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The Veronicas’ crooner Lisa Origliasso was hospitalized last weekend after a severe stomach flu left the Australian singer doubled over in pain.

Lisa, who fronts the pop duo with her twin sister Jessica, is currently in Los Angeles working on the band’s next album, but the sessions had to be postponed when Lisa began experiencing crippling abdominal pains.

Origliasso has been updating fans about her condition via a series of posts on her Twitter page since being diagnosed: “Sorry I’ve been MIA (missing in action) on here, loves. I’ve been sick and had a little emergency room hospital visit. Not feeling so crash hot right now. I’m absolutely fine, guys. Just went to the hospital because you can never be too careful! Turns out I’ve got some crazy stomach flu. Been in bed all day resting up + being pampered. already feeling A LOT better.”

Ready for an update? webOS 1.4 is coming in February, and its bringing along a lot of goodies. First you can expect to have Flash 10.1 built-in, though the beta should be available soon from the App Catalog. Second, there’s video recording. Third, there’s the standard upgrade deal of better battery life, faster performance, and all that jazz. But Flash and video recording? That’s big.

—Orange and Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) reverse on devices: Orange has removed Nokia’s N97 Mini from its portfolio after reportedly seeing a high return rate for the device. Meanwhile, Vodafone has reversed its decision to stock Sony (NYSE: SNE) Ericsson’s flagship Windows Mobile handset the Xperia X2. The phone faced delivery delays before Christmas “due to a series of technical issues.” Via ZDNet and Mobile

—T-Mobile/Orange Merger Review: Mobile operators O2 and Three have joined consumer groups in requesting that the proposed merger of T-Mobile and Orange in the UK get reviewed by the UK competition authority, who they believe is better placed to assess the impact it will have on local markets. Via ComputerWeekly

—AT&T (NYSE: T) and Nokia (NYSE: NOK) Billing: AT&T will provide automatic billing services for its customers that use Nokia’s Ovi store. The deal initially covers the E71x, Nokia Surge, Nokia Mural, Nokia 6650, 6555 and 6350 devices, with more to be added in future. Release

More employers plan to increase college graduate hiring than decrease it for the first time in more than a year.

The National Association of Colleges and Employers‘ index for college hiring rose to 98.2, up from 87.2 in November. The index, based on the organization of career counselors’ survey of 122 employers and released Tuesday, covers employer expectations for January through March.

In the December poll, 33.4% of employers said they plan to increase hiring recent college graduates compared to 26.7% who said they will decrease it. It marks the first time since August 2008 that the fraction of employers who plan to hire more college graduates outpaced the portion who planned to hire fewer.

Similarly, companies are stepping up recruiting to engage more new graduates. The recruiting activity index increased to 95.4 from 89.8 the previous month, though that increase also included a seasonal uptick in recruiting that tends to happen in January.

“While this is a positive sign for colleges that have developed relationships to connect their students with employers, it’s also important to recognize that we’re still not where we were two years ago, in terms of recruiting activity,” Marilyn Mackes, the association’s executive director said in a release.

It’s very arctic out lately in the US. Even people and creatures in Florida are getting cold. If you have pets that live outside, they should be indoors right now.

However, if you live in Florida, you probably don’t want to rescue the cold iguanas. Justnews.com reported that frigid iguanas are falling from treetops! No longer an urban legend in Florida, the falling iguanas have been caught on tape. Watch the falling iguana video at Just News.

The fallen, comatose-like iguanas aren’t suicidal, and they certainly aren’t dead either. Since the temp was around 35 degrees F, they automatically went into a state of hibernation. Experts believe that most of these invasive iguanas will survive the cold snap if it warms up soon.

It’s believed that the nonnative iguana was introduced to Florida by pet owners. If you can no longer keep your pet iguana, consider placing a notice on Reptile Auctions. Never let it free outside.

(Image via stock.xchng)

Post from: Blisstree

Cold Iguanas Falling in Florida

Good Afternoon readers, I thought with the new year I needed to do something special for ya’ll.  So we’ve (the kids, hubby and I) got together and have decided to do something new for the Parenting Section of Blisstree. Exactly what is it you ask? Friday Game Night!

IMG: The Life of a Home Mom

For those that may not know, I have four children which means I will have plenty of time to play games. Every Friday we play a board game, or two….okay sometimes we do it all night long. This is a fun time that we all get to unwind and just hang out with one another, normally during the rest of the week everyone is rushing to get homework done, eat and then the bedtime routines so this is nice.

