about Inexpensive Coffee Table, My Coffee Table wiht HP creates interactive coffee table called Misto etc.

Furnishing narrow tract home proves maddeningly difficult

Q: The placement of furniture in my 1966 tract home is driving me crazy. Everyone with this model has the same problem. The wall space is minimal with the fireplace at one end, kitchen and cabinet and burner tops at the other end. We can't figure out how to have a couple of comfortable chairs and we really don't use our sofa a lot. We generally entertain in the living and dining room.

Ellen Lathlean

Pleasanton

A: Your room is twice as long as it is wide, and the length of the kitchen adds to the overall illusion of length. You have a sofa against a wall, with two occasional chairs clustered apart from the sofa and television, leaving a large empty space in the room's center that has no purpose.

To create a more functional area, take away the sofa. Separate the occasional chairs and introduce a side table with a decorative lamp. Otherwise, consider low-voltage track lighting with a dimming option on the ceiling. However, be cautious not to illuminate straight down onto seating arrangements. Doing so will create unflattering shadows on people's faces.

Set a coffee table in front of your occasional chairs. Coordinate your coffee table selection with other materials in the open-concept room. For example, if choosing wood, keep the stain tones within the light, medium or dark tones of the dinette table, kitchen cabinets and other wood features. Blend rather than match wood tones for interest as well as harmony.

A chaise longue, situated between the hearth and the coffee table, is convenient for full-length reclining or, when seated, facing either the conversational grouping or fireplace. The chaise longue's low profile keeps the fireplace as the room's focal point. The existing television placement works with the new seating arrangement. However, a thin plasma television above the fireplace mantel will give a modern look while emphasizing the fireplace and entertainment area.

Change the fireplace and flanking bookshelves to a warm, bright color to bring them out and help reduce the feeling of distance in your elongated room. A framed art piece can bring out the wall opposite the sliding doors. If it's large, it will balance that side of the room both vertically and horizontally. Decorate your coffee table with flowers or greens from your garden.

Find an interesting container for your television's remote control to use on the table with some favorite books. Casually drape a soft blanket over the chaise longue. By removing your sofa and adding a few new furniture pieces, you'll give new life to your room.

[ For more information coffee table, visit sfgate]

What's Not on My Coffee Table

Following the death earlier this month of John H. Johnson, founder of Ebony and Jet magazines, his publications emerged as central symbols of African American life. "By the early1970s," wrote Chicago Tribune reporter Charles Sheehan, "it was common in thousands of African American homes . . . to have two choices of reading material on coffee tables: the Bible and Ebony magazine."

Craft Arts By Mortgage Banking Service Look Faq Antique Way Home Live Child Healths

Johnson's death got me thinking about the void that exists in the world of black-oriented publishing these days. There's the feel-good, middle-class black mirror most vividly embodied by Ebony and Jet, and the post-modern, hyper-acquisitive "bling" aesthetic found in hip-hop magazines such as Vibe and XXL. But there's no idea-driven publication aimed at black Americans -- at least none that has achieved equivalent success. Why? An honest assessment should probably begin at home: Here's what you'd have found on my coffee table, should you have stopped by in mid-August:

• Three board books by the children's author Sandra Boynton.
• A Land's End clothing catalogue.
• The Aug. 22 New Yorker.
• The August Harper's.

No Ebony or Jet on the table, or anywhere else in my coffee house . No copies of Vibe, the Source, Black Enterprise or Essence, either. No, with our time for reading so limited by life's exigencies -- also known as two children under6 -- our intake has been pared down in recent years to publications that meet a simple criterion: What do we need to know? I'm looking for that sort of general-interest magazine for the black reader and I'm not finding it.

While it is true that white American readers, especially parents, likely go through a similarly ruthless selection process, for black Americans that process is accompanied by a raft of cultural and historic factors, including a strong degree of pressure to remain loyal to "black brands." Moreover, the question of black Americans' identity -- most often framed in terms of whether one is "black enough" -- tosses an especially incendiary element into the mix.

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HP creates interactive coffee table called Misto

30 June 2005 - HP has created a futuristic concept coffee table that will allow you to share images and information with others from the comfort of your sofa rather like a large web tablet with legs.

The large coffee table design with a touch screen has been designed to complement other media devices in the home and will allow users to view information without having to rely on the television as the main point of call. Users will be able to interact with the “Misto” table by grabbing images or content and moving them around just as you would if you were sorting papers on a table or desk.

