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Perhaps the most popular and well-known performer since Charlie Chaplin, Michael Jackson ascended to worldwide pop stardom just as a fledgling television network began broadcasting music videos on a regular basis in 1981. The combination of these two forces revolutionized video art through the 80's and 90's, making the music video a cornerstone of the pop culture conversation.
Though both MTV and Jackson have since abdicated their respective thrones, the impact of these videos is still felt today. Few musicians have understood the potential of the video as a tool for artistic expression quite like Michael Jackson. In fact, Jackson was a pioneer in longer narrative based videos. Working with directorial legends like Martin Scorcese, David Lynch and Spike Lee, these short films told stories, dazzled audiences with special effects, and carefully crafted MJ's public image. Over the course of 40 some videos and through three decades, he developed an enigmatic and compelling persona which was always based equally in reality and fiction.
Tracking these transformations on screen is nearly as thrilling as the music itself. Though many argue the influence and popularity of these videos out weighs their overall artistic merit, the pure electricity of Michael Jackson's star power is undeniable; a reminder of how fun and inspiring pop music can be.
Off the Wall & Thriller era:
Jackson didn't necessarily burst onto the scene in 1979, he was already well-known to the public through the Jackson 5. But Off the Wall was not the same sweet candy pop of his childhood. So while his first video as a solo artist begins with shy mumblings on a starry night, he is quickly overcome with some very adult feelings. This contrast between innocence and sexuality remained part of Jackson's image for quite some time.
Dancing inside a sparkling drink, MJ lights up the screen with early versions of soon-to-be famous dance moves. Some of the other environments are harder to read, but the entire video has a very chilled look. This paints the singer as suave and sophisticated, despite his admission of overflowing desire. But none of that is entirely essential, because this is one hell of a song.
Dressed as a disco ball, Jackson manages to avoid looking completely ridiculous due to the strength of the song and his impassioned delivery. The spinning green lights on a black background is a simple yet nice visual, and one that is actually oft-imitated.
The turquoise sweater nearly trumps his last outfit for sheer cheese, but as far as a performance video goes this isn't entirely bad. Mainly due to its brevity, and because Jackson's expression brings the emotions of the song to the forefront.
In the three years between Off the Wall and Thriller, Michael Jackson took his performing game to a whole 'nother level. And while the former may arguably be the better record, the videos for Thriller are nothing short of iconic.
Starting with black and white shadows and a trench-coated detective, "Billie Jean" is a film noir with a mysterious femme fatale and an even shadier hero. But the sharp tones of those opening shots are quickly diffused by the soft lighting of the subsequent scenes; pink isn't your typical hard-boiled color after all. Yet strutting through the streets to the cinematic synths of the song, Michael Jackson looks inexplicably cool as he illuminates the streets in a red bowtie and leather jacket.
In the end it's unclear whether Jackson's character is really telling us the truth about Billie Jean, especially since he is recognized by her neighbors as if a regular visitor and eventually disappears into her bed. Even as he flips magical coins at bums and transforms into animals like a superhero (both ideas will come back in later videos), the video intentionally leaves an aura of darkness around the character. But this does seem like Jackson's first overt comment on the paparazzi and press that would continue to hound him throughout his career.
In many ways "Beat It" is the quintessential Jackson video. It makes use of almost all the major themes in his videography: fear, paranoia, safety/danger, male power (hints of misogyny) and the ability of music/dance to build bridges between people. It also features some of the artist's best choreography and among his most interesting storylines (even if it is in reference to West Side Story). The smoky alleys, rough pool halls and shadowy warehouses would become typical settings for future Jackson videos.
As in "Billie Jean," MJ is the hero with the magical dance moves. But once again he isn't entirely removed from the crimes at hand. Perhaps he hears the noise outside his window like the folks who peek through their blinds in fear, but how does he know where to look for these guys? Everything from his manner of dress to his interactions with the gang leaders implies that he is somewhat familiar with these people. The song itself seems addressed to a friend rather than a stranger. He establishes his street cred while attempting to spread a message of non-violence. At this point this duality works quite well, but it will eventually prove very difficult to maintain.
Paul McCartney was no stranger to acting, having starred in many videos and films with the Beatles, but he is still surprisingly impressive in this role as the head of a good-natured gang of robbers in the wild west. As always, Jackson fairs much better once the duo are actually performing on stage (his sweater also seems a bit too modern for the early setting). The video co-stars wife Linda McCartney and sister LaToya Jackson (who strangely plays Michael's love interest), and was the second duet between Paul and Michael (1982's "The Girl is Mine").
We are meant to see the thieving group as Robin Hoods who steal to give their money to an orphanage, but they are indeed swindling a whole lot of people. Yet some of these same folks are seen later swelling with confidence, and that is surely a positive. It's an entertaining enough ride, but somewhat pointless as well.
"Thriller" was more than a music video, it was an event. Seen in movie theaters and homes across America and the world, it singlehandedly propelled the album from highly successful to the best selling record of all time. With it's compelling narrative, excellent special effects and killer choreography (by Michael Peters, who also helped Jackson on "Beat It"), it redefined what a video could be. It is the only music video to ever be inducted into the National Film Registry. The video was so popular at one point that it played almost twice an hour on MTV - all 14 minutes of it.
Landis, who had previously directed the feature An American Werewolf in London, brings a spooky humor to the video which is its greatest appeal (other than the music and the star). The zombies are creepy but comic, and the coy teasing between Jackson and his date sets a contrasting tone for the gloom that follows. The story within a story which may or may not be a dream, could have been overly complex and hard to understand, but it is deftly executed and told in a clear and entertaining manner. Co-star Ola Ray is particularly good as the over-the-top 50's girl terrified by Jackson's werewolf transformation, and looks radiant throughout, even as she spends much of that time not doing much of anything.
One of Jackson's common tropes is the use of fear and danger to attract the opposite sex. It's also a theme found in most horror films, but Jackson uses it in a number of different contexts throughout his career. Women, along with children, are often portrayed as helpless creatures in need of his protection. As he sings in his song, frightening his girl means he gets to hold her tighter. But it can also be said that no one, man or woman, is ever truly safe in the world of "Thriller." The evil head-turn at the end (along with the zombie dance sequence) is the most memorable shot of the entire video. Once more Jackson is both the hero and the villain of his story. Perhaps what he fears most is something internal.
The video also embraces creatures whom we might typically describe as "freaks." Not only is our hero part-monster, but the zombies are his talented back-up dancers. And none of the "villains", not even the vicious werewolf, are actually shown doing anyone harm. Jackson has always been one to preach equality, and grew up almost always ostracized from normal society. Here those who may appear physically different from us - even scary - are actually not so frightening. By putting himself in the role of the monster, Jackson may be inviting us to embrace our own "freakish" side - regardless of how society may perceive of it.
NOTE: We have excluded videos here from Captain EO, a 1986 3-D film directed by Francis Ford Coppola and produced by George Lucas in conjunction with a Disneyland theme park attraction. Mainly because we couldn't find a good version online, it is not widely known, and was not specifically made for videos like Jackson's other music films...
Though Jackson doesn't appear in this video (brother Jermaine also contributes vocals without appearing), his presence is felt in more than one way. From the chorus of the song to the paranoia of the plot, this fits snugly amongst much of Jackson's early canon.
There are a number of references to classic film here, from the Psycho shower scene to the "killer's viewpoint" of Halloween. There is also a definite element of sexuality and voyeurism (popular themes of horror as well), with particular emphasis on the shirtless body of Rockwell. It plays as almost the reverse of "Thriller," only with a male rather than female victim, especially when seen in succession. One almost suspects that Jackson himself, whose hook is the best part of the song anyway, is behind all the ghastly creatures Rockwell encounters.
(There's a moderately entertaining remix of this song by the Beatfreaks, accompanied by a video that features parodies of more than one Jackson video.)


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SKF to release the power of their solutions at Hannover Messe
2013 Jänner 31, 12:00 CET
At Hannover Messe 2013, the SKF Group will present innovative solutions for improving sustainability and profitability for customers across a range of segments. SKF will focus on intelligent next-generation products and solutions that give customers measurable increases in profitability and sustainability by conserving energy, reducing CO2 emissions, increasing the availability of machinery and equipment, and reducing operating costs.
SKF has been a leading global technology provider since 1907. Their fundamental strength is the ability to continuously develop new technologies – then use them to create solutions that offer competitive advantages to their customers. SKF achieves this by combining hands-on experience in over 40 industries with the knowledge across the SKF technology platforms: bearings and units, seals, mechatronics, services and lubrication systems.
You can find us at booth B12 in Hall 22 at Deutsche Messe in Hannover, from 8-12 April 2013.
Gothenburg, 31 January 2013
Aktiebolaget SKF
For further information, please contact:
Dietmar Seidel, Manager Trade Press, SKF Germany, tel: +49 9721 56-22843, e-mail:email@example.com
Zarife Kameraj,Country Communications Director, SKF Germany, tel. +49 9721 56-333, email: firstname.lastname@example.com
Rebecca Janzon,Director Press Relations, SKF Group, tel: +46 31-337 3880, mobile: +46 727-173880, e-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com
SKF is a leading global supplier of bearings, seals, mechatronics, lubrication systems, and services which include technical support, maintenance and reliability services, engineering consulting and training. SKF is represented in more than 130 countries and has around 15,000 distributor locations worldwide. Annual sales in 2011 were SEK 66,216 million and the number of employees was 46,039.www.skf.com
® SKF is a registered trademark of the SKF Group.
™ BeyondZero is a trademark of the SKF Group.
Presse-Kit herunterladen
- MM Multimedia document(7.9 KB) Vorschau

subset: commoncrawl


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Grab yourself something cold to drink, and plan on getting tons of inspiration from all the crafty bloggers and companies that are involved in this bloghop. You see, my daughter was one of the soldiers serving in Iraq that benefitted by receiving handmade cards to send home, so you can see why OWH is one of my favorite charities.
Don't forget to take a moment to thank all of those service members that lost their lives while serving our country.


