Rejoin Your Ex by Payam Pakmanesh is an app with methods on how to rejoin your ex, repair bridges and find happiness once again.
It can happen to the best of us, maybe you were in an argument and it escalated, with things said that have had lasting damage. Or perhaps one partner has neglected the other through the stresses of daily life, or perhaps a clash of different personalities caused a riff.
You may be alone now, but all is not lost, as with Rejoin Your Ex there are step by step methods to follow in order to make up with your ex partner. This app is tailored to give advice to both men and women.
15 Phases
There are fifteen phases focusing on specific methods in this app, which you must read thoroughly as they will be the key to success in the long run. You must follow the instructions to complete each phase, bringing you closer and closer to a happy reunion.
Intelligent Design
This app is intelligent in that it works with you to personalise the methods to plan a route to success. The app asks you specific questions in the phase steps to tailor advice focusing on your own unique break-up situation. In other words, this is an app that investigates the reasons for your break up and offers solid advice to counter negative effects with positive action.
Let’s face it, when you break up with someone you are generally in a state of shock – your head feels messed up. It can seem unclear as to how to mend bridges and regain the trust or love that was once so strong. It’s as if a fog is hanging over you and around you, and more often than not you will feel like you lack the energy and focus needed to repair the situation, due to feeling sad. The world suddenly seems an empty place and things that once seemed interesting now look dull and grey. Fear not though, as this app will pull you out of the fog of indecision and repair your empty world to be full of happiness once again.
Interface
This app sports a nice and easy to use interface and the program leads you into the phases with ease. There is a short explanation of the intentions of the app before you are led into the first question. For example, the first question is asked: “When was the last time you talked to your ex?”
From this point the main interface gives you the option of viewing the phase overview by pressing the top left button. The top right button brings up the settings options. There is a progress bar in the top centre of the screen to inform you of your state of progress through the phases. The progress bar is specific to a key task within Rejoin Your Ex. The function of the progress bar is explained in phase 2.
There is also a ‘Home’ button and a ‘Next’ button. Each advice module has pictures to make the app more colourful. Very easy to navigate around and is clear cut.
Advice Quality
The advice is very clearly presented and sometimes surprises you. For instance, you may think that contacting your ex will be the best idea on instinct, but think again . . . what about timing and approach? Regain Your Ex gives you the timing and approach needed for optimal chances of success. There is advice on the power of silence and patience, which can be utilised for much more effect than force or immediate direct action at times. In all, the advice is deep and surprises you with twists and turns. It is rooted to psychology and arms you with powerful new skills to use. At points in each advice phase you are given a memorable quote which I think is a nice touch.
To use an analogy, picture yourself playing a game of chess but being beaten, you lose your Queen (partner), your rook (lust for life) and bishops (hope and joy). It looks like you are in a losing situation, but by having this app at your side it’s as if extra pieces suddenly appear on the board of life for you to use. Giving you an advantage in what was otherwise a dire situation. Regain Your Ex gives you the tools to get back into the game with a Grandmaster in relationship psychology sitting by your side.
What impressed me about this app was that many areas are tackled, such as tackling your mindset, to create a frame of mind that also has direct results physically. After all, just sitting there dwelling on how the break up happened, eating chocolate and sitting by the phone all day isn’t going to help, plus it will make you seem desperate and weak. This advice makes you stronger and thus more appealing to your ex and also other members of the opposite sex. Put it this way, after following the advice in this app, a strong mindset and positive drive matched with action makes you a magnet for people wanting to feed off of your positive energy. So you may end up attracting members of the opposite sex other than just your ex!
Get The Edge – First Date Assessment (Optional Download)
Rejoin Your Ex is a complete app. There are no in-app purchases required to complete the phases, everything is included in Rejoin Your Ex. There is an optional purchase you can opt to download, which is about body language and signals that people give off when they are attracted to you. Invaluable when you are looking for feedback on how a meeting with your ex is panning out emotionally. There is uncontrollable attraction body language when two people who like each other interact, and this download promises to make you aware of these signals and gain a 6th sense. I decided to download this extra option to check it out. Here’s what I found . . .
This optional information download was very interesting and well worth it. There is advice on reading the eyes, a genuine smile, posture, posture height, intimacy, personal space, hand gestures, eye contact and more. Along with four tricks to test the water on whether or not someone is attracted to you or feels comfortable around you. These tricks you can employed without your ex even noticing.
