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How corrupt judges and attorneys steal everything a person has: The Jeff Baron Story.
Jeff Baron is an Internet pioneer who, at the age of 32, invented a technology in the early days of the Internet to make it easier to register Internet domain names. Jeff quickly became successful. His business was profitable and made money.
But today, Jeff Baron does not even own the shirt on his back. Tens of millions of dollars have disappeared due to the actions of two federal judges and a small army of unscrupulous Texas attorneys.
Jeff Baron was born in Detroit Michigan in 1967 and moved to Dallas in 1980. He went to Pearce High School in a Dallas suburb, and he still "lives†in Dallas, although he is keeping a low profile due to death threats he received from lawyers and officers of the court.
Following graduation from The University of Texas summa cum laude, Jeff Baron went to work for Smith Breeden Associates where he was a well-respected analyst. He later worked for the Mary Kay Corporation in several positions. Then he went off to start his own business in 1999.
Jeff Baron, now 44, is a mild-mannered "techie.†He's one of the nicest people you would ever want to speak with. He has never been arrested, never engaged in criminal activity, never had a judgment against him, and never lost at a trial. He never had any financial problems until he took a firm stand against immoral activity that an associate was becoming involved in. Jeff has never filed personal bankruptcy and has never been involved in any litigation where he has been found liable for significant damages.
While working for Mary Kay, Jeff Baron became interested in computer programming. Working evenings and weekends, he learned enough to develop software to register Internet domain names. Jeff Baron had a vision of how a new technology could have a major impact in the newly developing Internet age. To make that dream reality, Jeff Baron started an Internet business, Ondova, in 1999, and he then left Mary Kay.
Jeff Baron began developing specialized software to be used by Internet domain registrars, and he licensed the software to many domain name registrars, licensed by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
Soon, Jeff Baron, Ondova and its software became famous worldwide for its innovations in Internet domain name registrations. Ondova and its software quickly registered over a million domain names. By 2001, Jeff Baron's company personally owned several thousand domain names on websites that generated significant interest of Internet users worldwide. Ondova was able to register domain names such as rewards.com or lite.com for as little as $6 while others paid domain brokers millions of dollars for these type of domain names.
Jeff Baron started his first company with little money and no financing, and he built it from the ground up. This is not a case of a young man given a business or money by wealthy parents. Jeff Baron started with essentially nothing and used his creativity and drive to innovate new technology and develop a significant business.
Jeff Baron was one of the first entrepreneurs to register many generic domain names for his own use. The business model was to identify and register generic domain names that would attract website visitors (by determining what Internet users were interested in); develop websites based upon related products for each domain name; generate income from advertising on the websites; increase visitors to the websites thereby increasing their value.. With the high number of visitors attracted to Jeff Baron's company's sites, his business began to resemble a content search site like Google. Jeff Baron had focused on registering "short, generic domain names†as brief as two letters. Domain names registered included names like rewards.com, icy.com, and phonecards.com. Jeff Baron has been identified as an "Internet pioneer†for his work that contributed to the explosion of the World Wide Web.
In 2001, Munish Krishan called Jeff Baron in an effort to buy "phonecards.com.†He was persistent. When Jeff Baron said he didn't want to sell, Munish Krishan inquired about a joint venture or leasing the domain name. Until this point, Jeff Baron had never had any partners.
In 2003, Munish Krishan convinced Jeff Baron that he had a "big, huge team of web developers†who could assist Jeff Baron's company in outpacing Google as an Internet search engine. Jeff Baron became excited about that potential, and he allowed Munish Krishan to become involved in his business.
Jeff Baron signed a joint venture agreement to develop the new search engine with Munish Krishan. But despite his affirmative representations, Munish Krishan did not have developers capable of developing anything like Google. The joint venture to develop a search engine was a failure.
However, Jeff Baron's domain registration endeavor continued to grow through 2005 with the favorable economy and Internet growth at that time.
The business grew from $0 to $1.5 million a month in revenue. Jeff Baron's company redesigned its software to make it easy to register humongous numbers of names and registered millions of names after he met Munish Krishan. The websites created were quickly generating 1,000,000 visitors a day. Even with this success, Jeff chose to use profits for charitable purposes instead of for himself. In fact, nearly all of the profits were used in a trust established for diabetes research, while Jeff Baron himself lived a modest lifestyle in a small apartment in a working class neighborhood while driving a 20-year-old car.
In 2005, Jeff Baron and Munish Krishan found an attorney, Elizabeth Schurig of Schurig Jetel Beckett Tackett in Austin, to create various companies from the business that he had built to an estimated value of approximately $100 million based on investor input. Elizabeth Schurig's specialty is estate planning.
At Elizabeth Schurig's advice and instructions, Jeff Baron and Munish Krishan and his minority partners placed all of their assets into trusts created by Elizabeth Schurig. As beneficiaries of these trusts, Munish Krishan and his relatives/partners were to receive 50% of the websites created after their agreement. Jeff Baron was to receive 50% of the sites created after the agreement plus 100% of sites/assets created prior to their agreement.
Jeff Baron's life was never easy. He was diagnosed with juvenile onset diabetes (type 1) at the age of three, and he has had a number of other related health problems. After he became successful, he dedicated his life and virtually all of his income and assets to benefit diabetes sufferers through extremely generous donations. One of Jeff Baron's estate planning goals was to set aside money for his medical needs. In 2005, Jeff Baron was able to establish a $60 million trust for juvenile diabetes research. Rather than build a huge personal wealth for himself, Jeff Baron wanted to make a difference in the world.
The business structure put together by Elizabeth Schurig was "elaborate,†to say the least. Some would call it convoluted and confusing. Some divisions were based in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Trusts were set up, and apparently Elizabeth Schurig "put her friends in as trustees.†Jeff Baron says he trusted Elizabeth Schurig, but the structure she created took control of Jeff Baron's business and gave it to trustees who he didn't even know.
Jeff Baron was naïve, had little experience with "partners,†and he did not conduct any due-diligence on Munish Krishan. He was dazzled by the Google dream, and he made a colossal mistake in entering a business relationship with Munish Krishan.
Everything about the structure was bad for Jeff Baron. He made many errors in judgment in establishing the relationship with Munish Krishan. His business decisions were guided by the mistaken belief that the people he was dealing with would be honest and treat him fairly.
At Munish Krishan's insistence, Jeff Baron thought it made sense for Munish Krishan's staff to handle financial matters while Jeff Baron's staff concentrated on the domain name business and related computer programming. Jeff trusted Munish Krishan, but the structure gave him (and Elizabeth Schurig's friends) control of Jeff Baron's money. Jeff Baron invested more money than Munish Krishan, and Krishan took his money out of the business, while Jeff Baron was denied that ability. Jeff Baron's entities were to receive approximately $4 million from Munish Krishan's entities from "jointly generated†money that had been received by Munish Krishan's companies, but due Jeff Baron's entities.
Jeff Baron let Munish Krishan handle vital negotiations with Google. Munish Krishan met with Google and entered into agreements under his Netsphere company rather than the joint venture, without Jeff's knowledge. So, Munish Krishan seized control of the money and became the face of the business with the key business contract, Google. Jeff Baron was battling serious health problems at the time, so he focused on keeping his software running properly.
Since a teenager, Jeff Baron's role model has been Steve Jobs. Jobs' unbounded creativity and strong moral character are qualities that Jeff patterned his life after. Jeff Baron was unaware that Munish Krishan had a dark past. He was a felon with theft and forgery convictions and was making millions of dollars from pornography with his website, www.freesex.com. When Jeff Baron discovered this in 2006, he wanted no part of Munish Krishan's immoral activities that Jeff Baron saw creeping into the business. .
Just as Steve Jobs had rejected the pressures from his Apple colleagues to sell pornographic materials at Apple, Jeff Baron did the same. This stance against immoral business brought tension between Jeff Baron and Munish Krishan, and it led to a falling out by the end of 2006..
Jeff Baron then discovered that Munish Krishan had mislead, embezzled, and misappropriated Jeff Baron's and Ondova's company assets to further his pornography business.
Soon after these discoveries, lawsuits were filed, with Munish Krishan (and his proxies) retaliating with six legal proceedings against Jeff Baron between 2006 and 2007. Munish Krishan never won a single lawsuit. It became clear to Jeff Baron that Munish Krishan filed the lawsuits for the purpose of breaking Jeff Baron financially so he could appropriate Jeff Baron's assets for his own.
Jeff Baron has been living a nightmare since 2006.
One of the many lawsuits filed by Munish Krishan claimed that the hundreds of thousands of domain names that Jeff Baron's company had registered belonged exclusively to Munish Krishan and his company. This was not the business agreement, but the "elaborate†business transactions that lawyer Elizabeth Schurig created in 2005 provided Munish Krishan with a thin argument to claim that he owned everything. Attorney Elizabeth Schurig "forgot†to have some of the documents fully executed.
In 2006, Munish Krishan got together with John MacPete, Munish Krishan's lawyer and a partner at Locke Lord Bissell and Liddell, to review the Elizabeth Schurig created transactions with an eye toward crafting a fraudulent story, claiming entitlement to Jeff Baron's assets, and to submit that story to courts, attempting to get injunctions shutting down all of Jeff Baron's cash flow.
After months, Munish Krishan and John MacPete began claiming a story that went something like this: "We really don't know who this Jeff Baron guy is except that his registrar company registered all of these names and websites for our use and not for Jeff Baron's, and please disregard the thousands of pages of business documents that I signed because the transaction was not complete and I changed my mind before it was consummated. Just take our word for it that Jeff Baron and Ondova hijacked our domain names, and give them to usâ€.
Munish Krishan then allegedly feigned illness, claiming that he could not produce evidence in court, and he had his brother-in-law, Manish Aggarwal (who had little to no knowledge of the subject of his testimony), commit perjury by submitting numerous declarations stating false facts to support the position that Munish Krishan owned everything that Jeff Baron really owned. To avoid perjury himself, Munish Krishan very cleverly avoided making any statements under oath (his brother-in-law made them all), and they conveyed a fraudulent explanation of Munish Krishan owning everything.
This fraudulent position caused most of Jeff Baron's companies' business relationships to wither, and he got stuck with millions of dollars in registrar fees while the customers (Google and other companies) agreed to "freeze†all revenue payments based on fraudulent representations by Munish Krishan that the assets were his and that Jeff Baron "hijacked†them.
It was a very clever and effective scheme, yet based entirely on fraud and perjury. Munish Krishan had apparently done this to a previous partner in California in a dispute over his freesex.com name in the early 2000's. Munish Krishan bragged to Jeff Baron how he coerced his former partner into giving him sole ownership over freesex.com through legal action based on fraud.
Jeff Baron filed a lawsuit in Dallas, Texas for the purpose of having a court declare the rightful ownership of the domain names. Munish Krishan then filed a countersuit in California, claiming that "Jeff Baron hijacked my assets.†Munish Krishan asked the court to enjoin Ondova and Jeff from doing anything with the domain names, freeze all revenue and to give control of everything to Munish Krishan.
Jeff Baron described Munish Krishan's lawyers as "unrelenting,†and Munish Krishan and his proxies filed more and more legal proceedings; however, all were dismissed or denied by various courts, including an appeal made by Munish Krishan with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. During that time, Jeff Baron reported that he "won every time,†although his business was suffering, and the morale of his employees had fallen.
Despite his lucrative business venture, all of the legal actions forced Jeff Baron to pay $100,000 as a bank fee just for the rights to obtain a loan of approximately $1 million to pay lawyers and to pay for Ondova's fees to ICANN and Internet registrars to keep the jointly owned domain names (web sites) registered (renewed).
As Munish Krishan and his proxies had cut off all revenue to Ondova, and Ondova was responsible for approximately $5 million a year in renewal fees to renew jointly owned names that Munish Krishan was claiming as his own. The MacPete/Krishan strategy seemed to be to cause courts to order Ondova to pay for domain name renewals that Munish Krishan claimed as his own, while Munish Krishan cut off all revenue to Ondova that should have been used to pay these renewals. They knew that this strategy would quickly bankrupt Jeff Baron and Ondova, and Munish Krishan could easily pick up the domain names once Ondova and Jeff Baron could not pay for them.
Munish Krishan was a nightmare, but Jeff Baron had no idea that two federal judges and a gaggle of their attorney friends would take the nightmare to a whole new level – 24-hour-mare.
