Office Chairs - The History of the Office Chair

Office chairs first came in demand because of the railroad system. Traditional, family owned businesses were becoming less and less attractive and as large companies, like railroad companies, began to increase in numbers so did the need for administrative employees. This new type of occupational need also created a need for new types of furniture that would be specific to the administrative tasks. The office chair was created to increase productivity and comfort while tasking for long hours. Office seating was first introduced with 2 functions that set it apart from most other chairs. Office chairs had casters and a swivel function. These functions made employees much more mobile. The casters allowed for effortless rolling around a workstation or desk area. The swivel ability made it possible for 1 employee to perform multiple tasks at the same time because of the added range and movement.

The rapid development in our technology has created a huge demand for a number of different office chair designs. New technology creates new occupations and some of those occupations require new types of furniture. Much of the technological growth has come in administrative and information based fields. These fields have created the demand for specialized office seating like computer chairs and ergonomic office chairs. Other factors like climate and architectural design have recently influenced the office chair industry. The increased popularity of mesh office chairs in hot and humid climates is due in large part to the ability that mesh has to breathe and keep the user cool during the work day. On the other hand, chairs like the Aeron have been developed with a strong emphasis on modern, artistic design which has drawn the attention of any business trying to keep up with modern trends. There is also a big distinction in the style of chair that an executive uses compared to that of a typical employee. Executives have always had to distinguish themselves from the rest of the crowd and it is no different with executive office chairs.

* Computer Chairs were designed to be very adjustable and comfortable for long periods of sitting. Computer chairs usually feature an adjustable seat and backrest, casters, a swivel function and a padded seat for more comfort. Many times employees from different shifts will use the same chair. This makes the adjustability of computer chairs a big positive.

Office chairs first came in demand because of the railroad system. Traditional, family owned businesses were becoming less and less attractive and as large companies, like railroad companies, began to increase in numbers so did the need for administrative employees. This new type of occupational need also created a need for new types of furniture that would be specific to the administrative tasks. The office chair was created to increase productivity and comfort while tasking for long hours. Office seating was first introduced with 2 functions that set it apart from most other chairs. Office chairs had casters and a swivel function. These functions made employees much more mobile. The casters allowed for effortless rolling around a workstation or desk area. The swivel ability made it possible for 1 employee to perform multiple tasks at the same time because of the added range and movement.

The rapid development in our technology has created a huge demand for a number of different office chair designs. New technology creates new occupations and some of those occupations require new types of furniture. Much of the technological growth has come in administrative and information based fields. These fields have created the demand for specialized office seating like computer chairs and ergonomic office chairs. Other factors like climate and architectural design have recently influenced the office chair industry. The increased popularity of mesh chairs in hot and humid climates is due in large part to the ability that mesh has to breathe and keep the user cool during the work day. On the other hand, chairs like the Aeron have been developed with a strong emphasis on modern, artistic design which has drawn the attention of any business trying to keep up with modern trends. There is also a big distinction in the style of chair that an executive uses compared to that of a typical employee. Executives have always had to distinguish themselves from the rest of the crowd and it is no different with executive office chairs.

* Computer Chairs were designed to be very adjustable and comfortable for long periods of sitting. Computer chairs usually feature an adjustable seat and backrest, casters, a swivel function and a padded seat for more comfort. Many times employees from different shifts will use the same chair. This makes the adjustability of computer chairs a big positive.

* Ergonomic Chairs are designed to keep the user in a supportive, proper sitting position to help minimize stress and tension put on the muscles, joints and limbs. Ergonomic chairs are highly adjustable and feature high end upholstery. Most ergonomic chairs have a fully adjustable seat and backrest, fully adjustable armrests, adjustable lumbar support and an adjustable headrest (if the chair features a headrest). An ergonomic office chair should be used if the employee will be seated for more than 4 hours at a time.

* Mesh Chairs first came into popularity when Herman Miller introduced the Aeron Chair. Most mesh chairs are completely transparent which makes them extremely breathable. Traditionally office chairs have had a wood or plastic backing with a fabric or leather upholstery. This upholstery will often make the user hot or sweaty if used for long hours. Mesh has constant airflow keeping the user cool during the day.

* Executive Chairs are usually upholstered in top of the line upholstery and almost always feature a high back or headrest. They also feature a swivel function and seat height adjustment. There is a wide range in the number of adjustments available on different models after the initial functions. Executive office chairs have typically been upholstered in leather but many executives are now sitting in mesh chairs.

Office chairs will continue to evolve as technology does. New upholstery options like mesh will continue to be redeveloped and improved upon. Topics like ergonomics will continue to be at the forefront of the office chair industry. Desk chair design has gone from a simple fabric swivel chair to fully adjustable ergonomic chairs with memory foam seats. Who knows what type of chairs are still to come?

Ryan Bald owns and operates Beyond Auctions LLC, an Office Chair dealer that specializes in ergonomic chairs and ergonomic office furniture.

Article Source:EzineArticles.com

How to Grow Strawberries

In addition to the traditional strawberry patch, there are as many ways to grow strawberries as there are to eat them! Grow strawberries in a bed, hydroponically, as a ground cover, as an ornamental patio plant, or in a hanging basket.

Strawberry Categories

An important part of knowing how to grow strawberries is understanding how different types of strawberries grow. Strawberry cultivars are placed in one of three categories.

o June bearing strawberries produce a large, voluptuous crop of berries in late spring. Mother plants send out runners (daughters) that root and develop into matted rows. The disadvantage to June bearing strawberries is 1) they only bear fruit once a year and 2) the first year you need to pluck all blossoms from your plants to let them become firmly established.

o Ever bearing strawberries really aren't "ever" bearing, but do produce a harvest twice a year, once in spring and again in autumn. During the first year, pluck all blossoms from ever-bearing cultivars through the end of June. After that, they will blossom again and set fruit for a fall harvest.

o Day neutral strawberries frequently produce a crop of small, but very sweet berries throughout most of the growing season. After plucking off the first set of blossoms allow the fruit to set and you'll have strawberries throughout the summer!

The Versatile Alpine Strawberry

The Alpine Strawberry is a cousin of the wild strawberry and is very much at home lining a path or walk way. In fact, the only strawberry that is regularly started from seed, the Alpine strawberry is a day neutral cultivar that makes an excellent ground cover with headily fragrant blossoms and very tasty red or white strawberries.
The Alpine Strawberry reseeds profusely from its own strawberry seeds and bears fruit throughout the growing season.

Buying Strawberries for Transplanting

The best time to purchase strawberry plants is autumn. Find end of season plants at dirt-cheap prices or order new plants for spring delivery. In addition, your nursery may offer wholesale strawberry plants packed in bundles containing as few as 25 plants. Nurseries have limited space and often take orders for wholesale plants on a first-come, first-served basis. Frequently, their stock is depleted long before spring.

Most strawberry cultivars over-winter if kept cool in a root cellar, unheated garage, or basement. For extra protection, cover roots with sand, wood shavings or soil. Ordering or purchasing strawberry plants in the fall ensures that you'll have them for spring planting!

