By ELIZABETH GARONE

• JULY 26, 2010, 10:33 P.M. ET

In a tight job market, building and maintaining an online presence is critical to networking and job hunting. Done right, it can be an important tool for present and future networking and useful for potential employers trying to get a sense of who you are, your talents and your experience. Done wrong, it can easily take you out of the running for most positions.

Here are five mistakes online job hunters make:

1. Forgetting manners.

If you use Twitter or you write a blog, you should assume that hiring managers and recruiters will read your updates and your posts. A December 2009 study by Microsoft Corp. found that 79% of hiring managers and job recruiters review online information about job applicants before making a hiring decision. Of those, 70% said that they have rejected candidates based on information that they found online. Top reasons listed? Concerns about lifestyle, inappropriate comments, and unsuitable photos and videos.

“Everything is indexed and able to be searched,” says Miriam Salpeter, an Atlanta-based job search and social media coach. “Even Facebook, which many people consider a more private network, can easily become a trap for job seekers who post things they would not want a prospective boss to see.”

Don’t be lulled into thinking your privacy settings are foolproof. “All it takes is one person sharing information you might not want shared, forwarding a post, or otherwise breaching a trust for the illusion of privacy in a closed network to be eliminated,” says Ms. Salpeter, who recommends not posting anything illegal (even if it’s a joke), criticism of a boss, coworker or client, information about an interviewer, or anything sexual or discriminatory. “Assume your future boss is reading everything you share online,” she says.

2. Overkill.

Blanketing social media networks with half-done profiles accomplishes nothing except to annoy the exact people you want to impress: prospective employees trying to find out more about on you.

One online profile done well is far more effective than several unpolished and incomplete ones, says Sree Sreenivasan, dean of students at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He made the decision early on to limit himself to three social-networking sites: Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. “There is just not enough time,” he says. “Pick two or three, then cultivate a presence there.”

Many people make the mistake of joining LinkedIn and other social media sites and then just letting their profiles sit publicly unfinished, says Krista Canfield, a LinkedIn spokesperson. “Just signing up for an account simply isn’t enough,” she says. “At a bare minimum, make sure you’re connected to at least 35 people and make sure your profile is 100 percent complete. Members with complete profiles are 40 times more likely to receive opportunities through LinkedIn.”

LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter are the three most popular social networking sites for human resources managers to use for recruiting, according to a survey released last month by JobVite, a maker of recruiting software.

3. Not getting the word out.

When accounting firm Dixon Hughes recently had an opening for a business development executive, Emily Bennington, the company’s director of marketing and development, posted a link to the opportunity on her Facebook page. “I immediately got private emails from a host of people in my network, none of whom I knew were in the market for a new job,” she says. ” I understand that there are privacy concerns when it comes to job hunting, but if no one knows you’re looking, that’s a problem, too.”

Changing this can be as simple as updating your status on LinkedIn and other social networking sites to let people know that you are open to new positions. If you’re currently employed and don’t want your boss to find out that you’re looking, you’ll need to be more subtle. One way to do this is to give prospective employers a sense of how you might fit in, says Dan Schawbel, author of “Me 2.0″ and founder of Millennial Branding. “I recommend a positioning, or personal brand statement, that depicts who you are, what you do, and what audience you serve, so that people get a feeling for how you can benefit their company.”

4. Quantity over quality.

Choose connections wisely; only add people you actually know or with whom you’ve done business. Whether it’s on LinkedIn, Facebook or any other networking site, “it’s much more of a quality game than a quantity game,” says Ms. Canfield. A recruiter may choose to contact one of your connections to ask about you; make sure that person is someone you know and trust.

And there’s really no excuse for sending an automated, generic introduction, says Ms. Canfield. “Taking the extra five to 10 seconds to write a line or two about how you know the other person and why’d you’d like to connect to them can make the difference between them accepting or declining your connection request,” she says. “It also doesn’t hurt to mention that you’re more than willing to help them or introduce them to other people in your network.”

5. Online exclusivity.

Early last year, Washington’s Tacoma Public Utilities posted a water meter reader position on its website. The response? More than 1,600 people applied for the $17.76 an hour position.

With the larger number of people currently unemployed (and under-employed), many employers are being inundated with huge numbers of applications for any positions they post. In order to limit the applicant pool, some have stopped posting positions on their websites and job boards, says Tim Schoonover, chairman of career consulting firm OI Partners.

Scouring the Web for a position and doing nothing else is rarely the best way to go. “When job-seekers choose to search for jobs exclusively online� rather than also include in-person networking�they may be missing out on ‘hidden’ opportunities,” says Mr. Schoonover. “Higher-level jobs are not posted as often as lower-level jobs online. In-person networking may be needed to uncover these higher-level positions, which may be filled by executive recruiters.”

