Meet Heather
Hi! My name is Heather Rumbough. I am the newest member of Kotori Technologies as Senior Network Engineer. I will be responsible for the evaluation, troubleshooting, and repairing computer and network related issues to reduce the overall downtime for Kotori clients
I grew up in NC, where I met my husband. I have 2 kids (11 and 6). Four years ago we moved to Oregon for my husband to pursue his career goals. We recently moved back to the East Coast and have settled in Goose Creek. In my spare time I enjoy spending time with my family, reading, painting ceramics and LOVE playing softball.
I graduated from AB-Technical Community College where I received my A.A.S in Information Technology over 10 years ago and have since received my MCSA 2003. My goal is to increase my IT skill set while updating my certifications all while learning our clients and which technologies would benefit them the most. Prior to moving here and working with Kotori Technologies, I was with Core Business Services, LLC in Medford, OR.
July 4th Recipes
While you enjoy your Fourth of July, try one of these recipes:
What You Need
1-1/2 cups boiling water, divided
1 pkg. (3 oz.) JELL-O Berry Blue Flavor Gelatin
1 cup ice cubes, divided
1 HONEY MAID Graham Pie Crust (6 oz.)
1 pkg. (3 oz.) JELL-O Strawberry Flavor Gelatin, or any red flavor
1 cup thawed COOL WHIP Whipped Topping
Make It
ADD 3/4 cup boiling water to blue gelatin mix; stir 2 min. until completely dissolved. Add 1/2 cup ice cubes; stir until melted. Pour into crust; refrigerate 5 to 10 min. or until set but not firm.
MEANWHILE, repeat to dissolve red gelatin mix in separate bowl; stir in remaining ice cubes. Cool 5 min. or until slightly thickened.
SPREAD COOL WHIP over blue gelatin layer; cover with red gelatin. Refrigerate 2 hours or until set.
Another wonderful 4th of July dessert perfect for any family get together are Uncle Sam Ice Cream Cones.
This dessert requires cake cones, white frosting, red and blue decorating gels, red and blue M&Ms and a canister of ready made whipped cream. You will also need a scoop of vanilla ice cream for each dessert.
Simply drop a scoop of ice cream on each plate and return to the freezer to harden. Next, construct an Uncle Sam hat out of a cake cone.
Use frosting and gels to decorate the cones with stripes and stars so that they resemble a patriotic top hat. Star tips work great with the white frosting to create star buttons and decorations around the base of the cone.
When the hat is complete, remove the ice cream scoop or Uncle Sam's Head from the freezer. Top the head quickly and add red and blue M&Ms for the face and nose. Add a whipped cream beard using the ready whip and serve Uncle Sam immediately.
Are you arriving on-time?
Arriving on time is important for all sorts of reasons: making a connection; attending a big meeting; or even just starting your vacation on the right foot. And when it comes to on-time arrivals, not all airlines are created equal. Sure, sometimes it depends what airports they fly into, regulars at LaGuardia, JFK, and Newark have to deal with a lot more congestion than airlines flying into say Charleston, South Carolina. But sometimes the arrival record is also a function of the airline itself.
Listed below are the top 10 airlines for arriving on-time with the highest customer satisfaction rating.
#10 Delta
On-time performance: 76.9%
Though most airlines increased their on-time performance, Deltas dropped ever so slightly, from 77.3%. Unfortunately, that means slipping from the #7 spot, though the airline still remains in the top 10.
#9 Alaska
On-time performance: 77.6%
There wasnt much movement for Alaska, which gained 1 percentage point in on-time arrivals from 2010 but slipped from #8.
#8 AirTran
On-time performance: 78.4%
AirTrans jump of 2 percentage points from 2010 was enough to help it snag the #8 spot from Alaska.
#7 Northwest
On-time performance: 79.6%
Northwest made a big move this year; its improvement of 6 percentage points from 2010 meant a jump of 5 spots in the rankings and a solid spot in the top 10.
#6 Frontier
On-time performance: 80%
Frontier was booted out of the top 5 this year, despite an increase in on-time performance from 78%
#5 US Airways
On-time performance: 80.4%
Though US Airways slipped less than 2 percentage points from 2010, the surge from a couple regional carriers cost the airline its #3 spot.
#4 SkyWest
On-time performance: 81.4%
This regional carrierwhich is the primary United Express carrier along the West Coast, as well as a Delta Connection and Midwest Connect carrierincreased its 2010 performance (78%) and its ranking (#5).
