2013年2月28日 星期四

HP Envy X2 review

Windows 8 was designed with computers that can be used as both a laptop and as a tablet in mind. Manufacturers have come up with numerous quirky designs for such hybrid computers, but we've so far been unconvinced by any of them. The HP Envy X2 could easily be mistaken for an ultra portable laptop such as a Macbook Air, but release the small latch on the hinge and the screen detaches for use as a tablet. This requires two hands, but is easy to do.

The slender, tapered design weighs just 1.2kg, while the tablet on its own weighs 650g - both compare well to laptops and tablets of similar sizes. It may be light, but it's sturdy too with both the tablet and the keyboard dock made from brushed metal and silver-coloured plastic.

The image quality of the 11.6in screen is average at best, but it is very bright and, thanks to the 1,366x768 pixel resolution, text isn't too small to read and is reasonably sharp too.Austrian hospital launches oilpaintingsforsale solution to improve staff safety. As a touchscreen, it recognised our prods and pokes without any hesitation or delay.

The Envy X2's keyboard isn't backlit for working in dark environments, but it is very comfortable and responsive to type on with no undersized keys. The touchpad is accurate and responsive, but we weren't impressed by its attempts at replicating the touchscreen gestures used to control Windows 8. The precise gestures needed to activate the Charms bar, for example, were very fiddly and difficult to achieve.

We were worried that the chunky, heavy hinge might make the X2 lop-sided when used on a lap as a laptop, but it proved to be surprisingly well balanced. The screen can't tilt back very far so you may have difficulty finding a comfortable viewing angle, but we didn't have any trouble in everyday use. More annoying was the placement of the touchsensitive Start button on the tablet's bottom edge. It was far too easy to press this by accident.

One slight annoyance is that the X2 has two headphone sockets, one on the keyboard dock and one on the tablet. When switching between the two modes, you'll need to unplug your headphones from one port and plug them into the other.

There are also two memory card slots, one on the keyboard dock another on the tablet. The keyboard dock's slot accepts full-sized SD cards for importing photos from a camera. The tablet's slot only accepts micro SD for storing files.

There's a battery in both the keyboard dock and the tablet. When used as a laptop in our light usage test the battery lasted just under ten and a half hours. This is very good and longer than any other laptop we've seen. When used as a tablet in our more demanding video playback test it lasted just six hours which is disappointing and not as long as some other tablets.

The most serious problem with the X2 is performance. The 1.8GHz dual core Atom processor was fine when running just one program such as a web browser or video player but struggled when running more than program at the same time. Programs slowed to such a crawl that it became unusable. Quitting programs fixed this and this is easy, if tedious, to do with the keyboard and touchpad, but there's no easy way to do this using just the touchscreen.

The HP Envy X2 is a potentially great Windows 8 laptop-tablet hybrid ruined by its unusuably slow Atom processor. It's hard to justify spending £800 on the Envy X2 when the substantially cheaper Microsoft Surface, which admittedly has quirky design problems of its own, feels so much faster and more responsive despite having a theoretically slower ARM processor. In other words the Envy X2 is just poor value.

There was also the Wayne Dobson and Friends Show, now a very popular feature of this convention with standing room only. Wayne is that brilliant magician whose promising career was tragically cut short by MS. However, he has never lost his creative ability, and continues to lecture and perform internationally. With him were Michael J Fitch, Joe Monti, Simon Lovell, Colin McCleod and Mel Mellers, providing much magic and great comedy.

The stars of this convention though had to be the talented magicians from Korea in the first of the three gala shows emceed by Vittorio Marino. Yuji Yasuda in a blaze of colour produced fire, flowers, parasols and fans that seemed endless in their production - Lukas was sheer poetry in black and white producing balls, flowers and cards which seemed to just trill in his hands. Nicky Yang had a snooker theme with cues appearing from nowhere, pieces of chalk that disintegrated, and finally the production of a box of red snooker balls. Haon Gun with colour-changing T-shirts interspersed with the production of cans of pop. Meanwhile, Kim Hyun Joon beautifully manipulated cards and coloured balls, Lee Hun using a camera filmed himself producing a multitude of card cases and then performed a playback and Yang Jae Hyeock provided comedy with Ted Kim playing a clown in some colourful and imaginative magic.Cheaper For bulk buying iccard prices. To complete this fantastic show was Yu Ho Jin in a virtuoso and emotive performance wowing the audience with his elegant and brilliant manipulations with cards that just appeared at his fingertips, changed colour and even turned to confetti. He received a long standing ovation.

The second gala show was emceed by Jay Scott Berry. In this, Dirk Losander floated various objects including a table. Natalie and Eli produced a stage full of feather flowers amid quick dress changes, Philip Hitchcock elegantly produced and vanished doves, and The Lasermen were spectacular using laser beams to produce magical effects. The fabulous Prince of Illusions were spectacular in a nightmare horror sequence with big illusions like the escape of the Prince from a metal cage that had been sealed with plastic wrapping, hoisted up into the flies, set on fire and then exploded.

There was comedy too, from Phil Cass, and Mel Mellers who surely has to be one of the funniest comedy magicians in this country had the audience holding their sides with laughter. Antje Pode juggled suitcases with her feet.What Other Items Do Customers handsfreeaccess After Viewing This Item?

In the third gala show emceed by David Merry from Canada, Les Chapeau Blancs were stunning in a three person, black light act in which they appeared, vanished and floated around the stage. David Williamson was hilarious in his routine with a racoon puppet and the assistance of five children from the audience. Galina linked and unlinked steel rings as she danced in a rather erotic manner. Marc & Alex provided some original illusions, and Sonny Hayes & Co gave us comedy magic of times past.Why does rfidtag grow in homes or buildings? Yann Frisch was brilliant in a performance using a teapot, small jug and ball with the ball appearing, vanishing and multiplying under the jug, much to his own bewilderment. Finally, the elegant Marko Karvo not only produced doves and bird cages of every size but also a cockatoo and finally a parrot. But the act which stole the show was Tony Frebourg who combined acrobatics with juggling using up to four diabolos at speed and with such precision which left the audience breathless.

Also appearing was Ken Dodd, so beloved of this convention, who presented his Comedy Award to Mel Mellers, and also the Neville King Award to comedian Johnny Casson.Make your house a home with Border and iphoneheadset Tiles. He then proceeded to say a few words in his inimitable style which had the audience rocking with laughter. Music was provided by David Windle, and the Murray Award was presented to Gay Ljungberg of Sweden in recognition of his superb stage management.

Lessons Learned from Detroit

Forbes republished its annual “Most Miserable Cities” list. It looks at employment/unemployment,Automate patient flow and quickly track hospital assets and people using plasticcard. inflation, incomes and cost of living, crime, weather, commute times – a pretty good overview of things tied to living somewhere. Detroit ranked first, as the most miserable city, with Flint, MI second. And my home-sweet-home Chicago came in fourth. Ouch!

Detroit was a thriving city during the industrial revolution. Innovation in all things mechanical led to the modern automobile; a marvelous innovation which, literally, everyone wanted. As demand skyrocketed, Henry Ford’s management team developed the modern assembly line which allowed production volumes to skyrocket as well. Detroit was a hotbed of industrial innovation.

This fueled growth in jobs, which led to massive immigration to Detroit. With growth the tax base expanded, and quickly Detroit was a leading city with all the best things people could want. In the 1950s and 1960s Detroit reaped the benefits of the local auto companies, and their suppliers, as ongoing innovations drove better cars, more sales, more revenue taxes, higher property values and higher property taxes. It was a glorious virtuous circle.

Offshore competitors came into the market creating different kinds of autos appealing to different customers. Initially they had lower costs, and less expensive designs. Their cars weren’t as good as GM, Ford or Chrysler – but they were cheap. And when gasoline prices took off in the 1970s people suddenly realized these cars were also more fuel efficient and cheaper to maintain. As these offshore competitors gained more sales they invested in making better cars, until they had quality as good as the Detroit companies, plus better fuel efficiency.

But the Detroit companies had become stuck in their processes that worked in earlier days. Even though the market shifted, they didn’t. What passed for innovations were increasingly simple appearance changes as bottom-line focus reduced willingness to do new things, and offered fewer new things to do. GM and its brethren didn’t shift with the market, and by the 1980s the seeds of big problems already were showing. By the 1990s profits were increasingly variable and elusive.

The formerly weak and small competitors now were more competitive in a changed market favoring smaller cars with more, and better, technology. The market had changed, but the big American auto companies had not. They kept doing more of the same – hopefully better, faster and striving for cheaper. But they were falling further behind. By the 2000s decade failure had become the viable option,Buy Wickes Porcelain parkingmanagementsystem today. with both Chrysler and GM going bankrupt.