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By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.,   Published: July 26, 2010

VIENNA — The best AIDS-prevention news in years was released here last week at a world conference on the disease: a vaginal gel, called a microbicide, that can be used without a man knowing it, gave women a 39 percent chance of avoiding infection with the deadly virus.

Thirty-nine percent is, obviously, not perfect, though the women in the South African trial who used the gel most faithfully did better, achieving 54 percent protection.

After more than a dozen microbicide failures, it was a huge relief, and led to cheering and standing ovations for the researchers here.

“This is a field that’s known a lot of pain,” said Catherine Hankins, chief scientific adviser for Unaids, the United Nations’ AIDS-fighting agency.

There was general relief that the data was not as shaky as that of an AIDS vaccine trial released in September.

“There’s a certain feeling of ease and pleasure for me as a scientist that any way you slice the data, it’s statistically significant,” said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, a top AIDS expert in the United States government, which paid most of the trial’s costs.

There was an unexpected bonus: the gel protected women even better against genital herpes. (The investigators were not sure why, but it contained tenofovir, an antiviral drug, and AIDS and herpes are both viral.)

Now experts are pondering the many questions raised by the news.

How much more testing will it need to win approval from drug regulators?

Would more than 1 percent tenofovir in the gel, or a two-drug mix, work better?

Can it be made cheaply enough for poor countries? (The gel costs 2 cents a dose, but the applicators are 40 cents because they are patented and were frequently redesigned to be more comfortable.)

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There’s a Right Way to Argue and It Can Be Good for Relationships

Elizabeth Bernstein

• JULY 27, 2010

If you fought with your sweetheart last night, does that mean that your relationship is on the rocks?

Maybe. Maybe not.

Research shows it’s how we fight—where, when, what tone of voice and words we use, whether we hear each other out fairly—that’s critical. If we argue poorly, we may end up headed for divorce court. Yet if we argue well, experts say, we actually may improve our relationship.

Esther and Bill Bleuel learned to change the way they fight. A few years ago, they had a serious spat while driving down Interstate 5 in California. The topic was a sore one: His adult daughters from his first marriage. Ms. Bleuel felt her husband paid more attention to them than to her.

Suddenly, Ms. Bleuel, who was driving, saw red lights flashing behind her. Glancing quickly at her speedometer, she realized she was traveling 96 miles per hour in a 65 mph zone. She pulled over, and a policeman approached the car. Before she had a chance to speak, though, her husband said: “Officer, it is my fault. I was arguing with my wife and she got upset.”

Ms. Bleuel, a 64-year-old psychotherapist from Westlake Village, Calif., says that the policeman looked stunned, then replied: “Oh boy, I know what it’s like—I’m married, too. But please, in the future, try to go easy on her.”

It’s great advice for everyone, right? But how do we do it? How can we learn to keep our cool when we’re upset? How long should we let a disagreement go on? Is there always a “winner”?

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How to Tame Your Nightmares

healthjournal@wsj.com

• JULY 20, 2010

In the new movie, “Inception,” a master thief is able to infiltrate peoples’ dreams and steal their subconscious secrets—even plant a dream idea they’ll think is their own.

As fantastical as that seems, an evolving area of sleep research holds that it is possible for people to direct their own dreams, in a limited way.

For example, people who suffer from recurring nightmares can learn to substitute happier endings. Practitioners of lucid dreaming—who train themselves to be aware that they are dreaming—say they can try out fantasies like flying.

Ordering up a dream about a nagging personal problem is difficult, but possible, says Robert Stickgold, an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. “As you go to bed tonight, really think about some of those emotional issues that you haven’t wanted to deal with. You’ve got about a 10% to 20% shot.”

That fits with the current understanding of what dreams are and why we have them. Once thought to represent repressed sexual urges, or simply neurons firing randomly, dreams are now believed to be mash-ups created by the unconscious mind as it processes, sorts and stores emotions from the day.

“We take our problems to sleep and we work through them during the night,” says Rosalind Cartwright, an emeritus professor of neuroscience at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, who has spent nearly 50 years studying sleep and dreams.

Her new book, “The Twenty-Four Hour Mind,” explains that the mind latches onto some thread of unfinished emotional business from the day. Then, in REM sleep (the rapid eye movement period when most dreaming occurs), it calls up bits of older memories that are somehow related, and melds them together. “That’s why dreams look so peculiar. You have old memories and new memories Scotch-plaided into each other,” she says. “They are emotional connections rather than logical ones.”…

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Solving the Puzzle

As the rebus above illustrates, dreams can contain cryptic messages. But these techniques, with practice, can help calm troubled sleep:

• Rewrite an Ending: While you are awake, imagine a happy conclusion to a recurring scary dream. Practice visualizing it several times a day and just before bedtime.
• Become Lucid: Ask yourself often during the day if you are dreaming; then do it at night. If you can become aware of dreaming while you are doing it, you may be able to dream whatever you want.
• Plan a Dream: Focus on an image, question or problem before you go to sleep. Look for a solution in your dreams—but it’s likely to be a metaphor.
• Interpret Meanings: Record every dream you remember in a diary before you get out of bed. Look for recurring themes. Gaining insight in your waking life may quiet a message in your dreams.

