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- Super-fast processor.
- Dual cameras.
- Wireless charging.
- Not the fastest LTE connections.
- Still a relatively low-res screen with a big bezel for the price.
Apple iPhone 8 Plus Specs
Battery Life (As Tested) | 5 hours, 13 (LTE video streaming) minutes |
CPU | Apple A11 |
Dimensions | 6.24 by 3.07 by 0.3 inches |
Screen Resolution | 1,920 by 1,080 pixels |
Screen Size | 5.5 |
The iPhone 8 Plus—really the iPhone 7s Plus, when you think about it—may be the sweet spot in Apple's new phone lineup. Its dual cameras will enable better augmented reality experiences than the iPhone 8, and its bigger screen offers a better spotlight for high-intensity applications powered by the new A11 processor. And, starting at $799 (for 64GB), it's significantly less expensive than the iPhone X. While we wish Apple had been more innovative with its screen and modem here, the 8 Plus is our Editors' Choice for iPhones right now.
From the front, you may have some trouble telling the iPhone 8 Plus apart from the 7 Plus. At 6.24 by 3.07 by 0.3 inches and 7.13 ounces, it's the same size, but heavier. It has a similar 5.5-inch, 1,920-by-1,080 LCD, although it's been enhanced with True Tone, which gives it better white balance in different kinds of lighting. The Touch ID home button sits below the screen, as usual. There's a Lightning port, but no headphone jack, and the phone is water-resistant.
Flip over the 8 Plus to see the difference from last year's model. The phone now has a glass back, rather than smooth metal. It also supports wireless charging with all the popular Qi-compatible chargers. We put it on both Mophie and Samsung wireless charging pads and it charged just fine, if slowly, at about two-thirds of the speed of standard wired charging. Apple says a firmware update will enable faster wireless charging in the future.
The Fastest iPhone Yet
The A11 Bionic processor has six cores, two of which are "high performance" and four of which are "efficiency" cores. That's more than the four-core A10 and the two-core A9, but the whole core thing is a red herring; it's possible to design a fast processor with few cores, or many cores.
What makes it Bionic? Well, bionics is the science of combining biological and electronic parts and methods, so I think it's referring to the new Neural Engine. The Neural Engine is a custom block of the A11 dedicated to machine learning. On the iPhone 8 Plus, it doesn't do much yet, although it's involved in scene recognition in the camera app. But iOS 11 includes an API called CoreML that helps third-party developers integrate machine learning into their own apps—recognizing types of food or clothing when they train the camera on them, for instance.
The iPhone 8 and the 8 Plus have the same processor, although the 8 has 2GB of RAM and the 8 Plus has 3GB. That resulted in very similar benchmarks for the two phones. They're both the fastest phones we've ever tested, benchmark-wise, and in the same class as the new 10.5-inch iPad Pro.
On the iPhone 8 Plus, we got about 214k on the Antutu benchmark, 4,255 on Geekbench single-core, and 10,298 on Geekbench multi-core. The iPhone 7 managed 165k, 3,500, and 6,024, respectively. The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 hit 175k, 1,870, and 6,500.
For graphics, the iPhone 8 Plus' 65,011 scored on the 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited benchmark is nearly double that of the iPhone 7's 37,825. But wait! This is one area where Apple's steadfast refusal to improve its screen resolution does it no good. Last year's iPhones hit the 60 frame-per-second sync limit on the GFXBench graphics benchmarks, and this one does too. This iPhone's GPU is powerful enough to drive Apple's "ProMotion" 120Hz tablet screen; I just wish the phone had one.
For a real-world application, we recorded a 2-minute, 4K video, applied a filter in iMovie, and exported it to 720p. The iPhone 8 managed the export in 24 seconds compared with the iPhone 7's 31 seconds. That's a noticeable difference, but we couldn't find other apps where the difference between 7 and 8 performance was easily visible; iOS apps are just too well-architected for a range of phones.
The iPhone 7 is already quite fast in current applications, including the simple early ARKit apps. The open question is whether all of this neural and graphics power will make the iPhone 8 Plus more effective in future AR experiences.
We also took an in-depth look at the iPhone 8 Plus' modem performance and, as the chart below shows, it does better than the 7 Plus and the 6s Plus on all four major US networks. But Apple could have done better. This year's iPhones lack the gigabit LTE speeds currently being used by Bell and Telus in Canada, and which will come from AT&T and T-Mobile next year in the US. They lack 4x4 MIMO, which helps in weak-signal areas and with recovery from dead zones, and which the Samsung Galaxy S8 has. They also lack T-Mobile's coverage-extending Band 71, which is so far only on the LG V30.
For Wi-Fi, we got slightly better performance on the iPhone 8 Plus than on the 7 Plus, but not so much that anyone would notice. The phone supports 802.11ac on the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, just like the iPhone 7 series.
Apple says the iPhone 8 Plus has roughly the same battery life as the 7 Plus. We got 5 hours, 13 minutes of video playback time over LTE, which is shorter than the 6 hours we got with the iPhone 7 Plus. However, the phone should fast-charge with high-wattage chargers, Apple says, all the way up to a MacBook charger. Using an iPad charger, for instance, nearly doubled charging speed—so if you're buying a new iPhone, a $19 iPad charger is a great investment.
Also, when you're thinking of iPhone battery life results, remember two things. First, you probably won't use your phone on full brightness (which will extend usable life). Second, iPhones leak battery in the background less than Android phones do. You won't be surprised by a dead battery if you pick up your 8 Plus after not having used or charged it overnight.
Two Cameras Are Better Than One
The 8 Plus has dual 12-megapixel cameras: a regular one, with f/1.8 aperture, and a 2x telephoto one, with f/2.8. There's also a 7-megapixel front-facing camera with f/2.2 aperture, the exact same one as on the iPhone 7 Plus. The telephoto lens is not optically stabilized, unlike on the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 and the iPhone X. For now, the dual cameras are mostly about 2x zoom photography and bokeh, for selective-focus portrait mode like on the iPhone 7 Plus.
Our camera analyst, Jim Fisher, did an in-depth study looking at the difference between the iPhone 8 Plus and competing cameras, including the iPhone 8, the iPhone 7 Plus, and the Galaxy Note 8.
In the lab, the Note 8 shows a bit more color saturation in good light, and a bit less noise in low light. The Note 8's 2x lens is a bit sharper than the iPhone's in good light, but drops out of the race in low light. The 8 Plus does especially well in outdoor night scenes, balancing reflections off of street signs with darker areas.
Compared with the iPhone 7 Plus, the iPhone 8 Plus isn't much of an improvement. Now, the 7 Plus is already very, very good—that's sort of the point here. But Apple is marketing the 8 Plus as having significant camera advances, and we just didn't see them. You have to go back to the Galaxy S7 generation, or the iPhone 6, to see a major jump in quality with the iPhone 8 Plus.
The iPhone 8 Plus can also do Portrait Lighting, a filter that makes people look silhouetted on a dark background. I'm not a fan, but the feature already appears to be widely popular (then again, so are Snapchat filters that make you look like a dog). If you want this feature, you need to get a Plus or an X, not the smaller iPhone 8.
Portrait mode is still clearly in beta, however. When we photographed one of our staffers outdoors, the iPhone's portrait and bokeh algorithms got thrown off by stray hairs in a way that didn't happen with the Note 8. This is something that can be fixed in software, and we're pretty sure that Apple will do so. With other subjects, such as food and flowers, the iPhone 8 Plus delivered better background blur using its dual lenses.
Two new features have come aboard for video: the phone can now record 4K video at 60 frames per second, and slow-motion 1080p video at 240fps. With 24, 30 and 60fps options for 4K video, the iPhone 8 Plus outpaces its Android competition (and older iPhones) in giving videographers a range of viewing styles.
But if you're a serious iPhone videographer, you may want to wait for the X. The 8 Plus' 2x lens is not optically stabilized, which means motion isn't as smooth when you're taking videos as it would be on the iPhone X or the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.
Apple is going big on augmented reality in the next few years. That's why we're uncomfortable telling iPhone buyers to purchase a model that lacks dual cameras. While Apple's ARKit can do augmented reality with a single camera, it's clearly limited. Demos we've seen show ARKit only able to map horizontal surfaces like tables and floors, not walls or whole rooms.
This is where we get into pure speculation. Apple swears up and down that the Plus' second camera gives it absolutely no advantage over a single-camera device for AR. But all of my experience with AR says otherwise: that second camera, in the future, could provide enhanced AR capabilities, such as the ability to detect vertical surfaces (in other words, walls).
iOS 11: Built for AR?
The iPhone 8 Plus, like every iPhone Apple currently sells, runs iOS 11. We have a full iOS 11 review that goes into the new features in-depth. There's one area where we suspect the 8 Plus and 7 Plus will outpace other iPhones, though, and it's a major focus for Apple: augmented reality.
If you're deciding between an iPhone and an Android phone, on the other hand, there are a few areas where Apple and Google differ, although the two OSes are broadly similar in capabilities nowadays. We'd focus on Messages, the AR/VR split, services, and privacy.
If you have a lot of friends with iPhones, and you live in the US, Messages could help make your decision for you. Messages is the iPhone's default texting app (formerly iMessage), and it has much richer group messaging, presence, and stickers than SMS does. Later this year, it'll also get Venmo-like abilities to send money between iPhone owners. In countries where everybody uses Whatsapp or WeChat, this isn't such a big deal. But in the US, where default texting apps dominate, Messages tends to build iPhone-only social groups that can leave Android users out of the loop. If at least several of your other friends have Android phones, though, it won't have the critical mass to matter so much.
Apple is going big on augmented reality where Android is stronger on virtual reality. AR is about placing virtual objects in the real world; VR is about strapping on a headset and shooing the real world away. So far, there's no VR solution for iPhones, and Google is several months behind Apple on AR. I think AR has a broader appeal, because VR headsets tend to get sweaty and a little claustrophobic.
If you're interested in AR, I'd say go with the 8 Plus rather than the regular iPhone 8. And go with the 8 Plus rather than the 7 Plus. Not only do I suspect that dual cameras will offer a better AR experience in the future, a bigger screen gives you a better window into an augmented world, and the new A11 processor is specifically tuned for AR apps. It's safe to say this will be the best AR phone until we see the iPhone X.
If you aren't focused on AR or Messages, your decision may come down to whether you prefer Apple's services or Google's. Each company's music, mail, photo and cloud services work best on their own OS. Apple really wants you to use Apple Music, for example; if you ask Siri to play music, she'll try to do it through Apple Music. Similarly, iCloud is baked more deeply into the OS than other cloud services. The Gmail experience on iOS is okay, but it's better on Android. You get the drill.
Finally, Apple is stronger on privacy than Google is. Google's business is data, and you should assume it's collecting data on everything you do. Apple's business is primarily hardware, and it's less likely to share your data with others.
Comparisons and Conclusions
The iPhone 8 Plus is ready for the future, which makes it our favorite iPhone so far—but then again, we haven't tested the iPhone X yet.
At $799 for 64GB and $949 for 256GB, the 8 Plus is less expensive than its primary competitor, the Samsung Galaxy Note 8. Like we saw with the iPhone 7 Plus, the second camera brings real value to the 8 Plus, and that's one of the reasons we recommend it over the iPhone 8. But in this generation, with Apple's new focus on augmented reality, we also think big screens are the way to go. A bigger-screen phone makes augmented reality applications easier to view and manipulate.
The wild card here is the upcoming iPhone X. The X is going to share a lot in common with the 8 Plus. They have the same processor and roughly the same cameras, although the X has image stabilization on the second, zoom camera that might improve low-light performance. And the X's sleeker design is going to fit better in the hand than the 8 Plus does, which could make it the best of both worlds: the big-screen, dual-camera power of the 8 Plus, without the 2014-era giant bezels.
What about iPhone or Android? It's really a matter of ecosystem. The 8 Plus has a better processor than leading Android competitors such as the Galaxy Note 8 and LG V30. The cameras just about match, while the 8 Plus' screen and LTE connectivity aren't quite as good. Ultimately, the iPhone's strength isn't in the specs. It's in the community and support—the ability to join group Messages chats with other iPhone users, to get things fixed quickly at a Genius Bar, and to be the first to see cutting-edge, gorgeously designed new augmented reality games.
We're recommending three iPhones right now: the low-cost iPhone SE, which needs a processor update but is the best price-performance value; the iPhone 7, which at $549 gets you a modern, AR-ready phone with a stellar camera for a reasonable price; and the 8 Plus, at $799. Those make a terrific good-better-best lineup for Apple fans, until the X arrives.
I'm not one to draw conclusions before actually reviewing a phone, so I look forward to checking out the iPhone X and editing this section based on my experiences. But for now, the 64GB iPhone 8 Plus is our favorite premium iPhone, and our Editors' Choice.
Best Mobile Phone Picks
- The Best Phones for 2020
- The Best AT&T Phones for 2020
- The Best T-Mobile Phones for 2020
- The Best Sprint Phones for 2020
- More Mobile Phone Reviews
- More from Apple
Mobile Phone Product Comparisons
- LG G6 vs. Samsung Galaxy S8
- Apple iPhone 5s vs. Apple iPhone 6
- Samsung Galaxy Note 5 vs. Samsung Galaxy S7
Further Reading
- Report: Midrange 'OnePlus Z' to Ship With 5G Connectivity
- US 5G Phone Share Rises to 20 Percent Thanks to Galaxy S20
- COVID-19 Causes Smartphone Market to Suffer Biggest Annual Decline Ever
- Report: Xiaomi Phones Scooping Up Tons of Web Browsing Data, Even in Incognito Mode
- Blue Wireless Shutting Down After Selling Spectrum to Verizon


