Find the best web design Sutton companies online

Use of computers has become very essential for almost all people and organizations these days. At present, most people have laptops or desktop computers in their houses. There was a time when computers were used only by a few people but now the time has changed a lot. Now, a lot of people use computers and the number of people who do not use computers is very less. Organizations always need to use computers because they wish to do their work in a fast manner and without any mistake.

When people used to do work in organizations manually then organizations faced many kinds of problems. Now days, every organization has some kind of software to do its activities with the help of computers. The software and applications which are used by organizations might be different but they all use computers for running such software/applications.

With time, computers have also become cheaper. Some years back, the prices of computers were very high but now they have fallen down. Most organizations and people can afford to buy computers for them.

In Croydon, there are various organizations which have just now started their business and facing various kinds of IT related problems. Such organizations should hire it support croydon services in order to make sure that they do not need to waste their time in fixing their IT problems by themselves. The best thing about hiring reliable it support croydon services is that it will save the time of an organization and enable it to focus on its core activities rather than dealing with various computer issues.

In Croydon, a lot of companies wish to find?computer support croydon services at affordable prices. The price which is charged by various computer support companies is also a very important thing to consider. New organizations cannot afford to hire such companies which charge a lot of money for offering their computer support croydon services. When computers work fine in organizations then employees are able to do their work in a perfect manner. If computers do not work fine then employees will get an excuse not to do their work in a desired manner. This will cause a loss ultimately to the organization. Therefore, it is important to hire computer support services.

Talking about the needs of organizations, we should also mention that most organizations realize the importance of having online presence at present. There are many organizations which might be searching for web design Sutton companies. The best way to find the most reliable web design Sutton companies is to go online. Most web designing companies have their websites which can be accessed by people to know about their services and charges.
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Organizations should choose such a web designing company which charges affordable amount of money for offering its services. The website designer should be able to understand the requirements of the client in order to create the desired kind of website. Such web designers can be found easily online.

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Software Engineering Schools Offer College Degrees | Delphi ...

Posted by admin on May 20th, 2012

Software engineering schools, colleges and universities offer training in software engineering and programming for many opportunities in the information technology (IT). It will be used in all businesses and all organizations in order to promote efficiency. Study of engineering design software can give you the skills necessary to require the software to develop and operate to protect the computer systems and networks, security and programs that these systems and networks.

To design computer software engineering professionals to produce, publish and distribute computer software. Typically requires a bachelor?s degree in the schools of engineering software received extensive studies in computer science, computers, mathematics, programming languages ??and computer systems. May include statements require more complex software engineering and specialized courses, administration, management, accounting and inventory management, to name a few.

Most jobs require at least one software engineering bachelor?s degree, with extensive knowledge and experience with computer systems and computer technologies. Graduate degrees in software engineering studies are needed in other technical positions. Promotions are usually required for teaching in post-secondary institutions, colleges and universities.

Software engineering schools give students the ability to develop and publish prepackaged software, operating systems, software development, and write word processing, spreadsheet software and data stores and programs to develop games and graphics software. Software engineering includes the development and installation of the search engine and Web browser software packages.

The proceeds from entry-level positions in software engineering with a bachelor?s degree start with $ 50,000. Education and Experience Graduate Diploma can increase this number to over $ 100,000.

If you are interested in learning more about software engineering schools, colleges and universities, please visit our website for more information and resources.

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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Avail Home Improvement Loans, Be considered a Very pleased ...

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Finney-Taylor Consulting Group Appoint FT8218 Business Analyst ...

Job Title : FT8218 Business Analyst; Online Services
Company : Finney-Taylor Consulting Group
City : Calgary
State : All State
Country : CA
Location : Calgary, AB
Date : 2012-05-20 22:08:10
latitude : 51.04945
longitude : -114.08242
Status Active
Job key 2630358e42114211

Introduced at May 20, 2012. Is already Finney-Taylor Consulting Group at the time fill a position FT8218 Business Analyst; Online Services. The profession situated inside city Calgary, AB domain of All State AB.

And the status of the job is Active. So besure to look at the job examination below and proceed click the APPLY THE JOB button to move further.

The summary of job description of FT8218 Business Analyst; Online Services :

FT8218 Business Analyst; Online Services Job examination provided by Finney-Taylor Consulting Group. If you can quick apply this job you only click the Apply the job button at the bottom of this information.

Project Purpose: The Online Customer Services (OCS) application is one of the top priorities for the Assessment Business unit. Enhancing and expanding the offering of functionality to citizens as well as business unit staff is the purpose of this project. The application has internal facing (for business unit staff) and external facing components (for citizens), including GIS maps, assessment...

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Travel insurance claims can hinge on the tiniest details

Thinking of making a claim? Read this first. / Photo by W. Shonbrun - Flickr

When it comes to travel insurance claims, Hannah Yun was about as sure as anyone that hers would be successful.

She?d bought a gold-plated ?cancel for any reason? policy for a trip to South Korea. When her boyfriend proposed and she decided to call off the trip to start planning her wedding, she thought that collecting a check would be just a formality.

