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Erik Brynjolfsson, professeur au MIT Sloan School of Management, dans son dernier livre «Race Against The Machine », co-écrit avec Andrew McAfee, pose ces questions : peut-on rivaliser avec les innovations technologiques qui créent les robots ? Peut-on accepter le danger qu'ils représentent sur le plan humain dans la tranformation de la maion d'oeuvre et le travail ? Comment la révolution numérique accélère l'innovation, moteur de la productivité, et irréversiblement transforme l'emploi et l'économie ?
Photo : Visiteurs regardant un robot de Honda Asimo au siège de Honda Motor Co. à Tokyo. Canon Inc se dirige vers l'automatisation complète de production d'appareils photo numériques dans le but de réduire les coûts. (AP)
Selon Erik brynjolfsson, les ordinateurs prennent non seulement une grande partie de notre temps, mais aussi nos emplois. Exemples :
Le fournisseur d'Apple, Foxconn, a récemment annoncé des plans sociaux pour remplacer une grande partie de sa main-d'œuvre par plus d'un million de robots d'ici quelques années.
La chaîne de pharmacies CVS Caremark Corp aux USA, entre autres, a remplacé ses caissières par un ordinateur de caisse libre-service pour économiser sur les coûts de main-d'œuvre.
Le site de sport Stats Monkey utilise des robots pour écrire certains de ses articles à la place des journalistes.
Erik Brynjolfsson affirme que ces changements sont dus à la technologie qui évolue rapidement : «La technologie s'est améliorée de façon exponentielle, et il est normall d'arriver à de tels changement si étonnants, année après année. Même les technologues sont pris au dépourvu.»
Le côté positif, dit-il, est que la productivité permet d'améliorer l'économie. Mais l'inconvénient est que les gains vont toujours à une partie réduite de la population.
Brynjolffsson explique comment l'automatisation provoque un changement radical sur la main-d'œuvre et comment la révolution numérique accélère l'innovation, moteur de la productivité, en transformant irréversiblement l'emploi et l'économie.
Extraits du livre « Race Against The Machine », par Erik Brynjolfsson
« Toute technologie suffisamment avancée est indiscernable de la magie ». Arthur C. Clarke, 1962
We used to be pretty confident that we knew the relative strengths and weaknesses of computers vis-à-vis humans. But computers have started making inroads in some unexpected areas. This fact helps us to better understand the past few turbulent years and the true impact of digital technologies on jobs.
A good illustration of how much recent technology advances have taken us by surprise comes from comparing a carefully researched book published in 2004 with an announcement made in 2010. The book is The New Division of Labor by economists Frank Levy and Richard Murnane. As its title implies, it's a description of the comparative capabilities of computers and human workers.
In the book's second chapter, « Why People Still Matter, » the authors present a spectrum of information-processing tasks. At one end are straightforward applications of existing rules.
These tasks, such as performing arithmetic, can be easily automated. After all, computers are good at following rules.
At the other end of the complexity spectrum are pattern-recognition tasks where the rules can't be inferred. The New Division of Labor gives driving in traffic as an example of this type of task, and asserts that it is not automatable:
The … truck driver is processing a constant stream of [visual, aural, and tactile] information from his environment. … To program this behavior we could begin with a video camera and other sensors to capture the sensory input. But executing a left turn against oncoming traffic involves so many factors that it is hard to imagine discovering the set of rules that can replicate a driver's behavior. …
Articulating [human] knowledge and embedding it in software for all but highly structured situations are at present enormously difficult tasks. … Computers cannot easily substitute for humans in [jobs like truck driving].
The results of the first DARPA Grand Challenge, held in 2004, supported Levy and Murnane's conclusion. The challenge was to build a driverless vehicle that could navigate a 150-mile route through the unpopulated Mohave Desert. The « winning » vehicle couldn't even make it eight miles into the course and took hours to go even that far.
In Domain After Domain, Computers Race Ahead
Just six years later, however, real-world driving went from being an example of a task that couldn't be automated to an example of one that had. In October of 2010, Google announced on its official blog that it had modified a fleet of Toyota Priuses to the point that they were fully autonomous cars, ones that had driven more than 1,000 miles on American roads without any human involvement at all, and more than 140,000 miles with only minor inputs from the person behind the wheel. (To comply with driving laws, Google felt that it had to have a person sitting behind the steering wheel at all times).
Levy and Murnane were correct that automatic driving on populated roads is an enormously difficult task, and it's not easy to build a computer that can substitute for human perception and pattern matching in this domain. Not easy, but not impossible either—this challenge has largely been met.
The Google technologists succeeded not by taking any shortcuts around the challenges listed by Levy and Murnane, but instead by meeting them head-on. They used the staggering amounts of data collected for Google Maps and Google Street View to provide as much information as possible about the roads their cars were traveling. Their vehicles also collected huge volumes of real-time data using video, radar, and LIDAR (light detection and ranging) gear mounted on the car; these data were fed into software that takes into account the rules of the road, the presence, trajectory, and likely identity of all objects in the vicinity, driving conditions, and so on. This software controls the car and probably provides better awareness, vigilance, and reaction times than any human driver could. The Google vehicles' only accident came when the driverless car was rear-ended by a car driven by a human driver as it stopped at a traffic light.
None of this is easy. But in a world of plentiful accurate data, powerful sensors, and massive storage capacity and processing power, it is possible. This is the world we live in now. It's one where computers improve so quickly that their capabilities pass from the realm of science fiction into the everyday world not over the course of a human lifetime, or even within the span of a professional's career, but instead in just a few years.
Levy and Murnane give complex communication as another example of a human capability that's very hard for machines to emulate. Complex communication entails conversing with a human being, especially in situations that are complicated, emotional, or ambiguous. Evolution has « programmed » people to do this effortlessly, but it's been very hard to program computers to do the same. Translating from one human language to another, for example, has long been a goal of computer science researchers, but progress has been slow because grammar and vocabulary are so complicated and ambiguous.
In January of 2011, however, the translation services company Lionbridge announced pilot corporate customers for GeoFluent, a technology developed in partnership with IBM. GeoFluent takes words written in one language, such as an online chat message from a customer seeking help with a problem, and translates them accurately and immediately into another language, such as the one spoken by a customer service representative in a different country.
GeoFluent is based on statistical machine translation software developed at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center. This software is improved by Lionbridge's digital libraries of previous translations. This « translation memory » makes GeoFluent more accurate, particularly for the kinds of conversations large high-tech companies are likely to have with customers and other parties. One such company tested the quality of GeoFluent's automatic translations of online chat messages. These messages, which concerned the company's products and services, were sent by Chinese and Spanish customers to English-speaking employees. GeoFluent instantly translated them, presenting them in the native language of the receiver. After the chat session ended, both customers and employees were asked whether the automatically translated messages were useful—whether they were clear enough to allow the people to take meaningful action. Approximately 90% reported that they were. In this case, automatic translation was good enough for business purposes.
The Google driverless car shows how far and how fast digital pattern recognition abilities have advanced recently. Lionbridge's GeoFluent shows how much progress has been made in computers' ability to engage in complex communication. Another technology developed at IBM's Watson labs, this one actually named Watson, shows how powerful it can be to combine these two abilities and how far the computers have advanced recently into territory thought to be uniquely human.
Watson is a supercomputer designed to play the popular game show Jeopardy! in which contestants are asked questions on a wide variety of topics that are not known in advance.1 In many cases, these questions involve puns and other types of wordplay. It can be difficult to figure out precisely what is being asked, or how an answer should be constructed. Playing Jeopardy! well, in short, requires the ability to engage in complex communication.
The way Watson plays the game also requires massive amounts of pattern matching. The supercomputer has been loaded with hundreds of millions of unconnected digital documents, including encyclopedias and other reference works, newspaper stories, and the Bible. When it receives a question, it immediately goes to work to figure out what is being asked (using algorithms that specialize in complex communication), then starts querying all these documents to find and match patterns in search of the answer. Watson works with astonishing thoroughness and speed, as IBM research manager Eric Brown explained in an interview:
We start with a single clue, we analyze the clue, and then we go through a candidate generation phase, which actually runs several different primary searches, which each produce on the order of 50 search results. Then, each search result can produce several candidate answers, and so by the time we've generated all of our candidate answers, we might have three to five hundred candidate answers for the clue.
Now, all of these candidate answers can be processed independently and in parallel, so now they fan out to answer-scoring analytics [that] score the answers. Then, we run additional searches for the answers to gather more evidence, and then run deep analytics on each piece of evidence, so each candidate answer might go and generate 20 pieces of evidence to support that answer.
Now, all of this evidence can be analyzed independently and in parallel, so that fans out again. Now you have evidence being deeply analyzed … and then all of these analytics produce scores that ultimately get merged together, using a machine-learning framework to weight the scores and produce a final ranked order for the candidate answers, as well as a final confidence in them. Then, that's what comes out in the end.
What comes out in the end is so fast and accurate that even the best human Jeopardy! players simply can't keep up. In February of 2011, Watson played in a televised tournament against the two most accomplished human contestants in the show's history. After two rounds of the game shown over three days, the computer finished with more than three times as much money as its closest flesh-and-blood competitor. One of these competitors, Ken Jennings, acknowledged that digital technologies had taken over the game of Jeopardy! Underneath his written response to the tournament's last question, he added, « I for one welcome our new computer overlords. »
Moore's Law and the Second Half of the Chessboard
Where did these overlords come from? How has science fiction become business reality so quickly? Two concepts are essential for understanding this remarkable progress. The first, and better known, is Moore's Law, which is an expansion of an observation made by Gordon Moore, co-founder of microprocessor maker Intel. In a 1965 article in Electronics Magazine, Moore noted that the number of transistors in a minimum-cost integrated circuit had been doubling every 12 months, and predicted that this same rate of improvement would continue into the future. When this proved to be the case, Moore's Law was born.
Later modifications changed the time required for the doubling to occur; the most widely accepted period at present is 18 months. Variations of Moore's Law have been applied to improvement over time in disk drive capacity, display resolution, and network bandwidth. In these and many other cases of digital improvement, doubling happens both quickly and reliably.
It also seems that software progresses at least as fast as hardware does, at least in some domains. Computer scientist Martin Grötschel analyzed the speed with which a standard optimization problem could be solved by computers over the period 1988-2003. He documented a 43 millionfold improvement, which he broke down into two factors: faster processors and better algorithms embedded in software. Processor speeds improved by a factor of 1,000, but these gains were dwarfed by the algorithms, which got 43,000 times better over the same period.
The second concept relevant for understanding recent computing advances is closely related to Moore's Law. It comes from an ancient story about math made relevant to the present age by the innovator and futurist Ray Kurzweil. In one version of the story, the inventor of the game of chess shows his creation to his country's ruler. The emperor is so delighted by the game that he allows the inventor to name his own reward. The clever man asks for a quantity of rice to be determined as follows: one grain of rice is placed on the first square of the chessboard, two grains on the second, four on the third, and so on, with each square receiving twice as many grains as the previous.
The emperor agrees, thinking that this reward was too small. He eventually sees, however, that the constant doubling results in tremendously large numbers. The inventor winds up with 264 -1 grains of rice, or a pile bigger than Mount Everest. In some versions of the story the emperor is so displeased at being outsmarted that he beheads the inventor.
In his 2000 book The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence, Kurzweil notes that the pile of rice is not that exceptional on the first half of the chessboard:
After thirty-two squares, the emperor had given the inventor about 4 billion grains of rice. That's a reasonable quantity—about one large field's worth—and the emperor did start to take notice.
