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2 for 1 mealsMaximum of 2 peopleBooking requiredFriday restrictionSaturday restrictionAvailable December
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Moksha image

2 for 1 at Moksha

Found in New Malden, located on the outskirts of Greater London between Twickenham and Mitcham, is the exquisite Moksha restaurant.

An Indian restaurant with a contemporary flair, diners can treat themselves to a wealth of innovative Indian dishes that look as good as they taste.

Now accepting the tastecard discount, guests can indulge on every resplendent dish at a reduced price when calling in advance with their card.

Definitely a spot for lovers of all things Indian, Moksha offers considerably more than just a conventional curry. The quality of the award winning chef’s cooking can be seen within the very first course, where exemplary appetisers adorn the menu, such as the tantalising halloumi and paneer tikka, a blend of Indian cheeses marinated with garam masala and yogurt, and the irresistible pan grilled scallops, complete with chilli, coriander and a cauliflower puree.

With just as many diverse delicacies awaiting in the main course offering, guests will be spoiled for choice. Particularly merit worthy meals include the sumptuous jack fruit kofta curry, jack fruit dumplings simmered in a cashew nut sauce, the sumptuous monkfish moilee, complete with broccoli and khichdi fish, and the inferno conjuring Chettinadu Chicken, rich with mustard seeds, black peppers and coconut.

With much more to choose from diners are highly advised to visit Moksha for themselves and enjoy a divine experience, be it for a casual meal or a special occasion.

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Opto Diode (Newbury Park, CA) a division of ITW, has announced the second in the AXUV series of multi-element photodiodes. The new 20-element AXUV20ELG features a 22-pin, dual in-line package with 100 percent internal quantum efficiency (QE). Bolometry, the measurement of minute amounts of radiant energy, is a key application for this highly sensitive photodiode. The device is also ideal for electron detection, providing EUV-UV and UV-VIS-NIR photon responsivity (measured in amperes per watt).

The AXUV20ELG includes an active area of 0.75 mm x 4.1 mm and a sensitive area of 3 mm² per element. The reverse breakdown voltage is typically 25 volts and the capacitance is 40 pF maximum (at 25°C, per element). With a rise time of 200 nsec and shunt resistance (per element) at a minimum 100 MOhms, Opto Diode’s new 20-element photodiode provides exceptionally stable response after exposure to high energy radiation.

For Free Info Click Here

The U.S. Government does not endorse any commercial product, process, or activity identified on this web site.

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Special Coverage

Supercomputer Cooling System Uses Refrigerant to Replace Water
Computer Chips Calculate and Store in an Integrated Unit
Electron-to-Photon Communication for Quantum Computing
Mechanoresponsive Healing Polymers
Variable Permeability Magnetometer Systems and Methods for Aerospace Applicationst
Evaluation Standard for Robotic Research
Small Robot Has Outstanding Vertical Agility
Smart Optical Material Characterization System and Method
Lightweight, Flexible Thermal Protection System for Fire Protection

Carbon Nanotube-Assisted Microwave Healing of Thermally Re-Mendable Composites

Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas A method creates thermally healable composites using carbon nanotubes. Carbon nanotube microwave heating provides a pathway to overcome issues associated with electrical resistive heating networks. Carbon nanotubes embedded within a thermally reversible polymer can be heated by direct exposure to a microwave source. The heat generated by the nanotubes can drive the thermally reversible polymerization of the matrix. Because the microwave source can be focused, the composite can be locally heated at the point of damage thereby reducing the energy requirements for thermal healing. The carbon nanotubes can conform to any shape, allowing the manufacture of complex shapes without concern of damaging the heating network.

Posted in: Briefs, Materials, Composite materials, Nanotechnology, Radiation

Aluminoborosilicate Supplement for Thermal Protection of a Re-entrant Vehicle

This material can be used in aircraft, turbine engines, automobiles, and any application that requires thermal protection surfaces. Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California The Toughened Uni-piece Fibrous Reinforced Oxidation-Resistant Com posite (TUFROC) allows for much more affordable and sustainable operations involving Space Launch Services and other systems that utilize Earth reentry vehicles. TUFROC has an exposed surface design and appropriate materials combination that will allow a space vehicle to survive both the mechanical stresses of the initial ascent, and the extreme heating and stress of re-entry. It provides a thermal protection tile attachment system that is suitable for application to a space vehicle leading edge, and for other uses in extreme heating environments (up to 3600 °F, and possibly higher, for short time intervals).

Posted in: Briefs, Materials, Thermal management, Composite materials, Entry, descent, and landing, Spacecraft

Processing and Manufacture of Inorganic-Organic Hybrid Syntactic Structural Cryogenic Insulator

John H. Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio Reducing the cost and weight of launch structures is essential to meeting NASA goals for reliable access to space. Currently, separate systems are used for structure and pressure containment, cryogenic insulation, and high-temperature insulation. One way of reducing this cost and weight is through the development of multifunctional materials that can eliminate parasitic weight. Combining two functional components — structure and insulation — reduces weight and structural complexity, which usually is akin to fragility in the system, and minimizes the need for parasitic thermal protection and insulation systems.

Posted in: Briefs, Materials, Composite materials, Insulation, Launch vehicles, Lightweighting

Primer Stops Corrosion Without Requiring Rust Removal

Coating used on launch pads protects bridges, condominiums, and other structures from corrosion.In the mid-1990s, Surtreat Holding LLC, based in Pittsburgh, PA, developed two corrosion inhibitors that worked by chemical means, and were designed to be applied to the surface of concrete, where they would migrate to the steel rebar inside. By 1996, the formulas still had not been formally tested and validated.

Posted in: Articles, Coatings & Adhesives, Air transportation facilities, Coatings, colorants, and finishes, Corrosion, Iron

Low Friction Plastic Technology For Single-use Drug Delivery Devices

Start-up coefficient of friction and stick-slip (or “stiction”) elimination are dominant performance drivers in single-use drug delivery devices that have moving parts. RTP Company has completed a rigorous investigation that establishes and defines a new friction test to measure and compare plastic-against-plastic friction behavior that occurs at initial startup. This new test uses forces and speeds that characterize the action of injection pens, auto-injectors, stop cocks, inhalers, safety syringes and other devices. This paper describes the newly created friction test method, and its core data point known as Glide FactorSM, as well a series of tests to compare the friction behavior of select polymers and internal lubricants for use in single-use drug delivery devices. The use of internally lubricated plastics can eliminate costly secondary operations to apply a topical lubricant, reduce the total amount of silicone that reaches the patient via the device, and improve the overall quality of the device. The goal of this paper is to share a tribological database that enables device designers to screen plastic-on-plastic friction pairs to optimize safe and effective material selections.

Posted in: MDB, White Papers, White Papers, Coatings & Adhesives, Materials, Bio-Medical, Medical

Multifunctional Ablative Thermal Protection System

This material has applications in aerospace systems, manufacturing, and structural components requiring three-dimensional reinforcement. Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California The Orion crew module highlighting the compression pads in the heat shield. NASA has developed a unique and robust multifunctional material called 3-Dimensional Multifunctional Ablative (3DMAT) Thermal Protection System (TPS) that meets both the structural and thermal performance needs for a lunar return mission and beyond. 3DMAT uses a game-changing woven technology tailored to the needs of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) compression pad. Compression pads serve as the interface between the crew module and service module of the Orion MPCV. The compression pads must carry the structural loads generated during launch, space operations, and pyroshock separation of the two modules. They must also serve as an ablative TPS withstanding the high heating of Earth re-entry. 3DMAT leverages NASA’s investment in woven TPS to design, manufacture, test, and demonstrate a prototype material for the Orion compression pads that combines the weaving of quartz yarns with resin transfer molding.

Posted in: Briefs, Materials, Thermal management, Fibers, Resins, Entry, descent, and landing, Launch vehicles

Hierarchical Support for Nanocatalysts

Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas This work focused on enhancing catalyst activity and durability by developing a method to control size, dispersion, and exposure. Existing nanocatalysts are typically fabricated in bulk or powder form. There are monolithic catalysts, but they rely on meso-porous materials as supports. Bulk nanocatalysts suffer from a lack of complete exposure to reagents, counteracting the benefits of the nanoparticles. Catalysts upon meso-porous support have limited exposure due to diffusion distances through the porous support. This requires higher catalyst loading, and may lead to particle coalescence and deactivation.

Posted in: Briefs, Materials, Catalysts, Nanomaterials

The U.S. Government does not endorse any commercial product, process, or activity identified on this web site.


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Disable Highlighting Or Full Row Selection Feature In The Details View Of Windows Vista

Disable Highlighting Or Full Row Selection Feature In The Details View Of Windows Vista

In Windows Vista Explorer when you select to view folders and files in Details, a particular chosen row is highlighted for the whole line. However, for a file or folder itself, you can choose any details column and then select or highlight any file and folder. Windows Vista offers new performance different from Windows XP where Windows Explorer will be highlighted nearly on “Name” column.

The modifications have some advantages and disadvantages. The only one advantage is that you can pick a file or folder simply by clicking anywhere on the row. However, you should spend some time to become familiar with it. It is also little bit problematic or difficult when you have to right click on the background of the folder rather than opening properties of folder or file.

In addition to this you can’t unselect or deselect all chosen files or folders by just left-clicking on the blank space within Windows Explorer, as before. By default, this full row select feature is turned on, which makes it difficult to scroll to the edge or bottom, by avoiding the selectable items, to click on any empty space.

Now, it is possible to stop the feature of selecting the full row highlight in Windows Explorer of Vista OS. By stopping this feature you can select files or folders by just a mouse click or taking the mouse pointer above the “Name” column. Also you can highlight the selected file or/and folders to display them only on the “Name” field. Actually, there are are a small number of methods to stop the full row selection feature in Windows Vista OS.

