Sunday, June 3, 2012

ECS Nonstop Technology: a New Frontier in PC Stability and - Rezirb

The strictest testing and the toughest components combined, to deliver motherboards that won?t let you down

Nonstop Technology from Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS) finally delivers a hassle free computing experience by solving common PC hardware problems before they can even occur. A specially-devised testing regime ? far stricter than common industry standards ? combined with the highest quality components and shielding, ensures that ECS Nonstop certified motherboards can be relied on for stability and reliability far into the future.

For PC owners suffering crashes, instability and poor performance, ECS Nonstop motherboards can now deliver the stability, reliability and power that other manufacturers only promise. All ECS Black Series Motherboards are Nonstop certified, including these models: X79R-AX, X79R-AX deluxe, A990FXM-A, A990FXM-A Deluxe, A75F-A, H61H2-A2 Deluxe, Z77H2-AX, Z77H2-A2X, and Z77H2-A2X deluxe. Future Black Series Motherboards will also adopt ECS Nonstop Technology.

Nonstop technology comprises four interlocking tests and enhancements that combine together to protect PCs and defeat many of the most common causes of hardware problems and system instability.

The Toughest Stability Testing

Every ECS Nonstop certified motherboard must survive the Super Marathon 3X Stability test, a military level assault course of tests that checks and stresses critical components to ensure that they are up to ECS standards. The Super Marathon Stability Test is aptly named, because each board runs through the testing cycle more than 30,000 times in the course of a strenuous 72-hour workout. This testing regime is devised and guaranteed by more than 30 professional ECS testers.

In addition, every Nonstop certified board must undergo the Sahara Severe Test: a 50?C severe environment test. Running at 125 percent higher than standard high temperature tests, the Sahara Severe Test checks every boards? ability to keep working flawlessly ? even when handling supremely demanding computing tasks under the most extreme environmental conditions.

Only those boards which can pass the Super Marathon Stability test and the 50?C Severe Environment Test while still delivering the flawless, glitch-free high performance that ECS expects are ultimately awarded Nonstop Certification and allowed to reach ECS customers.

Ultimate Hardware Protection

As well as standard ECS performance features, ECS Nonstop boards also include 100 percent solid Apache Long-life capacitors, to protect users from capacitor leakage and failure problems. This technology was developed by a team of more than 40 hardware experts.

In some competing products from other manufacturers, capacitors made with older, less reliable technology can leak, swell or even burst, causing hard-to-pin-down stability and performance issues, or even total failure. Apache Long-life Capacitors have a lifetime six times longer than traditional capacitors, putting all these problems firmly in the past.

The final, critical component of ECS Nonstop technology is Thor Ultra Protection comprehensive electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection. The 100 percent ESD protection on Nonstop motherboards is achieved with special circuitry, consisting of dozens of extra components, that protects expensive and delicate chips, like the CPU, DRAM and more, from static build up that can damage or destroy them without warning. Thor Ultra Protection follows the toughest NASA guidelines for preventing ESD damage.

Find out more about ECS Nonstop Technology, including videos, competitions, chances to win prizes, and an exciting worldwide series of promotional events, at the ECS website ? or by visiting the ECS Nonstop Campaign 2012 at http://www.facebook.com/ecsglobal/app_117531781690494,

ECS nonstop video at http://youtu.be/JUUu5xBug68

About ECS

Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS) has been a pioneer in designing and manufacturing computer motherboards since 1987. Today, the motherboard maker also designs and manufactures desktop PCs, notebooks, servers, motherboards, video cards, wireless solutions and handheld devices for distributors worldwide. Headquartered in Taiwan with operations in North America, Europe, China, Korea and Japan, ECS also has ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certified manufacturing facilities in China. For more information, please visit ECS at http://www.ecs.com.tw.

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Tips For Choosing The Best Personal Finance Software

This article has been viewed 33 times.

A lot of personal finance software users are simply in awe at how simple they are to use and how well they work at tracking a household budget. You want a software that will do everything you need it to do so be on the lookout for this since some are definitely better than others. The availabilities are almost endless ranging from web based to more advanced packages that track your investment portfolios. Keep reading for some helpful hints for locating the right software for your personal finance needs.