But the emperor could still remain an emperor. And the inventor could still retain his head. It was as they headed into the second half of the chessboard that at least one of them got into trouble.
Kurzweil's point is that constant doubling, reflecting exponential growth, is deceptive because it is initially unremarkable. Exponential increases initially look a lot like standard linear ones, but they're not. As time goes by—as we move into the second half of the chessboard—exponential growth confounds our intuition and expectations. It accelerates far past linear growth, yielding Everest-sized piles of rice and computers that can accomplish previously impossible tasks.
So where are we in the history of business use of computers? Are we in the second half of the chessboard yet? This is an impossible question to answer precisely, of course, but a reasonable estimate yields an intriguing conclusion. The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis added « Information Technology » as a category of business investment in 1958, so let's use that as our starting year. And let's take the standard 18 months as the Moore's Law doubling period. Thirtytwo doublings then take us to 2006 and to the second half of the chessboard. Advances like the Google autonomous car, Watson the Jeopardy! champion supercomputer, and high-quality instantaneous machine translation, then, can be seen as the first examples of the kinds of digital innovations we'll see as we move further into the second half—into the phase where exponential growth yields jaw-dropping results.
Computing the Economy : the Economic Power of General Purpose Technologies
These results will be felt across virtually every task, job, and industry. Such versatility is a key feature of general purpose technologies (GPTs), a term economists assign to a small group of technological innovations so powerful that they interrupt and accelerate the normal march of economic progress. Steam power, electricity, and the internal combustion engine are examples of previous GPTs.
It is difficult to overstate their importance. As the economists Timothy Bresnahan and Manuel Trajtenberg note :
Whole eras of technical progress and economic growth appear to be driven by … GPTs, [which are] characterized by pervasiveness (they are used as inputs by many downstream sectors), inherent potential for technical improvements, and « innovational complementarities, » meaning that the productivity of R&D in downstream sectors increases as a consequence of innovation in the GPT. Thus, as GPTs improve they spread throughout the economy, bringing about generalized productivity gains.
GPTs, then, not only get better themselves over time (and as Moore's Law shows, this is certainly true of computers), they also lead to complementary innovations in the processes, companies, and industries that make use of them. They lead, in short, to a cascade of benefits that is both broad and deep.
Computers are the GPT of our era, especially when combined with networks and labeled « information and communications technology » (ICT). Economists Susanto Basu and John Fernald highlight how this GPT allows departures from business as usual.
The availability of cheap ICT capital allows firms to deploy their other inputs in radically different and productivity-enhancing ways. In so doing, cheap computers and telecommunications equipment can foster an ever-expanding sequence of complementary inventions in industries using ICT.
Note that GPTs don't just benefit their « home » industries. Computers, for example, increase productivity not only in the high-tech sector but also in all industries that purchase and use digital gear. And these days, that means essentially all industries; even the least IT-intensive American sectors like agriculture and mining are now spending billions of dollars each year to digitize themselves.
Note also the choice of words by Basu and Fernald: computers and networks bring an ever expanding set of opportunities to companies. Digitization, in other words, is not a single project providing one-time benefits. Instead, it's an ongoing process of creative destruction; innovators use both new and established technologies to make deep changes at the level of the task, the job, the process, even the organization itself. And these changes build and feed on each other so that the possibilities offered really are constantly expanding.
This has been the case for as long as businesses have been using computers, even when we were still in the front half of the chessboard. The personal computer, for example, democratized computing in the early 1980s, putting processing power in the hands of more and more knowledge workers. In the mid-1990s two major innovations appeared: the World Wide Web and large-scale commercial business software like enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) systems. The former gave companies the ability to tap new markets and sales channels, and also made available more of the world's knowledge than had ever before been possible; the latter let firms redesign their processes, monitor and control far-flung operations, and gather and analyze vast amounts of data.
These advances don't expire or fade away over time. Instead, they get combined with and incorporated into both earlier and later ones, and benefits keep mounting. The World Wide Web, for example, became much more useful to people once Google made it easier to search, while a new wave of social, local, and mobile applications are just emerging. CRM systems have been extended to smart phones so that salespeople can stay connected from the road, and tablet computers now provide much of the functionality of PCs.
The innovations we're starting to see in the second half of the chessboard will also be folded into this ongoing work of business invention. In fact, they already are. The GeoFluent offering from Lionbridge has brought instantaneous machine translation to customer service interactions. IBM is working with Columbia University Medical Center and the University of Maryland School of Medicine to adapt Watson to the work of medical diagnosis, announcing a partnership in that area with voice recognition software maker Nuance. And the Nevada state legislature directed its Department of Motor Vehicles to come up with regulations covering autonomous vehicles on the state's roads. Of course, these are only a small sample of the myriad IT-enabled innovations that are transforming manufacturing, distribution, retailing, media, finance, law, medicine, research, management, marketing, and almost every other economic sector and business function.
Where People Still Win (at Least for Now)
Although computers are encroaching into territory that used to be occupied by people alone, like advanced pattern recognition and complex communication, for now humans still hold the high ground in each of these areas. Experienced doctors, for example, make diagnoses by comparing the body of medical knowledge they've accumulated against patients' lab results and descriptions of symptoms, and also by employing the advanced subconscious pattern recognition abilities we label « intuition. » (Does this patient seem like they're holding something back? Do they look healthy, or is something off about their skin tone or energy level?) Similarly, the best therapists, managers, and salespeople excel at interacting and communicating with others, and their strategies for gathering information and influencing behavior can be amazingly complex.
But it's also true, as the examples in this chapter show, that as we move deeper into the second half of the chessboard, computers are rapidly getting better at both of these skills. We're starting to see evidence that this digital progress is affecting the business world. A March 2011 story by John Markoff in the New York Times highlighted how heavily computers' pattern recognition abilities are already being exploited by the legal industry where, according to one estimate, moving from human to digital labor during the discovery process could let one lawyer do the work of 500.
In January, for example, Blackstone Discovery of Palo Alto, Calif., helped analyze 1.5 million documents for less than $100,000. … « From a legal staffing viewpoint, it means that a lot of people who used to be allocated to conduct document review are no longer able to be billed out, » said Bill Herr, who as a lawyer at a major chemical company used to muster auditoriums of lawyers to read documents for weeks on end. « People get bored, people get headaches. Computers don't. »
The computers seem to be good at their new jobs. … Herr … used e-discovery software to reanalyze work his company's lawyers did in the 1980s and '90s. His human colleagues had been only 60 percent accurate, he found.
« Think about how much money had been spent to be slightly better than a coin toss, » he said.
And an article the same month in the Los Angeles Times by Alena Semuels highlighted that despite the fact that closing a sale often requires complex communication, the retail industry has been automating rapidly.
In an industry that employs nearly 1 in 10 Americans and has long been a reliable job generator, companies increasingly are looking to peddle more products with fewer employees. … Virtual assistants are taking the place of customer service representatives. Kiosks and self-service machines are reducing the need for checkout clerks.
Vending machines now sell iPods, bathing suits, gold coins, sunglasses and razors ; some will even dispense prescription drugs and medical marijuana to consumers willing to submit to a fingerprint scan. And shoppers are finding information on touch screen kiosks, rather than talking to attendants. …
The [machines] cost a fraction of brick-and-mortar stores. They also reflect changing consumer buying habits. Online shopping has made Americans comfortable with the idea of buying all manner of products without the help of a salesman or clerk.
During the Great Recession, nearly 1 in 12 people working in sales in America lost their job, accelerating a trend that had begun long before. In 1995, for example, 2.08 people were employed in « sales and related » occupations for every $1 million of real GDP generated that year. By 2002 (the last year for which consistent data are available), that number had fallen to 1.79, a decline of nearly 14 percent.
If, as these examples indicate, both pattern recognition and complex communication are now so amenable to automation, are any human skills immune? Do people have any sustainable comparative advantage as we head ever deeper into the second half of the chessboard? In the physical domain, it seems that we do for the time being. Humanoid robots are still quite primitive, with poor fine motor skills and a habit of falling down stairs. So it doesn't appear that gardeners and restaurant busboys are in danger of being replaced by machines any time soon.
And many physical jobs also require advanced mental abilities; plumbers and nurses engage in a great deal of pattern recognition and problem solving throughout the day, and nurses also do a lot of complex communication with colleagues and patients. The difficulty of automating their work reminds us of a quote attributed to a 1965 NASA report advocating manned space flight : « Man is the lowest-cost, 150-pound, nonlinear, all-purpose computer system which can be mass-produced by unskilled labor. »
Even in the domain of pure knowledge work—jobs that don't have a physical component— there's a lot of important territory that computers haven't yet started to cover. In his 2005 book The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology, Ray Kurzweil predicts that future computers will « encompass … the pattern-recognition powers, problem-solving skills, and emotional and moral intelligence of the human brain itself, » but so far only the first of these abilities has been demonstrated. Computers so far have proved to be great pattern recognizers but lousy general problem solvers; IBM's supercomputers, for example, couldn't take what they'd learned about chess and apply it to Jeopardy! or any other challenge until they were redesigned, reprogrammed, and fed different data by their human creators.
And for all their power and speed, today's digital machines have shown little creative ability.
They can't compose very good songs, write great novels, or generate good ideas for new businesses. Apparent exceptions here only prove the rule. A prankster used an online generator of abstracts for computer science papers to create a submission that was accepted for a technical conference (in fact, the organizers invited the « author » to chair a panel), but the abstract was simply a series of somewhat-related technical terms strung together with a few standard verbal connectors.
Similarly, software that automatically generates summaries of baseball games works well, but this is because much sports writing is highly formulaic and thus amenable to pattern matching and simpler communication. Here's a sample from a program called StatsMonkey : UNIVERSITY PARK — An outstanding effort by Willie Argo carried the Illini to an 11-5 victory over the Nittany Lions on Saturday at Medlar Field. Argo blasted two home runs for Illinois. He went 3-4 in the game with five RBIs and two runs scored.
Illini starter Will Strack struggled, allowing five runs in six innings, but the bullpen allowed only no runs and the offense banged out 17 hits to pick up the slack and secure the victory for the Illini.
The difference between the automatic generation of formulaic prose and genuine insight is still significant, as the history of a 60-year-old test makes clear. The mathematician and computer science pioneer Alan Turing considered the question of whether machines could think « too meaningless to deserve discussion, » but in 1950 he proposed a test to determine how humanlike a machine could become. The « Turing test » involves a test group of people having online chats with two entities, a human and a computer. If the members of the test group can't in general tell which entity is the machine, then the machine passes the test.
Turing himself predicted that by 2000 computers would be indistinguishable from people 70% of the time in his test. However, at the Loebner Prize, an annual Turing test competition held since 1990, the $25,000 prize for a chat program that can persuade half the judges of its humanity has yet to be awarded. Whatever else computers may be at present, they are not yet convincingly human.
But as the examples in this chapter make clear, computers are now demonstrating skills and abilities that used to belong exclusively to human workers. This trend will only accelerate as we move deeper into the second half of the chessboard. What are the economic implications of this phenomenon? We'll turn our attention to this topic in the next chapter.
Excerpted from « Race Against The Machine » By Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee.