1. Using Keith’s VBScript Method

A VBScript which has been created by Microsoft MVP Keith Miller is able to stop the full row selection feature in Vista operating system, without disturbing or changing the saved settings for folder views.

You can download and extract ClearFullRowSelect.zip file to stop full row select feature. After unzipping simply run the VBScript file named as ClearFullRowSelect.vbs. You should restart a computer or restart the Explorer.exe.

To reset back to the default Widows Vista, simply download RestoreFullRowSelect.zip and extract. Simply run the undo VBScript “RestoreFullRowSelect.vbs”.

2. Hacking Windows Registry

It needs the resetting of saved folder types and folder views. For hacking the registry download the file named as fullrowselect.zip. Extract that file and run the enclosed the file

disablefullrowselect.reg”. This will merge the extra registry keys. The feature to select full row will be turned off. Restart your PC or just restart explorer.exe application so as to make the modification successful.

An alternate method to this as follows.

  • Go to Start Menu à Run, type regedit, registry editor widow will be opened. Navigate to the following registry sub key.

Then add a new DWORD (32-bit) value named as a FullRowSelect in the sub key. Set the value data as 0.

After this you should reset and remove the saved settings for folder views in the registry window. Because the folders along with this data will disregard the value of FullRowSelect plus, you need to use the setting as of their own equivalent Bags registry key (Flags value below the Bags registry sub key that saves the settings into DWORD value) in its place. For this reason you should navigate and delete the next registry sub keys:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft \Windows\Shell\Bags

To revert back to original default settings in Vista, you can apply the registry file named as enablefullrowselect.reg within the ZIP archive. For users having a preference to DIY, remove the value name of FullRowSelect. Then rearrange the folder views settings details.

Restart Windows Vista or restart explorer.exe to take effect the full change.

3. Using the Explorer Plug-in “QT TabBar“

The Explorer plug-in QT TabBar is especially designed for Windows. This plug-in offers folder grouping option, tab browsing, histories and many other features. By using QTTabBar you can stop full row select feature in Vista.

  • First of all download and then install QTTabBar.
  • Launch Explorer.
  • Press Alt” button to display the classic menu.
  • You need to right-click on blank space in the right side of classic menu. Go for QT Tab Bar to display its bar.
  • Click on the Options button.
  • Go to the Misc. option.
  • There is a checkbox for the Full row selection in details view option, just uncheck it.
  • Confirm the alternative of Hide menu bar.
  • Hit OK. Disregard whichever error that displays.
  • Restart Windows Explorer to create the modifications successful.

If you are switching as of a different type of folder view to “Details” view type then the feature full-row selection will possibly be enabled within the existing directory. You can resolve and fix this issue by changing to one more folders. After that view the previous folder, you will see that the folder view now doesn’t perform full row selection.


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    We're a well-funded startup, building a social platform for the design world. Although still in beta, we already have a fast-growing community of high-caliber designers, in the areas of physical object and space design. The market validation we're receiving is very strong: 99% of those that see it want to join. . We’re looking for a marketing and community superstar to grow our design communities and build relationships at scale. The role requires an exceptional communicator, who is super organised and comfortable w… View job >


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System testing to validate documentation, training, and usability

System tests don't stop with the technology. Your programs should be usable and well documented--and don't forget the user training. Learn about how system testing plays into these aspects of your applications.

System testing is a collection of tests designed to verify that a program or system of programs is ready for production. In the previous two articles on system testing, we looked at performance and stress testing and security testing and requirements testing. But many other aspects of system testing may be applicable for your projects. Not all of these aspects are directly related to an IT system, including two of the tests we’ll look at here: documentation and training testing. The third test we’ll discuss, usability testing, determines how easy and intuitive the system is for people to interact with.

Documentation testing
Do you know how frustrating it is to buy something that needs assembly, only to find that the instructions are vague or wrong? Imagine a user of your system trying to follow your procedures, only to find that crucial information is missing. Good documentation can keep frustration levels manageable and learning curves short.

The purpose of documentation testing is to thoroughly go through all written material that will be presented to the user as a part of implementation. In many cases, the customers themselves prepare this documentation, but that doesn’t mean it is correct. The testing needs to be done a few different ways.
  • Ask people who are unfamiliar with the application to follow all documented procedures. These should be written to provide step-by-step guidance on how to accomplish a given task. If the testers can’t successfully complete the procedures, the documentation needs to be improved.
  • Have people with strong English, punctuation, and grammar skills review all the material for professionalism and readability. It would be great to use professional proofreaders. Otherwise, use employees with strong written communication skills.
  • Try out all alternative ways that are documented to accomplish a task. In many cases, the primary way works, but the alternatives do not.
  • If you are describing policies or standards, make sure that the appropriate authorities in your organization review and approve your wording. You don’t want to misquote or misapply an important company policy.
  • Evaluate any manual forms, checklists, and templates to ensure that they are accurate and that the appropriate information is being collected.

If you have the right people identified for this test, and you go over all the manual documentation thoroughly, you will reduce or eliminate a source of frustration and resistance after the application is implemented.

Training testing
When do you first perform training on your application? Do you experiment with the first group of participants? A better approach is to test your training as a part of system testing. This implies that the training must be ready at this point in the life cycle and not created at the very end of the project. And, like all testing, you want to perform testing in a controlled test environment to ensure that it is effective, accurate, and bug-free.

First, you want to have your instructor practice all of the instructor-led training at least once. This will help prepare the instructor for the live classes and ensure that all the material is complete and prepared correctly. You don’t want the instructor to go into the first class and realize he or she doesn’t have color slides or necessary flipcharts, or that too many people have been invited.

In addition, you will want to run through and evaluate all the self-paced training, including computer-based training. Again, as in previous examples, have people who do not know of your application review the training to determine whether it is understandable.

In the case of distance learning, be sure of the technology you will be using and test it. Do you have all of the equipment you will need at your location? Will the remote locations have the appropriate equipment, as well as a proper environment (i.e., one free of distractions and interruptions) for learning? Is the training staff sufficiently comfortable with this training approach? Make sure that the technology is capable of supporting any remotely delivered multimedia training, self-paced or otherwise.

Training material is a deliverable of your project. It all needs to be tested for accuracy and defects before you roll it out for the first time.

Usability testing
Have you ever been on a project where you delivered all the functional and technical requirements the customer asked for and yet the users of the system complained that it was a piece of junk? If you haven’t, you’re lucky, because it happens fairly often. These are applications that are hard to use and difficult to learn.

Usability doesn’t come directly from the business requirements. While you may have a requirement for an application to be easy to learn, usability decisions are made in the design phase. Most project teams don’t include human factors experts, but many commonsense techniques will ensure that a system is simple to navigate and easy to understand. You can design a separate usability test as part of the system test to validate that the end users understand and use the system to its fullest.

In general, you don’t want IT people to perform the usability tests. The users, or people who have not seen the application, are the best candidates. Since this is a subjective test, a survey can work well. Have a group of users access the system and carry out scenarios that mirror their normal jobs. Then, using a 1-through-5 scale, ask them how satisfied they were in the following areas:
  • Ease of navigation from screen to screen
  • Ability to spot necessary navigation boxes and buttons
  • Overall complexity of the screens
  • Color schemes used on the screens
  • Error messages and the ability to understand what was required to correct errors
  • Availability and clarity of online help
  • Sharpness of graphics, charts, and graphs
  • Consistency among different screen sizes, browsers, and other hardware types

As you can see, usability is mostly an online concern, but you can perform usability surveys for batch reports too. These and other questions can help determine whether the application is usable. If survey questions are rated low, ask for specific examples. Performing usability testing and correcting poorly designed screens and reports can go a long way toward ensuring that the application will be successfully adopted by the customers when it is implemented.

Make it effective for the users
If your customers won’t use your application, there isn’t much point in creating it. Keep the following points in mind as you determine whether you’re providing the best materials you can to help them learn and use the system and you verify how usable your application is.
  • Documentation testing ensures that all written material designed to supplement or assist the user is understandable and accurate.
  • Training is also a deliverable of your project. It should be tested in a controlled environment to make sure that the material educates the attendees as expected.
  • Many factors make the difference between full and partial success on a project. One key consideration is how the system interacts with the users.
  • Usability testing ensures that the system is understandable and can be fully utilized by the people who need to interact with it.
  • Usability testing is not just for online operations. Batch reports, for example, should also be verified with users.

Next steps
We’ve covered most of the aspects of system testing, but three tests are left. The next article will cover disaster recovery testing, multisite testing, and interface testing. After that, we will be on to the last of the major testing stages—user acceptance testing.

Project management veteran Tom Mochal is director of internal development at a software company in Atlanta. Most recently, he worked for the Coca-Cola Company, where he was responsible for deploying, training, and coaching the IS division on project management and life-cycle skills. He's also worked for Eastman Kodak and Cap Gemini America and has developed a project management methodology called TenStep.

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Tackle trouble tickets with the Keystone Web Problem Tracker

The Keystone Web Problem Tracker is a simple-to-use Help Desk ticket tracking application. Check out Vincent Danen's walk-through of this Web-based help desk wonder.

Do you need a central repository for sharing information regarding help desk issues or other sundry tasks? If you work in an environment providing customer support, chances are, you probably have one or need one. Such an application should be able to track customer support issues, jobs, or tasks for various groups and have a history that can be tracked.

Many such applications are available, but they cost a bundle. They aren't very portable, either; you purchase licenses for one operating system, and you can only use the product there. That forces people who prefer to use a different operating system to change in order to access the software, creating additional cost.

A Web-based application like Keystone solves the problem of portability and keeps costs down. It was designed to help a workgroup keep track of issues and jobs via a singular, shared, central, and OS-independent application. The only requirement on any OS is a Web browser. Keystone was designed specifically for IT departments where quick access to shared data, and the data's history, is a must.

