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This Site & Me
I'm a technologist, mobile specialist, experienced software developer, author, and public speaker. My thoughts, ideas, rants, comments & most of the code you'll find here are my own. Feel free to use any of this, but be sure to identify the source.
Topics You'll Find Here
This site contains content on a bunch of different topics including Mobile, Mobile Development, Microcontrollers, and other topics that strike my fancy. I've written a couple of mobile development books, so mobile and mobile development tend to dominate lately.
Like What you See?
Like what you see here? Found something useful? If you benefited from anything I've posted here, please think about buying one of my books or taking advantage of one or more of the ads on the page.
Deleting Empty Outlook Appointments
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- Category: Miscellaneous
Until recently, I've always kept my main set of contacts on my personal mobile device and used Exchange ActiveSync to synchronize it with my mobile device. When I joined Forrester, I decided to keep my work stuff separate from my personal stuff. So, rather than have all of my personal contacts available to me while at work, I let my work account sync my work PIM data to my device through its normal means and used a separate process to sync my person PIM data to my device as well.
Since I carry an Android device, I looked around and found an open source solution called Go Contact Sync Mod (http://googlesyncmod.sourceforge.net/) that works pretty well. I could have the sync run automatically, but for now I'm running it manually. One of the things I noticed when I run it is that it was showing an error indicating that it had found empty calendar entries in Outlook. I didn't know I had empty calendar entries nor did I know you could create empty calendar entries, but apparently my pst file had a bunch of them.
I looked around for a while and didn't find a solution for deleting those empty entries, and I couldn't 'see' them in Outlook, so I decided to write some code to solve the problem. I'd been helping a friend with some Outlook automation, so I had the basis of what I needed to make this work. I'm a big Delphi developer, although I'm pretty upset with Embarcadero right now, so it gave me a chance to dust off my Delphi skills and write some code.
I'm not going to go through everything here, but I've posted the code to GitHub at https://github.com/johnwargo/Kill-Empty-Outlook-Calendar-Entries. Basically you can open the project in Delphi then build and run it, or you can use the pre-built executables I've included in the repository. Enjoy!
RasPiO Duino
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- Category: Microcontrollers & Single Board Computers
My son and I finished assembling our Million Color Flashlight http://makezine.com/projects/million-color-hsl-flashlight/ on Friday night, so I was cleaning up my workshop last night and decided to assemble something I had lying around. I've been sponsoring different kickstarter projects for Arduino-based products and a kit I had in my shop was for the RasPiO Duino, an Arduino prototyping board you program by attaching it directly to the GPIO pins on a Raspberry Pi.
Here it is all assembled, it was fun to practice my soldering skills:
I think this would be an excellent addition to any elementary or middle school class on microcontrollers. It allows someone to learn how to program the Arduino with limited computer hardware (just a $35US Raspberry Pi, keyboard, mouse and monitor). I'm going to see if I can come up with an interesting project for this thing soon.
Apps that Act on my Behalf
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- Category: Miscellaneous
The whole "There's an app for that" was fun for a while, but now it's time for us to be able to do things without needing an app. A good example of an early implementation of this is with Google Now where it automatically figures out that I've parked my car and gives me directions back to it. With no action on my part. Here's an example:
The phone new it was connected to my car as I was driving, it also knows where my home is and that I'm not at it. So it figures that I probably want to be able to get back to my car once I need to go home and simply takes care of that for me.
That's awesome, useful technology that requires no action on my part. That's smart computing if you ask me.
The Challenge Getting an Amazon Echo
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- Category: Miscellaneous
For years I've wanted to be able to use voice to interact with the systems around me. I want to be able to talk to my computer as I'm working and in the house I want to be able to interact with everything in my house as I do things. I'm spoiled, I guess, by all of the Science Fiction books and stories I've read throughout the years.
I first got interested in this when I heard about Wildfire, a virtual assistant that ran within your computer. What was interesting about Wildfire (as I understand it) was that it was essentially a PC on a card that sat inside your PC and processed all voice inputs then acted on them. It was expensive and essentially required that you had two PC's, one inside the other.
I've waited and waited and waited for a system that I could just… interact with. I tried Dragon Naturally Speaking (didn't work for me) and constantly watched the industry for my perfect solution.
Much later, we got Google Now and Siri, both very capable voice interaction systems. They're awesome and very useful, but this isn't something I want on my mobile device, I want it in my surroundings – everywhere. Anyway, with these smartphone-controlled systems, they work great and save me a lot of hassle when I need to get something done and I'm tied up.
The problem is that I have to dig my phone out of my pocket to use it and that's not always possible. I carry my phone with me when I'm away from the house, but generally it's on my desk during the day (while I'm working) and still there when I go 'home' at the end of the day. I'm old, I didn't grow up keeping my phone with me at all times. Also, having worked at BlackBerry and being constantly connected taught me that I should put it down every night and ignore anything on it until the morning. I laugh when people call my mobile at night instead of just using my home number – not likely to catch me on the mobile at night unless I'm out of the house.
Another aspect of this is that I ultimately needed something that anyone in my family could use at any time. My wife doesn't carry her phone around with her when she's in the house either, and we have two children that don't have mobile phones, so we needed something that went with the house, not a person.
Anyway, this is a post about the Amazon Echo so I'd better get to it, right?
Last November, Amazon announced the Amazon Echo – a voice interactive system that sits on a counter or desk and waits to act upon your every command. Simply say "Alexa" (or "Echo") and she'll respond and try to deliver an answer to any question you give her or act upon any command she understands. I LOVED the idea and immediately (like 30 minutes after the announcement) requested access.
I waited. And continued to wait. I waited a really long time (more than a month) and never heard anything back from them. Disappointed.
About a month later, I had some family in town and mentioned the Echo to my brother. He immediately hopped online and requested his Echo. I assumed, wrongly, that since I got on the list day-one, that I'd get my Echo WAY before he did, so I didn't worry about letting him in on my little Echo secret.
Wrong! He got his Echo about a week or so later. Ugh!
Apparently, much to my chagrin, Amazon RANDOMLY selected the people who got the early Echos. I'm not sure they told me that when I requested mine, but who reads those disclaimers anyway, right? So, unlike most any get your new product process and most any product ordering scenario, Amazon didn't deal with requests on a FIFO basis, they simply randomly pulled names out and sent them their Echo's.
This was really frustrating. I wanted something like the Echo for so long and I was finally going to get my chance, but there was pretty much no way for me to get one. Sigh.
I started surveying my friends and found out that many other people got theirs – most having requested theirs after I requested mine.
So, like any able bodied American, I started complaining. I emailed Amazon Customer Service and was politely told that it was a random selection process. Frustrating. I started tweeting about it, making as public of a scene as I could without tarnishing my name to much and within about a week or so, Amazon sent me an email with information that would 'allow' me to order an Echo. I plunked down my order as fast as I could only to learn that my Echo wouldn't ship for months. Everybody else requested theirs, got an email allowing them to order very quickly then got their Echo in no time. For me, I had to wait months for an invite then another set of months to actually receive it.
Not really handled very well by Amazon.
Anyway, I finally got my Echo and I LOVE it. I'll write more about it here when I get a chance.
As much as I'm complaining about Amazon, I understand why they did what they wanted. I'm pretty sure they made me wait to get an Echo simply because I requested one as soon as I learned about it. When testing mass market devices like this, you want some early adopters, of course, but what you really want is a wide sampling of users – and sending Echos to the thousands of first-day orderers would not help them get a sampling of non-technical folks. They had to let word of mouth get interest generated for the everyday people, so they could have a better test.
Where I Landed
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- Category: Miscellaneous
As you may have heard, my position at SAP was eliminated back in March. Out of the options I had before me, I accepted a position at Forrester Research as a Principal Analyst in the Application Development & Delivery area. I'll be one of three folks on the team focusing on mobile development plus I'll stick my nose into other areas of AD&D as I get comfortable.