Thirty plants provide enough strawberries for a family of four. Select your plants carefully and purchase only virus-tested transplants.

Site Selection

Plant strawberries in the sunniest spot you can find. Although you can get a harvestable crop with as little as six hours of direct sunlight per day, the largest harvests and best quality berries come from those plants that get the advantage of full sun.

The shallow rooted strawberry plant is poor competition for weeds, shrubs, trees, or other plants. Till a garden bed in the fall to eliminate a lot of the weeds that cause problems during the growing season. Choose a spot away from large trees, which may send roots into your strawberry bed. Also, be sure to locate your strawberry bed away from any spot where you have grown peppers, tomatoes, eggplant or potatoes. These plants can harbor verticillium wilt, which is devastating to strawberries.

Although strawberries won't thrive in saturated ground, they do need a moist environment. Amend soil with a good supply of nutrient rich organic matter to both improve aeration, drainage, and increase moisture-holding capacity. In the spring, as soon as the frost is out of the ground and the soil is workable, till your bed again. Now you are ready to "set" your strawberry plants. The second and third part of this how to on strawberries is available on our site.

Article Source:EzineArticles.com

The History of the Watch: From the Early 19th Century to Present Day Timepieces!

The watch has made many transformations through the years. There have been many modifications and technological advancements that have made it possible to wear them on your wrist and tell the time with a push of a button! Unlike the watches made many centuries ago, the watches of today offer cutting edge technology and modern day convenience features. The watch is steeped in history and has seen us through World Wars and Nuclear Warfare. At the end of time, there's no doubt that we'll use a watch to make note of the date/time!

To truly understand the evolution of the watch, we must take a journey into the past. The first timekeeping device was actually a pocket watch. Though, back in the day, they were worn around the neck. I guess we know the occupation of Flava Flav's early ancestors!

After the railroad began using the pocket watch, the watch industry grew by leaps and bounds! With the invention of the wristwatch, watches became increasingly popular among professionals and everyday folk. The LED digital watch and the Pilot's watch have taken the watch designs and functions to a whole new level. To date, there are many watchmakers vying for your business! Your best bet is to hop online and view the many different styles, models and prices before you purchase another watch.

The pocket watch is the oldest form of watch in production. In the beginning, they were completely customized pieces of jewelry that were mainly owned by royalty or the rich. Encrusted with jewels and made of the finest quality materials, the early pocket watches were not easily affordable. Eventually made into smaller versions and worn around the neck, the pocket watch was still mostly considered a fashion accessory. That was until the development of the railroad. Using the pocket watch as a means to schedule train departures and arrivals, the pocket watch became a time telling necessity. Unfortunately, though, the early pocket watch models did not accurately tell time; they "lost" time as the day progressed, making it impossible to synchronize times among a group of people.
Following a train collision, it was deemed that the pocket watch needed to undergo a technological improvement to tell time more accurately.

The revised technology made it possible to begin making the pocket watch smaller and smaller, until it eventually began to be worn on the wrist. The wristwatch began to see a dramatic burst of production during wartimes. The military saw a use for a watch that could be easily read while performing duties. The chronograph wristwatches with luminous hands were in high demand! Today, there are a multitude of watch manufacturers that specialize in wristwatch production. There are watches sporting beautiful jewels and watches that are mostly geared toward function. Some are battery operated, while others operate from the power of the sun! There are watches that will fit into any price range, too. Shopping online will allow you to view and compare many wristwatches so that you can pick the one that is most perfect for your wants and needs!

The LED Digital wrist watch came about in the late 1960's and early 1970's. These watches were very unique in that they require no moving parts to tell the time of day! Passing an electrical charge through inorganic materials creates the LED digital technology. In other words, you simply press a button and the watch lights up with the dime/date! The Americans and the Japanese have been the forerunners in the development of the LED digital watch. Early models were expensive, but are inexpensive to date. They are the best watches to learn how to tell time by!

The Aviation Watch (Pilot Watch) is a very functional timepiece.. These watches actually help to maintain flight plans, perform pre-flight planning and navigate flights, so they are extremely important for pilots! Used primarily by the military and aircrew, the Aviation style watches are also popular among avid outdoorsmen and athletes. Today, the aviation world has seen a great improvement in a plane's instrumentation panel, so the Aviation watch isn't quite as important, but they are very useful to have just in case you need a back up!

All watches are analog or digital in nature, some are even both! Men, women and children will be able to find a wrist watch that is just perfect for their needs/desires. Shopping on the Internet, you'll find many merchants that sell watches. There are places to find some really great discounted selections, too! When it comes to watches, there are many factors you should consider before you purchase, including: functions needed, size, style and price. Once you have your choices narrowed down, shopping online is the quickest and most convenient way to go. Whether you are an avid watch collector or you are purchasing a time teaching model, remember that your choices have been made possible thanks to the many talented designers and engineers through the years!

Chris Vorelli is a successful freelance writer, providing useful articles and info on where to buy discount watches, replacement bands & more. Learn about all types of ladies and men's watches, from Seiko, Fossil watches, Rolex watches & more.

Article Source:EzineArticles.com

12 Month Loans - Get Funds Easily In Difficult Conditions

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These schemes aid fulfilling your alternate funds shortfall and deal with your short - term with easy and satisfaction. This is generally taken out for unexpected expenditure and gets the Online application form approval within very little hours in same day cash. The most extraordinary thing about such finances is that the fact they are obtainable with ease and can be attained without long formalities or making difficult terms and conditions.

You can get adapted with this pattern through Online mode. This supports come with an easy and simple application and immediate approval which supports submitting you the borrowed sum absolute in your bank account. The sum that you can analyze can be in the range from 50 to 1500 pounds and have easy and simple reimbursement terms and conditions along with rules and regulations.

To meet your unwanted expenditures on time you can have monthly loans with no problem of faxing and hassle free paperwork. You can as well meet your little daily expenditures with lots ease and to bridge your financial crunches. It is the satisfaction option matching to your desires and satisfactions.

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SUMMARY - Online mode of availing is really very helpful choice for 12 month loans. You do not require to waste your time in any sought of paperwork and documentation as it is hassle free because a single application form will fulfill all your requirements.

Ceiling Fan Buying Tips

Ceiling fans have been around for a very long time, the fan we all know being well over 150 years old; however, they are becoming alot more common these days. With the multitude of shapes, sizes, colors and feature options now on the market, deciding on what type of ceiling fan to purchase can be a headache. It really does not need to be this way. These exotic fan features have all been produced to fit a variety of peoples' needs and wants, and alot of them were also designed to make installing a ceiling fan alot easier. Here are some things you should do before you actually go out and purchase your ceiling fan.

Pull out the tape measure:

You will need to know the size of the room before you buy your ceiling fan. This will let you know what type of fan that you will need to buy. Rooms that are around 100 square feet, you will most likley be looking at a 36" fans. A 42" fan for rooms that are even larger then that. If you need a ceiling fan for rooms over 144 square feet, you will be looking at 44" and 48" ceiling fans. There are even larger fans then that for larger rooms. The biggest ceiling fans are 60" wide. A fan like this is able to cover rooms of up to 625 square feet! Now thats a big fan!

