Cars on Finance Get in the Driver’s Seat

Cars are typically the second most expensive purchase for consumers in the UK. This is why many people opt to purchase their Cars on Finance instead of paying a full up-front payment.What is car finance?Car finance is basically a loan; you would normally have to pay a deposit which is a percentage of the overall cost of the car. The rest is paid off by a car finance company; the buyer is obliged to sign a loan agreement document agreeing to pay a certain amount every month until the loan is fully paid off.How to get car financeThere are various ways however, if you make your application directly with a finance company they may offer you a loan of a specific amount and then you would have to find a car that matches that price. When all relevant checks have been carried out, the finance company would transfer the funds to the car company and you can drive away. When organising your funds through the dealer the whole transaction can be handled in one visit, – quote, application, documentation and then drive away.What do you need to get car finance?Purchasing Cars on Finance requires the following:- Good credit rating- No CCJ’s Defaults- Full time verifiable employment- Current Account- Deposit- Proof of address dated within the last three months- Bank statements- Address history from the past five years- Proof of employment- Proof of salary (Last three months wage slips)- Photo ID such as passport and or Full UK driver’s licenseYou may need more or less depending on the finance company.How much can you borrow?How much you can borrow really is dependent on how much money you have coming in on a monthly basis. It will also depend on your outgoings as this will determine how much you can afford to pay back and over what period of time. It is never advisable to opt for a car that is so high in price that you will be unable to afford the repayments. One other factor that will determine how much you can borrow is the amount of money you have available to put down as a deposit.Once you have been accepted for the loan you must make sure that you keep up with monthly repayments. Failure to pay could result in the car being repossessed and it will affect your good credit rating. All financial behaviour is recorded by credit reference agencies; therefore it is a good idea to make sure that you have available funds every month to make the repayments.Buying Cars on Finance is an option if you want to buy a particular vehicle but do not have the funds readily available to pay upfront. Car finance gives you the opportunity to spread the cost over a period of time therefore giving you the option to purchase a car that you might not have been able to afford without the help of a loan.

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What CIOs Need To Know About Software Defined Networking

Guess what CIO: there is a revolution that is just starting in the world of computer networking. Sure, you know about the importance of information technology but are you going to be ready for this? For the longest time, we’ve all been building our networks in pretty much the same way: we go to a big equipment vendor such as Cisco, Juniper, HP, IBM, etc. and buy a bunch of boxes. We then string them together, get some expensive software and then sit back and hope that everything connects together. It turns out that there is a better way to do all of this.Say Hello To Software Defined NetworkingWhat has changed for person with the CIO job is that a new way of building computer networks has arrived. The new approach is called Software Defined Networking or SDN. In the world of SDN, your network will no longer be populated by a bunch of very smart boxes from Cisco. Instead, you’ll be buying dumb white label boxes and deploying them throughout your network. Once you’ve done this, you’ll then install a very powerful server at the heart of your network and you’ll run a fancy control program on it to control all of your “dumb” network elements.The basic idea behind SDN is to centralize all of the intelligence in a network. Instead of distributing your processing power throughout each piece of expensive networking gear that you add to your network, you now place all of your network smarts in one place. One big advantage of doing things this way is that updating your network software just go a lot easier: you now only have to update the software that is running on one server, not on the 100′s of boxes that you have deployed in your network.SDN provides a lot of other benefits. Network equipment costs should be lowered dramatically because you’ll no longer need “smart” boxes. When a network failure occurs, the network routing protocol that is running on the central server should be able to converge faster because it has a god’s- eye view of every thing that is happening in the network.This Changes EverythingAs the person in the CIO position, you need to grasp just exactly what the implications that the arrival of SDN networks may mean for your organization. What we are seeing is a fundamental shift in how computer networks are going to be built. We are moving away from computer networks that are defined by their hardware and moving towards computer networks that are being implemented primarily in software. The implications of this are quite large.When you implement a computer network in software, you now have the ability to change how the network behaves not by sending a technician out to reconfigure hardware, but rather by making changes to the software that is running your network. This means that you’ll be able to adapt your computer network to the environment that it finds itself in much quicker than you have ever been able to do before.Although this SDN stuff may strike you as being the stuff of academic fantasy, what you need to understand is that SDN has already arrived. Over at Google they have taken one of the primary backbone networks that they use to interconnect their data centers and converted to to now use SDN technology. The results have been nothing less than spectacular. They are now doing a much better job of utilizing the links that run between their data centers and they are able to test the impact of network configuration changes long before they deploy them into the network.What All Of This Means For YouAs CIO you need to stay on top of the changes that are occurring in technology that will impact your IT department. The arrival of Software Defined Networking (SDN) is one such new technology. SDN has the potential to completely change how our computer networks are both designed and created.The way that networks are built today is by purchasing a great deal of expensive, sophisticated networking hardware and then having trained staff interconnect them. With the arrival of SDN, this all changes. Now the network will consist of cheap commodity networking hardware being deployed in the network and a sophisticated control program that manages everything running on a powerful server at the heart of the network. This new way of building a network will allow changes to the network to be made simply by changing the software that the controls the network.As the CIO you are going to have to understand the impact that SDN is going to have on your IT department. Going forward you are going to have less of a need for network hardware staff and more of a need for staff who can write the software that you’ll need in order to control your network. Take the time now to fully understand what SDN means for your company and you’ll be ready when it shows up on your doorstep.

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Recycling – How to Make Arts and Crafts From Recycled Materials

Green living is driven by the three “Rs”: reduce, reuse, recycle. Producing arts and crafts is a great way to meet all three Rs and gain hours of entertainment. You can create decorated items for display at home and involve your children in the activity. You can even make a few holiday gifts at very low out-of-pocket cost.Decopauge is a great example. The only materials needed are old magazines, a pair of scissors, some white glue and something to decorate. I’ve seen people use this art form on every kind of article from wooden boxes up to bed headboards.Once you have the item (or items) you want to decorate you can put them aside and start flipping through the magazines for pictures and words that jump up at you or help convey something you want to say. The great thing about decoupage is that there is no “wrong” way to do it. Some people will use an entire advertisement including the background in the ad. Others may cut out the person or object from the background. The idea is to have a piece of a page to be layered upon the object to be decorated.After you have cut out enough pictures and words you can begin to decorate your object. Everything is driven from this point on by your ideas and creativity. You can, for example, use all cut outs of flowers and birds to decorate your project, or you could cut out every picture of a dog and see how many you can use as you decorate your recycled art project.Arrange your clippings onto the surface of whatever it is you’re going to reuse or decorate and put a layer of glue over the entire project. Using white glue or Mod Podge will give you a clear coating over your art. When the first layer is dry, coat it again. Continue recoating until you are happy with the appearance. The coatings of glue will protect your artwork, and if you use a gloss-finish, your art work will have a nice shine to it, as well.My sister started making “Blessings Boxes” for the Christmas gifts that she would give to her children’s teachers. She reuses an old shoe box, and covers the entire outside of it with cut out pictures from magazines. The main objective was to cover up the shoe brand on the outside of the box with the pictures and words that adhered to a central theme. Memorable items, maybe a ticket stub to a baseball game or a birthday card or party invitation can be placed into the box as reminders of these events. The recipient can then open their “Blessings Box” to be reminded of the events or occurrences whenever they wish.Boxes can be made for many other purposes: treasure boxes for kids, storage boxes for photographs, birthday gifts for friends and family members. There are other similar ideas for reusing recycled materials for arts and crafts projects as well. The best part is that since all the materials are reused and recycled, no extra money is required to create these items. This is a great way to incorporate the three Rs into your green lifestyle.

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