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Enblend overlays multiple TIFF images so as to make the seam invisible. It works with 8, 16 or 32 bit (HDR floating point) per channel images.
Enblend can work as a plug-in for PTGui, Hugin, PTMac or PTAssembler or standalone from the command line or by Enblend Front End.
New in version 3.0:
- Adjusts the seam line to avoid areas of mismatch between source images such as parallax errors
- Supports saving and loading masks
- Includes various other performance improvements.
Enblend is available for Windows and Linux from the project site. A Mac OS X port, xblend, is available from Kevin Kratzke.
Command-line usage
Parameters worth noting are:
- -a
- Pre-assemble non-overlapping images. Greatly speeds uo blending panoramas with many non-overlapping images (like huge multi-rows).
- -w
- Wrap the blending process around the 360 degree boundary so you don't end up with a harsh transition at the +180 and -180 degree seam.
- -o
- Force Enblend to use an output filename of your choice.
- -v
- Verbose output, see the details of what is happening rather than staring at a blank screen.
- -l <n>
- Force enblend to use a certain number of levels in order to increase the blend area (minimize visible seam lines).
Enblend supports cropped TIFF input files.
If you are trying to run Enblend 3.0 on Windows and are finding that the program returns immediately with no output, you may be attempting to run a version compiled with SSE instructions on a non-SSE-capable CPU (e.g like older AMD CPUs). You can obtain an non-SSE binary for Enblend from Sourceforge.[1]
However, it could be that this version still doesn't run as discussed on [2] (problem) and [3] (solution). If so there is a patched version available at http://alto.anu.edu.au/~wpc/private/enblend/enblend-3.0-cyg.zip
Getting Enblend
Enblend is Open Source. As such you can download it for free from its project page linked below. Enblend is part of the major linux distributions. You can get the latest release by using the distributions' software package management system. For ubuntu linux, open a terminal and type:
$ sudo apt-get install enblend
That's it!
Enblend is in constant development. If you want to get the bleeding edge, read the development section below.
enblend is Open Source, and as such very much dependent on voluntary contributions of resources. If you have coding skills, you are welcome to look at the source code and contribute to it. Even if you don't have coding skills, you most likely have some skills that the project could use and you are more than welcome to contribute your time. The tasks requiring attention change frequently and so do the required skillset and resources. Join the hugin-ptx mailing list to find out what is going on at the moment and how you can help. Even just testing and giving feedback help.
To get the bleeding edge, follow the development / build process of Hugin
See also
Tutorials featuring enblend:
- Using enblend to fill the "Hole in the floor"
- How to use enblend for patching zenith and nadir images


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Reimagining Work
If you won the jackpot today, would you go back to work tomorrow? The question may sound absurd, but there are plenty of lottery winners who have done just that. There's a waitress in Florida who went back to making $400 per week the day after winning $1 million, a German salesman who was told that he won $27 million only to tell the shopkeeper that he didn't have time to chat because he was late for work and a British shelf stacker who returned to her job at Walmart after winning $3.9 million. This seemingly strange phenomenon becomes less strange once we admit what we all know: work isn't just about paying the bills.
Making money is important and particularly with student loans, mortgages, health issues and little people with big educational needs, the urgency increases. But, even if we took the job just to pay the bills, those 40+ work hours add up to more than just dollar signs, they make up a large part of our identity. Hence why everyone's favorite cocktail party question is, so what do you do?
Even if you're not the cocktail party type (and I'll admit that I'm more of a PBR girl myself), all those hours are bound to affect you. Maybe you spend the best years of your life thinking about how to provide excellent customer service at Walmart, maybe you spend them manipulating derivatives on Wall Street. Maybe you love all your co-workers, maybe you don't. Whatever flavors go into your work wine, you're not going to get out of there without a little tinge on your teeth.
Most Americans report being satisfied with their jobs. Young people, however, are not drinking the Kool-Aid. We consistently report low rates of job satisfaction and seem to change careers as though it's, well, our job. This might be because there simply aren't many jobs to go around, let alone good ones. It might be because we're young and don't really understand what it means to pay the bills since most of us still bum off our parents. But I think it's something deeper.
In the past 30 years technology and globalization have revolutionized the way that we interact with each other, burning through any semblance of a boundary between our jobs and the rest of our lives to the point where many of us can, quite literally, work from anywhere. Even in Niger, West Africa, one of the poorest countries in the world, my Nigerien friends from Peace Corps regularly send me emails from their smart phones. The potential to transform our world is limitless and it is at our fingertips. All we need to do is dream.
Imagine a world where each of us strive to live up to our highest potential. Where we work on things that really matter, not just to our bank accounts, but to other human beings and to our planet. Naive? Maybe, but the idea of meaningful work is rapidly gaining traction, with over 500 companies certified as "B Corps," a type of corporation that uses business to solve social and environmental problems, and the rise of talent agencies like ReWork that focus specifically on helping people find impact jobs.
While the impact or "social enterprise" sector may still be small, it's likely to grow as more people express interest in finding meaningful work. As one of the founders of ReWork, Nathaniel Koloc, told me,"For many people, work becomes meaningful when there is positive impact associated with it. It's possible to re-frame and re-envision traditional business offerings with a lens of social and environmental impact. We can transition hundreds of thousands of jobs to being "impact" jobs if more companies come to understand the value (both financially and culturally) of working to make the world a better place as part of their core business."
And, as I've pointed out before, making an impact isn't limited to the white-collar elite. Research has shown that across sectors, employees who believe that they are making an impact are happier and more productive. Companies from Southwest to Trader Joe's and Costco have all found that by investing in their workforce and empowering employees to take control over small decisions, they are more profitable and their employees are more dedicated. Imagine if more organizations began to take on this practice, investing in their workforces and challenging their employees to take on some of our society's most pressing problems.
And the impact sector isn't limited to the United States. Ashoka, a non-profit leader in social enterprise sphere, has identified 3,000 social entrepreneurs from over 60 countries, all of whom are working on finding solutions to the world's toughest problems. As Thomas Friedman pointed out in a recent op-ed, climate change is making the world's toughest problems even tougher with land, water and food tensions contributing to massive uprisings like the Arab Spring. With nearly half of the world's population under 25 we are going to need a lot of new jobs, but we need them in the right sectors. By reimagining what these jobs should look like we can help ensure that more young people find meaningful work building a more sustainable and resilient economy.
Reimagining work amidst a global recession might seem crazy but as Albert Einstein famously said, the true definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.


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CHAPEL HILL � The shot clock ticking lower and lower, Marcus Paige, figuring he could exploit a quickness advantage and take Scott Wood off the dribble, scrapped the play North Carolina had called.
�No, no, no!� the freshman Paige shouted from the top of the key, waving off his older teammates and creating even more space, before indeed blowing by Wood and scoring.
That late-game audible from the North Carolina point guard, that simple but emphatic �no, no, no!� contained an over-arching message as the Tar Heels decisively closed out North Carolina State 76-65 in Atlantic Coast Conference basketball Saturday at the Smith Center.
The translation: I want this. I�ve got this. And don�t worry, we�re not going to lose.
�We knew that we had opportunities to make plays,� Paige said, describing that sequence on a smaller, in-the-moment scale. �When you see that on the court as a basketball player, you want to take advantage of it right away.�
With Paige and Reggie Bullock reaching takeover mode down the stretch, there was no denying North Carolina (19-8 overall, 9-5 ACC) in the second meeting of the season between these rival schools, who arrived tied for third place in the league standings.
N.C. State (19-8, 8-6) led by four before that duo delivered 23 of the final 27 points for the Tar Heels, on a clutch collection of 3-pointers (Bullock drilled three) and assertive drives (Paige broke off a memorable pair) during the last 8� minutes.
All told, Bullock supplied 12 of his 22 points and Paige scored 11 of his 14 points in that game-clinching span. Their late production nearly doubled the Wolfpack�s team total of 12 points during the same interval.
And moreover, determined looks increasingly emerged from Bullock and Paige, as North Carolina reversed what had been a 53-49 deficit and built a lead as large as 76-61 in the final 30 seconds.
�I just felt like I had to bring that energy,� Bullock said.
�All we had to do is get them open,� Tar Heels forward James Michael McAdoo said. �In situations like that, it just makes the game so much easier, when you have guys playing at such a high level.�
Paige�s baseline drive that became a three-point play with five minutes remaining provided perhaps Saturday�s most fitting visual.
He ducked in and scored while absorbing a foul from Wood, prompting yet another roaring eruption from this building.
Then suddenly there was Paige, beneath the basket, flexing maybe every muscle of his thin 157-pound frame and unleashing a huge scream in front of the bouncing student section, which went bonkers.
�I got pumped up,� Paige said. �It builds up in you, when that team has you down 28 at their place, it�s a rivalry game, and you really want to make a statement with this game. To have the momentum swing like that, I just got really excited.�
At that moment here Saturday, N.C. State�s blitzing from four weeks ago in Raleigh � and specifically, Lorenzo Brown�s up-tempo 20-point, 11-assist shredding of Paige, who seemed overwhelmed that night, missed his first eight shots from the field and managed seven points � felt like a distant memory.
P.J. Hairston said Paige vowed, in the North Carolina locker room, to make what happened at PNC Arena a thing of the past.
�Marcus said before the game, �This is going to be a different game,� � Hairston said.
�I wanted to make sure that I did as much as I could to not let that happen again.� Paige said. �That was our mindset: �Hey, we remember what happened last time. It�s not going to happen like that again, especially on our home court.� �
McAdoo added 14 points, Hairston chipped in 12 points and Paige dished out eight assists against zero turnovers as the Tar Heels and their downsized lineup picked up their third straight victory.
Bullock, the junior who hit five 3s, tied his career high with 13 rebounds. That helped North Carolina to avoid becoming swallowed underneath by strongman Richard Howell (13 points, 17 rebounds) and the bigger Wolfpack, which again rolled out lengthy lineup with every starter 6-foot-5 or taller.
Another key for the Tar Heels, as coach Roy Williams pointed out, was limiting turnovers (North Carolina was charged with 10) and thus pulling the plug on transition chances for N.C. State, which feasted on fastbreaks last month in Raleigh.
North Carolina led 34-28 at halftime and pulled ahead 40-30 in the first 2� minutes of the second half.
Five minutes later, Wood, who paced N.C. State with 19 points, was stroking in his fourth and fifth 3s � bombs separated by 36 seconds � catapulting the Wolfpack in front 49-45.
That stretch coincided with a �ticked off� Williams subbing in reserves Luke Davis, Desmond Hubert, J.P. Tokoto and Jackson Simmons because he considered the Tar Heels regulars to be �getting casual with everything we did.�
At that juncture, it appeared to be a stubborn and dangerous play from the North Carolina coach. But Paige said it sent the proper message, one the Tar Heels received, processed and effectively responded to.
And soon, after Hairston�s tough, driving bucket punctuated by a demonstrative fist pump, Bullock stepped back behind a series of screens and buried a 3 from out high with 8:20 left � the bucket that touched off takeover mode from him and Paige.
�We didn�t put our heads down and say the game was over,� Bullock said. �We just kept fighting and showing a sense of urgency.�


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There are lots of technologies available to help boost your cell phone signal. You could install a signal booster, set up a cell to VoIP antenna, or hop carriers. Which option is right for you depends on your specific situation. We'll help you decide the best decision for you and your calling habits.
Signal Booster
Using a signal booster, you can improve the cellular reception in your car, home, or office. There are a range of models and options to choose from, but they all work basically the same way. These devices relay the signal between your phone and the cellular tower. This can be a simple repeater or a smart signal booster. The difference is that a repeater will just repeat anything it receives. On the other hand, a smart signal booster will clean up the incoming signal before forwarding it. This can improve call quality while boosting your signal.
Cell to VoIP
Similar to a signal booster, there is a range of devices you can purchase to pickup your cellular signal and transmit your call over the internet. This is a good option when you have a broadband connection in an area with poor cellular reception. However, rural areas will commonly have poor cellular service and lack high-speed internet service. Also, if you're going to use VoIP, why would you pay for a cell phone bill? You can save a lot of money by switching to a VoIP service and forwarding your calls to your cell phone when you're away from your home or office.
Switch Carriers
Depending on where you live, the carrier with the most national coverage may not be the best choice for you. It's much more important to have coverage where you live and work than to simply cover a large part of the country where you don't typically make your calls. Before switching carriers, always check their sites to see if you'll get service in your area. T-Mobile has a dedicated page of its coverage maps, with with a zip code finder and detailed information about its network's range. It also offers a no-contract service that allows you to switch carriers easily if your calls are dropped too frequently.
Deciding What To Do
Now that you see the options you have, you're probably wondering what you should do. Unfortunately, there's no one answer for all situations. With some troubleshooting, you can figure out what's right for your needs. Begin by using your phone to map out the signal strength in your area. If you're having too many dropped calls at work or at home, take your phone on a tour of that location. Note the places where your signal drops below two bars, or cuts out entirely.
Finding the Signal
If you have at least two bars near a window, you could focus on making and receiving your calls in that area. Simply moving your home office or repositioning your desk can make a big difference in cellular reception. Ensuring that you're not blocking your phone with your hand or pointing the antenna away from the location with the best reception can also help. If none of these options work, you can consider installing a signal booster. Most of these devices will need to be setup in a location with at least two bars of service.
Jumping Networks the Right Way
Don't make the mistake of jumping out of a contract with poor reception at home only to find that your new contract has poor reception at work. Instead, you should focus on the no-contract plans that allow you to easily switch if the service doesn't meet your needs. These pay-as-you-go plans will usually offer the most competitive plans because customers can easily switch services at any time. For this reason, they also tend to offer the best coverage.


