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Bearded Dragons originate in Australia. The most common species in the pet industry is the Inland Bearded Dragon, Pogona vitticeps, which was formerly called Amphibolurus vitticeps. The Inland Bearded Dragon is sometimes referred to as the Central, or Yellow-headed Bearded Dragon. Other members of the Pogon genus include:
Physical characteristics
The Bearded Dragon is tan to yellow in color. It is called "bearded" because of its ability to flare out the skin in the throat region when it is threatened or defending its territory. Its body has a flattened appearance, which becomes even more pronounced when the dragon is alarmed. There are spines on the throat, sides of the head, and sides of the body. The head is wedge-shaped, and the Bearded Dragon has a tail that is almost as long as its body.
It is difficult to distinguish males from females among hatchlings and juveniles. When they become adults, sexual differences become more apparent. The males generally have larger heads and larger, darker beards. The femoral pores of males also help to distinguish them from females.
Temperament and handling
Bearded Dragons tend to be mellow and docile, even in the wild. Although hatchlings and juveniles may be skittish, the adults will often appear to enjoy human company, making Bearded Dragons one of the better reptilian pets. Bearded Dragons tend to be curious, and will enjoy exploring, so if you can, provide a safe, large enclosure.
To pick up a Bearded Dragon, place your hand under its abdomen and gently scoop it up. As the dragon lays on your palm, gently curve your fingers around its abdomen.
Behavior and body language
To better relate to your Bearded Dragon, you need to understand what various behaviors and body positions mean. During breeding season, to display dominance, or if startled or threatened, a dragon may puff out its beard. Both males and females will display this behavior. To appear even more menacing, the Bearded Dragon may also "gape," or open his mouth very wide. This can certainly make him look more aggressive, since his mouth is quite large. Another way Dragons show dominance is to bob their heads. To show submission, a dragon will hold up one front leg and may slowly wave it.
Bearded Dragons reach sexual maturity and start to breed between 8 and 18 months. The female will generally lay 20 eggs in a clutch. If fertile, the eggs will hatch in 55-75 days. Unmated females may also lay eggs. Bearded Dragons have a life expectancy of approximately 10 years.


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Courtney started her Easter project for her lucky kids...
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Rainy Day Cupcakes
Courtney started her Easter project for her lucky kids...
10 comments:
this sounds like so much fun!
- March 13, 2010 at 4:36 AM
- Joy said...
Aww. I'm glad you got some time with your inspiration circle friends. I wish I had local friends to craft with. :) Have a great weekend, Marina!
- March 13, 2010 at 5:15 AM
- nicola@which name? said...
your photos came out wonderfully! mine were all dark and i had none of faces. seeing the pictures just reminds me again how talented these ladies are! thanks for including me!
Which Name?
- March 13, 2010 at 6:36 AM
- Jenna said...
I love it!!! What fun.
- March 15, 2010 at 1:31 PM
- Simple Mama said...
I love these posts about your friends and their creativity! Girl time is so important. <3
- March 16, 2010 at 9:17 AM
- Nicole Benjamin said...
I love the projects that you have shared! So fun to see you and Nicola enjoying crafty time together : ) I am *wishing* for a crafty circle at our new home! xo
- March 16, 2010 at 5:43 PM
I love it! Glad you found the love and support you needed.
The dog by the fire was so cute. I love all of the crafting...but friend...what are you working on these days?
- March 17, 2010 at 5:16 AM
- Heather said...
Hoe beautiful to have such a creative circle, and those cupcakes looks amazing
- March 17, 2010 at 12:07 PM
- Nicole Spring said...
Eeeek! How did I miss this?!!
What inspiration and fun. Danita and I need to get going on making our circle :)
I have to know, does your friend always have a fire going and yummies to eat when you come over? I might have to drive there for that!!
Less than three thousand plus one
- March 17, 2010 at 4:16 PM
- Andrea said...
thanks for coming marina. now i'm looking forward to coming over to play with your toys!!!!
- March 18, 2010 at 9:31 PM

subset: commoncrawl


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guyewhite needed a new print or packaging design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 19 designs submitted by 6 freelance designers.
Triumphant Heart International, Inc.
Energetic, edgy artists, create a cool, kick-ass book cover for my short 32 page document that provides an introduction to my services. The book is about schools stopping doing crappy fundraisers and starting to build community. People love to give to causes they care about... We should not sell cupcakes, we should sell belonging.
I am looking for a long-term relationship. If I like your stuff, I will use you again :)
If you are having trouble accessing the files below, you can download them here: http://www.guyelvinwhite.com/White99Designs.zip
Dr. Guy E. White is a Southern California educator, writer, and coach focusing upon holistic, whole-life, whole-community growth. He is the author of "The First Seven Days," a step-by-step guide for any group, new or old, that wishes to create a strong foundation built upon shared values, common vision, and individual and corporate goals with accountability. Guy will assist your journey to become all that you are meant to be. Consider hiring Guy as your coach today!
Dr. Guy E. White has captured attention with his compelling whole-community approach to school fundraising. Guy assists schools and their families in leveraging the awesome, ready, and present power of the community's passion for the school. Through the power of people and social networking, Guy can assist you in transforming your school and the way it fundraises.
After Dr. Guy E. White witnessed one of his graduated students win $250,000 for foster kids using the power of social networking, Guy put away the fundraising catalogs and began transforming the way schools think of community and how communities support their members.
Check out my website: http://www.guyewhite.com
The primary audience is educators -- BUT DONT LET THAT FOOL YOU! The educators with which I work love things that are DARING, NEW, EDGY, and EXCITING. My approach to fundraising via building a community connected to the school is revolutionary, new and very exciting. Educators are not used to seeing COOL -- show them COOL and they drool.
This book is a short book meant to get people excited about my ideas and services.
My brand needs to stand out and match my existing products. (See attached).
This book provides an eye-opening introduction to making the compelling shift from fundraiser "for-what's-happening-now" to creating a compelling community of connection in and around your school.
This book discusses the four essential needs that must be fulfilled (1) to create a community on fire for the school, and (2) to gain the meaningful, recurring support of this compelling community of connection. Will you make this radical shift?
The Freedoms:
-Many. Be edgy, daring, energetic, fun. Make my clients drool and get excited about this introductory book that I will be putting into their hands -- hoping this will generate future business.
The Constraints:
-Please create something similar to my existing branding (see attached file).
The Dont's:
-No stock photos or clip art of ANY kind.
-No licensed content (stuff I have to pay to use).
-Nothing "Corporatey" or "Business-ee" or "educationese" - this thing should be fun.
The Legal Stuff:
-This is a "Work For Hire."
-I own the final product and right to use and license anywhere, anytime.
The Specs:
-Full Bleed Front and Back Book Cover for 8.5"x11" book (see exact cover dimensions below). See attached example from previous cover.
-2 files upon delivery
--print-ready PDF
--Editable (non-flattened) Adobe Illustrator (.ai), InDesign, or Adobe Photoshop (.psd) document.
-Document Size is full bleed 11.25" x 17.25". Trimmed printed cover will be 11" x 17" folded in half to cover the 8.5" by 11" book.
-Book is only 32 pages (4 x 8), so no extra space need be given in the design for the fold. The center fold of the document should be design neutral (not looking weird when folded).
-Trim Marks like in attached file.
-Full Color, CYMK
-Fonts Embedded or Font Files Sent with Final Product (will not pay for fonts).


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There is something very special in German audio engineering from the 50's. One thing that strikes me is the use of pentodes in the first stage of sensitive electronics. After analyzing the good and bad sides of the design and the price and quality of original Telefunken EF804S tubes, it was clear that this is the way to go. This Pre uses only two amplifier stages and the absolute minimum of other components. The performance is flawless.
Thanks to high step up ratio input transformer and the EF804S tube self noise is very low, comparable to the best solid state amps. Gain is adjusted in 5 dB increments with Elma rotary swithes and -20 pad is automatically switched on for the lowest gain settings.
The sound is transparent with a hint of smoothness in the top end. I find it really interesting how the sound can be so... nice and accurate at the same time. Subtle differences are hard to describe, so probably it is just as informative to say that V804 Pre sounds right what ever you do.
V804 Pre is now available with optional DI inputs. They provide extremely low capacitance, only 15 pF (equivalent for one feet of the best cable you can get), to squeeze the last bits of treble juice from Hi-Z sources like guitars.
For the complete list of ProAudioToys ECoupons, enter your name and email address below.


