A Bird................

The weather has continued to be insanely lovely.  Today was our fifth day in a row of not-rain, and not-rain is forecast through Tuesday of this week.   Which is not usual for this time of year around these parts.  It has gotten pretty cold at night—down into the 20’s—and in the morning after the sun climbs high enough in the sky to thaw some spots in the yard, we are alive with birds.  Woodpecker, flicker, towhee and I’ve had another visit from the brown creeper; my little kinglet flitting around the branches of the apple tree.  A fat robin scarfing down berries from the pyrachantha.    The posse of chickadees, three kinds of sparrows (song, golden crown and white crown); starlings and bushtits on the suet, “stupid pigeons” (turtledoves) pecking at corn on the ground, purple finches, lesser goldfinches, the ever-present crowd of juncos and the continuing aeronautics of the hummingbirds.  And I’ve witnessed one visit by the Cooper’s hawk, though I’m sure he’s been around more.

Today we went out for brunch and stopped at the “nuclear park” on the way home.  I brought my camera, which is usually the kiss of death as far as photo opportunities go.  If I tote the camera along, I almost never see or get close enough to anything to get a decent picture.

So we got out of the car and scared up a couple of egrets that would not fly close enough for a good shot.  Then we walked down to the path around the pond, spotted a few geese and ducks…nothing we haven’t seen before. We came upon another egret who also declined to stick around for a photo shoot.  (Egrets have been very much in evidence in my life the past few months…more on that later.)

The wind was up and we were getting chilled, so we turned around and headed back toward the car instead of doing the whole route around the pond as we usually do.  All the time scanning the branches of the tall, naked trees for SOMEone to immortalize digitally.  The trees were gorgeous against the slightly misty blue sky, but…empty.  Skunked again, I thought, and started to climb the embankment up to the road where we parked the car, capping my lens and commencing to stuff the camera back into its neoprene sleeve.

“Kronkkk!”   

“What the…”

 “Kronkkk!  KRONKKK!!”   from almost right above our heads.

“That’s a heron.  Where is it?”

“KRONKKK!!”   (Right up here, idiot!)

It still took me awhile to find him, in spite of the fact that he continued his intermittent croaking.  I finally triangulated the sound to a branch in a tree not far from us.  He was so well camouflaged I would never have seen him had he not called out to me.

He did not want me to leave without having a little face-time.  It was as if he was saying, “I’ve been sent with a greeting from the Universe.  And I was NOT going to let you go away without sharing it.”

Well.

All I have to say is,

“Thank you!”

PEN THAT VIBRATES ON SPELLING MISTAKE-LERNSTIFT

Lernstift is a  new technology pen invented by two fathers to decrease the spelling mistake of their children. This pen detects the motion during writing and checks the spellings. And even it detects the handwriting.  This pen will vibrate everytime there is a spelling mistake. And even suggest about your handwriting.

Lernstift pen works in two modes:-

1. Calligraphy mode

2. Orthography mode

1. Calligraphy mode – In Calligraphy mode, the pen will detects every letter we have written. Pen will vibrate one time whenever wrong word is written.

2. Orthography mode - in Orthography mode, Lernstift detects the spelling of the words written by user. Every time when there is a spelling mistake, pen will vibrate once.  But when there is grammatical mistake the pen will vibrate twice.

 

 

INSIDE LERNSTIFT :-

1)   WiFi module

2)  Mini Computer (Linux)                                                                       

3)  Exchangeable Refill

4)  Non-optical motion sensor

5)  Battery

6)  Switch

 

 

 

OTHER SPECIAL FEATURES OF LERNSTIFT

 

LERNSTIFT CAN WRITE ON AIR

 Lernstift  is the only first digital pen which can write in air also. You can connect the pen to any device, and even use as external writer. You can just write in air and it can write the words in the device. Just same like touchscreen keys or light pen.

MONITORING

As it can be connected, hence it can be used for monitoring. In school, teacher can monitor what students are writing by connecting all them to a single device.

