text:
Norden Profits From Cargo Strategy Even With Rate Slump: Freight
D/S Norden AS, Europe's largest commodities shipping company, is booking more cargo than its fleet of Panamax vessels can carry, a strategy to make money even with the lowest vessel rates since 2002.
The Hellerup, Denmark-based company's freight accords for this year are equal to 121 percent of its Panamax capacity, a May 15 filing showed. Norden will profit if it hires the extra ships at prices below those agreed to with clients, according to RS Platou Markets AS, an investment bank in Oslo. Rates plunged 22 percent since the start of January.
Shipping companies are contending with rates that tumbled 89 percent from their most recent peak in May 2008, a slump that reflects a glut of new ships rather than less cargo. Some owners are responding by anchoring the most vessels in at least four years, while others are cutting speeds to save on fuel costs, the biggest operating expense. Norden's strategy may propel its shares 30 percent higher in the next 12 months, the average of six analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg show.
"Norden is unique among listed shipping companies because it can adjust to the market more effectively, especially in a challenging market," said Martin Korsvold, an analyst at Pareto Securities ASA in Oslo whose recommendations on the shares of shipping companies returned 19 percent in two years. "This strategy is a way to reduce risk in a bad market."
Baltic Exchange
Daily earnings for Panamaxes, the largest ships to navigate the Panama Canal, averaged $8,963 so far this year, the worst for the period since 2002, according to the Baltic Exchange, a publisher of costs along more than 50 trade routes. Rates for the 750-foot vessels, hauling everything from coal to grains, will drop 21 percent to an average of $11,000 this year, according to the median of 10 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
Norden operates 41 Panamaxes, accounting for 35 percent of its dry-bulk commodity fleet by capacity, according to data on the company's website. Its shares advanced 14 percent to 153.4 kroner ($26.38) in Copenhagen this year and will reach 199.17 in 12 months, the analyst estimates show. The Lloyd's List-Bloomberg Top 50 Shipping Index Value of the largest companies rose 0.4 percent since the start of January.
The company manages its dry-bulk fleet as a single unit and has agreed to contracts covering 81 percent of combined capacity, Chief Executive Officer Carsten Mortensen said in an interview. Norden can hire more ships on short-term leases to change its carrying capacity, he said.
"We are well covered to prepare for a bumpy ride this year," Mortensen said by phone on May 16. "If the market goes up, our cover will reduce."
Fleet Value
While the company can adjust in response to rates, there's less it can do about asset values. The price of a five-year-old Panamax slumped 30 percent last year, according to Simpson, Spence & Young Ltd., the world's second-largest shipbroker.
Norden announced a $300 million writedown on May 15 to reflect the value of its fleet. Its shares fell 0.3 percent and all eight analysts who issued research notes reiterated recommendations to own the stock, indicating analysts and investors were anticipating the change.
This year's average rate of $11,000 anticipated by analysts would be below the $13,000 that most owners need to break even. The global fleet expanded 42 percent since the end of 2008 and outstanding orders at ship yards are equal to 35 percent of existing capacity, the most of any dry-bulk vessel class, data from Englewood, Colorado-based research group IHS Inc. show. The Panamax fleet will expand 14 percent in 2012, according to Clarkson Plc, the biggest shipbroker.
Shipping Associations
The gains overwhelmed a jump in seaborne volumes of dry-bulk commodities, which London-based Clarkson estimates will reach a record 3.85 billion metric tons this year, 20 percent more than in 2008, when Panamax rates most recently peaked. About 90 percent of world trade goes by sea, according to the Round Table of International Shipping Associations.
Norden's other dry-bulk carriers are also contending with declining rates. Its Capesizes, the largest ships hauling iron ore and coal, have enough cargo booked for 53 percent of their available voyages, company data show. That may indicate Norden is refraining from locking in rates now, expecting them to rise in the second half of the year, said Herman Hildan, an analyst at Platou in Oslo.
Daily Capesize earnings plunged 68 percent to $8,841 this year, after more than doubling in the second half of last year, according to the London-based Baltic Exchange. Forward freight agreements, traded by brokers and used to bet on future costs, anticipate a rebound, with fourth-quarter rates being traded at $14,325, or 62 percent more than now, Clarkson data show.
Cargo Agreements
In contrast to dry bulk, Norden has cargo agreements covering 20 percent of its fleet of oil-product tankers for this year. The rest will compete for single-voyage contracts because rates will probably gain, Mortensen said. Tankers accounted for 20 percent of the company's revenue in the first quarter, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
Medium-range tankers, each carrying about 13 million gallons of fuels, will earn an average $14,657 a day this year, 17 percent more than in 2011, according to the median of 10 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. The global fleet will expand 3.9 percent as demand advances 3.8 percent, Clarkson estimates.
John Fredriksen, the billionaire who founded tanker company Frontline Ltd., ordered as many as 10 of the ships in February. Wilbur Ross, whose company manages about $10 billion of assets, joined a group buying 30 product tankers in September.
Medium-Range Tanker
The cost of a five-year-old medium-range tanker was unchanged at $25.4 million last year, according to Clarkson. That compares with the slump in Panamaxes to $26.3 million, from $37.8 million at the end of 2010, London-based Simpson, Spence & Young estimates.
Panamax owners are responding by anchoring ships or slowing them down to extend the length of voyages. The average vessel sailed at 8.8 knots last month, compared with 11.2 knots four year earlier, and an average of 515 were anchored last month, from 193 in May 2008, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Each of the ships can hold 80,000 tons of cargo.
Norden will report net income of $12.6 million for this quarter and profit for each of the next two quarters, according to the mean of as many as seven analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. It reported a first-quarter loss of $255.9 million after reducing the value of its fleet.
"Norden wants to ensure we have reached the bottom and then will start to become more and more open to the market," said Nikolaj Kamedula, an analyst at SEB Enskilda in Copenhagen whose recommendations on the shares of shipping companies returned 13 percent in the past six months. "This year is not the year we're going to see a return in the dry-bulk market."