Wrong.

Travel Guard, the company she?d purchased the policy through, turned down her claim on a technicality. Yun, a college student in Salt Lake City, had originally told the company that her plane ticket had cost $1,090; she?d actually paid $1,092.50.

Denied because of a $2.50 price difference? You bet.

Related: Your frequently asked questions about travel insurance.

?It just doesn?t make sense,? says Yun, a refrain that I hear often. Complaints about seemingly arbitrary rejections cross my desk at regular intervals. No surprise: Travel insurance is a $1.8 billion-a-year industry, according to the US Travel Insurance Association, an industry trade group. And it has been growing steadily, from $1.3 billion in 2006 to $1.6 billion two years later to the latest figure, from 2010.

It?s no shocker in another sense, too: The travel insurance business is generally profitable, the occasional volcanic eruption or tsunami notwithstanding, and critics say that the only way it stays that way is by rejecting most claims, particularly the expensive ones. That?s difficult to prove ? or disprove. The industry insists that its rejection rates are low. About one in six policyholders will file a claim on their insurance, according to the association, and fewer than 10 percent of those claims are denied.

Yun was among that unhappy minority. When I asked about her claim, Carol Mueller, a vice president at Travel Guard, said that the company had reviewed the case carefully and that according to its records, Yun had claimed ? and repeatedly verified ? the $1,090 ticket price. ?The full cost of all non-refundable prepaid trip arrangements is insured at the time of purchase,? she told me. ?Ms. Yun did not insure her full trip cost as listed on her itinerary at the time of her insurance purchase, and that was the criterion for her denial.?

Seriously? The rejection seems absurd to the average traveler, until you take a little time to understand how the travel insurance business works. I?ve spent the past year studying it, in part because I?ve been hearing about so many policy rejections and in part because a lot of my readers buy travel insurance hoping that it will protect them from some of the unbelievably awful things that I write about every day on my blog.

I should also note that my Web site attracts a fair number of sponsorships from travel insurance companies and sellers of insurance. Consider this my disclosure. I?d like to think that it doesn?t affect the fairness of my coverage, but I?m sure that you?ll let me know what you think once you?ve finished reading.

To understand why a travel insurance company does the often confounding things that it does, you have to know more about the actual policies and talk with insiders who are familiar with the claims process. Travel insurance policies are set by underwriters, the entities that take on the risk of insuring you on your vacation. For example, Travel Guard is underwritten by the National Union Fire Insurance Co. of Pittsburgh, and that company gets to tell Travel Guard how to word its policies. The verbiage doesn?t leave much to the imagination.

Take trip interruptions, for instance. When you buy a policy, your travel agent might tell you that you?ll be covered if your trip is interrupted. But the policy itself will strictly define the terms.

For example, an interruption can be covered if it?s caused by an ?unforeseen? circumstance. A sample Travel Guard policy defined that as the sickness, injury or death of an insured person, or of an immediate family member, traveling companion or business partner. ?Injury or sickness must be so disabling as to reasonably cause a trip to be canceled or interrupted,? it adds.

Few travelers bother to read that language before buying a policy. Slightly more will review it when they need to make a claim, but it?s still a considerable minority. Even when their claim is turned down, they try to appeal it by referring to their travel agent?s promises or arguing with the rejection letter without knowing what their policy actually says.

Dan Skilken, who runs the travel insurance Web site TripInsurance.com, says that insurance companies play it by the book when a traveler files a claim. They consider the facts of the claim at face value; if the policy covers it, they cut a check. If it doesn?t, they won?t. ?The reason for a denial is usually pretty simple,? he says.

It was in the case of David and Mary Phillips, who bought a $387 policy through Allianz Global Assistancefor a recent cruise to Brazil. Unfortunately, they ran afoul of one small detail: Neither the cruise line, Azamara, nor their travel agent had told them that U.S. citizens must have visas to travel to Brazil. As a result, they were denied boarding on the boat, and they lost their $6,739 cruise.

David Phillips, a retired doctor in San Mateo, Calif., was upset about his ruined vacation and even unhappier that Allianz rejected his claim. But the Phillipses? insurance policy is clear: It doesn?t cover trip interruptions that result from visa or passport problems.

To claims adjusters, such denials are as obvious as the quickest way from their cubicle to the water cooler. But to outsiders such as Yun and Phillips ? and me, too ? they?re not.

A few months ago, I had an opportunity to visit the Richmond offices of Allianz, and I came away with a better understanding of one of the travel insurance industry?s greatest mysteries: the apparent disconnect between insurance companies and their customers. The folks I met were proud of their product and could offer case studies of the many customers they?ve helped. But because of the way travel insurance policies are written, they often see the world in a binary way: yes or no, covered or not covered.

Every exception to that worldview must be approved at a high level. When customers grumble about having their claims denied, these insiders are genuinely baffled. ?Didn?t you read the policy?? they ask.

As I stood in the understated suburban headquarters where every Allianz claim is processed, it all made perfect sense. Rules are rules, after all.

