Motorcycle Insurance - A Must Have Insurance Policy

It is hard to argue against the fact that any kind of insurance is not the most enjoyable expense we face every month. This is even truer when it comes to motorcycle insurance. With that said, it is imperative that you carry it on any motorcycle you own.

The statistics on bike accidents tell the truth. A serious injury occurs every 14 seconds in the U.S. as a result of a motorcycle accident. Add that up for a full day and you can see how frequent they happen.

Another strong reason for having insurance coverage is simply due to the theft risk. Insurance statistics show that 1 out of every 4 motorcycles that are stolen are ever found. Theft is much more easy of a bike than a car or other motor vehicle.

Next, there is another major reason for having an insurance policy on your bike...it is required by law in most all states. You must have liability coverage to protect others in the case you are at fault in any accident and there are injuries or property damage.

To save money on premiums there are some things you can do. First, shop around. Get some online rate quotes from several insurers. It takes very little time and hassle, not to mention that it may save you hundreds of dollars a year in premiums.

Ask about discounts. You may be entitled to discounts for having both your vehicles and motorcycle insured with the same company. In addition, you may qualify for safe driver discounts and more.

These are just three of the many factors that make having motorcycle insurance coverage a must have.

Quick Day Trips from Jacksonville, Florida

Having lived in Jacksonville most of my life, I can remember a time when the speed limits on the roads were not as high as they are now. It seemed it always took forever to get somewhere when on vacation, even via the interstate. Fortunately, the turn of the century brings more technology to the road trip, and anybody in the Jacksonville area looking for a quick getaway will be happy to know that the city is not so large that you can't go anywhere for a day.

So if you have a weekend free and are looking for a change of scenery, a day trip around North or Central Florida provides the fun and relaxation you want. You won't have to spend too much time in the car, and there is always something to look forward to, coming and going. Here are just a few suggestions for your itineraries:

St. Augustine: Depending on where you are in Jacksonville, you're looking at a minimum of forty-five minutes to an hour to get to the nation's oldest city. Here you can tour the historic Castillo de San Marcos, which guarded this part of the new world from sea-faring invaders, then enjoy a stroll through the historical district and enjoy the eclectic shops, boutiques and restaurants. The secluded beach areas also provide serenity that stays with you on the trip home.

Gainesville: Contrary to popular belief, there's more to this town than the Florida Gators. Gainesville's historic downtown offers a great opportunity for leisurely lunches and antiques browsing. Nature lovers can take in the lush Kanapaha Botanical Gardens or Marjorie Kinnan Rawling State Park for an intimate nature walk. Depending on where you are in Jacksonville, getting to Gainesville may take a mere one to one and a half hours on I-75.

Amelia Island: For the adventurer, Amelia Island is the perfect North Florida getaway. Kayaking, nature walks, fishing, and exploration of historic Fort Clinch are just a few of the activities that await you here. Afterwards you can enjoy some of the best seafood on the east coast as you watch the sun set over the Atlantic Ocean. Amelia Island is less than two hours from most parts of Jacksonville, and some parts are so compact you may not need your car for most of the day.

Nature and history, fine dining and romantic scenery are yours for the price of a short drive from Jacksonville. Take a weekend and enjoy a neighboring town for a refreshing and exciting mini-vacation.

Internet Connection Fails

"I am using XP home with a cable modem connection, and quite often using while online, I get the error of can't find the server. I just lose my internet connection, and it says my TCP/IP needs resetting. How do I do that and what causes the internet dropout?"

There are several possible reasons why your Internet connection might suddenly stop working. If you were on dialup, the most likely scenario would be noise on the phone line, but since you have a high-speed cable connection, we can rule that out.

In a recent Ask Bob Rankin article Do Computers Get Tired? I addressed the subject of electronic devices that fail at random times, and gave some scientific basis for occasionally turning the device off and then back on. I have a cable modem as well, and have found that sometimes a slow or dropped Internet connection is restored simply by unplugging the cable modem, waiting 30 seconds and powering it back on. Not pretty, but it works. If the problem is happening every day, though, it might be better to replace the modem.

There could also be a software-related issue which is causing your Internet connection to fail. If you have other computers on a home network, and they have no trouble getting online, then I'd cast a wary glance in the direction of your firewall. Firewalls are designed to block certain Internet connections, so it's entirely possible that a bug in the firewall software is erroneously shutting down ALL network connections. You may even have told the firewall to do this without meaning to.

