New U.S. law tightens regulation of tobacco companies

A new federal law that went into effect in the United States this week contains several important provisions with regard to tobacco smoking. In general, the legislation further constrains the marketing of tobacco, and provides for enhanced disclosure and regulation of smoking formulations. However, there are also some significant concessions to the tobacco companies. Some highlights:

• It is now illegal to sell cigarettes with added flavorings — except menthol, which has been deferred for “additional study”.
• Labeling restrictions on tobacco products have been tightened another notch, with new requirements including larger minimum sizes for warnings.
• Words like “mild” and “light” are now prohibited from cigarette advertising on the grounds that consumers might receive a misleading impression of product safety.
• Tobacco companies are now required to disclose the substances added to tobacco in manufacturing, subject to control by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
• However, the FDA is specifically not allowed to force tobacco companies to eliminate nicotine from their products, nor to ban existing products.

[Summary of legislation]

Tobacco smoking illegal under Islam, says Supreme Council

In the Philippines, a council of Islamic leaders has issued a fatwa, or religious ruling, declaring it a sin for Muslims to smoke tobacco or participate in its trade. The Supreme Council of Darul Ifta of the Philippines, under Grand Mufti Sheikh Omar Pasigan, based the judgement on teachings that prohibit activities harmful to the body. As in the West, smoking has been subject to mounting pressure in Muslim countries for some time: a smoking ban has been in effect in Mecca and Medina, cities regarded as holy in Islam, since 2002.

[Official statement by Philippines Department of Health]

Cigarettes head towards $11 a pack in NYC

When a new state tax comes into effect in New York on July 1, the tax total on a pack of cigarettes in New York City — where there is also a municipal tax — will rise to $5.85, the highest in the country. This could push the retail price of a pack of smokes in the Big Apple to nearly $11, bringing the yearly cost of a pack-a-day habit to about $4000, more than $2100 of it in taxes.

Although middle-class smokers may grumble at the new tax, such measures are toughest for the burgeoning ranks of out-of-work smokers, and those on low or fixed incomes, especially long-time users caught between the rock of their addiction and the hard place of encroaching poverty. Government loves the cash grab, and anti-smoking activists will look on with satisfaction as smoking rates ratchet downward one more notch under the increased financial pressure. As for the million or so low-income smoking addicts who make up the bottom of the iceberg in this story, we probably won’t hear too much about the impact of the tax on their lives. But at 11 bucks a pack, there will be a lot of addicts in pain.

[TIME blog item about the forthcoming tax hike]

The GottaKickit Smoking News Digest is a service of GottaKickit.com. GottaKickit is an inexpensive, low-stress smoking cessation plan designed to help smokers break free of their habit with the aid of an iPhone, iPod Touch, or Android-based mobile device.

1) The installer. Although our old installer worked reasonably well under all current Windows operating systems, including Windows 7, it fell short of full compatibility. An effect of the change is that saved games and other data are no longer stored under the Program Files folder, but under the public application data folder instead.

2) The configuration system. Configurations in I Live at Santa’s House! have two purposes: on the one hand, they allow certain customizations for one or more children individually; and on the other, they create separate identities for saving games. They are created with the Santa’s House configuration utility, SHC. Previously, creating a new configuration was too complex for many users to bother with, involving the manual creation and editing of a desktop shortcut, among other steps. Now it’s as easy as pie. We’ve added a manager for multiple configurations to SHC, and all the hard work is done for you.

For those who don’t know, I Live at Santa’s House! is one of our most popular games. It gives little ones a chance to find out what life is like for an elf living and working in Santa’s House at the North Pole. Testing toys, wrapping gifts and baking cookies are just a few of the activities an elf can enjoy, so it’s no wonder that this game has been a seasonal favorite for many families year after year.  Kids love the idea of helping Santa, especially when it’s so much fun!

For a limited time only, a 20% discount code for I Live at Santa’s House! is available on the FamilyGames.com home page. Drop by for details!

This is the first public release of NoteCard 3.1. The download and buy links on the AheadWithMusic.com home page and elsewhere on our site have been updated to refer to this new version.

NoteCard 3.1 adds a feature (in Paid Mode only) that didn’t quite make the cut for 3.0: the capability of using an external MIDI instrument to enter notes into the program. This should be particularly useful in group teaching situations where each student is equipped with a keyboard, as well as for private users who have a MIDI keyboard as part of their computing configuration.

Also new in v3.1 is a more efficient ordering set-up that provides for a quick license code purchase from within the program, together with full RegNow tracking support for sales affiliates.

NoteCard 2.5, the last non-maintenance release of our venerable NoteCard 2 freeware, is now available for general download. This is the last version of NoteCard that will run on Windows 95 and 98, and is intended primarily for those users who are still running one of those operating systems. Although NoteCard 2 runs just fine on later OSs as well, it has fewer features than even the Free Mode of NoteCard 3, so the latter is recommended if you have XP, Vista or Windows 7.