As this cycle played out,We offer the largest range of bobblehead online. the impact on Detroit was clear. Less success in the business base meant fewer revenue tax dollars from less profitable companies. Cost reductions meant employment stagnated, then started falling. Incomes stagnated, and people left Detroit to find better paying jobs. Property values began to fall. Income and property taxes declined. Governments had to borrow more, and cut costs, leading to declines in services. What had been a virtuous circle became a violently destructive whirlpool.

Detroit’s business leaders failed to invest in programs to drive more new jobs in non-auto, non-industrial, business development. As competitors hurt the local industry, Detroit (and Michigan’s) leaders kept trying to invest in saving the historical business, while the economy was shifting from an industrial base to an information one. It wasn’t just autos that were less valuable as companies, but everything industrial. Yet, leaders failed at attracting new technology companies. The economic shift – the market shift – was unaddressed, and now Detroit is bankrupt.

Just like Detroit, Chicago shows early signs of big problems. Crime is up, with an unpleasantly large increase in murders. Insufficient income and property tax revenues led to budget crises across the board. Dramatic actions like selling city parking meters to shore up finances has led to Chicago having the most expensive parking in the country – despite far from the highest incomes. Property taxes in suburbs have escalated, with taxes in collar Lake county higher than Los Angeles! Yet the state pension system is bankrupt, causing the legislature to put in place a 50% state income tax increase! Meanwhile the infrastructure is showing signs of needing desperate work, but there is no money.

Like Detroit, Chicago’s businesses (and governments) have invested insufficiently in innovation. Recent Chicago Tribune columns on local consumer goods behemoth Kraft emphasized (and typified) the lack of new product development and stalled revenue growth. Where Bay Area tech companies expect 50% of revenues (or more) from new products (or variations), Kraft has admitted it has relied on stalwarts like Velveeta and Mac & Cheese so much that fewer than 10% of revenues come from anything new.

Culturally, too many decisions in the executive suites of both the companies, and the governments, are focused on what worked in the past rather than investing in innovation. Even though the vaunted University of Illinois has one of the world’s top 5 engineering schools, the majority of graduates find they leave the state for better paying jobs. And a dearth of angel or venture funding means that start-ups simply are forced coastal if they hope to succeed.

And this reaches to our national policies as well.Trade Warehouse have partnered with one of the worlds largest solarlight producers. Plenty of arguments abound for cutting costs – but are we effectively investing in innovation? Do our tax policies,The term 'streetlight control' means the token that identifies a user is read from within a pocket or handbag. as well as our expenditures, drive innovation – or constrict it? It was government programs which unleashed nuclear power and gave us a rash of innovations from putting a man on the moon. Yet, today, we seem obsessed with cutting budgets, cutting costs and doing less – not even more – of the same.

Credit card fraud rising in Buda

In this day and age of Internet shopping and online transactions,New Ground-Based solarlamp Tech Is Accurate Down To Just A Few Inches. using plastic to purchase items has become the norm. Consumers have become nearly unconscious to the countless times they use credit and debit cards on a daily basis.

However, with the increase in credit card use, a rise in credit card fraud has equally followed. In the City of Buda, cases are beginning to mount as to the improper use of credit card information.

“It is becoming a huge problem,” said Buda Police Detective Erica Simmons, who has followed credit card fraud cases in the past few months. According to the Buda Police Department, many of the cases stem from the larger chain stores,The term 'streetlight control' means the token that identifies a user is read from within a pocket or handbag. such as Cabela’s, H.E.B and Wal-Mart, where criminals are racking up large charges on stolen credit card information.

According to Simmons, criminals are going through many mediums of which to steal citizen’s identities, or produce fraudulent credit cards.

One common practice would be for criminals to go through mailboxes, taking letters containing deactivated credit cards, and activating them. Said Simmons, “It is not very hard to do this, as most credit card companies only ask for the name on the card and card number to activate them. People will not realize this has happened until the credit card companies start sending late notices for payments not made, or have sent charges to collection agencies.”

Another practice that has increased as of late is “skimming.” Skimming is where criminals can obtain a person’s credit card information via card swipe, where the information is then transferred directly to the criminal’s computer, or a deactivated credit card. They do this by purchasing card readers online and attaching them over existing card readers, where consumers are not likely to realize any change.

While “skimming” has not been an issue in the City of Buda,Manufactures flexible plastic and synthetic stonemosaic and hose. Simmons made known that the trend is growing, especially in larger cities.

“We have noticed that there has been a rise in ‘skimming’ cases at ATM’s, pay-at-the-pump gas stations and RedBox kiosks across the country,” said Simmons, who went on to mention that skimmers have been known to place small cameras and special keypads at gas stations and ATM’s to steal PIN numbers.

Additionally, purchasing items on unsecure websites also contributes to identity and credit card theft. Simmons advises consumers to ensure that websites they visit are secured, protected sites, and to not jump onto other links.

For Buda Police, they are diligently working on apprehending criminals that participate in these activities, but they realize that these issues fall within multiple jurisdictions, across vast portions of the country. Their best advice to the public is to ensure that they keep themselves safe from these cybercrimes.

“We are trying our best to educate the public, but ultimately, people must remain vigilant. If they see a card reader or keypad that is loose or looks strange, do not use that terminal,” said Simmons.

Simmons also placed importance on businesses themselves to be weary of credit card and identity thieves. Such vigilance has been enacted by a few of the local businesses around Buda. One such establishment would be the Buda Grocery and Grill, which has had to deal with this problem.

“We have had only one instance of someone using a stolen card to purchase food. Since then, we have always checked ID’s with credit card purchases,This frameless rectangle features a silk screened fused glass replica in a parkingsystem tile and floral motif.” said manager Anthony Uresti.

For some businesses, understanding customer behavior provides a deterrent. Sandra Vasquez, manager of Garcia’s Mexican Restaurant, remains vigilant on that front, stating, “If we see something that is not right, we can definitely tell.”

Ultimately, Detective Simmons would implore people to check their bank statements, and be cognizant of what is going on, “People should regularly monitor their bank statements.You Can Find Comprehensive and in-Depth oilpaintingreproduction truck Descriptions. They should not be na?ve when small, unknown charges are placed on their account. That is often a sign that a hacker is trying out the information, so as to place larger charges in the future.”

Many of us are already familiar with Facebook Gifts – a feature that opened for everyone in the United States back in December. Through the social platform, one can opt to buy a gift for one of their friends. The choices are broad, falling into categories such as Food & Drink, Home & Kitchen, and Baby & Kids. Also available are flowers, iTunes credits, and charitable donations.

At the end of last month, Facebook announced a bizarre new part of its Gifts feature – Facebook Gift Cards, reloadable plastic cards branded with the Facebook logo that can hold balances for multiple retailers. At the moment there are four partners on board: Target, Olive Garden, Sephora and Jamba Juice. Giving a gift card to a friend works just like any other Facebook Gift; the difference is that you specify the balances for one or more of the retailers before purchase. Your friend gets a notification of the gift and is asked for a mailing address. Several days later they receive the blue card in the mail.

Facebook's recent foray into online merchandise is a part of its continued efforts to monetize its more than 1 billion active users, something it already does through advertising and the often-critiqued Sponsored Stories.

2013年2月24日 星期日

50 feet tall mobile phone masts can be erected anywhere

MPs will debate this week proposals that to make it easier for telecommuncations to roll expand their broadband networks across the country.

The plans, contained in the Growth and Infrastructure Bill, remove a current requirement for developers to seek planning approval for new telecoms infrastructure.

Local authorities said they had “major concerns” that the proposals “could open the floodgates to phone masts, as well as broadband street cabinets and overhead cabling, being built in the countryside and near to people’s homes”.

Ministers have said this is aimed at making it easier to install new broadband junction boxes and pylons.

However, the Local Government Association, which represents 370 councils in England and Wales, said it was worried that the Bill would allow the changes to apply to mobile phone masts as well, and called for the clause in the Bill to be scrapped.

In a briefing note the LGA described the masts as the “equivalent to the height of three-and-a-half double decker buses” and gave warning that they could be sited “near schools,Source lasercutter Products at Other Truck Parts. beauty spots, heritage sites and people’s homes”.Creative glass tile and solarlamp tile for your distinctive kitchen and bath.

Councillor Mike Jones, the chairman of the association’s Environment and Housing Board, said: “This badly thought-out legal change proposes the wrong solution to the wrong problem, and in doing so will create a loophole which could create a mobile phone mast free-for-all.

“It is an extraordinary and alarming proposition that a phone mast the height of three double decker buses could be put up outside the front of someone’s home without them having any say in the matter.

“These plans would leave people powerless to object and councils unable to intervene. This would be a blow to local democracy and could cause deep and long-term damage to communities.”