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The party decor for the Aloha Summer birthday party didn't start at the dessert table but rather at the front door. I made a colorful wreath using a Styrofoam ring and placed cocktail umbrellas all around it. Then, I added a matching ribbon and hung it on our front door. The guests were welcomed with leis and hula skirts to wear.
I made hair clips from a flower bouquet I purchased at a dollar store that I added to tree branches I found from our yard which made the perfect centerpiece for our family room. Girls chose their favorite flower clip to go along with their aloha accessories.
I styled our console table in our foyer by adding a welcome sign to greet the guests and it also served as the place to hold the favors for the party guests.
I placed white frames with pictures of the girls on the table. Using a flower punch, I punched flowers from papers in the birthday party colors and used "pop stickers" to add them to the frame. To add a fun touch, I embellished each flower with a piece of candy.
I found beach pails for a dollar each at Michaels that made for the perfect containers to hold the loot for the favors. The dollar store also had packages of bubbles for a dollar and I thought they would be cute to wrap the bottle wrappers around them from the Aloha printable collection. At the store, I also found water squirt toys that I placed in the pails.
Included in the favor pails were Christina from Cookies Are My Canvas' beautiful cookies. The favors were adorned with the Aloha Summer favor tags that I made using my favorite craft punch.
Last but not least, I added flowers that I made from tissue paper. They were super easy to make and they turned out beautifully. Tutorial coming soon!
Activities for the party consisted of coloring hibiscus flowers and beach themed coloring pages, a paper leis craft station (tutorial coming soon), hula lessons and a tiki piñata.
I am excited to share with you a free printable from the Aloha Summer birthday party.
Download your free Aloha printable HERE.
The Aloha banner can be cut as squares or cut into circles, add a lollipop stick and ribbon and you can use as a cake topper or table decorations.
The Aloha banner can be cut as squares or cut into circles, add a lollipop stick and ribbon and you can use as a cake topper or table decorations.

subset: commoncrawl


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Policy:Privacy policy/Glossary of key terms/lt
This Glossary is meant to help you with some terms in our Privacy Policy that you may not be familiar with and is not a part of our official Privacy Policy. |
Wikimedia Foundation Privacy Policy Glossary of Key Terms
An "application programming interface" or "API" is a communication protocol that allows software components to communicate with each other. The MediaWiki API, for example, allows third-party software tools to communicate with Mediawiki sites (including Wikimedia Sites) to carry out certain actions, such as reading or editing a page, automatically and remotely. Learn more on Wikipedia.
"Naršyklė" yra kompiuterinė programa, kurią žmonės įprastai naudoja pasiekti internetą, pavyzdžiui populiarios naršyklės yra Chrome, Firefox, Safari, ir Internet Explorer. Sužinokite daugiau.
A "cookie" is a tiny data file that we transfer onto your computer, mobile phone, or any other device that you use to access the Wikimedia Sites, generally used for authentication and occasionally tracking. Every cookie expires after a certain period of time, but that period varies depending on what the cookie is used for and how your browser is configured. A "session" cookie is one that generally expires when you close your web browser or mobile application. A "persistent" cookie is one that remains in your device, even after you close your browser or mobile application. A persistent cookie expires according to the duration set by us (or when you delete it manually). Learn more on Wikipedia.
Tu gali pašalinti arba išjungti ,,sausainius per savo naršyklės nustatymus.IŠTRINTIww
Do Not Track
"Do Not Track" or "DNT" is a way for your web browser to tell the website you are visiting that you do not want to be tracked by third parties whose websites you did not visit, like analytics services, advertising networks, and social platforms. When using this mechanism, a signal is sent by your browser, expressing your desire that your personal information, particularly about your online activities and network interactions, should not be passed on to third parties. When receiving a DNT signal sent by your browser, the person or entity that owns the website has the option to either honor or ignore the above-mentioned request.
The "global positioning system" or "GPS" is a space-based satellite navigation system that provides location and time information on the location of devices designed to receive their signals such as car navigation systems or cell phones. Learn more on Wikipedia.
Internet Protocol Address
An Internet Protocol Address (or "IP address") is a unique number assigned to a particular device connected to the Internet. Your IP address may not always be the same on a particular device, depending on a number of variables such as your use of a proxy server or a corporate network. Generally, however, IP addresses are assigned according to the geographical location of your device and your internet service provider, and might be usable to approximate your real-life location. Learn more on Wikipedia.
"JavaScript" is a standard software programming language used on most modern websites. Learn more on Wikipedia.
Local Storage
"Local Storage" (also known as "Web Storage") is a way for a website to collect and store information "locally" (i.e. on the user's device rather than on the website's server) and then later retrieve it again. For example, by using LocalStorage, a user's visits can be stored on their own computer, counted, and then given to us. This allow us to receive important use statistics (the count of visits), while the specific information about when each individual visit occurred would never be transmitted to us.
Meta duomenys
"Metadata" means additional information about a particular file (such as a photo or video) that usually includes things like the manufacturer and model of the device that took a photo, date and time the photo was taken, exposure time, lens focal length, ISO speed rating, and f-number. Some metadata is automatically included by the device and some is written by the owner of the device. Learn more on Wikipedia.
Operating System
An "operating system" is a software program that manages your device's hardware resources and performs basic tasks like keeping track of files, recognizing when you type something into the keyboard, and sending output to your screen. Examples of common operating systems include Linux (also known as GNU/Linux), iOS, Windows, Mac OS X, and Android. Learn more on Wikipedia.
Proxy Servers
A "proxy server" is a server that acts as an intermediary between your device and the server your device is requesting information (connection to a webpage, a file, etc.) from. Learn more on Wikipedia.
Tracking Pixel
A "tracking pixel" (sometimes called "web beacons", "transparent GIFs", "clear GIFs", "pixel gifs", or "pixel tags") is a tiny, invisible image that allows us to track activities on Wikimedia Sites or activities based on email notifications we send. Although tracking pixels are commonly associated with advertising, we never use tracking pixels for advertising nor do we sell or rent the information collected through tracking pixels. Information collected through tracking pixels can only be shared with third parties in aggregated form and in accordance with the Privacy Policy. Tracking pixels help us figure out if certain features, notifications, and products are effective and if they can be improved. Learn more on Wikipedia.