“ I have always had “flying” dreams. Sometimes it is more like swimming. I usually wake up refreshed and energized. These are not nightmares, but genuinely fun-type lucid dreams. I hope they never stop! ”

—Gordon Arnold

The Season of Biker Chic

Touring Cities Stylishly on Two Wheels, With Stops for Cycling Accessories

Christina.Binkley@wsj.com

JULY 16, 2010

Riding a bike to work is increasingly chic these days. But is it possible to pedal two wheels across town and not arrive at the office looking like a refugee from the Tour de France?

I looked into this question recently, inspired by a popular new generation of city bikes. These are old-fashioned-looking bikes with heavy frames, strong, wide tires and handlebars high enough to let the rider sit upright.

Part of their current appeal is their retro look. Sold in colors like chartreuse and turquoise, they can be accessorized with doo-dads like wicker baskets, sleek panniers and clip-on handlebar flowers. There are even fancy helmets that look like equestrian caps or Donegal tweed hats.

But an even bigger factor is that they’re designed precisely for commuting. You don’t have to hunch over low, curled handlebars. The seats are wide and cushy. And fenders guard against mud puddles, and chain and skirt guards protect clothes. They’ve become a hot choice for the rising numbers of urban bike commuters in the U.S…

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Men whose mothers drank the most alcohol while pregnant had sperm counts a third lower on average than those whose mothers hardly drank or abstained.

Ian Sample,  guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 29 June 2010 09.04 BST

Women who drink alcohol while they are pregnant may be harming the fertility of their unborn sons, researchers say.

Expecting mothers who consumed more than 4.5 alcoholic drinks a week were more likely to have sons with lower sperm counts than those who drank little or none at all, their study suggests.

Men whose mothers drank the most had sperm counts a third lower on average than those whose mothers hardly drank in pregnancy or completely abstained.

It is too early to say whether a mother’s alcohol consumption directly harms her son’s future sperm count, but the finding might go some way towards explaining why sperm quality has declined in recent decades, the researchers said. The findings were announced at a meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology in Rome today.

The government advises pregnant women to avoid alcohol completely during pregnancy, though the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists says there is no evidence that a couple of units of alcohol once or twice a week will harm an unborn baby.

When a pregnant woman drinks beer, wine or spirits, the level of alcohol in her baby’s blood rises as much as in her own. Because babies have under-developed livers, they are unable to break the alcohol down as quickly, and so are exposed to high levels for longer.

Unborn babies that are continually exposed to high levels of alcohol can develop foetal alcohol syndrome, a developmental disorder that causes learning difficulties and growth abnormalities.

Doctors at Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark investigated 347 men aged between 18 and 21 years old whose mothers had been recruited to the Danish “Healthy habits for two” study between 1984 and 1987. Towards the end of their pregnancy, the women answered a lifestyle questionnaire that included a question about alcohol consumption. Their grown-up sons gave blood and semen samples for analysis…

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From:

The Tenacious Buzz of Malaria

By SONIA SHAH, JULY 10, 2010

The Romans called malaria the “rage of the Dog Star,” since its fever and chills so often arrived during the caniculares dies, the dog days of summer, when Sirius disappeared in the glow of the sun. To avoid it, ancient Romans built their grand villas high in the hills, fled the mosquito-ridden wetlands that encircled Rome, and prayed for relief at temples dedicated to the fever goddess, Febris.

It was the emperor Caracalla’s physician, Serenus Sammonicus, who in the second century came up with Rome’s first antimalaria quick-fix, one that later became literally synonymous with viagra solutions everywhere. An amulet should be worn, Sammonicus advised, inscribed with a powerful incantation: “Abracadabra.”

It didn’t work, needless to say. Thanks to deforestation and flooding that extended mosquito habitat, malaria worsened near the end of the Roman empire, contributing to its decline. It took a lot more than Abracadabras for the malaria parasite, Plasmodium, to unclench its tentacles: a state-run quinine distribution program in the early 1900s, the ruthless swampland reclamation programs of Mussolini a few decades later, a blitz of DDT around midcentury, and the general economic transformation of the lot of the Italian peasant all had to run their long and arduous course before malaria departed from Italy, centuries after Rome fell…

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History of Malaria

2700 BC – The characteristics of malaria are first documented in “Nei Ching,” a seminal text of ancient Chinese medicine, edited by Chinese Emperor Huang Ti.

