Flutter, a Kinect-like gesture control startup bought by Google

Flutter since 2012 allows Mac users to control music and video on iTunes and Spotify using the hand gestures just like Microsoft's Kinect. Flutter or renowned for "Kinect for OS X" is a free app for Mac that enabling gesture controls to OS X computers. It is compatible with iTunes, Spotify, Winamp and Windows Media Player. The Next Web reported that the company has acquired by Google.

It is believed by this acquisition Google is will leveraging the gesture controls to its Android system or its Google Glass. A video showcasing the how the Flutter works follows below:

The acquisition was confirmed by the Flutter's homepage where they post :

Today, we are thrilled to announce that we will be continuing our research at Google. We share Google’s passion for 10x thinking, and we’re excited to add their rocket fuel to our journey

Some said, this acquisition will not affecting the current Flutter app.

Via TNW

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October 2, 2013

Skitch 3.0 on iOS 7 revamped

Skitch on iOS 7 is now with its new looks. The concept and its user interface is change. No more pinky heart that usually reminds us to love symbol. The logo is now a pairs of feathers that usually on an arrow. I don't know what this new logo try to signify, direct, stable and fast perhaps ?, I don't know.

Evernote has update this marking and annotation with new features, such as Quick shot mode where you can snap, annotate and send the photo off in seconds. This smart effortless sharing includes, Send to Meeting, which lets you send your annotated images to the attendees of an event on your calendar; Airdrop sharing lets you share with nearby iOS7 devices; and sending to Evernote

New Skitch for iOS 7 is also redesigned and improved it layout and tools. The new tool and style bar are matching the iOS 7 stylings.

It’s completely redesigned to emphasize the features that provide the best mobile annotation experience and makes getting your point across faster and more intuitive than ever.

Skitch is free apps for iPhone and iPad and available on the Apple Store

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September 27, 2013

Backup Outlook Express email with free Amic email backup

For most PC users, home computer user or small business computer user, backup for email is important, since not all email client provide this feature. Amic email backup is a free software that is designed to backup copy of emails database. It can save emails, address book, mail settings, mail and news accounts, message rules, blocked senders lists and signatures to a single, compact, compressed backup file that can be easily restored whenever necessary.

With Amic email backup, backing up Outlook Express email is easy. Amic backup email can works in two working mode, a wizard mode and a standard mode and it can be set for auto backup the email using schedule option whether we want to backup daily, weekly or at any period of time intended.

Beside working with Outlook Express, Amic email backup is also works with other popular email clients such as Microsoft Outlook, Eudora, Netscape Messenger, IncrediMail and PocoMai etc.

The installation is simple, just download and open the file AmicEmailBackupSetup.exe and follow the installation wizards.

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October 12, 2008

Dictionary application for iPhone and iPod Touch from wordweb

If you are looking for a dictionary program for an iPhone or for iPod Touch, this dictionary application from wordweb is a must application. Wordweb which is known for its comprehensive one-click English thesaurus and dictionary released its dictionary software for iPhone and iPod Touch. It claims to be uptodate international English dictionary based on wordweb and can works offline and

• Has fast, simple navigation
• Has synonyms and many usage examples
• Has over 222,000 word senses, 370 000+ words including derived forms
• Includes many proper nouns, compounds and phrases
• Has bookmark and recent words list feature
• Includes full coverage of American, British, Canadian, Australasian and Asian English

The software is available for download from iPhone Application Store.

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October 9, 2008

Google Chrome first encounter

I have downloaded Google Chrome beta this morning and haven't tried until this afternoon. Installation is straight and easy, a file sized about 475 Kilobytes was downloaded and running the file will do the installation. When install is finish you are offered to import from its big brother, existing Mozilla Firefox. However you can just skip the import process.

This afternoon I tried to browse with Google chrome for small Google Chrome review. First impression I got was, the screen is so clean and tidy and fast initialization. There are no cluttered buttons. Bottom area of the browser is naked free from buttons and space for status bar and any other common thingy on a browser bottom. This uncluttered screen area gives wider point of view, especially for one with average monitor size. However, since the extension for Google Chrome is not available at the moment, I think when the time is come for extensions, this clean appearance will be populated by buttons.