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Lee County Sports Development Page ContentJeff Mielke, Executive Director Performance Dashboard Sports Tourism Facility Expansion Study FY 2019-20 Sports Expenditure Report Your Sports-Friendly Event DestinationA World-Class Event requires a World-Class Destination and Southwest Florida is the special place that can engage your event amongst the wide variety of state-of-the-art-facilities with our arts, culture, attractions and BEACHES! From youth baseball to Major Leagues, Lee County is home to some extraordinary partners that work to provide a great experience as part of your event! In partnership with Lee County Parks & Recreation and our wide variety of hotel partners, we are certain your event can be successful within the Greater Fort Myers Area. Baseball and softball continue to be staples for Lee County with a rich history of events and activities. Access to multi-purpose indoor and outdoor venues make for a great place to host soccer, lacrosse, basketball, volleyball and pickle ball. We also have an extensive outdoor endurance sports community that can challenge any person including some event and training opportunities in hockey, tennis and aquatics. Our staff can help you find the right place to grow your event here in Lee County.The Lee County Sports Development team will assist you with all of those things that make an event an excellent experience, from finding hotels for your teams, meeting space for your sports business and everything in between. With all levels and types of events and more than 50 miles of pristine white sand beaches, we offer as much or as little as you would ever want to do. Our mission is simple: Offer a first-class destination focusing on superior customer service in a great community! Just when your game ends, that's where your experience begins. Contact Dept ContactsPhone: 239-533-LCSD (5273)Fax: 239-485-31112201 Second St., Suite 501Fort Myers, FL 33901View map Get Sports Housing News There are currentlyno featured news items. Click "MORE" for thenews list. More ›› Events There are currentlyno featured event items. Click "MORE" for theevents list. More ›› Yes Yes
Contact Dept ContactsPhone: 239-533-LCSD (5273)Fax: 239-485-31112201 Second St., Suite 501Fort Myers, FL 33901View map Get Sports Housing


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Do You Know How to Buy a Home?
Basics Of Home Buying
The most important investment you will ever make is probably the purchase of a home. Finding the right home for you can be a long and arduous process, but there is no getting around that.
Know Your Wants And Needs
Before embarking on your journey of house hunting, you must know what you really want to find. Sit down with pen and paper and list all the features you care most about, such as:
– Location (in a particular city, school district or neighborhood)
– Size — how many bedrooms and bathrooms
– Parking — a 1-car garage or 2?
– Style — 2-story house or ranch style home?
– Heating — central heating and/or air conditioning?
Equally important, on a new sheet of paper list all the features you absolutely do not want in a house. For example:
– high-traffic area.
– high noise area (airport, train station or highway in close proximity)
– maintenance — major repairs needed
As you look at houses, keep both lists in mind. Your lists may change over time as you do more looking. You'll want to add or remove features, or perhaps you'll become willing to make compromises. Realize that you most likely will not find the "perfect" home. Experienced homebuyers will tell you, perfect homes are not found, they are made perfect through hard work.
Get Your Credit Report In Order
Prior to looking at properties, you must get your finances in order. This is the time to review your credit report and clean it up, if need be, to maximize your credit score. Many people do not realize how important it is to check your credit report periodically to make sure it is accurate. You should pay off any past due amounts, or negotiate a settlement price to close the debt. Get such agreements in writing, before paying any settlement. Keep all receipts for any settled items from your credit report since it may take months to get the debt actually removed.
Research Your Home-Buying Options
Decide what kind of property you are interested in. Do you want a HUD property, a foreclosure, real estate, or property for sale by owner?
A number of web sites list homes according to city, state, or price range. Visit these sites to see pictures of homes, many with virtual tours, and review the listing features.
Get Pre-Approved For A Loan
You're ready now to find a lender and get yourself pre-approved for the loan. Being pre-approved offers a number of advantages. It will clarify the price range you can afford. Also, once you find the home you want, you can place an immediate offer. If you have to wait for pre-approval, someone could buy the house right out from under you.
Several special programs are often available from lenders, such as the FHA or Ameri-Dream, that can save you money in the closing. Ask the lender about any special programs before you decide on a loan.
Find A Good Real Estate Agent
It is wise for the first time homebuyer to work closely with a real estate agent, no matter what type of property you're looking for. A knowledgeable real estate agent will make your house-hunting much easier. A good real estate agent is usually a good negotiator, and will be able to help you with the complicated paperwork involved in placing an offer on a house or in closing a deal.
It's essential that you have a real estate agent working for you as the buyer, rather than relying on the seller's agent for the house you want to buy. The latter can involve a conflict of interest, which usually works to your disadvantage.
To select a real estate agent, you should check with your friends and neighbors for recommendations. Find an agent you feel comfortable with and who is knowledgeable about the area you hope to buy in.
These are just the basics of home buying. You will find many details you need to master as you move through the buying process, but having these basics under your belt will give you a head start.


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Moroccan Black Soap Exfoliating Kessa Gift Box - Argan Oil
Exfoliating benefits include a healthy, smoother and younger looking skin. It also helps to remove dead skin that clogs pores which in turn allow your skin to breathe and prevent acne, pimples, blackhead and whiteheads from breaking out. Proper care and exfoliation will help you look younger and have a much healthier skin.This kit includes our famous Moroccan Black Soap for the deepest, most moisturizing bathing experience; a fun loofah ball that makes it even easier to make a nice creamy lather and, of course our Moroccan Kessa Exfoliating Glove.
- Moroccan Black Soap - 8 oz
- Moroccan Kessa Exfoliating Glove
- Loofah ball


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I am submitting this piece of art to the Illustration Friday's weekly challenge which is "Talented"
This is a drawing of my pets painting a picture of my Husband Mark and I and our two dogs, Angel and Frankie. The cockatiel "Baby Bird", lovebird "Lillian", Dutch rabbit "Jazzy" and Rex rabbit "Donut" are the artist's. I think they did an awesome job, better than I could have done because I don't draw realistic people very well, they are very talented animals..
Colored Pencil ©2009 Paula Radl |


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Branded Airpot/Urn Wraps
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Sourcing The Finest Beans
Coffee is traditionally grown 1,500 miles north and south of the equator between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. This is known as the "Coffee Belt" or the "Bean Belt" and that is where Barrie House sources the finest, Fair Trade Organic coffee beans from around the world. Everything from the chemistry of the soil, the weather, the amount of rainfall and sunshine, and even the precise altitude at which the coffee grows can affect the taste of the final product. Like wine that can come from different varieties of grapes, coffee can come from different varieties of trees and cherries. Coffee that is grown higher and drier will taste more acidic while coffee grown lower, and wetter will be more earthy.
How Our Coffee is Roasted
Because coffee can differ by variety, elevation, and processing, all coffee cannot be roasted the same. Because of this, the roast is the most important part of producing a really good coffee. Like all great family secrets, the art of roasting our specialty coffee has been passed down from one generation to the next. For over 80 years, we have carefully selected, blended, roasted, and packed what we believe is the world's finest coffee. We roast our premium coffee beans in vintage roasters with a novel drum design. This allows for better airflow and reduces the risk of over-roasting, which can cause a burnt flavor. Different compounds are developed during this roasting process at different times. By controlling the chemical reactions taking place in the bean during the roast, we can change or determine the flavors in the final cup!


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by Scott Heffernan (bio)
This is a photography project I started working on last spring. The idea was to take pictures at various cemeteries in Seattle and use a tilt-shift effect to make them appear like a miniature model. I lost steam part way through the project and never finished, but I thought I would share a few anyway. You can buy them here.


