Jena Bailey – Page 31 – Dino's Storage

Pianos Disappearing from Homes

Piano retailers and manufacturers are closing their doors across North America and elsewhere as the public appetite for the expensive, space-consuming instruments dims.

Declining sales have plagued the industry for years and was exacerbated by the Great Recession. In many cases, pianos that once would have been resold are simply hauled to the trash dump.

“In our industry, it’s not as drastic as the computer replacing the typewriter,” said Ted Good, president of Ohio’s only dealer for new Steinway & Sons pianos, “it’s just changing.” The company, he said, has seen flat sales for the last five years.

In today’s fast-moving culture, shrinking homes and even competition with sports and video games have affected sales, according to industry experts and piano store owners. Nationwide sales dropped by half in a 20-year period, from nearly 175,000 in 1987 to 62,500 in 2007, according to the Bluebook of Pianos.

Bob Russell, a registered piano technician in Ohio runs a third-generation business. He said the piano business may be have been affected by some drastic changes in society but he still tunes close to 1,500 pianos a year. He believes new piano sales will continue to be flat for a while because of influences like a saturated market of used pianos.

“The problem with new piano sales is they’re competing with hundreds of thousands of pianos sold 10 years ago,” said Russell, “Ten years on a new piano is nothing. It’s like 5,000 miles on a car.”

From used and refurbished pianos to much less expensive brands and models, the piano’s biggest competition has probably been digital pianos – or even cheaper, digital keyboards that are sold in retailers that range from Kmart to Costco.

An electronic keyboard can be purchased for less than $200, while a standard piano may cost from $5,000 to $250,000. And the keyboard is portable, while the piano is a heavyweight consumer of large spaces in a home.

Landscaping Can Cut Your Energy Bill

Cold weather has given way to air conditioning season and home owners are ready to find new ways to save on their energy bills. Energy.gov suggests a variety of techniques for those who want to stay comfortable on the cheap.

Top among the site’s recommendations is to landscape for shade: landscaping can reduce air conditioning costs by as much as 50 percent. Neighborhoods with plenty of trees can see daytime temperatures of 6 degrees less than treeless areas, too. Shrubs and ground cover can cool air before it reaches the house, providing an even bigger break on bills.

Landscapes can also be designed to conserve water. Group plants with similar water requirements together, raise your lawn mower’s cutting height and water in the early morning to keep water from evaporating in the heat.

A landscape designed with these and other tips in mind can pay for itself in less than eight years, according to the website.

At Dino’s, We’re All About Service

At Dino’s, we know that you have many choices for storage services. Naturally, we want you to choose Dino’s and we do everything we can to ensure that your experience with Dino’s is a pleasant one.

We often receive comments from our customers that indicate we are meeting their expectations. Here are just a couple we recently received:

One of our customers used our midtown Omaha facility for more than six months before selling his home and buying another which gave him enough space to move his stored items to the new property. He described Dino’s as “friendly and helpful”and said he would recommend us to others. The customer said he was referred to Dino’s for its convenient location and customer service and found our facility to be clean and to provide the features he wanted.

A customer at our southeast Des Moines facility recently wrote us to say: “Just wanted to let you know how much my family and I appreciate how helpful Jill (the facility manager) was during our recent experience. We decided to try to sell both our homes and needed a place to store our “clutter”. Not only did Jill get a unit for us right away but she also helped with billing. We always got it cleared up right away. Unfortunately, we did not get a sale this time, but we will definitely visit Jill the next time we need your service. We just want to say thanks to Jill and Dino’s!

If you or someone you know needs a storage unit, please give us a call at 402-916-4015. We’re always ready to help.

A Bold New Future

Imagine you are riding in your driverless, hydrogen-powered car en route home from the spaceport after taking a trip into space. Your car senses that you are nearing your home and sends a signal to set your thermostat so your home will be at just the temperature you want. You beam data from your wearable computer to the grocery store and a drone delivers needed fresh groceries to your doorstep. Your personal robot takes the groceries in and prepares dinner for you just before you arrive home.

Fantasy? No. All this and more once unimaginable futuristic, life-changing breakthroughs are making their way from the laboratory and drawing boards to your real-world life. Some breakthroughs are here, some are just around the corner, others may be decades away.

Google plans to extend its Android system into cars, homes and smartwatches.

Apple has unveiled its HealthKit and HomeKit.

Travelers at Germany’s Duesseldorf airport can now leave the task of parking their car to a robot valet that is booked from a smartphone app.

