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Enhanced PPC4 pressure controller/calibrator from DHI adds lower pressure control range and new features, now up to 2,000 psi

EVERETT, Wash. – The DH Instruments Division of Fluke Corporation has announced a significant enhancement to its PPC4 precision pressure controller/calibrator product line.

PPC4 is a high performance pressure calibrator for testing pneumatic pressure instruments. It is designed to provide versatility and ease of use in calibration labs and manufacturing environments.

The maximum pressure range of the PPC4 has increased to cover the absolute pressure range of 1 kPa (0.15 psi) to 14 MPa (2,000 psi) and gauge pressure equivalent, including very low differential pressures. The patented dynamic control is further improved, extending the minimum controlled pressure down to 1 kPa. As always, PPC4 offers industry-leading control precision to ensure the lowest total uncertainty on dynamically controlled pressures, and to maximize the range covered by a single controller.

PPC4 enables users to select the user interface that best fits their application and budget. Bench top users can select the advanced graphic color display with point-and-click navigation to streamline pressure calibration and testing tasks. The advanced graphical user interface now supports 11 different languages; Chinese (simplified), Chinese (traditional), Czech, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.

If PPC4 spends most of its time interfaced with a computer, choose the basic front panel to minimize cost. Both interfaces include a front panel USB connection and free cockpit software for full PC-based ‘plug and play’ functionality. DHI’s COMPASS for Pressure calibration assistance software provides an advanced off-the-shelf tool to quickly automate your calibration and testing processes and handle a wide array of special requirements.

PPC4 uses DHI’s exclusive, individually characterized, quartz reference pressure transducer (Q-RPT) modules for increased precision and reduced measurement uncertainty. The AutoRange™ feature supports infinite ranging, automatically optimizing all aspects of operation for the exact range of the device being calibrated. It is rugged enough for mobile applications and standard shipment without special packaging.

For more information on the enhanced PPC4 and other pressure and flow calibration products from DHI, visit www.dhinstruments.com. To contact the DH Instruments Division of Fluke Corporation, call (602) 431-9100, or email [email protected].

About Fluke
Fluke Corporation is the leader in precision calibration instrumentation and software for electrical, temperature, pressure, flow, and RF measurements. Calibration products from Fluke and its Hart Scientific and DH Instruments Divisions are found in calibration facilities around the world, including National Metrology Institutes, that demand the highest levels of performance and reliability, backed by state of the art metrology and uncompromising support. They are relied on by quality engineers, calibration technicians, and metrologists to instill confidence in the measurements that are critical to their organizations for quality, safety, reliability, and cost. Fluke and DHI are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Fluke Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

Filed under: Marketing/Advertising, Buick, GM, GMC

For the third time in two months, General Motors has a new Buick/GMC general manager, this time hiring longtime employee Brian Sweeney to the high-profile post. Sweeney gets the job one week after Michael RIchards quit after just nine days on the job.

Sweeney gets the general manager post after spending a year and a half as general sales manager of Buick GMC. GM Sales Service and Marketing VP Susan Docherty said in a press release that Sweeney “consolidated 13 different agencies to one dedicated partner to drive a consistent brand message, led the dealer network through a difficult transition and has earned a reputation for tirelessly driving results that benefit consumers.” That sounds like a lot of work to us. Here’s to hoping this Sweeney guy lasts a lot longer than the last guy.

Sweeney’s old job goes to 25 year GM vet Jennifer Costabile. The 25 year GM employee is coming off assignment as regional sales and marketing manager for Cadillac in GM’s Southeast Region. Hit the jump to read the GM press release.

[Source: GM]

Continue reading Sweeney takes over Buick/GMC general manager duties

Sweeney takes over Buick/GMC general manager duties originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 18 Dec 2009 07:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There’s beena a lot of dicussion lately about so-called peak gold.

But as gold’s fans will tell you gold isn’t a commodity, it’s a form of money. Gold isn’t actually intended to be used in anything.

But what about metals that are meant to be used in industrial purposes.

In an excellent presentation, André Diederen presents an argument that all of the world’s important industrial metals are dwindling, and that despite increasing explortation budgets, our sources of them are becoming rare and more concentrated.

