TV 2M

Image taken on 2007-05-17 17:11:33 by cromacom.

Bookmark To

A WINDOW on the world. That is how television has been described. In the book Tube of Plenty—The Evolution of American Television, author Erik Barnouw notes that by the early 1960’s, for most people [television] had become their window on the world. The view it offered seemed to be the world. They trusted its validity and completeness.

However, a mere window cannot select the view it presents you it cannot determine the lighting or the angle of view nor can it abruptly change the view just to hold your interest. TV can. Such factors dramatically shape your feelings and conclusions about what you are looking at, yet they are controlled by the people who produce TV shows. Even the most unbiased of newscasts and documentaries are subject to such manipulation, however unintentional it may be.

A Master Seducer

Most often, though, the people who control television are trying outright to influence viewers. In advertising, for instance, they have virtually free rein to use every seductive gimmick at their disposal to lure you into the mood to buy. Color. Music. Beautiful people. Eroticism. Gorgeous locales. Their repertoire is vast, and they use it masterfully.

A former advertising executive wrote of his 15 years in the field: I learned that it is possible to speak through media [such as TV] directly into people’s heads and then, like some otherworldly magician, leave images inside that can cause people to do what they might otherwise never have thought to do.

That television has such formidable power over people was already evident in the 1950’s. A lipstick company that was making $50,000 a year began to advertise on U.S. television. In two years, sales skyrocketed to $4,500,000 a year! A bank was suddenly avalanched with $15,000,000 in deposits after it advertised its services on a TV program popular with women.

Today, the average American watches over 32,000 commercials every year. The ads play seductively on the emotions. As Mark Crispin Miller wrote in Boxed In—The Culture of TV: It is true that we are manipulated by what we watch. The commercials that pervade daily life influence us incessantly. This manipulation, he adds, is dangerous precisely because it is often hard to discern, and so it will not fail until we learn how to perceive it.

But television sells more than lipstick, political viewpoints, and culture. It also sells morals—or the lack of them.

TV and Morals

Few people would be surprised to learn that sexual behavior is depicted more and more frequently on American TV. A study published in 1989 in Journalism Quarterly found that in 66 hours of prime-time network TV, there were in all 722 instances of sexual behavior, whether implied, referred to verbally, or actually depicted. Examples ranged from erotic touching to intercourse, masturbation, homosexuality, and incest. The average was 10.94 instances every hour!

The United States is hardly unique in this matter. French TV movies depict explicit sexual sadism. Striptease acts appear on Italian TV. Late-night Spanish TV features violent and erotic films. The list goes on and on.

Violence is another type of TV immorality. In the United States, a TV critic for Time magazine recently praised the grisly good humor in a batch of horror programs. The series featured scenes of decapitation, mutilation, impalement, and demonic possession. Of course, much TV violence is less gruesome—and more easily taken for granted. When Western television was demonstrated recently in a remote village in Côte d’Ivoire, West Africa, one bewildered old man could only ask: Why are whites always stabbing, shooting and punching one another?

The answer, of course, is that television producers and sponsors want to give viewers what viewers want to see. Violence draws viewers. Sex does too. So TV serves up ample portions of both of them—but not too much too soon, or the viewers will be repelled. As Donna McCrohan put it in Prime Time, Our Time: Most top shows go as far as they can with language, sex, violence, or subject matter then, having gone to the edge, they take the edge off. Subsequently, the public is ready for a new edge.

For example, the subject of homosexuality was once considered beyond the edge of good taste for television. But once viewers got used to it, they were ready to accept more. A French journalist asserted: No producer would ever dare present homosexuality as a deviation today . . . Rather it is society and its intolerance that are odd. On American cable television, a ‘gay soap opera’ premiered in 11 cities in 1990. The program featured scenes of males in bed together. The show’s producer told Newsweek magazine that such scenes were designed by gays to desensitize the audience so that people will realize we’re like everybody else.

Bookmark To

There are dozens of wildlife parks and reserves for residents and guests to explore within the Western Cape of South Africa. Hundreds of varieties of wildlife can be found in the Western Cape of South Africa including birds, reptiles, fish and mammals. For many visitors to these reserves the main attractions are the mammals such as the lions, buffalo, elephants, and leopards.

The Wildlife Reserve of Sanbona

The San were some of the first indigenous peoples to live in the Western Cape of South Africa. These people were the inspirational in the naming of the Sanbona Wildlife Reserve. With more than one hundred thirty thousand acres, the reserve is located at the bottom of the Wamwaterberg. The only privately owned reserve in the area that allows lions to roam about freely is the Sanbona.

