text:
HOUSTON, Texas (AP) -- Dwight Howard scored 23 points and James Harden and Chandler Parsons added 19 each as the Houston Rockets used a big third-quarter run to pull away for a 109-94 win over the Chicago Bulls on Wednesday night.
The Bulls trailed by three with 5½ minutes left in the third before their offense went cold. Houston took advantage of the scoring drought, using a 15-1 spurt to make it 83-66 entering the final period.
Chicago missed six shots and had five turnovers in that span, while Omri Casspi scored seven points to power Houston's offense.
The Rockets picked up the victory in the return of coach Kevin McHale, who had missed the previous three games following the death of his mother.
To comment, the following rules must be followed:
Comments may be monitored for inappropriate content, but the station is under no legal obligation to do so.
If you believe a comment violates the above rules, please use the Flagging Tool to alert a Moderator.
Flagging does not guarantee removal.
Multiple violations may result in account suspension.
Decisions to suspend or unsuspend accounts are made by Station Moderators.
Questions may be sent to firstname.lastname@example.com. Please provide detailed information.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
This week's Image of the Week (featured on page 3 of Flight International), is taken by AirSpace user Keith Gaskell. His photo depicts a South African Airways A340-600 flanked with two SAAF Silver Falcons on each side. Keith took the photo at Africa Aerospace & Defence 2008 at SAAF AFB Ysterplaat in Cape Town.
"One of the highlights on the two public days was the display by a South African Airways A340-600 which made two passes in formation with 4 PC-7 Astras of the SAAF Silver Falcons display team followed by a solo display which culminated in a steep spiraling climbout," Keith says.
Start a gallery on AirSpace for your chance at having your photograph featured as our Image of the Week.


text:
March 30, 2010
Austin, Texas- The University of New Mexico track and field team will head to Austin, Texas for the 83rd Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays. Competition begins Wednesday, with preliminary competition and will continue into Saturday for finals.
Schedule\ of\ Events
Weather: Temperatures in Austin should be in the high 70s to low 80s all weekend with a chance of thunderstorms on Friday.
Lobos To Watch
Indoor All-American Sandy Fortner will compete in her first outdoor heptathlon of the season. Fortner currently holds the school record in the event for her performance in the 2008 outdoor MWC Championships. The Fort Sumner, N.M. product holds second place in the event in the MWC with a score of 5,641.
Junior Deanna Young will be competing in both the long and triple jump.
On the men's side, sophomore transfer Lamaar Thomas will compete in the 100-meter dash. This will be Thomas' first outdoor competition with the Lobos.
Redshirt freshman De'Vron Walker will compete in the 110-meter hurdles. Walker was a two-time CIF state champion in the event as a junior and senior.
Stanford Invitational Rewind
University of New Mexico distance runners, junior Ruth Senior and senior Nicky Archer recorded a sensational day Friday, March 19 at the Stanford Invitational. Both smashed the school records in their respective races. Senior clocked a 15:57.32 in the 5,000 meters, shaving over 19 seconds off the previous record (16:16.9), while Archer killed the previous 10,000-meter record (34:06.9) by 34 seconds running a 33:32.83.
The previous 5K record was held by Kathy Pfiefer, set in 1984. Senior sliced the 26-year-old record finishing fifth in section 1 of the women's 5K. The Norwich, England product sliced her previous lifetime best (16:39.49) by 42 seconds.
Archer, who set her previous career-best at the same meet last year, was 60 seconds better this time around. The Cheshire, England product broke Pfiefer's 10K record also set in 1984.


text:
What an amazing week we had here in the roastery. We met so many of our neighbors, and made so many connections this week. Looking forward to meeting more of you in the coming days.
We are still working on nailing our hours down, but plan to do so by the first of August. You can always catch us at East Liberty Farmers Market on Monday afternoons from 3:30 – 7:30.


text:
Donington Park takes on NEC
Posted: November 07, 2012|
The biggest business venue in Leicestershire is aiming to lure major events away from national rivals.
Donington Park Exhibition Centre, which can accommodate up to 6,000 people, has launched a joint marketing push with leading hotels.
The initiative, overseen by publicly-funded marketing agency Leicester Shire Promotions (LSP), aims to exploit the central location of Castle Donington and its closeness to East Midlands Airport, the M1 and East Midlands Parkway railway station.
Bosses said the huge centre, next to Donington Park race circuit, offers 48,000 square feet (4,500 square metres) of space and provided a credible alternative to venues such as the NEC, in Birmingham, and the Ricoh Arena, Coventry.
Hotels signed up to the scheme include Radisson Blu at East Midlands Airport, Donington Manor, Hilton East Midlands Airport, Thistle East Midlands Airport and Priest House on the River.
Roger Lowe, business development manager at Donington Park, said: "The idea is to attract large events that need our accommodation and nearby hotels as well.
"It's aimed at large business associations or annual events which would normally go to the NEC or the Ricoh Arena.
"To bring people out of London, they need to know it's one-and-a-half hours on the train from St Pancras to East Midlands Parkway.
"It's about getting a message out there and letting people know our facilities are equal to, if not better than Birmingham, or other big centres."
LSP has secured four major national business events, including the annual Federation of Small Businesses conference, which will take place in Leicester in March.
Love Business East Midlands 2013 is expected to attract more than 1,300 visitors to Donington Park on February 14, building on the success of this year's inaugural event.
Heather Thornton, chairman of LSP's north west Leicestershire branch and sales director at Best Western Premier Yew Lodge Hotel, in Kegworth – also part of the Donington Park initiative – said: "Leicester Shire Promotions has had considerable success within the city and there should be no reason why we can't do this here, too.
"I think we need people to realise there's more to Leicestershire than just being a stop off on the way to the Lakes or the south coast."
Martin Peters, LSP chief executive, said: "This initiative shows these businesses have a real desire and commitment to promoting the area as a destination of choice."


text:
Go to Fan art N-Z and Miscellaneous.
If you wish to use fan art from this site, please ask the creator's permission. Where possible, I have included contact information with all fan art.
Artists are alphabetized by first name or nickname.
Click on description or thumbnail to fetch the image at full size.
Here is a computer graphic of D by
Amanda Berman.
Angel L. Natal
created a lovely sculpture of D based on the
design for the new movie.
D's Childhood by Ann Kemushi, submitted through her friend Gaallo.
Characters from the first movie by Berit Jurda.
Lamika Lee.
Rei Ginsei in the Green.
Rei's Expression (a bit depressed).
Tired Chibi Rei.
D image created solely with the Paint program.
Dracula, inspired by the first VHD movie.
A pencil sketch of Ramika by Chloe.
Original and canon characters as portrayed by Deitra Hicks.
Two-pairing image: Rei and Christine; D and Sabriel.
Original characters: Takami (Rei's son) and Feoraona (D's daughter).
Fics by Djake available in the fanfic archive have been illustrated by the author.
Adrea, from "Vampyre Hunter D."
D in modern dress, from "Vampyre Hunter D."
D and Blagden Nash, from "Enemy Mine."
D in battle, from "Enemy Mine."
D with his sword.
More images by the artist are at The Art of Dori Hartley.
A rendition of the "alluring sultry sexy scary freaky elfin gorgeous cold hot
Hunter D" by Dori Hartley.
Hunter D with Katana in Hand by Dori Hartley. The artist comments,
"I really love the way this guy holds his sword."
"D Is For Dreams"
"Hunter", an homage to Yoshitaka Amano.
Portrayals of D by D's Girl.
Portrait 1 (210 K) Portrait 2 (179 K) Portrait 3 (175 K) Portrait 4 (176 K)
Works by Erin C.
Portrayals of D
Holiday D
A special holiday presentation of D the way we want him:
under the mistletoe!
D and Doris
Moondance, an image of Meier and Charlotte.
Illustration for "A Tale of Two Hunters" (VHD/Vampire Princess Miyu fanfic).
Image of Rei Ginsei.
Portrayals of D (and other characters) by Gaallo are just as remarkable for their variety as for their quality.
D in Amano's style
D with a cross
"Crushed" (B/W)
"Ruins" (B/W)
D in Amano's style (B/W) Lamica (B/W) "Loneliness" "Poppy Infusion", a story illustration (B/W)
Foreshortened D Meier Link
Superdeformed Meier and Charlotte
in the style of a cartoon by Russian director Hitru
D vs. Alucard (Hellsing)
Gaallo reveals Count Lee's most embarrassing
secret in an animated gif.
More of Gaallo's art is in the fan art section of his site, around-of-Vampire Hunter D.
Rei and Ramika
The cover of VHD: A Verse Adaptation
Kanrinin's site Bark at the Moon has more of Kanrinin's fan art.
Portrait of D.
New year's greetings for 2005.
portrait of D.
Kanrinin's D images for 2006:
New Year's greetings 2006.
An image celebrating 30,000 hits at Bark at the Moon.
Vampire Hunter D BB Project.
New year's greetings for 2009.
The author of the Slayer novels doesn't just write; she produces truly cool fan art, like Give Me Light by Karen Koehler.
A dynamic portrayal of D by
Lorna H.
More of her work is at
la muse.
(Use the site map to navigate if you're on a slow connection.)
A portrait of D by Merageshu Habuki.
Fantasy images by Merxe.
Catherine, Meier and Charlotte's daughter.
Lovers, Catherine with D.
By Metaloonie, the artist formerly known as Roxyjoy.
D as a boy with a photographic background.
Rei as a young mutant.
Rei a little older and wiser.
Splattered, an illustration for the
artist's in-progress Evil Dead crossover.
Portrayals of D by Mistress Kurumi. You can see more of her art at her DeviantArt page.
VHD - Beginning Dream
VHD - End Dream
VHD - Found
VHD - Midnight Forest Dream VHD - No Face VHD - Satisfied Moon
A stylish portrayal of D and a monstrous adversary
by newtype_nemo.
Go to Fan art P-Z and Miscellaneous.


