How To Organize A Kids’ Theme Party

Do you want to organize a special birthday party for your kid? Then go for a theme party to give it a festive feeling and make your child feel special. Kids’ theme parties are in trend because the little ones are crazy to play the role of their favorite superheroes or comic characters.

The rules for organizing a theme party

Before organizing a theme party, it is very important to know your child’s favorite hobby, passion, favorite characters and superheroes. It is not a matter of concern to find the merchandise according to the theme because all the party supplies are available in the market.

The next big important thing is to make a list of all the things that you need such as table covers, plastic cups, napkins, cutlery, costumes, accessories, games for the children and their gifts. All these can be purchased separately or you can get them in affordable packages in the market with most of the things included. Don’t think you need a complete dress for each kid in the party.

Then you should settle on deciding the star of the party – “the cake” – this is one thing that all kids wait for. You should go for the best theme cake to impress your kid and his/her friends. Try to select the cake from the cake shop that suites the theme of the party or you can make your own cake using the picture of the character your kid loves.

Favorite party themes for boys

Superheroes are a favorite party theme with boys. You can also do the American Hero party theme with lots of greens, reds, white and blue. Dressing the birthday boy in a Batman costume can make him extra special in a Batman theme party.

The Incredible Hulk party theme, The Spiderman party theme, The Superman party theme, The Justice League party theme which includes few of the characters together like Batman, Spiderman, Superman are popular themes among young boys.

Outdoor games party including a T-ball theme party, Baseball theme party with baseball caps as party favors can be a great hit too. A football theme party with finger foods and the girls dressed as cheerleaders can be of great fun. The inflatable bouncer house can be done for boys’ parties.

There is the Mickey’s clubhouse theme that is everyone’s favorite. Pokémon or the Pocket Monsters have been a big favorite theme for a while. The Super Mario Bros-Mario and Luigi can also be brought back to celebrate your child’s birthday party with brightly colored set of party accessories.

Favorite party themes for girls

The usual Barbie party themes, princess party themes, strawberry-shortcake party themes are popular among girls. The girls love a Barbie theme party with the colors pink and purple dominating it. A Fairy princess party or a Disney princess party theme is another magical idea. Magic wands can make a perfect party favor. Powerpuff Girls’ dolls can be made party favors in a Powerpuff Girls party too. Your little angel may even enjoy a singing Hannah Montana party.

For the little girls, the strawberry shortcake party theme, the Princess Party Theme, the Dora the Explorer Party Theme can be great. The little ones also enjoy Blues Clues Party Theme, a fun interactive TV show. Then the Pink Poodles theme is very girlish and pretty if the party is decorated with pink and green. The Care Bears Party Theme is great for both little boys and girls.

It is very important for the organizers to keep the theme and colors intact from start to finish. These ideas can surely help mothers organize a great party for their kids and make it special for them.

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by : Danielle Saige

Refuse to sleep

Night falls…

My baby yawns…

My hubby watches tv…

Alone…

Staring at the pc…

Killing the time…

Refuse to go to bed early…

Try to connect to old friends on FB…

Recal days gone…

By looking at smiling faces…

Shall we share present time?

Forget the past …

Remember all the golden times

Of ours…

by: Ida

Classification of Fb Friends

It’s been ages….. I haven’t updated the content of my MP. Hmmmmm…. getting overwhelmed with the daily routine? Maybe. What I feel is I get so “garing” and dull without writing. Wish a publisher knew this sentence and allowed me to have my journals published, hehehehehe. I think, I wish too much. But dear God, please, make it real. 

Being away from my home on MP, I became more intimate with my newest virtual home. They call it “situs pertemanan”. That’s not bad. Since there I got quite many acquaintances, got connected again with my friends from the goodolddays, connected to some friends from the same alma mater, got many friend requests from my students (which is always ignored since I always answer that I don’t feel like making friends on FB with children, which causes me to get a bad look on my students ).

Getting familiar and getting used to using FB to connect with those classifications of friends, I learned that, again, they can be classified into some.

First type. Call it Premium. They added me, so then I confirmed, or were added by me based on my intuition that they are friendly to my past, even were part of my past, take me as I am and would not mind taking my comments or even arguing with me. With this class, I may be very sweet, yet, in other time critical.
We often chat, post comments, write in each other’s inbox and never get annoyed when one of us be vacuum, thus for some length of time disappear from the comment posting traffic.

Second. Name it Gold.These people never have too intimate relationship  with me. Yet, what they know about me is merely what is good and pluses of mine.They may be those from the same alma mater. We exchange sweet, funny comments, yet keeping apart from dealing with too personal opinions.

