Freshwater Pearl - freshwater pearl, jewelry

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First, let me clarify that by giving this 3 stars, I mean only to say that the earrings were average. They neither exceeded my expectations nor were they a disappointment in any way. I think I read all of the reviews on this product before I bought it, and I admit I was a bit worried by the low price and certain comments (particularly about size). I realized after receiving my earrings that perhaps no one had been specific about size because it varies from one set to the next. For example, the black pearls were 5mm while the pink ones were 7mm. I assume that for another customer, these sizes would vary yet again, but probably within the same range. I actually happen to prefer that size range anyway, as my ears just don't support large studs. For the most part, I feel that each pair was well matched in size, though the black pearl pair that I received was a bit poorly matched for color. One is mostly blue, the other mostly purple. However, I did not find, as other reviewers did, that any of the colors were difficult to tell apart. I really feel that I received a good variety of color, and the price was certainly right. I will also post a customer photograph of the set I received so that you can see what I'm talking about. As yet another reviewer has said; this is an excellent set of starter pearls for those who don't want to spend a fortune. They are pretty and small, and a lovely variety. Sterling Silver 5 Pair Multi Color Freshwater Pearl White, Peacock, Pink, Grey, Chocolate Stud Earring Set

I just received these yesterday and was so happy with them! You get 5 pairs of pearl earrings with silver posts and backings. The pearls are beautiful with nice colors. No two pearls are identical so there are some slight differences between them in the shape, size and color but you don't really notice unless you are looking really hard. For the price and value you can't beat these ! I have searched the Internet and stores and have not found any better deals out there.

These earrings made the skin in my ears react as they generally do to lower grade metals (nickel) and non-hypo-allergenic earrings. Usually my ears are fine with sterling silver, so what are these made from I wonder?

The size is nice, shape consistent. However, color of the peacock is dark grey and TWO of the pairs are broken. Of course, I didn't notice this until I went to put on one of the broken pairs weeks after receiving them. A little late to really do anything. They are cute, but I recommend that you check each pair upon arrival. Remove the back and see if the pearl falls off. Oh, yeah! One of the pairs didn't have a back that went on all the way.

I thought this product was a little too good to be true. I was right. After the first time I wore one of the pairs they broke. The post came unglued. You get what you pay for. There are five pairs so I guess I still have four to use. For the price they are not too bad I guess.

This is a great deal for the price! The earrings are very pretty, a good size, and the colors are beautiful. Since they are fresh water pearls I was expecting variations in the pearls. I did not notice any color variations between the pearls I recieved. The colors are right on. However, there are slight variations in the shapes of the pearls(the chocolate ones are button shaped, and one black earring is slightly bigger than the other) but nothing so drastic that you will notice while wearing them. I had set the bar kind of low for these because of the low price, but when I recieved them, they exceeded my expectations. I am going to be ordering some more to give as Christmas gifts. You won't be dissappointed.

I loved getting these earrings in the mail. I like how small they are, not too overwhelming or too tiny (I have double piercings, so I have small studs in the back).



The pearly blue-green pair I wear daily, and the brown are gorgeous. I'm not a fan of light blue or pink, because they're circular pearls and not "flatter" like the blue-green pair, but they came in handy with nice outfits I had to wear last week.



Even if you only end up liking one pair, it's still an amazing buy. If you're not interested, I could see them being a perfect purchase for a gift for someone you know. - Jewelry - Freshwater Pearl - Pearls - Stud'

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Hard Drive Carrying Case - portable hard drive case, hard drive carrying case

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I use bare "internal" hard drives in an external dock to do my backups, and swap the drive to an off-site location every week. I wanted a protective case to carry the bare drive in, and was surprised to find such a case difficult to find.



The ineo box looked like what I wanted, but it occurs to me that my intended use is probably not what ineo had in mind. The box is a simple plastic shell (as expected), and the only padding is two hard foam strips on either end that hold the hard drive in place. Outside of that, the drive rests against the bare plastic of the sides. ineo claims "anti-shock", but this case isn't going to provide much protection against impacts that aren't mostly to the end of the case. My guess is that it was intended to go no further than crossing the room from a machine to a storage cabinet.



