Does (when?) OpenSolaris support ZFS deduplication and l2arc

Question: Deduplication and L2ARC in ZFS would be nice to have.  Does OpenSolaris support them?  I can't quite figure out which version of Solaris they are in, and how that maps to OpenSolaris.  Are they there?  If not, do you know when they are scheduled.
Answer: L2arc has been in OpenSolaris for a while now. Dedup is already in the development builds of  OpenSolaris.  If you can't wait until the next release here are some directions on how to upgrade to the development branch.
I run the development branch on my file server at home.  Which is currently build 129.  You have to be careful and wait a few days to make sure there aren't any gotcha's before doing an image-update but I haven't run into any problems doing this.  And if you do you just reboot in the previous BE...gotta love zfs clones.  I'm not using L2arc but I did play around with dedup a little the other day on a zfs volume.
Answer: It's coming either this month or next but only in dev builds for now, it may be in 128 but more likely a little after that. Sit tight, it'll be worth the wait :)
Comment: It's in svn_128a. The current dev build is svn_129.
Answer: OpenSolaris ZFS deduplication was released in November.  In development status for about a year.
Answer: OpenSolaris' latest development releases support both dedup and L2ARC.
Solaris 10 update 8 (which was released in October) has L2ARC, but not dedup.
The L2ARC code seems well tested and stable, and if you workload involves a lot of random reads, it is very likely to help.
The dedup code is not thoroughly baked at this time and I would recommend that you only use it on test machines without any important data.
To track the status: http://hub.opensolaris.org/bin/view/Community+Group+zfs/dedup
and note in particular:

Pool might hang if large files or file systems are removed when dedup is enabled. See CR 6905936
System panic during operation after large amounts of data have been removed. See CR 6909931.

I am sure the bugs are being worked on, and dedup might be in a usable state sometime soon, but please don't jump into using a brand new feature in a development release until you are sure its level of stability matches your risk tolerance.
Answer: The easiest way to get dedup at present is to go to the GenUNIX site, download the latest OpenSolaris preview release on ISO, and install that. Choose one of the AI ISOs because the installer is better.


How do I know if a black banana is too old to be eaten?

Question: From time to buy, I buy too many bananas. For the future, I am considering refrigerating them instead of eating them, but they turn black.
How can I know whether a black banana is still edible?
Comment: if you can catch them when they're very ripe, I suggest a quick peel, plasticwear, and plop in freezer before they're totally gone. Then you can use at your leisure for shakes and smoothies.
Comment: You can cover the stem with aluminium foil, it will stop browning. I don't know how, but it works.
Answer: One thing to add to the answers above - as bananas ripen, the starch in the flesh is converted into sugar. This continues until the starch that was providing the firmness and structure for the banana has, for the most part, been converted to sugar, which is also partly why the insides continue to get mushier as the banana ripens. So more time converting starch to sugar means sweeter fruit.
This is why black bananas are often preferred for breads and such - when the peel has turned black, the banana has converted almost all the starch to sugar and thus has gotten as sweet as it can before it spoils.
So for the sweetest possible banana bread/shakes/smoothies/etc, let the banana peel turn completely black, but harvest the banana before the insides turn to dark brown or black since that will indicate that the flesh has spoiled.
Answer: Open it up.  If it's soft and pale brown or darker inside too, it's overripe and no longer good for eating straight; however, it can be used in baking, banana bread, or smoothies.  Once it's black, the banana is garbage.
Answer: For eating out of hand, check for a fermented, alcoholic kind of smell from the banana flesh.  That's a good indication of too ripe.  Those ones are generally still fine for cooking, though.
Answer: I wouldn't eat a black banana.  I do the same thing you do.  I buy extra, and then I freeze them.  When they are in the freezer they turn black, and then I make it into banana bread.  Personally, I think the bread tastes better when you do it that way.
Answer: I totally agree with Caleb that I don't believe they ever really go bad. Of course, once they get moldy, you can maybe draw the line, but for my banana bread and cakes, I prefer to let them get completely and utterly black. I even deliberately wait for them to develop the banana liquor that gives such a depth and richness to my baked goods. After they get freckled, then turn black, then get a little shriveled, I put them into the fridge and after a little more time the sugars almost ferment - when they start to ooze their liquor you are good to go (and you can even smell a note of alcohol). I challenge you to try it for one batch of banana bread; it is wonderful.
Comment: I think it's misleading to call this "never really go bad" - it's just that they take a long time and can still be good when they're totally black.
Answer: IMO, bananas never really go bad. If you can get past preconceived ideas of how they're supposed to look, you'll find the older they get the better they are. I just ate a blackened, mushy banana. It has been in my fridge, not freezer, for about two months. It tasted like buttery sweet caramel with a texture almost like ice cream or gelatto. For me, black, mushy bananas are a decadent, dairy-free alternative to ice cream. Dare you try it. Another favorite dairy-free dessert is grill-baked or oven-baked whole sweet potatoes in the skin. I make cross sectional slices not quite all the way through, down the length of the potatoes. Place each one on its own sheet of foil. Cover them with a little honey and cinnamon. Wrap them up and place them on the grill over matured coals. I put them on after I've done the meat. Then I just put the lid on the grill and forget about them till morning. That morning, I put them in the back of the fridge. They make an awesome dessert that evening.
Comment: I think it's misleading to call this "never really go bad" - it's just that they take a long time and can still be good when they're totally black.


Why do tour operators use a trip kitty?

Question: So as a follow up to my question of What is a trip kitty?  How does it work exactly?  I'm wondering: why do tour operators do this as opposed to bundling the costs into the tour price?
Answer: The answer you get will depend entirely on who you ask...
If you ask the tour operator they will claim they use a Kitty system as it makes it easier to get the money to the tour operators and the passengers generally give it to them directly on day one, often in local currency or currency that can be used locally (such as US$). It also allows them to change the Kitty amount after the trip has been booked and paid for if local conditions change - ie, they are moving some of the risk of price fluctuations from the tour company to the passenger, even if the passenger did the right thing and booked and paid early.
If you ask most tour passengers, it's simply a way for them to make the trip look cheaper.  Rather than advertising a tour as being $2000, they can advertise it as being $1500, and then in the small print mention that there's a $500 kitty payable.
If you ask a travel agent, they will tell you that the kitty is a way of the tour company avoiding paying them commission.  Travel agents will normally earn a percentage of the price paid for a trip, but only of the component that is the actual "price" of the trip, not any extra components such as the kitty, so they miss out of commission of the kitty component.
Some companies seem to abuse this more than others - the specific example you've included in the question is a great example of that - the kitty price ends up being 40% of what you pay for the trip!  In some countries (Australia, US) the tour companies are required to display the "full" price at time of booking, so the kitty payment is at least clear before booking, but in other countries it's not uncommon for the kitty price to not be clearly displayed, and it can some as quite a shock to some people when they find out about it after booking!
Answer: Quite some time ago I have been on a couple of such trips.  Back then it was called a food kitty.  Unlike the fixed amounts you are pointing to this was a per-week amount, although it was collected at the start.  This is important as if the trip ran long (and both the trips I was on did) the passengers were expected to pay the weekly amount for the additional duration.
One other thing also comes to mind:  I suspect there are tax advantages to doing it that way.

Why do tour operators use a trip kitty?


What are the best ways to improve a site's position in Google?

Question: What are the best ways to improve a site's position in the Google search results?
Comment: In addition, how is StackOverflow always so high?
Comment: Create interesting content to the consumers of your website.
Comment: [SEO: Where do I start?](https://webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/22877/seo-where-do-i-start)
Answer: Here are some rules I follow:

Try not to repeat content.
Try to get linked from other, relevant and high quality websites.
Try to make sure your outgoing links are relevant to the content of your site (rel="nofollow" for ones that aren't, such as ads).
Give each page a relevant (and unique) title.
Add in a meta description to each page describing the contents or purpose. Keep in mind that meta descriptions are not used as much today.
Mark up your site using schema.org, if applicable, to display rich snippets.
Build a sitemap for your website and submit it using Google Search Console (but be aware of their limits).
Keep content unique and relevant to your website.
Use HTML correctly (<hn> tags, titles and alt attributes on images).
Try to use relevant keywords in the URL.
Ensure a fast load time.
Use HTTPS for everything.
Make sure that your site is mobile friendly and use the mobile friendly test.