We present, via The Oil Drum, Diederen’s presentation Global Resource Depletion: Metal minerals scarcity and the Elements of Hope.

Now, see the charts — >

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• The Overwhelming Evidence For Peak Gold
• The Coming Collapse Of The Global Gold Mining Industry

Found under: iPhone, Windows Mobile, Survey,,

For the first time ever the iPhone has surpassed Windows Mobile in the USA according to comScore. The company measures the total number of devices and operating systems currently in use through monthly surveys.Its latest data shows that in the three month period ending in October the iPhone usage has surpassed the Windows Mobile OS for the first time. Microsoft should really consider rolling out Windows Mobile 7 as fast as possible in order to counter the current mobile trends in the U

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“With December here, I thought I’d share with you the advent calendar I fashioned from a ready-made Wilma curtain.

It simply involved cutting the curtain to the required size and then sewing strips of white fabric onto it in order to create pockets into which the little treats could be slipped.”

Click for more detailed instructions on Sonja’s advent treats calendar.

Oppenheimer banking analyst Chris Kotowski says banks are going to flush a ton of crap off their balance sheets in Q4.  This will make asset trends look temporarily bad–get ready for big write-offs–but it will also clear the decks for a much better 2010.

To this we would add that Bank of America will likely be even more aggressive about this than your average bank. 

The CEO switch gives new CEO Brian Moynihan a chance to clean the books and blame Ken Lewis for all the garbage.  The more Moyhihan rinses out now, the less he’ll have to answer for later.  So expect a veritable Augean Stables move from Bank of America.

Chris Kotowski:

We have been saying since our 3Q09 preview that we expect 4Q09 to be a clean-up quarter. We mean this not just in the sense of special charges that impact earnings, of which there will be plenty, but also in the sense that in order to get as much “reserve building” out of the way in 2009 as possible the companies will be very aggressive in classifying problem assets and this will likely make asset quality trends look poor. To this mix we now add reduced loan volume expectations for 2010 and a more pronounced than normal seasonal slowdown in trading.

We are trimming our 2010 estimates almost across the board with only Lazard untouched. At the investment banks the trims are fairly modest and driven mainly by the fact that our 2010 trading estimates were derived off full-year 2009 estimates, and with these somewhat diminished it has a modest pull-through effect on 2010. We are also trimming our price targets based on our reduced estimates.

At the commercial banks, our estimate revisions are being driven by lower loan volume assumptions (which drove a roughly 3% reduction in our pre-provision earnings estimates) and the assumption that loan losses will remain at their peak 4Q09 levels for two quarters rather than one. This latter change stemmed from sloppy November master trust data.

We view the 4Q09 slowdown in trading as seasonal and believe it has negligible implications for the underlying health of trading businesses, which we consider quite strong. In this report we take an extensive look at long-term trends in the business, which indicate that 2009 results are not far off trendline.

We continue to believe that investment banking and trading businesses are likely to do well in 2010. M&A is just beginning to rebound, enormous financing needs remain, and concern about the sustainability of trading profits (which is reflected more in the single-digit P/E multiples than in earnings estimates) is overdone.

Loan volume and NPA inflow trends will be poor for several more quarters, but historically such times have been good for bank stocks.

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See Also:

• Cramer: "I Like Bank Of America!"
• Bank Of America’s Below $15, The First Time Since July
• Bank Lending Is Collapsing All Around The Globe

Found under: LG, eXpo, AT&T, Windows Mobile 6.5,,

A new Windows Mobile 6.5 phone is available from ATT and its a handset worth considering. The LG eXpo is the phone in question and it will surprise you with some spectacular features. If you already know the phone then youll notice how it lacks the pico projector it was supposed to come with.But lets check out the specs of the LG eXpo -1GHz processor-Quad-band GSM-Tri-band UMTSHSDPA-5-megapixel camera with autofocus and 5x zoom-Slide-out QWERTY keyboard-GPS-Bluetoot

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Don’t be freaked out by the month-long swoon in gold.

