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An Inevitable Tiger ReviewMay 02, 2005
A running tally of all the cool (and not so cool) new things I find to love/hate in Mac OS X 10.4, otherwise known as Tiger.
Tiger — the latest version of Mac OS X — was released to a lot of fanfare on Friday afternoon, as you're no doubt aware by now since it seems to have garnered an inordinate amount of press. For an insanely comprehensive review of the low-level stuff, turn to ARS Technica. For a look at the smaller changes that affect day-to-day usage, check out John Gruber's running tally.
As a fairly recent Mac convert myself, I hadn't bothered going out of my way to find myself a copy of Panther, the previous upgrade, until a few weeks after its release. This time around, I made sure I was at the front of the line when the boxes went on sale. The store was busy, but not nearly as much as I might have expected. Looks like the Apple stores themselves (of which we have none in Canada yet) had a bigger turnout.
With barely a few days of usage on the new OS, how am I liking it? That's inconclusive for the moment, as I still haven't had any lightning bolt revelations like the way Exposé struck me. I'll need more time than this to really form an opinion. It looks like there's a lot of good new stuff to explore, and of course a few new annoyances to adjust to. I'll keep this list running over the course of this week as I dig further in to my new toy, and add new items as I find them.
System Slowdown
Anecdotally, and based only on a gut feeling, my system feels slower. Many have reported the opposite to be true, so I think I might be an exception. I upgraded my 10.3 install instead of doing an entire re-install, which might be part of the problem. Just prior to the upgrade though, I was rapidly running out of primary drive free space (to the point where I only had a few hundred MB left). I've since cleared off about 5GB, so my virtual memory shouldn't be a bottleneck here, although I'm tempted to assume my drive is quite a bit more fragmented now. If so, I wouldn't be surprised if that alone explained the slowdown. Otherwise it might be time to think about dropping a few widgets off my Dashboard..
I finally got around to tinkering with the new Automator, and I feel pretty positive about it. It's limited to a series of pre-canned actions for various applications, which currently consist entirely of Apple products. But it's also open to developers adding hooks within their own applications, so that will probably change. I get the feeling it's essentially AppleScript lite, for those who choose not to learn the language. Suits me fine.
Image Dimensions in Column View
Finally, it's no longer necessary to Cmd + 1 to switch to icon view for the sake of getting image dimensions. As long as 'Show Preview Column' is checked in view options (Cmd + J) the preview column contains 'em.
Installation was a snap, as I'd pretty much expect from any major software release right now. After appropriately backing everything up, unplugging the external Firewire drive, and clicking a few dialogue boxes to get things underway then ducking out for a movie, coming back to a freshly Tigerized computer was a nice treat.
Safari 2.0
The new RSS feature seems pretty much useless to me, a happy NetNewsWire user. I don't see much point in reading a site's RSS feed in the browser, when I can simply read the full site. Maybe I'm missing some kind of aggregation feature that lumps all the various feeds together the way a traditional news reader does.
If you haven't already overridden your default RSS button action with a non-Safari aggregator (like I have), apparently creating a bookmark folder of RSS feeds will enable you to view them all together after all.
Credit where it's due though, Safari lets me click on the blue RSS button to subscribe to a feed in my default newsreader, which happens to be NNW. It doesn't lock me into Safari itself, which is smart. Beyond RSS, there's plenty new to see in Safari 2.0. This is the one I expect to dig into much further, but for now I'm quite impressed by the speed improvement.
Minor annoyance: context-sensitive menus on links and images have improved, but the old standbys "Save Image As…" and "Download/Save Linked File As…" are a bit different, saving to the Desktop by default. Pressing Option brings back the old menu items, but still. I categorize my downloaded items as I grab them to avoid a marathon clean-up session later; why discourage that behaviour?
I've never quite gotten the hang of the Photoshop file browser, and iPhoto is way too slow, so this is one of the best new additions for my particular workflow. Ever since switching from Windows XP, I've missed the equivalent functionality of being able to view a folder of images in slideshow format. The Tiger implementation is spectacular, allowing you to quickly alternate between a series of slides and a full-screen view of any particular image.
Here's how you get to it:
Here's the full-screen view and controls:
And here's the slide view, which expands and collapses in a way reminiscent of Exposé:
But read the next point.
What's absolutely appalling is how buried this new functionality is. The only way I've found to get to it is by running a Spotlight search, and browsing through the resulting images that return in your search. This might be acceptable if all I ever did was browse by keyword, but there's a reason I categorize my images into folders. I can't imagine why this hasn't been implemented in the Finder somehow.
Turns out it can be done after all. Too bad it's so buried. This is one area where XP has OS X beat.
Dashboard is mostly (very slick) eye candy, but I could see the potential for a few really well-built widgets becoming staples of my daily computer usage. A fair criticism I've heard is that the Dashboard layer, which exists almost as a virtual second desktop for the various widgets, is too exclusive. There's a demand for the ability to move these widgets out of it and onto the real desktop, and move other applications into it. I may be alone in this, but I wouldn't want these widgets cluttering up my desktop. Having them pulled into view by a tap of F12 is a great way of managing them. But a choice is always nice in cases like this.
The widgets themselves look to be a little weighty, memory-wise. No noticeable slowdown yet, but this will be the first place I look if and when. And how come new widgets I've downloaded don't show up in the control panel thingy at the bottom of the screen?
DVD Install
Tiger comes on a DVD. Apparently you can get CDs by mailing the original disc back to Apple along with a nominal service fee, but it's pretty clear that DVD is the new distribution medium going forward. Fine for my Powerbook, not so great for my older iBook which is still ticking along just fine. It'll be interesting to see how its older OS ages.
I've yet to determine how much Spotlight actually changes things. I'm pretty darn addicted to QuickSilver and its adaptive selection; Spotlight feels a lot slower, and the jumping around as new results filter in is particularly annoying.
My biggest pet peeve so far is that results will appear, then disappear as newer and more relevant results filter in. If you're going to show an item in the results at all, leave it there. Yes, I can pull up the full Spotlight window and hunt down the flash of an item I happened to notice, but the relative speed of the incoming results often means I didn't catch enough of a glimpse to retain the name or location.
My searching so far has consisted of a few half-hearted guesses though, instead of anything concrete. Things that are annoying while there's no goal in mind (the multiple clicks to filter by location, the wild variation of data types) might prove incredibly useful when I'm looking for something in particular. I'll have to get a little more comfortable with Spotlight before I'm using it for tasks like that, so it seems like there might be not so much a learning curve as an adoption curve: I understand how it works, and why I'd need it, but I just haven't felt comfortable enough with it to make it a part of my standard routine yet.
Smart Folders
Smart Folders. Saving search results as a virtual folder is brilliant. My favourite new smart folder: Items within "Bright Creative" Last Modified within Last 3 Days. One-click access to all my most recent working files, it's a thing of beauty.
Menu Bar
The menu bar at the top of the screen went glossier, while the blue Apple and Spotlight icons on either side went flatter. In all the pre-release screenshots I've seen, both icons appeared to "cap" either side of the menu bar with a full background colour that was clickable; it looked like a great solution to me. In the final release they simply sit there as roundish icons, while retaining the clickable area. Yawn.
RSS Screensaver
The new RSS screensaver is great. Select a source, and watch the latest realtime headlines swoosh around a swirling blue background. Click on any headline to visit the article. Not entirely practical, but hey, it's a screensaver after all. They're allowed to be cool for the sake of it.
Canadian Fix
Previously, in order to enable easy access to advanced character entry tools like the Keyboard Viewer or Character Palette, it was first necessary to select a keyboard language and enable a flag in your menu bar. Annoying, but livable… unless you happened to be a Canadian english speaker, of whom there are many; selecting the Canadian flag would enable a french keyboard layout. The only way around this was to live with having an American (or Australian) flag in your menu bar all the time. Thankfully, the problem has been fixed in Tiger.
A built-in, system-wide dictionary and thesaurus are a Ctrl+click away. Available as a context-sensitive menu, Dashboard widget, and stand-alone app, the vocabulary is large enough to be useful, but the built-in search ironically isn't. Results are exact; don't know how to spell a word? Too bad. dictionary.com still has a place in my workflow for now.
(It was interesting to see Apple didn't bother pulling the punches either. All your favourite dirty words are in there and defined, with pronunciation guides.)
An alternative to the media viewing functions you describe can be found in the new Adobe Bridge that comes with Photoshop CS2. It contains an impressive array of media viewing options from straight text or mini-icon listings, to a full screen slide-show with caption support and a built in (5-star) rating system. Additionally, it includes the smart folder functionality in the way of "collections".
.. and its Fast. DAMN FAST. (on XP anyways)
About the only draw-back to Bridge that I currently see is not being able to specify if a collection should run the "search" every time (like files modified < than 3 days) or just when you specify.
That may seem like a small drawback but my company deals with a wide assortment of Photoshop UI templates which hardly ever change (either location or filename wise) so simply saving an index to the files searched for on the first run (with a choice to update) is a lot faster and more efficient than scanning the hard drive every time.
I happen to like Picasa myself for sorting and looking for images, but I believe in your situation, it would be as clunky as iPhoto.
I checked out Dasboard at my local Apple store and I was less than blown away. It's kind of like a stripped down version of Konfabulator. I like Konfabulator, plus it works on Windows.
From article: "Maybe I'm missing some kind of aggregation feature that lumps all the various feeds together the way a traditional news reader does."
In Safari, create a new folder in your Bookmarks Bar, named, say, "RSS". Then, everytime you run across a site with an RSS feed, click the RSS icon to get to the feed, then save it in your folder. When you have several feeds in that folder, there's an option in the menu that says "View All RSS Articles" – this is what you want. Works great… easily handles about 40 sites at a time for me. It's a bit overwhelming the first time you access it though, since it doesn't know what you have and haven't read yet.
Wow that looks really awesome! I'd really like to try out the Mac.
From the Article:(It was interesting to see Apple didn't bother pulling the punches either. All your favourite dirty words are in there and defined, with pronunciation guides.)
Well you can filter out the dirty words on an account by account basis for Dictionary.app. See the Accounts pane in the System Preferences.
Paolo: I disagree about the Spotlight/Quicksilver/Launchbar comparison. Apple made Spotlight's default activation sequence Command-Space, which not coincidentally is the same default activation sequence as Quicksilver and Launchbar. It's clear they meant for Spotlight to help replace these two apps (in addition to being a full-on search utility), but as Dave pointed out, Spotlight simply isn't good enough to be a substitute at this point.
I'm a LaunchBar guy myself, but Spotlight is a full 5 seconds slower at finding apps than both LaunchBar and Quicksilver on some occasions. Worse yet, it doesn't learn from your actions and it also doesn't do smart pattern matching in words (so for instance, I can't type in "FF" to launch Firefox).
Happy to keep using LaunchBar for now… disabled Spotlight key activation already.
Hi a,
I really like the battery icon you have in your menu bar. Would you please tell me where it came from?
I have also heard that Photoshop CS does not work well with Tiger. (running half as slow) Has anyone else heard about this?
Some things i've noticed after 3 days usage:
1. I managed to preview my entire collection of 5000 fonts in one 90 minute driveby sitting in Suitcase X1, without it crashing, and "beachballing" only once for a breather. It's the exact same collection i used in panther, so I am thinking somethng serious has changed underneath the hood. I have never seen my entire collection in one sitting- i'd do it in chunks before- and i am still dazed from amazement.
2. 24FPS SWF files in browser from local file seem to be running a little bit slower with a little bit of stutter
3. Mail is definitely better performance wise, but admittedly, i do not have the baggage of massive archives like a lot of people do. Spotlight in Mail is definitely an amazing improvement over previous search function.
4. searching PDF content *finally*!
The comparasion between Spotlight and Quicksilver have no sense. Spotlight isn't meant to be an application launcher, it's a search tool.
So use Quicksilver as an application launcher AND use Spotlight for all your searches.
Although I also like Tiger overall, my major gripe with it is how much slower Mail.app is. I'm not sure if the new version stores mail differently than the version in 10.3, but moving and deleting mail seems to take far longer than before.
With the egregious amount of spam I - and everyone else - receive, I wish Apple had made it possible to delete 1000+ messages as quickly as before.
You can get the Slideshow in the Finder using the contextual menu. Select the pictures you want to view, then ctrl-click (or right-click).
To get the new widgets to show up in the dashboard control panel I had to move them from their download location in my home library (~/Library/Widgets/) to the library under Mac HD (/Library/Widgets/).
"Select the pictures you want to view, then ctrl-click (or right-click)."
Ah! I had been trying it on the folders and single images, but never made that connection. Thanks, that's one annoyance crossed off my list.