Clear Plan
Rejoin Your Ex does not give wishy-washy advice. The app gives clear cut direction. For instance, it tells you straight whether or not to send a break up letter, view their social media profile or attempt to make them jealous. This way, if you are upset, lacking focus and drive, you can just leave it to the app to direct you along the map of phases and routes, to take on specific actions when it comes to which direction to turn at  ‘do’ and ‘don’t’ decision junctions.
Example: What should you do if your ex is seeing someone else? Should you approach them about it? Should you mirror them and do the same? Or should you stay single and wait? Rejoin Your Ex will tell you exactly which option to choose with solid reasons as to why.
Mission Accomplished
Rejoin Your Ex is a great idea. The app can take the stress and anxiety out of how to react and what steps to take in regaining a loving relationship with your ex. It’s like having guidance from someone standing at your side. I think that with this app you will have the very best chance at repairing a damaged relationship and finding mutual love once again. The app is easy to navigate around and has some very psychologically advanced advice, which is interesting and sometimes surprising to read, as it gets you thinking outside of the box.
Room to improve
On the iPod Touch 4th generation the app sometimes closed itself down just a few times. I would recommend to the developer to test the app on a 4th gen iPod Touch and iron out this small glitch. This is understandable though as new apps often have a few glitches to iron out. No big deal however, as this did not stop me from using the app, as I just restarted the app and went straight back onto the phase that I was on. Again, this is no big deal and can be sorted out with a future update.
Conclusion
I really enjoyed going through the advice in Rejoin Your Ex. Even though I personally haven’t broke up with my partner, I still found the information extremely interesting and absorbing. A lot of the advice can be applied to different life situations as well. I think that it is a wonderful idea and will help people who are in a very dark place. There are many game apps available, but when an app comes out that helps people like this app does, it is a refreshing change. The developer has not only produced a great app, but will also help a lot of people too.
Update: If you want to sample Rejoin Your Ex before buying the full version, Rejoin Your Ex Lite is available where you can experiment with one third of the full app’s capabilities to assess if Rejoin Your Ex is for you.
Hidden Camera by AppFlyer is a clever app, with a whole lot of functionality that enables you to take secret photos.
Do you want to catch a thief? A cheating partner? Or perhaps you might see something underhanded that you wish to capture in a photo, then make it known to the world. You can even upload the photo to Facebook or your Dropbox account.
There are many useful settings on Hidden Camera, to be used depending on the situation where you want to snap your secret photo.
Let’s start by looking at the functionality of this handy app when it comes to camouflage.
Camouflage Settings
If you want to take a secret photo, you must look like you are not using the camera. So when you open up the app you will see four sliding buttons to aid you on your mission: Camouflage Camera, Shutter Trigger, Photo Storage and Start Shooting. These sliding buttons when pressed reveal an array of settings. In the camouflage settings menu you can choose from 3 very ingenious disguises.
Black screen camouflage
This camouflaged screen gives the impression that your iPhone is switched off. In all of the camouflaged modes you simply press the lower right hand corner of the screen to take a photo. To exit photo mode you only have to tap the bottom left hand corner of the screen twice to return to the main menu.
Website camouflage
This option will take you onto the Internet and it will look like you are surfing webpages, when in reality you are ready to snap a photo.
Application camouflage
This function I find particularly ingenious, it opens a fully functional sketch pad, with a colour palette and different pen tools. Enabling you to shoot a secret photo whilst looking completely innocent, engrossed in doodling. This mini app within Online Hidden Camera allows you to doodle or create graffiti as a cover for your covert picture taking.
* Please note that you need to mute the sound on your iPhone using your device’s side ‘mute sound’ button. If you snap a secret pic and have the camera’s sound button on it’s not going to be very James Bond like, spy wise.
Shutter Trigger
There are some really neat options in this mode. The first of the three options is . . .
Manual mode
As you will probably guess, manual mode gives you the standard, and no doubt most used option, of taking a one-off snap, or multiple snaps completely controlled by the device user.
Timer mode
With this crafty fox of a function you can set the camera to take pictures at regular intervals. Totally hands free operation! Let’s suppose that you end up in a secret nuclear research facility by some freak chance, you wouldn’t be allowed to take pictures. Not to worry though, just choose the black screen camouflage giving the appearance that the iPhone is switched off, set the timer and it will take pictures for you. How cool is that?!
Sound mode
This is a very advanced feature that will even impress the CIA no doubt. You can actually set the camera to take pictures when triggered by sound! Imagine that someone is raiding your fridge at night. Not a problem, simply place your iPhone facing the fridge theft scene and the noise of the fridge door opening will take a snapshot of the greedy gannet. Pictures are taken from the front facing camera in Online Hidden Camera.