Third, they may be Silver. Those like to be my friend, yet rarely post comments for me. It is because I seldom post ones for them. Their status is a kind of far-from-my reach or none of my cup of tea. I find some of them exchanging comments on things like political, ambitious life of career or adult’s stuff.

Last, label them Classic. They added me. Sometimes, I have no single idea who they really are. I confirm them by referring our mutual friends. The scary thing from them is having their status commented on is their first priority. They will post things like giving warning for those who rarely comments on theirs. They express themselves as really annoyed when they find that one or two particular friends of theirs be away from giving comments. Or, They come from my past, yet I have a bad impression on our interaction in the past. Treating this kind of buddy is somehow like handing a burning coal in my hand. They add me. Honestly, I don’t feel like confirming. Last, I confirm for the sake of our friendship in the past. Their status fills mine, their comments are read, but then I often feel offended and embarrased by theirs. Huuhhh! What a friend!

by : Ida

A struggle to become a children-friendly parent

Recently, we have realized that the earth in which we live is in great danger. It has encountered a bad climate change due to global warming effect. We, then, take some action to save the earth. We apply an attitude as well known as an environment-friendly attitude. We reduce the use of materials which are harmful to the environment such as plastic and styrofoam, reuse the things which we can still use it instead of buying another, and recycle them into new things. We save water and electricity more than we have done it before.  We put priority in making the earth at ease. How graceful we are towards the earth!

Now have a look at how we treat our children, our predecessor. We become parent without going to a particular school to prepare and equip ourselves with all the know-how to become a good one. We just marry someone we wish, then, voila! We become parent! In our daily interaction with our children, we often take things for granted that we always do the best for them, we do things for sake of their goodness, etc, etc. Have we ever really thought that if we really do it and we really mean it?

Let’s have a look of the following cases. Scene 1. In an amusement park. It  has a varied role play sites. There was a long queue in front of one of the most favorite sites. A mother came with her two kids. Seeing the long queue and that some children who were in line were did not really watch the queue, the mother pushed her children to be inside the line, interrupting and cutting some kids in the line. The children who did not feel comfortable with their mother’s ‘strategy’ were ignored. They knew that what their mom did was wrong as they were thought not to interrupt the queue. Being under their mother insist, they could do nothing. Instead of sharpening the self value of her children, she ruined it.

Scene 2. In a coloring competition arena. The majority of the participants were gone. They had completed the task. Some children were still busy giving the drawing last touch. One little girl seemed unhappy. She looked helpless, worried and was about to weep. Her mom and dad were in the left side of the arena. They kept yelling at her, telling her to complete the coloring fast as the time was almost over. Yet, they kept directing which color to use, which area needs more colors, and which color is suitable for some particular areas. Meanwhile, the drawing was full with color. The girl had done her best, yet was not appreciated. The parents wanted the best colouing result, but neglected the fact that they destroyed their daughter’s self esteem and confidence.

Scene 3. In a small mushola on the basement of a big mall. The jamaah was in progress. The mushola is so small that could only hold around 20 people of women and men. Some of the women were employees of the shops upstairs. They have very limited time for break. A man came and joined the jamaah in the last sujud of the last rakaat. He was a masbuq for that Maghrib prayer. That is OK. But one thing was not OK that he pushed himself inside the mushola that actually could not accommodate more people. He placed his body right in the middle of the mushola door. So he had his half body inside, another half outside. What happened next was a crowd was standing waiting for a chance to go outside of the mushola, another big crowd was waiting to go in. We want our children to be a caring person, but what will they think if they see this condition. Do we want them to be pious to God, eager at praying to HIM, yet selfish towards others…

Those above scenes happen in our daily life. Have we become a children-friendly parent? Parents who keep consistency in teaching life values, parents who build the children’s character while keeping them at ease and parents who will always be a good role model for their children are in great need. Be one and you will get better nation in return in 20 years to come.

by: Ida

Mozilla Released Firefox Version 4 Beta

by Venda

Mozilla released their first beta version Firefox 4. Mozilla plans to issue new beta versions every two or three weeks in order to modify the browser in response to beta users’ comments.

There is a new add-on manager to support Google’s WebM for compressed video content. Firefox 4 beta 1 has improved responsiveness at start-up and during page loads. Other feature is Jetpack software development kit (SDK) for authors to create add-ons. It does not require users to restart their browser to install.

Other features include webSockets to build realtime online interactions (gaming and chat apps), support for Cascading Style Sheet 3 (CSS 3) and Web console.