Although, really, that's still pretty buried. WinXP recognizes when it's viewing a folder full of images and gives you the slideshow controls right up front. That's a smart way of doing it, I wouldn't mind seeing something similar in OS X.
To get the widgets to auto-install, you have to have your browser set to auto-launch applications after download. This will automatically place the widgets in your user library.
While I have heard much about the "slowdown" of Mail.app in Tiger, I have yet to experience anything but a boost in performance with Mail. Granted, I spent a few hours last week replacing most of my Rules with SmartFolders, however in my experience on a 1.67gHz PowerBook, Mail is at least as snappy as it was in Panther.
Dave, you might well be able to install Tiger on your iBook without the whole "swap the DVD for CDs" shuffle. My father has the same problem, but I am going to try booting from my PowerBook with his iBook connected in FireWire target disk mode and then installing onto his iBook that way. I'd be curious whether anyone else has tried this, but as far as I know, it should work fine…
I was going to say what Kyle said. I got around the widgets not showing up by just copying them to the root Library folder.
Consider this a "yeah…that."
It is possible to use the widgets on your desktop. They still float above everything, but I hear it works…
Look here: http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20050422172929402&query=widget+dashboard
That "Canadian fix" is just what I've been waiting for! I've been stuck with the Australian flag ever since I switched (no offense to the Aussies).
Have you ever thought about using answers.com instead of dictionary.com? No popups and has a greater depth of information including Wikipedia articles.
Anyway, thanks for the article, it's very informative.
Even when Dashboard widgets are auto-installed or copied to either (system or user) widget folder, I've noticed that they don't always show up in the Dashboard Dock, or whatever that thing is, until I scroll left or right once.
You can put all of the RSS feeds into a folder and go to view feeds and it will show you all of the new feeds in that group. From there you can limit the view to lots of different options. It also tells you how many items are new in the bar.
You can also get to the definition of a term by hovering over any word and pressing cmd-ctrl-D. If you hold down cmd-ctrl after pressing D you can also move your cursor all around the page and get definitions without pressing any more keys.
Quicksilver is like 1000 times better than Spotlight. I tried using spotlight for a bit (turning off Quicksilver), and I seriously could no longer navigate my machine.
Considering Web design, the Safari PNG gamma issue (http://hsivonen.iki.fi/png-gamma/) has been addressed.
1st. the battery icon is Slim Battery http://www.orange-carb.org/SBM/
2nd. what is the other icon that looks like a woman symbol on a necklace?
For the users of Tiger Mail:
Do any of you use IMAP? IMAP in previous versions of Mac Mail is broken. Can any of you verify if these issues have been fixed? Specifically:
1. Moving messages between folders does not actually "move" them, but is rather a "copy & delete". Test this by sorting a folder by Order Received and then move an older message from another folder into the newly sorted one. You should notice that the "file" date of the message, the one assigned by your receiving server has now been changed to the current date and time.
2. Mac Mail has never supported subscribed folders which is really annoying if you keep a full copy of your e-mail archive on both your laptop and the server. It will re-sync *every* folder each time you connect instead of a shorter list you have subscribed to.
3. Mac Mail does not handle gracefully the situation where the IMAP server limits the number of connections. If you have 10+ folders or so on a server. Try doing a search (inside messages) on all folders. When my IMAP server would limit the number of connections, Mac Mail would stall and go offline. This test may not work anymore with Spotlight unless your Mac Mail is setup to only retrieve message headers.
Thanks to all. These reviews are highly informative.
Just as an FYI .. I also have an ibook with only a cd drive, I just turned it into a firewire hd and installed tiger onto it from my cube. I know you already knew this but I just thought it was amazingly easy (and nice because my ibook cd drive is soooo slow by comparison)
If you don't need Keyboard Viewer, you might like the fact Tiger re-adds Edit > Special Characters…, which opens the Character Palette, to all (Cocoa) applications that didn't have it before. The shotcut is command-option-T.
Mail.app's IMAP support actually seems to have gotten worse instead of better. It's even tricky to get it to cache existing messages and folders and overall access seems slower than before, even after ›forced caching‹ (which can be achieved by copying all IMAP messages to a local folder …).
Also it has no ›central‹ status indicator anymore which means you have to call up the activity window quite often in order to see if and what Mail.app is doing (if it's not a ›folder-centric‹ task).
Right now I'm seriously considering Entourage 2004 …
I have tested Tiger at schcool and its incredible. The next computer i will buy it will be a Mac and i think Mac OS is the perfect work space. Also, the Tiger Server is now 100% compatible with Windows. The server of my shcool will be on Tiger soon and when we will log in the server, all the students will have is own work space and it will be the same both on PC and Mac.
I believe Mail shows no improvement in Tiger on all three accounts. From what I can tell, moving is still "copy and delete," there is still no support for subscribed folders, and I still run into the server connection limit sometimes (of course, since I'm the server administrator, I just up the limit — no everyone can do that, though). :)
Sorry for the bad news.
My pedantic nature won't let me let errors go by without correction. DVD stands for Digital Versatile Disc, not Digital Video Disc.
"I am going to try booting from my PowerBook with his iBook connected in FireWire target disk mode and then installing onto his iBook that way. I'd be curious whether anyone else has tried this, but as far as I know, it should work fine…"
Of course. Works great! The installer displays the target disk in the install disk choices just as it would an internal disk. It doesn't care. As long as you have on Mac with a DVD drive, you can use that media to install all the others. I juiced up my old G3 700MHz iBook like that with no issues to report.
Wow, that Dashboard stuff looks absolutely beautiful. For a rather stark comparison, compare what's on show here to what Windows upgraders have to look forward to: <http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow_viewer/0,2393,l=150617&p=1&s=26945&a=150625&po=1&i=1,00.asp">http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow_viewer/0,2393,l=150617&p=1&s=26945&a=150625&po=1&i=1,00.asp>
Back when Tiger had those blue caps on the top corners, i downloaded a shapeshifter skin that lookd like it, and now a few months later theyre driving me crazy. They looked cool and different at first, but it doesnt grow on you at all, it just grows old. its just plain ugly to me now. I'm glad they got rid of it.
To syndicate right-click (or ctrl-click) a folder in your bookmarks bar that contains feeds. This is the faster alternative to scrolling down it's contents.
The RSS tab in the Safari Preferences offers to distinguish between read and unread articles. This option is off by default.
You are correct, the Dictionary application definitely does allow you to misspell words and have it offer alternates. I would guess Dave just wasn't spelling incorrectly correctly enough. :)
It was great to see a full review (complete with disadvantages) of Tiger. Overall my experience has been much the same, but one thing I've noticed but not really known whether it is related is that AirPort seems much more responsive. When I was running Panther, I'd have maybe 2 or 3 "bars" in my airport indicator… But now, same AirportExpress router, same Airport card, same PowerBook, I have 5 "bars" no matter where in my apartment I am. I have to wonder whether this new "sensitivity" is due to better software (more advanced, taking better advantage of the technology?) or just happenstance. Either way, thanks for the great review, I'm forwarding it to my dad, who's been an Apple diehard since he switched from Atari in the 80s!
What do you mean the dictionary app doesn't allow spelling errors?
Every word I try gives alternates. For example, enter in fonics and you get: phonics or tonics.
I'm doing this directly in the Dictionary app.
Jeff Hartman wrote: "One of my quick irriations is that I can no longer drag a file onto Photoshop and have it open. I have to now go to File -> Open.
All of my other apps work fine except Photoshop."
Since you've done an archive and install, I would suggest re-installing Photoshop if you haven't already tried it. Another option is to remove your preferences. I used to have the same problem in Panther once and deleting my preferences fixed it.
Spotlight is definitely slow at finding stuff on my Mac. I have a 320 GB external FireWire drive attached which is on 24/7. Apparently, Spotlight is not ready for such large amounts of data yet. It's also annoying that it simply indexes _everything_ it can find, including mounted disk images. What's the point in that? I installed QuickSilver as my app launcher, iTunes track notifier, web search utility, …
My greatest annoyance is that launchd doesn't seem to want to run Postfix from start-up; I have to launch it manually. It worked fine until yesterday. No configuration changes have been made though… launchd is great but I will need some time to get used to it.
The first thing I noticed when I installed Tiger was the incredible, completely unexpected speed increase. Everything (with the finder in particular) felt so much snappier and more responsive. Then again, that could be more due to the fact that I formatted the HD before installing and less due to the OS itself. Still, it's a nice unexpected benefit.
I think Spotlight is an excellent search tool - it's managed to find documents that I didn't even know existed, let alone which folder they were buried in. However, I do not think it makes a good application launcher, which is why I have switched its activating key combination to option-space, and have left Quicksilver's command-space untouched.
I've also noticed that my AirPort range seems to have been magically extended. Whether this is real or not remains to be seen, but for now it appears that I can finally get decent throughout the house.
One of my quick irriations is that I can no longer drag a file onto Photoshop and have it open. I have to now go to File -> Open.
All of my other apps work fine except Photoshop.
Yes, I could set to have all .jpgs (for example) to open in Photoshop, but I prefer them to open in Preview - to save me the time of opening Photoshop just to look at it.
Anyone else experiencing this or am I a lone case? I did an "Archive and install".
(shoot me an email if you're up to it.) :)
Thanks to those of you who gave IMAP feedback. After reading about some of the under-the-hood features, I broke down and picked up a copy of Tiger last night. I can't wait to get home and install it.
I have been using my powerbook for the last 1.5 yrs to do FreeBSD and Linux system-level programming. I love that I have a UNIX system that "just works." Before using Mac OSX, I used custom Linux machines. I used to set all of the keymaps, video card settings, compile every media player app, etc. It was fun at the time, but it quickly became tiring. I appreciate having a machine where everything is somewhat easy and intuitive (YMMV). My biggest problem is that I often have to use Mac Help because I can't think simply enough to find things. My current job is a government contract and I am forced to use Win2K. This job has come to show me how much I have come to use, enjoy, and depend on features of my Mac (just try going a day without expose). As long as the positive Mac hardware/software trend continues, I will be a Mac user.
To sum up: Mac OS X makes the majority of my daily repetitive tasks easier, and consequently, I can focus more on my work.
A funny story:
On the first day that I received my 15" AlBook with a total of 3 hours of Mac experience, a co-worker of mine had to show me how to unmount a disk by dragging it to the trash. It felt rather embarrassing.
What made you convert from XP to OS-X? I am asking because I worked on a mac for years before having to switch to winNT in 98, and may be getting a mac again.I could never understand the "Mac is better for designers" attitude but as a user what do you find better or preferable. (other then just looking cooler then an ugly PC)
Thx Harvey, Mac being unix is a big plus having worked on SGI machines for so long.
"My pedantic nature won't let me let errors go by without correction. DVD stands for Digital Versatile Disc, not Digital Video Disc."
My pedantic nautre won't let me let errors go by without correction. Here's the juice: "DVD was originally an initialism for "digital video disc"; some members of the DVD Forum believe that it should stand for "digital versatile disc", to indicate its potential for non-video applications. Toshiba, which maintains the official DVD Forum site, adheres to the interpretation of "digital versatile disc." The DVD Forum never reached a consensus on the matter, however, and so today the official name of the format is simply "DVD"; the letters do not "officially" stand for anything." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD
As a recent convert to Apple over the last several months, I just wanted to say that I found your review extremely helpful. I only possess a G3 iMac myself, having purchased a used one to do my Graphic design and (X)HTML/CSS coding on, so I haven't gone out to purchase Tiger yet;I want to get a newer Mac with a G5 chip (although I'll take a G4, LOL!!) so that my computer won't freakin' crash while even trying to install Tiger. I say all of that to say that whenever I do purchase my new Mac and install Tiger, I'll think of your honest thoughts on the OS to help with my oiwn implentation. Thanks man…..
Having read a few comments here on Mail being slower, I decided to have a look in my mail folders to see what was going on. Under Panther I had five or so UNIX style mbox files which were simply appended to as new mail arrived. This allowed me to use them with IMAP if necessary so that I could run a webmail application and so forth. It seems that as part of the upgrade process Mail has decomposed my mbox files into thousands of individual .emlx files, one for each e-mail!
It has also appended some XML to the bottom of each file for subject and so forth. The addition of this Mail only XML into the source at the bottom of each e-mail is also going to display in any other application I use, breaking the portability of my e-mail. Surely with Spotlight they could have held this in the Spotlight database, not in the file itself?
There's no wonder a slowdown has occurred since obviously these files will not be stored contigously on the hard drive, and loading an message box will mean seeking out all these files wherever they may be on the hard drive rather than parsing one large file.
Does that mean theres no chance of using them with IMAP now? Dammit… that was next on my to do list. :o(