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Belgium » Kanaal naar Beverlo | Belgium
This canal doesn't bring you to Beverlo.
Kanaal naar Beverlo | Belgium: Characteristics & Overview
Rating of waterway
|Length of waterway:
|15 km
|Max. depth:
|Max. headroom:
|Degree of difficulty:
|For beginners (few locks)
|Boating license essential
|Character of waterway:
|old waterway, to be rediscovered
|Profile of waterway:
|Hardly ever used
|Facilities groundside:
Weitere Informationen
Waterway has access to:Kanaal van Bocholt naar Herentals | Belgium
Province Limburg
This branch canal doesn't sustain what its name promises since it only goes to Leopolsburg today. On its remaining 14.8 km it mainly crosses gravel-pits and military facilities. Leopoldsburg is primarly still a Garrisons Town.

subset: commoncrawl


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Education Programme (16-18 years Girls only) based at South Devon College
Pro:Direct Academy Devon - Girls
South Devon College Sports Centre, Eight Acre Drive, White Rock, Paignton, Devon TQ4 7TP
Education Pathways:
Education Partner - South Devon College
Players can study on a 1 or 2 year full-time football education programme including these academic options:
Academic Courses: Level 3
— NCFE Level 3 Diploma Sports Coaching
— BTEC Sports Science Level 3 Extended Diploma
— You will need a minimum of 5 GCSEs at grade 4 or above
— This must include Maths and English
— You could progress onto an apprenticeship, a degree, or employment
Academic Courses: Level 2
— Level 2 OCR Sport Science
— Level 2 NVQ Football (Activity Leadership)
— Equivalent to 4 GCSEs
— Vocational: combines industry skills with academic skills
— You could progress to a Level 3 pathway if you achieve an overall Merit and have attained
GCSEs in both Maths and English
Additional Opportunities
— Level 2 Community Sports Leader Award
— Level 3 Higher Sports Leader Award
— National Governing Bodies Coaching Qualifications
— First Aid
— YMCA Level 2 Certificate in Gym Instructing
— Trips and visits
— High quality work experience placements
Exit Routes (UK):
- University Centre South Devon or elsewhere
- Professional or semi-professional football clubs
- Apprentiships or higher level courses
Exit Routes & Scholarships (USA):
— Pro:Direct Academy will be running trips from Easter 2019 to offer behind the scenes opportunities to witness the facilities and levels of play in US college/university soccer programmes.
— Scholarships offer a chance to experience the US education system if successful in gaining athletic and academic scholarship funding.
— Experience life on a US college/university campus: a once in a lifetime experience.
— Chance to showcase your football talent with US college/university coaches, players and educators.
GIRLS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME (Girls only 10-15 years)
Every Wednesday from February
South Devon College Sports Hub
Eight Acre Drive, White Rock, Paignton, Devon TQ4 7TP
3G Pitch
Head Coach: Grant Fisher
email PDA Devon
Grant has been running regular evening training sessions for girls since February 2019 at the prestigious South Devon College Sports Hub.
ROSIE KMITA - Head of PDA Girls
Rosie is Head of Girls for PDA and ensures that all of our girls teams enjoy a mix of performance, fitness and fun in their football, whatever the age group. She enjoys the perfect insight in to the modern game as she is also a full-time professional player with West Ham Women in the FA Women's Super League - the top division in England for women's football.
She graduated from the University of Hertfordshire after playing football and studying in the USA at Saint Leo University, one of Florida's top Universities.
After coaching at PDA London North she was appointed Head of Girls and enjoys trips overseas to countries such as Indonesia as a PDA Ambassador.
CHRIS TODD - Head of Pro:Direct Academy Devon
The former Eastleigh FC manager, experienced professional player with Swansea City FC, Exeter City FC & Torquay United FC.
GRANT FISHER - Lead Coach at Pro:Direct Academy Devon Girls Development (U11-U15)
A UEFA A Licenced Coach, Grant played as a goalkeeper for Cambridge United, Torquay United & Crystal Palace player and is the First Team Manager of Buckland Athletic Ladies FC.
More information: contact us now
12-14 Hours of Coaching with UEFA A Licensed Expert Coaches.
Professional game experienced coach-devised programmes to advance players both on and off the pitch towards earning a Pro Contract.
Compete weekly against Professional Clubs in competitive and trial games.
Train everyday at leading football facilities across the UK.
Represent Pro Direct Academy in exclusive Nike kit.
Study alongside your football and gain your qualifications
12-14 Hours of Coaching with UEFA A Licensed Expert Coaches.
Professional game experienced coach-devised programmes to advance players both on and off the pitch towards earning a Pro Contract.
Compete weekly against Professional Clubs in competitive and trial games.
Players should make our coaches aware of any medical conditions before joining Pro:Direct Academy or starting any of our programmes or sessions.
Any issues regarding the welfare of players is taken seriously and our UEFA & FA Licensed Coaches can forward parents and players to the Welfare Officer.


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Overdoor/Wall Jewelry Organizer in White By Longstem – Unique patented product – Rated Best
- 38 hooks that can hold 300 pieces and beautifully organize your whole collection of jewelry.
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List Price: $ 59.99
Price: $ 59.99


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Pictures of Jennifer Aniston With a Mystery Man at the Sunset Towers
Jennifer Aniston Brings a Mystery Man to the Sunset Tower!
Jennifer Aniston chatted with a guy friend last night as they waited for their car at LA's Sunset Tower. Her mystery man playfully grabbed her hand, a gesture which is sure to start stories about a new romance for Jen. Recent rumors linking Jen to comedian Jason Sudeikis were shot down by her reps, and he brought a different date along to hang out with Amy Poehler last weekend anyway. Jen has been relaxing at home in California after her stint in Hawaii filming Just Go With It alongside Brooklyn Decker, who learned a lot from the veteran actors on set. The downtime means Jen has a chance to chill out and practice her yoga — make sure to check out what Jen's teacher, Mandy Ingber, has to say about the star.