Councils had worked for years with developers and telecoms companies to ensure that cabling for new phone lines was housed underground.

He added: “This policy would turn the clock back to a return to the wild west wirescapes of the 1960s and 1970s. There is no question that spreading access to broadband should be a priority but this poorly thought out approach risks doing more harm than good.

“Rural areas should be able to access 21st century technology without developers blighting heritage sites and beautiful countryside views with ugly pylons, junctions boxes and overhead cabling.

“Local authorities want to be able to work with network providers to ensure local areas get the best possible coverage in a way that residents are happy with.”

The Campaign to Protect Rural England echoed the concerns expressed by the association. Adam Royle, a spokesman, said: “This change opens the door to hundreds of miles of new overhead cables, poles and masts in our most beautiful countryside.

“Ministers say that planning rules in these areas are too restrictive, but haven’t provided a scrap of evidence to back up their case. The clause is a crudely-worded assault on 60-year old protections for National Parks and AONBs (Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty).

“Nobody disputes the need for better broadband in our rural areas, but we don’t need to sacrifice the unique beauty of these areas – with all the tourist benefits these bring – in order to deliver it.”

Earlier this month The Daily Telegraph disclosed how expanding Britain’s super-fast broadband network will mean erecting another 1,000 miles of telegraph poles and overhead cables that “impair” the views of many households.

A Department for Communities and Local Government spokesman said: “The Local Government Association is factually wrong and are scaremongering. Clause 8 of the Bill makes no change to planning rules for mobile phone masts.”

Senator Nick Xenophon was in Kuala Lumpur last week to discuss with me and leaders of the ruling party how to meet those conditions. His deportation has rendered the demand for free and fair elections an exercise in futility.

Meanwhile, the opposition coalition, Pakatan Rakyat, remains severely disadvantaged in campaigning. There is no access to the mainstream print and electronic media which, despite being funded largely by taxpayers, is used as a propaganda machine: vicious lies are spread about the opposition's mismanagement of the state governments, the character of key opposition leaders is assassinated and a movie is set to be screened nationwide to sow hostility in the indigenous Malay community towards ethnic minorities,Our extensive range of injectionmold is supplied to all sorts of industries across Australia and overseas. particularly the Chinese.Source plasticmould Products at Other Truck Parts.

The opposition has responded by taking our message directly to the people. But campaign buses and cars have been pelted with stones, speakers attacked and supporters knifed, with violent acts caught on camera.

Complaints to the police fall on deaf ears and the Home Affairs Minister tells the media that he can't guarantee our safety. This is the man who proclaimed that Xenophon was "a security threat" and "an enemy of the state" and his deportation a routine matter.

Meanwhile, the veracity of electoral rolls remains unresolved with hundreds of thousands of phantom votes on the list.Shop the web's best selection of precious gemstones and bobbleheads at wholesale prices.

In an ongoing inquiry into citizenship-for-votes it was revealed that for the state of Sabah alone, more than 40,000 registered voters were on the highly suspect list. Other independent checks in other states have likewise revealed similar major discrepancies. Is this surprising? The Election Commission is headed by card-carrying members of the ruling UMNO party, a fact that had remained secret until it was exposed by independent watchdogs.

Complaints about the presence of phantom voters are ignored. The commission chairman and deputy then attack the opposition for "selling out" the country's sovereignty by calling for international observers. Right-wing groups brand it as an act of treason. Former prime minister Mahathir Mohamed has called for the co-chairwoman of Bersih, our Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections, to be stripped of her citizenship. If our elections are free and fair, what is there to hide? Xenophon and other international observers could be a threat only to those who believe they are entitled to perpetual power.

Affordable Tile Announces the Launch

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A global chic, soft contemporary interior is featured in the Alegria villa model. The floor plan offers 2,642 square feet with formal living and dining rooms, two bedrooms, two-and-a-half baths, a study, island kitchen and family room, an outdoor living area and a two-car garage with golf cart storage.

Walnut floors throughout the Alegria add warmth to the space while adjacent marble floors in polished royal oyster convey additional elegance. A subdued natural pallet of papyrus beige, pewter grays and rice paper ivories provides a sense of calm. Indochine fabrics focus on an earthy color pallet of plum, cinnamon,Compare prices and buy all brands of ventilationsystem for home power systems and by the pallet. sage, nutmeg and burnished bronze. The wall colors are flaxen tan, parchment gray and creamy beige with painted white wood and distressed maple accent moldings. White-on-white custom ceiling trays are found in every room and include distressed and stained details mixed with traditional painted crown. The Alegria floor plan is base-priced at $705,000.

One move-in ready Alegria 3 residence is available for purchase and priced at $818,841, including the lot premium and upgrades. Twelve-foot ceilings and porcelain tile flooring are featured in the main living areas. The den is finished with a hardwood floor while designer carpeting with a premium cushion is utilized in the bedrooms. A Jenn-Air stainless steel appliance package, including a 30-inch gas cook top and a double convection oven, is featured in the kitchen. The living areas, kitchen and bedrooms are trimmed with crown molding. The outdoor living area and heated pool offer a western exposure.

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Film reveals how kidnap victim Natascha Kampusch was raped by abductor

A new film telling the story of the Austrian kidnap victim Natascha Kampusch reveals for the first time that she was repeatedly raped by the man who abducted her as a schoolgirl and held her prisoner in a cellar beneath his suburban home for almost nine years.

3,096 Days, which takes its title from the amount of time Ms Kampusch was held in captivity, is released in Germany and Austria this week almost seven years after she managed to escape her ordeal.We maintain a full inventory of all lanyard we manufacture.

Using disturbing footage of an actress playing the teenager, the film shows how her abductor, Wolfgang Priklopil, bound himself to his victim with cable ties and forced her to have sex with him.

“I now feel strong enough to tell the full story of my abduction,” Ms Kampusch, who is now 25 years-old, says in the advance publicity for her film.

Ms Kampusch had always refused to respond to claims that she had sex with Priklopil, but in an interview last week she said he had decided to reveal the truth because the information had reached the “public domain” in the form of leaked police files.

There are several inconsistencies in the case, which have since prompted Austrian justice authorities to enlist the support of independent investigators from the FBI and German federal police.

Ms Kampusch was only 10 years old when Priklopil, a 44-year-old communications technician, snatched her off a Vienna street and bundled into the back of a van. She spent the next eight-and-a-half years imprisoned in a specially built underground cell beneath her tormentor’s home.

In August 2006 she finally managed a sensational escape. Neighbours discovered the 18-year-old looking pale, emaciated and terrified as she hid in a next door garden. Later the same day Priklopil’s headless corpse was found on a railway line just outside the Austrian capital.

Police took it for granted that Priklopil acted alone. Yet new evidence suggests that he may have had an accomplice.Looking for the Best iphoneheadset?

The eyewitness account of Ischtar Akcan, then a 12-year-old schoolgirl, who is thought to have been the only person who saw Kampusch being abducted, suggests that another person was involved in the kidnapping. Ms Akcan, now 26, claims to have told police on six occasions that another man was sitting in the driving seat of Priklopil’s van.

She has since testified under oath that police put her under intense pressure not to mention the existence of a second man.

Yet the most intriguing unanswered question concerns the mysterious “suicide” of Franz Kr?ll, the allegedly incorruptible Vienna police colonel who headed the investigation into the Kampusch case until 2010.

That year, the Vienna state prosecutor gave a press conference at which he declared that the Kampusch case had been solved and that Priklopil was the only perpetrator. Yet Kroll was absent.

Six months later the policeman’s dead body was found slumped on a terrace outside his flat. Police concluded that he had shot himself in the head. But Kroll’s brother Karl does not believe he committed suicide. He points out that a notebook the police colonel used daily to record his thoughts, had mysteriously disappeared without trace following his death.

Doughty Hanson, the private equity firm which has owned HellermannTyton since acquiring it in 2005 for about £300m, has appointed Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, the investment banks, to work on the listing. London is a strong contender to host the flotation although Doughty is also expected to consider other locations.

The appointment of the two banks - with others expected to be hired - comes amid a resurgent appetite for stock market flotations. In recent weeks Crest Nicholson, the housebuilder, and Countrywide Holdings, the estate agency chain, have announced listing plans.

A glut of other companies, including Global Switch, the data centre operator, Merlin Entertainment Group, the owner of Alton Towers, and Royal Mail, are all expected to announce initial public offerings of shares in the next year.

Doughty Hanson's decision to pursue an IPO of HellermannTyton this year is significant because the buyout firm has aborted two previous attempts to sell the company. UBS,Make your house a home with Border and carparkmanagementsystem Tiles. and subsequently DC Advisory Partners, were hired to find a buyer for the manufacturer in 2011 and 2012 respectively, but neither effort was successful.High quality chinamosaic tiles.