Photo Storage
This array of buttons allows you to save your photos in different ways. There are three options:
Save To Photo Album
By choosing this option you can simply save your secret photo directly to your device’s photo album. If you want to keep the photo an absolute secret then this is the best option.
Save To Facebook
Save direct to your Facebook account. Have you seen someone being cruel to an animal? Have you spotted a scam that you want to expose? Then this is the option for you. Share it with the world.
Save To Dropbox
Save your picture to your Dropbox account with the option to also save the photo to your photo library. With this option, if someone accuses you of taking a hidden photo, you can show them your photo album, which will be clear if you didn’t select the option to save the photo to your device’s library, and you can say a flat “No, I didn’t” but secretly know that the photo is sitting in your Dropbox account waiting for you.
Start Shooting
This is a very simple to use array of buttons, where you can click on the spy button, set your desired thumbnail size and photo quality setting, and enter shooting mode, ready to take that secret photo. You can also upload photos in this mode by clicking on the blue arrow button.
Mission Accomplished
There is a lot of functionality in this app, it’s comprehensive, and there are many ways in which to take a secret hidden photo. The timer function is especially useful as the device will take photos automatically, hands free. This is a very powerful app and can expose scams or unfair play if used in a good way. The app is simple to use and easy to navigate around. I like the way that you are presented with a reminder on how to use the secret camera every time you enter ‘Start Shooting’ mode.
Room to improve
This app is great, but I always try and suggest improvements that will hopefully enhance the app even more if I can. One improvement I can see straight away is to change the app’s icon. Don’t get me wrong, the icon isn’t bad, but it definitely doesn’t stand out on my device. If the app icon was improved to stand out more on iDevices it would reflect the excellent quality of this app even more. Another idea is to incorporate an ‘About / information’ screen linked to the fun spy icon with the animated eyes in the top right of the menu screen. This could include developer information and a link to the developer’s Facebook page or website.
Conclusion
This is an excellent app which has all the options that you’ll ever need to take a secret photo completely undercover. If you are looking for an app to take secret photos, then this app will not disappoint you in any way. Just choose your camouflage disguise and settings, then you are ready to go. Incidentally, you can also have great fun with this app by snapping friends and family on a day out. When you present the photos to them or post them up on Facebook, they will be baffled as to where and how the photos came about. A cracking app!
You can buy a pretty good gaming rig off the shelf, but for the best looking, highest performing, buddy annihilating gaming computer, you have to build it yourself. It takes time, a little effort, and some money, but the results are worth it. Here are a few of the options for a mad gaming computer.
Case
The case is the foundation you build your computer on. The wrong case will limit your options when choosing the components that actually make a computer. For gaming, a tower case is the best option. Towers come in three sizes: Full, Mid, and Mini/Micro. For a serious gaming rig, you will want a full or mid tower. Full tower cases can be $200 or more, but they can handle more fans for cooling, more expansion cards (if your motherboard can hold them) and have lots of room for liquid cooling. Plus, a full size gaming tower just looks like it can chew up the competition. Look for more expansion slots, built in cable management, and the ability to mount multiple cooling fans. A good full tower case is the Cooler Master Haf X w/ SuperSpeed USB 3.0. Mid towers have less room than full towers, but still have enough room for multiple expansion slots, multiple expansion cards, and cooling options including several fans and/or liquid cooling. They may not be as intimidating as their larger brothers, but some look quite lethal. Most Mid towers are less than half the price of a full tower. The Aerocool Xpredator-X1 is a good mid tower for under $100.
CPU
The CPU is the heart of the computer. Today there are two choices: AMD or Intel. Intel is currently king of the high-end processor. The Intel Core i7 3960 is a six core processor â?? it has six processors on one chip – and requires a LGA2011 socket motherboard. It costs about a $1000. The i7 3770 has four cores, uses the LGA1155 socket and is about $300. AMD processors work well in budget gaming systems. They are very stable when overclocked (set to run faster than rated by the factory) and offer good value for the money. For gaming, the AMD FX-6300 is the best option at about $140. It has six cores. The FX-8350 is AMDâ??s premium processor, but does not offer much better performance for its $190 price tag. The FX-6300 requires an AM3+ socket motherboard.