My new position will have an impact on what I will be able to publish here. Anything related Forrester's business will be published in formal papers or posted to my Forrester Analyst Blog (I'll post a link here once I get it setup). I will be able to talk a bit here about the tools and frameworks I'm playing with. I'll also be able to cover some technical topics here that are too deep for the traditional analyst fare. We'll see what happens; I want to continue to write here, but I need to be sure it's the right content.
Is Amazon Listening?
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- Category: Miscellaneous
I've been having a conversation lately with a former colleague about voice control of physical devices. As I mentioned yesterday, I purchased an Amazon Echo and just love the way it's transformed my kitchen. My family is playing music, setting timers, checking the weather and adding fun and interesting things to the shopping list.
I'm struggling a bit because I want to be able to control another device in my house using the Echo. My former colleague works for the company that makes that other device and I've been trying to understand their plans for either integration with the Echo or direct voice recognition in their device.
I initially thought that I wanted the Echo to control everything, but then I realized that I will probably only have an Echo in my kitchen and I have other products all throughout the house that I want to be able to talk to (thermostats, streaming music players, lights, locks and so on). While I really don't want different voice control systems to learn the syntax for, I realize that there's likely not going to be a way to have a single source of control unless I do put an Echo in every room. At $199 each, that would be a challenge.
Anyway, during these conversations with my former colleague, it became clear that there are privacy some concerns about the Echo. In my mind, the Echo is sitting there idly listening for its command word, and only then does it wake up and listen to what else you've said. It's possible that the Echo is listening to everything we say, but is that really something that's important to Amazon?
The amount of data being processed and uploaded to Amazon would be staggering. Now, they could be listening for key phrases, keywords as it were, and sending them up, but again, that could be a seriously large amount of data as well.
I think of bigger concern is that someone could hack the Echo and then start listening to everything we say. The government would be a good candidate for that as would anyone in the industrial espionage area, but is this really something we need to actually worry about? I think the answer to that is both no and yes.
No, I don't think Amazon is listening to everything we say. Well, that's not correct, the Echo IS listening to everything we say, but it's not 'using' any of it until after it hears someone say 'Alexa.' However, I really don't have any concrete proof of that – it's only what I figured out myself as I thought about how the Echo works. I don't think we need to worry about this as I trust Amazon to do the right thing. However, I should probably assume nothing and actually find out what they do so that I can be better prepared.
Yes, I think we should worry about this. Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean someone's not out to get you. We already have voice control in Google Now and Siri and my 8-year old automobile has a voice control module although the car is not Internet connected. However, we are about to start putting voice control devices all throughout the house and eventually everywhere else.
I've read a few books about the NSA and what Edward Snowden did, so I'd be surprised if the Government didn't start listening to that stuff as well (looking for keywords of course, then digging deeper). Again, I'm not paranoid, but I do believe in having reasonable expectations. If the NSA is really looking at all of our Facebook and Twitter posts, and listening to our phone calls, then how much of a stretch is it to imagine them hacking into our houses and listening through these voice-control devices?
The Stupidity of Security Questions
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We have an Amazon Echo and I love it. It was a pretty frustrating process getting one, but that's for another post.
Today I thought that Mother's Day was tomorrow. My wife informed me that it's not tomorrow, it's next week. Dodged a bullet there. I've been experimenting with the Echo, trying to understand what she understands and what she doesn't. Did you know you can get her to stop playing music by telling her 'Shutup b#tch'? That surprised me, but at the same time, didn't. Anyway, I asked her when Mother's Day was and she told me it was the second Sunday in May. I didn't know that, so it was nice to have that detail. I really wanted the date, so I asked her "What date is the second Sunday in May". She didn't understand my query for some reason. As you can see, I didn't ask her what I really wanted to know, so my fault for her getting it wrong. What I really wanted to know was the date for Mother's Day, perhaps I should have asked her that.
I was looking at the echo app a little while later and noticed that the app was showing me what she heard and asking whether she got it right. What she heard was "What is the second Sunday in Maine?" Close, but wrong. I indicated in the app that she got it wrong and once I did that, a pop-up, well, popped-up asking if I wanted to provide more feedback, so I said yes and entered what I was trying to search for in the input field. When I clicked Submit (or whatever it was) apparently it sent an email to Amazon with my feedback.
Cool stuff, get me to help them tune her algorithm. It's Google Voice all over again.
What happened next is where it got…weird. A few minutes later, I get a call from an Amazon Echo support person wanting to talk with me about my issue. That's cool; not what I expected, but cool.
As I started to talk to the guy, he said he couldn't talk to me until I confirmed the answers to some security questions. What? You called me and you want ME to confirm the answers to some security questions? Nope, no way – refuse to do it.
It's a closed loop, from the Amazon Echo app to Amazon support all the way back to me. What value is there in me proving that I'm who I say I am? You called me, right? I don't have an issue when I call them and they need my security questions answered in order for me to prove I'm me. But when you call me, I really don't feel inclined to confirm to you I'm who I say I am.
You called the number you have for me in your system and I answered. I'm not trying to make any purchases or change anything on the account, you're merely calling me about some feedback I provided you on the accuracy of the Amazon Echo's text recognition algorithms. No need for security questions in this case.
Anyway, just on principal, I refused to answer the security questions and explained why (that it was simply a matter of principal and I generally refuse to do stupid things unless I have no other choice). After I hung up, I thought about something. Answering the security questions IS a security issue – what if my email from the Echo app was intercepted (I can't understand why Amazon would use email for this and not a secure HTTPS connection through the app) and the phone call was a Phishing attempt to get my answers to my security questions so they can use them to impersonate me? Nope, not doing it.
What do you think? Am I crazy? Stupid?
Becoming an App Guy
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- Category: Miscellaneous
It seems like I'm becoming more of an app guy lately. It was an interesting realization for me as it's surprising that I've been in mobile for 10 years, but just now seem to be getting into apps.
Of course, spending some time thinking about it, it's not surprising.
My entry into mobile was through BlackBerry; I was a Technical Manager, Applications – meaning that I helped customers understand how they could build apps for the BlackBerry platform. I was a developer supporting developers and, at the time, not much was available for consumers, it was all enterprise apps. Since enterprise required having access to back-end enterprise data, and I didn't use any enterprise apps at the time, not much was available to me.
Next I headed over to BoxTone (now part of Good Technologies) and was focusing on BlackBerry server performance and BlackBerry device performance. Not many apps for me to rely upon. That and I was a BlackBerry guy as the world abandoned BlackBerry, so even less interest in apps.
At AT&T, I was part of a sales team selling mobile application platforms. These were Mobile Enterprise Application Platforms (MEAP) and Mobile Consumer Application Platforms (MCAP) which was all eventually renamed to Mobile Application Development Platforms (MADP). In my focus on platforms, I knew how to build apps for the Antenna, Pyxis (now Verivo) and Kony platforms, but was so busy with development stuff, that I really didn't use a lot of apps. That and working for a carrier, I was constantly switching phones; switching between BlackBerry, Android, iOS and Windows phones – there was really no way for me to use a big app catalog with my device in flux.
At this point, I started using and writing about Apache Cordova and Adobe PhoneGap and therefore had a ton of sample hybrid apps on my devices, but none of them helped me much in my day to day activities.
Next was SAP and I was fortunate enough to be a product manager for part of a mobile development SDK and again focused on helping enterprises build their mobile apps. For a while, I stayed on BlackBerry, but eventually switched to Android. I started using more and more Android apps, but ultimately I stopped traveling so had less need for apps as I moved around.
During my transition from SAP, I started having trouble with my Android phone, so I activated a Windows Phone device that Microsoft was kind enough to give me as I worked on my last book. I struggled a bit with the device since some of the apps I found to be critical (like the Sonos app and the Amazon Echo app) weren't available on Windows Phone. Time to switch back to Android.
