A healthy woman today is usually imaged as lean, pencil-thin, bony yet muscular in physique. Combine this with the trend towards naturally wind-blown hair (not permed, teased, and shellacked); make-up barely discernible (not painted on); and a breezy”be what you want to be, express yourself”dress style—and you get the look aspired by many women all over the world.

The problem is that adherence to a strict, inflexible standard does not leave much room for the wonderful variability that comes as a result of race, genes, and personal style.Think of the Indian woman in a sari, the Japanese kimono-clad woman with mincing steps, the American athlete, or the Filipina in a malong or a kimono, or modern dress.

For Filipinos, trying to copy this magazine image is difficult, especially for those whose Spanish heritage shaped them rounder, heavier in the hips, with defined waistlines and curves. If the Asian heritage is the more obvious part of the image, then we are lean and lithe. Anglo-Americans are built much bigger.

With the emphasis on body fat placement (the apple and pear shapes) rather than size and build, Asians are less likely to die of severe heart attacks and strokes than are Anglo-Americans. Asians, however, are now like the Caucasians—prone to chronic diseases like diabetes, hypertension, some cancers, and other diseases derived from lifestyle abuse.

Apple may have won hearts with the iPhone, but it has yet to fully penetrate the enterprise field. Many corporations feel that the iPhone’s biggest shortcoming is its inability to play with Microsoft Exchange Server, the de facto standard for many large-scale businesses.

That’s all going to change soon since Apple recently licensed Microsoft Exchange Activesync to provide secure, over-the-airpush email, contacts and calendar as well as remote wipe, and the addition of Cisco Ipsec VPN for
encrypted access to private corporate networks. Support for MS Exchange is built right into version2.o.

For IT administrators, 2.0 includes a built-in configuration utility that allows quick and easy changes in password policies. VPN settings, installation certificates, email server settings of multiple iPhones in one go. All this can be securely deployed via a simple web link or an email to the user. To install, all the user has to do is  authenticate with a user ID or password, download the configuration, and tap install.

Once installed, the user will have access to all their corporate IT services.
(Note: WPA2 Enterprise with 802.1x authentication, was not previously available on the iPhone and iPod Touch.)

If your child comes home looking emo, don’t be too quick to judge. A tween daughter may simply be copying a current fashion style that’s big in her class, while a teenage son might just enjoy applying “guyliner” (eyeliner on guys).

Parents should observe and answer questions like, “Why is my child doing this? Why is he so preoccupied with this trend? What is missing in his life?” A doctor advises parents to be present and lend an ear. “Being emo is a call for help,” she says. “Before telling your children what they must do, listen to them first. They want to be heard, not listen to a sermon.” “They do not want to be judged, so a hysterical reaction from parents will not help.”

If your teenager is just experimenting, talk to him and set limits. “It’s not about banning or censoring. Be flexible enough to negotiate with your teen as far as these limits are concerned. Remind them of the consequences if they fail to follow the limits.”

Communication helps build a successful relationship, so the best thing parents can do is have regular talks with their kids. Express genuine interest and concern. Gradually, they will open up and let parents help sort out their confusing feelings.

Now we can all listen to our own music, watch our own programs, create our own playlist. But something seems to be missing.

Back in the early 60s, well before most of this magazines readers were born. “television” meant a wooden box in a neighbor’s house — a box with a glass screen on which fuzzy black and white images moved, making tinny raspy noises through a speaker in one corner of the machine, Since it was our neighbor’s TV, we were at the mercy of whatever she deemed worthy of her time and her electricity.

But it was okay; we all had fun, and couldn’t stop talking about what we saw, over dinner, while we fervently pledged to succeed in life so we could buy our own TV.

At that same time. “radio” meant one of two, maybe three, things. It might have been a large wood-paneled appliance with cathedral windows and knobs that moved a dial from here to there, transporting you at nearly every stop to a station playing sweetly sleepy music. Or it could have been a portable wooden or plastic shoebox powered by enough size-D batteries to run a small boat, or yet again — if you were young and hip — a truly pocketable transistor radio that sounded like it housed a colony of musical ants, but never mind that; in the world of mono, there was nothing cooler than walking around with an AM/FM radio glued to your ear (Yes, we had earphones even then — just one, not two — and it was the shape and almost the size of an acorn.)

This, to us, was home entertainment, and it was plenty entertaining, because we had precious few other options.

It was a lot cheaper to stay at home, and sit all together in the living room with the TV and the radio — and ah, yes, let’s not forget the record player (aka the phonograph). With its scratchy speaker, sapphire needle, and a little plastic adaptor you used to thread a 45rpm record into a standard 78 or 33rpm setup.

Today, I’m swimming in a sea of iPods and assorted media players.