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TARMAC can be used in conjunction with Microsoft Windows Server Certificate Authority with Web Enrollment Service. Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and Microsoft Windows Server 2008 are supported.
Using a Web Enrollment Server URL (e.g. http://caserver.company.com/certsrv/), an Exchange authentication certificate is automatically requested by the iOS device and directly integrated into the personalized configuration profile.
There are a number of possible causes for such a behavior. This FAQ will help you to find out what is causing the problem in your specific situation. In this FAQ we will be using destination device as a generic term for the device you are trying to connect to. The destination device can be anything from a normal computer, to a server, to a network printer.
1. Are you trying to connect to the destination device using a host name?
If you are using a host name, please try once using its IP address instead. If that works, the problem has to do with DNS resolution. Please make sure DNS is enabled for the VPN connection and correctly configured. Note that using Bonjour or NETBIOS hostnames is generally not possible over VPN.
2. Is the IP address you are connecting to really part of the remote network?
For example, if your remote network is 192.168.13.0/24, you should be able to connect to IPs starting with 192.168.13.x, but connections to IPs starting with 192.168.14.x will not work as they are outside the address range of traffic tunneled through the VPN.
3. Is the local address in VPN Tracker part of the remote network?
Using a local address in VPN Tracker (Basic > Local Address) that is part of the remote network is not possible with most VPN gateways. Please use a local address that is outside all remote networks. For example, if your remote network is 192.168.13.0/24, do not use an address starting with 192.168.13. If you are using an automatic configuration method (e.g. Mode Config, EasyVPN, DHCP over VPN) you may be able to assign a local address to VPN Tracker that is part of the remote network. Refer to the configuration guide for your VPN gateway for more information.
4. Could multiple VPN users use the same local address?
If multiple VPN users exist, pleas make sure no two users are using the same local address (Basic > Local Address), otherwise one of them will not be able to use the tunnel anymore whenever both of them are connected. If that field is empty in your configuration, VPN Tracker will just use the IP address of your primary network interface as local address, and of course, this can also cause an address conflict with another user, that's why we do not recommend to leave that field empty if there are multiple VPN users.
5. Can you ping the LAN address of the VPN gateway?
You can find a ping tool directly in VPN Tracker under Tools > Ping Host. The LAN address of the VPN gateway is special in the regard that this address doesn't need to be routed at all. So if you can ping that address but no other remote address, it is most likely a routing issue at the remote end.
6. If you can't ping anything, try re-running the VPN Availability Test
The VPN Availability Test can be found in the menu: Tools > VPN Availability Test. Then try connecting the VPN again. The results of this test depend on the capabilities of your local Internet router/modem or the Internet connection itself and they influence how the VPN tunnel is established. VPN Tracker automatically runs the test for every new Internet connection it is able to detect but even if a connection has been tested before, there are various reasons why the behavior of that connection may have changed in the meantime.
7. Is your VPN gateway the default gateway (router) of its network?
If the VPN gateway is not the default gateway, you will in many cases need a suitable routing setup in order for responses to reach you. Whenever a device doesn't know how to reach an IP address directly, it forwards its reply to its default gateway and if that isn't the VPN gateway, it won't know what to do with that reply data. In that case its important to configure the default gateway to forward replies to VPN users to the VPN gateway.
8. Is your VPN gateway the default gateway (router) of its network?
For more details, we would like to direct you to the following FAQ entry.
Download VPN Tracker free
Such a setup is called "Host to Everywhere" in VPN Tracker. All non-local traffic will be sent through the VPN. For this setup to work, it must be properly configured in VPN Tracker and on the VPN gateway:
Once these are configured, it should already be possible to establish the VPN connection. However, it is very likely that Internet access will not yet work. For Internet access to work, several more things need to be configured on the VPN gateway:
Note that not alll VPN gateways can be configured for Host to Everywhere connections. Most devices designed for small office or home networks (e.g. devices by NETGEAR or Linksys) are not capable of dealing with Host to Everywhere connections.
Go to "Preferences" > "Network" in Parallels and change the DHCP ranges for Shared and/or Host-Only Networking so they no longer conflict with your VPN's remote network.
VMware Fusion
A PDF with instructions can be downloaded from the VMware community forums:
Due to a bug in macOS 13.4 you may encounter a System Extension issue when starting a VPN connection. Please update to VPN Tracker 23.1.4 which mitigates this issue.
Download latest VPN Tracker version
Note that in certain cases, you may still experience a System Extension issue when connecting to multiple VPNs. Restarting VPN Tracker will temporarily resolve the issue.
We are working on an additional update to work around this bug in macOS 13.4.
WatchGuard Firebox X Edge e-Series devices with Fireware XTM (Fireware 11) are fully supported in current versions of VPN Tracker. For details please see our configuration guide.
Devices running an older firmware may often work using the following setup. Please note however that we can't guarantee that this setup will work in all cases.
Start by creating a new user on the Firebox Edge and then configure MUVPN support for this user.
In VPN Tracker, use a "Custom Connection" device profile as the basis for your new connection.
Map the WatchGuard settings to your VPN Tracker configuration as shown in the table below:
The following settings are independent of your specific MUVPN configuration:
Finally make sure the that VPN Tracker's "Network" setting is set to "Host to Network", and the correct Remote Network (i.e. the network that you want connect to through the VPN) is used (e.g. 192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0).
VPN Tracker automatically stores a backup of all your VPN connections on your Mac. If you have inadvertently deleted a connection, or wish to revert to an earlier copy of a connection, you can manually restore the backup copy.
1. Turn off Personal Safe syncing
You need to deactivate Personal Safe for the connections you're trying to restore from your backup, to prevent unwanted changes being synced:
2. Restore from your Backup
/Library/Application Support/VPN Tracker 365
Here you'll see a number of backup folders, all organized and named by date.
All of your connections will now be restored to their backed-up state.
3. Re-activate Personal Safe
SonicWALL Simple Client Provisioning with VPN Tracker is available with all SonicWALLs running SonicOS 4.0 or newer and all editions of VPN Tracker.
If you are still using VPN Tracker 6 or earlier, Professional or Player Edition is required.
By default, traffic to the remote network cannot be sent through the VPN tunnel if it is using the same network as the local network.
Resolving a Network Conflict using Traffic Control
You can use Traffic Control and VPN Tracker will send non-essential local network traffic over the VPN.
Activate Traffic Control:
> Go to Advanced > Traffic Control
> Check "Force traffic over the VPN if remote networks conflict with local networks"
Note that you will never be able to reach the following addresses over VPN: The IP address of your local router, your DHCP server, and your DNS server(s). If you need to reach those IPs over VPN, you will have to resolve the network conflict instead of using Traffic Control. The same applies for any IPs that you need to reach locally and over VPN.
Resolving a Network Conflict Manually
You have two basic options for resolving a conflict:
If you decide to change the remote network, it makes sense to choose a private network that less commonly used. According to our informal statistics, conflicts are least likely using these networks:
If these are not an option, use a subnet of 10.0.0.0/8, excluding 10.0.0.0/24, 10.0.1.0/24, 10.1.0.0/24, 10.1.1.0/24. However, since wireless network operators sometimes choose to use the entire 10.0.0.0/8 network, the first two options are preferred.
If you have a more sophisticated VPN gateway, in particular a SonicWALL, you may be able to set up an alternative remote network on the VPN gateway that is mapped 1:1 through Network Address Translation (NAT) onto the actual network. Users can then connect to this network instead if they have a conflict of networks. We have a guide available that describes this approach for SonicWALL devices.
If the conflict is caused by virtual network interfaces (e.g. Parallels, VMware), see here for more information.
Some kinds of software may cause issues with VPN Tracker:
Personal Firewalls usually ask the user, if an app should be allowed to send network traffic. It's important to grant VPN Tracker full network access. If you have already added rules for VPN Tracker, please whitelist VPN Tracker.
Protection Software often sees VPN traffic as a potential source of threat, as it isn't able to analyze that traffic because of its very strong encryption. Please ensure VPN Tracker is ignored by any protection software running on your Mac and allow VPN traffic to pass through.
Other VPN clients should not be a problem, if they are designed to co-exist with othe VPN apps. Unfortunately, not all other clients are and some capture all VPN traffic as soon as they are installed, even if the app is not running.
In these situations, you may need to uninstall the VPN client - we also suggest asking the vendor to improve its "cooperation" with other VPN apps.
Here are some common examples of the types of apps mentioned above. If you are uncertain whether any of these applications may be installed on your system, try the following:
kextstat | grep -v com.apple
You'll get a list of all kernel extensions that are not from Apple. Just compare that list with the identifiers in parenthesis below:
IPsec VPN uses a different protocol (ESP) for the actual data transfer than for establishing the connection (IKE). Since the ESP protocol does not use network ports, NAT (Network Address Translation) routers may have difficulties handling it correctly. Only NAT routers that support "IPSec Passthrough" (sometimes also named "VPN Passthrough" or "ESP Passtrhough") and where this option is also enabled, can handle ESP data packets.
To work around this problem, two alternative tunneling methods exist:
Which of these methods will work with your connection depends on two properties:
To test for the first property, VPN Tracker will automatically establish three VPN test connections to a VPN gateway hosted by us whenever it detects a new router that has not been tested before. One connection uses plain ESP, the other two either NAT-T method mentioned above. It will remember the test results for this router and take them into account whenever you start a connection from the network location. The reason we are testing with our own gateway is simply that the test requires a gateway supporting all three methods, with a known configuration and a simply way to verify if traffic did arrive at that gateway.
The second property is not tested in advance, VPN Tracker will become aware of that information when it actually tries to connect to your VPN gateway. VPN Tracker will compare the methods your gateway supports with the stored test results. If there is a match, a method that your gateway supports and that was also working during the test, this method will be used. If there is no match, VPN Tracker will immediately stop and show an appropriate error in the log, explaining the situation.
If you suspect a NAT-Traversal issue or you think the previous test results may be wrong or outdated, simply re-run the test:
‣ Make sure NAT-Traversal (Advanced tab) is set to Automatic
‣ Go to "Tools" > "Test VPN Availability"
‣ Click "Test Again"
‣ Wait until the test has completed, then connect to your VPN
The test dialog also allows you to tell VPN Tracker to not test the current location and forget any previously created test results. This is rarely needed and also not recommended but there might be situation where the test results are wrong because access to our VPN gateway is not possible (e.g. it is blocked) and thus the test result are just bogus and say nothing about the true capabilities of your VPN gateway.
If you have already purchased one or more Stationery Packs via the equinux Store, please follow these steps to install your templates on your Mac:
‣ Download the Stationery Pack Application here.
‣ Please double click the .dmg file.
‣ Double-click the Stationery Pack you have purchased. If you bought more than one Stationery Pack, please double click one of your Stationery Packs.
‣ Follow the on screen steps to finish the installation.
‣ Afterwards choose in the app "Stationery Greeting Cards" > "Preferences" from the top menu bar and log in using your equinux ID and password.
‣ All of your licenses are now activated and you can use your templates.
If your software has already been activated using a different equinux ID, you must use this same ID to activate further stationery packs.
E.g. If you already own Stationery Pack and have recently bought Summer Spirit Cards using a different equinux ID, you won't be able to use both stationery packs at once.
If you want to use both at once, simply transfer your new stationery pack license from your new equinux ID to your old equinux ID (or vise-versa) using your equinux License Manager.
If you've forgotten your password, you can retrieve your login details here.
Alternatively, if you no longer own the previous stationery pack installed, please uninstall it. You can then install your new stationery pack with your new equinux ID.
For a list of compatible devices, please refer to this page.
If you router is not in the list please refer to this FAQ and the VPN Tracker manual for help determining compatibility.
Please note that the local router (i.e. the router at the location where your Mac with VPN Tracker is) in most cases does not have to be specifically compatible with VPN or VPN Tracker. Almost all routers work fine with VPN Tracker.
Open the VPN Tracker 365 app and go to "VPN Tracker 365" > "Preferences"Next to "Update", check the box "Get early access to Pre-Release versions"From the drop down menu, select "Beta versions"
Your direct line to the equinux TARMAC team
Our TARMAC team is ready and waiting:
email@example.com or by Telephone +49 (0)89 / 520 465-222
You're interested in equinux products and have additional questions regarding your purchase or product activation?
The equinux Sales Team is here to help: Call or chat with us,
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macOS 12 MontereymacOS 11 Big SurmacOS 10.15 CatalinamacOS 10.14 MojavemacOS 10.13 High SierramacOS 10.12 SierraOS X 10.11 El Capitan
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With this being event number 5, I think I can officially call it a tour!
On Thursday January 10th in San Francisco we'll be hosting a Radical Doula Guide release party benefiting the Bay Area Doula Project, a fabulous full-spectrum doula group. There will be guides for sale, a photobooth, and opportunities to donate and support the fabulous work of BADP.
Thursday, January 10th
Langton Labs
9 Langton St
San Francisco, CA
Hope to see you there!
Facebook event here.
PS Happy New Year!

