For parents, novice and veteran alike, the best part of the day is when the house is quiet, as the kids sleep soundly in their beds. It’s a time of relaxation and recovery from the day’s busy events. But one thing’s for sure, there’s not enough of that nighttime peace and quiet happening. Kids, scientists say, need much more sleep than they get. And who are we kidding; parents need that time of rest just as much as kids!

While the exact amount of sleep needed can vary based on individual needs, there are certain guidelines parents can easily follow to make sure their kids get the rest they need. Age is a major factor to consider when putting your baby to sleep. Use the following as a guideline for how much sleep your child should get on average:

1-4 weeks old require 15-16 hours of sleep per day. Newborns need the most sleep. Unfortunately for parents, newborns tend to have erratic sleeping patterns since they’ve not yet developed a regular sleeping habit. Let your newborn sleep in short 1-2 hour bursts on and off throughout the day, until they can develop their circadian rhythm, or biological clock.

1-12 months old require 12-14 hours of sleep per day. After about the first or second month, your baby will develop more regular sleeping patterns. Confusion between day and night typically wears off by this time, so babies sleep for longer periods (up to 6 hours) at nighttime. For most infants, 15 hours of sleep is ideal.

Basketball fans from everywhere look forward to the Slam Dunk contest during the NBA All-Star Saturday Night. It can be exciting to watch players compete for the title. Here is a list of some of the best slam dunks in the history of the competition.

Gerald Green

Back in 2007, Green put on a Boston Brown jersey and landed a slam dunk over the head of Nate Robinson. Green was also a runner up in the 2008 NBA Slam Dunk contest. He won McDonald’s All-American Slam Dunk Contest in 2005. He plays for the Los Angeles D-Fenders in the NBA Development League.

Dwight Howard

Ousting Green for the 2008 title was the center for Orlando Magic, Dwight Howard. He has been a six-time All-Star and has helped his team win three division titles and a conference title. He has been named the Defensive Player of the Year three times.

Have you ever watched a science fiction movie, observed something really cool, and said, “I wish that were real”? You’d be surprised to know how many things that were made up on television have become realities. Here are some useful and some useless but cool ones.

Hydrogel Lenses

These contact lenses are not just cool because they change color, but for the reason why they do so. They contain tiny nanoparticles that react with human tears and change color based on a person’s glucose levels. This can alert diabetics to their blood sugar levels without drawing blood.

The Sleep Box

The sleep box is exactly what the name implies - a box for sleeping. It can be used at airports or other places where you may be stuck spending some time. It is large enough to hold a bed and an LCD television, and also provides luggage space. It has wireless access in case you want to work in private.

What is a mentor?

A mentor is essentially someone who has more experience in business than you. A mentor can help you navigate the difficult waters of starting a business, owning a business, business strategy, and everything in between. For an entrepreneur, a mentor can give advice, provide networking connections, or simply be a friend when things get rough. 

Why is it important to have a mentor?

For your own sanity and the health of your business, investing both your time and thoughts into a mentor relationship can be worthwhile. Remember, a mentor is someone who is essentially a soundboard; a person who you talk to about those important decisions before you make them; someone who wants you to succeed and does whatever they can to help you achieve your goals; and encourages you to pursue your goals while advising ways to avoid conflict or friction. The following are five easy steps to find the perfect mentor.

Step 1: Reach out to your family and friends for advice, or seek connections that could become possible mentors. Relatives and friends are your closest network, and you should certainly pick someone who you deeply trust and respect to guide you in your business. 

Some people seem to gravitate to the same kind of person in a relationship and don’t understand why.  They are actually drawn to a type of person even though it is a negative relationship that can be painful or even harmful.  How can you know if you are addicted to bad relationships?  There are a few indicators to prove whether you just had a bad experience or continually choose the wrong partners.

Same Story New Name

Does all of your past relationships sound the same with a different person involved?  People often repeat the same destructive behaviors.  If you have the same kinds of problems with each person you date or they end the same way, you may be addicted to that type of relationship.

People who are abused either verbally or physically often have the same abuse with a new partner.  They do not consciously seek such a person, but gravitate towards the same personality traits in someone.

Every business will lose some customers over a course of time. Some customers move, others no longer need the service, or their life situation changes. The problem arises when more customers leave because they are unhappy with some aspect of your business.

Should you care about losing customers? Yes! Loyal customers refer their friends to you and help your business grow. Is there any hope of getting them back? Again, the answer is, “Yes!” Here are some things you can do to get your customers back into the fold.

Find Out Why They Left

You will not know what to change to make your customers happy if you don’t know what you did wrong. You need to find out if it was the service, the price, or some other reason that caused them to leave. You need to know if they went somewhere else or just decided to do without your service or product. Let them know you want to make things right with them, but you need to know what went wrong. 

The 2012 Sundance Film Festival took place in Park City, Utah, from January 19th to 29th. The festival selects and showcases the best short films. Submissions come from all over the world, and this year there were over 7,000 submissions. Each year the festival highlights the best new voices in independent film. 

Drama

Dramatic, documentary, and international films are the three genres featured at the Sundance Film Festival. The dramatic films that received the most praise this year all had dark themes of disaster, violence, and illness in common. Beasts of the Southern Wild, a lyrical film that followed the narrative of a defiant family after a devastating flood, was amongst the most loved films of the festival. It received the award for Dramatic Cinematography as well as the Grand Jury Prize for Dramatic Competition. Another crowd pleaser, The Surrogate, starred John Hawkes as a polio victim who hires a sex surrogate to take his virginity. This film won the audience’s choice award and the prize for ensemble acting. The award for dramatic director went to Ava DuVernay for her film Middle of Nowhere, which follows the personal crisis of an African American woman and her marriage to an incarcerated man. 