In this Daily Drill Down, I’ll take a look at installing and configuring Keystone. You’ll see that it can offer your department or organization an affordable and efficient platform-independent tracking application.

Installing Keystone
You’ll need a few components prior to installing Keystone, but they’re fairly standard. You’ll need PHP version 3 or 4 installed; Keystone was written for PHP3 but seems to work fine with PHP4, as well. You’ll also need a Web server—Keystone recommends Apache—and a database server, such as MySQL or PostgreSQL. (The Keystone site indicates that testing has been done only with MySQL.)

The next step is to download Keystone from its Web site. You’ll need to agree to the author's licensing terms, which are quite odd, before you download it. In some cases, you can use it for free, and in others you’ll pay the author a yearly licensing fee. Download and save the keystone-0_74_00.tar.gz file to your top-level Web root directory. For instance, if you run your Web site from /var/www/html, save the file there and unpack it using the following to create a subdirectory called keystone/:
tar xvzf keystone-0_74_00.tar.gz

In this way, you’ll be accessing your Keystone installation by going to At this point, change to the directory keystone/conf/. Copy the keystone.conf.default and colors.conf.default files to keystone.conf.

With your favorite editor, edit the keystone.conf file. This is the primary configuration file for Keystone, and it will let you configure the most important aspects of the system.

For the most part, the defaults in the keystone.conf file should be fine. You’ll need to change a few of the defaults and make them site-specific. The configuration file is a simple PHP file so all configuration options are specified by variables. You’ll have to hop around in the file a bit to find and change these options. This line defines the base URL for your Keystone installation:
$sys_url = "";

This URL is used when generating e-mail messages. You’ll want to change it to reflect the IP address (or URL) and the base directory of your Keystone installation. For example, if you installed Keystone in /var/www/html on a server with an IP address of, you’d configure the following for the $sys_url option:

These variables define the database connection:
$sys_dbhost   = "localhost";
$sys_dbname   = "keystone";
$sys_dbuser   = "keystone";
$sys_dbpasswd = "secret";

These entries are default upon installation. $sys_dbhost is the hostname for the SQL database and $sys_dbname is the database name itself. $sys_dbuser and $sys_dbpasswd are the SQL user name and password, respectively, for access to the Keystone database.
$sys_server = "mysql";

This is the database type you’ll be using. You can choose MySQL, PostgreSQL, or Sybase. The default (and recommended) database server is MySQL.
$sys_company    = "My Company";
$sys_m_from     = "";
$sys_f_from     = "";
$sys_website    = "";
$sys_sendmail   = "/usr/sbin/sendmail";
$sys_smtpserver = "localhost";

These variables define some site-specific details concerning e-mail and your Web site. The first defines your company name, and the second defines the primary Keystone e-mail address. $sys_f_from defines the follow-up Keystone e-mail address. The next line is the URL for your Web site, and the one after that is the full path to the sendmail binary; change the path if the sendmail binary isn’t installed in /usr/sbin. Finally, $sys_smtpserver defines the SMTP server to send messages through. This is perhaps one of the most important variables in the configuration file and absolutely must be changed:
$sys_serverkey = " Keystone server";

This key is used to encrypt your login information, so it must be unique. Also, this will prevent people from using logins from other systems on your Keystone server, so it’s important that this key is unique and perhaps somewhat site-specific. It can be as long as you want, and it might be helpful to use some variation of your company name or e-mail address here.

You can alter a few more configuration options. With these two configurations, you can define where attachments can be stored and their maximum size:
$sys_attachdir = /var/www/html/keystone/attachments";
$sys_attachsiz = 100000;

The first variable determines the directory that attachments will be stored in, and the second determines the maximum size of attachments.

The colors.conf file contains color and various layout definitions so you can change the look and feel of your Keystone setup.

The next step is to create the database and tables that Keystone will use. If you’re using MySQL (which I’ll assume here), execute the following on the command line. (You’ll need to know the root password here.)
mysqladmin -u root -p create keystone

MySQL root password
If this is the first time you’ve run MySQL, you’ll have to change root’s password with the following command:
mysqladmin –u root password mynewpassword

Note that the first entry password is actually what you enter; the second entry, mynewpassword, is the new password you wish to use for your database.

When you run it as the MySQL administrator, this will create the keystone database after prompting you for your password. Next, you’ll change to the keystone/struct/ directory to import the MySQL tables. Each database type in this directory has about 34 files, and you’ll be required to import each one. If you have to enter a password each time you connect to the database, this can be a little trying. I have no idea why the author thought using 34 files instead of one was a good idea. At any rate, to make your life a little simpler, you can use the following at the Linux command line (or any other bash or csh shell):
for i in *.mysql; do mysql -u root -p keystone < $i; done

This will loop through every *.mysql file in the directory and execute the MySQL import command. Again, you’ll need to enter your password numerous times, so get ready for some repetitive typing.

When you’ve finished, you’ll be ready to log in to your Keystone system and make your configuration changes through the administrator interface.

Setting up Keystone
Next, point to your new Keystone site, which might be as simple as pointing your browser to (or wherever you have it installed). If nothing shows up, or if you get an error, you may have to edit your Apache configuration file /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf to allow it to use .php3 extensions, or you may have to make sure your Web server is running. To check to see if httpd is running, enter this command:
/etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd status

If you get the message httpd is stopped, run this command:
/etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd start

Check to make sure that the DirectoryIndex keyword includes index.php3 among the other index page types. It may look something like this.

You may also have to check your AddType definitions to make sure that .php3 files are being referenced. If you use PHP3, this will be the case; if you use PHP4 (which prefers .php to .php3), you may have to change things slightly, as follows:
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php .php3 .phtml
AddType application/x-httpd-php-source .phps

If you need to make these changes, restart Apache and point your browser to your Keystone site. You should see the login page. Log in with the default user admin and the password abc123. After you’ve logged in, you’ll be ready to continue configuring Keystone; you still have a number of steps to take before it will be ready for everyday use.

When you first log in, click on Other and then Password. Here, you can change the password for the admin user. This should be your very first step because the admin password is default and the same for all versions of Keystone; anyone else who has used Keystone will know the password if you don't change it immediately.

Next, click Other | Maint to open the Maintenance menu; here, you can do a lot of customization and configuration for your site. First, you should create unique login names and passwords for every person who will be using Keystone. Every person that uses Keystone should have his or her own account; this will help in history tracking.

Click on the People link. The screen that comes up allows you to add or modify users. It will give you a list of users currently on the system, along with their last login information. Before each user name are two links: Edit and Dlte (Delete). To add a new user, click on the Add A New Row button. This adds a new row to the People table in the database. (It’s unfortunate that the author chose this method, as it looks very unprofessional. In my opinion, the system should seem transparent from the database instead of looking like a front end to the database.)

At any rate, when you decide to add a new user, you’ll be asked for some basic information. You can define the login name, the full name, e-mail address, and company name. Leave the lastlog and password fields blank. You need to use the Password screen to change the user passwords, which is not intuitive but is due to the fact that the passwords are stored as an MD5 value. After you’ve added all of the users who’ll be using the Keystone system, set all of their passwords using the Password interface.

You can also define special groups for use within Keystone. By default, the two groups defined are admin and tech. Any users in the admin group will have special administrator privileges. To add or edit the groups, click on the Groups link on the Maintenance page. To add a new user to any group, simply click on the Edit link next to the group name and add the user names in the g_people column. Each user name must be separated from the next by a space.

To add a new group, click on the Add New Row button and fill in the values. The g_assign column specifies whether this group can be used when assigning slips to certain groups; answer either Y for yes or N for no.

Finally, click on the Status Codes link from the Maintenance screen. The Status Codes can be assigned to slips for your site, so you should review them to make sure they’re appropriate for your needs. By default, the status codes are Unassigned, Active, Inactive, Open, and Closed. You can add or delete as many status codes as you like.

You’ll also want to edit a few other sections in the Maintenance screen. Edit the Tables used for Version Control and Bugtracking. Here, you can define the platforms for your company products, modules, products, product versions, and resolution codes. This is the information people will use when opening up new trouble tickets, which Keystone calls slips. You should go through every section and make any needed changes to make Keystone work appropriately with your business.

Entering a slip
To see Keystone in action, log out the admin user and go back to the main login screen. At the bottom right of the screen, click on the Add A New Slip button. Here, you’ll be asked to enter your e-mail address, a category, a one-line description, and details on the problem. Enter a sample trouble ticket here and then submit the slip. At the right, click the Return To Login button and then log in as admin or any other user you defined to return to the main screen.

Click on the Slips link on the left to see a list of the entered slips. To view a slip in detail, click on the number associated with it. Here, you’ll be able to modify information on the slip. You can add follow-up information on the slip and include the amount of time spent on the problem. Keystone keeps track of time spent in minutes, so if you spent an hour, enter a value of 60.

You can also add attachments, which you can upload and have stored on the server. You can modify the slip information by changing the problem text and details or changing to whom it is assigned and the status of the slip. You can change priority information, contact information, and whether or not the problem will be publicly viewable. If you choose to change version information, you can select products, modules, etc. that you defined in the Version Control section of the Maintenance screen.

Keystone will take a little getting used to, and you’ll want to do some customization to make it work appropriately for your business or department. It certainly has the potential to be a powerful problem-tracking system capable of assigning problems to individual users or groups.

While I think it could have been made less obvious that it’s a Web front end for a database, this can easily be overlooked once you start tapping the potential of the system. With the features and functions it allows, Keystone can almost become overwhelming if you let it. Take it slowly, one section at a time, and experiment with it a little bit. Getting used to it should be simple enough, and you’ll find you have an easy-to-use problem-tracking system that can save time and money for your department or business.

