Lose weight naturally

Tips & resources for losing weight naturally & safely.

If You’re Overweight, Slim Down for Better Health
Overweight people have an increased risk of high blood pressure, heart disease, and other illnesses. Losing weight reduces the risk. This brochure tells you how to lose weight safely.

Ask Your Doctor About Sensible Goals
Your doctor or other health worker can help you set sensible goals based on a proper weight for your height, build and age.

Men and very active women may need up to 2,500 calories daily. Other women and inactive men need only about 2,000 calories daily. A safe plan is to eat 300 to 500 fewer calories a day to lose 1 to 2 pounds a week.

Exercise 30 Minutes
Do at least 30 minutes of exercise, like brisk walking, most days of the week.

The idea is to use up more calories than you eat. You need to use up the day’s calories and some of the calories stored in your body fat.

Eat Less Fat and Sugar
This will help you cut calories. Fried foods and fatty desserts can quickly use up a day’s calories. And these foods may not provide the other nutrients you need.

Tips for Cutting Calories and Fat

Eat plenty of vegetables, fruits, and grain products like bread and rice.
Eat only small, single servings of foods high in fat or calories.
Eat less sugar and fewer sweets.
Drink less alcohol or no alcohol.
Choose foods whose labels say low, light or reduced to describe calories or fat.
Choose 1 percent or skim milk products and reduced fat cheeses.
Replace ice cream with fat-free frozen yogurt.
Replace sour cream with fat-free or low-fat plain yogurt.
Make sure fish, poultry and meat are lean. Trim skin and fat.
Broil, roast or steam foods.
Eat a Favorite Rich Food, Sometimes
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Recipes for Health - Winter Squash Gratin

This gratin is an easy vegetarian main dish to make and resembles a quiche, but without the crust.

This series offers recipes with an eye towards empowering you to cook healthy meals every day. Produce, seasonal and locally grown when possible, and a well-stocked pantry are the linchpins of a good diet, and accordingly, each week’s recipes will revolve around a particular type of produce or a pantry item. This is food that is vibrant and light, full of nutrients but by no means ascetic, fun to cook and a pleasure to eat.
See previous recipes »

1 1/2 pounds winter squash of your choice

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley

1 teaspoon minced fresh sage

3 eggs

1/2 cup low-fat milk

2 ounces Gruyère cheese, grated (1/2 cup)

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

1 ounce Parmesan cheese, grated (1/4 cup)

1. Preheat the oven to 425ºF. Cover a baking sheet with foil and brush lightly with olive oil. Cut the squash in half, scoop out the seeds and stringy membranes, brush the cut sides with olive oil and lay cut side down on the foil-covered baking sheet. Bake 40 minutes, or until soft enough to pierce easily with a knife. Remove from the heat and allow to cool, then peel and either mash with a fork, puree in a food processor fitted with the steel blade, or finely dice. You should have about 2 cups of pureed or finely diced squash.

2. Turn the oven down to 375ºF and oil a 2-quart gratin or baking dish with olive oil. Heat the remaining oil over medium heat in a medium heavy skillet and add the onion. Cook, stirring, until tender, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, until fragrant, 30 seconds to a minute. Stir in the parsley and sage, and squash, and remove from the heat. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

4. Beat the eggs in a large bowl and whisk in the milk. Add 1/2 teaspoon salt and freshly ground pepper to taste. Stir in the squash mixture and the Gruyère. Taste and adjust seasonings. Scrape into the prepared baking dish and sprinkle the Parmesan over the top.

5. Bake 30 to 40 minutes, until lightly browned on the top and sizzling. Serve hot, warm, or room temperature.

Yield: Serves 4 to 6

Read full recipe - Recipes for Health - Winter Squash Gratin

Home & garden news: Halls, houses and trees decked out for holidays, cheap gifts for all

If you need a little Christmas spirit, the Barrett-Paradise Country Inn tour is the place to be. You can eat your way through the afternoon and get a glimpse of elegant areas you don’t see in your everyday drive.

If you have your own spectacular decorations, we want to hear from you.

We have some ideas for around your house with the scents and sounds of Christmas.