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So instead of belly-aching over how crummy flatbeds are and how old drum scanners are a pain to deal with, why don't all the engineers here tackle creating a new, modern drum scanner that's as open-sourced, off-the-shelf, and future-proofed as possible?
A lot of those old drum scanners were pre-PC, they must not be that complicated... Other than the drums, what else needs to be fabricated rather than bought? Isn't most of the value in the engineering, not the hardware? Heck I can buy $50 lasers at Home Depot.
What if 1,000 serious film photographer put down $1,000 deposits on a $2,000 price-point, Heathkit-style drum scanner? Wouldn't a million dollars of pure R&D money be more than most of the big corporations spent on their classic drum scanners back in the day?
We could get those argumentative lawyers that keep pestering the mods to set up a clean not-for-profit organization to administrate the project. Make it open source, everyone contributes... Ending up with a Volkscanner for the masses, able to handle 8x10 and modern software and interfaces (just have a network or even wifi interface)... Best $2000 ever spent - you know there are easily more than 1,000 people who would jump at this.
So why not?


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SOUTHBOROUGH � Town Meeting passed a $46.8 million fiscal 2015 budget Wednesday with relatively little disagreement among town officials or residents.
The most discussed topic wasn�t spending, but accounting, as the town implemented a new line item for capital purchases officials said was aimed at streamlining approval at Town Meeting.
Several residents objected to the streamlining, noting that the approximately $500,000 line item contained no detail.
"I feel like it gives you a lot of freedom to do whatever you want with my money," Board of Health member Nancy Sacco said as others nodded in agreement.
After one resident made a motion for the intended purchases to be spelled out, Selectman Bill Boland asked for some latitude.
"There has to be some trust in administrators and department heads that they�re using the money (appropriately)," he said.
Town Meeting members voted to require officials to spell out the spending, which included mostly vehicles, including new police cruisers and a new vehicle for the Public Works Director.
The only other extended discussion was about the hiring of two new firefighters. Board of Health chairman and selectman candidate Louis Fazen III said he was concerned the town wasn�t looking closely enough at the post-retiree benefit costs associated with adding the new jobs.
Fire Chief Joseph Mauro said he did an analysis and didn�t think the cost would be too high. The financial Advisory Committee, with the exception of one member, felt comfortable with adding the firefighters.
Advisory member John Butler said firefighters recently came to the committee asking for help.
"They were burned out to a degree," he said. "They were feeling it was too stressful working the amount of OT that they were."
The fire department budget and all other budgets ended up passing easily. The total for all the budgets was $46.8 million, a 3.64 percent increase from the current fiscal year.
Town Meeting approved an $18.3 million budget for the K-8 Schools as well as approved Algonquin Regional High School�s $20.1 million budget. Southborough�s share of that budget will be $7.4 million this year.
Before the meeting began, Moderator David Coombs thanked retiring Superintendent Charles Gobron for his four decades with the school system.
"He�s (always) retained a sense of perspective and humor," Coombs said of Gobron, who received a standing ovation from the audience.
Town Meeting had not yet considered a controversial acceptance of open land on Nipmuc Lane by press time Wednesday night.
Brad Petrishen can be reached at 508-490-7463 or firstname.lastname@example.com. Follow him on Twitter @BPetrishen_MWDN.
Southborough TM OKs $46.8 M budget
SOUTHBOROUGH � Town Meeting passed a $46.8 million fiscal 2015 budget Wednesday with relatively little disagreement among town officials or residents.


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The Science of Smallpox
by Vijaya Khisty Bodach
The smallpox virus is a bomb. Variola major is large, spiky, and brick-shaped. Like all viruses, it needs to grow inside a host cell, which, unfortunately, humans provide. Other animals also have pox viruses, including cowpox, monkeypox, and even insectpox.
Smallpox is very contagious, and that's why it is considered a "Category A" bioterrorist threat by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, GA. You could get it by just standing next to somebody who has it. It's that dangerous! But don't worry—smallpox has been eradicated from the human population. However, it has not been wiped off the Earth. The virus has been stored in deep-freezers in America and Russia and probably other countries, too. It could be a potent biological weapon.
The Biology of Smallpox
Smallpox is spread when a person breathes it in…and out. The virus gets inside the cells lining the throat and hijacks the cellular machinery to make millions more smallpox viruses. The cells explode, releasing smallpox "bombs." Those virus particles go on to infect other cells in the body. After a week, the person gets a high fever. Then comes the rash—red, itchy spots that grow into blisters. After another week, the blisters dry and crack and turn into scabs. A month later, the scabs fall off, leaving deep pits in the skin. The good part is that the person will never suffer from smallpox again—if he or she survives.
The bad part is that the infected person can die. How? From all those exploding cells. Remember that your body is an organized collection of different types of cells. If one cell is damaged, that's not a problem. But when millions of cells are damaged and entire organs are destroyed, you fall apart from the inside out. And that's exactly what happens in the most severe cases of smallpox. It's a gruesome way to die.
Unfortunately, the smallpox virus doesn't die with the death of its host. Blood carries the virus to its next victim. The scabs of victims are full of virus. The victim's clothes and beds are infectious for days or even months.
The Fight Against Smallpox
People noticed that survivors of smallpox never got it again. So some deliberately tried catching a milder version of smallpox called Variola minor. This process was called variolation and protects the person from getting the more severe form of the disease. Although it saved many lives, this practice also kept the virus in the population.
Edward Jenner was an English country doctor in the late 1700s who knew his patients well. He was a kind and caring man who took the trouble to listen to his patients. A milkmaid once told Jenner that she did not fear smallpox because she already had had cowpox. This idea stayed with Jenner for a long time. He talked about it with several doctors, but they didn't want to believe some old wives' tale about cows and milkmaids.
A decade later, when there was a simultaneous outbreak of cowpox and smallpox, Jenner decided to test the hypothesis that an infection of cowpox could prevent smallpox. Sarah Nelmes, a milkmaid, came down with cowpox. Jenner collected some of the pus from the blister and "vaccinated" James Phipps, a boy of eight. He used the term "vaccination" to distinguish it from "variolation," because "vacca" is "cow" in Latin. A couple of months later, he tried inoculating the boy with the mild form of smallpox. The boy resisted it—he did not get smallpox!
Jenner published his findings from numerous cases, but people didn't believe him. They were afraid of vaccination. They thought that a blister from a cow could turn them into a cow. Others saw it as tampering with nature. Ultimately, people saw that vaccination was safe, and in the early 1800s the practice spread all over Europe and eventually the world.
The Eradication of Smallpox
In 1967, the World Health Organization (WHO) took it upon itself to rid the world of smallpox. Instead of trying to vaccinate everybody, they used a method of vaccination combined with isolation. That is, when they found someone with smallpox, they vaccinated everybody who had or could come in contact with that person. In addition, they isolated the sick person until that person was no longer infectious. This method worked.
We won the war on smallpox. In 1980, WHO declared "the world and its people" free from smallpox. The virus had one fatal flaw: It could use only one host—humans. Once the chain of infection was broken, there was nowhere that the virus could hide.
The Demon in the Freezer
Smallpox remains in freezers—for research purposes. And, for deadly purposes. Throughout history, smallpox was used as a weapon. Today, most of us have no experience with pox viruses. We are now like the Aztec or Inca long ago. If someone were to unleash one upon us, most of us would die.
In light of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the U.S. government is preparing for a possible smallpox attack. Large quantities of vaccines are being made. Our military troops and frontline medical teams that would respond in an attack have been vaccinated. Doctors are learning to recognize smallpox. If there is an outbreak, you and your family will have to make tough decisions. Will you get vaccinated? Will you be willing to be isolated if you catch the disease? Will you give up your civil liberties for the greater good of this world?
Let us hope that those decisions will not be necessary. Let us hope that no one will undo one of the great achievements of science and humanity.
- biological weapon: A biological agent, such as a virus, used in an attack.
- eradicated: To have gotten rid of.
- immunity: The ability to resist disease.
- replicate: To make identical copies.
- The article talks about the development and use of vaccinations for smallpox. In order to attend most schools, a student must have received a certain set of vaccinations. Find out what vaccinations your school or district requires. Have you received any vaccinations in addition to the ones required by your school or district? Write down the name of each vaccination you have received.
[anno: Answers should include a list of vaccinations required by the school or district and any additional vaccinations received by the student.]
- What do you think would happen if students weren't vaccinated against certain diseases? What if a student came to school with a case of the measles? Think about the physical environment at school. Write a sentence or two explaining what you think might happen if students weren't vaccinated against certain diseases and an infected student came to school.
[anno: Answers may vary but could include that if a student is infected with a highly contagious disease and attends school, that student could put many other students at risk for catching the disease since students are often in close proximity with one another.]