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A much delayed post! For my birthday, fellow food lover, Beck, took me out for lunch/brunch. The problem with food lovers getting together is that we want to find a restaurant that we both have not been to! Since we both eat out a lot, it was a very hard and long process to narrow down to a few contenders.
Our winner was Catch 122! It had me at featured poutine for brunch! The walk from Canada Line station to the restaurant, where it is close to DTES, was about 5-10 min? That's enough exercise to burn off the poutine right?
It is next to Wildebeest and it shares the similar rustic interior design with the exposed bricks and stretches very long length wise.
On a sunny day, it would be quite nice to be seated by the window by the entrance for people watching and soaking up the sun. Too bad the only 2 tables by the windows were already taken!
It is an alcohol-licensed establishment and it seems they are full loaded with different types of alcohol! Along with booze, they also serve Intelligentsia coffee. Since I already had my morning cup, I skipped on that. I wonder if that's the reason they have that sign out there! There are quite a few walk in just to get the coffee to go!
I appreciate an open concept in a restaurant. To me, it demonstrate to the patron that there is nothing to hide and they are proud of their work space. I love to be able to see how clean and organized the kitchen is, 'coz you know, that's where my food comes from!
I was set on getting a poutine and it took a while for Beck to decided on the double decker!
The featured poutine captured my attention! I love mushrooms and bacon, having both on my other favourite item of poutine sounds like a perfect combination for me!
"All our sausages, bacon, pastrami, gravlax, roast, pastry and desserts are
hand-made, cured and smoked in-house with locally sourced ingredients and lots of love."
Their thick cut bacon was sooo delicious! It is smoked/cured with good amount of seasoning and the amount of fat in each bacon bits was well balanced! The fat/dripping used in the gravy was bowl licking good. The fries were a bit on the starchy side but it is crispy and not soggy at all. They were perfect to mop up every last bit of the gravy/fat. I just wish the size was slightly bigger. For $10, I expected the size to be more than a tiny soup bowl. Maybe I am just wanting too much for my buck. Regardless, it is an excellent dish and it is filling for sure.
Here is Beck's Scrambled eggs chorizo double decker ($12). It has scrambled eggs, house-made chorizo sausage, house-smoked bacon, wild mushrooms, gruyère cheese, arugula, English muffin, Yukon nugget potato hash. As Beck HATES cheese, the gruyere was left out per her request.
It is a double decker afterall! It is quite tall! Beck had to separate the layers to eat it. She liked all the meat that was in it especially the thick-cut bacon! This is a very filling sandwich but and again, Beck was licking her fingers afterward! (Fine, maybe using a lot of napkin instead of licking her fingers). It is that moist and delicious.
I think overall, the food is good but definitely on the more expensive side. Their in-house cured and smoked meats are definitely very solid. I would take C back here just to try their bacon! The atmosphere overall is nice and relaxing mostly because service was minimal. It is not hard to get the waiter's attention but they don't check on the patrons as other restaurants do. Maybe that's what happens in general on a slow weekday lunch with hipster servers. I wonder how it would be during dinner service. I guess we went during their "cafe" time, things might be better during their "bistro" hours for dinner.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
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221438590-Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis
From PsychWiki - A Collaborative Psychology Wiki
Section 1
Frustration is defined as an interference blocking someone from obtaining a goal; aggression is a behavior in response to frustration intended to harm the person blocking the goal (Berkowitz 1989; Anderson & Dill, 1995). The feelings of frustration lead to aggressive behaviors emitted by humans in extremely traumatic situations. The frustration-aggression hypothesis was formulated to link frustrating scenarios to acts of aggression towards people.
There have been two basic theories on the frustration-aggression hypothesis in relation to humans, and how there are exceptions to the rule (Anderson & Dill, 1995). The theories agree that there is a relationship between frustration and aggression. The original theory states, "all acts of aggression are the result of previous frustration and all frustration leads to aggression" (Anderson & Dill, 1995). However, research found that this theory contradicted itself in human application. The revised theory argued that only certain frustrating situations, such as an unsupportable drug addiction, produces aggressive behaviors (Berkowitz, 1989). The frustration-aggression hypothesis now recognizes that the obstruction of a goal is not enough to frustrate and person to the point of an aggressive act, frustration that causes acts aggression are instigated by an implicit or explicit drive to reach the goal (Berkowitz, 1989).
The frustration-aggression hypothesis relates to humans of all ages not specifically adults. An example is the article by Piamonte and Hoge (1973); their research found that even young children display frustration and aggression toward their peers. It was discovered that this behavior was learned by children through adult models with strong aggressive tendencies. Research findings suggest that children with strong aggressive tendencies display more imitation of aggression than children with weaker aggressive tendencies, and aggressive cues act as releasers for existing aggressive tendencies. In order to prevent young children from developing this violent nature, adults need to learn to control their aggression, especially if they are a model for young children.
Prevention is not mentioned in research because frustration and aggression are almost impossible to track; frustration is an emotion, which anyone can be feeling at any time, aggression although it can be seen is hard to prevent because it stems from frustration. However, intervention of frustration and aggression is possible using medication, therapy, and anger management techniques. An example is a person with severe anxiety, anxiety can often promote frustration, and aggression, which is, treated with antidepressant or anxiety medications. Medication, therapy, and anger management all require that the aggressor know they need help, and be willing to cooperate and reduce their violent behavior.
Section 2
An example of the frustration-aggression hypothesis is an article written by Frank Tam and Mitsuru Taki (2007), which compared female bullying in Hong Kong to female bullying in Japan. The research compared their home life, academic activities, societal expectations, and stress level. It was found that these aspects contributed greatly to the level of frustration and type of aggression they demonstrated. Although all the different factors explored contributed to the subjects frustration and aggression, it was societal expectations and stress level that accounted for most of the subjects frustration. The girls from Hong Kong expressed aggression through the frustrations of academic activities and social behavior, while the girls from Japan expressed aggression because of societal expectations.
Section 3
Bullying is a form of aggressive behavior stimulated by aversive occurrences linked to stressful circumstances (Tam &Taki, 2007). Despite the fact that frustration and aggression were described as two separate entities in the study of bullying, they used the frustration-aggression hypothesis to describe bullying as a response to mental frustration. The aggressive tendencies of people who bully may stem from specific situations or from on-going pressure and stress (Berkowitz, 1989; Anderson & Dill, 1995).
It has been found that stress and societal pressure can be a cause of frustration and therefore lead to aggression, as in the case of female bullying (Tam & Taki, 2007). Frustration, which caused the aggression of bullying, is different between girls in Japan and girls in Hong Kong. Japanese girls were found to bully when provoked by their peers, frustrated, or in need of venting their built up emotions, while the girls from Hong Kong bullied as a reaction to educational pressure, and the behavior of their peers (Tom & Taki, 2007). Researchers discovered that this type of aggression is an expressive way of venting frustration, indicating that stress is a major factor in the frustration-aggression hypothesis (Tom & Taki, 2007). Stress was found to be the main reason girls from both Japan and Hong Kong bully.
Female bullying could be intervened through medication and therapy. Medication can be used to relieve stress, depression, and anxiety, which might alleviated the aggression caused by bullying. Therapy can be used to address aggression through training these young girls how to transfer their frustration into something else. Through medication and therapy, frustration can be intervened before aggression is manifested.
Section 4
The frustration-aggression hypothesis relates to the Columbine incident of 1999, but only according to the initial reports. According to CNN the initial report stated that the two perpetrators were considered social outcasts, teased, and bullied (Chen, 2009). This could cause frustration, aggression, and feelings of revenge. However, it was later found that the perpetrators were typical students at Columbine. They were not loners, part of the trench coat mafia, or bullied on a regular basis.
Despite their typical social lives, the perpetrators did have mental incapacities, one had a psychiatric disorder, and the other had severe depression. The in-depth psychiatric investigation shows that the frustration-aggression may not apply to the Columbine incident. Although aggression and violence occurred, there has been no evidence to support the idea that frustration instigated the aggressive behaviors of the perpetrators.
Some hypothetical situations that could link the frustration-aggression hypothesis to Columbine are emotional neglect, domestic violence, peer pressure, educational stress, or social frustration. CNN found that the family of one of the perpetrators had no idea that their son was capable of such violence and had no idea he was planning something like this. The report given by his mother indicates that they may have been emotionally neglecting their son, not conversing with him or discussing his activities in school. The two boys could have been victims of domestic violence causing the frustration and aggression that was manifested in the Columbine incident. Peer pressure, although highly unlikely could be another cause of the aggression leading to the columbine incident. It was found that the perpetrators had a specific circle of friends, those friends may have encouraged the perpetrators to pull a prank or create a panic situation, and pressure from friends can cause stress and anxiety leading to frustration and the aggression of Columbine. Educational stress could be a cause for Columbine. The perpetrators could have been anxious about college, not wanting to leave high school, or receiving less than adequate grades causing severe stress and depression in the perpetrators causing them to feel frustrated and commit the Columbine incident. Columbine could have also been committed because of social frustration; the perpetrators could have been squeezed out of their social group or broken up with by a girlfriend causing depression and stress leading to Columbine. There are a number of reasons why the perpetrators committed Columbine; however, no evidence suggests that frustration was a key component in this severe act of aggression.
Alvarez, A., & Bachman, R. (2008). Violence; The Enduring Problem. Los Angeles, California: Sage Publications.
Anderson, C. A., & Dill, J. C. (1995). Effects of frustration justification on hostile aggression. Aggressive Behavior, 21, 359=369
Berkowitz, L. (1989). Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis; Examination and Reformulation. Psychological Bulletin, 106, 59-73
Piamonte, J. S., & Hoge R. D. (1973). An investigation of the frustration-aggression relation in children. Canad. J. Beuav. Sci., 5, 362-370
Taki, M., & Tam, F. W. (2007). Bullying amoung girls in Japan and Hong Kong: An examination of the frustration-aggression model Educational Research and Evaluation, 13, 373-399
◄ Back to How to explain violent behavior? page


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If you are moving the drive to a new computer it's always best to have a clean install, due to possible problems related to motherboard specific drivers etc. I'm not sure exactly what you're trying to do, but it's always best to install the OS to C drive, which will be on the Primary IDE channel, and therefore the new drive.
You can partition the new drive into multiple partitions, and therefore use one for the OS, one for games etc, and so on. I always prefer to keep partitions under 8GB. That keeps the OS and other programs, games in your case, on separate drives. It also allows a separate partition for backup purposes, or to save files that won't be lost if you have to format and reinstall later for some reason. The old drive can serve the same purpose.
As for the old drive, if you don't have anything you wish to save on it, such as documents, pictures, sound files, etc I would format it and install it empty. Don't use the /s switch, which copies system files to make it bootable. Use that switch only on C drive. If it has files you wish to save, install it then transfer anything you want to save to a partition on the new drive, then format it. I don't recommend trying to uninstall or delete Windows to clean up the drive. Formatting is best.
Any applications on the old drive you wish to use are best reinstalled fresh on the new drive, trying to copy them from the old one will most likely result in problems with missing registry entries and misdirected links. That's things like MS Office, Front Page, Scanner software, etc.
If you're trying to set things up so you can use the old drive, as slave, to run the OS, that's a whole new ball of wax, and generally not recommended, unless you're really good with computers...keep the OS on C drive.
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you!
Note: Please post your questions on the forums, not in my email.
Computer Information Links


