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Fun bingo game with 25 cards and call list. Great for all ages.
Common Core: Base Ten (all levels)
Updated. This is a silent scavenger hunt to familiarize students with the classroom at the beginning of the school year.
Collect pairs by matching Roman numerals cards to number cards in this fun game, played like 'Go Fish.'
Collect pairs by matching Roman Numerals cards to number cards in this fun game, played like 'Go Fish.'
This bingo game has 25 cards and call sheets. Fun and colorful shapes help with shape recognition.
10 page addition practice with pumpkins! Solve the addition problem by looking at the first two pumpkins, what was added to the first pumpkin to get the second number? Use that number to solve for the rest.
Multiplication practice using pumpkins! Look at the first two pumpkins to solve the equation.
A fun activity for the whole family to enjoy while viewing christmas lights. Includes choice of full-color page or black/white outline page for students to color.
A take-along bingo game to play while viewing Christmas lights. Includes directions, key, and 10 colorful bingo cards.
Two pages of Christmas lights in black and white outline for creating color patterns.
Two color pages of Christmas lights. Follow the example and complete the patterns.


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Sarah Palin made clear to America this fall, she stands solidly behind her daughter who pledged to remain a virgin until marriage. It now appears, her daughter's pledge was no different than most young girls who promise to adhere to virginity until on the marriage bed. A new report from the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health reveals teenagers in America who pledge to remain virgins until marriage as just as likely to have premarital sex as those who do not take the pledge. However, pledgers are significantly less likely to use condoms and other forms of birth control. According to Janet Rosenbaum, author of the report: "Taking a pledge doesn't seem to make any difference at all in any sexual behavior. But, it does seem to make a difference in condom use and other forms of birth control that is quite striking."
Pledgers use condoms 10% less than do honest teenagers who refuse to make any promises and will take life as it comes. In this day and age of the need to use federal money in wise ways, hopefully, President Obama will suggest ending the spending of $258 million a year to urge pledge taking. How many people can get free medical insurance with the $258 million?

subset: commoncrawl


text: Pippy Paisley Scarf Style: 570066848 Out of Stock Love it? Everyone else did too. This item sold out! Use our search tool, chat online or call 1.888.855.4986 to find something equally desirable. Paisleys cover delicate silk in a complement of soft blues. Measurements: 18" by 72". 100% silk. Dry clean. Imported. Read More… Share on Facebook Tweet Pin


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The Libraries' new Discovery Tool is a one-stop solution for finding books, journal articles, audio-visual materials and lots of other stuff. After you've spent time using the beta version of the discovery tool, take time to complete the FEEDBACK FORM. Thank you!
Crash Dummy by lincolnblues used in accordance with Creative Commons.


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Jump to:Page Content
Home > About Us > Faculty & Staff Directory > William Julius Wilson
William Julius Wilson is Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University
Professor at Harvard University. He is one of only 25 University
Professors, the highest professional distinction for a Harvard
faculty member. After receiving the Ph.D. from Washington State
University in 1966, Wilson taught sociology at the University of
Massachusetts at Amherst, before joining the University of Chicago
faculty in 1972. In 1990 he was appointed the Lucy Flower
University Professor and director of the University of Chicago's
Center for the Study of Urban Inequality. He joined the faculty at
Harvard in July of 1996.
Past President of the American Sociological Association, Wilson has received 45 honorary degrees, including honorary doctorates from Princeton, Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania, Yale, Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, Dartmouth, the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, and New York University. A MacArthur Prize Fellow from 1987 to 1992, Wilson has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Education, the American Philosophical Society, the Institute of Medicine, and the British Academy. In June 1996 he was selected by Time magazine as one of America's 25 Most Influential People. He is a recipient of the 1998 National Medal of Science, the highest scientific honor in the United States, and was awarded the Talcott Parsons Prize in the Social Sciences by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2003. In 2014 he received the W.E.B. Du Bois Career of Distinguished Scholarship Award, American Sociological Association.
He is the author of numerous publications, including The DecliningSignificance of Race, winner of the American Sociological Association's Sydney Spivack Award; The Truly Disadvantaged, which was selected by the editors of the New York Times Book Review as one of the 16 best books of 1987, and received The Washington Monthly Annual Book Award and the Society for the Study of Social Problems' C. Wright Mills Award; When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor, which was selected as one of the notable books of 1996 by the editors of the New York Times Book Review and received the Sidney Hillman Foundation Award; and The Bridge Over the Racial Divide: Rising Inequality and Coalition Politics. Most recently he is the co-author of There Goes the Neighborhood: Racial, Ethnic, and Class Tensions in Four Chicago Neighborhoods and Their Meaning for America and Good Kids in Bad Neighborhoods: Successful Development in Social Context.
Other honors granted to Wilson include the Seidman Award in Political Economy (the first and only noneconomist to receive the Award); the Golden Plate Achievement Award; the Distinguished Alumnus Award, Washington State University; the American Sociological Association's Dubois, Johnson, Frazier Award (for significant scholarship in the field of inter-group relations); the American Sociological Association's Award for Public Understanding of Sociology; Burton Gordon Feldman Award ("for outstanding contributions in the field of public policy") Brandeis University; and the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Award (granted by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Los Angeles).
Professor Wilson is a member of numerous national boards and commissions, and was previously the Chair of the Board of The Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences and of the Russell Sage Foundation; and he was a member of President Clinton's Commission on White House Fellowships from 1994 to 2001.
William Julius Wilson welcomes media inquiries on the following subjects:
Additional experts may be found by clicking on each subject listed. You may contact faculty directly or if you need assistance contact the Communications Office at 617-495-1115.
For a complete list of faculty citations from 2001 - present, please visit the HKS Faculty Research Connection.


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7 of the Healthiest Foods You Should Be Eating But Aren't
Add these 7 healthy foods to your diet to help improve your health.
If you want to get the most nutritional bang for your buck, the best deals are "superfoods." These nutritional superstars are far more plentiful in nutrients than they are in calories and that research has shown deliver health benefits. You're probably already eating a lot of everyday superfoods—like bananas, eggs and broccoli—and maybe even some exotic ones (acai, anyone?).
But what about the power-packed foods filled with good-for-you vitamins, minerals and disease-fighting phytochemicals you aren't eating? Here are 7 of the healthiest foods that you should be eating but probably aren't (or at least aren't getting enough of). Download a FREE Kale Recipe Cookbook!
—Matthew Thompson


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What is a "Skep Knife" and what does it look like. The picture does not show much. I like to make things like that.Joe
that is the master beekeeper in that video, he is the king... his son is has to smear hot steaming manure on the outsides of those skeps. he is not the king. youtube.
Got to have me those, will be making and trying them over this weekend. Thx


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- Description
- Reviews
- Q and A
- Related Products
Proudly display the first images of your child in this black wood new addition sonogram ultrasound collage frame by Prinz. It features a beveled double mat and is beautifully screenprinted on glass with the words "When they placed you in my arms you slipped into my heart." Selected from the Sentiments Collection. Makes a wonderful baby shower gift!
Manuf# 5113-926
- 7/8" rail width frame
- Double matted for one 5"x4" & one 4"x6" photo
- Includes glass and masonite backing with one-way easel
- Single hook for horizontal wall mounting
- Outer dimensions: 12-3/8"W x 8-3/4"H x 7/8"D
- Made by Prinz
Manuf# 5113-926
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text: « back to directory print Janet Sinder Director of Library and Professor of Law 250 Joralemon Street Brooklyn, NY 11201 (718) 780-7975 | Email Areas of Expertise Legal Research Education A.B., Cornell UniversityJ.D., University of Michigan Law SchoolM.S., University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Biography Courses Publications Noteworthy Janet Sinder joined the faculty in 2012 as the Director of the Brooklyn Law School Library and an Associate Professor of Law. Her professional interests include the intersection of library services and information technology, copyright, journal open-access issues, as well as legal history. An active member of the American Association of Law Libraries, she served as the editor of Law Library Journal, the association's official journal, from 2007 to 2013, and is now on the journal's Board of Editors. Prior to coming to Brooklyn Law School, Professor Sinder worked at the law libraries of Duke University and the University of Maryland. She began her legal career as an Assistant Defender at the Office of the State Appellate Defender in Springfield, Illinois. Related Links: Faculty News Curriculum New Faculty Brochure


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Dear PT2 Players,
After almost 3 years of running Priston Tale 2: The Second Enigma, it comes with great sadness and regret that we have to announce the permanent shut down of the game, effective as of March 25, 2013. The website and forums will remain available until further notice, so that players can still communicate and exchange contacts. We will also continue limited support from now until server closure.
When GamerKraft decided to revive the Priston Tale sequel, we had high hopes of making the game flourish. Unfortunately, Priston Tale 2 has been unable to maintain a large enough audience to sustain itself, in part to the lack of content and support from the developer.
For most who have stuck by through thick and thin, spending your time and energy in the game we love, it's truly upsetting to inform you all of this closure. We sincerely apologize to our faithful gamers that, due to the circumstances, we were unable to provide the enjoyment that you all deserve. GamerKraft is extremely proud and thankful to have amassed such a great community, and fortunate enough to have worked with a few as well. Thank you for your support!