Motherboard
When choosing a motherboard you have to decide what type of CPU to use, Intel or AMD. AMD has had trouble keeping up with Intel the last few years, so most serious gaming computers use an Intel CPU. Once you have decided on the CPU brand, you have to make sure the motherboard supports as much RAM as possible. Graphics are also important, so choosing a motherboard that can support high-end graphics cards is essential. One of the best motherboards on the planet is the Gigabyte GA-Z77xUP7 for about $400. It uses an Intel i7 Socket LGA1155 CPU, can handle 32GB of RAM, and supports the baddest graphics cards available. The ASUS Rampage IV Extreme Republic of Gamers motherboard supports LGA2011 socket CPUs and costs about $400. The Gigabyte AM3+ GA-990FXA-UD7 is a similar board for AMD CPUs and costs about $240.
Graphics
Graphics are the bread and butter of a gaming computer. The graphic card can be more powerful than the main CPU, and it needs to be. The graphic card creates is responsible for all of the visuals of your games. It takes a lot of power to make realistic fog or water, and the best cards cost. At the high end, you can buy an NVidia Geforce GTX 690 for around $1000 or an Asus Radeon HD 5970 for about $1100. The next best cards would be the NVidia Geforce GTX 680 or the Diamond AMD Radeon HD 7970 at about $450.
Storage
The best gaming computers have a combination of storage types. You need a solid-state drive (SSD) for access times approaching RAM access and a large, fast hard drive to hold the massive amounts of information used by todayâ??s high-end games. SSD prices have dropped quite a bit, so a 128GB drive costs around $130. Conventional hard drives are also very reasonable. You can buy a 2TB drive for around $100. Gaming systems used to use RAID technology to decrease hard drive access times, but the advent of SSD technology has made RAID unnecessary for gaming.
RAM
RAM is important for performance. RAM holds data pulled from the HD or SSD until the CPU needs it. RAM is the fastest way for the CPU to access data, so you want as much RAM as you can manage. Both of the motherboards mentioned above support up to 32GB RAM, but for best performance, they cannot use the same type of RAM. The Gigabyte GA-Z77xUP7 requires DDR3 2400. The Gigabyte AM3+ GA-990FXA-UD7 requires DDR3 2000. Both types of RAM cost about $215 for a 16GB kit.
Conclusion
Building a high-end gaming machine is not cheap. But it is cheaper than buying one, and more fun. Building a top end Intel based machine from the parts described here would cost about $3,345. That will get you a computer in a full tower case with an i7 3960 on an ASUS Rampage IV Extreme Republic of Gamers motherboard, an Asus Radeon HD 5970 graphics card, 32GB RAM, a 128GB SSD and a 2TB HD. Just add Windows and your favorite game and you are ready to obliterate your friends.
Rodney Warner is an avid gamer and contributor to the video game review website QT Gaming.
Image courtesy of Surachai / freedigitalphotos.net
Did you know that each state has an official state insect? Do you know which belongs to your state?
While most of us can describe our state’s flag and name our state’s bird or flower, very few, if any, have any idea about our state’s insect.
I’m orginally from California, currently living in Arizona. Until now there’s no way I could have told you that California’s state insect is the California Dogface Butterfly. I also would not have been able to tell you that Arizona’s is the Two-Tailed Swallowtail Butterfly.
Interestingly enough, there are a lot of flying insects that belong to all 50 states. Some of the states even share the same bug. Here’s a closer look at all 50 official state insects.
Alabama – Monarch Butterfly
Alaska – Four-Spot Skimmer Dragonfly
Arizona – Two-Tailed Swallowtail Butterfly
Arkansas – Honey Bee
California – California Dogface Butterfly
Colorado – Colorado Hairstreak Butterfly
Connecticut – european Praying Mantis
Delaware – Ladybug
Florida – Unclaimed
Georgia – Honey Bee
Hawaii – Pulelehua Butterfly
Idaho – Monarch Butterfly
Illinois – Monarch Butterfly
Indiana – Unclaimed
Iowa – Unclaimed
Kansas – Honey Bee
Kentuky – Honey Bee
Louisiana – Honey Bee
Maine – Honey Bee
Maryland – Maltimore Checkerspot Butterfly
Massachusetts – Ladybug
Michigan – Unclaimed
Minnesota – Monarch Butterfly
Mississippi – Honey Bee
Missouri – Honey Bee
Montana – Unclaimed
Nebraska – Honey Bee
Nevada – Unclaimed
New Hampshire – Ladybug
New Jersey – Honey Bee
New Mexico – Tarantula Hawk Wasp
North Carolina – Honey Bee
North Dakota – Unclaimed
Ohio – Ladybug Beetle
Oklahoma – Honey Bee
Oregon – Oregon Swallowtail Butterfly
Pennsylvania – Firefly Beetle
Rhode Island – Unclaimed
South Carolina – Carolina Mantid
South Dakota – Honey Bee
Tennessee – Firefly Beetle
Utah – Honey Bee
Vermont – Honey Bee
Virginia – Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly
Washington – Green Darner Dragonfly
West Virginia – Honey Bee
Wisconsin – Honey Bee
Wyoming – Sheridan’s Green Hairstreak Butterfly
Most popular on the list is the honey bee. It’s hard to tell how serious or technical the legislators from those states were about classifying a particular honey bee because there are seven recognized species of honey bees with 44 subspecies. Maybe we should just assume they were claiming the honeybee in its truest and purest form. Science tells us that members of the Apis genus are only true honey bees.
