Comparing Hedonistic and Utilitarian Products Essay Example for Free

Comparing Hedonistic and Utilitarian Products Essay Utilitarian Consumption: The consumption of products has tangible benefit for consumer. In western culture, such products are often labeled as practical or necessary. Utilitarian products are purchased and consumed to satisfy consumer’s practical or functional needs. Utilitarian consumer behavior has been described as ergic, task-related and rational. In the marketing literature choice and decision with respect to utilitarian products and informed by the utility maximizing perspective. Thus the consumption of utilitarian products is more instrumental. The motivation initiating the need for a utilitarian product suggests that these products are primarily thought of in terms of their functional performance. Hedonic Consumption: The consumption of products for fun, amusement, fantasy, arousal, sensory stimulation, or enjoyment. Hedonic, pleasure-oriented consumption is motivated by the desire for sensual pleasure and fun. In western culture such products are often labeled as frivolous or decadent. The concept of hedonic consumption recognizes that individuals consume many types of products because of the feelings and images that are associated with the product. The cognitive motives driving the consumption of hedonic products are arguably the need to satisfy symbolic and value-expressive motives such as ego gratification, social acceptance and intellectual. Hedonic products have pleasure potential whereas utilitarian products perform functions in everyday life. Products with pleasure potential provide intangible, symbolic benefits and are likely to hold greater potential for evoking positive emotions in a consumer. Consumer decision making process: Consumers are often faced with these types of choices between hedonic and utilitarian alternatives that are at least partly driven by emotional desires rather than cold cognitive deliberations. Hence, these choices represent an important domain of consumer decision-making. Yet much of the pioneering work in behavioral decision theory has largely focused on the cognitive aspects of decision-making without exploring its emotional dimensions. Consumer decision is driven by functionality, usage and benefits out of various functions of product in the case of utilitarian consumption. But the decision making process is obsessed by symbolism, status, value-expression and social acceptance. For example: the decision of buying bread is driven is by its generic functions and attributes not by brand or image, which are already underlined and understood by every consumer. In case of designer suit the decision is influenced by its brand, image, labels and certain associations like brand ambassador , designer and promoters or co-owner also.

The Meaning And Purpose Of Life Philosophy Essay

The Meaning And Purpose Of Life Philosophy Essay What is the purpose of life? What is the meaning of it? Why are we here? Is there a God or isnt there? Which religion is the most correct? Is there an afterlife? There are too many questions that people have struggled for millenniums to tackle. In fact, the way we answer these questions will provide the ultimate context for everything else we do with our lives (Pavlina, 2005). So if nobody knows his purpose of life, maybe, each one of us should choose it independently. Here is a trick I think we should define the purpose of life but not the goals, because our goals may vary and some of them may be reached earlier than the life will end. However, the sense, the meaning passes through the whole life. So, the purpose of life is the life of purpose (Leider). Im Christian and I believe we are created in Gods image for relationship with him. Being in that relationship is the only thing that will ultimately satisfy our souls (Pavlina, 2005). But admittedly, I dont realize what will end the emptiness in my life, what exactly will end such a lack of fulfillment. It is true when people keep God out trying to find fulfillment in something other than God, they will never get enough of that thing. Augustine summarized it in such a way: You [God] have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee. So there is something inside every human being that cries out for significance; something inside of us that wants to know that we are not just breathing air, not occupying space, but were actually here for a reason and were making a difference. Im convinced there was something in the mind of God when he made each one of us; something that he wanted us to do while we were here. So purpose is not the process of figurin g out what I want to do with my life, but it is really a matter of aligning me with what was in the designers mind. I believe the key is to make a relationship with the creator; so that he can reveal you who you really are, and what your purpose is. My overall religion has effectively become a religion of personal growth. Every day I continue to combine my beliefs trying to bring them into closer alignment with my best understanding of how reality actually works. I think people have been used for many noble purposes in order to recognize the one they were designed for. Children are flowers of life. This is the reason to live. They continue human race, save our life experience, bring infinite happiness to their parents, and at last take care of them when they are old. Loveà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ I think it is the most pure feeling, the source of persistent, unreasonable happiness. One more thing is altruism. Such an unselfish concern for the welfare of others (Eddy, 1998) is an ideal human life. So I consider all these purposes are intended to evaluate my progress and inspire further progress in the realization of my life purpose. I dont believe that money and power can be our purpose of life. Yes, money may satisfy your needs. Power can give you the right not to carry out someones orders. However, people who have money and power are always surrounded with hypocrisy, jealousy, evil and hatred. I know for sure that we didnt come to this world to buy things and die. We came here because each one of us has a unique purpose that gives us a unique drive. So here Im asking myself: what is it that I do naturally; what is it that I do the best. I believe if the person find such an activity, he will be content, fullfilled. Since early childhood I loved to be an actress. I was occupied with puppet-theatre for 8 years. So Id always dreamed when I grew up, I would enter the theatrical university. I knew it is the best thing I could do act. I woke up in the morning energized, excited about the day, excited about my life. Coming back from school even if that day happenned to be a challenging day with many problems, I was full of power, passion and excitement because I knew I had my purpose. But I had such dreambusters as parents, society who told me You should not do that, Youre not god in that, and Thats not a good way to be. So I was completely suppressed and forgot about my dream. A nd now Im here, at LCC International University where Im studying business administration. It was my choice. But Im not happy. There is something that I know Im not in the right place in life. I dont want to do my job just to pay the bills and to be unsatisfied because this is not in alignment with who I am. So, maybe the purpose is being in the right place in the right time doing the right thing. You are what your deep driving desire is; As your deep driving desire is, so is your will; As your will is so is your deed; As your deed is so is your destiny (The Upanishads). There is no one individual on the planet that is not extraordinary. Every person is unique. So there is a potential within us to make a huge difference in the world within our certain sphere of influence because each one of us has a unique purpose.