text:
Miraculous cures in the lives of the Saints
Miraculous healings and cures in the lives of the Saints
The lives of the Saints are full of extraordinary cures—- because after all, in St John's Gospel our Lord promised "Truly I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father. And whatever you ask in my name, I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son"
The task then for this website is to select a few of miraculous healings that are representative of the countless that have occurred in the lives of the Saints over the centuries. I have decided to select three miracles that occurred recently in modern times, the first one especially being well documented by the medical experts. I think these three miracles together give a good representation of the countless miraculous cures that God has wrought in the lives of the Saints.
The Miraculous Cure of Giovanni Savino
Giovanni Savino, a construction worker and a member of the Third Order of St. Francis, was a devoted spiritual son of Padre Pio. In February, 1949 the thirty-five-year-old construction worker was working on the construction of an addition to the friary where St Padre Pio lived. The workers were leveling the ground and were getting ready to blast a huge boulder that was impeding the construction. It was Savino's custom to attend Padre Pio's Mass each morning, then proceed to the sacristy to receive his blessing. On February 12, 1949, Giovanni was startled when, without any explanation, Pio, having blessed him, embraced him and said, "Courage, Giovanni, I'm praying to the Lord that you might not be killed. "
"Padre Pio, what's going to happen to me?" Savino asked. The priest was silent.
The next day Padre Pio said the same thing, without any further comment, as he did also on the third. When he repeated his disturbing remarks for the fourth time on February 15, Savino muttered to one of the friars, "I'm afraid something wrong is going to happen today," and told other members of his crew, "Let's not work today," telling the other men about Padre Pio's remarks. The crew decided to proceed, undeterred, in blasting away from the garden in preparation for the friary addition..
At 2 P.M. Savino and another worker placed a charge of dynamite under a boulder. Savino set the charge and lit the fuse. It failed to detonate. After a few minutes, he went over to check the charge. Just as he bent over, the dynamite blew up in his face. Dr. Sanguinetti, along with Padre Raffaele and Father Dominic, were at the side of the injured man within minutes. They carried Savino to Sanguinetti's car, in which the physician drove him to the Ospedali Riuniti (Hospital) of Foggia, where he was admitted for surgery. "Numerous foreign bodies" were removed from the cornea of the left eye. The right eye, however, was found to be completely destroyed. Moreover, his face had been severely damaged by the blast.
Sanguinetti drove back to San Giovanni where he told Rosa, who was then heavily pregnant, "Your husband's eyes are both destroyed," and warned her not to try to visit him. He then went to Padre Pio, who asked how Giovanni was, "He's been blinded. He's lost his eyesight."
"Don't you know that this isn't certain yet?" replied Padre Pio.
"Well, if you say that and you and Our Lady of Grace assist him, anything is possible, but, as of now, Giovanni has lost his eyesight."
"It's not certain yet," Pio repeated.
It was three days before Savino regained consciousness, with his entire head and face bandaged. He was told that it might be possible to save the left eye, but that the right eye was "completely gone."
In the meantime, Padre Pio was asking everyone he knew to pray for Giovanni for three days. He exposed the Blessed Sacrament in behalf of the blinded man. He was heard to pray, "Lord, I offer You one of my eyes for Giovanni, because he's the father of a family."
At 12:30 or 1 in the morning of February 25, Giovanni Savino was awake, praying the Rosary, when he smelled the "aroma of paradise." To the heavy smoker, it smelled like tobacco. He felt three slaps on his forehead and understood that it was Padre Pio near him. He actually felt the tightness of the bedclothes caused by someone standing against the bed. "Give me my sight, Padre Pio, or let me die," he said. "I cannot live like this."
Later that morning the ophthalmologist came to examine Giovanni Savino's left eye. When the doctor took the bandages off Giovanni immediately said "I can see you!" "Turn, so you can see me with your left eye," said the doctor. "No, I see you with my right eye. I don't see anything out of my left eye." The doctor insisted that he was seeing out of the left eye, as the right one was totally destroyed.
After further examination, it was clear that Savino spoke the truth. He was blind in the eye from which the shrapnel had been removed, but he was seeing perfectly from the eye that had been shattered to a bloody jelly. Completely astounded, the ophthalmologist, who up to that time had been an atheist, exclaimed, "Now I too believe, because this has happened right before me."
In the meantime, Giovanni and his wife Rosa's was expecting a baby at any time. Rosa asked Padre Pio, who told her that the child would be a boy, if she had permission to name the child after him. "All right, name him Pio," he said. "But we already have a girl named Pia. May we name him Francesco?" "All right, name him Francesco." St Pio replied. [Francesco is Padre Pio's first name]. Francesco later grew up to become a Capuchin priest, the same Religious Order as St Pio..
[Giovanni and his son Francesco are pictured to the left]Giovanni, who was still being treated for the extensive injuries to his face, was released from the hospital in early June. When he thanked Padre Pio, he was told, "If you only knew what this cost me!"
So, what exactly did it cost him? A clue may come from the recollections of Pietro Cugino, himself blind, who recalled that one day, in the garden, while talking to his confreres, Padre Pio suddenly exclaimed, "I'm blind. I can't see thing." After twenty minutes, his eyesight returned. Cugino was unsure about the exact date of this occurrence, but some believe it certainly could have been that this brief and inexplicable episode of blindness came about as a result of the offering Padre Pio had made in behalf of Giovanni Savino. Either way, in this case, St Pio did not deny his intercession on behalf of Francesco as he did with other supposed cures or supernatural happenings that surrounded him.
As time went on Giovanni was sent to an eye specialist in Rome for treatments to the left eye, in spite of St Padre Pio's prediction that these visits would do no good. . "No," Padre Pio said, "we have already obtained the grace which we have asked for. Even if you go to Rome you will not get any better than you are right now." And in fact, he remained always blind in the left eye, but until the day of his death at sixty in the spring of 1974, he could see perfectly well out of the right eye. His wife recalled, "To look at his eye, it always looked a mess. Yet he could see perfectly out of it."
The restoration of the sight of Giovanni Savino is well documented by the Medical experts for it has impressive attestation. Father Dominic described it in a circular letter in July 1949 month after Savino's return from his hospitalization in Foggia. The records of the "Ospedali Riuniti" record that Savino was admitted to surgery there and that the diagnosis was that one eye had "numerous foreign bodies in the cornea" and that the other eye was "blown out." The records do not mention the resolution of his injuries. The key words in the "Ospedali Riuniti" is "emoptalmo" which means completely evulsed or literally "completely torn out". But then how in fact did he see out of this eye, when it was completely or almost completely "blown out"?
Additionally, the account that he gave is essentially the same as that given in official depositions made by Giovanni on July 17, 1971, and by his widow on July 1, 1989. It is clear that the eye through which Savino was able to see was the one which had been damaged most extensively.
All the reports are in agreement that the right eye (the one later cured) was destroyed and almost completely missing. In his circular letter of July 1949, Father Dominic quotes Padre Raffaele, who examined Savino immediately after the explosion, as saying, ''The right eye is gone entirely. The socket is simply empty." Savino himself said that he was told by the doctors that the eye was "completely gone."
Giovanni's wife Rosa insisted that "a small amount of bloody flesh" remained in the socket when Savino was taken to the hospital. She denies that her husband received a "new" eye. "It was always with his own eye that he saw. It was a mess, but he could see out of it." Finally the official medical report from the Hospital states "emoptalmo", that is, completely evulsed or "torn out" In the end, one can only conclude that rather than seeing with a new or regenerated eye, Giovanni Savino saw without eyes for 22 years, until his death in 1971.
The miraculous cure of a paraplegic named Francesco Santarello
Another of the many miracles attributed to the intercession of St Pio was one that was reported during the summer of 1919, word of which reached the general public and the newspapers, despite the best efforts of Padre Benedetto and Padre Paolino who always sought to keep such matters hidden. One of them, witnessed by Padre Paolino, concerned one of San Giovanni Rotondo's most unfortunate persons, an old man named Francesco Santarello. He was so pathetically clubfooted that he was unable to walk. Instead, he dragged himself about on his knees, supported by a pair of miniature crutches. The unfortunate little man labored up the hill to the friary to beg bread and soup, as he had done for years. Poor Santarello was a fixture in the community and everyone knew him. Some of the more uncharitable children of the town loved to tease the unhappy beggar, going so far at times as to knock the crutches from under his shoulders and then laugh uncontrollably as he tumbled onto the pavement.
One day Santarello was positioned, as usual, near the door of the cloister, soliciting alms. A huge crowd had gathered, waiting for Padre Pio to emerge and enter the church. As Pio passed by, Santarello cried out, "Padre Pio, give me a blessing!"
Without stopping, Pio looked at him and said, ''Throwaway your crutches!"
Stunned, Santarello did not move. This time Padre Pio stopped and shouted, "I said, 'Throwaway your crutches!' " Then, without another word, Pio entered the church to say Mass.
In front of dozens of people, Santarello threw his crutches away, and for the first time in his life, began to walk on his deformed feet to the utter astonishment of his fellow townspeople, who but a few minutes before had seen him lurching about, as always, on his knees.
Santarello lived for some time after that. He never used his crutches again and was able to function quite well with the aid of a cane. Miscio and other city clergy contended that it was not truly a miracle because there was no substantial change in Santarello's physical condition. His feet remained just as badly clubbed as ever, with the toes pointed in the same direction as the heels, and there was no apparent remission of his mental retardation. Yet, for the little beggar and his acquaintances, that he could now walk rather than crawl was miracle enough.
A conversion and a cure
One day, also in 1919, a priest from Florence came to Our Lady of Grace with a Jewish friend named Lello Pegna. Padre Carlo Naldi explained that his friend, who had recently become totally blind, had come to ask Padre Pio to intercede with God for a cure.
Padre Paolino, who was an eyewitness, simply left a few notes about the incident. There was no doubt that Pegna was blind and was of the Jewish faith. Someone had even to help him eat, putting his plate in front of him, cutting his bread and meat, and placing the glass of wine in his hand.
Padre Pio welcomed Pegna but told him: "The Lord will not grant you the grace of physical sight unless you first receive sight for your soul. After you are baptized, then the Lord will give you your sight."
Several months later Pegna returned, this time without his dark glasses. He then explained that he had, despite opposition from his family, become a Christian and had been baptized, as was requested by St Pio. At first he was discouraged when his blindness persisted. It was perhaps another test of faith. But gradually, over a period of months, his sight returned, and the doctor who had previously informed him that he was hopelessly blind now was astounded that his patient's eyes were perfectly healed. Padre Paolino felt it was his duty to keep in touch with the man and he reported that nearly thirty years later, his vision was still perfect.
The above are but three of the many cures of one Saint of the Church, and because they are all of relatively recent history, they represent quite well the extraordinary graces that God has manifested in the lives of His devoted servants throughout the centuries.
-"Padre Pio The True Story" by C. Bernard Ruffin, Our Sunday Visitor Publishing, 1991.
-St. Padre Pio Devotions, www.padrepiodevotions.org
5 comments:
Wow--this is very inspiring and uplifting! Thanks for publishing this!
- February 12, 2011 at 12:33 PM
- Mike said...
GOD is amazing, let Him be amazing for you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- February 12, 2011 at 7:32 PM
I was blessed recently with a relic of St Pio. Alas so far I've not had any remarkable physical healing.
However as a catholic I am probably more healed spiritually than physically!. We are all going to end up in Heaven or Hell, I'd prefer Heaven over anywhere else. So if I don't get the physical healing oh well, keep praying!
John M
- December 26, 2012 at 7:42 PM
May God lighten your way and spirit John M. You are and will be blessed.
- January 3, 2013 at 6:29 PM
- haveittodayray said...
Several weeks ago while two spanish priests were given mass at St. Sharbel Maronite Catholic Church, here in Las Vegas, the statue of St. Sharbel started to "bleed oil" from the head, chest and palms of the hand. For protection the Knights of Columbus have been guarding the statute. If your in Las Vegas, you are invited to come see for yourself and form your own opinion. Personally, I went out and saw the oil coming out of the statute. St. Sharbel has more than 300+ miracles attributed to him.
- August 1, 2013 at 8:53 PM