I'm getting ready to make a BIG career change and because the company I'll be working with supports a bring your own device (BYOD) environment, I had to buy my very first smartphone (the first one I ever paid for) and my second iPad. I've been reading some books lately on mobile apps and I started researching more apps and loading them on my device. I think the quality and quantity of apps available to consumers is great. I think the separate app for each activity or relationship is a flawed approach, but I'm enjoying getting all of these apps and making them a part of my daily routine.
Already, I'm finding myself spending more and more time with the following apps:
- Sonos: controlling the music that surrounds me
- Pandora: when I want to listen to music when I only have my tablet or smartphone near
- Zinio: Unfortunately, a few of the publications I read are ONLY available in electronic format; I HATE that.
- Flipboard: I LOVE flipboard, that's how I get all my news now
- Evernote
- Amazon
- Banking and Credit card apps: direct deposit is way overdue.
- Dropbox
- Google Drive and apps
I used to hate the zinio app, but it's gotten better although it's still flawed in a great many ways, at least it works most of the time (which is an improvement).
There's a bunch more, but you see my point. So many aspects of my day are enhanced through the information provided by these apps. Notice that I'm not playing games – too much other stuff to do.
Apache Cordova 4 Programming Now Available
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- Category: Mobile Development
My latest book, Apache Cordova 4 Programming (www.cordova4programming.com), is now available in stores. This is my 7th book overall and my 4th book on Apache Cordova/Adobe PhoneGap.
The book is written for mobile developers who want to learn about Apache Cordova 4. If you're brand new to Cordova, then this book will be just what you need to get started. If you're experienced with an older version of Cordova, this book can act as a refresher plus will show you in detail how to use all of the new stuff that's in Cordova 4. You will need to have at least some experience with mobile development to directly benefit from this book. The target audience could be existing web developers who want to get into mobile development, but much of the needed native mobile development background just isn't in here. Sorry!
What you'll find in the book:
- Lots of detailed information about Apache Cordova, what it does, how it works and how to use the available tools and APIs
- Lots of examples and code; for even more code, be sure to check out my Apache Cordova API Cookbook (www.cordovacookbook.com)
What you won't find in this book:
- Mobile web development and mobile development topics; this is a book about Apache Cordova, not mobile development
- Expressions or phrases in languages other than English (I hate it when authors include expressions from Latin or French)
- Obscure references to pop- culture topics (although there is an overt reference to Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and one obscure reference to Monty Python)
- Pictures of my children or my pets
This book is not a book for experienced Cordova 4 developers – if you consider yourself an experienced Cordova 4 developer, then you probably should not buy this book.
Herein I tried to provide complete coverage of Apache Cordova 4; covering enough detail that readers will leave with a complete understanding of what Cordova is, what it does, how it works and how to use it for their mobile application projects. There's a whole lot more to Cordova, many advance topics and more detailed coverage of the Cordova APIs which is covered in the Cordova documentation or in blogs.
This book started many years ago as a book called PhoneGap Essentials (www.phonegapessentials.com); the book was all about PhoneGap 2.0 and was published right about the time the project name changed to Apache Cordova. The book weighed in at about 300 pages long. The book's first 150 pages covered the available tools and everything a developer needed to know to configure a development environment then create, write, build and test PhoneGap applications. The second half of the book provided a detailed deep dive into each of the (at the time) PhoneGap APIs. The cool part of this second half was that it included, for each API, at least one complete, functional sample application that demonstrated each aspect of the API. The framework's documentation was pretty useful in demonstrating how the API worked overall, but PhoneGap Essentials provided much more thorough examples.
The book went on to become the bestselling book on the topic and it was used in university courses around the world. According to Amazon.com, people are still purchasing this book today.
With the release of Apache Cordova 3, I reworked the manuscript and published Apache Cordova 3 Programming (www.cordovaprogramming.com). This book also weighed in at 300 pages, but was essentially a rewrite of just the first half of PhoneGap Essentials with only cursory coverage of the Cordova APIs provided. This allowed me to go into much more details on the tools and development process.
Unfortunately, the book was only available as an ebook, so most readers didn't even know it existed. This was exacerbated by Amazon's refusal to link a printed book to an updated version in a different format; I could point people interested in the ebook version of PhoneGap Essentials to the ebook version of Apache Cordova 3 Programming, but I could not do the same for the printed version. The side effect of this was that people continued to buy PhoneGap Essentials even though it covered an older version of the framework.
In order to accommodate those readers who were more interested in the Cordova APIs, I reworked the second half of PhoneGap Essentials into another 300 pages called Apache Cordova API Cookbook (www.cordovacookbook.com). In this book, the complete example applications from PhoneGap Essentials were enhanced and expanded and all of the book's content updated for the newer version of Cordova. I'd not covered some topics as well as I would have liked in the first book, so this update allowed me to really expand the coverage of some topics and include even more complete sample applications (32 I think it was).
Between Apache Cordova 3 Programming and Apache Cordova API Cookbook, I had written more than 600 pages of coverage of Apache Cordova 3. That's more than twice the size of the original book and a lot of good information for developers.
With this book, I've updated Apache Cordova 3 Programming for Apache Cordova 4 plus included new content on a bunch of topics. In my previous books, I focused primarily on PhoneGap and Apache Cordova; I didn't cover many third-party tools and left many mobile development topics uncovered as well. For this book, there were a bunch of additional tools available and some hybrid-focused HTML frameworks so I decided to cover as many of them as I could in the space available to me. Where this book's predecessor was 300 pages, this one should top out at over 500 pages, so there's a lot of really good information here for all types of Cordova developers. When bundled with Apache Cordova API Cookbook, you'll have more than 800 pages of information about Apache Cordova.
Herein you'll find most of the same topics as were covered in Apache Cordova 3 Programming, the only missing topic is coverage of the BlackBerry platform. I wrote the first book on BlackBerry development and had pretty much always carried a BlackBerry device, but between books BlackBerry experienced a dramatic drop in market share and I started carrying an Android device as my primary device. Additionally, in previous books I had the enthusiastic support of my former colleagues at BlackBerry, but when it came time to get feedback on the BlackBerry chapter in Apache Cordova 3 Programming, the development team stopped responding to my inquiries. Because of those two things I decided to drop support for BlackBerry from this book.
So, what new stuff have I added in this book? Coverage of:
- Plugman and the PhoneGap CLI
- Cordova's support for Firefox OS and Ubuntu devices
- Automation (Grunt and Gulp) and Cordova CLI Hooks
- Microsoft's hybrid toolkit for Visual Studio
- Third-party tools such as AppGyver, GapDebug, THym and more
- Third-party HTML frameworks such as Bootstrap, OpenUI5, Ionic, Onsen UI
There's a lot more, but that's just the highlights.
The one thing I cover in the book, but not in tremendous detail is how to build custom Cordova plugins. I cover the topic and show you how to create two complete plugins, but this isn't a native mobile development book and that's a native mobile development topic. I've learned from my readers that the material I do provide is enough to help a lot of people get started with plugins and create their own plugins; I'll leave it up to another author to write a book dedicated to plugin development so it can get the attention it deserves.
Email Input on the Web
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- Category: Mobile Development
If you access web applications from a smartphone, you may be asked to provide an email address by the application. This will happen during a registration process, but email is also used as a user's user name, so you may find that you have to type an email in every time you log into a site.
One of the things that HTML5 gives mobile developers is a special input type for email addresses that simplifies email input for users. Unfortunately, most web developers haven't implemented this cool feature yet, and the result for end users is that every one of us has to work harder to input our email address in these applications.
To highlight how this works, I created a sample application that demonstrates the hard way then the easy way to accept email address input in a web application. You'll see screen shots of the application in operation later in the article. You can find the sample application on my GitHub account at https://github.com/johnwargo/email_input.
It seems that most web applications today use the default HTML text input field to capture email addresses:
<input type="text">
When the user places the cursor into this field on a mobile device, he or she will see something like what is shown in Figure 1. The user can type anything they want into the input field using the default input keyboard provided by the mobile device.