Mark Cipolletti, an Allianz vice president, says that his company has no choice in the matter. Insurance providers are strictly regulated by the states where they do business. ?We?re subject to scheduled and unscheduled audits or reviews of our products and claims,? he says. ?When we adjudicate a customer?s claim, we must follow the policy, or the contract with the customer, because if we deviate from the contract or treat one customer differently from another, then we become subject to fines and other punitive actions ? like not being able to sell in that state any longer.?

But as you pull away, you start to understand why some travelers are angry. Some feel victimized by the travel agents and online retailers who sell these policies and don?t always explain them as thoroughly as they should. Upon reflection, they?re also angry with themselves for ignoring the policy details and assuming that the insurance would cover anything that could go wrong with their trip.

Which brings us back to Yun, who had every reason to believe that her insurance company would pay for her cancellation, no questions asked. Travel Guard seemed surprised that she hadn?t bothered to review the details of her policy; if she had, she wouldn?t have wasted her time with a claim.

?We?ve listened to all the calls with Ms. Yun, and while there were three opportunities when she could have corrected the total cost of her trip, this did not happen,? says Mueller, the Travel Guard representative. ?As part of our commitment to providing astonishing customer service, we could have asked her a second and third time to double-check her exact trip cost, though we are not required or obligated to do so.?

Still, Travel Guard agreed to make one of those high-level exceptions to its rules and honored the claim.

Mueller was quick to add that I should let consumers know that they ought to read their policy carefully and make sure to fill out their paperwork correctly.

I agree. But maybe some travel insurance companies need to spend a little more time talking with their customers outside the claims process, if for no other reason than to understand why travelers are so disappointed when their policy doesn?t work as expected.

Tagged as: CLAIM, EXCLUSION, FRAUD, policy, TRAVEL INSURANCE

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Tera Review - Video Game Reviews - Machinima.com | Inside ...

Developer: Bluehole Studio / Publisher: En Masse Entertainment / Played on: PC / Price: $49.99, $14.99 per month / ESRB: Mature [Blood, Suggestive Themes, Violence]

I don?t like to define one game against another, but in this case the opportunity is too perfect to pass up. In MMO terms, Tera is spiritually the complete opposite of Star Wars: The Old Republic. Where TOR focused on story but used nearly identical mechanics to World of Warcraft, Tera?s story is worthless, but creates MMO mechanics so satisfying that it?s just fun to kill shit. Having played nearly every MMO since Ultima Online, that?s a trait that is uniquely Tera?s, and means that this game deserves attention from any MMO fan.

GAMEPLAY

Aside from a few failed experiments (Tabula Rasa springs to mind), nearly every MMO since World of Warcraft has operated on the same basic mechanics. Toolbars, cooldown-based skills, mouse-driven targeting, so on and so on. Tera controls more like a single-player action game. Whether melee or ranged, your attacks will connect or miss depending on your spacing and targeting rather than an accuracy stat. This makes combat much more direct and satisfying. Rather than select a target and click a toolbar ability repeatedly until an enemy dies, you directly swing the sword and mow through waves of enemies.

This also creates interesting combat mechanics. Take healing for example: you can?t directly target party members, so the WoW-standard click a party member and heal doesn?t work. To compensate, Tera has some clever ways to dole out the hit points. One involves activating a spell then mousing over party members to ?lock on? to them, while another just drops a healing orb on the battlefield, requiring your party members to pick them up. The game also capitalizes on its unique combat with BAMs, which stands for?no joke?Big Ass Monsters. These are boss monsters that require a party of up to five members to beat, and generally jump around and attack like crazy. Fighting them is way more intense than any encounter I?ve had in an MMO so far.

The structure surrounding the combat and progression is as templated MMO design as you can get. You follow a string of story quests that pull you through the world, leading to quest hubs that send you out to kill X number of whatever. Neither the story quests nor the collection quests will keep you in rapt attention. Tera?s main story starts chasing some legendary hero that has gone missing, then switches over to portents of some world-ending demon?s resurrection. Granted, there can be comfort and charm in the familiar, but you?ve seen this story echoed in every other forgettable fantasy setting since time was time. Collection quests rarely stray away from ?People here are cold so go get some pelts? templates either. The success of the game?s core combat mechanics are muted by the banality of its story and structure.

The rest of the game is a mix of clever ideas and bland inclusions for the sake of obligation. Crafting is in the game, but is one of the least gratifying systems I?ve seen. Rather than mete out new recipes every few points of skill, every recipe is divided into massive tiers that come every 50 points or so. That means you have to grind away on the same items just to get over the next big hump to unlock a whole slew of items you probably don?t have the materials to make.

Conversely, I love how Tera handles guilds. Every guild can upload its own personal icon, which is a point of hilarity in itself. In addition, guild masters can spend guild tokens that its members earn completing guild quests on guild-wide perks like XP boosts. There?s even a whole politics metagame where guilds convince players to ?praise? them, which is a currency you can spend to capture a whole city. I?m not sure what that actually means though, as it has yet to happen in the game since launch. Sure does sound cool, but I doubt we?ll be reading EVE Online-level headlines about political conspiracy.

