A day in the life: Winter Blues

A day in the life: Winter Blues: "February might be the shortest calendar month of the year; however it seems to be the longest out of the winter months. The shorter da..."

Winter Blues

February might be the shortest calendar month of the year; however it seems to be the longest out of the winter months.  The shorter days and presence of the fluffy white stuff everywhere takes a toll on some people.  They may begin to feel the pinch of the winter blues also known as “seasonal effective disorder”. (Wikipedia)  The disorder was defined in 1984 by Norman E Rosenthal.  “The US National Library of Medicine notes that some people experience a serious mood change when the seasons change.  They may sleep too much, have little energy, and may also feel depressed. (Wikipedia)

Other signs and symptoms include:

·         Difficulty in waking up in the morning

·         Nausea

·         Changes in eating habits

·         Cravings for foods rich in carbohydrates

·         Weight gain

·         Mood swings

·         Depression

·         Lack of enthusiasm

Common causes behind seasonal effective disorder are the lack of serotonin in the body’s system and the lack of vitamin D.  Serotonin is a chemical component in our system that helps the nerves to communicate with one another.  Low serotonin is the reason for increased appetite and depression like symptoms.  There are medications available to help regulate the body system back to the right levels. Vitamin D on the other hand helps with the development of our bones and teeth.  Vitamin D is produced naturally by the sun’s rays on our skin.  During the winter months, deficiency in Vitamin D is common from the lack of sun light. Taking a multi-vitamin daily with vitamin D-3 will help with the energy levels during the longer winter months.

What else can you do to help cope with the winter blues?  Here are a few simple and effective tricks you can do at home. 

Leave the curtains open before going to bed to allow natural light enter the room in the morning.  Get in the habit of getting out of bed right away after waking up and going outside even just for ten minutes.  This will help you to wake up and feel energized ready to tackle the day.  You may want to invest in a light box, however these are not regulated.  Make sure to use one with a diffusing screen to filter out UV rays.  It is important to get as much light as possible during the winter months to avoid the winter blues.

Spend at least a half hour outside.  Going out for a daily walk or getting involved with a winter sport or activity. Although they might not be visible, the sun’s rays are more direct during the winter months giving us plenty of Vitamin D.  Also the winter fresh air is very beneficial for breathing, especially for those with allergies, asthma or breathing difficulties. Being active during the winter will also help you to regulate your weight and shed off unwanted pounds.  It will also help to regulate the serotonin levels helping you ward off  the winter blues. 

Keeping a healthy life style even during the long winter months is essential for overall health.   Being in good mental and physical shape will help to prevent seasonal effective disorder and keep feeling your best.

Sources:

“Seasonal Affective Disorder”. Wikipedia-the free encyclopedia. 2011.  Web 25 January 2011. http://en.wikipedia.org/.

Bad Weather

Saying that driving conditions during the winter season on our Canadian roads are bad is an understatement.  Yesterday while driving back from Northern Ontario.  My family and I were re-directed off Hwy 11 to a back road.  Not knowing why until we seen the local news.  A 40 car pileup was the cause for the detour this afternoon. Low visibility mixed with bad road conditions were the cause of this massive pileup.  Tragically one woman died from this accident.  At this time we would like to offer our sincere sympathies to the family of the young woman. Our thoughts and prayers are with you in this time of mourning.

The storm had started in the early morning (aprox. 1:00am)  My husband and I had decided rather than taking chances on the road to pull over and find a place to stay for the night.  Once we took the road again later on in the morning.  We witnessed four collisions before being detoured due to the pileup. 
Even with police presence and seeing accidents some drivers did not seem to take the road conditions seriously continuing to drive at speeds of 100km/hour.
In our great Canadian weather, with the rapid changing conditions and sudden drops of temperature. We must as drivers exercise much procaution while driving.  It might look like a bright sunny day when you leave the house.  But that can change rapidly. 
For the few months of winter that are left.  Let's all do our part to make the roads a bit safer by taking our time out there.
Tragic accidents such as this one is a reminder of how dangerous the roads can be when you least expect it. 
Take care out there.