Open your firewall's configuration screen and check to see what programs are being blocked from connecting to the Internet. If nothing obvious appears to be erroneously blocked, try shutting down or uninstalling the firewall software, then reboot and see if the problem persists. If that fixes the problem, consider ditching the software-based firewall, especially if you have a router between your computer and the cable modem. Routers have hardware-based firewalls built in, which makes firewall software superfluous for most users.

To uninstall the firewall software, click on the Start button, open Control Panel, then Add/Remove Programs. Find the firewall in the list and click the Remove button. Note that your firewall may be bundled with an anti-virus of internet security package. If that's the case, click on that package (ex: eTrust EZ-Armor or Norton Internet Security), and make sure you select ONLY the firewall for removal, leaving the anti-virus protection in place.

If none of those things helps, report the problem to your Internet provider. If the problem has something to do with your modem or the cabling in your neighboorhood, it might be affecting your neighbors as well.

VW Beetle Electric Car Kit - Easy Way to Convert Your Bug to Electric

Back in 2008, many car owners were having a tough time financially to cope with the sudden increase on gasoline prices. Many could not maintain their budget and had to abandon their vehicle at home. Some people were taking a proactive step by converting their gasoline driven car to run on electricity. One of the preferred cars for an electric retrofitting is a VW Beetle. What is the best way to convert a Bug to electric? To save time and money, you can start off by getting a VW Beetle electric car kit.

The concept of an electric car conversion is to remove the internal combustion engine and replace it with a DC electric motor. To transfer force, the motor is connected directly to the existing transmission unit. A series of deep cycle batteries will be used to power the motor. To control the speed of the electric Bug, the motor will be connected to an electric controller.

Some of the major parts for an EV conversion are the joining plate, universal coupler, variable resistor, controller, gauges etc. All these components can be bought off the shelves but you would have to spend some time to source for them. With a VW Beetle electric car kit, all the parts are included in the package. Even the metal joining plate will have bolt holes drilled in the exact location to fit the transmission housing.

If you are not familiar with the inner workings of your Beetle Bug, it is not recommended for you to start an electric car conversion project on your own. In this case, it will be a better idea to outsource the work to a professional mechanic. With this approach, you will incur some expenses but you will save on time.

Oh Great, Now I Am a Twit Because I'm Tweeterless - Okay Fine

It is amazing how fast things change, for instance three and a half years ago no one ever heard of Tweeting, and now unless you are a Tweety-Bird and constantly tweetering to your fellow tweeties, you may as well not exist. To make matters worse, as I understand it if you do not tweet or if you do not belong to a group of tweeters, then you are a twit.

This is very unfortunate indeed, but I guess I was never a Pepper either. Sometimes, I look at all these people tweeting and realize that since am tweeterless, I am just not in the in crowd anymore. Everyone tweets these days even our new President who is said to be quite the tweet'er with one of the largest followings of little tweeties. Now, I do not mean to make an excuse for myself for not seeing the rationale behind tweeting, as I can see a few very good uses for it actually.

It's just that I and many folks I know, well we do not really have anything that is so important to say that needs to be fast-blasted to all our friends and acquaintances in one-hundred and forty characters or less. Now if someone is a celebrity and uses this for promotion, or if someone has a group of party-animal friends who like to converge like a smart mob on a night club, or if a company has a cult following, well then, yes, I get it, makes a lot of sense.

For me, I guess I am just a twit and cannot be too hip, because I have nothing so urgent I need to say; zip. But if it helps you win friends, influence people and relieve stress then be my guest; as for me, I remain tweeterless.

Worksheet for Kids - A New Dimension in Making Studies Easier

Worksheets are now being used in our day to day lives. A large proportion of people use worksheets to teach or impart certain lessons to their children. There are various kinds of worksheets for kids, which are nowadays used in schools for easy learning. Worksheets for kids which are particularly used in schools are basically to write letters, joining dots, numerical and so on. Students in kindergarten school and under that uses free worksheets for learning the basics. These worksheets for kids are even used to draw out shapes and differentiate them from the other one. Free worksheets are even easily available from the internet. These worksheets are even preferred by the teachers as-

The instructions are given in an easy way.

Activities are based on certain contents.

Tasks and activity given according to the age and so on.

