Yesterday marked the first official day of summer for the Northern Hemisphere, the day with the longest period of sunlight. The summer solstice marks the longest day of the year north of the equator, and from now until December, the days will gradually grow shorter. This years solstice was marked by blazing hot temperatures from Midwest to the Eastern Seaboard in the United States and torrential down pours in the United Kingdom.

Throughout history, the solstice was a celebration of agriculture for many cultures, acknowledging the sun’s role in the community’s harvest celebrating the event with festivals. The celebrations have continued into present day with gatherings across the United States in cities such as Seattle, Santa Barbara and Long Island. Continuing with a 10 year long tradition, thousands of New Yorkers converged in Times Square to celebrate the summer solstice by doing yoga.

The more widely known Summer Solstice celebration took place at the Stonehenge monument in Wiltshire where nearly 14,500 people turned up to welcome the pagan celebration of the sun through dark murky rain clouds. Although there was a torrential downpour throughout the preceding evening, crowd-goers were spared rain for the 4:52 AM sunrise.

Celebrate the days of summer with beruby and take advantage of this great Summer Solstice Sales from AccorHotels

The original Apple Computer, also known as the Apple I, was designed and hand-built by Steve Wozniak. Steve Jobs was the guy who took Wozniak’s idea and put it on the market.  The first edition of the Apple we have come to know and love came as a fully assembled circuit board containing around 30 chips and had a production run of about  200 units which were sold for $666.66 in July of 1976.

36 years later, in the time span of less than two minutes, one of the last remaining (and working)  Apple I’s sold for £240,929 at Sotheby’s Auction.  This bid broke the previous record of $212,000 that was paid by an Italian collector.  The computer was auctioned complete with its  manual and cassette interface, as well as the original advert for the computer.

According to the BBC, only 50 of the original 200 Apple I’s are still in existence,  few being in working order.  So, once again,  another page in Apple’s colorful history has been written.

Since the days of the Apple I,  Apple has become known worldwide for being an innovative leader in computer technology and applications.  Their computers have continually been at the forefront of sleek, contemporary design, and user friendly interfaces.

Right now if you buy a Mac for university you will receive a £70 Student Gift Card to use on apps, books, music and movies… OR you can also choose to purchase a new iPad and get a £35 Student Gift Card.

Shop using your  beruby account and receive an additional 2% in cash back savings
on all of your Apple purchases!

Did you know that in the last year, 17% of couples who married, met on online on a personals or dating site? With online dating making close to $4 billion a year, meeting your true love via cyber space has reached new demands. Now you can use Skype as a unique way to set up a few dates and really get to know your potential significant other before meeting in person. Here are a few interesting Skype tips and factoids to help you get in the dating spirit this summer!

Sign up and meet your special someone with Skype today and receive 100% cashback commissions when you use your beruby account!

Have you ever wondered how companies make decisions that appeal to the masses? To keep up in the marketplace, companies spend thousands of dollars to learn about what makes consumers, like you tick.  Over the years, online surveys have grown in popularity becoming the number one vehicle to learn about what customers think about products and services.

Lucky for us, many of these surveys are incentivized, meaning that you get paid for offering your opinion.  They are a great way to make fast and easy cash online. You can work from the comfort of your own home, offer your opinion and earn money for it!   Some survey sites will pay cash, and others offer gift certificates, vouchers, discounts, or points that can be redeemed for cash or other items.

To take part in online surveys, you can use your beruby account and register with Valued Opinions. Join Valued Opinions and start taking online market research surveys. Once your account accumulates £10 worth of rewards you will be able to exchange them for gift vouchers at some of the UK’s leading retailers or you can donate your earnings to your favorite charities.

This past weekend marked the celebration of Earth Day — a celebration of Mother Nature and the things that she provides; a time for honoring and commemorating the natural things around us and how we interact with them; a time for hugging trees.

No one knows more about hugging trees than the village women in India who helped to form the Chipko Movement. The Chipko Movement formed in 1970 in response to the destruction of forests throughout India. Local villagers gathered together and began wrapping themselves around the trees, preventing contractors from cutting them down, earning the name Chipko which means to hug or embrace. Within 10 years the movement spread throughout India and led to a variety of forest policies and the termination of chopping down large amounts of trees in a variety of regions.

Today, there is a shoe company by the same name, CHIPKOS continues to work to carry out the very same tradition. Their main ambition is to protect the earth’s environment by replanting forests around the world.

CHIPKOS has partnered with non-profit environment protection organizations such as SaveNature.Org and American Forests to allocate funds towards environmental protection. They even work to minimize environmental strain by limiting paper use and working in solar powered offices.

For every item you buy at CHIPKOS you work to help save our environment.

Right now when you purchase a Tree of Life Pendant, CHIPKOS will plant one tree! Plus take advantage of their Mother’s Day Sale and receive an additional 20% OFF and FREE shipping when you use the promo code WOWMOM. Plus don’t forget, when you use your beruby account you will also receive an additional 15% cash back!

So what are you waiting for… order yourself (or your Mom) a pair of CHIPKOS!
You’ll make your feet happy and help save the environment while you are at it!

If you were with us last year you might recall a little blog I wrote about tulips — http://blog.beruby.com/uk/2011/05/13/tiptoe-through-the-tulips/

With Spring in the air and Easter around the corner, there is no better time then to reintroduce the bulb brought forth by the Turks… In fact, it is the national flower of turkey and means Turban in Turkish.

