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Production: Rethinking Newspapers in Print
By: Mark Vruno
In a Feb. 25 article, AdWeek's Tim Peterson asked of Google senior vice president of advertising Susan Wojcicki (in a screaming headline, no less): "Is this the most important person in advertising?" The staff writer quickly pointed out that Wojcicki runs a $43.7 billion ad business. In a follow-up report, Business Insider spun its own headline: "Google just described its vision for the demise of print advertising."
Does this really come as a surprise to anyone?
"Wojcicki told AdWeek how she sees ad dollars continuing to move out of traditional media in favor of online," wrote BI deputy editor Jim Edwards. "In response to a question about how Google chief business officer Nikesh Arora believes 50 percent of all ad spend will switch online in five years, she said she believed print would continue to be the preferred victim of that shift, as people stop buying magazines and papers because they already own tablets and iPads. At that point, all Google has to do is wait until advertisers' dollars catch up to where the customers' eyes already are."
Globally, newspaper readership has declined by some 20 percent, according to industry analyst Neil Falconer, managing director at U.K. firm Print Future. Last year, Google raked in nearly $43.7 billion — more than print advertising in newspapers and magazines combined (see March 2013 issue of E&P).
Also in 2012, Richard Gingras, Google's head of news and social products and Boston College alumnus (class of 1973), made the university circuit with stops at Harvard and MIT before heading back west to Stanford. With roots in television, Gingras' work in online services reaches back to the beginning of interactive media in the U.S. He has shaken up "old media" by likening newspapers to outdated Internet portals such as AOL and Yahoo. Unless print publishers can adapt to the Web — rather than fight it — they are doomed, Gingras has warned.
"Sometimes, I think folks in the news industry like to comfort themselves by thinking that somehow we're going from a transition from one point of stasis to another, and then it'll all become cozy again, and we can sit back and breathe easy for another 50 years," Gingras said in an October 2012 seminar at Stanford. "That's clearly not going to be the case — things are going to continue to change."
TV threatened newspapers, too
In January, Gingras spoke at Arizona State University, again stressing that old models for revenue, content, and storytelling need to be completely rethought, rather than merely transformed, for the news business to thrive in the digital age. "As long as one thinks transformationally, you limit your capabilities because you limit yourself," he said. "It doesn't work. Worse than not working, it becomes self-defeating … We really do need to rethink everything."
Gingras' ASU keynote covered some of the same ground as his speech last August at the annual Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) conference, as reported by Craig Silverman for the Poynter Institute. The Google exec shared data that explained how the introduction of television in 1949 took advertising dollars away from newspapers, causing the loss of some local newspapers. This contraction resulted in monopoly or near-monopoly papers that suddenly became hugely profitable.
"They went from fighting for every ad dollar to having near monopolistic control over local ad pricing," he said. "They had tremendous distribution leverage and used it to their fullest advantage. The open distribution of the Internet destroyed that leverage, but the openness of the Internet also brought the potential for many new voices."
Speaking earlier this year, Gingras said that because of the Internet, "the underlying distribution technology" is causing things to change "whether we like it or not." Anyone looking to create successful news products cannot be tied to the past, he said: "(A main problem is that) the industry is thinking about rearguard action to protect historical models and historical thinking." An example of that thinking is lack of innovation when it comes to story pages online. "It stuns me that 15 years in, we're still seeing story architectures mimicking the traditional architecture of print," he said.
Instead, Gingras told the audience they should develop ideas, products, and companies that operate with "zero baggage." Media organizations need to re-engineer the ways they gather and distribute news, and the way they do business. They need to change their strategies at the rapid pace that the digital world changes.
Gingras also disputed the now familiar criticism that Google has leeched eyeballs — and ad dollars — from news homepages, thanks to its Google News aggregator, which turned 10 years old last month. Knight Fellow David Sarno (Stanford, class of 2013) reported Gingras said, as Google has frequently maintained in the past, that Google News sends a billion pageviews every month back to news sources. That means Google is supplying the news industry with a huge number of "marketing opportunities," Gingras added, "which, frankly, are less expensive than opportunities you would've found 20 years ago."
Still, Gingras acknowledged that it's not easy to turn those opportunities into profit. News sites are caught in the middle of a highly competitive market for online display advertising, and Google itself is now a multibillion-dollar player in the display ad world.
There is an old saying in the graphic design community: "There's no such thing as an original idea." For the sake of printed newspapers, creativity had better not be dead — perhaps it's merely hibernating.
How does one extract value from the many marketing opportunities Google and the Internet send en masse to news sites? Whoever has the answer isn't telling, at least not yet. After all, being first to market with an innovative product idea is a key to profitability until copycat competitors come along and do something similar.
Hybrid Print Answer?
At a late January open house in Italy, Centro Stampa Quotidiani (CSQ) showed how it is taking advantage of growing demand from newspaper publishers for full-color digital production, and localized inserts with an HP T230 Color Inkjet Web Press. General manager Dario de Cian and his team now are producing advertising inserts featuring local content inline. One hybrid example shown was an outsert with a conventionally printed body and versioned covers printed with inkjet (See a video at: myprintresource.com/video/10875498).
The firm's 13-year-old Newspapers Print Center represents the newest and largest Italian coldest technology operating for a number of publishers, printing newspapers, magazines, and other products, yielding some 150 million copies distributed annually throughout central and northern Italy.
Automated Stickies
Ad-a-Note says it is revolutionizing the newspaper sticky note industry with a patented, turnkey solution applied on press and at full press speeds from a continuous web, eliminating postpress equipment requirements and application issues. The Pittsburgh-based firm provides its application equipment free of charge to qualified newspapers and also prints the Ad-a-Notes in roll form, without the wax paper backing of prior-technology sticky notes, eliminating waste and waste removal costs.
Full-color Ad-a-Notes are available in two sizes: 3.5 x 3.5 and 7 x 3.5 inches, all with sequential numbering as an option on the reverse side. The technology also allows printing two different notes on a single roll, with each then applied to a different section front when a newspaper prints on a two-around press operating in collect mode.
"We've succeeded in our goal to provide the newspaper industry with an automated sticky note program that doesn't require a capital investment," said executive vice president Bruce Barna, who was with Goss Intl. for 10 years and more recently spent two years with Trib Total Media in Pittsburgh. "While at Trib as executive director of distribution, my carriers were hand applying sticky notes, so I brought in Ad-a-Note, and it was an immediate success," Barna said. The program was such a success that he left Trib to join Ad-a-Note.
As an added benefit, Ad-a-Note can be installed on all presses. The Observer-Reporter in southwest Pennsylvania operates Ad-a-Note on its manroland MediaMan offset press; West Penn Printing installed Ad-a-Note on a DGM 1050 folder; the Plain Dealer in Cleveland uses the system on its four Goss Colorliner presses; and Trib Total Media operates five Ad-a-Note systems on its five Goss presses — a Newsliner, Universal 70, Urbanite, Metroliner, and Community models.
Printing Moves in Colorado
Colorado Springs Gazette publisher Dan Steever said the newspaper is moving its printing operations to The Denver Post's press facility this month, noting that the move will allow the Gazette to provide readers and advertisers with more pages with color.
The paper reports that phasing out local printing operations eventually will lead to elimination of 51 full-time and part-time regular positions in its press and production area. However, Steever said he estimates the newspaper will increase the number of employees in its news, advertising, marketing, financial, and circulation operations by at least 20 percent in 2013. The Gazette is owned by Denver-based Clarity Media Group, which is owned by billionaire Phil Anschutz.
Layoffs in Minnesota
Fifty-four full- and part-time employees in production, press, and mailroom areas were laid off last month as a nine-year-old northern Minnesota printing plant owned by American Consolidated Media (ACM) closed March 31. Printing of the group's Hibbing Daily Tribune, Mesabi Daily News, Grand Rapids Herald-Review, Chisholm Tribune Press, and Manney's Shopper moved to Forum Communications' new state-of-the-art facility in Duluth on April 1.
Ken Browall, publisher of the Duluth News Tribune, called Forum's $7 million investment a big step forward in the region's newspaper and media business community.
ACM chief executive officer Randy Cope said, "This new technology offers us the ability to improve our printed products while, at the same time, freeing up resources that we can use to improve the digital products our advertisers and readers are asking for."
This represents the latest cost-cutting move by Wisconsin-based ACM, which owns some 100 newspapers in nine states, reaching a total readership of more than 2.6 million. In 2010, Southern Cross Media Group Ltd. of Australia walked away from ACM, its U.S. newspaper group, which was forced to restructure with lenders that held nearly $134 million in debt. In the past few years, Forum Communications has shuttered older presses in Superior, Wis., and Bemidji, Minn.
Better Weekends in Sri Lanka
Wijeya Newspapers (WNL), a leading Sri Lankan newspaper group, said it is adding a six-tower Goss Magnum press this month to improve color capacity in weekend titles and meet a growing demand for Sunday newspapers. The new press is being installed this month at one of the publishers' two print facilities in the commercial capital of Colombo.
As a new customer to Goss Intl., WNL chose to invest in advanced technology as well as greater production capacity. Totaling 24 units configured as six four-high towers, six zero-speed reelstands, and a 1:3:3 half-page jaw folder, the new 2 x 1 (single-width, single-circumference) Magnum press features a 546 mm cut-off and will operate at speeds up to 45,000 copies per hour. It will also incorporate shaftless drive technology as well as motorized ink keys and advanced spraybar dampening and blanket washer technology for improved quality and production versatility.
WNL production director P.S. Wijewardene said the Goss Magnum press is expected to increase capacity by 30 percent at the plant. "In addition to an increased demand for Sunday newspapers, our customers are becoming more quality conscious, so we were looking to upgrade our capabilities with advanced technology from Goss," he said. "Choosing the Goss Magnum press gives us the confidence that we can meet growing demands and improve quality of reproduction and color capacity in our weekend products."
According to Wijewardene, the investment is part of a company-wide quality improvement program, representing a real opportunity for the publisher. "With political developments in the country, new reader regions have opened up to us in the last few years, meaning that run lengths have increased and brought with them significant growth potential," he said. "As readers continue to become more discerning, the ability to maximize this potential in coming years will require versatile, multipurpose production systems incorporating a variety of progressive technologies. For this reason, we have decided the time is right to take a step up in capabilities with this latest press investment."
Established in 1979, WNL's portfolio includes the leading title, Daily Lankadeepa, Daily Mirror, Daily FT, and the Sunday Times, as well as Adha, a national Sinhalese daily paper, targeted at young people to encourage new readers. Weeklies and glossy magazines are also published in the three main languages of Sinhala, Tamil, and English.
C&W Distributing Xingraphics Thermal CTP Plates
Xingraphics, one of the largest thermal CTP plate manufacturers in the world, has signed a new distributor partnership with C&W Pressroom Products. Research and development teams from both companies have been working to improve the compatibility between printing plates and chemistry for qualitative and economic efficiencies.
C&W offers customers a bundled package of ink, prepress and pressroom chemistry, printing plates, blanket wash, and splicing tape to help improve performance and reduce cost. Technical support teams from Xingraphics will be working alongside the C&W team to support plate trials and prepress operations.
April Events
AmericaEast, April 8-10
At the annual AmericaEast Technology and Operations Conference this month in Hershey, Pa., keynote speaker Ken Doctor, news media analyst for Newsonomics and Harvard's Nieman Journalism Lab, will help make sense of audience and ad crossover. Among the many challenges, Doctor said there is good news for publishers. He will share best practices that are beginning to form the core of next-generation business models.
In a session titled "Print-based Revenue Ideas: Improving Revenue from Operations," print industry guru Frank Romano will pick the brains of three executives who are making money from digital printing capabilities: Rodd Winscott, president of Newsweb Corp., which utilizes a TKS Jetleader 1500 inkjet press to capture a niche market; Tim Street, operations director at Tribune Direct, which employs a Kodak Prosper Press to drive additional revenue; and Ron Sams, sales vice president of manroland web systems, who will present information related to the digital printing and inline variable cut-off finishing solution that manroland has developed in partnership with Océ.
An April 10 session features a case study of the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch, which has converted its newspaper and presses from a two-around to a three-around format. This session will review some of the newspaper's marketing activities, the actual conversion project and recent results of the project, as reported by Joe Gallo, executive vice president and chief information officer.
FNP Printing and Publishing in Frederick, Md., has won first place for print quality from the America East Print Quality Contest in the 25,000 to 50,000 circulation category.
"Judges took a certain week and checked the quality every day," general manager William Randall said. Criteria included ink laydown, registration, page alignment, photo reproduction quality, and overall print appearance. The contest was sponsored by Flint Group and U.S. Ink.
The overall Best of Show winner will be announced at the conference.
mediaXchange, April 14-17
The Newspaper Association of America takes its NAA mediaXchange conference to Orlando, Fla., this month. General session topics include:
- "The Power of Preprints" with Steven Wolf Pereira, executive vice president at MediaVest and lead on the Walmart account; and Sandy Lohr, sales vice president at Advance Digital
- "The Future of Shopping" with Ben Smith, chief executive officer of Wanderful Media (formerly Find n Save); and Grant Moise, digital vice president at The Dallas Morning News
- "Why Invest in Newspapers?" with Terry Kroeger, chief executive officer of BH Media Group; Aaron Kushner, chief executive officer of Freedom Communications; and John Lynch, chief executive officer of U-T San Diego
Summer Events
KBA User Group will meet June 26 to 29 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel and Conference Center in Buffalo, N.Y. In early March, printing press manufacturer Koenig & Bauer AG (KBA) released preliminary figures for 2012, reporting that its operating profit tripled, and sales experienced double-digit growth. For more information, visit kbausersgroup.com/annual_events.
Mark your calendar: Only about five months remain until the quadrennial PRINT show (print2013.com) returns to Chicago's McCormick Place Sept. 8-12. The News Print pavilion returns, providing a dedicated section for newspaper printers and production executives. Global automation firm ABB Inc., with technologies for printing systems for newspapers, is among the exhibitors.