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Man, this article is a real knee slapper. From a guy who serves as a VP at the Koch Foundation and also on the Cato board:
"In 1974, Charles Koch started the Charles Koch Foundation. In 1976, the foundation was renamed Cato Institute, with Koch as one of the co-founders. His vision was to build a nonpartisan organization that would advance ideas that enable all people to prosper by promoting liberty, limited government, free markets and peace. That vision has remained a constant since the beginning."
And it just gets worse from there.
I feel SO *ashamed* that I once read every Cato paper and recommended the best of them to friends. What a fool I was.


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The TS 601 beltpack transmitter has been developed for multifunctional applications such as musicians or actors on stage, presenters and moderators in meetings, sports events, hotels, universities and houses of worship. The TS 601 beltpack transmitter has been developed for professional multi-functional applications such as broadcasting, film, theatre or on stage. With its integrated, swivelling clip the TS 601 can be attached to belts, waist-bands or guitar straps. The 4-pin mini XLR Standard connection of all beyerdynamic pocket transmitters. All beyerdynamic microphones with .18 connectors can be used, e.g. Opus 54.18, MCE 60.18, etc.input connector is used to connect microphones or instruments. By using the gain control the input sensitivity is adjusted for various microphones or instruments. Due to the pilot tone system there is no mute-switch needed, because the receiver is automatically muted when the transmitter is switched off. FEATURES - Rugged plastic housing - ACT infra red interface for frequency transmitting from receiver to transmitter- LCD Liquid crystal display. Relevant information is shown using this display. For example, this can be the group/channel and battery level on the transmitter; on the receiver, this can be the group/channel, level of the radio or audio signal, battery level of the transmitter, etc., depending on the system.display- Gain control for input level adjustment - Absolutely silent On/Off switch - Low-battery-warning - Swivelling clip to attach to belts, waistbands or guitar straps - Operating with 2x1.5 V AA alkaline batteries > 20 hours Please refer to country regulations before using.
* Required Fields
beyerdynamic GmbH & Co. KGTheresienstr. 874072 Heilbronn - GermanyQuestions regarding Orders, Payment & DeliveryPhone: +49 7131 617-444Product AdvicePhone: +49 7131 617-440Contact us per e-mail:proaudio @beyerdynamic .com
Neckworn condenser microphone (Omnidirectional)
Condenser clip-on microphone (cardioid), for film and theatre applications
Neckworn condenser microphone (cardioid) for keyboarders, drummers, dancers and entertainers


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Engine Name: XtremeWorlds
Engine Description: XtremeWorlds is a FREE 2d MMORPG maker. Unlike most engines, XtremeWorlds offers complete MMO features. The engine is simple to use, and makes use of its simple point and click interface. Xtremeworlds requires no coding atall however, Xtremeworlds can be scripted to get the full potential out of this engine. Everything is totally editable from the skills, weapons, spells. Xtremeworlds also comes with built in features such as an account manager, in-game commands, admin controls and user pannels to simply point and click to make a wonderful MMORPG. Get your full MMORPG up and running in a matter of weeks!
Publisher: Xtremeworlds
Platforms: PC
Genre: 2D MMORPG
Status: Released and stable.
Website/Forum link: www.xtremeworlds.com


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Every summer I teach Communication for Scientists and Engineers (EN 670.609) to the students in the Johns Hopkins Institute for NanoBioTechnology graduate training programs. The course is a crash course in how to present science to non-technical audiences in an engaging way, that is, as film. We have just a few class sessions and then several weeks of out of class for filming and editing.
Each time I teach the course I change it a little. The first year, it was all writing. The next year I switched to video, and the students made videos about their own research. We did that for a couple more years. This year, however, I changed it again, and two teams are working on videos with slightly broader scope. One film will explain what nanotechnology is and the other will discuss regenerative medicine.
Today, the teams are in crunch mode to get their films done. They will probably be a little longer than the ones classes have made in the past, but hopefully they will be packed with interesting content. I invite you to come see what they have created at the INBT Film Festival on Wednesday, July 24 at 10:45 a.m. in 101 Remsen Hall on the Homewood campus. No RSVP is required. This event is open to the entire Hopkins community, including visitors.
During the premiere, the students will discuss some of the challenges they had in constructing their film and share what they learned during the process. I don't expect the students to come out as filmmakers, although some have had the opportunity to make research-related videos later on in their graduate student careers. What I do hope, is that they understand how challenging it can be to explain a complex topic to people who don't know much about science or engineering.
After the premiere, the videos will be uploaded to the INBT YouTube page, which you can find here.
This year's students included:
Team 1 – John-michael Williford, Gregory Wiedman, Gregg Duncan and Nuala Del Piccolo
Team 2 – Herdeline Ardoña, Jason Lee, Jennifer Poitras and Charles Hu.


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Arsène Wenger makes seven changes from the side that beat Ipswich for today's FA Cup Fourth-Round tie against Huddersfield Town.
Manuel Almunia starts his first game since September as Wojciech Szczesny drops to the bench.
Sebastien Squillaci also returns from injury to partner Laurent Koscielny at the heart of the Arsenal defence.
Abou Diaby makes his first start since December and comes into midfield. Marouane Chamakh leads the attack and Samir Nasri captains the side.
Team in full: Almunia, Eboue, Squillaci, Koscielny, Gibbs, Denilson, Diaby, Nasri, Arshavin, Bendtner, Chamakh. Subs: Fabregas, Rosicky, Van Persie, Walcott, Song, Wilshere, SzczesnyCopyright 2017 The Arsenal Football Club plc. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source


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By Chris Harris
Arsène Wenger says he was grateful to receive the praise of Stan Kroenke this week.
The Arsenal manager has overseen three consecutive wins after a disappointing start to the Premier League campaign and he received a glowing tribute from the Club's majority shareholder, who declared: "Arsène's our man. That's who we put our confidence in."
Mr Kroenke's comments were warmly received by Wenger himself.
"I am grateful he has confidence in my abilities to sort our problems out because that is not easy to find in football," he said.
"When you find [that confidence] it gives you a chance as a manager. There is never need to panic, panic doesn't solve problems."Copyright 2017 The Arsenal Football Club plc. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source


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'A large crowd was waiting to get their hands on the Vincent Lecavalier bobblehead dolls and all 5,000 were handed out in 35 minutes. The dolls were running as high as $50 on eBay by the start of the second period.'
Modin's Wrist Injury Showing Improvement
March 18, 2002 Submitted by
Via: Tampa Tribune


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This can be the only logical reason that the Democrat Party can give for opposing private Social Security Accounts, they want to nationalization, or steal your Pension, your 401k, your IRA etc.
Oh yeah the Republicans had a brilliant idea for social security (retirement funds) in the 1990s, invest in the tech bubble.
As for Obama squandering 6 trillion, keep in mind that it is getting more and more expensive to buy things like fighter jets at 200 MILLION a pop. You don't like F-35 planes Kingbee? Luckily we don't have a nut job in office like Newt trying to spend trillions to build a moon base. Where do they come up with their priorities
i know that the left has an aversion to trusting people to take care of their own lives....but i think we do a better job of it.
for most of us, to have had that money to invest on our own, would have worked out very well.
where did all our big thinkers and risk takers go? perhaps they are on food stamps and welfare having lost the will to innovate in this climate??
Not really, but did you ever observe that most people live beyond their means?
This is HIGHLY doubtful. The bankers would have made out like bandits, but most individuals buy high and sell low. If it's not your job 24-7 to manage money, the odds of you making money over the long run is very slim. It's like most things in life, if you don't have expertise at something you make a LOT of mistakes along the road. Those mistakes are very costly to society when people gamble away their retirement.
Most of the real innovators in our history did not start out rich, they started out broke. How many rich people can you list that were real innovators? The poor indigents are the ones that come up with the big ideas; they also need to eat.
So if you put your 15 percent in the bank every paycheck, you lose at least a couple percent of your money every year.
As for the "rich" beating the market, no they don't "beat" the market. Nobody beats a random gambling game in the long run.
would not have so expanded the pool of people entitled to that money.
there is risk in the market, but it is not a game of chance. if it were, people would not invest in those 401K plans toward retirement.
My local owned bank still manages a profit.
the US Government has never defaulted.
... the reason the dems don't [didn't] want to privatize Social Security is because... Wall Street with make those accounts go to zero...