Scents are just one way you can decorate for Christmas. Balsam sachets and cinnamon bird ornaments are just some ideas.

Nothing can make children of all ages smile like a train going around the Christmas tree. Electric trains under the Christmas tree date back to at least the early 1900s. Before that, there were wind-up and push trains.

Speaking of trees, we tell you pros and cons of both real and artificial trees. If you plan to get a live tree today, what to do with it.

A tip from the National Gardening Association: If you plan to buy a balled-and-burlapped or containerized holiday evergreen to plant outdoors, dig the hole now before the soil freezes. Keep soil in a wheelbarrow in the garage or shelter where it will be workable to use as backfill.

To increase the odds the tree will survive transition from your living room to the backyard: Buy a short tree, less than 5 feet. Limit your tree’s indoor stay to 3 to 5 days in a cool spot (65 degrees or less). Keep the rootball moist and the tree misted.

Some people need to go artificial. Our Home and Garden editor shares her tree success in her blog.

If you’re feeling particularly crafty, we have some great gift ideas that both children and adults can tackle.

We tell you some more ways to save money this holiday season. Instead of an expensive holiday party, how about inviting your friends over to watch Charlie Brown?

Warning: all that Christmas traffic can make on mess on hardwood floors. Learn how to protect them.

Did you ever buy a gift for a child and find he or she was more interested in the box? Cats are the same way. Here are some recession proof cat toys.

Looking ahead to 2009, yellow will be the color of the year. It reminds people of warmth, sunshine and cheer.

Our focus is green. Fabric softener might make your clothes feel better, but it’s not necessarily healthy for you.

For more environmental ideas this holiday season, check out our Pocono Green section. Let a little knowledge be your gift to yourself this season.
Source

Read full article: Home & garden news: Halls, houses and trees decked out for holidays, cheap gifts for all

Zephyr Announces Business Partners in Germany and South Africa

Following the establishment of its UK branch earlier this year, Zephyr are pleased to confirm international business partner contracts for Germany and South Africa. The new business partners will distribute the Zephyr PASSPORT family of terminal emulation products.

Houston, TX (PRWEB) December 14, 2008 — Following the establishment of its UK branch earlier this year, Zephyr are pleased to confirm international business partner contracts for Germany and South Africa. The new business partners will distribute the Zephyr PASSPORT family of terminal emulation products.

In Germany, Zephyr is represented by UBS Hainer GmbH (www.ubs-hainer.com), who manages and supports PASSPORT products at such customer accounts as Allianz Suisse, Daimler Bank AG and Landesbank Baden-Württemberg (LBBW).

In South Africa, Zephyr is represented by JMR Software Ltd (www.jmr.co.za), who supports Zephyr products at First National Bank (FNB), Business Connexion (BCX), Cadiz and others.

“We have a wealth of current international customers and many new prospects that we feel will benefit from having fully trained partners in their own countries” said Russell Martin, Zephyr Vice-President Sales and Marketing. “Familiarity with local business practices and the ability to support the Zephyr products and business model is essential”.

“We really want to send a clear message to international organizations that use Attachmate®, MicroFocus® (formerly NetManage®), IBM® and other terminal emulation products: Zephyr can save you substantial sums of money with an easy and transparent change to PASSPORT”, Martin continued.

PASSPORT 2009 is slated for release in January and will have localized language support for the Italian, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese markets.

Zephyr Announces Business Partners in Germany and South Africa

Samsung Behold (for T-Mobile) Cell Phone

The head-turning Samsung Behold is a responsive touch-screen cell phone with a few advanced features and a great camera.

Ginny Mies, PC World
PC World
Saturday, December 13, 2008; 12:19 AM

The 3G Samsung Behold ($150 from T-Mobile), the younger sibling of the Samsung Omnia on the Verizon network, is a slick cell phone with a bevy of advanced multimedia features and a responsive touch screen. However, the Behold lacks Wi-Fi and a standard headphone jack, and its Web browser is a bit counterintuitive.

Slightly smaller than the Omnia, the Behold measures 2.1 by 4.1 by 0.5 inches. Weighing 3.9 ounces, it’s light but feels solid in the hand.