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Whether you have a burst pipe, leaking tap, or you need a dishwasher plumbing in, our local West Ealing plumbers are available for a fast response or time that suits you best, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Our local fast response local West Ealing drain cleaning team can remove any blockages that stifle your daily routine.
Our professional local West Ealing plumbing engineers can also update your old plumbing fixtures. For example a new mixer tap will help you have more control over the water temperature or new pipe work to help speed up the flow of water. For any kitchen plumbing service please contact our experienced staff who provide free quotes and estimates.
Want to speak to an expert?
Call: 0344 947 0953
Closed Heating System
Closed central heating systems use a fixed amount of water that circulates continuously around the house, within the pipework of the heating system. These systems are not very susceptible to scaling, as the water has a finite amount of calcium, the amount of which is not sufficient to cause operational problems. However, these systems can still be flushed, and water introduced from the mains, when maintenance is due. In a closed pressurised system, even a small water leak can eventually cause the pressure to drop to zero, preventing the heating system from operating.
Calls made will not be charged


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HostMonster Web Hosting Help
CPU Performance Issues
HostMonster uses a CPU protection system on our shared servers.
- What is CPU protection?
- How can you troubleshoot performance issues?
- Simple steps you can do to fix database issues
- Advanced steps you can do to fix database issues
What is CPU Protection?
HostMonster employs a system that monitors server resources like the CPU and memory. It makes sure that every user on a shared server gets their fair share of the system resources. It also prevents other users from causing performance issues for other accounts. This system is in place on our shared servers so that each user has the least chance of being affected by issues cause by another user. If a user is found to be abusing the server and it is somehow affecting other customers we will identify the user and take corrective action. This sometimes means suspending the user. Dedicated and VPS servers do not have this protection system.
Performance issues and Suspensions are usually caused by:
- Poorly coded PHP scripts such as multiple nested loops, or infinite loops.
- Themes, Addons, or Plugins (if you just added a new component to your script, you may want to remove it to see if that new component caused your site to suddenly perform slowly)
- Queries that return inordinately large dataset results (eg: 100,000 records) in the response object of a round trip to the server.
- Queries that take too long to execute due to heavy aggregation commands like SUM, COUNT over very large datasets without proper indexing.
- Queries that are doing complex unoptimized nested joins.
- Queries that execute large batch commands like INSERTS, UPDATES, OR DELETES - these types of SQL calls are 10 times more expensive and resource intensive than the SELECT query command.
- DDoS Attacks
- Any process that uses too much memory, like a rogue cron job
- Too many simultaneous connections like Downloads, FTP, IMAP, or PHP
How can you troubleshoot performance issues?
The MySQL Slow Queries log can help determine which queries or scripts are unoptimized. Login into HostMonster's cPanel. Look for the section called "Files" and click the icon called "File Manager". Start in the "Home Directory", choose Show Hidden Files, and then click Go. Once in the File Manager, look on the right side for a folder called "tmp" and navigate into that folder. Once inside the tmp folder, find a folder called "mysql_slow_queries". Navigate inside that folder.
Look for the files with recent dates and right-click on one of those files and choose "Code Edit". This will show the log details. Look for the logs where the Query_time is over 2 seconds. Queries that take over 2 seconds to execute usually need to be re-factored.
These logs are generated to help troubleshoot database programming queries that are not optimized. Locate the query and database causing the problem, then optimize the query or queries by re-writing the query, creating an appropriate Database Index, repairing any damaged databases, etc. If you are not familiar with database programming, you may need to seek help from your web developer/programmer.
We strongly reccomend that you backup your databases before working on them.
What are some simple steps you can perform to try to fix your database issues?
- You can run a repair on all your databases. In the cPanel, click on the MySQL Databases icon and in the Repair section, choose a database to repair. You can safely run a Check and Repair routine on all of your databases.
- You can try to optimize all of your databases. In the cPanel, click the PHP MyAdmin icon. On the next screen, choose a database name from the left side column. When the tables appear on the main screen, scroll to the bottom and click the link "Select All". Next, use the drop-down menu, and on the bottom, choose the "Optimize" option. You can perform this optimize routine to all of the tables in all of your databases.
Performing these two simple steps will not harm your important data as these steps above are non-intrusive maintenance routines. As such, they may not fix the core issue as well. For instance, if you have severe data corruption, it can cause your queries to time out before they fully execute. Data corruption can be difficult to detect, and repair. Database corruption can occur if a database operation did not completely succeed. Partial data is a form of corruption which can break Referential Integrity, causing your web application to fail also. In short, the free Repair or Optimization routines that were just mentioned may not be sufficient to fix severe database corruption.
What are some Advanced Steps that you can perform on your databases?
- You can download your websites onto your own local machine and create a local web development environment to test your sites. You can then set Break Points in your scripts and watch your computer's CPU performance as you step through your stack and heap. Try to stress test your queries as well to see how they respond under a load.
- You can empty tables that are merely statistic tables. When viewing your tables, you can see how many entries each one has and how many KB or MB it is using. Sometimes tables get thousands or millions of entries that just log statistical type of data, like what searches people have done on your site or what people have logged in, etc. If you have very large statistic tables, it may help optimize your site if you remove the records or rows within those tables. Warning: you should always consult the vendor of your scripts, or your web developer, before you attempt this - deleting any data in your database can potentially break your web application.
- You can refactor your scripts so that heavy duty aggregation or crunching is not all being done server-side. For example, you can rewrite your scripts so that they use Ajax calls, where your scripts are doing some of the CPU crunching in your Javascript. This way, you are leveraging your client's CPU time instead of just your server's.
- You can ask our team to restore a courtesy system backup if we have one on file for you. The system backup is a snapshot of exactly how your site performed on a certain date. Doing a restore will not guarantee that your sites will be fixed, as your core issue may have existed at the time our System Backup Tool created your backup. Rolling back to a system backup will restore all of your sites, and not just a portion. Feel free to contact us to see if we have a System Backup available.
- You can also ask us to do a full Reset of your account. This will delete everything on your account like it was on day one when you first signed up with us. Your account would be empty, containing no files, databases, email accounts etc. This would ensure a fresh start so that you can re-install all of your scripts with clean installations and clean databases. If you think that this is an option for you, please create backups of your data first.


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Overcoming Breeding Challenges on Fescue Pastures
US - A large number of Kentucky beef producers have spring-calving cow herds that graze fescue pastures.The biggest concern with these pastures is their high endophyte levels. High endophyte levels can cause a multitude of problems in cattle, including reduced reproduction performance.
"Getting a high percentage of cows bred in May, June and July to calve in March, April and May can be a challenge," said Roy Burris, beef extension specialist for the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture Research and Extension Center in Princeton. "I personally prefer fall calving for that reason, but I also believe that we can have successful breeding performance in the spring."
Burris believes there are some keys to getting a high percentage of cows pregnant for a spring-calving season.
"The most general problem, in my opinion, is that the winter feeding program isn't adequate to support required body condition for early rebreeding," he said.
Cows should enter the breeding season in good body condition, Body Condition Score 5, which doesn't always result from many producers' winter feeding programs.
"It seems that we sometimes try to 'rough 'em' through the winter and hope that spring grass will straighten them out," he said. "That is a sure formula for delayed breeding or open cows."
Burris said spring-calving cows really need to conceive early in the breeding season, preferably before late June, for best results. The UKREC conducted a trial several years ago where they separated similar cows into three breeding periods of 45 days each on high-endophyte fescue.
Cows exposed to bulls from June 19 to Aug. 4 had a pregnancy rate of only 59 percent. The average maximum daily temperature reaches 90 degrees Fahrenheit by June 20 at the UKREC. The elevated temperature, coupled with the endophyte present in most fescue pastures, likely contributed to that decreased performance.
"We have also measured the alkaloid levels in high-endophyte fescue at this location," Burris said. "The primary culprit in toxicity of high-endophyte pastures seems to be ergovaline. After our July 10 measurement, the ergovaline levels dramatically increased. So this toxicity, coupled with high temperatures, appears to mean that breeding will not occur at acceptable rates in July, August and September. Therefore, we believe cows need to be pregnant by the end of June for best results."
He explained that ergovaline levels differed greatly by pasture and that could make it possible to avoid the "hot" pastures, those with higher endophyte levels, during the summer months, especially during breeding and heat stress.
There are several other keys to a successful breeding season. Obviously, fertile bulls are extremely important and breeding soundness evaluations are essential. Producers should supply a complete mineral supplement on a year-round basis. If producers use artificial insemination, they will need to manage the details of artificial insemination and estrous synchronization protocols.
"In the short run, don't let cows lose body condition as the breeding season nears," Burris emphasized. "Lush, watery grass might not support regaining condition after calving, peak milk production and rapid rebreeding. Do whatever it takes to get 'em bred and bred early."
TheCattleSite News Desk


