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So you’re planning on going into a very long trip out of town or out of the country. Your brand new car would have to be left protected.
That way when you do head back home, you would know you still have that reliable car that would be ready to use. There are a lot of different factors that can harm your car while you’re away, but you can minimize it.
All it takes is that you take the time to prepare it and save yourself some money in the long run.
How to protect your car – Car Storage and Pre-maintenance are key
The following are some tips on what you can do to make sure your beloved automobile is left protected.
Find a suitable location
This is long-term storage, and you would need a place that is dry, clean and secure. The area should be free from moisture. This is because moisture, along with humidity can lead to corrosion and brings hazards to the engine.
When the metal of the car is exposed for too long, corrosion and rust begins to take place as well. Growth of mildew in the interior is also possible, that’s why finding the right location is very important.
You can hire trusted storage unit like Tampa storage- units to keep all your valuables safe.
Rodent-Proof storage area needed
The storage area you should choose should be free from rodents. Rats are notorious for chewing everything in its path. This includes your car’s wiring system.
They can also start building nests inside the car, and this would just be a lot of trouble for you. Make sure you have rat poison or other pest control gadgets at hand.
Maintaining your vehicle – Care needed with Gas, Battery, Tires and a Wax Job
Before you leave, make sure you leave your car in great condition. Damages incurred by the car before you leave, when left unattended, can simply worsen.
Making sure you car is ready to go when you come back can as simple as doing a few maintenance checks.
Change the Oil
So to prevent ruining your car completely, make sure to change the oil before you leave.
This reduces moisture in the car. Moisture leads to corrosion.
Fill it right up
Fill the car up with gas.
Driver Filling Fuel Tank ca. 1994
This prevents moisture from settling, therefore effectively stopping rust.
Battery care
If you are leaving for a short period of time, you can leave the battery there. But when leaving for a relatively long time, take out the battery.
When batteries begin to crack, acid leaks out. Simply replace the battery upon your return.
Grease your tires
Use lithium grease to preserve your car tires.
This is to stop the car’s tires from drying up.
Condition the interior
There are a lot of car conditioners available in the market.
Use a leather or vinyl conditioner. This can stop your seats from cracking.
Clean it up
Whether you’re going to a car wash or cleaning your car up yourself, make sure you apply a coat of wax. Don’t forget to buff the car out. Use a great quality car cover.
Car detailing series : Cleaning white car
Using these simple and basic tips, your brand new car will be protected from the elements!!
With GraceKennedy making remittances accessible online (Collinder, 2018, March 21), the possibility that they’ll launch their own cryptocurrency as part of GK Mpay (Deer, 2018, March 11) or use another up and rising crytocurrency, such as Ripple (Supoto, 2018, March 23), seems increasing possible.
Already, Jamaicans can set up and purchase cryptocurrencies suce as Dogecoin, Etherium, Ripple and the sky-high Bitcoin, once you have a Credit Card, Debit Card or Paypal Account (Deer, 2017, March 26).
There are even apps such as the Electroneum App (Deer, 2018, March 11) that use your smartphones spare processing power to mine cryptocurrency.
So what are cryptocurrencies? What are the benefiters of having them aside from buying things online? And how do ordinary Jamaicans buy Cryptocurrencies?
Jamaicans and Bitcoin – What is Cryptocurrency
A cryptocurrency is a digital or virtual currency that exists only in a database online and does not have a physical form. It’s basically peer-to-peer digital money designed to work as a medium of exchange for real money, much in the same way Paypal uses your email address as a means of doing transactions.
Essentially, cryptocurrencies are become limited entries in a database that no one can change unless specific conditions are fulfilled as explained further in this video.
Cryptocurrencies are the creation of an anonymous programmer or a group of programmers under an alias Satoshi Nakamoto (Cointelegraph, 2018), who in 2009, created the bitcoin. Satoshi described it as a ‘peer-to-peer electronic cash system” that is completely decentralized.
There are no central servers involved and no central controlling authority; cryptocurrency Networks are more akin to peer-to-peer networks for file sharing. Like the peer-to-peer networks that saw the downfall of the traditional Music Industry, crytocurrencies use cryptography to secure transactions that may eventually bring about the downfall of fiat currencies in the future.
Each transaction is verified by using a consensus based public ledger distributed across several servers and computers called a blockchain.
