Create A Unique Living Space With These Great Ideas | Home Solar ...

For some, the idea of doing home improvement projects can be scary. Armed with the right tools and information, you can take on any project. Use the information in this article to tackle that home improvement project that you have been considering.

If you plan to redo your roof, use light colored tile. This deflects the sun and keeps heat outside in the summer. This can lead to a significant savings on your monthly cooling and heating bills.

Make sure you have turned off the power circuit before you do any electrical home improvements. Failing to do so can lead to serious injury or even death.

Creating a cost estimate is critical for every type of home improvement project, other than the very tiniest ones. Homeowners can realize terrific savings by buying materials in large quantities. Many materials and equipment required in renovations also have long lead times. Failing to order them in advance can stall your project.

Don?t overlook landscaping when looking to home improvements projects. When people come to see your house, they will notice your front yard first, so it will pay to have a nice lawn. Keep your grass neat and tidy, and add a border of flowering plants and shrubs to add additional beauty and dimension to your yard.

When your home improvement plans call for major bathroom renovations, do yourself a favor and make plans to make your bathrooms handicap-accessible. Even if you can?t do a full conversion, there are ways to make your bathroom more accessible. This is important especially if you intend to retire and grow older in your home. These improvements will increase your home?s value.

Base your changes on the length of time you plan to live there. If you do not plan on living there for very long, it does not really make much sense to spend thousands of dollars on changes. Take care of things that need to be fixed but do not spend money on purely aesthetic changes.

Before you install paneling on your walls, paint stripes! Even the most meticulously installed paneling tends to show small areas of the old wall beneath. To reduce the visual impact, take some measurements to learn where the wall panels will join. Cover that area with a strip of paint that matches the paneling, so it will be virtually invisible.

Save money on repair bills by purchasing a drain snake. This will keep you from needing drain cleaners as often. While drain snakes take a little bit of training to use at first, they are not that hard to maneuver once you learn from a professional. Invest in a snake that?s the correct size or you may damage your pipes.

Giving the walls a new paint job can make a big improvement in the way virtually any room looks and feels. You will change the look in your room and you will change the feel as well. This is an inexpensive way to add value to your home and increase your chances for a quick sale. Consider using lighter colors to enhance the decor.

When your looking for some help with a home improvement project, try to have a backup in case your go to helpers aren?t all that helpful. As the saying goes, you should never put all of your eggs in one basket. That old saying about eggs in a basket is true here too.

When choosing a contractor for home improvement, be sure you?re assessing estimates that are based on comparable specifications. Make a list of what you need done and ensure consistency in your requests of prospective contractors. If you change things you want for each contractor, it will be tough to compare between them.

Be aware of how long certain home improvement projects will last. For instance, if you install a new chimney today, it will probably last into the 22nd century. Wood decks, by contrast, only last fifteen. It is possible for vinyl floors to last two or three decades, but oak floors can be around for a century. These are things to think about when renovating your house, and deciding if the cost and effort is worth it.

Even modest home improvement projects can increase the resale value of your home. Whether you are planning to sell or not, opt for doing small home improvement projects throughout the year. One thing you can do is paint your house, outside as well as inside. Such a simple and inexpensive upgrade on your end can add an enormous amount of value when selling.

Any contractor who offers you a discount for paying in cash is doing something illegal, so don?t get involved with him. You aren?t going to have a paper trail if you pay with cash; you are not going to be able to do anything if he doesn?t complete the work and takes your money.

If your roof has developed cracks, use aluminum tape to repair the cracks. Aluminum tape requires application to a surface that is clean once you?ve removed the backing. This creates a surface that is waterproof covering for those cracks.

If expense is a factor, consider vinyl tiles instead of ceramic or stone. Vinyl is strong, durable, water resistant, and easy to install due to the adhesive that is included on the back. As an added convenience, vinyl tiling is available in sheets or sets, depending on the size of the area you need to cover.

When you put in new cabinetry in your kitchen or bathroom, it?s essential that every cabinet is screwed in tight to their respective wall studs. Find the wall studs and mark them prior to installing so that you are aware of where you should place the screws. This process can be simplified with a simple and affordable stud finder from your local hardware store.

Do you want to find a home improvement project that is inexpensive, but can increase your home?s value? You can install a new walkway using nothing more than large rocks. The large rocks can be gathered for free. There are lots of resources on the Internet that can teach you how to create garden paths.

