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Thursday, January 19, 2006

Advice day

It was just like Overheard in New York:

Tenant: Did you catch the flu yet?
Me: No
Tenant: Well, you don't want to.

Ah...yeah. Scratch that off my to do list.

So after receiving such great advice like that, I have decided to pass along some of my own. See, I rarely get sick. If I do it is usually gone in 2 days. I may miss half a day of work tops. Either my immune system was stolen from Superman or I have effectively pickled my insides with booze.

My advice to you is the guaranteed cure for the common cold. Slam it with alcohol. I am not joking here. Feel a cold coming on? Follow these rules

  1. Drink two shots of your favorite booze before going to sleep. It cannot be anything wimpy like Peach Schnapps. Though Dr. McGillicuddy's is acceptable. But I recommend whisky or brandy.
  2. First thing in the morning, after getting out of bed, do another shot. Seriously. This is very important. You must do a shot immediately. Don't brush your teeth, don't take a shower, do not pass Go- unless your liquor cabinet is on the other side of Go.
  3. Before going to bed on the second night, do another 2 shots.
  4. Repeat in morning if necessary. Or if you simply want to do another shot.
This will kill the cold quickly. Works every time. The only problem I have ever heard of it not working is when people do not do the morning shot.

Speaking of shots, I forgot to mention my grand idea yesterday. This would work well for Greek restaurants and bakeries. Yesterday I mentioned how the muffin loaf would have tasted better with some booze on it. Well, why not offer that as a late night dessert? You take a muffin from earlier in the day, rip the top off and pour a shot on it. Amaretto on a chocolate chip muffin. Whisky on a banana muffin. Rum on a chocolate muffin. Don't you want one now?

Back to some advice. I have documented some of my dealing with moronic drivers already. Now you get some advice on how I like to deal with them. I have adapted this from my friend Mark. He mentioned this move to me years ago and I have toyed and adjusted it to my own style. This morning, I was stuck behind some guy who was doing the speed limit in the left lane. He would speed up to 60 but come right back down. There was no traffic in front of him. At first, I got up on his ass because of a lane change. My headlights lit up his bald spot pretty well. So as he accelerated up, I did too. But then the bastard slowed down, putting me right on his ass again. He then made mistake number one. He touched his brakes, the international symbol of "I am a pussy driver, stop tailgating me or I will cry". Don't do that. That is wrong. Besides, that puts my into poker driving mode. You showed weakness. I will exploit that weakness. I have tasted blood and want to go for the kill.

Next he made the first of two dick moves. The first was is beyond stupid and is just plain selfish. Right by the stadium, where the stated speed limit jumps from 50 to 55, he thought he would piss me off by slowing down- to 40! This is an extremely childish maneuver. I didn't get mad, but I am sure the 6 vehicles behind me who had to slow down because of this ass clown weren't happy. They may react like I do in a situation like this. I always look ahead to see who the asshat is that just fucked up traffic. That is the one I will be upset with. If they had a chance to get out of their cars and beat the shit out of someone, it wouldn't be me. So, he not only failed to get me mad, he could have caused an accident behind me. People, don't be a dick like this jagoff.

So after slowing down, he takes off. Well, I figure I will now screw with this guy. I don't have push the pedal to the metal to catch this dope. I get back up to speed and soon am back on his ass again. I aim my headlights to his side mirror, something I hate being on the receiving end of when I drive the Mustang. He then pull out dick move #2. He hits his brakes hard. If only I had a piece of shit car. I would ram into him. But I didn't. I was prepared for something like this. This dropped him down to 45 so I was back on his ass.

I can tolerate one dick move but not two without some kind of reaction. I laid on my horn to show some displeasure (yeah...displeasure is an accurate word). Being the Mensa member he is, he gave me the finger. Original *eye roll*. He then sped up and finally changed into the center lane, freeing up traffic. As I passed him, I could tell he was looking to say something and give another gesture. Here is where my advice to you comes in. As I passed, I applauded him. Yes, I held my hands up high and clapped. This pissed him off more. I thought the finger was coming through the glass.

So kids, never let the donks tick you off. Be happy, smile and give them some applause, a thumbs up, or something. This will really get them madder than they already are. And remember, don't be the dick.

And go check out some of the new links I put up. Just some of the stuff I have started reading and enjoying.

AWE said...

Kahlua is fucking awesome with chocolate chip muffins or cookies. This made me think about a black russian made with Kahlua and Stolie's Vanilla.

As for the driving advice, I will use this tonight. I know I will be pissed at some Asshat on the drive home.

djw said...

I've been doing the applause instead of the finger for years and it really works.
I haven't gotten a flu shot in over twenty years and in that time I may have gotten a handful of minor colds. Along with the shots, I also Vicks up my chest and wear a heavy sweatshirt. Vicks up my feet and wear wool socks. I sweat that cold out in one night.

Joaquin "The Rooster" Ochoa said...

Two Things:

1. Where is my cool shirt?

2. How about the picture Otis posted of you...classic.

StB said...

Rooster, I call that my poker face look. I like it.

You have to wait until the Bash. By then 2006 should be out.

Blonde said...

My Irish immigrant grandmother thinks that whiskey in hot tea before bed cures all. You will sweat like Patrick Ewing, but you will be bright eyed and bushy tailed when you wake in the morning.

PSA: Flu shots are bullshit. Don't get one.

saffers said...

My grandmother and great grandmother used equal parts of whiskey, honey and lemon juice as a cough remedy.

I swear by this mixture. As an added bonus it makes you sleep like a baby if taken at bedtime.

Anonymous said...

I'm writing a paper on the benefits of alcohol and your website has the most ridiculous bullshit of a way to get rid of a cold! It sounds like an excuse to drink if you ask me! Hopefully you drink yourself stupid. Good day-

erin said...

Dude, I just read Details magazine and they tell me the cure for a 2010 hangover is, get this: Apple Juice mixed with genuine Sea Salt (like I can get that where I live), and drink it down real fast. No booze involved. I'm a little skeptical about this though and like your solution much better!


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Thrift Store Desk: Trash to Treasure

Earlier this week I posted the above photo on Facebook of my little corner-of-the-room sewing space. This is just that, a small corner in our guest room I claimed as mine... all mine. No kid toys, no junk mail, no half-done ripped out coloring pages... just pretty. AND, this "pretty" I'm talking about is the DIY kinda pretty; made up of thrift store finds, dumpster dives, and DIY projects... including the desk (which is really what this is all about). Before we get to the trash to treasure desk, let me explain!
  • Mirror: $10 - Goodwill
  • Clock: $1 - Garage Sale (and it works!)
  • Glass Vases: FREE - Leftover wedding centerpiece items
  • Chair: $25 ish in supplies - Read about this garbage rescue/DIY project HERE
  • Pillow: FREE - Upcycle! Read about that one HERE
  • Curtains: FREE - More DIY mojo on those HERE
  • Desk: $40 - Thrift Store
  • Sewing Machine: FREE - It was a gift if you're wondering :)
That's right.  Even if we round up for things like tape and paint and supplies of the sort, this whole space was probably less than $100.

So where did I get the desk?  In a tiny thrift store in a strip mall behind a Wendy's. How's that for glamorous? After being turned off by the looks of this particular thrift store, I finally went in one day and discovered a gem. Yes, the place was small and kinda crummy but it was also a food bank for our community (had no idea).  All of their items were donations and all of their profits went to buy food for their pantry (which was also in the store). Anyone could come in and pick up peanut butter, bread, canned goods, etc... free of charge, no questions asked, at any time. How cool is that? I decided to stop by often to see if I could *ahem* do my part to help and purchase items. One day I found the desk.

I seriously looked twice, maybe 3 times, at the masking tape price sticker. Could it really be $40?! I asked to make sure. It was. I think I ran to pay and like a psycho calmly asked the loading guys to put it in my vehicle.... like right now!

This picture actually makes it look in good shape... it was not. The veneer was lifting big time on the top. It was also chipped and missing in some places. There was a handle missing, some chunks of desk looked like they had been hacked off with a hammer, and it stunk like last years gym socks. But I saw the potential!

It took a week or so of glueing, sanding, filling, painting, and airing-out.

In fact, I did the desk along side my dresser. You can read about that adventure HERE. Here they are as good buddies in my garage. :) This is why I have given up hope of parking in there. The desk was in no condition to be stained... unlike the dresser. This sucker needed paint to have a second chance at life.

Here's a closeup of some of the wood filler I used on the front.

I used the same white homemade chalk paint I used on the Goodwill end tables too.

I had to fill the original hardware holes in the top drawers since I wanted to use glass knobs there. The original hardware required 2 holes, the glass knobs needed only one hole in the center. So I filled, sanded, and drilled new holes.

After it was all painted I decided to add a scaled-down version of my DIY Moroccan stencil on the sides since that is the first thing you see when you walk in the room.
So, I hope you like my "trash to treasure" desk and that you're inspired to try out that sketchy thrift store you always pass but never go in :)

  1. That is a beautiful corner! I hope it stays "all yours".

  2. The desk turned out fantastic & I love a pop of yellow :)

  3. YOU always inspire me sister.. OMGOODNESS .. GOOD GRAVY that's beautiful and I love those curtains... STUNNING

  4. What a great makeover!!!!!! Gorgeous,fantastic..:)

  5. I love how your desk turned out and how clean your sewing area is... exact opposite of my area! lol.

  6. How impressive are you! Well done.
    I am currently trawling trying to find a crummy desk to give a little love to for my daughters bedroom. I hope it turns out half as well as yours!