About Vincent Danen

Vincent Danen works on the Red Hat Security Response Team and lives in Canada. He has been writing about and developing on Linux for over 10 years and is a veteran Mac user.

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This To-Do List Manager is Top-Notch and Free

If you're the sort of person who buys self-help books aimed at busy people, you've almost certainly heard of David Allen.  He's the inventor of a concept called GTD, or Getting Things Done.  It's not so much a way of managing your to-do list, but more a way of life.

Wieldy is a free to-do list manager, which its author claims is modelled on the GTD concept.  It runs under Windows XP and above, and provides a friendly, intuitive way to manage and prioritise all your tasks and thoughts, and keep track of contacts. It uses a Ribbon-like interface, and I actually think it looks a lot like Microsoft Outlook.

It's a tiny download, at 0.8 MB, and doesn't even need installing.  Just unzip, then double-click the Wieldy.Client file.   If you don't like it, just delete the folder and you're done.   You can get it from (the author's German but the software and web site are in English).

Handily, the program stores all its data (ie, all your thoughts, contacts and tasks) in an XML file rather than any proprietary database format.  So getting information into, or out of, the program is relatively simple.

Just make sure that you don't end up spending so long managing your tasks and thoughts that you don't actually have time to do any real actions or thinking!

If you like this, and you have a Hot Find that you think deserves to be featured on this site, let me know.  See

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The new HomeSwapper app has arrived!
9:"2016-06-22"; 9:"";

Now available to download for iOS and Android mobile devices from the App Store FOR FREE!

The app will give you instant access to your HomeSwapper account for quicker matches and messaging. You will only be asked to log in once using either your HomeSwapper or Facebook credentials.

*We must have approved your account before you can log in on the app.

Great features on the app including:

  • Push notifications for alerts
  • Instant messaging
  • Instant matching
  • Swiping function to flick through ads or deleting messages
  • Facebook log in

We expect this app will produce more traffic to the site therefore greatly improving your chances of swapping.


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Thursday 23 March 2017

Christina Hendricks: I felt 'invisible' before Mad Men

Christina Hendricks, the curvaceous star of Mad Men, has told how she felt ostracised in Hollywood before winning her part in the hit US drama.

Joan Harris, played by Christina Hendricks, in Mad Men
Joan Harris, played by Christina Hendricks, in Mad Men Photo: AMC

The size 14 actress, who plays the sassy secretary Joan Harris, was last month praised physical role model by the equalities minister Lynne Featherstone.

But Hendricks said she was made to feel “invisible” when she first moved to Los Angeles where the show is filmed.

The 35-year-old, who swept to instant fame in her role as the flame-haired secretary in the drama, which is shown on BBC Four, also disclosed that she does not feel she fully belongs in showbusiness.

She said: “I’ve never quite felt like I fitted in. It’s as if I was invisible before Mad Men. Now people come up and say: ‘God, I love the show, I’m so-and-so,’ and I’m like, ‘I know, I had dinner with you three years ago’.”

But refused to lose weight despite being repeatedly told that she was too big to win starring roles.

Hendricks, who was voted the “Sexiest Woman Alive” by female readers of Esquire magazine in May, added that she does not receive much male attention in Los Angeles.

“In LA you’re always in your car and you’re separated from people. I don’t get hit on much in LA,” she said in an interview with GQ magazine.

The actress has previously spoken out about the difficulties she has encountered as a larger woman in Hollywood.

She said earlier this year in an interview with Glamour magazine: “It is difficult come awards season, and I need to find a gown to walk down the red carpet in, and there are only size zeros and size twos available.

“Then it becomes downright annoying because all these designers are saying, "We love Mad Men, we love Christina, but we won’t make her a dress."'

Last month, she was praised as an “absolutely fabulous” physical role model by the equalities minister Lynne Featherstone.

“We need more of these role models. There is such a sensation when there is a curvy role model. It shouldn’t be so unusual,” the Liberal Democrat minister said.

But Hendricks disclosed to GQ that she is not as self-confident in real life as her feisty character.

“It’s fun to play a woman who’s so sure of herself, who walks around with incredible posture and her chin up,” she said.

“When you put on the girdle and the long-line bra and the pencil skirt and the sweater, you just start walking a different way. That’s just how it is. And when you take it all off, Joan just disappears.”

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Thursday 23 March 2017

Odlanier Solis poses a real threat to Vitali Klitschko and David Haye's heavyweight hegemony

The ongoing imbroglio enveloping David Haye and the brothers Klitschko could be complicated even further by unbeaten Cuban Odlanier Solis in Cologne on Saturday night when the former Olympic champion challenges Vitali for the World Boxing Council throne.

Odlanier Solis poses a real threat to Vitali Klitschko and David Haye's heavyweight hegemony
Packing a punch: Odlanier Solis is ready to take the fight to Vitali Klitschko on Saturday night Photo: EPA

There have been whispers in a low-key build-up that Solis, in shape, might just be the right man, in the right place, at the right time.

Solis, 30, 6ft 2in, remains an enigma in the division, carrying as decent a pedigree as any of the legitimate challengers out there for the title. He won the Olympic title in Athens, and multiple world amateur titles.

Heavy handed too, the defector from Cuba has ballooned and weighed as much as 271lb for one of his 17 career victories — no defeats — in a four-year assignment in the heavyweight spectrum.

The signs were promising on Friday when he weighed in almost 25lb lighter than that [17st 8.5lb], in preparation to face 39-year-old Klitschko at the Lanxess Arena. Klitschko was 2½lb heavier than the challenger at 17st 11lbs.

Lennox Lewis, the former undisputed king of the heavyweights, this week praised the longevity of his old foe Klitschko — and in particular in his WBC heavyweight reign – having retired after beating the giant Ukrainian on cuts in their fight in Los Angeles in 2003.

“Vitali was one of the toughest opponents I ever faced,” purred Lewis. “He will have all the advantages against Solis. To continue winning at his age and to still have the drive that he does is amazing.”

Klitschko has a career record of 41 wins, two losses.

British heavyweight David Price, an emerging talent who stands at 6ft 8in, has been sparring with Solis ahead of this contest, and believes an upset could be on the cards. But he reckons it will depend on which Solis turns up.

“He baffled me,” said Price. “There were times we sparred when I thought that he was one of the very best.

“On other occasions I thought either I was world class right now or he was ordinary. Solis could be in the right place, at the right time.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he fought similar to what David Haye did against Nikolai Valuev and used footwork to stay out of trouble and nick rounds.”

If Solis has the hunger to do just that, the heavyweight division that has been dominated by Haye and Klitschko talks for two years might have to make room for a new headline maker.

Yet Klitschko remains a tough prospect. He will stay as champion, unless Solis implements the perfect strategy.

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text:
Toolbar with Frames

2 posts, 0 answers
  1. Chris Thierry
    Chris Thierry avatar
    138 posts
    Member since:
    Jun 2010

    Posted 17 Jun 2010 Link to this post

    Hi, I'm trying to create a toolbar in one xaml page named ParentOne with the navigation frame of Silverlight, basically images at the top of my Silverlight page and when I click in one image, I call another xaml page named for example ChildOne.

    Inside ChildOne I have Telerik Charts and Grids under a TileView. ChildOne appears under my frame, but when I click over one of the tileview item, all the controls dissappear.

    What is the best way of creating a toolbar that it calls to different pages, is good for using a frame? Telerik owns some similar control that allows me to make the same operation? , Which is the best option than Telerik offers for navigation between pages?

    if it needs, I can send you my project if you can take a look.

    Thanks again!
  2. Miro Miroslavov
    Miro Miroslavov avatar
    588 posts

    Posted 23 Jun 2010 Link to this post

    Hello Chris Thierry,

    Currently we don't have special navigation control, but our Toolbar having Hyperlink buttons and a Frame is great option.
    About the disappearing  of the TileView, can you give us more details? Or if you have project that demonstrates the issue, you can send us and we will check if everything is ok.
    Thank you.

    Miro Miroslavov
    the Telerik team
    Do you want to have your say when we set our development plans? Do you want to know when a feature you care about is added or when a bug fixed? Explore the Telerik Public Issue Tracking system and vote to affect the priority of the items
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Got To Dance 2013 final results: Who won? Lukas McFarlane

Lukas McFarlane has won Got To Dance 2013 in tonight's final results show.

Tonight was the final of Got to dance 2013, with 10 acts going head to head as they competedfor a £250,000 prize.

Ruff Diamond, Gymtasia, Lukas McFarlane, Tom Hughes-Lloyd, Mini Moves, Rhys Yeomans, Rory O’Shea, IMD, Godson and Antic all danced again in the final live show for both the public and the judges.

While Aston Merrygold, Ashley Banjo and Kimberly Wyatt's critiqued the performances and awarded the much sought after gold stars, it was be the public votes alone which decided who won and walked away as got to dance champion 2013.

After all ten acts performed for the first time the lines opened and were the frozen in the second show, with the top three acts - Gymtasia Evolution, Ruff Diamond and Lukas - all performing again.

After the votes for each of the final three were counted in this evening's second live show, Lukas McFarlane came out on top.

Tonight's final also saw a performance from the show's Ashley Banjo as part of Diversity.

Do you agree with the results? Add your comments below...

Browse pictures of the Got To Dance 2013 finalists below...

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  • Dominique Edwards

    Absolutley!!!! So glad Lukas won!!! The emotion he brought to his performance was another level. Inspiring to say the least!

  • diddy

    A well deserved talented winner, just keep watching him again and again, he is fantastic. Thought Ruff Diamond and Godson fab too, the rest were not up to final standard, too many kids, the couple who did salsa last week should have been in the final pure talent.


