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OK, you have decided you want to know how to set up a fish tank so that you can get started with your latest passion. You now know and understand that the hobby of keeping an aquarium can not only be a beautiful hobby but a very soothing one as well. Some experts even say that watching fish in an aquarium is very good for your health because of its calming values. The key is to learn how to set up a fish tank before you get too far ahead of yourself.

When you have decided that it is time to learn how to set up a fish tank the first thing you need to know is there are lists of things you are going to need to get started. Of course you are going to need the fish tank, next you will need a filter system, then a heating system and the right kind of gravel will also be needed, then water and a fish tank lid with a light in it. Another important thing you will need to consider is ornaments for the inside of your tank. This could be anything from driftwood, bought fake ornaments to live or plastic plants.

Below you will find six simple steps as to how to set up a fish tank. These steps are just to help you scratch the surface and you should be responsible enough to find the materials to get the exact information that will be needed. At least this will give you sort of a list of how the steps should be followed.

1. Before you learn how to set up a fish tank you will need to make some decisions. The biggest one of all will be what kind of fish you decide to keep. Different fish require different care. For example fresh water fish are totally different from salt water fish. While fresh water fish are easier to maintain, the salt water fish are much nicer to watch but harder to bring up. Studying your options here can be part of your homework.

2. Of course from your research and the list above you should know exactly what you need by now. It’s time to head over to your pet store and purchase the items that will be needed now that you have an idea on how to set up a fish tank. Just remember you have done your research so be careful as to what the people at the store try to up sell you to.

3. You are finally home and the time to set up the tank has arrived. Probably the most important decision you will make is where you will put the tank. You want it somewhere so it can be enjoyed by everyone and the coolest thing about a beautiful fish tank is that it can easily be worked into the decor of a home. The next thing you will be doing is adding the filter, along with the heater, gravel and finally the water. Now there are two more things to do in this step. The first will be to turn the heater to the appropriate temperature and get all the decorations placed inside. Finally you can put the lid on and walk away.

4. I know you are excited because you took the time to learn how to set up a fish tank but your patience is still required. You want to wait at least a week; two would be better before adding any fish to the aquarium. I know this sucks but really it is what you must do. This allows time for the temperature to be adjusted to exactly what you need, it allows you to find out if the filter is working and of course by this time you will also know if there are any leaks in the tank.

5. The time has finally come. You have waited so patiently but now you get to go out and get your fish. I would imagine by now you have an idea of what kind of fish to get. The biggest tip I could give you is to make sure you pick breeds that are going to get along with each other. Of course only buy an amount that’s suitable to the size of your tank. Be sure to pick fish that look healthy. Of course keep the price inside your budget as well. Most importantly choose fish that you are going to enjoy watching for a long time to come.

6. Now that you have done all your homework and you learned how to set up a fish tank there is still one more very important step. That step is to make sure you learn everything about maintenance. Make sure you feed the fish, check the filters and so forth and so forth. Preventative maintenance will go along ways towards keeping your fish alive a lot longer.

There, now you know how to set up a fish tank. Just remember it is of vital importance that you do all your homework before hand. Take the time to get your hands on all the proper information and take the time to learn it. There is nothing worse than coming down in the morning to enjoy your beautiful fish and finding one or more floating on the top.

I wanted to leave you with a few more tips before you get on your way.

You will be using electrical equipment after you learn how to set up a fish tank. For your own safety only use them as to what is recommended.

Keep your lid on the tank. It has 2 very important purposes. It keeps the fish from jumping out and it keeps the water from evaporating too fast.

Make sure you have sufficient ornaments for those fish that you buy which may be shy. This will help them live a much easier life, thus they will live longer.

So now that you have read this article you can move forward into the fine details as in how to set up a fish tank.

Wendy wants you to make sure you have everything in place before you learn how to set up a fish tank. She has been dealing with the aquarium life for over 20 years and wants you to get your advice from an expert. Wendy has just started giving advice online after visiting her pet store to find out that no one there could help her. She soon realized that many of these people were not educated enough to help rookies follow through on an aquarium plan. If you are interested in fish you must visit her website at Set Up A Fish Tank.

You can also visit her other articles at http://www.squidoo.com/cichlidcare.

When was your last team celebration? Have you been way too busy to bother? Sometimes we get so caught up in day-to-day work that we don’t take the time to step back and celebrate success. Some teams may even consider team celebrations as “silly.”

It’s critical to celebrate success if you want your team to maintain their high performance. Successes are the “motivating fuel” that keeps all of us pushing toward achieving the “bigger and better” goals that we set.

