Overview

Offering Photoshop features at a fraction of the price, Photoshop Elements 8 is a great way to get more advanced photo editing tools than most free tools offer while not spending hundreds of dollars for the latest version of full Photoshop.  Photoshop Elements offers you many of Photoshop’s best features, while making difficult touchup tricks simpler with one-click brushes.  It also includes an advanced photo organizer that lets you backup your photos online.  These features and more make it a great tool for consumers who want more features than their free photo editing tools offer.

Key Features

• PSD, PDF, RAW, and EPS file support, as well as most other standard picture formats such as JPG, PNG, TIFF, and GIF
• Full Layers, filters, and brushes support give you lots of editing potential
• Guided and Basic editing modes help new users get started
• New Photomerge, Recompose, and one-step brushes make touchup a snap
• Create Calendars, photo books, cards, online photo albums, and more quickly with professional templates

Installation

Photoshop Elements is fairly easy to install.  If you’ve purchased it as a digital download or downloaded a trial, you may first have to run an extractor to extract the download for installation.

Then, you’ll be able to use the installer, which is what you’ll see by default when you install Photoshop Elements from a DVD.  Select the language you want to use for setup, and click Ok to continue.

The installer works like most installers you’ve likely used before, so it shouldn’t be hard to get it installed.

You’ll be asked to enter your Photoshop Elements 8 serial number during the installation.  If you’d rather enter it later, or are installing it to try it out, click Install the trial version to continue without entering your serial number.

If you do enter your serial number, Photoshop Elements will automatically activate online during the installation.  Otherwise you can activate later when you enter your serial number if you chose to install as a trial.

Setup took less than 5 minutes for us, and we were soon greeted with the Photoshop Elements 8 Splash Screen.

Photoshop Elements Launcher

By default, Photoshop Elements will load a launcher when you run the program.  This lets you access information about getting started with Photoshop Elements, and also lets you launch the photo organizer and the Editor, which is what most people would think of as the real Photoshop Elements.

The tours can help you quickly learn the latest features in Photoshop Elements.

If you’d rather just launch the Photoshop Elements Editor directly without opening the launch screen, you can make a new shortcut to C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Photoshop Elements 8.0\PhotoshopElementsEditor.exe (or just Program Files if you’re using a 32 bit version of Windows).

Here’s the Photoshop Elements 8 Editor, which as you may notice looks fairly similar to Photoshop CS4 or CS5.

Features

Photoshop Elements is fairly easy to use, as it works very similar to many applications you may already be used to.  Open images usually are displayed in individual windows inside Photoshop Elements, though you can drag them to the top of the window to display them as tabs.

As mentioned before, you can find many popular Photoshop tools in Elements.  Most of the tools will be found in the pallet on the left, or in the menus at the top.

Click and hold pallet items to see more options.  The Lasso tool also includes a Magnetic Lasso tool, which works amazingly good for selecting individual parts of a photo.

The Spot Healing Brush tool is another great feature that lets you quickly remove small blemishes in your photos.  Not as impressive as Photoshop CS5’s object removal, but it’s still a great way to touch up your pictures.

You’ll also notice effect filters and actions on the right side of the window.  Drag an effect onto a picture to instantly add it to your image.

If you’d like to edit pictures in a simpler interface, click the arrow beside the orange Edit button on the right.  Here you can select the Quick or the Guided editor.

The quick editor mode reduces the options and tools to let you focus on the most popular photo touchup tools.

The guided editor, on the other hand, changes Photoshop Elements into a wizard based interface that can step you through a variety of photo tasks.

Photoshop Elements also makes it easy for you to create professionally styled photo books, calendars, and more from the Create tab.

Once you’re ready to share your photos, you’ll find a variety of options available for your use on the Share tab.  The Online Album option helps you create beautiful flash based photo galleries you can showcase on your website or blog.

Photoshop Elements can also help you create new images, and we were able to follow a wide variety of tutorials aimed at professional Photoshop since Elements is so similar.  You can also create a new Panorama or group shot from the Photomerge feature.

The Photomerge tools work very good in our texts.  Here we used it to create a panorama of the front of a dam, all from pictures shot from the top down.  We were very impressed that it was able to stitch the images together so good, and it only took 3 clicks to make it!

You can also quickly organize, touchup, and create photo products with the Photoshop Elements Organizer that’s included with Photoshop Elements.

It also includes a full screen editing mode where you can touchup and preview your pictures without any distractions.

One nice bonus you get with Photoshop Elements is a wide variety of popular and high-quality Adobe fonts.  By default, these are stored in your Program Files folder.  If you’d like to see what fonts are included and how to use them in other applications, check out this article about the Fonts Included with Photoshop Elements 8.

