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» Getting USB speakers working in Gnome +
So I just got a set of Insignia USB speakers (NS-2908). Wanted to use them as my default speakers, but still have the option of using the internal sound card. Got it working and thought someone else might find it useful. This assumes you're using a new-ish version of gnome.
You'll want to set the Internal Audio profile to "Off" in the pulseaudio volume control application, under the Configuration tab.
You'll want to edit the preferences of the volume control applet to point to the correct default device and channel.
Next part is the tricky part.
You'll want to run:
cat /proc/asound/cards
Find the number of your USB speakers. In my case, it's card 2:
2 [default ]: USB-Audio - USB Audio DAC
Burr-Brown from TI USB Audio DAC at usb-0000:00:04.0-6 [...]
Now you'll need to edit the gconf keys gnome uses to set the mixer device for youe multimedia keys (yes, when you have fancy volume buttons on your speakers that trigger the mm keys, you want it to work!). So in my case I want to default submixer of the second alsa device:
gconftool-2 --set -t string /desktop/gnome/sound/default_mixer_device 'alsamixer:hw:2'
And I want only the PCM channel to be controlled (you may want Master, or Front, or multiple channels):
gconftool-2 --set -t list --list-type=string /desktop/gnome/sound/default_mixer_tracks '[PCM]'
The cool thing about this, is that it falls back to the default device. So when the USB speakers are unplugged and I'm using the internal sound card, it still Just Works with the mm keys on my keyboard. Nice.
And for good measure, I threw this in my ~/.asoundrc:
pcm.!default front:default
You'll need to look at the output of aplay -L to get the right values for your speakers. Or, if you have pulseaudio set up as your default device, you can just skip this step.
Labels: multimedia keys, Pulseaudio, usb speakers


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Many doctors and patients were surprised last November when two major medical groups upended one central element of the traditional approach to warding off heart disease. With the release of new guidelines, the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology shifted away from the prior focus on "bad cholesterol"—and proposed changes to the way doctors prescribe statins, the highly successful cholesterol-fighting medications.
The guidelines recommend a more holistic approach, but some critics said they could greatly increase the number of patients taking statin medication. Now that the dust from the ensuing brouhaha has begun to settle, what should patients expect when they visit the doctor?
For more than 20 years, doctors have been telling patients that to lower their risk for heart attack, stroke and death from heart disease, they must reduce their levels of LDL, known as "bad cholesterol," to less than 100 milligrams per deciliter or even, in some cases, less than 70. To that end, among people age 50 to 64, about 30% of men and 22% of women currently have prescriptions for cholesterol-fighting drugs.
In what some experts have described as a tectonic shift, the two medical groups now advocate a broader approach that looks at overall risk, including factors such as race and lifestyle. The guideline authors said that after an extensive, yearslong review of the literature, they found little scientific evidence to support LDL target levels.
That conclusion unsettled some patients and doctors who had long relied on those targets. "The new guidelines take away one of the anchors patients have used, which is, 'if I get my LDL numbers to the target, I'm in the clear,'" said Dr. Larry Gassner, a doctor of internal medicine in Phoenix who is affiliated with MDVIP, a network of physicians that's a unit of Procter & Gamble PG, +0.16% . "The new guidelines say cholesterol is very important, but it is only a piece of the puzzle."
Controversy over the new guidelines has complicated this puzzle, with some critics saying the medical community should hold off on implementing the recommendations. The guidelines' authors, meanwhile, say some of their positions have been misunderstood.
Pharmaceutical companies also have interests at stake in the new guidelines. Some may stand to benefit if the drugs are more widely prescribed, though analysts note that much of the statin market is dominated by generic drugs whose profit margins are relatively low. Among top-selling statins, Crestor, made by AstraZeneca PLC AZN, -0.23% , is still under patent protection; Lipitor, made by Pfizer Inc. PFE, -1.73% , and Zocor, made by Merck & Co. MRK, -2.52% , are not. For more, see Statin usefulness questioned, but patent expirations may ease pain.
Redefining who's at risk
Part of the controversy centers on a new risk calculator that gauges patients' likelihood of developing heart disease or stroke within 10 years. Some say that the calculator over-represents many people's risk and could lead to people taking statins unnecessarily, or taking a higher dose than needed.
Cost is rarely an impediment to statin use these days, as most statins are available in cheap, generic form. Indeed, many experts see statins as a very cost-effective way of warding off much more dangerous—and expensive—health complications.
At the same time, "these are potent medications—getting it right is critical," said Dr. Steven Nissen, chairman of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, who has advocated suspending the implementation of the new guidelines to allow for more discussion. Statins have been shown to have some side effects in certain patients, such as muscle pain, and—more rarely and seriously—contributing to the development of Type 2 diabetes.
Despite their disagreement, both sides agree on some basics. Low-density lipoprotein, or LDL, is still considered "bad" cholesterol. It forms a fatty plaque that can clog the arteries, contributing to heart disease. No one disputes that heart disease is a major problem, the leading cause of death for both men and women in this country, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And few physicians would argue that preventing heart disease, in part through a healthy, tobacco-free lifestyle, is preferable to treating the condition once it has developed.
The new guidelines recommend statins for four groups, many of whom would already be given the medication under the prior recommendations. These include: those with diabetes who are between ages 40 and 75; people who already have heart disease; and people with primary LDL elevations of 190 milligrams per deciliter or more. (Such primary elevations are usually due to genetics rather than to other conditions that can increase LDL numbers, such as hypothyroidism.)
Under the new guidelines, some in these groups might see their statin dosage increased, if their bodies can tolerate it, to get the optimal benefit, said Dr. Neil Stone, Bonow professor of medicine-cardiology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, who chaired the writing committee for the new guidelines.
The gray area lies largely with those in a fourth category: patients between ages 40 and 75 without cardiovascular disease or diabetes who score a 7.5% or above on the new risk calculator. Some critics say that 7.5% risk of developing heart disease or stroke within 10 years is a low threshold for statin use. (African-Americans and women are more likely than other groups to have a stroke before a heart attack, Stone said.) "It's a significant lowering" of the prior standard, Nissen said, and might capture some who wouldn't be best served by taking statins.
Dr. Miles Varn, chief medical officer of PinnacleCare, a private health advisory firm based in Baltimore, said it's not necessarily bad if more people are considered at risk for heart disease under the new guidelines, as long as that determination helps prevent heart attacks and stroke. Varn said the pluses of statins "overwhelmingly" outweigh the risks.
Test-driving the guidelines
Gassner had recent occasion to put the new guidelines to the test with a patient who came to his office for the first time. The white, 72-year-old male had healthy cholesterol and blood pressure numbers and didn't smoke. He was about 15 pounds overweight but otherwise in excellent health and not on statins. Yet he scored an 18.6% on the new calculator, suggesting he would be a candidate for statins. (Age plays a big role in a patient's risk calculation under the new scoring system, and many men in their late 60s and beyond would be considered statin candidates based largely on their age and not necessarily their cholesterol levels, some doctors said.)
Gassner and his patient weren't confident that statins would meaningfully lower the man's risk. Instead, Gassner recommended that he exercise a bit more and eat fewer carbohydrates. If the patient makes no progress toward these relatively modest goals in a few months, Gassner said he'd consider prescribing statins.
That is exactly the type of approach that physicians should take toward the new guidelines, Stone said. He said risk scores of 7.5% and over had been misinterpreted as absolute triggers for statin use, when in fact that level indicates a potential benefit that must be put into a broader context. "Calculators don't write prescriptions—doctors do," Stone said. He acknowledged the risk calculator did overestimate risk in some patients, but he said those affected by the errors were already high-risk and likely to be on statin medication anyway.
Instead, the guidelines recommend that doctors consult with their patients and weigh their individual potential for benefit from statins versus the potential harm. Stone said he didn't envision many more patients going on statins under the new guidelines. In fact, he said, the removal of the prior, "arbitrary" LDL targets means some patients, such as those with borderline readings, could actually come off medication.
Patients should discuss the new heart disease prevention guidelines with their primary care doctors, regardless of whether they're taking statins, experts say. Some ways to broach the conversation at your next visit include, "New cholesterol guidelines are out—how do they apply to me?" and "What would it take to reduce my risk of heart attack and stroke?"
For his part, Gassner said he planned to wean his patients off targeting LDL numbers, but only slowly. "There's an inherent loss of faith when the rules change," he said. "I try to maintain a stable environment for my patients."
This article was updated at 12:15 EST on Jan. 8, 2014.
Also worth reading:
Statin usefulness questioned, but patent expirations may ease pain.
New cholesterol rules sow confusion
Boomers' drug of choice? It might be Lipitor
Four medical tests you may not need
Elizabeth O'Brien covers health care and retirement for MarketWatch in New York. Follow her on Twitter @elizobrien.

subset: commoncrawl


text: « back to directory print Joan G. Wexler Dean and President Emerita 250 Joralemon Street Brooklyn, NY 11201 (718) 780-7900 | Email Areas of Expertise Family LawTax Law Education B.S., Cornell University M.A.T., Harvard University J.D., Yale Law School Biography Courses Publications Noteworthy Family Law This course explores the relationship between the family and the state. Specific topics will be selected by the instructor from among the following: premarital regulation, antenuptial agreements, marriage, nontraditional families, parent-child relationships, adoption, termination of parental rights, divorce, property distribution, support, custody, and separation agreements. Grading and Method of Evaluation: Letter grade with pass/fail option. Final exam. For winter session students will have a take home exam. Federal Estate and Gift Tax A survey of the principles of federal estate and gift taxation, including a determination of the gross estate, testamentary substitutes, valuation, the marital deduction, administrative expenses and losses, the annual exclusion and the unified transfer tax credit, related income tax problems and selected topics of estate and gift tax policy. Grading and Method of Evaluation: Letter grade only. Final exam. Trusts and Estates This course provides an overview of the laws of wills and trusts, emphasizing both fundamental rules for the use of these property transfer devices and their practical integration in the practice of estate planning. The following general subjects are included in this study: history of the laws of inheritance; intestate succession; the protection of the family in the transfer of wealth; the formalities for the execution, amendment and revocation of wills; the creation and legal nature of different types of trusts, including constructive, resulting, private and charitable trusts; and gifts. Students electing this course may not enroll in Wills and Administration. Grading and Method of Evaluation: Letter grade with pass/fail option. Final exam. Related Links: Faculty News Curriculum


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AAA's popular Tipsy Tow service is once again being provided by AAA Oklahoma for the St. Patrick's Day holiday – running from noon Sunday until 4 a.m. Monday in Ardmore, metro Tulsa and Oklahoma City, and also in Bartlesville, Enid, Lawton, Muskogee, Shawnee and Tahlequah.
If you feel unsafe behind the wheel after drinking at a holiday party, AAA Oklahoma will come get you and your vehicle and give both a free, safe ride home.
To access AAA's Tipsy Tow service, call 1-800-222-4357 and ask for Tipsy Tow. The service is offered, no questions asked, to both AAA members and non-members alike. AAA will give you and your car a free ride home, within a 15-mile radius from the point of pick-up, anytime during the 16-hour period.


