Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Uncrustables: Not Only For Children

The picture you see that is my favorite snack/meal which we called Smucker's Uncrustables Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches.

Initially I looked at Uncrustables as some children’s snack, but then I ate one. I realize that every time I eat it’s the BEST peanut butter & jelly sandwich. They are so perfect, and they have the perfect ratio of peanut butter to jelly. They come frozen. Take it out, and 30 minutes later you have a wonderful peanut butter and jelly sandwich with soft bread. . I don't know what Smucker's does to make these things so convenient and tasty, but thumbs up to them.

Do you like Uncrustables or prefer classic PB&J sandwiches?

Saturday, August 8, 2009

Bemoaning the death of Hacker culture

As the security industry has really changed a lot in last 5 years. If we see I past the industry is much larger in public profile and much better funded across the board. As if we remember in the dark ages of 1999, the main reason people chose to get into this field of cyber security was to “live the Hacker culture 24x7”. The word which we call it is linkspamopedia for a definition:

"In academia, a hacker is a person who follows a spirit of playful cleverness and enjoys programming. The context of academic hackers forms a voluntary subculture termed the academic hacking culture."

This is the main reason why they prefer security industry. As after completing the college, there is the lot of time to develop you in field of programmer. It’s a very interesting job.


In 2007, I get the feeling that professionals are entering the information security field to become some sort of a "digital security guard". Let's check the definition again:

"A security guard or security officer is usually a privately and formally employed person who is paid to protect property, and/or assets, and/or people. Often, security officers are uniformed and act to protect property by maintaining a high visibility presence to deter illegal and/or inappropriate actions."

As a subscriber to the Hacker culture School of Information Security, if I get an IDS/IPS analyst job, the first thing I am going to do is take my IDS/IPS equipment apart. Blast it with all sorts of horrendously mangled traffic, see what gets by it. I'll try to understand what types of shell code can defeat its monitoring capabilities, perhaps it can detect covert channels by looking at the randomness in the distribution of character sets. Perhaps it can't detect a simple shell that is XORed with a predetermined value. You get the idea. I can then apply what I have learned about the chinks in the armor of my primary defensive weapon, so I know which attackers are going to be able to defeat my tools.

A subscriber the Rent-a-cop School of Information Security will likely spend his first month implementing signatures to catch employee's playing fantasy football. He'll push for even more draconian policies to restrict something that is actually useful to the business and poses little to no threat, such as not allowing employees to use a non-standard file compression. All the while, the 21st century digital security guard quietly plays fantasy football and runs winrar on his corporate laptop. Meanwhile, the Canadian Mafia (Yes, there is a Canadian Mafia, No it's not always the Russian Mafia) snags 21 million credit cards through his IDS/IPS he hasn't bothered to understand.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

SUCESSOR OF MICROSOFT OFFICE-2007

Microsoft recently announced a new report that to release office 2010. That is designed on the concept of Click-To-Run Technical Preview program for certain users to provide the access to the office suite beta, that allow them to use Office programs while they are still downloading. As in previous versions of office it too consist of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, & OneNote that is mainly meant for the home, student, some of the small business users, with Microsoft indicating it’s taste of things to come from the software giant. The office new version is still in beta stage, & Microsoft itself issued to some of the limited no of the testers that will share their feedback after using the Office 2010

As when the Office suite is downloading, users are informed about the Office that they may use it offline also. While the software is downloading, Microsoft notes there may be a delay compared to when the software is installed on your computer. Also, a incomplete download, such as the connection to the web is interrupted, will not result the software to be completely useless, as we seen in previous versions of it, but it would have some limited functionality. As soon as the connection is restored, Office will continue streaming right where it stopped.

Operating system that Office2010 Click-To-Run program support includes Windows XP SP3, Windows Vista SP1 & the beta version of Windows 7, with Windows server is not supported.

GLOBAL WARMING AWARENESS

As we see the Earth is warming up! The ice caps were melting down and converting into the oceans. If we see the effects then we see that the rainfall is very uncertain. In future if it is stopped the plants will die that causes the extinction of the HUMAN RACE!! “

As if we see the recent news about the global warming, many people have negative view of the greenhouse effect. In their opinion greenhouse effect is good, as it keeps earth warm enough for us to live here. If there will not be greenhouse effect then there will be severe cold that would not be able to support life. Gases like Carbon dioxide & methane let the sun’s radiation into our atmosphere, but they don’t let the heat to be radiated back form the atmosphere into the space. Due to this the green house effect arises and that keeps the plant inside warm.

It is basically defined as the increase in the amount of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, which causes the temperature to increase. The humans it self is responsible for it as adding the gases to the atmosphere in several different way.