Before you buy any personal finance software programs, make sure that you understand the reasons you desire it. For illustration, not all software permits you to stay on top of your investments therefore if this is something you have a hankering for then make sure that you?re acquiring one that has this attribute. You may also wish for an online based service, as opposed to software that you download. The pro to this is that you can have access to the program anywhere you are and you aren?t in need of your computer. Online services can additionally provide you with immediate information. These are some of the things to bear in mind when selecting personal finance software programs.

While not as commonly used as Money or some other programs, Moneydance is a convenient personal finance software program with some good features. Many users find it convenient as the interface is quite simple and straightforward. You can easily add or delete accounts, and you have a neat summary of all your information in one place. Some of the tasks it can help you with include online bill paying and advising you about making important financial matters. There?s also a generous free trial period for Moneydance that gives you 100 transactions. By then, you?ll have a good idea of whether or not if it?s for you.

MoneyStrands is a type of personal finance software for the Internet, which costs nothing and helps you to keep an eye on your budget and provides you with beneficial money management suggestions. This program makes it easy to keep an eye on each of you financial accounts, like credit cards, savings or checking to let you have an overall picture of your financial state of affairs. Furthermore, it has a free iPhone app that lets you retrieve data from your phone. In additional to the financial tools, MoneyStrands has some parallels to a social network, as it encourages you to communicate with other members and swap information and tips. Plus, the service makes suggestions that are consistent with your way of living and your financial condition. Personal finance software are available in many different styles, to Internet services to phone apps. Many of these programs are quite powerful and useful if you take the time to learn all their features. The programs we?ve gone over in this article are the ones you might find to be effective, yet you should take a look at several of them to determine which one has all the things you need. Personal finance software can help you to comprehend your finances more, and this can relieve a lot of stress.

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Dennis Santiago: Credit Unions Just Got a Little More Transparent

In December 2009, my friend Arianna Huffington called with this idea to educate "ordinary" people about the financial system. At the time, I directed Institutional Risk Analytics to prepare and launch a pro bono zip code tool to search for best of breed small and mid-sized banks. We called that project "Move Your Money". The tool has been running ever since and, as of today, has been used over 1.3 million times and counting.

For people needing detailed information about banks, the "Move Your Money" tool is backed up by a commercial system that extracts professional analytics from IRA's Professional Bank Monitor risk analysis engine and packages into an online shopping cart for consumers. The cart system itself owes its origin to a challenge from the good folks at CBS Evening News back in 2008 to explain the arcane world of banking in terms consumers could do something with at a reasonable price compared to what one charges a Wall Street investment house for such math grinding information. Distilling thousands of reporting numbers into simple letter grades was the result.

From the outset of "Move Your Money", consumer demand to see performance and risk information on credit unions came roaring through the grapevine. People love credit unions which they see as a socially responsible alternative to being a bank customer. What's not to like about a place that calls your deposit dollar a "share" in the collective.

But it takes time to study these institutions behavior patterns and the patterns of their regulating authority, the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA). The rules are different and the metrics are not directly comparable to the norms and expectations imposed on banks by the Banking Act gaggle of regulators at the FDIC, FFIEC, OCC, OTS and Fed. For long-term solutions to a long term crisis, I decided it was better to take the time to study things in a considered fashion. And that included a painstaking process to gather an understanding of what systemic issues credit unions pose.

Strangely, professional demand for transparency about credit unions remains nil in the world of Wall Street. No traded securities you see. But competitively, banks have noted that an increasing number of credit unions have taken on business models that compete directly with community banks for the same customers and that's begun to make them want to get a bead on these competitors a might more.

So after much bleary eyed staring at NCUA 5300 reports and talking to all manner of people about what keeps them up at night about credit unions, on June 1, 2012 Institutional Risk Analytics released our first credit union performance summary reports into our online tools systems. There are roughly 6,100-plus of them spanning some large institutions to truly small credit "unions" in the original sense of the description of these entities. Like IRA's bank engine, coverage is 100 percent. If it reports to its regulator, there's an IRA report on it. What does a portion of one of these look like?