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Our intention is to acquire and make available ALL picture books featuring Indigenous people and people of color published in the U.S. since 2002, including reprints. Inclusion of a title in the collection DOES NOT EQUAL recommendation. See our related readings page for suggested links for evaluating books.
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The story of Passover
Tells the story of the enslavement of the children of Israel by the pharaoh, the coming of Moses, the ten plagues that struck Egypt, and the delivery of the children of Israel from slavery, the event that became known as Passover

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Frisco #4501 is one of over 40 pieces of rolling stock currently being relocated to Frisco as part of the Museum's move to the new 12.34-acre venue. With the arrival of #4501 in Frisco, only the massive Union Pacific "Big Boy" #4018 steam locomotive, Santa Fe F-7A diesel locomotive, and two boxcars remain at the Museum's old location in Dallas' Fair Park. Those pieces are scheduled to move in mid-June.
The striking Meteor paint scheme glistened in the afternoon sun as #4501 made its way along main line trackage between Dallas and Frisco. The lines were dotted with onlookers, punctuated by crowds at major vantage points like Dallas Union Station, Irving, and Carrollton. Accompanied by 10 modern tank cars for additional braking, the train proceeded at the slow, but steady pace of 10mph. The entire move took 13 hours due to high volumes of rail traffic and periodic inspection stops.
The 71-year-old locomotive, a product of the Baldwin Locomotive Works in Philadelphia, performed flawlessly. Scott Lindsay of Steam Operations Corporation in Birmingham accompanied the locomotive and was elated at its performance. Great care and diligence went into the preparation for Sunday's trip. Scott and the Museum's dedicated Steam Crew spent weeks inspecting, polishing, and lubricating running gear components such as wheel and side rod journals.
We are indebted to the Railroads for their continued commitment to the Museum's move. Both the Dallas, Garland & Northeastern (DGNO) Railroad and the Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) Railway provided dedicated crews for the special run. A number of people at both Railroads devoted a part of their Memorial Day weekend to the move in order to accommodate the Museum and expedite #4501's relocation from Fair Park. For that, the Museum is indebted to those individuals and the DGNO and BNSF.
Frisco #4501 was just one of hundreds of steam locomotives operated by the St. Louis-San Francisco Railroad. The City of Frisco gets its name from the line, which was constructed in 1902. The town of Frisco was platted in the vicinity of a water stop that replenished thirsty steam locomotives between Sherman and Irving.