Clever solution from folks at Google is for the status bar that is only appears when mouse is hovering the links on the page. This solution provides more space for the content of the browser. As I wrote in previous post that Chrome is isolating each tab to prevent crashing another tab. This feature is represented by the Task Manager on Google Chrome, hence just like Windows task manager, when you found one tab that is freezing, with task manager you can easily kill the tab without losing other tabs. The feature that I like the most from Google Chrome. I've always having trouble with freezing Firefox tabs and ended with losing all opened tabs.

On tab browsing side I found there is no button to switch to previous or next tab ( very useful when opening lost of tabs ), however keyboard shortcuts Ctrl-Shif-Tab and Ctrl-Tab is enough for solution. Opening computer files can be done through three ways, by pressing Ctrl-O , dragging the file onto Chrome window and by common browsers solution, typing the file path on address bar. Searching internet can be done easily by typing keywords in address bar. It is automatically search the internet with preferred search engine you like. The default search engine uses for this searh feature can be set and managed through the options menu, whether you like Google, Yahoo or any other search engine. Bookmarking can be done by pressing Ctrl-D, pressing star button beside address bar and dragging the page link onto the bookmarks tab that is activated and toggled by pressing Ctrl-B. Creating folders on bookmarks tab is easy and will appears on bookmarks tab. By showing folders on bookmarks tab this way, accessing bookmarks is even easier.

Overall Google Chrome is quite satisfying, despite some lacks at some points, it is acceptable as this is beta version. I couldn't comment of the speed of Google Chrome on browsing the page as I run it on shared connection where I found the speed is average comparing with Firefox on the same condition. At the other hand, following the hype, at the first day of beta release, techcrunch reported that Getclicky web analytic says that almost 2% of all traffic to 45,000 sites they monitored is coming from Google Chrome; quite interesting


Lets hoping the final release will have lots of improvements and heading the way to better browsing experience with Google Chrome.

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September 2, 2008

Sync your iPhone to desktop CRM wirelessly with iClink

On July 11, where iPhone 3G will be released, a mobile solutions provider, CompanionLink will release a wireless data sync service for Apple iPhone called iClink. iClink is an iPhone application that allows iPhone users to access and syncing to their desktop CRM directly from the iPhone. iClink will allow iPhone user to sync to CRM software like ACT! by Sage, Microsoft Outlook with Business Contact Manager, IBM Lotus Notes, FrontRange GoldMine, Google Apps, Palm Desktop and Novell GroupWise.

iClink allows iPhone users to access and edit their contacts, calendar events, tasks, histories, notes and opportunities directly from their iPhone. The two way sync works securely happens through CompanionLink' secure servers. In order to use the service you need to install CompanionLink in your computer, and iClink in your iPhone and subscribes to monthly sync service .

“The iClink service opens up new functionality on the iPhone as well as a way to bypass the need to dock the device with a computer to sync data. Our service will play a pioneering role in allowing iPhone owners to access their ACT!, Lotus Notes, or Outlook with Business Contact Manager data on their devices from anywhere.” Rushang Shah, Director of Marketing at CompanionLink Software, said.

iClink will be available at Apple App Store on July 11 2008 at $39.95.


via phonesreview.co.uk

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June 22, 2008

3 Top Free VirtualDesktop Managers for MS Windows XP

Virtual Desktop Manager is a tool that allows you organized your opened programs windows into separated desktop called virtual desktop ( workspace) and allows you to switch between them, makes you easy to work on multiple programs without cluttered desktop.

Many of you who are Linux users might be already familiar with Virtual Desktop Manager in Unix/Linux operating system. In Unix/Linux, virtual desktop manager is natively part of Window Manager such as KDE,Gnome,Enlightenment,Fluxbox etc. Thus virtual desktops or workspaces become essential for working on UNix/Linux platform.