Teachers even use printable worksheets. The kids are allowed to trace the numbers, letters and even join dots. This is the perfect way to control the movement of the wrist and fingers of the kids who are practicing these worksheets. With continuous practicing it gets easier for the children to learn and write clearly. Worksheets are used in schools to practice cursive writing. Worksheets can be a fun activity for the students. A teacher can easily allot a work to a group of kids on through these worksheets. All this can help a student to learn and write in a fun way and even teach him/her how to perform in a team and forming social bond with other kids. There are many kinds of worksheets available but the best one is still the personally drafted one. This way one can easily check the level of difficulty that is offered to the kids according to their age and even check the progress level. Worksheets can be reused but it's always better to upgrade them from time to time.

Accessing these free worksheets would only be helping us in every term to succeed in our education field. Yes, the internet has its bad effects but at the same time it has a whole world of good effects too. If correctly utilized the online web world can help you to propel yourself to daunting heights. We usually here it from our tutors and parents that practice makes a man perfect. Yes, indeed practice makes it perfect but in terms of education if you do not have the correct set of practice materials everything will just be a waste. Luckily, if you bestow your trust upon us, we can provide you with the best set of practice papers which if practiced with diligence would help you to overcome all educational barriers.

The toughness of college education can also be lightened if proper practice at the proper time is continued. So, to help the college grads we also have our distinctive set of college education worksheets that suffices to their needs in the correct order. Work with us and we ensure that you will have a bright future.

Why You Should Donate Your Car to Charity - The Holly Reason

In case you are thinking of getting your car donated to a cause like Habitat for Humanity or a charity as well as the Salvation Army that is appropriate in the community of your own then you might be asking for the obvious advantages will be for the community that you have. In case you are similar to other people who intend to get the old car you have donated to an institution or charity that will instantly give advantage to the community that you stay in at the time where you don`t have to look farther than a local telephone book or the internet for that type of information. Have you ever known that institutions such as the CarsHelpingPeople.org and Volunteers of America are among those that will receive your old and unused car?

Things that are not realized by lots of people is that the old car sitting in the driveway or garage and depleting space as well as costing money to them can be handed over to charity in their local area. Next, the charity can get the car repaired for all that require repairing and have the car sold for a profit and utilize the proceeds from the selling of the car to finance the homeless locally and batter shelters for woman as well as for local banks of food. In case you intend to find out to whom and how the donation of your vehicle will advantage your community locally the thing that you must do is asking.

In case your community possess a batter shelter for woman and/or local homeless the money makes by the charity from selling vehicles that are donated may go into the upkeep and maintenance of all the shelters. In the future, you will hardly find out the moment that you will require those kinds of services yourself. Note that local food banks is the usual cause of charity that is known by many people. Partially, these are financed by the donations of monetary and the proceeds from the selling of the car is utilized by the charity for operating the food banks.

Still hesitant that you actually want to get your car donated to a charity, in case you do, that is fine. Prior to meet end decision for getting their car donated to a nationally or locally identified charity, several people have to think again and again that decision. After you feel assured that you will give your old car to donation you will feel excellent understanding that you have committed one thing that will assist people in the community of yours that really require the assistance, people who are in terrible situations compared to your current situations. Anyway, you will hardly know the time when you will require the assistance from a charity!

Why Web Designers Should Focus On Emotion In Their Work

In this day and age, it seems that web designers are too focused on the aesthetics of their work and not enough on the emotion of it. Whilst gradients, colours and contrast are all very important factors in a successful website, but all this will be done in vain if the web designer cannot embody the emotion that goes with the theme of the site. So, how can emotions be more focused upon and why is this so important?

Essentially, emotions are important in design because they are important in everything - what are the three most memorable moments of your life? Your wedding or the day you bought your first home? The birth of a child or the death of a loved one? No matter what moments you choose, it is likely the each of them is going to have been a time that involved a considerable amount of emotion. Web designers endeavour to make their websites as memorable as possible (so that people will return) and, as such, emotion plays a large role in achieving this.

Many web designers become stuck on the graphics and the usability of their websites, but these elements actually form the bare minimum of what any good site should entail. It is time to look beyond these elements by ensuring that visitors to your website develop an emotional attachment to it, but how is this possible? Begin thinking about the type of people who are likely to visit the site and what frame of mind they are likely to be in:

Desire: Make visitors want to browse your website, and want to return at a later date. Use words that speak to the jealous sector of people's minds, such as powerful and revolution. It is in cases like these that the old adage "sex sells" rings true. Sympathy:This is achieved successfully by the multitude of charity websites out there - they instill a sense of sadness and sympathy deep inside the visitor, making them want to reach out and help. Anger:Believe it or not, it has been suggested that some websites deliberately make their visitors angry (by stuffing up orders and so on) so that they can make themselves look great by giving the visitor a refund and sending them the product anyway.