Windows 7: An overview and analysis

Windows 7: An overview and analysis Windows 7 Windows 7 is the latest the most release version of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, netbooks, tablet PCs, and media center PCs.it uses Kernel type:Hybrid Windows 7 introduced a large number of new features, Presentations given by Microsoft is multi-touch support, Redesigned Windows Shell with a new taskbar,the Superbar Home networking system called HomeGroup, Some applications of Microsoft Windows, including: Windows Calendar, Windows Mail, Windows Movie Maker, and Windows Photo Gallery, are not included in Windows 7 but are offered separately as part of the free Windows Live Essentials suite. Features Windows 7 includes a number of new features, * The new Action Center, which replaces Windows Security Center.When the action center detects a security threat, it displays a thumbnail with problems listed. * such as advances in touch and handwriting recognition, * virtual hard disks for support * multi-core processors with improved performance, * boot performance improved , * DirectAccess, and kernel improvements. * Windows 7 adds support for systems using multiple heterogeneous graphics cards from different vendors (Heterogeneous Multi-adapter), * New version of Windows Media Center, Gadget for Windows Media Center, * the XPS Essentials Pack and Windows PowerShell also being included, * Redesigned Calculator with multiline capabilities such as Programmer and Statistics modes along with unit conversion. * Many new items have been added to the Control Panel,that including ClearType Text Tuner, Display Color Calibration Wizard, Gadgets, Recovery, Troubleshooting, Workspaces Center, Location and Other Sensors, Credential Manager, Biometric Devices, System Icons, and Display. * Windows Security Center has been renamed to Windows Action Center, which has both security and maintenance of the computer. * The default setting for User Account Control in Windows 7 has been criticized for allowing untrusted software to be launched with elevated privileges by exploiting a trusted application. * Windows 7 can also supports Mac-like RAW image viewing through the addition of WIC-enabled image decoders, this enables raw image thumbnails, previewing and metadata display in Windows Explorer,and aslo a plus full-size viewing and slideshows in Windows Photo Viewer and Window Media Center * Quick Launch toolbar has been replaced with pinning applications to the taskbar. Buttons for pinned applications are integrated with the task buttons. These buttons also enable the Jump Lists feature to allow easy access to common tasks.The revamped taskbar also allows the reordering of taskbar buttons. To the far right of the system clock is a small rectangular button that serves as the Show desktop icon. This button is part of the new feature in Windows 7 called Aero Peek. clicking over this button makes all visible windows transparent for a quick look at the desktop. * Additionally, there is a feature named Aero Snap, that automatically maximizes a window when it is dragged to either the top or left/right edges of the screen.This also allows users to snap documents or files on either side of the screen to compare them. When a user moves windows that are maximized, the system restores their previous state automatically. This functionality is also accomplished with keyboard shortcuts. * For developers, Windows 7 includes a new networking API with support for building SOAP-based web services in native code new features shorten application install times, reduced UAC prompts, simplified development of installation packages, and improved globalization support through a new Extended Linguistic Services API. * Microsoft announced that color depths of 30-bit and 48-bit would be supported in Windows 7 along with the wide color gamut scRGB . * The video modes in Windows 7 are 16-bit sRGB, 24-bit sRGB, 30-bit sRGB, 30-bit with extended color gamut sRGB, and 48-bit scRGB. * Windows 7 also includes 13 additional sound schemes, * It aslo allows multiple Windows environments, including Windows XP Mode, to run on the same machine, requiring the use of Intel VT-x or AMD-V. Windows XP Mode runs Windows XP in a virtual machine and redirects displayed applications running in Windows XP to the Windows 7 desktop. * Furthermore Windows 7 supports the mounting of a virtual hard disk (VHD) as a normal data storage, and the bootloader delivered with Windows 7 can boot the Windows system from a VHD. * The Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) of Windows 7 is also enhanced to support real-time multimedia application including video playback and 3D games, thus allowing use of DirectX 10 in remote desktop environments. Windows Vista Windows Vista OS was developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, for example home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs.Window Vista uses Kernel type :Hybrid.Windows Vista was known by its codename Longhorn .Microsofts primary stated objective with Windows Vista has been to improve the state of security in the Windows operating system. Windows Vista contains many changes and new features, including an updated graphical user interface visual style dubbed Windows Aero a redesigned search function multimedia tools including Windows DVD Maker redesigned networking, audio, print, display sub-systems. Vista aims to increase the level of communication between machines on a home network, using peer-to-peer technology to simplify sharing files and digital media between computers and devices. Windows Vista includes version 3.0 of the .NET Framework, allowing software developers to write applications without traditional Windows APIs. Features Windows Vista revised and incorporated new features and functionalities not present in its predecessors, especially those from Windows XP. End-user Windows Explorer in Windows Vista  · Aero:is a new hardware-based graphical user interface is named Windows Aero, which is to be more cleaner and aesthetically pleasing than those of previous Windows versions, including new transparencies, live thumbnails, live icons, and animations, thus providing a new level of eye candy.  · Shell: is significantly different from Windows XP, offering a new range of organization, navigation, and search capabilities  · Instant seach, Windows Vista features a new way of searching called Instant Search, which is significantly faster and more in-depth (content-based) than the search features found in any of the previous versions of Windows.[20]  · Sidebar,A transparent panel anchored to the side of the screen where a user can place Desktop Gadgets, which are small applets designed for a specialized purpose  · Explore7, New user interface, tabbed browsing, RSS, a search box, improved printing, Page Zoom, Quick Tabs, Anti-Phishing filter, a number of new security protection features, Internationalized Domain Name support (IDN), and improved web standards support.  · Windows Media Player 11, a major revamp of Microsofts program for playing and organizing music and video. New features in this version include word wheeling (or search as you type), a new GUI for the media library, photo display and organization, the ability to share music libraries over a network with other Windows Vista machines, Xbox 360 integration, and support for other Media Center Extenders.  · Mail, A replacement for Outlook Express that includes a new mail store that improves stability, and features integrated Instant Search. It has the Phishing Filter like IE7 and Junk mail filtering that is enhanced through regular updates via Windows Update.  · Calander is a new calendar and task application.  · Photo Gallery, a photo and movie library management application. It can import from digital cameras, tag and rate individual items, adjust colors and exposure, create and display slideshows and burn slideshows to DVD.  · DVDs Maker, a companion program to Windows Movie Maker that provides the ability to create video DVDs based on a users content. Users can design a DVD with title, menu, video, soundtrack, pan and zoom motion effects on pictures or slides.  · Media Centerwhich was previously exclusively bundled in a separate version of Windows XP, known as Windows XP Media Center Edition, has been incorporated into the Home Premium and Ultimate editions of Windows Vista.  · Games Explorer: Games included with Windows have been modified to showcase Vistas graphics capabilities. New games are Chess Titans, Mahjong Titans and Purble Place. A new Games Explorer special folder contains shortcuts and information to all games on the users computer.  · Speech reconginationis integrated into Vista. It features a redesigned user interface and configurable command-and-control commands. Unlike the Office 2003 version, which works only in Office and WordPad, Speech Recognition in Windows Vista works for any accessible application. In addition, it currently supports several languages: British and American English, Spanish, French, German, Chinese (Traditional and Simplified) and Japanese. Core The complete restructuring of the architecture of the audio, print, display, and networking subsystems; although the results of this work are visible to software developers, end-users will only see what appear to be evolutionary changes in the user interface. Vista includes technologies such as ReadyBoost and ReadyDrive which employ fast flash memory (located on USB drives and hybrid hard disk drives) to improve system performance by caching commonly used programs and data. This manifests itself in improved battery life on notebook computers as well, since a hybrid drive can be spun down when not in use. The new technology called SuperFetch uses machine learning techniques to analyze usage patterns to allow Vista to make intelligent decisions about what content should be present in system memory at any given time. It uses almost all the extra RAM as disk cache. In conjunction with SuperFetch, automatic built-in Windows Disk Defragmenter makes sure that applications are strategically positioned on the hard disk where they can be loaded into memory quickly As part of the redesign of the networking architecture, IPv6 is fully incorporated into the OS and a number of performance improvements have been introduced, such as TCP window HYPERLINK http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TCP_window_scale_optionscaling. For graphics, Vista introduces a new Windows Display Driver Model and a major revision to Direct3D. The new driver model facilitates the new Desktop Window Manager, which provides the tearing-free desktop and special effects that are the cornerstones of Windows Aero. At the core of the OS many improvements have been made to the memory manager, process scheduler and I/O scheduler. The Heap Manager implements additional features such as integrity checking in order to improve robustness and defend against buffer overflow security exploits, A Kernel Transaction Manager has been implemented that enables applications to work with the file system and Registry using atomic transaction operations. Linux linux development is one of the examples of free and open source software collaboration; typically all the underlying source code can be used, freely modified, and redistributed, both commercially and non-commercially, by anyone under licenses such as the GNU General Public License. Linux installed on a wide variety of computer hardware, ranging from embedded devices such as mobile phones and wristwatche. to mainframes and supercomputers.Linux is predominantly known for its use in servers; Technical features Linux supports true preemptive multitasking (both in user mode and kernel mode), virtual memory, shared libraries, demand loading, shared copy-on-write executables, memory management, the Internet protocol suite, and threading. Architecture Linux kernel map and bigger Interactive mapLinux is a monolithic kernel. Device drivers and kernel extensions run in kernel space, with full access to the hardware, although some exceptions run in user space. The graphics system most people use with Linux doesnt run in the kernel, Kernel mode preemption allows device drivers to be preempted under certain conditions. This feature was added to handle hardware interrupts correctly and improve support for symmetric multiprocessing (SMP). Preemption also improves latency, increasing responsiveness and making Linux more suitable for real-time applications. Kernel panic In Linux, a panic is an unrecoverable system error detected by the kernel as opposed to similar errors detected by user space code. It