Sample
as of December-2011

Profitability IndicatorROANet IncomeTotal Assets
GOOD PERFORMANCE0.82%$280,496$34,331,846
Business
Analysis
Efficiency Heat Map IndicatorAVERAGE
Efficiency Ratio135.01%
Non-Interest Expense
$732,625
less Assessments
NCUSIF Insurance
$0
Corp CU Stabilization
$67,645
Other Member Ins.
$9,000
divided by
Interest Income
$1,070,968
less Interest Expense
$799,101
plus Non-Interest Income
$214,020

Business Efficiency Ratio tests the cost of operating versus available income. Lower numbers are better.
Lending

Lending as % of Assets
28.29%

Troubled Lending Heat Map IndicatorLOW
Trouble Rate1.55%
Texas Ratio0.44%
Over 60 Days Delinquent Amount
$150,256
Total Lending
$9,712,738

Texas Ratio Denominator Items:
Member Shares$29,636,652
Undivided Profits$0
Intangible Assets$4,286,671
Prov. for Loan Loss$41,272
Negligible Exposure
Investing

Investing as % of Assets
66.71%

Return on Investments
1.49%
Income from Investments
$341,518
Total Investments
$22,903,437
Portion of CU Investments that are Deposits in Commercial Banks, S&L's and Savings Banks
$21,705,000
Corporate
Credit Unions

Corporate Credit Union Exposure as % of Assets
3.80%


Assets at Corp CU's
Cash Deposits
$1,305,722
Member Capital
$0
Paid-In Capital
$0
Other Investments
$0

Borrowings from Corp CU's
Corp CU Credit Line
$0
Borrowed, LOC
$0
Borrowed, Term
$0
Temporary Corporate Credit Union Stabilization Fund Assessment
$67,645
Credit Union Service Organization (CUSO)
Investments in CUSO's
$0
Amt. Loaned to CUSO's
$0
Aggregate Cash Outlay in CUSO's
$0

A CUSO is a subsidiary of the CU that handles loan, credit card and other servicing functions.
Source: IRA/NCUA 5300 Reports
With this first iteration of IRA analytics, you can see if they are making money. Not all do. You can see what their cost of doing business looks like. You can get a picture of their lending base, any trouble that may be in it, and how well protected the members are from troubled loans. You can see how much they are investing and, of those investments, how much are actually deposits in the banks. You can see how exposed they are to a somewhat troubled group of entities known as Corporate Credit Unions that require special assessment stabilization subsidies to stay afloat right now. And you can see to what degree they have certain types of key subsidiary investments in something called a Credit Union Service Organization (CUSO), these are entities similar to the mortgage and credit card servicing units at banks. Some of the measures we have synthesized appear like the bank measures used by IRA. This is to help professionals analyze and compare CU's to banks more easily. No it was not easy to get them to be somewhat comparable given the differences in regulatory philosophy in play.

What does appear to emerge is that credit unions are on average somewhat more expensive to operate than banks. Many of them are stellar operations worthy of people's money. Still, not all of them are well run businesses but then again neither are all banks. Management philosophy runs the gamut and their asset allocation strategies are as varied as their bank cousins. The bottom line is that it is not a homogeneous industry and the industry deserves as much scrutiny by its members as banks do by their customers. As of today, it's not as opaque as it used to be.

Note that for the time being, the quality filter strips out the riskier banks from the zip code lists that marks the consumer protection aspect of the "Move Your Money" tool remains disabled for credit unions in the MYM free site. The MYM Courtesy CU finder tool shows all of them. I'm still working on that part.