Try adding a pergola to your home if you think the exterior looks bland. This beautiful addition to gardens has become very popular with homeowners for its elegant, natural appearance and the shaded charm it brings. With a few friends to help, you can buy a kit and have the pergola completed over the weekend.

Bright colored flowers is a way to improve your home?s exterior appearance. Choose the ones you need for each season. As well, keep your hedges and bushes trimmed, and weekly mow and manicure your lawn. By doing these simple projects, you can easily keep your home value growing.

Many homeowners save on construction costs via installing particleboard or solid wood cabinets that don?t have hardware. However, you can visit a home improvement store for cabinet knobs, handles and drawer pulls. There are also online options. You can purchase new knobs, among other things, and easily install them in a short amount of time.

Pay your contractor through credit card or check so you could stop payment if you need to. In this way, you can avoid having unscrupulous contractors skip town with your down payment. Paying with a credit card is your smartest option since you are able to dispute the transaction even a few months after the payment.

Tailoring pillows to suit a teenager?s tastes is not that hard. Use old clothes that aren?t being worn anymore, including band shirts, old jeans, and cool shirts, and cut and sew the pieces together so that they can fit onto the pillows. Doing this can add an excellent personal touch and provide some personality to a teenager?s room.

You may have originally thought that tackling your home remodeling project would be hard without the assistance of a contractor. With the tips from this article, you can accomplish some of your home improvement goals on your own

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Source: http://www.homesolarpanelscosts.com/create-a-unique-living-space-with-these-great-ideas/

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Swiss Federal Railways Accuses Apple Of Copying Its Railway Clock Design For iPad Clock App

With the launch of iOS 6, Apple finally brought a clock app to the iPad. Now, however, the design of the clocks in the app has become somewhat of a controversy as Swiss Federal Railways (mostly known under its German acronym SBB), has accused the company of ripping off the design of its iconic railway station clock design. Apple's design is almost an exact copy of the Swiss Railway Station Clock that the organization has been using since the 1940s.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/feaSLYEpV4U/

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QB Vince Young out of the game and out of money

File - In this Aug. 25, 2012 file photo, Buffalo Bills' Vince Young throws against the Pittsburgh Steelers during the second half of a preseason NFL football game in Orchard Park, N.Y. Six years after entering the NFL as the third player taken in the draft, Vince Young finds himself without a team and with only a fraction of the money he received from a contract that paid him a guaranteed $26 million. (AP Photo/Gary Wiepert, File)

File - In this Aug. 25, 2012 file photo, Buffalo Bills' Vince Young throws against the Pittsburgh Steelers during the second half of a preseason NFL football game in Orchard Park, N.Y. Six years after entering the NFL as the third player taken in the draft, Vince Young finds himself without a team and with only a fraction of the money he received from a contract that paid him a guaranteed $26 million. (AP Photo/Gary Wiepert, File)

File - In this Aug. 25, 2012 file photo, Buffalo Bills' Vince Young kneels on the turf after throwing an interception against the Pittsburgh Steelers during the second half of a preseason NFL football game in Orchard Park, N.Y. Six years after entering the NFL as the third player taken in the draft, Young finds himself without a team and with only a fraction of the money he received from a contract that paid him a guaranteed $26 million. (AP Photo/Gary Wiepert, File)

DALLAS (AP) ? Six years after entering the NFL as the third player taken in the draft, Vince Young finds himself without a team and with just a fraction of the money he received from a contract that guaranteed him $26 million.

The question is, where did it all go?

In an increasingly caustic war of words, attorneys have been arguing for months over whether Young is an out-of-control spender who put himself deeply in the hole or simply a victim of inexperienced advisers, one of whom was his own uncle.

Either way, the quarterback whose future seemed unlimited after he led Texas to a Rose Bowl victory in 2006 is now back home in Houston and in a tenuous financial condition.

"I would just say that Vince needs a job," said Trey Dolezal, Young's attorney, when asked to give a general assessment of his client's finances.

Young was cut by the Buffalo Bills, his third NFL team, in August. He was trying to make the Bills as a backup, the same role he filled with the Philadelphia Eagles in 2011.

The fall has been a dizzying one for the player who twice made the Pro Bowl with the Tennessee Titans. Young sent out a tweet thanking the Bills and their fans after he was released but hasn't spoken to the media since. He declined a request to be interviewed for this story.

Even in pro sports, where tales of squandered wealth abound, Young's plight is "pretty dramatic," said Kenneth Shropshire, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business who has written and lectured extensively on the business of sports.

