Start small, though -- the combination of baking soda and vinegar causes an active fizzling and bubbling! In fact, that bubbling process is how you can tell if the box of baking soda you've had around forever is still good. Just follow the directions above. Your soda is still good if it bubbles away merrily.Speaking of drains, if your drain is clogged, you can try using a lot more baking soda. One recipe is to pour a cup of baking soda down the drain, then a cup of vinegar. Wait a few minutes, or longer, and then run the hot water tap and see if you have cleared the drain.

It could take overnight.Another well-known use of baking soda is to keep an open box in the refrigerator to neutralize odors. Because baking soda cuts smells, it can also be put in the bottom tray of an oven-type electric toaster, to reduce burnt smells. Another smell-removing cleaning tip is to put baking soda into bottles or jars that milk has left a smell in. Baking soda is an abrasive, milder than commercial cleansers. For scrubbing out the sink, bathtub, or shower stall, for getting gunk off the outside of my toaster, and projects of that sort, I find it very useful.

Using a rag or sponge, pour some baking soda onto it and then add a little water, just enough to form a paste. Then scrub! You can also mix up the paste in a small cup or bowl and then throw out what you haven't used by the end of that cleaning session. I keep a small container of baking soda handy by the sink, in a closed jar so that the baking soda doesn't cake. You can also use a salt shaker, as you will probably go through that much baking soda before it gets caked up.Pots and pans that have something burned on the bottom call for sterner measures. I admit that sometimes I just reach for my rarely-used commercial cleanser, but the baking soda cleaning method is to shake baking soda all over the burned stuff and then let the pot sit overnight.

You can also add a little water and baking soda to the pot, bring it to a boil, and then let it sit.For stained marble, a paste of baking soda and white vinegar can be effective. For washing windows, put some baking soda on a wet rag or sponge.Baking soda also has a variety of uses in keeping your body clean too. But enough! This article is about baking soda for cleaning around the house..

It appears that homeowners, flooring dealers, and builders agree, as sales have already started to expand, and the line has been taken on by several high-end flooring retailers and builders alike.What makes electric radiant heat so unique is its installation flexibility. Manufactured in multiple size heating mats consisting of looped heating coils sandwiched between 4 layers of polyester for the carpet and area rug product, the resulting system measures less than 1/16". The ultra thin construction makes the heater thin and flexible enough to be installed between a carpet and its pad or under laminate wood without impacting floor height. Installers simply follow the easy to follow installation instructions provided with each system when placing the mats. Once in position, the leads from each mat are either connected to a 120-volt electrical circuit and 7-day programmable thermostat or simply plugged into a wall outlet.

A qualified electrician should be used for final electrical connection if the system is to be hard-wired. Beyond the installation and radiant heating benefits, radiant heat owners will find their systems to be 100% maintenance free and extremely economical to operate. With no moving parts to wear out or filters to change, the system virtually operates itself once the thermostat has been programmed. Simply set the thermostat and forget about it. Equally impressive is the system's average cost of less than a dollar a day to warm a 16' x 20' room for a full 10-hour cycle.

The radiant heat fills the entire room with warmth from the ground up, eliminating the cold air zone close to the floor, which is created by traditional heating systems. Studies show that heating is the largest energy expense for most homeowners, accounting for almost two-thirds of annual energy bills in colder areas of the country. Radiant heat's ability to warm a home from the ground up produces evenly heated rooms that are not only more comfortable to live in, but are more energy-efficient to maintain at the desired comfort level. In addition, radiant heat also reduces the levels of dust, pollen, and mold spread by conventional forced air heating systems, making your home a healthier place to live. Individuals interested in obtaining additional information on the only UL-listed plug-n-play electric floor heating systems, or radiant heat for under ceramic tile, stone, hardwood, and vinyl installations, may contact Speedheat at 1.800.430.2690, by email at info@speedheat.us, or on the web at www.speedheat.us..