This prevents currency duplication and also controls the creation of new units of a particular cryptocurrency, preventing runaway inflation by greed individuals creating cryptocurrency by fiat. This is the main advantage of cryptocurrencies over traditional fiat currencies; cryptography makes them impossible to duplicate and blockchain makes transaction and currencies had to steal.
Blockchain Explained – A public ledger of all transaction within the Network
A blockchain is a public ledger of all transaction that ever happened within the network, available to everyone.
Therefore, everyone in the network can see every account’s balance being as a cryptocurrency network is effectively a decentralized network, with each member’s computer or node in the network keeping a copy of the public ledger on their computing device.
Every transaction is a file that consists of the following pieces of information:
Sender’s wallet addresses
Recipient’s wallet addresses
Amount of coins transferred
The transaction also needs to be signed off by the sender with their private key. Eventually, the transaction is broadcasted in the network, but it needs to be confirmed first by cryptocurrency miners (Deer, 2018, March 11).
Within a cryptocurrency network, only miners can confirm transactions by solving the math involved in cryptography. These miners then mark transactions as legitimate and update every node of the cryptocurrency network; this is called a block and because it’s part of a network, it form a chain, hence the name blockchain.
Once the transaction is confirmed it becomes unforgettable and irreversible and a miner receives a reward, plus the transaction fees. In summary, any cryptocurrency network is based on the absolute consensus of all the participants regarding the legitimacy of balances and transactions.
With rules designed to ensure consensus, blockchain is essentially a very strong form of cryptography, as to change any transaction, you’d have to hack every node in existence simultaneously. This is impossible, as the act of changing a node would cause a ripple effect that would spread to the other nodes, as they’d track all of these changes as they happen in real time.
So now you know a bit more about bitcoins, where can you buy some? And how to you make money from bitcoins and other crytocurrencies?
Jamaicans and cryptocurrency wallets – How to buy and invest in cryptocurrency
First, you need to create a cryptocurrency wallet. Being an experienced bitcoin collector and trader, I’d recommend you start with the best wallet with great security features (Drake, 2018, 12 June) such as one of the following:
They have user-friendly interfaces, with Exodus being my favourite, as it shows you in real time the value of the cryptocurency that you’ve purchased. Here is my Exodus wallet number as an example:
1KMEoFMkbE3UN7ZKPLFDwhnFcDLZCLJK4m
You can also buy other cryptocurrencies instead of just bitcoin, effectively making you into a Bitcoin investor, as cryptocurrency are essentially a form of money-market security. Once you has a Credit Card, Prepaid Debit Card or a Paypal account, you can buy them at one of the following Cryptocurrency exchanges online:
The best one I’ve used thus far is Spectrocoin, as you can buy and sell bitcoins directly and exchange them within their web-based wallet.
Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin have the potential to increase in value as they are actively traded on these cryptocurrency exchanges for fiat currency. This present the possibility of you becoming wealth from speculative currency trading, making you a millionaire, once you buy a set of them when their value is low and sell when their value increases, as this bitcoin millionaire explains.
You can have as many cryptocurrency wallets as you want and they are all free.
Jamaicans and cryptocurrency wallets – How to buy items on Amazon and other websites
Many websites accept bitcoins, save for the major companies such as Amazon, Macy’s and Best Buy.
Still, there is a workaround for them; the bitcoin wallet called egifter(Conner, 2014, February 14) and Purse that allow you to buy items on these websites.
Alternately, you can also use you bitcoin wallet to purchase gift cards and coupons for the websites you wish to purchase on Gyft, as explained in the video below.
As of writing this blog article, no one in Jamaica accepts bitcoins. Our local banks do not trade in them publicly and the Bank of Jamaica is advising caution in their use (Williams, 2018, February 7), making conversion into cash very difficult. You can buy Prepaid Cards loaded with bitcoins, but these are mainly for Americans and not Jamaicans!!
For now, it’s really an alternative to Paypal that’s faster and more transparent and secure. With Gracekennedy and Western Union planning to use them for sending and receiving Remittances, we may soon be Ripple-ing along, with other mobile money companies such as Quisk in hot pursuit!!!
Sharing is caring, so share this with all your friends!!
One of the hardest periods of one’s life is in the teenage years.
