How To Prepare Your Kitchen For The Market - Home Stager in Atlanta
As I?m sure you?ve heard, kitchens are one of the ?key-rooms? to a buyer. That said, it?s important that it look its very best when you put your home on the market.
Here are some tips to help get you started:
Do a thorough cleaning.
Clean and organize the inside of your cupboards, as well as your pantry. Potential buyers will definitely be opening them to see just how much space they?ll have for their own items.
For the exterior of the cupboards, clean by using a detergent and then followed by a water and vinegar mixture. Next, apply an orange oil as this will help them shine.
One of the most frequently asked questions from homeowners who will be living in the home while it?s on the market is what to have on their counter tops.
Having staged hundreds of vacant homes throughout Atlanta, my recommendations include:
Removing everything off the counters and add only those items you use daily.
Detergent bottles and sponges should be placed under the sink
Remove all paperwork. While the kitchen counter top is convenient for incoming mail (junk or otherwise), its best to keep your counter tops clutter-free.
Make it pretty by adding accessories.
Here are a few examples of some of the kitchens we?ve staged:
Accessories used in kitchens by Atlanta home stager, Kathy Nielsen
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If you?d like further assistance with preparing your kitchen for the market, contact us at 678 522 8392 to schedule an appointment.
The Hi-C Suborbital Spacecraft Snaps the Sun's Hottest Spots
The Sun's corona—essentially its plasma "atmosphere"—is actually hotter than the surface of the star itself. Scientists have long suspected that the region's million-degree temperatures influence its massive magnetic fields, and have hypothesized that solar flares originate there. But researchers had never been able to observe these phenomena first-hand—until now. More »
Kathleen Wynne: Let's Give Her Something To Talk About ...
I began writing this post early this morning as a way of communicating to new Ontario premier, Kathleen Wynne, my hopes for a renewed conversation about the purpose and vision of education in this province. The entry took a little bit of a different turn in the writing. I hope that you will join me in ?thinking out loud? about this place we call school!
It is unlikely that anyone coming within 50 feet of this weekend?s provincial leadership convention in Toronto got much sleep last night. For those who spent the better part of this past Friday inside the historic Maple Leaf Gardens, it will likely take a few days for the electricity that both surprised and delighted convention delegates to dissipate. Outside the Carlton Street cathedral, tens of thousands of vigilant protesters were both galvanized and warmed by a different sort of energy. Both experiences will, no doubt leave their mark on participants.
In the end, Ontario is waking up to the potential of a new reality under the vision of newly-minted Liberal leader?and, by default, premier?Kathleen Wynne. It?s a potential that, I believe, could change the face of education in this province.
But it?s a hope and sense of possibility that carries well beyond closing the ugly gap that has been opened up between teacher unions and the government. To deny that the gap exists and carry on as if everything is suddenly OK would be folly. Kathleen Wynne recognizes the need for a new process to deal with the ongoing reality of public sector labour negotiations, and I would be very surprised if she didn?t move immediately to ensure that conversations around that process took place quickly and very publicly.
But there is another conversation that needs to emerge just as quickly and just as publicly, and it turns around the question of purpose and vision for Ontario?s education system. I?m not calling for another Royal Commission. I still have full documents from the last two on my bookshelf and they are full of wonderful research, ideas and recommendations. But high level commissions and inquiries are unlikely to resonate with the general population, or are they likely to affect the deep transformations that we have the potential of realizing in the coming years.
Instead, Ms. Wynne has an opportunity to take the pulse of this province in a way that no other premier could at the beginning of their term. Through the use of social media, Web 2.0 tools and blog technology, it is possible for citizens to connect with the democratic process and its leadership (and vice versa) in ways that could be life-changing for students, educators, parents, and the tax-paying public.
Kathleen Wynne entered the political spotlight as someone who cared deeply about the cuts to education being made under former premier, Mike Harris. As a trustee and, later, as education minister, she became known as a bit of a policy junkie, but with a heart for quality schools. I think that?s a pretty good combination, and we need to leverage both of those passions in moving forward with the education agenda in this province.
We have a unique opportunity in the year 2013 to rezone that intersection where vision and policy meet so that it is no longer considered private property with limited access, but a bustling public square where opinions, ideas, dreams and passions can be brought together in a new type of dialogue about what we want for our education and schooling in this province.
Yes, the rather contentious relationship between the government and its teacher associations must be healed?quickly. But, as important as it is, labour peace can?t be seen as the final goal of the new Liberal government at Queen?s Park. No, in order to re-energize the conversation about education in this province, we need to engage in active and vibrant conversations, not about the system that we used to have but about the system that we could have.