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Amaya and Mantu a Fresh Start

Hi guys i am a big fan of mantu and amaya.this is my first fanfiction on them.

kagana gets cured and thanks amaya.rama comes amaya and says i have got a government job and hugs her. Amaya does not hug me back.he says i want to tell her something special in special way,please come to this resturant today and leaves,amaya is suprised whereas kangana teases her,amaya hopes rama did not fall in love with me because i cannot break his heart but truth is i love only mantu whoever i marry my heart is already given to him as she thinks of mantu ,she imagines him standing there and goes to hug him but he disappears,amaya where have u gone mantu my eyes are pleading his face from 9 months and cries thinking about him.

scene 2:london
a big office a man enters in suite and gives presentation,all are impressed and he gets the deal, someone comes and tells him he is london’s multimillioner and of the most eligble bachleor of london ,if he marries his daughter he will become more rich ,the man smiles and says sorry i cannot marry anyone i love someone because of her i am here her love gave her strength to become what i am in 9months and leaves,he comes to his cabin and take a photo of amaya and says i could stop your marriage because nor had i strength nor power but not this time, i have both and i am coming to u because i know u love ur mantu a lot .just then a man comes sir ur banaras tickets of tomorrow.mantu is happy, i will come soon amaya.

precap:amaya is sad whereas mantu is happily packing his gift for amaya dheere dheere plays

Credit to: Tina

    • Oooh la la really I jus loved dat serial yaar !! Hey sorry yaar I donno bcoz I actuly hv no tym dats y I never tried to no !! But I will wait 4 d story !!!!

  1. leah

    OMG Tina u r fab!!!!!!! ?????????I luv it. I luv it………???
    I am so excited about the rest. OMG I have no words to describe the good u did to me.
    plsssss continue.

  2. Ancita

    Thank u so much for writing ur own fiction..
    It’s 100 times better than the actual track… It re ignites our love for manya… loved it..???

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text:
Kalash 5th April 2016 Written Episode Update

Kalash 5th April 2016 Written Episode, Written Update on TellyUpdates.com

Scene 1
Navi solves Ravi’s problem of contract, she says you will to solve my problem too. I have one conference to attend abroad, i want you to come with there, we will attend it, Ravi says i have promised me take devika to veshnudevi, i will give you time after coming from there, Navi asks if he promise to give her time after that? i mean give time to business? he says ofcourse, Ravi starts to leave but Navi hugs him and says i love you.
Sakshi comes to Devika and says Monty is doing Navi’s job, i dont know why Navi is so sweet with us? that Saket is planning something too, he has given job to Vikas, he made Monty work for Navi, Devika asks if Ravi knows all that? Sakshi asks if Ravi didnt tell her anything? she says no.
Navi says to Ravi that i love you, Ravi pushes her away

and says i am married, Navi says i love you more than Devika, i can give your brothers job too, Ravi says i never thought anything like that about you, you remember when you closely danced with me, you changed my clothes once too, Ravi says i never did it, Navi says you proposed me too, Ravi says i never proposed you, i always loved Devika, this cant be possible as i have Devika in my life, remember one thing i love only and only Devika and no one can separate us, i am leaving your job rightnow, he leaves, Navi says Ravi doesnt love me? he left me alone, he didnt accept my love? she gets angry.
Devika says Ravi must be busy in work thats why he must have forgotten to tell me, Sakshi says yes, he must have been busy, i am sorry i didnt mean to say anything that there is something between Ravi and Navi, Devika says you dont want Monty to work for Navi thats why you are saying all this, i will talk to Ravi, Sakshi leaves, Devika thinks that what Navi wants? why she is so nice with my family? Sakshi thinks if there is something between Navi and Ravi? Devika thinks why Ravi didnt tell me anything, she tries to do pooja but cant concentrate, she says i should talk to Ravi then everything will be fine. Devika calls Ravi, Ravi is packing his stuf in office, he says if i talk to her rightnow then she will understand that i am in tension, he cuts her call, Devika says why did he cut my call? what i am thinking? he must be busy in work, when he will come home then i will talk to him calmly, in office Ravi thinks that i should go home and tell everything to Devika calmly.
Ravi is leaving office, Navi stops him and says i wanna talk to you, Ravi says this is not right time, Navi stops him and says i fought with dad, i lost my confidence, he doesnt trust me, i feel i have no one and i depend on people whom i trust, you are my best friend and now leaving me? Ravi says after knowing what you feel, i cant work with you, you will hurt yourself more seeing me, i dont want to hurt you, i am leaving, Navi says if you leave then my guilt will increase too, i will feel that i destroyed my career, i accept that i had developed feelings for you but i will forget them, i like Devika alot, i can never break your relation with Devika, it was weak moment, i am sorry, Navi cries, Ravi says to Navi that dont cry, i cant see any women crying, Navi says i dont know, i misunderstood things, i should have controlled my emotions, i dont know how it happened, forgive me, dont leave this company, dont break our friendship, i gave job to Monty as i thought all family members will like it, till you and Devika are together, i will never come closer to you, please dont go, Ravi nods, she asks him to sit in her car, she will drop home, Ravi sits in car.

Scene 2
Ravi comes back home, he goes to washroom, Devika thinks that he seems tensed, should i talk to him about Sakshi’s matter or not? Ravi comes out of washroom, Rvi says i am not hungry, you eat, Devika says but i have made your favorite dish, Ravi says i am not hungry, she goes to sleep, Devika thinks what happened to him? he seems tensed, she closes door and sits on bed, Ravi turns otherside, he thinks how to tell Devika what happened, he recall how DEvika said that she doubts Navi behind kidnapping, he thinks i cant tell her anything, Devika thinks dont know what tension he has, i just pray that his tension goes off, she looks at him and lies down, she turns otherside, Ravi looks at Devika and thinks that Ambe Maa keep Devika happy always, i can never let her be in problem, humnava plays.
Navi recalls how Ravi said that he only loves Devika, she gets tensed, she says what should i do, should i break their marriage? or should i do something that Devika goes off from Ravi’s life.
its morning, Devika comes out of washroom, Ravi says you take so much time in washroom, Devika says beautiful girls take time in washroom, Ravi says what you girls do in washroom that you take so much time? Devika says dont say all this, you look same even after taking bath, Ravi says really? i dont like i have taken bath? Devika says you look so beast, you look villain in this beard, Ravi is stunned, he says you want me to remove beard and get clean shaved? Devika says this is nice idea, you will look innocent in clean shave, you look villain in it, Ravi goes to washroom.

PRECAP- Navi says to Saket that dont talk about kidnapping everytime, you know anyone can listen, they turn to see Manju standing there, Manju stares them, Navi and Saket gets tensed thinking if she listened their conversation about kidnapping or not.

Update Credit to: Atiba

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News ad 12

News ad image

Prabhas to join regular shoot this month end

Saturday, March 18, 2017 - 11:15

The action-adventure thriller that Prabhas has agreed to do in the direction of Sujith will commence its regular shoot from this month end. The first schedule will last 15 days. The movie was recently launched.

Prabhas has already lost weight and has gone for makeover. He appeared with his new look at recent trailer launch event of 'Baahubali 2'. A small teaser will be made from the portion shot in this first schedule and the teaser will be attached to the prints of 'Baahubali 2'. The movie will be released in Telugu, Tamil and Hindi languages.

Heroine for the movie is yet to be finalised. UV Creations is producing the film. Reports say the movie's budget is pegged at Rs 150 Cr. Hollywood stunt master Kenny Bates of 'Transformer' series fame will be canning major action sequences in Dubai for the movie.


text:
• 5 January 2017

    Advanced Armour

    New Survivability Quarterly out now
    Survivability Quarterly Winter 2015 Front

    We are happy to present 2017's first edition of TenCate Advanced Armour's quarterly newsletter, Survivability Quaterly.

    In this edition, we take a look into the capabilities of our factory in France and how they have built on their technology and exteded their product portfolio into aviation products. We also take a brief view on how TenCate Advanced Armour can support police and law enforcement units to be better prepared to face riots. Lastly, we bring you an interview from Defence IQ that describes how TenCate Advanced Armour is approaching the Middle Eastern markets.

    Thank you for reading, and happy New Year from TenCate Advanced Armour.

    Read the magazine

  • 25 November 2016

    Advanced Armour

    French Minister of the Interior, Mr. Cazeneuve, Visits TenCate Advanced Armour France
    TenCate Advanced Armour France Minister of the interior Bernard Cazeneuve Primarette

    The French minister of the interior, accompanied by several senior government officials, local government, local police, gendarmerie, security specialists and a wide variety of press, visited the facilities of TenCate Advanced Armour in Primarette, France.

    Read more
  • 1 July 2016

    Advanced Armour

    Nieuw bij Outdoor Fabrics

    Graag stel ik me even aan u voor. Ik ben Rudolf Olde Monnikhof. Op 1 maart ben ik gestart als Marketing en Sales Manager bij TenCate Outdoor Fabrics en heb ik het stokje van Herman Klompenmaker mogen overnemen.

  • 22 June 2016

    Advanced Armour

    Continued Partnership for TenCate Grass and KNHB
    TenCate Grass and KNHB

    The Royal Dutch Hockey Association and turf producer TenCate Grass will continue their successful partnership, which began a few years ago at the World Cup Hockey in The Hague. As part of the collaboration, the artificial turf hockey pitch for the new Wagener stadium by TenCate Grass will be equipped with the latest GreenFields® TX surface. This pitch will be built in time for the 2017 European Field Hockey Championships.

  • 2 May 2016

    Advanced Armour

    TenCate Advanced Armour at Farnborough International Airshow 2016
    TenCate Advanced Armour at Farnborough International Airshow 2016

    TenCate Advanced Armour will attend this year's Farnborough International Airshow 11-15 July. We will be present at together with TenCate Advanced Composites. Come to hall 3 stand B50 to see why TenCate is involved in numerous civilian and military aircraft projects and learn why survivability solutions from TenCate can increase the operability of aircraft in hazardous and hostile conditions.