In Japan, robots are serving department store shoppers and human-looking robots guide museum visitors.

An Arizona company, World View Enterprises, plans to offer balloon flights 20 miles into space at a cost of $75,000 per person beginning in 2016. A recent test flight took off from Roswell, New Mexico, and was labeled a huge success.

Virgin Galactic plans to launch its first space-tourism flights at a cost of $200,000 per person, perhaps by the end of this year, but the target date has been delayed several times already.

Toyota, the world’s largest car maker, has just unveiled its first mass-market hydrogen-powered fuel-cell car. The cars are expected to go on sale in Japan by the end of March next year. Honda projects its version of such cars also will be available next year. South Korea’s Hyundai Motor Co. and Germany’s Daimler AG also are producing fuel-cell vehicles. Such vehicles could virtually end the problem of automotive pollution.

Drones are being tested that can zoom in over a crime scene and send sharp images directly to the police while the crime is in progress. Drones also can be used to record evidence from a car crash, deliver packages to your home or business, check soil quality and the status of crops or even take aerial photos to be used in advertising homes for sale. Hydrogen vehicles can run five times longer than battery-operated electric cars, and their tanks can be filled in just a few minutes compared with recharging times from 30 minutes up to several hours for electric cars.

Time travel, long a seemingly impossible dream, may even become possible if the theories and tests being done by Australian physicists pan out.

If a time traveler went back in time and stopped their own grandparents from meeting, would they prevent their own birth? If so, the traveler would not exist and could not travel in time. That’s the crux of an infamous theory known as the “grandfather paradox'” which is often said to mean time travel is impossible – but some researchers think otherwise. Researchers at the University of Queensland have discovered that two photons traveling through time can interact. In the simulation a photon stuck in a closed time-like curve through a wormhole was found to be capable of interacting with one traveling through regular space-time, suggesting that, at the quantum level, the grandfather paradox could be resolved.

Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity suggests the possibility of traveling backwards in time by following a space-time path that returns to the starting point in space but at an earlier time – a closed time-like curve. This possibility has puzzled physicists and philosophers alike since it was discovered by Austrian-American scientist Kurt Gödel in 1949, as it seems to cause paradoxes in the classical world. These include the “grandparents paradox”, where a time traveler could stop their grandparents from meeting, thus preventing the time traveler’s birth. This would make it impossible for the time traveler to have set out in the first place.

But this new research suggests that such interactions might indeed be possible – albeit only on a quantum level.

Scientists in the Netherlands have managed to reliably teleport quantum data for the first time, bringing us one step closer to the possible wonders of teleportation. Teleporting people through space, like in the series “Star Trek,” is a physical impossibility, but teleporting data is another matter. The Dutch scientists showed for the first time that it’s possible to reliably teleport information between two quantum bits separated by three meters (10 feet). As described in the journal Science, this phenomenon could transport us to the next frontier of Star Trek-style teleportation.

Shift From Suburbs to Cities a Costly Move

More Americans say they want the shorter commutes and nearby entertainment that come with living near the city center and they are shelling out big bucks to make that choice.

This marks a shift away from suburban demand, which has driven home construction for decades, The Associated Press reports. Living near city centers is often more costly and may force more Americans to rent, says John Mcllwain, a senior fellow at the Urban Land Institute. “Middle-class Americans are being squeezed out,” he says.

Land prices in cities with attractive amenities is surging, industry strategist and George Washington University professor Christopher Leinberger says.

The convenience of living downtown doesn’t come cheap. In Chattanooga, Tenn., for example, the starting price for a townhome development in the downtown area – with restaurants, stores and a waterfront park – is $610,000. That’s nearly three times the average in the metro area.

In 2012, homebuilder Toll Brothers spent $24 million to buy two-thirds of an acre near Nationals Park in Washington, D.C. That’s the equivalent of about $830 a square foot. Before the ballpark was there, the going rate was about $5 a square foot for the land.

In Chicago, a complex of 47 luxury row houses in the downtown area broke ground last month and every apartment was sold before construction began. Units start at $562,900. Buyers were willing to wait 12 to 16 months before being able to move in.

The American Planning Association says that even though 40 percent of Americans live in a suburb “where most people drive to places,” only 7 percent expressed a desire to remain in car-dominated neighborhoods.

Love Affair with Cars May Be Ending

Six decades after the launch of America’s interstate highway system, changing habits and attitudes suggest America’s romance with the road is fading. Driving rose almost continuously since World War II, but driving by U.S. households has declined nearly 10 percent since 2004. Since the decline began well before the Great Recession, economics doesn’t appear to be the only cause.

