Television

You're tired of dreading summer because it means more time in shorts and a swimsuit so you've made a commitment to get back into shape. That's great but... How? Unless you're part of the one per cent, personal trainers may be out of the question. Gyms are fine but at $60-$100 a month they add up too. Even purchasing home exercise equipment can mean spending a large sum of money at first. Here are five ways you can re-discover your best bod without having monthly fees or investing big money into a home gym.

In Driven: How to Succeed in Business and in Life, Shark Tank's Robert Herjavec recounted how he went from a Croatian immigrant at eight-years-old to the founder and CEO of The Herjavec Group -- now the country's largest IT security firm and consistently topping lists as Canada's fastest growing technology company.

"We started The Herjavec Group ten years ago with three guys and $400,000 in sales and we finished at $125 million last year and just today, we bought another one of our small competitors that does $30 million a year," he says.

With results like that, it's no wonder he was recently named Ernst & Young's 2012 Entrepreneur of the Year in the technology group and is always pushing the limits of his own success even further. He wants you to reach new heights of success this year too, which is why he wrote The Will to Win: Leading, Competing, Succeeding (HarperCollins Canada) a sequel of sorts to Driven.

While Driven urged readers to take risks, take control of their lives, and stay true to their own visions, The Will to Win pushes them to refuse to accept mediocrity, use their power at the right time and always be willing to adapt and change, with some special advice from Herjavec's celebrity friends like Oprah, Celine Dion and UFC Welterweight Champion Georges St. Pierre thrown in for good measure.

We caught up to this Ferrari racing, marathon running, cyber security expert just long enough for him to tell us whether he's truly afraid of anything, why it seems like sometimes his investment offers get passed over in favour of the bigger fish in the tank and whether The Millennial Generation needs to invent their own job.

There's probably nothing worse than being called a Money Moron by financial expert Gail Vaz-Oxlade while it's happening.

Just ask James and Deanna, this actor and actress couple received a rude awakening about the state of their finances when they were voluntarily ambushed by Vaz-Oxlade and her "tough love" approach to financial health on her new show of the same name (Premiering Friday April 19th at 9 p.m. EST/6 p.m. PST on Slice).

So, what exactly is a "Money Moron" and could you be one?

By Matt Brownell
Daily Finance

Cable and satellite TV providers give you access to hundreds of channels, but all of them are clearly intended for human viewers. That's about to change.

Bloomberg reports that DirecTV will soon start showing DogTV, the world's first television channel whose target audience has four legs and a tail.

The network explains on its website that it features 24/7 programming "created to meet specific attributes of a dog's sense of vision and hearing and supports their natural behavior patterns."

It goes on to explain that the channel "helps prevent mental fatigue, depression and boredom." Clearly, the idea here is to keep your dog from getting anxious or restless while you're off at work. Some of the programming is meant to relax the dog by showing other dogs chilling by a pond or sleeping peacefully; some is meant to stimulate the dog by showing other dogs at play, as seen here:



We can't help but wonder if seeing those lucky dogs frolic and play might provoke feelings of canine jealousy in a housebound pooch. Another possible scenario is that your dog will get a little too excited and try to join in on the fun.

But the channel's animal behavior experts insist that the veterinary science underlying the approach is sound. If you want the channel for your pooch -- or you think you'd enjoy watching dogs play on your television all day -- you'll be able to get it in the third quarter for just $6 a month.

Matt Brownell is the consumer and retail reporter for DailyFinance. You can reach him at Matt.Brownell@teamaol.com, and follow him on Twitter at @Brownellorama.

Rachel Fox played Kayla Scavo, Felicity Huffman's scary stepdaughter, on "Desperate Housewives." Five years later, at the ripe old age of 16, she has finally come clean about her addiction ... to investing.

The stock market has become a favorite hobby for Fox, so much so that she has started a blog -- the catchy "Fox on Stocks" -- where she dishes investing advice, lessons on using stop-limit orders, and specific stock picks (both long and short).

So far, she's achieved results many pros would envy: Fox's returns have beaten the S&P 500 -- she allegedly made a 30.4 percent gain last year, compared to the S&P's 13 percent.

Is it just dumb luck, or does this teenager know something that you don't?

So, now that the champagne has stopped flowing, the after-parties have died down and the winners have been announced, many of us are still wondering out loud: "When the glad-handing stops and the speeches have been heard, does winning an Oscar really matter?"