Despite rising legal expenses and sinking revenue, Jeff Baron managed to pay off the loan in a few months, only to face a lawsuit from an attorney he had hired to manage a settlement agreement with Munish Krishan. Charla Aldous, with a close family connection with the judge in Jeff's case and her partner, Jeff Rasansky, sued Jeff Baron for $7 million for a few weeks work and an extremely botched settlement agreement. Charla Aldous' partner, Steve Malouf, is the brother-in-law of Judge W. Royal Furgeson, a Clinton appointee who became a federal judge in Jeff Baron's case in 2009. Judge Furgeson's wife, Marcellene, is Steve Malouf's brother. After Judge Royal Furgeson became judge in Jeff's case, Aldous made a motion to intervene in Judge Royal Furgeson's court, asking him to award her $7 million from Jeff Baron.
How could any attorney sue a client for $7 million for working a few weeks? When your law firm is related by marriage to the judge hearing your case, it seems you can get away with just about anything in our courts.
Jeff Baron began to fear for his life after discovering emails exchanged by several attorneys whom he had trusted — Charla Aldous, Jeff Rasansky, and Jerry Masson. The emails indicated that they wished him physical harm and even death. Jeff Baron believes this was caused by jealousy and irritation that they were having to do any work for the money they were being paid. The emails include: (1) a plot to ruin Jeff Baron's case by disclosing confidential information to adversaries and to intervene in Jeff Baron's lawsuits to make "allegations (false) in court that will "kill him;†(2) literally threaten to kill him (laughing about it); (3) a plot to "beat his (Jeff Baron's) ass†and to send a "6'4†prostitute†to rape Jeff. In this email, the lawyers discuss who will owe who drinks after the deed is done; (4) and call Jeff Baron names like "titty baby†in response to his complaint that they are destroying his companies. The attorneys said he should join the marines and go to Afghanistan.
In 2009, federal Judge W. Royal Furgeson forced Jeff Baron's company, Ondova, to file for bankruptcy protection, despite the fact that Ondova was solvent and would have been swimming in cash if Munish Krishan hadn't diverted the money. Judge Royal Furgeson did this without any due process, without a hearing, without a trial, and without honoring the protections allegedly guaranteed under the constitutions of the United States and Texas.
Based upon the documents that I have reviewed, there was no legal or factual basis for Judge Royal Furgeson to do what he did. Judge Royal Furgeson has repeatedly denied the most fundamental rights that Jeff Baron is supposed to have as an American. I believe Judge Royal Furgeson's actions constitute numerous criminal acts. I believe what Judge Royal Furgeson has done and is doing to Jeff Baron should send the judge to prison for the rest of his life.
The federal bankruptcy judge appointed to preside over the Ondova bankruptcy was Judge Stacey C.G. Jernigan, a colleague and friend of Judge Royal Furgeson.
Transcripts from the court proceedings indicate that Judge Royal Furgeson and Judge Stacey Jernigan discussed and coordinated Jeff Baron's case through private meetings, lunches, and other ex parte discussions.
Judge Stacey Jernigan appointed her long-time friend Daniel "Corky†Sherman to be Trustee, giving him the power to take control of and strip Jeff Baron of all control and power in his company, Ondova. This action by Judge Stacey Jernigan and Trustee Daniel "Corky†Sherman enabled the looting and decimation of Ondova, an extremely successful company.
Within a few months, Trustee Daniel "Corky†Sherman (and lawyers) had taken over $600,000 in legal fees from Ondova's assets. Daniel "Corky†Sherman had total control over the money; Jeff Baron was powerless.
In one of the most shocking things that I have ever heard of in a legal proceeding, Judge W. Royal Furgeson threatened mild-mannered Jeff Baron with DEATH. Judge Royal Furgeson said this in open court, on the record, and the judge's court reporter transcribed his words in June 2009:
JUDGE ROYAL FURGESON: any failure to comply with that order is contempt, punishable by lots of dollars, punishable by possible jail, death .
MR BELL: And death
Judge Royal Furgeson then went on to threaten and berate Jeff Baron calling him "a fool to screw with a federal judge.†You see, federal judges can do just about anything they want to do. They commit serious crimes while hiding behind their robes. The law and the facts are meaningless to them when they have ulterior motives for their wrongful actions.
JUDGE ROYAL FURGESON: So I'll tell you what…. You want to challenge the court order, I have the marshals behind me. I can come to your house, pick you up, put you in jail. I can seize your property, do anything I need to do to enforce my orders. I'm telling you don't screw with me. You are a fool, a fool, a fool, a fool to screw with a federal judge, and if you don't understand that, I can make you understand it. I have the force of the Navy, Army, Marines and Navy behind me.
In 2009 and 2010, a string of lawsuits and court hearings were held for the purpose of stripping Jeff Baron and the trust he established for medical research of the wealth that he had created through his own ingenuity.
Money was "siphoned off†by greedy attorneys thanks to the actions of Judge Royal Furgeson. An appeal filed by one brave attorney on Jeff Baron's behalf is pending, although the appellate court refused to stay the order destroying Jeff Baron and his companies.
With Jeff Baron's business destroyed, he agreed to a settlement in which he agreed to fight no more if 100% of Ondova was returned to Jeff Baron in August 2010 with all creditors paid in full and the promise that the lawyers would cease looting. Jeff Baron threw in the towel. He simply wanted the nightmare to end, and he wanted to salvage a little something before it was too late. Jeff Baron promptly complied fully with all terms of the settlement agreement. As part of the consideration, Trustee Daniel "Corky†Sherman agreed to give Jeff Baron the keys to Ondova back to Jeff along with approximately $1 million left over in its bank account to resume business. Trustee Daniel "Corky†Sherman also agreed, in writing that he (through lawyers) would promptly file a "stipulated dismissal†in Judge Royal Furgeson's court to dismiss the lawsuit.
Instead, Trustee Daniel "Corky†Sherman and his colleagues refused to comply and began to fabricate reasons to "justify†keeping the bankruptcy open, refusing to dismiss it and the lawsuit in Judge Royal Furgeson's court. As justification, Daniel "Corky†Sherman and his lawyer colleagues began fabricating controversies, with the judge's encouragement. Each contrived controversy was designed to provide Trustee Daniel "Corky†Sherman and his colleagues an excuse to keep billing hundreds of thousands of dollars and avoid complying with the agreement to give Jeff his company back and to let him move on with his life, without lawyers.
One fabricated controversy that Trustee Daniel "Corky†Sherman created was that Jeff Baron was interfering with the domain names and that Jeff Baron "really didn't want to settle.†Another contrived controversy was that "Jeff doesn't pay his lawyers anything and defrauds them†despite the fact that lawyers had been already paid approximately $5 million. The list goes on and on.
Trustee Daniel "Corky†Sherman and his colleagues appear to have fraudulently induced Jeff Baron to enter into the settlement agreement, knowing full well that they never intended to honor it. Jeff Baron had believed that a U.S. bankruptcy trustee like Daniel "Corky†Sherman was in fact trustworthy. As has been a pattern in this case involving lots of money, individuals, including Daniel "Corky†Sherman became blinded by greed and were devoid of any semblance of honest dealings. Having approximately $2 million in Ondova's trust account and approximately 3 times the amount of money to pay off all legitimate claims in full, Trustee Daniel "Corky†Sherman chose not to be honest and perform his trustee duties, but instead sought a path that would allow him to pocket the money that he held in trust. This is considered bankruptcy fraud.
At this point Trustee Daniel "Corky†Sherman and his lawyer had been paid approximately $600,000, but through their bankruptcy fraud scheme, would soon take over $2 million. This is money that was earmarked to pay Ondova's creditors and equity holder and money that Daniel "Corky†Sherman had been entrusted with as fiduciary
Although he initially was promised "the keys to his company†would be returned once he met certain conditions, which were met, he was ordered not to "touch†anything in his office, and on September 11, 2009, all company materials, any personal items and records were seized. Judge Royal Furegson's order allows even all of Jeff Baron's mail to be diverted and monitored.
Part of the August 2010 settlement agreement was that Jeff Baron was coerced into permitting Daniel "Corky†Sherman to take approximately $1.6 million to hold "in trust†for Ondova. Jeff Baron agreed to this because of Judge Royal Furgeson's threats on Jeff Baron's life and Daniel "Corky†Sherman's agreements in court that 100% of Ondova would be returned to Jeff Baron with all creditors paid in full and the promise that the lawyers would cease looting.
The cost to get rid of Munish Krishan and his pornography included the following: Jeff Baron lost $7 million that Munish Krishan had embezzled, assets said to have a fair market value of $200 million, $1.6 million in cash, and $4 million in legal fees were looted by federal judges and attorneys in Dallas, Texas.
Throughout the ordeal, Jeff Baron's health has suffered, and he has spent up to a month in the hospital at a time due to medical complications from stress compounded with his severe diabetic condition.
The court documents reflect that the trustee, Daniel "Corky†Sherman and his lawyer, Raymond Urbanik, have (at last count) taken approximately $2,000,000 of Ondova's assets plus additional assets of approximately $10 million belonging to Jeff Baron personally and to other companies not in bankruptcy. More than 20 lawyers have plundered Jeff Baron's companies in what appears to me to be a shameless display of corruption and conspiracy, including several attorneys who Jeff Baron had hired to defend him.
One brave attorney, Gary N. Schepps, filed an unsuccessful appeal for Jeff. Gary N. Schepps should be considered a hero for his actions because attorneys who take action against judges and other attorneys often find their careers ruined due to retribution.
Attorney Gary N. Schepps has stated:
"The lockdown injunction serves no legitimate interest. Mr. Jeff Baron should be allowed to transact business, receive wages, cash checks, earn a living, travel freely, retain counsel, and defend his interests…
"Notably, receivership is not authorized as a means of providing ultimate relief or remedy…The District Court has discretion to impose a receivership only where it is ancillary to some other final equitable remedy sought in the property which is pending before the court.â€
Jeff Baron told The Post & Email that Dallas is home to a criminal cabal of attorneys operating "in their own little club.†The law firm of Texas State Senator Royce West has been paid a significant amount of money from the trust and registered what Baron described as another "questionable†claim.
Attorney Gary N. Schepps further stated:
"Judge Stacey Jernigan, Trustee Daniel 'Corky' Sherman, and the other lawyers reminded Jeff Baron of Judge Royal Furgeson's wicked wrath. They coerced Jeff Baron to settle the case on terms very favorable to Trustee Daniel 'Corky' Sherman and Munish Krishan but unfavorable to Jeff Baron. By capitulating to these demands, Trustee Daniel 'Corky' Sherman promised Jeff Baron that he would turn 'the keys to Ondova' back over to him, with all creditors paid off and $1 million in Ondova's bank account and to be 'free from lawyers.'â€
What Jeff Baron didn't count on was the ethical standard prevalent in the Dallas legal community. That standard, combined with two unscrupulous lawyers who exploited the situation, lead to an unimaginable chain of events, unprecedented in the history of the American legal system.
Trustee Daniel "Corky†Sherman pulled in a favor from his good friend Judge Royal Furgeson. In a secret, ex parte meeting, Trustee Daniel "Corky†Sherman and Judge Royal Furgeson stripped Jeff Baron PERSONALLY of 100% of his possessions and almost all of his civil rights. Jeff Baron is forbidden to work, forbidden to own property, and forbidden to act for himself. Judge Royal Ferguson placed Jeff Baron, individually, into a receivership, with no due process whatever.
In my opinion and according to attorney Gary N. Schepps, this is unprecedented. As I understand it, an individual person cannot be placed into receivership. No person can be owned as property. And the law supposedly provides that no one may lose property rights without due process. Due process means notice, an opportunity to be heard, the opportunity to have a hearing, call witnesses, and present evidence. Jeff Baron and his attorney were denied all of these Constitutionally-guaranteed rights.
Judge Royal Furgeson gave the "possession†and "exclusive control†(these are actual quotes from Judge Royal Furgeson's order) of Jeff Baron to another close friend and attorney, Peter Vogel, just as if he was a plantation slave in the 1880's. Peter Vogel was a co-judge in this case along with Judge Royal Furgeson.
Judge Royal Furgeson and Judge Stacey Jerngian also denied Jeff Baron the absolute right to hire a lawyer to defend himself or his interests. Jeff Baron was explicitly threatened that if he tried to hire a lawyer, he would be imprisoned and held in contempt. In court, Judge Royal Furgeson said
JUDGE ROYAL FURGESON: This is going on and on and on until Mr. Baron has nothing. I mean actually everything is depleted. I gather that Mr. Baron is worth lots of money. But it may be that we sell all the domain names. We may sell all of his stock. We may cash in all of his CD's, and we may seize all of his bank accounts
Receiver/Master Peter Vogel has literally stolen Jeff Baron Baron's identity, even opened bank accounts with Jeff Baron's name and Peter Vogel's address and contact information. This has all been ordered by Judge Royal Furgeson in appointing Peter Vogel as Jeff Baron's receiver. Jeff Baron is not allowed to do much of anything without Master/Receiver Peter Vogel's permission.
The blatant conflicts of interest in this case between judges, parties, and lawyers are incredible. For example, Charla Aldous, the lawyer for Jeff Baron who is suing Jeff Baron for $7 million dollars for providing approximately three weeks' work, is partner with Judge Royal Furgeson's brother-in-law, Steve Malouf. Peter Vogel and Judge Royal Furgeson have an extensive and close relationship including writing research papers together, co-blogging, etc. The list of examples of conflicts goes on and on….
