Nelly, TLC, and Flo Rida Coming To Charlotte This Summer

Steve
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Nelly, TLC, and Flo Rida Coming To Charlotte This Summer

Nelly, one of the biggest rap stars of the 2000s, is joining legendary R&B group TLC along with Flo Rida for a 21-city tour starting in July. They will be heading to the PNC Music Pavilion on July 26th.

Don’t miss “Hot in Here”, “Dilemma”, “No Scrubs”, and “Creep” for one of Charlotte’s most nostalgic concerts of the summer.

A presale event kicked off yesterday at noon for Citi card members. Tickets will go on sale to the general public at 10 a.m. March 15 at LiveNation.com.

Tickets range in price from $25-$125.

Find out more info or buy tickets here (if you’re a Citi card member, you can buy presale tickets – your passcode is the first 6 digits of your Citi card).

Small Business Ideas for Charlotte Area

Steve
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Small Business Ideas for Charlotte Area

Have you ever considered opening up your own business but been put off by the risk and the idea that you have to come up with? Your idea does not need to be a brand-new concept that no one has ever heard of, but your business will need to stand out in a crowd in order for it to succeed. We will now take a look at some ideas that you could consider and ways to help them succeed.

 

  • Gifts

 

There are so many occasions throughout the year that having a company that helps you pick an appropriate gift would be a great idea for a business. It is by no means a new idea but it is something that could be developed by putting your own ideas into practice. For example, your idea could be that you only provide gifts that are under $15 only. This would open up your clientele as the pricing is relatively low so you will have access to the masses.

 

  • Children’s Stationery

 

Children love stationery as it is a way that they can express themselves through play and creativity. A business idea could be to supply stationery items with a difference. For younger children that like to stamp, for example, you could contact a Singapore rubber stamp maker to create a signature design that you could be associated with your brand. This doesn’t just stop at stamps, as you could create other signature pieces of stationery that are associated with your brand.

 

  • Child Inspired Adult Items

 

Take an existing product such as slime, which is primarily for children, and adapt it so that adults can use it. Children love to play with and make slime and in fact it could be created for adults and used in situations such as team building equipment and exercise. This idea could be developed in many different areas such as play dough and putty. Additionally, to make this idea stand out from the crowd, you could even adapt it to have many different uses for adults i.e. as a stress relief tool.

 

  • Event Planner

 

Event planning may already be something that’s readily available online, however, doing it with a difference could make your idea supersede others. For instance, if you are planning a wedding, you may have a particular expertise in a certain style /theme and this needs to be used and marketed as the main aspect of your business. This way it is clear that what you offer is different to your competitors.

As you can see, the ideas that we have provided could benefit from being online. Companies such as Mandreel can help you to promote and develop a website presence as any businesses would benefit from having a strong online presence from the offset. This is simply because a lot of business is now conducted via the internet. This is not suggesting that you don’t need to pay attention to offline activity, as this also has its place when starting up a new business.

2019 ACC Tournament Begins Today In Uptown Charlotte

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2019 ACC Tournament Begins Today In Uptown Charlotte

Charlotte is about to host it’s 3rd nationally renowned basketball event of the year. Just weeks after the CIAA tournament and NBA All-Star games, the ACC tournament will be kicking off today at noon with #12 Miami taking on #13 Wake Forest at the Spectrum Center at noon.

One of the most popular tournaments in college basketball is back in North Carolina this year for the 50th time after a brief hiatus in NYC last year.

Tickets range from $6 for today’s games to over $1,600 for floor seats at Saturday night’s championship game.