At the end of the day, excellent functionality and usability is no longer going to cut it in this cut throat world of internet obsession - web designers need to look deeper into the emotional state of their visitors and ask themselves what sort of emotional reaction they are hoping to achieve. Being successful in this respect will ensure success across all areas of the site.

How to Make an Espresso? The Art of Making Coffee Cuisine

Espresso coffee is a precise art form of coffee making. There are several factors that must take place to make a quality cup of Espresso. First the fresh roasting of the coffee bean to bring out the truly gourmet coffee flavor that you expect. The grinding is the next procedure that must be done right in order to give you 20-25 seconds of extraction time. Espresso brewing requires the ground beans to be very fine in order to reach that perfect state for brewing. The next important step is the proper temperature of the filtered water that must be passed through the coffee at the specific pressure and timing that is critical to your espresso coffee.

The perfect espresso is created when:

Recipe directions: 1 ½ oz (45 ml) filtered water at the temperature of 195 oF (90oC) passes through ¼ - 1/3 oz (7-9 g) finely ground quality Espresso coffee. This water is forced through the fine coffee grounds by the espresso machine at 900 kilopascals atmospheric pressure (around 132 pounds/60kg per sq in/2.5cm2), with the water being in direct contact with the coffee for approximately 25 seconds.

What should your espresso taste like?

When you are ready to take a drink from your espresso cup, it should leave a pleasant not bitter aftertaste. The flavor should linger for about 10 minutes rolling into an almost nutty flavor.

The crown on your cup of Espresso

The topping on the espresso is know as "Crema", which is the floating dark golden cream free of any white or light brown patches. That is the crown of the perfect espresso coffee. The Crema is formed when the emulsified oils from the coffee are released (because of the high pressure that is put on the ground coffee beans) and mixed with the oxygen in the air. The resulting finish is perfect crema that floats on top of the espresso coffee.

Top Tips To Treat And Prevent Pizza Burn

Pizza may very well be the first food to have a medical condition named for it. The painful singe that occurs when you bite into a steamy cheese-laden slice has earned the official moniker pizza palate syndrome. Of course, any food that is too hot can burn the roof of your mouth or your tongue. But pizza is among the most likely culprits. The cheese on top holds in the heat. Pizza can be up to 200 degrees F when you put it in your mouth. Fortunately, while pizza burn hurts, it seldom does serious harm. Your reflexes cue you to stop eating the offending slice since almost immediately, so it is not in contact with the mouth tissue long enough to cause lasting damage.

A pizza burn will heal on its own, usually within 7 to 10 days. Of all of the parts of the body, the mouth has greatest healing potential. Almost all the cells on the surface of the mouth turn over every few days. So when it comes to treating a pizza burn, your best bet may be to simply let nature takes its course. If you want to do something to ease your discomfort in the meantime, you may wish to try out the following tips and suggestions.

Get wet. You might get some relief from rinsing your mouth. It does not matter if you use warm or cold water. Just go with whichever feels better.

Take a pill for the pain. If you want to try an over-the-counter pain reliever, just about any anti-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) such as ibuprofen or naproxen will do. But forget the old wives' tale about putting aspirin directly on the injured area to help it heal. It could make matters even worse. Aspirin is a highly caustic chemical. It's irritating to the tissue and could cause a fairly serious acid burn.

Numb it. You can purchase over-the-counter ointments that contain benzocaine such as Zilactin. Benzocaine is a numbing agent that will help soothe the area. For something a little stronger, talk to your dentist about using a prescription-strength topical medication.

Don't get irritated. When you are nursing a pizza burn, be careful of what you eat and drink. Try to stick with foods on the mild side, both in temperature and in flavor. And stay away from foods that are spicy or that contain citric acid, such as orange juice, tomato juice, and even highly acidic soft drinks such as colas. If you absolutely must drink an acidic juice concentration, mix it with a little water first. Diluting the juice reduces the acidic concentration, so it will not burn when you drink it.

Banish the butts. Smoking will just irritate the burn and slow the healing process. So now you have yet another good reason to quit.

