Saturday, January 25, 2020

Aztecs Essay -- essays research papers

Aztec The Aztec Indians, who are known for their domination of southern and central Mexico, ruled between the 14th and 16th centuries. Their name is derived from Azatlan, the homeland of the north. The Aztecs also call themselves Mexica and there language came from the Nahuatlan branch of the Uto-Aztecan family.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Aztecs were formed after the Toltec civilization occurred when hundreds of civilians came towards Lake texcoco. Late families were unfortunate and were forced to go to the swamp lands. In the swamp lands there was only one piece of land to farm on and it was totally surrounded by more marshes . The Aztec families some how converted these disadvantages to a might empire known as they Aztec Empire. People say the empire was partially formed by a deeply believed legend. As the the legend went it said that Aztec people would create a empire on in a swampy place where they would see an eagle eating a snake while perched on a cactus which is growing out of a rock in the swamplands. This is what priests claimed they saw while entering the new land.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  By the year 1325 Their capital city was finished. They called it Tenochtitlan. In the the capital city aqueducts (piping) were constructed, bridges were built, and chinapas were made. Chinapas were little islands formed by pilled up mud. On these chinapas Aztecs grew corn, beans, chili peppers, squash, tomatoes, and tobacco. Tenochtitlan (the capital city) was covered in giant religious statues in order to pay their respects to the gods. In the Aztec religion numerous gods controlled an Aztec’s daily life. Some of these gods include: Uitzilpochtli (the sun god), Coyolxauhqui (the moon goddess), Tlaloc (the rain god), and Quetzalcoatl (the inventor of the calendar and writing). Another part of the Aztec religion was human sacrifices. For their sacrifices the priest would lay the man or woman over a convex (rounded) stone, then he would take a sharp knife and cut the victims heart out. They did this because they believed that good gods could prevent bad gods from doing evil things and they also believed that good gods got their strength from human blood and hearts so they had sacrifices in order to keep their gods strong. For major rituals warriors were sacrificed, for the warrior this was one of the greatest hon... ...eternity. The earth was thus created through fire and death; the earth mother had fallen, the moon goddess was dead, and her brothers slaughtered.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  And so is the story of the Aztec creation. They based their lifestyle on the examples set by the gods and goddesses in the story, thus they led violent lives. The Aztecs saw no wrong in torturing, maiming, and decapitating their neighbors for the gods. They were a savage people, and this savagery would be their downfall.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In 1519 Hernando Cortes` led over 500 men into Aztec territory in search of gold, what he found were the magnificent golden statues of the Aztec deities. The Aztecs believed him to be the representative for some white skinned god, and hence feared and respected him. It was not until they saw him melting their statues and shipping the blocks of gold to Spain that they acted. They attacked Hernanado and his men, and succeeded in driving them off. However, Cortes returned later with the support of local Indian tribes that hated the Aztecs for centuries of cruel treatment to defeat the mighty Aztecs and take the empire. This ended the Aztec civilization forever.

Friday, January 17, 2020

Natural Hair and the Lack of Hair Care Essay

Natural hair has become very popular among African American women, myself included, within the last ten years. Finding the hair care products needed is almost impossible. There are no commercials on main stream TV or advertisements in magazines. If you want to know anything about what products are available, the internet is your best bet. With the help of Natural Hair bloggers and the YouTube vloggers, who created their channels to share information, women with natural hair have been able to get the necessary information on what products are available to them for use. Bloggers and vloggers receive products from different companies, review them, and then share their experiences with others in the natural hair community. These smaller companies assist the bloggers and vloggers in hopes they provide an exceptional review of their product, which in turn, leads to reaching the customers of their target market. Eventually the larger companies soon saw this as a way to introduce their produ cts as well and followed suit. Pros of the Issue The internet and social media have opened promotional doors for small companies such as Sundial’s Shea Moisture Hair Care Line and Mixed Chicks. These are just two companies who have a market niche in natural hair care products. By sending samples to bloggers and vloggers, customers with natural hair started to inquire about their products at the local retail stores. Not long after, initially we began to see print ads in magazines targeting African American women, like Essence, Ebony and Jet. As the market started to grow ads began appearing in more mainstream magazines like Woman’s Day, Allure, and eventually mainstream television. Commercials began to air on stations like BET, TV One and Centric, which are geared to the African American community. A major promotional boost for these small companies came in 2010 and again in 2011as one of the largest retail chains in the country, Target, invited companies that were selling merchandise on line to come and provide a presentation on their products, with the possibly of being picked up for sale in Target stores. Target decided to showcase six natural hair care brands, placing them in prominent spots on the aisle and away from other ethnic hair products to allow them to stand out (http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/article/2013-06-20/startups-target). With the success natural hair care product companies were having, larger companies like L’Orà ©al and Procter & Gamble, who ruled the $7 billion U.S. hair care market, decided to join the curl trend. Because they’ve cultivated a shared sense of identity with their customers, the smaller owned companies continue to dominate (http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/article/2013-06-20/startups-target). Cons of the Issue When the major hair care companies realized that natural hair for African American women was here to stay they wanted a piece of the action and jumped into the natural hair care market. With more money and larger advertising departments, the larger companies were able to hire advertising firms to produce top notch commercials and print ads to for the market. Their ads were seen on main stream television and in more main stream magazines when compared to the smaller mostly black owned companies. As these smaller companies continue to grow, hopefully so will their promotional dollars. There is a need for more commercials that will be seen by the masses. My Position on the Issue Being of African American decent, and also wearing my hair natural, I remember at the start of my journey the problem of not being able to find products or should I say, the right products to care for my hair. This took me to the internet and YouTube where there are lots of people promoting  products for natural hair care. Products are being used and reviewed for both the smaller companies and some of the larger ones. I would love to see more promotion from both sizes of companies on main stream basic television. As the natural hair community continues to grow, the need for products will also grow. By not advertising across all spectrums of ad media, companies are missing a whole target market. I purchase most of the things I do, because I either have seen a commercial or by word of mouth. Perreault, Cannon & McCarthy (2010) tell us that â€Å"Promotion is communicating information between the seller and potential buyer or others in the channel to influence attitudes and behavior.† References Dwoskin, E. (2013, June 20). Yale and Evin Bloomberg | Violin | Home. Retrieved from http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/article/2013-06-20/startups-target Perreault, Jr., W. D., Cannon, J. P., & McCarthy, E. J. (2010). Promotion-Introduction to Integrated Marketing Communications. In Essentials of Marketing (12th ed., p. 322). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.