For Microsoft Windows, there are some tools that can provides you ways to create and manage virtual desktops. Here I will list three virtual dekstop managers I have been tried, one is natively from Microsoft and the rest are from independent developers. Here they are :

1. Microsoft Virtual Desktop Manager Powertoy. This program is part of Microsoft Windows XP PowerToy, I was really happy when Microsoft released this PowerToy and found this neat virtual manager included. With this virtual manager you can easily switch between your desktop by clicking numbered button at the Taskbar and see the preview of split-screen of your desktops.
   
   
   
   The one thing this tool lack of is a feature to move or assigning opened program windows to desired desktops without involving the task bar. You do this by firstly open desired virtual desktop and click the program you wish in that virtual desktop on the taskbar, especially if you are in shared desktop mode. However it has ability to assign shortcuts keys for switching between virtual desktops, changing the background images of the virtual desktop and toggle the usage of the shared taskbar.
   
   To install it, firstly download the program from here, run the executable installer. After finish, right click the windows taskbar, toggle the 'lock taskbar' option to make sure the taskbar is unlocked. After that right click again on the taskbar go to 'Toolbars' then check the 'Desktop Manager'. This will make the virtual desktop manager button appear on your taskbar. You then can switch between virtual desktop by clicking numbered button. To configure the virtual window manager, just right click on these button, you can configure the virtual desktop background images, toggle the animation, create the shortcut keys and toggle shared desktop option.
   
   
2. Dexpot. This virtual desktop manager offers more robust features. This virtual desktop manager is not only limit you with 4 virtual desktops, it lets you to create virtual desktop up to 20 virtual desktops. Switching between desktop are done through several ways, shortcut keys, Dexpot desktop manager , desktop preview and desktop window. Dexpot really has rich features, default shortcut keys are predefined, switching desktop is by pressing alt key and corresponding desktop numbers e.g Alt-2 to switch to desktop 2 etc.
   
   
   
   Moving opened programs to specific desktop is by right clicking on the program window and select the intended destination virtual desktop. For each virtual dekstop, users are allowed to configure the appearance such as the background images, the screen resolution, naming the virtual desktop,set a password for each desktop, and also specific screensaver for every dektop. Even you are allowed to set what programs you want to run each time you select the virtual desktop and also ability to set specific rules for each desktop.
   
   
   
   Dexpot is release as freeware for personal use and charging for a minor fee for commercial usage. Dexpot is also support many languages.
   
   
3. VirtualWin is another virtual desktop manager. VirtualWin lets you to open up to 9 virtual desktops and it also has rules feature. As matter of fact, this program is not intuitive as Dexpot or Virtual Desktop Powertoy, but in fact is still a virtual desktop manager that worth to use.
   
   
   

Basically I would recommend Dexpot considering its robust functionality and features, but native Microsoft PowerToy Virtual Desktop Manager is fine and it is already saves you with uncluttered desktops. At last whatever of your choice, its all yours.

There are actually another program called Virtual Dimension thats also offer capability of virtual dekstop manager, but those only three programs above are that I have been tested and tried. For those who have been tested and tried another virtual desktop manager programs, kindly let me know your experience. Feel free to contact me through my contact form.

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May 4, 2008

Zotero: Firefox extension for student and researcher

Zotero is a Firefox extension that helps student or researcher gather, organize and analyze sources such as citations, full texts, web pages, images and other objects, as well as lets users share the results in a variety of ways. Zotero is also availabe as Openoffice and MS Office plugins



Student and researcher are always dealing with list of references. Citing from web pages, library catalogs, online journals, and other objects are part of student and researcher's live. Managing and organizing references could be an overwhelming task too.

Now Zotero offers student and researcher ability to organize, managing and analyze lists of references easily. Zotero lets you dealing with citations in a nice way, organizing, searching and exporting is done in a fast way. It is also able to export your library/citations into other citations format program such as EndNote or Refworks. Zotero is also able to import library catalogs including Mirlyn, Cambridge Scientific Abstracts, EBSCOhost, InfoTrac, JSTOR, LexisNexis, OCLC FirstSearch, ProQuest, and PubMed.