"You'd think it would be hard to blow that much money," Shropshire said.

Young is suing his former agent, Major Adams, and a North Carolina financial planner, Ronnie Peoples, alleging that they misappropriated $5.5 million. In some instances, the pair forged his signature or impersonated him on the phone or in emails, according to the lawsuit, filed in Houston in June.

The suit was filed five days after a New York lender notified Young that a loan of nearly $1.9 million obtained in his name during the NFL lockout in 2011 was in default. Young is now seeking to stop the lender, Pro Player Funding LLC, from enforcing a judgment of nearly $1.7 million, claiming he wasn't involved in obtaining the loan and that the proceeds went to Adams and Peoples.

"They conspired to take Vince's money," Dolezal said. "It's that simple."

Young was the first client of a company, (hash)1 Next Level Sports and Entertainment Inc., formed by Adams, a Houston criminal defense attorney, and the quarterback's uncle, Keith Young, a former middle school teacher.

Young's problem was "he was just very young ... and allowing these people to have too much control over his life and his name," Dolezal said.

That notion is vigorously disputed by attorneys for Adams and Peoples, who say Young has nobody to blame but himself.

"This is a person scrambling helplessly and pointing in all directions to blame others to get out of debt," said Charles Peckham, Adams' attorney.

Adams twice wrote checks to himself from Young's accounts, but both times were out of necessity, including once when the agent was required to use personal funds to charter a plane for the quarterback after he missed a team flight, Peckham said.

Peoples has filed a countersuit in which he castigates Young for allowing his uncle to serve as his business manager despite having no expertise in that field.

Peoples claims in the countersuit that every decision he made was approved by Keith Young. And he calls Vince Young's unwillingness to accept responsibility "a common occurrence ... as (former Titans coach) Jeff Fisher, (Texas coach) Mack Brown, numerous NFL executives, coaches, teammates, scouts, girlfriends and illegitimate children will attest."

Peoples' attorney, David Chaumette, said he has documents to support the strongly-worded filing.

"You'll find there was a lot of money being spent in a bunch of different directions," Chaumette said.

A working phone number for Keith Young could not be located. Court records do not show that he has an attorney.

According to public records, Vince Young was one of at least 10 NFL players who turned to Pro Player Funding for cash during the lockout. Loan documents show he borrowed the $1.9 million at 20 percent interest, with $619,122 in interest paid up front, and agreed that a judgment could be entered if he missed a payment.

Young authorized $1 million in payments to Pro Player directly from his Eagles salary during the 2011 season, and his accountant was working this year to have a similar arrangement with the Bills, according to court records. However, when a payment due in May was never made, the loan went into default.

In challenging the loan's validity, Young claims he didn't "knowingly execute" any of the loan documents. Anything he signed was "without the corresponding documents attached and without knowledge as to what the signatures pages referred," one of his court filings states.

Pro Player says its case is supported by the fact that Young's signatures were notarized and that emails show he was involved in making sure the lender received repayment directly from the Eagles.

"Call me if this is not 100 percent clear," Young's accountant wrote him in August 2011 in an email explaining the arrangement. "We want to make certain you know exactly what is going on at all times, especially when you're signing your name to something."

Young also contends that Pro Player's efforts to serve him and the Bills with legal papers during training camp, which included a threat to contact the local sheriff, "played a role" in the Bills' decision to release him.

"I wasn't in the room when they (the Bills) made a decision, but what would you think? It certainly wouldn't help me if I'm the owner or the head coach knowing all this is going on with Vince and then he goes out and plays poorly," Dolezal said.

Bills coach Chan Gailey declined comment when asked if Young's off-the-field issues had anything to do with his release.

___

AP Sports Writer John Wawrow in Orchard Park, N.Y., contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2012-09-18-FBN-Vince-Young's-Finances/id-16fdf393bd664e199ea7e0e1f0305bce

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When TV and marriage meet: TV's negative impact on romantic relationships

ScienceDaily (Sep. 18, 2012) ? The status of a romantic relationship could be in jeopardy if the couple or an individual in the relationship are frequent television watchers, according to a study from Albion College.

The study, just released electronically and soon to be published in the September 2012 issue of Mass Communication and Society, found that the more an individual believed in television portrayals of romance, the less likely they were to be committed to their relationships. In August 2012, several of the most-watched television shows (Burn Notice, True Blood, The Big Bang Theory, and Two and a Half Men) featured romantic relationships prominently throughout their episodes. This research is especially important at helping individuals understand the impact that television viewing can have on their relationships.