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a place for zinesters - writers and readers
Hi my name is Jake I am 18 and an A Level student I am making a Fanzine for my graphics project and I found this website which I have to admit is great, but I need your help because I am writing an essay on Fanzines and Zines compared to normal magazines so I was wondering if you could post why you love reading Fanzines or Zines compared to magazines or if you are still a reader of magazines why you prefer to read a magazine to a Fanzine or Zine.
Views: 110
I read both zines and magazines. For different reasons. And I don't prefer either of them.
The magazines I sometimes read are New Scientist and the TES. They're able to provide up to date information, news and (most importantly for me right now) job openings. Since zines are usually produced over a few months that's not something they can do. I'd never read lads mags because they're misogynistic and just don't appeal to me, and so-called alternative mags are usually same shit, different packaging. So that bit of it is where I go to zines.
Zines can provide an alternative voice that doesn't follow mainstream media narratives. In fact that's pretty much their raison d'etre. They're made with care and effort and the link to their audience is much more direct - magazine editors don't invite you to their parties, zinesters do. So if I read something I particularly agree with, I can write the author a letter and have a pretty good chance of getting one back.
What's your fanzine going to be on, Jake? And which do you prefer, fanzines or magazines?
Firstly I'd like to thank you for your reply and what you have put is completely relevant so I thank you, My Fanzine was originally going to based on a man called Mikill Pane who despises Mainstream music and media, After being in contact with him and setting up a Photoshoot in London (I live in Manchester) when I finally arrived in London at the location we agreed to meet, He didn't show up, I guess he had become to mainstream to remember who his true fans where!
So I decided to do a Fanzine about another Artist called Mac Miller although he is from Pittsburgh in America, I am just going to have to improvise and use pictures of a model instead.
I prefer fanzines over magazines, I really cannot stand them, I find the stories and news they cover to be useless and pointless, Why should anyone care about one person splitting up with another when there is stories about poverty and famine that don't make the news.
I know I have put magazines in the question I more interested in the comparison of Zines and glossy magazines as I know some magazines are useful and do describe about the world so when I put "one person splitting up with another" what I meant was the coverage of which glossy magazines take!


text: Well, side by side comparisons from the Taurus website show only a negligible difference in size (OSS models slightly larger in dimensions and .6 oz heavier)and the sight differences. Visually the grips are different. They say nothing about the OSS having a match grade barrel, it might, they just don't mention it. Both are of polymer/steel construction with the same number of grroves and matching twist ratios. They're both available with 10 or 17 round mags. I personally don't see anything listed that would make me want to spend the extra money for the OSS


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Arsène Wenger faced the media on Monday before flying out to Greece for the Champions League clash with Olympiacos.
Here's a round-up of some of the manager's quotes:
on Steve Bould reports...
That's not true at all. There's nothing more irritating than superficial information nowadays. It would be better if people are a bit responsible for what they write. I take my responsibilities, but I think to inform people in the wrong way is bad as well. It's time for some people to realise that.
on Thierry Henry…
There is no development at all. I just didn't want to say no because if I say no when I'm asked the question, I can never do it. At the moment, that's not envisaged at all.
- Join the conversation on Twitter: #OLYvAFC


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Laura Bush likes Langston Hughes; why doesn't James Taranto?
In the May 24 edition of his "Best of the Web Today" column, The Wall Street Journal's OpinionJournal.com editor, James Taranto [1], wrote [2]: "Langston Hughes, the poet who inspired John Kerry's new campaign slogan, 'Let America be America again,' turns out to be a favorite of communists."
In his zeal to conflate Senator John Kerry with communism, Taranto ignored the greater cultural context of Hughes's work -- including winning the Witter Bynner Prize [3] and a Guggenheim Fellowship [4] -- and, of course, his pivotal role in the Harlem Renaissance [5]. First Lady Laura Bush even recited [6] a Hughes poem at a 2002 White House event, describing the Renaissance as follows:
The Harlem Renaissance brought great change to American letters and it broadened the influence of literature and social commentary. The legacy of the Harlem Renaissance spans decades and generations. We recognize and appreciate it today, in our society and in works of contemporary writers.
In February 2001, President George W. Bush cited Langston Hughes as one of the writers "that inspire us" in a proclamation [7] celebrating Black History Month. Hughes even received "one of the nation's highest honors" when the U.S. Postal Service printed 120 million stamps [8] bearing his portrait. In the The Oxford Companion to African American Literature [9], Hughes is described [10] as "perhaps the most original of African American poets and, in the breadth and variety of his work, assuredly the most representative of African American writers."
In 1953, Hughes was a target of an interrogation [11] before Senator Joseph McCarthy's infamous Senate Committee on Government Operations' Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
- Stories/Interests
- 2004 Elections [12]


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Pandemonium Bird and Garden Open House
Pandemonium Aviaries
Saturday, May 11, 2013 at 10:00 AM - Sunday, May 12, 2013 at 4:00 PM (PDT)
Celebrate life and all its diversity at our Bird and Garden Open House. Two days of the year, Pandemonium opens its doors and allows visitors the opportunity to view hundreds of rare, seldom seen birds, including the Victoria Crowned pigeon. Attend this exclusive once-a-year event and learn about Pandemonium's work to help save endangered birds of the world. Visitors will see –
Learn more at: http://pandemoniumaviaries.org/event/
Tickets (100% tax-deductible) All proceeds go towards our conservation work.
Suggested Donation:
Adult $75
(For Group tickets, please contact firstname.lastname@example.com)
Music in the Aviary Suggestion Donation $150
An intimate gathering with live music, wine, sweet and savory hors d'oeuvres in the beautiful setting of Pandemonium Aviaries. A guided tour of the aviaries will be hosted by Michele Raffin, Founder, CEO and renowned conservationist.
Light refreshments will be served. Boxed lunches available with advanced order.
Visitors may also…
In order to purchase these tickets in installments, you'll need an Eventbrite account. Log in or sign up for a free account to continue.


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'Under the deal, the Sabres have provided minor hockey with $100,000 spread over three years as well as home and away jerseys and socks. In exchange, minor hockey teams are required to sell tickets to Buffalo Sabres home games.'
Sabres deal with minor hockey still solid
May 7, 2003 Submitted by