I?m impressed with Tera?s functionality too, which is probably thanks to the game?s headstart in the Korean market. Certain features that usually take a patch or two to arrive (guild banks, item sorting) are already available. The developers have also had time to suss out all the annoying bugs and glitches that are commonplace with MMO launches. My time in Tera was oddly free of all the nagging problems that you?d expect in a new MMO, which is uncommon and appreciated.

GRAPHICS AND SOUND

The awesome-balanced-by-boring trend continues in the game?s presentation. Tera is, unquestionably, the best-looking MMO in existence, though it is undeniably Asian. The game?s environments give your eyes a blowjob with vibrant colors and complex geometry that defies the flat and open fields that commonly dominate the genre. Character design is downright insane, too. You start innocuously enough with an effete elf man with protruding abs and before long you?re wearing a high-collared purple cheetah print trench coat. Tera also sets amazing new standards in impractical female armor, clothing its buxom warriors in attire that is not only impractical but also defies physics. This game is a visual event.

All of that is countered by noticeably bad voice acting?bad to the point where I figure they just asked around the office for anyone that was somewhat fluent in English and stuck them in the recording booth. Still, you won?t be getting any gratification from the game?s story, so it?s not like the VO is any worse than the writing.

CONTROL

Tera?s unique mechanics also retool the controls extensively. The WoW template has you running around with a mouse cursor to click on and target entities in the world. Tera defaults with mouse look on, while you can pull up the cursor by pressing alt. I am intimately familiar with WoW controls (since nearly every MMO since copies it), so Tera felt incredibly awkward in the first hour, but it clicked after that initial hump. Ever since, controlling has been effortless.

The direct controls also enable controller support in the game, which is supported so explicitly that a controller UI pops up when you plug one in to show you which skill is mapped to which button. The game only works with 360 or PS3 controllers, but I gave it a shot for an hour or two and it?s totally playable. You can even scale up the UI to make it readable on a TV, which was a unique way to kick back and kill twenty bears or demons or whatever.

BOTTOM LINE

Your interest in Tera will depend entirely on what you enjoy out of MMOs. If you want a game that changes up the typical MMO structure, Tera is not that game. It?s nothing but grind from start to finish, filled with template quests and an uninteresting story. However, if you have no problem with grind and just want a fun and gorgeous environment to slaughter fauna, nobody?s done it better than Tera.

READ SOMETHING ELSE WHY DON'T YOU:

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Facebook Keeps Shipping. Now You Can Silence Spammy Apps And More With New Notification Controls

If there's something on Facebook that won't stop pinging you with Notifications, tell it to shut up instantly with Facebook's new granular, in-line notification controls. Hover over an alert in the Facebook.com homepage's globe icon drop-down and click the 'x' for the option to turn off notifications from that app, group, event, or post you commented on. The whole drop-down has a slick new look, and you can scroll down to much older notifications too. Previously you had to dig your way to the dedicated Notifications Settings pageto make these changes, and there was no way to turn off a specific source of alerts -- you had to silence all your events or all your posts. Facebook has confirmed with me that most of the changes to notifications will be rolled out to everyone by tonight, except for app alert controls which are still in testing. As we accumulate more friends and apps, Facebook's notifications can turn from delightful pointers to annoying distractions that interrupt our lives. These new controls mean if you want a more zen Facebook experience, you can make it so.

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Microsoft patent application outlines system to recommend and transfer apps across devices

Ready for your latest tour through the dense and meandering wording of patent applications? Well, dig in, because it's Microsoft's turn to confuse lawyers the world over with this latest USPTO doc, submitted in November of 2010. The filing describes a computer-based program that would, essentially, analyze a primary device's installed applications, cross-reference it with a different device and then either migrate that software batch or suggest similar apps to download on a secondary unit. Sounds a lot like a potential Windows Phone Marketplace recommendation / app transfer engine to us, but what exactly Redmond intends to use this pending patent for is anyone's guess. As always, if you care to sacrifice a few minutes of your life to mind-numbing legal jargon, then by all means hit up the source link below.

Microsoft patent application outlines system to recommend and transfer apps across devices originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 May 2012 22:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  USPTO  | Email this | Comments

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Model Management | SCST Bloggers Confederations

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

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Military trainer jet crashes in Calif., 1 dead

CAMARILLO, Calif. (AP) ? A privately owned training jet on contract to the military crashed Friday in Southern California, killing the civilian pilot, authorities said.

The Hawker Hunter jet trainer went down near Naval Base Ventura County, fire department spokesman Steve Swindle said. The pilot was the only person aboard.

The high-performance military-style aircraft took off from the base on a training sortie with another plane and went down as it was returning, about two miles from the runway in the middle of a farm field.

"He was on final approach. He went down," Swindle said. He said the sky in the area was "bright and crystal clear."

The farm field where the plane crashed is between Point Mugu State Park, Camarillo Airport, and the Naval base, some 50 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles.