Many of the activities that we do every day contribute to global warming. Turning on the television, driving a car, drying hair, and using the air conditioner all use energy. This energy usually comes from burning fossil fuels like natural gas, petroleum and coal. Burning these fuels releases carbon which combines with oxygen and increases the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

As the deforestation is also one of important reason of the global warming. Peoples are cutting down the trees to make their room, & raising cattle. Trees release oxygen in to the atmosphere and take carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The fewer trees there are, the more carbon dioxide stays in the air. When the trees are cut down, they are usually burned which releases even more carbon into the air.

How can we help us?

We are also able to control this global warming by taking some of the preventive measures like first of all we have to save our energy by just paying some attention-like turn of the electrical appliances when they are no in use, carpooling and reducing the overall amount of fossil fuels we burn will be a big help. Planting trees and other vegetation will also help reduce the levels of greenhouse gases!

The atmosphere is divided into sections form crust up as follows: Troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere, Ionosphere, exosphere. We are all familiar with troposphere. This layer mainly consists of approximately 78% nitrogen and 21& oxygen. The remaining 1% includes other gases. It may vary due to pollutants in the air. The Stratosphere contains the ozone layer and the jet stream. Mainly the commercial jets fly in or near this layer. The Ozone layer located in it absorbs the harmful ultraviolet rays and helps protect us. But now days Ozone holes do exist and have been linked to higher skin cancer rates in Australia. In some other parts of world it also exists. Next layer is Mesosphere this area is where meteoroids burn up and leave a streak in the night sky. The Thermosphere is another layer in which it includes both Ionosphere and the Exosphere. The Ionosphere is responsible of reflecting radio waves back to earth. The ions and dust particles also creates a fabulous light show known as aurora borealis sometimes called northern lights. The Exosphere is where we often term as space, it is that area where the satellite holds and allows communicating by the TV and other means. How would you like to do without these layers? Think what would happen without any of these layers?

What might be the result if we lost the stratosphere? Can we do without any one of these layers?

Monday, July 13, 2009

Have You Thought About Christian Science Courses For Elementary Grades?

When educating your children at home, you have the freedom to teach them sound science that is presented from a Christian worldview. "Christian Kids Explore Earth and Space," geared at elementary students, fits the bill very well. This text is part of a series by Stephanie L. Redmond which include Biology, Chemistry, and Physics. I enjoyed teaching from this text for a number of reasons including: it requires little to no teacher prep time; it is enjoyable to work through; being from a Christian worldview, it is God-honoring; and it is written in a conversational tone that is easy to read aloud and appeals to the younger audience.

The text has 24 lessons, 2 on the Earth in general (including Creation); 5 covering the lithosphere; 4 covering the hydrosphere; 4 covering the atmosphere; 5 covering weather; and 4 covering all of outer space. The maps, forms and coloring sheets are reproducible. An applicable scripture has been chosen for each lesson. In addition, there is an appendix of recipes and additional activities, another on how to make a folderbook, and another including additional books and resources. We took the book to our local copy center and had them cut off the binding. Then we separated the reproducible sheets and had the text spiral-bound with all the glossaries and appendices.

Altogether, I found this course to be a good core text for my second-grader that was easily supplemented in a few areas. I will be using it again with my younger kids when they hit second grade. And although my second-grader and I completed the entire course, we definitely amended and expanded it to be more in-depth. One example of this was finding all nine planets covered in one short chapter! I thought this was neglecting an opportunity to excite kids about outer space, so we expanded on that section with outside materials. There is no chapter at all about biomes, which I found startling, as there is so much to intrigue children about the variety of habitats and temperature zones on this planet we call home. Again, we supplemented the study of Earth with outside materials.

In a few of the chapters it seemed as though the bulk of the reading is about the author's own experiences, although this contributes to the 'talking to a young child' tone. One of the main things I noticed about Christian Kids Explore was the lack of consistency in material from chapter to chapter. It is a curious mix of technical definitions and conversational banter.

It's always great to find a science course that gives glory to God for his creation. The first lesson was about Creation, but neglected the "on the first day, on the second day..." so we supplemented that with some reading from Genesis. In Lesson three she goes over the theory of Pangea and the worldwide flood, how some scientists and theologians have conflicting ideas. She presents it flawlessly and intelligently. Although the coloring sheets are beautiful, they have a lot of black space that can't be colored. In addition, there is one sheet for the entire unit, not individual sheets to work on while mom reads each chapter.

The benefits in this book for the upper elementary students include lots of definitions in the margins and timelines listing scientists and scientific discoveries. One thing that would have been helpful was a 'year-long list of copies to be made' in case you don't have a copier at home to do it chapter by chapter. I think this book is a good value, especially if you supplement with library materials instead of buying them.

