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In the UK there are over a 140 different dating sites, the number of single people who are registered on dating sites in the UK stands at around 15 million, one in five people in the UK have dated someone they met online, whether it be a dating website or through social media sites such as Facebook and MySpace and 17% of UK couples who have recently married, met online.

As it stands the world dating market in worth more than $4billion annually, this does go to explain why there are so many different dating sites out there. One of those is Parship. Different to some dating websites out there Parship looks to offer their clients long term partnerships through their services. For some dating sites offer the chance to find people to ‘hook up’ with rather than form lasting relationships and this is what Parship looks to avoid.

The Parship dating site was founded in 2000 and went online on 14th February 2001 (Valentine’s Day) in Germany. The company since then has expanded from Germany and it is now active in another 13 countries: Belgium, Denmark, France, UK, Ireland, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Austria, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain, and Mexico.

Like some other dating sites, Parship uses a compatibility test and compatibility matching to help you find the right partner, these tests was developed by Parship co-founder Psychologist Professor Hugo Schmale. This has been developed after thirty years of scientific research into couples and their relationships.

As well as offering its services to heterosexual couples, Parship also offers dating services for homosexual couples, so everyone can find the person for them.

Popular coffee chain Starbucks has launched a new reward programme for their customers called My Rewards, which will offer additional benefits to customers who become “Gold Level members” after 50 visits. This new reward scheme will replace the company’s current prepay members cards, those existing customers who already have the prepay cards will be automatically upgraded to gold members.

In the future this scheme could potentially be extended to offer bespoke offers to members and additional levels, according to Brian Waring, the newly promoted vice president of marketing for the EMEA region.

As well as launching the new reward scheme, Starbucks are also introducing a transactional iPhone app which will allow transactional iPhone app and later on in the year an Android app will also be launched.

The new rewards scheme works by rewarding customers with a ‘star’ per purchase, you will receive a free drink for every fifteen stars collected. The company believe that this loyalty scheme “feels personal, and is easy to understand”.

The scheme has already started running in the US and Canada and has proven to be popular with customers. Starbucks have also made a number of other efforts to improve the experience of its customers by adding free Wi-Fi and downloads, as they put it to “add further value and give customers more reasons to choose Starbucks”.

Ian Cranna, the new vice president of marketing for Starbucks UK, says: “We’ve listened carefully and we know that now, more than ever, customers are looking for extra value. This scheme also allows us to be more personal, rewarding the most frequent customers with extra benefits. We also know that fewer customers want to use cash, so putting My Starbucks Reward on mobiles offers a faster, easier way to pay.”

Starbucks logo

Sitting through TV adverts you can’t not miss the adverts for solicitors, whether it’s for personal injury claims or for an employment case they’re there so if you find yourself in a bit of legal trouble where do you turn?

There are a number of different legal problems you can find yourself in and for those different legal problems you will find solicitors in Birmingham who are specialised in that legal area. If you’re stuck on where to turn, below you will find a basic list of types of solicitors which most people come across. The list would probably be never ending if I covered all the areas solicitors specialised in!

Divorce/Family

When a marriage comes to an end, it is advisable to hire a divorce solicitor, help you through the process. They have specialised knowledge on family law and can advise you the best possible route to take to make sure you get a fair settlement. It is especially important to use one where children are involved to make sure custody agreements are not only fair but good for the child(ren)

Criminal

If you are charged with a crime you will need a criminal solicitor, if you are contesting the charge then the criminal solicitor will gather evidence to prove you innocence. They have expert knowledge in the criminal justice field which will enable them to as such ‘fight your corner’. They are also there to make sure you get a fair trial and that if innocent, not wrongly convicted. Criminal solicitors in Bristol also work as negotiators for those who admit guilt to make sure your sentence is not harsh.

Property

Buying a property is a long, drawn out and often complicated process which costs time and money and although solicitors can be expensive they are a necessity when it comes to buying property. They are there to make sure that your purchase is legal, that the correct stamp duty is paid and they work on your behalf to get things moving with the other people you deal with during the process. 