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Pazure avait besoin d'un nouveau design de logo et a lancé un concours sur 99designs.
Un gagnant a été sélectionné de 238 designs proposés par 75 designers freelance.
We would like to create a logo for a newly established 5 star hotel chain in the Middle East; Topaz Hotels & Resorts
Topaz hotels
Desired Color Scheme:
Desired Style:
Classy and very stylish
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Topaz hotels is a newly established 5 star hotel chain.It is meant to start in the UAE; between Dubai and Abu Dhabi then spread allover  the World,
It is meant also to reflect luxury, elegance and top class in the hospitality industry.
The topaz hotels are luxurious hotles equipped with the top of the range facilities that makes the hotles a destination by their own for both business people and holiday makers . The hotels feaute 500 bed-rooms, nearly 10 F&B outlets including, steak house, sea-food resturant, all-day dinning, night-club, bar, Champagne and Cigar bar, Oriental/Chinese outlet, Lebanese resturant, Sushi resturant and top class Italian resturant.
In additon to the above, a state 0f -the -art spa including 3 sort of hamam experiece, Morocon, Turkish and Thai .
A huge swimming pool with a bar and beach front
A high-tech business Cetner
A high end shopping arcade
A top class conceriege service
Savoir comment fonctionne un concours de design ou en savoir plus sur nos services de design de logo.


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Another option: Make your melba with plums.
- Yield
- Makes 4 servings
- 3 limes (reserve 1, halved, for garnish)
- 3 pints fresh raspberries
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 pint fresh blueberries
- 1 pint fresh blackberries
- 2 large or 4 small ripe peaches, halved and pitted (skin on)
- 1 pint lowfat vanilla frozen yogurt (or lowfat vanilla ice cream)
- Preheat a grill or broiler. While grill is warming, zest limes and juice them (reserve zest and juice separately). Chop enough zest to make 1 tsp. Combine 2 pints raspberries with 1/4 cup sugar in a small saucepan. Cook over medium heat until berries start to release juices and break down. Puree in a blender, then pour through a fine-mesh strainer to remove seeds. Season to taste with lime juice and set aside. Toss together remaining raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries with remaining sugar, lime juice, and lime zest and set aside. Grill peaches and lime halves quickly, until they have grill marks and are warmed through, about 3 minutes per side. Remove from the grill.
- To serve: Combine a peach half with 1/2 cup frozen yogurt in the bottom of a shallow dish. Spoon equal amounts of raspberry sauce on top of frozen yogurt and finish with equal amounts of raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries. Garnish with grilled lime.
Nutritional analysis per serving: 321 calories, 1 g fat (less than 1 g saturated fat), 72 g carbohydrates, 6 g protein


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Robbery offenses include allegations ranging from the sudden snatching of property from an unaware person to the armed entry of a home with a firearm to take property by physical force. All robberies are punished as felonies and range in maximum punishments from 5 years to life in prison, depending on the various factors used to enhance the sentence. Certain mandatory sentences may be applicable depending on whether a firearm is used, or the status of the offender.
Prompt gathering of evidence as well as the questioning and investigation of witnesses is vital to an effective defense. Early involvement of an experienced attorney may eliminate defective or unreliable evidence and uncover poor investigation by law enforcement. Your right to a fair trial is incomplete without an experienced and effective team to ensure the lawfulness of police procedures, the legality of searches and seizures, and the credibility of witnesses.
Each lawyer at DeThomasis and Buchanan has more than 25 years practicing criminal defense in Gainesville, Florida. Each lawyer has actual jury trial experience representing individuals charged with robbery. Contact an experienced attorney at DeThomasis and Buchanan for an effective Gainesville robbery defense.


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Pink Floyd to release new album this year, first since 1994
Pink Floyd, the 1970s rock band known for its lush musical textures and meditative take on existence, will release its first new album in two decades.
The album, titled "The Endless River," will be released in October, Doug Wright, a spokesman for the band, said in a statement Monday. It will be "mainly ambient and instrumental music" based on unreleased 1993-1994 sessions that featured guitarist David Gilmour, drummer Nick Mason and keyboardist Richard Wright, according to the statement.
The album "is Rick Wright's swansong and very beautiful," Polly Samson, the wife of guitarist Gilmour, said in a Twitter post. Wright, a founding member of the band, died in 2008.
Pink Floyd achieved worldwide fame with the 1973 album "The Dark Side of the Moon." The album had a place on the weekly U.S. Billboard 200 charts for 14 consecutive years. The band has sold about 250 million albums, according to its record company EMI.
Durga McBroom-Hudson, one of the band's touring singers, said the recordings on "The Endless River" began as a side project to 1994's "The Division Bell," the band's last album of new music.
"It was originally to be a completely instrumental recording, but I came in last December and sang on a few tracks," McBroom-Hudson wrote in a Facebook post.
The sessions were recorded after singer and songwriter Roger Waters left the band in the mid-1980s.
The album is being produced by Gilmour, who has led Pink Floyd since, with Phil Manzanera, Youth and recording engineer Andy Jackson. "Work is still in progress, but more details to come at the end of the Summer," wrote Doug Wright, of the band's U.K. public-relations company LD Communications, in the statement.
Waters, Mason, Richard Wright and Syd Barrett founded Pink Floyd in 1965.


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once in a while[ wuhns ]SEE DEFINITION OF once in a while
c.1200, anes, from ane "one" (see one ) + adverbial genitive. Replaced Old English æne. Spelling changed as pronunciation shifted from two syllables to one after c.1300. Pronunciation change to "wuns" parallels that of one. As an emphatic, meaning "once and for all," it is attested from c.1300, but this now is regarded as a Pennsylvania German dialect formation. Meaning "in a past time" (but not necessarily just one time) is from mid-13c.
Once upon a time as the beginning of a story is recorded from 1590s. At once originally (early 13c.) meant "simultaneously," later "in one company" (c.1300), and preserved the sense of "one" in the word; the phrase typically appeared as one word, atones; the modern meaning "immediately" is attested from 1530s.


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#Pic_A_Day (1618) @AlMachFineArt
1934 Buick 98C Phaeton by Fisher
This was seen at the Elegance at Hershey 2018
Don't miss the Elegance at Hershey 2019 on June 7-9 at the fabulous Hotel Hershey!
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Custom Lamb Skin Leather Avanti Jacket
The custom leather Avanti jacket is now available. Like the Avanti II, each jacket is tailored to your specifications and measurements. Made from fine lambskin and featuring the Avanti or Avanti II logo inlaid in leather on the back, front or both. Your choice of colors. Available in winter or spring weight. Custom crafted for $695. Options available at extra cost. 10% discount for AOAI members Pam Hirschhorn firstname.lastname@example.com
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1963 Shelby Cobra Roadster CSX2197
In July 1964, Mark C. Tower purchased CSX 2197 from Crater Lake Motors in Medford, Oregon. According to the Shelby Registry, the car was delivered in red over black leather and equipped with the Class A accessories package, which included chrome rocker covers, white sidewall tires, luggage rack, radio, and 5-quarts of anti-freeze which brought the invoice total to $5493.05. Mr. Tower owned the car briefly, and by 1966, CSX 2197 was held by Howard Nettleton of Tacoma, Washington. Shortly after that, it went to John Stevens Jensen of California where it was registered "VNN 794". Mr. Stevens owned the car for several years until he was killed in a road accident in another Cobra. From 1981, it passed through several more known short-term owners. Along the way, it was noted to have just 9,700 miles on the odometer though it did show some signs of past front-end damage. In the late 1980s, CSX 2197 would find a long-term home with Bill Kemper, a highly respected Cobra expert and restorer. In the early 1990s, he embarked on a long-term restoration, working on the car as time permitted, taking the utmost care as it was a personal project.
According to Mr. Kemper, the car had been unused since suffering a relatively mild accident, and he believed the sub-10,000 miles on the odometer to be accurate. He reported that the Cobra was entirely stripped down, the chassis properly repaired and precisely reinforced and updated based on Kemper's specifications by Baurle Auto Sport of Addison, Il. The body was completely restored, with great care given to preserving as much original alloy as possible. The front outer panels from the doors forward were replaced, but the doors, rear clip, footwells and engine bay panels are said to be comprised of original metal, painstakingly restored to a very high standard and returned to its original red color. Today it presents in stunning condition, having been used gently in the hands of its most recent owner.
Kemper, of course, had the engine balanced, blueprinted and completely rebuilt along with the gearbox and rear differential. It extremely well-presented with much of the original hardware restored and replated, and detailed with correct labels and markings. It retains its correct, early-type Harrison aluminum radiator as well as the generator which was unique to these early Cobras.
The interior is finished in black leather as originally equipped and features correct Smiths gauges with the wonderful Rotunda Tachometer to the left of the column (Shelby switched to Stewart-Warner gauges and Ford electrics approximately three cars later). The steering wheel and shift knob are also correct for the car's original specification. This fabulous Cobra has seen only light use since its world-class restoration was completed, and the leather and upholstery remain in excellent condition. Included in the sale is a full top and side-curtain set, as well as the original early-type jack, firewall mounted grease gun, and a set of restored King Dick spanners.
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Offered at: $925,000
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Hyman Ltd. Classic Cars, 2310 Chaffee Dr, St. Louis, MO.
314 524-6000
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The environmental adventure film �Chasing Ice� will be shown at the Trent River Coffee Company on Wednesday at 6 p.m.
The environmental adventure film �Chasing Ice� will be shown at the Trent River Coffee Company on Wednesday at 6 p.m.
This film is sponsored by Organizing for Action in New Bern, a non-partisan, issue-oriented, advocacy organization.
In the spring of 2005, acclaimed environmental photographer James Balog headed to the Arctic for National Geographic to capture images to help tell the story of the Earth�s changing climate. Even with a scientific upbringing, Balog had been a skeptic about climate change.
According to a release, Balog�s first trip north �opened his eyes to the biggest story in human history and sparked a challenge within him that would put his career and his very well-being at risk.
��Chasing Ice� is the story of one man�s mission to change the tide of history by gathering undeniable evidence of our changing planet. Within months of that first trip to Iceland, the photographer conceived the boldest expedition of his life: The Extreme Ice Survey. With a band of young adventurers in tow, Balog began deploying revolutionary time-lapse cameras across the brutal Arctic to capture a multi-year record of the world�s changing glaciers.
�As the debate polarizes America and the intensity of natural disasters ramps up globally, Balog finds himself at the end of his tether. Battling untested technology in subzero conditions, he comes face to face with his own mortality. It takes years for Balog to see the fruits of his labor. His hauntingly beautiful videos compress years into seconds and capture ancient mountains of ice in motion as they disappear at a breathtaking rate.�


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Happy October 1st!! Where did September go? I guess every month ends that way. As some of you may know, I live in Connecticut and it is looking a lot fall around here. The leaves are all turning the most beautiful colors and are falling from the trees. My kids are looking forward to jumping in leaf piles this weekend. What do you have planned this weekend? Hopefully you'll be doing some shopping with us! We have to many sales this weekend it will make your head spin!
I'm not even sure where I should start!! I guess at the beginning – Today is the 1st of the month and you know what that means – $1 Bake Sale! That's right – we have tons of kits for just $1 today only!! Hurry because after midnight the sale is over!!!
Did you know that we have started a Daily Download? That's right! Today is Day 1 of our Daily Download so make sure you check the blog to get the first link. Want a sneak peak of what you will be getting? I'm not sure I should…but if you don't tell anyone…
Don't worry if you skip a day or two – the entire kit will be sale November 1st!!
Now I have very exciting news. (I told you we have a lot going on!) We have a guest designer joining us this month. Are you curious about who? I can't keep a secret so I'll just tell you – Misty O'Brien!!! How awesome is that! We are THRILLED she is visiting us for the month!
Misty has a little message for ya…
"Hello Gingerscrappers! I am Misty O'Brien and I am back here at Gingerscraps as a guest designer for October. I am a stay at home mom to two beautiful boys and have been married to my husband for almost 5 years. I originally got my start at GS as a CT member for Ginger in Dec 2008 and then a site CT member for GS. Later that following spring, Ginger took me on as a new designer (and boy was I new!). I am glad to be back this month to the site and look forward to some familiar faces, as well as meeting some new scrap friends!
You can check out my Facebook Fan Page, my Twitter, my blog, and sign up for my newsletter for contests, coupons, and the latest info."
Take a look at some of her kits! And keep checking often- she will be adding new goodies throughout the month!
To kick off October, Misty has created this spunky little Halloween mini, Trick or Treat, exclusive to Gingerscraps. Originally priced at $3.00, it's even going to start off in the GS Bake Sale at only $1 on Oct 1st! After that, it will be $2.00 through Thurs Oct 6th.
And Misty's even debuting a new CU product, "Which Way?" hand doodled commercial use arrows. Perfect for personal use too and will add a fresh personal look to any layout or kit. They are available now for only $2.00!
Its the Frist of the month.. and you all know what that means! It is time to reveal out kit of the month!!!
This month you can get this amazing GingerBread Ladies collab for only $1.00 with any purchase over $10.00. Are you ready????
It is time to wake up and smell the coffee- Say Good Morning to the world and get to scrappin! The GingerBread Ladies bring you GoodMorning!
This kit is so cute!! It includes:
*72 Elements
*62 Papers
*44 piece Word Art Set including blank strips to make your own Word Art
*Pancake Alpha
*Set of Syrup and Jelly Styles- CU, S4H, and PU approved
You can purchase it for $7.00 OR you can get this huge collab for only $1.00!!
With any purchase over $10.00 you will get a coupon in your e-mail to buy this kit for only $1.00! Please allow 24 hours as all coupons have to be e-mailed manually.
Do you want more sales? How about a New Release Sales? Everyone released today is 25% off for the weekend! Come see what we have!
Kathy Winters Designs has a new mini kit that is perfect for those quick apple picking or fall themed layouts. Apple Of My Eye contains 10 papers and 20 elements in bright, fall colors.
Regular price $3.00 Sale Price $2.25
Statements by Jodi has some new Commercial Use overlays for all you designers out there!
This pack of 10 commercial use overlays is a perfect addition to your CU stash. Each one is unique.
Only $4. This weekend only save 25% and get it for $3!
Statements by Jodi has made an add on to her Lil' Crime Fighters kit. As seen on the Ginger Scraps blog, you can now get it in the store, FREE!
Daphadilly Art, HK Designs and Marshmella Designs teamed up to bring you this frighteningly fun kit called "Spooktacular"! Perfect for every halloween layout. This kit includes 15 papers and 63 elements. Regular price $5.50, on sale for $4.13.
They also made these 3 quickpages perfect for your fright night memories! Simply add your picture and some journaling and you are done. Regular price $3.00, on sale for $2.25!
RebeccaB has created Hootilicious has a gorgeous color palette and is suitable for a range of different styles of layouts. There are 16 patterned and textured papers, 40 elements and a full a-z lower-case alpha each with a flower element attached. Hootilicious will be $2.50 from 1st October till the 15th October. Regular Price $5.00.
RebeccaB has a great new kit called Twinkle Gal Witch. It is a magical girl themed kit with a gorgeous color palette. You will be able to create many scene layouts or stick with the traditional style. Too many options in this kit will keep you scrapping forever. With 16 amazing textured papers, 48 magical elements and a-z Alpha. Twinkle Gal Witch will be $2.50 from 1st October till 15th October. Regular Price $5.00.
RebeccaB has Zebras in my Garden . It is a Funky, Fresh and Fun Kit with lots of amazing papers and elements in a gorgeous color theme. There are 18 patterned and textured papers, 53 extremely funky elements and a full A-Z alpha. Zebras in my Garden will be $2.50 from 1st October till 15th October. Regular Price $5.00.
Do you love those warm days of fall, and huddling around the campfire during the cool nights. Pretty in Green has a new kit perfect for fall! This beautifully colored kit celebrates a warm Indian Summer. This kit is full of beautiful elements that complement all your fall pictures, with a variety of Doodled, Paper cut, and Extracted elements. There are 28 papers including a full set of cardstock papers, and 47 elements. I am just in love with the colors of this kit! this kit is on sale for the weekend at $3.75 reg. $5
Daphadilly Art has designed this beautiful new kit named Shy. Shy is a versatile kit with funky sweet pastels! You can get it for only $2.50 this weekend!!
Top it Off Calendar Templates! Make your own calendar with these easy to use templates by Creations by Julie. Just add your favorite photos, papers and elements! The templates are 8.5×11 for easy printing, in PSD and PNG formats. Add the calendar grids and the top and bottom of your calender is done! Make some great gifts for your family and friends, and yourself! Only $5.00
These calendar grids by Creations by Julie are perfect to create your own personal calendar. Add your important events and some fun elements. Easy to use PNG form. Just drag onto your favorite digi paper. Pair with the Calendar Toppers for a perfectly coordinated 12 moth calendar! Use for you desktop calendar or print out and organize your monthy activities. Only $2.00!
Look what Trina made with the calendar templates and the Spooktacular Collab.
If you are looking to make a layout that has a unique composition than you have found the template set for you! If you ever think to yourself that your layouts have a similar look to them, and you'd like to make a page that doesn't fit your typical scrapping mold than you might want to give this template set a try. In this Uniquely Composed set by Unforgettable Moments you will find four templates with original arrangement just waiting for you to make unique pages with your one of a kind photos! These templates are regularly bargain priced at $2.50, but currently they are on sale and you can grab them up at $1.75!
See how busy this weekend is going to be for you? We have some great challenges that will help you with a big BASH we have going on at the end of the month. I can't give you details yet, but trust me when I say you will want do these challenges and you will want to watch the forum for news of our BASH!!