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Desired Hearts is the newest fashion startup from Roby Fitzhenry, Creative Director of  Always Creative and Matthew Fruge. They are the latest to join the handful of T-shirt design submission sites that have ongoing contests for cash prizes. The most well known site based on this model is Threadless, however, both Roby and Matt are quick to point out that Desired Hearts has no desire to compete with the Threadless powerhouse. Instead, they plan to have the ongoing contests be a component to the larger plan – to develop a top fashion label by enlisting well-known and established artists and designers, while at the same time making sure that proceeds from profits earned is donated to deserving charities.Â
I had the fortunate opportunity to talk to Roby and Matt from Desired Hearts. They talk a bit about how Desired Hearts was founded and how the charitable model was conceived. Matt and Roby also discuss how they are challenging themselves, collectively as a team, to develop a quality driven fashion label.Â
Coty: Charity plays a big role in Desired Hearts' business model. How did the idea of making charity a major component of Desired Hearts come about?
Roby: Matt came to us (Always Creative) with the idea of starting a clothing company that gives to charity. Our entire team became immediately interested and a business deal was struck. The more we thought about the idea, the more we all loved it, which eventually led to us even renaming the idea to Desired Hearts. Our name represents the love that everyone seeks out whether it be from support for your t-shirt design, support of a specific charity or even just the feeling that you're a part of something greater. Hopefully in the future we can change the way businesses look at philanthropy.
Matt: I don't remember the exact moment I had the idea. I think it came to be over a period of time thinking about different ways of doing business. The guys and gals at Threadless really pioneered the community driven business model. I didn't really want Desired Hearts to be another Threadless, but the value of your customers' feedback before you go into production is priceless. We really want to bring that model to the world of fashion, with custom garments from designers who might not have the resources available to get it done themselves. The charity part was always going to be part of whatever the business became. Like Roby mentioned, the original name was Donor Threads…lol! Looking back, I'm glad they worked their re-branding magic on the name.
Coty: The charity component has changed a bit and you have also elicited input from the Emptees community as to how Desired Hearts should go about "giving" to charities. Explain a bit about how the charity part of Desired Hearts works.
Roby: I love the Emptees community and respect their opinions. Although I'm still a rather new member, we decided to put our questions to the community in hopes of solid feedback. Initially, we were going to just give $2 per shirt to charity, $3 per shirt to the winning designer as well as initial winnings of $500. However, we've decided to give $5 per shirt to charity and $500 to the winning designer with the choice to keep the cash or give some or all to a charity of their choice. Everyone needs a little cash sometimes and we respect that. We just hope that as the site grows, the amount of proceeds we give to charities grows with it.
Matt: Ditto!
Coty: The online communities that have developed at Threadless and Design By Humans seems to be a driving force behind the growth of those brands. How do you plan to build the community at Desired Hearts and do you have any plans for utilizing the various social networking tools (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, etc) available to build you community?
Roby: Great question. One thing we feel is very different about Desired Hearts is that we are really trying to develop a fashion label. Although we will have ongoing contests, we're also seeking out and commissioning top designers to collaborate with our in-house team. We already have two amazing designers lined up for collaboration so stay tuned for the news! We will also continue to be as fully integrated in social media platforms as we can. We're on Facebook, Myspace and Twitter and will be expanding to others soon. Our fingers are crossed that people realize that you can support a fashion label and the world around you simultaneously.
Matt: The Social Media movement, or whatever you want to call it, has really kind of taken the place of what T.V. used to represent in people's lives. It's a connection with the rest of the world, and what they are doing on a whole new level. And as far as marketing goes, I'll be the first to admit that online ads are just as annoying as T.V. commercials, but marketing through your own network of people that are somewhat interested in whatever you are doing is taking the ability of targeted marketing to companies that don't have an advertising budget. And it's not an "in the face" approach like traditional ads. People can come to you on their own terms, which makes for a higher quality user. We plan on using these resources as best we can in order to grow our community of like-minded people.
Coty: How did you go about selecting the initial crop of charities that Desired Hearts and its designers will be donating too? Any plans on expanding this list of charities in the future?
Matt: We know there are thousands of non-profits out there doing great things, and we would love to be able to touch them all. However, just starting out, we wanted to use some that maybe everyone has heard of. Another reason for keeping the list small is impact. If we started out with 20 different charities, then each one might be getting $2.50 every three months or so (we pay out donations quarterly). We figured we could have a greater impact if we were giving $100 or whatever instead. So until business picks up a little, we would like to keep the list around the same size. But we definitely will be adding to the list as the company's capabilities to help those charities grow.
Roby: Ditto back at Matt! However, I wanted to also mention that we really are planning to push DH as a way to help community efforts such as fundraisers, etc. Once we fine-tune all these details, we'll make some updates on the site so people know what's up.
Coty: As the co-founder of Desired Hearts, what has the experience of building a startup been like? Has it been everything you've expected?
Roby: Luckily, Always Creative has been in business just long enough for us all to know what to expect: nothing at all. Startups are never guaranteed and I think that's what makes it so exciting. We've taken an idea we're extremely proud of, used endless hours and cups of coffee to refine it, and then sent it out for the world to see (and hopefully love). Lesson for those interested: you need capital. Trust me on that one.
Matt: Definitely need money! Not to say you can't bootstrap it, because we are. You have to be smart about what you spend your money on for sure. If you run out, you're pretty much dead in the water. Luckily we are still swimming…ha-ha. And I'm glad we are debt free. It would be awesome to have a loan amount big enough to do everything we want to do right off the bat, but sometimes it's best to go slow so you don't make the mistakes that end up costing thousands of dollars. And at the end of the month, who wants to worry about another bill! Moral of the story: know what size fish you are and eat accordingly.
Coty: Finally, what are some of the goals that you and the rest of the Desired Hearts team have set for the new site?
Matt: We want to continue to polish the site and add new features, both on the front end and the back end. This is my first web-based project, and I must say I had no idea how much development takes place when creating a site from scratch. The guys at Downtown Cartel and Always Creative, have done an amazing job conceptualizing, branding, a building the site. We've had our ups and downs, but overall it's been one of the coolest and most rewarding things I've done.
Roby: Haha .. happy Matt doesn't hate us. One of our team members, Jimmy, the guy who did all the sweet icons and helped with the overall site design, is definitely becoming our "Director of Cool". He has thrown out some great ideas about how we can make Desired Hearts run with the best. Some of our ideas include making our own custom shirts which will most likely come from a "cut and sew" competition. We plan to continue to make as many small videos of our adventures as possible and work with some of the top talent in the industry. We're also gearing up to launch shirts that focus more on our identity just to give people options. I'd say our biggest goal is just to challenge what's expected out of a company our size. No one on our collective team backs down to a challenge. Our challenge: to create a high-end, custom fashion label that is respected for quality, individuality, the ability to give and the guts to take things on head first.
I definitely have to thanks both Roby and Matt for agreeing to take the time out to do this interview with me – it is very much appreciated! Also a big shout out to Roby for working closely with me on this, going back and forth on email was definitely worth it! I wish the Desired Hearts team the best of luck with this awesome venture!
And just in case you haven't already seen this, here's a behind the scenes sneak peak at the Desired Hearts photo shoot for the initial set of t-shirt prints.