  7. I, too, am in the middle of a desk re-do. Thanks for the inspiration to keep pushing forward!

  8. Gorgeous! I love the stencil on the side. Such a great idea! I'll be re painting a desk soon too and I'll have to swing by ye old craft store to see what stencils they have in stock

    1. Thank you! I still use this desk all the time. Just sat down at it last night to write a few post-Christmas thank you notes! :)

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The Insiders part 2: Link and Whitaker

This morning Jeff Link, Bruce Braley’s campaign manager and former Attorney General Matt Whitaker join Channel 13’s Dave Price on the Insiders.

The panelist discuss the current gun control debate occurring in Washington, DC.  Is mental health reform being left out?

For part 3 click here

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The nation’s weather

Weather Underground midday recap for Friday, April 26, 2013.

Severe showers and thunderstorms developed across the South on Friday. A trough of low pressure moved off the Southern Rockies and into the Southern Plains, which pulled moisture in from the Gulf of Mexico. This system allowed for showers and thunderstorms to develop from Texas through Oklahoma that advanced eastward across the Mid-Mississippi River Valley and into the Tennessee Valley throughout the day. There was a chance that some of these storms would turn severe across northeastern Texas and southeastern Oklahoma. The main threats of severe thunderstorm development was strong winds and large hail, but severe storms have not yet developed in these areas. Rainfall totals in these areas ranged around an inch by mid-day on Friday. Some areas saw periods of heavy rainfall and gusty winds.

To the north, a few widespread showers persisted across the Great Lakes as a system slowly exited the region. Elsewhere, high pressure over the East Coast maintained dry and pleasant conditions. The Northeast saw highs in the mid-60s, while the Southeast approached the 80s. High pressure also dominated the West Coast and created a mostly sunny and dry day. The Pacific Northwest saw a sunny day with highs in the 70s, while the Southwest reached into the lower 80s.

Temperatures in the Lower 48 states Friday have ranged from a morning low of 19 degrees at Leadville, Colo. to a midday high of 88 degrees at Brooksville, Fla.

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National Guard marches at ‘Dega

[lin_video src=×9&auto_next=1&auto_start=0&div_id=videoplayer-1372909187&height=480&page_count=5&pf_id=9624&show_title=1&va_id=4127623&width=610&windows=2 service=syndicaster width=610 height=480 div_id=videoplayer-1372909187 type=script]TALLADEGA SUPERSPEEDWAY – (WIAT)  Nearly 100 Army National Guard officer candidates spent a little time Wednesday evening at Talladega SuperSpeedway.  They weren’t driving around the famous asphalt, there were marching around it.

Crossing the finish line meant the end of a mandatory seven mile hike.  The candidates will spend a total of 57 days at Fort McClellan in Anniston learning how to become officers.  Instructors say the candidates are kept in almost continual stress to see how they react to crisis.

Wednesday’s hike is just one of the physical stepping stones to becoming an officer.  Before Officer Candidate School is over they still have finish a 10 mile hike through rough terrain – complete with a 35 pound pack.

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Scammers posing as Alabama Power

MOUNTAIN BROOK, Ala. (WIAT) — A scam we have told you about before is back in the area and this time it’s targeting local businesses. Mountain Brook police warned business owners last week after a business in the area got a call they thought was from Alabama Power. The call was actually from a scammer and someone from that business gave out their checking account information over the phone. Luckily, that business’s bank helped stop the scammers from getting any money but police and Alabama Power want people all over the area to be on high alert.

These scammers call businesses and say they are with Alabama Power. They say that business has an overdue bill and if they don’t pay immediately, they’ll shut off power. The scammer also says they only take untraceable forms of payment like Moneygrams or a prepaid card like a Green Dot Card.

Alabama Power tips We spoke with a representative from Alabama Power and he says they only started seeing these scammers targeting businesses in the last year. He says they are purposely calling at the worst possible times, like during the dinner rush at restaurants. “There are a lot of factors there that scammers are using to put the pressure on but folks just need to know we don’t do business that way,” Ike Pigott with Alabama Power said. Pigott says Alabama Power will never come to a customer’s door and demand payment. If you do owe them money, you will receive plenty of warning before they threaten to turn off power. They will also never call you and ask for bank account or credit card information. If you do get a call from Alabama Power and you have any doubts, hang up and call them back at the Alabama Power Customer Service number: 1-800-245-2244.

Copyright 2014 WIAT-CBS42

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Difference between revisions of "View-builder vocabulary"

Line 18: Line 18:
* 1..N child
* 1..N child
* 0..1 layoutRule
* 0..1 layoutRule
Allowed values of layoutRule attribute. Instances:
* Vbox - Display all children (e.g. Slots) in a single vertical area spacing them out evenly.
* Hbox - Display all children (e.g. Slots) in a single horizontal area spacing them out evenly.

Revision as of 17:43, 15 May 2012

{{#eclipseproject:technology.higgins|eclipse_custom_style.css}} Vocabulary to describe a view of a context. A view is a tree structure of groups of attributes to be displayed/edited. Part of the Persona Data Model 2.0.

UML Overview

A logical group of Slots and/or sub-Groups

  • subClassOf: ViewNode
  • 1..1 skos:prefLabel
  • 1..N child
  • 0..1 layoutRule

Allowed values of layoutRule attribute. Instances:

  • Vbox - Display all children (e.g. Slots) in a single vertical area spacing them out evenly.
  • Hbox - Display all children (e.g. Slots) in a single horizontal area spacing them out evenly.

Similar to a regular Group, a MultiGroup is parent for a set of child Slots. Different from a Group, it also has an view-builder:attribute attriubte. Another difference is that a MultiGroup self-replicates such that there end up being N instances of itself--one for each of the N values of its attribute attribute. Each of these N values is an instance of p:Person (p1, p2, ... pN). The view-builder:attribute attributes of its child Slot should be evaluated within the scope of its parent p:Person p1..pN.

It is used in view that need to display a set of N "credit cards" (really p:Person nodes with p:Buyer roles), or a set of N "addresses" (really p:Person nodes).

  • subClassOf: Group
  • 1..1 attribute
  • 0..1 app-data:script

Metadata about how an attribute from the Persona vocabulary (or one of its imports) or from the Flat Persona vocabulary or from the rdf (e.g. rdf:class) should be presented.

  • subClassOf: ViewNode
  • 1..1 attribute
  • 0..1 app-data:script

(Abstract) A node in the view hierarchy

  • 1..1 displayOrder
  • 0..1 layout

The attribute that should be displayed in this Slot, or the attribute to evaluate when handling a MultiGroup.

  • domain: Slot
  • value: rdf:Property

A child of a Group

  • domain: Group
  • value: ViewNode

A number that indicates the relative position with respect to the displayOrder of sibling objects with this same attribute. Lower numbers indicate precedence.

  • domain: Slot or Group
  • value: xsd:Integer

An optional URL of an html/javascript template sub-page of a web app.

  • domain: ViewNode
  • value: URI

Indicates what layout algorithm to use to layout its contents (child Slots & Groups). If no value is provided then a Vbox is assumed.

  • domain: Group
  • value: LayoutRule

The maximum with that this Slot should be displayed in pixels.

  • domain: Slot
  • value: xsd:nonNegativeInteger

After the user edits a slot, this script should be executed. (e.g. to push the updated value to an external website).

  • domain: Slot
  • value: app-data:Push

Displaying Groups

Each Group MUST have a skos:prefLabel that describes the internationalized string label for the group.

A Group is a logical collection of Slots (and sub-groups). It is entirely up to the look & feel of the UI to determine how this grouping (and sub-grouping) is represented.

There is a special kind of (non-top level) Group called a MultiGroup. Unlike regular Groups it has (like a Slot) a view-builder:attribute. As described in the MultiGroup class above, a MultiGroup is a pattern that describes how its child Slots should be collected together into N groups. N is the number of values of the MultiGroup's view-builder:attribute attribute. This attribute's values are always p:Person instances. Each of these p:Person instances acts as a source of attribute/values for one of these N groups.

MultiGroups are used to display a set of attributes (e.g. credit card number, name, address, phone, etc.) for each of N p:Person entities.

Cascading Metadata

Each Slot or MultiGroup holds an attribute A. In order to display the slot both the form and the value of A must be retrieved. The value might be a boolean, a string, etc. The form of A is described by attribute metadata (as described in Attribute Metadata and in Attribute Definitions) --a set of attributes about A. How to retrieve the value of A is out of the scope of this document. We are concerned here about how to retrieve metadata that describes the form of A.

We have recently introduced a convention that the context id of metadata attribute M must be the same as the context id of A. If the currie form of A is ctxt:attname then the currie form of M must also have a prefix of ctxt. For example if the attribute is fp:postalCode then metadata statements about fp:postalCode must be in the Flat Persona vocabulary context (fp being a prefix for this vocabulary) along with the definition of fp:postalCode itself.

In the case where A has an associated mapping rule (details: Mapping vocabulary) that maps it to attribute B, the situation is more complex. In this case the final, computed metadata about A is derived by merging the metadata about A found in its same context (as described in the previous paragraph) with the metadata found about B in its context, overriding the latter with the former if the same metadata attribute is found on both. This is roughly analogous to how cascading stylesheets work in HTML CSS. Lastly, since B may in turn be mapped to C the cascading is recursive.