The disadvantages mostly pertain to Hazard Flashers issues. In most applications the digital display will flash with the hazard flashers and if the gain is set aggressively, some pulsing of the trailer brakes may be felt.Hazard Flasher issues can be resolved by using a Pulse Preventer that will isolate the brake control from the vehicles flashers, thus eliminating the pulsing.Inertia Activated Brake ControlsInertia Activated Brake Controllers or Pendulum Style controllers are enabled by the depressing of the brake pedal and activated by a Pendulum Circuit that senses the stopping motion of the vehicle. The Pendulum Circuit applies a proportional voltage to the trailer's brakes.When the Inertia activated brake control is properly adjusted, the trailer will decelerate at the same speed as the towing vehicle. A result of this is increased braking efficiency and reduced wear on the brakes.Advantages of pendulum style controllers are efficient braking under a variety of braking conditions including adverse conditions. They also have a smooth braking motion.Pendulum style controllers have a few disadvantages also.

They tend to be larger than solid state controller. They usually more expensive and they must be mounted in a level position. Tekonsha's Prodigy controller is an exception. Due to its innovative technology, it can be mounted in almost any position.Whether the brake control is Timer Activated or Inertia Activated, the gain can be adjusted by the user. Both feature a pressure sensitive switch that can be used to apply the trailer brakes independent of the tow vehicle.

Most importantly, both styles achieve the same goal safely and reliably. Visit http://www.trailerbrakecontrols.com for more information..

The addition of a link popularity check was a pleasant surprise, however I had to scroll through pages and pages of general suggestions to get to my page analysis scores. While providing so much advice is admirable, it makes you wonder if new users of the software or persons with little experience of search engines would be able to understand all the information provided. I also found some of the advice to be a bit misleading. For example, when running a Page Critic check for a particular keyword ranking on Google, the software came up with this suggestion: 'Purchasing and setting up multiple domains can be a great way to increase your visibility on the Web and if you cross-link your domains, you can improve your link popularity for each site. However, it's best if you host the cross linked domains at separate Web hosts so that the first 3 blocks of the site's IP address (xxx.xxx.xxx) are different.

Some engines may ignore link popularity if the IP addresses of the sites are too close together numerically.' You see, I just don't agree with the assumption that purchasing multiple domains is a good way to boost search engine rankings. In fact, if you set up multiple domains containing the same content and search engines discover this, many will at best, ignore the duplicate domains and at worst, remove your site/s from their index. 'Hiding' the other domain at a different IP address is not going to protect you from this. Besides, unless you are providing substantially unique content on different domains, you are doing nothing more than filling the search engines with irrelevant spam and not adding value for the searcher. This particular advice was provided together with a link to FirstPlace Software's domain store, so the attempt to boost domain sales via WPG was not lost on me.

I guess the moral here is - take the Page Critic advice with a good pinch of salt and try not to do anything that subverts the search engines.2) Enhanced Link Popularity Support ? As mentioned above, Page Critic in WPG v2.0 BETA now includes the ability to check your link popularity on any of the search engines you are analysing for. It also provides average link popularity scores for top ranking pages on the same engines. Detailed advice is then given on how you can improve your link popularity score.? 3) Smoother Interface ? The Page Critic interface has also been changed to make missions easier to set up. There are fewer pop-up prompts - these have been merged with the main interface. You now also have the option to save the mission automatically and suppress the partial matching prompt.4) Improved Accuracy ? An interesting enhancement to Page Critic in v2.0 BETA is the ability to determine if top ranking pages have changed since being indexed by the search engine.

A new feature in Page Critic will try to detect page changes between the cached version of a top ranking page and the current actual page. If it finds a page has changed, it will be excluded from the analysis to prevent statistical inaccuracies. I have yet to see this feature in action, but I imagine it would greatly increase the accuracy of Page Critic advice.? Upload Manager Enhancements 1) Built-in FTP Support WPG v2.0 BETA includes its own (optional) FTP program, removing the need to load 3rd party FTP programs when uploading files. When you create your missions, you can now select to have reports uploaded automatically, once generated. This is a very convenient feature that helps save time and streamline campaigns.

I envisage this feature alone will save me hours per month.? 2) New Report Processing Options (Pro Version Only)? As discussed above, the Upload Manager in WPG v2.0 BETA (Pro Version) now allows you to remove non-ranking keywords from Concise Reports. This is a feature I don't really like, for reasons stated above.Submitter Enhancements 1) More Engines 2) Better Multi-Domain Support 3) Easy URL Importing 4) Built-in Spider for Quickly Gathering URL's 5) Customize Submission Limits 6) Full Submission Verification 7) Complete Submission History 8) Easier Directory Submissions 9) Auto-Import Keywords 10) Expanded Submission Interface 11) Add Custom Engines to the Submitter Assistant 12) Advanced Browser Emulation Another feature of WPG that I don't use is the Submitter, so I won't be reviewing enhancements to this tool. But above I've listed all the new features offered within the WPG v2.0 version of Submitter for reference. ?It's going to take a lot to convince me that submitting sites to search engines using software is better than submitting by hand. I've seen too much evidence to the contrary.? Traffic Analyzer Enhancements 1) Expanded Engine Support The traffic analyzer in WPG now separately tracks traffic arriving from all the new search engines supported by WPG v2.0.