Even so, it's still better than throwing a bare drive in my bag, keeping fingers and keys off of the drive itself. It does that job well enough that I bought a second one. For the price, the level of protection is not unreasonable.



UPDATE: I've been using these boxes to carry my backup hard drives off-site for five months now and they have performed the job as expected. I've not dropped a drive, but I carry it in my bag one day a week, and the cases are doing the job as expected.



UPDATE 2: (06/2011) I've now been using two of these boxes as indicated above for over 18 months. Still no complaints, and I've upgraded my rating from three to four stars. I've had no trouble with the drives that I transport in them. The hinges are not showing any signs of stress, though I've probably opened and closed them less than 100 times each.



The case was certainly nice to have when I was off work for two weeks and kept my offsite backup at my dad's... I was more comfortable handing him the drive in a sturdy case than just wrapped in an ESD bag. ineo I-NC05, 3.5-Inch SATA/ IDE Hard Drive Protection Box (Milky White)

This case fits the hard drive snugly, and it has small pads on either end to prevent the drive from rattling inside the box. Much cheaper than buying 2 USB enclosures.



I use 2 bare drives for backup, with a USB drive dock. I swap them between an offsite location monthly. This box is a great way to protect the drives during storage and transport.

I was looking for something simple, however, the plastic box for both units I ordered were warped such that the square opening was very convex, and if you slide the drive into the box there is a good chance it would pop a surface mounted cap right off the drive circuit board!



I am going to put them into the oven at around 200-250 degrees with a drive over-wrapped with paper towel(to try and bulge the box the other way hehe); if I can flow the plastic back into something closer to a rectangle, well, it would be a low cost fix.



just an FYI to watch out for...

If you want a case that protects your hard drive perfectly and you don't mind paying appr. 10 bucks for it, get this one (I did).



If you want a case that is much cheaper but also way inferior in quality (but still works), get one from [...] (I did).



Maybe a good compromise is: buy the best case for the HD's that you schlepp between docking stations and use frequently but get the cheap ones that just lie in the your filing cabinet full of backups of important stuff that you will never ever use unless a major catastrophe strikes.



N.B. You can buy these at amazon.com in larger quantities at a much cheaper per unit price. - Internal Hard Drive - Portable Hard Drive Case - Hard Drive Carrying Case'

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2009 Amazon Frustration-fre - avery, name tags

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I recently ordered 18 boxes of this item for a convention. The badges arrived quickly, worked perfectly, the paper went through the printers with little issue, everyone got their badge, and the event was a success!



One caveat that registration ran into, was that they had to staple the badges into the plastic holders, because the badges did frequently slip out. But that's not a deal-killer with us. Avery Pin Style Top-Loading Name Badges, 2.25 x 3.5 Inches, White, Box of 100 (74549) - Clip-on Badge Holder - Name Tags - Name Badges - Avery'

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Raw Vegan

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Chef Matthew has proved that no one has a good enough excuse not to try raw organic cuisine. After I finish my hCG diet, my mother and I are collaborating on more raw organic recipes by Chef Matthew Kenney. Thanks for introducing me to a better way of life! Everyday Raw Express: Recipes in 30 Minutes or Less'

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History - history, world

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Some books, you read, place on a shelf, and never return to them. This is not one of those books. As my library is overflowing with Civil War and WWII books, there are now TWO that I use for study and reference. "Battle Cry of Freedom' by James McPherson is, in my opinion the best one volumn overview of the Civil War ever written.

"A Short History of WWII" is in that same category as far as a complete, one volumn acount of this period of history. It is in depth, yet very readable. When I finished, my copy was tattered, dog,eared, high-lighted, and contained many of my personal observations in the columns.