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1 The Stadium Club at TPC Sawgrass — For years at The Players, you've seen the famous island green on this course at Ponte Vedra Beach, so why not take your own shot at the par-3 17th? It's the only course you will play where you're thinking about the 17th hole from the time you start warming up. 904-273-3235, tpc.com/sawgrass
2 Bay Hill Club & Lodge — The Dick Wilson-designed Orlando course has long been one of Florida's top traditional layouts. Stop in the dining room and order an Arnold Palmer (half iced tea, half lemonade) — and you might just see the real thing playing cards in a low-stakes game with the buddies. 888-422-9445, bayhill.com
3 World Woods Golf Club (Pine Barrens Course) — This is one of top designer Tom Fazio's best works. Situated about an hour north of Tampa in Brooksville, this course offers scenery and undulating greens not often seen in Florida. Definitely worth the drive. 352-796-5500, worldwoods.com
4 Crandon Golf Key Biscayne — Just minutes from the bustle of downtown Miami and the bling of South Beach sits one of the nation's most respected public courses. Crandon Golf Club Key Biscayne offers a stunning view of Biscayne Bay — think "Miami Vice" with the racing boats — and a course that was respected by some of the game's great players when it hosted a Champions Tour event in the 1990s and 2002. 305-361-9129, crandongolfclub.com
5 Palm Beach Par 3 — Palm Beach resident Raymond Floyd is redesigning this gem of a short-game course situated between the Atlantic Ocean and the Intracoastal Waterway. When the course reopens in November, there will be six holes along the ocean. This was where Sam Snead famously squealed his tires in the parking lot after losing to fellow Hall of Famer Louise Suggs in an exhibition. 561-547-0598, golfontheocean.com
—Craig Dolch, Special to Tribune Newspapers


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Boundaries blurred between Germany, Brazil
BELO HORIZONTE, Brazil -- Two great polar opposites of sporting philosophy -- the well-oiled efficiency of Germany and the lissome grace and sensuality of Brazil's jogo bonito -- meet on Tuesday afternoon in Belo Horizonte, a classic matchup of contrasting styles that will decide a place in Sunday's World Cup final.
Or so the cliché goes. The modern reality is rather different. Brazil are the current kings of the World Cup roughhouse league, having committed an impressive 96 fouls in six games. While Juan Zuniga's crashing, knee-raised tackle snapped Neymar's vertebra, created headlines and plunged the collective Brazilian psyche into a muddle of rage and mourning, the treatment that Fernandinho & Co. dished out to James Rodriguez and Juan Cuadrado was equally physical. Croatia's Luka Modric may still be rubbing his nose after receiving a sharp elbow to the face from Neymar in the World Cup's opening game.
"Normally we think of Brazil as 11 artists performing their magic, but football here has changed," Bastian Schweinsteiger said over the weekend. "The Brazil team has learned how to fight. They are tough, and we have to be prepared for that."
Brazil's two best players at the competition have arguably been central defenders David Luiz and Thiago Silva, who scored the goals that eliminated Colombia on Friday. Germany's strength, on the other hand, is not their sometimes ponderous defense but an array of skillful attacking midfielders such as Thomas Muller, Mario Gotze and Mesut Ozil.
The changing roles -- and perhaps surprising proximity, in terms of footballing culture -- of the two teams will not come as a shock to many Brazilians, however. It is particularly standard to those living in the south of the country, where there has been a strong German influence for more than a century and where German-Brazilian culture is a way of life.
According to 2002 census figures, 12 million Brazilians claim to be of German descent, while German dialects represent the second-most spoken first language in the country after Portuguese. German architecture abounds in parts of states such as Espirito Santo, Santa Catarina, Paraná and Rio Grande do Sul, while Oktoberfest is celebrated in Curitiba and Blumenau, among other cities. Famous German-Brazilians include models Gisele Bundchen and Ana Hickmann, former tennis star Gustavo Kuerten, renowned architect Oscar Niemeyer and Ernesto Geisel, Brazil's president from 1974 to1979 during the long, dark night of the country's military dictatorship.
The waves of German immigration to Brazil began in 1824; between that year and 1972, an estimated 260,000 Germans settled in Brazil, the fourth largest nationality to immigrate to the country, after the Portuguese, Italians and Spanish.
There were a number of reasons for the movement, both push factors -- such as political upheaval in Germany arising from the failed 1848 revolutions and the transformation of European society by industrialization -- and pull factors like the lure of a burgeoning new world in the south Atlantic, one filled with vast, untapped areas of lush farmland. The mountainous landscape of the chilly south of Brazil was not, in fact, that different from home. Later, the growing coffee industry in Brazil would need workers, further propelling European immigration into the country.
While immigrants from other countries would later arrive in greater numbers and assume higher profile, more urbanized roles in Brazilian society -- notably the Italians and Japanese, who established distinct neighborhoods in São Paulo -- the Germans had a head start and a high birth rate that kept numbers growing, as TB Edgington observed in a study of the effects of the United States' Monroe Doctrine on South America:
"The natural increase of the German population in southern Brazil is marvelous. ... Blumenau, a colony which was settled by the Germans over fifty years ago, more than doubles itself every ten years. Southern Brazil is now called 'Greater Germany', and the Germans exercise there a commercial and financial supremacy."
Away from the big cities, living in isolation in areas where few non-Germans lived and with a tendency toward cultural and linguistic conservatism, Brazil's German communities were able to protect their language and habits.
The compulsory use of Portuguese in schools, plus the spread of television and radio and the arrival of more and more non-German speakers in such regions, meant that assimilation was inevitable. As urbanization and industrialization took hold in the south of Brazil, the use of German began to fade in large cities. In small towns and outlying areas, however, such as Pomerode in Santa Catarina where 90 percent of the population is descended from German stock, the influence of the old country is still celebrated and preserved even today.
"The changing roles of the two teams will not come as a shock to many Brazilians. It is particularly standard to those living in the south of the country, where there has been a strong German influence for more than a century and where German-Brazilian culture is a way of life."
The Germanic influence also played a role in the development of football in Brazil. In 1897, Hans Nobiling, an immigrant "with his own German-language rule book and a few games under his belt back in Hamburg," to quote from "Futebol Nation," a book on Brazilian history and football by historian David Goldblatt, arrived in Brazil. Nobiling would help to form the SC Internacional club in São Paulo, a team for immigrants from all over Europe, and later SC Germania, a club exclusively for Germans. Both competed in the first Campeonato Paulista in 1902. Germania still exists today, though the club changed its name to Pinheiros during World War II.
Not long after that, Arthur Friedenreich, the son of a white German father and black Brazilian mother, became one of Brazil's first soccer superstars and one of the first truly Brazilian heroes of the modern society, which began to develop following the official abolition of slavery in 1888. Friedenreich's "dual inheritance allowed him to play in the free-form street football of the city as well as benefit from training and facilities at the elite SC Germania where his father was a member," writes Goldblatt. He later played for the elite CA Paulistano.
Brazil vs. Germany: Tuesday, 4 ET, 9 BST (ESPN and WatchESPN)
- Marcotti: Titans collide in the semifinals
- Honigstein: Bierhoff's technological focus
- Torre: Scolari lightens the mood
- Brewin: Battered Brazil vs. vulnerable Germany
- Smith: Jogo bonito the exception, not the rule
- 50-50 Challenge: Brazil vs. Germany
- Duarte: Brazil move past star absences
- Cox: Brazil and Germany's role reversal
When Friedenreich, nicknamed El Tigre, or "The Tiger," scored the winning goal in the 1919 South American Football Championship, it was a symbolic moment for a nation still coming to terms with its racial identity. Yet full integration was to be a slow process. Three years later when the same tournament was played in Rio de Janeiro, neither Friedenreich nor any of Brazil's other players of African heritage was selected for the final.
Some 72 years later in 1994, another player of German descent (mixed with Italian) would captain Brazil to their first World Cup win in 24 years: Carlos Caetano Bledorn Verri, better known as Dunga. Whereas Friedenreich was a sign of an emerging "Brazilian-ness" despite his German roots, Dunga represented the apotheosis of Brazilian soccer's move away from the traditions of o jogo bonito -- which had fallen out of favor after the failure of Brazil's spectacularly talented side of Zico, Socrates and others at the 1982 World Cup -- and the adoption of a more prosaic, muscular, "European" style.
There have been other examples of Brazilian and German football intermingling. A host of Brazilian players ply their trade in the Bundesliga, and in 2006 the great German midfielder Lothar Matthaus had a short, unhappy spell as manager of Brasileirão club Atletico Paranaense. As the game becomes more globalized and historic divisions of style and culture fade away, the old, stereotypical differences between Germany and Brazil will continue to blur.
James Young writes about Brazil and its football. His collection of short stories and blog writings, "A Beer Before Lunch," is available on Amazon.