Although Jeff Baron's income from Ondova was only $6,000 per year, he funded a medical research trust to cure diabetes valued at $60 million. Peter Vogel, under judge's orders, has liquidated this diabetes research trust for what is believed to be "two cents on the dollar†to put more money into his bulging pockets and the pockets of his lawyer friends.
So, bloodsucking judges and lawyers have not only harmed Jeff Baron and stolen all of his money, but Master/Receiver Peter Vogel's victims now include those whose lives would have been bettered through the contributions from this trust.
Jeff Baron has not been accused of any crime, has no judgments against him, never been held incompetent, never been sanctioned in court, never been insolvent, and never had a trial. The judges and lawyers have persecuted, prosecuted, and threatened Jeff Baron relentlessly. The judge and lawyer cabal not only want Jeff Baron's money…they seem to also want his life.
"Imagine being a party to a civil lawsuit. You 'buy peace' and settle. You perform your settlement obligations and a stipulated dismissal of all claims is entered into by all parties. Then, a few months later you get a knock on your door. The judge decided you should immediately turn over all of your property to him (through its receiver)– the keys to your home, your cell phones, all of your personal paper and documents, your checking accounts, your credit cards, all of your savings, all of your stock, your IRAs, and all of your possessions, investments, and property rights. The reason for this harsh invasion of your most fundamental rights to privacy and to own and control property and transact business with others – is to prevent you from hiring an attorney. Imagine too that the cost for this 'service' that the judge seeks to charge you though his receiver is over $225,000 per month.
"Even if you had a million dollars of non-exempt assets saved up over your lifetime, that money would be taken from you by the "receiver fees†after four months.â€
It appears that JeffBaron is a serial victim of attorneys' absolutely groundless claims. The attorney fee claims are not part of the underlying case — the underlying case settled. Judge Royal Furgeson and Judge Stacey Jernigan simply grabbed all of Jeff Baron's assets and decided to distribute them. The receiver, Peter Vogel, actively solicited hundreds of attorneys to make claims. In the end, two dozen did.
Concerning the "claims,†Attorney Gary N. Schepps could not find a single legitimate claim after months of review stating "Sometimes there are fee disputes between clients and attorneys. It happens. That is not what happened here. The claims, and we've documented this clearly, are 100 percent fabricated garbage.â€
Jeff Baron paid his attorneys in accordance with their engagement agreements. Most were flat rate or capped or contingency. The claims alleged against Jeff Baron appear to be clearly fabricated. Documents show that the fabrication is blatant.
The fact that Jeff Baron was stripped of everything made the opportunity attractive. It appears that the attorney fee claims were added post-seizure/post-appeal to attempt to justify an appearance of justice as the result of the ex-parte seizure.
In the appeal brief filed with the 5th Circuit COA, Gary N. Shepps explained "Most intuitively know that a judge cannot simply enter an order to strip a person of all their property and property rights. Jeff Baron's appeal lays out the legal precedent and principles as to why that is so. The issues raised in the appeal are very basic: the district court is a court of law and equity, not an imperial court. Accordingly, the power of the district court must be exercised within the limits of the law and equity.â€
Attorney Gary N. Schepps says this case should "shock the conscience†of the nation. Gary N. Schepps is volunteering, as Jeff Baron was ordered by Senior U.S. District Judge Royal Furgeson not to "hire†an attorney for his defense.
Gary N. Schepps says it is an "overreaching order†against Jeff Baron from Judge Royal Furgeson that created the trouble. "What is frightening legally is the U.S. federal judge's reasoning. The judge reasons that he has power to – without any notice or hearing – appoint a receiver over an American citizen, and his receiver, who takes orders from the judge, can then waive the person's constitutional rights,†said Gary N. Schepps.
According to a motion filed by Gary N. Schepps to the appeals court, Judge Royal Furgeson had personality problems with Jeff Baron. "Every person has their own personality, and the district judge has clearly been personally offended by Jeff, and apparently by counsel,†the motion said. "This may be because, as a result of his own personality style, Jeff Baron's testimony is naturally narrow, and technical.
"The court's language is broad. Review of the transcripts shows two men entirely speaking past each other.â€
But Judge Royal Furgeson apparently reacted personally.
When Ondova was forced into bankruptcy, the company appeared to have about $2 million in cash available and only about $900,000 in settled claims. "Daniel "Corky†Sherman should have immediately closed the Ondova bankruptcy in September 2010 when there was the million dollars cash surplus. Instead, Daniel "Corky†Sherman kept the bankruptcy open and ran up over $300,000 in additional attorney fees,†Gary N. Schepps said.
When Jeff Baron objected, the full wrath of the judiciary arose anew.
Within three business days, Daniel "Corky†Sherman had Jeff Baron placed into receivership, with another local attorney, Peter Vogel of Gardere, Wynne and Sewell, named as receiver.
According to details about the Jeff Baron case maintained on the website LawInjustice.com, Peter Vogel and Jeff Baron have a history going back to 2001. In 2001, Jeff Baron considered hiring Peter Vogel to represent one of his many technology companies.
During a pre-hiring screening, Jeff Baron admits that he revealed confidential information about his business to Peter Vogel but ultimately decided not to hire him.
Suddenly Jeff Baron was faced with lawsuits against his company that were employing trade secrets he had revealed only to Peter Vogel.
The law firm behind the lawsuits? Peter Vogel's lawfirm — Gardere, Wynne and Sewell.
Although he successfully fought off each of the lawsuits, Jeff Baron found himself under direct control of none other than Peter Vogel.
Then the ex parte meeting that Judge Royal Furgeson had with Daniel "Corky†Sherman and Peter Vogel, behind closed doors, named Peter Vogel as the receiver over everything in Jeff Baron's life.
Attorney Gary N. Schepps told the Justices of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit about the effect of that order by Judge Royal Furgeson.
"Other than brutally punishing Baron – limiting his access to medical care, keeping him from owning an operating vehicle, traveling outside of Dallas, having heat or air-conditioning, being allowed to earn any money or engage in any business transactions, burning up his COBRA coverage, etc.
"Literally, the receivership has achieved nothing other than to: (1) prevent Baron from hiring any legal counsel, (2) create a list of groundless, non-diverse state law attorney fee 'claims' against Baron (solicited by Vogel); and (3) provide a platform for Daniel "Corky†Sherman and Vogel to run up fee demands to a combined total of over FOUR MILLION DOLLARS.â€
According to a recent motion filed in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals by Gary N. Schepps:
"The original purpose of the ex parte receivership was clear: Jeff Baron was warned that he was 'prohibited from retaining any legal counsel' and that if he did… the receiver may move the court to find you in contempt.â€
Gary N. Schepps says that Daniel "Corky†Sherman and Peter Vogel falsely told Judge Royal Furgeson that many lawyers had outstanding fees that Jeff Baron has yet to pay, so the receivership was necessary to "discover†those lawyers and make sure they get paid.
Jeff Baron's documentation indicates otherwise.
Gary N. Schepps said that while the matter has been on appeal for nearly a year, the district court has allowed Peter Vogel and his law firm to distribute nearly $1 million of Jeff Baron's money for themselves.
He said that, in addition, Peter Vogel has solicited claims from Jeff Baron's former attorneys for unpaid fees, even though no claims had been submitted.
"And presented the 'claims' to the district court in a one-sided 'report' that intentionally excluded all of the exculpatory evidence,†one of Gary N. Schepps motions continues.
The motion then describes in detail how all claims by these "past†attorneys are fictitious, in most cases easily proven false by signed contracts between Baron and said attorney.
Gary N. Schepps has said: "Sometimes there are fee disputes between clients and attorneys. It happens. That is not what happened here.
"The claims, and we've documented this clearly, are 100 percent fabricated garbage.
"Notice the huge number of attorneys that somehow can't find their contracts and all claim $300 per hour fees. Their invoices and letters to other lawyers, however, showed they were working for $40 per hour or flat fees – and were paid in full,†he said.
Jeff Baron sought relief from the fictitious claims and what his attorney calls "outrageous†billing by Peter Vogel.
Instead, according to Gary N. Schepps appeal motion, "the district court did not grant Baron any of the requested relief, and instead sealed from the public view Baron's motion, objections, and response to the one-sided receiver's 'report.'â€
Gary N. Schepps said in the appeal, "The district court erred in holding that it could appoint a receiver over an individual and thereby waive the individual's constitutional right to trial by jury.â€
Gary N. Schepps said that a number of basic civil rights have been denied, such as due process, and the guarantee under the 7th Amendment of the Constitution that if the value of a claim exceeds $20, Jeff Baron has the right to a trial by jury – which has been clearly denied in his case.
The documentation of the case can be seen online where it is maintained by a acquaintance of Jeff Baron who "is outraged†that Jeff Baron could be treated like this in America.
The court won't allow Jeff Baron to maintain the website to tell his story.
"Jeff doesn't actually have a website, and by court order is prohibited from having one, and the www.lawinjustice.com site was set up by a friend of his,†Gary N. Schepps has reported
"There has been a complete breakdown of due process in the district court,†he said.
"Jeff Baron's constitutional rights to due process, unreasonable seizure, to hire legal counsel, to travel, to work, to engage in commerce and business transactions, etc., have been suspended,†he says.
â€My concern is that the Fifth Circuit has to make a choice. Do they acknowledge that there are a bunch of dishonest attorneys who have tried, literally, to conspire together to steal money from Jeff Baron? Or, do they throw Jeff under the bus to 'protect' the 'good name' of the legal profession?†he said.
Though attempting to dress itself up as a legitimate court action, the Jeff Baron case appears nothing more than legal industry looting. It strongly parallels abusive actions regularly seen in probate cases.
Government initiated and/or sanctioned confiscation of American property and hijacking of civil rights is a rapidly growing threat posing significant danger to a highly unsuspecting public. Jeff Baron's story illustrates one of many legal avenues of predatory opportunity.
In my opinion, Judge W. Royal Furgeson used Jeff Baron to allow attorney friends to make a lot of money. He likely had no idea that the attorneys would take it to the extremes that they did, but the whole scam got out of control. He couldn't reverse what had been done with tens of millions of dollars. So, he made the death threat to Jeff Baron, and he began doing completely illegal things to destroy Jeff Baron and end the escapade before he was exposed. Then he seized the opportunity to take a job as the head of a new law school in an attempt to remove himself from the spotlight.
What Judge Royal Furgeson and the attorneys involved didn't count on was that mild-mannered Jeff Baron refused to take this sitting down. Bolstered by friends and by advocates like John Margetis and George McDermott, this corruption is being heard far and wide. None of us are going to allow these people to get away with this. They should all be indicted, arrested, imprisoned, convicted, disgraced, bankrupted, disbarred, and impeached.
Jeff Baron's legal assault is chronicled at LawInjustice.com. Click here to "like†a Save Jeff Baron Facebook page.
Jeff Baron was the subject of my Online TV Show on Sunday, February 19, 2012. Click here to listen to the broadcast.
I said on the show that I wanted to write a comprehensive article about this, and I interviewed Jeff Baron and others to fill in some blanks from the previous story that I wrote. The article above is the result.
William M. Windsor
I, William M. Windsor, am not an attorney. This website expresses my OPINIONS. The comments of visitors or guest authors to the website are their opinions and do not therefore reflect my opinions. Anyone mentioned by name in any article is welcome to file a response. This website does not provide legal advice. I do not give legal advice. I do not practice law. This website is to expose government corruption, law enforcement corruption, political corruption, and judicial corruption. Whatever this website says about the law is presented in the context of how I or others perceive the applicability of the law to a set of circumstances if I (or some other author) was in the circumstances under the conditions discussed. Despite my concerns about lawyers in general, I suggest that anyone with legal questions consult an attorney for an answer, particularly after reading anything on this website. The law is a gray area at best. Please read our Legal Notice and Terms.
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Create a Website Account - Manage notification subscriptions, save form progress and more.
The methodology of allocating the roadway maintenance fee on the basis of "trips," appropriately balances costs between residential and commercial users.Residential: A flat fee is charged.Commercial: A flat fee is charged.
Show All Answers
In 2018 City Council determined that a stable and sufficient source of revenue was needed to ensure that Hamilton could continue to maintain and improve the quality of its existing public street system. The council passed Ordinance No. 07-18 where occupants of developed property (residential and commercial) would provide funding for the maintenance of the city's streets.
The party responsible for the utilities, unless another responsible party agreed in writing to pay on behalf of the occupant.
Maintenance to:1) Provide a safe street system2) Properly maintain the street system and areas to maximize their use, utility, and longevity3) Maintain certain landscaped areas within the street rights-of-way4) Provide maintenance for streets used by pedestrians, bicyclists, and mass transit users as well as those used by vehicle drivers5) Take any other action necessary to ensure that existing city streets are maintained at standards that support the needs of city residents, businesses, and institutions