CONNECTION

Lernstift helps you to have a real time connection of pen and other devices. These devices may be smartphone, tablet OR PC.You can see what pen is writing on you device simultaneously.

Lernstift is available in two languages only, German and English. But according to need it can be available in different languages

Five Easy Ways to Transform Your Blog for the Holidays

Your WordPress.com site is your home on the web. It only makes sense, then, to spruce it up for the holidays as you would your brick-and-mortar address. With the ideas we include here, you’ll be able to give your blog a festive look with just a few easy clicks.

Make it snow!

It’s an annual WordPress.com holiday tradition: as of December 1st, you can have snow falling on your site! While the real stuff might be hard to deliver via The Interwebz, our special snow will fall gracefully down your screen wherever you are. To activate Holiday Snow, just follow these steps:

1. Go to your dashboard.
2. Navigate to Settings → General.
3. Check the box next to “Show falling snow on this blog.”

If you activated this feature last year, it’ll be on automatically this year, too. Whenever you’d like to deactivate the snow, you can make it stop on your personal settings page.

Add a seasonal custom background

Few features change the look of your blog more quickly and more radically than acustom background. Get some serious holiday cheer going with a reindeer pattern (ironic — or not!), a bright arrangement of Christmas decorations, or simply change your background color to a seasonal green, red, or gold.

To change your background, go to your dashboard, then head to Appearance → Background and choose or upload your desired image. If you don’t have a suitable image yet, you can find a great selection of background patterns on sites like Subtle Patterns, My Site My Way, or Squidfingers.

Play festive music on your blog

Why not liven up your visitors’ experience with your favorite holiday tunes? You can easily embed a SoundCloud playlist in your blog. Just browse the endless offerings onSoundcloud.com (for example, look up holiday music for some pre-made mixes), and find the playlist you want. Press the “Share” button and copy the WordPress.com shortcode you’ll see there.

Then, simply paste the shortcode into any page or post on your blog, and you’re set. You could even set the post with the embedded playlist as sticky — that way it’ll stay at the top of your blog’s homepage for as long as you want.

Use a Text Widget for a holiday message

While posts get pushed down the page whenever you publish a new one, a Text Widgetwill keep its place in your sidebar no matter how frequently you write. What better way to share your thoughts, holiday wishes, or new year’s resolutions than a prominent text box at the top of your sidebar?

You could also use this space for more specific holiday-related purposes: for example, if you’re participating in a food drive or organizing an end-of-year blogging event, a Text Widget could be an easy way to keep your visitors engaged and up-to-date.

Inject color into your sidebar with Image Widgets

Using Image Widgets is a great, easy way to add a dash of color to your blog. If you’re already using Image Widgets, why not replace your regular images with new, holiday-specific ones? You can enhance the look of any photo in your library with a few tweaks on a free, online image editor like PicMonkey.

Even if you haven’t used them before, the holiday season could be a great time to add Image Widgets to your blog. You could activate one to display your family’s holiday portrait (with or without embarrasing sweaters), the decorations your kids made, or that cute pic of your cat/dog/pet otter with a Santa beard.

First, upload your image file to the Media Library: in your dashboard, go to Media→ Add New and select the desired image from your computer. Once the file has uploaded, go to Appearance → Widgets. Drag the Image Widget to its desired spot in the sidebar, and add the image URL of the file you just uploaded to your library. Enter any other information you want, and click save: the image will now display on your site.

If you’re looking for more ways to get your site ready for the holidays, stay tuned: later this week we’ll unveil our surprise holiday theme.

Wishing everyone happy blogging this holiday season!

How to Re-route Body Comparisons

Before we dig in, a very important caveat: To be human is to compare. It is a very rare person who can move through life without comparing her success, relationships, wealth, experiences, and – of course – body and beauty to those around her. It is an even rarer person who can view herself in isolation and still feel connected to society and her fellow human beings. We all compare. We all get jealous. We absolutely cannot help it because we are hard-wired to be curious about people other than ourselves and to see how we measure up. Do not beat yourself up for comparing. Do, however, consider how to react once you’ve started down the comparative path.