The Behold’s 3-inch touch screen takes up the majority of the phone, and three physical keys–end, send, and back–reside underneath. The landscape touch-screen QWERTY keyboard, with generously spaced keys and vibrating feedback, is comfortable to use. I didn’t notice any lag between when I typed and when the results appeared on the screen, a problem I’ve experienced with some other touch-screen keyboards. The Behold’s predictive text feature gives two word choices, but you can also turn predictive text off with a dedicated key on the keyboard. The arrangement includes a few dedicated punctuation keys, as well.

The Behold uses Samsung’s TouchWiz interface, also seen on the Omnia. But unlike the Omnia, which seemed sluggish running Windows Mobile, the Behold is very responsive. The accelerometer, which reacted slowly on the Omnia, flipped from portrait to landscape quickly and smoothly on this handset. I encountered some lag only when I scrolled through lists of contacts or my media library. And otherwise, I found TouchWiz very user-friendly.

The lens for the Behold’s 5-megapixel camera, along with a flash, is located on the phone’s metallic back (which is available in a brushed espresso or light-rose finish). A volume rocker and a headphone/USB jack lie on the left spine of the device, while a dedicated camera key and a phone-lock key sit on the right.

Call quality was very good overall. My contacts sounded loud and clear, and I heard no static or interference. Parties on the other end heard some background noise, but otherwise the sound quality was clean. I experienced no dropped calls.

The Today screen–the Behold’s home screen–has a widget bar running along its left side. You can arrange the widgets in any order, as well as drag one into the main part of the screen to launch its respective app. To end the application, you slide the widget back onto the bar. Available widgets include a calendar, a phone book, a music player, and a clock. But other than rearranging widgets and removing them, you don’t have a lot of room for customization; you can’t add new widgets to the bar or buy new programs (there is no app store), which was disappointing.

The Behold offers a full HTML browser, which is a nice addition for a non-smart-phone handset. The browser is difficult to use on occasion: Scrolling through pages wasn’t as smooth a process as on other touch-screen browsers, and getting the hang of navigating took time. For example, to zoom in on a page, you must touch the magnifying-glass icon at the top of the browser and then select the page size to view. The phone doesn’t do Wi-Fi, either, but that didn’t seem like too big of a loss; Web pages loaded very quickly over T-Mobile’s 3G network.

The Behold’s standout feature is its 5-megapixel camera, with 4X digital zoom and a power LED flash. The camera has four resolution settings, light metering, adjustable ISO, a self-timer, a self-portrait mirror on the back cover, an antishake feature, and a setting for shooting backlit subjects. It also has three fun shooting modes (continuous, panorama, and mosaic), as well as a smile-shot mode that will take another shot if the subject is frowning.

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Front yard decorations get more elaborate for WVC couple

A West Valley man does not need many hands to make light work — he has two to make 18,000 of them light up his front yard.

Dan Nelson has made and bought Christmas decorations for about eight years, and he is planning to expand his collection.

“Every year, I just want it to be brighter,” Nelson said. “I have more lights in my shed — in boxes that I don’t take out — than most people put up.”

“I think he’s obsessed, but I think it’s a good obsession,” said Jewel Nelson, his wife.

Dan Nelson, an architect, became fond of making Christmas decorations after a friend had asked Nelson to help with his. Ironically, the friend lived on Christmas Street.

Nelson got hooked.

“People go on vacations, and I buy Christmas lights,” he said.

In his front yard, Nelson has 10 ?plywood angels representing his granddaughters and 11 gingerbread boys representing grandsons. Each of them has a name written on it, and its eyes are painted, respective to the grandchild it represents.

Nelson said he made 21 reindeer for his friends and family members during the second year.

Among other decorations are reindeer and moose, three wise men and a nativity scene, a snowman, two soldier boys and pine trees, all decked out in lights and connected to 10 outlets. Onlookers can also hear Christmas songs in the background.

Nelson said he started getting his house into a festive mood the week before Halloween. He has since spent every weekend adding decorations.