“There’s something more fundamental going on,” says Michael Sivak of the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute.

Consider these points:

The average American household now owns fewer than two cars, returning to the levels of the early 1990s. This may signal a change in home-building, too, as there is less need for three-car garages.

More teens and 20-somethings are waiting to get a license. Less than 70 percent of 19-year-olds now have one, down from 87 percent two decades ago.

Thousands of people are commuting by bicycle rather than by car. In Minneapolis, for example, about 3,500 people bike to work daily via the Midtown Greenway. That’s double the number of bicycle commuters in 2000.

Online shopping has reduced the number of car trips for shopping.

A record 10.7 billion mass transit rides were taken by Americans last year, a 37 percent increase since 1995. Light rail continues to expand in many cities and ride-sharing services, such as Lyft and Uber, are further denting the need to own an automobile.

The number of drive-ins – whether featuring car hops serving food or giant outdoor movie screens – have sharply declined as Americans drive less.

The number of teens taking drivers education has declined by 40 percent as state subsidies are eliminated and the need to take drivers ed to earn a high school diploma is dropped.

Heck, you don’t even need to own a vehicle to bring your things to Dino’s Storage – we rent trucks at many of our locations, so just give us a call.

Sharing Rides, Sharing Moves

The idea of sharing rides instead of calling a traditional taxi company has moved across the nation and, in fact, into 36 countries. Now a Santa Barbara, Calif., startup is making a similar move in the moving industry.

NextMover offers an alternative to traditional moving companies and to rent-a-truck do-it-yourself moves. The company helps truck owners and pickup drivers earn extra cash by helping with small-scale, local moves. They have been assisting with local moves in Santa Barbara since January, but the concept has already drawn comparisons to car-sharing services such as Lyft, which is now operating in at least 60 cities and Uber which offers ride-sharing in 36 countries.

With NextMover truck owners set their own prices for movers to consider and NextMover takes 20 percent of that. “On the average we are about 50 percent cheaper than similar services. But it turns out that’s really third on the totem pole,” says president and CEO Alexander Kehaya. “The convenience and the community aspect are the things that people consistently tell us when we show them our website and talk about what we do.”

Truck owners vehicles can range from pickups to larger commercial trucks. To participate they must emerge from a vetting process that includes interviews, a background check and vehicle inspection, before they’re allowed to participate. Consumers can choose among truck owners depending on budget and needs, as well as driver bios and user ratings. NextMover is currently assuming insurance responsibility for these initial moves, but the company does ask truck owners to carry commercial insurance.

Co-founder Max James says. “Part of the thing that our platform provides is security for everyone in the sense that the price is what it is. It’s a rate you set ahead of time and if it’s processed through our system, nobody’s going to come to you and say, ‘Hey, we are holding your house hostage until you pay us for it.'”

NextMover is preparing to secure more funding in order to expand to other cities. Kehaya says they’ve already signed up a few hundred truck owners in other cities, such as Austin, Texas.

“We first started with only pickup trucks, ‘your friend with a truck,’ because we realized that there are a lot of pickup trucks that aren’t being utilized and that perhaps people would be interested in using that to make some money on the side,” says James. “We have made a pivot since then and moved to more of a larger, open marketplace. The people with pickup trucks that want to make some money on the side can still do that, but the marketplace is also for small businesses, or people who have a larger vehicle or a box truck that they use for other things. Our platform is so easy for them to use that they are willing to try it out and use their trucks when it is convenient for them.”

“When we switched to this open marketplace, we got good feedback from the truck owners and also on the consumer’s side: Not everybody needs just a pickup,” says Kehaya. “There are some people that would like it if you had a trailer. They would pay more money for that because they’ve got more stuff to move. Sometimes they want two people to come and help them, not just one guy and a truck. It really opened up the services that we can provide.”

There are, of course, limitations to moving with NextMover. It only works for local moves, and is less ideal for people with large houses who truly need full-size moving trucks and comprehensive service. “And we can’t move pianos,” says Kehaya. “You’re better off with somebody who has all the straps and equipment for that.” But Kehaya believes the demand for the convenience and cost savings that NextMover provides is plenty large for local markets.

While NextMover is only available in Santa Barbara right now, Dino’s Storage can lend a hand with available rental trucks at some of our locations. If you need a truck, just check with any Dino’s facility for a location convenient to you, or send an e-mail to customerservice@dinosstorage.com.