Generally, if you follow these rules, your domain will naturally rank better with Google over time. If you try to speed this process up, using things like keyword spamming on your website, this is likely to be picked up and blacklisted by Google so avoid this wherever possible.
Comment: Is keeping outgoing links low really a good idea?
Comment: @Casebash: Don't worry about outbound links if the links are valuable to your content & to your users (but add a rel=nofollow if the links are ads).
Comment: @Tchalvak: Actually, nofollow is the way to handle **untrusted** links. That would almost certainly be from users, but not all users are necessarily untrusted.
Comment: _Keep content unique and relevant to your website._ Where most SEO inquirers fall down on the job. Looking for magic and keywords, they overlook the reality that good copywriting, editorial skills and content are needed. Write for your audience and Google will follow.
Comment: @John: Aren't rel=nofollow attributes ignored by Google now?
Comment: If you're giving a lot of referrals to another site, they just may help you in return. I don't see any reason to purposely avoid linking to other relevant sites.
Comment: @Lotus: Because it's about quality more than quantity. Google "knows" when you're building links through affiliate networks generally, and they count for nothing (or sometimes against you).
Comment: The way to handle user-written links is via <a rel='nofollow' these days.
Comment: Are you sure that submitting sitemap does increase a position of a site? Or this is for the case when Google can't crawl all pages of your site?
Comment: @JVerstry Oh yes it does. If you _don't_ do it, you may get a Google smackdown for [unnatural links from your site](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2604774). Which will effectively bury your site in the SERPs.
Comment: @Nat Ryall: Would you go so far as to prevent users from posting external links in comments?
Comment: @Lotus: No but I would put any user generated content, where I suspected excessive links to be, on a subdomain (which is a separate entity to the root domain to Google).  In cases where you have a good userbase the content should far outweigh the potentially negative aspects of external links anyway.
Comment: @NatRyall - can you provide more info (any maybe supporting links) regarding the 'Over time your domain will gain "trust"' statement.  Do you just mean that over time you will acquire more incoming links? Or  some other type of 'trust' mechanism?
Comment: @sergzach: A sitemap allows Google to crawl all of your content (even if it's poorly linked) and you can hint to Google about how important pages are and how often they should be updated. This helps ensure that all your content is evaluated for rankings, that you have maximum content coverage in results, and that your most important content is marked as such.
Comment: These rules can be classified into 3 groups: on-site optimization (, unique content, rel=nofollow, etc.), off-site optimization (netlinking with other sites), SERP optimization (meta desc, rich snippets, etc. mainly for users rather than for google).
Comment: Setting NOFOLLOW on off-topic outbound links does not help at all for ranking, even remotely. It is a myth.
Comment: Do you know this "The Linkbuilding Network"? It seems that they analyze your profile and connect you by email with websites of similar profile that are also looking for linkbuilding. It looks very simple, is just a short form, I think it's worth the shot:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdsLSGn4-4VyUVe__mGpBMyOVSdpAnv3FyR1qrif26siltBJg/viewform
Answer: A lot of people look for technical tricks for SEO and ignore the big picture. You need both. Your SEO (and business) strategy is every bit as important as SEO tactics.  There are more than 200 SEO factors that go into rankings, but here are a few of the more important SEO factors that I've experienced, both tactical and strategic:

Have a website worth visiting. If
your website isn't designed for users
first, most of the time it won't do
well in the search engines.
Make your site crawlable. Don't rely on Flash or JavaScript
navigation. If you need to use
JavaScript, use it to enhance an
existing (X)HTML menu, not create it.
You won't even need a sitemap if your
site is crawlable in the first place
(but it doesn't hurt). RSS feeds also help you get crawled.
Make a bigger website. Backlinks matter and internal links from your
own pages count. The easiest, surest,
and most efficient way to get
backlinks is to increase the number
of pages on your site. The bigger
your search engine footprint, the
more weight you have to throw around. This is one of the reasons blogs are recommended for SEO.
Get your title right. You get 65 characters to create an on-topic
incentive for the user to click on
your search engine listing. Use the
opportunity wisely. Your best keywords should be in the title. However, it's not just
about using the right keywords;
it's also about catching the user's
attention while still signalling that
your page is going to be relevant and
helpful to them. Use Michael
Masterson's Four U's Method: Be
Unique. Be Useful. Be Urgent. Be
Ultra-Specific. Stronger titles use
more U's. Remember that your title is
often used by social media sites to
link to your page as well.
Get your anchor text right. Use keywords that are also helpful to
your users. Never use the infamous
'Click Here' or 'More...' text as a link.
Get a handle on duplicate content. It's far too easy to
create duplicate content.
http://example.com,
http://example.com/,
http://www.example.com, and
http://www.example.com/ are all
considered different URLS. URL parameters also create duplicates:
http://example.com?a=1&b=2 and
http://example.com?b=2&a=1 are both different URLs. Use Apache or
whatever server you're using to
manage your redirect rules so this
doesn't happen. This needs to be a consideration from the beginning and should be solved both programmatically and with server redirects.
Don't waste time asking for links. There is no bigger waste of
time and money, IMO, than emailing
other websites offering to do link
exchanges. Think about the time spent
searching for relevant websites,
emailing, responding, and
implementing a link exchange. What's
your hourly wage? Now think about
economies of scale and how many times
you have to do that to make a
discernible difference for every page
of your website. There is no way that
you can possibly come out on top.
There are easier ways to get links.
Make your site sharable. All those little social media widgets?
They might be annoying, but when used
properly, they make it easier for
your users to share your content. The
caveat here is proper context.
Privacy policies, terms of use,
registration, and other pages of that
ilk are probably not good candidates
for a widget.
Viral content works. But you need to use it wisely. Not every
announcement on your site is going to
be or should be viral. It has to make
sense and it needs to be
well-thought-out. Ask yourself
objectively, why would someone link
to this? If you can't think of a
good answer, you should go back to
the drawing board. Again, the 4 U's
help here.
Incentivize linking. A great way to kickstart a viral campaign or even
a more moderate but steadily growing
external link profile. Think contests
and giveaways, but also think
Stack Overflow's badge widgets.
Build a community An audience of loyal readers will link to and share
your content naturally.
User-generated content increases your
website's footprint and also
incentivizes linking.
Remember the big picture. Why are you doing SEO in the first place?
What is the purpose of your website?
It's easy to focus so much SEO that
you lose sight of what you're trying
to do. If you're trying to make money
with your site, don't forget that you
also need to focus on the usability,
the design, the copy, the offer, the
product, the checkout process, etc.
SEO is only a small part of that.

Edit: Incidentally, one of the reasons Stack Overflow does so well in the search engines is because it has an enormous community that continually produces keyword-laden pages. It gets a lot of the basic tactical SEO right too, but this is an excellent example of big-picture thinking that most people ignore. SEO is built into the design of the community as an extension of the way the community functions. That wasn't an accident.
Comment: in most cases, yes, but in my experience the *root* domain with or without a slash is treated as the same url.
Comment: Are you sure  www.example.com(no slash) and www.example.com(with slash) are considered to be different URLs by Google? That is not my understanding.
Comment: @UpTheCreek - Any difference in characters, even capitalization, is a different URL: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/seo-advice-url-canonicalization/
Comment: Making a website bigger in itself is not enough to increase ranking. The content has to be relevant to user queries.
Comment: http:// example.com and https:// example.com/ is the exact same URL due to how HTTP works.  Differing between slash and no slash on the root page is pointless and unfair.  (There's not supposed to be a space in those URLs, but there's some annoying bug in the comments that mangles URLs.)
Comment: Warning: Incentivized links may harm your site's positioning.  Over the last few years, Google has tweaked their algorithm to penalize sites which have too many low quality incoming links.  Also note that incentivized linking may be treated as a [Link Scheme](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66356) by Google.
Answer: The absolute best long term strategy is to have lots of relevant content that is updated frequently and is easily accessible to your site's visitors.
Comment: Oh, you mean... be a relevant and useful resource... that *deserves* its rank?
Comment: Yes, frequent updates to your content will help you rank higher.
Comment: Update frequency is not correlated with ranking. Only relevancy is. Updating content frequently may have crawlers visit your site more often, but not necessarily rank better. It is a bloody myth that needs to die.
Comment: do frequent updates improve your standing?
Answer: To boost your rank:

update site regularly
get good back links over time
use Google Keyword tool and Google trends to see what content is most relevant
make your site accessible
make your site light weight and use less http requests
link to great websites
use more content then HTML
use friendly URLs
use a domain that is up in years
link to page within your own site
provide a robots.txt and sitemap to Google Web Master tools
post quality over quantity
optimize your website for users not just search (kinda odd but true)
use web standards
use microformats, RDFa, ARIA and schema.org.
Comment: Can you provide any reference regarding how microformats help seo? Not disagreeing - just interested :)
Comment: With regards to "Use a domain that is up in years"; ONLY do this if that domain has good rep! Otherwise you will be doomed for a very long time
Comment: 'link to great websites' -> It does not give a ranking boost, dixit John Mueller. Another myth that needs to die. 'use a domain that is up in years' -> It is not a predictor of quality. Old domain do not automatically give a ranking boost. 'use microformats, RDFa, ARIA and schema.org.' -> It does not help with ranking, only with relevancy.
Comment: +1 for "optimize your website for users not just search (kinda odd but true)" this is incredibly important now
Answer: Search engine strategies are designed to find the best or most relevant content, not just the loudest.  If someone finds a way to trick the search engine and get high rankings today, it will likely not work tomorrow.  Don't make the mistake of trying to outsmart the search engines — good pages with good content, structure, and standards support will always win.
Answer: Here is some new advice from Google:

Avoid these common mistakes

Having no value proposition: Try not to assume that a site should rank #1 without knowing why it's helpful to searchers (and better than
the competition :)

Segmented approach: Be wary of setting SEO-related goals without making sure they're aligned with your company's overall objectives and
the goals of other departments. For example, in tandem with your work
optimizing product pages (and the full user experience once they come
to your site), also contribute your expertise to your Marketing team's
upcoming campaign. So if Marketing is launching new videos or a more
interactive site, be sure that searchers can find their content, too.

Time-consuming workarounds: Avoid implementing a hack rather than researching new features or best practices that could simplify
development (e.g., changing the timestamp on an updated URL so it's
crawled more quickly instead of easily submitting the URL through
Fetch as Googlebot).

Caught in SEO trends: Consider spending less time obsessing about the latest "trick" to boost your rankings and instead focus on the
fundamental tasks/efforts that will bring lasting visitors.

Slow iteration: Aim to be agile rather than promote an environment where the infrastructure and/or processes make improving your site, or
even testing possible improvements, difficult.

Six fundamental SEO tips

Do something cool: Make sure your site stands out from the competition -- in a good way!

Include relevant words in your copy: Try to put yourself in the shoes of searchers. What would they query to find you? Your
name/business name, location, products, etc., are important. It's also
helpful to use the same terms in your site that your users might type
(e.g., you might be a trained "flower designer" but most searchers
might type [florist]), and to answer the questions they might have
(e.g., store hours, product specs, reviews). It helps to know your
customers.

Be smart about your tags and site architecture: Create unique title tags and meta descriptions; include Rich Snippets markup from
schema.org where appropriate. Have intuitive navigation and good
internal links.

Sign up for email forwarding in Webmaster Tools: Help us communicate with you, especially when we notice something awry with
your site.