After a closer look at the dynamics and characteristics of honey bees its understandable to see why so many states have claimed it as their official state insect. Honey bees are hardworking. The work ethic of their hives are enough to impress even the largest companies in the world. Each bee has a specific role within the hive. If needs be, their lives must be lost for the preservation of the hive and the queen.
Some of these state honey bees were claimed early on during statehood and others during more recent years. In the case of Utah, it is also known as the Beehive State to directly represent the work and dedication of a hive. A honey hive even dons the Utah state flag.
It’s understandable that all these state insects are not the same ones for which we hire exterminators. If its recognized as a state symbol, it is thereby protected. Thus, the prettier bugs get the nod on this one.
Steve Bitter is a Marketing Manager with Bulwark Exterminating, based in Mesa, AZ. Bulwark Exterminating is an industry leader in providing high quality pest control service. Bulwark is fully operational in seven states, including eleven major cities. While Bulwark provides pest extermination for common insects such as ants, roaches, crickets and spiders, the companyâ??s differentiating specialty is scorpion control. Bulwark uses the finest and most effective products in the world to solve common pest problems.
Image courtesy of SweetCrisis / freedigitalphotos.net
People say that war is the best thing that can happen for an economy.
It is true that during a war, technology advances quicker, and a lot of workers are needed to create war engines, as the government pumps money into the military. But these types of advances also occur between wars as well. Even though a lot of the most well known tanks and airplanes were created during the big wars, some impressive machines were made in a time of peace, as preparation for the next war. This was the case of the Vickers Medium Mark III, a tank made in Britain after the First World War.
Of course, not all new designs become something of great use. In this case, the tank was the result of a fairly flawed development process, and failure completely to attract any attention by the UK military, or any other country either. At the end of the process, only three prototypes were built, and the vehicle never went into mass production. Even though back in 1926 there was a lot of promise for the new vehicle, many issues came to plague it, and without good solutions, the project was scraped.
After the First World War, England needed a new tank to replace their Mark II vehicles. The Royal Tank Corps Centre is the office that takes care to draft new proposals, and they came up with requirements that called for a new light tank with a 15.5 tons weight limit. It had to be transportable by rail, and a gun able to pierce armor at 1,000 yards, while its armor could protect it from the same. They also wanted it to be as silent as possible, since the previous model was renowned for being very loud.
As the design process went through, the War Office added extra demands, like a separate engine room, superior steering and a 13 mm frontal armor. The first prototype was made later that year, a two-seater vehicle with a 47 mm gun. The designers had two options for the engine, a 120 hp engine with a top speed of 14 mph or a 180 hp engine with a 20 mph speed. This was called the A6 model and the finished tank was shown off in 1927 to the War Office. After consultation, a second prototype was ordered, and then a third one, increasing the max speed to 26 mph.
The Vickers Medium MK III tank is arguably one of the best looking tanks to ever be produced.
However, as tests started in 1928, several design flaws were found. When the guns were fired, they found out that the seating arrangement did not work, the suspension selected was inferior to the previous Mark II and if modifications were made to rectify the problems, the hull became completely unstable. The project itself was discontinued, although various parts of the Mark III were used in other designs, and by 1934, engineers managed to retrofit their prototypes into a command vehicle, which eventually came to be known as the Vickers Medium Mark III. In it, the main gun was replaced with a smaller, flat one, and the suspension improved. One of the vehicles was used by Brigadier Percy Hobart on the Salisbury Plain, while the others were unused in actual combat.
iPhones are the world’s best-selling mobile phone. And there’s good reason for that, they’re sleek, fast and powerful.
Of course, all that comes at a price, but it’s a price that many people are willing to pay to have reliable, constant connectivity. However, since iPhones are prime devices and much in demand, that also means that they’re highly likely to be stolen. There’s a great market, even for used iPhones, and thieves are more than willing to take the risk to get the reward. Having your brand new iPhone 5 stolen is more than just distressing.
