Archive → March, 2010

Urban Electric Vehicles

31 March, 22:46, by Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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As gas prices reach record levels and fossil fuels diminish over time, consumer demand for alternative energy technology will do nothing but increase. In fact, urban electric vehicles, while rather novel in the United States, are more common in Europe, where population densities in metropolitan areas necessitated a search for alternatives to driving full size cars long ago.

The urban electric vehicle is essentially a very small car, typically a two-door hatchback designed…
Tags: Urban,Electric,Vehicles,cars,hybrid,auto

As gas prices reach record levels and fossil fuels diminish over time, consumer demand for alternative energy technology will do nothing but increase. In fact, urban electric vehicles, while rather novel in the United States, are more common in Europe, where population densities in metropolitan areas necessitated a search for alternatives to driving full size cars long ago.

The urban electric vehicle is essentially a very small car, typically a two-door hatchback designed to hold two to four passengers (and not much else).

Relying on electricity as their primary power source, these vehicles are ideal for urban dwellers who need to get from point A to point B in cities crowded with full size vehicles. They are probably especially attractive to those who live in cities with poorly developed or unreliable public transportation systems.

According to the US Department of Energy, urban electric vehicles are considered regular passenger vehicles. Most contain the normal safety features and amenities American consumers have to come to expect: airbags, safety belts, and heaters and air conditioners. Current urban electric vehicles can reach top speeds of somewhere near 60 mph, and can go nearly 12 hours before needing to be recharged.

This represents a significant improvement over earlier models, and should increase the acceptability of the technology among the general public.

Both Nissan and Ford are testing urban electric vehicles and Daimler-Chrysler is in contract to bring the original urban electric vehicle, the Zap! Smart Car into the United States. Previously, Smart Cars had to be imported from other countries, especially Canada, and modified to meet U.S. safety standards. Urban electric vehicles offer a range of benefits to drivers. Urban electric vehicles produce no emissions, which means they have the potential to reduce the harmful environmental impact of other forms of personal transportation. People who live in smog-filled cities may find this benefit especially attractive.

Second, urban electric vehicles, like hybrids and other advanced energy powered cars, often qualify for state and national tax credits. Some argue these credits can make up for the additional cost related to purchasing electric or hybrid vehicles. Finally, the urban electric vehicle’s small size make it an ideal choice for commuters in crowded cities. The compact nature of the urban electric vehicle makes it easier to drive in heavy traffic, and requires much less parking space. As cities become more crowded and gas gets more expensive, urban electric vehicles may be positioned for a massive jump in popularity.

Be sure to check out Best 8 Passenger Vehicles 2010

Organizing Your Nintendo Wii Accessories

31 March, 22:01, by admin Tags: , ,
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Nintendo Wii accessories add more stuff to your entertainment center. Before the advent of remote guitars, wheels, and tennis rackets, all you had was a console and a few remote controls. Now, there seems to be no end to the accessories you can plug into the Wii. That’s not a bad thing, though. I mean the games are awesome and the new gizmos and gadgets are pretty cool! But when you unplug and look around your game zone, you moan in frustration because you now have to find a space for them.

Options:

Usually, large entertainment centers are built with many cabinets and drawers. You can easily make one or three of these into a dedicated Wii storage solution. This works if you want to keep your Wii out of sight from people who tend to over-stay their welcome… keeping you and your Wii apart for longer than you care to be.
So you don’t have a large entertainment center, now what? Let’s face it, I didn’t have a large entertainment center in my bedroom when I was 15, I’m guessing a large majority of other 15-year-olds don’t either. Well, you can go to a store like Target or Walmart and get those modular, stackable plastic storage units usually reserved for Christmas lights or old history papers. The kind that have drawers. You can also go the snap together shelving units route. The problem is that they won’t hold your Wii stuff neatly, or not at all. I mean try fitting your guitar in one of those drawers. Plus, they don’t look cool, and what 15-year-old doesn’t want to look cool?
So, what if you could organize everything in something that was built for organizing your Wii in a sweet-looking gaming organizer. It frees up your entertainment system drawers and it costs no more than a plastic do-it-yourself shelving system. Well, your in luck…

Wii Gaming TowersThere are a handful of companies that make Gaming Towers for your Wii. Gaming towers are built for your Wii that have many benefits:

It can hold the console itself, which usually sits on the bottom. There are holes for up to 4 remotes. They can hold a lot of games… in their boxes! There are hooks on the sides where you can hang your guitars, nunchucks, or wheels. They are relatively inexpensive and you can get great deals online. I recommend buying online unless you get one on sale at a toy or department store.