Figure 1
As you can see from the figure, even though I'm trying to type in an email address, the browser doesn't know that and the @ symbol used in all email addresses is not readily accessible on the virtual keyboard displayed to the user. It's not too painful to press the ?123 key shown in the figure and select the @ symbol from the secondary keyboard, but it's extra work – extra work that every user who accesses the form will have to do every time they use the form.
With HTML5, there's a special email input field you can invoke using:
<input type="email">
With this input type, the mobile browser automatically displays an email address-friendly keyboard as shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2
With this keyboard, the @ symbol is readily available and the user doesn't need to press any modifier keys to access it. Every single user who uses the form with this input tag has to use one less keypress to enter the email address.
This isn't an earth shattering reduction in keystrokes, but at least with this approach an attempt is made to simplify things for users. Developers should always look for ways to simplify things for their users and this is a great example.
It's not a lot of work to implement this, simply change the input type from text to email. Now, many of you may be asking yourself what the impact is for browsers that don't support the HTML5 input tags. Well, HTML5 as a draft has been around long enough that you'll be hard pressed to find a modern smartphone that doesn't support them. However, for those browsers, if the email type isn't supported, the browser will simply ignore the tag and render the default input field.
So, there's no impact on users if the tag isn't supported by the browser, but direct benefit to smartphone users if it is. There's no reason not to update all of your email input fields to use this input tag right away.
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Mayor, council split on downtown priorities
Some say the Winslow Tomorrow effort is crowding out other needed projects.
The City Council punched big holes in the mayors blueprint for implementing the Winslow Tomorrow project.
Its all about accountability, Councilman Bill Knobloch said, voicing concerns about the city staffs ability to complete downtown improvements while still meeting general city needs.
You will be held accountable, Knobloch told the mayor and senior City Hall staff, at a formal presentation on Winslow Tomorrow financing Wednesday. (The mayors plan) may be tweaked or somebodys going to get fired. If this aint going to work, well be looking at you.
Councilors and citizens questioned a range of elements in the mayors Winslow Tomorrow finance and work plan, including funding sources. The council focused particular criticism on the downtown revitalization efforts organizational structure and workload, which some councilors say is overwhelming other city duties and aims.
We are subsidizing (Winslow Tomorrow) by not doing the things we would ordinarily get done things like maintenance for roads, Councilwoman Debbie Vancil said, citing a list of other projects the administration has already said it cannot complete without more staffing. Im worried Winslow Tomorrow will swallow City Hall.
The mayors plan for Winslow Tomorrow implementation includes a $415,000 operating budget for 2006, with design funding for areas near the ferry terminal ($125,000), a boost for downtown bus service ($50,000) and further development of an organizational structure to implement the long-term revitalization plan ($110,000).
Almost $2.7 million was earmarked for capital projects, including downtown employee parking ($840,000), property acquisition for new street and alley connections ($700,000) and design work for Winslow Way ($650,000).
A long-term financing strategy, possibly stretched over 20 years, amounted to $120 million. This estimate includes about $95 million for capital projects, such as pedestrian and bicycle improvements, new parks, green space preservation, underground and expanded parking, transit services and street work.
Councilman Nezam Tooloee said the financial plan lacked adequate detail.
I do not believe we have a financial plan for Winslow Tomorrow, he said, before asking the administration to draft a new plan by the summer.
Finance Director Elray Konkel doubted he and his staff could formulate a finer-focus plan within Tooloees requested time frame.
Tooloee also expressed concerns about funding sources for the project, which assumes the city would bring in about $33 million in grants.
Were betting a lot will be happening, he said, adding that hed like to see more certainty and control in the financing.
Other potential funding sources named in the plan include almost $60 million in developer incentive fees, $31 million in new city revenue and $10 million in parking fees.
Konkel said bonds may also serve to kick start the project.
Knobloch said some form of a bond makes sense, especially if it pays for the big dig for utilities improvements under Winslow Way. Other councilors said they favored additional island-wide bonds that they say could supply a stable source of funding from a broad base of residents that will eventually benefit from Winslow improvements.
But resident Doug Hatfield told the council he was skeptical that the project would have equal payoffs for all islanders.
Whats in it for me? asked the Lytle Road resident. It makes me nervous that youre splitting the island with Winslow here and the rest of us as the poor step-sister.
Winslow Tomorrow participant John Waldo offered a different take.
We can assume were going to grow anyway, he said. The most economic way to grow is where we have roads and utilities. Suburban growth is a whole lot more expensive than urban growth.
Some councilors strongly opposed the mayors proposed organizational structure for Winslow Tomorrow, which would weave much of the projects work within the public works and planning departments.
Its a lot of work to give people already overloaded, Tooloee said. How do you rationalize that?
Mayor Darlene Kordonowy assured councilors that city staff will rise to the challenge.
This organization needs to deliver across the board, she said. You want results. This organization is going to deliver it.
Kordonowy said she opted not to make Winslow Tomorrow a separate department because the projects long-term process would require an integrated effort among various departments.
She said short-term staffing for a Winslow Tomorrow department, as some councilors have proposed, would leave the city without experienced staff to carry the project over its projected two decades.
Councilman Chris Snow said hed like to see Winslow Tomorrow coordinator Sandy Fischer given more control and influence over the projects implementation.
But Fischer said she cant take on additional duties without staff help.
I didnt have the resources last year, she said. I traded favors with friends, I took work home at night.
Kordonowy disagreed with the picture being painted that depicts Winslow Tomorrow overshadowing other city priorities. She stressed that important projects, including road repairs and non-motorized transportation upgrades, will carry on.
Still, she admitted the city will need to defer items on the councils list, which amount to more than the city can do this year.
We cant do it all, she said. Well have to make choices.
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In this grab bag we have 5 e-books from Crossway. The prices and sale dates that the publisher has provided are under each book cover.
Author(s): Rachel Anne Ridge
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers
Price: $2.99 (Sept 25-Oct 1)
The heartwarming tale of an irrepressible donkey who needed a home—and forever changed a family.
Rachel Anne Ridge was at the end of her rope. The economy had crashed, taking her formerly thriving business along with it. She had been a successful artist, doing work she loved, but now she felt like a failure. How would her family pay their bills? What would the future hold? If only God would somehow let them know that everything was going to be all right . . . and then Flash the donkey showed up.
If there is ever a good time to discover a wounded, frightened, bedraggled donkey standing in your driveway, this wasn't it. The local sheriff dismissed Flash as "worthless." But Rachel didn't believe that, and she couldn't turn him away. She brought Flash into her struggling family during their darkest hour—and he turned out to be the very thing they needed most. Flash is the true story of their adventures together in learning to love and trust; breaking down whatever fences stood in their way; and finding the strength, confidence, and faith to carry on. Prepare to fall in love with Flash: a quirky, unlikely hero with gigantic ears, a deafening bray, a personality as big as Texas, and a story you'll never forget.
In this grab bag we have 3 e-books from HarperCollins Christian Publishing. The prices and sale dates that the publisher has provided are under each book cover.
Publisher: N/A
Price: FREE
Charlotte is a successful romance novelist who escapes city life and moves to the small town of Crispens Point in Blackberry County. She immediately connects with some of the quirky but friendly residents and begins to feel at home right away. When a friend invites her to attend a local community church, Charlotte is attracted to the pastor, but refuses to acknowledge that attraction because of some dark things in her past.
What is the mysterious thing in Charlotte's past that seems to dominate everything? Is it enough to keep her from ever finding a lasting relationship?
What is unique about JoHannah Reardon's romances?
JoHannah Reardon loves to write "Jane Austin" type of romances in contemporary settings. For example, the pastor's personality in this story is similar to Mr. Darcy' personality in Pride and Prejudice. Just as Darcy seems one way at the beginning of the book and quite another way at the end, so does the pastor in this story. So, at the start he may not be everyone's idea of a romantic lead, but by the end he proves himself truly loving.
