2008年3月15日星期六

Floral Photos Brighten Spring and Summer Decor

Don't you love the colors of spring and summer? Many flowers are in full bloom, delighting the senses with their beauty and fragrances. It always amazes me how quickly these seasons pass.

Just a few short weeks ago our flowering cherry trees were in full bloom. I captured them as a backdrop for a photo of our twin boys catching a ride with dad on the riding lawn mower. Only days later a strong breeze blew all the beautiful flowers away and all I have is the photo to remember them.

If you have a digital camera, you too can capture the beauty of your spring and summer flowers. I am by no means a professional photographer. I wouldn't even consider myself an amateur...maybe a novice at best! A digital camera, however, is very forgiving. It auto focuses for you and you can retake a picture until you are happy with how it turned out. In about 15 minutes I was able to photograph all of our flowers and get some great pictures to decorate our home.
We have some tall daisies that I took closeup pictures of from several different angles. The yellow walls of our dining room will make a nice background for those photos.

I never saw the weathered siding of our home as attractive until I photographed it behind some beautiful long-stemmed pink flowers. These photos will make a nice addition to our master bedroom.

Seasonal photos are great because you can change them with the seasons. Last fall I photographed our sons on the porch with some big pumpkins, and those photos will come out in the fall and replace the pictures of our summer flowers.

I love seasonal flowers, but because of hayfever we cannot fully enjoy them in the house. By displaying photos of them in the house we can enjoy them while they are in bloom as well as after their seasons have past.

The Many Types of Coffee Pots

The definition of a coffee pot is a vessel used to brew or make coffee. These come in many different styles and offer various ways to produce the desired brew.

Drip Maker

The most widely used coffee pot today is the drip maker. These work by placing coffee in a filter and placing it inside of the container which holds water. The water is heated and pumped through the coffee where it then drips into the pot below. Water temperature is controlled internally to maintain a temperature just below boiling. Boiling coffee tends to produce a bitter taste which is undesirable to most people. These drip pots come with many features which include clocks, alarms, and delayed timers. Most offer the benefit of setting the timer to go off about the time you usually get up in the morning. It is very pleasing to wake up to the smell of freshly brewed coffee.

Percolator

Another popular type coffee pot is the percolator. Percolators work by pumping water into the container holding the coffee until the desired result is achieved. The coffee stays in the same container in which it is brewed. A basket keeps the dry coffee from being deposited into the coffee container. Percolators were popular in the 1970s and 80s before the drip maker became the coffee maker of choice. Percolators are still used today to produce large quantities of coffee since the drip maker usually has a limit of twelve cups.

Vacuum

Many people still enjoy the tradition of vacuum coffee pots because the pots offer interesting shapes and designs. These pots work on the theory that steam creates a vacuum which draws the water and steam through the coffee grounds without distributing the grounds throughout the coffee. The process is similar to the percolator with the exception of the repeated pumping action required of the percolator.

Coffee Pot Safety

There were times when coffee pots were made with long cords which would reach from a good distance across the room. This became a hazard to children who were playing on the floor. Many young children were burned when they pulled the pot off in the floor and the coffee splashed on them. Today coffee pots usually come with a short cord that will only allow you to use it close to an electrical outlet. It is important that you not use an extension cord since this could allow small children to get hurt.

It is also important that your home coffee pot be equipped with a timer that will automatically shut off after a certain period of time, usually two hours. This could prevent a fire if you forget to turn the pot off before you leave the house. This feature can give you peace of mind when you remember half way through your day that you left the coffee pot on.

2008年3月5日星期三

With soaring cost of gas, its time for diesel engines?

Hybrids might be the fad right now but have you considered the new diesel engines coming out of Europe? In the last few years, most European countries have adapted diesel because of the technological advances that made it more reliable and a good alternative for gas guzzling engines.

Diesel engines can deliver extra power compared to any gas engines invented including hybrids which relies on the combination of gas engine and electric motor. Diesel engines are simple to operate and are known to produce higher torque and fuel efficiency which 30%-40 % higher than gas engines. Hybrid might deliver more mileage but the developed pulling torque of diesel engine is unequal. This is attributed to high compression of diesel which is 3-4 times that of gasoline engines.

Tip:

In 2006, a German auto maker unveiled a 2 cylinder turbo diesel car that developed 20 hp with a fuel rating of 157 mpg. This is unheard of on any fuel rating produced by hybrid cars. The car also can seat 4 passengers.

In the first oil crisis of 1970s, a few diesel cars appeared in North America and it was a disaster. Those cars were noisy, very slow and emit lots of black smokes. The fuel injection was based on a single fuel pump driven by the front camshaft gear and hard to control. This resulted in over fueling which has 2 devastating effect: black smoke and detonation since the engine cannot burn all the fuel. Furthermore, because the fuel injector timing is not based on specific load and rpm, it resulted in poor acceleration.
A better fuel management must be found to resolve this problem.