This is useful in that you can now distinguish traffic originating at regional versions of the most popular engines (e.g. Yahoo.com.au traffic vs Yahoo.com traffic). However technically, this is a standard feature of 3rd Party Statistics provider Hit Links, rather than a new feature of WPG. 2) Continued Support for 1.60 Features? This one's pretty redundant if you ask me. ? Scheduler Enhancements 1) Easier Interface Well - here's the thing.

WPG claim that the Scheduler interface in WPG v2.0 is easier to use. But I don't think so. Sure the tabbed layout is consistent with other WPG features, but I don't find the interface any more intuitive. In fact, Scheduler v2.0 kept trying to run using an older version of WPG. After I worked out what the problem was, I had to keep changing the execute file in the 'Program to Run' field to WPG v2.0 BETA.

There doesn't appear to be a way to choose a default program to run, unless you remove older WPG versions from your system or move them to a new folder.2) System Tray Support ? A nice enhancement to Scheduler in v2.0 is the addition of an icon in your system tray, meaning you can right click the icon at any time to run Scheduler. Previously, unless you had Scheduler as a desktop shortcut, you had to open WPG and select Scheduler when you wanted to run it. 3) New Report Log ? In WPG v2.0, a log file now records details of all scheduled events so you can open it and see which missions completed and which did not. A 'View Log' button has been added to Scheduler so you can see this file at any time.? 4) Scheduled Uploads Supported ? WPG v2.0 now supports scheduling of Upload Manager missions in addition to Reporter and Submitter missions. So now you can schedule what time and what day you want your report files uploaded to the Internet.? 5) More Flexibility ? In v2.0, Scheduler includes a lot more flexibility when running missions.

Now you can choose specific dates, times and/or recurring dates via a drop down list, such as every second Friday or quarterly. This is useful for my clients, because some of them like to present ranking reports at specific management meetings and often those meetings will be held at regular intervals such as the third Wednesday of the month. This new feature gives me the ability to run and upload their reports to coincide with such meetings. 6) Easier Submission Handling ? A feature of Scheduler I'm not likely to use is submission handling. WPG v2.0 allows the submission of URL's at more defined intervals, supposedly keeping within search engine recommended per-day submission limits.

However, one check box option I noticed and that caused me some concern was 'Allow Repetitive Submissions'. The explanation states: 'Once all URL's are submitted, highlight them so that they can be re-submitted on the next scheduled run'. I've got to ask - why on earth would you want to regularly resubmit a URL to any search engine? If your site is linked to from other sites, most search engines will find your site on their own when they crawl the web. Once you're listed, most search engines will regularly return and spider your site for new content without any help from you. Other search engines can take months to add your URL to their index, but submitting once is enough.

Depending on your site content, some search engines won't add you at all. Regardless, submitting on a regular basis is only going to annoy search engines and possibly get your URL banned. The only reason to resubmit is if you WERE listed and later find your listing has disappeared. Resubmitting a URL in the hope of improving your ranking is just silly. If your page doesn't get ranked well the first time it gets listed in a search engine, resubmitting the same page is not going to make it suddenly rank high! This submission 'enhancement' to WPG raises concern because it is open to abuse by giving people the ability to resubmit their URL's daily.

This is an irresponsible and unnecessary addition to the software if you ask me.7) Handy Pop Up Calendar ? The WPG v2.0 Scheduler now includes a pop-up calendar to assist the selection of scheduled dates on which to run missions. This is particularly useful for those of us running multiple missions per month. 8) Quickly Test Your Scheduled Events ? If you wanted to schedule a mission to run immediately in the old version of WPG, you still had to select a future time for the mission to commence. WPG v2.0 of Scheduler includes a 'Run Now' button that allows you to run any scheduled missions immediately. ? Well, that completes my review of WebPosition Gold v2.0 BETA.