So, I?m suggesting a type of blogging campaign designed to express the deepest hopes and dreams that Ontario students, parents, educators, and citizens have for their schools. In the weeks leading up to the recall of the provincial legislature, why not write an entry about the education system that you dream about, and what you would want to see on the policy table this spring?
And when you do, send me the link either by email at stephen.hurley@sympatico.ca or as a comment to this post. I will collect the entries as they come in and include them here as links for your reference.
Let?s seize this moment in our history to speak clearly and confidently to our leaders about what is possible. It doesn?t matter that our perspectives might be out of sync with each other; it?s only important that we speak?and dream!
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About Stephen Hurley
Stephen Hurley has been involved in public education for over 27 years, serving as a classroom teacher, school-based resource, curriculum consultant and teacher educator. He is most passionate about issues and conversations around school change and innovation, and welcomes all voices to the conversation. You can contact Hurley at stephen.hurley@sympatico.ca
Anonymous hijacks federal website to avenge activist's death
17 hrs.
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON???The hacker-activist group Anonymous says it hijacked the website of the U.S. Sentencing Commission to avenge the death of Aaron Swartz, an Internet activist who committed suicide. The FBI is investigating.
The website of the commission, an independent agency of the judicial branch (http://www.ussc.gov), was taken over early Saturday and replaced with a message warning that when Swartz killed himself two weeks ago "a line was crossed."
The hackers say they've infiltrated several government computer systems and copied secret information that they now threaten to make public.
Family and friends of Swartz, who helped create Reddit and RSS, say he killed himself after he was hounded by federal prosecutors. Officials say he helped post millions of court documents for free online, and that he illegally downloaded millions of academic articles from an online clearinghouse.
The FBI's Richard McFeely, executive assistant director of the agency's?Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch, said in a statement that "we were aware as soon as it happened and are handling it as a criminal investigation. We are always concerned when someone illegally accesses another person's or government agency's network."
Hours after the hijacking, pages on the USSC.gov website were available only sporadically.
This report was updated by NBC News.
? 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
NVIDIA's Tegra 4 reference tablet hands-on at CES 2013
During our on-stage broadcast with NVIDIA, while we got another look at Project Shield, we were also surprised by the appearance of NVIDIA's new Tegra 4 reference tablet. Previously out of reach over at the chipmaker's CES space, we got to exclusively handle it and play some Riptide GP 2 (another first). The device -- which won't ever make its way to consumers -- was incredibly light, while the 16:9 11-inch display beamed out Android 4.0.2. There's a raft of ports for developers to meddle with, including micro-USB, HDMI and storage expansion, as well as some indentations for docks and fixtures.
In our hands, it's unerringly light -- and the NVIDIA guys seemed pretty proud when we mentioned that. Performance on the game and basic navigations was unsurprisingly very slick -- the game we tried was developed specifically for NVIDIA's new mobile chip. However, we weren't able to steal a glance at the web browser, but we're likely to see and hear a lot more next month at Mobile World Congress. After the break, we've got some playtime with Riptide 2 and a video tour of the device.
ACCRA, Ghana (AP) ? John Dramani Mahama became president of Ghana on Monday, sworn in as the opposition continues to dispute election results in one of West African's most stable democracies.
Speaking immediately after completing the oath of office, Mahama promised to work toward making Ghana "less polarized" even as the New Patriotic Party has started a court challenge claiming Nana Akufo-Addo won the Dec. 7 poll. Mahama gave few specifics but he said there are challenges ahead for a nation that has just become an oil producer.
"There's no denying the fact that even after 55 years is Ghana is still a young country," Mahama said at Accra's Independence Square, reading his speech from a tablet computer, surrounded by giant flags of red, yellow and green. "Every young country goes through its share of instabilities and difficulties," he said.
Mahama, the former vice president who took the helm in July following the unexpected death of President John Atta Mills, was elected with an absolute majority of 50.7 percent in the December poll. Akufo-Addo, his main challenger, won 47.7 percent, according to the nation's electoral commission.
Ghana, a nation of 25 million on Africa's western seaboard, is one of the few established and stable democracies in the region. It has held six peaceful multiparty elections in a row. The country is also one of the world's largest cocoa producers and just recently began producing crude oil at offshore fields.
But even Ghana is not immune to suspicions of electoral fraud and distrust of the country's relatively new democratic institutions. The opposition said widespread technical glitches that occurred with the biometric machines used to identify voters through their fingerprints created an opportunity for the ruling National Democratic Congress political party to rig the vote. Officials were forced to extend voting into a second day in scores of polling stations due to the malfunctioning equipment.