"In this study I found that people who believe the unrealistic portrayals on TV are actually less committed to their spouses and think their alternatives to their spouse are relatively attractive," Dr. Jeremy Osborn, the article's author said. "My hope would be that people would read this article and take a look at their own relationships and the relationships of those around them. How realistic are your expectations for your partner and where did those expectations come from?"

Over 390 married couples participated in the study. The participants responded to questions about their satisfaction with their current romantic relationship, relationship expectations, relationship commitment, belief in television portrayals of romantic relationships, viewing frequency, and several others that focused on their spousal relationship. The research also discovered that the more an individual believed in the television romance, the higher people believed their relationship costs were. Relationship "costs" include a person's loss of personal freedom, loss of time, or their partner's unattractive qualities.

"We live in a society that perpetually immerses itself in media images from both TV and the web, but most people have no sense of the ways those images are impacting them," Osborn said. "The rate of marriage failure in the U. S. is not dropping, and it is important for people to have a sense of what factors are leading to the failure of so many relationships."

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Journal Reference:

1. Jeremy L. Osborn. When TV and Marriage Meet: A Social Exchange Analysis of the Impact of Television Viewing on Marital Satisfaction and Commitment. Mass Communication and Society, 2012; 15 (5): 739 DOI: 10.1080/15205436.2011.618900

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/5wWrHe5Q1K8/120918121322.htm

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App lets you monitor lung health using only a smartphone

ScienceDaily (Sep. 18, 2012) ? People suffering from asthma or other chronic lung problems are typically only able to get a measure of their lung function at the doctor's office a few times a year by blowing into a specialized piece of equipment. More frequent testing at home could detect problems earlier, potentially avoiding emergency room visits and hospitalization.

A new tool from researchers at the University of Washington, UW Medicine and Seattle Children's hospital lets people monitor their lung function at home or on the go simply by blowing into their smartphones. A paper presented this month at the Association for Computing Machinery's International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing showed results that came within 5 percent of commercial devices, meaning it already meets the medical community's standards for accuracy.

"There's a big need in the pulmonary community to make testing cheaper and more convenient," said lead researcher Shwetak Patel, a UW assistant professor of computer science and engineering and of electrical engineering. "Other people have been working on attachments for the mobile phone that you can blow into. We said, 'Let's just try to figure out how to do it with the microphone that's already there.'"

A few existing smartphone apps claim to measure lung function, but they are poor mimics of an office test. For example, one app measures how loud the exhaled breath sounds, which strongly depends on how close to the mouth a person holds the phone. None of them is recommended for medical use.

Home testing systems are now becoming available, but they cost at least a few hundred dollars, can be difficult to use, and patients have to have the equipment with them to take a test.

Last year Patel's group used a smartphone to track a person's coughs throughout the day. Now his graduate students Eric Larson in electrical engineering and Mayank Goel in computer science and engineering have led a 2.5-year project tackling the harder problem of how to get an accurate measure of lung function using nothing but a smartphone.

Existing spirometers have patients with chronic lung ailments such as asthma, cystic fibrosis and chronic bronchitis blow into a tube with a small turbine that measures the speed of the flow. Patients take a deep breath in, then exhale as hard and fast as they can until they can't blow any more. The spirometer measures how much and how fast the person can breathe out, which tells doctors whether their airways are narrowed or filled with mucous.

The UW researchers found they could model a person's trachea and vocal tract as a system of tubes to replace the spirometer, and use a phone to analyze the sound wave frequencies to detect when the breath is resonating in those natural pipes.

"There are resonances that occur in the signal that tells you about how much flow is going through the trachea and the vocal tract, and that's precisely the quantity that a clinician needs to know," Patel said.

Researchers tested the system on 52 mostly healthy volunteers using an iPhone 4S smartphone and its built-in microphone. Results showed that the UW research app, SpiroSmart, came within 5.1 percent of a commercial portable spirometer that costs thousands of dollars. Natural variation in how much effort a patient uses to exhale during each test means that about a 3 percent variation is unavoidable.

"The tests are very promising," said co-author Dr. Margaret Rosenfeld, an associate professor at UW Medicine and a pulmonary specialist at Seattle Children's Hospital. "Both providers and patients are very excited" about the possibility of home tests, she added.

A grant from the Coulter Foundation will fund more clinical testing with patients of varying ages and lung health, and help the team to seek Food and Drug Administration approval. The researchers are working with the UW's Center for Commercialization to bring the technology to market.