Keep in mind that the program is still in BETA release, so items discussed above may change before the full version is released. All in all, I've found the new version to be very impressive, with plenty of worthwhile features justifying the cost of an upgrade (USD 74 for the Standard version and USD 174 for the Pro) or a new purchase (USD 149 for the Standard version and USD 349 for the Pro). However, some of the features provided are quite powerful and open to abuse. If you choose to use WebPosition Gold or similar software, try to use it responsibly by scheduling your Reporter missions sporadically, not over-submitting your URL's, avoiding the creation of hundreds of content-challenged doorway pages and not running Reporter on engines known for taking an anti-querying software stand (such as Google). Because despite the hype, bombarding search engines is NOT going to help you achieve high rankings.

President of FirstPlace Software, Brent Winters, responded to my review with comments addressing some of the concerns I raise above. You can read Brent's comments via this link: http://www.high-search-engine-ranking.com/Response_to_WPG_v2.0_Review.htm If you have additional questions about WebPosition Gold as a result of reading this review, please visit the links below, or email WebPosition support staff via help@webposition.com. If you'd like to trial the Beta version of WPG v2.0 please download it from the link below.? More: http://www.webposition.com/d2.pl?r=GCU-55EC (our affiliate link) http://www.webposition.com/wpg2upgrade.htm (outline of features in v2.0).

Use a free meta tag generator like http://www.anybrowser.com/MetaTagGenerator.html to make sure your meta tags are properly formatted and all inclusive. Next, submit the article page to all of the free search engines. Once that page is indexed those keywords will attract searchers to visit your site where you can convert them to loyal customers.2. Take the article you've written and customize it for an industry you want to target. For example, I have a client who writes internet promotion articles.

After submission she customizes her articles for real estate agents, accountants, ophthalmologists, home health care companies, etc. I then offer the customized articles to the industry associations representing those groups. This tactic has resulted in hundreds of thousands of fresh, new visitors to her web site when an association prints her customized article in their newsletter or magazine.3. Choose an article you've written that outlines several key points on a particular topic. Write an in depth, expanded article on each key point.

Contact all the publishers on your list and offer them the expanded key point articles and ask them to run them as a series. A series of articles is much more effective than a single article because each potential customer needs to be exposed to you and your business several times before becoming a customer.4. Take the original article and the expanded key point articles and offer them as an e-course to people who visit your site and sign up for your e-zine. Use a free autoresponder like http://www.sendfree.com to deliver the articles in sequence. This gives you the opportunity to capture e-mail addresses for your e-zine and allows you to use a different by-line highlighting your services and products with each article delivery.Use these four tips every time you've finished submitting an article and you will get thousands of additional targeted visitors to your web site with just a little extra effort!(c) 2003.

Davis Virtual Assistance. All rights reserved. Permission to publish on-line or in print is granted so long as the article and by-line are printed intact..

"The airboats were a tremendous asset to the Cleanup," said Gilder.The flat bottom design and shallow draft of the airboats allowed volunteers to get their vessels into shallow areas and into the vegetation that was not accessible by conventional submerged-prop driven watercraft. With the ability to get into the cattails and skim across the otherwise prop tangling vegetation, the airboats greatly enhanced the productivity of the trash collection effort.Dan Brantley, president and Randy Doud, past president of the Kissimmee River Valley Sportsman's Association organized the airboat turnout. Both men make it a point to personally participate in the Cleanup every year. This year Dan's 14 year-old nephew, Joe Nation, Jr, accompanied Dan and Randy on their annual pilgrimage.Brantley's airboat count differed slightly from the Gilder's count, as several airboats arrived after the official start. Brantley stated that another five airboats arrived after the official start, bringing the total number of airboats participating in the Project EAGLE Cleanup to 18.

By noon the volunteers had collected over four tons of rubbish, 150 tires and various forms of hazardous waste ranging from car batteries to buckets of tar.Following the noon check-in, the volunteers gathered at Old Man Franks restaurant on Lake Howard for a free barbeque lunch. Old Man Frank's has been an annual supporter of the Project Eagle Cleanup since its inception, eleven years ago..