The Western Cape of South Africa was home for thousands of years to the San people. During their stewardship of the land they created religious artwork on the local rock formations that can now be viewed by guests of the reserve. There are seven different piece of rock art to be seen, some of which are thirty-five hundred years old.

The owners of this wildlife reserve in the Western Cape of South Africa have been breeding a rare form of white lion. This type of lion has always been rare in the area, however, now they are almost totally gone from most locations. By breeding the lions in captivity the owners hope to be able to renew the population and eventually place them back into the wild.

The Sanbona Wildlife Reserve gives guided tours through the Western Cape of South Africa. With such a vast area and a huge range of wildlife guests are sure to have a unique experience. At the end of their excursions guests can look forward to returning to their comfortable rooms on the reserve.

The Wildlife Reserve of Ko-Ka

Located near thecity of Cape Town in the Western Cape of South Africa is the Ko-Ka Tsara Game Reserve. This reserve stretches across thirty thousand acres and is home to about twenty separate species of animals in additionto two hundred varieties of birds.

Guests staying at the Ko-Ka Tsara Game Reserve in the Western Cape of South Africa can go on guided tours of the area either at night or during the day. Guests who wish to explore the area by themselves or in a smaller group can do so by hiking the trails or watching birds in the blinds. After a long day of exploring the wildlife guests can watch for shooting stars beside the campfire before returning to their rooms.

This Western Cape of South Africa reserve has seven lovely chalets as well as a lounge and a conference center. Each of the chalets was constructed with local stone and lumbar to keep the experience as true to the wilderness experience as possible. Guests can cook their own meals in their chalet or have meals prepared by a chef.

The Western Cape of South Africa has more than a dozen parks and wildlife reserves for visitors to explore. With so many options and such a variety of wildlife with the Western Cape of South Africa each visit is sure to be a new and exciting adventure.

Bookmark To

One of the most misunderstood files, but yet one of the most powerful on the Web, is the RSS feed sometimes known as the RSS news feed, XML feed or web feed. One form of this special XML file is the podcast, but yet many casual and even hi-tech surfers still do not understand that they are using this exciting technology invisibly every day to read news and follow blog sites.

RSS, standing for Really Simple Syndication, is not new technology. The technology and implementation was created in 1999 by Netscape. RSS is an important technology and one that you are most likely using to get news, information updates, and to follow blogs that you like from a portal page invisibly. RSS files are created in XML or Extensible Markup Language. XML is another programming language used widely on the Web, like HTML, but one that cannot be read in its raw form by a browser. Because it operates invisibly, RSS has not been recognized by mainstream web surfers as the powerhouse that it is, but, that doesn’t mean that developers aren’t using RSS to serve you the content and information that you want most!

Why is This Misunderstood File So Powerful?

RSS, XML feeds or RSS news feeds, as they are commonly known, create the dynamic backbone behind many of the sites that many casual web surfers use every day without even knowing that they are using this exciting technology. If you visit a personalized home page, add content to it, or even subscribe to blog with one click buttons, most likely, you are using the power of RSS news feeds already. Blogs routinely and automatically create these RSS news feeds (sometimes in a format known as Atom) and these special files allow others to auto subscribe to your content and view snippets of your information in real-time from a variety of portal news aggregator websites like My Yahoo, iGoogle, My Live, My AOL, and others.

Podcasts are Another Flavor of the RSS News Feed

Podcasts or RSS news feeds which contain audio file enclosures are just another flavor of this powerful XML file format. It is interesting to note that as of late 2007, 13% of polled Web users had heard of and were routinely downloading and playing podcasts, but fewer than 7% of the polled Web users stated that they were using RSS news feeds on a regular basis. Actually, the figure of users utilizing RSS feeds is probably much greater than 7%, but people are simply not aware that this hidden application is most likely supplying the content and information that they like to review on a daily basis.

How Can You Use RSS News Feeds Yourself?

Although it is harder for non-web designers to create and use RSS due to the technology and skill needed for implementation, most blog platforms create these special files for you automatically without your having to lift a finger. Installing auto subscribe buttons known as chicklets on your blog sidebar allows others to subscribe to your blog using your RSS news feed with one click. If you use Feedburner, they make it easy for you to allow for one click blog reader subscription by having you simply enter in your blog address and then providing a snippet of code to install on your web page. You may even be able to have Feedburner auto install a widget in your Blogspot template, without any code knowledge on your part, to help you get into the RSS syndication game fast.