If you’re not a fan of dark interfaces, you can choose a lighter gray color scheme from the Options pane.

Photoshop Elements worked very fast on our system, but if you find it’s bogging down your computer too much you can choose the max amount of memory Photoshop can use.  You can also change the drive Photoshop uses for its scratch files, and select how many history states are saved.

Support

Adobe offers excellent online help for Photoshop Elements along with all their other products.  You can learn how to use many of the programs features.

You can download the help as a PDF, or install an Adobe Air application that will display offline and online Help information for all your Adobe products.

If Photoshop Elements crashes, you may be prompted to send a crash report to Adobe.  Photoshop Elements was very stable in our experience, but if you do have problems you can add your email at the bottom of the crash report to get notified if an update or hotfix is available.

Adobe also offers free phone-based support for setup and activation issues if you need help getting started.

Conclusion

If you’d like to expand your design and photo editing capabilities without spending hundreds of dollars, Photoshop Elements is a great option.  It’s very similar to the full versions of Photoshop, but is much more budget friendly for casual users.  Pro users will, of course, still want full Photoshop, but for most people’s needs, Elements hits the spot.  Plus, almost everything you learn in Elements can help you work in full Photoshop if you ever step up.  Photoshop Elements offers far more features than most free photo editors, and since it works seamlessly with other Adobe products you’ll feel at home working with colleagues using full Photoshop.

Photoshop Elements 8 is available for purchase as a download from Adobe or a boxed product from major retailers.  You can download a 30 day free trial with an Adobe account, and then a full version retails for $99.99 and is often available discounted for around $69.  If you’d like more online photo backup space and premium templates, you can purchase Photoshop Elements Plus for $139.  Alternately, Photoshop Elements is commonly purchased as a set with Premiere Elements, a popular video editing suite; the combo retails for $149.99.  If you ever decide you’d like to upgrade to full Photoshop, you’ll get a slight discount as an Elements owner as well.

Works on Windows 7, Vista, and XP, as well as Mac OS X.

Purchase Photoshop Elements 8 from Adobe.com

Extra Links

Download a Trial of Photoshop Elements

Get More Info About the Photoshop and Premiere Elements Bundle

Learn How to Use Photoshop Elements with Videos From Adobe

Install the Adobe Community Help Air Application

Kotaku Shop Contest: Move Instructions Winners

For some, using two electro-lollipops to run a game isn't as intuitive as it sounds. That's why you guys made up some helpful visual instructions for the good, bad, ugly and many other ways to operate PlayStation Move.

Leading off, quest points us in the right direction in which to throw punches. So does ultraroboninja.
I know I shouldn't laugh at donkeypunching, but Steven Ansell's depiction hit my funnybone. Sorry. NextMemory's Vault-Boy Falcon Kick submission was just as admissible, just as shameful, and just as funny.

Alex Mitchell, data_enabler and wooki all had strong takes on what it means to be bad. CalderMedusa went in the direction of a different superlative, and was a commenter favorite. leetEmu's paying attention and found a way to get Asshole Dog into the picture.

This week's winner, though? BeerManMike took a meme and made it funny all over again. But I've got to go with silferjam's truly inspired three-step salute to the mind-numbing 1988 “hit” by Was (Not Was). Take a bow, folks. See you in here for another contest tomorrow.

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By Andrew Liszewski

It’s not like traditional paper sheet music was ever able to turn itself, and in my mind, hitting the arrow key on a laptop or swiping your finger across the iPad seems a lot easier than re-shuffling a stack of pages while playing an instrument. But since I’m no musician, who am I to question if this Bluetooth foot pedal from AirTurn actually makes things easier or not?

The device itself is basically a BT transmitter which connects to a handful of foot switches from the likes of Boss or Roland, and it seems to work with pretty much any application you’d need it to including Acrobat, Word, PowerPoint, Keynote etc. The transmitter is powered by a couple of AAs which should keep it running for a few weeks, and it has a range of up to 100 feet which seems a bit overkill. For $39.95 you can get the AirTurn transmitter and receiver by itself, but the company also sells bundles with Boss forward and back foot switches and their Music Reader software which pushes the price tag to close to $200.

[ AirTurn BT-105 Bluetooth Foot Pedal Page Turner ] VIA [ eCoustics ]

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The Adobe Acrobat Blog has a new post up reveling in the 1 million downloads their Reader app for Android has garnered in the two months since its release. With over 4,000 rating the app also sits at a healthy four stars, and with all the success the PDF viewer has had Adobe promises there is much more to come. I’ll take any enhancements as a bonus as I’ve been pretty pleased the the experience Reader for Android has offered since day one. It isn’t the most light-weight PDF reader on the Android Market, but for all of its features it really makes the viewing experience that much better on Android. If you haven’t checked it out I highly encourage you to check it out.