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Applies to: Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012
This article explains how to begin the process of evaluating the impact of application compatibility in your deployment project. You will learn how to make an inventory, prioritize applications, and identify which applications are to be included in a specific role-based deployment image.
In this article:
If you have worked on an operating system deployment project in the past, you might remember application compatibility (app compat) as the source of many of the greatest challenges you came across. It can require the most effort, take the most time, and generate some of the most serious blocking issues. If you are working on an operating system deployment project for the first time, you might have heard horror stories about app compat; or perhaps you have heard nothing, and the scope of the work might be a complete surprise. Whatever your situation is, with proper planning, the project can become significantly more predictable and manageable.
The important thing to keep in mind is that app compat is, fundamentally, a risk-management activity. The higher percentage of applications that are (statistically speaking) likely to fail, the more work you should invest in proactive testing to help ensure that a critical application is not one of those applications. As this percentage decreases, the number of applications for which exhaustive testing is worthwhile shrinks. That means that if you are migrating from Windows XP with users who are primarily local administrators, you should expect a reasonable percentage of your applications to potentially fail, and plan accordingly to invest more to manage that risk. If you have already done the work to migrate to Windows 7, you should expect that very few applications are likely to fail, and plan to invest less since there is less risk. (Of course, as always, you should trust but verify.)
Managing that application risk, however, begins with understanding precisely what that risk entails—and that means understanding what applications you have. This all begins with building or updating your Managed Application Portfolio. If you don't have one of these, you are certainly not alone, but now is the perfect time to build one. Ideally, you will continue to maintain this list after the deployment project is complete in order to enhance your agility. It is this list that represents what you are going to take accountability for in order to help ensure the functionality of your environment as that environment changes. You are issuing insurance policies for those applications, so understanding how much risk you are insuring is really the only sensible approach!
This document helps you understand the steps you should take to prepare for your app compat testing and evaluation during a Windows 8.1 deployment project. In many cases, however, the principles described here are universal and apply to migrations of any platform. After you read this, you should have a clear idea of where to start evaluating the impact of app compat on your deployment project, as well as some of the specific skills and techniques you will need to get started and be more effective.
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At the core of the application compatibility challenge is the law of large numbers. Organizations can have tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of desktops. Each endpoint can have dozens of apps installed, and you might not even be aware of what is installed (particularly if users are local administrators). So, by the time you consider each of these desktops, it is possible to have hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of unique apps installed across all of your desktops. And that is just Windows apps! When you consider web applications, you then have to account for every unique website in the world, because it's plausible that quite a few web apps from various locations inside and outside of the organization have worked themselves into a productive workflow somewhere within the company. The numbers really start to explode, and if you're not careful you can end up absolutely paralyzed with fear because of the massive number of moving parts involved!
That's why you have to be pragmatic. And why what you are offering is an insurance policy. As the environment and the world change, you are insuring that some of the software people are using will continue to run. But it's not terribly fair to you to expand what you insure to include any application any user manages to install, or any website that user manages to find and navigate to, regardless of quality or durability. Rather, you need to define some categories. What software are you going to ensure works immediately, regardless of change? This software costs you more to guarantee, since you have to execute a structured verification process, but is necessary for your most critical applications.
Next, what software are you going to ensure works, and if it fails you'll take the call and fix it? There is still a cost when things fail, but you only end up paying against those apps that fail, rather than paying for everything (even when the majority are likely to work). Next are those apps for which you make no guarantees—users are free to use them, but if these apps fail users are on their own. Finally, you have the category of apps you'd really prefer users didn't use at all, and you might, in fact, take some steps to help prevent them from doing so.
As soon as you start applying this framework, it begins to change your mindset. You might be willing to insure one version of an application, but are you willing to insure every version that anyone happens to be running, with the highest service level agreement? In most cases, no. And this is what you want to execute: a process that determines which applications you should be investing more in, performing that investment to manage your risk, and then migrating to the newer platform.
The risk you are hoping to manage is that of business stoppage as a result of application failure. Many of the applications you are running will be compatible with Windows 8.1 (particularly if you are already running Windows 7). Some, however, might have issues, which can vary in severity – anything from an app "just not looking right" to a menu option not working at all to an application crash.
So, where do you start? Our most successful customers use this approach:
This article focuses on the first two steps: discovery and rationalization. At the end of this process, you can generate your budget and plan to move forward with the project, so it's very important to execute these steps well.
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In the past, "Application Discovery" has been called "Application Inventory": the shift to using the phrase "Application Discovery" is very intentional. We found that the word "Inventory" drove customers to believe that they had to find absolutely everything that was running in the environment, and feed that complete list into a rationalization process. And you know what? You could kind of get away with that for installed Windows applications. (The largest inventory of installed Windows applications we are personally aware of is 130,000 applications. That's too big, to be sure, but it's not so big that rationalization isn't possible.) However, a platform migration to a new version of Windows also normally includes a new version of Internet Explorer. How big is the list of unique URLs navigated to by everyone across an organization? Huge! Many customers also upgrade the version of Microsoft Office they are using during the migration (Chris Jackson discusses the mathematics of doing a complete inventory and rationalization of Office documents in his TechNet Magazine article "
Microsoft Office: The Mathematics of Office Compatibility." As you can see, it really often doesn't make sense to find everything. At the same time, you do want to discover those items that represent genuine business risk during the migration!
The process of discovery depends on many factors, including:
Managed or Unmanaged environment: Managed environments are much easier to perform discovery on because you generally control which applications are installed on managed computers and, therefore, you are already aware of them. You begin with a list of supported and approved applications, as well as details on how many computers they are installed on (and perhaps even how much they are used). An unmanaged environment is more challenging, as you often begin the project unaware of what applications are being used, particularly those that users have installed (and sometimes even created) on their own. Most organizations fall somewhere in the middle: they have some centrally managed and supported applications, and a number of applications that are treated as exceptions (and many they are not even aware of).
Centralized or Autonomous IT: Organizations with a centralized IT infrastructure have an advantage in application discovery because they are already aware of, and in contact with, all the departments within the organization. Decentralized IT infrastructures offer more local agility, but executing the discovery task requires more coordination as you consolidate information and strategy across organizational, cost center, and geographic boundaries.
Available Managed Asset Inventory Tools: Organizations with a managed environment often already have a software asset management tool, such as the Microsoft Asset Inventory Service (a tool available through Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack for Software Assurance) or Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager. This tool might already contain the list of software that is actively managed. Some customers choose to maintain a separate list of managed and supported software, such as Microsoft SharePoint or Microsoft Excel. Those who are currently unaware of which software is running, or who fear that their managed software inventory might be incomplete, often look to additional tools to create or supplement that list. A straightforward way to inventory is simply to ask business units; but in some organizations, doing additional legwork before asking can greatly increase compliance from business units. Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit provides an inventory collection tool for installed Windows applications (as well as web add-ins) for this very reason.
Scope: The number of computers within an organization is certainly a factor when doing application discovery, but it is not the only factor. The number of unique roles also determines the variability in software used, and might increase the amount of work required to help insure that all business functionality will still work after the migration. With highly autonomous users who are able to install their own software, there might even be significant variations within a role; determining which of these variations is essential to the organization, versus which variations merely add unnecessary complexity, can be a challenge.
In an ideal world, business units should be coming to you. After all, they are the ones asking you to insure these applications against failure in a rapidly moving technology environment. So, doesn't it make sense that they at least tell you what they would like for you to insure? Chances are, though, that's not happening (yet), so you'll have some work to do.
For very small organizations, it might be more expedient to speak with users individually, and perhaps spend some time looking at their Start menus to see what they have installed and talk about which apps are critical and which ones are "just there."
For most organizations, however, visiting every user is completely impractical. A popular approach in this situation is to choose a representative from each department or role to do the job of reporting on the software required to do that job. This role goes by many names—for example, Department Technical Coordinator— but it must be someone who understands not only the business, but also what software drives it. You can work with this person (or people) to build the list of applications required to perform that aspect of the business.
After doing any work to complete this list, you might also consider building formal processes to add, review, and retire applications from this master list—and building these processes to be as friction free as possible to encourage business participation in your software asset management efforts.
Since application discovery involves matching software against business value, it's a process that can't typically be completely automated. However, in many environments, business users and department coordinators might not be aware of everything that is driving the business. If you are taking your first steps toward software asset management practices within your organization, then managing the risk of missing something is a sign of a healthy partnership between business and technology.
If you have a managed environment, you might be able to obtain an up-to-date list of installed applications for the organization and for each department. This list can serve as a great starting point for these conversations.
If your application portfolio isn't centrally managed, however, you might be looking for tools that can help you build this list and facilitate that conversation. Many customers choose to use the Application Compatibility Toolkit, which provides this functionality as a free download from Microsoft. The Application Compatibility Manager tool (among the other tools that are helpful in troubleshooting and remediating applications) can collect application inventory from either a subset of your organization or your whole organization.
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As you collaborate with the business to determine which applications should be classified as managed applications or supported applications (managed applications are specifically regression tested prior to change; supported applications do not have regression testing, but they do have support provided should they happen to fail in the new environment), you will need to make some hard decisions to determine which applications belong on which list.
The first review of your discovered applications is fairly straightforward:
Application version: Your organization has multiple versions of an application, including outdated and unsupported versions. Again, while some organizations will support more than one version in some circumstances, most actively manage only one—typically a recent version, if not the most current version. By selecting a single standard version, you might also be able to reduce your support costs.
Application redundancy: Your organization has more than one application performing the same task—most organizations might choose to support more than one in some circumstances, but actively manage only one. By selecting a single standard application, you might be able not only to reduce your per-license cost with higher volume discounts, but also to reduce your support costs by only maintaining one support contract.
Application necessity: Your organization has applications that are irrelevant to the day-to-day work being done in your organization. This is often a result of past changes to organizational strategy after which these applications were never retired. Most organizations simply retire these applications, and only occasionally choose to support them (though not actively manage them) in exceptional circumstances.
Not an application: If you are starting your rationalization process from an automatically generated list, you'll likely find that many of the "applications" discovered aren't applications at all—at least, they are not applications that you care about. Many software driver packages leave installation evidence in places most inventory tools look, such as the Add/Remove Programs list. You'll want to clear these out of your list before you begin your conversations. You might also spot applications you're never going to care about and don't need to bring to the discussion with the business folks you are rationalizing with; these could include games or online gambling applications that many customers find users have installed.
With this list trimmed by removing the obvious candidates, you are now ready to begin having productive conversations with the business. In these conversations, you want to validate that the list is complete and ensure that you are applying an appropriate amount of risk management toward these applications by understanding the criticality of each application. Although the individual terminology might vary, here are some commonly used priority levels to consider:
Business critical: An application that stops a department, role, or even your entire organization completely if it fails. This is a very high bar to meet, and only a few applications for each customer fall into this category! Business-critical applications often have service level agreements (SLAs) that state that support staff must respond to a failure within 15 minutes or less. Business-critical applications always fall into the "managed" category, and require structured testing prior to a migration.
High priority: An application that performs a vital role in a department or across an organization. A failure in a high-priority application might disable a department or a single business function in the organization. If a high-priority application fails, the organization can continue doing business, but one or more departments might be seriously hindered. A typical SLA for a high-priority application is measured in hours. High-priority applications typically fall into the "managed" category, and require structured testing prior to a migration.
Important: An application that is used frequently, but will not cause a stoppage of work if it fails. SLAs for important applications are typically measured in days. Important applications typically fall into the "supported" category, and rely more on organic testing and pilot testing than formal testing except in exceptional cases.
Optional: An application that is approved, but limited in use and not directly related to a core business function. Applications in this category are usually not covered by an SLA, and support would be considered "best effort." Optional applications fall, at most, into the "supported" category, relying on organic testing and pilot testing rather than formal testing to identify failure.
Assigning priority levels to applications is often a subjective process, and as such might need periodic revision. We encourage formal software asset management practices, which maintain a team or committee to monitor the application portfolio even between operating system deployments.
Improving your software asset management proficiency can have other benefits as well. For example, many customers find that they are better able to optimize their licensing costs and reduce the risk of penalty for running unlicensed software. They also find that they can optimize their existing investments, and do more with what they already have.
Some business-critical applications are easy to identify and some are not. If your organization does business through an Internet presence, word processing, image manipulation, and page-coding applications might be considered business critical. Business-critical categorization will vary by job role, too. To a call center, an application that monitors server stability might be considered critical, while other departments would place no value on it.
If your organization has a disaster recovery plan (DRP) or a business continuance plan (BCP) in place, the business-critical applications should already be identified in those plans.
Some criteria for identifying business-critical applications include:
High priority applications might be easy to identify in your own department, but difficult to identify in other departments. Sometimes you can identify a high-priority application by the percentage of computers it is installed on, though this can be misleading. For example, an application that was developed internally to monitor the amount of toner in the company's laser printers might be deployed to every computer but actually used (or considered essential) by very few people. If your organization has a DRP or a BCP in place, the high-priority applications might already be identified in those plans.
Some criteria for identifying high-priority applications include:
The concept of user roles can be instrumental in determining an optimal operating system deployment plan. Users within a given role tend to use much of the same software, and being able to begin deployment after completing the app compat work just for that role, rather than waiting until you have completed work on all of your organization's software, can not only fuel the morale of the team (who now have a success metric to be proud of), but also drive important learning into subsequent roles that otherwise might not have benefited from the deployment.
Commonly defined roles/teams include:
There are, of course, applications that are standard across all roles. Examples might include email and antivirus applications.
Deployment roles can also be prioritized to lower the effort required for testing application compatibility. Role-based configurations for critical operations should receive the most testing, and lower priority roles can receive lower amounts of testing—driving the concept of investing smartly in risk management based on the actual risk rather than an expensive, and ultimately unachievable, drive for perfection.
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The process outlined in this document should produce an application catalog for your organization that is prioritized in terms of testing required, specific user roles, and which applications will be deployed with Windows 8.1. This catalog gives you the raw information needed to progress to the next steps in the process. Using the information in your application catalog, your next steps should include:
There might be other tasks involved as well, depending on your organization's needs and culture. The decisions you make regarding the priority of applications and testing might also be affected by the structure of your organization. For example, you might want to include a step to reevaluate the list of applications to be deployed with the operating system to see if there are new applications that should be added.
These further steps are discussed in greater depth in other documentation, such as the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit.
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Chris "The App Compat Guy" Jackson is a Principal Consultant and the worldwide lead for application compatibility at Microsoft, specializing in Windows, Internet Explorer, and Office internals. Jackson is a widely recognized expert in the field of application compatibility, creating technical documentation, training, and service offerings used inside and outside of Microsoft and based on years of real-world experience with enterprise customers and independent software vendors. Author or co-author of numerous technical papers and articles, he is also a featured speaker at major industry conferences around the world and publishes a popular blog.