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"Being an incoming freshman was one of the most exciting times of my life. Mostly because I finally got to design my dorm room with my roommate, Kailey. Planning every last detail down to the gallery wall (the one that we never finished) made us feel good about move in day. When everything was in its place and it was time for bed that first night, it hit me; This is my new home." -Carli, Design Assisstant
This week we are covering dorm room design! That time of year is approaching and it can all be very overwhelming. To help, here are 5 steps to designing your dorm room:
Step 1: Assess the Situation and Space Plan
Dorms are notorious for being terribly small which makes space planning even more necessary. See if you can find out the dimensions of the space as well as what already comes in the dorm (bed, dresser, desk, etc.) and go from there. Find a layout that will land you with the most space and functionality. In a bunk bed situation, you might want to try something different and more aesthetically pleasing. If you're totally against the bunked idea and don't have much space try elevating one bed with risers and slide the foot of the other bed under, kind of like the photo above. This saves a bunch of room and adds a quirky aspect to the space!
Step 2: Roommate Communication
If you and your roommate are planning on coordinating stylistic aspects of your dorm (which is highly recommended) there are a few things to remember. Keep both you and your roommates' styles in mind! If you can come to an agreement on the style of your dorm, its easy from there on out! A suggestion is to make a joint Pinterest board with your roommate where you can both pin inspiration photos and ideas for decor. Then you'll get a glimpse of his/her vision and vice versa!
Step 3: Functionality and Storage
One of the worst things about living in a small space is how much smaller it can feel when things aren't in their place. Best way to avoid this? MAKE A PLACE FOR EVERYTHING (and keep it there). Things like stackable shoe racks for your closet, freestanding shelves, stylish bins and containers, hooks on the back of all your doors, and risers on your bed (for drawers underneath) will maximize your storage space and help keep you organized. If you're wanting to hide your under-bed storage, an oversized bed skirt does the trick and could complete the look of your space.
Step 4: Personalize Your Space
In our opinion, this is the best part! Making your side of the room your own is so important. Being so far from home and family, personal items and photos will make you feel less homesick and turn the space into your own. Personalizing your dorm doesn't just have to be the typical picture frames and posters. There are a lot of creative ways to show your personality through your dorm! The people that designed these dorms did a great job of showing who they are through their decor. The photo displays shown are very nontraditional and out of the ordinary making the spaces that much more unique.
Step 5: Enjoy!
These are the best years of your life so make them count! As cool as your dorm is going to be, you shouldn't be in there all the time! Make friends, study hard, have a blast, and enjoy the journey!
Until next Thursday…
Don't forget to follow us for updates, inspiring posts, and other exciting things taking place in the world of Andrea-Noel Designs:
Instagram: @andreanoeldesigns
Facebook: Andrea-Noel Designs
Twitter: @_ANDesigns
You can also find us on LinkedIn 😉


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New Delhi: Sonia Gandhi, the congress party president, was taken ill during a roadshow in Varanasi and forced to return to the national capital on Tuesday night. Now She was stable.
Sonia Gandhi, 69-year-old Congress chief returned New Dellhi by a chartered flight at midnight. Sonia Gandhi had to abandon the 8-km roadshow in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh midway due to illness.
Sonia Gandhi was admitted to the R&R Hospital of Army due to high fever last late night.
Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar visited the Congress chief Sonia Gandhi at R&R Hosiptal. Army chief Gen Dalbir Singh Suhag also visited the Congress president at the R&R Hospital during her stay.
Rahul Gandhi, Congress vice president and her sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, were visited at the hospital. The son-in-law of Sonia Gandhi, Robert Vadra also visited her at R&R Hospital.


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Asthma Channel
Topics & Medications
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Is There a Link Between Asthma Medications, Osteoporosis, and Bone Health?
Because of their effectiveness in controlling asthma with the fewest side effects, inhaled corticosteroid medication is preferred to oral forms. Oral corticosteroids, which can cause significant bone loss over time, may be necessary for some people with asthma. Asthma patients who are treated with 40 to 60 mg per day of oral corticosteroids for long periods of time are most likely to experience bone loss. Even those patients who take 10 mg per day are likely to experience some bone loss over time.
The following tips can help individuals with asthma to maximize their bone health:
- Use medications prudently. Bone loss tends to increase with increased glucocorticoid doses and prolonged use. No matter which form of medication is used, the lowest possible dose for the shortest period of time that controls asthma symptoms is recommended. Other medications are available that also may relieve symptoms without causing bone loss, although for some people steroids are necessary.
- Reduce exposure to triggers. Reducing your exposure to things that appear to trigger asthma attacks may lessen your need for medication.
- Avoid infection. Avoid people with colds and other respiratory infections whenever possible.
- Minimize exposure to irritants. Avoid cigarette smoke, strong odors, air pollution, aerosol sprays, paint fumes, red wine, beer, food coloring, food dyes, sulfite food preservatives, and extreme changes in temperature. Pay attention to air quality notices on your local weather stations.
- Reduce contact with allergens. Since asthma symptoms can be triggered by allergies, avoid known allergens, and when possible remove allergens from the home, school, or work environment. Common household allergens include animal dander, dust mites, pollen, molds, and dust.
- Monitor nutrition. A balanced diet with adequate amounts of calcium and vitamin D is critical for bone health. People with asthma who have a proven milk allergy should explore non-dairy sources of calcium and consider calcium supplementation in order to obtain enough calcium. The National Institutes for Health (NIH) recommends 400 to 600 mg of calcium for infants, 800 to 1,200 mg for children ages 1 to 10, and 1,200 to 1,500 mg for adolescents and young adults ages 11 to 24. For both children and adults on chronic corticosteroid therapy, some healthcare providers recommend a daily calcium intake of between 1,000 and 1,500 mg. Experts also recommend a daily vitamin D intake of between 400 and 800 IU.
- Exercise. Weight-bearing activities, such as walking, running, weight training, and team sports, can all have a positive impact on bone health, and participation should be encouraged. By improving muscle strength and coordination, exercise also can reduce the risk for falling and breaking bones. People who experience exercise-induced asthma should exercise in an environmentally controlled facility and participate in activities that fall within their limitations. They may also use medication when necessary to enable them to exercise.
- Stress reduction. If asthma is triggered by emotional stress, patients should consider participating in stress-reduction programs.
Osteoporosis and Other Medical Conditions
Written by/reviewed by: Arthur Schoenstadt, MD
Last reviewed by: Arthur Schoenstadt, MD


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How and where do you install access rights for the WinCC flexible options Sm@rtAccess and Sm@rtService?
Associated product(s)
The access rights for the Sm@rtAccess and Sm@rtService options are installed on the server operator panel in each case. The server operator panel is the SIMATIC Panel or the PC with the WinCC flexible Runtime, which is configured as Sm@rtServer or WebServer. The settings required for the access rights are in the Control Panel of the operator panel concerned under the item "WinCC Internet Settings".
Fig. 01: Control Panel of an MP277-8"
Fig. 02: Windows XP Control Panel
1. Access rights of the Sm@rtAccess and Sm@rtService web server
The user-related access to the services used with Sm@rtAccess and Sm@rtService is regulated with the user manager for the web server. The user manager of the web server is based on explicitly assigned web permissions.
Inputs and settings
The web permissions are assigned on the web server. For this you call "WinCC flexible Settings" in the system settings on the server and in the "Web Server" tab you click the "User Manager" button.
Fig. 03
The"UserDatabase-Edit" dialog has three tabs:
- "User Manager"
In this tab you create or delete users.
- "Description"
In this tab you can add a description/comment for the user selected in the "User Manager" tab.
- "Authorizations"
In this tab you assign the web permissions for the user selected in the "User Manager" tab. With "Add" you activate a web permission and you deactivate it with "Remove".
The password "100" and all web permissions are set by default for the user entitled "Administrator". Change this default password during commissioning to suit your requirements.
The user must have the web permissions "FileBrowserAdministrator" and "FileBrowserUser" for read and write access to the file browser.
In principle any user who has access to the Control Panel can manage the users and web permissions. If necessary, you can protect the Control Panel against unauthorized access.
2. Access rights of the Sm@rtServer for remote control
The Sm@rtServer has its own security concept that is based on passwords and special settings for the Session Management. The remote monitoring and operation of the Sm@rtServers from the Sm@rtClient is also protected by two passwords. The second password is a password for an additional access as service password, for example.
Settings on the Sm@rtServer
The settings on the server determine which remote operator is allowed to access the Runtime of the server. Open "WinCC Internet Settings" in the Control Panel. Click the "Remote" tab and then "Change Settings". In the dialog that opens select the "Server" tab and enter the passwords of the Sm@rtClient.
Fig. 04
With the two passwords you can set the monitoring mode and exclude the operator mode by checking "View only". On an operator panel this dialog is called "Sm@rtServer: Default Local System Properties" and contains less dialog elements than the dialog on the PC.
The default setting for both passwords is "100". You can easily change the passwords as required. Change these default passwords during commissioning to suit your requirements.
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- Automation Technology Operator control and monitoring systems HMI Software HMI-System SIMATIC WinCC flexible
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I found the tutorial a bit helpful but not directly what I would like to accomplish with AE. I am interested in what I can build using AE and need a few different kinds of inspiration.
Will you have more tutorials? On different topics?
Need for more tutorials
Create fast, sprite powered games with Animation Engine, co-developed with DerBrill Software!
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Need for more tutorials
Tom McGrath III
Lazy River Software
Lazy River Software
Defenitly. There is quite a few things in the works. in the meantime make sure to check out the eBook (if you haven't already) which has quite a few nice tutorials in it. Also I would be grateful for suggestions what to turials are needed. Maybe I should make a sticky for it.
All the best,
All the best,
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The amalgam of science and art has been proven to be the most revolutionary step taken by the human being. It has not only helped to advance the field of science but also has changed the lifestyle of the human being. Business professionals use these kind of amalgams to flourish their business and to paste a long lasting brand name in the market. Custom printed boxes are example of such business tricks which is expanding and helping professionals to earn the money. Custom boxes are highly customizable and special type of packaging made of cardboard or hard paper which is used to pack and ship different items. Many printing industries are manufacturing these boxes and have become the leading industries in the market. Custom printed boxes have changed the meaning of packaging and shipping. These boxes provide reliable safety precaution along with artistic packaging beauty. These boxes are versatile boxes in many ways. They are very handy to protect valuable contents.
Custom printed boxes are made according to customer requirements. Many companies provide the printing services for these boxes. Some preliminary steps should be taken before manufacturing and printing of these boxes which are following:
- Select the material for the boxes which is safe for the required product. This box should be smart and trustworthy to provide the safety from damage, dents and mishandling in the easiest and simplest way.
- These boxes can die cut and customized to deliver easy carrying and perfect preservation of the product.
- Shape of box count so much. It should be according to product. The product should easily fit in this box. The shape also varies according to the purpose of packaging. If you are packing the product for gift purposes, then it should be beautiful and charming that touch the heart of person from depth. This beauty should not be only visible to the eye, heart must feel this beauty too. If this packaging is for shipping and delivery purposes, then the manufacturer should count on safety and shipping area first.
- Printing design and illustration of these boxes matter a lot in branding your product. A well and detail oriented design of these boxes gives an affordable and economical solution with the guarantee of campaign for your product.
- Design is also changed with the requirement. These boxes should carry detailed information and specifications of a product if it is for presentation and advertising purposes. These boxes should have floral texture and delicate printing if you are going to gift someone. The beauty and cosmetics product have special designs with good combination of colors which elevate the customer urge to buy a product and inspire him.
- These boxes can be customized with different logos of companies. Stamping and embossing the boxes with special inks or foils can leave the long lasting image of the product to the customer. Different colors of ink are used for embossing and stamping.
Many companies provide the discount and special offers on bulk orders and give the customer relief and easiness. They provide supreme services for your product packaging and shipping.


