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With summer comes long days and fun in the sun, but if your home isn’t prepared for the heat the summertime can be downright hot and dismal. Before the heat rises, take a good look at your home and identify areas that may need remodeling. Being prepared for the heat will make life easier, and cooler, for you during the hottest part of the year.

Fans – Check to be sure your ceiling fans and portable cooling devices are operational. In the early spring, you won’t have to run the air conditioner if you use fans appropriately. If you haven’t considered ceiling fans, late winter or early spring is the best time to start checking out different models and see if there is a good match for you. Installing them as soon as possible will give you the most time to enjoy them during the spring, summer and even the warmer days in the fall.

Air Conditioners – Don’t forget to have the Freon levels in your air conditioner unit checked. Any leaks or damage caused by the winter months should be addressed before you need the A/C in the peak of the summer’s heat.

Doors and Windows – When you get the air conditioning running, you won’t want any of it to slip outside. To keep your home cool, check the seals on your doors and windows to ensure they haven’t been damaged by the winter weather. Also take a look at your window blinds – some shades will actually help keep the heat out and provide additional insulation without sacrificing the amount of natural light that comes into your home. Simply changing the style of blinds may be just the change you need to improve the natural cooling within a room.

Remodeling before things get hot will keep you cool this summer.

Stock market woes continue with major indexes falling. BusinessWeek reports the Dow is down by 1.59%, the Nasdaq fell by 1.32% and the S&P came down by 1.11%. The article details of how a struggling U.S. economy felt further stress thanks to an increase in crude oil and troubling news of the U.S. deficit reaching a record-breaking high. Although avoiding a serious recession was the intended purpose of government issued stimulus payments, they are reported to be part of the increasing deficit. Today’s rise in oil prices was attributed to attacks on Nigerian pipelines, a source of over a hundred thousand oil barrels per day. With oil and the deficit on the rise, there is no telling when the U.S. market will see relief.

With seemingly everyone freaking out about the looming recession, even people across the globe, analysts gauge how bad the recession will be. It seems as though everyone is weighing in on the effects the recession will have; everybody from huge corporate brokerages to amateur online investors. Most economists don’t see it being too intense, lucky for us.

Most economists who believe a recession is already here or at least near are looking for a relatively short and mild downturn, perhaps lasting only two or three quarters.

But many of those same economists say they also can envision a worse-case scenario where spending by consumers and businesses falls off sharply, unemployment heads higher than normal during a typical recession and housing and credit market problems worsen.

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The stock market experienced a short rebound early Friday morning when all types of investors, from big brokers to individuals on online stock services bought into some stocks. That rebound was quickly stunted after President Bush announced his economic stimulus plan.

Stocks turned lower Friday, as a rebound sparked profit reports from IBM, General Electric, and others fizzled after news that the Bush stimulus plan will come in at 1% of GDP, which caused some initial disappointment, reports Action Economics

There was good news on consumer sentiment Friday morning, but that just wasn’t enough to stop the pervading selling mood by investors. The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment index posted a surprising gain to 80.5 from 75.5 in December. Meanwhile, the Conference Board’s Index of December Leading Economic Indicators fell 0.2%

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Quaris Corp, a software company, announced that it raised $7.1 million in its first round of venture capital funding.  BerkeleyVC and its chairman, Arthur Trueger, specialize in later stage VC funding.

Software company Quaris Corp. raised $7.1 million in its first round of venture funding and named a new CEO who replaced its founder.

Thomas Perry, Quaris’ founder and CEO, was replaced by Brian Kelly, according to a Quaris press release dated Jan. 9, 2008, which said, “Brian Kelly will replace Mr. Perry as CEO,” although Kelly actually took the top job in March 2007.

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Venture capitalists have long been investing in the technology industry, and with the explosion of social media their investing has only increased.  Some of the biggest success stories are facebook, myspace, and youtube, facebook and myspace are social networking sites and YouTube is a site allowing users to upload their own videos (see Gorilla Trades‘ video tutorial).  These interactive sites needed funding when they were just gaining popularity, and within a few short years they have all sold at least some of their shares for hundreds of millions of dollars.  These were obviously great investments for their respective venture capitalists.  With the exponential growth of the internet you can bet that there will be continued VC investments, all looking for the next facebook or YouTube.

SAN FRANCISCO—-CMEA Ventures announced today that Bruce Pasternack has joined the firm as a venture partner. Pasternack’s addition is strategic for CMEA’s Energy & Materials investment practice at a time when this sector is experiencing unprecedented growth in investment opportunities and start up investments can benefit from as much experience as possible to meet the market, business, and …

Read More at Business Wire via Yahoo! Finance…

Chevron Corporation today announced a $22.9 billion capital and exploratory spending program for 2008, a 15 percent increase from estimated outlays of $20 billion in 2007. Included in the 2008 program are $2.6 billion of expenditures by affiliates, which do not require cash outlays by Chevron’s consolidated companies.