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Dear Hungry Girl, What are your suggestions for a low-calorie (or at least not high-calorie) fast-food breakfast? Some mornings are crazy, and it's so tempting to grab fast food. Appreciate your help in advance. Craving B-fast... Fast!
Hi Craving,
I can definitely relate! My mornings are often crazy-busy too. And while I'm glad that you're not skipping breakfast (it IS the most important meal of the day!), there are many calorie-dense, fatty breakfast items on those fast-food menus. Luckily, there are some guilt-free finds as well. Check out a few of my top picks... Subway Egg White Muffin Melts - These are amazing. Most of 'em clock in at 150 - 220 calories and 3.5 - 8g fat (PointsPlus® value 4 - 6*). Just steer clear of the fattier Mega and Sausage Melts available at some locations. McDonald's Fruit 'n Yogurt Parfait - If you like sweet, fruity breakfasts, chances are you'll love this parfait. Just 160 calories, 2g fat, and a PointsPlus® value of 4*. Starbucks Egg White, Spinach & Feta Wrap - Another solid option and a longtime love of mine. (We even made it over at the HG HQ when it was temporarily discontinued!) This super-delicious, warm b-fast wrap has 280 calories, 10g fat, and a PointsPlus® value of 7*. The 'Bucks has a whole slew of guilt-free choices... Check out our latest guide to Starbucks survival for more finds. Jamba Juice Steel-Cut Oatmeal - Way better than a smoothie, in my opinion. Love those fruity toppings! Just skip the "brown sugar crumble" -- then each container will have 180 - 300 calories, 2.5 - 8g fat, and a PointsPlus® value of 5 - 8*. And yes, I love the oatmeal options offered up by Starbucks as well! Dunkin' Donuts Egg White Wake-Up Wraps - If you are lucky enough to live near a Dunkin' Donuts store, you should really try these. They rock... a lot! Go for Turkey Sausage or Veggie -- just 150 calories, 5 - 6g fat, and a PointsPlus® value of 4* each. So good! Another option? Skip the drive-thru line and keep HG-friendly, fast-food-like breakfast picks in your freezer. I like Weight Watchers Smart Ones English Muffin Sandwiches (the one with Canadian bacon and cheese is great, and it has only 210 calories, 6g fat, and a PointsPlus® value of 6), options from the Jimmy Dean D-lights line (everything from b-fast bowls to sandwiches, and all relatively low in calories and fat), and Vitalicious VitaSandwiches (so much fiber; so few calories)! Now you've got some easy, guilt-free choices to throw into your morning food routine. Happy breakfasting!
Hey, HG! I love all of your pizza recipes, but I also like to keep frozen pizzas on hand. Which are the best ones out there? I would love to know the best-tasting and lowest-calorie frozen pizzas (both large and single-serving ones). Thanks! Freezer-Aisle Frannie
Hi Frannie,
This is a great question. There are many frozen pizza options available, and some are crazy-high in calories and fat. For multi-serving pizzas, my favorites come from Kashi (the Mexicali Black Bean one is REALLY good) and Amy's (love the roasted veggie pie). It's super-important to pay attention to the "servings per container" with large pies -- typically, there are THREE servings. So if you think you're likely to gobble down two-thirds of the pie, you might want to stick with single-serving options. When it comes to personal pizzas, I love the pies from Lean Cuisine, Weight Watchers Smart Ones, and Amy's. Some of these have higher calorie counts than a serving of the multi-serving pizzas -- not a big deal, since it's unlikely that you'd eat more than one serving. (You'd have to heat up a whole other pizza!!!) With both the large and personal pizzas, always read nutritional labels. I love these brands, but some varieties are lower in fat and calories than others. On another note, some of my favorite pizza picks in the freezer aisle are more like novelties than actual pies -- I'm obsessed with Amy's Cheese Pizza Toaster Pops, and the pizza-ish Lean Pockets are fun too. Whether you go for these, multi-serving pizzas, or portion-controlled pies, you may want to fill out your meal by pairing the pizza with a side salad (light dressing on the side) or veggies. Sometimes I'll even put some extra veggies right on top of the pizza before cooking it up. For tons more frozen-pizza options, check out this recent HG article over on Yahoo!
Today, June 29th, is National Almond Butter Crunch Day. Why not chomp on a couple of Kashi's TLC Roasted Almond Crunch Crunchy Granola Bars? They're made with almond butter...
Have a question for Hungry Girl? Send it in! She answers new Qs each week (but cannot respond to emails personally).
SmartPoints® value not what you expected? Click here for more info on how the values are calculated, plus more FAQs about PointsPlus® and SmartPoints® values on our website.


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CK Products
Silver Baking Cupcake Liners
Regular price $2.50
Standard Size Baking Cupcake Liners measures 2" x 1-1/4", 36 cupcake liners per listing.
Think outside the box! These greaseproof baking liners are not only used for when baking cupcakes and muffins, but can also be used to create festive party garland; craft into paper flowers or medallions to use as cupcake toppers or embellishments for gift wrapping.
Made of eco-friendly, FDA approved and greaseproof paper. Made in the USA.


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Theoretical Themes
Research on spatial skills and spatial learning has suffered from fragmentation across a variety of isolated subfields. For example, spatial language researchers rarely interact with researchers studying maps and diagrams, and neither community interacts much with researchers investigating individual differences in fundamental spatial skills.
Fragmentation also exists across disciplines, with researchers in cognitive psychology, artificial intelligence and education often being unaware of relevant work in the other discipline. To overcome this fragmentation and synthesize the set of ideas needed to create the science of spatial learning, SILC involves researchers from multiple subfields, disciplines, and institutions who are committed to an integrative research approach. In addition, the Center consists of researchers with a substantial commitment to education: half of our 24 core faculty either currently hold positions in an Education department, or have degrees in Education.
Cross-Cutting Theoretical Themes
One of the reasons that research on spatial skills and spatial learning has been fragmented is that prior investigators have not delineated over-arching themes that unite research in various disciplines and foster communication about interdependencies and synergies. To support synthesis, SILC has identified five theoretical themes that cut across projects and that serve to unify Center initiatives and motivate our selection of research projects.
Qualitative/quantitative integration: Space is continuous, and many aspects of spatial understanding involve metric, analog representations. However, human spatial representations also include symbolic, qualitative representations that are grounded in non-symbolic representations, which provide a bridge between perceptual and conceptual knowledge and skills. Findings in cognitive psychology on combining coordinate and categorical representations have shown the importance of spatial categories in perception and memory (e.g., Huttenlocher, Hedges & Vevea, 2000), providing evidence that such representations are fundamental to human spatial cognition. Work in artificial intelligence has demonstrated that qualitative spatial representations are useful for modeling a wide range of engineering and scientific reasoning (e.g., Forbus, Nielsen & Faltings, 1991). Such results provide evidence that qualitative spatial reasoning is central to STEM education.
Organizing schema for spatial skills: Based on cognitive, linguistic and neuroscientific data (e.g., Chatterjee, 2008), we distinguish among different types of spatial skills. First, we note that objects have intrinsic structure that defines properties like their shape and size, and that they also have extrinsic relations to other objects and/or external reference systems (e.g., a mountain is located in a particular geographic region and directly west of some other mountain). Second, we note that both intrinsic and extrinsic spatial relations can be represented statically but can also be dynamically transformed, either in physical actuality or through mental simulations. Thus, there are four broad categories of spatial skills, defined as intrinsic-static, intrinsic-dynamic, extrinsic-static and extrinsic-dynamic. These categories give us an organizing schema for thinking about what spatial skills might be important to STEM and what skills might need to be assessed and worked on. It transcends prior work on ways to think about individual differences, which has been inconclusive, largely because it has been divorced from theory (Hegarty & Waller, 2005).
Importance of external symbol systems: Spatial language, diagrams, graphs, and maps are widely used in STEM practice, and research suggests that, used properly, these can be powerful aids to learning. But these systems are not automatically powerful learning aids; their effective use needs to be taught. For example, middle school students, and their teachers, often ignore diagrams simply because they do not know how to interpret them. Understanding how external symbol systems function in human cognition is crucial to using them effectively in education.
Spatial analogy as a key learning mechanism: Analogy is known to be a powerful general learning mechanism (Gentner, Ratterman & Forbus, 1993). Many people think of analogy as only involving abstract, conceptual representations, but concrete spatial analogies are widely used in spatial learning. For example, we are finding that within-domain analogies, such as having students compare photographs, can be useful in learning geological concepts. Our computational model of sketch understanding uses analogical reasoning over qualitative spatial representations to enable it to perform at human levels and in human ways on tasks such as Ravens' Progressive Matrices. Finally, analogical processes are crucial in applying spatial representational tools to STEM topics, such as when topographic maps are aligned with the corresponding physical space.
Learning from action to abstraction: In contrast to traditional views of the mind as an abstract information processor, recent theories of embodied cognition suggest that our representations of objects and events are often grounded in the sensorimotor systems we use to perceive and act on the world (Wilson, 2002). This linking of thought and action is readily observed when STEM practitioners talk about objects in their area of expertise. For example, organic chemists gesture heavily when discussing molecular structure and engineers rely on sketches in conceptual design. This leads us to believe that involving the action systems in learning may help to deepen students' knowledge of abstract concepts by tying them to sensorimotor brain systems that are good at capturing spatial/action relationships. We are interested in understanding how performing different actions (ranging from feeling forces when learning about angular momentum in physics, to actually manipulating models of physical molecules in chemistry to learn about their spatial makeup, to sketching spatial relations in geosciences) might bolster spatial learning by engaging sensorimotor systems that might not otherwise be brought to bear on the concepts at hand. Moreover, we are interested in when this action information might harm performance by tying students' representations too closely to the physical world and how tools such as gesture and sketching might serve as a bridge between concrete physical relations and more abstract knowledge. Finally, we are interested in how different forms of action can provide a window into learners' minds by revealing information that they may not be able to articulate verbally.


