Millionaire Care

Teaching Vocabulary: A Simple, 3-Step Reading Stragtegy

admin — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 06:04:13 +0000

Teaching vocabulary is something that every teacher needs to be doing regardless of the content being taught. The Word Sort Reading Comprehension Strategy is a simple reading strategy that effectively teaches and reinforces vocabulary. Words Sorts have students find meaning in vocabulary words by having them group the words based on some common characteristics.

The Word Sort reading strategy really only has three simple steps to follow:

1. The teacher makes a list of words from a particular lesson, unit, or reading passage.

2. The students then work in pairs to discuss the terms and organize the terms into different categories. The categories can be set up before hand by the teacher, but it is better to have the students create their own categories. For example, a unit on the Civil War could have the students creating categories such as Causes, Major Battles, and Effects.

3. Have students discuss their reasons for categorizing the way they did.

Word Sorts can be used before reading in order to pre-teach vocabulary and tap into students’ prior knowledge about the subject, or after reading as a closure activity or reinforcement activity. Words Sorts can even be given as homework assignments. Regardless of how you decide to do your Word Sort, it is a great strategy to use when it comes to teaching vocabulary.

Google caffeine update – site load time speed – webmaster

admin — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 10:26:08 +0000

Google Caffeine update

Many people have heard about the new google caffeine update which is set to go live in early 2010. As google and other major search engines update and change their algorithms its very important that we stay up to date and work with them in order to achieve our preferential rankings in the search engines by means of SEO – search engine optimisation.

One of the biggest talked about changes which google has advised us of is the site load time speed. This will be added as one of the many factors that Google uses in their ranking algorithms. Looking at this from a user or searcher perspective which is the reason why Google will be adding this so called site load time factor, it is fair to say that users want a site to load quickly.

Google Caffeine is focused on real time results which will mean quicker indexing and more priority to fresh contents. So its not a surprise that Google is also looking to give better points or rankings to sites which have a quicker load time.

Google have also added a Lab section in the webmasters account which shows your sites performance. The section provides details of your websites load time speed and also points you in the right direction of how to speed up your sites load time speed.

Below is an image of how a few tweeks have changed the loadtime speed of bigseotechniques.com – image is taken from the google webmasters account under the Labs section and site performance

One of the changes that google recommends is adding a gzip compression to your website – by adding gzip compressions the site reduces in size which quickens the load time speed.

We will compose an article on exactly what can be done to increase the site loadtime speed. this will cover

optimising your images so they are not big files

will a dedicated server be needed- we will also cover this area on another article

gzip compression

also other areas.

No Clear Association between Marijuana and Cancer

admin — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 11:14:26 +0000

A research on the association between smoking marijuana and cancer development had been conducted with the objective of assessing the impact of marijuana on lung cancer as well as pre-malignant lung changes. This study had consisted 19 sub-studies, which all met selection criteria.

The studies that had examined lung cancer risk factors found an association of medical marijuana with increased oxidative stress, tax exposure, bronchial mucosal histopathologic abnormalities, and alveolar macrophage tumoricidal dysfunction as compared to tobacco smokers and nonsmokers. As a component of the entire study on the association between smoking marijuana and cancer development, the observational sub-studies of participants with exposure of marijuana had failed to show significant link between smoking marijuana and cancer development.

The selection factors considered in the study to ensure unbiased findings include limited generalizability, small sample size, lack of adjustment for smoking tobacco, and overall young participant age preventing enough lag time for identifying lung cancer outcome. The results of the study on smoking marijuana and cancer development had yielded a conclusion that doctors and physicians should be able to advise their patients with regard to possible adverse health effects of marijuana until further extensive studies are conducted.

This is in line with the supporting biological plausibility of a link between smoking marijuana and cancer development, particularly lung cancer based on cellular, histophthologic, and molecular findings. Thus, at the time of the study, it had been concluded that smoking marijuana and cancer development indeed are associated in terms of increasing the risk.