text:
Belton, TX Fireplaces
Amilco Masonry & Fireplace Co Inc
Keep yourself warm during the winter with stoves offered by Amilco Masonry & Fireplace Co Inc. We have been serving Belton, TX and the surrounding areas for more than 25 years. We provide for all your fireplace needs. Our friendly staff is always ready to attend to all your queries – all you have to do is to visit our store. You're assured that all the products we sell are of the best quality.
We offer:
- Gas logs
- Pellet stoves
- Accessories
- Repair and installation
- Crown and brick repair
- Flue caps
- Waterproofing
- Chimney restoration
- Wood burning stoves
- Fireplaces inserts
- Factory built fireplaces
We carry the following brands:
- Regency
- Hampton
- Jotul
- Pacific Energy
- Lennox
- Superior
- Monessen
Contact Amilco Masonry & Fireplace Co Inc today at 254-939-0349 or click here to visit our store.
Contact Information


text:
Beginning Windows 8 Application DevelopmentPaperback Wrox Programmer to Programmer
Free delivery worldwide
Dispatched in 5 business days
When will my order arrive?
- Publisher: WROX PRESS
- Format: Paperback | 624 pages
- Dimensions: 186mm x 234mm x 32mm | 1,066g
- Publication date: 2 October 2012
- Illustrations note: black & white illustrations, black & white tables, figures
- Sales rank: 1,222,827
Product description
Learn to use exciting new development tools and createapplications for Windows 8 If you're a beginning developer, there's no better place to getup to speed on the Windows 8 SDK than this Wrox guide. A team ofMicrosoft experts provides a complete course in Windows 8programming, helping you take full advantage of the innovative newSDK. Written in an easy-to-read style, this book is packed withreusable examples that showcase the endless possibilities of theWindows SDK and also introduces the new Windows 8 app store. It explains how to set up the development environment and coversuser interface design, using special effects and graphics, workingwith C# and C++, and much more. * Provides a complete introduction to the Windows SDK and Windows8, starting with setting up the development environment andbuilding your first application * Covers user interface design, touch- and event-driven designelements, leveraging windows-based services, and offlineapplication development with HTML 5 * Explores creating C# applications for the Windows 8 system, XNA4 and Silverlight 5 considerations, and the role of C++ * Shows how to debug, certify and deploy your applications * Introduces the new Windows 8 app store and offers advice onmarketing your apps Beginning Windows 8 Application Development is perfectfor anyone who's ready to get started developing apps for theexciting new Windows 8 OS.
Add item to wishlist
Other books in this category
Learn Windows PowerShell 3 in a ...
USD$29.80 - Save $15.50 34% off - RRP $45.30
WPF 4.5 Unleashed
USD$34.66 - Save $23.14 40% off - RRP $57.80
Windows Server 2012 Unleashed
USD$43.32 - Save $14.48 25% off - RRP $57.80
WPF 4 Unleashed
USD$44.80 - Save $13.00 22% off - RRP $57.80
Learn ASP.NET 4.5, C# and Visual...
Learn Windows PowerShell in a Mo...
USD$26.03 - Save $19.27 42% off - RRP $45.30
Author information
Istvan Novak is a Microsoft MVP and RegionalDirector who is an associate of SoftwArt Ltd., a Hungarian ITservices company. Gyorgy Balassy is a Microsoft MVP, RegionalDirector, and ASPInsider who is a founding member of the local MSDNCompetence Center. Zoltan Arvai is a Microsoft MVP who is a front-endarchitect and a user experience designer of NextGenSolutionsLtd. David Fulop is a professional developerand software development trainer contracted by multiple companiesand universities.
Back cover copy
Table of contents
INTRODUCTION xix PART I: INTRODUCTION TO WINDOWS 8 APPLICATIONDEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: A BRIEF HISTORY OF WINDOWS APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT3 CHAPTER 2: USING WINDOWS 8 25 CHAPTER 3: WINDOWS 8 ARCHITECTURE FROM A DEVELOPER S POINTOF VIEW 61 CHAPTER 4: GETTING TO KNOW YOUR DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT 89 PART II: CREATING WINDOWS 8 APPLICATIONS CHAPTER 5: PRINCIPLES OF MODERN WINDOWS APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT121 CHAPTER 6: CREATING WINDOWS 8 STYLE APPLICATIONS WITH HTML5,CSS, AND JAVASCRIPT 165 CHAPTER 7: USING XAML TO CREATE WINDOWS 8 STYLE USER INTERFACES231 CHAPTER 8: WORKING WITH XAML CONTROLS 271 CHAPTER 9: BUILDING WINDOWS 8 STYLE APPLICATIONS 313 CHAPTER 10: CREATING MULTI-PAGE APPLICATIONS 357 CHAPTER 11: BUILDING CONNECTED APPLICATIONS 391 CHAPTER 12: LEVERAGING TABLET FEATURES 431 PART III: ADVANCING TO PROFESSIONAL WINDOWS 8DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 13: CREATING WINDOWS 8 STYLE APPLICATIONS WITH C++465 CHAPTER 14: ADVANCED PROGRAMMING CONCEPTS 493 CHAPTER 15: TESTING AND DEBUGGING WINDOWS 8 APPLICATIONS 525 CHAPTER 16: INTRODUCING THE WINDOWS STORE 541 PART IV: APPENDICES APPENDIX A: ANSWERS TO EXERCISES 559 APPENDIX B: USEFUL LINKS 573 INDEX 577


text: I was born in New Jersey, spent my twenties in Pennsylvania and now my thirties in Arizona. Photography has always been a hobby of mine. I picked up my first DSLR camera about 1 ½ years ago and can't seem to put it down. I consider myself to be a landscape photographer and have been dabbling in HDR photography which really brings out the shadows and highlights in a photo. I have also been able to use my photography skills in my Real Estate business by providing high quality images for my clients. You can view the rest of my photos on my website http://www.arsphotography.weebly.com or you can friend me on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/anthony.sapone.realtor


text: Product Details Pre-Designed Wood Kits Custom Design Services Solid Covers Precast Columns Alumawood shade structures - Alumawood patio covers DIY (do-it-yourself) or use a contractor Precast Columns PermaCast® columns are cast from a proprietary fiber-reinforced polymer composite with exceptional strength-to-weight characteristics and requiring minimum maintenance. They are weatherproof, insect proof, and highly durable. HB&G PermaWrap® columns are made from cellular PVC and offer the advantages of being moisture and insect proof as well as the thickness, ease of use and workability of wood. HB&G PermaLite square columns are the latest edition to the HB&G synthetic column family. New PermaLite columns are cost effective, load bearing, weather and insect proof, and require very little maintenance. PermaPosts® are weatherproof, insect proof and low maintenance. They are shipped white, ready to install. HB&G's unique and elegant Balustrade Systems provide a natural complement to our columns and enhance the beauty of any home or commerical building.


text:
VERGENNES A pie and ice cream social will be held Monday, August 18 from 6-8 p.m. at the Vergennes City Park. Homemade pies, topped with vanilla ice cream, will be served with a hot and cold beverages. The Vergennes City Band will provide entertainment. Proceeds from the event will help benefit the Champlain Valley Christian School. For more information, call Kay at 802-759-2415.
More like this story
Use the comment form below to begin a discussion about this content.