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Finally the school holidays for this CNY was over, and its back to my daily routine again. How I wish the holidays will be longer..maybe another week!!...LOL!! Well well...back to realistic!!
Okay, I know I've been missing for such a long time, you know...when holidays come, then I'll be busy with the holiday schedules...travelling and enjoying myself to the fullest instead in the kitchen..hehe! So I guess,I got to get back into my kitchen now and start all the recipes from my to-do-list!!!
Here, the Salted Paprika Grilled Chicken Wings for my buddies gathering last week ( potluck gathering). This was not the first time I'm making this recipe but just added some salted spice that my mom brought me. So if you like this recipe, do have a look at my 2009 December post!!
The only difference here was I added a tbsp of salted spice. Sorry no photos of the spice...I just forgot about it. But maybe you can google it..."Spice Bake Mix, 盐烤鸡粉"...from the brand "Haday,海天"...made from China..;p
This wings was so delicious, and my buddies love it so much. Oh maybe they already forgot the 2009 gathering which I made for them with drum sticks...haha!
Grilled for an hour with the oven at 250'C (30 minutes for the top then 30 minutes for the other side). Without spreading any oil or butter, the wings were so crispy and I think its alittle healthy than frying...huh!
The photos here were not that beautiful with my old camera taken, I think I should change my camera...haha! The wings colour were actually golden brown and look very tempting.
Have a try then you'll know what I mean....delicious and easy to prepare. There'll be more wings to come for this weekend gathering...haha! I'm still cracking my head what kind of flavour to marinate it....any idea?
Enjoy your CNY for one more week! Cheers!!


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civil rights movement
in the United States, mass movement starting in the late 1950s that, through the application of nonviolent protest action, broke the pattern of racially segregated public facilities in the South and achieved the most important breakthrough in equal-rights legislation for blacks since the Reconstruction period (186577).
Denied constitutional guarantees (1787) because of their mainly slave status at the founding of the republic, black Americans were first promised fundamental citizenship rights in the 13th15th constitutional amendments (186570; see Reconstruction). The Civil Rights Act of 1875 required equal accommodations for blacks with whites in public facilities (other than schools), but this legislation was effectively voided by the Supreme Court in 1883. By 1900, 18 states of the North and West had legislated public policies against racial discrimination, but in the South new laws eroded the franchise (see grandfather clause) and reinforced segregation practices (see Jim Crow Law), while the U.S. Supreme Court upheld separate but equal facilities for the races in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), thus legitimizing the segregation of blacks from whites.
During World War II, progress was made in outlawing discrimination in defense industries (1941) and after the war in desegregating the armed forces (1948). During the late 1940s and early 1950s, lawyers for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) pressed a series of important cases before the Supreme Court in which they argued that segregation meant inherently unequal (and inadequate) educational and other public facilities for blacks. These cases culminated in the Court's landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (May 17, 1954), in which it declared that separate educational facilities were inherently unequal and therefore unconstitutional. This historic decision was to stimulate a mass movement on the part of blacks and white sympathizers to try to end the segregationist practices and racial inequalities that were firmly entrenched across the nation and particularly in the South. The movement was strongly resisted by many whites in the South and elsewhere.
After a black woman, Rosa Parks, was arrested for refusing to move to the Negro section of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama (December 1, 1955), blacks staged a one-day local boycott of the bus system to protest her arrest. Fusing these protest elements with the historic force of the Negro churches, a local Baptist minister, Martin Luther King, Jr., succeeded in transforming a spontaneous racial protest into a massive resistance movement, led from 1957 by his Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). After a protracted boycott of the Montgomery bus company forced it to desegregate its facilities, picketing and boycotting spread rapidly to other communities. During the period from 1955 to 1960, some progress was made toward integrating schools and other public facilities in the upper South and the border states, but the Deep South remained adamant in its opposition to most desegregation measures.
In 1960 the sit-in movement (largely under the auspices of the newly formed Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; SNCC) was launched at Greensboro, North Carolina, when black college students insisted on service at a local segregated lunch counter. Patterning its techniques on the nonviolent methods of Indian leader Mohandas Gandhi, the movement spread across the nation, forcing the desegregation of department stores, supermarkets, libraries, and movie theatres. In May 1961 the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) sent Freedom Riders of both races through the South and elsewhere to test and break down segregated accommodations in interstate transportation. By September it was estimated that more than 70,000 students had participated in the movement, with approximately 3,600 arrested; more than 100 cities in 20 states had been affected. The movement reached its climax in August 1963 with a massive march on Washington, D.C., to protest racial discrimination and demonstrate support for major civil rights legislation that was pending in Congress (see video).
The federal government under presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower (195361) and John F. Kennedy had been reluctant to vigorously enforce the Brown decision when this entailed directly confronting the resistance of Southern whites. In 196163 President Kennedy won a following in the black community by encouraging the movement's leaders, but Kennedy's administration lacked the political capacity to persuade Congress to pass new legislation guaranteeing integration and equal rights. After President Kennedy's assassination (November 1963), Congress, under the prodding of President Lyndon B. Johnson, in 1964 passed the Civil Rights Act (q.v.). This was the most far-reaching civil rights bill in the nation's history (indeed, in world history), forbidding discrimination in public accommodations and threatening to withhold federal funds from communities that persisted in maintaining segregated schools. It was followed in 1965 by the passage of the Voting Rights Act, the enforcement of which eradicated the tactics previously used in the South to disenfranchise black voters. This act led to drastic increases in the numbers of black registered voters in the South, with a comparable increase in the numbers of blacks holding elective offices there.
Up until 1966 the civil rights movement had united widely disparate elements in the black community along with their white supporters and sympathizers, but in that year signs of radicalism began to appear in the movement as younger blacks became impatient with the rate of change and dissatisfied with purely nonviolent methods of protest. This new militancy split the ranks of the movement's leaders and also alienated some white sympathizers, a process that was accelerated by a wave of rioting in the black ghettos of several major cities in 196567. After the assassination of King (April 1968) and further black rioting in the cities, the movement as a cohesive effort disintegrated, with a broad spectrum of leadership advocating different approaches and varying degrees of militancy.
In the decades that followed, many civil rights leaders sought to achieve greater direct political power through elective office, and they sought to achieve more substantive economic and educational gains through affirmative-action programs that compensated for past discrimination in job hiring and college admissions. Although the civil rights movement was less militant, it was still persevering.
Copyright © 1994-2005 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.


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In addition to a new design and new safety Autobild reports the car will have a .25 coefficient of drag which would make it very slippery. This seems almost hard to believe. The US lineup will likely include a C250, C300, and a C400 model with a 333 horsepower 3.0 liter V6 likely direct injected and turbocharged. The C63 AMG hopefully will get the M157 AMG V8 as rumored although reports from Autobild show a 4.0 liter motor with 462 horses which does not make too much sense.
We'll find out the truth soon enough, here is the rumored lineup:
C 180 1.6 l 156KS
C 200 2.0 l 184KS
C 250 2.0 l 211KS
C 300 2.0 l 252KS
C 400 3.0 l V6 333KS
C 63 AMG 4.0 l 462KS
C 220 CDI 2.2 l 170HP
C 250 CDI 2.2 l 204KS
C 300 CDI BlueTec Hybrid 2.2 l 231KS
C 400 CDI 3.0 l 258KS


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Reviewed by Angelica A. (age 10)
I liked the book because Grammy didn?t like Sammy. I liked it when Sammy jumped on Grammy?s head and her hair fell off. The pictures were colorful and they had different details inside. This book isn?t like any other book I read because it is funny. I never read a book that a Grammy fights with a cat. I felt like laughing because I didn?t think she wore a wig. It made me think about animals. I think everybody should read it because the characters are funny and it will make you laugh.