The majority of users have all kinds of personal information stored on their phone, and a stolen device can mean a stolen identity as well. If your phone gets stolen, there are certain steps that you need to take to ensure either the return of your device, or at least the safety of the information that’s on your phone. Even if your phone hasn’t been stolen (yet), you might want to keep reading, since some of these steps require prior preparation to make sure that you’re in a position to save your data…
Notify the Police…
The first step that you should take is to call the police, or go down to your local station, and report your phone as stolen. Even though you’re talking about a phone, not something big, like a car, there are a few important reasons why you want to tell the police that your phone is gone.
In the case of identity theft, or financial loss, such as the thief being able to enter your bank account from your banking details on your phone, it’s important to have a record of the phone being stolen in order to prove that you weren’t the one making financial transactions with it. Insurance companies may also want a police report before they’re willing to pay out. And should you be able to locate your phone using one of the methods we’ll discuss below, a record of the phone being stolen will be necessary before the police will help you recover the stolen phone.
Tell Your Boss…
Given how often the iPhone 5 is issued as a business phone nowadays, if your phone is connected to your office, you’ll want to give your boss the heads up about what’s happened. Again, there are a few reasons that you might want to do this.
Firstly, there’s a good chance that your company’s IT department already has processes in place for safeguarding information and data on your phone, in which case, they’ll do all the work for you.
Secondly, your company may want to report the loss on their own insurance claim.
Thirdly, if there’s the chance that your phone contains sensitive data to do with your company or your job, your firm will want to be able to lessen the impact of that data getting out.
Remember that if the phone is a company issued business phone it’s technically their property, and you do need to report the theft to the company.
Change Your Passwords…
If you’ve accessed any of a multitude of online services, you’re going to want to go ahead and change all your passwords. This goes for simple things like email accounts, as well as online banking passwords. Don’t forget to change your Apple password while you’re at it, to stop the thief using your iTunes or App Store account. Changing your passwords won’t bring your phone back, but it will limit the amount of damage that the thief can do with your phone.
Tell Your Mobile Service Provider…
You need to tell your cell phone company that your phone was stolen so that they can suspend your account, meaning that the thief won’t be able to make calls or send text messages that you’ll have to pay for. Some companies require that you have a police report before you can do this, others don’t, so you’ll have to check with your company first. Be aware of the fact that you will have to pay for any charges incurred before you have reported the loss to your service provider.
Try to Track your iPhone 5…
If you’re pre-prepared there are a few ways that you can actually track the location of your phone using the GPS feature. The easiest and most common way is by using Apple’s Find My iPhone programme. This requires that you set up a (free) account through Apple before your phone is stolen. The set up process is easy, though it does require forethought. You can then use the service to locate your phone if it’s lost or stolen. In some cases, the police may be able to help you recover your stolen phone using the information given to them by Find My iPhone. There are also third party apps that will let you do the same thing, if you already have them downloaded before your phone is taken.
Get Rid of Your Data…
Again, this requires a little preparation, and organising yourself before your phone gets stolen. But if you’re prepared it is possible to delete data from your phone remotely. This doesn’t being your phone back, but it does mean that the thief can’t access any of your personal data.
If you’ve signed up for the free MobileMe service with Apple, you can go online and basically set your phone to self-destruct, erasing all data, photos and apps from the device. Some of the above mentions third party tracking apps will also let you remotely delete data. And in the case of a company phone, it’s highly possible that your firm’s IT department will be able to take care of this step for you.
Call Your Insurance Company…
Finally, the last step in the process is to call your insurance company to report the loss and make a claim. If you bought Apple insurance, call the Apple Customer Service line. In the case of personal insurance, call your insurance company. It’s probable that you’ll need a police report to complete this stage of the process, as few insurance companies will process a claim without one. Once you’ve done this, you’ll hopefully get a payout to buy a new phone.
When Phil Turner believed his iPhone 5 had been stolen, he contacted his network provider immediately. He knew he could get an affordable replacement by using Uswitch.com, a price comparison website.
Lithuanian Engineer Julijonas Urbonas has come up with a prototype for what he calls the ultimate thrill ride and humane form of euthanasia – a roller coaster which kills.
The ride, titled the Euthanasia Coaster, is designed to last for three minutes. The first two minutes are spent climbing a steep slope. Once you have reached the top of the roller coaster, you are given the chance to decide whether or not you really do want to go through with the ride. Back out, and you live. Take the ride, and you die.