CIBC, which has plenty of expertise in mining and commodities, remains very bullish on it, slamming the idea that somehow gold is in a “bubble”, and calling for a price target of $1400 in 2011. Of course, many of the late-stage gold buyers we’ve seen recently probably thought $1400 was a chip-shot by the end of this year, so even this bullish call may be disappointing to them.

Before getting to their reasoning, we’d like to highlight this chart, via PragCap, which also bolsters the case that there’s no gold bubble. Basically, bubbles look a certain way, and gold doesn’t.

 

Via FT Alphaville:

Gold has been exhibiting significant correlation to the U.S. dollar, yet we believe other fundamentals will support continued strong performance of the metal, including stronger investment demand, the market’s need for a safe haven investment, and the absence of growing mine supply.

. . .

The rationale for accelerated reactions to dollar-led gold price movement lies in the additional factors contributing to the strength in the metal. Currency movements may be important but they are not the only factor propelling the price of gold. Uncertainty of many factors has led to strong investment demand for the metal as one of the prime drivers to gold price increases. Whereas jewelry demand accounted for about 82% of metal purchases a decade ago, that figure has dropped with investment demand rising to as much as 73% of total demand in some recent quarters. Aside from the safety protection offered by bullion, we suspect that investors have sought to limit volatility within their holdings by diversification into traditionally counter cyclical vehicles such as gold.

The desire for diversification is not limited investors. In ever increasing amounts, Central Bankers have also joined the party that arguably they were responsible for its demise 12 years ago. Whereas back in 1997, there was selling pressure on bullion brought about first by the governments of the Southern Hemisphere (Argentina, Australia), followed by Switzerland, Netherlands and the United Kingdom, now there is net buying taking place among Central Banks. Key among the buying group of late is China and India. We think this trend to broader purchases by Central Banks will continue leading to a new source of demand that hitherto was a source of supply as Central Bank selling intensified at the turn of the millennium.

In the absence of growing mine supply, we anticipate that bullion will continue to perform well over the next few years and possibly longer. Short-term gyrations however will also be the norm and in the past two weeks we have seen what we consider to be a normal (and arguably healthy) correction to the upward phase of a continued long-term bull market for gold.

Read more at FT Alphaville >>

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See Also:

• Goldman: Oil Going To $90, Gold To $1350
• China Down Big Overnight, Japan Slips, Gold Back Above $1100
• Gold "Super Spike" Coming In 2010

Until recently, few people would have thought of using “Madagascar” and “Firefox” in the same sentence, but since the latest code name for the latter was released, this no longer seems an unlikely phrase. For those of you who do not know, the 3.6 version of Firefox is called Namoroka, named after a park in the northwest area of Madagascar.

The Mozilla team has already started and maintained a tradition when it comes to promoting free access to software and creative solutions for developing a “health ecosystem of communities” where “a shared space, shared resources or network of ideas, applications and products that are free to use.”

It seems Mozilla developers consider that parks resemble the open source software environment in terms of recreation, collaboration and conservation, not to mention the fact that both concepts are vital ecosystems for their respective fields.

Of course, it is not the first time when Firefox gets its pre-release code named after a park, other examples being Gran Paradiso (Italy), Bon Echo (Canada) and Shiretoko (Japan). Furthermore, the Japanese appeared to be very proud to have inspired the Firefox 3.5 code name that they even created Discover Shiretoko, a website designed for promoting the park with the same name, and to… (read more)

WBZ-TV yesterday shared the story of Charlotte Kelly, a 3-year-old Children’s patient who is battling stage IV neuroblastoma. The chemotherapy used to treat Charlotte’s cancer destroys the platelets in her blood, so she needs regular transfusions to replace them. Her mother’s colleagues from the Tynan Elementary School in South Boston gave the greatest holiday gift this week when they came to Children’s Blood Donor Center to donate platelets for Charlotte.

As you’re giving gifts this year, don’t forget to give the ones, like blood and platelets, that don’t cost a dime but help kids like Charlotte every day at Children’s and places like it around the world.

Related posts:

1. This week on Thrive: Dec. 14 – 18
2. Probing life-threatening flu
3. How can we help our teen son manage media so they don’t interfere with his life?