Relief for webs.com users

Uproar of happy voices was heard this afternoon as the webs.com websites finally came back to life.  Answers are still a bit sketchy on why the websites were actually down in the first place.  However the company marked the problem as solved within the forum. (http://support.webs.com)

“Apparently AT&T blocked username.webs.com due to it mimicking their login window. In other words a phishing site. The site was created - 2011-01-14 06:38:01.0 The site was reported to our abuse team and by AT&T Fri Jan 14 11:21:24 EST 2011 to our abuse team. Our abuse team froze the site - Fri Jan 14 13:02:05 EST 2011. Meaning the site was immediately no longer accessible. ATT was notified during this time of action taken. Additionally, I sent an email to their security team on 1/15/2011, which was posted in my updates.

Unfortunately, there was a break in communication within AT&T's internal departments/ This delayed knowledge of the action taken by Webs.com. Also, their Tier 1 team can not handle blockage issues and are trained to state no site is blocked regardless of the evidence. This is what I was told by several managers.

Thanks to you guys, the continual publicizing of the issue and our push on the back-end resulted in the blockage being removed. “

Cheers,
CT
Webs Management

The company continues to ensure its users that an incident such as this one is unlikely to occur again.  The company has plans to once again change their websites hosting name from webs.com to possibly prowebs.com as a safety measure.  Some are still skeptical however.  It sounds very similar to the situation the company had back in 2009 in which they opted to change their users name from freewebs.com to simply webs.com. 

It is a happy ending for most after a long 5 day black out which affected many small business owners and non-profit organizations.  Their websites are back up and visible to the general public. Some users such as myself, have opted to conduct their business elsewhere. 

In any event there is a harsh lesson to be learned here.  When conducting any kind of business online and/or other.  Extensive research into the company operations is essential.  Being a well informed as a consumer will protect you from this sort of disaster.

webs.com black out-5th day

Rolling into the 5^th day of the webs.com black-out, with no resolution from the webs.com team.  They are still claiming it’s an issue with ISP providers.  Ignoring every other possibility and not taking responsibility.

For most users this is frustrating to say the least.  They create a website with webs.com to conduct business or for non-profit organizations.  With the websites not being able to be viewed this causes a huge problem for the users who have invested time and money into creating and promoting their websites.

After looking deeper into webs.com company.  I have discovered that they have 19 pending complaints with the Better Business Bureau.  They have had similar “crashes” in the past in which case they have gone from “freewebs.com” to just simply “webs.com”.  There have also been reported cases of copyrights infringement charges, however I’m still waiting confirmation on that.

When I asked the Official Representatives hosting the “help forum” for the users of webs.com on what was being done on the issue from the part of webs.com. CT who is an employee of webs.com stated this:

“If I may Caroline just get an official statement from webs.com so that I can forward it along as well to others who are looking into this issue. I mean what I’m looking for is a formal statement on what exactly webs.com is doing other than advising it’s users on this forum to contact their ISP.
Is what I asked in the forum.

I did not get a response from Caroline, however CT said this:
The official statements are the updates Cec.
Cheers”

Now I take that as a “no comment” statement from the part of webs.com.

On the first day of the issue.  The Official Representatives of webs.com had asked the users of the forum to post their IP addresses, along with ISP users.  To help them eliminate some causes of the blackouts.  Users obviously were co-operative in trying to resolve the issue and did in fact provide this information to webs.com on the public forum.  It was never mentioned by any representative of webs.com that this information provided by the users would be posted at the top of the forum for public view. 

Today however, on day 4 of the black-out.  There was an up-roar in the forum as users realized that their IP addresses and private information about computer software was still posted at the very top of the forum.  Where the Official Representatives had been instructing all users to view for updates on the situation.  It took many pleas from the users in question, along with threats to legal action before the information was finally removed. 