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Free Entry
The Noosa Festival of Water takes place on the last Sunday in June each year at the Noosa Botanic Gardens on Lake Macdonald in Cooroy, it's a free family event to improve community awareness of some of the special features of the Noosa region which make it such a great place to live.
Everyone is invited to come along to listen to music in the Grecian style Amphitheatre overlooking the Lake, wander the gardens taking in community displays, enjoy the food and join in activities for all interests and age groups while learning more about this beautiful region.
The Amphitheatre will showcase some incredible local talent including Lyndon Davis and the Gubbi Gubbi Dancers and music from up and coming young multi instrumentalists Phenix and some jazz inspired soul from Sommer Rd. Festival favourite, Martin Fingland and his native animals will round off the program.
A free boat trip will take people across the Lake to the Gerry Cook Hatchery where the breeding program for the endangered Mary River Cod will be on display. A tour of the Noosa Water Treatment Plant will also originate from Mary River Cod Park.


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The matmen of Banks County High School have achieved the highest honor and log into the record book as the first team of any athletic sport in the Banks County High School history to bring home a state championship.
The Leopards traveled to Macon on January 10-12 to compete for the title. The team had beaten all but one team all season long and that was AAAAA Pope High School. Pope was ranked nationally when the loss happened at Collins Hill.
The Leopards easily defeated Pierce County in round one of the match 67-6 to advance against Sonoraville. BCHS fought a hard battle and defeated the Firebirds 44-24.
The Leopards winning round two would get a chance to rest overnight and return for the championship round against Woodward. BCHS would get several pins before falling behind near the end of the match. Matthew Dilbeck took to the mat and pinned the last opponent for the win and the state championship 34 -33.
The Leopards were greeted Saturday night by a enthusiastic crowd for their achievement this season. Everyone made the team feel like the hometown heroes they have become.
The timing of the championship is right in line with the Leopards celebration of Senior Night Tuesday, January 22. The Leopards will also be preparing for the Area 7-AAA Tournament, AAA East Sectional and the State Traditional Tournaments in February.
Wrestlers win state championship
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San Jose
Route Information
05.13.14 | Stage 3 Start
San Jose Visitors Bureau
San Jose Amgen Tour of California on Facebook
San Jose Amgen Tour of California on Twitter
On Tuesday, May 13, San Jose, the Capital of Silicon Valley, will host the Stage 3 Start of the 2014 Amgen Tour of California—welcoming back, for the ninth year in a row, the world's elite cyclists.
May 13 will help add another page to San Jose's long cycling history. With its population of more than one million, San Jose has grown over its 236 year existence to the 10th largest city in the U.S., the largest city in Northern California and the world's leading center of innovation. The City has been vital to the sport of cycling ever since one of the world's first pedal bicycles was engineered there; its first local bicycle club was formed back in 1884. 38,000 bike commuters utilize more than 150 miles of on-street bikeways, which led the city to garnering a National Bicycle Friendly Community Award from the League of American Bicyclists. Home to one of only 19 velodromes in the U.S., San Jose is an epicenter of cycling in the San Francisco Bay Area and thus part of the largest cycling community in North America.
With San Jose Sports Authority Executive Director Patricia Ernstrom serving as Local Organizing Committee Co-Chair, the 2014 Amgen Tour of California, provides a platform to raise awareness about green mobility, San Jose's Green Vision, and the benefits of a healthy and active lifestyle. Cycling plays a significant part in making this happen. San Jose offers ongoing bike commuting classes to ensure all have access to key safety training and help transition commuters from cars to bikes. The City is in the midst of expanding its bikeways, including a network of trail systems, allowing residents to travel more easily by bicycle, as well as encourage exploration and education about our natural habitat so residents better understand the benefits of a healthy environment and value its preservation.
Planning a visit to San Jose to experience the Amgen Tour of California? Our convention and visitors bureau is here to help. www.sanjose.org
Want to learn more about San Jose's exciting plans to expand cycling accessibility for all? Check out the San Jose Department of Transportation's Bicycle and Pedestrian site to find out why this city is a perfect cycling destination.br />
The San Jose Sports Authority is a non-profit organization whose mission is to increase the City of San Jose's economic development, visibility and civic pride through sports. Serving as the City's sports commission since in 1991, the Sports Authority has provided leadership and support to attract and host hundreds of sporting events in San Jose and the South Bay. The Sports Authority also supports and operates community, youth and amateur sports programs, including the San Jose Sports Hall of Fame, The First Tee of San Jose, and the REACH YouthScholarship Program. To learn more, visit www.sjsa.org.


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Waste Management makes sustainability for your healthcare facility both possible and profitable
Our industry experts work with you to create safe, responsible and customized programs to collect and dispose of your medical waste. We also work to keep your costs down and to remain compliant with safety regulations.
Whether you choose scheduled collection services or our mail-in products, Waste Management makes medical waste disposal for businesses more convenient. That way, you can focus on what matters most — your customers.
Medical Waste Collection Services
Work with our commercial solutions team to select the best medical waste disposal products and pickup services for your organization.
Medical Waste Disposal by Mail
Our medical waste disposal-by-mail program gives you an easy, efficient and affordable pre-paid mailing system for management of sharps and medical waste.
For more information, or to set up service for recurring medical waste disposal for your business, call 1 (866) 803-7561 to speak with our commercial waste solutions team.