What types of team interaction and discussions normally occur on a day-to-day basis with your team? If you’re like most businesses, it’s along the lines of the following:

- What’s going wrong with the current project.

- Recovering from changes that impact your product or service schedule negatively.

- How to satisfy a disgruntled customer.

If all of your team interactions focus on what’s wrong with your business, what happens over time? Team members lose sight of the positive things they do. This can have a demoralizing effect on a team and your business.

Team celebrations help a team bond together. This helps the members maintain focus on their common goals and direction. And, celebrations often help team members deal with stressful changes and prevent “burn-out.” They provide revitalization for the team.

Has your team celebrated any successes lately? What did they celebrate? How did they celebrate? For some teams, it’s necessary to add structure to the celebration process to ensure that they make the time. To do this, use our three-step process:

1. Identify What To Celebrate

2. Determine How To Celebrate

3. Create A Celebration Action Plan

1. Identify What To Celebrate

It’s important to determine what events or activities the team should celebrate. These can be major events or events that help the team reach a milestone. Get your team together and brainstorm a list. Your list might look like the list below.

- Identifying and solving a major roadblock (e.g., customer or quality related issue).

- Taking on added responsibility.

- Adding new team members.

- Dealing with a project crisis.

With the group together, determine the activities your team wants to celebrate.

2. Determine How To Celebrate

Next, identify how you could celebrate. Again, with your team together, brainstorm some celebration activities. These don’t have to be major. They could be fun stress relievers or activities that help make your team more visible to upper management. Some ideas are included below:

- Create a presentation for upper management highlighting the team’s achievement. Present with all team members in attendance.

- Have the entire team meet with a customer during an on-site visit.

- Invite a senior manager to your team meeting.

- Bring snacks to a team meeting.

- Put congratulatory posters on the wall.

Determine how your team would like to celebrate. Remember, team celebrations don’t have to be expensive, time consuming, or difficult to plan. Team celebrations can be formal or impromptu. The key of the team celebration is that it must be sincere.

3. Create A Celebration Action Plan

Create a celebration action plan for the team for (at least) the next six-month time frame. Once the action plan is created, have your team plan the first celebration that will occur in the coming months. This gives them something to look forward to while accomplishing team objectives.

It will take a little effort on your team’s part to complete this process, but the pay back in productivity will be worth it. Get going. It’s time to celebrate!

Denise O’Berry (aka ‘Team Doc’) provides tools, tips and advice to help organizations build better teams. Find out more at http://www.teambuildingtips.com

Hyper text preprocessor (PHP) and Active-server-pages (ASP) are the two standard programming languages for website application development and more significantly when it comes to produce database-driven websites to interrelating hugely with databases. PHP is an open-source programming language which is derived from lots of different languages. On the other hand ASP is such kind of programming languages which preferring Microsoft product mostly.

Both programming languages PHP and ASP are used to develop dynamic database oriented websites. Active Server Pages (ASP) is normally from Microsoft and is used only with Internet Information Server (I.I.S.) that runs on Microsoft Servers also. But on the other hand you can say PHP is platform independent programming languages and can connect with several kinds of databases.

There are a lot of differences between ASP and PHP.

Expenditure

To run ASP.net programs first need to install I.I.S. on a Windows server platform, this is not a free package. PHP programs can run on Linux, which is free package. Even the database connectivity is expensive for ASP, because it require ms-S.Q.L product of Microsoft that needs to be acquired. Same time on the other hand PHP generally uses My-S.Q.L for database connectivity, which is freely accessible.

The Simplicity in Coding

PHP codes itself are very light in weight, a contract programmer who begins his career into PHP, does not felt any pressure to look the source code to understand. Whereas In ASP codes are not so easy to quick understand.

Database Compatibility

PHP generally being extremely flexible as it uses My-S.Q.L for database connectivity, which is freely accessible. Same time on the other hand Database compatibility is expensive for ASP, because it require MS-S.Q.L product of Microsoft that needs to be acquired.

General Run Time

If we evaluate the running speed of PHP and ASP then PHP should gets the upper hand. Normally it is viewed that PHP code runs quicker than ASP code. Due to COM based architecture, ASP uses server space to run while PHP code runs on its own inbuilt memory space.

Background Language Support

ASP has a similar like Visual Basic type of syntax that also linked to Microsoft products as well. On the other hand PHP codes are based on generally C++ language and the syntax, which is used in PHP, is quite similar to C/C++ syntax. C/C++ is still considered by maximum software programmer is the finest programming language and people who love C++ language would certainly feel more relaxed with the PHP syntax.