What do we gain by comparing bodies?

So you’ve found yourself comparing your body to someone else’s. What are you likely to learn from this exercise?

• That bodies come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and configurations.
• That most bodies have aspects in common.
• That every person has features she loves, and features she does not love.

You may be tempted to assign value based on your comparisons, deeming certain body parts or traits to be “better” or “worse” than those possessed by your object of comparison. Do your best to avoid this. Bodies are not fundamentally good or bad, no matter what the media and the diet industry want you to believe. You may be bigger or smoother or taller or less symmetrical than someone else, but neither of you is categorically and essentially better than the other. In fact at the molecular level, you are the same. If you compare, focus on diversity and overlap instead of yielding to the temptation to assign positive or negative values.

What do we lose by comparing bodies?

Say you succumb to comparative evaluation. What do you lose when you compare your body to someone else’s and decide whose is better?

Individuality: By rating one type of body as better, you are relegating all others to worse. But, in fact, each body is unique and lumping sizes or shapes together dismisses that essential individuality.

Power: Your body has strengths, capabilities, and talents. By comparing it to a body with totally different strengths, capabilities, and talents – most of which are not readily observable – you may begin to devalue what your body can do and achieve. Comparing bodies can strip you of feeling powerful and capable, feelings that are essential to self-esteem.

Perspective on what’s truly important: You can tell virtually nothing about a person by viewing her body. You don’t know how happy or healthy she is, what is going on in her life, who or what is challenging her. Deciding that her body is better or worse than yours dismisses her personality, life experience, and essential self.  Deciding that her body is better or worse than yours also dismisses YOUR non-body attributes.

Body comparisons can be more harmful to some people than others, but they will hold a dark side for the vast majority of us. If you are able to compare in a relatively detached and scientific way, noting variety and differences without assigning them emotional or social value, you are in the lucky minority. If you, instead, find yourself comparing, judging, and spiraling downward, consider directing your thoughts away from comparison by reminding yourself of your individuality, power, and personal strengths and values. Women are so often told – directly and indirectly – that our value is encompassed by our bodies, beauty, figures, and physical selves. But, of course, it is not. While our looks can tie into our self-esteem and confidence, they are not our only sources of power. Remembering that can defuse some body comparison situations.

Again, comparison is a natural instinct so don’t go thinking you can eradicate it or avoid it entirely. But see if these suggestions might help the next time you get caught in a comparative-evaluative body spiral.

How to Re-route Body Comparisons

Before we dig in, a very important caveat: To be human is to compare. It is a very rare person who can move through life without comparing her success, relationships, wealth, experiences, and – of course – body and beauty to those around her. It is an even rarer person who can view herself in isolation and still feel connected to society and her fellow human beings. We all compare. We all get jealous. We absolutely cannot help it because we are hard-wired to be curious about people other than ourselves and to see how we measure up. Do not beat yourself up for comparing. Do, however, consider how to react once you’ve started down the comparative path.

What do we gain by comparing bodies?

So you’ve found yourself comparing your body to someone else’s. What are you likely to learn from this exercise?

• That bodies come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and configurations.
• That most bodies have aspects in common.
• That every person has features she loves, and features she does not love.

You may be tempted to assign value based on your comparisons, deeming certain body parts or traits to be “better” or “worse” than those possessed by your object of comparison. Do your best to avoid this. Bodies are not fundamentally good or bad, no matter what the media and the diet industry want you to believe. You may be bigger or smoother or taller or less symmetrical than someone else, but neither of you is categorically and essentially better than the other. In fact at the molecular level, you are the same. If you compare, focus on diversity and overlap instead of yielding to the temptation to assign positive or negative values.

What do we lose by comparing bodies?

Say you succumb to comparative evaluation. What do you lose when you compare your body to someone else’s and decide whose is better?

Individuality: By rating one type of body as better, you are relegating all others to worse. But, in fact, each body is unique and lumping sizes or shapes together dismisses that essential individuality.