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Thank you for the article.
I am surprised at the measured frequency responses of the Etymotic ER-4PT as they markedly differ from the previous measurement:
Can you explain this?
Comply Foam Tips and the Effects of Tip Selection
The Trouble with Tips
Numerous people have asked me to investigate how ear tips affect the frequency response of in-ear monitors (IEMs). Personally, I've not experienced much change in tone when changing from one tip type to another, but I've had plenty of troubles with ear tips in general.
My left ear has a significantly more acute bend in it's ear canal than my right ear. Many times the ear tip bottoms out at the bend and the opening of the ear tip gets pushed against the wall of the canal occluding the opening and muffling the sound. Deep seating IEMs--like the Etymotic ER4P--often will put terrible pressure on the ear canal as it tries to straighten it out, which can be quite uncomfortable. Even custom molded in-ear monitors can be quite difficult to get into my left ear. What I've learned is that getting a comfortable and quality seal in my ears can be quite difficult. I've also learned that with care and experimentation most of these problems can be overcome.
The biggest problem, it seems to me, is that most IEMs come with a limited selection of tips--usually just small, medium, and large round silicon tips. Sometimes one will work, and sometimes not. Fortunately, I've got a pretty big selection of tips lying about and I can usually find one that works. But for most folks, that's not really an option. Enter Comply.
Started in 1990 by Dr. Robert Oliveira, Comply is a spin-off from work done at 3M. Dr. Oliveira is a specialist in the human hearing system and has done significant research in the changing shape of the ear canal with mouth movement. He came to the conclusion that dynamic memory foam is an ideal material for ear tips. At this point, Comply has developed a range of tips that will fit most commercially available in-ear headphones.
I've found that the Comply tips are the most reliably comfortable ear tips available, and they provide excellent isolation. But I've also found numerous complaints online about these tips changing the frequency response of the earphones. I thought it would be cool to look into the effects of ear tip selection on frequency response.
The Effects of Tip Selection on Frequency Response
I decided to try three different headphones: the Etymotic ER4P, which seats deeply within the ear; the Monster Turbine Pro Gold, which doesn't sit in the ear very well as it's heavy and rather large; and the Audeo PFE Gold, which is ergonomically excellent and seats at a moderate depth. All these headphones perform fairly well, and I felt they should be responsive enough to give me good data. I measured these IEMs with all the stock tips that fit my dummy head, and the recommended Comply tip for each headphone.
I should mention here that the dummy's ear canals, while acoustically very similar to human ear canals, are not physically like human ear canals. Human ear canals usually have a bend, and not perfectly round in cross section; the dummy ear canals are straight and perfectly circular in cross section.
Etymotic ER4PT
I think Etymotic has one of the better tip selections available, and I was able to use three different Etymotic tips. In the photo at the top of the page, the leftmost IEM is the ER4PT, and the tips used are below it: the silicon triple flange; the Glider, which is a dense memory foam; the less dense Etymotic memory foam tip, and the Comply tip.
Here are the Left and Right channel frequency response plots with all four tips:
Here we can see in both the left and right ear measurements very little difference in response with the various tips. The notable exception is the triple flange tip which deviates in the very low bass, and at around 3-4kHz. The change in the bass response is similar to what is seen with the "main spring" effect on full size, sealed headphones. My guess is that the longer tube of the tri-flange type tip and its greater mass of elastic silicon create a mechanical resonance in the tip that causes the dip.
Monster Turbine Gold
Although these come with a wide variety of tips, I could only find two that would effectively seat in the ear canal of the dummy.
Results of the left and right ear are a little mixed, but it's clear that the triple flange tip results are the most disparate. The Monster triple flange tip is somewhat larger and longer than the Etymotic triple flange, and has less support from the nozzle of the earphone than that of the Etymotic. The Comply tip does seem to slightly reduce the high frequencies above 10kHz, but I would say this is a relatively negligible amount. Certainly not large enough to account for some of the vehement complaints of loss of highs sometimes reported.
Audeo PFE Gold
The Audeo tip selection is small, and only one silicon tip fit the dummy.
Here we can see the Comply tip had no effect on the right channel, and only a small effect on the left channel above 10kHz relative to the stock silicon round tip.
Measurement Results
It seems clear to me that the Comply tips are not affecting the sound substantially. In fact, it seem the triple flange tip types are more likely to cause changes in response.
So, the question remains: Why do people complain of Comply tips sounding muffled?
I think I have one possible answer ...
Thank you for the article.
Thank you! Comply Tips make my ears happier, but they may not last as long as the stock silicon tips :(
EDITED OUT the Goldenears comparison comments, since I think you explained the performance difference cause fairly well. In any case, below is the link to Goldenears measurements for the Audeo PFE with and with out Comply tips:
Originally I read your article @ work and cannot watch the video there due to filters... Any how I just got around to watch it and I'm satisfied with your explanation. It is my best guess that Goldenears might have muffled the sound similar to what you just described during measurements.
My only concern with your advice for Comply tip insertion is that while it may improve the sound, the contact of the tube with the ear internals might cause some discomfort... What are your thoughts on that?
First of all thanks for educating everyone about this Comply tips.
I do have the same angle in my left ear as yours.
When I started using Comply TX100 (with ear wax protection) tips for my Phiaton PS200 earphones, they started SINGING and whatever the sharp high frequency peaks present were gone (even at high volumes). With PS200 beautiful soundstage I enjoyed ever single song I played. But lot of people even ljokerl said that using foam tips affect sound quality. And for me they were perfect.
Please try it (as you have PS200 too).
thanks once again !
I agree with you @dondapatirc, I felt Comply tips improved the sound by removing high frequency pics. But Tyll, correct me if I wrong. I thought you said Comply tips have no effect on frequency response at all unless somehow the tip of the Comply tip collapses and blocks the tube output... right?
I guess we have to avoid pushing the tip too far into the ear, or somehow avoid the tip to collapse once inserted as per the video.
I 100% agree. Even when improperly inserted, to say that I love the sound of my PFEs is an understatement.
I stopped using my Audeos for sometime because I didn't know how to use them in the first place, and probably hurt myself a few times by pressing both the silicon and Comply tips way too much into my ear canal, and by not properly removing them, subjecting my ears to all kinds of pressures. During playback I didn't have problems. But 10 min after removing them it felt as if I had water inside my ears... for days!
I'm OK now, but IMHO IEM have a user learning curve for sure... And this article further shows it. The obvious benefits are IEM have amazing sound for the price... Even a noob like me can vouch for that.
Again, Thank you for sharing these not so obvious tips on how to make the most of our gear.
i wouldn't rule out placebo in the perceived change due to comply tips.. as NwAvGuy so often reminds us with science, bias and placebo are very real in our world.
Comply tips are soft, and squishy, the "look" like they would muffle the sound, so some people may create the muffled sound with their expectations.
In Tyll's measurement, we cannot see any differences between ear sleeves. If some differences exist, they are little significant. However, I feel the differences, specially, between Triple Flange and Black Foam.
Here I link some articles. These reflect well my experiences
I think the effect of chainging ear sleeves in IEM is effected by his or her ear canal shape also. So, not only ear sleeves but also the shapes of the coupler contribute to frequency response data, I think.
Anyway, check the data in the links. These are different with Tyll's measurement. :-)
Indeed, Comply tips seem to cause a bit less resonances than most silicone, both at low and high frequencies. It's usually really not an issue, in fact beneficial if the resonant peaks are in odd places (e.g. natural ear canal resonances at 3-4kHz, 7-8 kHz).
The resonances seem (yes, I can't measure that, I don't have an in-ear probe) to move lower by approximately 1/4 octave (for my ears) and reduced by 1-3 dB in all the IEMs I have. (VSonic GR07, HifiMan RE272, Brainwavz M2 and Ultimate Ears 4vi)
In case of the VSonic, it's enough to drop it from "sibilant" to "touched up presence". UEs are improved a bit less and are still highly annoying.
I'd attribute that to increased Vas of the ear/IEM system (same reason why foam is sometimes used in speakers) - this should be most relevant for vented and closed IEMs, more noticeable with larger dynamic driver based ones, like your Monster.
Frequency response is not the whole story - care to run a THD test? This should show a measurable difference if I'm right, especially in bass.
I was thinking along the same thing too. Kind of along the line that a tube that is sealed at both ends resonates more than a tube that is sealed at one end only. The silicone eartips reflect sound acting like a sealed end (well it is..) and the foam tips acting a bit more like an open end by absorbing the sound....
At least with the etymotic and monsters, the foam tips seem to reduce the 3-4khz "peak". Not so sure about the Phonaks.
I'm a bit unsure on how adding to the natural ear resonance would make things better. Wouldn't adding to any resonance be detrimental? Or would adding to the resonance be compensation for the iem bypassing the outer ear. But then does the outer ear resonate? I thought it just amplified sounds like a horn. Or does it amplify by resonating?. Is that the same thing?...I think my ignorance is showing...
Actually, the ear is more sensitive in the 3-4kHz region supposedly because it's an average child voice frequency and 7-8k region is used for speech, leaf rustling and various other important natural sounds. Both were an evolutionary advantage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoacoustics (note the images)
The actual frequency response at the highest end (>4 kHz) is quite individual and dependent mostly on external ear shape, but typically contains at least higher sensitivity regions.
Good headphones and IEMs should produce sound that has similar frequency response to a source in either free or diffuse field (I prefer free field) at some meters (I'd pick 3) in front dead ahead. Of course any added resonances are detrimental for such a design.
The other way is to tune the whole ear/headphone system to sound flat, but this either requires expensive in-ear probes and statistical data or a very good measurement "ear model", similar to the one Tyll uses.
I use equalization to achieve something similar with very good results by using averaged multiple measurements by ear over longer period of time.
(Test signal being a bunch of sine waves - bandlimited noise might be slightly more faithful but I haven't got around to synthesizing these.)
Multiple parametric equalizers with a wide Q range (up to 6 at least) are best for this adjustment. The whole process is pretty time consuming.
Headphones are actually harder to design well, since they must take outer ear into account, esp. positioning of the driver. In case of closed headphones, high frequency resonances are very hard to avoid, since there's a lot of air moved and not enough space to put absorbing material.
One way out of this trap is to use a very high efficiency driver close to the ear and acoustic seal (like Beyerdynamic DT1350), the other is to use a fully open design without any seal, but such that the driver is bass-slanted in near field. (like Sennheiser HD800)
IEMs face a different challenge: it's hard to produce a tiny driver that can create enough bass and be fast and light enough to produce very high frequencies. The obvious answer is to combine more than one driver.
Best dynamic drivers are pretty wideband of course, RE272 can do 22Hz to 18.5kHz - but non-linear in wrong ways.
Getting rid of the resonance is typically easier than in headphones due to lower pressures involved - the best such system known to me is the material used by FutureSonics in their Ear Monitors.
IEMs are always resonant in some way, because they have to maintain a seal with the ear canal to attain necessary high efficiency.
That doesn't preclude making an open back IEM (with less resonance), but of course the isolation will be abysmal. Most IEMs are of vented design.
Balanced armatures produce far less resonances due to radiating sound 90 degrees to the side and possibility of mounting them in positions closer to optimal due to small size. A similar trend in new dynamic driver designs is also to mount the driver 90 degrees tilted (e.g. Sony MDR-EX1000, Spider RealVoice) or 45 degrees tilted (HifiMan RE272).
Thank you for your insightful comment. I will likely re-read it a few times to digest it :)
"bandlimited noise might be slightly more faithful but I haven't got around to synthesizing these."
In the design, characterization, and use of digital communications systems, generating sequences that behave as white noise is of extreme importance. In fact, they are key and heavily used in modern communication systems for the purposes of timing recovery, channel estimation, and error correction... I you want an example of a relatively complex digital communication system used heavily in audio: the CD player.
Anyhow, m-sequences are the main tool for generating white noise sequences. These odd binary sequences have the following important properties: 1) Their auto-correlation function is an almost perfect impulse (has DC offset of 1/length-of-sequence ), 2) Their frequency response is flat (including DC given the DC offset) across the band, 3) Easy to generate. This wikipedia link is actually good source of info about them:
This sequences have been used to derive impulse and frequency response of twisted pair.
One thing to be mindful about characterization of a system, is that bandlimited impulses will have a sync like appearance in time domain. For example, the Shure 535 impulse response, and square waves in Tylls plots show this ringing on the front and back of the waves. This maybe due to the response of the ear phone, but this ringing is what you would expect in the characterization of an almost perfect headphone due to the fact that both the headphone and the measurement system is bandlimited. The only thing you can do is control the ringing by windowing with something other than a sharp rectangular frequency mask. A very sharp frequency cut will yield a ton of ringing. Almost no ringing will mean a slower roll off at the corner frequencies.
Another thing about the Shure 535 impulse response that catches my eye is that it shows the earphone reproduces signal to almost DC. This can be seen by the fact that the impulse response has more energy above zero than bellow it (DC offset)...
Anyway... sorry 'bout my ramblings :)
Yes, you surely are rambling - best lowpass filters have very minor aliasing, better than 100 dB rejection floor, not too long impulse response and bandwidth better than 95%. (for example, see SoX resampling lowpass very high quality with aliasing enabled, e.g. here: http://sox.sourceforge.net/rate-44k1-96k.png - option vMa is the 100% post-ringing (which is tunable) slightly aliasing lowpass; a similar filter has been recently written by Igor Petrov too, but it's not opensource)
The main reason is that the sine is not affected by any IMD and less affected by THD, so the higher harmonics will not be heard during the equalization if there are any as opposed to one done with a more complex signal.
Rambling is ma middle name :) I was really trying to give you ideas for generating a white noise like signal for the purposes of characterization... I may even give you a few liners of MATLAB code to create some... It is really no big deal to make them and can show you how to generate an impulse response out of them :)
Low pass filters: I'm really not an audio low pass filter guru. But I know a one or two about some of them :) How good a low pass filter is depends on what you are trying to accomplish. I've used mostly IIR filters because they are practical. However depending of what you use, they can mess up your phase. I use mostly Butterworth 5th order. Butterworth filters are maximally flat in the pass band with a 20dB/decade after the cut-off (EDIT: 20dB/decade/order i.e. 5th order Butterworth will have 100dB/decade... UPS!). They don't mess up the phase that much. I have used Chebyshev filters which are more flexible than the Butterworth as they allow you to trade off pass band flatness for roll-off (better than Butterworth). For certain Delta-Sigma applications I have preferred using Bessel since these are the ones that affect the phase the least out of the IIR filters I mentioned. But their roll-off is really slow (worse). If you want to get as close as possible to a brick-wall, then Elliptic is the way to go, though you are going to pay the price in the phase response... Analog Butterworth filters are used quite a bit before sampling (ADC) to avoid aliasing.
For anti-aliasing in the digital domain, CIC filters are used quite a bit... They are really nice implementations of a classical averager but with only an added and subtracter (need feedback). Since an average DOES NOT have flat pass-band, compensation is used in the last stage.
In the FIR class we have Remez, which I almost never use but is cool, and the Sinc filter which can be viewed to belong to the raised cosine filter family (beta = 0). A Sinc filter is NOT causal but you can window it so that its close. The result is an almost perfect brickwall in the frequency domain...
Now, 100dB rejection. A Butterworth can give you 100 dB rejection depending on your sampling rate and the bandwidth chosen for the Butterworth (0 to pi in the z-domain)... Which is probably what you said... Will it be ringing free? In the frequency domain YES, it is a maximally flat filter. Will it be the BEST? in terms of roll-off NO, the elliptic filter will kick its butt at the expense of other parameters...
Back to the impulse response, if you are sending a 500kHz m-sequence nicely shaped by a square root raised cosine filter to avoid intersymbol interference (and receiving it that way at the other end properly by match filtering it), you may see no issues when characterizing a headphone with it whose response stops at 20kHz... Who knows man YOU ARE MAKING ME THINK :(
What I find interesting about the Shure 535 is that it's response has a slight ring at both edges of the impulse response... almost looking like a Sinc... You don't? Then look at those square wave responses having the same small ring at both edges! How the hell did they did that?!
EDIT: I think I know where you are coming from with the Aliasing :) ... I DON'T think the ringing is due to the measurement equipment or aliasing. NOT AT ALL. I believe that is probably as close as an impulse response model of the headphone as one is going to get. The POINT IS, the Shure 535 looks A LOT to what (I would expect) an ideal headphone might measure in the time domain: A Sinc or a type of a window function. Why? Because if you want flat frequency response from 0 to x kHz and then nothing after that is exactly what you are going to get. That may not be what you want though due to the ear gains here and there (I'm aware of that too). Back to the Shure 535 the uncompensated frequency response is almost flat down to 1kHz and a smooth slight bump from there onto 8kHz. Some more minor ringing and kind of brick walls at around 12kHz only to come backup slightly around 16kHz. I think that strong decay at 12kHz coupled with very deep low frequency extension gives rise to the ringing in impulse response both before and after the main lobe, which in turn give rise to those interesting looking square waves... Just a theory.
The ring in Shure SE535 response is not at all due to bandwidth limitation of the driver, but due to lack of enough electrical damping in its balanced armatures - that is actually quite common in the small drivers such as ones used in headphones.
Far less common in larger dynamic drivers, since they have some mechanical damping and in certain designs "air braking" is important as well.
Shure's ringing is reasonably low in magnitude and acceptable, in comparison to e.g. Etymoic ER4PT. However, Audeo PFE 121 (w/ Green or Black filters) and even Klipsch X10 beats it hands down.
There *might* be added ringing in the crossover region between its two drivers due to the crossover - but there's not in this case, as it uses a nice third order Bessel (12 dB/oct) crossovers - easily seen in the phase response - with the low end driver having a knee frequency of 800 Hz and high driver using knee frequency of 4500 Hz.
IIR filters are very hard to do right in comparison with FIR filters. You trade phase distortion, amplitude distortion and tranisition only. In FIR, ringing and aliasing can be traded as well.
Remez exchange filters are nice in impulse response and but relatively slow transition.
It doesn't matter in which domain (digital or analog) you do the filtering as long as you do it before final sampling at wanted bandwidth.
Man I really wish there was a way to move replies to the left. They get all squished to the right :(
"The ring in Shure SE535 response is not at all due to bandwidth limitation of the driver, but due to lack of enough electrical damping in its balanced armatures"
Interesting. I guess is hard to fit damping in such a small structure. I don't think the ringing is due to just the bandwidth of the armature. I think is related also to the VERY step cut off of the whole system. The steeper the cut-off the more ringing I guess.
Man I wish Tyll had a way to download the raw impulse response data so I could prove this points to myself and others :)
"There *might* be added ringing in the crossover region between its two drivers due to the crossover - but there's not in this case, as it uses a nice third order Bessel (12 dB/oct) crossovers - easily seen in the phase response - with the low end driver having a knee frequency of 800 Hz and high driver using knee frequency of 4500 Hz."
That is pretty cool info man. Yes,the phase does seem to change at those frequencies! Nice catch! I still think the ringing is due to the sharp cutoff and bw of the whole system (crossovers included)
IIR filters are hard to do in high orders due to stability in the analog domain, and bit width precision in the digital domain. But at least in the digital domain, the delay lines are very small compared to FIR. Trade-offs :)
BTW, AGAIN nice catch on the phase response reading! I kind of agree with you on that Bessel filtering and order stuff @ the cross-over! Really good one!
I found that the comply's sounded the most muddled on my RE-0's. I also tend to push those as far as I can into my ears to get a better fit. My ears have a sharp bend in them about a half inch in. The comply's did not sound as muddled in my Westone W4R's, as they do not have to go in far to get a good fit. Thanks, Tyll, for the hard work and the tips (no pun intended.)
Make sure you're not using too large size for your ears. I've had similar effect with RE272 when using medium ones - the foam tended to block the sound.
Tyll- I've been remiss in not commenting on a couple of topics. First and foremost, Happy Anniversary! I've been a fan of yours and enjoyed your writing from the Stereophile ad days. (Do you recall how they lamented my assertion that your writing was the best in the magazine?)
Next, my wife did the MOD to my HD800s-thoroughly enjoying following the video. You asked for response and I must say it was curious. Really helpful with the mids and bass, but didn't seem to tame the highs. So better, just not best. (I use with an RSA Emmeline Raptor II.) On the current Comply topic, you are spot-on in my experience. That said, and having the same left ear issue, and stumbling upon custom molds I had made 10 years ago for Etys, and calling Etymotic (nice folks) and finding that the molds still fit me and the current ER4PT, I ordered the ER4PT. Obviously more in tune with my comfort level but still the "anemic"-my hearing-bottom. The reason I abandoned them long ago. Enter a new discovery:
http://www.digizoid.com/. The digiZoid2 sub is a gem for solving that issue. I know, I know, "purism", but if you can MOD an HD800, why not?
Thanks for the effort, care, and concern which goes into Innerfidelity. Your work is appreciated.
Judge Laurence Wayne
Thank you dude! Really cool! I MAY ACTUALLY BUY THE ZO!!! Again Thank you!
Thanks very much for the informative and entertaining look at the Comply tips, Tyll. Your video about how to prepare them for insertion gave me the answer to why the gray foam tips (cylinders with squared-off ends, third from left in your picture at the start of the review) work so well for me with my Etymotic MC3s and HF5s. Since the foam doesn't project beyond the end of the sleeve, even after being rolled tightly before insertion, there is nothing to block the end of the sleeve when it makes its way around and through bends in my ear canals.
Although the EOM gray foam tips from Ety are very comfortable for me - and don't seem to interfere in any way with the music I hear - I still might give the Comply tips a try. Maybe Santa will bring me a set next Xmas. He needs to, because the two lumps of coal he left me this year are NOT at all comfortable in my ears - and I haven't had much success connecting them to my headphone amp!
Thanks again! I really enjoy your web site and I frequently rely on your insights and opinions to help me make decisions about equipment.
Comply TS series are a nice new spin on the basic design, quite a bit more comfortable to my ears. Unfortunately, they don't make these in small size yet, so I can't use them with any of my IEMs without high frequency rolloff.
Complys do wear out. I assume that something leeches, either in or out, over time. When they're done, they won't sound quite right. It might be just a matter of losing seal or it might be something else.
Ear canals can be very different from person to person and even from ear to ear. What works for my funnel-shaped ears my be completely wrong for yours. You might need different sizes for each ear, even.
For whatever it's worth, with my ears and my IEMs, Comlpys and the Shure back olives have yielded the best results over time. They sound (and feel) a little different, with the black olives being bassier and punchier and the Complys being smoother, with a more articulate midrange. Moving the tips up and down the nozzle, or wearing them forwards or backwards or whatever seems to change the sound somewhat. So I'm quite ready to believe that the shape of the end of they tip (after being squashed in your ear) is important, even if you don't go so far as to squash it closed and block the nozzle.
I came to headphones via earphones and have done my share of tip swapping. This didn't seem to affect the sound of the earphones. I used to frequent the portable and earphones threads at Head-Fi, and was bemused by the obsession with ear tips and some of the extraordinary claims that were made regarding how radically they changed the sound of earphones. I was sceptical as this hadn't been my experience. However, there was an occasion when I changed a foam tip for a silicone tip and the latter altered the sound of the earphone significantly, and not for the better to my ears. Consequently, I'm not as dismissive of these claims now.
I came to this website right about time, right now I am trying to chose perfect earphones and this was very curious for me to read, I hope that this post will help me to get my perfect ones! I just love listening to music while working with photo editor as I am a photographer, for me it is such an inspiration!
I almost sent back my HF2's due to squelching and pain in my left ear.
It turned out to be ear wax build up. I'm actually relatively young, so I was a bit surprised. Any way it turns out that this is an issue for half my friends also. A lot of them have had their ears done, which I hadn't known about. I thought it was an issue only for the very old. Even Shures can given problems; and they aren't that deep. Etymotics should tell of this to avoid losing customers.
I had my ears syringed and -> Audio bliss. It also cleared up a long-standing pain that sometimes affected me when sleeping with my ear on the pillow. And when I swim my ears clear immediately whereas before it could take some time.
Since then a friend recommended an ear bulb that has done the job, without the need of the medics, when the issue reoccurred. Here's a link for that:
I use a thermometer to make sure the water is at a safe temperature (38C) to avoid burning my eardrum.
Comply foam tips are not durable and there are many varieties of foam tips that may be used.
Earsoft also made by 3M are cheap; much cheaper than Comply and can be easily made to fit almost any IEM.
More details here:
Hi Tyll
thanks for the article, it's great to see someone applying reasoned enquiry to a neglected but quite common aspect of IEM ownership and use.
Before I read your article I was convinced that Comply (or similar compliant foam tips) do reduce resonance. With my Shure SE215 or Sennheiser CX95 IEMs I don't notice much sound difference between foam, triple/double flange and regular silicones, but with my Klipsch Image X1 IEMs I remain absolutely sure that Comply tips improve things a lot by reducing the awful leaden booming. The two immediately obvious differences between the Klipsch and the others are that the Klipsch bass is both more emphasised and more resonant (booming/muddled) and that the Klipsch silicone tips are *a lot* harder than the Sennheiser or Shure equivalents.
I have no experience of Etymotic, Audeo or Monster 'phones or tips so I don't know if I'm saying anything relevant or pertinent or simply recycling unfounded impressions.
The one thing about foam tips that I do know beyond a doubt is different is how well they negate bone conduction. I often listen while out walking and if I use foam tips I hear the music, but if I use silicone tips I hear the music overlayed with the thudding footsteps of a 16 stone lead footed ogre. I prefer foam tips.
Tyll, if you have the chance, do try the newer Ts series with the spherical foam. It pretty solves all the issue on insertion. I don't even need to compress the foam when inserting the IEM and it works just as well.
I prefer the old beige ones for their comfort, durability, and reliable seal. The newer gray ones are too hard. I like the memory foam half spheres for their ease of insertion and further comfort, but they don't last very long and their seal tended to get unreliable rather quickly. Even though I can usually continue to get bass, it seems less than the beige flanged one. I get repeatable, deep bass quite easily with the beige ones and other than some itchyness when they or my ears need to be cleaned, find them comfortable enough. I do not enjoy having to remove and re-insert them, though. Once they're in, I'd rather leave them there. Though I can get the bass just right without having to worry if they've worn too much yet (since they don't), it takes a few tries and effort to get the same depth on both ears. With the foams, if they're new it takes one try and re-inserting is not bothersome if something comes up. The biggest issue with the beige ones is as they age they can get slippery and come off the stem. So I keep a pair of tweezers in my ety baggy to gently and carefully grab hold and pull them out by the flange. I was pretty freaked out the first time that happened.
Hi ClieOS,
Will any of the Ts fit the Phonak PFE?
Hi everybody !
I would like to thank Tyll for taking the time for this review of silicone and Comply foam tips.
In search for better response from certain IEMs that are otherwise to my liking, but deviate towards brightness or lack/excess of bass by not too much, but just to be annoying enough, I stumbled upon Ostry OS100, OS200 and OS300 tuning tips : http://www.shenzhenaudio.com/ostry-os100-os200-os300-earphone-turning-ti... The frequency response in which they affect Ostry's own KC-06 IEMs is shown at the bottom of this page : http://www.ostry.cn/item/detailPage?itemid=28 I have tried these three different tips and they generally behave the way the graph says. Would it be possible to measure these tips, as IMO this could be helpful to lot of people, who would like to modify/control the frequency response of their IEMs just that tiny bit in order to be truly satisfactory.
The description in Chinglish does not justice to these tips; "dental correction" should more properly read "peak reduction" in the treble (as those peaks very loosely can resemble teeth in the graph...) and "catheter" should read "nozzle" - lost in translation is something definitely going on in this case.