[via TalkAndroid]

By Andrew Liszewski

It’s not like traditional paper sheet music was ever able to turn itself, and in my mind, hitting the arrow key on a laptop or swiping your finger across the iPad seems a lot easier than re-shuffling a stack of pages while playing an instrument. But since I’m no musician, who am I to question if this Bluetooth foot pedal from AirTurn actually makes things easier or not?

The device itself is basically a BT transmitter which connects to a handful of foot switches from the likes of Boss or Roland, and it seems to work with pretty much any application you’d need it to including Acrobat, Word, PowerPoint, Keynote etc. The transmitter is powered by a couple of AAs which should keep it running for a few weeks, and it has a range of up to 100 feet which seems a bit overkill. For $39.95 you can get the AirTurn transmitter and receiver by itself, but the company also sells bundles with Boss forward and back foot switches and their Music Reader software which pushes the price tag to close to $200.

[ AirTurn BT-105 Bluetooth Foot Pedal Page Turner ] VIA [ eCoustics ]

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By Andrew Liszewski

It’s not like traditional paper sheet music was ever able to turn itself, and in my mind, hitting the arrow key on a laptop or swiping your finger across the iPad seems a lot easier than re-shuffling a stack of pages while playing an instrument. But since I’m no musician, who am I to question if this Bluetooth foot pedal from AirTurn actually makes things easier or not?

The device itself is basically a BT transmitter which connects to a handful of foot switches from the likes of Boss or Roland, and it seems to work with pretty much any application you’d need it to including Acrobat, Word, PowerPoint, Keynote etc. The transmitter is powered by a couple of AAs which should keep it running for a few weeks, and it has a range of up to 100 feet which seems a bit overkill. For $39.95 you can get the AirTurn transmitter and receiver by itself, but the company also sells bundles with Boss forward and back foot switches and their Music Reader software which pushes the price tag to close to $200.

[ AirTurn BT-105 Bluetooth Foot Pedal Page Turner ] VIA [ eCoustics ]

The Adobe Acrobat Blog has a new post up reveling in the 1 million downloads their Reader app for Android has garnered in the two months since its release. With over 4,000 rating the app also sits at a healthy four stars, and with all the success the PDF viewer has had Adobe promises there is much more to come. I’ll take any enhancements as a bonus as I’ve been pretty pleased the the experience Reader for Android has offered since day one. It isn’t the most light-weight PDF reader on the Android Market, but for all of its features it really makes the viewing experience that much better on Android. If you haven’t checked it out I highly encourage you to check it out.

[via TalkAndroid]

DentiMax v1.1

Step#1:
Create your new design with document size as needed ,
FILE>>NEW ” Then add your setting to the file .
My file is 400W*200H with
- Normal monitor resolution 72 pixel/inch
- RGB Colors , “ if you need it for print purpose you may need to change the color type to CYMK .
- Transparent Background.

Step#2:
Select your background. “ one color background or a gradient background “.
In my case , I will create a gradient background with white and light gray color combined.
- From the toolbox chose the Gradient tool after choosing your foreground color and background .
- Select the first layer in your layers pallet , then with the gradient tool selected move it vertically from up to bottom .

Step#3:
Now select the type tool .
Chose a good font style and color that fit your needs , then start writing your text.

Step#4:
To add a perfect look to the text we will add a gradient effect to it .
- Select the text layer, from the bottom of the layer pallet, Click add a layer style Then select Gradient Overlay
- In the gradient dialog box chose your gradient style ,
” you may select your fore/back ground colors , or just chose one of Photoshop gradient styles stored . You can open them by clicking on the gradient list, Then chose the Scale you may need ” Scale of 50% is ideal in our condition “.

Take a look at the attached Photo .

Step#5:
To add the 3D style we need to rasterizing the text layer first .
- Right click on the text layer and click on rasteriz Layer option ,
OR From Layers Menu Click on Rasterize > Rasterize Layer.

Take a look at the attached Photo .

Step#6:
All we need now is to Positioning the text to a 3D perspective direction , Using transform selection .
- select the text layer THEN hit Ctrl+T Or Command+T if you are using Mac , Start moving your text with -8 degree diagonally upward .
- Then add about 10 to 30 degree to move the text in H dimension and around 5 in V dimension .

Take a look at the attached Photo .

Step#7:
Now Duplicate the new text layer ,
- click on the text layer and hit duplicate layer , Or just drag the text layer to the new layer icon on the layer pallet .
- With the duplicated layer selected , Press SHIFT and hit down 2 times . THAT will move the duplicated layer away from the original layer about 20 inches.
- With the duplicated layer still selected , Press ALT + CTRL bottoms then hit the up arrow about 20 times , as you see every hit you make a new layer is created with a shifting distance equals to one pixels .
NOTE : You must keep hitting until you reach the original text ( it's about 17 to 22 hit ).