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PERRYTON - Bobby Wayne Barnett Sr., 81, died Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2009.
Services will be at 10 a.m. Thursday in First Christian Church with the Rev. Daniel Anderson, the Rev. Marlon Sparks and the Rev. Mark Metzger officiating. Burial will be in Ochiltree Cemetery by Boxwell Brothers Funeral Home of Perryton.
Mr. Barnett was born April 21, 1928, of Altus, Okla. He had lived in the area since 1948, moving from Woodward, Okla. He married Evelyn Yates on Feb. 1, 1949, in Perryton.
He and his mother moved in 1931 to Woodward, where he grew up and graduated from Woodward High School in 1946. The highlight of that year was being a starter on the Woodward High School football team, which won the state championship. He attended college at Northwestern at Alva, Okla. He moved to Perryton in 1948 to join a half brother in the bricklaying business.
Bob was a member of First Christian Church, Primetimers Sunday school class. He was very active in the church, having served through the years on many committees, serving as a youth leader, deacon, elder, treasurer, finance chairman and board chairman.
Bob was very active in the community also. He was a past president of the Jaycees and in 1961 served the community as the celebration chairman. He has served as fundraiser for the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, American Cancer Society and the American Heart Association. He was assistant manager of the Perryton Pioneers semi-pro baseball team in the early 1950s. He coached the YMCA Little League baseball, basketball and football. His hobbies included fishing and golf, and he was an avid reader.
After his career as a bricklayer, Bob later entered the life insurance business in 1956, representing Great American Reserve. In 1977, his son Bobby Barnett, became a full partner and they established the Barnett Insurance Agency. Bob retired in 1994. Upon retirement, he became very involved in the "Walk to Emmaus" and Kairos prison ministry. He was instrumental in establishing Waka Christian Center and Rushing Wind Emmaus community. He served on the Waka Christian Center board for the last 14 years and the Rushing Wind Emmaus board for the first six years after its inception. He had a great passion and love of the Emmaus community. He leaves a great legacy with the creation of the Waka Christian Center.
He was preceded in death by his mother, Nellie Goad.
Survivors include his wife, Evelyn Barnett; two daughters, Judy Hutchison and husband Joe of Miami and Sandy Judice and husband Sammy of Perryton; a son, Bobby Barnett Jr. and wife Debbie of Perryton; seven grandchildren, Stacy Johnson, Jodie Johnson and Chester Hutchison, all of Amarillo, Brent Judice of Perryton, Julie Babbs of Gruver, Jennifer Herold of Breckenridge, Colo., and Cody Hutchison of Lubbock; 10 great-grandchildren, Piper and Sam Johnson, Kylie and Jared Johnson, Hayley, Rio And Yancey Judice and Kearstin, Ella and Pake Babbs.
The family suggests memorials be to Waka Christian Center, P.O. Box 52, Perryton, TX 79070; or a favorite charity
Family visitation will be from 6:30 to 8 p.m. today at the funeral home.
Amarillo Globe-News, Sept. 30, 2009
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text:
On Tue, Nov 27, 2007 at 05:37:08PM +0100, David Kiliani wrote:[color=blue]
>I'm looking for the amd64 testing images, unfortunately
>seems to be pretty empty. Is there a mirror, or when will there be
>images or jigdo files again?[/color]
The daily installer builds are currently failing at the moment, which
I'm told is a libc issue on the build machines. Once that's fixed the
daily and weekly CD/DVD builds should be back.
Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK. [email]email@example.com[/email]
"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that
English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on
occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them
unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary." -- James D. Nicoll
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [email]firstname.lastname@example.com[/email]
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [email]email@example.com[/email]


text:
On 2008-06-13, w sanders
> Core reason for me asking is Juniper JunOS still does not include SSH
> in the International version due to "government export restrictions".
> I'm sure shipping the Domestic version of JunOS, which includes SSHD,
For s/w already available as a part of widely-distributed systems
(and SSH surely qualifies) I believe all you have to do is notify
the government at their email addresses.
A bit more detail at:
It's also possible that JunOS contains some other crypto for which
the export isn't so simple. Or that people are using the issue as
an excuse for market segmentation or something.
Elvis Notargiacomo master AT barefaced DOT cheek


text:
Prof. PhDr. Ivo Možný, CSc.
Field of study: Sociology
supervisor of doctoral students
- Barbara Dobešová (graduate 2012, topic: MotherIng. Professionalization of foster care observed by foster parent in SOS children village)
- Tomáš Katrňák (graduate 2002)
- Ľuba Kráľová (graduate 2000)
- Michaela Kvapilová Bartošová (graduate 2012, topic: Deciding about motherhood in the life course of women over thirty)
- Michal Nekorjak (graduate 2010, topic: "Interworlds": Organized Employing of Migrants from Ukraine in the Czech Republic)
- Juraj Potančok (graduate 2015, topic: Perception of Fatherhood by Young Fathers in the Changing Contemporary Family)
- Marcela Severová (graduate 2007, topic: Romany-Czech intermarriages as (non)problematic experience)
- Hana Šlechtová (graduate 2008, topic: The Position and the Role of the Child in Family Socialization)
- Jaromír Volek (graduate 2000)


text:
OCEANA COUNTY, MI – Several police cruisers from agencies in Muskegon County, West Michigan and beyond filled U.S. 31 this morning.
Police officers traveled north on the highway headed to Manistee High School, the site for the funeral of fallen Michigan State Police Trooper Paul Butterfield. The funeral service is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m., following visitation with the trooper's family that started at 10 a.m. today, Sept. 14.
More than 10 police cruisers from Muskegon County agencies, mainly the Muskegon County Sheriff's Office and Fruitport Township Police Department, gathered at the Shopko parking lot in Whitehall Township, just off the Colby Road exit.
Those police cruisers, plus dozens more, seemed to form a procession line on the highway, traveling through Oceana County on U.S. 31 North just before 11 this morning. According to police officials, those attending from Muskegon County are going on their own time at their own cost.
Butterfield was killed in the line of duty Sept. 9 while making a traffic stop in Mason County.
Butterfield was shot in the head. He was rushed by helicopter to a Traverse City hospital, where he passed away.
Butterfield, who was 43 years old, joined the Michigan State Police in 1999 and previously served in the military.
Eric John Knysz, 19, of Irons has been accused of murder and other counts. Knysz's wife, Sarah Renee Knysz, 20, is accused of accessory after the fact to murder. Both were arraigned this week in Mason County.


text:
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text:
The website said it examined the 11 metropolitan areas with the highest obesity rates, published in the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index. McAllen, Texas, ranks as the highest, while Boulder, Colorado, is the lowest.
Other metro areas beating out Mobile (which includes the entire county) for girth are Huntington (West Virginia)/Ashland (Kentucky), which ranked second, and Little Rock-North Little Rock-Conway, Arkansas, which came in third.
In addition to the 33.7 percent obesity rate, 24/7 Wall Street reported that Mobile ranks poorly in other categories that correlate with overweight residents, including the percentage of people with high blood pressure (35.7 percent, 12th highest); the percentage of people who regularly exercise (52.6 percent, 86th lowest); and percentage of population with at least a bachelor's degree (20.2 percent, 102nd lowest).
Of course, it should be noted that 24/7 Wall Street drew its obesity data from Gallup, which used Americans' self-reported height and weight to calculate Body Mass Index scores. Research reported last week from the University of Alabama at Birmingham challenged the accuracy of this data on grounds that people fudge their weight and that people in the South lie less than elsewhere.
Read the full 24/7 Wall Street story on America's fattest cities here.
And, by the way, Mobile does not fare well when it comes to places where people feel safe at night. You can read what 24/7 Wall Street has to say about that subject here.