Read More at PR Newswire via Yahoo! Finance…

BOCA RATON, Fla.—-Multi-Media Productions , Inc. announces that 21st Century Business & Architecture & Design Television, hosted by General Alexander Haig and Hunter Tylo, respectively, is currently available for viewing via video streaming on the 21CB and Architecture and Design website: http://www.21cbtv.com and http://www.arctv.com

Read More at Business Wire via Yahoo! Finance…

(RTTNews) – Private equity firm CVC Capital Partners Wednesday reported that Stephen Vineburg has been appointed as Chief Executive of its new infrastructure investment business.

Read More at Nasdaq…

With more than $30 billion invested through the first three quarters of the year, venture capital activity in the U.S., Europe, China and Israel in 2007 is on pace to post its highest annual investment total since 2001, according to a global year-end analysis by Dow Jones VentureOne and Ernst & Young.

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Venture capital trusts provide a wide range of investments – including marketing pop events, says Paul Farrow

Read More at Daily Telegraph…

CUPERTINO, Calif.—-TuVox, the caller experience company, has announced that it has closed $20 million of financing. This additional capital provides TuVox the ability to accelerate expansion of its core business and invest in new areas of growth.

Read More at Business Wire via Yahoo! Finance…

Starting a business with your better half can reap huge rewards–and unique problems.

Read More at Entrpreneur.com…

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development dropped plans to create a Russian venture capital fund after a shareholder in the fund’s management company claimed he was leading a “velvet reprivatisation” drive for the state.

Read More at FT.com via Yahoo! News…

Whether you use the newspaper, the TV, or an online service, like Gorilla Trades, you will notice that some stocks keep growing no matter what the economy is doing.  The rate at which they grow may speed up or slow down but they keep moving in one direction – up. One great example of this is McDonald’s.  Even with all of the volatility and concern with the fleeting economy, the Golden Arches’s shares have increased 32% this year.  Many analysts have said that this is a good stock with which to “ride out the storm”.  Stocks like this that have a strong brand awareness usually are strong enough not to be deterred too much by any failings in the market.

Venture capitalists invested more than $777 million in 57 deals for entrepreneurial companies in India during the first three quarters of 2007, according to the Quarterly India Venture Capital Report published for the first time by Dow Jones VentureOne and Ernst & Young.

Read More at Business Standard India…

Ventura Gold Corp. reported a net loss of $314,641 for the three months ended September 30, 2007. The Company also completed the period with approximately $3.5 million in cash, working capital of $3.9 million and $1.5 million in securities held-for-trading and long-term investments.

Read More at Marketwire via Yahoo! Finance…

Venture capitalists invested more than $777 million in 57 deals for entrepreneurial companies in India during the first three quarters of 2007, according to the Quarterly India Venture Capital Report published for the first time today by Dow Jones VentureOne and Ernst & Young.

Read More at PR Newswire via Yahoo! Finance…

At an extraordinary general meeting held on December 1, 2007, at IBN RUSHD headquarters in Yanbu industrial city, the SABIC affiliate, the Arabian Industrial Fibers Company (IBN RUSHD) approved the General Investments Fund (GIF) as a partner in IBN RUSHD.

Read More at AME Info…

HBD Venture Capital announced yesterday, 29 November 2007, that it had invested R25 million in the highly successful African food, art, music and retail business, moyo.

Read More at AllAfrica.com…

WASHINGTON—-Allied Capital Corporation announced today that it has successfully completed the structuring and syndication of $73.5 million in senior credit facilities for PharMEDium Services, LLC .

Read More at Business Wire via Yahoo! Finance…

TVM Capital, which operates an office in Boston, reports opening a New York office while hiring two investors and promoting a third.

Read More at BizJournals…

U.S. venture capital firms invested a record $2.6 billion in clean technology in the first nine months of 2007 — a 46 percent jump compared to the $1.8 billion invested in all of 2006.

Read More at BizJournals…

New company in portfolio ? Points set for growth capital investment/Venture Capital/Private Equity Mannheim (euro adhoc) – November 30, 2007: At Leonardo Venture GmbH …

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The $2bn Global Strategic Equities Fund (GSEF) founded and sponsored by Dubai International Capital LLC (DIC), the international investment arm of Dubai Holding, today announces that it has formed an advisory board of global business leaders.

Read More at GSEF appoints advisory board …

News; TSX: TOC – News) over PR Newswire, we are advised by the company that the eighth paragraph, first sentence, should read “GreatPoint Energy, Inc.” rather than “Greenpoint Energy Inc” and that second sentence should read “GreatPoint” rather than “Greenpoint” as originally issued inadvertently.

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NEW YORK, Nov. 28 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — CleanTech investments by US venture capital firms reached $2.6 billion from 168 deals in the first three quarters of 2007, according to data from Thomson Financial and the National Venture Capital Association.

Read More at The San Francisco Examiner…

New Delhi, Nov. 28 The Indian auto industry is not as hot a proposition as it was last year, going by the sharp drop in private equity deals in the sector.

Read More at The Hindu…

Laser Energetics, Inc. announced today that the toxic convertible debentures that the Company previously issued to Cornell Capital Partners LP have been paid in full.

Read More at PR Newswire via Yahoo! Finance…