I stated before that I have four children, their ages are: 2 (turning 3 in March), 6, 9 and 12 (turns 13 in March). Obviously each one has their own preference to board games, video games, outside or even inside but we all play the games to be fair. I have two of each sex, the girls are the middle ages and love all girly type of games. The oldest loves thinking games, he has ever since I taught him to play chess at the age of 3. By the way I no longer play against him if I want to win at Chess.

So the basic idea is I’ll announce the game of choice and we’ll review and rate it. I’ll talk about the educational value or if it is strictly an entertainment type of game. (by the way I can find almost any game educational) I’d also love to hear your opinions on each review/game I mention and if you have a favorite I want to know that as well. Sound like fun? Okay, well I’ll see ya tomorrow.

Post from: Blisstree

Friday Game Night is Coming Soon

In what comes as little surprise by now, at CES Palm has officially announced the Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus smartphones. The two devices are marginal upgrades over their predecessors, with the Pre Plus having double the memory of the original Pre (16 GB vs. 8 GB) and losing the center button, while the Pixi Plus gains Wi-Fi over its Sprint counterpart and coming in multiple colors.

Both devices are exclusive to Verizon and will be launching on January 25th, pricing unknown at this time. They will come with a new app called Mobile Hotspot, otherwise known as  mobile Wi-Fi hotspot tethering. The Wi-Fi hotspot functionality can support up to five connected devices at a time. At this time, it doesn’t appear that the Mobile Hotspot app will be making its way to webOS devices on other networks.

Pricing for the Pre Plus, Pixi Plus, and service on Verizon was not announced.

UPDATE: Press release after the break.

read more

Fresh out of Las Vegas, Palm just confirmed the existence of the long-rumored Pre Plus and Pixi Plus. They’re not announcing pricing details yet, but they did spill the beans on the launch date: January 25th. We’ll update you as we hear more.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

As rumored many months ago when the Dell Mini 3 was but a twinkle in our eye, the device was officially announced this morning – and as expected, it’s headed to AT&T.  Coming in the first half of 2010, the device is expected to offer a 3.5-inch 640×360 display, Bluetooth, 3.0-megapixel auto-focus camera with flash, microSD, and GPS. 

An Android device confirmed on AT&T – finally!  Fantastic news for Android fans eagerly awaiting a device on AT&T.

Via Engadget

Just demoed live on stage alongside video and native gaming and unicorns was a quick glimpse of Flash 10.1 working in the webOS browser. The demo was just of the trailer for Avatar, but what was truly impressive that this happened with several other cards open, including the video uploader and one of the fancy new games. The Flash beta will be available in the App Catalog “soon.”

Still not clear on why I don’t trust the Federal Reserve to be the systemic risk regulator? Want a great example of a conflict of interest where it urged a firm to withhold information to ensure its bailout go smoothly? Bloomberg provides just that today. It turns out the New York Fed, then under current Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, may have told AIG to withhold details about the banks that would benefit from its bailout due to its swap agreements. This is ugly stuff.

Bloomberg reports:

AIG said in a draft of a regulatory filing that the insurer paid banks, which included Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Societe Generale SA, 100 cents on the dollar for credit-default swaps they bought from the firm. The New York Fed crossed out the reference, according to the e-mails, and AIG excluded the language when the filing was made public on Dec. 24, 2008. The e-mails were obtained by Representative Darrell Issa, ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

The New York Fed took over negotiations between AIG and the banks in November 2008 as losses on the swaps, which were contracts tied to subprime home loans, threatened to swamp the insurer weeks after its taxpayer-funded rescue. The regulator decided that Goldman Sachs and more than a dozen banks would be fully repaid for $62.1 billion of the swaps, prompting lawmakers to call the AIG rescue a “backdoor bailout” of financial firms.

“It appears that the New York Fed deliberately pressured AIG to restrict and delay the disclosure of important information,” said Issa, a California Republican. Taxpayers “deserve full and complete disclosure under our nation’s securities laws, not the withholding of politically inconvenient information.” President Barack Obama selected Geithner as Treasury secretary, a post he took last year.

One annoying thing about the Fed is that it’s perfectly okay with a lack of transparency, or even secrecy, in order to accomplish its goals. It has a sort of the-ends-justify-the-means attitude. This is a precise example of that. Even though regulators, Congress, and the Treasury should have known these details, the Fed must have thought the bailout would run more smoothly without mucking it up with the facts about where the money would ultimately be going.

With news like this, maybe I’m wrong about Geithner: Obama might want to replace him sooner than later after all. One can only hope that his Treasury strives for more transparency than his Fed.