There were no injuries on the ground and no reports of a fire, Swindle said. He did not yet know the extent of the damage.

Naval and fire personnel were on the scene at the crash and investigators from the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board were on their way. An FAA spokesman referred all questions to the military, and a phone message left for a Navy spokesman was not immediately returned.

The Hawker Hunter was owned by Airborne Tactical Advantage Co. of Newport News, Va., known as ATAC. It provides aerial training to the military, including the Navy's elite Fighter Weapons School.

Matt "Race" Bannon, director of business development for ATAC, confirmed that the pilot was also from the company, but would not identify him or give any details until relatives were notified.

"Our concern right now is with the family," Bannon said.

The cause of the crash was not immediately known. "I won't even speculate as to anything," Bannon said.

Following company procedure after accidents, ATAC was immediately halting all its flights.

On March 6, one of the company's Israeli-built F-21 Kfir jets crashed into a building at Naval Air Station Fallon, Nev., killing the pilot. ATAC said at the time that although the investigation was continuing, there was no question that erratic and severe weather that had not been forecast contributed to the accident.

Friday's crash occurred on the first anniversary of the crash of a commercial aerial refueling tanker during takeoff from the Ventura base's air station at Point Mugu. All three crewmembers escaped on May 18, 2011, before fire destroyed the Boeing 707 registered to Omega Air Inc. of San Antonio, Texas.

Associated Press

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The Cost Of Pets - The Dish | By Andrew Sullivan - The Daily Beast

Is?hefty:

[T]he average cost to own dogs ranges from $580 to $875 a year, a cat is about $670, and the humble fish weighs in at $35 a year. The data is aggregated from?Mint.com, and only captures recurring costs of owning your pet. It doesn?t include one-time costs such as shelter, licenses and vaccinations, nor does it take into account doggie Christmas stockings or those extra expensive mice that your snake loves. I would double these estimates to to play it a little safe and account for these costs. "I recommend to all of my friends getting dogs that they set aside about $1,000 up front for ?things I didn't even think about,'" my friend Katherine, a dog owner, says.

Then there's injury and illness. Our younger mutt-hound, Eddy, tore a ligament in her back leg while tussling with another dog while in day care when we were in England. It didn't heal on its own, and she began to limp routinely. The vet recommended an operation. The full cost of doing it was way more than I can imagine large numbers of American dog-owners can afford right now. They are faced with the horrible prospect of allowing their pet to have a permanent disability. There's pet-insurance for this, but it makes people-insurance look generous and simple.

Eddy, meanwhile, is healing slowly. We carry her up and down stairs and we have to restrict her movements. The other night we had to put a big plastic Elizabethan collar on her to prevent her licking and biting her staples and wound. She was bewildered and angry, giving us (mainly the hubby) a nightmarish night of protest, nudging and pushing him whenever he moved in bed, and then shitting and pissing all over the place when we were asleep. She's usually a wonderful, loving, amazing creature. And it's painful not being able to explain to her why suddenly, her long walks are suspended, her head surrounded by a scary new contraption, and her back leg even more vulnerable for a while than before.

But that's nothing compared with living with the knowledge that you just cannot afford to keep your pet in perfect health. My heart goes out to people in that position. And their animals.

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T.I. And Young Jeezy Have 'Records Already In The Can'

'Between the two of us, we probably got five or six records,' T.I. tells 'RapFix Live' about possible joint album with Jeezy.
By Rob Markman, with reporting by Sway Calloway

T.I. on "RapFix Live"
Photo: Natasha Chandel/ MTV News

After the success of Jay-Z and Kanye West's Watch the Throne, fans are excited at the thought of two favorite MCs working in tandem. There's been talk of a Lil Wayne and Drake LP, a Rick Ross and Drake mixtape, and whispers of a T.I. and Young Jeezy full-length collaboration. We haven't received any updates from Wayne, Drake or Rozay in a minute, but Tip says he and the Snowman already have songs in the stash.

"I got a few albums that I'm workin' on: the Man and the Martian project with B.o.B; me and Jeezy been talkin' about doin' this project for a minute," T.I. told Sway when he held court on "RapFix Live" on Wednesday. "It wouldn't take us long to do. We got records already in the can and it don't take us no time to put it together. It's just a matter of when they would be released."

Right now Tip is focused on Trouble Man, his eighth solo album, which is slated for a September 4 release. Then there is the tag-team LP with B.o.B — considering that Bobby Ray is signed to T.I.'s Grand Hustle label, the pair's Man and the Martian album is more than a fantasy project.

When it comes to a project with Jeezy, the King of the South says that the studio work isn't the problem: Getting the album out in stores is the tricky part. "It's not the recording, the recording is easy. It's a matter of when we would have time to market and promote 'em and release 'em," T.I. said. "We got maybe 30 or 40 [percent done]. Between the two of us, we probably got five or six records."

How interested are you in a T.I. and Young Jeezy project? Let us know in the comments!