subset: commoncrawl


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NEENAH, Wis. — If two-ply toilet paper is good, then three-ply tissue must be better. At least that's what toilet-paper researchers in northeastern Wisconsin hope.
Yes, there is such a thing as a toilet-paper researcher. And a team of them at Georgia Pacific's Innovation Institute in Neenah has come up with a three-ply version of its Quilted Northern product.
The new product will be launched Monday. The company touts the toilet tissue as "ultra-soft" and says it plans to market the product to women 45 and older who view their bathroom as a "sanctuary for quality time."
Industry analyst Bill Schmitz is skeptical. He said extra layers make toilet paper stronger, not softer, although he said Georgia Pacific may have added extra fibers for softness.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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BREAKING: Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Martin are reportedly an item
See Gallery
Multiple sources have confirmed to E! News that red carpet siren Jennifer Lawrence and musician Chris Martin are "seeing each other." Apparently, ever since J.Law and her Nicholas Hoult split in June, she and Martin have been spending a lot of quality time together.
Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow famously announced their split on her lifestyle website Goop in March of this year (everyone remember "conscious uncoupling"?), ending a 10-year marriage. The exes have remained amicable, and Gwyn is even reportedly dating the co-creator of Glee, Brad Falchuk.
Jennifer -- whose 24th birthday is today! -- does a pretty good job of flying under the radar and has kept her romantic life largely out of the public eye. The rumored relationship between Martin and J.Law began just a little over a month ago, when they were seen cozying up to one another at the "Kensington Roof Gardens on July 1st at the after-party for Coldplay's Royal Albert Hall gig."
Do you think it's true? Do you think Gwyn is TOTALLY peeved? We're not sure, but we definitely wouldn't want to be in the line of fire of the Goop creator's wrath! We'll keep you posted with any further details that arise.


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There are more than 115,000 registered boats in Tampa Bay, more than 9,000 acres of new sea grasses have been established since 1988 and the snook population is up since a freeze on its harvest in 2010.
A few days after snook season reopened, Nanette O'Hara of the Tampa Bay Estuary Program made those points and others in a presentation Saturday about "Net Benefits: A Retrospective on Fishing for Food and Fun in Tampa Bay."
Her talk, hosted by Palmetto Historical Park and the Manatee County Agricultural Museum, included a brief history about commercial and sport fishing in the area.
Audience questions varied from avid fisherman to those who just like to eat fish. Concerns included habitat restoration, invasive species and the impact of increased of pollution with continued development in the area.
"It was helpful," Sun City resident Judy Maynard said. "I had no idea about restoring the estuaries."
Covering 400 square miles, a watershed six times as large at 2,200 square miles, and average depth no more than 12 feet, O'Hara explained that whatever people put in their yards ends up in the bay. Because of varied habitats, mangroves to salt barrens and tidal creeks, there are 200 fish species.
After telling the old legend that there were once so many mullet in Tampa Bay people could walk across the bay on the mullets' backs, O'Hara added that there was no thought to conservation.
"They killed everything," she said. "It was pretty much a free for all."
In the 1980s, concerns arose about vanishing fish stocks. Net fishing was banned in 1994, impacting the livelihood of people living in communities like Cortez.
"Cortez was almost wiped out, became obsolete," O'Hara said. "It was the end of a way of life."
With shrimp the No. 1 sea product in Florida, and Manatee County ranked seventh in seafood harvest, Cortez is reinventing itself.
Water quality also continues to improve; O'Hara said it is as good as it was in the 1950s, a "testament to what we've done."
A vintage fishing tackle exhibit will remain on display through Sept. 27 at the park, 515 10th Ave. W., Palmetto. For details, call 721-2034 or 723-4991.
– J. Nielsen, correspondent
Bay fishing rebounds with restoration efforts
There are more than 115,000 registered boats in Tampa Bay, more than 9,000 acres of new sea grasses have been established since 1988 and the snook population is up since a freeze on its harvest in 2010.


