4 Year Celebration Of Locks By Mercedes Coleen Moss

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Get your own

        Locks in 2013, I think 

      Click this pic to see more funny pics

Locks in 2014

      Click the link to see more 

Posted by Mercedes Moss on Monday, October 27, 2014

Hand Exercises That I Use To Prevent Strain From Repetitive Computer Usage

I wanted to share this post on hand exercises to prevent computer strain with you because I want you to add one more milestone on the road to health and fitness in all areas of your life. Several  years ago, I began to increase usage of  the computer, and noted to my horror that I began to experience various degrees of hand strain and pain.

Why I use hand exercises to prevent strain from repetitive computer usage

I then learnt about hand exercises online and began to use them successfully to prevent injuries. Most times I try to do them daily or at least three times a week 

minimum.

In this post I will discuss briefly:

• structures and movements of the hand
• injuries that can result from repetitive hand movements
• exercises and tips to reduce hand injury and strain 
• including self accu-pressure to prevent and manage carpal tunnel syndrome

Structures and movements of the hand

The hand is complex structure which is comprised of muscles, ligaments, tendons, bones, nerves and blood vessels.

Ligaments holds joints together

while tendons  connect muscles to bones

The thirty or more hand muscles are of key interest today since injury can result from repetitive movements which are required by computer users. The scrolling, typing and other movements required for computer use involve gripping, stretching, rotation and flexing movements of  hand structures.

Watch this video which illustrates various hand movements

Injury to the muscles and nerves of the hand from repetitive hand or wrist movements 

People who use the computer for long periods of time can experience a variety of injuries which are manifested by pain, soreness/discomfort, numbness and swelling.  Some of the common causes of these injuries include:

• overwork of muscles due to  clicking, scrolling and other movements
• poor placement of the mouse toward the back of the computer desk or station

Tips for preventing  hand injuries 

a. Perform daily hand exercises which take the user's muscles through a variety of stretching, flexing, rotation exercises that maintain hand health

Although this video relates to gamers, the exercises are the same for anyone who uses computer for long periods of time. They have kept my hands relatively healthy and free from injury.

b. Apply the principles of ergonomics to keep the hand in a neutral position

Ergonomics (also called biotechnology, human engineering and human factors), is a field of science which deals with the efficient and safe design and arrangement of things used by people. 

The pictures show that when ergonomics are applied, the hand is supported horizontally and therefore held in a neutral position which minimizes strain on its structures.

c. Position the mouse for prevention of injury if a desktop is used 

• place the mouse to the right of  the keyboard or laptop, so that it is within reach
• use a mouse platform  to reduce sideways and forward reaching as well and the overall area in which the mouse is used

d. Implement these 7 guidelines to prevent injury to the hands



e. implement specific activities to protect the hands from carpal tunnel syndrome 

The carpal tunnel is a passageway on the palmar side of the wrist. It is important because the median nerve passes through it. The median nerve causes supplies the muscles that flex the forearm. Injury would therefore result in loss of function of varying degrees. 

Carpal tunnel syndrome is a painful condition caused by compression of a major nerve as it passes over the carpal bones or wrist of the hand. Poor posture and over use of the wrist are common triggers. Application of the principles of ergonomics can prevent the condition.

Common symptoms include

• pain 
• numbness
• tingling
• weakness

The following are non - medical treatments for carpal tunnel syndrome:

• Vitamins B6 and 12  which support and heal the injured nerves
• Magnesium which relaxes the blood tissue and vessels in that area (250mg 2x daily)
• Use natural anti-inflammatory supplements like bromelain, turmeric, boswellia, and ginger. 
• Eat anti-inflammatory foods such as organic fruits, vegetables, and omega 3 fatty acids. The latter is found in flax seed and avocado
• Apply Wintergreen and Cyprus essential oils to cool the area and increase circulation
• massage with coconut oil, which is a powerful anti-inflammatory and therefore reduces pain and swelling

Watch this video by  Dr. Mark Wiley for self accupressure to prevent and manage carpal tunnel syndrome

Moss' Marketing Tools

Welcome to Moss' Marketing Tools

I just launched a new blog called  Moss Marketing Tools
to showcase products that I find useful. 