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Purchase Requisitions
Simply put, a Purchase Requisition is exactly what is sounds like: a formal, written request to purchase products and services. At BYU-Idaho, Purchase Requisitions are used to purchase particular items and/or services for a specific department. All purchases over $2,500 must be processed through the Purchasing Department. You're free to go through the Purchasing Department for items under $2,500, but the same policies and procedures apply.
Purchase Requisition Form
How to fill out a Purchase Requisition


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By Nancy Frazier O'Brien
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON (CNS) — Pope Benedict XVI has named Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien of Baltimore as pro-grand master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem in Rome.
The appointment was announced in Washington Aug. 29 by Msgr. Jean-Francois Lantheaume, charge d'affairs of the Vatican Embassy to the United States.
Archbishop O'Brien, 72, succeeds Cardinal John P. Foley, 75, a former editor of The Catholic Standard & Times in Philadelphia and former director of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications at the Vatican, who retired in February after being diagnosed with leukemia and anemia.
Also known as the Knights of the Holy Sepulcher, the order is a fraternal organization dedicated to supporting the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem and responding to the needs of Catholics in the Holy Land.
The order is usually headed by a cardinal, and past Vatican protocol would call for Archbishop O'Brien's title to become grand master once he is named to the College of Cardinals.
Born in New York, the archbishop has served as an auxiliary bishop of New York, 1996-97; coadjutor archbishop and then archbishop of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services, 1997-2007; and archbishop of Baltimore since 2007.
In Baltimore, Archbishop O'Brien has been outspoken against efforts to legalize same-sex marriage in Maryland and to place restrictions on crisis pregnancy centers. He recently sent a private letter to Maryland Gov. Martin J. O'Malley, urging the Catholic governor to refrain from promoting a redefinition of marriage in the state.
On the national level, he is chairman-elect of the U.S. bishops' Committee on International Justice and Peace and would have become chairman in November.
A former seminary rector in Rome and New York, he also coordinated the Vatican-ordered visitation of U.S. seminaries, which concluded in a 2009 report that U.S. Catholic seminaries and houses of priestly formation were generally healthy, but recommended a stronger focus on moral theology, increased oversight of seminarians and greater involvement of diocesan bishops in the formation process.
Born April 8, 1939, in New York, Edwin Frederick O'Brien describes himself as a typical "Bronx Irish Catholic" whose schooling, sports and social activities centered on Our Lady of Solace Parish there. He attended St. Joseph's Seminary outside New York, where he received a bachelor's degree in 1961, a master's of divinity in 1964 and a master's of arts in 1965.
"There wasn't a day in my life that I didn't want to be a priest, and not a day in my life that I've regretted it," he said at a news conference after his appointment in Baltimore. He was ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of New York on May 29, 1965.
For his first five years as a priest, he was a civilian chaplain at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., as associate pastor of the academy's Catholic Chapel of the Most Holy Trinity. He became an Army chaplain in 1970 and over the next three years served in Fort Bragg, N.C.; Vietnam; and Fort Gordon, Ga.
From 1973 to 1976, he studied at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome, earning a doctorate in theology. On his return to New York he was named archdiocesan vice chancellor and assistant pastor of St. Patrick's Cathedral.
Appointed archdiocesan director of communications in 1981, he helped launch Catholic New York, the archdiocesan newspaper. Two years later, he was named secretary to New York Cardinal Terence Cooke, who was succeeded in 1984 by Archbishop John J. O'Connor, who was made a cardinal in 1985.
Then-Msgr. O'Brien was made rector of St. Joseph's Seminary in Dunwoodie, N.Y., in 1985 and rector of the Pontifical North American College in Rome in 1989. On his return to New York in 1994, he was again made rector of St. Joseph's Seminary.
He was named an auxiliary bishop of New York on Feb. 6, 1996, and ordained a bishop March 25. He was named coadjutor archbishop of the military archdiocese in April 1997. He took up the post in May and became head of the archdiocese in August when Archbishop Joseph T. Dimino resigned for health reasons.
As head of the military archdiocese, he directed a worldwide archdiocese that includes 1.5 million Catholics serving in military installations around the world or at Veterans Affairs hospitals in the United States, as well as the approximately 300 Catholic military chaplains who minister to them.
He was named to the Vatican Congregation for Catholic Education in 2007.
A member of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars and the Canon Law Society of America, Archbishop O'Brien also has chaired the board of trustees of the Pontifical North American College and served on the boards of St. Joseph's Seminary in Dunwoodie and the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington.


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emil soletti wrote:m@ wrote:That's exactly the one I used on my Traveller—plays nicely with the original crankset, but if you're replacing with a SS-specific crankset you might need a different spindle length.
Great! Would it work together with this Lasco Crankset?
If you take the time to read the description below the cranks you linked to, it actually tells you the width of the bb required and what your chainline should be
Part of the process is researching, studying carefully and then asking the not so obvious questions. Using those crnks withe the correct bb and a new ss specific set of wheels will make your build easier and cheaper in the long run as everything is compatible and transferable to a better frame when you upgrade.


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City of Grand Island, NEHome Menu
City Calendar
Lapsit - Play and Read
- Date: November 13, 2017 10:00 am - 10:45 am
- Location: Grand Island Public Library
211 N. Washington St.
Grand Island, Nebraska 68801
Return to full list >>
Monday Lapsit (Play and Read) is for children 1-2 years of age and their parents/caregivers. This is an interactive play time for preschool children who learn primarily through their senses. This incorporates play, books, fingerplays, crafts, music, and more. We model and recommend "Every Child Ready to Read", an initiative of the American Library Association.
For more information, call the library at (308) 385-5333.


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Vanessa Hudgens: Thursday Workout Woman!
Vanessa Hudgens hides her face under her "Faith" cap as she leaves her local gym on Thursday morning (August 30) in North Hollywood, Calif.
The 23-year-old actress showed off her svelte figure in a tiny pair of short shorts and tank.
PHOTOS: Check out the latest pics of Vanessa Hudgens
In case you missed it, check out this recently released clip from Vanessa's upcoming flick Spring Breakers, which also features James Franco, Selena Gomez, and Ashley Benson.
Spring Breakers will premiere at the 2012 Venice Film Festival, which is currently underway.
10+ pictures inside of Vanessa Hudgens leaving her gym…


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In their rush to modernize, Asian countries have borrowed many Western inventions. One of the latest ideas to arrive is the real estate investment trust. Since the first REIT launched in Japan in 2001, several more have emerged on the scene in Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea, and other Asian markets.
By January of this year, the FTSE EPRA/NAREIT Global Real Estate Index included 64 Asian REITs with a market capitalization of more than $207 billion. That's about half the size of the U.S. REIT market, which included 126 REITS amassing a market cap of $412 billion.
Booming economies have accelerated the rise of Asian REITs. Strong demand by high-end tenants such as investment banks and hedge funds for state-of-the- art buildings is spurring new construction across the continent.
Government regulators, meanwhile, also are on the REIT bandwagon these days. They want to emulate the success of the REIT model in the U.S., which has attracted institutional investors and other major sources of capital to the real estate industry.
Still in its infancy, the Asian REIT market is poised to grow for the next several years, predicts Peter Mitchell, CEO of the Asian Public Real Estate Association, a trade group in Singapore. New REITs are appearing steadily, with about one initial public offering occurring somewhere in Asia every month. "Less than 5% of investment-grade Asian real estate is in REITs, and the figure is likely to continue rising," says Mitchell.
To be sure, publicly traded property companies have existed in Japan for years, but REITs offer investors an added incentive. By law, REITs in the U.S. and most Asian countries must pay out 90% of their income as dividends to shareholders, resulting in fairly high dividend yields. Such stable income appeals to pension funds and other cautious investors.
U.S. REITs currently pay dividend yields of 3.4%, about the same figure as the Japanese REITs pay, according to Christopher Reich, senior vice president of ING Clarion Real Estate Securities. Conversely, real estate operating companies tend to pay lower dividends and produce more erratic returns in down markets, adds Reich.
Along with relatively high dividends, REITs offer Western investors a degree of comfort because the structure is common in developed markets. Many U.S. REITs have an operating history of a decade or more. In addition, REIT balance sheets tend to be transparent because the companies pay out nearly all their earnings as dividends.
Investor change of heart
In the past, Western institutional investors typically ignored Asian property markets, which they often perceived as volatile, says Mike Acton, director of research for AEW Capital Management, a Boston investment advisor. With the rise of REITs and other institutional-grade investments, attitudes are changing.
AEW recently created Asian property funds designed for pensions and other institutions, which are seeking to increase their allocation to the region. "Our clients now feel that they need to be in Asia for diversification," says Acton. "The prices of Tokyo offices don't necessarily rise and fall with the Dallas apartment market."
While the REITs may offer diversification, they won't necessarily deliver outsized results. Much of the returns from REITs historically have come from dividends, and most REITs in the U.S. and Asia are paying modest single-digit dividend yields. Share price appreciation could add something to total returns. But after already enjoying several years of rallying share prices, it is uncertain how much higher the stocks can go.
There are a scant number of real estate bargains to be had in Asia, or worldwide. A standard warehouse in Chicago sells for a capitalization rate — initial yield based on the purchase price — of around 6%, says Guy Jacquier, executive vice president of AMB Property Corp., a San Francisco-based REIT. The same property might have a cap rate of 5% in Japan.
Is Japan overpriced? Not necessarily, says Jacquier, because Japanese long-term mortgage interest rates are approximately 2.5%. "If you can buy at a 5% cap rate and finance it at 2.5%, you can get a good positive cash flow," he says.
In the emerging markets, cap rates are higher. For example, in Shanghai an investor can purchase a warehouse with a cap rate of 7.5%, says Jackquier. But the newer markets come with some additional political risks. Regulators could surprise investors with new rules. In Singapore, the risk may be less obvious, but still real. While the government is stable, the country is an island nation. So the local REITs are placing bets on the fate of a small piece of land.
Abiding by the rules
REIT regulations vary slightly from country to country. In Hong Kong, local REITs may not buy vacant land, a provision aimed at discouraging development on an island that is already crowded. However, in Japan and the U.S., REITs can buy and develop vacant land. In the U.S. and Japan, REITs can borrow as much as their shareholders and lenders will permit. But in Singapore, there is a so-called gearing limit, only permitting REITs to borrow up to 35% of their gross asset value.
The rule is aimed at keeping REITs from getting weighed down by debt. "The Asian jurisdictions have looked at what works best in the U.S., and they are customizing the rules to fit their own markets," says Mitchell of the Asian Public Real Estate Association.
While some of the Asian REITs are diversified companies with holdings in a variety of property sectors, many specialize in a single sector, such as apartments or industrial properties.
With a market capitalization of $3 billion, the Nippon Building Fund owns 55 prime office properties, including many in the central business district of Tokyo. The company owns 7.1 million sq. ft. with an occupancy rate of 98.7%.
CapitaMall Trust, a Singapore REIT, has a market cap of $1.7 billion. The company owns five malls in city and suburban areas. Most REITs focus on their home countries.
But more are beginning to spread across borders. Maple Tree Logistics, based in Singapore, now owns industrial properties throughout Asia. Ascott Residence Trust owns apartments in Singapore, China, Vietnam, and the Philippines.
In some cases, listed property companies have been bundling some of their holdings and spinning them off as REITs. In the past five years, CapitaLand, a Singapore company, has spun off four REITs in Singapore and one in Malaysia. Such spin-offs can result in a payoff for shareholders, since the potential exists for assets to command a higher price as part of a REIT.
Long-time family businesses also are using REIT markets to take their holdings public and cash in shares. Whether they are family businesses or public companies, managers may see spin-offs as a way to divide holdings, offloading mature income-producing holdings into a REIT, while leaving faster-growing buildings in the property company.
"If companies feel that their assets are not being properly recognized in the market, the shareholders may be better off if some of the assets are put into a REIT," says Khiem Do, portfolio manager of Asia Pacific Fund, a closed-end fund.
Property fundamentals rising
No matter how they were created, Asian REITs have been benefiting from the healthy demand for offices and malls in the region, a sharp turnaround from the recent past.
In Japan, real estate suffered a massive recession from 1989 to 2002. Prices of many buildings dropped 60%. During that time, there was little construction and renovation. In the last several years, Japanese real estate has revived along with the country's economy. Prices of many properties have risen more than 20%. Even in cities where growth is moderate, there are still many new developments rising as outdated buildings are replaced with new construction.
Other Asian countries are recovering from a variety of setbacks. In 1997 and 1998, currencies collapsed in Thailand and throughout much of developing Asia. Then in 2000, Asian technology companies went into a tailspin along with Wall Street. Now the emerging Asian economies are enjoying vigorous growth, led by China where the gross domestic product is expected to rise more than 9% this year.
"The strong economies have helped to produce some solid Asian REITs," says David Kruth, vice president of Goldman Sachs Asset Management. "In the future, the pool of high-quality investments will continue growing."
Stan Luxenberg is a New York-based writer
Handful of U.S. REITs Are Players in Asia
Trying to capitalize on Asia's economic growth, a few U.S. REITs such as Simon Property Group are testing the waters. The largest shopping mall owner in the U.S. operates five retail outlet centers in Japan and recently announced a joint venture to develop outlet centers in South Korea.
The expansion has been good for retail consumers in Nagoya, Japan who don't have to travel far to sample American brands. The nearby Toki Premium Outlets shopping center owned by Simon houses 85 tenants, including Brooks Brothers, Timberland, and Tommy Hilfiger.
So far, the American invasion is limited to a handful of powerhouse REITs with aspirations to become truly global operators. ProLogis, a Denver-based industrial owner and developer, has 4.1 million sq. ft. of industrial space in operation in China and another 3 million sq. ft. under development.
AMB Property Corp., another giant industrial REIT based in San Francisco, entered Japan after requests from corporate clients. A big operator of warehouses, the REIT counts DHL and Federal Express among its customers. As those logistics companies expanded in Asia, they suffered from a shortage of state-of-the-art distribution centers.
Some U.S. REITs are developing new properties instead of buying existing facilities because there is less competition for developers in Asia. "In the U.S., there is a lot of good development talent," explains Guy Jackquier, president of Europe and Asia operations for AMB. "But in a place like China, this is really a new business. A lot of the existing stock does not measure up to international standards."
Still, building near cramped Asian ports and airports poses challenges, Jackquier concedes. Land is more expensive in Tokyo than Dallas. Asian warehouse facilities make use of limited land by rising up to seven stories, far taller than American structures, which are typically one story. To serve the higher floors, the Asian buildings must include elevators or ramps. All those additions add to expenses. While it costs $60 per sq. ft. to build a warehouse in Chicago, a similar structure costs $200 a sq. ft. in Japan, says Jackquier.
The volume of foreign capital pouring into the Asian property markets isn't expected to slow down anytime soon. "U.S. REITs are just starting to get their feet wet in Asia," observes John J. Kriz, managing director of real estate finance for Moody's Investors Service. "We are still in the early days of the Asian expansion."
— Stan Luxenberg