Will the fan be indoors or outdoors?

Outdoor fans are pretty hard to come by, but there are some available on the market. These types of fans are designed with the high temperatures, low temperatures, dirt, dryness and humidity of outdoor conditions in mind. That is why an indoor fan should NEVER be installed in outdoor conditions. Make sure you purchase the right fan for the right conditions. Some fan manufacturers have lifetime warranties on both indoor and outdoor ceiling fans.

What's your style?

You know what your style is. Ceiling fan styles are usually grouped into Hippie, Standard, Modern, Futuristic and Abstract. The most Hippie design available today on the market is the Hunter 1886 styles. Lots of ceiling fan designs will resemble the very first ceiling fans ever to come out- the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, and look either Hippie or Standard depending on where the ceiling fan is installed. Five blade fans are Modern, and three-blade fans are more on the Futuristic side. What are Abstract fans? The Football Fan is just one of those.

Lighting?

Most of the ceiling fans available today will allow you to add lighting to it if you would like. Actually, alot of fans will come with the lighting kits as part of the purchase. If light is needed in the very core of your setting, in addition to the fan, you can choose to buy the fan and lighting kits seperately or as one whole package. If you buy them separately, its best to match manufacturers so you know that they will both fit each other.

Powering the ceiling fan:

Before recently, to control your ceiling fan and the lighting on that fan from a switch, you needed a three-conductor wire in between the switch and the wall. Now some fan manufacturers make controls that will allow you to wire up with your existing two-conductor wires. And even more, pretty much all fan-and-light combinations on the market can be packaged with a remote control that only needs two wires at the ceiling box to give it power.

Support for the ceiling fan:

This one of the most important aspects to installing your ceiling fan. A full assembly fan weighs alot. Actually, even the small ones weigh alot. Fans also move; a ceiling fan could not be mounted on a standard lighting fixture. It will most likely tumble to the floor. Most ceiling fan manufacturers have standard instructions packaged for mounting the fan to a certain type of mounting item above the junction item. This will be your best bet, but another option is installing a special fan box, either on the mounting or latched to it.

To cool or not to cool?

Most people think of ceiling fans as a device to keep a place colder. This is the most common use, but they are just as useful for keeping a room warm when it is cold outside during those winter months. Make sure you purchase a fan that will blow in the downwards direction during warm weather and upwards in cold weather. Blowing upwards will cause the warmest air in the setting up and out, to come back down along the sides of the room. It will definately make the floor alot warmer, and you will notice this

Article Source:EzineArticles.com

Trial by jury no longer guarantees justice

Why is it considered an ancient liberty that must be defended at all costs, to have guilt or innocence decided by a dozen people who would rather be anywhere else than stuck in a stuffy courtroom being in turn bored and bamboozled by barristers?

Who says that those 12 jury members - open to intimidation, vulnerable to romance and faction fighting, susceptible to corruption or simply to listening to their iPods under their hijabs - can guarantee that justice will be done.

Much has been said about the “maverick” nature of the jury that returned a mixed bag of verdicts last week in what the Crown thought was an open-and-shut case against eight men accused of plotting to blow up transatlantic aircraft. A retrial is on the cards, so it would be unwise to discuss the possible foibles of that jury. But there are many cases in which the jury system has been found lacking.

I have reported on dozens of important criminal cases in the British courts, including every high-profile terrorist trial since 2003, and have seen jurors who approach their duty with great diligence. But increasingly, especially in trials likely to last more than a month or two, jurors give the impression of being frustrated and distracted.

Most big cases begin with a parade of potential jurors queueing up to tell the judge why they should be excused because of holiday, work, illness or some other reason. The remnants - usually those not bright enough to come up with a half-decent excuse - are left to try some of the most complicated cases.

Listening to the swearing of the juror's oath can be painful, as barely literate jurors struggle to read the words on the card in their hand. Trial by your peers can mean placing your fate in the hands of someone who can only just read aloud.

Britain's first al-Qaeda case was tried at Leicester Crown Court in 2003 and teetered on the brink of collapse for 10 weeks because several jurors were paralysed by fear. One woman was physically sick at mention of the name of Osama bin Laden, and two juries had to be discharged after pronouncing themselves too scared or too prejudiced to try the case. The case was completed by a third jury, which limped home with nine members.

While jurors can be of questionable quality, a greater problem still is that the criminal justice system sets out deliberately to handicap them. Long before a case gets to trial, lawyers and judges spend months weeding out elements of the evidence that the jury cannot hear. When the 12 men and women take their seats in the jury box they do not know that they will hear only a partial version of the case.

Take the ricin trial in 2003. Most of the defendants were acquitted of plotting to conduct a terrorist attack by spreading home-made ricin and other toxins. But the jury was not given the full story: it was not told that a key defendant had murdered a police officer while on the run, nor about the protective clothing, knives, replica weapons and gas masks found inside Finsbury Park mosque during raids connected to the investigation.

Crucial evidence was withheld from the jury in last year's fertiliser bomb case. Jurors were not told that two men with the defendants in police surveillance photos were Mohammed Siddique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer, the July 7 London bombers. Was that association not relevant to deciding whether the men in the dock had terrorist intent?

It isn't just terrorism cases. At Bristol Crown Court in 1999 jurors acquitted Gary Glitter of sexually assaulting a schoolgirl. Minutes after returning their verdicts, they learnt for the first time that the former pop star had admitted amassing a huge library of 4,000 child abuse images. The law decided that, if the jurors were to know that he was a self-confessed paedophile, it would prejudice his trial for child sex abuse.

While it was possible for lawyers to keep a jury in the dark in 1999, it is increasingly difficult in the age of Google. Despite warnings from judges, jurors can, and do, go online to find out more about their cases than they're being told in court.

Juries have also played their part in some of our worst miscarriages of justice, such as the cases of the Birmingham Six and Guildford Four. But a judge sitting alone in one of Belfast's Diplock courts threw out the ill-prepared Crown case against Sean Hoey, accused of the Omagh bombing, and a district judge in London called a halt to the fit-up job in which Lotfi Raissi, an Algerian pilot falsely accused of training the 9/11 hijackers, was almost extradited to the US. How would juries have performed in such emotive trials?

The jury system is broken. In long and complex cases it no longer passes muster. Dedicated panels of assessors, respresentative of society and committed to trying cases independently, should be appointed in their stead. A not dissimilar model functions in employment tribunals. And where the jury remains, for shorter, simpler cases, its members should be properly recompensed for loss of earnings, firmly reminded that they are carrying a hefty civic burden and entrusted with the whole truth.

Resource : timesonline.co.uk

Gay Marriage? Absolutely!

This is not an essay full of facts and figures. If you want to read up on the history of marriage and its long legacy of discrimination against one kind of people or another, you'll have to go elsewhere. What you're going to get here is a piece of my mind, straight from my heart.

Actually, I doubt if anything coming from my heart can be very straight, since I'm bisexual. However, I promise you that this essay will be gut-level honest, no holds barred. I may be criticized for saying all the things I'm about to say, but that's too bad, because there's a horrible abuse of privilege going on in relation to marriage, and it makes me sick.