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DELAWARE - 05/15/2018 — Ikigai Infotech proudly launched SalesHandy 2.0 – a new version of its successful sales engagement and email productivity tool. It is the biggest update to SalesHandy till date and is built from the ground up making it 10x faster, with rock-solid stability, and a whole new look! The new platform comes with a completely new user interface and many new functionalities.
SalesHandy has been recognized amongst the top service providers for Email and Documents Analytics and Automation. With SalesHandy 2.0 the company sets its sight to become the segment leader!
"It is the next best thing since Website Analytics – It is Email and Document Analytics and Automation on a single platform!"
– Dhruv Patel, Co-founder – SalesHandy
SalesHandy is a Sales Enablement Software Solution that provides you with features like Email Tracking, Email Scheduling, Document/Attachment Tracking, Email Templates, Mail Merge with automated Follow-ups in a single easy to use platform with detailed engagement analytics.
Whether you're a freelancer trying to track email proposals that you sent, an SMB wishing to send personalized cold email campaign and find out the most engaged prospects from it or an Enterprise trying to find and organize best performing email templates and attachments and share it with specific teams to increase productivity – You can get it all done effortlessly using SalesHandy!
Prominent Features of SalesHandy 2.0:
Know what happens to your email after you hit send – Track unlimited emails, get real-time desktop notifications and get to know the location, browser, and device of the recipient. On top of that, you get to view the entire history of opens of a given email with just a click.
Schedule your emails to reach your recipient's inbox at a specific time with the ease of selecting time-zones.
Know if the prospect is engaging with the document with data like the volume of opens, the percentage of the document read, time spent on each page, forward tracking etc and create folders containing a specific set of documents and share it with specific teams. You can also set document preferences that would enable you to password protect it, set a reminder if not read or set a date of expiry.
Create email templates once and use it whenever you want. Share it with your team and measure the performance of each of them.
Send personalized email merge campaigns using custom mail merge fields. Send from Gmail, Outlook or any other email service providers using SMTP.
Set up to 9 stages of automated follow-ups to your mail merge campaigns using behavioral triggers. Target prospects who haven't opened or replied to your previous email and boost your response rate by 10 times!
SalesHandy offers 14-day free trial where you can experience all functionalities of the tool. However, Email Tracking and Email Scheduling will be lifetime free even after trial. Even after the free trial, its paid subscriptions start at just $7 a month (when paid annually), making it the most competitively priced solution in the market.
Contact Details:
To learn more about this product, please contact
Dhruv Patel, Ikigai Infotech Pvt. Ltd.
Contact No: +1 248-987-0483
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
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LAS VEGAS -- This year's International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association (IHRSA) convention March 20-23 in Las Vegas may have been highlighted by former President Bill Clinton's speech and the Augie's Quest Gala charity event to raise money for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), but many of the more than 12,000 fitness professionals from 70 countries who attended the conference also showed up to check out the products on the exhibit hall floor. Following are just some of the many products that attendees had an opportunity to experience.
Checkfree introduced managed data services at the show. This is a membership management system that combines online club management software, electronic payment processing and outsourced management of billing and member services. It allows Internet and in-club kiosk access to personal accounts and workout plans. It comes in three service tiers. The system uses Internet-based club management software, which eliminates the need for in-house computer network infrastructure. The system generates a monthly report that provides a summary of monthly club activities. It can also report on missed billings and provide a profile of the club's most profitable members.
Efi Sports Medicine offered the first look at its new GRAVITYouth Series™--a club program designed to help children be active, train for sports and have fun. The program features two age-specific workouts: Secret Circuit for kids 7-11 years old, and Sports Circuit for children 12-15 years old. Both 30-minute workouts are performed on efi's GTS unit, an incline glideboard and cable pulley system that uses an individual's body weight as resistance. In Secret Circuit, participants choose from a deck of cards featuring various exercises they are to perform and surprises such as wild cards and a Joker. Sports Circuit engages participants by linking exercises to sports activities and competition.
Exertron's founder Bob Kissel demonstrated at the show the patented exercise technology he created for strength-training equipment. The technology uses intelligent variable resistance that reacts to the user's momentary available strength. It uses sensors to automatically adjust resistance for strength. Rather than the user manually changing the weights as their muscles tire, the machine reacts to their need for a lower weight and changes it. The technology measures performance, encouraging users to continually improve their score from workout to workout. Currently, the technology is not available on strength equipment, but it is adaptable to any strength machine, Kissel said.
Expresso Fitness introduced Internet-based capabilities for its virtual reality-enhanced Spark fitness bike. The new capabilities allow exercisers to personalize their fitness regimen. Spark riders can create their own IDs and customize their workouts. They can race against their best performances or those of other facility members. All workouts are collected and riders can review their progress on www.expresso.net. Specially designed trainer links deliver new tools for trainers through a Web-based trainer portal. With this tool, trainers can review member activity, offer online hints, benchmark fitness and create motivational group workouts.
The EZ Facility 3.0 trainer management system is a scheduling, management and reporting tool for facilities that offer personal training. It is delivered via a monthly Internet software service. The product not only schedules bookings, but it also calculates trainer payroll and commissions, manages customer account information, invoicing and payment tracking (printed or e-mailed).
FreeMotion Fitness introduced the FreeMotion treadmill and FreeMotion elliptical trainer. The treadmill is powered by a direct rear velocity system, a rear-drive motor system that combined with urethane deck isolators provides additional cushioning that creates a softer running surface. The motor system pulls rather than pushes the treadbelt, which provides direct, consistent belt tension and alleviates some of the stress on the bearing and rollers, which means less maintenance. The elliptical trainer features patented rear-access design to minimize its footprint and maximize floor space. It has a custom-designed electromagnetic resistance system that applies consistent resistance for smooth performance, less maintenance and generates power for the basic console.
Life Fitness debuted new circuit training equipment that provides easy access, push button resistance selection and low starting resistance for seniors or those unfamiliar with strength equipment. The circuit series consists of 11 pieces of equipment. The company also noted upgrades on its treadmills (93T on up series), including a more convenient location on the ergo bar for te incline an dspeed adjustment buttons, preprogrammed "Go System" buttons to make changing speeds easier, higher maximum speeds, a stride sensor that detects when a user leaves a machine and stops the belt after a brief delay and a LED sensor to notify club operators when the belt needs maintenanced. The company's 91Xi elliptical now has 16 programs, eight new interval workouts and two new interactive zone trainign heart rate workouts--cardio and fat burn.
MYE Entertainment is combining its advanced in-club TV with MP3 music. The system allows users to access entertainment from TV, FM radio and their own MP3 music library. The MYE Entertainment controllers attach easily to cardio equipment. Currently, MYE Entertainment is partnering with True Fitness to place the technology on their cardio equipment.
The Panasonic Core Trainer looks like a short barstool with a modern saddle for a seat. The Core Trainer moves the seat side to side while leaning it—and the user—forward, level and then backwards. Users must stabilize themselves with their thighs and core. Panasonic does not have any models ready yet for clubs as the company is still refining the product.
Power Plate, which uses vibration technology to train users' muscles, debuted a new feature at the show-- card key software that allows health clubs to improve sales and management of Power Plate training session packages. The Power Plate is generally used in one-on-one or group training sessions. The card key allows clubs to control who is on the equipment and allows them to program session packages. Power Plate is used by some professional athletes and is in place at Shula's Gym in Florida.
SportKAT's Korebalance has been used by physical therapists for several years, but the company is now launching the equipment into the fitness club market. Korebalance is used by athletes for agility training and by seniors for balance training. The product requires users to use their spatial senses as well as their core. Some might consider it a stability ball of sorts (using a hydraulic system to move the plate) with bars to hold onto if needed and a video element added in. As users stand on the plate, the screen in front of them projects an image that users must navigate by balancing on the plate.
Stoplight Solutions offers a product called TimeFrame, which includes a 40-inch LCD touchscreen that provides instant access to customers' information needs. The system is designed to be placed in a facility so members can access the information. It helps them get real-time information about a club's classes, promotions and services.
True Fitness showed off its True Strider (TS1), a new elliptical cross trainer with a shorter stride, smaller footprint, rear entry rather than side entry, and a core drive system under the pedals. The pedals remain parallel to the ground in a fixed plane throughout the stride, providing more natural motion for the ankle. The TS1 offers three workout options – combined upper and lower body workout, a legs-only cardio session, or an arms-only session.
Virgin Life Care demonstrated its Virgin HealthZone system on which users can track their blood pressure, weight, BMI and body fat. Users also can input their workouts and then access a personalized account via the Internet to earn rewards (monetary and vouchers) that are based on their activity. Virgin Life Care markets the HealthZone system to corporations for their employees and locates the HealthZones in partnering fitness facilities.


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- 1992
Toronto Blue Jays finally win a World Series for Canada
On October 24, 1992, the Toronto Blue Jays beat the Atlanta Braves in the sixth game of the World Series to win the championship. It was the first time a Canadian team had ever won the trophy, and it was a truly international victory—the Blue Jays' 25-man roster included several players of Puerto Rican descent, a Jamaican, three Dominicans and no actual Canadians.
The series itself was a bit of a nail-biter: Four of the six games were decided by a single run, and three were won in the last at-bat. The Braves won the first game relatively handily (that is, by two runs). The Jays won the second 5-4 (they were trailing 4-3 when they came to bat in the ninth), the third 3-2 (thanks to a bases-loaded single at the bottom of the last inning) and the fourth 2-1. The Braves won Game 5 easily, as John Smoltz and Mike Stanton pitched to a 7-2 victory.
In Game 6, the Braves were losing by one run at the beginning of the ninth inning. They put runners on first and second, and then pinch-hitter Francisco Cabrera scorched a line drive to left that, if Candy Maldonado hadn't made an impossible catch at the last minute, would have scored at least two runs. As it happened, the next batter singled to tie the game and force it into extra innings.
At the top of the 11th, with two out and two on, 41-year-old Blue Jay Dave Winfield cranked a 3-2 pitch low down the left-field line, sending two of his teammates home. At the bottom of the inning, the Braves managed to score once and even got the tying run to third, but it wasn't enough. Toronto reliever Mike Timlin got Otis Nixon to bunt, then charged the blooper and tossed the ball to first in plenty of time. It was a rather anti-climactic ending to a highly climactic series, but it did the job: The Blue Jays were the champions. "No one can say we choke anymore," Toronto's Roberto Alomar told reporters in the locker room after the game. "This is a great club. We won like champions."


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Looks like the domestic market Ford Focus will remain the laughing stock of the worldwide Focus product line if these spy photos of Chinese market Foci are any indication. These images point to the integration of Ford's European "kinetic design" styling language seen on the likes of the Verve concept and current Mondeo. You can plainly see the stretched out headlights and gaping maw down below as seen from other Ford fare here on these camouflaged cars.
Also notable is the rather nice and remarkably coherent interior (wonder if it has Sync?). We don't know if this is an indication of the direction the Europe market cars will be going, or if the Chinese market will be making the move to the styling leader, but if the latter is the case, it may just tell us a little bit about Ford's global product strategy. Lots of additional images over at ChinaCarTimes.