is possible for kernel code to indicate such a condition by calling the panic function located in the header file sys/system.h. However, most panics are the result of unhandled processor exceptions in kernel code, such as references to invalid memory addresses. These are typically indicative of a bug somewhere in the call chain leading to the panic. They can also indicate a failure of hardware, such as a failed RAM cell or errors in arithmetic functions in the processor caused by a processor bug, overheating/damaged processor, or a soft error. Linux is a monolithic kernel rather than a microkernel .The debate started in 1992 about Linux and kernel architecture in general on the Usenet. Unlike traditional monolithic kernels, device drivers are easily configured as Loadable Kernel Modules, and loaded or unloaded while running the system. Programming languages Linux version of the C programming language supported by number of short sections of code written in the of the target architecture. Intel claimed to have modified the kernel so that its C compiler also was capable of Many other languages are used in some way, primarily in connection with the kernel build process These include Perl, Python, and various shell scripting languages. Some drivers may also be written in C++, Fortran, or other languages, but this is strongly discouraged. Linuxs build system only officially supports GCC as a kernel and driver compiler. Portability While not originally designed to be portable, Linux is now one of the most widely ported operating system kernels, running on a diverse range of systems from the iPAQ , IBM System z9. Linux runs as the main operating system on IBMs Blue Gene supercomputers. Also, Linux has been ported to various handheld devices such as TuxPhone and Apples iPod. The Android operating system, developed for mobile phone devices, uses the Linux kernel. Virtual machine architectures The Linux kernel has extensive support for and runs on many virtual machine architectures both as the host operating system and as a client operating system. The virtual machines usually emulate Intel x86 family of processors, though in a few cases PowerPC or AMD processors are also emulaed. Mac OS X Tiger Mac OS X Tiger v10.4 is the fifth major release of Mac OS X,uses kernel Apples desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers. Tiger is also the first version of any released Apple operating system to work on Apple-Intel architecture machines (Apple machines using x86 processors).Tiger the longest running version of Mac OS X which was included with all new Macintosh computers. Features End-user features Apple advertises that Tiger has 200+ features, including: * Spotlight Spotlight is a full-text and metadata search engine, which can search everything from Word documents to iCal calendars to Address Book cards, as well as any text within PDF files. * iChat AV The new iChat AV 3.0 in Tiger can supports up to four participants in a video conference and ten participants in an audio conference. It also now supports communication using the XMPP protocol. A XMPP server called iChat Server is included on Mac OS X Tiger Server. * Safari RSS The new Safari 2.0 web browser in Tiger features a built-in reader for RSS and Atom web syndication that can be accessed easily from an RSS button in the address bar of the web browser window. * Mail 2 The new version of Mail.app email client included in Tiger featured an updated interface, Smart Mailboxes which utilize the Spotlight search system, parental controls, as well as several other features. * Dictionary/Thesaurus based on the New Oxford American Dictionary, Second Edition, accessible through an application, Dictionary, a Dashboard widget, and as a system-wide command . * .Mac syncing in Tiger are now accomplished through the .Mac system preferences pane rather than the iSync application. * QuickTime 7 A new version of Apples multimedia software has support for the new H.264/AVC codec which offers better quality and scalability than other video codecs. . * Xcode 2.0 Xcode 2.0, Apples Cocoa development tool now includes visual modelling, an integrated Apple Reference Library and graphical remote debugging. * Automator Automator uses workflows to process repetitive tasks automatically * Grapher Grapher is a new application capable of creating 2D and 3D graphs similar to that of Graphing Calculator. * Quartz Composer is a development tool for processing and rendering graphical data.  · AU Lab AU Lab is a developer application for testing and mixing Audio Units. * An upgraded kernel which optimized kernel resource locking and access control lists, and with support for 64-bit userland address spaces on machines with 64-bit processors. * An updated libSystem with both 32-bit and 64-bit versions; with the kernel change, this allows individual applications to address more than 4GB of memory when run on 64-bit processors. * A new startup daemon called launchd that allows for faster boots. * A new graphics processing API, Core Image, leveraging the power of the available accelerated graphics cards. * Core Image allows programmers to easily leverage programmable GPUs for fast image processing for special effects and image correction tools.for example Image Units included are Blur, Color Blending, Generator Filters, Distortion Filters, Geometry Filters, Halftone features and much more. * A new video graphics API, Core Video, which leverages Core Image to provide real-time video processing. Core Audio integrates a range of audio functionality directly into the operating system. The Apple TV, was ships with a customized version of Mac OS X v10.4 branded Apple TV OS that replaces the usual graphical user interface with an updated version of Front Row. Mac OS X Snow Leopard Mac OS X Snow Leopard v 10.6 is the seventh release of Mac OS X, Apples desktop and server Unix-based operating system. This version of Mac OS X focuses on improving performance, efficiency and reducing its overall memory footprint , rather than new end-user features. This is also the first Mac OS release since the introduction of System 7.1.2 that does not support the PowerPC architecture, as Apple now intends to focus on its current line of Intel-based products. Leopard, the company has acknowledged that there is no technical barrier preventing