Although the rest of Bluebird Drive doesn’t shine as brightly as the Nelsons’ home, neighbors don’t seem to mind. One of the neighbors, Randy Garcia, let Dan Nelson use a corner of his yard to set up some moose and pine trees.

“We’re actually waiting for Dan to expand all the way over,” Garcia said.

Nelson’s lights shine from 5 to 10 p.m. every night and help Rocky Mountain Power survive the country’s economic crisis.

“I don’t look at [the electricity bill],” Dan Nelson said. “We’re on a year-round [billing plan], and it goes up every year. I probably wouldn’t do this if I looked at it.”

He said that he’s trying to buy more LED lights, which run cooler and therefore save energy.

“It’s not like we’re saving anything because he keeps adding more stuff,” Jewel Nelson said.

Read full source - Front yard decorations get more elaborate for WVC couple

Analyst: Apple could sell a million iPhone gift cards

Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu has been checking with his contacts in Apple’s (AAPL) supply and distribution channels and reports that demand for the iPhone is “fairly healthy” in the U.S., Europe and, with the exception of Japan, most of Asia Pacific. He’s anticipating sales of 6 million units for the December quarter (Apple’s fiscal 2009 Q1), down from 6.9 million in Q4 but in line with the Street’s expectations of between 5 and 7 million.

But that significantly understates actual demand for the iPhone, Wu says, because it doesn’t include the wild card in this holiday season’s iPhone sales: the iPhone gift card.

“We think there is strong reception of AAPL’s new iPhone 3G Gift Card program,” Wu wrote in a report to clients Wednesday, “where the process of giving the iPhone as a gift is greatly simplified without the need for activation and personal information. … We estimate several hundred thousand to one million units could be impacted.”

The good news about these gift cards is that Apple gets to collect the revenue up front, which improves cash flow. The bad news for Apple’s Q1 earnings is that it can’t recognize the sale of an iPhone until the customer activates it. “The risk here is that the customer will likely activate post-Christmas,” writes Wu. “Therefore revenue and units won’t likely be recognized until the March quarter.”

In a separate note issued Tuesday, Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster took a stab at estimating how many iPhones Wal-Mart (WMT) is likely to sell when it, as reported, begins carrying the devices three days after Christmas. Bottom line: Apple could sell as many iPhones through Wal-Mart in 2009 as it sells through its own Apple Stores.

Read more: Analyst: Apple could sell a million iPhone gift cards

Acacia

ACACIA (a-ka’sha). About 1200 species of acacia are scattered through the warm regions of the world. Most of them are shrubs or small trees. Some are matted plants a few inches high. All are thorny and pod-bearing. The tiny sweet-smelling blossoms cluster together in fluffy balls or cylinder shapes. They range in color from deep yellow to almost white. The leaves are usually grayish and fernlike. The acacia is quick-growing and short-lived.
Australia has about 300 species of acacia. The early settlers called them wattles because they used the pliant branches to make wattle-and-daub huts. The golden wattle is Australia’s national Bower.
In the southwestern United States acacias are grown in many parks and gardens. The ornamental species were imported from Australia. The native catclaw (Texas mimosa) grows wild and (Types Of Flowers )is heartily disliked because of its strong hooked spines. The Arizona Indians, however, made meal of the pods. Smaller acacias are eaten by cattle and horses.
Gum arabic is obtained from an African species (see Gums and Resins). The Australians get tannin, used for tanning leather, from the bark of some species and make furniture of the hard, dark “black-wood” acacia. The wood of an Indian species is the chief source of catechu, a dye for true khaki. France grows several kinds for perfume.
The genus acacia belongs to the mimosa tribe of the pea family . The black locust is sometimes called “false acacia” . The plant that florists call mimosa is actually an acacia.
Read this article: Acacia plant

Unique new product gives peaceful nights for thousands of snorers - stop snoring now, try for free!

Immediate release 14TH November 08

NEW PRODUCT PROMISES RESTFUL NIGHTS FOR THOUSANDS OF SNORERS

A UK company has launched a unique new product designed to offer relief to thousands of people who suffer from a particular type of snoring

The Adkins snoring aid is targeted at “nose snorers” and uses a totally new method which restricts the air flow through the nose.