In my opinion this is very bad practice for a company who professes to “be one of the top 150 best sites in the world.  With 20 million users and 50 million websites”. (from Official Representative at webs.com forum: Caroline)

On their website they also advertise “…the best tools, easy-of-use, innovation and reliability.” 

This is an issue that has gone past the scope of the public forum used by the webs.com representatives.  It should be addressed higher up in their corporation.  As previously mentioned this has affected small business owners and non-profit organizations.  Here is an example of one non-profit organization:

• “Severely Autism people cannot access the procedures you are advising. AT&T is my carrier. My website is down or blocked. I am losing Autism livelihood to support my independent special needs because of this. I do not use telephones. I cannot follow your procedures. I rely on webs.com to get this straightened out. AT&T & DHS cannot claim telecom immunity against an ADA / Sec. 504 discrimination lack of access claim, & they have a duty to fix it upoon webs.com contacting them and telling them webs.com is speaking for its disabled, blind, deaf, severely Autistic and other disbaled customers. So, pls. do something to get this fixed or have your legal team write an access letter to AT&T & DHS. DHS has its own C.F.R. that prohibits it from discriminating against disabled Americans & our access. So this makes no sense and is not okay to just leave our websites down / blocked for days, and tell us we have to fix it - webs.com is the one with the legal duty to get it fixed. That is the Autism disability access requirements of federal laws. Thx. Also, if AT&T is doing this, it is a Sherman Act restraiint of trade. If they are attacking webs.com, it is affecting severely Autism people with websites. They don't just get to restrain trade because they are big.  Mary Katherine May”

This is one example with over 400 others on the public forum experience the same issue.  Webs.com is not a company I want to be associated with if it does not care about it’s community.

30+ hours out and still no word from webs.com

It has been over 30 hours since the discovery of the webs.com websites going down.  The webs.com is not shedding any light on the subject.  There are currently 335 members on the forum that I am following. However, no official representative from webs.com present. 
We are seeing outages from accross the globe mostly in North America.  Many outside groups and forums are being created to inform the general public of this issue.  Most of us who have sites on webs.com are opperating business' through this website provider.  This becomes a frustrating time for us to try to inform everyone.  Naturally webs.com has not taken any action in helping with informing the public, rather it seems they are hiding away somewhere.
Sites to consider http://wwpmmedianet.wordpress.com/ updates on the situation.
                          http://www.complaintsboard.com/ there is an open discussion.

Webs.com website down

I have spent an exhausting day on a forum trying to resolve my website issue with my website service provider called webs.com
To no avail.  There was much back and forth blaming our Internet service providers, our IP address' not working ect...(this was done by webs.)
My Internet service provider was very pro-active in trying to resolve the issue.  In the end the tech. who was helping said it was an issue with webs. and not my IP or with my Internet.
What did webs respond?
"In regards to customers calling their ISP. Please note, free users are not exactly our customers but we are willing to assist in any way possible. Also, those having the issue are also customers of the ISP. Therefore, yes, we need for you guys to call them. " 
That is a direct quote from one of webs.com employees on the forum.  Now does that sound like a company you would want to deal with? 
First a little background.  Webs.com is a free provider to help you build your website.  They put advertising on your website, so in fact we are not free users.  Also it's not just the free users having an issue.  Those who paid to have a premium site (their own domain name) also could not access their websites.
My suggestion is not to use webs.com for any of your business ventures.  Their manner in deal with issues is very questionable.  I'm very upset as were the 300+ customers on the forum I was just on. 
I just lost 2 months of work, as well as my entire online business.  My website was my business, and now it's gone with no action being taken to fix the issue.

My dear friends, I ask with the power of Internet, lets not let webs.com get away with this.  Please forward this to anyone you know.  Get the word out there. 

Does the perfect research exist?

Cecile Gagnon

January 12, 2011

“…there is no hope for doing a perfect research”.

(Griffith’s 1998, p.97) Do you agree?