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Follow Dennis Santiago on Twitter: www.twitter.com/DennisSantiago

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Egypt's Mubarak sentenced to life in prison

In this video image taken from Egyptian State Television, 84-year-old former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak is seen in the defendant's cage as a judge reads the verdict in on charges of complicity in the killing of protesters during last year's uprising that forced him from power, in Cairo, Egypt, Saturday, June 2, 2012. (AP Photo/Egyptian State TV) EGYPT OUT

In this video image taken from Egyptian State Television, 84-year-old former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak is seen in the defendant's cage as a judge reads the verdict in on charges of complicity in the killing of protesters during last year's uprising that forced him from power, in Cairo, Egypt, Saturday, June 2, 2012. (AP Photo/Egyptian State TV) EGYPT OUT

In this video image taken from Egyptian State Television, 84-year-old former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak is seen in the defendant's cage as a judge reads the verdict in on charges of complicity in the killing of protesters during last year's uprising that forced him from power, in Cairo, Egypt, Saturday, June 2, 2012. (AP Photo/Egyptian State TV) EGYPT OUT

Egyptian protesters shout slogans and wave a national flag in front of policemen outside the police academy courtroom as the country braces for a verdict in the trial of ousted president Hosni Mubarak in Cairo, Egypt, Saturday, June 2, 2012. The 84-year-old Mubarak, the first Arab leader to be tried by his own people, faces charges of complicity in the killing of some 900 protesters during last year's uprising that forced him from power. If convicted, he could face the death penalty. The picture on the white flag shows one of the victims of the Jan. 25, 2011 Egyptian revolution. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

Egyptian protesters shout slogans in front of policemen outside the police academy courtroom as the country braces for a verdict in the trial of ousted president Hosni Mubarak in Cairo, Egypt, Saturday, June 2, 2012. The 84-year-old Mubarak, the first Arab leader to be tried by his own people, faces charges of complicity in the killing of some 900 protesters during last year's uprising that forced him from power. If convicted, he could face the death penalty. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

An Egyptian woman shouts slogans and holds a poster of a protester killed during the 2011 uprising in front of policemen outside the police academy courtroom as the country braces for a verdict in the trial of ousted president Hosni Mubarak in Cairo, Egypt, Saturday, June 2, 2012. The 84-year-old Mubarak, the first Arab leader to be tried by his own people, faces charges of complicity in the killing of some 900 protesters during last year's uprising that forced him from power. If convicted, he could face the death penalty. Poster on white flag showing one of the victims of the January 25th revolution . (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

CAIRO (AP) ? Hosni Mubarak was sentenced to life in prison Saturday for failing to stop the killing of protesters during the uprising that forced him from power last year. The ousted president and his sons were acquitted, however, of corruption charges in a mixed verdict that swiftly provoked a new wave of anger on Egypt's streets.

After the sentencing, the 84-year old Mubarak suffered a "health crisis" while on a helicopter flight to a Cairo prison hospital, according to security officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. One state media report said it was a heart attack, but that could not immediately be confirmed.

The officials said Mubarak cried in protest and resisted leaving the helicopter that took him to a prison hospital for the first time since he was detained in April 2011. Mubarak stayed at a regular hospital in his favorite Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh from his arrest until his trial began in on Aug. 3. The officials said he insisted on the helicopter that he be flown to the military hospital on the eastern outskirts of Cairo where he has stayed during the trial.

Earlier, Mubarak sat stone-faced and frowning in the courtroom's metal defendants' cage while judge Ahmed Rifaat read out the conviction and sentence against him, showing no emotion with his eyes concealed by dark sunglasses. His sons Gamal and Alaa looked nervous but also did not react to either the conviction of their father or their own acquittals.

Mubarak was convicted of complicity in the killing of some 900 protesters during the 18-day uprising that forced him to resign in February 2011. He and his two sons were acquitted of corruption charges, along with a a family friend who is on the run.

Rifaat delivered a strongly worded statement before handing down the sentences. He described Mubarak's era as "30 years of darkness" and "a darkened nightmare" that ended only when Egyptians rose up to demand change.

"They peacefully demanded democracy from rulers who held a tight grip on power," the judge said about the Jan.25-Feb. 11 uprising last year.

Angered by the acquittals of the Mubarak sons and six top police officers, lawyers for the victims' families broke out chanting inside the courtroom as soon as Rifaat finished reading the verdict.

"The people want to cleanse the judiciary," they chanted. Some raised banners that read: "God's verdict is execution."

The charges related to killing protesters carried a possible death sentence that the judge chose not to impose, opting instead to send Mubarak to prison for the rest of his life.