NOW YOUR 3D TEXT IS READY … try to add your artistic touch to your design like adding a bevel and emboss to the top text layer ” The original one ” .

That's my final one.. Take a look, is it cool or what!!
Until next time , have fun .

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By Andrew Liszewski

It’s not like traditional paper sheet music was ever able to turn itself, and in my mind, hitting the arrow key on a laptop or swiping your finger across the iPad seems a lot easier than re-shuffling a stack of pages while playing an instrument. But since I’m no musician, who am I to question if this Bluetooth foot pedal from AirTurn actually makes things easier or not?

The device itself is basically a BT transmitter which connects to a handful of foot switches from the likes of Boss or Roland, and it seems to work with pretty much any application you’d need it to including Acrobat, Word, PowerPoint, Keynote etc. The transmitter is powered by a couple of AAs which should keep it running for a few weeks, and it has a range of up to 100 feet which seems a bit overkill. For $39.95 you can get the AirTurn transmitter and receiver by itself, but the company also sells bundles with Boss forward and back foot switches and their Music Reader software which pushes the price tag to close to $200.

[ AirTurn BT-105 Bluetooth Foot Pedal Page Turner ] VIA [ eCoustics ]

By Andrew Liszewski

It’s not like traditional paper sheet music was ever able to turn itself, and in my mind, hitting the arrow key on a laptop or swiping your finger across the iPad seems a lot easier than re-shuffling a stack of pages while playing an instrument. But since I’m no musician, who am I to question if this Bluetooth foot pedal from AirTurn actually makes things easier or not?

The device itself is basically a BT transmitter which connects to a handful of foot switches from the likes of Boss or Roland, and it seems to work with pretty much any application you’d need it to including Acrobat, Word, PowerPoint, Keynote etc. The transmitter is powered by a couple of AAs which should keep it running for a few weeks, and it has a range of up to 100 feet which seems a bit overkill. For $39.95 you can get the AirTurn transmitter and receiver by itself, but the company also sells bundles with Boss forward and back foot switches and their Music Reader software which pushes the price tag to close to $200.

[ AirTurn BT-105 Bluetooth Foot Pedal Page Turner ] VIA [ eCoustics ]

cheap photoshop

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The Adobe Acrobat Blog has a new post up reveling in the 1 million downloads their Reader app for Android has garnered in the two months since its release. With over 4,000 rating the app also sits at a healthy four stars, and with all the success the PDF viewer has had Adobe promises there is much more to come. I’ll take any enhancements as a bonus as I’ve been pretty pleased the the experience Reader for Android has offered since day one. It isn’t the most light-weight PDF reader on the Android Market, but for all of its features it really makes the viewing experience that much better on Android. If you haven’t checked it out I highly encourage you to check it out.

[via TalkAndroid]

Members of the consumer health watchdog group Public Citizen’s Health Research Group are nonplussed by the claims of five companies that they can help people to stop smoking through the use of low powered lasers. So nonplussed are they, in fact, that the group has petitioned the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to stop the companies from promoting their laser therapy as a method of quitting smoking for its customers.

Calling the low power laser therapy a fraud, the Public Citizen’s Health Research Group has called on the FDA, in its petition, to crackdown on the companies promoting the alleged smoking cessation therapy. According to Dr. Sindey Wolff, the director of the currently contentious watchdog group, the companies using the laser therapy do not have FDA clearance to market the lasers as a viable therapy for helping people to quit their smoking habits, and there has been no scientific evidence that the lasers are safe and effective.

“There is a prohibition on any kind of marketing or advertising for any unapproved uses of an FDA-regulated product,” Wolfe said. “It's just a massive fraud.”

According to Wolff and his watchdog group, people who are trying to kick their smoking habit are paying hundreds of dollars per session to be zapped by the laser-wielding docs.

Calling their smoking cessation therapy an acupuncture session, companies like Freedom Laser Therapy, Inc, the most prominent of the five companies involved in the watchdog group’s petition to the FDA, charge up to $349 for a thirty minute session, which also includes a kit with vitamins, a booklet, and a video geared to help people to quit smoking.

At this time, the FDA only approves the use of lasers as an effective therapy for temporary relief of pain. They do, however, allow laser therapy to be utilized for investigational purposes in clinical trials, which would be used to prove their efficacy and support the approval of their use for other purposes. The claim by Freedom Laser Therapy is that investigation into the use of lasers as a therapy for smoking cessation is exactly what they are performing during the patients’ visits to their offices, according to company president Craig Nabat.

