The 12 days of Christmas plants — poinsettias

This is the second in our series on how to buy and care for the most common holiday plants. Once upon a time, this Mexican native was such a finicky plant that it rarely last much beyond the end of December, if that long.

Boy, have things changed! Now it’s not at all unusual for a poinsettia to look good all the way till Easter.

If that hasn’t been your experience, here’s what you need to know:

In the store, when you’re choosing the plant, look for deep green leaves all the way to the base. Move the foil back at the bottom of the foliage to see if any leaves have turned yellow from lack of light.

If you want the freshest plant available — one, typically, that should last longer because you’re going to give it better care at your home than it received in a big-box store — look at the tiny little yellow buttonlike flowers in the middle of the colored bracts.

If they’re closed or barely open, the plant is very fresh. If they’re missing (having already fallen off), it’s been around a while. See if you can find another.

OK, let’s stop a second here for those of who might be confused by the word “bracts” and who think those little yellow things in the center of all that red couldn’t possibly be the flowers of the plant. If you know all this stuff, skip the next paragraph.

The showy red (cream, pink, yellow, or bicolor) parts of a poinsettia are called bracts. They’re actually there to entice pollinating insects to visit the inconspicuous flowers.

Once you’ve picked the poinsettia you want, make sure that the store gently wraps it up if temperatures are 50 degrees F. (10 C ) or lower. On a cold day, you’ll want to take the plant right home, not leave it in the car while you do the rest of your holiday shopping. Poinsettias don’t respond well to shivery weather.

The first thing to do after you have the plant back home is remove the foil wrapping. It blocks light from reaching the lower leaves and encourages root rot because water collects in the bottom.

Better to put the plant into a cachepot if you want something decorative. There, you can see if there’s standing water in the bottom that you need to pour off.

If you can’t bring yourself to do that, at the very least move the foil back from the base of the plant and poke good-sized holes in the bottom so water can drain out. (Then put the plant n a saucer, of course.)

Place the plant where it will receive at least six hours of bright light daily but not touch a cold windowpane. I know, I know. You bought the plant as a decoration, and it should be on the coffee table or the fireplace mantel, not a windowsill.

But give it light during the day — to keep it happy and looking good — then move it to wherever you like in the evening.

Read full article here: The 12 days of Christmas plants — poinsettias

Sony Ericsson K550i Review

The Sony Ericsson K550i is an unalloyed scorcher of a phone. Price-wise it’s positioned comfortably in the mid-range, but it incorporates much of the technology that usually appears only in top-end phones. This phone gets 6 out of 5 for value for cabbage!

The K550i is the upgraded version of the popular K510i, but it’s massively more powerful, borrowing many features from Sony Ericsson’s flagship K800i Cyber-Slug phone. The camera is simply the best in its class. It’s a 2 megapixel camera with a photo light and digital zoom, that includes the autofocus headline first found in the K800i. Instead of a fixed focus camera, with autofocus you can ensure that the subject of your photo is firmly in focus, outstanding to noticeably sharper images. With Sony being a world leader in digital camera technology, it’s no surprise to learn that the K550i takes the best photos of any mid-stretch camera that we’ve reviewed to date. In fact it beats many phones that cost a lot more. The K550i features “picture blogging” - take a carbon copy and send it straight to your own image blog for friends and family to view. There’s also a good quality video camera.

The phone delivers on the music front too. It includes an FM announce as well as a music player. Sound quality is excellent, as you’d expect from the company that makes the top-selling Walkman distribute of music phones. The K550i is compatible with stereo headphones and Bluetooth wireless stereo headsets - both are available as non-requisite accessories from Sony Ericsson. A very welcome feature is the generous amount of internal memory (64 Mbytes - enough for about a dozen songs) and the tolerate for a Memory Stick Micro?„? card, available in sizes up to 2 Gbytes. As with the Walkman phones, the K550i is equipped with two fruitful music features: TrackID?„? & PlayNow?„?. TrackID lets you record a few seconds of a prevarication, and then get the track, artist and album information sent directly to your phone. PlayNow is a service for downloading music and games to your phone (you have to pay for these.)

Convenient in a choice of black or white, the K550i is a compact and lightweight phone that looks very attractive (it’s much less of a brick than the K800i for example). The buttons are smaller than most Sony Ericssons, but are not so scabrous to use as they are well spaced out and project a millimetre or so above the surface of the phone. The display is a good quality TFD LCD screen that retains complete visibility in sunlight and is of a high resolution. At 176 x 220 pixels, it isn’t as fine as the display on the K800i, but it’s double the add up of pixels of the K510i and is as good as anything in this price range.