HP hopes that the concept, which was shown to over 300 journalists at its annual HP Labs event in Tenerife, will bring the family together as they share information around the coffee table rather than just viewing it on a television screen.

However HP do admit its still early days with plenty of issues still to be resolved such as what you do with your coffee cup and making it strong enough to withstand daily wear and tear.

Applications demoed to the crowd included sharing and manipulating photo albums, playing interactive games, using Google’s satellite maps service as an interactive atlas and even turning the display into a temporary fish tank.

“The greatest killer app ever invented is another human being.” Said Frank Cloutier
IPG CTO, HP “Having joyful, surprising experiences with people just like yourself. That's entertainment.”

[ For more information coffee table, visit pocket lint.co.uk]

How to participate in the String Coffee Table dicussion

The String Coffee Table is a group weblog that is supposed to be a forum for researchers and graduate students in string theory that allows informal but possibly technical discussion of whatever string theory topics they are concerned with, including in particular the discussion of papers that have appeared on the hep-th, gr-qc, hep-ph and related preprint archives.

Everybody can (and is invited to) comment on posts to the Coffee Table by following the links Reply to this or Post a New Comment below each message. The so called hosts of the Coffee Table can furthermore start new discussion threads by writing entries on the Coffee Table’s main page. There are currently five hosts only, but it is planned to invite others as hosts of the Coffee Tablein the future.

Participating in and following the discussions at the Coffee Table does not require anything else than an ordinary internet browser, but is most conveniently done using in addition a software tool called an RSS News Aggregator. which handles the RSS (Rich Site Summary) of weblogs. Such RSS readers are freely available, very simple to install and extremely expedient for weblog discussion. They allow to read the weblog in a way similar to newgroups and other online discussion forums. They automatically provide a list of the latest contributions anywhere at the Coffee Table. This way one does not need to search the entire site by hand for unread messages.

There are many RSS readers freely available, for instance SharpReader and NewsWatcherfor MS-Windows, and RSS Reader Panel, Agregg8, NewsMonster as extensions for Mozilla.

After installing the RSS reader it has to be informed about the location of the RSS feed of the String Coffee Table. This is done by entering the URL of the Content Feed and of the Comments Feed. For most RSS readers this can conveniently be done by just dragging and dropping the boxes found under the headline Syndicate in the right column on the main page of the String Coffee Table into the RRS Reader window.

One of the main advantages of the String Coffee Table over other forms of online discussion is its support for properly typeset mathematical formulas using MathML. In order that these formulas are properly displayed in one’s browser it may be necessary to download a (freely available) plugin and/or font. See here for more information.

[ For more information coffee table, visit golem.ph.utexas.edu]

How to Make an Inexpensive Coffee Table

If you've shopped for a coffee table lately, you're aware that the price can go off the charts. Here are some ideas for a less-expensive stand-in while you wait for your ship to come in.

Build a platform of glass blocks; two blocks high (about 16 inches) is about right. Top the blocks with a sheet of thick, ground-edge glass for a slick modern look. Join the blocks with silicone caulk.

Cover any type of sturdy base - a footlocker or two same-size broken stereo speakers, for example - with a rich-looking wallpaper such as faux leather, faux marble or faux granite; you might want to paint any exposed hardware a coordinated color or special metallic. Top off your creation with a glass top or a wood top from a home center (apply stain and a clear-coat to the wood or paint it).

Put clay flowerpots (can be inverted), sturdy wooden trash cans (inverted), cement urns, porcelain fish pots or a chicken coop to work as a table base. Use the bases singly or in pairs, and top them off with glass or wood.

Cut down the wooden legs or pedestal of an old - but not valuable - table to suitable coffee-table height.

Purchase an unfinished coffee table and finish it yourself. Unfinished-furniture stores and home centers may offer classes or easy finishing products such as spray-on or sponge-on faux finishes.

Purchase furniture legs (sold at home centers) and screw them in to a wooden table top. Finish as desired.

Put a couple of stacks of coffee-table books to work as a table base that you can top with glass.

Haunt thrift coffee shop and tag sales for a secondhand piece that will work. It doesn't have to be a coffee table per se; consider a cedar chest, rustic toolchest or a flat-top steamer trunk.

[ For more information coffee table, visit ehow]