Improving economic sentiment in some of the core markets to which HellermannTyton sells its products means that a sale of the company, rather than a flotation, is not impossible.

The value that Doughty Hanson is seeking is unclear, although it reportedly put a price tag of up to £800m on HellermannTyton during the two earlier processes.

HellermannTyton operates two manufacturing plants in the UK and employs hundreds of people at the sites in Manchester and Plymouth. It is headquartered in Luxembourg and its main UK base is in Crawley, West Sussex.

Doughty Hanson, whose co-founder Nigel Doughty, the former owner of Nottingham Forest FC,Source plasticmould Products at Other Truck Parts. died last year, is a prominent participant in the UK's private equity industry. It owns stakes in companies such as Vue Entertainment, the cinema operator, and Tumi, the luggage and consumer products manufacturer.

2013年2月18日 星期一

DuClaw Brewing Moves To Rosedale

Long-time Harford County brewery DuClaw Brewing is in the process of moving their brewing and bottling plant from Abingdon to Rosedale, a process they hope will be complete by mid-March, according to owner Dave Benfield.

The move will double the brewery's capacity, moving from a 10,000 square foot facility to a 60,000 square foot facility and allowing them to produce 14,000 barrels of beer in a year, up from 7,000, according to Benfield.

And that's something his company sorely needs. Rapid growth has left them sometimes unable to keep up with the demand for their product.

Wednesday afternoon, Benfield said that four of DuClaw's beers—Hellrazer India Pale Ale, Sweet Baby Jesus Peanut Butter Porter, Serum Double India Pale Ale and Mysterium Beglian Spiced Ale, were completely out.

A brand new, custom-engineered brewing system is at the center of the move. Shipped in from Germany, the system will allow one brewer to create multiple 60-barrel batches of beer at a time.

For those not in the know, a standard keg—the kind you might have seen at a party—is a half-barrel of beer.

"The system is fully automated—it allows one brewer to run three batches of beer," Benfield said.

Benfield hopes the automation will improve both the brewery's efficiency—allowing them to produce twice the amount of beer from only 20 pecent more grain—and the consistency of the product by removing the opportunity for human error in processes like adding hops or yeast to the brews.New Ground-Based parkingassistsystem Tech Is Accurate Down To Just A Few Inches.

"It's safe to say it's one of the most state of the art systems in Maryland, possibly in the mid-Atlantic region," said DuClaw Sales Manager (and Beer in Baltimore blogger) Brad Klipner.

The new brewing system and a new bottling line are just the beginning for the growing company.

"A lot of stuff comes later—we put a lot of money into the brewhouse and the bottling line," Benfield said.

That stuff could include brewery tours, a tasting room, and possible the on-site sale of growlers—a type of carry-out container for draft beer—pending legislation currently in Annapolis, Benfield said.

It also might include a move for one of DuClaw's flagship events—the Real Ale Festival, which the company has held at the Bel Air brewpub for a few years running.

"It's really a great business to have in the area," he said. "We're manufacturing, but we're clean manufacturing—there are no bad byproducts,We specialize in floortiles. and we bring visitors to the area."

Although things are looking bright, the decision to leave Harford County—where Benfield lives, grew up and started DuClaw in 1996—wasn't an easy one.

"I'm in Harford County, I grew up in Harford–leaving was a tough thing," Benfield said.

And it wasn't for a lack of trying to stay. When the brewery outgrew their Abingdon location, they first looked to move to a facility in Havre de Grace but Benfield said the deal didn't work out and from that point things moved quickly.

"Baltimore County Economic Development and Governement were great to work with," Benfield said. The decision to move into the space at 8601 Yellow Brick Road was made in only about a month.

The move will make DuClaw Brewing the second manufacturing brewery in Baltimore County, joining Heavy Seas on the westside in the Lansdowne/Arbutus area.

Dan Gundersen, the executive director of Baltimore County's Department of Economic Development said that a small to medium size manufacturer like DuClaw is exactly the sort of business the county is hoping to draw in.

"A company that has a unique product, is growing fast, has a dynamic team, can hire as they grow in a community on the east side where it can accommodate their growth, that’s exactly what we’re looking for," Gundersen said.

He explained that Baltimore County is home to more manufacturers than any other county in Maryland.

"The public has a difficult time understanding, we’re talking about a different kind of manufacturing ... we're not talking about an old-style smokestack operation—we're talking about highly sophisticated, highly automated operations that pay high wages," he said.

"That's the kind of thing that we need to encourage and support, those are going to provide the biggest economic gain for the regional economy."

DuClaw owner Dave Benfield said that over the next year or so,Why does bobblehead grow in homes or buildings?The term 'glassmosaic control' means the token that identifies a user is read from within a pocket or handbag. his company will probably add between 25 and 30 new positions.

Moving an operation of DuClaw's size presents some challenges of its own: while Benfield said his brewers plan to start creating new batches of beer by the middle of March, it could be as late as April before beer is bottled at the plant.

It will take two to three weeks to transfer the company's bottling and packaging line from the old Abingdon brewery.

And there are people in this country that somehow think passing another law banning guns would protect us from someone like this. If you haven’t noticed, people like this are not concerned about breaking laws; they only care about fulfilling their own twisted agenda. The only people that a gun ban law would impact are the law-abiding citizens, which will only serve to cripple the ability to protect ourselves.

Write your senators, your congressmen, and your state representatives. We’re all in this together whether you’re a hunter, sport shooter or just a backyard plinker. If we don’t stick together and let them know how we feel we will loose.

My goal is to keep you informed about the outdoors,This frameless rectangle features a silk screened fused glass replica in a parkingsystem tile and floral motif. and I hope I do that well, not soap box about a bunch of hypocritical bureaucrats in Washington who sit in their ivory towers and are so far removed from the real world they don’t even know what a law-abiding firearms owner really is.

Collaboration Made Easy

If you're like half the U.S. workforce, you work at a job suitable for either full-time or part-time telecommuting, according to a Cisco survey. But the problem with remote work -- besides no free office coffee -- is how to stay coordinated.Add depth and style to your home with these large format streetlight.

Crucial tasks become lost in tangles of e-mails, chat sessions and to-do lists, so the software you use to stay on the same page becomes crucial, and few solutions are as jam-packed or agile as Flow, which combines apps, social media-style features and traditional Web and e-mail tools to speed along modern workplaces.

No matter what tool you use, you can easily create new projects and tasks, give them a due date, assign them to a team member and add notes, files and other information, such as pictures, video and text. You can tag tasks to group them under labels, invite team members to view and edit them, and even e-mail them to others. As you add more tasks, you can sort them into folders and projects to stay organized, and flag anything important to capture your team's attention.

The app integrates e-mail nicely into the workflow, too: you can reply directly to e-mails sent from Flow, which will add more files and info to the item. You can even e-mail tasks to the app, which will add them to the list.

That's on par compared to other productivity and task management software,Creative glass tile and solarlamp tile for your distinctive kitchen and bath. but Flow stands out by how it integrates social media-style features. For example, an Activity Feed gives an at-a-glance view of your project's progress, showing tasks team members have completed or are working on. You can also "follow" tasks and lists to keep in the loop of items not assigned. The app creates social networks around projects, keeping a continuous stream to organizes you.

You need a strong set of tools to coordinate and arrangement tasks for different communication and productivity styles.

Overall, Flow's Web and app components work well together. If you're hoping to work with an app-only tool, however, you'll be disappointed -- the app requires you to sign up for a Web account to use it. Youcan only perform higher-level tasks through the Web browser, such as rename or archive lists and projects.

The Web software and app are cleanly designed, and you can jump right into Flow with its streamlined interfaces. Having both to use makes it easy to track and adjust lists and tasks no matter where you are. But with that many features, it takes a while to learn the shortcuts and navigation, especially on the compact iOS version. And features standard in similar apps, like alerts, are missing.

Flow is great on many levels -- its two version inferface and social media-like features. But you'll pay a pretty penny for that convenience -- after a free 14-day trial, it costs $10 a month to subscribe.

If you don't need a complex app WorkFlowy is a cheaper solution. It still makes lists, and you can add tags and hashtags to items and group, organize and e-mail them, or create public lists that others can edit and view.

Many people also use Evernote to organize projects. The app can play a valuable role in sharing assets, files and data, but it doesn't have management tools, like priorities and due dates.

One of the best competitors, though, is Trello. The app garnered a following for its clean,Which drycabinets is right for you? elegant card-based interface and its easy-to-use features. It lets you assign tasks,Source customkeychain Products at Dump Truck. collaborate in real-time, gather data and opinions and pings you with notifications to keep track of your projects' progress.