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Here's to all good things in 2015 and beyond!
Tag Archives: fireworks
Ceremony: UVA Chapel | Reception: Glenmore Country Club | Hair & Makeup: Daphne Latham | Floral Designs: Hedge Fine Blooms | DJ: Dennis Payne | Videographer: Citrus Ceremonies | Vintage White Packard: Albemarle Limousine | Cake: Sweet Haus
2013/12/24 – 21:42
Another gorgeous wedding collection from start to finish. The story of the day is told so well through these images. Impeccable work.


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Syngonium Arrowhead Plant Bundles (Set of 2)
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eGift: Please note that when gifting an eGift, the lucky receiver can keep the plant/gift or choose a different plant/product for the store for the equivalent amount. They'll be able to place their order and enjoy Free Doorstep Delivery.
Physical Free Doorstep Delivery: Please note that the physical doorstep delivery may take up to 2 to 4 business days.
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🎁 Send eLove - eGifting Made Easy! 💌
We understand the importance of options, which is why we offer a range of flexible choices for your lucky eGift recipient:
- 🎁 Your friend or loved one will receive an email notification on the delivery date chosen, letting them know about the delightful plant(s) you've selected for them. They can either proceed with your chosen gift or explore other products of equal value to customize their own unique botanical experience!
- No fuss, no hassle! They can simply pick their favorite plant, apply the gift code on the cart page, and voila! The gift is instantly redeemed, and their order is swiftly placed. It's truly that effortless!
- 🌿 Need some expert advice or assistance along the way? Just reach out to us – we can't wait to help!
At Forget Me Not Flower Market, we're committed to ensuring that every gift goes beyond expectations, creating a lasting impression that nurtures both the soul and the environment. Choose our plants & let the love grow!
Additional information
Weight | 2 lbs |
Dimensions | 4 in |
Size |
Introducing Our 'Gift This Product' Option: Elevate Your Gifting Game!
Are you ready to take your gift-giving to the next level?
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Order ahead and select the delivery date – it's that simple! But here's the best part: You're not just sending a plant; you're virtually gifting an entire botanical experience! 🌿💝
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Give the gift of choice. Your lucky recipient will receive an email notification on the chosen delivery date, unveiling the delightful plant(s) you've handpicked for them. They can either proceed with your chosen gift or explore other products of equal value to create their own unique botanical adventure! 💌💫
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Forget the stress of traditional gift shopping. With our 'Gift This Product' option, your loved one can simply pick their favorite plant, apply the gift code at checkout, and voila! The gift is instantly redeemed, their order is swiftly placed, and their chosen gift will be conveniently delivery to their doorstep within 2-4 business days – effortless and hassle-free! 🎉