Well, it turns out that it depends who you ask. Audiences and actors alike have been told continuously that the moment you get to put "Oscar Winner" in front of your name, the floodgates for primo parts and project offers suddenly open and your phone never stops ringing. Instantly, our favourite actors and actresses are supposedly rocketed to the top of the heap in their profession just because they're bathing the infinite heat of a golden bald statuette.

"The reality for me is that I thought my phone would be ringing a lot, and it wasn't," Octavia Spencer, who took the statue in 2012 for Best Supporting Actress in 'The Help,' said in an interview with Vulture last year. "My phone wasn't ringing off the hook; I didn't feel like anything was changing."

Spencer found out the hard way that an Oscar isn't necessarily a golden key. According to industry insiders, that key depends on several other factors.

By Matt Brownell
Daily Finance

This year's Oscars will see the return of a long-lost cinematic legend: the "Pardon Me" commercials for Grey Poupon mustard.

The Associated Press reports that the Dijon mustard brand will return to the airwaves more than 16 years after its "Pardon Me" ads last aired. Kraft will run an updated version of the ad during the Oscars on Feb. 24, and according to the AP report, we'll get to see what happens after the old man in the Rolls-Royce gets his hands on the requested condiment.

While we don't want to ruin the surprise, we can tell you that in true Hollywood fashion, a car chase ensues.



According to the AP, the return to the airwaves comes on the heels of dwindling market share for the brand, with share of the U.S. market falling from 13.7% to 11.4% over the last decade. The original ad became something of a pop culture icon, spawning numerous parodies and references. Our favorite was this tribute in Wayne's World, in which Wayne and Garth pull up next to a snooty-looking man in a fancy car and ask the famous question.
If you can't wait until Oscar Night to watch the commercial, you can head over to Ad Age, which has a sneak peek.

In a sign of the times, the new Grey Poupon ad will also feature a web element: At the end of the ad, viewers will be directed to GreyPouponChase.com, where they'll be able to see how the story ends. And they'll also be encouraged to talk about it on Twitter with the hashtag #PardonMe, because even mustard gets its own hashtag these days.

Matt Brownell is the consumer and retail reporter for DailyFinance. You can reach him at Matt.Brownell@teamaol.com, and follow him on Twitter at @Brownellorama.

Personal finance expert and author Gail Vaz-Oxlade sat down with WalletPop to talk about her book, Never Too Late.

In this segment, she focuses on the importance of saving for young people in their twenties.

Retirement isn't something many young people want to think about, but according to Gail Vaz-Oxlade, this is exactly the time that people need to be thinking about it.

Personal finance expert and author Gail Vaz-Oxlade sat down with WalletPop to talk about her book, Never Too Late.

This is the best book for figuring out a plan that will work for you. Never mind what The Spurts tell you that you'll need. The only number that counts is the number that will get you to where you want to be.

By Sterling Wong
Minyanville

Last summer, during a protracted legal battle with bitter rival Samsung (PINK:SSNLF), the world learned a lot about how Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) has been able to enjoy free publicity over the years, thanks to carefully placed product placements in Hollywood movies.

According to testimony by Phil Schiller, Apple's global chief of marketing, the Cupertino, California-based company never pays for its products to be used by Hollywood stars in movies and television, but it does "have a person who helps provide products to people that want to do that."

"Apple won't pay to have their products featured, but they are more than willing to hand out an endless amount of computers, iPads, and iPhones," elaborated Gavin Polone, producer of HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm, in a conversation with Daily Tech. "It's kind of a graft situation."

Whoever Apple hired to promote its merchandise for product placement usage must have received large bonuses because Apple has all but invaded the big screen in the past decade. According to a study by Brandchannel, Apple-branded products showed up in over one-third of all US box office-topping films between 2001 and 2011, which was more than what McDonald's (NYSE:MCD), Pepsi (NYSE:PEP), and Sony VAIO (NYSE:SNE) could muster up. In 2011's Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, Apple products got more than five minutes of screen time, which marketing firm Front Row Analytics calculated was worth more than $23 million.

The free publicity Apple enjoys helps the company keep advertising costs down. Apple spends just $1 billion per year on advertising, much less than Samsung ($2.6 billion) or Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) ($1.6 billion). It also allows the company to reap the intangible benefits of being associated with the glamorous Hollywood film industry.