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Chaz Bono Is Saving Up For A Peen
Chaz Bono's former fiancee wasn't looking forward to putting her mouth over a peen instead of a poon, but now that she's gone he can freely chase after his dick-getting dreams. But first, Chaz has to fill his peen fund with enough dollars to pay for the surgery. Chaz tells Rolling Stone that he's already picked out a doctor in Belgrade and all he needs is around $45,000 to take his down low parts from clit to cock. Chaz broke it down, and yes, my eyeballs bungeed out of their sockets and hit the screen after I read that his shiny new dick could be Tommy Lee-sized.
"I could get a phalloplasty, which builds the phallus from a donor site on your body," he says straightforwardly, "but I'm leaning more toward a metoidioplasty. It's a procedure that uses what you already have down there" – he means his clitoris – "which has grown larger from the testosterone. You end up with a smaller phallus than with the phalloplasty, but it's fully functional, it gets erect, and the sensation is all there."
Does he know how big it's going to be?
He frowns. "You know, I don't really. I mean, I've never seen one erect. So it's really hard to say. But, you know, soft, probably about three inches, and it grows considerably. I don't know what the average size difference is, but when I'm having sex I probably get three or four times larger." He pauses. "I was in a fairly typical heterosexual relationship, which caused some militant members of the queer community to think I'm reinforcing stereotypes or whatever. Anyway, I think Jen wished I wouldn't get the bottom done, but she understood my need to." He shrugs. "You have to understand, though, for me the life transformation has already happened."
I don't know if it was Chaz or another transman who said that he wasn't touching his bottom area yet, because the recovery from the surgery is as painful as getting fucked in the pee hole with a hot screw and the dick doesn't even work that well anyway.
I read a while ago that some new dicks can only get fully erect with the help of a pump. That would kind of suck. You're like, "Get ready, bitch, this rock hard fat dick is going to fuck you into another religion! Hold onto your nipples cause they're gonna pop off from the fuck quake I'm about to hit you with. We're going to break the Richter Scale tonight! Are you ready? Oh wait, can you grab that bike pump out of the closet…" (<---- That's pretty much the dialogue heard in Hugh Hefner's room every night.) But I'm glad to hear from Chaz that this doesn't seem to be the case anymore. I'm also glad to hear that Chaz's peen will be able to grow naturally and then some!
I mean, it's been a while since I've failed grade school math, but three times four equals twelve, right? Chaz can get himself a 12 inch salchicha dick? Chaz says that he will never ask Cher for the money since he wants to do this own his own, but I say, STOP IT! When it comes to getting a 12-inch dick, all pride for independence should fly out of the window. Just get that 12-inch dick, Chaz! Seriously, if Chaz gets hit by a bus tomorrow, wouldn't he want to be hit while having a 12-inch dick? I don't even see Chaz's lips moving and I can tell that he's fighting to say the word YAAAASSSSS!
Hell, Cher is so rich that she can buy everyone a 12 incher. She could be like the Oprah of 12-inch dicks. You get a 12-inch dick and you get a 12-inch dick! I'll take one. My arm is getting so tired from hitting the snooze button 50 times every morning, so it would be nice to be able to hit that button with my new 1 footer.
And Google tells me that Chaz will still have an orgasm, but won't be able to ejaculate. Those surgeons should try to fix that problem. Can't they install jizz sacks down? Flavored ones? That would really be the best and I'd get that. Can you imagine if you had flavored jizz? That would be a priceless pick-up tool. Think about it. You're at the cream bar at Starbucks when some hot piece mutters to himself, "Ugh, they're out of hazelnut." You wink inside knowing you've got this, grab his cup and fiddle with a few knobs on your nutsack before you quickly shoot out a stream of hazelnut deliciousness. That would be a beautiful story to tell everyone on your wedding day.
(Image via Out Magazine)


text: AquaService - a different way to volunteer! Are you passionate about conservation and would enjoy speaking with the public about the Aquarium's mission and programs at community festivals? Do you have office and computer skills that you'd like to share with Aquarium departments and programs? Would you like to join our Aquarium Conservation Team (ACT!) in the field for wetlands restoration projects? The new AquaService Volunteer Program is designed to fill the needs of those who wish to serve the National Aquarium on a short-term basis in ways that are not covered by other Aquarium volunteer programs. Instead of committing to a full year in a marine education-based program with a regular schedule, AquaService volunteers agree to be part of a pool of service-oriented people who are called upon on an "as-needed" basis for six months. AquaService Volunteer Benefits Free parking while volunteering Access to continuing education programs Gift shop and cafe discounts Invitation to annual Family Night event Learning, laughter, wonder, and excitement (unlimited!) AquaService Volunteer Positions Combining personal experience and skills with some orientation and basic training, AquaService volunteers have the opportunity to become part of a pool of volunteer talent. An embroidered vest and ID badge will identify you as a National Aquarium AquaService volunteer. Administrative This position offers volunteers the chance to work among professionals, offering clerical support such as filing and mailing preparation, and phone and office reception. You must have a pleasant disposition and courteous phone manner as you represent the National Aquarium. Assignments may occur in the offices of the main Aquarium buildings or the administrative offices in the Candler Building a block away. Computer If you enjoy working with computers, software applications, and document scanners in pleasant office settings, you'll enjoy being part of National Aquarium projects that include data entry, photo scanning, and document creation and archiving. In some cases, these projects may be accomplished in the comfort of your own home. Onsite Events The National Aquarium is always involved with onsite events that highlight holidays, conservation efforts, and special member evenings. Volunteers get involved with greeting visitors, helping with registration tables, and being on hand for general event assistance. If you speak a second language fluently, you may be of great help with communicating with foreign guests. We're also looking for a few special people to portray our costumed character mascot, Puffin. Offsite Events The National Aquarium likes to have a presence at many community and ethnic festivals in the Baltimore region such as Artscape, Baltimore Book Festival, the Hispanic Festival, and more. Help is always needed at the Aquarium table with greeting our visitors, general information, and in some cases, translating a foreign language. Our Aquarium Conservation Team (ACT!) needs volunteers in the field for wetlands restoration in and around the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Volunteer Commitment and Application To apply as an AquaService volunteer, please review the following requirements. If you can agree to all of the below, click the "I Agree" button which will take you to the AquaService online application. I am at least 18 years old and out of high school. I can make at least a 6-month commitment. I will attend the AquaService volunteer orientation I will be dependable and will adhere to Aquarium policies. I Agree If you are looking for paid job opportunities, apply here instead. Back to the Top