           

Research is a compilation of many thoughts and theories combined together to formulate one working idea.  To conduct a perfect research, would leave no room for further understanding or future advancements.  Searching, finding and creating on any level is vital to our evolution.  Making mistakes and re-designing is what turns a simple idea into actuality.  “…the definition of research includes any gathering of data, information and facts for the advancement of knowledge.” (Definition of research)

The need to expand on ideas furthers our society to reach a clearer understanding of our evolution while pushing the limits of our imagination.  Expanding on something simple such as using fire to keep warm or for cooking, escalating to more complicated ideas such as sending man to the moon. 

From the first mega computer to the notebook and hand held devices.  Such advances would not have been possible without extensive continuous research on the part of many dedicated individuals.  Computer technology and information connects our world.  The first computer stemmed from a simple idea, to create something that could easily store and organize data.  It “…was unveiled in 1946 at the University of Pennsylvania.  Conceived and designed by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert” (Wikipedia), along with a team of engineers to assist in the development.  The “Eniac” was designed to “…be reprogrammed to solve a full range of computing problems.”(Wikipedia)  The development of this first computer gave way to rapid technological advancements.  Telecommunications, scientific and medical advancements, weather predictions, planetary discovery and earth watching in general; have all been affected by the ideology behind the first computer.  Without continuous research, trial and error, these advancements would not have been possible.

Even the greatest minds of our time, constantly searched and re-designed their own inventions and theories in search of perfection.  Galileo for example, proved many theories with experimentation and changed the perception of how the Universe works.  However, he was never truly satisfied by his own work.  Galileo is well known for many things.  Nevertheless his invention of the telescope is by far the finest one.  He was never truly satisfied with his creation.  Galileo was continuously re-designing it in hopes of a clearer picture of the Universe.  With the use of his telescope, Galileo was able to see the craters on the moon.  Proving that the moon’s surface was not flat and smooth as previously thought.  He also made a striking revelation that the earth was not the center of the Universe.  Which led him to realize that the planets rotated around the sun, not the other way around as was the common belief of that time. This discovery opened the doors to many great scientific researchers into understanding how our surrounding world works.  Scientists such as Newton for example, expanded on Galileo’s theory of gravity.  Newton developed three laws of motion, backed by extensive research and mathematical calculation on the forces of nature and its motions due to those forces.

            Even with extensive research there are always unexplained variables to take into account.  A concept that is unexplainable due to lack of understanding.  This will baffle scientists or researchers for years, until a new theory or concept can be added to enlighten the unexplained variable.  “We may improve the quality and quantity of a research process but that doesn’t necessarily imply that we have done the perfect job.” (by Umardaud)  The endless search for the perfect research is what has redefined our understanding of the world around us and beyond.

References

Definition of research, experiment-resources.com, 7 January, 2011

Wikipedia-the free encyclopedia, 7 January, 2011

Unardaud, http://expertscolumn.com/, 8 January, 2011

Changing the tone

Hello everyone,

I have noticed recently that my postings are following a gloomy pattern.  As an optimist (I see the glass as being half full), I feel it’s time to change the mood around.  Discuss something positive to offset the negativity surrounding my blog before we all slip into a depression coma.

We see often articles written in news papers and magazines about the “influential people” of a specific year or era.  However, have you ever taken a moment to think of people who have been positive role models in your own life?  Someone who you looked up as a child or maybe it’s someone who you never met but agree with their principles. 

For me it’s a wide spectrum of people with no visible correlation between them; such as my husband, my grandmother, Ahmed Deedat and Angelina Jolie to name a few.  Although they have nothing in common with each other and two of them I have never met personally.  However, they have influenced me in different aspects of my life. 

I grew up in a single family household.  My grandmother was a strong character in my life as she helped my mother to raise me.  She was a confident woman with strong morals and values.  She gave me strength to believe in myself and my abilities always pushing me to achieve my goals.  “My (grandmother) was the most splendid woman I ever knew…I have met a lot of people around the world, but I have never met a more thoroughly refined woman than my (grandmother).  If I have amounted to anything it will be due to her.” (Charlie Chaplin.  He was speaking about his mother, but I changed it to grandmother to suit the context.)