Attract buzz: Natural links, +1s, likes, follows... In every business there's something compelling, interesting, entertaining, or
surprising that you can offer or share with your users. Provide a
helpful service, tell fun stories, paint a vivid picture and users
will share and reshare your content.

Stay fresh and relevant: Keep content up-to-date and consider options such as building a social media presence (if that's where a
potential audience exists) or creating an ideal mobile experience if
your users are often on-the-go.

Here's even more advice from Google in 2019:

Content and quality questions

Does the content provide original information, reporting, research or analysis?
Does the content provide a substantial, complete or comprehensive description of the topic?
Does the content provide insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond obvious?
If the content draws on other sources, does it avoid simply copying or rewriting those sources and instead provide substantial additional
value and originality?
Does the headline and/or page title provide a descriptive, helpful summary of the content?
Does the headline and/or page title avoid being exaggerating or shocking in nature?
Is this the sort of page you'd want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?
Would you expect to see this content in or referenced by a printed magazine, encyclopedia or book?

Expertise questions

Does the content present information in a way that makes you want to trust it, such as clear sourcing, evidence of the expertise involved,
background about the author or the site that publishes it, such as
through links to an author page or a site's About page?
If you researched the site producing the content, would you come away with an impression that it is well-trusted or widely-recognized
as an authority on its topic?
Is this content written by an expert or enthusiast who demonstrably knows the topic well?
Is the content free from easily-verified factual errors?
Would you feel comfortable trusting this content for issues relating to your money or your life?

Presentation and production questions

Is the content free from spelling or stylistic issues?
Was the content produced well, or does it appear sloppy or hastily produced?
Is the content mass-produced by or outsourced to a large number of creators, or spread across a large network of sites, so that
individual pages or sites don't get as much attention or care?
Does the content have an excessive amount of ads that distract from or interfere with the main content?
Does content display well for mobile devices when viewed on them?

Comparative questions

Does the content provide substantial value when compared to other pages in search results?
Does the content seem to be serving the genuine interests of visitors to the site or does it seem to exist solely by someone
attempting to guess what might rank well in search engines?
Answer: The absolute best way to improve your position in Google is to have many other websites linking to your site.  This is why text links in blogs are so popular — Google uses them primarily in place of meta tag keywords, as they're usually more accurate.
As described by tnorthcutt, having lots of relevant content is also helpful, as Google can read and associate your site with its content.  Additionally, in an ideal world, having lots of relevant content will cause others to link to your site.
Comment: From my experience, Google rankings are about 80% links from external sites.
Comment: Quantity does not always exceed quality.
Comment: The quality of links matters too. If Google does not trust a link, it neutralises it. That link won't pass juice.
Answer: To answer the question directly, the only ways for a page to gain high rankings in Google are:

Be relevant for the search term. This means having relevant text/keywords on the page (including the title, headings and URL).
Have lots of links pointing to your page, preferably from quality sites that are well-ranked themselves.

That's not to say the other answers posted are wrong, but they are all indirect versions of those two key rules. Having the best and freshest content means you will naturally gather more links over time. (Although I'll concede, the new "speed factor" doesn't really fit either of these criteria.)
Answer: Don't forget the concept of Domain Aging.  A new domain is naturally going to suffer a disadvantage.
Can't emphasize enough how important I think following W3 standards and using semantic markup are.
Comment: Google doesn't think this is really important: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pnpg00FWJY Yes, it's a factor, but it's definitely not something people should be concerned about.
Answer: rel='nofollow' all untrusted outgoing links.
Comment: Is this really relevant now?  Before, nofollow would stop pagerank leakage, but not the pagerank 'share' leaves your site, but is simply discarded.
Comment: @UpTheCreek [It's still relevant.](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2604774)
Answer: If you want your site to be ranked higher, you need to know what factors (called rankings factors by the SEO folks) are used by Google to rank sites.
A lot of research is continuously conducted to determine those factors, and to keep the info updated. For example, this table is updated all the time: The Periodic Table Of SEO Success Factors
SEO rankings factors are normally split up into:

Off-page ranking factors (backlinks, social shares, etc.)
On-page ranking factors (site structure, canonical URLs, navigation, keywords, meta data)
Other signals

Author rank
Compliance with mobile SEO standards etc.

However, simply knowing what should be done on the site is not enough.  You also need to know HOW to do it (as in, how to build backlinks, how to specify canonical URLs, etc.)
So, if you're planning to be optimizing your site yourself (which is an ongoing task), it's better to read a comprehensive SEO tutorial. There are many free ones available online:

Google's guide to SEO
SEO Book
SEO in Practice

AND, do not forget that search engine algorithms do not stay the same for too long.
Particularly, I'd look into the changes that occurred after Penguin
and Panda updates.
These have changed the way many SEO "best practices" work and made a lot of SEO advice on the Web outdated.
Answer: These are both just from personal experience, so take them for what they're worth:

Ensure that your site is reliable.  If Google picks up a lot of error codes when indexing your site, you may see a decrease in your placement in the results.
Don't change too much at once.  If you're constantly churning your site structure, titles, in-text keywords and other factors, Google doesn't ever get a chance to "settle in".
Comment: Uh, but stackoverflow itself rather flies in the face of that rule.
Comment: Err, the second one, that is, not the first.
Answer: There is no definitive answer and all answers will be completely opinion based.
Keyword meta tags are NOT used in search engine ranking. If you would like a more definitive answer see the following post here.
The best thing you can do is:

Keep adding fresh content, comments and blog posts and create RSS feeds for Google and submit these as sitemaps to Google.

Keep all content unique and don't duplicate content. Google is currently fighting to keep all content on there search engine unique and non-duplicated. So make sure you add canonical links to your page. See here to learn how to do so.

Make sure your website is responsive. Google also wants sites to display fast and correctly on all devices and you may be penalised if your website is too slow on mobile device.

H1 tags, Meta descriptions, titles, and Meta Tags. This said, with meta tags not being relevant, it won't hurt to make them relevant to your content. However have one and only one H1 tag, and make sure it is relevant to your content. Same goes for your meta description and title tags.

Website speed is an important factor. Google recommends that all websites should load in less then 2 seconds. In this case make sure all images are optimised, don't load unnecessary resources, set a cache in your .htaccess, enable persistent TCP connections, add gzip to your resources, and combine all off your CSS files into one and minify them, same with you JS files.

All my suggestions are of my own opinion and they are all onsite optimisation. You will be required to gather relevant backlinks but make sure you don't participate in a linking scheme. Please also note that bad links and spam content can potentially harm your website causing much bigger issues.
Social Media can also be a good source of traffic and can be used as a very powerful SEO tool if used properly.
The main point would be: Don't expect results overnight, this process will take a very long time and it may take a lot of work and time before you start seeing results. Make sure you target the right keywords for your site doing research on your target keywords, analyse your competition, what are they doing that you aren't doing, how many backlinks do they have. None of this however will guarantee you a top spot. If it was that easy then everyone would be doing it.
The best place to start is by looking here, as this is written by Google and will advise you on the best practices.
Answer: According to a study conducted by MOZ last year cite, Google's algorithm breaks down in order of importance:

Domain-Level and Link Authority
Page-Level Link Metrics
Page-Level Keywords & Content
Page-Level, Keyword Agnostic Features
Domain Level Brand Metrics
User Usage & Traffic
Social Metrics
Domain-Level Keywords
Domain-Level, Keyword Agnostic Features

Each of these are described below:

Domain Level Anchor Text
=  These features describe anchor text metrics—both partial and exact match—about the root domain hosting the page. For example, for the
page www.test.com/A, these features are for anchor text links pointing
to *.test.com, not just page A.
Domain Level Brand Metrics
= These features describe elements of the root domain that indicate qualities of branding and brand metrics.
Domain Level Keyword Agnostic
= These features relate to the entire root domain, but don't directly describe link or keyword- based elements. Instead, they relate to
things like the length of the domain name in characters.
Domain Level Keyword Usage
= These features cover how keywords are used in the root or subdomain name and how much impact this might have on search engine rankings.
Domain Link Authority Features
=  These features describe link metrics about the root domain hosting the page (e.g., for the page www.test.com/A, these features are for
links pointing to *.test.com, not just page A).
Page Level Anchor Text
= These features describe anchor text metrics—both partial-  and exact- match—to the individual page (e.g., number of partial- match
anchor text links, exact- match links).
Page Level Keyword Agnostic
= These elements describe non-keyword usage and non-link metrics features of individual pages such as length of the page, and load
speed.
Page Level Keyword Usage
= These features describe use of the keyword term/phrase in particular parts of the HTML code on the page such as the title element, H1s, alt
attributes, and more.
Page Level Social Metrics
= These features relate to third- party metrics from social media sources such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ for the ranking page.
Page Link Authority Features
= These features describe link metrics to the individual ranking page such as number of links and MozRank.

See the chart there for a breakdown of each by percent.
Answer: This is also personal experience: I recently made a tutorial on the topic of iPhone UINavigationControllers on my own own site and found it was the number one Google result for "uinavigationcontroller" after about two months.
In my experience Google bases a lot of its rankings on uptime, load time, HTML of the actual site, having a Google sitemap and signing up for the Google Webmaster Tools.
Sticking to
,
,..,
 HTML tags, ensure 99% uptime and heavily cache the site so it loads in less than a second or two. Then watch where you're going wrong with the webmaster tools.
And try using the Stackoverflow trick — put the keywords first in the title, then the name of the page.
Comment: Stackoverflow links are all 'nofollow' so I doubt that is helping you.
Comment: @UpTheCreek good point, I've updated
Answer: Work with all On page and Off Page optimization for your targeted websites.
Content must be unique with competent terms. Get top quality back links from only relevant websites with do follow and also get some no follow links.
Whenever you get links from other websites please check the following criteria:
Page Rank; IP Location; MozRank; Domain Age; LRD; PA & DA; Check Irrelevant links is found ignore it and etc...,
Be relevant for the search keywords. This means having relevant text/keywords on the page (including the title, headings and URL).
Have lots of links pointing to your page, preferably from quality sites that are well-ranked themselves.That's not to say the other answers posted are wrong, but they are all indirect versions of those two key rules. Having the best and freshest content means you will naturally gather more links over time.
Answer: For those who want to improve their search rankings results in their local area.
i,e LOCAL SEO

For local ranking try to host your website in same region or
country.
Generate some back-link from locally hosted website
Participate in local communities / forum Get your local bloggers to
write about your business / product
Answer: To get listed and rank well in Google, you need to follow certain easy guidelines.