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Douglas MacMillan
It's the end of instant messaging as we know it. Those chat boxes once commonplace on a computer desktop amid documents, Web browsers, and spreadsheets are giving way to a new breed of user-friendly, real-time conversation tools that Internet companies hope will keep users engaged with their content—and the advertising that appears alongside it.
Case in point: Microsoft's (MSFT) Nov. 13 announcement that it will integrate its instant message service, Messenger, used by 300 million people, more closely with its Windows Live e-mail and social networking sites. So instead of having to toggle to a separate window, downloaded to a desktop, users can strike up a real-time conversation with someone else right from an application they're already using—say, Hotmail.
Like other companies hoping to make money from the Internet, Microsoft is responding to consumers' waning interest in standalone IM tools and their desire for chat features closely connected to their favorite sites. Like e-mail, games, and other categories that have gradually migrated away from downloaded and off-the-shelf software, instant messaging is shifting toward the Web, where it can be accessed from any computer while taking up no space on a hard drive.
Embedded IM
AOL (TWX) Instant Messenger, the desktop chat program that was once the gold standard in the category, saw unique visitors decline 4% in the year ending September 2008, according to comScore (SCOR). During the same period, two of the top four standalone programs—AOL's ICQ and Chinese-language Tencent QQ—had declines in minutes used.
Instead of spending time with these old-fashioned chat windows, Web users are flocking to sites like Facebook and Google's (GOOG) Gmail, where instant messaging tools are more closely embedded in what they are doing. For Web operators that get it right, embedded IM could increase the amount of time users spend on their sites, engaging with content while chatting with pals. Embedded Web-based IM tools may also appeal more to advertisers.
Most web users over 20 years old were introduced to instant messaging by AOL's pioneering service. But the wide range of chat options is making it harder to compete for instant messages, says David Liu, senior vice-president of AOL People Networks. "Activity [in AIM] is going down because of all the different sites available," Liu says. "So we're working on making AIM more social and viral."
Facebook's Chatting Toolbar
One way AOL hopes to do that is by linking AIM to the company's social networking site, Bebo. In early 2009, AOL plans to unveil an IM dashboard that travels with Bebo users from page to page. The selling point: Every one of AIM's 30 million users will get instant access to a Bebo profile page that's already set up with their "buddy list."
Instant messaging is also top-of-mind at the world's fastest-growing social network, Facebook. Earlier this year, the site installed a toolbar that lets friends chat one-on-one while they browse the site. According to product manager Peter Deng, some 75 million people—a little more than 60% of active users—have tried out the toolbar. "We had messaging, we had wall-to-wall [posting], and we thought having that private conversation was necessary," Deng says. "It enables a channel of constant communication between you and your friends."
Some smaller social networks are catching on to chat's appeal, too. Earlier this year, Joe Greenstein, chief executive of Flixster, an online social network for film buffs, noticed that users were interacting with each other in real time, discussing and suggesting movies, rather than posting a review and coming back to check for responses later. Some days, users would leave tens of thousands of short messages. So in October, Greenstein introduced a new feature, a Web-based instant messaging toolbar that lets Flixster users see which friends are online and chat with them one-on-one.
Next: Embedded Advertising
Flixster's toolbar was created by Meebo, a Silicon Valley startup launched in 2005. Over the next six months, Meebo will roll out similar Web-based IM toolbars for 19 other sites looking to increase community engagement. Meebo Chief Executive Seth Sternberg says the pitch is easy for Web publishers looking to keep users on their sites longer: "The interesting thing about live chat is that it forces the user to focus persistently," he says. "If a site's [average engagement time] is three minutes, we can move it to six."
Eventually, Flixster and other Meebo partner sites will embed advertising inside the IM toolbar, or in text conversations themselves. Sternberg says this will present a new opportunity to advertise in IM via a new target. A Flixster user, for example, might be able to view a trailer for a movie inside the chat window itself, all the while exchanging short messages about it with a pal.
It's about time Web companies breathe new life into IM, says Eric Druckenmiller, vice-president of media at interactive marketing agency Deep Focus. "If you look at the distribution of IM, it dwarfs [many other channels of online advertising], but marketers haven't paid attention to it since the late '90s," he says. But a recent project where Deep Focus placed ads for Havaianas sandals on Meebo's own IM site convinced him that the channel has more potential for advertising.
When Microsoft unveiled the new chat functions on its Windows Live pages, it was in some ways playing catch-up to its biggest rivals, Google and Yahoo! (YHOO). In the past two years, as those sites have vied to become one-stop destinations for online communities, they have included IM tools throughout their pages. The idea is to make everything from e-mail to spreadsheets more collaborative and open—and ultimately, more addictive and profitable.
Yahoo's Aggressive IM Branding
Google offers chat capability in its Google Talk desktop application, in Gmail Chat, within such collaborative Google Docs like the word processor, and in widgets that users can install on their custom iGoogle home pages. "Talk is about choice and we want people to have instant messaging with them where they need it," says Seth Demsey, product manager for Google Talk. On Nov. 12 the company announced a new feature for Gmail Chat: free videoconferencing.
Yahoo has 116 million users of its standalone IM application, compared with Google Talk's 6 million. Yahoo has been more aggressive at introducing advertising to IM. It uses display ads and contextual ads, such as offering links to a Yahoo map if users enter an address. Yahoo also employs branded entertainment—a mini-Coca-Cola (KO) soccer game is embedded in the IM window—and branded virtual goods, such as a customized background theme around a musical act or sports team.
Is there room for so many different IM services on the Web? Possibly. According to Palo Alto-based technology researcher The Radicati Group, consumer IM traffic will grow to 711 million users worldwide in 2011, a 43% increase from 2008.
But still others are predicting that IM users will increasingly want to tear down the walls between platforms and find their entire community of friends in one place—whether it looks like a toolbar, an e-mail folder, or a desktop application.
Douglas MacMillan is a staff writer for BusinessWeek.com in New York.
Nov 22, 2008
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The highest legislative authority of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) will consider lifting a ban on gay and lesbian clergy who are in lifelong, monogamous relationships as it gathers this week for its biennial gathering.
More than 1,000 elected delegates will debate church policy at the 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly in Minneapolis, which commences Monday and concludes the following Sunday.
Among the proposals being considered is a statement on human sexuality and proposals that conservatives say would allow non-celibate homosexuals to be ordained.
Like a number of mainline denominations, ELCA has been wracked by issues regarding homosexuality, which has become one of the most hotly debated issues in today's society and in the Church.
According to an in-depth national study of mainline Protestant clergy by Public Religions Research, a majority (54 percent) of ELCA clergy says that gay and lesbian people should be eligible for ordination with no special requirements and a plurality (46 percent) supports performing same-sex marriages in states where they are legal.
About one-third (32 percent), meanwhile, says that gay and lesbian people should be eligible for ordination only if they are celibate, and only 14 percent say gay and lesbian people should not be eligible at all.
"ELCA clergy also strongly believe that the gospel message requires full inclusion of gay and lesbian members in the life of the church, and support for ordination and participation in marriage ceremonies of gay and lesbian parishioners are concrete expressions of that theological conviction," commented Dr. Robert P. Jones, president of Public Religion Research, which drew the results of its study based on the responses of 2,658 mainline clergy.
Earlier this year, the Task Force for ELCA Studies on Sexuality released a long-awaited report acknowledging that there is neither a consensus nor an emerging one in the denomination on homosexuality. At the same time, the task force recommended that individual congregations be allowed to choose whether to allow gays and lesbians in committed relationships to be ordained.
Currently, the ELCA allows the ordination of gays and lesbians if they remain celibate.
As the sexuality issue has created significant rifts in other denominations and also put a strain on ELCA, ELCA Presiding Bishop Mark S. Hanson has urged for a stronger push toward unity from the grassroots – unity within the denomination and also with other Christians throughout the world – as the denomination's assembly draws closer.
"Rather than approach the assembly apprehensively, I invite you to see it as an opportunity for faith-filled witness to the larger human family that struggles with division and yearns for healing and wholeness that is real and true," the presiding bishop stated more than a month before this week's assembly.
"We live in a polarized culture that equates unity with uniformity and sees differences as a reason for division. This moment, and our witness as a church body in the midst of it, deserves something better from us," Hanson continued.
"We have the opportunity to offer the witness of our unity in Christ─diverse, filled with different-ness and differences, broken in sin, and yet united and whole in Christ. This moment deserves the witness of a community that finds and trusts its unity in Christ alone, engages one another with respect, and seeks a communal discernment of the Spirit's leading," he added.
With 4.7 million members, ELCA is the largest Lutheran church body in the United States and the fourth largest Protestant body.
Aside from acting on a proposed social statement on human sexuality and a recommendation on ministry policies, ELCA voting members at next month's churchwide assembly will consider various churchwide program proposals, conduct elections and consider memorials and resolutions.
The assembly theme is "God's work. Our hands."


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Ringwood Industrial Building Construction
Is your Ringwood business involved in large industries like manufacturing, electricity, livestock, and others? If that's yes, you must have an industrial building to do your operations. It must have a lot of space and fit all the equipment you need for the business. While there are industrial buildings that are offered for rent, they may not be fitted perfectly for your business needs and growth.
At Direct Steel and Construction, we understand how important these industrial buildings are for your business. We take care of designing the perfect industrial building that is cost-efficient, energy-efficient, environment-friendly, and inspiring for the workers to use. Your budget, timeline, and business goals will be considered in our designs and keep you up-to-date without giving you stress about the project.
No matter how large or small your construction project is, we can handle it with no problem at all.
Call Direct Steel and Construction at (815) 421-1334 for a Free Consultation!
Benefits of Industrial Building Construction
For every business, one of the largest expenses that you may have is leasing, especially if you are a major manufacturer or producer. Leasing a space can cost a lot of money, and that is on top of the other expenses involved in operations such as electricity, salaries, and other deductibles. Some of these industrial buildings for lease don't accommodate growing industries and don't have the right equipment to
However, if you own the industrial structure, you can customize the building to fit your company's needs. You can layout the building based on your specifications and use the right equipment to store everything you need in one place. It will also save you a lot of money because you don't have to pay rental fees for the space and worry about additional costs that you may incur for modifying the space.
When you reach out to our team, we can build any type of industrial buildings for any business.
We can make them attractive and functional to match your business needs and preferences. From basic office buildings to industrial complexes, we can do it for you. Our Ringwood, IL team will also handle every aspect of the construction process to make sure your business goals are met. We will also explain every aspect of the project to you so you can see the benefits of owning your industrial building rather than renting it.
Prefabricated Industrial Buildings
Are you in a rush to get the building up and running? Our Ringwood company also offers prefabricated or pre-engineered industrial buildings for people who want their construction faster and save money at the same time.
These pieces are easy to install, and they are configured outside the construction site. They are also made from long-lasting materials that won't require too much maintenance. Since they are easy to install and made from high-quality materials, the space can be maximized easily and accommodate any industry.
Whatever you need, we can deliver the best industrial building for your business and align it with your business operations. Here at Direct Steel and Construction, you will never have to worry about your next commercial construction project.
Building Additions and Expansions
If you already have an industrial building for your business but would like to expand or add new areas to it, we can also do it for you.
Our team will assess the existing space and see what we can do to make them more functional through the additions or expansions we will put in your space. We can also customize the building space depending on your needs to make everything stick together. Our team will also determine the best materials to use for the structure and listen to your suggestions as well.
Call Today
Direct Steel and Construction is one of the best companies that you can hire for all types of commercial construction today. Our Ringwood team can handle large and small scale buildings, including industrial buildings, and make sure that everything is done based on your requirements, business goals, budget, and timeline. No matter where you will use the building for, it will be perfect for your needs.
Call Direct Steel and Construction at (815) 421-1334 today for your Free Consultation!