The teenage years can be hard on parents as puberty causes mood swings that may result in them either abusing drugs (Deer, 2018, January 7) or eating more foods with unhealthy amounts of sugar (Deer, 2016, August 8). This translates to them having tooth decay and cavities due their busy schedule of social activities, school and sports.
Your teeth are very important part of your body and require care. Unfortunately Fluoride Toothpastes are not really as good for your teeth as advertised. This as excess Fluoride in the form of Sodium MonoFlorophosphate can cause deposits of Fluoride salts on the joints, resulting in a condition similar to arthritis in older persons.
Worse, if you have sensitive teeth, Fluoride Toothpaste can irritate your sensitivity and even make cavities worse. Thus the only solution that remains is to use Toothpaste that has less Sodium MonoFlorophosphate and still cleans you teeth.
So how do you help Teenagers, who may be busy with social activities, school and sports to properly take care of their teeth naturally?
Teenagers and Brushing with Toothpaste – An Inconvenient Truth about Fluoride in Toothpaste
It’s best as possible to avoid using Toothpastes that contain Fluoride as in the long run they are bad for you.
The Weight by volume of Fluoride ion in all brands of Toothpaste is fixed at 0.15% i.e. there is a fixed ratio in terms of Mass to Volume for Sodium MonoFlorophosphate, the active ingredient in all manufactured Toothpaste.
No matter what size Toothpaste you buy, the Mass to Volume ratio of Fluoride ion is always the same.
However the percentage of Sodium MonoFlorophosphate in the various brands of Toothpastes that you and your children use varies. This is a ratio of the mass of Sodium MonoFlorophosphate to the total mass of the Toothpaste mixture inside of the tube.
A quick view if the video below will give you an idea of how bad Fluoride is for you.
This will naturally be different ratio that’ll vary from Toothpaste to Toothpaste, based on the concentration of the Sodium MonoFlorophosphate added while manufacturing the Toothpaste i.e. the molarity or number of moles of Sodium MonoFlorophosphate in the 0.15% by mass to volume ratio added during manufacturing.
The image above shows how to identify the various types of toothpaste based on the coloured mark at their base.
Once you know if it has a Red Mark, Black Mark or a Blue Mark, you can identify which Toothpastes are good for you based on the amount of Sodium MonoFlorophosphate as follows:
Red Mark indicates 0.90% is Sodium MonoFlorophosphate
Black mark indicates 0.76% is Sodium MonoFlorophosphate
Blue Mark indicates 0.24% is Sodium MonoFlorophosphate
The best Toothpaste, which is the one with the Blue Mark, has less Sodium MonoFlorophosphate.
But you’ll also notice, even if you go shopping downtown in Coronation Market, that the Toothpaste with the lowest Sodium MonoFlorophosphate concentration usually is the most expensive. It also comes packed with other ingredients that are more “natural” to clean your teeth.
Add to that the fact that no Toothpaste is made in Jamaica but imported (Deer, 2013, November 5) and repackaged and rebranded as “Made in Jamaica” for the Jamaican Market, whether it be from Colgate Palmolive, Sensodyne or even Lasco.
Teenagers and Teeth – Brushing is a start but more is required
High schoolers need to brush their teeth at least twice a day or better, after every meal. They also need to avoid sugary snacks and beverages (Deer, 2016, August 8) as much as possible if they want to avoid regular teeth-pulling visits to the dentist.
If they play a contact sport, wearing a mouth guard is a must. Mouth guards are the best thing you can use to protect your teeth from getting broken or knocked out as they cushion blows that cause injuries to the lips and face and sometimes even jaw fractures.
It may feel awkward at first but your smile is priceless, so a mouthguard should be a regular part of your sporting activities.
Teenagers and Teeth – Mouthwash and Gum is your best bet against Halitosis
Halitosis, the scientific term for bad breath can happen anytime. This is due to the hundreds of types of bad breath-causing bacteria that naturally live in your mouth.
Bacteria feed on the food left in your mouth and leave a foul-smelling waste product behind. Halitosis can also be cause by cigarette smoking and even smoking e-cigarettes can cause Lung Cancer (Deer, 2014, April 11).
Smoking can also cause:
Gum disease
Stained teeth and tongue
Halitosis (bad breath)
Slow healing after a tooth extraction
Oral cancer
The best strategy for a teenager to deal with bad breath is as follows:
Brush at least twice a day and clean between your teeth daily
Floss to get rid of all that bacteria that’s causing your bad breath.
