unaqemycurik

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Platypus-3

Bombala Platypus Hunt

Tags

Bombala

Platypus

NSW

Travel
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Saturday, March 5, 2011

110226_sokcho_008

Tags

Kangwondo

Korea

Sokcho

Yeongkeumjeong

donghae

sea

sunrise

travel

twilight

wave
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Rub Down

Kayla gets some love :)

Believe - SeaWorld Orlando
19th February 2011

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kayla

trainer

rub

down

massage

reinforcement

shamu

seaworld

sea

world

orlando

florida

believe

show

killer whale

orca
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Friday, March 4, 2011

Sweetware River Bridge

This bridge was built in 1929 by Pacific Iron & Steel Co of Los Angeles. It is a three span, Parker Truss bridge - only 22 feet wide (virtually a one way bridge for large trucks) and 460 feet long.

It is one of the remaining three truss bridges and the only Parker Truss bridge in San Diego County. It is included in the National Register of Historic Places. It is the only bridge in San Diego County that used a type of construction, popular in the early 1900’s, in which the parts were bolted together before construction, then put into place by relatively unskilled labor.

It is unique because the upper members of the bridge form an arch rather than being straight.

Tags

north

america

continent

usa

california

san

diego

county

spring

valley

sweetware

river

bridge

truss bridges, truss bridge, national register of historic places, sweetware, unskilled labor, steel co, span, amp, san diego county, trucks

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Thursday, March 3, 2011

Tablets Sapping Demand for PCs

On Wednesday, Apple Inc. Chief Executive Steve Jobs declared that the tech industry is in the "post-PC" device era as he introduced the iPad 2. A day later, a leading technology research firm gave credence to that assertion, cutting its PC shipment forecast and citing tablets as one of the reasons.

Journal Community

Gartner Inc. said it expects worldwide PC shipments to grow 10.5% in 2011 to 387.8 million units, down from an earlier forecast of 15.9% growth. The biggest decline will come in laptops sold to consumers, a traditionally high growth sub-sector where shipments are now expected to increase 14.6% in 2011 instead of 25.1%, the firm said.

Competition from the iPad is an obvious culprit. Many estimates call for upwards of 40 million tablet sales in 2011—with Apple's device dominating the market—an amount that would more than compensate for the drop off in PC sales if the two categories were combined. And many other companies are racing to make tablets of their own.

MarketBeat: Market Response to Gartner's Musings

"The tablet is obviously one of the biggest challenges the PC has ever faced," said George Shiffler, a Gartner analyst.

Still, it's an overstatement to call the tablet a PC killer. Many businesses and consumers who need computers for work are still likely to buy laptops.

Mr. Shiffler, in fact, suspects that laptop growth may kick into a higher gear again after a delay as consumer figure out the best uses for the new devices. Gartner even revised upward its long-term growth rates for laptop shipments, as consumers in developing countries buy more of the machines.

"Our forecasts before the advent of media tablets was for multiple laptops per household," said Jeff Barney, a vice president at Toshiba Corp.'s U.S. computer unit. Now the company, one of the fastest-growing makers of laptops for consumers, expects some people to opt for a tablet over a second or third laptop. Also, consumers may wait longer before replacing an existing laptop.

"Maybe it stretches from every two and a half years to every four years," Mr. Barney said.

Toshiba plans to release a tablet running Google Inc.'s Android operating system in May.

A shift in the market was evident over the holidays: Hewlett-Packard Co. said PC sales to consumers in its January quarter declined 12% from a year earlier; Dell Inc.'s quarterly revenue in its consumer business fell 8%.

Netbooks, a subcategory of small, less expensive mobile PCs, have been particularly hard hit since the introduction of the iPad. In the U.S., netbook sales grew four-fold in the fourth quarter of 2009 compared to the same period a year ago, according to technology research firm IDC. U.S. netbook sales declined 48.7% in the fourth quarter of 2010.

Electronics retailer Best Buy Co. said in December that tablets had captured a lot of the attention of "early adopters" instead of other computers.

"Tablets are an exciting new option for consumers right now and a category Best Buy is focusing heavily on," a spokeswoman for the Richfield, Minn.-based retailer said in a statement on Thursday.

"Our goal is to be tablet central, with a broad selection that customers can test and try. The exuberance around yesterday's iPad announcement is really indicative of the excitement we're seeing for tablets overall this year, and we expect this enthusiasm to continue."

Write to Ben Worthen at ben.worthen@wsj.com

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