Cascading Cardinality

We now discuss a special case of cascading metadata, namely cardinality metadata. Unlike all other kinds of attribute metadata, cardinality statements are not a part of the attribute definition, they are a part of a class that uses the attribute. For example (theoretically, although not in practice) the vcard:Address class could state that the maximum cardinality of the vcard:country attribute was 1. This owl:maxCardinality predicate is an attribute of an owl:Restriction of which the Address is a subclass. This is expressed as follows:

     a       owl:Class ;
             [ a       owl:Restriction ;
               owl:onProperty :country ;
               owl:minCardinality "1"^^xsd:nonNegativeInteger
             ] ;

Not only are cardinality statements expressed differently from other kinds of metadata, but the requirements for cardinality are a bit different as well. Unlike other kinds of metadata, depending on the context where the attribute is used (e.g. a connection context to an external website), the cardinality restrictions on it may differ. For example, in a connection context to say, amazon.com, the site may ask for a street address but not require that the country to be specified. In this case the view-builder-powered dynamic form might, based on the UI designer's preference, either (a) simply omit the country slot or (b) include the country slot but indicate that it is not required. Making things more complicated, cardinality of a single attribute may vary within the context. For example, a site might allow an attribute to be optional during one kind of interaction (e.g. subscribing to an email list), but require that same attribute in a different interaction (e.g. registering for an account, or at checkout).

To support these requirements we allow cardinality sub-class restrictions to be placed on the root ViewNode of a view-builder tree structure, in addition to placing them in the usual place, namely, the :Person class in the template context, with the former values overriding the latter if both are present. To make this legal in owl, we add an rdf:type = owl:Class statement about the root ViewNode. Thus this special entity is simultaneously an instance of ViewNode class, and a class (subclass of Thing) at the same time.

Here is an example of a view-builder structure:

     rdf:type view:Slot ;
     view:attribute fp:ageRange ;
     view:displayOrder 1 .

     rdf:type view:Group ;
     view:child :PostalCode , :AgeRange , :Gender ;
     view:displayOrder 1 ;
     skos:prefLabel "Demographics"^^xsd:string .

     rdf:type view:Slot ;
     view:attribute fp:gender ;
     view:displayOrder 2 .

     rdf:type view:Slot ;
     view:attribute p:like ;
     view:displayOrder 1 .

     rdf:type view:Group ;
     view:child :Interest ;
     view:displayOrder 2 ;
     skos:prefLabel "Interests"^^xsd:string .

     rdf:type view:Slot ;
     view:attribute fp:postalCode ;
     view:displayOrder 10 .

     rdf:type view:Group ;
     view:child :InterestsGroup , :DemographicsGroup ;
     view:displayOrder 1 ;
     skos:prefLabel "Advertising Profile"^^xsd:string .

The demographics group shown above has slots whose attributes, fp:gender, fp:ageRange, fp:postalCode, are all from the Flat Persona vocabulary.

The interests group shown above has a slot whose attribute is the complex valued attribute, online-behavior:interest. In this rather special case the presentation logic should render the name of the class of the instance (e.g. "Humor > Satire" or "World Destinations > Africa > East Africa > Nigeria") as opposed to rendering the value of an attribute of the instance as is done in the usual case.

A few additional notes on the above example

The FlatPersona namespace is only useful when either (a) there are not multiple entity values of the same attribute being requested, or, (b) there are just a few alternative entities and the "right" one can be figured out by matching using the role tags (e.g. "home" vCard entity vs. "work" vCard entity). Flattening, a simplification. It is an attempt to hide some complexity. But there are times when we can't hide the complexity. Multiple non-role-tagged entity values of an attribute is one of those times.

Displaying the "interests" of a user is a case where the flat persona approach won't work because a single p:Person node has a multi-valued (multi-entity-valued) "p:like" attribute. You'll notice in the view hierarchy under the interests Group there is a Slot whose view:attribute attribute whose value is p:like--a value that is from the persona vocabulary and NOT from the flat persona vocabulary. We have to get all of the values of this attribute. These values are (multiple) int:InterestTopic-class entities. The specific class of this InterestTopic might be "Satire", but of course we probably want to display something like "Humor > Satire" --in other words rendering not just the "leaf" class name but where it sits in relation to the (up to 6 levels) of super-classes ("Humor" being the super-class of "Satire" in this case).


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For Hotel Reservations Worldwide, Call 24/7 to TRAVEL.COM: From US/Canada - 800-329-6117 / From Europe - 00-800-1120-1140

Tachileik is in Shan State, Myanmar, on the border with Thailand.

Although just 5m across the river from Mae Sai, the most northern town in Thailand, Tachileik is in a whole different world. The happy outgoing atmosphere that you have been used to in 'the land of smiles' in Thailand evaporates instantly and is replaced by a tense and uncomfortable one. This is not to say that the Burmese people are not welcoming, indeed they love tourists and are very keen to sit down and talk (when they think they are not being watched), but do not expect to feel at ease here, and do not be surprised if you are followed by government people throughout the town. The main benefit of visiting here is the ability to go to Myanmar without the stress of getting a visa.

The town is a typical border trading town with a twist. The majority of people crossing over to Myanmar are Thais shopping for bootlegged Chinese goods in the market. Alternatively some Thais cross to play golf in the only course in the region so expect to see the very surreal site of large groups of people crossing the border carrying a set of clubs.

If you are expecting to see 'the real Myanmar' this is not the place to do it. If you are 'Stamp collecting' in your passport, want to see something a bit more visceral than what you find in Thailand or are at a loose end in Chiang Raifor the day then this is a good place to go.

Get in

From Thailand

It is possible to enter Myanmar at the Mae Sai border post. Two types of visas are available at the border: a one day visa for Tachilek (US$5) [NOTE: as of July 2009 this pass has not been offered and you will need to buy the 14 day pass regardless of how long you stay] and a 14 day visa (US$10) for the Tachilek-Kengtung area that is not valid for travel to other parts of Myanmar.Be warned that the Myanmar Immigration authorities will hold on to your passport for the duration of your stay in the country giving you an entry permit instead. You will get your passport back on crossing back over to Thailand. Holders of a normal one-month Myanmar visa cannot use it to enter at Mae Sai. Be sure that you have the appropriate travel documents to re-enter Thailand at Mae Sai, you will only be able to get a 15 day entry pass into Thailand rather than the usual 30 day one that you get at the airport. If you have an actual visa and want to keep it, remember to get a re-entry permit in advance.

By air

Air Bagan and Yangon Airways fly to Heho via Kengtung daily. Air Mandalay offers a non-stop flight to Mandalay. All have connecting or continuing service to Yangon and other parts of Myanmar.

By road

Shared taxis (US$12) and buses (US$8) run to Kengtung (4-5 hrs) in the mornings. A permit is necessary but bus and taxi drivers can make the arrangements (don't show up at the last minute). Onward travel from Kengtung to Mong La on the Chinese border is possible with permission from Myanmar immigration, easily organized in Kengtung.

Get around

Tachilek is small and there are plenty of trishaws for hire. Motorcycle taxis and car taxis are also available. The bus station and airport are outside town on the road to Kengtung. Take a pickup or hire a taxi to get there.

Try your luck at the Regina casino, a short 100 baht tuk tuk ride from the border.They're the same people who own the golf course. Definately for low rollers, you can play roulette with 10 baht chips! They've also got black jack, craps and gaming machines. If you change 2,000 baht into chips you get a free Thai lunch. It's nothing special, but for free, who's going to complain? you can change left over chips back again afterwards. A casino minibus will take you back to the border.

Tachileik market is much like any market you would find on the Thai side of the border except that it sells a large quantity of items that would get you into a good deal of trouble with your customs authority back home.

You can find all the latest DVD's at prices ranging from 40 Baht. As long as you don't go mad with the quantity you should have no problems getting them back into Thailand, as for taking them back home, that depends on your countries customs policies.

Expect, occasionally to see wildlife, endangered animal pelts and skulls, though these are rarely seen in the main part of the market. Local handicrafts range from kitsch to genuine Shan clothing.

Knocked off prescription drugs (in particular Viagra) and X rated films are carried around by very annoying, but licensed hawkers. knives and guns are freely avaialable Do Not Buy the Cigarettes as they are usually Burmese knock offs put into western branded packages and will likely get you into trouble when you try and return into Thailand.

Be wary that if you do intend to shop here the Thai customs authority screen every bag returning to Thailand and do not take kindly to many of the things sold in the market.This applies mainly to returning Thais however, Foreigners bags are hardly ever screened as long as the bearer looks presentable

Most tourists to Tachilek pop across the border from Thailand for a night and there are many hotels in town. Prices are usually quoted in Baht but dollars are welcome.

Get out

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text:
2010-03-11 50 12

From Geo Hashing
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Thu 11 Mar 2010 in 50,12:
50.8358529, 12.1241861

peeron  Eupeodes google  osm  crox

[edit] Participants

[edit] Expedition

After my successful midnight expedition in 50 11, I took a good nap and went to work in the morning by bike and planned to fetch the 50 12 geohash as well after work. Since it was still around or below freezing point, the whole trip to the village southeast of Gera and back by bike would have been a bit too much. So I decided to take the train to Ronneburg and just cycle back home. I have to admit, that I don't like using public transport (for other people it's ok, because it keeps the roads free for me), but in that case it was a good solution, especially because I still had to earn the public transport achievement.

So, I started from work at 18:00 and rode 5 km to train station Jena-West. I successfully bought a ticket there at a teller (long time since I did it), which needed five attempts to recognize my 5-Euro bill and stepped into the train on schedule at 18:22. I didn't have anything to read or to listen to or anything else to do and was very bored until the train got me to Ronneburg 45 min later.