Power: Your body has strengths, capabilities, and talents. By comparing it to a body with totally different strengths, capabilities, and talents – most of which are not readily observable – you may begin to devalue what your body can do and achieve. Comparing bodies can strip you of feeling powerful and capable, feelings that are essential to self-esteem.

Perspective on what’s truly important: You can tell virtually nothing about a person by viewing her body. You don’t know how happy or healthy she is, what is going on in her life, who or what is challenging her. Deciding that her body is better or worse than yours dismisses her personality, life experience, and essential self.  Deciding that her body is better or worse than yours also dismisses YOUR non-body attributes.

Body comparisons can be more harmful to some people than others, but they will hold a dark side for the vast majority of us. If you are able to compare in a relatively detached and scientific way, noting variety and differences without assigning them emotional or social value, you are in the lucky minority. If you, instead, find yourself comparing, judging, and spiraling downward, consider directing your thoughts away from comparison by reminding yourself of your individuality, power, and personal strengths and values. Women are so often told – directly and indirectly – that our value is encompassed by our bodies, beauty, figures, and physical selves. But, of course, it is not. While our looks can tie into our self-esteem and confidence, they are not our only sources of power. Remembering that can defuse some body comparison situations.

Again, comparison is a natural instinct so don’t go thinking you can eradicate it or avoid it entirely. But see if these suggestions might help the next time you get caught in a comparative-evaluative body spiral.

How to Re-route Body Comparisons

Before we dig in, a very important caveat: To be human is to compare. It is a very rare person who can move through life without comparing her success, relationships, wealth, experiences, and – of course – body and beauty to those around her. It is an even rarer person who can view herself in isolation and still feel connected to society and her fellow human beings. We all compare. We all get jealous. We absolutely cannot help it because we are hard-wired to be curious about people other than ourselves and to see how we measure up. Do not beat yourself up for comparing. Do, however, consider how to react once you’ve started down the comparative path.

What do we gain by comparing bodies?

So you’ve found yourself comparing your body to someone else’s. What are you likely to learn from this exercise?

• That bodies come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and configurations.
• That most bodies have aspects in common.
• That every person has features she loves, and features she does not love.

You may be tempted to assign value based on your comparisons, deeming certain body parts or traits to be “better” or “worse” than those possessed by your object of comparison. Do your best to avoid this. Bodies are not fundamentally good or bad, no matter what the media and the diet industry want you to believe. You may be bigger or smoother or taller or less symmetrical than someone else, but neither of you is categorically and essentially better than the other. In fact at the molecular level, you are the same. If you compare, focus on diversity and overlap instead of yielding to the temptation to assign positive or negative values.

What do we lose by comparing bodies?

Say you succumb to comparative evaluation. What do you lose when you compare your body to someone else’s and decide whose is better?

Individuality: By rating one type of body as better, you are relegating all others to worse. But, in fact, each body is unique and lumping sizes or shapes together dismisses that essential individuality.

Power: Your body has strengths, capabilities, and talents. By comparing it to a body with totally different strengths, capabilities, and talents – most of which are not readily observable – you may begin to devalue what your body can do and achieve. Comparing bodies can strip you of feeling powerful and capable, feelings that are essential to self-esteem.

Perspective on what’s truly important: You can tell virtually nothing about a person by viewing her body. You don’t know how happy or healthy she is, what is going on in her life, who or what is challenging her. Deciding that her body is better or worse than yours dismisses her personality, life experience, and essential self.  Deciding that her body is better or worse than yours also dismisses YOUR non-body attributes.

Body comparisons can be more harmful to some people than others, but they will hold a dark side for the vast majority of us. If you are able to compare in a relatively detached and scientific way, noting variety and differences without assigning them emotional or social value, you are in the lucky minority. If you, instead, find yourself comparing, judging, and spiraling downward, consider directing your thoughts away from comparison by reminding yourself of your individuality, power, and personal strengths and values. Women are so often told – directly and indirectly – that our value is encompassed by our bodies, beauty, figures, and physical selves. But, of course, it is not. While our looks can tie into our self-esteem and confidence, they are not our only sources of power. Remembering that can defuse some body comparison situations.

