Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Get ski fit: core strength

Part 2. Focus on using your core muscles to slowly get rid of this gap between your back and the ground. Try to avoid pushing off your feet to help. Imagine pulling your belly button way from your trousers.

Part 3. Now you've gone from one position to the other, find the half-way point between the two and hold this using your middle body muscles. With the position held, slowly pull the foot of one leg towards the hips and then away from the hips repeatedly, five times on each side.  Repeat this three times.



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Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Review: RedLaser for iPhone

This app -- which uses the iPhone's camera to scan barcodes in order to bring up a description of the products as well as what it's selling for at various online sources -- is truly a breakthrough development for the iPhone.



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Reviews: Scanner Pro for iPhone, new Snow Leopard books

<img align='left' src='http://photos.macnn.com/reviews/readdle/scannerpro-icon_revtop.jpg' border='0' width='176' height='120' />MacNN has produced two new reviews, the first covering Readdle's Scanner Pro for iPhone. The app uses an iPhone's camera as a document capture tool, transforming photos into PDFs which can then be uploaded to several destinations or copied back to a Mac or PC. After capturing an image, users can rely on default processing, switch to grayscale, or make tweaks to contrast and brightness....



Read the full story here, from MacNN | The Macintosh News Network

Police hold Hawker murder suspect

More than two and a half years after he became one of Japan's most wanted suspects, Tatsuya Ichihashi's genius for disguise finally proved to be his undoing. As he waited to board an early evening ferry in Osaka today, a passerby's gaze was drawn to the tall youth wearing a hat, sunglasses and a paper surgical mask.

Hours later, Ichihashi was under arrest for the murder of Lindsay Hawker, a British teacher whose corpse was found buried in a bathtub of sand in his flat in Ishikawa, a suburban town to the east of Tokyo, in March 2007.

Police officers put him on a bullet train bound for the capital, where he will undergo further questioning.

His arrest, moments before he was due to sail to Okinawa, an island in Japan's far south, comes days after it emerged that Ichihashi had attempted to transform his appearance by undergoing extensive plastic surgery and had worked, undetected, as a labourer in the Osaka area for more than a year.

Ichihashi is the only suspect in the murder of Hawker, 22, an English teacher from Brandon, near Coventry, who had been beaten and strangled.

Her father, Bill, 54, welcomed the arrest as "a good day for the Hawkers". He said he would travel to Japan as he "wanted to look Ichihashi in the eyes".

"We wanted justice and we've finally got justice," Hawker said.

He said Ichihashi had shown "no remorse" over the last two and a half years. "This has been a long, hard battle and the battle is over. We have worked tirelessly as a family, we have never given up. I hope the Japanese society give him the maximum punishment available."

Ichihashi's father, a neurosurgeon, said he hoped his son would be brought to justice. "You committed a crime," he said in a message broadcast from his home in central Japan. "You must be brought to justice. I want you to atone for what you did."

His mother had called a daytime television programme and urged her son to give himself up. "It's mum, Tatsuya," she said in an audio message. "Dad and mum have decided to speak about our feelings, although we know you won't like this," she said, before telling him to contact the police.

Tonight, the couple, both wealthy medical professionals, appeared on television to apologise for their son's crime.

When the Hawkers arrived in Tokyo to plead for information on the second anniversary of their daughter's death this year, they appeared to be losing faith in the police investigation.

Despite 8,000 reported sightings and widespread media coverage, officers admitted they were no closer to finding Ichihashi, 30, a former horticulture student who had lived alone in his four-room flat.

Some reports suggested he had been spotted in Kabukicho, a red light district of Tokyo. More recently he was said to have been enjoying the relative anonymity of 24-hour internet cafes in south-western Japan, paying a modest daily fee in return for a cubicle equipped with a sofa and a computer.

In desperation, police increased the reward for information leading to his arrest from 1m yen (£6,600) to 10m yen.

The beginning of the end of Ichihashi's life as a fugitive began last week when police confirmed he had undergone several rounds of cosmetic surgery in an attempt to make him unrecognisable from the face that stared out of tens of thousands of wanted posters across Japan.

He had given false names and addresses at the clinics and failed to return for follow-up appointments, denying police the opportunity to arrest him.

Photographs released by a clinic in Nagoya he visited late last month showed a very different Ichihashi: he was minus two prominent moles on his left cheek, and had been given a thinner bottom lip, a higher bridge on his nose and a double-fold on his eyelids to give him a more western appearance.

The Yomiuri newspaper reported that Ichihashi had visited a clinic in the south-western city of Fukuoka in mid-October, but doctors had rejected his request for surgery to change the shape of his mouth.

The photos begged the question: how could a fugitive who fled penniless from the scene afford plastic surgery? The answer came early today with newspaper reports that Ichihashi had worked for a construction company in Osaka for 13 months, until last month, and saved about 1m yen.

Using the name and address of a dead man from Osaka called Kosuke Inoue, Ichihashi rarely mixed with his colleagues and spent most of his spare time reading comics and watching videos in his room at the company's dormitory.