However, when asked about the data his company has compiled from the thousands of patients his company has enrolled in the alleged smoking cessation clinical research trials being performed at his facilities, Nabat was unable to provide any evidence to support that research was even being conducted which would provide information that would be presented to the FDA.

“We are not documenting exactly how many people are coming through — how successful they are,” he replied in a statement to the Associated Press.

With no data compiled, no rate of efficacy being tracked, nor any patient numbers even being recorded, the companies utilizing the laser treatments are going to have a tough time convincing the FDA or any Investigational Review Board that any clinical research into the use of laser therapy for smoking cessation has been performed at their facilities.

In a traditional acupuncture session, laser therapy is generally utilized when other mechanisms for stimulating the acupuncture points appropriate to the treatment cannot be used. Common reasons for an acupuncturist to utilize laser therapy include extreme needle intolerance or fear, injury or sensitivity to the area surrounding the most desirable acupuncture point for the therapy, high sensitivity to acupuncture, which prompts the acupuncturist to seek out a less intense method of stimulating the acupuncture point, or for use in very small children.

Essentially, in the eyes of practitioners of acupuncture, in nearly all cases, laser therapy would be a less effective method of stimulating the appropriate acupuncture points used for treating smoking addiction.

The watchdog group may be doing a lot more barking as the information about companies’ use of laser therapy utilizing acupuncture points for smoking cessation continues to be collected. The financial considerations alone are enough to get any good watchdog howling. A typical acupuncture session costs approximately $75.00 to $150.00 dollars. The services being provided by the five companies who are providing laser therapy without FDA approval for smoking cessation are, at best, charging their patients several times the price of an acupuncture treatment for what can only be considered to be a “watered down” treatment.

According to the American Lung Association, clinical trials have been conducted investigating the use of laser therapy for smoking cessation. Those studies showed no difference between the effectiveness of the laser therapy and the effects on patients who were placed in the control group, which received no laser therapy.

The FDA says it will be looking into the watchdog group’s petition.

Source: Associated Press, June 22, 2006

Happy Anniversary to Me!

Today is my special day. Well one of them ~smile~! I want to tell you about my struggle with smoking and what I did to finally lay them nasty things down.

I received the Baptism of the Holy Ghost over six years ago (December 15, 2002) on my bed side. I came to God AS I WAS. I wretched, angry, woman who always seemed to have a bad attitude and just was never happy. I always thought that I had to change all this horrible stuff in my life before I could come to the Lord. I learned that it isn't the case at all.

If you notice the dates I just posted, I came to the Lord in December of 2002 and received the Holy Ghost, then I was Baptized in Jesus name in March of the same year. Now look at today's date. February 12, 2003 is when I finally laid the cigs down.

That was one heck of a year, let me tell ya. I struggled and grew, struggled and grew. I struggled with this habit and I prayed and prayed for deliverance. It wasn't easy. All proud I went to church to flash my nicotine patch to everyone. (I am not cutting down anyone using the patch) However it did not work for me. I was even pregnant with my youngest son. Yeah, I quit for three months, then right back to it I went. Here I was a saved woman, pregnant with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth LOL. Not a pretty sight, geesh. Yep still wretched BUT growing and praying and trying!!

Now finally in January, a month after my baby was born, I finally decided that this was it! I always was against smoking around my babies. They don't need to breath my filthy habit. I would go in the laundry room and puff away, feeling horrible. I cut down to one pack for an entire month.

When I got down to just 5 of them out of an entire pack in a month LOL (how ridiculous huh) I said okay this is STUPID. Lord I am going to quit now. This is crazy. I took those five cancer sticks and as I hesitated I broke them up and flushed them down the commode. That was the last time I smoked a cig.

It hasn't been easy BUT I know who MY deliverer is!! I made it through PRAISING Him! I would crave and get up stomp my feet and crank my Gospel up and get down with it!! THIS IS HOW WE OVER COME!

Moral and point is: You DO NOT GET GOOD to get God!!! He wants you like you are!! YOU are His POTTERY!!! YOU are the clay!!! You are a vessel and HE is the POTTER! Let Him mold you!! So get UP – PUT your head up – LOOK up and know your DELIVERER!!

You can overcome by your TESTIMONY!! Tell people what He has done for you! It builds STRENGTH!! It builds FAITH!!!! It builds CONFIDENCE!!!!!

So today is my special day and I wanted to celebrate it by sharing my testimony!! God Bless you all!!

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

June 27, 2010
San Francisco

The Billboard Liberation Front (BLF) is honored to announce a new marketing partnership with Philip Morris (PM) that finally brings together the rugged sense of American independence with your most important choice as a consumer: your death. The message of “My Life. My Death. My Choice.” informs and empowers the consumer to choose, as their god given right, how they want to die. Philip Morris brings this message to the consumer to remind them that some rights are inalienable in life as they are in death.