#3 Southwest
On-time performance: 83%
While Southwests performance increased this year (it was 80% in 2010), that wasnt quite enough to hold onto its #2 ranking.
#2 Pinnacle
On-time performance: 83.4%
Pinnaclewhich operates flights for Northwest Airline and Delta Connectiondidnt crack the top 5 in 2010 (it was #6 with 77.4%), but this year flew to the #2 spot.
#1 Hawaiian
On-time performance: 89.5%
Once again, Hawaiian outperformed all other carriers. Should airline executives be worried that the on-time percentage dropped from 92% last year? Probably notits still ahead by a healthy margin.
Amazon Cloud VS Google Music VS iCloud
Amazon Cloud Player
Lets look at the first cloud music solution brought to us by Amazon. Cloud Player works hand in hand with Cloud Drive, the web-based storage platform created to deal with its cloud offering. With the service offering a browser based user interface, any internet connected PC or Mac will be compatible. At present Android seems to be the only mobile device platform supported by Amazon, although other platforms could be added shortly. The service provides customers with 5GB of storage space to get started, but users who make a purchase at the Amazon US MP3 store during 2011 will automatically be given a 20GB upgrade for a single year. Not bad. Perhaps this deal is some kind of incentive to sway consumers away from Apples iTunes and over to Amazons MP3 store. Im not sure that it will work like Amazon hopes, but its certainly a nice offer.
Also, Amazon has claimed that it will keep all your stored music online for a lifetime, which where we come from means until youre dead. Again, this is a nice feature unless you plan on leaving your cloud storage to a relative, that is.
Unlike Apples determination to sign the big four record labels, Amazon released the service without obtaining any sort of legal deal with them. One stunned music executive was quoted saying that many in the industry questioned the services legality. The anonymous executive said: "I've never seen a company of their size make an announcement, launch a service and simultaneously say they're trying to get licenses," said the executive.
Unlike iClouds offering, there are no additional costs to upload your music sourced from elsewhere. Amazon simply charges if you need to expand on your cloud drives free capacity. The service will also allow you to re-download your MP3/ACC files to 8 devices.
Music Beta by Google
Just like Amazon, the current beta seems to have no legal backup from copyright holders. Launched at the Google I/O conference, the service hasnt really set the world talking. With Adobe Flash powering the Android-centric platform at present, iOS devices go unsupported. It also seems, however, that Android devices are also the only method of re-downloading your content. In terms of storage, Google approaches capacity by the number of songs instead of storage space. With the ability to upload 20,000 songs theres plenty of room to hide your embarrassing guilty pleasures. Just like Amazon, both MP3 and ACC files can be uploaded, with the lesser used WMA and FLAC formats also supported too. Unlike its rivals, users cant purchase music via the system as Google has no music store to compete with iTunes or the Amazon MP3 Store, which could be a bad thing for the search giant depending on how you look at it.
iCloud and iTunes Match
The major difference between the iCloud service and its opponents is the lack of browser support. Apple once again has kept the walled garden gate shut by requiring users to be running iTunes (yeseven the Windows version) or an iOS device.
The idea behind iCloud and iTunes Match clearly leaves out streaming from the agenda, your music must be fully downloaded to play. This process is made much easier by the automatic syncing between the iCloud and your devices.
A big advantage Apple has over its rivals is that iTunes Match will literally match your non-iTunes music and download a high quality 256 kbps AAC version of the songs. Once again the iCloud service is free (replacing the paid-for MobileMe) with iTunes Match setting you back a yearly fee of $25.
By matching your files up with the limited 5GB, iCloud will then use an already in the cloud file (from the iTunes server) to push this to up to 10 of your iOS devices. This saves the hassle and time of large amounts of data being uploaded to the iCloud servers via end-users limited internet connection.
Conclusion
Without knowing Googles future pricing plan it is hard to tell which one of these services I will use in the future but for right now I will stick with Music Beta by Google. I am doing this mostly because of the massive storage space allowed. I have around 4,000+ songs. Googles offering allows me to upload 16,000 more songs. I uploaded all of my music to Amazons Cloud Player and have only 3 GB of space left. I cannot test out Apples offering because I do not have an iOS device. But Apples lack of streaming or being able to play my music in a web browser is a major buzz kill on the product for me.
But as the saying goes, to each his (or her) own. Let us know if you try any of these out and which one you like the most.
Depog
Here is Daniel's version of Depog.