This is because marijuana smoke contains cannabinoid compounds as many as the components that tobacco smoke has. For example, a carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon, benzopyrene, is both found in marijuana and tobacco smoke. It had been evident in mutations relevant to lung cancer.

In addition, experimental studies had determined an association between smoking marijuana and cancer development as lung cancer cell lines demonstrate tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)-induced malignant cell proliferation as well as a murine model that suggested THC promoting tumor growth through inhibition of antitumor immunity by a cannibinoid-recptor mediated pathway. Given the contrasting data, the study conducted on the association between smoking marijuana and cancer development had decided to further evaluate systematically.

Baseball Players by Ed Benedict

admin — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 11:57:49 +0000

When Flintstones designer Ed Benedict was freelancing on TV commercials for studios like Cascade Pictures, he would photograph all of his designs before delivering them to the studio. The images below are from color xeroxes of Ed’s photo contact sheets. The quality isn’t great and the images aren’t very big, but if there’s interest, I have a lot more of these and can post them. These baseball players are plenty appealing and fun to look at, though I have no idea which commercial, if any, they appeared in.

Sandstone Countertops

admin — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 10:41:46 +0000

Sandstone countertops are some of the most beautiful countertops available to homeowners. They are a stunning addition to any kitchen or bathroom because of their rich texture, grain and colors. And while they do require a little more maintenance and diligence than other stone countertops, their aesthetic value is tough to beat.

Rock of Ages
The main reason these countertops are so popular is their looks. Because sandstone is the product of sand and sediment pressed together over the course of millions of years, their natural beauty is unrivaled. Think of the rich colors and textures of the canyons and plateaus of the American Southwest and you’ve got a good idea of why sandstone counters stand above on looks alone. Add to that the fact that they come in a variety of shades of colors, even in slabs with fossils embedded in the surface, and its easy to understand why many homeowners choose sandstone countertops over more common choices like granite and marble.

Sandstone Maintenance
While the nature of their creation is their main selling point, it’s also their main drawback. Sandstone is more porous than other stone and as a result is much more susceptible to staining and other damage. There are ways to combat this, however. The first, and easiest, answer to this problem is to be diligent about wiping up spills. Stains take time to set in, so the quicker you clean up, the less chance they have of making their mark. Also, be careful about which cleaning products you use on your counters. Ask your installer for an extra piece of your sandstone to keep in the garage as a test sample. Try out cleaners on your sample before using them on your countertops to be sure they won’t cause irreparable damage.

Sealing Your Countertops
The only failsafe way to protect your sandstone is to apply a sealant to them upon installation. Once sealed, you can use and clean your new countertops just as you would any other material. It costs a little more up front, but it’s well worth the extra money in order to ensure you’ll enjoy the good looks of your sandstone counters for years to come.

Talk to an Expert
As with any stone countertop, sandstone is heavy and cumbersome to install and can only be cut to fit your kitchen or bathroom properly by experienced stone masons or stone companies. That being the case, it’s best to talk to the experts about choosing and installing the perfect sandstone countertop for you. If you’re looking for a unique and stunning countertop for your kitchen or bath, you can’t go wrong with the unrivaled beauty of sandstone.

Making The Most Of Your Garden Shed

admin — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 12:14:19 +0000

You’ll know when the time is ripe for you to build a new garden shed.Could it be possible for a ready built shed to match the quality of the much higher priced ready-built shed?The question is whether or not to build a beautiful shed masterpiece with a set of storage shed design plans.Building your own shed may not be as difficult as you’d believe; you just need to have good, solid garden shed plans.Building your garden shed isn’t much different than reading the plans for air-fix kits you may have done as a child. It easily shows assembly procedures, and building your garden shed is no different.