text:
List of Arthur characters
this wiki
This is a list of characters that are featured in the book series and Television show Arthur which began airing in 1996
The children
A large collection of characters from the series.
- Arthur Timothy Read is the title character of the series. He is a third grade student at Lakewood Elementary in Elwood City. He has two younger sisters, Dora Winifred (D.W.) and Baby Kate. He possesses a sincere partiality towards reading, watching television, playing sports, playing piano and spending time with his friends. He is an aardvark[1]. He wears a yellow cotton sweater and a pair a of blue jeans.
- Alan "The Brain" Powers is one of Arthur's friends and classmates. He is a mild-mannered only child, who excels in academics and athletics. He spends his free time working at his parents' ice cream parlor, while also managing a career as a great soccer player. Brain is an original character from the Arthur books. Brain had a secret that he had flunked Kindergarten, in "Brain's Shocking Secret." He is represented as a bear. He wears olive green pants and a gray sweatshirt with a white modern collar.
- Shelley "Binky" Barnes is a one of Arthur's friends and classmates. He was originally written as a bully, who secretly harbors sensitive and caring feelings. He enjoys studying the fine arts, including playing the clarinet and performing ballet. He was the leader of a "bully clique", known as the Tough Customers, which in later seasons takes on more noble endeavors. He is now portrayed as one of Arthur's best friends but still acts rashly at times. In the episode "Binky Goes Nuts," it is discovered that he is allergic to peanuts. Recently, his family adopted a baby sister, named Mei-Lin, from China. Binky is an original character from the books. He wears an orange shirt and casual blue pants.
- Mary Alice "Muffy" Crosswire is Francine's best friend, though they are opposites in many ways. She is the wealthiest girl in school, and is generally potrayed as a stereotypical rich and spoiled girl, thinking money can even buy her way out of an electrical blackout, shown in the episode "The Blizzard." She tends to be extremely self-centered, and like Francine, her behavior occasionally leads her into trouble with her friends. She also tries to impress her friends with her dad's wealth, who is the wealthiest businessman in Elwood City, and because of this she is often labeled as a show-off by her friends. Muffy has an older brother named Chip. Her signature hairstyle is ponytails, usually braided, and had buck teeth as she did in the books on several but not all episodes of season 1. She is shown as a monkey in a white blouse with a purple jumper and two matching bows to tighten her braids.
- Buster Baxter is Arthur's best friend. A jolly and upbeat figure, Buster enjoys watching television, reading works of science fiction, conjuring conspiracy theories, playing video games, playing the tuba, and above all, eating. Despite his excessive eating habits, he is surprisingly lean. He has asthma. He is also very superstitious at times, and is obsessed with extraterrestrial life. Buster lives with his mother, Bitzi, and occasionally travels with his father, Bo. Buster also had his own spin-off series, entitled Postcards from Buster.[2] He is shown as a rabbit with a greenish blue sweater with a pink collar and blue jeans.
- Francine Alice Frensky is a tomboy who loves sports, drumming and singing. She is the best player on her team in just about every sport they play, rivaled only by the Brain. She is also good at the drums and singing, but has unsuccessfully tried to do them simultaneously. Her blunt, outspoken demeanor can sometimes have a negative effect on her relationships with friends and relatives. She is of Polish-Jewish descent. She can occasionally be bossy to her friends. Francine is best friends with Muffy Crosswire. She and Arthur occasionally fight, but make up in the end. She is shown as a monkey with a red sweater with blue jeans and sports a barrette on each side of her hair.
- Fern Walters is one of Arthur's classmates. She is one of the series' quieter characters, who enjoys reading poetry and mystery novels. Fern's mother, Doria, is constantly trying to get Fern to become more extroverted, and even Fern herself sometimes worries she is "too quiet". She is known for her realistic storytelling, especially when telling horror stories based on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. She has much talent for solving crimes, and being an amateur sleuth. One of her favorite authors is Persimmony Glitchet, a reference to famous author Lemony Snicket. Most of the time Fern is shown in a purple long sleeved blouse with yellow buttons and yellow pants, always sporting a red ribbon in her hair.
- George Lundgren is one of Arthur's classmates, and is a moose, or something in the family Cervidae. Like Fern, he is very quiet. He has dyslexia and is well-known in his class as a ventriloquist, performing with his dummy, Wally. He is often isolated from his classmates because of his frequent nosebleeds, which grosses out everyone. He is of Scandinavian descent. His last name was formerly "Nordgren" until Season 11 and onwards which has now been changed to "Lundgren". He and Francine were dance partners in a dance competition. George is shown with an orange shirt and blue jeans.He is said to have a crush on Jenna.
- Jenna Morgan is a minor character in Arthur's grade. She plays badminton, helps coach soccer, received an Athlete of the Year award from Michelle Kwan, and is allergic to milk (making her lactose intolerant). Jenna also suffers from bedwetting. In Jenna's Bedtime Blues, George has a crush on her, as she said her secret was a crush on George to not admit her bedwetting to her friends. Jenna is shown as a cat in a pink dress with yellow buttons and hot pink interior.
- Prunella Deegan is a grade above Arthur and his friends, and as a result is somewhat snobbish and condescending towards the younger kids. She brags about winning competitions from last grade and tends to bring it up to Arthur and his friends. She is interested in yoga, fortune telling, and paranormal phenomena. She wears a blue dress with a white collar and a purple bow tie on her head.
- Sue Ellen Armstrong is a recent transfer to Arthur's school. Her father is a diplomat, and so her family has lived in various spots around the world. She is interested in world culture, and has a black-belt in the martial arts. She also practices taekwondo, and is not afraid to challenge someone much bigger than herself. She can whistle, and though she is an only child, keeps in touch with her brother-like friend on the other side of the world. In "Sue Ellen's Lost Diary", it is hinted that she has a crush on Arthur. She is shown as a cat with a white and blue low-cut vest and navy blue skirt.
- Adil Akyuz is Arthur's 8-year-old Turkish pen pal who was introduced in "Dear Adil". He and Arthur have a lot in common. Adil has an annoying younger sister, Aisheh, who loves the Turkish version of Mary Moo Cow (Arthur became very upset when Adil and Aisheh sent D.W. a Turkish Mary Moo Cow CD) and a best friend named Andhur (AHN-door) who has a personality like Buster.
- Alberto Molina, is the teenage older brother of Vicita Molina and of Arthur's newer neighbors. He became a character during season six, following the departure of Mr. Sipple. Alberto and his family hail from Ecuador. He practices kendo in his spare time, and enjoys reading "El Conejo Bionico", the Spanish version of Bionic Bunny.
- Catherine Frensky is Francine's older sister, 14 years old. She is a monkey and reads teen magazines and frequently hogs the phone. She is envied by Francine, since Francine believes that her parents favor her older sister and Catherine is better than Francine at many activities, particularly acrobatics and horseback riding.
- Chip Crosswire is Muffy's older brother who is a college student at Tallahassee Tech, a fictional school. He was first subtly revealed on "Arthur's Perfect Christmas" (there were separate Christmas stocking for Chip and Muffy side by side in their fireplace), but was later directly mentioned in the episode "Phony Fern". His first appearance was in "Matchmaker, Match Breaker" when he comes home from college, where Muffy and Francine try to hook him up with Francine's sister Catherine.
Dora Winifred "D.W." Read is Arthur's little sister and is a middle child. She attends preschool and enjoys watching children's television shows much to Arthur's annoyance. She is also known for her many short-lived obsessions and tantrums if these obsessions are not fulfilled. Many of the series' plots revolve around tensions between D.W. and her brother, and she is naturally better than Arthur in some activities such as fishing, which causes her brother to envy her. At times, she can be self-centered, annoying, says cruel things to Arthur and other people, and always tries to get Arthur in trouble, and make him look bad. But other times, she does show appreciation for Arthur being her older brother. She goes by the nickname "D.W." due to an evident dislike for her full name.
Emily is one of D.W.'s classmates and friends. She first met D.W. in a gymnastics class, and later became a regular character in the series. She outshines D.W. in many activities, and D.W. often tries to outperform her, but with mixed results. She possibly has a French heritage because she is closely associated with French culture, and even has a French nanny. Emily was at first seen as a rabbit with tall ears, short blonde hair, and a red floral dress. In the sixth season, her design changed to much longer hair, and a blue dress.
Kate Read is Arthur and D.W.'s baby sister. She's able to communicate with Pal and other animals but people who are older than her dismiss it as "baby talk" gibberish, and Kate and the animals interpret grownups' talk likewise. She is an aardvark and enjoys playing in her sandpit and shows remarkable intelligence for her age and limited knowledge, despite not being able to communicate with people older than herself.
Marina Datillo is Prunella's best friend. She is a rabbit, blind, and loves Henry Skreever, the show's parody of Harry Potter. She and Prunella met when Prunella unwillingly received a Braille edition of the latest Henry Skreever and let Marina borrow it, and since then they have become inseparable. Marina is notably good at yoga and joined Prunella and her mother, Wanda, in their early-morning yoga routine.
Mei-Lin Barnes (2007–present) is Binky's baby sister who was adopted from China. In her debut (at the Chinese restaurant), she was talking to Baby Kate. She and her brother are very close to each other. Mei-Lin first appeared in the season 11 finale, "Big Brother Binky".
James MacDonald: The younger rabbit brother of Molly MacDonald, his fourth grade sister. He is in Ms. Morgan.'s class, and is often shy. He is sometimes annoyed by D.W.. In one episode D.W. would bug him to kiss her.
Molly MacDonald is close friends with Binky. She is a rabbit and another antagonist and a senior member of the Tough Customers. She is known to be good at giving advice, but dislikes the fact that everybody comes to her for it. Molly has short maroon hair that completely covers her eyes, giving her a rebellious appearance. She has a little brother named James who is in D.W.'s preschool class. She became friends with D.W. and Arthur eventually, but both sides have agreed to keep this secret from their friends.
Monique "Mo": Arthur's cousin, whom Arthur remembers when she had been awful to him in the past reunions and tries to avoid her, until it is revealed that Mo isn't as bad as Arthur thought. She, like Arthur, plays the piano, and claims that Arthur is her favorite relative. Monique only appears in Arthur's Cousin Catastrophe.
Nadine is D.W.'s imaginary friend. She portrays D.W.'s conscience, and usually appears when D.W. feels guilty, scared, or angry. Both girls are aware that Nadine is imaginary, since only D.W. sees her. One episode shows D.W. with her when she's much older, while another shows that D.W. does not need Nadine as much as she used to. She has long platinum blonde hair styled exoticly in three pigtails and small buck teeth. She can create imaginary items and appear/disappear with magic.
Rattles is another member of the Tough Customers, and is one of the antagonists. Rattles has been a Tough Customer member since the first season of the program. He wears a backwards baseball hat, black leather jacket, white T-shirt, green jeans and high tops.
Rubella Deegan is Prunella's older teen sister. She is very spiritual and obsessed with psychic and paranormal phenomena. She is typically depicted as a mystical, and she often talks in a very dramatic tone. She often chides in on Prunella.
Tommy and Timmy Tibble are twins who routinely exasperate Arthur, D.W., and most everyone with their mischievous antics. In the early episodes in the first season, the characters at D.W.'s preschool who were mischievous were named Billy and Bobby. Billy and Bobby were later replaced by the Tibbles. Tommy wears a red scarf and Timmy wears a blue scarf.
Vicita Molina is Arthur's neighbor. She is the younger sister of Alberto Molina who moved in after Mr. Sipple moved out and was introduced in sixth season. She's three and seven-eighths, in her own proud words, and often plays with D.W. and the Tibbles.
Frankie is a student in the fourth grade class. He is almost always portrayed as a background character. In Dancing Fools he is Muffy's dancing partner, but was known as Otis and wore glasses in that episode.
The adults
Mr. Armstrong: Sue Ellen's father, a diplomat. His job has forced him to move all across the world, but they all enjoy the travel opportunities that come with it.
Mrs. Armstrong: Sue Ellen's mother, is a homemaker with a penchant for exotic clothes.
Bailey: Muffy's chauffeur and sometimes the Crosswire Family's butler. He also has a notable talent in creating kinetic art, and follows Muffy's orders without question, even when told to drive the Crosswire limo in quite dangerous fashion.His original name was James.
Bubbie: Francine's granny who was first seen in the background during Arthur's Perfect Christmas. In the Season 12 episode, Is that Kosher?, she was finally recognized as an official character. She was guest voiced by Joan Rivers.
Mr. Barnes: Binky's father.
Mrs. Barnes: Binky's mother, a nurse.
Bitzi Baxter: Buster's mom, the editor-in-chief of the Elwood City Times. She's overprotective of Buster and a frantic character. (In the early Arthur books, she had blonde hair, although the later books and TV show depicted her with auburn hair.)
Buster's Grandmother: Lives in the same building as Buster and Bitzi.
Bo Baxter: Buster's father, who is divorced. He is a pilot. Buster flies with him around the United States in the spin-off Postcards from Buster series. In Postcards from Buster, he is shown with short brown hair and glasses. However, during his few appearances in earlier seasons of Arthur, his face is hidden from view, for instance behind a newspaper. He looks almost exactly like Harry, Bitzi Baxter's ex-boyfriend. His physical appearance has changed several times.
Coach Grimslid : The Lakewood Elementary School Gym Coach who was mainly seen in earlier episodes.
Ms. Blank: A past substitute teacher of Mr Ratburn's class. Strangely, she was the class's favorite substitute teacher because she never showed up and the class had to be taught by Miss Sweetwater, who let them do coloring and gave them snacks.
Mrs. Bofini: A past substitute teacher of Mr Ratburn's class. The class disliked her because she had the habit of chewing with her mouth open while eating an apple and batting her eyelids.
Ms. Bryan: The Lakewood Elementary School Art teacher.
David Read: Arthur, D.W. and Kate's father. Mr. Read runs a catering business from home and is frequently shown garnishing trays of hors d'oeuvre in the family kitchen.
Doria Walters: Fern's mother. She works for a real estate company and is very confident and encouraging in her daughter.
Mr. Elkin: A past substitute teacher of Mr Ratburn's class. He was troublesome because his large antlers would knock students out of their seats.