Related Videos

• T.I. Brings The Grand Hustle To 'RapFix Live'

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• T.I.
• Young Jeezy

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Obama gives Medal of Honor to soldier who died 42 years ago

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Girl Scouts of South Carolina ? Mountains to Midlands Honored 32 ...

Girl Scouts of South Carolina ? Mountains to Midlands Honored 32 Gold Award Recipients

May 16, 2012

COLUMBIA, SC - May 16, 2012 - Columbia resident, Rachel Bryson, was recently recognized for earning the prestigious Girl Scout Gold Award.?

Photo at right:? Rachel Bryson earned the prestigious Girl Scout Gold Award, the highest award a Girl Scout may earn.

A total of 32 high achieving Girl Scouts were honored at Presbyterian College on Sunday, May 5, 2012.? The honorees represented 23 troops from across the council?s 22-county region.? Of the 46 total girls who earned this award, 32 were able to attend the reception, including Rachel.? This is the highest award that a Girl Scout Senior or Ambassador in grades 9-12 may earn.? On average, these hardworking young leaders completed a minimum of 80 hours each to meet all the requirements needed to ear this award.

For her Gold Award project, Girl Scout Ambassador Rachel Bryson focused on the hunger issue.? With the help and support of volunteers, she provided hot meals for homeless people and others in the community.? She also made presentations to groups and individuals to raise awareness about this pressing need.? Rachel is the daughter of Hedy and Emanuel Bryson.? She is in Troop 853 and her Troop Leader is Norma Ferguson.

Noting that approximately 80 percent of current women business owners, 59 percent of female U.S. Senators, and five of six female Governors, including South Carolina?s Nikki Haley, were Girl Scouts, Kim Hutzell, President & CEO of Girl Scouts of South Carolina ? Mountains to Midlands stated, ?Girls who earn the prestigious Girl Scout Gold Award are highly esteemed by their peers and the community. Because of their demonstrated leadership, organizational and networking skills, they receive special consideration for college/university acceptance, scholarships and advanced entry into military service.?

The program also honored 164 Silver Award achievers, of whom 62 were able to attend the reception.? This is the highest honor to earn for girls, ages 11 ? 14, or in grades 6 ? 9.? It recognizes their outstanding efforts to improve their own lives and the lives of others.? The requirements for this award are designed to strengthen each girl?s leadership skills, encourage her to explore career opportunities and to make a commitment to self-improvement.

Having evolved from a long line of elite Girl Scout awards, going back as far as 1916, and previously known as the Golden Eagle of Merit, then the Golden Eaglet, First Class and Curved Bar, the Gold Award was first earned in 1980.? Last year, fewer than 6% of Girl Scouts around the nation received the Girl Scout Gold Award.? Its respect is demonstrated by the fact that more than 100 U.S. colleges and universities and numerous national organizations and nonprofit agencies offer scholarships specifically for Girl Scout Gold Award recipients.? In addition, an 18 year old entering military service begins at a higher pay grade if she has earned this honor.

For 100 years, Girl Scouting has helped girls develop positive values and become active, responsible leaders in their communities. With emphasis on personal growth and leadership development through service to others, Girl Scouting builds girls of courage, confidence, and character, who make the world a better place. Girl Scouts of South Carolina-Mountains to Midlands serves approximately 12,600 girls, grades K5-12, and 5,000 adults in 22 counties of central and western South Carolina, including Abbeville, Aiken, Anderson, Cherokee, Chester, Edgefield, Fairfield, Greenville, Greenwood, Kershaw, Lancaster, Laurens, Lexington, McCormick, Newberry, Oconee, Pickens, Richland, Saluda, Spartanburg, Sumter, and Union.

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What are good fish for 10 gallon aquariums? | PetHot.com

10 gallons and community tank are hard to do, because 10 gallons is incredibly small for most fish, but I?ll try to give you a few ideas. Your options, though, for a variety of fish is very limited, though.

1 Male Betta
4 Albino Cories

OR

1 Male Betta
12 Ghost Shrimp

OR

1 Male Dwarf Gourami
4 African Dwarf Frogs

OR

1-2 Female Dwarf Gouramis
4 Albino Cories

OR

3 Guppies
3 Platies

OR

1 Male Dwarf Gourami
1 Female Betta
3 Panda Cories

I can?t really think of any other combos and even a couple of my suggestions is pushing the limit, but as long as you cycle your tank first, have ample filtration, and do regular 25% water changes, you should be good. Hopefully, this gave you an idea. Keep in mind, an overstocked tank will not live long, either from ammonia poisoning or aggressiveness due to not enough space, so keep that in mind when stocking it. Good luck.

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Easy Ways To Implement Home Improvement Projects Today

Planning home improvement augmentation can be thrilling to do, yet it?s important to turn over in ones mind every element at the onset. People shouldn?t feel an urgency about leaping into action and obtaining building materials or contractors earlier than knowing exactly what you are going to do. Cases in point, making sure you are within the targeted cost range, or that you are looking at energy efficiency and additionally the aesthetics.