When a blog reader clicks the special subscription chicklets that you have created with Feedburner’s help, readers can get your blog posts in real time; every time you update your blog, directly in their chosen RSS feed reader like My Yahoo, My Live, etc. There, their page content is automatically updated with your brand new blog content. Your blog subscriber can now choose to read your blog post there, on their news portal, or they can click in to read the full post from the additionally dynamically supplied link to your blog site. That’s the real power of RSS!

How Can You Get Into Podcasting Fast?

If you are using our teleconferencing tools, you can easily create an RSS news feed or podcast of your teleconference. When you have recording enabled for your teleconferences, you are automatically creating a MP3 file of your call that is stored on the AccuConference website. You can easily download this sound file, in MP3 format, to your own computer and send it to your webmaster for podcasting implementation.

Your webmaster can either just create a list of links on a page of the MP3 files and when clicked will open the browser’s integrated music player. Or, your webmaster can get fancy and can create a RSS news feed to allow podcatchers (software end-users utilize to manage their podcast subscriptions and be notified of your new audio files) to auto-sense when a new audio file has been added and to automatically download the content as well as synch it to their computer or media player. There are many services on the Web that help webmasters create these special RSS podcast subscription feeds. An easy one to use is FeedHoster. Some web hosts are now even creating online applications to assist with the creation of podcast syndication feeds. Even Feedburner has gotten into the game and provides easy podcast syndication tools.

It’s Time to Engage Your Viewers!

As you update your website or blog with new and interactive technology consider implementing RSS to allow your viewers more choice in how they receive your content. RSS is just one of the powerful new ways that we are getting our personalized content on the Web today and one that you can easily implement without a lot of hassle on your blog, website, and social media site. It’s time to put the power of RSS to work for you!

Bookmark To

Image taken on 2009-10-30 09:17:05 by New York Public Library.

Bookmark To

Image taken on 2008-01-21 23:27:40 by Muhammad Adnan Asim ( linkadnan ) # 1.

Bookmark To

A number of factors have come together to make Moroccan property investment a fantastic opportunity for overseas property investors.

If you want great capital growth and an opportunity for significant income from the buy to â??let marketâ? then Morocco can offer you great risk to reward

If you are considering overseas property investment you should think of morocco property as an investment first.

Here are the reasons why:

Investment property in Morocco at present is offering annual capital gains of up 35%.

This capital growth is expected to continue, as tourism and cheaper flights make morocco more popular.

Morocco is already a popular tourist destination and the government is allocating 10 billion euros to increase tourism by several million visitors per annum.

Of course, as tourism grows so does demand rental properties.

You can not only make great annual capital gains with low risk ,but supplement this with a significant income from the â??buy to letâ? sector.

If you are looking for cheap property for sale that has excellent capital growth potential then Morocco offers you outstanding risk to reward.

This market is still growing and capital growth looks set to continue for years to come.

Morocco Lifestyle

With its geographical location, just south of Spain it is seeing an increasing number of tourists and investors from Europe and other overseas locations.

Morocco is a country of stunning beauty, but also has the infrastructure to attract an ever growing number of tourists which include:

â?¢ Pristine clean sandy beaches and crystal clear seas.

* The stunning Atlas Mountains and the Sahara desert.

â?¢ A wealth of recreational facilities including: Fishing, scuba diving, golf, tennis hiking, Camel treks and a wealth of historic Moorish culture.

* Up-market tourist developments, that bring with them excellent cuisine, shopping facilities and improvements in infrastructure.

â?¢ A wide variety of languages are spoken and Spanish, English, Italian and French are common.

â?¢ It has a perfect location for other destinations to explore such as southern Spain, which is under an hour away.

â?¢ A great climate that includes, both hot summers and warm winters making.

The economic and political climate

Of course, all the above advantages of lifestyle are bringing more people to morocco than ever before.

This mass influx is being encouraged by huge investment to improve the facilities and infrastructure and makes Moroccan property investment attractive to buyers seeking both capital growth and rental income.

â?¢ Property prices are cheap and are up to 60% less than other similar Mediterranean resorts.

* Capital gains in property can be up 35% in many locations.

â?¢ Morocco has a very Low cost of living. For example, Morocco is far cheaper than its near neighbor Spain and provides a luxury lifestyle at affordable cost.