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BACKGROUND IMAGE: iSTOCK/GETTY IMAGES
- FeatureLTO tape put to the test
- FeatureSteamship Authority Sees Less Tape on the Horizon
- FeatureDatabase archiving done right
- FeatureStorage Pros of the World Unite!
- TipConsolidating NAS pays off
- FeatureTape type matters
- FeatureIT Says Yes to NAS Gateways
- FeatureVirtual Servers in a Storage World
- FeatureWhat's Worth Outsourcing?
- FeatureSlash SAN costs
- FeatureHow to get the best deal
- FeatureNo SAS for Networked Storage
- FeatureThe benefits of application-specific storage
- FeatureLess tape talk, more tape testing
- FeatureCompanies are doing interesting things with object-based storage that might make ILM useful.
- FeatureCreating effective data storage policies
- FeatureReview of Computer Associates' BrightStor Enterprise Backup software
- FeatureSnapshot: Do You Boot From the SAN?
iSTOCK/GETTY IMAGES
How to get the best deal
Take this crash course in bargaining for storage. Get the lowdown on effective tactics such as resisting vendor lock-in, working with multiple vendors and leveraging the second tier.
Storage gear is a buyer's market, but that doesn't mean every buyer is getting a great--or even a fair--price. According to Gartner Inc., the difference between disk subsystem vendor bids can be as much as 300% for comparable products. At the same time, the increased importance of software in the pricing equation, combined with new pricing models and metrics such as price per managed port, make it difficult to ascertain what even constitutes a good price.
"Hardware prices are always coming down, so the real action is with the software," says Michael Rogers, director of storage administration, TSYS Inc., a credit card processor based in Columbus, GA. This is where buyers will win or lose the pricing battle, while the basic hardware increasingly becomes a commodity.
|Checklist for better storage purchasing
Although there's no magic formula, there are proven ways to get the best price on storage. The key is to resist proprietary vendor features, do business with multiple vendors and know what you must have for storage well in advance so purchases are timed appropriately. And for whatever price under negotiation, understand the true TCO. The lowest acquisition price isn't necessarily the best deal in the long term.
In a recent report titled "How to Get More for Less in Storage Procurement," Josh Krischer, vice president and research director for enterprise servers and storage at Gartner, offers tips on how storage managers can get the best price. In the report, Krischer lays down the fundamentals of negotiating with storage vendors (see "Checklist for better storage purchasing," on this page).
For example, Krischer identifies the propensity of IT organizations to overprovision their storage as a sure way of paying too much. "Do not buy excess capacity," he advises in the report, adding that "buying excess capacity inflates costs and causes faster capacity growth." (For additional information, see "Time to get organized," in the February 2004 issue of Storage.)
Play hardball with vendor negotiation
Anybody can play hardball and negotiate the best price for an individual piece of storage equipment. However, you don't necessarily gain much in terms of the overall cost of your storage infrastructure. To negotiate the best storage prices consistently and effectively, it's important to write an enterprise storage plan.
"Most enterprises aren't just buying storage just once a year," says Randy Kerns, senior analyst, The Evaluator Group, Greenwood Village, CO. Storage infrastructures are refreshed at least twice a year as companies buy and retire storage. This pattern must be part of the storage negotiation process.
"You need to have a buying cycle and a plan that identifies storage turnover and growth," Kerns says. Try to buy when the vendor is closing out a quarter or a financial year. In particular, publicly held storage companies are very susceptible to negotiating pressure as the financial quarter or year closes--a point when they are scrambling to post attractive sales figures.
The enterprise storage plan also allows the company to use the warranty period to maximum advantage. Storage vendors are increasingly offering three-year hardware warranties. After the warranty, the customer pays the annual maintenance fee, usually 15% to 18% of the acquisition cost. "It's best to acquire and retire storage to coincide with the warranty," says Kerns.
"Thirty-six months of free maintenance is a common practice for enterprise storage vendors' hardware. Free maintenance for software is 12 months, but you can negotiate for more," says Krischer. After the free maintenance period, vendors typically charge 1% to 1.5% of the list price per month.
Replacing the hardware after three years is a no-brainer: With the same money or even less, you can buy better storage. It's harder to determine the optimal time to replace software, however. "You have to develop an expert practice just around storage procurement," says Kerns.
|TCO concerns
To lease or not to lease
The steadily improving price and performance of storage as well as the widespread adoption of three-year warranties have dramatically changed the storage leasing equation. Leasing traditionally saved money because companies ended up paying only for the value of the equipment they actually used. The difference between what they ended up paying and the full price of the product is the residual value that remains at the end of the lease. Today, the residual value of a piece of storage at the end of a typical three-year lease is effectively zero. Says Gartner's Krischer: "There is no longer any financial value in leasing."
In his report, Krischer explains: "The standard lease scheme is far from being suitable for a situation of frequent upgrades and short equipment life cycles ... This worked in an environment of 10% to 15% improvement of price and performance per year, but this no longer exists for most storage subsystems." Today, storage systems experience 40% price and performance gains per year, according to Gartner.
Still, many companies continue to lease their storage. "We realized that there is no residual value left after a three-year lease, but we didn't want to be stuck with something we'd only have to try to sell ourselves," says Michael Sink, IT operation manager at Kichler Lighting, Cleveland. The company acquired a new Clariion CX600 from EMC Corp. on a three-year lease. Sink negotiated the price based on what he felt was fair for three years worth of business value. "At the end of the lease, we're free to look at the possibility of doing new things."
TSYS also leases its storage. The company currently operates 250TB of mainframe storage, primarily from Hitachi Data Systems Inc. (HDS). "We don't worry about the residual value. We'll even do lease extensions," says Rogers. However, he makes sure the three-year warranty runs coterminus with the lease.
Even if the classic residual value-based rationale for leasing no longer applies, there may be other valid reasons to lease storage, adds Kerns, such as simply not having to spend the cash upfront.
Six smart negotiating guidelines
With your storage plan in hand and the knowledge of how your company will pay for the new gear--be it leasing or outright purchasing--the fun starts: the negotiation. Pay attention to the timing, use multiple vendors, leverage second-tier vendors, avoid vendor lock-in, negotiate software separately and take advantage of new pricing and licensing models where appropriate. There's no secret formula that works for every organization, so the following strategies should only be used as guidelines.
No. 1: Timing is important. As described earlier, some vendors--particularly public companies--are susceptible to pressure as they scramble to meet end-of-quarter and end-of-fiscal-year sales goals. Buyers who can time their purchases to hit the last week of a quarter or fiscal year may cut an unusually good deal.
However, some caveats should be noted. First, the purchase must be large enough to impact the vendor's financials, or at least the sales representative's quota. A $200,000 order isn't likely to cause even a ripple in a multibillion-dollar storage company. On the other hand, a small vendor or startup may bend over backward for an order that size.
Second, it's not easy to hit the timing on the button. Even with a multiyear storage plan, procedural delays may skew the timing. The window is small, and if for instance, approval is delayed just one week, the opportunity may be lost.
"I try to keep the vendors' fiscal calendars in mind, but you have capacity needs, so you can't always wait," says TSYS' Rogers. Still, "I've gotten my best deals from Hitachi just before March. For IBM, it's the end of the year."
Kichler Lighting purchased its new EMC system at the end of the year, which may have helped it get a good deal. "But it was just a coincidence. We had an immediate need," Sink admits.
"We're too small to play the end-of-the-quarter or end-of-the-year game," says Richard Simon, senior system administrator at Giant Killer Robots, an Academy Award-winning visual effects boutique based in San Francisco. The company recently purchased a 4TB network-attached storage (NAS) device from BlueArc Corp., San Jose, CA.
"We played off the recession--everyone was cutting their prices to sell us a box," Simon reports. After talking with EMC and Network Appliance Inc. (NetApp), the company bought the storage from BlueArc, priced considerably lower than the other two companies. Despite all the talk of an economic recovery, it seems buyers can still count on a recession hangover to drive a better deal.
|Rules for negotiating a
prudent storage deal
No. 2: Use multiple vendors. The 80/20 rule as it applies to storage procurement states that you should buy 80% of your storage from one vendor and 20% from another, says Kerns. As a result, the organization has two active storage vendors serving the shop. This stimulates intense competition both before and after the sale. The vendor with 20% scrambles to expand its foothold in the enterprise by cutting the price and delivering attentive, responsive, proactive service. The vendor with 80% has to respond if it wants to retain its leading position.
This sounds good in theory, but admittedly only applies to shops large enough to support two vendors' products. Without intentionally following this two-vendor rule, TSYS has storage equipment from IBM and Hitachi in its data center. Currently, Hitachi is the dominant vendor.
"We thought about something like the 80/20 rule because it keeps the vendors honest, but we didn't do it," says Sink of Kichler Lighting. The problem was the added overhead. It would require Kichler to maintain tools and skills to manage equipment from two different vendors. "This works for large companies that are going to buy multiple [storage] frames anyway."
No. 3: Leverage second-tier vendors. Many companies have procurement rules that require two or three bidders for any significant purchase, including storage. Storage managers typically invite a few of the leading vendors to bid, and this usually results in a decent price. However, if a second-tier vendor--typically a small company or a startup--is invited to bid, almost assuredly its price will undercut the best bid of the three primary bidders by 30%, according to the CEO of a second-tier storage company.
"We recently bid $300,000 on a deal EMC was about to clinch for $500,000. The buyer said the deal was ours. Then, EMC came back and matched our price," the CEO recalls. The second-tier vendor would have made money on the deal at $300,000. EMC, with its higher overhead may only break even, but it will make up for it down the road when it plays hardball with software and services pricing. The lesson: Always include a viable second-tier vendor in the bidding.
The Center for Computational Biology and Biochemistry (C2B2) at Columbia University, NY, discovered this when it put out an RFP for a few terabytes of NAS. In accordance with Columbia's rules, C2B2 solicited bids from the major players as well as BlueArc, a second-tier player. According to the rule, C2B2 must take the lowest appropriate bid. Dell, EMC and Hitachi came in two to three times higher than BlueArc, the winning bid, reports Megan Restuccia, program manager. Now she's preparing an RFP for 100TB of NAS storage and BlueArc will surely bid, putting immense pressure on the others.
The Steamship Authority, Woods Hole, MA, which provides ferry service to Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, followed a similar strategy when it sought to replace and streamline its storage backup system. The company initially looked at the usual leading tape backup players. Then it brought in a young company, Avamar Technologies Inc., Irvine, CA, which provides a disk-based backup and replication appliance, called Axion E. Avamar badly wanted to win this sale and cut its price dramatically on 3TB of mirrored storage, says Curt Van Riper, program analyst for The Steamship Authority. The Authority bought the Avamar product and has since bought a second.
|More info
No. 4: Avoid vendor lock-in. Vendor lock-in undermines negotiating leverage. "Value-added features that use special APIs create the potential for lock-ins, which tie an enterprise to certain hardware and software combinations," Krischer writes in the Gartner report. Once the organization is locked into certain product combinations, it forfeits an enormous amount of negotiating power. "Special functionality should be applied on an as-needed basis and only when a TCO analysis justifies real operational savings," Krischer writes.
Lock-ins--usually in the form of software or advanced features--are widespread throughout the storage industry, says Krischer. Trying to break out of a lock-in situation will be costly, involving the retraining of operators, altering procedures and modifying applications, job control language (JCL) and scripts. This results in the consumption of critical human resources and added costs, he notes. Even disks--considered to be as much of a commoditiy as a product can be--can lead to lock-in when vendors adopt exclusive types of interfaces or integrated disk.
No. 5: Negotiate software separately. With hardware becoming increasingly commoditized, vendors are turning to their software not only for lock-in, but to provide the fat profit margins no longer available from hardware. "Software, which only a few years ago was an incidental, can now account for up to one-third to one-half of a storage proposal, and in rare situations, even more," Krischer writes. Further complicating matters, the software isn't even loadable software as much as it is microcode that can't readily be sourced separately.
Ideally, storage managers want to itemize the vendor's proposal and negotiate the hardware and software separately. From a practical standpoint, this will be difficult. "Vendors are now selling the software with the hardware as a packaged solution," says The Evaluator Group's Kerns.
There may be more opportunities to negotiate over the length of software warranties--sometimes as short as 90 days--and maintenance agreements. "A strong buyer can negotiate for 12, or even 36 months of free software maintenance," adds Krischer.
TSYS' Rogers found that it was easier to negotiate an enterprise software license than to negotiate the price of every piece of software, manage license compliance and worry that every time it added capacity or changed something about the hardware, the company would be hit with another charge. "We did a five-year enterprise software agreement with Hitachi and got it at a significant discount," he says. The vendor initially resisted the idea, but finally came to see the enterprise software license as a way to solidify a relationship with a company likely to buy large amounts of storage for years to come.
No. 6: Take advantage of new pricing and licensing models where appropriate. Gartner reports that traditional storage pricing models are starting to undergo dramatic change. A number of factors are driving this shift, including the increased importance of software, shorter product cycles, shrinking hardware margins and new capabilities such as capacity on demand. As a result, "enterprises should carefully examine special pricing models, such as utility pricing," Krischer writes.
Enterprise storage software licensing, for example, is one new model. Another new model is capacity on demand, where the vendor charges only for the capacity that is used. Capacity on demand promises to eliminate the need for organizations to overload on storage capacity to ensure it is there when they need it. With capacity on demand, the capacity is physically there, but the organization doesn't pay for it until it initiates a process to activate it. Different vendors are experimenting with various approaches to capacity on demand, but the industry has yet to settle on a standard approach.
C2B2 is about to jump into the uncharted waters of capacity on demand. The organization has seen its storage requirements grow from 1TB to 12TB in three years. A user of BlueArc's NAS storage, C2B2 is now preparing an RFP for 100TB of storage, which it wants delivered as capacity on demand. For C2B2, the benefits of capacity on demand are clear. "We'll save 30% to 40% by buying in bulk, and we won't have to wait for shipping when we need more capacity," says Restuccia. C2B2 has already started discussing with BlueArc how the capacity on demand model might work.
TCO is the bottom line
In the end, success at price negotiation comes down to understanding TCO. The best price is the price you can afford to live with over the life of the technology. If you have to retrain staff, invest in additional tools, modify your applications, change your business processes, track complicated software licenses or limit your future options, then a low acquisition price may not be a bargain. Still, it pays to negotiate the best deal you can. According to Gartner, storage will represent up to 26% of the data center TCO and 48% of the hardware budget by 2006. That's a big chunk of change. The time to negotiate savings is now.