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I recently interviewed Sagar Kamdar, Google's Director of Product Management on Search, who is responsible for their Authorship program and their other "social initiatives" in search. In this Q&A, Kamdar shares how Google's search results pages have evolved to better attribute authors and websites to content. He also responds to some questions on many search marketers' minds, including, "Are there now improved ranking opportunities with Authorship to take advantage of?"
Google Authorship: Connecting Writers and Content Owners with Audiences
Authorship is considered to be one of Google's "social search" efforts. Basically, it allows Google to verify the author of a Web page by having it point back to their Google+ profile page, which requires just a few verification steps and the insertion of a rich snippet on the Web page. When done right, it's your mug showing up in the Google SERPs when people search for content that you've written.
Kamdar explained to me that the Authorship program was based on the premise that content associated with a real identity is often of higher quality than content published anonymously. Backing this up is a Nielsen survey taken in 2009, which showed that the people we know score the highest in terms of trust with 90 percent of total survey respondents, in comparison to only 41 percent trusting search engine results.
A great benefit with Google Authorship is the image thumbnail feature. You don't have to be an Image SEO expert to know that photos in searches are especially good because people tend to click on them more.
Of course, one of the important reasons that Google implemented the Authorship program is to help them identify duplicate content. Some authors have had problems with others ranking higher than them in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) for their own original content. Authorship is supposed to push the original author to the top of the rankings when someone does a search for their article. What it can't yet do is exclude others who aren't the original authors, as the screenshot below of an original article by Andy Crestodina of Orbit Studios shows.
Q&A with Google Authorship's #1 Authority, Sagar Kamdar
How long has the Authorship program been around, and how big is it today?
The Authorship program started on June 28, 2011, a little over a year ago and with just a few authors. They now report to have hundreds of thousands of authors participating. "We're still in our pilot phase as we're learning a lot from authors and users as we continue to look for ways to improve the program," says Kamdar.
Is Authorship used by Google as a ranking signal? (i.e., does it factor into search rankings?)
Not for now, but it isn't off the table. "We use over 200 signals to determine search ranking, and although authorship is not currently one of those signals, we hope to experiment with using information about authorship as a signal in ranking in the future," says Kamdar.
That being said, Kamdar stressed that while Authorship is not an algorithmic factor, it is a strong contribution to their social signals that are used to weight search results, including social activity outside of Google+. "We're working on a number of signals to identify high quality authors," he says.
How long does it typically take for Google to make the connection?
Kamdar explained that once an author is set up correctly, the timing depends on when they recrawl/index the content.
Does Google provide a way for someone to check out their Author rank "score?"
Not at this time. Other SEM bloggers have been sharing their own programs for mining Author data for link building, like AuthorCrawler, along with other tools for identifying key influencers in an industry, such as Followerwonk, Topsy and FindPeopleonPlus. These are all experimental tools used for scaling data. No case studies have appeared yet to show a direct cause-and-effect relationship with Authorship.
Does Google allow for authors to submit a "feed" of their articles for inclusion in the Authorship program?
Not at this time.
Is there a way to check which articles have been crawled and indexed that have been set up for Authorship?
Only in manual search. "We show all the articles we have crawled and indexed that have been set up for authorship," says Kamdar. "Often times when an article is missing, it's because authorship wasn't set up correctly on the content, or we haven't recrawled/indexed it since it was set up."
How can someone get all of their previously published articles into Google Authorship?
There are many content creators who've already published hundreds of articles. How can they get their past articles on both their own website and websites they are guest contributors for to show up with their author identification in Google search results?
"The most important thing is to make sure on any new content you write you've set up authorship correctly," says Kamdar. He recommends doing these two things:
- Email/Google+: "If you have an email address on the domain you write for, it's best to verify the email address, and we'll attempt to link all the content on that domain with your Google+ identity," says Kamdar.
- Footer/Header Verification: "On most content management systems, there's a common footer/header on each article. If people can configure the footer or header to set up authorship correctly, it's a relatively painless task to get set up," says Kamdar. You can see some examples with Mashable's Ben Parr and GigaOM's Mathew Ingram.
What does Google recommend for further information?
Kamdar personally recommends that those who are looking to participate in Authorship check out these resources:
- Sign-Up Tool: Use the sign-up tool located at https://plus.google.com/authorship, which Kamdar says has now been simplified with easier-to-follow instructions.
- Webmaster Tools Help Article: Read the help article entitled Author Information in Search Results. "We have made many changes to our help article to make things simpler to understand on how to get set up," says Kamdar.
- Rich Snippets Testing Tool: Currently in beta, this tool will give you immediate feedback on whether you've set up everything correctly.


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QuARRy Home
Student Generated Discussion Topic as a Formative Assessment
Instructor Archana Mohan from Fresno State, uses a discussion assignment where students are asked to generate two questions based on their knowledge of the functions and parts of a microscope. This assignment facilitates peer-to-peer interaction and prompt feedback
QLT Objectives Met
QLT Section 2: Assessment of Student Learning
- Objective: 2.5 Throughout the semester, the instructor provides multiple opportunities to give feedback on students' learning, and to help students "self-check" their learning.
Additional Information
- Material Type: Discussion
- Author: Archana Mohan, Instructor
- Institution: California State University, Fresno
- Date Created: 2022-12-13
- Course Format: Online
QM Standard Equivalents
- QM General Standard 3: Assessment and Measurement
- Standard: 3.5 The types and timing of assessments provide learners with multiple opportunities to track their learning progress with timely feedback.


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The Alberta NDP will have a full-slate of candidates in Alberta's 87 electoral districts by the end of today, with Premier Rachel Notley being nominated at a pre-election rally in Edmonton-Strathcona this afternoon. With a full-slate of candidates, Notley is preparing to call a provincial election with days or weeks.
Rounding up the slate of NDP candidates across the province are Roxie Baez Zamora in Airdrie-East, former Smoky Lake town councillor Theresa Taschuk in Athabasca-Barrhead-Westlock, Heather Eddy in Calgary-South East, Kirby Smith in Cardston-Siksika, past city council candidate Shannon Dunfield in Grande Prairie-Wapiti, Acheson Business Association interim executive director Natalie Birnie in Morinville-St. Albert, Ryan Clarke in Vermilion-Lloydminster-Wainwright, and Paula Cackett in West Yellowhead.
Birnie replaces previously nominated NDP candidate Shawna Gawreluck, who announced on social media yesterday that she was withdrawing her candidacy for family reasons.
Jason Stephan won the United Conservative Party nomination in Red Deer-South, defeating Bruce Buruma, Gary Davidson, Adele Poratto, and Norman Wiebe. Stephan is a lawyer and president of the Red Deer Taxpayers' Association.
The UCP has three nomination contests still underway:
- Sherry Adams, Rajesh Arora, Faton Bislimi, and Sanjay Patel are seeking the nomination in Edmonton-Ellerslie scheduled to take place on March 30, 2019.
- Leila Houle and Atul Ranade are seeking the nomination in Edmonton-Highlands-Norwood scheduled to take place on March 21, 2019. Del Shupenia's candidacy was not accepted by the party and George Lam and Michael Kalyn have withdrawn from the contest.
- Sophia Kahn, Nazia Naqvi, Baljit Singh, and Heather Sworin are seeking the UCP nomination in Edmonton-Mill Woods scheduled to take place on March 30, 2019. Previously declared candidates Muhammad Afzal, Tariq Chaudhry and David Fletcher have withdrawn from the contest. Chaudhry withdrew from the contest in December 2018, claiming in an affidavit that Jason Kenney and the UCP cost him more than $25,000. Chaudhry claims Kenney encouraged him to run and asked him to sign up and pay for the $10-membership fee for 1,200 new members.
It is expected that candidates will be appointed for the three remaining UCP candidacies if an election is called this week.
The Alberta Party has nominated Robert Tremblay in Calgary-Fish Creek and Jason Avramenko in Chestermere-Strathmore.
Two former UCP nomination candidates have been nominated to run for other parties this week. Sandra Kim has been nominated as the Advantage Party candidate in Camrose, and Jerry Semen is the Freedom Conservative Party candidate in Spruce Grove-Stony Plain.
Yash Sharma, who was disqualified as a candidate for the Alberta Party, is now an Advantage Party candidate in Edmonton-Ellerslie.
Faiza Ali Abdi has been nominated as the Liberal Party candidate in Calgary-McCall.
If you know any candidates who have announced their intentions to stand for party nominations, please send me an email at firstname.lastname@example.com. I will add them to the list. Thank you!