 

 

Moss Marketing Tools

Syndicate Your Blog To The Top 6 Trafficked Social Media Sites Online

Benefits of  blog syndication  

Some time ago I  wrote the following posts that rationalized a blueprint for blog syndication based on data provided by Alexa:  

• Case Study: The Top EIGHT RSS Aggregators Form A Mighty Link Wheel In The Planet
• How To Design A Simple Feed Distribution Channel
• Results Of The Simple Feed Distribution Via EIGHT Top Aggregators 
• Click Each Banner To Submit Blog RSS Feed URL

I have subsequently experienced the following benefits of that simple link wheel:

• this blog has over two thousand subscribers on Feedcat at the time of writing.
• backlinks to the RSS aggregators have been indexed in the search engines.
  

I'm writing this introduction to inspire you and to celebrate the success of  my blog promotion strategies, which are, by the way, born out of inspiriation from Heaven.

This follows in to my next project, (partially implemented) for a social media syndication network. Note that there are many sites (such as IFTTT) and software that offer these services. However, it is important, in my opinion, to target and work the most busy sites.

You Need A Blog Traffic Management Plan

Quantcast (2015), has ranked the top 100 most trafficed sites in the United States based on  a  Quantcast asynchronous tag on each web site. This immediately imposes some limitations on the data, but it is very valuable since the top sites can be crossed matched as accurate eleswhere. 

 

 Quantcast ranking of The Top 6 Social Sites
 

      Table 1  

     Top 6 Trafficked US Sites Rated By Quantcast

My Rank	Quantcast Rank	Site	Monthly Visits
1	3	twitter.com	197,659,136
2	4	facebook.com	129,306,760
3	10	buzzfeed.com	66,386,984
4	13	Pinterest.com	57,728,852
5	70	Linkedin.com	39,305,596
6	87	Instagram.com	39,305,596

 

NB: Google.com is ranked as number 1 traffiked site by both Alexa and Quantcast with 220,398,144 monthly visits. You should register for  Blogger/Blogspot and sync to Google plus because it is the easiest way to be indexed online.

Top 6 Quantcast social media sites compared with their Alexa worldwide ranking 

When the global and US ranking for these top 6 social media platforms are compared, we see that only Facebook and Instagram metrics are consistent across the board. We can ignore that and focus on the fact that these sites show up in these metrics in basically the same order. 

More importantly, we need to examine where the traffic comes from as this tells us how to structure the syndication network.  

                                  Table 2 

Comparison between Alexa And Quantcast Ranking

Site	Alexa (Global Rank)		Quantcast (USA rank)
	Global Rank	US Rank	Rank	Monthly Visits
Facebook.com	1	2	4	129,306,760
Twitter.com	9	8	3	197,659,136
Linkedin.com	14	16	70	39,305,596
Instagram.com	25	25	37	39,305,596
Pinterest.com	30	13	87	57,728,852
Buzzfeed.com	128	41	10	66,386,984

 

Main source of site traffic

Use the data below to construct your  syndication pattern or wheel (I know some marketers hate that word, but the data shows a wheel).   

• Twitter feed 
• IFTTT recipes
• Jetpack and other similar WordPress plugins. 

For example, one could syndicate from the blog to:

• Google plus
• videos to You Tube 
• sync youtube to twitter
• sync twitter to facebook fan page
• post from fan page to relevant groups (at least 1 and engage there) 
• sync images to pinterest and instagram then 
• pinterest and to twitter which will automatically sync to facebook
• instagram can be synced to other image sites
  

       Table 3 Main sources of site traffic

Site	Where visitors came from
Facebook.com	Google, youtube, yahoo, twitter, amazon.com
Twitter.com	Google. Facebook, youtube,  Instagram, t.co
Linkedin.com	Google, facebook, yahoo, twitter, google.co.in
Instagram.com	Google.com, facebook, t.co, twitter, youtube
Pinterest.com	Amazon.com, yahoo, baidu, Ebay, yahoo.co.uk
Buzzfeed.com	Facebook, google, pinterest, youtube, t.co