The roller coaster drops you at high speed, then takes you through a quick succession of loops, each one tighter than the last. The next one minute will be one that redefines the term “ride of your life”. The spinning motion acts like a centrifuge, making the blood rush away from your brain. At first, this creates a sensation of euphoria, then you lose consciousness, and finally you die through lack of oxygen supply to your brain.
There are a couple of exceptions to this. If you were wearing the “zero-g” pants that fighter pilots wear to help them cope with extreme G-Forces, then you would remain conscious, get to enjoy the ride and live to tell the tale. In addition, if you are a quadriplegic then you would not have enough volume in your lower extremities for blood to pool, and you might survive. Of course, there are no guarantees – this is a ride that would take its toll on anyone.
After plunging 500 metres and achieving a speed of almost 220mph, the coaster will go through ten loops, keeping the passengers under a force of 10g for 60 seconds. Trained pilots are capable of handling a sustained force of 9 through training, and short term forces that are significantly greater than 9g are survivable, but the repeated inversions on this coaster will lead to GLOC (loss of consciousnesS), and death.
Urbonas, who is currently taking his PhD at the Royal College of Art, says that his rollercoaster is an exercise in something called Gravitational Aesthetics. His aim is “to take the life of a person humanely, with elegance and euphoria”.
The roller coaster is just a prototype at the moment. It was inspired by a quote by john Allen, one-time president of the Philadelphia Toboggan company. Allen said “The ultimate rollercoaster is built when you send out 24 people and they all come back dead. This could be done, you know.”
Urbonas spent his childhood working at various amusement parks, so it’s no surprise that his imagination was triggered by that comment.
The prototype has been met with much controversy. While some people imagine that it would be a nice way to go, those who are against the concept of Euthanasia have expressed concern about the possibility for abuse. Urbonas himself does not expect to see the roller coaster be built for real for quite some time, saying that it could only exist in a “future where the politics of technologies are much less centralized and more creative, diversified and democratic”.
This guest article was written by Alison Parcell of Westermans International, providers of high quality welding and cutting equipment.
TouchMii, a universal app by developer Distad is a game where you get multiple games rolled into one single app. Fantastic fun!
This game really tests your hand/eye coordination, as you progress through different mini game puzzles. There are over ten different mini games contained in this app! With updates in the future to add even more levels and mini games. This app is great value for money at just under $1.
When you first open the app, the first thing you notice are the cute graphics and catchy music. An animated introductory screen is the first screen you see with cute sheep, a rainbow, shooting stars and a revolving world full of nature. On this screen you can access Facebook, view your level and skills status and see what awards you’ve won.
The first level is a game called ‘Tap the coin’. An animated magnet comes down and opens the level for you. In this mini game you have to tap on coins that are revolving around before they disappear. If you tap on a panda the game gives you extra time. This was really fun to play as the coins are on a split screen, so you have to coordinate both hands to tap on coins at the same time. Not an easy task and I found myself laughing as it was so much fun, Â my coordination to begin with was rusty to say the least.
You gain points in each mini game and you can unlock diamonds, depending on how high your best score is. When you reach midpoint on the diamonds achievements the next level is then unlocked for you. There are also three achievements to go for on each level for which you can gain an award for.
As you progress though the game your ‘Quickness’, ‘Control’ and ‘Sense’ levels improve, giving you extra control. This means that even if you have completed a level, you can replay the level with your new enhanced skill settings, making each mini game repayable. You are given a rank title depending on how much you have progressed through the game and what your scores are like. For instance you can progress from ‘Samurai’ to ‘Ninja’. I’m now at ‘Tribe Leader’ level, although I’ve still got a long way to go in the game. When you progress to a different title, neat particle effects fill the screen with balloons and streamers flying around.
When I unlocked level 2 in the game, I was surprised by the fact that it was a completely different game. These mini games are not spin-offs of the same idea, they are actually completely unique and different from one another. Level 2 is called ‘Jump to the moon’ where you have to touch 3 different coloured control buttons so that your character ‘RichMii’ can leap to different coloured platforms against the clock. Each time you start the game the control buttons change order. This game tests your coordination to the max.
Level 3 is a game of quick thinking where you have to tap on dominoes from the lowest to the highest in number. Again, a totally different mini game.
Level 4 is a mini game called ‘Memory Dance’ and boy does it test your short term memory capabilities. It starts off a bit like Simple Simon, but with a dance theme. Each of the four colours lights up in sequence and you have to tap the same sequence of colours. Just when you start to think that it may be easy, the colours start to swap places with each other. The trick is to remember the colour sequence in your mind.