You will want to use your longest available expanse of countertop for this. My assembly line turns two corners as it winds around my small kitchen, but that is fine. You may need to make some adjustments depending on your individual recipes, but for most recipes, you can set up your assembly line like so:Flour Line:

• Large mixing bowl
• Measuring cups and spoons
• Fork for stirring
• Flour
• Baking powder and baking soda
• Salt
• Cocoa powder
• Spices
• Any other dry ingredients that are added to the flour in your recipes

• Another large mixing bowl (or the bowl from your stand mixer)
• A second set of measuring cups and spoons
• Electric mixer
• Wooden spoon
• Rubber spatula
• Butter, shortening, margarine and/or cream cheese
• Sugar (white and brown)
• Eggs
• Vanilla and other extracts
• Chunks such as raisins, nuts, chocolate chips
• Rolled oats
• Any other ingredients that are added to the butter and eggs in your recipes
• Plastic wrap
• Felt-tip marker

Gradually stir the flour mixture into the butter mixture. After that, stir in any chunks. Next, scrape down the edges of the mixing bowl so that it's fairly clean, shape the dough into a ball, and wrap it in plastic wrap. Identify the recipe by writing its name on the plastic wrap with a felt-tip marker, and refrigerate it. If it is a slice-and-bake refrigerator cookie, form it into a log instead of a ball, according to the directions in your recipe.

If you plan to bake much later, you can even freeze the dough. Most cookie doughs freeze very well. Defrost at room temperature while still wrapped in plastic wrap, and unwrap only when dough is thoroughly defrosted. Otherwise condensation could add too much moisture to your dough.When your first batch of dough is prepared, wrapped, and stored in the refrigerator or freezer, return to the beginning of your assembly line, without washing your dishes, and begin preparing the next batch of dough. When you have prepared all the recipes that contain no spices or cocoa, move on to the recipes that contain cocoa, and finally those that contain spices.

This way, you will only have to do dishes once at the end of the process, and you will have several different kinds of dough waiting to be baked.When all your dough is prepared, then you can finally put away all your ingredients, clean up the kitchen, and do your dishes. Now if you plan to finish your baking today, you'll have lots of space for rolling out your dough or setting out your cooling racks. If you plan to bake another day, you're done!Copyright 2004 Mimi Cummins. All Rights Reserved..

A lot of these repairs can be done without even taking the housing off the tool. So to extend your tools service life and get the most from it lets examine a few things you can do. Always remember SAFETY FIRST: The first thing before anything else is done is always remove the power source. Make sure that the tool is unpluged or if it is cordless remove the battery. Do this before you pick up any other tool.

If you are going to have to unassemble any part of the tool you need to remember that you will at some point have to put it back together. When I start to take something apart I get a shallow cardboard box to lay the parts in so that I can keep them seperated and organized. This will make reassembly go much smoother. Watch for different lengths of screws and bolts. A perfectly good tool can be ruined because you try to put the wrong screw back in and strip out a thread.

Enemy #1 The number one power tool killer is HEAT. If you want your tools to last you have to keep them running cool. Any motor by its very nature has armature windings, gears, and bearings that turn at high rates of speed. A natural law says that with any action there is an equal and opposite reaction. So if while your power tool preforms a certain operation the opposite reaction is that it will create heat.

If your tools are so hot that they are uncomfortable to hold in your bare hands then its time to do something or the end is near. Remember a Cool Tool is a Good Tool. So what is the best way to maintain a Cool Tool? Keep it clean. Any tool expert will always tell you that keeping dust and dirt from gathering around the motor of a power tool is one of the most important factors of long tool life. All your tools that use universal motors have air intake slots so that air can be sucked through with a fan.

A natural byproduct of woodworking is dust and that dust will get sucked into these intake slots. Besides these intake slots every tool has plenty of other nooks and crannies that will grab that dust and hold it. Presto: OVERHEATING If your shop is equiped with an air compressor then daily cleaning will be a snap. Make sure you know which slots on your tools are intake and which are exhaust then while it is running shoot a nice refreshing jet of compressed air into the intake side and watch that ole dirt and dust go flying. If you are not so lucky as to have compressed air then the maintaince is a little more difficult but just as important.

You will need to take the housing of the tool off and manually clean the air intakes with a clean brush. If dust and dirt are caked onto the fan blades it will be necessary to remove that also. Just make sure you use something that can not scratch the surface of the blade so as not to upset the blade balance. Just this one simple maintance procedure will put many extra hours of use into your tools. Motor Brush Replacement I have a Craftsman 3/8" electric drill that was one of the first power tools that I ever could say was mine.