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2008-07-23 / Columnists
Pets, Pets, Pets
Time to get up on my soapbox: If you find a dog that is not wearing ID tags, the dog belongs in the town shelter ASAP- not stashed in your house, or tucked away at Aunt Tilly's. Dogs do not fall under the "Finders Keepers; Losers Weepers" rule. Some people prefer to hold onto the foundling. Calling the shelter with a listing is okay for starters, but not good enough if a similar lost dog has not been reported. Mixed breeds, especially, are hard to distinguish over the phone. The dog should be accessible at the shelter in the town where found so an owner can make a positive ID. On the same token, people who lose dogs should visit all surrounding shelters in person. Both finders and losers need to hang up posters too. Don't rely on a phone search. Case in point: A woman many years ago called a shelter to say she lost a male Dane puppy. Shelter said they didn't have him. She came down anyway to find her pup miss-sexed. Her Great Dane with personal plumbing bigger than Delaware was sitting in the female section. No matter how bedraggled the found dog might look, you cannot assume the dog has been dumped. The dog may have been stolen, or may be many steps removed from its real home, just like the horse in Black Beauty…."But, Mrs. Milkbone, dog detective, I saw a Beagle thrown from a car." The villain still might not be the real owner. A disgruntled relative or bad Samaritan could have heave-hoed Snoopy. There may well be distraught folks trying desperately to find their beloved pet; and the shelter, not your living room, is the "clearinghouse" where they will go to search.
microchip. Shelter went the extra mile and traced him through the store that sold him. Turned out the dog had been lost for 2 years. Lady walks in, looking for her wandering Westie. Shelter asks her how long she had him. She said her aunt found the dog 2 years ago and gave him to her. Westie is reunited that day with grateful, original owner. 3) Lady heroically rescues a groomed Shih-tzu off Cross Island Parkway. However, for some inexplicable reason she brings the dog to a Nassau vet, not her vet, saying she wants to keep the dog if no one calls. Why would they call this doctor? Hospital also traces the dog's chip via the store that sold him. Dog lived a block from Cross Island. Owners rush down to reclaim him. •Cases #1-3 demonstrate the value of having your pet microchipped, and registered in your name. Collars and tags are a MUST, but collars can come off. Microchips outlive dogs and cats. Only shelters and veterinary hospitals have scanners to read these transponders. No one is going to locate a chip if you keep the found dog in your bedroom. 4) A friend who should know better is driving home from N. Carolina. Chihuahua wanders into the gas station on the interstate. She asks the gas station and mini mart if they recognize the dog. Nope. She scoops Chi up, then drives the dog home to NY without calling police or animal control, without leaving any contact info. She asks us for help to place the dog. Her know-it-all friends go ballistic that she MUST try to locate the owner first. After many phone calls, turns out the Chihuahua belonged to an elderly man living right behind the N. Carolina gas station. •If nothing else, Case #4 gives us a glimpse into how "Blaze" the Jack Russell may have gotten from Georgia to New York unscathed. 5) A vet who also should know better finds a scruffy mix on the road and refuses to turn the dog into the shelter because the dog is matted and thin. She places the dog in a store advertising he will be up for adoption after a week. Oh really? **Imagine if this were your dog…My Afghan is thin and microchipped. If, heaven forbid, she got away, she'd be matted in less than 5 minutes. I shudder to think that she could be found by some do-gooder who would immediately give her away. All found dogs belong in the town shelter. That's a crucial reason why we have these municipal sanctuaries. •For Adoption at Babylon Town Shelter (643-9270) Lamar St. W. Babylon. The wrong shelter list was printed with super-sweet "Fanny Mae's" photo last week. This homeless Border Collie mix in Cage 5 wants to be bailed out by someone more loving than the Fed. Fanny Mae has a unique profile and hairdo reminiscent of Larry Fine. She's shown here posing with my Three Stooges doll. (Don't ask.) The "Generic brown dog" in Cage 28 is a playful Lab/Shepherd blending in with the canine crowd although her sparkling temperament shines. Cats: white kitten in the lobby; spayed eviction sweeties.
Dogs: "Brandy" Cage 39-young, friendly Chessie/Pit, Shelter arranged for surgery to remove a large cyst on her back; "Sammy"-Cage 13-lonely black Lab; "Scooby" Cage 4-chubby Pit mix.
•Low Cost Microchip Clinic- The Mayor's Alliance for NYC Animals has kindly offered to hold a Home Again chip clinic at the Last Hope Dog Walk in Wantagh Park Sat. 9/13 from 1:30 to 5:30.
$25 per dog or cat includes microchip and registration. Great savings. Call 631-661-6164.


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Taken from Malabrigo Book One: "Every so often there arrives a new yarn quality on the market that seems to strike a chord with knitters everywhere. Malabrigo's Worsted is just such a yarn! Soft as a cashmere, lofty and showcasing the vibrant colors that are Malabrigo's trademark this roving yarn is a delight to work in and wear."
We provide endless possibilities for you including yarn, knitting gifts, needles, kits, sale yarn, free knitting patterns, and more!Jimmy Beans Wool is Your Local Yarn Store... Online!


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NEW YORK, Jan. 17, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Levi & Korsinsky notifies investors of Epocrates, Inc. ("Epocrates" or the "Company") (Nasdaq:EPOC) of claims of breaches of fiduciary duty and other violations of state law against the board of directors of the Company in connection with the sale of the Company to athenahealth, Inc. A complaint was filed in California state court.
Click here to learn how to join the action: http://zlk.9nl.com/epocrates-epoc/, or call toll free 1-877-363-5972. There is no cost or obligation to you.
Under the terms of the transaction, Epocrates shareholders will receive $11.75 for each share of Epocrates stock they own. The transaction has a total approximate value of $293 million. The claims concern whether the Epocrates Board of Directors breached their fiduciary duties to stockholders by failing to adequately shop the Company before entering into this transaction and whether athenahealth, Inc. is underpaying for Epocrates, thus unlawfully harming Epocrates stockholders. In particular, at least one analyst set a price target for Epocrates stock at $15.00 per share.
If you own common stock in Epocrates and wish to obtain additional information, please contact Joseph E. Levi, Esq. either via email at firstname.lastname@example.com or by telephone at (212) 363-7500, toll-free: (877) 363-5972, or http://zlk.9nl.com/epocrates-epoc/.
Levi & Korsinsky is a national firm with offices in New York, New Jersey, and Washington, D.C. The firm has extensive expertise in prosecuting securities litigation involving financial fraud, representing investors throughout the nation in securities and shareholder lawsuits. The attorneys at Levi & Korsinsky have been appointed by numerous courts throughout the country to serve as lead counsel on behalf of shareholders in major securities lawsuits and have successfully recovered multimillion-dollar damages awards on behalf of investors. For more information, please feel free to contact any of the attorneys listed below. Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes.
CONTACT: Levi & Korsinsky LLP Joseph Levi, Esq. Eduard Korsinsky, Esq. 30 Broad Street - 24th Floor New York, NY 10004 Tel: (212) 363-7500 Toll Free: (877) 363-5972 Fax: (866) 367-6510 www.zlk.comSource:Levi & Korsinsky, LLP


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STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) -April 18, 2013 --A 33-year-old man faces charges for allegedly threatening to get a gun and shoot people after being asked to leave a Penn State University student union building, where he had been sleeping.
Authorities say State College resident Aarao M. Cornelio Jr. will be charged with terroristic threats and disorderly conduct.
Officials say it started when he was found sleeping at the HUB-Robeson Center around 11:10 a.m. Wednesday and was asked to leave. People passing by then reported hearing him make the threats.
Penn State sent out a text alert letting the community know police were looking for him and officers arrested him downtown around 2 p.m.
He's being held in the Centre County Correctional Facility and it wasn't immediately clear if he had an attorney.


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*'''Jan 1, 2008 meeting is cancelled'''
Revision as of 14:42, 7 January 2008
About the Ajax Toolkit Framework project.
Ajax Toolkit Framework Use
Running JavaScript in debug mode
ATF Design
Building JSDT on WTP 2.0 for the next ATF milestone
JSDT is planned for WTP 3.0. Even though ATF originally proposed JSDT and many of the same developers contribute to both efforts, JSDT technically is (and has been) part of the WTP Project, under it's general "Source Editing" project. Where JSDT development resides will make little difference to users of ATF, since ATF has always been dependent on WTP. Discussion about JSDT should occur on the WTP mailing list and forums. ATF team plans to continue build ans ship JSDT until we move to WTP 3.0 after the next milestone.
Developer resources
Create a working workspace to work on sources
Building the project from sources - out of date
Proposed new Mozilla integration - out of date
ATF's Public Planning call
Due to Christmas vacation the following planning meetings are cancelled.
- Dec 18, 2007 meeting is cancelled
- Dec 25, 2007 meeting is cancelled
- Jan 1, 2008 meeting is cancelled
- Jan 8, 2008 meeting is cancelled
Meetings are held on Tuesday's, 9 AM - 10 AM Pacific Standard Time, 11:00AM - 12:00AM CST
Cal-in numbers:
Toll Free: 877-421-0030
Toll (USA): 770-615-1247
Participant Passcode: 574430
Along with doing ATF planning, The ATF team would like to understand from the community how ATF is being used, what direction ATF should head, proposals for new functionality, and to solicit more active participation from the community. As it was stated in a previous note, ATF plans to stay in incubation phase. For the project to make headway more active participation and committers are needed from the community. See our roadmap for some suggestions of future ATF enhancements
Agenda for 12/11/2007 public planning call