The product is made of a medical grade soft plastic, consists of a pair of conjoined non latex balls which the user inserts into the nostrils before going to sleep.

Before this discovery, the main school of thought in snoring treatments has been to open up the airway through the nostrils.

Sleep deprivation expert Chris Grant is the man behind the new product. He explained how it works: “The restricted airflow through the nose encourages mouth breathing which reduces the incidence of snoring in those whose snorring is caused by excess airflow across the soft tissues at the back of the nose.”

Designed and produced in the UK, the new product has been successfully tested by many snorers to date and has been endorsed by many users
including a medical doctor.

Dr David Collinge of Oxford confirms that the Adkins snboring aid worked for his wife. He said, “She calls the Adkins snoring aid the “miracle balls” and I must agree. This new product has stopped her snoring, when everything else had failed.”

Former Royal Protection Officer Les Blyth, says, “I had nothing to lose and everything to gain. This new product stopped my snoring and I now sleep soundly with my wife in the same bedroom. It is a brilliant idea, being both comfortable and simple to use.”

Amy Harrington from Essex says, “We never imagined that this new innovation would alleviate snoring to such an extent. Now that we sleep
well, we even feel and look better too.”

Read this: Unique new product gives peaceful nights for thousands of snorers - stop snoring now, try for free!

Spanish Property Law Decreto 218/2005 in Andalucia Set to Shake Up the Property Market

Marbella property company La Costa Property Solutions now undergoing an audit in order to comply with the new Spanish property law in Andalucia - Decreto 218/2005, which is now being enforced by the Junta de Andalucia in order to protect consumers.

Marbella, Spain (PRWEB) December 9, 2008 — In order to protect the rights of their property buyers and vendors on the Costa del Sol, real estate company and Spanish Property specialists La Costa Property Solutions recently announced their intent to fully comply with the new law for real estate agents and developers selling or renting properties on the Costa del Sol.

“It’s important to note that if people buy or rent directly with property owners, they are not protected by the Decreto. This is why it is better to use a real estate agency that is compliant with Decreto 218? says Justin Thompson of La Costa.

The Decreto 218/2005 is a law that has been in existence for over 2 years and the Junta de Andalucia is now enforcing it strongly, sending inspectors to make sure agents and developers are complying with the law and handing out fines if this is not the case.

All agencies must have a Decreto 218 Compliance notice on display in their office and failure to comply with this can result in fines ranging from up to €5,000 for minor offences to €400,000 for more serious offences.

Read this full story - Spanish Property Law Decreto 218/2005 in Andalucia Set to Shake Up the Property Market

How to Make Easy Appetizer Recipes

The cookery sites, cookery recipe books & some special subscription of some famous chefs make cooking very easy for all users. So ready-made easy appetizer recipes are also one part of that online cooking. There are various simple recipes of appetizers which user can make at home. Also apart from home, the restaurants, hotels, such recipes also benefit food parlors.

Easy appetizer recipes also incorporated the user by giving various additional categories of these appetizers recipe & suggest some links like special reviews, comment and search option regarding search for exclusive, famous and award winning appetizer recipes.

Unusual categories are involved in various easy appetizers recipes. Various types of cheese recipes are ideal for appetizers & finger foods. There are several supplementary recipes, which are allied to the appetizers. Appetizers cheese recipes include beer cheese, brie, cheeseball, gougere, goat cheese, pimento cheese. We can sight numerous hottest, continental & customary appetizer recipes that are prepared of cheese and we can surf it from the cookery recipe sites.

The next category of easy appetizer recipes is cold appetizers recipes, which have also supplementary types. These categories or cold appetizers are antipasto, finger sandwiches that is provided as cold appetizers. Tapas, Pinwheels, Eggs that are deviled, Roll ups, Mushrooms that are marinated are the types of simple cold appetizer recipes. These cold appetizers recipes can access from perticular cookery sites.