Canadian Anti-Spam Law Takes Effect July 1

Making sure the people who get your marketing emails have explicitly asked to receive them is best practice anyway. But the Canadian Anti-Spam Law going into effect in Canada on July 1 makes it even more of a necessity. And, yes, it could impact small businesses in the U.S. too — if you email regularly to customers in Canada.

The new legislation is technically designed to protect Canadian citizens against particularly nasty spam messages used for phishing, identity theft and spyware.

Unless you use the proper precautions, your business could be found in violation. And you could be open to penalties of up to $10 million (in Canadian Dollar rates) and even private civil suits. The law applies even if you are located outside of Canada, but send to recipients who access the messages from within Canada.

The law applies to all commercial electronic messages including email, text messages, social media, IM and voice messages. The law is much broader than its U.S counterpart, the CAN-SPAM Act, which has been in effect for a number of years.

The chart at left highlights the differences in the U.S. and Canadian anti-spam laws.

In an email interview with Small Business Trends, Connie Sung Moyle, manager of public relations and digital strategy at San Francisco-based email marketing company VerticalResponse, explained:

“Our customer support team has fielded a few inquiries from customers, and we’re telling them to consult with a legal advisor to make sure they’re fully cooperating with the new law.”

The new regulation gives a three-year grace period for email marketers to obtain permission from recipients they already email inside Canada. After that time the Canadian government will be able to file suit for up to $10 million against violators. Even Canadian citizens will be empowered to bring suit against you and your business for a violation, warns Chandler, Ariz.-based email and sales software services provider Infusionsoft.

In a recent post on the official Infusionsoft blog, product marketing specialist Justin Topliff wrote: “Because it may be difficult to determine which contacts in your database are located in Canada, Infusionsoft encourages you to obtain a double opt-in from your entire database. This is a best practice for email marketing and will ensure you are in total compliance with all Canadian and U.S. spam laws on this issue.”

Meanwhile Constant Contact, the Waltham, Mass.-based company whose online marketing toolkit includes email and other services, says it is focusing on educating customers about the law. Lisa Kember, the company’s Regional Director for Eastern Canada explains: “We are proactively reaching out to our customers-both those in Canada and those that market to Canada-to help guide them through the process of being CASL compliant.”

At Dino’s your security is of utmost importance to us – whether it be your goods in storage or your personal information. We never sell our email lists to anyone else and always treat our customer information with appropriate respect.

Demand Grows for Big-Screen Phones

It’s not a return to the brick, but bigger is becoming better with smartphones. Worldwide shipments of smartphones with screens 5 inches or larger grew 369 percent in the first quarter compared to just a year earlier, according to the market research firm Canalys.

Big-screen smartphones comprised 34 percent of worldwide smartphone shipments in the first quarter. Samsung holds a 44 percent share of smartphones with displays of 5 inches or larger. The Samsung Galaxy S5, with a 5.1 inch screen, is pictured.

“The trend is unmistakably toward larger-screen handsets at the high end of the market,” Canalys analyst Jessica Kwee said. “Consumers now expect high-end devices to have large displays, and Apple’s absence in this market will clearly not last long. Apple plainly needs a larger-screen smartphone to remain competitive, and it will look to address this in the coming months.”

Overall, Android devices accounted for 81 percent of worldwide smartphone shipments in the first quarter, followed by iOS on 16 percent and Windows Phone on 3 percent.

Huge Changes Lie Ahead

Brick-and-mortar stores will go tech – and warehouses will go back to the drawing board. As consumers increasingly shop on their computers and phones, brick-and-mortar retailers will need to adopt the attitude ‘If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em’ in order to survive. Innovation will be key, making use of technology that integrates omnichannel shopping into the physical experience of being in a store and matching the logistical advantages of online merchants.

Apple is one retailer already using this forward-thinking approach in its stores. Its sales floors feature products that people can touch and try on their own, spending as much time as they’d like. They can buy and take home merchandise if they choose, or they can go home, do further research and buy online – with free overnight shipping. This may be a model other retailers will emulate.

Shipping might become quicker, much quicker than overnight delivery is, when drone delivery touted by Amazon comes to pass in the next several years.

Efficient distribution will be key, and the increasing importance of logistics and automation will impact warehouses across the country, many of which are obsolete even now, lacking up-to-date technology and adequate clearance height and often too remote to accommodate same-day delivery. That will add up to a lot of activity in the industrial sector in coming years, with old warehouses being retrofitted or new ones being built.