In a nutshell, an easy to assemble, nice-looking organization solution for your Wii.

Wedding Dresses: 6 Great Tips That Will Help Your Wedding Dress Benefit You After Your Special Day

31 March, 21:37, by admin Tags: , ,
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After you’ve spent hours and plenty of money searching through wedding dresses to find your dream gown it is a common for brides to worry about what they’re going to do with this treasured item after the wedding is over.

Your special day is over. You looked stunning in your gorgeous dress and got plenty of lovely pictures and video. But what next for the dress?

If you’re low on ideas and your new husband doesn’t agree with your wedding dress taking up half of his closet space then these 6 creative tips will help you to make the best use of it.

1. Donate The Dress To Charity

There are certain charities who will accept your wedding gown and clean it, selling it on for money that will then fund the charity. In this way your happy day can help others in need too, meaning that you’re spreading the love.

A popular option is ‘brides against breast cancer,’ where you pack up your gown and post it to them.

But most towns have local charity stores for numerous good causes such as heart disease, the blind and many others, who would be happy to accept your dress.

2. Save The Dress For Your Daughter

There is no prouder image than your daughter walking down the aisle with her new husband in the dress that gave you so much pleasure. There’s no reason why your daughter can’t wear your dress with minimal adjustments, but you’ll have to wait for 20 or 30 years before she can benefit!

Get your dress professionally cleaned after the wedding and pack it up securely keeping it away from light and moisture to avoid it becoming discolored and moldy. It will be good for a lifetime!

3. Trash The Dress!

It is fashionable these days to ritually destroy your dress after the wedding and get some pictures of you in the shredded dress. Many brides choose to get some really cool, edgy pictures by slicing up the dress with the groom whilst they’re still inside (take care!).

Others go for a dip in the sea, splash paint all over themselves and also even set fire to the dress. Crazy, but you will get some awesome and memorable pictures!

4. Sell The Dress

OK, this option isn’t overly romantic, but let’s face it, these days it pays to try and cut costs. One way is to claw back some of the money spent on your wedding by selling your dress later.

You will at least be helping someone else who is on a budget get a lovely dress, save storage space and will please your bank manager too!

5. Recycle The Dress

The average wedding dress is made of meters of fabric which could be used to make several different types of different items, or the dress itself could be reworked into a different style.

You could take some of the fabric and make pillows, handkerchiefs, scarves and christening gowns. Satin is a lovely soft fabric which would be great for pillows, throws or scarves. Tulle or organza from the veil for instance could be used for doilies for a formal dinner service, shades for a lamp or a light neckerchief for a summer outfit.

If you want to recycle your dress into a different style you could keep the bodice, but change the skirt away from a voluminous dress into a less formal A-line cut. Then you could wear this at a different occasion like a fundraiser or graduation ceremony.

6. Preserve The Dress

When it comes down to it, if you just can’t bear to get rid of the dress in any way then your only option is to preserve your dress for posterity.

Perhaps in the future you can bring it out to show your kids or grandkids, or even wear it for your anniversary if you’re feeling adventurous!

If this is the case then you’ll need to have the dress cleaned and then packed up in its own special case that will preserve it from the elements and save space.

Don’t feel stressed about what to do with your wedding dress after the day has passed, take action with one of these steps and you’ll be able to maximize your dresses usefulness!

If you are still looking for the perfect gown but don’t want to break the bank then it’s best to shop online. There are many great online stores who can help you to find a beautiful dress in just the style you’d like, but with a big cost saving over stores in town! They might even be able to buy the dress back from you if you ask them.