    Register here

TenCate Armourtex


text:
After the Joker brutally murdered he previous Robin, Jason Todd, Time Drake deduced the identity of the Dark Knight and Robin after recognizing an acrobatic move used by the original Robin, Dick Grayson, who took on the moniker of Nightwing. After convincing Bruce Wayne to give him a chance, Drake became the new Robin and is the latest addition to the Infinite Crisis lineup.

Robin is a melee support capable of marking targets for bonus damage, knocking back enemies, buffing allies, and hindering enemies with debuffs. But he can burn through Will quickly, so keep an eye on that and dont get too skill-happy. Otherwise youll just be a moving target in an extremely bright uniform.

If all that sounds like your kind of character, check out Robin in action in the video below. Head over to the Infinite Crisis website to sign up for the beta.

Source: Turbine Press Release

To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Infinite Crisis Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 13, 2016

About The Author

Zombie 0
Stacy "Martuk" Jones was a long-time news editor and community manager for many of our previous game sites, such as Age of Conan. Stacy has since moved on to become a masked super hero, battling demons in another dimension.


text:
Rock Climbing in North Wales and Ski Lessons in Val d'Isere...

Outdoor Activities and Courses with Terry James Walker MIA, ISTD

During the Summer months, I am based in Llanberis, at the heart of the Snowdonia mountains in North Wales.  I offer a vast range of Rock Climbing courses and activities.  Within a 30 minute radius of here, we have access to some of the best rock climbing in the UK.  From the stunning coastal cliffs of Anglesea and Gogarth, to the Trad climbing kingdom of the Llanberis Pass, and the fine weather haven of Tremadog, through to the sport climbing mecca of Lower Pen Trwyn and the great Orme. I also run Scrambling and Walking courses in the beautiful local mountains for all to enjoy.

In the Winter, from December to April, I am based in the French Alps offering Ski and Snowboard lessons in the amazing resort of Val d'Isere.  I specialise in Off Piste, Freeride and All Mountain courses, but can cater for all abilities and any ages.

Please use the links at the top of the page to view your interests. To read more about Terry James Walker click here.

All course attendees will receive a 15% discount voucher, redeemable at the following shops:


text:
Himachal governor commends state’s development on R-Day

January 26th, 2009 - 3:07 pm ICT by IANS

Shimla, Jan 26 (IANS) Himachal Pradesh Governor Prabha Rao Monday took the salute at the Republic Day parade held on the historic Ridge here and commended the development initiatives undertaken by the state on the occasion.After paying floral tributes to the war heroes and martyrs, who had made huge sacrifices for the cause of the nation, Rao congratulated the people of the state for their hard work that had contributed to its development.

“The tiny hill state has taken big strides in the fields of education, health, power generation and tourism,” she said.

Rao said the state had scripted a new chapter in planned development.

“The state has done wonderful work in the field of social uplift, environment and women’s empowerment. The road network has been extended even in the remote and toughest terrains,” she said.

She gave the credit of development to the hardworking and honest people of the state.

The governor urged the people to be harbingers of peace and brotherhood and work for the integration of the country.

The tableaux exhibited by various departments and corporations also depicted the development made by the state in various fields. Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal, his cabinet colleagues and other dignitaries were present on the occasion.

Braving extreme cold conditions, state Transport Minister Kishan Kapoor and Health Minister Rajeev Bindal unfurled the national flag in the cold deserts of Lahaul and Spiti and Kinnaur districts respectively.

Hundreds of people turned out to attend the functions in these districts.

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text:
Prime minister’s Assam package hailed as visionary

August 27th, 2008 - 11:08 am ICT by IANS

Guwahati, Aug 27 (IANS) Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s mega development package for Assam, with maximum thrust on boosting the state’s education sector, has been hailed here as a visionary step towards giving the region a cutting edge. There was disappointment when the prime minister left Assam Tuesday morning without making any promises, with two of his scheduled public rallies cancelled due to bad weather. But late Tuesday, there was a statement from the prime minister’s Office announcing a package for the development of the state.

From setting up a world-class university, a centre of the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Petroleum Technology, a National Institute of Design, a Skill Development Mission, a state-level university of science and technology, and a law school and judicial academy, to creating a model school in every block, the prime minister’s package was an educational bonanza for Assam.

“I think the people of Assam cannot ask for anything more as all these world class institutes could go a long way in developing the state in terms of human resource development,” said Abani Das, a college teacher.

“The package is really noteworthy as the prime minister, instead of just doling out cash incentives, decided to go for specified projects and that too with a vision aimed at developing the skills of local youths by way of setting up several top notch educational facilities,” said B. Barua, a retired university professor.

Apart from focusing on the education sector, the prime minister’s package included setting up of three bridges over the river Brahmaputra, raising two India Reserve Battalions for deployment in the river border along Bangladesh, setting up of a Science City in Guwahati, besides reworking the North East Industrial Investment Promotion Policy (NEIIPP) for effective results.

“I have never come across a prime minister like Manmohan Singh, who has generously agreed to all our proposals. This shows how sincere and committed the prime minister is to the welfare and development of the state,” Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi told IANS.

Manmohan Singh represents Assam in the Rajya Sabha or upper house in parliament.

The financial incentives announced for the state include a Rs.2.5 billion package for the development of the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC), a politico-administrative structure set up in the tribal Bodo heartland in northern and western Assam.

Moreover, the prime minister also announced Rs.200 million to protect Majuli, South Asia’s largest river island, from erosion and flooding, besides financial grants to the backward Karbi Anglong and North Cachar Hills districts, both hit by tribal insurgency.

“I think all these time bound projects would help develop Assam by leaps and bounds,” the chief minister said.

The prime minister also mentioned the central government’s initiatives in tackling the annual floods in Assam by working out an integrated mechanism.

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Sunday, March 4, 2012

"Beef" Stew to Warm Your Bones

This winter has been so strange here in Boston. On October 1st we had a nasty snow storm. After least year's winter, when the city literally ran out of space to put the snow (you can't just push it into the ocean because of all the pollutants it picks up in the street), everyone took this to be a terrible omen.

But then came November, December, January, February and nothing happened. There may have been one little storm that left about three inches but was gone the next day. There was lots of rain. There was a day in the 60's. But come March 1st we get dumped on. It snowed for nearly 30 hours straight. Good thing the temperature was high enough to keep some of it from sticking, but we still got some significant snowage. While it has mostly melted in the city, there is still about five inches covering the countryside.

It has been grey out for the last three days and I'm thinking that it may be my last chance to make "warm you from the inside out" food. Something that, in the words of Isa Chandra Moskowitz "gives a warm and flavorful fork you to winter."

March is here Old Man Winter, and I just want you to know that we've now got the upper hand! Your demise is looming just right around the corner.

So here it is, this vegan "Beef" Stew. What's the best thing about it? Well, its hard to say. There's a lot of things that are good about it.
  • It's way healthy for you. Little saturated fat, no cholesterol.
  • Lots of veggies.
  • Lots of protein.
  • Tender "meat."
  • No tough, terrible strings of animal flesh stuck between your teeth.
  • You do not have to simmer Gardein for an hour and a half to make it edible like you would for tough pieces of cow. This means your stew is ready to go in under an hour.
  • You don't have to trim fat off of muscle, and then chop it up. Gardein comes ready for the pan. And your hands, knife, cutting board, etc. are not bloody or potentially dangerous.
  • My recipe makes a ton.
  • Beefless. It's what's for dinner.

And just a note about Worcestershire Sauce. Traditionally it's not vegan. It has anchovies in it. Annie's Naturals makes an organic, vegan version! Yay! It's by the steak sauce in natural foods stores.

"Beef" Stew
2 packages Gardein "Beefless Tips" (Find it in the frozen section)
3 tablespoons Earth Balance Vegan Buttery Sticks
2 yellow onions, cut in half and sliced into half moons
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup diced celery
1 cup diced carrots
3 cups potatoes, skins on (better for you!) and cut into 1" pieces
1/2 pound white button mushrooms, quartered
2 teaspoons mustard powder
1 1/2 teaspoons paprika
1 1/2 teaspoons thyme
1 1/2 teaspoons basil
1 1/2 teaspoons marjoram (you can sub oregano if you don't have this)
3/4 cup red wine
2 tablespoons tomato paste
4 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
3 tablespoons shoyu (you can use soy sauce)
4 cups water (may be more or less depending)
2 tablespoons flour
1 cup frozen peas
3 tablespoons parsley, chopped
salt and pepper, to taste
Ciabatta or other crusty bread, to serve
Beer, such as Sam Adams Alpine Spring, to serve

Let the Beefless Tips thaw while you chop the veggies. Then heat 2 tablespoons of Earth Balance in a VERY large pot.

Add the Beefless Tips and saute until browned on all sides.

If there is enough oil in the bottom of the pan, add the onions, garlic, carrots, celery, and mushrooms. If there is not enough, add the remaining tablespoon Earth Balance, and then add the veggies. Saute until the onions are translucent and the mushrooms have lost their water. Add the potatoes and stir. Continue to saute until the water/oil at the bottom of the pan has been used up. Add the mustard, paprika, thyme, marjoram, and basil. Stir and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds.

Meanwhile whisk together the wine, tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce, and soy sauce.  Add mixture to the pot to deglaze. Scrape the burnt bits from the bottom of the pan and bring the liquid to a boil. Reduce heat to medium and simmer until the wine is reduced by half.

Add water to the pot until the vegetables and Gardein are just covered (you want to add enough water that your stew has as much broth as you would like in it). Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer until potatoes and carrots are tender.