“We’ve always said that the only two things in life that are unavoidable are death and taxes,” commented Michael E. Szymanczyk, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Philip Morris. “This campaign drives home that message where, if you are gonna die, might as well do it on your terms. Just like our Marlboro Men did.” According to Patrick B. Smelt, Chief of Marketing, “This bold message of independence and demanding life and death on your terms fits with the current zeitgeist of anti-establishmentarianism and post-post-modern rage at the repressive state demanding a healthier you and your environment.”

The BLF was honored to accept this exciting challenge. “We have no comment on President Obama’s health care reform, but many consumer of Philip Morris’s products do. We felt that this campaign picks up on a widespread rage that some nameless, faceless bureaucrat might give them cheaper health care, preventative treatment, and maybe deny them the sweet release we are all seeking,” said Rico T. Spoons, BLF Director of Offense as he idly drew a razorblade across his wrists. “This oppressive political climate and fascist approach towards health raises the comforting question of ‘how will you end it all?’ I like to think that we are just giving some poor folks a reminder that Philip Morris will always be there to help kill you.”

All former Marlboro Men, Wayne McLaren, David McLean and Dick Hammer, were unavailable for comment due to their rugged, manly choice of death by lung cancer.

The improvement can be viewed on Howard at Van Ness in San Francisco.

Major League Manager Dies

James Gammon—the manager from Major League and a lot of other stuff—died over the weekend after a long battle with cancer. Everybody smoke a pack of Marlboro Reds and talk like him in his honor.

Thank you for your continued support of Deadspin. See you tomorrow morning.

Send an email to David Matthews, the author of this post, at david@deadspin.com.

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In recent years enormous progress has been achieved in the design and creation of barrier free environments in both commercial buildings and public housing. For individuals with restrictedmobility, hearing or vision, the physical environment can either facilitate or reduce their independence. But in a barrier free surrounding, a person with a disability is allowed to live more independently within their home and enjoy greater access to public buildings and even participate in physical activities. Rooms with barrier free designs, especially kitchens, not only assist those with disabilities, but aid even the elderly and other individuals whose physical attributes restrict them from experiencing easy access to kitchens and other living quarters.

Fortunately, there is a vast number of high-tech and cutting edge companies like Home Depot, Lowes, Inc., Barrier-Free Environments and the National Association of Home Builders, to name just a few, involved nationwide in the design and manufacture of barrier free kitchens and other facilities for the disabled. And while every space in a barrier free home is vitally important to the disabled homeowner or resident, the focus here will be on barrier free kitchens and what is required in their design and construction before comtemplating contracting or purchasing a new or old kitchen.

First off, we know that the average kitchen, no matter how well designed, has numerous impediments that make it difficult for use by anyone with a physical disability. Creatiing a kitchen barrier free requires specific planning and design features that are different from the average remodeling or retrofitting project. When designing barrier free kitchens, four vital issues need to be considered:

1. Safety: which includes non-slip floor surfaces, lighting, and non-protruding, rounded-off corner surfaces;

2. Mobility: is there sufficient space to manoeuvre a stroller or wheelchair?

3. Accessibility: can the kitchen be easily accessed from one or more adjoining rooms and/or hallways, or are there steps or other barriers to impede access; and

4. Function: are the appliances, counter tops, cabinets, sinks and fixture facilities able to be used by a person with a disability?

Generally speaking, wheelchair access requires wider door openings — 36 inches minimum, with 42 inches to 48 inches preferred — as well as greater clearance between all cabinets. Grab bars may also be necessary for additional support, and these should be near appliances and primary work areas. Of course, grab bar designs need to be discussed with the contractor before work can begin, so that support blocking can be added in the walls and other partitions.The primary access consideration is that hallways and doorways need to be at least 1200mm wide to allow sufficient space to enter the kitchen.

Light fixtures and power switches should be located where a wheelchair user can reach them, at least 1m from the floor. Consideration should be given to using rocker or touch switches which are easier to turn on and off. The kitchen should also have benches (with rounded off corners) which are around 850mm from the floor. Providing a continuous bench between preparation area, microwave, stove and other appliances will assist with the safe handling of hot food.

Cabinet access can be established by using cabinets 2 inches lower than standard height. The toe-kick space under cabinets also needs to be higher — 6 inches instead of the standard 4 — to allow the wheelchair to positioned closer to both cabinets and countertops. Sink cabinets and cooktop areas should be designed so a wheelchair can roll all the way under them. This is achieved by using doors that open out and then slide back into grooves on the sides of thecabinet, such as those on an entertainment center; or the doors of cabinets can be left off to provide easy, continual access. Drapes or vertical blinds can be used here instead of doors to cover the cabinet openings.