subset: commoncrawl


text: Watch Online I Can See Your Voice May 27 2023 Replay Today Episode Online on Pinoy Teleserye Drama. Stay Tuned to Watch Latest Pinoy Channel I Can See Your Voice May 27 on Pinoy Tambayan Teleserye. Broadcasts the latest free Pinoy TV Shows and Makes it easy for the visitor And its video quality is excellent Visit our website.


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Today's News: Our Take - British Man Dies of Heart Attack After Dancing to "Gangnam Style"
A British father of three died from a heart attack moments after dancing to Psy's worldwide hit "Gangnam Style," British newspaper The Sun reports.
Eamonn Kilbride, 46, was performing the high-energy horse-riding-like moves when he suddenly collapsed moments later and died. He was at an office Christmas party for the Thwaites brewery, where he worked as an IT manager.
See celebrities we've lost this year
Kilbride's wife, Julie, was with him at the Whitehall Country Club when he complained of chest plains. She tried to revive him with CPR. He was late pronounced dead on arrival at Royal Blackburn Hospital late Saturday night.
The coroner later told his family that Kilbride suffered from acute heart failure.
Kilbride is survived by his wife, and three children: Laurajade, Jack and Conor.
View original British Man Dies of Heart Attack After Dancing to "Gangnam Style" at TVGuide.com
Related Articles on TVGuide.com
Other Links From TVGuide.com


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|D.C. Great Dane Rescue
|Great Dane Rescue Groups
|New Location ▼
|Change Breed ▼
|Find a Home for an Animal ▼
|Rescue Alerts ▼
|Donate to Great Dane Rescue as a gift or memorial, and we will mail a free acknowledgement card within 24 hours.
14,008 Great Dane Dogs have been adopted on Rescue Me!
|No Great Dane for adoption in D.C., please click a new state below.
|PIease Read Before Adopting a Great Dane in D.C.
Great Dane Dogs can make good pets in D.C. if they match your IifestyIe. The Great Dane is an enormous, but extremely gentle breed often referred to as the Gentle Giant. Great Danes are kind, loyal, and sociable. They need to be around people. Great Danes are gentle, devoted, and wonderful with children, but should be supervised with little ones because of their large size. Great Danes should be well trained as puppies. Great Danes can live in an apartment with enough daily exercise but do best with a large yard.
Rescue Me! - HeIpingAnimaIs in Need.
|♥ This page is in fond memory of these Great Dane Dogs who are no longer with us... ♥
If you have experienced the loss of a beloved pet, or if you know someone who has... [POST A MEMORIAL HERE]
|Help Spread the Word! Please link to D.C. Great Dane Rescue from your website.
Rescue Me! Website
Follow @RescueMeOrg
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Warm-You-Up Freezer Soups
Spicy Beef, Bean and Vegetable Stew
Affordable beef chuck roast, apple, parsnip and sweet potato slow-simmer in broth flavored with dark beer, herbs and spices. Warm corn bread muffins and cold winter night optional.
Asian Beef Barley Soup
We love this contemporary global twist on classic Midwest beef-barley soup. Coconut milk adds creaminess, while a tiny bit of curry powder and hot chili oil add zip. The recipe comes from Beth Seuferer of West Des Moines, Iowa.
Chicken and Kielbasa Winter Stew
Shhh! Don't tell anyone, but this hearty supper soup takes just an hour to make. The secret? Deli-roasted chicken and precooked sausage. Pair with breadsticks or a crusty baguette for a perfect winter meal that will fill your house with good smells.
Quinoa Harvest Chili
This hearty and uber-healthy vegetarian chili recipe comes from Brianne Jamerson of Indiana. If you'd prefer a looser texture, just add extra water or broth.
Shredded Pork Posole
Hominy is the signature ingredient in this traditional, chililike Mexican soup.
Apple Harvest Chili
Fresh apple, dried fruit and cashews add color, sweetness and crunch to a ready-in-45 vegetarian chili. For a twist on the traditional toppers (and to hint what's inside), garnish with apple slivers.
Chicken Dill Soup
Cathy Schneider of DeKalb, Illinois, shared her family-favorite recipe for a chicken soup that has just enough twists to keep it interesting: sweet potato, green beans, brown rice and fresh-tasting dill. (If you prefer less dill flavor, just reduce the amount. The soup will still be delicious.)
Kansas City Steak Soup
Our version of the classic Kansas City steak soup uses lean ground sirloin mixed with veggies and seasoned with a blast of steak sauce and Worcestershire. It cooks in just 25 minutes.
For more soup and stew recipes created by Midwest Living® in honor of the Midwest states, click on "Midwest Soups State by State" in the Related Links box below.Related Links
Pumpkin, Chickpea & Red Lentil Stew
This hearty soup boasts a bounty of veggies and seasonings, including pumpkin or squash, fresh ginger, lime juice, cumin and fresh cilantro.
Italian Soup
This flavorful soup from Mary Ann Van Wassenhove of Mitchell, South Dakota, is a breeze to make and is heartier than other, similar soups thanks to kidney beans and broccoli.
Chipotle Black Bean Chili
Inspired by traditional Mexican mole, this hearty vegetarian chili includes a touch of chocolate to add depth. Chipotle peppers in adobo sauce give a rich smokiness to this fall recipe. If you like, you can save half the chili to make Stacked Black Bean Enchilada Pie.
Mushroom Soup
Betsy Koss of Boyne City, Michigan, shared her recipe for velvety mushroom soup. It tastes rich and creamy but is actually dairy-free. The trick is to puree a little bit of white rice into the soup.
Slow-Cooker Brat and Sauerkraut Soup
Potatoes, onion, sauerkraut and brats pack in the German flavor in this homey slow-cooker soup. Try with Whole Wheat Pretzel Rolls; the soft pretzels' chewy, brown exterior comes from being boiled in an alkaline solution—the 1/4 cup baking soda in the water isn't a typo!
Slow-Cooker Brat and Sauerkraut Soup
Butternut Squash, Lentil and Wild Rice Stew
Here's a main-dish soup loaded with veggies. Need to reduce the sodium? Use only one can of French onion soup and replace the other with 1-1/2 cups water.
Chicken Tortilla Soup
Diane Buller of Champaign, Illinois, shared this flavorful version of the classic tortilla soup. Garbanzo beans add extra texture and protein.
Colossal Chili
Long, slow simmering melds flavors in this recipe from the Spice House in Evanston, Illinois.
Chicken Chili
Short on time? Move the slow-cooker setting for this mild white chili recipe to high. If you like, serve in store-bought bread bowls.
Winter Woods Chili
The meat lovers in your family will love this chili, which combines beef and bacon. Mix a classic cheddar topper with fresh oregano for a new twist.
Aunt Bonnie's Taco Soup
Resolve the dinnertime decision with this quick and easy fix. When this irresistible soup is simmering in her crockery cooker, Vicki Johnson of Hallsville, Missouri, thinks fondly of her late aunt.
Tomatillo Chicken Soup
Tomatillos (the key ingredient in green salsa) look like green tomatoes with papery husks. Although they can be eaten raw, we like to cook tomatillos with other ingredients to mellow and balance their tart flavor.
More great soup, stew and chili recipesRelated Links