"Portable glucometers have dramatically changed glucose monitoring and improved the quality of life for people with diabetes," Patel said. "We hope to do the same thing for pulmonary disorders."

Other co-authors are Gaetano Borriello, a UW professor of computer science and engineering, and Sonya Heltsche, a biostatistician at Seattle Children's hospital.

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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/computers_math/information_technology/~3/MaDdv59tqnc/120918111322.htm

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Apple iPhone 5 event live-blog

Are you ready for the iPhone 5?

The tech world is gathering in San Francisco on Wednesday for what everyone expects will be a new and improved Apple smartphone.

Join Joanna Stern of ABC News and Yahoo's Oliver Libaw, Jason Sickles and Scott Ard at noon ET for live coverage of the event. Follow along, submit your comments, and ask questions as we find out what new gear the world's most valuable company has in store for us.

Some big questions for Wednesday's event:

? Will the iPhone 5 be what we expect? Scores of sites (including Yahoo's Digital Crave blog) have offered detailed predictions for the device: a larger screen; a 4G connection; and a new, smaller connector plug. Few experts predict a radical change from the current iPhone 4S. Will they be right?
? Will the device have any new must-have features? Siri, the voice-control software, was the most hyped feature of the 4S. Since the initial hype died down, however, the reviews for Siri have been mixed.
? Will Apple unveil an iPad mini, too? Rumors of a smaller version of the hit tablet have been buzzing for years, but lately they've become much louder. Will today be the day we see it?

Stay tuned and we'll find out soon.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/technology-blog/apple-iphone-5-live-blog-195206432.html

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Crucial Ohio at the heart of presidential campaign

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney campaigns at PR Machine Works in Mansfield, Ohio, Monday, Sept. 10, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney campaigns at PR Machine Works in Mansfield, Ohio, Monday, Sept. 10, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney greets an overflow crowd as he campaigns at PR Machine Works in Mansfield, Ohio, Monday, Sept. 10, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

President Barack Obama greets people during a campaign stop at Florida Institute of Technology's Charles and Ruth Clemente Center in Melbourne, Fla., Sunday, Sept. 9, 2012. (AP Photo/The Daytona Beach News-Journal, David Massey)

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, are pictured on Romney's campaign charter plane as they fly to Mansfield, Ohio, Monday, Sept. 10, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio talk on Romney's campaign charter plane as they fly to Mansfield, Ohio, Monday, Sept. 10, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

MANSFIELD, Ohio (AP) ? It's all about Ohio ? again.

The economy has improved here, and so has President Barack Obama's standing, putting pressure on Republican Mitt Romney in a state critical to his presidential hopes.

No Republican has won the White House without winning Ohio, and Romney hopes to catch Obama here by slashing at his jobs record in working-class regions.

"America doesn't have to have the long face it has had under this president," the Republican shouted Monday to a cheering audience in hard-scrabble Mansfield, just weeks after Obama visited. "We can get America rolling again, growing again."

In a sign of the state's importance, hardly a week goes without the candidates appearing in Ohio. Same goes for their running mates; Republican Paul Ryan was campaigning in the Appalachian southeast Wednesday, following a similar weekend trip by Vice President Joe Biden, who is to return to the state Wednesday.

Less than two months from Election Day, both parties say their internal campaign polling shows Obama with a narrow lead in Ohio, a Midwestern state that offers 18 Electoral College votes and has played an important role in determining every recent White House race.

Numbers tell the story of the high stakes and, perhaps, show why Obama has been able to maintain an edge ? and why Romney remains within striking distance.

The candidates and supportive outside groups have spent a stunning $112 million on TV advertising in the state ? one-sixth the total spent nationwide. And Obama and groups that support him have been outspending Romney and Republican-leaning independent groups here all summer, outpacing the GOP $2 million to $1 million last week alone. That's despite Romney having tapped into his general election bank account last week to boost his ads here.

All year, the race here has been close. A Quinnipiac University poll in April after Romney locked up the Republican nomination showed a 1-point race among registered voters in the state. But two recent polls ? Quinnipiac/CBS/New York Times in August and July ? showed Obama up 6 percentage points among likely voters, and reaching 50 percent, a key marker for an endangered incumbent.

Both Republicans and Democrats say internal surveys show it tighter now, with Obama leading by about 3 percentage points.