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It's Willie Nelson surrounded by grass. How could he not be in the top spot?
Then the koala slapped Bethenny Frankel. Turns out the koala is a Kelly Bensimon fan.
Courteney Cox and Matthew Perry canoodling on the set of Go On.
Fergie and Josh Duhamel still hanging out in London.
Helen Hunt looking amazing.
Hugh Jackman is looking really skinny.
Justin Bieber pretends to be alone but actually
spent the night with this person who is different from the two women he spent the night with the night before.
Congrats to Jerry Ferrara for keeping all that weight off for so long.


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The European Parliament passed a resolution condemning Japan for its WWII programs of brutalizing and enslaving women to serve as "comfort women" for members of Japanese armed forces. The resolution calls upon Japan to finally admit its inhumane treatment of women and to pay restitution for the survivors. It is estimated at least 200,000 women from Korea, China and the Philippines were forced to serve as sex slaves to the Japanese armed forces. Sixty years have passed and women are still waiting for Japan to acknowledge its mistakes, accept responsibility, and pay restitution for its actions. Unlike, Germany, the Japanese government refuses to acknowledge what was done nor have the Japanese made certain schools teach an honest version of the past. Instead, Japan's schoolchildren receive a version of World War II in which their nation was the innocent victim of the United States and Great Britain.
The resolution comes on the hells of a new Japanese film which completely distorts the infamous "Rape of Nanking" in which thousands of Chinese women were raped and over a hundred thousand Chinese civilians were killed by Japanese troops. When will Japan stand up before the bar of history and tell the truth?


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The government of Prime Minister Maliki was undoubtedly caught in a cross fire between demands of the Bush administration for proof he could impose peace in Iraq and determination of Muqtada al-Sadr to resist any attempt of eliminating his militia. The result was an ill-fated attack by about 30,000 Iraqi army and police upon militant forces in Basra, a city sitting atop major oil reserves. In the bitter fighting, hundreds were killed or wounded and there is no evidence al-Sadr's forces have been beaten. However, the radical cleric issued a cease fire on condition the Iraq government ends its attack. "We call for an end to armed appearances in Basra and other other provinces. Anyone carrying a weapon and targeting government institutions will not be one of us."
The Iraq government is now under pressure to end "illegal arrests" of members of the Mahdi army and implementation of an amnesty for those arrested. The Iraq government regarded al-Sadrs proposal as a "positive step." However, American airplanes are bombing targets in Basra and at least 300 people reportedly have been killed and hundreds of others wounded.
The Iraqi army attack has not accompllished its goals of enforcing peace in the Basra are. In addition to al-Sadr's forces there are other millitant groups still in control of areas in the city. The fiasco of this attempt merely once again reflects the misunderstanding of the Bush administration that military rather than political action is essential to bring about peace in Iraq.