Once the veggies are all thoroughly cooked, use a liquid measuring cup to remove about 1/2 cup broth. Add the flour to this broth and whisk until evenly incorporated. Return the flour/broth mixture to the pot, and stir. The sauce should thicken. If after thickening, there is not enough broth left, add a bit more water, until desired consistency is achieved. Add the peas and heat through.

Remove stew from heat, stir in chopped parsley and salt and pepper to taste. Serve with warm bread and chilled beer!

  1. I like the look of this recipe. But I was wondering if you could freeze some of it for later? Have you ever tried it? Thanks for sharing all your recipes with us!

    1. I have not ever tried it, but my guess is that it should work well! The veggies should be fine, and since the Gardein was frozen to begin it should be no problem. Let me know how it goes and if you like it! :)

    2. The stew was awesome! It had such good flavor and was far better then any stew I ever had! Thanks so much for the recipe and I will let you know how the freezing goes :)

    3. That's great!! I'm so flattered!! :)

  2. Freezes beautifully! This recipe is a total keeper and will be enjoyed by my family for years to come! Thanks again and keep up the great work :)


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22 July 2010

My Baby is one !!!

My baby girl is turning ONE tomorrow !!! I can't beleive this year has gone so fast...

As it's just going to be the 4 of us tomorrow, we are not having a real big party this year.
However, it still has to feel like a special day for Chloe. So we are having a little cupcake celebration in the afternoon and I have made a couple of items for her to wear.

I made a couple (I do not expect the white shirt to stay clean all day !) of applique T-shirts following the advice on Crap I've Made .

For the curly ribbons, I followed Glorious Treat's how-to.

And I found a nice little hat tutorial there. Although for mine I used tissue paper instead of crepe. I chose a nice scrapbook paper and some sparkly embellishments, all found in a local shop.

Hope the Birthday girl will agree to wear them.... we've had quite a few tantrums lately !!! yes I know, already !!! Girls eh ?

  1. Your baby is 3 now, but I want you to know that those are adorable little shirts and party hat. You are very creative. It's fun to dress up our little girls in cute baby girl outfits.

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REVIEW / Convoy (PC)

Post-apocalyptic driving seems to be pretty popular at the moment, what with Mad Max blowing up at the box office. So a Mad Max styled homage to one of the most popular roguelikes, FTL, seems like the best combination since Tina Turner and Mel Gibson got together, right? In Convoy, your spaceship crashes and needs parts to get you back to your home planet. So you head off in your Main Convoy Vehicle (MCV) over a hex grid world to collect parts to fix her up. As you would expect, there are various factions on the planet that would rather rob you than help you.

We don’t need another hero…

The main game is mainly split between two interfaces – the hex map world you travel around to complete missions and the tactical combat screen where you control your vehicles and battle enemies. The latter is also similar when you stop at a camp and repair/upgrade your vehicles. You start with a vehicle or two to protect your MCV and you can add more to the convoy, upgrade weapons, armor, equipment and so forth. Although it’s a very small part of the game, Convoy is fun here in the same way most games are fun when you spend your credits, check your loot and upgrade your gear. Having more control over upgrading armor or shields would help (rather than both or none), but otherwise it works well to reward.

Stating your game is inspired by Mad Max is fine, if not coincidentally timed. Stating your game is inspired by FTL is also fine, but such a statement will inevitably draw comparison, and in this case, criticism. In reality the similarities are mostly superficial. Whilst the art style is recognizably similar, the strategic elements, story writing, events and fundamental gameplay choices are very different – and not in a good way. Convoy masquerades as FTL. It’s simply not fair to say Convoy is FTL with cars and trucks – it can’t compete. The writing is really quite poor and very cliche – you feel one of the programmer’s wrote the dialogue. Plus, obscure references to contemporary science-fiction might raise a smirk for some, but Convoy’s ‘Flux Capacitor’ and ‘Sonic Screws’ are about as subtle as a truck.

We don’t need to know the way home…

Roguelikes are known to be tough games, but Convoy doesn’t necessarily make your quest tough, just random. Regardless of your decision, the outcome feels arbitrary. In FTL, losing a member of your crew to an event is not fun, but you can cope with it – it just means you may not get the same level of bonus from having a member of crew. But with Convoy, losing a vehicle (that you may have spent a lot of resources on) is much, much worse – you’re losing a massive chunk of your combat ability and effectiveness. And it seems to happen too often. It changes the way you play the entire game. You invest less in any one vehicle and spread out your abilities. Convoy forces you to play the game a certain way if you want to be efficient; don’t build a cool vehicle with nice weapons, that’s expensive, build a lot of average ones and then improve them equally.

At first I thought there was a lot of tactical scope in Convoy’s battles, but I quickly realized combat was superficial. In FTL, you feel like you need to pause the game to assess your tactical options and also in Convoy I began most fights this way. However, after a dozen or so encounters, I began to pause less and less. Many enemies try and move out of range if they are being damaged, meaning new orders for your vehicles yet again. What happens is the constant need to click on-screen to direct your vehicle to follow an enemy vehicle. Therefore pausing served no purpose. There’s a serious lack of AI here and it can lead to a daft chase across the screen until the enemy vehicle is destroyed. It feel less like a tactical encounter and more like Cow Clicker.

In addition, more often than not enemy vehicles don’t return fire, they just keep plugging away at your MCV in some kind of kamikaze attack. Added to this is the fact that you may even have another more powerful vehicle pounding away at them from the other side of the screen that they also ignore. It becomes a little bit ridiculous in terms of tactics and simply ends as a DPS race.

Despite failing to match FTL, it’s not all bad. Convoy has some good elements. The idea of a ‘moving battlefield’ is great. How do you take advantage of the terrain? How can you position your vehicles to force an enemy into hitting a building? How long do you hold off using that stun weapon in order to cause an enemy to crash? You also get a lot of options in terms of choosing which weapon types to buy and which vehicles to use against specific enemies. But again, the real problem is, your choices often feel irrelevant and the outcomes arbitrary – you can lose (or gain) an entire vehicle from a choice in a random text box encounter, enemies ignore your attacks and just suicide run on your MCV, and tactical creativity never seems to be more effective than maneuvering your vehicles so that enemies crash.

All we wanted was a rooooooooguelike, to play at home

Ultimately there is some original and creative potential here. If you like roguelikes it’s worth watching Convoy’s development and that of its creators to see where things go next. Right now though, you’re probably better off imagining how good it could be, then playing another game of FTL.


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The 5 Powers 2nd Ed AR Comic Book.jpg

The 5 Powers Augmented Reality Comic

Download the free Layar App.

3 Superheroes of Peace use the 5 Powers of Faith, Diligence, Mindfulness, Concentration and Insight to change the course of history and inspire millions around the world. Planting seeds of peace in the deep mud of war.

The Comic Book follows the lives of Alfred Hassler, an American anti-war hero, Vietnamese peace activist Sister Chan Khong and Zen Master, Thich Nha Hanh, whom Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1967.

2nd Edition coming soon that includes 14 exciting AR page additions.


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Kate MacArthur serves in a dual capacity as both economic development director for the city of Zachary and the Zachary Chamber of Commerce.

MacArthur’s job for both entities — to recruit and retain commercial, industrial and retail businesses into the Zachary area — has been a busy one since she took on the positions in 2012.

Besides attracting new commerce, MacArthur places an emphasis on workforce development and cultivating development-ready sites such as industrial, professional headquarters, and research and development sites.

The future, she says, is built on creating new capital investment and good-paying jobs for Zachary residents.

“When you look at the population from 1980 to 2014, Zachary is one of the fastest-growing cities in Louisiana, so we need to have someone steering growth and attracting the businesses we want and need, though the two don’t always go hand in hand,” said MacArthur.

In 2014, more than 40 people inquired about opening a business in Zachary, though it may take up to three years from the first inquiry to the time a business opens.

MacArthur’s focus is a balancing act of promoting more commercial growth and supporting the growth of more rooftops. Retail and service businesses are examining rooftop and traffic counts when evaluating their next location.

Expanding existing businesses and attracting new ones are the smart way to stimulate economic growth, not by building more neighborhoods. Otherwise, a strain is put upon infrastructure, MacArthur said.

“Fortunately, over the last few years, Zachary has done well with expanding roads and utilities by envisioning the city’s future needs, as infrastructure is vital to the attraction of businesses and residents,” MacArthur said. “It’s a double-edged sword, but the key is determining what businesses are demanding versus what the city and residents are willing to give in return. I have to look at what the community can support, what we’re lacking, what we’re needing, and what revenues we can anticipate for our city to have a solid future.”

One of the biggest challenges of recruiting new business is preventing an anti-development mind set when it comes to economic growth, she said.

“We don’t want to convey the wrong message to national businesses or developers attempting to relocate here with a ‘not in my backyard’ attitude, though it’s not uncommon for some to convey that message indirectly or even intentionally,” MacArthur said.

Ideally, the emphasis should be on smart growth, which supports mixed land uses by putting residential, commercial and recreational in close proximity to one another and by offering alternatives to driving, such as biking or walking, to help revitalize community life.

In 2013, a consulting firm was hired and determined there are more than 117,000 people eating, shopping and using health care services in Zachary, which has a population of more than 15,500. The study showed that about $597 million is leaving the city in annual retail sales from local consumers shopping for goods and services outside the city but within its trade areas, Mac-Arthur said.

Examples of the retail areas where Zachary is losing dollars are sporting goods, standalone restaurants, men’s clothing, shoe stores, home goods and wares, and family entertainment, according to the study.

“We’re losing those retail sales tax dollars to Baton Rouge and Internet retailers and must learn that expanding our local economy is at the heart of economic development,” MacArthur said. “In order to do this, sometimes you have to accept a business you don’t believe you would shop in, but that would attract other consumers, in order to get the retailers you do want located here.”