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The new location, located on Sunset Cliffs Boulevard at the corner of Nimitz Boulevard, is just one of a few changes during this festival, and event chair Melanie Nickel expects this year to be one of the best of its kind — ever.
"We're doing a couple of things to make it bigger and better this year," Nickel said. "This year, we're getting much more of a kite emphasis. We're having much more kite stuff for grown-ups, you could say."
Along with kite building, carnival rides, food, a craft fair and live music by Beer Feet, the festival will also feature demonstrations and performances by kite professionals from the San Diego Kite Club and other Southern California kites clubs between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m.
"For the stunt flying, they do coordinated dancing," Nickel said. "They can make a kite dive to the ground, stop one foot off the ground and turn the other way."
This year's festival will also honor those who took part in the very first Ocean Beach Kiwanis Kite Festivals between 1948 and 1953. Nickel said everybody who attended the first festivals should go to the registration area, where they will receive a special ribbon and be recognized as "founder alumni."
"It's the oldest kite festival for children in the country," Nickel said. "We know there are people in Point Loma and Ocean Beach who came to the first festivals, and we want to honor them."
Nickel said children of all ages can build and decorate kites with a new kite-building kit. Children can also enter a contest for the best-decorated kite at noon. Prizes will be awarded around 1 p.m., depending on how quickly the judges can examine all the kites.
"We normally make about 700 kites in the morning. The kids come from all over the elementary, junior high and senior high schools and outside the area," Nickel said. "We normally have about 1,000 people sometime during the day."
The festival is free, and the Kiwanis Club of Ocean Beach puts on the event in cooperation with the Ocean Beach Recreation Center.
Recreation center director Brian Anthony said he is looking forward to the event. His aunt owned a kite store and he enjoys flying kites.
"We're really just looking forward to the 65th year, honoring a tradition in Ocean Beach," Anthony said. "It will be great with more space over at Dusty Rhodes."
Parking for the event is available at Dusty Rhodes Park on the Sunset Cliffs Boulevard side. Additional parking is located across the street at Robb Field.
"This is such a fun thing," Nickel said. "I love a quote I overheard some people saying at one of the kite festivals, 'It's family, it's fun and it's free, what's not to like?'"
For more information visit www.oceanbeachkiwanis.org or email firstname.lastname@example.com.
Schedule of events
• 9 a.m. to noon.: kite building
• 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.: live music by Beer Feet
• 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.: professional kite flying stunts, performance and demonstrations
• Noon to 1 p.m.: kite judging and prizes


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Privacy Groups Miss The Point: It's Not Where Google's Privacy Policy Is, It's What It Does
from the focusing-on-the-wrong-thing dept
And yet... a bunch of consumer and privacy groups, including ones I respect like the EFF and the ACLU are now trying to turn this into a big deal by publicly demanding that Google add a link to its privacy policy on its home page. This isn't about privacy. This is "privacy theater." It's about putting on a good show that has nothing to do with whether or not Google is doing right by its users. If there's a link to Google's privacy policy on its front page or not, it won't change what Google does with users' info, and it almost certainly won't change the way anyone (other than maybe these groups) view Google. It's all a big show for no reason. There are plenty of important causes that these groups should be working on. Worrying whether or not Google links to its privacy policy from its front page or one page deep is silly pandering.


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- Inside Athletics
- Tickets
- Fan Zone
- Media Zone
- Social
- Shop
- Donate Now
Both teams will have honorary coaches as ETSU's Voice of the Bucs/Network Director Jay Sandos will manage the Blue team, while Director of Business and Ticket Operations Phillip Al-Mateen guides the Gold squad.
This series marks the first time fans can catch a glimpse of the 2008 Baseball Bucs. Game one's starting pitchers pin senior Brandon Langston (
Langston takes the hill for the Gold team after posting a team-best 3.93 ERA (46 ER/105.1 IP) a year ago. The
Sunday's match-up features sophomore Drew Story (Jefferson City, Tenn.) versus freshman Josh Means (Kennesaw, Ga.). Story will take the mound for Al-Mateen's Gold team, while the rookie Means suits up for Sandos' Blue squad.
Means was the 31st rated prospect in the country by Baseball America, and played his AAU ball for the prestigious East Cobb Yankees after being MVP of the East Cobb Astros for three consecutive seasons. The right-hander also threw a perfect game in high school and possesses a long list of accolades, including multiple MVPs and earning a spot on the esteemed Area Code Team in 2006.
Story appeared in 18 games, making 12 starts for ETSU last season. The
Please visit www.ETSUBucs.com for a recap following each game this weekend. Please click the link above for lineups.


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posted by Jordan Spencer Cunningham on Thu 17th Sep 2009 05:32 UTC, submitted by ebasconp
The DragonFly 2.4 release was released just today. One can choose from a bare-bones CD ISO, a DVD ISO that includes an X environment, and a bare-bones bootable USB drive image. In addition, this is the first time DragonFlyBSD has had a 64-bit ISO. 64-bit support is stable, but there will only be limited pkgsrc support in the current release. All versions of the release can all be downloaded from one of the many mirrors.


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As we move into the fourth quarter of 2010, businesses begin to plan marketing strategy and budget for 2011. Investing in SEO training is a small price to pay for the potentially massive ROI a company can receive from it. For many businesses, Internet marketing and search are the only hope for marketing success until America pulls out of the recession.
With the right SEO training and tools, businesses can triumph and even be ahead of the curve when their competition finally jumps on board with Internet marketing. And it's inevitable that Internet marketing and search engine optimization will become the primary focus in the future of business marketing.
And investing in SEO training isn't just beneficial to businesses; professionals looking to make a career change or add additional skill sets find that training in search engine optimization is an attractive addition to their resume. And with the unemployment rate still at an incredible high, the jobless look to promising industries that, against all odds, continue to see success.
One such industry is search and Internet marketing, which continues to grow while others are shrinking. The demand for professionals who understand how to immediately apply digital marketing strategies to help ensure a business stays afloat and even grows in these times is extremely high. For some, SEO training may just be their ticket to a full-time career.
Searches that include a location stand at 20 percent of all Google searches. And the proportion of Google results pages that display a map was at 1 in 13 at the beginning of the year. The U.S. Small Business Administration says that in 2008 there were 29.6 million small businesses across the country, and just 4 million business listings on Google have been claimed by business owners. It's clear that local SEO represents both an opportunity and an imperative at this point. Smart businesses are poised to overtake any lagging competition, however local SEO doesn't simply give an edge to brick-and-mortar businesses today - it's a requirement. Today, if you can't be found online, there's a good chance you won't be found on the street.
With many small business owners busy running day-to-day operations, there's a need for streamlined instruction on the straight-forward tasks that can improve the chances of being discovered by consumers online. So here we approach local SEO as an achievable three-pronged strategy: on-site SEO for local search and discovery, off-page SEO to aid local search rankings, and optimized business listings across the Web.
When I was a little girl I would often come home from school and cry to mum that so-and-so had better something-or-others, or prettier thing-a-me-bobs, or cooler what's-a-ma-doodles. And I wanted to get some too! As with all school-aged girls, I was desperate just to fit in. A point of difference was a point of punishment, and school girls are an authority on condemnation. But mum used to say "you can't be so-and-so, they are taken. You can only be you" and so eventually (after many tough school years) I learnt that there is beauty in individuality.
Google now estimates 1 trillion URLs on the big wide Web. That's a lot of content, and if you are doing SEO your job is to compete against that mountain of mark-up. The search engine algorithms have the ability to filter duplicate content, so if you want your content to rank you have to be individual - and with that, mum's words of wisdom prevail. But, on the other hand, there is that critical factor of being normal; search engines need to see your pages as "normal" for the population. Too short and you're not informative enough, too long and you may look like you're trying to spam the system. Are you starting to see the paradox?
So what makes a winning page of written content? In a recent client meeting, we were discussing the content for a new website, some of the articles are going to be more search-orientated and some are going to be more soul-orientated.
Some topics are only relevant at certain times of the year - and so was born seasonality.
When faced with one big block of text (the barcode effect) a user can be put off, so the shape of your article--yes, just like your hips--can catch a user's eye (or cause them to glaze over). So what are we talking about here?
Conferences and SEO training are an important part of both continuing education for those already in the industry, and fast-track education for those who are ramping up their SEO and Internet marketing efforts in the coming year.
Now more than ever before, we are seeing a shift in the consciousness of businesses across the United States, moving away from traditional marketing and focusing on Internet marketing, with SEO absorbing a huge portion of marketing spend.
The shift in focus is also evident in the growth of SEO-focused topics at conferences tailored to all types of industries, and the general growth of search-specific conferences and events. These conferences show that SEO is going mainstream, and prove that SEO and Internet marketing are at the forefront of any business' survival in these digital times.
Discounts at-a-Glance
Student Loyalty Program for SEOToolSet® Training Discounts
Returning students receive 25 percent off standard and advanced training. Those signing up with the returning student (friends, colleagues, etc.) receive $300 off training.
SMX East 2010 Registration
Receive 20 percent off registration for SMX East 2010 with the discount code smx10bruceclay.
PubCon Las Vegas 2010 Registration
Receive 10 percent off registration for PubCon Las Vegas 2010 with the discount code rc-2736015.
Google debuted a new search interface with the release of Google Instant. The new search implementation allows for faster results and predictive queries using the Google Suggest feature. Google estimates that using Google Instant saves two to five seconds on every search, saving up to 11 hours every second worldwide.
SEO in Peril?
The reception to the change was fractured, with some observing that it was similar to search experiments by Yahoo! and Altavista in years past, and others taking the opportunity to declare that SEO was impossible given the rapidly shifting results. TechCrunch claimed that SEOs would need to start optimizing to random series of letters (not true) and the long-tail was declared dead, shortened into just head terms or perhaps the long-tail is more important than ever. Overall, the SEO community did not regard Google Instant as much of a threat, many considering it an opportunity. Danny Sullivan broke out the many reasons why there was no reason to worry.
Censorship and Safe Searches
Meanwhile, testing revealed apparent censorship in the suggested results. Adult terms return no suggestions and some spam terms received the same treatment. Adult-oriented queries that show up in the normal Suggest also appear to be removed from Google Instant's suggestions. However, image searches on popular women's names can still trigger somewhat eyebrow-raising suggestions. ([Kim] suggests [Kim Kardashian], for example, and many of the images displayed are only partially clothed.)
Another Boost for Brands
Google Instant also seems to continue Google's recent trend toward favoring brands over small businesses, leading to concerns that small companies would need to bid on and compete for trademarked brand names when they were avoiding it previously.
In late August, Bing officially took over 100% of Yahoo!'s organic search. Early September saw paid search starting the transition from Yahoo!'s Panama to Bing's adCenter-sponsored listings program. Support hours will be extended for adCenter during the transition.
Google has acquired Like.com, a visual search engine, at a valuation rumored to be upwards of $100 million. Google tried to acquire Like in its previous incarnation as Riya in 2005, but backed away from the deal.
Internet marketing social news site Sphinn announced that it would be moving away from a social voting model to become a collection of important industry news stories selected by an editorial team. The decision sparked controversy and discussion around the industry.
Ask.com will be closing its feedreading service, Bloglines, on October 1. Ask bought Bloglines in 2005. The service has seen declining popularity in recent years and the shutdown will allow Ask to focus more on its question-and-answer engine.
Google updated many of its services this month. In addition to the changes brought about by Google Instant, YouTube introduced live-streaming and Google AdWords' My Client Center (MCC) received a new interface for the Client Reporting tab. The search engine also recently updated its News portal, adding a collapsible right rail with recent and local news.
If you like what you've read in the SEO Newsletter, there's more Internet marketing expertise where that came from. Check out SEM Synergy every Wednesday at 3:00 p.m. Eastern and noon Pacific on WebmasterRadio.fm.
Bruce Clay and the other hosts discuss industry news, SEO tactics and marketing trends, while expert guests share their insights on methods, best practices and upcoming events. Check out the show schedule below for a look at recent shows and upcoming topics.
Air Date
Segment One
Segment Two
Segment Three
September 1
(Listen Now)
Yahoo & Bing
Brent Rangen
Brands Update
September 8
(Listen Now)
Google Beat
Google Instant
Video SEO Cautions
September 15
(Listen Now
Chris Travers
SEO Newsletter
September 22
(Coming Soon)
History of SEO & Conferences
Mark Robertson
Industry News
Got something to say? Contact the SEM Synergy team by email or on Twitter @SEMSynergy and share your thoughts, comments and questions. You might even hear your question answered on the show.
If you find yourself in Virginia Beach this September 29, consider attending the Local Marketing Expo. The conference promises to be just eight short hours to local marketing excellence.
Bend WebCAM, focusing on technical and creative requirements of a range of Internet marketing disciplines, takes place in Bend, OR September 30 to October 1.
SMX East returns to New York City October 4 to 6. Search marketers who have not yet registered can get a discount using the code smx10bruceclay. Bruce Clay will be once again offering the popular one-day SEO training seminar on October 7. This class sold out at SMX Advanced in Seattle, so register early if you're considering it.
PR and social media marketers can look forward to Inbound Marketing Summit in Boston coming up October 6 to 7.
Promoting thought leadership on topics related to Internet economy, the 3rd Annual Internet Summit occurs November 17 and 18 in Raleigh, NC.
In the U.S., the newly updated SEOToolSet® standard and advanced training and certification dates are as follows:
Simi Valley, California
Long Island, New York
Bruce Clay Australia will present two training courses for the second half of this year.
Copywriting for the Web and SEO:
One-day SEO training:
Google launched its Family Safety Center this month. The new service is designed to help parents keep their children safe online and educate them about the modern dangers of the Internet.
Yahoo! is standing up to cancer. The company pledged to donate $1 for every "Like" on its fan page, OMG Yahoo!, received between September 10 to 19, up to $100,000 for the Stand Up To Cancer fundraiser.
For the fourth year running, Bruce Clay, Inc. has landed a place on Inc. magazine's Inc. 5000 list of the fastest growing private companies in the U.S. The Inc. 5000 list annually profiles the nation's top privately held, for profit, and independent companies.
Social media continues to impress. A recent case study by an organ donor effort showed success in raising awareness to their cause through the use of the "Twibbons" service. By the numbers: 350 people visited the Twibbon campaign, More than 140 people added a Twibbon to their Facebook or Twitter pictures. There were 94 unique tweets to the Twibbon page, and 17 people posted Facebook comments on the Twibbon page.
Google Webmaster Tools has improved its rich snippets testing tool, making error reporting more robust. The update also allows for better display for breadcrumbs in SERPs. There is still no way to prevent breadcrumbs from showing on a search result.
Numbers released recently by Twitter execs tout the service recently reached 145 million accounts created. The usage of the site continues to rise as well, showing those accounts are not merely dead space.
Recently launched is a whole new Twitter, complete with updated design, showing mentions, retweets, searches and lists above the timeline on the left of the screen.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt made claims this month that YouTube is "nearing profitability", matching earlier industry predictions that YouTube would reach that mark in third or fourth quarter 2010.
Facebook adds social endorsement stats to ads,, thus adding an element of peer pressure to the social community's day-to-day interaction.
Nielsen released data based on a recent survey of mobile users that Facebook is the most popular app , followed by weather and maps/search.
If you have any questions or comments on any of the above Internet marketing news items or if you would like to suggest topics for future search engine optimization articles, please contact us at Bruce Clay, Inc.
Print the full SEO Newsletter