From there I followed the prepared GPS track and quickly got to the hashpoint, which was less than 10 km from the train station. It was 160 m into a field, but due to the frozen ground, partly covered with snow, it was okay. After taking the standard uninteresting hash-field-at-winter-night photos, I continued the bike trip with the priority of finding some food. Last meal was lunch and I was getting quite hungry, now that it was about 8 pm. Sadly, I didn't find anything to eat in Gera, but I was only crossing it in the southern outskirts. Knowing that several smaller villages were coming up next, I was getting quite panic. (As I already said, I didn't have anything to read.) I wasn't actually afraid of dying, because I was using roads with occasional traffic, but as I knew, how it felt to cycle with hardly no energy reserve, I really prefered finding some food. Well, luckily I passed a pizza and doner kebap store in Münchenbernsdorf (25 km from the train, 15 km from the hash) and bought a doner there. The shopman packed it in aluminum and a bag, so I thought, he maybe wanted me not to eat it in his warm shop, and thus I rode on for 2 km and ate it beside the road outside Münchenbernsdorf in the dark. While recharging myself I got a SMS from Manu, but couldn't answer her that I was doing fine, because in that instance the cell phone battery was dropping from two bars to less than zero (meaning that it turned off). Now I had to hurry finshing my dinner and cycling home, because I didn't want Manu to worry more than necessary.

Got home after 73 km of cycling with 1083 m ascent shortly before 11 pm.

-- Reinhard

You probably could also have taken a taxi for this price.
The train is coming baby ...
Waiting is boring.
Coordinates reached.
Reinhard at the hashpoint.
The hash field.
Reinhard's rescue.
Hungry geohasher.

[edit] Awards

Reinhard earned the Public transport geohash achievement
by reaching the (50, 12) geohash on 2010-03-11 using public transit.
Reinhard earned the Multihash Achievement
by reaching 2 hash points on 2010-03-11. It's a Double Hash.


text:
Spectrum Networking

From Spectrum
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Tips derived from our Speakers and from our 2010 Spectrum Institute Participants during the Who You Know: Mentors, Allies and Champions session featuring Michelle McKinney, Reference/Technology Librarian, University of Cincinnati - Raymond Walters College; Mark A. Puente, Director of Diversity Programs, Association of Research Libraries (ARL); & Neely Tang Public Services Librarian - Management Library, Cornell University. Moderated by Spectrum Scholar Michelle McKinney.

For mentees

  • Choose a mentor who is in a position to which you aspire. The only downside is if you desire management experience your mentor might be a supervisor/superior and that relationship can be less informal than you might wish for in a mentoring relationship.
  • Be proactive, when people offer you their assistance, take it!
  • Professors might love to be mentors (they teach for a reason and feel they have something to impart), time can go by, just give a reminder of who you are.
  • Be honest (in your communication and in knowing who you are) and express yourself.
  • Use your library school assignments and projects as a way to put yourself in relationships with people you think could mentor you. It's a good ice breaker, so be strategic with who you choose to interact with when you have the opportunity to interview with a practitioner.

For mentors

  • Don't do this if you don't have the time for it. We understand your commitments (that's why we want to learn from your experience and leadership) but you made one to us. It's hard not to take it personally when it feels like our communication isn't acknowledged or replied to in a timely fashion.
  • Take the time to develop the relationship, some semblance of friendship helps us open up and make the most of the relationship. And it lays the groundwork for us take your advice, especially when you feel moved to press it upon us strongly!
  • We often prefer a holistic approach and someone who considers our whole lives when developing a mentoring relationship.
  • Help us connect with more people, while we're sincerely interested in you and your work, we also greatly appreciate your efforts to expand our network and meet additional mentors, champions and allies.
  • We like it when you put us to work and give us some, doable tasks that you think will foster our professional development.

  • Mentoring is a choice, even when it's formal and mandated/assigned, you have choices within that context. Be proactive, ask to seek out a mentor that works for you. Provide feedback through the process. Engage your mentor honestly to make it a relationship you are actively contributing to and creating.
  • Admit it when things aren't working out, allow the life-span of the relationship to be organic.

  • Know and embrace the layers of allies that you are meeting in any professional networking environment.
  • Be prepared to make life-long friends through Spectrum. You seriously may make some of the strongest friendships you've ever had through this experience, be open and prepared for this.
  • Use the "weak" connections, not in a bad sense, but in terms of connections that are easy and more surface but can still be extremely helpful and longer lasting than you might expect. Speakers, especially Spectrum alumni, who are at the Institute are already invested in you. Take advantage of their advice into the future and make contact from time to time. You don't need to be best friends with every scholar in your cohort, or email every speaker every month, but stay in touch with the program and reap the benefits. It can be through the email list or ALA Connect or Facebook or volunteering to help Spectrum events at future conferences. Use all these opportunities actively to get to know each other more and to build these connections that might be very helpful at different points in your career.
  • There are also the reluctant/uncomfortable connections you might have and you need to be prepared to keep those people in your network as allies, not enemies. Even if you have someone you don't gel with, if you have worked together or think you have future reasons to work together (and you never know), consider if there are moments when you can sincerely take advice from them or seek their counsel. Library professionals generally love to help and you can really move someone to consider you in a new light if you recognize their skills and abilities. Seek them out when there is a genuine reason to do so.
  • Keep in mind you are almost always "on", that joker at your table could be hiring you a couple of years from now. Be cordial to everyone, and keep your opinions to yourself (or your REALLY REALLY good friends).
  • Look at the makeup of your Allies, if you look at your Facebook profile and your Linked In network and everyone looks/acts/thinks/works just like you -- you made need think pause and consider diversifying your interests and your network.
  • Be well-rounded, you build a cohort by being yourself. Your WHOLE self.

What do we think of when we hear the word champion?

  • Advocate
  • Passionate
  • Supportive
  • Leader
  • Expert

An example: Neely Tang's "How I became a Spectrum Scholar".

What is networking?

  • It's not bad, it's just relationships.
  • It's about building connections, and reciprocity.
  • There's an element of karma to it, keep this in mind as you do it.

When networking with a champion you might consider them a little higher in the food chain. But realize you often are giving to the relationship as much as you are taking. People who are the best champions are truly interested in supporting others, mainly because they know that they learn from the experience and from you. Don't be too reticent in using the opportunity you have, take faith in your contribution to the relationship and enjoy the experience.

  • Know what you want, and be active about sharing it with your champion. They can't help get you where you want to go if they don't know where that is.
  • Follow-up

Q: How do you end a bad relationship or decline one you foresee will be bad?

  • If you are in a formal organizational structure for your mentoring relationship, there should be built-in outs. They often have an ending period, see if you can ride it out or talk to the program coordinator.
  • Informal can be tricky for a variety of reasons. When you sense an informal mentoring relationship starting up, it's really to everyone's advantage to put a little bit of structure into it. Consider laying some ground rules and setting a trial period about it.
  • If you're in one and you need it to end and there's no structure, honesty is still the best route. Let them know about your changing priorities if that's the reason you want it to end. If it's a personal disconnect and you have constructive advice to give them about how they can improve the relationship with future mentees, try to share it cordially and as positively as possible.

Q: I'm in an online program, can you give me tips for how to network virtually?

  • Use Facebook proactively! Personal and professional blend increasingly and there's plenty of advice for managing that blur. But Facebook is a great way to connect with other scholars and your colleagues and professionals who might work on committees with you. This is an information profession, don't think you can ever really hide your "personal" identity if you put yourself into social networking sites. Keep in mind your image, and once you're comfortable with what you're presenting -- use the tool for networking.
  • Spectrum Scholars, especially when you include alumni, are almost everywhere. Build opportunities to meet people face-to-face. Send an invite out to the list to have a happy hour.
  • When you travel, let people know, through the Spectrum list or through Facebook. Be sensitive to everyone's safety and privacy but if you feel comfortable sharing -- do it.
  • Take every opportunity to interact online and in person with your Spectrum cohort.


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Baltimore/Southeast Baltimore

From Wikitravel
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A surprising pagoda in Patterson Park

Southeast Baltimore, fittingly, covers the areas in the southeast of Baltimore, ranging from industrial wastelands to charming neighborhoods both quiet and hip.

Get in[edit]

Southeast Baltimore is not served by either the metro or light rail lines of the MTA. You'll have to walk, use the MTA buses, or drive.

By foot[edit]

Assuming you're walking through Southeast Baltimore from the Inner Harbor, Canton is about a thirty to forty minute walk, and Greektown will take at least an hour.

By bus[edit]

The MTA serves the Southeast Baltimore region from Inner Harbor and Downtown via routes #7, #10, #11 and #20.

If you are arriving to Baltimore by bus services such as Greyhound or the so-called Chinatown buses from Philadelphia and Washington D.C., they may drop off or pick up passengers at the Baltimore Travel Plaza, located near where O'Donnell St crosses the I-95. From there, MTA bus #20 will take visitors Downtown.

By car[edit]

Car may be the most convenient way of getting to Southeast Baltimore if you have access to one. If you're traveling to Baltimore from elsewhere on the Atlantic coast by way of Interstate 95 (I-95), you will pass through Southeast Baltimore. The highway passes through Greektown and just outside the eastern edge of the Canton neighborhood.

By water taxi[edit]

For a unique and scenic way of getting there from the Inner Harbor, the water taxi [1] can drop you off at several locations along the Fell Point or Canton waterfronts.