â?¢ Morocco has a booming property rental market with occupancy of up to nearly 90% in the peak summer months.

â?¢ Taxes are cheap. For example, tax on any capital gains is a maximum of 20% and in many cases can be nothing at all finally, there is no inheritance tax to pay finally, there is no annual property tax for 5 years.

â?¢ Finance is available and up to 70% mortgages are available to overseas investors.

For any property investor the major criteria for buying are:

â?¢ Affordable property prices with significant capital growth potential.

â?¢ Low taxation and flexible finance facilities.

â?¢ A stable economic and political climate that will foster growth.

Add in a buoyant â??buy to letâ? market and it is no wonder Moroccan property investment is growing in popularity and the trend looks set to continue.

Discover more about investing in property in morocco and you may be glad you did.

Bookmark To

Normally if you want to watch satellite television, you have to avail subscription from satellite TV providers. Dish will be installed outdoors and subscription is around $90 that you need to pay every month. Did you know that there is a different way to have a satellite TV at home? Have you heard about satellite television on PC?

Satellite television on PC is a product of more than 7 years of dedicated research and development to create easy-to-use program that legally accesses thousands of television channels from all over the word and sends them to your computer through the internet.

As a result you can watch thousands of live worldwide channels on your PC. You don’t need a satellite dish, receiver or any cable or satellite service to watch satellite television on PC. All you need is an internet connection and computer.

Satellite television on PC is another option to watch satellite TV. If you are tired paying monthly subscription for satellite TV then satellite television on PC is for you. With satellite television on PC, no subscription needed or no recurring charges. For a one time payment, you will have unlimited access to satellite TV and no monthly or recurring charges. You will save thousands of dollars on cable and satellite bills. 

Because satellite television on pc is very popular now, there are a lot of free satellite television sites all over the internet, but do not be deceived by these free websites which has a lot of ads, pop-ups and worst it may install spyware on your PC without your knowledge. Spyware will secretly monitor your computer activities and it can collect your personal information.

Do you want to discover the exclusive distributor of satellite television on PC? No monthly charge or recurring charges, no spyware, 100% legal and it works anywhere in the world. Why pay over $90 per month on cable or satellite services when you can have it for free? Visit Satellite TV for PC

To know more about electronics, gadgets, downloads visit Great Discovery

Bookmark To

Recently, I am a little alarmed that my television periodically goes blue when watching a television program or a DVD. At first, I thought it was the cable television but I am noticing sometimes watching a DVD this problem occurs. What should I do? Is there a remedy as to prevent this problem from occurring in the future? At this moment, I do not have money to go out and purchase a new television. Any suggestions, thanks.

Bookmark To

If you’re patient enough to watch this long video- you’ll see what I do on a daily basis to get my face ready for the morning newscast I anchor! (contrary to popular belief- many local TV stations DO NOT have a makeup artist on set) If you’re interested, we ususally broadcast our morning news live online- Just go to www.wsiltv.com weekdays from 5 am central time to check it out! Click the “Cover it Live” icon on the front page of the site. FEATURED PRODUCTS: FACE: -Smashbox Photofinish Primer (sephora.com) -Rimmel Lasting Finish Foundation #200 (drugstore) -Kat Von D Tattoo Concealer (sephora.com) -Revlon Yellow-toned corrective powder (select Big Lots stores) -Mary Kay Loose powder in Beige 1 (marykay.com) -Milani Powder Bronzer in Light (drugstore) -Wet & Wild Bronzer in Bali Bronze (drugstore) -Cover Girl Cheekers blush in Golden Pink (drugstore) -Milani Minerals Blush in Mai Tai (drugstore) -Bare Minerals Mineral Veil (sephora.com) EYES: -Smashbox shadow trio in Smokey Eyes (from limited edition Expert Eyes kit) -Cover Girl Shadow single in Golden Sunset (drugstore) -Revlon Colorstay Liquid Liner in Blackest Black (drugstore) -Revlon Colorstay pencil liner in Black Brown (drugstore) -covergirl Volume Exact Mascara (drugstore) -Half-set lashes (available at most drug/discount stores) LIPS: -Jordana Easyliner lipliner in Baby Berry (drugstore) -Rimmel Lasting Finish lipstick in Metallic Seduction (drugstore) -Wet & Wild Lipgloss in Bronze Berry (drugstore) BLOG …

Bookmark To