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Icon Stripe Detail Monogram Motif Bomber Jacket
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- A varsity-style bomber jacket in smooth sateen, accented with our Icon stripe and an appliquéd Monogram motif at the back.
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Storms of Jupiter
Storms of Jupiter
UNFRAMED 20" x 30"
Digital abstract of Jupiter up close. Digitally signed by the artist.
Super-smooth and perfectly weighted 250gsm photo paper is imported from Germany and is made by Felix Schoeller, the global leader in photo imaging and décor papers. Even better, the paper we use comes exclusively from PEFC-certified renewable forests. This superior paper, combined with vibrant HP inks, means your posters and photo enlargements will not fade for 200 years.


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When Kiehl's collaborated with Brad Pitt on the first-ever beauty product to be Cradle-to-Cradle certified—meaning it creates minimal waste—the company discovered just how diligent the actor is. For its Aloe Vera Liquid Body Cleanser, which debuts in October and supports global eco-initiatives, Pitt helped design the scent and bottle and wrote a note that's displayed on the label—providing Kiehl's with a choice of four variations. "He put his signature on the right, on the left; he arranged the letters in different ways," laughs Roberta Weiss, senior vice president of global marketing.
Pitt: George Pimentel/WireImage; Handwritten note: Courtesy of Kiehls


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Microsoft Office Web Applications Take Aim at Google Docs
The big news coming out of Redmond this morning is the launch of Microsoft Office 2010, as a technical preview. Microsoft's office suite, of course, is still the default for most users. And while the announcement is the direct shot at Google that many analysts anticipated in light of that company's recent announcement of the Chrome OS, the introduction of Office 2010 does include some features targeted at an existing Google property: Docs and Spreadsheets.
Later this summer, Microsoft will be rolling out a technical preview of Office Web Applications, an online counterpart to its traditionally desktop-based office suite. The online suite will be available in three configurations. Businesses will be able to run it via SharePoint Server as part of the Office 2010 license or via Microsoft Online Services for a subscription. These two options offer company-wide collaborations on documents saved to a central server.
The third option is for consumers via Windows Live. This version utilizes Skydrive for online hosting, and is really the most directly targeted at Google Docs--and, like Google Docs, is available for free for consumer use. According to a Microsoft spokesperson, the online version is quite feature-rich--even more so than its Google counterpart.
Asked whether he thought the availability of a free online version of Office might cannibalize sales of its desktop counterpart, the spokesman said "possibly," but added that the desktop version of the app is still more robust and therefore more suited to larger word processing tasks, like, say, term papers. The Ribbon, for example, will only offer two tabs in its online version, versus the five offered in its desktop iteration.
Microsoft's chief concern with the creation of Office Web Applications maintaining a unified experience cross-platform, from the desktop to the Web and even to mobile devices. Users are essentially trained in the layout on one platform and ideally won't lose anything in terms of feature placement when they switch to another.
No word on when a final version of the suite will be available to the public.


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Researchers at Umeå University have identified drugs targeting infections of the parasite Trypanosoma brucei and are thereby well on the way to find a cure against African sleeping sickness.
This is the kernel of a thesis, which will be publicly defended on 8 November 2013.
African sleeping sickness (Human African trypanosomiasis) is caused by a parasite called Trypanosoma brucei. As the name of the disease indicates, it is associated with sleep disturbances but there are many other neurological complications as well. Unless the patient is treated, the illness develops in stages and leads eventually to unconsciousness and death. At present, there is no vaccine available and the medicines that exist are either very toxic or do not work effectively against all variants of the disease.
All cells have the potential to renew themselves infinitely through cell division. During cell division, the cell replicates its DNA, which constitutes the individual's genetic material, and then allows the DNA copy to pass on to the daughter cell. During this process, there is a need for a continuous supply of four different building blocks for DNA, i.e. dATP, dCTP, dTTP and dGTP. In human cells, these DNA building blocks can either be produced by the cells themselves, or absorbed in the form of so-called precursor molecules (deoxynucleosides) that are present in the blood and other body fluids.
It has already been observed that the parasite's production of RNA building blocks, which resemble DNA building blocks, could be a target for drug discovery whereas the parasite's production of DNA building blocks has not been studied to the same extent. Munender Vodnala from the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics has therefore focused his study on the cellular machinery involved in the production of DNA building blocks from precursor molecules. This is considered to be a promising target for drug development against the parasite.
The production of DNA building blocks from precursor molecules is made in three stages, so-called phosphorylations. Munender Vodnala has demonstrated that the enzyme adenosine kinase, which is involved in the first production stage, can be used by the parasite to produce dATP from the precursor molecule deoxyadenosine. When the parasite Trypanosoma brucei is cultivated in the presence of large amounts of deoxyadenosine, it produces high levels of dATP compared with mammalian cells. At these levels, dATP becomes toxic to the parasites and they die within just a few hours. Furthermore, Munender Vodnala has managed to identify two modified versions of deoxyadenosine, so-called analogues of deoxyadenosine. These resemble – but are significantly more effective than – deoxyadenosine itself in killing off the parasites.
"When we used deoxyadenosine analoues to treat mice that were infected with Trypanosoma brucei, we were able to cure the infections very successfully. These results indicate that we can now move on to develop an effective treatment for African sleeping sickness," explains Munender Vodnala.


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Stitch in Time
The Stitch in Time program was launched in November 2006 as a partnership between Spotlight and World Vision Australia. Stitch in Time has been developed specifically to empower women living in difficult situations by teaching them a vocational skill (sewing) that enables them to generate an income and better their circumstances. Whist the original partnership with World Vision has now ceased (due to requirements being fulfilled) the program has expanded to include key partnerships in Vietnam, Cambodia and Maningrida in the Northern Territory as well as numerous community organisations around Australia.
In Vietnam, Stitch in Time works closely with The Lifestart Foundation. The Lifestart Foundation is a grassroots, not-for-profit charity that helps disadvantaged Vietnamese people and their families to become self-sufficient. The team works to create sustainable and ongoing income streams for the disadvantaged via education and vocational training schemes including a sewing program with Spotlight and Stitch in Time. Bags sewn by the women in Vietnam are sold in Spotlight stores for $5.99.
In Siem Reap, Cambodia, Spotlight run a Stitch in Time sewing centre with Together for Cambodia. Women employed in the centre also make bags that are sold in Spotlight stores for $5.99 and are employed by local organisations such as schools and hotels to make uniforms and laundry bags. Together for Cambodia not only provides vocational training for young people through the Stitch in Time centre but also runs a children's home for approximately 40 at risk or orphaned children. Spotlight is proud to also support this element of their program.
The latest addition to the Stitch in Time program is the Maningrida Fabric Collection. This range is made up of the designs of women from Maningrida, a remote aboriginal community in the Northern Territory. Each designer has their name and design name on the selvedge and ticket, and each fabric is individually printed with their own story.
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Spotlight has been licensed to use these particular designs and pays a percentage of the price of each meter produced back to the community, however, the individual artists and Barbbarra designs retain all ownership of the designs. A percentage of the profits goes directly back into the community as Babbarra Designs is a community owned organisation and the income is channelled directly into funding the employment of the textile artists at the centre.
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UPDATE: Whicker responds with regret over Dugard column
Editors share responsibility for inappropriate column
It doesn't sound as if Jaycee Dugard got to see a sports page.
Box scores were not available to her from June 10, 1991 until Aug. 31 of this year.
She never saw a highlight. Never got to the ballpark for Beach Towel Night. Probably hasn't high-fived in a while.
She was not allowed to spike a volleyball. Or pitch a softball. Or smack a forehand down the line. Or run in a 5-footer for double bogey.
Now, that's deprivation.
Can you imagine? Dugard was 11 when she was kidnapped and stashed in Phillip Garrido's backyard. She was 29 when she escaped. Penitentiary inmates at least get an hour of TV a day. Dugard was cut off from everything but the elements.
How long before she fully digests the world she re-enters? How difficult to adjust to such cataclysmic change?
More than that, who's going to explain the fact that there's a President Obama?
Dugard's stepfather says she's going to need a lot of therapy — you think? — so perhaps she should take a respite before confronting the new realities.
So, Jaycee, whenever you're ready, here's what you've missed:
•Barry Bonds, who was just leading the Pirates to their second NL East title, wound up breaking Henry Aaron's home run record. How did such a skinny guy manage that? We'll deal with that later.
•Well, actually, some baseball players began taking drugs in order to hit more home runs and throw faster fastballs. Football players, who had cornered the market on most of their drugs, began driving drunk, slapping their wives, selling drugs, and killing people. The baseball players caught more grief.
•Michael Jordan did indeed win the big one, and five others.
•Yeah, this golfer really is named Tiger Woods.
•Stock car drivers now marry international models and are invited to the White House.
•Domed stadiums, like the ones in Houston and Minneapolis, are considered obsolete, or at least unfit for baseball.
•John McEnroe became a respected television analyst, just as tennis adopted a replay system that eliminated the need for McEnroe to argue.
•Magic Johnson is a billionaire businessman, and most of us have forgotten just why he had to retire.
•You missed absolutely no Servite victories over Mater Dei in football.
•Or World Series championship for the Dodgers.
•Or Stanley Cup championships for the Kings, even though Wayne Gretzky took them to the Finals in 1993.
•Mike Tyson now makes fun of himself in movies.
•The Anaheim Ducks won the Stanley Cup in '07. Yeah, a hockey team came to Anaheim. Yeah, they built an arena in Anaheim.
•I know you've had trouble digesting all this so far, but they also built a basketball arena at USC. Honest to God.
•A guy from East L.A. named Oscar De La Hoya now makes boxing contenders rich and famous. Just as he did when he was boxing.
•The Angels won a World Series. When you learn who they beat, you'll understand why.
•Speaking of the Giants they did not move, but they did get a new stadium downtown. The Florida Marlins, who did not exist when you left, won two World Series and are getting their own ballpark. Even if you were there, it's hard to believe.
•For the most part, fans have stopped doing The Wave.
•In fact, you don't see many beach balls in Dodger Stadium or Angel Stadium anymore.
•The two NFL teams that we used to have? They've been gone for 15 years. You haven't heard anyone complain about that? Neither have we.
•Jackie Autry isn't in charge of the Angels anymore, as you might have surmised by looking at the standings.
•Joe Torre now manages the Dodgers, after a fruitful detour through New York. Tommy Lasorda? Sure, he's around. He hasn't called?
•You disappeared a couple of months before John Daly came into our lives at the '91 PGA. Who's John Daly? Never mind.
•Todd Marinovich showed why careers aren't played on paper.
•USC is one of college football's elite programs, three coaches later.
•The Red Sox won two World Series, which proves that history is bunk. The White Sox even won one. But not the Cubs.
•Cal Ripken Jr. broke Lou Gehrig's record for consecutive games played but never threatened Vladimir Guerrero's record for most consecutive swings.
•One blessed constant remains: Vin Scully.
•And ballplayers, who always invent the slang no matter what ESPN would have you believe, came up with an expression for a home run that you might appreciate.
Congratulations, Jaycee. You left the yard.
Contact the writer: email@example.com