Use a toothbrush or a tongue scraper to clear them out. That’s where most bad-breath bacteria can be found.
Using Mouthwash such as Listerine is also great.
But you need to clean your teeth and avoid Toothpaste that has Sodium MonoFlorophosphate. What alternatives do you have?
Teenagers and Natural Teeth – How to make your own Toothpaste
If you’re the all natural type of person, then maybe you might prefer making your own toothpaste (Deer, 2013, November 22) or mouthwash.
The simplest mouthwash is warm salt water, which helps to not only clean teeth but also expel cold from the throat (Deer, 2016, June 19). As they are much older than little children, teenagers can also use dilute Hydrogen Peroxide as an antiseptic and mouth gargle for 2 minutes.
But if you want to make your own toothpaste, then here are the ingredients that are required:
Baking soda
Coconut Oil
Spearmint
Peppermint
Stevia or honey
The graphic below shows the ingredients in this all-natural Toothpaste.
The main active ingredient is really Baking Soda, the same active ingredient used along with aluminium in whitening teeth.
Spearmint and Peppermint act as flavourings similar to those found in ordinary toothpaste and Stevia or honey acting as a sweetener to make it palatable to little children and teenagers.
Because it is mixed with Coconut Oil and Honey acting as all-natural preservatives, it’ll never go bad and will not have any ill-effects if swallowed.
Teenagers and Natural Teeth – How to make your own Mouthwash
To make your own Mouthwash similar to the regular ones your teenager is used to may require a lot more knowledge of chemistry, but is easily managed.
This as it involves using flammable chemicals and thus great caution has to be taken when preparing this. You’ll need the following ingredients:
Eucalyptus
Thyme
Spearmint
Peppermint
Ginger
A glass jar that has a watertight lid
A 2 Cup metal measuring cup with handle
Stainless Steel Container
100% Rum Bar Rum or other rum
A coffee filter
A piece of fine mesh Cotton Cloth
An eye dropper bottle
Electric stove
Large pot with Water
Very Strong Standing fan
Blender
Then follow the steps below to make your own batch of Listerine:
Wash the Eucalyptus, Thyme, Spearmint, Peppermint and Ginger
Masticate the ingredients in alcohol using a blender
Place the masticated Eucalyptus, Thyme, Spearmint, Peppermint and Ginger into your mason jar.
Pour 100% Rum Bar Rum into the Mason Jar until the mixture just start to float
Put the lid tightly on the Mason jar and shake the jar a few times.
Let it sit for 12 hours. The mixture should have a champagne colour and have oily bubbles on top of the liquid when shaken.
Place your coffee filter or cloth over your Stainless Steel Container
Pour your Eucalyptus, Thyme, Spearmint, Peppermint and Ginger mixture through the filter on the Stainless Steel Container.
Grab the cloth by the edges and squeeze it to get as much of the green mother liquor out as possible
Repeat the process using the Eucalyptus, Thyme, Spearmint, Peppermint and Ginger left over from 1-9 until it turn bleach white
Place the Stainless Steel Container on the Electric Stove inside of another large pot with Water, basically a Water Bath for gentler heating
Turn on the standing fan to remove excess vapors from the alcoholic Eucalyptus, Thyme, Spearmint, Peppermint and Ginger Mother liquor, keeping the heat level low
Heat until it turns thick and oily and a dark orange colour but not bubbling boiling hot
When the mixture thickens and darkens remove it from the burner
If it gets too thick, add more alcohol and swirl it around until it thins out.
Cool the Eucalyptus, Thyme, Spearmint, Peppermint and Ginger mixture to room Temperature
Pour your mixture in the eye dropper bottle into a plastic bottle for use in your bathroom.
And that, dear reader, is how you make your own mouthwash!
Teenagers and their Tooth Health – Some Dental Concerns that actually require a dentist
Wisdom teeth, also referred to as third molars, wisdom teeth should come into your mouth between the ages of 17 and 21.
Sometimes they do not have enough room to come in normally or are in the wrong position to come straight up. Your dentist may refer to them as impacted and they may have to be removed.
If you have a bad bite or your teeth are crooked or out of alignment it can interfere with eating. You may therefore need braces to improve your smile and straighten your teeth.