My father gave it to me when I left home after graduating from High School. This drill and I have been through some times. I used it and to be honest abused it quite a bit. Finally one day I need it for somthing I was working on and when I got it pluged up and pulled the trigger, nothing happened. I checked the power supply, and all of the other things like wiggling the cord with no results.

Then I happened to grab the chuck and kind of twist it a little and since ole dummy me had the trigger squeezed all at once the thing took off and tried to take my fingers along with it. This brings me to a simple DIY operation that if done on a regular basis will avoid those skin burns that I got. Check and Change the motor burshes. If your tool wont start up without a little help from you or you see a lot of sparks flying around the motor housing ( a little sparking is ok just not more than 1/4") or if that motor just doesn't sound or feel right it could be the brushes need replaced. Now saying the brushes need replaced might have you going off looking for brushes, which you will never find.

What you will really find that everyone calls brushes are small blocks of hard graphite with little springs attached to them. Accessing the brushes is easier on some tools than others. You may have to remove the tool housing or you might be able to access the brush cover from outside the housing. By whatever method you need to acces the brushes once you have removed the covers the tension on the small springs will be released and they will jump out at you. Gently pull on the springs and the brushes will slide out.

The brush will be curved to fit the curvature of the rotating armature. In most instances if it is less than 1/4 inch from the bottom of the curve to the bottom of the brush it should be replaced. If your owners manual is available you may want to check to see of they have a different specification. You will want to remove and measure both brushes as they will not always wear at the same rate. If new brushes are called for then you have a couple of options.

The first and best is to replace with the manufacturer's replacements. If that is not an option then generic brushes are available and will do an adaquate job. Many times new brush ends are flat but they will conform to the shape of your armature in a short time. "Seat" the new brushes by running your tool with no load for a while. Brushes are not expensive and will make that old tool run smoother and last longer.

That old Craftsman drill that I told you about. I still have it and have replaced the brushes several times. By the way it was new in the 60's. Bad Switch Here is still another common problem with power tools and it is not that hard to fix. With the newer tools that have variable speed triggers if they get worn you may go from variable to just one or even no speeds.

Could be a defective switch. Now I am sure that all of you are organized and when you get a new tool you safely file that owners manual away for future reference after you finish reading it. So you now need to go to the archives and find that manual for the particular tool you are having problems with and get the part number for the problem switch. Now you can easily order a new replacement from the manufacturer. Get the cost and compare and decide if it is worth replacing before you order.

If it is and you have that new switch in hand you will need to get inside the tool housing. Once in there get yourself a pencil and paper and do a simple drawing of the switch and wires. Note the position and colors and look at the new switch to make sure the wire colors and positions are the same. Remove one wire from the old switch and attach the comparable wire from the new switch. Do these one at a time until all of the wires have been attached.

Position the switch and make sure it operates smoothly before reassembling the housing and hooking up the juice. Cord Replacement Along with replacing switches and in the same vein of maintance is power cord replacement. It is a good idea to inspect your power cords on a regular basis and look for things like fraying, missing grounding pin or the cord pulling out of the tool housing. Any of these conditions can pose a shock hazard or short circuit your tool. Again the best course of action is to obtain a replacement from the manufacturer.

One you have done that it's time to open up the housing again and compare the wires on the old cord with the ones on the new. If they are not the same before you continue you need to contact the manufacturer. If the "hot" and "neutral" wires are switched it is sometimes possible to damage a motor. This is know as reversing the polarity and it is better to check before you burn your motor up. If everything is ok a simple way to keep track of everything is to cut the old cord off about 4 or 5 inches from the terminals.

Slide the new cord into place. Remove one old wire and replace with the corrosponding new one and continue until all of the wires have been replace. Following a simple system like this will eliminate any chance of hooking up a wire in the wrong place. In conclusion by doing some of these easy and inexpensive routine maintenance procedures you can take a good used tool and keep it from being used up. Always keep safety in mind and have fun with your woodworking projects..