Outside the courtroom on the outskirts of the capital, there was jubilation initially when the conviction was announced, with one man falling to his knees and prostrating himself in prayer on the pavement and others dancing, pumping fists in the air and shooting off fireworks.

But that scene soon descended into tensions and scuffles, as thousands of riot police in helmets and shields held the restive, mostly anti-Mubarak crowd back behind a cordon protecting the court.

Later, thousands of protesters gathered in Cairo's Tahrir Square, birthplace of the uprising, and in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria on Egypt's northern coast. They chanted slogans denouncing the trial as "theatrical" and against the ruling generals who took over for Mubarak, led by his former defense minister. "Execute them, execute them!" chanted the protesters in Alexandria.

Mubarak and his former Interior Minister Habib el-Adly, who was in charge of the police and other security forces at the time of the uprising, were convicted of failing to act to stop the killings during the opening days of the revolt, when the bulk of protesters died. El-Adly also received a life sentence.

Most of the dead were either shot or run over by police vehicles in Cairo and a string of major cities across the country.

Mubarak and his sons ? one-time heir apparent Gamal and wealthy businessman Alaa ? were acquitted on corruption charges, with the judge citing a 10-year statute of limitations that had lapsed since the alleged crimes were committed.

Just days before the verdict was made public, the state prosecutor leveled new charges of insider trading against the two sons. It now appears that these charges may have been an attempt to head off new public outrage once the acquittals of the Mubarak sons were made public.

It has appeared all along that prosecutions since Mubarak's fall targeting relatively few high level officials and their cronies have been motivated largely by a desire to appease public anger expressed in massive street protests that continued long after Mubarak's ouster.

Scores of policemen charged with killing protesters have either been acquitted or received light sentences, angering relatives of the victims and the pro-democracy youth groups behind the uprising.

Rock-throwing and fist fights outside the courtroom left at least 20 people injured, and a police official said that four people were arrested.

Thousands of riot police and policemen riding horses had cordoned off the building to prevent protesters and relatives of those slain during the uprising from getting too close. Hundreds stood outside, waving Egyptian flags and chanting slogans demanding "retribution." Some spread Mubarak's picture on the asphalt and walked over it.

Mubarak's verdict came just days after presidential elections have been boiled down to a June 16-17 contest between Mubarak's last prime minister, one-time protege Ahmed Shafiq, and Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, a fundamentalist Islamist group that Mubarak persecuted for most of his years in power.

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Associated Press writer Maggie Michael contributed to this report.

Associated Press

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Friday, June 1, 2012

Snigdha Nandipati wins National Spelling Bee

Alex Brandon / AP

Snigdha Nandipati won the 2012 National Spelling Bee, which featured 278 spellers from around the country.

By Isolde Raftery, msnbc.com

Snigdha Nandipati clinched the 2012 Scripps National Spelling Bee title with the French word guetapens. (If you're feeling cheeky, you could say that no guetapens could have tripped up Snigdha.) She won in the 13th round, beating Stuti Mishra, a 14-year-old from Orlando, Fla. Arvind Mahankali, a 12-year-old from Bayside Hills, N.Y. was third place for the second year in a row.

Snigdha is an 8th grade student at Francis Parker School, a private school in Mission Valley, according NBC San Diego. She also competed in last year?s contest and tied for 27th place. She was eliminated when she misspelled "kerystic."

Read the story at NBCSanDiego.com

According to the Spelling Bee's official web site, Snigdha reads mysteries, adventure stories and "random facts in encyclopedias, particularly those topics pertaining to science or history." She also enjoys collecting coins from around the world. She plays violin, is a member of her school yearbook club and is fluent in Telugu.

Her grandfather, who traveled from India with her grandmother to watch her compete, promised her a trip to India if she won, according to the announcers. When she won, he rushed up to the stage and gave her a hug as confetti fell around them.? ?

One of the announcers said that Snigdha means "smooth like honey" -- we weren't able to verify that, but we'll roll with it. She was cool and confident throughout the contest, which last two days. As she said minutes she won, "I knew my words."

Below is the feed from the final rounds:

10 p.m.: Snigdha Nandipati is trending on Twitter!?