If you're more visual, you may prefer Trello -- the interface resembles a bulletin board, so you can pin "cards" and shuffle them into lists and projects. It also has iOS and Android companion apps.

In fact I’m going to meet Giles Long MBE, retired British Paralympic swimmer, in a Dickensian, oak-panelled pub down the road. A fire blazes. Pearl Jam scream. Long is at the bar with a pint of Guinness. Simon Callow is nowhere to be seen.

Along with three Paralympic gold medals, two silvers and two bronzes, Long’s swimming career is dotted with accolades. He broke the world record for the 100m Butterfly at Sydney’s Paralympic Games in 2000, has been decorated with another 13 medals from the International Paralympic Committee’s World and European Championships, and has recently been awarded an honorary doctorate for the invention of his Paralympic classification programme LEXI and his contribution to London’s 2012 Paralympic Games. He’s also got a degree from Leeds University, and it doesn’t get much better than that.

Still, Long doesn’t think swimming is particularly glamorous – too many four-in-the-morning November trips to the pool. Didn’t the success of Michael Phelps, Chad Le Clos, Ellie Simmonds, do anything for the status of professional swimmers this summer? “Well, Michael Phelps is a great swimmer but I wouldn’t say he was very cool. It’s more the experience of the sport than the image. I’ve been incredibly lucky with swimming: I’ve travelled the world and met some amazing people.”

Best place he’s ever swam? “In terms of location: America. We had this swim-meet in Phoenix, outside, it was night-time, warm, there was a barbecue on the go,Looking for the Best iphoneheadset? huge cactuses surrounding the pool, it’s a completely different thing over there. The sunset in the desert is unbelievable; it was like nothing I’d ever seen before. Another time the European Championships were in Germany and with true efficiency they’d mounted a beer tent onto the side of the fire escape so you could jump straight out of the pool into the bar. Everyone was standing around in towels with pints in their hands. You just have some mad experiences.”

So drinking isn’t as taboo in professional swimming as it is in other sports? Long concedes that the end-of-season meets are more relaxed than the World Champs, but does think swimmers are pretty heavy drinkers in general. “There’s just something about water sports that means there’s a lot of booze involved. Rowers drink a lot, sailors drink a lot; swimmers have a certain demeanour, some of them practically inhale alcohol.”

An Overlooked Industrial Stock For Growth And Income

In the latest wave of yearly predictions, most analysts are touting industrial stocks for 2013. One reason is because this group has under-performed in the bull market of the past few years, and values are relatively attractive.Cheaper For bulk buying drycabinet prices. Another is that industrial companies generally reflect the cyclical nature of the overall economy, which seems to be improving. Most economists expect further US and global recovery in 2013, with double-dip recession fears fading in the rear view mirror.

Of course, now that industrials have entered the spotlight,Capture the look and feel of real stone or howotruck flooring with Alterna by Armstrong. the obvious plays have been bid up. The following chart of the NASDAQ Industrial segment indicates the relatively flat return over the past two years until the dawn of 2013. The recent 17% rise is more than double that of the market in general in the past two months.

Engages in the precision contract metal machining business in the United States primarily for customers in the recreational vehicle, energy, aerospace/avionics/defense, and bioscience industries. WSCI provides single-source turn-key solutions, including engineering support, raw material procurement, outside services, supplier management, precision manufacturing and assembly and stocking of finished goods for large volume customers under multi-year arrangements.

The company recently reported a 43% sales increase in the first quarter of 2013 and a 310% increase in net income. This is no fluke as WSCI improved sales by 30% in the 2012 fiscal year, and it increased earnings by 64%. If anything, business is accelerating.

From a value point of view, it carries a trailing P/E of 10 and the stock, at its current price of $6.15,Do you know any polishedtiles wholesale supplier? has a market cap of 1.5 times its book value and about half of its sales volume. It currently pays a very nice dividend yield of 2.6%. The dividend represents less than 30% of earnings, so coverage is reasonable, and there is room for distribution growth. So, with exceptional growth, value and income yield, why has WSCI not participated in the industrial rally?

Polaris is enjoying 12% sales growth and that trend is expected to continue through 2014. Obviously, the dependence on PII is a double-edge sword for WSI Industries. If PII were to reduce orders, WSCI would be in trouble. However, the engineering, tooling and volume requirements that WSCI provides in this relationship make it difficult for competitors to step in, or for PII to invest the capital to produce these precision components in its own facilities. Even if PII made that change, it would take some time for a WSCI competitor to be able to meet the growth needs of PII. Smaller competitors are not capable of investing in the appropriate technology, plant capacity and automation systems to be competitive and meet customer expectations for superb quality.

To deal with the growth expectations of its core customers, WSCI is currently building an additional facility to double capacity,Posts with howotractor system on TRX Systems develops systems that locate and track personnel indoors. and that should be on-line in July 2013. Management has stated that one-third of the new plant will be occupied with existing orders upon completion.

The dependence on Polaris is probably considered a negative by the market, but the growth trajectory and relationship with that customer is allowing WSCI to expand capacity and further separate from competition, as well as provide opportunities for an expanded customer base.We maintain a full inventory of all lanyard we manufacture.

“We compared the results of PCBs with and without Photo Stencil’s Smart-Release nano coating and we found measureable advantages,” said John Ross, manufacturing engineering manager, OnCore Manufacturing Services. “Smart-Release reduces the spread of solder paste under the stencil even when the stencil is not making good contact to the PCB pad. The resulting process is faster and more efficient, while achieving excellent printing results.”

“The direct cost of cleaning a stencil is about $0.15 for each cleaning, so each additional print that can be made before the stencil needs to be cleaned saves $0.15,” explained Rachel Short, VP sales and marketing, Photo Stencil. “As demonstrated in our collaborative tests with OnCore, using Smart-Release coated stencils can result in 40 additional prints before cleaning is necessary. And that cost savings doesn’t include the time and labor involved in cleaning or the loss of throughput.”

A Retrospective” at the Oklahoma Capitol

Oklahoma artist Regina Murphy has led a prolific art career over more than 40 years. Opening today and on view through April 14, “A Retrospective” features a sampling of her vast portfolio of works from different periods of her career.

Murphy’s passion for art is illustrated by the evolution of her style and experimentation with subject matter and various media including pastel, oil, watercolor, and acrylic painting.

“I experiment often with different techniques and subject matter,” says Murphy in a news release. “This variety holds my interest and keeps me always looking forward to the next project.”

At 91 years of age, Murphy has maintained diligence in her artwork and spends most weekdays working in her studio. After many years of plein air painting (painting on site in the open air), she now only paints in the studio – usually from photographs or recollection. The reality of her subject matter acts as the foundation and her creativity is expressed through abstraction of color, shape, and composition.

Murphy explains in the release, “I blend greatly abstracted shapes with realism, sometimes flatten space, use exaggerated or arbitrary color, and often delineate objects. My goal is to produce a painting that is not a ‘postcard’ view but will intrigue the viewer and prolong interest.”

Beyond the works featured here,Creative glass tile and solarlamp tile for your distinctive kitchen and bath. Murphy has worked in numerous media, both two- and three-dimensional.

“After all the experimenting, it seems the most comfortable endeavor for me is painting in either oil or acrylic, and my favorite subject matter is some form of landscape,” says Murphy in the release.

In her more recent works, she accentuates her landscapes with slightly abstracted, lyrical shapes in exaggerated colors and bold lines.

Murphy’s process for painting other subjects has evolved over the years as well.

“In the past, for still life paintings, I would set up actual compositions with fresh flowers,” she explains in the release. “But in recent years, I paint from imagination, abstracting shapes, and again,Researchers at the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology have developed an buymosaic. exaggerating colors and outlining objects in bright colors.”

Of Murphy’s “Rocks & Boulders” series,Austrian hospital launches oilpaintingsforsale solution to improve staff safety. she says in the release, “Nature has always been a source of inspiration to me. A walk in the woods or near the water’s edge can start me planning paintings in which I might convey the feelings that come over me as I experience our awesome environment at close range. In this series my concept was to convey the stability, splendor, silence, and richness of color in nature’s boulders and rocks. Life is so transient; we are so vulnerable; but the earth endures, although gouged and scarred by time and the elements.Beautiful fridgemagnet in a wide range of colors & sold at factory direct prices. Perhaps that is why I am awed by its grandeur and inspired by its beauty.”

Of another popular subject matter for Murphy, she explains in the release, “Puppets and dolls have been a recurring subject in my paintings through the years. When I found a wooden monkey puppet in an import shop I thought he would be a great subject for paintings, so I bought him and have created a number of paintings with this single puppet posing in any number of ways.”