a direct upgrade from Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger. The recommended upgrade path for OS X Tiger is through the current release of the Mac Box Set, which includes OS X Snow Leopard, iLife 09, and iWork 09. Snow Leopard does not support PowerPC-based Macs (e.g., Power Macs, PowerBooks, iBooks, iMacs (G3-G5), all eMacs, although PowerPC applications are supported via Rosetta, which is now an optional install. Features * Boot Camp now allows Windows partitions to read and copy files from HFS+ partitions. The new version also adds support for advanced features on Cinema Displays and a new command-line version of the Startup Disk Control Panel. * The Finder has been completely rewritten in 64-bit Cocoa to take advantage of the new technologies introduced in Snow Leopard. This has resulted in a much smaller OS footprint, taking up about 7 GB less space than Mac OS X v10.5. iChat enhancements include greater resolution video chats in iChat Theater and lowered upload bandwidth requirements. * Microsoft Exchange support is now integrated into the Mail, Address Book, and iCal applications. However, only Microsoft Exchange 2007 is supported and customers using prior versions of Exchange must either upgrade or use Microsoft Entourage. * Full Multi-touch support has been added to notebooks prior to those introduced in October 2008.While the original MacBook Air and other early multi-touch enabled notebooks had support for some gestures, they were unable to use four-finger gestures. This limitation has now been removed in Snow Leopard. * Preview now has artificial intelligence algorithms that allow it to infer the structure of a paragraph in a PDF document. * QuickTime X, the next version of QuickTime player and multimedia framework, has been completely rewritten into a full 64-bit Cocoa application and builds on the media technologies in Mac OS X, such as Core Audio, Core Video, and Core Animation, to deliver playback. QuickTime X also supports HTTP live streaming and takes advantage of ColorSync to provide high-quality color reproduction. If Snow Leopard is installed on a Mac with an nVidia GeForce 9400M graphics card, QuickTime X will be able to use its video-decoding capabilities to reduce CPU load. * Safari 4 features Top Sites, Cover Flow, VoiceOver, expanded standards support, and built-in crash resistance, which prevents browser crashes caused by plug-ins by running them in separate processes. Safari 4 is not new to Snow Leopard, as it is available for free in Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) and 10.5 (Leopard). * Time Machine connection establishment and backups are now much faster. * Putting aside these important but long-term changes, here are Snow Leopards most immediately beneficial new features and enhancements. * ActiveSync Following in the footsteps of the iPhone, Snow Leopard makes these Microsoft technologies native to the OS.This giving users the same capabilities as with the better-designed, less-memory-intensive apps Mail, iCal, and Address Book included in OS X. * Exposà © integration in the Dock The Mac OS X Dock makes it easy to access applications, open documents, and common folders.Open documents are even more easily accessed in Snow Leopard, thanks to the integration of Exposà ©. click and hold an app icon in the Dock, you get preview windows for each of its open documents, allowing you to switch easily among them or to close them, all without having to clutter your screen with document windows. * Automatic location detection Snow Leopard changes the time zone for you automatically (if you set that as the default behavior), using Wi-Fi mapping to figure out where you are you will need to be connected to a Wi-Fi access point or router. iCal can also be set to adjust the times to the current time zone automatically, so your calendar always reflects the current times. * The new Preview now can open multiple PDF documents, display their contents as contact sheets, and show thumbnails of pages in a sidebar for easy navigation. In other words, it works a lot like Adobe Reader. Thats one fewer app to launch and since Preview loads much faster than Reader, you can get PDFs contents much faster now. * Movie and screencast recording Snow Leopard takes the formerly QuickTime Pro and makes it a standard, free app in Mac OS X. That means you can record movies and great for many marketing, education, and Web professionals screencasts from your Mac with no additional software. * Systemwide automatic text replacement Snow Leopard lets you specify such substitutions via the Keyboard system preference, so you have a common set of substitutions available to all applications. Right now, only TextEdit, Mail, and various Apple apps use this common auto-text service, but if other software developers adopt it, you may finally get all your text-oriented apps to autocorrect the same way. * No more gesture segregation Snow Leopard fixes that, so gesture-capable trackpads now support all gestures, no matter what Mac model you have. (Of course, your Mac has to have a gesture-capable trackpad, so models before 2006 arent helped out by this update.) 64-bit architecture Mac OS X Tiger added limited support for 64-bit applications on machines with 64-bit processors; Leopard extended the support for 64-bit applications to include applications using most of Mac OS Xs libraries and frameworks. In addition, the Mac OS X kernel has been rebuilt to run in 64-bit mode on some machines. On those machines, Snow Leopard supports up to 16 terabytes of RAM. Newer Xserve and Mac Pro machines will run a 64-bit kernel by default; newer iMac machines can run a 64-bit kernel, but will not do so by default. Users wishing to use the 64-bit kernel on those machines must hold down the numbers 6 and 4 on the keyboard while booting to get the 64-bit kernel to load. A change to the com.apple.Boot.plist will also enable users with compatible computers to permanently boot into 64-bit for those wishing to do so. Security An anti-malware feature was added to the system that alerts the user if malware is detected. Despite the lack of ASLR, Apple has strengthened OS X by implementing stack protection, and sandboxing more OS X components such as the H.264 decoder in QuickTime and browser plug-ins as a separate process in Safari.