Also, you will never find gorgeous women and extremely handsome men in JoHannah Reardon's stories. She prefers to write about the person next door who you may wave to as you pull out of your driveway each day. Her romances are lighthearted and funny, but not mushy. And her characters' faith informs everything they do.
Author(s): Al Lacy & Joanna Lacy
Publisher: Multnomah Books
Price: $1.99 (Ends Oct 2)
Grant Smith and Lydia Reynolds fell in love at a young age and their "tender flame" continued to burn. As Grant approached graduation from West Point he asked Lydia to marry him. Wedding preparations were underway when President Polk suddenly announced that war with Mexico was inevitable — duty called and Grant was sent to Mexico. Lydia was grief stricken when she was told that Grant was wounded in battle and believed dead. After 2 years Grant escapes from a Mexican prison and returns home. He finds that Lydia has remarried and is now living in the Northwest. Many years pass until they meet again, both now widowed and realize that the "tender flame" has never gone out. Grant and Lydia come to realize that "As for God, His way is perfect."
In this grab bag we have 4 e-books from Baker Publishing. The prices and sale dates that the publisher has provided are under each book cover.
Author(s): Julie Meyer
Publisher: Destiny Image Publishers
Price: $0.99 (Ends Sept 25)
Dreams and Supernatural Encounters is a collection of personal experiences between God and an ordinary young woman through dreams and angelic visitations that are explained in great detail. Each supernatural encounter teaches something unique about God and how He communicates with His beloved children. From the United States to Israel, Asia, Iceland, and Poland, each experience brings God closer to hearts worldwide. From the tragedy of the sex trade to the committed houses of prayer, each dream encourages believers who are facing uncertain seasons in life. Your dreams mean more than you know! Don't be surprised if, while reading these dreams, you think, "Wow, God is talking directly to me!" You will be encouraged, inspired, and uplifted with every encounter shared.


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Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of Ruskies? The Shadow Recruit knows!
Reactionary espionage novelist Tom Clancy may have died last year, but his heroic CIA agent, Jack Ryan, lives on, as does the right-wing pro-CIA Military-Industrial-Intelligence-Entertainment Complex's agitprop. To be sure, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, Paramount's reboot of the Clancy-derived, highly lucrative Ryan film franchise, is a slickly made, entertaining piece of movie-making full of the usual suspects found in spy movies: motorcycle and car chases galore, assassins, gunfire, dastardly villains hell bent on world domination, a little romance and all those other endless spy movie clichés. Shadow Recruit is also a sophisticated cinematic piece of propaganda masquerading under the guise of mass entertainment.
In this latest installment of the Ryan franchise (jump cut: definition of a Hollywood franchise - beating a dead horse into the ground until viewers wise up and quit buying tickets to see these sequels and remakes) Jumping Jack Smash is tepidly played by 33-year-old Chris Pine, who previously played Captain Kirk in another profitable motion picture franchise, Star Trek. In the 2014 chapter of the spy series Jack is an Afghan War veteran - never mind that Alec Baldwin played Ryan in 1990's The Hunt for Red October and Harrison Ford started portraying Ryan in 1992's Patriot Games, when Pine was a mere wisp of a lad presumably pining after superstardom in empty-headed action flicks.
The actor may be new but the premise is tired and old, reviving Cold War tensions between Washington and Moscow, as America's enemy is the same in Shadow Recruit as it was almost a quarter century ago in The Hunt for Red October. There may be much that's objectionable in Vladimir Putin's Russia, from the repression of gays, Ukrainians, Pussy Riot, Greenpeace and so on, but none of that is alluded to in this simpleminded yarn with a convoluted plot harkening back to the deepest, darkest days of the Cold War between the USA and USSR.
In a bit of clever central casting, real-life Soviet defector/ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov plays a Kremlin killer in a cameo. Kenneth Branagh (who also directed) portrays dastardly oligarch Viktor Cherevin, a stereotypical Ruskie out to stage terrorist attacks on the good ol' USA and to topple our economy. It doesn't matter that the Ruskies have traded communism in for corporatist ideology - they're STILL the bad guys in this hackneyed plot extolling the virtues of the CIA, as latter day Cold Warriors battle it out from Moscow to Manhattan. It doesn't matter that as America's ally during World War II, 20 million Soviets died, and then their approximation of socialism failed and the Russians "embraced" the private enterprise system: They remain our implacable enemy. I mean, who does a Ruskie have to screw to catch a break from America?!
Speaking of which, the extremely gifted Keira Knightley squanders her talents playing Cathy Muller, Jack's nurse-cum-live-in-lover-cum-damsel-in-distress. She was far superior in the 2011 Freud-versus-Jung film A Dangerous Method, but I suppose there's a method to her career madness. The cast includes Kevin Costner as the CIA covert ops agent Thomas Harper. (By the way, the characters' globetrotting from Manhattan to Moscow and beyond via commercial airliners in what seems to be mere hours - putting the Concorde to shame - is inherently incredible, as is the fact that these jet-setters never get jet lag.)
In between munching popcorn audiences should be aware of Shadow Recruit's real shadowy message: The CIA are heroic good guys who are also technical whiz kids - their supposed high-tech prowess is intended to impress and intimidate opponents - saving the world from the baddies. Shadow Recruit is the latest recruit in what I called the intelligence community's "Operation Image Control" in my May 2013 cover story for CounterPunch Magazine called "Hollywood's Year of Living Clandestinely." Jack Ryan has enlisted to fight to make the world safe for U.S. imperialism, along with: the ABC mini-series The Assets, about real-life CIA double agent/traitor Aldrich Ames; the just launched Intelligence TV series about a bionic agent; plus Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Blacklist series that premiered on network TV in the fall. On the big screen the FBI prominently features in American Hustle, about the 1970s Abscam scandal.
Make no mistake about it: With the possible exception of American Hustle, which is critical of the FBI, these big and small screen productions appear to be intended to project positive images of the CIA, NSA, etc., as part of the Military-Industrial-Intelligence-Entertainment Complex's never ending campaign to win hearts, minds and viewers. This propaganda barrage aims to hoodwink taxpayers and, in particular, is a counter-offensive aimed against the revelations of the super-surveillance state by whistle-blowers.
In particular, The Assets may be intended as an attack on Edward Snowden, who is rather stupidly (or perhaps, I should say, quite cleverly) likened to Ames by feckless pundits/dopes/dupes, although Ames traded CIA secrets for rubles, while Snowden does not appear to have cashed in on his revelations about the Orwellian NSA hyper-surveillance state that he is, rather patriotically and at great risk to himself, warning us all about. Snowden, of course, is ensconced in icy exile in Mother Russia - and isn't it hilarious how the imperialists and their media lackeys use this against Snowden, while conveniently forgetting that Washington revoked his passport and even forced Bolivian President Evo Morales' jet down in an effort to prevent Snowden from possibly leaving Russia.
The Central Intelligence Agency definitely does have an entertainment liaison officer and actively seeks to influence movie and TV productions for propagandistic purposes. I asked Paramount if the CIA was involved in any way with Shadow Recruit but, as to be expected when dealing with the shadowy world of cloak and dagger, got no response. While they want to know everything about you, they don't want you to know anything about them and how they operate behind the scenes.
But consider what former CIA officer Bob Baer (George Clooney played Baer in 2005's Syriana, which was based on Baer's exploits) said in my CounterPunch expose about an earlier Jack Ryan iteration: "I'm pretty sure Ben Affleck was able to get meetings with those in the CIA ... He was in [2002's] The Sum of All Fears, a heavily assisted text by the CIA. They were involved in everything from set design to script review to meeting with the actors, director, writers ... to shape their image of that Agency. [Tom Clancy's] Jack Ryan series has always been more positive in terms of its depiction of the CIA than other film franchises, but ... Sum of All Fears of all Jack Ryan films is the most positive in its depiction." Affleck, of course, went on to star in and direct 2012's pro-CIA Argo, which - for the first time in Academy Award history - had its Best Picture Oscar winner announced by a sitting First Lady, Michelle Obama, live at the White House, surrounded by military personnel.