text:
Using the words "Penn State," "Paterno" and "Sandusky," analytics company PeopleBrowsr (in an effort exclusive to PR News) tracked the sentiment toward the university from Nov. 3—the day the scandal hit—to Nov. 9. From a total of 434,831 Twitter posts, PeopleBrowsr sampled nearly 4,500 for sentiment—negativity reigned (40% negative vs. 5% positive). Not good for a once-proud university. See Katie Paine's Image Patrol further crisis analysis.
Source: PeopleBrowsr (exclusive to PR News)


text:
Jim Lambrechts, Wentworth Institute of Technology
"Recent Findings on Characteristics of Nineteenth-Century Fill in the Back Bay and the Fenway "
All seminars take place at the society, 1154 Boylston St., Boston, MA 02215, commencing at 5:15 PM and involve the discussion of a pre-circulated paper. After a statement by Jim Lambrechts and a comment by Jack Duggan, the floor will be open to a general discussion of the paper.
Afterwards, the Society will serve a light buffet supper. Reservations are suggested but not required to attend the seminar, but are required to attend the supper so that numbers may be given to the caterer.
The event is free and open to the public. There is a charge to subscribe to the papers for the season. To receive the papers by post, please send a check to the society at the contact information below for $25. To receive papers by a username and password which allows access to a secure page on our website where the papers may be downloaded in PDF format, please send $15. Please mark your check with the name of the seminar you are subscribing and address it to the contact information, which appears below. Please also note the society also hosts two other seminars, Early American History, and Immigration and Urban History. For information on those seminars, please note the contact information below.
In the event inclement weather seems likely, please do not hesitate to call 617-536-1608 to find out if the event is going forward or has been postponed.
We look forward to seeing you at the seminars.
Thank you,


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Over a year ago now I wrote my dissertation on the Future of the Printed book. I was reading an old copy of It's Nice That 3 (April 2010) yesterday and found this great piece from an interview with Milton Glaser about the future of print.
With the wealth of knowledge from setting up New York Magazine, does it make you sad to see print magazines struggling as much as they are?
MG: It does make me sad. But then again, that's the sadness of the elderly leaving this world that they became accustomed to. I love print, and I love the experience of making things for reproduction and holding them and being able to see them without the veil of electronic fragments. It was also an interesting process to have people come together in a room, talk about ideas, and then see those ideas translated into a physical thing on a weekly basis. Working on a weekly is wonderful. Anyone who has done magazine work under pressure realises that it brings out the best in people, a real community. And through difficulty develops a range of skills that the electronic media basically does not demand of people….On the other hand there's nothing to worry about. It's happened, it's here, it's over. Now there will be a new idea of aesthetics, beauty, truth and everything else because that's what technology does.
So we're entering exciting rather than depressing times in terms of publishing? It's interesting to hear someone be positive about print with new technologies at the forefront of our minds.
MG: The lesson of history is that all technology changes culture, so what are you going to complain about? When oil painting was introduced the nature of painting changed and you couldn't exactly determine how it would change, but the difference between painting a fresco on a wall and painting a painting that could be moved and framed is profound. All of these things have consequences that are not understood until it's too late.
Quote taken from It's Nice That 3