Pollution Essay: Silent Spring, How Rachel Carson Changed the World :: Environment Environmental Preservation

Silent Spring - How Rachel Carson Changed the World On September 27, 1962 Rachel Carson released her sixth book, Silent Spring. On publication day, the advance sales of Silent Spring totaled 40,000 copies and another 150 copies were sent to the Book of the Month Club (Frontline: Fooling With Nature, 1998). Silent Spring remained on the bestseller list for almost a year. The world was beginning to take notice. Countless experts and organizations have proclaimed Rachel Carsonà ¢s book the starting point of the environmental movement. Carson described numerous case studies where the use of hazardous pesticides, insecticides, and other chemicals led to environmental problems all over the world. Whether directly or indirectly, everything in the environment is connected and affected by each other. Silent Spring describes, in depth, the harmful effects that chemical control has placed on all components of the environment. They include: air, water, land, wildlife, plant life, and humans. I will discuss each of these categories as examined in Silent Spring along with my personal analysis. First I will discuss the damage from chemicals released in the air. Aerial spraying of pesticides, mostly DDT, began on a small scale over farms and forests. With the development of new insecticides and the availability of planes from the war, the sky almost literally turned into a shower of toxic chemicals. The justification behind the massive sprayings of the 1950à ¢s was to exterminate exotic species like the fire ant, and the gypsy moth. The spraying was extremely careless, and resulted in heavily populated towns and cities repeatedly being sprayed with DDT (Carson, 1962). Unfortunately, people and wildlife sprayed with DDT along with other chemicals had no warnings and no way to protect themselves. The government, without consent of those affected, risked the health of those exposed to the pesticides and the quality of the environment. Nearly everyone was exposed to the risks, in a direct or indirect way, from the extensive aerial spraying. As described in the book, the gypsy moth is not a native of the United States. It had persisted in the U.S. for a great number of years without any need for extensive control measures. Carson states, à £Yet drastic action was suddenly taken against them under the end-justifies-the-means philosophyà ¤ (Carson, 1962, p.156). Therefore, unnecessary health risks and damage to the environment were considered acceptable in order to eliminate the gypsy moth, which has repeatedly been unsuccessful. One reason the gypsy moth still thrives is because, like many insects, they have developed resistance to the chemicals targeted against them.

criminal factors Essays -- essays research papers

What makes criminals? Have you ever wondered why some social groups are more prone to crime than others are? Should we conclude that some groups are more prone to crime or that they are just put in a situation that makes them more likely to commit crimes? In spite of the research in the past years there is still no conclusive evidence as to why some people in the same situations choose to commit crimes while the others don’t. There are numerous reasons that offenders resort to crime; Families, gender, economic status, age, and race are all valid explanations said by many theorists as to why certain social groups commit crimes, and why certain groups stay away. Married life is the norm of our society but it can also cause strain and anguish. Along with the anointing of a new life, there also comes new problems. Often times the choice of getting married is the first major decision in a young man or woman’s life, and soon there are more relatives, more bills, conflicting plans, annoying habits that one’s spouse may develop, children, being that fifty percent of all marriages end in divorce, these are things that most couples cannot overcome, society is to the point where for every marriage there is a coinciding divorce. When these new hurdles are not overcome then a broken home is the most common result. When this happens, then the likelihood of a person being driven to crime skyrockets. One starts to think that they are worthless and that they are destined to be lonely forever, once this occurs, crime is their next option. A broken family can generate in different ways, divorce, death, or separation. Marriage is a common but no t the most likely reason that some resort to crime. Someone who usually commits a crime at a young age is often identified as a born criminal, these reckless actions for a helpless and innocent child are passed down as a result of hereditary traits that pass from one generation to the next. It is said that these offending children do not know any better because of their traits, and the enviroment that they are brought up in (Erikson 1964). These children specialize in crime and delinquency just as