Tuesday, October 19, 2010

private jets

Private Jets is a power pop quartet from Sweden, founded in 2001 by twin brothers Erik Westin and Per Westin.

The band started out as a song writing project, the brothers curious to see if they could mix their influences of pop, rock and jazz into their own brand of power pop with ambiguous lyrics and smart arrangements. When pushed by pop enthusiasts to record some of the songs, they realized that they had to put a band together. Janne Hellman was recruited as lead vocalist together with Mikael Olsson on bass, Olsson who had previous worked with the brothers in the hi-speed pop outfit Revolver Bop Agents.

First release Private Jets released the debut EP “A Four Leaf Clover in E-Major” on May 27, 2002 on Sparkplug Records. It contained four songs and a short snippet and was well received by the power pop community. The songs were written, arranged, produced and to a large extent performed by the brothers. Lead vocals was provided by Janne Hellman on all tracks and Olsson played bass on the song Millionseller.

In a radio interview on Swedish Radio, Erik Westin explained that the band were basically writing what they wanted to hear but couldn’t really seem to find anywhere. He also said that the ambition with the band is to write the ultimate pop song over and over again.

Second release After the release of “A Four Leaf Clover in E-Major” the brothers started to work on a new album. The band bio states that they wrote 43 new songs to be able to make an album filled with singles only. It says that they would strive for nothing less than power pop perfection. Of the songs written, the band chose to record twelve, and the result can be heard on the album “Jet Sounds”, released on May 26, 2008.

Live gigs In May 2008 Private Jets made their live debut at the Cavern Club in Liverpool, playing the International Pop Overthrow. An extra show was added.

On Saturday November 7, 2008, the band played at the International Pop Overthrow in New York City, performing at Kenny’s Castaways in Greenwich Village.

Work-at-home

A Work-at-Home scheme is a get-rich-quick scheme in which a victim is lured by an offer to be employed at home, very often doing some simple task in a minimal amount of time with a large amount of income that far exceeds the market rate for the type of work. The true purpose of such an offer is for the perpetrator to extort money from the victim.

Work-at-home schemes have been around for decades. Originally found as ads in newspapers or magazines, they have expanded to more high-tech media, such as television and radio ads, and on the Internet.

Legitimate work-at-home opportunities do exist, and many people do their jobs in the comfort of their own homes. But anyone seeking such an employment opportunity must be wary of accepting a home employment offer, as only about one in 42 such ads have been determined to be legitimate [1]. Most legitimate jobs at home require some form of post-high-school education, such as a college degree or certificate, or trade school, and some experience in the field in an office or other supervised setting. Additionally, many legitimate at-home jobs are not like those in schemes are portrayed to be, as they are often performed at least some of the time in the company's office, require more self discipline than a traditional job, and have a higher risk of firing.

Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is a marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate's marketing efforts. Examples include rewards sites, where users are rewarded with cash or gifts, for the completion of an offer, and the referral of others to the site. The industry has four core players: the merchant (also known as 'retailer' or 'brand'), the network, the publisher (also known as 'the affiliate') and the customer. The market has grown in complexity to warrant a secondary tier of players, including affiliate management agencies, super-affiliates and specialized third parties vendors.

Affiliate marketing overlaps with other Internet marketing methods to some degree, because affiliates often use regular advertising methods. Those methods include organic search engine optimization, paid search engine marketing, e-mail marketing, and in some sense display advertising. On the other hand, affiliates sometimes use less orthodox techniques, such as publishing reviews of products or services offered by a partner.

Affiliate marketing—using one website to drive traffic to another—is a form of online marketing, which is frequently overlooked by advertisers. While search engines, e-mail, and website syndication capture much of the attention of online retailers, affiliate marketing carries a much lower profile. Still, affiliates continue to play a significant role in e-retailers' marketing strategies.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Broadband Internet access

Broadband Internet access, often shortened to just broadband, is a high data rate Internet access—typically contrasted with dial-up access using a 56k modem.

Dial-up modems are limited to a bitrate of less than 56 kbit/s (kilobits per second) and require the full use of a telephone line—whereas broadband technologies supply more than double this rate and generally without disrupting telephone use.

Although various minimum bandwidths have been used in definitions of broadband, ranging up from 64 kbit/s up to 2.0 Mbit/s, the 2006 OECD report is typical by defining broadband as having download data transfer rates equal to or faster than 256 kbit/s, while the United States (US) Federal Communications Commission (FCC) as of 2009, defines "Basic Broadband" as data transmission speeds exceeding 768 kilobits per second (Kbps), or 768,000 bits per second, in at least one direction: downstream (from the Internet to the user’s computer) or upstream (from the user’s computer to the Internet). The trend is to raise the threshold of the broadband definition as the marketplace rolls out faster services.

Data rates are defined in terms of maximum download because several common consumer broadband technologies such as ADSL are "asymmetric"—supporting much slower maximum upload data rate than download.