Since the dawn of the DIY revolution, people everywhere have taken a liking to fixing things on their own. While a computer is a nuanced system of electronics and hardware, you don’t have to be a mechanic to repair many common computer problems. 

1. Computer Won’t Turn On

Be sure the computer is plugged into the power supply. If you receive no activity from the computer even when it’s plugged in, you may have a problem with the power supply unit on the computer. The power supply unit is a metal box located in the back of the computer to which the power cable is connected. To remove the unit, unscrew it from the back of the computer and disconnect the wires. Take it to an electronics store and purchase a replacement with the same wattage. 

2. Computer Is Slow

There are three probable causes of your computer’s slow behaviour - a fragmented disk, spyware activity, or a defective disk. Run ScanDisk to determine if there are any disk errors. Then run the Windows Disk Defragmenter program to improve the performance of your hard disk. Your computer could be running slow because of malware applications abusing your computer’s memory.

If you have ever had a debate with a man or a woman about who suffers more pain or tried to compare pain, you may have found it very difficult to do so. After all, it is very difficult to compare pain between the two genders. However, new findings may make it easier to determine who has more pain, and finally put to rest the big question of if men or women experience more pain. Stanford researchers have analyzed electronic medical records of 72,000 patients from the Stanford Hospital and Clinic for 160,000 ratings of pain and reported their findings in the Journal of Pain. After analyzing the results, they have found that women tend to report greater amounts of pain in a variety of diagnoses.

It has been thought that the reason why women are perceived to experience more pain is because they speak up more about their pain, and that men do not speak up as much. However, now pain doctors are thinking that the study shows there are issues in the underdiagnosis and undertreatment of pain in women. There may also be biological reasons why women experience more pain. 

This study may have a big impact. The study senior author and professor of systems medicine in pediatrics, Dr. Atul Butte said, “In many cases, the reported difference approached a full point on the 1-to-11 scale. How big is that? A pain-score improvement of one point is what clinical researchers view as indicating that a pain medication is working.” This is also the first study that has looked at pain intensity and it is also the first large scale study. 

Health-care reform law can be difficult to understand, but when you understand it, there are many ways that you can save yourself and your family some big money. Several provisions are now going into effect and several others are often underutilized because patients don’t understand their options. Here are some ways to make sure you get the most benefit from new health care legislation.

1. Make Sure Your Adult Children are covered

Adult children may now stay on their parents’ health insurance until they turn 26. Also, they do not have to be enrolled in school to gain the benefit of their parents’ health insurance policy. Before this legislation went into effect, adult children had to be enrolled in school full-time, or be under the age of 21. Parents usually have to wait to add their children to their plans until the open enrollment for insurance coverage in the fall, but there may be exceptions that would allow adult children to be added in the middle of the year. Your insurer or employer will be able to tell you more.

2. Have Preventative Tests, Procedures, and Vaccines Done

Depending on your age, you may be eligible to receive screenings, tests and vaccines without having to pay a deductible or co-payment. These screenings may include immunizations, diet counseling for adults with a higher risk for chronic disease, tobacco cessation interventions, and depression screenings. You can consult your insurer and check Healthcare.gov for more information.

For many people, the best part of yesterday's Super Bowl were the ads. Over the years, some of the greatest ads in advertising history have taken place on Super Bowl Sunday. Here's a look at some of the all-time greats.

Apple 1984 “1984” Commercial

In a time when Apple wasn’t a household name and people weren’t attached to their iPods, iPads, and Mac computers, Apple had to actually run commercials to raise their brand awareness. This is considered one of the most inventive commercials of all time. It emulates the classic novel 1984, but then shatters that image both literally and figuratively. The commercial even had a superstar director, Ridley Scott, who directed the movie Blade Runner. In the tradition of Apple’s other famous unveilings, Apple ends the commercial by saying, “On January 24^th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like “1984.”

There are numerous methods and software programs that are available to help protect your children from the dangers of the internet. You will want to find the one that fits your needs and is easy to use. Here are some popular features that you can use to monitor your child’s internet usage.

How They Filter

Some programs filter by keywords. You can block sites that use these words to prevent your children access to certain information. Other programs block by URLs, while still others monitor dynamic sites. A dynamic site is one that has constantly changing information, such as a news site. While some information may be appropriate for children, it may change to something they shouldn’t watch.

Some programs record what is said in a chat room, while others prevent access to a chat room altogether. They can block emails that contain specific content. This is beneficial if an unknown person should try to send explicit emails to your child. You can also monitor what your child does on social networks like Facebook. Some programs will even allow you to restrict the information that your child can share on public sites.

Everyone gets in a bad mood every now and then. It can be something that happened at work or at home, or, it was just the way they woke up. It could be from lack of sleep or stress. Whatever the cause, it is unpleasant for the person as well as for those around them. There are things you can do to improve your mood.

Figure Out the Cause

Take a break and figure out the reason for your bad mood. You may not be able to fix the problem, but it can help you deal with it. If someone at work upset you and you realize it, you are less likely to vent it out on your family at home.  

If there is something you can do to fix the problem, go ahead with it. You can talk to the co-worker who hurt your feelings and let them know what they did. Just taking action may put you in a better mood. If you can’t take care of the problem, it can be helpful to find someone to confide in.