I will return to it as I continue my study of WWII. The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars is that I would have liked to had more complete maps denoting troop movements. If you're reading my review, you must be considering buying this book. My recommendation is "Buy it, without a doubt. You will not be disappointed." A Short History of World War II

This book sets an impossible task...and very nearly succeeds. The rub is in the phrase "short history." If there's one central lesson to be drawn from this book it's that World War II was immensely complex, with ramifications so vast that it's impossible to discuss them all at any depth in a "short" book. At 150,000 or so words, this book is a lot more than an outline, but it's still forced to abbreviate. If you're interested in details about any given campaign, or any given individual, you're going to be disappointed; if you have a favorite World War II topic or personality, you're bound to feel that it's been given short shrift. Even the most famous battles rarely rate more than a page or two. Where this book triumphs is in putting presenting the big picture--military, political, and to some extent cultural--and in drawing interconnections such as why the North Africa campaigns sucked the Allies into a nightmare slog down the Italian peninsula, or how Germany's conquest of Norway helped tip the scales in the Battle of Britain.Overall, this is a masterful achievement. Is it flag-waving, as some would say? Perhaps--but remember, the author's writing from Nova Scotia, which gives him a Canadian-eye view that allows some detachment in his references to "the British" or "the Americans." (Given the fact he was writing in 1980, that might also explain why he takes a dim view of De Gaule, whose post-war association with French Canada stirred many resentments.) Stokesbury clearly views this war as the crowning achievement of "The Greatest Generation," even if the book pre-dates that phrase. And maybe he's right. Highly recommended, especially to those wanting to put recent World War II movies into context.

Simply a superbly written broad history of World War II. I loved this book because it reads much like a novel and has the proper amount of detail without becoming mired in it. Pre-war causes and crisis were given a great amount of emphasis, and focuses on all aspects of the War. Interesting focus on Axis mistakes which cost them the War. Proper emphasis on the Eastern front is given as well as the falicy of French defensive tactics and frankly, this is the best easy reading, broad topic, book on World War II that I have found so far, suitable for beginners and people with extensive WWII knowledge.

For someone who doesn't know much about World War II, this is a recommended book. It gives you just enough history to understand the different aspects of the war, but doesn't flood you with too much technical information. I'm glad I read this, and recommend it to anyone else that is new to this period of history, or just wants a nice summary to begin with.

I guess I'm a little bias because I was a student of Prof. Stokesbury at Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada in the late 1980s. He was my honors thesis advisor and also a great lecturer. His death in 1995 has left a void for me and many others who regarded him as a mentor. The book was the basic text for his WWII history class and serves as a great example of what can be accomplised with a massive topic in an abbreviated manner. There are tens of thousands of books written on WWII and millions of documents, to read or even find it all an impossible task for any student or historian. The book, like the others in his short history series, is not meant to be a detailed, footnoted account to argue a point or rewrite history. Its a narrative and great narrative it is, with insightful wisdom and a breezy manner of writing that is a far cry from the usual stiff academic writing. Stokesbury's tome is a great starting point, with all the famous players, battles, heroes and villians, controversies, and results of the greatest tragedy in human history. He also gives the reader a list of research materials and books at the end to further their studies. It has been on my bookshelf for almost 20 years now, wore out and scribble through, tatter and beaten, through my use of it for my own history lectures in 20th century history at St. Mary's University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Overall, a great staring point for any student of the war and a perfect classroom text.

If you want to know about WW2, but you dont have much time to spend on reading, this book is for you. Without missing the necessary details this book pretty much covers WW2. And if you want to dig deeper, there is a huge list of references where you can continue your research.

If you are looking for a well written and informative one-volume account of WWII then go no further. This book will probably not just meet your expectations but surpass them. If you have a penchant for history, I strongly recommend the other Stokesbury books as well.

I must admit to being amazed when I read this book. I must also admit to being wrong. When I was first given a copy, I took one look at it, saw the size of the book (about 400 pages) and said, "yeah, right, a short history of World War II all in one relatively small volume...what a waste of time this one will be." Good grief, I was wrong. If an individual is looking for a very concise and readable overview of this world changing event, that is extremely readable, well researched and hold the readers interest from cover to cover, then this is the one to buy. Now granted, there is no way to compact the information of thousands of volumes of information in to a mere 400 pages, but the author has certainly made a good stab at it and it is astounding the amount of information he was able to pack into this one.