The truth is, I think it is sick that here in the United States, gay marriage is not a federally protected right. This is bigotry, pure and simple, and it needs to stop. Denying two women or two men the right to marry is as cruel and absurd as it was to deny two straight people of different races the right to marry.

In my home state (Washington), legislators in 1998 passed the highly redundant and incredibly homophobic "Defense of Marriage Act," which outlaws marriage between two people of the same sex (this was already illegal in Washington). Personally, I think they should have called this law the "Denial of Marriage Act," since it denies roughly ten percent of the population the right to enjoy the legal privileges accorded to the other ninety percent.

Maybe I'm missing something, but doesn't the Constitution of the United States guarantee everyone the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Seems to me that this guarantee alone should be enough to legitimatize gay marriage, since it's mighty hard to feel very free (liberty) if you don't have the right to marry the person you love (the pursuit of happiness).

Marriage as an Institution

Since I'm arguing for the expansion of marriage rights, it may surprise you to know that I'm no big fan of marriage. As a woman who has been married and divorced twice, and who has since enjoyed a long-term partnership with a man (since 1987), I tend to share Mae West's infamous take on marriage: "Marriage is a great institution, but I'm not ready for an institution yet."

Aside from my personal bias, I must also confess that in my longtime practice as a professional counselor, I've rarely seen marriage improve a relationship. I've seen a number of healthy relationships stay strong and vibrant after marriage; I've just rarely seen marriage actually improve a relationship.

Unfortunately, I have seen numerous couples hit the skids or "go on automatic" at some point after they invite the institution of marriage into their lives. Of course, there's no telling what would have happened if these people hadn't gotten married, since there are no control groups in human life. However, most people underestimate the extraordinary power of marriage, with all its socioeconomic and religious underpinnings, not to mention its intergenerational family legacies.

Marriage brings with it a whole gamut of personal and collective hopes, dreams, fears, and expectations. Anyone who doesn't think so has probably never been married, or may simply be oblivious (perhaps blissfully so) to the complex inner workings of this ancient institution.

Meat to the Lions and a Circus of Laws

One of my spiritual teachers (a woman) said that marriage is "like meat to the lions." That's a pretty intense statement, so I've thought about it a lot over the years. One thing I've realized is that the State sanctions marriage in order to control people's lives in various ways for the benefit of society (e.g., to oversee the welfare of "legitimate" children, or to regulate property ownership and the dispersal of assets after death).

Some would argue — perhaps rightfully so — that marriage isn't only for the benefit of society, but also for the benefit of its participants. For example, in most American states, only legally married couples are allowed to pass along Social Security benefits to their partners. There are also more than a thousand other benefits assigned automatically through the act of marriage. Thus, unmarried couples — whether gay or straight — are penalized in numerous ways by current marriage laws in the United States.

If government-sanctioned marriage did not exist, people would probably need to be more proactive in regard to financial rights and responsibilities. This would mean that domestic partners would need to draw up legal documents to protect their financial and medical interests, as well as to specify their personal wishes related to other important matters of life and death.

Frankly, I think it would be much simpler to make this documentation a matter of personal responsibility for individual couples, instead of leaving it to the mercy of our country's current circus of laws surrounding marriage, community property, child custody, and estate dispersal. In other words, I wish the government would stay out of the marriage bed.

When I was a child, I assumed I'd get married, because that's what most people did in my generation. Once I left that kind of automatic thinking behind, however, I came to believe that this country's laws about the separation of Church and State should also apply to marriage. To me, marriage is an affair of the heart, and I don't think the State has any business regulating affairs of the heart.

Given the complexity of human life in current time, it's understandable that unions between partners require some level of government regulation. Even so, I'd rather do away with State-sanctioned marriage altogether and make all unions be civil unions. This would leave the issue of marriage to religion, thus keeping the separation of Church and State clear and strong.

Various churches could then be inclusive or exclusive in regard to marriage, according to their collective level of enlightenment (or lack thereof). Anyone could choose to marry or not as desired, and every union--regardless of whether or not marriage is also involved--would be accorded all the rights and responsibilities that are now awarded only to State-sanctioned marriages.

I acknowledge that my perspective about marriage and civil unions is still the minority position in the United States. I think this is changing fast, and I look forward to the day when this article can be removed from my Web site!

At this point, I'll return to my defense of gay marriage, now that you know it's not so much marriage itself I'm defending, but every adult's right to marry, regardless of sexual orientation.

The Privilege of Choice

Although my overall network of friends includes a variety of sexual orientations, my close inner circle is noticeably underpopulated by heterosexuals. I didn't plan it this way. In fact, I never really paid much attention to it until I started thinking about writing this article many years ago.

Here's the breakdown of my current circle of close friends: I'm bisexual and I'm partnered with a straight man. My best woman friend is also bisexual, and she's in a long-term relationship with a woman. My closest male friend is gay, and he's in a long-term relationship with a man. Of three other close women friends, one is lesbian and partnered for 19 years, and the other two are straight and currently unattached. That makes three heterosexuals out of a total of ten people.

This means that if you consider my inner circle of friends and their partners, three straight people and two bisexuals have the right to marry the lover of their choice — but we bisexuals have this right only if we choose partners of the opposite sex. The two of us who are bisexual, along with the other five who are gay or lesbian, cannot legally marry someone of the same sex. This is obviously not an equitable situation.

I realize that the percentage of non-heterosexual people in my inner circle of friends doesn't fit the statistical norm. However, I think I can safely say that my friends and I all consider ourselves "normal" and most definitely believe that each of us deserves the same rights as everyone else. Ironically, and perhaps understandably, it is my gay and lesbian friends who would like to be married. My partner and I want no part of it, and my other close women friends who are straight are happily single right now.

This brings me to the crux of the matter: It's a much different issue to choose not to be married if you have the choice! That's the nature of privilege: It allows you to say yes or no to something because the choice is a given. My gay and lesbian friends don't have this privilege, and frankly, I think that's deplorable. I don't know how anyone can be so arrogant as to deny other adults the right to make a family — in every sense of the word, including legally — with whomever they choose.

A Call for Well-Lit Minds

I wish that for one year, every homophobe, every anti-gay legislator, and every one-way religious fundamentalist would be required to experience, firsthand, what many homosexuals experience, to some degree, every day of every year: intolerance, ridicule, hatred, and socio-economic discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Perhaps if the roles were reversed, homophobic people could get a taste of their own oppression and find out how it feels to get dirty looks because you're one of them, how it feels to be disowned by your parents because your lover doesn't fit their profile, how it feels to be denied child custody rights because of your sexual identity, how it feels to be denied access to a dying partner in the hospital because you're not legally married, or how it feels to be fired from your job — despite workplace protection laws — because coworkers are "uncomfortable" around you.

The brutality of discrimination is pervasive. Sometimes the situation seems hopeless to me, since I know that bigots rarely turn into icons of acceptance overnight, and in fact, may never soften their stance at all. However, something inside me refuses to give up on even the most diehard homophobes, because I believe that somewhere in their hearts lies a nugget of gold, a cache of compassion trapped inside an icy envelope of fear. You just never know what stroke of luck, what kiss of kindness, what twist of fate might serve to melt that icy envelope.