Level 5, called the ‘Yum Yum’ level, is a game where you have  to catch food falling from the barbeque. This level is not easy and is a barrel of laughs. I kept getting a really good stack of food on my plate, only to have a bomb drop and wipe the contents of the plate clean. At this level you realise that you may need to replay some previous levels to get your skill levels to rise. Again, all these levels are fun to replay and you can also achieve better scores, a better skill set or go for more achievements. TouchMii is also GameCenter enabled, so you can compete with friends to achieve the best score.
There are many more levels to play after this, but I’m not going to spoil the surprise of the mystery of what could be next . . .
Although on the iTunes description page it quotes the game as having 10 levels, I can currently see 12 levels, so there are already bonus levels included.
Mission Accomplished
The game is is not too easy and not too hard. You get a lot of gameplay out of the game as you replay levels, and you have to increase your skill set before moving onto other higher levels. The graphics are very nice and cute. In fact, the whole game has a kind of ‘cute’ feel good feeling to it. The best thing about this game is that if you download this app you get many mini games all contained in just one single app. Fantastic value for money.
Room to improve
It is hard to suggest an improvement for an app as good as this and one that offers so much value for money. One suggested improvement for the developer could be to implement a short animation about the character RichMii, to make the player aware of why he’s travelling around on a puzzle solving adventure. The main character is very cute and with a short animated mini story appearing when you first open the app, on the very first time you play it, it could launch the popularity of RichMii and make the character even more rounded. Take Sonic The Hedgehog and Super Mario for instance, the character alone sells the games.
Conclusion
A very varied and addictive game with many different games all rolled into one single app. It takes skill for a developer to create many spin-off levels in a game, but creating a game with a completely different game for each level demands high level app development skills and a lot of time creating the app. I take my hat off to the this developer’s excellent achievement in creating a top class app. Excellent app and fantastic value for money!
War machines always cost a lot of money, and when there is combat involved, governments are often willing to spend big bucks to develop new technologies that will give their armies the upper hand.
This leads to new and more expensive tanks, and recently the Guinness Book of Records awarded the most expensive tank in the world to the K2 Black Panther from South Korea.
This vehicle saw its beginning in 1995, when the Korean Agency for Defense Development decided to start working on a brand new tank design. This would be a modern armoured vehicle that had both offensive and defensive technologies which could rival anything available out on the battlefield. The development program was intended to modernize the Korean army, and despite the fact that the South Koreans already had the K1A1, a tank already superior to the North Korean T-55, the government wanted a tank that could be used both domestically and also exported to other parts of the world.
There were many prototypes created, including an unmanned turret version where the tank was controlled completely from the inside, but the final design has a manned turret. At first, the gun was supposed to be a 140mm smoothbore cannon, but Rheinmetall did not have the funds needed to finish developing the larger gun, so a 120mm was deemed adequate. In all, it took over 10 years to create the final design and produce the first tanks which came out in 2006, with a research budget of around US$230 million. Full production started in the Spring of 2007.
The K2 entered mass production and the South Korean army planned to start deploying the new vehicles to the field in 2012, although there were some delays due to engine problems. The vehicle has a Doosan Infracore Corporation diesel motor providing 1,500 horsepower, but several technical issues were found in late stage development. Because of these problems, the first K2 was produced using a German engine instead, so that this new tank could start entering service.
In total, 680 vehicles were planned to be constructed, but that number keeps going down and is at less than half of this projected number because of the delays because of cost issues and problems with the engines. A single vehicle costs US$8.5 million, which is the most expensive tank in the world, although several new projects are set to surpass it. This tank can accommodate a three man crew and features some of the most advanced and powerful weapon systems out there, with a 120mm gun able to create holes over 13 feet deep in the ground.
The K2 is not only very powerful, it also provides good maneuverability, as it can go over 70 km/h and climb 20 degree cliffs. It can go from 0 to 30 km/h in just 7 seconds, and can maintain a high rate of speed on off road terrain. The on-board systems are able to communicate with sophisticated base computers and provide the most modern targeting system to the crew. In many ways, the cost of this tank is warranted, but with all of the issues it has had so far, it has yet to really prove itself as a worthwhile project.
Interface
Clear Plan
Mission Accomplished
Room to improve
Conclusion
TouchMii, a universal app by developer Distad is a game where you get multiple games rolled into one single app. Fantastic fun!
You gain points in each mini game and you can unlock diamonds, depending on how high your best score is. When you reach midpoint on the diamonds achievements the next level is then unlocked for you. There are also three achievements to go for on each level for which you can gain an award for.
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