Dynamics Gp Sql Scripting Level Data Repair

31 March, 19:22, by Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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This mid-market Corporate ERP application is hosted in Microsoft SQL Server. However it only deploys limited batch commit and roll back SQL transaction logic. There are some questions about why it is limited and there is the diversity of the opinions. Probably one of the reasons is metadata and business logic abstraction level in Microsoft Dexterity (and its dictionaries, especially the core one Dynamics.dic). Dexterity was introduced as the abstraction level and programming shell, coded in C and allowing you to be compatible with various database platforms. Historically these platforms were Btrieve/Pervasive SQL, Ctree and Microsoft SQL Server. This abstraction from the DB platform limits programmers to go deeper in deploying such DB platform depended SQL functionality as transactions (with commit if everything is successful, otherwise rollback). When Microsoft acquired Great Plains Software and abolished non-Microsoft SQL Server DB versions (such as Pervasive SQL 2000, former Btrieve; and Ctree) Dexterity DB neutral cursors (programmed in Dexterity Sanscript) were partially replaced by SQL Stored Procedures. But these code revisions are do not have the magnitude of the whole Dexterity business logic recoding in SQL Stored Procedures, as application user interface is driven by Dex as well (large portion of Dexterity code is in fact replicated in eConnect encrypted SQL Stored Procedures, but eConnect fits rather to the integration requirements, including native technologies, such as Integration Manager, Web Services as well as SDK and libraries to be included into your MS Visual Studio C# or VB.Net project). All mentioned above should give you some apology for being vulnerable to SQL transaction failures. Lets review data repair techniques:

1.Batch Posting recovery. Posting business logic is the most complex and it is implemented with substantial percentage of the whole number of Sanscript code lines. Great Plains developers and architects recognize the fact that batch posting could take some time to be finished and during that time computer crush or SQL Server outage might happen. And the lack of transaction roll back may result in batch posting interruption and limbo scenario. If this is what happened to you, have user log off and login back she or he should get notification to go to batch recovery window, where posting status is manifested. If Posting Interruption Edit Required please do not try to re-post the batch. You need to enable it, open it in the module and print Batch Edit List, where errors should be reported for one or more documents (often something like GL distribution account is missing in this case simply open transaction, click on Distribution and add the account). If you got data corruption outside of the batch posting business logic, keep reading

2.Check Links. This utility is available if you click on Maintenance -> Check Links. It simply validates each table cluster (GL Account Master tables form example) to see if there are orphan records on some of the tables, or if required record is missing, while there is evidence in the majority of the mathematically related tables that the records should be present and the record could be recreated based on the records in related tables (GL00105 Account Index Master, for example could be recreated based on the records in Account Master table GL00100). If you see the issues with data corruption, where Check Links helps you to fix the issues chances are high that these inconsistencies are caused by poorly designed Dexterity customization, SQL insert scripts or stored procedures, eConnect programming (where portion of the code might use SQL Update statement, as programmer was under impression that this type of shortcut is OK). If you see real data corruption on the SQL File Group and Physical files level we are happy to entrust its solution to the hands of SQL DBA. GP should work in SQL Cluster or Database mirroring environment. If you are using DB Mirroring (SQL 2008, 2005), be sure that you are also have the routine, transferring SQL logins (there is special routine in SSIS or you can find SQL scripting logins and security transfer method on the GP Customer Source). If you are using SQL Replication: Transactional (bidirectional) or Merge we recommend you to avoid scenarios, where GUID is required to be added to the table. The reason to avoid GUID columns is simple when you are doing version update large portion of the tables are dropped and recreated, where your replication columns could be lost

3.Data Repair via SQL Update, Delete and Insert statements. If you are certified and experienced Microsoft SQL Server DBA or SQL programmer, you may feel that you should be able to learn new table structures as the project progresses. However due to the fact that Great Plains doesnt enforce such constrains as Foreign Key, Transaction Commit/Rollback the database records are vulnerable to SQL deletes and updates, where the whole or part of the records could be destroyed and business logic compromised. If you feel that you are ready to practice with SQL Update or Delete, please create test company (in GP Utilities). Then, load this test company with Production company backup. Switch on SQL Profiler to trace the changes distribution to the tables (where you have your Great Plains users to replicate transaction or master record add/change or delete via user interface). Then try your Update, Delete or Insert script in SSMS. If you would like to stay on the safe side, try Check Links on the table cluster, where you just practiced altering (if Check Links reports doesnt produce lines you are lucky and really good SQL DBA). If you got errors in Check Links report, or if you feel some confuse, please review Great Plains table structure, next paragraph

4.Table Structure. There are several methods to review the structure of the tables in Dynamics GP. First one is in user interface. Open Dynamics GP -> Tools -> Resource Description -> Tables (here select the product, series and sort tables either by physical, table group technical, table physical or table technical name). If you would like complete table diagram with mapped business processes, consider installing GP SDK (look at GP DVD media, open Tools folder and open SDK\Dynamics GP, click on SDK.exe). If you are on older version of Great Plains Dynamics Select or eEnterprise, install SDK from CD #2