Some day — and I hope it's soon — homophobes and bigots won't be running the show, and their prejudices can then be entertained and accepted as merely one position among many, rather than the dominant paradigm. After all, even homophobia must make sense somehow within the convoluted framework of the minds that give rise to it.

Unfortunately, these minds may not be very well lit. The point is, well-lit minds are inclusive, not exclusive, because it is the nature of light to shine equally on all things and all people. Therefore, dimly lit minds should not be sitting in legislatures and deciding the fate of millions of ordinary citizens who simply want the freedom to love, cherish, and legally commit to whomever they choose.

When my gay and lesbian friends can marry, and when people like me can walk either side of our bisexuality with impunity, then I will stop writing about this cruel denial of rights. Until then, I'll add my voice to the fray.

Resource: drcat.org

90 Day Loans – Overcome Your Financial Problems With Ease

What can you do when your credit status is not good and you get other family troubles? After deciding your best choice for meeting these urgencies, if you are in poor credit position, then you will definitely buy suddenly and will even not work further in re - solving your troubles. Is it even going to improve or decline your troubles? So, even best choice for you is 90 day loans. Under such loans you can give proper idea to your dreams, if your further position will also be so good, matching to you, this you would be feasible to pay back your sum properly.

The loans for bad credit are such loans that can be feasible in just few hours. Such are fashioned to meet urgency monetary expenditures, hospital expenses, electricity bills, children's admission fees or examination fees, car repairs, sudden occasion such as marriage that can not be ignored and lot more. Such loans suit the circumstances where you do not have enough saving of your own or where you do not wish to have some monetary sympathy from your family, friends or even close relatives.

For accomplishing such loans, there is very easy and simple process. They will just simply ask you various questions regarding your financial competence which you have to prove absolutely; otherwise it would simply action against you. You should make sure that you are a US national; you must be the age of 18 or more at the time of availing loan and you even must have a perfect bank account with current entries. They will not even ask you for any security or even mortgaging.

In such 12 month loans, the rate of interest is a slightly higher in comparison to other loans, but you, still will be in such a condition to pay loans with lot of ease within 90 day payday loans. Once you offer all personal information accordingly, your loan will get given approval immediately and funds will be deposited within just few hours.

Resource: 1888articles.com

Powerful quake, tsunami kills hundreds in Japan

TOKYO – For more than two terrifying, seemingly endless minutes Friday, the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan shook apart homes and buildings, cracked open highways and unnerved even those who have learned to live with swaying skyscrapers. Then came a devastating tsunami that slammed into northeastern Japan and killed hundreds of people.

The violent wall of water swept away houses, cars and ships. Fires burned out of control. Power to a cooling system at a nuclear power plant was knocked out, forcing thousands to flee. A boat was caught in the vortex of a whirlpool at sea.

The death toll rose steadily throughout the day, but the true extent of the disaster was not known because roads to the worst-hit areas were washed away or blocked by debris and airports were closed.

After dawn Saturday, the scale of destruction became clearer.

Aerial scenes of the town of Ofunato showed homes and warehouses in ruins. Sludge and high water spread over acres of land, with people seeking refuge on roofs of partially submerged buildings. At one school, a large white "SOS" had been spelled out in English.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said an initial assessment found "enormous damage," adding that the Defense Ministry was sending troops to the hardest-hit region.

President Barack Obama pledged U.S. assistance following what he called a potentially "catastrophic" disaster. He said one U.S. aircraft carrier is already in Japan and a second was on its way. A U.S. ship was also heading to the Marianas Islands to assist as needed, he added.

The entire Pacific had been put on alert — including coastal areas of South America, Canada and Alaska — but waves were not as bad as expected.

The magnitude-8.9 offshore quake struck at 2:46 p.m. local time and was the biggest to hit Japan since record-keeping began in the late 1800s. It ranked as the fifth-largest earthquake in the world since 1900 and was nearly 8,000 times stronger than one that devastated Christchurch, New Zealand, last month, scientists said.

The quake shook dozens of cities and villages along a 1,300-mile (2,100-kilometer) stretch of coast and tall buildings swayed in Tokyo, hundreds of miles from the epicenter. Prime Minister Naoto Kan was attending a parliamentary session at the time.

"I thought I was going to die," said Tokyo marketing employee Koto Fujikawa. "It felt like the whole structure was collapsing."

Fujikawa, 28, was riding a monorail when the quake hit and had to later pick her way along narrow, elevated tracks to the nearest station.

Minutes later, the earthquake unleashed a 23-foot (seven-meter) tsunami along the northeastern coast of Japan near the coastal city of Sendai in Miyagi prefecture. The quake was followed for hours by aftershocks. The U.S. Geological Survey said 124 were detected off Japan's main island of Honshu, 111 of them of magnitude 5.0 or greater.

Large fishing boats and other vessels rode the high waves ashore, slamming against overpasses or scraping under them and snapping power lines along the way. A fleet of partially submerged cars bobbed in the water. Ships anchored in ports crashed against each other.

The tsunami roared over embankments, washing anything in its path inland before reversing direction and carrying the cars, homes and other debris out to sea. Flames shot from some of the homes, apparently from burst gas pipes.

Waves of muddy waters flowed over farms near Sendai, carrying buildings, some of them ablaze. Drivers attempted to flee. The tarmac at Sendai's airport was inundated with thick, muddy debris that included cars, trucks, buses and even light planes.

Highways to the worst-hit coastal areas buckled. Telephone lines snapped. Train service was suspended in northeastern Japan and in Tokyo, which normally serves 10 million people a day. Untold numbers of people were stranded in stations or roaming the streets. Tokyo's Narita airport was closed indefinitely.

Police said 200-300 bodies were found in Sendai, although the official casualty toll was 185 killed, 741 missing and 948 injured.

A ship with 80 dock workers was swept away from a shipyard in Miyagi. All on the ship was believed to be safe, although the vessel had sprung a leak and was taking on some water, Japan's coast guard said.

In the coastal town of Minami-soma, about 1,800 houses were destroyed or ravaged, a Defense Ministry spokeswoman said. Fire burned well past dark in a large section of Kesennuma, a city of 70,000 people in Miyagi.

A resident in Miyagi prefecture who had been stranded on his roof, surrounded by water, mud and fallen trees, was rescued by a Self-Defense Force helicopter Saturday morning, TV video showed.

Officials declared the first-ever state of emergency at a Japanese nuclear power plant and ordered evacuations after the earthquake knocked out power to a cooling system at the Fukushima Daiichi facility near the city of Onahama, about 170 miles (270 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo. They said radiation levels inside the facility had surged to 1,000 times more than normal.

Some radiation had seeped outside the plant, the nuclear safety agency said early Saturday, prompting calls for more evacuations of the area. Some 3,000 people have already been urged to leave their homes.

The Defense Ministry said it had sent dozens of troops trained to deal with chemical disasters to the plant in case of a radiation leak.