The author has treated all sides of this war with a pretty equal hand, more or less calling it as most reliable historical documents indicate. I do note that at least one reviewer did not appreciate the way the author treated French involvement. About the only thing you can say to this is "hey, read your history." The author certainly did not make this stuff up as there is ample evidence at this time of pretty well who did what to whom at the time.



Like another reviewer, the only objection I had to the entire book was the lack of maps. This work could have been greatly enhanced by a nice set of maps. Now this is a pet peeve of mine and may not bother others as it did me. The author does have a wonderful writing style with syntax that is easy on the eye and quite simple to follow.



This is a very nice, one volume survey type study that is quite readable and quite informative. Even for the individual who knows absolutely nothing of this event, it should stimulate that reader to find more, other volumes to follow up with and goodness knows there are plenty of them out there. Buying them has kept me on the verge of complete poverty for the past 40 or so years. Recommend this one highly. - American History - World - History'

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2009 Amazon Frustration-fre - handwriting

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I am a teacher of 36 years experience and I'm seeing more and more students who do not hold their pencil correctly. It makes messy writing and discomfort of the students hands. I'm seeing the disappearance of TEACHING students to write because the handwriting is done in centers and not with the teacher to moniter their progress. The small students are left to figure it out for themselves. These grips are great because you can't hold the pencil wrong with them. THANK YOU--who ever invented these. The Pencil Grip Crossover Grip Ergonomic Writing Aid, Metallic Colors, 12 Count Polybag (TPG-17712)

These pencil grips work great for my autistic son with dysgraphia. Only wish they had a set that came in all boy colors or primary colors. He gets very self concious and won't use the pink or pastel colored grips because "the other kids will make fun of me" but it makes more sense to buy them in the 12 count bag. Good value on them and they last a long time. We have had some that have lasted three years with daily use during the school year. - Handwriting'

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Dk Illustrated Encyclopedias - star wars dictionary, yoda

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What an amazing, thorough, comphrensive guide to everything Star Wars. NOTHING is left out. You get not only in depth profiles of every major character, but every OTHER character in the universe. It's so detailed that they break down each PART of each weapon, ship, etc. For someone like myself who isn't the biggest Star Wars geek (but wanting to learn more), this is a godsend. There are many, many, hardcore fans out there that can reference almost anything and anyone to do with Star Wars. Well, now you can too, and you don't have to see the films 3245 times to do it.



It's a great companion to the "Ultimate Visual Guide" as well. It is a combination of the Visual Dictionaries for the the other films, so all Episodes 1-6 are covered.



Buy it, NOW! Star Wars: The Complete Visual Dictionary - The Ultimate Guide to Characters and Creatures from the Entire Star Wars Saga

I'm a Star Wars fan but I am not a fanatic. I can't name each character, droid, or vehicle the way die-hard fans can. So for guys like me, the Star Wars Complete Visual Dictionary makes the perfect and complete reference sourcebook. This oversized hardcover books is packed with 270 pages full of information on the Star Wars universes and backed up by hundreds of full-color photos direct from the films.



The book covers all six Star Wars films beginning with Episode I, The Phantom Menace. We meet Darth Sidious on the very first page and learn about the founding of the Republic. From there we meet characters such as Mace Windu, Yoda, Qui-Gon Jinn, and Obi-Wan Kenobi. But this isn't just a book that shows a picture of the character and their name, all sorts of interesting details are included. On the Obi-Wan two-page spread we'll see typical Jedi gear including their lightsaber. Each character, creature, druid, weapon, or vehicle entry includes a text entry about the subject.



Next, the book covers Episodes II and III in the same detail and with the same brilliant color photography. I never realized just how many different blasters were used in the films until I read this book. There's the Naboo Blaster, the KYD-21 used by Zam Wesell, The DC-15 Blaster carried by Clone Troopers, and the Westar-34 blaster of Jango Fett, and many, many more.



Finally the first three original Star Wars films are covered all as one section and if I do have one complaint about the book it's that these films only get 70 pages of coverage while the first three films get 200 pages. I think you can chalk that up to the newer films being broader in scope and having a much larger cast of characters and gadgets. Still, it was the original three films that I was most interested in reading about and I suspect that many share my feelings.



