The immune system is a network of cells, organs and proteins that work together to defend and protect the body from potentially harmful, infectious microorganisms (microscopic life-forms), such as bacteria, viruses, parasites and fungi. The immune system also plays a critical role in preventing the development and spread of many types of cancer.

When the immune system is missing one or more of its components, the result is an immunodeficiency disorder. AIDS is an immunodeficiency disorder.

Lymphocytes (white blood cells) are one of the main types of immune cells that make up the immune system. There are two types of lymphocytes: B cells and T cells. (T cells are also called CD4 cells, CD4 T cells, or CD4 cell lymphocytes). B cells secrete antibodies (proteins) into the body’s fluids to ambush and attack antigens (foreign proteins such as bacteria, viruses or fungi). T cells directly attack and destroy infected or malignant cells in the body.

There are two types of T cells: helper T cells and killer T cells. Helper T cells recognize the antigen and activate the killer T cells. Killer T cells then destroy the antigen.

When HIV is introduced into the body, this virus is too strong for the helper T cells and killer T cells. The virus then invades these cells and starts to reproduce itself, thereby not only killing the CD4 T cells, but also spreading to infect otherwise healthy cells.

The HIV virus cannot be destroyed and lives in the body undetected for months or years before any sign of illness appears. Gradually, over many years or even decades, as the T cells become progressively destroyed or inactivated, other viruses, parasites or cancer cells (called “opportunistic diseases”) which would not have been able to get past a healthy body’s defense, can multiply within the body without fear of destruction. Commonly seen opportunistic diseases in persons with HIV infection include: pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, tuberculosis, candida (yeast) infection of the mouth, throat or vagina, shingles, cytomegalovirus retinitis and Kaposi’s sarcoma.

A nutritious morning meal provides the energy your body needs to function and the nutrients it needs to stay in top shape. Keep the healthy meal simple and tasty to guarantee you’ll have the time to prepare it each morning and the desire to actually eat your creation.

Egg Burrito

If you’re a fan of spicy dishes, an egg burrito is an easy and healthy breakfast treat you can eat sitting down or on the go. The breakfast burrito wrap consists of a whole-wheat tortilla smeared with a little low-fat sour cream. The scrambled egg filling for the burrito consists of two eggs, one with the yolk separated and discarded, and a few tablespoons of salsa.

Apple Oatmeal

Making oatmeal from scratch is almost as easy as making instant oatmeal. Easy homemade oatmeal requires 1 part rolled oats for every 2 parts liquid. You simply boil the oats in the liquid for about five minutes, or until soft, and eat.

Creating interesting oatmeal dishes requires throwing additional ingredients into the liquid and/or oats. Tasty apple oatmeal follows the basic recipe, but uses 1 part rolled oats, 1.5 parts water and .5 part unsweetened applesauce with some raisins, walnuts, cinnamon and nutmeg. Additional ingredients can include dried cranberries, mashed banana, chopped nuts and/or some berry jam.

Protein Shake

Create a healthy and delicious breakfast with the push of a button if you don’t care for heavy morning meals. Blended protein powder, yogurt, ice, fruit and/or juice are the basic ingredients for most breakfast shakes. The key is to mix the basic ingredients with some heavier ingredients to give the meal some body.

A berry protein shake with vanilla protein powder, non-fat yogurt, orange juice, blueberries, strawberries and ice may be healthy and tasty, but it’s not a filling meal. A small amount of rolled oats or cooked brown rice added to the shake will make the meal filling without harming the flavor. Other possible additions include chopped nuts, nut butter and/or dried fruit.

Yogurt Parfait

Combine yogurt, fruit and granola to create a quick and healthy breakfast with a fancy appearance. Any combination of the three basic ingredients can work, but you want to stick with non-fat or low-fat yogurt to keep the meal healthy. Try layers of cinnamon granola, strawberry yogurt and fresh raspberries or almond granola, lemon yogurt and fresh blueberries for a refreshing breakfast treat.

It doesn’t matter what software you’re using to power your blog or Web site—Wordpress, Textpattern, Drupal, Pligg, etc. At some point, there’s a good chance you’ll need to run cron jobs to automatically execute various tasks on your preset schedules.

For example, it’s a very good idea to schedule automatic backups of your database. Your site may also require the regular, automatic execution of a script to update data (for example, if you use the RSS Importer with Pligg, you’ll want to automatically update your feeds). I’ll show you how to do both.

There are two ways to set a cron job, one esoteric (using Unix commands), and one easy (using cPanel, or some other graphical interface).

Here are some tips designed for beginners.

Getting Started

This tutorial assumes you’re using cPanel, one of the most popular hosting control panels. If you’re on a shared hosting plan, there’s a good chance your host uses cPanel (some popular hosts, like DreamHost and GoDaddy, don’t). But even if you don’t have cPanel, your control panel will probably let you create cron jobs without knowing Unix, in a way similar to what I’ll describe below.

Let’s get started. Log in to your cPanel and look for the Cron Jobs icon:

Creating a Cron Job

Now that you’re at the Cron Manager, let’s create a cron job. You can set a job to run at a specific interval or at a specific times. Creating a cron job requires only three simple steps:

1. Enter your email address where it says: Please enter an email address where the cron output will be sent. Cron will send you a message when the job is executed, so you’ll know if there are any errors.
2. In the Command to run: field, enter the full path to your script (you may need to check with your host for this).If you want to run a php file, the command will begin with php. For example, if you want to run RSS Import to update your Pligg feeds, you’d enter php and the path to your import_feeds.php file.Your path would look something like this:
   

   php /home/[your username]/public_html/rss/import_feeds.php

   If you want to run the automatic backup script, which backs up your MySQL database and emails a copy to you, you’d enter /bin/sh (since this is a shell script), and the path to your script.

   Your path would look something like this:

   /bin/sh /home/[your username]/etc/upstart_cron_backup.sh

3. Now you need to set the schedule.
   • Set the Minute(s). You can set a short interval here, or minutes of the hour (you can select multiple items in this—and the other— boxes by using the Shift and Command keys). If you don’t care about minutes, leave this set to 0).If you want to test things, set this to run Every Five Minutes. This is a good interval for running the script, checking your email for errors, and changing settings before your inbox gets inundated with cron messages.
   • Set the Hour(s). If you’re creating a cron job to run RSS Import, you might want to set this to Every Hour. If you’re setting up a backup script, you might choose an hour in the middle of the night for nightly backups.
   • Set the Day(s). You’ll probably want to leave this set to Every Day, but you can also choose specific days of the month.
   • Set the Weekday(s).
   • Set the Month(s).

When you’ve set the schedule, your cron job is done. Click the Add New Corn Job button. If you set it to a short interval for testing, you should have an email with your output within a few minutes. If there’s an error (usually a problem with your path), check your settings.