Of the businesses she could discuss, MacArthur provided a snapshot for 2015: a Comfort Inn is being built next to the Youth Park; a Zaxby’s restaurant is coming to Main Street (across from Wal-Mart); and a Walk-Ons sports bar/restaurant will be constructed inside Americana, the latter planned around August.

In terms of smart growth, MacArthur asks the Zachary community to keep an open mind.

“Think about the things that are best for future generations. It’s great that we have the No. 1 school system, but are we able to provide family entertainment during school-age years and then full-time, high-paying positions for our graduates,” MacArthur said. “As a city, if you don’t accept change and continue to grow, you will slowly start to die.”

To speak to MacArthur or inquire about new business opportunities, email kate@zacharychamber.com or call the Zachary Chamber at (225) 654-6777.


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Authorities in St. Bernard Parish arrested six people last week following a drug bust that led to the seizure of more than a half-pound of heroin, Sheriff James Pohlmann said Monday.

It was likely the largest heroin bust in his three decades with the Sheriff’s Office, Pohlmann said. In all, 8.3 ounces of the drug were confiscated, carrying an estimated street value of $100,000, he said.

Deputies also confiscated $29,000 in cash, 11 grams of marijuana and the painkiller tramadol, authorities said.

Six people, including a 15-year-old, were arrested.

Pohlmann said the group’s ringleader was Alvin Clay, 28, who moved to the 3700 block of Shangri-La Drive in Chalmette in January.

Authorities said the heroin was found in a safe at Clay’s home.

When he was arrested, Clay already was out on bond in Orleans Parish after recent busts for possession with intent to distribute heroin and marijuana, Pohlmann said.

Clay was booked at the St. Bernard jail on counts of possession with intent to distribute heroin, possession of up to 400 grams of heroin and possession of marijuana and tramadol. He was being held Monday on $250,000 bail.

Shonika White, 36, who was identified by authorities as Clay’s girlfriend, was booked on possession with intent to distribute marijuana and tramadol. Her bail was set at $7,500.

Three Chalmette men — Dorian Charles, 19; Keith Payton, 18; and Jimmy White, 24 — and the 15-year-old all were booked on possession of marijuana.

Maj. Chad Clark, commander of the Special Investigations Division of the Sheriff’s Office, said St. Bernard authorities seized a total of about 6.5 ounces of heroin last year on 47 arrests — an amount surpassed in one day by last week’s bust.

Law enforcement agencies across the country are battling a surge in heroin usage. St. Bernard authorities said they believe the drugs confiscated last week may have come to the area by way of Houston.

Pohlmann said the bust netted about “8,000 doses of heroin that people could’ve shot up that was taken off the street.”

“He’s only 28 years old, but he’s been in the criminal field for a long time,” Pohlmann said about Clay. “Now, with these pending charges against him both in New Orleans and here in St. Bernard Parish, it’s likely that he will spend a long time in jail from this point on.”

Follow Richard Thompson on Twitter, @rthompsonMSY.


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License article

Tony Abbott will doom future generations if he ditches carbon tax

A quarter of a century ago, I asked Canada's bright, new environment minister Lucien Bouchard what he felt was the most important environment issue facing Canadians. ''Global warming,'' he immediately replied. ''It threatens the survival of our species. We have to act now.''

Back then his views echoed those of politicians around the world. George H.W. Bush, who didn't have an environmental bone in his body, promised to be an ''environmental president'' when he ran in 1988 because Americans had put it at the top of their concerns. Even Margaret Thatcher, when she was filmed picking up litter, turned to the camera to say, ''I'm a greenie too''.

But now, Bouchard and politicians around the world continue to retreat from the battle to protect the environment. Your new prime minister Tony Abbott is just another who finds it easier and more politically rewarding to focus on the next election cycle rather than the mountain of evidence that continues to grow and show we are trashing the biosphere and must reduce carbon emissions.

I used to think some cataclysmic, climate-related event would shock the world into taking the steps needed to preserve the future of the human species. But after seeing what's happened this past decade, I'm no longer sure any event or set of circumstances will be enough to jolt governments into action. (The 2008 bank-induced economic meltdown spurred politicians to spend hundreds of billions just to get the defective economy back up and running again!)

Just look at Canada.

In British Columbia, where I live, a warming climate has allowed insects the size of grains of rice to destroy $65 billion worth of pine trees in just a bit over a decade. For millennia the mountain pine beetle, a native of Canada, has been kept in check by our winter temperatures which reach minus 35 degrees for several days.

Not anymore. The British Columbia Ministry of Forests says that, thanks to global warming, we have not had one of these widespread weather events in the British Columbia interior since the winter of 1995-96.

With no more killing freezes, pine beetle numbers have exploded, destroying 710 million cubic metres of commercially valuable pine timber. That's more than half of all such pine in the province. As the climate warms, the beetles have been blown over the Rocky Mountains where pine trees of the boreal forest extend across Canada.

This unprecedented event is unlike anything recorded in North American history, but it's not been enough to galvanise our government to get serious about acting on climate change.

I'm at a loss to understand why. But if the melting polar ice cap, and the devastation wrought by hurricanes Katrina and Sandy was not enough to force governments into serious action, I guess I can hardly expect a little mountain pine beetle to do it.

From what I can see, it's a similar story in Australia. Half the coral on the Great Barrier Reef has disappeared in the past 27 years and its size could halve again in the next decade with degradation of the environment and the increasing frequency of cyclones.

Bushfires in Australia are getting more severe and more frequent. I see in Sydney you have already had your first fires barely a week into spring. And what has your new government done in response? As soon as Mr Abbott won power, he promised to wind back Australia's recent efforts to combat global warming.

His promise to scrap the carbon tax, a tax which had been a timid step in the right direction, to close down your green energy bank and to reduce the rebates for buying solar panels, all send a terrible signal to your entrepreneurs and to the community.

And all of it is being done in the name of saving the economy.

But for more than 20 years the insurance industry has been telling us we have all been paying more for changes in the climate. Why aren't we listening to the insurers, the hardest business heads of all?

I would have thought Australia would be leading the world in developing a new economy because climate change is going to devastate Australia.

Instead, mining magnates are manipulating the debate in Australia just like they are doing elsewhere. Like the tobacco industry before them, they have known for years that climate change is happening and that burning fossil fuels is at the heart of it. But to maximise their profits they have continued to sow misunderstanding and confusion, funding the sceptics to perpetrate the myth that global warming is junk science.

They should be ignored because there is no confusion in the scientific community about what's happening to our planet and what the future holds unless we change the way we live.

A carbon tax is just one small step to encourage companies and individuals to reduce dumping rubbish into the atmosphere.

Don't Australians pay to put their junk into landfill?

The consequences of dumping our junk in the atmosphere are far greater than leaving garbage in the streets so why don't we limit it by making people pay to dump it?

It's the most basic lesson of economics. Anyone who understands and cares about the environment and economics will know ditching the carbon tax is not only crazy, it is absolutely suicidal.

David Suzuki is an award winning scientist, environmentalist and broadcaster. He will speak at a City of Sydney City Talk on Tuesday, September 24, at City Recital Hall, Angel Place.

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Marc has arrived and luxury beauty will never be the same. Like his fashion, Marc's rule-breaking creativity is at the heart of his makeup vision. For Marc, getting it right involves a bit of wrong. He inspires you to push the boundaries and create your own style. So indulge in his exquisite textures, take liberties with his provocative shades, and play with his daring designs.

The full line will be available exclusively at Sephora starting August 9.
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Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Beautiful Belles: Twiggy

A series focusing on beautiful women throughout history with important contributions to the arts and entertainment industry and charity -- and a fabulous sense of beauty, inside and out!

Who do we have to thank for long, lush lashes that go on for days and days? Why, Twiggy, of course. The first super-thin supermodel became famous in the 1960s for her big doe eyes, long eyelashes, and -- no surprise here -- her rail-thin frame. (Yes, there were ultra-skinny models before Kate Moss!) Weighing only 90 pounds when she was discovered at the age of 16, Twiggy -- born Lesley Hornby -- became known for the high fashion mod look created by English fashion designer Mary Quant.

Twiggy's popularity and fascination only continued to grow after she was discovered. Her short hair was utterly modern and married the masculine/feminine side of fashion effortlessly. She was even regarded as one of the faces of "Swinging London" -- yes, the era made famous by Austin Powers!

Twiggy's sense of style and beauty is truly iconic. One cannot think of the mod period without associating her along with it. Her big doe eyes were always, always accented with loads of black mascara -- and it's rumored that she would even
draw on an extra layer of lashes underneath her eyes for more volume! She kept the rest of her look simple, paring the traditional smoky eye with a nude glossy lip and clear, fresh skin. And let's not forget that hair! Her chopped, boy-meets-girl haircut came at a time when most women revered long tresses. This haircut even inspired me during my college years, when I decided to chop off all my hair!

Recent fans of Twiggy will recognize her from her years as a judge on America's Next Top Model -- a role which, sadly, has now been handed over to Paulina Porizkova. But Twiggy is still out and about, modeling for Marks and Spencer and acting in various movies and television shows. She's appeared The Blues Brothers, Pygmalion (as Eliza Doolittle), The Boy Friend and Edge of Seventeen, just to name a few of her many credits. And all the while, she's looking absolutely fabulous. Her hair is longer and blonder, her makeup is softer, but she still embodies that girl from the 1960s with her beautiful big eyes and dewy skin.

Not only contributing to the fashion, beauty and entertainment worlds, however, Twiggy has donated her time and money to Breakthrough Breast Cancer -- a charity in the UK which supports breast cancer education and research.

Twiggy is truly a fashion and beauty icon. One can only hope she continues to make the arena interesting in years to come!

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