Teresa Dear is a homeschooling mom of four kids. She and her husband of eleven years do not worry about socialization. You can read more about the Classical Education Method in general and her homeschool lifestyle in particular at http://highereducation-mama4x.blogspot.com. Find out her choices for curriculum and everything else homeschool. She divides her time between education, making a home, shopping curriculum, and stocking her http://www.mama4x.etsy.com storefront with handmade greeting cards and vintage ephemera.

The Benefits of Art For Health

Picking up the paintbrush and heading towards the canvas, or whatever form of fun art projects you chose, is often more than just an exercise in aesthetics, but instead also imparts health benefits for a growing number of people. The link between health and art may seem vague at first, but when you look at the human individual holistically, one of the first things that the discriminating eye will notice is that health consists of more than just the proper functioning of various physiological and biological components. Instead, there are various other aspects to health that create a holistically healthy person.

Mind over matter
If you have ever executed a particularly excellent color passage in your artworks, or if you have ever rendered a figure in a satisfying way, and if in general you have been enjoying the arts, one of the impressions you get from artistic endeavors is not only skills, but a sense of fulfillment that reaches a psychological level. Studies today are suggesting, however, that the same psychological fulfillment that is found in art activities has actual physiological effects as well. Parts of the brain secrete hormone during art activities which foster better health. These hormones are considered happy hormones by many scientists, and include endorphins which are released during stimulating events.

Happy hormones
The physiological effects of happy hormones include increased blood circulation, better sense perception, as well as an increase in the performance of the immune system. While further research and development studies are needed to fully establish the connection between art and health, one thing that scientists and doctors are concluding is that health is more than just a combination of vitamins and supplements, a good diet, and physical workouts and exercise. It also includes recreation. In fact, companies and large corporations are beginning to see correlations between personnel performance and employees who are holistically healthy.

Healthy lifestyles
Health and fun art projects also naturally go together because a healthy lifestyle is often necessary for many delicate artistic maneuvers. In painting and sculpture, for instance, one of the recommendations is to avoid smoking which can lead to shaky hands which are bad for painting in details especially in smaller canvasses. Many artists also find that a healthy lifestyle which includes exercise, plenty of sleep, and a good diet are some of the most artistically stimulating conditions for creating works of arts, contrary to popular and often exaggerated notions of the starved and homeless artist.

Artistic options
Progressive doctors on the cutting edge of these new developments are now including forms of artistic recreation in the medical prescription to ensure that patients with health problems are better able to cope with their various diseases. One of the primary reasons why art is so useful in the healing process is that, aside from the hormonal discharges that result from satisfying art activities, it is also one of the least physically straining activities that an invalid can enjoy. Aside from this, fun art projects come in various form allowing greater options for the patient to choose from. For instance, painting is just one of the many artistic endeavors that a person can indulge in, and already there are many sub-categories and options within the field of painting alone. You can try out oil painting, water color painting, gouache painting, and even mixed media.

Learn Painting and Drawing The Way You've Always Wanted To

For More Tips Visit: http://www.diyartprojects.com/


Friday, July 10, 2009

How to Keep Your Bird Active

If you have decided that your pet of choice is a bird then you must realize your pet will require exercise just like any pet. It is important that your pet bird gets enough exercise to main its good health and well being. Smaller birds can get enough exercise while they are in the cage, but if you are getting a larger breed your bird will have to be removed from the cage. In this article I would like to give you some tips to show how to give your bird the proper exercise.

First, most important is is the size of cage you choose. Your bird must be able to extend both wings inside of the cage. The bars must be strong enough to hold up to your birds biting them. The bars must be close enough together so your bird can not get their head stuck between the bars.

Second, many birds like to climb and cages with horizontal bars are good for this. You must make sure the bars are strong enough to hold up to your birds weight. Perches and swings are another great source of exercise for your bird while they are still in the cage. You want the perches to be made of different substances and be of different diamaters so your bird can exercise their feet.

Third, bird toys are an excellent source of entertainment and exercise for your bird. Make sure you choose appropriate size toys for your bird. You also want to make sure these toys are in good condition so your bird can not be hurt or swallow a piece of a toy. You also want to make sure the toys are painted with non-toxic paints. Paint can be very dangerous for your bird.

Lastly, if you have a larger bird it is good to exercise them outside of the cage. If this is an option you must provide a safe secure area for your bird to be exercised. You do not want to risk your bird either escaping or being harmed or frightened. A well exercised bird makes for a very happy and healthy bird.

Get: Bird Exercise Tips

How to: Find Bird Information

Bryan Burbank is an expert in the field of Animals and Pet Issues