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The Vim text editor was first released to the public on November 2, 1991—exactly 20 years ago today. Although it was originally designed as a vi clone for the Amiga, it was soon ported to other platforms and eventually grew to become the most popular vi-compatible text editor. It is still actively developed and widely used across several operating systems.
In this article, we will take a brief look back at the history of vi and its descendants, leading up to the creation of Vim. We will also explore some of the compelling technical features that continue to make Vim relevant today.
The vi text editor was originally created in the late '70s by Bill Joy, an early BSD developer who later went on to cofound Sun Microsystems. The original implementation of vi was conceived as an interactive "visual" mode for an ed-like line editor called ex. It was developed at first on an old ADM-3A terminal, about a decade before computer mice became ubiquitous. Users relied on commands and keyboard-based navigation to interact with the editor.
The limitations and idiosyncrasies of the ADM-3A influenced some of vi's most distinctive characteristics. For example, vi was programmed to use the
k, and
l keys for directional navigation because the ADM-3A keyboard had arrows printed on the keys with those letters. Although it was an accident of history, the
hjkl navigation model in vi proved to be enormously efficient. The combination of those letters has become practically iconic among vi users. The navigation scheme is used today in a variety of other applications, including Gmail and the official Twitter client for Mac OS X.
The vi editor became an inseparable part of the UNIX landscape. Joy bundled it with BSD and ATT incorporated it into System V. The core functionality and behavior of vi was later specified in the POSIX standard, which led to the inclusion of the text editor in many of the major UNIX systems.
The vi clones, which began to emerge in the late '80s and early '90s, were widely adopted due to more permissive licensing. Joy's vi implementation was based on the original ATT version of ed, which meant that the code was not freely redistributable. It could only be used by parties that had a UNIX license from ATT.
The first two prominent vi clones were Stevie and Elvis. Stevie, the ST Editor for vi Enthusiasts, was originally developed for the Atari ST in 1987 and ported to UNIX the next year. It was somewhat primitive but attracted a modest following. Elvis, which was first released in 1990, was more sophisticated and was designed to offer more functionality. Elvis was the first vi clone to introduce support for syntax highlighting.
Although Elvis still has some users and remains popular in the Slackware community, it hasn't seen a major update since 2003. Elvis replaced Joy's vi in the original 386 port of BSD, but the BSD developers later produced a new clone called nvi that was intended to more closely match the behavior of Joy's implementation. The nvi editor is still shipped today by the BSD family of operating systems.
The earliest version of Vim was developed on the Amiga by Bram Moolenaar in 1988. Moolenaar was dissatisfied with the vi clones that were available for the Amiga platform and set out to make one that came closer to matching vi's feature set. He based his new editor on Stevie, which he has said was the best Amiga-compatible vi clone at the time.
The first version of Vim that was released to the general public was 1.14, which was published on November 2, 1991. It was distributed on Fish Disk #591, one of the disks in Fred Fish's Amiga freeware collection. Following its public debut, users began contributing patches.
"A long time ago I got myself an Amiga computer. Since I was used to editing with Vi, I looked around for a program like Vi for the Amiga. I did find a few so-called 'clones', but none of them was good enough; so I took the best one, and started improving it. At first the main goal was to be able to do all that Vi could do. Gradually I added some additional features, like multi-level undo," Moolenaar wrote in the first issue of Free Software Magazine, back in 2001. "When I started working on Vim it was just for my own use. After some time I got the impression it was useful for others, and sent it out into the world. Since then I'm working more and more on making the program work well for a large audience. It's fun to create something useful. Also, there is a nice group of co-authors and power users, which is very inspiring."
Moolenaar drafted his own loose copyleft license for the software. The license grants the user broad freedom to use, distribute, and repurpose the code, but gives the maintainer the right to ask for improvements to be contributed back to the project. Some clarifications were added to Vim's license in the version 6.0 release to ensure compatibility with GNU's General Public License (GPL).
Vim is an open source software project, but it's also charityware. Moolenaar helped establish a foundation called ICCF Holland that works to support to a children's center in Uganda. He encourages users to consider making a donation to ICCF Holland or the Kibaale Children's Fund. He serves as treasurer of the foundation and visits the site in Uganda nearly every year to monitor the center's progress.
The name "Vim" originally stood for Vi IMitation, but it later became Vi IMproved. The name was changed in 1992 when version 1.22 was released with compelling new features and a UNIX port. It gained support for multiple buffers in version 3.0, which was released in 1994. Version 4.0 in 1996 introduced a graphical user interface, version 5.0 in 1998 added syntax highlighting capabilities, and version 6.0 in 2001 added support for vertical window splits and a plugin system that simplified script loading.
Many, many other features were added along the way. Vim has been ported to numerous other platforms, including Linux, BeOS, Windows, Mac OS X, and QNX. Although Vim was originally designed to be used in a terminal, there are several graphical frontends built with various user interface toolkits that add conventional menus, toolbars, and scrollbars.
The latest major release of Vim was version 7, which was released in 2006. It introduced some particularly significant features, including native support for spellchecking, an autocompletion system, a tab interface, and undo branches. The most recent minor version update was version 7.3, released last year, which introduced a persistent undo feature and support for Python 3.
Vim today
Due to the popularity of the clones, the name "vi" has become a general term that is used colloquially to describe any member of the family of vi-compatible editors that more-or-less support the features that are specified in the POSIX standard. Today, direct derivatives of Joy's vi are generally only used in a handful of commercial UNIX environments. All modern BSD and Linux systems include a clone rather than the original.
The BSD distributions still mostly ship nvi, but Mac OS X and the vast majority of Linux systems come with Vim. In most cases, the vi command has been configured as a symlink that launches Vim directly, or a script that launches Vim with strict vi-compatibility enabled. If you have used the vi command on a Linux system at any time in the past decade, it's very likely that you were using Vim.
Unlike the other prominent vi clones, Vim is still actively developed and has a large base of contributors. New features are still being developed and added to the text editor every year, making it even more powerful. Moolenaar also still serves as the chief maintainer and does much of the work to make sure that contributed patches function well and are integrated properly.
Why people still use Vim
The notion of using a modal command-oriented editor may seem a bit anachronistic at first glance, but Vim's rich feature set and deep extensibility have made it an enduring choice among advanced computer users. It's still a highly popular editor, especially among computer programmers, Web developers, scientists, and system administrators.
The full scope of Vim's advantages are difficult to articulate to users who are unfamiliar with the editor. Although a full explanation of how Vim works is beyond the scope of this article, the following is a small assortment of useful features:
Flexible multiple document interface: In Vim, your files and unsaved documents are referred to as buffers. The editor gives you a tremendous amount of control over how your buffers are displayed on the screen. You can horizontally and vertically split the window as many times as you want so that you can view many buffers at the same time. You can even have the same buffer displayed in multiple splits, which lets you view separate parts of the same document simultaneously. You can also optionally organize sets of split layouts into tabs. Layouts and state can be preserved by saving a "session" and restoring it later.
Modal editing with sophisticated keyboard shortcuts: Vim has separate interaction modes for text input and text editing. Insert mode behaves largely as you would expect a regular text editor to work—commands are performed with conventional keyboard shortcuts and characters are appended to the buffer as you press the associated keys. In the "normal" mode, however, sequences of key presses perform commands. The most useful commands allow you to quickly navigate and manipulate the text in the buffer. You can extensively customize the behavior of the bindings to create custom shortcuts and commands.
Multiple clipboards: Instead of a conventional clipboard, Vim stores copied text with a mechanism that it calls registers. There is a default register that is used to store text that is copied by the standard yank and delete operations, but the user can also indicate a specific register in which they want to store text when they cut or copy. This effectively acts like a clipboard multiplexer. The contents of the registers persist between uses of Vim, which means that they are preserved when you quit and will still be there when you open the editor again.
Macros: Vim has a macro system that allows you to record keypresses for later playback. Macros are trivially easy to create from the keyboard and can consist of operations across multiple Vim modes. Macros are stored in registers, just like the clipboard items. As such, they can also persist across uses of the application.
Extremely powerful search capabilities: Vim has some very sophisticated tools for automated search and replace, including extensive support for regular expressions. It also has a built-in version of the
grepcommand, which integrates with Vim's enormously convenient quickfix feature—a special buffer that shows you a list of results and allows you to conveniently jump between them.
Extremely rich extensibility: Vim is prodigiously scriptable and highly conducive to automation. It has its own native scripting language with container types, a unique variable scoping model, and a bunch of useful Vim-specific functionality. It also has built-in scripting engines and bindings that allow it to be customized via numerous mainstream programming languages, including Perl, Python, Ruby, Tcl, and Lua. Vim can also be extended to add syntax highlighting for additional languages or create custom color schemes. Users widely share their scripts through various online repositories and package them into plugins. As we have previously demonstrated, installing a few simple plugins and scripts can give Vim many of the advanced capabilities of an integrated development environment.
Portability: Vim will work almost everywhere that you do. Vim is widely used on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X and is available for many other platform. Users can run it from the terminal or operate it with a native graphical interface on all three major operating systems. Many system administrators value Vim because it gives them a productive text editing environment on practically any remote Linux or Mac OS X system that they access through the terminal via ssh.
Vim has been my editor of choice since 1998, about a year after I started using Linux as my main desktop operating system. I've used it to write several thousand articles and many, many lines of code. Although I've experimented with a lot of conventional modern text editors, I haven't found any that match Vim's efficiency. After using Vim nearly every day for so many years, I'm still discovering new features, capabilities, and useful behaviors that further improve my productivity.
Vim has aged well over the past 20 years. It's not just a greybeard relic—the editor is still as compelling as ever and continues to attract new users. The learning curve is steep, but the productivity gains are well worth the effort.
Do you remember your first experience with vi or Vim? In honor of the venerable text editor's 20th anniversary, share your memories and favorite features in the discussion thread.