Any good garden shed plan needs a list of required materials, such as timber, screws, and types of wood.All equipment needed to complete your project as out lined will be listed.There is no need to worry if you don’t have all your own tools which you needed to build your shed from garden shed plans because you can certainly rent them from a tool shop.Included in the assembly instructions will be the precise measurements that you will need to follow for best results.

The currently available garden shed plans that you can easily get access to online are very clear and look wonderful once constructed.Following all of the shed plans carefully step by step should help your shed be built exactly right.What you’ll end up with is a garden shed that you can be proud to have built.Finishing your garden shed project is a job that will only take a couple of weekends. So you don’t have to fret about it taking over your life.

The final shed will look wonderful if you follow the advice the plans give carefully.You can even get your children or any other relatives to help you in constructing your self built garden shed.Nothing beats the feeling of completion and the sense of a job well done.For example, my son takes great pride in the fact that he helped me construct our shed, and he never fails to let our visitors know that we built it ourselves.

Therefore I see it as being very beneficial to take the time to build your own shed other than paying a high price for a ready made one that is actually not as well made.By only purchasing the materials needed to build your shed, it will be far more affordable than other types of sheds, as you’ll be doing your own labor and getting the wood at a lower cost.The quality of workmanship in the building of the shed as well as the quality of materials used are the added bonuses to constructing your own shed.This will help you ensure that your shed lives as long as you do.I hope you enjoy building your shed and that your DIY project goes as smoothly as mine did.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 26th, 2010 at 12:49 pm and is filed under Pressure Washing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Idea: Find restaurants/bars/take-away easily

admin — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 11:29:59 +0000

Where are you looking when you want to find a great restaurant or bar or just a take-away next where you currently are? Or no, let me re-formulate: What are your criteria for such a website? What is currently available on the web is for me a bit too cluttered, all the tagging, favoring, want-to-go, comments, etc. (besides some icons without any alt text, so how can should I know what 85 hearts mean?)

What I’m looking for (or willing to build) is a website with a very simple interface: a map, showing you current location (no problem with todays technology), spots nearby along with a scoring and the possibility to vote for a spot, meaning “I was there and I liked it”, kind of like digging the spot (although I shouldn’t use digged, is that copyrighted?) If you didn’t like the spot, didn’t feel comfortable or the food was not up to your expectations, just don’t vote.

There should be also the possibility to define a timespan for valid votes (or scores), so that you can judge the quality of a restaurant over time.

Drug Testing and Employment

admin — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 10:49:54 +0000

Drug testing for drug use in the workplace is now widespread, if you have an interview for a new job expect to have a mandatory pre-employment drug test required for employment. The prevalence of positive drug tests in the work force has increased by 15%. The prevalence of marijuana use is highest, and this can be reliably tested. Though it is prudent to rid the workplace of drug use, however Employers might not realize their best employees could be an actually a weekend pothead. There is little scientific study on the relationship of drug use and workplace outcomes, like productivity, performance and safety. Probable-cause drug testing can be a very well a reason to test someone and pre-employment drug testing is also a very common applications.

Random testing has been less accepted in the workplace and is higher costly, if the employer doesn’t have a written contract signed when hired it can result in legal issues, and predictably poor drug test reliability. Employees have the right to refuse any random or schedule drug testing if upon being hired it wasn’t under any policy or a guideline for employment. Legal issues have focused on the right to policy, discrimination, and the lack of due process. . From the the very moment the employee is hired there should be written drug testing procedures addressed. Any Signs and symptoms of the alcohol or drug abuse should be confronted immediately in the workplace. The legal effective way to have a planned and agreed drug policy by both employee and employer is a contract and a procedure in which expectations and consequences are known from the start.

Product Testing – Chicken Gun Theory

admin — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 05:54:09 +0000

I was recently watching a Discovery Network program on Airbus A380, and it was an eye opener. It was amazing how they were testing the aircraft for impact analysis. About 75% of air collisions happen because of mid-air bird impacts, the simplest solution in the past was to make the Aluminium sheet thicker (about 0.8mm). Because of the new A380′s weight, they decided to try a new approach and design a new lighter material.