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Recently, Proskauer Rose published the results of its second survey covering social media in the workplace. Social Media in the Workplace Around the World 2.0 [pdf] questioned 250 multinational businesses on their social media policies and practices.
The results?
- 75 percent of businesses reported using social media for business purposes
- 77 percent permit at least some employee to access social media sites at work for non-business purposes,
- 69 percent have a social media policy,
- 46 percent have a social media policy that covers on-duty and off-duty activities.
- 33 percent their employees on the appropriate use of social media.
Employers, here is your New Year's Resolution for 2013—draft a social media policy and train your employees on what it means.
Social media is still novel. Most of your employees do not understand how their off-duty online activities can impact their jobs. If you want to hold your employees accountable for what they say and do online both at work and outside of work, establish expectations. Put it in writing and explain to your employees what the policy means. That way, if you have to take action against an employee for something he or she says online, no one has any excuses.
According to a recent study, 88 percent of New Year's resolutions fail. Strive to be among the minority that succeed in keeping their resolutions. Your employees will thank you.
Happy New Year!


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Discover how our investment expertise, history and community knowledge make us the best option for you to carry out your mission.
Make a lasting investment in your community's future today. Join your friends and colleagues who have brought their mission to life.
Learn more about the variety of community issues we are focusing our resources on in order to strengthen the four county area.


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There's been some consternation on the Web about what happened this weekend at a post office in Silver Spring, Md., when three Christmas carolers — all decked out in shawls, bonnets and a top hat (for the guy) — popped in and started singing.
It seems that one of the USPS managers on duty jumped into action, telling the trio that they couldn't do that because they were on government property.
J.P. Duffy, a spokesman for the conservative Family Research Council, happened to be among the customers in line at the time. He told the tale on the FRC's blog. And he added this view:
"Over the last several years, we have watched militant secularists team up with federal bureaucrats in the effort to sterilize the public square of anything remotely connected to anything religious. This postal manager has clearly received the memo which has led him to stamp out Christmas caroling. But I have my own memo to all the Christmas carolers out there. Let's not surrender to the secularist version of Christmas future. Let's hold onto Christmases of past and do our part to pass that on to our children."
Duffy wants those who agree with him to tell the Post Office to let such people sing.
For its part, as the local Gazette.Net reports, the Postal Service basically says rules are rules:
"U.S. Postal Service spokeswoman Laura Dvorak said the carolers, dressed like characters from A Christmas Carol, were in violation of the Postal Service's rules on public assembly and public address. 'Inside the post office, however, the expectation is that public assembly will be either conducted or sponsored by the Postal Service,' Dvorak wrote in an email."
Duffy (and Fox News) seem to see this as another skirmish in the "war on Christmas" (the url for Fox's story even has "war-christmas" in it: http://nation.foxnews.com/war-christmas/2011/12/12/post-office-bans-christmas-carolers).
But the Post Office also sells some of the most Christmassy stamps you can imagine. And many of its mail carriers aren't shy about getting all ho-ho-happy around the holidays.
War on Christmas? Feel free to discuss in the comments thread.
(H/T to NPR's Liz Halloran.)
Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


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Could It Be Magic? Brit Boy Band Take That Visits Neverland
September 17th, 2015 | By Broadway.com Staff
You probably know Gary Barlow as something other than the co-composer/lyricist of Broadway's Finding Neverland. After all, he's part of one of the biggest boy bands of all time. Barlow reunited with his Take That brothers at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre for a night that fans will never forget!


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Now that you have all supporting packages up and running (you did follow the instructions in the previous section, didn't you?) get yourself a copy of MMBase. As said before, this document describes the works for MMbase version 1.4.
Download MMBase from http://www.mmbase.org/releases/mmbase-1.5.zip with a browser, or even easier:
wget http://www.mmbase.org/releases/mmbase-1.5.zip
From version 1.5 MMBase can be used as an webapp within Tomcat. So I recommend unpacking the distribution in a temporary directory and copying the mmbase-webapp/ tree to /var/lib/tomcat4/webapps/. If MMBase is your only (or main) application on Tomcat, you can also install it as ROOT, by copying everything from mmbase-webapp/ to /var/lib/tomcat4/webapps/ROOT/.
In this document I will assume that MMBase is unpacked in /var/lib/tomcat4/webapps/mmbase-webapp/
You will also need mysql.jar (JDBC driver for MySQL) which can be downloaded from
Make sure you get the binary jar, which means you may have to unjar the
complete distribution first and locate the file mm.mysql-2.0.14-bin.jar
(2.0.14 was the latest release when writing this HOWTO)
Put the file in /var/lib/tomcat4/webapps/mmbase-webapp/WEB-INF/lib/.
MMbase needs a database and a user that has full rights on that database. The user seems to needs rights via localhost and the real hostname. This was not entirely clear to me.
Issue the following commands on the MySQL prompt. I chose a database called MMBase, a user named mmbaseuser and the password secret.
CREATE DATABASE MMBase
USE MMBase
GRANT SELECT,INSERT,UPDATE,DELETE,CREATE,DROP ON MMBase.* TO mmbaseuser@'%' IDENTIFIED BY 'secret';
GRANT SELECT,INSERT,UPDATE,DELETE,CREATE,DROP ON MMBase.* TO mmbaseuser@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'secret'
GRANT SELECT,INSERT,UPDATE,DELETE,CREATE,DROP ON MMBase.* TO mmbaseuser@realhostname IDENTIFIED BY 'secret'
flush privileges;
The Tomcat java security manager somehow interferes with MMBase. I haven't found out what settings are needed to run MMBase with the security manager active. Please let me know. For now I disabled the security manager, which you should never not do. (Big Disclaimer!)
In /etc/default/tomcat4 change the security line to:
For some odd reason, Tomcat wants to find the file WEB-INF/lib/xml-apis.jar also in /usr/share/tomcat/common/lib/xml-apis.jar, so you have to copy it.
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By Liane Membis, CNN
(CNN) – Want to learn more about Islam? There's a hotline for that. And, through the end of the month, lots of roadside billboards to get the word out about it.
Two 48 foot-tall billboards towering over the New Jersey Turnpike bear the messages "877-Why-Islam — Get the Facts" and "Ramadan — 1.57 Billion Celebrating. Find Out Why."
The signs are part of the Islamic Circle of North America's 1-877-Why-Islam outreach project, established in 1999 with an eye toward educating Americans about Islam and Muslims.
The New Jersey billboards are two of more than 50 signs that are lining highways across the nation during August, as Muslims mark the holy month of Ramadan.
The Why Islam Project has also used television and newspaper ads and community booths to promote the hotline. Its website, WhyIslam.org, features information about the religion and a tool for users to arrange tours of local mosques.
Ashfaq Parkar, the coordinator of the Why Islam Project, said the hotline, which gets around 600 calls a month, is aimed at dispelling myths about Islam.
"What we are doing is trying to provide people with the means of obtaining accurate information about our religion," Parkar said. "There are a lot of people that feel that Muslims need to step out and assure that their religion is appropriately represented. If we don't do it, someone else will, and there's a good chance that we will be misrepresented."
Calls to the toll-free 24/7 hotline are answered by volunteers from the Muslim community who are concerned about the image of Islam and want to help improve relations with other Americans.
Volunteers for the hotline receive extensive training but are not required to be scholars or religious leaders.
The most frequently asked question: What does Islam say about terrorism?
Questions and calls that link the religion to violence surged after the 9/11 attacks, Parkar said.
"When we get these kind of calls some people get confrontational or angry on the phone," Parkar said. "But we welcome that."
"The fact they are calling and are willing to engage in discussion means something to us," he said. "They have concerns, they want a dialogue. We listen and we give that to them."
"We just want to educate people and show the American community that we are a community to be accepted not detested."
The billboards will remain up until the end of the Ramadan, known for its daytime fasts, on August 29.
"It's a time when the general community around us is curious about fasting, our religion, our beliefs," Parkar said.
Article Courtesy: CNN