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Although there has been a lot of work done on lifecycle models, which has affected how software is created, nothing has really changed the way software is released to customers. The main obstacle has been technicalit's difficult to release small updates to customers after the initial release. The approach I present in this article lets you release an application, then enables applications or end users to download updates for selected portions of the application as updates become available. The examples I present that illustrate this approach were built and tested with JDK 1.4 and JDK 1.5. The final build was done with JDK 1.4, and should run under a 1.4 or 1.5 JVM. A distribution with the complete source, skins, and languages is available electronically; see "Resource Center," page 5. Even though the implementation is done in Java, this approach is language agnostic. The program that I developed when I was initially working on these problems (HalfMoon Calendar) was written in C++.
Say you are tasked with writing an application, but it needs a flexible look-and-feel and needs to support multiple languages, and your release date needs to be February 25, but you have 10 look-and-feel files, which will be released and tested as they become available, between February 1 and March 1, and you will need to release languages as translations come available.
Based on this, you create a set of requirements, and because we're programmers, gold plate the requirements a little:
- Users need to be able to update a selected portion of the application (component) at any time. For this application, these components are languages and skins (for look-and-feel).
- Although it may take some time for the user to download a component, after the download, the new component will perform like any other component of the same type.
- Users should be able to refresh the list of available components at any time, and users should then be able to download and install updates using the same interface.
These are the requirements. The next task is to see if the requirements lead to a reasonable design, and whether that design leads to a solid reusable implementation.
User Experience
It's easier to understand the approach I present here if you can look at a sample application that implements the design. The sample application I use is a mortgage calculator that calculates conventional American mortgages and has functionality for loading skins and languages (both skins and languages will be delivered via incremental deployment). The interface is essentially the same for choosing skins and languages, so I only use one (skins, in this case) to explain the user experience.
There is a skins button on the main interface. Clicking it brings up a dialog (Figure 1) that lets you choose a skin (double click on it in the list), then loads the skin that you chose (Figure 2). This is trivial until you consider two things:
- The skin that the user is loading is not necessarily on their system. It may be loaded as needed from a remote system, then added to the local collection of skins when requested.
- Users can refresh the list of skins, so the publisher can release new skins at anytime. Users can download skins by clicking refresh, then double clicking on the new skins. This same user experience applies to language, or to anything else that can be distributed as a component of an application (codecs, sounds files, data files, and the like).
System Design
There are three cases to be covered to meet the requirements:
- The normal case where the system loads a component on startup.
- The case where users want to get the most recent list of components.
- The case where users select a component. (This case needs to handle components that are available on the local system as well as components that are not available on the local system.)
In terms of the design, applications have a list of components in a configuration file. These components have a filename and location (and potentially other attributes). When applications need to load components, they look first in the local cache (which is a directory in the filesystem). If the application does not find the component there, it then looks for it in a remote location. The URL of the remote location is kept in the configuration file. This configuration file, which contains the entire catalog of components that serve a given purpose (skins, languages, or whatever), can be refreshed either manually or automatically. The catalog is refreshed by downloading the catalog as a file from a remote server. So if publishers of the software have new skins, they upload the skins to their server, add the names of the skins and the URLs to the catalog file, then upload the catalog file to their server. The next time application users refresh their catalog, they will see the new components and can download them with a click.
Figure 3 is the class diagram for the main classes involved in the managing components for the sample implementation. To understand Figure 3, the best place to start is ComponentInfo, the class that models the components. This class has information about the filename of the component, the location (which is the URL from which the component can be downloaded), and whether it is on the local filesystem (for instance, whether it has been downloaded in the past). The ComponentInfo list is created whenever users indicate that they want to choose a component, and represents the union of the components available on the local filesystem and those that are available for download. The ComponentInfo list is aggregated in the ComponentChooser, which uses the list to populate the list of components available (for example, the list of skins in Figure 1). If users select a component that is available on the local filesystem, it is loaded immediately. If users select a component that is available for download, ComponentChooser requests that the component be downloaded via RemoteComponentLoader. RemoteComponentLoader takes the location and filename from the ComponentInfo and downloads the remote object (for example, a skin) to the local cache (for a skin, this would be the skins directory), spooling it to a file with the filename for this component (for example, the Boom Realty skin can be downloaded from http://www.lithic.com/ddj/skins/boom.jar and spooled to [application root]/skins/boom.jar).
In a production system, it would be likely that you would ask users whether they want to download the remote component prior to actually downloading it, and you would likely have more attributes for the component; for example, size, version, user-friendly names, and so on.
With this design, if you want to add a new component, you would create a new Loader (a CodecLoader or whatever), create a catalog for that loader, and create a button or menu item to call that loader, which would in turn call the ComponentLoader. The remainder of the code should be completely reusable.
To see if this design translates readily into code, the mortgage payment calculator example can load skins and languages. The idea is to demonstrate whether the aforementioned design is flexible enough to load any type of component, with only minor changes to the application.
The mortgage calculator has three basic functions: calculating mortgages, loading skins, and loading languages. Most of the scaffolding code for the application is in the SimpleMortgageCalculator.java file. In the constructor (Listing One), the widgets, buttons, labels, and text fields are created, then the application determines what skin and language the user was using last. The labels and buttons are created without any text, as the text is added after the language is loaded. After creating the widgets, the last skin is loaded, and information about the size of the skin and its background image is determined, then the skin layers the widgets on its surface.
SimpleMortgageCalculator() { super(); this.setUndecorated(true); //this is where the settings from the last use are retrieved try{ applicationProperties.load(new FileInputStream(CALCULATOR_CONFIG_FILE)); } catch(Exception ex){ System.out.println("problem loading properties file on startup "+ex.toString()); } // Add the window listener addWindowListener(new WindowAdapter() { public void windowClosing(WindowEvent evt) { dispose(); System.exit(0); }}); addMouseListener(this); addMouseMotionListener(this); //don't want this resizable, as it makes the background look odd this.setResizable(false); buttons=new Button[4];//calculate, skins, languages, quit fields=new TextField[4];//Amount, Interest Term, Length in years, Results labels=new Label[4];//Amount, Interest Term, Length in years, Results buttons[CALCULATE]=new Button("");//calculate buttons[SKINS]=new Button("");//skins buttons[LANGUAGES]=new Button("");//languages buttons[QUIT]=new Button("");//quit buttons[CALCULATE].addActionListener(this); buttons[SKINS].addActionListener(this); buttons[LANGUAGES].addActionListener(this); buttons[QUIT].addActionListener(this); this.add(buttons[CALCULATE]); this.add(buttons[SKINS]); this.add(buttons[LANGUAGES]); this.add(buttons[QUIT]); fields[AMOUNT]=new TextField(15);//amount fields[INTEREST]=new TextField(6);//interest fields[TERM]=new TextField(4);//term in years fields[RESULTS]=new TextField(10);//results this.add(fields[AMOUNT]); this.add(fields[INTEREST]); this.add(fields[TERM]); this.add(fields[RESULTS]); labels[AMOUNT]=new Label("");//amount labels[INTEREST]=new Label("");//interest labels[TERM]=new Label("");//terms labels[RESULTS]=new Label("");//results this.add(labels[AMOUNT]); this.add(labels[INTEREST]); this.add(labels[TERM]); this.add(labels[RESULTS]); //this is where the last skin and language are reloaded String lastSkin=applicationProperties.getProperty(LAST_SKIN_PROPERTY); String lastLanguage= applicationProperties.getProperty(LAST_LANGUAGE_PROPERTY); if(lastSkin==null) lastSkin="downtown.jar"; if(lastLanguage==null) lastLanguage="english.properties"; SkinLoader.getInstance().loadNewSkin(lastSkin); LanguageLoader.getInstance().loadNewLanguage(this, lastLanguage); Dimension d=SkinLoader.getInstance().getSize(); setSize((int)d.getWidth(), (int)d.getHeight()); //Center the window Dimension screenDim = Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getScreenSize(); Rectangle winDim = getBounds(); setLocation((screenDim.width - winDim.width) / 2, (screenDim.height - winDim.height) / 2); setVisible(true); //need a visible window to render the image onto. backgroundImage = SkinLoader.getInstance().getImage(this); SkinLoader.getInstance().addWidgets(this, buttons, fields, labels); }
The place where the users' actions are processed is the actionPerformed method (Listing Two), where the user's click on the Calculate, Skins, Languages, or Quit button calls the associated code. The Quit and Calculate buttons are pretty straightforward and not a core part of this article. The Skins and Languages buttons call the SkinLoader.chooseSkin and LanguageLoader.chooseLanguage, which (according to Figure 3 and the code) are one step away from where the ComponentChooser dialog is called. That's the core of this technology.
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e){ if(e.getSource()==buttons[CALCULATE]){//calculate button double dResult=Calculate.crunch(fields[AMOUNT].getText(), fields[INTEREST].getText(), fields[TERM].getText()); if(dResult>0.0){ fields[RESULTS].setText(""+(int)dResult); } else{ fields[RESULTS].setText(LanguageLoader. getInstance().lookUpString("badresult")); } } else if(e.getSource()==buttons[SKINS]){//skins button SkinLoader.getInstance().chooseSkin(this); //size is in the skin Dimension d=SkinLoader.getInstance().getSize(); setSize((int)d.getWidth(), (int)d.getHeight()); //as is the image backgroundImage = SkinLoader.getInstance().getImage(this); //and the display area this.paint(this.getGraphics()); //add controls SkinLoader.getInstance().addWidgets(this, buttons, fields, labels); } else if(e.getSource()==buttons[LANGUAGES]){//languages LanguageLoader.getInstance().chooseLanguage(this); } else if(e.getSource()==buttons[QUIT]){//quit button try{ //remember what the last skin and language were String lastSkin=SkinLoader.getInstance().getCurrentSkin(); String lastLanguage=LanguageLoader.getInstance().getCurrentLanguage(); applicationProperties.setProperty(LAST_SKIN_PROPERTY, lastSkin); applicationProperties.setProperty(LAST_LANGUAGE_PROPERTY, lastLanguage); applicationProperties. store(new FileOutputStream(CALCULATOR_CONFIG_FILE), "SimpleMortageCaculator properties file"); } catch(Exception ex){ System.out.println("problem storing properties file on shutdown "+ex.toString()); } //write out the configuration file, then quit exit(); } }
Skins are loaded using the interface shown in Figure 1, which is generated by the ComponentChooser class. After the skin is selected (by double clicking the skin that you want to load in the list of skins), the ComponentChooser calls the SkinLoader loadSkin method (indirectly, via the loadComponent method in the ComponentLoader interface). The loadSkin method (see Listing Three) uses introspection to find the correct method to call.
public void loadComponent(String skinFile){ try{ URL u = new URL("jar:file:skins/"+skinFile+"!/"); int index=skinFile.indexOf(".jar"); String thisClass=skinFile.substring(0, index); String strClass="skins."+thisClass;//jar and main class files match ucl = new URLClassLoader(new URL[] { u }); c= (Class) Class.forName(strClass, true, ucl); m = c.getMethod(SKIN_METHOD, SKIN_METHOD_ARGS); currentSkin=skinFile; image=null; } catch(Exception ex){ System.out.println("exception in SkinLoader.loadComponent() "+ex.toString()); } }
The reference that is obtained for the method, m, is cached, so subsequent calls to that method are very fast. In Windows, you would use LoadLibrary and GetProcAddress to do the same thing.
The unusual thing about this code is that a single method is loaded and cached, and then that method is used for all method calls. The method signature is skinMethod(Object [], Integer, Integer). The Object array holds all the arguments, the first Integer tells what type of call it is (getting the image name, the size of the skin, or for arranging the widgets), and the last Integer tells what version of the application is calling the skin. This permits forward and backward binary compatibility because the method signature never changes. For Windows, you could use a method signature of (void **, int, int, int), where the void ** serves the purpose of the Object [] in the Java call, and the first int indicates the number of elements in the void ** (not necessary in Java as you can get the length from the Object []). The second and third ints indicate type of call and version of caller, as with the Java code. One type of call that you would likely add, particularly if you are working in C, is a dumpSkin call, to deallocate any resources or memory the skin had obtained.
Listing Four is an example of the bundling that goes on in the SkinsLoader and Listing Five the unbundling that goes on in the skin. This bundling and unbundling is for getting the dimension of the skin, but a similar process is used for the other calls to the skin.
//bundling a dimension for a call to the skin to get the dimension Object oa[]=new Object[1]; oa[0]=new Dimension(); Integer IReturn=(Integer)m.invoke(c, new Object[] {oa, new Integer(1), new Integer(1) }); d=(Dimension)oa[0];
//fragment from the skinMethod in the skin where arguments are unbundled public static Integer skinMethod(Object [] args, Integer callType, Integer callerVersion){ int type=callType.intValue(); switch(type){ case 1://call for size of the window return new Integer(getSize((Dimension)args[0])); //The getSize method in the skin sets the dimensions and then returns OK. private static int getSize(Dimension d){ d.setSize(500, 300); return OK; }
This use of dynamic loading and a single method makes binary compatibility easy to maintain, and also makes the deployment easy. I've used this method with Windows and Java and it works well on both platforms.
The mechanism for loading languages, from the user's point of view, is identical to loading skins. After the user chooses a language, the system either loads the language from the local cache or loads the language from the remote server, stashes it in the local cache, then loads the languages file into a Properties object. This Properties object is used for converting keys into localized text. Because this is a demonstration project, our strings don't cover all the strings used by the application, but they do cover the strings for the interface.
//code called in LanguageLoader to load the current language public static void loadNewLanguage(String languageFile){ languageChangedFlag=true; properties.clear(); try{ properties.load(new FileInputStream("languages/"+languageFile)); } catch(IOException ioe){ System.out.println("problem loading language file "+ioe.toString()); } frame.paint(frame.getGraphics()); }
The key method is loadNewLanguage (Listing Six), which is fed the name of the properties file to load. After loading, the application is repainted, during which the buttons and labels get their strings replaced. The replacement is done by looking up the strings in the properties file that was loaded. For example, the button text for the Quit button is looked up as:
LanguageLoader ll=
Downloading a Component
For components that are not available on the local filesystem, the application downloads them from the URL in the configuration file. When users launch the dialog that is used to select the component to load, the dialog box interface is created by the ComponentChooser class. Figure 4 is the interface for languages. The list of languages is created by the ListFiles class in the getComponents method. This method first reads in the properties file. An example entry from the skins.config properties file is:
The key is a parsing aid, the file is the filename in the local cache (the skins directory), and the URL is where it can be downloaded if it is not in the local cache. The entries in the skins.config file are converted into ComponentInfo objects and added to a hash. After the properties are read in, the components in the filesystem are read and then added to the hash. Wherever there is a collision, the ComponentInfo is set to indicate that the component has already been downloaded. In this way, a list is created that indicates what is available locally and what is available remotely. This list is what is used to populate the list of components presented in the ComponentChooser dialog.
When users double click on a component, the filename is used to retrieve the related ComponentInfo object (Listing Seven). If the ComponentInfo object indicates that the component is not available on the local system, it is downloaded using the requestComponent method of the RemoteComponentLoader. On a production system, there should also be a request to the user to ensure that they agree to the download, plus a download progress indicator and more error handling for downloading problems.
if (e.getSource()==list) { // When the user double-clicks on a component, try to load it if (e.getID() == Event.ACTION_EVENT) { String strFile=list.getSelectedItem(); ComponentInfo ci=(ComponentInfo)hashComponents.get(strFile); //if the component is not yet on the file system, download it if(!ci.getDownloaded()){ this.setTitle("Downloading "+ci.getFileName()); RemoteComponentLoader.requestComponent(ci.getLocation(), directory+"/"+ci.getFileName()); } loader.loadComponent(strFile); this.dispose(); } }
If you are behind a firewall, you will need to open up the calc.config file and set your proxy and proxyport.
After the download is complete, the ComponentChooser calls loader.loadComponent(strFile). The ComponentLoader (loader, in this case, either a SkinLoader or LanguageLoader) doesn't care whether the file was loaded from a remote server or the local filesystem, it just takes the filename and loads it. In a production system, users would be interacting with friendly names rather than filenames, so there would need to be a translation here from filename to friendly name.
Refreshing a Components Catalog
If the Refresh button of the ComponentChooser dialog is pressed (Figure 1), then a new catalog of components is downloaded and the list of components is refreshed. The code for this is straightforward:
This code pulls down the new catalog, then repopulates the list of components; so any new components are now available for downloading by a double click.
Deployment Notes
If you decide to use this approach, there are a few considerations before deploying. I've been distributing software called HalfMoon Calendar for a few years and it uses this design, so these notes are from released production software.
First, determine where you are going to put your files on your server. In my case, I have an application where I have language files and skins, so I have a languages and skins directory with the update files (referred to as components elsewhere in this document) and the update catalog (for HalfMoon, the format for these are XML, rather than properties files). I hard code the URLs for the catalogs into my application, as I don't want users to change them, but if you want end users to be able change them, you can externalize them to a configuration file.
I can tell approximately how many people download HalfMoon as they often go to an online tutorial. More people download the skins catalog (the XML file with the skins list) than go to the tutorial, and most of them load some of the skins. This pattern indicates that the users find this an easy way to find the skins and download the ones that look interesting, and also would be a good way to make components such as codecs, parsers, or other application extensions available.
Cautions, Caveats, and Future Development
When I first wrote skins for HalfMoon Calendar, I used the approach presented here, where the skin was actually compiled code (although it was C code). The benefit is that you can add new functionality because you are writing in code and you have access to the main window's HWND (in the case of this Java application, you have access to its Frame). The drawbackand it is a big oneis that only programmers can write skins. I now think it is better to use properties files and images for skins, rather than compiled code (although either way works fine using this approach to incremental deployment). The way skins are created and accessed in this application, however, serves to demonstrate how to distribute loadable software modules.
In a production system, there would be a lot more attributes to describe each component, including a version, a friendly name (rather than the filename), and file size. Also, XML may be a better format for the information rather than a properties file, but either will work (using properties files saved me from cluttering things with parsing code). Further, for languages in a Java context, using ResourceBundles would be a more standard approach than the way languages are handled in this application.