Dip and Spread recipes are also one kind of easy appetizer recipes. It contains additional recipe categories like layer dip, appetizer cheesecake, artichoke crab dip, artichoke spinach dip, baba ghanouj, bean and cheese dip, black bean dip, bread dip and many more.
The next essence in the easy appetite recipes are hot appetite recipes. It contains added recipe categories like appetizer meatballs, bacon appetizers, asparagus appetizers appetizer quiche, artichoke appetizers and many more. We can explore for recipe ingredients of those appetizer recipes via links from the toolbar.

Read full article: How to Make Easy Appetizer Recipes

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

Ronaldo dating married woman?

Soccer is dating a married woman, it has emerged.

Ukraine-born brunette Olena Haynes is the estranged wife of wealthy businessman John Haynes and the face of dating websites, which find beautiful Russian lovers for British men.

John, 50, branded the football ace a slimy toe-rag after discovering his wife and Ronaldo had sent each other more than 300 text messages.

John claims Olena was using a secret mobile he found stashed in their home.

He says Manchester United and Portugal star Ronaldo, 23, struck up a relationship with his wife in August.

“When I found a telephone at home I saw it wasn’t one of my contract phones that she normally uses. Then I saw it was bleeping and I picked it up and went through the messages,” the Mirror quoted John, as saying.

“There were a total of 300 messages from each of them over a two-week period. I saw 49 messages coming in from him with his number saved as Ronaldo.

“The text messages looked like they had been written by a seven-year-old it was dreadful English and they mentioned Portugal. They were very coyly written. They were things like, Do you miss me baby? I miss you.

“I just assumed she was playing around with a waiter in a restaurant who had just arrived from Portugal. I had no idea it was him.

“I put it to her on many occasions and she wouldn’t tell me exactly what was happening.

Read full article: Ronaldo dating married woman?

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

Innovative Weight-Loss Surgery

Mercy Medical Center has become the first hospital on Long Island to offer a new single-incision Lap-Band(r) (laparoscopic gastric banding) procedure for weight loss surgery.

A team headed by Shawn Garber, MD, Chief of Bariatric Surgery at Mercy, with colleague Spencer Holover, MD, is among the first in the nation to utilize the innovative technique, known as Single Incision Laparoscopic Surgery (SILS), for gastric banding, using just one small opening in the abdomen, through the navel, rather than the five incisions required in traditional techniques.

“SILS is an important new option that holds the potential of less pain, fewer scars and quicker recovery,” explained Dr. Garber, who heads the New York Bariatric Group. “And most patients report that they can barely notice the single incision hidden in the belly button.”

In addition to its latest application in gastric banding for weight-loss, Dr. Garber utilizes the SILS technique for gall bladder surgery.

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Different Types of Taxi Insurance

Looking at the increasing number of road accidents, as well as vehicle theft, insurance for your vehicle is a must. Getting coverage for a vehicle means that at the time of damage or theft, the company from whom the policy is taken will cover the cost of damages, or will pay for the cost of the vehicle in case of theft. Many of the firms are offering insurance policies on a commercial basis as well, one example being the introduction of taxi insurance in which cover is provided for taxis, cabs and even vans. Private hire insurance policies, as well as public hire insurance policies, are two types of taxi insurance policies available. In comparison to the public hire insurance policy, private hire insurance policies are a lot more expensive as they involve a higher risk.

These types of taxi insurances are very popular these days, as having taxis for public as well as private hire includes a lot of risks, and not opting for any kind of insurance policy will make the running of taxis unaffordable. But one must also be very careful in choosing the company from whom the insurance is obtained, as it is a very specialised field, and very few companies are providing it at genuine prices. Getting a cheap taxi insurance policy may not be a very hard nut to crack because of the competition between the companies.

Obtaining these taxi insurance policies is very easy, as one may register directly over the net or can even consult any executive from the taxi insurance company. The best way to get cheap taxi insurance is to directly get in contact with the wholesale insurance agents as they are well trained and can calculate the minimum amount of premium required to obtain a taxi insurance policy. The prices, or the premium, of the policy is relatively cheap, if there is a good number of a taxis included in the policy. Apart from this, there are three types of taxi insurance policies offered by companies and they are: third party, fully comprehensive, and third party fire & theft.

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