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Grey's Anatomy Season 6 Episode 3 : I Always Feel Like Somebody's Watchin' Me
Latest Grey's Anatomy Episodes
Several weeks after her near-death experience, a recovering Izzie returns to work. Meanwhile, nervous that there will be layoffs in the hospital in the wake of an announcement from the Chief, the Seattle Grace residents compete to survive the cuts, including Cristina, who attempts to work alongside Arizona in pediatrics. And Bailey and Alex's patient's already complex case is further complicated by her schizophrenic son.
Episode Guide
Season 01
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[Article first published as Useless Patent Wars – Motorola Awarded Unenforceable Injunction against Microsoft on Blogcritics.]
Every day I peruse the tech news on the interwebs to keep up with what's going on. There are usually a few interesting stories on some sort of technology development or new games coming out, but what I've found over the last year is that those types of stories have been dwarfed in number by news on the business side of technology. Now I'm not saying that's a bad thing – I'm both a nerd and a business guy so that intersection of topics definitely interests me. But it's the stories that accompany the ones about tech business dealings that make my head hurt. And all of those stories are on tech patents and lawsuits.
There's a certain extent to which a defense of patents and intellectual property is reasonable. That's the point of the patent system as it was designed – to defend inventors from someone else taking the idea and running with it for profit, protecting them from being victims of corporate theft and economies of scale. And that works for the most part when it comes to tangible goods or the processes to manufacture said goods. But trying to apply that same system to technology, namely software, unfortunately can become nothing short of a series of legal quagmires. Patents can be awarded to very broad solutions and nebulous ideas that there's no present method to develop, or that could possibly have multiple methods of execution. Put those patents in the hands of patent trolls and watch them kick back, send their legal attack dogs, and either kill a dream for kicks or pick up royalties. And in my personal, non-lawyer opinion, I can see how that could stifle and suppress innovation in startups and small firms, who simply can't afford a potential patent lawsuit from a larger company with deeper pockets. Something has to change.
It's nothing new. I know, as you all do, that this type of thing has been going on more and more as the mobile space has grown. But that doesn't preclude me from reading the news and cringing a little bit when i see some of the fallout. Today was such a day with such stories that irked my nerdy ire. Motorola Mobility, the broken-off mobile piece of the once whole Motorola, and who i will be referring to as "MoMo" for the rest of this, won an injunction against Microsoft in Germany. The injunction is in the form of a sales ban covering Xbox 360 game consoles, the Windows 7 line of operating systems, Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player in Germany. That means every Xbox 360 and every copy of Windows 7 would have to be taken off the shelves. The reason? H.264 video. For those not in the know, H.264 is a video codec that covers many aspects of HD video. One of its claims to fame comes thanks to Blu-Ray players, which all have to be able to decode H.264 video streams. Online video content delivery through Flash and sites like YouTube use H.264 to get it done too.
What MoMo sued for wasn't actually for H.264 itself, but two patents that they hold for the delivery of H.264 video. Their claim is that Microsoft never properly licensed said technologies, and have convinced a Mannheim Court in Germany of that as well. But it's not that simple. A United States court has banned MoMo from enforcing that injunction until they review the matter next week. And in the meantime, Microsoft has gone ahead and moved their European software distribution center from Germany to the Netherlands to mitigate the action. You see, earlier on Microsoft previously accused MoMo of abusing its FRAND obligations – providing licensing under fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms to licensors as a standard setting entity. According to Microsoft, those licensing fees from MoMo would come with a price tag in the neighborhood of $4 billion. So in addition to the German court and US court, the European Commission could also look into this, as they're already carrying out a probe on MoMo's supposed "abuse of a dominant market position." This is the first step in what is sure to be a long and hugely drawn out process.
On another level, trying to ban Windows 7? You're telling me MoMo is 100% Mac and Linux in their enterprise setup?
But that wasn't all for today. Another report featured Nokia's new patent assault against HTC, RIM and Viewsonic for infringement on 45 patents in their portfolio. They've already been successful once in suing Apple into a licensing deal for the iPhone, but details on which 45 patents have yet to be released at the time of my writing this. Now this one I can sort of understand. It looks like they're trying to mitigate some financial hits with some additional revenue streams until the Lumia becomes more widely popular. So while this one didn't strike a nerve as badly, it still made me shake my head a little.
It just seems to me that the undeniable amount of effort (not to mention cash money) funneled into patent assaults could be redirected into more product development. There's a lot of really basic things the mobile world has yet to figure out, like coming up with technologies for things like more efficient batteries. Put more effort into putting quality products into the hands of the consumers, not quality money into the hands of your lawyers. Think about the good of the game.


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Tuesday, May 1, 2007, 11:07 PM - CMMI, CMMI Implementation, Introduction to CMMI course
A series of small projects or an endless project is a dilemma for all people implementing CMMI practices in environment that operates a support team that performs series of small fixes and enhancements. Over the last one week I participated on two separate occasions in discussions how CMMI is to be applied in such environments, so here is my view on the topic and links to relevant information.
Firstly the current version of CMMI is called CMMI-DEV i.e. it is designed to address development organizations primarily while leaving an option of interpretation for service environments. There is going to be a separate CMMI-SVC constellation(edition) of CMMI to be announced in 2007 that will be written specifically with the service organizations problems in mind. Thus should one be impatient to implement CMMI or if the service business is only a fraction of the overall business some interpretation of CMMI-DEV will be needed.
An excellent place to start is the guideline for interpreting CMMI 1.1 in service environments released by SEI in 2005:
http://www.sei.cmu.edu/pub/documents/03 ... 3tn005.pdf
It gives mapping/interpretation of CMMI practices in the context of service organization. One particular area of interest is how one defines a project in support environment.
CMMI-DEV v1.2 brought additional ease in interpretation by taking special attention during design and development of the model for expanding the model coverage. Most changes in this regard are in the informative material and provide notes and examples for usage of practices in service and hardware organizations. There is however one change in the glossary that is of significant importance to this subject.
Prior to v1.2 CMMI has adopted PMI alike definition of project i.e. a group of resources directed towards a common goal with a definite beginning and an end. This came to a change in v1.2 now a project in required to have a start point but is not required to end/finish. This small change allows now organization operating support team to maintain a single plan for maintenance that has many small phases estimated separately.
This all seemed crystal clear to me until a recent discussion on the CMMI Process Improvement Yahoo group. It turned out the first three prints of the CMMI book were flawed and provided wrong definitions of key terms like project, service and project startup. Namely a project was mandated to have a completion thus the view of implementation in service organizations required an artificial and totally redundant break up of activities in service organization into time limited slots of say one year. This has caused confusion amongst many professionals. A special notice about the errors in the first three prints can be found in the CMMI book errata page maintained by AW professional web site:
http://www.awprofessional.com/content/i ... 182007.pdf
To complete our discussion here are few important points hen you do support for a client organization:
1. CMMI-DEV v1.2 is friendly towards service environments. Few examples are the definitions of terms in the glossary: Project in the glossary is defined as something that has a start and operates according to plan. There is NO requirement for end or completion unlike PMBOK. Thus project can be the overall setup for delivery of products/services. Product in the glossary covers both tangible products and services. Quote "In the CMMI Product Suite, a service is a product that is intangible and non-storable. (See also product, customer, and work product.)". This makes life easier in defining what the support project produces. This makes me believe you can implement CMMI-DEV practices in an environment that does small support tasks within the context of a larger contract.
2. CMMI does not prescribe life cycle i.e. you decide what phases you will have in servicing a request. There could be guideline as to what is required for different types of requests i.e. what phases. Ultimately there is sense in each practice in the CMMI model and your processes should cover all of them to be appraised. It is the business need that should drive the definition of the exact details of the preformed activities and their scheduling.
3. There is one critical distinction when talking about outsourcing - who owns the processes. If it is the client organization then they ought to go for appraisal and what the supplier does is personnel leasing i.e. supplier ought to enhance upon its people management capabilities, not CMMI, may be People CMM. If it is the service organization that owns the process then it should work on improving processes using CMMI practices.
Last but not least I just received an e-mail from SEI to confirm the successful completion of my instructor for Introduction to CMMI training. I am waiting to see my name on the list published on http://partner-directory.sei.cmu.edu/
Cheers and all the best!
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Friday, April 27, 2007, 11:08 PM - CMMI, Introduction to CMMI course
Today I finished successfully the observation for becoming Introduction to CMMI instructor.
It was very exhausting, interesting and challenging experience.
Good is that there were two of us Youri Metchev and me teaching together so we split modules and exercises. Thus one gets time to go over material just before presenting it and it also allows get some rest between presentations. Despite this the 3 days are exhausting. Added to the teaching itself the stress for me was quite high so this added up to the exhaustion.
There is a lot I learned preparing and actually teaching the Intro to CMMI course. You learn a lot of small tips to better present material to people. Our observer was Pat Kirwan a great guy; he helped us evolve our teaching and presentations skills dramatically during the 3 days.
I also got really deep into the book before you train in the observation you realize responsibility you take by standing in front of audience that has invested significant amount of money to learn something. I look as well at the expectations and plans wemade with ESI for delivering training and this capability depends on your performance during the observation.
Well once you realize you have prepared enough and you are not so bad in communicating to the audience - It gets much easier. Indeed you start having fun engaging people and discussing different matters. It gets tough sometimes when a strange question is thrown, but I guess this id normal. It is an intro calls and people would have hard time with even basic concepts.
Well end of the day I am very very happy. It has been a great experience and I am keen to do more training now.
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Thursday, April 5, 2007, 12:48 AM - CMMI
I have just received the official confirmation from SEI that my observation Introduction to CMMI training will be on 25-27 April 2007.
This will be a public course. It will be offered in Sofia, Bulgaria. So if you would like to come please get in touch with ESI http://www.esicenter.bg. I would be more then glad to have bigger audience.
For details on what this training is about see the SEI official page about Introduction to CMMI training
This is great news as both ESI and myself will have much better opportunities to help companies in the region work with the model.
I hope to see you there!
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Saturday, January 20, 2007, 12:31 AM - CMMI, CMMI Publications
We had a SPIN BG meeting this week.
There were several quite interesting items discussed:
1. There is a Bulgarian company that achieved maturity level 2 in CMMI. The company name is MPS. This is big achievement as it is the first company in the region that has achieved a CMMI rating from A class SCAMPI. We discussed their SCAMPI experience on the meeting.
2. Just a month later a Romanian company achieved CMMI maturity level 3 rating
3. I made short presentation about the new developments in CMMI 1.2 . Of course you can download it form the link - CMMI 1.2 what is new
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Thursday, December 28, 2006, 01:47 PM - Personal
Today I got some nice shots of my dog while we were on a walk in the mountain.
There seems to be a lot I need to learn about taking pictures of moving objects.
Click on the picture below to open the album in Picasa Web
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Grey Seahorse Love Makeup Bag
This versatile cosmetic bag features Sun & Song's exclusive Seahorse Love design, with white seahorses and bright yellow hearts on a cool grey background. With a gusseted bottom and wide opening, this makeup bag can stand up on its own to give you easy access to what's inside. Generously sized, there is plenty of room for all of your goodies!
The uses for this sturdy zipper pouch go far beyond makeup. With a waterproof canvas lining, it is an excellent travel toiletry case. The wide zipper opening makes this bag easy to fill with snacks, kids toys, diapers, nail polish, etc. Fill it up and throw it in your purse, back pack or diaper bag and you'll always be able to find what your looking for...or carry it on its own as a clutch.
A small metal ring sewn into the outer seam allows you to easily attach a Sun & Song wrist strap (sold separately) or clip this pouch into one of our larger bags (like the Extra Large Waterproof Beach Tote).
The colorful designer fabrics and impeccable construction make this zippered pouch a ideal gift for bridesmaids, moms, teachers, and your best girlfriend!
- 11" wide x 6.5" tall x 3.5" deep
- Gusseted shape bag stands on its own
- Heavyweight recycled canvas outer fabric
- Sturdy waterproof canvas inner fabric
- Lead free YKK locking zipper
- Easily attachable wrist strap available separately
- BONUS - Machine Washable!
Sun & Song's products are made from artwork designed in house and not available anywhere else.
It is our goal to get your order to you as quickly as possible. We are located in Jacksonville, FL and orders ship from here. All In Stock items will be shipped out within 3 business days. All Made to Order and Custom items will be shipped out within 3 weeks. We offer Standard shipping (2-6 days in transit) and Expedited shipping (1-3 days in transit).
If you have special shipping requests or deadlines, please send us a message and we will do our best to make it work.
Environmental responsibility is at the forefront of Sun & Song's business practices. We will choose sustainable packaging and shipping materials whenever possible.
All of Sun & Song's soft goods are easily washable. Use your items with confidence knowing they will stay looking bright and colorful through many, many washes!
- Recycled Canvas Bags: Remove the tassel before washing. Wash with like colors in cool water using a gentle machine cycle and phosphate-free detergent. Machine dry using a low temperature setting. If you iron, do not place the iron directly on fabric surface.
- Organic Cotton Knit Swaddle Sets: Wash with like colors in cool water using a gentle machine cycle and phosphate-free detergent. Machine dry using a low temperature setting or line dry. Due to the nature of the eco-friendly printing process and the organic cotton, items may fade very slightly over time.
- Organic Cotton Muslin Blankets: Wash with like colors in cool water using a gentle machine cycle and phosphate-free detergent. Machine dry using a low temperature setting or line dry. The muslin fabric will get softer and more crinkly with each wash.