Windows Media Services

Windows Media Services (WMS) is a streaming media server from Microsoft that allows an administrator to generate streaming media (audio/video). Only Windows Media, JPEG, and MP3 formats are supported. WMS is the successor of NetShow Services.
In addition to streaming, WMS also has the ability to cache and record streams, enforce authentication, impose various connection limits, restrict access, use multiple protocols, generate usage statistics, and apply forward error correction (FEC). It can also handle a high number of concurrent connections making it ideal[weasel words] for content providers. Streams can also be distributed between servers as part of a distribution network where each server ultimately feeds a different network/audience. Both unicast and multicast streams are supported (multicast streams also utilize a proprietary and partially encrypted Windows Media Station (*.nsc) file for use by a player.) Typically, Windows Media Player is used to decode and watch/listen to the streams, but other players are also capable of playing unencrypted Windows Media content (Microsoft Silverlight, VLC, MPlayer, etc.)

64-bit versions of Windows Media Services are also available for increased scalability. The Scalable Networking Pack for Windows Server 2003 adds support for network acceleration and hardware-based offloading, which boosts Windows Media server performance. The newest version, Windows Media Services 2008, for Windows Server 2008, includes a built-in WMS Cache/Proxy plug-in which can be used to configure a Windows Media server either as a cache/proxy server or as a reverse proxy server so that it can provide caching and proxy support to other Windows Media servers. Microsoft claims that these offloading technologies nearly double the scalability, making Windows Media Services the industry's most powerful streaming media server.

Windows Media Services 2008 is no longer included with the setup files for the Windows Server 2008 operating system, but is available as a free download.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

asbestosis

Asbestos (from Greek ἄσβεστος meaning "unquenchable" or "inextinguishable") is a set of six naturally occurring silicate minerals exploited commercially for their desirable physical properties. They all have in common their asbestiform habit, long, (1:20) thin fibrous crystals. The inhalation of asbestos fibers can cause serious illnesses, including malignant lung cancer, mesothelioma (a formerly rare cancer strongly associated with exposure to amphibole asbestos), and asbestosis (a type of pneumoconiosis). Long term exposure to asbestos is more likely to cause health problems, as asbestos exists in the ambient air at low levels, which itself does not cause health problems.[1] The European Union has banned all use of asbestos[2] and extraction, manufacture and processing of asbestos products.[3]

Asbestos became increasingly popular among manufacturers and builders in the late 19th century because of its sound absorption, average tensile strength, and its resistance to heat, electrical and chemical damage. When asbestos is used for its resistance to fire or heat, the fibers are often mixed with cement or woven into fabric or mats. Asbestos was used in some products for its heat resistance, and in the past was used on electric oven and hotplate wiring for its electrical insulation at elevated temperature, and in buildings for its flame-retardant and insulating properties, tensile strength, flexibility, and resistance to chemicals.
Six minerals are defined by the United States Environmental Protection Agency as "asbestos" including that belonging to the serpentine class chrysotile and that belonging to the amphibole class amosite, crocidolite, tremolite, anthophyllite and actinolite. There is an important distinction to be made between serpentine and amphibole asbestos due to differences in their chemical composition and their degree of potency as a health hazard when inhaled. However asbestos and all commercial forms of asbestos (including chrysotile asbestos) are known to be human carcinogens based on sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in humans. [1][4]
[edit] Serpentine
[edit] White

Chrysotile, CAS No. 12001-29-5, is obtained from serpentinite rocks which are common throughout the world. Its idealized chemical formula is Mg3(Si2O5)(OH)4. Chrysotile fibers are curly as opposed to fibers from amosite, crocidolite, tremolite, actinolite, and anthophyllite which are needlelike.[5] Chrysotile, along with other types of asbestos, has been banned in dozens of countries and is only allowed in the United States and Europe in very limited circumstances. Chrysotile has been used more than any other type and accounts for about 95% of the asbestos found in buildings in America.[6] Applications where chrysotile might be used include the use of joint compound. It is more flexible than amphibole types of asbestos; it can be spun and woven into fabric. The most common use is within corrugated asbestos cement roof sheets typically used for outbuildings, warehouses and garages. It is also found as flat sheets used for ceilings and sometimes for walls and floors. Numerous other items have been made containing chrysotile including brake linings, cloth behind fuses (for fire protection), pipe insulation, floor tiles, and rope seals for boilers

Sunday, September 26, 2010

phone conferencing

A conference call is a telephone call in which the calling party wishes to have more than one called party listen in to the audio portion of the call. The conference calls may be designed to allow the called party to participate during the call, or the call may be set up so that the called party merely listens into the call and cannot speak. It is often referred to as an ATC (Audio Tele-Conference).

Conference calls can be designed so that the calling party calls the other participants and adds them to the call - however, participants are usually able to call into the conference call themselves, by dialing into a special telephone number that connects to a "conference bridge" (a specialized type of equipment that links telephone lines).

Companies commonly use a specialized service provider who maintains the conference bridge, or who provides the phone numbers and PIN codes that participants dial to access the meeting or conference call.

Three-way calling is available (usually at an extra charge) for many customers on their home or office phone line. To three-way call, the first person one wishes to talk to is dialed. Then the Hook flash button (known as the recall button in the UK and elsewhere) is pressed and the other person's phone number is dialed. While it is ringing, flash / recall is pressed again to connect the three people together. This option allows callers to add a second outgoing call to an already connected call.