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The spot near the Douglas fir clearly had drawn the attention of some digging animal in the recent past. Hmmmm… Good place to seek our quarry. I gently raked the duff away from the base of the tree and a lump fell out. I gasped involuntarily and dropped to my knees.
There it was, for all the world looking like a lump of coal. But this was no clod of earth or chip of anthracite. It was an Oregon black truffle the size of a small egg. No, definitely not coal. More like a diamond.
Finally, after hours of fruitless digging, I had found what we were looking for, leucangia carthusiana, the Oregon black truffle. At more than $300 a pound, the allusion to a diamond is not that far off. Even though that's five times cheaper than European black truffles, it's still enough to make this delicacy beyond my reach.
That is, until Jack Czarnecki invited me up to Oregon to chase the elusive truffle. Czarnecki may be the world's leading expert on the culinary aspects of Oregon truffles, and he is the maker of what I consider the finest truffle oil anywhere.
Truffles, both black and white, are among the world's great ingredients, and are a food that evokes the carnal more than anything except, perhaps, chocolate. A truffle's secret isn't its good looks, which range from a turd in the case of black truffles to a dirty snowball in the case of whites.
Nope, the secret to the truffle's vaunted sex appeal is its aroma. Every variety of truffle wears a different cologne, and arguments rage over whether the white or black truffle possesses the most captivating scent — and while some say the European truffles are vastly superior to our Oregon truffles, I would politely disagree. I've had the pleasure of them all, and put the Oregon white truffle at the top of the list; this is the truffle Czarnecki uses to make his oil.
Jack and I would hunt for both kinds this weekend, and I was getting more and more excited as I drove north past the Cascades and up through the Willamette Valley to Czarnecki's home in Dundee. Every time I get the chance to search for, learn about and play with a new ingredient — especially a wild ingredient — I dance a little dance inside my head. North America is home to so many world-class native foods, and these truffles are among the finest.
We woke early that first morning to head out to Jack's black truffle spot. Apparently all truffles live under fir trees, but black truffles like older firs while white truffles prefer younger ones. When we arrived, the forest was breathtaking, ancient-looking even though it was a stand of second-growth trees. It looked like something a velociraptor might live in. Or a truffle.
You hunt truffles by looking around the bases of the trees for signs that a squirrel or other critter has dug there recently. Squirrels love truffles even more than they do nuts, and will often chew up the ground where truffles grow to the point where you can see it.
You then take a garden rake and gently scrape at the duff to reveal the chocolate-colored soil beneath. Most times you are greeted by nothing, or maybe a curled-up centipede. But every so often, you spot a darker dark in the duff, a glint, or a sheen of something different. No matter how many truffles I found, this moment never got old: Every time, I literally fell to my knees to get close to the truffle, which would be embedded in the soil. Every time, I'd carefully, carefully remove the soil around the truffle — the same way a paleontologist removes the rock from the fossil of a velociraptor — hoping, praying that the truffle would be large.
Some black truffles are mere peanuts. Most are the size of a jawbreaker candy. A few are the size of golf balls, eggs or, once in Jack's experience, a softball. Truffle hunting is a tantalizing combination of archaeology, panning for gold, raking a garden bed — and shopping at the finest gourmet market in the world. It is a rush of the highest order.
Jack and I wound up with maybe 20 or so black truffles apiece, and Jack's friend Dick turned out to be high digger with at least 40 of the black diamonds. He's been wanting to slice some black truffles thinly, then slip them under the skin of a chicken headed to the oven. It's a classic truffle dish, and I plan to do it with a pheasant, or, better yet, a ruffed grouse — the king of forest game birds marries the king of forest mushrooms.
Wet, a little cold, and a lot happy, Jack and I headed from the woods to his restaurant, the Joel Palmer House, where his son Chris served us a fine mushroom-based meal that ranged from a candy cap martini to a rich mushroom tart to a shockingly good matsutake chowder; I say shockingly because it was a cream-based chowder, and I'd never liked matsutake mushrooms with cream before that night.
One of the topics of the dinner's conversation was the next day's hunt, which would be for white truffles. "Oh, you're going to love white truffle hunting," Jack said. He said finding whites was far easier, and the rush was less of pure discovery than it was of something else. Exactly what he did not say.
Morning came and we headed back out into the woods, this time a far younger and less wild stand of fir trees. Jack handed me a rake and we walked into the gloom of the understory. Day turned to twilight as we began moving duff around. White truffles are very close to the surface, Jack said, so be even more careful when raking.
He was right. He was also right about white truffles being easier to find than black ones. Where it took me nearly two hours to find my first black truffle, it took me less than two minutes to find my first white one.
Thank heaven white truffles are white. I have no idea how many black truffles I unearthed but never saw — spotting black truffle on dark chocolate earth is no easy feat. But I did not miss many white ones, which shone like an apparition in the gloom.
Soon I began to accumulate truffles, one after another.
Then I realized what Jack had meant by saying that white truffles provide a different rush. Discovery was easy. This high was all about greed. Several times Jack stood up with a half dollar-sized truffle and said, "More! I want more!" He was only half-joking. I soon surpassed my total haul of black truffles from the previous day. But I wanted more. I wanted to fill the milk jugs we used to hold the bounty.
I found myself locked in the grips of a full-on greed high. "How many pounds would it take to fill this jug?" I asked Jack. He said about four. Four pounds. More than $1,200 worth of truffles. Now I know the pull this feeling has on gold miners, crab fishermen, Gollum. It becomes all-encompassing, filling your mind. We raked and raked for what seemed like — and was, in fact — hours.
Somehow I finally came to my senses. Maybe it was the croak of the raven sitting bemused in the tree above me. Ravens are most sensible birds, after all. Maybe through all those croaks I finally heard it saying, "enough." I looked at my jug. Almost exactly half-full. Enough.
Time to cook. Fresh truffles, it seems, rarely possess the aroma we all lust after. They must be washed, then carefully dried and stored in the fridge to cure. Only after several days, sometimes weeks even, will they reach their full bloom. Thankfully, Jack had some already ready at his restaurant.
I told him I wanted to recreate one of the great eating experiences of my life, a white truffle risotto I'd eaten at a little restaurant on Long Island, many years ago. That dish had been covered in slivers of Alba white truffles. The aroma of that rice still haunts me.
So I made a very basic risotto, with butter and white wine and a little Parmigiano cheese. Right at the end I stirred in Jack's truffle oil, then shaved white truffles all over the rice.
I took a bite. Creamy, rice firm yet yielding, rich with butter and oil and cheese tempered ever so slightly by the acidity of an Oregon Pinot Blanc, the truffle slices dancing feathers on my tongue. I inhaled. God, the aroma! Funky, garlicky, floral. It reminded me of the sweat of a woman. So good, so simple, so worth every effort to make. I ate the rest of the plate eyes shut, without speaking.
- Langdon Cook of Fat of the Land hunts truffles with Jack
- Jack Czarnecki's Truffle Oil Website


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Twice-Baked Planked Potatoes
When I talk about grilling as much of dinner as possible, I'm not kidding. The main course is a given. So are most of the vegetables and sides. How about something different? How about mashed potatoes?
Now before you think about whipped spuds sliding between the grates and onto hot coals, hang tight. The potatoes are made ahead of time making these really "twice baked."
However, by placing them on a plank and grilling them, I'm still accomplishing my grilling mission. Better yet, the result is better than anything coming right off the stove as the smoldering plank envelops the potato in a layer of sweet smoke.
Twice Baked Planked Potatoes
by Mike Lang
4 medium russet potatoes, skin left on and cubed
1/2 cup butter
1/3 cup milk
2 tablespoons sour cream
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons fresh rosemary, minced
1/3 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 green onion, thinly sliced
1 cedar plank
1. While I include a mashed potato recipe, the truth is, they are mashed potatoes, and everyone makes them a little different. Make them how you like them, just as long as they aren't from a box.
2. Soak a cedar plank in water for at least one hour.
3. Fill a medium sized pot with about an inch of water. Insert a portable steaming basket, cover the pot and bring to a boil. Add the potatoes and steam until fork tender, about 12-15 minutes.
4. Empty the pot and wipe dry. Add the butter and potatoes. Mash while adding in the milk. Add the milk slowly to reach the right consistency. Stir in the sour cream, garlic, and rosemary. Note: The potatoes can be made a day in advance and kept in the refrigerator until time to grill.
5. Prepare the grill for indirect medium heat, 350 F. Mound the potatoes on the cedar plank and top with cheese and green onion.
6. Grill over indirect heat for approximately 20 minutes, or longer if the potatoes have been refrigerated.
There are a million variations for making these potatoes, which is part of the fun. Not only is it an easy side dish that tastes great, but it's an awesome bit of presentation moving from grill to table.