An American working at the facility said the whole building shook and debris fell from the ceiling. Danny Eudy, 52, a technician employed by Texas-based Atlantic Plant Maintenance, and his colleagues escaped the building just as the tsunami hit, his wife told The Associated Press.

"He walked through so much glass that his feet were cut. It slowed him down," said Pineville, Louisiana, resident Janie Eudy, who spoke to her husband by phone after the quake.

The group watched homes and vehicles carried away in the wave and found their hotel mostly destroyed when they reached it.

A large fire erupted at the Cosmo oil refinery in the city of Ichihara and burned out of control with 100-foot (30-meter) flames whipping into the sky.

Also in Miyagi prefecture, a fire broke out in a turbine building of a nuclear power plant, but it was later extinguished, said Tohoku Electric Power Co.

Japanese automakers Toyota, Nissan and Honda halted production at some assembly plants in areas hit by the quake. One worker was killed and more than 30 injured after being crushed by a collapsing wall at a Honda Motor Co. research facility in northeastern Tochigi prefecture, the company said.

Jesse Johnson, a native of Nevada who lives in Chiba, north of Tokyo, was eating at a sushi restaurant with his wife when the quake hit.

"At first it didn't feel unusual, but then it went on and on. So I got myself and my wife under the table," he told the AP. "I've lived in Japan for 10 years, and I've never felt anything like this before. The aftershocks keep coming. It's gotten to the point where I don't know whether it's me shaking or an earthquake."

Tokyo was brought to a near standstill. Tens of thousands of people were stranded with the rail network down, and the streets were jammed with cars, buses and trucks trying to get out of the city.

The city set up 33 shelters in city hall, on university campuses and in government offices, but many planned to spend the night at 24-hour cafes, hotels and offices.

NHK said more than 4 million buildings were without power in Tokyo and its suburbs.

Jefferies International Ltd., a global investment banking group, estimated overall losses of about $10 billion.

The tsunami hit Hawaii before dawn Friday, with most damage coming on the Big Island. The waves covered beachfront roads and rushed into hotels. One house was picked up and carried out to sea. Low-lying areas in Maui were flooded by 7-foot waves.

On the U.S. mainland, marinas and harbors in California and Oregon bore the brunt of the damage, estimated by authorities to be in the millions of dollars. Boats crashed into each other in marines and some vessels were washed out to sea.

Rescue crews were searching for a man who was swept away in northern California while taking pictures. Two people with him tried to rescue him, although they were able to return to shore.

Thousands fled homes in Indonesia after officials warned of a tsunami up to 6 feet (2 meters) high, but waves of only 4 inches (10 centimeters) were measured. No big waves came to the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory, either.

Islands across the South Pacific were hit by bigger-than-normal waves, but no major damage was reported. Surges up to 26 inches (66 centimeters) high were reported in American Samoa, Nauru, Saipan and at the far northern tip of New Zealand.

In Tonga, water flooded houses in the low-lying Ha'apai islands early Saturday, police said. Thousands in the capital, Nuku'alofa, sought refuge at the king's residence on higher ground, Radio Tonga said.

The quake struck at a depth of six miles (10 kilometers), about 80 miles (125 kilometers) off Japan's east coast, the USGS said. The area is 240 miles (380 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo. Several quakes hit the same region in recent days, including one measured at magnitude 7.3 on Wednesday that caused no damage.

"The energy radiated by this quake is nearly equal to one month's worth of energy consumption" in the United States, USGS scientist Brian Atwater told The Associated Press.

Early Saturday, a magnitude-6.6 earthquake struck the central, mountainous part of Japan — far from the original quake's epicenter. It was not immediately clear if that temblor was related to the others.

Japan's worst previous quake was a magnitude 8.3 in Kanto that killed 143,000 people in 1923, according to USGS. A 7.2-magnitude quake in Kobe killed 6,400 people in 1995.

Japan lies on the "Ring of Fire" — an arc of earthquake and volcanic zones stretching around the Pacific where about 90 percent of the world's quakes occur, including the one that triggered the Dec. 26, 2004, Indian Ocean tsunami that killed an estimated 230,000 people in 12 countries. A magnitude-8.8 temblor that shook central Chile in February 2010 also generated a tsunami and killed 524 people.

Resource: news.yahoo.com

PCOS and Hair Loss - Natural Therapies Can Restore Scalp Hair

Below are reviews of very popular hair style image programs, Hair Styles Cuts And Dos, Stellure and The Hair Style Editor. To see demonstrations of these programs visit the links located at the bottom of this article.

Hair imaging is a great way to try on a hair style before you get it cut. For example, if you are trying to find a wedding hair style or a prom hair style, you can try a style on to see if you like the way you look.

Hair Styles Cuts And Dos Review: Description: Hair Style Editor, Photo Uploading, Hair Style Gallery with 3,950 photos of short, medium, long, and updo photos for women.

Subscription Price: $9.99

Subscription Term: Annual

Payments Accepted: Visa, Mastercard, Secure connection

Current Number of Members: 25,291

User-Friendly: Yes

Guarantees: Satisfaction guaranteed! If you don't like it, you get a refund! If for any reason within 30 days, you are not satisfied with your membership we will refund your money, no questions asked ! There's no risk involved, don't like it then just ask for your money back. It's that simple!

Strengths Extensive Hair Styles Galleries, Ebook on hair advice, 1 year membership, Satisfaction Guaranteed, Very quick- find a new hair style in 5 minutes

Introduction

Advertising and promotional material for this website focuses on uploading a photo and trying on various hair styles. When I first logged in to the members area, the first thing that got my attention was the incredible amounts of hair style photos for very short, short, medium, long and updo hair styles. An immediate sense of relaxation came over me. If I couldn't find a good hair style among the thousands, well then there there just wasn't any hope.

There is also an extra E-book included in the membership that is barely mentioned on the web site. This E-book is great! It is a list of hair care tips and advice from a top hair designer in England. It covers all sorts of topics, such as how to select a hair designer, how to select a new hair style, various styling tips and tricks and what to do when your home hair color didn't turn out so great. This E-book has valuable information that everyone can use. I read every page of it--almost 100 pages total.

Hair Style Galleries

I quickly browsed through all the galleries, looking at all the different hair styles with different hair colors, textures, volume and even highlights. There are no photos of men's hair styles, ethnic or african-american women hair styles. The photos are all optimized to load quickly, so there is no time wasted waiting for photos to load. If you find a photo that you like you can click on it to enlarge it and even print a copy to take to your hair stylist. Printing the updo photos are especially helpful if you are looking for prom, bridal or formal hair styles. There is also the option to save the hair style photos that you really like in your favorites so you can play a slide show of them later.

Hair Style Editor

After browsing all the hair style photos, I move on to the hair style editor part of the website where I am told I can upload a photo of myself and try on some hair styles. The instructions to upload are very straightforward and I upload a photo of myself within minutes (it might have even been seconds). The photo that you upload should be taken against a plain white background and you should probably pull back most of your hair so it doesn't hang in your face.

Once you have uploaded your photo, you enter the hair style editor where there are four tools at your disposal.