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100% Natural And Pure Essential Oils
Our philosophy is pretty simple. At Omniscentral, we believe that everyone deserves a break. Today's busy world can take its toll even on the best multi-tasker or superior planner. Our goal is to create life-giving moments for our customers. Everyone deserves to dip their toes in the sand, sip tea with friends or slip into the tub with a good book. And that's why we offer the very best pure essential oils at affordable, practical prices.
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Classic pulp magazine character Doc Savage hasn't had much luck so far when it comes to the world of Hollywood. Most of the attempted adaptations failed to ever make it to the big screen, and the only Doc Savage movie that was actually seen by audiences - Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze - was both a critical and financial failure.
Back in 2010, Iron Man 3 director Shane Black was hired by Sony Pictures and producer Neil Moritz to direct a new Doc Savage movie. Those who have been watching the box office closely may have noticed that the movie has yet to materialize, and in fact it's been many, many months since we last heard any news about the project. There is a script in place, co-written by Black, Anthony Bagarozzi and Chuck Mondry, but currently no actor attached to play the lead and no schedule set for its production or eventual release.
A new update from THR (the same one which revealed that Black is rebooting Predator) confirms that the project has been undergoing delays due to the fact that it's "grappling with budgetary issues," though Sony apparently considers it a priority. According to the report, Black isn't laying down on the job; he's "actively developing" Doc Savage and recently met with another member of the Marvel family, Chris Hemsworth, to discuss the possibility of him playing the lead.
Hemsworth is no stranger to conquering hero roles, having played the Norse god of thunder Thor in several Marvel movies and U.S. Marine Jed Eckert in the recent Red Dawn remake, but Doc Savage is a character who has a lot of brains to back up his brawn. In addition to being in peak physical condition, Clark Savage Jr. is also a genius scientist, inventor, detective and surgeon with a photographic memory. You'd think that was quite enough awesomeness to be getting on with, but one of Doc Savage's key character traits is that he's always trying to better himself.
Standing at 6"2' with very impressive musculature, Hemsworth easily meets the base requirements that Black laid out when he discussed casting last year. For those who need a reminder, Black is looking for the ideal man:
"They kind of gotta be tall. He's the perfect physical specimen and when people look at him, they're overawed by the sort of symmetry and perfection that he exudes... We need someone big."
Hemsworth certainly fits the bill, but right now the task of casting is probably secondary to the problem of getting a budget and filming schedule in place for Doc Savage. It's possible that Sony has been a little spooked by the box office disaster that was Disney's The Lone Ranger, another movie that was plagued by budgetary concerns and ended up costing over $375 million in production and marketing. The Lone Ranger's relatively paltry $260 million box office gross proved that studios can't just rely on good old American nostalgia to get audiences into theaters.
It could be argued that Hemsworth is now far batter known than The Lone Ranger star Armie Hammer (even having Johnny Depp as his costar didn't help Hammer), and that securing Hemsworth as the lead for Doc Savage will help the movie find an audience. That said, it didn't do much for Red Dawn.
We'll keep you updated on Doc Savage as development continues.
Source: THR


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Landscaping can turn an ordinary looking outdoor space into a work of art. - Jim Davis
Landscaping is defined as an activity that modifies the visual features of a specified outdoor environment. There are many aspects to landscaping, including the placement of shrubs, trees, annual and perennial flora, shredded mulch and rock. It requires a careful examination of the area that is to be landscaped and the creation of a plan that takes advantage of terrain shape, elevation and other natural elements in its design. One does not simply grab a shovel and start landscaping! Artistry in composition and expertise in execution are prerequisites for attaining a truly beautiful medium.Landscaping opportunities vary according to the topography, climate and lighting at the site in question. Will certain plants thrive in the conditions that are present? Should they be started from seed or be inserted at some stage of maturity? What is the depth of the frost line? Is the soil of adequate quality or must it be replaced? How will rain water or runoff affect the space? Does the land need to be reshaped, added to, or cut away? These are all variables that the experts at Property Maintenance Co. will take into account when designing your landscaping project. We understand the environmental conditions in the St. Paul and Twin Cities region, and we are versed in the horticultural requirements of every possible project.Not all land is fit for landscaping without first modifying or reshaping it to the desired template. You might be looking at a steep hill covered with grass, but envisioning a multi-tiered terrace defined by decorative rock interlaced with floral elements. Retaining walls are used to constrict soil between two different elevations, often in areas of terrain possessing slopes that would otherwise restrict horizontal exploitation of the space. Engineering your landscape may employ such retaining walls, utilize decorative rocks and edging to characterize the setting, and arrange pavers to provide access to various areas for maintenance or enjoyment.We are your local landscaping experts in the St. Paul and Twin Cities areas. Having studied, observed and designed countless outdoor spaces, we bring knowledge and experience to the table. The design phase of any project is among the most essential and will ultimately determine whether the initial vision is realized or not. By the time our crew arrives to begin their work, every detail has been taken into consideration. The fundamentals of a successful landscaping project include an understanding of the site, an eye for aesthetics and proper equipment to get the job done right. These attributes are what make us the best choice for any landscaping project you can imagine, and what differentiate our business from all others.


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Bennett Thrasher
When Bennett Thrasher was ready to develop a new workplace strategy for their new Atlanta headquarters, they re-engaged HLGstudio as their long-term design partner. Working with a core internal leadership team and the accounting and tax firm's corporate real estate consultants, HLGstudio helped identify, plan and design a new workplace consisting of over 58,000 square feet of space. The new office will be positioned for long term success through modular / adaptable space planning, branded interiors and the implementation of new technology throughout the space to help increase worker productivity. Through a communicating stair that connects the two main levels, Bennett Thrasher associates will be able to collaborate with each other more than ever supporting work processes that embody their core value of better together.


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|Related Links:
All religious communities are different and most have very different needs when it comes to insurance. However, you may wish to consider getting insurance coverage for business interruption if you believe that your church would be in danger of financial ruin in the event that an event damages your buildings and renders it unusable.
More specifically, your church may wish to buy a business interruption insurance policy if:
- You make a significant percentage of your income from donations during services.
- You run programs out of your church building, such as a daycare or preschool.
- You rent out your church for weddings and other events.
- Your financial security rests upon the functionality of your church or surrounding buildings.
If your church is damaged because of severe weather, flooding, fire, or vandalism, business insurance may help keep your community going even if you cannot continue offering services and collecting income. For example, you may qualify for funds if your religious building loses its roof in a tornado and your community can no longer hold services, run its preschool, or hold events.
The best way to know whether your church could benefit from business interruption insurance is to speak with a lawyer, an insurance agent, and a financial advisor.
Do you have a question about business interruption insurance policies, or is your church struggling with a business interruption claim? The church insurance claim attorneys at the Voss Law Firm may be able to help. To learn more about our services, or to speak with a lawyer, call us today: 888-614-7730.


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|Faded Waxy
A painted index card wrapped in wax paper splattered with previous painting
is my method to "fade" the design underneath.
Wax paper protects my art table.
I used a scrap of this exact piece of wax paper to wrap a painted index card (above)
for the Daily Paper Prompt "Faded"
Faded Denim Hearts, Daily Paper Prompts 2012
I traced a heart shaped template over and over on an index card,
colored every shape with watercolor pencils,
then spritzed the index card with water for a "faded" look.
~Cheryl Gee shared this creativity at Artsyville's Glue It Tuesday.