No matter how big a Star Wars fan you are, you'll still want to own this book!



Reviewed by Tim Janson

I bought this for my 9 year old son, who already owns the visual dictionaries from episodes 1 and 3. When this came out and it had all 4 visual dictionaries plus extra goodies thrown in at a fraction of the price to buy all 4 I jumped on it. My son loves it and has noticed many of the illustrations and info not included in the visual dictionaries he already had before. The one gripe I have is that it seems to not have the same quality of photos as the other visual dictionaries, but it might just be me. I don't think he has noticed.

To tell you the truth, I think this volume is entitled "Star Wars: The Complete Visual Dictionary" because if they said it was a visual encyclopedia they would be leaving room for complaint. But DK is marketing this as a dictionary that provides "The ultimate guide to characters and creatures from the entire 'Star Wars' saga," and on that basis they certainly deliver. This volume brings together the four "'Star Wars' Visual Dictionaries," with new material including an more detailed look at Utapau, Mustafar, Order 66, and clone battle tanks from "Revenge of the Sith." At the same time coverage of the original trilogy has been expanded with overviews of the Rebel Alliance, Imperial personnel, the Sarlacc, R2-D2, and the unusual crowd down at the Cantina. So if you have the original four Visual Dictionaries you will find more here, but chiefly the appeal will be to newcomers who need help explaining to the next generation of "Star War" fans the names of all of the members of the Jedi High Council, exactly who makes up the Separatists, and how a Wookie bowcaster works.



I am one of those persons who went to the first showing of each of the films in the original trilogy. I went back repeatedly to see all three films, spending one afternoon watching "Star Wars" twice in a row just so I could pay attention to a different quadrant of the screen each time. This book is fully cognizant of the fact that nearly every scene in the "Star Wars" movies are filled with a wealth of visual information, from the instrument-laden starships and the uniquely crafted weapons to the architecture and culture of dozens of alien worlds. Over the years there have been "Star War" novels, reference books, comics, toys, and games that have provided names and back-stories to many of the backgro8und characters, devices, vehicles and structures George Lucas and the folks at ILM crammed into hundreds of frames. But this visual dictionary goes beyond that, as amply proven by the look at the INSIDE of a Stormtrooper helmet, that explains the four layer construction of outer plastoid composite armor, inner insulation, anti-laser mesh, and magnetic shielding, in addition to the Comtech Series IV speaker that uses three-phase sonic filtering for clear sound, the atmospheric cyclic unit, power cell, and other features all crammed inside the iconic white helmet. In other words, there are enough details here to keep die-hard "Star Wars" fans quite happy indeed and even those with an encyclopedic knowledge of the films will find new information,



"Star Wars: The Complete Visual Dictionary" is written by Dr. David West Reynolds ("'Star Wars' Episode I: The Visual Dictionary"), James Luceno ("Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader"), and Ryder Windham ("'Revenge of the Sith' Scrapbook"), so collectively they have bona fides to spare. The book is divided into four sections representing Episode I, Episode II, Episode III, and Episodes IV-VI, so this visual dictionary follows the numerical chronology (not to be confused with the actual order in which these movies came out). The approach of the book, quite familiar to those who read DK's publications, is to provide a two-page spread on everything from the Phantom Menace to an expanded look at R2-D2. One of the nice things about working so closely with Lucasfilm and Industrial Light and Magic is that this book is able to incorporate hundreds of photographs that are not simply lifted from the films but taken for publicity, costume checks, and the like. The back of the book includes a brief Glossary of terms such as "carbonite" and "Tibanna gas," and an Index of several dozen key places, people and things (not a comprehensive index, but enough to help you track down all references to Coruscant, Padawans, and Luke Skywalker. Consequently I am convinced that my brother, who has all of the original "Star Wars" movie posters framed on the wall of his family room, will really enjoy this book as his Christmas present this year. - Yoda - Star Wars Dictionary - Star Wars Book - Encyclopedia'

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