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Welcome! Thanks to Deborah (Whipstitch) for inviting me to join in on her new book's blog tour. Her new book Stitch Savvy just came out and I'm so excited to share it with you today.
I'll admit I was hesitant at first, I wasn't sure what the book was about or what it would be like, but after being able to look over the book for a few weeks, I really think it's invaluable! I love all the tips and tricks Deborah provides, and man, it's totally packed with these great tid bits. For every project she gives you great details and options.
One of the things that makes the book unique is that once you find a project you like, there's a little section at the end that leads you to your next project. It's really creative and I honestly think it's helpful to get your creative juices going. When I decided on the Beaded Evening Clutch project (which I'll get to in a sec), I read through it and at the end, I found a lovely little section of things I can try next.
And you know, it was fun, I have my next project planned (just waiting on a few supplies) and it wasn't a project that I would have picked out initially. How awesome is that?! I'm excited to give it a try, it's the Photo Transfer Wall Art project.
So I really wanted to be thorough and felt like making a project would help me get a better feel for the book. It was great! I felt like she included some real-life difficulties you might encounter, which proved to be really helpful.
I'm happy how my little metal frame pouch turned out, and I felt more confident in making it after reading Deborah's instructions and tips. You can definitely tell she's a great sewing instructor. Oh and did I mention that all the patterns are on the nifty CD at the back of the book? Awesome.
Thanks Deborah! And please check out the other stops on the blog tour:
Wednesday, January 8: One Shabby Chick
Thursday, January 9: Pink Chalk Studio
Friday, January 10: Noodlehead (you're here!)
Monday, January 13: Fresh Lemons
Tuesday, January 14: This Mama Makes Stuff
Wednesday, January 15: I'm a Ginger Monkey
Thursday, January 16: MADE
Friday, January 17: Stitched in Color
Monday, January 20: The Long Thread
Tuesday, January 21: Creative Thursday
Wednesday, January 22: Whipstitch
And if you're curious, I had purchased my metal purse frame from Purl Soho and the fabric is by Dear Stella.


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Sixtown Creek - Thrust Fault
Sixtown Creek - Thrust Fault
Located in Allegany County
Image courtesy of Gerald Smith
Type: Creekside.
Features: Caneadea Formation; Thrusting; Displays offshore & nearshore depositional environments that were frequently impacted by storms; Syndepositional fault activity.
Feature Type: Structural.
Reference: NYS Geological Association Field Trip Guidebook, 71st Annual Meeting 1999; Structure and Upper Devonian Stratigraphy in the Appalachian Plateau of Allegany County, New York State, Including the Clarendon-Linden Fault System.
For online reference please visit - www.nysga.net/Guidebooks.html
Quadrangle: Houghton.
Reason for Designation: Unique and Scenic.


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Apple's iPad Mini much pricier than rival tablets
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — Apple Inc.'s pencil-thin, smaller iPad will cost much more than its competitors, signaling that the company isn't going to get into a mini-tablet price war.
The company unveiled the iPad Mini on Tuesday, with a screen about two-thirds the size of the full model, and half the weight. Customers can begin ordering the new model on Friday. In a surprise, Apple also revamped its flagship, full-sized iPad just six months after the launch of the latest model.
Apple's late founder Steve Jobs once ridiculed a small tablet from a competitor as a "tweener" that was too big and too small to compete with either smartphones or tablets. Now Apple's own Mini enters a growing small-tablet market dominated by Amazon.com Inc.'s Kindle Fire.
Apple is charging $329 and up for the Mini — a price that fits into the Apple product lineup between the latest iPod Touch ($299) and the iPad 2 ($399). Company watchers had been expecting Apple to price the iPad Mini at $250 to $300 to compete with the Kindle Fire, which starts at $159. Barnes & Noble Inc.'s Nook HD and Google Inc.'s Nexus 7 both start at $199.
"Apple had an opportunity to step on the throat of Amazon and Google, yet decided to rely on its brand and focus on (profit) margin," said Bill Kreher, an analyst with brokerage Edward Jones.
Apple shares fell $20.67, or 3.3 percent, to close at $613.36 after the price was announced. Shares of Barnes & Noble jumped 88 cents, or 6.1 percent, to $15.32. Shares of Amazon rose 53 cents, or 0.2 percent, to $234.31.
Apple has sold more than 100 million iPads since their debut in April 2010. Analysts expect Apple to sell 5 million to 10 million iPad Minis before the year is out.
Apple starts taking orders for the new model on Friday. The iPad Mini will be competing for the attention of gadget shoppers with the release that same day of computers and tablets running Windows 8, Microsoft's new operating system.
Wi-Fi-only models will ship on Nov. 2. Later, the company will add models capable of accessing cellular, LTE data networks.
The screen of the iPad Mini is 7.9 inches on the diagonal, making it larger than the 7-inch screens of the competitors. It also sports two cameras, on the front and on the back, which the competitors don't.
The iPad Mini is as thin as a pencil and weighs 0.68 pounds, half as much as the full-size iPad with its 9.7-inch screen.
The screen resolution is 1024 by 768 pixels, the same as the iPad 2 and a quarter of the resolution of the flagship iPad, which starts at $499.
The new model has better apps and is easier to use than competitors such as Google's Nexus, said Avi Greengart, a consumer electronics analyst with Current Analysis.
"This really is not in the same category as some of the other 7-inch tablets," he said. "And that's before you consider that it has a premium design — it's made of metal that's extremely lightweight."
Jobs attacked the whole idea of smaller tablets in his last appearance on a conference call with analysts in October 2010.
"The reason we wouldn't make a 7-inch tablet isn't because we don't want to hit a price point. It's because we don't think you can make a great tablet with a 7-inch screen," Jobs said. "The 7-inch tablets are tweeners, too big to compete with a smartphone and too small to compete with an iPad."
Job's chief objection was that a smaller screen would make it hard to hit buttons on the screen with the fingers — never mind that Apple's iPhone, with an even smaller screen, was already a hit at the time.
Apple senior vice president Eddy Cue started working on changing Jobs' mind. In an email sent to other Apple managers in January 2011, Cue said the CEO had started warming to the idea of a smaller tablet. The email surfaced as part of Apple's patent trial against Samsung Electronics Co. this year. Jobs died last October.
Company watchers have been expecting the iPad Mini for a year and most of the details, except the price, had leaked out.
Apple also said it's upgrading its full-size iPad, doubling the speed of the processor. Previously, the company has updated the iPad once a year.
The fourth-generation iPad will have a better camera and work on more LTE wireless data networks around the world. Apple is also replacing the 30-pin dock connector with the new, smaller Lightning connector introduced with the iPhone 5 a month ago.
The price of the new full-size model stays the same as the previous version, starting at $499 for a Wi-Fi-only version with 16 gigabytes of memory.
Apple also introduced a 13-inch MacBook Pro laptop with a Retina display sporting four times the resolution of the older model.
The new model, which follows a 15-inch MacBook Pro with a Retina display introduced in June, goes on sale Tuesday for $1,699.
The old MacBook Pro will still be sold, starting at $1,199.
The new model dispenses with an optical disc drive and a traditional hard drive. Instead, it uses solid-state flash memory. This makes it 20 percent thinner and at 3.75 pounds, nearly a pound lighter than the previous model.
Apple also eliminated the optical drive from its new iMac desktop computer, helping slim the edges down to 5 millimeters, one-fifth the thickness of the old model. That makes the edges thinner than most stand-alone computer monitors. It bulges in middle of the back, however.
An iMac model with a 21.5-inch screen will start shipping in November for $1,299 and up. A 27-inch version will start at $1,799.
Svensson contributed from New York.