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Filing for Social Security Disability Benefits
Serving Jacksonville, Jacksonville Beach and clients throughout Florida
Filing for SSDI is not too difficult, but getting approved most certainly is. The majority of applications processed by the SSA in Florida are denied at first glance. Whether it is because of missing documentation, ineligibility or a simple error, those delays mean longer wait times before you get the benefits you are entitled to.
If you think you qualify for social security disability benefits, then it may be in your best interest to contact an attorney. While most people wait to hire an attorney for their appeal, an attorney can increase the chances your claim is approved initially and speed up the process for appeal in the slim chance it is denied.
Filing Online
Applicants previously had to report in person to a local Social Security Administration office to complete an application. However, today applicants can begin the process online. Claims can take approximately three to five months to process; therefore, starting the process as soon as possible is the best course of action.
Also, before you try to apply online, have the information necessary to speed up the process. Some information you will need include:
- Your age and social security number – you will need a social security card and driver's license to prove these items.
- The names and contact information of any treating physicians, hospitals, clinics, and caseworkers associated with your disability and medical condition.
- The names and dosage amounts of medications you are currently taking.
- Medical records – including physician, hospital, clinic and caseworker records.
- Laboratory test records and results.
- A summary of jobs you have worked in the past and a description of your duties and responsibilities.
- Any recent W-2's you have or a federal tax return copy if you were self-employed.
- Proof of marriage – if your spouse is applying for benefits.
Because the online system is not always reliable, you may want to call your local SSA office to confirm receipt of your electronic application. It can take several hours, so calling the next day to make sure everything was transmitted is best.
The Social Security Disability Interview
After your application is received, you will be contacted to schedule an interview with an SSDI representative. This interview lasts approximately one hour and will go over details that help determine benefit eligibility. Some information that may be discussed includes:
- Medical history
- Work history
- Medical treatment you have received for your disability over the past year
- Non-medical information, such as marital status, any dependents, military service, and if you are currently receiving workers compensation benefits
- Going over information provided on your application
It's important to note that this interview is strictly fact-finding, and no decision is made during the interview.
Contact the SSDI Experts at Hardesty, Tyde, Green & Ashton Now
Improve the chances of your application being accepted and engage the services of skilled SSDI lawyers who are here to help you get the benefits you deserve.
Contact the attorneys at Hardesty, Tyde, Green & Ashton, P.A. today for a free consultation regarding your SSDI case.


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Holy Moly, Finished my Hours!November 22nd, 2016 at 04:16 am
I calculated all of my practicum hours for my applied behavior analysis (ABA) program. I triple checked with my practicum supervisor and program director. I have met the required 1500 supervised hours of experience!!!
I will be finished with my final class in a few weeks. I will have to apply to sit for the exam, which will be scheduled sometime in February. In the meantime, I have been studying like never before. This is something I am determined to pass.
We will be driving "home" 3 hours away for Thanksgiving. My condo down there is still vacant so I will be staying there. We never stay with my parents because their house isn't in any shape for overnight visitors. And they don't seem to be bothered by it, so that's just the way it is.
We will be going to a lovely seafood buffet for Thanksgiving, about $30 pp. We are each paying for ourselves. This will come out of our eating out budget. I'd rather not spend so much on a meal, but then again, hosting Thanksgiving isn't cheap anyway, and this way we have more free time to enjoy the visit.
I hope everyone here has a peaceful, warm Thanksgiving!


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We've recently finished the construction and the stocking of our trailer and snow plow parts showroom, here at JJM in Salem, NH.
Now, JJM will be the area's go-to location for one-stop shopping for trailers, parts, and accessories.
We also stock parts for Sno-Way and Fisher Snowplows.
Stop by. If we don't have what you need, we can get it for you fast!


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We take the work out of your fun
I recently had the pleasure to attend several Dark Phoenix events at the Total Confusion Gaming Convention. I had such a great time. Their coordinators were fantastic, organized and kept the fun moving along. They explained the events, the rules (if any) and pretty much left us participants to worry about the "having fun" part. I played one Standard RPG with a game master that blew me away. He told a fantastic story and drew everyone in. In the end, we got lucky and saved the day. I also tried a new game where Dark Phoenix acted as more as a coordinator than a storyteller due to the games nature. It was set up in a very innovated way which really made it easy for us to concentrate on the game and having fun. By the end we were all laughing so hard there were tears of joy. The games I participated in that were run by this group were the best of the con, and made it such an enjoyable weekend. Five stars to these fantastic coordinators and game masters.
As the Media Director of Total Confusion Game Convention, I would not hesitate to recommend Dark Phoenix Events to anyone wishing to have a fully dynamic experience that is stress free for the host and fun for all. I am fully aware of the requirements needed to deliver a great gaming event and I have attended two of their events. From pre-planning to on-site coordination, they do not disappoint. More importantly, Scott and Petra have a wonderful way of interacting with the surrounding environment and crowd. Their years of gaming experience shine through as they flow in the moment, tailoring the event as it progresses, to give people a truly one of a kind memorable event. Not only do I eagerly look forward to attending more of their events, it is my intention to use their services in the future.
I have attended many Dark Phoenix events and they are always a great time. From hotel mini-cons to camping trips. From murder mystery dinners to LARPs. Their events are the best. They are affiliated with some of the best horror GMs I have ever had the pleasure of gaming with, but they run any game, any genre, any place. Whether you like Call of Cthulhu, D&D, Pathfinder, Savage Worlds, or a homebrew system, they've got something for you. Hook up with Dark Phoenix. You won't regret it!
As the Chef/Owner of My Chef Lara I have worked with Dark Phoenix Events many times. They are consummate professionals and I enjoy each and every event. I have even been a participant a few times and they never fail to please. I highly recommend their services to make any event a fabulous time. Their gaming events are bar none and their parties, well the word I hear most often is EPIC! For a time you and your guests will never forget I suggest you start talking to them now. I am both a vendor who respects them greatly and a satisfied customer. Life is too short - go have fun now!
"Dark Phoenix events are always a blast! The themed parties are meticulously planned and carefully executed, with plots set in motion weeks in advance when guests receive their character histories and a description of the scenario. Some people use this time to put together elaborate costumes for their character and the theme, and part of the fun is seeing who your friends show up as and what they're wearing. During the event guests interact, trying to figure out the mystery at hand while furthering their own secret agendas. All the while the hosts monitor the interaction, nudging people here and there and intervening with announcements of clues and new developments. The plots are complex enough to keep everyone engaged in the storyline as it unfolds, but also flexible enough to accommodate last-minute cancellations or additions, and to allow people to participate however actively they choose. If you're planning a party for a group of friends, a themed party will add an extra dimension to make it a really memorable event. If you're planning a party for people who don't know each other well, a themed party is a great vehicle to get your guests to interact and have a good time meeting new people. In either case, Dark Phoenix Events will make it a worry-free event. Even the food is planned and themed. It's like a party in a box!
Over the past three decades I've written, directed and performed on television, community theater, murder mysteries for famous chain hotels and LARPs at ORIGINS and GENCON, so it takes a lot to impress me when it comes to creating an atmosphere that encourages and supports improvisation when dealing with non-professionals. I was impressed with Dark Phoenix Events. Since this is a brand new venture, their attention to detail and determination for customer satisfaction came as a pleasant surprise. This quickly turned to admiration as I experienced their many services and the genuine friendliness that encompasses all that they do.Dark Phoenix Events begins one of their events with an eye-catching social invitation on Social Media. They update the information regularly. When you arrive at the Event, the site is decorated to help "put you in the mood". The staff is dressed in costumes with appropriate accessories. Props are distributed throughout the available rooms. The games are entertaining and the game masters knowledgeable.The catering aspect was unexpected, yet very much appreciated, quite a difference from the regular chip and dip cuisine. Full meals, appetizers, desserts and snacks were offered for vegans as well as omnivores.Overall, I am more than happy to give my endorsement to the hard working people keeping everything running smoothly behind the scenes of Dark Phoenix Events. They are creative yet practical which are two major factors I look for in a company that provides this type of specialized business.When I'm ready for adventure, I know who to contact - Scott and Petra, Dark Phoenix Events
More coming soon!
Dark Phoenix supports and endorses the following businesses.
My CHEF LARA PERSONAL CHEF SERVICES
Game soapbox productions
Askew bistro and entertainment venue, providence, RI
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Visit our Contact Page to get started planning your own incredible event!


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We are continually driven to capture life's moments. With an unstoppable passion for documenting life as a way of expressing ourselves, we spend hours and hours and gigabytes on perfecting our view of brightening the world through photography.
Ozlo Birthday
Jessica Mommy & Me
Hall Family
Jennifer Headshot
Donovan Family
Sheridyn Senior


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Hello there, agency senior leader, recruiter, and/or job candidate!
When Thunderclap was chasing new business work, we would publish pitch predictions. These were marketplace changes that would lead to agency new business pitches. Typically, these were new CMOs and other client-side changes. Always helpful for agencies hungry for new revenue opportunities.
But from both candidate and recruiter perspectives, on the Moment of Hire timeline, a new client-side Chief Marketing Officer announcement is fairly early.
Now that we've published a new, recruiting-focused site, we thought you might find it more helpful to be aware of something a little closer to the Moment of Hire.
So here are a few things we've picked up from the trades and smart Google alerts as of March 5, 2018. It is by no means a complete list:
- Kimberly Clark (global). Incumbent = Ogilvy
- Ancestry.com. Incumbent = Droga5 London
- US Army (recent news). Incumbent = McCann. NY?
- Hyatt launches global review. Incumbent = MullenLowe
- Carmichael Lynch wins Helzberg Diamonds
- Wolfgang wins Panda Express
- Y&R and Mediacom win Office Depot
- Zimmerman wins Gabe's
- Publicis (global standalone) wins Mercedes
- Barkley loses Helzberg Diamonds (project work?)
- Bailey Lauerman loses Panda Express
- Zimmerman loses Office Depot
- BBDO loses Mercedes (non-US business)
Should you wish to get this intel faster, subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks!
photo credit: The Library of Congress Bugle Megaphone, Fort Totten (LOC) via photopin (license)