With advances in gasoline electronic fuel injection management, it was also adopted for diesel engine. One of them is the use of electronic common rail fuel distribution system. Using a solenoid for each cylinder coming from the common rail, fuel can be better managed since the engine computer can control the solenoid. This made combustion complete and eliminated the excess fuel that was causing poor acceleration and gas emission. A new turbo charger technology was also added to get more exhaust air at lower rpm. With these 2 additions, the new diesel engines run quieter in various rpm loads.

Although diesel fuel has a higher energy per-liter content compared to the same liter of gasoline, it has 15% more greenhouse gas emissions. This can be blame on sulfur which is added to diesel fuel for lubrication purposes. Sulfur also cause the formation of particulate matter which is a miniature carbon like particles formed after combustion. When breathe into our lungs, this particulates are hazardous to our health. To remedy this, a double air filtering system is added to the engine so the particles can be collected and recycled back to the combustion chamber. This eliminates pollution and made the engine run more efficient. Finally, since diesel engines are also known to produce Nitrogen oxides which cause acid rain, an exhaust gas recirculation (egr) system was also added.

Overall, the performance of the new diesel powered cars is very encouraging. On a test conducted on VW TDI engine recently, it showed one of the best mileage ratings for engine performance. Compared to hybrid engines, diesel engine is not complicated and cheaper to operate. This was made possible because of the innovations in electronic fuel injections which made it reduced emissions to help our environment. If you want to save money on gas bills and have a strong reliable engine, diesel engines might be the answer we are looking for.

Short Description:

A new alternative to high cost of gasoline must be found. Hybrid engine on its infancy and complex technology cannot fill that void. It goes without question that the new diesel engine which gathering huge following in Europe might be the answer.

3 Ways To Make Sure You Crank Out As Much Content As Physically Possible

Marketing to any niche online is hard enough as it is, but you need to have a healthy ammount of quality content to post across the world wide web.

Whether it be short reports, articles, multimedia, fully blown e-courses, or just a simple ebook: you need loads of the stuff.

In the following paragraphs I aim to provide you with the best ways to make sure you are cranking out quality content to keep your business/es packed with materials to use for sale, promotion, or to plump up websites.

The first thing I recommend you do is to accommodate room in your business plan to write articles on a regular basis. This is the key to getting them quickly completed and ready to go.

I try to do at least 7 articles a week minimum! I have a set day every week where I get my head down and get to work on writing as many articles as possible.

But I don't rush them, the key for me is to make sure I am pumping out articles in good fasion but also to make them of the best possible standard.

If you can write 7 articles a week you will find life online a lot easier; you can post each article to your blog/s, you can distribute some/all to various article banks that you have selected.

You can send them to ezine publishers to send to their mailing lists, or even send them to your own lists.

You could even compile all your articles from one week, assuming they are related, and create yourself a short report that you can sell or give away.

Articles are perhaps the most powerful form of content online because of their versatility.

The second way to guaranteeing you are producing your fair share of content is to compile small reports that may only be 5-15 pages long.

Again if you plan to work on this 1-3 hours every day you can ensure you pump plenty of these out every week! They can gain huge exposure to your list if you include giveaway or resell rights with them.

They are so simple to write and produce it is unbelievably easy. If you are still to create your first product online then I recommend you start by writing a few of these.

My main tip with these is to keep things concise, then throughout the report mention a more in-depth up-sell which will be part of your profit funnel, in which you will keep up-selling to your prospect.

These reports can easily become viral if you are selling them with rights or giving it away with rights, if not listen to this: get an affiliate programme.

The Final key to produce the most content possible has already been mentioned in this article and that is to schedule time for the creation of your content.

A slot of time every working day on my business plan is used to write articles and create products.

In this section of time I just get my head down and get to work, as long as you do this I promise you will find things very easy and there is a good chance you will enjoy it too!

To conclude I want you to go away now and schedule some time to create something for yourself! Even if you start with just an article a day or a small report every week.

You will soon have a big library of content you can refer people to, which is obviously excellent because it gets visitors to your site and then if you have produced the best you can your visitor will very likely refer others.

Once you have such a library of products, reports and multimedia you will start to find things easier online. The very last question I want to answer is you may be wondering what to write about?

Head off to your favourite forum in your niche and find a hot topic or one where people are having problems - write about that.

2008年1月5日星期六

Eating Low Fat Products - Is It Good For Health

When you eat a diet that is high in saturated and Tran's fats, you are causing a buildup of calcium in your blood vessels that can later cause many different medical conditions. If you change your eating habits to include low fat foods, you can ensure that you will live for a good long time.