Domain Monitor - How to Catch an Expiring Domain

In most cases the domain name is the first touch with the website, and it is definitely also the last. This name is what we remember and what is associated with the website. Therefore, great care is taken to choose the right domain name. Unfortunately, most short, memorable domains are already taken. There are few general-purpose top level domains where we can try our luck, but in most cases we will find that all possible versions of our choice are already reserved.

Fortunately, no domain is reserved forever. For each registered name there is a date when it will expire. It is the responsibility of the owner to take action before the domain expires. Of course, in most cases domain owners renew the registration period before it is too late. But in some cases the name becomes available for anybody interested. The release is not immediate after the expiration date - there is still a short period (about one month long) where the original owner can extend the registration. But when this redemption period is over, the domain is lost - at least for the original owner. Such cases are an excellent opportunity for anybody interested in this name.

If you see a cool domain that will soon expire it might be worth checking if the owner will renew the registration or not. To do this you have to use WHOIS service for particular domain and check the registration data. Unfortunately, this process is pretty simple but it takes time. If there are many domains that need to be checked this would mean that a lot of time would be spent just for checking some data. Since this task could be automated there are few services that keep an eye on a list of domains. Some are offered for free but just for a limited number of domains, while other require some monthly payment.

Fortunately, there is another solution where you can have total control over any number of domains. This solution is domain monitor - an application that runs on your computer or on any other web server. Tiny Domain Monitor is a perfect tool to periodically check domain registration data. When a change occurs the domain monitor sends an email alert. It also generates RSS feed so you can track domain registration data also in your feed reader.

When the domain becomes available you will be among the first to know. All you have to do is to go to your registrar and register this domain before others will see it on some list of recently released domains.

When it Comes to Patient Safety, Does a Number 1 Ranking Really Correlate to Superior Care?

When you enter the lobby of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, you can't miss all the signs informing you that Hopkins is ranked No. 1 hospital in the United states by U.S. News & World Report. Hopkins is justifiably very pleased of attaining that top rated spot year after year, but does it mean anything at all for patient safety and quality of care?

A new report in Annals of Internal Medicine discovers that for the 50 top-ranked hospitals, there is little correlation between their U.S. News rank and any objective measurements of quality of treatment. But when the authors analyzed the figures, they discovered the hospital's subjective reputation among doctors made up 90 to 100 percent of the hospital's overall U.S. News ranking. In other words, the word of mouth popularity of the hospital among doctors -- not among patients -- counts for a huge amount of the news magazine's popular ratings system.

Choosing the right hospital is not uncomplicated. But there are some simple guidelines. Concentrate on the brand-name hospitals like Hopkins only if you have an exotic ailment that not many medical doctors have ever observed.

In its 20 years of rating hospitals, U.S. News has never questioned a single patient what they think; its ratings of a hospital's reputation in a particular specialty is based only on what doctors in that specialty believe. Yet now Medicare has started requiring hospitals to have patients fill out a standardized survey when they leave the hospital, and the questions focus on a lot of problems that people care about and have a massive influence on the quality and safety of their care, such as:

• Did the doctors and nurses always communicate well?

• Was the bathroom always clean?

• Was your pain always well-controlled?

• Was the area around your room always quiet at night?

Note that little word "always." These are things patients have a right to expect - always.

You might discover that quite a few community hospitals do a superior job than the mega-hospitals of taking care of patients in the ways that patients recognize.

How to Prepare Ogbono Soup

Ogbono soup is an African delicacy. The Ogbono is gotten from Wild mango kennel. After preparation it's eaten with either Eba(from garri-processed cassava), or Fufu (from cassava) or Amala (from dried unripe plantain or yam)

If properly prepared, it's a delicacy that can always make your meal worthwhile.

Ingredients/Recipes needed: (1) Ogbono (2) Okro (3) Palm Oil (4) Onion (5) Meat (6) Dried Fish (7) Stock fish (8) Dried grinded pepper. (9) Salt (10) Crayfish (11) Shrimps(dried or fresh) (12) Maggi cubes (13) Vegetable leaves