Here is the complete schedule for this week (tickets can be purchased here);

First Round

Tuesday, March 12

Game 1: No. 12 Miami (13-17) vs. No. 13 Wake Forest (11-19), Noon, ESPN

Game 2: No. 10 Georgia Tech (14-17) vs. No. 15 Notre Dame (13-18), 2 p.m., ESPN

Game 3: No. 11 Boston College (14-16) vs. No. 14 Pittsburgh (13-18), 7 p.m., ESPNU

Second Round

Wednesday, March 13

Game 4: No. 8 NC State (21-10) vs. No. 9 Clemson (19-12), Noon, ESPN

Game 5: No. 5 Virginia Tech (23-7) vs. Game 1 Winner, 2 p.m., ESPN

Game 6: No. 7 Louisville (19-12) vs. Game 2 Winner, 7 p.m., ESPN2

Game 7: No. 6 Syracuse (19-12) vs. Game 3 Winner, 9 p.m., ESPN2

Quarterfinals

Thursday, March 14

Game 8: No. 1 Virginia (28-2) vs. Game 4 Winner, 12:30 p.m., ESPN or ESPN2

Game 9: No. 4 Florida State (25-6) vs. Game 5 Winner, 2:30 p.m., ESPN or ESPN2

Game 10: No. 2 North Carolina (26-5) vs. Game 6 Winner, 7 p.m., ESPN or ESPN2

Game 11: No. 3 Duke (26-5) vs. Game 7 Winner, 9 p.m., ESPN or ESPN2

Semifinals

Friday, March 15

Game 12: Game 8 Winner vs. Game 9 Winner, 7 p.m., ESPN

Game 13: Game 10 Winner vs. Game 11 Winner, 9 p.m., ESPN

ACC Championship

Saturday, March 16

Game 14: Game 12 Winner vs. Game 13 Winner, 8:30 p.m., ESPN

The Tournament will move to Greensboro in 2020, DC in 2021, and NYC in 2022.

The 2019 Charlotte Opera Auditions Will Take Place This Month

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The 2019 Charlotte Opera Auditions Will Take Place This Month

The 2019 Charlotte Opera Guild Auditions will be held on Saturday, March 23, 2019 at the St. John’s Baptist Church 300 Hawthorne Lane Charlotte, NC 28204. The goal of the competition is to encourage young talent as they pursue their education and careers in opera. Auditions will begin at 11:00 a.m.

Contestants must be between the ages of 20-30 by the competition date, and must have a permanent residence in North Carolina or South Carolina, or must be currently studying voice in North Carolina or South Carolina with serious intent for a career in opera. Previous first place winners are not eligible.

AWARDS:

  • First Prize $1200. 00 (and the possibility of a secondary role with Opera Carolina in the next two years. Will be invited to perform for the Opera Guild Installation program on May 16th, 2019 in Charlotte, NC.)
  • Second Prize $800.00
  • Third Prize $500.00
  • Encouragement $250.00
  • Encouragement $250.00

The competition is limited to the first 30 completed applications received. Click here to apply.

Uber Released The Top 10 Destinations for Charlotte Riders

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Uber Released The Top 10 Destinations for Charlotte Riders

Uber released their annual list of the most frequented locations in the Queen City.

The list ranked the places that Uber riders requested to be dropped off the most about of times, excluding the Charlotte Douglas Airport and all Light Rail stops.

The report also noted that the busiest time of the week is 11pm on Saturdays and that the busiest day of the year was October 28th, the Saturday before Halloween.

According to Uber, these are the top 10 most popular destinations for Uber passengers in Charlotte;

#1 EpiCentre

#2 The Westin Charlotte

#3 Charlotte Marriott City Center

#4 Sycamore Brewing

#5 Ink N Ivy

#6 Le Méridien Charlotte

#7 Hilton Charlotte Center City

#8 PNC Music Pavilion

#9 Bank of America Stadium

#10 Selwyn Irish Pub

Have you used Uber this year?

Where were you dropped off most often?

All You Need to Know About OCR Technology

Steve
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All You Need to Know About OCR Technology

OCR or Optical Character Recognition is a modern technology that allows you to convert several types of files, such as PDFfiles, scanned paper documents or images taken by a photographic camera into searchable and editable data. To be able to repurpose and extract data from camera images, scanned documents or image-only PDF files, you’ll need an OCR software applicationsuch as Sodapdfthat can pick out characters fromany image, put them into words and sentences, hence making it possible to edit and access the content material of the original file.

What Technologies Fabricate OCR?

The precise systems that help people to recognize characters are yet to be comprehended. However, the 3 fundamental principles are already widely recognized by experts – integrity, purposefulness,and adaptability (IPA). All these concepts form the root of Sodapdf OCR making it possible for it to replicate human=like or natural recognition.