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Clearance Sale – Newark
Last house of 2010, and is it a STUNNER! The banks say everything must go, so help economy as you help yourself to these incredible deals!
36570 Bonnie St, Newark, CA 94560
Beds: 3
Baths: 1
Sq. Ft.: 942
$/Sq. Ft.: $220
Lot Size: 6,864 Sq. Ft.
Property Type: Detached Single Family
Stories: 1
View: Neighborhood
Year Built: 1953
Community: Alameda County
County: Alameda
Source: MLSListings
Status: Active
On Redfin: 136 days
1st time home buyer or investment opportunity. 3 br, 1 bath home with large yard and wide driveway space. Add your style with some updates and a little sweat equity. Convenient to freeways and shopping.
You'll have plenty of opportunities to add your style here! All it needs are some updates and a little sweat equity. I think the agent is using "little" in the same sense that upper-class women use the term to mean "expensive." As in "Muffy, do you think I should wear my 'little' necklace to the regatta?"
Associating the house with shopping expeditions by the moneyed class is an excellent marketing strategy, because the house is "convenient to freeways and shopping."
Convenient to shopping. Really, really convenient.
I'm not sure what amazes me more about this house: that the agent thinks these photos are going to help sell it, or that it's only being offered for 15% less than its bubble pricing in 2006. But that's still more than twice what it sold for in 1990, proving that real estate will always go up in the long run.
It's just that some places have to run longer than others.
Better make it your New Year's resolution to elbow your way past the crowds to buy this one, because it's selling shortly!