text:
- Abstract
- Motivation
- Introduction
- Introduction into the UPnP Standard
- Interoperability
- Requirements
- Coherence Framework
- Implementation
- Conclusion
- Appendix A: Abbreviations
- Appendix B: Full interoperability test protocol
- Appendix C: Source code
- References
The UPnP standard is already around for many years. It was developed by Microsoft to reduce the effort that is needed to configure devices attached to a network. But it never became popular until the Media Center PC's and the first UPnP enabled Set-Top-Boxes for TV's started to be sold a few years ago.
Nowadays one can find UPnP functionality in many places. The most popular implementation (besides the Internet Gateway Device used in DSL/Broadband-Routers) is the UPnP Audio/Video standard. It enables the user to share pictures, audio and video files on one device using an UPnP A/V server and view them on another device using an UPnP A/V renderer. Every major Multimedia product today features UPnP capabilities. Even though there are many different libraries and implementations of the UPnP A/V specification, they are not guaranteed to work together. Therefore interoperability is a major problem when using devices from different vendors.
The aim of this thesis is to implement a Test Suite that is able to test UPnP devices against the specification of the UPnP Forum. This is not limited only to test UPnP Audio/Video devices but to test UPnP devices of any flavour. Having the ability of being extended it can be of use even for developing a new kind of UPnP device and test it before the specification is handed in to be tested by the UPnP Forum to become a standardized official device specification.
I always found it comfortable to have a network that connects all the computers at home so everybody can share a music track for example. However the others who want to listen to that track always have to know exactly, on which computer and in which directory the file resides and it takes a lot of clicks to get there. Of course, you can ease the search process a little by using clear and understandable directory names but still, all the users have their own idea of a "good" directory structure hence it still remains somewhat uncomfortable.
When I first heard about UPnP and its capabilities, I was impressed. With UPnP A/V infrastructure everything would be a lot easier. Everybody that is connected to the network is able to run a server that offers all the files that should be shared. Now if someone else on the network is looking for images, music or videos (media files in general), this user just needs to install an UPnP A/V client software or has to buy a hardware box that is able to "speak" UPnP respectively (this software and those boxes usually consist of a control point for browsing and issuing commands to the server and a media renderer which actually shows the requested content). When the client is started it searches for an A/V server that offers content. If it finds one, this server is queried for the available content and displays the results on the users screen. There is no need to know who is offering those files and where they are located. This works even without having any meta data available in the shared files, but the navigation especially in a large music collection is a lot easier if you can browse it by artist, album or title.
Knowing this and being still curious I tried to find an UPnP A/V server that I could install to share my media files with everybody connected to my network in an easy way. I found some open source software for Linux, a server as well as a client. After some testing it worked, but some strange errors appeared while using this setup. So I tried another server and the previously seen errors disappeared in favour of other errors. After trying a few combinations of servers and clients I was disappointed. If all the devices would obey the according UPnP specification they should work together without any problems. Well, obviously they do not. Hence the only solution at this time was to find a reasonably working combination of server and client hoping it will get better.
Out of this interest I had the chance to get a traineeship at Nokia for three months in the late summer of 2006. I tested UPnP interoperability of the N800 against all the UPnP media servers I could find. The results were disappointing as well. Initially the goal was to change the source code of the client to speak to all the servers but I soon realized that it will be very difficult to make the client as flexible as possible to be able to talk to as many different servers as possible. Also the other way round it would not be easy to program a flexible server that is able to speak to all the clients.
So my first idea after this experience was to program a fully standard compliant media server. It should have no exception for any non-standard-conform client so every client can be tested against it. However, would it change the situation, if there is a server that only speaks to less than a handful of standard compliant clients? Would developers use it to test their devices and programs respectively? I guess it would not change anything and nobody would use it. So why not help the developers of these devices to validate their clients or servers against the specification instead of competing with their products? Therefore I discarded the idea of programming a fully standard compliant media server and came up with the idea to program a test suite to enable all developers to test their devices, be it an UPnP A/V client, an UPnP A/V server or another UPnP device.
The general idea is to make the test suite able to speak to all possible UPnP devices. This can be done by reading the XML file that defines the structure of the device and the services it offers. By doing this the program also knows which commands it can send and which answers and status changes it can expect after the device finished processing this command. Using this approach it can also deal with devices that are not specified or standardized yet. On the other hand, the test suite has to be able to perfectly simulate another device, at least to certain extend, so it cannot only test the responses of a tested device but also if the device itself is issuing correct commands and how it acts if the responses sent are invalid.
This is the point where my test suite is going to be more advanced than the Intel Tools for example. The Device Spy (that is part of the Intel Tools) can also search for UPnP devices in the network, retrieve the description and issue queries on the functions offered by the device. That is very useful for the first testing of a new device, of course. But what it cannot test is a complete infrastructure with devices interacting with each other. To test a new implemented control point, for instance, it needs a media server and a renderer because a control point is talking to both of them, in a way interconnecting them. Instead of having two programs running and capturing the traffic with a network analysing tool which is not very comfortable, the test suite can emulate both. Even more it can simulate uncommon cases where for instance one of the devices disappears while the control point is talking to it.
To ease the testing of these more complex scenarios I planned to enable the test suite to execute scripts. Since the suite is going to be implemented in Python itself it should not be difficult to create an interface that an external Python script can use to automate the testing procedure. In a way this scripting can be seen as unit testing that spans over multiple devices.
Concluding my motivation I also want to mention that the test suite I am developing during this thesis is going to be released as Open Source Software (OSS) afterwards. Thus it will be free of charge and therefore I hope the developers are more motivated to use it as they would be if they or their companies have to pay for it.
Introduction into the UPnP Standard
This chapter introduces the UPnP history, its technology and the ideas behind. It starts with a general overview of UPnP followed by a listing of all the techniques that are utilized to make an UPnP environment work and to conclude the introduction, there is a listing of all the devices that are already defined by the UPnP working committee.
What is UPnP™ and what is the UPnP™ Forum?
As written in [UPNPForum03], "UPnP™ technology defines an architecture for pervasive peer-to-peer network connectivity of intelligent appliances, wireless devices, and PCs of all form factors. It is designed to bring easy-to-use, flexible, standards-based connectivity to ad-hoc or unmanaged networks whether in the home, in a small business, public spaces, or attached to the Internet. UPnP technology provides a distributed, open networking architecture that leverages TCP/IP and the Web technologies to enable seamless proximity networking in addition to control and data transfer among networked devices."
The UPnP Device Architecture (UDA) offers means to integrate a device into a network, to automatically discover other predefined device types that are connected to the same network, to learn about their abilities, to propagate the devices own abilities and finally to leave the network after telling the other devices it is doing so.
The technologies that are used for creating this powerful architecture are well known and well proven Internet protocols like IP, TCP, UDP and HTTP alongside the newer but rarely used protocols SSDP (Simple Service Discovery Protocol) and GENA (General Event Notification Architecture). For the data transport between the devices the data is encoded in XML using the SOAP format and transported over an HTTP connection. All those techniques were designed to span across different physical media and across system borders so they fit perfectly in the UDA which is designed to accommodate home and office networks. The "universal" in the name also shows this because instead of using special drivers for connecting those devices common protocols are used making the implementation independent of programming language and operating systems. Also are vendors not limited to the given APIs but they can extend the standardized ones or even develop their own APIs that suits their customers' needs best.
The standardized device specifications are developed by the UPnP Forum. Its members are companies that use UPnP in their products and seek to develop standards for describing protocols and XML-schemas for devices to enable interoperability between devices based on those standards. For this working committees are built consisting of employees of the member companies that have expertise in designing and specifying a certain kind of device. Such a committee then has to create a specification, build sample implementations and build appropriate test suites. UPnP vendors now can build devices based on that specification and be confident of the interoperability with devices from other vendors that are also built following that specification. In addition the device is allowed to bear an UPnP logo if it passes a series of tests and if the test results were checked by a Test Reviewer. This enables the customer to recognize standard compliant devices.
Techniques used by the UDA
The UPnP device architecture is based on a number of protocols and formats that need to be known to the reader of this thesis. The following part gives a short introduction into each of them and mentions how this protocol or format is used in the UDA. Further information can be found in [Internet_protocols].
The Internet Protocol defines a globally unique address for each host. Using this address as destination address other hosts can send data packets to this host. If the communicating hosts are located in different networks, routers can determine the way to send the packet to deliver it to the destination host.
All devices in an UPnP network will first try to get an IP address by different means (i.e. using the DHCP, see below). As soon as an address was acquired the device can start communicating to other UPnP devices.
The Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol enables a device that gets connected to a network to automatically obtain an IP address from a DHCP server so that the user who is using the devices doesn't have to bother about a correct configuration. Besides the IP address a device can also receive information about the subnet mask, the default router and the IP addresses of the DNS servers.
For an UPnP device this is the preferred way to get an IP address. However if a DHCP server is not available the device falls back to ZeroConf? protocol.
The Zero Configuration Networking is a way towards just using a network without having to configure it. It is mainly a set of rules how to use normal IP traffic to achieve the goal. When a ZeroConf enabled computer is attached to a network without a DHCP server it assigns itself an IP address based on the rules.
ZeroConf is only used by the UDA as a last resort for getting an IP address. As soon as a DHCP server becomes available the device has to release the IP address and use the one assigned by the server.
The Transmission Control Protocol enables a host to distinguish between several simultaneous connections established to it using a port number so it can run several services using only one IP address. This protocol also keeps track of the order in which the packets were send and if all of them reached the destination. If not the sender will be notified or if no notification arrives the sender just resends all the data that was send after the last acknowledgment. The packet size is chosen based on the amount of data that is to be transferred but is usually delineated by the maximum transmission unit (MTU) of the network the device is attached to.
The TCP is used in combination with the IP (therefore often called TCP/IP). In this combination UPnP devices use the protocol to interact with other UPnP devices.
The User Datagram Protocol works almost the same like the TCP but it does neither guarantee that the data packets will reach its destination nor that the packets will arrive in order. Since it does not have the control overhead it is small and fast hence suitable for purposes where many but short messages have to be transferred without the need of an acknowledgment for the arrival.
Together with the HTTP UPnP devices use the UDP for the transmission of SSDP messages (see below).
The Hyper Text Transfer Protocol is probably the most well known amongst all the used protocols, initially just designed for delivering HTML pages but in the meantime methods for sending data back to the server were introduced.
In the UDA it is mainly used as underlying protocol for SSDP, SOAP and GENA. They extend the standard set of commands with their own commands to perform different tasks. It is also used for the streaming of media content even though it was not developed for that purpose.
The Simple Service Discovery Protocol offers a means to discover network services and enables the servers to notify other devices about their services. It uses unicast or multicast UDP packets to achieve its functionality since the needed information is very small and the delivery information is not necessarily needed.
The UDA uses SSDP for all discovery related communication and is the only widely used implementation of this protocol.
The General Event Notification Architecture defines an HTTP enhancement that is used to subscribe to events and to transmit event notification between HTTP resources whereby a resource can be any device or service that needs to send or receive event notifications.
Like SSDP, GENA is actually used by the UDA only. UPnP devices use it to subscribe for events and to inform subscribed devices about state changes.
With the SOAP protocol XML-based messages can be transmitted in a network, usually using HTTP but other protocols like SMTP are also usable. It is mostly used to define an API for Remote Procedure Calls (RPC) that can be used by other devices in the network. A drawback of using XML as transport format is the size of messages: even though they are human readable, it needs some computing power to parse and process them which makes it not suitable for very small devices like microcontrollers. Hence it is really difficult to build a SOAP enabled device with such limited resources.
UPnP devices use SOAP to invoke actions on a service a certain UPnP device is offering.
The Extensible Markup Language is used to represent data in elements that are embedded in a tree hierarchy. A schema defines rules on how the elements have to be structured and what kind of data an element can hold. The advantage of this approach is that the data become readable for humans while remaining readable for a program.
The XML format is used for all the data transport in SOAP communication.
Device specifications
- Audio/Video
- MediaServer V2.0 and MediaRenderer V2.0
- MediaServer V1.0 and MediaRenderer V1.0
- Basic
- Basic Device V1.0
- Home Automation
- Digital Security Camera V1.0
- Lighting Controls V1.0
- Networking
- Internet Gateway V1.0
- WLAN Access Point V1.0
- Printer
- Printer Enhanced V1.0
- Printer Basic V1.0
- Remoting
- Remote UI Client V1.0 and Remote UI Server V1.0
- Scanner
- Scanner V1.0
- Add-on services
- Device Security V1.0 and Security Console V1.0
- Quality of Service V1.0
- Quality of Service V2.0
Audio/Video devices
This chapter covers the three UPnP Audio/Video devices specified by the UPnP Forum. Together they build an infrastructure for distributing media content throughout a local network at home without the need of a complicated setup.
That is the place where all the media files are stored that are going to be published in the network. After the activation of the MediaServer it scans all resources (usually the file system) for media that should be shared. To ease the selection of media for the client/user the server has to provide some metadata about the shared files. Hence it needs to read all the shared files and index them according to the data found in ID3 tags, AVI containers etc. The collected data can be browsed or searched by the client/user. If a file matches the criteria of the client/user it is requested from the MediaServer and it starts to stream it to the device rendering the content.
A MediaServer can be a computer with MediaServer software installed (i.e. [TVersity], see page 15), an intelligent network storage with a tiny MediaServer built-in (i.e. [TwonkyMedia?], see page 14) or another device that offers its data via an UPnP interface (i.e. [Nokia N80]).
The renderer takes the data that is streamed by the server and outputs it according to the media format. After activation and announcing itself in the network a MediaRenderer is waiting for a ControlPoint that is issuing commands to request and play a file. If such a command is received the renderer connects to the given MediaServer and retrieves the file. The data is decoded and sent to the output device, screen and/or speakers. While the playback is running the ControlPoint can still affect it and change for example the volume for audio playback or the contrast for video playback.
MediaRenderers are rarely sold on their own. Typically renderer and ControlPoint are integrated within one device. They are available as computer programs, often in form of a MediaCenter? (i.e. [NeroHome?], see page 16), as audio clients having a WLAN connection (i.e. [NOXON 2 audio]) or as fully featured client that is playing every media type (i.e. [Buffalo LinkTheater? PC-P3LWG/DVD]).
The ControlPoint connects MediaServer and MediaRenderer. It usually has a graphical interface that shows all available servers in a tree structure and when the user selects one the content of this server is displayed. Now all the content can be browsed, typically by file name, artist, song name, etc. If a file was chosen and more than one MediaRenderer is available the user has to choose where to play the file. After making the choice the URL of the chosen file is sent to the chosen renderer who in turn requests the actual file using this URL. When the URL is sent to the renderer it does not automatically start to play. The ControlPoint initiates the playback using a control command. As said before in the MediaRenderer section, the user can control all common parameters like volume, brightness or colour temperature using the interface of the ControlPoint.
ControlPoint software without an attached renderer is pretty rare. The only two I know, are Intel AV Media Controller (see page 16) and Cidero MediaController? (see page 16). These two are only ControlPoints without the ability to render any content. An interesting use case is the MediaStreamer? for the Nokia N800. It is a full featured ControlPoint with an internal renderer. While other combined devices can just play the content on the integrated renderer, MediaStreamer? allows the user to control another renderer that is playing some music track while listening to the next track using the internal renderer.
Today's multimedia market offers lots of devices that feature UPnP capabilities. There are Broadband-Routers with a built-in hard drive that offer the media content on that drive via UPnP or programs like Windows Media Player which include UPnP MediaServer functionality as well. On the other end you can buy DVD players that cannot only play DVDs but that are also able connect to your UPnP MediaServer through a wireless LAN connection. Last but not least there are simple clients that just serve the purpose as mobile music player while they retrieve their music form an UPnP server as well.
It would be interesting to test all these devices against each other but my resources in time and money are limited. Therefore the following tests will only cover software servers, control points and renderer.
Software for testing
All the software that is going to be tested is either open source and hence free available or it is a trial version of a commercial product.
UPnP A/V MediaServer software
- uShare is a small UPnP media server that runs from the command line or as a daemon in a Linux or Unix environment. It just publishes the directory structure of the directory that was passed on the command line when starting uShare. It does not scan for meta data. Hence it is basically like sharing files with shared folders in the network but it eases the discovery of those files utilizing the UPnP architecture.
- GMediaServer is the software uShare is based on. Therefore it behaves pretty much the same as uShare does except that it only shares audio files. Video and image files are ignored when scanning the shared directories. As uShare it runs form the command line of a Linux or Unix system.
- MediaTomb is a bit more advanced. It scans the given files and creates a folder structure that can be browsed by the client. The four top folders are Audio, Video, Photos and PC Directory, with the latter showing the files in the folder structure like they are stored on the server (similar to the uShare behaviour). To be more compatible with UPnP clients it offers some switches to change the behaviour when sending responses to a requesting client. It also runs from the command line of a Linux or Unix system.
- TwonkyMedia is the software that is used on most embedded devices such as Network Attached Storages for the home network. Therefore it is especially interesting to test the interoperability of this software because it shows as well how interoperable these devices are going to be. TwonkyMedia runs on a number of different architectures. My tests were conducted on a Windows system.
- Intel AV Media Server is part of the Intel® Tools for UPnP Technologies. It is also pretty simple and makes audio, video and images files available on the network. The goal for developing this was to have an easy to use Media Server for testing and therefore features like transcoding and so on were not implemented.
- SimpleCenter is another Windows program for sharing files via UPnP. However, this functionality is only available in the Premium version which is also shipped with Nokia N80 phones. With SimpleCenter you can organize and sort your media files and this sorting is also exposed in the UPnP browsing tree along with the common metadata structure.
- Windows Media Connect was available separately until version 10 of Windows Media Player. Now the user is able to share directly all the files which are managed in the library of WMP.
- TVersity is one of the most versatile MediaCenter one could imagine. It shares all media files in the most common formats and it even transcodes the media if the player that accesses the content is not able to play in the format the file is stored in. Also it manages URLs for media on the internet or RSS feeds for podcasts or videos for example. All this is offered to the clients via UPnP and served by a Windows Service that runs in the background.
- Nero MediaHome is part of the Nero 7 software suite and an officially certified UPnP™ AV (Audio / Video) Media Server. Like most of the other programs it shares all types of media files and it also features a transcoding function. An interesting feature is the TV streaming. If the installed TV card is supported it records the selected TV stations and offers the recorded broadcasts via UPnP.
UPnP A/V ControlPoint/MediaRenderer software
- Cidero MediaController is an UPnP A/V ControlPoint written in Java. It discovers media servers and media renderer and shows them in the user interface. The user can select a media server, browse it and pass the URL of the selected file to a renderer for playing. Developed in Java it runs on every platform where a Java Runtime Environment is available. My Tests were conducted on a Windows PC.
- Djmount is a pretty simple UPnP client. It allows the user to mount the directory tree offered by a media server in a certain directory in the file system tree of Unix or Linux system. The metadata offered by the server is used to populate the file properties. Thus djmount acts as a bridge between the UPnP network and local programs that do not understand how to access resources shared via UPnP.
- The MediaPlayer on the Nokia N800 has a media library which shows all the available audio and video files on the device. Images are not listed. This library is also able to retrieve content from UPnP A/V servers. Since this device runs Linux, the MediaPlayer is a Linux program as well.
- Nero ShowTime is the player application of the Nero 7 software suite. It plays several different audio and video formats but it does not show images. Besides opening local files the user can browse a UPnP media server and add files from there to the play list.
- Nero Home is a MediaCenter application and also part of the Nero 7 software suite. As a MediaCenter it can be used with a remote control and offers an easy-to-use interface. Using the category Devices in the main screen shows all available devices of the computer it runs on. Additionally it shows an entry called "MediaHome Network". This offers an interface to all available UPnP A/V servers connected to the network and lets the user browse through the offered content. Nero Home plays numerous formats of video and audio files. Images can be viewed in a slide show.
- MediaStreamer is another application running on the Nokia N800. It is focused on the UPnP architecture of server, control point and renderer. The intended usage is to transform the N800 into some sort of remote control that browses the content of a media server and controls an external renderer that is showing the selected content. While this external renderer is playing a music file for instance the user can switch back to the built-in renderer, look for the next song and pre-listen to it. Then it can be added to the play list and will be played next on the external renderer. This also works for images. Videos can only be played on an external renderer. The built-in renderer does not support video playback yet.
Network traffic analysis tool
Wireshark (formerly known as Ethereal) is a network protocol analyser and according to the website "Wireshark's powerful features make it the tool of choice for network troubleshooting, protocol development, and education worldwide." It allows pretty advanced filtering of the captured data packets. Thus the user can inspect only the relevant ones without being distracted by the huge amount of other packets that are usually exchanged over the same Ethernet connection. Besides that Wireshark is Open Source hence free software and several precompiled binaries exist for the most commonly used operating systems. So I can use it for testing on both platforms, Linux and Windows. Because of these reasons and because I already used Wireshark before, I chose it for the traffic analysis.
Test procedure
Test results
|Cidero MediaController (Windows PC)
|Intel AV Media Controller (Windows PC)
|Djmount (Linux PC)
|FileManager (N800)
|MediaPlayer (N800)
|Nero ShowTime (Windows PC)
|Nero Home (Windows PC)
|MediaStreamer (N800)
|Intel AV Media Server
|Nero MediaHome
- MediaPlayer does not show files, only directories. Request and responses look ok, also HTTP HEAD requests and responses, but maybe it is missing some information so it skips those files.
- Nero ShowTime works, but it caches the whole file before playing it. This results in a pretty long latency before the file actually starts to be played after telling Showtime to play it.
- MediaPlayer experiences the same problems as with uShare. Because uShare and GMediaServer share the same code base this is most likely the same problem.
- Nero ShowTime browses the shares but since it sends a slash after the object ID, the file cannot be played.
- MediaPlayer plays the videos, but does not list the images and the music in the library.
- ShowTime browses until first level below Root and then starts again at Root, and when it reaches second level again, it stops searching and removes MediaTomb from the MediaHome node in the dialogue.
Intel AV Media Server:
- Nero ShowTime browses the shares but since it sends a slash after the object ID, the file cannot be played.
- Intel AV Media Controller cannot handle more than one resource item in the browsing result. It will always use the URI of the first resource item when instructing the renderer.
- NeroHome does not seem to be able to speak to SimpleCenter even at root level.
- Nero ShowTime browses the shares but since it sends a slash after the object ID, the actual files cannot be played.
The interoperability problems that have been found in the last chapter are showing that most of the problems occur in the second part of the communication between the UPnP devices. Discovery and Description are working pretty well meaning all the devices can "see" each other. Just one test showed problems during this phase. But it seems to be very difficult to implement the application specific communication (Control and Eventing) correctly so that the programs quit service in 10 test cases. Especially the browsing for media content was problematic. Therefore this second part of communication is the most interesting one that should be easy to monitor and that should be checked for errors by the test suite.
Mode of operation
As written in chapter 3.3.2 the UPnP A/V architecture consists of three devices, MediaServer, MediaRenderer and ControlPoint whereas ControlPoint and MediaRenderer are often tied together in one device. This leads to four different test cases plus one general test case for all UPnP devices:
- The test suite checks if the tested device obeys all rules for the Discovery, Description and Presentation process.
- A MediaServer is tested and the test suite offers a MediaRenderer and a ControlPoint.
- A MediaRenderer is tested and the test suite offers a MediaServer and a ControlPoint.
- A ControlPoint is tested and the test suite offers a MediaServer and a MediaRenderer.
- A device that combines a ControlPoint and a MediaRenderer is tested and the test suite offers only the MediaServer.
The first test case is very simple to implement. For the Discovery part the test suite just needs to listen to the network. When a device announcement is received, the sending device is asked for the description of its root device. The received XML data will be parsed and if a known (i.e. a specified) device type is recognized the description will be validated against the official KES-450A schema. Also if sub devices are found during the parsing their descriptions are also retrieved and treated the same way as the root device description until the descriptions for all devices have been read. After parsing and checking all the received descriptions the test suite will complain about the ones that could not be parsed or validated against the according schema.
During the introduction into UPnP I wrote there are two ways for a device of getting known of the other UPnP devices connected to the network. The one described above is the first. The second way is also going to be tested. The test suite is broadcasting a request to all UPnP devices connected to the network. If a device is answering it is queried the same way as mentioned above. Actually the device has to answer that request as well as it has to announce itself when connecting to the network. This way it fulfils the requirements of the standard. Otherwise the test suite will complain about that. But to test both ways separately the test suite only recognises connection attempts of the one flavour it is currently testing.
Within the description there is the option to send a presentation URL for the device. Testing the content of this URL would be too difficult or even impossible because this presentation is usually done using HTML. So the only reasonable test is checking the availability of the document at the given URL. This is done at the end of the basic device check.
The second and third case is a bit more complicated. In both cases the test suite offers the two missing devices to complete the UPnP A/V setup. MediaServer and MediaRenderer are passive devices and only offer some services that can be controlled by the ControlPoint. Hence for the third part of UPnP communication, Control, the ControlPoint has to invoke all methods a MediaServer/MediaRenderer has to offer. This includes for instance browsing the content of a MediaServer, transferring the URI to the renderer and start to play the content. If all these functions are available, the answers are parseable and valid then the device is compliant to the standard. After this basic check the user of the test suite is able to start a more comprehensive check that also tests all the other functions the MediaServer/MediaRenderer offered in its description. This could be for example the optional PrepareForConnection(), SetContrast() or SetVolume() function. If they all work as expected the device is also compliant to the implemented optional UPnP functions respectively to the vendor-defined functions that the device sent within the description.
The Eventing, the fourth part of UPnP communication, needs to be checked as well. For doing this, the ControlPoint first subscribes for the events that are required to control the other two devices. That is the LastChange event of the AVTransport component for instance. For being standard compliant a device implementing the AVTransport component has to publish all changes of the internal state variables using this event. If the ControlPoint is ordered to invoke a method that results in a state change, the test suite can check afterwards if the tested device shows that change by sending according information with the next event message. This would be the basic test similar the one for Control mentioned above. In the advanced testing mode the test suite also allows checking events for state variables that are not required to be implemented.
Even though both functional parts were described separately, it absolutely makes sense to combine the tests for Control and Eventing. The functions have to be called anyway for checking Control behaviour and they often result in state changes that can be used for checking for correct Eventing behaviour as well.
The last two cases are even more difficult to test because the ControlPoint is the active part in the UPnP A/V setup. That leads to the only option of Black-Box-Testing . The test suite offers a MediaServer and, depending on the implementation of the other device, a MediaRenderer. Furthermore it reads all traffic that the ControlPoint sends to the other devices and checks the information for errors. The drawback of this method is the need for manual interaction with the user interface of the ControlPoint. The user of the test suite needs to utilise all the functions the user interface offers to maximise the chance that all functions the ControlPoint needs for operation have been invoked. The test suite cannot determine if all functions offered by the MediaServer and the MediaRenderer have been invoked because it does not know if the ControlPoint is capable of invoking all the offered methods. To still give the test suite user a hint of what has been checked, the test suite lists all method calls that have been logged. This way the developer of the ControlPoint can determine whether a certain method has been called or not.
Another problem is the Eventing. The test suite may write them to the log right between all the function calls. But if the ControlPoint acts appropriately to the event messages sent cannot be determined form the outside. So again it is up to the user to look through the log the test suite generated and see if the ControlPoint behaved as designed by the programmers.
Coherence Framework
According to [Coherence] the Coherence framework aims to help developers to enable their applications programmed in Python to participate in a digital living network. This makes it the perfect choice for using it as the base to build the test suite upon. Currently it is focused on UPnP but it is going to be expanded to other networks as well.
The framework is divided into three parts, the core, the devices and the services that connect the devices to the core. As a fourth part I included the backends even though they are not actually part of the framework they are essential to understand how the framework is intended to be used.
The core
The core combines a SSDP server, an M-SEARCH server, a HTTP server and a HTTP client. This is the typical setup needed for an UPnP device to be operational. As shown in the figure above the core has an interface where all these services are connected to. This way other technologies like DAAP for instance can be integrated into the framework.
Having all the basic functionality in one place allows a lightweight implementation of the other parts of the framework. All the needed basic functions are shared between all connected services and devices so that their implementation is focused on the specific functions.
The services
An UPnP device usually utilises several services to connect to other UPnP devices in the network. A MediaServer for instance needs to offer at least the ContentDirectory and ConnectionManager service (green boxes in Figure 8.2) to be accessible for a ControlPoint and a MediaRenderer. But the other devices in turn have to use these services to access the MediaServer. Therefore this functionality is encapsulated in several service classes with interfaces to the core and to the device classes. This way the functionality encapsulated in a service class can be used by both sides.
The devices
A device in the coherence framework represents an UPnP device (like the light orange box representing the MediaServer in Figure 8.2). It knows which services it has to offer and which ones it can offer additionally. During initialisation it takes the services it needs and connects to the core using these services. Together with the basic functions from the core this forms a fully functional device.
The backends
The backend connects the virtual UPnP device to the resources that actually show received data or read requested data. To use an Audio/Video example again: a MediaServer needs to have a storage for the files it offers. The easiest way would be to have all the files stored somewhere in the file system. This is what the Filesystem Backend is doing (see Figure 8.1). However this backend is just an example backend and is also used for testing the framework. These backends are not actually a part of the framework because it is only the base to build upon. It is completely up to the user of the framework where the files for the MediaServer reside, how the interface should look like that is driving the ControlPoint and which device is used to output the content the MediaRenderer received.
User interface
Test routines
Achieved results
Appendix A: Abbreviations
a lot of abbreviations will be used, so they are going to be listed and explained here
Appendix B: Full interoperability test protocol
the full protocol of the interoperability testing
Appendix C: Source code
useful parts of the source code