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Is it me or is anyone else a leetle urked by the length of wait time for these here boots they are gettin in? I mean Yes I am impatient but waiting 15 days to ship and then waiting to get them aaaaararrrgrgggggggggg!!!!1
by the way this post is not a reflection on anyone here in the forum I contacted CA myself


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At ThoughtWorks, our technical communities provide an environment supportive of developers working on open source initiatives. Our legal department assists projects by helping them with licensing and intellectual property issues. Wherever possible, we promote the use of open source software on development projects.
Open source continuous delivery server built from the ground up with pipelines at its core. GoCD allows for advanced workflow modeling and dependency management. Its superior visibility tracks every change from commit to deploy and back again.
Paid Support and add-ons are available to assist advanced deployments.
Open source test automation tool written in golang and completely hackable. Gauge lets you write tests in plain-speak and refactor fearlessly. Its pluggable architecture allows you to customize your environment so you can write tests in the language and IDE of your choice.
Bahmni, an easy to use EMR & hospital system, combines and enhances multiple open source products into a single solution. It has been designed keeping in mind the needs of hospitals in low resource settings.
From our experience innovative approaches and pragmatic solutions for a particular technical problem are often created in the context of a larger business-driven development e"privacy-policy-sffort by practitioners in the field. When released as open source software these solutions get generalised and become part of the toolchest for the entire community.
We're always interested in having people join us in the movement to promote and distribute free software. We regularly sponsor meetings by different groups in the community and are happy to have people come along.
It started in the US, it happened in the UK, they're doing it in Brazil and now we're bringing it to Australia – Rapid FTR CodeJams Happening everywhere.