Due largely to electronics, today's diesel engines are quieter, cleaner and more fuel-efficient and powerful than those Americans were introduced to during the 1970s gas crisis," says Klaus Peter, founder and president of Rypos, Inc., Medway, MA. Rypos (www.rypos.com) developed and markets the Rypos DPF, a proprietary "active" or self-cleaning filter that eliminates up to 90 percent of soot from diesel engines with more reliability and less power loss than filters now in use. Prior to Rypos, Peter co-founded Media Logic, Inc., a major force in the worldwide magnetic media tester market and played an active role in its becoming an American Stock Exchange listed company. Diesel Cars Present Growth Potential in USRypos is targeting the market for large diesel generators, marine engines, locomotives and big earth moving equipment. Many of these engines will have to be retrofit to meet US and Cal -EPA Regulations.

The original equipment market is growing. The number of diesel generators produced annually is about 94,500 and increasing at 11 percent annually says Diesel Progress. With mass production, the cost of the Rypos DPF (Diesel Particulate Filter) can be cut sufficiently to make it practical as original equipment on diesel passenger vehicles. The market potential is extraordinary. Peter points out, "In Europe one in every three new cars sold is diesel powered.

In Austria and Belgium diesel passenger vehicles are a substantial majority and, in France, 54 percent of passenger cars are diesel." According to Diesel Forum, advanced European diesel passenger vehicles get 20-40 percent better fuel economy than gasoline powered vehicles. A 30-percent market penetration of light-duty diesel cars and trucks would decrease US crude oil imports by 350,000 barrels a day. RYPOS Technology Presented at US-DOE SymposiaUS-EPA and often-tougher California-EPA regulations, together with voluntary compliance incentives, are driving demand for clean-diesel technology among engine makers such as Cummins, Detroit Diesel and Caterpillar. US Department of Energy (DOE) encourages clean diesel power; organizing an annual Diesel Engine Emission Reduction (DEER) conference that draws 520 top scientists and engineers. DOE also invites European carmakers to showcase their hottest diesel offerings at these symposia.

Rypos has been presented its technology at previous DEER conferences; next conference is slated for August 21-25 in Chicago.How this Active Filter WorksThe Rypos DPF is made of porous sintered metal mesh that looks like compressed steel wool and acts like a resistance heater. Electrical current, generated by the engine, passes through the mesh heating it to periodically burn off soot. Automated circuitry monitors the process by measuring backpressure and cleans the filter as needed. The Rypos DPF removes up to 90 percent of soot while using one percent of engine output. It works in concert with catalytic converters that eliminate nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbons, and carbon monoxide emissions and replaces the conventional muffler.Most diesel emission filters in use today are made of less-porous ceramic materials.

These filters need high exhaust temperatures to keep them clean. This is not always possible in cold climates or with engines that run intermittently. Other systems spray fuel on the filter and ignite it to burn off accumulated soot. The Rypos DPF is now installed on stationary generators including one at a large Caterpillar dealership in New Hampshire that is "off the grid." The US Navy has tested it for its 4,000 two-cycle marine engines. Rypos is soon expected to meet the requirements for California Air Resources Board Certification and the mining industry is evaluating the Rypos DPF to cut emissions from underground diesel equipment.Editorial Contact for Rypos, Inc: Dick Pirozzolo at 781-235-991, or e-mail protected from spam bots.

After 8 minutes, the host rings a bell, and the participants discreetly note on their dating card whether or not they're interested in another date with that person. In the middle of the evening, there's a 20-minute intermission. Guests can talk further with some of the people they have already met or they can approach that certain someone they may have had their eye on but haven't gotten the opportunity to meet yet. This is also a good time to write down the names of people they're interested in meeting. "We've seen that even shy people are having an easy time meeting lots of new people at our events," Jaffee said.

After the intermission, each participant has four more 8-minute dates. After the eighth date, the organized part is over but the evening is not. At this point everyone can mingle, make new friends and also enjoy a cash bar and complimentary appetizers. After the event, the participants enter the names of the people they're interested in dating on the 8minuteDating.com web site. When any two people are interested in meeting each other again, the web site automatically sends e-mails to both parties with their contact information.So far, 8minuteDating events have been selling out at every venue with attendance ranging from 50 to 100 people, depending on the size of the room.

Events are being held at popular venues throughout Indianapolis.For more information and to sign up for an 8minuteDating event, or any other event the organization hosts, go to their website at: http://www.8minuteDating.comWho knew dating could be so much fun?.