Running Platform Connectivity

PHP codes can run on different platforms like UNIX, Linux, and Windows whereas ASP codes are mostly linked with Windows platforms. Though, ASP programs can run on a Linux platform with the help of ASP-Apache installed on the server.

Further Tools Cost

Several tools used in PHP are mostly free of cost in the market and as PHP is open source a lot of codes can be available in open source forums and blogs. PHP has inbuilt attributes like ftp, encryption methods, even email also from a web page but in ASP such attributes are not obtainable and for this reason only some more features are required which are not free that increase the total cost as well.

Larger Applications Support

PHP is just as protected as ASP from coding level. The main difference is only for private data like “social security numbers”; “PIN numbers” etc. ASP is more practicable option. Organizations like government firms normally don’t have much stipulated commercial budgets and looking for required security, they really helpful ASP.net.

At the end, we can make a conclusion that both programming languages have their advantages and disadvantages specific to user requirement. It can be said that both the programming languages have their own significance depending upon the users requirements and budgets. It is viewed that in any discussion board, ASP.net is similarly capable but many of them suggesting PHP for small business owners those who have a fixed budget and does not required superb security support. PHP cannot provide e-commerce application development, only for them ASP.net will be the best choice.

Joanna Gadel is working as a freelance programmer for GetAProgrammer.com.au. She gathers years of knowledge by handling programmer jobs and system administration for the “Get a Programmer” support team.

Any great Chef, worthy of his reputation, will tell you that Gourmet cooking is an art form. To prepare a truly genuine gourmet meal you must be willing to cook from scratch using the best of everything that is required for your recipe and, of course, this will mean being very selective in your choice of meat, fish or produce. Food items should be chosen for their freshness and quality and appearance.

Those who possess the ability to achieve the highest standards in creating gourmet cooking are usually very successful in this field. As well as being able to command a high salary for their services they can achieve a high status in this profitable, yet meticulous, industry. For those talented professionals endless opportunities are open to them whether it be opening and running a catering establishment, designing cookery books or guesting in cookery programmes on television. The better they master their craft the more in demand they will be.

Being a successful gourmet cook is not only reliant on a certain amount of artistic flair but an element of science is required. Gourmet cooking does require study and dedication, but, above all, will only succeed if the gourmet cook is brave enough to experiment with ingredients that he or she knows will combine well together. A good gourmet good will possess an exceptional palate. So, with the courage of their convictions they can create a sublime taste experience.

The choice of menu for a gourmet cook is in some way reliant upon what ingredients are at their best for that time of year. A good gourmet cook would make a sacrifice on the quality of their meat or produce. Knowing how to flavour your dish correctly is quite a talent. You need to be able to distinguish subtle flavours of herbs and spices in your dishes, as well as whatever else you have included in your creation. Your ingredients should complement each other, not one overpowering the other.

We take our enjoyment in gourmet food from many of our senses. Of course, the flavour and texture must be perfect, but your dish must be visibly appealing. Garnishing is an important element to gourmet cooking and will enhance the appearance of your dish. We also rely on our sense of smell to increase our pleasure in food and the inclusion of ingredients that have a wonderful bouquet all add to the experience All your dishes should be presented with care and creativity, and skillfully arranged.

Attention should always be taken when displaying your meal, regardless how simple or complicated it may be. With a little artistic license even an ordinary meal can be transformed. Gourmet cooking is a subject that is limitless. New recipes or ingredients from other parts of the world are constantly being experimented with. Gourmet cooking is exciting and challenging but certainly not for the unadventurous or those who wish to stick to tried and tested philosophy.

For those who wish to push the boundaries of their knowledge are willing to learn more about gourmet cooking there is a wealth of support, advice and hands-on training programmes.

Great gourmet food is ever changing and evolving. This is largely due to those enthusiastic individuals who are passionate about achieving the highest standard in gourmet cooking and are unafraid to try new and interesting combinations by experimenting with previously untried ingredients. Gourmet cooks never compromise in their quest for excellence and our always accepting of new and interesting ideas from whatever part of the globe they come from. Like any other subject in life the more effort that is put in the greater the rewards. But the key to success is to enjoy being creative and take the greatest of pleasure in what you are doing! If you possess these qualities you may be on the road to a wonderful career in gourmet cooking.