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Your Account
This tutorial takes photographers beyond the quick tips and gimmicky effects of many digital photography books. Author Katrin Eismann -- an internationally acclaimed artist, bestselling author, and gifted educator -- offers high-profile work, including her own, as examples for teaching photographers how to use the digital medium to create, edit, and output images that reflect their true vision.
Co-authored by photographer and teacher Sean Duggan, The Creative Digital Darkroom translates skills, concepts, and nomenclature of the traditional darkroom into digital solutions for photographers who sense that, despite the newness of the technologies at hand, there remains a timeless method for learning and practicing photography the right way. This is not a Photoshop book per se, but it does focus on the photographic aspects of Photoshop, something other books claim to do but rarely have the discipline to accomplish. The Creative Digital Darkroom includes:
Katrin Eismann is world-known for her talent as a Photoshop expert and photographer, but above all she's considered one of the best teachers her field has ever seen. This book uses the clear, concise tutorial approach that made her two previous Photoshop books bestsellers that take photographers beyond quick tips and gimmicky effects.
View Katrin Eismann's full profile page.
Sean Duggan is a fine art photographer, educator, and Adobe Certified Photoshop Expert with extensive experience in both the traditional and digital darkroom. Co-author of Real World Digital Photography and Photoshop Artistry, he's been helping photographers master Photoshop and digital darkroom techniques through his workshops for over ten years. He brings his keen understanding of the photographic process and creating the best image possible to The Creative Digital Darkroom.
View Sean Duggan's full profile page.
(based on 5 reviews)
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For the photographer & the visual artist
By irisonthego
from Tucson, AZ
About Me Designer, Developer, Educator
Best Uses
Comments about oreilly The Creative Digital Darkroom:
This book is written for the photographer, the visual artist, or anyone aspiring to become such. In the first paragraph of the preface the authors state "As visual artists, photographers are constantly practicing looking and seeing images. They make photographs, even when they don't have a camera with them. The eye is the lens and the mind is the camera." The digital darkroom tools that the authors reference in the book are Adobe Photoshop CS3 and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. They further state that the concepts and techniques presented are really applicable for use in most image editing and RAW processing applications. The companion web site, [@], provides additional information, as well as the images for use while following along with the exercises in the book and a bonus chapter in PDFformat covering the subject of creating high quality prints.Today many books on the subjects of image editing and RAW processing are mainly step-by-step cookbooks, with an emphasis on following a recipe to create a specific result. While this book does have plenty of exercises to step you through, the focus is really to hone your sense of creativity, refine your artist's eye, and build a deep understanding of how the digital darkroom tools work. The first of 10 chapters is brief, only 15 pages, and addresses training yourself to "see" images and learn digital darkroom basics for both detail work on individual images and batch processing for large numbers of files. From here you begin to lay the groundwork for image processing with considerations for building a digital darkroom environment and understanding color settings and management. Next, in the chapter titled Scan, Develop, and Organize, are details on various methods and considerations for acquiring and managing images. And now the magic begins, as do the in-depth explanations of the processes used to create those magical results.Chapter 5, Tone and Contrast, caught my attention as my photo-taking abilities require a lot of darkroom work especially on those two subjects. I also like to add drama, or some would say melodrama, to areas of my image. The 'deep learning' contained in these pages provided me with a lot of much needed information. Working with curves and the Photoshop curves dialog has always been a matter of applying a known formula and not knowing where to go from there, but usually another tool. The section titled Understanding Curves begins on page 140 and continues through page 145. This tool provides the greatest control over manipulating tonal values in an image. How to select a tone in an image and then locate it on the curve grid and then create a control point, enabling a tonal adjustment, is thoroughly explained. Then there are steps, explanations and examples for applying a basic S-curve and reverse S-curve for increasing or decreasing contrast. The concept of lockdown points was new to me. It is a method of placing points at grid intersections, fixing parts of the curve in place so they are not affected as you adjust other areas of the curve. After this introduction to the power of curves for use in tonal control of an image, I read on to see that the tool plays a prominent role elsewhere in the chapters when working with color. I was able to use the info gleaned from these pages for improving a portrait cropped from a family picture. Using the approach of applying a mask and subtle curves adjustments, I was able to reduce the ruddy complexion in the photo to a more natural state for this individual. The Short Take:The ten chapters of this book contain a lot of technical expertise, sometimes more information than I could absorb in just one sitting. The subjects discussed cover a wider range than I could detail here. I'll mention just a sampling of subjects: color management, techniques for acquiring images, improving image quality, and applying creative enhancements. I found this book to be a great resource filled with tips and cautions, suggestions for training the eye to see in terms of composition, step-by-step instructions for trying out digital darkroom techniques, and bits of personal wisdom from the authors. I'm sure it will prove a valuable resource to keep handy by my computer when transforming a digital photo or my imagination into a digital creation.
Bottom Line Yes, I would recommend this to a friend
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An authorative account : how to set up and maintain your digital darkroom
By Greg Davies
from Undisclosed
Katrin Eismann and Sean Duggan set out in 'The Creative Digital Darkroom' to share some of the creative concepts and techniques they use when working in the digital darkroom. It's " ... more than just a book of Photoshop recipes and quick tips ... [it's about] How to look at the image and 'listen' to it; how changes to the delicate matrix of light and shadow tones can transform the mood and meaning of a photo; how to sculpt with light and contrast; and how to imagine colour and tonal changes that will best express your vision for the photograph."Katrin is an internationally respected artist, teacher and writer specialising in creative digital photography. Sean is an art photographer, educator and Adobe Certified Photoshop Expert.They hope the book will serve as a good travel companion as the reader explores their photography in their own creative digital darkroom.The book was written for Adobe Photoshop CS3 and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, whether on a Windows or Mac platform. The authors contend that the book's general principles can also be applied by those who prefer using other software.Comprised of ten chapters, the book proceeds on its way along a sensible and well-organised path. A brief introductory chapter summarises the tools, terms and techniques in digital darkroom work and overviews the workflow from image capture to print, reflecting the structure of the book.Chapter Two covers in much helpful detail the requirements of setting up a workable digital darkroom. Hardware, peripherals and software, system calibration and a range of Photoshop preferences and settings are described. It includes a very clear exposition on the bane of digital darkroom users' lives - colour management.Now that the darkroom is set up, the following eight chapters work their way sequentially through scanning, developing, and organising; file preparation; tone and contrast; dodging, burning, and exposure control; colour correction; creative colour; creative enhancements and, finally, enhancing focus.Each of those areas is dealt with authoratively and with finesse.There are several things I liked about the book. It's a remarkably thorough and well organised guide. Graphics and photographs are used sufficiently to illustrate the authors' points. It has good ample use of dialogue box screenshots which are concisely annotated where appropriate. Comparative and before/after images are used effectively to highlight the effects of applying different creative ideas.There's a handy summary at the beginning of each chapter to introduce the reader to what follows. A comprehensive index is included.Finally, there's a companion website offering additional information plus download access to many of the book's images to help achieve a richer learning experience. It's at www.creativedigitaldarkroom.com.Reviewed by Greg Davies for The Apple Users' Society of Melbourne (AUSOM), Australia.
More than teaching <i>Photoshop</i>, this book is an education in how to see.
By Donna Kamper
This is not a "how to use Photoshop" book. This is a book for photographers who use Photoshop and want to produce excellent photographs. Beginning at the moment an image is acquired, whether by shutter or scanner, the reader is walked through the entire workflow process. Not only the steps and details of what and how, but the often-missing "why" is also provided. Now it makes sense!Both Katrin Eismann and Sean Dugan, authors of this book, have traditional film photographic backgrounds. It is our good fortune that they turned to digital photography and created this book. Artists in their own right, they are also talented educators with the oft-elusive ability to explain complex subjects simply and understandably.Relevant images can be downloaded from the book's website to use when working through the examples. It's very helpful using the same image the author shows in a lesson _ for one thing, if your results differ you know it's not the image.When I worked through the lessons I didn't always see a change until I Zoomed in _ wa-a-ay in (200%-500%). Once I knew what I was looking for, I could then Zoom back out incrementally and the difference was more apparent.This book is more than an education in Photoshop; it's an education in what to look at and how to see.Chapter 1 introduces the five steps of the "Digital Darkroom Workflow." These are Part 1: Acquire; Part 2: File Preparation; Part 3: Global Enhancement; Part 4. Selective Enhancement; and Part 5: Output. The rest of the book breaks down the first four parts into easy-to-understand chunks with lots of detail.Chapter 2 reviews the requisite digital darkroom components. These include the working environment, the hardware, and the software. How to properly set up the Preferences in Photoshop is covered in depth, as are assigning profiles and choosing color settings.Chapter 3 starts with image acquisition and quickly moves into file organization. This includes how to properly set up and use Bridge and Lightroom. Each image adjustment palette in the Adobe Camera Raw interface is shown, with instructions on how to use each one. The pros and cons of file formats such as DNG and RAW and the virtues of high bit-depth images are discussed in enough depth to actually be understandable.In Chapter 4 we (finally) open Photoshop and begin working with images, but don't get too excited. This is the file preparation step. The authors compare this part of the process with the need to stretch and prime canvas before actually painting a picture. Tedious, perhaps, but not to be skipped over or skimped on because it directly affects the final image's quality. The work done here comes under "general clean-up:" noise reduction, input sharpening, lens and perspective correction. Not to be skipped over!Global and Selective enhancements are the next steps. These take us from Chapters 5 through 8. Here the image, both as a whole and its component features, is evaluated and adjusted for tone, contrast, and color. The array of techniques and features available to work in this area can be mind-boggling. Working through them with the authors brings order to the process and makes sense of what to use and when _ or even if. The authors not only stress that rules are made to be broken, but that a critical skill is knowing when to stop.Once the original pixels of an image have been changed, there may be no going back. Throughout the book, techniques for doing as much editing in as non-destructive a manner as possible are emphasized frequently. Non-destructive editing gives you the freedom to experiment and know your decision isn't irrevocable. Multiple lessons teach you how to achieve this using Layers, Masks, Adjustment Layers and Smart Objects/Smart Filters.This really gets exciting when you finish working on a lesson and the little light goes on: you suddenly realize how to apply the technique you just learned to your own images! Two hours later when you come up for air, that technique is yours forever. Next!"Creative Enhancement" is the subject of Chapters 9 and 10. The authors use these chapters to explore ways in which you can change the image beyond its original message. Techniques include how to create special lighting effects, distress an image, add texture such as film grain or paper texture, or creatively enhance edges.The final step, Output, is not addressed in this book. However, the authors have a 20-page bonus chapter "The Print" that's available on the book's website. This is a rich resource that covers resizing, final output sharpening, working with profiles, soft-proofing, printing from Photoshop and working with a service provider. This is as well written as the rest of the book, and the information is invaluable.This is a must-have for my bookshelf. Working through these lessons not only teaches what a certain feature or tool does, but gives insights on other ways to use them that carries over to new images. That's the real value of a book like this. Highly recommended!
To my opinion, probably the best book on Adobe CS3
By Andre Cajolais
To my opinion, probably the best book on Adobe CS3Katrin Eismann and Sean Duggan are experienced photographers and their style is clear and effective in the Creative Digital Darkroom.The book is dedicated to intermediate and advanced photographers who are all ready familiar with the basics of image processing.The Creative Digital Darkroom is essentially aimed at the techniques to help the photographer achieve his own vision, a theme developed by the authors.It's the best book I've seen yet on Photoshop.The Creative Digital Darkroom is a detailed course on Photoshop CS3 that could also be of interest no matter which image processing software you are using.The authors explain accurately the step by step instructions on the different tools and techniques of Photoshop. There are also plenty of interesting tutorials that cover all the aspects of image manipulation. You will also be invited to download most of the images used as example in the book from the book's website.You will then be able to practice the tips and techniques described by the authors. You will also find interesting chapters on Adobe Camera Raw and Adobe Lightroom.I learned a lot from this book and keep it at hand while processing my images.