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City of Kenmore WashingtonHome Menu
Downtown Plan
The City Council adopted the Downtown Plan in April 2003. The Plan addresses the issues of land use, transportation and public investment in the Downtown area of Kenmore, which is generally the area near the intersection of SR-522 and 68th Avenue NE. At the same time the Council adopted the Plan, the Council adopted revisions to the zoning code and instituted design guidelines in the area.
The Plan is based upon five core concepts:
Strategic Civic Investment: To provide a "central place" and to stimulate complementary private investment, the Comprehensive Plan calls for the City to focus its civic investment in the Northwest Quadrant. It was proposed that public investment would lead land assembly and public/private partnerships for redevelopment. Strategic civic investment could include a Civic Center, which may be comprised of a City Hall, a Community Center, and/or Library. Other Civic investments proposed include a Park-and-Ride facility, as well as street and infrastructure improvements such as road realignment, sidewalks, plazas or open space, and street trees.
Circulation Improvements: Circulation patterns affect the mobility of vehicles, pedestrians, and other modes of travel, as well as the land use pattern, and character of a district. Additional circulation connections, for vehicles and nonmotorized travel, can help distribute traffic and allow for greater walkability.
Zoning: Zoning is a means of categorizing land into different classifications or zones in order to establish the following types of regulations common to each zone – allowable uses of a site, a structure's size (e.g. height), and a structure's location on a lot (e.g. setback standards). In the Northwest and Northeast Quadrants, two zones have been created – Downtown Commercial (DC) and Downtown Residential (DR). The former emphasizes commercial uses but allows for mixed uses, and the latter primarily focuses on multifamily residential forms where the City will accommodate much of its required growth, allowing for support of commercial districts and protection of more distant single-family districts.
Design Standards: The location, frequency and quality of buildings, parking lots, pole signs, sidewalks, crosswalks, landscaping and street trees are elements of urban form that individually and collectively determine visual cohesiveness, comfort, and pedestrian-orientation in urban areas. The Downtown Design Standards would apply to the Downtown Commercial and Downtown Residential Districts, and to some Regional Business properties north of NE 175th Street. Standards address site design and building design. These standards would create a character and quality of development consistent with a pedestrian-oriented downtown.
Implementation Strategies, Near Term and Long Term: This Downtown Plan provides several implementation steps to support existing businesses and to promote new commercial business in the downtown.
These five key plan concepts are intended to provide incentives and regulations to achieve the community vision for Downtown, but it will be a public/private partnership, since the vast majority of property is and will remain in private ownership. Private property owners will determine their property investment and development.
Downtown Plan Document
Envisioning: A community with an attractive, vital, pedestrian-oriented city center offering commercial, civic, cultural and park spaces, integrated with higher density housing.
Copies of the Downtown Plan and Appendices can also be purchased at City Hall.
|Final 2003 Downtown Plan
|Section 1
Downtown Characteristics
Guiding Principals
Strategic Civic Investment Planning
|Section 2
|Downtown Zoning and Development Standards
|Section 3a
|Kenmore Downtown Design Standards
|Section 3b
|Site Designs - Standards for all Users
|Section 3c
|Building Designs - Standards for all Users
|Section 3d
|Downtown Design Standards Appendix
|Appendices Cover
|Appendix A
|A. Comprehensive Plan Summary
|Appendix B
|B. Market Study
|Appendix C
|C. Density Study
|Appendix D
|D. Civic Center Study
|Appendix E
|E. Financial Analysis
|Appendix F
|F. Civic Center Criteria Evaluation
|Appendix G
|G. Responses to Comments about Downtown Plan


