Bernard Edwards, Jr., better known as Focus..., is an Atlanta-based record producer who first rose to fame when signed to Dr. Dre's Aftermath Entertainment. Since then he has produced tracks for Dr. Dre, Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Kendrick Lamar, Lil Wayne, Jadakiss, Christina Aguilera, Jennifer Lopez, Beyoncé Knowles, 50 Cent, Busta Rhymes, Bishop Lamont, Tony Yayo, Stat Quo, Outlawz, The Game, Jay Rock, Schoolboy Q, Mac Dre, Ice Cube, Anderson Paak, Jon Connor, Joe, Marsha Ambrosius , Slum Village amongst many others.

Biography

Focus... is the son of the late Bernard Edwards, co-founder of disco and R&B band Chic. He was born in Manhattan, New York, and raised in the Tri-State Region. Edwards, Jr credits his father with his love for the production side of music, which he developed from an early age, attending numerous studio sessions with his father.

Focus...'s production talents were first recognized by Dr. Dre when an artist Edwards, Jr had produced, Daks, greatly impressed the Aftermath label head. signed Focus... so that the two could then continue working together.

Focus is the second studio album from the Christian singer-songwriter Holly Starr. The album released on October 2, 2012 via Save the City Records. The producers on the album were Chuck Butler, David Garcia and Christopher Stevens. The album received critical acclamation from music critics, yet it did not get much commercial success because it failed to chart.

Background

The album released on October 2, 2012 by Save the City Records, and the producers on the album were Chuck Butler, David Garcia and Christopher Stevens. This was the second studio album from the songstress Holly Starr.

Critical reception

Focus garnered critical acclaim from eight music critics. Robert Ham of Allmusic rated the album four stars, calling it a "pleasant surprise" because it kept up with contemporary musical trends. At Cross Rhythms, Matthew Cordle rated the album a perfect ten, noting how the album comes "with a cleaner, tighter, more stripped-back sound, less electric and more acoustic" than its predecessor, and it is "Impeccably produced, this is a thoroughly modern pop sound conveying a thoroughly ancient message." Christian Music Zine's Joshua Andre rated the album four-and-three-fourths, saying that this is a "brilliant" release on which "Holly's poignant lyrics and well-crafted pop melodies and ballads is sure to propel her soon, if not already, into the same league and caliber of songwriting as Nichole Nordeman and Jason Ingram." Grace Thorson of CM Addict rated the album four-and-a-half stars, affirming that the release is "well-rounded".

FOCUS is a computer programming language and development environment. It is a language used to build database queries, and is regarded as a fourth-generation programming language (4GL). Produced by Information Builders Inc., it was originally developed for data handling and analysis on the IBM mainframe. As newer systems were developed and smaller computers became more powerful, the available platforms for FOCUS were extended to personal computers and in 1997, to the World Wide Web in the WebFOCUS product.

Relation to other 4GLs

RAMIS, the first 4GL, was the direct ancestor of FOCUS, having been principally developed by Gerald D. Cohen and Peter Mittelman while working at Mathematica Products Group in 1970. The product was sold by Mathematica to a number of in-house clients (including Nabisco and AT&T), and was also offered by the National CSS timesharing company for use on their VP/CSS operating system (a derivation of IBM's CP/CMS which is now called VM/CMS). In 1970, Cohen decided to leave Mathematica and form Information Builders, after which he recreated the product he had built at Mathematica in the form of FOCUS which was released in 1975. The syntax of FOCUS in its simplest elements is almost a direct clone of the syntax of RAMIS bearing a resemblance similar to the differences between various early dialects of SQL). At the same time, NCSS decided to work on its own product, later called NOMAD. All three products flourished during the 1970s and early 1980s, but Mathematica's time ran out in the mid-80s, and NCSS also failed, a victim of the personal computing revolution which obviated commercial timesharing (although it has since been revived in the form of ASPs and shared web servers). RAMIS was sold through to several companies, ultimately landing with Computer Associates. NOMAD suffered a similar fate. FOCUS, under Cohen's direction, continued to flourish by expanding their product.

The label "non-institutional" refers to a distinct fellowship within the Churches of Christ who do not agree with the support of para-church organizations (colleges, orphans' homes, organized mission efforts, etc.) by local congregations. They contend that the New Testament includes no authority for churches' support of such institutions. Instead they feel that it is a responsibility and duty of the individual to assist those in need. These local churches became separated from "mainline" (pro-institutional) churches of Christ because of these viewpoints, developing into a distinct segment of congregations by the 1960s. Whether a congregation supports the "sponsoring church" custom is one way to distinguish between the "non-institutional" and "mainstream" congregations. The congregations that advocate financial support or the pooling of resources for the benefit of other entities or organized external evangelical efforts are sometimes called "sponsoring churches" and identified as "mainstream."

In computing, the focus indicates the component of the graphical user interface which is selected to receive input. Text entered at the keyboard or pasted from a clipboard is sent to the component which has the focus. Moving the focus away from a specific user interface element is known as a blur event in relation to this element. Typically, the focus is withdrawn from an element by giving another element the focus. This means that focus and blur events typically both occur virtually simultaneously, but in relation to different user interface elements, one that gets the focus and one that gets blurred.

The concept is similar to a cursor in a text-based environment. However, when considering a graphical interface, there is also a mouse pointer involved. Moving the mouse will typically move the mouse pointer without changing the focus. The focus can usually be changed by clicking on a component that can receive focus with the mouse. Many desktops also allow the focus to be changed with the keyboard. By convention, the Tab ↹ key is used to move the focus to the next focusable component and ⇧ Shift+Tab ↹ to the previous one. When graphical interfaces were first introduced, many computers did not have mice, so this alternative was necessary. This feature makes it easier for people that have a hard time using a mouse to use the user interface. In certain circumstances, the arrow keys can also be used to move focus.

Focus is a 2001 film, starring William H. Macy, Laura Dern, David Paymer, and Meat Loaf based on a 1945 novel by playwright Arthur Miller.

Plot

In the waning months of World War II, a man is mistakenly identified as a Jew by his antisemitic Brooklyn neighbors. Suddenly the victims of religious and racial persecution, he finds himself aligned with a local Jewish immigrant in a struggle for dignity and survival.

Cast

Reception

Critical response

Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a rating of 56% based on 81 reviews, with the site's consensus "Though full of good intentions, Focus somehow feels dated, and pounds away its points with a heavy hand."