Wills and Probate

In this day and age, many people are urged to make a will, especially if you have property, money or valuable possessions you wish to leave to a relative or loved one, especially if you have family. Wills and Probate solicitors can be consulted when drawing up a will, to make sure it is legally binding and can be honoured when you die. After death they are also there to make sure the contents of the will are executed as per the writer wishes. You may also use a Wills and Probate solicitor if you wish to contest a will.

Bain & Company conducted a survey of 6,000 UK shoppers to find which brand most people would recommend to a friend or colleague, hair care brand Kerastase was found to be “most advocated” brand in the UK according to the results of the survey.

Companies were ranked on their a Net Promoter Score (NPS) which is calculated by the percentage of people rating the brand highly on a scale of recommendation, subtracted by the percentage of those who would only rate it between 0-6 on a scale of 1 to 10. Kerastase achieved 80%, 26 percentage points higher than its closest rival in the survey, Mercedes.

When it comes to trying new products, family, partners, friends and experts are normally the main advocates who influence shoppers, especially when it comes to alcohol, fashion, skincare and makeup. This is why the results from the survey are so important for companies. According to the report “winning” consumer products brands must keep shoppers and consumers at the “heart” of everything they do and make their brands distinctive and relevant to shopper needs and “occasions”, such as at point of sale where consumers may be tempted to buy rival brands.

Looking at the brands who reached the top ten of the “most advocated”, only one of them is British (Hotel Chocolate) which means our UK brands have a long way to go to gather consumer support.

The results:

10. Rolex – NPS: 51%

9. Audi – NPS: 52%

8. HTC – NPS: 53%

7. Apple iPod – NPS: 53%

6. Cohiba – NPS: 57%

5. Hotel Chocolat – NPS: 59%

4. Redken – NPS: 59%

3. Apple iPhone – NPS: 60%

2. Mercedes – NPS: 66%

1. Kerastase – NPS: 80%

At this time of year when schools are broken up many students are focusing on exam revision and coursework, longer holidays for those who are at university means time for family and friends, work and university coursework. It’s probably quite hard to get motivated during the festive season when all you want to do is go out with friends, eat, drink and be merry with family.

Before you leave your campus behind, you need to make sure you have all the information, tools and details you need, however in the days of email it may be possible to pester your tutor for information if you need it. It’s probably best to get stuck into it as soon as your home, no putting coursework off till the last couple of days of your holiday, it’s not something you want to rush unless you want to get a poor mark. The early you get it done the more time you will have to relax and have fun!

Because of the internet you can easily find a whole host of information on the internet. One thing to remember though if you are wanting some coursework assistance is not to copy from the internet, this can easily be picked up and give you a fail, in the worst case scenario you could be kicked off your course. Before you go back to university and hand in your coursework make sure the presentation is acceptable, this can easily lower a mark, plus make sure all the details are correct, reading it one last time won’t harm, especially if you started it at the beginning of the holidays.

In the past couple of years garden rooms have become big business with companies popping up all over the country which design and fit garden rooms. Even the big DIY chains such as B&Q and Homebase have been getting in on the act in a less bespoke manor.

One of the main reasons why we have seen a rise in the popularity of garden rooms is because many people in the current economic climate are unable to move, so instead they look to add space to their homes and when extensions, conservatories and loft conversions have all been done a garden room is the next step.

An extra room can add much needed space for families or just somewhere to go relax for some people, away from the hustle and bustle of the home. You can also use them as a garden home office, studio or gym depending on your needs.

These garden rooms can be designed to suit your specific need with the interior to suit your tastes as well. They can be plumbed in and wired in so they are fully functioning rooms, with small kitchens and bathrooms if needed.

Web hosting
If you’re looking into website hosting then there are a few things you should be aware of first, especially if you haven’t done something like this before. Website hosting allows individuals and organizations to make their own website accessible via the World Wide Web on the internet. The web hosts provide space on a server which they own or lease for people to host their websites on.

There are a few different web hosting services available, these include:

Cloud hosting – This is a new type of hosting which allows people a powerful, scalable and reliable hosting service which is based on clustered load-balanced servers and utility billing.