On Dec. 28, the opposition filed a court challenge to the election results.
The opposition New Patriotic Party, which held power from 2000 to 2008 under John Kufour, alleges 12 percent of the votes counted were invalid due to irregularities. The party claims when the invalid votes are eliminated, Akufo-Addo is the actual winner.
Ghana's Supreme Court has the power to overturn the electoral body's results according to the country's constitution. A decision from the court is not expected for at least several weeks, but the party says neither the delay nor Mahama's inauguration will hamper their court case.
"The inauguration has absolutely no impact either on the Supreme Court's proceedings, or its decisions. The Supreme Court has every authority to declare election results invalid, and if it says so, John Mahama will no longer be President," a statement from the National Patriotic Party said.
Yet international observers said Ghana's election was free and fair, and many wonder how massive fraud could have occurred when members of both parties signed off on results at each polling station and at collation centers.
Some local newspapers have mocked Akufo-Addo for refusing to concede and charged the ruling with trying to disturb the peace.
But the opposition says the constitution allows for election disputes and they have not incited violence.
In his speech, watched by his countrymen and a variety of African leaders and diplomats, Mahama did not bring up the court case or the boycott, rather focusing on the future and promising to make Ghana's economic achievements available to all.
"A tremendous amount of work has been done. Nevertheless, there is still a tremendous amount of work that needs to be done," Mahama said. "Change does not happen overnight. It will appear to darkest before the dawn of a new day makes that progress visible."
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Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Lagos, Nigeria, contributed to this report.
'Tricorder' invention could put medical diagnosis and terrorism prevention in the palm of the hand
'Tricorder' invention could put medical diagnosis and terrorism prevention in the palm of the handPublic release date: 8-Jan-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Tim Wall walltj@missouri.edu 573-882-3346 University of Missouri-Columbia
The inexpensive device could improve health in the developing world and reduce mining risks
COLUMBIA, Mo. -- The hand-held scanners, or tricorders, of the Star Trek movies and television series are one step closer to reality now that a University of Missouri engineering team has invented a compact source of X-rays and other forms of radiation. The radiation source, which is the size of a stick of gum, could be used to create inexpensive and portable X-ray scanners for use by doctors, as well as to fight terrorism and aid exploration on this planet and others.
"Currently, X-ray machines are huge and require tremendous amounts of electricity," said Scott Kovaleski, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at MU. "In approximately three years, we could have a prototype hand-held X-ray scanner using our invention. The cell-phone-sized device could improve medial services in remote and impoverished regions and reduce health care expenses everywhere."
Kovaleski suggested other uses for the device. In dentists' offices, the tiny X-ray generators could be used to take images from the inside of the mouth shooting the rays outward, reducing radiation exposure to the rest of the patients' heads. At ports and border crossings, portable scanners could search cargoes for contraband, which would both reduce costs and improve security. Interplanetary probes, like the Curiosity rover, could be equipped with the compact sensors, which otherwise would require too much energy.
The accelerator developed by Kovaleski's team could be used to create other forms of radiation in addition to X-rays. For example, the invention could replace the radioactive materials, called radioisotopes, used in drilling for oil as well as other industrial and scientific operations. Kovaleski's invention could replace radioisotopes with a safer source of radiation that could be turned off in case of emergency.
"Our device is perfectly harmless until energized, and even then it causes relatively low exposures to radiation," said Kovaleski. "We have never really had the ability to design devices around a radioisotope with an on-off switch. The potential for innovation is very exciting."
The device uses a crystal to produce more than 100,000 volts of electricity from only 10 volts of electrical input with low power consumption. Having such a low need for power could allow the crystal to be fueled by batteries. The crystal, made from a material called lithium niobate, uses the piezoelectric effect to amplify the input voltage. Piezoelectricity is the phenomenon whereby certain materials produce an electric charge when the material is under stress.
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Kovaleski's team published "Investigation of the Piezoelectric Effect as a Means to Generate X-Rays" in the journal IEEE Transaction on Plasma Science. Kovaleski is interim department chair of the Electrical & Computer Engineering in MU's Department of Engineering.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
'Tricorder' invention could put medical diagnosis and terrorism prevention in the palm of the handPublic release date: 8-Jan-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Tim Wall walltj@missouri.edu 573-882-3346 University of Missouri-Columbia
The inexpensive device could improve health in the developing world and reduce mining risks
COLUMBIA, Mo. -- The hand-held scanners, or tricorders, of the Star Trek movies and television series are one step closer to reality now that a University of Missouri engineering team has invented a compact source of X-rays and other forms of radiation. The radiation source, which is the size of a stick of gum, could be used to create inexpensive and portable X-ray scanners for use by doctors, as well as to fight terrorism and aid exploration on this planet and others.