5.Common tables where data repair could be done on the SQL scripting level. These are PM Transaction Open File (PM20000), where Current Transaction Amount field could be out of synch (CURTRXAM due to the apply process crush on the user computer level, or poorly coded Dexterity customization). In this scenario you should design your data fixing script joining PM10200 (PM Apply to Work Open File). And now lets take a look at Receivable Management side. Here we have Receivables Open Transaction Table: RM20101. Its counterpart in applying payments, credit memos is RM20201 RM Apply Open File

6.Data Repair for older versions of Great Plains Select: 8.0, 7.5, 7.0, 6.0, 5.5, 5.0, 4.0, 3.2. While version 8.0 was available exclusively on MS SQL Server DB platform, earlier versions were available also on the alternative Pervasive SQL 2000/Btrieve or Ctree. For Pervasive SQL/Btrieve you would need generate DDF files (file, field, index DDF files). If you have user workstation installed on your Windows XP or Windows 2000 computer, open Windows Explorer, go all the way to GP workstation folder, then drag DDF.Set and drop it on Dynamics.exe. At this point you are ready to generate DDF files, we recommend you to p[lace them into your Dynamics folder on the Server (you can use either UNC path or mapped drive). Next step is to create MS Access database with linked tables (use other OBDC linked table object, select your GP ODBC System DSN and integrate the required tables)

7.Great Plains DOS, Mac or Windows archaic versions 9.5, 9.2, 9.1, 8.0 and earlier. These versions were based on Btrieve database platform, however the table clusters were merged into Btrieve physical files. In order to read and export GPA table you need first generate DDF file (please read GPA ODBC manual on DDF file generation procedure)

8.If you feel that your concerns are not addressed or your question is not answered, please feel free to contact our office. Support domestically in the USA, Canada, Mexico and internationally. This option is possible via Web Sessions, Skype or Phone conferences and direct visits onsite (in the case of the large scale project). Our consulting team speaks English, Chinese, Portuguese, Spanish, Russian, Filipino. Feel free to call us 1-866-304-3265, 1-269-605-4904, or email help@efaru.com

Get Help Registering a Trademark From a Lawyer

31 March, 17:25, by admin Tags: , ,
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New things and concepts are invented on a daily basis and everyone who has made a discovery in a particular field wants to protect the invention from the competitors. This is the reason you need to protect it from the possible illegal activities that might cause problems. It is extremely important to get help registering a trademark, because your entire future can be at stake. It is a known fact that numerous people have succeeded in generating massive incomes from inventions and thus getting help registering a trademark is really necessary.

The trademark is an important part of a business and it is not always the same thing with protecting it. If you have your own trademark but you don’t protect it appropriately, you will find yourself in the position of not being able to take any action against people who might violate it. This is the reason you need to take benefit of all the opportunities you might have for protecting your trademark.

You need to get the basic information about the steps you need to complete for registering your trademark. There are some administrative issues involved in the process and the best advice is to get some legal help registering a trademark. A good idea would be to employ the services of a legal practitioner or of an expert in order to help you go through the entire process. On the other hand, before employing the services of such a person, you should make sure he or she is the suitable individual for your purposes.

It is not enough for someone to be a lawyer for being able to offer you help registering a trademark. The trademark lawyers are individuals who are qualified in all the matters regarding the trademark law and they are able to offer you specialized help in this area of expertise. In many countries including the United States, the trademark lawyers are a distinct legal profession.

The services offered by such a trademark lawyer include the selection of new trademarks, filling or and following the prosecution of the applications in order to register the trademarks, offering legal advice for the registration and the use of new trademarks and offering advice regarding the infringement matters.

When registering a trademark, you should be aware of the costs involved in having a copyright or a patent. You will have to pay some official charges and your lawyer’s services as well. You should evaluate the entire process and decide whether it makes sense to use the services of a trademark lawyer. If you decide you need to get help registering a trademark, you should try to find the perfect lawyer for the job. The best way to do this is by searching online and finding the one that offer the services you need. You can choose to go to several lawyers and ask some questions in order to know if he or she is the perfect choice for registering your business trademark.