2nd Century BC – The Qinghao plant is described in the medical treatise “52 Remedies.” Its active ingredient, artemisinin, has been found to be effective in antimalarial drugs. In 1971, Chinese scientists isolate Qinghao’s active ingredient, artemisinin.

Early 17th Century – Spanish missionaries learn about the medicinal qualities of bark from the Peruvian Cinchona tree from the indigenous people in the New World. The bark contains quinine, an effective antimalarial.

Nov. 6, 1880 – Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran, a French army surgeon, detects parasites in the blood of malaria patients, which leads him to win the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1907.

1886 – Camillo Golgi, an Italian neurophysiologist, discovers there are at least two types of malaria, each producing different amounts of parasites.

Aug. 20, 1897 – Ronald Ross, a British officer in the Indian Medical Service, discovers that malaria parasites can be transmitted through mosquitoes. This earns him the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1902.

1934 – Hans Andersag discovers chloroquine, a compound that later is developed into an antimalarial drug, in Eberfield, Germany. Chloroquine goes on to be recognized and established as a safe drug in preventing and treating malaria.

1939 – Paul Müller discovers the insecticidal property of DDT, which leads him to win the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1948. DDT, first synthesized in 1847, was used widely at the end of WWII to control for malaria.

1942 – The Office of National Defense Malaria Control Activities, which eventually changed its name to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is formed, concentrating on controlling and eliminating malaria in the United States.

1947 – The CDC and 13 southeastern states develop the National Malaria Eradication Program. Within four years, malaria is considered eliminated in the U.S.

1955 – The World Health Organization submits a plan to eradicate malaria worldwide. The Global Malaria Eradication Program includes spraying homes with insecticides and antimalarial drug treatment. With mixed success, it is eventually abandoned in 1969. The current National Malaria Prevention and Control Programs is refocused on controlling malaria instead of eradicating it.

1963 – Mario Pinotti, who heads Brazil’s malaria service, launches a campaign to infuse cooking salt with antimalarial drugs to medicate the population at large. But after $1.4 billion and 10 years, the World Health Assembly calls to dissolve the program.

2006 – The United Nations Foundation starts Nothing But Nets, a program to raise awareness about malaria and help fund the distribution of mosquito nets.

March 2007 – The World Health Assembly establishes World Malaria Day to raise awareness of the disease. This replaces Africa Malaria Day and is celebrated annually April 25.

2010 – Despite efforts to control malaria, the disease is still prevalent today. There were 247 million cases worldwide in 2008, most of them among African children, and almost 1 million died from it, according to the World Health Organization.

—Alice Truong

Sources: WSJ Research, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Stocks rallied Friday, finding momentum at the end of a choppy session ahead of the first wave of quarterly corporate results due out next week.

The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) added 59 points, or 0.6%. The S&P 500 (SPX) gained 8 points, or 0.7%, and the Nasdaq (COMP) composite rose 21 points, or 1%…

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Markets Riding a 4-Day Winning Streak

From the N.Y Times

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, Published: July 9, 2010

The stock market ended its best week in a year with another gain on Friday as investors placed their last bets before the start of second-quarter earnings reports.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 59 points, or 0.6 percent. That gave the Dow its biggest weekly advance in a year, 5.3 percent. Broader indexes posted bigger gains. Trading volume was light, signaling that many investors were staying out of the market. But those who were trading appeared optimistic about the company reports that would be announced starting next week…

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From:

The Best Shot: Cell or Camera?

By ISAAC ARNSDORF, The Wall Street Journal,

• JUNE 23, 2010
• VIEW FULL ARTICLE HERE

With even the most basic cellphones able to snap photos, camera makers are launching a new campaign to convince buyers that a cellphone is no substitute for a good camera…

Industry-wide, digital-camera sales are projected to fall 11% in 2010 to $5.6 billion, from last year, according to the Consumer Electronics Association. That’s down from a peak of $7.8 billion in 2006.

Colleen Lerro, a CEA spokeswoman, says that may be largely because 81% of households already have a digital cameras. Camera makers say that a smartphone is no replacement for a digital camera because it doesn’t produce shots people want to keep and is a complementary product. Digital cameras are tied with high-definition TVs as the top consumer electronic product that U.S. households plan to buy in the next year, according to CEA research.

A cellphone industry group, the CTIA, says camera sales are declining due to competition from cellphones. One in five wireless users take pictures with their phones at least once a week, according to the Internet marketing research firm comScore…

Cellphone vs. Camera