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Expert Advice
Make-up Meltdown
Summer is here. As the temperature rises, it's time to take the necessary measures to maintain a fresh face. Modern Salon spoke to celebrity make-up artist and Director of Artistry for the Makeup Show, James Vincent, to get his top tips on beating the heat and achieving the perfect complexion.
Modern Salon: How does humidity affect the skin (dry, combination and oily)?
James Vincent: Humidity will affect the skin in different ways. I think that there are two factors, heat and moisture. Humidity will affect drier skin in a way where you start to see more texture in your makeup as the skin heats up and water evaporates. For oily skin, your sebaceous glands start to over secrete, which results in the greasy mess that a lot of women associate with summer months. But, that's not the case with everyone. One of the things you can do is examine your client's skincare routine. Is their skincare setting them up for success in a humid climate?
MS: How can makeup artists prep the skin during the summer to ensure longevity?
JV: I keep it very basic. I find that like works with like. If I'm using an oil based foundation then I'll use an oil based moisturizer. If I'm using a water based foundation, I'll use a water based moisturizer. I'm not a big fan of primers. Many women believe that primers will help them keep their product in place, but primers with silicone always return to shine. A lot of times what will happen is women will use these primers for high humidity and think they will be great, but the primer will start to shine through their moisturizer.
MS: What are your top do's for makeup artists who have clients that live in humid environments?
JV: From the driest skin to the oiliest skin, you've got to use a moisturizer with an SPF. You have to take a close look at your client's regimen and see if they are protecting their skin as best as they can. The best way to do that is with a moisturizer and SPF. It can even be a very light moisturizer or a mattifying moisturizer. One of my favorites for humidity is Embryolisse Hydra-Mat.
Toning the skin is a great way to prepare the face for moisturizer. An essential oil like a rose water toner will be bacterial static and also help with cell reproduction, which can combat the overproduction of oil.
I like Mario Badescu's Herbal Toner, Embryolisse Rose Water or Shu Uemura.
MS: Are there any complexion products that you prefer for high humidity?
JV: Definitely go with a waterproof foundation with a sheerer coverage. A lot of women feel like they need a full coverage makeup to hide things. But, sometimes it's just about using a sheerer coverage and evening out the tone. MAC Face and Body or Makeup Forever Face and Body are ideal for humidity because they are waterproof. Start in the center of the face, the area where most women need coverage, and sheer your way out. Then go back and build the areas where you need more coverage. Even if they perspire or their skin gets a little oily, the foundation will still stay set. You can use a blotting paper to get rid of any excess shine.
Try cream blush for humid months. Start with a blush or bronzer underneath foundation. As the skin heats up throughout the day, it looks like the product is flushing through rather than sitting on top. Cream or gel products like BeneTint, Stila Convertible Cover or NARS Multiples are my favorite because a little goes a long way. And these products don't weigh on the skin. I also make sure that during humid months, I only use bronzer on places where the sun hits the face: forehead, center of the nose, highest point of the cheekbone, chin, and any exposed skin. That's going to give your client a beautiful sun kissed glow.
MS: What is your position on using powder during the summer?
JV: I try to use as little powder as possible on the skin. I find especially in humidity, it starts to cake up. If I do use a powder, there are two types. There is a mattifying powder that has a traditional talc-based formula that will set your complexion into place. Then there are all of these high-definition powders that are silica based. They aren't designed to be used all over the face. They are designed to be used very slightly just to disperse oil and water. The less powder the better. I would prefer for you to set your foundation with a setting spray for humid months and to touch up with blotting paper. Mist and Fix from Makeup Forever or MAC's Fix Plus are best to set your foundation because you aren't adding an extra layer of foundation or powder to the face.
Mineral Makeup is the product that I don't love for humidity. A lot of women find that mineral makeup is easy to apply but what happens is you can lose control in the heat. What mineral makeup tends to do is reflect and refract light at different wavelengths. In a humid month it can heat up on the skin and give you a really oily shiny look. Going with a powder that has more of a matte finish is what I prefer to use.


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Our Fitness Blog
Kickboxing for a Healthier Life
Many people are deciding to add kickboxing to their fitness routine. They see the fast results that others are getting and want in on the action. It is the many benefits of kickboxing that has helped this fitness routine gain popularity in the last few years. Kickboxing combines martial arts, boxing and cardio. As a result, you get the benefits of all three fitness routines in one workout. Kickboxing is a total body workout that can shape and tone your body in no time. It can add diversity and adaptability to any fitness routine to help chase away the boredom of doing the same routine day after day.
Tone your body
One of the biggest benefits of kickboxing is the way it can quickly transform your body. If you are among the many people who want to lose weight and tone your body then kickboxing could be the perfect answer. The cardio aspect of kickboxing is the perfect way to lose weight. It allows you to burn calories and melt fat fast. You can burn up to eight hundred calories an hour through kickboxing. The fact that kickboxing is a full body workout means that you will be able to tone every part of your body in one routine. There will be no muscle in your body left untouched from your kickboxing routine. It exercises and tones every part of your body, like your shoulders, arms, legs and even your core. The combination of cardio and a full body workout ensures that you will get the results you want in no time at all.
An adaptable fitness routine
Many people are afraid to go to a kickboxing class because they have no experience and think that classes may be a little over their head, but many classes cater to people with little or no experience. You can start with the basics and gradually move up according to your fitness level. Your instructor or trainer is certified to ensure that your workout is within your fitness level to make sure you do not injure yourself. If you are unsure about performing any of the moves voice your concerns to the trainer, and they will help you through the move or eliminate it all together from your routine until you are more comfortable in performing this move in your workout. It is also important to let your trainer know of any preexisting conditions that may affect how you workout. One of the best parts about kickboxing is how it can be adapted to fit anyone's fitness goals and fitness needs.
Diversity in your routine
Kickboxing can add a little pizzazz to any fitness routine. Many people may see their regular fitness routine as boring and unexciting. They hate having to do the same monotonous workout day after day, like walking on a treadmill or using the stair stepper. It just does not excite them and make them look forward to their workout. Kickboxing combines multiple forms of exercise to bring you a unique and exciting workout. You can incorporate many different combinations into your workout. The best part is no session has to be the same, which will keep you from feeling as if you are just doing the same thing over and over. It can stave off boredom and make you look forward to each new routine, which can make you want to workout more often and have longer sessions. This fun factor can help you achieve your fitness goals faster than other fitness routines.
Many people across the world have experienced the multiple benefits of kickboxing causing this fitness routine to gain popularity. Kickboxing happens to be one of the fastest growing fitness routines in the world. It is a highly effective form of exercise that gives you the best results in a short amount of time. It is a great way for anyone to achieve their fitness goals and experience a fun and exciting fitness routine.