See[edit][add listing]

Do[edit][add listing]

  • Duburns Arena, 1301 S Ellwood Ave, +1 443 573-2450, [3]. Home to the Charm City Roller Girls.  edit

  • LatinoFest, Patterson Park (southeast corner of park, near S Linwood Ave and Eastern Ave), [4]. A two-day festival celebrating Latino culture for one weekend in June of each year since 1980, with food, dancing and live music. It draws a multicultural crowd, so if you're not Latino you won't feel out of place, although a basic knowledge of Spanish would help with some of the vendors. $5 admission for adults, children under 12 free.  edit
  • Meet in the Street, O'Donnell Square, Canton (between S Potomac Ave and S Linwood Ave), [5]. During the St. Patrick's Day weekend a local Irish pub sponsors a street festival in the aptly named O'Donnell Square in Canton.  edit

  • Toby's Dinner Theatre, 5625 O'Donnell Street (Just east of I-95, in the Best Western hotel), +1 410 649 1660, [6]. A great musical theatre which has presented the musicals Beauty and the Beast, Footloose, Ragtime, It's A Wonderful Life, The Full Monty, Fiddler on the Roof, Grease, and is currently presenting Dreamgirls. It will present Holiday Hot Nostalgia, La Cage aux Folles, The Wizard of Oz, West Side Story, The Phantom of the Opera, A Christmas Carol, and Sophisticated Ladies in their 2008-2009 season.  edit
  • Creative Alliance at the Patterson, 3134 Eastern Ave (cross street S East Ave, three blocks east of Patterson Park), +1 410 276 1451, [7].  edit
    • The Charm City Kitty Club, [8]. An LGBT-oriented performing arts group at the Creative Alliance.  edit

Buy[edit][add listing]

  • Canton Crossing, 3501 Boston Street., [9]. A strip mall shopping complex featuring a Target, Michaels, Old Navy, DSW, and a Harris Teeter grocery store.  edit

Eat[edit][add listing]

  • Greektown hosts a wealth of authentic Greek restaurants and coffeehouses.

While O'Donnell (Canton) square has the highest concentration of eateries in the area, the culinary selection is by no means limited to it. Around dinner time one can easily wander aimlessly anywhere between Patterson Park Boulevard to the West and Highland Avenue to the East and find a nice place to get some food. Below is a short listing the more popular restaurants.

Outside the Square[edit]
  • Blue Hill Tavern, 938 S. Conkling Street, (443) 388-9363, [10]. Upscale restaurant located on the edge of the Canton neighborhood, bordering with Highlandtown. The food is pricey and the portions small, but extremely delicious. Reservations recommended, but not required, on the weekends. Well worth it for happy hour (4-7PM) on weekdays. $20-30 Entree.  edit
  • Jacks Bistro, 3120 Elliot Street, (410)878-6542, [11]. An excellent local American bistro located on a corner row home south of Canton Square. Known for their eclectic Sous Vide style of cooking, you can always find Jack's packed with locals on most nights. Try their signature chocolate macaroni and cheese, or stay for their late night happy hour menu (10-1PM) and have a Peanut Butter and Jelly Shot. Reservations strongly recommended throughout the week, practically required on the weekend. $20-30 Entree.  edit
  • Anabel Lee Tavern, 601 S. Clinton Street, (410) 522-2929, [12]. Though well off the beaten path, Anabel Lee Tavern is one of the hidden gems of Baltimore's foodie scene. The restaurant is decorated in the style of Edgar Allen Poe, and serves up American style dishes that has earned itself a well entrenched reputation from the locals. The dining area is extremely small, so reservations are required. $20-30 Entree.  edit

Drink[edit][add listing]

By far the best place to go out for some drinking and dancing in the area, Canton is a treasure trove for those who like to bar crawl. While the hottest nightlife and subsequently younger crowd is centered around O'Donnell (Canton) Square, those looking for something a bit more local and low key can find numerous other drinking establishments in the surrounding area.

O'Donnell Square[edit]
  • Looney's Pub, 2900 O'Donnell Street, [13]. A mainstay of the square for decades, Looney's is a quintessential sports bar by day, turned party hot spot by night. Looney's seems to be a magnet for anyone from the surrounding suburbs who want to do a night out on the town, though the locals still frequent the place as well. On the weekends there will be a DJ and it will get very loud and crowded. Serves pub food during the day.  edit
  • Claddaugh Pub, 2918 O’Donnell Street, [14]. Another long time institution in Canton, Claddaugh's is the resident Irish pub during the day, with outdoor seating and decent fare. Once the sun sets though, it turns into another local hot spot, complete with dance floor and two additional bars on the second level. While it still tends to cater to a younger crowd, the general atmosphere is less like a college bar than its neighbors.  edit

Patterson Perk, 2501 Eastern Ave. Coffee shop across from Patterson Park.  edit

Sleep[edit][add listing]

  • Best Western Hotel & Conference Center, 5625 O'Donnell Street, +1 410 633-9500, [15]. Southeast Baltimore's big convention hotel, roughly in the middle of nowhere as far as Baltimore goes, but right by I-95/I-895  edit
  • The Inn at 2920, 2920 Elliott St (about 1/2 hour walk, or 7-10 minute drive from the Harbor), [16]. Although the price might be a bit steep for a bed and breakfast, it is definitely worth it. The place makes you feel pampered, the food is cooked by an excellent chef and the B&B is located in a cool, hip neighborhood (if somewhat yuppie-like), named Canton.  edit

This is a usable article. It has information for getting in as well as some complete entries for restaurants and hotels. An adventurous person could use this article, but please plunge forward and help it grow!

Destination Docents

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text:
« Learning Shorebirds on Cape Cod | Main | One Half Hour of One Hundred Grackles »

November 29, 2013

Feed You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

The Zen Birdfeeder

Joyce, you just proved what we always say: clean feeders and fresh food can make a difference! Thanks for sharing.
Larry, nice to hear from you again. Good luck looking for those grouse.
Arthur, well share them back up here!!
Cecil, good luck!

Cecil Guzman

Nice to know this about the suet. I'm hoping to get a higher count than ever because I've just installed the Squirrel Buster and now those nasty squirrels will keep away!

Arthur in the Garden

Wow! We have lots of Winter visitors here in Raleigh, North Carolina!

Seeing your grouse photo made me realize something.I found a grouse on the ground in the Fall up in Vermont and it seemed to vanish.I was looking for it on the ground but I wonder if it flew into a tree? Nice photo anyhow. I'm glad that people such as yourself enjoy keeping bird data. I'm not too patient when it comes to that.

Joyce Conley

I just told you that I haven't seen any woodpeckers, so I changed my suet and within an hour, I just saw a female downy on the suet!

Joyce Conley

I just changed my suet feeder because I have not seen any woodpeckers, recently, thinking maybe the suet in the feeder wasn't any good. Good to know that I'm not the only one.

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My Photo

Nancy Castillo

Chickadee graphic sm

Become a Fan

WBU Sites

  • Our eyes and ears should be open and alert to the natural wonders that surround us every day. Take time to look out our windows to see the birds that visit us and open our windows to hear them. Walk around whatever space we have to enjoy the birds in nature. Every day, work on improving our powers of observation.

  • Nature happens. We cannot MAKE natural things happen (or NOT happen). We can create habitats to encourage natural things to happen around us, but there are no guarantees.

  • Birdfeeding comes with responsibilities to the birds and the environment we share with them. If you are unwilling to accept these responsibilities, you shouldn’t feed the birds. We also have a responsibility to share these natural wonders with the next generation.


text:
Download Stats

Today Total
Last Download By:
Last Download Date: Tuesday, May 26, 2015
Downloads By Anonymous Users: 0 309
Downloads By Registered Users: 0 90
Unique Total Downloads: 0 399
Total Downloads Overall: 0 399
Downloads By Subscribers/Apprentices: 0 77

Note: WinCustomize works to ensure its download counts are accurate. Some download sites inflate their download counts either intentionally or unintentionally. On, we take measures to try to provide you with accurate download counts. These download counts can be assumed to be fairly close to the actual # of individuals who have downloaded this skin, theme, wallpaper, or icon package.


text:
Pinpoint problems with your network's bandwidth or devices, and plan for the future

In the past, most networks housed few shared resources; users shared access only to file servers, printers, and perhaps a database. Today, many companies distribute information and applications across networks, and many users share access to information. Employees depend on the network to do their job, so when the network goes down, users' loss of access translates into a loss of revenue or customers.

To prevent network outages that cause revenue losses, you need to regularly test your network's capabilities and plan purchases around the network's ability to meet applications' throughput needs. On small networks, you can use network monitoring software and a few simple formulas to diagnose problems or predict the network's reaction to new hardware or software. (For information about testing applications across simple networks, see "Application Testing with Network Monitor," September 1998.) However, as networks grow, their numerous devices and connections make understanding the network impossible. Too many conversations among too many devices via too many network routes occur simultaneously for you to accurately predict how one application's traffic will affect another part of the network. To diagnose problems or test new applications on a complex network, you need to simulate the network-- use a simulation program, or simulator, to build a software model of key network elements and test how well the model functions with various traffic loads or network designs.

Because the purpose of modeling network traffic is to reduce the number of devices, routes, and transactions on a network to a manageable number, your model must include simplifications and assumptions. The trick to successfully simulating your network is knowing which aspects of the network you can simplify without compromising the model's effectiveness.

To simulate your production network, you need to construct a reasonable representation of the network's topology, including the physical devices and logical parameters that comprise the network. You need to determine how much traffic is on your network during the period you want to emulate. You must specify a question you want the simulation to answer. And finally, you need to run the model through a simulator.

Your network's topology is the framework for your model. You need to include the following physical devices in your representation of the network: routers, computers, switches, WAN links, LANs, and point-to-point connections. You also need to include network parameters such as router interface settings, LAN speeds, WAN speeds, router capabilities (e.g., backplane speed), routing protocols, and naming conventions. How much detail you need to include depends on the question you want the model to answer. For example, if you are interested in WAN utilization, you don't need to include all your network's PCs in your model; you need to include only the traffic the PCs generate.