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In this Aug. 5, 2010 file photo, bottles of Powerade sports drink and other Coca-Cola products are chilled over ice in Orlando, Fla. A controversial ingredient, brominated vegetable oil, is being removed from some Powerade sports drinks. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick, File)
The ingredient, brominated vegetable oil, had been the target of a petition by a Mississippi teenager, who questioned why it was being used in a drink marketed toward health-conscious athletes. The petition on Change.org noted that the ingredient is linked to a flame retardant and is not approved for use in Japan or the European Union.
In response to customer feedback, PepsiCo said last year it would drop the ingredient from Gatorade. At the time, Coca-Cola declined to say whether it would remove the ingredient from the two flavors of Powerade that contain it as well.
But this week, bottles of Powerade in fruit punch and strawberry lemonade flavors being sold in the Detroit, Michigan; Omaha, Nebraska, New York and Washington, D.C. areas no longer list the ingredient. Some bottles still list it, however, suggesting Coca-Cola Co. may have started phasing it out recently.
A representative for the Atlanta-based company confirmed Sunday that its Powerade brands are "BVO-free." But no details were immediately available on when the change would be complete or how the drinks were reformulated.
Powerade's website still lists brominated vegetable oil as an ingredient for its fruit punch and strawberry lemonade flavors.
The Food and Drug Administration says brominated vegetable oil is used as a stabilizer for flavoring oils in fruit-flavored drinks. Coca-Cola has said in the past that it uses it to "improve stability and prevent certain ingredients from separating."
The decision by Coca-Cola to remove brominated vegetable oil from Powerade is just the latest evidence that food makers are coming under pressure for the ingredients they use. While companies stand by the safety of their products, some are making changes in response to the movement toward foods that people believe are natural.
Earlier this year, for instance, Subway said it would remove an ingredient dubbed the "yoga mat chemical" from its breads. The ingredient, azodicarbonamide, is approved for use by the FDA and can be found in a wide variety of breads. The petitioner, Vani Hari of FoodBabe.com, said she targeted Subway because of its image for serving healthy food.
Likewise, brominated vegetable oil can also be found in several other drinks.
But the Mississippi teenager, Sarah Kavanagh of Hattiesburg, said she targeted Gatorade and Powerade in petitions because they're designed for athletes, who are likely more concerned about what they're putting into their bodies. Her Powerade petition had more than 59,000 online supporters while the Gatorade one had more than 200,000.
As Americans cut back on soda, sports drinks have become more important for Coca-Cola and PepsiCo Inc., which is based in Purchase, New York.
Although Coca-Cola has long dominated rival PepsiCo on the soda front, it lags the company in the growing sports drink category. According to the industry tracker Beverage Digest, Gatorade has 64 percent of the sports drink market.


text: Copyright © LawInSport Limited 2010 - 2022. These pages contain general information only. Nothing in these pages constitutes legal advice. You should consult a suitably qualified lawyer on any specific legal problem or matter. The information provided here was accurate as of the day it was posted; however, the law may have changed since that date. This information is not intended to be, and should not be used as, a substitute for taking legal advice in any specific situation. LawInSport is not responsible for any actions taken or not taken on the basis of this information. Please refer to the full terms and conditions on our website.


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With Garrett Mock on the mound against the San Diego Padres, the Washington Nationals and Teddy Roosevelt followed similar patterns tonight at Nationals Park, barely getting out of the gate before blowing any chance they had for victory.
Teddy quickly locked up his 250th consecutive presidents race loss when he collided with Thomas Jefferson at the starting gate, leaving only George Washington to challenge Abe Lincoln. Abe took care of things from there, knocking George to the ground to clear his path to the finish line as Screech looked on.
Is "Judge Screech" in Abe Lincoln's pocket? He's disqualified Teddy for far less. Why hasn't Screech ever disqualified "Honest" Abe?
Note: We were thrilled to see Section 128 usher Ron "Coach" Simms back in action tonight at his familiar post. Coach reports that under Doctor's orders, he's not allowed to dance on top of the dugout during "Sweet Caroline" for at least a few more weeks, but he's looking great and on the mend. Welcome back Coach!


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93 points
"You'll find aromas of ripe yellow peach, citrus and honeydew in this delicious, fullbodied white. On the rounded, savory palate, tangy acidity lifts lime, Mediterranean herbs and lemon drop candy before an energized saline finish."
Wine Enthusiast
On all orders $250+
On all orders $150+
"The Non-Vintage Brut has pretty apricot and mango scents that are lively and vivacious. The palate is lively on the entry with crisp acidit ..more detail
Wine Advocate []
Wine Advocate
"Despite being Yalumbas entrylevel Viognier, this is one of its most delicious white offerings. Highly aromatic, it wafts a perfume of honey ..more detail
Wine Enthusiast []
Wine Enthusiast
"A bone-dry, mineral Soave Classico with a mineral whiff to the limey citrus and green apples. Taut and textured on the palate, underscoring ..more detail
James Suckling []
James Suckling
It is extremely pleasing to interact with businesses that actually do care that they deliver what they promise for the customer—and more. I have sampled the 2009 Sojourn and found it excellent—a good recommendation on your part.
-Paul F.
Accurate order confirmation and super quick delivery. Received email
confirmation before and after delivery. Had question about additional
inventory that was answered promptly. A+ customer service!!! Will purchase
from again!!
-Lisa W.
Exceeded my expectations in every way, thank you and I look forward to
more 90+ rated wines!
-William K.
I've made several purchases over the past year and have always been
pleased. Customer service is top notch and personal. You also can't beat
their prices. I wish all wine retailers operated this way!
-Jared M.
My daughter recommended this website and I can definitely understand
why. They were professional and the wine arrived very well packaged and in
a very timely manner. The wine was also very nicely priced. Thank you and
will be ordering again soon.
-Kristen H.
You don't do anything half ass. I like that!
-John R.
Thanks for your high end service!
-Jim S.
Thanks, I appreciate the great service. I will definitely buy from you again.
-Swami K.
I know that I don't order too often but have ordered from you for my dad for some years now. They love your service and I saw the presentation this time and was impressed. Thanks for your good service.
-Rob S.
Thank you for what you do to provide us such excellent wines.
-Mike B.
Thanks again for your continuing great offerings and customer service!
-Darren O.
Today I received my wine and it was perfect. Thank you for the note and tasting notes. I order a lot of wine by mail and I was truly impressed with your service and wine selection. Thanks again and I will be ordering more from your site.
-Mike S.
I really appreciate the wonderful wines and how you guys have always gone out of your way to help me in every way possible.
-Eric C.


