Business Idea of the Day

Typists prone to making mistakes when using old-fashioned typewriters or word processors have Bette Nesmith Graham to thank for creating one of the most simple, yet lifesaving inventions in all of office-supply history. Born in 1924, Nesmith worked as a secretary while earning her GED in night school. While her husband was away in service during World War II, she gave birth to a son, Michael, who would later become a guitarist for the band The Monkees. After her husband returned from the war, the couple divorced, and Nesmith found herself a single mother, left to raise her son alone. At that time electric typewriters were becoming more and more popular, and in learning to use them, Nesmith and other secretaries often made mistakes they found difficult to erase, in part because of the messy carbon-film ribbons used in the devices.

Born in 1815, Edmund McIlhenny moved to New Orleans, Louisiana, around 1840, finding work in the Louisiana banking industry. By the eve of the American Civil War, he had acquired a small fortune and became an independent bank owner. During the Civil War, McIlhenny fled with his in-laws, the Avery family, to Texas, where he served as a civilian employee of the Confederate army, first as a clerk in a commissary office, then as a financial agent for the paymaster.

The inventor that created the ‘world’s first practical jetpack’ is heading to Tauranga so he can give a presentation about his creation, The Martin Jetpack, reports SunLive . The jetpack, which is about 1.5m high, 1.5m wide, is made of carbon fibre composite and weighs 242kg was unveiled in July 2008 in Wisconsin. It is powered by a Martin Aircraft 2L V4 2 stroke engine rated at 200hp with a maximum rpm of 6000 and has a range of about 50km with maximum altitude of about 8000ft. Earlier this year, the Martin Aircraft Company signed a $12-million joint-venture deal with an international aircraft company to build Martin Jetpacks with the aim of making 500 units generating annual turnover of $100 million within three years.

According to The Washington Post , you don’t even have to like to cook in order to appreciate the gizmos, gadgets and gurus of food fixings in “Inventive Eats,” the first exhibit in the brand-spanking new installation space at the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Alexandria. Designers Laurie Mobley and Mitch Scott were given the job of setting up a universally appealing show in a few months’ time, so they built it around 20 food-related inductees. They had access to patents and company archives; they also contacted private collectors across the country

According to The Washington Post , you don’t even have to like to cook in order to appreciate the gizmos, gadgets and gurus of food fixings in “Inventive Eats,” the first exhibit in the brand-spanking new installation space at the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Alexandria. Designers Laurie Mobley and Mitch Scott were given the job of setting up a universally appealing show in a few months’ time, so they built it around 20 food-related inductees. They had access to patents and company archives; they also contacted private collectors across the country. The result is an organized yet delightful hodgepodge

Gazelle turns your old electronics into cash. At their website, they ask you questions about your old cellphone, MP3 player, digital camera, etc., and they immediately tell you what they’ll pay you for it. If you like what you see, they’ll send you a postage paid envelope and you send back the item and then they send you a check. It’s a great way to clean out your closets and drawers full of old, obsolete junk. They also offer a fundraising program called Gazelle for Good that works essentially the same way, but they’ll provide your organization, whether it’s a church, little league team or Boy Scout Troop with a customized webpage that’ll allow your supporters to send in their old electronics and you’ll receive 100% of the value of the item.

While watching his father struggle to find affordable and effective advertising Clifton Cooper was inspired. He went to work and created a localized search engine called Coachella Valley Webpages. Now locals have a place to search when they want to find a new business to visit reports The Desert Sun .

The World Cup doesn’t make people lazy, it just refocuses their attention and kills productivity. A new infographic from InsideView makes this abundantly clear. Click the image for a larger version . FYI: Cristiano Ronaldo is a great player for Portugal who’s famous for falling down .

According to The Christian Science Monitor , there are plenty of signs these days pointing towards a slow, tepid recovery. Here’s a more hopeful indicator – the Father’s Day factor. The average adult will shell out $94.32 in Father’s Day gifts this year, up from $90.89 in 2009 according to a National Retail Federation (NRF) survey of 8,431 consumers.

Mashable reports that according to a new study from Nielsen showing Internet usage in April 2010, 22% of the time, you’re engaging with social media. 22% might not seem like a mammoth percentage, but you have to take into account the fact that this finding is on a global scale. Also, a few more telling takeaways from the report. Currently, three quarters of Internet users worldwide visit a social network or blog when they go online — that’s a 24% increase over last year. Joe Average spends 66% more time on these sites than he did a year ago — for example, your average user spent 6 hours on these sites in April 2010, while last year he spent 3 hours, 31 minutes.