For those with a normal heart, each time the heart contracts, calcium is pumped in and out. When too much calcium accumulates, it can cause a myriad of problems with the electrical system of the heart. It can cause cardiac arrest, heart attack or arrhythmias. It has been found that when there is an abundance of saturated fat in the cells of the heart at the time a person experiences a heart attack, the chances of death are greater and the complications afterward can be severe.

Incorporating low fat eating to your daily routine can help you avoid many heart problems as well as circulatory problems. Any doctor or medical professional will tell you eating a low fat diet is the best way to stay healthy, and allow your body to function at its best. Low fat eating can be quite enjoyable if you do your research and you are willing to experiment with new flavors and textures.

Many people view low fat diets as bland and boring, but nothing could be further from the truth. Foods that you can enjoy on a low fat diet are fresh crisp vegetables in season as well as fruits, lean meats and fish and a variety of whole grains. Using sauces and spices to flavor food is also a great way to help you stick with a low fat diet.

Eating a low fat diet can contribute to feeling good about yourself again as it will enable you to lose weight. You may also experience a greater feeling of energy when you are eating a low fat diet. You will eliminate all of the foods that make your body work hard to digest them and it will give you more energy than you ever thought possible.

2008年1月4日星期五

Vitamin A Usage For Anti Aging

Vitamin A is required for night vision, bone and tooth development, maintaining skin tissue, reproduction, mucous membranes, and for iron metabolism. There are two sources of Vitamins A. The active form are obtained from animal products and are immediately available to the human body and the precursors types that must be converted to active forms to be utilized by the body. They are acquired from fruits and vegetables that have yellow, orange and dark green pigments, known as beta-carotene.

Vitamin A is also involved in maintaining the certain cells used by immune system to ward off infections and include b-cells, t-cells, macrophages, and natural killer cells. Vitamins A affect the production of the human growth hormone.

Vitamin A is a fat-soluble vitamin and is stored primarily in the liver and to some extent the fat cells in the body. When needed the liver releases the Vitamin A into the blood stream to be carried to the cells and organs of the human body.

Unlike water-soluble vitamins, fat-soluble vitamins can reach toxic levels in the human body. The condition knows as hypervitamoinosis can occur if more than 10,000 IU per day of Active (animal) Vitamin A, or the synthetic version of Vitamin A is taken. This condition can be fatal. Do not take more than the recommended dosage of Vitamin A. Vitamin A derived from fruits and vegetables does not appear to develop toxic levels in the human body.

It is unknown why, but animals adapted to the polar environment contain high enough amounts of Vitamin A in their livers to be toxic to humans. As little of 30 grams of polar bear liver eaten in one meal can be enough to kill a human being.

Vitamin A in the form of Retinoid and Retinol are used in the cosmetic industry to improve the skin replacement rate. The effects of acne and the scars from acne can be markedly reduced by this higher skin cell replacement rate. The anti aging chemicals also found in vitamin A are absorbed through the skin and can increase the collagen level giving the skin a more youthful appearance.

Regular application of retinol can make the skin soft and smooth. The pores will be cleaned and less visible and wrinkles will be less pronounced thus the signs of aging would be reduced. Retinol has been found to improve skin texture, tone and color.

Vitamins A had been suspected to be a contributor to osteoporosis and with the increase in birth defects when taken in excess. The FDA recommends that pregnant women consume no more than 5,000 IU of Vitamin A per day.

Good sources of natural Vitamin A is found in sweet potatoes, carrots, collard greens, kale, pumpkin, spinach, sweet peppers, winter squash, apricots, cantaloupe, mango, liver, eggs and broccoli.

If you just feel that you need vitamins, supplements or herbs to fight the aging process then find a good health care professional prior to starting any type of home treatment.

Always consult your doctor before using this information.

This Article is nutritional in nature and is not to be construed as medical advice.

Using a cartidge for filtering

Every swimming pool requires a filtration system that will ensure that the water in the pool in clean and fresh. There are three basic types of filtration systems: sand filters, diatomaceous earth filters and cartridge filters.

Recent research has shown that most Elk Grove swimming pool owners prefer cartridge filters for their swimming pool. The cartridge filters have several advantages over sand filters. The biggest advantage is that cartridges filter over a much larger surface area.

The majority of cartridge filters used for Elk Grove swimming pools starts at 100 square feet and continue up to 300 square feet. These swimming pool filters do not clog up as quickly and require to be cleaned much less frequently.

Elk Grove pool owners also prefer cartridge filters because they are inexpensive and easy to replace. Most of these filters have a life span of around 5 years. These filters are designed to run at lower pressure than sand. This in turn puts much less pressure on the swimming pool pump. Generally these filters have to be cleaned once or twice a season by hosing them down.

Diatomaceous earth filters are made from fossilized exoskeletons of tiny diatoms. These swimming pool filters are very effective and can be used to filter out particles as small as 5 microns. Once the filter pressure rises, the filter is backwashed just like a sand filter and can be recharged with more power.