"Currently, X-ray machines are huge and require tremendous amounts of electricity," said Scott Kovaleski, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at MU. "In approximately three years, we could have a prototype hand-held X-ray scanner using our invention. The cell-phone-sized device could improve medial services in remote and impoverished regions and reduce health care expenses everywhere."
Kovaleski suggested other uses for the device. In dentists' offices, the tiny X-ray generators could be used to take images from the inside of the mouth shooting the rays outward, reducing radiation exposure to the rest of the patients' heads. At ports and border crossings, portable scanners could search cargoes for contraband, which would both reduce costs and improve security. Interplanetary probes, like the Curiosity rover, could be equipped with the compact sensors, which otherwise would require too much energy.
The accelerator developed by Kovaleski's team could be used to create other forms of radiation in addition to X-rays. For example, the invention could replace the radioactive materials, called radioisotopes, used in drilling for oil as well as other industrial and scientific operations. Kovaleski's invention could replace radioisotopes with a safer source of radiation that could be turned off in case of emergency.
"Our device is perfectly harmless until energized, and even then it causes relatively low exposures to radiation," said Kovaleski. "We have never really had the ability to design devices around a radioisotope with an on-off switch. The potential for innovation is very exciting."
The device uses a crystal to produce more than 100,000 volts of electricity from only 10 volts of electrical input with low power consumption. Having such a low need for power could allow the crystal to be fueled by batteries. The crystal, made from a material called lithium niobate, uses the piezoelectric effect to amplify the input voltage. Piezoelectricity is the phenomenon whereby certain materials produce an electric charge when the material is under stress.
###
Kovaleski's team published "Investigation of the Piezoelectric Effect as a Means to Generate X-Rays" in the journal IEEE Transaction on Plasma Science. Kovaleski is interim department chair of the Electrical & Computer Engineering in MU's Department of Engineering.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Boehner's Leverage On Sequester - Business Insider
AP
The most telling part from Stephen Moore's interview with John Boehner?in The Wall Street Journal?today is that the House Speaker views the coming spending cuts in the sequester ? not the debt ceiling ? as Republicans' main point of leverage in coming budget talks with President Barack Obama.
The Republicans' stronger card, Mr. Boehner believes, will be the automatic spending sequester trigger that trims all discretionary programs?defense and domestic. It now appears that the president made a severe political miscalculation when he came up with the sequester idea in 2011.
As Mr. Boehner tells the story: Mr. Obama was sure Republicans would call for ending the sequester? the other "cliff" ? because it included deep defense cuts. But Republicans never raised the issue. "It wasn't until literally last week that the White House brought up replacing the sequester," Mr. Boehner says. "They said, 'We can't have the sequester.' They were always counting on?us?to bring this to the table."
The sequester ? part of the Budget Control Act of 2011 ? trims the?non-war defense budget to $491 billion in 2013, which is down about 9 percent from 2012. Defense programs would see cuts up to 10 percent.?
But where Boehner sees his leverage is in the other cuts of the sequester. In 2013 alone, the White House's Office of Management and Budget projects?that payments to Medicare providers will be reduced by 2 percent. Cuts to non-defense spending, such as some?elementary and secondary education programs, will be slashed either 8.2 percent or 7.4 percent.
Boehner told the WSJ that he has Republican support for letting the sequester go into effect, even from defense hawks.?The cuts to entitlements, Boehner rationalizes, will bring Obama to the table because of pressure from the left.?
"Think of it this way," Boehner said. "We already have an agreement [capping] discretionary spending for 10 years. And we're already in our second year of it. This whole discussion on the budget over the next several months is going to be about these entitlements."
Obama's "severe political miscalculation," then, came when he assumed Republicans would blink on the defense cuts. At least publicly, Boehner is trying to create the impression that Democrats are going to be the party that blinks on the sequester's cuts.
Boehner views the debt ceiling, meanwhile, as a lesser point of leverage. He suggested that because of his insistence on the so-called "Boehner rule" ? every dollar of a debt ceiling increase must coincide with a dollar of spending cuts ? there may be a series of month-by-month debt ceiling raises.
Vatican rejects rebel bishop's denunciation of Jews
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican on Monday dismissed anti-Semitic comments by the head of a rebel Catholic traditionalist group, saying the Roman church did not see Jews as enemies.
Bishop Bernard Fellay, head of the rebel Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), said last month that Jews were among those "who over centuries have been enemies of the Church".
Jewish support for the modernizing reforms of the 1962-1965 Second Vatican Council showed they were opposed to the Church, he said. The SSPX rejects the Council as a heretical event that betrayed age-old Catholic teaching and undermined the Church.