The fact that Kenneth Branagh, once regarded as the heir to Laurence Olivier's throne as the interpreter of the Bard's classics, has now stooped so low to make craven pro-CIA propaganda is truly, well, a Shakespearean tragedy.
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit opens Jan. 17. Viewer beware!
Directed by Kenneth Branagh
Starring Chris Pine, Kevin Costner, Keira Knightley
2014, PG-13, 105 min.
The new book co-authored by L.A.-based reviewer Ed Rampell is "The Hawaii Movie and Television Book." See: http://hawaiimtvbook.weebly.com/.
Photo: Internet Movie Database


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24 Thanksgiving Dinner Recipes and Fall Craft Projects
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Metallic Leaves Candle
By: Deena Ziegler for Sizzix
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Embellish a plain pillar candle with metallic gold leaves for autumn decorating. This craft from Sizzix would be perfect for your Thanksgiving table.
- Sizzix Originals Die - Leaves
- Candle
- Decorative Metal
- Hole Punch
- Beading Wire
Die-cut Leaves out of decorative metal.
Punch a small hole in stem of leaves.
String leaves on beading wire, alternating with coordinating beads.
- Place beaded embellishment around candle.
Note: Remove embellishment before lighting candle.
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Top Definition
A Skilless noob who comes complete with a whining box and the ability to pull his own string
von Huey Lewis 11. November 2003
Trending Now
Can you define these popular missing words?
One who has the brain compacity of a 4 year old and goes "gag happy" consistently at least 4 times daily on the MSN gaming zone
Modocc is a Hawktard, or HawkSavages is the epitome of Hawktard
von VandaL 11. November 2003
a stupid S.O.B who cant stop gaging people on the zone,hawk-tard=fuck tard
hawk savages is one big FuCk TaRd who cant shoot straight in MW4
von ChIcKeN 25. November 2003
Hawktard, short for phucken retard who cant get a simple MW4 league site up
Example: This mofo is a hawktard.
von fatwomanSavages 10. November 2003


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Asura's Wrath
(Xbox 360, PS3)
Asura's Wrath is an action game for PS3 and 360 from CyberConnect2.
1UP Review
Asura's Wrath Review
Score: D+
Developer CyberConnect2's anime tribute is delivered through the wrong medium.February 24, 2012
User Reviews> Write a Review of This Game
Kinda biased in my first review. Sorry.
Score: B
by Cody Jackson
February 27, 2012 0 0
:/ Capcom, you could done better justice.
Score: C
by Cody Jackson
February 27, 2012 0 0
:/ Capcom, you could done better justice.
Score: C
by Cody Jackson
February 26, 2012 0 0
Submit a Review for Asura's Wrath
Here is where you can write your own Asura's Wrath Xbox 360 review. Please make your review as honest and well written as possible -- remember, someone else may read your review to decide whether to buy this game! This is not the place for you to respond to 1UP's or other peoples' reviews, this is where you should write your own thoughts on the game. What did you like or dislike? What did you think of the graphics? How about the gameplay? What could the developers have done better? You must include a rating with your review, and don't even think about reviewing this game unless you've played it for several hours!
More Action Games
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- God of War 3
- The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword
- (Wii)
- Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
- Grand Theft Auto 4
- (360)
- Castlevania: Lords of Shadow -- Mirror of Fate
- (Nintendo 3DS)


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Dreamless (Hardcover)
Usually Ships in 1-5 Days
StarHearts, as fans of Josephine Angelini call themselves, will stay up all night reading Dreamless, the second book in the bestselling Starcrossed series. The saga mixes mythology, romance, action, and intrigue in a completely original way.Dreamless continues the story of Helen Hamilton, a shy girl living on Nantucket Island whose desire for an ordinary life was thwarted when she discovered she is a Scion, a descendant of a Greek god and a mortal. Each Scion has a power, and Helen's is the ability to travel to Hades.Helen is determined to use her talent to stop a war amongst the gods and change her destiny, which is to live a life patterned after that of the tragic Helen of Troy. But her quest may cost her Lucas Delios, the boy she loves.
Praise For…
"A gorgeous, haunting saga that completely swept me away."
-Lauren Kate, New York Times bestselilng author of Fallen
"A supreme mix of mythology, brutal action and heart rending romance. The perfect summer read."
-Chicklish (blog)
"One of the most cinematic books I've ever read. Dramatic and intense! I can't tell you how many times I gasped while reading this book. Starcrossed plays out like a movie in your head."
-Sophie Jordan, New York Times bestselling author of FIRELIGHT
Romance alternates with fast-paced action from above and below. There is a healthy dose of classical deus ex machine and tantalizing hints of a third book in which all-out war erupts. Dreamless and its sequel will be well-liked by fans of contemporary renderings of classical mythology.
-Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA)
This fantastical dual-world page-turner introduces more abhorrent mythological creatures while reuniting readers with Helen's supportive high-school friends, as well as the crazy Delos family, who anchor her between the real and mythological worlds.
"Compelling…Brutal…This romantic, action-packed tale will appeal to 'Percy Jackson' fans who are ready for more mature fare."
-School Library Journal


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|Boxing Champions | Boxing Schedule | Boxing Video | Boxing History | Pound For Pound | Lounge | The Wire | Arcade
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What about the millions of people in the world who aren't boxers and have Parkinsons?
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the americans would love it if froch got parkinsons. then they would say something like this "froch deserved parkinson!" or "i hope froch suffers coz he is brittish" and etc etc, the americans are a sick people that would even ridicule and hate on brits or euros that have parkinson. despcicabel.
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Froch really is somethin else, though... I've never seen such blatant disregard for defence or making one's offence look unpredictable. Those telegraphed uppercuts, wide swinging hooks (arcs, more like), the combinations with zero guard, and really lousy footwork - how he gets away with it I'll never know! Thankfully he's now become involved with guys who'll test him.
Yet, I find myself intrigued by the guy because he's totally different to Calzaghe - he actually wants to get stuck into the thick of things, and wants to fight. Calzaghe hijacked that WBO title for 8 years and never genuinely sought out a Stateside fight for other belts. I find that so off-putting. Froch, despite his shortcomings in the ring, is like a breath of fresh air when it comes to promoting and arranging a fight.
rugged individualist
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Ameritopia, U.S.S.A.
Posts: 22,180
Quoted: 38 Post(s)
Rep Power: 90
Points: 1,864,904.45
Bank: 1,126,842,393,226,754.50
Total Points: 1,126,842,395,091,659.00
Parkinsons is hereditary, not caused by boxing. He has a chance of becoming punchy when he gets older, depending on how much longer he decides to box, or if he learns to keep his hands up and quit blocking punches with his face.
Undisputed Champion
Join Date: Jun 2007
Posts: 6,004
Quoted: 0 Post(s)
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Points: 1,000,347,750.69
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Total Points: 1,000,347,750.69
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Bill Cosby to play Riverside Theater May 18
Comedy legend Bill Cosby is making a return appearance at the Riverside Theater May 18.
The 75-year-old Cosby last performed at the Riverside on Aug. 22, 2011. »Read Full Article
Looking for a restaurant that's open on Christmas?
It can be hard to find a restaurant that's open Christmas Day — or at night on Christmas Eve, for that matter.
Here are some places that will be open for business, traditional and non-traditional choices. In many cases, reservations are recommended. »Read Full Blog Post(5)
Hear Milwaukee singer Mario Brown's take on 'This Christmas'
It's not Dec. 25 just yet, so its not too late to hear a new take on a standard Christmas song. »Read Full Blog Post
On Tap for Today: What to do on Christmas Eve day
The kids are so excited they're about to squirm out of their skin. When you're young, the clock doesn't move fast enough on Christmas Eve.
Here are a few daytime diversions: »Read Full Blog Post(1)


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Add sparkle with the Gold Masks Glitter Key Chains to your masquerade or Mardi Gras event. Each Masks Gold Glitter key chain is 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches and holds a 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 inch photo. This acrylic key chain can be personalized to match your event and makes a great favor.