Abhishek is really passionate about Cooking and he has got some great Cooking Secrets. up his sleeves! Download his FREE 88 Page Ebook, “Cooking Mastery!” from his website http://www.Cooking-Guru.com/770/index.htm. Only limited Free Copies available.

As one of the oldest children in a family of nine, I know that cooking for a crowd can almost be a full-time job. Once-a-month-cooking has been a lifesaver for our family. In the beginning though, when we first heard of cooking 30 meals in one day, it sounded rather impossible. It was not until we had tried it, though, that we found it is not only possible, but it can even be quite simple and fun!

Blessings

If you are skeptical about taking on what might seem like an overwhelming task to you, let me first share some of the blessings which have resulted for our family from once-a-month-cooking.

o It has saved us many hours of trying to figure out what to have for dinner and answered the infamous question, “What’s for dinner?”

o We have been more readily able to show hospitality to other families when the main dish is already made and in the freezer. (We usually plan ahead for this by doubling or tripling seven to ten of the recipes on cooking day to use as “company meals.”) In like manner, it is much easier to being meals to needy families when you have casseroles in the freezer ready to be pulled out and heated at the drop of a hat. (We also plan for this by preparing many of the dishes in disposable pans.)

o It saves time (You only have to do mountains of dishes one day a month, not every day! You also don’t have to start dinner at 4:30 p.m. or earlier everyday… just pull dinner out to thaw in the morning.) and money (You can usually save quite a bit by buying in bulk).

o We are brought closer together as we spend a special day as a family cooking these meals.

o This is an excellent lesson in Home Economics for your children. Mom always has the oldest girls plan the menu, grocery list, and strategy for the cooking day. She often has us do the grocery shopping, as well.

Planning

Proper planning is essential for a successful cooking day. I usually start planning at least a week in advance. First, pick which day will be your cooking day. Clear your schedule that day. You will want to focus your energies entirely on cooking.

Menu Planning: After you have chosen your cooking day, begin menu planning. Go through your cookbooks and find recipes suitable for freezing. Strive for variety. My list usually includes: one-dish dinners, meatloaf, meatballs, layered casseroles, soups, chili, hamburgers, meatless dishes, and so on. Make sure that you include a number of family favorites, in addition to any new recipes you may be trying out. You do not want to fill your freezer with meals your family won’t find appetizing! When you write down your menu, make sure and write down the cookbook and page number the recipe came from. In addition, mark whether you are planning to double or triple the recipe.

Make Your Grocery List: Using your menu list, write down the quantities of ingredients needed for each recipe. I like to categorize like ingredients on five to seven different lists (meats, vegetables, cheese, pasta, spices, etc.). Take these lists and combine all like ingredients onto a final list. For example, if there are fifteen recipes calling for one pound of ground beef, you will write “15 pounds ground beef” on your final grocery list.

After you have made your final grocery list, make sure and check your cupboards to see what you might already have on hand. You probably have most of the seasonings. But be sure that if you need four teaspoons of garlic powder, you actually have that much in the jar. I have not checked thoroughly before, and it has been real headache.

I have found it most helpful to keep a separate “food preparation list” along with my grocery list which states what is to be done with the items which I need large quantities (Such as, if one the items on your list is “20 pounds of chicken breasts,” note beside that item how many cups need to be cooked and diced, how many chicken breasts need to be cooked and left whole, how many need to be left frozen, etc.).

You will also want to make sure you have plenty of freezer bags and foil on hand. These will be essential on your cooking day.

Cooking Day Strategy: It is wise to develop a basic cooking day strategy of what you will do when. This does not need to be an exhaustive list, but it will save you time and effort if you have planned the basic order of what you will be cooking when. If you are going to be working together as a family on cooking, plan who is responsible for what tasks. Although everyone will need to be flexible, it will definitely save hassle to have most of the schedule worked out ahead of time.

Shopping: The day before you begin cooking, do your grocery shopping. Make sure you do not rush through this. Read your list thoroughly and check to get the best deal.

Cooking

The sooner you can start in the morning, the better. Begin by cooking the meats, grating the cheese, chopping the onions, or whatever bulk preparations your “food preparation list” says you need to do. If you have planned to make soups, you should start these early on, as they usually need to cook for longer.

Cooking the meat is one of the most time-consuming projects and you will probably find you end up browning ground beef and boiling chicken most of the day! As much as is possible, use all of the burners on your stove at the same time.

Keep soapy water in the sink at all times and take turns being on “dish duty.” As soon as a dish is used, wash it. This will save you from having an enormous mess at the end of the day. You might also find it helpful to take a five-minute kitchen cleaning break every hour or so to wipe down the counters and put things away which you are no longer using.