"It is impossible to speak of the Jews as enemies of the Church," Vatican spokesman Rev Federico Lombardi said, stressing the Church position on this was "clear and well-known".
"The Church is deeply committed to dialogue with Jews," he added.
Fellay was among four SSPX bishops who were excommunicated from 1988 to 2009, when Pope Benedict reinstated them.
Talks between the SSPX and the Vatican to reintegrate them fully into Church structures ended in failure last year because the SSPX refused to accept Council reforms - including Rome's reconciliation with the Jews - as valid Catholic teaching.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, a Jewish human rights group, denounced Fellay's comments last week as a sign of "the deep-rooted anti-Semitism that lies at the heart of the SSPX's theology".
The Second Vatican Council "shifted the relationship between Catholics and Jews into a positive direction", it said.
One of the four excommunicated SSPX bishops was Richard Williamson, who deeply embarrassed the Vatican by denying the Holocaust on Swedish television only days before he and the others were reinstated by the Vatican.
He has since been expelled from the group and is fighting charges of Holocaust denial in a German court, which took up the case because the television interview was filmed in Germany.
(Reporting by Tom Heneghan; Editing by Alison Williams)
NEW YORK (AP) -- A Raymond James analyst on Monday cut his ratings for a trio of coal companies, saying that mild winter weather has driven down the price of natural gas and reduced demand for coal.
THE OPINION: James Rollyson said that after a tough 2012, he was originally optimistic about coal company prospects in 2013, as natural gas companies slowed their production growth and natural gas prices began to rise.
Rollyson thought that higher natural gas prices would prompt some utilities to switch from gas to coal, boosting demand for the coal companies.
But while natural gas prices did rise a bit, the number of heating days in in November and December ran about 13 percent below normal and 2 percent below last year's mild winter. In addition the weather in many parts of the country is expected to remain mild, at least for the near term, further reducing heating demand, Rollyson said.
Natural gas futures prices have fallen from about $4 per 1,000 cubic feet in November to $3.27 on Monday, a drop of more than 18 percent.
Rollyson said that while natural gas prices, and demand for coal, should still be up from last year's levels, they won't be as high as previously expected and will probably delay a recovery in U.S. coal prices.
As a result he cut his ratings for Cloud Peak Energy Inc. and James River Coal Co. to "Market Perform" from "Outperform" and for Consol Energy Inc. to "Outperform" from "Strong Buy."
THE SHARES: In afternoon trading, Cloud Peak shares fell 33 cents to $19.13; James River lost 12 cents, or 3.3 percent, to $3.48; and Consol dropped 60 cents to $31.83.
Canon reinvents the point-and-shoot with ambidextrous PowerShot N
No, you're not holding it wrong -- in fact, with Canon's new PowerShot N, any and every orientation is correct, thanks to a unique square design with key controls mounted around the center-positioned lens. In this case, a picture (of the camera body) tells far more than a thousand words -- this radical build is a bit tricky to explain, but we'll do our best. The idea here is that there's no one top or bottom, left or right side to the camera. Instead, those positions change based on how you've opted to orient the point-and-shoot. At 1.1 inches deep, the camera is very thin, yet it still packs an 8x 28mm f/3-5.9 lens. There's two rings around the barrel, with the first serving as a zoom toggle and the second used as a shutter release. The 2.8-inch, 461k-dot capacitive touchscreen is fixed at a slight angle, making it possible to take overhead and lower-angle shots simply by rotating the entire camera. There's a 12-megapixel CMOS sensor with a DIGIC 5 processor and an ISO range of 80-6400. It can snap 1080p video at 24 frames per second or 720p at 32 fps, and includes a bright LED that serves as an AF-assist lamp, a flash /and/ a video light.
Canon opted to use microSD cards here, due to the camera's small size, along with a rechargeable battery that can be replenished through the USB connector -- a new Eco mode will enable an up to 30-percent boost in battery life, with the display powering down after eight seconds, then waking up when the built-in gyro sensor detects movement. There's WiFi connectivity with a dedicated Mobile Device Connect button, for direct access to an ad-hoc sharing mode. You'll also find a few software additions, including a Creative Shot mode that duplicates the image you just captured and applies "Intelligent Scene Analysis," cropping the frame and adjusting color and brightness without overwriting the original file. The PowerShot N is set to ship in April for $300, and will be available in both black and white. Canon also plans to release a handful of accessories, including a few unique concepts for wearing the camera around your neck, playing off of the model's compact form-factor and light weight.
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Public release date: 8-Jan-2013
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