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Honor the Heroes of the Game, Preserve Its History, Promote Its Values & Celebrate Excellence Everywhere
(San Francisco)...6'4'', 244...Gino John Marchetti. . .Named top defensive end of NFL's first 50 years. . . New York Yanks' No. 2 draftee, 1952 - franchise moved to Dallas for Gino's rookie season. . . Selected for then-record 11 straight Pro Bowls but missed one game because of injury suffered in 1958 NFL overtime title game. . .All-NFL nine years, 1956-1964. . .All-around great defender, best known for vicious pass rushing. . .Born January 2, 1926, in Smithers, West Virginia...Died on April 29, 2019 at the age of 93
Ernest Marchetti had the somewhat normal parental fear that his son, Gino, might get hurt playing football. The protective parent advised him to "stay out of the other boys' way so that they won't hurt you."
Although every quarterback who played in the National Football League in the 1950s and early '60s wishes Gino had listened to his father, the 6-4, 244-pound end had not listened to his father.
Gino wound up instead as one of the game's greatest and most feared defensive ends to play pro football. Marchetti, who played 13 brilliant seasons with the Baltimore Colts after one season with the Dallas Texans, was a brilliant all-around defender. He was adept at stopping the running play, but best known for his vicious pass rushing techniques.
He was known for clean, but very hard play and he was a particular terror on third-down, obvious passing situations. When opponents double-teamed him, or sometimes even triple-teamed him, that tactic only served to make the rest of the Colts rush line more effective.
Ironically, Gino suffered the most serious injury of his career - a broken leg - in the Colts' famous 1958 overtime championship game victory, at a time when his parents were watching him on television for the first time. Gino made a key stop that ended a New York Giants' drive and gave the Colts a chance to tie the game in regulation time. Many thought this serious injury would prematurely end Gino's shining career.
As it turned out, all it really did was prevent him from playing in a then-record eleventh consecutive Pro Bowl. Gino had already been selected for the post-season classic but he had to miss the game, the only gap in a string of Pro Bowl appearances from 1955 through 1965. During the same period, Gino was named All-NFL nine times, 1956 through 1964.