PREPARATION TECHNIQUE/PROCEDURE

STEPS 1.You first of all grind the Ogbono (wild Mango kernel) together with crayfish. The quantity should depend on the size of your cooking pot and an average number of people you want to serve. Also per boil your meat, slice your onions and vegetable leaves. STEP 2. You cut your Okro with knife or grater and soak your stock fish with warm water. This is to reduce the hardness of the stock fish before applying it to the soup. STEP 3. You pour Palm oil in a bowl and mix the grinded ogbono and crayfish together with it, and mix very well. STEP 4. You pour water in to your pot and allow boiling. Thereafter, you add the mixed palm oil, Ogbono and crayfish into the cooking pot. But please do not cover the boiling cooking pot after pouring the mixture; this is to allow the soup to have its elasticity nature. STEP 5. After 10minutes, apply your per boiled meat and sliced onion into the cooking pot. STEP 6. After 5minutes, apply your washed dried fish, stock fish,grinded dired pepper, salt, Shrimps, okro and magi cubes. And allow for another 10minutes on the fire. STEP 7. Add your vegetable leaves to it and just allow to cook for another 5 minutes and your soup is ready.

Written by Henry Okotoghaide

Video Conferencing - An Introduction

With videoconferencing people can interact as if they were talking face to face with both images and sound relayed in real time. This article is designed to guide you through the various options to arrive at the system type best suited to your purpose.

There are various types of videoconferencing; which is suitable for your application will depend upon the IT structure available and what it is that you actually want to achieve. Video conferencing has in the past been relatively expensive, but prices are coming down and it is possible for anyone with a fast enough internet connection to operate a video conference.

Systems are available for hire, lease or sale.

Systems may be installed at all or any of the following: -

on the desktop PC a dedicated videoconference suite mobile - for use when and where the need arises.

Each has various advantages and limitations which may be critical to your purpose.

Paradoxically it is far more critical that audio connections are maintained than the video. You may loose a video signal or it may be intermittent but the conference will still proceed - if you lose audio, nothing can be achieved (unless both parties are versed in sign language!)

Video speed for equipment is often shown as frames per second abbreviated as FPS.

In the UK video from most sources runs under the PAL standard which 25 frames per second - e.g. domestic VHS players. In the USA the system is NTSC which runs at 30 frames per second. Videoconference equipment commonly is specified as 15 fps or 30 fps. In layman's terms - 15 fps will be jerky, it shows every other frame, 30 fps is full motion video.

The higher the frame rate the greater the data load, so the faster the connection required.

A minimum requirement for full motion video and audio between two points is 768 Kbps.

This made up of:- an encoding rate of 384 Kbps (typically used) is selected. This is broken down into two parts -

64Kbps is for the audio 320 Kbps is for the video. The resulting 384 Kbps stream is compressed and sent (from you - the source) to the remote point (the destination). Similarly a 384 Kbps stream is received from the remote point to you. Thus twice 384 Kbps in bandwidth is required.

If there is a lot of motion in the video, very little compression is achieved. If there is little or no motion in the video, the savings can approach 50%. It would, however, be foolish to design a system which relied on the participants being forced to remain static.

There are two types of video conferencing, each has sub-types.

Point to point - a live video / audio communication between any two locations. Multipoint - links between a three or more locations Point to Point (P2P)

Point to point - a live video and audio communication link between any two locations.

P2P - Application

Where the need is to communicate between two points only at any one time: -

Two offices of the same company Yourself and a business partner company, e.g. Yourselves and a major supplier Senior management/ teams from two divisions - e.g. research and manufacture.

P2P - Use

Virtual meetings on a one to one basis Project workgroup co-ordination of effort, live adjustment of data, drawings, documents or prototypes Virtual board meeting between two groups of people in specific locations - say 5 in one and 4 in another

P2P - Limitations

Bandwidth required increases in proportion to the amount of data being exchanged. Audit trail of actions taken by whom with a timeline sequence often required. Extra equipment is necessary to show physical objects, using a visulaiser for say engineering parts Point-to-Point Videoconferencing

Consider two videoconference terminals (vct) that are connected to the Internet.

The vct and its associated peripherals allow the user to make a call to another client, send the local audio/video stream to the remote client, and hear/view the received audio/video stream on a local speaker/monitor that is connected to the vct. Assume one user (the local user) uses a vct to call a user at a remote vct by entering the IP address of the remote vct. The clients setup a call between the stations following the specifications of the H.323 protocol. Once the call is setup, the clients exchange audio/video streams over the Internet. The point-to-point videoconference continues until one of the users "hangs up" the call.

IP numbers are difficult to remember; some users have dynamically assigned (DHCP) IP numbers that can change every time they boot their system and problems in using IP addressing when different vendor systems are used.

The Gatekeeper

To alleviate the problem of IP dialing, the H.323 standard defines the use of a gatekeeper.