Thursday, January 9, 2020

Create a Mouseover Color Highlight Using Delphi

Have you ever seen a menu or table column or row highlight to a different color when your mouse hovers over it? Thats what our goal is here: to have a row become highlighted when the mouse pointer is within range. The TDBGrid Delphi component is one of the jewels of the VCL. Designed to enable a user to view and edit data in a tabular grid, the DBGrid provides various ways of customizing the way it represents its own data. For example, adding color to your database grids will enhance the appearance and differentiate the importance of certain rows or columns within the database. However, dont be fooled by over-simplistic tutorials on this topic. It might seem easy enough to just set the dgRowSelect property, but remember that when dgRowSelect is included in Options, the dgEditing flag is ignored, meaning that editing the data using the grid is disabled. What youll find below is an explanation on how to enable the OnMouseOver type of event for a DBGrid row, so that the mouse is recorded and located, making the record active so as to highlight the corresponding row in a DBGrid. How to Work With OnMouseOver and Delphi Components The first order of business is writing code for the OnMouseMove event in a TDBGrid component so that it can locate the DBGrids row and column (cell) that the mouse is hovering over. If the mouse is over the grid (handled in the OnMouseMove event handler), you can use the MoveBy method of a DataSet component to set the current record to the one displayed below the mouse cursor. type THackDBGrid class(TDBGrid);...procedure TForm1.DBGrid1MouseMove (Sender: TObject; Shift: TShiftState; X, Y: Integer);var gc: TGridCoord;begin gc: DBGrid1.MouseCoord(x, y); if (gc.X 0) AND (gc.Y 0) thenbegin DBGrid1.DataSource.DataSet.MoveBy (gc.Y - THackDBGrid(DBGrid1).Row); end;end; Similar code can be used to show which cell the mouse hovers over and to change the cursor when its over the title bar. In order to correctly set the active record, you need to hack a DBGrid and get your hands on the protected Row property. The Row property of a TCustomDBGrid component holds the reference to the currently active row. Many Delphi components have useful properties and methods that are marked invisible, or protected, to a Delphi developer. Hopefully, to access such protected members of a component, a simple technique called the protected hack can be used. With the code above, when you move the mouse over the grid, the selected record is the one displayed in the grid below the mouse cursor. Theres no need to click the grid to change the current record. Have the active row highlighted to enhance the users experience: procedure TForm1.DBGrid1DrawColumnCell (Sender: TObject; const Rect: TRect; DataCol: Integer; Column: TColumn; State: TGridDrawState);beginif (THackDBGrid(DBGrid1).DataLink.ActiveRecord 1 THackDBGrid(DBGrid1).Row) or (gdFocused in State) or (gdSelected in State) thenbegin DBGrid1.Canvas.Brush.Color : clSkyBlue; DBGrid1.Canvas.Font.Style : DBGrid1.Canvas.Font.Style [fsBold]; DBGrid1.Canvas.Font.Color : clRed; end;end; The OnDrawColumnCell event is used to handle the need for a customized drawing for the data in the cells of the grid. You can use a little trick to differentiate the selected row from all the other rows. Consider that the Row property (integer) is equal to the ActiveRecord (1) property of the DataLink object that the selected row is about to be painted. Youll probably want to disable this behavior (the MoveBy method in OnMouseMove event handler) when DataSet connected to a DBGrid is in Edit or Insert mode.​