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Publication:Red Hand of Doom
This text is quoted from promotion material. Text and images are copyrighted by the original publisher.
Red Hand of Doom is a large adventure for Dungeons & Dragons. It is designed to be used as a generic D&D adventure, which can be dropped into any campaign world, including a personal one. Instructions are given in the first pages of the module on where to place it in the worlds of Greyhawk, the Forgotten Realms, and Eberron, the three primary campaign settings of D&D.[1]
The plot of Red Hand of Doom follows a group of adventurers who have entered the Elsir Vale, a thinly-populated frontier region. The party uncovers and then is placed in the position of stopping a massive hobgoblin horde, fanatically devoted to the dark goddess Tiamat and led by the charismatic half-dragon warlord Azarr Kul. To stop the horde, the players will have to muster the inhabitants of the Vale; battle hobgoblins, giants, and dragons; and defeat an overwhelming enemy.
- ↑ http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20060202a, Red Hand of Doom Excerpt
External Links[edit]
|This page uses Creative Commons Licensed content from Wikipedia (view authors).
|This page uses content from the Annex. The original article was at Wikipedia at Red Hand of Doom. The list of authors can be seen in the Annex page history. As with Dungeons and Dragons Wiki, the text of the Annex is available under the Creative Commons License .
Back to Main Page → Publication List → 3.5e Adventures
|James Jacobs + and Richard Baker +
|0786939389 +
|Item Code
|953857400 +
|Media Type
|Paperback +
|Page Count
|128 +
|Publication Date
|2006 +
|Wizards of the Coast +
|Dungeons and Dragons 3.5e +
|Red Hand of Doom +


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Find support information for all Case IH precision farming products to make sure you get the information you're looking for, quickly and efficiently.
Learn about the AFS Support Center, open support tickets and transfer files.
In one place, find troubleshooting information for all of precision farming products.
Registering the precision farming products you own will keep all of those products nicely organized in the My AFS Products section. This will allow you to quickly find the information you need, for your products, when you have more important things to do.
The My Support Ticket area displays the current and closed tickets you have with the AFS Support Center. You can also open a new online ticket from this page.
Transfer files to the AFS Support Center.
With Farmall, Maxxum and Puma tractors from 23 to 120 PTO, there's a hard-working, reliable model that's right for your operation. Case IH tractors are designed for comfort and control so you get more done every day.
Case IH offers a range of easy-to-operate models to let you specify the low-maintenance, high-productivity tractor your operation demands, whether you need to do:
Fitting the right engine to the tasks at hand is a critical step to ensure your Case IH tractor will provide the power you need, together with optimized economy, reliability and trouble-free operation.
Choose a roomy climate-controlled cab or a ROPS (roll-over protection system) model. Either way, Case IH helps you be productive with comfortable seating and intuitive ergonomic controls.
To find a tractor that fits with the same tough schedule you set for yourself, estimate how often, how long and how hard you plan to work your Case IH tractor.
Case IH offers three series of loaders - about 15 different models - with a range of buckets and attachments for a perfect match with your tractor and the work you're planning to do.
Check out the great financing offers available now on Case IH equipment. Explore all of our great offers and then be sure to visit your local Case IH dealer for more.
Explore Our Current Financing Offers


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Modern Java Frameworks for Web Development
When mainstream computer applications moved to client-server architectures, programmers started to look for ways to simplify the development of projects that used similar technologies and were similar in structure. Thus, the foundations for modern software frameworks were laid.
As development for Web-based application servers and their applications expanded, so did the frameworks that supported these technologies. Currently, there are many software frameworks in the enterprise development space especially for the Java J2EE platform.
I will briefly examine enterprise development environments or toolkits that were developed to support these frameworks, such as Borland JBuilder, Eclipse, and BEA Workbench. Keep in mind that there are books written on each of the frameworks, and it is impossible to describe in depth all aspects or features of them in any article space. However, I will try to discuss the most widely used concepts.
Common Ground
Almost all modern Web-development frameworks follow the Model-View-Controller (MVC) design. Business logic and presentation are separated and a controller of logic flow coordinates requests from clients and actions taken on the server. This approach has become the de facto of Web development. The underlying mechanics of each framework are of course different, but the APIs that developers use to design and implement their Eeb applications are very similar. The difference also lies in the extensions that each framework provides, such as tag libraries, Java Server Faces, or Java Bean wrappers.
All frameworks use different techniques to coordinate the navigation within the Web application, such as the XML configuration file, java property files, or custom properties. All frameworks also differ in the way the controller module is implemented. For instance, EJBs may instantiate classes needed in each request, or Java reflection can be used to dynamically invoke an appropriate action classes. Also, frameworks may differ conceptually. For example, one framework may define the user request and response (and error) scenario, and another may only define a complete flow from one request to multiple responses and subsequent requests.
Java frameworks are similar in the way they structure data flow. After request, some action takes place on the application server, and some data populated objects are always sent to the JSP layer with the response. Data is then extracted from those objects, which could be simple classes with setter and getter methods, java beans, value objects, or some collection objects. Modern Java frameworks also simplify a developer's tasks by providing automatic Session tracking with easy APIs, database connection pools, and even database call wrappers. Some frameworks either provide hooks into other J2EE technologies, such as JMS (Java Messaging Service) or JMX, or have these technologies integrated. Server data persistence and logging also could be part of a framework.
Enterprise Development Environments
Some frameworks became very popular within the Web developer community and enterprise development space. As these frameworks matured into stable releases, commercial IDE (integrated development environment) toolmakers started to build support for them into their products. Some even went as far as to develop whole products based on the concepts of the framework. For example, BEA WebLogic Workshop is build around the Struts framework.
Borland JBuilder has built-in support for Struts and features JSF and JSTL support as well.
Click here for a larger image.
The Eclipse platform became a very popular development tool, partly because of its plug-in base and partly because of its Web framework support. Numerous plug-ins to Eclipse or even entire distributions of Eclipse-based IDEs appeared. Many of the plug-ins were designed for Struts framework development, such as MyEclipse (www.myeclipse.org) or M7 (www.m7.com).Most of the IDEs feature graphical flow and visual object (or class stub) development environments. For example, here is a JBuilder's Action designer that maps out page sequences of the Web application.
Click here for a larger image.
WebLogic Workshop introduced Java Page Flows, which extend the Struts framework to provide a simplified development model with numerous additional features. Workshop uses Page Flows that make it easy to separate the user interface from the navigation and business logic. A page flow consists of JSP pages that contain the user interface elements and a controller (JPF) file that contains instructions on how data provided by a user is processed and what page will be returned to the user next. A page flow provides a visual overview of the Web application that enables developers to see how the various JSP pages relate to each other and allows quick building of the overall architecture of the Web application.
MyEclipse provides similar features with a much more attractive price tag.
Click here for a larger image.
Page 1 of 2
This article was originally published on July 28, 2005
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Interactive Events Calendar
Please use the filters on the left side to narrow down your search for the perfect event.
You can search by day, time, category, and even the neighbourhood location!
- This event has passed.
StrongStart Edgehill Elementary
February 25, 2019 @ 9:00 am - 12:00 pm
An event every week that begins at 9:00 am on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, repeating until March 15, 2019
StrongStart BC is a government initiated program offered in public schools throughout the province of BC. This initiative supports smooth and successful kindergarten transitions for children and families, supports families as the primary educators of their children, and makes school facilities and resources available to the preschool population. This free program runs as a drop-in for children birth to pre-kindergarten entry who are accompanied by their parent/caregiver. StrongStart also encourages the development of support between families, so encourages families to bring one unrelated child in addition to immediate family.


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Super Gamedev Weekend/2012
aus Metalab, dem offenen Zentrum für meta-disziplinäre Magier und technisch-kreative Enthusiasten.
The Super Gamedev Weekend returns. 48 hours and some more to satisfy your game creation needs!
Why compete in game jams, and why are there never too many?
Because quantity will lead you to quality
- Start: Fri, 2012-12-14 18:00
- End: Sun 2012-12-16 22:00
- Location: Metalab Vienna (mostly Hauptraum, sometimes Bibliothek - see below)
- Orga: hop, thp
- Friday evening in the library (Hacker Equality Workshop at the Hauptraum during that time)
- Saturday evening in the library (Zamenhof-Tag 2012 at the Hauptraum during that time)
Not in Vienna? how about Linz where TomK32 is seeding the Danubian Super Gamedev Weekend
Rough Schedule
- Friday evening: Gathering in the library, brainstorming + topic voting, etc...
- Saturday: Hack, hack, hack
- Saturday evening: Gathering in the library, status updates, presentations, demos, etc...
- Sunday: Hack, hack, hack
- Sunday evening: Demo time, together w/ PyUGAT
Hopefully we can squeeze in some workshops in the weekends before the SGDW12 for those who want to improve their skills or learn game programming.
Games / Participants
SGDW happens on the same weekend as Ludum Dare, so post your games there. If you want to share the code of your game with others, why not ask for access to our metalab Github account?
- Long list of games
- in the meanwhile, your name here
- ...


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A paradigm (para-dime) is typical pattern or model of something.
One of the paradigms of visual storytelling has been a certain type of camera. For years these cameras were the domain of professionals…large, extremely expensive, totally amazing pieces of technology. It took big bucks to get one and you made big bucks if you had not only the technical knowledge but the aesthetic sense and storytelling ability to use one.
Then…the paradigm shifted in the early 2000s. The big boys still made big bucks with big gear…but suddenly there was a new class of camera…halfway between the little consumer cams and the big professional guns. The pro-sumer camcorder. It had many of the nifty features of the pro cams, such as good glass and three chips and professional audio inputs. Manual controls. Good stuff all around, although noticeably not really up to pro standards.
And these little baby-cams began to gain in popularity as more and more people began to use them for an audience who demanded more and more video. The digital explosion send shock waves across the planet with the better quality cameras and affordable non-linear editing programs brought a new technology into the hands of the citizenry.
Another paradigm shift is going on right now and we see it every day and don't even think about it. Cell phones began sprouting up in the 1990s…then morphed into phones that could take pretty lousy still shots…then not-so-bad stills. Then by leaps and bounds these little wonders turned into do-it-all mobile devices. Talk. Text. Surf the 'Net. Shoot stills – and video. Not just plain ole video and stills, but high def stuff.
And they are taking over. Some years back when I began this blog I did a posting on Dinosaurs Fighting or Survival. Times had changed and if the pros who shot news (both still and video) didn't change with them, they were out a job.
But back then the pros were either flocking over to the new technology or resisting mightily. It was a threat to their way of life – what they knew and could do.
Then technology ramped up its game and the gear got so good that the definition of "professional" took on a whole new meaning as more and more folks acquired the new smaller cameras. It quickly became apparent that the size of the lens and the heft of the camera had little to do with the ability to communicate. What mattered (and still very much matters) is a sense of aesthetics and storytelling. AND knowing how to make the gear you are working with work with you to tell the most powerful story possible.
But even the pro-sumer cameras (and many consumer cams too) had the familiar look to them. Lens in front, kinda boxy and rectangular. LCD on the side. It still looked like a real camcorder.
Enter the new mobile devices…thin, flat and less than the size of the palm of your hand. No optical zoom and minimal digital zoom. A new style of shooting and storytelling came with these new devices.
No longer able to pull in a far-away shot, you now had to zoom with your feet (or arms) to get in closer. The camera is no longer part of your body (hold it close to keep it steady…tripod it, cradle it). The camera is now an extension of your arm…your hand. In order to get a variety of shots you really need to get intimate with your subject. As in, arms-length close. Or closer.
And the storytelling end has had to change too. Rather than full-blown packages (including interviews, variety of shots, lotsa b-roll) stories are simpler. One long shot of an event such as a parade or riot. An interview covered with b-roll of an event or meeting. Impressions rather than full explanation. These "impressions" are often paired on the Internet with text and more information, which together tell a full story. The audience can choose to view the video and get the background from the other resources available or just read the information or just view the video to get a sense of what happened.
I doubt very much that mobile devices are going to take over the visual storytelling world any more than consumer or prosumer camcorders took over from professional gear. What they do is open up an entirely new way and new possibilities in visual storytelling to even more storytellers.
Yeah – it's nice to belong to an exclusive club. Been there. Done that. But the new wave of stories coming at us will open our eyes and the world even more. And can that be a bad thing?
Update – forgot that an earlier posting has a number of examples of mobile storytelling (using a Kodak Playtouch). Check it out.