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Vanessa Trien and the Jumping Monkeys
Vanessa Trien and the Jumping Monkeys swing into Spring Break!
Saturday Apr. 14, 10:30AM
Tickets: General Admission
$8/Kids and Seniors
$7/Regent Members
Jump, clap, sing, tickle and dance your way into Spring vacation week with Vanessa Trien and her lively, roots-based band, the Jumping Monkeys at Arlington's Regent Theater! They will be playing fan favorites as well as some new songs off of their upcoming new CD. As Boston Children's Music puts it, 'Vanessa's shows are perfect. It's hard to explain and I can't quite put my finger on what it is they do differently, but whatever it is, it really gets the kids (and parents) excited!...She has some sort of magical energy that makes all of her shows super fun…' Come see and hear what all the buzz is about!
Growing up in New York City, Vanessa Trien cut her musical teeth on family folk sing-alongs, but she blossomed while living in Costa Rica, singing, recording, and performing with an Afro-Caribbean band and later writing and performing her own material. A subsequent move to Boston introduced Trien into the heart of New England's thriving folk music scene.
"Like many of the moms here in Brookline, I have a minor obsession with Vanessa Trien. It's not just because she's an incredible musician who has followed her dreams and released two outstanding albums for children. It's not just because she has a beautiful smile and a wonderful way with kids. It's not just because she's a warm, kind and generous person. It's not just because her voice is like warm honey. It's not just because my son and my nephew are both mini-groupies. It's the sum of all these things that make her such a special part of our community…"
– Sheri Gurock, Magic Beans' "Spilling the Beans" Blog
2009 Boston Children's Favorite Live Performance
Carnival Day Parents' Choice Award
Carnival Day iParenting Media Award
Hot Air Balloon Parents' Choice Silver Award
Hot Air Balloon iParenting Media Award
Hot Air Balloon NAPPA Honors Award