Identify keywords ( long tail - less competition) and content should
be able to resolve user queries or services good enough to keep
users engaged.
For example: users visits those sites frequently where they get
desired object ( information and or entertainment)
Encourage others to share your content if they like it.
Properly formatted page and it should be responsive.
Optimized meta tags like Title ,Description, Language, Encoding etc
Images with <title> and alt.
Links and Anchor with titles and Anchor text.
Use of Suitable Schema.
Engage users with relevant content, newsletters, freebies, forum and personalized offering.
Keep updated with latest trend in your industry as well as in Digital Marketing.
Submit sitemap(content,image,videos), remove old page, remove bad/Spam links to you.

Present yourself in structured and authoritative manner, delight audience
It will definitely help you to get ranked well in users.
Search Engines aimed to deliver good results to users for their own benefits(reliability,loyalty) therefore you will also get benefit for nice presentation and content.
Answer: There are some basic rules to increase your Google rankings

Offer the absolute best content on specific keywords that you are targeting.
Get links from highly trusted sources, especially if they are related to your niche.
Have text and image rich pages. Google wants to read words that it has never read before, and it wants to see amazing images related to a specific topic.
Dominate your niche. If your page or site is about "cupcakes", google wants to send traffic to the absolute, most trusted "cupcake" websites. Dominating your niche is not an easy task to achieve. But if you can do that then you are sure to rank for keywords in your niche.
Have strong user engagement on your page. When google sends users to your page, if Google finds that the user's metrics of time on page, clicks, shares are high, and bounce rate is low, Google is going to realize that users really love your page. And it is going to send you more traffic. Figure out how to make pages that organic search traffic visitors will absolutely love.
Have an incredibly high click through rate in the SERPs. When a user searches for "Vanilla Cupcakes" and clicks on your page about vanilla ice cream cupcakes but does not click on someone else's page of vanilla frosting cupcakes, Google realizes that users want "Vanilla Icecream Cupcakes" more often when they are searching for "Vanilla Cupcakes" and Google will start ranking your page higher than the page about "Vanilla Frosting Cupcakes" in the search results. In other words, make sure users are clicking on YOUR page when they see it on Google search. This can be done with having a great url such as example.com/vanilla-icecream-cupcakes, as well as having a great title and description. If you are in position #4 for a specific keyword, and users are clicking on your result much more often than usual, Google is going to start ranking you #3, #2 and so forth.
Answer:
Relevant keywords in the text of the article
sites linking to your sites with the same keywords
h1/h2 tags
Relevant title
Relevant URL
meta tags
link text — http://www.google.com/?q=click+here
Comment: Meta tags do not affect your rankings
Answer: Google and algorithms are all from humans concern.
you should abstract from the idea of following rules and indications but instead, think on your own and what would be the best for your users (readability, accessibility, ...).
For the technical part (charset, metadatas, content elements ...) this would overcome with the time while you feed your experience, again if you code in good manners and use a well-written syntax then Google won't mess with your website...
IMHO, SEO is a MARKETING word...
Answer: ok, after trying a lot of search what i understood is the following:
1) all the sites promising SEO enhancement, SEO evaluation(like checking your page for problems ect) are BS.
2) just mantain a good website, without too many errors, with H1 tags, and other meta(basically what GOOGLE SAYS, nothing else)
3) be famous. that's it. i think they have some magic to understand which sites are important, no matter what's the content on the site. so there is age, it's not actually the age of the site, but how famous it is. i think google considers a lot how many users SEARCH for that site(like inputing the exact name of the site), its alexa rank, and other things like that. i think they are trying to lower link building possibilities, and actually looking through the web i saw much worse sites, with really bad coding, bad implementation, bad everything(like really bad things, even ecommerce sites without carts! you had to email them for orders!) in first page, even in first position for some keywords, and the only thing they had was a much higher alexa rank(and much older, like from 2004 or something like that).(really not even mobile site!)
Answer: Most of the major points have been covered by some great answers by community members. I would like to add few more :
Frequent/Massive Use of Webmaster tool:
Webmaster tool gives a great indication of how your site is behaving w.r.t search engine and gives you all the indications which are must fix. Also this gives you lot of things like crawler's crawl rate, crawl errors, sitemap indexing etc that should be regularly monitored and fix for best seo health.
Try to increase user time span / dwell time on your page:
Try to add more interactive elements on your page that engages user and increase his dwell time on your page, which makes your page more relevant and increases chances of ranking well.
Proper use of canonicals:
Canonical should always be added on a page as if not added cralwer takes current url as the canonical / parent of the content. This will hurt if this url is allowed to open in both http/https + with different parameters like in advertising campaigns.
Adding canonical ensures passing proper attribution to main url.
Also add them in case of pages with similar content.
Try to avoid unnecessary/redundant pages:
All the pages you create should have content that matches the prospect / purpose of the page.
Example :
If you have a page that talks about topic A, then the content should focus around A. I have seen a lot of websites where just to increase content unnecessary pages are created.
Keep less pages with strong content.
Wherever possible keep some content on page that changes regularly
Some dynamic content like user generated content like reviews / any other dynamic content increases crawling frequency and also increase interaction on your page
Answer: Content is King.

Make a website with a lot of relevant information to the subject of
the site.
Spend a lot of energy posting new material, articles and updates
and videos etc. In the end, Google will evaluate your website content and how much people are interested in your content.
Make sure your website follows the proper standards for SEO and has
all tags, keywords etc.
Make sure you name all files with relevant filenames, images etc as
well and that the filenames have relevant keywords.
Make sure you have 'title' and 'alt' for every link and image and
file etc.
Verify your domain ownership and everything around it with Google,
Bing, Yahoo etc.
Add your site to all webmaster accounts.
Add google analytics on your site.
Have one or several sections of your website that are updated on a
regular basis. The more often, the better.
Make sure the updates and articles etc are relevant and have a fair
amount of new information and images etc.
Create Social media pages (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc) and update them often with links to your site.
Create a Youtube channel with videos and have links from those, to
your site. Make sure the videos are relevant to your subject and contain information.
Go around the web and be active in other communities and forums and
groups, especially related to your site subject. And once you gain credibility and people trust you, post backlinks to your site in a helpful way. Do this often but without being abusive or obvious. Earn your right to post the link to your site.
Be dedicated and don't stop changing and upgrading your site. Work on
it and add new stuff often.
Answer: Been a web dev for 23 years and have had all sorts of high- and low-ranking websites. The stuff in common for the high-ranking ones is:

Unique and useful content
Fast load time
Went straight to the point / no bs / nothing annoying
Answer: First off, content is king! Google loves fresh, relevant, and high-quality content. Regularly update your site with valuable information that resonates with your audience. Use bold and engaging headlines to capture attention, and incorporate your target keywords naturally throughout your content. Google's algorithms are smart, and they reward sites that provide genuine value to users.
Another game-changer is building high-quality backlinks. Think of backlinks as digital endorsements for your site's credibility. When reputable sites link to yours, it signals to Google that your content is trustworthy. Reach out to influencers, collaborate with others in your industry, and guest post on reputable sites to build a solid backlink profile. Remember, it's not just about quantity; quality matters too.
In my own journey, I revamped my site's content strategy, focusing on what my audience truly craved. I also networked with fellow bloggers, and we shared each other's content, creating a win-win situation. Over time, these efforts significantly boosted my site's position on Google. Best of luck with your SEO endeavors!


Building a Blue Deck on a budget?

Question: My daughter is a huge Blue card fan (she loves mermaids especially). How can I build a solid blue deck on a limited budget with easily obtainable cards?
Comment: There are over 2000 blue cards, you might want to narrow the scope a little bit. :)
Answer: You should be able to build a reasonable deck of any colour for casual play using just standard commons. It won't be particularly exciting, but as long as you have a reasonably large fraction of creatures, go easy on the enchantments, and choose cards to follow the mana curve (i.e. some low cost, some high cost, most in-between), you'll be fine.
I'm not entirely sure what you mean by 'mermaids'. If you're referring to Merfolk, then yes, you should be able to build a reasonable deck based on that theme relatively cheaply. A basic idea would be 4x Lord of Atlantis, 4x Sunken City, and then your choice of Merfolk cards (of which there are lots; many are common).
Here's a list of Merfolk to give you an idea of the possibilities:
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5Bmerfolk%5D
Comment: For a slightly better list than what was given in the answer, search using the creature type merfolk instead of having merfolk in the name.
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?action=advanced&subtype=+["Merfolk"]
Answer: Building an inexpensive blue deck means concentrating on one of the strategies it does well at common, which could mean "mill" (causing your opponent to draw out his or her deck), cheap flyers, card drawing, or creature denial (cards like Unsummon or Sleep). These strategies tend to dovetail nicely with merfolk. Merfolk themselves have a "strategy," as there are many cards that give bonuses to other merfolk you control, or allow you to tap them for various effects. These "fish" decks are playable in many different formats.
A preconstructed blue/white Merfolk deck was released in 2008; they're still fairly easy to find.
Answer: I am a big blue fan too, and I have a combo of creatues and instants/sorceries/enchantments. I would lay low on the artifacts, even though most say they are good in blue decks. If you want merfolk, I would try adding x3 Merfolk Sovereign and maybe a Deepchannel Mentor. Also throw in a Talrand, Sky Summoner. You should have some counter-spells like Cancel to hold off till you get a powerhouse like Guile, Frost Titan or Sphinx of Magosi.

