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About 500 Boyle County students will take advantage of the district's first Mandarin Chinese classes when school resumes Aug. 14. Samuel Tan and Nears Chen, fellows with the Confucius Institute at Western Kentucky University,  will teach their native language in classes offered to Boyle students in grades three to 12. Tan and Chen, who are career teachers in China, recently moved to Danville and are looking forward to learning more about American...

STANFORD - Can you keep a secret? Lisa Johnson can. A condition for being a contestant on CMT's “The Singing Bee” was secrecy until after her appearance on the show that filmed the first week of March and will, finally, air at 8 p.m. Friday. Only then will family and friends and her students watching the show know if she came home with $10,000 or just the memory of a lifetime. Johnson's adventure started while watching the show during Christmas break from her job as a teacher at Lincoln County Middle School.

It's official! Microsoft will be offering Windows 7 for netbooks directly from the Microsoft Store. In fact, it will be the only place to purchase the downloadable versions of Windows 7. All editions of Windows 7 are being made available in a downloadable format as to make it easy to get Windows 7 for, not only netbook users, but others without an optical drive in their systems. Internet users are able to pre-order the downloadable Windows 7 editions prior to the official release of the OS. When Windows 7 is released on Oct. 22, Internet users can directly download the OS to a USB drive onto their netbook.

Microsoft and Dell Computers have joined forces in the (RED) campaign. As part of the (RED) campaign, the companies will donate a portion of sales of red-branded products to help the Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. The (RED) campaign was created by rock star Bono and philanthropist Bobby Shriver. The three Dell computers that this joint company venture will produce for the (RED) campaign are the XPS One - an all in one PC, XPS M1330 and XPS M1530. The computers will run with the Vista Ultimate operating system featuring a customized red theme.

Well, as they say, all good things must come to an end. This time the saying applies to the Bing cashback program which will be discontinued soon. The final time and date to earn cash back on your Bing shopping purchases is at 9 p.m. PST July 30. Until that time, Bing Cashback users still can shop and earn cash back. Cashback rewards still can be be redeemed and the Bing cashback customer support system will still be accessible through July 30, 2011. The $5 minimum payout restriction will be removed July 31 to ease the redemption process.

This week, I present to you the opportunity to get free, full-version software from Microsoft. Now, I must clarify that this offer is available for students only. Free software from Microsoft? Yup, you read it correctly. As unlikely as it may seem, Microsoft is giving students full-version, professional-level developer and design tools free of charge. Why is Microsoft offering free software? Because it wants students to be able to chase their dreams. According to its site, it wants students to be able to create the next big breakthrough in technology or get a head start on their careers.

There have been so many new Internet telephony offerings within the last six months. It's been really hard trying to keep up with all of them. If you're looking to save some cash and lower your phone bills, please read on. The best part of the growth of Internet telephony is the fact that we, as Internet users, are reaping the biggest portion of the benefits. Just the fact that we get to have such a great variety of choices is splendid, especially when we decide to leap into this wonderful technology.

Do you Twitter? Do you Facebook? Do you Skype? Well, I'm officially a Facebooker and a Twitterer and a Skyper. Surely you've heard of the latest Internet networking crazes. It started as an experiment for me. After repeatedly getting Facebook invites by e-mail for the last two years and my fraternity brother from Charlotte giving me the final nudge, I'm in. I signed up, and frankly immediately became uncomfortable with all the personal information it required. My mother-in-law has convinced me the Internet may cause me to be kidnapped by a gang of thieves at any moment.

Manna Ministries offers free meals at NUMC A free meal is provided by Manna Ministries each Saturday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. The meal is a restaurant-quality meal served at 303 W. Maple St. in the community center of Nicholasville United Methodist Church. The meal is open to the public for anyone in need. Takeout meals are available after 12:30 p.m. Volunteers are always welcome and can contact the office at 859-885-4481. FAS announces summer book series The Francis Asbury Society is pleased to announce their new summer book series.