The Creative Digital Darkroom
By Kari Sheppard
I attended part of the PPA (Professional Photographers of America) convention in January. I ran into a friend who was excited about being able to attend a class by Katrin Eismann and asked if I was also going.I had never heard of Katrin, but my friend'sexcitement piqued my curiosity. When I saw thebook "The Creative Digital Darkroom" was co-written by Katrin Eismann I decided to check it out.The idea of a darkroom is familiar to "old school" photographers. It is how we worked. The film was shot and then we took it to the darkroom. I did not have my own darkroom, but had access to one in school. I was always fascinated by the process of working in the darkroom, but by the end of the day, was tired of the chemical smell.So, what is a "digital darkroom"? It is the way we translate what was done in a traditional darkroom with film, chemical and light to what is done with a digital camera (or scans), computer and printer.As I started reading this book I was struck with the comparison of working in a darkroom. It does not require that you are familiar with a darkroom setting, but it does give a history or basis for what you are doing.I really like the way the book is set up to walk you through the steps of setting up your digital darkroom and carrying through all your digital processing of your images.Each chapter has several samples and easy to follow instructions. These are written for Photoshop but generally translate to Photoshop Elements or other digital editing programs. Sample files from the lessons are not included with the book, but there is a website set up where you can download the images as you are ready to work with them. Unless you want to download them all at one time, but at 246 Meg, I would suggest that you have a high speed connection if you are going to do this.Also included at the website is a bonus chapter on printing. As I see it, the final step in your creative process is to have the print that you can hang on a wall or share with friends.I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in learning more and improving their photos. Not only does it help with your post processing, but I think that there are many tips that will actually help in seeing and taking better photos.The Creative Digital Darkroomby Katrin Eismann & Sean DugganList price: $49.99www.oreilly.com/ISBN-10: 0-596-10047-7ISBN-13: 978-0-596-10047-6book review by Kari SheppardBay Area Macintosh User Group of West Central Floridawww.bamcentral.org
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|On my first birthday with my parents
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
You're So Normal!
33 comments:
- Jeanne C.February 1, 2012 at 1:31 PM
My first reaction to hearing this woman's comment about her therapist was..time for a new therapist. As an adoptive mother myself, I would have been insulted if a professional referred to adoption as " a cross to bear". I wholeheartedly agree with you that parents need to trust themselves and their relationships with their children. Thank you for sharing your perspective.ReplyDeleteReplies
I agree with you about the therapist! What a damaging thing to tell an adoptive parent. Thanks Jeanne, I always appreciate your feedback. xoDelete
- SophieMay 10, 2012 at 8:40 PM
Hi Alison, finally made it on here, and wow! what an eye- opener! I'm floored by the heartless things people, even supposed experts in the field, say! I have no direct experience with adoption ( only the sense of loss? ?? from having desperately wanted to adopt a son from abroad but never finding an opportunity.... I know, good luck striking up a blog on that one!!!) Anyway having met your gorgeous sons, and witnessed first hand how fortunate they are to have you in their lives, I felt inspired to learn more of your story.Delete
Personally, I don't know where people get these ideas from that an adopted child will grow up with issues any more or less than those who grew up with biological parents. Obviously there are no parental qualifications required before giving birth to a child, and so many children are raised by biological parents who, frankly, had any kind of parenting skills assessment test been administered, would have flunked. what matters most is how loved and supported a child feels growing up, not the source of that love.
and my own feelings about adoption have always been that since Bill Clinton, former leader of the free world, and a pop icon like Debbie Harry were adopted, along with countless other remarkable people, how can anyone feel the adoption process itself puts a child at a disadvantage?
Do these people not understand how messed up many children raised by biological parents wind up being?
in fact, I have worked closely with almost a dozen adopted children ( that I know of) and every single one of them is among the most delightful children I know ( and this opinion is very much shared by other adults who work with them). They are shining stars, who are pure joy to work with, and who charm teachers and classmates alike!
And I don't know about you, but some of the comments peole here have had to endure are enough to make me " bomb it"!!
( a true linguistic Jem/ gem!!)
OMG. I love you all over again. Thank you. Thank you for recognizing that EVERY. SINGLE. Experience is different for everyone. Pardon me, while I build a pillar to put you on.ReplyDeleteReplies
If I ever need a PR person, you've got the job! Thank you, as always, for your encouraging comment. I appreciate you.Delete
Thanks for this Alison. I admit, there are days where I think, "Well, she'll probably be screwed up anyway." Sad, but I think it's something we hear over and over again. And I hope I don't project that on my daughter.ReplyDeleteReplies
Annie, I love your honesty. I agree that the negative stuff we hear about adoption and adoptees is damaging, and can weigh on us as adoptive parents. Let's stick together, build each other up, and expect the best for our children.Delete
I can't even tell you how wonderful it was to read this post. I know our son (age 12) is very new to our family but I have been wondering if he is living in "the adoption fog" that I keep reading about. I honestly don't think he is. He has experienced unbelievable loss in his short life but he seems to be one of those people who takes the good with the bad and moves on. Your post reminded to remember to trust myself and the relationship I have with our son. Thank you!ReplyDeleteReplies
Amanda, thank you so much for this comment. I had similar feelings when we brought each of our boys home. They found their places with us so quickly that I almost didn't trust it. They remain exactly who they appeared to be, strong, resilient boys who knew love and how to adapt to a new family. Sounds like your son is the same way. Lucky us.Delete
Lucky us, indeed. I would describe our experience with those same words, "he found his place with us so quickly that I almost didn't trust it." I feel like I was living waiting for the other shoe to drop. I would agree our son is the same way, "a strong, resilient boy who knew love and how to adapt to a new family." I've been wanting to write about this issue. I would love to link to this post if you don't mind. Thanks again for sharing!Delete
Of course! Please share :) We need to stick together and help people understand that adopted does not equal broken.Delete
this post really touched me, as I have one of each, one who feels the loss keenly and one who is entirely unaware, until it is pointed out that he does not share my coloring, hair, etc, then he is surprised all over again:-) I have never felt it should be a cross to bear though, it is a gift of a different kind, but you are right, each story is different and to try to shoehorn anyone into the "adoption mold" is utterly ridiculous, and harmful why they not conform.ReplyDelete
thank you for your refreshing view point.
I enjoye dit so much I am posting it on my blog here, www.afamilieslove.com, but will remove it if you prefer, thank you again, JamieReplies
Jamie, thank you for your comment. My brother and I were both adopted and grew up being affected by it in entirely different ways. It is indeed ridiculous that some 'experts' lump adoptees and their experiences together as though we are all interchangeable.Delete
Thank you for re-posting. I am honored.
Thank you for posting this. I personally know adopted adults as well and they too didn't feel that way. I was always getting upset when people would act like my child is suffering.ReplyDeleteReplies
Annieglan, I agree with you. Being adopted does not always equal being wounded. Thanks for your comment and for reading!Delete
Wait...did you just call yourself a lovely adult? I think you did. :) And lovely you sure are.ReplyDelete
You've talked about this often. I'm glad you shared it here. No two children raised by biological parents experience their lives in the same way- why would adopted children be any different? We always hear that people are like snowflakes- no two are alike. Why would any two people experience things in the same way?Replies
Why yes Michelle, I did! My parents didn't raise me to have poor self-esteem!Delete
I so agree about the snowflakes! It is odd how certain groups of people get lumped together as though they all have the same experiences.
I love this post. Thank you for sharing. I will think of this post for a long time!ReplyDeleteReplies
Thank you Teri! I really appreciate your comment.Delete
I gave you a "Liebster Award." Please hop over to my blog to learn about it:
I LOVE this! I will have to make my own list to give the award to!Delete
Thank you!
As a former "Adoption Professional" I used to start all of my workshops with that same question/answer about loss. But WOW...what a valid, honest, thoughtful point you've made! After reading your post I feel silly for even thinking that there has to be common threads in the adoption experience. Thank you for sharing your family, and your beautiful insight, with us!ReplyDeleteReplies
Thank you so much for your comment. I wish I had received the same reaction in our adoption class!
I am so glad I found your blog. I just posted about almost the same thing. Our stories are similar. I was adopted and have never felt lost of suffered from low self esteem. The books say I should. Oh well, I didn't get the "memo". I also have now adopted from foster care and we are still foster parents. Our children are different races. I think there need to be some NEW books! I DO agree that many DO feel a loss, but I don't and I think the way I was raised has helped with that. Great post.ReplyDeleteReplies
Thanks so much for your comment. I have several friends who are also adopted and they feel much like we do. I don't know what the secret is as to why some people struggle so much with being adopted and some don't. Like you, I had wonderful parents, but my brother struggled with adoption issues in a way that I didn't. I wish I had the answer to why that is. It sure is important to know (especially to adoptive parents) that every experience is unique. You are right about the need for books with different perspectives!Delete
- Amy OsenarFebruary 14, 2012 at 9:14 PM
Allison, you are amazing! Thanks for being sweet, smart, wonderful you!ReplyDelete
Thanks Amy!ReplyDelete
Amy this is such a wonderful post, thanks so much for sharing! My daughter is constantly asking me about her birth parents, I just don't know what to tell her! It would only break her heart knowing that both her parents were drug addicts and had to give her up for adoption because they couldn't take care of her. Any advice? I am just so scared to hurt her. I know I need to tell my daughter the truth and I am finding sites like http://onlineceucredit.com/edu/social-work-ceus-cpa give good advice to me handle this situation. I definitely recommend taking a look at the site and please let me know what you think!Delete
i'm always glad to read about adoptees who don't consider themselves broken or damaged, and who don't long for their birth families. i would hope that my son never misses me like i miss him.ReplyDeleteReplies
"I would hope that my son never misses me like I miss him." That beautiful sentence made me tear up. That is true, deep, love.Delete
As a social worker and therapist with a focus in adoption, your post reminds me how powerful words can be, and how harmful a careless or misguided professional can be. Thanks for this post.ReplyDeleteReplies
You are right, words are so powerful, especially when they come from a professional during a vulnerable time, such as as during the adoption process. Thanks for taking a moment to comment.Delete
- AnonymousApril 6, 2013 at 3:21 PM
Hi Alison,ReplyDelete
I stumbled on to your blog and just can't stop reading. I love your take on adoption and your boys are so handsome. My oldest 15 was adopted as an infant. He is my life as a single parent by choice. It breaks my heart when people assume he is broken because he was adopted. A lot of people don't even know he is adopted or any of the story so sometimes I hear things about adoption and people don't even know it's effecting me. I read the primal wound book and I was floored, I don't agree with it at all because my son is so happy and carrying and loving.
I am in the process of adopting my second son. He is African American my first son and I are white/hispanic. I have had my second son since he was just 2 days old. His birth mother didn't hold him until he was two weeks old and we did visits for 11 months with her. She was trying to regain custody of him but failed. To make a long story short my second son seemed to prefer me over her. She might be the birth mother but I was the one caring for him 24/7. It made me mad when I read primal wound and it makes it sound like no one can function with out their birth mother.
Each adoption is different, I am so glad to read that you agree as an adoptee that you can grow up and be ok. Anyway thanks for sharing your blog. I love my sons so much.


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Personal Information
Personal Bio
I can be very random at times especially when I'm with friends and I love to laugh a lot.
Currently I co-host The Anime UK show podcast which is epic :)
I usually spend time on the net, practise photography, read mangas or comics, watch animes, sci-fi and wrestling when I can, listen to my mp3, dance, plan cosplays and daydream XD
My dreams are be a brilliant photographer one day, travel and be a presenter.
Cosplay Bio
I first discovered cosplays when I bought a book of the best cosplayers in Japan. When I went to the May 05 expo it was my first time to see cosplayers and I told myself I would cosplay one day.
My first cosplay was Edward Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist at the October Expo 05.
I have 2 proud moments: the first is when our Lucky Star group did the opening dance at JapanEx 07 and got such a fantastic response from the audience. The second was when I won a spot prize for my Yami Yugi cosplay at the Anime Day in HMV last August as it was the 1st prize I had won :D
The greatest achievements are that I have made loads of friends and that I have grown in confidence thanks to taking part in masquerades, I do get very nervous but when the audience cheers for you, you feel such a sense of achievement :D