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For the last couple of days I have been craving PIZZA!! There is nothing better then ooy-goey cheezey pizza on homemade dough, piping hot from the oven. It's hard to find the right fake cheeze to melt properly on pizza. Our grocery store is not very vegan friendly but it does carry a few things...one of them is this gourmet vegan cheese product. It's tasty and I feel that I got my pizza fix.
I have always love the Hawaiian style pizza, as a kid and now adult. Its by far superior to any other type of pizza. If you try and argue that...well I will meet you out at the bike racks after school. lol
I have packed almost all of my cookbooks.and I really love the Martha Stewart recipe for pizza dough, but since I couldn't remember it.
3 cups flour
1 cup warm water
1 tbsp cane sugar
1 tbsp quick rising yeast
2 tbsp olive oil
In a small bowl mix warm water and sugar together, sprinkle in yeast. Mix with a fork until combined.
Set aside for 5-10 minutes until foamy.
Pour into flour, add oil.
Mix together, form a ball. ( you might need to add a little more water, just to bring all the flour together)
Knead for 5 minutes. Place in large bowl with tea towel over top until doubles in size.
As you can see I made 2 pizzas with this dough recipe. One with pineapples, mushrooms, olives and fresh basil. The other has tomatoes, mushrooms, green peppers, and fresh green onions.


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The Execution of Sherlock Holmes:
- And Other New Adventures of the Great Detective (Unabridged)
- Letto da: John Telfer
- Durata: 11 ore e 44 min
- Versione integrale Audiolibro
- Data di pubblicazione: 09/12/2011
- Lingua: Inglese
- Editore: Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Sintesi dell'editore
Drugged, manacled, condemned to a dank cell in the depths of London's infamous Newgate prison, the world's greatest literary detective awaits execution by a vengeful crew of formidable enemies. Escape is impossible; death, a certainty. But not for Sherlock Holmes, who, in a stunning display of intellect and derring-do, will elude his hangman's noose and live to fiddle, spy, and ratiocinate another day. Against tremendous odds Holmes will continue to defy his enemies in four more encounters, from cracking German intelligence codes, to going against Scotland Yard and the Crown in proving the innocence of a man condemned to death for the slaying of a pregnant serving girl, to an arsenic-wielding magician, and of course, to a battle of wits with the malevolent Moriarty. Everywhere in these five finely wrought tales, riddles and mystery hover in the air. But they are not beyond the grasp of the incomparable Sherlock Holmes.
Altri titoli dello stesso
Cosa ne pensano gli iscritti
- J. Waggoner
- 08/10/2012
Not the "real" Holmes, but reasonably close
In addition to reading all the original Holmes stories, I've read and/or listened to many by more contemporary authors. Few really capture the spirit of Holmes and Watson. I've listened to this title and Donald Thomas' "Ghosts of Bly" and I think these capture the feel better than many. However, the author - because he is writing of events a hundred years in his past - has taken to tie Holmes' activities into actual historical events. Sometimes this becomes interesting, but sometimes it just seems to be done in an attempt to help set the scene of the story, and rarely does it assist in that regard. For example, mentioning the songs heard on the street below 221B Baker Street seemed to say to me, "Look, I did my research" more than it helped to settle the time and place in my mind.
On the other hand, the plots are reasonably interesting and, with the exception of one of the stories, seem to employ the famous Holmes deductive reasoning and encyclopedic knowledge to good effect. The performance is solid, and Mr Telfer's accents seem genuine to this American from the Midwest!
6 su 6 utenti hanno ritenuto utile questa recensione
- bracken
- 22/01/2014
Great book!
Almost as if it were from the canon. I hope to find more new Sherlocks in this style.
2 su 2 utenti hanno ritenuto utile questa recensione
- Kenneth N. Peach
- 22/01/2016
great story
This is one of my favorite Sherlock Holmes books. The stories are a lot of fun and very exciting. The narrator, John Telfer, does a wonderful job. He is one of my favorite narrators.
- Alan Winterrowd
- 14/07/2013
VIctorian minutae, poor pastiche
This book contains five longish short stories, the first of which is pretty good, the remainder vary from mediocre to tediously poor. To his credit, the author has spent a good amount of time studying the Victorian era, but at several times he goes into long boring displays of this study, like an 8 year old explaining his Pokeman deck to an uninterested adult.
The author does a double dose of Holmsian name-dropping, enough to make it a drinking game if you wish. On the other hand, Thomas seems to have a poor grasp of Doyle's classic characters:
Holmes is more waspish and insulting than I would prefer, but falls within a reasonable continuum of interpretation. Audible has an excellent three volume Holmes set in which Charles Griffin does a much more acerbic interpretation of Holmes, using Doyle's own words.
Watson gets significantly poorer treatment. While Doyle's Watson often shows frustration with his gifted friend, Thomas's Watson whines continuously, ignores instructions, and seems more angry with Holmes than loyal to him.
The poorest treatment, however, is reserved for Mycroft Holmes. Thomas should have created a third Holmes brother if he was going to create a completely new character. Doyle gives Holmes an older brother who is Sherlock's intellectual equal, but too lethargic to do his own legwork; a man who at times "is the British Government" and is deeply involved in the intelligence community. Thomas gives us a whiny, petty functionary, who is worries about Sherlock embarrassing the family and has the brains of a newt.
In the end, to paraphrase Monty Python, this is not a book for reading, this is a book for standing back and avoiding.
- Grumpy S. Monkey
- 11/05/2013
Good solid addition to the genre
What made the experience of listening to The Execution of Sherlock Holmes: the most enjoyable?
I thought the detailed plotting and authentic use of Conan Doyle's characters made this book good.
What other book might you compare The Execution of Sherlock Holmes: to and why?
Dust and Shadows or the House of Silk --> two other Holmes stories written by contemporary mystery writers.
Any additional comments?
Some of the stories are better than others, but overall I found this an enjoyable read.
- ex-soas
- 06/12/2012
canon fodder
Sir Arthur would be proud and pleased that modern writers do a better job than he did with the Holmes canon. Clearly he has given his readers both roots and wings.
- MarkyLondon
- 12/11/2012
Starts strong and then peters out
Starts off with the amazingly detailed and tense story, which is well worth a listen on its own. The remaining stories are a bit more run-of-the-mill.