Cluster hosting – Here you have multiple servers hosting the same content for better resource utilization.

Grid hosting – This form of hosting is where a server cluster acts like a grid and is composed of multiple nodes.

Dedicated hosting servicing – Here you will get your own Web server and will have full control over it (user has root access for Linux/administrator access for Windows) but you don’t own it.

Home server – This is a single machine which is in a person’s house or office and can be used to host one or more web sites from a usually consumer-grade broadband connection.

WordPress hosting

WordPress is a free to use open source tool for blogging. It can be customised by users and can have numerous features. WordPress hosting is pretty much the same as web hosting. WordPress is a good place to start for beginners who do not have experience building their own websites.

To help the company expand and engage more with customers L’Oreal has launched its first CRM programme which can offer consumers exclusive rewards. The scheme is called the L’Oreal Insider and it encourages consumers to open an online account for access to offers of free samples as well as expert advice, reviews and money-off vouchers for its products. L’Oreal have invested £20 million into this project and the company hope it will bring them closer to their existing customers but also bring them new ones. The rollout comes as the company marks the 40th anniversary of its ‘Because I’m worth it’ slogan.

To join the scheme you need to register your details on the L’Oreal Insider site, encouraged by the tag line; “The more you tell us, the more you’ll be rewarded”. Like a lot of other sites now you can also connect through Facebook and merge your account which means you can share promotions and content with your friends. The new site is aimed at women, however there is a similar scheme for men, which involves the companies Men Expert product range.

There has also been a major competition launched which will see three members of the public featuring alongside celebrity ambassador Cheryl Cole in a TV campaign for its Casting Creme Gloss range next year. This contest launched by L’Oreal which is tied to the Insider scheme is only available to those signed up.

Between July and September, Samsung won the title of most shipped smart phones, over big competitors, Apple.

Research showed that Samsung shipped 27.8 million smartphones in the 3 months, in comparison to a mere 17.1 million from Apple and 16.8 million from Nokia.

Although the results may seem shocking; many believe that the reason that Apples sales were so low was the fact that customers were anticipating and awaiting the release of the new iPhone.

When it came to total handsets, Apples 4th place was also taken away from the company. Nokia was the best handset shipper with a 27.3% market share, followed by Samsung with 22.6% and LG with 5.4%. ZTE took 4.7%, which pushed apple to 5th place with only 4.4%.

“Samsung’s rise has been driven by a blend of elegant hardware designs, popular Android services, memorable sub-brands and extensive global distribution. Samsung has demonstrated that it is possible, at least in the short term, to differentiate and grow by using the Android ecosystem.” said Alex Spektor (Strategy Analytics.)

Nokia’s market share for smartphones fell from 33% in the third quarter of 2010 to 14% this time round.

Tom Kang from Strategy Analytics said: “The transition from Symbian to Microsoft as Nokia’s main smartphone platform has clearly been a very challenging process this year. The recent launch of the new Microsoft Lumia portfolio has helped to raise Nokia’s profile.”

Apple v Samsung

There are many types of blinds on offer. Venetian blinds, Roman blinds and vertical blinds are just a few of the popular designs available. Each style offers a wide range of advantages; so exploring what is available will increase your chances of locating the right type of blinds for your home. Blinds are available in a wide range of colours, enabling you to find a style that easily matches the rest of your decor.

Other types of blinds on offer include wooden blinds, white roller blinds and pleated blinds. Wooden blinds are ideal for those wishing to add something modern to their home, whilst roller blinds are a particularly good choice for those wishing to enhance privacy. Pleated blinds are stylish and versatile and are a popular choice for offices and conservatories.

For those wishing to add something unique to their home, custom made blinds are a great choice. Some online stores allow customers to add their own designs to their blinds, which is ideal for those wishing to create a more personal design or a design that will fit in with a particular theme within the home with a specific colour or pattern in mind such as red, blue, purple hot pink or even silver blinds. You can also match patterns to go with the rest of your décor or tie in with other furniture you may have.