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According to an article in the times UK
A National Health Service leaflet is advising school pupils that they have a "right" to an enjoyable sex life and that regular intercourse can be good for their cardiovascular health.
The advice appears in guidance circulated to parents, teachers and youth workers, and is intended to update sex education by telling pupils about the benefits of sexual pleasure. For too long, say its authors, experts have concentrated on the need for "safe sex" and loving relationships while ignoring the main reason that many people have sex, that is, for enjoyment.
Alongside the slogan "an orgasm a day keeps the doctor away", it says: "Health promotion experts advocate five portions of fruit and veg a day and 30 minutes' physical activity three times a week. What about sex or masturbation twice a week?"
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Hills give way to the Rif mountains, olive groves to pines and the long ascent to Chefchaouen begins. Founded in 1471, Chaouen (as it is known here) was a mountain stronghold for jews and moriscos – refugees of the reconquista in Spain. In fact, nowhere in Morocco has such strong and direct connections with its neighbour to the north. The town was seized again by Spain in 1920 and only returned to a newly independent Morocco in 1956, complete with the empty mosque the Spanish had built to ingraciate themselves and which was never used.
For years it has held an allure for the traveller – its Andalucian visuals, the unique culture that arose through the isolation and blending of diverse populations and not least because the surrounding countryside is one of Morocco's principle production zones for kif; hashish to you and me. More


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Why should we take marriage advice from divorced people? They know better than anybody, that's why.
University of Michigan psychologist Dr. Terri Orbuch collected data from 373 couples (46 percent of whom later got divorced) during their first year of marriage. As reported in The Wall Street Journal, she found that most divorced people shared the same five regrets about their marriages. Here is the advice she gathered, based on the post-divorce experience of 210 of the subjects, of whom 44 percent remarried.
1. Show your partner you love and care for them in any way you can. Small gestures like complimenting your partner, saying "I love you" or holding hands go a long way. The most important ways to display affection are showing love, showing support, making your partner feel good about themselves and keeping things interesting in the relationship.
2. Money matters, discuss it. Money is the number-one source of conflict in most marriages. "Talk money more often—not just when it's tax time, when you have high debt, when bills come along," Dr. Orbuch says.
3. Leave the past behind you. Dr. Orbuch believes that to engage in a healthy way with your partner, you need to let go of the past. "This includes getting over jealousy of your partner's past relationships, irritation at how your mother-in-law treats you, something from your own childhood that makes it hard for you to trust, a spat you had with your spouse six months ago," according to the article. Write down your thoughts and feelings in a journal, talk to a friend or seek out a professional.
4. Don't play the blame game. Ask your partner for their view of a problem. "There are multiple ways of seeing a problem," says Dr. Orbuch. "By getting your partner's perspective, and marrying it with your perspective, you get the relationship perspective."
5. Communication is key. Forty-one percent of respondents cited communication as the number-one factor they would change in their next relationship. Dr. Orbuch believes in practicing "active listening:" "where they try to hear what the other person is saying, repeating back what they just heard and asking if they understood correctly." She also says partners need to reveal more about themselves in order to maintain communication.
More juicy content from YourTango:


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Though it's still dwarfed by Apple's App Store and Google's Android Market, Microsoft's Windows Phone Marketplace has been posting some decent growth lately. In mid-November, it hit the 40,000 app milestone, and now, a little over a month later, it's hit another.
According to All About Windows Phone, which tracks Windows Phone app submissions, the Marketplace has seen more than 50,000 apps published to it — 50,126, to be exact.
Notably, Windows Phone reached that 50,000 app milestone in 14 months, faster than Android, Symbian, or BlackBerry (but slower than iOS, which hit that mark in about a year).
Clearly, the platform is picking up steam. While it took a little over a year to reach 40,000 apps, it took just 40 days to accumulate the next 10,000.
That bodes well for Windows Phone in 2012. Of course, it needs to drive that growth higher still, if it ever hopes to match its rivals in the space. Though a noteworthy milestone, 50,000 apps is still a paucity, compared to the App Store's 600,000 and Android Market's 500,000.


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And the old freight depot
Whistle Stop Donuts in Hopkinsville (KY) now has two buildings, near each other and (of course) near the train tracks. (In this photo, you can't see the original little Whistle Stop that's right next to the tracks, but it's marked by the yellow sign.). I don't know if they're going to move everything to the building on the left which has a larger parking lot, or if they're going to keep both locations.
On the other side of the train that's whizzing through town, you can see some scaffolding on the old freight depot. The exterior of the building is being restored to its original appearance. Jim Coursey, a local architect and historian, recently wrote in the Kentucky New Era that the depot is still structurally sound -- in fact, as solid as when it was first built. The metal roof on the building dates back to its construction in 1905, and it still doesn't leak. The Hopkinsville water department owns the property.


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Netflix Signs Streaming Deal With Time Warner
In a sign that Netflix Inc.'s appetite for new content remains as healthy as ever, the video-streaming service struck a licensing deal with Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros., covering a series of fresh TV shows.
Netflix will be able to stream complete previous seasons of several Warner Bros.-produced shows, including several that debuted this season, starting a couple of months after each season ends. These include "Revolution," a hit show on NBC, and less successful shows such as "666 Park Avenue," which ABC recently canceled. The deal also includes "The Following," whose premiere episode won't air until later in January on Fox.


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Imagine you get a few files on your BlackBerry Device, let it be music, pictures, documents, even .PDF files, and you wish to send them to someone you know on BBM, or send a zip or rar attachment via e-mail.
Well, now you can with Rock File Manager v0.9.2 for BlackBerry, using this application, you can zip or rar your files in an existing folder, or create a new one on your SD memory card, or built-in device memory.
You can .zip or .rar files, compress and extract, quick search, COD install, favorites function and even more!
This is one of the best applications I have used to compress or extract any files for my BlackBerry Bold 9900 device, and the best part, it's free!!
This free BlackBerry App from Rock Soft is compatible for all BlackBerry OS6 & OS7 devices.
File management, copy files, move files, change file attributes and more.
Extract part or full zip rar archive to target folder.
Compress files into an archive.
Quick search and highlight result, search files has never been so cool.
One click to install COD files.
Favorites function, add your favorite files to favorites for a quick visit.
Download: Free Rock File Manager v0.9.2 for BlackBerry from BlackBerry App World
Post your comments below to share with other members about this great app from Rock Soft


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Google has shown a significant commitment to efficiency and renewable energy, using its RE < C initiative to invest in a variety of wind power projects and map the US's geothermal resources. But, not content to leave all the fun to other companies, part of RE < C involved work done by the company itself. Now, as part of its general cutbacks, the company has announced that all internal renewable energy work will stop, although outside investments will continue.
Google's efforts were probably well thought out at the time they launched, but they ended up being done in by a combination of a lack of relevant experience and betting on the wrong technology in what's a dynamic and fast moving market. The bet that made sense was that concentrated solar power would end up being a dominant renewable technology, but any reliance on water for power generation could limit its adoption, given that the best sites for solar facilities resided in the desert.
So the company took a two-pronged approach: work on the heliostats that allow mirrors to track the sun, and develop a solar-driven hot air turbine called a Brayton engine. The latter only got as far as computer-based analysis of potential designs, but the former involved Googlers building sun-tracking mirrors and testing them out. This is where the lack of experience came into play, as the report on the experience notes, "We learned that handling glass is tricky, and also experienced a stationary mirror module structural failure." (Perhaps the other initiatives that are facing the axe were suffering the ensuing seven years of bad luck.)
A number of different concentrated solar technologies could benefit from a better heliostat, but it turns out that the renewable energy companies were already doing a reasonable job of extracting savings—"Our cost analysis projected that our heliostat field would be modestly less expensive than previous approaches," Google concluded.
Meanwhile, the entire field seems to have moved beyond the need for a Brayton engine. Photovoltaic systems have dropped in price much faster than expected, making their economics far more competitive with concentrated solar. As such, Google has sensed the focus in concentrated solar shifting toward technologies that can continue generating electricity after the sun has set, such as designs that incorporate heat storage in molten salt.
So although RE < C wasn't misguided, its cancellation isn't going to have a discernible impact on the renewable energy field, since companies that specialize in this field were outperforming it. And, unlike many of the companies that are also suffering in this fast-moving and competitive market, Google at least has a profitable side-business to turn to.