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A fun-loving "designer dog", a Yorkipoo
is a cross between the Yorkshire Terrier and a Toy or Miniature Poodle. Always ready to entertain, the Yorkipoo is
truly a canine clown. Also known as a Yorkie Doodle, 1 … 2…3… Yorkie Doodle went to town a riding on a …. Yup,
that's in your head now. He is intelligent, affectionate, and gentle
and is perfectly suited to apartment life. He has plenty of energy to be burned off and
he loves to play when he's not parked on your lap watching YouTube. Hi, welcome to Animal Facts, join us for ten
fantastic facts about the cuddly canine, the Yorkipoo. Let's get started, but before we start,
take a moment to like and subscribe for more fun fauna facts. 10. Only existing for about a decade, the Yorkiepoo
is part of a growing trend of designer dogs. He was initially developed as a toy-sized
companion dog with a hypoallergenic coat and free of common health problems of the parent
breeds. Like all designer breeds, Yorkiepoos can inherit
the traits of either breed, and most Yorkiepoo litters are the result of first generation
Yorkshire Terrier and Poodle parents. Some breeders have focused on creating a dog
with more consistent traits by breeding Yorkiepoos together. 9. The Yorki Poo can have a long, straight, silky
coat like the Yorkshire Terrier, a fine frizzy, wooly coat like the Poodle, or anything in
between. Yorki Poos come in a wide variety of colors,
such as brown, silver, grey, and white. Many are two-toned in a pattern similar to
the Yorkshire Terrier, with a cream or chestnut body, legs, and mask, and grey or silver on
the collar, top of the head, and ears. 8. The Yorki Poo does not require a lot of exercise. Most of its exercise requirements can be met
through indoor activity, but Yorki Poos love going on walks with their owner and regular
play time outdoors, and have enough stamina to come alongside for a longer jog. The Yorki Poo is well suited to apartment
life. His ability to run fast and jump high can
be surprising to those not expecting a canine Superman. 7. A lot of Yorkie Poos are just three to fifteen
pounds in weight. They have a body size of a toy dog but they
cannot be considered as a toy breed, as they are twelve inches tall. 6. He is a non- to low-shedder and can make an
excellent companion for people with allergies. Get into the habit of brushing your Yorkie
Poo on a weekly basis. They will also need to be bathed and shampooed
when necessary. Their hair should be trimmed on a regular
basis, especially around the eyes and ears. 5. Barking is a favorite pastime. Occasionally a Yorkipoo can be trained to
bark less, but expect to hear the noise whenever someone comes to the door. He has no clue that his bark doesn't terrify
anyone. However, Yorkiooos greet strangers as if they
were long lost friends. Generally, they will allow other people to
pet them and lavish them with attention but; he might draw the line at picking him up. 4. Most of these dogs love to travel. Some dogs would rather sit and home and wait
for their owners return. But not the Yorkie Poo, these dogs want to
be part of the action so you can bring them along when you travel. In fact, they get very lonely when left at
home so you have to keep that in mind if you are a busy person. 3. The Yorkipoo is a gentle and loving dog who
can do well with children. He's not recommended for homes with very young
children, since he can be easily injured when improperly handled. A Yorkipoo can make an excellent companion
for an older, more considerate child. In general, he does well with other dogs and
pets. He may display prey drive due to his Yorkie
parent, however. That may lead him to chase smaller pets (not
that there are a lot of pets much smaller than he is) and cats, but usually it's in
good fun. 2. An easily trainable dog, the Yorkipoo is eager
to please his owners. Yorkie-Poos can quickly learn basic commands
but can also learn typical parlor tricks such as crawl, play dead and dance. His enthusiasm and desire to entertain will
keep your family and friends entertained and laughing! This crossbreed has the potential to become
great obedience prospects as well as agility and therapy dogs. There is no doubt that the Yorkie-Poo can
be highly competitive in a variety of dog sports. 1. The American Kennel Club (AKC) does not recognize
Yorkie Poos as a breed, largely because their physical and temperamental characteristics
are less predictable than those of a true breed. To become a breed in their own right, at least
300 must exist in the United States, disbursed throughout at least 20 states. They must also have their own National Breed
Club and have predictable traits inherited through at least three generations of breeding
between Yorkie Poos. As of July 2011, they are recognized by the
American Canine Hybrid Club, the Designer Dogs Kennel Club, the International Designer
Canine Registry and the Designer Breed Registry. Well, there ya have it; ten fascinating facts
about the charming canine companion, the Yorkipoo. Tell me that isn't fun to say repeatedly. We love hering about your pets, so let us
know about your Yorkipoo in the comments below. Before ya go, take a moemt to like and subscribe
for more fun, fauna facts. We publish at least twice a week, so don't
miss a single facts. And as always, catch ya next time. 1, 2,3 …. Yorkie Doodle went to town, a
riding on a pony….


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Potassium Metabisulfite is a versatile winemaking agent used primarily as an antioxidant, sterilant, and stabilizer. It prevents most wild microorganisms from growing, and it protects both the color, and delicate flavors of wine. Potassium metabisulfite will lose its effectiveness over time, so a good rule of thumb is to replace your supply at least annually. Old metabisulfite can be used as sanitizer.
- For pretreatment of must, dose up to 1/4 tsp. per 6 gallons of must to provide 75 ppm of SO2.
- To stabilize fermented wine, dose up to 1/4 tsp. per 6 gallons of finished product for solid protection of wine and to allow for back sweetening of wine with no additional fermentation.
- To use as a general sanitizing solution, dilute 2 tsp. of metabisulfite in a standard size spray bottle with water to provide a 1% solution suitable to spray all equipment used in the winemaking process. Or, add 2 oz per gallon of water.
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ELEPHANT TROPHY Design Sign by Tes-Ted
Design sign Elephant Head Trophy is part of the Animal Respectful Trophy II collection signed by Tes-Ted for Hu2 Design and Born Free Animal Charity. This wall art sign is made from a wooden board on which is applied a natural wax coating. It is made in a small town in Jura region, France.
For all Elephant design sign sold, 5% goes to Born Free Animal Charity
– colour: Black
– material: Wood
– size : 97cm x 125cm x 0.8cm
– made in: France
3 in stock
This capsule collection designed by Antoine Tes-Ted for Hu2 Design and Born Free Animal Charity is a tribute to Elephants.
At the very beginning, this collaboration intends to present an innovative design with an exceptional quality of execution combined with a refined packaging. Those wall signs are the most achieved artwork using this intuitive approach and gives to the design a real presence, stolid, conveyed by the fluidity of the drawing lines. The capsule collection counts 3 exceptional masterpieces, manufactured in the Jura region in France.
Additional information
|0.5 kg
|97 × 125 × 0.8 cm
Premium Material
We used a premium 8mm MDF wood board that combines the natural features of wood where fibres are coloured individually, impregnated with organic dyes and bonded together by a special resin.
Natural Wax Coating
To ensure a perfect moisture resistance, we apply a natural wax coating that gives a unique colour finish and a beautiful texture.
Invisible Wall Fixation
An invisible and innovative fixation system is provided with this sign for an optimal wall mounting installation. All instructions are provided with packaging.


text:
'Departure impressions'
- Category: Masters Masterpieces
- Published Date
- Hits: 6257
Cinema is a magnificent art of manifestation of expectations of human soul. It constantly communicates and confronts with the spectator's vision and wisdom to devise and advise a possible parallel view.
There are some films which are capable of keeping you in expedition for a long period through the outskirts of critical scrutiny in search for the ruins of thoughts left by them. 'Departures' the Japanese film by Yojiro Takita which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 81st Oscars in 2009 is such a film.
Daigo Kobayashi, a cellist in Tokyo, loses his job when his orchestra is disbanded. He decides to move back to his hometown, with his wife Mika. Daigo's family used to run a small coffee shop over there. His father ran away with the waitress when Daigo was very young. His mother raised him by herself and died two years ago.
Daigo finds an advertisement in the newspaper for "assisting departures". He goes to the interview, uncertain of the job's nature. He is hired on the spot after only one question ("Will you work hard?") and being handed an "advance" by his new boss. He discovers that the job involves preparing the dead. Daigo reluctantly accepts it and returns to his wife with Sukiyaki for a celebration, but he tells her that his job will be performing some sort of ceremony.
On his first day, he is made to act as a corpse in a DVD explaining the procedure. His first assignment is to clean, dress and apply cosmetics to the body of an aged woman who has died alone at home, remaining undiscovered for two weeks. He is beset with nausea, and humiliated when strangers on the bus detect an unsavory scent. He goes to an old public bath that he often went to during his childhood to wash off.
Daigo completes a number of assignments and experiences the gratitude of those left behind, gaining a sense of fulfillment. He began to think that death is not the "end" but the "gate to a next stage". But Mika finds the DVD and begs him to give up such a "disgusting profession." Daigo refuses to quit, so she leaves.
After a few months, Daigo's wife returns, announcing that she is pregnant. She seems to assume that he will get a different job.Afterwards, Daigo goes to the river and finds a small stone to give to Mika. He tells her about "stone-letters", a story told to him by his father - "A long time ago, before words were invented, people would give each other stones to express how they were feeling at that point. A smooth stone might mean that you are happy, while a rough one might mean you are worried about them." Many years ago, Daigo had stood on these same riverbanks with his father and exchanged stone-letters. Daigo's father had promised to send him one every year, though he never did.
Daigo's father dies. Daigo and Mika go to see the body of his father, but Daigo finds that he cannot recognize him. As the funeral workers carelessly handle the body, he angrily stops them, and his wife explains that her husband prepares the dead for burial as a living, thereby tacitly admitting that she has come to accept his work. Daigo takes over the dressing of his father's body. Daigo finds the stone-letter he had given to his father when he was little, in his father's hands. He is at last able to recognize his father from his childhood memory. As he finishes the ceremony, Daigo gently presses the stone-letter to Mika's pregnant belly.
'Departures' is a different film by all means of film analysis. The theme of the film is disturbingly remarkable. The attempt to interpret the vibrant silence between death and life through simple and symbolic visual imagery makes the film exceptional. When we seriously get involved in to the film we could sense and make out that the film has got a philosophical aspect and appeal too. The connection and common ground all people share through loss and mourning is portrayed in a meticulously suggestive style. The film, mostly set in a wintry landscape surrounded by snow-capped mountains, is fabulously composed to provide strong visual support to the powerful script. The calm and emotive music composed by Joe Hisaishi plays a key role in making the theme of the film intensely penetrating.
Death, life, grief, loss, and loneliness everything comes out as a character in this film and at some point or the other everyone could find and relate themselves to it.
|Starring : Masahiro Motoki, Ryōko Hirosue, Tsutomu Yamazaki, Kimiko Yo, Takashi Sasano
|Director : Yojiro Takita
Producer : Yasuhiro Mase
|Cinematography :Takeshi Hamada
Script : Kundo Koyama
|Editor : Akimasa Kawashima
Music : Joe Hisaishi