You can use software to discover your network's physical devices and logical settings. Some simulators include a discovery tool; others import information about network topology from network monitoring tools. Third-party topology discovery tools include HP's OpenView, Cabletron Systems' SPECTRUM, IBM's NetView for AIX, Digital Equipment's POLYCENTER Manager on NetView for Windows NT, Castle Rock Computing's SNMPc NT, CACI's SIMPROCESS, and Network Analysis Center's WinMIND.

Most discovery programs use the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) to query the devices. Some programs require you to provide a list of the network's routers and those routers' IP addresses. Other programs need only the address of a seed router. A discovery program learns what it can from a router's Management Information Base (MIB), then asks the router to direct it to a neighboring router. The discovery program queries the next router's MIB and steps through the network, learning about routers, interfaces, and devices on each network segment.

This discovery of your network topology provides you the first benefit of simulation: network documentation. The discovery process creates an inventory of the most important devices on the network and their settings. You can export this information to a spreadsheet or use the information to update previous device inventories you've taken.

If your network's traffic stopped, users wouldn't be able to communicate with network devices, and many users would be unable to perform their job. Your model must emulate traffic in as much detail as is computationally possible.

Before you can emulate network traffic, you need to learn how information flows on your network. Collecting traffic doesn't require special hardware; you need only a computer with an NIC that operates in promiscuous mode (many standard cards do). Collecting traffic requires special software that captures data or communicates with SNMP or Remote Network Monitoring (RMON) agents. Some network analysts use a special device for troubleshooting networks. Underneath the device's case lies a standard PC with one or more standard NICs. For the sake of simplicity, I'll break these devices into two groups: network analyzers and network probes. The functionality of devices within these categories overlaps, but your enterprise probably needs a network analyzer and a network probe because products in the two categories serve specific needs common to all networks.

Network analyzers. Network, or protocol, analyzers are devices that take a snapshot of traffic on a network. For example, you can use an analyzer to see instantly whether a large number of frames on the network have errors from a problem NIC or computer. You can look inside a frame and view its contents. (However, you'll be disappointed most of the time because instead of seeing usernames and passwords, you'll see only unintelligible characters.) Because analyzers are designed to gather and report data about the lowest layers of the Open Systems Interconnect (OSI) model, and because their buffers have limited sizes, you can't use analyzers to gather data about how protocols function on the network over a long period. Administrators usually don't leave analyzers in one place for long, so analyzers often have rugged cases.

Most analyzers can record network traffic and play it back to the network later. This playback feature is useful when you want to redesign your network and test how the new system reacts to a specific user request, such as a database query. In addition, analyzers can generate traffic to stress test your production network and determine the maximum amount of traffic the network can support.

Analyzers let you filter traffic based on host or destination addresses, so they can capture the traffic that one conversation between two machines generates. This specificity is important when you want to analyze a new application before deployment, because you want to include in your analysis only traffic that the application you're testing generates. Network analyzers that run on NT include 3COM's Transcend LANsentry Manager, Network Associates' Expert Sniffer Network Analyzer and Distributed Sniffer System (DSS), AXON's LANServant Manager, NetScout Systems' NetScout Manager Plus, and Compuware's EcoSCOPE.

Network probes. Network probes use RMON2 to analyze network traffic at the network and application layers. They provide much of the same detailed network information that analyzers generate, but they can't provide single-packet analysis. Probes are best at monitoring a network's health over time because they don't suffer from the myopia inherent in analyzers.

Probes can be PCs running probe software, or they can be separate hardware devices that are smaller than PCs and have no monitor or keyboard. You attach a probe to your network, and it gathers the data that you request. You can perform administration tasks remotely, via a serial port connected to the back of the probe, or at the probe console if the unit has a console. You need probes throughout your network to keep an eye on the entire network, so most probes don't move around much. The optimal simulation environment has a probe on every network segment.

If budget constraints prevent you from placing probes on every segment of your network, you must determine where on the network to place probes to maximize traffic capture for the number of probes you can afford. Looking at your network's design and traffic data helps you determine where to place probes. You want to place them at traffic sources, or sinks. For example, if you have a Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) ring with 20 servers attached to it, the FDDI ring is an appropriate place for a probe because a lot of traffic traverses it. Probes contain information that you don't want anyone except administrators to access. Make sure your probes are password-protected, and keep them behind a locked door.

To ease the management problems that distributed monitoring devices cause, most network monitoring solutions have probes set up to report to a midlevel management station (i.e., a workstation running management software). The probes are smart, so they are capable of gathering data, running statistical analyses on the data, and sending only the important numbers to the midlevel management stations. The midlevel management stations consolidate information from all the probes that report to them, and some perform additional analysis. You need a midlevel management station for every 10 to 15 probes, depending on the volume of traffic the probes process. You also need a higher-order management system that periodically queries the midlevel management stations for probe information. This higher-order manager assimilates all the network's data and produces data sets and graphs.

Although UNIX probes and UNIX management software have traditionally dominated the network probe market, many vendors are porting their UNIX probes to NT. A UNIX or NT probe can monitor networks running either OS, because probes function independently of the local OS. Table 1 lists probes that work with NT. Probes for faster LAN protocols such as FDDI usually cost more than Ethernet or Token-Ring probes.

Data Reduction
If you have multiple probes capturing conversations on your network, the probes might capture thousands of conversations per minute. This amount of traffic bogs down simulations on the most powerful machines. You need to remove or consolidate conversations to prevent unnecessary conversations from slowing your simulation.

Remove duplicate conversations. One method for reducing the number of conversations you capture is eliminating duplicate conversations. Two probes might capture and record the same conversation; for an accurate measure of network traffic, you need to make sure you record conversations only once. Most network probe software packages eliminate duplicate conversations. If your probe software doesn't remove duplicate conversations, you must create a utility that compares conversations and deletes one of every pair of conversations that have identical attributes.

Reduce the number of remaining conversations. You can use two methods to reduce the number of valid (i.e., not duplicate) conversations. Few probes or simulators provide these methods of data reduction, so you might need to create a standalone application to use them. The first method eliminates conversations that are too small to significantly affect network traffic. For example, 40 percent of conversations across your network might make up less than 1 percent of the network's total traffic because these conversations consist of very few packets and very few bytes. These small conversations (such as pings) register in the simulation and use up precious resources on the machine running the simulation.

The second method consolidates conversations with the same source, destination, and application. This method combines all the consolidated conversations' packets and bytes, so it doesn't lose any traffic data. You can set a time criterion (e.g., 5 seconds), so the software consolidates only conversations that took place within a specific period of time. Eliminating small conversations and consolidating remaining conversations can reduce your number of conversations by up to 70 percent.

Application Profiles
You can use simulation to estimate the effect that deploying a new application will have on your production network. Until you deploy the application, probes on your network won't capture the application's traffic. To measure a new application's effect on a simulation, you first must add the application to one machine on the production network or (preferably) to a lab network.

Then, you can gather basic information about the application's individual conversations. Use probes that detect packets' header information, including their network protocol and application. Most probes automatically determine which network protocol a packet uses (e.g., IP, IPX, DECnet), but you must manually configure them to identify many applications (e.g., Word, Telnet, CAD). After you configure your probes, you can identify the following information for every conversation on the network: the network protocol, the application that generates the conversation, the conversation's source and destination computers, the number of packets and bytes that travel in each direction, total round-trip latency for the application, and the duration of the conversation.

Looking at your traffic at the application level is useful. You can check latency for applications to see whether they are meeting a minimum quality of service. You can see how much throughput each application uses. Because you know the source and destination of all traffic flow, you can determine where your intranet traffic is going and which users are using which resources. To simulate deployment of an application, you need to gather data about the application's conversations and manually add this data to your network model. Then, you must instruct the simulator to expand the information you've gathered about the application to simulate the activities of many users at many locations within your model.

Developing a Question
Before you run a simulation, you must devise a specific question that you want the simulation to answer. You might want to ask a change-analysis question. For example, you might want to analyze what would happen if you changed your network's WAN links, LANs, or routers or added a new application to your network. You might want the simulation to answer a question about the network's fault tolerance. For example, you might want to determine how the failure of a specific device or group of devices such as LANs, WAN links, or an entire facility of your organization--would affect application demands. Answering these questions can help you in capacity planning, rollout validation, disaster recovery, and life cycle management.

After you decide which question you want your simulation to answer, you might need to tweak the network model's topology and traffic to make sure the simulation addresses your question. Simulators automatically alter a network model to test its fault tolerance; they have built-in utilities that emulate the failure of network devices. You can select devices from a menu, and your simulation will predict what effects that device's failure would have on your production network. However, you must manually alter your model for your simulation to answer a change-analysis question. To add or move servers or users, you must change the volume of bytes an application produces in the model or add network devices or demands to the model before running your simulation.

After you develop a model of your network and define the question you want to answer, you're ready to run simulations. Simulators have traditionally run on powerful UNIX workstations, but some simulators are now available for NT. Most cost between $40,000 and $100,000, and running them requires training. Because of simulators' cost and complexity, many companies contract with firms that specialize in simulations to provide the necessary tools and run the simulations.

Simulators usually use a discrete event or an analytical approach to model network traffic. Discrete-event simulation analyzes the network traffic that each packet generates to determine the network's behavior. The analytical approach makes assumptions about network traffic before a simulation. The analytical method can be as accurate as the discrete-event method, because discrete-event simulators can't store detailed information about each packet in simulations that include the many thousands of conversations (each of which can contain many packets) that most networks generate. Because the discrete-event method is much slower than the analytical method on large networks, I recommend that you use an analytical simulator for simulations of networks with more than 50 routers.

My COMNET Predictor Tests
COMNET Predictor is an analytical modeling tool from CACI. (For more information about CACI, see COMNET Predictor runs on NT and is intuitive to install. I recently used COMNET Predictor to build a simple simulation from scratch on a lab network. I defined my network topology for the simulation, and I manually added all the network's traffic demands because my network was so simple.