Building a Blue Deck on a budget?


How do I handle a user story that I complete, but with compromise and need to revisit?

Question: I have just fulfilled (is that a good term?) two user stories out of a new project backlog I have just built. These are user registration and password reset, both requiring mail. I need to implement a substitute mail component because my initial choice, and a normally reliable one, wasn't working. Because I was focused on delivering the user stories, not debugging the mail component, I swapped it out to deliver working code at sprint end. Do I now log a new support issue for the mailer, or 're-insert' these stories into the backlog? If I do the latter, am I not introducing too much tech detail into user stories?
Answer: If you implemented the user story to the standards defined in the definition of done, then those user stories are finished and shouldn't be put back in the product backlog.
In similar situations I have raised a new user story, but described the requirement for making a technical change in terms of its business benefit, rather than having something purely technical in the product backlog. How about:
"As a developer I want the product to use the company standard email component so that support and maintenance is simplified."
As a developer, you're an actor too and you may have requirements that the system behaves in a particular way when you use (support / change) it. It should always be possible to articulate these in terms of their business benefit and prioritise them with your product owner alongside the implementation of new functionality.
Answer: If the definition of done for the user story are fullfiled (fullfilled, what every you want to call done) then your user store is complete and you shouldn't be putting it back in the backlog.
However you've taken on technical debt to complete that and later you need to devote other time to fixing that.  So it sounds to me that you need a type of task for internal work such as refactors.
So add a new issue into the backlog.
Comment: It isn't really a technical debt. My 'workaround' is a quality solution, but the originally envisaged implementation will be an improvement on the workaround, so maybe I can create a new story to improve the email function?
Comment: @ProfK In what sense is the change an improvement? Whose life will be made better and how?
Comment: @MarkJ The benefit is wide scale. It will allow email texts to be written as MVC views, by any web designer or coder familiar with that tech.
Comment: @ProfK This is strategic technical debt. Remember that not all technical debt is negative or bad. In this case you changed the system so that you could ship today knowing that you would need to make a change later.  This is an excellent example of taking on strategic technical debt -- in moderation a good thing.
Answer: Technical Debt is just another Story
If a story is done that means it has passed QA and been accepted by the Product Owner.
Any work that might need to be done to "clean up" or "improve" the implementation is considered Technical Debt and should simply be a new Story.
That way it will be tracked and prioritized by the Product Owner just like everything else.
Answer: The Simplest Thing That Will Reasonably Work
In a related comment, the OP says:

My 'workaround' is a quality solution, but the originally envisaged implementation will be an improvement on the workaround, so maybe I can create a new story to improve the email function?

If that's the case, the original question is moot. The YAGNI principle requires that a solution not be over-engineered in anticipation of future requirements.
If a solution meets the current sprint goals, functions as designed, and meets the team's "definition of done," then it is done. It's not half-done, sort of done, or "done pending a planned refactoring."
Mark it done and move on.
Minor Caveat
If you genuinely think there's another story there, or some sort of technical debt that doesn't prevent the original story from being done, then you should raise another story for the Product Backlog.
New work always needs to be placed on the Product Backlog to raise visibility--no invisible work, ever! Ultimately, it is the Product Owner's job to decide whether the proposed improvement aligns with the product goals, and to prioritize your new user story within the Product Backlog if he chooses to add the story.
Answer: According to your question and additional comments to @Klee's answer I think the problem is little bit different.
You completed a story. It should mean you passed all definitions of done - otherwise the user story cannot be considered as completed. But if you completed the story and passed all definitions of done it should mean that your current solution is satisfying. Otherwise the customer / product owner must rise the reason why it is not satisfying (not you) and either reject your completion or define another user story extending this one with new definition of done which are not satisfied by your current solution.
Technical debt is raised only when your current solution doesn't satisfy some requirement or constraint. Is there any constraint you have violated by using a workaround? If yes you should not mark your user story as completed in the first place.
Is there any code duplication or another bad practice introduced by your workaround? Then you have created technical debt and you should solve it ASAP. You can either be fair to product owner and simply tell him that during next sprint you must spend same time to fixing your technical issues which will result in less planed user stories. Or if your relation with product owner is not very good simply plan less user stories because of "newly" discovered complexities in any of them and fix your technical debt.
If there is no code duplication or any real reason why your code should be improved simply don't touch it. By the real reason I mean no customer / product owner defined constraint (for example company policy, performance, predefined time for creating a new email template which cannot be achieved with your current solution, etc.). There is no technical debt in your code. What you are trying to do is called golden plating - delivering features which were not required = wasting customers resources.
If your solution will not satisfy any future user story simply move your refactoring and code improving to that user story. It doesn't have to be solved now because it passed current definition of done. Deal with improvements when they have to be done to pass definition of done for newly implemented stories and to avoid bad practices.


Surface of the cut of an ellipsoid / Marginal density of a multivariate normal over an affine space

Question: So I'm trying to get the marginal density of a multivariate normal over an affine space
if $A$ is a matrix in $\mathbb{R}^p \times \mathbb{R}^n$ for $p < n$ and $B \in \mathbb{R}^n$, $\Sigma$ is a positive definite matrix.
We're looking at...
$$\lim_{\epsilon \rightarrow 0}\frac{1}{\epsilon}\int_{||Ax-B||<\epsilon} e^{-\frac{1}{2} x^t \Sigma^{-1} x } dx$$
Edit
The space over which I integrate is wrong, see edit at the end... I should be controlling the distance to the projection, not something that depends on the scale of $A$ and $B$.
The first step is to get $$x_0 = \hbox{argmin}_x \left\[ x^t \Sigma^{-1} x | Ax-B = 0 \right\]$$
If one writes the Cholesky decomposition $\Sigma^-1 = L^T L$ and $\hbox{}^+$ is the Moore-Penrose pseudo inverse, then $$x0 = (A L^{-1})^{+} B$$
We substitute $x = x_0 + y$ in the integral, $y$ is orthogonal to $x_0$ with respect to $\Sigma^-1$ so the $x \Sigma^{-1} y$ terms disappear and we get something like
$$e^{-\frac{1}{2} x_0^t \Sigma^{-1} x_0} \lim_{\epsilon \rightarrow 0}\frac{1}{\epsilon}\int_{||Ay||<\epsilon} e^{-\frac{1}{2} y^t \Sigma^{-1} y}  dy$$
setting $z = Ly$
Edit
urrrr...
$$e^{-\frac{1}{2} x_0^t \Sigma^{-1} x_0} \lim_{\epsilon \rightarrow 0}\frac{1}{\epsilon}\int_{||A L^{-1}z||<\epsilon} e^{-\frac{1}{2} z^t z} \frac{dy}{dz} dz$$
hum the $\frac{dy}{dz}$ wouldn't be very nice...
At this point, I've gotten rid of the affine part by factoring the $x_0$ out ( yay.. ) but I can't quite get that last cut... It's likely going to involve the determinant of $\Sigma$ and the rank of $A$ ( assume it's $p$ if needed ) but I can't figure out how.
a) Do you notice anything obviously wrong in the derivation of $x_0$ ?
b) What's the obviously right answer that has been eluding me ?
Edit
c) Possible way, orthonormalize the kernel of $A$ then the rest of the space. Then the problem boils down to finding the density of a multivariate normal conditional on some elements of the vector being known... that's not a nice formula, it involves slicing $\Sigma$ and taking the Schur complement see
Wikipedia, Multivariate normal, Conditional distributions
Edit
It occurs to me that the $||Ay||<\epsilon$ criterion isn't the right one, otherwise, the answer would depend on the scale of $A$ which is dumb. I guess the right criterion is
$||A^{t}(A A^{t})^{-1}A y||<\epsilon$, which is the distance of vector $y$ to its orthogonal projection on the subspace $A. = $
Thanks!
Answer: I had to do something similar recently and there's a neat trick for integrating Gaussian over linear subspace of $\mathbb{R}^n$ -- write it as an integral over whole $\mathbb{R}^n$ but substitute Dirac measure for regular. Here's overview, and discussion on math.overflow