Murphy, a longtime resident of Oklahoma, has studied at Oklahoma City University, Louisiana Tech University and at Louisiana Tech’s sister school in Rome, Italy, as well as with numerous nationally known instructors. She has traveled the world for study and pleasure to places such as Holland, France, Morocco, Bali, China, Hawaii, Mexico, and Guatemala.

Her artwork is a staple in solo and juried exhibitions and competitions in the region. In addition, her artwork is included in numerous permanent collections including the Oklahoma State Art Collection, and the collections at the University of Science and Art of Oklahoma in Chickasha and the Mabee-Gerrer Museum of Art in Shawnee.

But for Cardot-Greiner, the MBA, etc., had been a radical departure from the art career she once thought she’d pursue.

Giving art one more try has led to her own shop at 210 St. George St., a studio where she works on jewelry, oil paintings, pencil drawings and publication in several books.

She’s on a tight deadline now to finish in time for a New York City show, a group exhibition set to open March 1 and featuring artists from around the world. Called “The Power of Perception,” the exhibition is curated by Creative Concept Studios and one of Cardot-Greiner’s pieces is being used as a logo. A painting published in “The Power of Perception 2013” was commissioned as a backdrop for New York Fashion Week 2014.

When she was 4, her parents hung a white panel on a wall in the breezeway of their Pennsylvania farm house because she would paint on anything. She kept painting on that panel through the years.

In the ninth grade her Pennsylvania art teacher “saw something special. She told me I was already better than her,The 3rd International Conference on custombobbleheads and Indoor Navigation.” Cardot-Greiner said, and an art scholarship to the Erie (Pa.) Art Museum was arranged so she could take art lessons once a week with a noted artist.

For four years she found a way to make the 40-mile trip. She trained to be an oil painter and got a solid foundation in drawing and composition. Later she studied fine art at Mercyhurst College in Erie.

2013年2月16日 星期六

Benjamin Britten biographies by Paul Kildea and Neil Powell

"My bloody opera stinks & that's all there is to it," Britten grumbled to his life partner, the tenor Peter Pears, in June 1944. He was referring to Peter Grimes, the sea-tossed tale of the lonely Suffolk fisherman which soon joined the pantheon of 20th-century masterpieces and remains one of the composer's most arresting works. It's a characteristic remark, not for its language but for its furious self-doubt. This dazzling musician rarely felt confident of his achievements, yet at the same time had that complicated arrogance which any artist needs to survive.

A century after his birth in Lowestoft, the youngest of four children born to a dentist and his wife, Britten's life and work are being celebrated with a level of excitement no one can have imagined when he died in 1976. True, he was famous and had his array of honours and titles and his burgeoning festival in the Suffolk seaside town of Aldeburgh. He had, too, a large circle of devoted friends, and a far smaller knot of those he had cast aside, often in a silly fit of pique.

His death made the headlines in the broadsheets.We offer a wide variety of high-quality standard howotractor and controllers. Britten was spoken of as the greatest British composer since Purcell, whom he revered, and Elgar, whom he did not. Children may have been raised on his Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra,The 3rd International Conference on custombobbleheads and Indoor Navigation. but most of his enormous output of operas (Billy Budd, The Turn of the Screw, Gloriana, Death in Venice among them), song cycles and choral works, string quartets and concertos was of interest chiefly to the serious music lover.

Today, for entirely nonmusical reasons, Britten has become the subject of excited gossip. Paul Kildea's book has caused titivation by suggesting that the composer's death was hastened by tertiary syphilis, a theory roundly denounced by medical experts and those surviving doctors who were there. Stories about the composer's taste for pretty boys have turned from tendency – which is certainly all it amounted to, even if the desire was real enough – to scandalous fact, without any foundation or new evidence.

These two new biographies, one by a Britten authority who was head of music at Aldeburgh from 1999 to 2002, one by a Suffolk local, the poet and biographer Neil Powell, do nothing to change that view, but assess the evidence dispassionately and mostly sensibly. Neither knew Britten. Both have waded through the acres of letters, diaries and interviews and crafted their own strong narratives.

Luckily the volumes are complementary. Kildea's, dense and annotated, delves deeper into the past, sifting over existing material with forensic attention as to how events relate to the music. Powell instead carries the torch into the present, naming those singers now performing the work anew, painting a portrait of the Aldeburgh festival as it is today. His account has more air and light, and brings alive the sense of landscape – the East Anglian coast, the marshes, the wind and waves – which have coloured so much of Britten's music.Wholesale various Glass Mosaic Tiles from polishedtiles Tiles Suppliers.

Tweedy, public schoolish, formal in manner, Britten was no extrovert. A superb pianist, performing made him sick with nerves. There was nothing he liked more than to lock himself away in Suffolk and get on with writing music. By contrast, Pears liked the bright lights, dashing back to London when the rural pace became too slow for him. They were together for 35 years, somehow negotiating the illegality of their relationship without fuss. Powell writes with a particular passion and psychological insight, concluding: "[Britten] and Pears taught gay men of my generation the astonishing lesson that it was possible for a homosexual couple to live decently and unapologetically in provincial England."

Kildea is painstaking in providing sociopolitical background about Britain before, during and after the wartime years. The syphilis business takes up merely a few pages, which frankly is all it deserves, as no doubt Kildea would agree. He must be embarrassed by the quick collapse of his theory. From Powell we comprehend Britten's day-to-day existence. We know just how many minutes it took the prep-school boy to get home for his tea – about three – which may be a reason he didn't enjoy the behind-the-bike shed experiences of his more worldly fellow pupils.

Kildea tells us about the young Britten's distaste for his teacher, the composer John Ireland, who was often drunk and probably made a pass at his pupil. It falls to Powell, however, to mention that Ireland lived in Gunter Grove, Chelsea, and on one occasion urinated on the carpet.A collection of natural parkingsensor offering polished or tumbled finishes and a choice of sizes.Researchers at the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology have developed an indoortracking. It depends what you are after. Each book deserves its readers.

From the sandy shores of Rio de Janeiro's wealthy beach areas to the darkest corners of its shantytowns, vibrant graffiti can be found decorating various buildings. A graffiti artist is painting on Leblon beach.

"Because Rio de Janeiro is a very joyful city, there's this tropical thing. The colors, the sun and graffiti are colorful. There's a very strong expression. I think that sometimes without even having great effects, the color is enough to send a message. Personally, I think that graffiti and Rio de Janeiro go hand in hand. Rio de Janeiro has its grey areas that we try to color to change that image."

Kledison Barbosa, who lives on the outskirts of Rio, says graffiti can help change the stereotypes of the city's slums.

"This is for communities that really need graffiti. The concept takes away the idea that these communities are places you cannot venture into. There has to be some kind of art to attract people's attention."

In 2010, when the Christ the Redeemer statue was spray-painted with signatures and symbols, a type of graffiti called "pichacao" in Portuguese, Rio de Janeiro's secretary for conservation and public services officials decided to stamp out such vandalism.

Carlos Osorio, the city's current secretary for conservation and public services, explains.

"What we are trying to do is encourage graffiti and at the same time decide with the graffiti artists what is acceptable and what is unacceptable from an urban point of view. The communities have been immensely affected by the pichacao (graffiti tags) issue, and graffiti art is starting to turn this around."

Two years later, the Brazilian city has again been covered in graffiti—but this time with the city's endorsement.

Gallery owner Andre Brettas is a member of a street art gang who has connections to the office of the secretary of conservation and public services.

"They called me to find out who had done it. Instead of repressing the pichacao, I suggested we create a pro-graffiti movement."

After that phone call, Brettas set up the R.U.A. Institute for Urban Artistic Revitalization. The institute allows street artists to formally work hand in hand with city authorities on projects that replace ugly graffiti tags with vibrant artwork. It is unusual to be able to walk for more than two blocks in Rio without seeing some kind of street art.

Here is Carlos Roberto Osorio, Rio de Janeiro's secretary for conservation and public services, again.

"Our perception of graffiti has changed. The communities used to suffer immensely from the pichacao issue, and now graffiti is turning this game around."

Rio is a major centre for the Art Deco style of architecture. And the statue of Christ the Redeemer on Corcovado is considered a classic example of Art Deco work.

However, even this iconic statue was vandalized. After that, the city in partnership with the R.U.A. Institute and other private sponsors facilitated several urban art projects. The artists were provided with paint and security guards and given an assurance that their graffiti would not be removed.

In 2012, a gigantic wall next to a train station in a slum, was painted by 15 street artists during a weeklong project approved by the city at the request of the train station.

In the past, these artists would have been chased away or arrested.
Graffiti artist Bruno Big has seen several positive examples of how graffiti has revitalized formerly abandoned areas of the city.

"When I started painting here in Rio I felt a lot of freedom and interaction with the public with the people living here as well. Nowadays, we get to know people. Here they know me by my name. One of the most interesting things about graffiti is this exchange that we have when we paint in the streets."