Still, Democrats are almost giddy that Obama has been able to show strength in this manufacturing state, which suffered during the recession but has seen its unemployment rate fall from 7.7 percent in January to 7.2 percent in July.

While Obama stayed in Washington on Monday, the president's team also reveled in the fact that he edged Romney in monthly fundraising ? $114 million vs. $111 million ? for the first time in three months, as well as in national opinion surveys that showed the Democrat's standing improving a bit after his national nominating convention in Charlotte, N.C., last week.

In Ohio, Romney looked to take advantage of Obama's absence, blistering the president over deep defense cuts scheduled as part of a deficit-reduction proposal. Those possible cuts mean the city would lose its 179th Air National Guard unit, which would cost hundreds of jobs. That's on top of a GM plant that closed in nearby Ontario, Ohio, two years ago.

"It will be bad for employment if it goes forward. It will also be bad for our national security," Romney said, promising to block such cuts as president.

Here and elsewhere, Obama is working to spread a message of economic progress, despite a national unemployment rate stuck above 8 percent.

In Toledo last week, the president argued that his decision to bail out the U.S. auto industry in neighboring Michigan has fueled a manufacturing turnaround in the region. GM recently announced a $200 million expansion of its Lordstown, Ohio, plant, where the company's best-selling Chevrolet Cruze is made.

It's in this Midwest region where Obama reminds audiences that Romney wrote a Wall Street Journal opinion piece in 2008 suggesting carmakers declare bankruptcy and restructure. Although that's what happened under the Obama's administration, the Romney piece's headline, "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt," has been a bumper-sticker line for the Obama campaign.

"Do the folks in Ohio really think that Gov. Romney, with his views on outsourcing, with his views on General Motors and Chrysler and beyond that, do they honestly believe that if he had been president the last four years that today that there would be today 115,000 auto jobs in Ohio?" Biden said last weekend in Zanesville, 55 miles east of Columbus.

Countering, Romney tries to stoke doubt about the president's economic competence, and he criticizes Obama on energy, specifically the administration's regulations on coal mining and oil and gas drilling. Those issues resonate in southern Ohio.

It is all part of a two-fold Ohio strategy by Romney: suppress Obama's edge in places like swing-voting northern and central Ohio while dispatching Ryan, from working-class Janesville, Wis., to widen the GOP ticket's edge in towns along the Ohio River.

Romney seems to have an opening.

"The only driver here is the economy, and we've seen what Barack Obama has to offer," said Andrew Kvochick, a 30-year-old lawyer from Lexington who voted for Obama in 2008. "We'd like to see what Mitt Romney has to offer."

Kvochick was among more than 1,500 at a rally Romney headlined at PR Machineworks in Mansfield.

Winning Ohio's big cache of 18 electoral votes is critical for Romney, who has fewer state-by-state paths to the 270 electoral votes needed for victory than Obama does. If Romney loses here, he would need to win several other states to make up the difference.

In Ohio, Obama beat John McCain 52 percent to 47 percent four years ago, primarily by increasing support among black voters, white college graduates and young people. This year, Romney leads nationally among white voters without college degrees, and he's targeting them heavily across the Midwest, including in Ohio, to counter Obama's advantages among minorities and whites with more formal education.

Much can change between now and Nov. 6.

In a close race, the campaigns' get-out-the-vote operations could be worth a few percentage points ? and even Republicans acknowledge that Obama's organization is superior given that it never really went away after his 2008 victory. Since then, aides have kept in touch with voters and have kept track of the president's strongest supporters and weakest allies. Obama's data analysts have dug into those supporters' habits ? magazine subscriptions, television viewing habits, pet ownership ? to pinpoint what messages best reach them to re-invigorate backers who worked for Obama four years ago but may be less enthusiastic this year.

Although he still lags Obama in this area, Romney is much better positioned here than McCain was, with many times more people and offices than the Arizona senator had at this point in the race four years ago. And the GOP is paying closer attention to getting people to vote early in a state where election officials anticipate the number of early votes to grow to as many as a third of ballots.

Early voting here starts Oct. 2. Obama won among those who voted before Election Day four years ago but Romney's team is bullish on its chances of winning among those voters this year.

___

Associated Press writers Philip Elliott in Washington and Matthew Daly in Milford, Ohio, and Jennifer Agiesta, AP deputy director of polling, contributed to this report.

___

Follow Thomas Beaumont at http://twitter.com/TomBeaumont

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-09-10-Presidential%20Campaign/id-11d1115b2165410cace7f1c7475cefe2

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