Color Palette - allows you to change the color of your chosen style

Mask Pad - allows you to mask the undesired details on your photo prior to trying on different hair styles. For example, you may want to remove long hair that appears in a photo or the background of the photo

Size Tool - allows you to modify the size and proportions of the hair style you select

Trash Tool - allows you to remove the modifications that you just made without having to start over

First, I masked my photo so that only my face shape was showing. By the way, this is a great way to figure out your face shape! The masking takes a little bit of expertise with the mouse. If you are switching categories, for example, going from medium hair styles to long hair styles, you must re-mask your face again. You can change the width of the mask tool to make it a little easier closer to the face. After masking, I went to the category selector which allows you to browse thru and try on hair styles in the five categories, very short, short, medium, long and updo hair styles.

Once you find a hair style you want to try on, you just click on it and drag it to your photo. It automatically loads. Then you can move it around a bit to make it fit right on your head. After you are done adjusting the size and color of the hair style, you can print it or save it as one of your favorites to view later. The photo that you get with the selected hair style is obviously computer-generated, but it does give you a glimpse of what the hair style would look like on you. For example, I have been wanting to add some bangs to my current hair style. When I tried on the hair style with bangs, it didn't look very good at all. I think I have decided to skip the full bangs for now and maybe go with just a few long whispy looking bangs.

Conclusion

Hair Styles Cuts and Dos is an immediate relief for anyone desperately looking for examples of any type of hair style. You can literally find a new hair style in 5 minutes!! The hair style editor is also a great tool to try on various hair styles and get an idea of how they will look on you. The extra E-book is full of tips and advice for hair, tons more than you would find in any magazine.

Typically a lot of women go and buy a bunch of magazines when they want to find a new hair style. If you consider the price of a magazine alone- between 3-5$-- and the fact that you don't always find the style you want in just one magazine, the price for admission at Hair Styles Cuts and Dos - currently $9.99 for a whole year ---is well worth it

The Hair Styler Review Description: Online virtual hairstyling with over 2000 hairstyles and 53 color choices to try, online hair consultation, face shape info

Subscription Price: $14.99

Subscription Term 6 months

Payments Accepted: Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Bankcard, Diners, Secure transactions

User-Friendly Yes

Guarantees:TheHairStyler.com guarantees* that upon the fee being paid to us, a member will be able to use TheHairStyler.com website for a total period of 6 months to view all available hairstyles using their own uploaded image or a Model image supplied by TheHairStyler.com. Strengths: Celebrity hair styles, men hair styles, description and maintenance routine of hair styles, hairstyle articles, face shape information

Introduction

There is a demo version of the software on the site for you to try out. The demo shows a selection of hair styles and how you can try them on. Also available to visitors for free is the hairstyles consultation. You answer some basic questions about your face, age, height, skin color, hair density, generer, eye color, etc. and then the hairstyle consultation comes back with some recommendations for you to try out. It also has several styles to avoid. Several hairstyle articles are also free for visitors to the site. Some of them cover celebrity hair styles, recent trends and other hair related articles. The freebies on the site are very useful.

Membership

Once you become a member, you have access to the entire selection of hair styles and you can load your own photo into the hair styler software. Be sure to upload a good photo with your hair pulled back off your face and a white background. If you are unable to upload photos on your computer, you can send your photo to The Hair Styler and they will do it for you. Uploading a photo takes about 10 seconds and you are allowed to upload as many photos as you want in the six-month membership. Once your photo is there you can go and try on hair styles in the 7 different categories Celebrity, Everyday, Formal/Bridal, Classic, Mens, Alternative and Dreadlocks.

After you upload your photo you go to a section where you determine your face shape. The face shapes are Oval, Round, Oblong, Heart, Square, Diamond and Triangular. The example face shapes are very easy to place on your photo. Determining your face shape is a breeze!! After your face shape is determined you have to line up the eyes in the diagram to your own eyes and adjust the color of the photo as needed. Next you move on to try on different hair styles

The Celebrity category is broken down further into various female, black female, classic female, various male, black male, classic male and celebrity search. There is a large list of celebrity hair styles to choose from and if this is what you are after, The Hair Styler is your place!! Descriptions for the different hair styles are very useful. They include info on how long it will take to style that particular hair style, what hair care products you will need and what face shape and hair texture the style is suited for.

Everyday hairstyles are broken down into texture- with straight, wavy and curly as choices, and length- short, medium and long are choices. Formal/Bridal categories include UpCurls, UpSmooth, DownCurls, and DownSmooth. If you are looking for prom or bridal hair styles, this section will give you quite a few ideas for your special event. The descriptions for the hair styles are very helpful, giving you suggestions on styling, hair care products to use and how long the style will last.

The Classic and Dreadlock categories are not broken down any further and the Mens hairstyles choices are short, long and conservative. The face model for the mens hairstyles is still the women model, but if you upload a mans photo you will get a good idea of how the hair style will look.

In every category there is the option to save or print the hairstyle photo that you like. When you print the hairstyle it prints not only the hair style you like, but also the directions, hair care products to use, what face shape the style is recommended for and the time required to style that particular hair style. This is all very useful info that you can bring to your hair stylist.

Conclusion

The Hair Styler has many features that are helpful for selecting a new hair style. The hairstyles are realistic looking when they are loaded on your photo and the site is constantly updated with new hair fashions. The system is easy to use and no complicated sofware is needed, only an internet connection. Since The Hair Styler goes into face shapes and has many different categories, it may take you a little time to find what you are looking for. But the time is well invested with lots of useful hair style information that will help you with your hair style now and in the future.

Stellure Review Description: 3D Hair Style Studio, Photo Uploading, Face Shape Info, 3D Model of Your Face

Subscription Price: 3 Levels

Sampler: Free Trial

Figure: $19.95 6 months

Reflect: $34.95 12 months

Lifetime:$49.95 Never pay again!

Payments Accepted: Visa, Mastercard, Delta with Secure connection

User-Friendly: Yes

Guarantees: Satisfaction guaranteed! If you don't like it, you get a refund! If for any reason within 30 days, you are not satisfied with your membership we will refund your money, no questions asked ! There's no risk involved, don't like it then just ask for your money back. It's that simple!

Strengths Realistic 3D Models, Can get customized 3D face model, Satisfaction Guaranteed, Monthly Newsletter, Value pricing, Articles on hair styles, Oscar fashion, prom hair fashions

Introduction

Stellure is a relatively new site that offers hair imaging in three dimensions. It differentiates itself from other imaging programs because of the very realistic 3D aspect. Currently they have the first batch of 151 hair styles loaded in the system. They are adding a lifelike color tinting system soon and they have just negotiated a deal that will give them access to large volumes of top quality fashion and classic hairstyles. As more and more hairstyles are added, the membership prices will be going up. The best value at this time is the lifetime membership as it gives you the benefits of the increased catalogue at a much lower price. And, let's face it, examining your hair style and trying to find new ones is a lifelong activity.