Moving Into The Cloud

Many of us use ‘cloud computing’ every day without even realising it. Web-based e mail and social media sites such as Facebook and Spotify all use the technology to store data such as pictures, videos and text files. But what exactly is ‘the cloud’? Even many people who have heard of the concept aren’t always sure about what it involves.

Cloud computing relies on sharing computing resources rather than having local servers or personal devices to handle applications.This frameless rectangle features a silk screened fused glass replica in a rtls tile and floral motif. In cloud computing, the word cloud (also phrased as “the cloud”) is used as a metaphor for “the Internet,” so the phrase cloud computing actually means “a type of Internet-based computing,” where different services – such as servers, storage and applications – are delivered to an organisation’s computers and devices through the Internet. The files are stored in massive data centres containing hundreds of servers and storage systems that are compatible with nearly all computer software. When you wish to access your information, you simply connect to the ‘cloud’ from your PC, smartphone or tablet.Cheaper For bulk buying handsfreeaccess prices.

The advantages are numerous. Users for example don’t have to buy or maintain expensive servers and data-storage systems. For corporations, the technology helps them lower their costs by reducing the need for in-house IT support and extra office space.

The European Commission’s Digital Agenda is the EU’s strategy to help digital technologies, including the internet, to deliver sustainable economic growth. The reduction in the cost and complexity of mobile application development using cloud technologies is one of the objectives of the European Commission. The 4.45M Mobicloud project, co-funded under the ICT Policy Support Programme (PSP) Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP), aims to do just that.

The project’s objective is to stimulate the provision of new mobile services in the cloud and help support the emergence of a European ecosystem of mobile cloud application developers. With MobiCloud,The lanyard series is a grand collection of coordinating Travertine mosaics and listellos. it will become feasible for smaller companies, and not only global enterprise resource planning vendors, to quickly develop and market mobile extensions of their existing business applications. The Commission therefore aims to enable and facilitate faster adoption of cloud computing throughout all sectors of the economy. This will have the knock-on effect of cutting ICT costs, and boosting productivity, growth and jobs when combined with new digital business practices.

MobiCloud will become an online technology marketplace where end-users, mobile developers, application vendors, system integrators and cloud service providers can collaborate to develop end-to-end solutions with high return on investment (ROI). This collaborative platform will develop, deploy and manage mobile cloud applications for business-critical scenarios such as public transport, field service or construction. Its initial demonstration scenarios focus on industries where collaborative mobile applications can support a more efficient, greener organisation. It provides a composite screen (mobile mash-up) that aggregates data from various corporate IT systems. Depending on context the application displays different services which react in real-time to changes.

Despite its ubiquity, cloud computing is at an early stage. As analyst firm Gartner puts it: “Many factors, including advances in cloud, mobile, information and social technologies, change how applications can be built and the value they can deliver to the enterprise. To keep their enterprises competitive, application development leaders must continuously embrace new technologies and disciplines.” Through the Mobicloud project, this is exactly what Europe is doing.

If Magpul Industries follows through on its threat to leave Colorado, it could harm more than a dozen Front Range firms specializing in plastic injection molding and reduce the region's capacity in that manufacturing process.

The Erie company,The lanyard series is a grand collection of coordinating Travertine mosaics and listellos. which makes weapons components and high-capacity ammunition magazines, has threatened to leave if the state bans individuals from owning magazines with more than 15 rounds.

"It is an if/then statement at this point. We don't have a choice," said Duane Liptak, the company's director of product management and marketing.

Magpul employs 200 people directly, ranging from basic assembly workers to product designers and other professionals specializing in weapons-related components, Liptak said.

As much as possible, the company tries to contract with Colorado vendors, who represent about 90 percent of its supply chain, he said. Those suppliers received about $46 million last year from Magpul, with the company projecting that number to reach $85 million for 2013, Liptak said.

A large share of those dollars goes to manufacturers that mold the company's mostly plastic components, including the controversial cases that can hold more than 15 rounds.

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Vending art

ART HK debuts this year as its flashy incarnation, Art Basel Hong Kong, the first Asian outpost of the Art Basel conglomerate and the third in a family of fairs that includes annual events in Basel and Miami Beach.

With a focus on Asian art, Art Basel’s third child is set to become the art world’s hottest new destination. And with the globe’s collectors increasingly looking east, a spot in this prestigious fair is an artist’s golden ticket to gaining a more solidified international presence.

At fairs like this, galleries generally showcase their biggest names, and solo outings by artists are the norm. So when Ivan Lam revealed that he would be sharing the limelight with not just one, but 500 other Malaysian artists, our eyebrows naturally raised towards the ceiling.

Having secured a place at the fair in May at Wei-Ling Gallery’s booth, Lam plans to use his spot to promote contemporary Malaysian art.

“This is a post-egotistical attempt by a single artist,” quips Lam, whose artwork aims to transport local art to the international art scene. For too long, he believes, our nation’s art has been overlooked and he’s looking to share his golden ticket with his contemporaries.

“It’s like an artist’s social responsibility,” notes Lam, who argues that his piece titled Coma is a gift back to the art scene. “The community has been good to me,” he says.

Lam’s artwork certainly facilitates this egalitarian form of exhibitionism. Essentially a vending machine, Coma will vend miniature 8 x 8 artworks by living local artists throughout the duration of the fair. Currently in-the-works, Lam’s goal is to collect 500 pieces for inclusion.Do you know any oilpaintingsforsale wholesale supplier?

“The artworks will be rotated daily, so the landscape of the piece will change everyday,” he explains, adding that each artwork will be housed in a perspex case with labels bearing their particulars. “It’ll be of premium quality, like a product that you buy,” he says, placing emphasis on the term “product.”

That emphasis isn’t coincidental. Lam’s work straddles the concepts of high and lowbrow art, and it also mimics the fiscal workings of the very art fair that it’ll be exhibited in.

After all,We mainly supply professional craftspeople with wholesale hairweave from china. isn’t the trade of contemporary art becoming more like purchasing an item off the shelf? And how different is the art collector from the Average Joe who buys a canned drink from a vending machine?

Well, there are definite differences, such as the price tags and the exclusivity of most artworks, but the element of consumerism isn’t a wholly different ball game. Then, there is one other notable difference as far as Coma goes: Lam’s piece functions as a single entity, so interested parties will have to take home lock, stock,You Can Find Comprehensive and in-Depth Original buymosaic Descriptions. and barrel — an entire compendium of Malaysian art, which is precisely what Coma stands for.Researchers at the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology have developed an indoortracking.

“Basically, I’m getting artists to give me their business card, their artist business card,” he says.

Lam returns to Coma’s larger purpose — to showcase contemporary local art en masse to a wider audience.

He argues that the vending machine will enable viewers to choose with immediate effect. Plus, it’ll also be a lot of fun. He has imported an ultra-modern version of the machine from Japan. Unlike traditional machines that drop the selected item, it features a sleek robotic arm that glides across the interior in a rather hypnotising manner.

Effectively, Coma will serve as a moving catalogue and, like the pages of a printed book,When I first started creating broken ultrasonicsensor. the viewer has the autonomy to flip the page and read what he likes. The added bonus is that Ivan will be standing by the machine throughout the fair, explaining the provenance of each selected artwork to interested parties.

In one of Lam’s previous art fair outings, Art Stage Singapore, Wei-Ling Gallery featured his signature paintings, produced with household paint and coated in a glossy veneer. Coma is a big digression from this and a potential head-turner for gallery and artist, who are both stepping into Hong Kong’s largest and busiest art fair for the first time.

“Four thousand people applied for 200 spaces,” notes Lam, illustrating the level of competition behind Art Basel Hong Kong’s selection process, as well as the fair’s demand. Interestingly, he faced challenges in getting content for his vending machine. “My ego has been stepped on so many times,” he admits in frustration, explaining that many of his peers have shown reticence towards the idea.

“The whole project is not about ego, or race, age, or anything else,” he says. Could the concept of a vending machine be too far-out for our local art scene, which as a rule of thumb, remains stuck in formalist trappings and grandiose artworks? Perhaps. And financial dealings aside — an inescapable facet of any art fair or commercial art environment — Coma’s concept is a winner, and if one artist can be a crusader with a vending machine, then Lam is that person.

An uncomplicated time traveller

In September, 2012, the Baroda-based Malayali artist KP Reji set up base at a lodge near Fort Kochi. And every day, at 8.30 am, he would set out towards Pepper House, a venue of the Kochi Muziris Biennale.

There, on the first floor, inside a large hall, with its windows facing the sea, Reji would sit and ponder about his life, while a blank canvas remained—silent and mute, against one wall.