Appliances and their locatoin also are important to a barrier free kitchen. Most experts suggest that appliances be electrical to eliminate having to reach over an open flame and to avoid thedanger of carbon monoxide poisoning. For anyone with an impaired sense of smell, electric appliances will eliminate the danger of being unable to detect a gas leak. Appliances with controls positioned in the front are best for simple access. For persons with impaired vision, there are appliances that come with Braille lettering as well as knobs and push-button controls provided in various sizes and dimensions to assist those who experience difficulty usingconventional ones.

Ovens with doors hinged on one side, lower table-top stoves and side-by-side refrigerators with freezers are far more accessable to wheelchair users especially when it is necessary to reach the lower shelves in these appliances. Another innovative device that can be installed to facilitate accessing shelves in cabinets and appliances, are carousel shelves and shelves mounted on smooth rollers which make it easier to reach objects stored on the back part of the shelf. Such carousel shelves are also handy to use inside the refrigerator for storing small items.

It is best to remember that the issue of safety should first be addressed when designing a barrier free kitchen. And such safety issues should specifically relate to or answer the individual needs and requirements of the disabled person in question. Therefore, an experienced contractor or designer will viisit the disabled person at his current dwelling to learn firsthand what unique design features should be installed to meet these specific needs and requirements.

When complete accessibility is established, mobility is no longer a problem for the disabled person who must use a wheelchair or stroller. Electrical and gas-free designed appliances, non-slip and adhesive floors, easy to reach fixtures and cabinets, and wide enough entrances and surface spaces are of course major concerns for a barrier free kitchen. And while appliances, counter tops, cabinets, floors, and sink and fixture facilities are all crucial to designing and constructing a barrier free kitchen, those with disabilities (and their families) first need to know where to go whom to contact before design and/or remodeling concerns and costs become a consideration.

A good place to start is with the family doctor or an occupational therapist. Occupational therapists, along with real estate contractors and designers can be found under both local and State listings in the phone book or by contacting one or more of the many sources listed at the conclusion of this article. On the Internet a search for “barrier free kitchens” via any of the major search engines will provide an almost inexhausible list of local and regional companies actively involved in the business of designing and manufacturing barrier free rooms and kitchens.

For now and more than ever across the United States and Canada, real estate planners and contractors, architects, appliance manufacturers, plumbers, carpenters, cabinet makers and others in the construction industry are working and innovating at high speed to design, construct and retrofit better barrier free rooms and other access facilities for both public housing and commerical real estate.

Ever since the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990 and the notable aging of the United States population an awareness for facilities that are accessible to people with disabilities has become more than just a social or political concern. Barrier free environments benefit everyone, and their increase in construction has been an economic boon to thousands of communities across the nation.

Specifically, the design of barrier free kitchens in homes for the disabled and the elderly has provided both dignity and livelihood to these citizens, and moreover has provided a reciprocal windfall in both jobs and improved economies for local housing commuities and the construction industry alike. No longer does the disabled or elderly person have to endure limited access and restricted mobility at home or in public. Today, the answer to greater access and almost unlimited mobility is only a phone call or email away!

The tobacco in cigarettes hosts a bacterial bonanza — literally hundreds of different germs, including those responsible for many human illnesses, a new study finds.

“Nearly every paper that you pick up discussing the health effects of cigarettes starts out with something to the effect that smokers and people exposed to secondhand smoke experience high rates of respiratory infections,” notes Amy Sapkota of the University of Maryland, College Park. The presumption has been that smoking renders people vulnerable to disease by impairing lung function or immunity. And it may well do both.

“But nobody talks about cigarettes as a source of those infections,” she says. Her new data now suggest that’s distinctly possible.

If these germs are alive, something she has not yet confirmed, just handling cigarettes or putting an unlit one to the mouth could be enough to cause an infection.

The idea that tobacco might contain viable germs isn’t just idle conjecture. Several research teams have isolated bacteria from tobacco that they could grow out in petri dishes. Those earlier investigations tended to hunt for — and, when found, attempted to grow — only one or two species of interest, Sapkota says.

What’s novel in her study: She and her colleagues probed for genetic material from any and every bacterium in a cigarette’s tobacco. Under sterile conditions, the researchers opened up cigarettes and then performed a series of tests on the leafy bits. For instance, they isolated all of the ribosomal material and then homed in on its long, species-specific stretches known as 16S regions. These genetic segments were then compared to 16S patches characteristic of known bacterial species.

Sapkota’s team had 16S probes for close to 800 different bacteria and found matches to many hundreds in the four brands of cigarettes screened: Marlboro Red, Camel, Kool Filter Kings and Lucky Strike Original Red. These cigarettes are “among the most commonly smoked brands in Westernized countries and represent three major tobacco companies,” Sapkota notes. All were purchased in Lyon, France, where she was completing her postdoctoral studies.