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Hands-on design process with personal attention!
Prior to production, and soon after your order is placed, a member from our design team will send you a mock up of your design for your approval to confirm you are happy with the layout and coloring. The designer will contact you via email and go back and forth with you until you are 100% satisfied with the design and you deem it approved for production:)
Grommets VS Sleeves?
For a breakdown of Grommets vs Sleeves please click here -->
*All Sleeves are standard 1.5 inches wide and can accommodate a .875 inch pole diameters or below. If you need something custom please mention your pole diameter in the design notes with your order.
What dimensions does my custom design need to be?
For optimum quality, .eps or .ai files are preferred, however high quality png, pdf and jpeg files work as well. Designs should be saved in CMYK rather than RGB in order to see a true color representation of your print. (http://bit.ly/RGBvsCMYKcolors)
Optimal image resolution is 300px/in and optimal canvas size for self created flags is 3000px high X 5000px wide for 3x5 flags. For any other size please have it be 1000 pixels for every foot of flag.
Prior to production, we always send you a mock up of your design for your approval to confirm you are happy with the layout and coloring.
We will not move forward with production until you have "APPROVED" the mock up. So please check your email and spam to prevent any production delays if you need your item to arrive on time.
- Mask printing areas are 50cm X 25cm
- Please use a .JPEG .PNG .EPS. .AI. or .PDF
- All masks have double sided printing.
- A custom template for photoshop can be found HERE - or we can help you:)
- Please allow for a 2cm seam around the edges and do not put images along far edges
FOR ALL CUSTOM PIECES we will verify with you via email with in 3-48 hours the exact look of your item to confirm that you are 100% happy with it prior to printing.
Can I have a different image on either side of a double sided flag?
Yes. Just upload the image you want for each side when you submit your order:) If you have more images, please email them to us at firstname.lastname@example.com
These 3 design help choices cover 99% percent of all orders. There may times where we will need to completely redraw your image to achieve optimal print quality. If this is the case we will reach out to you and let you know specifically what is needed:)
- NO - My images are 100% ready. Please print exactly what I send you.
- YES, A LITTLE. - ( Add specified text, font, color, add my logos, resize my images, get my images "ready" 3 edit max.)
- YES, A LOT. - Help me create a design from scratch using my provided images or existing clip art from the internet. This applies to most designs.
HOW TO CUSTOMIZE YOUR Flag or Mask:
- Upload an original design using the "FILE UPLOAD" buttons on this page.
- For optimum quality make sure the design is 1000 pixels for every foot of flag / inch of sticker
- Ex: 3x5 = 3000Px x 5000Px with a resolution of 300 pixels/inch (.JPEG or .PNG)
- In the section, "DESIGN PLACEMENT NOTES" Be sure to specify the following elements so we can design for you the perfect flag:
-Font Color & Type
-Font Placement Details (Size, Location)
-Logo Placement Details (Size, Location)
-Flag Background Color (If logo doesn't cover all)
- If you have multiple images please email firstname.lastname@example.com the rest of them after you have checked out.
Are there any designs that can't be printed?
No. You create it. We can print it!
How many colors can my flag have?
As many as you want! The color spectrum is unlimited!
Will you edit or create my design for me?
Yes! We will work with you to create the perfect design for your custom merchandise. Please be descriptive as possible in the "design notes" when ordering and our design team will contact you with in 3-48 hours prior to printing with a proof of your flag to confirm it is exactly what you want and from there you can make changes and edits:)
I want custom merchandise, but I don't have Photoshop. Are there solutions for me?
If you don't have photoshop or illustrator you may use an app called Logo Foundry. You can download it here→> https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/logo-foundry-logo-maker-logo/id1086084610?mt=8
What are the flag poles made of and are they approved for music festivals?
Yes! Flag poles are made from telescoping aluminum and have a foam handle and grip. All flag poles are approved at most major music festivals. We recommend that you double check the 'acceptable items' list for your festival before you go just in case.
How does my flag attach to the pole?
All flags come with a choice of metal grommets in each corner or a sleeve on the left side with rope for easy flag pole attachment. For the flag poles we sell, we recommend going with the sleeve option as it will be a better fit for our poles.
Flag Material Upgrades
For single sided flags we offer upgraded material options of 130G, 240G, & Satin.
130G is slightly thicker than the standard material and has about a 40%-50% color see through on the back side.
240G is our heaviest flag material and has about a 20-30% color see through on the back side.
Satin material offers a smooth glossy finish which is perfect for photographs and art. Satin has about a 20-30% color see through on the back side.
What is the difference between single and double sided?
Single sided flags have close to 80-90% visibility on the opposing side and are a bit thinner and lighter. Keep in mind that for single sided your image will be mirrored on the other side as you will simply be looking at your image from the other side. Double sided flags have 100% visibility of each logo on each side and a liner in the center so you will only see each image with 100% visibility. Double sided flags will have the EXACT same image printed on both sides. The image will NOT be "flipped" unless you have requested this in your order. The grommets or sleeve will be on the right side of the flag when looking at the back side of the flag. Please keep this in mind when instructing the design team for your flag creation.
Is my single sided design visible on both sides?
Single sided flags have about 90% visibility through the opposing side! Just remember your words and images will be mirrored on the backside!
What is the average production/delivery time?
Since all of our flags are custom it is difficult to guarantee delivery by a certain date, but we will try our best to make sure you get your flag on time. Certain custom designs require more design and setup attention and any delay in the design/mock up approval by the customer will result in production delays. We print flags and masks that have designs confirmed by the customer first. The best way to ensure you get your flag on time is to respond to our emails from the design team as soon as humanly possible:)
For Super Rush Shipping, our AVERAGE turn time is 7-10 business days AFTER the proof is confirmed by the customer via email. The Standard Shipping option takes on average 14-21 business days after design approval by the customer. Keep in mind that these are average times and that we are still at the mercy of turn-times by postage services, our own production line, holidays, weekends, the possibility of bad weather and the design process itself. Typically, you will receive your custom merchandise faster than the average times quoted.
If the window is extremely small and you absolutely need your order by a specific date please email us so we can check current production times for you and cater to your needs. > email@example.com
Flag Maintenance
Washing: All custom flags are machine washable! Please make sure to wash on cold and to not use harmful detergents. All washing machines are different so we do recommend hand washing whenever possible using a solution of water and a little vinegar just to be safe!
Ironing: Use the Polyester/Low iron setting.
All of our flags have been tested to be waterproof and are safe for indoor/outdoor use!
Return Policy.
We have an excellent track record when it comes to making the perfect product, but in the rare case that a return of items is necessary, we always make things right with our clients. Due to the custom nature of the products, the high set up fees we incur, and the fact that custom merchandise is not re-salable to other customers, all custom order sales are final. We are only able to issue refunds if the design that was emailed and approved by the customer greatly varies with the finished product received. Slight variations in color and clarity do occur when images provided by the customer are not of highest resolution quality. Ie: Pictures of other images, unofficial non-vectorized clip art from the internet, ink drawings, paintings, patches, photos, images not created by digital software, and any other small images that when get blown up to flag size, lose their quality. These examples do not warrant a refund of the product and will not be considered flawed merchandise.
Please look carefully at your final design and the orientation of the flag (horizontal or vertical) before you approve us to move forward with production. If you have any questions about the design of your custom merchandise please ask them BEFORE you approve your design for print. YOU control the design process:) Once the design is approved by you the production process has started. Feel free to hit us up anytime at firstname.lastname@example.com
Accessories (flag poles, clips, whips, Non custom printed items, etc) All "accessories" can be returned only if unused, unopened, and in resellable condition. Return postage is the responsibility of the customer and all returns will incur a 15% restocking fee. In cases where Fest Flags has sent the wrong product, we will cover the postage and restocking fee.
Thank you for your understanding.