Ed Crosswire: Muffy's father, the owner of a car dealership called "Crosswire Motors". It was revealed that he never attended college; rather he received an honorary degree after his donation of a library. He is also the coach of the soccer team.
Emily's mother: Emily's unnamed mother, who looks very different from her daughter. She makes many brief appearances, and in Emily Swallows a Horse, she is seen in a gown, adorning herself which shows that she enjoys formal events.
Emily's father: Emily's father who is only seen during Emily Swallows a Horse. In the episode, he is in bed, and his head is turned away, hiding his face. Emily is seen with Marie-Helene more than her parents which shows that they do not have much time for her.
Mrs. Fink: One of the teachers at Lakewood Elementary School. She is another teacher that does fun things with her class compared to Mr. Ratburn's hard work.
Dr. Frederique Fugue: Once taught Arthur piano lessons and later filled in for Ms. Krasny to take Mr. Ratburn's class to Crown City for a singing chorus field trip. He was a chorister as a child and later sung with Whiffenpoofs, implying he attended Yale University. He is also an extremely strict teacher and "fires" many of his students.
Fritz Langley: Caretaker of the Elwood City Community Garden who sometimes suffers from arthritis in his hands while working. He eventually moves to retirement community.
"Grandma" Thora Read: Grandma Thora is Arthur and D.W.'s paternal grandmother, who is quite caring, but is a poor cook, as revealed in the episode "The Half-Baked Sale". Grandma Thora is based on Brown's own grandmother Thora, who encouraged him by saving his childhood drawings in a bottom drawer.
"Grandpa" Dave: An aardvark. He lives on the family farm, which has been in the family for over 150 years.
Thora's Mother: She is Thora's mother and David Read's grandmother. She is seen in "Clarissa Is Cracked" and much older in "Arthur's Cousin Catastrophe".
Ed Billings: Neighbor of Grandpa Dave's. He always offers to help Dave around his aging farm, but Dave was too proud to accept it until his grandchildren showed him the value of accepting help from others.
Harry Mills: Works at Bitzi's newspaper as a sports writer. Bitzi started dating him for a couple of seasons, but then broke off because she wanted more time to pursue other interests. Despite the break-up, he remained good friends with Buster and his mother as if nothing had happened.
Francis Haney: Mr. Haney is the lovable yet absentminded principal of Arthur's school. He, like George, suffers from dyslexia. He also seems to have bad luck: something goes wrong almost everywhere he goes. A running gag in the show is a random item falling on his head, usually unintentionally caused by another character, such as Francine throwing a baseball way off course in "Arthur Makes the Team" and Loretta flipping the burgers too high in "Arthur's Cousin Catastrophe". Both ended up accidentally falling on his head. They also often call him "sir" instead of Mr. Haney, as if he were a stranger despite the fact that he is their principal.
Mr. Higgins: The Elwood City mail carrier.
Dr. Iris: She was the eye doctor who suggested that Arthur needed glasses in the first episode "Arthur's Eyes". (In the original Arthur book "Arthur's Eyes", Dr. Iris is a fox.)
Jane Read: Arthur, D.W. and Kate's mother. Mrs. Read is a work-at-home tax accountant. She has short, curly, brown hair and wears a salmon pink sweater and blue jeans.
Jessica: Jane's sister. She is married to a man named Richard and has a daughter, Cora. She appears once in the episode "D.W. Thinks Big" for her sister Lucy's wedding.
Ms. Krasny: The Lakewood Elementary School Music teacher.
Laverne Frensky: Francine's mother, who is never revealed to have a job, but stay home.
Loretta: Arthur's aunt from his dad's side. She is somewhat overbearing and excessively uses the word "dear" when speaking to Arthur's mother during her only appearance in Arthur's Cousin Catastrophe.
Lucy: Jane's younger sister. She appears in the episode "D.W. Thinks Big", where she is married, and D.W. saves her wedding ring.
Mr. Marco: an aardvark, and Arthur's second grade teacher. He is often seen during the series, but Arthur was only in his class through flashbacks. He was a moose in the books, but in the show he is an aardvark just like Arthur.
E.A. D'Poe/Ms. McWord: One of Ed Crosswire's teachers that now is the writer of "Scare Your Pants Off" (as E.A. D'Poe). A parody of R.L. Stine's Goosebumps.
Marie-Helene: Emily's French nanny, who takes care of Emily more than her parents.
Millicent Crosswire: Muffy's aristocratic mother who enjoys opera.
Ramón Molina: Arthur's new Ecuadorian neighbor, who moves in Mr. Sipple's old house with his family. He is revealed to own and run an Ecuadorian cuisine restaurant.
Mrs. Molina: Ramón's wife, and mother of Vicita and Alberto. In "Dancing Fools", she taught a children's dance class.
Mrs. Morgan: Jenna's mother who very briefly appears in "Francine's New Best Friend".
Ms. Morgan: D.W.'s preschool teacher, and gymnastics instructor.
John Morris: John Morris, a Lakewood Elementary School Janitor for 6 years, had recently moved to Roswell, New Mexico to live with his daughter after breaking his leg during the Lakewood Fire, and is seen in the Postcards from Buster episode "Alien Adventure" when Buster visited New Mexico. On Season 11 Episode 143, he is seen at the school waxing the floor before Francine confesses to Mr. Ratburn that she plagiarized her essay. This is could either be a mistake or another school janitor who looks exactly like Morris.
Neal Lundgren: George's father.
Nigel Charles Ratburn: Mr. Ratburn is Arthur and his friends' teacher. His passions are homework, sometimes implied by Arthur that he literally gives out hundreds of math problems to his students to do, and puppetry; in one episode, he mends D.W.'s broken doll. He also enjoys magic tricks and spent a summer working at Jack's Joke Shop. He is also knowledgeable about Japanese lutes, such as the Biwa, but is noticeably incompetent with computers. He is a fanatic of the show "Spooky Poo," the show's parody of Scooby Doo. In reality, he is based on one of Marc's Brown's elementary school teachers.
Oliver Frensky: Francine's dad, who works as a waste collector for the local city dump. He states he was formerly a volunteer firefighter. He coaches the baseball team.
Paige Turner: Ms. Turner is the friendly but strict librarian in charge of the Elwood City Library, whose rules are for everyone to be quiet in the library. Originally she had brown/brunette hair until Season 11 when she sported blonde hair. Her name may be a joke on the phrase "page turner"
Mrs. Pariso: Francine's next door neighbor, who is very good at horseback riding and also won prizes at Wimbledon. She banged on Francine's wall when she first moved in to their apartment building, which made Francine think she was mean, starting a brief rivalry, but the two became good friends in the end.
Hoprah Linseed: A famous inspirational speaker with her own talkshow and issued an autobiography. She is a reference to Oprah Winfrey
Patty Jones: The woman who played Mary Moo Cow, who later appeared as a newscaster for the TV show "Stock Market Today".
Pickles: A clown.
Beauregard Poulet: The proprietor of the "Chickin' Lickin" restaurant chain who speaks with a Southern accent. He and his restaurant business are a parody of Colonel Sanders and Kentucky Fried Chicken, respectively.
Mr. Powers: Brain's father, and although he occasionally helps out in the ice cream shop, he was never shown have any other job.
Mrs. Powers: Brain's mother, who owns and runs the ice cream shop. She was originally shown with a brown complexion and brown hair, but she is now seen with a light complexion and blonde cream-colored hair.
Rodentia Ratburn: Mr. Ratburn's sister, who once filled in for Mr. Ratburn for a day when he was sick. Her teaching methods are notably similar to those of Mrs. Sweetwater. The students initially liked the simplicity of her methods, but they proved way too childish for their age and were happy to have Mr. Ratburn back.
Mrs. Robertson: The Lakewood Elementary School Kindergarten teacher who is now retired. Brain was a student twice in her class.
Mr. Sanders: The landlord who works for the apartment building where the Frensky family live.
Leah MacGrady: Mrs. MacGrady is the lunch lady at Lakewood Elementary school, where Arthur and his friends study. She is full of unconventional wisdom, and is Grandma Thora's bingo buddy. She commonly wears a pink shirt and white pants. She, like Prunella, enjoys fortune telling.
Susy Sipple: Arthur's next-door neighbor from Season 1 to 6, who enjoys grilling fish late at night and comes from a place where making faces on a bike means bring the biker a cabbage. He moves out in Season 6, and the Molinas move in to his home.
Miss Sweetwater: She is also a third grade teacher for another Lakewood Elementary School class, and does fun things with her students like singing songs (such as "I Like Fudge") on her guitar.
Mrs. Terrasini: A grandmother to one of the children in D.W.'s Class. She is very old and can't see or remember names very well as she called the "Tibble Twins" the "Toggle Twins".
Mrs. Tibble: The grandmother of Tommy and Timmy Tibble. (In early Arthur books, Mrs. Tibble is a human, however many newer books and the show have her as a bear.)
Miss Tingley: Principal Haney's secretary. One time she was afraid of Miss Sweetwater's singing and Mr. Haney's sawing-in-half magic trick.
Mrs Tremello: A past substitute teacher of Mr Ratburn's class. Disliked by the class because she apparently mumbled everything she said.
Trevor: Former coach of the Lakewood Elementary School soccer team.
Mr. Walters: Fern's father who was finally first seen in the Season 11 episode Phony Fern.
Wanda Deegan: a rat. Prunella and Rubella's mother. She enjoys yoga and granola.
Wilbur Rabbit: The actor who plays Bionic Bunny. Wears glasses exactly like Arthur's.
Mrs. Woods: Perky's owner. Her grouchy dog, Perky (aka Jaws), is Pal's mother.
Guest Stars
Alex Trebek (called Alex Lebek in the episode to make it not so obvious): Alex Trebek appears in the episode Arthur and the Big Riddle as the host of the Riddle Quest game show.
Art Garfunkel: Art Garfunkel appears in two Arthur episodes. He first appears in the episode The Ballad of Buster Baxter, and then later appears in Elwood City Turns 100! as one of the guests that Muffy invites to the play.
Arthur Ganson: Arthur Ganson appears in the episode Muffy's Art Attack.
The Backstreet Boys (Nick Carter, Howie Dorough, Brian Littrell, A.J. McLean, and Kevin Richardson): The Backstreet Boys appear in the episode Arthur, It's Only Rock n' Roll.
Click and Clack, The Tappet Brothers (Tom and Ray Magliozzi): The Car Talk hosts appear in the episode Pick a Car, Any Car, where Arthur calls them about their car when it is about to go to the junkyard.
Matt Damon: Matt Damon appears in the episode The Making of Arthur as the host of a show "Postcards from You" (inspired by the "Postcards from You" segment that has been the mid-show feature on Arthur since Season 11 and the feature on the second season of "Postcards from Buster").
Edgar Rentería: Edgar Rentería also appears in The Curse of the Grebes also playing a Grebe, being Bateria.
Frank Gehry: Frank Gehry appears in the episode Castles in the Sky, and helps the gang create a new tree house, although they don't know he is Frank Gehry until he gives them a signed photo of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao.
Fred Rogers: Mr. Rogers appears on the episode Arthur Meets Mr. Rogers. He visits Arthur's house and Arthur is embarrassed because he thinks that Mr. Rogers Neighborhood is a baby show. Other people think that too. But, when Mr. Rogers comes for a visit to Arthur's class, they all change their minds when Binky says "Wow, can I have your autograph too?" to Arthur.
Jack Prelutsky: Jack Prelutsky appears on the episode I'm a Poet, as the judge of a poetry contest. At the end of the contest, he can't decide who's the winner, so he says "I hate contests. You all win".
Johnny Damon: Johnny Damon also appears in The Curse of the Grebes, also playing a member of the Elwood City Grebes as Playmon.
Joshua Redman: Joshua Redman appears in the episode My Music Rules as Francine's second-cousin-twice-removed, who they call "Uncle Josh". He gets invited by Arthur and Francine.
Koko Taylor: Koko Taylor appears in the episode Big Horns George, and is Alan "The Brain"'s favorite blues musician.
Lance Armstrong: Lance Armstrong appears in "Room to Ride".
Larry King: Larry King appears in the "And Now a Word From Us Kids" section of the episode Elwood City Turns 100! and interviews the gang.
"The President": Originally a caricature of Bill Clinton. The President was later redrawn to resemble George W. Bush. Cesar Romero, Frank Gorshin, and Burgess Meredith: Three deceased actors who played villains in the Batman TV show. They were listed as rival car dealers to Mr. Crosswire in "Pick a car, any car".
Michelle Kwan: Michelle Kwan appears in the episode The Good Sport, as the host of the Athlete of the Year Award at Lakewood Elementary. It is also said that she graduated from Lakewood Elementary in that series.
Mike Timlin: Mike Timlin appears in the episode The Curse of the Grebes, playing a member of the Elwood City Grebes, being Winlin.
Ming Tsai: Ming Tsai appears in the episode What's Cooking?.
Rodney Gilfry: Rodney Gilfry appears in the episode Lights, Camera, Opera as he has a role in the Carmen opera that Muffy and Ed Crosswire see.
Taj Mahal: Taj Mahal also appears in the episode Big Horns George with Koko Taylor.
Yo-Yo Ma: Yo-Yo Ma appears in the episode My Music Rules with Joshua Redman. He is the musician that D.W. invites (D.W. tended to call him "Yo Mama").
Lakewood Elementary School Students
2nd Grade
Otis Patrick Frankie Nancy Helen Luke John Jack Norman
3rd grade
Arthur Buster Francine Fern Maria Alex Brain Muffy Sue Jenna Binky George
4th Grade Steve Prunella
Animals and Pets
Pal: Arthur's pet dog. D.W. often refers to him as "Arthur's crazy dog". When he was a puppy, he was easily excited and often destroyed the house, but Arthur was able to train him. He is revealed to be able to speak in some episodes, but other than Kate and most other animals, no one can understand him. When he does speak, he speaks properly with an, English accent.
Amigo: the Molinas' dog. He first appears in the episode "Arthur and Los Vecinos". D.W. is afraid of him at first, but she gets over it quickly. Like Pal, Amigo has been shown to speak in some episodes. Amigo is friend in Spanish.
Toady Wartface: A frog mistaken for a toad by D.W. Read. Found near Spanky's grave, she used to be D.W.'s pet. She would fill Spanky's void. She is released afterwards. She also appears in "The Great Sock Mystery" revealing that she now lives in the Reads' yard. It's unknown why she and D.W. broke up.
Spanky: D.W.'s pet bird of unknown species. He dies in "So Long, Spanky" and was actually buried in a grave. He is seen again in D.W.'s story as a bald eagle.
Spot and Dot: Fire dogs.
Nemo: Francine's cat, also Pal's enemy. In the first episode he is shown in, however, they are friends. Arthur also disliked him at first, mistaking his playful antics for hostility due to his general dislike of cats. His facial features changed drastically after his debut. Before he was called "Nemo," he was "Rosepetal".
Perky: Pal's mother. She appears in "Arthur's Pet Business". She was once infamous for harboring a grouchy attitude, which caused the mailman to nickname her "Jaws," but it might be because she was pregnant.
Walter: A deer that D.W. meets in the outdoors, D.W. wants to take Walter home but her parents tell her it's not allowed. Walter is also seen in other episodes when D.W day dreams or imagines her perfect world.
Killer: A stray dog that was found on Grandma Thora's porch. She has been to the pound many times. It is unknown who is her owner, but currently, Grandma Thora seems to own her. Pal and Amigo were once afraid of her because of her bite, but her reputation was saved when she rescued Nemo by barking at some firefighters on a rainy day. Killer is shown on the very early books as Grandma Thora's dog, but she isn't introduced on the TV series until season 9.