Found under: Motorola, Backflip, Enzo, AT&T, Android, ,

Im still waiting for the day when ATT will launch an Android smartphone. ATT is currently the only carrier of the big four U.S. carriers that doesnt have an Android phone in its inventory. Sprint and Verizon already have Android phones and T-Mobile was the first to launch an Android smartphone last year.According to recent rumors ATTs first Android handset will be the Motorola Backflip also known as Enzo. The phone isnt official yet but there are plenty of leaked shots showing t

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Sun-Maid Raisins recently had a radical makeover for its iconic raisin girl found on every box of raisins the company produces. In addition to modernizing the girl, Sun-Maid also appears to have given her a nice boob job.

The new girl is shown up top. Here’s what the old version looked like:

The new 3D animation is kind of creepy and the Sun-Maid girl now looks more like a farmer Barbie. Now if she would only ditch that bonnet for a bikini.

Here’s a new commercial featuring the animated hottie:

Related posts:

1. How to Really Get the Girl
2. Say Hello to Burkha Barbie
3. ‘Get the Girl Naked’ is One Awesome Game Show

Q: I have a black bottomed dutch oven. But I’ve seen ones that are white on the inside. Is there a difference?

Sent by Christina

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cram writes in to let us know of a filmmaker/post production guy in Uruguay who spent a grand total of $500 to make a 5 minute “robots attack the world” movie that he put on YouTube, and, in response, has now been given tens of millions of dollars by a Hollywood production company to do something more significant:

There are a few things that are a bit unclear from the story, which alternates at points between dollars and pounds, so you may question the validity of the details. However, watching the video is quite compelling, yet again. We’ve seen other top amateur films with amazing special effects made on the cheap, and this is another one to add to the pile. Hollywood keeps insisting that it needs to produce $200 million movies, and studio insiders, who like to hang out in our comments and dismiss amateur special effects as being worthless, will — of course — mock this as being nothing special. And, sure, you can definitely see that the quality of the $500 effort is not the same as a big budget Hollywood film. But it’s not that far off. And what can be done today for $500 couldn’t even have been matched by Hollywood’s bigshots a decade ago. Just think what an amateur and $500 will do a decade from now? And then explain, again, why we’re going to “need” to produce $200 million special effect bonanza movies again?

In the meantime, congrats to this guy, who turned $500 into a chance to play around with a lot more (though, not $200 million). It’s difficult to turn that sort of opportunity down, though it would have been even cooler to see what he could have done on a smaller budget as well.

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Ginger’s Note: Our guest blogger is my co-worker, Sarah, from USA.gov.  She was working on a detail assignment at the White House and she was invited to attend the White House Holiday Reception for the staff. Here is her inside scoop on what the party was like.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a sucker for a good party. I’ve never been able to turn down an invitation to a soiree – and my resolve gets even weaker when the holidays roll around. There’s something about holiday parties – the carols, the decorations, the eggnog – that really make the season magical.

This year I had the amazing opportunity to attend the White House Holiday Reception in the East Wing of the White House. This party was being held in honor of White House staff and their families and was hosted by the First Family. It was an unforgettable event!

Throughout the East Wing of the White House, all the ceremonial rooms were open for mingling. We could sit on the historic furniture, use the tabletops for our appetizer plates, and mingle around the fireplace. There was a quartet from the Marine Corps band providing music in the Entrance Hall and a very talented soloist who sang beautiful Christmas Carols throughout the evening.

The holiday decorations were simply stunning. Every room in the East Wing boasted a soaring, live Christmas tree, and each tree was adorned with handcrafted ornaments from around the nation. There were ornaments celebrating Mount Rushmore, the Red River Valley, the Tennessee River, and over 800 American landmarks.

The highlight of the evening was an appearance by President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama. The President and First Lady graciously thanked the staff for their time and dedication, thanked the families for patience during the long
work weeks and exhausting schedules, and welcomed us all to enjoy their home for the evening. After the remarks, the President spent just a few minutes shaking hands and greeting his staff. I was thrilled beyond belief when I had the opportunity to meet the President and shake his hand.