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I wrote this post to address mobile data-related problems our readers asked us about. There are a lot of factors that may cause these kinds of problems so we will have to tackle them one by one.
But before anything else, if ever you encounter problems with your Android phone, don't hesitate to contact us, or me, through our email [email protected] or post in our Facebook page and Google+ community.
We've also covered a lot of Galaxy Note 2 problems already so you might want to browse our series:
Samsung Galaxy Note 2: Problems, Questions, Solutions, Fixes [Part 1][Part 2][Part 3][Part 4][Part 5]
#1. Area Coverage
You need to call your provider or carrier and inquire about the current status of their transmission in your area. You may need to provide your complete and detailed address or location. In case there are outages, you will be advised to wait 24 hours or until the problem was resolved.
Your carrier is the most reliable source of information like outages, however, there is no guarantee you get the correct info at the specific you called. Having worked as a technical support for a wireless company, I know exactly what representatives would do. They will neither confirm nor deny possible outages.
During my tenure, I would do the same thing. Even if I can see on my tools that there is a possible outage, we would be advised to wait few hours before we could deliver our spiels about the on-going outage. But it is still worth to call your carrier and inquire about outages.
APN Settings
You will need these because without them, your phone will not be able to register to your carrier's network, thus, it cannot get any service at all. There are times when one data is incorrect that your device could register to the network but can neither get data nor make / receive calls and text messages.
You may still have to call your carrier about your APN settings (also known as WAP Settings) to check whether the ones your phone currently have are correct. Here's how you check them:
- From the Home screen, tap the Menu key.
- Tap Settings, and then Connections tab.
- Tap More networks, then Mobile networks.
- Tap Access Point Names.
- You can edit existing APNs or simply create a new one (I would prefer the latter).
Here are the APNs of the popular carriers in the US:
AT&T APN Settings
- Name: ATT
- APN: wap.cingular
- Proxy: <Leave it Blank>
- Port: <Leave it Blank>
- Username: [email protected]
- Password: cingular1
- Server: <Leave it Blank>
- MMSC: https://mmsc.cingular.com
- MMS proxy: wireless.cingular.com
- MMS port: 80
- Authentication type: <Leave it Blank>
- APN type: default,supl,mms
- APN Protocol: Leave it to the Default one
AT&T APN Settings (4G)
- Name: ATT HSPA+
- APN: phone
- Proxy: <Leave it Blank>
- Port: <Leave it Blank>
- Username: <Leave it Blank>
- Password: <Leave it Blank>
- Server: <Leave it Blank>
- MMSC: https://mmsc.mobile.att.net
- MMS proxy: proxy.mobile.att.net
- MMS port: 80
- Authentication type: <Leave it Blank>
- APN type: default,supl,mms,hipri
- APN Protocol: Leave it to the Default one
- Bearer: leave it to the Default one
Verizon APN Settings
- Name: Verizon
- APN: internet or vzwinternet
- Proxy: <Leave it Blank>
- Port: <Leave it Blank>
- Username: <Leave it Blank>
- Password: <Leave it Blank>
- Server: <Leave it Blank>
- MMSC: https://mms.vtext.com/servlets/mms
- MMS Proxy: <Leave it Blank>
- MMS Port: 80
- Authentication type: not set
- APN Type: internet + mms
T-Mobile APN Settings
- Name: T-Mobile
- APN: epc.tmobile.com if you have an LTE Device, you should use: fast.tmobile.com
- Proxy: <Leave in Blank>
- Port: <Leave in Blank>
- Username: <Leave in Blank>
- Password: <Leave in Blank>
- Server: <Leave in Blank>
- MMSC: https://mms.msg.eng.t-mobile.com/mms/wapenc
- MMS proxy: <Leave in Blank>
- MMS port:<Leave in Blank>
- MMS protocol: WAP 2.0
- Authentication type: <Not set>
- APN type: <Leave in Blank> OR Internet+MMS (depending on software version)
Sprint APN Settings
- Name: Sprint
- APN: cinet.spcs
- Proxy:<Leave it Blank>
- Username: <Leave it Blank>
- Password: <Leave it Blank>
- Server: Not set
- MMSC: <Leave it Blank>
- MMS Proxy: 18.104.22.168
- MMS Port: <Leave it Blank>
- Authentication type: not set
- APN Type: default
- APN protocol: IPv4
Data Cap
Majority of the subscribers think that when they subscribed for unlimited data plan they will be getting limitless data downloads. Carriers cap their data to make sure they can offer better services to millions of their subscribers. Every service provider or carrier in the U.S. has their own "fair use policy" that makes it legal for them to throttle down your service if their system detected you've gone beyond the cap.
For example, Straight Talk offers unlimited data plan for $45. This is what people know about and this is what the company uses in ads and marketing campaign. However, only very few know that when the customer used up 2.5GB of data, his data service will be throttled down to get 2G speeds for the remainder of the plan month.
The point is, if your service was good yesterday and you get a crappy one today even if you're getting full bars of signal in your phone, you may have used up data beyond your cap. This answers the question of our readers who were complaining about slow browsing.
Hardware Issue
If your phone is under warranty, you need to bring it back to the store and have it checked if you're sure the problem isn't caused by any of the three factors previously mentioned. Hardware-related problems should not be taken lightly because they can potentially damage your phone plus the fact that you're paying the service you couldn't use.
If your phone is out of warranty already and you're willing to take a risk, you could try to open your phone and physically it for anything abnormal especially the antenna cable's connection. In the picture below, you white cable is the antenna and the circuit board at the end is secure by a screw. Loosen the screw a bit and check the other end to see if it's still securely attached.
For those who think this is too risky, have the phone checked by a technician in your locality.
Software / Firmware Issue
For software-related issues, we have at least three options. But before doing any of the following, you need to make a backup of everything that is important in your phone like contacts, messages, pictures, videos, etc.
Factory Reset – most of the times, this procedure can fix problems like this but there's no guarantee. You could performing this procedure via the Settings menu. If that doesn't help, boot to recovery mode and perform the factory reset there.
Update – it may not be applicable most of the time but just in case there is an available update for your device, don't hesitate to upgrade it. Connect to a stable Wi-Fi connection and check for updates via the Settings menu. Or, you can download Samsung KIES to your computer and check for updates there.
Manually Flash Firmware – if ever I suspect that some problems on my phone is firmware-related and that I've done every possible fix available but the problem persists, I will never hesitate to re-flash the firmware I'm using. Of course, this is not applicable to everyone especially those who have no experience flashing firmware to their phone. I included this for the reason that you may know someone who knows how to.
Engage with us
Feel free to send us your questions, suggestions and problems you've encountered while using your Android phone. We support every Android that is available in the market today. And don't worry, we won't charge you a single penny for your emails. Email us via [email protected] any time. We read every email but can't guarantee a response. Lastly, if we were able to help you, please help us spread the word by sharing our posts with your friends or subscribe to our newsletter.


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Fifteen years ago, Heather and I celebrated her 50th birthday on Little Corn Island, Nicaragua. Like all her birthdays, it was a distinctly special day because we ended the
day ringing in the New Year. The people we made friends with on the island went out of their way to make it a special one. One present was a bottle of Flora de Cana rum wrapped in banana leaves!
THIS year, Heather and I will be in Nicaragua to again, celebrate her birthday.
We have such strong memories of our time working at Casa Iguana on the little island. At that time, Casa was a real going concern. Our jobs were maintenance of the buildings, laundry, gardening, cooking dinners and hosting them at the lodge. An excerpt from a letter written home:
"A lot of people come for dinner now as the word is out. This place now has two expert cooks from Canada. Us! It's true, we are now known island wide as the best cooks. It takes a lot of creativity, as the usual fare is fish, fish and more fish. Last night we made barracuda fajitas with freshly made tortillas. They were a real hit."
We know the island has changed a lot in 15 years, but we're confident the 'vibe' is still there and the Nicaraguan people are still as warm as they were then. We'll be there in March… can't wait!
Here's a collage of photos from that amazing time in our lives! Within these pics, you'll see our daughter Megan who joined us at the end of her own long trekking tour, people we worked with, their kids, people we took our diving certification with, dinners we whipped up in the lodge and some of the incredible natural beauty of this place on earth.


text: Testimonials "I appreciate the fact that teachers do not tolerate bad behaviors among students. Students are aware that they need to respect each other, or there will be consequences for their behaviors. I really value that, and it makes me feel secure in sending my child to SICS" SICS Parent Jul 15, 2016 "What I value the most about the school is the expectation the teachers/school has towards my child." SICS Parent Jul 15, 2016 "At SICS my son has the opportunity to experience a different style of learning as he is exposed to reading, writing, art, math, science, Spanish, gym, etc. I know that my son is being challenged daily and has teachers who work with him to do his best every day." SICS Parent Jul 15, 2016 "Since being at SICS my children wake up every day looking forward to going to school. My children want to go to school on day one after a holiday. My children are positive about their teachers and fellow students." SICS Parent Jul 15, 2016 "SABIS® has a great reputation. My son is only in first grade, but he is learning new & exciting things every day. His kindergarten and 1st grade teachers have made our experience wonderful!" SICS Parent Jul 15, 2016