text: Judge Robert Peeler tries a case involving heroin abuse in Warren County Common Pleas Court, Tuesday, April 15, 2014, in Lebanon, Ohio. (AP Photo/Al Behrman) [ Courts fight heroin scourge with drug injections By Associated Press June 22, 2014 LEBANON, Ohio (AP) -- The twice-arrested heroin user listened nervously as the judge reviewed her record, then offered a deal he thinks could save her life. Read More|Comment Category: Nation & World, News Tags: heroin addiction Send to a friend! Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Pin it! Reddit This! Share on Tumblr!


text:
February is the wrong time of the year to visit Çeşme, a small Turkish coastal town nestled on the Mediterranean Sea.
And it's not just because the temperature hovers near freezing (yes, my husband really brought me to a resort on the Med in the middle of winter.) The oddest part about visiting Çeşme (pronounced Chezmay) in February is that it's a ghost town. Most shops are closed as many of the city's residents are in-town only during the warmer months of April – October. During this season the town bustles to life with tourists sprawling the sandy beaches, sailing the aqua blue waters. And enjoying the thermal waters flowing from beneath the sea around the Yildiz Peninsula
My husband hadn't intentionally set out to torment me by dropping me off in a resort I could only gaze wistfully at from our hotel windows – he had business in nearby Izmir, and the Sheraton Çeşme Resort and Spa seemed our best option. Left to my own demise in this deserted town while Adam worked, I decided to pamper myself and visit the spa. Being a Starwood Member and having sampled the spas before with our previous stays at Starwood properties, I was eager to try this one as it had glowing reviews and boasted of an award winning Botanical Thermal Spa.
As soon as you walk through the doors, you feel as if you entered paradise. The foyer was bathed in a golden hue, the sounds of a waterfall cascading from the ceiling, and the strumming of harps in the background. The hostess greeted me politely and informed me that my Aesthetician would be with me shortly. She also advised me of the complementary use of their natural healing thermal pool, which, she boasted, had been scientifically proven to reduce pain and inflammation, relax muscles, relieve stress and mental tension, rejuvenate and soften the skin, and heal skin wounds, yadda, yadda, yadda. The lure of a nice warm soak would have been sufficient.
Too bad I didn't bring a bathing suit.
I'm a sucker for these types of natural therapies – truly – and was miffed to learn I wouldn't be able to enjoy it. When the hostess learned that I would not be using the pool, her sympathy and understanding were plain.
Unable to use the pool, a friendly, rotund woman immediately ushered me through the large interior of the spa, past the magical thermal pool that I couldn't use, upstairs and into a brightly lit room. She instructed me to put on the terry cloth robe that they provided and left the room.
I did as instructed, laid down on the padded table and waited for her to return, which she did, promptly, then by way of introduction said merely, "How much water you drink? Your face is very dry."
"Um, obviously not enough," I chuckled.
"Well, I would recommend a hydrating treatment."
I'm an easy sell, especially with a nothing to do and a whole world of spa treatments to explore. I happily agreed.
She peered at my eyebrows as if I had a unibrow and asked, "Would you like your eyebrows threaded first?"
I stared at her blankly. "Threaded?"
Things I've never heard of aren't quite as easy a sell.
She returned my blank look with a smile and laughed. "Yes, this is what we do in the Middle East and it's better than waxing."
"Sure, I'm game!" Ok, maybe I'm still an easy sell.
So I had my eyebrows threaded for the first time and was completely fascinated by the procedure. Threading, for those who don't know, basically involves a long piece of twisted string being rolled across the surface of your skin to remove all the little unwanted hairs (you don't see a whole lot of men being threaded.) In my opinion it was more painful than waxing, but she did an excellent job, and pleasantly there was no waxy residue.
Next she began my facial. After the cleansing, she pulled out a cylindrical tool that looked more like a laser wand and started zapping my face with it. To this very day, I have no earthly idea what it was or what it did. It sounded like a mosquito zapper.
When she was finished she grinned at the look of astonishment on my face, but instead of telling me what she was doing, said simply, "Middle Eastern treatment."
Forty five minutes later she finished the facial and I must say she was thorough. It was an excellent facial, but I still wonder what the zapper was for.
Her part complete she led me through a maze of hallways and passed me off to a young skinny girl who was so tiny I knew she couldn't possibly give me a decent massage.
Then small girl, who I fervently hoped was just a greeter, motioned for me to follow her into a dimly lit room. She didn't speak much English but gestured for me to remove my clothing.
I waited for her to leave so I could undress.
And waited.
She just stood there smiling at me, clearly not terribly worried about any privacy concerns I may have.
Feeling silly and slightly self- conscious, I quickly took off my clothing and laid face down on the massage table. When she proceeded to climb on top of me, I almost jumped off the table, snatched my clothes, and bolted out the door. She held me in place and with surprisingly firm hands, popped my back and proceeded to give the most amazing Shiatsu massage I had ever experienced. She kneaded, rubbed, and beat every single muscle in my body. By the end of the hour, there was not one single knot and I felt like jello.
Quite enamored by the spa and having nothing to do the following day, I decided to give it another whirl but this time for a pampered manicure and pedicure. It was advertised as a 90-minute treatment which was to have included a hand/arm and feet/calf massage.
Mine lasted a mere 45 minutes, and was crap. Not only was the pregnant girl aloof and disinterested, but she made my nails look as if they were done by a three year old. It was dreadful.
I believe I could be merrily content as a global spa reviewer, especially if they're as fabulous as the Sheraton Çeşme. But a note to self for the future – if the famed spa pointedly omits any mention of their manicure facilities, there's probably a reason.