Better delayed than a crappy product released on time. This is what BioWare’s Fernando Melo pointed out, explaining the delay of the Return to Ostagar DLC for Dragon Age: Origins. As somewhat of a reprieve, he also

Palm is expected to announce that its Pre and Pixi smartphones will be available on Verizon (VZ) Wireless today. What else does it have in store? This would normally be Palm (PALM) bete noire John Paczkowski’s territory, but John’s en route to Las Vegas from the Bay Area, so I’ll be tapping away.

• Some totally unverified gossip from my fellow scribes here at the Venetian: Expect an AT&T (T) announcement as well. [UPDATE: Make that verified – AT&T already indicated they’d support the Palm OS yesterday, as Business Insider‘s Dan Frommer notes]
• Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein on stage: Our platform is a deliberate bet on the Web. “At the heart of everything we do at Palm”.
• 85,000 downloads of WebOS SDK since launch in July. 20,000 registrations for new online developer program. Clear indicators in interest in our platform. [Translation: We’re going to start catching up to Apple (AAPL) and its gazillions of apps. Promise.]
• Pixi is “perfect choice for consumers looking to purchase first smartphone”. That’s why we have these super-cool back covers available. Check ‘em out!. And now a video of people talking about our stuff. A talking head mentions “the death of the PC”. Ominous!
• New partner: French carrier SFR, co-owned by Vivendi and Vodafone. SVP Jean-Marc Tassetto says his company reaches half of the country’s population. Apple dig, and praise for Palm: “We started negotiating in Cupertino, we ended up in Sunnyvale”.
• Product talk: here’s Palm SVP of Product Marketing Katie Mitic. Update on Palm developer program. After 6 months in closed beta, formally opening up. Any developer can submit WebOS app. Why work with Palm? More coded Apple digs: Promises “fast and easy development” cycle and “freedom and choice” in how developers take apps to market. 1,000 apps, and expect much faster growth now.
• Promises “new approach to app distribution” — ie you won’t have to get them exclusively through Palm’s equivalent of iTunes. Can get them anywhere on the Web, or via mobile. Shows off Projectappetite.com as an example.
• A “Hot Apps” bonus program this spring: $1k to developers with best distribution (both free and paid) measured by download.
• New “Plug-in development kit” for WebOS, too.
• Some new games to show off from the likes of gameloft, Electronic Arts (ERTS). Need for Speed, Sims, etc. Available today in the US.
• Here’s Travis Boatman, VP of EA Mobile’s Worldwide studios. Palm came to us a few months ago. Some praise for Palm (duh): “Within a few weeks, we realized how great this SDK is… really easy to use” etc.
• Some demos: Sims3, Need for Speed Undercover (which does indeed look “gorgeous” as Boatman says).
• More from Mitic, who intros Paul Cousinea, product marketing director, who is going to demo something involving Pre’s camera.
• New feature: Video recording. Demoing editing feature with footage he just took onstage. Sharing to YouTube, Facebook, etc. Available to all customers in February via software update. “No new hardware required.”
• Demos integration of various WebOS features, moving and using data/elements from one app to another: Sharing YouTube clip of clip you just shot, etc.

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Filed under: iTS, Internet, Internet Tools, iTunes

Last November, Apple launched browser-based iTunes previews, which gave customers information on a song or artist before pushing them out to the iTunes Store. It’s a handy, welcome change. And now this week, they’ve added 30-second song samples to those preview pages (check it out). Just as you do in the store, you can hear any track’s sample by clicking the small “Play” button that appears when you mouse over its name.

There has been speculation about the future of a streaming-based version of iTunes since Apple bought Lala in November. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that LaLa executives have been given key roles at Apple, and that members of the existing iTunes team will report to them. While playing with the new previews today, we explored the page’s source for any hints of Lala, but found nothing. However, we did come across something interesting. Turns out you can easily turn any 30-second preview into an iPhone-compatible ringtone, and you don’t even need GarageBand.

First, find a snippet you’re interested in. Then view the page’s source. Scroll down until you see something that starts:

audio-preview-url=”http://a1.phobos.apple.com/us/r1000/016/Music/3a/7b/83/mzm.ekrigiqi.aac.p.m4a”

Copy the URL (minus the quotes) and paste it into Safari’s Downloads window. You’ll get a file with a name similar to:

“/mzm.ekrigiqi.aac.p.m4a”

Now, replace “.aac.p.m4a” with “.m4r,” drop it into iTunes and sync. You’ve got a new ringtone! Of course, you can’t choose the 30 seconds you hear, and that use probably isn’t intended by Apple. But if the preview happens to be what you want, there you go.