To download Firefox 4 is here.

A New Move of Amazon

by venda

Are you so busy that you do not have time to shop? Are you too lazy to go shopping for your daily needs? or are you a customer of Tesco, Ocado or other online grocery store and would like to try new online grocery store?

Amazon has opened its online supermarket with stocks of 22,000 brands to satisfy its customers. What you can usually find in US and Europe but hardly in Britain, you can order them from Amazon, as James Leeson, Director of Grocery, said: ‘Our aim is to be the place where customers can find and discover any product they want to buy online.’

Amazon encourages bulk purchases of products with discounts. Not just that, it also offers unlimited next-day delivery for an annual membership fee of £49 with Amazon Prime.

Amazon move should make other online supermarkets to think of new strategies as an retail analyst of Nielsen Online said: ‘Supermarkets should be nervous as the Amazon name is so well known and is one of the original, oldschool online brands.’

American dream’ delivers jobs to Wall Street

When Larry Gould’s great grandfather first glimpsed the Statue of Liberty in 1912 he could never have guessed that nearly 100 years later his English great grandson would take a business back to the U.S. and bring jobs to Wall Street, with an office window overlooking that same statue.

Larry Gould, whose global translation and interpreting company, thebigword, turns over nearly $60 million USD, has cancelled his plans to expand his new operational facilities into South America or Eastern Europe and instead is investing in the U.S.

“The quality of people we can recruit in New York far surpasses those almost anywhere else in the world and due to the economic situation in the U.S., has led to a tremendous response to our recruitment drive,” says Larry Gould.

“We’ve also found that rentals have come down to a sensible level, which has enabled us to move into much bigger premises.  I fully appreciate that the economic downturn has caused pain for a lot of people, but it’s also delivered tremendous opportunities.”

thebigword has just announced a move into newly refurbished 10,000 sq ft premises at 20, Broad Street, a building which connects to the New York Stock Exchange in the centre of New York’s financial district.

Larry’s great grandfather, Isaac Krazinsky, was 32 when he arrived in Ellis Island as an impoverished refugee escaping persecution from  Poland.  Unable to speak the language, he sold matches for a living and when he could, sent money back to his homeland.

Larry’s mother was born in the U.S. and in 1930 returned to Europe with her parents, where she met Larry’s father, and built a life in England where Larry was born.

Larry says: “I was always aware of the American connection in my family.  As my business grew globally, I saw that our competitors were investing in cheap labour in South America and Eastern Europe.  Whilst low cost labour is important, the on-going business’s success depends on its employees and right now, the best people at competitive rates are in New York”.

“Having an office overlooking the Statue of Liberty that my great grandfather first saw really is an embodiment of the American Dream.”

thebigword started with four people in its New York office.  It now has 45 and is recruiting a further 30 to manage work on contract wins with major U.S. Government and private sector business.  Due to the enormous expansion  of Over the Phone Interpreting (OPI) which enables people who speak different languages to communicate over the phone and hold a one-to-one conversation via an interpreter, thebigword is also recruiting linguists for this division.

In total, thebigword expects to create 350 jobs in the U.S. and up to 600 within sub-contractors and its interpreter community.

via http://www.thebigword.com

Review: Motorola Quench

by: LIA TIMSON

You can’t blame Motorola, or any other phone manufacturer, for jumping on the Android bandwagon and launching a seemingly unlimited number of handsets to take advantage of Google’s free operating system.

So it was with some degree of marketing understanding that I took a Motorola Quench unit to review.

The Quench is not to be compared with that great Android phone, the HTC Desire, or the iPhone, of course.

It is sold as an entry-level 3G smartphone handset in Australia. At A$19 a month through Optus on a 24-month contract, it is priced to appeal to teenagers or as a second cheap handset for those addicted to multitasking.

Its promise is that it is an affordable “social phone” – one that aggregates its owner’s online social life or ‘happenings’ on one screen.

For this it uses Motoblur, the company’s way to serve all social posts, messages and pictures from Facebook, Twitter, MySpace plus email, in one stream.

That is all very well until you turn the phone on and realise that not even a single call can be made – apart from emergency calls – without you singing up and creating a Motoblur account first.

To make check out the phone, make calls, set up your contact book first or download a few apps or games, you must first enter Motorola’s walled garden.

It is ironic then that the phone should run on Android, the string-less operating system that was meant to set users free from dictatorial marketing ploys.

I like the idea of Android phones and the apparent freedom they offer, but being forced to join before going anywhere seems utterly contradictory.

Enough ranting.