others may specialize in the classroom or sports. They aren’t able to tell the difference between a deviant act or something productive such as an A in the classroom. â€Å"When we define someone or some group as deviant - we strengthen ... ... On average, inmates are younger than the general population. It is apparent that some social groups are in situations more conducive to crime, because of the environment they live in. Boys and men dominate in crime. Arrest, self report and victimization data all reflects that boys and men perpetrate more conventional and serious crimes than girls and women. It appears that boys and men no longer are "normal subjects" of violence and that as equal rights and feminist groups become stronger and more profound so to do women in crime. In terms of race and crime, crime will continue among minorities until an equilibrium in social class and job ranking is met. The question of economics as a cause of crime finds that people are not forced into crime because they are poor, but because they are not capable of getting the luxuries that they have deemed necessities. They have gone from being in a comfortable, employed state to an unemployed and very difficult state and no longer can live beyond their means. In conclusion, law offenders feel that by becoming criminally active they can elaborate themselves of any social or psychological problem they may have. criminal factors Essays -- essays research papers What makes criminals? Have you ever wondered why some social groups are more prone to crime than others are? Should we conclude that some groups are more prone to crime or that they are just put in a situation that makes them more likely to commit crimes? In spite of the research in the past years there is still no conclusive evidence as to why some people in the same situations choose to commit crimes while the others don’t. There are numerous reasons that offenders resort to crime; Families, gender, economic status, age, and race are all valid explanations said by many theorists as to why certain social groups commit crimes, and why certain groups stay away. Married life is the norm of our society but it can also cause strain and anguish. Along with the anointing of a new life, there also comes new problems. Often times the choice of getting married is the first major decision in a young man or woman’s life, and soon there are more relatives, more bills, conflicting plans, annoying habits that one’s spouse may develop, children, being that fifty percent of all marriages end in divorce, these are things that most couples cannot overcome, society is to the point where for every marriage there is a coinciding divorce. When these new hurdles are not overcome then a broken home is the most common result. When this happens, then the likelihood of a person being driven to crime skyrockets. One starts to think that they are worthless and that they are destined to be lonely forever, once this occurs, crime is their next option. A broken family can generate in different ways, divorce, death, or separation. Marriage is a common but no t the most likely reason that some resort to crime. Someone who usually commits a crime at a young age is often identified as a born criminal, these reckless actions for a helpless and innocent child are passed down as a result of hereditary traits that pass from one generation to the next. It is said that these offending children do not know any better because of their traits, and the enviroment that they are brought up in (Erikson 1964). These children specialize in crime and delinquency just as others may specialize in the classroom or sports. They aren’t able to tell the difference between a deviant act or something productive such as an A in the classroom. â€Å"When we define someone or some group as deviant - we strengthen ... ... On average, inmates are younger than the general population. It is apparent that some social groups are in situations more conducive to crime, because of the environment they live in. Boys and men dominate in crime. Arrest, self report and victimization data all reflects that boys and men perpetrate more conventional and serious crimes than girls and women. It appears that boys and men no longer are "normal subjects" of violence and that as equal rights and feminist groups become stronger and more profound so to do women in crime. In terms of race and crime, crime will continue among minorities until an equilibrium in social class and job ranking is met. The question of economics as a cause of crime finds that people are not forced into crime because they are poor, but because they are not capable of getting the luxuries that they have deemed necessities. They have gone from being in a comfortable, employed state to an unemployed and very difficult state and no longer can live beyond their means. In conclusion, law offenders feel that by becoming criminally active they can elaborate themselves of any social or psychological problem they may have.