Freezing

What do you do with the completed dishes? Here are some guidelines for freezing:

o We always designate the kitchen table as our “finished recipe” zone. We often have someone who is specifically just working on labeling things and taking them to the freezer from the kitchen table.

o Proper labeling is a key factor in making sure you know what you have in freezer. Make sure you label the containers with the recipe, the cookbook it came from, the page number, how many it serves, and any additional instructions for the dish. Also write out a list with all of the recipes you make and freeze and how many they serve on the outside of your freezer.

o Transfer soup to a big bowl and cool for about an hour. You can either place the soup in plastic freezer bags or plastic containers with lids (32 oz. cottage cheese and yogurt containers work well for this).

o Most other recipes can be transferred to plastic freezer bags. Do not fill the bags very full, as foods expand when frozen. Do not put anything which is still hot into bags. You will likely split the bag at the seams and have a gigantic mess to deal with!

o Use smaller labeled bags for cheese or anything else to be sprinkled on top once the dish is cooked. Make sure you keep these in a very accessible place in the freezer.

o If the recipe is something like lasagna which cannot be frozen in a plastic bag, freeze it in the size of pan the recipe calls for, cover with foil, and label.

I wholeheartedly encourage you to give once-a-month-cooking a try. If you are like us, you will soon wonder how you ever lived without cooking this way! You could also simplify this plan and just cook for two weeks at a time to start.

For further information, ideas, and recipes, I highly recommend you read Once-A-Month-Cooking by Mimi Wilson and Mary Beth Lagerborg and Dinner’s in the Freezer by Jill Bond.

Happy Cooking!

Crystal Paine is a 23-year-old homeschool graduate and the owner of Covenant Wedding Source, LLC (an online retail bridal business). She writes articles on a variety of topics and recently authored her first booklet for young women, The Merchant Maiden: Earning an Income Without Compromising Convictions. She lives with her husband in Topeka, KS. They are expecting their fist child in January. For more information on her business and booklet, visit her website: http://www.covenantweddingsource.com.

To many, learning the art of gourmet cooking might appear to be an impossible dream. But no matter what your present cooking skills are, this simply isn’t the reality. There are numerous gourmet cooking techniques that you can practice to enhance your everyday cookery skills.

One path to developing these skills is to sign on for a gourmet cooking class. The downside is that many of these courses can be quite costly, and you might not have the time in your schedule to make it to all the classes.

With gourmet cooking classes not an alternative for many, what are some other means of studying gourmet cooking techniques that you can integrate into day-to-day meal preparation?

Luckily, there are several things you’ll be able to do that can facilitate learning gourmet cooking skills that you can easily use every day.

First off, you must plan this in a practical way. Gourmet cooking does not necessarily imply costly, out of the ordinary, or uncommon ingredients. Gourmet cooking actually entails employing the freshest ingredients of the finest quality.

An easy way to go about gourmet cooking is to examine the basic spices you use. For instance, a gourmet chef would never cook with garlic powder, bottled garlic, or any other type of garlic that wasn’t freshly chopped. As well, a gourmet chef would never use dehydrated or bottled herbs. Only fresh herbs from the produce department of the supermarket would be considered.

Some ingredients in their freshest format will be more expensive than their processed counterparts. But you’ll soon recognize that the cost difference isn’t unreasonable, and it’s still a good deal less expensive than dining at a restaurant. When you get used to gourmet cooking, you’ll lose your desire to eat out. You will be capable of making scrumptious meals in your own kitchen. This way, you’ll have even more chances to hone your cooking skills.

The fastest and simplest way to add gourmet cooking into your everyday meal preparation is to enhance the quality of the ingredients that you’re using. Then you’ll want to learn how to cook the ingredients properly.

The easiest way to do this is to browse through cookbooks, where you’ll be able to study the basic principles and learn at your own rate. Your library will have numerous cookbooks that you can explore.

Your cookbook should deal with the basics, including what type of knife you should use for various tasks, how to prepare chicken stock, and the process for clarifying butter. These are all fundamental cooking techniques that can often seem unattainable because they are considered to be gourmet.

Before long, you’ll realize that gourmet cooking is a skill that anyone can learn. All it takes is some time and effort.

Ashley King loves to experiment with gourmet cooking [http://cookbookssite.com/] For more great cooking articles, check out Cookbooks and Cooking at [http://cookbookssite.com/]