Zotero allows you to organize and manage citations easily, you can create a collection inside a library/citations. Collections is a foldering tools to helps categorize your citations. On individual citations you can add tags, links and notes, and at the end these makes them easier to be searched and identified. Zotero is also gives you a new way of visualizing your citations/library using a timeline view. Timeline band represents a different historical magnification and clicking on an item in a timeline will bring up the corresponding item in your collections. More information about creating timeline for your citations please visit http://www.zotero.org/documentation/timeline_screencast

Very often writing and arranging list of references, citations and bibliography into document become the most difficult part on writing journal, dissertation / thesis and scientific writings. Student will get annoyed by the bibliography writing style standard and its placing order. Small changes in main document could cause big changes in bibliography list, and assuring that they are correct is time consuming task. BibTex is renowned as tool for formating bibliographies, however it is only can be used in conjunction with TeX/LaTeX. Zotero lets you create bibliopgrahy is a click way - Zotero already provides you with all bibliography styles, you just need to choose the right style for you and click 'ok' to generate it. The format can be in RTF or HTML.

As citations program, Zotero is recommended by libraries, writing centers, academic / universities and institutions for their users. List of institutions thats recommeds Zotero can be found here, there you are also can find links to Zotero tutorials.

Zotero is compatible with Mozilla Firefox 2.x for Windows, Macintosh or Linux. Mozilla is also release Firefox bundled with Zotero, aimed for student which is called Firefox Campus Edition. Zotero is also available as Openoffice extension and MS Office plugin.


To download and install Zotero, simply click button below:

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April 24, 2008

How to find old version software and games

Perhaps one of you ever wonder where to get one of those old DOS games like Duke Nukem or an old version application. Some of us are worried that inline with the fast-evolving computer technology, it will slowly wipe out those legacy software.

Throw away your worries, through the Internet you can find many websites offering a range of computer software that is no longer current. This so-called abandonware, ranging from DOS applications and games to Macintosh old applications are available on Internet. Below are list of websites I've found offers old version software.

• Oldversion.com
• Abandonia.com
• Abandonwarering.com
• Old-Versions.net
• freeoldies.net
  
• Abandonware.net
• Retrosoftware.com
• filesland.com
  
• Mac.oldapps.com
  
• Simtel ms-dos collections
  

Anyone out there would like add my list above ? please leave in comments. Thank you.

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September 13, 2007

Harry Potter in iPod Audiobook

Have you read the last Harry Potter series - harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows?, have no time to read those 750 pages book?. BTW, just skip those spoilers.

If you are like me who loved storytelling very much as I was a kid, it would be better if you get an Audiobook version of the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows from Amazon for a $50, I dont now when it will available in iTunes store. It is narrated in magnificent voice of Jim Dale. Yes narrated book is much better than you read it by yourself, well there is pros and cons tough. And it's even better if you listen it on your iPod.

If you manage to listen your Audiobook for you iPod, Brent Evans has a how-to on how to convert your Audiobook CD to iPod friendly Audiobook.



[via]

Update: I'm sorry Brent, I have changed it already. Cheers

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July 25, 2007

Kevin Rose keep digging the web2.0 with Pownce

Who didn't know Kevin Rose ?, a man behind Digg.com. A news website that combines social bookmarking, blogging, RSS and non-hierarchical editorial control. A website that ranked among the top worldwide website. Kevin was featured on the cover of August issue of BusinessWeek covering his success on Digg.com with a title "How this kid made $60 Million in 18 Months ".

Kevin is a sample of a true creative web2.0 entrepreneur, on 27 June 2007, he launch his latest web.20 startup, Pownce. Dubbed as an 'IM competitor', Pownce is another online social networks, but not only focusing on meeting people.



Frankly, I haven't tried it yet, I have signed up for an invitation a day after the site was launched but no invitation yet, but according to Pownce site "Pownce is a way to send messages, files, links, and events to your friends. You'll create a network of the people you know and then you can share stuff with all of them, just a few of them, or even just one other person really fast.".