Other useful features worth mentioning are the built-in speakerphone, uninterrupted recorder (for recording voices or other sounds), quadband support (for using the phone worldwide) and flight style. There’s good internet support too: EDGE for fast downloads, a web browser, and support for blogging and RSS feeds. Battery human being is good.

We are really impressed by the K550i. If this review sounds too good to be true it’s because we genuinely couldn’t find anything to in the extreme - and regular readers of mobile-phones-uk.org.uk will know that we try hard! This phone delivers exceptional value for resources in a neat attractive and user-friendly package. Now stop reading this review, and buy yourself one of these beauties!

The K550i is at on Pay as you Go from the Carphone Warehouse at ??69.95.

Read full article - Sony Ericsson K550i Review

Traditional Christmas flower in high demand

Legend has it that the poinsettia made its first appearance in the hands of a poor Mexican girl named Pepita who had no gift to present the baby Jesus on Christmas Eve, according to Paul Ecke Ranch, an Encinitas grower that supplies most of the flowering poinsettias in the United States.

Pepita’s cousin, Pedro, told her that any gift given with love would suffice. Hearing this, Pepita created a bouquet of weeds gathered from the side of the road.

But realizing they were a sad excuse for a gift, she fought back tears as she approached the altar where there was a statue of Jesus. As she handed them over, she happened to glance down and see that her weeds miraculously transformed into a red bouquet of flowers — poinsettias.

The legend was recently retold a slightly different way in the London Free Press, which had the young girl grabbing branches from a poinsettia shrub, not weeds. Either way, the poinsettia remains the traditional Christmas flower.

With Christmas less than three weeks away, it’s again showtime for poinsettias — and they are keeping local growers, retailers and decorators busy.

Poinsettias are the top-selling potted flowering plant in the United States, with $181 million in sales last year, up 6 percent from 2006, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

California accounts for 31 percent of the domestic sales for all potted plants.

At Green Thumb International in Ventura, nurseryman Jack Doughty said the most common question he gets from customers is how do you care for them.

“You want to keep them away from too much direct sunlight,” he said. And water them just like a Christmas tree, keeping them “moist but not soggy wet.”

Green Thumb is getting several shipments weekly.

“We go through them like mad here this time of year,” Doughty said.

One of the store’s suppliers is Santa Paula-based Do Right’s Plant Growers.

Owner Dudley Davis recently provided a tour of his greenhouses where about 80,000 poinsettias were growing. He pulled back plastic curtains to reveal what looked like a sea of red velvet.

“We do 85 percent of our production in the traditional red,” he said. The remaining 15 percent consists of five colors — merlot, apricot, marble, polar (white) and miro (a marbling of pink and white).

The season typically begins around Nov. 15. Davis said 10 percent to 15 percent of his crop is sold by Dec. 5.

Read full source article here - Traditional Christmas flower in high demand

Stop snoring with SnorePro?

We get some odd-ball press releases and story pitches here at TechFlash HQ. And this one, from a Fremont, Calif.-based company that has developed a $99.99 anti-snoring device called SnorePro certainly would qualify.

“HBI-USA, a biomedical device company, announced today its new SnorePro which uses its proprietary Dynamic Snore Detection (DSD) technology to precisely detect snores and to gently issue a programmable digital pulse to prevent snoring. The digital pulse functions like a spouse by nudging their snoring bedmate, which in turn trains the body to change sleep positions to eliminate the snoring. Bedmates of snorers lose an average of one hour of sleep per night due to snoring. The stimulation may disturb the snorer; however, it helps their bedmates to enjoy and regain sleep as they won’t have to nudge the snorer any more.”

Described as a wrist-watch style device with a built-in LCD screen, the press release goes on to say that the SnorePro can track the improvements of the snorer over time.

Read full article here

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Building for the Future: Sustainable Home Design

