It's not that I object to paying for web access while I'm traveling. Yes, I emphatically believe that it enhances a place's image to offer Web access for free, the way running water and heat are part of the package. Still, connectivity costs money to install and maintain, so I can deal with renting as long as the fee is reasonable.

What stinks is how it's dispensed. The billing increments are usually completely disconnected from the reality of how people actually use the web on the road. And that turns a sensible fee into something idiotic.

Hotels. Every place I check into offers the web these days. The smart ones, such as chains like Hyatt Place and Hampton Inn and nearly every privately owned hotel, offer it for free. They see it as an easy way to bait the hook. And I bite. I admit I am more likely to choose a hotel with free access than one that makes me pay. I know I'm not alone in this. But the ones that charge do so stupidly. Access comes in 24-hour increments there.

Now, think about this. You're going to check in at around 4 p.m. at the earliest. And you're going to leave at around 10 a.m. in the morning if you're lucky. That's about 18 hours. Business travelers will spend even less time than that in their rooms.

One of the quickest ways to throw yourself into financial turmoil, is to seal a deal with a handshake. I'm not implying that handshakes are bad, I'm just insisting that they need to be backed with a bona fide contract. Even when conducting business with friends, family, or trusted coworkers, a great deal of discomfort and confusion can be avoided by spelling out the rules of a deal and by putting your signatures to it. The bigger the deal is, the more critical a contract is. When dealing with large amounts of money, a professional lawyer should be consulted also.

I had a situation once, which involved having a coworker install new wood siding on my garage. I thought it would be a fairly simple arrangement. We agreed on a price, and a completion date. He was to be paid when the job was finished. The problem arose when I came home one day to see the new siding on my garage. What had happened was that the garage wasn't level, and rather than leveling the siding with the environment, my carpenter friend applied the siding in accordance with the structural lines of the garage. I'm not kidding when I say that the garage looked like a ship in the process of sinking.

Don't miss the rest of our series on 15 Ways to Ruin Your Financial Future!

Because we had simply agreed to a siding installation, my friend insisted that he had fulfilled his part of the bargain. I bit down hard on my pride and cut him a check, then I stripped the siding off of the garage and reinstalled it myself. In retrospect, a contract would have specified that the work would be done correctly and in a "workmanlike manner." I have not made any business agreements without signed, written terms, since that one hard earned lesson.

The chances that Beefy T you're wearing was made in the USA are about to get slimmer.

Hanesbrands announced Wednesday that it's closing four of its plants in its home state of North Carolina, as well as three in Central America, as a cost-cutting measure.

In brief, the apparel company plans to lay off about 8,100 workers in four countries and to create about 2,000 new jobs at its sewing plants in Thailand and Vietnam. Giving a nod to the fact that outsourcing has become accepted practice in these tough economic times, Hanesbrands CEO Richard Noll said in a statement that the closures and layoffs are "a critical plank in our strategic efforts to reduce costs."

According to USA Today, the costs in question were incurred in 2006, when Hanes spun off from Sara Lee. While analysts lauded the move, saying the marriage of underwear and baked goods was about as comfortable as an ill-fitting thong, Hanesbrands took it in the shorts with $250 million in related charges. Since the company still has to cover about $46 million of these charges, Hanesbrands has more consolidation planned for the near future.

By the end of next summer, its last large knit-fabric textile plant in the U.S. will be shuttered, along with a sewing plant in Mexico. These closures will be balanced somewhat by the opening of a textile plant in China, which will supply fabric for workers throughout Asia. Investors reacted to the news by giving Hanesbrands' stock a slight wedgie: Shares fell 10 cents after Wednesday's announcement.

Despite the economic crunch and indicators that business travel was slowing, Orbitz for Business reported today in its quarterly report that almost two thirds of business travelers are traveling as much or more than they have in past years, an increase over last quarter. The survey also picked up on an interesting trend in business travel that shows three fourths of businessmen and women mixing business and pleasure while traveling for work.

The survey found that close to 75% of business travelers have extended their trips to accommodate a vacation when traveling for work. In response to a separate question, over 40% of business travelers have taken someone with them on the trip without extending their stay. These numbers aren't surprising to me since this is how my wife and I have had almost every vacation since our honeymoon.

I started a new job just before we got married and between adjusting to life outside a dorm room and paying student loans we didn't have much cash left over for travel. Thankfully my first working year took me to West Virginia, Chicago and South Carolina for conferences and training. My wife accompanied me on two of these trips and our only out of pocket costs were for her meals, which let us do some cheap sightseeing and catching up with friends.

The latest hub-bub in Ohio and around the country has been the push for all employers to offer paid sick days to all of their employees. The proposal, currently working its way through state legislation, is under fire because many see it as yet another area where the government is stepping into the business sector.