Screen 1 illustrates my test network. The network consisted of two LAN segments separated by a WAN link. An NT server and workstation resided on each LAN. You can see COMNET Predictor's selection of network-building tools on the left side of the screen. To create a network, you select a device icon (such as the LAN or server icon) and drag the icon into the main window. You connect devices with links and define the links' characteristics by choosing characteristics from a predefined list (such as T1 or ISDN) or customizing the specifications. My test network contained two models of Cisco routers. COMNET Predictor was familiar with the routers' capabilities and automatically included the routers' characteristics in the simulation.

Screen 2 shows five conversations that I manually entered into my simulation. For each conversation, I entered the origin computer, destination computer, application, protocol, and rate of transfer. You can select applications from a predefined list or add your applications manually (as I did in my simulation for Lotus cc:Mail).

After I entered my network topology and network traffic, I ran a simulation. I clicked the Run Simulation icon (the stoplight in Screen 1's toolbar), and the simulation began. Because my model network was simple and had little traffic, the simulation was complete in a fraction of a second. I generated reports that examine current and forecasted network utilization and potential failures. Screen 3 shows a report that provides the average percent utilization for each device and LAN on the network during the time that my simulation's traffic demands were active. Most network devices have a limit on the number of packets they can process per second; for network devices, percent utilization measures how much of this limit network traffic is consuming. For WAN and LAN segments, percent utilization measures how much of the available bandwidth network traffic is using.

I told COMNET Predictor I expect a 10 percent growth in traffic each year. The software calculated the demand for each device and LAN and projected the network components' percent utilization for the next 2 years. If my test were a simulation of an actual production network, this report would tell me to keep an eye on my WAN link. If I decided to increase the throughput of my WAN link, I could easily change the throughput of the model's WAN link and run another simulation to determine the effect that change would have on the network.

Life Cycle Management
Conducting simulations is a very important part of life cycle management for your network. You need to carry out simulations often, because most networks' topology and traffic are constantly evolving. Figure 1 illustrates how the different stages of simulations fit into the life cycle management of your network.

To maintain a healthy network, use simulations to predict your needs for the future and develop cost-effective solutions to problems before a disaster strikes. Keep an up-to-date inventory of the devices and settings on your network. Conduct traffic analyses to keep abreast of LAN, WAN, and network device utilization. Determine how long users must wait for applications to respond, which might be part of a quality-of-service contract. Use periodic simulations to help plan your capacity for future growth and determine emergency plans to deal with network failures. In addition to your periodic tests, run simulations before you roll out new applications or hardware.

A simulation is neither the starting point nor the end point for answering your network design questions. Run-ning simulations will incite your curiosity and generate more questions than the process answers. As you run simulations, you will learn to appreciate your network's complexity and gain a better sense of how all the components work together.


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Tag Archives: Decanter

Decanter gives a shout-out to wine bloggers

image from t1.gstatic.com Decanter magazine's biennial list of the 50 most powerful people in the wine business took a lot of criticism. As one wine type told me after reading the rankings: "Who are these people?" Lewis Perdue, the editor of Wine Industry Insight, wrote that the list "was based not so much on power, clout, or the ability to move markets, but on a snobbish gaze at a small self-indulgent world that is increasingly irrelevant to the vast majority of the globe’s wine drinkers."

It is an odd list. The usual suspects are there — Robert Parker, Jancis Robinson, Gary V. — as well as a host of European and Asian names who matter to Decanter's Bordeaux-centric audience. But there are a lot of names missing. Purdue emphasized the absence of the men who run three of the leading cheap wine companies in the U.S. and sell hundreds of millions of dollars of wine, Fred Franzia of Two Buck Chuck, Bob Trinchero of Sutter Home and David Kent of The Wine Group. Also missing: Eric Asimov of the New York Times and Jon Bonne of the San Francisco Chronicle, who have moved more than few markets in their time.

Yet Decanter somehow found room in all that rarefied air for what it called the "amateur wine blogger" at No. 16. "As social media continues its relentless online spread, everyone is now a critic," the magazine said. Why that is and what it means, after the jump:

Winebits 192: Private labels, wine critics, Decanter awards

What’s in a private label? We’ve had discussion here over the years about the difference between national brands and store brands and private labels. This article, from an Alabama newspaper, is a sound, easy-to-follow explanation of private label and who makes the wine for retailers like Walgreen’s, Wal-Mart, and Costco. And, notes wine columnist Pat Kettles, Dollar General is going to have to find someone to make the wine it wants to sell.

When critics collide: Eric Asimov in the New York Times has the story of two influential critics and their reaction to Chateau Pavie, a hip and with-it red Bordeaux blend that is usually well received. Robert Parker calls the 2010 Pavie brilliant, while John Gilman calls it, believe it not, bad and unpleasant. Which is, of course, one of the great things about wine, that two such reputable critics can completely disagree. The Wine Curmudgeon has actually tasted Pavie, and while it wasn’t the 2010, I can see where Gilman was coming from. Which means I can also see where Parker was coming from.

Love that cheap wine: Decanter, the British wine magazine, has released its annual wine awards. Many of the award winners will be difficult to find in the U.S. or too expensive or both, but one of them is a favorite around here — the French chardonnay, Cave de Lugny, which sells for abut $10 in the U.S. It was not only the least expensive among the top 10 chardonnays, but it shared the list with some high-dollar white Burgundies from Montrachet and Chabilis and an $80 Aussie label.

High alcohol: The controversy continues

What kind of a stir would a food magazine cause if it said it was going to list the ingredients in its recipes? None at all.

But the wine business is not the food business. Only in wine would a controversy ensue when the San Francisco Chronicle and Decanter magazine, two of the leading members of the Winestream Media, announced each would start listing alcohol levels for the wines it reviewed. Said the Chronicle's Jon Bonne: ".. [W]e resisted printing them regularly because the act of bringing alcohol into the discussion of a wine is inherently political."

Which says a lot about how screwed up the wine business is. Bonne is right — unfortunately, reporting alcohol levels in an alcoholic beverage has become political, because much of the wine establishment has made high alcohol its cause. Winemakers have pushed alcohol levels to 15, 16 and even 17 percent, even in white wine, and have been rewarded with glowing reviews from Robert Parker and the Wine Spectator. Those of us who object, like the Wine Curmudgeon, are called philistines and told we don't understand the issue.

Most wine drinkers want to know alcohol levels. As one commenter noted in the Chronicle story, "If I wanted to get sh*tfaced, I could do it for a lot less than $50 a bottle." But that's of little concern to the people who make and write about these wines. They know best, and they're going to tell us what to think. More, after the jump.

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[wingide-users] Best way to integrate wingIDE with Buildout projects?

Noe Nieto [http://percepcionunitaria.org]] tzicatl at gmail.com
Thu Mar 24 18:23:25 MDT 2011

2011/3/22 Wingware Support <support at wingware.com>

> On 3/22/11 2:39 PM, Noe Nieto [http://percepcionunitaria.org]] wrote:
>> Setting the Python executable to bin/instance doesn't make it.
>> I added ommelette to my buildout, switched back to the default python
>> and aded the ommelette directory (parts/ommelete) to the Python Path.
>> That enabled code completion and analysis.
> Does it continue to work if you set the Python Executable to bin/instance?
>  I'm suspecting the key step here for completion to work was adding the
> omelette directory (b/c now Wing can find the modules) and bin/instance is
> the Python instance for the buildout so it's best to point Wing to that as
> well (particularly if the default found Python is not the same version).
>  I'm still curious about how to configure debugging...
> If you want to launch the debug process from the IDE, most likely setting
> Python Executable to bin/instance will make it work.  You can optionally
> also set a main debug file in the Debug menu or right clicking on the
> project view, and you set run args with file properties (right click on the
> file).

After adjusting  the main debug file and  the initial directory for the
debug session I find this error on the Debug I/O panel whenever I try to
start plone:

Error: username '/usr/lib/wingide4.0/bin/wingdb.py' not found
For help, use

> If the code is launched from outside of the IDE see
> http://wingware.com/doc/debug/debugging-externally-launched-code
> Please let me know if this does not help.
> --
> Stephan Deibel
> Wingware | Python IDE
> Advancing Software Development
> www.wingware.com

*Noe Nieto
Estudiante de Psicología Holokinética*

Diplomados, noticias, libros, artículos,
audios y videos gratuitos :   *percepcionunitaria.org*
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Letter to the editor – After The Tornado

My continuous prayers and sympathies go out to those who lost loved ones during the tornado that touched down in our town and county on April 28th. To this day looking at the destruction of the storm seems so serial especially when its taken in on a bright sunny calm day. I have often thought what is it about tornadoes that make them so mysterious in their paths and origins are more often than not sporadic. They often


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Tied to the opening day of this week's SharePoint Conference 2014, Microsoft has unveiled a number of changes to OneDrive for Business (formerly SkyDrive Pro). Among the updates are a new standalone subscription version of OneDrive for Business, user experience enhancements, and new mobile apps.

"OneDrive for Business is personal online storage for a company's employees," Microsoft general manager Julia White notes in a new post to The OneDrive Blog. "It's the place where people can store, sync, and share their work files across multiple devices with ease and security. With OneDrive for Business you can collaborate with others in real time right from within Office and edit documents from virtually anywhere via a web browser in real time using Office Online. Accessing your files from multiple devices is a cinch with native OneDrive for Business and Office Mobile apps."

Note: Rafael Rivera and I are not coincidentally using OneDrive for Business in Office 365 Small Business to collaborate on our new book, Windows 8.1 Field Guide.