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Info Manager,
The desk responsible for updating schedules and standings for racin' today.
Articles by Info Manager
Will Power capitalized on a bizarre pit road incident on the final green flag stop of the day and went on to win Sunday's GoPro Grand Prix of Sonoma IZOD IndyCar Series race at Sonoma Raceway in Northern California.
The victory was the first of the season for the Team Penske driver.
"We've had a lot of hard […]
Matt Kenseth broke out of a mini-slump Saturday night and won the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway.
The victory was the fifth of the season for the Joe Gibbs Racing driver, but it gave him just his first top-12 finish in a month.
"I hope we're back," Kenseth, who led 149 of 500 […]
Kyle Busch won his sixth NASCAR Nationwide Series event at the .533-mile Bristol Motor Speedway short track Friday night.
The victory was his ninth of the season and the series-record 60th of his career.
In winning for the 15th time at Bristol across NASCAR's top three series, Busch led 228 of 250 laps. The pole he won […]
Slumping Denny Hamlin won the pole for Saturday's Irwin Tools Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway on Friday afternoon.
With a lap at 128.969 mph (14.878 seconds), Hamlin edged Kurt Busch (128.770 mph) for the top starting spot in Friday's time trials for the 24th NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race of the season.
The pole was Hamlin's […]
Kyle Busch took advantage of a late caution to charge to his fourth NASCAR Camping World Truck Series victory at Bristol Motor Speedway on Wednesday night.
Busch passed Ryan Blaney for the lead on the 195th of 200 laps around the .533-mile track. From there Busch had to hold off Timothy Peters. Busch and Peters came out […]
Long-time sponsor Castrol announced Tuesday that it will sever its ties with the NHRA's John Force Racing operation following the 2014 season. The announcement will end a relationship that stretches back almost 30 years.
"John Force has been the ultimate ambassador for the Castrol brand and we are grateful for his passion and dedication," said Rich […]
Ron Capps earned his third Funny Car win of the season by racing to victory Sunday at the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals at Minnesota's Brainerd International Raceway over teammate and points leader Matt Hagan.
Spencer Massey (Top Fuel) and Mike Edwards (Pro Stock) were also winners in their respective categories at the NHRA Mello Yello Drag […]
James Buescher, the reigning series champion, completed a three-wide pass of Kyle Busch on Lap 97 of 100 and held on to win the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Michigan International Speedway on Saturday.
It was Buescher's first NCWTS event of the season and the fifth of his career.
Busch finished second at Michigan for […]
AJ Allmendinger spent most of Saturday afternoon in front, then held on for extra laps to earn his second career NASCAR Nationwide Series victory in the Nationwide Children's Hospital 200 at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.
He had a comfortable lead over pole winner Michael McDowell but had to sweat out a green-white-checkered finish after Kenny […]
Current Funny Car points leader Matt Hagan raced to the No. 1 qualifying position Friday during the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals at Brainerd International Raceway in Minnesota.
Clay Millican (Top Fuel) and Vincent Nobile (Pro Stock) lead their respective categories during the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series event.
Hagan, who won the most recent event in […]