9:43 p.m.: "Is there any word you didn't know?" Snigdha responds, "I knew my words." Apparently she studied 10 to 12 hours on weekends and six hours on weekdays.

9:40 p.m.: One of the announcers says that Snigdha lives up to her name, which means "smooth like honey." A bit of a leap, but I'll go with it -- she was cool and unflappable.

9:39 p.m.: Snigdha's grandfather apparently promised her a trip to India if she won. Snigdha tells the announcer that this is a "miracle." She apparently knew the word when she heard it.

9:37 p.m.: Congratulations Snigdha Nandipati, who wins with "guetapens"! Her father wrote a computer program to help her study, and it paid off. The confetti is everywhere. (Guetapens means "an ambush, snare or trap.")

Alex Brandon / AP

Lena Greenberg, 14, of Philadelphia, reacts after spelling a word incorrectly and being eliminated during the finals of the National Spelling Bee Thursday, May 31, 2012 in Oxon Hill, Md. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

9:36 p.m.: @ScrippsBee tells us there have been co-champions three times and that the last time was in 1962.

9:36 p.m.: It's not over yet! But Stuti misspelled her word, schwarmerei.

9:34 p.m.: Oooh, apparently Stuti and Snigdha did not "exchange much chitchat during the break." Stuti's little sister has been staring at her intently as she spells her word.

9:28 p.m.: We may be here for a while. Love that Snigdha, Speller 44, just said, "right, arrondissement." As in, I used to live in the 14th arrondissement in Paris.

9:25 p.m.: We're down to two spellers. Nail biter. Snigdha aces "admittatur."

9:21 p.m.: Arvind, who is 12, misspells schwannoma. He finishes third for the second year. He'll be able to return next year.

9:20 p.m.: Oh my word. Dr. Bailey uses "schwannoma" in a sentence: "M-m-m-my schwannoma." Was Arvind even alive when Reality Bites came out? (I just looked it up. No.)?

Alex Wong / Getty Images

Lena Greenberg of Philadelphia celebrates with fellow speller Nicholas Rushlow of Pickerington, Ohio, after she correctly spelled her word.

9:14 p.m.: We should have noted that Lena got out for "geistlich," from the German for ghost.

9:12 p.m.: Down to the last three spellers! Arvind, Snigdha and Stuti remain on stage.

9:09 p.m.: Nicholas Rushlow gets another French word, vetiver, which he misspells. (He says, "another one?" referring to another word of French origin. What he was really thinking, he says later: "Oh crap.") His parents, clutching each others' hands in the audience, are his coaches.

9:08 p.m.: Arvind Mahankali of New York, who was at the Bee last year, is considered the favorite by many. He just correctly spelled quattrocento, which means fifteenth century.

9:07 p.m.: Love the judges who counsel the spellers to "watch Dr. Bailey's lips" and to "watch the time."

9:05 p.m.: Gifton Wright is out with ericeticolous, receives a standing ovation from his fellow spellers. Apparently you don't see this often. Gifton spells the word with an "o."

Alex Brandon / AP

Frank Cahill, 14, of Parker, Colo., reacts as he spells a word during the finals of the National Spelling Bee on Thursday. He was eliminated.

8:55 p.m.: "That luteovirescent shirt so does not go with those skinny jeans." -- Dr. Bailey

8:54 p.m.: Lena Greenberg is a delight. She just spelled yttriferous, her voice rising an octave with each letter.

8:53 p.m.: The last word was "rouille" and Nicholas Rushlow nailed it with just seconds on the clock. Not fair. I haven't had dinner yet.

8:50 p.m.: Dr. Jacques Bailey, the official pronouncer of the Bee, was the 1980 champion. He apparently trained with a nun at his Catholic school. He says that when he joined the Bee, he "kind of had an attitude."

8:44 p.m.: Gifton Wright takes the stage and my palms start to sweat. We're literally spelling the word out loud with him as he spells p-h-t-h-i-s-i-o-l-o-g-y. ?

Reuters

Emma Ciereszynski, 14, from Dover, New Hampshire, reacts as she incorrectly spells a word in the final round.