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The Sunset is a family owned and operated full service restaurant located in Auburn, New York. We specialize in fine dining in a casual, relaxed atmosphere. We serve lunch and dinner Tuesday through Saturday and dinner on Sunday. We serve a tavern menu with lighter fare during the week. We also feature a banquet room with seating for parties of up to 200, and offer catering services for your off-site events.
|Follow us on Facebook for daily specials and other updates!
93 North Division Street,
Auburn, New York, 13021.
Phone: 315.252.9765 | Fax: 315.253.7528
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|Lunch Hours
|Tuesday-Saturday: 11:30 am to 2 pm
|Dinner Hours
|Tuesday-Thursday: 5 pm to 9 pm
|Friday: 4:30 pm to 10 pm
|Saturday: 5 pm to 10 pm
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|Closed Monday


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Justin Bieber Releases Heartfelt Apology After Racist Joke Video Leakedby Michelle McGahan | PopCrush
Justin Bieber is reflecting and apologizing for controversial video footage released yesterday that shows the then 15-year-old singer telling a racist joke and using the N-word.
In a heartfelt statement released to Us Weekly, Bieber said:
"As a kid, I didn't understand the power of certain words and how they can hurt. I thought it was OK to repeat hurtful words and jokes, but didn't realize at the time that it wasn't funny and that in fact my actions were continuing the ignorance," he revealed in the lengthy apology. "Thanks to friends and family I learned from my mistakes and grew up and apologized for those wrongs. Now that these mistakes from the past have become public I need to apologize again to all those I have offended. I'm very sorry. I take my friendships with people of all cultures very seriously and I apologize for offending or hurting anyone with my childish and inexcusable mistake."
"I was a kid then and I am a man now who knows my responsibility to the world and to not make that mistake again," he continued. "Ignorance has no place in our society and I hope the sharing of my faults can prevent others from making the same mistake in the future."
"I thought long and hard about what I wanted to say but telling the truth is always what's right," Bieber concluded. Five years ago I made a reckless and immature mistake and I'm grateful to those close to me who helped me learn those lessons as a young man. Once again….I'm sorry."
In the video, which was shot while filming his 2011 documentary 'Never Say Never,' a young Bieber is seen joking, "Why are black people afraid of chainsaws?" before revealing the offensive punchline.
Coincidentally, Louis Tomlinson of One Direction also faced claims of racism this week after he was also taped using the N-word in the now-viral video of him and Zayn Malik seemingly smoking a joint. He has yet to make a statement or release an apology for the backlash.
See Justin Bieber's Most Adorable Baby + Childhood Pics


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The Energy Alternatives Division of Cupertino Electric, Inc. recently announced the completion of a 20MW solar photovoltaic (PV) project in Huron, Calif., engineered and constructed for Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E). The 20MW project was built in eight months and is the third project that Cupertino Electric has built for PG&E under the utility's five-year clean energy initiative. The commercial operation date of the 20MW project is scheduled for June 29.
"PG&E and our partners today celebrate another milestone in our solar PV program," said John Conway, senior VP of energy supply for PG&E. "These new solar facilities demonstrate our ongoing commitment to providing our customers with some of the cleanest energy in the nation. We're proud that more than half of our electricity comes from sources that are renewable or emit no greenhouse gases. We applaud the dedicated workers from Cupertino Electric who are helping us harness even more clean energy from the sun."
The 20MW Huron project was engineered and constructed by Cupertino Electric under PG&E's 500MW Solar PV Program which includes up to 250MW of utility-owned solar generation. The Huron site is one of three projects which comprise the second year of the utility-owned generation program. Construction of the project spanned eight months starting in October 2011 and ending in June 2012.
"This third successful PG&E project leveraged the knowledge Cupertino Electric gained on past utility-scale projects for PG&E and the skills of our outstanding in-house engineering and construction teams," said Paul Aggarwal, VP of operations for Cupertino Electric's Energy Alternatives Division. "We are fortunate to work with some of the best people in the industry at PG&E. Through this multi-year experience, we have developed methods that enable us to deliver projects faster, safer and more efficiently each time we step onto a solar jobsite."


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Six Years of The Pfhorums
& the Simplici7y 4 Year Anniversary
& the Simplici7y 4 Year Anniversary

I don't think I've been introduced to many of the people reading this thread. I founded the Pfhorums in 2005, and wrote Simplici7y in 2007.

This year I've started working on Simplici7y again. I pushed my first big set of improvements to simplici7y.com this morning. Many things have been changed, and many things still need changing. For the fourth anniversary, I've made changes to the interface throughout the site, and added the ability to host projects outside of Simplici7y. With this new feature, I have been able to move the project source to github. This will make releases almost effortless, and give me a place for bug reports and feature requests. Simplici7y is finally truly open source.

I want to hear your thoughts and ideas. It has been a great six years.

The Pfhorums 1 year Anniversary!
Pfhorums 2 year Anniversary!
Pfhorums 3 Year Anniversary
Pfhorums 4 Year Anniversary!
Pfhorums 5 Year Anniversary!


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Transit friendly
This library is conveniently located near public transportation.
Taming the temperature
We use roofing and exterior paving materials that reduce the heat island effect (thermal gradient differences between developed and natural areas). This minimizes our impact on the microclimate and on wildlife habitat.
Let the sun shine in
Windows provide natural light and reduce the use of electricity.
Pedal Power
Bicycle parking encourages library visitors to use environmentally friendly and health conscious modes of transportation.
Climate controls
Zero chlorofluorocarbon (CFC)-based refrigerants are used in the building's heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration (HVAC&R) systems.
We're in control
The lighting, temperature and ventilation systems can all be controlled within the branch.
Flourishing flooring
Made from natural ingredients including flax seeds, sawdust and pine resin, this linoleum comes primarily from renewable resources and is biodegradable.
These beautiful wooden shelves are original to this building
Instead of using new materials, we refinished these durable shelves so that we could continue to use them.
Room for recycling
An easily accessible area is dedicated for recycling.
Clean and green
We use environmentally sound products and practices for cleaning this Library.


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Folk Music For The End Of The World
Yer Bird Records is proud to present this collection of new, unreleased and rare recordings by both our label artists as well as some of our very favorite musicians.
We feel that this collection of music represents where folk music lives and breathes. These are ruminations on hope and sorrow, love and destruction.
1. Paleo - Swimming in Money
2. Chris Bathgate - A Flash of Light Followed By
3. Alina Simone - Gunshots
4. Chauchat - Smokin' Paint
5. Hayden - Message From London
6. Allyn Latorre - On the Banks of the River
7. J. Tillman - Barter Blues
8. Oweihops - Sad Little Drunks
9. Sarah White - Part of the Story
10. Elephant Micah - Korean Sunset
11. Nic Garcia - Torn Up in the Machine
12.O'Death - Angeline
13. The Hotel Ghost - Lay Me Down
14. Travel By Sea - Too Much Too Quickly
15. The Gunshy - No One Remembers the Drunk
16. Matthew Ryan - Gone For Good
17. Hezekiah Jones - Mississippi Sea


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- Network: LIFETIME
- Series Premiere Date: Mar 11, 2007
Season #: 2, 1
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April 14, 2008
SANTA CLARA, Calif. - On an emotionally charged day, the Santa Clara men's tennis team dropped their final regular season match versus University of Texas-Pan American, 5-2. The day began with the Broncos honoring student assistant Kevin McQuaid in their annual Senior Day. In the crowd were many fans, including several former Santa Clara players. Coach Derek Mills got choked up when he recounted McQuaids career as a player and his contribution to the program this season.
After the Broncos celebrated McQuaid's five year career with Santa Clara, the Broncos began doubles play. At the No. 1 position, Kenzo Hirakawa-Wong and Jay Wong edged Ivan Avila and Nirvick Mohinta, 8-7 for the win. Santa Clara could not pull out the doubles point with losses at the No. 2 and No. 3 spots.
In singles action, the Broncos fell in the No. 4 through No. 6 positions. At the No. 1 spot sophomore Jay Wong defeated Ivan Avila, 6-2, 6-1, getting Santa Clara's first point of the day. Kenzo Hirakawa-Wong and Senthil Chidambaram, who played at the No. 2 and No. 3 positions, respectively, were the last ones on the court. Behind the cheers of the crowd, Hirakawa-Wong pulled out the victory over the Broncs Ashwin Vijayaragavan, 6-1, 5-7 (10-5). Chidambaram, who was the final match on the court, fell in the first set, 7-5, to UTPA's Nirvick Mohinta. After rallying back in the second set, Chidambaram could not extend the match into a third set and fell 7-5.
Santa Clara will be hosting the WCC Championships April 18-20 at the Degheri Tennis Center. A schedule of play will be announced later this week.
No. 1 SCU Kenzo Hirakawa-Wong/Jay Wong d. UTPA Ivan Avila/Nirvick Mohinta 8-7
No. 2 UTPA Marcus Dornauf/Andrew Irving d. SCU John Iwanski/John Iwanski 8-1
No. 3 UTPA Shashank Vij/Ashwin Vijayaragavan d. SCU Senthil Chidambaram/Justin Wong 8-4
No. 1 SCU Jay Wong d. UTPA Ivan Avila 6-2, 6-1
No. 2 SCU Kenzo Hirakawa-Wong d. UTPA Ashwin Vijayaragavan 6-1, 5-7 (10-5)
No. 3 UTPA Nirvick Mohinta d. SCU Senthil Chidambaram 7-5, 7-5
No. 4 UTPA Andrew Irving d. SCU Charlie Burke 1-6, 6-1, 6-1
No. 5 UTPA Marcus Dornauf d. SCU Justin Wong 6-0, 6-2
No. 6 UTPA Shashank Vij d. SCU John Iwanski 6-1, 6-0


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Following the disappointing launch of Sony's sci-fi in North America, the weekend ahead will reveal whether Will Smith has retained his lustre at the international box office.
Sony Pictures Releasing International unleashes After Earth in 60 territories after a solid number two debut in South Korea over the last session generated $2.7m from 494 screens over four days.
Smith stars alongside Jaden Smith, the film's real lead. M Night Shyamalan directed the story of a young explorer who must help his father after they return to an abandoned Earth. Major markets include the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Mexico and Brazil.
Warner Bros Pictures International's The Hangover Part III ruled the roost last weekend following an $82.3m session. While there are no new major market launches, holdovers are expected to be robust in the absence of any other major Hollywood comedy. The early running total stands at $134.4m. The Great Gatsby has grossed $128.5m.
Universal Pictures International's global smash Fast & Furious 6 raced past $500m at the worldwide box office in record time for the studio and has reached $342.2m internationally and $522.5m globally. The film arrived in Australia on Jun 6 and should have little trouble crossing $375m by Sunday.
Epic stands at $91.7m through Fox International and DreamWorks Animations' The Croods has amassed $391.9m.
Paramount Pictures International's Star Trek Into Darkness has amassed more than $147.4m, powered by last weekend's Chinese debut and arrives this weekend in nine markets including Belgium, Portugal, Turkey and the Netherlands. G.I. Joe: Retaliation opens in Japan.


