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    Kids Wall Art

    Large wall posters for kids. Your kids will love these cool posters by artist Carla Daly. Your kids will enjoy decorating their bedroom walls with these posters and their friends will think they are the coolest!

    Owning a smartphone may not be as smart as you think. It may let you surf the Internet, listen to music and snap photos wherever you are…but it also turns you into a workaholic, it seems.

    A study suggests that, by giving you access to emails at all times, the all-singing, all-dancing mobile phone adds as much as two hours to your working day. Researchers found that Britons work an additional 460 hours a year on average as they are able to respond to emails on their mobiles.

    The study by technology retailer Pixmania reveals the average UK working day is between 9 and 10 hours, but a further two hours is spent responding to or sending work emails, or making work calls. More than 90 percent of office workers have email-enabled phones, with a third accessing them more than 20 times a day. Almost one in ten admits spending up to three hours outside their normal working day checking work emails. Some workers confess(承认) they are on call almost 24 hours a day, with nine out of ten saying they make work emails and calls outside their normal working hours. The average time for first checking emails is between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m., with more than a third checking their first emails in this period, and a quarter checking them between 11 p.m. and midnight.

    Ghadi Hobeika, marketing director of Pixmania, said, “The ability to access literally millions of apps, keep in contact via social networks and take photos and video as well as text and call has made smartphones invaluable for many people. However, there are drawbacks. Many companies expect their employees to be on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and smartphones mean that people literally cannot get away from work. The more constantly in contact we become , the more is expected of us in a work capacity(容量).”

The Opening of the Book Nook

    Saturday, October 4, 10 AM to 10 PM

    You will not want to miss the opening of your new neighborhood bookstore! Located at 2289 Main Street, the Book Nook is within walking distance of schools, many homes and businesses. Come and check out the Book Nook on Saturday!

    Activities will include:

    Live music by local musicians

    One Book-of-the-Month Club membership giveaway (赠送)

Wide Selection

    The Book Nook has three floors with books of all kinds-­--any kind you could want. If we do not have the book you are looking for, we can specially order it for you. You will have it in your hands within two days!

Reading Nooks

    We are proud of our children's reading area on the first floor, as well as our teenagers' nook on the second floor. Come for the activities and stay for a while! Settle in one of these inviting reading areas; take a seat with a good book and a free cup of hot chocolate. You will discover the perfect way to spend a few hours.

Book Events

    The Book Nook will be featuring monthly book signings by different authors, giving you a chance to meet and speak with well-known writers. Don't miss the experience of hearing these authors read aloud their own books!

    The Book-of-the-Month Club

    Our Book-of-the-Month Club will feature 12 books each year. As a member, you will be able to select one new book each month. The membership fee is only $10.00 per month. That is a great price for 12 books each year!

So please join us on Saturday and learn about all that the Book Nook has to offer. You can come anytime between 10 AM and 10 PM. Our activities last all day long!

    “Get your hands off me; I have been stolen,” the laptop, a portable computer, shouted. That is a new solution to laptop computer theft: a program that lets owners give their property a voice when it has been taken.

    The program allows users to display alerts on the missing computer's screen and even to set a spoken message. Tracking software for stolen laptops has been on the market for some time, but this is thought to be the first that allows owners to give the thief a piece of their mind.

    Owners must report their laptop missing by logging on to a website, which sends a message to the model: a red and yellow “lost or stolen” banner pops up on its screen when it is started. Under the latest version of the software, users can also send a spoken message.

    The message can be set to reappear every 30 seconds, no matter how many times the thief closes it. “One customer sent a message saying, 'You are being tracked. I am right at your door', said Carrie Hafeman, chief executive of the company which produces the program, Retriever.

    In the latest version, people can add a spoken message. For example, the laptop's speaker will say: “Help, this laptop is reported lost or stolen. If you are not my owner, please report me now.”

    The Retriever software package, which costs $29.95 but has a free trial period, has the functions of many security software programs. Owners can remotely switch to an alternative password if they fear that the thief has also got hold of the access details.

    If a thief accesses the Internet with the stolen laptop, Retriever will collect information on the Internet service provider in use, so that the police can be alerted to its location.

    Thousands of laptops are stolen every year from homes and offices, but with the use of laptops increasing, the number stolen while their owners are out and about has been rising sharply.

    Other security software allows users to erase data remotely or lock down the computer.

    To be honest, I do not know Sybrina Fulton. Nor can I claim to understand the depth of her pain. Yet, we share a deep connection. A common feature experienced by those women who face the challenge of raising a Black male child in a nation that far too often views Black male bodies through fear. You see, Ms. Fulton is living my nightmare (噩梦). A constant worry that has stayed in the back of my mind since the birth of my eldest son, some sixteen years ago.

    Through the years, I have witnessed the world's reaction to my son evolve as he has grown from a small boy to a young man. In his early years, his easy smile and lovable character were nothing less than magnetic (有磁性的). Complete strangers would approach him in the street, draw him into conversation, and find themselves easily struck by his lively spirit. Even at that time I worried, how would my son react when in the years to come some of those who found themselves so impressed by this cute, intelligent boy, might grasp their purse tighter as he walked by.

    Over the years I have sought to protect his spirit from the hurt that comes from undeserved hatred. I have also sought to arm him with the knowledge that could one day save his life. He knows, for example, that if he is ever pulled over by the police, that he is to keep both hands on the wheel at all times and only reach for his license when the officer is specifically observing his actions. He knows, even in less threatening situations, that rough play and loud interactions with his buddies of any color will be viewed very differently when he does it, than when his white friends display the very same behavior. Still, the truth of the matter is, no amount of advice or voiceless behavior overcomes the physical, immovable fact of the color of his skin. His intelligence, easy smile, and lovable character won't protect him from unfounded assumptions of criminality.

    What makes the Trayvon Martin travesty (歪曲) of justice so painful to me, personally, is the knowledge that Trayvon's mother loved her baby no less than I love mine. The various pictures of moments throughout a happy childhood that have now found a home on nationwide newscasts provides clear evidence of that. Yet no amount of love and care, and no words of advice could have saved her son from the cruel killing he faced at the hands of a self-appointed neighborhood watch-dog. And perhaps even worse, nothing could have prepared her for the inhuman way her son has been treated by officials even in death. To think for three long days, his parents searched for him while officials failed to inform them of his fate and instead, performed drug and alcohol tests on his lifeless body, while failing to do the same for his attacker—the only one of the two who indeed had a criminal past is frankly, unforgivable. To know that the words of her son's killer were given more weight than eye-witnesses and taped evidence of her child's screams and eventual death must be heartbreaking. But to also have to live with the fact that his attacker still breathes free while her son lays buried underground is certainly more than any sorrowful parent should have to endure (忍受).

    It is this type of pain that is not unfamiliar to the Black experience in America, for this is the Black mothers' burden. A burden we have endured for centuries. Yet, there is still the rightful expectation, that in modern-day America, the wheels of justice would not be stopped.

    So today, it is my hope that Trayvon's mother, father, family and friends can take some comfort in the fact that millions of Americans of every color stand with them in their fight for justice. This is a burden no family should have to endure alone.

    We will not give up. We will not forget. We will continue the fight until justice is done.