Please allow ample time for delivery. Our ship date for this product is noted in your shopping cart. Many items are shipped separately, so please allow extra time for these items to arrive. Shipping charges are based on the value of the merchandise and not the number of shipments. For additional shipping information, contact our Customer Service Department at (firstname.lastname@example.com or 1-800-227-2789).
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1 answer
A:Yes. the Gold Masks Glitter Key Chains can be personalized. Simply add the item to your cart. A personalized screen will then pop up allowing you to add your personalization.


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Wednesday, 14 Sep 2016
NZXT unveils their Aer RGB case fans with customizable lighting
You pay a pretty penny to look good, and the NZXT Aer RGB fans fulfill that with highly customizable lighting.
Tuesday, 6 Sep 2016
Corsair's lumbering Carbide Air 740 chassis has space for more hardware than you can afford
Corsair has announced the Carbide Air 740, a towering ATX chassis with space for up to four graphics cards and more fans and liquid cooling radiators than you will ever need.
Thursday, 28 Jul 2016
The Thermaltake Riing LED RGB radiator fans can be fully controlled with software
Thermaltake has launched the Riing LED RGB radiator fans, its first digital radiator fans that can be controlled with software. You can choose between static or RGB color cycles, control the fan speeds, and even set up custom fan profiles.
Friday, 15 Jul 2016
The Silverstone Primera PM01 is a sleek chassis with a design inspired by fast cars
The Silverstone Primera PM01 is now available to buy locally. The feature-rich chassis boasts a supercar-inspired design and a spacious interior for high-end builds, and it does all this at a rather palatable price.
Friday, 8 Jul 2016
Cooler Master unveils the MasterBox 5, an affordable case with plenty of customization options
Cooler Master has announced the MasterBox 5, an affordable mid-tower case with a modular interior and plenty of room for high-end hardware.
The Thermaltake Core P3 is a compact wall-mounted chassis that shows off your hardware
Thermaltake has unveiled the Core P3, a smaller version of its Core P5 wall-mounted chassis. The Core P3 features a sheer sheet of tempered glass to show off your hardware, and supports various flexible mounting and installation options as well.
Monday, 20 Jun 2016
Silverstone woos gamers with its affordable Redline RL05 chassis
The Silverstone Redline RL05 is an affordable gaming chassis targeted at gamers on a budget. Designed to maximize airflow and cooling, it offers just the right mix of features for gamers watching their wallets.
Friday, 20 May 2016
Lian Li unveils the Ebonsteel series of steel chassis for budget-minded builders
Lian Li has introduced a new series of steel cases that it has dubbed the Ebonsteel series. These are targeted at more budget-conscious builders and represent a departure from Lian Li's traditionally premium aluminum cases and stiff price tags.
Cooler Master unveils MasterCase Maker 5, a modular chassis that can be upgraded (Updated)
Cooler Master just revealed a modular chassis, high-end air cooler, and Titanium-rated digital power supply at CES 2016, part of its Maker Ecosystem range of products designed to enable enthusiasts to build their very own version of the ultimate PC.
Tuesday, 3 May 2016
Phanteks updates Enthoo Evolv ATX case with sexy tempered glass side panels
Phanteks has announced the Enthoo Evolv ATX Tempered Glass, a new version of its Enthoo Evolv ATX gaming case that features tempered glass side panels and RGB LED lighting controls.


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Milan may not be on everyone's must-see list when first planning an Italy trip, but it's an ideal base for exploring the popular Italian Lakes District in the northern part of the country. Whether you're interested in a simple day trip to nearby Lake Como, a combination tour including a lake visit and another town, or a multi-day excursion to several lakes, there are appealing options.
Tag Archives: milan day trips
Emilia-Romagna Food Tour from Milan
March 28, 2016
Milan may have been the host of the 2015 Expo focused on food, but there are other Italian destinations with more of a reputation for great cuisine. Luckily for visitors to Milan, many of them are in the Emilia-Romagna region right next door.
3 Reasons Milan May Not Be Right for Your Italy Trip
February 12, 2016
Milan is home to the second-largest and second-busiest airport in Italy. So you might fly in or out of the country through the city — and, yes, perhaps make a stop at the exquisite "Last Supper" fresco by Leonardo da Vinci — but here are three other considerations for your trip-planning purposes.
Day Trip to Genoa From Milan
September 1, 2015
After a few days in Milan, it's natural to want to escape the busy city for more relaxing environs. Many head north for the lakes, but if you want to explore an interesting city on the coast, take a day trip from Milan to Genoa.
Bolzano Day Trip
June 30, 2015
When you stand atop the Milan Duomo on a clear day, you can see mountains on the horizon. If that's not close enough for you, then consider a day trip from Milan to see the Dolomites and the town of Bolzano.
Verona Day Trip
June 23, 2015
From the busy and bustling city of Milan, you can escape to the charming historic center of Verona to explore the place made famous by a doomed love story and one of the best-preserved Roman arenas.
Rome Day Trip
June 16, 2015
Rome deserves more than just a day trip – there's no denying that. And yet if a day is all you have, then it might still be worth it – even if you're starting out in Milan. Yes, you can do a day trip to Rome from Milan, thanks to Italy's fast trains.
Florence Day Trip
June 12, 2015
Milan may be a major player on the world stage of fashion, and it's a great city to visit in Italy, but it doesn't have the cobblestoned charm of the Renaissance capital of Florence. Luckily, the fast train connects the two cities, making Florence an excellent day trip option from Milan.
Venice Day Trip
June 9, 2015
When you're planning an Italy trip, it can be hard to choose where to visit – especially when you have limited time. This is one of the reasons why day trips are such a good idea. Base yourself in one city and you'll have many options for visiting nearby destinations for a day. From the transport hub of Milan, for instance, a day trip to Venice is quite easy.
Cinque Terre Day Trip
June 2, 2015
Milan can be an ideal starting point for many day trips into Italy – and when you only have limited time, those day trips can help you add to your itinerary without too much hassle. A popular day trip destination from Milan is to the Cinque Terre, those fishing villages on the Ligurian coast.


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Burglaries, robberies and muggings are on the rise for the first time in years as fears grow among ministers that the economic downturn is driving up crime.
Figures from Britain's biggest police force provide the first indication that years of falling crime figures are coming to an end. The Metropolitan Police has reported big increases in robbery, burglary and motor vehicle crime in the past 12 months.
Police chiefs outside London are also preparing for crime incidence to start rising, particularly in the major urban areas. One chief constable said: "We are just about holding the line, but there are


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"It took a little longer than I expected to receive my product, but overall, I was very satisfied with my experience. I got the sound card, it installed very easily and it works as I hoped it would."
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It was delivered on time, came as described, and additionally brought a CD with the drivers which was not expected since it was not mentioned in the product description."
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A remote control to reset your router
My low-budget router has just crashed, and there is no way to reset the beast remotely via a network. Never fear – an X10 module, controlled by a web GUI with an Ajax interface, can actuate the mains switch.
Regular readers will recall that last month's Perl column relied on X10 technology to transmit switching signals over normal power lines at home. In this article, I will extend the scenario to include three new devices with X10 receivers: my DSL modem, my DSL router, and my TiVo digital video recorder. The lights in the bedroom and living room are already connected to X10 boxes.
Figure 2 shows the results of running the scripts in this article. As you can see, the browser displays intuitive names for the devices in question, and a button in the right-hand column of the table for each row lights up green or red, depending on the current device status. Clicking the button toggles the device state. This all relies on state-of-the-art Ajax technology – the browser does not need to reload the whole web page, just single fields that have changed.
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Nextcloud Announces Raspberry Pi-Powered Home Cloud Box
Innovative system adds a hard drive and Ubuntu Core to the RPi for an IoT hub.
Linus Torvalds Confirms the Date of the First Linux Release
Linux is two weeks younger than we thought!