They can also improve your dental health and overall health because untreated orthodontic problems can make it hard to bite and chew. If you have a bad bite, you may also be prone to cavities or gum disease because it may be hard to clean your teeth.
Dental sealants are a type of special plastic coating that act as a barrier, protecting cavity-prone areas. They are usually applied to the chewing surfaces of the back teeth and are sometimes used to cover deep pits and grooves in other teeth.
Sealing a tooth is fast and easy. As long as the sealant remains intact, the tooth surface will be protected from decay. Sealants hold up well under the force of normal chewing but sometimes a reapplication is needed.
Teenagers and Piercings and Eating Disorders – Remove them or seek a psychiatrist
Oral piercings or tongue splitting can be dangerous to your health. Mouth piercings accelerate infection and swelling from the millions of bacteria that naturally lives in your mouth.
They could crack a tooth if you bite down too hard on the piercing. Repeated clicking of the jewellery against teeth can also cause damage. An infected oral piercing can also lead to more serious systemic infections, including hepatitis or endocarditis.
Eating disorders e.g. anorexia, bulimia and binge eating arise from a variety of complex physical, emotional and social issues. They can also be devastating to your oral health. Poor nutrition may make the gums and other soft tissue inside the mouth bleed easily.
The glands that produce saliva may swell and individuals may experience chronic dry mouth.
Frequent vomiting will also affect teeth. As the strong stomach acid repeatedly flows over teeth, the tooth’s enamel can be damaged. The teeth may change in colour, shape and length and the edges of teeth become thin and break off easily.
Eating disorders require professional help form a psychiatrist to help them deal with their issues relating to their self image.
If you are concerned that you or a loved one has an eating disorder, please speak to your doctor.
One of the simplest options to increase storage on your smartphone is to insert a MicroSD card. Not all smartphones and tablets support MicroSD cards (sorry Apple iPhone or iPad users).
But Android users rejoice!!! Windows Phone and BlackBerry handsets can also join in the microSD Card fun, as this article is aimed at you!!!
Purchasing a microSD Card – Smartphone or photography
First, you want to locate your MicroSD card slot, which on newer phones are generally part of the SIM tray.
Then you need to purchase a microSD Card. Make sure the type of card you plan to buy is supported by your device based on the type of phone you have and what it will support.
Anything above the size it can support will not be read by the phone. The microSD card also has to be suitable for your needs, such as 4K Video photography, which may require a SanDisk 256GB microSD (Deer, 2016, July 9).
You may also get one from family or friends, but make sure they erase it (Deer, 2017, February 5) or you might be privy to their private photos!!!
How to buy a microSD Card – Type and Class matter
There are two types of microSD Card:
SDHC stands for Secure Digital High Capacity
SDXC stands for Secure Digital Extended Capacity
They differ in the range of data they can store:
SDHC MicroSD cards range from 2GB to 32GB in size
SDXC MicroSD cards range from 32GB up to 2TB in size
The class refers the speed at which a MicroSD card transfers data. UHS (Ultra High Speed) has some minimum speeds for different classes as listed below:
Class
Minimum Speed
2
2 MB/s
4
4 MB/s
6
6 MB/s
8
8 MB/s
10
10 MB/s
UHS 1
10 MB/s
UHS 3
30 MB/s
The SD Association launched a new standard last year, called APC (App Performance Class) or A1 class. These APC microSD Cards are suitable for use in smartphones and tablets.
The A1 rating means that the card can manage random IOPS (input-output access per second) as follows:
Read at 1,500 IOPS
Write 500 IOPS
This is ideal for quickly opening apps and processing tasks. With Google’s “Adoptable Storage” on the horizon, they are worth a gander if you mainly plan to use your microSD card in your Android smartphone.
How to choose a microSD Card – Factors to consider and a list of the Best
You’re obviously going to want the following microSD Card for the lowest price:
Highest speed
Highest capacity
It would be best to factor in the following:
Brand reputation
Reported performance and reliability
Warranty terms
Careful about buying microSD Cards on Amazon or eBay; lots of them are fake (trust me I’ve purchased a few!!) so read the reviews carefully and buy nothing with less than a 4 star rating!!!
Lindsworth Deer’s MICO Wars: The Teacher Force Awakens 