Few factors have a larger impact on the look of a home than the lighting. Amending lights, bulbs and fixtures could bring about a big change, and they are often inexpensive and not difficult to make these amendments. Beautiful lights hanging from the ceiling, as an example, has the potential of bringing about a fashionable appearance to the room in its entirety. Lighting fixtures that are recessed give off a cleaner appearance more than numerous customary lights, and installation is easy, therefore consideration of these for your home might be something you desire. The windows in a room effects lighting greatly, therefore sometimes the addition of a new or bigger one could really alter the brightness of a space. What lamps you have in your room and where they are set is also something you need to be critical about so they can have the most impact. The look and feel of your kitchen can be changed in many ways to improve it. Using the kitchen everyday, there are things you use that can be changed out easily, unlike the cabinets or floor tile. If you focus on updating your appliances, you can make your kitchen more fun and functional as well as appealing. If you like to cook, you could do it more efficiently and fun on your new stove. After a certain length of time all things need replacing, even refrigerators, so maybe it is time for the latest model. Doing this and nothing else, will give you a new-look kitchen. Ovens too can transform your kitchen, and a new one may allow you to heat things faster and have features such as multiple timers that make it easier to cook meals.

Have you ever thought about making small improvements to your home instead of large ones? For instance, find several small things to fix up, which will make a large change. If your mailbox is outdated, change it and it will change how people perceive your home. Changing this will definitely have a large impact as many people will see this change as they go by. A simple thing like changing your door handles will make a large difference. You can go for an old-fashioned look, especially if you are redecorating in this manner. Your home can look much better by making these simple changes, including changing out light switches which will definitely help.

This article was intended to provide you with ideas for a few projects that you could implement in regard to improving your home. Imagine several different improvements that you want to make on your home before you actually implement the projects. Remember to never hire anybody without finding out more about what they actually can do, and never buy anything without researching the material first.

There is more content available about metal roofing snow guards there is loads of details not detailed in this article, go to Author?s web blog to discover more.

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Leon Panetta demands fixes for fighter planes

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Plastic Logic demoes flexible color display for e-readers (video)

Plastic Logic has getting by with some eastern love since last year, when RUSNANO's $700 million investment helped the e-reader maker land its Plastic Logic 100 in Russian schools. The latest fruit of that partnership is a prototype of its first flexible color e-reader display, which delivers 4,000-plus hues at a resolution of 75 ppi. The screen contains some 1.2 million plastic transistors, and it's able to bend without distorting images thanks to a filter and display that flex at the same rate. Skip past the break for a demo clip of the tech in action, appropriately featuring some Matryoshka dolls.

Continue reading Plastic Logic demoes flexible color display for e-readers (video)

Plastic Logic demoes flexible color display for e-readers (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 14 May 2012 15:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink The Digital Reader  |  Digit.ru  | Email this | Comments

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Is world outpacing US on health care? | Health and Fitness

Mexico, which a decade ago covered less than half its population, completed an eight-year drive for universal coverage that has dramatically expanded Mexicans? access to life-saving treatments for diseases such as leukemia and breast cancer.

In Thailand, where the gross domestic product per person is one-fifth that of the United States, just 1?percent of the population lacks health insurance. And in sub-Saharan Africa, Rwanda and Ghana ? two of the world?s poorest nations ? are working to create networks of insurance plans to cover their citizens.

?This is truly a global movement,? said Julio Frenk, a former health minister in Mexico and dean of the Harvard School of Public Health. ?As countries advance, they are realizing that creating universal health-care systems is a necessity for long-term economic development.?

Many countries are struggling to improve the quality of their medical care. And making health care affordable remains a challenge for most countries, as it does for the United States, where about 15 percent of people lack coverage.

But the international drive to provide health care for everyone is leaving America behind.

?We are really an outlier,? said David de Ferranti, a former World Bank vice president who heads the Results for Development Institute, an international nonprofit organization based in Washington.

That stands in stark contrast to the United States? historical leadership in education, he said. Long before most European countries, the United States ensured access to public schooling. Today, it is alone among the world?s richest nations in not providing health-care coverage to all citizens.

Though the new U.S. health law is scheduled to do that in 2014, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has promised to repeal it. Romney?s alternative does not include any provision to guarantee coverage.

Two decades ago, many former communist countries in Eastern Europe and elsewhere dismantled their universal health-care systems amid a drive to set up free-market economies. But popular demand for insurance protection has fueled an effort in nearly all of these countries to rebuild their systems. Similar pressure is coming from the citizens of fast-growing nations in Asia and Latin America, where rising living standards have raised expectations for better services.

Some countries have set up public systems like those in Great Britain and Canada. But many others are relying on a mix of government and commercial insurance, as in the United States.

?People are demanding responses from their governments,? said Cristian Baeza, the World Bank?s director for health, nutrition and population. Indeed, in countries such as India, politicians have learned that one of the surest ways to secure votes is to promise better access to health care.