This may be true, but this time I am behind the intrusion as long as the lawmakers can draft a law which provides some minimum of mandatory sick days to employees, while also allowing for many of the notable exceptions included in the new minimum wage law. Hopefully it will also provide some flexibility in there as well. All that, and it has my yes vote!

This is a good idea for one simple reason. The first thing you hear from teachers and school administrators is to keep your kids home when they are sick so that whatever they have isn't spread throughout the entire school. This same principle applies to small businesses, maybe even more so because a good deal of them do not have the capacity to carry on with five employees all out since Jayne didn't stay home with pink eye because rent was due next week.

Jan Dietrick, general manager of Rincon-Vitova Insectaries Inc. recently received a call from Fox TV. They were looking for 5,000 maggots immediately for a new reality TV show, "Truth or Consequences." They had to be clean maggots, according to Ms. Dietrick. "I was informed that the contestants had to eat them." She responded to the request and got to work. "We'll wash them, put them in deli containers, and have them ready for you in the morning," she informed the network.

The bug industry is growing these days -- and reality TV is just the beginning. The boom in organic gardening has turned bugs into big business. According to the Wall Street Journal, The Association of Natural Biocontrol Producers, a trade group that represents the 30 biggest insectaries in the land, estimates that about $200 million in commercial bugs are sold each year with the demand growing about 10% annually. And that does not include the order for millions of ladybugs that were poured over the actress Thandie Newton in the film "Beloved."

It's always interesting to learn about a financial lending firm that arrives on the scene during a monetary crisis. In this case, I'm thinking of GlobeFunder, a direct-to-consumer lending company. I half wonder if the executive management team thinks it's the unluckiest company in the world -- or if it actually feels very fortunate. After all, with a credit crunch, there are fewer borrowers who have good credit and can get a loan. But with a credit crunch, it certainly will have plenty of people who want to borrow from the company.

So that brings me to GlobeFunder. I thought I'd let everyone -- entrepreneurs in particular -- know that there's a new financial lending firm on the scene, and it's eager to lend you money. Well, hold on, before you get too excited. It's eager to lend you money as long as you have good credit. Yeah, there's always a catch.

(If it helps, you have to have a credit score that is at least 640.)

Anyway, GlobeFunder can offer people $25,000 in unsecured loans, depending on your state's laws. They'll also soon be offering home equity and auto loans.

One of Cape Cod's best known diners, the old Tinman -- a 1941 Sterling Steamliner -- was burnt down by a waitress's estranged husband in November, 2000. The diner's owner, Barbara Lind, had no insurance.

The Tinman had been a landmark of sorts, set back from Rte 28, one of the two highways that brings thousands of people onto Cape Cod. Its "Wizard of Oz" collection, which was everywhere the eye could see, made it a great place to bring children. With a diner comfort food menu that included classics like meat loaf, macaroni and cheese, liver and onions, Lind's diner was also a gathering place for military personnel.

The Tinman sat charred and desolate for awhile before it disappeared. Then, three years ago, a second diner, Wendell's Corner Snack Shop just two miles away, also shut down. You can guess the rest of the story: The 1927 Tierney diner reopens this weekend, renovated and repainted in pastels, as the new Tinman. How it happened is what makes the story.

Some deals only come around once or twice a year, but offer savings that justify the wait. This post is part of our series on such 'don't miss' sales.

When I think about dressing for business, it's usually just that, thinking. In my world, a stout pair of jeans, a clean t-shirt and a sweatshirt will serve you for just about everything. Yet there's always been a part of me that wanted the natty look of a midnight blue, three piece, pinstriped Brooks Brothers suit. The company is famous for outfitting dignitaries from Abraham Lincoln to John F. Kennedy, as well as popular figures like Clark Gable, Andy Warhol and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, so it should be able to gild me as well.

The suits normally cost a minor royalty's ransom-- the Golden Fleece two-button pinstripe, for example, retails for $1,600. However, the company's semi-annual sales bring them a little closer to the Earth I inhabit. After Christmas and in June, Brooks Brothers knocks 25% off of much of its stock. If you open a Brooks Brothers credit account at that time, you can bump this discount up to 33%, quite a healthy savings on an outfit just south of $2,000.

Brooks Brothers was established in 1818, during the administration of John Quincy Adams, making it the nation's oldest clothing retailer. With 170 U.S. locations and 70 in other countries, even we in the hinterlands can dress like the famous. You may use this store locater to find Brooks Brothers near you.

Even at 33% off the regular price, those fantastic Golden Fleece suits are still a bit out of my reach, though. For now, I'll just have to imagine how a $1,600 suit must feel. Perhaps I should resume pursuing that law degree after all. Ya think?