[Via Mac Rumors]

TUAWApple adds 30-second samples to browser-based iTunes previews originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 07 Jan 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Though we feed our cats one flavor of dried, store bought cat food, I’ve often wondered how they would react if I tried making something for them. Given how they’ve treated homemade treats, I think it’s a safe bet that any type of deviation from their normal meals would be met with just as many upturned noses!

However, knowing how much they love tuna fish, I do have to wonder if they would give this “gourmet” kitty dish a try. I suppse if we ever had leftover sole then I’ll see, but until then, they’re stuck with the bagged stuff!

Gotta Have Sole Kitty Food
from cooksrecipes.com

1/2 pound fillet of sole
2 tablespoons parsley, chopped
Water
1 tablespoon margarine
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese

2 tablespoons chopped liver
1/2 teaspoon iodized salt
2/3 cup cooked rice

~ Place sole in a small, greased baking dish. Sprinkle with the parsley. Add enough water to just cover the bottom of the dish. Bake in a preheated 450*F (230*C) oven for 10 minutes. Cool then and shred with a fork.

~ Melt margarine in a small saucepan. Stir in flour and heat until bubbly. Gradually stir in milk and cook, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens.

~ Remove from heat and add cheese, liver, and salt, stirring until cheese has melted.

~ Add the flaked fish and rice to cheese sauce and stir well. Cool. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

[image: flickr]

Post from: Blisstree

Gourmet Kitty Dining

Rents for apartments in New York City fell by 5.6 percent in 2009, the worst year for landlords on record. The prior record was held by 2002, when the city was reeling from the September 11th attacks.

Vacancy rates slipped a bit, falling 0.10 percent to just 2.9 percent, according to data compiled by the real estate research company Reis Inc. 

This seems to indicate that the market for rental apartments in New York may be hitting an equilibrium after years in which landlords held out for higher rents at the cost of increasing vacancies.

The decline in vacancies, however, was largely confined to Manhattan, where prices are higher and likely boosted by the recovery on Wall Street. The areas my native Queens friend calls “the our boroughs”—Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx—are still seeing rising vacancies.

Close to 60 percent of all rental buildings in New York lowered their rents from the third quarter. 

Bad news for landlords is good news for renters. From a renter’s perspective, this has been the best year on record. Now might be a very good time to give your landlord a call and talk about getting your rent reduced.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Out Of Work Americans Clear Out Of Apartments, Driving Vacancy Rates To 30 Year High
• Apartment Vacancies Expected To Climb To Highest Level Ever
• Abandoned Brooklyn: Property Developers Pull The Plug On A Once-Hot Market

Former CIBC World Markets Inc. chief economist, Jeff Rubin — who accurately predicted crude price increases over the last decade — expects oil to reach $90 a barrel by the end of Q1 and $100 by the end of the year, Bloomberg reports.

Yesterday, the price of crude hit a 15-month high at $83.52 a barrel.

Rubin forecast in his book, “Why Your World is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller” that oil will hit $200 a barrel by 2012

The strain of $200 oil on consuming nations may prompt a subsequent collapse toward $40, he added.

“When we get into 2011 or 2012 and we start to deal with prices of $120 a barrel, $147 a barrel, $160 a barrel, that’s where I think at least the global economy becomes very challenged,” he said.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Blistering Cold Sends Oil To $83
• Oil Above $81 For The First Time In 15 Months
• How Rising Oil Prices Will Force U.S. Into A Post-Industrial Wasteland

Until now, all the news on the hyperlocal news site EveryBlock was compiled by the site’s editors and algorithms. Today, EveryBlock launched a nifty new feature that allows its users to post stories to the site and notify their neighbors about interesting events in their neighborhoods. The new feature allows users to post anything from news alerts to questions and classified ads on the site. These alerts will also now appear in EveryBlock’s newly enhanced iPhone app (iTunes link).

Sponsor

These announcements will be clearly labeled as thus and messages will also be published to nearby neighborhoods, ZIP and block pages so that other users in the immediate vicinity can also see them.

Currently, EveryBlock is only available in a select number of cities in the U.S., though the service plans to expand its reach in the near future. MSNBC acquired EveryBlock in August 2009.

Creating a 21st Century Community Message Board

As EveryBlock’s founder Adrian Holovaty noted in today’s announcement, the new feature is “intentionally open-ended.” EveryBlock wants to give its users the ability to send out announcements for “every imaginable purpose” and describes this new feature as a “21st century community message board.” To enhance this interaction between users, every place page on EveryBlock now also features a discussion board.

Overall, this is an important move for EveryBlock. The site is now more interactive than ever before. Thanks to these new user contributions, the information on the site will also now become even more timely and relevant, too.

Discuss