You can access the Pownce stuff not only from Pownce website, but Pownce is also providing a small application that you can use on your computer to access your pownce stuff. The application is utilizing th Adobe AIR technology, a cross-platform runtime system that allows you to build and deploy rich Internet applications to the desktop using your existing development skills. More about [Adobe AIR]. The application currently is only available for PC and Mac, Linux version will be released soon.

Pownce is offering its service for free on basic features with ads on your lists of notes and offering more features such as ads-free, bigger file-size transfer and wider variety of themes for Pro account. To join Pownce you need to got invited by Pownce or people who already signed up previously.

Stan Schroeder of Mashable pointed out that Pownce is yet more promising. Its feature of sending a message, or a file or an event to one person; or five of your colleagues; or only to your family; or to everyone is a feature that current IM is lack of. Pownce allows you to engage in a private conversations, on a group of a friends, a groups of associates or even to all people. And you also can choose when you want to send stuff to any of these groups.Pownce also has themes for making your good looking profile.

Stan was also pointed out that small catch Pownce need to address is a support of various messaging protocol that people currently use such as Miranda/GAIM/Trillian, because without it, it will be much harder for people to become real everyday Pownce users. Yes, Pownce should be not just another IM client or beat Twitter.

[Via]

Some review of Pownce:
Pownce like twitter but with groups
Pownce vs Twitter

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July 9, 2007

Howto Rip your DVD to iPhone

So you want to rip your DVD collection and watch it over your iPhone ?. Innovative Solutions is offering DVD to iPhone software to rip your video collection. Boasting its New Cyberspeed technology, it is claimed allows up to 400% faster on conversion process.


Claimed to be the easiest DVD to Iphone software,DVD to Iphone is PC only software that runs on Win Win2000,Xp,NT,and Windows Vista. Mac users, you've been warned. However Mac user might want to try Roxio Crunch om Roxio, it has output options to Apple TV, iPod and iPhone, but for this software you need to digg your wallet deeper. It cost $40, while DVD to iPhone cost you $30. In addition, DVD to Iphone is claimed to works on any copyrights protected DVDs, while Roxio Crunch not.

DVD to Iphone - Innovatiove Solutions, Roxio Crunch - Roxio

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July 6, 2007

iPhoney: an iPhone web simulator for web developers

In my previous posts I was mentioning the iPhone developers camp which follow the iPhone public release, despite this camp is not sponsored by Apple, this is a great news for iPhone developers.

If you are a developer who is looking a way to see how your Web 2.0 applications and compatible web sites will look in iPhone, there is iPhoney. It is said that "iPhoney gives you a pixel-accurate web browsing environment—powered by Safari—that you can use when developing web sites for iPhone ". So you will get a look how your website will look on iPhone screen without upload it to iPhone or server.

IPhoney is designed for web developers who want to create web applications or websites for use with iPhone and gives developers a canvas to test the visual quality of their design of small screen 320x480 or 480x320.



Is iPhoney an iPhone Simulator ? No. According to its iPhaq (FAQ), iPhoney only simulates web browsing in the visual shell of an iPhone. It's not meant to simulate the iPhone experience.

iPhoney is a free Mac-OS application that requires Mac OS X 10.4.7 or later, so I wont dare to try it on my OS-X simulated Win XP *grin*.

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June 25, 2007

Edit your CSS code lively and preview it in both Internet Explorer and Firefox simultaneously

So you want to test how your CSS code actually rendered in Internet Explorer and Firefox without switching back and forth to IE and Firefox windows ?. If so, then CSSVista is for you.

CSSVista is a free Windows application for web developers which lets you edit your CSS code live in both Internet Explorer and Firefox simultaneously.

CSSVista is a free software that offer a live CSS editing and preview of the rendering CSS code on both Internet Explorer and Firefox at the same time through splitted pane view window. This software can be downloaded for free from SiteVista



CSSVista is part of SiteVista, as paid testing service for web developers. This site offering a testing services to see how precisely a web design appear in a wide range of web browsers and at different screen resolutions.