Setting up your Motoblur account is ultimately problem-free. A Gmail address gets you in and starts off your social communication in a few seconds. You can then sign in to your other lives – Facebook, Twitter, MySpace – individually and soon enough your screen will be populated with posts.

An advantage of Motoblur is that it backs up your contacts and messages to the cloud, so you can bring it all back should your data get wiped out for any reason. You can even remotely wipe the data if the phone is lost or stolen – a service for which some phone manufacturers charge a monthly fee.

And because you’ll be permanently connected to Motorola via Motoblur, it can send software updates to the phone without you having to worry about it.

The handset itself is good value for what it costs. The hardware buttons feel slightly clumsy, but it has a 5 megapixel camera and a tactile rubber backing that betrays its cheap price.

The touch screen behaves adequately and the user interface is straight forward. The search button works both as a contact search and opens the browser on a Google search if on the home screen.

It doesn’t have a hardware button for the phone function, something I believe is crucial for a phone aimed at young people.

In an emergency, it is always easier to press a hard phone button than to wake the phone, unlock it and then have to touch the soft button on the screen to bring up the keypad.

Motorola says it has dual microphones and noise cancellation technology that enables clear calls – but I’m unsure this is perceptible to most users.

The Quench’s siblings are the Dext and the Backflip, also offering Motoblur.

Verdict: The phone is too restrictive for my liking, but if you’re 13, social networking rules your life and you don’t mind being in a walled garden, $0 on a A$19/month plan sounds good.

via http://www.stuff.co.nz

Microsoft sharpening Razor view engine for ASP.Net

By: Paul Krill

Microsoft is developing a “view engine” for its ASP.Net Web development platform, optimized around HTML generation via a code-focused templating approach, a Microsoft official said in a blog post.

A public beta release of the view engine, which is codenamed “Razor,” will ship shortly, said Scott Guthrie, vice president of the Microsoft Developer Division, in a late-Friday evening blog post. View engines, he said, are pluggable modules that implement different template syntax options. Other view engines used with ASP.Net have included Spark and NHaml.

“We think ‘Razor’ provides a great new view-engine option that is streamlined for code-focused templating.  It [features] a coding workflow that is fast, expressive and fun. Its syntax is compact and reduces typing — while at the same time improving the overall readability of your markup and code. It will be shipping as a built-in view engine with the next release of ASP.Net MVC (Model View Controller),” Guthrie said. 

Design goals for Razor including compactness, expressiveness, and fluidity, in which Razor minimizes the number of characters and keystrokes in a file and enables a fast, fluid coding workflow.

Microsoft intends for Razor to be easy to learn and to work with any text editor. Microsoft also is pondering how Razor could enable development of re-usable HTML helpers using a more declarative approach. Razor is designed to provide a rich code editing experience within the Visual Studio IDE.

“We will provide full HTML, JavaScript, and C#/VB code Intellisense within Razor-based files,” said Guthrie.

But Razor will not feature a new imperative language.

“Instead we wanted to enable developers to use their existing C#/VB (or other) language skills with Razor, and deliver a template markup syntax that enables an awesome HTML construction workflow with your language of choice,” Guthrie said.

In other application development news, Microsoft announced on Tuesday general availability of its Silverlight rich Internet plug-in technology for the Symbian mobile phone platform.

“We are very pleased to announce the general availability of Silverlight for Symbian. This brings the Silverlight experience to the 20+ million users of Nokia S60 5th edition Nokia 5800 XPressMusic and Nokia N97 devices,” the company said in a blog post.

Silverlight for Symbian features hardware-assisted playback of H.264 content, IIS (Internet Information Services) smooth streaming and rich UI capabilities.

via http://www.cio.com.au

IBM Acquires Enterprise Data Security Software Company BigFix

by Leena Rao

IBM is making another acquisition today, buying up computer security software company BigFix. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

BigFix security software identifies all of a company’s PCs, laptops, server and then monitors and flags IT administrators when devices are not in compliance with corporate IT security standards. Its software promises to make security fixes across at least 500,000 machines in a matter of minutes.

IBM says that this acquisition is important to helping Big Blue’s customers protect themselves against realtime security threats. IBm plans to include BigFix is a part of its Dat Center offerings. BigFix’s software is used by more than 700 customers including Miami-Dade County Public School BlueCross/BlueShield of Alabama, Allianz Global Investors and Princeton University and SunTrust Bank.

This year alone, Big Blue has acquired Coremetrics, Sterling Commerce, Cast Iron Systems, Initiate and Intelliden.

via http://www.techcrunchit.com