Digital Camera Noise is a bunch of color speckles instead of continuous color. It is illustrated on the photos below. The photo on the left is an original digital photo with lots of noise. The photo on the right was modified with Paint Shop Pro 9 digital noise reduction feature.


Digital camera noise usually is produced at low shutter speeds and high ISO settings which are used in low light conditions. Besides Paint Shop Pro 9, there are other software programs that can be used for digital camera noise reduction. One of them is Neat Image which is also available for the Mac.

• More Information On Digital Camera Noise

A network computing system in which all computers are treated as equals on the network. Individual computers may share hard drives, CD-ROM drives, and other storage devices with the other computers on the network. This is different than a client/server set-up in which most of the computers (clients) tend to share resources from one main computer (the server).

A process of extracting the data stored on a CD into a files stored on a computer's hard disk. For example, creating MP3 files from an audio CD.

Toques are those little vintage hats (with no brim), usually made of velvet or felt. They can be any color, and many have cute but subtle decorations on them. They have been worn for hundreds of years by fashionable ladies. Here are some examples: If you don't own a vintage toque but want to go shopping for one in New York City, a great store is The Family Jewels at 130 W. 23rd St.

My friend had a birthday party where the dress code for women was to wear a toque. She has provided the information above for the female party guests.

Charades is a game of pantomimes: you have to "act out" a phrase without speaking, while the other members of your team try to guess what the phrase is. The objective is for your team to guess the phrase as quickly as possible.

Equipment:

* a stopwatch or other timing device
* a notepad and pencil for scorekeeping
* blank slips of paper
* two baskets or other containers for the slips

Preparation:

Divide the players into two teams, preferably of equal size. Divide the slips of paper between the two teams. Select a neutral timekeeper/scorekeeper, or pick members from each team to take turns. Agree on how many rounds to play. Review the gestures and hand signals and invent any others you deem appropriate.

The teams temporarily adjourn to separate rooms, to come up with phrases to put on their pieces of paper. These phrases may either be quotations or titles of books, movies, plays, television shows, and songs. Here are some suggested rules to prevent the phrases from being too hard to guess:

* no team should write down any phrase unless at least three people on the team have heard of it;
* no phrase should be longer than seven words;
* no phrase should consist solely of a proper name (i.e., it should also contain other words);
* no foreign phrases are allowed.

Once they have finished writing their phrases, the teams come back to the same room.

To Play:

Each round of the game proceeds as follows:

* A player from Team A draws a phrase slip from Team B's basket. After he/she has had a short time to review the slip, the timekeeper for team B notes the time and tells the player to start. Team A then has three minutes to guess the phrase. If they figure it out, the timekeeper records how long it took. If they do not figure it out in three minutes, the timekeeper announces that the time is up, and records a time of three minutes.
* A player from Team B draws a phrase slip from Team A's basket, and play proceeds as above.

Normally the game continues until every player has had a chance to "act out" a phrase. The score for each team is the total time that the team needed for all of the rounds. The team with the smallest score wins the game.

Gestures:

To act out a phrase, one usually starts by indicating what category the phrase is in, and how many words are in the phrase. From then on, the usual procedure is to act out the words one at a time (although not necessarily in the order that they appear in the phrase). In some cases, however, it may make more sense to try to act out the "entire concept" of the phrase at once.

To Indicate Categories:

* Book title: Unfold your hands as if they were a book.
* Movie title: Pretend to crank an old-fashioned movie camera.
* Play title: Pretend to pull the rope that opens a theater curtain.
* Song title: Pretend to sing.
* TV show: Draw a rectangle to outline the TV screen.
* Quote or Phrase: Make quotation marks in the air with your fingers.

To Indicate Other Things:

* Number of words in the title: Hold up the number of fingers.
* Which word you're working on: Hold up the number of fingers again.
* Number of syllables in the word: Lay the number of fingers on your arm.
* Which syllable you're working on: Lay the number of fingers on your arm again.
* Length of word: Make a "little" or "big" sign as if you were measuring a fish.
* "The entire concept:" sweep your arms through the air.
* "On the nose" (i.e., someone has made a correct guess): point at your nose with one hand, while pointing at the person with your other hand.
* "Sounds like": Cup one hand behind an ear.
* "Longer version of :" Pretend to stretch a piece of elastic.
* "Shorter version of:" Do a "karate chop" with your hand
* "Plural": link your little fingers.
* "Past tense": wave your hand over your shoulder toward your back.
* A letter of the alphabet: move your hand in a chopping motion toward your arm (near the top of your forearm if the letter is near the beginning of the alphabet, and near the bottom of your arm if the letter is near the end of the alphabet).

Historical Context:

Charades reportedly originated in France in the 18th century, and was later taken up in England -- though in those days its form was rather different, to judge by the Christmas "theatrical conundrums" of Jane Austen. Ah well, people surely had more time to be erudite and witty, back then.

Still, it's nice to participate in a fine old tradition of Parlour Games: no doubt Scrooge and the Cratchit's played charades at Christmas-time, once Ebenezer's heart was saved.

---

I had fun playing this game at my friend's birthday party. She compiled the information above for the guests prior to the party so that everyone would know the rules of the game.

Background Info:

Twister was the first game in history to use the human body as a full-fledged playing piece, and, admittedly, the Milton Bradley Company released the game with a fair amount of hesitation. Milton Bradley's competitors accused them of selling "sex in a box" when they released the phenomenally successful action game Twister in 1966.

The company's fear of public criticism and its own skepticism about its potential for success were obliterated when Johnny Carson demonstrated the game on the "Tonight Show". And it didn't hurt matters that Eva Gabor, wearing a low-cut gown, was one of Johnny's guests that night.