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From ASIL ILIB and in continuance of my previous post on the matter:
Case Concerning the Temple of Preah Vihear (Cambodia v. Thailand) (July 18, 2011)
Click here for document (approximately 21 pages); click here for summary (approximately 8 pages); click here for press release (approximately 4 pages)
The International Court of Justice ("ICJ") has indicated provisional measures in the Case Concerning the Temple of Preah Vihear (Cambodia v. Thailand). The Court ordered both parties to immediately withdraw their military forces stationed in the contested area, and both parties are to refrain from any military presence or activity within that area. Furthermore, the Court has ordered Thailand not to obstruct Cambodia's access to the Temple of Preah Vihear, a historical site at the center of this dispute.
Cambodia filed an application with the ICJ against Thailand in April 2011, requesting the Court to interpret a previous ICJ judgment issued in June 1962, Case Concerning the Temple of Preah Vihear (Cambodia v. Thailand). In the 1962 judgment, the Court concluded that "the Temple of Preah Vihear is situated in territory under the sovereignty of Cambodia." While Thailand does not challenge Cambodia's sovereignty over the Temple, it claims that Cambodia's sovereignty does not extend to the surrounding area. Instead, Thailand claims sovereignty over the surrounding area. The parties' dispute over the contested area has led to armed clashes between them and has triggered the involvement of regional organizations, including the Association of Southeast Asian Nations ("ASEAN").
The Court first concluded that "a difference of opinion or views" existed between the parties regarding the "meaning or scope of the 1962 Judgment." The existence of a dispute satisfied the requirement of Article 60 of the ICJ Statute–Article 60 states in relevant part: "In the event of dispute as to the meaning or scope of the judgment, the Court shall construe it upon the request of any party"–and provided the Court with jurisdiction to entertain the case and indicate provisional measures under Article 41.
The Court was careful to note that the indication of provisional measures is limited to situations of urgency, i.e., where "a real and imminent risk [exists] that irreparable prejudice may be caused to the rights in dispute." To this end, the Court noted the violent clashes that have already occurred between the parties, resulting in "fatalities, injuries and the displacement of local inhabitants." The Court also observed the involvement of the UN Security Council and ASEAN, both providing support for a peaceful settlement of the dispute.
The Court has still to rule on the merits of the case.


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Published at Monday, March 12th, 2018 - 07:10:49 AM. Golf Club. By Christabel Coudert.
Golf clubs are costly!! That's the ugly truth. Iron sets can cost $2000 or even more, while drivers can cost over $1000. But despite the expensive price, golf players still buy. Most golf players do purchase good quality golf sets for 100% golf game performance.
Manufacturers are always coming out with new designs and new materials for golf clubs. A new golfer need not be concerned with cutting edge technology when it comes to clubs. Instead, focus on the basics. Set a budget before heading to the golf store so that you don't go beyond what you wanted to spend. When buying golf clubs always buy the best set of clubs that fit your budget. It is typically better to purchase a smaller set of better-made golf clubs than to buy a large set of cheaper models. Remember that a good set of golf clubs will last a lifetime. You can always add more clubs to your set as you become better at the game.
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This weekend I attended a conference "Social Media Marketing Unplugged", so along with some 300 other people who gave up their Saturday, I too sat in a lecture theatre and listened to 8 speakers talk about various aspects of Social Media Marketing. It was an interesting conference, and well worth the $95 I spent to attend (thanks SocialShopper). Being more of a technology guy, and not so much of a marketing guy (although with the years I've put in volunteering for non-profits, it's not a totally unfamiliar hat to wear) I'm not sure to what degree I'm going to try (or be able) to apply what I learned through the sessions. Still, I came out of the sessions with more knowledge, and a few interesting ideas, we'll see how they pan out.
One of the sessions was on Yelp! which I'd heard of previously, but not really used. Essentially it is a local community based reviews site for restaurants and businesses. Because it's a community, you can see how many reviews someone else has written, and through that see how their opinions mesh with your own, and develop a sense of trust of their reviews, allowing you to then base your purchasing or visiting decisions on those recommendations. This could obviously be a quite powerful tool. Yelp is also available as an App for various phones, and you can imagine how powerful that could be with a phone with GPS enabled. Looking for a good nearby Greek restaurant would no longer require any knowledge of the neighbourhood (presuming that you trust your fellow Yelpers (as they're called)).
So where am I going with this? Well, I suppose on some level I'm not sure. Conceptually I like the idea, and it's potential power, but personally I have a basic phone and tend to frequent the same establishments. That said, I have signed up, and am actively reviewing places at the moment, so we'll see if it has staying power for me personally or not. Part of the interest was that it is possible for you to enter your own business on Yelp, if it's not there already, so I was definitely curious to see if any of the Ultimate leagues were listed (didn't find them), although it does appear that the local Disc Golf courses are, which is where I've been spending my review time so far.
It's worth checking out, to see if you'd find it useful, and if you're already on Yelp feel free to add me as a "friend", if you are a business owner, or even an employee, it's probably worth checking to see if you're listed on Yelp, and to see what people think of your service/products, it should either highlight areas of improvement, or allow you to accept a pat on the back.
I suspect that there will be fewer review type posts appearing here in the future with them instead being put on Yelp (at least as a primary source) where they will be of more benefit to more people, at least in theory.


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People have been buzzing about the changes that have been reported at Burberry Prorsum and apparently the label's creative director, Christopher Bailey took a safer approach to fashion compared to last season and opted to deliver a classic-chic fashion collection that seems to bring a perfect mix of vintage and modern trends. The brand got an entire world excited with trench coats, but this season the British label seems to place a heavier accent on bomber jackets, dresses and pretty shorts. Although we've been expecting a totally new approa... Read More


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If you ask us, 2012 is shaping up to be a stellar year for female-fronted bands. The OG of pretty-girl punk, Shirley Manson and her band, Garbage, are slated to release a new record (so major!). On top of that, the perpetually stunning Gwen Stefani announced that No Doubt would be dropping a new album, too. Are you catching our drift? So many exciting things happening for our fave singing sisters.
These ladies, and countless others before them, prove that women are on top of their game (duh), can jam out with the best of them, and tend to look damn good doing so. Who said you can't wear pumps and pretty dresses while headbanging, or shred the guitar without smearing your lipstick? Here are five bands (including a few local stars) that bring the beats and sport some serious style — get ready to blare these acts on the reg. They're that good!


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Many home owners accept been assuming so abundant absorption in convalescent their homes in the endure few years. A lot of of them accept already accomplished capricious advance projects for their homes and accept been affectionate the after-effects of this abounding undertaking. Home advance not alone helps in adopting the amount of a home but aswell brings out a bigger and added adorable attending for the home. This makes the owners feel added adequate and assured with the place.
There are capricious home advance account that are accessible and accessible for execution. The admeasurement and architecture of your abode affairs a lot and this can in fact arrest you from applying some of the ideas. Within those capricious ideas, there are a amount of them that can be activated in a lot of homes because of their account and affluence of design. They are the accepted home improvements. The account beneath shows those improvements and can be acclimated as a adviser for allotment the best home improvements to go with.
1. Upgrading bathrooms and kitchens
With the accretion acceleration in technology, abounding bath and kitchen accessories are continuously getting developed. Some of the accessories are oh so advantageous and economical. This makes them crave a assertive bureaucracy that cannot be accommodated by the old academy allowance designs. This raises the charge for a makeover on those places. New and awful adorable bath and kitchen designs that accession the amount of a home are aswell advancing up at a top rate, and this is authoritative abounding home owners opt to go with those designs as they are absolutely elegant.
2. Using boilers
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3. Bifold glazing
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4. Home garden makeover
A home garden is an important allotment of the home's face. Having a appropriate garden helps in creating a bigger angel of the home and in about-face raises its value. The home aswell becomes added adorable and this is something that every home buyer wants. Getting an easier and added economical way of convalescent the all-embracing homestead, garden makeover is a actual advantageous footfall and has appropriately been advised to be allotment of the accepted home improvements that accept been trending.
Home advance is, in a lot of cases, actualization to be an economical activity that is bigger than ablution new architecture projects from scratch. With a acceptable budget, convalescent your home charcoal simple and appropriate enough. All the home improvements aloft are simple projects that can advice in demography your home a akin higher.


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212 NYC by Carolina Herrera 6.7 oz EDT for men
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Stock Available in quantity212 NYC by Carolina Herrera 6.7 oz / 200 ml Eau De Toilette spray for men. This popular fragrance contains grapefruit, ginger, mandarine and green leaves, base of aqua musk. 212 NYC is trendy type of fragrance. It is recommended for daytime wear.
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