So, what's changing?

Standalone subscription service

Starting April 1, Microsoft will be introducing a new standalone subscription service version of OneDrive for Business that can be acquired outside of an Office 365 subscription. (There are other similar non-Office 365 subscription offerings like this, including individual services (Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and Lync Online) and Office 365 ProPlus, a subscription-based version of the Office 2013 Professional Plus suite.)

The standalone OneDrive for Business service will provide 25 GB of online storage per user with the option to purchase additional storage, and it will provide the same PC sync and device access options as Office 365. The normal cost will be $5 per month, but through September Microsoft will offer promotional pricing of just $2.50 per month.

Improved user experience

If you use or follow Office 365, you know that Microsoft has improved the service dramatically over its first year in the market—I ran through a bunch of them recently in Happy Birthday, Office 365—but many of these changes are directly related to OneDrive for Business (aka SkyDrive Pro): increased file size support, higher storage limits with additional purchase options, mobile apps (Office Mobile for iPhone and Android, plus a native OneDrive for Business app for iOS), and improved user experiences like the Shared with Me view.

This week, Microsoft is unveiling more changes to the OneDrive for Business web UI (though I'm not seeing them appear yet). These include:

Simple controls. The web-based OneDrive for Business interface is picking up simple and clear command options that you accomplish common tasks more easily.

Site folders view. Microsoft is adding a new Site Folders view that takes you directly to document libraries of the sites you're following.

Search. A new search box has type-ahead features so you can quickly find a document that was shared with you or is perhaps hidden in folder somewhere in your cloud storage.

Simpler access to your web storage. Now you can just navigate to site-name.onedrive.com (where site-name is your Office 365 or OneDrive for Business tenant name) to access your web storage directly. (This one does work for me now.)

More soon. Microsoft is also previewing some OneDrive for Business features that are coming down the road, including advanced auditing and reporting features, encryption at rest, data loss prevention (DLP), extensibility improvements, even higher storage limits, and more.

New mobile app (for iOS)

While you can continue to access OneDrive for Business normally with the Office Mobile app for Windows Phone, iOS or Android, as well as the standalone OneDrive for Business app for Windows 8/RT, Microsoft today announced an upgrade for its iOS app, which of course now utilizes the OneDrive for Business name.

OneDrive for Business for iOS (it works with both iPhone and iPad) now supports additional types of authentication, and provides an improved (and iOS 7-like) login experience plus numerous bug fixes and UI optimizations, Microsoft says.

I'm surprised there isn't a standalone Android app for OneDrive for Business yet.


text:
FCC Auctions: Releases: May, 2011 Skip Navigation
Go to FCC.gov
Federal Communications Commission Logo - Click here to go to the FCC home page

Auctions Releases for May 2011

Auction 91
Auction of FM Broadcast Construction Permits Closes; Winning Bidders Announced for Auction 91
Media and Wireless Telecommunications Bureaus Provide Details Concerning Auction 91 Winning Bidders, Payments, Filing Requirements and Licensing Matters. Down Payments Due: 06/07/2011, Final Payments Due: 06/21/2011, FCC Form 301 Due: 06/30/2011.
Attachment A: pdf
Attachment B: pdf
Attachment C: pdf
Attachment D: pdf
LETTER (DA 11-850)
Auction 5, 11, 22
Telephone and Data Systems, Inc.
Granted the Withdrawal Request Filed by TDS. Dismissed TDI's Application for Review with Prejudice.
Return to Top Arrow Return To Top


text:
2014-2015 Undergraduate Catalog

College of Arts & Sciences

Dean: Dr. Susan Martinelli-Fernandez
Associate Dean: Dr. James A. Schmidt
Associate Dean: Dr. Russell E. Morgan
Office: Morgan Hall 114
Telephone: (309) 298-1828; Fax: (309) 298-2585
E-mail: Arts-Sciences@wiu.edu
Website: wiu.edu/cas

The College of Arts and Sciences occupies a central position in the University. This college houses the departments concerned with human cumulative culture and knowledge, usually referred to under the broad categories of the Natural Sciences and Mathematics, the Social Sciences, and the Humanities. Dedicated to the concept of excellent teaching, the college provides General Education Curriculum courses for all students in the University. Dedicated to the concept of impartial inquiry, the college encourages research that expands the frontiers of knowledge and applies that knowledge to the betterment of humanity.

With some exceptions, the programs in the College of Arts and Sciences are not primarily vocational in their orientation. In addition to making available a liberal education, these programs provide the theoretical basis for specialized work in graduate and professional schools. The college also educates future teachers in the basic secondary school disciplines. There is a continuing and growing demand for broadly education young men and women who have the skills and knowledge essential to compete in a diverse and constantly changing landscape of careers and occupations.

Departments and Programs

Students in the College of Arts and Sciences may pursue studies in the following departments/schools and programs:

Department of African American Studies
  • B.A. in African American Studies
Department of Biological Sciences
  • B.S. in Biology with options in:
    • Botany
    • Microbiology
    • Zoology
    • Medical Sciences
    • Science/Biology Teacher Education
  • B.S. in Clinical Laboratory Science
Department of Chemistry
  • B.S. in Chemistry with additional options in:
    • Biochemistry
    • Pharmacy
    • Science/Chemistry Teacher Education
  • B.S. in Forensic Chemistry
Department of Economics
  • B.A. in Economics
Department of English and Journalism
  • B.A. in English with options in:
    • Literature and Language
    • Teacher Education
  • B.A. in Journalism
Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures
  • B.A. in Foreign Languages and Cultures with options in:
    • French
    • German
    • Spanish
  • B.A. in French Teacher Education
  • B.A. in Spanish Teacher Education
Department of Geography
  • B.S. in Geography
  • B.S. in Meteorology
Department of Geology
  • B.S. in Geology with an additional option in:
    • Paleontology
Department of History
  • B.A. in History with additional options in:
    • Pre-Law
    • Teacher Education
Department of Mathematics
  • B.S. in Mathematics with additional options in:
    • Teacher Education
    • Computational and Data-Enabled Applied Mathematics and Statistics
School of Nursing
  • Bachelor of Science in Nursing (B.S.N.)
Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies
  • B.A. in Philosophy with an additional option in:
    • Pre-Law
  • B.A. in Religious Studies
Department of Physics
  • B.S. in Physics with additional options in:
    • Engineering Physics
    • Science/Physics Teacher Education
Department of Political Science
  • B.A. in Political Science with additional options in:
    • American Government
    • International Relations/Comparative Politics
    • Pre-Law
    • Public Administration/Public Policy
Department of Psychology
  • B.S. in Psychology with an additional option in:
    • Forensic Psychology
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
  • B.A. in Sociology
  • B.A. in Anthropology
Department of Women’s Studies
  • B.A. in Women’s Studies
Liberal Arts and Sciences Degree Program
  • Bachelor of Liberal Arts and Sciences (B.L.A.S.)

The College of Arts and Sciences offers minor programs in the same fields as the major programs listed above (except in Clinical Laboratory Science, Liberal Arts and Sciences, and Nursing). In addition, the college offers the following minor programs that have no corresponding majors: Contemporary United States Studies, Creative Writing, Environmental Studies, Ethics, Film, Forensic Science, Functional Morphology and Evolutionary Anatomy, Geographic Information Systems, Gerontology, International Relations, International Studies, Law and Society, Legal History, Modern Global History, Neuroscience, Professional Writing, Public Administration, Statistics, and Survey Research Methods.

The College of Arts and Sciences provides dual programs in Clinical Laboratory Science and Engineering, whereby a student can complete requirements for a bachelor’s degree in the College of Arts and Sciences while working toward a professional degree or certificate. In addition, the college provides advising for pre-professional programs in Architecture, Chemical Engineering, Engineering, Health, Law, and Pharmacy.

College Graduation Requirements

In addition to meeting University graduation requirements, students in the College of Arts and Sciences must:

  1. Satisfy the University and other general requirements.
  2. Complete a minimum of 120 s.h. of credit in approved courses, of which at least 40 s.h. are in courses numbered 300 or above.
  3. Achieve and maintain a minimum scholastic average of 2.00 in the major, minor, and total program.
  4. Satisfy the University General Education and College of Arts and Sciences Curriculum requirements for the degree sought. A minimum of 16 s.h. should be taken to meet these requirements during the freshman year and a minimum of 16 s.h. during the sophomore year.
  5. Complete an approved major of a minimum of 32 s.h. At least 15 s.h. of the 32 s.h. of a major must be in courses numbered 300 or above.
  6. Complete a recognized minor with a minimum of 16 s.h. The minor may not be in the same department as the major, unless the minor does not have a corresponding recognized major, except by written permission of the dean.
  7. Complete courses required in related departments as listed with course requirements for the major in the individual departments.

Licensure to Teach

Students enrolled in the College of Arts and Sciences who wish to obtain a teaching license must meet all criteria for admission to the Teacher Education Program, complete the Teacher Education curriculum, and complete the major or minor requirements for Teacher Education students as described under the various department offerings in Arts and Sciences. See Teacher Education for additional information and specific requirements.

Additional College of Arts & Sciences information


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Author Interviews
10:50 am
Wed June 27, 2012

Grieving Widow Turns To Making Pie As Therapy

Originally published on Wed June 27, 2012 3:47 pm

One day, Beth Howard got a phone call everyone dreads — she learned her husband passed away. Overwhelmed by grief and regret, she decided she needed something sweet in her life, so she began traveling the country, sampling and making pies. Howard speaks with guest host Viviana Hurtado about her book, Making Piece: A Memoir of Love, Loss and Pie.