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One Thanksgiving lesson most school kids probably don't receive has to do with the horn of plenty adorning festive paintings. For me it always seemed like a weird choice for carrying harvested food — what about a simple, flat-bottomed basket? But I didn't know that the horn was special. In classical myth, the horn is a symbol for several food- and wealth-related gods because, one story goes, Zeus played too roughly with a goat and broke its horn. To make amends, he promised to fill that broken horn with whatever food the animal desired.
Where reading is concerned this month, it's been devilishly hard to isolate one or two books for The Siren's Call. So in keeping with that idea of a brimming horn of plenty, this month's column offers a cornucopia of myth- and lore-related books.
Sherlock Holmes is certainly a mythic figure, isn't he? Arthur Conan Doyle gave us his version of the archetypal questing hero, clad in a frock coat and deerstalker cap. At the mention of the name "Arthur Conan Doyle," in fact, it's impossible not to think of Holmes.
For book critic Michael Dirda that's a real problem.
Such a powerful link, you see, has caused most of the great author's other works to be overlooked — and Dirda's brief, elegant reflection "On Conan Doyle: Or, The Whole Art of Storytelling" (Princeton University Press: 210 pp., $19.95) calls our attention to his large and notable output.
"Today much of Conan Doyle's substantial oeuvre — his bibliography runs to more than 700 pages — suffers readerly neglect because of the widespread misconception that he only rose above the conventions of his time when he wrote about the dynamic duo of Baker Street," laments Dirda, a longtime Washington Post book critic and author of several books.
With thoughtful care, Dirda explains how Conan Doyle "rose above the conventions of his time" in many of his writings. Dirda shines a helpful light on the adventurers Professor Challenger and Brigadier Gerard, while a selection of "weird" fiction causes him to declare that those stories "can stand up to the best work of such masters of the uncanny as Sheridan Le Fanu and M.R. James." (As a longtime admirer of James, I was thoroughly piqued by this — and promptly bought a collection of Conan Doyle's ghostly tales to read over the holidays.)
Dirda circles back to Holmes, directing our attention to overlooked aspects of the stories — the elusive presence of Professor Moriarty, for example, or Holmes' brother Mycroft. He also treats us to a delightful, intimate glimpse of the magical power of books in his own early life. What book lover hasn't had at least one cherished experience of reading? Dirda's own involves his loving preparations, as a youth, to read "The Hound of the Baskervilles" on an appropriately stormy day when the rest of his family was out of the house.
Why do so many people have such an undying fondness for the gaslit world of Holmes and Watson? Dirda offers many reasons: One is that Conan Doyle's writing possesses a quality he calls "compulsive readability." Conan Doyle was certainly artistic, but, as Dirda explains, he was less interested in aesthetic perfection than in reaching readers. That imperative guided his writing and is perhaps what resulted in a style that has withstood the passing of time. When you enter a Conan Doyle novel or story, as you would a house, there's a warm glow from a blazing hearth and a comfortable chair waiting for you. It's not a museum.
And there's much of that same feeling in Dirda's inviting book, which demonstrates why for so many years Dirda has been such an insightful guide to literatures past and present. (Note to director Guy Ritchie: If you're still looking for more Conan Doyle fare after "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows" opens next month, you might read Dirda's book for ideas.)
A.N. Wilson has a marvelous facility for bringing distant worlds up close. "The Victorians," for instance, his idiosyncratic portrait of the British Empire in the 19th century, is as engaging and as accessible as any novel on the subject by A.S. Byatt.
Wilson does much the same in "Dante in Love" (Farrar, Straus and Giroux: 386 pp., $35), surveying the life of a poet who continues to enchant readers and lure scholars even though, at a distance of 700 years (he died in 1321), there are probably more people who have tried to read Dante than have actually succeeded. That may be because the great Tuscan poet of "The Divine Comedy," Wilson explains, "expects you to share his knowledge of … contemporary Italian history and politics.... And on top of all that, there is the whole confusing business of medieval philosophy and theology…" It can be daunting.
Wilson, proudly, is not one of those failed readers, but he is sympathetic to struggling readers: In this book he provides a broad, accessible overview of the poet's life and work. It's the sort of book he wishes he'd had "as a young man when I first read the 'Comedy' … which did not take for granted any knowledge of Dante's background."
"Dante in Love" strikes a good balance between what it offers to new and informed readers. Wilson blends the basics, such as Dante's upbringing and Florentine politics — dominated by the Guelfs, the party supporting the Papacy (which broke into a white and black faction), and the Ghibellines, aligned with the Holy Roman Emperor — with more specialized details about the poetry.
One of these specialized bits, for instance, has to do with the "Lady of the Window" celebrated in the poem "Il Convivio." She isn't some airy, idealized figure, some critics have argued, but is in fact Dante's flesh-and-blood wife. This, Wilson notes, is an effort made by some scholars to find a place in the poetry for Dante's spouse, who otherwise never appears. Dante's married life, however, "will always remain unimaginable," Wilson insists, because his age wasn't a confessional one like ours today. Even when Dante refers to himself in his poetry, Wilson says, it is a highly stylized matter.
Still, Wilson does engage in speculative biography, reading between the lines of the "Commedia," the "La Vita Nuova" and the other works, striving to give us a portrait of a man who, long before he was a literary immortal, was like the rest of us: beleaguered by his job, by the turmoil of his times, struggling with debts, critics, jealousy.
"Dante in Love" certainly shouldn't replace another volume in your personal library of Dante-related books, but it does make a fine contribution to our appreciation of a poet who, as 19th century historian Jacob Burckhardt wrote, "absorbed the whole world into his own soul." So read Wilson's book, pick up that copy of the "Commedia" and try again.
Metal-detecting has been a hobby for Terry Herbert for many years, but when he swung his detector over a patch of dirt in a farmer's field in the English Midlands in 2009, his hobby opened the door on a distant age.
As Caroline Alexander relates in "Lost Gold of the Dark Ages: War, Treasure and the Mystery of the Saxons" (National Geographic Books: 240 pp., $35), Herbert had stumbled upon an Anglo-Saxon hoard: In fact, there have been many such caches of buried treasure discovered all over the country. "England's soil is dense with history," Alexander explains, and "today droves of treasure-seekers … tramp the fields every year.…"
Herbert's detector wouldn't stop beeping: He kept digging up glittering hunks of metal. When he went to show farmer Fred Johnson what he had found in the field, he was carrying "twisted gold sword fittings, pommels, and garnet-set strips, still covered in earth" in his hands.
It was just the beginning. Herbert, along with the local authorities, unearthed a staggering amount of material now known officially as the Staffordshire Hoard. As for Herbert and Johnson, according to the English legal system, all treasures older than 300 years and containing more than 10% gold or silver belong to the Crown. The pair, however, did split a nice finder's fee amounting to about $5 million once the hoard's total value had been assessed.
"Consisting of some 3,500 pieces from hundreds of individual objects that filled 244 bags, the Staffordshire Hoard was remarkable not only for what was in it, but also for what was not," writes Alexander. ""There were no domestic or feminine objects; almost everything that could be identified was military in character."
Perhaps the hoard had belonged to a cohort of warriors? Perhaps it had been used as a ransom to buy off a battle lord? Such hoards, this book shows, are hardly unusual, and in the case of this one, it isn't surprising "that a hoard may have been buried for reasons of secrecy, safety, or simply storage, and then abandoned."
In the 600s, when the hoard was presumably buried, Anglo-Saxon Britain was divided into seven kingdoms constantly at war. Fred Johnson's field, in the heart of what was Mercia, had once been an unused wood and the hoard rested undisturbed. Unfortunately, as Alexander explains, in the field's being turned into a working farm field, plowing and erosion "churned the hoard … the archeological context for the hoard, then, had long been destroyed…"
With the recent death of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, everyone is rightly speaking about the genius of his designs (of course the praise is deserved). When I open this book, however, the people who impress me slightly more are those anonymous artisans who created jeweled fittings to decorate a sword hilt or the intricate designs on a cheek panel that hung down from a helmet to protect the side of a warrior's face (the helmet's gone). The images presented in this book are gorgeous. And stunning.
"Lost Gold of the Dark Ages," a companion text to a recent documentary on the National Geographic Channel, serves as a pleasing introduction for lay readers to a fascinating, murky topic. It's also an encouraging reminder that the deep past isn't entirely lost to us; answers are still out there, and, in some cases, they're literally under our feet.
If you still have room for even more books in your horn of plenty, then consider Nathaniel Philbrick's "Why Read Moby-Dick?" (Viking: 131 pp., $25), a brief defense of the Herman Melville novel. It's usually a waste of time to find justifications in what others say about a book rather than trust in your own sensibility, but the author of "In the Heart of the Sea" provides a helpful accompaniment before you plunge into the voyage of the Pequod. And as I said, it's short — far shorter, in fact, than what Wilson does for Dante.
Dark Horse Comics is bringing out more installments of "The Occultist" (Dark Horse: $3.50), a one-off comic book published last year that ended on a cliffhanger. College student Rob Bailey has absorbed the power of an old book and has been transformed into a powerful sorcerer — now, a bunch of hit men ("hit mages" is probably more accurate) want to kill him and retrieve that strange, potent tome for their master. It's difficult not to get swept up in Rob's ordeal, especially since he doesn't know the full extent of the powers he now possesses.
This column recently covered Stephen Greenblatt's award-winning book about the Roman poet Lucretius, "The Swerve," and thanks goes out to readers Joe Gates and Joel Peck for recommending, as a follow-up, the book "A Wicked Company: The Forgotten Radicalism of the European Enlightenment" by Philipp Blom.
Another book that also might please some readers this holiday season actually appeared during the summer, "Aelian's 'On the Nature of Animals'" (Trinity University Press: 180 pp., $15.95). Edited by Gregory McNamee, Aelian's treatise "De Natura Animalium" is one more example of the Roman mind striving to make sense of the cosmos. Some of the observations of Claudius Aelianus are fanciful and seem straight from a magical realist novel ("the female dolphin has breasts like a human woman"). Others, however, are charming and inspiring, like this image of wolves crossing a river: "One wolf will bite the tail of the one in front of it, and so on, and then they will all swim across as a chain, so that no harm can come to them." Lovely stuff.
Owchar is Times deputy book editor. The Siren's Call appears monthly at http://www.latimes.com/books.
One Thanksgiving lesson most school kids probably don't receive has to do with the horn of plenty adorning festive paintings. For me it always seemed like a weird choice for carrying harvested food — what about a simple, flat-bottomed basket? But I didn't know that the horn was special. In classical myth, the horn is a symbol for several food- and wealth-related gods because, one story goes, Zeus played too roughly with a goat and broke its horn. To make amends, he promised to fill that broken horn with whatever food the animal desired.


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From local Arcata Artist, Linda Parkinson. A native of California, Linda has been painting animals and portraits since childhood. Linda's beautiful watercolor paintings have been shown and won awards throughout California and Oregon, and can be found in private collections nationwide. Linda has used many of Arcata Pet's birds as models for her cards, as well as the personal birds of Arcata Pet's employees.
Manufacturer: Linda ParkinsonSee all products from Linda Parkinson
Visit Manufacturer's website: www.natureartists.com/linda_parkinson.asp
Note Card Moluccan Cockatoo


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