As a base, they took a thinner 0.6mm Aluminium sheet. But this time, rather than trying the usual impact analysis they create a real life scenario. They created a Chicken Gun – a gun capable of firing a 1kg skinned chicken at 260 mph towards an Aluminium target.

No surprises, the results of this testing were completely unexpected. The chicken actually tore apart the Aluminium foil like a paper. The result was a new material which combined both glass-fiber and Aluminium.

Honestly has been an eye opener for me !

Testing InSync isn’t easy, unlike server backup you have to the data is much more dispersed and diverse, coming from 1000 different sources over different networks. This time for v4.0 testing, we have decided to follow the Chicken Gun Theory. We are in the process of building three new test suites for -

Parallel Stress
Fatigue
Volume of Data
Different Networks

To simulate parallel testing we have leased over 200+ small servers from a grid provider for next few months. Each of these servers will simulate multiple users to detect bottlenecks in parallel testing. Hopefully this would also be useful for testing scalability of the storage engine. For example we recently discovered that enabling native compression in the embedded database puts some marginal load on abundantly available CPU power, but reduces critical disk I/O by 30% !

Sometimes we have seen issues surfacing from prolonged usage when server is working relentlessly for months. To test this, a small set of these servers will be kept in constant “synchronizing” state for weeks. This fatigue testing should be able to test various corner cases causing memory leaks, open file handlers, de-fragmentation etc.

And to test the effect of different networks, we would be using different proxies which will induce latency and network drops in the network. This should help us understand the “remote” backup better. This actually helped us understand a recent customer case, where backup was suffering because of VPN time-outs.

I am sure, this would help us make your laptop backup much more robust … without sacrificing any chickens (except for the launch parties)

Play Free Bingo For Real Cash

admin — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 16:11:23 +0000

Online bingo is rapidly replacing the traditional offline bingo hall games. To induce players in to becoming members, online sites are offering some amazing introductory offers to build their memberships!

But many people simply don’t understand the incentives being offered. Primarily they don’t understand what the differences are between free bingo bonuses and free real cash, two of the most popular incentive types currently being offered.

The two incentives are different offer types. With a free real cash offer, you don’t have to make a deposit and get a chance of winning free cash by playing bingo online with the cash deposit offered by the provider. You should note that you cannot withdraw the free cash deposited by the provider, you have to use it to play games!

Where free bingo bonuses are offered, you do need to make an initial deposit to qualify for the bonus. The majority of bingo sites now offer free cash bonuses to new members. It’s like a signing up bonus.

The moment you register with a particular bingo site, you become eligible for a free bonus. After you make an initial deposit the site may offer you a percentage of that deposit as a free bonus.

The bonus usually works on a deposit match basis. Lets take a look at an example:

You open an account with a free bonus offer of 200%. To receive the bonus you have to make a deposit in your new account. If you decide to make a deposit of $100 you will get a bonus of another $200 deposited in your account by the provider, giving you a total of $300 to play bingo games with. The size of the bonus match will vary with each provider.

Going back to free cash bonuses, some sites are go a step further to get your custom and offer “no deposit bingo bonuses” known as a free real cash incentive. You do not have to make any deposit in these scenarios to get your free bonus to start playing! However, these free cash bonuses are for much smaller amounts, typically ranging from $10 to $25.

Whats the biggest free real cash incentive you can get?

It depends on the bingo site. It is possible for US players to get a free cash incentive of $30 when they open some accounts. Some UK based web sites give out free cash up to 20 pounds.

Where do you find bingo sites offering the best incentives? You can search the web yourself or you can take a look at the site linked to below where you’ll find the best offers currently being offered by sites in both the US and UK.

If you want to try online bingo, take the time to get the best possible joining incentives and bonuses to get as many free games as possible. At the same time, its important to check to see how long a site has been running to ensure your details are secure when you play.