Culinary uses for lavender

Question: I have some lavender bushes in the garden. They last well and smell wonderful. I have always considered lavender a herb, but can't think how it is used in cooking.
If people have any good recipes for lavender I would love to know.
Comment: Thanks for all the responses so far. I don't think there is one right answer so I will keep this open. See what else pops in.
Comment: I know this isn't a culinary use, but I keep a bag of lavender from my garden under the sink, and use it to clean bad smells out of my garbage disposal.  Very handy when we don't have any lemon or lime peels around.
Answer: First, a couple of notes on cooking with lavender:
-The leaves as well as the flower blossoms are edible.
-If you don't grow it yourself, make sure that you only use lavender that has been produced for culinary usage (often found in bulk form at health food stores).  If it isn't sold in a food store, don't use it (such as that in craft stores).
-A little goes a long way.  Too much and your mouth will taste like it was washed out with soap.
Now for some of the items I have done with it:
Lavender ice cream (Lavender & Honey even better!) is a common use.  Infuse the cream with the lavender buds by bringing it to a simmer and then take off the heat and cover, letting sit for about 30 minutes.
Lavender orange sorbet (infuse lavender buds into the orange juice).
I've also used lavender and thyme in an herb past rub for roasted lamb.
"English Garden Madeleines" using dried lavender and rosewater in the madeleine batter.
I did a presentation on culinary uses of lavender a dozen years ago and don't quite recall what else I did with it but should be able to pull out the recipes I mentioned above.
If you'd like the recipes, email me at: email@example.com and I'll forward them to you.
Comment: Lavender & Honey ice cream is so good
Answer: Lavender goes well with apples, bitter citrus fruits, honey, basil, and coriander.  If you buy it instead of growing it, be sure it is food grade, since ornamental growers tend to spray lavender with pesticides.
Some dishes using herbes de Provence assume that you are using a mixture containing lavender, so searching for herbes de Provence should also help find recipes.  A simple thing to start out with may be lavender lemonade
The TGRWRT blog event asked readers to combine lavender and apples in a dish. The results of the TGRWT event contain several new recipes that use lavender, some sweet, some savory.  I participated in the event, but later modified a recipe from the very talented Witt Sedgwick to create an apple lavender risotto.
Answer: one of the best cookies I've had was a lavender shortbread cookie.
Answer: I had a lavender lemonade at a wedding recently.  I'm not sure if they did anything more complicated than throwing a sprig of lavender in the glass to use as a "stirrer."  The light infusion and the lavender smell definitely brightened the drink.
Answer: A note of caution: If you didn't plant the lavender in your garden and consequently don't know if it's been treated with pesticides, you shouldn't use it in your baking and cooking. I use lavender in herb crusts on meat, in baking a variety of breads and cookies, and in jellies and sorbets. It's also delicious in some tea blends (from which I make ices in the summer).
Answer: You can spice deserts and cooked dishes.
It goes well with Yogurt fish sauces and with rice, with cakes and various cremes.
Answer: Try swapping it for rosemary when roasting a leg of lamb.  To roast lamb I usually make about 20 incisions in the lamb, and into each press an anchovy, half a clove of garlic and a spring of rosemary or lavender, seal the slash with some butter.  Roast in a tray with a good glass of white wine and some oil, basting it a few times while it cooks.
Answer: I use it when grilling pork chops or steaks. Just cut 4-5 sprigs per chop, and drop it on top when you add the meat to the grill. it will burn up as the meat cooks, but it imparts a nice subtle flavor to the meat.
Answer: The only time I've ever eaten lavender (apart from in Herbes de Provence, as papin has already mentioned), was in a Lavender Creme Brulee.
I'm not particularly fond of Creme Brulee, and I wasn't expecting to like it at all. But it was delicious.
Answer: As mentioned above, the lavender lemonade is wonderful. However, to make mine, I use a bit more than just "a sprig" and I mix it with chamomile flowers and honey with a few lemon balm leaves thrown in (as well as the lemon juice of course) for that fresh, 'grass-y' hint and steep that for a while, strain it and pour it over ice. Sometimes I add a splash of cognac.
One would think of heaven...honestly! I've made lemon-lavender butter cakes as well that were lovely. The lavender french sables are the best! I've founf that it pairs fairly nicely with either rosemary and/or thyme for lamb as well.
Answer: DIY Herbal Tea: 1 cup or so of boiling water, 1 tsp dried lavender, honey and/or lemon to taste. Steep 5 minutes then strain.

Culinary uses for lavender


Which Axis and Allies Game Takes the Least Amount of Time to Play?

Question: I have A&A Europe.  I generally just play with one other person.  The problem is that the game takes so long to play that we rarely play - because it takes so long.  Do different editions take more or less time to play?
Answer: A&A Pacific takes significantly less time to play than standard.  While I havent played Europe, BGG says that estimated time is 210 minutes as opposed to 120 for Pacific, so pacific should be shorter. Its about 2-3 hours, depends how willing to concede defeat the players are and. Additionally, it works excellently with 2 players. I would give that a try.. Have fun
Answer: From the "normal" game the 1st edition is a little bit shorter than the 2nd and the anniversary edition because the rules are easier and you do not need to read/learn/memorize it. But in general the normal game will be long too. Never played a game under 4-5 hours and even then one side "just" gave up.
Answer: Axis and allies 1941 takes the least to play at 1.5 -2 hours and is also the cheapest edition.


How does mission XP / Credit work in Borderlands during online multiplayer?

Question: How does mission XP work in Borderlands during online multiplayer? My friends and I have noticed that sometimes only some or one of us will get XP / Credit for a mission.
Answer: You can only get experience for a mission once per playthrough. If you completed the mission by yourself and then replayed it in co-op, you would not get the experience a second time. If you complete a mission in co-op, it will count towards your single player game for all players involved, if they have not already completed it.
It is also possible that you are not eligible for the mission, which means you have not completed the prior main story-line missions and are not far enough ahead in the game to get that mission by yourself. You will not get the rewards when another player turns it in. If this is the case, it will say so next to the missions and will not track progress for the mission.
Answer: One thing to keep in mind is that Borderlands is VERY particular about people being on the same missions. If you are a mission behind everyone else, you can do all the missions they do and get credit for none of them.
If you are noticing that some people aren't getting XP, absolutely make sure everyone is on the same missions.  We used to either have characters we only played together or we'd make sure to match up in single player before hopping in.
I'd wager dollars to donuts that's what is going on.  If you really are all on the same mission, everyone will get XP/credit.
Answer: XP distribution is weighted benefiting lower level characters


How to build up endurance for bass trombone after many years away

Question: I played bass trombone at a pretty advanced level for many years. However, due to personal reasons I gave it up (I quit cold turkey). That was 15 years ago. I would like to get back into playing again, but I'm not sure of the best way to get my chops back without damaging them. I still have a ton of muscle memory, but obviously no endurance. Does anyone have any suggestions?
Answer: Your chops have a pain response for a reason! You can trust them--if you feel yourself nearing a threshold of pain, then stop immediately and wait until tomorrow, but chances are you'll be fatigued long before that happens. Just take it slow, use quiet, easy warmups to start, and trust your judgement as a brass player.
Track out the time you put into practice sessions--if you find you can only go 10 minutes on Day 1, you may be pleasantly surprised to find yourself lasting 15 or 20 on Day 2. Just take it easy and give yourself time to adjust. The instrument may not have changed, but your body has--it's not you relearning to play trombone, it's your brain relearning to play your body relearning to play trombone.
Any specific problems you've been encountering?
Good luck to you! Hope you can get back into it!
Answer: To give a similar yet alternative answer to NReilingh's, I'll refer to Denis Wick (of the London Symphony Orchestra), who suggests that all players of all abilities should take a three-week long holiday/vacation away from the horn every year or so.  When "playing in" again he gives a relatively detailed procedure of how long your should practice each day:

The first day back at the instrument should consist simply of a 15-minute warm up.  On the second day there should be probably be two separate 20-minute spells, at least 8 hours apart.  By the third day more extensive practice may be undertaken, possibly in two 30-minute sessions.  After these 3 days one's playing should have returned to normal, and a good hour's practice at each end of the day will reveal that the time spent away from the instrument has been of enormous benefit.*

He also advises against using the high register or hours of heaving playing for a little while.
The specific thing I feel is worth adopting is the idea of practicing for short spans multiple times in a single day.  This example is being given to professionals who took a 3 week rest, you've had 15 years rest!  Do "take it slow" and stop if you're feeling pain.  However, I think you would benefit more from doing several 5-10 minute sessions adding up to 30 minutes than attempting your first 30 minute long session too soon.
Your embouchure is made up of the very small and fine muscles of your face.  Just as a weight lifter (especially after a period of rest) will start slow and do several sets of reps at low weight, you want to do several sets of shorter practice sessions.  It's very hard to recover if you damage these small muscles.
In addition to the "quiet, easy warmups" NReillingh is suggesting you do, for your whole practice session I'd suggest you avoid the extreme ranges.  You may relish the glory days of popping out pedal notes with relative ease, but just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should. Limit yourself to the basic octave of your concert Bb scale for the first week or so.  Then start to add notes above and below that ever week, stretching to middle C and low A the second week and continuing in like fashion.  The reason for doing this is to make sure you're relearning good technique for your high and low notes.  You'll thank yourself for taking it slow!
*Denis Wick Trombone Technique, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), 27.
Answer: I recently started playing trombone again after 9 years or so.  I think one of the most important things is to be playing with others.  You can only do so much when practicing by yourself, and you don't want to wait until you're good enough to play in groups at your former skill level.
I had stopped playing during college to focus on my other studies.  After graduating, I started practicing for a short time and auditioned for a jazz group that would have been closer to my abilities in college, but was unsuccessful (my sight reading was abysmal).  After that, I stopped playing again, since I had nowhere to play.
This summer, I found a community band that did not require auditions, and met once a week.  This was really beneficial, both for hearing others playing to jumpstart your memory about how this stuff works, and for having goals and commitments to stay focused.  If you can find a similar outlet for playing, I highly recommend it.
Since then, I have joined a year-round concert band (audition required) and continue to practice regularly.  My chops haven't completely returned to their former glory, but my range and endurance have improved significantly.
Answer: I've done this (albeit at more of a beginner level :)) on trumpet once. Start slow and don't expect to be instantly able to play with the range you were before. I found that my range and endurance were very limited at first, but it did build up quickly - within three months I was playing at my previous level. It may take longer for you, since you were away longer than I was and are probably much better than I.
Answer: I picked up playing Tuba after 18 years away. It came back to me surprisingly fast, and now I feel I'm even better than I was back then. My advice is to not be afraid of diving in. For a more technical answer, NReilingh got my vote.
Answer: I took a summer (3.5 months) off from playing for medical reasons during college. NOT the best idea, but it had to be done. The quickest way that I found to get back into it was similar to two of the other answers here combined:
I started slow, extremely slow. I began with simple long tone exercises, the first day just in the span from F3 to Bb3. (With bass trombone, Bb2 to Eb3 might be better, or something in that range.) I did 5-10 minutes of that, twice away for the first few days. After a few days, I added in very slow lip slurs in the middle register. All in the range from F3 to D4. Again, you might edit these ranges, depending on the size of your equipment and comfort level. Around the week mark, I was still only practicing for two or three daily sessions of 10-15 minutes each, but I added in some slightly faster lip slurs. Don't push any of this, keep it only where you can do everything perfectly cleanly, with no discomfort or abnormal adjustments. Since you're coming back from a much longer period without, I might do exclusively long tones and simple octave-ranged melodies for a longer period, say two weeks. For each of my "few-day" periods, I would make those a week or so if I were coming back from a longer period of time.
The most important thing is not to push it, even if you feel you can. My tone sounded great after that first day, and it made me want to play for longer, but I forced myself not to.
As others have said you WILL thank yourself for going slowly, and for that reason I'd err on the side of progressing too slowly rather than too quickly. Listen to your body for physical warning signs, and trust your musical knowledge and instinct so you don't learn any bad habits picking it up again.
Best of luck, and enjoy the ride!
Answer: I played trombone for 6 years and was pretty good compared to my peers.  I stopped playing when I graduated HS in 1986 and started picking it up in 2013.  Yes, that is 27 years later.  Since last year I average about 3 hours a week.
My suggestion is to practice for about 3 hours a week for 2 weeks.  Then record your self, but have a bucket standing by to vomit in to from listening to your self.  After recovering  practice some more.
When I practice I record my self after witch I listen and make notes:

Long tones
Lip slurs
Scales
Practice playing high(new).  There are several exercises out there on YouTube and the net.  The one I use uses lip slurs for example starting at E2, A-flat2, B3, E3 where the positions are 2 - 3 - 4 - 5.  Listen for the transition and don't use the tongue.
Practice double tongue(this is something new I never did) after a year I am getting better.
Find some excerpts from classical pieces (http://www.tromboneexcerpts.org/)
Listen to a lot of music
Set some goals both short and long.  For my self the long goal is Double toughing, High notes, and I would like to Play Bach's Air.

There are a couple of Master Classes on Trombone that are very interesting.  Some other recordings are

 and

Finally, I would say first I am not in HS so stop trying to play like I am in HS.  The second thing is when you play(lip slurs, scales, excerpts, solo's) try to stop yourself, and this is harder than you think, ask yourself "would someone want to hear this".
Most importantly don't get frustrated and quit.  Quit when it is not interesting any more.


Statics question: When do I need to find support reactions?

Question: We're finding forces (and whether they're in tension or compression) using the Method of Joints and Method of Sections. I don't understand why sometimes it's necessary to find the support reactions, but sometimes it's not. Please help. Thank you!
Comment: My guess is that nobody's answered yet (after 9 hours) because we don't understand the engineering jargon.  I don't, at least.  If you can find a way to translate to more physicsy language we might be able to help more.
Comment: I agree with Mark. A brief description of a specific example would probably do the trick.
Comment: Sincerely, and with all due respect to the people here that know far more than I do, I must say that if someone doesn't understand the question, I probably would rather wait for someone who is familiar with the terminology.  I'm sure you can understand.  I accept the possibility that this question may be outside the scope of this site, and I appreciate the comments.
Answer: I have examined some material on Statics and having recently discovered this unanswered question I can provide some indications from a physics perspective of what is going on.
The fundamental issue in statics is to provide the values for the forces acting on a rigid construction (usually of rods) with everything in equilibrium. (The examples I have looked at are 2 dimensional, so I will assume that in what follows; but one could add similar equations for 3 D although the essence of the OP question can be discussed in 2D.)
The equations available are from the Newtonian conservation laws:
$\Sigma F_x = 0$ - the sum of forces in the x-axis is zero
$\Sigma F_y = 0$ - the sum of forces in the y-axis is zero
$\Sigma M_a = 0$  - the moment (torque) about a point (hence any point) is zero
So these equations will be true at any point, especially connection points on the construction (often called a "truss").
The variables that form in these equations are the Forces at given points on the system: more accurately the x- and y- components of the Forces.
The system (truss) will be placed on a ground at N points; at each of these points we have a "support reaction" onto the truss. Thus there will be N unknown support reactions (in the y-axis say) to find in principle: labeled $V_1$, $V_2$,....,$V_N$ say.
There will also likely to be some form of external force in the problem. This external Force $F$ is normally assumed applied at a specific point on the structure, and may have a horizontal (x-axis) component and a downward vertical (-ve y-axis component). I should remark here that in a wider class of physics and engineering problems the force F is assumed to be distributed across the structure and not located just at a point: the primary example of such a force would be gravity. However the mathematical techniques to solve this would involve calculus and so are outside of the basic Statics theory I have seen and that is covered here. So assume a single force is acting at a point externally. Can this problem be solved for all the forces?
Well it turns out that there is a mathematical problem here, which I shall explain with some simple examples.
Example 1: Beam with 2 supports and external force
Let the length of the beam be L units, supports (A,B) at each end and an external force F acting purely vertically on the beam at a point distance $a$ from A, $b$ from B (hence $L=a+b$). Then we have to solve (signs are important in general):
[1] $\Sigma F_y$ = $V_A + V_B - F = 0$
[2] $\Sigma M_A$ = $aF - (a + b) V_B = 0$
Here $F$, $a$ and $b=L-a$ are known and $V_A$ and $V_B$ are unknown. The key point here is that we have two equations with two unknowns. The solution is easily seen to be:
$V_A = (b/a+b) F = (b/L)F$
$V_B = (a/a+b) F = (a/L)F$
So this is called a statically determinate system. However the simplest of modifications can result in a statically indeterminate system.
Example 2: Beam with 3 supports
I wont go through the details which are in this Wikipedia article. The point is that there are the same equations except that there is now a third reaction force $V_C$. Therefore there are too many variables and this problem cannot be solved (by Statics alone). In a sense this is quite a general case.
However the engineering challenge remains to model the forces on a connected truss. The Method of Joints does this going through the Truss iteratively: at each connection point with just a few forces and variables such that the problem is determinate and such that a new unknown force is determined. Eventually by repeated application of this technique all the forces on all the beams of the truss can be determined.
A different question can always be asked about any physical system however: namely what are the forces acting on a particular point? This problem does not always need the full solution of the forces acting on every other point determined before it can be answered. So the idea is to construct a Free Body Diagram which extracts the key physics (in this case Statics) of the problem. Doing so in Static Truss like problems is called the Method of Sections. The key equations are the Newton equations of Force and Torque used in Statics, but applied in a selective way.
This technique of determining where to "cut" the truss looks like a bit of an art, although there do seem to be some principles used in the Tutorial material I have seen. Here is one such Trusses - Method of Sections .


Photoshop kern and css kern ratio?

Question: I am trying to determine the how much line spacing to set for the amount of kern used in photoshop. I can eye-ball the spacing but does anyone know the exact ratio between the two. ex. Set text kern to 50 in photoshop = 1 em line-spacing.
Thanks!
Comment: Kerning is the space between letters. Line spacing is the space between lines. I'm confused as to what you are asking.
Comment: Are you referring to [leading](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leading) rather than [kerning](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerning) or talking about the ratio between leading and kerning? There isn't a universal ratio for the latter.
Answer: It's a bit confusing as to what you are asking, as kerning and line spacing are two different things.
However, I think what you are asking is how to set type in PhotoShop so it matches what you have set in your browser via CSS.
The answer to that is: you can't.
PhotoShop is a fixed canvas meaning you have full control over everything...the font, the size, the way it's being smoothed--every pixel in the file is under your control.
In a browser, none of it is under your absolute control. There are simply too many variables that you have no control over: the particular browser, the operating system, the end-user's preferences, the fonts installed, the type of font rendering being used, the default font sizes, the end user's changing font sizes in the browser, the type of device being used, etc, etc.
So, bottom line, don't ever expect type set in PhotoShop to be a pixel-for-pixel facsimile of what you will eventually see in the actual web browser.
Answer: I usually like to set the line-height in CSS with em values to make sure that no matter how big the text is, it will be consistent. Takes the pain away from having to calculate pixels for each typeface since different fonts will have different heights. This gets tricky when calculating heading sizes.
That said, as we move towards emulating print within web, and we try to maintain quality rythms through out a properties typefaces, it is important to create base fonts sizes and the make adjustments accordingly.
Here is an interesting tool that computes the vertical rhythm for you based on the webfont you are using. Would be cool for typekit & google fonts to incorporate that in their toolset.
In reference to that, here is a Typographical Grid that you can use to calculate that in the same method with you own font library or one from an API like typekit.
Answer: Photoshop tracking
... kerning and tracking values in Photoshop are based on 1/1000 em (one em in a 24-point font is 24 points wide; in a 50-point font, it's 50 points wide, and so on).
Working with text in Photoshop
CSS letter-space (tracking)
Letter spacing in CSS can use lots of different kinds of units. If you'd like to use ems, you can. So, letter-space: 1em should equal tracking of 1000 in Photoshop.
The top example is Photoshop with 1000 tracking, the bottom is CSS with 1em letter spacing (WebKit in Safari). Text is 14point/px Helvetica for both.

Photoshop leading
Leading in Photoshop is an exact value — if you have your type units set to points, you could set the leading on some text to 18pt, if you wanted. That's an absolute value.
CSS line-height (leading)
Line-spacing in CSS can be an absolute value, or it can be a percentage (the percentage is derived from the font size). So, if you wanted to match Photoshop's 18pt, you could sent your CSS value to 18px. Or, if you had 14px text, you could use line-height: 128%, which works out to be the same.
More info on CSS line-height: CSS line-height Property
Disclaimer
We're comparing different text rendering engines, so the results will vary. Each browser and OS can be wildly different, as can Photoshop. Don't expect to see the exact same thing, but the basic measurements and values can translate if you know the way they all work.
Please also note that points and pixels are interchangeable in Photoshop, providing the document is set to 72PPI (which is what you should be using for screen design).
Comment: The PPI setting is irrelevant for screen design, but yes, at 72ppi you match the 'standard' 72 points per inch.

Photoshop kern and css kern ratio?