Again, comparison is a natural instinct so don’t go thinking you can eradicate it or avoid it entirely. But see if these suggestions might help the next time you get caught in a comparative-evaluative body spiral.

PEN THAT VIBRATES ON SPELLING MISTAKE-LERNSTIFT

Learnstift is a  new technology pen invented by two fathers to decrease the spelling mistake of their children. This pen detects the motion during writing and checks the spellings. And even it detects the handwriting.  This pen will vibrate everytime there is a spelling mistake. And even suggest about your handwriting.

Lernstift pen works in two modes:-

1. Calligraphy mode

2. Orthography mode

1. Calligraphy mode – In Calligraphy mode, the pen will detects every letter we have written. Pen will vibrate one time whenever wrong word is written.

2. Orthography mode - in Orthography mode, Lernstift detects the spelling of the words written by user. Every time when there is a spelling mistake, pen will vibrate once.  But when there is grammatical mistake the pen will vibrate twice.

INSIDE LERNSTIFT :-

1)   WiFi module

2)  Mini Computer (Linux)                                                                       

3)  Exchangeable Refill

4)  Non-optical motion sensor

5)  Battery

6)  Switch

OTHER SPECIAL FEATURES OF LERNSTIFT

LERNSTIFT CAN WRITE ON AIR

 Lernstift  is the only first digital pen which can write in air also. You can connect the pen to any device, and even use as external writer. You can just write in air and it can write the words in the device. Just same like touchscreen keys or light pen.

MONITORING

As it can be connected, hence it can be used for monitoring. In school, teacher can monitor what students are writing by connecting all them to a single device.

CONNECTION

Lernstift helps you to have a real time connection of pen and other devices. These devices may be smartphone, tablet OR PC.You can see what pen is writing on you device simultaneously.

Lernstift is available in two languages only, German and English. But according to need it can be available in different languages.

Smartphone to become smarter than human through ‘cognizant’ computing

Based on an individual’s data gathered, smartphones will soon be able to predict a consumer’s next move. It will be able to gauge a consumer’s next purchase or even interpret actions. This data will be gathered using cognizant computing, the next step in personal cloud computing.


Carolina Milanesi, research vice president, Gartner, says, “Smartphones are becoming smarter, and will be smarter than you by 2017.” She further adds, “The smartphone will gather contextual information from its calendar, its sensors, the user’s location and personal data.”

Over the next two to five years, cognizant computing will become one the strongest market forces affecting the entire ecosystems and value chains across IT. Monetisation will flow from the increased knowledge of the consumer and the fine-tuning of offers that can now be achieved, and are increasingly perceived as personal and highly relevant — which should lead to an increase in spend.

To reach a complete personal cloud experience, cognizant computing consists of four stages: Sync Me; See Me; Know Me; Be Me. Sync Me and See Me are currently happening, while Know Me and Be Me are still to occur.

To begin with, services will be rolled out to help consumers handle menial tasks such as booking a car for its yearly service, creating a weekly to-do list, sending birthday greetings, or responding to mundane email messages. As the confidence of using these services goes up, consumers are expected to become used to allowing a greater array of apps and services to take control of other day-to-day activities. This is where cognizant computing comes into play.

By 2017 mobile phones will become consumers’ secret digital agent, but only on the basis of information provided by consumers. Regulatory and privacy issues, as well as the level of comfort users will have in sharing this information, will differ considerably across age groups as well as geographies.

There are two aspects of how cognizant computing will impact the market. It will have an impact on hardware vendors and on the other services and business models. 

Natural life cycle of a technology-driven company is under 10 years

The pervasive role of technology now exposes every company, not just technology companies, to increasingly rapid technology-driven life cycles, which are typically less than 10 years, according to Gartner.



“Long-term expansion cycles influence all businesses, and your major competitor in 10 years - if you survive that long - probably does not exist today,” said Steve Prentice, vice president and Gartner Fellow.