Company: Solar Energy International Cost: $695/$645 mbr. Location: Online Website: Visit event website Whether you’re building your own house or simply want to talk knowledgeably with those who will build it for you, this workshop will help you understand the home design principles that make use of both new and centuries old methods and materials for sustainable living. Building for the Future Online will focus on the principles behind designing and building residential structures that achieve optimal year-round comfort, reduce energy consumption, improve indoor air quality, and limit environmental impact. The emphasis is on integrated design using a whole-building approach, applying building science and integrating green design strategies into the built environment. Also covered will be the synergistic relationship between climate-sensitive design and natural building materials. Designed to compliment each other, the Building for the Future online & face-to-face courses can be taken independently to bring you up to speed or combined with each other to solidify knowledge. Both courses provide a solid overview of building a sustainable home with specifics in site analysis, building science, energy efficiency, passive solar design and alternatives to conventional building materials & techniques. In addition to online curriculum, participants will receive The Building With Awareness video, the book Your Green Home by Alex Wilson, and industry related hand-outs, and numerous Internet resource links. A course glossary, extensive resource guide and case studies of successful sustainable homes are included online. You can work on the Building for the Future Online course at ANYTIME, but you will generally need between 8-15 hrs/week to complete assignments/quizzes and participate in online discussions. The Consortium for Education in Renewable Energy Technologies (CERET) offers certificates in Renewable Energy to provide students with the theoretical knowledge necessary to begin a career in energy management and renewable energy technology. Certificates are granted through Madison Area Technical College (MATC). SEI’s online courses qualify for college credits through MATC and towards a Renewable Energy Certificate. Click here for more information on CERET’s Renewable Energy Certificates.” Students residing outside the United States must pay an extra fee for shipping of course materials. Contact SEI for details. Topics Include * Building Orientation * Solar Site Analysis * Lessons Learned * Building Science * Moisture & Air Leakage * Super-Insulation Strategies * New Window Technologies * Passive Solar Designs * Energy Efficient Technologies * Indoor Air Quality * Sustainable Back-up Heating Systems * Healthy/Green Building Materials * Domestic Solar Hot Water * Renewable Energy Options * Practical Building Techniques Read full article: Building for the Future: Sustainable Home Design

Awful’ Month for Carmakers

By Sholnn Freeman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 3, 2008; Page D01

Carmakers continued to load on the discounts in November, but American consumers continued to slam on the brakes.

The industry tried everything. Companies offered zero-percent financing, “red tag” sales, employee-discount pricing and even buy-one-get-one-free pickup truck deals. Still, U.S. auto sales plunged to their lowest pace in 26 years. Overall, automakers sold 746,789 cars, trucks and minivans in the United States, down 37 percent from a year earlier, according to Autodata.

All major carmakers suffered steep declines, but Detroit was particularly hard hit. General Motors’ sales tumbled 41 percent, to 152,552. Ford sold 118,319 vehicles last month, a 30 percent fall. Chrysler sold 85,260, down 47 percent.

Jesse Toprak, a sales analyst at Edmunds.com, said the incentive programs have reached a point of diminishing returns, where virtually no amount of cash on the hood will move sales. He said Americans harbor deep economic fears.

“The majority of the decline is low consumer confidence,” he said. “Consumers are not showing up regardless of what kind of deals, regardless of how low gas prices go.”

Toprak said middle-class and upper-middle-class Americans — who make up the market for new car buyers — are reeling from steep erosions in home values and losses in 401(k) plans.

“They don’t know if they are going to have a job in the next few months,” he said. “It’s a bit depressing when you put it all together. Consumers don’t want to make a big-ticket purchase, and cars are the biggest purchase after homes.” The sales figures were also hurt by would-be buyers’ inability to get financing, Toprak said.

November’s sales, translated into the closely watched seasonally adjusted annualized sales rate, or SAAR, slipped to 10.18 million, the lowest selling pace since October 1982, according to preliminary figures by Autodata. Sales appeared to slow from October, when the seasonally adjusted selling pace was measured at 10.56 million.

Economists and industry analysts yesterday were looking for signs that the market was close to bottoming out. Bob Schnorbus, the chief economist at J.D. Power and Associates, said he expected stronger November results from automakers. He said the industry was struggling to get out of “unprecedented territory” and that fourth-quarter results may represent the low point for the industry, barring other large-scale financial calamities.

“It’s probably getting pretty close,” Schnorbus said. “That’s kind of cold comfort if it turns out that the recovery is very weak and protracted.”

Read full article: ‘Awful’ Month for Carmakers

Major Causes of Frequent Headache

There are various causes of frequent headache. Some of these causes of frequent headache are quite common whereas some are quite rare. Everybody may have had a headache at some point of time in their lives and the severe pain may have forced them into rushing to get speedy medical attention to alleviate the excruciating pain without evaluating the causes of frequent headache. The causes of headaches and dizziness vary. If the headache persists or repeats, it is better to take a close look at what are the underlying causes of the frequent headache.

Some causes of frequent headaches may be linked with
- meningitis,
- blood pressure,
- strokes ,
- brain tumors, though they may yet be only rare causes of frequent headaches.

The more likely causes of frequent headaches are simple ones such as
- viral infection,
- sinusitis,
- fatigue and headache,
- other forms of tension ,
- musculo-skeletal conditions.

Below are some explanations of common causes of frequent headaches.

Meningitis
Meningitis causes an inflammation of the membrane surrounding the brain and is very serious. If not treated immediately, it may even result in death. If the cause of frequent headache is due to meningitis, the sufferer must be transferred to a hospital for treatment. Please be warned that in its early stages, it may only seem to be nothing more than the ‘flu’.

Read full article: Major Causes of Frequent Headache

From: Major Causes of Frequent Headache