With Eva splayed out on all fours on the polka dot vinyl mat, Johnny twirled the spinner and took his turn. When he climbed on top of Eva, the studio audience went into hysterics, screaming and laughing. Milton Bradley executives knew immediately they had a huge hit on their hands. More than three million copies of Twisters were sold during its first year of release.

Skill-and-action games were popular because they intrigued both adults and children. They satisfied a kid's natural tendency to by hyperactive, and made a unique addition to adult parties - after all, grown-ups need to have fun, too.

Description & Rules:

The game board is a plastic sheet covered with large colored circles, which is spread out on the floor.
Any number of people can play, though more than 3-4 is a tight fit.

The game has one spinner, divided into fourths by color; each quadrant specifies left foot, right foot, left arm, or right arm.
After spinning, the combination is called; players must move the part to a matching location.
No two people can have a part on the same circle (rules are different for more people).
Due to the scarcity of colored circles, players will often be required to put themselves in
unlikely or precarious positions, eventually resulting in someone's fall.

Because of the high-paced and frivolous nature of the game,
the close proximity it causes the participants to be to each other make it highly popular at parties.

---

I had fun playing this game at my friend's birthday party. She compiled the information above for the guests prior to the party so that everyone would know the rules of the game.

Objective: The object of the game is to get "21" by having your cards add up to that number or as close as possible. The dealer also tries to get 21. If no one gets 21, the player (including the dealer) with the closest number to 21 wins. When the dealer and a player both get 21, the player wins. When the dealer gets 21 and no other player gets it, the dealer wins. When a player (or the dealer) goes over 21, that person loses.

To Play: Shuffle a deck of cards and appoint one person as the dealer. Players are dealt one card face down and one card face up. Starting with the first player on the dealer's left, the players indicate whether they want another "hit" (another card dealt) or whether they want to "stay" (no other cards dealt). The dealer also deals cards for himself but his or her cards are all face up so the players can see the dealer's hand.The game resumes until all players have indicated that they will stay and not receive any additional cards. The overturned cards are then turned over to reveal each person's score.

To Score: Aces count as either one point or eleven points, depending upon how the player wants to count it. Face cards are worth ten points. Other cards are worth their true value.

---

I played Blackjack at my friend's birthday party. She compiled the information above and made it available for the guests prior to the party.

Roulette was first played in France back in the 17th century. It is now one of the most popular European gambling games and Monte Carlo in Monaco is a well known and famous casino center for playing roulette.

The Basics Players, usually up to eight, play against the house represented by the croupier also called the dealer, who spins the roulette wheel and handles the wagers and payouts. The wheel has 37 slots representing 36 numbers and one zero. In the USA most roulette wheels have two zeros and therefore 38 slots.

Each player buys-in a different colored chips so their bets don't get mixed up. At the end of play, if you won, you exchange back the colored chips with cash chips. These are special chips with the value amount imprinted on them. There are several denominations in various colors. You then take these chips to the cash desk where they will give you actual cash money in exchange.

To play roulette, you place your bet or bets on numbers (any number including the zero) in the table layout or on the outside, and when everybody at the table had a chance to place their bets, the croupier starts the spin and launches the ball. Just a few moments before the ball is about to drop over the slots, the croupier says 'no more bets'. From that moment no one is allowed to place - or change - their bets until the ball drops on a slot. Only after the croupier places the dolly on the winning number on the roulette table and clears all the losing bets you can then start placing your new bets while the croupier pays the winners. The winners are those bets that are on or around the number that comes up. Also the bets on the outside of the layout win if the winning number is represented.

The House Advantage On a single zero roulette table the house advantage is 2.7%. On a double zero roulette table it is 5.26% (7.9% on the five-number bet, 0-00-1-2-3). The house advantage is gained by paying the winners a chip or two (or a proportion of it) less than what it should have been if there was no advantage. (See Roulette Quiz - The Casino Advantage.)

The 'En Prison' Rule A roulette rule applied to even-money bets only, and by some casinos (not all). When the outcome is zero, some casinos will allow the player to either take back half his/her bet or leave the bet (en prison = in prison) for another roulette spin. In the second case, if the following spin the outcome is again zero, then the whole bet is lost.

The 'La Partage' Rule The la partage roulette rule is similar to the en prison rule, only in this case the player loses half the bet and does not have the option of leaving the bet en prison for another spin. This refers to the 'outside' even-money bets Red/Black, High/Low, Odd/Even and applies when the outcome is zero. Both the La Partage and the En Prison roulette rules essentially cut the casino edge on the 'even-money bets' in half. So a bet on Red on a single-zero roulette table with the la partage rule or the en prison rule has a 1.35% house edge and one on a double-zero roulette table has a house edge of 2.63%.

The Payouts A bet on one number only, called a straight-up bet, pays 35 to 1. (You collect 36. With no house advantage you should collect 37 (38 in the USA on double zero roulette wheels). A two-number bet, called split bet, pays 17 to 1. A three-number bet, called street bet, pays 11 to 1. A four-number bet, called corner bet, pays 8 to 1. A six-number bet, pays 5 to 1. A bet on the outside dozen or column, pays 2 to 1. A bet on the outside even money bets, pays 1 to 1.

Object Of The Game To win at roulette the player needs to predict where the ball will land after each spin. This is by no means easy. In fact, luck plays an important part in this game. Some players go with the winning numbers calling them 'hot' numbers and therefore likely to come up more times. Others see which numbers did not come up for some time and bet on them believing that their turn is now due. Some players bet on many numbers to increase their chances of winning at every spin, but this way the payout is considerably reduced. Other methodical players use specific roulette systems or methods, money management systems, or both.

---

For the first time in my life I played roulette at my friend's birthday party. She compiled the information above and made it available for the guests prior to the party.