“To compete in this environment business leaders must destroy and rebuild the very businesses they helped create,” said Prentice.

To survive and even prosper beyond the first decade requires continual reinvention. However, the challenge with reinvention is timing.

“The idea to ‘quit while at the top’ or to regenerate, may seem counterintuitive, but may be the only winning strategy,” said Prentice.

Business and IT leaders need to prepare for the disruptive promise of “smart machines”, which include autonomous vehicles, intelligent personal assistants, smart advisors and advanced global industrial control systems.

The potential of smart machines and their impact is vast. They can make people more effective, empowering them to do what appears to be impossible. Just a few years ago the idea of ‘self-driving cars’ seemed very futuristic; today it is a reality and elements of those capabilities are already well established through automated features like collision avoidance, pedestrian detection and automatic braking. Fully autonomous trucks are already in commercial use on private property in limited numbers today, but their deployment will inevitably spread.

“Today, smart machines are usually the result of brute force automation,” said Prentice. But the next generation will exploit a variety of techniques to not only learn, but adapt to their environment. They will be able to seek new information to deal with novel situations. The criteria for ‘smart’ will be continually rising in the coming years.

8 critical forces to shape future data center strategy..........

According to Gartner, the role of data centers will change over the next five years. Due to which organisations will not have a clear picture on how to plan their future data center architectures. 

Rakesh Kumar, research vice president, Gartner, says, “Over the next five to ten years many organisations will need to change their approach to previous data center strategies, as most of the world comes out of recession and the Nexus of Forces (social, mobile, cloud and information) affects technology use.”

"Agility, a critical third variable, will become increasingly important in future,” he further adds.

Gartner also says that going ahead organisations need to plan their future data center strategies around eight forces. Gartner has identified those eight areas to balance cost, risk and agility:

Start Deploying Processor, Memory and Power Efficient Technologies: The next few years will bring significant enhancements to process architectures and the economics of processor and memory components will change. In-memory computing will become more widely used, helped by ever-cheaper DRAM and NAND flash memory. At the same time, the use of low-energy processors in servers will increase. 

• Move toward a balanced architectural topology and delivery model: The use of cloud and a range of hosting providers will continue to increase over the next few years as many organisations shift their IT spending from capital expenditure to operating expenditure. Gartner predicts that these markets will converge over the next 10 years as providers increasingly deliver their services on cloud-enabled system infrastructure.

• Invest in operational processes and improved tools: Enterprise data centers are centralised and highly critical IT service delivery hubs relying on well-orchestrated operational processes. Looking ahead, areas such as enterprise security, data management and mapping business processes to core IT processes, will become even more critical — and as agility becomes an increasingly important measure of data center value, improvements in operational processes are vital.

• Integrate disaster recovery and business continuity into core data center strategy:With socioeconomic turbulence in many regions of the world and changes to corporate governance affecting many business areas, strong and well-documented disaster recovery (DR) and business continuity (BC) planning is essential for all large data centers.

 

• The move away from a "just-in-case" strategy to making BC and DR a part of continuous data operations will reduce cost and potentially improve agility.

• Manage capacity growth through data analysis: Over the next five years, most organisations will notice a significant increase in hardware (storage, server and network) capacity, extending to network traffic, data center floor space, power and cooling. 

• Plan for operating system and application changes: During the next five years, changes will be made to the operating system diversity in most large data centers. A steady migration away from UNIX onto the Linux platform will take place, the Windows environment will continue to grow and the IBM Z O/S will see expansion in certain geographies and contraction in others.

• Make consolidation and rationalisation a continuous change program: Organisations should position their data related activities as a continuous change rather than a one-off project. Continuous optimisation of hardware and physical sites will mean that infrastructure and operations groups are more likely to run at an optimum cost level. 

• Modernise data center facilities: Data center managers must modernise the capabilities of their facilities to handle both the emerging hardware technology and the escalation in energy consumption as a result of projected growth in server volume. Data center infrastructure management tools should be considered as a vital part of data center management.