text:
Contact Us
Site Map
About Firebird
Case Studies
You are here:
About Firebird
News & Events
News & Events
Project Structure
SQL Conformance
Historical Reference
Branding Policy
Firebird Brand FAQ
Firebird Brand Blacklist
Join Firebird!
Join Firebird Foundation to support Firebird SQL development and receive multiple bonuses
Follow Us
Select your media preference
Subscribe to Firebird's Newsletter to receive the latest news
News & Events
November 10, 2014
ADO.NET Provider 4.5.2 Release
Jiri Cincura announces the 4.5.2 Release of ADO.NET provider for Firebird.
You can download it in the "
.NET Provider
" section of Downloads. Enjoy!
for details.
October 31, 2014
Firebird Language Reference in Russian is ready. Do you need it in English?
Firebird Project is pleased to announce that «Firebird 2.5 Language Reference» in Russian language is released. It is available on
Firebird SQL Documentation page
Why it is only in Russian and how to get it in English? The answer is the following:
Moscow Exchange
, one of the biggest Firebird users in the world, and
(tools and service for Firebird) have sponsored documentation development in Russian. Several Russian-speaking core developers of Firebird Project participated in documentation creation to ensure its quality.
The next step is extending this documentation to cover Firebird 3 new features: authors and editors are already working on it. However, the resulted documentation for Firebird 3 will be also in Russian.
In order to translate Firebird documentation into English, Firebird Project needs additional funds.
We need US$7000 to translate almost 500 pages of Firebird documentation into English using professional translation service, which will ensure the quality of translation.
So, if you would like to have
Firebird 2.5 and 3.0 Language Reference in English
in the first quarter of 2015, please help Firebird Project
with your donations (please use
Please don't think that somebody else will pay for Firebird documentation!
Collected money will go to translation of Firebird documentation and, if USD$ 7000 threshold will be exceeded, for further development of next volumes: «Firebird Operations Guide» and others.
October 23, 2014
Firebird Conference 2014: October 24-25, Prague
Firebird Conference 2014
is ready to start in Prague, Czech Republic. 2 days of talks and conversations with Firebird core developers and leading Firebird companies, and a meeting point for all Firebird users!
October 21, 2014
MASA (Elekt Labs): new case study for Firebird SQL
New Firebird SQL case study: MASA (Elekt Labs) is a statistical analysis and plan optimization solution for industrial plants. Complex system with 80Gb Firebird database inside, running in 24x7 mode. Read
more here
October 18, 2014
Firebird Conference 2014 schedule is available
Firebird Conference 2014 schedule is
. Only few days left! Hurry up, registration is still open!
October 17, 2014
More mini-interviews with speakers at Firebird Conference 2014
Jiri Cincura
, developer of Firebird.NET
— Jiri, why do you think people will be interested most of all in your presentation?
If you're an .NET developer working with Firebird you need to catch up with all the changes that happened during a year. There's a lot of improvements and you might actually benefit from some of these pretty well. Also might be a good recap of some new features in Firebird.
— What do you like most of all in Firebird? and What is your most favourite feature/improvement in Firebird 3?
— How clean and transparent is in outside. I'm really looking for proper SMP support. Also as a provider writer the external stored procedures/triggers/... are really interesting. Although there's probably a lot of work to do (and it's not moving further much).
See you soon in Prague!
Roman Somakov
— Roman, why do you think people will be interested most of all in your presentation?
— Red Database is a fork of the great DMBS Firebird. We base of the latest versions and add new features. We are going to talk about our experience of Red Database (Firebird) usage, about our heavy loaded installations as well as about new features like:
security enhancements (i.e. DDL permissions migrated to Firebird)
full text search
engine level replication (StandBy mode)
Also it's would be interested to see how we organize a development and QA processes.
— What do you like most of all in Firebird? and What is your most favourite feature/improvement in Firebird 3?
I like great portability of Firebird and good support of SQL standards. It makes it compact, portable and powerful DBMS ready for any purposes. Regarding Firebird 3 my favourite feature are shared cache and java stored procedures.
Pavel Cizar
— Pavel, why do you think people will be interested most of all in your presentation?
— IBPhoenix provides information, support and development services to Firebird users for fourteen years, so we've got a lot of experience with wide range of problems that these users encounter. We're creative and always look for new ways how to solve their problems more effectively, and where appropriate we make tools that help us make the job done. In my presentation I'll share my experience with using monitoring tables and trace & audit services to solve various problems. I'll focus equally on what they could be good for and to methods and tools that worked best for me.
— What do you like most of all in Firebird? and What is your most favorite feature/improvement in Firebird 3?
— Firebird is simple (to use and manage) yet very powerful and flexible engine with great support (drivers, libraries, applications etc.) and vibrant community. It's not good for everything, but works great for most cases. I'll always go with Firebird as my first choice, and look for other solutions only in rare cases when Firebird is not good enough. About Firebird 3, it's hard to pick one favorite feature/improvement as every one of them is important and contributes IMHO equally to make v3 an awesome release.
Jonathan Neve
— Jonathan, why do you think people will be interested most of all in your presentation?
— I will be giving an overview of our database replication solutions and presenting the new features developed over the last year or so, including support for iOS and Android devices using Delphi's Firemonkey platform. I plan to show a real-world application we built this year for synchronizing SQLite databases on Android devices with a central Firebird database. I will also give an overview of our new database backup / mirroring solution called LiveMirror. The talk will assume familiarity with the Delphi environment and language, but it should be of interest to anyone considering implementing database replication or in need of a solution for securing their data through continuous replication (for failover or load-balancing purposes).
— What do you like most of all in Firebird? and What is your most favourite feature/improvement in Firebird 3?
— I love Firebird's simplicity and ease of use. I think the project has found a great balance in that it is quite feature-completeness while still avoiding unnecessary bloat and remaining dead-simple to administer. Simple to install, reliable, and more than enough features for most uses. I do appreciate the new features that are being added, but I think the focus on avoiding bloat in the process is a good thing. As for new features of Firebird 3, I'm really looking forward to windowing functions, which I expect to use a lot! I frequently find myself writing fairly complex queries in order to extract data that could be gotten easier and faster with windowing functions. The other features sound great too, but that's probably the one that matters most to me!
October 07, 2014
Mini-interview with Carlos Cantu about Firebird Conference 2014
Today's guest is
Carlos Cantu
), speaker at
Firebird Conference 2014
— Carlos, why do you think people will be interested most of all in your talk?
My talk about Data Auditing logs is based in a solution that I have been using in the last 6 years, in my own ERP. It was created because from time to time I got contacted by customers saying that some information simply disappeared from the database, or got modified without nobody editing it, suggesting that the software had some bug <g>. With auditing logs, it became really easy to show/prove to customer what really happened, allowing you to keep a history of everything that was done inside the DB. The other talk is about Numerics in Firebird. Due to the several different datatypes available for storing numbers in Firebird, each one with different characteristics/behaviors, it is not rare that developers get lost about its differences and what would be the best type for a specific requirement. This talk will try to answer those questions, as well show some tips, tricks and side-effects that sometimes are unknown by the developer, showing also the actual rules used in the math involving numeric/decimal types.
— What do you like most of all in Firebird? and What is your most favourite feature/improvement in Firebird 3?
I use Firebird since its first release, and what I really enjoy about it is the fact that it is small, easy to install and configure, very stable, has low maintenance and, of course, it is totally free! Firebird 3 is long awaited for its improvements related to extracting all the potential of SMP machines, even when shared cache is being used. Of course, this feature is a must in the currently world where SMP machines became the standard configuration for servers. But FB 3 also brings very nice features, and I really enjoy the fact that now we can encrypt the database file and the wired communication, and the wire protocol was improved allowing better performance in high latency networks (internet).
October 03, 2014
Mini-interview about Firebird Conference 2014 with Mark Rotteveel
Today's guest is
Mark Rotteveel
, developer of JayBird, Firebird JDBC driver, and speaker at
Firebird Conference 2014
— Mark, why do you think people will be interested most of all in your presentation/talk?
— I have two talks scheduled. My first talk is about the current state of development of Jaybird, and the changes implemented (and to be implemented) for Jaybird 3.0. I think this is interesting for people who use Jaybird and want to know more about the upcoming changes. My second talk is about using Hibernate and jOOQ to query a Firebird database from Java without having to deal with the low-level JDBC operations. Hibernate is a ORM mapper, while jOOQ is — besides a (light-weight) ORM mapper — a Domain Specific Language (DSL) library for building queries with compile time checks. Both are also useful to bridge dialect differences between various databases.
Although introductory, I think this is interesting for application developers, even when their target platform isn't Java.
— What do you like most of all in Firebird? And what is your most favourite feature/improvement in Firebird 3?
I think the key thing about Firebird is its simplicity and small footprint, install it and you are — basically — good to go. I think my favorite new feature in Firebird 3 are the window functions. They provide much needed extensions for analytical queries.
September 28, 2014
Mini-interview with Paul Reeves
The next guest is
Paul Reeves
— Paul, why do you think people will be interested most of all in your presentations?
— Well, I've always been fascinated by trying to measure firebird performance. This year I've spent quite a bit of time working on a test harness that produces consistent output, and above all, a database to store and analyse the data produced by the tests. The results are quite surprising and to me at least, very interesting. I'm certainly enjoying putting the presentation together and hopefully it will be enjoyable for people to sit through.
— What do you like most of all in Firebird?
— The pace of development. I know we seem to be behind schedule on v3 but I'm barely up to speed with the new features that have been added in v2.n. A lot of the things that used to be difficult back in the day (I've been using Firebird since IB4) are so easy now. The way text blobs can be converted to and from strings, the way sql statements can be constructed on the fly in stored procedures, the fact that domains can now be used consistently in SPs — these are just a few of the things that make database development easier. And of course there are monitoring tables, db and txn triggers. And loads more stuff besides.
— What is your most favourite feature/improvement in Firebird 3?
— It is too early to say. There is so much new stuff in v3 that it will take me a while to get on top of it all. Probably best to ask me in about two years time :)
Register to
Firebird 2014 Conference
September 25, 2014
Mini-interview with Ann W. Harrison
We are starting series or mini-interviews with speakers of
Firebird International Conference 2014
. The first guest is
Ann W. Harrison
— Ann, what do you think people will be interested most of all in your presentation/talk?
Both talks
address concerns that are of interest the most novice of Firebird users ("Why does gfix think my database is broken?" and "What's the big deal about multi-threading"). The talks start with the basics and then move into more complex understanding of the underlying issues (careful write, threading alternatives) that may suggest future directions for Firebird. Jim Starkey and I will share both talks. I'll address the way things are now, using my experience on the Firebird Support list to respond to common questions. Jim will talk about his post-Firebird experiences — he's written four more relational databases, each with different ways of dealing with on-disk consistency (the gfix issue) and threading.
— What do you like most of all in Firebird? and what is your most favourite feature/improvement in Firebird 3?
— The best feature of Firebird, from my perspective, is that it doesn't fight back. It's easy to install, requires very little tuning, and runs on lots of different platforms in multiple configurations: embedded, classic, and now multi-theaded server. Performance and reliability are givens — without them, you can't have a product. I also like the fact that Firebird can be distributed with commercial products without a license fee, so it's attractive to application builders outside the US. As for V3, beyond question, my favorite feature is the multi-threaded shared server. Giving users the full use of their multi-processor servers without the overhead of a process per connection really moves Firebird into a new era.
— Thank you, and see you soon in Prague!
About Firebird
Case Studies
Back to Top
This site and the pages contained within are Copyright © 2000-2015, Firebird Project. Firebird® is a registered trademark of Firebird Foundation Incorporated.
Developed by
DQ Team