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How do they age? I just started mine last night, when I got it in the mail and it says it's already 2 yrs old. My connections don't age like that...
aging with the UK tama
Started by Kelrox369 , Oct 09 2004 06:26 AM
Started09 Oct 2004
Last Post09 Oct 2004
Posted 09 October 2004 - 01:06 PM ( #2 )
they only stay as a baby for afew hours then age to 1 after a short nap becoming a toddler, i think they`re a toddler for like a day so it`s very fast from birth to being 2


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One of the most successful scrapbooking books of the past few years was Scrapbook PageMaps [Amazon.com – $16.49], a sketch guide to scrapbooking by Becky Fleck. (If Fleck's name sounds familiar, it may be because she was just named Editor of Scrapbook & Cards Today, where she has been a longtime contributor.) Fans of the original volume will now be happy to learn of the publication of Scrapbook PageMaps 2 [Amazon.com – $18.47], which is now available.
Scrapbook PageMaps 2 is very similar in format to its predecessor. The book contains 92 sketches and 64 of those are also included in the form of punch out cards in the back of the book. (By comparison, volume had only 60 sketches and cards.) A nice new feature of volume 2 is the 5 pages at the back of the book devoted to mini-profiles of the artists who contributed to the book.
The new PageMaps volume is divided into five chapters. Two of the chapters are devoted to layouts. One of these chapters is intended to be more "traditional" in style and one chapter is supposedly of more "creative"-styled layouts, but there seemed very little distinction between the two to me. In the end it doesn't matter how they are categorized, though, since all the sketches are excellent and the sample layouts are lovely.
A third chapter of layouts is devoted to ideas for digital or hybrid layouts. The examples in this section aren't so heavily digital in style, however, that they will turn off traditional paper scrapbookers or be useless to them as a creative starting point.
Several of the chapters are completely new concepts from the previous volume of PageMaps. One chapter contains sketches for various sizes of cards. This new section was full of wonderful ideas (based on 16 sketches, 5 of which are available in the card section) that I look forward to trying out. Another new section is called "Beyond the Page" and contains sketches intended for items like mini-albums and decor items. This was my least favorite section of the book because I found many of the items to be barely recognizable from the sketches they were based on, and the projects shown were very complex and busy.
Besides just the sketches and the accompanying samples with supply lists, PageMaps 2 has plenty to offer. The descriptive text that accompanies the samples is often quite informative about the item's construction or design modifications from the base sketch. There are also nice tips and mini-tutorials scattered throughout the book that will have a little bit of something to offer for scrapbookers of every level. (Even after my 12 years of experience, they taught me a few cool things!)
Probably the item that most people will continue to use after reading Scrapbook PageMaps 2 are the punch out reference cards in the back of the book containing 64 of the sketches. A popular feature of the first book, the cards have actually been improved for the second book. Instead of providing an assemble-it-yourself box for holding the cards, that punch-out page has been converted into four more cards than were provided with the last volume (64 instead of 60). The cards now have a hole punched in the corner of them for mounting and storing them on a binder ring, instead. It's such an excellent idea that upon seeing it, I immediately knew I had to get out my hole punch and put similar holes in my cards from volume one, allowing them all to be stored together on a single ring.
The new cards are almost the same size as the original volume's cards, just slightly wider and without the rounded corners. Simplicity rules on the volume 2 cards, to very usable effect. Instead of patterned banners to denote which type of sketch is on a card, the card simply has a text header in colored type that announces the type of sketch (for instance, 12×12 Double is printed in green). This avoids distracting from the sample layout or the sketch. But perhaps the best improvement is the use of landscape orientation on the cards containing double paged layouts. In the previous volume's card set, those layouts had been squeezed onto a portrait orientation card, making them incredibly cramped and tiny.
With 92 sketches in the book but only 64 cards, about a third of the book's content is left off of the cards. Here's how the cards break down by sketch type:
- 12 x 12 single layouts – 24
- 12 x 12 double layouts – 9
- 8.5 x 11 vertical layouts – 10
- 8.5 x 11 horizontal layouts – 9
- 8.5 x 11 double layouts – 7
- cards – 5
All in all, if you are a sketch user or would like to try them, I highly recommend Scrapbook PageMaps 2 [Amazon.com – $18.47] as an addition to your scrapbooking library. It not only lives up to the reputation of volume one but exceeds it – a difficult task for a sequel.
How would you like to add a copy of Scrapbook Page Maps 2 to your library by winning one? Scrapbook Update has a copy to give away!
How To Enter: All you have to do to be one of the lucky winners is leave a comment on this entry before Midnight U.S. eastern time on Thursday night, October 7th. Make sure you include your email address in the line reserved for it on the comment form (for your own protection, don't put it in the text of the comment, where it will be visible to the public – just in the line labeled "email" in the form where only Scrapbook Update staff can see it). We will need it to notify you if you are a winner. Winners will be drawn by random drawing from all eligible entries. One entry per person. U.S. mailing addresses only please.


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Bastya Wellness Hotel - Miskolctapolca
Review Summary
City: Miskolctapolca | Map
Miskolctapolcai út 1-3. 3519 Miskolctapolca, Hungary
BHS Reservation Phone number: (+36-1) 225-3384, (+36-1) 225-3385
BHS Reservation Fax: (+36-1) 202-0319
Bastya Wellness Hotel welcomes guets in the heart of Miskolctapolca, right by the famous thermal bath located in a cave, offering comfortable rooms, a unique wellness centre and a first-class restaurant. Apart from the spa, located 100 metres from the hotel, the neighbourhood includes pretty forests on the Buk Nature Reservation Park, perfect for recreation and relaxation.
The three-star hotel has a unique hydromassage tub that offers various beauty and healing bath treatments. The wellness centre also includes a jacuzzi, an indoor pool, Finnish saunas with dip pool, steam cabin, fitness room, an outdoor pool and a Dermalife machine; complex therapies as well as Thalasso treatments are available. During the summer season (from the end of June until the beginning of October), an outdoor swimming pool, a children's pool and a playground can be used as well.
Booking information
Check in time: 14:00
Check out time: 10:00