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Chennai, India
Located just minutes away from the famous landmarks sites, one can experience the essence of the luxury and comfortable travel, while staying at one of the Yatra Smart near Albert Theater in Chennai. Stylish decor, pleasing ambiance and friendly staff are some of the true hallmarks of a luxury hotel. One can enjoy extensive range of facilities such as round-the-clock room service, 24 hours Wi-Fi connectivity, butler service or airport transfers while your stay at Chennai Yatra Smart near Albert Theater. Start your day enjoying an exotic spread of healthy treat and feast on authentic delicacies over lunch and dinner. If sports is not your cup of tea, then spend quality time with your family and friends at the pool or unwind with a rejuvenating spa treatment. There are plenty of options to indulge in such as badminton, carom, basket ball or swimming that one can try their hand at. Before heading out for a buzzing nightlife, relax in the tranquil atmosphere of the rooms that are a perfect b


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I have made it just in time for the Australia Day 2012 blog post. Thanks to Shelly at Twigs of Yore, geneabloggers have the chance to share the occupation of an ancestor while considering the line "wealth for toil" from "Advance Australia Fair". The requirements are:
To participate, choose someone who lived in Australia (preferably one of your ancestors) and tell us how they toiled. Your post should include:
- What was their occupation?
- What information do you have about the individual's work, or about the occupation in general?
- The story of the person, focusing on their occupation; or
The story of the occupation, using the person as an example.
I love occupations. The first thing I look at on a census or electoral roll is my relative's line of work. Maybe it is just because I'm hoping for something other than a farmer. So I jumped at the chance to share an occupation. Of course, I have plenty of farmers and a large number of butchers, including my grandfather and two great grandfathers. But they didn't cut it for me.
Who were workers that fitted the "toil" definition? I have already done a post on Jim Bishop, the drover who I do believe toiled against the elements and probably for little reward. One definition of "toil" is to labour continuously. Taking that into account there could be no other person to write about than station hand William Hadden, my gg-grandfather.
William Hadden did not make monetary riches from his work, but he had the wealth of his family on whom his work depended and the knowledge that he was putting food on the table.
William was born in Haddington, East Lothian, Scotland, and immigrated with his parents, Charles and Agnes on the Marco Polo in 1854. William would have been around 17 when he went to work at nearby Mokanger station with his father Charles. That was the beginning of a love affair with the land and in particular Mokanger.
In 1870, he married Mokanger servant, Mary Mortimer at the station. They also lived at Mokanger and children were born there. Mokanger was their life. Except for Sundays, the day of rest. That was the time to attend St John's Presbyterian church at Cavendish, William's other passion.
While sheep station work can be seasonal, William most likely had an ongoing job. There is always plenty to do on a sheep property. Lambing, marking lambs, shearing sheep, crutching sheep, and dipping sheep! Also at Mokanger, William's father Charles Hadden worked as a boundary rider, and father-in-law, James Mortimer was a ploughman, just two further examples of jobs on a large station.
William loved his work at Mokanger station so much, he was there into his eighties. I am not sure if he was still in paid employment then, but he was there overseeing the dipping and crutching. I think that qualifies as having toiled.
William's value of hard work and love of the land was passed to his children, along with his quiet, unassuming nature. Son John, also worked at Mokanger, James worked at Mt Sturgeon station and Henry worked at Mooralla station as a boundary rider.
My favourite story of fourth son, my great grandfather Thomas Hadden relates to work. Each Sunday during the 1920s and '30s, my great grandmother Sarah, would pack a week's worth of food in a tin for Thomas to take away working on the roads. This must have been incredibly hard work and having to leave the family for a week at a time, must have made it harder. Likewise, Thomas and Sarah's children, including my Nana, portrayed the same values and ethics as the Haddens before them.
William Hadden was happy to work for a wage for so many years, but as I have mentioned, it put food on the table. He was an honorable servant to the owners of Mokanger, first the Chirnside brothers and then the Gardiner family.
For as long as I can remember, I have considered the hard-working trait displayed by the Hadden family to be thanks to their Scottish heritage, something they were proud of. I don't know why that is but the following is an excerpt from an article on St Andrew's Day, 1922, which supports my theory.
William Hadden probably enjoyed "Advance Australia Fair" penned by a Scot, P. J. McCormick. Happy Australia Day!


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Killers behead high-profile chef with a meat cleaver, and, yes, it's supposed to be funny
Finger Lickin' Fifteen. By Janet Evanovich. St. Martin's, 308 pp., $27.95.
By Janice Harayda
Janet Evanovich is one of the writers whose books I most want to like. She and I went to rival New Jersey high schools at different times – you haven't lived if you were born too late for a South River–New Brunswick Thanksgiving Day game at the old Rutgers Stadium! – and I share a few traits with her Trenton-based bounty hunter Stephanie Plum, including blue eyes, a Hungarian grandmother, and bad car karma. My first novel came from her publisher, a firm that in a perilous market has kept its integrity to a degree widely admired in the industry. And I love comic novels and look for opportunities to praise them on this site.
But Evanovich seems to have lost her focus since the publication of One for the Money, her first novel about Plum, in 1994. From the start, she has combined genres — romance, mystery, adventure, and comedy — in the series. In Finger Lickin' Fifteen, the comedy devolves into farce, a form that relies on over-the-top elements such as improbable plotting and slapstick. Her humor is so broad, it undermines her attempt to tell a plausible story. And it clashes with the realism of other aspects the novel, such as Plum's flirtations with the plainclothes cop Joe Morelli and with Carlos "Ranger" Manoso, who heads the Rangeman security firm for which she moonlights. At times the comedy is so silly or tasteless, Evanovich seems to be parodying herself.
The opening pages of Finger Lickin' Fifteen describe how a pair of killers used a meat cleaver to behead a high-profile chef absurdly named Stanley Chipotle on a Trenton street: "There was a big gusher of blog when they whacked the head off," a witness says. "It was like Old Faithful going off, only it was blood. And then the head rolled down the sidewalk … "
Am I the only person who read this and thought of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter beheaded in Pakistan in 2002 after his kidnappers released a terrifying video of his captivity? And the only reader who isn't ready to laugh — as this novel asks us to do — at the story of an effort to find the people who chopped off a man's head with a cleaver?
A second plot – it gets so much space, you can't call it a "subplot" — involves a series of break-ins at properties protected by the Rangeman security staff, and you keep expecting it to relate in the end to the murder of Stanley Chipotle. It doesn't. The two plots seem to exist mainly to give Plum a chance to flirt throughout the story with Morelli and Ranger, and both storylines have unsatisfying resolutions. The prime mover of one plot escapes justice completely, and only his underlings are apprehended. The people behind the other aren't mentioned by name for the first 300 pages, so if you read mysteries partly for the pleasure of sorting through clues and trying to guess the identity of the perpetrator, you're out of luck.
Some people say that you don't read Evanovich for her plots but for her humor, and that's fair enough. But as her comedy has become more farcical, her humor has become cruder and more sophomoric. Finger Lickin' Fifteen abounds with jokes about farts and other body functions or parts, including those described on its pages as "number two," "cooter," "pecker," "wanger," or "winkie." "Nobody calls me pecker head and lives," says a character unwisely named Peter Pecker. Is Evanovich courting 10-year-olds moving up from Harry Potter books?
Perhaps oddest of all given that Evanovich grew up in New Jersey, Finger Lickin' Fifteen gives you no sense of what makes Trenton unique or a worthy setting for a mystery. The action might as well take place in Cleveland. As I write this review, the United States Attorney for New Jersey has just announced the arrest of dozens of people, including rabbis, mayors and and current or former state legislators. One defendant is said to have passed cash illegally in a box of Apple Jacks cereal stuffed with $97,000. Nobody is asking Evanovich to return to New Jersey from her current homes Florida and New Hampshire. But she has clearly lost touch with some of the wellsprings of material. Who needs to send a severed head rolling down a Trenton street when you can find so much drama in a box of Apple Jacks?
Best line: "… gravy so thick you could walk across a vat of it."
Worst line: No. 1: " 'Nobody calls me pecker head and lives,' Pecker said." No. 2: " 'Yep,' Grandma said. 'He's got a big one. All them Turleys is hung like horses. … I tell you, for a little guy, he had a real good-sized wanger.'" No. 3: "It was a record-breaking fart. On my best day, I couldn't come near to farting like that."
Reading group guide: A Totally Unauthorized Reading Group Guide to Finger Lickin' Fifteen appears in the post that directly preceded this one.
Published: June 2009
Listen to the beginning of Finger Lickin' Fifteen.
Janice Harayda is a former book editor of the Plain Dealer in Cleveland and wrote the comic novel The Accidental Bride (St. Martin's, 1999).
© 2009 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.