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BlackBerry 10's predictive keyboard gets transplanted with Octopus Keyboard for jailbroken iOS devices

RIM's latest on-screen keyboard effort may bear a passing resemblance to Swiftkey, but it also has us itching to see how the rest of the BlackBerry 10 UI will turn out. It looks like we're not the only ones, as Octopus Keyboard aims to bring the same slick prediction interface to jailbreaking iOS users. Swiping up will access suggested words depending on which letters are pressed, while the keyboard will also memorize new vocab like the iOS original. You can see how it works in real life -- and gauge whether it's worth the jailbreaking rigmarole -- in a quick walkthrough video after the break.

Continue reading BlackBerry 10's predictive keyboard gets transplanted with Octopus Keyboard for jailbroken iOS devices

BlackBerry 10's predictive keyboard gets transplanted with Octopus Keyboard for jailbroken iOS devices originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 14 May 2012 19:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Start your week with the Greatest Android Podcast in the World!

It's Monday, and we're back to our first normal work week in a little while. Yeah, we didn't have a regular podcast last week -- instead we were live from the CTIA convention in New Orleans, where we got a look at the new Verizon Droid Incredible 4G LTE, some new fare from Kyocera, and a few other odds and ends.

The Android Central Podcast is your weekly peek into the world of Android, where we break down the news that really matters, and explain what's just a bunch of hype. Plus, we answer your e-mails and voicemails. You don't want to miss it. Check out the Android Central Podcast.

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Seeking Chen Guangcheng's freedom in China via 'Internet meme'

Supporters of the activist lawyer have kept the torch burning for his release using Internet memes: online pieces of content that spread their message without rousing China's infamous censors.

Chen Guangcheng?s escape from house arrest has caught the attention of China?s vast Internet community, despite his name being blocked by the ?Great Firewall of China,? the nation?s Internet censors. ?The vehicle that sidesteps the censorship? ?The Internet meme.

Skip to next paragraph

?Internet meme? is a term that defies easy definition. Generally speaking, it is an idea or concept that rapidly spreads through the Internet?s population, often fueled by a kind of ironic humor. ?From ?lolcats? ? cat pictures juxtaposed with misspelled text ? to Rickrolling, hundreds of memes exist, with more being created daily by the denizens of the Internet. ?Indeed, an entire website has been devoted to documenting individual memes? rise and fall.

But the Western English-speaking world does not hold a monopoly on Internet memes; every online sphere has its own collection of memes, including China. ?And some memes have an added function in China?s heavily censored Internet: vehicle for political critique. ?Design strategist and meme researcher An Xiao Mina, speaking this past weekend at ROFLcon, a convention about Internet memes at MIT in Cambridge, Mass., called them ?the street art of the social web.?

Overt political criticism remains out-of-bounds for most online Chinese, as automated Internet filtering and alert human censors work to purge sensitive references. ?But memes allow Chinese Web users to express themselves by using a kind of guerrilla activism ? avoiding the keywords that flag the automated filters and disguising political messages such that human censors cannot distinguish them from the overwhelming volume of innocuous online speech.

Take Chen?s captivity and subsequent escape, which have been inspiration for a number of Chinese memes. ?One of the simplest is the ?Dark Glasses Portrait,? a phenomenon started in China, where Chen supporters take pictures of themselves wearing sunglasses in reference to the blind activist?s eyewear. ?In isolation, each photo does not trip the sensors of the ?Great Firewall? ? the photos are simply photos, the sunglasses simply sunglasses. ?But in the aggregate, the hundreds of photos send a loud message.

Other memes are more complex, using visual codes, parodies, and satire. ?An artist supporter of Chen created a satirical KFC ad, featuring a cartoon version of Chen in place of the Colonel, and the slogan ?Free CGC.? The similarity to KFC ads, which can be found all over China, provides a loose disguise, enabling Chen?s supporters to post the image ? say, as a bumper sticker ? despite its political message.?

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In Ohio, gay marriage debate may change few votes but inspires some, annoys others (Star Tribune)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, RSS and RSS Feed via Feedzilla.

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Panasonic sends 100,000 LEDs down Tokyo river, mates tech with tradition

If you'd been by the shore of the Sumida River in central Tokyo this past weekend, you would have noticed that it was glowing a distinct shade of blue. That's because Panasonic decided to kick off the first-ever Tokyo Hotaru (fireflies) festival by sending 100,000 EVERLED light bulbs down the river, both to mimic fireflies as well as to pay homage to a Japanese tradition of floating candles on the water. Before you cringe too much at the thought of the environmental impact, rest assured that Panasonic minimized the footprint of its aquatic LED parade. All the bulbs ran on solar power (presumably, charged during the day) that kept Evolta batteries fed inside, and the entire lot was scooped up in a large net afterwards. We love the exhibition as a large-scale demo of sustainable lighting -- you may just want to avoid fishing along the Sumida's shoreline for awhile in case you catch a straggler.

Panasonic sends 100,000 LEDs down Tokyo river, mates tech with tradition originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 May 2012 20:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Spoon & Tamago  |  Panasonic Tokyo Hotaru project (no translation available)  | Email this | Comments

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