Among the large number of germs whose DNA laced these cigarettes were: Campylobacter, which can cause food poisoning and Guillain-Barre Syndrome; Clostridium, which causes food poisoning and pneumonias; Corynebacterium, also associated with pneumonias and other diseases; E. coli; Klebsiella, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Stenotrophomonas maltophilia, all of which are associated not only with pneumonia but also with urinary tract infections; and a number of Staphylococcus species that underlie the most common and serious hospital-associated infections.

Sapkota’s team lists many of these — including the most prevalent bacteria in the tobacco they studied — in a paper published early, online in Environmental Health Perspectives.

Some people have criticized the idea of infectious cigarettes, arguing that as tobacco burns, it would kill any germs present. But Sapkota is not so sure that’s true. The tobacco farthest from the burning tip might be a balmy temperature, from a bacterial point of view. And here’s “a really wild idea,” she says: What if the smoke particles traveling through the still-unburned part of a cigarette pick up some germs and then ferry them deeply into the lung, where they’re unlikely to be cleared? Wouldn’t that be the prescription for disease?

Of course, there’s also plenty of chances for a smoker to become exposed prior to lighting up. And, of course, the potential for highest oral exposure would come from chewing tobacco — and nasal exposures from snuff.

Sapkota, an environmental health scientist, plans to follow up her preliminary data to see which types of tobacco are most likely to host viable germs, and whether those bacteria are transported into the body, either during smoking or by the insertion of unburned tobacco products (including chewing tobacco) into the mouth.

Several thousand potentially toxic chemicals have been isolated from cigarettes. Sapkota says that it’s not hard to imagine that the number of germs hosted by tobacco products could rival that of the carcinogens and other poisons residing in or produced by burning tobacco.

How so, when she’s only found genetic material indicting hundreds of germs? Owing to the bacterial probes available when Sapkota began her tobacco work, she was only able to screen for 700-odd species. But newer probes on the market can now screen for the bacterial 16S genetic material of 5,000 or more germs. And if she used such huge batteries of probes now, she said she fully expects she could turn up at least 1,000 hitchhiking bacterial species in tobacco products.

Image: Flickr/alphadesigner

See Also:

• The Cigarette of the Future: All the Cancer, None of the Nicotine
• Philip Morris Tries to Engineer the Cancer Out of Tobacco
• Toxic Soup: Plastics Could Be Leaching Chemicals Into Ocean
• Anti-Smoking Drug Succeeds When Antidepressants Fail
• Darker Skin Linked to Nicotine Dependence
• The Inevitable USB Powered Cigarette

Only two bird watchers in history have ever seen more than 8,000 of the approximately 9,600 species of birds found on our planet. Phoebe Snetsinger, of Missouri, was one of the two. Her father, Leo Burnett, was the ad exec who helped bring the Jolly Green Giant, the Marlboro Man, Toucan Sam, Charlie the Tuna, Morris the Cat, the Pillsbury Doughboy and Tony the Tiger into our lives. Why is that important when discussing a birder? Easy: money! Only 900 species are found in the US and Canada, so a serious birder needs to have enough dough to travel around the world.

To give you some perspective on just what an fantastic accomplishment seeing 8,000 birds is, consider this:

Only 250 or so people have ever hit the 5,000 mark. Only 100 people have made it to 6,000 and only 12 or so have seen more than 7,000. In addition to money, serious birding requires time and strict adherence to the rules. There are birders who’ve been blacklisted for cheating and others that have fought over what actually constitutes a sighting (some birders say if you “hear” a bird, you’ve seen it.)

Phoebe Snetsinger (with a name like that, you’re a born birder, eh?) only became a serious bird watcher after she was diagnosed with terminal cancer and given six months to live. It’s quite possible that counting, or listing as it’s sometimes called, actually helped her beat that diagnosis; she lived not just another year, but another 17 years! And she would have lived longer, no doubt, were birding not such a dangerous hobby. Yes, on top of the financial independence and time, one also needs a certain amount of courage to trek into the wild, deep into jungles and forests of enormous size.

In 1999, on a birding trip to Madagascar, as she prepared to see her 8,500th bird, Snetsinger was killed in a freak car accident in the middle of nowhere. So, in the end, cancer didn’t do her in, but her obsessive hobby did.

Not that many moons ago, if you asked an ornithologist how many species of birds there were, s/he would have said about 6,000. Five years from now, they expect there will be more like 18,000. It’s not that birds are evolving, it’s more that we’re changing our definitions of what we call a species. Who knows how many of those 18,000 Snetsinger could have crossed off her list.

Any serious birders out there? How many have you counted? What’s your best birding story?

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