The Hair Style Studio

Joining Stellure is quick, easy and secure. Depending on what type of membership you have selected, you can view hair styles on a stand in model or upload photos of yourself for Stellure to create your own 3D model to view hair styles. For the purposes of this review, we went with the customized 3D model. There are detailed instructions on the site for taking the photographs. You will need a front view and a side view. If you have scanner it is very easy to take a regular photo and scan it in for uploading. If you don't own a scanner, you could probably go to your local photo processing center and have it done for you.

Before you get started with the hairstyles, you are directed to the face shape wizard to help you determine which one your face fits into. The wizard loads very quickly and asks you several questions about the dimensions of your face. After you have answered everything, the wizard tells you your face shape. This is important information since all of the hairstyles come with descriptions that detail which face shape they are suited for. There is also a link to style advice in the members area to specific style advice for your face shape.

We opted for the Reflect membership where we would get our own customized 3D face model. We had two photographs taken of one of our staff members, one front view and one side view. Once we uploaded the two photos in the Stellure member area, we received an Email in less than 24 hours that the 3D model was ready. (They do state on the website that the 3D models will be finished in 48 hours or less). Once your 3D model is finished, you will get a list of recommended hair styles for your face shape and then you can go to the hair style studio to try them on.

To try on a hair style you simply click on the style and it will show up on your face model. You can set the face model to spin clockwise, counterclockwise or you can click on any of 12 different angles to view the hair style. The hair styles and face models are very realistic looking and the 3D view gives you a very good idea of what the selected hair style will look like from the back. The back view of a hair style is probably the most often ignored view of any hair style and the 3D spinning face model allows you to see the back from a very different perspective.

As you try on different hair styles, you can get styling information by selecting the small i on the menu, you can print the hair style and you can save it in your favourites to view later. When you print a hair style, you will get a front view, back view and a view from each side. The detailed description is included in the printout. Information such as suitable lengths, length descriptions, suitable densities, face shapes, trim period, texture description, styling instructions, maintenance level and styling time. These are all very important factors to consider when considering a new hair style. If a hair style you like requires 30 minutes to style every morning and you do not have that kind of time, then you will probably not be very happy with your results.

There is a search function that will allow you to search by category, face shape, hair density and hair length. Categories include: Latest, Classic, Glamour/Evening, Formal/Bridal, Easy Care and Updo. Face Shapes include Oval, Rectangle, Square, Round, Heart, Pear and Diamond. Hair Density includes Thin, Medium, Thick and Hair Length selections are Short, Medium and Long.

In addition to the hair style studio, you will receive a monthly newsletter that discusses the most current hair style fashion and how to get it. This is great info if you want your hair to be in fashion. And, if you can't find the hair style you are looking for, you can actually request it.

Conclusion

The fact that the technology used to develop the 3D Hair Style Studio at Stellure is patent pending says a lot about the high quality of the program. Most hair imaging programs offer just the front view of the hair style and Stellure offers a 3D look at selected hair styles with either a stand in model or your very own face model. It factors in your face shape information and offers suggestions for selecting a new hair style The results are very realistic and as more and more hair styles are added to the Hair Style Studio, this subscription based program will be the place to go if you want to find a new hair style and see how it will look on you.

Source: EzineArticles.com

How Google Grows...and Grows...and Grows

Its performance is the envy of executives and engineers around the world ... For techno-evangelists, Google is a marvel of Web brilliance ... For Wall Street, it may be the IPO that changes everything (again) ... But Google is also a case study in savvy management -- a company filled with cutting-edge ideas, rigorous accountability, and relentless attention to detail ... Here's a search for the growth secrets of one of the world's most exciting young companies -- a company from which every company can learn.

On Tuesday morning, January 21, the world awoke to nine new words on the home page of Google Inc., purveyor of the most popular search engine on the Web: "New! Take your search further. Take a Google Tour." The pitch, linked to a demo of the site's often overlooked tools and services, stayed up for 14 days and then disappeared.

To most reasonable people, the fleeting house ad seemed inconsequential. But imagine that you're unreasonable. For a moment, try to think like a Google engineer -- which pretty much requires being both insanely passionate about delivering the best search results and obsessive about how you do that.

If you're a Google engineer, you know that those nine words comprised about 120 bytes of data, enough to slow download time for users with modems by 20 to 50 milliseconds. You can estimate the stress that 120 bytes, times millions of searches per minute, put on Google's 10,000 servers. On the other hand, you can also measure precisely how many visitors took the tour, how many of those downloaded the Google Toolbar, and how many clicked through for the first time to Google News.

This is what it's like inside Google. It is a joint founded by geeks and run by geeks. It is a collection of 650 really smart people who are almost frighteningly single-minded. "These are people who think they are creating something that's the best in the world," says Peter Norvig, a Google engineering director. "And that product is changing people's lives."

Geeks are different from the rest of us, so it's no surprise that they've created a different sort of company. Google is, in fact, their dream house. It also happens to be among the best-run companies in the technology sector. At a moment when much of business has resigned itself to the pursuit of sameness and safety, Google proposes an almost joyous antidote to mediocrity, a model for smart innovation in challenging times.

Google's tale is a familiar one: Two Stanford doctoral students, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, developed a set of algorithms that in 1998 sparked a holy-shit leap in Web-search performance. Basically, they turned search into a popularity contest. In addition to gauging a phrase's appearance on a Web page, as other engines did, it assessed relevance by counting the number and importance of other pages that linked to that page.

Since then, newer search products such as Teoma and Fast have essentially matched Google's advance. But Google remains the undisputed search heavyweight. Google says it processes more than 150 million searches a day -- and the true number is probably much higher than that. Google's revenue model is notoriously tough to deconstruct: Analysts guess that its revenue last year was anywhere from $60 million to $300 million. But they also guess that Google made quite a bit of money.

As a result, there is constant, hopeful speculation among financiers around an initial public offering, a deal that could be this decade's equivalent of the 1995 Netscape IPO. A few years back, such a deal might have valued Google at $3 billion or more. Even today, a Google offering might fetch $1 billion.

For now, though, most of the cars in the lot outside Google's modest offices in a Mountain View, California office park are beat-up Volvos and Subarus, not Porsches. And while Googlers may relish their shot at impossible wealth, they appear driven more by the quest for impossible perfection. They want to build something that searches every bit of information on the Web. More important, they want to deliver exactly what the user is looking for, every time. They know that this won't ever happen, and yet they keep at it. They also pursue a seemingly gratuitous quest for speed: Four years ago, the average search took approximately 3 seconds. Now it's down to about 0.2 seconds. And since 0.2 is more than zero, it's not quite fast enough.

Google understands that its two most important assets are the attention and trust of its users. If it takes too long to deliver results or an additional word of text on the home page is too distracting, Google risks losing people's attention. If the search results are lousy, or if they are compromised by advertising, it risks losing people's trust. Attention and trust are sacrosanct.

Google also understands the capacity of the Web to leverage expertise. Its product-engineering effort is more like an ongoing, all-hands discussion. The site features about 10 technologies in development, many of which may never be products per se. They are there because Google wants to see how people react. It wants feedback and ideas. Having people in on the game who know a lot of stuff tells you earlier whether good ideas are good ideas that will actually work.

Resource: fastcompany.com