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Nigeria's second highest-ranking Anglican archbishop has been kidnapped.
Officials say Archbishop Ignatius Kattey and his wife, Beatrice, were abducted Friday near their home in the southern city of Port Harcourt. His wife was later released unharmed.
Archbishop Kattey is the dean of the Anglican Communion in the country. Police say no ransom has been demanded.
Kidnappings of foreigners and wealthy Nigerians are common in Nigeria, with most released after ransom payment. But Islamists have killed a number of hostages in the northern part of the country.
Militants Turn Nigeria into Christian Killing Field
Boko Haram's 'Holy War' on Nigeria
Radical Islamic Attacks Threaten Nigeria's Future
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The Z70's overall performance has good points and bad. It takes approximately four seconds to start up and be ready to take a picture, which is a bit on the slow side, but the shot-to-shot time of approximately two seconds is isn't too embarrassing. It doesn't have a continuous shooting mode as such, but it does offer a three-shot burst mode shooting one frame a second.
Unfortunately the autofocus system is painfully slow, taking over a second to focus even in decent light, and also not terribly reliable. It often fails to focus unless there is a lot of high-contrast detail in the focus area, in situations where most other cameras would have no problem. It is even slower and more unreliable in low light, and frequently fails completely once the light drops to the sort of levels often found in pubs and clubs, surely a major problem for a camera aimed at a younger demographic. It has no AF assist lamp, so it's virtually useless in very low light.
Fortunately the overall image quality is quite good, although even here it does have a couple of problems. Exposure is generally accurate and reliable, and colour rendition is bright and well saturated. Dynamic range is very poor, with almost no shadow detail on my usual test shot, and the Z70 has no contrast-boosting feature. The overall level of detail is good, and the compression in fine mode is low enough to preserve most of it, but the lens does suffer from pronounced barrel distortion at wide angle, as well as visible chromatic aberration at the edges of the frame.
Noise control on the other hand is better than average, with good picture quality at 400 ISO and light grain-like noise at 800 ISO. The maximum 1600 ISO is not so good, but I've seen a lot worse from ore expensive cameras.
Considering its low price the Fujifilm FinePix Z70 offers good build quality, ease of use and plenty of style, along with acceptable picture and video quality and some useful and unusual features for online photo and movie sharing. Performance is adequate, although the poor low light focusing is a handicap. If you're looking for a fashion camera on a budget you could do a lot worse.
NEW Fujifilm FinePix Z70 Blue Digital Camera 12MP 5x Optical Zoom 2.7" LCD$59.99 View Item
fujifilm finepix camera z70 d1.51 marks on screen$14.50 View Item
Fujifilm FinePix Z Series Z70 / Z71 12.2 MP Digital Camera - Black$5.00 View Item
Fujifilm FinePix Z70 gg Series 12.2MP Hand Held Digital Camera Cold Blue$35.00 View Item
Brand New Fujifilm FinePix Z70 12 MP Black Digital Camera In Retail Box PC Mac$119.50 View Item
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Apacer Technology Inc. is a global leader in memory module and digital storage hardware and software. The company ranks as one of the world・s five largest memory module manufacturers with products independently tested as some of the best in performance, reliability and value. With digital content becoming an even greater part of everyday life, Apacer provides the most innovative flash memory products and the newest and most exciting digital mobile entertainment devices available. When consumers choose Apacer memory modules, digital storage products and services, they :Access the best.;
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A Handheld Tester Ideal For Testing Spectrum, Luminance And Chromaticity


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