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Mark Zuckerberg famously commented that a great engineer is worth a 100 average engineers (something every developer knows deep in her heart). He was talking about A-players, and in our opinion the worst thing any startup can do is accept less than the best and brightest.
Think of Jony Ive at Apple (Sir Jonathan as of December). Compare his impact to that of an average designer.
Supporting rapid growth at a company requires the rapid growth of human capital. New engineers and product managers come on board to build out a company's product. Service and support staffs expand the customer base. Settling for B-players is the same as inviting mediocrity.
Entrepreneur turned Dallas Mavericks' owner Mark Cuban once said a company should hire A-players in only core positions and pay market rates for anything non-core. We disagree. This may be true for a fully scaled company. But at the early stage, a company may not even realize what its true core is.
One good example of this is Groupon. Groupon started to focus on the daily-deal market, but when the company experienced early success, the space became very competitive. New competitor LivingSocial, even eBay and Amazon, offered daily deals. What separates Groupon from the pack and what has become its core competency is its powerful sales machine. This wasn't anticipated at first. There should be no room in a company's early development for B-players.
What is an A-Player?
In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins said the highest expression of leadership is the combination of humility and will. These are traits A-players possess. Their strength of will assures motivation. They never point fingers. The ball stops with them. A-players don't need to be micro-managed or proactively motivated. They only need to be pointed in the right direction.
Humility is often overlooked and equally important. Humble people do not seek personal credit and gladly give it to those who deserve it. They don't engage in politics. The simply have no interest. When they voice an opinion, whatever you may think of it, you can always be sure that it is what they believe. They have no ulterior personal motives. Humility assures that a company is not overrun with attention-seeking prima donnas.
Some of the best A-players you will hire have had a failure or two, but accomplished a lot and took risks as part of that failure. A-players aren't always great leaders. But that doesn't matter. You want humble people with the will to succeed not only as executives, but as your "doers." Startups need not just A-level strategy and A-level vision, but A-level execution.
MerchantCircle found an A -player in an unlikely spot: working on his struggling startup and a political campaign in northwest Florida. He was not from Harvard. He was from the University of West Florida. He did not come in as a strategist; he was a support person. He was even told by someone he should go to a big company to learn how to be an A-player, whatever that means. He executed, he listened, he read, he analyzed, and most importantly he learned. Five years later he had risen to head of product for MerchantCircle and drove some of the company's biggest innovations and in doing so helped set strategy. Ryan Osilla has now helped created Peixe Urbano, one of the fastest growing Internet companies in Brazil.
Attracting A-Players
In Silicon Valley, the job market is very competitive and companies such as Facebook, Google and Zynga pay top dollar. So startups, such as MixRank, have to be clever to keep up. That means using company culture – bright, driven people working together on big things – to set themselves apart.
Last year after graduating from Y Combinator, MixRank co-founders Ilya Lichtenstein and Scott Milliken raised an angel round and set out to expand their team. At first they were unimpressed with the vast majority of the resumes. So they began to reach out into the community using Twitter, Hacker News, technical forums and open-source mailing lists to engage talented, passionate engineers. They wanted independent thinkers with a healthy disrespect for rigid rules and authority. What attracted the "right" candidates wasn't the money, even though they offered market-based salaries and equity, but rather the vision and culture.
Good engineers like to work on difficult problems that keep them interested and engage their creativity, said Ilya. They are excited about the big data problems that MixRank is tackling and the opportunity to have a significant impact on the technical direction of the company.
Keeping A-Players Happy
In the 1980s, Benjamin Schneider developed the "attraction – selection – attrition" framework and the notion that organizations tend to become homogenous over time because they attract and select people who fit in. Those who don't fit in tend to leave. The implication is that as long as a company has a somewhat homogenous group of A-players, it will remain a largely A-class organization.
But this is only part of the story. A-players need a pat on the back now and again. What's interesting is that they only value pats on the back from other A-players. They don't value the approval unless they respect and admire the person giving it. So developing a critical mass of A-players has an added benefit: the company tends to repel B-players and attract other A-players, reinforcing what it has built. Zappos employed this theory when it famously offered its employees $2,000 to quit under the assumption that A-players aren't motivated by money and only B-players would take the deal.
The bottom line is this: B-players tend to be more vain and less secure. They want to be admired, regardless by whom, to make themselves feel superior. So B-players often attract other B-players and more commonly C-Players, who look up to them. In other words, A-players beget even more thoroughly A-companies and B-players eventually beget C companies.
A few things to consider:
- A-players are not just from big name companies. They come from failed startups as well.
- A-players don't only come from the top schools. But they can learn just as quickly.
- A-players are motivated by winning and being around other A-players.
- A-players are not always the smartest, but they want to win and know that learning and execution are two of the key factors to making that happen.
- A-players leave, but generally don't want to. Find ways to keep them if they are aligned with your direction. If they are not aligned with the direction, they can kill you.
- A-players are not always motivated by recognition and financial rewards, but give them both. Then other A-players will come.
By now, we're sure you get the point. Don't let down your hiring standards and your company will be better off for it.
(Victor Belfor (pictured top) is an entrepreneur and investor and currently runs strategic alliances at RingCentral. He can be found on Twitter @vbelfor. Ben T. Smith IV (pictured above with Ryan Osilla) is a serial entrepreneur and investor and the co-founder of MerchantCircle and Spoke. He is available on Twitter @bentsmithfour)
via Victor Belfor, Ben Smith: We'll Trade 100 Employees For One A-Player | peHUB.


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Remember the activists, including an 82-year-old nun, who infiltrated the Y-12 nuclear weapons complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee on July 12? They're members of Transform Now Plowshares, the current version of the original Plowshares Christian pacifist movement. The Plowshares Eight initiated these kinds of actions in 1980 when they snuck into a General Electric nuclear missile facility in Pennsylvania.
Like their predecessors, the Transform Now Plowshares Three are as physically courageous as they are morally. A lengthy jail term could see at least one of its members, 82-year-old Sister Megan Rice, die while incarcerated.
At the trial in February they each face 15 years in prison and fines up to $500,000. Worse, as the co-director of a nuclear watchdog group in Wisconsin called Nukewatch, John LaForge, wrote at the Transform Now Plowshares site, "federal prosecutors have mentioned bringing two heavier charges, including sabotage 'during wartime,' which together carry up to 50 years."
Even worse, the Transform Now Plowshares Three may be left destitute of tools with which to defend themselves. LaForge explains.
If the government gets it way, the trial judge will keep facts about nuclear weapons away from jurors and make sure that questions about the Bomb's outlaw status are left out of jury instructions. … before starting deliberations.
On Nov. 2, federal prosecutors [urged the judge] to "preclude defendants from introducing evidence in support of certain justification defenses." The motion asks the court to forbid all evidence — even expert testimony — about "necessity, international law, Nuremberg Principles, First Amendment protections, the alleged immorality of nuclear weapons, good motive, religious moral or political beliefs regarding nuclear weapons, and the U.S. government's policy regarding nuclear weapons."
The prosecution's justification? That it is "not relevant." Even though
The U.S. Attorney's motion … confesses, "[w]e do not suggest that the deployment of nuclear armament systems does not violate international law, but merely that Congress has power to protect government property."
The value of the Transform Now Plowshares Three's efforts was initially depreciated because the only kind of soul searching resulting from their actions was about plant security, not the morality of nuclear weapons. Now, federal prosecutors would move to expunge justification for the existence of nuclear weapons from the trial and reduce it to a simple case of trespass and vandalism at a military installation.
Clearly, the U.S. Attorney's office fears that admitting discussion of the justice of nuclear weapons to the jurors' deliberations will only obstruct the progress of the trial. More to the point it probably knows it's an argument it can't win.


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This fair lady sends greetings for a Happy Christmas. Seven year old Donald C. Minor received this card at Christmastime 1909, and though the painting is not signed, I believe it to be another Ellen H. Clapsaddle card. Why?
- An embossed frame of gold holds the portrait of a sweet young lady, hair swept stylishly up and under a hat bedecked with fresh roses. A ruffled collar frames a face full of youthful innocence. Such a joyful illustration of Victorian youth is characteristic of Ellen H. Clapsaddle's work.
- Turning the card over, I discovered this:
- The International Art Publishing Company was established in 1895, merging companies formerly run by Messrs. Wolf and Samuel Garre. Their most prolific artist was Ellen H. Clapsaddle, as I discovered while researching Skating to Greet YOU!, a card also printed in 1909.
Until a collector convinces me otherwise, I stand on my judgement: My Fair Lady is a Clapsaddle original. Happy Christmas!


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Kid's DC Comics Joker Deluxe Costume
If you're a mischievous prankster, then this DC Comics - The Joker Deluxe Child Costume is for you. Costume includes jumpsuit with attched jacket and shoe covers, faux hair headpiece and squirting flower. This is an officially licensed DC Comics costume.
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Memory Stick media and SD Card media compatibility information for Sony cameras and camcorders
To check for Memory Stick media and SD Card media compatibility with Sony cameras and camcorders, click on the link for the Accessories Compatibility Information page.
- After you input product name, you should select a category of combination products to Memory Card.
- The accessories compatibility information page lists Sony products only. However, many Sony cameras and camcorders are also compatible with third-party SD cards and Memory Stick media.