End of OpenOffice?
The Apache Software Foundation considers retiring OpenOffice
Adobe Gives New Life to NPAPI Plugin for Linux
Adobe won't kill the plugin in 2017
LinuxCon North America Convenes in Toronto, Canada
Linux Foundation's big event celebrates the 25th anniversary of Linux
Linux Turns 25
Linux has evolved from "won't be a professional" project to one of the most professional software projects in the history of computers.
Mirantis Joins Hands with SUSE To Offer RHEL Support; Red Hat Not Happy
Competitors get in the game with RHEL without Red Hat
Linux on Windows 10 Poses a Security Risk
Security researchers have already notified Microsoft; some fixes are available
Mirantis to Refactor OpenStack Fuel for Kubernetes
The company is collaborating with Google and Intel to use Kubernetes as an engine for Fuel
Canonical Joins Document Foundation Advisory Board
The upcoming release of LibreOffice will be available as a snap package


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I'm thrilled to announce we've set a new participation record during the #medlibs chat on the Future of Health Librarianship for May 30th – 33 particpants cranking out 369 tweets in 75 minutes according to the analytics. Be sure to check out the great conversation in the transcript, and thanks Dean Giustini for diving in as a first time host for the firehose!
How do topics for #medlibs chats happen? If no one signs up to lead them, they're automatically open mic. Look what happened Wednesday night though –
Please sign up with your ideas on the form below the #medlibs calendar – the floor is wide open this summer. I am here to help with any and everything you'll need to set up and have a successful hosting experience with support during most chats, but I am in way over my head both with work and life this summer (just in case you haven't noticed the blog crickets around here) and can't do all the #medlibs work myself – let's keep our great group leadership dynamic going strong!


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Posted May 8 2011 9:59PM
DALLAS -- As swift as it was stunning and as thorough as it was convincing, another Los Angeles Lakers championship era ended on this day, crash landing before a worldwide audience Sunday afternoon at American Airlines Center.
The Dallas Mavericks' fingerprints were all over the wreckage. But this was an inside job. This Lakers team, aiming for its fourth straight trip to the NBA Finals and its third straight title, not to mention a fitting end to the Hall of Fame reign of retiring coach Phil Jackson, broke down under the pressure.
It was not supposed to end this way, not with two-time defending champions having to crawl out of town on the receiving end of a 3-point storm from an inspired Mavericks team, losing 122-86 in Game 4 and being swept in the Western Conference semifinals.
It was an embarrassing finish to Jackson's career, his quest for an unprecedented fourth threepeat and a 12th championship ring ended in a sea of wide-open shots knocked down by a Mavericks team that sank a record 11 3-pointers in the first half to blow the game wide open and the Lakers' season and the Kobe-Phil-Pau Gasol era up.
The cheap shots that came later from the Lakers -- both Lamar Odom and Andrew Bynum lost their cool and were ejected for flagrant fouls before it was over -- added a tasteless punch to one of the most epic meltdowns a championship contender has endured.
"We were losing by 30," a still stunned and clearly embarrassed Odom said after it was all over. "What the [expletive] do you expect?"
All season long, but especially in this series, this Lakers team continued to reach down for something, a championship reserve maybe, that simply was not there.
"I don't know where we lost it, that certain drive and bond that we've had in the past, that cohesive drive that we've had in order to overcome adversity," Odom said. "When I think about this series and this game, it looked like we got beat by ... a good team that, of course, we respect. But their bond on the basketball court was a little better than ours, it seemed like. They were able to come back down from 16 [points in Game 1] and seven or eight with three minutes to go [in Game 3], and there was just something missing in us."
The Lakers hid it as best they could during the regular season. But Gasol admitted Sunday evening that there were signs that this group wasn't up to the task of its predecessors. The Lakers lost more home games during the regular season than they did in either of their two championship seasons.
They still entered the postseason as the favorites to come out of the Western Conference and were considered by most to be the favorite to win another title. Even after they stumbled early against the New Orleans Hornets in the first round, losing Game 1 at home, they seemed to get back on track, winning that series in six games behind a rejuvenated Bryant and dominant showings from Bynum.
"It's been a rough road this year in general," said Gasol, who was a shell of his All-Star self in the postseason after playing like an MVP candidate at the start of this season, when Bynum was out recovering from offseason knee surgery. "This team was a roller coaster. We had ups, great ups. We had downs. We had a lot of home losses this year that we shouldn't have. We didn't start the playoffs right and we obviously didn't finish them right."
Both of the Jackson eras in Lakers' history ended in a heap. The Jackson-Shaquille O'Neal-Bryant era ended in a similarly gory fashion, with the Lakers being trounced in Game 5 of the 2004 NBA Finals in Detroit. They were trying to win four titles in five seasons then. But that team, complete with four future Hall of Famers in O'Neal, Bryant, an injured Karl Malone and Gary Payton, cracked under the pressure of the nasty end of the O'Neal-Bryant dynamic.
As mighty as they have been the past 11 seasons -- five titles in that span, and only the San Antonio Spurs can lay claim to being their equal with four titles in the past 12 seasons -- the Lakers were primed for a beatdown Sunday. (Ironically, the top-seeded Spurs were stunned in the first round by the eighth-seeded Memphis Grizzlies.)
No team had ever recovered from a 3-0 deficit in a best-of-seven series, some 98 teams before them had tried and all came up short. Toss in the Lakers' dismal record in road elimination games since 2003, 0-4 while losing by an average of nearly 24 points, and losing by 36 doesn't seem like such a shock.
The core of this Lakers team played a staggering 78 postseason games since 2008, when they lost to the Boston Celtics in the NBA Finals in six games. What transpired in this series was not only fatigue catching up to the Lakers but also the rest of the pack in the Western Conference.
If it wasn't the Mavericks in this round it might have been the Oklahoma City Thunder or Grizzlies in the conference finals. The distance between the Lakers and the rest of the competition has been shrinking for three years.
The Mavericks did tie an NBA playoff record with their 20-for-32 showing from beyond the 3-point line. They finished the series 49-for-106 from deep and set the NBA record for the most 3-pointers made in a four-game series, surpassing the 45 Orlando made against Charlotte in the first round last season.
Bryant refused to give any credence to the theory that the pressure to win a third straight title and send Jackson out in style had anything to do with their demise. History might tell a different story about this team, but his story will be clear.
"We played through distractions before," Bryant said. "You've got to put the credit in the right place, which is in the Mavs locker room. They played extremely well. They executed extremely well. Their spacing was excellent. Their depth hurt us. Every night it was a different player stepping up and performing and making plays. The credit belonged to them."
The Mavericks will go down as the team that ended an era and the legendary career of arguably the greatest coach in NBA history, and perhaps the history of professional sports in this country.
How they did it, though, will always be subject to interpretation.
"It's like when you're 13 or 14 years old and you have a little fist fight or whatever," Odom said. "You get hit in the mouth too hard and you realize, 'I got beat, man.' Of course, you want to play better. You know that ... but they beat our ass."
Sekou Smith is a veteran NBA reporter and the author of NBA.com's Hang Time blog. You can e-mail him here and follow him on twitter.
The views on this page do not necessarily reflect the views of the NBA, its clubs or Turner Broadcasting.
|Real Training Camp: Tyronn Lue
Cleveland head coach Tyronn Lue talks with Kristen Ledlow and Steve Smith about the Cavaliers upcoming season.
|Real Training Camp: Jim Chones
Cavaliers radio analyst Jim Chones chats about the team and the upcoming season.
|Real Training Camp: Jason Lloyd Talks Cavs
Jason Lloyd of the Akron Beacon Journal joins Kristen Ledlow and Steve Smith to discuss the Cavs upcoming season.
|Real Training Camp: Tyronn Lue Mic'd Up
Check out head Tyronn Lue as he talks to the team during training camp.
|Real Training Camp: Allie Clifton Interview
Cavaliers reporter Allie Clifton talks about the focus of the team after winning the title.