Ahmed Deedat, was a writer and a confident public speaker.  He was a Muslim scholar with a broad range of knowledge not only about Islam but also about Christianity.  He spoke many different languages, which enabled him to have a clearer understanding of the religious scriptures.  This strengthened his ability to debate with Christian missionaries. “He was driven and goal oriented. He was focused and never let up until the job was done. He was sharp, perceptive, forthright, fiery, and daring in his challenge of those whom he debated, particularly against those who equal his missionary zeal and sense of audacity”. (IPCI website, he is the founder of this organization)  Despite criticism he stayed firm on his mission right up until his death in 2005.  He inspires me to speak and write freely on topics that I am most passionate about.   To always stay firm on your morals and beliefs despite the obstacles you might face.

Angelina Jolie, actress, business woman, mother of six children and humanitarian.  I respect her not only as an artist.  But as a mother who does not place distinction between her children.  Her inner strength and confidence shines through  everything she does especially her humanitarian work. 

She has won two humanitarian awards for her work in obtaining aid in many countries such as Cambodia, Darfur and Jordan.  She is also an ongoing activist for refugee rights.  She has also founded the MJP organization, which was created to further conservation efforts in the Northern Territory of Cambodia.  (see Lahle Wolfe, about.comguide to read the entire biography)  Angelina Jolie is a sign of independence and strength to all women. 

The last influential person to be highlighted is my darling husband.  He is the most stable character I have ever met.  When the world feels like it’s spinning too fast and out of control, he is always there to take my hand and guide me to safety.  He is a devoted to me and our two beautiful children.  We share the same goals, morals and even fears.  He is my truest companion in life.  He gives strength when I am weak, he is my legs when I cannot walk (I do mean that literally, I can’t even count the times he has had to carry me around the house because my legs just don’t want to work), my voice when I cannot speak.  He knows me completely, just by my eyes he can tell if I’m sick, happy, worried, mad, ect.  He inspires me every day to wake up and get out of bed and to continue our life journey together.

I end with a wise quote "When life hands you lemons, make lemonade".

The bystander effect

I was appalled this week while reading the Toronto Sun. The story of a young woman struck down by not one but two vehicles while she was crossing the street.  What makes this story even more sickening is the second driver who ran over the injured woman did not bother to stop.  Two sister's who witness the accident ran to the woman's side trying to comfort her and keep her warm until helped arrived.  They reported to the Toronto Sun that they couldn't believe how this tragic event did not seem to slow down the traffic from around them. 
As I was reading this story I was reminded of my first year psychology class.  My professor was giving a lecture on the bystander effect.  Which was introduced in the 1960's after the tragic death of "Kitty Genoves".  A New York city woman who was raped and stabbed to death near her apartment building.  Early reports suggested that 38 people had either witnessed or heard part of the attack however failed to call police.  This tragic event prompted psychologists to study the effects of violent acts and the way witness' respond to them.
Studies in these types cases showed that individuals are less likely to offer help in an emergency situation when other people are present.  One person will almost always assume that someone else is going to do something. Observers seeing other people not taking action take that as a signal that the correct response is not needed or appropriate. Some passer-bys might also fear their own safety and choose to ignore the situation assuming that someone else more qualified to handle it will come to offer help.  This is known as the bystander effect or diffusion of responsibility. 
Even with today's cell phone technology, those who happen to witness a crime of any kind will be hesitant to pick up their phone to report it to the police.  It usually isn't until much later once they hear about it on the news does it strike them that they were present at the scene and could have offered some assistance.  The implementation of anonymous tip lines such as crime stoppers has helped to give confidence to witnesses to report any information related to a felony.  These programs have helped police close many unsolved cases and give closure to the affected families.

Lesson to be learned, the next time your passing by a situation that doesn't seem right to you.  Don't hesitate pick up your phone and report the event to the proper authorities.