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BOWMANVILLE, Ontario, Canada, July 17, 2012 – By any other name, Canadian Tire Motorsport Park – the track formerly known as Mosport – would still be as fast. With its roots firmly anchored in the '60s and its character unchanged for more than 50 years, the 2.5-mile circuit in the Canadian countryside near Toronto is decidedly Old School. With daunting high-speed corners and soaring straights, it is not a track for the timid – which is why Corvette Racing's drivers relish their return to the historic 10-turn circuit for Sunday's Mobil 1 presents the Grand Prix of Mosport.
If a track can suit a race car, then Mosport was custom tailored for the Compuware Corvettes. The Chevy team has scored nine victories there since 2001, including its maiden win in the GT category in 2009 and a breakout victory last season that propelled Oliver Gavin and Jan Magnussen to a runner-up finish in the GT championship.
Along with its new name, Canadian Tire Motorsport Park will see a pair of new wide-body Corvette C6.Rs and a revised Corvette Racing driver lineup for this year's Grand Prix. Magnussen has returned to the No. 3 Compuware Corvette that carried him to victory at Mosport with Johnny O'Connell in 2007, 2008, and 2009. He's now teamed with Antonio Garcia, a pairing that finished second in the preceding round at Lime Rock Park and currently stands second in the GT drivers championship.
They'll face stiff intramural competition from teammates Oliver Gavin and Tommy Milner in the No. 4 Compuware Corvette C6.R. Gavin and Milner are atop the driver standings on the strength of two wins and four straight podium finishes in the four rounds of the American Le Mans Series contested this season.
"For sheer speed, Mosport is one of my favorite tracks," Magnussen declared. "It's such a fantastic feeling when you do a fast lap, because you know there is a big, big penalty for making a mistake."
Garcia will make his Mosport debut alongside his experienced teammate in his first year as a full-season driver with Corvette Racing. What advice does the Dane have for his Spanish co-pilot? "Just remember it's not your car, so give it all you've got!" Magnussen quipped.
Garcia is taking a measured approach to Mosport. "I've been watching videos and in-car cameras, and leading up to the race I will talk more precisely with Jan to learn what to do – and especially what not to do!" he said. "They tell me that it is a fast and somewhat dangerous race track. I'm used to those kinds of circuits, so I'm looking forward to it."
With three career wins at the Canadian course, Gavin knows Mosport's nuances. "Every driver looks forward to going there," said the Englishman. "The characteristics of the Corvette C6.R car seem to suit that layout, and I'm anxious to see how much of a step forward we've made from last year. I've had some great races there, including a fantastic win with Jan last year. Mosport always seems to bring out the best in Corvette Racing."
The two-hour, 45-minute Mobil 1 presents the Grand Prix of Mosport will start at 12 p.m. ET on Sunday, July 22, and will be broadcast same day on ESPN2 at 1 p.m. ET. Live coverage is available starting at 11:45 a.m. ET on ESPN3.
Reach out to us to see how we can help solve your toughest design, engineering and production problems and bring your innovative vision to reality.


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Job Search
Podemos ayudarlo a desarrollar una carrera excepcional.
Data collector(ITA, Perugia) IRC228654
Job: | IRC228654 |
Location: | Ukraine - Kharkiv, Kyiv |
Designation: | Junior Engineer |
Experience: | 0-1 years |
Function: | Content Engineering |
Skills: | GIS, Navigation |
Work Model: | Remote |
We offer:
1) Short-term engagement with perspectives
2) Training and provision of all materials needed for work
3) Review of work performed and regular feedback
4) Technical support in case of issues with the application
5) After the probationary period, there is the possibility of paid overtime
More details about the project:
1) Full-time employment (8h 5 working days per week). Overtime is possible, pay by the piece – that is, the quota of information collected.
2) Work start – September 2024
3) Approximate duration of the project – up to 1 month.
4) If you show yourself as a hard worker we will consider you as a candidate for a long-term position.
5) If you can't participate in the project, make your friends happy by sharing this job opportunity with them.
We are a team dedicated to improving map services around the world. We offer a unique opportunity to try yourself in the IT sphere without specific experience and the necessity to spend hours a day in the office at the computer. In this job you will walk around the city or couple of cities and visit specific points of interest (such as cafes, restaurants, etc.). With a simple application, your tasks will be to update the information of visited places, such as an address, name, contact information (up to 10 parameters), etc. in real-time.
Anyone with smartphone experience can do the job, and the rest will be taught by our specialists. Make your small contribution to a bigger cause!
Interested? Now let's get to the details.To get started, you'll need:
1) A mobile device based on Android 8.1+ or iOS 13.5+
2) As mentioned above, data collection of points of interest is expected to be done on foot. You will need to walk up to 10 km a day. Hence, the use of a personal bicycle, scooter, or car can speed up the process.
3) Have a mobile internet
4) Be willing to cooperate for an extended period of time (after a trial period of 1 week)
You must have:
1) Able to work independently/remotely/travel when required
2) Able to use/understand a map
3) Able to easily navigate in unfamiliar locations
4) Live/stay in or near ITA, Perugia
5) Good communication skills and ability to keep calm in complex situations
6) Driving license and personal transport will be a plus
7) The ability to rent a car will be a plus
8) Readiness for business trips will be a plus
Job Responsibilities:
1) Pedestrian data collection
2) Visiting different locations by the transport to collect the data
3) Check/update information (address, phone number, postcode, etc. – about 10 parameters) about cafes, shops, etc. with changes made via the app.
4) Provide daily reporting
We Offer
Empowering Projects: With 500+ clients spanning diverse industries and domains, we provide an exciting opportunity to contribute to groundbreaking projects that leverage cutting-edge technologies. As a team, we engineer digital products that positively impact people's lives.
Empowering Growth: We foster a culture of continuous learning and professional development. Our dedication is to provide timely and comprehensive assistance for every consultant through our dedicated Learning & Development team, ensuring their continuous growth and success.
DE&I Matters: At GlobalLogic, we deeply value and embrace diversity. We are dedicated to providing equal opportunities for all individuals, fostering an inclusive and empowering work environment.
Career Development: Our corporate culture places a strong emphasis on career development, offering abundant opportunities for growth. Regular interactions with our teams ensure their engagement, motivation, and recognition. We empower our team members to pursue their career goals with confidence and enthusiasm.
Comprehensive Benefits: In addition to equitable compensation, we provide a comprehensive benefits package that prioritizes the overall well-being of our consultants. We genuinely care about their health and strive to create a positive work environment.
Flexible Opportunities: At GlobalLogic, we prioritize work-life balance by offering flexible opportunities tailored to your lifestyle. Explore relocation and rotation options for diverse cultural and professional experiences in different countries with our company.


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Sunday Review: Select
$50 | Register
- This event has passed.
JSG Select clinic is designed for travel goaltenders 2004 and older. This clinic will focus on more advanced save skills and game situations. There will be a focus on lateral movement, the ability to make second saves, puck tracking, rebound control, post leans and seals, and knowing how and when to use the correct save selection. Each station will be supervised by a coach.
Please text or email Bob by 10am the day of the clinic if there is a conflict.
Who's Attending
12 people are attending Sunday Review: Select


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Identical triplets born to North Carolina mother
WAKE FOREST, N.C. - A North Carolina family is celebrating an extremely rare addition. Kimberly Fradel of Wake Forest, NC recently gave birth to identical triplets.
They're named Grace, Stella and Emily. Their parents say they've painted each girl's toenails a different color in order to tell them apart. They also say each of the girls has the same birthmark, but in a different spot.
Kimberly Fradel says she was shocked to hear from her doctor that she would give birth to triplets. "My first response was 'Oh God, no. Please God, no,' and then she said 'I think they're identical,' and for her it was really great to see and exciting. For me the excitement came, but my first feeling was sheer panic."
Experts say they're not sure of the exact odds against natural identical triplets, but say it could be as high as 200 million to one.
The Fradels also have a son. They say there's already an obvious bond among the three girls and with their older brother, as well.


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Writing a dissertation can be an overwhelming thought for doctoral students. For those students that are considering writing a dissertation, it may be helpful to consider the following tips:
Think in terms of baby steps
Many students can be intimidated by the thought of writing 100-200 pages of information. The key for the student to be successful is to work one step at a time and try not to let the overall project overwhelm them. Universities usually provide checklists with guidelines indicating what should be included within each chapter or section. Some schools have templates that many use to help with formatting. Check out sites like www.bold-ed.com to obtain these templates. The template can help by having the table of contents and all tabs and page breaks set up. They can also guide the students with suggestions about how much content should be in each section.
Pick a topic
For some, just picking a topic can be a challenge as many things may interest them. When considering the five chapters that are required, sometimes beginning with Chapter 2 can help students narrow down their topic of interest. Chapter 2 contains a review of the current research that is available. While researching for content for Chapter 2, students learn what others have written about their area of interest. It is helpful for students to read as many peer-reviewed articles about their topic as they can find. It is also helpful to read previously published dissertations on similar topics. The student should be looking for gaps in the literature, where more research is needed.
Pick a population
Many students are interested in doing quantitative studies. The problem many students run into is that they want to study a very large group. Although this is an admirable goal, it can be very difficult to do. Students should try to get results that are meaningful. By narrowing down the population to a very specific group, it is much easier to obtain the data and it can dramatically reduce time and financial requirements. For example: Instead of thinking about the relationship between emotional intelligence and women, students could narrow down the topic to study the relationship between emotional intelligence in women in a specific company or industry or town.
Have a good editor
One of the biggest problems students run into when submitting their papers is that they have not done enough editing. Perhaps you should consider employing a dissertation editing service. The review board will be extremely picky about what they will accept. Currently APA 6th edition is required by many universities. When picking an editor, it is crucial that the editor has a strong understanding of APA 6th edition. There have been many changes to the latest edition such as having two spaces after a period, heading changes and other important updates. A good editor will know how to check the student's paper for these issues. Doctoral students are expected to write in a scholarly tone. There should not be any first person references; fluff words like however and therefore should be avoided. When Chapters 1, 2 and 3 are written, they must be written in future tense. Every time the student's study is mentioned, it should be referred to as the proposed study and never just the study. Later, after Chapters 4 and 5 are written, the student will need to go back and change all chapters to past tense.
Have a good statistician
Not all students are statistically gifted. Many schools suggest that students hire a good statistician to help with Chapters 3 and 4. It is extremely important to have a good understanding of SPSS software; a good statistician can help with this. If students do not know of a good statistician, their mentor may be able to suggest one.
About the Author: Dr. Diane Hamilton's formal education includes a Bachelor of Science, a Master of Arts and a Doctorate degree in Business Management. She is a doctoral mentor and currently teaches business-related subjects for six online universities. She is the author of The Online Student's User Manual, How to Reinvent Your Career and It's Not You It's Your Personality. She can be reached through her blog at http://drdianehamilton.wordpress.com or her website at http://drdianehamilton.com.