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Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Strawberry Scones
Every time I see a scone recipe, I want to try it. Kurt certainly wouldn't mind if I did try every scone recipe, and since I don't even need much encouragement to bake, I baked scones again. Hopefully, this won't become a dedicated scone site, but chances are good there will be additional scone variations presented here. These particular scones are another item from Exceptional Cakes, and there's so much more on my to-bake list from that book. Date shortbread bars or the chocolate caramel tart could be next. But, about these scones, I thought I should compare these to the last scones I baked.
These scones were made with self-rising flour which I had never used before. I didn't even find it at my grocery store, so I made it as described here. An additional two teaspoons of baking powder was added to the homemade self-rising flour. Those ingredients were sifted with salt and sugar, and butter was worked in with my fingertips. Some milk was measured and then eggs were beaten into it and that was poured into the flour butter mixture. I stirred this together and folded in chopped, fresh strawberries. The strawberries were my choice of an addition, but the recipe suggested sultanas. I usually cut butter into flour using a pastry cutter, but this time I worked it in with my fingertips. I think the fingertip method is actually faster, and I definitely had a better sense of when it was well-combined. I may never go back to the pastry cutter. Now, interestingly, the minneola tangelo-buttermilk scones I made in February, used all purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar. Butter was mixed in with a pastry cutter, buttermilk was added, and then the segmented tangelos and zest were incorporated. There were no eggs in the dough, and there was more buttermilk than the milk in these scones.
Since the book is not available, and I had a request for the recipe, I'm including it below.
450 g self-raising flour (or, just under 450 g all-purpose flour, plus 1 tablespoon and 1 and 1/2 teaspoons baking powder, plus 1 1/2 teaspoons salt) (if you're converting to cups, that's 3 cups all-purpose flour plus the baking powder and salt) (and, yes, add the salt and baking powder listed below as well.)
pinch of salt
25 g granulated sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
85 g unsalted butter, softened
2 eggs
200 ml cold milk
chopped fresh strawberries or fresh or dried fruit of your choice (I used about a pint of fresh strawberries.)
1 egg for glaze
sugar for sprinkling (I used turbinado sugar.)
-preheat oven to 170 degrees C or 350 degrees F; line a large baking tray with parchment or silpat; sift the flour, salt, sugar, and baking powder into a bowl; add the butter and rub in with your fingertips; in a small bowl, lightly beat the eggs, add the milk, then pour into the flour; stir together quickly and lightly, adding fruit if using; don't overwork the dough, the quicker and lighter you are, the better the scones will be
-tip the dough onto a lightly floured surface and pat into a one inche thickness; cut into rounds and place on prepared baking tray; lightly beat egg for glaze and brush onto tops of scones, then sprinkle with sugar
-bake in the center of the oven for 20-25 minutes or until risen and lightly browned
Posted by lisa is cooking at Tuesday, April 28, 2009
38 comments:
Spread a little clotted cream on one of these beauties and you'd almost have a strawberry-shortcake scone. ;)ReplyDelete
I've never had strawberry scones before. A great way of using strawberries.ReplyDelete
They look beautiful!ReplyDelete
- AnonymousApril 28, 2009 at 6:42 PM
Nice way to use up this season's sweet berries!ReplyDelete
I'll find any excuse to make scones. I love them and I also love the process of making them. These strawberry scones look so pretty. I have some self-rising flour too, but if it's expired it's good to know that it's not hard to make.ReplyDelete
these are very pretty scones - I saw scones this size in a little bakery the other day selling for $2.50 each.ReplyDelete
those are just gorgeous! i've never used self rising flour either. i'll have to try it since the texture of these sounds perfect!!ReplyDelete
THis is truly a wonderful recipe Lisa, I love how you change a simple scones into a more elegant and delicious treats.ReplyDelete
I having seen freststrawberry scone before, nice combination making them look so full of mystery of goodness. Just amazing and yet simple.ReplyDelete
I like that you left the strawberries in chunks rather that mashing them. So when you bite into them you get a nice piece of fresh strawberry.ReplyDelete
Wow,...Lisa! You have created a wonderful scone!!ReplyDelete
I love the strawberry in it! It must be lovely to eat with clotted cream & strawberry jam!
Ever since going on holiday to England, when I was a child, I have been a fan of tea & scones: a real cream tea!
I would love to eat those with some tea and butter. Or replace the biscuits in a strawberry shortcake with your gorgeous scones!ReplyDelete
Wow, I have only seen Scones with raisins, what a great idea to have strawberries in scones! I am drooling!!!ReplyDelete
- AnonymousApril 29, 2009 at 7:12 AM
Great recipe and the scones are so pretty! Delicious!ReplyDelete
I always thought a scone was just a fruity biscuit. Finally made some and the light went on--yum. What a beautiful spring combination. I love Passionate Eater's strawberry shortcake idea.ReplyDelete
boy, i think carolyn's onto something with the strawberry shortcake scone notion--yum! i always associate scones with that triangular shape, so i love seeing round ones like this. they're lovely. :)ReplyDelete
Oh, scones! How I love them. Simon too (he's British and when he was a kid and other boys were buying remote control cars, he was spending his allowance on orange mint scones and Devonshire cream). I love that these scones are round -- Simon always complains about the wedge-shaped American scone so he'd accept this one on the merit of its form alone. Strawberries will be in season soon -- can't wait to try this.ReplyDelete
Mmmm strawberry scones sound like they would be perfection! I've never had them, they look gorgeous!ReplyDelete
I could go for one of these mouth-watering scones right now! How delicious!ReplyDelete
The scones look so divine. Could you post the recipe? My library doesn't have "Exceptional Cakes." :(ReplyDelete
These look delicious! I'm still a novice when it comes to scones, but this looks like a great one to try.ReplyDelete
Beautiful scones. I made scones only once. I should start make those again.ReplyDelete
yum yum! I love following your blog! :DReplyDelete
What great looking scones. I can taste the strawberries. Perfect.ReplyDelete
They look positively scrumptious!ReplyDelete
- AnonymousApril 30, 2009 at 8:28 AM
love the little specks of red in there! I think I'm gonna have to cross scones off my "fear food" list just for a taste of these!ReplyDelete
I'm seeing scones all over - I'm really jonesing for them (would that make it 'sconesing'?) These look delicious. I love how the strawberries really kept their shape! And thanks for the tip/link for making self-rising flour.ReplyDelete
My husband's favorite fruit is strawberries so I guess I'll set aside "my" scone recipe and try these. :)ReplyDelete
I don't bake much.. how i would love to make these!! may be some day i will gather up the courage to do it:-)ReplyDelete
I've never made scones before and since strawberries are seasonal this would be a great recipe.ReplyDelete
I cannot get away from my favorite orange or lemon scones, but I am going to buy some fresh strawberries and go this route...how perfect they are!ReplyDelete
What a great use of strawberries. I wish I can some of these lovely scones for tea break now =)ReplyDelete
yum, thank you!ReplyDelete
- AnonymousMay 5, 2009 at 9:08 PM
thanks for including the recipe--i thought these looked fantastic and would feed my never ending strawberry hole...guess it's time i bought that scale, huh?ReplyDelete
This is just my kind of baked item. I have self-rising flour in my kitchen, so maybe I'll make them and let you know the results! Or post on our blog www.mousebouche.blogspot.com (A Mouse Bouche). :-)ReplyDelete
They're soooo yummy! :3 I can't understand why I've been waiting for such long time before my first attempt to make breakfast scones :) Really delicious.ReplyDelete
I have a breakfast's blog. You can see my scones here: http://posilek-mistrzow.blogspot.com/2011/06/czwartek_16.html#more . Of course I referred to your blog :)
Thank u!
And after Panna L, I've made mine wholemeal ones :) Now I can say that... I love scones!*ReplyDelete
Here they are - http://breakfast.blox.pl/2011/06/Scones-z-truskawkami.html
*with strawberries of course ;)
These look so amazing! Does anybody know the converted measurements used in non-metric measurements, like cup/TBS/tsp, etc? Can't wait to try it for NYE! Thanks!ReplyDelete


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More than a thousand attendees are expected to gather for a four-day conference to celebrate John Calvin's 500th birthday, reports Michael Ireland, chief correspondent, ASSIST News Service.
As America prepares to celebrate Independence Day this July 4, Vision Forum Ministries will be hosting the national celebration to honor the 500th birthday of John Calvin, a man who many scholars recognize as America's "Founding Father."
The event — The Reformation 500 Celebration — will take place July 1-4 at the Park Plaza Hotel in downtown Boston, according to a media release about the event.
"Long before America declared its independence, John Calvin declared and defended principles that birthed liberty in the modern world," noted Doug Phillips, president of Vision Forum Ministries.
"Scholars both critical and sympathetic of the life and theology of Calvin agree on one thing: that this reformer from Geneva was the father of modern liberty as well as the intellectual founding father of America," he said.
Phillips pointed out: "Jean Jacques Rousseau, a fellow Genevan who was no friend to Christianity, observed: 'Those who consider Calvin only as a theologian fail to recognize the breadth of his genius. The editing of our wise laws, in which he had a large share, does him as much credit as his Institutes. . . . [S]o long as the love of country and liberty is not extinct amongst us, the memory of this great man will be held in reverence.'"
He continued: "German historian Leopold von Ranke observed that 'Calvin was virtually the founder of America.' Harvard historian George Bancroft was no less direct with this remark: 'He who will not honor the memory and respect the influence of Calvin knows but little of the origin of American liberty.'
"John Adams, America's second president, agreed with this sentiment and issued this pointed charge: 'Let not Geneva be forgotten or despised. Religious liberty owes it much respect.'
"As we celebrate America's Independence this July 4, we would do well to heed John Adams' admonition and show due respect to the memory of John Calvin whose 500th birthday fall six days later," Phillips stated.
Calvin, a convert to Reformation Christianity born in Noyon, France, on July 10, 1509, is best known for his influence on the city of Geneva, the media release explains.
"It was there that he modeled many of the principles of liberty later embraced by America's Founders, including anti-statism, the belief in transcendent principles of law as the foundation of an ethical legal system, free market economics, decentralized authority, an educated citizenry as a safeguard against tyranny, and republican representative government which was accountable to the people and a higher law," the release states.
The Reformation 500 Celebration will honor Calvin's legacy, along with other key Protestant reformers, and will feature more than thirty history messages on the impact of the Reformation, Faith & Freedom mini-tours of historic Boston, and a Children's Parade.
The festivities will climax on America's Independence Day as attendees join thousands of others for the world-renowned music and fireworks celebration on the Esplanade with the Boston Pops Orchestra.
Report from the Christian Telegraph


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Sample pack details
Product details:
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