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Flash photography techniques
Creative ways to light indoor and outdoor photos
Heads up!
Welcome to this article from the Crutchfield archives. Have fun reading it, but be aware that the information may be outdated and links may be broken.When you buy your first camera, flash may be the last thing on your mind. There's that little automated bulb you can set to fire automatically, and that's good enough, right? But that basic flash has limited range. You may end up with a sea of blurry, brightly lit hands waving at a dark and distant bride and groom, grandpa's washed-out face as he blows out the candles on his 80th birthday cake or the dreaded "red-eye" group shot at the company Christmas party. The built-in flash generally shines too much or not enough light on the subject, and puts it in the wrong place to boot. Even natural sunlight can throw shadows in less-than-ideal spots.
Ambient light can leave harsh shadows on your subject. Use a portable flash to alter the amount, quality and direction of light for perfect photos.
Great pictures depend on the amount, quality and direction of light we cast on our subject. Great lighting can be the difference between forgettable snapshots and artistic, frame-worthy memories of life's special moments.
If you're ready to take the next step in lighting, we'll help point you toward the gear you'll need to take well-lit photos in just about any environment.
Choose a camera with a hot shoe
The hot shoe provides power for your portable flash and other accessories.
A built-in flash follows the same axis as your camera lens. In outdoor photography, that would be like having the sun right in front of your subject. That angle won't always give you the subtle, flattering light you want. If you want professional-quality photographs, you need to be in control of how much light, what kind of light, and where that light is coming from. You'll need a camera with a hot shoe.
The hot shoe (also known as an accessory shoe) is a small bracket you'll find on top of many cameras that allows you to mount all manner of useful gadgets. It's called a hot shoe because it provides power to run your accessories.
Some top-of-the-line point and shoot cameras have a hot shoe built in, but it's more commonly found on SLR (single-lens reflex) and mirrorless cameras. Manual control of settings is the key to getting exactly the image you want, and these more sophisticated cameras offer that flexibility.
The hot shoe allows you to add a portable flash to your tool kit. The first thing you'll notice about a portable flash is that it's bigger than the tiny built-in flash. The larger bulb can illuminate more area, and put more light on subjects that are farther away from your lens.
The size and shape of the hot shoe can vary in different brands and models, so make sure to check compatibility before you buy an accessory flash.
Get the right angle
Remember our goals for great flash photography? Adding a portable flash increased the amount of light we have at our command. Now we'll learn how it can improve the quality and direction of light.
A portable flash tilted to bounce light, with diffuser hood attached and fill flash ready to fire.
To vary the direction of light, many units tilt downward a few degrees to cast direct light on a close-up subject, or anywhere from zero (straight ahead) to 90 degrees (straight up). You can use the tilt function to bounce flash off of overhead surfaces like ceiling tiles, simultaneously softening the exposure on the subject and muting harsh shadows that can result from direct flash. For even more sophisticated effects, the flash swivels left and right, up to 150 degrees in either direction.
With all that light bouncing around and softening things up, you may find you want a tad more light on the subject's face. A catch-light panel or small fill flash is built into many portable units, allowing you to redirect a small amount of light straight ahead, so you can see the bride and groom's eyes sparkle as they hit the floor for their first dance.
Now you have plenty of light and it's illuminating your subject from the right direction, so how about the quality? Even at an angle, bright white light is not always going to be what you want. Most portable flashes come with add-ons that affix to the head of the unit. Most common is a diffuser; it may be a semi-opaque panel that slides out of a compartment on the flash head, or a separate diffusion dome that fully covers the bulb and can be added or removed as needed.
Snap-on diffusers and color gels are included with most portable flashes. You can use these accessories to compensate for the effects of artificial light and produce a range of practical and artistic effects. Play around and see what you can do when you're in full control of the spectrum.
Illuminate every element of your scene with remote flashes wirelessly synchronized to your master flash.
Go wireless to light every part of a photo properly
Suppose you want to shoot your best friend's gallery opening. You'll want some light on her, and more light from a different angle on her paintings. Properly lighting items in the foreground and background presents a challenge that can be solved by using multiple flash units, and taking them off-camera.
If you have more than one flash to work with, you can designate one master – the flash you'll be triggering directly from the camera body – and one or more remote units that will communicate with the main module and fire when the shutter clicks. The master flash can be set to make your artist friend look her best, while another flash on a stand five feet away brings out the vivid colors of her work. If the shoot becomes more complex, add more subordinate flashes. Illuminate each important detail, even if some of it is far away from your lens.
Most accessory flashes have built-in LED screens so you can keep track of individual settings. That information is also transmitted back to the camera, so you can keep everything synced up from a central location.
Keep the power on
Once the remote flash goes off-camera, it's no longer drawing power directly from the hot shoe. That means batteries, and we all know batteries are never included. You'll want to not only keep fresh power cells in each flash unit, you'll want to have extras on hand when you're on location. Most accessory flash units have a built-in standby mode which engages automatically to conserve power.
A flash produces heat as well as light, and the faster you shoot, the hotter it gets. An overworked flash may experience "thermal stress" and shut down temporarily. The recycle speed – how quickly your flash can power up for its next firing – is a factor of how much life is left in the batteries, how much light you're asking the flash to produce each time and your camera's shutter speed setting. Check your owner's manual for a chart that will help set expectations for each model's minimum recycle time.
Get a little help
Does this sound overwhelming? Most SLR cameras offer sophisticated presets that can handle some of the core work while you wrangle the all-important details. Just take it at your own pace, add one piece at a time, and build your skills with the help of some online resources. We've found a few sites that share anecdotes from experienced photographers, reliable technical information and step-by-step tutorials to help get you started.
Speedlight videos: Nikon offers a wealth of information on flash photography.
Wireless Multiple Flash: Canon-centric tutorial from Digital Photography School.
Strobist: Learn how to light. An experienced photographer gives tips, reviews gear, and gives solid examples of how to do it yourself.
Comments (1)
bob Sherman
Posted on 2/21/2022
That was a nicely written and informative lesson. thank you . I learned a few new things.


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March Networks, a leading supplier of intelligent IP video solutions, is pleased to announce that Hideaway Pizza, a popular dine-in and takeout restaurant chain in Oklahoma, has selected the company's next-generation retail solution to enhance security, reduce shrink, and optimize operations. Hideaway Pizza has already started deploying the video surveillance solution, which includes new March Networks 8000 Series Hybrid Network Video Recorders (NVRs) and MegaPX WDR MiniDome IP cameras. It is using the high-quality video to help improve loss prevention efforts, as well as increase store performance and profitability.
"Deterring and minimizing losses due to theft impacts the bottom line, but the true success of a restaurant is measured by the performance of the kitchen and wait staff, interactions with customers, and the quality of its food, and we are using the March Networks video surveillance platform to help our restaurants excel in all of these areas," says Tyson Smith, IT director, Hideaway Pizza. "With cameras installed throughout each establishment, we can observe all steps in the food service process, from food preparation in the kitchen to its delivery to the customer's table. The video information helps us identify ways to better serve our guests and optimize our businesses while enabling us to thoroughly monitor and protect our business assets."
Working with SageNet, an experienced systems integrator and March Networks certified partner, Hideaway Pizza has already installed the retail solution in several of its newer restaurants. It will also deploy the platform in other locations as required to replace a Windows-based legacy system that cannot be centrally managed. Hideaway Pizza equips each location with as many as 25 cameras, ensuring extensive coverage of its kitchens, cash drawers, bar areas, entrances, exits, and parking lots.
The retailer's new March Networks solution includes the 8532 S Hybrid NVR, which delivers crystal-clear video and supports as many as 32 IP cameras or a combination of IP and analog cameras, enabling Hideaway Pizza to cost-effectively transition to high-definition IP video even as it continues to take advantage of its existing analog devices. The retailer is also deploying MegaPX WDR MiniDomes to ensure clear, high-definition video capture in varied lighting conditions. Completing the solution is March Networks' Visual Intelligence software. The powerful software provides real-time system health monitoring and centralized video management that enables any number of restaurant managers, regional managers, and executives to view video records on site or remotely.
"Hideaway Pizza recognizes the improved efficiencies, services, revenues, and profits that can be gained by applying video surveillance to operations monitoring in addition to safeguarding business assets," says Net Payne, chief marketing officer, March Networks. "The company's deployment is a great example of how a retail organization can use our complete IP video solutions for retail to improve performance and achieve a measurable competitive advantage."


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How celestial events influenced orientation of the great constructions of the Nabataeans
The movement of the Sun in the skies of Petra determined the way in which the monuments of this and other Natabean cities were erected. This is according to a statistical analysis on the spatial position of their palaces, temples and tombs carried out by scientists from Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC) and CSIC, Spain, and the University of Perugia (Italy).
The results, published by the 'Nexus Network Journal', indicate that those great buildings were erected bearing in mind the equinoxes, solstices and other astronomical events that determined the Nabataean religion. The Nabataeans prospered in the first century BC and the first century AD in what is now Jordan and neighbouring countries.
"The Nabataean monuments are marvellous laboratories where landscape features and the events of the sun, moon and other stars interact," Juan Antonio Belmonte, researcher of IAC and coordinator of the study, stressed to SINC.
"The astronomical orientations were often part of an elaborate plan," he added "and, possibly, a mark of the astral nature of their religion, which showed incredible 'hierophanies' or demonstrations of the sacred on monuments related to cultic times and worship".
A clear example is seen in Ad Deir, the Monastery at Petra. During the winter solstice, the light of the setting sun entering through the gate of the monument illuminates the sacred motab. It is a podium where some stone blocks, which represent divinities such as the god Dushara, are placed.
"The effect is spectacular, and would have only been observable during the few days closest to this solstice," commented Belmonte, who also emphasises how, just in this moment, another curious phenomenon is produced. As observed from the motab itself, the setting of the sun recreates the aspect of the head of a lion, the animal of the Nabataean goddess Al Uzza, on the opposite rocks.
Mathematical calculations also show the astronomical plan that the Urn Tomb follows, another famous monument where king Malichus II is thought to be buried. Its main gate is centred with its environment according to the equinox sunset, when the day equals the night, and the solar rays during the summer and winter solstices establish the two interior corners of the building.
"This amazing set of three alignments within the plan of the tomb, in combination with significant features in the distant horizon can hardly be ascribed to chance," underlined Belmonte. "We consider that it is a deliberate attempt to convert the hall of the Urn Tomb into a type of time-keeping device".
When in 446 AD the Christian Bishop Jason converted the Urn Tomb into the Cathedral of Petra, the solsticial markers also served as a reference in determining Christmas Eve (24 December) and St. John the Baptist (24 June), the date on which the monument was consecrated to the new religion.
More information: J. A. Belmonte, A. C. Gonzalez-Garcia, A. Polcaro. "Light and Shadows over Petra: Astronomy and Landscape in Nabataean Lands". Nexus Network Journal 15 (3): 487-501, Dec 2013. DOI: 10.1007/s00004-013-0164-6.
Provided by Plataforma SINC, Spain