No matter how careful you are, there's a good chance a few drips will fall on the stairs when you paint. Use drop cloths or old sheets to protect the stairs. If there are any hanging pictures or removable fixtures on the walls of your staircase, you may want to remove them before you begin painting. Be very careful when walking on the stairs, especially if they are wooden, as the cloth will make them slippery. To construct a scaffold, you will need ladders on the floor above and the floor below the stairs you will be painting. A step ladder is the most stable option, and should be able to fit on the floor at the top of your stairs. The step ladder should be parallel with the stairs, and set back at least 6in (15cm) from the top stair to avoid any risk of falling. It's a good idea to place cinderblocks or weights on the inner side of each ladder leg to keep it from moving, laying down a cloth first to protect your floors. There will most likely not be room to fit another step ladder at the bottom of the stairs that is high enough to make a scaffold. Instead, prop the top of an extension ladder against the wall opposite your stairs. Prop the bottom against 1 of the stairs so that the ladder is angled enough that you could climb it. Position the extension ladder so that its rungs are even with the rungs of the step ladder, so that your scaffold will be level. You may want to wrap the top arms of the ladder in cloth or foam to protect your wall. Find a board that is at least 2 inches (5.1cm) thick and about 12 inches (30cm) wide, or wide enough to stand on. It should be long enough that you can set 1 end on a rung of your step ladder and the other end on a rung of your extension ladder. This will be your scaffold to stand on while you paint the ceiling. Use clamps to secure the board to the ladder and keep it from slipping when you stand on it. You can also nail stops on the underside of the board on either side of where it will rest on the rung.
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One-sentence summary -- Cover the stairs and railing with drop cloths. Place a step ladder at the top of the stairs. Prop an extension ladder against the wall at the bottom of the stairs. Lay a 2- by 12- inch (5.1-cm x 30.5-cm) board between the ladders. Clamp the board to the ladder rungs on each side.

Steam is an online entertainment platform created by the developers of Counter-Strike. Among other things, Steam allows for social networking, automatic updates, and management of friends. When you download the program, create a desktop icon on your computer to make it easier to find. Double click the desktop icon. The logo is dark blue or black and white and looks like a wheel attached to a crank shaft, meaning a larger circle attached to a smaller circle, which is joined to another small circle by a rod. To create an account, click Create a New Account. Fill out the form, provide a username and password, and click Create My Account. If you already have an account, simply log in with your existing username and password. From the drop-down menu, select Add a Friend. Alternatively, if you are looking at your current friends list, you can also scroll to the bottom and select +Add a Friend. Because Steam manages several games, you may have to look up friends by their Steam usernames, rather than their Counter-Strike names. When you locate the friend you're looking for in the community, click Add as Friend on the right beside his or her name. When prompted, select Next > Finish. While the invitation is pending, that community member will be listed under your friends list, but under a different category called Invitations Sent. You won't be able to see whether or not this community member is on or offline until he or she accepts your request.
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One-sentence summary -- Download Steam on your computer. Launch Steam. Login or create an account. Select Friends in the top left corner. Type in the name of a friend you want to add. Wait for that friend to accept your request.

When you get your year-end statements in January, take a look at the performance of your mutual funds and rearrange your investments by buying and selling shares. This allows you to retain your original balance. For example, suppose you have $100,000 which you have spread evenly across four different funds. However, at the end of the year, one fund has out-performed the rest so that it is now 30 percent of your portfolio rather than 25 percent. To rebalance your portfolio, you would want to take 5 percent of your shares in that fund and transfer them to the other funds in your portfolio. If your funds are held in a tax-deferred account such as a 401k, transferring assets between funds typically is your best option. However, with taxable accounts it's generally better to simply add new contributions to the lower-performing funds to rebalance. This way you can avoid paying taxes on the assets you sell and transfer. Performance weighting is a rebalancing strategy that involves selling shares from a high-performing fund and buying shares in your lowest-performing fund. While it seems counterintuitive, it follows the principal that funds tend to bounce back. You can think of this as adhering to the general stock investment strategy of buying low and selling high. You typically can buy more shares in a lower-performing fund, so you'll realize a greater return when it bounces back. Rebalancing your portfolio in this way will put you further ahead in the long-term than other strategies. When investing in mutual funds, discipline and self-control are important for healthy long-term returns. If you are impatient and trade frequently, chasing high-performance funds and large gains, you end up costing yourself a lot of money. Ultimately, anyone can be a successful investor, and mutual funds are a great investment vehicle for beginning investors. However, you must have a plan to invest and the discipline to stick to that plan. Avoid making decisions based on emotions or out of desperation. If you are questioning your motives for making an investment decision, talk to an advisor who can be objective. Typically, mutual funds will bounce back from a downturn, so it's not necessarily a good strategy to dump a mutual fund just because it performs poorly in the short-term. However, If a fund has taken an overall downward trend for awhile, it may be time to let it go. You also should watch out for funds that change managers, especially if this happens suddenly. Different managers may have different strategies that could significantly affect performance. Be on the lookout for changes that mean the fund at present has changed character so much that it's no longer the same fund in which you originally invested. Replace it with a fund that more closely matches your original goal for that fund within your portfolio.
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One-sentence summary --
Rebalance your portfolio every year. Practice performance weighting. Take a disciplined approach. Replace under-performing funds.