and online.

MAM Open RFP Project reflects focused charter to provide a suite of templates, documents and business model protocols for the development MAM project bids, vendor agreements, and technology providers contracts.

MAM operates as an advanced user group and independent industry consortium, created by and for media producers, content publishers, information managers, technology providers and their value-chain partners serving the global digital media creation and content asset management communities. The Association’s current mission centers on producing voluntary best practice-based protocols and business-to-business communications conventions and practices. The design, specification and auditing aspects of preparing a “Request For Proposal” represents one of the most critical and problematic areas of interaction between MAM system users, vendors and integration / resellers.

The MAM Association has also initiated an internal, fast-track process to define an interoperable set of agile and extensible RFP component MAM protocols to flexibly address the needs of a wide range of Internet, broadcast, brand management, e-commerce entertainment, and distance learning applications. This process has the backing and support of key industry members and is expected to promote a basecase protocol with industry-specific modules to encourage the adoption and deployment of open meta-data protocols for digital media content managers, vendors and systems integrators. Initial efforts focus on unified bid protocols for Advertising / Branding, Broadcasting / Cable, Film / Entertainment, Media, Publishing, and Higher Education.

MAM will leverage the experience and expertise of its members in the development for open protocols for a select array of MAM technologies. The Association’s Board of Advisors will evaluate the MAM RFP protocols proposals generated both inside and outside the Association for effectiveness and suitability for intranet, extranet and Internet administration and management.

MAM is empowered to consider industry-wide technology proposals for enabling web-based content management, creating the forum and the opportunity for those technologies to be open, interoperable and standardized. We look forward to industry innovation synergizing the Association’s ambitious metadata standardization activities to enable and encourage ubiquitous Web-based MAM.

By creating a suite of open standards for the Internet, the MAM Association will help enable a stable environment for end-users, vendors and re-sellers. In contrast to closed solutions–products based on MAM Association standards proposals will be available from a wide range of vendors on multiple platforms. This ensures that users, re-sellers and systems integrators can invest with confidence in system solutions, with due diligence and informed risk analysis of their long-term viability.

MAM invites new members and participation from companies who wish to tender standard proposals for immediate attention, and to be involved in the definition of protocols to drive the MAM RFP Protocol Project.

MAM Association Information

The Media Asset Management Association (MAMA), serves as a non-profit educational organization with a mandate to support the development of open standards to enable MAM. WWW, broadcast and new media applications.

Program development includes:

• open MAM lexicons
• open meta-database architectures for digital creation
• media asset management
• intelligent networking of print, audio, film, video, online
• Internet, and new media content systems.

The Association was founded by leading organizations including ABC Broadcasting, Apple, Bulldog, Leo Burnett / Cap Studios, Cinebase, Digital Roadmaps, Discovery Communications,The Disney Company, Excalibur Systems, IBM, Informix, Islip Media, The Landor Company,Lexichron, Magnifi, Oracle, Sun / Java, Silicon Graphics, Spin Studio, Sony, Sybase, Virage, WAM!NET, and WebWare.