The Trip: Journey To The Center Of Terence Mckennas Inner Self. :: essays research papers

The Trip: Journey to The Center of Terence McKenna's Inner Self. Terence McKenna has become one of the most (in)famous figures in the exploration of psychedelia and its impact on society and technology. Here McKenna espouses his theories on psychedelic mushrooms, virtual reality, shamanism and evolution. This is definitely one of the strangest and most interesting articles I have ever read. At first it seems almost totally incomprehensible and inconceivable, but after reading it over a couple of times with a good dictionary and thesaurus it begins to make sense. In this article McKenna explains one of his trips on magic mushrooms. He describes this trip as â€Å"a virtual reality tour of God's cerebral cortex, hosted by the Lucky Charms leprechaun†. He then goes on to tell how this trip affected his life and how it was such a complete shock that it caused the literal turning inside-out of his intellectual universe. He was knocked off his feet and set himself the goal of understanding this. His quest led him all over the world, exploring traditions of magic-religious drug usage. In the years since his fateful encounter with the self-transforming machine elves of hyperspace, McKenna has fashioned his mental Merzbau on the New Age lecture circuit, where he has earned the benediction of the psychedelic High Priest himself, who dubbed him â€Å"the Timothy Leary of the 90's†. McKenna has written several books as well as having rave bands set his ruminations to billowing techno-trance music. The main focus of this article is on McKenna's theory, which is concocted from psychedelic Darwinism, fringe linguistics, and New Age eschatology. This theory is based on the notion that â€Å"Hallucinogenic plants may have been the catalysts

Evaluation of Literature Reviews of Three Articles Essay

A literature review is a report of information published earlier from books, journals, newspapers, or any reliable articles that show relevance and significance to the research study being conducted. It is not just a summary of knowledge and scholarly opinions on a specific topic by scholars and academic researchers, but it is also a critical   analysis of various literatures that seeks to determine what knowledge and ideas are already known that   serve as the guide and support to the thesis statement and objective of the research study being conducted (Taylor, 2006). A literature review is the part of an academic research study that helps understand the research problem. From this, it can be viewed that a literature review must have the following criteria: (1) shows diversity of ideas, theories and opinions by reviewing the most recent literatures but also acknowledges old literatures whenever needed (e.g. for historical purposes); (2) not simply summarizes the literatures available but most importantly, it critically analyzes, describes, and compares such literatures in an organized manner; and (3) should address the issues or problems that leads to the achievement of the objectives of the research study being carried out.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   A good literature review can be best described by analyzing the literature review section of at least three articles, comparing and contrasting them using the four criteria mentioned above. Article 1 is entitled ‘Integrating Earnings and Cash Flows Per Common Share’. The article aims to determine the importance of reporting both the earnings per share and the cash flow per share and how such reports can provide information about the financial health of an organization. Article 1’s literature review is good because it was able to present various recently published studies that show what happened when only the earnings per share was reported, giving emp hasis on the importance of timely reporting both the earnings per share and the cash flow per share ; that is, it was able to provide a good theoretical framework for the study, helping the authors achieve the article’s objective. The authors are aware of the purpose of the study and that the article is intended for accountants, financial analysts, managers and accounting and finance students, thus they were able to review and analyze significant past studies that can address the issue without the need to define technical financial terms. Most of these studies were published recently, between the years 1997 to 2005, ensuring that the content of the literature review is not outdated for timeliness is important in dealing with technical issues like financial and accounting issues. The review also reflects a diversity of relevant ideas about the topic. However, the literature review is not well organized; a literature is discussed in a paragraph and the next paragraph discusses another literature without logically correlating one from the other as if the next paragraph is for another topic. The authors could have used words such as moreover, for instance, or furthermore that help readers understand clearly the comparisons and relationships between the literatures being reviewed.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The next article is entitled ‘Security Returns and the Value Relevance of Accounting Data’ which was published in 1999. The article is very technical in nature that readers without a good background in accounting cannot be able to fully understand the article. In fact the article was presented at the American Accounting Association Doctoral Consortium and at the American Accounting Association/Taiwan Accounting Association First Globalization Conference, which means that the author is very much aware of the audience who will benefit the article. Since it was presented in a conference of professional accountants, the article can be used as an academic source for students and other accountants. It aims on determining the relationship and relevance between a firm’s accounting data and the returns it gained. The literatures reviewed present evidences that address this issue and show that accounting data reflect the financial gains, conditions and events in a firm which are important in decision-making. However,   the journals used as references are quite old which were actually published between the years 1940 and 1999. It would be better if the authors found and used research studies that have recent and newer ideas about the issue because â€Å"the more recent the study, the more valuable it tends to be† (Literature Review, 2004.). The literature review is also very brief but shows comprehensiveness and organization although it does not show a diversity of opinion because it uses only few literatures.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The third article is about human resource management entitled ‘Why people stay: using job embeddedness to predict voluntary turnover’ published in 2000. Its literature review section reviews and compares various peer-reviewed journals and academic books that dealt with theories about employee turnover, motivation, job satisfaction, employee attitudes, organizational behavior, and job commitment. Among the three articles, this article is the most organized research study as well as the one having the most diverse ideas and theories, resulting to a very comprehensive review. It uses headings and subheadings to indicate changes in topic and subtopics. Its content includes past and current theories, reflecting that the authors acknowledged and effectively integrated these theories to come up with better findings that help achive the objectives of the study. The authors have effectiveley compared and contrasted such theories that resulted to more reliable conclusions. The review is an effective reference to managers, professionals, and various organizations as well as students to be able to have knowledge on employee retention. References: Easton, P. (1999) Security Returns and the Value Relevance of Accounting Data,   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Accounting Horizons 13:4, pp.399-412 â€Å"Literature Review† (2004) retrieved online on March 9, 2007   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     http://library.ups.edu/instruct/ricig/comm105/litreview.htm Mitchell, T., Holtom, B., Lee, T., and Erez, M (2000) Why People Stay: Using Job   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Embeddedness to Predict Voluntary Turnover   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Academy of Management Journal, 44:8; 1102-1121 Stone, K. and Niemeyer, R. (2005) Integrating Earnings and Cash Flows Per Common   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Share, The Journal of Theoretical Accounting Research, Fall, 1, 1, Accounting    and Tax Periodicals, pp. 63- 76 Taylor, Dena (2006) The Literature Review: A Few Tips on Conducting It   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Retrieved online on March 9, 2007   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   http://www.utoronto.ca/writing/litrev.html