Nicknamed Lanky because of his height â€" he is 5ft 11ins â€" Ichihashi never removed his red cap or black-rimmed glasses in public. When he was persuaded to join a company bowling trip in April, he hid behind a colleague in a group photograph.

"We gossiped that he was an odd guy but I never thought he was the suspect," a former colleague told the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper. "It occurs to me now that he was saving the money for cosmetic surgery."

Police found a passport application in his room, leading them to believe he may have planned to flee overseas.

Ichihashi, who had stalked Hawker for several days before her death, followed her home on one occasion to beg her to teach him English, leaving his name and address on a piece of paper â€" the scrap of evidence that led police to his flat days later.

He evaded nine police officers when he was approached for questioning on the day her body was found, fleeing in bare feet and with no money.

Hours before her death, security cameras captured Hawker giving Ichihashi a private language lesson in a cafe near her home.

One theory is that he lured her to his flat after pretending he had insufficient cash with him to pay for the lesson.



Read the full story here, from Guardian Unlimited

Deal Brothers: Canon PowerShot A1100IS 12.1 MP Digital Camera:  $129.99

The Deal Brothers found a deal on the Canon PowerShot A1100IS 12.1 MP Digital Camera for $129.99, with free delivery.

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Read the full story here, from The Mac Observer

Ricoh GXR A12 and S10 preview samples galleries

Just Added: Our samples galleries of the Ricoh GXR camera system. We've been given a chance to get out and about with both the lens modules the company announced this morning. So here are a selection of Beta samples from both the A12 APS-C 50mm equiv. prime and the S10 1/1.7" 24-72mm zoom modules. We've prepared 52 shots taken at a range of ISOs, apertures and (where appropriate) focal lengths, including a mixture of camera JPEGs and RAW conversions.

Read the full story here, from Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

Ricoh details modular GXR camera for US

<img align='left' src='http://photos.macnn.com/news/0911/ricohgxr-2.jpg' border='0' width='176' height='120' />Ricoh in confirming the full details of its GXR camera system also made the rare move of bringing its cameras to the US. As promised, the approach goes one step further than most interchangeable lens cameras by relying on modular units that contain the lens, image sensor and processor in a single package. Taking this step theoretically gives users the best possible performance for the task at hand: a CMOS sensor accompanies a prime lens to let in as much light as possible, while a CCD can accompany a typical zoom lens....



Read the full story here, from MacNN | The Macintosh News Network

Hawker suspect arrested in Japan

Police question Tatsuya Ichihashi over British teacher's death, days after it was revealed he had undergone plastic surgery

Police in Japan say they are questioning the man suspected of murdering Lindsay Hawker, a British teacher whose badly beaten body was found in an apartment near Tokyo in March 2007.

TV reports said Tatsuya Ichihashi, 30, had been arrested in Osaka, western Japan, days after it was revealed he had attempted to transform his appearance by undergoing extensive plastic surgery.

The development came just over two and a half years after Hawker's body was found at Ichihashi's apartment in Ichikawa, a suburban town in Chiba prefecture east of Tokyo.

The 22-year-old, from Brandon, near Coventry, had been severely beaten and strangled, and her arms and legs bound with plastic cord.

Her father, William Hawker, said in a telephone call to a Japanese TV station that he would be delighted if the man in custody turned out to be Ichihashi.

He thanked the police and members of the public for the tens of thousands of sightings they reported to investigators. "I'm shaking," he said. "If it is really him, it would be fantastic news."

Early reports said police had stopped Ichihashi as he was about to board a ferry for Okinawa.

Earlier Ichihashi's mother called a TV programme to plead with her son to give himself up, the first public comment made by his parents, both wealthy medical professionals, since his disappearance.

"It's mum, Tatsuya," the woman said in an audio message aired on Fuji TV. "Dad and mum have decided to speak about our feelings, although we know you won't like this."

She said she and her husband were pleased to hear comments in the media by his construction site colleagues that he had been a hard worker and wanted to be good to his parents.

"If so, please go to [the] police station and tell them the truth. Please."

The Japanese media reported today that Ichihashi had lived in the Osaka area for just over a year until last month, working as a day labourer for a construction firm. He is thought to have saved about 1m yen (£6,600), enough to pay for cosmetic surgery.

Ichihashi's fingerprints were found in a dormitory belonging to the firm, along with comics, an English dictionary and a passport application, leading police to believe he may have been planning to flee overseas.

Ichihashi, who had stalked Hawker and followed her home on one occasion, evaded nine police officers when he was approached for questioning and has remained at large ever since, despite fleeing in bare feet and with no money.

Hours before her death, security cameras captured Hawker giving Ichihashi a private language lesson in a nearby cafe after he had begged her to teach him English. One theory is that he lured her to his flat after pretending he had insufficient cash with him to pay for the lesson.

Subsequent leads have come to nothing, despite 8,000 reported sightings. In June, police increased the reward for information leading to his arrest from 1m yen to 10m yen.



Read the full story here, from Guardian Unlimited

£91m lottery winners revealed

Here's what five of the the lucky seven (former) IT workers look like. From left to right they are: Ceri Scullion, Sean Connor, Alex Parry, James Bennett, and Donna Rhodes.



Read the full story here, from Guardian Unlimited