I'm writing about women's incomes -- what were you thinking?

In a recent scan of Donald Trump's blog, Trump University, I read a blog post the Donald wrote regarding women who earn better incomes than their male partners and what that disparity can do to the men in their lives. Referring to a report provided by Psych Central, Mr. Trump admonishes the partners of women who earn higher salaries to swallow their false pride and examine the upside.

It would seem that being the husband of a woman who is the major bread winner can have some pretty serious health consequences for the man, at least that's what the report points out. However, it's my opinion that men who develop health issues because they begin to earn less than their sweeties are men who already have issues wedged somewhere deep within their mentalities and they should consult with someone about those issues.

Most entrepreneurs probably don't consider now a good time to launch a big enterprise. In spite of Bernanke's claims that we're not in Vietnam anymore, inflation numbers are up and people are bracing themselves for months of high gas prices, low wages, political uncertainty and overall doom. Which, come to think of it, is the ideal time to throw some money into a start-up.

But, where is the money going to come from? Check it: Business reporter Matt Alderton has a handy 5-point plan for securing small business financing. And here's the clincher: They all start with M!

1. Mojo: If you want to impress the bank (or any lender) you're going to have to suck it up and break out the PowerPoint. And it doesn't hurt to roll up your sleeves, look people in the eye and if possible crack your knuckles.

So you want to start a business, but you're not sure what industry to go into, especially if a recession is coming? Well, you're in luck. Here's my handy-dandy list of the fastest growing industries, trends, developments and anything else I could find that's fastest-growing. I did this by pouring through piles of data and interviewing 11,241 scientists, academics and movers and shakers. (Actually, I just googled "fast-growing" a lot, but close enough.) In case it helps you with brainstorming, in no particular order, here's what I came up with.

Fastest-growing economy: China
Who says? Everyone. It's common knowledge, but there you go, in case you forgot...

Fastest growing segment of the leisure travel industry: Adventure Travel
Who says? Hey, this is a shock. The Adventure Travel Trade Association

I finally did it. I bought myself a cell phone. Not only did I purchase one for myself, but I bought one for my wife also. The best part of my purchase is the price I'm paying for the phones. They are costing me nothing and they're being shipped to me for free, in return for contracting with Alltel Wireless for their service.

Yes, I know that you can get deals like this every day, but I shopped long and hard for cell phones which would satisfy the needs of both my wife and myself. The LG AX275 meets all our requirements with only a small compromise on the camera resolution I was looking for. When shopping I ended up at a site called Letstalk.com and I'm quite satisfied with the results.

The phones normally retail for about $245 each. We're getting two of them without cost. Activation of each phone will cost $25 apiece, a one time fee we'll pay up front. It's a full featured camera phone, Blue Tooth- enabled with speaker phone function to boot. The camera resolution is an acceptable 640 by 450 pixels, not what I wanted but certainly acceptable for snapping pictures for blogs.

I can't give you a full product review because we don't have the phones in hand yet. Suffice it to say that if we're happy with them you'll hear about it, and if we're dissatisfied, you'll probably hear all about that instead

From the home office in Burlington County, New Jersey, I give you my top 5 rules for home business success. They are in no particular order and have been created through an arbitrary process of my own devising and if you don't like them take them up with my boss, who also happens to be my wife.

1. No kids -- I don't care who you are or what you do, you aren't going to get any work done as long as there are off-spring roaming your house. Heck, it's even tough to be productive with a dog or cat. Send them to daycare or have a relative come to your home to watch over your bundle or bundles of joy.
2. Hygeine -- One of the great freedoms of working from home is that you don't have to dress up in fancy work clothes. Nonetheless, you must resist the temptation to work all day in your pajamas and fuzzy bunny slippers.
   

I read an interesting article recently over at TheStreet.com which outlined five business ventures which can be undertaken with little or no cash investment. These are proven ideas which may work for just about anyone. I'd like to give you a brief synopsis of that article by Jeffrey Strain and I'd also like to interject a couple ideas of my own.

Jeffrey's opportunity list starts out by suggesting a venture which is near and dear to my heart (and wallet). That suggestion is blogging. Yes my friends, there is money to be made in blogging. In fact, I'm padding my own bottom line right now. Blogs are easy to start and if you're a natural writer, blogging is easy to do. Jeffrey gives you a couple directions you can go for getting started as an independent, or you could take your shot at blogging right here with us! There are two basic kinds of blogging you may wish to consider. You can blog as a strict independent or you can blog as a freelance / contract writer. I prefer the contract gigs for myself, because they offer a good measure of security and you often have seasoned writers zipping around who can help you out of an occasional tough spot. (Thanks team!)