The gatekeeper is a system that connects to the Internet just like the client terminals. The IP address of the gatekeeper is configured into the client terminals and when the clients "power up", they communicate with the gatekeeper and transfer certain information to the gatekeeper that describes the vct.

When the clients register with the gatekeeper, they pass their IP numbers, H.323 alias, and H.323 extension to the gatekeeper where it is stored. This allows a local user to dial a remote user by entering the remote users H.323 extension in effect their video telephone number.

The local vct communicates the H.323 extension to the gatekeeper. The gatekeeper then checks to see if the remote client is registered with the gatekeeper, then sets up the call between the two clients.

Once the call has been setup, the audio/video streams flow directly between the clients over the Internet.

Multipoint

Live video and audio links between a three or more locations. To handle this situation, the H.323 standard introduces the concept of a Multipoint Control Unit (MCU). The MCU can be thought of as a "video bridge". The MCU connects to the Internet and registers with the gatekeeper.

A MCU, depending on its design capacity, can handle a certain number of simultaneous videoconferences each with each videoconference being logically separate from the others and with each having a specified number of users.

When users want to join a particular videoconferencing session, they dial the service number/password combination. The gatekeeper checks to see if that service has been registered by a MCU. The gatekeeper completes the call by connecting the client to the specified videoconference on the MCU.

Once the call has been connected, the client's audio/video stream is then sent over the Internet from the client to the MCU. Similarly, other clients connect to the session and send their audio/video streams to the MCU. The MCU selects one of the audio/video streams on the videoconference and returns that audio/video stream to all of the clients (that is all except the client whose stream was selected).

There are several methods for selecting an audio/video stream. Audio switching and chairman control are two alternatives. Typically, the method that is chosen is audio switching where the MCU selects the stream that currently has active audio (someone is talking or is talking the loudest).

As the user(s) at one site stop talking and the user(s) at another site start to talk, they capture the MCU. The process is repeated with the video from the newly selected site now being sent to all the other sites.

Streaming

To participate in a H.323 videoconference, users must have appropriate videoconferencing client terminals and have Internet connectivity with sufficient bandwidth to support the videoconference.

Some users may not have these capabilities but would still like to be able to participate even if that meant that they could only see and hear conference participants but not be able to interact with them. (Watch and Listen)

Users can receive the stream using a browser on a computer. They enter the URL of the server, and the server starts the encoded audio/video stream over the Internet to the computer. Plug-Ins for the browser exist that are capable of decoding both RealVideo and Windows media streams. The user can thus see and hear the participants in the streamed videoconference in near real-time.

Alternatively, a user can connect to the server at a latter date and view the archived version of the videoconference.

Is Your Piercing Infected?

Piercing is all the rage. People will pierce just about any part of their body and won't think twice about it. There is a danger of infection from getting body parts pierced though. One of the dangers is infection. Infection can cause scarring and even more dangerous illnesses if not taken care of immediately.

How to tell if a Piercing is Infected

Redness

You will obviously have some redness after you get a piercing done. If the redness does not go away or gets much darker, there is a possibility that it could be infected. Use an antibiotic cream to try to reverse the effects of the infection. Antibiotics are the only thing that will get rid of infections. If you catch it while it is still only in the redness stages, you won't end up with scarring from it.

Swelling

If the area around the piercing is unusually swelled for an extended period of time, there is a good chance it is infected. Follow the above advice about using antibiotics. Do not let the swelling continue for too long. Contact your doctor if it persists. Your doctor can give you a prescription strength antibiotic to help.

Puss

If you begin to see puss around the pierced area, you definitely have an infection. This must be taken care of immediately. Contact your doctor right away. This is when it can lead to scarring of the skin. If you let it go too long, you could end up in the hospital. Infections are nothing to mess with and there is only one way to get rid of it.

To avoid getting an infection to begin with, take care of the piercing after you get it done. Keep the area around the piercing clean by using alcohol. Avoid getting dirt anywhere near the piercing for a while after you have gotten the piercing done. The piercing might be attractive to you when it is the way it is supposed to be. When it gets infected, it becomes extremely ugly and it is dangerous. Take care of your body and it will take care of you.

Think hard before you get a piercing done. A piercing isn't quite as permanent as a tattoo because all you have to do is take the jewelry out and let it grow back in. If your piercing gets infected, it can become a permanent scar that will never look right again. Make sure you keep it clean.