The NoteCard 2.5 user interface has been enlarged and enlivened over previous releases of NoteCard 2. Those interested in giving it a try can download it from FamilyGames.com, or directly with this link.

Starting now, the first public release of NoteCard v3.0 is available for download on our website, and for sale through our payment processor, RegNow. See the download and buy links on the AheadWithMusic.com home page and elsewhere.

Several minor bugs have been fixed in this version relative to the recent internal release candidate. In particular, some user account issues arising from switching between Free and Paid modes were addressed.

But even NoteCard 1 wasn’t the real beginning. That was a year or two earlier when I was teaching piano in Toronto. Like many piano teachers, I had several students who found it frustratingly difficult to master note-reading, to such a degree that it was a real barrier to progress. And, again like many others, I had the idea of creating decks of musical flash cards — small cards with a staff note on one side and the note name on the other.

Flash cards are great. They are the quintessence of manual drill: there’s nothing like them for learning foreign vocabulary, for instance. Anyone who has tried to learn vocabulary from a simple written list has probably noticed an inherent problem with that method: you end up learning the information as sequenced. What flash cards contribute is randomness. They let you develop your ability  to recall information without the crutch of a predefined ordering. They teach you to be mentally ready for the rough and tumble of information in the real world. Another benefit of flash cards is total focus on the learning task: there is no overhead, no frills, no distracting frivolities. And they work just as well for musical notes as they do for languages.

Flash cards are great, but in an era of personal computing they’re not as great as they used to be. In fact, we can now do much better. When you start thinking about ‘computerizing’ flash cards, what probably comes to mind first is the convenience of not having to shuffle the deck, and not having to keep track of little pieces of cardboard any more. And those are good things. Even better, though, are the things only a computer can do, things like:

• measuring your response speed
• storing your results for analysis
• playing back notes as you enter them, to involve aural memory
• allowing different clefs without needing a new deck for each
• including optional complications like sharps and flats
• offering a choice of on-screen ‘instruments’ for note entry
• focusing on the weaker notes for extra practice
• providing an impartial measure of achievement

The new release, NoteCard 3, includes all these features and more. For instance, another key addition is support for multiple users, each with their own settings and records. NoteCard 3 allows up to three users to share a single installation of the software. With all these enhancements, the software is no longer limited to being just a passive tool. Now it can serve as an active guide, a tutor able to react and respond to the user’s individual learning situation.

NoteCard 3 is available for download and purchase immediately from AheadWithMusic.com. The software includes a 10-day trial of its two modes: Paid and Free. Users can learn their notes perfectly well in either mode, but the Paid mode offers a cluster of bonus features that I hope many users will value. If a Paid License has not been purchased during the 10-day trial, the software continues indefinitely in Free mode.

• elementary school music teacher
• private music teacher with good experience at beginner level
• adult guitarist, any level, but starting to grapple with notation

We look to our beta testers for several kinds of information: for bug reports and anomalies; for suggestions about possible enhancements; for criticisms, cavils and complaints. But the core idea is always to find out how the software behaves on actual machines ‘in the field’, with actual users at the helm. The beta test team is our Reality Check Chorus. It doesn’t have to sing in tune, just loudly and often. That is, we count on beta testers to:

• get involved with the product
• consider actively what they like and don’t like about it
• devote a significant amount of time to exploring, using and belaboring it
• take careful note of the circumstances in which any problems occur
• share their observations and experiences with our private beta tester’s group

The ideal beta tester has a lively curiosity, good communication skills, a tenacious approach to problem-solving, and enough free time to exploit these virtues. A final quality, no less necessary, is discretion. Testers must agree to respect the confidentiality of the beta process: to refrain from sharing with people outside the beta group any information not publicly available through this website.

And what do testers get in return for their service? Our profound gratitude. A chance to help shape NoteCard 3.0 and its sibling products-to-be by participating in our little beta community. And at the end, a free product license.

If you think you belong on the NoteCard 3.0 beta team, are prepared to offer the product a serious pummeling and tell us what you discover, please drop us an email giving just a few lines about yourself and your reasons for wanting to get involved with NoteCard.

The public message boards should be pretty quiet until NoteCard 3.0 is released in the next few weeks, but the private beta-testing area is beginning to see some activity and should soon be in full swing.

If you stop by our public boards and don’t see much going on just yet, please check back soon. Or you might even leave a message…

While anyone is allowed to read our public message boards, you have to sign up (enter a user name and password in the boxes on the main forum page) in order to be able to leave messages or otherwise participate in forum activities. These are the very earliest days, so you’ll never have a better chance to help set the tone for conversation at The Salon than you do right now! Why not drop in and start up some dialog?