Let us have a look on the way Sodapdf OCR recognizes textual content. First, this program evaluates the particular structure of the file image. It splits the page into several elements for example blocks of tables, images, texts, etc. The particular lines are split into characters then words and sentences. When the characters have been separated, the application analyzes them with some pattern images. It develops several practices regarding what this particular character is. Based on all these practices this program evaluates different variations of breaking of lines into text and text into characters. Immediately after finalizing significant amounts of these probabilistic practices, this program finally takes its decision, forming and presenting a human the recognized textual content.

Using OCR Software

Using Sodapdf OCR is a breeze: the process usually includes 3 stages: Scan the file, analyze it and then Save in a handy format (PDF, RTF, XLS, HTML, DOC, TXT and so forth.) or export files directly to one of MS Office programs such as Microsoft Excel, Word or even Adobe Acrobat.

On top of that, the most up-to-date version of Sodapdf OCR supports Automated Tasks function which is important when you manage routine tasks on a regular basis. With this particular feature, the recognition process runs automatically without needing to perform the steps mentioned above manually.

Benefits of OCR

With Sodapdf OCR, the recognized file looks just like the original. State-of-the-art, highly effective OCR software enables you to save time and effort while processing, creating and repurposing different files. With Sodapdf OCR, you can easily scan paper files for further editing and sharing with your partners and co-workers. You can easily extract quotes from magazines and books and utilize them for making your training course studies and documents without the hassle of retyping. With a photographic camera and Sodapdf OCR, you can easily capture textual content outdoors from posters, banners,and schedules and then utilize the captured details for your purposes. In the same manner, you can also capture information and facts from paper books and documents – for example, if there’s no scanning device readily available or you can’t use it.

 

Massive 2-Alarm Fire Erupts At Charlotte Apartment Complex Early This Morning

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Massive 2-Alarm Fire Erupts At Charlotte Apartment Complex Early This Morning

Over 4 dozen firefighters were called together to respond to a massive 2-alarm fire that erupted at a Charlotte apartment complex early this morning.

At about 3am this morning, a fire broke out at the Avalon Apartment complex;

The Charlotte Fire Department reported that the fire was brought under control in about 30 minutes by 50 fire fighters;

There have not been any injuries reported and fire department officials are still investigating the cause of the blaze.

If you have any information about the fire, please call Crime Stoppers at 704-334-1600.

Charlotte Is About To Host Its First Week-Long Caribbean Carnival

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Charlotte Is About To Host Its First Week-Long Caribbean Carnival

The Queen City is about to host its very first week-long Caribbean Carnival

The Charlotte Caribbean Carnival will begin Saturday, June 22, with a Children’s Caribbean Carnival and culminate Saturday, June 29 with the Afro-Caribbean Carnival Finale.

The week of Caribbean festivities will feature local artists, drummers and steel pan players. Attendees and passersby will enjoy a street parade featuring the best of Carnival inspired fashions, entertainment and arts; as well as witness the crowning of Charlotte’s first Carnival Queen. A highlight of the festival will be the Afro-Caribbean Village strategically placed in the epicenter of Charlotte’s cultural community at the Charlotte Open Air Market located at 5471 Central Avenue.

Charlotte Caribbean Festival was created by Grenada native, Natalie Joseph. As a child in Grenada, she recalls always being involved in the culture in areas such as; arts and crafts, big drum dancing, cooking, and fashion. June is recognized as National American-Caribbean Heritage Month, and instead of traveling to other cities to celebrate as she has done over the years, she has decided to bring the celebration to Charlotte.

The official launch for the Charlotte Caribbean Carnival will take place Saturday, March 9. Beginning at one o’clock in the afternoon, Charlotte Caribbean Carnival Media Day Fete will be held at 360 Lounge located at 7030 Smith Corners Blvd. A taste of what is to come will feature the introduction of the Queen Contestants and Mas Band leaders as well as, provide a first look at Carnival fashions.

For more information and registration for Queen Contestants, Mas Band and Children’s Carnival visit charlottecaribbeancarnival.com.