8:41 p.m. Frank Cahill of Parker, Colo. has been given the word "porwigle": Frog or toad larva that at hatching has a rounded body, also known as a tadpole. Countdown ... trips up and spells it p-o-r-w-i-g-g-l-e.

8:40 p.m.: Apparently some of these kids spend 600 hours practicing.

8:31 p.m.: My favorite response so far, to the word "otosteon" -- Lena Greenberg of Philadelphia just said, "What?" The audience laughed. Her mother had her head in her hands. The announcer said she doesn't watch her daughter spell. ?

8:30 p.m.: My favorite comment so far, about Snigdha Nadipati of San Diego: "A strong threat to go deep this time."?

8:23 p.m.: I'm not sure what's more stressful -- watching the parents or watching the spellers.

Alex Brandon / AP

Snigdha Nandipati, 14, of San Diego, Calif., spells a word during the finals of the National Spelling Bee Thursday.

8:22 p.m.: There are now seven contestants remaining at the National Spelling Bee. Two were eliminated in the time it took simply to format this blog.

8:21 p.m.: Ouch: The National Spelling Bee's Twitter feed: "Speller 145, Emma Ciereszynski, spells ridotto incorrectly in Round Seven of the Bee. ?#spellingbee? She's out."

Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

Jordan Hoffman, 14, of Lee's Summit, Missouri, reacts as she incorrectly spells a word in the final round of the Scripps National Spelling Bee at National Harbor in Maryland May 31, 2012.

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CareCrunch Answers ? Answers Archive ? Try Home Improvement ...

If you would like to spruce up your home, the biggest impact is to paint your walls. A fresh coat of paint will give you instant results and make the home look new again. Paint doesn?t cost much, and if you don?t like the final results, it is easy to buy another paint color and try again.

Dirty ceiling vents can make your home look bad. You can purchase and install new ceiling vents, giving your home a cleaner and neater look.

When hiring a contractor to do home improvements, do some research on them to make sure they are qualified and hold the proper licenses to do the work. Check the Department of Consumer Affairs, validate their licenses, and check to make sure they carry insurance so that if someone is injured in the home renovation, you do not get sued.

Home improvements can be large projects or small weekend tasks. Start in the kitchen or bathroom. One of the easiest ways to update those rooms are to replace the door knobs, drawer pulls, and hinges. Either choose a style that goes along with your existing theme or use the new hardware as inspiration to redesign the whole kitchen or bathroom.

If you love art, don?t keep it hidden in the house. Weatherproof canvas and aluminum is made to withstand rain, sun, heat, and freezing temperatures, and many online dealers like art.com have entire sections of outdoor artwork. This allows you to extend your artistic atmosphere beyond the front door of your home and makes a great statement.

If one has a wooden deck, porch, gazebo, railing, or any other wooden structure, such as a playground set, putting a wood finish on it can be a good weekend project. It will seal the wood from the elements and increase the life span of the structure. The finished product will last much longer than the time it took to accomplish.

A simple and effective tool for improving your use of energy and improving the nature of your home dynamic is to install and utilize automated thermostat systems. Although they can be expensive, they will cover their own cost over time in your overall lower energy bills while making your home more green.

Add a whole new room! If you are the adventurous type of homeowner, you may want to work on an addition to your home. An addition has many benefits, including more space, a longer project, and a lasting change. Be cautious of your building codes however, you do not want to start an addition only to find out it is illegal to continue.

If you are planning a home renovation, make sure you have some way to dispose of construction debris. Any major renovation project is going to result in a lot of debris and much of it will be substances that shouldn?t be mixed in with city trash. Plan ahead and you won?t be stuck with it.

When you are starting a home improvement project, make sure you realize all the steps entailed. Make a step by step list of tasks you need to complete to finish the project so you understand and are ready for all the work ahead of you. Also, plan the completion date a week after you think you will be done with the project to give yourself time to correct any mistakes.

Now that you have seen how easy it is to find the strategies to give your home, not just added beauty, but added value, it is time to get started on that home improvement project. The practical tips from this article will give you the information that you need for success.

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