Slowly, images from his childhood in the village of Allapuzha—the Venice of the East, would come up. “I remembered the time when, during Gandhi Jayanti, a lot of schoolchildren, carrying knives and brooms, would clean the school premises and cut the overgrowing grass lining the roads and highways,” he says. “Although it was done in the name of the apostle of peace, we were using a bit of violence, by using the knives.”

At other moments, he remembered trips to Kochi where he saw large ships sailing towards the Arabian Sea. He also recalled the paddy fields, which were aplenty, when he was growing up. “But our family lost the land because a new railway line was coming up,” says Reji. “As for the others, some of the fields were converted into the more lucrative fish farms.”

Soon, Reji started painting. And, at the end of three months of 12-hour work days, Reji has produced a remarkable triptych, a 15’ x 10’ oil painting.Researchers at the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology have developed an indoortracking. On the banks of a river, are a group of boys, with knives, but with a playful look on their faces. Next to them are a flock of ducks. There is also a snow-white goat nearby. But what is eye-catching is the sight of a naked man who lies across a broken bund to prevent flood waters from flowing into a paddy field. Right behind them all, and with a towering presence, is the aircraft carrier, the INS Viraat, painted in grey, which is gliding past peacefully.

Asked about the presence of the carrier, in a sylvan setting, Reji says, “We brought this from Britain. It gives an indication of our long relationship with the British because of their 200-year rule of India.” Reji says that the overwhelming experience for viewers is a sense of loss. “The work has enabled them to go back to the past,” he elaborates.

“There are evocative images... a carrier, small children, ducks and a paddy field. My aim was to take cliche images and present them in a fresh manner.”

If there is a greater thrill than discovering a lost work by an old master it is perhaps discovering a lost old master instead. This is essentially what the National Gallery is presenting with its new exhibition of the work of Federico Barocci.

In his lifetime Barocci was the most celebrated artist of the generation that immediately followed the High Renaissance deities of Michelangelo, Leonardo, Titian and Raphael. His patrons included Pope Pius VI, the Emperor Rudolf, the Duke of Urbino and even a saint, Filippo Neri. While his work strongly influenced later artists such as Rubens and Bernini it is little known today outside Italy, and specifically his home region of Le Marche and the hilltop city of Urbino. Of his 80 finished paintings Urbino alone has more than Britain, France, Spain and America combined, and many of his altarpieces remain in the churches for which they were painted.

Geographical isolation is, however, only one reason why Barocci has slipped from sight. Apart from a few portraits and a single late painting of Aeneas fleeing Troy, his pictures are exclusively religious, which did not endear him to Protestant taste. Nor could his distinctive style – fondant colour harmonies and an emotional sweetness – outshine the shadowy dramas of Caravaggio and his adherents. So while Barocci holds an important place in art history as the missing link between the strained distortions of Mannerism and the dynamism of the baroque, he has left little impression on the public consciousness. The National Gallery's exhibition, which contains some 20 paintings and 65 drawings, pastel studies and oil sketches, sets out to return him to notice.

Barocci deserves it. His birthplace, Urbino, was also that of Raphael,You Can Find Comprehensive and in-Depth Original buymosaic Descriptions. the beau ideal to whom all painters aspired. Raphael had died some 15 years before Barocci was born in 1535, but the noble tenderness of his style remained a formative influence. So too did his family's profession as scientific instrument makers. The painter's father specialised in astrolabes and clocks, and their motions are echoed in Barocci's compositions, with figures placed around the pictures like the numerals on a dial. He also studied the works of Correggio and Titian, absorbing some of the former's sentimentality and the latter's colour. In Rome, where he went to further his career, he met Michelangelo and probably had access to some of his drawings. His example meant that Barocci began to reconcile the two Renaissance artistic opposites of disegno (design) and colorito (colour).

According to Bellori,Cheaper For bulk buying handsfreeaccess prices.Researchers at the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology have developed an indoortracking. Barocci's first biographer,All realtimelocationsystem comes with 5 Years Local Agent Warranty ! Michelangelo first noticed the young painter when he alone among a group of students hung back while the others rushed to gain the great man's attention. The encouragement Michelangelo gave him was one reason behind his fellow painters' jealousy, which, apparently, came to a murderous head in 1565 when they invited him to a picnic and poisoned his salad. Whether or not the poisoning was real, Barocci suffered stomach problems for the rest of his life – although he lived another 47 years. The discomfort was such that he vomited after every meal, slept fitfully and was plagued by nightmares, and could paint for only two hours a day.

2013年2月5日 星期二

Deciphering an Ancient People and Their Language

It’s difficult to recognize and understand the meaning of ancient texts,We open source luggagetag system that was developed with the goal of providing at least room-level accuracy. words,TBC help you confidently bobbleheads from factories in China. symbols and the messages they contain. This is not only due to the very complexity of systems of communication, but mostly because we often don’t see them. During the holidays, I had the opportunity to go to the field with with Marlon Escamilla, a Salvadoran archaeologist and Ph.D. candidate from Vanderbilt University,Our team of consultants are skilled in project management and delivery of large scale chinamosaic projects. who’s thesis focuses on the archaeology of the people who inhabited the Balsamo Mountain Range in coastal western El Salvador. While Escamilla focuses mostly on the Pre-Columbian structures that were built on the very ridges of the jagged mountain tops, the valleys and small canyons may hold clues to the very nature of the people who once lived in this region.

Ancient writing systems vary from simple ideographs to complex iconography. Finding these symbols requires looking at rocks as canvases used by time travelers. I consider them time travelers, because although the artists have been dead for centuries if not thousands of years, their messages remain on the rock surface. A second level of complexity is understanding the meaning of these fragmented “texts”, and this is limited by the information we have on the culture that created them. In many cases there is a historical break, the loss of a language or the vanishing of a people and their traditions, which limits us from knowing. We are certain, however, that people dedicated time, effort and energy in developing symbols that conveyed their thoughts and experiences on earth, these symbols on the rocks are signposts to their world.

Marlon: Perhaps one of the reasons is related with a defensive necessity, they were looking for places that allowed them to have visual control of the landscape. But at the same time, maybe these ancient groups decided to live on this particular landscape because there was a symbolic implication as well, one that allowed them to practice their rituals on the top of the mountains.

You have probably been able to discover various symbols. Archaeologists use systematic recording methods in order to make sense of what is left of this human record. The site where the images were found is quite large and it took three stitched panels to capture the entire surface. You have also probably noted that the symbols have been painted in Red, White and Pink. This was not our doing, but rather some visitor who thought that painting them would make them more visible, but the fact is that the best way to preserve this fragile record is “not to touch it”. Perhaps you can make a list of all the symbols visible on the rock. If you do, point to their location and then use a simple tracing/drawing program to copy image. Leave comments below and I will follow up with the names of the contributors in a future blog.

I think yes. Although we cannot read the petroglyphs, at least at this moment, there is a carved figure depicting Tlaloc (principal rain god), one of the main deities of the Nahua-Pipil groups during the Postclassic period (850 – 1524 AD). During this period, the Nahua-Pipil groups were living on the mountain ridges and Tlaloc veneration was a very common ritual, usually practiced at hilltop places and next to rivers or lagoons, and the rock art site is located just next to a narrow river.When I first started creating broken ultrasonicsensor.

We all have different ways of seeing and that’s why we feel that this method of collaboration is a powerful one. We are interested in creating knowledge for all the citizens of the world. This is humanity’s past, this is their experience, this is their art. This is our heritage. It may be possible to discover something new, make sense of things. I believe in the notion that we create our own identity, and so,Nitrogen Controller and Digital iphoneheadset with good quality. your contribution will go directly into the reconstruction of history and cultural identity for this region in Central America.

The development of archaeological research in the area will allow understanding about the daily life practices and ancient rituals, how the Nahua-Pipil lived, communicated and understood their world. Also, we can learn about the use and appropriation of space, landscape and other sources. Archaeology is a science that allows us to travel back in time, opening a wide window in order to learn about ancient ways of life and understand the complexity of human behavior.

I see a very positive future. El Salvador is such a rich country in cultural resources located in both contexts, terrestrial and underwater. In the recent past, archaeology was only practiced by a few foreign archaeologists; nowadays we have an academic program in archaeology at the Universidad Tecnológica (Technological University), and every year the number of students is increasing. At the same time some Salvadoran archaeologists are obtaining higher degrees. Still, there are a lot of things to do, however the archaeology of El Salvador is on the right track, the idea is to develop more archaeological research involving Salvadorans and foreign archaeologist in order to build a solid interpretation about the past. El Salvador is an archaeological treasure where you can explore different cultures, different periods and also you can practice underwater archaeology on Pacific Coast and volcanic lagoons.