After such an unbelievable evening, I knew I needed more souvenirs than the embossed cocktail napkins I’d stuffed in my handbag. The next morning I immediately hopped on to USA.gov, where I knew I could find gifts and memorabilia from the White House. I’m so
thankful that years from now, when I unwrap my 2009 White House ornament, I’ll have an unforgettable story to tell my children and grandchildren.

It’s here, finally. According to Moody’s.

24/7 Wall St.: Moody’s Investors Service has raised the bias and outlook on the U.S. homebuilder sector this morning. Its report was titled “U.S. Homebuilding Industry Shows Signs of Stability” and the ratings agency raised the sector’s outlook to Stable from Negative. In short, Moody’s believes or suggests that a bottom has been reached.

…

Moody’s synopsis is that the stable outlook expresses a view that fundamental credit conditions in the industry will neither erode nor improve materially over the next 12 to 18 months.

Moody’s has cited that housing starts, new home sales, and existing home sales have all shown positive trends, and housing affordability is at the strongest point seen in many years. This is on the heels of a November figure showing a 8.9% rise in housing starts.

Read more here.

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See Also:

• Housing Starts And CPI All Benign
• Ken Rogoff: Housing, Unemployment Will Get Worse Before They Get Better
• California Housing Market Continues To Recover, Befuddling Bears

The Economist warns that the recession we just experienced is only a small taste of the pain to come.

While massive government action around the world softened this recession’s blow, to the point that many in the world barely felt it, it will soon be time to deal with the repercussions of bailouts and stimulus.

These include stagnation in developed economies, asset bubbles in emerging ones, and the rise of anti-business sentiment among outraged American and European populations.

The Economist: The bad news is that today’s stability, however welcome, is worryingly fragile, both because global demand is still dependent on government support and because public largesse has papered over old problems while creating new sources of volatility. Property prices are still falling in more places than they are rising, and, as this week’s nationalisation of Austria’s Hypo Group shows, banking stresses still persist. Apparent signs of success, such as American megabanks repaying public capital early (see article), make it easy to forget that the recovery still depends on government support. Strip out the temporary effects of firms’ restocking, and much of the rebound in global demand is thanks to the public purse, from the officially induced investment surge in China to stimulus-prompted spending in America. That is revving recovery in big emerging economies, while only staving off a relapse into recession in much of the rich world.

Read more here.

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See Also:

• Obama Administration Can’t Decide Whether The Recession Is Over, But It Wants Banks To Lever Up
• Six-Figure Federal Salaries Jumped 46% During The Recession
• John Mauldin: We’re Still Heading For A Double-Dip Recession

Found under: Verizon Wireless, Palm, Pre, Pixi, ,

In case you forgot about it Verizon will launch the Palm Pre and the Pixi at some point next year. Sprints exclusivity deal for the Pre is going to expire soon so thats why Verizon Wireless employees are going to go through online training for Palm and webOS.Nothing is official about the Verizon Palm Pre yet and we have no idea when the Pixi will be sold by Big Red either. But according to some leaked screenshots the company has begun training its employees on Palms newest smartph

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It’s not exactly a secret anymore that Google is pushing hard on translations, constantly updating the tools it built around its machine-translation technology, which is getting more accurate with every iteration. The reason is simple, to make more online content available to more people, which indirectly leads to higher revenue for the company. Now, Google is updating a recent tool that, while not directly related to translations, falls pretty much in the same category, Google Transliteration. The tool enables users to type words using roman characters, and then have them converted to other scripts like Greek or Hindi, and has now launched globally with 17 supported languages.

“Using Google Transliteration you can convert Roman characters to their phonetic equivalent in your language. Note that this is not the same as translation — it’s the sound of the words that are converted from one alphabet to the other… Today we are pleased to introduce a new and improved version of Google Transliteration, available in Google Labs,” Nilesh Tathawadekar and Mohammed Aslam, software engineers at Google’s Bangalore office wrote.

Google launched the tool in Labs with support for just one Indian language. Since then, the team has been hard at work both in the functionality and features, but also adding new lang… (read more)

Popping in a movie while we’re making cookies is one of our favorite holiday traditions. Maybe it’s even the same cheesy movie every year. Do you have a favorite movie to watch while you’re rolling up dough or decorating cookies?

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