text:
Co-op Services
Bill to become Law
Ernie Fletcher signed a bill April 3 allowing electric cooperatives
in Kentucky to continue offering services in addition to electricity.
With the signature, the bill will become law this July.
Final approval of House Bill 568 marks the end of four intense months
for electric co-ops in Kentucky, after a far-reaching ruling in
November by the state Supreme Court. That decision said that state
law did not permit electric co-ops to offer any service other than
That high-court ruling would have affected several thousand Kentuckians
who receive services from electric co-op subsidiary businesses,
such as propane gas and high-speed broadband Internet connections.
The change in the law will allow such businesses to continue, but
under rules that strengthen the separation between the co-op electric
utility businesses and their non-electric subsidiaries. The stronger
rules were added to the original bill as a result of some business
people who were concerned that the co-ops would use the electric
utility business to subsidize the nonelectric ventures.
The story of the new law began in 1998 after Jackson
Energy Cooperative based in McKee, set up a subsidiary to offer
propane gas services to its members. An area propane gas dealer,
backed by the Kentucky Propane Gas Association, sued Jackson Energy
The suit charged that state law restricted electric co-ops from
providing any service other than electricity. The trial court and
the Kentucky Court of Appeals ruled that Jackson Energy Co-op could
legally sell propane, but the Supreme Court reversed those decisions.
So Rep. Rob Wilkey of Scottsville introduced HB 568. That bill specified
that the primary purpose of electric cooperatives in Kentucky is
to provide electricity, and that they can also have a secondary
purpose of engaging in any other legal activity through an affiliate
subject to statutory requirements.
The most extensive public discussion of the legislation first came
in a March 9 hearing before the House Tourism Development and Energy
Committee. Rep. Wilkey told the panel he introduced the bill to
clarify the law with regard to electric co-ops and their involvement
in nonelectric services.
Ron Sheets, president of the Kentucky Association of Electric Cooperatives,
called the bill an extremely critical piece of legislation
for electric co-ops. He said at the committee hearing that various
state and federal rules of protection are already in place. He said
the additional rules in the legislation create a firewall
between electric utility operations and affiliates providing nonelectric
services, effectively preventing the electric utility part of the
co-op from subsidizing the nonelectric subsidiaries.
That point was emphasized at the hearing by Hilda Legg, former head
of the federal Rural Utilities Service, an agency of the U.S. Department
of Agriculture which provides loans for many electric co-op operations
If co-ops were engaged in other (nonelectric) activities,
that had to be a separate accounting system, said Legg. Such
operations can not be financed by federal loans.
Co-ops make a difference in so many lives, said Legg.
They need to be involved in issues that members deem important
to their lives.
Dan Brewer, president and CEO of Blue
Grass Energy Cooperative based in Nicholasville, in his testimony
listed several nonelectric services provided by Kentucky electric
co-ops, including economic development, and billing services for
trash collection and water supply.
Brewer said without the change in the law, Cooperatives will
be forced to discontinue efforts at improving communities.
For additional background on HB 568, go to our magazine's Web site,
KentuckyLiving.com, and read Electric
Co-ops Support Bill to Allow Additional Services. For background
on the Supreme Court decision that led to introduction of the bill,
read Supreme
Court Ruling Restricts Co-op Services. For commentary on the
court ruling and legislation, read Legal
Limits, and The
truth about co-ops.
Kentucky Association of
Electric Cooperatives, Inc.
4515 Bishop Lane * Louisville, KY 40218
Terms of Use


text:
|Newegg Daily Deals
|Thread Tools
Registered User
Join Date: Apr 2009
Posts: 98
SD Composite and 720p HD Component clones with 1080p Desktop also = 3 displays
I am looking to setup a box with the following outputs:
1) Component 720p to a CRT 720p TV for HD Video (using vdpau)
2) Composite SD to a distribution Modulator / amp to SD TV's for downscaled replica of 1 (HD to SD) above (using vdpau)
3) VGA or DVI to 1080p LCD for Desktop
To be clear here 1) and 2) are intended to be video clones of each other all the time.
I figure I can get 1) and 3) using a PCIe 9500GT with 1M RAM using separate X sessions (from recollection).
It seems one can get either component or composite out of one card but not both from one card? (Unless one can get composite out of the adapter and component out of the DVI-I socket simultaneously?)
Assuming one card cannot do all 3 then 2) could come from a PCI 9400GT.
Looking thru the readme it seems I need to configure this as MultiGPU.
What is confusing is there is some suggestion that using MultiGPU means only one display per GPU, which may mean I need a PCIe and two PCI cards?
Some comment and clarification how I should proceed would be appreciated please.
Last edited by Dragorep; 10-05-09 at 02:50 AM. Reason: Corrections
Registered User
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Munich
Posts: 910
Re: SD Composite and 720p HD Component clones with 1080p Desktop also = 3 displays
My understanding of your posting is that your 9500 has three
video outputs? To my knowledge, there can be only be two
outputs active at any time, because there are only two signal
generators and output scaling devices available on the card.
So even the third output would be a clone of one of the other two,
then in your case it would require a different signal and scaling
(720p vs composite). However, I'm not fully sure on this ...
As for using separate cards: the two cloned outputs need to
come from the same card, so 1)+2) would come from the 9400
and 3) from the 9500.
But instead of purchasing another card, you may consider
purchasing a Component signal-splitter and (if the second
TV doesn't has a Component input) a Component to
Composite converter. This equipment is very likely more
expensive than a 9400, but may save you a lot of headache,
depending on your actual application.
Registered User
Re: SD Composite and 720p HD Component clones with 1080p Desktop also = 3 displays
You definitely can't get those 3 different resolutions out of one card. There's a vague chance composite and component SD would come out of the same adaptor.
Two PCIe cards would do it, but you would need to run software that specifically supports multiple outputs on different graphics cards. There isn't really an OS system that allows accelerated 'mirroring'.
Registered User
Join Date: Apr 2009
Posts: 98
Re: SD Composite and 720p HD Component clones with 1080p Desktop also = 3 displays
Thank you for the helpful replies. I hadn't been thinking about getting the cloned video out of the same video card, however that makes sense and a second PCI would probably work well for the desktop.
I'll check out price and quality of component splitters and a component to composite converter.
blue component lead, so they physically do not allow simultaneous outputs of composite and component.
However they also have a S-Video out, I am now wondering if one card might output component and S-Video simultaneously? I think its relatively easy to convert S-Video to Composite?
The DVI-I spec also has composite and component incorporated, however whether it is wired up I do not know, the manuals do not say TV out can be obtained from these, although if they comply with the spec and all the ducks line up then there is a chance I might get a second analogue output there?
Nothing I've seen suggests two analogue TV outputs are possible from one card. Perhaps it is?
|Thread Tools


text:
Women's Studies
Columbian College of Arts and Sciences
Program Overview
The program offers a grounding in feminist theory as well as empirical knowledge about women in the United States and around the world. The master's degree program was established at GW in 1972, and was the first of its kind in the United States. Faculty members come from various disciplines, mostly within the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences.
Our program offers an M.A., a J.D-M.A. or an LL.M.-M.A. in women's studies or in public policy with a concentration in women's studies. A graduate certificate in women's studies is also offered.
Coursework in women's studies may be applied to GW's Ph.D. program in public policy and public administration.
Admission Requirements
Admission deadlines:
Fall – April 1 (January 5 for applicants applying for assistantships/fellowships)
Standardized test scores:
GRE general test required for M.A. applicants (institutional code 5246). Waived for applicants who hold a J.D., M.D., or Ph.D.
Recommendations required:
One (1) recommendation for admission; Two (2) for those applying for assistantships/fellowships.
Prior academic records:
Transcripts are required from all colleges and universities attended, whether or not credit was earned, the program was completed, or the credit appears as transfer credit on another transcript. Unofficial transcripts from all colleges and universities attended must be uploaded to your online application. Official transcripts are required only of applicants who are offered admission.
If transcripts are in a language other than English, English language translations must be provided. The English translation alone should be uploaded into your application.
Statement of purpose:
In an essay of 250 – 500 words, state your purpose in undertaking graduate study in your chosen field. Include your academic objectives, research interests, and career plans. Also discuss your related qualifications, including collegiate, professional, and community activities, and any other substantial accomplishments not already mentioned on the application. If you are applying for an assistantship or fellowship, you should also describe any teaching experience you have had.
International applicants only:
Please review International Applicant Information carefully for details on required documents, earlier deadlines for applicants requiring an I-20 or DS-2019 from GW, and English language requirements.
For more information on the admission process, please visit the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences Frequently Asked Questions page.
Supporting documents not submitted online should be mailed to:
Columbian College of Arts and Sciences – Graduate Admissions Office
The George Washington University
801 22nd Street NW, Phillips Hall 107
Washington DC 20052
Contact for questions:
firstname.lastname@example.com ~ 202.994.6210 (phone) ~ 202.994.6213 (fax)
8:30 am – 5:30 pm, Monday through Friday


text:
Fallen troopers to be taken to Fairbanks
A procession carrying fallen troopers from Anchorage to Fairbanks will be held this afternoon.
Sgt. Patrick "Scott" Johnson and trooper Gabriel "Gabe" Rich were killed in the line of duty on Thursday.
Both men, according to state trooper spokeswoman Megan Peters, are from Fairbanks.
The procession is expected to start around 2 p.m. It will go from the State Medical Examiner's Office to Signature Aviation.
Troopers say the Anchorage route will start on MLK Avenue, travel down Elmore to Tudor, turn onto Minnesota, proceed to International Airport Road and transition to Jewel Lake, where they will take the exit onto International Airport Road and end at Signature Aviation.
Once they arrive in Fairbanks they will be taken to the Fairbanks Funeral Home off University Avenue.
Troopers say a good location to watch the procession in Fairbanks will be anywhere along Airport Way between Pikes Landing and University Drive.
The suspect in the case, 20-year-old Nathanial Kangas is expected to be at Fairbanks court to be arraigned this afternoon.
Editor's note: Troopers originally reported Nathanial Kangas was 19 years old. According to charging documents, he is 20. This story has been revised.


text:
Alright, very funny, wiseguys. Now tell us, who did this to all of the photos of Julianne Moore taken at today's Game Change screening in D.C.? We know it was one of you, because there is no way our amazing Julianne walked of the house wearing the arms of the alien from Signs as sleeves. Okay, sure, maybe the Crazy, Stupid, Love actress did make our Worst Dressed Stars Of 2011 list, but those sleeves don't even look real! Somebody fess up to this, or else we are going to have to admit that Julianne consciously picked out, tried on and zippered herself into this frock voluntarily, and we are just not ready to deal with that reality yet!
Honestly, we prefer her totally Sarah Palin transformation in the upcoming HBO film, which airs this weekend, to Moore's red carpet selection. Or maybe this look is an homage to Palin too? Maybe it reflects her belief in our right to bear arms? Arms that Julianne Moore stole from the set of Men In Black III, stuffed with shoulder pads and sewed onto a sexy gown? Now that we think about it, that idea does make us proud to be an American. Carry on, Julianne!
[Photo: Getty Images]