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(0 Miles)
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Year: 2018
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Engine: I-6 cyl
Transmission: AUTOMATIC
Exterior Color: Alpine White
Interior Color: Black SensaTec
Fuel Type: Other
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goodefamdent needed a new logo design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 53 designs submitted by 7 freelance designers.
We are a family business. Starting up in OR in a few weeks. Need a contemporary but family friendly eye-catching design.
Families, moms in particular. Moms are busy and the logo needs to quickly and clearly express what we do and make it easy for them to find us again.
Keep it simple. Needs to say "Goode Family Dental LLC" and have some sort of a icon or picture to express gentle, top of the line, family focused, professional dental care. The Doctor's name is Michael G. Goode DDS. May or may not want his name on the logo. Would like to see it both ways. As far as colors go we like blues, greens, grays and browns but are open to other colors that may catch peoples' eye while still being professional looking. We have attached two examples for a launching point but invite you to be creative and show us what you think will communicate to our clients clearly and professionally what we do. The examples are mostly for font style preference and possible color choices.
Find out how a design contest works or learn more about our logo design services.


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Garland Coulson needed a new other design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 54 designs submitted by 24 freelance designers.
I need a 24" x 36" poster created at 300 dpi, suitable for printing and displaying at trade shows.
I want a 24" by 36" poster design in 300 dpi that I can arrange to have printed for an upcoming trade show.
Preferred formats:
- pdf
- bmp
- tiff
- jpgThewording must be as follows and should be centered. The url in thefirst line is the title and should be larger and bolder than the rest and capitalized as given here:
Web Marketing System
Unlimited Auto Responders
Lead Capture & Sales Pages Templates
Run Your Own Affiliate Program
Resale Rights Library & Hosting
- clean fonts like verdana
- colors from http://internetonesystem.com
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User Ratings for android device Samsung Galaxy Prevail2 codenames:[raybst, SPH-M840]Do you have problems with your Samsung Galaxy Prevail2 battery temperature?
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Posted Thursday, December 6, 2012 --- 3:58 p.m.
Press Release from UW-Health:
MADISON—UW Health physicians are encouraging expectant mothers in Wisconsin to get their flu shots after four unvaccinated pregnant women were hospitalized this week with influenza.
Tom Haupt, epidemiologist for the state division of public health, says he has never seen so many unvaccinated pregnant women hospitalized with the flu before the first of the year.
He said the women were admitted to hospitals in Milwaukee and Waukesha counties in southeast Wisconsin and said the virus could affect expectant mothers in southern Wisconsin, including Dane County. For the entire 2011-12 flu season, nine pregnant women were hospitalized in Wisconsin.
Dr. Sarah Bradley, an obstetrician/gynecologist and clinical assistant professor at the School of Medicine and Public Health, said unvaccinated pregnant women risk serious health complications and even death from the flu.
"During the 2009 H1N1 epidemic, pregnant women represented five percent of all deaths that occurred from the flu even though pregnant women make up only one percent of the population," she said. "Other serious complications from the flu include bronchitis, pneumonia, and respiratory failure. Pregnant women are at increased risk of these complications because of the physiologic changes that happen to women's bodies in pregnancy, including changes in lung function and in how the immune system works."
Bradley added that pregnant women who catch the flu may be at risk for other complications such as pre-term labor and low birth weight. She said the vaccine will cause no harm to the fetus or the mother.
"Vaccinating moms during pregnancy protects not just mom, but also protects their newborns from influenza for up to six months after birth, because antibodies against the flu pass from mom to baby," she said. "This is the only effective way to prevent the flu in newborns as the vaccine can't be used in infants younger than six months."
Bradley said pregnant women can get the flu vaccine during regularly scheduled prenatal appointments. Although the number of confirmed cases in Wisconsin seems high compared to the last two years when seasonal influenza cases were at very low levels and extremely late, UW Health physicians say this year's overall activity is actually typical for the influenza season in Wisconsin.
For more information, visit www.uwhealth.org/obgyn.