Here are a few more fun facts about the versatile flower:

• Tulips symbolize imagination, dreaminess, perfect lover and a declaration of love.
• Tulip bulbs are a good replacement for onions in cooking.
• Tulips come in every color except blue and black.
• If you add a bit of sugar to the water of your vase your tulips will live longer.
• Tulips continue to grow after being cut, up to an inch or more, and its best to cut them under water.
• If you would like your tulips to stand straight up as an arrow, drop a penny in your vase!

Tulips are not the only thing in bloom!

Right now SAVE 27.00% when you take advantage of these budding offers

from Budgetplaces using your beruby account!

Spring has finally sprung and beruby is gearing up for Springtime Celebrations! Over the last month we are happy to announce the addition of several new merchants and advertisers to our community! This means more opportunities to save on the things you love! Shop from top named fashion brands and accessories to computers and home appliances.  Remember with beruby you now receive 100% of the commissions we receive from our advertisers AND you can cash out after you have earned your first pound!!!

Here is a sneak peak at some of the new advertisers we have acquired just for you:

Summer has ended and fall has crept up on us rather quickly… the weather, the leaves, the time and even beruby is changing. Winston Churchill once said “There is nothing wrong with change, if it is in the right direction” and today we bring you two BIG changes that will set us apart from the rest!

Requesting Payments — Now all it takes is $1!
If you are a United Kingdom resident, you can now request a withdraw from your balance once you have your first confirmed dollar… and, since you earn your first dollar when you join the beruby community that means you can practically request a payment from the very first day you log in as a beruby user!

In addition, we have also made a major change in the payment process: to validate your payment, you will need to provide a cell phone number in order to confirm your withdrawal. This change is necessary to insure our users that no one else can log into your account and collect what is not theirs. As you can see, we are now providing even greater security to your beruby account.

Please note: If you choose to withdraw less than $10.00 from your account you will be charged a $ 0.99 processing fee to cover administration costs. Payments over $10.00 however, will not be charged this fee.
If you are not a UK resident, you will not be able to withdraw from you account until you have reached a minimum balance of $10.00.

distinguishing beruby — beruby just for you!
Since beruby’s conception in 2007, we have paid attention to our advertisers, how they think and how they approach the world of Internet advertising. We have since come to the conclusion that in the global world, the majority prefer to advertise locally. Virtually all our advertisers within the United Kingdom specifically request user traffic from users residing in the United Kingdom. To meet these requests from our advertisers, we have adopted the following measures:

• As of today, beruby will only be serving newly registered users who reside in the country specified. This will only affect NEW USERS. For example, If you are already a member of beruby and you do not live within the United Kingdom you will still have access to your account. However if you live outside the United Kingdom you will no longer be able to register on beruby UK, you will have to register within your designated country.
• To address the needs of users residing in other countries, beruby intends to launch our services in additional countries. This year, we are pleased to announce the launching of two new beruby sites: beruby Argentina and beruby Mexico.

Communication is the Key:
We at beruby want to be your homepage and we want to make things more relevant to you as our users. Therefore, we rely on your feedback. We also want to know what you think, while we make more efforts to communicate to you the various news, features, etc.. happening in the world of beruby. You can always stay informed about beruby by visiting our blog, Facebook, Twitter , as well as periodic newsletters and emails.

We hope you take advantage of our changes and continue using beruby.

Do you have questions? Leave a comment!

Many of you may have heard the name Ai WeiWei this summer. For those of you who have not, Ai WeiWei is a Chinese contemporary artist, who works with a wide variety of mediums and whose activism in social, political and cultural criticism landed him in a detention center for 80 days earlier this summer.

As an artist, WeiWei uses a variety of Chinese antiquities in his art work, giving them a new sense of life which scrutinizes the duality of China’s past with its swift transmutation into the future. As a political activist, WeiWei is openly critical of the Chinese Government’s stance on democracy and human rights.

On 3 April, Ai was arrested just before catching a flight to Hong Kong. His studio was searched, and it was announced by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs that Ai was arrested under investigation for alleged economic crimes.

During WeiWei’s detention, the Chinese media portrayed Wei as a ‘deviant and plagiarist’. A political artist who is not afraid to speak his mind and let his voice be heard through his art is often seen to others as a threat, especially in China where “rocking the boat” is frowned upon. Chinese media described WeiWei as “a person who likes to do something ‘others dare not do.’ He likes to push the boundaries and in China, the act of doing so may not be difficult, but the consequences could be.

On 22 June 2011, the Chinese authorities released Ai Weiwei on bail after close to three months’ detention on charges of tax evasion. Although Ai Weiwei was granted bail, he is prohibited from leaving Beijing without permission for one year and has been warned not to make public statements.

Today, Ai WeiWei has been named the most powerful person in the art world according to ArtReview magazine. Some feel that the selection was done out of political prejudice however, it is undeniable that Ai WeiWei has made contributions to the art world which are not only beautiful in their aesthetics but push certain boundaries and cause the viewer to think and put things into context, politically, socially and emotionally.

According to Ai, “It’s proof internationally that the art community is really concerned with my art, with my effort,” he said. “You can sense the power when people really care, identify with the cause. But as a person, I don’t feel powerful.”

Shop a variety of contemporary art from China and all over the world at Art.com right here on beruby!

Earn 3.33% cashback when you purchase prints from Art.com.

Earn 1.67% cashback when a member of your network purchases prints from Art.com.

You can find Art.com on beruby…

… here and in the category Shopping>>Home and Decoration.

As you’ve probably noticed, the beruby blog has had a complete makeover! This is a bit of preview of the all-new beruby.com, which will be coming to a computer near you very soon. We want to know what you think! Leave us your thoughts on the new look of the beruby blog here and in our forums. Let us know what’s hot and what’s not!