Charlotte Ranks Among The Top Cities In North America For Home Price Growth

Steve
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Charlotte Ranks Among The Top Cities In North America For Home Price Growth

The real estate company Point 2 Homes has just ranked our city as having one of the fastest growing real estate markets on the continent over the past 5 years.

To see which North American cities witnessed the biggest price changes over the past 5 years, the company analyzed all cities with a population over 500,000 and ranked them according to the change in home price.

The study found that:

  • The city of Charlotte saw a 40% jump prices, ranking us 23 out of 83 in North America.
  • The median home price in Charlotte went from $168,000 to $234,500 in 5 years.
  • San Francisco boasts the highest net increase of all the cities in the study ($550,000)

The Queen City ranked just ahead of Fresno and San Diego, and just behind Staten Island and Indianapolis in the study:

9 Schools Recognized with N.C. School Breakfast Challenge Awards

Steve
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9 Schools Recognized with N.C. School Breakfast Challenge Awards

Nine schools across North Carolina were recently recognized at the N.C. Child Hunger Leaders Conference with N.C. School Breakfast Challenge Awards for using innovative strategies to increase participation in School Breakfast Programs and ensuring that their students start each day with a healthy breakfast. Breakfast Challenge Winners are the top three schools at each level – elementary, middle and high – that achieved the highest percentage increases in School Breakfast Program participation. The 2018 N.C. Breakfast Challenge winners achieved increases in School Breakfast Program participation in the range of 22 to 62 percent.

  • Elementary
    • Gaston Elementary – 62 percent (Northampton County Schools)
    • W. McLauchlin Elementary – 47 percent (Hoke County Schools)
    • Central Elementary – 44 percent (Rockingham County Schools)
  • Middle
    • West Hoke Middle – 53 percent (Hoke County Schools)
    • Table Rock Middle – 31 percent (Burke County Schools)
    • Walter R. Johnson Middle – 27 percent (Burke County Schools)
  • High
    • Blue Ridge Early College – 28 percent (Jackson County Schools)
    • McDowell Early College – 27 percent (McDowell County Schools)
    • West Craven High – 22 percent (Craven County Schools)

“An important part of student success starts with a healthy breakfast at school,” said State Superintendent Mark Johnson. “Students who eat breakfast do better in the classroom. The nourishment helps them pay attention longer and learn more easily.”

All 115 local education agencies in North Carolina are included in the Breakfast Challenge, a partnership of No Kid Hungry North Carolina, the UNC Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, The Dairy Alliance and the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction’s School Nutrition Services Section. Due to the effects of Hurricane Florence, some schools were not eligible this year due to the limited number of days that school was open and serving meals in October 2018.

The goal of the challenge is to increase participation in School Breakfast Programs. Participation rates are calculated based on School Nutrition Program meals claim data provided by the N.C. Department of Public Instruction. Breakfast Challenge Awards are given based on the greatest percentage increase in participation over the previous school year. To increase participation, schools can explore a variety of ways to serve school breakfast, allowing more students the opportunity to eat a regular morning meal such as Breakfast in the Classroom, Breakfast Break, Breakfast Kiosk, Grab n’ Go Breakfast, Second Chance Breakfast, and/or Universal Free Breakfast. The outcome is that students benefit from eating a healthy breakfast every school day.

Studies show that students who eat breakfast:

  • have improved attendance and less tardiness,
  • are able to pay attention longer,
  • demonstrate better behavior in the classroom,
  • perform better on tests,
  • make fewer trips to the school nurse,
  • have a better overall diet, and
  • are more likely to be at a healthy weight.

When a student eats a nutritious meal, he or she is ready to learn. School breakfast offers several connections to learning—students have the opportunity to eat a healthy breakfast each school morning closer to instructional time, students who eat a healthy breakfast are better able to focus on classroom lessons, and students can practice the nutrition lessons they learn in the classroom by making healthy choices with school breakfast.

Schools across the state are celebrating National School Breakfast Week March 4-8. Students, school staff and parents can take this opportunity to try breakfast at their school. To learn more about innovative School Breakfast Programs, visit the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, School Nutrition Services website, https://childnutrition.ncpublicschools.gov/programs/sbp.

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