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Submitted By Firm:
Shearn Delamore & Co.
Sivabalah Nadarajah, Suganthi Singam
Elyse Diong Tze Mei
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A CASE NOTE ON Dr H K Fong Brainbuilder Pte Ltd v Sg-Maths Sdn Bhd & Ors [2018] MLJU 682
This case highlights the importance of registering a franchise with the Registrar of Franchises and the consequences of not doing so. In particular, the effect and applicability of section 6(1) of the Franchise Act 1998 ("FA 1998") are discussed.
The subject matter was "Dr. Fong's Method" of teaching mathematics to students in primary and secondary school, which was developed by Dr Fong Ho Kheong ("Dr Fong"). Dr Fong incorporated the plaintiff, Dr H K Fong Brainbuilder Pte Ltd ("Dr H K Fong Brainbuilder"), in Singapore which then entered into a Master Licence Agreement dated 18 December 2013 ("MLA 2013") with the first defendant, Sg-Maths Sdn Bhd ("Sg-Maths"), for the operation and management of the "BrainBuilder" business ("the Business") in Malaysia.
Both the second defendant ("Lum Sau Leong") and third defendant ("Leong Chun Piew") have been Dr Fong's "best friends" for 55 years. They own a total of 85% of the paid up shares in Sg-Maths and are the only directors of Sg-Maths. Dr Fong held 15% of the paid up shares in Sg-Maths.
Dr H K Fong Brainbuilder alleged, amongst others, that Sg-Maths had breached the MLA 2013 when Sg-Maths sub-licensed the Business to Mr. Suhaimi bin Ramly to operate a Brainbuilder Centre at Setapak. The defendants, amongst others, sought in turn for a declaration that the MLA 2013 was invalid [1].
High Court decision
When the case came before the High Court, the following issues were considered:
Do Malaysian courts have jurisdiction to try this case?
Clause 37 of the MLA 2013 provides as follows:
"The construction, interpretation and enforcement of [MLA 2013] is governed by the laws in force in Singapore and the parties unconditionally and irrevocably submit to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the Courts in Singapore."
The High Court decided that the Malaysian High Court has the jurisdiction to hear the case for the following reasons:
Clause 37 does not bar the Malaysian High Court from hearing the case and, even if it did, the contractual clause was held unenforceable because there was a breach of sections 6(1) and 6A(2) of the FA 1998 which rendered the MLA 2013 void.
Does the FA 1998 apply to the MLA 2013?
Although the MLA 2013 was not named a "franchise" contract, the High Court held that the courts are not bound by labels or descriptions given by the parties in the contract.
The High Court perused the MLA 2013 and found that it clearly satisfied all four cumulative conditions of a "franchise" where:
In particular, the High Court Judge found that Dr H K Fong Brainbuilder had provided Sg-Maths with a "Franchise Operations Manual" and Sg-Maths was required to comply with the manuals.
Dr Fong had actually referred to Sg-Maths as the Master Franchisee and this is supported by the admission by Dr Fong that he had been advised by Dr H K Fong Brainbuilder's solicitor to register the Business as a franchise.
Has there been a breach of sections 6(1) and 6A(2) of the FA 1998?
As a franchise, the High Court held that both the franchisor and franchisee of the Business are obliged to register the franchise with the Registrar. The requirement that a franchisor should register a franchise extends to include both local and foreign franchisors.
Applying a purposive construction of the FA 1998, the High Court rejected Dr H K Fong Brainbuilder's argument that section 6(1) of the FA 1998 only mandates a local franchisor to register its franchise business.
In support, the High Court also had regard to the title of the FA 1998 which states that the FA 1998 is "to provide for the registration of, and to regulate, franchises, and for incidental matters" and the parliamentary debates on the implementation of the Franchise Act (Amendment) Act 2012 on 17 July 2012 which made reference to the purpose and objective of registering a franchise under the FA 1998.
The High Court based its decision on the following grounds:
Injustice will be caused to franchisees of foreign franchises as a foreign franchisor would not have to comply with the mandatory provision under section 6(1) of the FA 1998.
Whether the MLA 2013 was void
Based on the High Court's finding that the both the foreign franchisor and franchisee of the Business franchise had failed to register with the Registrar under sections 6(1) and 6A(1) of the FA 1998 respectively, the MLA 2013 was held to be void in its entirety and unenforceable.
The High Court found that the MLA 2013 was void in its entirety notwithstanding clause 48.1 of the MLA 2013 which provides for the severability of any provisions in the MLA 2013 which the Court finds to be invalid without invalidating other provisions of the MLA 2013.
The High Court in this instance did not exercise its discretion to "save" the lawful part of a contract on the following grounds:
The High Court in the present case took a purposive interpretation of the FA 1998 in holding that, although the term "franchise" was not used in the agreement or contract, the arrangement between the parties may still be considered a franchise under the FA 1998.
Owing to the consequences that may result following the non-registration of franchises, it is prudent, not only for self-acknowledged franchise businesses to comply with the FA 1998, but also other businesses to re-examine their business models and consider if they fall within the definition of a "franchise" as provided for by FA 1998.
[1] There were other issues that were also raised in this case, including
However, as the crux of this article deals with franchise, these Other Issues will not be discussed here.
[2] A franchisor shall register his franchise with the Registrar before he can operate a franchise business or make an offer to sell the franchise to any person.
[3] Before commencing the franchise business, a franchisee who has been granted a franchise from a foreign franchisor shall apply to register the franchise with the Registrar by using the prescribed application form and such application shall be subject to the Registrar's approval.
[4] The consideration or object of an agreement is lawful, unless - (a) it is forbidden by a law or (b) it is of such a nature that, if permitted, it would defeat any law.
[5] Section 4 of the FA 1998.
This article is presented for information purpose only and covers legal issues in a general way.
The contents are not intended to constitute advice on any specific matter and should not be relied upon as a substitute for detailed legal advice.
© 2018 Shearn Delamore & Co. All rights reserved.
For further information regarding financial services matters, please contact our Intellectual Property Practice Group.
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Altra Industrial Motion Inc. has multiple locations in the U.S., as well as Central America, Europe, and Asia. The Employment Law Alliance has proved to be a great asset in assisting us in dealing with employment issues and matters in such diverse venues as Mexico, Australia, and Spain. We have obtained excellent results using the ELA network for matters ranging from a multi-state review of employment policies to assisting with individual employment issues in a variety of foreign jurisdictions.
In one instance, we were faced with an employment dispute with a former associate in Mexico that had the potential for substantial economic exposure. The matter had been pending for over a year, and we were not confident in the employment advice we had been receiving. I obtained a referral to the ELA counsel in Mexico, who was able to obtain a favorable resolution of the dispute in only a few days. Based on our experiences with the ELA, we would not hesitate to use its many resources for future employment law needs.
In my career I have been a practicing attorney, counsel to the Governor of Maine, and CEO of a major public utility. I have worked with many lawyers in many settings. When the American University in Bulgaria needed help with employment litigation in federal court in Syracuse, New York, we turned to Pierce Atwood, the ELA member we knew and trusted in Maine, for a referral. We were extremely pleased with the responsiveness and high quality of service we received from Bond Schoeneck & King, the ELA's firm in upstate New York. I would not hesitate to recommend the ELA to any employer.
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I recently participated in the ELA-sponsored webinar on the Employee Free Choice Act. I was most impressed with that presentation. It was extremely helpful and very worthwhile. I have also been utilizing the ELA's online Global Employer Handbook. This compliance tool is absolutely terrific.
I am familiar with several other products that purport to provide up-to- date employment law information and I believe that this resource is superior to other similar compliance manuals. I am delighted that the ELA provides this free to its members' clients.
Employment Law Alliance (ELA) has provided Boyd Coffee Company with a highly valued connection to resources, important information and learning. With complex operations and employees working in approximately 20 states, we are continually striving to keep abreast of specific state laws, many of which vary from state to state. We have participated in the ELA web seminars and have found the content very useful. We appreciate the ease, cost effectiveness and quality of the content and presenters offered by these web seminars. The Global Employer Handbook has provided our company with a very helpful overview of legal issues in the various states in which we operate, and the network of attorneys has helped us manage issues that have arisen in states other than where our Roastery and corporate headquarters are located in Portland, Oregon.
As an international operating outsourcing and consulting supplier Capgemini has used firms of the Employment Law Alliance in Central Europe. We were always highly satisfied with the quality of employment law advice and the responsiveness. I can really recommend the ELA lawyers.
As an employment lawyer based in San Francisco, I work closely with high tech clients with operations around the globe. Last year, one of my clients needed to implement a workforce reduction in a dozen countries simultaneously. And they gave me 48 hours to accomplish this. I don't know how I could have pulled this off without the resources of the ELA. I don't know of any single law firm that could have made this happen. My client received all of the help they needed in a timely fashion and on a cost effective basis.
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As the Vice President for Litigation & Associate General Counsel for my company, I need to ensure that we have a team of top-notch employment lawyers in place in every jurisdiction where we do business. And I want to be confident that those lawyers know our business so they don't have to reinvent the wheel when a new legal matter arises. With more than 3400 stores and 35,000 employees operating in all 50 U.S. states and across Canada, we rely on the ELA to partner with us to help accomplish our objectives. I have been delighted with the consistent high quality of the work performed by ELA lawyers. I encourage other in-house counsel to use their services, as well.
Ingram Micro is the world's largest technology distributor, providing sales, marketing, and logistics services for the IT industry around the globe. With over 13,000 employees working throughout the U.S. and in 35 international countries, we need employment lawyers who we can count on to ensure global legal compliance. Our experience with many multi-state and multi-national law firms is that their employment law services are not always a high priority for them, and many do not have experts in many of their offices. The ELA has assembled an excellent team of highly skilled employment lawyers, wherever and whenever I need them, and they have proven to be an invaluable resource to our company.
Our company, Konami Gaming, Inc., is growing rapidly in a very diverse and highly regulated industry. We are aggressively entering new markets outside the domestic U.S., including Canada and South America. I have had the recent opportunity to utilize the services provided by the ELA. The legal advice was both responsive and professional. Most of all, the entire process was seamless since our Nevada attorney coordinated the services and legal advice requested. I look forward to working with the ELA in the future, as it serves as a great resource to the legal community.
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Vice President, Human Resources
Until recently, I was unaware of the ELA's existence. We have subsidiaries and affiliates throughout the United States, as well as in Asia, the Middle East and Europe. When a recent legal issue arose in Texas, our long-time Nevada counsel, who is a member of the ELA, suggested that this matter be handled by his ELA colleague in Dallas. We are very pleased with the quality and timeliness of services provided by that firm, and we are excited to now have the ELA as an important asset to help us address employment law issues worldwide.
The ELA network has been immensely important to our company in helping us address an array of human resources challenges around the world. I strongly encourage H.R. executives who have employees located in many different jurisdictions to utilize the ELA's unparalleled expertise and geographic coverage.
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Former Senior Director of Human Resources
As the General Counsel for a company with 6,500 employees operating across the U.S. and in eight countries, it is critical that I have top quality lawyers on the ground where we do business. The ELA is an indispensable resource. It has taken the guesswork out of finding the best employment counsel wherever we have a problem.
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Senior Vice President/General Counsel, Shared Services and Benefits
We have direct sales and service offices all over the U.S., but have not necessarily had the need in the past for assistance with legal work in every state where we have a business presence. From time to time, we suddenly find ourselves facing a legal issue in a state where we have no outside counsel relationship. It has been a real benefit to know that the ELA has assembled such an impressive team of experts throughout the U.S. and overseas.
A few years ago, we faced a very tough discrimination lawsuit in Mississippi. We had never had to retain a lawyer there before. I was absolutely delighted with the Mississippi ELA firm. We received an excellent result. They will no doubt handle all of our employment law matters in Mississippi in the future. I have also obtained the assistance of several other ELA firms around the U.S. and have received the same outstanding service. The ELA is a tremendous resource for our company.
Our affiliated companies have used the Employment Law Alliance in connection with numerous acquisitions, and have always been extremely pleased with our ability to obtain the highest quality legal advice on due diligence issues from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. We have found the Employment Law Alliance firms to be not only first rate with respect to their legal advice but also responsive and timely in assisting us with federal and state law issues critical to our due diligence efforts. We consider the Employment Law Alliance to be an important part of our team.
We have partnered with many ELA firms on the development and execution of case management strategies with very positive results. We have been very pleased with the legal advice and counsel provided by the law firms we have utilized who are affiliated with the Employment Law Alliance. The ELA firms we have worked with are customer focused, responsive, and thorough in their approach to handling labor and employment law matters.
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Assistant General Counsel
Sanmina-SCI has facilities strategically located in key regions throughout the world. Our customers expect that we will provide them with the highest quality and most sophisticated services in the marketplace. We have that same expectation for the lawyers with whom we do business. With operations in 17 countries, we need to be certain that we have a team of lawyers working together to address our employment law needs worldwide. The ELA has delivered exactly what it promised-- seamless and consistent high quality services delivered in each locale around the globe. It has quickly become a key asset for our human resources department.
We own, manage, and franchise hotels throughout the U.S. and in more than 90 countries. With more than 145,000 employees worldwide, ensuring that we comply with the complex web of local labor and employment laws in every one of these jurisdictions is a daunting task. The Employment Law Alliance has served as an important resource for us and we have benefited greatly from its expertise and long reach. When a legal dispute or issue has arisen in some far-flung place, Employment Law Alliance lawyers have always provided responsive, practical, and cost-effective assistance.
Wilmington Trust has used the ELA to locate firms in California, Washington State, Georgia, and Europe. Our experience with the ELA lawyers with whom we have worked has always been one of complete satisfaction and prompt, practical advice.
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