Using IBufferConstruction to create single and multiple buffers (VBA and ArcObjects)

Question: I need a bit of help with using the iBufferContruction interface, my overall goal is that the user clicks on the map, a graphic is created and then buffered,at multiple distances and then stored in a featureclass
So far, i can create a single buffer (i know if it created because the length that gets returned is correct), however when I store it in my FC the shape is empty.
Here's the code:
Private Sub Buffer_MouseDown(ByVal button As Long, ByVal shift As Long, ByVal x As Long, ByVal y As Long)

'Get the location of the mouse and set it to the point
Set m_pPoint = m_pMxDoc.ActiveView.ScreenDisplay.DisplayTransformation.ToMapPoint(x, y)

'new marker element on the map
Set m_pElement = New MarkerElement

'set the element property
m_pElement.Geometry = m_pPoint

Set m_pGraphics = m_pMap

m_pGraphics.AddElement m_pElement, 0 'Grpahic for the point click.

Set m_pAC = m_pMxDoc.ActiveView

'refresh the map
m_pAC.PartialRefresh esriViewGraphics, Nothing, Nothing
'
Dim pPoly As IPolygon4
Set pPoly = New Polygon

'Dim pPoly As IPolygonElement
'Set pPoly = New PolygonElement

Dim pBC As IBufferConstruction
Set pBC = New BufferConstruction

'Dim pBCProp As IBufferConstructionProperties
'Set pBCProp = pBC
'pBCProp.ExplodeBuffers = True

Set pPoly = pBC.Buffer(m_pElement.Geometry, 200)
Debug.Print pPoly.Length ' RETURNS 1256.63706143592

'pBC.ConstructBuffers
Dim pFeat As IFeature
Dim pfeatureCursor As IFeatureCursor
Dim pfeatureBuffer As IFeatureBuffer

Set pfeatureBuffer = m_pBufferFClass.CreateFeatureBuffer
Set pfeatureCursor = m_pBufferFClass.Insert(True)
Set pFeat = pfeatureBuffer

pfeatureCursor.InsertFeature pfeatureBuffer
pfeatureCursor.Flush
Set pFeat.Shape = pPoly

m_pAC.PartialRefresh esriViewGeography, Nothing, Nothing

Where am I going wrong? Also has anyone got any code examples with creating multiple buffers at various distances?
Answer: Stupid mistake
the line
Set pFeat.Shape = pPoly

should have been above
pfeatureCursor.InsertFeature pfeatureBuffer
pfeatureCursor.Flush


Photos showing growth - ideas?

Question: I've been taking monthly pictures of baby in his crib each month with a certain teddy bear from 0-12 months.  He's at 13 months now and I'd like to keep up the monthly teddy bear pictures, but he's already getting big to photograph in the crib.  Does anyone have any creative ideas for monthly pics from 13-24 months, preferably including the teddy bear?
Answer: I think it's a fantastic idea to have recurring photos of the kids where the location remains the same. Especially in the first 2 years, changes happen so fast... I have lots of photos but I have neglected the opportunity you mention.
At this age, your son can probably sit still for a few moments, so you should be able to sit him somewhere and snap a picture within a few seconds. (Caveat: my toddler is nuclear-powered and will not sit still for any number of seconds. I'm thinking he's a statistical outlier so this should not be a problem for you.)
As for locations, if you have a house or a garden it would be interesting to see the changes in season and, if you keep it up long, even the changes over the years. Friends of mine do make photos twice a year with all the kids sitting on a big rock in their garden, or standing next to a tree. You can really see how kids AND nature grows in those pictures.
If you don't have a house/garden (I don't), then pick a memorable location in your home, e.g. in the middle of the living room. Or pick an outdoor location, e.g. standing in front of the family car.
Comment: I have a nuclear one too.  It does make photos a little harder.
Comment: I did decide to go for outdoor pictures, especially appropriate with my little adventurer.  I've taken pictures on a little tricicle for 13, 14, and 15 months so far, with 16 months coming up soon.  It shows his growth and development of balance and other skills as learns to use the trike.
Answer: Does he have a favorite blanket or quilt to lie on and be photographed from above while the bears lies next to him? It would be obvious he's not standing up, of course, but if the blanket is his must-have companion then it's nice to have in the picture anyway.
An alternative is to find a picture of you from your childhood are replicate it. My mother-in-law was photographed in a particular dress as a very young girl, and then they repeated that picture of my wife. We, in turn, found the dress and took the very same pose of both of our daughters, and the combination of pictures is pretty fantastic. The more pictures of yourself that you could find to duplicate the better.
Comment: What an awesome idea to use the parents' childhood clothes!
Answer: My wife is a photographer, and she had tried something similar to this.  We had the baby propped up on a sofa between two teddy bears.  This wasn't working so we took a shelf off the wall and lay the teddy and baby on their backs then took the photos from above.
If you look carefully at the photos you can see what was done, but it has produced a really nice and repeatable result.
Hope that helps.

Photos showing growth - ideas?


Impedance Matching

Question: When viewing fast pulses on an oscilloscope, why is impedance matching required? I'm not totally clear on why. I'm guessing it is because I don't want 'ringing' and because I want signal integrity.
Comment: You might wish to read http://electronics.stackexchange.com/a/21788/5156
Answer: Yes. if you don't match impedances, there will be signal reflections from the unmatched interfaces, and your measurement will be distorted.
Answer: The problem is that a cable (or more technically a "transmission line") has a complicated behavior when it is no longer electrically short. Essentially if the cable lengt comes inthe order of the wavelength of the signals the voltage and current at the ouput are no longer the delayed voltage/current at the input. Instead the cable does a complex impedance transform.
Fortunately, this problem can be solved if the source or(!) the load connected to the cable has the same as the wave impedance of the cable (typically 50 Ohm). Then the cable will act again as a delay line. This is because the cable impedance transform leaves the values of cable impedance unchanged. If the cable is matched at one side it can be replaced by a delay line (if attenuation is neglected).
Note that only one of source or load needs to be matched not to get ringing. Ringing only occurs if both ends are unmatched. You need two reflections to get ringing.

Impedance Matching


Gnome 3 ppa was unstable until April 28th, so is it ok now?

Question: Everything I read said that the GNOME 3 PPA for Natty would be very experimental, cause sudden death, etc until April 28th.  Well, today is April 28th, so if I start using GNOME 3 from the PPA will it work entirely correctly now?
Comment: I think it will still break Unity.
Answer: The Desktop Team has been very busy getting Ubuntu 11.04 out the door. The transition to Gnome 3 is very big and there has not been sufficient time or attention put into the Gnome3 PPA so it is still experimental and not recommended for use.
In other words, installing the PPA and upgrading your system will definitely result in you having various issues even in Unity. The gsettings migration also causes many integration issues. I have previously lost work because of gnome-power-manager problems when the computer auto shut off because I was unaware that my laptop had become unplugged 2 hours previous.
Do not even attempt to use the PPA unless you are very familiar with how ppa-purge works.
For a smooth Gnome 3 experience on Ubuntu, wait 6 months for Ubuntu 11.10. The PPA may get better in the next few weeks but there are limits to what can be accomplished in a PPA.
Comment: I'm very familiar with ppa-purge, but I killed my system totally nevertheless :)
Answer: I read (source) that GNOME 3 will break Unity in 11.04 and the issue won't be fixed until 11.10.
If you don't mind losing Unity, there probably is a way to get GNOME 3 working correctly but it definitively won't be painless (as there is no official support).
If you want to experience GNOME 3 now, I suggest you check out Fedora 15 (currently in beta).
Comment: Actually, All I did was follow http://askubuntu.com/questions/22946/how-do-i-install-the-latest-version-of-gnome-3

Then disabled to proprietry graphics card driver, and lo and behold. perfect :D
Answer: It is possible to get Gnome3 working in Ubuntu 11.04(Unity, Ubuntu Classic and etc will not be available after install). Problem will arise when you will try to log in after the install. Not everybody is getting into trouble with it though, but some people do.
Another desktop environment should be installed like LXDE and then you should log in with installed desktop environment once, and then after that you can start using Gnome 3
Few articles that could be of a good use if you want to experiment
Article that refered Me here
Good article if you want to experiment with your system
I tried to install Gnome3 on my own and broke system twice but in the end I got it working, only the problem was that my video card is not supported by Gnome3, so make sure you have right graphics also, I went back to Ubuntu classic by reinstalling system PPA-PURGE did not help when tried to downgrade to previous gnome version.
Maybe with a bit more time there will be a solution, could not find it for now
Good Luck!


Chardonnay changed color when sparkkloid was added

Question: When making chardonnay wine, after the primary fermentation and 1st racking, we added sparkloid (as per instructions) and the wine immediately changed color.  Why is this?
Answer: Its because the sparkloid pulls stuff in suspension out of suspension.  Solids in suspension tend to make the wine (or beer) look lighter in color because it reflects more light back at you, as that stuff settles out the more light passes straight through and it appears darker.
Nothing to worry about.
To see this effect in action put a tsp of flour into a glass of red wine and stir.  It will look very light in color.  Then as the flour settles out it will get dark again.


How long will roux keep?

Question: I've made roux some time ago. Forgot to put the date on the container. How long will it keep in the fridge? I'll be making a sauce in a day or two...
Answer: Surely you figured something out by now, but here is what I would do. First, look closely and carefully for surface mold. Look around the rim of the container. If that is clear, smell the oil for rancidity. If it stinks, throw it out. At this point, it looks good and it smells good. I can't imagine a dish where the roux is not thoroughly heated, so unless you are pioneering some kind of cold ingredient, cold roux dish, I think you are good to go. The sealed roux in the fridge should behave like a confit and retard spoilage for a while. If you did a dark roux (like a cajun style) it should last a really long time. They sell it in jars in New Orleans supermarkets, and if memory serves, the jar said something like 90 days in the fridge after opening.
Answer: It should keep for a week or two, at least. Maybe more. This is assuming, of course, it was refrigerated. I would be worried about it picking up funky flavors from the other food in your refrigerator, though.

How long will roux keep?