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June 24, 2007

Alternate Personal Information Manager to let you better organized

Are you procrastinating very often ?, if so, stop it immediately. Be organized. Get rid of those cluttered memos, post-it-notes, to do list etc from your desk. make your desk clean and neat, so you will concentrate even better for working.

All you need is a Personal Information Manager or PIM. A software that manage your contacts, to do list, calendar events etc. There is a lot of software that can be used for your personal information manager. Microsoft products for this need is Microsoft Outlook. However I wont talk about Microsoft Outlook here. I offer you the alternate one.

Microsoft Oulook is proprietary software, it is a contacts manager, a mail client, a calendar and more and it is expensive one, but it offer various capabilities. However, you also could find those capabilities on other software. Few of them are :

1. Rainlendar , Rainlendar is a rich desktop calendar, it is an event manager and a tasks manager. It is useful for simple PIM. Rainlendar offering easy to use calendar and tasks manager. Its run on both Windows and Linux. Rainlendar will run as a desktop application, which will occupy small space of your desktop. Rainlendar comes with many features, it is skinnable, iCalendar standard format support, localization and also support network shared calendar and outlook connectivity for its Professional version. For personal use just grab the free version one and it just a great software.



2. Ecco Pro . Ecco Pro is considered as the best PIM ever exist. Unfortunately the development was stopped in 1997. However, there are huge fans of Ecco Pro out there. Ecco Pro was not a free software, however now Ecco Pro can be downloaded for free, so I do recommend this software.Ecco Pro has intuitive menuing system and and its own database format. I personally give it two thumbs up. Ecco Pro is a contacts manager, a calendar, a phone book, event and task manager, a journal and more. You need to set a side a day or two to discover the power of Ecco Pro completely. Ecco Pro was designed for Windows9X , however, I have no problem installing it on my Windows XP machine. If you have difficulties on installing on Window XP, you might visit the winXPfix for EccoPro. You can download Ecco Pro from Netmanage Ftp. Please remember to download the Ecco32 one, not Ecco16



3. Lightning . Lightning is not pure an application but it offers functionality of simple PIM. It is a plugin for Thunderbird. I personally use Thunderbird for quite long and I have added Lightning for it. Lightning will add few functionality to Thunderbird, such as calendar, events and tasks manger. It is almost close to functionality those you found on Microsoft Outlook. For an application version, you might want to try Sunbird, an application version of Lightning

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June 20, 2007

Safari for Windows

Now I have Safari installed in my box and my box is 80% like a Mac box. I can now associate the safari docklet on my ObjectDock to Safari itself, instead of to IE. Yup, I'm a fan of Apple products, but rather than wasting money ( aka, cannot afford to buy yet ) to buy a Macbook or sort, I just tweaked my Windows XP box to have Apple OS look and feel, with various tools available on the Internet. Yeah, it is like MTV's 'Pimp my ride' show, I have pimped my XP. Don't ask why ..

Okay, now back to the Safari things, this is my first impression on Safari.

1. At first, font rendering in Safari surprised me, I thought rendered text in Safari is a result of sIFR-like method, font are rendered smoother. But I then realized that, it is not a result of sIFR implementation or any kind of it. I recall that Steve Jobs has a taste and Apple has always a stylish approach, "putting art above practicality" as Joel Spolsky said. Joel on software has a further explanation about this font rendering


2. It is proclaimed to be two times faster web browser on any platform, for me it is 1,5x faster than my Firefox and Internet Explorer. However, I have no time to benchmark it further, so let others done it.



3. I agree with Apple, 'focus on the web - not your browser' but hey, I still love to switch themes on my Firefox. I think , it is just matter of sense.



4. I don't feel yet the "power browsing" with a bunch of add-ons like in Firefox ;). However Safari has its own plus points. With Safari for Windows, if you are a web developer, now you can test how your web rendered in Safari. You know how your website looks like on Mac OS users point of view.

Well, that's so far, being a beta product, I believe lots of issues need to address by Apple, and I'm waiting for the final version. Bravo Apple, kudos for Steve Jobs.

Any of you tried Safari for windows, please share your experience here.

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June 17, 2007